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A most Interesting and Valuable Work. 
 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR ; 
 
 *^i*. S *^X*S^ ^iSV^. 
 
 EDWAED POLLAED, 
 
 Late Editor of tlie Rielmiond. Examiner. 
 
 ONE VOL., 8vo.; 1258 PAGES. 
 *o*^ Cloth, $5.00. Half Calf, library binding, $7.50 
 
 WITH SPLENDID STEEL PORTRAITS OF 
 
 Jefferson Davis, Gen. Braxton Bragg, Gen. John P. Hood, 
 
 Alex. H. Stephens, Gen. R. S. Ewell, Gen. E. Kirby Smith, 
 
 Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Leonidas Polk, Gen. Sterling Price, 
 
 Gen. Joseph S. Johnston, Gen. Wade Hampton, Gen. W. J. Hardee, 
 
 Gen. T. J. Jackson, Gen. Samuel Cooper, Gen. John Morgan, 
 
 Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, Gen. James Tjongstreet, and the Author. 
 
 Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, Gen. A. P. Hill, ^*^*^*vOi >** 
 
 - . 
 
 A recent statement of Mr. POLLARD having been so misunderstood as to give rise, 
 in some quarters, to the extraordinary impression that he (Mr. POLLARD) is not the 
 author of "THE SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR," now published by me, or had 
 not authorized its publication, the inclosed extracts from one of his recent letters to 
 me are published, as being sufficient to set the matter at rest. The proof-sheets he 
 refers to are those of the last year of the war his concluding chapters. 
 
 The Press everywhere speak in the highest terms of this admirable and interesting 
 history, and its immense sale in every section of the country attests its universal 
 popularity. It is for sale by canvassing agents everywhere. 
 
 C. B. RICHARDSON, Publisher, 
 
 540 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR, 
 
C EN. R. E. LEE 
 

 SOUTHERN HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE WAR. 
 
 E. A. POLLARD, 
 
 tDiTOB OF THE "BICHMOXD 
 
 TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 
 
 NEW YOKE: 
 CHAKLES B. HIGH ARDSON, 
 
 540 BROADWAY. 
 1866. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 186<J, 
 BT CHARLES B. BICHAKDSON, 
 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 oi New York. 
 
PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCEMENT. 
 
 IN issuing in the convenient form of two volumes the South 
 ern History of the War, by Mr. E. A. Pollard, of Kichmond, 
 the actuating motive is the belief that this work is one of 
 permanent historical value. 
 
 Of the two classes of historical composition namely, that 
 which is made contemporaneously with the transactions re 
 corded and that which is made after the interval of years it 
 must always happen that the former will show errors of fact, 
 errors in the interpretation of facts, and errors in the correla 
 tion of facts. These a calm, judicial survey will readily 
 avoid. Yet public appreciation accounts such faults to be 
 fully countervailed by the life-like interest of the narrative, by 
 the revelations of actual motive on the part of the actors and 
 by a fone and color of reality that only portraiture from the 
 life can convey. 
 
 The work of Mr. Pollard belongs to the former category. 
 That many things are now known more justly than when the 
 author poured forth, from the warm feeling of the moment, 
 his thoughts, impressions, and aspirations, it is easy to believe. 
 There is also much in the tone, of the book that now, since the 
 close of the war and the failure of the Secession experiment, 
 might appropriately be changed. 
 
 Yet granting all these drawbacks, which are inseparable from 
 contemporaneous composition, the work of Mr. Pollard remains 
 one of marked and peculiar value. Living at the centre of the 
 Confederate power, Mr. Pollard s opportunities for penetrating 
 
 248658 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 the real springs of action were excellent. Gifted with a re 
 mark able keen ness of observation and analysis, he has expressed 
 with pun gent power the judgments of a mind distinguished for 
 its independence. A Secessionist d Voutrance, believing with 
 all the strength of his nature in the Confederate cause, he was 
 yet a caustic critic of the Confederate government and of those 
 charged with its administration and the conduct of the war ; 
 and he had the talent to express these views in a style of ner 
 vous and vigorous eloquence. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which this work was 
 composed ; and its pre-eminent value arises from the fact that 
 it photographs the events of the war in the circumstances of 
 their actual performance ; the motives of action as they real!} 
 revealed themselves, and the hopes and aspirations of the 
 South as they beat in the breasts of living men. Doubtless 
 some things in this history might be corrected ; some made 
 to conform to accomplished facts. But this would be to take 
 away from rather than to add to its essential value, which 
 is that of a memoire pour servir. As such, it must always re 
 main a valuable contribution to the history of the war ; and 
 from the side of the South it is the only complete record of the 
 momentous four years during which Secession was fought for 
 and lost. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Deltisive Ideas of the Union. Administration of John Adirns. The " Strict Con- 
 Btructionists." The "State Rights" Men in the North. The Missouri Restriction. 
 General Jackson and the Nullification Question. The Compromise Measures of 1850. 
 History of the Anti-Slavery Party. The " Finckney Resolutions." The Twenty- 
 first Rule. The Abolitionists in the Presidential Canvass of 1852. The Kansas- 
 Nebraska Bill. The Rise* and Growth of the Republican Party. The Election or 
 President Buchanan. The Kansas Controversy. "Lecompton" and " Anti-Lecomp- 
 ton." Results of the Kansas Controversy. The John Brown Raid. " Helper s 
 Book." Demoralization of the Northern Democratic Party. The Faction of Stephen 
 A. Douglas. The Alabama Resolutions. The Political Platforms of I860. Election 
 of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. Analysis of the Vote. Politico 
 Condition of the North. Secession of South Carolina. Events in Charleston Harbor. 
 Disagreements in Mr. Buchanan s Cabinet. The Secession Movement in Progress. 
 Peace Measures in Congress. The Crittendcn Resolutions. The Peace Congress. 
 Policy of the Border Slave States. Organization of the Confederate States Govern 
 ment. President Buchanan. incoming of the Administration of Abraham Lincoln. 
 Strength of the Revolution PAGE 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln s Journey to Washington. Ceremonies of the Inauguration. The In 
 augural Speech of President Lincoln. The Spirit of the New Administration. Its Fi 
 nancial Condition. Embassy from the Southern Confederacy. Perfidious Treatment 
 of the Southern Commissioners. Preparations for War. The Military Bills of the 
 Confederate Congress. General Beauregard. Fortifications of Charleston Harbor. 
 Naval Preparations of the Federal Government. Attempted Reinforcement of Fort 
 Sumter. Perfidy of the Federal Government. Excitement in Charleston. Reduction 
 of Fort Sumter by the Confederate Forces. How the News was received in Wash 
 ington. Lincoln s Calculation. His Proclamation of WAR. The " Reaction" in the 
 North. Displays of Rancor towards the South. Northern Democrats. Replies of 
 Southern Governors to Lincoln s Requisition for Troops. Spirit of the South. Seces 
 sion of Virginia. Maryland. The Baltimore Riot. Patriotic Example of Missouri. 
 Lincoln s Proclamation blockading the Southern Ports. General Lee. The Federals 
 evacuate Harper s Ferry. Burning of the Navy Yard at Norfolk. The Second 
 Secessionary Movement. Spirit of Patriotic Devotion in the South. Supply of 
 Arms in the South. The Federal Government and the State of Maryland. The Pros 
 pect ..PAGK47 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 OHAPTEK III. 
 
 Confidence )f the North. Characteristic Boasts. " Crushing out the Rebellion."- 
 Volunteering in the Northern Cities. The New York "Invincibles." Misrepresenta 
 tions of the Government at Washington. Mr. Seward s Letter to the French Govern 
 ment. Another Call for Federal Volunteers. Opening Movements of the Campaign* 
 The Federal Occupation of Alexandria. Death of Col. Ellsworth. Fortress MCT>- 
 roe. The BATTLE OF BETHEL. Eesults of this Battle. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. 
 The Upper Potomac. Evacuation and Destruction of Harper s Ferry. The Move 
 ments in the Upper Portion of the Valley of Virginia. Northwestern Virginia. The 
 BATTLE OF KICH MOUNTAIN. Carrock s Ford. The Ketreat of the Confederates. 
 General McClellan. Meeting of the Federal Congress. Mr. Lincoln s Message. 
 Kentucky.-*- Western Virginia. Large Eequisitions for Men and Money by the Fed 
 eral Government. Its Financial Condition. Financial Measures of the Southern 
 Confederacy. Contrast between the Ideas of the Eival Governments. Conserva 
 tism of the Southern Revolution.-^-Despotic Excesses of the Government at Wash 
 ington , PAGE 76 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 * 
 
 The "Grand Army" of the North. General McDowell. The Affair of Bull Rim. 
 An Artillery Duel. THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. " On to Richmond." Scenery of the 
 Battle-field. Crises in the Battle. Devoted Courage of the Confederates. THE ROUT 
 How the News was received in Washington. How it was received in the South. 
 General Bee. Colonel Bartow. The Great Error. General Johnston s Excuses for 
 not advancing on Washington. INCIDENTS OF THE MANASSAS BATTLE PAGE 101 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Results of the Manassas Battle in the North. General Scott. McClellan, " the 
 Young Napoleon." Energy of the Federal Government. The Bank Loan. Events 
 in the West. The MISSOURI CAMPAIGN. Governor Jackson s Proclamation. Sterling 
 Price. The Affair of Booneville. Organization of the Missouri forces. The BATTLE 
 OF CAKTHAGE. General McCulloch. The BATTLE OF OAK HILL. Death* of General 
 Lyon. The Confederate Troops leave Missouri. Operations in Northern Missouri. 
 General Harris. General Price s march towards the Missouri. The Affair at Dry- 
 wood Creek.. The BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. The Jayhawkers. The Victory of " the 
 Five Hundred." General Price s Achievements. His Retreat, and the necessity for 
 it. Operations of General Jeff. Thompson in Southeastern Missouri. The Affair of 
 Fredericktown. General Price s passage of the Osage River. Secession of Missouri 
 from the Federal Union. Fremont superseded. The Federal forces in Missouri de 
 moralized. General Price at Springfield. Review of his Campaign. SKETCH o* 
 GENERAL PRICE. Coldness of the Government towards him PACK 130 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 The Campaign in Western Virginia. General Wise s Command. Political Influ 
 nces in Western Virginia. The Affair of Scary Creek. General Wise s Retreat to 
 Lewisburg. General Floyd s Brig ade. The Affair at Cross Lanes. Movements oa 
 ihe Gauley. The Affair of Carnifax Ferry. Disagreement between Generals Floy 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 and Wise. The Tyrees. - A Patriotic Woman. Movement*, in Northwestern Vir 
 ginia. General Lee. The Enemy intrenched on Cheat Mountain. General Rose- 
 crans. Failure of General Lee s Plan of Attack. He removes to the Kanawha Re 
 gion. The Opportunity of a Decisive Battle lost. Retreat of Rosecrans. General 
 H. R. Jackson s Affair on the Greenbrier. The Approach of Winter. The Campaign 
 in Western Virginia abandoned. The Affair on the Alleghany. General Floyd a 
 Cotton Hill. His masterly Retreat. Review of the Campaign in Western Virginia. 
 Some of its Incidents. Its Failure and unfortunate Results. Other Movements i 
 Virginia. The Potomac Line. The BATTLE OF LEESBUKO. Overweening Confidence 
 of the South. . . PAGE 165 
 
 CHAPTEE YIL 
 
 The Position and Policy of Kentucky in the War. Kentucky Chivalry. Reminis 
 cences of the " Dark and Bloody Ground." Protection of the Northwest by Ken 
 tucky. How the Debt of Gratitude has been repaid. A Glance at the Hartford 
 Convention. The Gubernatorial Canvass of 1859 in Kentucky. Division of Parties. 
 Other Causes for the Disloyalty of Kentucky. The "Pro-Slavery and Union" Resolu 
 tions. The " State Guard." General Buckner. The Pretext of " Neutrality," and 
 what it meant. The Kentucky Refugees. A Reign of Terror. Judge Monroe ia 
 Nashville. General Breckinridge. Occupation of Columbus by General Polk. The 
 Neutrality of Kentucky first broken by the North. General Buckner at Bowling 
 Green. Camp " Dick Robinson." The " Home Guard." The Occupation of Colum 
 bus by the Confederates explained. Cumberland Gap. General Zollicoffer s Procla 
 mation. The Affair of Barboursville. " The Wild-Cat Stampede." The Virginia 
 and Kentucky Border. The Affair of Piketon. Suffering of our Troops at Pound 
 Gap. The "Union Party" in East Tennessee. Keelan, the Hero of Strawberry 
 Plains. The Situation on the Waters of the Ohio and Tennessee. THE BATTLE OB- 
 BELMONT. Weakness of our Forces in Kentucky. General Albert Sidney Johnston. 
 Inadequacy of his Forces at Bowling Green. Neglect and Indifference of the Con 
 federate Authorities. A Crisis imminent. Admission of Kentucky into the Southern 
 Confederacy PAGE 189 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 Prospects of European Interference. The selfish Calculations of England. Effects 
 of the Blockade on the South. Arrest by Capt. Wilkes of the Southern Commission 
 ers. The Indignation of England. Surrender of the Commissioners by the Lincoln 
 Government. Mr. Seward s Letter. REVIEW OF AFFAIRS AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 
 1861. Apathy and Improvidence of the Southern Government. Superiority of the 
 North on the Water. The Hatteras Expedition. The Port Royal Expedition. The 
 Southern Privateers. Their Failure. Errors of Southern Statesmanship. "King 
 Cotton." Episodes of the War. The Affair of Santa Rosa Island. The Affair of 
 Dranesville. Political Measures of the South. A weak and halting Policy. The 
 Spirit of the War in the North. Administration of the Civil Polity of the Southern 
 Army. The Quarter-master s Department. Hygiene of the Camps. Ravages of the 
 Southern Army by Disease. The Devotion of the Women of the South PAGE 212 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Prospects of the Year 1862. The Lines of the Potomac. General Jackson s Expe 
 dition to Winchester. The BATTLE OF MILL Srnnras IN KENTUCKY. General Grit 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 tenden. Death of General Zollicoffer. Sufferings of Crittenden s Army en th 
 Eetreat. Comparative Unimportance of the Disaster. The BATTLE OF RGANOK* 
 ISLAND. Importance of the Island to the South. Death of Captain Wise. Causes of 
 the Disaster to the South. Investigation in Congress. Censure of the Government. 
 Interviews of General Wise with Mr. Benjamin, the Secretary of War. Mr. Benjamin 
 censured by Congress, but retained in the Cabinet. His Promotion by President 
 Davis. Condition of the Popular Sentiment PAGE 226 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 The Situation in Tennessee and Kentucky. The affair at Woodsonville. Death of 
 Colonel Terry. The Strength and Material of the Federal Force in Kentucky. Con 
 dition of the Defences on the Tennessee and Cumberland Elvers. The Confederate 
 Congress and the Secretary of the Navy. The Fall of Fort Henry. Fort Donelson 
 threatened. The Army of General A. S. Johnston. His Interview with General 
 Beauregard. Insensibility of the Confederate Government to the Exigency. General 
 Johnston s Plan of Action. BATTLE OF FOET DONELSON. Carnage and Scenery of the 
 Battle-field. The Council of the Southern Commanders. Agreement to surrender. 
 Escape of Generals Floyd and Pillow. The Fall of Fort Donelson develops the 
 Crisis in the West. The Evacuation of Nashville. The Panic. Extraordinary 
 Scenes. Experience of the Enemy in Nashville. The Adventures of Captain John 
 Morgan. General Johnston at Murfreesboro. Organization of a New Line of Defence 
 South of Nashville. The Defence of Memphis and the Mississippi. Island No. 10. 
 Serious Character of the Disaster at Donelson. Generals Floyd and Pillow " re 
 lieved from Command." General Johnston s Testimony in favor of these Officers. 
 President Davis s Punctilio. A sharp Contrast. Negotiation for the Exchange of 
 Prisoners. A Lesson of Yankee Perfidy. Mr. Benjamin s Kelease of Yankee 
 Hostages PAGE 241 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Organization of the permanent Government of the South. The Policy of England. 
 Declaration of Earl Russell. Onset of the Northern Forces. President Davis s 
 Message to Congress. The Addition of New States and Territories to the Southern 
 Confederacy. Our Indian Allies. The Financial Condition, North and South. De 
 ceitful Prospects of Peace. Effect of the Disasters to the South. Action of Congress. 
 The Conscript Bill. Provisions vs. Cotton. Barbarous Warfare of the North. The 
 Anti-slavery Sentiment. How it was unmasked in the War. Emancipation Measures 
 in the Federal Congress. Spirit of the Southern People. The Administration of Jef 
 ferson Davis. His Cabinet. The Defensive Policy. The NAVAL ENGAGEMENT IN 
 HAMPTON ROADS. Iron-clad Vessels. What the Southern Government might have 
 done. The Narrative of General Price s Campaign resumed. His Retreat into Ar 
 kansas. The BATTLE OF ELK HORN. Criticism of the Result. Death of General Mc- 
 Culloch. Th<3 BATTLE OF VALVERDE. The Foothold of the Confederates in New 
 Mexico. Change of the Plan of Campaign in Virginia. Abandonment of the Potoma 
 Line by the Confederates. The BATTLE OF KERNSTOWN. Colonel Turner Ashby. 
 Appearance of McClellan s Army on the Peninsula. Firmness of General Magruder 
 The New Situation of the War in Virginia. Recurrence of Disasters to the South 
 on the Water. The Capture of Newbern. Fall of Fort Pulaski and Fort Macon. 
 >Common Sense vs. " West Point." PA 2&* 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Campaign in the Mississippi Valley. Bombardment of Island No. 10. Fruits 
 of the Northern Victory. Movements of the Federals on the Tennessee River. THE 
 BATTLE OF SHILOH. Death of General Johnston. The Federal Expeditions into 
 North Alabama. Withdrawal of the Confederate Forces from the Trans-Mississippi 
 District. THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS. The Flag. Major-General Butler.. PAGE 297 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 
 The Extremity of the South. The Campaign in Virginia. Jackson s Campaign in 
 the Valley. Sketch of the Battles around Richmond. Effect of McClellan s Defeat 
 upon the North President Davis s congratulatory Order. General Pope s Military 
 Orders. Summary of the War Legislation of the Northern Congress. Retaliation 
 on the part of the Confederacy. The Cartel. Prospects of European Interference. 
 Progress of the War in the West. The Defence of Vicksburg. Morgan s great 
 Raid. The Tennessee- Virginia Frontier. The Confederate Congress. The Cam 
 paign in Virginia again. The signal Victory of the Thirtieth of August on the Plains 
 of Manassas.A. Review of its Military Results PAGE 328 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 The New Orleans Disaster. Its Consequences and Effects. Public Opinion in 
 Europe. Execution of Mumford. Change in the Fortunes of the Confederacy. 
 The Conscription Law. Governor Brown of Georgia. Reorganization of the Army. 
 Abandonment of Frontier Defences. Concentration. First Movements of the 
 Summer Campaign in Virginia. Retreat from Yorktown. Evacuation of Norfolk. 
 Destruction of the "Virginia." Commodore Tatuall s Report. The Engagement 
 of Williamsburg. The Affair of Barhamsville. McClellan s Investment of the Lines 
 of the Chickahominy. Alarm in Richmond. The Water Avenue of the James. 
 Consternation in the President s House. President Davis and the Legislature of 
 Virginia. Noble Resolutions of the Legislature. Response of Richmond. The 
 Bombardment of Drewry s Bluff. Renewal of Public Confidence. JACKSON S CAM 
 PAIGN IN THE VALLEY. The Engagement of McDowell. The Surprise at Front 
 Royal. Banks Retreat. Port Republic. Results. Sufferings in the Valley of the 
 Shenandoah. MEMOIR OF TURNER ASHBY. . . , . .PAGE 367 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 Strategic Importance of Richmond. THE BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES. Miscarriage 
 of General Johnston s Plans. THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMINY. Storming o 
 the Enemy s Intrench ments. McClellan driven from his Northern Line of Defences. 
 The Affair of Savage Station. The Battle of Frazier s Farm. Battle of Malvern 
 Hill. The Enemy in Communication with his Gunboats. The Failure to cut him off. 
 Glory and Fruits of our Victory. Safety of Richmond. Other Parts of the Con 
 federacy. Engagement of Secessionville. The Campaign of the West. The Evac 
 uation of Corinth. Capture of Memphis. Siege of Vicksburg. Morgan s Raid into 
 Kentucky. The Tennessee and Virginia Frontier PAGE 409 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Effect of McClollan s Defeat in the North. Call for more Troops. Why tLa Ncrth 
 was not easily dispirited. The War as a Money Job. Note: Gen. Washington 
 Opinion of New England. The Yankee Finances. Exasperation of Hostilities. The 
 Yankee Idea of a "Vigorous Prosecution of the War." Ascendancy of the Radicals. 
 War Measures at Washington. Anti-Slavery Aspects of the War. Brutality of the 
 Yankees. The .rfeensibility of Europe. Yankee Chaplains in Virginia. Seizures of 
 Private Property. Pope s Orders in Virginia. Steinwehr s Order respecting Host 
 ages. The Character and Services of Gen. John Pope. The u Army of Virginia." 
 Irruption of the Northern Spoilsmen. The Yankee Trade in Counterfeit Confederate 
 Notes. Pope s " Chasing the Rebel Hordes." Movement against Pope by " Stone 
 wall" Jackson. BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN. McClellan recalled from the Penin 
 sula. The Third Grand Army of the North. Jackson s Surprise of the Enemy at 
 Manassas. A Rapid and Masterly Movement. Change of the Situation. Attack by 
 the Enemy upon Bristow Station and at Manassas Junction. Marshalling of the 
 Hosts. Longstreet s Passage of Thoroughfare Gap. The Plans of Gen. Lee. Spirit 
 of our Troops. Their Painful Marches. THK SKOOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS. A ter 
 rible Bayonet Charge. Rout of the Enemy. A hideous Battle-field. Gen. Lee and 
 the Summer Campaign of Virginia, Jackson s Share in it. Extent of the Great 
 Victory of Manassas. Excitement in Washington. The Yankee Army falls back 
 upon Alexandria and Washington. Review of the Situation. Rapid Change in our 
 Military Fortunes. What the South had accomplished. Comparison of Material 
 Strength between North and South. Humiliating Result to the Warlike Reputation 
 of the North. . . . . .PAGE 432 
 
 OHAPTEK XYII. 
 
 Rescue of Virginia from the Invader. Gen. Loring s Campaign in the Kanawha 
 Valley. A Novel Theatre of the War. Gen. Lee s Passage of the Potomac. Ilia 
 Plans. Disposition of ou^ Forces. McClellan again at the Head of the Yankee 
 Army. THE BATTLE OF BOONSBORO . THE CAPTURE OF HARPER S FERRY. Its Fruits 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG. Great Superiority of the Enemy s Numbers. Fury 
 of the Battle. The Bridge of Antietam. A Drawn Battle. Spectacles of Carnage. 
 The Unburied Dead. Gen. Lee retires into Virginia. McClellan s Pretence oi 
 Victory. The Affair of Shepherdstown. Charges against McClellan. His Disgrace. 
 Review of the Maryland Campaign. Misrepresentations of Gen. Lee s Objects. 
 His Retreat. Comment of the New York " Tribune." The Cold Reception of the 
 Confederates in Maryland. Excuses for the Timidity of the Marylanders. Wlu.t 
 was accomplished by the Summer Campaign of 1862. The Outburst of Applause in 
 Europe. Tribute from the London " Times." Public Opinion in England. Dis 
 tinction between the People and the Government. The Mask of England. OUR Fou- 
 KION RELATIONS IN THE WAR. An Historical Parallel of Secession. Two Remarks on 
 the "Neutrality" of Europe. The Yankee Blockade and the Treaty of Paris. The 
 Confederate Privateers. Temper of the South. Fruits of the Blockade PAGE 473 
 
 CHAPTER XVILL 
 
 Movements in the West. The splendid Programme of the Yankees. Kentucky 
 the critical Point. Gen. Kirby Smith s Advance into Kentucky. THK BATTLE 0* 
 RICHMOND. Re option of the Confederates in Lexington. Expectation of an Attnofe 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 on Cincinnati. Gen. Bragg s Plans. Smith s Movement to Bmgg s Lines. Escape 
 of the Yankee Forces from Cumberland Gap. Afi air of Munfordsville. Gen. Bragg 
 between the Enemy and the Ohio. An Opportunity for a decisive Blow. Buell a 
 Escape to Louisville. The Inauguration of Governor at Frankfort. An idle Cere 
 mony. Probable Surprise of Gen. Bragg. THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLB. Its Im 
 mediate Results in our Favor. Bragg s failure to concentrate his Forces. His Reso 
 lution of Retreat. Scenes of the Retreat from Kentucky. Errors of the Campaign. 
 A lame Excuse. Public Sentiment in Kentucky. The Demoralization of that 
 State. The Lessons of Submission PAGE 498 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Our Lines in the Southwest. Gen. Breckenridge s Attack on Baton Souge. De 
 struction of the Ram Arkansas. Gen. Price s Reverse at luka. Desperate Fighting. 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. Van Dorn s hasty Exultations. The Massacre of College 
 Hill. Wild and terrible Courage of the Confederates. Our Forces beaten Back. 
 Our Lines of Retreat secured. The Military Prosyects of the South overshadowed. 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Romance of the War in Missouri. 
 Schofield s Order calling out the Militia. Atrocities of the Yankee Rule in Missouri. 
 Robbery without " Red Tape." The Guerrilla Campaign. The Affair of Kirks- 
 ville. Execution of Col. McCullough. The Affair of Lone Jack. Timely Reinforce 
 ment of Lexington by the Yankees. The Palmyra Massacre. The Question of Re 
 taliation with the South. THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION. Survey of the 
 Military Situation. Capture of Galveston by the Yankees. The Enemy s Naval 
 Power. His Iron-clads. Importance of Foundries in the South. Prospect in the 
 Southwest. Prospect in Tennessee. Prospect in Virginia. Stuart s Raid into Penn 
 sylvania. Souvenirs of Southern Chivalry. The "Soft-mannered Rebels." Political 
 Complexion of the W/r in the North. Lincoln s " Emancipation Proclamation." 
 History of Yankee Legislation in the War. Political Error of the Emancipation Proc 
 lamation. Its Effect on the South. The Decay of European Sympathy with the 
 Abolitionists. What the War accomplished for Negro Slavery in the South. Yankee 
 Falsehoods and Bravadoes in Europe. Delusion of Conquering the South by Starva 
 tion. Caricatures in the New York Pictorials. The noble Eloquence of Hunger and 
 Rags. Manners in the South. Yankee Warfare. The Desolation of Virginia. 
 The Lessons of harsh Necessity. Improvement of the Civil Administration of 
 the Confederacy. Ordnance, Manufacturing Resources, Quartermasters Supplies, 
 etc ...PAGE 514 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Heroism of Virginia. Her Battle-fields. Burnside s Plan of Campaign. 
 Calculations of his Movement upon Fredericksburg. Failure to surprise Gen. Lee. 
 THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG. The Enemy crossing the River. Their Bombard 
 ment of the Town. Scenes of Distress. The Battle on the Right Wing. The Story 
 of Marye s Heights. Repulse of the Enemy. The old Lesson of barren Victory. 
 Death of Gen. Cobb. Death of Gen. Gregg. Romance of the Story of Fredericks- 
 burg. Her noble Women. Yankee Sacking of the Town. A Specimen of Yankee 
 Warfare in North Carolina. Designs of the Enemy in this State. The Engagement* 
 of Kinston. Glance at other Theatres of the War. Gen. Hindman s Victory ut 
 Prairie Grove. Achievements of our Cavalry in the West. The Affair of Harts- 
 ville. Col. Clarkson s Expedition. Condition of Events at the Close of the Year 
 1862 1> AGE 537 
 
14 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Tha eastern Portion of Tennessee. Its Military Importance. Cocr.pos tion o 
 Bragg s Army. THE BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO . The Eight Wing of the Euem/> 
 routed. Bragg s Exultations. The Assault of the 2d of January." The bloody 
 crossing of Stone River." The Confederates fall back to Tullahoma. Review of the 
 Battle-field of Murfreesboro . Repulse of the Enemy at Vicksburg. THE RECAP 
 TURE OF GALVESTON. The Midnight March. Capture of the " Harriet Lane." 
 Arkansas Post taken by the Yankees. Its Advantages. The affair of the Rams in 
 Charleston Harbor. Naval structure of the Confederacy. Capture of the Yankee 
 gunboat " Queen of the West." Heroism of George Wood. Capture of the " In- 
 dianola." The War on the Water. The Confederate Cruisers. Prowess of the 
 " Alabama." PAGE 554 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 An extraordinary Lull in the War. An Affair with the Enemy on the Black- 
 water. Raids in the West. Van Dorn s Captures. THE MEETING OF CONGRESS. 
 Character of this Body. Its Dulness and Servility. Mr. Foote and the Cabinet. 
 Two Popular Themes of Confidence. Party Contention in the North. Successes of 
 the Democrats there. Analysis of the Party Politics of the North. The Interest of 
 New England in the War. How the War affected the Northwestern Portions of the 
 United States. Mr. Foote s Resolutions respecting the Northwestern States. How 
 they were received by the Southern Public. New War Measures at Washington. 
 Lincoln a Dictator. Prospect of Foreign Interference. Action of the Emperor Na 
 poleon. Suffering of the Working Classes in England. Tho Delusions of an early 
 Peace. The Tasks before Congress. Prostrate Condition of the Confederate Fi 
 nances. President Davis s Blunder. The Errors of our Financial System. The 
 Wealth of the South. The Impressment Law of Congress. Scarcity of Supplies. 
 Inflated Prices. Speculation and Extortion in the Confederacy. Three Remarks 
 about these. The Verdict of History PAGE 575 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 Character of Military Events of the Spring of 1863. Repulse of tho Enemy at Fort 
 McAllister. THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. The Yazoo Pass Expedition. Confederate 
 Success at Fort Pemberton. The Enemy s Canals, or "Cut-offs." Their Failure. 
 BOMBARDMENT OF PORT HUDSON. Destruction of "The Mississippi." A Funeral 
 Pyre. Happy Effects of our Victory. A Review of the line of inland Hostilities. 
 Hooker s hesitation on the Rappahannock. The Assignment of Confederate com 
 mands west of the Mississippi. The Affair of Kelly s Ford. Death of Major Pel- 
 ham. NAVAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON. Destruction of "The Keokuk." Scenery of 
 the Bombardment. Extent of the Confederate Success. Events in Tennessee and 
 Kentucky. Pegram s Reverse. The Situation of Hostilities at the close of April, 
 1862 PAGE 588 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIY. 
 
 Close of the Second Year of the War. Propriety of an Outline of some succeed 
 ing Events. Cavalry Enterprises of the Enemy. The raids in Mississippi and Vir 
 ginia. SKETCH OF THE BATTLES OF THE RAPPASANNOCK. The Enemy s Plan of AtUck 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 The Fight at Chancellorsville. The Splendid Charge of" Stonewall" Jackson. 
 The Fight at Fredericksburg. The Fight at Salem Church. Summary of our Victory 
 DEATH OF " STONEWALL" JACKSON. His Character and Services PAGE 604 
 
 CHAFTEK XXV. 
 
 A Period of Disasters. DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Grant s March upon 
 Vicksburg. Its Steps and Incidents. The Engagement of Port Gibson. The Evacu 
 ation of Jackson. The Battle of Baker s Creek. Pemberton s Declarations as to the 
 Defence of Vicksburg. A grand Assault upon the " Heroic City." Itii Repulse. 
 The, Final Surrender of Vicksburg. Rovr the Public Mind of the South was shocked. 
 Consequences of the Disaster. How it involved affairs on the Lower Mississippi. 
 
 Other Theatres of the War. THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 Hooker manoeuvred out of Virginia. The Recapture of Winchester. The Second 
 Invasion of the Northern Territory. The Alarm of the North. Gen. Lee s object in 
 the Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania. His Essays at Conciliation. The Er 
 ror of such Policy. The advance of his Lines into Pennsylvania. The Battle of 
 Gettysburg. The Three Days Engagements.-^Death of Barksdale. Pickett s splen 
 did Charge on the Batteries. Repulse of the Confederates. Anxiety and Alarm in 
 Richmond. Lee s safe Retreat into Virginia. Mystery of his Movement. Recovery 
 
 of the Confidence of the South Review of the Present Aspects of tha 
 
 War. Comparison between the Disasters of 1862 and those of 1863. The Vitals of 
 the Confederacy yet untouched. Review of the Civil Administration. Presided 
 Davis, his Cabinet, and his Favorites. His private Quarrels. His Deference to Euro 
 pean Opinion. Decline of the Finances of the Confederacy. Reasons of their Decline 
 The Confederate Brokers. The Blockade Runners. The Disaffections of Property 
 holders. The Spirit of the Army. The Moral Resolution of the Confederacy. How 
 the Enemy has strengthened it. The Prospects of the Future PAGE 619 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 REVIEW POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE NORTH, &C. 
 
 The Dogma of Numerical Majorities. Its Date in the Yankee Mind. Demoraliza 
 tion of the Idea of the Sovereignty of Numbers. Experience of Minorities in Ameri 
 can Politics. Source of the Doctrine of " CONSOLIDATION." The Slavery Question the 
 logical Result of Consolidation. Another Aspect of Consolidation in the Tariff. 
 Summary of the Legislation on the Tariff. A Yankee Picture of the Poverty of tha 
 South. John C. Calhoun. President Davis s Opinion of his School of Politioe. 
 "Nullification," as a Union Measure. Mr. Webster s "Four Exhaustive Proposi 
 tions." The True Interpretation of the Present Struggle of the South. The North 
 ern Idea of the Sovereignty of Numbers. Its Results in this War. President Lin 
 coln s Office. The Revenge of the Yankee Congress upon the People. The easy 
 Surrender of their Liberties by the Yankees. Lincoln and Cromwell. Explanation 
 of the Political Subserviency in the North. Superficial Political Education of th 
 Yankee. His " Civilization." The Moral Nature of the Yankee unmasked by the 
 War. His new Political System. Burnside s " Death Order." A Bid for Confeder 
 ate Scalps. A new Interpretation of the War. The North as a Parasite. The Fouu 
 dations of the National Independence of the South. Present Aspects of the War. 
 Its external Con ^ition and Morals. The Spirit of the South and the Promises of the 
 Future ...PAGE 648 
 
SOUTHERN HISTOI1Y OF THE WAil 
 
 THE FIRST YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Delusive Ideas of the Union. Administration of John Adams. The "Strict Con 
 structioriists." The "State Rights" Men in the North. The Missouri Restriction. 
 General Jackson and the Nullification Question. The Compromise Measures of 1850, 
 History of the Anti-Slavery Party. The "Pinckney Resolutions." The Twenty- 
 first Rule. The Abolitionists in the Presidential Canvuss of 1352. The Kansas- 
 Nebraska Bill. The Rise and Growth of the Republican Party. The Election of 
 President Buchanan. The Kansas Controversy. " Locompton" and " Anti-Lecomp- 
 fcon." Results of the Kansas Controversy. The John Brown Raid. " Helper s 
 Book." Demoralization of the Northern Democratic Party. The Faction of Stephen 
 A. Douglas. The Alabama Resolutions. The Political Platform^ of 1860. Election 
 of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. Analysis of the Vote. Political 
 Condition of the North. Secession of South Carolina. Events in Charleston Harbor 
 Disagreements in Mr. Buchanan s Cabinet. The Secession Movement in Progress 
 Peace Measures in Congress. The Crittenden Resolutions. The Peace Congress. 
 Policy of the Border Slave States. Organization of the Confederate States Govern 
 ment. President Buchanan. Incoming of the Administration of Abraham Lincoln. 
 Strength of the Revolution. 
 
 THE American people of the present generation were born 
 in the belief that the Union of the States was destined to be 
 perpetual. A few minds rose superior to this natal delusion ; 
 the early history of the Union itself was not without premoni 
 tions of decay and weakness ; and yet it may be said that the 
 belief in its permanency was, in the early part of the present 
 generation, a popular and obstinate delusion, that embraced 
 the masses of the country. 
 
 The foundations of this delusion had been deeply laid in the 
 early history of the country, and had been sustained by a false, 
 but ingenious prejudice. It was busily represented, especially 
 bv demagogues in the North, that the Union was the fruit of 
 ine "Revolution of 1776, and had been purchased by the blood 
 of our forefathers. ISTo fallacy could have been more errone 
 ous in fa<?t more insidious in its display, or more effective in 
 
18 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 addressing the passions of the multitude. The Revolution 
 achieved our national independence, and the Union had n 
 connection with it other than consequence in point of time. 
 It was founded, as any other civil institution, in the exigencies 
 and necessities of a certain condition of society, and had no 
 other claim to popular reverence and attachment, than what 
 might he found in its own virtues. 
 
 But it was not only the captivating fallacy that the Union 
 was hallowed by the blood of a revolution, and this false in 
 spiration of reverence for it, that gave the popular idea of its 
 power and permanency. Its political character was misunder 
 stood by a large portion of the American people. The idea 
 predominated in the North, and found toleration in the South, 
 that the Revolution of 76, instead of securing the independ 
 ence of thirteen States, had resulted in the establishment of a 
 grand consolidated government to be under the absolute con 
 trol of a numerical majority. The doctrine was successfully 
 inculcated ; it had some plausibility, and brought to its sup 
 port an array of revolutionary names ; but it was, nevertheless, 
 in direct opposition to the terms of the Constitution the bond 
 of the Union which defined the rights of the States and the 
 limited powers of the General Government. 
 
 The first President from the North, John Adams, asserted 
 and essayed to put in practice the supremacy of the "Na 
 tional" power over the States and the citizens thereof. He 
 was sustained in his attempted usurpations by all the New 
 England States arid by a powerful public sentiment in each of 
 the Middle States. The "strict constructionists" of the Con 
 stitution were not slow in raising the standard of opposition 
 against a pernicious error. With numbers and the most con- 
 spicuor-s talents in the country they soon effected the organi 
 zation of a party ; and, under the leadership of Jefferson and 
 Madison, they rallied their forces and succeeded in overthrow 
 ing the Yankee Administration, but only after a tremendous 
 struggle. 
 
 From the inauguration of Mr. Jefferson, in 1801, the Federal 
 Government continued uninterruptedly in Southern hands for 
 the space of twenty-four years. A large proportion of the active 
 politicians of the North pretended to give in their adhesion to 
 the State Rights school of politics; but, like all the alliances 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 19 
 
 jif Northern politicians with the South selfish, cunning, ex 
 travagant of professions, carefully avoiding trials of its fidelity 
 unhealthy, founded on a sentiment of treachery to its own 
 section, and educated in perfidy it was a deceitful union, and 
 could not withstand the test of a practical question 
 
 While acting with the South on empty or accidental issues, 
 the "State Eights" men of the North were, for all practical 
 purposes, the faithful allies of the open and avowed, consolida- 
 tionists on the question that most seriously divided the country 
 that of negro slavery. Their course on the admission o^ 
 Missouri afforded early and conclusive evidence of the secret 
 disposition of all parties in the North. With very few excep 
 tions, in and out of Congress, the North united in the original 
 demand of the prohibition of slavery in the new State as the 
 indispensable condition of the admission of Missouri into the 
 Union ; although the people of Missouri, previous to their 
 application to Congress, had decided to admit within its juris 
 diction the domestic institution of the South. The result of the 
 contest was equally unfavorable to the rights of the South 
 &nd to the doctrine of the constitutional equality of the States 
 in the Union. The only approach that the North was willing 
 to make to this fundamental doctrine was to support a " com 
 promise," by which slavery was to be tolerated in one part of 
 the Missouri Territory and to be forever excluded from the 
 remaining portion. The issue of the controversy was not only 
 important to the slave interest, but afforded a new develop 
 ment of the Northern political ideas of consolidation and the 
 absolutism of numerical majorities. The North had acted on 
 the Missouri matter as though the South had no rights guaran 
 teed in the bond of the Union, and as though the question at 
 issue was one merely of numerical strength, where the defeated 
 party had no alternative but submission. "The majority must 
 govern" was the decantatum on the lips of every demagogue, 
 and passed into a favorite phrase of Northern politics. 
 
 The results of the acquiescence of the South in the wrong of 
 the Missouri Restriction could not fail to strengthen the idea 
 in the North of the security of the Union, and to embolden its 
 people to the essay of new aggressions. Many of their poli 
 ticians did not hesitate to believe that the South was prepared 
 to pledge herself to the perpetuity of the Urr>n rmon 
 
20 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 terms. The fact was, that she had made a clear concession o* 
 principle for the sake of the Union ; and the inference wn 
 plain and logical, that her devotion to it exceeded almost 
 every other political trust, and that she would be likely to 
 prefer any sacrifice rather than the irreverent one of the Union 
 of the States. 
 
 The events of succeeding years confirmed the Northern 
 opinion that the Union was to be perpetuated as a consolidated 
 goVernment. It is not to be denied that the consolidationists 
 derived much comfort from the course of President Jackson, 
 in the controversy between the General Government and the 
 State of South Carolina, that ensued during the second term 
 of his administration. But they were hasty and unfair in the 
 interpretation of the speeches of a choleric and immoderate 
 politician. They seized upon a sentiment offered by the Presi 
 dent at the Jefferson anniversary dinner, in the second year of 
 his first term " The Federal Union it must ~be preserved" 
 to represent him as a " coerrionist" in principle; and, indeed, 
 they found reason to contend that their construction of these 
 words was fully sustained in General Jackson s famous procla 
 mation arid official course against Nullification. 
 
 General Jackson subsequently explained away, in a great 
 measure, the objectionable doctrines of his proclamation ; and 
 his emphatic declaration that the Union could not be preserved 
 by force was one of the practical testimonies of his wisdom 
 that he left to posterity. But the immediate moral and political 
 effects of his policy in relation to South Carolina were, upon 
 the whole, decidedly unfavorable to the State Eights cause. 
 His approval of the Force Bill gave to the consolidationists 
 the benefit of his great name and influence at a most import 
 ant juncture. The names of "Jackson and the Union" be 
 came inseparable in the public estimation ; and the idea was 
 strongly and vividly impressed upon the public mind, that the 
 great Democrat was " a Union man" at all hazards and to the 
 last extremity. 
 
 The result of the contest between South Carolina and the 
 General Government is well known. The Palmetto State 
 came out of it with an enviable reputation for spirit and 
 chivalry ; but the settlement of the question contributed to 
 the previous popular impressions of the power and penna 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 21 
 
 ficncy of the Union. The idea of the Union oecame what it 
 continued to be for a quarter of a century theieafter extrav 
 agant and sentimental. The people were unwilling to stop to 
 analyze an idea after it had once become the subject of enthu 
 siasm ; and. the mere name of the " Union," illustrating, as it 
 did, the power of words over the passions of the multitude, 
 remained for years a signal of the country s glory and of 
 course the motto of ambitious politicians and the favorite 
 theme of demagogues. This unnatural tumor was not pecu 
 liar to any party or any portion of the country. It was deeply 
 planted in the Northern mind, but prevailed also, to a consid 
 erable extent, in the South. Many of the Southern politicians 
 came to the conclusion that they could best succeed in their 
 designs as advocates and eulogists of what was paraphrased as 
 u the glorious Union ;" and for a long time the popular voice 
 of the South seemed to justify their conclusion. 
 
 The settlement of the sectional difficulties of 1850, which 
 grew out of the admission of the territory acquired by the 
 Mexican War, was but a repetition of the " Compromise" of 
 1820, so far as it implied a surrender of the rights of the 
 South and of the principle of constitutional equality. The 
 appeals urged in behalf of the Union had the usual effect of 
 reconciling the South to the sacrifice required of her, and 
 embarrassed any thing like resistance on the part of her rep 
 resentatives in Congress to the " compromise measures" of 
 1850. South Carolina was the only one of the Southern 
 States ready at this time to take the bold and adventurous 
 initiative of Southern independence. In justice, however, to 
 the other States of the South, it must be stated, that in agree 
 ing to what was called, in severe irony or in wretched igno 
 rance, the " Compromise" of 1850, they declared that it was 
 the last concession they would make to the North ; that they 
 took it as a " finality," and that they would resist any further 
 aggression on their rights, even to the extremity of the rupture 
 of the Union. 
 
 This declaration of spirit was derided by the North. The 
 anti-slavery sentiment became bolder with success. Stimu 
 lated by secret jealousies and qualified for success by the low 
 and narrow cunning of fanaticism, it had grown up by indirec 
 tion, and aspired to the complete overthrow of the peculiar 
 
22 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 institution that had distinguished the people of the South from 
 those of the North, by a larger happiness, greater ease of life, 
 and a superior tone of character. Hypocrisy, secretiveness, 
 a rapid and unhealthy growth, and at last the unmasked spirit, 
 of defiance, were the incidents of the history of the anti- 
 slavery sentiment in the North, from the beginning of ita 
 organization to the last and fatal strain of its insolence and 
 power. 
 
 ^ / Until a comparatively recent period, the Northern majority 
 "t disavowed all purpose of abolishing or interfering in any 
 way with the institution of slavery in any State, Territory, 
 or District where it existed. On the contrary, they declared 
 their readiness to give their "Southern brethren" the most 
 satisfactory guaranties for the security of their slave property. 
 They cloaked their designs under the disguise of the Eight of 
 Petition and other concealments equally demagogical. From 
 the organization of the government, petitions for the abolition 
 of slavery, signed in every instance by but a few persons, and 
 most of them women, had, at intervals, been sent into Con 
 gress ; but they were of such apparent insignificance that they 
 failed to excite any serious apprehensions on the part of tht> 
 South. In the year 1836, these petitions were multiplied, and 
 many were sent into both Houses of Congress from all parts 
 of the North. An excitement began, On motion of Mr. 
 II. L. Pinckney, of South Carolina, a resolution was adopted 
 by the House of Eepresentatives, to refer to a select commit 
 tee all anti-slavery memorials then before that body, or that 
 might thereafter be sent in, with instructions to report against 
 the prayers of the petitioners and the reasons for such con 
 clusion. 
 
 On the 18th of May, 1836, the committee made a unanimous 
 report, through Mr. Pinckney, its chairman, concluding with a 
 series of resolutions, the last of which was as follows : 
 
 " Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers 
 relating, in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery, or 
 the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid 
 npon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon." 
 
 The resolutions were carried by a vote of 117 yeas .to 68 
 nays. A majority of the Northern members voted against the 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 23 
 
 resolution, alth mgh there was then scarcely an avowed Aboli 
 tionist among them. They professed to be in favor of pro 
 tecting the slaveholder in his right of property, and yet de 
 clared by their votes, as well as by their speeches, that the 
 right of petition to rob him of his property was too sacred to 
 be called in question. 
 
 The passage of the "Pinckney resolutions," as they were 
 called, did not silence the anti-slavery agitation in the House. 
 In the month of December, 183T, a remarkable scene was 
 enacted in that body, during the proceedings on a motion of 
 Mr. Slade, of Vermont, to refer two memorials praying the 
 al/oiition of slavery in the District of Columbia to a select 
 committee. Mr. Slade, in urging his motion, was violent in 
 his denunciations of slavery, and he spoke for a considerable 
 time amid constant interruptions and calls to order. At length, 
 Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, called upon the entire delega 
 tion from all the slaveholding States to retire from the hall, 
 and to meet in the room of the Committee on the District of 
 Columbia. A large number of them did meet for consultation 
 in the room designated. The meeting, however, resulted in 
 nothing but an agreement upon the following resolution to be 
 presented to the House : 
 
 " Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, and papers touching the abolition 
 of slavery, or the buying, selling, or transferring of slaves in any State, Dis 
 trict, or Territory of the United States, be laid on the table without being 
 debated, printed, read, or referred, and that no further action whatever shall 
 be had thereon." 
 
 Tli is resolution was presented to the House by Mr. Patton, 
 of Virginia, and was adopted by a vote of 122 to 74. 
 
 In the month of January, 1840, the House of Representa 
 tives, on motion of Mr. "W". Cost Johnson, of Maryland, 
 adopted what was known as the "Twenty-first Rule," which 
 prohibited the reception of all Abolition petitions, memorials, 
 and resolutions. 
 
 The Twenty-first Rule was rescinded in December, 1844, on 
 motion of John Quincy Adams, by a vote of 108 to 80. Sev 
 eral efforts were afterwards made to restore it, but without 
 success. The Northern people would not relinquish what they 
 termed a " sacred right" that of petitioning the government, 
 
24r SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 through tlieir representatives in Congress, to deprive the 
 Southern people of their property. 
 
 During the agitation in Congress upon the right of petition, 
 there was, as before stated, but very few open and avowed 
 Abolitionists in either House, and the declaration was repeat 
 edly made by members that the party was contemptibly small 
 in every free State in the Union. Mr. Pierce, of New Hamp 
 shire (afterwards President of the United States), declared, in 
 1837, in his place in Congress, that there were not two hun 
 dred Abolitionists in his State ; and Mr. Webster, about the 
 same time, represented their numbers in Massachusetts as quite 
 insignificant. Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, with charac 
 teristic sagacity, replied to these representations, and predicted 
 that " Mr. Webster and all Northern statesmen would, in a few 
 years, yield to the storm of Abolition fanaticism and be over 
 whelmed by it." The prophecy was not more remarkable than 
 the searching analysis of Northern " conservatism" with which 
 the great South Carolinian accompanied his prediction. He 
 argued that such a consequence was inevitable from the way 
 in which the professed " conservatives" of the North had in 
 vited the aggressions of the Abolitionists, by courteously 
 granting them the right of petition, which was indeed all they 
 asked ; that the fanaticism of the North was a disease which 
 required a remedy, and that palliatives would not answer, as 
 Mr. Webster and men like him would find to their cost. 
 
 In the Thirtieth Congress, that assembled in December, 
 184:9 the "D^ofessed Abolitionists numbered about a dozen 
 members. They held the balance of power between the Dem 
 ocratic and Whig parties in the House, and delayed its organ 
 ization for about a month. Both the Whig and Democratic 
 parties then claimed to be conservative, and ? of course, the 
 opponents of the anti-slavery agitation. 
 
 In the Presidential canvass of 1852, both Pierce and Scott 
 were brought out by professed national parties, and were sup 
 ported in each section of the Union. John P. Hale, who ran 
 upon what was called the " straight-out" Abolition ticket, did 
 not receive the vote of a single State, and but 175,296 of 
 the popular vote of the Union. The triumphant election ot 
 Pierce, who was a favorite of the State Rights Democracy oi 
 the South, was hailed by the sanguine friends of the Union as 
 
THE FIRST YEAH. 25 
 
 a fair indication of the purpose of the North to abide, in good 
 t aith, by the Compromise of 1850. But in this they were de 
 ceived, as the sequel demonstrated. 
 
 During the first session of the first Congress under Mr 
 Fierce s administration, the bill introduced to establish a terri 
 torial government for Nebraska, led to an agitation in Con 
 gress and the country, the consequences of which extended to 
 the last period of the existence of the Union. The Committee 
 on Territories in the Senate, of which Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, 
 was chairman, reported the bill, which made two territories 
 Nebraska and Kansas instead of one, and which declared 
 that the Missouri Compromise act was superseded by the Com 
 promise measures of 1850, and had thus become inoperative. 
 .The phraseology of the clause repealing the Missouri Compro 
 mise was drawn up by Mr. Douglas, and was not supposed at 
 the time to be liable to misconstruction. It held, that the 
 Missouri Compromise act, " being inconsistent with the prin 
 ciples of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the 
 States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, 
 commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared 
 inoperative and void ; it being the true intent and meaning of 
 this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor 
 to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per 
 fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
 their own way, subject only to the Constitution -of the United 
 States." The clause here quoted, as drawn up by Mr. Doug 
 las, was incorporated into the Kansas-Nebraska bill in the 
 Senate on the loth of February, 1854. The bill passed the 
 House at the same session. 
 
 The repeal of the Missouri Compromise caused the deepest 
 excitement throughout the North. The Abolitionists were 
 wild with fury. Douglas was hung in effigy at different places, 
 ind was threatened with personal violence in case of his per 
 sistence in his non-intervention policy. The rapid develop 
 ment of a fanatical feeling in every free State startled many 
 who had but recently indulged dreams of the perpetuity of the 
 Constitutional Union. Abolitionism, in the guise of " Repub 
 licanism^ swept almost every thing before it in the North and 
 Northwest in the elections of 1854 and 1855. But few pro 
 fessed conservatives were returned to the Thirty -first Congress ; 
 
26 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 not enough to prevent the election of Nathaniel Banks, an ob 
 jectionable Abolitionist of the Massachusetts school, to the 
 Speakership of the House. 
 
 The South had supported the repeal of the Missouri Com 
 pronjv? * ^cause it restored her to her rightful position oc 
 equauty in the Union. It is true, that her representatives in 
 Congress were well aware that, under the operations of the 
 new act, their constituents could expect to obtain but little if 
 any new accessions of slave territory, while the North would 
 necessarily, from the force of circumstances, secure a number 
 of new States in the Northwest, then the present direction of 
 our new settlements. But viewed as an act of proscription 
 against her, the Missouri Compromise was justly offensive to 
 the South ; and its abrogation, in this respect, strongly recom 
 mended itself to her support. 
 
 The ruling party of the North, calling themselves " Repub 
 licans," had violently opposed the repeal of the act of 1820, 
 in the same sentiment with which it was fiercely encountered 
 by the Abolitionists. The two parties were practically identi 
 cal ; both shared the same sentiment of hostility to slavery ; 
 and they differed only as to the degree of indirection by which 
 their purposes might best be accomplished. 
 
 The election of Mr. Buchanan to the Presidency, in 1856, 
 raised, for a time, the spirits of many of the true friends of 
 the Constitutional Union. But there was very little in an 
 analysis of the vote to give hope or encouragement to the pa 
 triot. Fremont, who ran as the anti-slavery candidate, re 
 ceived 1,341,812 votes of the people, and it is believed would 
 have been elected by the electoral college, if the anti-Buchanan 
 party in Pennsylvania had united upon him. 
 . The connection of events which we have sought to trace, 
 brings us to the celebrated Kansas controversy, and at once to 
 the threshold of the dissensions which demoralized the only 
 conservative pa^ty in the country, and in less than four years 
 culminated in the rupture of the Federal Union. A severe 
 summary of the facts of this controversy introduces us to the 
 contest of 1860, in which the Republican party, swollen with 
 its triumphs in Kansas, and infecting the Democratic leaders 
 in the North with the disposition to pander to the lusts of a 
 
THE FIBST YEAK. 27 
 
 growing power, obtained the control of the government, and 
 seized the sceptre of absolute authority. 
 
 "When Mr. Buchanan came into office, in March, 1857, ho 
 flattered himself with the hope that his administration would 
 settle the disputes that had so long agitated and distracted the 
 country ; trusting that such a result might be accomplished by 
 the speedy admission of Kansas into the Union, upon the 
 principles which had governed in his election. Such, at least, 
 were his declarations to his friends. But before the meeting 
 of Congress, in December, he had abundant evidence that his 
 favorite measure would be opposed by a number of Senators 
 and Eepresentatives who had actively supported him in his 
 canvass ; among them the distinguished author of the Kansas 
 Nebraska bill, Mr. Douglas. 
 
 In the month of July, 1855, the Legislature of the Territory 
 of Kansas had passed an act to take the sense of the people 
 on the subject of forming a State government, preparatory to 
 admission into the Union. The election took place, and a 
 large majority of the people voted in favor of holding a con 
 vention for the purpose of adopting a Constitution. In pur 
 suance of this vote, the Territorial Legislature, on the 19tji of 
 February, 1857, passed a law to take a census of the people, 
 for the purpose of making a registry of the voters, and to elect 
 delegates to the Convention. Mr. Geary, then Governor of 
 Kansas, vetoed the bill for calling the Convention, for the 
 reason that it did not require the Constitution, when framed, 
 to be submitted to a vote of the people for adoption or rejec 
 tion. The bill, however, was reconsidered in each House, and 
 passed by a two-thirds vote, and thus became a binding law 
 in the Territory, despite the veto of the Governor. 
 
 On the 20th of May, 1857, Mr. F. P. Stan ton, Secretary 
 and acting Governor of Kansas Territory, published his proc 
 lamation, commanding the proper officers to hold an election 
 on the third Monday of June, 1857, as directed by the act re 
 ferred to. 
 
 The election was held on the day appointed, and the Con 
 vention assembled, according to law, on the first Monday of 
 September, 1857. They proceeded to form a Constitution, and 
 having finished their work, adjourned on the 7th [November 
 
*28 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The entire Constitution was not submitted to the popular vote* 
 but the Convention took care to submit to the vote of tho 
 people, for ratification or rejection, the clause respecting sla 
 very. The official vote resulted : For the Constitution, with 
 Slavery, 6,226 ; for the Constitution, without Slavery, 509. 
 
 The Abolitionists, or "Free State" men, as they called them- 
 sel ves, did not generally vote in this or any other election held 
 under the regular government of the Territory. They defied the 
 authority of this government and that of the United States, 
 and acted under the direction of Emigrant Aid Societies, or 
 ganized by the fanatical Abolitionists of the North, to colonize 
 the new territory with voters. The proceedings of this evil 
 and bastard population occasioned the greatest excitement, and 
 speedily inaugurated an era of disorder and rebellion in this 
 distant portion of the Federal territory. 
 
 The Free State party assembled at Topeka, in September, 
 1855, and adopted what they called a " Constitution" for Kan 
 sas. This so-called Constitution was submitted to the people, 
 and was ratified, of course, by a large majority of those who 
 voted; scarcely any but Abolitionists going to the polls. Un- 
 dc their Topeka Constitution, the Free State party elected a 
 Governor and Legislature, and organized for the purpose of 
 petitioning Congress for the admission of Kansas into the 
 T Jnion. The memorial of the Topeka insurgents was presented 
 to the Thirty-fourth Congress. It met with a favorable re 
 sponse in the House of Representatives, a majority of that 
 body being anti-slavery men of the New England school ; but 
 found but a poor reception in the Senate, where there was still 
 a majority of conservative. and law-abiding men. 
 
 On the 2d of February, 1858, Mr. Buchanan, at the request 
 of the President of the Lecompton Convention, transmitted to 
 Congress an authentic copy of the Constitution framed by that 
 body, with a view to the admission of Kansas into the Union. 
 The message of the President took stiong and urgent position 
 for the admission of Kansas under this Constitution ; he de 
 fended the action of the Convention in not submitting the 
 entire ^esult of their labors to a vote of the people; he ex 
 plained that, when he insti ncted Governor Walker, in general 
 terms, in favor of submitting the Constitution to the people, 
 he had no other object in view beyond the all-absorbing topic 
 
THE FIRST YEAB. 29 
 
 of slavery; lie considered that, under the organic act, the 
 Convention was bound to submit the all-important question oi 
 slavery to the people; he added, that it was never his opinion, 
 however, that, independently of this act, the Convention would 
 be bound to submit any portion of the Constitution to a popu 
 lar vote, in order to give it validity ; and he argued the fallacy 
 and unreasonableness of such an opinion, by insisting that it 
 was in opposition to the principle which pervaded our institu 
 tions, and which was every day carried into practice, to the 
 effect that the people had the right to delegate to representa 
 tives, chosen by themselves, sovereign power to frame Consti 
 tutions, enact laws, and perform many other important acts, 
 without the necessity of testing the validity of their work by 
 popular approbation. The Topeka Constitution Mr. Buchanan 
 denounced as the work of treason and insurrection. 
 
 It is certain that Mr. Buchanan would have succeeded in 
 effecting the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Con 
 stitution, if he could have secured to the measure the support 
 of all the Northern Democrats who had contributed to his 
 election. These, however, had become disaffected ; they op 
 posed and assailed the measure of the Administration, acting 
 under the lead of Mr. Douglas ; and the long-continued and 
 bitter discussion which ensued, perfectly accomplished the divi 
 sion of the Democratic party into two great factions, mustered 
 under the names of " Lecompton" and " Anti-Lecompton." 
 
 The latter faction founded their opposition to the Adminis 
 tration on the grounds, that the Lecompton Constitution was 
 not the act of the people of Kansas, and did not express their 
 will ; that only half of the counties of the Territory were rep 
 resented in the Convention that framed it, the other half being 
 disfranchised, for no fault of their own, but from failure of the 
 officers to register the voters, and entitle them to vote for 
 delegates ; and that the mode of submitting the Constitution 
 to the people for "ratification or rejection" was unfair, embar 
 rassing, and prescriptive. 
 
 In reply, the friends of the Administration urged that twen 
 ty-one out of the thirty-four organized counties of Kansas were 
 embraced in the apportionment of representation ; that, of the 
 thirteen counties not embraced, nine had but a small population, 
 as sh )wn by the fact that, in a succeeding election, to which 
 
30 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the Anti-Lecomptonitcs had referred as an indication of public 
 sentiment in Kansas, they polled but ninety votes in the aggre 
 gate; that, in the remaining four counties, the failure to register 
 the voters, and the consequent loss of their representation, were 
 due to the Abolitionists themselves, who refused to recognize 
 all legal authority in the Territory ; and that the submission 
 of the Constitution, as provided by the Lecornpton Convention, 
 afforded a complete expression of the popular will, as the 
 slavery question was the only one about which there was any 
 Controversy in Kansas. 
 
 The bill for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton 
 Constitution, was passed by the Senate. In the House, an 
 amendment, offered by Mr. Montgomery, of Pennsylvania, was 
 adopted, to the effect that, as it was a disputed point whether 
 the Constitution framed at Lecompton was fairly made, or ex 
 pressed the will of the people of Kansas, her admission into 
 the Union as a State was declared to be upon the fundamental 
 condition precedent, that the said constitutional instrument 
 should first be submitted to a vote of the people of Kansas, 
 and assented to by them, or by a majority of the voters, at an 
 election to be held for the purpose of determining the question 
 of the ratification or rejection of the instrument. 
 
 The Senate insisted upon its bill ; the IJouse adhered to its 
 amendment; and a committee of conference was appointed. 
 The result of the conference was the report of a bill for the 
 admission of Kansas, which became a law in June, 1858, and 
 substantially secured nearly all that the North had claimed in 
 the controversy. 
 
 The bill, as passed, rejected the Land Ordinance contained 
 in the Lecompton Constitution, and proposed a substitute. 
 Kansas was to be admitted into the Union on an equal footing, 
 in all respects, with the original States, but upon the funda 
 mental condition precedent, that the question of admission, 
 along with that of the Land substitute, be submitted to a vote 
 of the people; that, if a majority of the vote should be 
 against the proposition tendered by Congress, it should be 
 concluded that Kansas did not desire admission under the Lo 
 compton Constitution, with the condition attached to it ; and 
 that, in such event, the people were authorized to form for 
 themselves a Constitution and State government, and might 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 31 
 
 elect delegates for that purpose, after a census taken to de 
 monstrate the fact, that the population of the Territory equal 
 led or exceeded the ratio of representation for a member of the 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Thus ended the six months discussion of the Kansas question 
 in Congress in 1858. The substitute to the Land Ordinance 
 was rejected by the voters of the Territory ; and Kansas did 
 not come into the Union until nearly three years afterwards 
 just as the Southern States were going out of it. She came in 
 under an anti-slavery constitution, and Mr. Buchanan signed 
 the bill of admission. 
 
 The discussions of the Kansas question, as summed in the 
 preceding pages, had materially weakened the Union. The 4 
 spirit of those discussions, and the result itself of the contro 
 versy, fairly indicated that the South could hardly expect, 
 under any circumstances, the addition of another Slave State 
 to the Union. The Southern mind was awakened ; the senti 
 mental reverences of more than half a century were decried ; 
 and men began to calculate the precise value of a Union 
 which, by its mere name and the paraphrases of demagogues, 
 had long governed their affections. 
 
 Some of these calculations, as they appeared in the newspa 
 per presses of the times, were curious, and soon commenced to 
 interest the Southern people. It was demonstrated to them 
 that their section had been used to contribute the bulk of the 
 revenues of the Government ; that the North derived forty to 
 fifty millions of annual revenue from the South, through the 
 operations of the tariff; and that the aggregate of the trade 
 of the South in Northern markets was four hundred millions 
 of dollars a year. It was calculated by a Northern writer, 
 that the harvest of gain reaped by the North from the Union, 
 from unequal taxations and the courses of trade as between 
 the two sections, exceeded two hundred millions of dollars per 
 year. 
 
 These calculations of the commercial cost of the " glorious 
 Union" to the South, only presented the question in a single 
 aspect, however striking that was. There were other aspects 
 no less important and no less painful, in which it was to be 
 regarded. The swollen and insolent power of Abolitionism 
 threatened to carry every thing before it ; it had already bro- 
 
32 SOUTHEEN HI3TOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ken the vital principle of tilt Constitution that of the equal 
 Uy of its parts; and to injuries already accomplished, it added 
 the bitterest threats and the most insufferable insolence. 
 
 While the anti-slavery power threatened never to relax ita 
 rforts until, in the language of Mr. Seward, a senator from 
 JS r ew York, the " irrepressible conflict" between slavery and 
 freedom was accomplished, and the soil of the Carolinas dedi 
 cated to the institutions of New r England, it affected the inso 
 lent impertinence of regarding the Union as a concession on 
 the part of the North, and of taunting the South with the 
 disgrace which her association in the Union inflicted upon the 
 superior and more virtuous people of the Northern States. 
 The excesses of this conceit are ridiculous, seen in the light of 
 subsequent events. It was said that the South was an inferior 
 part of the country ; that she was a spotted and degraded sec 
 tion ; that the national fame abroad was compromised by the 
 association of the South in the Union ; and that a New Eng 
 land traveller in Europe blushed to confess himself an Ameri 
 can, because half of the nation of that name were slavehold 
 ers. Many of the Abolitionists made a pretence of praying 
 that the Union might be dissolved, that they might be cleared, 
 by the separation of North and South, of any implication in 
 the crime of slavery. Even that portion of the party calling 
 themselves "Republicans" affected that the Union stood in 
 the way of the North. Mr. Banks, of Massachusetts, who 
 had been elected Speaker of the House in the Thirty -first Con 
 gress, had declared that the designs of his party w r ere not to be 
 baffled, and was the author of the coarse jeer "Let the Union 
 slide" The New York Tribune had complained that the 
 South " could not be kicked out of the Union." Mr. Seward, 
 the great Republican leader, had spread the evangel y of a nat 
 ural, essential, and irrepressible hostility between tnVtwo sec 
 tions ; and the North prepared to act on a suggestion, the only 
 uractical result of which could be to cleave the Union apart, 
 and to inaugurate the horrors of civil war. 
 
 The raid into Virginia of John Brown, a notorious Aboli 
 tionist, whose occupations in Kansas had been those of a horse 
 *hief and assassin, and his murder of peaceful and unsuspect 
 ing citizens at Harper s Ferry in the month of October, 1859 
 was a practical illustration of the lessons of the Northern Re 
 
THE FIEST TEAK. 33 
 
 pub-icans, and of their inevitable and, in fact, logrcal conclu 
 sion in civil war. Professed conservatives in the North pre 
 dicted that this outrage would be productive of real good in 
 their section, in opening the eyes of the people to what were 
 well characterized as " Black Republican" doctrines. This 
 prediction was not verified by succeeding events. The North 
 ern elections of the next month showed no diminution in the 
 Black Republican vote. The manifestations of sympathy for 
 John Brown, who had expiated his crime on a gallows in Vir 
 ginia, were unequivocal in all parts of the North, though com 
 paratively few openly justified the outrage. Bells were tolled 
 in various towns of New England on the day of his execution^ 
 with the knowledge of the local authorities, and in some in 
 stances, through their co-operation ; and not a few preachers 
 from the pulpit alloted him an apotheosis, and consigned his 
 example to emulation, as one not only of public virtue, but of 
 particular service to God. 
 
 The attachment of the South to the Union was steadily 
 weakening in the historical succession of events. The nomi 
 nation in December, 1859, to the Speakership of the House of 
 Representatives of Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, who had made him 
 self especially odious to the South by publicly recommending, 
 in connection with sixty-eight other Republican members, a 
 fanatical document popularly known as " Helpers Book"* 
 
 * The tone of this book was violent in the extreme. We add a few ex 
 tracts, which will enable the reader to form a correct opinion of the character 
 and object of the work 
 
 " Slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and political evil, to be got rid of at 
 the earliest practical period." (Page 168.) 
 
 "Three-quaijteis of a century hence, if the South retains slavery, which 
 tlod forbid ! she will be to the North what Poland is to Russia, Cuba to Spain, 
 and Ireland to England." (P. 103.) 
 
 "Our own banner is inscribed No co-operation with slaveholders in 
 politics ; no fellowship with them in religion ; no affiliation with them in 
 society ; no recognition of pro-slavery men, except as ruffians, outlaws, and 
 criminals." <P 156.) 
 
 " We believe it i? as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and the 
 destiny of the Republican party to give the death-blow to slavery." (P. 234.) 
 
 " In any event, come what will, transpire what may, the institution of 
 slavery must be abolished." (P. 180.) 
 
 " We are determined to abolish slavery at all hazards in defiance cf all 
 the opposition, of whatever nature, it is possible for the slaveocrats to bring 
 
 3 
 
S4: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 from the name of the author, and which openly defended atd 
 sought itself to excite servile insurrections in the South, pro 
 duced a marked effect in Congress, and was encountered by 
 the Southern members with a determined spirit of opposition 
 The entire Southern delegation gave warning that they w r ould 
 regard the election of Mr. Sherman, or of any man with hia 
 record, as an open declaration of war upon the institutions of 
 the South ; as much so, some of the members declared, as if 
 the Brown raid were openly approved by a majority of the 
 House of Representatives. The Black Republican party de 
 fiantly nominated Sherman, and continued to vote for him for 
 near two months, giving him within four votes of a majority 
 upon every trial of his strength. Although he was finally 
 withdrawn, and one of his party, not a subscriber to the 
 Helper Book, was elected, yet the fact that more than three- 
 fourths of the entire Northern delegation had adhered to Mr. 
 Sherman for nearly two months in a factious and fanatical 
 spirit, produced a deep impression on the minds of Southern 
 members and of their constituents. The early dissolution of 
 the Union had come to be a subject freely canvassed among 
 members of Congress. 
 
 With the unveiling of the depth of the designs of the Black 
 Kepublicanp^rty, another danger was becoming manifest to 
 the South. ^ It wa.s the demoralization of the Northern Demo 
 cratic party on the slavery question. This whole party had 
 been an unhealthy product ; its very foundation was a princi 
 ple of untruth, and false to its own section, it could not be ex 
 pected to adhere to friends whom it had made from interest 
 and who had fallen into adverse circumstances. It had united 
 with the South for political power. In the depression of that 
 power, and the rapid growth of the anti-slavery party in the 
 
 against us. Of this they may take due notice, and govern themselves accord- 
 ingly." (P. 149.) 
 
 " It is our honest conviction that all the pro-slavery slaveholders deserve 
 at once to be reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals that lie fettered 
 within tVe cells of our public prisons." (P. 158.) 
 
 " Shall we pat the bloodhounds of slavery ? Shall we fee the curs of 
 slavery ? Shall we pay the whelps of slavery ? No, never." (P. 329.) 
 
 " Our purpose is as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven ; we hava 
 determined to abolish slavery, and, so help us God! abolish it we will." 
 P. 187.) 
 
THE FIRST YEAB. 35 
 
 North, it had no hesitation in courting and conciliating the 
 ruling element. This disposition was happily accommodated 
 by the controversy which had taken place between Mr. Doug 
 las and the administration of Mr. Buchananj The anti-slavery 
 sentiment in the North was conciliated by the partisans of the 
 Illinois demagogue, in adopting a new principle for the gov 
 ernment of the Territories, which was to allow the people to 
 determine the question of slavery in their territorial capacity, 
 without awaiting their organization as a State, and thus to 
 risk the decision of the rights of the South on the verdict of a 
 few settlers on the public domain. This pander to the anti- 
 slavery sentiment of the North was concealed under the dem 
 agogical name of "popular sovereignty," and was imposed 
 upon the minds of not a few of the Southern people by the 
 artfulness of its appeals to the name of a principle, which had 
 none of the substance of justice or equality. The conceal 
 ment, however, was but imperfectly availing. The doctrine 
 of Mr. Douglas was early denounced by one of the most vigi 
 lant statesmen of the South as " a short cut to all the ends of 
 Black Republicanism ;" and later in time, while the " Helper 
 Book" controversy was agitating the country, and other ques 
 tions developing the union of all the anti-slavery elements for 
 war upon the South,[a senator from Georgia was found bold 
 enough to denounce, in his place in Congress, the entire Dem 
 ocratic party of the North as unreliable and " rotten.^ 
 
 The State Eights party of the South had co-operated with 
 the Democracy of the North in the Presidential canvass of 
 1856, upon the principles of the platform adopted by the Na 
 tional Democratic Convention, assembled in Cincinnati, in 
 June of that year. They expressed a willingness to continue 
 this co-operation in the election of 1860, upon the principles 
 of the Cincinnati platform ; but demanded, as a condition pre 
 cedent to this, that the question of the construction of this 
 platform should be satisfactorily settled. To this end, the 
 State Rights Democratic party in several of the Southern 
 States defined the conditions upon which their delegates should 
 hold seats in the National Convention, appointed to meet at 
 Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. The Democracy in Al 
 abama moved first. On the llth of January, 1860, they met 
 in convention at Montgomery, and adopted a series of resolu 
 
36 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tions, from which the following are extracted, as presenting a 
 summary declaration of the rights of the South, a recapitula 
 tion of the territorial question, and a definition of those issue* 
 on which the contest of 1860 was to be conducted : 
 
 Resolved, by the Democracy of the State of Alabama in Convention assem 
 bled, That holding all issues and principles upon which they have heretofore 
 affiliated and acted with the National Democratic party to be inferior in dig 
 nity and importance to the great question of slavery, they content themselves 
 with a general reaffirmance of the Cincinnati platform as to such issues, 
 and also indorse said platform as -to slavery, together with the following 
 resolutions : 
 
 Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States, is a compact between 
 sovereign and co-equal States, united upon the basis of perfect equality of 
 rights and privileges. 
 
 Resolved, further, That the Territories of the United States are common 
 property, in which the States have equal rights, and to which the citizens of 
 any State may rightfully emigrate, with their slaves or other property 
 recognized as such in any of the States of the Union, or by the Constitution 
 of the United States. 
 
 Resolved, further, That the Congress of the United States has no power to 
 abolish slavery in the Territories, or to prohibit its introduction into any of 
 them. 
 
 Resolved, further, That the Territorial Legislatures, created by the legisla 
 tion of Congress, have no power to abolish slavery, or to prohibit the intro 
 duction of the same, or to impair by unfriendly legislation the security and 
 full enjoyment of the same within the Territories ; and such constitutional 
 power certainly does not belong to the people of the Territories in any capa 
 city, before, in the exercise of a lawful authority, they form a Constitution, 
 preparatory to admission as a State into the Union ; and their action in the 
 exercise of such lawful authority certainly cannot operate or take effect before 
 their actual admission as a State into the Union. 
 
 Resolved, further, That the principles enunciated by Chief Justice Taney, 
 in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, deny to the Territorial Legislature the 
 power to destroy or impair, by any legislation whatever, the right of property 
 in slaves, and maintain it to be the duty of the Federal Government, in all of 
 its departments, to protect the rights of the owner of such property in the 
 Territories ; and the principles so declared are hereby asserted to be the rights 
 of the South, and the South should maintain them. 
 
 Resolved, further, That we hold all of the foregoing propositions to contain 
 " cardinal principles" true in themselves and just and proper and neces 
 sary for the safety of all that is dear to us ; and we do hereby instruct our 
 delegates to the Charleston Convention to present them for the calm con 
 sideration and approval of that body from whose justice and patriotism we 
 anticipate their adoption. 
 
 Resolved, further, That our delegates to the Charleston Convention are 
 hereby expressly instructed to insist that ouid Convention shall adopt a plat 
 
THE j?iftST TEAR. 37 
 
 form of principles, recognizing distinctly the rights of the South as asserted 
 In the foregoing resolutions ; and if the said National Convention shall refuse 
 to adopt, in substance, the propositions embraced in the preceding resolutions, 
 prior to nominating candidates, our delegates to said Convention are hereby 
 positively instructed to withdraw therefrom. 
 
 Under these resolutions the delegates from Alabama re 
 ceived their appointment to the Charleston Convention. The 
 delegates from some of the other Cotton States were appointed 
 under instructions equally binding. Anxious as were the 
 Southern delegates to continue their connection with the Con 
 vention, and thus to maintain the nationality of the Demo 
 cratic party, they agreed to accept, as the> substance of the 
 Alabama platform, either of the two following reports which 
 had been submitted to the Charleston Convention by the ma 
 jority of the Committee on Resolutions this majority not 
 only representing that of the States of the Union, but the only 
 States at all likely to be carried by the Democratic party in 
 the Presidential election : 
 
 I. 
 
 Resolved, That the platform at Cincinnati be reaffirmed with the following 
 resolutions : 
 
 Resolved, That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal 
 principles on the subject of slavery in the Territories : First, that Congress 
 has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories. Second, that the Territo 
 rial Legislature has no power to abolish slavery in any Territory, nor to 
 prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any power to exclude slavery 
 therefrom, nor any power to destroy and impair the right of property in 
 slaves by any legislation whatever. 
 
 IL 
 
 Resolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincinnati 
 be affirmed, with the following explanatory resolutions : 
 
 First. That the government of a Territory, organized by an act of Congress, 
 is provisional and temporary ; and, during its existence, all citizens of the 
 United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Terri 
 tory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or im 
 paired by congressional or territorial legislation. 
 
 Second. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its depart 
 ments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the 
 Territories and wherever else its constitutional authority extends. 
 
 Third. That when the settlers in a Territory having an adequate popula 
 tion form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and 
 
38 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equa* 
 footing with the people of other States ; and the State thus organized, ough 
 to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its Constitution prohibits or 
 ecognizes the institution of slavery. 
 
 The Convention refused to accept either of the foregoing 
 resolutions, and adopted, by a vote of 165 to 138, the follow 
 ing as its platform on the slavery question : 
 
 1. Resolved, That we, the Democracy of the Union, in Convention assem 
 bled, hereby declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously adopted 
 and declared as a platform of principles by the Democratic Convention at 
 Cincinnati, in the year 1856, believing that Democratic principles are un 
 changeable in their nature, when applied to the same subject-matters ; and 
 we recommend as the only further resolutions the following : 
 
 Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the 
 nature and extent of the powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the 
 powers and duties of Congress under the Constitution of the United States, 
 over the institution of slavery within the Territories : 
 
 2. Resolved, That the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law. 
 
 The substitution of these resolutions for those which were 
 satisfactory to the South, occasioned the disruption of the 
 Convention, after a session of more than three weeks, and its 
 adjournment to Baltimore, on the 18th of June. The Cotton 
 States, all, withdrew from the Convention ; but the Border 
 Slave States remained in it, with the hope, of effecting some 
 ultimate settlement of the difficulty. The breach, however, 
 widened. The reassembling of the Convention at Baltimore 
 resulted in a final and embittered separation of the opposing 
 delegations. The majority exhibited a more uncompromising 
 spirit than ever ; and Virginia and all the Border Slave States, 
 with the exception of Missouri, withdrew from the Convention, 
 and united- with the representatives of the Cotton States, then 
 assembled in Baltimore, in the nomination of candidates repre 
 senting the views of the South. Their nominees were John C. 
 Breckinridge of Kentucky for President, and Joseph Lane of 
 Oregon for Vice-Presideiit. 
 
 The old Convention, or what remained of it, nominated Ste 
 phen A. Douglas of Illinois for President, and Benjamin 
 I 1 itzpatrick of Alabama for Vice-President. The latter declin- 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 39 
 
 ing, Herschel Y. Johnson of Georgia was substituted on the 
 ticket. 
 
 The Southern Democracy and the Southern people of all 
 parties, with but few exceptions, sustained the platform de 
 manded by the Southern delegates in the Convention, and jus 
 tified the course they had pursued. They recognized in the 
 platform a legimate and fair assertion of Southern rights 
 In view, however, of the conservative professions and glozed 
 speeches of a portion of the Northern Democracy, a respecta 
 ble number of Southern Democrats were induced to support 
 their ticket. Mr. Douglas proclaimed his views to be in favor 
 of non-intervention ; he avowed his continued and unalterable 
 opposition to Black Republicanism ; his principles were pro 
 fessed to be "held subject to the decisions of the Supremo 
 Court" the distinction between judicial questions and politi 
 cal questions being purposely clouded ; and his friends, with 
 an ingenious sophistry that had imposed upon the South for 
 thirty years with success, insisted that the support of Stephen 
 A. Douglas was a support of the party in the North which had 
 stood by the South amid persecution and defamation. In con 
 sequence of these and other protestations, tickets were got up 
 for Mr. Douglas in most of the Southern States. The great 
 majority, however, of the Democracy of the slave-holding 
 States, except Missouri, supported Breckinridge. 
 
 A Convention of what is called the " Constitutional Union" 
 party met in Baltimore on the 9th of May, 1860, and nomi 
 nated for President and Yice-President, John Bell of Tennes 
 see and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Their platform 
 consisted of a vague and undefined enumeration of their polit 
 ical principles; as, "The Constitution of the Country, the 
 Union of the States, and Enforcement of the Laws." 
 
 The National Convention of the Black Republican party 
 was held at Chicago, in the month of June. It adopted a plat 
 form declaring freedom to be the " normal condition" of the 
 Territories ; but ingeniously complicating its position on the 
 slavery question by a number of vague but plausible articles, 
 such as the maintenance of the principles of the Constitution, 
 and especial attachment to the Union of the States. 
 
 The Presidential ticket nominated by the Convention was 
 Abral am Lincoln of Illinois for President, and Hannibal 
 
\ 
 
 4:0 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Hamlin of Maine for Yice-President. Governed by the nar 
 row considerations of party expediency, the Convention had 
 adopted as their candidate for President a man of scanty po 
 litical record a Western lawyer, with the characteristics 01 
 that profession acuteness, slang, and a large stock of jokes- 
 and who had peculiar claims to vulgar and demagogical popu 
 larity, in the circumstances that he was once a captain oi 
 volunteers in one of the Indian wars, and, at some anterior pe 
 riod of his life, had been employed, as report differently said, 
 in splitting rails, or in rowing a flat-boat. 
 
 The great majority of the Southern Democracy supported 
 the Breckinridge ticket ; it was the leading ticket in all the 
 Slave States, except Missouri ; but in the North but a small 
 and feeble minority of the Democratic party gave it their sup 
 port. In several States, the friends of Douglas, of Breckin 
 ridge, and of Bell coalesced, to a certain extent, with a view to 
 the defeat of Lincoln, but without success, except in New Jer 
 sey, where they partially succeeded. 
 
 The result of the contest was, that Abraham Lincoln re 
 ceived the entire electoral vote of every free State, except New 
 Jersey, and was, of course, elected President of the United 
 States, according to the forms of the Constitution. 
 
 The entire popular vote for Lincoln was 1,858,200 ; that 
 for Douglas, giving him his share of the fusion vote, 1,276,780; 
 that for Breckinridge, giving him his share of the fusion vote, 
 812,500 ; and that for Bell, including his proportion of the fu 
 sion vote, 735,504. The whole vote against Lincoln was thus 
 2,824,874-, showing a clear aggregate majority against him of 
 nearly a million of votes. 
 
 During the canvass, the North had been distinctly warned 
 by the conservative parties of the country, that the election of 
 Lincoln by a strictly sectional vote would be taken as a decla 
 ration of war against the South. This position was assumed 
 on the part of the South, not so much on account of the 
 declaration of the anti-slavery principles in the Chicago plat 
 form, as from the notorious animus of the party supporting 
 Lincoln. The Chicago Convention had attempted to conceal 
 the worst designs of Abolitionism under professions of advan 
 cing the cause of freedom in strict accordance with the Const! 
 tution and the laws. The South, however, could not be igno 
 
THE FIKST YEAK. 41 
 
 rant of the fact, or wanting in appreciation of it, that Lincoln 
 had been supported by the sympathizers of John Brown, the 
 indorsers of the " Helper Book," the founders of the Kansas 
 Emigrant Aid Societies, and their desperate abetters and 
 agents, " Jim" Lane and others, and by the opponents of the 
 Fugitive Slave law. It was known, in a word, that Lincoln 
 owed his election to the worst enemies of the Soi.th, and that 
 he would naturally and necessarily select his counsellors from 
 among them, and consult their views in his administration of 
 the government. 
 
 Threats of resistance were proclaimed in the South. It is 
 true that a few sanguine persons in that section, indulging nar 
 row and temporizing views of the crisis, derived no little 
 comfort and confidence from the large preponderance of the 
 popular vote in the Presidential contest in favor of the con 
 servative candidates ; and viewed it as an augury of the speedy 
 overthrow of the first sectional administration. But those 
 whose observations were larger and comprehended the progress 
 of events, took quite a different view of the matter. They 
 could find no consolation or encouragement from the face of 
 the record. The anti-slavery party had organized in 1840, 
 with about seven thousand voters; and in 1860 had succeeded 
 in electing the President of the United States* The conserva 
 tive party in the North had been thoroughly corrupted. They 
 were beaten in every Northern State in 1860, with a single 
 exception, by the avowed enemies of the South, who, but a few 
 years ago had been powerless in their midst. The leaders of 
 the Northern Democratic party had in 1856 and in 1860 
 openly taken the position that freedom would be more certainly 
 secured in the Territories by the rule of non-intervention than 
 by any other policy or expedient. This interpretation of their 
 policy alone saved the Democratic party from entire annihila 
 tion. The overwhelming pressure of the anti-slavery senti 
 ment had prevented their acceding to the Southern platform in 
 the Presidential canvass. Nothing in the present or in the fu 
 ture could be looked for from the so-called conservatives of the 
 North ; and the South prepared to go out of a Union, which 
 no longer afforded any guaranty for her rights or any perma 
 nent sense of security, and which had brought her under the 
 domination of a growing fanaticism in the North, the senti- 
 
42 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ments of. which, if carried into legislation, would destroy her 
 institutions, confiscate the property of her people, and even 
 involve their lives. 
 
 The State of South Carolina acted promptly and vigorous 
 ly, with no delay for argument, and but little for prepara 
 tion. Considering- the argument as fully exhausted, she de 
 termined, by the exercise of her rights as a sovereign State, to 
 separate herself from the Union. Her Legislature called a 
 Convention immediately after the result of the Presidential 
 election had been ascertained. The Convention met a few 
 weeks thereafter, and on the 20th day of December, 1860, for 
 mally dissolved the connection of South Carolina with the 
 Union, by an ordinance of Secession, which was passed by a 
 unanimous vote. 
 
 On the same day Major Anderson, who was in command of 
 the Federal forces in Charleston harbor, evacuated Fort 
 Moultrie, spiking the guns and burning the gun-carriages, and 
 occupied Fort Sumter, with a view of strengthening his po 
 sition. On the 30th of December, John B. Floyd, Secretary of 
 War, resigned his office, because President Buchanan refused 
 to order Major Anderson back to Fort Moultrie Mr. Floyd 
 alleging that he and the President had pledged the authorities 
 of South Carolina that the existing military status of the United 
 States in that State should not be changed during the expiring 
 term of the Democratic administration. 
 
 The withdrawal of South Carolina from the Union produced 
 some sensation in the North, but the dominant party treated it 
 lightly. Many of these jeered at it ; their leaders derided the 
 right of secession ; ? and their newspapers prophesied that 
 the "rebellion" in South Carolina would be reduced to the 
 most ignominious extremity the moment the "paternal govern 
 ment" of the United States should resolve to have recourse 
 from peaceful persuasions to the chastisement of "a spoilt- 
 child." The events, however, which rapidly succeeded the 
 withdrawal of South Carolina, produced a deep impression 
 upon all reflecting minds, and startled, to some extent, the 
 masses of the North, who would have been much more alarmed 
 but for their vain and long-continued assurance that the South 
 had no means or resources for making a serious resistance to 
 the Federal authority ; and that a rebellion which could at any 
 

 THE FIRST YEAR. 43 
 
 time be crushed on short notice, might be pleasantly humored 
 or wisely tolerated to any extent short of the actual com 
 mencement of hostilities. 
 
 On the 9th day of January, 1861, the State of Mississipp 
 seceded from the Union. Alabama and Florida followed on 
 the llth day of the same month ; Georgia on the 20th ; 
 Louisiana on the 26th; and Texas on the 1st of February. Thus, 
 in less than three months after the announcement of Lincoln s 
 election, all the Cotton States, with the exception of Alabama, 
 had seceded from the Union, and had, besides, secured every 
 Federal fort within their limits, except the forts in Charles 
 ton harbor, and Fort Pickens, below Pensacola, which were 
 retained by United States troops. 
 
 The United States Congress had, at the beginning of its ses 
 sion in December, 1860, appointed committees in both houses 
 to consider the state of the Union. Neither committee was 
 able to agree upon any mode of settlement of the pending issue 
 between the North and the South. The Republican members 
 in both committees rejected propositions acknowledging the 
 right of property in slaves, or recommending the division of 
 the territories between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding 
 States by a geographical line. In the Senate, the propositions, 
 commonly known as Mr. Crittenden s, were voted against by 
 every Republican senator / and the House, on a vote of yeas 
 and nays, refused to consider certain propositions, moved by 
 Mr. Etheridge, which were even less favorable to the South 
 than Mr. Crittenden s. 
 
 A resolution, giving a pledge to sustain the President in the 
 use of force against seceding States, was adopted in the House 
 of Representatives by a large majority; and, in the Senate, 
 every Republican voted to substitute for Mr. Crittenden s 
 propositions, resolutions offered by Mr. Clarke, of New Hamp 
 shire, declaring that no new concessions, guaranties, or amend 
 ments to the Constitution were necessary; that the demands of 
 the South were unreasonable, and that the remedy for the 
 present dangers was simply to enforce the laws in other 
 words coercion and war. 
 
 On the 19th day of January, the Legislature of the State 
 of Virginia had passed resolutions having in view a peaceful 
 settlement of the questions which threatened the Union, and 
 
44 SOUTHERN If] STORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 suggesting that a National Peace Conference slioul J oe held in 
 Washington on the 4th of February. This suggestion met with 
 a favorable response from the Border Slave States and from 
 professed conservatives in the North. The Conference met on 
 the day designated, and Ex-President Tyler, of Virginia, was 
 called to preside over its deliberations. It remained in session 
 several days, and adjourned without agreeing upon any satis 
 factory plan of adjustment. 
 
 Most of the delegates from the Border Slave States indicated 
 a willingness to accept the few and feeble guaranties contained 
 in the resolutions offered, a short time before, in the Senate by 
 Mr. Crittenden. These guaranties, paltry and ineffectual as 
 they were, would not be conceded by the representatives of 
 the Northern States. The Peace Conference finally adopted 
 what was called the Franklin Substitute in lieu of the propo 
 sitions offered by Mr. Outline, of Kentucky a settlement less 
 favorable to the South- than that proposed by Mr. Crittenden. 
 It is useless to recount the details of these measures. Neither 
 the Crittenden propositions, the Franklin Substitute, nor any 
 plan that pretended to look for the guaranty of Southern 
 rights, received a respectful notice from the Republican ma 
 jority in Congress. 
 
 Shortly after its assemblage in January, the Virginia Legis 
 lature had called a Convention of the people to decide upon 
 the course proper to be pursued by the State, with reference 
 to her present relations to the Union and the future exigencies 
 of her situation. The election was held on the 4th of February, 
 and resulted in the choice of a majority of members opposed 
 to unconditional secession. Subsequently, Tennessee and North 
 Carolina decided against calling a Convention the former by 
 a large, the latter by a very small majority. These events 
 greatly encouraged the enemies of the South, but without 
 cause, as they^really indicated nothing more than the purpose 
 of the Border Slave States to await the results of the peace 
 propositions, to which they had committed themselves. 
 
 In the mean time, the seceding States were erecting the 
 structure of a government on the foundation of a new Con 
 federation of States. A convention of delegates from the six 
 Beceding States assembled in Congress at Montgomery, Ala 
 bama, on the 4th of February, 1861, for the purpose of organ- 
 

 
C . B . Hidiaidson, Publisher . 
 
THE FIKST YEAB. 45 
 
 izing a provisional government. This body adopted a Consti 
 tution for the Confederate States on the 8th of February. On 
 the 9th of February, Congress proceeded to the election of a 
 President and Vi-ce-President, and unanimously agreed upon 
 Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, for President, and Alexander 
 H. Stephens, of Georgia, for Yice-President. Mr. Davis was 
 inaugurated Provisional President on the 18th of February, 
 and delivered an address, explaining the revolution as a change 
 of the constituent parts, but not the system, of the government, 
 and referring to the not unreasonable expectation that, with a 
 Constitution differing only from that of their fathers, in so far 
 as it was explanatory of their well-known intent, freed from 
 sectional conflicts, the States from which they had recently 
 parted might seek to unite their fortunes to those of the new 
 Confederacy. 
 
 President Buchanan had, in his message to Congress, de 
 nounced Secession as revolutionary, but had hesitated at the 
 logical conclusion of the right of " coercion," on the part of 
 the Federal Government, as not warranted by the text of the 
 Constitution. Timid, secretive, cold, and with no other policy 
 than that of selfish expediency, the remnant of his administra 
 tion was marked by embarrassment, double-dealing, and weak 
 and contemptible querulousness. He had not hesitated, under 
 the pressure of Northern clamor, to refuse to .)rder Major 
 Anderson back to Fort Moultrie, thus violating the pledge 
 that xhe had given to the South Carolina authorities, that the 
 military status of the United States in Charleston harbor 
 should not be disturbed during his administration. He added 
 to the infamy of this perfidy by a covert attempt to reinforce 
 Fort Sumter, under the specious plea of provisioning a "starv 
 ing garrison ;" and when the Federal steamship, the Star of 
 the West, which was sent on this mission, was, on the 9th of 
 January, driven off Charleston harbor by the, South Carolina 
 batteries on Morris Island, he had the hardihood to affect 
 surprise and indignation at the reception given the Federal 
 reinforcements, and to insist that the expedition had been 
 ordered with the concurrence of his Cabinet, including Mr. 
 Thompson, of Mississippi, then Secretary of the Interior, who 
 repelled the slander, denounced the movement as underhanded, 
 and as a breach not only of good faith towards South Carolina, 
 
4:6 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 but of personal confidence between the President and his ad 
 visers, and left the Cabinet in disgust. 
 
 On the incoming of the administration of Abraham Lincoln, 
 on the 4th of March, the rival government of the South had 
 perfected its organization; the separation had been widened 
 and envenomed by the ambidexterity and perfidy of President 
 Buchanan ; the Southern people, however, still hoped for a 
 peaceful accomplishment of their independence, and deplored 
 war between the two sections, as " a policy detrimental to the 
 civilized world." The revolution in the mean time had rapidly 
 gathered, not only in moral power, but in the means of war 
 and the muniments of defence. Fort Moultrie and Castle 
 Pinckney had been captured by the South Carolina troops; 
 Fort Pulaski, the defence of the Savannah, had been taken ; 
 the arsenal at Mount Yernon, Alabama, with 20,000 stand of 
 arms, had been seized by the Alabama troops ; Fort Morgan, 
 in Mobile Bay, had been taken ; Forts Jackson, St. Philip, 
 and Pike, near New Orleans, had been captured by the Louis 
 iana troops; the Pensacola Navy- Yard and For*.s Barrancas 
 and Mcllae had been taken, and the siege of Fort Pickens 
 commenced ; the Baton Rouge Arsenal had been surrendered 
 to the Louisiana troops ; the New Orleans Mint and Custom- 
 House had been taken; the Little Hock Arsenal had been 
 seized by tL Arkansas troops ; and, on the 16th of February, 
 General Twiggs had transferred the public property in Texas 
 to the State authorities. All of these events had been accom 
 plished without bloodshed. Abolitionism and Fanaticism had 
 not yet lapped blood. But reflecting men saw that the peace 
 was deceitful and temporizing ; that the temper of the North 
 was impatient and dark ; and that, if all history was not a lie, 
 the first incident of bloodshed would be the prelude to a war 
 of monstrous proportions. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Mr. Lincoln s Journey to Washington. Ceremonies of the Inauguration. The ln- 
 angural Speech of President Lincoln. The Spirit of the New Administration. Its Fi 
 nancial Condition. Embassy from the Southern Confederacy. Perfidious Treatment 
 of the Southern Commissioners. Preparations for War. The Military Bills of the 
 Confederate Congress. General Beauregard. Fortifications of Charleston Harbor. 
 Naval Preparations of the Federal Government. Attempted Reinforcement of Fort 
 Sumter. Perfidy of the Federal Government. Excitement in Charleston. Reduction 
 of Fort Sumter by the Confederate Forces. How the News was received in Wash 
 ington. Lincoln s Calculation. His Proclamation of WAR. The u Reaction" in the 
 North. Displays of Rancor towards the South. Northern Democrats. Replies of 
 Southern Governors to Lincoln s Requisition for Troops. Spirit of the South. Seces 
 sion of Virginia. Maryland. The Baltimore Riot. Patriotic Example of Missouri. 
 Lincoln s Proclamation blockading the Southern Ports. General Lee. The Federals 
 evacuate Harper s Ferry. Burning of the Navy Yard at Norfolk. The Second Seces- 
 sionary Movement. Spirit of Patriotic Devotion in the South. Supply of Arms in 
 the South. The Federal Government and the State of Maryland. The Prospect. 
 
 THE circumstances of the advent of Mr. Lincoln to Wash 
 ington were not calculated to inspire confidence in his courage 
 or wisdom, or in the results of his administration. His party 
 had busily prophesied, and sought to innoculate the North with 
 the conviction, that his assumption of the Presidential office 
 would be the signal of the restoration of peace ; that by some 
 mysterious ingenuity he would resolve the existing political 
 complication, restore the Union, and inaugurate a season of 
 unexampled peace, harmony, and prosperity. These weak and 
 fulsome prophecies had a certain effect. In the midst of anx 
 iety and embarrassment, in which no relief had yet been 
 suggested, the inauguration of a new administration of the 
 government was looked to by many persons in the North, out 
 side the Republican party, with a vague sense of hope, which 
 was animated by reports, quite as uncertain, of the vigor, 
 decision, and individuality of the new President. For months 
 since the announcement of his election, Mr. Lincoln s lips had 
 been closed. He had been studiously silent; expectations were 
 raised by what was thought to be an indication of a mysteri 
 ous wisdom ; and the North impatiently waited for the hour 
 when the oracle s lips were to be opened. 
 
 These vague expectations were almost ludicrously disap 
 pointed. On leaving his home, in Springfield, Illinois, for 
 
48 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Washington, Mr. Lincoln had at last opened his lips. In the 
 speeches with which he entertained the crowd that at different 
 points of the railroad watched his progress to the capital, he 
 amused the whole country, even in the midst of a great public 
 anxiety, with his ignorance, his vulgarity, his flippant conceit, 
 and his Western phraseology. The North discovered that the 
 new President, instead of having nursed a masterly wisdom in 
 the retirement of his home at Springfield, and approaching 
 the capital with dignity, had nothing better to offer to an 
 agonized country than the ignorant conceits of a low Western 
 politician, and the flimsy jests of a harlequin. His railroad 
 speeches were characterized by a Southern paper as illustrating 
 " the delightful combination of a Western county lawyer with 
 a Yankee bar-keeper." In his harangues to the crow r ds which 
 intercepted him in his journey, at a time when the country was 
 in revolutionary chaos, when commerce and trade were pros 
 trated, ar.d when starving women and idle men were among the 
 yery audiences that listened to him, he declared to them in his 
 peculiar phraseology that " nobody was hurt" that " all would 
 come out rig Jit" and that there w r as "nothing going wrong" 
 Nor was the rhetoric of the new President his only entertain 
 ment of the crowds that assembled to honor the progress of his 
 journey, to Washington. He amused them by the spectacle 
 of kissing, on a public platform, a lady-admirer, who had sug 
 gested to him the cultivation of his whiskers; he measured 
 heights with every tall man he encountered in one of his public 
 receptions, and declared that he was not to be " overtopped ;" 
 and he made public exhibitions of his wife " the little woman, * 
 he called her whose chubby figure, motherly face, and fond 
 ness for finery and colors recommended her to a very limited 
 and very vulgar portion of the society of her sex. 
 
 Tiiese jests and indecencies of the demagogue who was to 
 take control of what remained of the Govern merit of the United 
 States, belong to history. Whatever their disgrace, it was 
 surpassed, however, by another display of character on the part 
 of tiie coining statesman. While at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 
 and intending to proceed from there to Baltimoie, Mr. Lincoln 
 was alarmed by a report, which was either silly or jocose, that 
 a baud of assassins were awaiting him in the latter city. 
 Frightened beyond all considerations of dignity and decency 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 4-0 
 
 the new President of the United States left Ilarrisburg at 
 night, on a different route than that through Baltimore; and in 
 a motley disguise, composed of a Scotch cap and military cloak 
 stole to the capital of his government. The distinguished 
 fugitive had left his wife and family to pursue the route on 
 which it was threatened that the cars were to be thrown down 
 a precipice by Secessionists, or, if that expedient failed, the 
 work of assassination was to be accomplished in the streets of 
 Baltimore. The city of Washington was taken by surprise by 
 the irregular flight of the President to its shelter and protec 
 tion. The representatives of his own party there received him 
 with evident signs of disgust at the cowardice which had hur 
 ried his arrival in Washington ; but as an example of the early 
 prostitution of the press of that parasitical city to the incom- 
 *ng administration that was to feed its venal lusts, the escapade 
 of Mr. Lincoln was, with a shamelessness almost incredible, 
 exploited as an ingenious and brilliant feat, and entitled, in 
 the newspaper extras that announced his arrival, as " another 
 Fort Moulirie coup de main" referring to the fraud by which 
 the government had stolen a march by midnight to the supposed 
 impregnable defences of Fort Sumter. 
 
 But Mr. Lincoln s fears for his personal safety evidently did 
 not subside with his attainment of the refuges of Washington. 
 A story was published seriously in a New York paper, that at 
 the moment of his inauguration he was to be shot on the Cap 
 itol steps, by an air-gun, in the hands of a Secessionist selected 
 for this desperate and romantic task of assassination. The 
 President, with nerves already shattered by his flight from 
 Karrisburg, was easily put in a new condition of alarm. An 
 armed guard was posted around Willard s hotel, where he had 
 taken temporary quarters. Preparations were busily made to 
 organize a military protection for the ceremony of the inaugu 
 ration. The city of Washington had already been invested 
 with large military forces, under the immediate command ol 
 General Scott, whose vanity and weak love of public sensations^ 
 had easily induced him to pretend alarm, and to make a mili 
 tary display, more on his own account than for the ridiculous 
 and absurd object of Mr. Lincoln s personal security. For 
 weeks the usually quiet city had been filled with Federal 
 bayonets ; the bugle s reveille, the roll of drums, and the tramp 
 
50 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of armed guards startled, in every direction, the civilian ol 
 Washington, who had been accustomed to nothing more war 
 like than parades at the Navy Yard and rows in Congress: 
 companies of flying artillery daily paraded the streets and 
 thundered over its pavements ; and no form of ostentation was 
 omitted by the senile and conceited general in command, to 
 give the Federal metropolis the appearance of a conquered 
 city. 
 
 The hour of the inauguration the morning of the fourth of 
 March at length arrived. Mr. Lincoln was dressed in a suit 
 of black for the occasion, and, at the instance of his friends, 
 had submitted to the offices of a hair-dresser. He entered the 
 barouche that was to convey him to the Capitol, with a nervous 
 agitation and an awkwardness, that were plainly evident to the 
 crowd. His person attracted the curiosity of the mob. Of 
 unusual height, the effect of his figure was almost ludicrous, 
 from a swinging gait and the stoop of his shoulders; a cadav 
 erous face, whose expression was that of a sort of funereal hu 
 mor; long, swinging arms, with the general hirsute appearance 
 of the Western countryman, made up the principal features of 
 the new President. 
 
 The inauguration ceremony was attended by a most extraor 
 dinary military display, under the immediate direction of Gen 
 eral Scott; who, to give it an appearance of propriety, and to 
 increase its importance, affected the most uneasy alarms. Pre 
 vious to inanguration day, the vaults of the Capitol were ex 
 plored for evidences of a gunpowder plot to hurry Mr. Lincoln 
 and his satellites into eternity. In the procession along Penn 
 sylvania Avenue, the President was hid from public view in a 
 hollow square of cavalry, three or four deep. The tops of the 
 houses along the route were occupied by soldiery watching for 
 signs of tumult or assassination. Artillery and infantry com 
 panies were posted in different parts of the city ; officers were 
 continually passing to and tro; and as the procession ap 
 proached the Capitol, Gen. Scott, who was in constant commu 
 nication with all quarters of the city, was heard to exclaim, in 
 a tone of relief, " every thing is going on peaceably ; thank 
 God Almighty for it." The expression of relief was simply 
 ridiculous. The ceremony was disturbed by but a single inci 
 dent: as the procession neared the portico of the Capitol, a 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 51 
 
 drunken man, who had climbed up one of the trees on the 
 avenue, amused himself by striking with, a staff the boughs of 
 the tree and shouting to the crowd. 13xG thought flashed upon 
 the minds of the special police, that he might be the identical 
 assassin with the air-gun ; he was instantly seized by a dozen 
 of them, and hurried from the scene of the ceremony with a 
 rapidity and decision that for a moment alarmed, and then 
 amused, the crowd. Mr. Lincoln delivered his inaugural from 
 the East portico of die Capitol, to an audience huddled within 
 the lines of the District militia, and with a row of bayonets 
 glittering at his feet. 
 
 The inaugural w r as intended to be ambiguous; it proposed to 
 cozen the South by a cheap sentimentalism, and, at the same 
 time, to gratify the party that had elevated Mr. Lincoln, by a 
 sufficient expression of the designs of the new administration. 
 These designs were sufficiently apparent. Mr. Lincoln pro 
 tested that he should take care that the laws of the United 
 States were faithfully executed in all the States ; he declared 
 that in doing this, there was no necessity for bloodshed or vio 
 lence, "unless it was forced upon the national authority." He 
 promised that the power confided to him would be used to 
 hold, occupy, and possess the forts and places belonging to the 
 government, "but," continued the ambidexterous speaker, 
 44 ley <ond what may be necessary for these objects, there will 
 be no invasion, no using of force against or among any people 
 anywhere." 
 
 In the South, the inaugural was generally taken as a premo 
 nition of war. There were other manifestations of the spirit 
 of the new administration. Violent Abolitionists and men 
 whose hatred of the South was notorious and unrelenting, were 
 placed in every department of the public service. William H. 
 Seward was made Secretary of State ; Salmon P. Chase, Sec 
 retary of the Treasury; and Montgomery Blair, Postmaster- 
 general. Anson Burlingame was sent as representative to 
 Austria; Cassias M. Clay, to Russia; Carl Shurz, to Spain ; 
 James E. Harvey, to Portugal ; Charles F. Adams, to Eng 
 land; and Joshua E. Giddings, to Canada. In the Senate, 
 which was convened in an extra session to confirm executive 
 appointments and to transact other public business, Charles 
 S unner was appointed Chairman of Foreign Eolations ; Wil 
 
52 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 Ham P. Fessenden, of Finance ; and Pleniy Wilson, of ^ j- 
 tary Affairs. A portion of the time of this extra session was 
 consumed in discussing the policy of the administration. &Ir. 
 Douglas, who had represented the Northern Democracy in the 
 Presidential contest, and still claimed to represent it, and who 
 had already courted the new administration of his rival had 
 held Mr. Lincoln s hat at the inauguration ceremony, and en 
 acted the part of Mrs. Lincoln s cavalier at the inauguration 
 ball essayed to give to the President s inaugural a peace in 
 terpretation, and to soften what had been foreshadowed of his 
 policy. The efforts of the demagogue were ill-timed and 
 paltry. Senators from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Ken 
 tucky, Arkansas, Missouri, and North Carolina, who still con 
 tinued in the councils of the government, remained long enough 
 to witness the subversion of all the principles that had before 
 contributed to the prosperity and stability of the American 
 Government ; to learn, as far as possible, the course the gov 
 ernment would pursue towards the Confederate States ; and to 
 return home to prepare their people for the policy of discord, 
 conflict, and civil war which had been inaugurated. 
 
 The financial condition of the government at the time of Mr. 
 Lincoln s accession was by no means desperate. There was a 
 balance in the Treasury of six millions, applicable to current 
 expenses ; the receipts from customs were estimated at eighty 
 thousand dollars per day; and it was thought that a loan 
 would not be called for for some time, should there be a happy 
 continuation of peace. 
 
 The Confederate States government at Montgomery had 
 shown nothing of a desperate or tumultuous spirit ; it had not 
 watched events with recklessness as to their conclusion ; it was 
 anxious for peace ; and it gave a rare evidence of the virtue 
 and conservatism of a new government, which was historically 
 the fruit of a revolution, by the most sedulous efforts to avoid 
 all temptations to violence, and to resist the consequence of 
 \var. Soon after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, it had de 
 puted an embassy of commissioners to Washington, authorized 
 to negotiate for the removal of the Federal garrisons from 
 Forts Pick ens and Sumter, and to provide for the settlement 
 of all claims of public property arising out of the separation oi 
 the States from the Union. Two oi the commissioners, Martin 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 53 
 
 Crawford, of Georgia, and John Forsythe, of Alabama, at 
 tended in Washington, and addressed a communication to Mr, 
 Seward, which explained the functions of the embassy and its 
 purposes. 
 
 Hr. Seward declined for the present to return an official 
 answer to the commissioners, or to recognize in an official light 
 their humane and amicable mission. His government had re 
 solved on a policy of perfidy. The commissioners were amused 
 from week to week with verbal assurances that the government 
 was disposed to recognize them ; that to treat with them at the 
 particular juncture might seriously embarrass the administra 
 tion of Mr. Lincoln ; that they should be patient and confident ; 
 and that in the mean time the military status of the United 
 States in the South would not be disturbed. Judge Campbell, 
 of the Supreme Court, had consented to be the intermediary 
 of these verbal conferences. "When the sequel of the perfidy 
 of the administration was demonstrated, he wrote two notes to 
 Mr. Seward, distinctly charging him with overreaching and 
 equivocation, to which Mr. Seward never attempted a defence 
 or a reply. 
 
 The dalliance with the commissioners was not the only de 
 ceitful indication of peace. It was given out and confidently 
 reported in the newspapers, that Fort Sumter ^was to be evacu 
 ated by the Federal forces. The delusion was continued for 
 weeks. The Black Republican party, of course, resented this 
 reported policy of the government; but a number of their 
 newspapers endeavored to compose the resentment by the 
 arguments that the evacuation would be ordered solely on the 
 ground of military necessity, as it would be impossible to rein 
 force the garrison without a very extensive demonstration of 
 force, which the government was not then prepared to make ; 
 that the purposes of the administration had not relaxed, and 
 that the evacuation of Sumter was, as one of the organs of the 
 administration expressed it, but " the crouch of the tiger be 
 fore he leaped." 
 
 It was true that the condition of the garrison of Fort Sumter 
 had been a subject of Cabinet consultation ; but it was after 
 wards discovered that all that had been decided by the advisers 
 of the President, among whom General Scott had been admit 
 ted, was that military reinforcement of the fort was, under the 
 
64 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 circumstances, impracticable. There never was an intention to 
 evacuate it. The embarrassment of the government was, to 
 avoid the difficulty of military reinforcements by some artifice 
 that would equally well answer its purposes. That artifice 
 continued for a considerable time to be the subject of secret 
 and sedulous consultation. 
 
 While a portion of the public were entertained in watching 
 the surface of events, and were imposed upon by deceitful 
 signs of peace, discerning men saw the inevitable consequence 
 in the significant preparations made on both sides for war. 
 These preparations had gone on unremittingly since the inau 
 guration of the Lincoln government. The troops of the United 
 States were called from the frontiers to the military centres \ 
 the Mediterranean squadron and other naval forces were or 
 dered home ; and the city of Washington itself was converted 
 into a school where there were daily and ostentatious instruc 
 tions of the soldier. On the other hand, the government at 
 Montgomery was not idle. Three military bills had been passed 
 by the Confederate Congress. The first authorized the raising 
 of one hundred thousand volunteers when deemed necessary by 
 the President ; the second provided for the Provisional Army 
 of the Confederate States, which was to be formed from the 
 regular and volunteer forces of the different States ; and the 
 third provided for the organization of a Regular Army, which 
 was to be a permanent establishment. But among the strong 
 est indications of the probability of war, in the estimation of 
 men calculated to judge of the matter, and among the most 
 striking proofs, too, of devotion to the cause of the South, was 
 the number of resignations from the Federal army and navy 
 on the part of officers of Southern birth or association, and 
 their prompt identification with the Confederate service. These 
 resignations had commenced during the close of Mr. Buchan 
 an s administration. On the accession of Mr. Lincoln, Adjutant- 
 general Cooper had immediately resigned ; and the distinguish 
 ed example was followed by an array of names, which had 
 been not a little illustrious in the annals of the Federal service. 
 
 "While the South was entreating peace, and pursuing its 
 accomplishment by an amicable mission to Washington, a 
 strong outside pressure was being exerted upon the adminis 
 tration of Mr. Lincoln to hurrv it to the conclusion of war 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 55 
 
 He had been visited by a number of governors of the North 
 ern States. They offered him money and men ; but it was 
 understood that nothing would be done in the way of calling 
 out the State militia and opening special credits, until the 
 Southern revolutionists should be actually in aggression to the 
 authority of the Federal government. Another appeal was 
 still more effectively urged. It was the argument of the par 
 tisan. The report of the intended evacuation of Fort Sumter, 
 and the apparent vacillation of the administration, were pro 
 ducing disaffection in the Black Republican party. This party 
 had shown a considerable loss of strength in the municipal 
 elections in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and other parts of the "West ; 
 they had lost two congressmen in Connecticut and two in 
 Rhode Island. The low tariff, too, of the Southern Confederacy, 
 brought into competition with the high protective tariff which 
 the Black Republican majority in Congress had adopted, and 
 which was popularly known as "the Merrill Tariff," was 
 threatening serious disaster to the interests of New England 
 and Pennsylvania, and was indicating^he necessity of the 
 repeal of a law which was considered as an indispensable party 
 measure by the most of Mr. Lincoln s constituents. 
 
 For weeks the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln had been taxed to 
 devise some artifice for the relief of Fort Sumter, short of 
 open military reinforcements (decided to be impracticable), 
 and which would have the effect of inaugurating the war by a 
 safe indirection and under a plausible and convenient pretence. 
 The device was at length hit upon. It was accomplished by 
 the most flagrant perfidy. Mr. Seward had already given 
 assurances to the Southern commissioners, through the inter 
 mediation of Judge Campbell, that the Federal troops would 
 be removed from Fort Sumter. Referring to the draft of a 
 letter which Judge Campbell had in his hand, and proposed to 
 address to President Davis, at Montgomery, he said, "before 
 that letter reaches its destination, Fort Sumter will have been 
 evacuated." Some time elapsed, and there was reason to dis 
 trust the promise. Colonel Lamon, an agent of the Washington 
 government, was sent to Charleston, and was reported to be 
 authorized to make arrangements with Governor Pickens, 01 
 South Carolina, for the withdrawal of the Federal troops from 
 Fort Sumter. lie returned without any accomplishment oi 
 
56 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 bis reported mission. Another confidential agent of Mr. Lin 
 coin, a Mr. Fox, was permitted to visit Fort Sumter, and was 
 discovei ed to have acted the part of a spy in carrying concealed 
 dispatches to Major Anderson, and collecting information with 
 reference to a plan for the forcible reinforcement of the fort. 
 On the 7th of April, Judge Campbell, uneasy as to the good 
 faith of Mr. Seward s promise of the evacuation of Sumter 
 addressed him another note on the subject. To this the 
 emphatic and laconic reply was : " Faith as to /Sumter fully 
 kept wait and see" Six days thereafter a hostile fleet was 
 menacing Charleston, the Lincoln government threw down 
 the gauntlet of war, and the battle of Sumter was fought. 
 
 On the day succeeding the inauguration of Abraham Lin 
 coln, General P. G. Toutant Beauregard* was put in command 
 of the Confederate troops besieging Fort Sumter. His mili 
 tary record was slight, but gave evidence of genius. He was 
 the son of a wealthy and influential Louisiana planter. He 
 had graduated at the military academy at West Point, taking 
 the second honors in.j^is class, and had served in the Mexican 
 war with distinction, being twice brevetted for gallant and 
 meritorious conduct in the field the first time as captain for 
 the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco, and again as major 
 for the battle of Chapultepec. He was subsequently placed 
 by the Federal government in charge of the construction of 
 the mint and custom-house at New Orleans. He had been or 
 dered by Mr. Buchanan to West Point as superintendent of 
 the military academy. The appointment was revoked within 
 forty-eight hours for a spiteful reason the family connection 
 of the nominee with Mr. Slidell, of . Louisiana ; and Major 
 Beauregard, resigning his commission at once, received higher 
 rank in the army of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 * Beauregard is forty years of age. He is small, brown, thin, extremely 
 rigorous, although his features wear a dead expression, and his hair has 
 whitened prematurely. Face, physiognomy, tongue, accent every thing about 
 him is French. He is quick, a little abrupt, but well educated and distin- 
 guished in his manners. He does not care to express the manifestation of an 
 ardent personality which knows its worth. He is extremely impassioned in 
 the defence of the cause which he serves. At least he takes less pains to con 
 ceal his passion under a calm and cold exterior than do most of his comrade* 
 in the army. The South found in him a man of an uncommon ardor, a cease 
 ess activity, and an indomitable power of will. 
 

THE FIRST YEAR. 57 
 
 On taking command of the Confederate forces fit Charleston, 
 General Beauregard at once gave the benefit of his eminent 
 skill as a military engineer, which merit had been recognized 
 in him before, and had procured his elevation to the importan 
 and critical command in front of Fort Sumter, to the con 
 struction of works for the reduction of the fort, and the de 
 fence of the entrances to the harbor. At the time of Major 
 Anderson s removal to Sumter, the approaches to the harbor 
 were only defended by the uninjured guns at Fort Moultrie, 
 and three 24-pounder guns mounted en barbette on a hastily 
 constructed and imperfect earthwork on Mori-is Island. The 
 injured guns were replaced, and all, amounting to thirty-eight 
 in number, of various calibres, were protected by well-con 
 structed merlons; lines of batteries were constructed on the 
 east and west on Sullivan s Island ; at Cummings Point on 
 Morris Island, the nearest land to Fort Sumter, batteries of 
 mortars and columbiads were erected, protected by an iron 
 fortification of novel and formidable construction ; and another 
 novelty in iron fortifications was perfected by the skilful and 
 practical genius of the commander in a floating battery, con 
 structed of the peculiarly fibrous palmetto timber, sheathed 
 with plate iron, and embrasured for and mounting four guns 
 of heavy calibre. 
 
 Notwithstanding the extent and skill of the besiegers works, 
 Fort Sumter was declared, by a number of military critics, to 
 be impregnable. It certainly had that appearance to the un 
 scientific eye. The fortification, a modern truncated pentag 
 onal fort, rose abruptly out of the water at the mouth of 
 Charleston harbor, three and a half miles from the city. It 
 was built on an artificial island, having for its base a sand and 
 mud bank, which had been made secure by long and weary 
 labors in firmly imbedding in it refuse blocks and chips from 
 the granite .quarries of the Northern States. The foundation 
 alone had cost the government half a million of dollars, and 
 had occupied ten years in its construction. At the time oi 
 Major Anderson s occupation of the fortification, it was so 
 nearly completed as to admit the introduction of its armament 
 The walls were of solid brick and concrete masonry, sixty feet 
 high and from eight to twelve feet in thickness, and pierced 
 for three tiers of guns on the northern, eastern, and western 
 
58 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 exterior sides, They were built close to the edge of the water 
 and without a berme. 
 
 The advantages of delay which the Lincoln government had 
 obtained by the pretence of the evacuation of Surater, and the 
 adroitness of Mr. Seward with the commissioners, had been 
 profitably employed by it in naval and other preparations for 
 its meditated blow on the Southern coasts. Unusual activity 
 was perceptible in all the dock-yards, armories, and military 
 depots throughout the North. The arsenals of Troy and Wa 
 tertown were constantly occupied, and the creaking of blocks, 
 the clang of hammers, and the hum of midnight labor re 
 sounded through every manufactory of arms. Numerous 
 large transports were employed by the government for the con 
 veyance of soldiers and war material, and the signs of the 
 times betokened that the administration was preparing for a 
 long and bloody struggle. Within ten days from the first of 
 April, over eleven thousand men were sent from Fort Hamil 
 ton and Governor s Island. The recruiting offices in New York 
 were daily engaged in enrolling men for the Federal service 
 On the 6th of April, the frigate Powhatan was ready for sea^ 
 and, with her armament of ten heavy guns and four hundred 
 men, prepared as convoy to the transports Atlantic, Baltic, and 
 Illinois. On the 8th, the Atlantic sailed with Barry s battery 
 (four guns and ninety-one men), four hundred soldiers and a 
 large store of supplies. The same morning the steam-cutter 
 Harriet Lane, Captain J. Faunce, eight guns and one hundred 
 men, sailed for Charleston harbor. Late at night, the trans 
 port Baltic, with twenty surf-boats, stores, and two hundred 
 recruits from Governor s Island, and the transport Illinois, 
 with five hundred cases of muskets, stores, three hundred sol 
 diers, and the steam-tug Freeborn, sailed from New York har 
 bor. On the whole, besides the Powhatan, eleven vessels 
 were ordered to be got in readiness, with an aggregate force 
 of 285 guns and 2-100 men. There was now not the slightest 
 doubt that the first blow of the rival forces would be struck 
 at Sumter. The fleet dispatched to Charleston harbor con 
 sisted of the sloop-of-war Pawnee, the sloop-of-war Powhatan, 
 and the cutter Harriet Lane, witli three steam transports. 
 
 No sooner was the hostile fleet of the Federal government 
 safely on its way to the South err coasts, than the perfidy o/ 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 59 
 
 Abraham Lincoln and his advisers was openly and shamelessly 
 consummated. The mask was dropped. The Southern com 
 missioners who had been so long cozened, were distinctly re 
 buffed ; and simultaneously with the appearance of the Fed 
 eral fleet in the offing of the Charleston harbor, an official 
 message, on the 8th day of April, was conveyed to Governor 
 Pickens, of South Carolina, by Lieutenant Talbot, an author 
 ized agent of the Lincoln government, announcing the deter 
 mination of that government to send provisions to Fort Sum- 
 ter, " peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must." The mes 
 sage was telegraphed by General Beauregard to Montgomery, 
 and the instructions of his government asked. He was an 
 swered by a telegram from Mr. Walker, the Secretary of Wai*, 
 instructing him to demand the evacuation of the fort, and, if 
 that was refused, to proceed to reduce it. The demand was 
 made; it was refused. Major Anderson replied that he re 
 gretted that his sense of honor and of his obligations to his 
 government prevented his compliance with the demand. 
 Nothing was left but to accept the distinct challenge of the 
 Lincoln government to arms. 
 
 The most intense excitement prevailed in Charleston. "No 
 sooner had the official message of Mr. Lincoln been received, 
 than orders were issued to the entire military force of the city 
 to proceed to their stations. Four regiments of one thousand 
 men each, were telegraphed for from the country. Ambu 
 lances for the wounded were prepared ; surgeons were ordered 
 to their posts, and every preparation made for a regular battle. 
 Among the portentous signs, the community was thrown into 
 a fever of excitement by the discharge of seven guns from the 
 Capitol Square, the signal for the assembling of all the re 
 serves ten minutes afterwards. Hundreds of men left their 
 beds, hurrying to and fro towards their respective locations. 
 In the absence of sufficient armories, the corners of the streets, 
 the public squares, and other convenient points formed places 
 of meeting. All night long the roll of the drum and the 
 steady tramp of the military and the gallop of the cavalry, re- 
 ou n ding through the city, betokened the progress of prepara 
 tion for the long-expected hostilities. The Home Guard corps 
 of old gentlemen, who occupied the position of military ex 
 empts, rode through the city, arousing the soldiers and doing 
 
60 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 other duty required at the moment. Hundreds of the citizens 
 were up all night. A terrible thunder-storm prevailed until 
 a late hour, but iii nowise interfered with the ardor of the 
 eoldiers. 
 
 On the 12th day of April, at half-past four o clock in the 
 morning, fire was opened upon Fort Sumter. The firing was 
 deliberate, and was continued, without interruption, for twelve 
 hours. The iron battery at Cumming s Point did the most 
 effective service, perceptibly injuring the walls of the fortifica 
 tion, while the floating battery dismounted two of the parapet 
 guns. The shell batteries were served with skill and effect, 
 shells being thrown into the fort every twenty minutes. The 
 fort had replied steadily during the day. About dark, its fire 
 fell off, while ours was continued at intervals during the night. 
 The contest had been watched during the day by excited and 
 anxious citizens from every available point of observation in 
 Charleston the battery, the shipping in the harbor, and the 
 steeples of churches and, as night closed, the illuminations 
 of the shells, as they coursed the air, added a strange sublimity 
 to the scene to men who had never before witnessed the fiery 
 splendors of a bombardment. The next morning, at seven 
 o clock, the fort resumed its fire, doing no damage of conse 
 quence. A short while thereafter, the fort was discovered to 
 be on fire, and through the smoke and glare, its flag was dis 
 covered at half mast, as a signal of distress. The Federal 
 fleet, which was off the bar, contrary to all expectations, re 
 mained quietly where it was ; they did not remove from their 
 anchorage or fire a gun. In the mean. time, the conflagration, 
 which had seized upon the officers quarters and barracks at the 
 fort, continued ; it no longer responded to our fire, which was 
 kept up with an anxious look-out for tokens of surrender; its 
 garrison, black and begrimed with smoke^ were employed in 
 efforts to extinguish the conflagration, and in some instances 
 had to keep themselves lying upon their faces to avoid death 
 from suffocation. During the height of the conflagration, a 
 boat was dispatched by General Beauregard to Major Ander 
 son, with offers of assistance in extinguishing the fire. Beforo 
 it could reach the fort, the long-expected flag of truce had 
 been hoisted ; and the welcome event was instantly announced 
 in every part of the city by the ringing of bells, the pealing 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 61 
 
 of cannon, the shouts of couriers dashing through the streets, 
 and by every indication of general rejoicing. Major Ander 
 son agreed to an unconditional surrender, as demanded of him ; 
 he received of his enemy in return, the most distinguished 
 marks of lenity and consideration : his sword was returned to 
 him by General Beauregard ; himself and garrison allowed t( 
 take passage, at their convenience, for New York; and, on 
 leaving the fort, he was permitted to salute his flag with fifty 
 guns, the performance of which was attended with the melan 
 choly occurrence of mortal injuries to four of his men by the 
 bursting of two cannon. There was no other life lost in the 
 whole affair. 
 
 Thus ended the bombardment of Sumter. It had continued 
 during two days ; it was estimated that two thousand shots 
 had been fired in all ; a frowning fortification had been reduced 
 to a blackened mass of ruins ; and yet not a life had been lost, 
 or a limb injured in the engagement. 
 
 The news of the fall of Fort Sumter, when it was received in 
 Washington, did not disturb President Lincoln. He received 
 it with remarkable calmness. The usual drawing-room enter- 
 
 o 
 
 tainment at the White House was not intermitted on the even 
 ing of the day of the commencement of civil war. The same 
 evening the President turned to a Western Senator and asked, 
 " Will your State sustain me with military power ?" He made 
 no other comment on the news, which was agitating every part 
 of the country, to its foundation. 
 
 The fact was that the President had long ago calculated the 
 result and the effect, on the country, of the hostile movements 
 which he had directed against the sovereignty of South Car 
 olina. He had procured the battle of Sumter ; he had no de 
 sire or hope to retain the fort : the circumstances of the battle 
 and the non-participation of his fleet in it, were sufficient evi 
 dences, to every honest and reflecting mind, that it was not a 
 contest for victory, and that u the sending provisions to a 
 starving garrison" was an ingenious artifice to commence the 
 war that the Federal Government had fully resolved upon, 
 under the specious but shallow appearance of that government 
 being involved by the force of circumstances, rather than by 
 its own volition, in the terrible consequence of civil war. 
 
 On the 14th day of April, Mr. Lincoln published his proc 
 
32 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 lamation of war. He acted to the last in a sinister spirit 
 He had just assured the commissioners from Virginia, who had 
 been deputed to ascertain the purposes of his government, that 
 he would modify his inaugural only so far as to "perhaps cause 
 the United States mails to be withdrawn" from the seceded 
 States. The following proclamation was the " modification" 
 of the inaugural : 
 
 " Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past, and 
 now are, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of Soutb 
 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by 
 combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial 
 proceeding, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law 
 
 " Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in 
 virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws) have 
 thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth the militia of the several 
 States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in 
 order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. 
 The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State au 
 thorities through the War Department. 
 
 " I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to main 
 tain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and 
 the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long 
 enough endured. 
 
 " I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby 
 called forth, will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which 
 have been seized from the Union ; and in every event the utmost care will be 
 observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation and 
 destruction of, or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful 
 Citizens in any part of the country. And I hereby command the persons com 
 posing the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peaceably to their re- 
 upective abodes within twenty days from this date. 
 
 ******#*# 
 
 "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 
 
 The trick of the government, to which we have referred, in 
 its procurement of the battle of Sumter, is too dishonest and 
 shallow to account for the immense reaction of sentiment in 
 the North that ensued. That reaction is certainly to be attrib 
 uted to causes more intelligent and permanent than the weak 
 fallacy that the Lincoln government was not responsible for 
 the hostilities in Charleston harbor, and that the South itsel 
 had dragged the government and people of Abraham Lincoln 
 unwillingly into the inauguration of war. The problem ol 
 this reaction may be more justly served. In fact, it involved 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 63 
 
 no new fact 01 principle The Northern people, including all 
 ptirties, secretly appreciated the value of the Union to them 
 selves ; they knew that they would be ruined by a permanent 
 secession of the Southern States ; many of them had sought 
 to bring the dissatisfied States back into the Union by the ok 1 
 resource of artful speeches and fine promises ; and finding, at 
 last, that the South was in earnest, and was no longer to be 
 seduced by cheap professions, they quickly and sharply deter 
 mined to coerce what they could not cozen. This is the wholo 
 explanation of the wonderful reaction. The North discovered, 
 by the fiery denouement in Charleston harbor, that the South 
 was in earnest, and itself became as instantly in earnest. The 
 sudden display of Northern rancor was no reaction ; it was 
 no new fact ; it revealed what was already historical, and had 
 been concealed only for purposes of policy the distinct and 
 sharp antipathy between the two sections, of which war or 
 separation, at some time, was bound to be the logical conclu 
 sion. 
 
 The crusade against the South mvolved all parties, and 
 united every interest in the North by the common bond of at 
 tachment to the Union. That attachment had its own reasons. 
 The idea of the restoration of the Union was conceived in no 
 historical enthusiasm for restoring past glories; it was ani 
 mated by no patriotic desires contemplating the good of the 
 whole country ; the South was to be " whipped back into the 
 Union," to gratify either the selfishness of the North, or its 
 worse lusts of revenge and fanaticism. The holiness of the 
 crusade against the South was preached alike from the hustings 
 and the pulpit. The Northern Democratic party, which had 
 so long professed regard for the rights of the Southern States, 
 and even sympathy with the first movements of their secession, 
 rivalled the Abolitionists in their expressions of fury and re 
 venge ; their leaders followed the tide of public opinion : Mr. 
 Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, who some months before 
 had declared in a public speech that if the seceded States were 
 " determined to separate, we had better part in peace," lecamo 
 a rhetorical advocate of the war ; Daniel S. Dickinson, of 
 New York, rivalled the Abolition leaders in his State in in 
 flaming the public mind ; and in the city of New York, where 
 but a few months before it had been said that the Southern 
 
64: SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Confederacy would be able to recruit several regiments for ita 
 military service, demagogues in the ranks of the "National 
 Democracy," such as John Cochrane, harangued the multi 
 tude, advising them to "crush the rebellion," and, if need be. 
 to drown the whole So Hh in one indiscriminate sea of blood 
 Old contentions and present animosities were forgotten ; Dem 
 ocrats associated with recreants and fanatics in one grand 
 league for one grand purpose ; foreigners from Europe were 
 induced into the belief that they were called upon to tight for 
 the " liberty" for which they had crossed the ocean, or for the 
 " free homesteads" which were to be the rewards of the war ; 
 and all conceivable and reckless artifices were resorted to to 
 swell the tide of numbers against the South. New England, 
 which had been too conscientious to defend the national honor 
 in the war with Great Britain, poured out almost her whole 
 population to aid in the extermination of a people who had 
 given to the nation all the military glory it had achieved.* 
 
 * In the war of 1812, tlie North furnished 58,552 soldiers-? the South, 
 96,812 making a majority of 37,030 in favor of the South. Of the numbei 
 furnished by the North 
 
 Massachusetts furnished 3,110 
 
 New Hampshire " 897 
 
 Connecticut " 387 
 
 Elhode Island " 637 
 
 Vermont * 181 
 
 5,102 
 
 While the little State of South Carolina furnished 5,696. 
 In the Mexican war, 
 
 Massachusetts furnished 1,047 
 
 New Hampshire " 1 
 
 The other New England States 0,000 
 
 1,048 
 
 The whole number of troops contributed by the North to the Mexican wai 
 was 23,054; while the South contributed 43,630, very nearly double, and, iu 
 proportion to her population, four times as many soldiers as the North. 
 
 When a resolution was introduced into the Legislature of Massachusetts 
 tendering a vote of thinks to the heroic Lawrence for his capture of the Pea 
 cock, that pious State refused to adopt it, and declared 
 
 "That in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause, and proa 
 ecuted in a manner indicating that conquest and ambition are its real motives 
 it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation 01 
 military and nav al exploits not directly connected with the defence of our sea 
 coast and our soil." 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 65 
 
 The effect of Mr. Lincoln s proclamation at the South was 
 no less decisive than at the North. It remains a problem, 
 which facts were never permitted to decide, but the solution of 
 which may at least be approached by the logical considerations 
 of history, to what extent the Border Slave States might have 
 been secured to the Union by the policy of peace, and the sim 
 ple energy of patience on the part of the government at 
 Washington. As it was, the proclamation presented a new is 
 sue ; it superseded that of the simple policy of secession ; and 
 it inaugurated the second secessionary movement of the South 
 ern States on a basis infinitely higher and firmer, in all its 
 moral and constitutional aspects, than that of the first move 
 ment of the Cotton States. 
 
 The proclamation was received at Montgomery with derisive 
 laughter ; the newspapers were refreshed with the Lincolniana 
 of styling sovereign States " unlawful combinations," and 
 warning a people standing on their own soil to return within 
 twenty days to their " homes ;" and, in Virginia, the Seces 
 sionists were hugely delighted at the strength Mr. Lincoln 
 had unwittingly or perversely contributed to their cause. One 
 after the other of the Border States refused the demands foi 
 their quotas in terms of scorn and defiance. Governor Rector, 
 of Arkansas, repudiated the proclamation with an expression 
 of concentrated defiance ; Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, 
 replied, that that State would " furnish no troops for the 
 wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States ;" 
 Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, telegraphed to Washing 
 ton, " I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of 
 
 Subsequently the famous Hartford Convention was called. It assembled 
 In the city of Hartford, on the 15th of December, 1814, and remained in sea 
 sion twenty days. It made a report accompanied by a series of resolutions 
 The following is a part of the report, as adopted : 
 
 " In cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Const! 
 tution, affecting the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it 
 is not only tlw right, but the duty, of each State to interpose its authority for their 
 protection in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies 
 occur which are either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals, or too pressing 
 to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States, which have no common 
 umpire, must be their own judges and execute tJteir onm decisions" 
 
 This is the doctrine which the South had always held from the beginning, 
 and for which the South is now pouring out her blood and treasure 
 
 5 
 
66 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 this country, and especially to this war which is being wageii 
 upon a free and independent pec pie ;" Governor Jackson, ol 
 Missouri, replied directly to Mr. Lincoln, " Tour requisition 
 In jny judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary 
 and, in its objects, inhuman and diabolical ;" and even the 
 unspirited governor of Virginia, John Letcher, constrained by 
 the policy of the time-server to reflect the changes which had 
 become apparent to him in the uprising indignation of the 
 people, ventured upon a remonstrance to President Lincoln, 
 reminding him that his proclamation was " not within the 
 purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795." The only 
 Southern governor that signified any degree of submission to 
 the proclamation was the notorious Thomas Holladay Hicks, 
 of Maryland ; he gave verbal assurances to Mr. Lincoln that 
 that State would supply her quota and give him military sup 
 port ; but, at the same time, with an art and effrontery that 
 only a demagogue could attain, he published a proclamation to 
 the people of Maryland, assuring them of his neutrality, and 
 promising that an opportunity would be given them, iu the 
 election of congressmen, to determine, of their own free wil\ 
 whether they would sustain the old Union, or assist the South 
 ern Confederacy. 
 
 On the 17th day of April, the Virginia Convention passed 
 an ordinance of secession. It was an important era in the 
 history of the times. It gave the eighth State to the Southern 
 Confederacy. The position of Virginia was a commanding 
 one with the other Border States ; she started, by her act of 
 secession, the second important movement of the revolution ; 
 and she added to the moral influence of the event by the fact, 
 that she had not seceded on an issue of policy, but on one of 
 distinct and practical constitutional right, and that too in the 
 face of a war, which had become absolutely inevitable and was 
 frowning upon her own borders. 
 
 Virginia had been chided for her delay in following the 
 Cotton States out of the Union, and, on the other hand, when 
 she did secede, she was charged by the Northern politicians 
 with being inconsistent and having kept bad faith in her rela 
 tion? with the Federal government. Both complaints were 
 equally without foundation. The record of the State was 
 singularly explicit and clear. 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 67 
 
 The Virginia Resolutions of 98 and 99 had for sixty yeara 
 constituted the text-book of the State Rights politicians of the 
 South. The doctrine of State sovereignty was therein vindi 
 cated and maintained, and the right and duty of States, suf 
 fering grievances from unjust and unconstitutional Federal 
 legislation, to judge of the wrongs, as well as of " the mode 
 and measure of redress," were made clear. The Virginia plat 
 form, as thus laid down in the elder Adams time, was adopted 
 by the u Strict Constructionist" party of that day, and has 
 been reasserted ever since. Mr. Jefferson, the founder of the 
 Democratic party in this country, was elected upon this plat 
 form, and his State Rights successors all acknowledged its 
 orthodoxy. Whenever there arose a conflict between Federal 
 and State authority, the voice of Virginia was the first to be 
 heard in behalf of State Rights. In 1832-33, when the Tariff 
 and Nullification controversy arose, Virginia, though not 
 agreeing with South Carolina as to the particular remedy to 
 which she resorted, yet assured that gallant State of her sym 
 pathy, and, at the same time, reasserted her old doctrines of 
 State Rights. Her gallant and patriotic governor, John Floyd, 
 the elder, declared that Federal troops should not pass the 
 banks of the Potomac to coerce South Carolina into obedience 
 to the tariff laws, unless over his dead body. Her Legislature 
 was almost unanimously opposed to the coercion policy, and a 
 majority of that body indicated their recognition of the right 
 of a State to secede from the Union. The voice of Virginia 
 was potential in settling this controversy upon conditions to 
 which the Palmetto State could agree with both honor and 
 consistency. At every stage of the agitation of the slavery 
 question in Congress and in the Northern States, Virginia 
 declared her sentiments and her purposes in a manner not to 
 be misunderstood by friend or foe. Again and again did she 
 enter upon her legislative records, in ineffable characters, the 
 declaration that she would resist the aggressive spirit of the 
 Northern majority, even to the disruption of the ties that 
 bound her to the Union. 
 
 With almost entire unanimity, Virginia had resolved in 
 legislative council, in 1848, that she would not submit to the 
 passage of the Wilmot proviso, or any kindred measure. From 
 the date of the organization of the Anti-Slavery party, hei 
 
68 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 people, of all parties, had declared that the election of an 
 Abolitionist to the Presidency would be a virtual declaration 
 of war against the South on the part of the North, and that 
 Virginia and every other Slave State ought to resist it as such. 
 The Legislature that assembled a few weeks after Lincoln s 
 election declared in effect, with only four dissenting voices, 
 that the interests of Virginia were thoroughly identified with 
 those of the other Southern States, and that any intimation, 
 from any source, that her people were looking to any combi 
 nation in the last resort other than union with them, was un 
 patriotic and treasonable. 
 
 The sovereign Convention of Virginia, elected on the 4th ot 
 February, 1861, for a long time lingered in the hope that the 
 breach that had taken place in the Union might be repaired 
 by new constitutional guaranties. Nevertheless, that body, 
 before it had yet determined to pass an ordinance of secession 
 while it was, in fact, hopeful that the Union would be saved 
 through the returning sanity of the Northern people adopted 
 unanimously the following resolution : 
 
 " The people of Virginia recognize the American principle, that government 
 is founded in the consent of the governed, and the right of the people of the 
 several States of this Union, for just cause, to withdraw from their associ 
 ation under the Federal government, with the people of the other States, 
 and to erect new governments for their better security; and they never 
 will consent that the Federal power, which is, in part, their power, shall be 
 exerted for the purpose of subjugating the people of such States to the Federal 
 authority." 
 
 The entire antecedents of Virginia were known to Mr. Lin 
 coln and his Cabinet. They knew -that she was solemnly 
 pledged, at whatever cost, to separate from the Union in the 
 very contingency they had brought about namely, the at 
 tempt to subjugate her sister States of the South. They knew 
 that the original " Union men," as well as the original Seces 
 sionists, were committed beyond the possibility of recantation 
 to resistance to the death of any and every coercive measure of 
 the Federal government. Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln and his 
 advisers had the temerity to make a call upon the State of 
 Virginia to furnish her quota of seventy-five thousand men to 
 subjugate the seceded States. They had but little right to be 
 surprised at the course taken by the State, and still less to 
 charge it with inconsistency or perfidy. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. U 
 
 It was expected that Maryland might follow the heroic 
 course of Virginia, and but two days after the secession of the 
 latter State, there were indications in Maryland of a spirit of 
 emulation of the daring and adventurous deeds that had "been 
 enacted South of the Potomac. On the 19th of April the 
 passage of Northern volunteers, on their way to "Washington, 
 was intercepted and assailed by the citizens of Baltimore, and 
 for more than two weeks the route through that city was effect 
 ually closed to Mr. Lincoln s mercenaries. The Baltimore 
 " riot," as it was called, was one of the most remarkable col 
 lisions of the times. A number of Massachusetts volunteers, 
 passing through Baltimore in horse cars, found the track bar 
 ricaded near one of the docks by stones, sand, and old anchors 
 thrown upon it, and were compelled to attempt the passage to 
 the depot, at the other end of the city, on foot. They had not 
 advanced fifteen paces after leaving the cars when they found 
 their passage blocked by a crowd of excited citizens, who 
 taunted them as mercenaries, and flouted a Southern flag at 
 the head of their column. Stones were thrown by a portion of 
 the crowd, when the troops presented arms and fired. The 
 crowd was converted into an infuriated mob ; the fire was re 
 turned from a number of revolvers ; the soldiers were attacked 
 with sticks, stones, and every conceivable weapon, and in more 
 than one instance their muskets were actually wrung from 
 their hands by desperate and unarmed men. Unable to with 
 stand the gathering crowd, and bewildered by their mode of 
 attack, the troops pressed along the street confused and stag 
 gering, breaking into a run whenever there was an opportunity 
 to do so, and turning at intervals to fire upon the citizens who 
 pursued them. As they reached the depot they found a crowd 
 already collected there and gathering from every point in the 
 city. The other troops of the Massachusetts regiment who had 
 preceded them in the horse cars had been pursued by the 
 people along the route, and the soldiers did not hesitate to 
 stretch themselves at full length on the floors of the cars, to 
 avoid the missiles thrown through the windows. The scene 
 that ensued at the depot was terrific. Taunts, clothed in the 
 most fearful language, were hurled at the troops by the panting 
 crowd who, almost breathless with running, pressed up to the 
 windows, presenting knives and revolvers, and cursing up in 
 
70 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR, 
 
 the faces of the soldiers. A wild cry was raised on the plat 
 form, and a dense crowd rushed out, spreading itself along the 
 railroad track, until for a mile it was black with the excited, 
 rushing mass. The crowd, as they went, filled the track with 
 obstructions ; the police who, throughout the whole affair, had 
 contended for order with the most devoted courage, followed 
 in full run removing the obstructions ; as far as the eye could 
 reach the track was crowded with the pur&uers and pursued, a 
 struggling and shouting mass of human beings. In the midst 
 of the excitement the train moved off; and as it passed from 
 the depot a dozen muskets were fired by the soldiers into the 
 people that lined the track, the volley killing an estimable 
 citizen who had been drawn to the spot only as a spectator. 
 The results of the riot were serious enough : two of the soldiers 
 were shot ; several of the citizens had been killed, and more 
 than twenty variously wounded. 
 
 The excitement in Baltimore continued for weeks ; the 
 bridges on the railroad to the Susquehanna were destroyed j 
 the regular route of travel broken up, and some twenty or 
 twenty-five thousand Northern volunteers, on their way to 
 Washington, detained at Havre de Grace, a portion of them 
 only managing to reach their destination by the way of Annap 
 olis. On the night of the day of the riot, a mass-meeting was 
 held in Monument Square, and was addressed by urgent ap 
 peals for the secession of Maryland, and speeches of defiance 
 to the Lincoln government. Governor Hicks, alarmed by the 
 display of public sentiment, affected to yield to it. He ad 
 dressed the crowd in person, condemning the coercive policy 
 of the government, and ending with the fervid declaration, " I 
 will suffer my right arm to be torn from my body before I will 
 raise it to strike a sister State." The same man, in less than a 
 month thereafter, when Maryland had fallen within the grasp 
 of the Federal government, did not hesitate to make a call 
 upon the people for four regiments of volunteers to assist that 
 government in its then fully declared policy of a war of inva 
 sion and fell destruction upon the South. 
 
 In the city of St. Louis there were collisions between the 
 citizens and soldiery as well as in Baltimore; but in Missouri 
 the indications of sympathy with the South did not subside or 
 allow themselves to be choked by spectral fears of the " crucial 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 71 
 
 experiment of secession" they grew and strengthened in the 
 face of all the Foderal power could do. 
 
 The riots in Maryland and Missouri were, however, only inci 
 dents in the history of the period in which they occurred 
 That history is occupied with far more important and general 
 events, indicating the increased and rapid preparations, North 
 and South, for war ; the collection of resources, and the policy 
 and spirit in which the gathering contest was to be conducted. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln had, on the 19th of April, published his proc 
 lamation, declaring the ports of the Southern Confederacy in 
 a state of blockade, and denouncing any molestation of Federal 
 vessels on the high seas as piracy. The Provisional Congress 
 at Montgomery had formerly recognized the existence of wai 
 with the North, and letters of marque had been issued by the 
 Confederate authority. The theatre of the war on land was 
 indicated in Virginia. General Lee, who had resigned a com 
 mission as colonel of cavalry in the old United States army, 
 was put in command of all the Confederate States forces in 
 Virginia. 
 
 That State was the particular object of the rancor of the 
 government at Washington, which proceeded to inaugurate 
 hostilities on her territory by two acts of ruthless vandalism. 
 On the 19th day of April the Federals evacuated Harper s 
 Ferry, after an attempt to destroy the buildings and machine- 
 shops there, which only partially succeeded the armory build 
 ings being destroyed, but a train to blow up the machine- 
 shop failed, and a large quantity of valuable machinery was 
 uninjured. On the succeeding day, preparations were made 
 for the destruction of the Navy Yard at Norfolk, while Federal 
 reinforcements were thrown into Fortress Monroe. The work 
 of vandalism was not as fully completed as the enemy had de 
 signed, the dry-dock, which alone cost several millions of dol 
 lars, being but little damaged ; but the destruction of property 
 was immense, and attended by a terrible conflagration, which 
 at one time threatened the city of Norfolk. 
 
 All the ships in the harbor, excepting the old frigate the 
 United States, were set fire to and scuttled. They were the 
 Pennsylvania, the Columbus and Delaware, the steam-frigate 
 Merrimac (she was only partially destroyed), the sloops Ger- 
 mantown and Plymouth, the frigates Raritan and Columbia, 
 
72 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 and the brig Dolphin. The Germantown was lying at the 
 wharf under a large pair of shears, which w< re thrown across 
 her decks by cutting loose the guys. The ship was nearly cut 
 in two and sunk at the wharf. About midnight an alarm was 
 given that the Navy Yard was on fire. A sickly blaze, thai 
 seemed neither to diminish nor increase, continued fv several 
 hours. Men were kept busy all night transferring every tiling 
 of value from the Pennsylvania and Navy Yard to the Pawnee 
 and Cumberland, and both vessels were loaded to their lower 
 ports. At length four o clock came, and with it flood-tide. 
 A rocket shot up from the Pawnee, and then, almost in an in 
 stant, the whole front of the Navy Yard seemed one vast 
 sheet of flame. The next minute streaks of flame flashed 
 along the rigging of the Pennsylvania and the other doomed 
 ships, and soon they were completely wrapped in the devouring 
 element. The harbor was now one blaze of light. The re 
 motest objects were distinctly visible. The surging flames 
 leaped and roared with mad violence, making their hoarse 
 wrath heard at the distance of several miles. The people of 
 Hampton, even those who lived beyond, saw the red light, 
 and thought all Norfolk was on fire. It was certainly a grand 
 though terrible spectacle to witness. In the midst of the 
 brilliance of the scene, the Pawnee with the Cumberland in 
 tow, stole like a guilty thing through the harbor, fleeing from 
 the destruction they had been sent to accomplish. 
 
 The Lincoln government had reason to be exasperated to 
 wards Virginia. The second secession ary movement, com 
 menced by that State, added three other States to the Southern 
 Confederacy. Tennessee seceded from the Union, the 6th of 
 May ; on the 1 8th day of May, the State of Arkansas was 
 formally admitted into the Southern Confederacy ; and on the 
 21st of the same month, the sovereign Convention of North 
 Carolina, without delay, and by a unanimous vote, passed an 
 ordinance of secession. 
 
 The spirit of the rival governments gave indications to dis 
 cerning minds of a civil war of gigantic proportions, infinite 
 consequences, and indefinite duration. In every portion of the 
 South, the most patriotic devotion was exhibited. Transporta 
 tion companies freely tendered the use of their lines for trans 
 portation and supplies. The presidents of the Southern rail 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 73 
 
 roads consented not only to reduce their rates for mail ser 
 vice and conveyance for troops and munitions of war, but vol 
 untarily proffered to take their compensation in bonds of the 
 Confederacy, for the purpose of leaving all the resources 01 
 the government at its disposal for the common defence. Un 
 der the act of the Provisional Congress authorizing a loan, pro 
 posals issued for the subscription of five millions of dollars 
 were answered by the prompt subscription of more than eight 
 millions by its own citizens; and not a bid was made under 
 par. Requisitions for troops were met with such alacrity that 
 the number in every instance, tendering their services, ex 
 ceeded the demand. Under the bill for public defence, one 
 hundred thousand volunteers were authorized to be accepted 
 by the Confederate States government for a twelve months 
 term of service. The gravity of age and the zeal of youth ri 
 valled each other to be foremost in the public service ; every 
 village bristled with bayonets; large forces were put in the 
 field at Charleston, Pensacola, Forts Morgan, Jackson, St. 
 Philip, and Pulaski ; while formidable numbers from all parts 
 of the Confederacy were gathered in Virginia, on what was 
 now becoming the immediate theatre of the war. On the 20th 
 day of May, the seat of government was removed from Mont 
 gomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, and President 
 Davis was welcomed in the latter city with a burst of genuine 
 joy and enthusiasm, to which none of the military pageants of 
 the North could furnish a parallel. 
 
 It had been supposed that the Southern people, poor in man 
 ufactures as they w^ere, and in the haste of preparation for the 
 mighty contest that was to ensue, would find themselves but 
 illy provided with arms to contend with an enemy rich in the 
 means and munitions of war. This disadvantage had been 
 provided against by the timely act of one man. Mr. Floyd, 
 of Virginia, when Secretary of War under Mr. Buchanan s 
 administration, had by a single order effected the transfer of 
 115,000 improved muskets and rifles from the Springfield ar 
 mory and Watervliet arsenal to different arsenals at the South. 
 Adding to these the number of arms distributed by the Fed 
 eral government to the States in preceding years of our history, 
 and those purchased by the States and citizens, it was safely 
 estimated that the South entered upon the war with one hun 
 
74 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF T1IK WAR. 
 
 dred and fifty thousand small-arms of the most approved 
 modern pattern and the best in the world. 
 
 The government at AYasliington rapidly collected in that city 
 ftBt and motley army. Baltimore had been subdued; tho 
 route through it was restored; and sueh were the facilities <f 
 Northern transportation, that it was estimated that not, less 
 than four or live thousand volunteers were transported through 
 the former Thermopylae of Baltimore in a single day. The 
 first evidences of the despotic purposes of the Lincoln govern- 
 nient were exhibited in Maryland, and the characteristics of 
 the war that it had commenced on the South were first dis 
 played in the crushing weight of tyranny and oppression it 
 laid upon a State which submitted before it was conquered. 
 
 The Legislature of Maryland did nothing practical. It was 
 unable to arm the State, and it made no attempt, to improve 
 the spirit of the people, or to make preparations for any future 
 opportunity of action. It assented to the attitude of submis 
 sion indefinitely. It passed resolutions protesting against the 
 military occupation of the State by the Federal government, 
 and indicating sympathy with the South, but concluding with 
 the declaration: "under existing circumstances, it is inexpe 
 dient to call a sovereign Convention of the State at this time, 
 or take any measures for the immediate organization or arming 
 of the militia." The government of Abraham Lincoln was not 
 a government to spare submission or to be moved to magna 
 nimity by the helplessness of a supposed enemy. The submis 
 sion of Maryland was the signal for its persecution. By the 
 middle of May, her territory was occupied by thirty thousand 
 Federal troops; her quota of troops to the war was demanded 
 at Washington, and was urged by a requisition of her obsequi 
 ous governor ; the city of Baltimore was invested by General 
 Butler of Massachusetts, houses and stores searched for c- n- 
 eealod arms, and the liberties of the people violated, with ev^ry 
 possible addition of mortification and insult. 
 
 In a-fe\v weeks the rapid and aggravated progression of arts 
 of despotism on the part of the Lincoln government reached 
 its height in Maryland. The authority of the mayor and j o- 
 lice board of the city of Baltimore was superseded, and th- ir 
 per- B - - d and imprisoned in a military fortr \v t 
 
 of habeas corjpus was suspended by the single and 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 75 
 
 lional authority of the President; the houses oi suspected 
 citizens were searched, and they themselves arrested by mill 
 tary force, in jurisdictions where the Federal courts were in 
 uninterrupted operation ; blank warrants were issued for domi 
 ciliary visits; and the sanctity of private correspondence was 
 violated by seizing the dispatches preserved for years in the 
 telegraph offices of the North, and making them the subject of 
 inquisition for the purpose of discovering and punishing as 
 traitors men who had dared to reproach the Northern govern 
 ment for an unnatural war, or had not sympathized with its 
 rancor and excesses. 
 
 Such was the inauguration of " the strong government" of 
 Abraham Lincoln in Maryland, and the repetition of its acts 
 was threatened upon the " rebel" States of the South, with the 
 addition that their cities were to be laid in ashes, their soil 
 sown with blood, the slaves freed and carried in battalions 
 against their masters, and "the rebels" doomed, after their 
 subjection, to return home to find their wives and children in 
 rags, and gaunt Famine sitting at their firesides. 
 
76 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Confidence of tre North. Characteristic Boasts. " Crushing out the Rebellion." 
 Volunteering in the Northern Cities. The New York " Invincibles." Misrepresenta 
 tions of the Government at Washington. Mr. Seward s Letter to the French Govern 
 ment. Another Call for Federal Volunteers. Opening Movements of the Campaign. 
 The Federal Occupation of Alexandria. Death of Col. Ellsworth. Fortress Monroe. 
 The BATTLE OF BETHEL. Results of this Battle. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. The Tipper 
 Potomac. Evacuation and Destruction of Harper s Ferry. The Movements in the 
 Upper Portion of the Valley of Virginia. Northwestern Virginia. The BATTLE OF 
 RICH MOUNTAIN. Carrock s Ford. The Retreat of the Confederates. General Mc- 
 Clellan. Meeting of the Federal Congress. Mr. Lincoln s Message. Kentucky. 
 Western Virginia. Large Requisitions for Men and Money by the Federal Govern 
 ment. Its Financial Condition. Financial Measures of the Southern Confederacy. 
 Contrast between the Ideas of the Rival Governments. Conservatism of the Southern 
 Revolution. Despotic Excesses of the Government at Washington. 
 
 NOTHING could exceed the boastful and unlimited expressions 
 of confidence on the part of the Northern people, in the speedy 
 " crushing out of the rebellion," and of contempt for the means 
 and resources of the South to carry on any thing like a formid 
 able war. In the light of subsequent events, those expressions 
 and vaunts give a grotesque illustration of the idfeas with which 
 the Northern people entered upon the war. 
 
 The New York people derided the rebellion. The Tribum 
 declared that it was nothing " more or less than the natural 
 recourse of all mean-spirited and defeated tyrannies to rule or 
 ruin, making, of course, a wide distinction bet-ween the will 
 and power, for the hanging of traitors is sure to begin before 
 one month is over." " The nations of Europe," it continued, 
 i may rest assured that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging 
 from the battlements at Washington, at least, by the 4th of 
 July. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice." 
 
 The New York Times gave its opinion in the following 
 vigorous and confident spirit : " Let us make quick work. 
 The rebellion, as some people designate it, is an unborn tad 
 pole. Let us not fall into the delusion, noted by Hallam, of 
 mistaking a * local commotion for a revolution. A strong 
 active pull together will do our work effectually in thirty 
 days, We have only to send a column of 25,000 men across 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 77 
 
 the Potomac to Richmond, and burn out the rats there ; another 
 column of 25,000 to Cairo, seizing the cotton ports of the Mis 
 sissippi ; and retaining the remaining 25,000, included ir. Mr 
 Lincoln s call for 75,000 men, at Washington, not because there 
 is need for them there, but because we do not require theii 
 services elsewhere." 
 
 The Philadelphia Press declared that "no man of sense 
 could, for a moment, doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing 
 would end in a month." The Northern people were " simply 
 invincible." "The rebels," it prophesied, u a mere band of 
 ragamuffins, will fly, like chaff before the wind, 011 our ap 
 proach." 
 
 The West was as violent as the North or the East. In the 
 States of Iowa and Wisconsin, among the infidel Dutch, no 
 rein was drawn upon the wild fanaticism. In Illinois, too, 
 there was a fever of morbid violence. The Chicago Tribune 
 insisted on its demand that the West be allowed to fight the 
 battle through, since she was probably the most interested in 
 the suppression of the rebellion and the free navigation of the 
 Mississippi. "Let the East," demanded this valorous sheet, 
 " get out of the way ; this is a war of the West. We can fight 
 the battle, and successfully, within two or three months at the 
 furthest. Illinois can whip the South by herself. We insist 
 on the matter being turned over to us." 
 
 The Cincinnati Commercial, in commenting upon the claims 
 of the West, remarked that "the West ought to be made the 
 vanguard of the war" and proceeded: "We are akin, by 
 trade and geography, with Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, 
 and in sentiment to the noble Union patriots who have a ma 
 jority of three to one in all these States. An Ohio army would 
 be received with joy in Nashville, and welcomed in a speech 
 of congratulation bv Andrew Johnson. Crittenden and Frank 
 
 O *> 
 
 Blair are keeping Kentucky and Missouri all right. The re- 
 bellion will be crushed out before the assemblage of Congress 
 no doubt of it." 
 
 Not a paper of influence in the North, at that time, 
 had the remotest idea of the conflict ; not a journalist who 
 rose to the emergencies of the occasion all w r as passion, rant, 
 and bombast. 
 
 In the Northern cities, going to the \var for " three months," 
 
78 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 the term of the enlistment of volunteers, was looked upon 
 almost as a holiday recreation. In New York and Philadel 
 phia, the recruiting offices were besieged by firemen, rowdie?, 
 and men fished from the purlieus of vice, and every sink of 
 degradation. There appeared to be no serious realization of 
 the war. If a man ventured the opinion that a hundred 
 thousand Southern troops might be gathered in Virginia, ho 
 was laughed at, or answered with stories about the Adirondack 
 sharpshooters and the New York " roughs." The newspapers 
 declared that the most terrible and invincible army that ever 
 enacted deeds of war might be gathered from the " roughs" 
 of the Northern cities. Nothing could compete with their 
 desperate courage, and nothing could withstand their furious 
 onslaught. A regiment of firemen and congenial spirits was 
 raised in New York, and put under command of Colonel Ells 
 worth, of Chicago, a youth, who had some time ago exhibited 
 through the country a company of young men drilled in the 
 manual and exercises of the French Zouaves, who had made 
 himself a favorite with the ladies at the Astor House and 
 Willard s Hotel, by his long hair, gymnastic grace, and red 
 uniform, and who boasted of a great deal of political influence 
 as the pet and protege of President Lincoln. To the standard 
 of this young man, and also to that of a notorious bully and 
 marauder, by the name of Billy Wilson, flocked all the vagrant 
 and unruly classes of the great and vicious metropolis of New 
 York. The latter boasted, that when his regiment was moved 
 off, it would be found that not a thief, highwayman, or pick 
 pocket would be left in the city. The people of New York 
 and Washington were strangely enraptured with the spectacle 
 of these terrible and ruthless crusaders, who were to strike 
 terror to the hearts of the Southern people. Anecdotes of 
 their rude and desperate disposition, their brutal speeches and 
 their exploits of rowdyism, were told with glee and devoured 
 with unnatural satisfaction. In Washington, people were de 
 lighted by anecdotes that Ellsworth s Zouaves made a practice 
 of knocking their officers down ; that their usual address to the 
 sentinels was, " Say, fellow, I am agoin to leave this ranch ; 
 that on rail? j days they seized umbrellas from citizens on the 
 streets, and knocked them in the gutter if they remonstrated ; 
 that,- "in the most entire good humor," they levied contribn- 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 79 
 
 tions of boots, shoes, liquors, and cigars on tradesmen ; and 
 that the " gallant little colonel," who controlled these unruly 
 spirits, habitually wore a bowie knife two feet long. Theso 
 freaks, and eccentricities were not only excusable, they weio 
 admirable: the untamed courage of the New York firemen 
 and rowdies, said the people, were to be so useful and con 
 spicuous in the war ; and the prophecy was, that these men, 
 so troublesome and belligerent towards quiet citizens who came 
 in contact with them, would be the first to win honorable 
 laurels on the field of combat. 
 
 "Billy Wilson s" regiment was held up for a long time in 
 New York as an inimitable scarecrow to the South. The 
 regiment was displayed on every occasion ; it was frequently 
 marched up Broadway to pay visits to the principal hotels. 
 On one of these occasions, it was related that Billy Wilson 
 marched the companies into the hall and spacious bar-room of 
 the hotel, and issued the order " Attention." Attention was 
 paid, and the bystanders preserved silence. "Kneel down," 
 shouted the colonel. The men dropped upon their knees. 
 
 " You do solemnly swear to cut off the head of every d d 
 
 Secessionist you meet during the war." " We swear," was the 
 universal response. "The gallant souls," said a New York 
 paper, " then returned in good order to their quarters." 
 
 1 The newspaper extracts and incidents given above afford 
 no little illustration of the spirit in which the North entered 
 upon the war, and, in this connection, belong to the faithful 
 history of the times. That spirit was not only trivial and 
 utterly beneath the dignity of the contest upon which the 
 North was to enter ; it betrayed a fierceness and venom, the 
 monstrous developments of which were reserved for a period 
 later in the progress of events. 
 
 What was partly ignorance and partly affectation on the 
 part of the Northern press and people, in their light estima 
 tion of the war, was wholly affectation on the part of the in 
 telligent and better informed authorities at Washington. The 
 government had a particular object in essaying to represent 
 the Southern revolution as nothing more than a local mutiny. 
 The necessity was plain for balking any thing like a European 
 recognition of the Southern Confederacy, and Mr. Seward was 
 prompt to rank the rebellion as a local and d sorganized insur- 
 
80 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 rection, amounting to nothing more than a passing and inci 
 dental " change" in the history of the Union. At the time 
 that all the resources of the government were put out to en 
 counter the gathering armies of the South, already within a 
 few miles of the capital, Mr. Seward, in a letter of instructions 
 to Mr. Dayton, the recently appointed minister to France, 
 dated the 4th of May, urged him to assure that government 
 of the fact that an idea of a permanent disruption of the 
 Union was absurd ; that the continuance of the Union was 
 certain, and that too as an object of "affection!" He wrote: 
 " The thought of a dissolution of this Union, peaceably or by 
 force, has never entered into the mind of any candid states 
 man here, and it is high time that it be dismissed by the 
 statesmen in Europe." 
 
 The government at "Washington evidently showed, by its 
 preparations, that it was secretly conscious of the resources 
 and determined purposes of the revolution. Another procla 
 mation for still further increasing his military forces had been 
 made by Mr. Lincoln on the third of May. He called for forty- 
 odd thousand additional volunteers to enlist for the war, and 
 eighteen thousand seamen, besides increasing the regular army 
 by the addition of ten regiments. It is curious that these im 
 mense preparations should have attracted such little notice 
 from the Northern public. The people and soldiers appeared 
 to be alike hilarious and confident in the prospect of a " short, 
 sharp, and decisive" war, that was to restore the Union, open 
 the doors of the treasury, give promotion and fame to those 
 desirous of gain in those particulars, and afford new opportu 
 nities to adventurers of all classes. 
 
 The h rst and opening movements of the Northern campaign 
 were decided to be a forward movement from the Potomac 
 along the Orange and Alexandria and Central roads towards 
 Richmond, while another invading army might be thrown into 
 the Valley of Virginia from Pennsylvania and Maryland. 
 
 The first step of the invasion of Virginia was the occupa 
 tion of Alexandria, which was accomplished on the 2-lth of 
 May, by throwing some eight thousand Federal troops across 
 the Potomac, the Virginia forces evacuating the town and fall 
 ing back to the Manassas Junction, where General Bonham, of 
 South Carolina, was in command of the Confederate forces. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 81 
 
 The invasion was accomplished under cover of the night, and 
 with such secrecy and dispatch, that a number of Virginia 
 cavalry troops were found, unconscious of danger, at theii 
 quarters, and were taken prisoners. 
 
 The Federal occupation of the town was attended by a dra 
 matic incident, the heroism and chivalry of which gave a 
 remarkable lesson to the invader of the spirit that was to 
 oppose his progress on the soil of Virginia. In the gray of 
 the morning, Col. Ellsworth, who, with his Fire Zouaves, had 
 entered the town, observed a Confederate flag floating from 
 the top of an hotel called the Marshall House, and attended by 
 a squad of his men, determined to secure it as his prize. Ho 
 found his way into the hotel, ascended the stairs, and climbed, 
 by a ladder, to the top of the house, where he secured the 
 obnoxious ensign. As he was descending from the trap door, 
 with the flag on his arm, he was confronted by Mr. Jackson, 
 the proprietor of the hotel, who, aroused from his bed by the 
 unusual noise, half dressed and in his shirt-sleeves, with a 
 double-barrel gun in his hands, faced Ellsworth and his four 
 companions with a quiet and settled determination. " Thi id 
 my trophy," said the Federal commander, pointing to the flag, 
 " And you are mine," responded the Yirginian, as, with a quick 
 aim he discharged his gun full into the breast of Colonel 
 Ellsworth, and the next instant sank by his side a breathless 
 corpse, from a bullet, sped through the brain, and a bayonet- 
 thrust at the hands of one of the soldiers. 
 
 The slayer of Colonel Ellsworth was branded, in the .North, 
 as an " assassin." The justice of history does not permit such 
 a term to be applied to a man who defended his country s flag 
 and the integrity of his home with his life, distinctly and fear 
 lessly offered up to such objects of honor : it gives him the 
 name which the Southern people hastened to bestow upon the 
 memory of the heroic Jackson that of " martyr." The char 
 acter of this man is said to have been full of traits of rude, 
 initive chivalry. He was captain of an artillery company in 
 his town. He was known to his neighbors as a person who 
 united a dauntless and unyielding courage with the most gen 
 erous impulses. A week before his death a " Union" man 
 from Washington had been seized in the streets of Alexandria 
 and a crowd threatened to shoot or hang him, when Jackson 
 
82 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 went to his rescue, threatened to kill any man who W( uld 
 molest him, and saved him from the vengeance of the mob, 
 A day before the Federal occupation of the town, in a coriver 
 sation in which some such movement was conjectured, his 
 neighbors remonstrated with him about the danger of making 
 his house a sign for the enemy s attack, by the flag which 
 floated over it. He replied that he would sacrifice his life in 
 keeping the flag flying and by daybreak the next day the 
 oath was fulfilled. He laid down his life, not in the excite 
 ment of passion, but coolly a^id deliberately, upon a principle, 
 and as an example in defending the sacred rights of his home 
 and the flag of his country. This noble act of heroism did not 
 fail to move the hearts of the generous people of the South ; a 
 monument was proposed to the memory of the only hero of 
 Alexandria ; the dramatic story, and the patriotic example of 
 w the martyr Jackson," were not lost sight of in the stormy 
 excitements of the war that swept out of the mind so many 
 incidents of its early history ; and in most of the cities of the 
 South practical evidences of regard were given in large, vol- 
 intary subscriptions to his bereaved family. 
 
 The Federal forces were not met in Alexandria with any 01 
 \hose demonstrations of " Union" sentiment which they had 
 >een induced, by the misrepresentations of the Northern press, 
 u) expect would hail the vanguard of their invasion of the 
 South. The shouts and yells of the invaders fell upon the ears 
 of a sullen people, who shut themselves up in their houses, as 
 much to avoid the grating exultations of their enemies as con 
 tact with the rowdyism and riot that had taken possession of 
 the streets. On coming into the town, the New York troops, 
 particularly the Fire Zouaves, ran all over the city with their 
 asual cry of "Hi," "Hi." Citizens closed their doors, and 
 is the news of the tragedy at the Marshall House spread over 
 the town, it assumed an aspect like that of the Sabbath. 
 About the wharves and warehouses, where hitherto the life and 
 excitement of the town had been concentrated, the silence was 
 absolutely oppressive; and the only people to be seen were 
 numbers of negroes, who stood about the wharves and on the 
 ttreet corners with frightened faces, talking in low tones to< 
 other. 
 
 With Alexandria and Fortress Monroe in its possession, the 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 83 
 
 
 
 Federal Govern mert held the most important passages into 
 Virginia. General McDowell was charged with the command 
 of the division of the forces thrown across the Potomac. Gen 
 eral Butler was placed in command at Fortress Monroe. The 
 town of Hampton was occupied by the Federal troops, and 
 Newport News, at the mouth of the James River, invested by 
 them. At Sewell s Point, some eight or ten miles distant on 
 the other side, the Confederates had erected a powerful battery, 
 which had proved its efficiency and strength by resisting an 
 attack made upon it on the 19th of May, and continued for 
 two days, by the Federal steamer Monticello, aided by the 
 Minnesota. 
 
 The first serious contest of the war was to occur in the low 
 country of Virginia. On the 10th of June the battle of 
 Bethel was fought. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BETHEL. 
 
 The Confederates, to the number of about eighteen hundred, 
 under Colonel J. Bankhead Magruder, were intrenched at 
 Great Bethel church, which was about nine miles on the road 
 leading south from Hampton. A Federal force exceeding four 
 thousand men, under General Pierce a Massachusetts officer 
 who was never afterwards heard of in the war was moved 
 towards Bethel in two separate bodies, a portion landing on the 
 extreme side, of the creek, some distance below, while the rest 
 proceeded across the creek. The landing of the latter was 
 effected without opposition, and presently the Federal troops, 
 who had marched up from below, closed in on the Confederates 
 almost simultaneously with those attacking their front. 
 
 The attack was received by a battery of the Richmond 
 Howitzers, under command of Major Randolph; the action 
 being commenced by a shot from the Parrott gun in our main 
 battery aimed by himself. One of the guns of the battery 
 being spiked by the breaking of a priming wire in the vent, 
 the infantry supports were withdrawn, and the work was occu 
 pied for a moment by the enemy. Captain Bridges, of the 
 1st North Carolina regiment, was ordered to retake it. The 
 charge of the North Carolina infantry, on this occasion, was 
 the most brilliant incident of the day. They advanced calmly 
 
SOUTHEBN HiSTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and coolly in the face of a sheet* of artillery fire, and whei 
 within sixty yards of the enemy dashed on at the double quick, 
 The Federals fell back in dismay. 
 
 The enemy continued to fire briskly, but wildly, with his ar 
 tillery. At no time, during the artillery engagement, could 
 the Confederates see the bodies of the men in the column 01 
 attack, and their fire was directed by the bayonets of the en 
 emy. The position of the enemy was obscured by the shade 
 of the woods on their right and two small houses on their left. 
 The fire of the Confederates was returned by a battery near 
 the head of the enemy s column, but concealed by the woods 
 and the houses so effectually that the Confederates only ascer 
 tained its position by the flash of the pieces. 
 
 The earthworks were struck several times by the shots of the 
 Federals. They fired upon us with shot, shell, spherical case, 
 canister, and grape, from six and twelve pounders, at a distance 
 of six hundred yards. The only injury received from their 
 artillery was the loss of a mule. The fire on our part was 
 deliberate, and was suspended whenever masses of the enemy 
 were not within range. From 9 o clock A. M. until 1:30 p. ]d, 
 but ninety-eight shot were fired by as, every one of them with 
 deliberation. 
 
 After some intermission of the assault in front, a heavy col 
 umn, apparently a reinforcement or a reserve, made its appear 
 ance on the Hampton road and pressed forward towards the 
 bridge, carrying the United States flag at its head. This col 
 umn was under command of Major Winthrop, aid to General 
 Butler. Those in advance had put on the distinctive badge of 
 the Confederates a white band around the cap. They cried 
 out repeatedly, " don t fire." Having crossed the creek, they 
 began to cheer most lustily, thinking that our work was open 
 at the gorge, and that they might get in by a sudden rush. 
 The North Carolina infantry, however, dispelled this illusion. 
 Their firing was as cool as that of veterans ; the only difficulty 
 being the anxiety of the riflemen to pick off the foe, the men 
 repeatedly calling to their officers, " May I fire? I think I can 
 bring him." 
 
 As the enemy fell back in disorder and his final rout com 
 menced, the bullet of a North Carolina rifleman pierced the 
 breast of the brave Federal officci Major Winthrop, who had 
 
THE FIBST YEAR. OS 
 
 made himself a conspicuous mark by his gallantry on the field. 
 " He was," says Colonel Hill, of the North Carolina regiment, 
 in his official report of the action, " the only one of the enemy 
 who exhibited even an approximation to courage during the 
 whole day." The fact was, that he had fallen in circumstances 
 of great gallantry. He was shot while standing on a log, 
 waving his sword and vainly attempting to rally his men to 
 the charge. His enemy did honor to his memory ; and the 
 Southern people, who had been unable to appreciate the cour 
 age of Ellsworth, and turned with disgust from his apotheosis 
 in the North, did not fail to pay the tribute due a truly brave 
 man to the gallant Winthrop, who, having simply died on the 
 battle-field, without the sensational circumstances of a private 
 brawl or a bully s adventure, was soon forgotten in the North. 
 
 During the fight at the angle of our works, a small wooden 
 house in front was thought to give protection to the enemy 
 Four privates in the North Carolina regiment volunteered tc 
 advance beyond our lines and set it on fire. One of them, a 
 youth named Henry L. Wyatt, advanced ahead of his compan 
 ions, and, as he passed between the two fires, he fell pierced 
 by a musket-ball in the forehead, within thirty yards of the 
 house. This was our only loss in killed during the entire en 
 gagement. 
 
 The results of the battle of Bethel were generally magnified 
 in the South. It is true that a Confederate force of some 
 eighteen hundred men, in a contest of several hours with an 
 enemy more than twice their numbers, had repulsed them ; 
 that the entire loss of the former was only one man killed and 
 seven wounded, while that of the enemy, by their own ae 
 knowledgment, was thirty killed and more than one hundred 
 wounded. The fact, however, was, that our troops had fought 
 under the impenetrable cover of their batteries, the only In 
 stance of exposure being that of the North Carolina infantry, 
 who, by their* charge on the redoubt taken by the enemy early 
 in the action, contributed, most of all, to the success and glory 
 of the day. The battle had been the result of scarcely any 
 thing more than a reconnoissance ; it was by no means to be 
 ranked as a decisive engagement, and yet it was certainly a 
 eerious and well-timed check to the foe. 
 
 In one respect, however, the result was not magnified, and 
 
86 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 that was in its contribution of confidence and ardor io the 
 South. Thus regarded, it was an important event, and its 
 effects of the happiest kind. The victory was achieved at a 
 time when the public mind was distressed and anxious on ac 
 count of the constant backward movements of our forces iii 
 Virginia, and the oft-recurring story of " surprise" and con 
 sequent disaster to our troops in the neighborhood of the en 
 emy s lines. The surrender of Alexandria, the surprise and 
 dispersion of a camp at Philippi by a body of Federal troops,* 
 
 * The disaster at Philippi was inconsiderable ; but it was the subject of 
 some recrimination at the time, and Colonel Porterfield, the Confederate com 
 mander, was subjected to a court-martial, which, in the main, exonerated him, 
 and complimented him for his courage. Colonel Porterfield had been ordered 
 to Grafton about the middle of May, 1861, with written instructions from 
 General Lee to call for volunteers from that part of the State, and receive 
 them into the service, to the number of five thousand ; and to co-operate with 
 the agents of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad ; and with verbal orders to try 
 to conciliate the people of that section, and to do nothing to offend them. 
 Finding, soon after his arrival, that the country was in a state of revolution. 
 and that there was a large and increasing Federal force at Camp Denison, in 
 Ohio, opposite Parkersburg, and another in the vicinity of Wheeling, Colonel 
 Porterfield wrote to the commanding general, that unless a strong force was 
 sent very soon, Northwestern Virginia would be overrun. 
 
 Upon directing the captains of organized volunteer companies to proceed 
 with their companies to Grafton, they replied that not more than twenty in 
 companies numbering sixty were willing to take up arms on the side of the 
 State ; that the others declared, if they were compelled to fight, it would be 
 in defence of the Union. Colonel Porterfield succeeded in a wrek in getting 
 together three newly-organized companies. This force was increased by the 
 arrival of several other companies, two of which were unarmed cavalry com 
 panies amounting in all to about 500 infantry and 150 cavalry. These 
 troops had been at Grafton but a few days, when, or about the 25th of May, 
 Colonel Porterfield was reliably informed of the force of the enemy and with 
 drew his command to Philippi. Orders were given for the destruction of the 
 Cheat bridge, but were not executed. The enemy s force at Grafton was 
 about eight thousand men. On the 3d of June, through the failure of the 
 guard or infantry pickets to give the alarm, the command at Philippi was 
 surprised by about five thousand infantry and a battery of artillery, and dis 
 persed in great confusion, but with inconsiderable loss of life, through the 
 woods. The command had no equipments and very little ammunition. Such 
 was the inauguration of the improvident and unfortunate campaign in West 
 ern Virginia. 
 
 General Garnett succeeded Colonel Porterfield in the command in North- 
 vest em Virginia, with a much larger force (about six thousand men), but 
 jne obviously inadequate, considering the extent of the district it was ex 
 pwted to defend, the hostile character of the country, and the invading force* 
 ol the enemy. 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 87 
 
 and the apparently uncertain movements of our forces on the 
 Upper Potomac, had unpleasantly exercised the popular mind, 
 and had given rise to many rash and ignorant doubts with re 
 spect to the opening events of the war. The battle of Bethe) 
 was the first to turn the hateful current of retreat, and sent 
 the first gleam of sunlight through the sombre shadows that 
 had hung over public opinion in the South. 
 
 It is certain that the movements on the Upper Potomac were 
 greatly misunderstood at the time, especially with regard to 
 the evacuation of Harper s Ferry. General Joseph E. John 
 ston, who had been a quartermaster-general in the old United 
 States service, and had resigned to take part in the defence of 
 his native State, Virginia, had assumed command at Harper s 
 Ferry, on the 23d of May. On the 27th of the same month, 
 General Beauregard had relinquished his command at Charles 
 ton, being assigned to duty at Corinth, Mississippi ; but, the 
 order being recalled, he was put in command at Manassas, our 
 forces being divided into what was known as the armies of the 
 Potomac and of the Shenandoah. At the time General John 
 ston took command at Harper s Ferry, the forces at that point 
 consisted of nine regiments and two battalions of infantry, 
 with four companies of artillery a force which was certainly 
 not sufficient, when we consider that it was expected to hold 
 both sides of the Potomac, and take the field against an inva 
 ding army. After a complete reconnoissance of the place and 
 environs, General Johnston decided that it was untenable, but 
 determined to hold it until the great objects of the govern 
 ment required its abandonment. 
 
 The demonstrations of the Federal forces in the direction oi 
 the Valley of Virginia were certainly thwarted by the timely 
 falling back of our army from Harper s Ferry to Winchester. . 
 General Patterson s approach was expected by the great route 
 into the Valley from Pennsylvania and Maryland, leading 
 through Winchester, and it was an object of the utmost im 
 portance to prevent any junction between his forces and those 
 of General McClellan, who was already making Ins way into 
 the upper portions of the Valley. On the morning of the loth 
 of June, information was received from Winchester that Horn- 
 ney was occupied by two thousand Federal troops, supposed - 
 to be the vanguard of McClellan s army. A detachment was 
 
88 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 dispatched by railway to check the advance of the enemy ; 
 and on the morning of the 15th, the Confederate army left 
 Harper s Ferry for Winchester. 
 
 The next morning, after the orders were issued for the evac 
 uation of Harper s Ferry, brought one of those wild, fearful 
 cenes which make the desolation that grows out of war. The 
 splendid railroad bridge across the Potomac one of the most 
 superb structures of its kind on the continent was set on fire 
 at its northern end, while about four hundred feet at its south 
 ern extremity was blown up, to prevent the flames from reach 
 ing other works which it was necessary to save. Many of the 
 vast buildings were consigned to the flames. Some of them 
 were not only large, but very lofty, and crowned with tall tow 
 ers and spires, and we may be able to fancy the sublimity of 
 the scene, when more than a dozen of these huge fabrics, 
 crowded into a small space, were blazing at once. So great 
 was the heat and smoke, that many of the troops were forced 
 out of the town, and the necessary labors of the removal were 
 performed with the greatest difficulty. 
 
 On the morning of the day after the evacuation of Harper s 
 Ferry, intelligence was received that General Patterson s army 
 had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport ; also that the Fed- 
 force at Komney had fallen back. The Confederate army 
 ordered to gain the Martinsburg turnpike by a flank 
 
 movement to Bunker s Hill, in order to place itself between 
 Winchester and the expected advance of Patterson. On 
 hearing of this, the enemy crossed the river precipitately. 
 Resuming his first direction and plan, General Johnston pro 
 ceeded to Winchester. There his army was in position to op 
 pose ^either McClellan from the West, or Patterson from the 
 North-east, and to form a junction with General Beauregard 
 when necessary. 
 
 Intelligence from Maryland indicating another movement 
 by Patterson, Colonel Jackson with his brigade was sent to 
 the neighborhood of Martinsburg to support Colonel Stuart, 
 who had been placed in observation on the line of the Potomac 
 with his cavalry. On the 2d of July, General Patterson again 
 crossed the Potomac. Colonel Jackson, pursuant to instruc 
 tions, again fell back before him ; but, in retiring, gave him a 
 
 - severe lesson. With a battalion of the Fifth Virginia Regi- 
 i 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 89 
 
 raent and Pendleton s Battery of Field Artillery, he engaged 
 the enemy s advance. Skilfully taking a position where the 
 srnallness of his force was concealed, he engaged them for a 
 considerable time, inflicted a heavy loss, and retired when 
 about to be outflanked, scarcely losing a man, but bringing off 
 forty -five prisoners. 
 
 Upon this intelligence, the force at "Winchester, strengthened 
 by the arrival of General Bee and Colonel Elzey and the Ninth 
 Georgia regiment, were ordered forward to the support of 
 Jackson, who, it was supposed, was closely followed by Gen 
 eral Patterson. Taking up a position within six miles from 
 Martinsburg, which town the enemy had invested, General 
 Johnston waited for him four days, hoping to be attacked by 
 an adversary double his number. Convinced at length that 
 the enemy would not approach him, General Johnston returned 
 to Winchester, much to the disappointment of his troops, who, 
 sullen and discontented, withdrew in the face of the enemy. 
 
 On the loth of July, Colonel Stuart, who, with his cavalry, 
 remained near the enemy, reported the advance of General Pat 
 terson from Martinsburg. He halted, however, at Bunker s 
 Hill, nine miles from Winchester, where he remained on the 
 16th. On the 17th, he moved his left to Smithfield. This 
 movement created the impression that an attack was intended 
 on the south of the Confederate lines ; but, with a clear and 
 qr.ick intelligence, General Johnston had penetrated the de 
 signs of the enemy, which were to hold him in check, while 
 " the Grand Army" under McDowell was to bear down upon 
 General Beauregard at Manassas. 
 
 In the mean time, General McClellan s army had moved 
 southwestward from Graf ton. In the progress of the history 
 of the war, we shall meet with frequent repetitions of the lesson 
 of how the improvident spirit of the South, in placing small 
 forces in isolated localities, was taken advantage of by the quick 
 Btrategic movements and the overwhelming numbers of the 
 North. The first of the series of these characteristic disasters 
 was now to befall the South, 
 
f0 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF KICK MOUNTAIN. 
 
 The main column of Federal troops under General McClellan 
 was estimated to be twenty thousand strong ; his movements 
 were now directed towards Beverley, with the object of getting 
 to the rear of General Garnett, who had been appointed to the 
 command of the Confederate forces in Northwestern Virginia, 
 and was occupying a strong position at Rich Mountain, in 
 Randolph county. 
 
 The strength of General Garnett s command was less than 
 five thousand infantry, with ten pieces of artillery, and four 
 companies of cavalry. The disposition of these forces was in 
 the immediate vicinity of Rich Mountain. Col. Pegram occu 
 pied the mountain with a force of about sixteen hundred men 
 and some pieces of artillery. On the slopes of Laurel Hill, 
 General Garnett was intrenched with a force or three thousand 
 infantry, six pieces of artillery and three companies of cavalry. 
 
 On the 5th of July, the enemy took a position at Bealington, 
 in front of Laurel Hill, and a day or two afterwards a large 
 force appeared in front of Rich Mountain. 
 
 On the morning of the llth instant, General Garnett re 
 ceived a note from Colonel Pegram at Rich Mountain, stating 
 that his pickets had that morning taken a prisoner, who stated 
 that there were in front of Rich Mountain nine regiments of 
 seven thousand men and a number of pieces of artillery; that 
 General McClellan had arrived in camp the evening before, 
 and had given orders for an attack the next day; that General 
 Rosecrans had started a night before with a division of the 
 army three thousand strong, by a convenient route, to take 
 him in the rear, while McClellan was to attack in front ; tha^ 
 he had moved a piece of artillery and three hundred men to the 
 point by which General Rosecrans was expected, and that he 
 had requested Colonel Scott, with his regiment, to occupy a 
 position on the path by which the enemy must come. As soon 
 as General Garnett received this note, he sent a written order 
 to Colonel Scott to move to the point indicated by Colonel 
 Pegram, and to defend it at all hazards. 
 
 The attack on Colonel Pegram was met with the most gal 
 lant resistance. The fight lasted nearly three hours. The enemj 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 91 
 
 advanced by a .pathless route through the woods, the whole 
 division moving in perfect silence through the brush, laurel, 
 and rocks, while the rain poured down upon them in torrents. 
 The expectation however of surprising the little force on th< 
 mountain was disappointed. As the enemy advanced, our artil 
 lery, posted on the top of the mountain, opened upon them, 
 but with little effect, as their lines were concealed by the trees 
 and brushwood. The earth of the mountain seemed to tremble 
 under the thunders of the cannon. The tops of immense trees 
 were cut off by our fire, which was aimed too high ; the crash 
 of the falling timber mingled with the roar of the cannon, and 
 as our artillery again and again belched forth its missives of 
 destruction, it seemed as if the forest was riven by living 
 streams of lightning. While the cannonading progressed, an 
 incessant fire of musketry was kept up in the woods, where the 
 sharpshooters, w T et to the skin in the rain, kept the advancing 
 lines of the enemy at bay. For more than two hours the little 
 army of Colonel Pegram maintained its ground. Its situation,, 
 however, was hopeless. Finding himself with three thousand 
 of the enemy in his rear and five thousand in front, Colonel 
 Pegram endeavored to escape with his command, after a small 
 loss in the action. One part of the command, under Major 
 Tyler, succeeded in escaping; the other, about five hundred in 
 number, were compelled to surrender, when, it was found that 
 General G-arnett had evacuated Laurel Hill. Among the pris 
 oners taken by the enemy was Colonel Pegram himself. Thrown 
 from his horse, which was v wouncled and had become unman 
 ageable, he refused to surrender his sword to his captors, and 
 a messenger had to ride six miles to find an officer to receive it 
 from the hands of the ill-starred commander. 
 
 When Gen. Garnett heard of the result of the engagement 
 at Rich Mountain, he determined to evacuate Laurel Hill as 
 soon as night set in and retire to Huttonsville by the way ot 
 Beverley. This design was baffled, as Col. Scott with his regi 
 ment had retreated beyond Beverley towards Huttong ? ille, 
 without having blocked the road between Rich Mountain and 
 Beverley.* General Garnett was compelled by this untoward 
 
 * It is proper to state, that there was some controversy as to the precise 
 orders given to Colonel Scott. That officer published a card in the newspaper? 
 
92 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 circumstance, and by the mistaken execution of another 
 by which the road was blocked from Beverley towards Laure 
 Ilill, instead of that between the former place and Rich Mouii 
 tain, to retreat by a mountain road into Hardy county. 
 
 The retreat was conducted in good order, amid distresses and 
 trials of the most extraordinary description. The road was 
 barely wide enough for a single wagon. In the morning, the 
 army arrived at a camp on the Little Cheat, and after resting 
 on the grass in the rain a few hours, took up their dreary line 
 of march through the forest. On the morning of the second 
 day of the retreat, soon after leaving the camp on the branch 
 of the Cheat River, the pursuing enemy fell upon the rear of 
 the distressed little army, and skirmishing continued during 
 the day. Four companies of the Georgia regiment were cut off. 
 
 At one of the fords, a sharp conflict ensued, in which the 
 enemy were held at bay for a considerable time. 
 
 This action, known as that of Carrock s Ford, more than 
 retrieved the disasters of the defeat. It was a deep ford, 
 rendered deeper than usual by the rains, and here some of the 
 wagons became stalled in the river and had to be abandoned. 
 
 The enemy were now close upon the rear, which consisted o! 
 the 23d Virginia regiment, and the artillery ; and as soon as 
 the command had crossed, Colonel Taliaferro commanding the 
 23d was ordered to occupy the high bank on the right of the 
 ford with his regiment and artillery. On the right, this posi 
 tion was protected by a fence; on the left, only by low bushes; 
 but the hill commanded the ford and the approach to it by the 
 road, and was admirably selected for a defence. In a few 
 minutes, the skirmishers of the enemy were seen running along 
 the opposite bank, which was low and skirted by a few trees, 
 and were at first taken for the Georgians, who were known to 
 have been cut off, but our men were soon undeceived, and with 
 a simultaneous cheer for " Jeff. Davis" by the whole command, 
 they opened upon the enemy. 
 
 The enemy replied with a heavy fire from their infantry and 
 artillery. A large force was brought to the attack, but the 
 
 ft. the time, relieving himself from censure and showing that he occupied on 
 I he day of the battle the position to which he was peremptorily ordered \>y 
 General Garnett at the instance of Colonel Pegrain, 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 93 
 
 continued and well-directed tire of the Confederates kept them 
 from crossing the river, and twice the enemy was driven back 
 some distance from the ford. They again, however, came up 
 with a heavy force and renewed the fight. The fire of their 
 artillery was entirely ineffective, although their shot and shell 
 were thrown very rapidly, but they all flew over the heads of 
 the Confederate troops, without any damage except bringing 
 the limbs of the trees down upon them. 
 
 After continuing the fight until nearly every cartridge had 
 been expended, and until the artillery had been withdrawn by 
 General Garnett s orders, and as no part of his command was 
 within sight or supporting distance, as far as could be discov 
 ered, or, as was afterwards ascertained, within four miles of 
 the ford, Col. Taliaferro, after having sustained a loss of 
 about thirty killed and wounded, ordered the regiment to retire 
 the officers and men manifesting decided reluctance at being 
 withdrawn. 
 
 The loss to the enemy in this gallant little affair must have 
 been quite considerable, as they had, from their own account, 
 three regiments engaged. The people in the neighborhood re 
 ported a heavy loss, which they stated the enemy endeavored 
 to Conceal by transporting the dead and wounded to Bealingtou 
 in covered wagons, permitting no one to approach them. 
 
 At the second ford, about half-past one o clock in the day, 
 Gen. Garnett was killed by almost the last fire of the enemy. 
 On reaching at this ford the opposite bank of the stream, Gen. 
 Garnett desired one company from the 23d Virginia regiment 
 to be formed behind some high drift wood. He stated that he 
 would in person take charge of them, and did so the company 
 being the Richmond Sharpshooters, Capt. Tompkins. In a few 
 minutes, Capt. Tompkins and all his men, but ten, came up to 
 the regiment, stating that Gen. Garnett only wanted ten men. 
 The inference was palpable he had taken an extreme near 
 position to the enemy. Very soon the firing commenced in the 
 rear where Gen. Garnett was, and immediately the horse of the 
 general came galloping past without a rider. He fell just as 
 lie gave the order to the skirmishers to retire, and one of them 
 was killed by his side. 
 
 At the second ford, where Gen Garnett was killed, the 
 Biiciny abandoned the pursuit, and the command under Col 
 
94 SOUTHERN HISTORY OP THE WAR. 
 
 Ramsey reached Monterey and formed a junction with Gen 
 Jackson. 
 
 The actual reverses of the retreat consisted of some thirty- 
 odd killed and wounded, a number missing, many of whom 
 afterwards reached the command, and the loss of its baggage 
 a portion of which was used in blocking the road against the 
 enemy s artillery. The conflict and the retreat, the hunger 
 and fatigue of the men, many of whom dropped from the ranks 
 from sheer exhaustion, were unequalled by any thing that had 
 yet occurred in the war. Its success appeared as extraordinary 
 as its hardships and privations. Surrounded by an army oi 
 twenty thousand men, without supplies, in a strange country, 
 and in the midst of continuous and drenching rains, it was a 
 wonder that the little army of three thousand men should have 
 escaped annihilation. The command had inarched sixty hours, 
 resting only five hours, and had endured a march through the 
 forest without food for men or horses. 
 
 Gen. McClellan announced to the government at Washing 
 ton a signal victory. He summed up the results of the battle 
 on the mountain and his pursuit of the retreating army as two 
 hundred killed and wounded, a thousand taken prisoners, the 
 baggage of the entire command captured, and seven guns 
 taken. " Our success," he wrote to Washington, " is complete, 
 nd Secession is killed in this country." 
 
 The affair of Rich Mountain was certainly a serious disaster ; 
 *t involved the surrender of an important portion of North 
 western Virginia; but with respect to the courage and dis 
 cipline of our troops, it had exhibited all that could be desired, 
 and the successful retreat was one of the most remarkable in 
 nistory. It is certain that the unskilful disposition of our 
 troops, as well as their inadequate numbers, had contributed 
 to the success of the enemy, and doubts are admissible whether 
 more advantage might not have been taken of the position at 
 Carrock s Ford, with proper supports, considering its extra 
 ordinary advantages of defence, and how long it had been 
 held against the forces of the pursuing enemy by a single 
 regiment. 
 
 A feeling of deep sympathy, however, was felt for the unfor 
 tunate commander, whose courage, patriotic ardor, and gener- 
 us, because unnecessary, exposure of his person to the bullet* 
 
THE FiKST YEAR. 95 
 
 of the enemy, commended his memory to the hearts of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 Whatever might have been the depression of the public 
 mind of the South by the Rich Mountain disaster, it was more 
 than recovered by news from other quarters. The same day 
 that the unfavorable intelligence from Rich Mountain reached" 
 the government at Richmond, the telegraph brought, by a 
 devious route, the news of the battle of Carthage in Missouri. 
 The blow given to the enemy at this distant point, was the first 
 of the brilliant exploits which afterwards made the Missouri 
 campaign one of the most brilliant episodes of the war. It had 
 gone far to retrieve the fortunes of an empire that was here 
 after to be added to the Southern Confederacy, and assure the 
 promise that had been made in the proclamation of the gallant 
 Gen. Price of that State " a million of such people as the 
 citizens of Missouri were never yet subjugated, and, if at 
 tempted, let no apprehension be felt for the result." But of 
 this hereafter. 
 
 On the anniversary of the Fourth of July, the Federal Con 
 gress met at Washington. Galusha A. Grow, a Pennsylvania 
 Abolitionist, and an uncompromising advocate of the war, was 
 elected Speaker of the House. The meeting of this Congress 
 affords a suitable period for a statement of the posture of po 
 litical affairs, and of the spirit which animated the North, with 
 respect to existing hostilities. 
 
 In his message, Mr. Lincoln denounced the idea of any of 
 the States preserving an armed neutrality in the war, having 
 particular reference to the continued efforts of Governor Ma- 
 goffin, of Kentucky", to maintain a condition of neutrality on 
 the part of that State. Mr. Lincoln declared that if armed 
 neutrality were permitted on the part of any of the States, it 
 would soon ripen into disunion; that it would build impass 
 able walls along the line of separation ; and it would tie the 
 hands of the Unionists, while it would free those of the Insur 
 rectionists, by taking all the trouble from Secession, except 
 that which might be expected from the external blockade. 
 Neutrality, he said, gave to malcontents disunion without its 
 risks, and was not to be tolerated, since it recognized no fidelity 
 to the Constitution or obligation to the Union. 
 
 Kentucky was not unreasonably accounted a part of the 
 
96 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Northern government. But with an outrage ot the plainest 
 doctrines of the government, and a practical denial not only of 
 every thing like the rights of States, but even of their territo 
 rial integrity, the Northwestern portion of Virginia, which 
 had rebelled against its State government, was taken into the 
 membership of the Federal Union as itself a State, with the 
 absurd and childish addition of giving to the rebellious counties 
 the name of " Virginia. " A Convention of the disaifected 
 Northwestern counties of Virginia had been held at Wheeling, 
 on the 13th day of May, and after a session of three days, de 
 cided to call another Convention, to meet on the llth of June, 
 subsequent to the vote of the State on the Ordinance of Seces 
 sion. The Convention reorganized the counties as a member 
 of the Federal Union : F. W. Pierpont was elected governor ; 
 arid W. T. Willie and the notorious John S. Carlile, both of 
 whom had already signalized their treason to their State by 
 their course in the Convention at Kichmond, were sent as 
 representatives of "Virginia " to the United States Senate, in 
 which absurd capacity they were readily received. 
 
 The message of the President gave indications of a deter 
 mined and increased prosecution of hostilities. It called for 
 an army of four hundred thousand men, and a loan of four 
 hundred millions of dollars. This call was a curious commen 
 tary upon the spirit and resources of the people, who it had 
 been thought in the North would be crushed out by the three 
 months levies before the Federal Congress met in July to de 
 cide upon what disposition should be made of the conquered 
 States. 
 
 The statements of Mr. Lincoln s fiscal secretary were alarm 
 ing enough ; they showed a state of the treasury unable even 
 to meet the ordinary expenditures of the government, and its 
 resources were now to be taxed to the last point of ingenuity 
 to make for the next fiscal year the necessary provision of foui 
 nundred arid eighty millions of dollars, out of an actual revenue 
 the first quarter of which had not exceeded five millions. The 
 ordinary expenditures of the Federal government for the fiscal 
 year ending June 30th, 1862, were estimated at eighty millions 
 of dollars ; the extraordinary expenditures, on the basis of in 
 creased military operations, at four hundred millions. To meef 
 these large demands of the civil and war service, Secretary 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 97 
 
 Chase confessed to a receipt of but five millions per quarter 
 from the "Morrill" tariff, showing that at this rate of the 
 receipt of customs, the income of the government would be 
 twenty millions per year against nearly live hundred millions 
 of prospective outlay. 
 
 It was proposed in this financial exigency to levy specific 
 duties of about thirty-three per cent, on coffee, tea, sugar, mo 
 lasses, and syrup, which might yield twenty millions a year ; it 
 was hoped by some modification of the Morrill tariff, with re 
 spect to other articles, to increase its productiveness from 
 twenty to thirty-seven millions ; the revenue from the sale of 
 public lands was estimated at three millions ; and it was timidly 
 proposed that a tax should be levied upon real property of 
 one-third or one-fifth of one per cent., to produce twenty 
 millions additional. Thus by means of 
 
 The Tariff, $37,000,000 
 
 Tea, Sugar, and Coffee, 20,000,000 
 
 Public Lands, 3,000,000 
 
 Direct Taxes, 20,000,000 
 
 Producing a total of .$80,000,000 
 
 The Northern government proposed to eke out the means of 
 meeting its ordinary expenses, leaving the monstrous balance 
 of four hundred millions of dollars to be raised by a sale of 
 bonds. 
 
 The financial complications of the government of Mr. Lincoln 
 were in striking contrast with the abundant and easy means 
 which the Southern Confederacy had, at least so far, been able 
 to carry on the war. The latter had been reduced to a paper 
 currency, but it had for the basis of its currency the great 
 staple of cotton,* which in the shape of a produce loan wae 
 practically pledged to the redemption of the public debt. 
 
 * The whole cotton crop of America, in 1800, was 4,675,770 bales and of 
 this, 3,697,727 bales were exported, and 978,043 bales used at home. England 
 alone took 2,582,000 bales, which amounted to about four-fifths of her entire 
 consumption. The cotton-fields of the Southern States embrace an area of 
 500,000 square miles, and the capital invested in the cultivation of the plant 
 amounts to $900,000,000. Seventy years ago, the exports of our cotton were 
 only 420 bales not one-tenth of the amount furnished by several countries 
 to England. Now, the South furnishes five-sevenths of the surplus cotton 
 product of the entire world 
 
 7 
 
g SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Prospects were entertained of a speedy raising of the blockade, 
 the disappointment of which, at a later day, drove the Con 
 iederacy to other expedients of revenue, in a war tax, &c. ; but, 
 at the time of the comparison of the financial condition of the 
 two governments, the Confederate currency was accounted 
 quite as good as gold, as the cotton and tobacco once in the 
 market would afford the Southern government the instant 
 means to discharge every cent of its indebtedness. 
 
 The Federal Congress commenced its work in a spirit that 
 essentially tended to revolutionize the political system and ideas 
 of the North itself. It not only voted to Mr. Lincoln the men 
 and supplies he asked for, but the first days of its session were 
 signalized by a resolution to gag .all propositions looking to 
 wards peace, or any thing else than a prosecution of the war ; 
 by another, to approve the acts done by the President without 
 constitutional authority, including his suspension of the habeas 
 corpus ; and by the introduction of a bill to confiscate the prop 
 erty of " rebels." 
 
 The pages of history do not afford a commensurate instance 
 of the wide opposition in the social and political directions of 
 two nations who had so long lived in political union and inter 
 course as the North and the South. While the latter was daily 
 becoming more conservative and more attached to existing in 
 stitutions,* the North was as rapidly growing discontented, 
 
 * A type of the conservatism of the Southern revolution its attachment to 
 the past was vividly displayed in the adoption of its national ensign, a blue 
 union with a circle of stars, and longitudinal bars, red, white, and red, in place 
 of " the stripes" of the flag of the old government. The present Confederate 
 flag was balloted for in the Provisional Congress, and was selected by a ma 
 jority of votes out of four different models. At the time of the early session of 
 Congress at Montgomery, the popular sentiment was almost unanimous, and 
 very urgent, that the main features of the old Federal Constitution should bo 
 copied into the new government, and that to follow out and give expression to 
 this idea, the flag should be as close a copy as possible of the Federal ensign. 
 A resolution was introduced in the Provisional Congress to the effect that the 
 flag should be as little different as possible from that of the Federal govern 
 ment ; which resolution was vigorously opposed by Mr. Miles, of South Caro 
 lina, who was then chairman of the Flag Committee. The design recommended 
 by Mr. Miles, but voted down, has since been adopted as the battle flag oi 
 Generals Johnston and Beauregard. It is a blue saltier (or Maltese cross), 
 with inner rows of stars, on a red field the emblem of the saltier (saltere, to 
 reap) being appropriately that of progress and power. The two other com 
 peting designs, from which our present flag was selected, were, one, an almost 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 99 
 
 restless, radical, and revolutionary. The people of the North 
 had passed the stage of pure Democracy, and inaugurated mili 
 tary despotism. They, in effect, had changed their form of 
 government, while vainly attempting to preserve their territo 
 rial ascendency. They charged the South with attempting 
 revolution, when it was only fighting for independence ; while 
 they, themselves, actually perpetrated revolution rather than 
 forego the advantages of a partial and iniquitous Union. The 
 South, in the midst of a war of independence a war waged not 
 to destroy, but to preserve existing institutions was recurring 
 to the past, and proposing to revive conservative ideas rather 
 than to run into new and rash experiments. 
 
 The war had already developed one great moral fact in the 
 North of paramount interest. It was the entire willingness of 
 the people to surrender their constitutional liberties to any 
 government that would gratify their political passions. 
 
 This peculiarity of the condition of Northern society, was 
 more significant of its disintegration and revolutionary destiny 
 than all the other circumstances and consequences of the wai 
 combined, in loss of trade, prostration of commerce, and poverty 
 and hunger of the people. It was the corruption of the public 
 virtue. The love of constitutional liberty was degraded to po 
 litical hatreds. While these were gratified, the Northern people 
 were willing to surrender their liberties to their panderers at 
 Washington. Without protest, without opposition, in silent 
 submission, or even in expressions stimulating and encouraging 
 the despot who stript them of their rights, to still further ex 
 cesses, they had seen every vestige of constitutional liberty 
 swept away, while they imagined that their greed of resentment 
 towards the South was to be satisfied to its fill. They had seen 
 the liberties of the people strangled, even in States remaining 
 in the Union. They had seen the writ of habeas corpus denied, 
 not only by the minions of Abraham Lincoln in Maryland, but 
 by the commanding officers of Forts Hamilton and Lafayette. 
 They had seen, not only the rights of free speech, but the 
 sanctity even of private correspondence, violated by the seizure 
 
 exact reproduction of the Federal stars and stripes, the only variation being 
 that of a blue stripe, and the other a simple blue circle or rim, on a red field. 
 The consideration that determined the selection of the present flag was its 
 y to that of the old government. 
 
100 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of dispatches in their own telegraph offices. They had seen the 
 law of the drum-head not only established in Baltimore, but 
 measures to subvert their own municipal liberties inaugurated 
 by a system of military police for the whole Federal Union. 
 They had suffered without protestation these monstrous viola 
 tions of the Constitution under which they professed to live. 
 They had not only suffered, but had indorsed them. They had 
 not only done this, but they had applauded in this government 
 of Abraham Lincoln violations of honor, morality, and truth, 
 more infamous than excesses of authority. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 101 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 The "Grand Arr^y of the North. General McDowell. The Affair of Bull KJD. 
 An Artillery Duel. THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. " On to Richmond." Scenery of the 
 Battle-field. Crises in the Battle. Devoted Courage of the Confederates. THE ROOT, 
 How the News was received in Washington. How it was received in the South. 
 General Bee. Colonel Bartow. The Great Error. General Johnston s Excuses for 
 not advancing on Washington. INCIDENTS OF THE MANASSAS BATTLE. 
 
 THE month of July found confronting the lines of the Poto 
 mac two of the largest armies that this continent had ever 
 seen. The confidence of the North in the numbers, spirit, and 
 appointments of its " Grand Army" was insolent in the ex 
 treme. It was thought to be but an easy undertaking for it to 
 march to Richmond, and plant the Stars and Stripes in Capitol 
 Square. An advance was urged not only by the popular 
 clamor of " On to Richmond," but by the pressure of extreme 
 parties in Congress ; and when it was fully resolved upon, the 
 exhilaration was extreme, and the prospect of the occupation 
 of Richmond in ten days was entertained with every variety 
 of public joy. 
 
 Nothing had been left undone to complete the preparations 
 of the Northern army. In numbers it was immense ; it was 
 provided with the best artillery in the world ; it comprised, 
 besides its immense force of volunteers, all the regulars east 
 of the Rocky Mountains, to the number of about ten thousand, 
 collected since February, in the city of Washington, from Jef 
 ferson Barracks, from St. Louis, and from Fortress Monroe. 
 Making all allowances for mistakes, we are warranted in say 
 ing that the Northern army consisted of at least fifty-five 
 regiments of volunteers, eight companies of regular infantry, 
 four of marines, nine of regular cavalry, and twelve batteries, 
 foi ty-nine guns. This army was placed at the command of one 
 who was acknowledged to be the greatest and most scientific 
 general in the North General McDowell. This officer had a 
 reputation in the army of being a stoic philosopher a reputa 
 tion sought after by a certain number of "West Point pupils. 
 
 General Beauregard was fully informed of the movements of 
 
102 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 McDowell. The vaunting and audacious declaration of the 
 enemy s purpose to force his position, and press on to Rich 
 mond, was met bj firm and busy preparations for the crisis. 
 It was no mean crisis. It was to involve the first important 
 shock of arms between two peoples who, from long seasons of 
 peace and prosperity, had brought to the struggle more than 
 ordinary resources and splendors of war. 
 
 The decisive battle was preceded by the important affair of 
 Bull Run, a brief sketch of which, as a precursor to the events 
 of the 21st of July, furnishes an intelligent introduction to the 
 designs of the enemy, and alike to the complicated plan and 
 glorious issue of the great battle that, through the sultry heats 
 of a whole day, wrestled over the plains of Manassas. 
 
 Bull Run constitutes the northern boundary of that county 
 which it divides from Fairfax ; and on its memorable banks, 
 about three miles to the northwest of the junction of the 
 Manassas Gap with the Orange and Alexandria railroad, was 
 fought the gallant action of the 18th of July. It is a smaL 
 stream, running in this locality, nearly from west to east, to 
 its confluence with the Occoquan River, about twelve miles 
 from the Potomac, and draining a considerable scope of coun 
 try, from its source in Bull Run Mountain to within a short 
 distance of the Potomac at Occoquan. Roads traverse and 
 intersect the surrounding country in almost every direction. 
 The banks of the stream are rocky and steep, but abound in 
 long-used fords. At Mitchell s Ford, the stream is about 
 equidistant between Centreville and Manassas, some six miles 
 apart. 
 
 Anticipating the determination of the enemy to advance on 
 Manassas, General Beauregard had withdrawn his advanced 
 brigades within the lines of Bull Run. On the morning of 
 the 17th of July our troops rested on Bull Run, from Union 
 Mill s Ford to the Stone Bridge, a distance of about eight 
 miles. The next morning the enemy assumed a threatening 
 attitude. Appearing in heavy force in front of the position 
 of ^ General Bonham s brigade, which Held the approaches 
 Mitchell s Ford, the enemy, about the meridian, opened fire 
 with several 20-pounder rifle guns from a hill over one and a 
 half miles from Bull Run. At first, the firing of the enemy 
 was at random; but, by half-past 12 p. M., he had obtained 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 103 
 
 the range of our position, and poured into the brigade a si ower 
 of shot, but without injury to us in men, horses, or guns. Gin 
 tire was reserved, and our troops impatiently awaited the op 
 portune moment. 
 
 In a few moments, a light battery was pushed forward by 
 the enemy, whereupon Kemper s battery, which was attached 
 to Bonham s brigade, and occupied a ridge on the left of the 
 Centreville road, threw only six solid shot, with the remark 
 able effect of driving back both the battery and its supporting 
 force. The unexpected display of skill and accuracy in our 
 artillery held the advancing column of the enemy in check, 
 while Kemper s pieces and support were withdrawn across 
 Mitchell s Ford, to a point previously designated, and which 
 commanded the direct approaches to the ford. 
 
 In the mean time, the enemy was advancing in strong col 
 umns of infantry, with artillery and cavalry, on Blackburn s 
 Ford, which was covered by General Longstreet s brigade. 
 The Confederate pickets fell back, silently, across the ford 
 before the advancing foe. The entire southern bank of the 
 stream, for the whole front of Longstreet s brigade, was cov 
 ered at the water s edge by an extended line of skirmishers. 
 Taking advantage of the steep slopes on the northern bank of 
 the stream, the enemy approached under shelter, in heavy 
 force, within less than one hundred yards of our skirmishers. 
 Before advancing his infantry, the enemy maintained a fire of 
 rifle artillery for half an hour; then he pushed forward a 
 column of over three thousand infantry to the assault, with 
 such a weight of numbers as to be repelled with difficulty by 
 the comparatively small force of not more than twelve hun 
 dred bayonets, with which Brigadier-general Longstreet met 
 him with characteristic vigor and intrepidity. The repulse of 
 this charge of the enemy was, as an exhibition of the devoted 
 courage of our troops, the most brilliant incident of the day. 
 Not one yard of intrenchment or one rifle-pit protected the 
 men at Blackburn s Ford r who, with rare exceptions, were, on 
 that day, the first time under fire, and who, taking and main 
 taining every position ordered, exceeded ic cool, self-possessed, 
 and- determined courage the best-trained veterans. Twice the 
 enemy was foiled and driven back by our skirmishers and 
 Longstreet s reserve companies. As he returned to the contest 
 
104: SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 with increased numbers, General Longstreet had been lein 
 forced from Early s brigade with two regiments of infantry 
 and two pieces of artillery. Unable to effect a passage of the 
 stream, the enemy kept up a scattering fire for some time. 
 The fire of musketry was soon silenced, and the affair became 
 one of artillery. The enemy was superior in tie character as 
 well as in the number of his weapons, provided with improved 
 munitions and every artillery appliance, and, at the same 
 time, occupying the commanding position. The results of the 
 remarkable artillery duel that ensued were fitting precursors 
 to the achievements of the twenty-first of July in this unex 
 pectedly brilliant arm of our service. In the onset, our fire 
 was directed against the enemy s infantry, whose bayonets, 
 gleaming above the tree-tops, alone indicated their presence 
 and force. This drew the attention of a battery placed on a 
 high, commanding ridge, and the duel commenced in earnest. 
 For a time, the aim of the adversary was inaccurate, but this 
 was quickly corrected, and shot fell and shells burst thick and 
 fast in the very midst of our battery. From the position of 
 our pieces and the nature of the ground, their aim could only 
 be directed by the smoke of the enemy s artillery ; how skil 
 fully and with what execution this was done can only be real 
 ized by an eye-witness. For a few moments, the guns of the 
 enemy were silenced, but were soon reopened. By direction 
 of General Longstreet, his battery was then advanced, by hand, 
 out of the range now ascertained by the enemy, and a shower 
 of spherical case, shell, and round-shot flew over the heads of 
 our gunners. From this new position our guns fired as before, 
 with no other aim than the smoke and flash of their adversa 
 ries pieces, and renewed and urged the conflict with such sig 
 nal vigor and effect, that gradually the fire of the enemy slack 
 ened, the intervals between their discharges grew longer and 
 longer, finally to cease ; and we fired a last gun at a baffled 
 flying foe, whose heavy masses in the distance were plainly 
 seen to break and scatter in wild confusion and utter rout, 
 strewing the ground with cast-away guns, hats, blankets, and 
 knapsacks, as our parting shell was thrown among them. 
 
 Thus ended the brilliant action of Bull Run. The guns en 
 gaged in the singular artillery conflict on our side were three 
 six-pounder rifle pieces and four ordinary six-pounders, all oJ 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 105 
 
 Walton s battery the Washington Artillery of New Orleans 
 Our casualties were unimportant fifteen killed and fifty-three 
 wounded. The loss of the enemy can only be conjectured ; it 
 was unquestionably heavy. In the cursory examination, which 
 tvas made by details from Longstreet s and Early s brigades, 
 on the 18th of July, of that portion of the field immediately 
 contested and near Blackburn s Ford, some sixty-four corpses 
 were found and buried, and at least twenty prisoners were also 
 picked up, besides one hundred and seventy-five stands of 
 arms and a large quantity of accoutrements and blankets. 
 
 The effect of the day s conflict was to satisfy the enemy that 
 he could not force a passage across Bull Run in the face of our 
 troops, and led him into the flank movement of the 21st of 
 Ju?y and the battle of Manassas. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS. 
 
 General Scott having matured his plan of battle, ordered 
 General McDowell to advance on Manassas on Sunday, the 
 21st of July three days after the repulse at Bull Run. The 
 movement was generally known in "Washington ; Congress had 
 adjourned for the purpose of affording its members an oppor 
 tunity to attend the battle-field, and as the crowds of camp 
 followers and spectators, consisting of politicians, fashionable 
 women, idlers, sensation-hunters, editors. &c., hurried in car 
 riages, omnibuses, gigs, and every conceivable style of vehicle 
 across the Potomac in the direction of the army, the constant 
 and unfailing jest was, that they were going on a visit to Rich 
 mond. The idea of the defeat of the Grand Army, which, in 
 show, splendid boast, and dramatic accessaries, exceeded any 
 thing that had ever been seen in America, seems never to have 
 crossed the minds of the politicians who went prepared with 
 carriage-loads of champagne for festal celebration of the vic 
 tory that was to be won, or of the fair dames who w r ere equip 
 ped with opera-glasses to entertain themselves with the novel 
 scenes of a battle and the inevitable rout of " rebels." The 
 indecencies of this exhibition of morbid curiosity and exultant 
 hate are simply unparalleled in the history of civilized na 
 tions. Mr Russell, correspondent of the London Times^ an 
 eye-witness of the scene, describes the concourse of carriages 
 
106 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and gayly-dressed spectators in the rear of the army on the 
 morning of the battle of Manassas as like a holiday exhibitior. 
 on a race-course. 
 
 The scene was an extraordinary one. It had a beauty and 
 grandeur, apart from the revolting spectacle of the indecent 
 and bedizened rabble that watched from a hill in the rear of 
 the army the dim outlines of the battle and enjoyed the nerv 
 ous emotions of the thunders of its artillery. The gay uniform? 
 of the Northern soldiers, their streaming flags and glistening 
 bayonets, added strange charms to the primeval forests of 
 Virginia. No theatre of battle could have been more magnifi 
 cent in its addresses to the eye. The plains, broken by a 
 wooded and intricate country, were bounded as far as the eye 
 could reach to the west by the azure combs of the Blue Ridge. 
 The quiet Sabbath morning opened upon the scene enlivened 
 by moving masses of men ; the red lights of the morning, how 
 ever, had scarcely broken upon that scene, with its landscapes, 
 its forests, and its garniture, before it was obscured in the 
 clouds of battle. For long intervals nothing of the conflict 
 was presented, to those viewing it at a distance, but wide and 
 torn curtains of smoke and dust and the endless beat of the 
 artillery. 
 
 Orders had been issued by McDowell for the Grand Army 
 to be in motion by two o clock on the morning of the twenty- 
 first, and en route for their different positions in time to reach 
 them and be in position by the break of day. It was also or 
 dered that they should have four days rations cooked and 
 stored away in their haversacks evidently for the purpose of 
 gaining Manassas and holding it, until their supplies should 
 reach them by the railroad from Alexandria. Thus stood the 
 arrangements of the Northern forces on the evening preceding 
 the battle of the twenty-first. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance of the battle of Manassas, 
 that it was fought on our side without any other plan than to 
 suit the contingencies arising out of the development of the 
 enemy s designs, as it occurred in the progress of the action. 
 Several plans of battle had been proposed by General Beaure- 
 gard, but had been defeated by the force of circumstances. 
 He had been unwilling to receive the enemy on the defensive 
 line of Bull Run, and had determined on attacking him a1 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 107 
 
 Centreville. In the mean time, General Johnston had "been 
 ordered to form a junction of his army corps with, that of Gen 
 eral Beauregard, should the movement, in his judgment, be 
 advisable. The best service which the army of the Shenan- 
 doah could render was to prevent the defeat of that of the 
 Potomac. To be able to do this, it was necessary for General 
 Johnston to defeat General Patterson or to elude him. The 
 latter course was the most speedy arid certain, and was, there 
 fore, adopted. Evading the enemy by the disposition of the 
 advance guard under Colonel Stuart, our army moved through 
 Ashby s Gap to Piedmont, a station of the Manassas Gap rail 
 road. Hence, the infantry were to be transported by the rail 
 way, while the cavalry and artillery were ordered to continue 
 their march. General Johnston reached Manassas about noon 
 on the twentieth, preceded by the Yth and 8th Georgia regi 
 ments and by Jackson s brigade, consisting of the 2d, 4th, 5th 
 27th and 33d Virginia regiments. He was accompanied by 
 General Bee, with the 4th Alabama, the 2d and two compa 
 nies of the llth Mississippi. The president of the railroad had 
 assured him that the remaining troops should arrive during 
 the day. 
 
 General Johnston, being the senior in rank, necessarily 
 assumed command of all the forces of the Confederate States 
 then concentrating at Manassas. He, however, approved the 
 plans of General Beauregard, and generously directed their 
 execution under his command. It was determined that the 
 two forces should be united within the lines of Bull Run, and 
 thence advance to the attack of the enemy, before Patterson s 
 junction with McDowell, which was daily expected. The plan 
 of battle was again disconcerted. In consequence of the 
 untoward detention on the railroad of some five thousand of 
 General Johnston s forces that had been expected to reach 
 Manassas prior to the battle, it became necessary, on the 
 morning of the twenty-first, before daylight, to modify the 
 plan accepted, to suit the contingency of an immediate attack 
 on our lines by the main force of the enemy, then plainly at 
 hand. It thus happened that a battle ensued, different in 
 place and circumstance from any previous plan on our side. 
 
 Our effective force of all arms, ready for action on the field 
 on the eventful morning, was less than thirty thousand men 
 
108 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Our troops were divided into eight brigades, occupying the 
 defensive line of Bull Run. Brigadier-general Ewell s was 
 posted at the Union Mill s Ford; Brigadier-general D. R. 
 Jones at McLean s Ford; Brigadier-general Longstreet s at 
 Blackburn s Ford ; Brigadier -general Bonham s at Mitchell s 
 Ford ; Colonel Cocke s at Ball s Ford, some three miles above, 
 and Colonel Evans, with a regiment and battalion, formed the 
 extreme left at the Stone Bridge. The brigades of Brigadier- 
 general Holmes and Colonel Early were in reserve in rear oi 
 the right. 
 
 In his entire ignorance of the enemy s plan of attack, Gen 
 eral Beauregard was compelled to keep his army posted along 
 the stream for some eight or ten miles, while his wily adver 
 sary developed his purpose to him. The subsequent official 
 reports of McDowell and his officers show that that com 
 mander had abandoned his former purpose of marching on 
 Manassas by the lower routes from Washington and Alexan 
 dria, and had resolved upon turning the left flank of the 
 Confederates. 
 
 The fifth division of his Grand Army, composed of at leasi 
 four brigades, under command of General Miles, was to re 
 main at Centreville, in reserve, and to make a false attack on 
 Blackburn s and Mitchell s Fords, and thereby deceive Gen 
 eral Beauregard as to its intention. The first division, com 
 posed of at least three brigades, commanded by General Tyler, 
 was to take position at the Stone Bridge, and feign an attack 
 upon that point. The third division, composed of at least 
 three brigades, commanded by Heintzelman, was to proceed as 
 quietly as possible to the Red House Ford, and there remain, 
 until the troops guarding that ford should be cleared away. 
 The second division, composed of three or four brigades, com 
 manded by Hunter, was to march, unobserved by the Confed 
 erate troops, to Sudley, and there cross over the run and 
 move down the stream to the Red House Ford, and clear 
 away any troops that might be guarding that point, where he 
 was to be joined by the third or Heintzelman s division. 
 Together, these two divisions were to charge upon, and drive 
 away any troops that might be stationed at the Stone Bridge, 
 when Tyler s division vas to cross over and join them, and 
 thus produce a junction of three formidable divisions of the 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 109 
 
 Grand Army across the run, for offensive operations against 
 the forces of Genera. Beauregard, which the enemy expected 
 to find scattered along the run for seven or eight miles tho 
 bulk of them being at and below Mitchell s Ford, and so situ 
 ated as to render a concerted movement by them utterly im 
 practicable. 
 
 Soon after sunrise, the enemy appeared in force in front of 
 Colorel Evans position at the Stone Bridge, and opened a 
 light rannonade. The monstrous inequality of the two forces 
 at this point was not developed. Colonel Evans only ob 
 served in his immediate front the advance portion of General 
 Schenck s brigade of General Tyler s division and two other 
 heavy brigades. This division of the enemy s forces numbered 
 nine thousand men and thirteen pieces of artillery Carlisle s 
 and Ayres batteries that is, nine hundred men and two six- 
 pounders confronted by nine thousand men and thirteen pieces 
 of artillery, mostly rifled. 
 
 A movement was instantly determined upon by General 
 Beauregard to relieve his left flank, by a rapid, determined 
 attack with his right wing and centre on the enemy s flank 
 and rear at Centreville, with precautions against the advance 
 of his reserves from the direction of Washington. 
 
 In the quarter of the Stone Bridge, the two armies stood 
 for more than an hour engaged in slight skirmishing, while 
 the main body of the enemy was marching his devious way 
 through the " Big Forest," to cross Bull Run some two miles 
 above our left, to take our forces in flank and rear. This 
 movement was fortunately discovered in time for us to check 
 its progress, and ultimately to form a new line of battle nearly 
 at ri^ht angles with the defensive line of Bull Run. 
 
 On discovering that the enemy had crossed the stream 
 above him, Colonel Evans moved to his left with eleven com 
 panies and two field-pieces to oppose his advance, and dis 
 posed his little force under cover of the wood, near the inter 
 section of the Warrenton turnpike and the Sudley road. 
 Here he was attacked by the enemy in immensely sv peri or 
 numbers. 
 
 The enemy beginning his detour from the turnpike, at a 
 point nearly half-way between Stone Bridge and Centreville, 
 had pursued a tortuous, narrow track of a rarely used road, 
 
110 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAE. 
 
 through a dense wood, the greatei part of his way until neai 
 the Sudley road. A division under Colonel Hunter, of the 
 Federal regular army, of two strong brigades, was in the ad 
 vance, followed immediately by another division, under Colo 
 nel Heintzelman of three brigades, and seven companies Oi 
 regular cavalry, and twenty-four pieces of artillery eighteer. 
 of which were rifled guns. This column, as it crossed Bull 
 Kun, numbej-ed over sixteen thousand men, of all arms, by 
 their own accounts. 
 
 Burnside s brigade which here, as at Fairfax Court-house 
 led the advance at about 9.45 A. M., debouched from a wood 
 in sight of Evans position, some five hundred yards distant 
 from Wheat s Louisiana battalion. He immediately threw 
 forward his skirmishers in force, and they became engaged 
 with Wheat s command. The Federalists at once advanced, 
 as they report officially, the 2d Rhode Island regiment volun 
 teers, with its vaunted battery of six thirteen-pound er rifle 
 guns. Sloan s companies of the 4th South Carolina were then 
 brought into action, having been pushed forward through the 
 woods. The enemy, soon galled and staggered by -the fire, 
 and pressed by the determined valor with which Wheat han 
 dled his battalion, until he was desperately wounded, hast 
 ened up three other regiments of the brigade and two Dahl- 
 gren howitzers, making in all quite three thousand five hun 
 dred bayonets and eight pieces of artillery, opposed to less 
 than eight hundred men and two six-pounder guns. 
 
 Despite the odds, this intrepid command, of but eleven 
 weak companies, maintained its front to the enemy for quite 
 an hour, and until General Bee came to their aid with his 
 command. 
 
 General Bee moving towards the enemy, guided by the 
 firing, had selected the position near the now famous " Henry 
 House," and formed his troops upon it. They were the 7th 
 and 8th Georgia under Colonel Bartow, the 4th Alabama, 2d 
 Mississippi, and two companies of the llth Mississippi regi 
 ments, with Imboden s battery. Being compelled, however 
 to sustain Colonel Evans, he crossed the valley, and formed 
 on the right and somewhat in advance of his position. Here 
 the joint force, little exceeding five regiments, with six field 
 pieces, held the ground against about fifteen thousand Federal 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. Ill 
 
 troops. A fierce and destructive conflict now ensued the fire 
 was withering on both sides, while the enemy swept our short, 
 thin lines with their numerous artillery, which, according to 
 their official reports, at this time consisted of at least ten rifle 
 guns and four howitzers. For an hour did these stout-hearted 
 me n, of the blended commands of Bee, Evans, and Bartow, 
 breast an unintermitting battle-storm, animated surely by 
 something more than the ordinary courage of even the bravesl 
 men under fire. 
 
 Two Federal brigades of Heintzelman s division were now 
 brought into action, led by Rickett s superb light battery of 
 six ten-pounder rifle guns, which, posted on an eminence to the 
 right of the Sudley road, opened fire on Imboden s battery. 
 At this time, confronting the enemy, we had still but Evans 
 eleven companies and two guns Bee s and Bartow s four 
 regiments, the two companies llth Mississippi under Lieuten 
 ant-colonel Liddell, and the six pieces under Imboden and 
 Richardson. The enemy had two divisions of four strong 
 brigades, including seventeen companies of regular infantry, 
 cavalry, and artillery, four companies of marines, and twenty 
 pieces of artillery. Against this odds, scarcely credible, our 
 advance position was still for a while maintained, and the 
 enemy s ranks constantly broken and shattered under the 
 scorching fire of our men; but fresh regiments of the Fed 
 erals came upon the field, Sherman s and Keyes brigades of 
 Tyler s division, as is stated in their reports, numbering over 
 six thousand bayonets, which had found a passage across the 
 Run, about eight hundred yards above the Stone Bridge, 
 threatened our right. 
 
 Heavy losses had now been sustained on our side, both in 
 numbers and in the personal worth of the slain. The 8th 
 Georgia regiment had suffered heavily, being exposed, as it 
 took and maintained its position, to a fire from the enemy, 
 already posted within a hundred yards of their front and 
 right, sheltered by fences and other cover. The 4th Alabama 
 also suffered severely from the deadly fire of the thousands of 
 muskets which they so dauntlessly confronted under the im 
 mediate leadership of the chivalrous Bee himself. 
 
 Now, however, with the surging mass of over fourteen 
 thousand Federal infantry pressing on their front and under 
 
112 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the incessant fire of at least twenty pieces of artillery, with 
 the fresh brigades of Sherman and Keyes approaching the 
 latter already in musket range our lines gave back, but under 
 orders from General Bee. 
 
 As our shattered battalions retired, the slaughter was de 
 plorable. They fell back in the direction of the Eobinson 
 [louse, under the fires of Heintzelman s division on one side, 
 Keyes and Sherman s brigades of Tyler s division on the 
 other, and Hunter s division in their rear, and were compelled 
 fco engage the enemy at several points on their retreat, losing 
 both officers and men, in order to keep them from closing in 
 around them. Under the inexorable stress of the enemy s 
 fire the retreat continued. The enemy seemed to be inspired 
 with the idea that he had won the field ; the news of a victory 
 tvas carried to the rear, and, in less than an hour thereafter, 
 the telegraph had flashed the intelligence through all the cities 
 in the North, that the Federal troops were completing their 
 victory, and premature exultations ran from mouth to mouth 
 iu Washington. 
 
 If the enemy had observed the circumstances and character 
 of this falling back of a portion of our lines, it would have 
 been enough to have driven him in consternation from the 
 field. With the terrible desperation that had sustained them 
 so long in the face of fivefold odds and the most frightful 
 losses, our troops fell back sullenly ; at every step of their re 
 treat staying, by their hard skirmishing, the flanking columns 
 of the enemy. 
 
 The retreat was finally arrested just in rear of the Robinson 
 House by the energy and resolution of General Bee, assisted by 
 the support of the Hampton Legion, and the timely arrival of 
 Jackson s brigade of five regiments. A moment before. General 
 Bee had been well-nigh overwhelmed by superior numbers. 
 He approached General Jackson with the pathetic exclama 
 tion, "General, they are beating us back;" to which the 
 latter promptly replied, "Sir, we ll give them the bayonet." 
 General Bee immediately rallied his over-tasked troops with 
 the words, " There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let 
 us determine to die here, and we will conquer." 
 
 In the mean time, the crisis of the battle and the full devel 
 opment of the enemy s designs had been perceived by oui 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 113 
 
 generals. They were yet four miles away from the immediate 
 field of action, having p.aced themselves on a commanding 
 hill in rear of General Bonham s left, to observe the move 
 ments of the enemy. There could be no mistake now of the 
 enemy s intentions, from the violent firing on the left and the 
 immense clouds of dust raised by the march of a large body 
 of troops from his centre. With the keenest impatience, 
 General Beauregard awaited the execution of his orders of 
 the morning, which were intended to relieve his left flank by 
 an attack on the enemy s flank and rear at Centreville. As 
 the continuous roll of musketry and the sustained din of the 
 artillery announced the serious outburst of the battle on our 
 left flank, he anxiously, but confidently, awaited similar sounds 
 of conflict from our front at Centreville. When it was too late 
 for the effective execution of the contemplated movement, he 
 was informed, to his profound disappointment, that his ordei> 
 for an advance had miscarried. 
 
 No time was to be lost. It became immediately necessary 
 to depend on new combinations, and to meet the enemy on the 
 field upon which he had chosen to give us battle. It was plain 
 that nothing but the most rapid combinations and the most 
 heroic and devoted courage on the part of our troops could 
 retrieve the field, which, according to all military conditions, 
 appeared to be positively lost. 
 
 About noon, the scene of the battle was unutterably sub 
 lime. Not until then could one of the present generation, who 
 had never witnessed a grand battle, have imagined such a 
 spectacle. The hill occupied in the morning by Generals 
 Beauregard, Johnston, and Bonham, and their staffs, placed 
 the whole scene before one a grand, moving diorama. When 
 (he firing was at its height, the roar of artillery reached the 
 hill like that of protracted thunder. For one long mile the 
 whole valley was a boiling crater of dust and smoke. Occa 
 sionally the yells of our men, in the few instances in which the 
 enemy fell back, rose above the roar of artillery. In the dis- 
 tan 30 rose the Blue Ridge, to form the dark background of a 
 most magnificent picture. 
 
 The condition of the battle-field was now, at the least, des 
 perate. Our left flank was overpowered, and it became neces 
 sary to bring immediately up to their support the reserves not 
 
SOUTHERN HISTOKY Of THE WAR. 
 
 already in motion. Holmes two regiments and battery oJ 
 artillery, under Captain Lindsey Walker, of six guns, and 
 Early s brigade, were immediately ordered up to support our 
 left flank. Two regiments from Bonham s brigade, with Kern 
 per s four six-pounders, were also called for, and General 
 Ewell, Jones (D. E.), Longstreet, and Bonham were directed 
 to make a demonstration to their several fronts to retain and 
 engross the enemy s reserves, and any forces on their flank, and 
 at and around Centre ville. 
 
 Dashing on at headlong gallop, General Johnston and Gen 
 ural Beauregard reached the field of action not a moment too 
 soon. They were instantly occupied with the reorganization 
 of the heroic troops, whose previous stand in stubborn and 
 patriotic valor has nothing to exceed it in the records of his 
 tory. It was now that General Johnston impressively and 
 gallantly charged to the front, with the colors of the 4th 
 Alabama regiment by his side. The presence of the two 
 generals with the troops under fire, and their example, had the 
 happiest effect. Order was soon restored. In a brief and 
 rapid conference, General Beauregard was assigned to th 
 command of the left, which, as the younger officer, he claimed 
 while General Johnston returned to that of the whole field. 
 
 The battle was now re-established. The aspect of affairs 
 was critical and desperate in the extreme. 
 
 Confronting the enemy at this time, General Beauregard s 
 forces numbered, at most, not more than six thousand five 
 hundred infantry and artillerists, with but thirteen pieces ol 
 artillery, and two companies of Stuart s cavalry. 
 
 The enemy s force now bearing hotly and confidently down 
 on our position regiment after regiment of the best-equipped 
 men that ever took the field according to their own official 
 history of the day, was formed of Colonels Hunter s and 
 Heintzelman s divisions, Colonels Sherman s and Keyes bri 
 gades of Tyler s division, and of the formidable batteries ol 
 Ricketts, Griffin, and Arnold regulars, and 2d Ehode Island, 
 and two Dahlgren howitzers a force of over twenty thou 
 sand infantry, seven companies of regular cavalry, and twenty 
 four pieces of improved artillery. At the same time, peril 
 ous, heavy reserves of infantry and artillery hung in tho 
 .distance, around the Stone Bridge, Mitchell s, Blackburn s, and 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 11 C 
 
 Union Mill s Fords, visibly ready to fall upon us at any mo 
 ment. 
 
 Fully conscious of the portentous disparity offeree, General 
 Beauregard, as lie posted the lines for the encounter, spoke 
 words of encouragement to tlje men to inspire their confidence 
 and determined spirit of resistance. He urged them to the 
 resolution of victory or death on the field. The men responded 
 with loud and eager cheers, and the commander felt reassured 
 of the unconquerable spirit of his army. 
 
 In the mean time, the enemy had seized upon the plateau on 
 which Eobinson s and the Henry houses * are situated the 
 position first occupied in the morning by General Bee, before 
 advancing to the support of Evans Ricketts battery of six 
 rifle guns, the pride of the Federalists, the object of their un^ 
 stinted expenditure in outfit, and the equally powerful regular 
 light battery of Griffin, were brought forward and placed in 
 immediate action, after having, conjointly with the batteries 
 already mentioned, played from former positions with destruc 
 tive effect upon our forward battalions. 
 
 About two o clock in the afternoon, General Beauregard 
 gave the order for the right of his line, except his reserves, to 
 advance to recover the plateau. It was done with uncommon 
 resolution and vigor, and at the same time Jackson s brigade 
 pierced the enemy s centre with the determination of veterans 
 and the spirit of men who fight for a sacred cause ; but it suf 
 fered seriously. With equal spirit the other parts of the line 
 made the onset, and the Federal lines were broken and swept 
 back at all points from the open ground of the plateau. Ral 
 lying soon, however; as they were strongly reinforced by fresh 
 regiments, the Federals returned, and, by the weight of num 
 bers, pressed our lines back, recovered their ground and guns, 
 and renewed the offensive. 
 
 By this time, between half-past 2 and 3 o clock, p. M., our 
 reinforcements pushed forward, and directed by General John 
 ston to the required quarter, were at hand just as General 
 Beauregard had ordered forward to a second effort, for the 
 recovery of the disputed plateau, the whole line, including his 
 
 * These houses were small wooden buildings, occupied at the time the DM* 
 by the Widow Henry and the other by the froe negro Robinson 
 
116 , SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 reserve, which, at this crisis of the battle, the commander fell 
 called upon to lead in person, This attack was general, and 
 was shared in by every regiment then in the field, including 
 the 6th (Fisher s) North Carolina regiment, which had just 
 come up. The whole open ground was again swept clear o, 
 the enemy, and the plateau around the Henry and Robinson 
 houses remained finally in our possession, with the greater 
 part of the Ricketts and Griffin batteries. This part of the 
 day was rich with deeds of individual coolness and dauritles? 
 conduct, as well as well-directed, embodied resolution and 
 bravery, but fraught with the loss to the service of the coun 
 try of lives of inestimable preciousness at this juncture. The 
 brave Bee was mortally wounded at the head of the 4th Ala 
 bama and some Mississippians, in the open field near the 
 Henry house ; and, a few yards distant, Colonel Bartow had 
 fallen, shot through the heart. He was grasping the standard 
 of his regiment as he was shot, and calling the remnants of 
 his command to rally and follow him. He spoke after receiv 
 ing his mortal wound, and his words were memorable. To the 
 few of his brave men who gathered around him he said, " The/ 
 have killed me, but never give up the field." The last con*- 
 mand was gallantly obeyed, and his men silenced the battery 
 of which he died in the charge. Colonel Fisher had also been 
 killed. He had fallen at the head of the torn and thinned 
 ranks of his regiment. 
 
 The conflict had been awfully terrific. The enemy had been 
 driven back on our right entirely across the turnpike, and 
 beyond Young s Branch on our left. At this moment, the 
 desired reinforcements arrived. Withers 18th regiment of 
 Cocke s brigade had come up in time to follow the charge. 
 Kershaw s 2d and Cash s 8th South Carolina regiments ar 
 rived soon after Withers , and were assigned an advantageous 
 position. A more important accession, however, to our forces 
 was at hand. A courier had galloped from Manassas to report 
 that a Federal army had reached the line of the Manassas 
 Gap railroad, was marching towards us, and was then about 
 three or four miles from our left flank. Instead, however, oi 
 the enemy, it was the long-expected reinforcements. General 
 Eirby Smith, with some seventeen hundred infantry of El 
 zey s brigade of the Army of the ohenandoah and Beckham t 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 117 
 
 battery, had reached Manassas, by railroad, at noon. Hia 
 forces were instantly marched across the fields to the scene of 
 action. 
 
 The flying enemy had been rallied under cover of a strong 
 Federal brigade, posted on a plateau near the intersection of 
 the turnpike and the Sudley-Brentsville road, and was now 
 making demonstrations to outflank and drive back our left, 
 and thus separate us from Manassas. General Smith was in 
 structed by General Johnston to attack the right flank of the 
 enemy, now exposed to us. Before the movement was com 
 pleted, he fell severely wounded. Colonel Elzey, at once tak 
 ing command, proceeded to execute it with promptness and 
 vigor, while General Beauregard rapidly seized the opportu 
 nity, and threw forward his whole line. 
 
 About 3.30 P. M., the enemy, driven back on their left and 
 centre, and brushed from the woods bordering the Sudley 
 road, south and west from the Henry house, had formed a line 
 of battle of truly formidable proportions, of crescent outline, 
 reaching, on their left, from the vicinity of Pittsylvania (the 
 old Carter mansion), by Matthew s and in rear of Dogan s, 
 across the turnpike near to Chinn s house. The woods and 
 fields were filled with their masses of infantry and their care 
 fully preserved cavalry. It was a truly magnificent, though 
 redoubtable spectacle, as they threw forward in fine style, on 
 the broad gentle slopes of the ridge occupied by their main 
 lines, a cloud of skirmishers, preparatory for another attack. 
 
 Colonel Early, who, by some mischance, did not receive 
 orders until 2 o clock, which had been sent him at noon, came 
 on the ground immediately after Elzey, with Kemper s 7th 
 Virginia, Hay s 7th Louisiana, and Barksdale s 13th Missis 
 sippi regiments. This brigade, by the personal direction of 
 General Johnston, was marched by the Holkham house, across 
 the fields to the left, entirely around the woods through which 
 Elzey had passed, and under a severe fire, into a position in 
 line of battle near Chinn s house, outflanking the enemy s 
 right. 
 
 The enemy was making his last attempt to retrieve the day 
 He had re-formed to renew the battle, again extending hi 
 right with a still wider sweep to turn our left. Colonel Early 
 was ordered to throw hi n self directly upon the right flank oi 
 
118 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the enemy, supported by Colonel Stuart s cavalry and Bock- 
 ham s battery. As Early formed his line, and Beckham s 
 pieces played upon the right of the enemy, Elzey s brigade, 
 Gibbons 10th Virginia, Lieut-colonel Stuart s 1st Maryland, 
 and Yaughan s 3d Tennessee regiments, and Cash s 8th and 
 Kershaw s 2d South Carolina, Withers 18th and Preston s 28th 
 Virginia, advanced in an irregular line, almost simultaneously. 
 The charge made by General Beauregard in front, was sus 
 tained by the resolute attack of Early on the right flank and 
 rear. The combined attack was too much for the enemy. He 
 was forced over the narrow plateau made by the intersection. 
 of the two roads already mentioned. He was driven into the 
 fields, where his masses commenced to scatter in all available 
 directions towards Bull Eun. He had lost all the artillery 
 which he had advanced to the last scene of the conflict; he 
 had no more fresh troops to rally on, and there were no combi 
 nations to avail him to make another stand. The day was 
 ours. From the long-contested hill from which the enemy had 
 been driven back, his retreating masses might be seen to break 
 over the fields stretching beyond, as the panic gathered in their 
 rear. The rout had become general and confused ; the field* 
 were covered with black swarms of flying soldiers, while cheers 
 and yells taken up along our lines, for the distance of miles > 
 rung in the ears of the panic-stricken fugitives. 
 
 THE KOUT. 
 
 Early s brigade, meanwhile, joined by the 19th Virginia. 
 regiment, of Cocke s brigade, pursued the now panic-stricken 
 fugitive enemy. Stuart, with his cavalry, and Beckham had 
 also taken up the pursuit along the road by which the enemy 
 had come upon the field that morning ; but, soon cumbered by 
 prisoners who thronged the way, the former was unable to at 
 tack the mass of the fast-fleeing, frantic Federals. The want 
 of a cavalry force of sufficient numbers made an efficient pur 
 suit a military impossibility. 
 
 But the pressure of close and general pursuit was not neces 
 sury to disorganize the flight of the enemy. Capt. Kemper 
 pursued the retreating masses to within range of Cub Kim. 
 1 ridge. Upon the bridge, a shot took effect upon the horses* 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 119 
 
 of a team that was crossing. The wagon was overturned di 
 rectly in the centre of the bridge, and the passage was com 
 pletely obstructed. The Confederates continued to play their 
 artillery upon the train carriages and artillery wagons, and 
 these were reduced to ruins. Cannons and caissons, ambu 
 lances and train-wagons, and hundreds of soldiers rushed down 
 the bill into a common heap, struggling and scrambling to 
 cross the stream and get away from their pursuers. 
 
 The retreat, the panic, the heedless, headlong confusion was 
 soon beyond a hope. Officers with leaves and eagles on their 
 shoulder-straps, majors and colonels who had deserted their 
 comrades, passed, galloping as if for dear life. Not a field-offi 
 cer seemed to have remembered his duty. The flying teams 
 and wagons confused and dismembered every corps. For 
 three miles, hosts of the Federal troops all detached from 
 their regiments, all mingled in one disorderly rout were flee 
 ing along the road. Army wagons, sutler s teams, and private 
 3arriages choked the passage, tumbling against each other amid 
 :louds of dust, and sickening sights and sounds. Hacks con- 
 raining unlucky spectators of the late affray were smashed like 
 glass, and the occupants were lost sight of in the debris. 
 Horses, flying wildly from the battle-field, many of them in 
 death agony, galloped at random forward, joining in the stam 
 pede. Those on foot who could catch them rode them bareback,: 
 as much to save themselves from being run over as to make 
 quick time. 
 
 Wounded men lying along the banks the few either left on 
 the field or not taken to the captured hospitals appealed, with 
 liaised hands, to those who rode horses, begging to be lifted 
 behind ; but few regarded such petitions. Then, the artillery, 
 such as was saved, came thundering along, smashing and over 
 powering every thing. The regular cavalry joined in the 
 melee, adding to its terrors, for they rode down footmen with 
 out mercy. One of the great guns was overturned and lay 
 amid the ruins of a caisson. Sights of wild and terrible agony 
 met the eye everywhere. An eye-witness of the scene de 
 scribes the despairing efforts of an artilleryman, who was run 
 ning between the ponderous fore and after wheels of his gun 
 carriage, hanging on with both hands and vainly striving to 
 jump upon the ordnance. The drivers were spurring the 
 
120 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 horses; he could not cling much longer, and a more agonized 
 expression never fixed the features of a drowning man. The 
 carriage bounded from the roughness of a steep hill leading to 
 a creek ; he lost his hold, fell, and in an instant the great 
 wheels had crushed the life out of him. 
 
 The retreat did not slacken in the least until Centre ville was 
 reached. There, the sight of the reserve Miles s brigade 
 formed in order on the hill, seemed somewhat to reassure the 
 van. The rally was soon overcome by a few sharp discharges 
 of artillery, the Confederates having a gun taken from the en 
 emy in position. The teams and foot-soldiers pushed on, passing 
 their own camp and heading swiftly for the distant Potomac. 
 
 The men literally screamed with rage and fright when their 
 way was blocked up. At every shot, a convulsion, as it were, 
 seized upon the morbid mass of bones, sinews, wood, and iron, 
 and thrilled through it, giving new energy and action to its 
 desperate efforts to get free from itself. The cry of " cavalry" 
 arose. Mounted men still rode faster, shouting out, " cavalry 
 is coming." For miles the roar of the flight might be heard. 
 Negro servants on led-horses dashed frantically past, men in 
 . uniform swarmed by on mules, chargers, and even draught 
 Worses, which had been cut out of carts and wagons, and went 
 >on with harness clinging to their heels as frightened as their 
 riders. " We re whipped," " we re whipped," was the univer- 
 &ii cry. The buggies and light wagons triecLto pierce the rear 
 -of the mass of carts, which were now solidified and moving on 
 like a glacier ; while further ahead the number of mounted 
 men increased, and the volume of fugitives became denser. 
 
 For ten miles, the road over which the Grand Army had so 
 fitely passed southward, gay with unstained banners, and 
 flushed with surety of strength, was covered with the frag 
 ments of its retreating forces, shattered and panic-stricken in a 
 single day. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive of a more deplorable spectacle 
 than was presented in "Washington as the remnants of the army 
 came straggling in. During Sunday evening, it had been sup 
 posed in the streets of the Federal city that its army had won 
 a decisive and brilliant victory. The elation was extreme. 
 At each echo of the peals of the cannon, men were seen on the 
 street lamping up and exclaiming " There goes another hun- 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 121 
 
 dred of the d d rebels." The next morning the news of 
 
 defeat was brought by the tide of the panic-stricken fugitives. 
 One of the boats from Alexandria came near being sunk by the 
 rush of the panic-stricken soldiers upon its decks. Their panic 
 did not stop with their arrival in Washington. They rushed to 
 the depot to continue their flight from Washington, The govern 
 ment was compelled to put it under a strong guard to keep of! 
 the fugitives who struggled to get on the Northern trains. 
 Others fled wildly into the country. Not a few escaped across 
 the Susquehanna in this manner, compelling the negroes they 
 met to exchange their clothes with them for their uniforms. 
 For four or five days, the wild and terror-stricken excitement 
 prevailed. Many of the fugitives, with garments nearly torn 
 from them, and covered with the blood of their wounds, 
 thronged the streets with mutinous demonstrations. Others, 
 exhausted with fatigue and hunger, fear and dismay upon their 
 countenances, with torn clothing, covered with dust and blood, 
 were to be seen in all quarters of the city, lying upon the pave 
 ments, cellar-doors, or any other spot that offered them a place 
 for the repose which nature demanded. Many of them had 
 nothing of the appearance of soldiers left except their be 
 smeared and tattered uniforms. They did not pretend to ob 
 serve any order, nor did their officers seem to exercise the least 
 authority over them. Some recounted to horror-stricken au 
 diences the bloody prowess of the Confederate troops. The city 
 of Washington was for days in trembling expectation of the ad 
 vance of the Confederate army, flushed with victory and intent 
 upon planting its flag upon the summits of the Northern capital. 
 We had, indeed, won .a splendid victory, to judge from its 
 fruits within the limits of the battle-field. The events of the 
 battle of Manassas were glorious for our people, and were 
 thought to be of crushing effect upon the morale of our hitherto 
 confident and overweening adversary. Our loss was consider 
 able. The killed outright numbered 369 ; the bounded, 1,483 
 making an aggregate of 1,852. The actual loss of the enemy 
 will never be known ; it may now only be conjectured. Their 
 abandoned dead, as they were buried by our people where they 
 fell, unfortunately were not enumerated, but many parts of the 
 field were thick with their corpses, as but few battle-fields have 
 been. The official reports of the enemy are expresslv si- 
 
122 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 lent on this point, but still afford ns data for an approximate 
 estimate. Left almost in the dark, in respect to the losses of 
 Hunter s and Ileintzelman s divisions first, longest, and most 
 hotly engaged we are informed that Sherman s brigade 
 Tyler s division suffered in killed, wounded, and missing, f>09 . 
 that is about 18 per cent, of the brigade. A regiment ot 
 Franklin s brigade Gorman s lost 21 per cent, Griffin s 
 (battery) loss was 30 per cent. ; and that of K eyes brigade, 
 which was so handled by its commander, as to be exposed to 
 only occasional volleys from our troops, was at least 10 per 
 cent. To these facts add the repeated references in. the reports 
 of the more reticent commanders, to the " murderous" fire to 
 which they were habitually exposed the "pistol range" vol 
 leys, and galling musketry, of which they speak, as scourging 
 their ranks, and we are warranted in placing the entire loss of 
 the Federalists at over 4,500 in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 
 28 pieces of artillery, about 5,000 muskets, and nearly 500,000 
 cartridges ; a garrison flag and 10 colors were captured on the 
 field or in the pursuit. Besides these, we captured 64 artillery 
 horses, with their harness, 26 wagons, and much camp equipage, 
 clothing, and other property, abandoned in their flight. 
 
 The news of our great victory was received by the people of 
 the South without indecent exultations. The feeling was one 
 of deep and quiet congratulation, singularly characteristic of 
 the Southern people. A superficial observer would have 
 judged Richmond, the Confederate capital, spiritless under the 
 news. There were no bells rung, no bonfires kindled, no exul 
 tations of a mob, and none of that parade with which the North 
 had exploited their pettiest successes in. the opening of the war. 
 But there was what superficial observation might not have 
 apprehended and could not have appreciated a deep, serious, 
 thrilling enthusiasm, which swept thousands of hearts, which 
 was too solemn for wild huzzas, arid too thoughtful to be uttered 
 in the eloquence of ordinary words. The tremulous tones ol 
 deep emotion, the silent grasp of the hand, the faces of men 
 catching the deep and burning enthusiasm of unuttered feelings 
 from each other, composed an eloquence to which words would 
 have been a mockery. Shouts would have marred the solem 
 nity of the general joy. The manner of the reception of the 
 news in Richmond was characteristic of the conservative and 
 
THE FIEST YEAB. 123 
 
 poised spirit of our government and people. The only national 
 recognition of the victory was the passage of resolutions in the 
 Provisional Congress, acknowledging the interposition and 
 mercies of Providence in the affairs of the Confederacy, and 
 recommending thanksgiving services in all the churches of the 
 South on the ensuing Sabbath. 
 
 The victory had been won by the blood of many of our best 
 and bravest, and the public sorrow over the dead was called 
 upon to pay particular tributes to manjr of our officers who 
 had fallen in circumstances of particular gallantry. Among 
 others, Gen. Bee, to whose soldierly distinction and heroic ser 
 vices on the field justice was never fully done, until they were 
 especially pointed out in the official reports, both of General 
 Johnston and General Beauregar^d, had fallen upon the field. 
 The deceased general was a graduate of "West Point. During 
 the Mexican war, he had served with marked distinction, win 
 ning two brevets before the close of the war ; the last that of 
 captain, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the storming ot 
 Chapultepec. His achievements since that time in wars 
 among the Indians were such as to attract towards him the 
 attention of his State ; and in his dying hand, on the field in 
 which he -fell, he grasped the sword which South Carolina had 
 iaken pride in presenting him. 
 
 Colonel Francis S. Bartow, of Georgia, who had fallen in 
 the same charge in which the gallant South Carolinian had 
 received his death-wound, was chairman of the Military Com 
 mittee of the Provisional Congress, and that body paid a pub 
 lic tribute of more than usual solemnity and eloquence to his 
 memory.* 
 
 * An eloquent tribute was paid to the memory of Colonel Bartow in Con 
 gress by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in which some interesting recitals were 
 given of Colonel Bartow s short, but brilliant experiences of the camp. The 
 following extract is indicative of a spirit of confidence, which was peculiarly 
 characteristic of the officers and men alike of our army : 
 
 " While in camp, and before the advance of Patterson s column into Vir 
 ginia, but while it yet hovered on the border in Maryland, watched closely 
 by Johnston s army, I said, casually, to Colonel Bartow, The time is ap 
 preaching when your duties will call you to meet Congress at Richmond, and 
 I look to the pleasure of travelling therewith you. He replied, I don t 
 think I can go ; my duties will detain me here. I toid him that if a battle 
 was fought between the two armies, it certainly was not then imminent, and 
 t thought his service in Congress, and especially as chairman of the Military 
 
124- SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The results of the victory of Manassas were, on the first 
 days of its full announcement, received in the South as indica 
 tive of a speedy termination of the war. The advance of our 
 army on Washington was impatiently expected. A few days 
 passed, and it became known to the almost indignant disap 
 pointment of the people, that our army had no thoughts of an 
 advance upon the Northern capital, and was content to remain 
 where it was, occupying the defensive line of Bull Run. 
 
 Much has been said and written in excuse of the palpable 
 and great error, the perniciousness of which no one doubted 
 after its effects were realized, of the failure of the Confederate 
 army to take advantage of its victory, and press oil to Wash 
 ington, where for days there was nothing to oppose them but 
 
 Committee, would be even more valuable to tlie country in Congress, than in 
 the field. After a pause, and with a beaming eye, he said : No, sir ; I shall 
 never leave this army, until the battle is fought and won. And, afterwards, 
 while the two armies lay in front of each other, the enemy at Martinsburg, 
 and Johnston with his command at Bunker Hill, only seven miles apart the 
 enemy we knew numbered some twenty-two thousand men, while on our side 
 we could not present against them half that number, and the battle hourly 
 expected. His head-quarters under a tree in an orchard, and his shelter and 
 shade from a burning sun the branches of that tree, and his table a camp 
 chest I joined him at dinner. Little is, of course, known of the views and 
 purposes of a general in command, but it was generally understood that 
 Johnston was then to give the enemy battle, should he invite it. In conver 
 sation on the chances of the fight, I said to Bartow, of the spirit and courage 
 )f the troops I have no doubt, but the odds against you are immense. His 
 prompt reply was, they can never whip us. We shall not count the odds. 
 We may be exterminated, but never conquered. I shall go into that fight 
 with a determination never to leave the field alive, but in victory, and I know 
 that the same spirit animates my whole command. How, then, can they whip 
 as? 
 
 " Am I here to tell you how gallantly and truthfully he made that vow good 
 on the bloody plain at Manassas, and how nobly the troops under his com 
 mand there redeemed the pledge made for them ? The battle was fought 
 and won, as he vowed at Bunker Hill, and he sealed in death his first promise 
 in the field of war. Will you call this courage bravery ? No, no. Bartow 
 never thought of the perils of .the fight. Bravery, as it is termed, may be 
 nothing more than nervous insensibility. With him the incentives to the 
 battle-field were of a far different type. The stern and lofty purpose to free 
 his country from the invader ; the calm judgment of reason, paramount on its 
 throne, overruling all other sensations ; resolution and will combined to the 
 deed, the consequence to take care of itself. There is the column of true 
 majesty in man. Such was Bartow, and such will impartial history record 
 him He won immortality in Fame, even at the threshold of her temple. 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 125 
 
 an utterly demoralized army,, intent upon a continuance of 
 their flight at the approach of our forces. In his official re 
 port, General Johnston insists that " no serious thoughts " were 
 ever entertained of advancing against the capital, as it was 
 considered certain that the fresh troops within the works were, 
 in number, quite sufficient for their defence ; and that if not, 
 General Patterson s army would certainly reinforce them soon 
 enough. This excuse takes no account of the utterly demor 
 alized condition of the Northern forces at Washington ; and 
 the further explanations of the inadequate means of our army 
 in ammunition, provisions, and transportation are only satis 
 factory excuses, why the toil of pursuit was not undertaken 
 immediately after the battle, and do not answer with complete 
 satisfaction the inquiry why an advance movement was not 
 made within the time when means for it might have, been fur 
 nished, and the enemy was still cowed, dispirited, and trembling 
 for his safety in the refuges of Washington. 
 
 The fact is, that our army had shown no capacity to under 
 stand the extent of their fortunes, or to use the unparalleled 
 opportunities they had so bravely won. They had achieved a 
 victory not less brilliant than that of Jena, and not more profit 
 able than that of Alma. Instead of entering the gates of 
 Sebastopol from the last-named field, the victors preferred to 
 wait and reorganize, and found, instead of a glorious and un 
 resisting prey, a ten months siege. 
 
 The lesson of a lost opportunity in the victory of Manassas 
 had to be repeated to the South with additions of misfortune. 
 For months the world was to witness our largest army in the 
 field confronting in idleness and the demoralizations of a sta 
 tionary camp an enemy already routed within twenty miles of 
 his capital ; giving him the opportunity not only to repair the 
 shattered columns of his Grand Army, but to call nearly half a 
 million of new men into the field ; to fit out four extensive 
 armadas ; to fall upon a defenceless line of sea-coast ; to open a 
 new theatre of war in the West and on the Mississippi, and to 
 cover the frontiers of half a continent with his armies and 
 
 navies. 
 
126 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE. 
 
 A friend, Captain McFarland, who did service in the battle 
 of Manassas as a private in Captain Powell s Virginia cavalry, 
 has furnished us with a diary of some thrilling incidents of 
 the action. We use a few of them in Captain McFarland s 
 words : 
 
 " At 8 A. M. we proceeded to take position as picket guard and videttes in 
 a little clump of timber, about three quarters of a mile, directly in front of the 
 Confederate earth-works at Mitchell s Ford. The picket consisted of twelve 
 infantry and three cavalry. Having secured our horses, we lay down in the 
 edge of the timber, and with our long-range rifles commenced to pick off such 
 of the enemy as were sufficiently presumptuous to show themselves clear of 
 the heavy timber which crowned the distant hill. In a short time, the enemy, 
 being very much annoyed by our sharp shooting, ran out from the woods, 
 both in our front and on the left, two rifle pieces, and threw their conical 
 shells full into our covert. The pickets, however, were not dislodged. But two 
 of our horses became frantic from the whistling and explosion of the shells, 
 and we found it necessary to remove them. Just at this moment, a detachment 
 of the enemy s cavalry came dashing down the road, but halted before they 
 came within range of the muskets of the infantry. The enemy then com 
 menced a heavy firing with artillery on our earth- works at the ford, and we 
 retired beyond Bull Run. 
 
 In the mean time, the thunder of battle was heard on our left, and from the 
 heights above the stream could be seen the smoke from the scene of the con 
 flict, which, as it shifted position, showed the varying tide of conflict. Occa 
 sionally, a small white cloud of smoke made its appearance above the horizon, 
 indicating the premature explosion of a bomb-shell ; while, at painfully regu 
 lar intervals, the dull, heavy report of the enemy s thirty-two pounder told us 
 that its position remained unassailed. In the mean time, the infantry in the 
 trenches at Mitchell s Ford were impatiently awaiting the vainly looked-for 
 advance upon our breastworks. The enemy threw their shells continuously 
 into this locality, but during the whole day killed only three men, and these 
 were standing up contrary to orders. This position was commanded by the 
 brave Brigadier-genei al M. L. Bonham, of South Carolina. 
 
 About 11 o clock, the cavalry were ordered to ride to the main field oi 
 action, in the vicinity of the Stone Bridge. We set off at a dashing gallop 
 throwing down fences and leaping ditches, in our eagerness to participate in 
 the then raging conflict. In crossing an open field, I was, with Lieutenant 
 Timberlake, riding at the head of a detachment, consisting of Captain Wick- 
 ham s light-horse troop, and Capt*in E. B. Powell s Company of Fairfax cav 
 alry, when a shell was thrown at the head of the column from a rifle piece 
 stationed at the distance of not less than two miles, and as, hurrying onward 
 we leaned down upon our horses, the hurtling missile passed a few inche 
 above us, burying itself harmlessly in the soft earth on our left. 
 
 On arriving near the scene of action, we took position below the Lewis 
 house, under cover of an abruptly rising hill. Here we remained stationary 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 127 
 
 for about an hour. The enemy in the mean time, knowing our position, en 
 dc-avored to dislodge us with their shells, which for some time came hissing 
 over our heads, and exploded harmlessly in our rear. Finally, however, they 
 lowered their guns sufficiently to cause their shot to touch the crest of the 
 hill, and ricochet into our very midst, killing one man, besides wounding sev 
 eral, and maiming a number of horses. But we still retained our position 
 amid the noise of battle, which now became terrific. 
 
 From the distance came the roar of the enemy s artillery, while near by our 
 field-pieces were incessantly vomiting their showers of grape and hurling 
 their small shell into the very teeth of the foe. At intervals, as regiments 
 came face to face, the unmistakable rattle of the musketry told that the small- 
 arms of our brave boys were doing deadly work. At times, we could hear wild 
 yells and cheers which rose above the din, as our infantry rushed on to the 
 charge. Then followed an ominous silence, and I could imagine the fierce but 
 quiet work of steel to steel, until another cheer brought me knowledge of the 
 baffled enemy. 
 
 Meanwhile, our reinforcements were pouring b"y, and pressing with enthusi 
 astic cheers to the battle-field. On the other hand, many of our wounded were 
 borne past us to the rear. One poor fellow was shot through the left cheek ; 
 as he came past me, he smiled, and muttered with difficulty, " Boys, they ve 
 spoilt my beauty." He could say no more, but an expression of acute pain 
 flitted across his face, and shaking his clenched fist in the direction of the foe, 
 he passed on. Another came by, shot in the breast. His clothing had been 
 stripped from over his ghastly wound, and at every breath, the warm life- 
 blood gushed from his bosom. I rode up to him, as, leaning on two compan 
 ions, he stopped for a moment to rest. " My poor fellow," said I, " I am sorry 
 to see you thus." " Yes ! yes," was his reply, " they ve clone for me now, but 
 my father s there yet ! our army s there yet ! our cause is there yet !" and 
 raising himself from the arms of his companions, his pale face lighting up like 
 a sunbeam, he cried with an enthusiasm I shall never forget, " and Liberty s 
 there yet !" But this spasmodic exertion was too much for him, a purple flood 
 poured from his wound, and he swooned away. I was enthusiastic before, but 
 I felt then as if I could have ridden singly and alone upon a regiment, regard 
 less of all but my country s cause. 
 
 Just then, the noble Beauregard came dashing by with his staff, and the cry 
 was raised, that part of Sherman s battery had been taken. Cheer after cheer 
 went up from our squadrons. It was taken up and borne along the whole 
 battle-field, until the triumphant shout seemed one grand cry of victory. At 
 this auspicious moment, our infantry who had been supporting the batteries 
 were ordered to rise and charge the enemy with the bayonet. With terrific 
 veils, they rushed upon the Federal legions with an impetuosity which could 
 not be withstood, and terror-stricken, they broke and fled like deer from the 
 cry of wolves. Our men followed hard upon them, shouting, and driving their 
 bayonets up to the hilt in the backs of such of the enemy as by ill luck 
 chanced to be hindmost in the flight. 
 
 At this moment, one of Gen. Beauregard s aids rode rapidly up and spoko 
 to Col Radford, commander of our regiment of Virginia cavalry, who imme 
 diately turned to us and shouted, " Men, now is our time !" It was the hap 
 piest moment of my life. Taking a rapid gallop, we crossed Bull Run about 
 three-quarters of a mile below the Stone Bridge, and made for the rear of the 
 
128 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 now flying enemy. On we dashed, with the speed of the wind, our horses 
 tvild with excitement, leaping fences, ditches, and fallen trees, until we came 
 opposite to the house of Mrs. Spindle, which was used by the enemy as a ho& 
 pital, and in front of which was a small cleared space, the fence which inclosed 
 it running next the timber. Letcping*this fence, we debouched from the woods 
 with a demoniacal yell, and found ourselves on the flank of the enemy. 
 
 The remnant of Sherman s battery was passing at the time, and thus 
 we threw ourselves between the main body of the enemy and Sherman s 
 battery, which, supported by four regiments of infantry, covered the re 
 treat of the Federal army. Our regiment had divided in the charge, and our 
 detachment now consisted of Capt. Wickham s cavalry, Capt. E. B. Powell s 
 troop of Fairfax cavalry, the Radford Rangers, Capt. Radford, the whole led 
 by Col. Radford. 
 
 Our onslaught was terrific. With our rifles and shot-guns, we killed forty- 
 nine of the enemy the first discharge, then drawing our sabres, we dashed 
 upon them, cutting them down indiscriminately. 
 
 With several others, I rode up to the door of the hospital in which a num 
 ber of terrified Yankees had crowded for safety, and as they came out, we shot 
 them down with our pistols. Happening at this moment to turn round, I saw 
 a Yankee soldier in the act of discharging his musket at the group stationed 
 around the door. Just as he fired, I wheeled my horse, and endeavored to 
 ride him down, but he rolled over a fence which crossed the yard. This, I 
 forced my horse to leap, and drawing my revolver, I shouted to him to stop ; 
 as he turned, I aimed to fire into his face, but my horse being restive, the ball 
 intended for his brain, only passed through his arm, which he held over his 
 head, and thence through his cap. I was about to finish him with another 
 Bhot (for I had vowed to spare no prisoners that day), when I chanced tc look 
 into his face. He was a beardless boy, evidently not more than seventeen 
 years old. I could not find it in my heart to kill him, for he plead piteously ; 
 BO seizing him by the collar, and putting my horse at the speed, leaping the 
 fence, I dragged him to our rear-guard. 
 
 Just at this moment, I saw that the enemy had unlimbered two field-pieces, 
 and were preparing to open upon us. Capt. Radford was near me, and I 
 pointed to the cannon. He dashed the spurs into his horse, and shouted, 
 " Charge the battery." But only twenty of our men were near, the rest having 
 charged the rear of the main body of the flying Federals. Besides this, the 
 cannon were supported by several regiments of infantry. We saw our situa 
 tion at a glance, auJ determined to retreat to the enemy s flank. We were 
 very close to the battery, and as I wheeled my horse, I fired a shot from my 
 revolver at the man who was aiming the piece. He reeled, grasped at the 
 wheel, and fell. I had thrown myself entirely on the left side of my horse. 
 my foot hanging upon the croup of the saddle, and the grape consequently 
 passed over me. Capt. Radford was in advance of me, his horse very unruly, 
 plunging furiously. As I rode up, he uttered a cry, and put his hand to his 
 side. At this instant, we came to a fence, and my horse cleared it with 
 a bound. I turned to look for Capt. Radford, but he was not visible. A 
 grape-shot had entered just above the hip, and tearing through his bowels 
 passed out of his left side. He fell from his steed, which leaped the fence 
 and ran off. The captain was found afterwards by some of Col. Munford s 
 cavalry. He lived till sunset, and died in great agony. By this discharge 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 129 
 
 were killed, besides Capt. R., a lieutenq at, two non-commissioned officers, and 
 five privates. 
 
 Having gained the flank of the enemy, I dismounted and firfld for some 
 time with my rifle into the passing columns. Suddenly I found myself entirely 
 alone, and remounting, I rode back until I found Col. Munford s column 
 drawn up in the woods. Not being able to find my own company, I returned 
 to the pursuit. 
 
 Kemper s battery had dashed upon the horror-stricken foe, and opened on 
 their rear, which was covered oy the remainder of Sherman s battery, includ 
 ing the thirty-two pound rifle-gun, known as " Long Tom." The havoc pro 
 duced was terrible. Drivers were shot from their horses, torn to pieces by 
 the shells and shot. Cannon were dismounted, wheels smashed, horses 
 maimed, and the road strewn with the dead. This completed the rout, and 
 the passage of Cub Run was blocked by wagons and caissons being driven 
 into the fords above and below the bridge, and upon the bridge itself. 
 
 The route taken by the flying enemy was blocked with dead. I saw Yan 
 kees stone-dead, without a wound. They had evidently died from exhaustion 
 or sheer fright. Along the route we found the carriage of Governor Sprague 
 of Rhode Island, and in it his overcoat, with several baskets of champagne. 
 The necks of the bottles were snapped in a trice, and we drank to our victory. 
 But our delight and pride can scarcely be imagined, when we found " Long 
 Tom," whose whistling shells had been falling continually among us from 
 early dawn. It was hauled back to Bull Run amid the shouts of our men, and 
 particularly Kemper s artillery boys, who acted so well their part in causing 
 the Federals to abandon it. 
 
 * * ****** T^ following morning, in the dark drizzling 
 rain, I rode over the field of battle. It was a sorrowful and terrible spectacle 
 to behold, without the stirring excitements of battle to relieve the horrors of 
 the ghastly heaps of dead that strewed the field. At a distance, some por 
 tions of the field presented the appearance of flower-gardens, from the gay 
 colors of the uniforms, turbans, &c., of the dead Zouaves. The faces of many 
 of the dead men were already hideously swollen, blotched, and blackened, 
 from the effects of the warm, wet atmosphere of the night. 
 
 In a little clump of second-growth pines, a number of wounded had crawled 
 for shelter. Many of our men were busy doing them offices of kindness and 
 humanity. There was one New York Zouave who appeared to be dying ; his 
 jaws were working, and he seemed to be in great agony. I poured some wu 
 ter down his throat, which revived him. Fixing his eyes upon me, with a 
 
 look of fierce hatred, he muttered, " You d d rebel, if I had a musket / 
 
 would blow out your infernal soul." Another pale youth was lying in the 
 wet undergrowth, shivering in the rain, and in the cold of approaching death. 
 He was looking wistfully towards a large, warm blanket spread across my 
 saddle, and said in his halting, shivering breath, "I m so cold." I spread the 
 blanket over him, and left him to that end of his wretchedness which could 
 not be far distant. 9 
 
130 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 Results of the Manassas Battle in the North. General Scott. McClellan, " tint 
 Young Napoleon." Energy of the Federal Government. The Bank Loan. Events 
 in the West. The MISSOURI CAMPAIGN. Governor Jackson s Proclamation. Sterling 
 Price. The Affair of Booneville. Organization of the Missouri forces. The BATTLE 
 OF CARTHAGE. General McCulloch. The BATTLE OF OAK HILL. Death of General 
 Lyon. The Confederate Troops leave Missouri. Operations in Northern Missouri. 
 General Harris. General Price s march towards the Missouri. The Affair at Dry- 
 wood Creek. The BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. The Jayhawkers. The Victory of " the 
 Five Hundred." General Price s Achievements. His Retreat and the necessity for 
 it. Operations of General Jeff. Thompson in Southeastern Missouri. The Affair of 
 Fredericktown. General Price s passage of the Osage River. Secession of Missouri 
 from the Federal Union. Fremont superseded. The Federal forces in Missouri de 
 moralized. General Price at Springfield. Review of his Campaign. SKETCH o 
 GENERAL PRICE. Coldness of the Government towards him. 
 
 THE Northern mind demanded a distinguished victim for its 
 humiliating defeat at Manassas. The people and government 
 of the North had alike flattered themselves with the expecta 
 tion of possessing Richmond by midsummer ; their forces were 
 said to be invincible, and their ears were not open to any re 
 port or suggestion of a possible disaster. On the night of the 
 21st of July, the inhabitants of the Northern cities had slept 
 upon the assurances of victory. It would be idle to attempt a 
 description of their disappointment and consternation on the 
 succeeding day. 
 
 The Northern newspapers were forced to the acknowledg 
 ment of a disaster at once humiliating and terrible. They as 
 signed various causes for it. Among these were the non-arri 
 val of General Patterson and the incompetence of their general 
 officers. The favorite explanation of the disaster was, how 
 ever, the premature advance of the army under General Scott s 
 direction ; although the fact was, that the advance movement 
 had been undertaken from the pressure of popular clamor in the 
 North. 
 
 The clamor was now for new commanders. It came from 
 the army and the people indiscriminately. The commander- 
 in-chief, General Scott, was said to be impaired in his faculties 
 by age, and it was urged that he should be made to yield the 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 131 
 
 command to a younger and more efficient spirit. The railing 
 accusations against General Scott were made by Northern 
 journals that had, before the issue of Manassas, declared him 
 to be the " Greatest Captain of the Age," and without a rival 
 among modern military chieftains. It was thought no allevia 
 tion of the matter that he was not advised, as his friends repre 
 sented, of the strength of " the rebels." It was his business to 
 have known it, and to have calculated the result. 
 
 General Scott cringed at the lash of popular indignation 
 with a humiliation painful to behold. He was not great in 
 misfortune. In a scene with President Lincoln, the incidents 
 of which were related in the Federal House of Representatives 
 by General Richardson, of Illinois, he declared that he had 
 acted " the coward," in yielding to popular clamor for an ad 
 vance movement, and sought in this wretched and infamous 
 confession the mercy of demagogues who insulted his fallen 
 fortunes. 
 
 The call for a " younger general" to take command of the 
 Federal forces was promptly responded to by the appointment 
 of General G. B. McClellan to the command of the Army o 
 the Potomac. The understanding on both sides of the line 
 was, that General Scott was virtually superseded by the Fed 
 eral government, so far as the responsibility of active service 
 was concerned, though he retained his nominal position and 
 pay as lieutenant-general and commander- in-chief of the Arrny 
 of the United States. The unfortunate commander experienced 
 the deep humiliation and disgrace of being adjudged incompe 
 tent by the North, whose cause he had unnaturally espoused, 
 and whose armies he had sent into the field as invaders of the 
 land of his birth. The retribution was righteous. No penal 
 ties of fortune were too severe for a general who had led or 
 directed an army to trample upon the graves of his sires and 
 to despoil the homes of his kindred and country. 
 
 General McClellan had been lifted into an immense popu 
 larity by his successes in Northwestern Virginia, in the affair 
 of Rich Mountain and the pursuit of General Garnett, which 
 Northern exaggeration had transformed into great victories. 
 For weeks he had been the object of a " sensation." His name 
 was displayed in New York, on placards, on banners, and in 
 newspaper headings, with the phrase, "McClellan two victo- 
 
132 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ries in one day." The newspapers gave him the title of "the 
 Young Napoleon," and in the South the title was derisively 
 perpetuated. He was only thirty-five years of age small in 
 stature, with black hair and moustaches, and a remarkable 
 military precision of manner. He was a pupil of West Point, 
 and had been one of the American Military Commission to the 
 Crimea. "When appointed major-general of volunteers by 
 Governor Dennison, of Ohio, he had resigned from the army, 
 and was superintendent of the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, a 
 dilapidated concern. There is no reason to suppose that the 
 man who was appointed to the responsible and onerous com 
 mand of the Army of the Potomac was any thing more than 
 the creature of a feeble popular applause. 
 
 A leading Southern newspaper had declared, on the an 
 nouncement of the complete and brilliant victory at Manassas, 
 " the independence of the Confederacy is secured." There 
 could not have been a greater mistake. The active and elastic 
 spirit of the North was soon at work to repair its fortunes ; and 
 time and opportunity were given it by the South, not only to 
 recover lost resources, but to invent new. The government at 
 Washington displayed an energy which, perhaps, is the most 
 lemarkable phenomenon in the whole history of the war: it 
 multiplied its armies ; it reassured the confidence of the peo 
 ple ; it recovered itself from financial straits which were al 
 most thought to be hopeless, and while the politicians of the 
 South were declaring that the Federal treasury was bankrupt, 
 it negotiated a loan of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars 
 from the banks of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, at a 
 rate but a fraction above that of legal interest in the State of 
 New York. 
 
 While the North was thus recovering its resources on the 
 frontiers of Virginia and preparing for an extension of the 
 campaign, events were transpiring in the West which were 
 giving extraordinary lessons of example and encouragement 
 to the Southern States bordering on the Atlantic and Gulf. 
 These events were taking place in Missouri. The campaign 
 in that State was one of the most brilliant episodes of the war 
 one of the most remarkable in history, ard one of the most 
 fruitful in the lessons of the almost miraculous achievements 
 of a people stirred by the enthusiasm of revolution. To 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 
 
 felie direction of these events we must now divert our narra 
 tive. 
 
 THE MISSOURI CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The riots in St. Louis, to which reference has already been 
 made, were the inaugurating scenes of the revolution in Mis 
 souri. The Federal government had commenced its pro 
 gramme of subjugation with a high hand. On the 10th of 
 May, a brigade of Missouri militia, encamped under the law 
 of the State for organizing and drilling the militia, at Camp 
 Jackson, on the western outskirts of St. Louis, had been forced 
 to surrender unconditionally on the demand of Captain (after 
 wards General) Lyon of the Federal Army. In the riots 
 excited by the Dutch soldiery in St. Louis, numbers of citizens 
 had been murdered in cold blood ; a reign of terror was 
 established ; and the most severe measures were taken by the 
 Federal authority to keep in subjection the excitement and 
 rage of the people. St. Louis was environed by a line of 
 military posts ; all the arms and ammunition in the city were 
 seized, and the houses of citizens searched for concealed muni 
 tions of war. The idea of any successful resistance of Mis 
 souri to the Federal power was derided. " Let her stir," said 
 the Lincolriites, " and the lion s paw will crush out her paltry 
 existence." 
 
 The several weeks that elapsed between the fall of Fort 
 Sumter and the early part of June were occupied by the Seces 
 sionists in Missouri with efforts to gain time by negotiation 
 and with preparations for the contest. At length, finding 
 further delay impossible, Governor Jackson issued his procla 
 mation, calling for fifty thousand volunteers. At the time of 
 issuing this proclamation, on the 13th of June, 1861, the gov 
 ernor was advised of the purpose of the Federal authorities to 
 send an effective force from St. Louis to Jefferson City, the 
 capital of the State. He determined, therefore, to move at 
 once with the State records to Booneville, situated on the south 
 bank of the Missouri, eighty miles above Jefferson City. Be 
 fore his departure from the latter place, he had conferred upon 
 Sterling Price the position of major-general of the army of Mis 
 souri, and had also appointed nine brigadier-generals. These 
 
134: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 were Generals Parsons. M. L. Clark, John B. Clark, Slack, 
 Harris, Stein, Bains, McBride, and Jeff. Thompson. 
 
 There was at the time oi the issuance of this proclamation 
 no military organization of any description in the State. Per 
 haps, there had not been a militia muster in Missouri for twelve 
 or fifteen years, there being no law to require it. The State 
 was without arms, or ammunition. Such was her condition, 
 when, with a noble and desperate gallantly that might have 
 put to blush forever the stale and common excuse of " help 
 lessness" for a cringing submission to tyranny, the State of 
 Missouri determined alone and unaided to confront and resist 
 the whole power of the North, and to fight it to the issue of 
 liberty or death. 
 
 Orders were issued by General Price, at Jefferson City, to 
 the several brigadiers just appointed, to organize their forces 
 as rapidly as possible, and send them forward to Booneville and 
 Lexington. 
 
 On the 20th June, General Lyon and Colonel F. P. Blair, 
 with seven thousand Federal troops, well drilled and well 
 armed, came up the river by vessels, and debarked about five 
 miles below Booneville. To oppose them there the Missouriana 
 had but about eight hundred men, armed with ordinary riflea 
 and shot-guns, without a piece of artillery, and with but little 
 ammunition. Lyon s command had eight pieces of cannon and 
 the best improved small-arms. The Missouriana were com 
 manded by Colonel Marmaduke, a graduate of West Point, 
 Under the impression that the forces against him were incon-, 
 siderable, he determined to give them battle ; but, upon ascer 
 taining their actual strength, after he had formed his line, he 
 told his men they could not reasonably hope to defend the 
 position, and ordered them to retreat. This order they refused 
 to obey. They declared that they would not leave the ground 
 without exchanging shots with the enemy. The men remained 
 on the field, commanded by their captains and by Lieutenant- 
 colonel Horace Brand. A fight ensued of an hour and a half 
 or more ; the result of which was the killing and wounding of 
 upwards of one hundred of the enemy, and a loss of three 
 Missourians killed and twenty-five or thirty wounded, several 
 of whom afterwards died. "The barefoot rebel militia," as 
 they were sneeringly den jminated, exhibited a stubbornness on 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 135 
 
 the field of their first fight which greatly surprised their enemy, 
 and, overpowered by his numbers, they retreated in safety, il 
 not in order. 
 
 Governor Jackson and General Price arrived at Booneville, 
 from Jefferson City, on the 18th June. Immediately after his 
 arrival, General Price was taken down with a violent sickness, 
 which threatened a serious termination. On the 19th, he was 
 placed on board a boat for Lexington, one of the points at 
 which he had ordered troops to be congregated. This accounts 
 for his absence from the battle of Booneville. 
 
 A portion of the Missouri militia engaged in the action, 
 from two hundred and fifty to three hundred in number, took 
 up their line of march for the southwestern portion of the 
 State, under the direction of Governor Jackson, accompanied 
 by the heads of the State Department and by General J. B. 
 Clark and General Parsons. They marched some twenty-five 
 miles after the fight of the morning, in the direction of a place 
 called Cole Camp, to which point it happened that General 
 Lyon and Colonel Blair had sent from seven hundred to one 
 thousand of their " Home Guard," with a view of intercept 
 ing the retreat of Jackson. Ascertaining this fact, Governor 
 Jackson halted his forces for the night within twelve or fifteen 
 miles of Camp Cole. Luckily, an expedition for their relief 
 had been speedily organized south of Cole Camp, and was at 
 that very moment ready to remove all obstructions in the way 
 of their journey. This expedition, consisting of about three 
 hundred and fifty men, was commanded by Colonel O Kane, 
 and was gotten up, in a few hours, in the neighborhood south 
 of the enemy s camp. The so-called "Home Guards," con 
 sisting almost exclusively of Germans, were under the command 
 of Colonel Cook, a brother of the notorious B. F. Cook, who 
 was executed at Charlestown, Virginia, in 1859, as an accom 
 plice of John Brown, in the Harper s Ferry raid. Colonel 
 O Kane approached the camp of the Federals after the hour of 
 midnight. They had no pickets out, except in the direction of 
 Jackson s forces, and he consequently succeeded in completely 
 surprising them. They were encamped in two large barns, 
 and were asleep when the attack was made upon them at day 
 break. In an instant, they were aroused, routed, and nearly 
 annihilated; two hundred and six of them being killed, a still 
 
136 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 larger number wounded, and upwards of one hundred taken 
 prisoners. Colonel Cook and the smaller portion of his com 
 mand made their escape. The Missourians lost four men killed 
 and fifteen or twenty wounded. They captured three hundred 
 and sixty-two muskets ; thus partially supplying themselves 
 with bayonets, the weapons for which they said they had a 
 particular use in the war against their invaders. Of this suc 
 cess of the Missouri "rebels" there was never any account 
 published, even in the newspapers of St. Louis. 
 
 Having been reinforced by Col . O Kane, Governor Jackson 
 proceeded with his reinforcements to "Warsaw, on the Osage 
 river in Benton county, pursued by Col. Totten of the Federal 
 army, with fourteen hundred men, well armed and having sev 
 eral pieces of artillery. Upon the receipt of erroneous infor 
 mation as to the strength of Jackson s forces, derived from a 
 German who escaped the destruction of Camp Cole, and per 
 haps, also, from the indications of public sentiment in the 
 country through which he marched, Col. Totten abandoned 
 the pursuit and returned to the army under Gen. Lyon, at 
 Booneville. Jackson s forces rested at Warsaw for two days, 
 after which they proceeded to Montevallo, in Yernon county, 
 where they halted and remained for six days, expecting to form 
 a junction at that point with another column of their forces 
 that had been congregated at Lexington, and ordered by Gen. 
 Price to the southwestern portion of the State. 
 
 That column was under the command of Brigadier-generals 
 Rains and Slack, and consisted of some twenty-five hundred 
 men. Col. Prince, of the Federal army, having collected a 
 force of four or five thousand men from Kansas, with a view of 
 cutting them off, Gen. Price ordered a retreat to some point in 
 the neighborhood of Montevallo. Gen. Price, still very feeble 
 from his recent severe attack of sickness, started with one hun 
 dred men to join his forces. His object was to draw his army 
 away from the base-line of the enemy, the Missouri river, and 
 to gain time for the organization of his army. The column 
 from Lexington marched forward, without blankets or clothing 
 of any kind, without wagons, without tents, and, indeed, with 
 out any thing usually reckoned among the comforts of an army. 
 They had to rely for subsistence on the country through which 
 they passed a friendly country it is true, but they Lad buf 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 137 
 
 little time to partake of hospitalities on their march, being 
 closely pursued by the enemy. On the night of the 3d of J uly, 
 the column from Lexington formed a junction with Jackson s 
 forces in Cedar county. 
 
 That night, under orders from Governor Jackson, all the men 
 belonging to the districts of brigadier-generals then present, 
 reported respectively to their appropriate brigadier-generals 
 for the purpose of being organized into companies, battalions, 
 regiments, brigades, and divisions. The result was, that about 
 two thousand reported to Brig.-gen. Bains, six hundred to 
 Brig.-gen. Slack, and about five hundred each to Brigadier- 
 generals J. B. Clark and Parsons ; making an entire force of 
 about three thousand six hundred men. Some five or six hun 
 dred of the number were, however, entirely unarmed ; and the 
 common rifle and the shot-gun constituted the weapons of the 
 armed men, with the exception of the comparatively few who 
 carried the muskets taken in the fight at Cole Camp. The 
 army was organized by 12 o clock, the 4th of July, and in one 
 hour thereafter, it took up the line of march for the southwest. 
 
 Before leaving, Governor Jackson received intelligence that 
 he was pursued by Gen. Lyon, coming down from a northeast 
 erly direction, and by Lane and Sturgis from the northwest, 
 their supposed object being to form a junction in his rear, with 
 a force sufficiently large to crush him. He marched his com 
 mand a distance of twenty-three miles by nine o clock on the 
 evening of the 4th, at which hour he stopped for the night. Be 
 fore the next morning, he received authentic intelligence that 
 a column of men, three thousand in number, had been sent out 
 from St. Louis on the southwestern branch of the Pacific rail 
 road for Rolla, under the command of Gen. Sigel, and that they 
 had arrived at the town of Carthage, immediately in his front, 
 thus threatening him with battle in the course of a few hours. 
 Such was the situation of the undisciplined, badly-armed Mis 
 souri State troops, on the morning of the 5th of July ; a large 
 Federal force in their rear, pressing upon them, while Sigel in 
 front intercepted their passage. But they were cheerful and 
 buoyant in spirit, notwithstanding the perilous position in which 
 they were placed. They resumed their march at two o clock on 
 the morning of the 5th, and proceeded, without halting, a dis 
 tance of ten miles. At 10 o clock A. M they approached a 
 
138 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 creek within a mile and a half of the enemy, whose forces were 
 in line of battle under Sigel, in the open prairie, upon the brow 
 of a hill, and in three detachments, numbering nearly three 
 thousand men. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CARTHAGE. 
 
 The Missourians arrived on their first important battle-field 
 with a spirit undiminished by the toil of their march and their 
 sufferings. The men were suffering terribly for water, but 
 could find none, the enemy being between them and the creek 
 The line of battle was formed with about twelve hundred men as 
 infantry, commanded by Brigadier-generals J. B. Clark, Par 
 sons, and Slack, and the remainder acting as cavalry under Brig 
 adier-general Eains, the whole under the command of Govern 
 or Jackson. The infantry were formed, and placed in line of 
 battle six hundred yards from the enemy, on the brow of the 
 hill fronting his line, The cavalry deployed to the right and 
 left, with a view of charging and attacking the enemy on his 
 right and left wing, while the infantry were to advance from 
 the front. Sigel had eight pieces of cannon. The Missourians 
 had a few old pieces, but nothing to charge them with. While 
 their cavalry were deploying to the right and left, Sigel s bat 
 teries opened upon their line with grape, canister, shell, and 
 round-shot. The cannon of the Missourians replied as best 
 they could. They were loaded with trace-chains, bits of iron, 
 rocks, &c. It was difficult to get their cavalry up to the posi 
 tion agreed upon as the one from which a general charge should 
 be commenced upon the foe. Sigel would turn his batteries 
 upon them whenever they came in striking distance, causing 
 a stampede among the horses, and subjecting the troops to a 
 galling fire. This continued to be the case for an hour and 
 thirty-five minutes. Owing to the difficulty of bringing the 
 horses into position, the brigadier-generals ordered the infantry 
 to charge the enemy, the cavalry to come up at the same time 
 in supporting distance. They advanced in double-quick, with 
 a shout, when the enemy retreated across Bear Creek, a wide 
 and deep stream, and then destroyed the bridge over which 
 they crossed. Sigel s forces retreated along the bank of the 
 creek a distance of a mile or a mile and a half, and formed 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 139 
 
 behind a skirt of timber. The Missourians had to cross an 
 open field, exposed to a raking fire, before they could reach the 
 corner of the woods, beyond which the enemy had formed. A 
 number of the cavalry dismounted and acted with the infantry, 
 thus bringing into active use nearly all the small-arms brought 
 upon the field. They rushed to the skirt of timber, and opened 
 vigorously upon the enemy across the stream, who returned 
 the fire with great spirit. For the space of an hour, the firo 
 on each side was incessant and fierce. The Missourians threw 
 a quantity of dead timber into the stream, and commo iced 
 crossing over in large numbers, when the enemy again Aban 
 doned his position and started in the direction of Ca) ohage, 
 eight miles distant. A running fight was kept up all the way 
 to Carthage, Sigel and his forces being closely pursued by the 
 men whom they had expected to capture without a fight. At 
 Carthage, the enemy again made a stand, forming an ambus 
 cade behind houses, wood-piles, and fences. After a severe en - 
 gagement there of some forty minutes, he retreated under cover 
 of night in the direction of Holla. He was pursued some 
 three or four miles, till near nine o clock, when the Missourians 
 were called back and ordered to collect their wounded. They 
 camped at Carthage that night (July 5), on the same ground 
 that Sigel had occupied two nights before. The little a r my had 
 done a brilliant day s work. They had fought an eneT/xy from 
 10 A. M. to 9 P. M., killing and wounding a considerable number 
 of his men, and driving him twelve miles on the roate of his 
 retreat. They afterwards ascertained that he continued to 
 march all night, and did not halt till eleven o clock the next 
 day, nearly thirty miles from Carthage. The casualties of the 
 day cannot be given with accuracy. The Missourians lost be 
 tween forty and fifty killed, and from one hundred and twen 
 ty-five to one hundred and fifty wounded. The loss of the en 
 emy was estimated at from one hundred and fifty to two hun 
 dred killed, and from three hundred to four hundred wounded 
 his killed and wounded being scattered over a space of upwarda 
 of ten miles. The Missourians captured several hundred mua 
 kets, which were given to their unarmed soldiers. The victory 
 of Carthage had an inspiriting effect upon the Missourians, and 
 taught the enemy a lesson of humility which he did not soon 
 forget. It awakened the Federal commanders in Missouri to 
 
UO SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 a sense of the magnitude of the work before them. When 
 Sigel first got sight of the forces drawn up against him, he 
 assured his men that there would be no serious conflict. He 
 said they were coming into line like a worm-fence, and that a 
 few grape, canister, and shell thrown into their midst, would 
 throw them into confusion, and put them to flight. This ac 
 complished, he would charge them with his cavalry and take 
 them prisoners, one and all. But after carefully observing 
 their movements for a time, in the heat of the action, he changed 
 his tone. " Great God," he exclaimed, " was the like ever 
 seen ! Raw recruits, unacquainted with war, standing their 
 ground like veterans, hurling defiance at every discharge oi 
 the batteries against them,, and cheering their own batteries 
 whenever discharged. Such material, properly worked up, 
 would constitute the best troops in the world." Such was the 
 testimony of Gen. Sigel, who bears the reputation of one of 
 the most skilful and accomplished officers in the Federal ser 
 vice. 
 
 The next day, July 6th, General Price arrived at Carthage, 
 accompanied by Brigadier-general McCulloch of the Confed 
 erate army, and Major-general Pierce of the Arkansas State 
 forces, with a force of nearly two thousand men. These im 
 portant arrivals were hailed with joy by the Missourians in 
 camp. They were happy to see their beloved general so far 
 restored to health as to be able to take command ; and the 
 presence of the gallant Generals McCulloch and Pierce with 
 an effective force gave them an assurance, not to be mistaken, 
 of the friendly feeling and intention of the Confederate govern 
 ment towards the State of Missouri. 
 
 On the 7th, the forces at Carthage, under their respective 
 commands, took up the line of march for Cowskin Prairie, in 
 McDonald county, near the Indian nation. It turned out that 
 Lyon, Sturgis, Sweeny, and Sigel, instead of pursuing their 
 foe, determined to form a junction at Springfield. The forces 
 of Price and McCulloch remained at Cowskin Prairie for sev 
 eral days, organizing for the work before them. General Price 
 received considerable reinforcements ; making the whole nu 
 merical strength of his command about ten thousand. More 
 than one half of the number, however, were entirely unarmed. 
 Price, McCulloch, and Pierce decided to march upon Spring- 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 141 
 
 field, and attack the enemy where he had taken his position in 
 force. To that end, their forces were concentrated at Cassville 
 in Barry county, according to orders, and from that point they 
 proceeded in the direction of Springfield, ninety miles distant^ 
 General McCulloch leading the advance. 
 
 Upon his arrival at Crane Creek, General McCulloch was 
 informed by his pickets that the Federals had left Springfield, 
 and were advancing upon him in large force, their advanced 
 guard being then encamped within seven miles of him. For 
 several days there was considerable skirmishing between the 
 pickets of the two armies in that locality. In consequence of 
 information of the immense superiority of the enemy s force, 
 General McCulloch, after consultation with the general officers, 
 determined to make a retrograde movement. He regarded the 
 unarmed men as incumbrances, and thought the unorganized 
 and undisciplined condition of both wings of the army sug 
 gested the wisdom of avoiding battle with the disciplined 
 enemy upon his own ground, and in greatly superior num 
 bers. 
 
 General Price, however, entertained a different opinion of 
 the strength of the enemy. He favored an immediate ad 
 vance. This policy being sustained by his officers, General 
 Price requested McCulloch to loan a number of arms from his 
 command for the use of such of the Missouri soldiers as were 
 unarmed, believing that, with the force at his command, he 
 could whip the enemy. General McCulloch declined to com 
 ply with the request, being governed, no doubt, by the same 
 reasons which had induced him to decline the responsibility of 
 ordering an advance of the whole command. 
 
 On the evening of the day upon which this consultation 
 occurred, General McCulloch received a general order from 
 General Polk, commander of the Southwestern division of the 
 Confederate army, to advance upon the enemy in Missouri. 
 He immediately held another consultation with the officers of 
 the two divisions, exhibited the order he had received, and 
 offered to march at once upon Springfield, upon condition that 
 he should have the chief command of the army. General 
 Price replied, that he was not fighting for distinction, but for 
 the defence of the liberties of his countrymen, and that it 
 mattered but little what position he occupied. He said that he 
 
142 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 was ready to surrender not only the command, but his life as 
 a sacrifice to the cause. He accordingly did not hesitate, with 
 a magnanimity of which history presents but few examples in 
 %iilitary leaders, to turn over the command to General McCul- 
 loch, and to take a subordinate position in a contest in which, 
 irom the first, he was assured of victory. 
 
 On taking command, General McCulloch issued a general 
 order, that all the unarmed men should remain in camp, and 
 all those furnished with arms should get their guns in condition 
 for service, provide themselves with fifty rounds of ammunition, 
 and get in readiness to take up the line of march by twelve 
 o clock at night. The army was divided into three columns : 
 the first commanded by General McCulloch, the second by 
 General Pierce, and the third by General Price. They took 
 up the line of march at the hour named, leaving the baggage 
 train behind, and proceeded in the direction of Springfield. 
 The troops were in fine condition and in excellent spirits, ex 
 pecting to find the enemy posted about eight miles from their 
 camp, on the Springfield road, where the natural defences are 
 very strong, being a series of eminences on either side of the 
 road. They arrived at that locality about sunrise, carefully 
 approached it, and ascertained that the enemy had retired the 
 previous afternoon. They followed in pursuit that day a dis 
 tance of twenty-two miles, regardless of dust and heat ; twelve 
 miles of the distance without a drop of water the troops hav 
 ing no canteens. 
 
 The weary army encamped on the night of the 8th at Big 
 Spring, one mile and a half from Wilson s Creek, and ten 
 miles and a half south of Springfield. Their baggage trains 
 having been left behind, and their beef cattle also, the troops 
 had not eaten any thing for twenty-four hours, and had been 
 supplied with only half rations for ten days previous. In this 
 exigency, they satisfied the cravings of hunger by eating green 
 corn, without a particle of salt or a mouthful of meat. The 
 wardrobe of the soldiers on that night was thus humorously 
 described by one of the number: " We had not a blanket, not 
 a tent, nor any clothes, except the few we had on our backs, 
 and four-fifths of us were barefooted. Billy Barlow s dress at 
 a circus would be decent in comparison with that of almost 
 any one, from the major-general down to the humblest private." 
 
THE FIKST YEAK. 143 
 
 On the next day, the army moved to Wilson s Creek, and 
 Jiere took up camp, that they might be convenient to several 
 large fields from which they could supply themselves with 
 green corn, which, for two days, constituted their only repast. 
 
 Orders were issued by General McCulloch to the troops to 
 get ready to take up the line of march to Springfield by nine 
 o clock P. M., with a view of attacking the enemy at four dif 
 ferent points at daybreak the next morning. His effective force, 
 as stated by himself, was five thousand three hundred infantry, 
 fifteen pieces of artillery, and six thousand horsemen, armed 
 with flint-lock muskets, rifles, and shot-guns. 
 
 After receiving the order to march, the troops satisfied then 
 hunger, prepared their guns and ammunition, and got up a 
 dance before every camp-fire. When nine o clock came, in 
 consequence of the threatening appearance of the weather, and 
 the want of cartridge-boxes to protect the ammunition of the 
 men, the order to march was countermanded, the commanding 
 general hoping to be able to move early the next morning. 
 The dance before the camp-fires was resumed and kept up 
 until a late hour. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF OAK HILL. 
 
 The next morning, the 10th of August; before sunrise, the 
 troops were attacked by the enemy, who had succeeded in 
 gaining the position he desired. General Lyon attacked them 
 on their left, and General Sigel on their right and in their 
 rear. From each of these points batteries opened upon them. 
 General McCulloch s command was soon ready. The Mis- 
 sourians, under Brigadier generals Slack, Clark, McBride, 
 Parsons, and Rains, were nearest the position taken by Gen 
 eral Lyon with his main force. General Price ordered them to 
 move their artillery and infantry rapidly forward. Advancing 
 a few hundred yards, he came upon the main body of the 
 enemy on the left, commanded by General Lyon in person 
 The infantry and artillery, which General Price had ordered 
 to follow him, came up to the number of upwards of two thou 
 sand, and opened upon the enemy a brisk and well-directed 
 fire. Woodruffs battery opened to that of the enemy under 
 Captain Totten, and a constant cannonading was kept up be 
 
144 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tween these batteries during the action. Hebert s regiment 01 
 Louisiana volunteers and Mcln tosh s regiment of Arkansas 
 mounted riflemen were ordered to the front, and, after passing 
 the battery, turned to the left, and soon engaged the enemy 
 with the regiments deployed. Colonel Mclntosh dismounted 
 his regiment, and the two marched up abreast to the fence 
 around a large corn-field, where they met the left of the 
 enemy already posted. A terrible conflict of small-arms took 
 place here. Despite the galling fire poured upon these two 
 regiments, they leaped over the fence, and, gallantly led by 
 their colonels, drove the enemy before them back upon the 
 main body. During this time, the Missourians, under General 
 Price, were nobly sustaining themselves in the centre, and 
 were hotly engaged on the sides of the height upon which 
 the enemy was posted. Some distance on the right, General 
 Sigel had opened his battery upon Churchill s and Green s 
 regiments, and had gradually made his way to the Springfield 
 road, upon each side of which the Confederates were en 
 Damped, and had established their battery in a strong position. 
 General McCulloch at once took two companies of the Louisi 
 ana regiment which were nearest to him at the time, and 
 marched them rapidly from the front and right to the rear, 
 with orders to Colonel Mclntosh to bring up the remainder. 
 When they arrived near the enemy s battery, they found 
 that Reid s battery had opened upon it, and that it was 
 already in confusion. Advantage was taken of this, and soon 
 the Louisianians gallantly charged upon the guns and swept 
 the cannoneers away. Five guns were here taken, and Sigel s 
 forces completely routed. They commenced a rapid retreat 
 with a single gun, pursued by some companies of the Texas 
 regiment and a portion of Colonel Major s Missouri regiment 
 of cavalry. In the pursuit, many of the enemy were killed 
 and his last gun captured. Having cleared their right and 
 rear, it became necessary for the Confederate forces to direct 
 all their attention to the centre, where General Lyon was 
 pressing upon the Missourians with all his strength. To this 
 point, Mclntosh s regiment under Lieutenant-colonel Embry, 
 and Churchill s regiment on foot, Gratiot s regiment, and 
 McEae s battalion, were sent to their aid. A terrible fire oi 
 musketry was now kept up along the whole line of the hill 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 1*15 
 
 upon which the er:emy was posted. Masses of infai.trj fell 
 back and again rushed forward. The summit of the hill was 
 covered with the dead and the wounded. Both sides were fight, 
 ing with desperation for the field. Carroll s and Green s regi 
 ments, led gallantly by Captain Bradfute, charged Totten s 
 battery ; but the whole strength of the enemy were immedi 
 ately in the rear, and a deadly fire was opened upon them. 
 At this critical moment, when the fortunes of the day seemed 
 to be at the turning-point, two regiments of General Pierce s 
 brigade were ordered to march from their position, as reserves, 
 to support the centre. Reid s battery was also ordered to 
 move forward, and the Louisiana regiment was again called 
 into action on the left of it. The battle then became general, 
 and probably, says General McCulloch, in his official report, 
 "no two opposing forces ever fought with greater desperation; 
 inch by inch the enemy gave way, and were driven from theii 
 position. Totten s battery fell back Missourians, Arkansans, 
 Louisianians, and Texans pushed forward the incessant roll 
 of musketry was deafening, and the balls fell thick as hail 
 stones ; but still our gallant Southerners pushed onward, and, 
 with one wild yell, broke upon the enemy, pushing them back, 
 and strewing the ground with their dead. Nothing could with 
 stand the impetuosity of our final charge. The enemy fled, and 
 could not again be rallied." 
 
 Thus encled the battle of Oak Hill, or of Wilson s Creek, as 
 Gen. Sigel called it in his official report to the Federal author 
 ities. It lasted about six hours. The force of the enemy was 
 stated at from nine to ten thousand, and consisted for the most 
 part of well-disciplined, well-armed troops, a large portion oi 
 them belonging to the old United States army. They were riot 
 prepared for the signal defeat which they suffered. Their loss 
 was supposed to be about two thousand in killed, wounded, and 
 prisoners. They also lost six pieces of artillery, several hun 
 dred stand of small-arms, and several of their standards. Ma 
 jor-general Lyon, their chief-in-cornmand, was killed, and many 
 of their officers were wounded some of them high in rank. 
 Gen, McCulloch, in his official report, stated the entire loss on 
 the part of his command at two hundred and sixty-five killed, 
 eight hundred wounded, and thirty missing. Of these, the 
 
 Missourians, according to Gen. Price s report, lost one him- 
 
 10 
 
146 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 dred and fifty-six killed, and five hundred and seventeen 
 wounded. 
 
 The victory was won by the determined valor of each divi 
 sion of the army. The Droops from Texas, Arkansas, and Loui 
 siana bore themselves with a gallantry characteristic of thei 
 respective States. The Missouri troops were mostly undisci 
 plined, but they had fought with the most desperate valor, 
 never failing to advance when ordered. Repeatedly, during 
 the action, they retired from their position, and then returned 
 to it with increased energy and enthusiasm a feat rarely per 
 formed by undisciplined troops. The efficiency of the double- 
 barrel shot-gun and the walnut-stock rifle, was abundantly 
 demonstrated these being the only arms used by the Mis- 
 sourians in this fight, with the exception of the four hundred 
 muskets captured from the enemy on the two occasions already 
 named. 
 
 Gen. Lyon, at the head of his regulars, was killed in an at 
 tempt to turn the wing mainly defended by the arms of the 
 Missourians. He received two small rifle-balls or buckshot in 
 the heart, the one just above the left nipple, the other immedi 
 ately below it. He had been previously wounded in the leg 
 His surgeon came in for his body, under a flag of truce, after 
 the close of the battle, and Gen. Price sent it in his own wagon, 
 But the enemy, in his flight, left the body unshrouded in Spring 
 field. The next morning, August llth, Lieut.-.col. Gustavus 
 Elgin and Col. R. H. Mercer, two of the members of Brigadier- 
 general Clark s staff, caused the body to be properly prepared 
 for burial. He was temporarily interred at Springfield, in a 
 metallic coffin procured by Mrs. Phelps, wife of John S. Phelps, 
 a former member of the Federal Congress from that district, 
 and now an officer in the Lincoln army. A few days after 
 wards, the body was disinterred and sent to St. Louis, to await 
 the order of his relatives in Connecticut. 
 
 The death of Gen. Lyon was a serious loss to the Federals in 
 Missouri. He was an able and dangerous man a man of the 
 times, who appreciated the force of audacity and quick decision 
 in a revolutionary war. To military education and talents, he 
 jnited a rare energy and promptitude. No doubts or scruples 
 unsettled his mind. A Connecticut Yankee, without a trace 
 of chivalric feeling or personal sensibility one of those wnc 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 147 
 
 submit to insult with indifference, yet are brave on the field 
 he was this exception to the politics o^ the late regular army 
 of the United States, that he was an unmitigated, undisguised, 
 and fanatical Abolitionist. 
 
 Shortly after the battle of Oak Hill, the Confederate army 
 returned to the frontier of Arkansas, Generals McCulloch and 
 Price having failed to agree upon the plan of campaign in 
 Missouri. 
 
 In northern Missouri, the bold and active demonstrations of 
 Gen. Harris had made an important diversion of the enemy in 
 favor of Gen. Price. These demonstrations had been so suc 
 cessfully made, that they diverted eight thousand men from 
 the support of Gen. Lyon, and held them north of the river 
 until after the battle of Oak Hill, thus making an important 
 contribution to the glorious issue of that contest. 
 
 The history of the war presents no instance of a more heroic 
 determination of a people to accomplish their freedom, than 
 that exhibted by the people of northern Missouri. Occupying 
 that portion of tlie State immediately contiguous to the Federal 
 States of Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois, penetrated by two lines oi 
 railroads, intersecting at right angles, dividing the country 
 north and south, east and west which lines of railroads were 
 seized and occupied by the enemy, even before the commence 
 ment of hostilities ; washed on every side by large, navigable 
 rivers in possession of the enemy ; exposed at every point to 
 the inroads of almost countless Federal hosts, the brave people 
 of northern Missouri, without preparation or organization, did 
 not hesitate to meet the alternative of war, in the face of a foe 
 confident in his numbers and resources. 
 
 On the 21st June, 1861, a special messenger from Governor 
 fackson overtook, at Paris, Monroe county, Thomas A. Harris, 
 who was then en route as a private soldier to the rendezvous 
 at Booneville. The messenger was the bearer of a commission 
 by which Thomas A. Harris was constituted Brigadier-general 
 of the Missouri State Guard, and assigned to the duty of or-i 
 ganizing the forces for the defence of that portion of the State 
 north of the Missouri river. The commission was accompanied 
 bj orders from Gen. Sterling Price. At the date of the deliv 
 ery of the commission and orders, the affair at Booneville had 
 transpired, and the governor and Gen. Price, with such of the 
 
145 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 forces as had been hastily collected, were, as already stated, in 
 full retreat before the enemy in the direction of southwestern 
 Missouri. 
 
 Gen. Harris was without any organized force whatever; 
 without military supplies of any kind ; without money, or any 
 authorized agent to pledge the credit of the State. He com 
 menced recruiting an army in the face of the enemy. At a 
 public meeting, called by him, he delivered a stirring and 
 patriotic address, caused the oath of allegiance to the South tc 
 be administered to himself in the most public and impressive 
 manner, and, in turn, administered the same oath to fifty-three 
 men, and organized x ,hem into a company, directing them to 
 return to their homes, collect their, private arms, and join him 
 without delay. When we consider that this bold action was 
 within three hours march of an enemy in force, and that it in 
 vited his bitter resentment, we can rightly appreciate the he 
 roism and self-sacrificing patriotism of the participators. 
 
 A false report of the approach of the enemy caused the 
 evacuation of the town of Paris, where quite a number of un 
 armed troops had assembled. General Harris retired into a 
 stronghold in the knobs of Salt River. He was a brigadier- 
 general, with a command of three men, and a few officers 
 whom he had appointed upon his staff. Here, without 
 blankets, tents, or any kind of army equipments, he com 
 menced the organization of a guerrilla force, which was des 
 tined to render important service in the progress of the war in 
 Missouri. 
 
 Gen. Harris adopted the policy of secretly organizing his 
 force, the necessity for such secrecy being constantly induced 
 by the continued presence and close proximity of the ene 
 my. The fact, however, that Gen. Lyon was moving to the 
 southwest in pursuit of Gen. Price, caused him to attempt a 
 diversion, which was successful, as has been stated, in holding 
 a large Federal force north of the Missouri river. Although 
 the active duties of a guerrilla campaign necessarily involved 
 a delay in organization, yet Gen. Harris was successful in rais 
 ing a force of two thousand seven hundred and thirty men in 
 the very face of the enemy, and in crossing them over the 
 river ; and after a march of sixty-t\v > miles, in twenty-eight 
 hours, he united his command with Gen. Price in time to r>ar 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 149 
 
 ticipatein the memorable battle of Lexington. 1 ) follow Gen. 
 Price s command, to that battle-field we must now turn. 
 
 Late in August, Gen. Price,, abandoned by the Confederate 
 forces, took up his line of march for the Missouri river, with 
 an armed force of about four thousand five hundred me, and 
 seven pieces of cannon. He continued to receive reinforce 
 ments from the north side of the Missouri river. 
 
 Hearing that the notorious trio of Abolition bandits, Jim 
 Lane, Montgomery, and Jenison, were at Fort Scott, with a ma 
 rauding force of several thousand, and not desiring them to 
 get into his rear, he detoured to the left from his course to the 
 Missouri river, marching directly to Fort Scott for the purpose 
 of driving them up the river. On the 7th of September, he 
 met with Lane about fifteen miles east of Fort Scott, at a 
 stream called Drywood, where an engagement ensued which 
 lasted for an hour and a half, resulting in the complete rout 
 of the enemy. Gen. Price then sent on a detachment to Fort 
 Scott, and found that the enemy had evacuated the place. . He 
 continued his march in the direction of Lexington, where there 
 was a Federal army strongly intrenched, under the command 
 of Col. Mulligan. 
 
 Gen. Fremont, who had been appointed by the Federal gov 
 ernment to take command in the Missouri department, had in 
 augurated the campaign with a brutality towards his enemy 
 a selfish splendor in his camp, and a despotism and corruption 
 more characteristic of an Eastern satrap than an American 
 commander in the nineteenth century. He had published a 
 proclamation absolutely confiscating the estates and slave 
 property of " rebels," which measure of brutality was vastly 
 pleasing to the Abolitionists of the ISTorth, who recognized the 
 extinction of negro slavery in the South as the essential object 
 of the war, but was not entirely agreeable to the government at 
 Washington, which was not quite ready to declare the extrem 
 ity to which it proposed to prosecute the war. 
 
 On the 10th of September, just as General Price was about 
 to encamp with his forces for the day, he learned that a de 
 tachment of Federal troops were marching from Lexington to 
 Warrei-sburg to seize the funds of the bank in that place, and 
 to arrest and plunder the citizens of Johnson county, in ac 
 cordance with General Fremont s proclamation and instruc 
 
150 SOUTHEKN HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tions. Although his men were greatly fatigued by several 
 days continuous and rapid marching, General Price deter 
 mined to press forward, so as to surprise the enemy, if pos 
 sible, at Warrensburg. After resting a few hours, he resumed 
 his march at sunset, and continued it without intermission till 
 two o clock in the morning, when it became evident that the 
 infantry, very few of whom had eaten any thing for twenty- 
 four hours, could march no further. He then halted them, 
 and went forward with the greater portion of his mounted men, 
 till he came, about daybreak, within view of Warrensburg, 
 where he ascertained that the enemy had hastily fled about 
 midnight, burning the bridges behind him. A heavy rain 
 commenced about the same time. This circumstance, coupled 
 with the fact that his men had been fasting for more than 
 twenty-four hours, constrained General Price to abandon the 
 pursuit of the enemy that day. His infantry and artillery 
 having come up, he .encamped at Warrensburg, where the 
 citizens vied with each other in feeding his almost famished 
 soldiers. 
 
 A violent storm delayed the march next morning till the 
 hour of ten o clock. General Price then pushed rapidly for 
 ward, still hoping to overtake the enemy. Finding it impos 
 sible to do this with his infantry, he again ordered a detach 
 ment of mounted men to move forward, and placing himself at 
 their head, continued the pursuit to within two and a half 
 miles of Lexington, where he halted for the night, having 
 learned that the enemy s forces had all gone within the city. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 
 
 About daybreak the next morning, a sharp skirmish took 
 place between the Missouri pickets and the enemy s outposts. 
 A general action was threatened, but General Price, being un 
 willing to risk an engagement when a short delay would make 
 success, in his estimation, perfectly certain, fell back two or 
 three miles, and awaited the arrival of his infantry and cavalry. 
 These having come up, he advanced upon the town, driving in 
 the Federal pickets, until he came within a short distance 01 
 the city. Here the enemy s forces attempted to make a stand, 
 but they were speedily driven from every position, and com 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 151 
 
 pelled to take shelter within their intrenchments. The enemy 
 having strongly fortified the college building, the Missouriana 
 took their position within easy range of it, and opened a brisk 
 fire from Bledsoe s and Parsons batteries. Finding, after 
 sunset, that his ammunition, the most of which had been left, 
 behind in the march from Springfield, was nearly exhausted, 
 and that his men, most of whom had not eaten any thing in 
 thirty-six hours, required rest and food, General Price with 
 drew to the Fair Ground, and encamped there. His ammuni 
 tion wagons having been at last brought up, and large rein 
 forcements having come in, he again moved into town on the 
 18th, and commenced the final attack upon the enemy s works. 
 Brigadier-general Rains division occupied a strong position 
 on the east and northeast of the fortifications, from which 
 position an effective cannonading was kept up on the enemy 
 by Bledsoe s battery, and another battery commanded by Capt. 
 Churchill Clark, of St. Louis. General Parsons took his posi 
 tion southwest of the works. Skirmishers and sharp-shooters 
 were sent forward from both of these divisions to harass and 
 fatigue the enemy, and cut them off from water on the north, 
 east, and south of the college, and did great service in the ac 
 complishment of the purposes for which they were detached. 
 Colonel Congreve Jackson s division, and a part of General 
 Stein s, were posted near General Rains arid General Parsons 
 as a reserve. 
 
 Shortly after entering the city on the 18th, Colonel Rives, 
 who commanded the fourth division in the absence of General 
 Slack, led his regiment and Colonel Hughes along the river 
 bank to a point immediately beneath and west of the fortifica 
 tions, General McBride s command and a portion of General 
 Harris s having been ordered to reinforce him. Colonel Rives, 
 in order to cut off the enemy s means of escape, proceeded 
 down the bank of the river to capture a steamboat which was 
 lying immediately under their guns. Just at this moment, a, 
 heavy fire was opened upon him from a large dwelling-house, 
 known as Anderson s house, on the summit of the bluff, which 
 the enemy was occupying as a hospital, and from which a white 
 fljtg was flying. Several companies of General Harris s com 
 mand and the soldiers of the fourth division, who had won. 
 much distinction in previous battles, immediately rushed upon 
 
152 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and took the place. The important position thus secured was 
 within one hundred and twenty-five yards of the enemy s in- 
 trenchments. A company from Colonel Hughes regiment 
 then took possession of the boats, one of which was freighted 
 with valuable stores. General McBride s and General Harris s 
 divisions meanwhile stormed and occupied the bluffs immedi 
 ately north of Anderson s house. The position of these heights 
 enabled the assailants to harass the enemy so greatly, that, 
 resolving to regain them, he made upon the house a successful 
 assault, and one, said General Price, which would have been 
 honorable to him had it not been accompanied by an act of 
 eavage barbarity, the cold-blooded and cowardly murder of 
 three defenceless men who had laid down their arms, and sur 
 rendered themselves as prisoners. The position thus retaken 
 by the enemy was soon regained by the brave men who had 
 been driven from it, and was thenceforward held by them to 
 the very end of the contest. 
 
 The heights on the left of Anderson s house were fortified 
 by our troops with such means as were at their command. On 
 :iHie morning of the 20th, General Price caused a number of 
 hemp bales to be transported to the river heights, where mov 
 able breastworks were speedily constructed out of them The 
 demonstrations of the artillery, and particularly the continued 
 advance of the hempen breastworks, attracted the attention 
 and excited the alarm of the enemy, who made many daring 
 attempts to drive back the assailants. They were, however, 
 repulsed in every instance by the unflinching courage and 
 fixed determination of men fighting for their homes. The 
 hempen breastworks, said General Price, were as efficient as 
 the cotton bales at New Orleans. In these severe encounters, 
 McBride s and Slack s divisions, and Colonel Martin Green 
 and his command, and Colonel Boyd and Major Winston and 
 their commands, were warmly commended for their gallant 
 conduct. 
 
 . About two o clock in the afternoon of the 20th, and after 
 fifty-two hours of continuous fighting, a white flag was dis 
 played by the enemy on that part of his works nearest to Col. 
 Green s poeitbn^ and shortly afterwards another was displayed 
 opposite, to Colonel Eives position. General Price immedi 
 ately ordered a cessation of all firing, and sent forward hie 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 153 
 
 uaif oflicers to ascertain the object of the flag and to open 
 aegotiations with the enemy, if such should be his desire. It 
 ivas agreed that the Federal forces should lay down their arms 
 and sunender themselves prisoners of war. 
 
 The entire loss of the Missouri ans in this series of battles 
 was but twenty-five killed and seventy-two wounded. The 
 enenjy e loss was considerably larger, but cannot be stated 
 here with accuracy. The visible fruits of the victory to the 
 Misconrians were great: about three thousand five hundred 
 prisoners among whom were Cols. Mulligan, Marshall, Pea- 
 body, White, Grover, Major Van Horn, and one hundred and 
 eighteen other commissioned officers; five pieces of artillery 
 and two mortars ; over three thousand stand of infantry arms, 
 a large number of sabres, about seven hundred and fifty horses, 
 many sets of cavalry equipments, wagons, teams, some ammu 
 nition, more than $100,000 worth of commissary stores, and a 
 large amount of other property. In addition to all this, General 
 Ptl?e obtained the restoration of the great seal of the State, of 
 the public records, and about $900,000 of which the bank at 
 Lexington had been robbed, in accordance with Fremont s in 
 structions. General Price caused the money to be returned at 
 once to the bank. 
 
 In his official report of the battle of Lexington, Genera* 
 Price paid a high compliment to the command that had 
 achieved such rich and substantial fruits of victory. "This 
 victory," he wrote, " has demonstrated the fitness of our citizen 
 soldiery for the tedious operations of a siege, as well as for a 
 dashing charge. They lay for fifty-two hours in the open air, 
 without tents or covering, regardless of the sun and rain, and 
 in the very presence of a watchful and desperate foe, manfully 
 repelling every assault and patiently awaiting my orders to storm 
 the fortifications. No general ever commanded a braver o 
 better army. It is composed of the best blood and bravest 
 men of Missouri." 
 
 Dining the siege, quite a number of citizens came in from 
 the neighboring country, and fought, as they expressed it, "on 
 their own hooks." A participator in the battle tells an anecdote 
 of an old man, about sixty years of age, who came up daily 
 from his farm, with his walnut-stock rifle and a basket of pro 
 visions, and went to work just as if he were engaged in hauling 
 
154: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 rails or some other necessary labor of his farm. He took his 
 position behind a large stamp upon the descent of the hill on 
 which the fortification was constructed, where he fired with 
 deadly aim during each day of the siege. 
 
 When the surrender was made, and the forces under Colonel 
 Mulligan stacked their arms, General Price ordered that they 
 were not to be insulted by word or act, assigning as the reason 
 therefor, that they had fought like brave men, and were enti 
 tled to be treated as such. "When Colonel Mulligan surren 
 dered his sword. General Price asked him for the scabbard. 
 Mulligan replied that he had thrown it away. The general, 
 upon receiving his sword, returned it to him, saying, he dis 
 liked to see a man of his valor without a sword. Mulligan re 
 fused to be paroled, upon the ground that his government did 
 not acknowledge the Missourians as belligerents. While await 
 ing his exchange, Colonel Mulligan and his wife became the 
 guests of General Price, the general surrendering to them his 
 carriage, and treating them with the most civil and obliging 
 hospitality. The captive colonel and his lady were treated by 
 all the officers and soldiers of the Missouri army with a courtesy 
 and kindness which they seemed to appreciate. 
 
 After the first day s conflict at Lexington, while General 
 Price was encamped at the Fair Grounds near the city, await 
 ing reinforcements and preparing the renewal of the attack, an 
 episode occurred at some distance from the city, in which the 
 Missourians again had the satisfaction of inflicting a terrible 
 chastisement upon the bandits of the Lane and Montgomery 
 organization. 
 
 Gen. Price was informed that four thousand men under Lane 
 and Montgomery were advancing from the direction of St. 
 Joseph, on the north s de of the Missouri river, and Gen. Stur- 
 gis, with fifteen hundred cavalry, was also advancing from the 
 Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad, for the purpose of relieving 
 the forces under Mulligan. About twenty-five hundred Mis 
 sourians, under the immediate command of Col. Saunders 
 were, at the same time, hurrying to the aid of Gen. Price, from 
 the same direction with the Lane aiid Montgomery Jay hawk 
 ers ; and having reached the run at Blue Mills, thirty miles 
 above Lexington, on the 17th September, crossed over their 
 force, except some five hundred men, in a ferry-boat. While 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 155 
 
 the remainder were waiting to cross over, the Jayhawkers 
 attacked the five hundred Missourians on the north bank 01 
 the river. The battle raged furiously for one hour on the river 
 bottom, which was heavily timbered and in many places 
 covered with water. The Missourians were armed with only 
 shot-guns and rifles, and taken by surprise : no time was given 
 them to call back any portion of their force on the south side 
 of the river ; but they were from the counties contiguous to 
 Kansas, accustomed in the border wars since 1854 to almost 
 monthly fights with the Kansas " Jayhawkers," under Lane, 
 and were fired with the most intense hatred of him and of them. 
 Gen. D. R. Atchison, former President of the United States 
 Senate, and well known as one of the boldest leaders of the 
 State Eights party in Missouri, had been sent from Lexington 
 by Gen. Price to meet our troops under Col. Saunders, and 
 hasten them on to his army. He was with the five hundred, 
 on the north side of the river, when they were attacked, and 
 by his presence and example cheered them in the conflict. 
 Charging the "Jayhawkers," with shouts of almost savage 
 ferocity, and fighting with reckless valor, the Missourians 
 drove the enemy back a distance of ten miles, the conflict be 
 coming a hand-to-hand fight, between detached parties on both 
 sides. At length, unable to support the fearful fire of the 
 Missourians at the short distance of forty yards, the enemy 
 broke into open flight. The loss of the Jay hawkers was very 
 considerable. Their official report admitted one hundred and 
 fifty killed and some two hundred wounded. The entire loss of 
 the Missourians was five killed and twenty wounded. The 
 intelligence of this brilliant victory of "the five hundred," 
 was received with shouts of exultation by Price s army at 
 Lexington. 
 
 On the second day after the battle of BNie Mills, Col. Saun 
 ders, with his command, joined the army at Lexington, and 
 fought gallantly till the surrender of the Federal garrison. In 
 the mean time, Sturgis with his cavalry appeared on the river 
 bank opposite Lexington, expecting to cross over in the boats 
 of Mulligan, and reinforce him to the extent of fourteen hun 
 dred men. It happened, however, that on the day before his 
 arrival, Gen. Price s forces had captured all of the enemy s 
 boats and Gen. Sturgis ascertaining this fact, retreated precipi 
 
156 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE TCAR. 
 
 iatcly in the direction from which he came. Gen. Price had 
 sent across the river two thousand men under Gen. Parsons, to 
 meet the forces under Gen. Sturgis, and they succeeded in cap 
 turing all the tents and camp equipage of that distinguished 
 Yankee commander. The tents were most acceptable to the 
 Missourians, as they were the first they had obtained in the 
 war. except one hundred and fifty taken at Springfield. Gen. 
 Sturgis did not stop in his flight for three days and three 
 nights. 
 
 The capture of Lexington had crowned Gen. Price s com 
 mand with a brilliant victory, and so far, the Missouri campaign 
 had proceeded, step by step, from one success to another. It 
 was at this period, however, that Gen. Price found his position 
 one of the greatest emergency. After the victory of Lexing 
 ton, he received intelligence that the Confederate forces, under 
 Generals Pillow and Hardee, had been withdrawn from the 
 {southeastern portion of the State. Gen. McCulloch had re 
 tired to Arkansas. In these circumstances, Gen. Price was 
 left with the only forces in Missouri, to confront an enemy 
 seventy thousand strong, and being almost entirely without 
 ammunition, he was reduced to the necessity of making a 
 retrograde movement. 
 
 Before leaving Springfield, Gen. Price had made arrange 
 ments for an ample supply of ammunition, then at Jacksons- 
 port, Arkansas, to be sent to him in Missouri, Gen. McCulloch 
 promising to send a safe escort for it. Gen. McCulloch subse 
 quently declined to furnish the escort and stopped the tiain, 
 assigning as the reason therefor that, under the circumstances 
 then existing, it would be unsafe to send it, and that Gen. 
 Price would be compelled to foil back from the Missouri river, 
 beforo the overwhelming forces of the enemy moving against 
 him under the direction of Gen. Fremont. 
 
 Having no means of transportation, except for a limited 
 number of men, and surrounded by circumstances of the most 
 painful and unlooked-for misfortune, Gen. Price was compelled 
 to disband a considerable portion of his forces. iNo occasion 
 could be more fraught with mortifying reflections to the brave 
 generous, and hopeful spirit of such a commander as Gen. Price 
 He had marched from success to success ; he had raised a force 
 from hundreds to tens of thousands ; his army had been swelled 
 
THE FIKST YEAK. 157 
 
 to twenty-three thousand during his stay at Lexington, not 
 enumerating ten thousand volunteers who had collected on the 
 north bank of the Missouri about the period when he com 
 menced a retreat, compelled by emergencies which the most 
 daring valor could no longer hope to surmount. Gen. Price 
 advised all who could not accompany him to take care of such 
 arms as they had, to cherish a determined spirit, and to hold 
 themselves in readiness for another opportunity to join his 
 standard. 
 
 In southeastern Missouri, the operations of the partisan, 
 Jeff. Thompson, in connection with Gen. Hardee s command, 
 had attracted some public notice from its adventure, and some 
 incidents of interest. But the campaign in the Ozark moun 
 tains was not productive of any important or serious results. 
 Gen. Thompson and his " Swamp Fox Brigade" gave many 
 rash illustrations of daring in the face of the enemy. At one 
 time he burnt an important railroad bridge within fifty miles 
 of the city of St. Louis, which was swarming with Federal 
 troops. On a march towards Fredericktown, with a force ol 
 twelve hundred men, Gen. Thompson encountered a Federal 
 force numbering ten thousand men, which he engaged with 
 such skill and courage as to check the enemy s pursuit and 
 move his little force out of danger. The feat showed extraordi 
 nary military skill, when we consider that the small force was 
 extricated with only twenty killed, wnile the loss of the enemy 
 was counted by hundreds ; and that his pursuit was baffled 
 only from the impression of a large force opposed to him, which 
 was given by the skilful disposition of ambuscades. 
 
 Gen. Price commenced his retreat about the 27th of Septem 
 ber. He sent his cavalry forward, and directed them to make 
 a demonstration in the neighborhood of Georgetown, fifty miles 
 from Lexington, where Fremont was concentrating his forces 
 with a view of surrounding him. With Sturgis on the north 
 side of the river, Lane on the west, and himself on the east, 
 each advancing upon Lexington, Fremont expected to cut oft 
 and capture the entire force of the Missourians. Gen. Price 
 supplied his mounted men with provisions for several days, and 
 directed them to make demonstrations on each of the divisions 
 of the Federals, so as to gain time for the safe retreat of hi? 
 iniantry and artillery. By this means, he succeeded in deceiv 
 
158 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ing the enemy as to his real purpose; inducing Fremont. Lane, 
 and Sturgis to believe that he was about to attack each of 
 them. Each of them fell back, and Fremont commenced 
 ditching. 
 
 In the mean time, Price s infantry and artillery were making 
 the best time they could towards the south. They had to en 
 counter a very serious obstacle in crossing streams swollen by 
 the recent rains. The whole command, fifteen thousand strong, 
 crossed the Osage river in two common flat-boats, constructed 
 for the occasion by men who could boast of no previous expe 
 rience either as graduates of military schools, or even as bridge 
 builders. 
 
 Subsequently, General Fremont was fifteen days engaged in 
 crossing at the same place, upon his pontoon bridges. The 
 superiority of the practical man of business, over the scientific 
 engineer and " pathfinder," was demonstrated to the great 
 satisfaction of the Missourians. 
 
 Gen. Price continued his retreat to Neosho, at which place 
 the Legislature had assembled, under a proclamation from 
 Governor Jackson. 
 
 At Neosho, Gen. Price again formed a junction with Gen. 
 McCulloch, at the head of five thousand men. The Legisla 
 ture had passed the Ordinance of Secession, and elected dele 
 gates to the Provisional Congress of the Southern Confederacy : 
 and here Gen. Price had the satisfaction of firing one hundred 
 guns in honor of the formal secession of Missouri from the 
 United States, to which his services in the field had more than 
 any thing else contributed. 
 
 Gen. McCulloch remained a day or two in Neosho, and then 
 fell back with his forces to Cassville. Price remained ten days 
 in Neosho, and then retreated also to Cassville, and from Cass 
 ville to Pineville, in McDonald county. 
 
 Meanwhile, General Fremont, with his grand army of sixty 
 thousand men, equipped in the most splendid and costly man 
 ner, had concentrated his forces at Springfield, throwing for 
 ward Jin advance of ten thousand men under Gen. Sigel to 
 Wilson s Creek. The Missouri forces at Springfield, under the 
 command of Col. Taylor, were ordered by General Price to 
 fall back upon the approach of the enemy ; but in leading the 
 town they encountered Frem >nt e body-guard, three times 
 
" THE FIRST YEAR. 159 
 
 their own number, armed with Colt s rifles and Cvimmanded by 
 Col. Zagonyi. A conflict ensued, in which fifty of the enemy 
 were killed, and twenty-five captured, including a major. The 
 loss of the Missourians was one killed and three wounded. 
 
 At Pineville, General Price made preparations to receive 
 Fremont, determined not to abandon Missouri vithuiit a battle. 
 His troops were enthusiastic and confident of success, notwith 
 standing the fearful superiority of numbers against them. 
 They were in daily expectation of being led by their com 
 mander into the greatest battle of the war, when they received 
 the unexpected intelligence that Fremont had been superseded 
 as commander of the Federal forces. This event had the eft eci 
 of demoralizing the Federal forces to such an extent, that theii 
 numbers would have availed them nothing in a fight with 
 their determined foe. The Dutch, who were greatly attached 
 to Fremont, broke out into, open mutiny, and the acting offi 
 cers in command saw that a retreat from Springfield was not 
 only a wise precaution, but an actual necessity. They accord 
 ingly left that town in the direction of Kolla, and were pur 
 sued by Gen. Price to Oceola. From Oceola, Gen. Price fell 
 back to Springfield, to forage his army and obtain supplies 
 and here, for the present, we must leave the history of his cam 
 paign. We have now traced that history to a period about 
 the first of December. 
 
 From the 20th of June to the 1st of December, General 
 Price s army marched over 800 miles, averaging ten thousand 
 men during the time. What they accomplished, the reader 
 will decide for himself, upon the imperfect sketch here given. 
 They fought five battles, and at least thirty skirmishes, in some 
 of which from fifty to hundreds were killed on one side or the 
 other. Not a week elapsed between engagements of some sort. 
 They started without a dollar, without a wagon or team, with 
 out a cartridge, without a bayonet-gun. On the first of Sep 
 tember, they had about eight thousand bayonet-guns, fifty 
 pieces of cannon, four hundred tents, and many other articles 
 needful in an army ; for nearly all of which they were indebted 
 to their own strong arms in battle and to the prodigality of tho 
 enemy in providing more than he could take care of in his 
 campaign. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great exposure to which the Missouri 
 
160 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 troops were subjected, not fifty died of disease during their six 
 months campaign, arid but few were on the sink list at the close 
 of it. The explanation is, that the troops were all the time in 
 motion, and thus escaped the camp fever and other diseases 
 that prove so fatal to armies standing all the time in a de 
 fensive position. 
 
 SKETCH OF GENERAL PRICE. 
 
 The man who had conducted one of the most wonderful 
 campaigns of the war Sterling Price was a native of "Vir 
 ginia. He was born about the year 1810 in Prince Edward 
 county, a county which had given birth to two other military 
 notabilities General John Coffee, the "right-hand man" of 
 General Jackson in his British and Indian campaigns, and 
 General Joseph E. Johnston, already distinguished as one of 
 the heroes of the present war. 
 
 Sterling Price emigrated to Missouri, and settled in Charlton 
 county, in the interior of that State, in the year 1830, pursu 
 ing the quiet avocations of a farmer. 
 
 In the year 1844, Mr. Price was nominated by his party as 
 a candidate for Congress, and was elected by a decided 
 majority. He took his seat in December, 1845 ; but having 
 failed to receive the party nomination in the following spring, 
 he resigned his seat and returned home. His course in this 
 respect was dictated by that conscientious integrity and high 
 sense of honor which have ever distinguished him in all the 
 relations of life. He argued that his defeat was caused either 
 by dissatisfaction with his course on the part of his constitu 
 ents, or else by undue influences which had been brought to 
 bear upon the people by ambitious aspirants for the seat, who 
 could labor to a great advantage in their work in supplanting 
 an opponent who was attending to his duties at a distance from 
 them. If the former was the case, he was unwilling to mis 
 represent his constituents, who, he believed, had the right to 
 instruct him as to the course he should pursue; if the latter, 
 his self-respect would not allow him to serve a people who had 
 rejected him without cause, while he was doing all in his power 
 tc advance their interests. 
 
 At the time of Mi. Price s retirement from Congress, hostili- 
 
GEN. STERLING PRICE 
 
 C.B Kichardson. 
 isher. 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 161 
 
 UKA /iad broken out between the United States arid Mexico, 
 and volunteers from all parts of the South were nocking to the 
 defuace of their country s flag. Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mis 
 sissippi, bred a soldier, who, like Mr. Price, was serving his 
 lirst term in Congress, resigned his seat about the same time, 
 and was soon marching at the head of a Mississippi regiment 
 to the field, from which he was destined to return loaded with 
 many honors. So, too, did a brave Missouri regiment call to 
 its heid her own son, who had just doffed his civil robes to 
 enter a new and untried field of duty and honor. The regi 
 ment to which Col. Price was attached was detailed for duty 
 m what is now the Territory of New Mexico. It was by his 
 own arms that that province was subdued, though not with 
 out several brilliant engagements, in which he displayed the 
 Bame gallantry that has BO distinguished him in the present 
 contest. 
 
 Soon after the close of the Mexican war, a violent political 
 excitement broke out in Missouri. The slavery agitation had 
 received a powerful impetus by the introduction into Con 
 gress of the Wilmot Proviso and other sectional measures, 
 whose avowed object was to exclude the South from any portion 
 of the territory which had been acquired principally by the 
 blood of Southern soldiers. The people of .the South became 
 justly alarmed at the spread of Abolitionism at the North, and 
 no people were more jealous of any encroachment upon the 
 rights of the South than the citizens of Missouri, a majority of 
 whose leading statesmen were as sound on the slavery question 
 as those of Virginia or South Carolina. In order to cause Col. 
 Benton, who had become obnoxious to a large portion of the 
 Democratic party by his course on the Texas question, the 
 Wilmot Proviso, and other measures of public policy, to resign 
 his seat, and for the purpose of casting the weight of the State 
 against the surging waves of Abolitionism, a series of resolu 
 tions, commonly known as the " Jackson resolutions," was 
 introduced into the Senate at the session of 1848-9, by Clai- 
 borne F. Jackson, the present governor of Missouri, which 
 passed both houses of the General Assembly. These resolu 
 tions were substantially the same as those introduced the year 
 before, by Mr. Calhoun, into the Senate of the United States, 
 From the Legislature Col. Benton appealed to the people, and 
 
 11 
 
162 SO CITHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 made a vigorous canvass against the Jackson resolutions through 
 out the whole State, marked by extraordinary ability and bit 
 terness towards their author and principal supporters. Tho 
 sixth resolution, which pledged Missouri to " co-operate with 
 her sister States in any measures they might adopt," to defend 
 their rights against the encroachments of the North, was the 
 object of his special denunciation and his most determined 
 opposition. He denounced it as the essence of nullification, 
 and ransacked the vocabulary of billingsgate for coarse and 
 vulgar epithets to apply to its author and advocates. But his 
 herculean efforts to procure the repeal of the resolutions proved 
 abortive. Colonel Benton was defeated for the Senate the 
 next year by a combination of Democrats and State-Rights 
 Whigs ; and the Jackson resolutions remain on the statute 
 book unrepealed to this day. Their author is governor of the 
 State ; their principal supporters are fighting to drive myrmi 
 dons of Abolitionism from the soil of Missouri ; and how nobly 
 the State has redeemed her pledge to " co-operate with her 
 Bister States," the glorious deeds of her hardy sons, who have 
 fought her battles almost single-handed, who have struggled 
 on through neglect and hardship and suffering without ever 
 dreaming of defeat, afford the most incontestible evidence. 
 
 In the canvass of 1852, the Anti-Benton Democrats put for 
 ward Gen. Sterling Price as their choice for the office of gov 
 ernor, and the Bentonites supported Gen. Thomas L. Price, at 
 that time lieutenant-governor, and now a member of Lincoln s 
 Congress and a brigadier-general in Lincoln s army. The 
 Anti-Bentoiiites triumphed, and the nomination fell on Gen. 
 Sterling Price, who, receiving the vote of the whole Demo 
 cratic party, was elected by a large majority over an eloquent 
 and popular whig, Colonel Winston, a grandson of Patrick 
 Henry. 
 
 The administration of Gov. Price was distinguished for an 
 earnest devotion to the material interests of Missouri. At the 
 expiration of his term of office, he received a large vote in the 
 Democratic caucus for the nomination for United States sena 
 tor, but the choice fell on Mr. James Green. 
 
 In the Presidential election of 1860, in common with Major 
 Fackson, who was the Democratic candidate for governor, and 
 a number of other leading men of his party, Ex-Go vernoj 
 
THE FIRST TEAK. 
 
 Price supported Mr. Douglas for the Presidency, on the 
 ground that he was the regular nominee of ^e Democratic 
 party. He moreover considered Mr. Douglas true to the in 
 stitutions of the South, and believed him to be the only one of 
 the candidates who could prevent the election of the Black 
 Republican candidate. The influence of these men carried 
 Missouri for Douglas. 
 
 Upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, the "Border States 
 were unwilling to rush into dissolution until every hope of a 
 peaceful settlement of the question had vanished. This was 
 the position of Missouri, to whose Convention not a single Se 
 cessionist was elected. Governor Price was elected from his 
 district as a Union man, without opposition, and, on the assem 
 bling of the Convention, was chosen its President. The Con 
 vention had not been in session many weeks before the radi 
 calism of the Black Republican administration, and its hostility 
 to the institutions of the South, became manifest to every un 
 prejudiced mind. The perfidy and brutality of its officers in 
 Missouri were particularly observable, and soon opened the 
 eyes of the people to the true objects of the Black Republican 
 party. The State authorities decided upon resistance to the 
 Federal government ; the Governor issued his proclamation for 
 volunteers ; and of the forces raised under this call, who were 
 denominated the Missouri State Guard, Governor Price was 
 appointed major-general, and took the field. 
 
 The period of history has scarcely yet arrived for a full ap 
 preciation of the heroic virtues of the campaign in Missouri, 
 especially as illustrated in the character of the chieftain whom 
 no personal jealousies could distract or unmerited slights turn 
 from the single course of duty and devotion to his country. 
 He had given the government at Richmond a valuable, but 
 distasteful lesson in the conduct of the war. He did not settle 
 down complacently into one kind of policy, refusing to advance 
 because he was on the defensive, but he sought the enemy 
 wherever he could find him, fought him when ready, and re 
 treated out of his way when not prepared. His policy was 
 both offensive and defensive, and he used the one which might 
 be demanded by the exigencies of his situation. He was some 
 thing better than a pupil of West Point he was a general by 
 n&hire, a beloved commander, a man who illustrated the Ro 
 
164: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 man simplicity of character in the nineteenth century. His 
 troops not only loved him, they were wildly and enthusiastic 
 ally devoted to him. His figure in the battle-field, clothed in 
 a common brown linen coat, with his white hair streaming in 
 the wind, was the signal for wild and passionate cheers, ana 
 there was not one of his soldiers, it was said, but who was will 
 ing to die, if he could only fall within sight of his commander. 
 It is not improbable that had General Price been supported 
 after the battle of Lexington, he would have wrung the State 
 of Missouri from the possession of the enemy. He was forced 
 by untoward circumstances, already referred to, to turn back 
 in a career just as it approached the zenith of success, and he 
 could have given no higher proof of his magnanimity than 
 that he did so without an expression of bitterness or a word of 
 recrimination. He bore the cold neglect of the government at 
 .Richmond and the insulting proposition which President Davis 
 was compelled by popular indignation to abandon, to place 
 over him, as major-general in his department, a pupil of West 
 Point his inferior in rank, with philosophic patience and with 
 out any subtraction from his zeal for his country. When his 
 officers expressed resentment for the injustice done him by the 
 government, he invariably checked them : stating that there 
 should be no controversies of this kind while the war lasted, 
 and that he was confident that posterity would do him justice. 
 He was more than right ; for the great majority of his living 
 countrymen did him justice, despite the detractions of jealousy 
 in Richmond. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Campaign in Western Virginia. General Wise s Command. Politiea Influ 
 ences in Western ViKginia. The Affair of Scary Creek. General Wise s Retreat to 
 Lewisburg. General Floyd s Brigade. The Affair at Cross Lanes. Movements on 
 the Gauley. The Affair of Carnifax Ferry. Disagreement between Generals Floyd 
 and Wise. The Tyrees. A Patriotic Woman. Movements in Northwestern Vir 
 ginia. General Lee. The Enemy intrenched on Cheat Mountain. General Rose- 
 crans. Failure of General Lee s Plan of Attack. He removes to the Kanawha Re- 
 gion. The Opportunity of a Decisive Battle lost. Retreat of Rosecrans. General 
 H. R. Jackson s Affair on the Greenbrier. The Approach of Winter. The Campaign 
 in Western Virginia abandoned. The Affair on the Alleghany. General Floyd at 
 Cotton Hill. His masterly Retreat. Review of the Campaign in Western Virginia. 
 Some of its Incidents. Its Failure and unfortunate Results. Other Movements in 
 Virginia. The Potomac Line. The BATTLE OF LEESBUEO. Overweening Confidence 
 of the Soutii. 
 
 must return here to the narrative of the campaign in 
 Virginia. The campaign in the western portion of the State 
 was scarcely more than a series of local adventures, compared 
 with other events of the war. It was a failure from the be 
 ginning owing to the improvidence of the government, the 
 want of troops, the hostile character of the country itself, and 
 a singular military policy, to which we shall have occasion 
 hereafter to refer. 
 
 General Wise, of Virginia, was appointed a brigadier-gen 
 eral without an army. He rallied around him at Richmond a 
 number of devoted friends, and explained to them his views 
 and purposes. Cordially favoring his plans, they went into 
 the country, and called upon the people to rally to the stand 
 ard of General Wise, and enable him to prevent the approach 
 of the enemy into the Kanawha Valley. 
 
 About the first of June, General Wise left Richmond for the 
 western portion of the State, accompanied by a portion of his 
 Btaff. At Lewisburg, he was joined by several companies 
 raised and organized in that region. From this point, he pro 
 ceeded to Charleston, in the Kanawha Valley, where he under 
 took, with his rare and characteristic enthusiasm, to rally the 
 people to the support of the State. A number of them joined 
 his command ; but the masses continued apathetic, owing to a 
 
166 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 number of adverse influences, prominent among which was the 
 political position of George W. Summers, the most influential 
 politician of Western Virginia, the leader of the " Union* men 
 *n the State Convention, and a prominent delegate to the Peace 
 Conference at Washington. 
 
 This person threw the weight of his great influence in oppo 
 sition to the uprising of the people. He advised them to a 
 strict neutrality between the public enemy and the supporters 
 of the Confederate government. Notwithstanding all the ap 
 peals made to his patriotism, he maintained an attitude of in 
 difference, and, by reason of the high estimation in which hn 
 was generally held by the community in which he lived, as 
 a wise and sagacious man, he succeeded in neutralizing the 
 greater portion of Kanawha and the adjoining counties. 
 
 Despite, however, the obstacles in his way, General Wi,<;e 
 succeeded in raising a brigade of two thousand five hundred 
 infantry, seven hundred cavalry, and three battalions of artil 
 lery. Of this force, western Virginia furnished about three 
 fifths and the east about two-fifths. On his arrival at Charles 
 ton, General Wise found C. G. Tonipkins in command of a 
 number of companies, chiefly from Kanawha and the adjacent 
 counties. These forces, combined with those of the Wise 
 Legion, amounted to about four thousand men. 
 
 General Wise, anxious to give an assurance of support to 
 the strong Southern sentiment reported to exist in Gilmer and 
 Calhoun, sent an expedition into those counties to repress the 
 excesses of the Union men. In the mean time, the enemy had 
 landed considerable forces at Parkersburg and Point Pleasant 
 on the Ohio river, and had military possession of the neigh 
 boring country. His superior facilities for raising troops in 
 the populous States of Ohio and Indiana, and his ample means 
 of transportation by railroad through those States, and by the 
 navigation of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers, enabled him, in 
 a short space of time, to concentrate a large force, with ade 
 quate supplies and munitions of war, in the" .jwer part of the 
 Kanawha Valley. 
 
 About the middle of July, the enemy advanced up the river 
 into the county of Putnam, and, on the 17th, Captain Patton 
 (afterwards Colonel Patton), with a small force, met and re 
 pulsed three regiments of the enemy at Scary Creek, in Put 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 167 
 
 nam county, taking prisoners Cols. Norton and Yilliers of the 
 Ohio troops, and Cols. Woodroof and Neff of the Kentucky 
 troops. The enemy retired, and our forces remained in pos 
 session of the field. On the evening of the day of the action, 
 General Wise sent down two regiments under Colonels Torap- 
 kins and McCausland to reinforce the troops at Scary. Upon 
 arriving at the opposite side of the river, they found that the 
 enemy had fallen back to his main forces under the command 
 of General Cox. 
 
 Being unprepared to hold the position, not having the ade 
 quate supplies of men and munitions of war, the Confederates 
 fell back in the direction of Charleston. Capt. Patton had 
 been dangerously wounded in the action, and could not be re- 
 nroved from the place. Col. Norton, one of the Federal officers 
 captured, was also wounded. He and Capt. Patton were placed 
 in the same house, Col. Norton entering into an arrangement 
 by which Capt. Patton was to be released by the enemy in ex 
 change for himself. Gen. Cox, on his arrival, repudiated the 
 understanding. He, however, released Capt. Patton on parole 
 as soon as he had partially recovered from his wound. 
 
 After the action of Scary, the enemy s forces, which had 
 been largely increased, steadily advanced up the valley both 
 by land and water. Gen. Wise, however, was ready to offer 
 battle to the enemy, and was confident of his ability to repul&e 
 him. But just about this time the news of the disaster to 
 Gen. Garnett s command at Rich Mountain reached the Ka- 
 nawha Yalley, and put a new aspect upon military operations 
 in that section. The consequences of this disaster exposed the 
 little army of Gen. Wise to imminent peril. He was in danger 
 of being cut off in the rear by several roads from the north 
 west, striking the Kanawha road at various points between 
 Lewisburg and Gauley Bridge. Under these circumstances, 
 Gen. Wise determined to fall back with his entire force to 
 Lewisburg, a distance of one hundred miles. This he did in 
 good order, destroying the bridges behind him, and reaching 
 Lewisburg about the first of August. Remaining in that 
 vicinity some ten days, laboriously engaged in organizing his 
 brigade, and supplying it, as far as possible, with arms and 
 the essential materials for an active campaign, he announced 
 himself as again prepared to take up the line of advance 
 
168 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 About this time, General Floyd arrived at the Greenbriei 
 White Sulphur Springs with a brigade of three regiments ol 
 infantry and a battalion of cavalry. He had been ordered, in 
 the first instance, to proceed with his command to Jackson 
 River, with a view to the relief of the retreating forces of Gen. 
 Garnett ; but, on his arrival at the Sweet Springs from South 
 ampton, Yirginia, Gen. Floyd s direction was changed by au 
 thority to the Kanawha Yalley. After consultation between 
 Generals Floyd and "Wise in Greenbrier county, the former, 
 who was the ranking officer, resumed his march westward, the 
 latter following in a few days. 
 
 Gen. Floyd commenced to skirmish with the enemy s pickets 
 at Tyree s, on the west side of the Sewell Mountain, driving 
 them back to their command, five miles distant, with a loss of 
 four killed and seven wounded. Upon his approach, the army 
 retreated from Locust Lane to Hamilton s, near Hawk s Nest, 
 Floyd s command advancing and occupying the camp of the 
 Federals the next night. The Wise Legion also came up and 
 occupied the same ground. The two commands then advanced 
 to Dogwood Gap, where the road from Summersville intersects 
 the turnpike from Lewisburg to Charleston. There two pieces 
 of artillery were posted to keep open the line, .and prevent a 
 flanking movement from Cox s command via Carnifax Ferry, 
 where there was reported to be a Federal force of several 
 thousand. The main command then moved down to Pickett a 
 Mills, near Hamilton s, within a few miles of the enemy s 
 camp. At this point, information was obtained that the rear 
 of the Confederates was threatened by Matthews and Tyler s 
 commands, which had occupied Carnifax Ferry (on the Gauley 
 river), and Cross Lanes, a few miles distant therefrom. Gen. 
 Floyd at once ordered his brigade to strike tents, and at half- 
 past one o clock in the morning he took up the line of march, 
 with the view of engaging the forces of his assailants, whose 
 object was to cut off his trains and fall upon his rear. 
 
 Gen. Wise s command was left at Pickett s Mills to hold the 
 turnpike, and prevent a flank movement from Hawk s Nest, 
 where the main body of Cox s forces were stationed on New 
 River, seven miles east of Gauley Bridge. 
 
 Floyd s brigade proceeded by a rapid march, and reached 
 Carnifax Ferry about noon of the same day. On his arrival 
 
I 
 THE FIRST YEAR. 169 
 
 there, lie learned that the enemy had drawn in his com man da 
 at Cross Lanes and Carnifax Ferry, in anticipation of an attack 
 at Hawk s Nest. Gen. Floyd proceeded at once to raise the 
 boats which the enemy had sunk in the river at the ferry, and 
 to construct other boats for crossing the river immediately, so 
 as to occupy the strong positions which the enemy had held on 
 the opposite side of the Gauley. In the short space of twenty- 
 four hours, he had constructed a small batteau to carry some 
 ten men, and had raised a ferry-boat capable of carrying fifty 
 men and transporting his wagons, and had succeeded in ferry 
 ing over all of his infantry and two pieces of artillery. He 
 then undertook to transport his cavalry, when an accident 
 occurred which caused the loss of the ferry-boat and four men 
 The boat capsized and was drawn over the rapids. By this 
 accident, Gen. Floyd s command was severed, most of his 
 cavalry and four pieces of artillery being left on the eastern 
 side of the stream, while his infantry and a small portion of his 
 cavalry had reached the opposite shore. The stream had been 
 so swollen by recent rains as to render ferrying extremely 
 hazardous. Gen. Floyd, from the western side, ordered the 
 quarter-master across the river to build boats on the other side, 
 and to convey a message to Gen. Wise informing him of the 
 condition of the command. 
 
 In twenty-four hours, a boat was built and launched from 
 the west side of the river, and the remainder of the artillery 
 and cavalry and such wagons as were needful were passed 
 over. In the mean time, Gen. Floyd was engaged in strength 
 ening his position. His scouts were thrown out in the direc 
 tion of Gauley Bridge, by way of the Summersville and Gauley 
 turnpike, and they reported the advance of the enemy in con 
 siderable strength from Gauley, in the direction of Cross 
 Lanes. The next evening, the enemy had advanced to Cross 
 Lanes, within two miles of Floyd s camp. The Federal officers 
 had heard of the casualty at the ferry, and their "Union" 
 friends in the neighboring country had reported to them that 
 but two hundred of the infantry and cavalry had succeeded in 
 crossing over. , 
 
 Col. Tyler, who commanded the Federals, was confident of 
 the capture of the whole force on the western side of the river, 
 lie was sadly disappointed. Gen. Floyd had drawn up hia 
 
170 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 forces in line of battle on the evening of Sunday, August 25th, 
 and prepared for an attack. His pickets had closely scented 
 the enemy s position. Keeping his men in line of battle all 
 night, at four o clock the next morning he ordered an advance 
 upon the enemy, whose strength was estimated at from fifteen 
 hundred to two thousand. The order was promptly obeyed. 
 The several Virginia regiments marched by the respective 
 routes assigned them, and succeeded in completely surprising 
 the Federals. Col. Tyler s line of pickets did not extend more 
 than two or three hundred yards from his camp in the direc 
 tion of Carnifax Ferry. His men were found preparing their 
 breakfasts of green corn and fresh beef roasting their corn 
 by the fire and broiling their beef on sharp sticks. They were 
 encamped in separate divisions, the rear being very near the 
 church, in the direction of Gauley, in which building CoL 
 Tyler had taken up his quarters. Their pickets were drawn 
 in, and the division nearest to Floyd s forces took position 
 behind a fence, where, for a time, they stubbornly resisted the 
 attack. They were soon dislodged, and the whole cdmmand 
 pushed over the hills, where they broke into the most disgrace 
 ful flight, the advance of which was conspicuously led by their 
 colonel and field-officers. The flight was one of wild conster 
 nation, many of the enemy not only throwing away their arms, 
 but divesting themselves of hats and coats to accelerate their 
 flight, which was continued on an uninterrupted stretch for 
 twelve or fifteen miles. 
 
 The commander of the Federals, Col. Tyler, was an Ohio 
 man, and was familiar with the topography of the country he 
 had come to invade, having visited it for years in the character 
 of a fur-dealer. On his advent in the Kanawha Yalley as the 
 commander of an invading regiment, the coarse jest was made 
 in some of the Northern papers that he would u drive a snug 
 business" in rebel skins. The joke was turned against him by 
 the Virginia soldiers at Cross Lanes, when they captured all 
 the baggage of the Federal command, including the colonel s 
 shirts, who had thus narrowly escaped with his own skin. As 
 the flying enemy dashed on, the colonel led the retreat at a 
 considerable distance ahead of it. One of his staff, a major, in 
 leaping a fence got his horse astride it, and had to leave him 
 there, trusting to the fleetness of his own heels for safety. 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 171 
 
 In the affair at Cross Lanes, the enemy s loss in killed 
 wounded, and prisoners was about two hundred. That on oui 
 side in killed and wounded did not exceed & dozen men. 
 
 Gen. Floyd proceeded to strengthen his position on the 
 Gauley. Having succeeded in throwing his forces between 
 Cox and Rosecrans, he set to work to bring up ten days sup 
 plies in advance, intending to throw a portion of his command 
 into the Kanawha Valley below Cox, with a view of cutting off 
 his retreat. Having secured supplies sufficient to justify an 
 advance movement, Gen. Floyd was about this time apprised 
 of the approach of Rosecrans, by way of Suttonsville, with 
 a large force for the relief of Cox. On the evening previous to 
 the contemplated advance of the Confederates against Cox, 
 about three o clock of the 10th of September, Rosecrans, by a 
 rapid march of sixteen miles, threw his entire force of ten regi 
 ments and several heavy batteries of artillery about Floyd s 
 intrenchments, and commenced a vigorous attack. 
 
 The successful resistance of this attack of the enemy, in the 
 neighborhood of Carnifax Ferry, was one of the most remark 
 able incidents of the campaign in Western Virginia. The force 
 of Gen. Floyd s command was 1,740 men, and from three 
 o clock in the afternoon until nightfall, it sustained, with un 
 wavering determination and the most brilliant success, an as 
 sault from an enemy between eight and nine thousand strong, 
 made with small-arms, grape, and round-shot, from howitzers 
 and rifled cannon. 
 
 Upon the close of the contest for the night, Gen. Floyd de 
 termined at once to cross the Gauley river, and take position 
 upon the left bank Gen. "Wise having failed to reinforce him, 
 and it being only a question of time when he would be com 
 pelled to yield to the superiority of numbers. The retreat 
 across the river was accomplished by aid of a hastily con 
 structed bridge of logs, about four feet wide, without the loss 
 of a gun, or any accident whatever. In a continued firing upon 
 us, by cannon and small-arms, for nearly four hours, only 
 twenty of our men had been wounded and none killed. We 
 had repulsed the enemy in five distinct and successive assaults, 
 and had held him in complete check until the river was placed 
 between him and the little army he had come in the insolent 
 e -niidence of overwhelming numbers tc destroy. The loss fc 
 
172 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the enemy had been, considerable, Col. Lytle, of Ciucinnati, 
 and a number of other Federal officers, having fallen in their 
 attempts to rally their men to a successful charge. The whole 
 loss of the enemy cannot be stated here ; it was very serious, 
 by the admission of the Cincinnati Commercial, and other Fed- 
 eral newspapers ; it, unquestionably, must have amounted to 
 several hundred in killed and wounded. Gen. Floyd was 
 wounded by a musket-shot in the arm. His flag, which was 
 flying at head-quarters, and his tent were riddled with balls. 
 
 At the time that information had reached Gen. Floyd of the 
 advance of the enemy towards his position, he had dispatched 
 orders to Gen. Wise for reinforcements, which he failed to pro 
 cure. In his official report of the action, Gen. Floyd wrote to 
 the "War Department at Kichmond : " I am very confident thai 
 I could have beaten the enemy and marched directly to the 
 Valley of the Kanawha, if the reinforcements from Gen. Wise s 
 column had come up when ordered, and the regiments from 
 North Carolina and Georgia could have reached me before the 
 close of the second day s conflict. I cannot express the regret 
 which I feel at the necessity, over which I had no control, 
 which required that I should recross the river, I am confi 
 dent that if I could have commanded the services of five 
 thousand men, instead of eighteen hundred, which I had, 1 
 could have opened the road directly into the Valley of the 
 Kanawha." Eeferring to the correspondence between himself 
 and Gen. Wise, in which the latter had declined to send for 
 ward reinforcements, Gen. Floyd indicated to the government 
 the urgent necessity of shaping the command in the Valley 
 of the Kanawha, so as to insure in the future that unity of 
 action, upon which alone can rest any hope of success in mili 
 tary matters. 
 
 While Gen. Floyd was at Carnifax Ferry, Gen. Wise marched 
 down to Big Creek, in Fayette county, where the enemy were 
 in considerable force, fortified his position, and offered them 
 battle. He hoped to obtain a position upon the flank of the 
 enemy, and with that view, sent Col. Anderson and his regi 
 ment by an obscure county road, but did not succeed in his ob 
 ject. Meanwhile, with two regiments of infantry and a battery 
 of artillery, Gen. Wise remained within a quarter of a mile of 
 the enemy. A sharp skirmish took place, the enemy opening 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 173 
 
 upon Wisu s forces with artillery, doing no execution, however. 
 The artillery of the Wise Legion replied, throwing shell, with 
 some effect, into the enemy s lines. But the attempt to bring 
 on a general engagement was unsuccessful, the enemy declin 
 ing the offer of battle. 
 
 Gen. Floyd retreated in good order from Carnifax Ferry to 
 the summit of Big Se well Mountain, where he remained for 
 three days, when, in accordance with the decision of a council 
 of officers called by him, he ordered a retreat to Meadow Bluff, 
 a position which, it was said, guarded all the approaches to 
 Lewisburg and the railroad. Gen. "Wise, however, who had 
 fallen back with Gen. Floyd to Big Sewell, declined to retreat 
 to Meadow Bluff, and proceeded to strengthen his position, 
 which he named Camp " Defiance." 
 
 The enemy had advanced to Tyree s a well-known public 
 house, on the turnpike-road, in Fayette county. This country 
 tavern had been kept for a number of years by an ancient 
 couple, whose fidelity and services to the South were remarka 
 ble. Of the courage and adventure of Mrs. Tyree, many well- 
 authenticated anecdotes are told. Her husband, though a very 
 old man, had gone into the ranks of the Confederate army 
 at the commencement of the war. The enemy, who were well- 
 advised of the enthusiastic attachment of Mrs. Tyree to the 
 cause of the State of Virginia, soon made her an object of their 
 annoyances. Their first attempt was to take away the only 
 horse the old woman had. A Federal soldier came to her 
 house, caught her horse without her knowledge, and was about 
 to ride him off, when she discovered the thief and demanded 
 his business. The soldier replied that he was directed to take 
 the horse for the purpose of "jayhawking." The words were 
 scarcely out of his mouth, when Mrs. Tyree knocked him down 
 with a billet of wood, stretching the ambitious " jayhawker" 
 almost lifeless upon the ground. The horse, for further secu 
 rity, was locked up in the old woman s smoke-house. 
 
 On another occasion, a file of Federal soldiers proceeded to 
 the premises of Mrs. Tyree, with the intention of driving off 
 her cow. Discovering them, she asked what they intended to 
 do with her cow. " We intend to drive it to camp for a beef," 
 was the reply. Instantly, wrenching a gun from the hands 01 
 one of the soldiers, Mrs. Tyree deliberately declared that she 
 
174 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 would shoot the first man who attempted to drive the cow from 
 her premises. " The rest of you may then kill me," she said, 
 " if you think proper." The soldiers were baffled, and Mrs. 
 Tyree s cow was saved. 
 
 A few nights afterwards, a number of soldiers surrounded 
 her house, under the shelter of which was herself, her daughter, 
 and a few faithful servants, without any male protector what 
 ever. They ordered the family to leave, as they intended to 
 burn the house. Mrs. Tyree positively refused to leave the 
 house, very coolly locked all the doors, and told them if they 
 intended to burn the building, to apply the torch without 
 further ceremony, as she and her family were resolved to bo 
 consumed with it. The villains, hesitating at such a work of 
 fiendish assassination, were forced to leave without putting their 
 threat into execution. The heroic spirit of such a woman, not 
 only protected her household, but furnished many interesting 
 incidents to the campaign in her neighborhood, which it is not 
 now the time to relate. It is to be regretted that her home 
 was left within the lines of the enemy. 
 
 Having traced to a certain period, the operations in the Yal- 
 ley of the Kanawha, we must turn to note the movements of 
 the army in northwestern Virginia. 
 
 After the retreat of Gen. Garnett from Kich Mountain, and 
 the death of that officer, Gen. Lee was appointed to succeed 
 him, and, with as little delay as possible, to repair to the scene 
 of operations. The most remarkable circumstance of this cam 
 paign was, that it was conducted by a general who had never 
 fought a battle, who had a pious honor of guerrillas, and whose 
 extreme tenderness of blood induced him to depend exclusively 
 ppon the resources of strategy, to essay the achievement of vic 
 tories without the cost of life. 
 
 Gen. Lee took with him reinforcements, making his whole 
 force, in conjunction with the remnant of Gen. Garnett s army 
 that had fallen back from Rich Mountain to Monterey, about 
 sixteen thousand men. Early in August, Gen. Lee reached 
 with his command the neighborhood of Cheat Mountain, on 
 the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, and found it strongly 
 fortified by the enemy. The position was known to be an ex 
 ceedingly strong one, and not easily turned. Nevertheless, 
 Gen. Lee was confident that he would be able by strategic 
 
THE FIKST YEAE. 175 
 
 movements to dislodge the enemy from his stronghold, capture 
 his forces, and then march his victorious army into the heart 
 of northwestern Virginia, releasing the people there from the 
 fetters with which, for two months, they had been bound. The 
 prospect of such a conquest of the enemy was eminently pleas 
 ant. Rosecraris* was the ranking officer in northwestern Vir 
 ginia, but Gen. Reynolds was in command of the troops on 
 Cheat Mountain and in its vicinity, his force being estimated 
 at from ten to twelve thousand men. 
 
 Gen. Lee felt his way cautiously along the road leading from 
 Huntersville to Iluttonsville, in the county of Randolph, and 
 reaching Valley Mountain, he halted for some time, arranging 
 his plans for attacking the enemy, who were about eight miles 
 below him, in Randolph county, at Crouch s, in Tygart s Val 
 ley River, five or six thousand strong. His plans were ar 
 ranged so as to divide his forces for the purpose of surrounding 
 the enemy. After great labor and the endurance of severe 
 hardships on the mountain spurs, where the weather was very 
 cold, he succeeded in getting below the enemy, on Tygart a 
 Valley River, placing other portions of his forces on the spurs 
 of the mountain immediately east and west of the enemy, and 
 marching another portion of his troops down the Valley River 
 close to the enemy. The forces were thus arranged in position 
 for making an attack upon the enemy at Crouch s, and re 
 mained there for some hours. It was doubtless in the plan of 
 Gen. Lee for his forces to remain in position until the consum 
 mation of another part of his plan, viz. that some fifteen hun 
 dred of Gen. H. R. Jackson s forces stationed at Greenbrier 
 
 * Gen. Rosecrans is of German descent, a native of Ohio, and a graduate 
 of West Point. He had devoted much study to chemistry and geology, and 
 resided some time in Charleston, Kanawha, prosecuting some researches into 
 the mineral riches of that region. He was also employed in some capacity 
 lor a time by some of the coal companies or some of the coal -oil manufactur 
 ers there. His last enterprise, previous to the war, was the establishment of 
 an oil manufactory in Cincinnati. In this he failed pecuniarily. The war 
 was a timely event to him, and his military education gave him a claim to 
 consideration. In the South, he was esteemed as one of the best generals the 
 North had in the field ; he was declared by military critics, who could not be 
 suspected of partiality, to have clearly out-generalled Lee in western Vir 
 ginia, who made it the entire object of his campaign to " surround" the Dutch 
 general ; and his popular manners and amiable deportment towards our pris 
 oners, on more than one occasion, procured him the respect of his enemy. 
 
176 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 River should march around another position of the enero y, at 
 the celebrated Cheat Mountain Pass, on the. Staunton and 
 Parkersburg road, where he was five or six thousand strong. 
 Jackson s forces did march around this position, under com 
 inand of Col. Rust, of Arkansas, through extraordinary difn 
 culties and perils and under circumstances of terrible exhaus 
 tion. The troops had to ascend the almost perpendicular 
 mountain sides, but finally succeeded in obtaining a positiop 
 in front of and to the west of the enemy. The attack of this 
 force upon the enemy on Cheat Mountain was understood to 
 be, in the plan of Gen. Lee, a signal for the attack by his 
 forces upon the enemy at Crouch s. Col. Rust, however, dis 
 covered the enemy on the mountain to be safely protected by 
 block-houses and other defences, and concluding that the at 
 tack could not be made with any hope of success, ordered a 
 retreat. The signal was not given according to the plan of 
 Gen. Lee, and no attack was made by his forces, which re 
 treated without firing a gun back to Yalley Mountain. 
 
 It is understood that Gen. Lee did not expect Col. Rust to 
 make an attack with any certainty or even probability of suc 
 cess ; his purpose being for Col. Rust to hold the enemy ir. 
 position at Cheat Mountain Pass, while he was engaging them 
 at Crouch s. The fact, however, is, that Cheat Mountain Pass 
 was, by the nearest road to Crouch s, ten miles distant ; and 
 there are strong reasons for believing that, if Gen. Lee had 
 made the attack upon the enemy at the latter position, they 
 would have been captured to a man, notwithstanding the 
 failure to hold the forces in check at Cheat Mountain. Such 
 was the impression of the Federals themselves. If the enemy 
 had been captured at Crouch s, a march of ten miles down the 
 Valley River by Gen. Lee would have brought his forces in the 
 rear of the enemy at Huttonsville, cutting off his supplies, and, 
 with Jackson on the other side, compelling him to the necessity 
 of surrender. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Gen. Lee failed to make the attack 
 at Crouch s, and to realize the rich results of his well-matured 
 plan. Had he defeated the enemy at Crouch s, he would have 
 been within two days march of the position from which Gen 
 Garnett had retreated, and could have held Rosecrans in check, 
 who was at that time making his way to Camifax Ferry U 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 177 
 
 oppose Floyd. There is reason to believe that if Gen. Lee had 
 not allowed the immaterial part of his plan to control hia 
 action, a glorious success would have resulted, opening the 
 whole northwestern country to us, and enabling Floyd and 
 Wise to drive Cox with ease out of the Kanawha Valley. Re 
 grets, however, were unavailing now. Gen. Lee s plan, finished 
 drawings of which were sent to the War Department at Rich 
 mond, was said to have been one of the best-laid plans that 
 ever illustrated the consummation of the rules of strategy, 
 or ever went awry on account of practical failures in its 
 execution. 
 
 Having failed in his plans for dislodging the enemy from 
 Oheat Mountain, and thus relieving northwestern Virginia of 
 his presence, Gen. Lee determined to proceed to the Kanawha 
 region, with a view of relieving Generals Floyd and Wise, and 
 possibly driving the enemy to the extreme western borders of 
 Virginia. Accordingly, in the latter part of September, he 
 ordered the principal portion of his command to take up a line 
 of march in that direction. 
 
 It has already been stated that Gen. Floyd had fallen back 
 with his forces to Meadow Bluff, while Gen. Wise stopped to 
 the east of the summit of Big Sewell. In this position Gen. 
 Lee found them on his arrival. He took up his head-quarter? 
 with Gen. Floyd, and, after examining his position, proceeded 
 to Sewell, where Gen. Wise still remained in front of the 
 enemy. He decided to fortify Wise s position. Gen. Floyd s 
 command, except a garrison at Meadow Bluff, returned to Big 
 Sewell. He had been largely reinforced since he had left the 
 Gauley river. The position on Big Sewell was made exceed 
 ingly strong by a breastwork extending four miles. 
 
 The whole Confederate force here under the command ol 
 Gen. Lee was nearly twenty thousand. This formidable army 
 remained for twelve or fifteen days within sight of the enemy, 
 each apparently awaiting an attack from the other. Thus the 
 time passed, when, one morning, Gen. Lee discovered, much 
 to his surprise, that the enemy he had been so long hesitating 
 to attack no longer confronted him. Rosecrans had disap 
 peared in the night, and reached his old position on the Gau 
 ley, thirty-two miles distant, without annoyance from the 
 Confederate army. Thus the second opportunity of a 
 
 12 
 
178 . SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 battle in western Virginia was blindly lost, Gen. Lee making 
 no attempt to follow up the enemy who had so skilfully eluded 
 him ; the excuses alleged for his no* doing so being mud, swol 
 len streams, and the leanness of his artillery hordes. 
 
 In withdrawing from the Cheat Mountain region, Gen. Lee 
 had left a force of some twenty-five hundred men at Greenbrier 
 River, and, while he was playing at strategy in the Kanawha 
 valley, this little force had achieved a signal victory over an 
 apparently overwhelming force of the enemy. The force on 
 the Greenbrier at the foot of Cheat Mountain was under com 
 mand of Gen. H. R. Jackson, of Georgia. A small force had 
 also been left on the Alleghany Mountain, at Huntersville, and 
 perhaps other localities in that region. 
 
 On the 3d of October, the enemy, thinking that he might 
 strike a successful blow, in the absence of Gen. Lee and the 
 arger portion of his command, came down from Cheat Moun 
 tain, five thousand strong, and attacked Jackson s position on 
 the Greenbrier. The attack was gallantly repulsed. The most 
 .unusual and brilliant incident of the battle was the conduct of 
 t&ir pickets, who held the entire column of the enemy in check 
 
 for nearly an hour, pouring into the head of it a galling firo 
 not withdrawing until six pieces of artillery had opened briskly 
 
 ; upoa them, and full battalions of infantry were outflanking 
 them on the right, and then retiring in such order, and taking 
 such -ad vantage of the ground, as to reach their camp with but 
 a trjfling loss. 
 
 The action was continued by a severe artillery engagement^ 
 when, after four hours interchange of fire, in which we could 
 not bring more than five pieces into action to return the fire ot 
 the enemy s eight, he began to threaten seriously our front and 
 right, by-heavy masses of his infantry. He had been repulsed 
 at one point -of the so-called river (in fact, a shallow stream, 
 about twenty yards in width), by the 3d Arkansas regiment. 
 As the designs of his column were fully developed, the 12th 
 Georgia regiment were ordered to take position near the 
 stream, while a battery commanded by Capt. Shumaker wa& 
 directed to open fire upon the same column. The encounter 
 was of but short duration. In a short time, the unmistakable 
 evidences of the enemy s rout became apparent. Distinctly 
 could their officers be heard, with words of mingled command, 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 179 
 
 remonstrance, and entreaty, attempting to rally their batta. ions 
 into line, and to bring them to the charge, but they could not 
 be induced to re-form their broken ranks, nor to emerge from 
 the cover of the woods, in the direction of our fire. Kapidly, 
 and in disorder, they returned into the turnpike, and soon 
 thereafter the entire force of the enemy, artillery, infantry, 
 and cavalry, retreated in confusion along the road and adjacent 
 fields. 
 
 The engagement lasted from seven in the morning to half- 
 past two o clock in the afternoon, at which time the enemy, 
 who had come wijh artillery to* bombard and demoralize the 
 small force of Confederates; with infantry to storm their camp; 
 with cavalry to rout and destroy them, and with four days 
 cooked rations in his haversacks, to prosecute a rapid march 
 either towards Staunton, or towards Huntersville, was in pre 
 cipitate retreat back to his Cheat Mountain fastnesses. His loss 
 in killed and wounded was estimated at from two hundred and 
 fifty to three hundred. That of the Confederates was very in 
 considerable, not exceeding fifty in all. 
 
 The approaching rigors of a winter in the mountains, gave 
 warning of a speedy termination of the campaign in western 
 Virginia, in which, in fact, we had no reason to linger for any 
 fruits we had gained. The campaign was virtually abandoned 
 by the government, in recalling Gen. Lee shortly after he had 
 allowed the opportunity of a decisive battle with Kosecrans 
 to escape him. He was appointed to take charge of the coast 
 Defences of South Carolina and Georgia. Gen. Wise was or 
 dered to report to Eichmond ; Gen. Loring was sent with his 
 command to reinforce Gen. T. J. Jackson (" Stonewall"), at 
 Winchester ; and Gen. H. K. Jackson was transferred to duty 
 in the South. With the exception of Gen. Floyd s command, 
 which still kept the field in the region of the Gauley, and a 
 force of twelve hundred men on the Alleghany Mountain, the 
 Confederate forces were withdrawn from western Virginia, 
 after the plain failure of the campaign, and in the expectation 
 that the rigors of the advancing winter season would induce 
 the enemy to retire from the mountains to the Ohio. 
 
 The last incident of battle in the campaign was a brilliant 
 :>ne. On the 13th of December, the whole of the enemy s 
 forces, under Gen. Reynolds, were brought out to attack the 
 
180 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 position commanded by Col. Edward Johnson, of Georgia, Witt 
 his little force on the Alleghany. The enemy had been con 
 ducted to our position by a guide, a Union man. The Federals, 
 on the flank, where the principal attack was made, numbered 
 fully two thousand. They were gallantly met by our troops, 
 who did not exceed three hundred at this time, being a portion 
 of Hansborough s battalion, the 31st Virginia. These were 
 reinforced by a few companies of Georgia troops, who came up 
 with a shout, and joining the troops who had been forced back 
 by overwhelming numbers, pressed upon the enemy with a 
 desperate valor, and drove him from his almost impenetrable 
 $over of fallen trees, brush, and timber. Many of the officers 
 fought by the side of their men, and the enemy was* pushed 
 down the mountain, but with serious loss to the gallant little 
 command. In describing the conduct of his men, Col. Johnson 
 wrote to the War Department, " I cannot speak in terms too 
 exaggerated of the unflinching courage and dashing gallantry 
 of those five hundred men, who contended from a quarter paut 
 7 A. M., until a quarter to 2 p. M., against an immensely supo- 
 rior force of the enemy, and finally drove them from their 
 position and pursued them a mile or more down the mountain." 
 The casualties in this small force amounted to twenty killed and 
 ninety-six wounded. 
 
 Gen. Floyd was the last of the Confederate generals to 
 leave the field .of active operations in western Virginia. After 
 the retreat of Rosecrans from Sewell Mountain, Gen. Floyd, 
 at his own request, was sent with his brigade, by way of Rich-, 
 ard s Ferry and Raleigh and Fayette Court House, to Cotton 
 Hill, on the west side of the Kanawha. Here he again con 
 fronted Rosecrans and his whole force, encamped at Hamil 
 ton s, at Hawk s Nest, at Tompkins farm, and at Stodin s, near 
 the falls Cotton Hill is in Fayette county, on the Kanawha, 
 opposite the mouth of the Gauley ; the Raleigh and Fayette 
 turnpike passes over the hill, crossing the Kanawha river at 
 the ferry below the falls, where it intersects the Kanawha turn 
 pike leading from Lewisburg to Charleston. From the position 
 of Cotton Hill, the several camps of Rosecrans referred to 
 could be distinctly seen, stretching to the distance of several 
 miles. Gen. Floyd reached this point after a fatiguing march 
 of eleven days, arid occupied the landings of all the approaches 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 181 
 
 to his position, at Bougen s Ferry, Matthews Ferry, Mont 
 gomery s Ferry at the falls, and Loop Creek. For three weeks, 
 he continued to challenge the enemy to battle, firing at him 
 across the river, annoying him considerably, cutting off his 
 communication with the Valley of the Kanawha, and holding 
 in check his steamboats, which ran up to Loop Creek shoals at 
 high tides. For several days, the communication of the Fed 
 erals, between their corps on the opposite sides of the Gauley, 
 was entirely suspended. Gen. Floyd continued to challenge, 
 insult, and defy the enemy with his little six-pounders at Cot 
 ton Hill, while Rosecrans, before he would accept the chal 
 lenge made to his already superior numbers, waited for heavy 
 reinforcements from the Ohio. 
 
 At last, being largely reinforced by the way of Charleston, 
 Rosecrans planned an attack upon Cotton Hill, and moved by 
 several distinctly indicated routes, namely, Miller s, Montgom 
 ery s, and Loop Creek Ferries, all concentrating at Fayetteville^ 
 nine miles from Cotton Hill. He expected the most brilliant 
 results from his overpowering numbers and well-conceived de 
 signs, and was confident of cutting off the retreat of Floyd and 
 capturing his command. His force was fifteen thousand men ; 
 that of Floyd did not exceed four thousand effective men, his 
 ranks having been reduced by sickness, and the old story of 
 promised reinforcements never having been realized to him 
 In these circumstances, Gen. Floyd made a retreat, the success 
 of which was one of the most admirable incidents of a cam 
 paign, which he, at least, had already distinguished by equal 
 measures of vigor, generalship, and gallantry. He effected his 
 retreat in perfect order, fighting the enemy for twenty miles, 
 and bringing off his force, including sick, with a loss of not 
 more than five or six men. In this loss, however, was Col. 
 Croghan, of Kentucky, a gallant young officer, and a son of the 
 late Col. Croghan, who had obtained historical distinction in 
 the Northwestern campaign of the War of 1812. The enemy, 
 after pursuing Gen. Floyd for twenty miles, turned back in 
 the direction of Fayette Court House, leaving him to retire at 
 his leisure to southwestern Virginia. It was from here that 
 Gen. Floyd was transferred by the government to the now im 
 posing theatre of war in Tennessee and Kentucky. 
 
 A minuter history of the campaign in western Virginia than 
 
182 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the plan of our work admits, would enable us to cite man} in 
 stances of individual gallantry and self-sacrifice. They would 
 show the good conduct of small parties of Confederates on 
 many occasions. In concluding the narrative of the general 
 events of the war in western Yirginia, we may add a very 
 brief mention of some of these occurrences, which were onty 
 incidents of the campaign, which did not affect its general re 
 sults, but which showed instances of gallantry that, on a larger 
 scale of execution, might have accomplished very important 
 results. 
 
 While the enemy had possession of the Kanawha Yalley, 
 Col. J. Lucius Davis cavalry, of the Wise Legion, was sent to 
 Big Coal Kiver, thirty-five miles from Fayette Court House. 
 On reaching Big Coal, they gave rapid chase to a marauding 
 party of Federals, and overtook them at Tony s Creek, where a 
 fight took place on the llth September, which resulted in the 
 total rout of the enemy, with a loss of about fifty killed and 
 wounded, about the same number of prisoner^, and the capture 
 of all his provisions, munitions, &c. The Confederates sus 
 tained no loss whatever. The action lasted three hours, the 
 remnant of the enemy having been pursued to a point within 
 twelve miles of Charleston. The cavalry returned with their 
 trophies, after having traversed, in twenty-four hours, a dis 
 tance of seventy -five or eighty miles over steep mountain trails, 
 bridle-paths, and rocky fords. Col. J. Lucius Davis, in his re 
 port of the affair, speaks of Lieut.-col. Clarkson as the hero of 
 the expedition. 
 
 On the 25th September, Col. J. W. Davis, of Greenbrier, at 
 the head of two hundred and twenty-five militia of Wyoming, 
 Logan, and Boone counties, were attacked at Chapman sville, 
 by an Ohio regiment commanded by Col. Pratt. The militia 
 fought well, and were forcing the enemy from the field, when 
 their gallant leader, Col. Davis, received a desperate, and as 
 was thought at the time, a mortal wound. This unfortunate 
 circumstance reversed the fortune of the field. The militia 
 retreated and the enemy returned to the field. Col. Davis was 
 taken by the Ohio troops, and remained in their hands till his 
 partial recovery from his wounds, when he was paroled. The 
 troops under Col. Davis lost but two killed and two wounded, 
 while the loss of the Ohio troops in killed and wounded ex 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 183 
 
 eeeded fifty, from the best information Col. D. was able to ob 
 tain. 
 
 Col, Jenkins cavalry rendered efficient service in the Ka 
 nawha Yalley, and kept the enemy all the time uneasy. On 
 the 9th November, they made a gallant dash into the town 01 
 Guyandotte, on the Ohio river, and routed the forces of the 
 enemy stationed there, killing and wounding a number of them, 
 and taking nearly one hundred prisoners. Federal reinforce 
 ments afterwards came up to the town, and on the pretence 
 that the Confederates had been invited to attack it by resident 
 Secessionists, gratified a monstrous and cowardly revenge by 
 firing the larger portion of the town, although many of the in 
 habitants had come out to meet them on the banks of the river, 
 waving white flags and signifying the most unqualified submis 
 sion. Women and children were turned into the street, many 
 of them being forced to jump from the windows of their houses 
 to escape the flames. 
 
 We have already adverted to the causes which contributed 
 to make the campaign in western Virginia a failure. The 
 cause which furnished the most popular excuse for its ineffec 
 tiveness the disloyalty of the resident population was, per 
 haps, the least adequate of them all. That disloyalty has been 
 hugely magnified by those interested, in finding excuses in it 
 for their own inefficiency and disappointment of public expec 
 tation. While Maryland, Kentucky, and other regions of the 
 South, which not only submitted to Lincoln, but furnished him 
 with troops, were not merely excused, but were the recipients 
 of overflowing sympathy, and accounted by a charitable stretch 
 of imagination " sister States" of the Southern Confederacy, an 
 odium, cruelly unjust, was inflicted .upon western Virginia, 
 despite of the fact that this region was enthralled by Federal 
 troops, and, indeed, had never given such evidences of sympa 
 thy with the Lincoln government as had been manifested both 
 by Maryland and Kentucky in their State elections, their contri 
 butions of troops, and other acts of deference to the authorities at 
 Washington. It is a fact, that even now, " Governor" Pierpont, 
 the creature of Lincoln, cannot get one-third of the votes in a sin 
 gle county in western Virginia. It is a fact, that the Northern 
 journals admit that in a large portion of this country, it is unsafe 
 for Federal troops to show themselves unless in large bodies 
 
184: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The unfortunate results of the campaign in western Virginia 
 abandoned to the enemy a country of more capacity and gran 
 deur than, perhaps, any other of equal limits on this continent; 
 remarkable for the immensity of its forests, the extent of its 
 mineral resources, and the vastness of its water-power, and 
 possessing untold wealth yet awaiting the coal-digger, the salt 
 dealer, and the manufacturer. 
 
 While the events referred to in the foregoing pages were 
 transpiring in western Virginia, an inauspicious quiet, for 
 months after the battle of Manassas, was maintained on the 
 lines of the Potomac. A long, lingering Indian summer, with 
 roads more hard and skies more beautiful than Virginia had 
 seen for many a year, invited the enemy to advance. He 
 steadily refused the invitation to a general action ; the advance 
 of our lines was tolerated to Munson s Hill, within a few miles 
 of Alexandria, and opportunities were sought in vain by the 
 Confederates, in heavy skirmishing, to engage the lines of the 
 two armies. The gorgeous pageant on the Potomac, which, by 
 the close of the year, had cost the Northern people three hun 
 dred millions of dollars, did not move. The " Young Napo 
 leon" was twitted as a dastard in the Southern newspapers. 
 They professed to discover in his unwillingness to fight the 
 near achievement of their independence, when, however the 
 fact was, the inactivity of the Federal forces on the northern 
 frontier of Virginia only implied that immense preparations 
 were going on in other directions, while the Southern people 
 were complacently entertained with the parades, reviews, and* 
 pompous idleness of an army, the common soldiery of which 
 wore white gloves on particular occasions of holiday display. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEESBURG. 
 
 The quiet, however, on the lines of the Potomac was broken 
 by an episode in the month of October, which, without being 
 important in its military results, added lustre to our arms. 
 The incident referred to was the memorable action of Lees- 
 burg, in which a small portion of the Potomac army drove an 
 enemy four times their number from the soil of Virginia, kill 
 ing and taking prisoners a greater number than the whole 
 Confederate force engaged. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 186 
 
 Gen. Stone having been persuaded that no important force 
 of the Confederates remained along the Upper Potomac, and 
 in obedience to orders from head-quarters, commenced his pas 
 sage of the river on Sunday, the 20th of October, at Harrison s 
 Island, a point of transit about six miles above Edwards 
 Ferry, and nearly an equal distance from Leesburg. A force 
 of five companies of Massachusetts troops, commanded by Col. 
 Devins, effected a crossing at the ferry named above, and, a 
 few hours thereafter, Col. Baker, who took command of all the 
 Federal forces on the Virginia side, having been ordered by 
 Stone to push the Confederates from Leesburg and hold the 
 place, crossed the river at Conrad s Ferry, a little south ot 
 Harrison s Island. 
 
 The brigade of Gen. Evans (one of the heroic and conspicuous 
 actors in the bloody drama of Manassas), which had occupied 
 Leesburg, consisted of four regiments, viz. : the 8th Virginia, 
 the 13th, the 17th, and the 18th Mississippi. Having a position 
 on Goose Creek, they awaited the approach of the overwhelm 
 ing numbers of the enemy, the force which he had thrown 
 across the river being between seven and eight thousand strong. 
 The enemy had effected a crossing both at Edwards Ferry, and 
 Ball s Bluff, and preparations were made to meet him in both 
 positions. Lieut.-col. Jenifer, with four of the Mississippi 
 companies, confronted the immediate approach of the enemy in 
 the direction of Leesburg ; Col. Hunton, with his regiment, the 
 8th Virginia, was afterwards ordered to his support, and, about 
 noon, both commands were united, and became hotly engaged 
 with the enemy in their strong position in the woods. 
 
 Watching carefully the action, Gen. Evans saw the, enemy 
 were constantly being reinforced, and at half-past two o clock 
 p. M., ordered Col. Burt to march his regiment, the 18th Mis 
 sissippi, and attack the left flank of the enemy, while Colonels 
 Hunton and Jenifer attacked him in front. On arriving at his 
 position, Col. Burt was received with a tremendous fire from 
 the enemy, concealed in a ravine, and was compelled to divide 
 his regiment to stop the flank movement of the enemy. 
 
 At this time, about three o clock, finding the enemy were in 
 large force, Gen. Evans ordered Col. Featherston, with his 
 regiment, the 17th Mississippi, to repair, at double quick, to 
 the support of Col. Burt, where he arrived in twenty minutes, 
 
186 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and the action became general along the whole line of the 
 Confederates, and was hot and brisk for more than two hours 
 
 The Confederates engaged in the action numbered less than 
 eighteen hundred men ; the 13th Mississippi, with six pieces of 
 artillery, being held in reserve. The troops engaged on our 
 side fought with almost savage desperation. The firing was 
 irregular. Our troops gave a yell and volley ; then loaded and 
 fired at will for a few minutes.; then gave another yell and 
 volley. For two hours, the enemy was steadily driven near the 
 banks of the Potomac. The Federal commander, Col. Baker, 
 had fallen at the head of his column, and his body was with 
 difficulty recovered by his command. As the enemy continued 
 to fall back, Gen. Evans ordered his entire force to charge and 
 drive him into the river. 
 
 The rout of the enemy near the bluffs of the river was ap 
 palling. The crossing of the river had gone on until seven 
 thousand five hundred men, according to the report of Gen. 
 Stone, were thrown across it. Some of these never saw the 
 field of battle. They had to climb the mud of the bluff, drag 
 ging their dismounted arms after them, before they could reach 
 the field, expecting to find there a scene of victory. The diffi 
 cult ascent led them to a horrible Golgotha. The forces that 
 had been engaged in front were already in retreat; behind 
 them rolled the river, deep and broad, which many of them 
 were never to repass ; before them glared the foe. 
 
 The spectacle was that of a whole army retreating, tum 
 bling, rolling, leaping down the steep heights the enemy fol 
 lowing them, killing and taking prisoners. Col. Devins, of 
 the 15th Massachusetts regiment, left his command, and swam 
 the river on horseback. The one boat in the channel between 
 the Virginia shore and the island was speedily filled with the 
 fugitives. A thousand men thronged the banks. Muskets, 
 coats, and every thing were thrown aside, and all were des 
 perately trying to escape. Hundreds plunged into the rapid 
 current, and the shrieks of the drowning added to the horror 
 of sounds and sights. The Confederates kept up their fire 
 from the cliff above. All was terror, confusion, and dismaj 
 One of the Federal officers, at the head of some companies, 
 charged up the hill. A moment later, and the same officer, 
 perceiving the hopelessness of the situation, waved a white 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 187 
 
 handkerchief and surrendered the main body of his regiment 
 Other portions of the column surrendered, but the Confed 
 erates kept up their fire upon those who tried to cross, and 
 many, not drowned in the river, were shot in the act oi 
 swimming. 
 
 The last act of the tragedy was the most sickening and ap 
 palling of them all. A flat-boat, on returning to the island, 
 was laden with the mangled, the weary, and the dying. The 
 quick and the dead were huddled together in one struggling, 
 mangled mass, and all went down together in that doleful river, 
 never again to rise. 
 
 The Northern newspapers, with characteristic and persistent 
 falsehood, pretended that the Leesburg affair was nothing 
 a mere reconnoissance, in which the Federals accomplished 
 their object a skirmish, in which they severely punished the 
 " rebels" an affair of outposts, in which they lost a few men, 
 nothing like so many as the " rebels," &G. But the truth at 
 last came out, stark and horrible. The defeat of Leesbnrg 
 was named in the Federal Congress as " most humiliating," 
 " a great national calamity," and as another laurel added to 
 the chaplet of the " rebellion." 
 
 The Federal soldiers who had suffered most severely in this 
 action were from New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. 
 They had given an exhibition of cowardice, quite equal, in 
 degree at least, to its display at Manassas. There were no 
 instances among them of desperate stubbornness, of cairn 
 front, of heroic courage. There was but one tint of glory to 
 gild the bloody picture, and that was in the circumstance of 
 the fall of their gallant commander, Col. Baker, who had been 
 shot several times through the body, and, at last, through the 
 head, in his desperate and conspicuous effort to rally his broken 
 forces. 
 
 -Col. Baker was United States senator from Oregon. He 
 had served with distinction in the Mexican war ; was since a 
 member of Congress from Missouri ; emigrated to California, 
 where he long held a leading position at the bar, and, being 
 disappointed in an election to Congress from that State, re 
 moved to Oregon, where he was returned United States saia- 
 tor to Washington. In the opening of the war, he raised what 
 was caUed a " California" regiment, recruited in New York 
 
188 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 / 
 
 ai d New Jersey, and at the last session of the Federal Con 
 gress had distinguished himself by his extreme views of the 
 subjugation of the South, and its reduction to a "territorial 
 condition. He was a man of many accomplishments, of more 
 than ordinary gifts of eloquence, and, outside of his political 
 associations, was respected for his bravery, chivalry, and ad 
 dress. 
 
 Our loss in the action of Leesburg, out of a force of 1,709 
 men, was 153 in killed and wounded. The loss of the enemy 
 was 1,300 killed, wounded, and drowned; 710 prisoners cap 
 tured, among them twenty-two commissioned officers ; besides 
 1,500 stand of arms and three pieces of cannon taken. This 
 brilliant victory was achieved on our side by the musket alone, 
 over an enemy who never ventured to emerge from the cover, 
 or to expose himself to an artillery fire. 
 
 The battle of Leesburg was followed by no important conse 
 quences on the Potomac. It was a brilliant and dramatic 
 incident ; it adorned our arms ; and it showed a valor, a dem 
 onstration of which, on a grander scale and in larger num 
 bers, might easily have n;-enacted on a new field the scenes oi 
 Manassas. But, like the Manassas victory, that of Leesburg 
 bore no fruits but those of a confidence on the part of the 
 South, which was pernici us, because it was overweening and 
 inactive, and a contempt for its enemy, which was injurious, 
 iji proportion as it exceeded the limits of truth and justice, 
 and reflected the self-conceits of fortune. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTER YI1. 
 
 The Position and Policy of Kentucky in the War. Kentucky Chivalry. Reminis 
 cences of the " Dark and Bloody Ground." Protection of the Northwest by Ken 
 tucky. How the Debt of Gratitude has been repaid. A Glance at the Hartford 
 
 Convention. The Gubernatorial Canvass of 1859 in Kentucky. Division of Parties. 
 Other Causes for the Disloyalty of Kentucky. The "Pro-Slavery and Union" Kesolu- 
 tions. The "State Guard." General Buckner. The Pretext of " Neutrality," and 
 what it meant. The Kentucky Kefugees. A Reign ot Terror. Judge Monroe in 
 Nashville. General Breckinridge. Occupation of Columbus by General Polk. The 
 Neutrality of Kentucky first broken by the North. General Buckner at Bowling 
 (j reen . Camp " Dick Robinson." The " Home Guard." The Occupation of Colum 
 bus by the Confederates explained. Cumberland Gap. General Zollicoffer s Procla 
 mation. The Aifair of Barboursville. " The Wild-Cat Stampede." The Virginia 
 and Kentucky Border. The Affair of Piketon. Suffering of our Troops at Pound 
 G- A p, The " Union Party" in East Tennessee. Keelan, the Hero of Strawberrj 
 Plains. The Situation on the Waters of the Ohio and Tennessee. THE BATTLE o? 
 BELMONT. Weakness of our Forces in Kentucky. General Albert Sidney Johnston. 
 Inadequacy of his Forces* at Bowling Green. Neglect and Indifference of the Con 
 federate Authorities. A Crisis imminent. Admission of Kentucky into the Southern 
 Confederacy. 
 
 IF, a few months back, any one had predicted that in an 
 armed contest between the North and the South, the State ol 
 Kentucky would be found acting with the former, and abetting 
 and assisting a war upon States united with her by community 
 of institutions, of interests, and of blood, he would, most prob 
 ably, in any Southern company in which such a speech was 
 adventured, have been hooted at as a fool, or chastised as a 
 slanderer. The name of Kentucky had been synonymous with 
 the highest types of Southern chivalry ; her historical record 
 was adorned by the knightly deeds, the hardy adventures, the 
 romantic courage of her sons ; and Virginia had seen the State 
 which she had peopled with the flower of her youth grow up, 
 not only to the full measure of filial virtue, but with the orna 
 ment, it was thought, of even a prouder and bolder spirit than 
 flowed in the blood of the Old Dominion. 
 
 War discovers truths in the condition of society which would 
 never otherwise have been known. It often shows a spirit of 
 devotion where it has been least expected ; it decides the claims 
 
190 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of superior patriotism and superior courage often in favor of 
 communities which have laid less claim to these qualities than 
 others ; and it not infrequently exposes disloyalty, rottenness, or 
 apathy on the part of those who had formerly superior reputa 
 tion for attachment to the cause which they are found to de 
 sert or to assail. 
 
 It is not to be supposed for a moment, that while the posi 
 tioi) of Kentucky, like that of Maryland, was one of reproach, 
 it is to mar the credit due to that portion of the people of each, 
 who, in the face of instant difficulties, and at the expense of 
 extraordinary sacrifices, repudiated the decision of their States 
 to remain under the Federal government, and expatriated 
 themselves, that they might espouse the cause of liberty in the 
 South. The honor due such men is in fact increased by the 
 consideration that their States remained in the Union, and 
 compelled them to fly their homes, that they might testify their 
 devotion to the South and her cause of independence. Still, 
 the justice of history must be maintained. The demonstra 
 tions of sympathy with the South on the part of the States re 
 ferred to Maryland and Kentucky considered either in pro 
 portion to what was offered the Lincoln government by these 
 States, or with respect to the numbers of their population, were 
 sparing and exceptional ; and although these demonstrations 
 on the part of Kentucky, from the great and brilliant names 
 associated with them, were perhaps even more honorable and 
 more useful than the examples of Southern spirit offered by 
 Maryland, it is unquestionably, though painfully true, that the 
 great body of the people of Kentucky were the active allies of 
 Lincoln, and the unnatural enemies of those united to them by 
 lineage, blood, and common institutions. 
 
 A brief review -of some of the most remarkable circum 
 stances in the history of Kentucky is not inappropriate to the 
 subject of the existing war. 
 
 Kentucky has been denominated u the Dark and Bloody 
 Ground" of the savage aborigines. It never was the habita 
 tion of any nation or tribe of Indians ; but from the period of 
 the earliest aboriginal traditions to the appearance of the white 
 man on its soil, Kentucky was the field of deadly conflict be 
 tween the Northern and Southern warriors of the forest. 
 
 When, shortly after the secession of the American colonies 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 191 
 
 from the British empire, this contested land was penetrated by 
 the bold adventurous white men of Carolina and Virginia, who 
 constituted the third party for dominion, its title of the "Dark 
 and Bloody Ground" was appropriately continued. And when, 
 after the declaration of American independence, Great Brit 
 ain, with a view to the subjugation of the United States, form 
 ed an alliance with the Indian savages, and assigned to them 
 the conduct of the war upon all our western frontier, the ter 
 ritory of Kentucky became still more emphatically the Dark 
 and Bloody Ground. Nor did the final treaty of peace be 
 tween Great Britain and the United States bring peace to 
 Kentucky. The government of Great Britain failed to fulfil 
 its obligations to surrender the western posts from which their 
 savage allies had been supplied with the munitions of war, but 
 still held them, and still supplied the Indians with arms and 
 ammunition, inciting them to their murderous depredations 
 upon the western border. 
 
 This hostile condition continued in Kentucky until the cele 
 brated treaty of Jay, "and the final victory over the savage en 
 emy achieved by General Wayne, and the consequent treaty 
 of peace which he concluded with them in 1795. By this 
 treaty of peace, the temple of Janus was closed in Kentucky 
 for the first time in all her history and tradition. 
 
 The battles in these wars with the savage enemy were not 
 all in Kentucky, nor were they for the defence of the territory 
 of her people only, but chiefly for the defence of the inhabit 
 ants of Ohio, who were unable to protect themselves against 
 their barbarous foes. How this debt has been paid by the de 
 scendants of these Ohio people, the ravages of the existing war 
 sufficiently demonstrate. 
 
 Peace was continued in Kentucky for about twenty years. 
 There were commotions and grand enterprises which we cannot 
 even mention here. But they were all terminated by the pur 
 chase of Louisiana by Mr. Jefferson in 1803. The ratification 
 of the treaty by which this vast southern and western do 
 minion was acquired at the price of fifteen millions of dollars, 
 was opposed by the Northern politicians, whose descendants 
 now seek to subjugate the people of the South, at the cost ot 
 a thousand millions of dollars, and of a monstrous, unnatural, 
 and terrible expenditure of blood. 
 
192 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 In the war of 1812 with Great Britain, the surrender of 
 Hull having exposed the Michigan Territory and all the north 
 ern border of Ohio to the invasion of the British and the 
 savages, who were now again the allies of that government. 
 Kentucky sent forth her volunteers for the defence of her as 
 sailed Northern neighbors; and when so many of her gallant 
 sons were sacrificed upon the bloody plains of Raisin, the Leg 
 islature of Kentucky requested the governor of the State to 
 take the field, and at the head of his volunteer army to go 
 forth and drive back the enemy. The request was promptly 
 complied with. It was the army of Kentucky that expelled 
 the savages from all Ohio and Michigan, and pursuing them 
 into Canada, achieved over them and the British upon the 
 Thames a victory more important than had been yet won upon 
 land in that war, thus giving peace and security to Ohio and 
 all the northwestern territory, whose people were confessedly 
 powerless for their own defence. 
 
 It is these people, protected by the arms and early chivalry 
 of Kentucky, who have now made her soil the Dark and 
 Bloody Ground of an iniquitous civil war, waged not only upon 
 a people bearing the common name of American citizens, but 
 upon the eternal and sacred principles of liberty itself. In 
 these references to the early history of Kentucky we must be 
 brief. In indicating, however, the lessons of rebuke they give 
 to the North with respect to the existing war, we must not 
 omit to mention that in the war of 1812, in which Kentucky 
 covered herself with such well-deserved and lasting glory, the 
 New England States stood with the enemy, and the body of 
 their politicians had resolved upon negotiation with Great 
 Britain for a separate peace, and had, in fact, appointed a 
 Convention to be assembled at Hartford, to carry into effect 
 what would have been virtually a secession from the United 
 States, and the assumption of neutrality between the belliger 
 ents, if not an alliance with the public enemy. These facts 
 are not fully recorded in history, but they might be well col 
 lected from the public documents and journals of the day. In 
 deed, they are well known to men yet living in our land. The 
 schemes of the New England traitors were defeated only by the 
 battle of Orleans, and the consequent treaty of peace. Upon the 
 happening of these events, the conspirators abandoned their 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 193 
 
 Convention projet, and denied that they had ever contemplated 
 any thing revolutionary or treasonable. The whole matter was 
 suffered to pass into oblivion. The conspirators were treated 
 by the government and people of the United States as William 
 the Third treated those around his throne who, within his 
 knowledge, had conspired against him, .and had actually served 
 the public enemy of England. It was known in each case that 
 the conspirators were controlled by their selfish interests, and 
 that the best* mode of managing them, was to cause them to see 
 that it was to their interest to be faithful to their government. 
 It needs no comment to indicate with what grace the vehement 
 denunciation of the secession of the Southern States from a 
 Union which had been prostituted alike to the selfishness of 
 politicians and the passion of fanatics, comes from a people 
 who had been not only domestic rebels, but allies to the foreign 
 enemy in the war of 1812. 
 
 In tracing the political connections of Kentucky in the pres 
 ent war, it will be sufficient for our purposes to start at the 
 election of its governor in 1859. Down to that period the 
 body of the partisans now upholding the Lincoln government 
 had been an emancipation party in the State. This party had 
 lately suffered much in popularity. In the election of 1859, they 
 determined to consult popularity, and took open pro-slavery 
 ground. The State Rights candidate (Magoffin) was elected. 
 
 By their adroit movement, however, the Anti-State Rights 
 party had made some advance in the confidence of the people, 
 which availed them in the more important contests that fol 
 lowed. In the Presidential election of 1860 they supported 
 Mr. Bell, and thus succeeded in their object of gaining the as 
 cendency in the councils of the State. Emancipationists were 
 urged to support Mr. Bell, upon the ground that from his ante 
 cedent^ and present position they had more to expect from him 
 than from his principal competitor in the race in Kentucky, 
 while the people at large were persuaded to support Mr. Bell 
 us the candidate of the friends of " the Union, the Constitution, 
 and the Laws." 
 
 The Anti-State Rights party (at least they may be known 
 for the present by this convenient denomination), succeeded in 
 carrying the State by a large plurality. They commenced at 
 an early day to combat the movements of secession in the 
 
 13 
 
194 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 South. Popular assemblies and conventions were called to 
 pledge themselves to the support of the Union in every con 
 tingency. The party, as represented in these assemblies, united 
 all the friends of Mr. Bell, and the great body of those of Mi- 
 Douglas and of Mr. Guthrie. By this combination an organi 
 zation was effected which was able to control and direct public 
 opinion in the subsequent progress of events. 
 
 It is certainly defective logic, or, at best, an inadequate ex 
 planation, which attributes the subserviency of a large portion 
 of the people of Kentucky to the views of the Lincoln govern 
 ment to the perfidy of a party or the adroitness of its manage 
 ment. However powerful may be the machinery of party, it 
 certainly has not the power of belying public sentiment for 
 any considerable length of time. The persistent adhesion of a 
 large portion of the Kentucky people to the Northern cause 
 must be attributed to permanent causes; and among these 
 were, first, an essential unsoundness on the slavery question, 
 under the influences of the peculiar philosophy of Henry Clay, 
 who, like every great man, left an impress upon his State 
 which it remained for future even more than contemporary 
 generations to attest; and, second, the mercenary consider 
 ations of a trade with both North and South, to which the 
 State of Kentucky was thought to be especially convenient. 
 These suggestions may at least assist to the understanding of 
 that development of policy in Kentucky which we are about 
 to relate. 
 
 On the meeting of the Legislature of Kentucky, after the 
 election of Lincoln, the party in the interest of the North suc 
 ceeded in obtaining the passage by that body of a singular set 
 of resolutions, which, by a curious compost of ideas, were 
 called " pro-slavery and Union" resolutions. They denounced 
 secession, without respect to any cause which might justify the 
 measure, deprecated any war between the North and the South, 
 and avowed the determination of Kentucky to occupy in such 
 an event a position of perfect neutrality. 
 
 At its regular session in 1859- 60, the Legislature had or 
 ganized an active body of volunteer militia, denominated the 
 State Guard, and General Buckner had been appointed its 
 highest officer. This army, as it might be called, was found to 
 consist of the finest officers and best young men in the State 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 195 
 
 It was Necessarily, by the provisions of the Constitution, under 
 tho command of the governor ; but as Governor Magoffin waa 
 supposed to be a Southern Rights man, and the fact appearing 
 that nearly all of the State Guard were favorable to the same 
 cause, and that they could not be made the soldiers of the 
 despotic government of the North, he was in effect deprived 
 of their command, and measures were taken for forcing out of 
 their hands the public arms with which they had been fur 
 nished, and for the organization of a new. corps, to be com 
 manded by the officers and partisans of Abraham Lincoln. In 
 the mean time, as if to make their professed determination of 
 neutrality effective, the Legislature proceeded to arm with 
 muskets their " Home Guards," as their new army was called. 
 With this programme before the people, the Legislature took a 
 recess, probably to await the progress of events, when the 
 mask of neutrality might be thrown off, and their real purposes 
 might safely be announced to the people. 
 
 Gov. Magoffin s refusal to furnish troops to answer the 
 requisition of the Federal government (to which reference has 
 already been made in another part of this work), appeared at 
 the time to meet with the approval of the entire people of Ken 
 tucky. The enemies of the South acquiesced in the decision 
 of the governor only until the period arrived when the farce 
 of neutrality might be conveniently broken, and the next step 
 ventured, which would be union with the JSTorth. With the 
 pretence of neutrality, and the seductive promises of a trade 
 with both belligerents, which would enrich Kentucky and fill 
 her cities with gold, a considerable portion of the people were 
 held blinded or willingly entertained, while the purposes of the 
 Lincoln government with respect to their State were being 
 steadily fulfilled. 
 
 In the election of members of the Congress called by Lin 
 coln to meet in special session on the 4th of July, 1861, men 
 of Northern principles were elected from every district in 
 Kentucky save one ; and in the same condition of the public 
 mind, the members of the Legislature were elected in August 
 the result being the return of a large majority of members os 
 tensibly for the purpose of maintaining the ground of neu 
 trality, but with what real designs was soon discovered. The 
 election of the Lincoln rulers having been thus accomplished 
 
196 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 4 
 
 the measures all the time contemplated and intended were 
 easily put in course of execution. In a short time every State 
 Rights newspaper was suspended ; every public man standing 
 in defence of the South was threatened with arrest and prose 
 cution ; and the raising of a volunteer corps for the defence 
 of the South was totally suppressed. 
 
 Immediately after the declaration of war by the Lincoln 
 government, a number of young men in Kentucky, actuated 
 by impulses of patriotism, and attesting the spirit of the an 
 cient chivalry of their State, had commenced raising volunteer 
 companies in the State for the Confederate service. They 
 passed South in detachments of every number. This emigra 
 tion was at first tolerated by the Unionists, if not actually de 
 sired by them, for the purpose of diminishing the opposition in 
 the State to their sinister designs. By the removal of its mem 
 bers, and by the acts of the Legislature already mentioned, the 
 admirable army of the " State Guard of Kentucky" was to 
 tally disorganized, and the command of it virtually taken from 
 Governor Magoffin and General Buckner, and placed in the 
 hands of the political partisans of the Lincoln government. 
 General Buckner could not long occupy such a position, and 
 therefore, as soon as practicable, he resigned his office, re 
 nounced the Lincoln government, and placed himstlf under 
 the Confederate flag. The value of his accession to the South 
 ern cause was justly appreciated, and he was speedily ap 
 pointed a brigadier-general in the provisional army of .the Con 
 federacy. 
 
 The encouragement to emigration was not long continued by 
 the party in power in Kentucky. It was determined by the 
 Lincoln government to make examples of the small party re- 
 maining in Kentucky who sympathized with the South, and to 
 arrest at once eveiy public and influential man in the State 
 known to be hostile to the North, or to the despotic purposes 
 of the government at Washington. Ex-Governor Morehead 
 was at a dead hour of the night arrested in his own house, a 
 few miles from Louisville, in the presence of his afflicted 
 family, by the Lincoln police, and hurried through the city and 
 over the river, and out of his State and district, in violation oi 
 sill law ; and the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus was prac 
 tically denied him in a mode which, at any period in the 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 197 
 
 two hundj ed years, would have aroused all England into com 
 motion. The high-handed act, it might have been supposed 
 would have aroused Kentucky also to a flame of indignation at 
 any other period since it became the habitation of white men. 
 The people, however, seemed to be insensible, and the outrage 
 was allowed to pass with no public demonstration of its disap 
 proval. Encouraged by its experience of the popular subser 
 viency in Kentucky to its behests, it was in convenient time 
 determined by the Lincoln government to arrest or drive off 
 from the State every prominent opponent of its despotic au 
 thority. It was determined at Louisville that John C. Breck- 
 enridge, late Vice-President of the United States, Col. G. "W. 
 Johnson, a prominent citizen, T. B. Monroe, Jr., Secretary of 
 State, William Preston, late Minister to Spain, Thomas B. 
 Monroe, Sr., for about thirty years District Judge of the 
 United States, Col. Humphrey Marshall, ex-member of Con 
 gress, and a distinguished officer in the Mexican war, Capt, 
 John Morgan (since " the Marion" of Kentucky), and a num 
 ber of other distinguished citizens in different parts of the 
 State, should be arrested at the same hour, and consigned to 
 prison, or driven from their homes by the threats of such a 
 fate. It is supposed that some of the Lincoln men, and per 
 haps some officers of the government, preferred the latter 
 alternative, especially in respect to some of the individuals 
 named. However this may be, it happened that all of them 
 escaped, some in one direction, and some in another. 
 
 The venerable Judge Monroe, on his arrival at Bowling 
 Green, whence he was on his next day s journey to pass out of 
 his State and his district, executed in duplicate, and left to be 
 transmitted by different modes of conveyance, his resignation 
 of the office of Judge of the United States for Kentucky ; and 
 in conformity to the general expectation at the time, he placed 
 upon historic record the declaration of his expatriation of him 
 self from the dominion of the despotic government of Lincoln, 
 and adopted himself a citizen of the Southern Confederacy. 
 The proceedings occurred in the Confederate Court of Nash 
 ville OR the 3d of October. The scene of the renunciation of 
 allegiance to the government that would have enslaved him, by 
 this venerable jurist, who had been driven from H long-cher 
 ished home, and was now on his way to the State of Virginia 
 
198 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 whose honored soil held the sacred ashes of a dozen genera 
 tions of his ancestors, was one of peculiar augustness and in 
 terest. The picture of the scene alone was sufficient to illus 
 trate ai>i adorn the progress of a great revolution. It was 
 that of a venerable patriot, a man of one of the greatest his 
 torical names on the continent, just escaped from the minions 
 of the despot, who had driven him from a State in which he 
 had lived, the light of the law, irreproachable as a man, be 
 loved by his companions, honored by his profession, and vener 
 able in years, voluntarily and proudly abjuring an allegiance 
 which no longer returned to him the rights of a citizen, but 
 would have made him an obsequious slave ; and with all the 
 dignity of one thus honored and respected, and conscious ol 
 his rectitude, appearing in the presence of a Confederate court 
 of justice, and with the pure eloquence of truth, offering the 
 remaining years of his life to the service of the new govern 
 ment, which had ari&en as the successor of the old Union, as it 
 was in its purer and brighter days. 
 
 Mr. Breckenridge reached Nashville by a very circuitous 
 route, a few days after his departure from Lexington, and after 
 a brief sojourn in the former place, proceeded to Bowling 
 Green, and there entered into a compact with a number of his 
 old constituents who had taken refuge in the camp of General 
 Buckner, that they would take up their arms in defence of the 
 rights and liberties of their country, and never lay them down 
 till the invader was driven from the soil of Kentucky. Shortly 
 afterwards, he received the appointment of brigadier-genera) 
 in the army of the Confederate States, and was assigned to the 
 command of a brigade of his fellow-citizens of Kentucky. Col. 
 Humphrey Marshall received, at the same time, the appoint 
 ment of brigadier-general, and was assigned to the district oi 
 southeastern Kentucky and southwestern Yirginia. Colonel 
 Johnson was subsequently chosen Provisional Governor of 
 Kentucky by the friends of the Confederate government in 
 th;it State. 
 
 To reconcile the people of Kentucky to the Lincoln govern 
 ment, its partisans had told them at the outset that they had 
 the right to insist upon the strict observance of neutrality. As 
 events progressed, they ascribed the violation of Kentucky s 
 neutrality to the acts of the Southern government, in the face 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 109 
 
 of facts about which there can be no dispute. The facts are, 
 that the Federal forces were preparing to take possession of 
 Columbus and Paducah, regarding them as important positions ; 
 and because Gen. Polk anticipated them and got prior posses 
 sion of Columbus, they charged the Confederates with ttie re 
 sponsibility of the first invasion of Kentucky. The Federals 
 had commissioned Gen. Rouseau, at Louisville, to raise a bri 
 gade for the invasion of the South, but while the recruits were 
 enlisted in Louisville, the camp was kept at Jeffersonville, on 
 the Indiana side of the river, until the Lincoln commander be 
 came satisfied that the temper of the people of Louisville would 
 tolerate a parade of Northern soldiers on their streets. Then, 
 and not till then, were the Northern soldiers boldly marched 
 across the State in the direction of Nashville. Gen. Buckner 
 took possession of the railroad, and stationed himself at Bowl 
 ing Green, in Southern Kentucky, about thirty miles from the 
 Tennessee line. The partisans of Lincoln, still determined to 
 blind the people by all sorts of false representations, established 
 a camp called " Dick Robinson," near Lexington, and there 
 *made nip an army comprised of recruits from Ohio, vagabond? 
 from Kentucky, and Andrew-Johnson men from Tennessee 
 They insisted that no invasion was contemplated, that thei) 
 forces were merely a " Home Guard" organization of a purely 
 defensive character. They did not hesitate, however, to rob 
 the arsenals of the United States of their muskets, bayonets, 
 and cannon, and place them at the disposal of such infamous 
 leaders as George D. Prentice, Tom Ward, and Garrett Davis 
 "With, these arms, " Dick Robinson s" camp was replenished, 
 and at this memorable spot of the congregation of the most 
 villanous characters, an army was raised in Kentucky for the 
 invasion of the South. 
 
 The causes which led to the occupation of Kentucky by the 
 Confederate States were plain and abundant. Finding that 
 their own territory was about to be invaded through Kentucky, 
 and that many of the people of that State, after being deceived 
 into a mistaken security, were unarmed, and in danger of be 
 ing subjugated by the Federal forces, the Confederate armies 
 were marched into that State to repel the enemy, and prevent 
 their occupation c f certain strategic points which would have 
 gimi them great advantages in the contest a step which was 
 
200 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 justified, not only by the necessities of self-defence on the part 
 of the Confederate States, but also by a desire to aid the peo 
 ple of Kentucky. It was never intended by the Confederate 
 government to conquer or coerce the people of that State ; but, 
 >n the contrary, it was declared by our generals that they 
 would withdraw their troops if the Federal government would 
 do likewise. Proclamation was also made of the desire to re 
 spect the neutrality of Kentucky, and the intention to abide by 
 the wishes of her people, as soon as they were free to express 
 their opinions. 
 
 Upon the occupation of Columbus by the Confederates, in 
 the early part of September, the Legislature of Kentucky 
 adopted resolutions calling upon them, through Governor 
 Magoffin, to retire. General Polk, who was in command of 
 the Confederates at Columbus, had already published a proc 
 lamation, clearly explaining his position. He declared in this 
 proclamation, that the Federal government having disregarded 
 the neutrality of Kentucky, by establishing camps and depots 
 of armies, and by organizing military companies within their 
 territory, and by constructing a military work on the Missouri 
 shore, immediately opposite and commanding Columbus, evi 
 dently intended to cover the landing of troops for the seizure 
 of that town, it had become a military necessity, involving the 
 defence of the territory of the Confederate States, that the Con 
 federate forces should occupy Columbus in advance. 
 
 The act of Gen. Polk found the most abundant justification 
 in the history of the concessions granted to the Federal govern 
 ment by Kentucky ever since the war began. Since the elec 
 tion of Lincoln, she had allowed the seizure in her ports (Pa- 
 ducah) of property of citizens of the Confederate States. She 
 had, by her members in the Congress of the United States, 
 voted supplies of men and money to carry on the war against 
 the Confederate States. She had allowed the Federal govern 
 ment to cut timber from her forests for the purpose of building 
 armed boats for the invasion of the Southern States. She was 
 permitting to be enlisted in her territory troops, not only from 
 her own citizens, but from the citizens of other States, for th 
 purpose of being armed and used in offensive warfare against 
 the Confederate States. At camp " Dick Bobinson," in the 
 county of Garrard, it was said that there were already tec 
 

 
 
 
 L T GEN. PO LK. 
 
THE FIRST TEAR. 201 
 
 thousand troops, in which men from Tennessee, Ohio, In Jinn a, 
 and Illinois were mustered with Kentuckians into the service 
 of the United States, and armed by the government for the 
 flowed purpose of giving aid to the disaffected in one of the 
 Confederate States, and of carrying out the designs of that gov 
 ernment for their subjugation. "When Gen. Polk took posses 
 sion of Columbus, he found that the enemy, in formidable 
 numbers, were in position on the opposite bank of the river, 
 with their cannon turned upon Columbus, that many of the 
 citizens had fled in terror, and that not a word of assurance of 
 safety or protection had been addressed to them. 
 
 In reply to the demand made through Governor Magoffin 
 for the withdrawal of the Confederate troops from Kentucky, 
 Gen. Polk offered to comply on condition that the State would 
 agree that the troops of the Federal government be withdrawn 
 simultaneously, with a guaranty (which he would give recip 
 rocally for the Confederate government) that the Federal 
 troops should not be allowed to enter, or occupy any part of 
 Kentucky in the future. This proposition for a simultaneous 
 withdrawal of forces, was derided by the partisans of Lincoln 
 in Kentucky and elsewhere. 
 
 Gen. Polk had taken possession of Columbus on the 4th of 
 September. The Federals were then occupying Paducah, at 
 the mouth of the Tennessee river. The town of Cairo, at the 
 mouth of the Ohio, had been previously occupied by a strong 
 Federal force. New Madrid, on the Missouri side of the Mis 
 sissippi, was occupied by Southern troops under the command 
 of Gen. Jeff. Thompson. 
 
 Early in the summer, it was known that the Federals were 
 threatening the invasion of East Tennessee by way of Cumber 
 land Gap. To counteract their designs, the Confederate govern 
 ment sent Brigadier-general Zollicoffer, with a force of several 
 thousand men, by way of Knoxville, East Tennessee, to the 
 point threatened. On the 14th September, Gen. Zollicoffer 
 telegraphed Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, as follows : The 
 safety of Tennessee requiring, I occupy the mountain passes at 
 Cumberland, and the three long mountains in Kentucky. For 
 weeks, I have known that the Federal commander at Hoskins 
 Cross Roads was threatening the invasion of East Tennessee, 
 and ruthlessly urging our people to destroy our own road and 
 
202 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 bridges. I postponed this precautionary movement until the 
 despotic government at Washington, refusing to recognize ihe 
 neutrality of Kentucky, has established formidable camps in 
 the centre and other parts of the State, with the view, first to 
 subjugate your gallant State, and then ourselves. Tennessee 
 feels, and has ever felt, towards Kentucky as a twin-sister ; 
 their people are as one people in kindred, sympathy, valor, and 
 patriotism. We have felt, and still feel, a religious respect for 
 Kentucky s neutrality. We will respect it as long as our safety 
 will permit. If the Federal force will now withdraw from their 
 menacing position, the force under my command shall immedi 
 ately be withdrawn." 
 
 At the same time Gen. Zollicoffer issued an order setting 
 forth that he came to defend the soil of a sister Southern State 
 against an invading foe, and that no citizen of Kentucky was 
 to be molested in person or property, whatever his political 
 opinions, unless found in arms against the Confederate govern 
 ment, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy by his counsels. 
 On the 19th September, a portion of Gen. Zollicoffer s com 
 mand advanced to Barboursville, in Kentucky, and dispersed 
 a camp of some fifteen hundred Federals, without any serious 
 struggle. He continued to advance cautiously in the direction 
 of Somerset, driving the enemy before him. A large Federal 
 force, chiefly from Ohio and Indiana, was sent forward to meet 
 him. This expedition was speedily brought to a disgraceful 
 and ruinous conclusion. Before getting near enough to Zolli 
 coffer to confront him, Gen. Schoepff, the commander of the 
 Yankee expedition, was induced to believe that Gen. Hardee 
 was advancing from Bowling Green on his flank. What was 
 known as the " Wild Cat Stampede" ensued. The retreat of 
 the panic-stricken soldiers, which for miles was performed at 
 the double-quick, rivalled the agile performances at Bull "Run. 
 For many miles the route of the retreat was covered with 
 broken wagons, knapsacks, dead horses, and men who had sunk 
 by the wayside from exhaustion. The flight of the Federals 
 was continued for two days, although there was no enemy 
 near them. Such was the result of the first expedition sent to 
 capture Zollicoffer and to invade the South by way of Cumber- 
 ] and Gap. 
 
 Another design of the Federals was to invade southwestern 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. t 203 
 
 Virginia from eastern Kentucky, by way of Prestonsburg and 
 Pound Gap, with the view of seizing upon the salt-works and 
 lead-mines in this portion of Virginia, and of cutting off rail 
 road communication between Richmond and Memphis. To 
 tli wart this design, there was raised in the neighborhood of 
 Prestonsburg a force little exceeding a thousand men, who 
 were placed under the command of Col. Williams. To capture 
 the " rebels" at Prestonsburg, a considerable force was sent 
 after them under the command of Gen. Kelson, of Kentucky. 
 This somewhat notorious officer reported to the Lincoln gov 
 ernment that his expedition had been brilliantly successful; 
 his command, according to his account, having fallen upon the 
 " rebels" at Piketon, captured upwards of a thousand of them, 
 killed five hundred, or more, wounded a great number, and 
 scattered the few remaining ones like chaff before the wind. 
 This announcement caused intense joy in Cincinnati, and, in 
 deed, throughout the North ; but the rejoicings were cut sud 
 denly short by the authentic account of the affair at Piketon, 
 which occurred on the 8th of November, and in which the 
 Confederates lost ten killed and fifteen wounded, while they 
 ambushed a considerable body of Nelson s men on the river 
 cliff, near that place, and killed and wounded hundreds of 
 them. Owing to the superior force of the Federals, however, 
 Col. Williams little command fell back to Pound Gap. 
 
 He had not more than 1,010 men, including sick, teamsters, 
 and men on extra duty. He described the little army that had 
 held in check an apparently overwhelming force of the enemy, 
 as an " unorganized, half-armed, and barefooted squad." He 
 wrote to Richmond : " We want good rifles, clothes, great 
 coats, knapsacks, haversacks, and canteens ; indeed, every thing 
 almost except, a willingness to fight. Many of our men are 
 barefooted, and I have seen the blood in then* tracks as they 
 inarched." 
 
 There had long been unpleasant indications on the Tennessee 
 border of disloyalty to the South. In what was called East 
 Tennessee there was reported to be a strong " Union" party. 
 This section was inhabited by an ignorant and uncouth pop 
 ulation squatted among the hills. The Union faction in East 
 Tennessee was the product of the joint influences of three men, 
 differing widely in tastes, habits of thought, and political 
 
204: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 opinion, but concurring in a blind and bigoted devotion to the 
 old Federal government. These men were Andrew Johnson, 
 William G. Brownlow, and T. A. K. Nelson. The first of 
 these was a man who recommended himself to the ignorant 
 mountain people of Tennessee by the coarseness and vulgarity 
 of his manners ; but beneath his boorish aspect he had a strong 
 native intellect, was an untiring political schemer, and for more 
 than twenty years had exercised a commanding control over 
 the rude mountaineers of Tennessee, who for an equal length 
 of time had held the balance of power between the old Whig 
 and Democratic parties in that State, voting first with one and 
 then with the other political organization. Brownlow, " the 
 parson," the haranguer of mobs in churches and at the hust 
 ings, and who, by his hatred of Andrew Johnson, had once 
 made himself an ultra pro-slavery oracle of the Methodist 
 Church, found Unionism so strong an element of popular par 
 tisan strength in East Tennessee, that he was forced to co 
 operate with his old enemy. The sincerest and most respecta 
 ble of the trio was Nelson, an accomplished orator, & poet and 
 dreamer besides, having no likeness to the people among whom 
 he resided but in his apparel, and passing most of his time in 
 the secluded occupations of a scholar, in which vocation he was 
 both profound and classical. There could be no stranger com 
 bination of talent and character than in these three men, who 
 had been brought together by a single sympathy in opposition 
 to the cause of the South. 
 
 The Union party in Tennessee was for a long time occult ; 
 its very existence was for a considerable period a matter of 
 dispute among Southern politicians ; but it only awaited the 
 operations of the enemy in Kentucky to assist and further their 
 designs by a sudden insurrection among themselves. Their 
 demonstrations were, however, premature. Early in November 
 there was a conspiracy formed on the part of the Unionists 
 for burning all the bridges on the East Tennessee and Virginia 
 and Georgia and Tennessee railroads. The designs of the 
 conspirators were consummated in part by the destruction of 
 two or three bridges in East Tennessee, and of one in Georgia 
 The bridge across the Holston, at Strawberry Plains, on the 
 East Tennessee and Virginia road, was saved by the heroic 
 and self-sacrificing act of an humble individual, named Edward 
 
THE FIEST TEAK. 205 
 
 Keelan, at that time the sole guard at the place. He fought 
 the bridge-burning party more than a dozen in number 
 with such desperation and success, that they were forced to re 
 tire without accomplishing their object. One of the party waa 
 killed, and several badly wounded. Keelan was wounded in a 
 number of places. Upon the arrival of friends, a few minutes 
 after the occurrence, he exclaimed to them, " They have killed 
 me, but I have saved the bridge." Luckily the wounds did not 
 prove mortal, and the hero of Strawberry Plains still lives. 
 
 The Federal expedition to Pound Gap was of the same char 
 acter with all the other invasions from the northwestern ter 
 ritory in this contest. The troops were from Ohio and other 
 northwestern States, the occupiers of the lands bountifully 
 granted by Virginia to the Federal government, and by that 
 government liberally distributed among the ancestors of the 
 people attempting the invasion of Virginia and the South. 
 This territory had been won by a Virginia army, composed ot 
 volunteers from this State and from the district of Kentucky, 
 then a part of the Old Dominion. The bold and successful 
 enterprise of George Rogers Clark in the conquest of all that 
 western territory, constitutes one of the most romantic and. 
 brilliant chapters of the history of the Revolution. 
 
 "VVe turn from the operations on the Kentucky and Virginia 
 border, which were in effect abandoned by the enemy, to the 
 more active theatre of the war in Kentucky, in the neighbor 
 hood of the waters of the Ohio and Tennessee. It was to these 
 waters that the enemy in fact transferred his plans of invasion 
 of the South through Kentucky and Tennessee, by means of 
 amphibious expeditions, composed of gunboats and land forces. 
 Further on in the course of events we shall find the front of the 
 war on the banks of the Tennessee instead of those of the Po 
 tomac, and we shall see that a war which the Southern people 
 supposed lingered on the Potomac, was suddenly transferred, 
 and opened with brilliant and imposing scenes on the Western 
 waters. But it is not proper to anticipate with any comment 
 the progress of events. 
 
 Gen. Polk had been completing his works for the defence oi 
 Columbus. While thus engaged, he was assailed on the 7th 
 November by the enemy in strong force from Cairo. 
 
206 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BELMONT. 
 
 Before daybreak on the morning of the 7th of November 
 Gen. Polk was informed that the enemy, who were under the 
 command of Gen. Grant, had made their appearance in the 
 Driver with gunboats and transports, and were landing a con 
 siderable force on the Missouri sfiore, five or six miles above 
 Belmorit, a small village. Gen. Pillow, whose division was 
 nearest the point immediately threatened, was ordered to cross 
 the river and to move immediately with four of his regiments 
 to the relief of Col. Tappan, who was encamped at Belmont. 
 
 Our little army had barely got in position, when the skir 
 mishers were driven in, and the shock took place between the 
 opposing forces. The enemy were numerous enough to have 
 surrounded the little Confederate force with triple lines. Sev 
 eral attempts were made by the enemy s infantry to flank the 
 right and left wings of the Confederates ; but the attempt on 
 the right was defeated by the deadly fire and firm attitude of 
 that wing, composed of the regiments of Colonels Russell and 
 Tappan, the 13th Arkansas and the 9th Tennessee, commanded 
 by Col. Russell, as brigade commander. The attempt to turn 
 the left wing was defeated by the destructive fire of Beltz- 
 hoover s battery and Col. Wright s regiment, aided by a line 
 of felled timber extending obliquely from the left into the bot 
 tom. The two wings of the line stood firm and unbroken for 
 several hours, but the centre, being in the open field, and 
 greatly exposed, once or twice faltered. 
 
 About this time, Col. Beltzhoover reported to Gen. Pillow 
 that his ammunition was exhausted : Col. Bell had previously 
 reported his regiment out of ammunition, and Col. Wright that 
 one battalion of his regiment had exhausted its ammunition. 
 The enemy s force being unchecked, and now emerging into 
 the edge of the field, Gen. Pillow ordered the line to use the 
 bayonet. The charge was made by the whole line, and the 
 enemy driven back into the woods. But his line was not 
 broken, and he kept up a deadly fire, and being supported by 
 his large reserve, the Confederate line was forced back to its 
 original position, while that of the enemy advanced. The 
 charge was repeated the second and third time, forcing the 
 
THE FIKST YEAH. 207 
 
 enemy s line heavily against his reserve, but with Ike result. 
 Finding it impossible longer to maintain his position without 
 reinforcements and ammunition, Gen. Pillow ordered the whole 
 line to fall back to the river-bank. In this movement his lino 
 was more or less broken and his corps mingled together, so 
 that when they reached the river-bank they had the appear 
 ance of a mass of men rather than an organized corps. 
 
 The field was to all appearances lost. Keinforcements, how 
 ever, had been sent for, and at the critical time when oui 
 forces were being driven to the river, a regiment, the 2d Ten 
 nessee, commanded by Col. Walker, which had crossed the 
 river, came to their support. The opportunity was seized by 
 Gen. Pillow to engage afresh, with this timely addition to his 
 force, the advance of the enemy, while he made a rapid move 
 ment up the river-bank, with the design of crossing through 
 the fallen timber, turning the enemy s position and attacking 
 him in the rear. 
 
 As Gen. Pillow advanced the main body of his original 
 force in broken order up the river, to a point where he could 
 cross through the fallen timber to make the flank movement, 
 he was joined by two other regiments ordered by Gen. Polk to 
 his support. These fresh troops were placed under command 
 of Col. Marks, of the llth Louisiana. He was directed to 
 lead the advance in double-quick time through the woods, and 
 to the enemy s rear, and to attack him with vigor. Col. Rus 
 sell, with his brigade, was ordered to support the movement. 
 
 It was with great reluctance that Gen. Polk lessened the 
 force assigned to the immediate defence of Columbus, as an at 
 tack in his rear was every moment apprehended. It was ob 
 vious, however, from the yielding of our columns to the heavy 
 pressure of the masses of the enemy s infantry, and the fierce 
 assaults of their heavy battery, that further reinforcements 
 were necessary to save the field. Gen. Cheatham was ordered 
 to move across the river in advance of his brigade, to rally and 
 take command of the portions of the regiments within sight on 
 the shore, and to support the flank movement ordered through 
 Col. Marks. 
 
 About this time the enemy had fired our tents, and advan 
 cing his battery near the river-bank, opened a heavy fire on the 
 steamers which were transporting our troops, in some instances 
 
208 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 driving shot through two of them at the same time. Captain 
 Smith s Mississippi battery was ordered to move to the river- 
 bank, opposite Oie field of conflict, and to open upon the ene 
 my s position. The joint fire of this battery and the heavj 
 guns of the fort was for a few moments terrific. The enemy ? 
 battery was silenced, and it could be seen that they were taking 
 up their line of march for their boats. 
 
 The Federals, however, had scarcely put themselves in mo-, 
 tion, when they encountered Col. Marks first, and afterwards 
 Gen. Cheatham, on their flank. The conjuncture was decisive. 
 The enemy finding himself between two fires, that of Smith s 
 artillery in front, and of Col. Marks and Russell s column 
 in the rear, after a feeble resistance, broke and fled in disor 
 der. 
 
 Satisfied that the attack on Columbus for some reason had 
 failed, Gen. Polk had crossed the river, and ordered the victo 
 rious commands to press the enemy to their boats. The order 
 was obeyed with alacrity. The pursuit was continued until 
 our troops reached the point where the enemy had made his 
 Burgical head-quarters, and depository of stores, of ammunition, 
 baggage, &c. Here our troops found a yard fall of knapsacks, 
 arms, ammunition, blankets, overcoats, mess-chests, horses, 
 wagons, and dead and wounded men, with surgeons engaged 
 in the duties of their profession. The enemy s route of retreat 
 was strewn likewise with many of these articles, and abun 
 dantly with blood, dead, and wounded men. " The sight along 
 the line of the retreat," says an observer on the field, " was 
 awful. The dead and wounded were at every tree. Some 
 crawled into the creeks to get water, and died there." 
 
 On coming in sight of the enemy s gunboats and transports, 
 our Jroops, as they arrived, were ordered to move as rapidly as 
 possible through the cornfields to the bank of the river. The 
 bank was thus lined for a considerable distance by our troops, 
 who were ordered, as the boats passed up the river, to give the 
 enemy their fire. The fire was hot and destructive. On the 
 boats all was dismay. Under the fire from the bank, the Fed 
 erals rushed to the opposite side of the boats, and had to be 
 forced back by the bayonet to prevent capsizing. Many ot 
 the soldiers were driven overboard by the rush of those behind 
 them, Thev did not take time to unloose the cables, but cut 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 209 
 
 all loose, and were compelled to run through the fire of sharp 
 shooters lining the bank for more than a mile. 
 
 The day which at one time had been so inauspicious to om 
 arms, closed upon a signal triumph. In his official report of 
 the battJe, Gen. Pillow declared, that no further evidence? 
 were needed to assure the fact, that " the small Spartan army 
 which withstood the constant fire of three times their number 
 for nearly four hours (a large portion of them being without 
 ammunition), had acted with extraordinary gallantry, than the 
 length and character of the conflict, the great inequality of 
 numbers, and the complete results that crowned the day. 
 
 That our loss should be severe in such a conflict might be 
 expected. The list of our killed, wounded, and missing num 
 bered 632. The loss of the enemy was stated in the official 
 reports of our generals to have been more than treble ours. 
 Of this, we had the most abundant evidence in the incidents 
 of the field, in his flight, and his helpless condition, when as 
 sailed in his crowded transports with the fire of thousands of 
 deadly rifles. 
 
 The victory of Belmont was esteemed as one of the most 
 brilliant triumphs of the war.* In his congratulatory order, 
 Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, who had been appointed to 
 
 * The government at Washington, with a characteristic falsehood, stubborn 
 to every other consideration but that of sustaining the spirits of its people, 
 claimed the affair at Belmont as a victory to Northern arms. It is curious, 
 and to some degree amusing, to notice the manner of this misrepresentation, 
 and the gloze and insinuation by which it was effected in the Northern official 
 reports of the battle. Gen. Grant, in his official report, declared that he had 
 driven the Confederates to the river, burnt their camps, &c. So far, his report 
 was ostentatiously fine, but not untrue. It has been shown, however, thav 
 the scale of battle was completely turned by a flank movement of our forces in 
 heavy numbers, which routed the enemy, and converted his early successes of 
 the morning into an ignominious defeat. In the Northern official reports ol 
 the battle, this portion of the day was dismissed with refreshing brevity and 
 nonchalance. After describing in the most glowing terms his victory in 
 pressing the Confederates to the river, Gen. Grant wrote to his friends, who 
 communicated the letter to the newspapers, " on our return, stragglers that 
 had been left in our rear fired into us, and more recrossed the river." In Ms 
 official report, the flank movement of the Confederates, that was tJie event, of 
 the day and had decided it, was alluded to in a single sentence of casual men 
 tion, "The rebels recrossed the river, and followed in the rear to our place oj 
 debarkation," Instances of this style and effrontery of falsehood abounded ir 
 all the Northern official reports of the events of the war ; the above is fui 
 nished only as a characteristic specimen. 
 
 14 
 
210 SOUTHEKN HISTORY 0? THE WAR. 
 
 command in the Western Department, and had established his 
 head-quarters at Bowling Green, declared: "This was no ordi 
 nary shock of arms ; it was a long and trying contest, in which 
 our troops fought by detachments, and always against superior 
 numbers. The 7th of November will fill a bright page in our 
 military annals, and be remembered with gratitude by the 
 sons and daughters of the South." 
 
 Despite the victory of Belmont, our situation in Kentucky 
 was one of extreme weakness and entirely at the mercy of the 
 enemy, if he had not been imposed upon by false representa 
 tions of the number of our forces at Bowling Green. When 
 Gen. Johnston was about to assume command of the Western 
 Department, the government charged him with the duty of de 
 ciding the question of occupying Bowling Green, Kentucky, 
 which involved not only military, but political considerations. 
 At the time of his arrival at Nashville, the action of the Legis 
 lature of Kentucky had put an end to the latter consideration 
 by sanctioning the formation of companies menacing Tennessee, 
 by assuming the cause of the government at Washington, anl 
 by abandoning the neutrality it professed ; and, in consequence 
 .)f their action, the occupation of Bowling Green became neces 
 sary as an act of self-defence, at least in the first step. 
 
 About the middle of September, (: en. Buckner advanced 
 with a small force of about four thousand men, which was in 
 creased by the 15th of October to twelve thousand, and though 
 Dther accessions of force were received, it continued at about 
 ihe same strength until the end of November, measles and 
 other diseases keeping down the effective force. The enemy s 
 force then was reported to the War Department at fifty thou 
 sand, and an advance was impossible. 
 
 Our own people were as much imposed upon as were the 
 enemy, with respect to the real strength of Gen. Johnston s 
 forces, and while they were conjecturing the brilliant results oi 
 an advance movement, the fact was that inevitable disasters 
 might have been known by the government to have been in 
 store for the Southern cause in Kentucky and Tennessee, and 
 to be awaiting only the development of a crisis. The utter 
 inadequacy of Gen. Johnston s forces was known to the govern 
 ment. The authorities at Richmond appeared to hope for re 
 sults without the legitimate means for acquiring them : to look 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 211 
 
 for relief from vague and undefined sources; and to await, with 
 dull expectation, what was next to happen. While the govern 
 ment remained in this blank disposition, events marched on 
 ward. It is easily seen, as far as our narrative has gone, that 
 our troops had shown a valor that was invincible against largely 
 superior numbers of the enemy; that had given striking illus 
 trations of endurance in circumstances of the greatest adversity 
 and suffering ; and that promised with absolute certainty, as far 
 as its agency could go, the achievement of our independence. 
 It is hereafter to be seen that this valor and devotion, great as 
 they were, could yet not withstand an enemy superior in force, 
 when his numbers were multiplied indefinitely against them ; 
 that they could not resist armaments to which, for want of 
 defences, they could only offer up useless sacrifices of life ; and 
 that some other agency than the natural spirit and hardihood 
 of men was necessary in the conduct of a war, in the nineteenth 
 century, against a nation which had given such unquestionable 
 proofs, as the North had, of quick and abundant resource, 
 mental activity, and unflagging hope. 
 
 It remains but to add here, mention of the political connec 
 tion which was scarcely more than nominally effected between 
 Kentucky and the Confederate States. On the 18th November, 
 the opponents of the Lincoln rule in Kentucky assembled in 
 Convention, at Russellville, in the southern part of the State, 
 for the purpose of organizing a provisional government for 
 Kentucky, and for taking steps for her admission into the 
 Southern Confederacy. On the 20th November, the Conven 
 tion unanimously agreed upon a report, presenting in a strong 
 light the falseness of the State and Federal Legislature, and 
 concluded with the declaration that " the people are hereby ab 
 solved from all allegiance to said government, and that they 
 have the right to establish any government which to them may 
 seem best adapted to the preservation of their lives and liberty. 7 
 George W. Johnson, of Scott county, was chosen governor 
 Commissioners were appointed to negotiate with the Confed 
 orate government for the earliest admission of Kentucky into 
 the government of the Confederate States. The embassy of the 
 commissioners to Richmond was successful, and before the 
 middle of December, Kentucky was duly recognized as one of 
 the States of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
212 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Prospects of European Interference. The selfish Calculations of England. EffecU 
 of the Blockade on the South. Arrest by Capt. Wilkes of the Southern Commission 
 ers. The Indignation of England. Surrender of the Commissioners by the Lincoln 
 Government. Mr. Seward s Letter. REVIEW OF AFFAIRS AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAH 
 1861. Apathy and Improvidence of the Southern Government. Superiority of the 
 North on the Water. The Hattcraa Expedition. The Port Royal Expedition. The 
 Southern Privateers. Their Failure. Errors of Southern Statesmanship. "King 
 Cotton." Episodes of the War. The Affair of Sjanta Rosa Island. The Affair of 
 Dranesville. Political Measures of the South. A weak and halting Policy. The 
 Spirit of the War in the North. Administration of the Civil Polity of the Southern 
 Army. The Quarter-master s Department. The Hygiene of the Camps. Ravages ui 
 the Southern Army by Disease. The Devotion of the Women of the South. 
 
 SINCE the commencement of the war, the South had enter 
 tained prospects of foreign interference, at least so far as to 
 involve the recognition of her government by England and 
 Prance, and the raising of the blockade. Such prospects, 
 continued from month to month, had an unhappy effect in 
 weakening the popular sentiment of self-reliance, in turning 
 the attention of the people to the result of external events, and 
 in amusing their attention with misty illusions. 
 
 These prospects were vain. By the close of the year, the 
 South had learned the lesson, that the most certain means of 
 obtaining injury, scorn, and calumny from foreign people, was 
 to attempt their conciliation or to seek their applause, and that 
 not until she had proved herself independent of the opinions of 
 Europe, and reached a condition above and beyond the help 
 of England and France, was she likely to obtain their amity 
 and justice. 
 
 It had been supposed in the South, that the interest of Eu 
 rope in the staples of cotton and tobacco would effect a raising 
 3f the blockade, at least by the fall of the year. The statistics 
 on these subjects were thought to be conclusive. France 
 derived an annual revenue of $38,000,000 from her monopoly 
 of the tobacco trade ; and Great Britain and her people, a 
 revenue of $350,000,000 per annum from American cotton. 
 Five millions of souls, in England, were interested in one way 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 213 
 
 or the otlur m the cotton manufacture ; and the South calcu 
 lated, with reason, that the blockade would be raised by foreign 
 intervention, rather than that one-sixth of the population of 
 the British Isles would be permitted to be thrown out of em 
 ployment by a decree or fulmination of the Yankee govern 
 rnent at "Washington. 
 
 Among the statesmen of Great Britain, however, a different 
 calculation prevailed, and that was, as long as the possible con 
 tingencies of the future held out the least hope of avoiding the 
 alternative of war with the Washington government, to strain 
 a point to escape it. It was argued, that it would be cheaper 
 for England to support, at the public expense, five millions of 
 operatives, than to incur the cost, besides the unpleasantness 
 of an embroilment in American affairs; and ft was in this 
 spirit of selfish calculation the results of which were stated 
 by Lord Palmerston in the declaration, that the " necessities" 
 of England had not reached that point to require her to inter 
 fere, in any manner, in the American war that it was ulti 
 mately decided by the British government to maintain her 
 neutrality with reference to the blockade, as well as other in 
 cidents of the war. 
 
 About the fall of the year, the South had begun to feel se 
 verely the effects of the blockade. Supplies of the usual goods, 
 and even provisions, were becoming scarce. The evils were 
 augmented every day in the results of a baneful spirit of specu 
 lation, which indulged in monstrous extortions and corrupted 
 the public spirit, making opportunities for mercenary adventure 
 out of the distresses and necessities of the country. There 
 was great suffering among the poor, and especially among refu 
 gees, who had fled to the cities from districts occupied by the 
 enemy. 
 
 The resources of the South were such, however, that an} 
 thing like famine or actual starvation, of any portion of the 
 3eople, was not to be apprehended. The changes which hap 
 pened in the circumstances and p -rsuits of people, were not 
 always as unfortunate as they appeared, and. in the end, not 
 unfrequently proved an advantage to them and to the prosperity 
 <>f the -country. Many new enterprises were started ; many 
 sources of profitable labor were sought out ; and many in 
 stances of the diversion of popular industry were occasioned^ 
 
21-1 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 wh.ch promised to become of permanent advantage in de 
 veloping the resources of the country in minerals and manuiac 
 tures, and introducing provision crops on an enlarged scale in 
 the Cotton States of the Confederacy. 
 
 In the month of December occurred an event which promised 
 the most fortunate consequences to the South, with respect tc 
 foreign intervention and her release from the blockade. The 
 Confederate government had deputed Mr. James M. Mason, oi 
 Virginia, and Mr. John Slidell, of Louisiana, commissioners, 
 respectively, to England and France. They had escaped the 
 blockade at Charleston on a Confederate vessel, and arriving 
 at the neutral port of Havana, had left there on the 7th day of 
 December in a British mail-steamer, the Trent, commanded by 
 Capt. Moir. The next day after leaving port, the British ves 
 sel, while in the Bahama channel, was intercepted by the Fed 
 eral steam-frigate, San Jacinto, Commander Wilkes, being 
 brought to by a shotted gun, and boarded by an armed boat s 
 crew. The persons of the commissioners and their secretaries, 
 Messrs. Eustis and Macfarland, were demanded ; they claimed 
 the protection of the British flag, and refused to leave it ex 
 cept at the instance of actual physical force, which Lieut. Fair 
 fax, who had boarded the vessel, then declared he was ready 
 to use. The Trent was an unarmed steamer, and as resistance 
 was hopeless, the commissioners were surrendered, under a 
 distinct and passionate protest against a piratical seizure of 
 ambassadors under a neutral flag. 
 
 This outrage done by a Federal vessel to the British flag, 
 when it was learned in the South, was welcome news, as it was 
 thought certain that the British government would resent the 
 insult, and as the boastful and exultant tone in the North, over 
 the capture of the commissioners, appeared to make it equally 
 certain that the government at Washington would not surren 
 der its booty. "War between England and the North was 
 thought to be imminent. Providence was declared to be in 
 our favor ; the incident of the Trent was looked upon almost 
 as a special dispensation, and it was said, in fond imagination, 
 that on its deck and in the trough of the weltering Atlantic 
 the key of the blockade had at last been lost. 
 
 These prospects were disappointed by the weakness of the 
 government at Washingt ;n, in surrendering the commissioner? 
 
THE FIRST YEAB. 215 
 
 and returning them to the British flag. The surrender was an 
 exhibition of meanness and cowardice unparalleled in the po 
 litical history of the civilized world, but strongly characteristic 
 of the policy and mind of the North. The people of the North 
 had, at first, gone into raptures over the arrest of the commis 
 sioners ; the newspapers designated it as " worth more nan a 
 victory in the field ;" the hospitalities of the city of New York 
 were offered by its common council to Capt. Wilkes, and a din 
 ner was given him by leading citizens of Boston, in honor of 
 his brave exploit in successfully capturing, from the deck of 
 an unarmed mail-steamer, four unarmed passengers. The gov 
 ernment at Washington had given eveiy indication of its ap 
 proval of the arrest. The compliments of the Cabinet had been 
 tendered to Capt. Wilkes, and a proposition introduced intc 
 Congress to distinguish his piratical adventure by a public 
 vote of thanks. The subjects of the capture were condemned 
 to close cells in Fort Warren. 
 
 Despite all this manifest indorsement by the government of 
 the legality and value of the arrest of the commissioners, Mr. 
 Seward did not hesitate to surrender them when the alterna 
 tive of war with Great Britain was indicated to him, in the 
 dispatches of that government demanding, in very simple and 
 stern terms, the reparation of the outrage that had been com 
 mitted upon its flag. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Adams, the representative of the Wash 
 ington government at London, Mr. Seward had advised him 
 to make no explanations, as the Washington Cabinet thought 
 it better that the ground taken by the British government 
 should first be made known to them. The ground of its claims 
 was never furnished by the British government. Its demand 
 for reparation and apology was entirely naked, and evidently 
 disdained to make a single argument on the law question. 
 With unexampled shamelessness, Mr. Seward made the plea 
 himself for the surrender of the commissioners ; he argued that 
 they could not be the subjects of a judicial proceeding to de 
 termine their status, because the vessel, the proper subject of 
 such a proceeding, had been permitted to escape ; and with 
 a contemptible affectation of alacrity to offer, from a returning 
 sense of justice, what all the world knew had been extorted 
 from the alarms of cowardice, he declared that he cheerfully* 
 
216 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 surrendered the commissioners, and did so in accordance with 
 long-established American doctrine. 
 
 In surrendering the commissioners, the Washington govern 
 ment took the opportunity to declare its reassured hopes of the 
 Union, and to express its contempt for the Southern revolu 
 tion. In his letter to Earl Russell, Mr. Seward took particular 
 pains to declare, that " the safety of the Union did not require 
 the detention of the captured persons ;* that an " effectual 
 check" had been put to the " existing insurrection," and that 
 its " waning proportions" made it no longer a subject of se 
 rious consideration. 
 
 The declaration was false and affected, but it contained an 
 element of truth. There is no doubt that, at the time it was 
 made, the power of the revolution in the South was declining ; 
 and a rapid survey of the political posture, and of events trans 
 piring in the latter half of the year 1861, affords painful evi 
 dence of relaxation on the part of the Confederate government, 
 and of instances of weakness and abuse that the people, who 
 had pledged every thing and endured every thing in a contest 
 for freedom, had no right to expect. 
 
 REVIEW OF AFFAIRS AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1861. 
 
 The justice of history compels us to state that two causes 
 the overweening confidence of the South in the superior valor 
 of its people, induced by the unfortunate victory of Manassas, 
 and the vain delusion, continued from month to month, that 
 European interference was certain, and that peace was near at 
 hand, conspired, about this time, to reduce the Southern cause 
 to a critical condition of apathy. 
 
 Western Virginia had been abandoned to the enemy almost 
 with indifference, and with an apathetic confidence in an army 
 that was in danger of becoming demoralized, and in the pros 
 pects of European interference, which were no brighter than 
 formerly, exqept in imagination, the South carelessly observed 
 the immense preparations of the North, by sea and land, to 
 extend the area of the contest from the coasts of Carolina to 
 1 ie States on the Mississippi, and to embrace her whole terri- 
 t >y with the lengthening arms of the war. 
 
 While the enemy was busy making his immense naval prep 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 217 
 
 arations against our sea-coast, and building scores of gun 
 boats on the upper Mississippi to drive our armies out ot 
 Kentucky and Tennessee, the Southern government had shown 
 the most extraordinary apathy ; the spirit of our armies waa 
 evidently decaying, and abuses of extraordinary magnitude 
 had crept into the civil administration of our affairs. No cor 
 responding activity was manifested by us in the line of naval 
 enterprise adopted by the enemy. Means were not wanting for 
 at least some emulation in this respect. Large appropriations 
 had been made by Congress for the construction of gunboats 
 and objects of river defence; the State of Virginia had turned 
 over to the Confederate government the best navy-yard on the 
 continent, and two armories with their machinery ; and with 
 the means and appliances at Gosport and Richmond, it is not 
 doubted that, with proper activity, the government might have 
 created a considerable fleet. 
 
 The North had improved the advantage of its possession of 
 a navy by increasing its numbers. Nearly a hundred vessels 
 of different descriptions were purchased by it, and fleets of 
 gunboats fitted out for operations on the coast and rivers. 
 Two naval expeditious had already, before the close of the 
 year, been sent down the Carolina coast, and without accom 
 plishing much, had given serious indications of what was to be 
 expected from this arm of the service on the slight fortifica 
 tions of our ocean frontier. 
 
 On the 29th of August, a naval expedition from Fortress 
 Monroe, under command of Commodore Stringham and Major- 
 general Butler, had reduced the two forts at liatteras Inlet, 
 and had signalized their victory by the capture of fifteen guns 
 and 615 prisoners, among whom was Commodore Barron, the 
 Confederate officer in command. 
 
 The capture of Port Royal, on the South Carolina coast, on 
 the 7th of November, by the bombardment of Forts Walker 
 and Beauregard, gave to the enemy a point for his squadrons 
 to find shelter, and a convenient naval depot. The attack was 
 made on the 7th of November, by a Federal fleet, numbering 
 fifteen war-steamers and gunboats, under command of Capt. 
 Dupont, flag-officer of the south Atlantic blockading squadron. 
 The attack was easily successful by the bombardment of the 
 torts at the entrance of the sound. It may be imagined how 
 
218 SOUTHERN HISTORY" OF THE WAR. 
 
 inefficient our defences must have been, when the fact is, tha*; 
 they yielded after a bombardment which continued precisely 
 four hours and thirty minutes ; the condition of Fort Walkei 
 at this time being, according to the official report of General 
 Drayton, who was in command, " all but three of the guns in 
 the water front disabled, and only five hundred pounds of pow 
 der in the magazine." But these were only the first lessons of 
 the enemy s power and our improvidence in defences, that were 
 to be taught us on the coast. 
 
 The privateering service had yielded us but poor fruits. The 
 Savannah, the first of the privateers, was captured, and her 
 crew treated as pirates, at least so far as to load them with 
 irons, and confine them in felons cells. With the exception of 
 the Suinter (an awkwardly rigged bark) and one or two others, 
 the privateers of the South were pretty closely confined within 
 their own harbors and rivers by the blockading fleets. The 
 u militia of the seas," that, it was predicted in the early part 
 of the war, would penetrate into every sea, and find splendid 
 prizes in the silk ships of China, and the gold-freighted steam 
 ers of California, had proved but an inconsiderable annoyance 
 to the extensive commercial marine of the North ; it had 
 captured during the year but fifty prizes in smacks, schooners, 
 and small merchantmen, and by this time the South had learned 
 that its privateering resources were about as delusive as that 
 other early and crude expectation of adventitious aid in the 
 war the power of " King Cotton." 
 
 It is curious, indeed, how the early expectations of the man 
 ner and conduct of a war are disappointed by the progress of 
 Us events, and its invariable law of success in the stern compe 
 titions of force, without reference to other circumstances. It 
 was said, at the beginning of the war, that, while cotton would 
 " bring Europe to its knees," the Southern privateers would 
 cut up the commerce of the North, and soon bring the merce 
 nary and money- making spirits of that section to repentance. 
 Neither result was realized. At the close of the year 1861, 
 the South appeared to be fully convinced that it was waging a 
 war in which it could no longer look for aid to external and 
 adventitious circumstances; that it could no longer hope to 
 obtain its independence from European interference, or from 
 cotton, or from the annoyances of its privateers, or from the 
 
THE FIEST YEAK. 219 
 
 rupture of a financial system in the North ; and that it had no 
 other resource of hope but in the stern and bloody trials of the 
 battle-field. 
 
 Beyond the events briefly sketched in this and the foregoing 
 chapters, there were some incidents which were interesting as 
 episodes in the progress of the war, up to the close of the yeai 
 1861, to which a full reference has been impossible in a work 
 which professes to treat only the material parts of the import 
 ant campaigns of the year. 
 
 The most interesting of these was probably the attack on 
 Santa Rosa Island, in the harbor of Pensacola, on the night of 
 the 8th October, and the storming, by picked companies from 
 the Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida 
 regiments, of the camp which had been made on the island by 
 the notorious Billy Wilson Zouaves. Landing from steamers 
 and flats on the enemy s shore, within sight of his fleet, the 
 small band of Confederates marched some three or four miles 
 in the darkness of the night over an unknown and almost 
 impassable ground, killing the enemy s pickets, storming his 
 intrenched camp, driving off the notorious regiment of New 
 York bullies, with their colonel flying at their head, and burn 
 ing every vestige of their clothing, equipage, and provisions. 
 This action was rendered remarkable by an instance of dis 
 gusting brutality on the part of the enemy the murder of our 
 wounded who had been left on the field on account of the 
 necessity of rapidly retiring with our small force, before the 
 enemy could rally from his surprise. Of thirteen dead bodies 
 recovered, eleven were shot through the head, having, at the 
 same time, disabling wounds on the body. This fact admits of 
 but one inference. 
 
 The affair of Dranesville, on the line of the Potomac, had 
 given a sharp and unexpected lesson to our immoderate confi 
 dence. This action occurred on the 22d day of December. 
 Our whole force engaged was nearly 2,500 men, composed of 
 Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Alabama troops, 
 under command of Gen. Stuart. The expedition, which was 
 attended by a train of wagons intended for foraging purposes, 
 fell in with the enemy near Dranesville. On the appearance 
 of the enemy, the llth Virginia regiment charged them with a 
 veil, and drove them back to their lines within sight of Dranes 
 
J20 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ville. Here the enemy rallied. In the confusion which ensued 
 the 1st Kentucky regiment fired upon the South Carolina 
 troops, mistaking them for the enemy. Discovering his mis 
 take, Colonel Taylor, of the 1st Kentucky, moved cautiously 
 through the woods. Coming in sight of another regiment, 
 and prompted to unusual caution by his previous mistake, he 
 shouted to their commander to know who he was. " The 
 colonel of the 9th," was the reply. " Of what 9th ?" " Don t 
 shoot," said the Yankees; "we are friends South Carolin 
 ians." "On which side are you?" asked Col. Taylor. "For 
 the Union," now shouted the Federals; at the same instant 
 pouring a murderous volley into the ranks of the Kentuckians. 
 The engagement now became general. The Federals had the 
 advantage of position and largely superior numbers. Their 
 field batteries swept our lines, and several regiments of their 
 infantry, protected by the ground, had advanced within one 
 hundred yards of us, keeping the air full of minie-balls. 
 After sustaining the fire for some time, our troops were com 
 pelled to fall back. The retreat was executed in good order, 
 as the enemy did not attempt any pursuit. Our loss on the 
 field from which we were repulsed was about two hundred in 
 killed and wounded. The next day, reinforcements having 
 reached Gen. Stuart, the enemy had drawn off from the 
 locality of the battle-field, and declined any further engage 
 ment. 
 
 The affair at Dranesville was no serious disaster, but it was 
 a significant warning, and, in this respect, it had an import 
 ance beyond the size of the engagement and its immediate re 
 sults. The Yankees were learning to stand fire, and, out of 
 the material which was raw at Bull Run, McClellan was 
 making troops who were no longer contemptible, and who were 
 perceptibly improving in discipline, stanchness, and soldierly 
 qualities. 
 
 Of the political measures adopted by the South in further 
 ance of the objects of the war, but a few words need be said. 
 They are justly described as weak and halting responses to the 
 really vigorous acts of the Northern government in its heart 
 less, but strong and effective prosecution of the war. While 
 the Washington government protected itself against disaffected 
 persons and spies by a system of military police, extending 
 
TJ1K FIKST YEAH. 221 
 
 over the whole North, the Provisional Congress, at Kiclnnoul; 
 was satisfied to pass a law for the deportation of " alien ene 
 mies," the execution of which afforded facilities to the egress 
 of innumerable spies. The Washington government had passed 
 a law for the confiscation of the property of " rebels." The 
 Congress at Kichmond replied, after a weak hesitation, by a 
 law sequestrating the property of alien enemies in the South, 
 the operations of which could never have been intended to 
 have effect ; for, by future amendments in the same Congress, 
 the law was soon emasculated into a broad farce. The "Wash 
 ington government was actually collecting an army of half a 
 million of men. The Kichmond Congress replied to the threat 
 of numbers, by increasing its army, on paper, to four hundred 
 thousand men ; and the Confederate government, in the midst 
 of a revolution that threatened its existence, continued to rely 
 on the wretched shift of twelve months volunteers and raw 
 militia, with a population that, by the operation of conscrip 
 tion, could have been embodied and drilled into an invincible 
 army, competent not only to oppose invasion at every point of 
 our frontier, but to conquer peace in the dominions of the 
 enemy. 
 
 The universal mind and energy of the North had been con 
 solidated in its war upon the South. The patriotism of the 
 nation was broadly invoked; no clique arrogated and monopo 
 lized the control of affairs ; no favorites closed up against the 
 million outside the avenues of patronage, of honor, and of pro 
 motion. It was a remarkable circumstance that the North 
 had, at all stages of the war, adopted the best means for secur 
 ing specific results. The popularity of Fremont, with the half 
 million " Wide Awakes" of the North, was used to bring an 
 army into the field. The great ship-broker ot New York, 
 Morgan, and the great ship-owner, Yanderbilt, were patronized 
 to create a navy. In the army, the popularity of Banks, But 
 ler, Grant, and Baker w ere employed equally with the science 
 of McClellan, Buell, and Halleck.* It had been thus that the 
 
 * The two most conspicuous Federal generals in the operations of the West 
 were Generals Buell and Halleck. Don Carlos Buell was a native of Ohio, 
 He had served in the Mexican war with distinction, having been- twice bre- 
 vetted for gallant conduct the last time as major in the battle of Churubusco, 
 in which he- was severely wounded. At the close of the Mexican war, he was 
 
222 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE 
 
 Federal government had united the whole JSTortL, brought ar? 
 arm}- of half a million men into the field, and swelled the pro 
 portions of the war far beyond any expectations of the world. 
 
 Tho policy of monotonous defence had been persevering! y 
 pursued by the authorities of the Confederacy. On the side 
 of the enemy, it had more than repaired the damage inflicted 
 upon them in many brilliant battles, and had left them at 
 perfect leisure, in the very presence of our forces, to devise, 
 mature, and make trial of any plan of campaign or assault 
 which they thought expedient. A large portion of Virginia 
 and important regions on the Southern seaboards were now 
 occupied by the enemy, who would never have ventured forth 
 to such distances, if they had been menaced nearer home. The 
 strictly defensive policy was sustained by elaborate arguments. 
 
 appointed assistant adjutant-general, with rank of captain, but relinquished 
 his rank in line in 1851. As a commander, he was courageous, energetic, and 
 methodical, and he obtained the respect of the South for his chivalric dispo 
 sition, his courteous behavior to prisoners, and his uniform recognition of 
 the laws and amenities of civilized warfare. 
 
 Gen. Henry Wager Halleck, before the war, had been but little known, and 
 that only as the author of some military works, and a prominent land lawyer, 
 deeply versed in Mexican titles, at the bar of San Francisco, California. He 
 was a pupil of West Point, and had been brevetted captain for meritorious 
 services in California during the Mexican war. He was appointed Secretary 
 of State of the province of California in the military government of Generals 
 Kearney, Mason, and Riley, and was a member of the Convention to form and 
 one of the committee to draft the State Constitution of California in 1849. 
 He subsequently disappeared from public attention, and occupied himself 
 with his innumerable Mexican clients in California as a lawyer and land 
 speculator. 
 
 A correspondent gives the following account of the personnel of General 
 Halleck : " In the field he is hardly the same person who might have been 
 seen quietly gliding from the Planters House to head-quarters in St. Louis 
 He does not look a whit more military in appearance, but looks, in his new 
 and rich, though plain uniform, as if he were in borrowed clothes. In truth. 
 he bears a most striking resemblance to some oleaginous Methodist parson 
 dressed in regimentals, with a wide, stiff-rimmed black felt hat sticking on 
 the back of his head, at an acute angle with the ground. His demeanor in 
 front of his tent is very simple and business-like. When on horseback, Li* 
 Wesleyan character is more and more prominent. He neither looks like a 
 soldier, rides like one, nor does he carry the state of a major-general in tlir 
 field, but is the impersonation of the man of peace. His face is large, tabular 
 and Teutonic ; his eyes a kind of indistinct gray, not without expression, but 
 of that deep welling kind that only reveal the emotion without indicating itu 
 character." 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 
 
 ft i& not within the design of our work to canvass the logical 
 value of these arguments ; but it is to recognize as a fact the 
 natural and almost uni versal impress! on made upon the popular 
 mind of the South, that it could not be good generalship which 
 left the enemy at perfect leisure to mature all his preparations 
 for aggression ; and that it could not be a glorious system of 
 warfare, which never ventured an aggressive movement, and 
 which decimated its armies by inaction. 
 
 In the administration of the civil polity of the Southern 
 army, as distinguished from its command, there were abuses 
 and defects which were constant subjects of newspaper com- 
 ment. 
 
 In the Quarter-master s department, however, the results ac 
 complished by the energy of its directors were little less than 
 surprising, and received the marked commendation of a com 
 mittee of the Provisional Congress, appointed to inquire into 
 the civil polity. of the army. That the immense army now in 
 the service of the Confederate States, suddenly collected, men 
 and officers generally inexperienced in camp life and military 
 duty, should be clothed, armed, and moved with the facility of 
 a permanent organization, was not to be expected ; and yet, 
 with but few exceptions, this result was accomplished. Major 
 Alfred M. Barbour, of Virginia, was appointed Chief Qnai 
 ter-master of the army of the Potomac, our principal corps 
 cFarmee in the field ; and his remarkable resources of judgment, 
 his vast energy, and his untiring devotion to his extensive du 
 ties in the field, contributed most important results in the emer 
 gencies of the many sudden and rapid movements of our forces 
 in Virginia, in the remarkable campaign in that State of the 
 spring of 1862. Such contributions to the public service are 
 not to be depreciated by the side of more visible, and, in the 
 popular mind, more brilliant achievements of the war. The 
 labors of the Quarter-master s department penetrate the entire 
 military establishment, breathe life into the army, nurture it8 
 growth, and give it strength and efficiency in the field ; vigi 
 lant, prepared, and present, it moves unnoticed amid the stir 
 ring events of the field, and obscured by the dust and smoke 
 of the combat, it remains unobserved even while collecting the 
 fruits of victory. 
 
 The most distressing abuses were visible in the ill-regulated 
 
224 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 hygiene of our camps. The ravages of disease among the 
 army in Virginia were terrible ; the accounts of its 3xtent were 
 suppressed in the newspapers of the day, and there is no doubt 
 that thousands of our brave troops disappeared from notice 
 without a record of their end, in the nameless graves that yet 
 mark the camping grounds on the lines of the Potomac, and 
 among the wild mountains of Virginia. 
 
 Our camps were scourged with fever, pneumonia, and diar 
 rhoea. The armies on the Potomac and in western Virginia 
 suffered greatly those troops in Cheat Mountain and in the 
 vicinity of the Kanawha Valley most intensely. The wet and 
 changeable climate, the difficulty of transportation, exposure 
 to cold and rain without tents, the necessary consequence of 
 the frequent forward and retrograde movements, as well as the 
 want of suitable food for either sick or well men, produced 
 most of the sickness, and greatly aggravated it after its acces 
 sion. 
 
 The regulations, requiring reports from the regiments as to 
 the number of sick, their diseases, and the wants of the medi 
 cal station, were, but in few instances, complied with. The 
 result of this neglect was, that upon a change of position in 
 che army, it was the unhappy consequence that the number of 
 sick greatly exceeded that indicated by the reports. They 
 were hurried to the rear, where the accommodations, both as 
 to food, shelter, and medical attendance, being all insufficient, 
 there was great suffering and great mortality. 
 
 The suffering of our army evoked, on the part of the South 
 ern people, demonstrations of patriotic devotion and generosity, 
 such, perhaps, as the world had never seen. The patriotism 
 of our citizens at home was manifested in unremitting efforts 
 to supply the wants and relieve the sufferings of the soldiers, 
 sick and well. The supply of money, clothing, and hospital 
 stores, from this voluntary and generous source, is estimated 
 in millions of dollars.* It was the most cheering indication 
 
 * The following contributions (estimated in money) were listed at the Pass- 
 port Office, in Richmond, during the last three months of the year 18G1. Th 
 list comprises almost exclusively tho donations made to the army of the Po 
 tomac. Of the voluntary supplies sent to the army in Missouri, Arkansas, 
 and Kentucky, there is no account whatever ; but, as the same patriotic devo 
 tion animated our people everywhere, there is no reason to doubt that an equa 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 225 
 
 si the spirit of our people in the cause of independence. The 
 women of the country, with the tenderness and generosity of 
 their sex, not only loaded railroad cars with all those applian 
 ces for the comfort of the sick which their patriotic ingenuity 
 could devise, but also came to the rescue in clothing those who 
 were well and bearing arms in the field. They made large pe 
 cuniary contributions, took charge of the hospitals established 
 by the States, and, as matrons of those .institutions, carried 
 cleanliness and comfort to the gallant soldier, far from home 
 and kindred. A committee of the Provisional Congress placed 
 on record the thanks of the country to the women of the South, 
 for their works of patriotism and public charity, and declared 
 that the government owed them " a public acknowledgment 
 of their faithfulness in the glorious work of effecting our indfr 
 pendence." 
 
 amount of clothing, stores, &c., had been sent to those troops. With this cal 
 sulation, the whole amount of contributions for the last quarter of the year 
 1861 could not have fallen short of three millions of dollars : 
 
 North Carolina, $325,417 
 
 Alabama, 317,600 
 
 Mississippi, 272,670 
 
 Georgia, 244,885 
 
 South Carolina, ." 137,206 
 
 Texas, 87,800 
 
 Louisiana, 61,950 
 
 Virginia, 48,070 
 
 Tennessee, 17,000 
 
 Florida, 2,350 
 
 Arkansas, ,,- 950 
 
 $1,515,898 
 If 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 Prospects of the Year 1862. The Lines of the Potomac. General Jackson s Expo- 
 iitio.1 to Winchester. The BATTLE or MILL SPRINGS IN KENTUCKY. General Crit- 
 
 tenden. Death of General Zollicoffer. Sufferings of Crittenden s Army on the 
 
 Retreat. Comparative Unimportance of the Disaster. The BATTLE or ROANOKB 
 
 ISLAND. Importance of the Island to the South. Death of Captain Wise. Causes ol 
 
 the Disaster to the South. Investigation in Congress. Censure of the Government. 
 Interviews of General Wise with Mr. Benjamin, the Secretary of War. Mr. Benjamin 
 censured by Congress, but retained in the Cabinet. His Promotion by President 
 Davis. Condition of the Popular Sentiment. 
 
 THE year 1862 was to bring in a train of disasters to the 
 South. Taking a brief glance at the lines of the Potomac, we 
 shall thereafter have to find the chief interest of the war in 
 other directions in the West and on the seacoast. 
 
 In December last, Gen. Thomas F. Jackson was sent from 
 Gen. Johnston s line to Winchester with a force at his disposal 
 of some ten thousand men. Had the same force been placed 
 at the command of Gen. Jackson in early autumn, with the 
 view to an expedition to Wheeling, by way of the Winchester 
 and Parkersburg road, the good effects would, in all proba 
 bility, have shown themselves in the expulsion of the Federals 
 from northwestern Yirginia. 
 
 On the 1st of January, 1862, Gen. Jackson marched with 
 his command from Winchester to Bath, in Morgan county, 
 and from the latter place to Romney, where there had been a 
 large Federal force for many weeks, and from which point 
 they had committed extensive depredations on the surrounding 
 country. Gen. Jackson drove the enemy from Romney and 
 the neighboring country without much fighting. His troops, 
 however, endured the severest hardships in the expedition. 
 Their sufferings were terrible in what was the severest portion 
 of the winter. They were compelled at one time to struggle 
 through an almost blinding storm of snow and sleet, and to 
 Ibivouac at night in the forests, without tents or camp equi 
 page. Many of the troops were frozen on the march, and died 
 from exposure and exhaustion. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 227 
 
 The heroic commander, whose courage had been so bril 
 liantly illustrated at Manassas, gave new proofs of hi iron 
 will in this expedition and the subsequent events of his cam 
 paign in the upper portion of the valley of Yirginia. No one 
 would have supposed that a man, who, at the opening of the 
 war, had been a professor in a State military institute that 
 at Lexington, Yirginia could have shown such active deter 
 mination and grim energy in the field. But Gen. Jackson had 
 been brought up in a severer school of practical experience 
 than "West Point, where he had graduated twenty years before ; 
 he had served in the memorable campaign from Yera Cruz to 
 Mexico ; and an iron will and stern courage, which he had 
 from nature, made him peculiarly fitted to command.* But 
 we must wait for a subsequent period to refer again to Gen. 
 Jackson s operations in the Yalley, or to other portions of the 
 campaign in Yirginia. 
 
 * At the siege of Vera Cruz, Jackson commanded a battery, and attracted 
 attention by the coolness and judgment with which he worked his guns, and 
 was promoted first lieutenant. For his conduct at Cerro Gordo, he was brevet- 
 ted captain. He was in all Scott s battles to the city of Mexico, and behaved 
 so well that he was bre vetted major for his services. To his merits as a com 
 mander he added the virtues of an active, humble, consistent Christian, 
 restraining profanity in his camp, welcoming army colporteurs, distributing 
 tracts, and anxious to have every regiment in his army supplied with a chap^ 
 lain. He was vulgarly sneered at as a fatalist ; his habits of soliloquy were 
 derided as superstitious conversations with a familiar spirit ; but the confi 
 dence he had in his destiny was the unfailing mark of genius, and adorned the 
 Christian faith, which made him believe that he had a distinct mission of duty 
 in which he should be spared for the ends of Providence. Of the habits of Ms 
 life the following description is given by one who knew him : " He is as calm 
 in the midst of a hurricane of bullets as he was in the pew of his church at 
 Lexington, when he was professor of the Institute. He appears to be a man 
 of almost superhuman endurance. Neither heat nor cold makes the slightest 
 impression upon him. He cares nothing for good quarters and dainty fare 
 Wrapped in his blanket, he throws himself down on the ground anywhere, 
 and sleeps as soundly as though he were in a palace. He lives as the soldiers 
 live, and endures all the fatigue and all the suffering that they endure. His 
 vigilance is something marvellous. He never seems to sleep, and lets nothing 
 pass without his personal scrutiny. He can neither be caught napping, nor 
 whipped when he is wide awake. The rapidity of his marches is something 
 portentous. He is heard of by the enemy at one point, and, before they can 
 make up their minds to follow him, he is off at another. His men have little 
 baggage, and he moves, as nearly as he can, without incumbrance. He keepa 
 so constantly in motion that he never has a sick list, and no need of hospitals/ 
 
228 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MILL SPRINGS IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 Ill a previous chapter, we noticed the expedition of 
 Zollicoffer in Kentucky, and gave an account of the rout of the 
 forces sent against him. The next expedition of the enemy 
 against him was successful beyond their expectations. 
 
 Since the affair referred to, Gen. Zollicoffer had moved with 
 a portion of his command to Mill Springs, on the southern 
 bank of the Cumberland river, and soon after advanced across 
 to Camp Beech Grove, on the opposite bans, fortifying this 
 camp with earthworks. At Beech Grove, he placed five regi 
 ments of infantry, twelve pieces of artillery, and several hun 
 dred cavalry, and at Mill Springs he had two regiments of 
 infantry and several hundred cavalry. About the first of 
 January, Major-general Crittenden arrived and took the com 
 mand, having been advanced, by President Davis, from a 
 captaincy in the Federal army to a major-generalship in the 
 Confederate army. 
 
 Our position at Beech Grove had but few advantages. From 
 the face of the country in front there was a very bad range for 
 artillery, and it could not be of very material benefit against 
 an attacking infantry force ; and, considering the extent of the 
 front line and the number of works to be defended, there was 
 within the camp an insufficient force. At the same time, for 
 several weeks, bare existence in the camps was very precarious, 
 from want of provisions and forage. Regiments frequently 
 subsisted on one-third rations, and this very frequently ot 
 bread alone. Wayne county, which was alone productive in 
 this region of Kentucky, had been exhausted, and the neigh 
 boring counties of Tennessee could furnish nothing for the 
 support of the army. Only corn could be obtained for the 
 horses and mules, and this in such small quantities that often 
 cavalry companies were sent out on unshod horses which had 
 eaten nothing for two days. The condition of the roads and the 
 poverty of the intervening section rendered it impossible to 
 transport from Knoxville, a distance of one hundred and thirty 
 miles. The enemy from Columbia commanded the Cumberland 
 river, and only one boat was enabled to come up with supplier 
 from Nashville. With the channel of communication closed, 
 the position became untenable without attack. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 229 
 
 In these straits, when the entire army at Mill Sprirgs had 
 been reduced to a single ration of beef per day, and a half ra 
 tion of corn, the latter eaten as parched corn, and not issued 
 as meal, news reached Gen. Crittenden of an advance move 
 ment of the enemy, both from Columbia and from Somerset. 
 On the 17th of January it was ascertained that a large Fed 
 eral force, under Gen. Thomas, was moving on the road from 
 Columbia, and, on the evening of that day, was camped aLout 
 ten miles from Beech Grove. It was also ascertained that 
 other reinforcements were moving from the direction of Colum 
 bia, under command of Gen. Schoepff, and that the junction of 
 these two forces was intended for an attack on Camp Beech 
 Grove. 
 
 Under these circumstances, Gen. Crittenden determined to 
 attack Gen. Thomas s force in his camp. The decision, which 
 was sanctioned by a council of war, was a most adventurous 
 one. It was proposed, with an effective force of four thousand 
 men, to attack an enemy in his intrenchments, at least ten 
 thousand strong ; it is true, however, that a defence of our in 
 trenchments was impracticable, and that to have awaited the 
 enemy there, would only have given him time to have effected a 
 junction of his forces. This consideration, however, gives but 
 an imperfect vindication of the impetuous adventure determined 
 upon by Gen. Crittenden. The fact was, that the avenues of 
 retreat were open to our little army, and could only have ]>een 
 cut off by the enemy s crossing above and below Mill Springs. 
 
 In perfect silence, at midnight, the march began. The bri 
 gade of Gen. Zollicoffer moved in front. In the gray dawn, 
 about six o clock, two miles from their camp, the pickets of the 
 enemy fired upon our advanced cavalry. The morning of the 
 19th was dark and rainy a fit day for a sabbath battle. The 
 15th Mississippi regiment, in line of battle, was steadily ad 
 vanced, under the constant fire of the enemy. The charge of 
 Gen. Zollicoffer s brigade, in which this gallant regiment earned 
 the most conspicuous distinction of the day, soon became im 
 petuous. The Mississippi troops fought with a devotion never 
 excelled by the soldiers of any battle-field ; nearly half of the 
 regiment (it numbered only 440) fell in the action ; at times 
 they fought with the enemy at ten or twelve paces, and, in one 
 of their sweeping and exultant charges, for fifty yards, dashed 
 
230 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 over the dead bodies of Yankees. TLe enemy was steadily 
 driven back before the charge of Gen. Zollicoffer s command. 
 Already he was ascending the last hill to its crest, where 
 the heaviest firing told the battle raged. He sent for rein 
 forcements, and the brigade of Gen. Carrol was ordered up. 
 In another moment, it was announced tbh,t Gen. Zollicoffer was 
 killed. He had fallen on the crest of the hill, the stronghold 
 of the enemy, which he had almost driven them from, and 
 which once gained, the day was ours. 
 
 Gen. Zollicoffer fell very near the camp of the enemy. He 
 was with Col. Battle s Tennessee regiment, this and the Missis 
 sippi regiment being the chief participants in the action, and 
 in the ranks of which were his own home friends, born and 
 brought up around him at Kashville. In front, and concealed 
 in the woods, was a regiment of Kentucky renegades, com 
 manded by Col. Fry. By some mistake, probably that of the 
 Kentuckians for a regiment of his own command, Gen. Zolli 
 coffer got very near them. Col. Fry was at the right of hi? 
 regiment. Gen. Zollicoffer was within a few feet of the colonel. 
 A gum coat concealed his uniform. The two parties mistook 
 each other for friends, and discovered their mutual mistake 
 almost at the same instant. One of General Zollicoffer s aids 
 shot at Colonel Fry, but only wounded his horse. The nexf 
 moment the Federal colonel fired at Zollicoffer, and the gen 
 eral, raising his hand to his breast, fell, pierced by several balls. 
 
 At the announcement of the death of Gen. Zollicoffer, a 
 sudden gloom pervaded the field and depressed the Tennessee 
 troops, who had been devotedly attached to him. Gen. Crit- 
 tenden essayed all that personal example could do to retrieve 
 the sinking fortunes of the day. He, in person, rode up to the 
 front of the fight, in the very midst of the fire of the enemy. 
 To gain the disputed hill, the fight was still continued. Charge 
 after charge was driven back by the heavy forces of the enemy. 
 After a conflict of three and a half hours, our troops com 
 menced to give way. The pursuit was checked by several 
 stands made by the little army, and the intrenchments at Camj 
 Beer.h Grove were reached in the afternoon, with a loss on oui 
 side of about three hundred killed and wounded, and probably 
 fifty prisoners. 
 
 The advance of the enemy arrived late in the evening before 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 231 
 
 the Confederate intrenchments, and fired upon them with shot 
 and shell. Night closing in, put a stop to further demonstra 
 tions. Our men, tired and worn out as they were, stood be 
 hind the breastworks tinti] midnight, when orders came for them 
 to retreat quietly across the river. A steamer, with three 
 barges attached, commenced the work of transportation. Can 
 non, baggage wagons, and horses were abandoned ; every thing 
 was lost save what our men had on their backs, and yet the 
 whole night was consumed in getting the army over the river, 
 which was very high at the time. The line of retreat was taken 
 up towards Monticello, Gen. Crittenden having determined to 
 strike for the Cumberland at the highest point where boats 
 could land with safety, in order to be in open communication 
 with Nashville. 
 
 The retreat was one of great distress. Many of the troops 
 had become demoralized, and, without order, dispersed through 
 the mountain by-ways in the direction of Monticello. " We 
 reached Monticello," writes an officer of one of the regiments 
 in the retreat, " at night, and then we were threatened with 
 starvation an enemy far more formidable than the one we left 
 beyond the river.- Since Saturday night, we had but an hour 
 of sleep, and scarcely a morsel of food. For a whole week, we 
 have been marching under a bare subsistence, and I have at 
 length approached that point in a soldier s career when a hand 
 ful of parched corn may be considered a first-class dinner. We 
 marched the first few days through a barren region, where sup 
 plies could not be obtained. I have more than once seen the 
 men kill a porker with their guns, cut and quarter it, and broil 
 it on the coals, and then eat it without bread or salt. The 
 suffering of the men from the want of the necessaries of life, 
 of clothing, and of repose, has been most intense, and a more 
 melancholy spectacle than this solemn, hungry, and weary 
 procession, could scarcely be imagined." 
 
 The enemy invested the abandoned camp of the Confederates 
 on the morning following the day of the battle. Gen. Schoepff s 
 brigade had crossed the river preparatory to the attack which 
 Gen. Thomas had intended to make on the intrenchments on 
 Monday. Early in the morning, the steamer used by the Con 
 federates in effecting their retreat was discovered lying in the 
 river, and was burnt by the shells of the enemy. They con 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 gratulated themselves that they had cut off the last hope of 
 the escape of " the rebels." Long colnmns of troops filed away, 
 and the artillery commenced to play on the intrenchments, in 
 doubt for a moment whether their guns were replied to or not, 
 when word came that the intrenchments were abandoned. Aa 
 the enemy marched into the camp there was hardly a cheer. 
 They had hoped to capture every man of the Confederates, and 
 were bitterly disappointed. They secured, however, a rich 
 spoil of victory every thing in fact that made our poor soldiers 
 an army. The property captured was of considerable value. 
 It consisted of eight six-pounders and two Parrott-guns, with 
 caissons filled with ammunition, about 100 four-horse wagons, 
 and upwards of 1,200 horses and mules, several boxes of arms 
 which had never been opened, and from 500 to 1,000 muskets. 
 The death of Gen. Zollicoffer was deeply lamented by his 
 countrymen. It is doubtful whether the death of any man of 
 the present generation ever produced such conspicuous grief 
 among Tennesseeans. He was a man made of stern stuff, and 
 possessed in a remarkable degree the confidence of his army 
 and of the Tennessee people. He was devoted to the interests 
 of the South, and, during a long career in Congress, was one 
 of the few members of the Whig party who voted uniformly 
 with Southern men on all questions involving her honor and 
 welfare. Made a brigadier-general, he was assigned to the de 
 partment of East Tennessee at an early period of the war, and 
 had exhibited rare address and genuine courage and military tal 
 ents in the administration of his responsible command. It was a 
 , melancholy mode which his army chose of testifying their ap 
 preciation of his ability as a commander, in giving up all for 
 lost when ; he was shot down ; but it certainly afforded a marked 
 testimony of their confidence in his generalship. 
 
 The body of General Zollicoffer fell into the hands of the en 
 emy. His remains were treated by them with unusual respect. 
 -One of their officers, who had known him in "Washington- 
 asked to be permitted to see the corpse. A pistol-shot had 
 struck him in the breast, a little above the heart. His face 
 bore -no expression such as is usually found upon those who 
 fall in battle no malice, no reckless hate, not even a shadow 
 of physical pain. It was calm, placid, noble. " Poor fellow/ 
 wrote. ;the officer who visited with respect his remains just after 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 233 
 
 the battle, " I have never looked on a countenance so marked 
 with sadness. A deep dejection had settled on it. The low 
 cares of the month were distinct in the droop at its corners, 
 and the thin cheeks showed the wasting which comes through 
 disappointment and trouble." 
 
 The reverse sustained by our arms in Southern Kentucky 
 involved no important military consequences ; and the govern 
 ment at Richmond found cause of congratulation in the cir 
 cumstance that, if a defeat must needs have happened to it at 
 this time, it could not have come upon it at a point of less com 
 parative consequence than the battle-ground near Somerset, 
 Kentucky. It was a hundred miles from the line of railroad 
 connecting us with the great West ; it was a still greater dis 
 tance from Cumberland Gap, the nearest point of the Yirginia 
 line ; and there intervened, on the road to Knoxville, rivers and 
 mountain passes which an invading army could only traverse 
 slowly and with great caution. 
 
 But a disaster to our arms was shortly to ensue, of the im 
 portance and gravity of which there could be no doubt, and 
 with respect to which the government could find neither con 
 solations nor excuses. While we have seen how matters stood 
 on the Potomac in the opening of the year 1862, and what 
 ominous indications had taken place in the West, we must now 
 remove the attention of the reader to the sea-coast, where, 
 along the low and melancholy scenery of the sea-border of 
 North Carolina, one of the most extraordinary dramas of the 
 war was to be enacted. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF KOANOKE ISLAND. 
 
 On the 21st of December, that part of North Carolina east 
 of the Chowan river, together with the counties of Washington 
 and Tyrrell, was, at the request of the proper authorities of 
 North Carolina, separated from the remainder, and constituted 
 into a military district, under Brigadier-general H. A. Wise, 
 and attached to the command of Major-general Huger, com 
 manding the department of Norfolk. 
 
 Immediately upon the secession of the State of North Caro 
 lina from the government of the United States, and the adop 
 tion of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, 
 
: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the authorities of that State commenced the construction oi 
 fortifications at Hatteras and Oregon Inlets, and other points 
 upon her coast, which were not completed when the State 
 transferred her forts, arsenals, army, navy, and coast defence 
 to the Confederate government. Shortly thereafter the attack 
 was made upon Forts Hatteras and Clark, and they were 
 taken, and the fortifications at Oregon* Inlet were abandoned, 
 and the armament, stores, and ammunition were removed to 
 Roanoke Island. The enemy immediately appeared in force 
 in Pamlico Sound, the waters of which are connected with Al- 
 bemarle and Cui*rituck sounds by means of the two smaller 
 sounds of Croatan and Roanoke. The island of Roanoke be 
 ing situated between these two latter sounds, commanding the 
 channels of each, became, upon the fall of Hatteras and the 
 abandonment of Oregon Inlet, only second inimportance to 
 Fortress Monroe. The island then became the key which un 
 locked all northeastern North Carolina to the enemy, and ex 
 posed Portsmouth and Norfolk to a rear approach of the most 
 imminent danger. 
 
 Such was the importance of Roanoke Island. It was threat 
 ened by one of the most formidable naval armaments yet fittec 
 out by the North, put under the command of Gen. Burnside, 
 of Rhode Island. It might have been placed in a state of de 
 fence against any reasonable force, with the expenditure oi 
 money and labor supposed to be within the means of the gov 
 ernment. Ample time and the fullest forewarnings were given 
 to the government for the construction of defences, since, for a 
 full month, Gen. Wise had represented to the government, 
 with the most obvious and emphatic demonstrations, that the 
 defences of the island were wholly inadequate for its protection 
 from an attack either by land or water. 
 
 The military defences of Roanoke Island and its adjacent 
 waters on the 8th of February, the day of its surrender, con 
 sisted of three sand forts, a battery of two 32-pounders, and a 
 redoubt thrown across the road in the centre of the island, about 
 seventy or eighty feet long, on the right of which Tas a swamp, 
 on the left a marsh. In addition to these defences on the 
 shore and on the island, there was a barrier of piles, extending 
 from the east side of Fnlker Shoals, towards the island. Its 
 object was to compel vessel? passing on the west of the island 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 235 
 
 to approach within reach of the shore batteries ; but up to the 
 8th of February, there was a span of 1,700 yards open opposite 
 to Fort Bartow, the most southern of the defences, on the wesl 
 side of the island. 
 
 The entire military force stationed upon the island prior to, 
 and at the time of, the late engagement, consisted of the 8th 
 regiment of North Carolina State troops, under the command 
 of Col. II. M. Shaw ; the 31st regiment of North Carolina 
 volunteers, under the command of Col. J. Y. Jordan ; and three 
 companies of the 17th North Carolina troops, under the com 
 mand of Major G. H. Hill. After manning the several forts, 
 on the 7th of February, there were but one thousand and 
 twenty-four men left, and two hundred of them were upon the 
 cjick list. On the evening of the 7th of February, Brig. -gen. 
 Wise sent from Nagg s Head, under the command of Lieut.- 
 col. Anderson, a reinforcement, numbering some four hundred 
 and fifty men. The whole force was under the command of 
 Brig.-gen. Wise, who, upon the 7th and 8th of February, was 
 at Nagg s Head, four miles distant from the island, confined 
 to a sick-bed, and entirely disabled from participating in the 
 action in person. The immediate command, therefore, devolved 
 upon Col. H. M. Shaw, the senior officer present. 
 
 On the morning of the 7th of February, the enemy s fleet 
 proceeded steadily towards Fort Bartow. In the sound be 
 tween Roanoke Island and the mainland, upon the Tyrrell 
 side, Commodore Lynch, with his squadron of seven vessels, 
 had taken position, and at eleven o clock the enemy s fleet, 
 consisting of about thirty gunboats and schooners, advanced 
 in ten divisions, the rear one having the schooners and trans 
 ports in tow. The advance and attacking division again sub 
 divided, one assailing the squadron and the other firing upon 
 the fort with nine-inch, ten-inch, and eleven-inch shell, spheri 
 cal case, a few round-shot, and every variety of rifled projec 
 tiles. The fort replied with but four guns (which were all 
 that could be brought to bear), and after striking the foremost 
 vessels several times, the fleet fell back, so as to mask one of 
 the guns of the fort, leaving but three to reply to the fire of 
 the whole fleet. The bombardment was continued throughout 
 the day, and the enemy retired at dark. The squadron, under 
 the command of Commodore Lynch, sustained their position 
 
236 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 most gallantly, and only retired after exhausting all their am 
 munition, and having lost the steamer Curlew and the Foiest 
 disabled. 
 
 In the mean time,* the enemy had found a point of landing 
 out of the reach of our field-pieces, and defended by a swamp 
 from the advance of our infantry. The enemy having effected 
 a landing here, our whole force took position at the redoubt or 
 breastwork, and placed in battery their field-pieces with neees> 
 sary artillerymen, under the respective commands of Captain 
 Schemerhorn, and Lieutenants Kinney and Seldon. Two com 
 panies of the Eighth and two of the Thirty-first were placed at 
 the redoubt to support the artillery. Three companies of the 
 Wise Legion, deployed to the right and left as skirmishers. 
 The remainder of the infantry were in position, three hundred 
 yards in the rear of the redoubt, as a reserve. 
 
 The enemy landed some fifteen thousand men, with artillery, 
 and, at 7" o clock, A. M., of the 8th, opened fire upon the redoubt, 
 which was replied to immediately with great spirit, and the 
 action soon became general, and was continued without inter 
 mission for more than five hours, when the enemy succeeded 
 in deploying a large force on either side of our line, flanking 
 each wing. The order was then given by Col. Shaw to spike 
 the guns in the battery, and to retreat to the northern end of 
 the island. The guns were spiked, and the whole force fell 
 back to the camps. 
 
 During the engagement at the redoubt, the enemy s fleet at 
 tempted to advance to Croatan Sound, which brought on a 
 desultory engagement between Fort Bartow and the fleet, 
 which continued up to half-after 12 o clock, when the com 
 manding officer was informed that the land defences had been 
 forced, and the position of the fort turned ; he thereupon order 
 ed the guns to be disabled and the ammunition destroyed, 
 which was done, and the fort abandoned. The same thing was 
 done at the other forts, and the forces from all the forts were 
 marched in good order to the camp. The enemy took posses 
 sion of the redoubts and forts immediately, and proceeded in 
 pursuit, with great caution, towards the northern end of the 
 island in force, deploying so as to surround our forces at the 
 oamp. 
 
 Co.. Shaw had arrived with \ih whole force at his camp in 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 237 
 
 time to have saved his whole command, if transports Lad been 
 furnished. But there were none. His situation was one of 
 extreme exigency. He found himself surrounded by a greatly 
 superior force upon the open island ; he had no field-works to 
 protect him ; he had lost his only three field-pieces at the re 
 doubt ; and he had either to make an idle display of courage 
 in fighting the foe at such immense disadvantage, which would 
 have involved the sacrifice of his command, or to capitulate 
 and surrender as prisoners of war. He determined upon the 
 latter alternative. 
 
 The loss on our side was, killed, 23 ; wounded, 58 ; missing, 
 62. Our mortality list, however, was no indication of the 
 spirit and vigor of our little army, as in its position it had but 
 little opportunity of contest without a useless sacrifice of human 
 life on their side. Among the killed was Captain O. Jennings 
 Wise, of the Richmond Blues, son of General Wise, a young 
 man of brilliant promise, refined chivalry, and a courage to 
 which the softness of his manners and modesty of his behavior 
 added the virtue of knightly heroism. His body, pierced by 
 wounds, fell into the hands of the enemy ? in whose camp, at 
 tended by every mark of respect, he expired. The disaster at 
 Roanoke Island was a sharp mortification to the public. But 
 for the unfortunate general, who was compelled to hear on a 
 sick-bed perhaps to witness from the windows of a sick-cham 
 ber the destruction of his army and the death of his son, there 
 was not a word of blame. 
 
 In a message to Congress, President Davis referred to the 
 result of the battle at Roanoke Island as " deeply humiliating ;" 
 a committee of Congress, appointed to investigate the affair, 
 resented the attempt to attribute a disaster, for which the gov 
 ernment itself was notoriously responsible, to want of spirit in 
 our troops ; declared that, on the contrary, the battle of Roanoke 
 Island was " one of the most gallant and brilliant actions of the 
 war ;" and concluded that whatever of blame and responsibility 
 was justly attributable to any one for the defeat, should attach 
 to Gen. Huger, in whose military department the island was, 
 and to the Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin, whose posi 
 tive refusal to put the island in a state of defence secured it? 
 fall. There was, in fact, but little room for the gorernment to 
 throw reflection upon the conduct of the troops. In the Ian 
 
238 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 guage of their commanding general, " both officers and men 
 fought firmly, coolly, efficiently, and as long as humanity would 
 allow." 
 
 The connection of the War Department with the Roanoke 
 Island affair, which was with difficulty dragged to light in 
 Congress, is decidedly one of the most curious portions of the 
 history of the war. Gen. Wise had pressed upon the govern 
 ment the importance of Roanoke Island* for the defence of 
 Norfolk. He assumed the command of the post upon the 7th 
 of January. In making a reconnoissance of the island and its 
 defences, on the 13th January, he addressed Secretary Benja 
 min, ai id declared that the island, which was the key of all the 
 rear defences of Norfolk, and its canals and railroads, was 
 " utterly defenceless." On the 15th of January, Gen. Wise 
 addressed the secretary again. He wrote that twenty-four 
 vessels of the enemy s fleet were already inside of Hatteras 
 Inlet, and within thirty miles of Roanoke Island ; that all there 
 was to oppose him was five small gunboats, and four small 
 land batteries, wholly inefficient ; that our batteries were not 
 casemated ; and that the force at Hatteras, independent of the 
 Burnside expedition, was " amply sufficient to capture or pass 
 Roanoke Island in any twelve hours." 
 
 These written appeals for aid in the defences of the island 
 were neglected and treated with indifference. Determined to 
 leave nothing wanting in energy of address, Gen. Wise repaired 
 in person to Richmond, and called upon the Secretary of War, 
 and urged, in the most importunate manner, the absolute 
 
 * It (Roanoke Island) was the key to all the rear defences of Norfolk. It 
 unlocked two sounds, Albemarle and Currituck ; eight rivers, the North, 
 West, Pasquotank, the Perquimmons, the Little, the Chowan, the Roanoke, 
 and the Alligator ; four canals, the Albemarle and Chesapeake, the Dismal 
 Swamp, the Northwest Canal, and the Suffolk ; two railroads, the Petersburg 
 and Norfolk, and the Seaboard and Roanoke. It guarded more than four-fifths 
 jf all Norfolk s supplies of corn, pork, and forage, and it cut the command 
 of General Huger off from all its most efficient transportation. It endangers 
 the subsistence of his whole army, threatens the navy-yard at Gosport, and 
 to cut off Norfolk from Richmond, and both from railroad communication 
 with the South. It lodges the enemy in a safe harbor from the storms 01 
 Hatteras, gives them a rendezvous, and large rich range of supplies, and the 
 command of the seaboard from Oregon Inlet to Cape Henry. It should have 
 been defended at the expense of twenty thousand men, and of many milliona 
 nf dollars." Report of Gen. Wise. 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 239 
 
 necessity of strengthening the defences upon that island with 
 additional men, armament, and ammunition. Mr. Benjamin 
 replied verbally to his appeals for reinforcements, that he had 
 not the men to spare for his command. Gen. Wise urged upon 
 the secretary that Gen. Huger had about 15,000 men in front 
 of Norfolk, lying idle in camp for eight months, and that a 
 considerable portion of them could be spared for the defence of 
 the rear of Norfolk, and especially as his (Gen. Wise s) district 
 supplied Norfolk and his army with nearly or quite all of his 
 corn, pork, and forage. 
 
 The reply to all these striking and urgent appeals was a per 
 emptory military order from Secretary Benjamin, dated the 
 22d of January, requiring Gen. Wise to proceed immediately 
 to Koanoke Island. With ready military pride the unfortunate 
 general received the orders, without a murmur in public ; it 
 being known only to his most intimate friends the circum 
 stances under which he left Richmond on the stern and un- 
 propitious mission which promised nothing to himself but 
 disaster, the mistaken calumnies of the public, and death in 
 the midst of defeat. 
 
 The facts we have referred to are of record. The committee 
 of Congress that investigated the affair of Roanoke Island de 
 clared that the Secretary of War, Mr. J. P. Benjamin, was 
 responsible for an important defeat of our arms, which might 
 have been safely avoided by him ; that he had paid no practical 
 attention to the appeals of Gen. Wise ; and that he had, by 
 plain acts of omission, permitted that general and an incon 
 siderable force to remain to meet at least fifteen thousand men, 
 well armed and equipped. The committee referred to was 
 open to any justification that might have been sought by the 
 Secretary of War, or his friends : none was offered ; and the 
 unanimous conclusion of the committee, in sharp and distinct 
 terms, was put upon the public record, charging a Cabinet 
 officer with a matter of the gravest offence known to the laws 
 and the interests of the country. 
 
 The effect of war is always, in some degree, public demora A i- 
 zation ; and the gravest charges are often lost and swallowed 
 np in the quick and feverish excitements of such times. But 
 whatever mav have been the charities of speedy oblivion with 
 respect to the charges against Mr. Benjamin, the public were 
 
240 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 at least, not prepared for such an exhibition of tiust and honor 
 as was given him by the President, in actually promoting him, 
 after the developments of the Roanoke Island disaster, and 
 giving him the place in his cabinet of Secretary of State 
 Whatever may have been the merits of this act of the Presi 
 dent, it was at least one of ungracious and reckless defiance to 
 the popular sentiment; and from the marked event of the 
 surrender of Roanoke Island and its consequences, we must 
 date the period when the people had their confidence weakened 
 in the government, and found no other repose for their trust 
 than in the undiir^ished valor and devoted patriotism of the 
 troops in the field 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 241 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TLe Situation in Tennessee and Kentucky. The affair at Woodsonville. Death c f 
 Colonel Terry. The Strength and Material of the Federal Force in Kentucky. Con 
 dition of the Defences on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. The Confederate 
 Congress and the Secretary of the Navy. The Fall of Fort Henry. Fort Donelson 
 threatened. The Army of General A. S. Johnston. His Interview with General 
 Beauregard. Insensibility of the Confederate Government to the Exigency. General 
 Johnston s Plan of Action. BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON. Carnage and Scenery of the 
 Battle-field. The Council of the Southern Commanders. Agreement to surrender. 
 Escape of Generals Floyd and Pillow. The Fall of Fort Donelson develops the 
 Crisis in the West. The Evacuation of Nashville. The Panic. Extraordinary 
 Scenes. Experience of the Enemy in Nashville. The Adventures of Captain Joh^i 
 Morgan. General Johnston at Murfreesboro. Organization of a New Line of Defenct 
 South of Nashville. The Defence of Memphis and the Mississippi. Island No. 10. 
 Serious Character of the Disaster at Donelson. Generals Floyd and Pillow " re 
 lieved from Command." General Johnston s Testimony in favor of these Officers.- 
 President Davis s Punctilio. A sharp Contrast. Negotiation for the Exchange o 
 Prisoners. A Lesson of Yankee Perfidy. Mr. Benjamin s Release of Yanke* 
 Hostages. 
 
 THE unequivocal demonstrations of the Federals for an ad 
 vance upon Tennessee through Kentucky, urged the Confed 
 erate government to send all the disposable forces at its com 
 mand to strengthen the army of the southwestern division. 
 Near the close of the year 1861, the Floyd Brigade and several 
 regiments belonging to Tennessee and other Confederate States 
 were sent from Virginia to Bowling Green, in southern Ken 
 tucky, the principal strategic point of the southwestern army. 
 The command of that army was given, as we have seen, to 
 General Albert Sidney Johnston. 
 
 Early in December, the Federal army occupied Muldraugh s 
 Hill, Elizabethtown, Nolin, Bacon s Creek, and other points on 
 the railroad, from forty to sixty miles below Louisville. Later 
 in that month, a body of them advanced to Munfordville, on 
 Green River, about seventy-five miles below Louisville, and 
 about thirty-five miles above Bowling Green. A portion 01 
 this advance crossed the river at Munfordville to Woodsonville 
 on the opposite shore, where they were attacked b,y the advance 
 Confederate forces under Brig. -general Hindman and defeated 
 with a loss of about fifty killed. The Confederates lost four 
 
 16 
 
242 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 killed and nine wounded. Their conduct was marked by the 
 most impetuous valor. On charging the enemy, Col. Terry, of 
 the Texas Hangers, was killed in the moment of victory. 
 In the death of Col. Terry, said General Hardee, in his official 
 report, " his regiment had to deplore the less of a beloved 
 and brave commander, and the whole army one of its ablest 
 officers." His name was placed in the front rank of the gal 
 lant sons of Texas, whose daring and devoted courage had 
 added to the lustre of our arms and to the fruits of more than 
 one victory. 
 
 The fight at Woodsonville was on the 17th of December. 
 When the enemy reached that place in force, the Confederates 
 fell back some fifteen or twenty miles, in the direction of Bowl 
 ing Green. For some weeks thereafter, the whole South waa 
 excited with reports to the effect that the Federals were ad 
 vancing upon .Bowling Green in three columns, of 20,000 each. 
 But the unanticipated success of the Federals in two important 
 movements at other points within the department of General 
 Johnston, enabled them to accomplish their object without an 
 attack upon Bowling Green, and forced upon the Confederates 
 the necessity of evacuating that post. 
 
 The North had collected an immense army in Kentucky, 
 under command of Major-general Buell, a general of great skill, 
 remarkable for the caution of his operations, but having with 
 this quality the rare combination of energy, courage, and un 
 wearied activity. The whole force of the Federals in Ken 
 tucky consisted of about one hundred thousand infantry, eleven 
 thousand cavalry, and three thousand artillerists, divided into 
 Borne twenty odd batteries. It is remarkable that this immense 
 army was composed almost entirely of "Western men, and that 
 the "Yankee" proper was scarcely represented in its ranks. 
 Of the Eastern States, only Pennsylvania had troops in Ken 
 tucky, and those comparatively few. Every Western State, 
 with the exception of Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas, was repre 
 sented by more or less regiments. 
 
 A large force of the Federals had been collected at Paducah, 
 at Uie mouth of the Tennessee river, with a view to offensive 
 operations on the water. This river was an important stream. 
 It penetrated Tennessee and Alabama, and was navigable for 
 steamers for two or three hundred miles. The Provisions 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 243 
 
 Congress, at Richmond, had appropriated half a million dol 
 lars for floating defences on the Tennessee and Cumberland 
 rivers : but owing to the notorious inefficiency of the Navy 
 Department, presided over by Mr. Mallory of Florida, who 
 was remarkable for his obtuseness, slow method, and indiffer 
 ent intellect, and whose ignorance even of the geography of 
 Kentucky and Tennessee had been broadly travestied in Con 
 gress, both rivers were left open to the incursions of the 
 enemy. On the Tennessee there was nothing to resist the 
 enemy s advance up the stream but a weak and imperfectly 
 constructed fort. The Cumberland was a still more important 
 river, and the key to Nashville ; but nothing stood in the way 
 of the enemy save Fort Donelson, and from that point the 
 Federal gunboats could reach Nashville in six or eight hours, 
 and strike a vital point of our whole system of defences in the 
 -West. 
 
 On the 4th of February, the enemy s expedition up the 
 Tennessee, under Gen. Grant, arrived at Fort Henry, the only 
 fortification on the Tennessee river of any importance, situ 
 ated near the lines of Kentucky and Tennessee, on the east 
 bank of the stream. On the morning of the 6th, the fort wap 
 attacked. 
 
 Our works were untenable, but it concerned us to save ou* 
 little army. To defend the position at the time, Gen. Tilgh 
 man, commanding division, had Col. Heiman s 10th Tennessee, 
 Irish volunteers, eight hundred strong ; Col. Drake s Missis 
 sippi volunteers, four hundred strong ; Col. Hughes Alabama 
 volunteers, five hundred strong ; and Lieut.-col. Gantt s Ten 
 nessee volunteers, cavalry, three hundred strong ; one company 
 of light artillery, commanded by Lieut. Culbertson, Confed 
 erate States artillery, and Captain Jesse Taylor s company of 
 artillery, sixty strong, forming the garrison of Fort Henry, 
 and manning its batteries of nine or ten guns. 
 
 A sudden rise in the river found Fort Henry, on the morn 
 ing of the attack, completely surrounded by water, containing 
 only Capt. Taylor s company of artillery. The two thousand 
 men of all arms, who formed Gen. Tilghman s command, were 
 half a mile off, beyond a sheet of back-water. Gen. Grant s 
 army was on the direct road, between them and Fort Donel- 
 *on, on the Cumberland, and within tw3 miles of the fort, and 
 
244 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 already in motion to invest it. It was an embarrassing ques 
 tion to determine what was to be done. Gen. Tilghman s little 
 army was in the jaws of the lion, and the question was, how 
 could it be extricated. 
 
 Gen. Tilghman at once solved the problem, by ordering it to 
 retreat by the upper route. He remained with his sixty men 
 in the fort, where he was surrounded by water, and unable to 
 get away. 
 
 A few minutes before the surrender, the scene in and around 
 the fort exhibited a spectacle of fierce grandeur. Many of the 
 cabins and tents in and around the fort were in flames : added 
 to the scene were the smoke from the burning timber, and the 
 curling but dense wreaths of smoke from the guns ; the con 
 stantly recurring spattering and whizzing of fragments of 
 crashing and bursting shells ; the deafening roar of artillery ; 
 the black sides of five or six gunboats, belching fire at every 
 port-hole ; the volumes of smoke settled in dense masses along 
 the surrounding back-waters ; and up and over that fog, on the 
 heights, the army of Gen. Grant (10,000) deploying around 
 our small army, attempting to cut off its retreat. In the midst 
 of the storm of shot and shell, the small force outside of the 
 fort had succeeded in gaining the upper road, the gunboats 
 having failed to notice their movements until they were out of 
 reach. 
 
 To give them further time, the gallant Tilghman, exhausted 
 and begrimed with powder and smoke, stood erect at the 
 middle battery, and pointed gun after gun. It was clear, how 
 ever, that the fort could not hold out much longer. A white 
 flag was raised by the order of Gen. Tilghman, who remarked, 
 " it is vain to fight longer ; our gunners are disabled ; our guns 
 dismounted ; we can t hold out five minutes longer." As soon 
 as the token of submission was hoisted, the gunboats came 
 alongside the fort and took possession of it, their crews giving 
 three cheers for the Union. Gen. Tilghman and the small gar 
 rison of forty were taken prisoners. 
 
 The fall of Fort Henry was the signal for the direction oi 
 the most anxious attention to Fort Donelson, on the Cumber 
 land. 
 
 We have noticed before the extreme inadequacy of Gun 
 Johnston s forces. It is doubtful whether he ever had ovei 
 
THE FIRST YEAB. 245 
 
 23,000 effective troops at Bowling Green. Of these, after re- 
 inforcing Fort Donelson, he had scarcely more than eleven 
 thousand effective men. Shortly after the disaster at MiU 
 Springs, Gen. Beauregard had been sent from the Potomac to 
 Gen. Johnston s line in Kentucky. At a conference which 
 took place between the two generals, Gen. Beauregard ex 
 pressed his surprise at the smallness of Gen. Johnston s forces, 
 and was impressed with the danger of his position. There is 
 nothing more remarkable in the history of the war than the 
 false impressions of the people of the South as to the extent of 
 our forces at the principal strategic point in Kentucky, and the 
 long and apathetic toleration, by the government in Richmond, 
 of a prospect that promised nothing but eventual disaster. 
 On establishing himself in Bowling Green early in October, 
 General Johnston wrote to the "War Department : " We have 
 received but little accession to our ranks since the Confederate 
 forces crossed the line in fact, no such enthusiastic demon 
 stration as to justify any movements not warranted by our 
 ability to maintain our own communications." He repeatedly 
 called upon the government for reinforcements. He made a 
 call upon several States of the Southwest, including Tennessee, 
 for large numbers of troops. The call was revoked at the in 
 stance of the authorities in Richmond, who declined to furnish 
 twelve months volunteers with arms ; and Gen. Johnston, thus 
 discouraged and baffled by a government which was friendly 
 enough to him personally, but insensible to the public exigency 
 for which he pleaded, was left in the situation of imminent 
 peril, in which Gen. Beauregard was sp surprised to find 
 him. 
 
 A memorandum was made of the conference between the 
 two generals. In the plans of Gen. Johnston, Gen. Beaure 
 gard entirely concurred. It was determined to fight for Nash 
 ville at Donelson, and Gen. Johnston gave the best part of his 
 army to do it, retaining only, to cover his front, fourteen thou 
 sand men, about three thousand of whom were so enfeebled by 
 recent sickness that they were unable to march. 
 
 BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON. 
 
 OD tne 9th February, Gen. Pillow had been ordered to pro 
 
24:6 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 ceed to Fort Donelson and take command at that place, which 
 it was supposed would be an immediate object of attack by 
 Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his combined land and naval forces 
 JS"o time was lost in getting the works in defensible condition. 
 The armament of the batteries consisted of thirteen guns 01 
 different calibres. The site of the fortification was plainly un 
 favorable in view of a land attack, being commanded by the 
 heights above and below the river, and by a continuous range 
 of hills all around the work to its rear. A line of intrench- 
 ments about two miles in extent was occupied by the troops. 
 
 On the morning of the 13th of February, Gen. Floyd, who 
 had been stationed at Kussellville, reached the fort by orders 
 transmitted by telegraph from Gen. A. S. Johnston, at Bowling 
 Green. Soon after his arrival, the intrenchments were fully 
 occupied from one end to the other, and just as the sun rose 
 the cannonade from one of the enemy s gunboats announced 
 the opening of the conflict, which was destined to continue for 
 several days and nights. The fire soon became general along? 
 our whole lines. 
 
 During the whole day the enemy kept up a general and ac 
 tive fire from all arms upon our trenches. At several points 
 along the line he charged with uncommon vigor, but was met 
 with a spirit of courageous resistance, which by nightfall had 
 driven him, discomfited and cut to pieces, back upon the posi 
 tion he had assumed in the morning. The results of the day 
 were encouraging. The strength of our defensive line had 
 been pretty well tested, and the loss sustained by our forces 
 was not large, our men being mostly under shelter in the rifle 
 pits. 
 
 The enemy continued his fire upon different parts of the in 
 trenchments throughout the night, which deprived the Con 
 federate troops of any opportunity to sleep. They lay that 
 night upon their arms in the trenches. A more vigorous at 
 tack from the enemy than ever, was confidently expected at the 
 dawn of day ; but in this the Confederates were entirely mis 
 taken. The day advanced, and no preparation seemed to be 
 making for a general onset. The smoke of a large number of 
 gunboats and steamboats on the river was observed a short dis 
 tance below, and information at the same time was received 
 within our lines of the arrival of a large number of new troops 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 247 
 
 greatly increasing the strength of the enemy s forces, already 
 said to be from twenty to thirty thousand strong. 
 
 About three o clock in the afternoon the enemy s fleet 01 
 gunboats, in full force, advanced upon the fort and opened fire 
 They advanced in the shape of a crescent, and kept up a con 
 stant fire for an hour and a half. Once the boats reached a 
 point within a few hundred yards of the fort. The effects of 
 our shot upon the iron-cased boats were now distinctly visible. 
 Two or three well-directed shots from the heavy guns of the 
 fort drove back the nearest boat ; several shot struck another 
 boat, tearing her iron case and splintering her timbers, and 
 making them crack as if by a stroke of lightning, when she, 
 too, fell back. A third boat received several severe shocks / 
 making her metal ring and her timbers crack, when the whole 
 line gave way and fell rapidly back from the fire of the fort, 
 until they passed out of range. 
 
 The incidents of the two days had all been in our favor. 
 We had repulsed the enemy in the battle of fche trenches, 
 broken the line of his gunboats, and discomfited him on the 
 water. 
 
 In the mean time, however, reinforcements were continually 
 reaching the enemy ; and it might have been evident from the 
 first that the whole available force of the Federals on the west 
 ern waters could and would be concentrated at Fort Donelson, 
 if it was deemed necessary to reduce it. A consultation of the 
 officers of divisions and brigades was called by General Floyd, 
 to take place after dark. It was represented that it was an ab 
 solute impossibility to hold out for any length of time with our 
 inadequate number and indefensible position ; that there was 
 no place within our intrenchments but could be reached by 
 the enemy s artillery from their boats or their batteries ; that 
 it was but fair to infer that, while they kept up a sufficient fire 
 upon our intrenchments to keep our men from sleep and pre 
 vent repose, their object was merely to give time to pass a 
 column above us on the river, and to cut off our communica 
 tions ; and that but one course was left by which a rational 
 hope could be entertained of saving the garrison, and that wai 
 to dislodge the enemy from his position on our left, and thus 
 to pass our troops into the open country lying southward 
 towards Nashville. 
 
243 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 It was thus determined to remove from the trenches at an 
 early hour the next morning, and attack the enemy in his posi 
 tion. There was, in fact, no other alternative. The enemy 
 had been busy in throwing his forces of every arm around the 
 Confederates, extending his line of investment entirely around 
 their position, and completely enveloping them. Every road 
 and possible avenue of departure was intercepted, with the cer 
 tainty that our sources of supply by the river would soon be 
 cut off by the enemy s batteries placed upon the river above us. 
 
 The sufferings of our army had already been terrible. The 
 day of the opening of the battle (Thursday) was very cold, the 
 mercury being only ten degrees above zero, and during the 
 night, while our troops were watching on their arms in the 
 trenches, it sleeted and snowed. The distance between the two 
 armies was so slight that but few of the dead of either could 
 be taken off, and many of the wounded who could neither 
 walk nor crawl remained for more than two days where they 
 fell. Some of our men lay wounded before our earth-works at 
 night, calling for help and water, and our troops who went 
 out to bring them in were discovered in the moonlight and 
 fired upon by the enemy. Many of our wounded were not re 
 covered until Sunday morning some of them still alive, but 
 blue with cold, and covered with frost and snow. It would 
 have been merciful if each army had been permitted, under a 
 flag of truce, to bring off its wounded at the close of each day ; 
 but it was not so, and they lay in the frost and sleet between 
 the two armies many to hear, but none to help them. 
 
 For nearly a week a large portion of our troops had been 
 guarding their earth-works, and from the day of the battle 
 they had been out in force night and day. Many of them in 
 the rifle-pits froze their feet and hands. The severity of the 
 cold was such that the clothes of many of the troops were so 
 stiff from frozen water, that could they have been taken off, 
 they would have stood alone. 
 
 At the meeting of general officers called by Gen. Floyd on 
 Friday night, it was unanimously determined to cut open a 
 route of exit, and thus to save our army. The plan of attack 
 agreed upon and directed by Gen. Floyd was, that Gen. Pillow 
 assisted by Gen. Bushrod Johnson, having also under his com 
 mand commanders of brigades, Col. Baldwin, commanding 
 
THE FIBST YEAK. 249 
 
 Mississippi and Tennessee troops, and Col. "Wharton and Col. 
 McCausland, commanding Virginians, should, with the main 
 body of the forces defending our left wing, attack the right 
 wing of the enemy occupying the heights reaching to the bank 
 of the river ; that Gen. Buckner, with the forces under his 
 command, and defending the right of our line, should strike 
 the enemy s encampment on the Winn s Ferry road ; and that 
 each command should leave in the trenches troops to hold 
 them. 
 
 The attack on the left was delayed, as Gen. Pillow moved 
 out of his position in the morning. He found the enemy pre 
 pared to receive him in advance of his encampment. For two 
 hours this. principal portion of the battle-field was hotly and 
 stubbornly contested, and strewn with piles of dead. The 
 Federal troops in this quarter fought with a steadiness and de 
 termination rarely witnessed, and the exhibition of their cour 
 age on this field afforded a lesson to the South of a spirit that 
 it had not expected in an enemy whose valor it had been ac 
 customed to deride and sneer at since the battle of Manassas 
 The Federals did not retreat, but fell back fighting us and con 
 testing every inch of ground. Being forced to yield, they re 
 tired slowly towards the "Winn s Ferry road, Buckner s poirt 
 of attack. 
 
 On this road, where Gen. Buckner s command was expected 
 to flank the enemy, it had been forced to retire from his bat 
 tery, and as the enemy continued to fall back, Gen. Buckner s 
 troops became united with the forces of Gen. Pillow in engaging 
 the enemy, who had again been reinforced. The entire com 
 mand of the enemy had been forced to our right wing, and in 
 front of Gen. Buckner s position in the intrenchment. The 
 advantage was instantly appreciated. The enemy drove back 
 the Confederates, advanced on the trenches on the extreme 
 right of Gen. Buckner s command, getting possession, after a 
 stubborn conflict of two hours, of the most important and com 
 manding position of the battle-field, being in the rear of our 
 river batteries, and, advancing with fresh forces towards our 
 left, drove back our troops from the ground that had been won 
 in the severe and terrible conflict of the early part of the day 
 
 The field had been won by the enemy after nine hours of 
 conflict. Night found him in possession of all the ground that 
 
250 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 had been won by our troops in the morning and occupying the 
 most commanding portion of onr intrenched work, to drive 
 hivn from which the most desperate assaults of our troops had 
 been unsuccessful. The enemy had been landing reinforce 
 ments throughout the day. His numbers had been augmented 
 to eighty-two regiments. We had only about 13,000 troops 
 all told. Of these we had lost in three different battles a large 
 proportion. The command had been in the trenches night and 
 day, exposed to the snow, sleet, mud, and ice- water, without 
 shelter, without adequate covering, and without sleep. To re 
 new the combat with any hope of successful result was obvi 
 ously vain. 
 
 A council of general officers was called at night. It was 
 suggested that a desperate onset upon the right of the enemy s 
 forces on the ground might result in the extrication of a con 
 siderable proportion of the command. A majority of the coun 
 cil rejected this proposition. Gen. Buckner remarked, that it 
 would cost the command three-fourths its present numbers to 
 cut its way out, and it was wrong to sacrifice three-fourths to 
 save one-fourth ; that no officer had a right to cause such a 
 sacrifice. The alternative of the proposition was a surrender 
 of the position and command. Gen. Floyd and Gen. Pillow 
 each, declared that they would not surrender themselves pris 
 oners. The former claimed that he had a right individually 
 to determine that he would not survive a surrender. He said 
 that he would turn over the command to Gen. Buckner, if he 
 (Gen. Floyd) could be allowed to withdraw his own particular 
 brigade. To this Gen. Buckner consented. Thereupon, the 
 command was turned over to Gen. Pillow, he passing it in 
 stantly to Gen. Buckner, declaring that " he would neither sur 
 render the command nor himself." Col. Forrest, at the head 
 of an efficient regiment of cavalry, was directed to accompany 
 Gens. Floyd and Pillow in what was supposed to be an effort 
 to pass through the enemy s lines. Under these circumstances, 
 Gen. Buckner accepted the command. He sent a flag of truce 
 to the enemy for an armistice of six n*ours, to negotiate for 
 terms of capitulation.* Before the flag and communication 
 
 * The following is a correct list of the Confederate prisoners taken at Fort 
 Oonelson, The number was reported in the newspapers of the time, South 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 251 
 
 were delivered, Gens. Pillow and Floyd had retired from the 
 garrison, and by daylight were pursuing their retreat towards 
 STashville, the largest portion of the command of the latter 
 toiling in their flight along the banks of the Tennessee, but 
 without a pursuing enemy to harass them. 
 
 The surrender of Donelson was rendered memorable by the 
 hardest fighting that had yet occurred in the war, and by one 
 of the most terrible and sickening battle-fields that had yet 
 marked its devastations, or had ever appealed to the horror- 
 stricken senses of humanity. The conflict had run through 
 four days and four nights ; in which a Confederate force not 
 exceeding 13,000, a large portion of whom were illy armed, 
 had contended with an army at least three times its number. 
 The loss of the Federals was immense, and the proofs of an 
 undeniable courage were left in the numbers of their dead on 
 the field. In his official report of the battle, Gen. Floyd con 
 jectures that the enemy s loss in killed and wounded reached a 
 number beyond 5,000. The same authority, gives our loss at 
 1,500. Both statements are only conjectural. 
 
 The scene of action had been mostly in the woods, although 
 there were two open places of an acre or two where the fight 
 had raged furiously, and the ground was covered with dead. 
 All the way up to our intrenchments the same scene of death 
 was presented. There were two miles of dead strewn thickly, 
 mingled with fire-arms, artillery, dead horses, and the para 
 phernalia of the battle-field. Federals and Confederates were 
 promiscuously mingled, sometimes grappling in the fierce death 
 throe, sometimes facing each other as they gave and received 
 the fatal shot and thrust, sometimes huddled in grotesque 
 shapes, and again heaped in piles, which lay six or seven feet 
 deep. Many of the bodies were fearfully mangled. The artil 
 lery horses had not hesitated to tread on the wounded, dying, 
 
 as well as North, to have been much larger : Floyd s Virginia Artillery, 34 ; 
 Cray s Virginia Artillery, 59 ; French s Virginia Artillery, 43 ; Murray s 
 Battery, 97 ; Cumberland Battery, 55 ; Fiftieth Tennessee, 485 ; Fourteenth 
 Mississippi, 326 ; Third Mississippi, 330 ; Seventh Texas, 354 ; Twenty-sixth 
 Mississippi, 427 ; Twenty-seventh Alabama, 180 ; Third Tennessee, 627 ; Tenth 
 Tennessee, 608; Forty-second Tennessee, 494; Forty-eighth Tennessee, 249 
 Forty-ninth Tennessee, 450 ; Twenty-sixth Tennessee, 65 ; Second Kentucky 
 136; Third Alabama, 34; Fiftieth Virginia, 10; Fifty-first Tennessee, 17 
 Total, 5,079. 
 
252 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and dead, and the ponderous artillery wheels crushed limbs 
 and skulls. It was an awful sight to behold weak, wounded 
 men lifting their feeble hands beneath the horses hoofs. The 
 village of Dover, which was within our lines, contained in every 
 room in every house sick, wounded, or dead men. Bloody rags 
 were everywhere, and a door could not be opened without 
 hearing groans. 
 
 " I could imagine," says an eye-witness of the field of car 
 nage, " nothing more terrible than the silent indications of 
 agony that marked the features of the pale corpses which lay 
 at every step. Though dead and rigid in every muscle, they 
 still writhed and seemed to turn to catch the passing breeze 
 for a cooling breath. Staring eyes, gaping mouths, clinched 
 hands, and strangely contracted limbs, seemingly drown into 
 the smallest compass, as if by a mighty effort to rend asunder 
 some irresistible bond which held them down to the torture of 
 which they died. One sat against a tree, and, with mouth and 
 eyes wide open, looked up into the sky as if to catch a glance 
 at its fleeting spirit. Another clutched the branch of an over 
 hanging tree, and hung half-suspended, as if in the death-pang 
 he had raised himself partly from the ground ; the other had 
 grasped his faithful musket, and the compression of his mouth 
 told of the determination which would have been fatal to a foe 
 had life ebbed a minute later. A third clung with both hands 
 to a bayonet which was buried in the ground. Great num 
 bers lay in heaps, just as the fire of the artillery mowed them 
 down, mangling their forms into an almost undistinguishable 
 mass." 
 
 The display of courage on the part of the Federal troops 
 was unquestionable. The battle, however, was fought against 
 us by Western men, there not being in the ranks of the enemy, 
 as far as known, any men east of the Ohio. The Southern 
 people, while contemning the fighting qualities of the New 
 England " Yankee" and the Pennsylvania Dutchman, were 
 constrained to give to the Western men credit for their 
 bravery ; and many of our own officers did not hesitate to ex 
 press the opinion that the Western troops, particularly from 
 southern Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa, were as good fighting 
 material as there was to be found on the continent. A Con 
 federate officer relates a story of an extraordinary display of 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 2f>3 
 
 t on the field of Donelson by a regiment c f Zouaves from 
 southern Illinois the " Egypt" regiment, as it was called. It 
 had been completely shattered by the fire of artillery, and was 
 scattered over the fields in what the Confederates supposed 
 to be an irretrievable rout. A few sharp rallying words from 
 their color-bearer, and the men, who a few minutes ago were 
 fugitives, flocked to their colors, at the double quick, from dif 
 ferent parts of the field, and re-formed in the very face of the 
 advancing foe. 
 
 The fall of Fort Donelson developed the crisis in the "West, 
 which had long existed. The evacuation of Bowling Green 
 had become imperatively necessary, and was ordered before 
 and executed while the battle was being fought at Donelson. 
 Gen. Johnston awaited the event opposite Nashville. The re 
 sult of the conflict each day was announced as favorable. At 
 midnight on the 15th February, Gen. Johnston received news 
 of a glorious victory at dawn of a defeat. 
 
 The blow was most disastrous. It involved the surrender of 
 Nashville, which was incapable of defence from its position, 
 and was threatened not only by the enemy s ascent of the 
 Cumberland, but by the advance of his forces from Bowling 
 Green. Not more than 11,000 effective men had been left 
 under Gen. Johnston s command to oppose, a column of Gen 
 Buell, of not less than 40,000 troops, while the army from 
 Fort Donelson, with the gunboats and transports, had it in 
 their power to ascend the Cumberland, so as to intercept an 
 cc mmunication with the South. No alternative was left but 
 to evacuate Nashville or sacrifice the army. 
 
 The evacuation of Nashville was attended by scenes of panic 
 and distress on the part of the population unparalleled in the 
 annals of any American city. The excitement was intensified 
 by the action of the authorities. Governor Harris mounted a 
 horse and galloped through the streets, proclaiming to every 
 body the news that Donelson had fallen ; that the enemy were 
 coming and might be expected hourly, and that all who wished 
 to leave had better do so at once. He next hastily convened 
 the Legislature, adjourned it to Memphis, and, with the legis 
 lators and the State archives, left the town. 
 
 An earthquake could nut have shocked the city more. The 
 congregations at the churches were broken up in confusion anti 
 
254 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 dismay ; women and children rushed into the streets, wailing 
 with terror ; trunks were thrown from three-story windows in 
 the haste of the fugitives; and thousands hastened to leave 
 their beautiful city in the midst of the most distressing scenes 
 of terror and confusion, and of plunder by the mob. 
 
 Gen. Johnston had moved the main body of his command 
 to Murfreesboro a rear-guard being left in Nashville under 
 Gen. Floyd, who had arrived from Donelson, to secure the 
 stores and provisions. In the first wild excitement of the 
 panic, the store-houses had been thrown open to the poor. 
 They were besieged by a mob ravenous for spoils, and who had 
 to be dispersed from the commissariat by jets of water from a 
 steam fire-engine. Women and children, even, were seen 
 scudding through the streets under loads of greasy pork, which 
 they had taken as prizes from the store-houses. It is believed 
 that hundreds of families, among the lower orders of the popu 
 lation, secured and secreted government stores enough to open 
 respectable groceries. It was with the greatest difficulty that 
 Gen. Floyd could restore order and get his martial law into 
 any thing like an effective system. Blacks and whites had to 
 be chased and captured and forced to help the movement of 
 government stores. One man, who, after a long chase, was 
 captured, offered fight, and was in consequence shot and badly 
 wounded. Not less than one million of dollars in stores was 
 lost through the acts of the cowardly and ravenous mob of 
 Nashville. Gen. Floyd and Col. Forrest exhibited extraordi 
 nary energy and efficiency in getting off" government stores. 
 Col. Forrest remained in the city about twenty-four hours, with 
 only forty men, after the arrival of the enemy at Edgefield. 
 These officers were assisted by the voluntary efforts of several 
 patriotic citizens of Nashville, who rendered them great as 
 sistance. 
 
 These shameful scenes, enacted in the evacuation of Nash 
 ville, were nothing more than the disgusting exhibitions of any 
 mob brutalized by its fears or excited by rapine. At any rate, 
 the city speedily repaired the injury done its reputation by a 
 temporary panic, in the spirit of defiance that its best citizens 
 ind especially its ladies, offered to the enemy. We discover, 
 m fact, the most abundant evidence in the Northern news 
 papers that the Federals did not find the v Union" sentiment 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 255 
 
 that they expected to meet with in the capital of Tennessee ; 
 and that, if there were any indications whatever of such senti 
 ment, they were " found only among the mechanics and labor 
 ing classes of the city." The merchants and business men of 
 Nashville, as a class, showed a firm, unwavering, and loyal at 
 tachment to the cause of the South. The ladies gave instances 
 of patriotism that were noble testimonies to their sex. They 
 refused the visits of Federal officers, and disdained their recog 
 nition ; they collected a fund of money for the especial pur 
 pose of contributing to the needs of our prisoners ; and, says 
 a recipient of the bounty of these noble women, as soon as a 
 Confederate prisoner was paroled, ana passed into the next 
 room, he found pressed in his hands there a sum of money 
 given him by the ladies of Nashville. Many of the most re 
 spectable of the people had been constrained to leave their 
 homes rather than endure the presence of the enemy. The 
 streets, which, to confirm the predictions of Northern news 
 papers of the welcomes that awaited the " Union" army in the 
 South, should have been gay and decorated, presented to the 
 enemy nothing but sad and gloomy aspects. Whole rows oi 
 houses, which, but a short while ago, were occupied by families 
 of wealth and respectability, surrounded by all the circum 
 stances that make homes happy and prosperous, stood vacant, 
 and the gaze of the passer-by was met, instead of, as in former 
 days, with fine tapestry window-curtains and neatly polished 
 marble steps, with panes of dust-dimmed glass. 
 
 On the whole, the experience of the enemy in Nashville was 
 vastly instructive. The fact that, wherever he had gone, he 
 had converted lukewarm Southern districts into Secession 
 strongholds, or had intensified the sentiment of opposition to 
 him, was as unexpected to him as it was gratifying to us. 
 This experience was universal in the war, from the date of the 
 occupation of Alexandria, which had voted overwhelmingly 
 for the Union in the preliminary stages of the revolution, and 
 was subsequently as thoroughly Southern as any town in the 
 Confederacy, down to the occupation of Nashville, which had 
 at first given some signs of weak submission to its fate, and 
 afterwards spurned its invaders with a spirit of defiance, reek- 
 less of consequences. 
 
 In the neighborhood of Nashville, the enemy was constantlj 
 
256 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 harassed by local parties of adventurers, who shot his pickets, 
 watched his movements, and attacked detached portions of hia 
 forces at various points. The whole country rang with the 
 exploits of the gallant and intrepid cavalier, Captain John EL 
 Morgan and his brave men, in the vicinity of Nashville. Hi? 
 squadron belonged to Gen. Hardee s command, and he had 
 been left in command of the forces at Murfreesboro to watct 
 the movements of the Federals, which he not only did effec 
 tually, but enacted a number of daring adventures within the 
 lines of the enemy. 
 
 Scarcely a day passed without some such exploit of Capt 
 Morgan and his intrepid partisans. Once he nearly succeeded 
 in capturing a Federal general. Another day he attacked a 
 party of scouts, and killed the captain. The next exploit 
 was to rush into the camp of some regiment, and carry off a 
 train of wagons. The most daring of his adventures was his 
 sudden appearance in the rear of the enemy, entering with 
 forty brave followers the town of Gallatin, twenty-six mile 
 north of Nashville, on the Louisville and Nashville railroad. 
 On entering the town, Capt. Morgan immediately seized upon 
 the telegraph office and the depot. He had presented himseli 
 at the telegraph office, carelessly asking the operator what waa 
 the news, when that individual, never for a moment imagining 
 who it was that addressed him, replied that there were rumors 
 that " the rebel scoundrel" Morgan was in the neighborhood, 
 and proceeded to illustrate his own valor by flourishing a re 
 volver, and declaring how anxious he was to encounter the man 
 who was creating so much uneasiness and alarm in the country. 
 " You are now speaking to Captain Morgan" was the quiet 
 reply of the partisan : " I am he !" At these words, the pistol 
 dropped from the hands of the operator, who entreated the 
 mercy of his captor. The poor fellow easily submitted to the 
 task assigned to him of sending a dispatch, in the name oi 
 Capt. Morgan, to Prentice, the notorious editor of the Louis 
 ville Journal, politely offering to act as his escort on his pro 
 posed visit to Nashville. After this amusement, Capt. Morgan 
 and his men awaited the arrival of the train from Bowling 
 Green. In due time the train came thundering in ; Capt. Mor 
 gan at once seized it, and taking five Federal officers who were 
 passengers and the engineer or the train prisoners, he burned 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 257 
 
 to cinders all of the cars, with their contents, and then filling 
 the locomotive with turpentine, shut down all the valves, and 
 started it towards Nashville. Before it had run eight hundred 
 yards, the accumulation of steam caused it to explode, shiver 
 ing it into a thousand atoms. Capt. Morgan then started 
 southward with his prisoners, and made his way safely to the 
 Confederate camp. 
 
 On another occasion, while returning alone towards Mur- 
 freesboro, Capt. Morgan encountered a picket of six of the 
 enemy, and captured them and their arms. It was accom 
 plished by a bold adventure. He discovered the pickets in a 
 house, and having on a Federal overcoat, assumed a bold front, 
 and riding up to the sergeant rebuked him for not attending 
 properly to his duty, and ordered that the whole party should 
 consider themselves under arrest, and surrender their arms. 
 The soldiers, not doubting for a moment that they were ad 
 dressed by a Federal officer, delivered up their muskets. A* 
 they were marched into the road, with their faces turned fron 
 their camp, the sergeant said, " We are going the wrong way 
 colonel." " We are not," was the reply. " I am Captain 
 Morgan," 
 
 The name of Captain Morgan was fast becoming famous as . 
 that of a partisan leader. He was induced to abandon his 
 present field of operations to accept promotion in the army, 
 being appointed to a colonelcy in the regular military ser 
 vice, for which he had been urgently recommended by Gen. 
 Hardee. 
 
 Since falling back to Murfreesboro, Gen. Johnston had 
 managed, by combining Crittenden s division and the fugitives 
 from Donelson, to collect an army of 17,000 men. His object 
 was now to co-operate with Gen. Beauregard for the defence 
 of the Yalley of the Mississippi, on a line of operations south 
 of Nashville. The line extending from Columbus, by way of 
 Forts Henry and Donelson, had been lost. The disaster had 
 involved the surrender of Kentucky, and a large portion of 
 Tennessee to the enemy ; and it had become necessary to re 
 organize a new line of defence south of Nashville, the object 
 of which would be to protect the railroad system of the 
 Southwest, and to insure the defence of Memphis and the Mis 
 sissippi. 
 
 17 
 
258 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 The work of putting the Mississippi river in a state of com 
 plete defence had bee^ intrusted to General Beauregard. On 
 abandoning Columbus, he had taken a strong position about 
 forty-five miles below k, at Island N"o. 10. This locality was 
 looked upon as the chief barrier to the progress of the Federals 
 down the Mississippi. At the island, a bend occurs in the 
 river of several miles extent. Around and upon this curve 
 were located the towns of New Madrid and Point Pleasant. 
 The distance around the bend was about thirty miles, whereas 
 the distance across by land from Tiptonville below to the island 
 above did not exceed five miles. It was calculated that even 
 should the enemy hold Point Pleasant, and get possession of 
 "New Madrid by our evacuation of that post also, our communi 
 cations by water to Tiptonville, and thence by land across the 
 bend to Island No. 10, would still remain intact. The island 
 was thought to be impregnable. It was flanked on the Mis 
 souri side by an extensive swamp, and on the other side by a 
 lake of several miles extent, which rendered it impossible for 
 the enemy to approach the position by land. 
 
 With this indication of the situation in the West, and the 
 operations for the defence of Memphis and the Mississippi, to 
 which the southward movement of Gen. Johnston towards the 
 left bank of the Tennessee was expected to contribute, we must 
 leave, for a short period, our narrative of the movements and 
 events of the war in this direction. 
 
 The serious disaster at Donelson appears to have been fully 
 appreciated by the Confederate government ; and its announce 
 ment in Eichmond was followed, to the surprise of the public, 
 by a communication from President Davis to Congress, on the 
 1 1th of March, declaring the official reports of the affair in 
 complete and unsatisfactory, and " relieving from command" 
 Gens. Floyd and Pillow. The main causes of dissatisfaction 
 indicated by the President were, that reinforcements were not 
 asked for by the commanding generals at Donelson, and that 
 the senior generals " abandoned responsibility," by transferring 
 the command to a junior officer. This act of President Davis 
 was the subject of warm and protracted argument in Congress 
 and in the newspapers. It was shown, by evidence produced 
 before Congress, that no reinforcements had been asked for, 
 because it was known how much the command of Gen. Johns- 
 
THE FIRST YEAR, 259 
 
 6011 liad already been weakened by sending Floyd s and Buck- 
 ner s forces to Donelson; because an overwhelming force 01 
 the enemy was pressing on his rear ; and because Gen, Johns 
 ton s troops were on the march between Bowling Green, and 
 Nashville, and could not reach Fort Donelson in time to change 
 the fortunes of the day. 
 
 "With reference to the second assignment of cause of the 
 Piesident s displeasure, it was agreed on all sides that the 
 transfer of the command by the senior generals was irregular. 
 In a letter, however, written to the President by Gen. Johns 
 ton himself, which was understood to be private and confiden 
 tial, and was, therefore, wholly relieved from any suspicion of 
 the gloze of an official report, that officer had directed no cen 
 sure upon Gens. Floyd and Pillow. On the contrary, in the- 
 confidence of this private letter, he wrote to the President, 
 " the command was irregularly transferred, and devolved on 
 the junior general, but not apparently to avoid any just re 
 sponsibility or from any want of personal or moral intrepidity ;" 
 and he expressed continued " confidence in the gallantry, the 
 energy, and the devotion to the Confederacy," of both Gens. 
 Floyd and Pillow, which was testified especially in the case 
 of Gen. Floyd, by assigning him, after the fall of Donelson, to 
 the important duty of proceeding to Chattanooga to defend 
 the approaches towards northern Alabama and Georgia, and 
 the communication between the Mississippi and the Atlantic. 
 This was the private and unrestrained testimony of Gen. Johns 
 ton. "With perhaps a superior military sensitiveness of "ir 
 regularity," Mr. Davis repudiated the explanations of the com 
 manding general in the field ; deprived Generals Floyd and 
 Pillow of their commands; and offered the spectacle to the 
 country of a President with one hand sacrificing two brave 
 officers who had contributed to the country s glory and safety 
 01 more than one victory, for a military punctilio, and with 
 the other elevating to the highest office in his gift a man who, 
 as Attorney-general, Secretary of "War, and, at last, Secretary 
 of State, seemed to enjoy the monopoly of the lucre and hon 
 ors of state, and who had been charged, by the official report 
 of a general in the field, and by the deliberate and unanimous 
 verdict of a committee of Congress, with the plain and exclu 
 sive responsibility of the disaster of Roanoke Island. The 
 
260 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 contrast between these two acts needed no addition of argu 
 ment to convince the public mind that its government was not 
 above the errors of judgment or the partialities of human affec 
 tion. 
 
 The disposition of the Confederate prisoners taken at For 
 Donelson gave an exhibition of vile perfidy on the part of the 
 North, to which there is no parallel to be found in the history 
 of civilized warfare, or in all the crooked paths of modern 
 diplomacy. Instead of these prisoners being discharged by the 
 North according to the understanding existing between the 
 two governments, they were carried oif into the Western 
 interior, where they were treated with indignities and made a 
 spectacle for mobs, who jeered at them because they did not 
 have uniforms and warm coats, because many of the poor 
 fellows had nothing better than horse blankets, rags, and coffee 
 sacks around their shoulders, and because the "rebels" 
 whose true glory a just and generous spirit would have found 
 in their coarse and tattered garbs and marks of patient suffer 
 ing lacked the fine and show r y equipments of the Federal 
 troops. This act of bad faith on the part of the North is re 
 markable enough for a full and explicit history of the circum 
 stances in which it was committed. 
 
 Permission had been asked by the Northern government foi 
 two commissioners, Messrs. Fish and Ames, to visit their 
 prisoners of war within the jurisdiction of the South. Our 
 government, while denying this permission, sought to improve 
 the opportunity by concerting a settled plan for the exchange 
 of prisoners; and for the execution of this purpose Messrs. 
 Conrad and Seddon were deputed as -commissioners to meet 
 those of the Northern government under a flag of truce at 
 Norfolk. 
 
 Subsequently a letter from Gen. Wool was addressed to Gen 
 linger, informing him that he, Gen. Wool, had full authority 
 to settle any terms for the exchange of prisoners, and asking 
 an interview on the subject. General Howell Cobb was then 
 appointed by the government to mediate with Gen. Wool, and 
 to settle a permanent plan for the exchange of prisoners during 
 the war. 
 
 In the letter to General Huger, dated the 13th of February 
 1862, General Wool wrote : 
 
THE FIEST YEAK. 261 
 
 "lam alone clothed with full power for the purpose of arranging for the 
 exchange of prisoners. Being thus empowered, I am ready to confer with you 
 on the subject, or the Honorable Messrs. Seddon and Conrad, or any other 
 persons appearing for that purpose. I am prepared to arrange for the resto 
 ration of all the prisoners to their homes on fair terms of exchange, man for 
 man/and officer for officer of equal grade, assimilating the grade of officers of 
 the army and navy, when necessary, and agreeing upon equitable terms for 
 the number of men or officers, of inferior grade, to be exchanged for any of 
 higher grade when the occasion shall arrive. That all the surplus prisoners 
 on either side be exchanged on parole, with the agreement that any prisoners 
 of war taken ~by the other party shall be returned in exchange as fast as captured, 
 and this system to be continued while hostilities continue. 
 
 " I would further inform you, or any other person selected for the purpose 
 of making arrangements for the exchange of prisoners, that the prisoners 
 taken on board of vessels, or otherwise in maritime conflict, b.y the forces of 
 the United States, have been put, and are now held, only in military custody, 
 and on the same footing as other prisoners taken in arms" 
 
 The proposition, it appears, was readily accepted by our 
 government, and a memorandum made as a basis for a cartel. 
 It was proposed in this memorandum that the prisoners of war 
 in the hands of each government should be exchanged, man for 
 man, the officers being assimilated as to rank, &c. ; that our 
 privateersmen should be exchanged on the footing of prisoners 
 of war ; that any surplus remaining on either side, after these 
 exchanges, should be released, and that hereafter, during the 
 whole continuance of the war, prisoners taken on either side 
 should be paroled within ten days after their capture, and de 
 livered on the frontier of their own country. 
 
 General "Wool promptly agreed to all the propositions except 
 two. In lieu of the compensation basis of equivalents contain 
 ed in one of the items of the memorandum, he proposed the 
 cartel of equivalents adopted by Great Britain and the United 
 States, in the war of 1812, and General Cobb accepted it. 
 
 He also objected to the provisions in another item, which 
 required each party to pay the expense of transporting their 
 prisoners to the frontier of the country of the prisoners. The 
 provision met his entire approval, but he did not feel authorized, 
 by his instructions, to incorporate it into the proposed cartel, 
 and, therefore, desired time to consult his government on the 
 subject. 
 
 The interview closed with the promise from General "Wool 
 that he would notify General Cobb, as soon as he could hear 
 from his government, on that point. 
 
262 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF 1HE TTAB. 
 
 On the first of March General Cobb held his second interview 
 with him, in which he (General Cobb) proposed to enter into a 
 cartel^ containing the stipulations previously set forth. Gen. 
 Wool then replied that his government would not agree to the 
 proposition that each party should pay the expense of trans 
 porting their prisoners to the frontier, when General Cobb 
 promptly waived it, thus leaving the cartel free from all his 
 objections, and just what General Wool had himself proposed 
 in his letter of the 13th February, to General Huger. 
 
 Upon this, General Wool informed General Cobb that his 
 government had changed his instructions, and abruptly broke 
 off the negotiation. 
 
 In the mean time our government, in a very curious or very 
 foolish anticipation of the good faith of the North, had directed 
 the discharge of the prisoners held by us as hostages for the 
 safety and proper treatment of our privateersmen, who were 
 confined in felons cells and threatened with the gallows. Cols. 
 Lee, Cogswell, and Wood, and Major Revere were sent to their 
 own country ; the remaining hostages were brought on parole 
 from distant points to Richmond, on their way to be delivered 
 up, at the expense of this government, and their surrender 
 was only suspended on receipt of intelligence from General 
 Cobb, that he saw reason to suspect bad faith on the part of 
 the enemy. 
 
 The perfidy of the North was basely accomplished.* The 
 
 * Tliis act of deception on the part of the North was but one of a long 
 series of acts of Yankee perfidy, and of their abnegation of the rights oi 
 civilized war. When McDowell left Washington city to take Eichmond, his 
 army was supplied with handcuffs to iron rebels. After the battle of Bull 
 Run they sent a white flag to ask permission to bury their dead. It was 
 humanely granted. They left their dead to bury their dead, and attempted, 
 uuder the protection of that white flag, to erect batteries for our destruction. 
 On the battle-field of Manassas they unfurled a Confederate flag, and shouted 
 to our troops not to fire upon them, that they were our friends, and then they 
 fired upon our troops and fled. At Manassas and Pensacola they repeatedly 
 and deliberately fired upon our hospitals, when over them a yellow flag was 
 waving. In Hampton Roads they hung out a white flag, and then prostituted 
 the protection it secured to them to the cowardly assassination of our brave 
 eeamen. At Newbern, in violation of the laws of war, they attempted to shell 
 a city containing several thousand women and children, before either demand 
 ing a surrender, or giving the citizens notice of their intentions. A Kentuckian 
 w*nt into a Federal camp to reclaim a fugitive slave, and they tied him up 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 263 
 
 correspondence of the Federal authorities, to which we have 
 alluded, on this subject, constitutes a chapter of diplomacy 
 (}ualin ed to attract the scorn of all civilized and honorable 
 nations. At the time when it was believed our government 
 held the larger number of prisoners, the Federal government 
 proposed to exchange all prisoners, and to place on parole, in 
 their own country, the surplus held by either party ; and oui 
 government agreed to the proposition. Before the agreement 
 could be reduced to writing, and signed by the parties, the 
 casualties of war, in the fall of Fort Donelson, reversed this 
 state of things, and gave the Federal government the largei 
 number of prisoners. With this change of things that govern 
 ment changed its policy, and deliberately, and perfidiously, 
 and shamelessly receded from the propositions to which it had 
 been distinctly committed by every obligation of truth, honor, 
 and good faith. 
 
 While Mr. Benjamin, Secretary of War, by a curious act of 
 supererogation was releasing our most important prisoners oi 
 war in advance of the conclusion of negotiations, sending them 
 North without waiting to have them regularly and safely ex 
 changed under a flag of truce in Norfolk harbor, the enemy 
 were conveying the prisoners captured at Fort Donelson to 
 Chicago and other points more distant from their homes, and 
 were parading the officers who fell into their power through 
 the entire breadth of the land, from western Tennessee, to Fort 
 Warren in Boston harbor, where they were incarcerated. Foi 
 the prisoners so curiously, and with such unnecessary haste, 
 dispatched to the North by Mr. Benjamin, not a single officer 
 taken at Fort Donelson, nor a single captive privateersman, had 
 been restored to his home. With an excess of zeal well calcu- 
 
 and gave him twenty-five lashes upon his bare back, in the presence of his 
 runaway slave. It was repeatedly proposed by the people of the South to 
 treat such an enemy without ceremony or quarter, by hanging out the black 
 flag, and making the war a lellum internetinum ; but while the South debated, 
 talked, and threatened, the North acted, availing itself of the most ferocious 
 and brutal expedients of the war, arming the slaves, breaking faith on every 
 occasion of expediency, disregarding flags of truce, stealing private property, 
 ravishing women, bombarding hospitals, and setting at defiance every law of 
 civilized warfare. Such was the perfidy and brutality of the North, to which 
 the South responded with the puerile threat of a black flag, which was never 
 hoisted, and which did not even serve the purposes of a scarecrow to its bold 
 and unscrupulous enemy 
 
264 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 latea to draw attention from bis own part of the transaction, 
 Mr. Benjamin proposed, as a retaliation upon the perfidy of the 
 North, to discharge our own citizens who were subject to 
 parole ; but happily a counsel, which proposed to redress a 
 wrong by an act disreputable to ourselves and in violation of 
 what were the obligations of our own honor in the sight of the 
 civilized world, was rejected alike by the government and the 
 country, who were content to commit the dishonor of their 
 enemy, without attempting to copy it under pleas of retaliation, 
 to the justice of history and the future judgments of the world. 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 Organization of the permanent Government of the South. The Policy of England. 
 Declaration of Earl Kussell. Onset of the Northern Forces. President Davis a 
 Alossage to Congress. The Addition of New States and Territories to the Southern 
 Confederacy. Our Indian Allies. The Financial Condition, North and South. De 
 ceitful Prospects of Peace. Effect of the Disasters to the South. Action of Congress. 
 The Conscript Bill. Provisions vs. Cotton. Barbarous Warfare of the North. The 
 Anti-slavery Sentiment. How it was unmasked in the War. Emancipation Measures 
 in the Federal Congress. Spirit of the Southern People. The Administration of Jef 
 ferson Davis. His Cabinet. The Defensive Policy. The NAVAL ENGAGEMENT IN 
 HAMPTON KOADS. Iron-clad Vessels. What the Southern Government might have 
 done. The Narrative of General Price s Campaign resumed. His Ketreat into Ar 
 kansas. The BATTLE OB- ELK HORN. Criticism of the Result. Death of General Mc- 
 Culloch. The BATTLE OF VALVERDE. The Foothold of the Confederates in New 
 Mexico. Change of the Plan of Campaign in Virginia. Abandonment of the Potomao 
 Line by the Confederates. The BATTLE OF KERNSTOWN. Colonel Turner Ashby. 
 Appearance of McClellan s Army on the Peninsula. Firmness of General Magruder. 
 The New Situation of the War in Virginia. Eecurrence of Disasters to the South 
 on the Water. The Capture of Newbern. Fall of Fort Pulaski and Fort Macon. 
 Common Sense vs. " West Point." 
 
 THE permanent government of the Confederate States was 
 organized on the 22d day of February, in a season of reverses 
 to our arms and at a dark hour in our national fortunes. 
 
 All hopes of foreign interference were positively at an end. 
 On the meeting of the British Parliament in the early part of 
 February, Earl Russell had declared that the blockade of the 
 American ports had been effective from the 15th of August, 
 in the face of the facts that the dispatches of Mr. Bunch, the 
 English consul at Charleston, said that it was not so ; and that 
 authentic accounts and letters of merchants showed that any 
 ships, leaving for the South, could be insured by a premium of 
 seven and a-half to fifteen per cent. England had accepted 
 the Treaty of Paris, and yet did not hesitate to violate the 
 principles that had been definitely consecrated by article four 
 of that treaty, by declaring the Federal blockade effective, for 
 no other reason than that " considerable prudence was neces 
 sary in the American question." In the House of Commons, 
 Mr. Gregory asserted that the non-observation of the Treaty of 
 
206 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Paris was a deception for the Confederate States, and an am 
 buscade fjr the interests of commerce throughout the world. 
 
 The Northern army had remained quiet on the Potomac, 
 amusing the Southern people with its ostentatious parades and 
 gala-day sham fights, while the government at Washington 
 was preparing an onset all along our lines from Hatteras to 
 Kansas. Burnside had captured Eoanoke Island in the east, 
 while Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the 
 Cumberland had sent the echo back to Albemarle. Buffeting 
 
 O 
 
 sleet and storm, and by forced marches, the enemy had seized 
 Bowling Green, while Sigel fell suddenly upon Springfield ; 
 the enemy s gunboats threatened Savannah, and Gen. Butler 
 hurried off his regiments and transports to the Gulf, for an at 
 tack via Ship Island upon New Orleans. 
 
 In his message to Congress, President Davis declared that 
 the magnified proportions of the war had occasioned serious 
 disasters, and that the effort was impossible to protect by our 
 arms the whole of the territory of the Confederate States, sea 
 board and inland. To the popular complaint of inefficiency in 
 the departments of the government, he declared that they had 
 done all which human power and foresight enabled them to 
 accomplish. 
 
 The increase of our territory since the opening of the war 
 was scarcely a cause for boast. The addition of new States 
 and Territories had greatly extended our lines of defence. 
 Missouri had been unable to wrest from the enemy his occu 
 pancy of her soil. Kentucky had been admitted into the Con 
 federacy only to becor ae the theatre of active hostilities, and, 
 at last, to be abandoned to the enemy. The Indian treaties 
 effected by the Provisional Congress, through the mediation 
 of Gen. Albert Pike, had secured us a rich domain, but a trou 
 blesome and worthless ally.* It was possible, however, that 
 
 * In December last, Col. James Mclntosli was sent from Arkansas isto tlio 
 Cherokee Nation to chastise the rebellious Creek chief Opoth-lay-oho-la, which 
 he did with good effect. The results of the incursion were thus enumerated 
 by Col. Mclntosh : " We captured one hundred and sixty women and children, 
 twenty negroes, thirty wagons, seventy yoke of oxen, about five hundred In 
 dian horses, several hundred head of cattle, one hundred sheep, and a great 
 quantity of property of much value to the enemy. The stronghold of Opoth 
 lay-oho-la was completely broken up and his force scattered in every direction, 
 destitute of the simplest elements of subsistence." 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 267 
 
 in this domain there might be secured a rich inheritance for 
 posterity. It comprised an area of more than eighty thousand 
 square miles, diversified by mountains filled with iron, coal, 
 and other mineral treasures, and broad-reaching plains, with 
 the Ked River running along its southern border, the Arkansas 
 river almost through its centre, and their tributaries reticulat 
 ing its entire surface. 
 
 At the time of the inauguration of our permanent govern 
 ment, there was, however, one aspect of our affairs of striking 
 encouragement. It was the condition of the finances of the 
 government. We had no floating debt. The credit of the 
 government was unimpaired among its own people. The 
 total expenditures for the year had been, in round numbers, 
 $170,000,000 ; less than one-third of the sum expended by the 
 enemy to conquer us, and less than the value of a single article 
 of export the cotton crop of the year. 
 
 In the Federal Congress it was estimated that, at the end of 
 the fiscal year (June, 1862), the public debt of the Northern 
 government would be about $750,000,000, and that the de 
 mands on the treasury, to be met by taxation, direct and indi 
 rect, would not be less than $165,000,000 per annum. 
 
 The problem of the Northern finances was formidable enough. 
 It was calculated that the Federal tax would be from four to 
 six times greater for each State than tkeir usual assessments 
 heretofore, and doubts were expressed, even by Northern jour- 
 
 The Indian Territory (not including the Osage country its extent being 
 unknown nor the 800,000 acres belonging to the Cherokees, which lie between 
 Missouri and Kansas) embraces an area of 82,073 square miles more than 
 fifty-two millions of acres, to wit : 
 
 The land of the Cherokees, Osages, Quapaws, Senecas, and Senecas and 
 Shawnees, 38,105 square miles, or 24,388,800 acres. 
 
 That of the Creeks and Seminoles, 20,531 square miles, or 13,140,000 acres. 
 
 That of the Eeserve Indians, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws, 23,437 
 square miles, or 15,000,000 acres. 
 
 Total 82,073 square miles, or 52,528,800 acres. 
 
 Its population consists of Cherokees, 23,000 ; Osages, 7,500 ; Quapaws, 320 ; 
 Creeks, 13,500 ; Seminoles, 2,500 ; Reserve Indians, 2,000 ; Choctaws, 17,500 ; 
 and Chickasaws, 4,700 making an aggregate of 71,520 souls. 
 
 This Indian country is, in many respects, really a magnificent one. Itr is 
 one of the brightest and fairest parts of the great West, and only needs the 
 devel )pment of its resources to become the equal of the most favored lands on 
 this continent. 
 
268 SOUTHEEN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 nals in the interest of the government, if it could be raised in 
 any other way than by practical confiscation. 
 
 The South, however, had already lingered too long in the 
 delusive promise of the termination of the war by the breaking 
 down of the finances of the Northern government, and had 
 entertained prospects of peace in the crude philosophy and cal 
 culations of the newspaper article, without looking to those 
 great lessons of history which showed to what lengths a war 
 might be carried despite the difficulties of finance, the confines 
 of reason, and the restraints of prudence, when actuated by 
 that venom and desperation which were shown alike by the 
 people and government of the North. The very extent of the 
 Northern expenditure should have been an occasion of alarm 
 instead of self-complacency to the South ; it showed the tre 
 mendous energy of the North and the overpowering measure 
 of its preparation ; it argued a most terrible degree of despera 
 tion ; and it indicated that the North had plunged so far into 
 the war, that there was but little sane choice between striving 
 to wade through it, and determining to turn back with certain 
 and inevitable ruin in its face. 
 
 Fortunately, the lessons of its late disasters were not entirely 
 lost upon the government of the Confederate States. They 
 happily gave fresh impulses to the authorities, and were pro 
 ductive of at least some new and vigorous political measures. 
 The most important of these was a conscript bill for increasing 
 our forces in the field. The enlargement of the proportions of 
 the war demanded such a measure ; the conflict, in which we 
 were now engaged, extended from the shores of the Chesapeake 
 to the confines of Missouri and Arizona. 
 
 The measures and expressions of the government plainly 
 intimated to the people, who had been so persistently incredu 
 lous of a long war, that it had become probable that the war 
 would be continued through a series of years, and that prepa 
 rations for the ensuing campaigns should be commensurate with 
 such a prospect. In Congress, resolutions were passed urging 
 the planters to suspend the raising of cotton, and to plant pro 
 vision crops, so as to provide for the support of the army 
 This change in the direction of our industry, besides increasing 
 the capacity of the South to sustain itself, aimed a blow at the 
 well-known selfish calculations of England to repay herself for 
 
THE FIRST YEAE. 269 
 
 past losses from the blockade, in the cheap prices expected 
 from the excessive supply of two years crops of cotton in the 
 South. The South was not to be the only or chief loser in the 
 diminished production of her great staple and the forced change 
 in her industrial pursuits. For every laborer who was divert 
 ed from the culture of cotton in the South, perhaps, four times 
 as many elsewhere, who had found subsistence in the various 
 employments growing out of its use, would be forced also out 
 of their usual occupations. The prospect of thus bringing ruin 
 upon the industrial interests of other countries was not pleas 
 ing to our people or our government ; although it was some 
 consolation to know that England, especially, might yet feel, 
 through this change of production in the South, the conse 
 quences of her folly and the merited fruits of her injustice to a 
 people who had been anxious for her amity, and had at one 
 time been ready to yield to her important commercial privi 
 leges. 
 
 In the growing successes of the Northern armies, the spirit 
 of the Southern people came to the aid of their government 
 with new power, and a generosity that was quite willing to for 
 get all its shortcomings in the past. The public sentiment had 
 been exasperated and determined in its resolution of resistance 
 to the last extremity by the evidences of ruin, barbarism, and 
 shameless atrocities that had marked the paths of the progress 
 of the enemy. The newspapers were filled with accounts of 
 outrages of the enemy in the districts occupied by him. By 
 his barbarous law of confiscation, widows and orphans had been 
 stripped of death s legacies ; he had overthrown municipalities 
 and State governments ; he had imprisoned citizens without 
 warrant, and regardless of age or sex ; he had destroyed com 
 merce, and beggared the mechanic and manufacturer ; he had 
 ripped open the knapsacks of our captured soldiery, robbing 
 them of clothing, money, necessaries of life, and even of the 
 instruments of their surgeons. The Southern people consider 
 ed that they were opposing an enemy who had proved himself 
 a foe to mankind, religion, and civilization. 
 
 The venomous spirit of Abolition had been free to develop 
 itself in the growing successes of the Northern arms. It is a 
 curious commentary on the faith of the people of the North, or 
 rather a striking exposure of the subserviency of all the ex- 
 
270 SOUTHERN" H1STOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 pressions of opinion on the part of that people to considerations 
 of expediency, that, in the beginning of hostilities, even aftoi 
 the proclamation of war by President Lincoln, when it was yet 
 thought important to affect moderation, fugitive slaves from 
 Virginia were captured in the streets of Washington, and, by 
 the direct authority of the Northern government, returned to 
 their masters! A few months later, negro slaves were kid 
 napped from their masters by the Federal army, under the 
 puerile and nonsensical*pretence of their being " contraband of 
 war." The anti-slavery purposes of the war rapidly developed 
 from that point. The Northern journals declared that the ex 
 cision of slavery was one of the important objects of the war ; 
 thai the opportunity was to be taken in the prosecution of hos 
 tilities to crush out what had been the main cause of difference, 
 and thus to assure the fruit of a permanent peace. In his mes 
 sage to the Federal Congress in December, Mr. Lincoln had 
 hinted that " all indispensable means" must be employed to 
 preserve the Union. An order was published by the "War 
 Department making it the occasion of a court-martial for any 
 army officer to return any negro slave within his lines to his 
 master. It was followed by the explanation of Mr. Lincoln s 
 former hint. In an executive message to the Federal Congress, 
 the policy of " the gradual abolishment of slavery," with the 
 pretence of " pecuniary aid" to States adopting such policy, 
 was advised ; it was approved in the House of Representatives, 
 by a vote of 88 to 31 ; and about the same time a bill was 
 introduced into the Senate for the forcible emancipation of the 
 negro slaves in the District- of Columbia, which was subse 
 quently passed. 
 
 These bitter exhibitions of the North had envenomed the 
 war ; its sanguinary tides rose higher ; its battle-fields emu 
 lated in carnage the most desperate in modern history ; flags 
 of truce were but seldom used, and the amenities of intercourse 
 between belligerents were often slighted by rude messages of 
 defiance. Battles had become frequent and really bloody. But 
 they were no longer decisive of a nation s fate. The campaign 
 covered the whole of a huge territory, and could only be de 
 cided by complicated movements, involving great expenditure 
 of troops and time. 
 
 The Southern people, however, were again aroused, and 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 271 
 
 nothing was wanting but wisdom, energy, and capacity <. n the 
 part of the government to have inaugurated another series of 
 brilliant achievements, such as those which rendered illustrious 
 the first months of the war. The rush of men to the battle 
 field, which was now witnessed in every part of the South, was 
 beyond all former example; and if the government had met 
 this mighty movement of the people with a corresponding 
 amplitude of provision and organization, the cause of the South 
 might have been reckoned safe beyond peradventure. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, President Davis was not the man to 
 consult the sentiment and wisdom of the people ; he desired to 
 signalize the infallibility of his own intellect in every measure 
 of the revolution, and to identify, from motives of vanity, his 
 own personal genius with every event and detail of the re 
 markable period of history in which he had been called upon 
 to act. This imperious conceit seemed to swallow up every 
 other idea in his mind. By what was scarcely more than a 
 constitutional fiction, the President of the Confederate States 
 was the head of the army ; but Mr. Davis, while he made 
 himself the supreme master of the civil administration of the 
 government, so far as to take the smallest details within his 
 control, and to reduce his cabinet officers to the condition of 
 head clerks, insisted also upon being the autocrat of the army, 
 controlling the plans of every general in the field, and dictating 
 to him the precise limits of every movement that was under 
 taken. Many of our generals fretted under this pragmatism of 
 an executive, who, instead of attending to the civil aifairs of 
 the government and correcting the monstrous abuses that were 
 daily pointed out by the newspapers in the conduct of the 
 departments, was unfortunately possessed with the vanity that 
 he was a great military genius, and that it was necessary for 
 him to dictate, from his cushioned seat in Kichmond, the de 
 tails of every campaign, and to conform every movement in 
 the field to the invariable formula of " the defensive policy"* 
 
 * The following extract of terse criticism on offensive and defensive warfare 
 Is taken from a small work written by one of Napoleon s generals in 1815, and 
 revised in 1855. The writer could not have written with more aptitude to 
 the existing contest, if the errors and unfortunate demonstrations of President 
 Davis s defensive policy had been before his eyes : " The offensive is the proper 
 character which it is essential to give to every war ; it exalts the courage of 
 
272 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 In a revolutionary leader, something more is wanted than 
 scholarly and polished intellect. The history of the w:>rld 
 shows that, in such circumstances, the plainest men, in point o 
 learning and scholarship, have been the most successful, and 
 that their elements of success have been quick apprehension, 
 practical judgment, knowledge of human nature, and, above 
 all, a disposition to consult the aggregate wisdom of the people, 
 and to increase their stores of judgment, by deigning to learn 
 from ,every possible source of practical wisdom within their 
 reach. 
 
 President Davis was not a man to consult, even in the small 
 est matter of detail, the wisdom of others, or to relax his pur 
 poses or personal preferences, at the instance of any consider 
 ation that might compromise him in respect of conceit or 
 punctilio. About nothing connected with the new government 
 had the popular will been so clearly and emphatically express 
 ed, as the necessity of a reorganization of the Cabinet. Nobody 
 expected those offices to be permanently filled by the provi 
 sional appointees. They were put there under an emergency ; 
 in some instances simply as compliments to certain States, and. 
 without the slightest expectation that they would be imposed 
 on the country for seven long years. Had the Union continued, 
 and Mr. Davis been elected to the Presidency, the selection of 
 such a Cabinet of intellectual pigmies from the nation at large 
 would have astounded the public. The two great branches of 
 the administration the War and the Navy Departments 
 were in the hands of men who had neither the respect, nor the 
 confidence of the public. Mr. Benjamin, the Secretary of War, 
 had been seriously injured, by a number of doubtful official 
 acts, in the public estimation, which never held him higher 
 
 the soldier ; it disconcerts the adversary, strips from him the initiative, and 
 diminishes his means. Do not wait for the enemy in your own fireplaces, go 
 always to seek him in his own home, when you will find opportunity at the 
 same time to live at his expense, and to strip from him his resources. In 
 penetrating his territory, commence by acting en masse with all forces, and be 
 sure that the first advantages are yours. * * * * Never adopt the 
 defensive, unless it is impossible for you to do otherwise. If you are reduced 
 to this sad extremity, let it be in order to gain time, to wait for your reinforce 
 ments, drill your soldiers, strengthen your alliances, draw the enemy upon 
 bad ground, lengthen the base of his operations ; and let an ulterior design to 
 take the offensive be without ceasing the end of all your actions." 
 
THE FIKST YEAK. 273 
 
 than a smart, expeditious, and affable official. Mr. Mallory, 
 the Secretary of the Navy, had, in the old government, in 
 which he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval 
 Affairs, been the butt of every naval officer in the country for 
 his ignorance, his sang-froid, his slow and blundering manner, 
 and the engrossment of his mind by provisions to provide 
 gratifications for his social habits. 
 
 President Davis refused to concede any thing to public sen- 
 timent with reference to the reorganization of his cabinet ; 
 although it is to be remarked that the demand for change was 
 made not by a popular clamor, which a wise ruler would have 
 done right to disregard and to contemn, but by that quiet, con 
 servative, and educated sentiment which no magistrate in a re 
 publican government had the right to disregard. Mr. Mallory 
 was retained at the head of the navy; Mr. Benjamin was pro 
 moted to the Secretaryship of the State, and the only material 
 change in the cabinet was the introduction as Secretary of War 
 of General Randolph, of Virginia, a gentleman whose sterling 
 personal worth made him acceptable to all parties, and prom 
 ised at least some change for the better in the administration 
 of a government that had been eaten up by servility, and had 
 illustrated nothing more than the imperious conceit of a single 
 man. 
 
 The Confederate Congress had passed a bill to create the 
 office of commanding general, who should take charge of the 
 military movements of the war. The bill was vetoed by Presi 
 dent Davis ; but, at the same time, the unsubstantial show of 
 compliance which had been made with reference to the Cabinet 
 was repeated with reference to the commanding general, and 
 Mr. Davis appointed Gen. Lee to the nominal office of com 
 manding general, the order, however, which nominated him 
 providing that he should " act under the direction of the presi 
 dent." Thus it was that Mr. Davis kept in his hands the 
 practical control of every military movement on the theatre 
 of the war ; and it was very curious, indeed, that the servile 
 newspapers, which applauded in him this single and imperious 
 control of the conduct of the war, were unmindful of the plain 
 and consistent justice of putting on his shoulders that exclu 
 sive responsibility for disasters which is inseparable fix/in the 
 honors of practical autocracy. 
 
 18 
 
274 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 We have referred to the dark period and uncompromising 
 auspices in which the permanent government of the Confeder 
 ate States was inaugurated. Across the dreary tract of dis 
 aster there were, however, sudden and fitful gleams of light, 
 such as the undaunted courage of our troops and the variable 
 accidents of war might give in such circumstances of misgov- 
 ernment as were adverse or embarrassing to a grand scale of 
 successes. Of these, and of the disasters mingled with them, 
 we shall proceed to treat in the progress of the narrative of the 
 external events of the war. 
 
 
 
 THE NAVAL ENGAGEMENT IN HA.MPTON EOADS. 
 
 In the progress of the war, attention had been directed, on 
 both sides, to different classes of naval structure, composed of 
 iron, such as floating batteries, rams, &c. On the 12th of 
 October, an affair had occurred near the mouth of the Missis 
 sippi river, in which a partially submerged iron ram, the Ma- 
 nassas, attacked the Federal blockading fleet at the head of 
 the Passes, sinking one of them, the Preble, and driving the 
 remainder of the fleet out of the river. This, the first of our 
 naval exploits, was to be followed by adventures on a largei 
 and more brilliant scale. 
 
 As far back as the month of June, 1861, the little energy 
 displayed by the Navy Department had been employed in 
 building a single iron-clad naval structure. In the destruction 
 of the navy-yard at Norfolk, at the commencement of the war, 
 the steam-frigate Merrimac had been burned and sunk, and 
 her engine greatly damaged by the enemy. However, the 
 bottom of the hull, boilers, and heavy and costly parts of the 
 engine were but little injured, and it was proposed of these to 
 construct a casemated vessel with inclined iron-plated sides 
 and submerged ends. The novel plan of submerging the ends 
 of the ship and the eaves of the casement was the peculiar and 
 distinctive feature of the Virginia, as the new structure was 
 called. It was never before adopted. The resistance of iron 
 plates to heavy ordnance, whether presented in vertical planes 
 w at low angles of inclination, had been investigated in Eng 
 land before the Virginia was commenced ; but, in the absence 
 of accurate data, the inclination of the plates of the Virginia 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 275 
 
 and their thickness and form had to be determined by actual 
 experiment. 
 
 With the completion of the Virginia, the Confederate squad 
 ron in the James river, under command of Flag-officer Frank 
 lin Buchanan, was as follows : steamer Yirginia, ten guns ; 
 steamer Patrick Henry, twelve guns ; steamer Jamestown, two 
 guns ; and gunboats Teazer, Beaufort, and Raleigh, each one 
 gun total, 27 guns. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th of March, about eleven o clock, 
 the Virginia left the navy-yard at Norfolk, accompanied by 
 the Raleigh and Beaufort, and proceeded to Newport News to 
 engage the enemy s frigates Cumberland and Congress, and 
 their gunboats and shore batteries. On passing Sewell s Point, 
 Capt. Buchanan made a speech to the men. It was laconic. 
 He said : " My men, you are now about to face the enemy. 
 You shall have no reason to complain of not fighting at close 
 quarters. Remember, you fight for your homes and your 
 country. You see those ships you must sink them. I need 
 not ask you to do it. I know you will do it." 
 
 At this time, the Congress was lying close to the batteries 
 at Newport News, a little below them. The Cumberland was 
 lying immediately opposite the batteries. The Yirginia passed 
 the Congress, giving her a broadside, which was returned with 
 very little effect, and made straight for the Cumberland. In 
 the midst of a heavy fire from the Cumberland, Congress, gun 
 boats, and shore batteries concentrated on the Yirginia, she 
 stood rapidly on towards the Cumberland, which ship Capt. 
 Buchanan had determined to sink with the prow of the Yir 
 ginia. On board the Yankee frigate, the crew were watching 
 the singular iron roof bearing down upon them, making all 
 manner of derisive and contemptuous remarks, many of them 
 aloud, and within hearing of those on board the Yirginia ; such 
 as : " Well, there she comes." " What the devil does she look 
 like?" "What in h 11 is she after?" "Let s look at that 
 great Secesh curiosity," etc. These remarks were cut short by 
 a discharge from the Virginia s bow gun, which swept from one 
 end of the Cumberland s deck to the other, killing and wound 
 ing numbers of the poor deluded wretches. In a few minutes 
 thereafter, the Virginia had struck her on her starboard bow ; 
 the crash below the water was distinctly heard, and, in fifteen 
 
276 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 minntes thereafter, the Yankee vessel, against whom an old 
 grudge had long existed for her participation in the burning 
 of the navy-yard, sank beneath the water, her guns being 
 fought to the last, and her flag flying at her peak. 
 
 Just after the Cumberland sunk, Commander Tucker was 
 seen standing down James river under full steam, accompanied 
 by the Jamestown and Teazer. Their escape was miraculous, 
 as they were under a galling fire of solid shot, shell, grape, and 
 canister, a number of which passed through the vessels without 
 doing any serious injury, except to the Patrick Henry, through 
 whose boiler a shot passed, scalding to death four persons and 
 wounding others. 
 
 Having sunk the Cumberland, the Virginia turned her at 
 tention to the Congress. She was some time in getting her 
 proper position, in consequence of the shoalness of the water. 
 To succeed in this object, Captain Buchanan was obliged to 
 run the ship a short distance above the batteries on James river 
 in order to wind her. During all the time her keel was in the 
 mud, and, of course, she moved but slowly. The vessel was 
 thus subjected twice to all the heavy guns of the batteries in 
 passing up and down the river. 
 
 It appears that while the Virginia was engaged in getting 
 her position, it was believed on the Congress that she had 
 hauled off. The Yankees left their guns and gave three cheers. 
 Their elation was of short duration. A few minutes afterwards 
 the Virginia opened upon the frigate, she having run into shoal 
 water. The " Southern bugaboo," into whom the broadside 
 of the Congress had been poured without effect, not even faiz- 
 ing her armor, opened upon the Yankee frigate, causing such 
 carnage, havoc, and dismay on her decks, that her colors were 
 in a few moments hauled down. A white flag was hoisted at 
 the gaft and half-mast, and another at the main. Numbers oi 
 the crew instantly took to their boats and landed. Our fire 
 immediately ceased. The Beaufort was run alongside, with 
 instructions from Captain Buchanan to take possession of the 
 Congress, secure the officers as prisoners, allow the crew to 
 land, and burn the ship. Lieutenant Parker, commanding the 
 Beaufort, received the flag of the Congress and her surrender 
 from Commander William Smith and Lieutenant Pendergrast 
 with the side-arms of these officers. After having delivered 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 277 
 
 themselves as prisoners of war on board the Beaufort, ttey 
 were allowed, at their own request, to return to the Congress 
 to assist in removing the wounded to the Beaufort. They 
 never returned, although they had pledged their honor to do 
 so, and in witness of that pledge had left their swords with 
 Lieut. Alexander, on board the Beaufort. 
 
 The Beaufort had been compelled to leave the Congress 
 under a perfidious fire opened from the shore, while the frigate 
 had two white flags flying, raised by her own crew. Deter 
 mined that the Congress should not again fall into the hands 
 of the enemy, Captain Buchanan remarked : " That ship must 
 be burned," when the suggestion was gallantly responded to 
 by Lieutenant Minor, who volunteered to take a boat and burn 
 her. He had scarcely reached within fifty yards of the Con 
 gress, when a deadly fire was opened upon him, wounding him 
 severely and several of his men. On witnessing this vile 
 treachery, Captain Buchanan instantly recalled the boat, and 
 ordered the Congress to be destroyed by hot shot and incendiary 
 shell. The illumination of the scene was splendid ; the explo 
 sion of the frigate s magazine a little past midnight, aroused 
 persons asleep in Norfolk, and signalled to them the complete 
 ness of our victory. 
 
 In the perfidious fire from the shore, Captain Buchanan had 
 been disabled by a severe wound in the thigh from a minie- 
 ball, and the command of the ship had been transferred to 
 Lieut. Catesby Jones, with orders to fight her as long as the 
 men could stand to their guns. At this time the steam-frigate 
 Minnesota and Roanoke, and the sailing-frigate St. Lawrence, 
 which had come up from Old Point, opened their fire upon the 
 Virginia. The Minnesota grounded in the North channel, 
 where, unfortunately, the shoalness of the channel prevented 
 the near approach of the Virginia. She continued, however, 
 to fire upon the Minnesota, until the pilots declared that it was 
 no longer safe to remain in that position, when she returned 
 by the South channel (the middle ground being necessarily 
 between the Virginia and Minnesota, and the St. Lawrence 
 and Roanoke having retreated under the guns of Old Point), 
 and again had an opportunity to open upon her enemy. Night 
 falling about this time, the Virginia was anchored off SewelPi 
 Point. 
 
278 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The next morning (Sunday) the contest occurred between 
 the Monitor (the Ericsson battery) and the Virginia. The 
 Yankee frigates, the Roanoke and St. Lawrence, had retreated 
 to Old Point "the apothecary shop," as it was facetiously 
 styled by our men ; and the Monitor had gone up on Saturday 
 night to assist the Minnesota, which was still aground. The 
 daylight revealed lying near the Minnesota the celebrated iron 
 battery, a wonderful-looking structure that was justly compared 
 to a prodigious " cheese-box on a plank," said " cheese-box" 
 being of a Plutonian blackness. At 8 o clock the Virginia ran 
 down to engage the Monitor. The contest continued for the 
 space of two hours, the distance between the two vessels vary 
 ing from half a mile to close quarters, in which the two iron 
 vessels were almost side to side, belching out their fire, the 
 heavy thugs on the iron sides of each being the only effect of 
 the terrific cannonade. Again and again the strange-looking 
 battery, with its black, revolving cupola, fled before the Vir 
 ginia. It was, as one of our officers remarked, " like fighting 
 a ghost." Now she ran down towards Old Point, now back 
 towards Newport News, now approached to fire, and then ran 
 away to load. The rapidity of the movements of the Monitor 
 gave her the only advantage which she had in the contest. 
 The great length and draft of the Virginia rendered it exceed 
 ingly difficult to work her. Once she got aground. It was a 
 moment of terrible suspense to the noble ship, against which 
 the combined batteries of the Minnesota and Monitor were now 
 directed. The shot fell like hail, the shells flew like rain-drops 
 and slowly, steadily she returned the fire. There lay the 
 Minnesota with two tugs alongside. Here, there, and every 
 where, was the black u cheese-box." The Virginia still fired 
 with the same deliberate regularity as before. Presently a 
 great white column of smoke shot up above the Minnesota, 
 higher and higher, fuller and fuller in its volume, and beyond 
 doubt, carried death all along her decks, for the boiler of one 
 of the tugs had been exploded by a shot, and that great white 
 cloud canopy was the steam thus liberated. 
 
 In fifteen minutes the Virginia had got off and was again in 
 motion. The pilots declared that it was impossible to get 
 nearer the Minnesota, which was believed to be entirely disa- 
 aMed. The Virginia had twice silenced the fire of the Moni- 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 279 
 
 tor, and had once brushed her, narrowly missing the coveted 
 opportunity of sinking her with her prow, and the continuation 
 of the contest being declined by the Monitor having run into 
 shoal water, the Yirginia ceased firing at noon and proceeded 
 to Norfolk. 
 
 She steamed back amid the cheers of victory. In the direc 
 tion of Newport News could be seen the spars of the Cumbei 
 land above the river she had so long insolently barred ; but o/ 
 her consort there was not even a timber-head visible to tell hei 
 story. This was not all the Yirginia had done. The Minne 
 sota was disabled and riddled with shot. Within eight and 
 forty hours the Yirginia had successfully encountered the 
 whole naval force of the enemy in the neighborhood of Norfolk, 
 amounting to 2,890 men and 230 guns; had sunk the Cumber 
 land, probably the most formidable vessel of her class in the 
 Federal navy, consigning to a watery grave the larger portion 
 of her crew of 360 men ; had destroyed the crack sailing-frigate 
 Congress, with her enormous armament ; and had crippled in 
 the action the Minnesota, one of the best steamers of the en 
 emy s navy. Our casualties were two killed and nineteen 
 wounded, and the Yirginia had come out of the action with the 
 loss of her prow, starboard anchor, and all her boats, with her 
 smoke-stack riddled with balls, and the muzzles of two of her 
 guns shot away, but with no serious damage to her wonderful 
 armor, that had sustained a cannonade such as never before 
 was inflicted upon a single vessel. 
 
 The exploits of the Yirginia created immense excitement in 
 the North and a marked interest in Europe, as illustrating a 
 novel and brilliant experiment in naval architecture. As an 
 example of the sharp and practical energy of the Northern 
 government, and its readiness to avail itself of all means in the 
 prosecution of the war, it may be mentioned that in five days 
 after the occurrence of the Confederate victory in Hampton 
 Roads, a bill was introduced into the Senate at Washington, 
 appropriating nearly fifteen millions of dollars for the construc 
 tion of additional iron-clad vessels. 
 
 In Great Britain and France, and on the Continent gener 
 ally, public attention was strained to a pitch of fearful anxiotj 
 on the subject of changes in naval architecture, and their adap 
 tation to the new exigencies that had arisen in warfare on the 
 

 
 280 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 water. All the European governments that had a strip of sea- 
 coast busied themselves to turn to profit the lesson the Virginia 
 had given them. Denmark voted a million of rix dollars for 
 the construction of iron-plated vessels, while Sweden sent its 
 Crown Prince to assist at the trial trip of the French frigate 
 La Couronne, the largest iron war-steamer afloat. Italy had 
 already some very fine iron vessels- of-war, and her citizens 
 were hard at work on others. Austria was officially informed 
 of the revolution in warfare at sea on the very day that an 
 imperial commission reported her huge land fortresses as defi 
 ant of every known means of assault ; and the Prussians, people 
 and government, regarded the engagement in Hampton Roads 
 as one of " the most important events of the day." 
 
 The Confederate States government might have learned some 
 instructive lessons from the victory achieved by the Virginia. 
 Instead of one such vessel, we might have had ten, had the 
 Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mallory, possessed the ability and 
 zeal essential to his responsible position. The cost was not a 
 matter of the slightest consideration. A vessel built at an ex 
 pense of half a million was cheap enough, when in her first 
 essay she had destroyed thrice her value of the enemy s prop 
 erty. The State of North Carolina and the Confederacy had 
 spent at least a million of dollars already in futile attempts to 
 defend the eastern coast of that State. If that sum had been 
 expended in building iron-clad vessels suitable to the waters 
 
 r on the Carolina coast, all of our disasters in that direction 
 might have been prevented, except, perhaps, the one at Hat- 
 teras, and our ports on that portion of our coast kept open, at 
 least partially, if not entirely. In no possibly better manner 
 
 could ten or twenty millions of dollars have been expended 
 
 : than by augmenting the power of our infant navy. 
 
 While the Virginia was achieving her memorable victory in 
 Hampton Roads, a battle had commenced in the extreme 
 northwest portion of the State of Arkansas, which had but one 
 parallel as to its duration, and probably few as to its desperate 
 character, since the opening of the war. 
 
 It will be recollected that, in a previous chapter, we left 
 Gen. Price about the close of the year 1861 occupying Spring 
 field, Missouri, for the purpose of being within reach of sup- 
 
 ; pliqs, .and protecting that portion of the State from domestic 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 281 
 
 depredations and Federal invasion. About the latter part of 
 January, it became evident that the enemy were concentrating 
 in force at Holla, and shortly thereafter they occupied Leba 
 non. Believing that this movement could be for no other pur 
 pose than to attack him, and knowing that his command was 
 ir ad equate for such successful resistance as the interests of the 
 army and the cause demanded, General Price appealed to the 
 commanders of the Confederate troops in Arkansas to come to 
 his assistance. He held his position to the very last moment. 
 On the 12th of February, his pickets were driven in, and re 
 ported the enemy advancing upon him in force. Gen. Price 
 commenced retreating at once. He reached Cassville with loss 
 unworthy of mention in any respect. Here the enemy in his 
 rear commenced a series of attacks, running through four days. 
 Retreating and fighting all the way to the Cross Hollows, in 
 Arkansas, the command of Gen. Price, under the most ex 
 hausting fatigue, all that time, with but little rest for either 
 man or horse, and no sleep, sustained themselves, and came 
 through, repulsing the enemy upon every occasion, with great 
 determination and gallantry. 
 
 Gen. Yan Dorn had recently been appointed to the command 
 of the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi district. A 
 happy accord existed between him and Gen. Price, and a pri 
 vate correspondence that had ensued between these two mili 
 tary chieftains, on the occasion of Gen. Yan Dora s appoint 
 ment by President Davis to take command in Arkansas and 
 Missouri, not only showed a spirit of mutual appreciation and 
 compliment highly honorable to both, but developed a singu 
 lar similarity of views (considering that the letter of each was 
 written without knowledge of that of the other) with reference 
 to the conduct of the war. 
 
 Learning that Gen. Price had rapidly fallen back from 
 Springfield before a superior force of the enemy, and was en 
 deavoring to form a junction with the division of Gen. Me 
 Culloch at Boston Mountain, Gen. Yan Dorn, who was then 
 at Pocahontas, Arkansas, resolved to go in person to take com 
 mand of the combined forces of Price and McCulloch. He 
 reached their head-quarters on the 3d of March. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAfi. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ELK HORN. 
 
 The enemy, under the command of Gens. Curtis and Sigel 
 had halted on Sugar Creek, fifty -five miles distant, where> with 
 a force variously estimated at from seventeen to twenty-four 
 thousand, he was awaiting still further reinforcements before 
 he would advance. Gen. Yan Dorn resolved to make the at 
 tack at once. He sent for Gen. Albert Pike to join him with 
 his command of Indian warriors, and, on the morning of the 
 4th of March, moved with the divisions of Price and McCul- 
 loch, by way of Fayetteville and Bentonville, to attack the en 
 emy s camp on Sugar Creek. The whole force under his com 
 mand was about sixteen thousand men. 
 
 At Bentonville, General Sigel s division, seven thousand 
 strong, narrowly escaped a surprise and fell back, our advance 
 skirmishing with the rear-guard to Sugar Creek, about seven 
 miles beyond. 
 
 On the morning of the Vth of March, Gen. Yan Dorn made 
 disposition for attack. Before eleven o clock, the action had 
 become general. The attack was made from the north and 
 west, the enemy being completely surrounded. About two 
 o clock, Gen. Yan Dorn sent a dispatch to Gen. McCulloch, 
 who was attacking the enemy s left, proposing to him to hold 
 his position, while Price s left advance might be thrown for 
 ward over the whole line, and easily end the battle. t Before 
 the dispatch was penned, Gen. McCulloch had fallen, and the 
 victorious advance of his division upon the strong position of 
 the enemy s front was checked by the fall of himself and Gen. 
 Mclntosh, also, in the heat of the battle and in the full tide of 
 success. It appears that two musket-balls, by killing the gal 
 lant McCulloch and Mclntosh, had prevented us from gaining 
 a great victory. Notwithstanding the confusion that succeeded 
 this untimely occurrence, Gen. Yan Dorn pressed forward with 
 the attack, sustained by the resistless charges of the Missouri 
 division. At nightfall, the enemy had been driven back from 
 the field of battle, and the Confederates held his intrenchments 
 and the greater part of his commissary stores, on which our 
 half-famished men fed. Our troops slept upon their arms 
 nearly a mile beyond the point where the enemy had made nil 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 283 
 
 last stand, and Gen. Yan Dora s head-quarters for the night 
 were at the Elk Horn tavern from which locality the battle 
 field derived its name. We had taken during the day seven 
 cannon and about two hundred prisoners. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th, the enemy, having taken a 
 strong position during the night, reopened the fight. The 
 action soon became general, and continued until about half- 
 past nine o clock, by which time Gen. Yan Dora had com 
 pleted his arrangements to withdraw his forces. Finding that 
 his right wing was much disorganized, and that the batteries 
 were, one after another, retiring from the field, with every shot 
 expended, Gen. Yan Dora had determined to withdraw his 
 forces in the direction of their supplies. This was accomplish 
 ed with almost perfect success. The ambulances, crowded 
 with the wounded, were sent in advance ; a portion of McCul 
 loch s division was placed in position to follow, while Gen. Yan 
 Dora disposed of his remaining force as best to deceive the 
 enemy as to his intention, and to hold him in check while exe 
 cuting it. An attempt was made by the enemy to follow the 
 retreating column. It was effectually checked, however, and, 
 about 2 P. M., the Confederates encamped about six miles from 
 the field of battle, all of the artillery and baggage joining the 
 army in safety. They brought away from the field of battle 
 300 prisoners, four cannon, and three baggage wagons. 
 
 Our loss in killed and wounded was stated by Gen. Yan 
 Dora to be about six hundred, as nearly as could be ascertain 
 ed, while that of the enemy was conjectured to be more than 
 seven hundred killed and at least an equal number wounded. 
 Gen. Curtis, in his official report, gives no statement of his loss, 
 but simply remarks that it was heavy. The entire engagement 
 had extended over the space of three days, the 6th, 7th, and 
 8th of March. The gallantry of our soldiers had been unrival 
 led. More than half of our troops were raw levies, armed with 
 shot-guns and country rifles. The enemy were armed with 
 superior guns of the latest patents, such as revolving rifleSj 
 sabre bayonets, rifled cannon, mounted howitzers, &c. Our 
 army had forced them by inches from one position to another, 
 and, although compelled to fall back at last, were able to make 
 their determination good never to permit the enemy to advance 
 South. 
 
284 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The Indian regiments, under Gen. Fike, had not come up in 
 time to take any important part in the battle. Some of the 
 red -men behaved well, and a portion of them assisted in taking 
 a battery ; but they were difficult to manage in the deafening 
 roar of artillery, to ^ hich they were unaccustomed, and were 
 naturally amazed at the sight of guns that ran on wheels. 
 They knew what to do with the rifle; they were accustomed 
 to sounds of battle as loud as their own war-whoop ; and the 
 amazement of these simple children of the forest may be imag 
 ined at the sight of such roaring, deafening, crashing monsters 
 as twelve-pounders running around on wheels. Gen. Yan 
 Dorn, in his official report of the battle, does not mention that 
 any assistance was derived from the Indians an ally that had, 
 perhaps, cost us much more trouble, expense, and annoyance, 
 than their services in modern warfare could, under any circum 
 stances, be worth. 
 
 In the action, the Missouri troops, from the noble veteran, 
 who had led them so long, down to the meanest private, be 
 haved with a courage, the fire and devotion of which never, 
 for a moment, slackened. The personal testimony of Gen. Yan 
 Dorn to their noble conduct, was a just and magnanimous trib 
 ute. He wrote to the government at Richmond : " During the 
 whole of this engagement, I was with the Missourians under 
 Price, and I have never seen better fighters than these Mis 
 souri troops, or more gallant leaders than Gen. Price and his 
 officers. From the first to the last shot, they continually 
 rushed on, and never yielded an inch they had won ; and when 
 at last they received orders to fall back, they retired steadily 
 and with cheers. Gen. Price received a severe wound in the 
 action, but would neither retire from the field nor cease to ex 
 pose his life to danger." 
 
 Nor is this all the testimony to the heroism of Gen. Price on 
 the famous battle-fields of Elk Horn. Some incidents are re 
 lated to us by an officer of his conduct in the retreat, that show 
 aspects of heroism more engaging than even those of reckless 
 bravery. In the progress of the retreat, writes an officer, 
 every few hundred yards we would overtake some wounded 
 soldier. As soon !is he would see the old general, he would 
 cry out, " General, I am wounded !" Instantly some vehicle 
 was ordered to st)p, and the poor soldier s wants cared for 
 
THE FIRST YEAK 285 
 
 Again and again it occurred, until our conveyances were 
 covered with the wounded. Another one cried out, General, ] 
 am wounded ! The general s head dropped upon his breast, 
 and his eyes, bedimmed with tears, were thrown up, and he 
 looked in front, but could seen no place to put his poor soldier. 
 He discovered something on wheels in front, and commanded : 
 Halt ! and put this wounded soldier up ; by G d, I will save 
 my wounded, if I lose the whole army ! This explains why 
 the old man s poor soldiers love him so well." 
 
 Although, in the battle of Elk Horn, our forces had been 
 compelled to retire, and the affair was proclaimed in all parts 
 of the North as a splendid victory of their arms, there is no 
 doubt, in the light of history, that the substantial fruits of vic 
 tory were with the Confederates. The enemy had set out on a 
 march of invasion, with the avowed determination to subju 
 gate Arkansas, and capture Fort Smith. But after the shock 
 of the encounter at Elk Horn, he was forced to fall back into 
 Missouri, leaving several hundred prisoners in our hands, and 
 more than two thousand killed and wounded on the field. The 
 total abandonment of their enterprise of subjugation in Ar 
 kansas is the most conclusive evidence in the world, that the 
 Federals were worsted by Gen. Yan Dora, and that this brave 
 and honorable commander had achieved for his country no in 
 considerable success. 
 
 The fall of Gen. Ben McCulloch was esteemed as a national 
 calamity, and, in his official report of .the battle, Gen. Yan 
 Dorn declared that no success could repair the loss of the gal 
 lant dead, who had fallen on the well-fought field. Gen. Mc- 
 Culloch s name was already historical at the time of the break 
 ing out of the revolution. Twenty-six years ago he served in 
 the battle of San Jacinto, afterwards passed his time on the 
 Texan frontier, in a succession of hardships and dangers such 
 as few men have seen, and subsequently, in the Mexican war 
 on the bloody field of Buena Yista, received the public and offi 
 cial thanks of Gen. Taylor for his heroic conduct and services. 
 
 McCulloch, as a soldier, was remarkable for his singular ca 
 pacities for partisan warfare, and, in connection with Walker, 
 Hays, and Chevallie, had originated and rendered renowned 
 the name of " Texas Ranger." These daring adventurers did 
 much in achieving the independence of the Texan republic, 
 
286 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and in defending its borders from the ruthless and enterprising 
 Camanche. In the war of the United States with Mexico, they 
 rendered invaluable service as daring scouts, and inaugurated 
 the best and most effective cavalry service that has ever been 
 known in the world. 
 
 The moment Lincoln s election became known, McCulloch 
 identified himself as an unconditional secessionist, and repaired 
 to Texas to take part in any movement that might grow out of 
 the presence of over 3000 United States troops in that State. 
 He was unanimously selected by the Committee of Public 
 Safety to raise the men necessary to compel the surrender 01 
 San Antonio, with its arsenal and the neighboring forts, four 
 or five in number. Within four days, he had travelled one 
 hundred and fifty miles, and stood before San Antonio with 
 eight hundred armed men, his old comrades and neighbors. 
 His mission succeeded. Texas looked to him with confidence 
 as one of her strong pillars in case of war. She sent him abroad 
 to procure arms; but, before he had fully succeeded, President 
 Davis appointed him brigadier-general, and assigned him to 
 the command of the Indian Territory. 
 
 He was killed in the brush on a slight elevation by one of 
 the sharp-shooters of the enemy. He was not in uniform, but 
 his dress attracted attention. He wore a dress of black velvet, 
 patent-leather high-top boots, and he had on a light-colored, 
 broad-brimmed Texan hat. The soldier who killed him, a 
 private in an Illinois regiment, went up and robbed his body 
 of a gold watch. 
 
 Gen. Mclntosh, who had been very much distinguished all 
 through the operations in Arkansas, had fallen on the battle 
 field, about the same time that McCulloch had been killed. 
 During the advance from Boston Mountain, he had been placed 
 in command of the cavalry brigade, and in charge of the 
 pickets. He was alert, daring, and devoted to his duty. His 
 kindness of disposition, with his reckless bravery, had attached 
 the troops strongly to him, so that, after McCulloch fell, had 
 he remained to lead them, all would have been well with the 
 right wing; but, after leading a brilliant charge of cavalry 
 and carrying the enemy s battery, he rushed into the thickest 
 of the fight again at the head of his old regiment, and was shot 
 through the heart. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR 287 
 
 A noble boj from Missouri, Churchill Clarke, commanded a 
 battery of artiLery, and, during the fierce artillery action of the 
 7th and 8th, was conspicuous for the daring and skill which he 
 exhibited. He fell at the very close of the action. 
 
 While there was, in Richmond, great anxiety to construe 
 aright the imperfect and uncertain intelligence which had ar 
 rived there, by devious ways, from Arkansas, news reached 
 the Southern capital of a brilliant and undoubted victory still 
 further to the West, in the distant territory of New Mexico. 
 This victory had been achieved weeks before the slow intelli 
 gence of it reached Richmond. Although it had taken place 
 on a remote theatre, and was but little connected with the 
 general fortunes of the war, the victory of Yalverde had a 
 good effect upon the spirits of the Southern people, which had 
 been so long depressed and darkened by a baleful train of 
 disasters. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF VALVERDE. 
 
 The Confederates marched from Mesilla, in Arizor^a, upon 
 Fort Craig, about 175 miles distant, and there fought the battle 
 and won the victory of Valverde, on the 21st of March. Gen. 
 Sibley, with his command, numbering, rank and file, two 
 thousand three hundred men, left Fort Thorn, eighty miles 
 below Fort Craig, about the 12th of February. On arriving in 
 the vicinity of Fort Craig, he learned from some prisoners, 
 captured near the post, that Gen. Canby was in command of 
 the Federal forces in the fort ; that he had twelve hundred 
 regular troops, two hundred American volunteers, and five 
 thousand Mexicans, making his entire force near six thousand 
 four hundred men. Notwithstanding this superior force, he 
 boldly advanced, and, on the 19th, crossed the river near Fort 
 Craig, and, making a detour of some miles, arrived on the 
 morning of the 21st March at Valverde, on the east bank of 
 the Rio Grande, three miles above the fort, where a large body 
 of the enemy were stationed to receive him. It seems that all 
 the enemy s forces, with the exception of their artillery and re 
 serve, were upon the same side of the river to which our troops 
 were advancing. A portion of Col. Baylor s regiment, under 
 command of Major Pyon, numbering 250 men, were the first 
 
283 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 to engage the enemy. Alone and unsupported for one hour 
 they held their position amid a hail of grape, canister, and 
 round-shot. At that time they were reinforced, and the battle 
 became general. The enemy then made an attack upon our 
 right wing, and were repulsed. A general movement was then 
 made upon our line with more success, a portion of our left 
 wing being compelled to fall back and take a new position. 
 This was about 2 o clock. The enemy now supposed they had 
 gained the day, and ordered their battery across the river, 
 which was done, and the battery planted upon the bank. As 
 soon as the battery opened General Sibley knew it had crossed, 
 and immediately ordered a general charge, which was per 
 formed only as Texans can do it. Starting at a distance of 
 eight hundred yards, with their Camanche war-whoop, they re 
 served their fire until within thirty yards of the battery, when 
 they poured a deadly fire, with double-barrelled shot-guns and 
 pistols, immediately into the horror-stricken ranks of their foes. 
 They sprung into the river, and in crossing, numbers were 
 killed. Captain Teel s battery now coming up, closed this 
 sanguinary contest with shell and grape, as they fled down the 
 opposite side of the river to the fort. The battle lasted nine 
 hours. It afforded one of the most remarkable instances of 
 valor in the war the taking of a field-battery with shot-guns 
 and pistols. Our loss was thirty-eight killed, and one hundred 
 and twenty wounded ; that of the enemy, as given by them 
 selves, was three hundred killed, four or five hundred wounded, 
 and two thousand missing. The enemy suffered the most while 
 retreating across the river, where the slaughter was for some 
 moments terrible. 
 
 After the victory of Yalverde, the small force of Texans not 
 being in any condition to assault Fort Craig, pressed on to Al 
 buquerque, about ninety miles north of the battle-field. This 
 city, the second in size and importance in the territory, having 
 a population of seven or eight thousand, the Federals had 
 evacuated. The victorious Confederates still pressed towards 
 Santa Fe, the capital city of the great central plateau of inte 
 rior America, which the Federals had also evacuated, and 
 fallen back on Fort Union, about sixty miles northeast of Santa 
 Fe, and one of the strongest fortifications in America. 
 
 Thus the Texans had marched about three hundie^ mi>.3 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 289 
 
 from Mesilla, defeated the Federals and destroyed their army 
 in a pitched battle, ejected them from their two chief cities, 
 and driven them out of the territory to their outpost on its 
 eastern limits. 
 
 The result of the battle of Yalverde was encouraging, ana 
 the prospect was indulged that New Mexico was already con 
 quered, and that the Confederate States held the Southern 
 overland route to California. 
 
 Referring to the progress of the campaign in Virginia, we 
 shall find its plans and locality widely changed, the line of the 
 Potomac abandoned, t and the long and persistent struggle of 
 the Federals for the possession of Richmond transferred to a 
 new but not unexpected theatre of operations. 
 
 Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had determined to change his line 
 011 the Potomac, as the idea of all offensive operations on it 
 had been abandoned, and it had become necessary, in his opin 
 ion, that the main body of the Confederate forces in Virginia 
 should be in supporting distance and position with the army of 
 the Peninsula ; and in the event of either being driven back, 
 that they might combine for final resistance before Richmond. 
 
 The discretion of falling back from the old line of the Poto 
 mac was confided by President Davis entirely to the discretion 
 of Gen. Johnston, who enjoyed a rare exemption from official 
 pragmatism at Richmond, and was in many things very much 
 at liberty to pursue the counsels of his own military wisdom. 
 
 For the space of three weeks before the army left its intrench- 
 ments at Manassas, preparations were being made for falling 
 back to the line of the Rappahannock, by the quiet and gradual 
 removal of the vast accumulations of army stores ; and with 
 such consummate address was this managed, that our own 
 troops had no idea of what was intended until the march was 
 taken up. The first intimation the enemy had of the evacua 
 tion of Manassas was the smoke of the soldiers huts that had 
 been fired by our army. 
 
 That the strategic plans of the enemy were completely foiled 
 by the movement of Gen. Johnston, was quite evident in th 
 tone of disappointment and vexation in which the Northern 
 newspapers referred to the evacuation of Manassas, which, 
 unless there had been some disconcert of their own strategy by 
 such an event, they would have been likely to regard us a con- 
 
 19 
 
290 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 siderable advantage on their side in letting them further into 
 the territory of Virginia. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF KERNSTOWN. 
 
 While our forces deserted the old line of the Potomac, it was 
 determined not to leave the Yalley of Virginia undefended, and 
 the command of Gen. Jackson was left in the neighborhood of 
 Winchester, to operate to the best advantage. 
 
 Near the town of Winchester occurred, on the 23d of March, 
 what was known as the battle of Kernstown. The Federals 
 were attacked by our forces under Gen. Jackson, the engage 
 ment having been brought on by the gallant Col. Ashby, who 
 had been fighting the enemy wherever he had shown himself in 
 the Yalley. The Confederate forces amounted to six thousand 
 men, with Capt. McLaughlin s battery of artillery and Colonel 
 Ashby s cavalry. All the trocrps engaged were from Yirginia, 
 except a few companies from Maryland. It was thought that 
 there would be but a very small force at the point of attack, 
 but the enemy proved to be nearly eighteen thousand strong 
 with a considerable number of field-pieces. They occupied a 
 rising ground, and a very advantageous position. 
 
 Qen. Banks had concluded that there was no enemy in front 
 except Ashby s force of cavalry ; that Gen. Jackson would not 
 venture to separate himself so far from the main body of the 
 Confederate army as to offer him battle, and under these im 
 pressions he had left for Washington. On Sunday morning, 
 Oen. Shields, who had been left in command of the Federals, 
 satisfied that a considerable force was before him, concentrated 
 his whole force, and prepared to give battle. The action com 
 menced about four o clock in the evening, and terminated when 
 night closed upon the scene of conflict. Our men fought with 
 desperation until dark, when the firing on both sides ceased. 
 During the night, Gen. Jackson decided to fall back to Cedar 
 creek, and prepare there to make successful opposition with 
 Lis small force, should the enemy advance. The enemy was 
 left in possession of the field of battle, two guns and four 
 caissons, and about three hundred prisoners. Our loss waa 
 bout one hundred killed, and probably twice that number 
 wounded. The loss of the enemy was certainly more than 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 291 
 
 double. At one period of the fight our men had got posses- 
 Bion of a stone wall, which formed the boundary of two fields, 
 and dropping on their knees, had fired deadly volleys into the 
 advancing lines of the enemy. The Confederates carried off 
 the greater portion of the wounded up the Valley. Their re 
 treat was conducted in perfect order ; and even Gen. Shields, 
 in his accounts of the affair, which were very much exagger 
 ated, of course, for the purposes of popular sensation in the 
 North, testified of the Confederates, that "such was their gal 
 lantry and high state of discipline, that at no time during the 
 battle or pursuit did they give way to panic." 
 
 The enemy had but little reason to boast of the battle of 
 Kernstown. In fact, the affair was without general significa 
 tion. It was an attack by the Confederates, undertaken on 
 false information, gallantly executed, and, although unsuccess 
 ful, was not disastrous. The Northern troops had made no ad 
 vance in the Valley ; from the Manassas line they had actually 
 retired ; nor had they any considerable body of troops this side 
 of Centreville. Whether they would ever attempt to execute 
 their original plan, of a march through Piedmont to Richmond, 
 was now more than problematical. 
 
 The greater portion of our dead left on the field of battle 
 were buried under the direction of the mayor of Winchester. 
 Some fifty citizens collected the dead, dug a great pit on the 
 battle-field, and gently laid the poor fellows in their last rest 
 ing-place. It was a sad sight, and sadder still to see women 
 looking carefully at every corpse to try to identify the bodies 
 of their friends. Scarcely a family in the county but had a 
 relative there. But their suffering did not mollify the noble 
 Southern women of Winchester. Every feeling, testified a 
 Federal ofiicer who witnessed the sad and harrowing scenes of 
 the battle-field, seemed to have been extinguished in their in 
 tense hatred of " the Yankees." " They would say, You may 
 bring the whole force of the North here, but you can never 
 conquer us, we will shed our last drop of blood, " &c. 
 
 Col. Ashby covered the retreat of the army, and by his tire 
 less energy, made himself, as on many other occasions, the 
 terror of the Yankees. The daring feats and heroic exploits of 
 this brave ofiicer were universal themes of admiration in the 
 and were rehearsed by the people of the Valley, who 
 
292 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 idolized him, with infinite gratification and delight. A fer? 
 months before, when Winchester had been evacuated, under 
 orders from the War Department, he had been unwilling to 
 leave the town, and had lingered behind, watching the ap 
 proach of the haughty and unprincipled foe into this ancient 
 town of the Valley. He waited until the Federal columns had 
 filled the streets, and, within two hundred yards of them, 
 cheered for the Southern Confederacy, and then dashed off at 
 full speed for the Yalley turnpike. He reached it only to find 
 his way intercepted by two of the enemy s pickets. Nothing 
 daunted, he drew his pistol and shot down one of the pickets, 
 and, seizing the other, dragged him off a prisoner, and brought 
 him safely to the Confederate lines. It was adventures like 
 these, as well as extraordinary gallantry in the field, that made 
 the name of the brave Virginia cavalier conspicuous throughout 
 the South, and a tower of strength with those for whose homes 
 and firesides he had been struggling. 
 
 The personal appearance of Col. Ashby was not striking. 
 He was of small stature. He wore a long black beard, and 
 had dark, glittering eyes. It was not generally known that 
 the man who performed such deeds of desperate valor and en 
 terprise, and who was generally pictured to the imagination as 
 a fierce, stalwart, and relentless adventurer, was as remarkable 
 for his piety and devoutness as for his military achievements. 
 His manners were a combination, not unusual in the truly re 
 fined spirit, of gentleness with the most enthusiastic courage 
 It was said of him, that when he gave his most daring com 
 mands, he would gently draw his sabre, wave it around his 
 head, and then his clear, sounding voice would ring out the 
 simple but thrilling words, " Follow me." In such a spirit we 
 recognize the fine mixture of elements that the world calls 
 heroism. 
 
 The Northern forces pursued neither the retreat of Johnston 
 from Manassas, nor that of Jackson from Winchester. On the 
 contrary, they withdrew the forces first advanced, and blocked 
 the road between Strasburg and Winchester. It was known, 
 however, about this time, that the camps at Washington had 
 been rapidly diminished, and that McClellan had totally disap 
 peared from the scene. At the same time an unusual confi 
 dence was expressed in the Northern journals that Richmond 
 
THE FIRST YEAR, 293 
 
 would now fall almost immediately into the hands of their 
 generals. Then followed the daily announcements of fleets of 
 transports arriving in Hampton Roads, and the vast extension 
 of the long line of tents at Newport News. These were evi 
 dent indications of the intention of the enemy to abandon for 
 the present other projects for the capture of Richmond, so as tc 
 make his great effort on the Peninsula formed by the York and 
 James rivers. 
 
 General Magruder, the hero of Bethel, and a conimandei 
 who was capable of much greater achievements, was left to con 
 front the growing forces on the Peninsula, which daily men 
 aced him, with an army of seventy-five hundred men, while the 
 great bulk of the Confederate forces were still in motion in the 
 neighborhood of the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, and he 
 had no assurance of reinforcements. The force of the enemy 
 was ten times his own ; they had commenced a daily cannon 
 ading upon his lines ; and a council of general officers was con 
 vened, to consult whether the little army of seven thousand 
 five hundred men should maintain its position in the face of ten 
 fold odds, or retire before the enemy. The opinion of the 
 council was unanimous for the latter alternative, with the ex 
 ception of one officer, who declared that every man should die 
 in the intrenchments before the little army should fall back. 
 "By G , it shall be so !" was the sudden exclamation of Gen. 
 Magruder, in sympathy with the gallant suggestion. The res 
 olution demonstrated a remarkable heroism and spirit. Our 
 little force was adroitly extended over a distance of several 
 miles, reaching from Mulberry Island to Gloucester Point, a 
 regiment being posted here and there, in every gap plainly 
 open to observation, and on other portions of the line the men 
 being posted at long intervals, to give the appearance of num 
 bers to the enemy. Had the weakness of Gen. Magruder at 
 this time been known to the enemy, he might have suffered the 
 consequences of his devoted and self-sacrificing courage ; but 
 as it was, he held his lines on the Peninsula until they were 
 reinforced by the most considerable portion of Gen. Johnston s 
 forces, and made the situation of a contest upon which the at 
 tention of the public was unanimously fixed as the most de 
 cisive of the war. 
 
 It is not our purpose at this time to follow up the develop 
 
294 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ments of the situation on the Peninsula. "We must, for the 
 present, leave affairs there in the crisis to which we have 
 brought them, while we refer to a serious recurrence of dis 
 asters about this time on our sea-coast and rivers, where again 
 the lesson was repeated to us of the superiority of the enemy 
 on the water, not by any mysterious virtue of gunboats, but 
 solely on account, as we shall show, of inefficiency and improv 
 idence in our government. 
 
 On the 4th of March, the town of Newbern, in North Caro 
 lina, was taken by the Federals, under command of General 
 Burnside, after a feeble resistance. The day before, the Fed 
 erals had landed about ten thousand troops fifteen miles below 
 Newbern, and at the same time had ascended the river with a 
 fleet of gunboats, which, as they advanced, shelled the woods 
 in every direction. The next morning the fighting was com 
 rnenced at early dawn, and continued until half-past ten o clock, 
 when our forces, being almost completely surrounded, wer><> 
 compelled to retreat. All the forts on the river were aban 
 doned. Fort Thompson was the most formidable of these. I* 
 was four miles from Newbern, and mounted thirteen heav;> 
 guns, two of them rifled 32-pounders. The guns at Fort Ellis, 
 three miles from !Newbern, were dismounted and thrown dowja 
 the embankment. Fort Lane, mounting eight guns, two milea 
 from Kewbern, was blown up. In the first attack upon our 
 lines, at 7 o clock, the enemy had been repulsed three times 
 successively "by our infantry, with the assistance of Fort Thomp 
 son ; but having flanked our forces on the right, which caused 
 a panic among the militia, he had changed the fortunes oi 
 the day. The railroad bridge across ISTeuse river was not 
 burnt until after all our troops had crossed, except those whose 
 escape had been effectually cut off by the enemy. The Fed 
 erals achieved a complete victory after a contest of very short, 
 duration, having taken about five hundred prisoners, over fifty 
 pieces of cannon, and large quantities of arms and ammunition. 
 
 The easy defeat of the Confederate forces at JSfewbern, the 
 surrender of our fortifications, on which thousands of dollars 
 had recently been expended, and the abandonment not only of 
 our heavy guns, but of some of our field-guns also, was a sub 
 iect of keen mortification to the South. The fact was known 
 that our force at Xewbern was verv inadequate not more thac 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 295 
 
 five thousand a part of whom were militia, and had been left, 
 despite of appeals to the government for reinforcements, to en 
 counter whatever force Gen. Burnside should choose to bring 
 against them. Gen. Branch, who was in command of the Con 
 federate forces, and who displayed courage and judgment, was 
 compelled to fight at Newbern. To have given it up without 
 a struggle, after all that had been done there, would have 
 brought him into discredit with the government, the people, 
 and the troops. As it was, the enemy had gained an important 
 position within easy reach of the Wilmington and Weldon 
 road. But few persons remained in the town. Seven trains left 
 for Goldsboro , all crowded to overflowing by fugitive sqldiers 
 and panic-stricken people. A shell from the enemy s gunboats 
 fell within twenty-five feet of the last train as it moved off. 
 Women and children were overtaken by the trains many miles 
 from Newbern, some in vehicles of various kinds, and many on 
 foot. The panic and disorganization extended for miles, and 
 yet there was a nobility in the determination of the population 
 of Newbern to fly anywhere rather than court security in their 
 homes by submission to the enemy. The town of Newborn 
 originally contained twelve hundred people ; when occupied by 
 the enemy, it contained one hundred people, male and female, 
 of the old population. 
 
 On the 12th day of April one year ago, the guns and mor 
 tars of the South Carolina batteries opened upon the then hos 
 tile walls of Fort Sumter. Strangely enough, the first anni 
 versary of the event was signalized by the startling and un 
 comfortable announcement that Fort Pulaski, the principal 
 defence of the city of Savannah, had surrendered to the Yan 
 kees, after a brief bombardment. The news was all the more 
 unpleasant, from the fact that the day before the public had 
 been informed by telegraph that the enemy s batteries had 
 been " silenced." It seems that they were not silent until our 
 flag was struck. The surrender was unconditional, and the 
 garrison, consisting of more than three hundred men, four of 
 whom had been wounded and none killed, were made prisoners 
 of war. 
 
 Another Confederate disaster on the coast shortly ensued, in 
 the surrender of Fort Macon. This fort, on the Not th Carolina 
 coast, svas surrendered on the 25th of April, after a bombard- 
 
296 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAE. 
 
 inent from the enemy s land batteries of less than twelve hours 
 It commanded the entrance to Beaufort harbor, and was said 
 to be the most formidable fortification on the North Carolina 
 coast. 
 
 For these painful and almost humiliating disasters on our 
 coast and rivers, a ready but very silly excuse was always at 
 hand. A most pernicious and false idea appeared to have 
 taken possession of the public mind with reference to the essen 
 tial superiority of the enemy on water. A very obvious reflec 
 tion of common sense dissipates the idea of any essential advan 
 tage which the enemy had over us on the water. The failures 
 in our defences had been most unjustly attributed to the bug 
 bear of gunboats, when they ought to have been ascribed to n<s 
 more unavoidable causes than our own improvidence and neg 
 lect. 
 
 The suggestion of common sense is, that if it was possible 
 to make a vessel ball-proof, it was certainly much easier to 
 make a fortification ball-proof. The excuse had been persist 
 ently made for our lack of naval defences, that it was difficult 
 to supply the necessary machinery, and almost impossible, with 
 the limited means at our disposal, to construct steam-engines. 
 But these excuses about lack of machinery and steam-engines 
 did not apply to our land defences. ISTo machinery was neces 
 sary ; no engine was necessary ; and no consultation of curved 
 lines of naval architecture was required to make a land fortifi 
 cation ball-proof. The iron plate that was fitted on the side of 
 a gunboat had only to be placed on a dead surface, to make 
 the land fortification a match in invulnerability to the iron- 
 plated man-of-war. This was common sense. Unfortunately, 
 however, it was a common sense which the scientists of West 
 Point had been unable to appreciate. While the public mind 
 had been busy in ascribing so many of our late disasters to 
 some essential and mysterious virtue in iron-plated boats, it 
 seemed never to have occurred to it that it was much easier to 
 construct iron-plated batteries on land than the iron-plated 
 Bides of a ship, besides giving the structure the power of loco 
 motion, and that our defeats on the water, instead of being 
 charged to "gunboats," or to "the dispensations of Provi 
 dence," had been but the natural results of human neglect and 
 human stupidity. 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 297 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 The Campaign in the Mississippi Valley. Bombardment of Island No. 10. The 
 Scenes, Incidents, and Results. Fruits of the Northern Victory. Movements of the 
 Federals on the Tennessee River. The BATTLE OF SHILOH. A " Los*, Opportunity." 
 Death of General Albert Sidney Johnston. Comparison between the Battles of 
 Shiloh and Mauassas. The Federal Expeditions into North Alabama. Withdrawal 
 of the Confederate Forces from the Trans-Mississippi District. General Price and 
 his Command. The FALL OF NEW ORLEANS. The Flag Imbroglio. Major-general 
 Butler. Causes of the Disaster. Its Results and Consequences. The Fate of the 
 Valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 THE last period of onr narrative of events in Tennessee, left 
 Gen. Johnston making a southward movement towards the left 
 bank of the Tennessee river, for the objects of the defence of 
 Memphis and the Mississippi river, and indicated the important 
 position of Island No. 10, forty-five miles below Columbus, as 
 still in possession of the Confederates. 
 
 This important position in the Mississippi river was defended 
 by General Beauregard with extraordinary vigor and success 
 against the fleet of the enemy s gunboats, under the command 
 of Flag-officer Foote. The works were erected with the highest 
 engineering skill, were of great strength, and, with their natural 
 advantages, were thought to be impregnable. 
 
 The bombardment of Madrid Bend and Island No. 10 com 
 menced on the 15th of March, and continued constantly night 
 and day. On the 17th a general attack, with five gunboats 
 and four mortar-boats, was made, which lasted nine hours. 
 The attack was unsuccessful. On the first of April, General 
 Beauregard telegraphed to the War Department at Richmond 
 that the bombardment had continued for fifteen days, in which 
 time the enemy had thrown three thousand shells, expending 
 about one hundred thousand pounds of powder, with the result 
 on our side of one man killed and none seriously wounded. The 
 gratifying statement was also made in General Beauregard a 
 dispatches that our batteries were entirely intact. "We had 
 disabled one of the enemy s gunboats and another was reported 
 to be sunk, and the results of the bor.ibardmont so far as it had 
 
298 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAS. 
 
 continued, afforded room for congratulation that the fantasy ot 
 the invincible power of Yankee gunboats would at last be dis 
 pelled, and that the miserable history of the surrender of all our 
 forts to this power was destined to wind up in a decisive and 
 brilliant Confederate triumph on the waters of the Mississippi. 
 The daily bulletin from Island "No. 10, for many days, repre 
 sented that the enemy, after an incessant bombardment of 
 many hours, had inflicted no injury. The people of the South 
 were constantly assured that the place was impregnable, and 
 that the enemy never could pass it. 
 
 The bombardment had been one of unparalleled length in 
 the war. Every day the mortars continued to boom, and still 
 the cannon of the island replied with dull, sullen roar, wasting 
 shot and temper alike. The very birds became accustomed to 
 the artificial thunder, and alighted upon the branches of trees 
 overhanging the mortars in the sulphurous smoke. The scenes 
 of this long bombardment are described as affording some of 
 the most magnificent spectacles the tongues of flame leaping 
 irom the mouths of the mortars amid a crash like a thousand 
 thunders, and then the columns of smoke rolling up in beauti 
 ful fleecy spirals, developing into rings of exquisite proportions, 
 It is only necessary for one to realize the sublime poetry of 
 war, as illustrated in the remarkable scenes at Island No. 10, 
 to imagine a dozen of these monsters thundering at once, the 
 air filled with smoke clouds, the gunboats belching out destruc 
 tion and completely hidden from sight in whirls of smoke, the 
 shells screaming through the air with an unearthly sound, and 
 the distant guns of the enemy sending their solid shot above 
 and around the island, dashing the water up in glistening col 
 umns and jets of spray. 
 
 While the people of the South were induced to anticipate a 
 decisive and final repulse of the enemy on the waters of the 
 Mississippi, the news reached them through Northern channels 
 that the capture of Island No. 10 had been effected on the 8th 
 of April, and that not only had the position been weakly sur 
 rendered, but that we had saved none of our cannon or muni 
 tions, had lost our boats, and had left about six hundred pris 
 oners on the island in the hands cf the enemy. 
 
 The evacuation of the island, which was effected in the great- 
 eat precipitation our sick being abandoned, there being no 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 299 
 
 concert of action whatever between tlie Confederates upon the 
 island and those occupying the shore, the latter fleeing, leaving 
 the former to their fate had taken place "but two days after 
 Gen. Beauregard had left command of the post for important 
 operations to check the movements of the enemy on the Ten* 
 nessee river, which were developing a design to cut off his 
 communication in west Tennessee with the eastern and southern 
 States. Gen. Makall had been appointed to take command oi 
 the post. He assumed it on the 5th of April, in a flaming or 
 der, in which he announced to the soldiers : " Let me tell you 
 who I am. I am a general made by Beauregard a general 
 selected by Gens. Beauregard and Bragg." In the mean time, 
 the enemy was busy, and his operations were suffered to es 
 cape the vigilance of the Confederate com nander. The Fed 
 erals had cut a canal across the peninsula at New Madrid, 
 through which the steamers and several barges were taken. 
 The undertaking was an herculean one. The canal was twelve 
 miles long, through heavy timber, which had to be sawed off 
 by hand four feet under water. 
 
 One of the enemy s gunboats had succeeded in passing the 
 island in a heavy fog. On the night of the 5th of April, the 
 enemy, with a gunboat engaged Rucker s battery. While at 
 tention was engaged with this boat, a second gunboat slipped 
 down unperceived, except by the men at one of the batteries, 
 who fired two shots at her without effect. The situation was 
 now serious ; the enemy had possession of the river beh w the 
 island. On the night of April 6, Gen. Makall moved the in 
 fantry and Stewart s battery to the Tennessee shore, to pro 
 tect the landing from anticipated attacks. The artillerists 
 remained on the island. The enemy having effected a landing 
 above and below the island in large force, its surrender might 
 be considered as a military necessity. But there could be no 
 excuse for the wretched management and infamous scenes that 
 attended the evacuation. All our guns, seventy in number, 
 varying in calibre from 32 to 100 pounders, rifled, were aban 
 doned, together with our magazines, which were well supplied 
 with powder, large quantities of shot, shell, and other muni 
 tions of war. The transports and boats were scuttled. Noth 
 ing seems to have been done properly. The guns were spiked 
 with rat-tail files, but so imperfectly that several of them 
 
300 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 were rendered serviceable to the enemy in a very short time. 
 The floating battery, formerly the Pelican Dock at New Or 
 leans, of sixteen heavy guns, after being scuttled, was cut loose. 
 At daylight it was found lodged a short distance above Point 
 Pleasant, and taken possession of by the enemy. Four steamers 
 afloat fell into the hands of the enemy, with all the stores on 
 board. 
 
 The unhappy men on the island were abandoned to their 
 fate, the Confederates on the mainland having fled with pre 
 cipitation. On one of the hospital boats were a hundred poor 
 wretches, half dead with disease and neglect. On the shore 
 were crowds of our men wandering around among the profu 
 sion of ammunition and stores. A few of them effected their 
 escape through the most remarkable dangers and adventures. 
 Some trusted themselves to hastily constructed rafts, with 
 which to float down the Mississippi, hoping to attract the at 
 tention and aid of the people living on the shore. Others 
 gained the upper banks of the river, where, for several days 
 and nights, they wandered, lost in the extensive cane-brakes, 
 without food, and in severe toil. Some two or three hundred 
 of the stragglers, principally from the forces on the mainland, 
 succeeded in making their way to Bell s Station, on the Ohio 
 railroad, and reached Memphis. 
 
 The disaster was considerable enough in the loss of Island 
 "No. 10 ; but the circumstances attending it, and the conse 
 quences in the loss of men, cannon, ammunition, supplies, and 
 every thing appertaining to an army, all of which might pos 
 sibly have been avoided, increased the regrets of the South, 
 and swelled the triumph of her enemies. Our total loss in 
 prisoners, including those taken on the mainland as well aa 
 those abandoned on the island, was probably not less than two 
 thousand. The Federal Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Welles, 
 had reason to declare, that "the triumph was not the less 
 appreciated, because it was protracted, and finally bloodless. 
 No single battle-field had yet afforded to the North such visible 
 fruits of victory as had been gatherc i at Island No. 10. 
 
THK FIKST YEAR. 301 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SH1LQH. 
 
 In the mean time, the movements of the eneiry on the Ten 
 nessee river were preparing the situation for one of the grand 
 est battles that had yet been fonght in any quarter of the war, 
 or had yet illustrated the exasperation and valor of the con 
 testants. Gen. Beauregard had determined to foil the apparent 
 designs of the enemy to cut off his communication with the 
 south and east, by concentrating all his available forces at and 
 around Corinth. This town is situated at the junction of the 
 Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio railroads, 
 about ninety-two miles east of Memphis. 
 
 Gen. Johnston had taken up a line of march from Murfrees- 
 boro, to form a junction of his forces with those of General 
 Beauregard. By the 1st of April, these united forces were 
 concentrated along the Mobile and Ohio railroad from Bethel 
 to Corinth, and on the Memphis and Charleston railroad from 
 Qorinth to luka. The army of the Mississippi had received 
 other important accessions. It was increased by several regi 
 ments from Louisiana, two divisions of Gen. Folk s command 
 from Columbus, and a fine corps of troops from Mobile and 
 Pensacola. In numbers, in discipline, in the galaxy of tho 
 distinguished names of its commanders, and in every article 
 of merit and display, the Confederate army in the vicinity of 
 Corinth was one of the most magnificent ever assembled by the 
 South on a single battle-field. 
 
 The enemy under Gen. Grant, on the west bank of the Teii 
 nessee, had obtained a position at Pittsburg and in the direc 
 tion of Savannah. An advance was contemplated by him, as 
 soon as he could be reinforced by the army under Gen. Buell, 
 then known to be advancing for that purpose by rapid marches 
 from Nashville by the way of Columbus. To prevent this 
 demonstration, it was determined by Gen. Beauregard to press 
 the issue without delay. By a rapid and vigorous attack on 
 Gen. Grant, it was expected he would be beaten back into his 
 transports and the river, or captured in time to enable the 
 Confederates to profit by the victory, and remove to the rear 
 all the stores and munitions that would fall into their hands, 
 in such an event, before the arrival of Gen. Buell s army on 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY" OF THE WAR. 
 
 the scene. It was never contemplated, however, to retain the 
 position thus gained and abandon Corinth, the strategic point 
 of the campaign. 
 
 It appears to have been Gen. Beauregard s plan to have at 
 tacked the enemy in their encampments on Saturday, the 5th. 
 He, therefore, began the movement on Thursday, but the roada 
 were heavy, and the men could not be got into position before 
 Saturday. Had the attack been made on that day, the first 
 day s fighting must have ended the conflict, for the enemy 
 could have had no hope of aid from Buell. As it was, one 
 day was lost, and the enemy were constantly inspirited by the 
 almost momentary expectation of the arrival of Gen. Buell. In 
 the mean time, courier after courier was sent by Gen. Grant 
 for Buell to hasten on. 
 
 The Confederate forces did not reach the intersection of the 
 roads from Pittsburg and Hamburg, in the immediate vicinity 
 of the enemy, until late on Saturday afternoon. Their march 
 had been tedious and wearisome. The roads were narrow and 
 traversed a densely wooded country, and a severe rain-storm 
 had rendered them almost impassable, and had drenched our 
 troops in bivouac. 
 
 The morning of the 6th of April (Sunday) was to usher in 
 the bloody scenes of a memorable battle. One camp of the 
 enemy was near Shiloh church a rude log chapel ; and an 
 other stretched away in the direction of the road leading from 
 Pittsburg Landing on the river to Corinth. The scene of the 
 encampment was a very beautiful and magnificent one, there 
 being but little undergrowth, and the thin ranks of the tall 
 forest-trees affording open views, while the interlacing of their 
 topmost boughs made a picturesque and agreeable canopy. In 
 a military point of view, the battle-field m ght be described as 
 a broken country, presenting opportunities for a great variety 
 of manoeuvres and independent operations by comparatively 
 small bodies of men. 
 
 On the Saturday evening preceding the Sunday fight at 
 Shiloh, there had been considerable skirmishing on our lines. 
 Early Sunday morning, before sunrise, Gen. Hardee, in front 
 of the enemy s camp, made an advance upon it. The enemy 
 was taken completely by surprise > not expecting to be attacked 
 under any circumstances, by our inferior force. Many of the 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 303 
 
 neri were undressed and in night attire, and the hot breakfasts 
 prepared by the messes were left untouched for the entertain 
 ment of our men. A line of battle was hastily formed by tbe 
 enemy, and, in the mean time, our forces were advancing in 
 every direction. The plan of the battle on our side was to 
 form three parallel lines the front, centre, and rear each line 
 having its centre and two flanks. The rear constituted the re 
 serve, and the artillery was distributed between the first and 
 second lines. The front was commanded by Gen. Hardee, the 
 centre by Gen. Bragg, and the rear by Gen. Polk Johnston 
 and Beau regard being with the latter. 
 
 From daylight until a little after six o clock, the fighting 
 was principally between the pickets and skirmishers, but, at 
 the latter hour, a portion of our main body appearing in sight, 
 fire opened with artillery, and for an hour or more one heard 
 Qothing but the incessant uproar of the heavy guns. Our men, 
 though many of them were unaccustomed to the iron hail, re 
 ceived the onset coolly, awaiting the orders to rise from their 
 recumbent position and advance. In due time these ca me, and 
 thenceforward through the day, brave and disciplined as were 
 the Federal troops, nothing seemed capable of resisting the 
 desperate valor of the Confedrates. The enemy fell like chaff 
 before the wind. Broken in ranks, they rallied behind trees 
 and in the underbrush, only to be again repulsed and driven 
 back. 
 
 The scenery of the battle-field was awfully sublime. Far up 
 in the air shells burst into flame like shattered stars, and passed 
 away in little clouds of white vapor, while others filled the air 
 with a shrill scream, and burst far in the rear. All along the 
 line the faint smoke of the musketry rose lightly, while, from 
 the mouths of the cannon, sudden gusts of intense white smoke 
 burst up all around. Every second ot time had its especial 
 tone. Bullets shredded the air, and whistled swiftly by, or 
 struck into trees, fences, wagons, or with their peculiar " chuck" 
 into men. Every second of time had its especial tone, and the 
 forest, among whose branches rose the wreathing smoke, was 
 packed with dead. 
 
 The irresistible attack of our troops was compared by Gen. 
 Beauregard, in his official report of the battle, to "an Alpine 
 a/alanehe." The enemy were driven back by a series of dar- 
 
304 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ing, desperate, and successful charges, the various Confederate 
 regiments and brigades rolling rapidly forward to the sound of 
 enthusiastic cheers. In all of these, both general and field 
 officers displayed a bravery that amounted to sheer recklessness, 
 frequently leading the men into the very teeth of the opposing 
 fire. It was these" inspiring examples of personal valor which 
 made our troops invincible. 
 
 At half-past two, Gen. Johnston, the commander -in-chief of 
 the Confederates, fell. He was leading a charge upon 1 the third 
 camp of the enemy. The fatal wound was inflicted by a 
 musket-ball on the calf of his right leg, and was considered by 
 him as only a flesh wound. Soon after receiving it, he gave 
 ah order to Governor Harris, who was acting as volunteer aid 
 to him, who, on his return to Gen. Johnston, in a different part 
 of the field, found him exhausted from loss of blood, and reel 
 ing in his saddle. Hiding up to him, Governor Harris asked : 
 "Are you hurt?" To which the now dying hero answered: 
 "Yes, and I fear mortally ;" and then stretching out both arms 
 to his companion, fell from his horse, and soon after expired, 
 No other wounds were discovered upon his person. 
 
 Prudently the information of Gen. Johnston s fall was kept 
 from the army. But the day was already secured. Amid the 
 roar of artillery and the cheers of the victorious army, the 
 commander-in-chief quietly breathed his last. Our forces were 
 successfully pushing the enemy back upon the Tennessee river. 
 It was after six o clock in the evening when his last position 
 was carried. The remnant of his army had been driven in 
 utter disorder to the immediate vicinity of Pittsburg, under the 
 shelter of the heavy guns of his iron -clad gunboats, and the 
 Confederates remained undisputed masters of his well-selected, 
 admirably provided cantonments, after over twelve hours of 
 obstinate conflict with his forces, who had been beaten from 
 them and the contiguous covert, but only by a sustained onset 
 of all the men we could bring into action. 
 
 The substantial fruits of our victory were immense. We 
 were in possession of all the enemy s encampments between 
 Owl and Lick rivers, nearly all of his field artillery, about 
 thirty flags, colors, and standards, over three thousand pris 
 oners, including a division commander (General Prentiss) and 
 several brigade command ers, thousands of small-arms, an iin 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 305 
 
 mense supply of subsistence, forage, and munitions of war, and 
 a large amount of means of transportation. Never, perhaps^ 
 was an army so well provided as that of the enemy, and never, 
 perhaps, was one so completely stripped on a single battle-field. 
 On taking possession of the enemy s encampments, there were 
 found therein the complete muster-rolls of the expedition up 
 the river. It appeared that we had engaged the divisions of 
 Gens. Prentiss, Sherman, Hurlbut, McClernand, and Smith, of 
 9,000 men each, or at least 45,000 men. Our entire force in 
 the engagement could not have exceeded 38,000 men. The 
 flower of the Federal troops were engaged, being principally 
 Western men, from the States of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, 
 and Iowa. There were also quite a number of Missourians 
 opposed to us, who are said to have fought with great spirit, 
 opposite Gen. Gladden s brigade, on the extreme right. These 
 men were accustomed to lives of hardihood and adventure. 
 The captured Federal general, Prentiss, did not hesitate to 
 testify to General Beauregard, " You have whipped our best 
 troops to-day." 
 
 The enemy s artillery on the field, according to Gen. Pren 
 ties statement, numbered in all one hundred and eight pieces, 
 or eighteen batteries of six pieces each. Their small-arms 
 were of every description : Minie rifles, Enfield rifles, Maynard 
 rifles, Colt s six-shooters, common muskets, &c., all of the best 
 quality and workmanship. The Federal equipments left 
 nothing to be desired. Their clothing was of the best quality 
 and abundant, and the same may be said of their supplies. 
 An abundance of excellent coffee was found in their tents 
 beef, pork, butter, cheese, navy biscuit, and sugar. The famous 
 expedition to the plains of Manassas was not better fitted out 
 or supplied. 
 
 On Sunday night, Gen. Beauregard established his head 
 quarters at the little church of Shiloh, and our troops were 
 directed to sleep on their arms in the enemy s encampment. 
 The hours, however, that should have been devoted to the 
 refreshment of nature were spent by many of the troops in a 
 disgraceful hunt after the spoils. The possession of the rich 
 camp of the enemy seemed to have demoralized whole regi 
 ments. All through the night and early the next morning 
 the hunt after the spoils was continued. Cowardly citie\i$. 
 
306 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 and rapacious soldiers were engaged alike in the wretched 
 work. They might be seen everywhere, plundering the tents 
 out of which the enemy had been driven, and loading them 
 selves down with the spoils. The omission of discipline, which 
 permitted these scenes, is not pardonable even in the license and 
 indulgences which generally attend the victory of an army. 
 The spoils of a victorious army should be . carefully gathered 
 up and preserved for the use of the army itself. They are the 
 just possession of the conqueror, are frequently of great value, 
 and should not be lost or carried off, where they can be of use. 
 But, more than this, nothing could be more likely to demoral 
 ize troops than the indiscriminate pillage of an enemy s camp. 
 It creates disorganization in the army ; it so far stands in the 
 way of a vigorous pursuit of the enemy ; it demoralizes the 
 spoiler himself, and lets him down at one step from an honor 
 able soldier to a plundering brigand. It is no wonder that the 
 troops which confronted the enemy next morning in the vicinity 
 of Pittsburg Landing betrayed, however bravely they fought in 
 comparison with the enemy, a diminution of spirit and visible 
 signs of demoralization. 
 
 Sunday night found both armies in a critical situation. Gen. 
 Beauregard hoped, from news received by a special dispatch, 
 that delays had been encountered by Gen. Buell in his march 
 from Columbia, and that his main force, therefore, could not 
 reach the field of battle in time to save Gen. Grant s shattered 
 fugitive forces from capture or destruction on the following 
 day. The situation of Gen. Grant was that of the most ex 
 treme anxiety to himself. The enemy had supposed that the 
 last act of the tragedy would have been completed on Saturday 
 evening. The reserve line of the Federals was entirely gone. 
 Their whole army was crowded into a circuit of half to two- 
 thirds of a mile around the landing. They had been falling 
 back all day. The next repulse would have put them into the 
 river, and there were not transports enough to cross a single 
 division before the Confederates would be upon them. As the 
 lull in the firing of the Confederates took place, and the angry 
 rattle of musketry died upon the ears of the fugitive Federals, 
 they supposed that the pursuing army was preparing for tho 
 grand final rush that was to crown the day s success. But 
 Gen. Beauregard had been satisfied to pursue the enemy to the 
 
THE FIRST YEAB. 307 
 
 river, and to leave him under the cover of his gunboats, with 
 out an attempt to penetrate it. When it was understood that 
 pursuit was called off, Gen. Grant could ill conceal his exulta 
 tion. His anxiety was suddenly composed, and, in a tone ol 
 confidence, he exclaimed to the group of officers around him 
 " to-morrow they will be exhausted, and then we will go at 
 them with fresh troops." * 
 
 He was right. Looking across the Tennessee, he could see 
 a body of cavalry awaiting transportation over. They were 
 gfcj.d to be Buell s advance; yet they had been there an hour 
 or two alone. Suddenly there was a rustle among the gazers. 
 They saw the gleaming of the gun-barrels, and they caught, 
 amid the leaves and undergrowth down the opposite side of the 
 river, glimpses of the steady, swinging tramp of trained sol 
 diers. A division of Buell s army was there, and was hailed 
 with tremendous cheers by the men on the opposite bank oi 
 the river. 
 
 The enemy was reinforced on Monday morning by more troops 
 than Gen. Beauregard could have counted upon. The divisions 
 of Gens. Nelson, McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas, of Buell s 
 army, had crossed the river, some 25,000 strong ; also, Gen. L. 
 Wallace s division of Gen. Grant s army had been moved uj 
 the river making at least 33,000 fresh troops. Vigorous 
 preparations were made by Gen. Beauregard to resist the as 
 sault, which was deemed almost certain on Monday. A hot 
 fire of musketry opened about six o clock in the morning from 
 the enemy s quarter upon his advanced lines, and assured him 
 of the junction of his forces. The battle soon raged with fury, 
 the enemy being flushed by his reinforcements, and confident 
 in his largely superior numbers. 
 
 * The evidence of a "lost opportunity" in the battle of Shiloh abundantly 
 appeared in the statements of the Northern commanders. Gen. Prentiss is 
 reported to have made the following statement : " Gen. Beauregard," he said, 
 " asked me if we had any works at the river, to which I replied, you must 
 consider us poor soldiers, general, if you suppose we would have neglected so 
 plain a duty 1 The truth is, however, we had no works at all. Gen. Beaure 
 gard stopped the pursuit at a quarter to six ; had he used the hour still left 
 him, he could have captured the last man on this side of the river, for Buell 
 did not cross till Sunday night." 
 
 According to Buell s report, our shot were falling among the fugitivea 
 crouching under the river-bank when our troops were called off. 
 
308 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 On the right and centre, the enemy were repulsed in ever^ 
 attempt he made with his heavy columns in that quarter of the 
 field ; on the left, however, and nearest to the point of arrival 
 of his reinforcements, he drove forward line after line of his 
 fresh troops, which were met with resolution and courage. 
 &gain and again our troops were brought to the charge, inva 
 riably to win the position at issue, invariably to drive back their 
 foe. But hour by hour, thus opposed to an enemy constantly 
 reinforced, the ranks of the Confederates were perceptibly 
 thinned under the unceasing withering fire of the enemy. By 
 noon, eighteen hours of hard fighting had sensibly exhausted a 
 large number ; Gen. Beauregard s last reserves had necessarily 
 been disposed of, and the enemy was evidently receiving fresh 
 reinforcements after each repulse ; accordingly, about 1 p. M., 
 he determined to withdraw from so unequal a conflict, securing 
 such of the results of the victory of the day before as was then 
 practicable. % 
 
 The retreat was executed with uncommon steadiness, and 
 the enemy made no attempt to follow. Gen. Breckinridge 
 had been posted with his command so as to cover the with 
 drawal of the rest of the army. Gen. Beauregard had ap 
 proached him and told him, that it might be necessary for him 
 to sacrifice himself; for said he, " This retreat must not be a 
 rout ! You must hold the enemy back, if it requires the loss 
 of your last man!" "Your orders shall be executed to the 
 letter," said the chivalrous Breckinridge ; and gathering his 
 command, fatigued and jaded and decimated by the toils and 
 terrors of a two days battle, he and they prepared to devote 
 themselves, if necessary, for the safety of the army. There, 
 weary and hungry, they stood guard and vigil. The enemy, 
 sorely chastised, did not indeed come as expected ; but Breck 
 inridge and his heroes deserve none the less praise. 
 
 Never did troops leave a battle-field in better order. Even 
 the stragglers fell into the ranks, and marched off with those 
 fvho had stood more steadily by their colors. The fact that the 
 enemy attempted no pursuit indicates their condition. They 
 had gained nothing ; we had lost nothing. The Confederates 
 left the field only after eight hours of incessant battle with a 
 superior army of fresh troops, whcm they had repulsed in every 
 attack on their lines, so repulseu and crippled, indeed, as to 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 309 
 
 Leave it unable to take the field for the campaign for which it 
 was collected and equipped at such enormous expense, and with 
 such profusion of all the appliances of war. The action of 
 Monday had not eclipsed the glorious victory of the preceding 
 day. Sunday had left the Confederate army masters of the 
 battle-field, their adversary beaten, and a signal victory achieved 
 after an obstinate conflict of twelve hours. 
 
 The result of the engagement was most honorable to the 
 South, and was recognized as one of the most conspicuous 
 triumphs to its arms. The exultations, however, of victory in 
 the public mind were perceptibly tempered by the sad intelli 
 gence of the death of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. 
 
 The deceased commander had led, perhaps, one of the most 
 eventful military lives on this continent. He was graduated at 
 the West Point Academy in 1820, as lieutenant in the Sixth 
 Infantry, and after serving in the Black Hawk war left the 
 army, and in 1836 emigrated to Texas, arriving there shortly 
 after the battle of San Jacinto. He entered the Texan army 
 as a private soldier, and was soon promoted to succeed Gen. 
 Felix Houston in the chief command an event which led to a 
 duel between them, in which Johnston was wounded. Having 
 held the office of senior brigadier-general until 1838, he was 
 appointed Secretary of War, and in 1839 organized an expedi 
 tion against the Cherokees, who were totally routed in an en 
 gagement on the Neches. In 1840, he retired from office, and 
 settled upon a plantation in Brazoria county. He was an ardent 
 advocate for the annexation of Texas to the United States. In 
 1846, at the request of Gen. Taylor, he took the field against 
 Mexico, as commander of the volunteer Texan rifle regiment, 
 in which capacity he served six months. Subsequently, he was 
 acting inspector-general to Gen. Butler, and for his services at 
 the siege of Monterey received the thanks of his commander. 
 In October, 1849, he was appointed paymaster by President 
 Taylor, with the rank of major, and, upon the passage of the 
 act of Congress authorizing the raising of additional regiments 
 in the army, he was appointed colonel of the Second Cavalry. 
 In the latter part of 1857, he received the command of the 
 United States forces sent to coerce the Mormons into obedience 
 to the Federal authority, and conducted the expedition in 
 eafety to Great Salt Lake City in the opening of the succeeding 
 
310 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 year. Since then he commanded the military district of Utah 
 He resigned the Federal service as soon as the intelligence 01 
 the opening of the war reached him, and, travelling from 
 California by the overland route> reached New Orleans in 
 August last. Proceeding to Kichmond, he was appointed, on 
 his arrival there, general, to take command of the Department 
 of the Mississippi. 
 
 It is known that Gen. Johnston was the subject of most un 
 just and hasty public censure in connection with his late 
 retreat from Bowling Green and fall of Fort Donelson. He is 
 said, but a few days before the battle in which he fell, to 
 have expressed the determination to discharge his duties and 
 responsibilities to his country, according to the best convictions 
 of his mind, and a resolution to redeem his losses at no distant 
 day. According to the official report, he fell in the thickest of 
 the fight. 
 
 Keen regrets were felt by the friends of Gen. Johnston on 
 learning the circumstances of the manner of his death, as these 
 circumstances appeared to leave bat little doubt that his life 
 might have been saved by surgical attention to his wound. 
 His only wound was from a musket-ball that severed an incon 
 siderable artery in the thigh. He was probably unconscious oi 
 the wound, and never realized it until, from the loss of blood, 
 he fell fainting and dying from his horse. 
 
 Gen. Johnston was in the natural vigor of manhood, about 
 sixty years of age. He was about six feet in height, strongly 
 and powerfully formed, with a grave, dignified, and command 
 ing presence. His features were strongly marked, showing the 
 Scottish lineage, and denoted great resolution and composure 
 of character. His complexion, naturally fair, was, from ex 
 posure, a deep brown. His manner was courteous, but rather 
 grave and silent. He had many devoted friends, but they had 
 been won and secured rather by the native dignity and nobility 
 of his character, than by his power of address. 
 
 Besides the conspicuous loss of the commander-iii-chief, 
 others had fallen whose high qualities were likely to be missed 
 in the momentous campaign impending. Gen. Gladden, of 
 South Carolina, had fallen, after having been conspicuous to 
 his whole corps and the army for courage and capacity. Dis 
 tinguished in Mexico, on the bloody fields of Contreras and 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 311 
 
 Churubusco, he received honorable wounds. Having become 
 a citizen of Louisiana, and selected to command a noble bri 
 gade, he again accumulated honor upon his native State, illus 
 trated its martial fame, served her, no less than Louisiana, with 
 his life, and sealed the great cause with his best blood. 
 
 George M. Johnston, Provisional Governor of Kentucky, 
 had gone into the action with the Kentucky troops. Having 
 his horse shot under him on Sunday, he entered the ranks of a 
 Kentucky company, commanded by Capt. Monroe, son of the 
 venerable Judge Monroe. At night, while occupying the same 
 tent with the captain, it occurred to him that he had not taken 
 the oath which entitled him to be enrolled in that company. 
 He, therefore, desired the oath to be administered, which was 
 done with due solemnity ; " and now," said the new recruit, 
 "I will take a night s rest and be ready for a good day s 
 fighting." Faithfally he kept his pledge, and fell mortally 
 wounded in the thickest of the fight. In making official men 
 tion of his death, Gen. Beauregard declared that " not Ken 
 tucky alone, but the whole Confederacy had sustained a great 
 loss in the death of this brave, upright, and able man." He 
 was one of a family of heroes, the nephew of the dauntless 
 chief in the battle of the Thames, and the man who, during a 
 long public and private career, had been ever regarded one oi 
 the noblest of Kentucky chevaliers, true and worthy governor 
 of all that was left of Kentucky. 
 
 The fearless deportment of the Confederate commanders in 
 the action was remarkable, as they repeatedly led their com 
 mands personally to the onset upon their powerful adversary. 
 Gen. Bragg had two horses shot under him. Gen. Breckin- 
 ridge was twice struck by spent balls. Major-general Hardee 
 had his coat rent by balls and his horse disabled, but escaped 
 with a slight wound. Gen. Cheatham received a ball in the 
 shoulder, and Gen. Bushrod Johnson one in the side. Gen. 
 Bowen was wounded in the neck. Col. Adams, of the First 
 Louisiana regulars, succeeded Gen. Gladden in the command 
 of the right wing, and was soon after shot, the ball striking him 
 just above the eye and coming out behind the ear. Col. Kitt 
 Williams, of Memphis, and Col. Blythe, of Mississippi, formerly 
 consul to Havana, were killed. 
 
 The casualties of the battle of Shiloh were terrible. In car 
 
312 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 nage, the engagement might have compared with some of the 
 most celebrated in the world. Our loss, in the two days, 
 in killed outright, was 1,728; wounded, 8,012; missing, 959 
 making an aggregate of casualties of 10,699. The loss of the 
 enemy in killed, wounded, and prisoners, unquestionably could 
 not have been less than 15,000. 
 
 The suffering among the large numbers of our wounded was 
 extreme. They continued to come in from the field slowly, 
 but it was a long and agonizing ride that the poor fellows 
 had to endure, over twenty-two or twenty-three miles of the 
 roughest and ruttiest road in the Southern Confederacy. The 
 weather was horrible, and a cold northeast storm pelted merci 
 lessly down upon them. As they were carried, groaning, from 
 the vehicle to the floor of the hospital, or laid in the depot, it 
 was sad to see the suffering depicted upon their pinched and 
 pallid features. Some of them had lain on the ground, in the 
 mud, for twq nights, and were wet to the skin and shivering 
 with chills. 
 
 In view of the immense carnage of the battle of Shiloh, it 
 was popularly esteemed the great battle of the war, and was 
 declared by the Southern newspapers to take preference over 
 the celebrated action of Manassas. Indeed, the rank which 
 the Manassas battle held in the history of the war, was disputed 
 by newspaper critics on every occasion when some other action 
 presented a larger list of casualties or more prolonged scenes 
 of conflict. But these circumstances, by themselves, certainly 
 afford no standard for measuring the importance and grandeur 
 of battles. It is true that the action of Shiloh was a brilliant 
 Confederate success. But in dramatic situation, in complete 
 ness of victory, in interesting details, and in the grand histori 
 cal tragedy of the enemy s rout, no battle has yet been fought 
 in the war equal to that of Manassas, and, so far, it must hold 
 its place in the history of the first year of the war as its grand 
 battle, despite the efforts of interested critics to outrank its 
 grandeur by that of other achievements, and to do violence to 
 the justice of history. 
 
 There was one very remarkable circumstance in the battle 01 
 Manassas, which alone must give it an interest distinguished 
 i from that of any other engagement of the war. It was 
 i that, in the army which achieved that victory, there was rep 
 
THE FIKST YEAH. 313 
 
 resented, by troops, every State then in the Southern Con 
 federacy. 
 
 At Shiloh, the troops engaged were principally Tennessee- 
 ans, Mississippians, ^labamians, Louisianians, Floridians, Tex- 
 ans, Arkansians, and Kentuckians. There was also a battery 
 of Georgians in the field. The behavior of these troops had 
 given us additional reason for the pride so justly felt in South 
 ern arms and Southern prowess. Each and all of them fought 
 so bravely that no distinction can be made between corps from 
 different States. Battles are won, by each soldier feeling that 
 the day depends upon his own individual efforts, and, on the 
 field of Shiloh, this spirit was displayed, unless in rare instances 
 of cowardice, or the more numerous exceptions of demoraliza 
 tion by the pillage which had unfortunately been permitted of 
 the enemy s camp. 
 
 The misrepresentations of the North, with reference to the 
 issue of the war, found a crowning example of falsehood and 
 effrontery in the official declaration made at Washington of 
 the action of Shiloh as a brilliant and glorious Federal vic 
 tory. The Lincoln government had not hesitated to keep up 
 the spirits of the people of the North by the most audacious 
 and flaming falsehoods, which would have disgraced even the 
 war bulletins of the Chinese, and which have always been 
 ."ound to be, in nations using this expedient in war, evidences 
 not only of imperfect civilization, but of natural cowardice. 
 The order of the War Department at Washington, signalizing 
 *.ts impostured victory at Shiloh, was as disgusting in profanity 
 as it was brazen in falsehood. It declared that at rieridian 
 of Sunday next after the receipt of this order, at the head of 
 every regiment in the armies of the United States, there should 
 be offered by its chaplain a prayer, giving " thanks to the Lord 
 of Hosts for the recent manifestation of His power in the over 
 throw of the rebels and traitors." One of the Federal generals 
 who was incidentally complimented in this order H. W. Hal- 
 leek for his " success" in the Missouri campaign, had written 
 a voluminous letter to the Washington Cabinet recommending 
 ^.Q policy of representing every battle in the progress of the 
 war as a Federal victory. A government, which Mr. Seward 
 had declared, in his letter to the British premier on the occa 
 sion of his cringing surrender to that power of the Southern 
 
314: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 commissioners, represented " a civilized and humane nation, a 
 Christian people," had been persuaded to stoop to a policy which 
 even the spirit and honor of brigands might have scorned, and 
 which is never recognized but as a weapon of the vilest and 
 most cowardly of humanity. 
 
 Gen. Beauregard retired to Corinth, in pursuance of his 
 original design to make that the strategic point of his cam 
 paign. The Federals had sent several expeditions into North 
 Alabama, and had succeeded in occupying Huntsville and De- 
 catur ; but the design of these expeditions did not appear to 
 extend further than an attempt to cripple our resources by cut 
 ting off the Memphis and Charleston railroad, which runs 
 through these towns. 
 
 In the mean time, it was decided by the government at Bich- 
 mond to remove our forces from the Trans-Mississippi district, 
 and to unite the armies of Yan Dorn and Price with such force 
 as Gen. Beauregard already had at Corinth. The order for 
 leaving the limits of their States was responded to by the Mis 
 souri and Arkansas troops with ready and patriotic spirit. 
 These brave men gave an example of gallantry and devotion, 
 in leaving their homes and soil in the possession of the enei^y, 
 to fight for other parts of the Confederacy, which was made 
 especially conspicuous from the contrast afforded by the troops 
 of some other States which had made unusually large preten 
 sions to patriotism and gallantry, regiments of which had 
 openly mutinied at being ordered beyond the limits of their 
 State, or had marched off with evident discontent, although 
 no enemy held their territory, or was left in possession of their 
 homes and the treasures they contained. 
 
 The noble " State Guard" of Missouri had a better apprecia 
 tion of the duties of patriotism than many of their fellow- 
 citizens of the Confederacy, whose contracted and boastful 
 spirit had made them louder in professions of chivalry and de 
 votion. They followed their beloved commander without a 
 murmur across the waters of the Mississippi, turning their 
 backs upon their homes, for which they had fought with a 
 gallantry and devotion unequalled by any other struggle of the 
 war. They felt that while they were fighting for the fortunes 
 of the Confederacy, they were also contending for the ultimate 
 restoration of Missouri, and that they would serve their State 
 
THE FIKST YEAR 315 
 
 most effectually by following promptly and cheerfully Gens 
 Yai: Dorn and Price to Tennessee. Their leader had been 
 made a major-general in the Confederate service ; the tardy 
 act of promotion having been at last done from motives ol 
 policy, after all efforts had been made in vain to wring it from 
 the obtuse official sense of justice. His influence was used to 
 lead the troops of Missouri to new and distant fields of ser 
 vice, and his noble, patriotic appeals could not but be effectual 
 to men who loved him, who had suffered with him, and were 
 almost as his children.* 
 
 * The annexed address of Gen. Price to the troops, who followed him across 
 the Mississippi into the Confederate camp, will strike the reader as an ad 
 mirable appeal. Comprehensive in its terms, Napoleonic in spirit, and glow 
 ing with patriotic fire, it challenges comparison with some of the military 
 orders of the most celebrated commanders in history. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS, MISSOURI STATE GUARD, 
 Des Arc, Arkansas, April 3, 1862. 
 Soldiers of the State Gucvrd : 
 
 I command you no longer. I have this day resigned the commissioD 
 which your patient endurance, your devoted patriotism, and your dauntless 
 bravery have made so honorable. I have done this that I may the better 
 serve you, our State, and our country that I may the sooner lead you back 
 to the fertile prairies, the rich woodlands and majestic streams of our beloved 
 Missouri, that I may the more certainly restore you to your once happy homes, 
 and to the loved ones there. 
 
 Five thousand of those who have fought side by side with us under the 
 grizzly bears of Missouri, have followed me into the Confederate camp. They 
 appeal to you, as I do, by all the tender memories of the past, not to leave us 
 now, but to go with us wherever the path of duty may lead, till we shall have 
 conquered a peace, and won our independence b^ brilliant deeds upon new 
 fields of battle. 
 
 Soldiers of the State Guard ! veterans of six pitched battles and nearly 
 twenty skirmishes ! conquerors in them all ! your country, with its " ruined 
 hearths and shrines," calls upon you to rally once more in her defence, and 
 rescue her forever from the terrible thraldom which threatens her. I know 
 that she will not call in vain. The insolent and barbarous hordes which have 
 dared to invade our soil, and to desecrate our homes, have just met with F 
 signal overthrow beyond the Mississippi. Now is the time to end this ur 
 happy war. If every man will but do his duty, his own roof will shelter ML. 
 in peace from the storms of the coming winter. 
 
 Let not history record that the men who bore with patience the privations 
 f Cowskin Prairie, who endured uncomplainingly the burning heats of a 
 Missouri summer, and the frosts and snows of a Missouri winter ; that the 
 men who met the enemy at Carthage, at Oak Hills, at Fort Scott, at Lexing 
 ion, and in numberless lesser battle-fields in Missouri, and met them but tc 
 
316 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 It was generally considered in the South that the victory of 
 its arms at Shiloh fully compensated the loss of Island No. 10, 
 and that the Mississippi river below Fort Pillow, with its rich 
 and productive valley, might be accounted safe, with the greal 
 army at Corinth covering Memphis, and holding the enemy in 
 check on the land. But a great disaster was to occur where it 
 was least expected, and where it involved the most immense 
 consequences a disaster which was to astound the South, which 
 was to shake the confidence of the world in the fortunes of the 
 Confederacy, and which was to lead, by unavoidable steps, to 
 the abandonment to the enemy of the great Yalley of the Mis 
 sissippi. 
 
 THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 "When it was known in Richmond that the Federal fleet, 
 which had so long threatened New Orleans, had at last com 
 menced an attack on the Mississippi river forts, Jackson and 
 St. Philip, no uneasiness was felt for the result. The enemy s 
 fleet, which was to be engaged in this demonstration, was of 
 formidable size. It consisted of forty-six sail, carrying two 
 hundred and eighty-six guns and twenty-one mortars; the 
 whole under the command of Flag-officer Farragut, a renegade 
 Tennesseean. But it was declared, with the most emphatic 
 confidence, that New Orleans was impregnable; the forts, 
 Jackson and St. Philip, were considered but as the outer line 
 of defences ; vast sums of money had been expended to line the 
 shores of the river with batteries ; the city itself was occupied 
 by what was popularly supposed to be a large and disciplined 
 Confederate force under Gen. Lovell, and in its harbor was a 
 fleet consisting of twelve gunboats, one iron-clad steamer, and 
 the famous ram Manassas. 
 
 The authorities at Richmond did not hesitate to express the 
 most unlimited confidence in the safety of New Orleans, and 
 
 conquer them ; that the men who fought so bravely and so well at Elk Horn 
 that the unpaid soldiery of Missouri were, after so many victories, and aftei 
 eo much suffering, unequal to the great task of achieving the independence 
 of their magnificent State. 
 Soldiers ! I go but to mark a pathway to our homes. Follow me I 
 
 STERLING PRICE. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 317 
 
 refused even to entertain the probability of the enemy s pene 
 trating the outer line of defence, constituted by the river forts, 
 which were about sixty miles below the city. General Duncan, 
 who was said to be the best artillerist in the Confederate ser 
 vice, was in command of the forts. On the 23d of April lie 
 had telegraphed the most encouraging account of their condi 
 tion. The bombardment had then been continued for a week 
 with extraordinary vigor. Nearly 25,000 thirteen-inch shell 
 had been thrown by the enemy s mortar-boats, many thousands 
 having fallen within the fort. But, in spite of this unremitting 
 bombardment, the works were not at all damaged ; only three 
 guns had been dismounted, and the garrison had suffered only 
 to the extent of five killed and ten wounded. 
 
 The public were inspired with confidence of a favorable 
 result. The citizens ef New Orleans, never doubting the im 
 pregnability of the defences of their city, were occupied as 
 usual with the avocations of business and trade. The morning 
 succeeding the date of the encouraging telegram of General 
 Duncan was to witness scenes of the most extraordinary con 
 sternation, and to usher in the appalling intelligence of the 
 enemy s approach to the city. 
 
 At half-past three o clock, on the morning of the 24th of 
 April, the Federal fleet steamed up the river and opened on 
 our gunboats and both the forts, Jackson and St. Philip. The 
 fire was vigorously returned by our side, and in a very short 
 time became perfectly furious, the enemy s fleet and our whole 
 force being engaged. In about one hour several of the enemy s 
 vessels passed the forts the first one in the advance having 
 our night signal flying, which protected her from the fire ot 
 our boats, until she ran up close and opened the fire herself. 
 
 The citizens of New Orleans were awakened from their dream 
 of security to hear the tolling of the alarm bells announcing 
 the approach of ther foe. It was about 9 o clock, on the morn 
 ing of the 24th, that the intelligence was received. The whole 
 city was at once thrown into intense commotion ; every one 
 -ushed into the streets to the public places to head-quarters 
 to the City Hall inquiring the meaning of the agitation 
 which prevailed, the extent of the danger, and its proximity. 
 It was soon announced, on authority, that the enemy s vessels 
 had succeeded in passing the forts and were then on their waj 
 
318 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 to the city. The number was not known, but was afterwards 
 ascertained to amount to five heavy sloops-of-war and seven or 
 eight gunboats. 
 
 The attempt of the enemy had been audacions, but was aided 
 by various contingencies. The defences of the Mississippi 
 consisted of the two forts already mentioned Jackson and St. 
 Philip the former situated on the left bank, and the latter on 
 the right bank of the river. About three-quarters of a mile 
 below, the river had been obstructed by means of a raft con 
 sisting of a line of eleven dismasted schooners, extending from 
 bank to bank, strongly moored, and connected together with 
 BIX heavy chains. Unfortunately, a violent storm had rent a 
 large chasm in the raft, which could not be closed in time. 
 
 It appears, too, that on the night of the attack, the river 
 had not been lighted by fire-rafts, although General Lovell had 
 several times requested that it should be done. Moreover, the, 
 person in charge of the signals neglected to throw up rockets 
 on the approach of the fleet, and, by a strange coincidence, the 
 enemy s signals, on that night, were identically the same as 
 those used by our gunboats. The consequence was, that the 
 advance of the enemy s vessels was not discovered until they 
 were abreast of the forts. 
 
 The conflict between the Federal fleet and our fleet and forts, 
 was of a desperate character. The forts opened fire from all 
 their guns that could be brought to bear ; but it was too late 
 to produce much impression. The ships passed on, the Hart 
 ford, Commodore Farragut s flag-ship in the van, delivering 
 broadsides of grape, shrapnell, and round-shot at the forts en 
 either side. On arriving at this point they encountered the 
 Confederate fleet, consisting of seventeen vessels in all, only 
 about eight of which were armed. The Confederate gunboats 
 carried, some of them, two guns, and others only one. Never 
 theless, they fought with desperation against the enemy s over 
 whelming force, until they were all driven on shore and scuttled 
 or burned by their commanders. The Manassas was not 
 injured by the enemy s fire. She was run ashore and then 
 sunk. The Louisiana, the great iron-clad vessel, built to com 
 pete with the success lately won by the famous Virginia, was 
 not in good working order. She could not manoeuvre, and 
 only her three bow-guns could be used, although her full com 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 319 
 
 plement consisted of eighteen She emerged from the action 
 totally uninjured. The broadsides of the Pensacola, delivered 
 three times, within a distance of ten yards, failed to loosen a 
 single fastening, or to penetrate a single plate. The forts 
 likewise, remained intact ; but the garrisons lost 52, in killed 
 and wounded. Commander Mclntosh was desperately wounded. 
 He and Commander Mitchell both stood on the deck of the 
 Louisiana during the whole engagement. 
 
 Gen. Lovell arrived just in time to see the Federal fleet pass 
 ing Fort St. Philip, and to witness the desperate but ineffectual 
 attempt of the Confederate gunboats to check its progress up 
 the river. Just at this moment, the Iroon, one of the enemy s 
 vessels started in pursuit of the Doubloon, Gen. Lovell s boat, 
 and was rapidly overhauling her, when the Governor Moore 
 darted upon the Iroon, and ran into her three times. The 
 Federal vessel managed to escape from this assault, and was 
 again chasing the Doubloon, when the Quitman attacked her, 
 ran into her amidships, and sank her. Thus General Lovell 
 narrowly escaped capture. In the mean time, Captain Kennon, 
 commanding the gunboat Governor Moore, sped down the 
 river into the midst of the enemy s fleet, darting hither and 
 thither, attacking first one and then another of his monstrous 
 antagonists, until he had fired away his last round of ammu 
 nition. He then drove his vessel ashore, and applied the torch 
 to her with his own hand. In this way the forts were eluded, 
 the Confederate naval forces destroyed, and the great city of 
 New Orleans placed at the mercy of the Federal squadron. 
 
 At 2 o clock, p. M., on the 24th, General Lovell arrived at 
 the city, having driven and ridden almost the whole way up 
 along the levee. He was immediately called on by the mayor 
 and many other citizens, and in reply to the inquiries of these 
 gentlemen, stated that the intelligence already received was 
 correct ; that the enemy s fleet had passed the forts in force, 
 and that the city was indefensible and untenable. 
 
 The hasty withdrawal of Gen. Lovell s army from the city 
 drew upon him severe public censure ; but the applications of 
 this censure were made m ignorance of the facts, and the evi 
 dence which afterwards transpired showed that the evacuation 
 had been made at the urgent instance of the civiJ authorities 
 themselves of New Orleans, who had entreated the Confederate 
 
::/ SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 commander to retire from their midst, in order to save the citj 
 from the risk of bombardment. Gen. Lovell expressed a readi 
 ness and willingness to remain with all the troops under his 
 command. But it was the undivided expression of public 
 opinion that the army had better retire and save the city from 
 destruction ; and, accordingly, the general ordered his troops 
 to rendezvous at Camp Moore, about seventy miles above New 
 Orleans, on the Jackson railroad. 
 
 A demand was made by Farragut for the surrender of the 
 command, which Gen. Lovell positively refused, but told the 
 officer who bore the message, that if any Federal troops were 
 landed he would attack them. Two days after he retired, it 
 was said that the city had changed its purpose, and preferred 
 a bombardment to occupation by the enemy. General Lovell 
 promptly ordered a train and proceeded to New Orleans, and 
 immediately had an interview with Mayor Monroe, offering, if 
 such was the desire of the authorities and people, to return 
 with his command and hold the city as long as a man and shot 
 were left. 
 
 This offer not being accepted, it was decided that the safety 
 of the large number of unprotected women and children should 
 be looked to, and that the fleet would be permitted to take 
 possession. The raw and poorly armed infantry could by this 
 time have done nothing against the fleet. 
 
 The impression which prevailed, that General Lovell had a 
 large army under his command, was singularly erroneous. 
 His army had been stripped to reinforce that at Corinth, and, 
 since the 1st of March, he had sent ten full regiments to Gen. 
 Beauregard, besides many companies of cavalry and artillery 
 The morning report on the day of the evacuation of New Or 
 leans showed his force to be about twenty-eight hundred men, 
 two-thirds of whom were the volunteer and military companies 
 which had recently been put in camp. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, these facts, the circumstances in 
 which Gen. Lovell agreed to evacuate the city under the 
 persuasion of the civil authorities, appeared by no means to be 
 in that desperate extremity that would have justified the step 
 in military judgment; and it was thought by a considerable 
 portion of the public, not without apparent rea&on, that the 
 evacuation, at the time it was undertaken, was ill-advised, 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 321 
 
 hasty, and the result of panic or selfish clamors in the com 
 munity. 
 
 The evacuation was begun on the 24th of April. At this 
 time the river forts (had not fallen ; but two of the enemy s 
 gunboats actually threatened the city ; and the works at Chal- 
 mette five 32-pounders on one side of the river, and nine on 
 the other were still intact. But it is known that there were 
 reasons other than those which were apparent to the public, 
 which decided Gen. Lovell to evacuate the city, and which 
 were kept carefully to himself for obvious reasons. Gen. Lovell 
 was fully aware that a single frigate anchored at Kenner s 
 plantation, ten miles above the city, where the swamp and the 
 river approached within less than a mile of each other, and 
 through which narrow neck the railroad passes, would have 
 effectually obstructed an exit of troops or stores from the city 
 by land. 
 
 This was doubtless the real or most powerful reason for the 
 evacuation of the city.* 
 
 On the morning of the next day, the Federal ships appeared 
 off the Chalmette batteries, which exchanged a few shots with 
 them, but without effect. Passing the lower batteries, the ships 
 came up the river under full headway, the Hartford leading, 
 then the Brooklyn, the Richmond, the Pensacola, and six gun 
 boats. On and on they came, until they had extended their 
 line a distance of about five miles, taking positions at intervals 
 of about 900 yards apart. The scene on the water and in th@ 
 city was alike extraordinary. The Confederate troops were still 
 busy in the work of evacuation, and the streets were thronged 
 with carts, drays, vehicles of all description L , laden with the 
 multifarious articles constituting the paraphernalia and imple 
 ments of warfare. Officers on horseback were galloping hither 
 and thither, receiving and executing orders. The streets were 
 
 * The water at Kenner s was so high that a ship s guns could have had a 
 clear sweep from the river to the swamp, and there would have been no neces 
 sity of any bombardment ; the people and the army of New Orleans would 
 have been cut off and starved into a surrender in a short time. The failure oi 
 the enemy to occupy Kenner s, for which it is impossible to account, enabled 
 Gen. Lovell to bring out of the city nearly all the portable government 
 property necessary for war purposes, as well as a large part of the /State 
 property. 
 
 21 
 
322 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Crowded with persons rushing about with parcels of sugar, 
 buckets of molasses, and packages of provisions plundered 
 from the public stores. Others were busying themselves with 
 patriotic zeal to destroy property of value to the enemy, and 
 huge loads of cotton went rumbling along on the way to the 
 levee. 
 
 No sooner had the Federal fleet turned the point and come 
 within sight of the city, than the work of destruction of prop 
 erty commenced, Vast columns of smoke ascended to the sky, 
 darkening the face of heaven, and obscuring the noon-day sun ; 
 for five miles along the levee fierce flames darted through the 
 lurid atmosphere, their baleful glare struggling in rivalry with 
 the sunlight ; great ships and steamers, wrapped in fire, floated 
 down the river, threatening the Federal vessels with destruc 
 tion by their fiery contact. In front of the various presses, 
 and at other points along the levee, the cotton had been piled 
 up and submitted to the torch. It was burned by order of 
 the governor of Louisiana and of the military commander of 
 ihe Confederate States. Fifteen thousand bales were con 
 sumed, the value of which would have been about a million 
 and a half of dollars. The tobacco stored in the city, being al 
 held by foreign residents on foreign account, was not destroyed. 
 The specie of the banks, to the amount of twelve or fifteen mil 
 lions, was removed from the city and placed in a secure place ; 
 so were nearly all the stores and movable property of the 
 Confederate States. But other materials were embraced in the 
 awful conflagration. About a dozen large river steamboats, 
 twelve or fifteen ships, some of them laden with cotton, a grea: 
 floating battery, several unfinished gunboats, the immense ram 
 the Mississippi, and the docks on the other side of the river ; 
 were all embraced in the fiery sacrifice. The Mississippi was 
 an iron-clad frigate, a superior vessel of her class, and accounted 
 to be by far the most important naval structure the Confederate 
 government had yet undertaken. 
 
 On evacuating the city, Gen. Lovell had left it under the ex 
 clusive jurisdiction of Mayor Monroe. That officer, although 
 be had appealed to Gen. Lovell to evacuate the city, so as to 
 avoid such exasperation or conflict as might put the city in 
 peril of bombardment, was not willing to surrender it to the 
 enemy ; but was content, after due protestations of patriotic 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 323 
 
 fervor, that the enemy should perform, without interruption, 
 the ceremony of surrender for himself in taking down the flags 
 flying over all the public buildings of the city A correspond 
 ence ensued between the mayor and the flag-officer of the 
 enemy s fleet. The correspondence was certainly of very un 
 necessary length on the part of the mayor, and was travestied 
 in the Northern newspapers as a controversy between " Far 
 rago and Farragut" But the sentiments of the mayor, al 
 though tedious and full of vain repetitions, were just and 
 honorable. He declared, with explanations that were not 
 necessary to be given to the enemy, and at a length that 
 showed rather too much the vanity of literary style, that the 
 citizens of New Orleans yielded to physical force alone, and 
 that they maintained their allegiance to the government of the 
 Confederate States. 
 
 On the morning of the 26th of April, a force landed from the 
 sloop-of-war Pensacola, lying opposite Esplanade-street and 
 hoisted a United States flag upon the mint. It had not remained 
 there long before some young men, belonging to the Pinckney 
 battalion, mounted to the dome of the mint, tore it down and 
 dragged it through the streets. 
 
 Whether Flag-officer Farragut was exasperated or not by this 
 circumstance, is not known ; but he seemed to have determined 
 to spare no mortification to the city, which its civil officers had 
 already assured him was unprepared to resist him, and to hesi 
 tate at no misrepresentation in order to vilify its citizens. In 
 one of his letters to the mayor, he had sought to publish the 
 fact to the world, that helpless men, women, and children had 
 been fired upon by the citizens of New Orleans " for giving 
 expression to their pleasure at witnessing the old flag ;" when 
 the fact was, that the cheering on the levee referred to had 
 been, in defiance of the enemy, for "the Southern Confederacy," 
 and the only firing in the crowd was that of incautious and 
 exasperated citizens at the Federal fleet. 
 
 The State flag of Louisiana still floated from the City Hall. 
 It was an emblem of nothing more than State sovereignty, and 
 yet it too was required to be lowered at the unreasonable and 
 harsh demand of the invader. A memorial, praying the com 
 mon council to protect at least the emblem of State sovereign 
 ty from insult, was signed by a large number of the noble 
 
324 SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF TBS WAR. 
 
 women of New Orleans, including many of the wealthiest, 
 fairest, and highest in social position in the city. The reply 
 of the council was feeble and embarrassed. They passed a 
 resolution declaring that " no resistance would be made to the 
 forces of the United States ;" approving, at the same time, the 
 " sentiments" expressed by the mayor, and requesting him " to 
 act in the spirit manifested by them." 
 
 On the 28th of April, Flag-officer Farragut addressed his 
 ultimatum to the mayor, complaining of the continued display 
 of the flag of Louisiana on the City Hall, and concluding with 
 a threat of bombardment of the city by notifying him to re 
 move the women and children from its limits within forty-eight 
 hours. The mayor replied with new spirit, that the satisfac- g 
 tion which was asked at the hands of a vanquished people, 
 that they should lower with their own hands their State flag, 
 and perform an act against which their natures rebelled, woula 
 not, under any circumstances, be given; that there was no 
 possible exit from the city for its immense population of thu 
 women and children^ and that if the enemy chose to murder 
 them on a question of etiquette, he might do his pleasure. 
 
 In the delay of the enemy s actual occupation of the city 
 while the correspondence referred to between the mayor and 
 the enemy was in progress, the confidence of the people of 
 New Orleans had, in a measure, been rallied. There were yet 
 some glimmers of hope. They thought that, with the forts 
 Btill holding out, and the enemy s transports unable to get up 
 the river, the city might be saved. The fleet had no forces 
 with which to occupy it, and there was no access for an army 
 except by way of the lakes. They had determined to cut the 
 levee below should Gen Butler, in command of the land forces, 
 attempt an approach from Lake Borgne, and above the city, 
 should he make the effort from Lake Pontchartrain. In the 
 last resort, they were determined to man the lines around the 
 city, armed with such weapons as they could procure, aryd 
 fight the Federal land forces whenever they might make their 
 appearance. 
 
 These hopes were suddenly dispelled by the unexpected news 
 of the fall of Forts Jackson and St. Philip. Fort Jackson had 
 been very little damaged in the bombardment. It yielded 
 because of a mutiny of three or four hundred of the garrison, 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 325 
 
 who refused to obey the commands of its brave officer, Gen, 
 Duncan. He had no alternative but to give up the place. At 
 the first signs of the mutinous disposition, he threatened to 
 turn his guns on his own men, but found a large number 01 
 them spiked. He surrendered, in fact, to his own garrison. 
 The post could, probably, have been held, if the men had stood 
 to their guns. He stated this in an address on the levee to the 
 people, and, while stating it, cried like a child. 
 
 The news of the surrender of the river forts effected a sud 
 den change in the views of Flag-officer Farragut. He was 
 evidently anxious lest Gen. Butler, to whose transports a way 
 had now been opened to the city, should arrive before he could 
 consummate the objects of his expedition. He had already 
 involved himself in a maze of incongruities and contradictions. 
 First, he demanded peremptorily that the flag should be taken 
 down ; then he insisted that it should be removed before 12 M. 
 on Saturday, the 28th ; on Monday, he repeated the demand, 
 under a threat of bombardment, giving forty-eight hours for 
 the removal of the women and children. On Tuesday morn 
 ing, he reiterated his peremptory demand, but, within an hour, 
 he agreed to waive every thing he had claimed, and reluctantly 
 consented to send his own forces to take down the flag. 
 
 About noon, a Federal force, consisting of about two hun 
 dred armed marines and a number of sailors, dragging two 
 brass howitzers, appeared in front of the City Hall, and the 
 officer in command, mounting to the dome of the building, re 
 moved the flag of the State in sight of an immense crow r d of 
 the citizens of New Orleans. K~o interruption was offered to 
 the small party of the Federals, and the idle utterances of 
 curiosity were quelled by the sadness and solemnity of the 
 occasion. Profound silence pervaded the immense crowd. Not 
 even a whisper was heard. The very air was oppressive with 
 stillness. The marines stood statue-like within the square, 
 their bayonets glistening in the sunbeams, and their faces stolid 
 with indifference. Among the vast multitude of citizens, the wet 
 cheeks of women and the compressed lips and darkened brows 
 of men betrayed their consciousness of the great humiliation 
 which had overtaken them. But among them all there was not 
 one spirit to emulate the devotion of the martyr-hero of Vir- 
 ginia, who, a"hn r and unaided, on the steps of the Marshall 
 
326 SOUTHERN HISTORY 0* THE WAR. 
 
 House, in Alexandria, had avenged with hia life the first insult 
 ever offered by the enemy to the flag of his country. 
 
 Thus was the surrender of the city of New Orleans complet 
 ed. Gen. Butler took possession on the 1st of May, and in 
 augurated an administration, the despotism and insolence o 
 which might have been expected from one of his vile personal 
 character and infamous antecedents. He was a man who had 
 all the proverbially mean instincts of the Massachusetts Yan 
 kee ; he had been a disreputable jury lawyer at home ; as a 
 member of the old Democratic party, he had been loud in his 
 professions of devotion to the South ; but his glorification in 
 this particular had been dampened in the Charleston Conven 
 tion, where he pocketed an insult from a Southern delegate, and 
 turned pale at the threat of personal chastisement. The war 
 gave him an opportunity of achieving one of those easy repu 
 tations in the North which were made by brazen boastfnlness, 
 coarse abuse of the South, and aptitude in lying. We shall 
 have future occasion to refer to the brutal and indecent des 
 potism of this vulgar tyrant of New Orleans, who, in inviting 
 his soldiers to treat as prostitutes every lady in the street who 
 dared to show displeasure at their presence, surpassed the 
 atrocities of Haynau, and rivalled the most barbarous and 
 fiendish rule of vengeance ever sought to be wreaked upon a 
 conquered people. If any thing were wanting to make the 
 soldiers of the South devote anew whatever they had of life, 
 and labor, and blood to the cause of the safety and honor of 
 their country, it was the infamous swagger of Butler in New 
 Orleans, his autocratic rule, his arrest of the best citizens, his 
 almost daily robberies, and his " ingenious" war upon the help 
 lessness of men and the virtue of women. 
 
 The narrative of the fall of New Orleans furnishes its own 
 comment. Never was there a more miserable story, where 
 accident, improvidence, treachery, vacillation, and embarrass 
 ment of purpose, each, perhaps, not of great importance in it 
 self, combined under an evil star to produce the astounding 
 result of the fall, after an engagement, the casualties of which 
 might be counted by hundreds, of a city which was the commer 
 cial capital of the South, which contained a population of one 
 hundred and seventy thousand souls, and which was the largest 
 exporting city in the world. 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 327 
 
 The extent of the disaster is not to be disguised. It was a 
 heavy blow to the Confederacy. It annihilated us in Louisi 
 ana ; separated us from Texas and Arkansas ; diminished oui 
 resources and supplies by the loss of one of the greatest graic 
 and cattle countries within the limits of the Confederacy ; gave 
 to the enemy the Mississippi river, with all its means of navi 
 gation, for a base of operations ; and finally led, by plain and 
 irresistible conclusion, to our virtual abandonment of the great 
 and fruitful Yalley of the Mississippi. It did all this, and yet 
 it was very far from deciding the fate of the war. 
 
328 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER XHL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Prospects of the War. The Extremity of the South. Lights and Shadows of the 
 Campaign in Virginia. Jackson s Campaign in the Valley. The Policy of Concen 
 tration. Sketch of the Battles around Richmond. Effect of McClellan s Defeat upon 
 the North. President Davis s congratulatory Order. The War as a great Money 
 Job. Note : Gen. Washington s Opinion of the Northern People. Statement of tho 
 Northern Finances. Yankee Venom. Gen. Pope s Military Orders. Summary of 
 the War Legislation of the Northern Congress. Retaliation on the part of the Con 
 federacy. The Cartel. Prospects of European Interference. English Statesmanship. 
 Progress of the War in the West. The Defence of Vicksburg. Morgan s great 
 Raid. The Tennessee-Virginia Frontier. A Glance at the Confederate Congress. 
 Mr. Footo and the Cabinet. The Campaign in Virginia again. Rapid Movements 
 and famous March of the Southern Troops. The signal Victory of the Thirtieth of 
 August on the Plains of Manassas. Reflections on the War. Some of its Character 
 istics. A Review of its Military Results. Three Moral Benefits of the War. Pros 
 pects and Promises of the Future. 
 
 WE have chosen the memorable epoch of the fall of New Or 
 leans, properly dated from the occupation of the enemy on the 
 1st of May, 1862, as an appropriate period for the conclusion 
 of our historical narrative of the events of the first year of the 
 war. Hereafter, in the future continuation of the narrative, 
 which we promise to ourselves, we shall have to direct the at 
 tention, of the reader to the important movements, the sorrow 
 ful disasters, and the splendid achievements, that more than 
 compensated the inflictions of misfortune, in the famous summer 
 campaign in Virginia. In these we shall find full confirmation 
 of the judgment which we have declared, that the fall of New 
 Orleans, and the consequent loss of the Mississippi Yalley, did 
 not decide the fate of the war; and, indeed, we shall see that 
 the abandonment of our plan of frontier defence made the way 
 for the superior and more fortunate policy of the concentration 
 of our forces in the interior. 
 
 The fall of New Orleans and consequent loss of our command 
 of the Mississippi river from New Orleans to Memphis, with 
 all its immense advantages of transportation and supply ; the re 
 treat of Gen. Johnston s forces from Yorktown; the evacuation 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 329 
 
 cf Norfolk, with, its splendid navy-yard an event acccmpiish- 
 ed by a mere brutum fulmen, and without a blow ; the stupid 
 and unnecessary destruction of the Virginia, " the iron diadeni 
 of the South ; " * the perilous condition of Charleston, Savan- 
 
 * The destruction of the Virginia was a sharp and unexpected blow to the 
 confidence of the people of the South in their government. 
 
 How far the government was implicated in this foolish and desperate act, 
 was never openly acknowledged or exactly ascertained ; but, despite the pains 
 of official concealment, there are certain well-attested facts which indicate 
 that in the destruction of this great war-ship, the authorities at Richmond 
 were not guiltless. These facts properly belong to the history of one of the 
 most unhappy events that had occurred since the commencement of the war. 
 
 The Virginia was destroyed under the immediate orders of her commander, 
 Commodore Tatnall, a little before five o clock on the morning of the llth of 
 May, in the vicinity of Craney Island. During the morning of the same day a 
 prominent politician in the streets ofRichmond was observed to be very much 
 dejected ; he remarked that it was an evil day for the Confederacy. 
 
 On being questioned by his intimate friends, he declared to them that the 
 government had determined upon, or assented to, the destruction of the Vir 
 ginia, and that he had learned this from the highest sources of authority in the 
 capital. At this time the news of the explosion of the Virginia could not have 
 possibly reached Richmond ; there was no telegraphic communication between 
 the scene of her destruction and the city, and the evidence appears to be com- 
 plete, that the government had at least a prevision of the destruction of this 
 vessel, or had assented to the general policy of the act, trusting, perhaps, to 
 acquit itself of the responsibility for it on the unworthy plea that it had given 
 no express orders in the matter. 
 
 Again, it is well known that for at least a week prior to the destruction of 
 the Virginia, the evacuation of Norfolk had been determined upon ; that dur 
 ing the time the removal of stores was daily progressing; and that Mr. 
 Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, had within this period, himself, visited 
 Norfolk to look after the public interests. The evacuation of this port clearly 
 involved the question, what disposition was to be made of the Virginia. 
 
 If the government made no decision of a question, which for a week stared 
 it in the face, it certainly was very strangely neglectful of the public interest, 
 [f Mr. Mallory visited Norfolk when the evacuation was going on, and never 
 thought of the Virginia, or, thinking of her, kept dumb, never even giving so 
 much as an official nod as to what disposition should be made of her, he must 
 have been even more stupid than the people who laughed at him in Rich 
 mond, or the members of Congress who nicknamed without mercy, thought 
 him to be. 
 
 It is also not a little singular that when a court of inquiry had found that 
 the destruction of the Virginia was unnecessary and improper, Mr. Mallory 
 should have waived the calling, of a court-martial, forgotten what was due to 
 the ptiblic interest on such a finding as that made by the preliminary court, 
 and expressed himself satisfied to let the matter rest. The fact is indisputable, 
 that the court-martial was called at the demand of Commodore Tatnall him 
 self It resulted in his acq uttal. 
 
330 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 nah, and Mobile, and the menace cf Richmond by one of the 
 largest armies of the world, awakened the people of the South 
 to a full appreciation of the crisis of the war, and placed their 
 cause in an extremity which nothing could have retrieved but 
 the undiminished and devoted spirit of their brave soldiers in 
 the field. 
 
 We shall have, however, to mingle with this story of disas 
 ters, the triumphs, not indeed of the government, but of brave 
 and adventurous spirits in thevfield. We shall tell how it was 
 that the retreat from Yorktown, although undertaken without 
 any settled plan as to the line of defence upon which it was to 
 be reorganized, led to the successful battle of Williamsburg ; 
 we shall recount the events of the glorious battle of Seven 
 Pines, the sound of whose guns was heard by the people of 
 Richmond, and was followed by the speedy messages of a 
 splendid victory ; and we shall tell how it was that, while the 
 news of the destruction of the Virginia was still the bitterest 
 reminiscence of the people of the South, and while Secretary 
 Mallory was making a drivelling show of alacrity to meet the 
 enemy by advertising for "timber" to construct new naval 
 defences, a powerful flotilla of Yankee gunboats was repulsed 
 by a battery of four guns on the banks of James river, and the 
 scale of war turned by even such a small incident as the action 
 of Drury s Bluff. In this connection, too, we shall have to 
 record the evidences of the heroic spirit that challenged the 
 approaching enemy ; the noble resolution of the citizens of 
 Richmond to see their beautiful city consigned to the horrors 
 of a bombardment, rather than to the hands of the enemy ; 
 and the brave resolution of the Virginia Legislature, which 
 put the Confederate authorities to shame, and infused the 
 hearts of the people with a new and lively spirit of courage 
 and devotion.* 
 
 * " Resolved by the General Assembly : That the General Assembly hereby 
 express its desire that the capital of the State be defended to the last ex 
 tremity, if such defence is in accordance with the views of the President of the 
 Confederate States ; and that the President be assured that whatever destruc 
 tion or loss of property of the State or individuals shall thereby result, will bo 
 cheerfully submitted to." Resolution Va. Legislature, May 14. 
 
 " Some one said to me the other day, that the duty of surrendering tho city 
 would devolve either upon tiie President, the Mayor, or myself. I said to him 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 331 
 
 But we shall have occasion to tell of even more brilliant 
 triumphs of Southern spirit, and to explain how, for some time 
 at least, the safety of Eichmond was trusted not so much to 
 the fortunes of the forces that immediately protected it, as to 
 the splendid diversion of the heroic Jackson in the Valley 01 
 Virginia. 
 
 We shall see how this brave general, whom the government 
 had determined to recall to Gen. Johnston s lines, rejected the 
 suggestions of the surrender of the Valley, and his personal 
 ease, and adventured upon a campaign, the most successful and 
 brilliant in the war. We shall trace with particular interest 
 the events of this glorious expedition, and we shall find reason 
 to ascribe its results to the zeal, heroism, and genius of its com 
 mander alone. We shall recount the splendid victory over 
 Banks, the recovery of Winchester, the capture of four thou 
 sand prisoners, the annihilation of the invading army of the 
 Valley, and the heroic deeds which threw the splendor of sun 
 light over the long lines of the Confederate host. The reader 
 will have occasion to compare the campaign of General Jack 
 son in the Valley of Virginia, with some of the most famous 
 in modern history. We shall show that, in this brief, but bril 
 iiant campaign, a gallant Southern army fought four battles 
 and a number of skirmishes ; killed and wounded a considera 
 ble number of the enemy, took several thousand prisoners, 
 secured millions of dollars of stores, destroyed many millions 
 of dollars worth for the enemy, and chased the Federal army, 
 commanded by General Banks, out of Virginia and across the 
 Potomac ; and that all these events were accomplished within 
 the period of three weeks, and with a loss scarcely exceeding 
 one hundred in killed and wounded. 
 
 In this story of disaster, mingled with triumph, we shall be 
 
 if the demand is made upon me, with the alternative to surrender or be 
 eshelled, I shall reply, BOMBARD AND BE DAMNED." Speech of Gov. Letcher 
 Hay 1(5. 
 
 " I say now, and will abide by it, when the citizens of Richmond demand 01 
 Kie to surrender the capital of Virginia and of the Confederacy to the enemy 
 they must find some other man to fill my place. I will resign the mayoralty 
 And when that other man elected in my stead shall deliver up the city, i hope 
 I have physical courage and strength enough left to shoulder a musket and go 
 .nto tne ranks." Speech of Mayor Mayo, May 16. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 disappointed if we do not discover the substantial prospect o! 
 brighter fortunes and final triumph for the South . 
 
 Indeed, the fact will be shown to be, that events, although 
 mixed and uncertain to the views taken of them at the time of 
 their occurrence, were preparing the way for a great victory 
 and a sudden illumination of the fortunes of the South. 
 
 The disasters on the Mississippi frontier and in other direc 
 tions had constrained the government to adopt the policy of 
 concentrating its forces in the interior of Yirginia. The ob 
 ject of all war is to reach a decisive point of tne campaign, 
 and this object was realized by a policy which it is true the 
 government had not adopted at the instance of reason, but 
 which had been imposed upon it by the force of disaster. 
 There were childish complaints that certain districts and points 
 on the frontier had been abandoned by the Confederates for 
 the purpose of a concentration of troops in Yirginia. These 
 complaints were alike selfish and senseless, and, in some cases, 
 nothing more than the utterance of a demagogical, short 
 sighted, and selfish spirit, which would have preferred the 
 apparent security of its own particular State or section to the 
 fortunes of the whole Confederacy. The fact was, that there 
 was cause of intelligent congratulation even in those districts 
 from which the Confederate troops had been withdrawn to 
 make a decisive battle, that we had at last reached a crisis, 
 the decision of which might reverse all our past misfortunes, 
 ind achieve results in which every State of the Confederacy 
 \vould have a share. 
 
 On the Richmond lines, two of the greatest and most splen 
 did armies that had ever been arrayed on a single field con 
 fronted each other; every accession that could be procured 
 from the most distant quarters to their numbers, and every 
 thing that could be drawn from the resources of the respective 
 countries of each, had been made to contribute to the strength 
 and splendor of the opposing hosts. 
 
 Since the commencement of the war, the North had taxed 
 its resources for the capture of Richmond ; nothing was omit 
 ted for the accomplishment of this event ; the way had to be 
 opened to the capita, by tedious and elaborate operations on 
 the frontier of Yirginia : this accomplished, the city of Rich 
 mond was surrounded by an army whose numbers was all that 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 333 
 
 could be desired; composed of picked forces; having every 
 advantage that science and art could bestow in fortifications 
 and every appliance of war ; assisted by gunbi. at flotillas in 
 two rivers, and endowed with every thing that could assure 
 success. 
 
 The Northern journals were unreserved in the statement 
 that the commands of Fremont, Banks, and McDowell, had 
 been consolidated into one army, under Major-general Pope, 
 with a view of bringing all the Federal forces in Virginia, to 
 co-operate with McClellan on the Richmond lines. A portion 
 of this army must have reached McClellan, probably at an 
 early stage of the engagements in the vicinity of Richmond. 
 There is little doubt but that, in the memorable contest for the 
 safety of Richmond, we engaged an army whose superiority 
 in numbers to us was largely increased by -timely reinforce 
 ments, and with regard to the operations of which the North 
 ern government had omitted no conditions of success. 
 
 Of this contest, unparalleled in its duration ; rich in dra 
 matic incident and display ; remarkable for a series of battles, 
 any one of which might rank with the most celebrated in his 
 tory ; and distinguished by an obstinacy, on the part of the 
 sullen and insolent enemy, that was broken only by the most 
 tremendous exertions ever made by Southern troops, we shall 
 have to treat in a future continuation of this work, with the 
 utmost care as to the authenticity of our narrative, and with 
 matured views as to the merits and importance of what is now 
 supposed to be a great and decisive event. 
 
 For the present, merely for the purpose of extending the 
 general record of events in this chapter to the present stand 
 point of intelligent reflection on the future of the war, we must 
 content the reader with a very brief and summary sketch of 
 the battles around Richmond. Such a sketch is necessarily 
 imperfect, written amid the confusion of current events, and ia 
 limited to the design of acquainting the reader with the gen 
 eral situation at this writing, without venturing, to a great de 
 gree, upon statements of particular facts. 
 
334: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE BATTLES AROUND EICHMOND. 
 
 Upon taking command of the Confederate army in the field, 
 after Gen. Johnston had been wounded in the battle of Seven 
 Pines, Gen Lee did not hesitate to adopt the spirit of that 
 commander, which had already been displayed in attacking 
 the enemy, and which indicated the determination on his part 
 that the operations before Richmond should not degenerate 
 into a siege. 
 
 The course of the Chickahominy around Richmond affords 
 an idea of the enemy s position at the commencement of tho 
 action. This stream meanders through the tide- water district 
 of Yirginia its course approaching that of the arc of a circle 
 in the neighborhood of Richmond until it reaches the lower 
 end of Charles City county, where it abruptly turns to the south 
 and empties into the James. A portion of the enemy s forces 
 had crossed to the south side of the Chickahominy, and were 
 fortified on the Williamsburg road. On the north bank of the 
 stream the enemy was strongly posted for many miles ; the 
 heights on that side of the stream having been fortified with 
 great, energy and skill from Meadow Bridge, on a line nearly 
 due north from the city, to a point below Bottom s Bridge, 
 which is due east. This line of the enemy extended for about 
 twenty miles. 
 
 Reviewing the situation of the two armies at the commence 
 ment of the action, the advantage was entirely our own. McClel- 
 tan had divided his army on the two sides of the Chickahomi 
 ny, and operating apparently with the design of half circum- 
 vallating Richmond, had spread out his forces to an extent 
 that impaired the faculty of concentration, and had made a 
 weak and dangerous extension of his lines. 
 
 On Thursday, the 26th of June, at three o clock, Major- 
 general Jackson fresh from the exploits of his magnificent 
 campaign in the Valley took up his line of march from Ash 
 land, and proceeded down the country between the Chicka 
 hominy and Pamunkey rivers. The enemy collected on the 
 north bank of the Chickahomin}-, at the point-where it is cross 
 ed by the Brooke turnpike, were driven off", and Brigadier 
 general Branch, crossing the stream, directed his movement? 
 
O E N. A. P, H I LL. 
 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 
 
 for a junction with the column of Gen. A. P. Hill, which had 
 crossed at Meadow Bridge. General Jackson having borne 
 away from the Chickahominy, so as to gain ground towards 
 the Pamunkey, marched to the left of Mechanicsville, while 
 Gen. Hill, keeping well to the Chickahominy, approached that 
 village and engaged the enemy there. 
 
 With about fourteen thousand men (Gen. Branch did not ar 
 rive till nightfall), Gen. Hill engaged the forces of the enemy 
 until night put an end to the contest. "While he did not suc 
 ceed, in that limited time, in routing the enemy, his forces 
 stubbornly maintained the possession of Mechanicsville and 
 the ground taken by them on the other side of the Chicka 
 hominy. Driven from the immediate locality of Mechanics 
 ville, the enemy retreated during the night down the river to 
 Powhite swamp, and night closed the operations of Thursday. 
 
 The road having been cleared at Mechanicsville, Gen. Long- 
 street s corps cParmee, consisting of his veteran division of the 
 Old Guard of the Army of the Potomac, and Gen. D. H. Hill s 
 division, debouched from the woods on the south side of the 
 Chickahominy, and crossed that river. Friday morning the 
 general advance upon the enemy began; Gen. A. P. Hill L\ 
 the centre, and bearing towards Coal Harbor, while Gen. 
 Longs treet and Gen. D. H. Hill came down the Chickahominy 
 to New Bridge. Gen. Jackson still maintained his position in 
 advance, far to the left, and gradually converging to the Chicka- 
 hominy again. 
 
 The position of the enemy was now a singular one. One 
 portion of his army was on the south side of the Chickahominy, 
 fronting Richmond, and confronted by Gen. Magruder. The 
 other portion, on the north side, had fallen back to a new line of 
 lefences, where McClellan proposed to make a decisive battle. 
 
 As soon as Jackson s arrival at Coal Harbor was announced, 
 Gen. Lee and Gen. Longstreet, accompanied by their respective 
 staffs, rode by Gaines s Mill, and halted at New Coal Harbor, 
 where they joined General A. P. Hill. Soon the welcome 
 sound of Jackson s guns announced that he was at work. 
 
 The action was now to become general for the first time on 
 the Richirond lines; and a collision of numbers was about to 
 take place equal to any that had yet occurred in the histojy of 
 the war. 
 
336 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 From four o clock until eight the battle raged with a display 
 of the utmost during and intrepidity on the part of the Con 
 federate army. The enemy s lines were finally broken, and his 
 strong positions all carried, and night covered the retreat 01 
 McClellan s broken and routed columns to the south side of the 
 Chickahominy. 
 
 The assault on the enemy s works near Gaines s Mills id a 
 memorable part of the engagement of Friday, and the display 
 of fortitude, as well as quick and dashing gallantry of our 
 troops on that occasion, takes its place by the side of the most 
 glorious exploits of the war. Gen. A. P. Hill, had made the 
 first assault upon the lines of the enemy s inirenchments near 
 Gaines s Mills. A fierce struggle had ensued between his 
 division and the garrison of the line of defence. Repeated 
 charges were made by Hill s troops, but the formidable charac 
 ter of the works, and murderous volleys of grape and canister 
 from the artillery covering them, kept our troops in check. It 
 was past four o clock when Pickett s brigade, from Longstreet s 
 division, came to HilFs support. Pickett s regiments fought 
 with the most determined valor. At last Whiting s division, 
 composed of the " Old Third" and Texan brigades, advanced at 
 a u double quick," charged the batteries, and drove the enemy 
 from his strong line of defence. The works carried by these 
 noble troops would have been invincible to the bayonet had 
 they been garrisoned by men less dastardly than the Yankees. 
 
 To keep the track of the battle, which had swept around 
 Richmond, we must have reference to some of the principal 
 points of locality in the enemy s lines. It will be recollected 
 that it was on Thursday evening when the attack was com 
 menced upon the enemy near Meadow Bridge. This locality 
 is about six miles distant from the city, on a line almost due 
 north. This position was the enemy s extreme right. His 
 lines extended from here across the Chickahominy, near the 
 Powhite Creek, two or three miles above the crossing of the 
 York River railroad. From Meadow Bridge to this railroad, 
 the distance along the Chickahominy on the north side is about 
 ten miles. The different stages between the points indicated, 
 along which the enemy were driven, are Mechanicsville, about 
 a mile north of the Chickahominy; further on, Beaver Dam 
 Creek, emptying into the Chickahominy ; then the New Bridge 
 
THE FIEST YEAR. 33V 
 
 road, on which Coal Harbor is located; and then Powhite 
 Creek, where the enemy had made his last stand, and been re 
 pulsed from the field. 
 
 The York River railroad runs in an easterly direction, inter 
 secting the Chickahominy about ten miles from the city. 
 South of the railroad is the Williainsburg road, connecting with 
 the Nine Mile road at Seven Pines. The former road connects 
 with the New Bridge road, which turns off and crosses the 
 Chickahominy. From Seven Pines, where the Nine Mile road 
 joins the upper one, the road is known as the old Williamsburg 
 road, and crosses the Chickahominy at Bottom s Bridge. 
 
 With the bearing of these localities in his mind, the reader 
 will readily understand how it was that the enemy was driven 
 from his original strongholds on the north side of the Chicka 
 hominy, and how, at the time of Friday s battle, he had been 
 compelled to surrender the possession of the Fredericksburg and 
 Central railroads, and had been pressed to a position where he 
 was cut off from the principal avenues of supply and escape. 
 The disposition of our forces was such as to cut off all commu 
 nication between McClellan s army and the White House, on 
 the Pamunkey river ; he had been driven completely from his 
 northern line of defences ; and it was supposed that he would 
 be unable to extricate himself from his position without a vic 
 tory or a capitulation. In front of him being the Chickahominy, 
 which he had crossed in his rear, were the divisions of Generals 
 Longstreet, Magrnder, and Huger, and, in the situation as it 
 existed Saturday night, all hopes of his escape were thought to 
 be impossible. 
 
 On Sunday morning, it appears that our pickets, on the 
 Nine Mile road, having engaged some small detachments of 
 the enemy, and driven them beyond their fortifications, found 
 them deserted. In a short while, it became known to our 
 generals that McClellan, having massed his entire force on this 
 side of the Chickahominy, was retreating towards James river. 
 
 The intrenchments which the enemy had deserted, were 
 found to be formidable and elaborate. That immediately across 
 the railroad, at the six-mile post, which had been supposed to 
 be light earth-work, designed to sweep the railroad, turned out 
 to be an immense embrasured fortification, extending for hun 
 dreds of vards on either side of the track. Within this work 
 
338 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 were found great quantities of fixed ammunition, which had 
 apparently been prepared for removal, and then deserted. All 
 the cannon, as at other in trench m en ts. had been carried off. A 
 dense cloud of smoke was seen issuing from the woods two 
 miles in advance of the battery, and half a mile to the right of 
 1 the railroad. The smoke was found to proceed from a perfect 
 mountain of the enemy s commissary stores, consisting of sugar, 
 coffee, and bacon, prepared meats, vegetables, &c., which he 
 had fired. The fields and woods around this spot were covered 
 with every description of. clothing and camp equipage. No 
 indication was wanting that the enemy had left this encamp 
 ment in haste and disorder. 
 
 The enemy had been imperfectly watched at a conjuncture 
 the most critical in the contest, and through some omission of 
 our guard the facts of which have as yet been but imperfectly 
 developed McClellan had succeeded in massing his entire 
 force, and taking up a line of retreat, by which he hoped to 
 reach the cover of his gunboats on the James. But the most 
 unfortunate circumstance to us was, that since the enemy had 
 escaped from us in his fortified camp, his retreat was favored 
 by a country, the characteristics of which are unbroken forest* 
 and wide swamps, where it was impossible to pursue him with 
 rapidity, and extremely difficult to reconnoitre his position so 
 as to bring him to decisive battle. 
 
 On Sunday morning, the divisions of Generals Hill and 
 Longstreet crossed the Chickahominy, and were, during the 
 whole of the day, moving in the hunt for the enemy. The dis 
 position which was made of our forces brought General Long- 
 street on the enemy s front, immediately supported by General 
 Hill s division consisting of six brigades. The forces com 
 manded by General Longstreet were his old division, consisting 
 of six brigades. 
 
 The position of the enemy was about five miles northeast 
 of Darbytown, on the New Market road. The immediate 
 scene of the battle was a plain of sedge pines, in the cover of 
 which the enemy s forces were skilfully disposed the locality 
 being known as Frazier s farm. In advancing upon the enemy, 
 batteries of sixteen heavy guns were opened upon the advance 
 columns of Gen. Hill. Our troops, pressing heroically forward, 
 had no sooner got within musket range than the enemy, form 
 
THE F1KST YEAR. 
 
 mg several lines of battle, poured upon them from his heavy 
 masses a devouring fire of musketry. The conflict became 
 terrible, the air being filled with missiles of death, every mo 
 ment having its peculiar sound of terror, and every spot its 
 sight of ghastly destruction and horror. It is impossible that 
 in any of the series of engagements which had taken place 
 within the past few days, and had tracked the lines of Rich 
 mond with fire and destruction, there could have been more 
 desperate fighting on the part of our troops. Never was a more 
 glorious victory plucked from more desperate and threatening 
 circumstances While exposed to the double fire of the enemy s 
 batteries and his musketry, we were unable to contend with him 
 with artillery. But although thus unmatched, our brave troops 
 pressed on with unquailirig vigor and a resistless courage, driving 
 the enemy before them. This was accomplished without artillery, 
 there being but one battery in Gen. Hill s command on the spot, 
 and that belonged to Longstreet s division, and could not be got 
 into position. Thus the fight continued with an ardor and devo 
 tion that few battle-fields have ever illustrated. Step by step 
 the enemy were driven back, his guns taken, and the ground 
 he abandoned strewn with his dead. By half-past eight o clock 
 we had taken all his cannon, and, continuing to advance, had 
 driven him a mile and a half from his ground of battle. 
 
 Our forces were still advancing upon the retreating lines of 
 the enemy. It was now about half-past nine o clock, and very 
 dark. Suddenly, as if it had burst from the heavens, a sheet 
 of fire enveloped the front of our advance. The enemy had 
 made another stand to receive us, and, from the black masses 
 of his forces, it was evident that he had been heavily reinforced, 
 and that another whole corps (Tarmee had been brought up to 
 contest the fortunes of the night. Line after line of battle was 
 formed. It was evident that his heaviest columns were now 
 being thrown against our small command, and it might have 
 been supposed that he would only be satisfied with its annihi 
 lation. The loss here on our side was terrible. 
 
 The situation being evidently hopeless for any further pur 
 suit of the fugitive enemy, who had now brought up such over 
 whelming forces, our troops retired slowly. 
 
 At this moment, seeing their adversary retire, the most vocif 
 erous cheers arose along the whole Yankee line. They were 
 
340 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 taken up in the distance by the masses which for miles and 
 miles beyond were supporting McClellan s front. It was a 
 moment when the heart of the stoutest commander might have 
 been appalled. The situation of our forces was now as desper 
 ate as it well could be, and required a courage and presence of 
 mind to retrieve it, which the circumstances which surrounded 
 them were not well calculated to inspire. They had fought for 
 five or six hours without reinforcements. All our reserves had 
 been brought up in the action. Wilcox s brigade, which had 
 been almost annihilated, was re-forming in the rear. 
 
 Riding rapidly to the position of this brigade, Gen. Hill 
 brought them, by great exertions, up to the front, to check the 
 advance of the now confident, cheering enemy. Catching the 
 spirit of their commander, the brave, but jaded men, moved up 
 to the front, replying to .the enemy s cheers with shouts and 
 yells. At this demonstration, which the enemy, no doubt, 
 supposed signified heavy reinforcements, he stopped his ad 
 vance. It was now about half-past ten o clock in the night. 
 The enemy had been arrested ; and the fight one of the most 
 remarkable, long-contested, and gallant ones that had yet oc 
 curred on our lines was concluded with the achievement of a 
 field under the most trying circumstances, which the enemy, 
 with the most overpowering numbers brought up to reinforce 
 him, had not succeeded in reclaiming. 
 
 Gen. Magruder s division did not come up until 11 o clock 
 at night, after the fight had been concluded. By orders from 
 Gen. Lee, Magruder moved upon and occupied the battle 
 ground ; Gen. Hill s command being in such a condition of 
 prostration from their long and toilsome fight, and suffering in 
 killed and wounded, that it was proper they should be relieved 
 by the occupation of the battle-ground by a fresh corps cTarmee. 
 
 Early on Tuesday morning the enemy, from the position to 
 which he had been driven the night before, continued his 
 retreat in a southeasterly direction towards his gunboats on 
 James river. At eight o clock Magruder recommenced the 
 pursuit, advancing cautiously, but steadily, and shelling the 
 forests and swamps in front as he progressed. This method or 
 advance was kept up throughout the morning and until four 
 o clock, P. M., without coming up with the enemy. But be 
 tween four and five o clock our troops reached a lar^e open 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 341 
 
 field, a mile long and three-quarters in width, on the faim of 
 Dr. Carter. The enemy were discovered strongly intrenched 
 in a dense forest on the other side of this field. Their artillery, 
 numbering fifty pieces, could be plainly seen bristling over 
 their freshly constructed earth -works. At ten minutes before 
 five o clock, P. M., Gen. Magruder ordered his men to charge 
 across the field and drive the enemy from their position. Gal 
 lantly they sprang to the encounter, rushing into the field at 
 a full run. Instantly, from the line of the enemy s breastworks, 
 a murderous storm of grape and canister was hurled into their 
 ranks, with the most terrible effect. Oflicers and men went 
 down by hundreds ; but yet, undaunted and unwavering, our 
 line dashed on, until two-thirds of the distance across the field 
 was accomplished. Here the carnage from the withering fire 
 of the enemy s combined artillery and musketry was dreadful. ., 
 Our line wavered a moment, and fell back to the cover of the 
 woods. Twice again the effort to carry the position was re 
 newed, but each time with the same result. Night, at length, 
 rendered a further attempt injudicious, and the fight, until ten 
 o clock, was kept up by the artillery of both sides. To add 
 to the horrors, if not to the dangers, of this battle, the enemy s 
 gunboats, from their position at Curl s Neck, two and a half 
 miles distant, poured on the field continuous broadsides from 
 their immense rifle-guns. Though it is questionable whether 
 any serious loss was inflicted on us by the gunboats, the hor- 
 rors of the fight were aggravated by the monster shells, which 
 tore shrieking through the forests, and exploded with a con 
 cussion which seemed to shake the solid earth itself. 
 
 The battle of Tuesday, properly known as that of Malvern 
 Hill, was perhaps the most sanguinary of the series of bloody 
 conflicts which had taken place on the lines about Richmond. 
 It was made memorable by its melancholy monument of car 
 nage. But it had given the enemy no advantage, except in the 
 unfruitful sacrifice of the lives of our troops, and the line of his 
 retreat was again taken up, his forces toiling towards the river 
 through mud, swamp, and forest. 
 
 The skill and spirit with which McClellan had managed to 
 retreat was, indeed, remarkable, and afforded no mean proofa 
 of his generalship. At every stage of his retreat he had con 
 fronted our forces with a string rear-guard, and had encountered 
 
342 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 us with well-organized lines of battle, and regular dispo 
 sitions of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. His heavy rilled 
 cannon had been used against us constantly on his retreat. A 
 portion of his forces had now effected communication with the 
 river at points below City Point. The plan of cutting off his 
 communication with the river, which was to have been exe 
 cuted by a movement of Holmes division between him and 
 the river, was frustrated by the severe fire of the gunboats, 
 and since then the situation of the enemy appeared to be that 
 of a division or dispersion of his forces, one portion resting 
 on the river, and the other, to some extent, involved by our 
 lines. 
 
 It had been stated to the public of Richmond, with great 
 precision of detail, that on the evening of Saturday, the 28th 
 of June, we had brought the enemy to bay on the south side of 
 the Chickahominy, and that it only remained to finish him in 
 a single battle. Such, in fact, appeared to have been the 
 situation then. The next morning, however, it was perceived 
 that our supposed resources of generalship had given us too 
 much confidence; that the enemy had managed to extricate 
 himself from the critical position, and, having massed his forces, 
 had succeeded, under cover of the night, in opening a way to 
 the James river.* 
 
 * A great deal was claimed ix>r " generalship" in the battles around Rich 
 mond ; and results achieved by the hardy valor of our troops were busily 
 ascribed by hollow-hearted flatterers to the genius of the strategist. Without 
 going into any thing like military criticism, it may be said that it is difficult 
 to appreciate the ascription of a victory to generalship, in the face of the 
 exposure and terrible slaughter of our troops in attacking, in front, the 
 formidable breastworks of the enemy. The benefit of " generalship" in such 
 circumstances is unappreciable : when troops are thus confronted, the honors 
 of victory belong rather to the spirit of the victors than the genius of the 
 commander. 
 
 With reference to McClellan s escape from White Oak Swamp to the river, 
 letters of Yankee officers, published in the Northern journals, stated that 
 when McClellan on Saturday evening sent his scouts down the road to Turkey 
 Inland Bridge, lie was astonished and delighted to find that our forces had not 
 occupied that road, and immediately started his wagon and artillery trains, 
 which were quietly passing 1 down that road all night to the James river, 
 ivliih; our forces were quietly sleeping within four miles of the very road they 
 hould have occupied, and should have captured evef^ one of the enemy s on* 
 thousand wagons, and four hundred cannon 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 34:3 
 
 Upon tin s untoward event, the operations of our army on the 
 Richmond* side of the Chickahominy were to follow the fugitive 
 enemy through a country where he had admirable opportuni 
 ties of concealment, and through the swamps and forests or 
 which he had retreated with the most remarkable judgment, 
 dexterity, and spirit of fortitude. 
 
 The glory and fruits of our victory may have been seriously 
 diminished by the grave mishap or fault by which the enemy 
 was permitted to leave his camp on the south side of the 
 Chickahominy, in an open country, and to plunge into the 
 dense cover of wood and swamp, where the best portion of a 
 whole week was consumed in hunting him, and finding out his 
 new position only in time to attack him under the uncertainty 
 and disadvantage of the darkness of night. 
 
 But the successes achieved in the series of engagements 
 which had already occurred were not to be lightly esteemed, 
 or to be depreciated, because of errors which, if they had not 
 occurred, would have made our victory more glorious and more 
 complete. The siege of Richmond had been raised : an army 
 of one hundred and twenty thousand men had been pushed 
 from their strongholds and fortifications, and put to flight ; we 
 had enjoyed the eclat of an almost daily succession of victories; 
 we had gathered an immense spoil in stores, provisions, and 
 artillery ; and we had demoralized and dispersed, if we had not 
 succeeded in annihilating, an army which had every resource 
 that could be summoned to its assistance, every possible ad 
 dition of numbers within the reach of the Yankee government, 
 and every material condition of success to insure for it the 
 great prize of the capital of the. Confederacy, which is now, as 
 far as human judgment can determine, irretrievably lost to 
 them, and secure in the protection of a victorious army. 
 
 The Northern papers claimed that the movements of McClel- 
 lan from the Chickahominy river were purely strategic, and 
 that he had obtained a position, where he would establish a new 
 
 It is further stated in these letters, that if we had blocked up that only 
 passage of escape, their entire army must have surrendered or been starved 
 out in twenty-four hours. These are the Yankees own accounts of how much 
 they were indebted to blunders on our part for the success of McClellan a 
 retreat a kind of admission not popular with a vain and self-adulatory 
 enemy. 
 
344 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 base of operations against Richmond. Up to the first decisive 
 stage in the series of engagements Coal Harbor there were 
 certainly plain strategic designs in his backward movement. 
 His retirement from Mechanicsville was probably voluntary 
 and intended to concentrate his troops lower down, where he 
 might fight with the advantages, of numbers and his own 
 selection of position. Continuing his retreat, he fixed the 
 decisive field at Coal Harbor. Again having been pushed 
 from his strongholds north of the Chickahominy, the enemy 
 made a strong attempt to retrieve his disasters by renewing a 
 concentration of his troops at Frazier s farm. 
 
 From the time of these two principal battles, all pretensions 
 of the enemy s retreat to strategy must cease. His retreat was 
 now unmistakable ; it was no longer a falling back to concen 
 trate troops for action ; it is, in fact, impossible to disguise that 
 it was the retreat of an eneny who was discomfited and whip 
 ped, although not routed. He had abandoned the railroads ; 
 he had given up the strongholds which he had provided to 
 secure him in case of a check ; he had destroyed from eight to 
 ten millions dollars worth of stores; he had deserted his 
 ifiospitals, his sick and wounded, and he had left in our hands 
 r thousands of prisoners, and innumerable stragglers. 
 
 Regarding all that had been accomplished in these battles ; 
 
 rthe displays of the valor and devotion of our troops; the ex- 
 
 : peiaditure of blood ; and the helpless and fugitive condition to 
 
 -which the enemy had at last been reduced, there w?,s cause for 
 
 : the keenest regrets that an enemy in this condition was per- 
 
 i mitted to secure his retreat. It is undoubtedly true, that in 
 
 failing to cut off McClellan s retreat to the river, we failed to 
 
 accomplish the most important condition for the completion or 
 
 . our victory. But although the result of the conflict had fallen 
 
 below public expectation, it was sufficiently fortunate to excite 
 
 popular joy, and grave enough to engage the most serious 
 
 ; speculation as to the future. 
 
 The effect of the defeat of McClellan before Richmond was 
 
 received at the North with ill-concealed mortification and 
 
 ; anxiety. Beneath the bluster of the newspapers and the af 
 
 fectations of public confidence, disappointment, embarrassment, 
 
 ; and alarm .--were perceptible. The people of the North had 
 
 ; oeea. so,, assured of the capture of Richmond, that it was diffi 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 345 
 
 cult to reanimate them on the heels of McClellan s retreat 
 The pi )spects held out to them so long, of ending the war in 
 " sixty days," " crushing out the rebellion," and eating victo 
 rious dinners in Richmond, had been bitterly disappointed and 
 were not to be easily renewed. The government at Washing 
 ton showed its appreciation of the disaster its arms had sus 
 tained by making a call for three hundred thousand additional 
 troops ; and the people of the North were urged by every vari 
 ety of appeal, including large bounties of money, to respond 
 to the stirring call of President Lincoln. 
 
 There is no doubt but that the North was seriously discour 
 aged by the events that had taken place before Richmond. 
 But it was a remarkable circumstance, uniformly illustrated in 
 the war, that the North, though easily intoxicated by triumph, 
 was not in the same proportion depressed by defeat. There is 
 an obvious explanation for this peculiarity of temper. As long 
 as the North was conducting the war upon the soil of the South, 
 a defeat there involved more money expenditure and more calls 
 for troops ; it involved scarcely any thing else ; it had no other 
 horrors, it did not imperil their homes ; it might easily be re 
 paired by time. Indeed, there was some sense in the exhorta 
 tions of some of the Northern orators, to the eifect that defeat 
 made their people stronger than ever, because, while it required 
 them to put forth their energies anew, it enabled them to take 
 advantage of experience, to multiply their means of success, 
 and to essay new plans of campaign. No one can doubt but 
 that the celebrated Manassas defeat really strengthened the 
 North ; and doubtless the South would have realized the same 
 consequence of the second repulse of the enemy s movements 
 on Richmond, if it had been attended by the same conditions 
 on our part of inaction and repose. 
 
 In his congratulatory address to the army on their victory 
 before Richmond, President Davis referred to the prospect of 
 carrying the war into the North. His friends declared that 
 the President had at last been converted from his darling mili 
 tary formulas of the defensive policy; that he was sensible that 
 the only way to bring the war to a decisive point was to invade 
 the North. But it was urged that our army was too feeble to 
 undertake at present an aggressive policy ; although the facts 
 were that, counting in our immense forces under Gen. Bragg 
 
M6 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 in the West, which for months had been idly lying in Missis 
 sippi, we had probably quite as many troops in the field as the 
 North had ; that delay could accomplish but little addition to 
 our forces, while it would multiply those of the North, its 
 resources of conscription and draft being intact ; that if out 
 army was small, it was due to the neglect of the executive in 
 enforcing the Conscription Law, which should have furnished 
 three quarters of a million of men ; and that if reduced and 
 demoralized by desertion and straggling, it was because of the 
 weak sentimentalisin of our military authorities, which hesi 
 tated to enforce the death penalty in our armies, or to maintaip 
 military discipline by a system much harsher than that ol 
 moral suasion. Judgment must be taken subject to these facts 
 as to how far the government was responsible for lingering in 
 a policy which, though of its own choosing at first, it at last 
 confessed to be wrong, and from which, when discovered to be 
 an error and a failure, it professed to be unable to extricate 
 itself on account of a weakness of which itself was sole cause 
 and author. Happily, however, the valor and devotion of our 
 troops came to the rescue of the government, and opened a 
 way in which it had so long hesitated, and found paltry excuses 
 for its tame and unadventurous temper. But to this we shall 
 refer hereafter. 
 
 It is curious to observe how completely the ordinary aspects 
 of war were changed and its horrors diminished, with refer 
 ence to the North, by the false policy of the South, in keeping 
 the theatre of active hostilities within her own borders. Defeat 
 did not dispirit the North, because it was not brought to her 
 doors. Where it did not immediately imperil the safety of 
 the country and homes of the Yankees, where it gave time for 
 the recovery and reorganization of the attacking party, and 
 where it required for the prosecution of the war nothing but 
 more money jobs in Congress and a new raking up of the scum 
 of the cities, the effects of defeat upon the North might well 
 be calculated to be the exasperation of its passions, the inflam 
 mation of its cupidity, and the multiplication of its exertions 
 to break and overcome the misapplied power of our armies. 
 
 Indeed, the realization of the war in the North was, in many 
 aspects, nothing more than that of an immense money job. 
 The large money expenditure at Washington supplied & vast 
 
THE FIRST YiSAB. 347 
 
 fund of corruption ; it enriclied the commercial centres of the 
 North, and by artificial stimulation preserved such cities as 
 New York from decay ; it interested vast numbers of politi 
 cians, contractors, and dissolute public men in continuing the 
 war and enlarging the scale of its operations ; and, indeed, the 
 disposition to make money out of the war accounts for much 
 of that zeal in the North, which was mistaken for political ar 
 dor or the temper of patriotic devotion.* 
 
 * The following is an extract from an unpublished letter from Gen. Wash 
 ington to Richard Henry Lee, and, as an exposition of the character of the 
 Northern people from a pen sacred to posterity, is deeply interesting. There 
 can be no doubt of the authenticity of the letter. It has been preserved in 
 the Lee family, who, though applied to by Bancroft, Irving, and others for a 
 copy for publication, have hitherto refused it, on the -ground that it would be 
 improper to give to the world a private letter from the Father of his Country 
 reflecting upon any portion of it while the old Union endured. But now, that 
 " these people" have trampled the Constitution under foot, destroyed the gov 
 ernment of our fathers, and invaded and desolated Washington s own county 
 in Virginia, there can be no impropriety in showing his private opinion of the 
 Massachusetts Yankees : 
 
 [Copy.] 
 
 CAMP AT CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 29, 1775. 
 Dear Sir : * * * 
 
 As we have now nearly completed our lines of defence, we have nothing 
 more, in my opinion, to fear from the enemy, provided we can keep our men 
 to their duty, and make them watchful and vigilant ; but it is among the most 
 difficult tasks I ever undertook in my life to induce these people to believe 
 that there is or can be danger, till the bayonet is pushed at their broasts ; not 
 that it proceeds from any uncommon prowess, but rather from an unaccount 
 able kind of stupidity in the lower class of these people, which, believe me, 
 prevails but too generally among the officers of the Massachusetts part of the 
 army, who are nearly of the same kidney with the privates, and adds not a 
 little to my difficulties, as there is no such thing as getting officers of this 
 stamp to exert themselves in carrying orders into execution. To curry favor 
 with the men (by whom they were chosen, and on whose smiles possibly they 
 may think they may again rely) seems to be one of the principal objects ol 
 their attention. I submit it, therefore, to your consideration, whether there 
 is, or is not, a propriety in that resolution of the Congress which leaves the 
 ultimate appointment of all officers below the rank of general to the govern 
 ments where the regiments originated, now the army is become Continental ? 
 To me, it appears improper in two points of view first, it is giving that 
 power and weight to an individual Colony which ought of right to belong to 
 the whole. Then it damps the spirit and ardor of volunteers from all but 
 the four New England Governments, as none but their people have the least 
 chance of getting into office. Would it not be better, therefore, to have the 
 warrants, which the Commander-in-Chief is authorized to give pro tempore, 
 
34:8 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 But while politicians plundered the government at Washing 
 ton and coi. tractors grew rich in a single day, and a fictitious 
 prosperity dazzled the eyes of the observer in the cities .of the 
 North, the public finances of the Yankee government had long 
 ago become desperate. It is interesting at this point to make 
 a brief summary of the financial condition of the North by a 
 comparison of its public debt with the assets of the govern 
 ment. 
 
 The debt of the present United States, audited and float 
 ing, calculated from data up to June 30, 1862, was at least 
 $1,300,000,000. The daily expenses, as admitted by the chair 
 man of the Committee on Ways and Means, was between three 
 and four millions of dollars ; the debt, in one year from this 
 time, could not be less than two thousand five hundred millions 
 of dollars. 
 
 Under the census of 1860, all the property of every kind in 
 all the States was estimated at less than $ 12,500,000,000. Since 
 
 approved or disapproved by the Continental Congress, or a committee of their 
 body, which I should suppose in any long recess must always sit ? In this 
 case, every gentleman will stand an equal chance of being promoted, accord 
 ing to his merit : in the other, all offices will be confined to the inhabitants of 
 the four New England Governments, which, in my opinion, is impolitic to a 
 degree. I have made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the 
 Massachusetts Government abounds in since I came to this camp, having 
 broken one colonel and two captains for cowardly behavior in the action on 
 Bunker s Hill, two captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they 
 had men in their company, and one for being absent from his post when the 
 enemy appeared there and burnt a house just by it. Besides these, I have at 
 this time one colonel, one major, one captain, and two subalterns under arrest 
 for trial. In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these peo 
 ple seem to be too inattentive to every thing but their interest. 
 
 ********* 
 
 There have been so many great and capital errors and abuses to rectify so 
 many examples to make, and so little inclination in the officers of inferior 
 rank to contribute their aid to accomplish this work, that my life has been 
 nothing else (since I came here) but one continual round of vexation and 
 fatigue. In short, no pecuniary recompense could induce me to undergo what 
 I have ; especially, as I expect, by showing so little countenance to irregular 
 ities and public abuses as to render myself very obnoxious to a great part ol 
 these people. But as I have already greatly exceeded the bounds of a letter 
 I will not trouble you with matters relative to my feelings. 
 Your affectionate friend and obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed GEO. WASHINGTON 
 
 "Richard Henry Lee, Esq. 
 
THE FIKST YEAR. 34:9 
 
 the war commenced, the depreciation has been at least one- 
 fourth, $3,175,000,000. From $9,375,000,000 deduct the prop 
 erty in the seceded States, at least one-third $3,125,000,000; 
 leaving in the present United States, $6,250,000,000. 
 
 It will thus be seen, that the present debt of the North is 
 one-fifth of all the property of every kind it possesses ; and in 
 one year more it will be more than one-third. No people on 
 earth has ever been plunged in so large a debt in so short a 
 time. No government in existence has so large a debt in pro 
 portion to the amount of property held by its people. 
 
 In continuing the narrative of the campaign in Virginia, we 
 shall have to observe the remarkable exasperation with which 
 the North re-entered upon this campaign, and to notice many 
 deeds of blackness which illustrated the temper in which she 
 determined to prosecute the desperate fortunes of the war. 
 The military authorities of the North seemed to suppose that 
 better success would attend a savage war, in which no quarter 
 was to be given and no age or sex spared, than had hitherto 
 been secured to such hostilities as are alone recognized to be 
 lawful by civilized men in modern times. It is not necessary 
 to comment at length upon this fallacy. Brutality in war was 
 mistaken for vigor. War is not emasculated by the observ 
 ances of civilization ; its vigor and success consist in the re 
 sources of generalship, the courage of troops, the moral ardors 
 of its cause. To attempt to make up for deficiency in these 
 great and noble elements of vigor by mere brutal severities 
 such as pillage, assassination, &c., is absurd ; it reduces the idea 
 of war to the standard of the brigand ; it offends the moral 
 sentiment of the world, and it excites its enemy to the last 
 stretch of determined and desperate exertion. 
 
 The North had placed a second army of occupation of Yir- 
 ginia under command of Gen. Pope, who boasted that he was 
 fresh from a campaign in the West, where he had " seen only 
 the backs of rebels.* This brutal braggart threatened that fire, 
 
 * This notorious Yankee commander, Major-general John Pope, was a man 
 nearly forty years of age, a native of Kentucky, but a citizen of Illinois. He 
 was born of respectable parents. He was graduated at West Point in 1843, 
 and served in the Mexican war, where he was brevetted a captain. 
 
 In 1849, he conducted the Minnesota exploring expedition, and afterwards 
 acted as topographical engineer of New Mexico, until 1853, when he was as 
 
350 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 famine, and slaughter should be the portions of the concpered. 
 He declared that he would not place any guard over any private 
 property, and invited the soldiers to pillage and murder. He 
 issued a general order, directing the murder of peaceful in 
 habitants of Virginia as spies if found quietly tilling their 
 farms in his rear, even outside of his lines ; and one of his 
 brigadier-generals, Steinwehr, seized upon innocent and peace 
 ful inhabitants to be held as hostages, to the end that they 
 might be murdered in cold blood, if any of his soldiers were 
 killed by some unknown persons, whom he designated as " bush- 
 wackers." 
 
 signed to the command of one of the expeditions to survey the route of the 
 Pacific railroad. He distinguished himself on the overland route to the Pacific 
 by " sinking" artesian wells and government money to the amount of v a mil 
 lion of dollars. One well was finally abandoned incomplete, and afterwards 
 a perennial spring was found by other parties in the immediate vicinity. In 
 a letter to Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, urging this route to the 
 Pacific and the boring these wells, Pope made himself the especial champion 
 of the South. 
 
 On the breaking out of the war, Pope was made a brigadier-general of 
 volunteers. He held a command in Missouri for some time before he became 
 particularly noted. When General Halleck took charge of the disorganized 
 department, Pope was placed in command of the District of Central Missouri. 
 He was afterwards sent to southeastern Missouri. The cruel disposition of 
 the man, of which his rude manners and a vulgar bearded face, with coarse 
 skin, gave indications, found an abundant field for gratification in this un 
 happy State. His proceedings in Missouri will challenge a comparison with 
 the most infernal record ever bequeathed by the licensed murderer to the ab 
 horrence of mankind. And yet it was his first step in blood, the first oppor 
 tunity he had ever had to feast his eyes upon slaughter and regale his ears 
 with the cries of human agony. 
 
 Having been promoted to the rank of major-general, Pope was next appoint 
 ed to act at the head of a corps to co-operate with Halleck in the reduction oi 
 Corinth. After the evacuation of Corinth by General Beauregard, Pope was 
 Bent by Halleck to annoy the rear of the Confederate army, but Beauregard 
 turned upon and repulsed his pursuit. The report of Pope to Halleck, that 
 he had captured 10,000 of Beauregard s army, and 15,000 stand of arms, when 
 he had not taken a man or a musket, stands alone in the history of lying. 
 It left him without a rival in that respectable art. 
 
 Such was the man who took command of the enemy s forces in northern 
 Virginia. His bluster was as excessive as his accomplishments in falsehood. 
 He was described in a Southern newspaper as " a Yankee compound of Bob- 
 adil and Munchausen." His proclamation, that he had seen nothing of hi 
 enemies " but their backs," revived an ugly story in his private life, and gave 
 occasion to the witty interrogatory, if the gentleman who cowhided him foi 
 offering an indignity to a lady, was standing with his back to him when he in 
 
THE FIRST YEAK. 351 
 
 The people of the North were delighted with the brigandisL 
 pronunciamentoa of Pope in Virginia. The government at 
 Washington was not slow to gratify the popular passion ; it 
 hastened to change the character of the war into a campaign 
 of indiscriminate robbery and murder. A general order was 
 issued by the Secretary of War, directing the militaiy com 
 manders of the North to take private property for the conve 
 nience and use of their armies, without compensation. The 
 public and official expressions of the spirit of the North in the 
 war were even more violent than the clamors of the mob. The 
 abolitionists had at last succeeded in usurping complete con 
 trol of the government at Washington, and in imparting to 
 the war the unholy zeal of their fanaticism. Nine-tenths of 
 the legislation of the Yankee Congress had been occupied in 
 some form or other with the question of slavery. Universal 
 emancipation in the South, and the utter overthrow of all 
 property, was now the declared policy of the desperate and 
 demented leaders of the war. The Confiscation Bill, enacted 
 at the close of the session of Congress, confiscated all the slaves 
 belonging to those who were loyal to the South, constituting 
 nine-tenths at least of the slaves in the Confederate States. In 
 the Border States occupied by the North, slavery was plainly 
 doomed under a plan of emancipation proposed by Mr. Lincoln 
 with the flimsy and ridiculous pretence of compensation to 
 slaveholders.* Other violent acts of legislation were passed 
 
 flicted tlie chastisement. The fact was, that Pope had won his baton of mar 
 8hal by bragging to the Yankee fill. He was another instance, besides that 
 of Butler, of the manufacture of militaiy reputation in the North by cowardlj 
 W uster and acts of coarse cruelty to the defenceless. 
 
 * According to the census of 1860 
 
 Kentucky had 225,490 slaves. 
 
 Maryland 87,188 " 
 
 Virginia 490,887 
 
 Delaware . . 1,798 " 
 
 Missouri 114,965 " 
 
 Tennessee 275,784 
 
 Making in the whole 1,196,112 
 
 At the proposed rate of valuation, these would amount to $358,833,600 
 Add for deportation and colonization $100 each, 119,244,533 
 
 And we have the enormous sum of $478,078,133 
 
352 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 with the intention to envenom the war, to insult and torture 
 the South, to suppress the freedom of public opinion in the 
 North, and to keep the government in the hands of the fanatics 
 and crusaders of Abolitioi ism. Disaffection was threatened 
 with a long list of Draconian penalties. The political scaffold 
 was to be erected in the North, while the insatiate and un 
 bridled fury of its army was to sweep over the South. " Ke- 
 bellion" was to be punished by a warfare of savages, and the 
 devilish, skulking revenge, that pillages, burns, and assass 
 inates, was to follow in the bloody footsteps of the invading 
 armies. 
 
 To this enormous mass of brutality and lawlessness, the Con 
 federate States government made but a feeble response. It 
 proposed a plan of retaliation, the execution of which was 
 limited to the commissioned officers of the army of Gen. Pope ; 
 which, by declaring impunity to private soldiers, encouraged 
 their excesses ; and which, in omitting any application to the 
 army of Butler in New Orleans, who had laughed at female 
 virtue in the conquered districts of the South, and murdered a 
 citizen of the South for disrespect to the Yankee bunting,* was 
 lamentably weak and imperfect. The fact was, that the gov- 
 
 It is scarcely to be supposed that a proposition could be made in good faith, 
 or that in any event the proposition could be otherwise than worthless, to add 
 this vast amount to the public debt of the North at a moment when the 
 treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditures of the war. 
 
 * The act for which William B. Mumford was executed by Butler, was 
 taking down the Yankee ensign from the Mint in that city on the 24th of 
 April. This act of Mumford was committed before the city of New Orleans 
 had surrendered. Indeed, the flag was hoisted in the city while negotiations 
 were being conducted between the commander of the Yankee fleet and the 
 authorities ; and under these circumstances the raising of the enemy s flag 
 was a plain violation of the rules and amenities of war, and an outrage on the 
 authorities and people of the city. Taking the harshest rule of construction, 
 the act of Mumford, having been committed before the city of New Orleans 
 had surrendered, was nothing more than an act of war, for which he was no 
 more responsible than as a prisoner of war. 
 
 The unhappy man was hung in the open day by order of the Federal tyrant 
 of New Orleans. The brutal sentence of death on the gallows was carried 
 into effect in the presence of thousands of spectators. The crowd looked on f 
 scarcely believing their senses, unwilling to think that even such a tyrant as 
 Butler could really have the heart for such a wanton murder of a citizen of 
 the Confederate States, and hoping every moment for a reprieve or a pardon ; 
 but none came, and the soul of the martyr was ushered by violent hands into 
 the presence of its God. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 353 
 
 eminent of President Davis had been weakly swindled in ita 
 military negotiation with the North. It was persuaded to sign 
 a cartel for the exchange of prisoners, in which it made a pres 
 ent to its enemy of a surplus of about six thousand prisoners t 
 and its weak generosity was immediately rewarded, not only 
 by the barbarous orders of Pope, which were issued just at the 
 time the cartel was signed, but by the practical proclamation 
 in all the invaded districts of the South of the policy of the 
 seizure and imprisonment of unarmed inhabitants. Our gov 
 ernment had left out of the recent cartel any provisions for 
 private citizens kidnapped by the enemy; it had left the 
 North in the undisturbed enjoyment, in many places, of the 
 privilege it claimed of capturing in our country as many polit 
 ical prisoners as it pleased ; and it had, to a considerable ex 
 tent, practically abandoned the protection of its own citizens. 
 
 Before the eyes of Europe the mask of civilization had been 
 taken from the Yankee war ; it degenerated into unbridled 
 butchery and robbery. But the nations of Europe, which 
 boasted themselves as humane and civilized, had yet no inter 
 ference to .offer in a war which shocked the senses and appealed 
 to the common offices of humanity. It is to be observed, that 
 during the entire continuance of the war up to this time, the 
 British government bad acted with reference to it in a spirit 
 of selfish and inhuman calculation ; and there is, indeed, but 
 little doubt that an early recognition of the Confederacy by 
 France was thwarted by the interference of that cold and 
 sinister government, that ever pursues its ends by indirection, 
 and perfects its hypocrisy under the specious cloak of extreme 
 conscientiousness. No greater delusion could have possessed 
 the people of the South than that the government of England 
 was friendly to them. That government, which prided itself 
 on its cold and ingenious selfishness, seemed to have discovered 
 a much larger source of profit in the continuation of the Ameri 
 can war, than it could possibly derive from a pacification of the 
 contest. It was willing to see its operatives starving, and to 
 endure the distress of a "cotton famine,"* that it might have 
 
 * Great pains were taken alike by the Yankee and the English press to 
 conceal the distress caused in the manufacturing districts of Europe by the 
 vi hholding of Southern cotton ; and the specious fallacy was being con- 
 
354: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the ultimate satisfaction, which it anticipated, of seeing both 
 parties in the American war brought to the-point of exhaustion 
 and its own greatness enlarged on the ruins of a hated com 
 mercial rival. The calculation was far-reaching ; it was char 
 acteristic of a government that secretly laughed at all senti 
 ment, made an exact science of selfishness, and scorned the 
 weakness that would sacrifice for any present good the larger 
 fruits of the future. 
 
 In the regular continuation of our historical narrative, in 
 which much that has been said here by way of general reflec 
 tion will be replaced by the record of particular facts, and 
 special comments upon them, we shall have occasion before 
 
 stantly put forward that the cotton product in the colonial dominions of 
 Great Britain and elsewhere was being rapidly stimulated and enlarged ; that 
 it would go far towards relieving the necessities of Europe ; and that one ef 
 fect of the American war would be to free England from her long and galling 
 dependence on the Slave States of the South for the chief article of her manu 
 facturing industry. 
 
 The proofs in reply to the latter fallacy and falsehood are striking and un 
 answerable. The shipments of cotton from the British colonies, Egypt, Brazil, 
 &., are actually falling off, and were much less this last summer than for a 
 corresponding period of the year before. The evidence of this fact is furnished 
 la the cotton circulars of Manchester. 
 
 India seems to have been cleared out by the large shipments of last year, 
 and the shipments to Europe, from the first of January to the last week in 
 May, showed a decrease of 100,000 bales ; the figures being 251,000 bales 
 ngainst 351,000 last year. From the large proportional consumption of Surat 
 cotton, the stock at Liverpool of this description, which, on the 1st of January 
 last, stood at 295,000 bales against 130,000 last year, was, about the close of 
 May, reduced to 170,000 against 133,000 last year-; while in the quantity 
 afloat the figures were still more unfavorable, viz. : 184,000 bales against 
 258,000. 
 
 The downward progress of the stock of American cotton is illustrated 
 roughly by the following quarterly table prepared from the Manchester 
 circulars : 
 
 March, 1861. June. 
 
 In American ports 750,000 100,000 
 
 Afloat and at Liverpool 918,000 971,000 
 
 1,668,000 1,071,000 
 
 March, 1862. May. 
 
 In American ports t 30,000 20,000 
 
 Afloat and at Liverpool 160,000 108,000 
 
 193.000 128,000 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 355 
 
 tracing the active prosecution of the campaign in Virginia, to 
 direct the attention of the reader to the progress cf events in 
 the West. 
 
 We shall find many remarkable events to record in thia 
 direction. We shall see -how it was that the evacuation of 
 Corinth was determined upon ; that the retreat was conducted 
 with great order and precision ; and that, despite the boasts ol 
 the North to the contrary, we lost no more prisoners than the 
 enemy did himself, and abandoned to him in stores not more 
 than would amount to one day s expense of our army. 
 
 We shall find in the defence of Yicksburg a splendid lesson 
 of magnanimity and disinterested patriotism. We shall see 
 how for several weeks this city resisted successfully the attack 
 of the enemy s gunboats, mortar fleets, and heavy siege-guns ; 
 how it was threatened by powerful fleets above and below, and 
 with what unexampled spirit the Queen City of the Bluffs sus 
 tained the iron storm that was rained upon her for weeks with 
 continued fury. 
 
 New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Memphis were in 
 the hands of the Yankees, and their possession by the enemy 
 might have furnished to Yicksburg, in its exposed and des 
 perate situation, the usual excuses of timidity and selfishness 
 for its surrender. But the brave city resisted these vile and 
 unmanly excuses, and gave to the world one of the proudest 
 and most brilliant illustrations of the earnestness and devotion 
 of the people of the South that had yet adorned the war. 
 
 The fact that but little hopes could be entertained of the 
 eventual success of the defence of Yicksburg against the pow 
 erful concentration of the enemy s navy, heightened the no 
 bility of the resistance she made. The resistance of an enemy 
 in circumstances which afford but a feeble and uncertain pros 
 pect of victory, requires a great spirit ; but it is more invalu 
 able to us than a hundred easy victories ; it teaches the enemy 
 that we are invincible, and overcomes him with despair; it 
 exhibits to the world the inspirations and moral grandeur of 
 our cause ; and it educates our people in chivalry and warlike 
 virtues by the force of illustrious examples of self-devotion. 
 
 We shall have, however, the satisfaction of recording an 
 unexpected issue of victory in the siege of Yicksburg, and 
 have occasion to point to another lesson that the history of al] 
 
356 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 wars indicates, that the practical test of resistance affords the 
 only sure determination whether a place is defensible or not. 
 With a feeling of inexpressible pride did Vicksburg behold two 
 immense fleets, each of which had been heretofore invincible, 
 brought to bay, and, unable to cope with her, kept at a re 
 spectable distance, and compelled to essay the extraordinary 
 task of digging a new channel for the Mississippi. 
 
 In following the track of detachments of our forces in the 
 West, we shall refer to the brilliant movements across the 
 Mississippi that drove the enemy from Arkansas, and harassed 
 him on the Missouri border with ceaseless activity, and to the 
 dashing expedition of the celebrated John Morgan into Ken 
 tucky. We shall see that the expedition of this cavalier was 
 one of the most brilliant, rapid, and successful raids recorded 
 in history. He left Tennessee with a thousand men, only a 
 portion of whom were armed ; penetrated two hundred and 
 fifty miles into a country in full possession of the Yankees ; 
 captured a dozen towns and cities ; met, fought, and captured 
 a Yankee force superior to his own in numbers ; captured three 
 thousand stand of arms at Lebanon ; and, from first to last, 
 destroyed daring his raid, military stores, railroad bridges, and 
 other property to the value of eight or ten millions of dollars. 
 He accomplished all this, besides putting the people of Cincin 
 nati into a condition, described by one of their newspapers, as 
 " bordering on frenzy," and returned to Tennessee with a 
 loss in all his engagements of fifteen men killed, and forty 
 wounded. 
 
 While some activity was shown in extreme portions of the 
 West, we shall see that our military operations from Green- 
 brier county, Virginia, all the way down to Chattanooga, Ten 
 nessee, were conducted with but little vigor. On the bounda 
 ries of East Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and Kentucky, 
 we had a force in the aggregate of thirty thousand men, con 
 fronted by probably not half their number of Yankee troops ; 
 yet the southwestern counties of Virginia, and the valley oi 
 the Clinch, in Tennessee, were entered and mercilessly plun 
 dered by the enemy in the face of our troops. 
 
 Turning for a moment from the military events of this 
 period, w r e shall notice the reassembling of the Confederate 
 Congress on the 18th 6f August, 1862. We shall then find 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 357 
 
 occasion to review the conduct of this branch of the govern 
 ment, and to observe how it fell below the spirit and virtue oi 
 the people ; what servility to the Executive it displayed, and 
 what a singular destitution of talents and ability was remark- 
 able in this body, Not a single speech that has yet been made 
 in it will live. It is true, that the regular Congress elected by 
 the people was an improvement upon the ignorant and unsa- 
 vory body known as the Provisional Congress, which was the 
 creature of conventions, and which was disgraced in the char 
 acter of some of its members ; among whom were conspicuous, 
 corrupt and senile politicians from Virginia, who had done all 
 they could to sacrifice and disgrace their State, who had 
 toadied in " society," as well as in politics, to notabilities of 
 New England, and who had taken a prominent part in emas 
 culating, and, in fact, annulling the Sequestration Law, in order 
 to save the property of relatives who had sided with the North 
 against the land that had borne them and honored their fathers. 
 But the regular Congress, although it had no taint of dis 
 loyalty or Yankee toadyism in it, was a weak, sycophantic, and 
 trifling body. It has made no mark in the history of the gov 
 ernment ; it was utterly destitute of originality. Its measures 
 were those which were recommended by the Executive or sug 
 gested by the newspapers. It produced no great financial 
 measure ; it made not one stroke of statesmanship ; it uttered 
 not a single fiery appeal to the popular heart, such as is cus 
 tomary in revolutions. The most of the little ability it had 
 was eaten up by servility to the Executive ; and the ignorance 
 of the majority was illustrated by a trifling and undignified 
 style of legislation, in which whole days were consumed with 
 paltry questions, and the greatest measures such as the Con 
 script Law* embarrassed by demagogical speeches made for 
 home effect. 
 
 * The execution of the Conscript Law was resisted by Governor Brown, of 
 Georgia. The correspondence between him and the President on this subject, 
 which was printed and hawked in pamphlet-form through the country, is a 
 cariosity. What will posterity think of a correspondence between such dig 
 nitaries, taking place at a time when the destinies of the country trembled in 
 the balance, composed of about equal parts of hairsplitting and demagogue- 
 ism, and illustrated copiously by Mr. Brown with citations from, the Virginia 
 and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and exhumed opinions of members of tho 
 
358 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE 
 
 It is difficult, indeed, for a legislative body to preserve ifcj 
 independence, and to resist the tendency of the Executive to 
 absorb power in a time of war, and this fact was well ilh s 
 trated by the Confederate Congress. One of the greatest 
 political scholars of America, Mr. Madison, noticed this dan 
 ger in the political constitution of the country. He said :- 
 "War is in fact the true nurse of Executive aggrandizement. 
 . In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the Execu 
 tive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures 
 are to be unlocked, and it is the Executive hand which is to 
 dispense therm In war the honors and emoluments of office 
 are to be multiplied, and it is the Executive patronage under 
 which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels 
 are to be gathered, and it is the Executive brow they are to 
 encircle/ 
 
 There was but little opposition in Congress to President 
 Davis ; but there was some which took a direction to his Cab 
 inet, and this opposition was represented by Mr. Eoote of Ten 
 nessee a man of acknowledged ability and many virtues oi 
 character, who had re-entered upon the political stage aftej 
 a public life, which, however it lacked in the cheap merit oi 
 partisan consistency, had been adorned by displays of won 
 derful intellect and great political genius. Mr. Foote was not 
 a man to be deterred from speaking the truth ; his quickness 
 to resentment and his chivalry, which, though somewhat 
 Quixotic, was founded in the most noble and delicate sense 
 of honor, made those who would have bullied or silenced a 
 weaker person, stand in awe of him. A man of such tem 
 per was not likely to stint words in assailing an opponent ; 
 and his sharp declamations in Congress, his searching com 
 ments, and his great powers of sarcasm, used upon such men 
 as Mallory, Benjamin, and Huger, were the only relief of the 
 dulness of the Congress, and the only historical features of its 
 debates. 
 
 old Federal Convention of 1787 ? The display was characteristic of Southern 
 politicians; in the most vital periods of the country s destiny they had an eye 
 to making political capital for themselves, and in the fierce tumults of a revo- 
 1 ution, refreshed the country with exhumations from the politicians of 1 787 
 a<nd the usual amount of clap-trap about our "forefathers/ and the old 
 political system that had rotted over our heads. 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 359 
 
 Returning to the history of the campaign in "Viiginia, w* 
 shall have occasion to enumerate another briJiant victory of 
 our arms, achieved on that fortunate theatre of the war. We 
 refer to the battle of Cedar Mountain. We shall find othei 
 topics to record in the events which, at the time of this wri 
 ting, are developing themselves, and reaching to the most im 
 portant consequences, both in Virginia and Tennessee. We 
 shall see how the great army which McClellan had brought 
 for the reduction of Richmond, and in sight of the church 
 steeples of that city, was compelled to retire towards the Poto 
 mac, with its proud columns shattered, humiliated, and de 
 moralized ; how Pope, who had entered Virginia with a splendid 
 army and the most insolent boasts, was ignominiously whipped 
 on more than one occasion, and with what agony of cowardice 
 he sought safety for his retreat ; how considerable portions of 
 Virginia and Tennessee were surrendered to the jurisdiction 
 of the Confederacy ; how the enemy in various quarters waa 
 pushed back to his old lines ; and how intelligent men in the> 
 South saw for the first time certain and unmistakable indica 
 tions of demoralization in the armies of the North, brought on* 
 by the remarkable train of victories in Virginia, extending from 
 early June to September. 
 
 In these events we shall find bright and flattering prospecta 
 renewed to the South. Much of these we shall nnd already 
 realized in the events in the midst of which we wrte this im 
 perfect sketch. We shall trace the painful steps by which our 
 worn troops advanced to meet another invading army in Vir 
 ginia, reinforced not only by the defeated army of McClellan, 
 but by the fresh corps of Generals Burnside and Hunter. We 
 shall tell what hardships were endured by our troops, and what 
 exploits of valor were performed by them on this celebrated 
 expedition ; how they were compelled to toil their way with 
 inadequate transportation ; how they crossed streams swollen 
 to unusual height, and bore all the fatigues and distresses of 
 forced marches; how their spirit and endurance were tested by 
 repeated combats with the enemy; how at last they succeeded 
 iti turning hir, position; and how, having formed a junction of 
 their columns in the face of greatly superior forces on tl\^ 
 historic and blood-stained plains of Manassas, they achieve* 
 there the ever-memorable victory of the thirteenth of Angus 
 
360 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 1862, the crowning triumph of their toil and valor. A nation s 
 gratitude is evoked to repay all that is due to the valor of our 
 troops and the providence of Almighty God.* 
 
 We do not trust ourselves to predict the consequences of cur 
 rent events ; and the brilliant story of Manassas, grouped with 
 contemporary victories in the West, must be left to the decisions 
 of the future trusting as we do that we may have occasion to 
 record in another volume the consequences as well as the de 
 tails of these events, and to find in the future the fulfilment of 
 the promises of to-day. 
 
 * * * * A few general reflections on the material and 
 moral phenomena of the war will appropriately conclude our 
 work for the present. 
 
 It is a censurable practice to flatter the people. It is equally 
 
 * The vulgar and unintelligent mind worships success. The extraordinary 
 and happy train of victories in Virginia seems to have had no other signifi 
 cance or interest to a number of grovelling minds in the South, than as a 
 contribution to the personal fame of General Lee, who by no fault of his own 
 (for no one had more modesty, more Christian dignity of behavior, and a 
 purer conversation), was followed by toadies, flatterers, and newspaper sneaks 
 in epaulets, who made him ridiculous by their servile obeisances and excess 
 of praise. The author does not worship success. He trusts, however, that 
 he has intelligence enough to perceive merit, without being prompted by the 
 vulgar cry ; he is sure that he has honesty and independence enough to ac 
 knowledge it where he believes it to exist. The estimation of General Lee, 
 made in some preceding pages, was with reference to his unfortunate cam 
 paign in Western Virginia ; it was founded on the events of that campaign, 
 in which there is no doubt Gen. Lee blundered and showed an absurd mis 
 conception of mountain warfare ; and so far as these events furnished evi 
 dence for the historian, the author believes that he was right, unprejudiced, 
 and just in ascribing the failure of that campaign to the misdirection of the 
 commanding general. If, however, it can be shown, as now seems to be 
 likely from incomplete events, that on wider, clearer, and more imposing 
 fields Gen. Lee has shown qualities which the campaign in the mountains 
 of Virginia had not illustrated, the friends of this commander may be assured 
 that the author will be honest and cordial in acknowledging the fact, and 
 that in a future continuation of these annals, justice will be done to the 
 recent extraordinary events in Virginia, fraught with so many critical issues 
 of the war, and associated with so many reputations dear to the people of the 
 South. In writing the facts of this war, the author takes no counsel of pop 
 ular cries, and notions fashionable in the newspapers ; he is neither the 
 panegyrist nor the antagonist of any clique ; he is more pleased to praise 
 than to censure, but his aim is truth, and he is resolved to pursue it, no 
 matter what popular prejudice or affect; on he is compelled to crush in ita 
 attainment. 
 
THE FIRST YEAH. 361 
 
 censurable to withhold from them the plain recognition of their 
 accomplishments. The present war will win the respect of the 
 world for the masses of the people of the Confederate States 
 With inferior numbers, with resources hampered on all sides, 
 we are yet winning the issue of the great struggle in which we 
 are involved. No one claims that this is owing to the wisdom 
 of our government. No one ascribes it to the ability of our 
 military chieftains ; for blunders in our military management 
 have been as common as in our civil administration. But 
 there is a huge, unlettered power that wages the war on our 
 side, overcoming everywhere the power of the enemy and the 
 incumbrances of our own machinery. It is the determined, 
 settled will of the people to be free, and to fight themselves 
 free, that has constituted our strength and our safety. 
 
 The existing war has, doubtless, disappointed the world in 
 its meagre phenomena of personal greatness, and, to some ex 
 tent, has disappointed its own people in the bigotry of its 
 policy and the official restraint put upon its spirit. It may be 
 said with singular truth, that it has produced or exhibited but 
 few great men that it has not raised up to public admiration 
 in the South a statesman, an orator, a poet, or a financier, all 
 which are generally considered as much the natural products 
 of war as military genius itself. For this disappointment, 
 however, we may find an explanation in some degree satisfac 
 tory. It is, that the very circumstance of the almost universal 
 uprising of the people of the South, and the eqtfal measures of 
 devotion shown by all classes and intellects, have given but 
 little room for overshadowing names, and presented but little 
 opportunity for marked personal distinctions of greatness. 
 
 After all, it is the spirit of the people that is most sure to 
 achieve the victorious results of revolutions ; and on this firm 
 reliance, and not on the personal fortunes of master-spirits, or 
 on adventitious aid, or on the calculations of any merely ex 
 ternal events, do we rest, under Providence, the hopes of the 
 Southern Confederacy. The verdict of the history of the world 
 is, that no powerful nation has ever been lost except by its own 
 cowardice. All nations that have fought for an independent 
 existence, have had to sustain terrible defeats, live through 
 deep, though temporary distress, and endure hours of profound 
 discouragement. But no nation was ever subdued that really 
 
362 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 determined to fight while there was an inch of ground or a 
 solitary soldier left to defend it. 
 
 As far as the war has been fought, its results, in a military 
 point of view, are deeply humiliating to the North. The war 
 was commenced by the North with the most intense expres 
 sions of contempt for its adversary ; the idea of the contest 
 being extended beyond a few months, was derided and spit 
 upon ; in that short time it was believed that the flag of the 
 Union would float over the cities and towns of the South, and 
 the bodies of " traitors" dangle from the battlements of Wash 
 ington. 
 
 This was not affectation. It was calculated by many people, 
 in a spirit of candor, that a contest so unequal in the material 
 elements of strength as that between the North and the South 
 would be speedily determined. The North had more than 
 twenty millions of people to break the power of eight millions ; 
 it had a militia force about three times as strong as that of the 
 South ; it had the regular army ; it had an immense advantage 
 over the South in a navy, the value of which may be appre 
 ciated when it is known that its achievements in the war have 
 been greater than those of the land forces, and that its strength, 
 with proposed additions to its active war vessels, is estimated 
 to-day in the North as equivalent to an army of half a million 
 men. 
 
 Nor did the superiority of the North end here. While the 
 South was cu off from the world by the restrictions of the 
 blockade, without commerce, with but scanty manufactures 
 and few supplies on hand, the North had all the ports of the 
 world open to its ships ; it had furnaces, foundries, and work 
 tops ; its manufacturing resources compared with those of the 
 South were as five hundred to one ; the great marts of Europe 
 were open to it for supplies of arms and stores ; there was 
 nothing of material resource, nothing of the apparatus of con 
 quest that was not within its reach. 
 
 These immense elements of superiority on the part of the 
 North have not remained idle in her hands. They have been, 
 exercised with tremendous energy. Within the last fifteen 
 months the government at Washington has put forth all its 
 power to subjugate the South ; it has contracted a debt six 
 or seven times more than that of the South; it has called out 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 
 
 nnre than half a million soldiers : it has put Europe under 
 contribution to furnish it not only arms, but soldiers to use 
 them ; it has left no resource untried and omitted no condition 
 of success. 
 
 The result of all this immense and boasted superiority on 
 the part of the North, coupled with the most immense exer 
 tions is, that the South remains unconquered. The result is 
 humiliating enough to the warlike reputation of the North. 
 It has not been separated from its feeble adversary by seas or 
 mountains, but only by a geographical line ; nature has not 
 interfered to protect the weak from the strong ; three " Grand 
 Armies" have advanced in the Confederate territory ; and yet 
 to-day, the Yankees hold in Virginia and Tennessee only the 
 ground they stand upon, and the South, in spirit, is more in 
 vincible than ever. 
 
 Nor has the war, so far as it has been waged, been without 
 great moral benefits to the South. We may indicate at least 
 three important and inestimable blessings which it has confer 
 red upon our people. 
 
 It has made impossible the theory of the " reconstruction" 
 of the old Union, which was no doubt indulged in the early 
 formation of the Confederate government. It has carried a 
 revolution, which, if no war had taken place, would probably 
 have ended in "reconstruction," on the basis of concessions 
 from the Northern States, which would in no way have im 
 paired the advantages of the old Union to them, to a point 
 where the demand for our independence admits of no alterna 
 tive or compromise. It has revealed to us the true character 
 istics of the people of the North ; it has repulsed us from a 
 people w r hose vices and black hearts we formerly knew but im 
 perfectly ; and it has produced that antagonism and alienation 
 which were necessary to exclude the possibility a reunion 
 with them. - 
 
 Again : the war has shown the system of negro slavery in 
 the South to the world in some new and striking aspects, and 
 lias removed m ich of that cloud of prejudice, defamation, 
 falsehood, romance, and perverse sentimentalism through which 
 our peculiar institution was formerly known to Europe. It 
 has given a better vindication of our system of slavery than all 
 the books thnt could be written in a generation. Ilereaftei 
 
364: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 there can be no dispute between facts plainly exhibited and 
 the pictures of romance ; and intelligent men of all countries 
 will obtain their ideas of slavery from certain leading and in 
 disputable facts in the history of this war, rather than from 
 partisan sources of information and the literary inventions of 
 the North. The war has shown that slavery has been an ele 
 ment of strength with us ; that it has assisted us in the war ; 
 that no servile insurrections have taken place in the South, in 
 spite of the allurements of our enemy ; that the slave has tilled 
 the soil while his master has fought ; that in large districts un 
 protected by our troops, and with a white population consisting 
 almost exclusively of women and children, the slave has con 
 tinued at his work, quiet, cheerful, and faithful * and that, as 
 
 * The following is taken from the letter of an English nobleman, who 
 visited the South while the war was in its active stages, and the result of 
 whose observations there, at the time war was racking the country and many 
 of our own whites were houseless and starving, was, that the condition of the 
 negro slaves in the South was " better than that of any laboring population in 
 the world." 
 
 ******* 
 
 " Among the dangers which we had heard at New York threatened the 
 South, a revolt of the slave population was said to be the most imminent. 
 Let us take, then, a peep at the cotton-field, and see what likelihood there is 
 of such a contingency. On the bank of the Alabama river, which winds its 
 yellow course through woods of oak, ash, maple, and pine, thickened with 
 tangled copse of varied evergreens, lie some of the most fertile plantations of 
 the State. One of these we had the advantage of visiting. Its owner received 
 us with all that hospitality and unaffected bonhomie which invariably distin 
 guish a Southern gentleman. Having mounted a couple of hacks, we started 
 off through a large pine wood, and soon arrived at the " clearing" of about 
 two hundred acres in extent, on most of which was gro wing an average cotton 
 crop. This was a fair sample of the rest of the plantation, which consisted 
 altogether of 7000 acres. Riding into the middle of the field, we found our 
 selves surrounded by about forty slaves men, women, and children engaged 
 in " picking." They were all well dressed, and seemed happy and cheerful. 
 
 Wishing to know what time of day it was, I asked Mr. the hour, where 
 
 upon one of the darkies by my side took out a watch and informed me. 
 
 " Do your laborers wear watches, sir ? I inquired. 
 
 " A great many of them have. Why, sir, my negroes all have their cotton 
 plats and gardens, and most of them have little orchards. 
 
 " We found from their own testimony that they are fed well, chiefly upon 
 pork, corn, potatoes, and rice, carefully attended to when sick, and on Sundays 
 dress better than their masters. We next visited the station, a street oi 
 
 cottages in a pine wood, where Mr. s slaves reside. These we found 
 
 and comfortable. Two of the men were sick, and had been visited that 
 
THE FIRST YEAR. 365 
 
 a conservative element in our social system, the inst tutioti 01 
 slavery has withstood the shocks of war and been a faithful 
 ally of our arms, although instigated to revolution by every 
 art of the enemy, and prompted to the work of assassination 
 and pillage by the most brutal examples of the Yankee sol^ 
 diery. 
 
 Finally, the war has given to the States composing the Con 
 federacy a new bond of union. This was necessary. Com 
 merce and intercourse had been far more intimate between the 
 Slave States on the Lower Mississippi and those on the Upper 
 Mississippi and its tributaries, than between any portions of 
 the Confederate States. The war has broken this natural affin 
 ity ; it has supplanted sympathy by alienation, interest by 
 hate, between the people of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, and 
 those of Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi ; and by the prin 
 ciple of repulsion as well as union, by the tie of a common 
 bloodshed, and the memory of a common labor and glory, the 
 stability of our Confederacy has been strengthened and se 
 cured. 
 
 Such are the inestimable blessings which, although draped 
 in sorrow and suffering, the war has conferred upon the people 
 of the South. 
 
 The resolution of the South to achieve its independence has 
 been greatly encouraged as the war has advanced. It is alike 
 prompted by the spirit of her people, and strengthened by mo 
 tives which address the judgment. These motives are explained 
 *n the plain consequences of subjugation. The spirit of the 
 Isorth in the existing war has already been developed far 
 enough to indicate the certain condition of the South, if her 
 enemy should succeed in establishing his dominion over her 
 people. That condition may be described in confiscation, 
 brutality, military domination, insult, universal poverty, the 
 beggary of millions, the triumph of the vilest individuals in 
 these communities, the abasement of the honest and indus 
 trious, the outlawry of the slaves, the destruction of agriculture 
 and commerce, the emigration of all thriving citizens, farewell 
 to the hopes of future wealth, and the scorn of the world. The 
 
 morning by a doctor ; in the mean time they were looked after by the nurses 
 of the establishment, of whom there were three to take care of the children 
 and invalids." 
 
SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 resistance of such a destiny, properly conceived, will restore 
 the worst fortunes of war, pluck victory from despair, and 
 deserve the blessing of Providence, which " can save by many 
 or by few," and which has never yet failed to reward a just 
 and earnest endeavor for independence. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIT. 
 
 The Now Orleans Disaster. Its Consequences and Effects. Dispatches of the 
 European Commissioners. Butler "the Beast." Public Opinion in Europe. The 
 Atrocities of the Massachusetts Tyrant. Execution of Mumford. Lesson of New 
 Orleans. Spirit of Resistance in the South. Change in the Fortunes of the Con 
 federacy. Two Leading Causes for it. The Richmond "Examiner." The Conscrip- 
 tion Law. Governor Brown of Georgia. Reorganization of the Army. Abandon 
 ment of our Frontier Defences. The Policy of Concentration. Governor Rector s 
 Appeal. First Movements of the Summer Campaign in Virginia. The Retreat from 
 Yorktown. Evacuation of Norfolk. Destruction of the "Virginia." Commodore 
 Tatnall s Report. Secretary Mallory s Visit to Norfolk. The Engagement of Wrl- 
 liainsburg. The Affair of Barhamsville. McClellan s Investment of the Lines of the 
 Chickahoniiny. Alarm in Richmond. The Water Avenue of the James. The Panic 
 in Official Circles. Consternation in the President s House. Correspondence be 
 tween President Davis and the Legislature of Virginia. Noble Resolutions of tho 
 Legislature. Response of the Citizens of Richmond. The Bombardment of Drewry s 
 Bluff. The Mass Meeting at the City Hall. Renewal of Public Confidence. The 
 Occasions of this. JACKSON S CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY. The Engagement o 
 McDowell. The Surprise at Front Royal. Banks Retreat down the Valley. The 
 Engagements of Port Republic. Results of the Campaign. Death of Turner Ash- 
 by. Sufferings of the People of the Valley of the Shenaudoah. MEMOIR OF TURNKB 
 
 ASHBY. 
 
 THE fall of New Orleans was one of the most extraordinary 
 triumphs which the enemy had obtained. It was the crown 
 ing stroke of that extraordinary campaign of the winter and 
 spring of the year 1862, in which, by the improvidence of the 
 Southern authorities, and a false military policy which divided 
 their armies and weakened them by undue dispersion, they 
 had lost much of their territory, most of the prestige of their 
 arms, and had fallen upon a train of disasters well calculated 
 to affect the general public, both at home and abroad. The 
 close of this campaign, so ill-starred to the Confederacy, found 
 it with scarcely more than three entire States Texas, Ala 
 bama, and Georgia. Large portions of the territories of Vir 
 ginia, the Carolinas, and Florida were occupied by the enemy - 
 he had broken our line of defences in Tennessee, and held im 
 
368 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 porlant positions on the Upper Mississippi ; and now, by the 
 capture of New Orleans, he had secured the great Southern 
 depot of the trade of the immense central valley of the conti 
 nent, obtained command of an extent of territory accessible by 
 his gunboats greater than the entire country before lost to the 
 Confederacy, and had good reason to hope, by the junction oi 
 his fleets on the Mississippi, to open its navigation, and give to 
 the West an outlet to the ocean. 
 
 The conquests of the Federal arms made in the winter and 
 spring of 1862, were not without their effect in Europe, and 
 presented to the nations in that part of the world a sombre pic 
 ture of the Confederacy. The dispatches of our ministers at 
 the courts of England and France declared that the prospect 
 of recognition, of which they had formerly given such warm 
 and sanguine assurances, had been overclouded by the disaster 
 at New Orleans. Mr. Slidell wrote from Paris that the French 
 government declared that " if New Orleans had not fallen, 
 our recognition could not have been much longer delayed." 
 He added, however, that he had been assured that " even after 
 that disaster, if we obtained decided successes in Virginia and 
 Tennessee, or could hold the enemy at bay a month or two, 
 the same result would follow" a promise, to the breach 01 
 which, and to the unhappy expectations which it excited, we 
 shall hereafter have occasion to refer. Mn Mason, our minis 
 ter at London, also referred to the opinion that at the time of 
 the enemy s capture of New Orleans, our recognition was on 
 the eve of accomplishment. 
 
 The immediate sufferers of the disaster at New Orleans were 
 the people of that city. It was aptly rewarded for its easy 
 submission by the scourge of a tyrant. The corrupt and mer 
 ciless master of this great emporium, General Butler of Mas 
 sachusetts, was a man who found no merit in submission, un 
 less such as grovelled in the dust and paid personal court and 
 pecuniary tribute to himself. The rule of this vulgar and 
 drunken man excited the horror and disgust of the civilized 
 
 O 
 
 world, and secured for him in the South the popular sobri 
 quet of " the Beast." His order which stigmatized as prosti 
 tutes the ladies of New Orleans, who betrayed in the streets 
 or from the balconies their indignation against the invaders 
 of their city, while it made him the hero of the hour in the 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 369 
 
 North with a people who admired the coarse spirit of the 
 bully, drew upon him the execrations of all humane and honor 
 able people. In the British Parliament, Lord Palmerston de 
 clared the proclamation to be " infamous," and the condemna 
 tion of the indecent and dirty edict was echoed by the press 01 
 Europe.* 
 
 The acts of the tyrant of New Orleans surpassed all former 
 atrocities and outrages of the war. In frequent instances, 
 citizens, accused by Butler of contumacious disloyalty, were 
 confined at hard labor, with balls and chains attached to their 
 limbs ; and sometimes this degrading punishment was inflicted 
 upon men whose only offence was that of selling medicines to 
 the sick soldiers of the Confederacy. Helpless women were 
 torn, from their homes and confined in prison. One of these 
 a Mrs. Phillips was accused of laughing as the funeral train 
 of a Yankee officer passed her doors; she was seized, and 
 with an ingenious and devilish cruelty, her sentence was pro 
 nounced by Butler imprisonment on an island of barren sand 
 under a tropical sun. Various pretexts were invented for 
 
 * The "Order 28," which has stigmatized its brutal author throughou 
 Christendom, was at first refused publication by all the newspapers in New 
 Orleans. It was then copied on sheets of paper and surreptitiously posted 
 on many of the principal corners of the streets in the immediate neighbor 
 hood of the St. Charles Hotel. The next day all of the newspaper offices 
 were ordered to be closed for disobedience of orders. On this becoming 
 known, the True Delta paper published the order, and the other newspapers 
 timidly submitted to the force of circumstances, and published it also. The 
 natural excitement and indignation that followed throughout the community 
 is indescribable. Several lady subscribers sent to the newspaper offices and 
 indignantly and positively forbade that such papers should longer be left at 
 their dwellings. Mayor Monroe, with a party of influential citizens, at once 
 called on the Beast and endeavored to obtain some qualification of the order , 
 but they could get no satisfaction and were rudely dismissed. Mayor Monroe 
 then wrote an indignant and reproachful communication to Butler, and again 
 pressed him for a modification of the hateful order. Butler then sent for the 
 Mayor. Mayor Monroe replied, "Tell General Butler my office is at the 
 City Hotel, where he can see me, if desirable." Butler retorted, that unless 
 the Mayor came at once to his headquarters, he would send an armed force 
 to arrest and bring him there. Further opposition being useless, the Mayor 
 chief of police, and several friends, then went to the St. Charles Hotel, where 
 they found the Beast in a towering rage. Butler claimed to be much insulted 
 at the conduct of the Mayor, and without ceremony or delay, sent Mr. Mon 
 roe and those who accompanied him to prison. In a few days they were al] 
 shipped down to Fort Jackson. 
 
 24 
 
370 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 plundering the inhabitants of the conquered city ; men were 
 forced to elect between starvation by the confiscation of all 
 their property and taking an oath of allegiance to the invaders 
 of their country ; fines were levied at pleasure, and recusants 
 threatened with ball and chain. 
 
 The conduct of the negroes in New Orleans became intoler 
 able to their owners. They were fed, clothed, and quartered 
 by the Yankees, who fraternized with them generally in a 
 shameful way. The planters in the neighborhood of the city 
 were required to share their crops with the commanding gen 
 eral, his brother, Andrew J. Butler, and other officers; and 
 when this partnership was refused, the plantations were robbed 
 of every thing susceptible of removal, and the slaves taken 
 from their owners and compelled to work under the bayonets 
 of Yankee guards. 
 
 It would occupy many pages to detail what the people of 
 New Orleans suffered at the hands of the invaders whom they 
 had so easily admitted into their city, in insult, wrongs, confis 
 cation of property, seizure of private dwellings, and brazen 
 robbery. The Yankee officers, from colonel to lieutenant, as 
 the caprice of each might dictate, seized and took posseSoion 
 of gentlemen s houses, broke into their wine-rooms, forced 
 open the wardrobes of ladies and gentlemen, and either used 
 or sent away from the city the clothing of whole families. 
 Some of the private residences of respectable citizens were 
 appropriated to the vilest uses, the officials who had engaged 
 them making them the private shops of the most infamous 
 female characters. 
 
 But while Butler was thus apparently occupied with the op 
 pression of " rebels," he was too much of a Yankee to be lost 
 to the opportunity of making his pecuniary fortune out of the 
 exigencies which he had created. The banker and broker of 
 the corrupt operations in which ,he was engaged was his own 
 brother, who bought confiscated property, shipped large con 
 signments from New Orleans, to be paid for in cotton, and 
 speculated largely in powder, saltpetre, muskets, and other war 
 material sold to the Confederacy, surreptitiously sent out from 
 the city and covered by permits for prov.cions. Of the trade 
 .n provisions for cotton, Butler received iiis share of the gains^ 
 while the robbery was covered up by the pretence of consump- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 371 
 
 tion in New Orleans " to prevent starvation," or by reported 
 actual issue to troops. The Yankee general did not hesitate to 
 deal in the very life-blood of his own soldiers. 
 
 The rule of Butler in New Orleans is especially memorable 
 for the deliberate murder of William B. Mumford. a citizen 01 
 the Confederate States, against whom the tyrant had invented 
 the extraordinary charge that he had insulted the flag of the 
 United States. The fact was, that before the city had surren 
 dered, Mumford had taken down from the mint the enemy s 
 flag. The ensign was wrongfully there ; the city had not sur 
 rendered; and even in its worst aspects, the act of Mumford 
 was simply one of war, not deserving death, still less the death 
 of a felon. The horrible crime of murdering in cold blood an 
 unresisting and non-combatant captive, was completed by But 
 ler on the 7th of June. On that day, Mumford, the martyr, 
 was publicly executed on the gallows. The Massachusetts 
 coward and tyrant had no ear or heart for the pitiful pleadings 
 made to save the life of his captive, especially by his unhappy 
 Vife, who in her supplications for mercy was rudely repulsed, 
 and at times answered with drunken jokes and taunts. The 
 execution took place in the sight of thousands of panic-stricken 
 citizens. None spoke but the martyr himself. His voice was 
 loud and clear. Looking up at the stars and stripes which 
 floated high over the scene before him, he remarked that he 
 had fought under that flag twice, but it had become hateful to 
 him, and he had torn it and trailed it in the dust. " I con 
 sider," said the brave young man, " that the manner of my 
 death will be no disgrace to my wife and child ; my country 
 will honor them." 
 
 The experience of New Orleans gave a valuable lesson to 
 the South. It exhibited the consequences of submission to the 
 enemy in confiscation, brutality, military domination, insult, 
 universal poverty, the beggary of thousands, the triumph of 
 the vilest individuals in the community, the abasement of the 
 honest and industrious, and the outlawry of the slaves. The 
 spirit of resistance in the South was fortified by the enemy s 
 exhibitions of triumph, and the resolution gained ground that 
 t was much better to consign the cities of the Confederacy to 
 the flames than to surrender them to the enemy. A time wa 
 approaching when Yankee gunboats were to lose their prestige 
 
372 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of terror, when cities were no longer to be abandoned or snr- 
 rendered on the approach of a foe ; and when the freemen oi 
 the South were to be taught how, by a spirit above fear and 
 ready for all sacrifice, they might defy the most potent agencies 
 of modern warfare. 
 
 With the bright month of May a new era was dawning on 
 the fortunes of the Confederacy. This happy change of for 
 tune was due not only to the improved resolution of the South. 
 It is in a great degree to be attributed to two leading causes in 
 the military administration. These were, first, the conscription 
 law, with the consequent reorganization of the army ; and, 
 secondly, the abandonment of our plan of frontier defence, which 
 made way for the superior and more fortunate policy of the con 
 centration of our forces in the interior. 
 
 The first suggestion of a conscription law was made by the 
 Richmond Examiner a bold and vigilant leader of the news 
 paper press of the Confederacy. It was met with violent op 
 position from the administration, with the clamor of demagogi 
 cal presses that the suggestion conveyed a reflection upon the 
 patriotism of the country, and with the fashionable nonsense 
 that it was a confession calculated to give aid and comfort to 
 the enemy. But the early advocates of conscription enjoyed 
 the singular triumph of converting public opinion completely 
 to their side, and forcing the government at a future period to 
 the confession that the system which it had at first frowned 
 upon had proved the salvation of the country. 
 
 At the beginning of the war we had nothing that deserved 
 the title of a military system. There was no lack of zeal or 
 determination in the South ; but the organization of the army 
 was defective, its discipline was retarded by bad laws, and at 
 a time that the forces of the enemy in Virginia had reached 
 the highest state of efficiency, our own army was passing 
 through successive stages of disorganization to dissolution. 
 The army of the enemy was superior to our own in every re 
 spect, except courage and good cause ; they had every guaranty 
 of success that numbers, discipline, complete organization, and 
 perfect equipments could effect. 
 
 The military system of the South dates from the passage of 
 the conscription law. To this measure must be attributed thai 
 solidity in the organization of our army, and that efficiency 
 
THE SECOND YEAS. 373 
 
 which challenged the admiration of the world. The beneficial 
 effects of this enactment were soon manifest as well to our 
 selves as to the world. It distributed over the Confederacy 
 the levies in proportion to the inhabitants of each State and 
 county; it centralized the organization of the army, and it 
 introduced a regular system of recruiting, which guaranteed 
 that the efficiency of the army would not be impaired by the 
 lapse of time and the loss of health and life incident to war 
 fare. 
 
 The conscription law came not a moment too soon. The 
 acts of Congress providing for re-enlistments had failed to 
 effect the desired object. Without decadence of the real valor 
 of our people, or their invincible determination to achieve their 
 independence, the spirit of volunteering had died out, and the 
 resolution of our soldiers already in the field was not sufficient 
 to resist the prospects, cherished for months amid the sufferings 
 and monotony of the camps, of returning to their homes. 
 The exigency was critical, and even vital. In a period of 
 thirty days the terms of service of one hundred and forty-eight 
 regiments expired. There was good reason to believe that a 
 large majority of the men had not re-enlisted, and of those 
 who had re-enlisted, a very large majority had entered compa 
 nies which could never be assembled, or if assembled, could 
 not be prepared for the field in time to meet the invasion ac 
 tually commenced. 
 
 The first act of conscription was passed on the 16th of 
 April, 1862. It was afterwards enlarged by another act (27th 
 September), giving the Executive the power to call into ser 
 vice persons between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. 
 Although the rush of volunteers had comparatively ceased, 
 and the ardor of the individual did not suffice for the proffer of 
 self-devotion, yet the sentiments and convictions of the mass 
 recognized as the most sacred obligation the stern duty of de 
 fending, if needs be, with their entire numbers, their imperilled 
 liberty, fortune, and honor. The conscription law was, gener 
 ally, cheerfully acquiesced in. In every State one or more 
 camps of instruction, for the reception and training of con 
 scripts was established ; and to each State an officer, styled a 
 commandant of conscripts, was appointed, charged with the 
 supervision of the enrolment and instruction of the new levies. 
 
374: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The execution of the conscription law was unfortunately re 
 sisted for a time by Governor Brown of Georgia. The cor 
 respondence between him and the President on the subject, 
 which was printed and hawked in pamphlet form through the 
 country, was a curiosity. It was illustrated copiously by Mr 
 Brown with citations from the Virginia and Kentucky resolu 
 tions of 1798, and exhumed opinions of members of the old 
 Federal Convention of 1787. In the most vital periods of the 
 country s destiny, and in the fierce tumults of a revolution 
 the people of the South were refreshed with exhumations from 
 the politicians of 1787, and the usual amount of clap-trap 
 about our "forefathers," and the old political system that had 
 rotted over our heads. 
 
 The beneficial effect of the conscription law in the reorgani 
 zation of our army was assisted by some other acts of legisla 
 tion. That reorganization was advanced by the appointment 
 of lieutenant-generals, some commanding separate depart 
 ments, and others heading army corps under a general in the 
 field. The policy of organizing the brigades with troops and 
 generals from the several States was pursued, as opportunities 
 offered, without detriment to the public service. The greater 
 satisfaction of the men from each State, when collected to 
 gether, the generous emulation for glory to their State, and the 
 fair apportionment of officers assured to each State according 
 to its contribution of defenders to the country, overbalanced 
 the inconvenience of separating regiments or companies pre 
 viously associated, and the liability to State jealousies. Mili 
 tary courts were organized to secure the prompt administration 
 of the military law, to check desertion and straggling, to re 
 strain license of all kinds, and to advance temperance, disci 
 pline, and subordination. 
 
 But it was riot only the reorganization and improved morale 
 of the army that came to the aid of the declining fortunes of 
 the South in the war. 
 
 The disasters on the Mississippi frontier and in other direc 
 tions had constrained the government to adopt the policy ot 
 concentrating its forces in the interior of Virginia. The ob 
 ject of all war is to reach a decisive point of the campaign, and 
 this object was realized by a policy which it is true the govern 
 ment had not adopted at the instance of reason, but which had 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 375 
 
 been imposed upon it by the force of disaster. There were 
 childish complaints that certain districts and points on the fron 
 tier had been abandoned by the Confederates for the purpose of 
 a concentration of troops in Virginia. An inflammatory ap 
 peal was made by Governor Rector of Arkansas to the State? 
 of the Trans-Mississippi, representing that the government haO 
 deserted them in transferring its troops to other portions of the 
 Confederacy, and suggesting that they should form a new as 
 sociation for their safety. But the appeal was severely rebuked 
 by public sentiment. The complaint of Governor Rector cost 
 him his election, and the display of the demagogue consigned 
 him to the reproaches of the public. 
 
 Such complaints were alike selfish and senseless, and in 
 most cases nothing more than the utterances of a demagogical, 
 short-sighted, and selfish spirit, which would have preferred 
 the apparent security of its own particular State or section to 
 the fortunes of the whole Confederacy. The fact was, that 
 there was cause of intelligent congratulation, even in those 
 districts from which the Confederate troops had been withdrawn 
 to make a decisive battle, that we had at last reached a crisis, 
 the decision of which might reverse all our past misfortunes and 
 achieve results in which every State of the Confederacy would 
 have a share. 
 
 But. the first movements of the famous summer campaign in 
 Virginia that was to change the fortunes of the war and adorn 
 our arms, were not auspicious. The designs of some of these 
 movements were not properly appreciated at the time, and 
 some of the incidents that attended them were real disasters. 
 
 We have seen that by the happy boldness of General Ma- 
 gruder in keeping the enemy in check on the line between 
 Yorktown, on York river, and Mulberry Island, on James 
 river, the advance of the grand Federal army, destined for the 
 capture of Richmond, was stayed until our forces were rescued 
 by the consummate strategy of Gen. Johnston from the pres 
 sure of enveloping armies, who arrived in time to reinforce our 
 lines on the Peninsula. It became necessary, however, in the 
 judgment of that commander, to fall back in the direction of 
 Richmond. It was easily seen by General Johnston that at 
 Yorktown there was no prospect of a general action, as the 
 attack on either side would have to be made under disadvan 
 
370 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tages whicli neither army was willing to risk. The Yankees 
 were in superior force, besides their additional strength in their 
 gunboats, and in falling back so as to invest the line of the 
 Chickahominj, General Johnston expected to force the enemy 
 to more equal terms. The difficulty was to match the strength 
 of the enemy on the water ; and the best practical equivalent 
 for this was considered to be the open field, where gunboats 
 being out of the question, the position of our troops would be 
 the same as if at Yorktown they had had a force of gunboats 
 exactly equal to that of the enemy, thus neutralizing his ad 
 vantage in respect of naval armament. 
 
 The retreat from Yorktown produced uneasiness in the pub 
 lic mind, and naturally shook the confidence of the many who 
 were in ignorance of the plans of the cautious and taciturn 
 strategist at the head of our forces in Virginia. It involved 
 our surrender of Norfolk, with all the advantages of its con 
 tiguous navy-yard and dock. And it was accompanied by a 
 disaster which, in so far as it was supposed to be unnecessary 
 and wanton, occasioned an amount of grief and rage in the 
 > Confederacy such as had not yet been exhibited in the war. 
 
 This memorable disaster was the destruction of the famous 
 mailed steamer Virginia " the iron diadem of the South." 
 This vessel, which had obtained for us oirr first triumph on the 
 -water, was an object of pride, and almost of affection, to the 
 people of the South. She was popularly said to be worth fifty 
 thousand troops in the field. Nor was this estimate excessive, 
 when it is recollected that she protected Norfolk, the navy- 
 yard, and James river; that no fleet of transports could safely 
 land its troops, designed to attack those places, at any point 
 from Gape Henry to the upper James, as far as she could 
 ascend ; that her presence at Norfolk had annihilated the land 
 and water blockade at Newport News, passed the control of 
 i the James river into our hands, and protected the right flank 
 of our army on the Peninsula. 
 
 The Virginia was destroyed under the immediate orders of 
 her commander, Commodore Tatnall, on the morning of the 
 llth of May, in the vicinity of Craney Island. According to 
 his statement, he had been betrayed into the necessity of de 
 stroying his vessel by firing her magazine, by the deceitful 
 representations; of his pilots, who at first assured him that they 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 377 
 
 could take the ship, with a draft of eighteen feet of water- 
 within forty miles of Richmond, and after having lifted her so 
 as to unfit her for action, then declared that they could not get 
 he] above the Jamestown flats, up to which point the shore on 
 each side was occupied by the enemy. It is proper to add 
 that this statement of facts was contested by the pilots, who 
 resented the reflections made upon their loyalty or courage. 
 Whatever may have been the merits of this controversy, it is 
 certain that the vessel was destroyed in great haste by Com 
 modore Tatnall, who, in the dead hour of night, aroused 
 from his slumbers and acquainted with the decision of his 
 pilots, ordered the ship to be put ashore, landed his crew in the 
 vicinity of Craney Island, and blew to the four winds of heaven 
 the only naval structure that guarded the water approach to 
 Richmond. 
 
 The destruction of the Virginia was a sharp and unexpected 
 blow to the confidence of the people of the South in their gov 
 ernment. How far the government was implicated in this 
 foolish and desperate act, was never openly acknowledged or 
 exactly ascertained ; but despite the pains of official conceal 
 ment, there are certain well-attested facts which indicate that 
 in the destruction of this great war-ship, the authorities at 
 Richmond were not guiltless. These facts properly belong to 
 the history of one of the most unhappy events that had occurred 
 since the commenceinent of the war. 
 
 The Virginia was destroyed at 5 A. M. of the llth of May. 
 During the morning of the same day a prominent politician in 
 the streets of Richmond was observed to be very much de 
 jected ; he remarked that it was an evil day for the Confed 
 eracy. On being questioned by his intimate friends, he declared 
 to them that the Government had determined upon, or assented 
 to, the destruction of the Virginia, and that he had learned 
 this from the highest sources of authority in the capital. At 
 this time the news of the explosion of the Virginia could not 
 have possibly reached Richmond ; there was no telegraphic 
 communication between the scene of her destruction and the 
 city, and the evidence appears to be complete, that the Gov 
 ernment had at least a prevision of the destruction of this ves 
 sel, or had assented to the general policy of the act, trusting, 
 perhaps, to acquit itself of the responsibility for it on the 
 
378 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAS. 
 
 unworthy plea that it had given no express orders in the 
 matter. 
 
 Again, it is well known that for at least a week prior to the 
 destruction of the Yirginia, the evacuation of Norfolk had 
 been determined upon; that during this time the removal 01 
 stores was daily progressing ; and that Mr. Mallory, the Sec 
 retary of the Navy, had within this period, himself, visited 
 Norfolk to look after the public interests. The evacuation of 
 this port clearly involved the question, what disposition was to 
 be made of the Yirginia. If the Government made no decision 
 of a question, which for a week stared it in the face, it cer 
 tainly was very strangely neglectful of the public interest. 
 If Mr. Mallory visited Norfolk when the evacuation was going 
 on, and never thought of the Yirginia, or thinking of her, 
 kept dumb, never even giving so much as an official nod as to 
 what disposition should be made of her, he must have been 
 more stupid than the people who laughed at him in Richmond, 
 or the members of Congress who nicknamed without mercy 
 thought him to be. 
 
 It is also not a little singular that when a court of inquiry 
 had found that the destruction of the Yirginia was unnecessary 
 and improper, Mr. Mallory should have waived the calling 01 
 a court-martial, forgotten what was due to the public interest 
 on such a finding as that made by the preliminary court, and 
 expressed himself satisfied to let the matter rest. The fact is 
 indisputable, that the court-martial, which afterwards sat in 
 the case, was called at the demand of Commodore Tatnall him 
 self. It resulted in his acquittal. 
 
 The evacuation of Norfolk was the occasion of great distress 
 to its population. But it was the part of a wise policy, that our 
 military lines should be contracted and that the troops of Gen. 
 Huger should be consolidated with the army before Richmond. 
 
 The retreat from Yorktown to the Chickahominy was marked 
 by spirited incidents and by one important engagement. 
 McClellan becoming, through an accident, aware of the move 
 ment of General Johnston, immediately pursued our columns 
 which recoiled on him at Williamsburg, on the 5th of May 
 and drove back his army. During the whole of that day, 
 General Longstreet s division, which brought up the rear, was 
 engaged with the enemy from sunrise to sunset. The day was 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 379 
 
 marked by sigTial successes, for we captured three hundred and 
 fifty prisoners, took nine pieces of artillery, and left on the 
 field, in killed and wounded, at least three thousand of the 
 enemy. During the night our army resumed its movement 
 towards Richmond, and half an hour after sunrise it had 
 evacuated the town, under the necessity of leaving our killed 
 and wounded in the hands of the enemy. 
 
 The following day, the insolence of the ene^ny was again 
 checked on the route of our retreat. On the 7th of May he 
 attempted a landing, under cover of his gunboats, at Barhams- 
 ville, near West Point. The attempt was ineifectnal. The 
 Yankees were driven back, after they had assaulted our posi 
 tion three different times the last time being forced to the 
 cover of their gunboats by the brave Texans of General Whi 
 ting s division, who, in the face of an artillery fire, pressed the 
 fugitives so closely that many were driven into the river and 
 drowned. 
 
 The investment of the lines of the Chickahominy brought 
 the two opposing armies within sight of Richmond. After a 
 desultory military experience, a useless and inglorious march 
 to Manassas, a long delay on the banks of the Potomac and 
 Chesapeake, and a vague abandonment of these lines for opera 
 tions on the Peninsula, McClellan, who was the " Napoleon" 
 of the Democratic party of the North, but a slow and con 
 temptible blunderer in the estimation of the Republicans, 
 found himself, by the fortune of circumstances, within sight of 
 the steeples and spires of the long-sought capital of the Con 
 federacy. 
 
 The proximity of the enemy was an occasion of great anxi 
 ety to the people of Richmond, and the visible tremor of the 
 Confederate authorities in that city was not a spectacle calcu 
 lated either to nerve the army or assure the citizens. The fact 
 is, that the Confederate authorities had shamefully neglected 
 the defences of Richmond, and were now making preparations 
 to leave it, which were called prudential, but which naturally 
 inspired a panic such as had never before been witnessed in 
 the history of the war. The destruction of the Virginia had 
 left the water avenue to Richmond almost undefended. The 
 City Council had for months been urging upon the Confederate 
 Government the necessity of obstructing the river, and failing 
 
380 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 to induce them to hurry on the work, had, with pati.otic zeal 
 undertaken it themselves. A newspapei in Richmond th 
 Examiner had in good time pointed out the necessity 01 
 obstructing the river with stone, but the counsel w^s treated 
 with such conceit and harshness by the government, that it 
 was only at the risk of its existence that that paper continued 
 for weeks to point out the insecurity of Richmond and the 
 omissions of its authorities. The government was at last 
 aroused to a sense of danger only to fall to work in ridiculous 
 haste, and with the blindness of alarm. The appearance of 
 the Yankee gunboats in James river was the signal for Mr. 
 Secretary Mallory to show his alacrity in meeting the enemy 
 by an advertisement for " timber" to construct new naval 
 defences. The only obstruction between the city and the 
 dread Monitor and the gunboats was a half-finished fort at 
 Drewry s Bluff, which mounted four guns. Some of the Con 
 federate officers had taken a " gunboat panic," for the line of 
 stone obstructions in the river was not yet complete. They 
 seized upon schooners at the wharves loaded with plaster 01 
 paris, guano, and other valuable cargoes, carried them to points 
 where they supposed the passage of the river was to be con 
 tested, and in some instances sunk them in the wrong places. 
 
 There is no doubt that about this time the authorities of the 
 Confederate States had nigh despaired of the safety of Rich 
 mond. The most urgent appeals had been made to Congress 
 by the press and the people to continue its session in Rich 
 mond while the crisis impended. But its members refused to 
 give this mark of confidence to the government, or to make 
 any sacrifice of their selfish considerations for the moral 
 encouragement of tlfeir constituents. They had adjourned ir. 
 haste and left Richmond, regarding only the safety of their 
 persons or the convenience of their homes. 
 
 Nor was the Executive more determined. In the President s 
 mansion about this time all was consternation and dismay. A 
 letter written by one of his family at a time \\hen Richmond 
 was thought to be imminently threatened, and intercepted bj? 
 the enemy, afforded excessive merriment to the Yanktes, an 
 made a painful exhibition to the South of the weakness and 
 fears of those intrusted with its fortunes. This letter, written 
 with refreshing simplicity of heart, overflowed with pitiful 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 381 
 
 sympathy for the President, and amused the enemy with refer 
 ences to the sore anxieties of " Uncle Jeff." and to the prospect 
 of his sinking under the misfortunes of his administration. 
 The authenticity of this letter was never called into question 
 it is a painful and delicate historical evidence, but one to 
 which, in the interests of truth, alusion should not be spared.* 
 
 * The following is a portion of the letter referred to. The rejections which 
 it makes upon the courage of our noble, suffering soldiers were probably hasty, 
 and may be spared here : 
 
 . . . . " When I think of the dark gloom that now hovers over our 
 country, I am ready to sink with despair. There is a probability of General 
 Jackson s army falling back on Richmond, and in view of this, no lady is allowed 
 to go up on the railroad to Gordonsville for fear, if allowed to one, that many 
 others would wish to do it, which would incommode the army. 
 
 General Johnston is falling back from the Peninsula, or Yorktown, and Uncle 
 Jeff, thinks we had better go to a safer pla<v than Richmond. 
 
 We have not decided yet where we shall go, but I think to North Carolina, to 
 some far off country town, or, perhaps, to South Carolina. If Johnston falls 
 back as far as Richmond, all our troops from Gordonsville and " Swift Run Gap" 
 will also fall back to this place, and make one desperate stand against McClelhin. 
 If you will look at the map, you will see that the Yankees are approaching 
 Richmond from three different directions from Fredericksburg, Harrisonburg, 
 and Yorktown. God ! defend this people with thy powerful arm, is my 
 constant prayer. Oh, mother, Uncle Jeff, is miserable. He tries to be cheerful, 
 and bear up against such a continuation of troubles, but, oh, I fear he cannot 
 live long, if he does not get some rest and quiet. 
 
 Our reverses distressed him so much, and he is so weak and feeble, it makes 
 my heart ache to look at him. He knows that he ought to send his wife and 
 children away, and yet he cannot bear to part with them, and we all dread to 
 leave him too. Varina and I had a hard cry about it to-day. 
 
 Oh ! what a blow the fall of New Orleans was. It liked to have set us all 
 
 crazy here. Everybody looks depressed, and the cause of the Confederacy looks 
 
 *drooping and sinking ; but if God is with us, who can be against us? Our troops 
 
 are not doing as well as we expected The regiments that 
 
 are most apt to run are from North Carolina and Tennessee. I am thankful to 
 say that the Mississippi and Louisiana troops behave gloriously whenever called 
 on to fight. 
 
 Uncle Jeff, thinks you are safe at home, as there will be no resistance at Vt<.ksburg, 
 and the Yankees will hardly occupy it ; and, even if they did, the army would 
 gain nothing by marching into the country, and a few soldiers would be afraid 
 to iro so far into the interior. 
 
 P. S. We all leave here to-morrow morning for Raleigh. Three gunboats 
 are in James river, on their way to the city, and may probably reach here in a 
 few hours ; so we have no longer any time to delay. / only hope that we have not 
 delayed too long already. I shall then be cut off from all communication with 
 , and I expect to have no longer any peace. 
 
 I will write again from Raleigh, and Fanny must write me a letter and direct 
 it to Raleigh ; perhaps I may get it. I am afraid that Richmond will fall into 
 
382 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 It is true that President Davis, when invited by the Legisla 
 ture of Virginia to express his intentions towards Richmond, 
 had declared that he entertained the prospect of holding it. 
 But his reply was full of embarrassment. While he declared 
 his intention not to surrender the city, he at the same time 
 suggested the fanciful possibility, that even with the loss of 
 Richmond our struggle for independence might be protracted 
 for many years in the mountains of Virginia. In the mean 
 time, the acts of the Confederate officials gave visible and 
 unmistakable signs of their sense of the insecurity of the 
 capital. They added to the public alarm by preparations to 
 remove the archives. They ran off their wives and children 
 into the country. They gave the public every reason to 
 believe that Richmond was to become the prey of the enemy, 
 and the catastrophe was awaited with lively alarm, or dull and 
 melancholy expectation. 
 
 In the early weeks of May the capital of the Confederacy 
 presented many strange and humiliating spectacles. The air 
 was filled with those rumors of treason and disloyalty which 
 seem invariably to grow out of a sense of insecurity. Men 
 who had been loudest in their professions of resistance and 
 self-devotion when the Yankees were at a distance, were now 
 engaged in secreting their property, and a few openly nattered 
 themselves that they had not committed themselves in tlie war 
 in a way to incur the enemy s resentment. Some of them had 
 their cellars packed with manufactured tobacco. The railroad 
 trains were crowded with refugees. At every extortioner s 
 shop on Main street, even including the bookstores, an array 
 of packing trunks invited attention, and suggested the necessity 
 of flight from Richmond. At the railroad depots were to be 
 Been piles of baggage, awaiting transportation. But the most 
 abundant and humiliating signs of the panic were to be seen 
 
 the hands of the enemy, as there is no way to keep back the gunboats. James 
 river is so high that all obstructions are in danger of being washed away ; KO 
 that there is no help for the city. She will either submit or else be shelled, and 
 I think the latter alternative will be resorted to. 
 
 Uncle Jeff, was confirmed last Tuesday in St. Paul s Church by Bishop Johns. 
 He was baptized at home in the morning before church. 
 
 Do try to get a letter to me some way. Direct some to Raleigh and some tr 
 RichmoB .1. Yours, ever devotedly, 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 in the number of pine boxes about the departments ticketed 
 " Columbia, South Carolina," and which contained the most 
 valuable ot the public archives. 
 
 In this condition of the public mind, a new appeal was made 
 to it. When it was ascertained that the Monitor, Galena, and 
 Aristook, were about to head for Kichmond, the Legislature of 
 Virginia passed resolutions calling upon the Confederate 
 authorities to defend it to the last extremity, and to make 
 choice of its destruction rather than that of surrender to the 
 enemy. This resolution was worthy of the noble State of Vir 
 ginia, and of a people who were the descendants of Wash 
 ington s contemporaries, of Hampden s friends, and of King 
 John s barons. Its terms were too explicit to admit of any 
 doubt in their construction, or any wavering on the part of the 
 Confederate authorities. They expressed the desire that Rich 
 mond should be defended to the last extremity, and declared 
 that " the President be assured, that whatever destruction or 
 loss of property of the State or individuals shall thereby result, 
 will be cheerfully submitted to." 
 
 The resolutions of the Legislature were responded to in 
 meetings of citizens. The magical effects of the spirit which 
 they created will long be remembered in Richmond. The 
 Confederate authorities were stimulated by the brave lesson ; 
 inert and speculative patriotism was aroused to exertion , 
 mutual inspiration of courage and devotion passed from heart 
 to heart through the community, and with the restoration of 
 public confidence, came at last vigorous preparations. The 
 James was rapidly filled up, the works at Drewry s Bluff were 
 strengthened, and a steady defiance offered to the Yankee gun 
 boats, which had appeared within a few miles of the city at a 
 moment when the last gap in our river obstructions was filled 
 up by a scuttled schooner. 
 
 On the 15th of May, the fleet of Yankee gunboats in the 
 James opened an attack on our batteries at Drewry s Bluff. 
 Ihe sound of the guns was heard in the streets of Richmond, 
 and various and uncertain reports of the fortunes of the contest 
 agitated the public. In the midst of the excitement, an extra 
 ordinary scene occurred in the city. A meeting of citizens 
 had been called at the City Hall on an accidental occasion, 
 and at the enthusiastic call of the crowd, impromptu addresses 
 
384 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 were made by the Governor of Virginia and the Major of the 
 city. Each of these officials pledged his faith that Eich 
 mond should never be surrendered. Gov. Letcher declared, 
 with a peculiar warmth of expression, that if the demand was 
 made upon him, with the alternative to surrender or be shelled, 
 
 he should reply, "bombard and be d d." Mayor Mayo 
 
 was not less determined in the language which he addressed to 
 the citizens. He told them that even if they were to require 
 him to surrender the Capital of Virginia and of the Confed 
 eracy, he would, sooner than comply, resign the mayoralty ; 
 and that, despite his age, he still had the nerve and strength 
 to shoulder a musket in defence of the city founded by one oi 
 his ancestors. These fervid declarations were responded to by 
 the citizens with wild and ringing shouts. Nor were these the 
 demonstrations of a mob. Among those who so enthusias 
 tically approved the resolution of consigning Richmond to the 
 flames rather than to the possession of the enemy, were some 
 of the most wealthy and respectable citizens of the place, 
 whose stakes of property in the city were large, and whose 
 beautiful homes were exposed to the shot and shell of tha 
 malignant foe. 
 
 The night brought the news of a signal victory. Our batter 
 ies, under the skilful command of Capt. Farrand, had, after a 
 contest of four hours and a half, given a decisive repulse to 
 tne gunboats, with the inconsiderable loss of five killed and 
 seven vvounded. The accuracy of our fire had astonished the 
 enemy, and carried dismay through his fleet. Eighteen shots 
 went through the sides of the Galena, according to the enemy s 
 own account ; and this river monster lost thirty of her crew in 
 killed and wounded. Seventeen men were killed on another 
 of the boats by the explosion of a gun. The boats had been 
 unable to advance in the face of the accurate and deadly fire 
 of our artillerists, and the next day they had dropped down 
 the stream, quite satisfied of the impracticability of the water 
 approach to Richmond. 
 
 Regarding all the circumstances in which this action had 
 taken place, there is no extravagance in saying, that the scale 
 of the war was turned in our favor by even so small an affair 
 as that of Drewry s Bluff. It exploded the fanciful theories 
 of the enemy s invincibility on the water and went far to 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 35 
 
 assure the safety of the now closely threatened capital of the 
 Confederacy. 
 
 But there were other causes about this time which conspired 
 to renew the popular confidence in our arms, and to swell with 
 gratitude and hope the hearts which had so long throbbed 
 with anxiety in our besieged capital. We shall see how, for 
 some time, at least, the safety of Richmond was trusted, not 
 so much to the fortunes of the forces that immediately pro 
 tected it, as to the splendid diversion of the heroic Jackson in 
 the Valley of Virginia. To this famous expedition public 
 attention was now turned, in the North as well as in the South, 
 and its almost marvellous results, with marked unanimity, 
 were ascribed to the zeal, heroism, and genius of its commander 
 alone. 
 
 JACKSON S CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 On the change of our military lines in Virginia, and tht 
 rapid shifting of the scene of active hostilities from the Poto 
 mac, Gen. Jackson had been assigned with a small force t< 
 guard the Valley of Virginia, and the approaches in that 
 direction, to the armies of the enemy which enveloped Rich 
 mond. 
 
 Our first success was obtained in the upper portion of the 
 Valley. On the morning of the 8th of May, our forces had 
 approached the position of Milroy, the Yankee commander at 
 McDowell. The brig ade of General Johnson had secured an 
 advantageous position on a hill, and the enemy, fearful of 
 being surrounded, decided at last, after some signs of hesita 
 tion, to deliver battle. The action was not joined until about 
 two hours of sunset. The fact was, that we engaged the enemy 
 with not more than one-third of his own numbers, which were 
 about twelve thousand. But the contest was easily decided 
 by the brave troops of Johnson s brigade, composed of Vir 
 ginia volunteers, with the 12th Georgia regiment. They had 
 stood for nearly two hours, receiving with composed courage 
 the cross-fire of the enemy s artillery ; and then, as the sua 
 was sinking, they made the charge decisive of the day, and 
 drove the enemy in consternation and utter rout from the field. 
 
 Our loss in this action was considerable. Of three hundred 
 and fifty killed and wounded, nearly two-thirds were Georgians. 
 
 25 
 
386 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The troops of this State on other occasions than thi& had left 
 monuments of their courage in the mountains of Virginia 
 The loss of the enemy at McDowell exceeded that of the Con 
 federates, and was conjectured to be double our own. 
 
 It was probably at the suggestion of his own judgment, and 
 at the instance of his own military instincts, that Gen. Jackson 
 determined to act on the aggressive, and to essay the extraor 
 dinary task of driving the Yankees from the Valley. In pur 
 suance of this determination, his resolution was quickly taken 
 to make a dash at Fremont s advance, west of Staunton, and 
 then to turn upon Banks with the adventurous purpose of 
 driving him into Maryland. 
 
 Gen. Banks, one of the military pets of the more truculent 
 party of the abolitionists, had entered Virginia with the airs 
 of a conqueror. As early as the 24th of April he had tele 
 graphed to his government the story of uninterrupted and 
 triumphant progress ; he announced that he had " advanced 
 near Harrisonburg ;" and, with a characteristic flourish, he 
 added : " The rebel Jackson has abandoned the Valley of Vir 
 ginia permanently, and is en route for Gordonsville by the way 
 of the mountains." 
 
 The first intimation the obtuse Yankee general had of his 
 mistake was the astounding news tl:at reached him on the 
 evening of May 23d, that the " rebel Jackson " had descended 
 on the guard at Front Royal, Cpl. Kenly, 1st Maryland regi 
 ment, commanding, burned the bridges, driven the Federal 
 troops towards Strasburg with great loss, captured a section of 
 artillery, and taken about fourteen hundred prisoners. 
 
 It was now Banks s turn to betake himself to flight, or, in 
 the official circumlocution of that commander, " to enter the 
 lists with the enemy in a race or a battle, as he should choose, 
 for the possession of Winchester, the key of the Valley." But 
 he was not destined to reach his promised haven of security 
 without disaster. 
 
 On the day following the sudden apparition of Jackson at 
 Front Royal, the untiring commander had by a rapid move 
 ment succeeded in piercing Banks s main column while retreat 
 ing from Strasburg to Winchester ; the rear, including a bod> 
 of the celebrated Zouaves d Afrique, retreating towards Stras 
 burg. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 387 
 
 The Yankee general reached Winchester only to find fresh 
 causes of alarm. The people of that ancient town, already 
 fcure of their deliverance, received the Yankees with shouts of 
 derision and defiant cheers for Jackson. Some Confederate 
 officers came into the enemy s camp with entire unconcern, 
 supposing that their own troops occupied the town as a matter 
 of course, and when captured gave the Yankees the delightful 
 assurance that an attack would be made by the terrible Jackson 
 at daybreak. 
 
 On the 25th of May, Gen. Jackson gave the crowning stroke 
 to the rapid movements of the past two days by attacking 
 Winchester and driving out the cowardly enemy almost without 
 resistance. Gen. Banks speaks of his retreat with a shameless- 
 ness that is at once simple and refreshing. He says, " Pursuit 
 by the enemy was prompt and vigorous ; but our movements 
 were rapid ;" and he writes to the authorities at Washington 
 of his crossing of the Potomac : " There never were more 
 grateful hearts in the same number of men than when at mid 
 day on the 30th of May, we stood on the opposite shore." He 
 had escaped with the loss of all the material and paraphernalia 
 that constitute an army. He had abandoned at Winchester 
 all his commissary and ordnance stores. He had resigned 
 that town and Front Koyal to the undisputed possession of the 
 Confederates. He had left in their hands four thousand 
 prisoners, and stores amounting to millions of dollars. And 
 all these prizes had been obtained by the Confederates in the 
 brief period of a few days, and with a loss not exceeding one 
 hundred in killed and wounded. 
 
 When General Jackson fell back from Winchester, after 
 routing Banks, he managed, with great address, boldness, and 
 energy, to carry off his prisoners and spoils, and to bring off 
 his army between the converging columns of Fremont, who 
 approached his rear from the west, with eight brigades, and 
 Shields, who approached from the east, with four brigades. 
 If these brigades averaged twenty -five hundred men, the force 
 of Fremont was twenty thousand and that of Shields ten 
 thousand men. At Harrisonburg, Jackson left the main turn 
 pike-road of the Yalley and inarched towards Port Republic, 
 the distance between these two places being about twelve miles. 
 Port Republic is situated at the junction of Scuth river, flow- 
 
388 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ing north, and North river, flowing east. Jackson could retire 
 no further without crossing North river, which was swollen, 
 and there was then no bridge over it except at Port Republic. 
 The two rivers uniting at that village form the Shenandoah, 
 which flows north, and which could not then be crossed by an 
 army. On the east side of that stream was the army of Shields, 
 and on the west side were the armies of Fremont and Jackson. 
 The latter halted near North river without crossing it, and, 
 while -in that position, his rear was approached and attacked 
 by Fremont s whole army, on the morning of Sunday, the 8th 
 of June, and, at the same time, Shields force approached on 
 the east side of the Shenandoah near Port Republic. 
 
 That part of Jackson s army which engaged Fremont on 
 Sunday was commanded by General Ewell, while the rest of 
 the army under General Jackson held Shields in check with 
 artillery firing across the Shenandoah near Port Republic. 
 The battle of Sunday took place about five miles from that 
 village in the direction of Harrisonburg. 
 
 It began early in the morning and lasted all day, with occa 
 sional intervals. It was mainly an artillery fight, but now and 
 then, here and there, the infantry became hotly engaged. 
 The force under Fremont was much larger than that undea 
 Ewell, but the latter was strongly posted on eminences which 
 favored the effectiveness of artillery, and sheltered the infantry, 
 while the enemy could only approach through open fields. 
 Swell s command was handled with remarkable skill, whilo 
 Fremont s generalship was indifferent. EwelPs artillery was 
 served with admirable precision and effect, and his infantry, 
 whenever engaged, displayed great steadiness and gallantry. 
 The result was, that when night put an end to the contest, 
 Fremont had been driven back between one and two miles, with 
 a loss, in killed and wounded, of not less than two thousand, 
 and probably much larger, while our loss did not exceed three 
 hundred, and probably not two hundred. The judicious selec 
 tion of a position in which to receive the ene,my favored this 
 result, but it was largely due to the superior fighting qualities 
 of our men. 
 
 Soon after nightfall, General Jackson began to withdraw 
 his men from this battle-field, and pass them over North river 
 by the bridge at Port Republic, with a view to attack Shields 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 389 
 
 the next morning. He left in front of Frenjont a small force 
 to amuse and detain him, and, after retiring before him to Port 
 Republic, to burn the bridge behind him, and thus to prevent 
 Fremont from rendering any aid to Shields. All this was ac 
 complished. 
 
 On Monday morning, Jackson passed the greater part 01 
 his army across the South river (the smallest of the streams) 
 by means of a bridge made of planks laid on wagons placed 
 in the river. Early in the morning a sufficient number had 
 crossed to commence the battle, and they were led to the field 
 between one and two miles distant, on the east bank of the 
 Shenandoah. The .enemy s force was found drawn up await 
 ing the attack. 
 
 The enemy s line extended from the river about half a mile 
 across a flat bottom, free from timber, and covered with wheat, 
 grass, (fee. His left rested on the point of a low ridge coming 
 out from the woods which skirt the bottom. On a slight ele 
 vation there and in some small knolls in the bottom, he had his 
 artillery commanding the road and the wide uncovered level 
 plain, over which Jackson s army was obliged to advance. The 
 level and exposed ground offered scarcely any suitable position 
 for planting our artillery. The advantage of position belonged 
 altogether to the enemy. The capital fault of his disposition 
 for battle was that the battery on his extreme left was posted 
 near the woods without any infantry in the woods to defend it, 
 By availing himself of this circumstance, and by a brilliant 
 manoeuvre and charge, Jackson turned the fortune of the day 
 at a critical moment. 
 
 For some two hours the battle raged with great fury. Our 
 infantry, at first but few, advanced with marvellous intrepidity 
 in the face of a withering fire of artillery arid musketry. At 
 one moment the enemy advanced a section of a battery several 
 hundred yards, so as to enfilade our left wing, which already 
 suffered terribly from the fire in front. It seemed that nothing 
 could withstand the fury of the enemy s fire of all arms. His 
 artillery was very fine, and was served with great effect by 
 regulars. But other troops corning at double quick from Port 
 Republic, came on the field, and, at the same time, the Louisi 
 ana brigade, under Taylor, emerged from the woods on the 
 enemy s left. They had been sent by a considerable circuit 
 
390 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 through the woods, which extend all along the battle-field be 
 tween the cleared ground and the neighboring mountain. By 
 a slight error of direction they came out of the woods a little 
 too soon, and found themselves almost in front of the battery, 
 which instantly began to shower grape upon them. But, im 
 mediately rectifying their direction, they charged the battery 
 with irresistible impetuosity, and carried it. The contest then 
 was speedily ended. The enemy s whole line gave way and 
 was presently retreating in disorder, pursued by our cavalry. 
 The pursuit was kept up about ten or twelve miles, but the 
 flight continued all that day and the next. About five hun 
 dred prisoners were taken that day, and others after that were 
 brought in daily. The loss of the enemy in killed and wounded 
 was heavy, and so was our own. Six splendid cannon were 
 captured on the field, another was taken in the pursuit, and 
 still another had been captured on Sunday. The force of the 
 enemy engaged was about six or seven thousand, and ours a 
 little larger. Shields was not present, but his troops were com 
 manded by Gen. Tyler. 
 
 After the rout of the enemy had commenced, the last of our 
 troops crossed over the bridge at Port Kepublic and burnt it. 
 Fremont, cautiously following, appeared some time afterwards, 
 and drew up his army in line of battle on the heights along 
 the west bank of the Shenandoah, from which he overlooked 
 the field of battle. While he stood there in impotent idleness, 
 Jackson s army, having finally disposed of Shields, moved oil 
 at leisure to Brown s Gap, and there encamped, to rest for a 
 few days from the fatigues of a month s campaign more ardu 
 ous and more successful than any month s operations of the 
 war. The exhaustion of our men and the interposition of a 
 river, no longer bridged, secured Fremont from a second bat 
 tle or a hasty flight. The next day he commenced his retreat 
 down the Yalley. 
 
 This famous campaign must, indeed, take a rank in the his 
 tory of .the war, unrivalled by any other in the rapidity of its 
 movements and in the brilliancy of the results accomplished, 
 compared with the means at its command. Its heroic deeds 
 revived the hopes of the South, and threw the splendor of sun 
 light over the long lines of the Confederate host. By a scries 
 of rapid movements, which occupied but a few wwks, Genera) 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 391 
 
 Jackson had, with inferior numbers, defeated successively four 
 generals, with as many armies, swept the Yalley of Virginia of 
 hostile forces, made the Federal authorities tremble in their 
 capital, and frustrated the combinations by which the enernj 
 had purposed to aid General McClellan and environ Kichmond 
 by large converging armies. 
 
 Our loss of life in this campaign was inconsiderable in num 
 bers ; but on the black list of killed, there was one name con 
 spicuous throughout the Confederacy, and especially dear to 
 Virginians. Colonel Turner Ashby, whose name was linked 
 with so much of the romance of the war, and whose gentle and 
 enthusiastic courage and knightly bearing had called to mind 
 the recollections of chivalry, and adorned Virginia with a new 
 chaplet of fame, had, on the 5th of June, fallen in a skirmish 
 near Harrisburg. 
 
 " The last time I saw Ashby," writes a noble comrade in 
 arms, Colonel Bradley T. Johnson of the Maryland Line, " he 
 was riding at the head of the column with General Ewell hia 
 black face in a blaze of enthusiasm. Every feature beamed 
 with the joy of the soldier. He was gesticulating and pointing 
 out the country and positions to General Ewell. I could iiu 
 agine what he was saying by the motions of his right arm. 1 
 pointed him out to my adjutant. Look a Ashby ; see how ho 
 is enjoying himself." 1 
 
 A few hours later, and the brave Virginian, so full of life, 
 was a corpse. Our men had fallen upon a body of the enemy 
 concealed in a piece of woods and under the cover of a fence. 
 Ashby was on the right of the 58th Virginia. He implored 
 the men to stop their fire, which was ineffectual, and to charge 
 the enemy. They were too much excited to heed him, and 
 turning towards the enemy he waved Ms hand " Virginians, 
 .charge !" In a second his horse fell. He was on his feet in an 
 instant. "Men," he cried, "cease firing charge, for God s 
 sake, charge !" The next instant he fell dead not twenty 
 yards from the concealed marksman who had killed him. 
 
 To the sketch we have briefly given of this campaign, it is 
 just to add one word of reflection. It had been frequently and 
 very unwarrantably asserted that the people of what was once 
 the garden spot of the South, the Shenandoah Valley, were 
 favorably inclined to the Union cause, and that many of them 
 
392 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 had shown a very decided spirit of disloyalty to the Confed 
 erate authority. The best refutation of this slander is to be 
 found in the enemy s own accounts of his experiences in that 
 region. 
 
 The fact is, that the people of this Valley had suffered to a 
 most extraordinary degree the fiery trials and ravages of war. 
 Their country had been bandied about from the possession of 
 the Confederates to that of the Yankees, and then back again, 
 until it had been stripped of every thing by needy friends on 
 the one side, and unscrupulous invaders on the other. Some 
 portions of the country were actually overrun by three armies 
 in two weeks. In such circumstances there were, no doubt, 
 expressions of discontent, which had been hastily misinter 
 preted as disloyal demonstrations ; but, despite these, there is 
 just reason to believe that a spirit of patriotism and integrity 
 abided in the Yalley of Virginia, and that it had been main 
 tained under trials and chastisements much greater than those 
 which had befallen other parts of the Confederacy. 
 
 MEMOIR OF TURNER ASHBY. 
 / 
 
 The writer had proposed a record in another and more ex 
 tensive form of the principal events of the life of Turner 
 Ashby ; but the disappointment of assistance to sources of 
 information from persons who had represented themselves as 
 the friends of the deceased, and from whom the writer had 
 reason to expect willing and warm co-operation, has com 
 pelled him to defer the execution of his original and cherished 
 purpose of giving to the public a worthy biography of one 
 whose name is a source of immortal pride to the South, and an 
 enduring ornament to the chivalry of Virginia. But the fewi 
 incidents roughly thrown together here may have a certain 
 interest. They give the key to the character of one of the 
 most remarkable men of the war ; they afford an example to 
 be emulated by our soldiers ; they represent a type of courage 
 peculiarly Southern in its aspects; and they add an unfading 
 leaf to the chaplet of glory which Virginia has gathered on 
 the blood-stained fields of the war. 
 
 It is not improper here to state the weight and significance 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 393 
 
 given to the present revolution by the secession of Virginia 
 It takes time for revolutions to acquire their meaning and 
 proper significance. That which was commenced by the Cot 
 ton States of the South, attained its growth, developed ita 
 purpose, and became instantly and thoroughly, in earnest at 
 the period when the second secessionary movement, inaugurated 
 by Virginia, confronted the powers at Washington with its 
 sublime spectacles. 
 
 Virginia did not secede in either the circumstances or sense in 
 which the Cotton States had separated themselves from the 
 Union. She did not leave the Union with delusive prospects of 
 peace to comfort or sustain her. She did not secede in the sense 
 in which separation from the Union was the primary object of 
 secession. Her act of secession was subordinate ; she was called 
 upon to oppose a practical and overt usurpation on the part of 
 the Government at Washington in drawing its sword against the 
 sovereignty of States and insisting on the right of coercion ; to 
 contest this her separation from the Union was necessary, and 
 became a painful formality which could not be dispensed with. 
 
 A just and philosophical observation of events must find that 
 in this second secessionary movement of the Southern States 
 the revolution was put on a basis infinitely higher and firmei 
 in all its moral and constitutional aspects ; that at this period 
 it developed itself, acquired its proper significance, and was 
 broadly translated into a war of liberty. The movement of 
 Virginia had more than any thing else added to the moral 
 influences of the revolution and perfected its justification in the 
 eyes of the world. It was plain that she had not seceded on 
 an issue of policy, but one of distinct and practical constitu 
 tional right, and that, too, in the face of a war which frowned 
 upon her own borders, and which necessarily was to make her 
 soil the principal theatre of its ravages and woes. Her attach 
 ment to the Union had been proved by the most untiring and 
 noble efforts to save it; her Legislature originated the Peace 
 Conference, which assembled at Washington in February 
 1861; her representatives in Congress sought in that body 
 every mode of honorable pacification ; her Convention sent 
 delegates to Washington to persuade Mr. Lincoln to a pacific 
 policy ; and in every form of public assembly, every expedient 
 of negotiation was essayed to save the Union. When tLese 
 
894 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR, 
 
 efforts at pacification, which Virginia had made with an unsel 
 fishness without parallel, and with a nobility of spirit that 
 Bcorned any misrepresentation of her office, proved abortive, 
 she did not hesitate to draw her sword in front of the enemy, 
 and to devote all she possessed and loved and hoped for to the 
 fortunes of the war. It is not necessary to recount at length the 
 services of this ancient Commonwealth in the war for Southern 
 independence. She furnished nearly all of the arms, ammuni 
 tion, and accoutrements that won the early battles ; she gave 
 the Confederate service, from her own armories and stores, 
 seventy-five thousand rifles and muskets, nearly three hundred 
 pieces of artillery, and a magnificent armory, containing all 
 the machinery necessary for manufacturing arms on a large 
 scale ; and on every occasion she replied to the call for troops, 
 until she drained her arms-bearing population to the dregs. 
 
 It is a circumstance of most honorable remark, that such has 
 been the conduct of Virginia in this war, that even from the 
 base and vindictive enemy tributes have been forced to the de 
 voted courage and heroic qualities of her sons. The following 
 extraordinary tribute from the "Washington Republican, the 
 organ of abolition at the Yankee capital, is a compliment more 
 expressive than any thing a Virginian could say for his own 
 State and its present generation of heroes. 
 
 " If there has been any decadence of the manly virtues in 
 the Old Dominion, it is not because the present generation has 
 proved itself either weak or cowardly or unequal to the greatest 
 emergencies. No people, with so few numbers, ever put into 
 the field, and kept there so long, troops more numerous, brave, 
 or more efficient, or produced generals of more merit, in all the 
 kinds and grades of military talent. It is not a worn-out, effete 
 race which has produced Lee, Johnston, Jackson, Ashby, and 
 Stuart. It is not a worn-out and effete race, which, for two 
 years, has defended its capital against the approach of an en 
 emy close upon their borders, and outnumbering them thirty 
 to one. It is not a worn-out and effete race which has pre 
 served substantial popular unity under all the straits and 
 pressure and sacrifices of this unprecedented war. Let his 
 tory/ as was said of another race, which records their unhappy 
 fate as a people, do justice to their rude virtues as men. They 
 are fighting madly in a bad cause, but they are fighting bravely 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 395 
 
 They have few cowards and no traitors. The hardships of war 
 are endured without a murmur by all classes, and the dangers 
 of war without flinching, by the newest conscripts ; while their 
 gentry, the offshoot of their popular social system, have thrown 
 themselves into the camp and field with all the dash and high 
 spirit of the European noblesse of the middle ages, risking, 
 without apparent concern, upon a desperate adventure, all that 
 men value ; and after a generation of peace and repose and 
 security, which had not emasculated them, presenting to their 
 enemies a trained and intrepid front, as of men born and bred 
 
 to war." 
 
 What has been said here of Yirginia and her characteristics 
 in the present revolution, is the natural and just preface to 
 what we have to say of the man who, more than any one else 
 in this war, illustrated the chivalry of the Commonwealth and 
 the virtues of her gentry. Turner Ashby was a thorough Yir- 
 ginian. He was an ardent lover of the old Union. He wa 
 brought up in that conservative and respectable school of poli 
 tics which hesitated long to sacrifice a Union which had been, 
 in part, constructed by the most illustrious of the sons of 
 Yirginia ; which had conferred many honors upon her ; and 
 which was the subject of many hopes in the future. But when 
 it became evident that the life of the Union was gone, and the 
 sword was drawn for constitutional liberty, the spirit of Yir 
 ginia was again illustrated by Ashby, who showed a devotion 
 in the field even more admirable than the virtue of political 
 principles. 
 
 Turner Ashby was the second son of the late Colonel Turner 
 Ashby, of " Rose Bank," Fauquier county, and Dorothea F. 
 Green, the daughter of the late James Green, Sr., of Bappa- 
 hannock county. Colonel Ashby, at his death, left three sons 
 and three daughters the eldest of whom did not exceed twelve 
 years of age at the time of his death to the sole care of their 
 devoted mother. To her excellent sense, generous disposition, 
 and noble character, the Confederacy is indebted for two as 
 noble and gallant men as have won soldiers graves during 
 this war. 
 
 The father of Turner Ashby was the sixth son, that reached 
 manhood, of Captain Jack Ashby, a man of mark in the day 
 in which he lived, and of whom many anecdotes are stilJ 
 
S9f> SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 extant, illustrative of his remarkable character. One of these 
 belongs to the colonial times, and is interesting : 
 
 " When the news of the disastrous defeat and death of 
 Genera^ Braddock reached Fort Loudoun (now "Winchester, 
 Virginia), John Ash by was there, and his celebrity as a horse 
 man induced the British commandant of the post to secure 
 his services as bearer of dispatches to the vice-royal governor 
 at "Williamsburg. Ashby at once proceeded on his mission, 
 and in an incredibly short time presented himself before the 
 commander at Fort Loudoun. This official, of choleric dispo 
 sition, upon the appearance of Ashby, broke out in severe 
 reproach for his delay in proceeding on his mission, and was 
 finally struck dumb with astonishment at the presentation of 
 the governor s reply to the dispatch ! The ride is said to have 
 been accomplished in the shortest possible time, and the fact 
 is certified in the records of Frederick county court/ 
 
 Upon the breaking out of the Eevolution of 1776, Captain 
 Jack Ashby raised a company in his neighborhood in the 
 upper part of Fauquier. It was attached to the third Virginia 
 regiment, under command of General Marshall. He was in 
 the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and several other of 
 the most desperately contested fields of the Revolution. From 
 exposure and hardships endured upon the frontiers of Canada, 
 he contracted disease, from which he was never entirely relieved 
 to the day of his death. He continued in the service during 
 the whole period of the Revolution, and after the proclama 
 tion of peace, quietly settled upon his beautiful farm not far 
 from Markham station, upon the Manassas Gap railroad. 
 Four of his sons, John, Samuel, Nimrod, and Thomson, served 
 in the war of 1812. 
 
 The father of our hero died, as we have stated, leaving a 
 family of children of tender age. Young Turner was put to 
 school, where it does not appear that he showed any peculiar 
 trait in his studies ; but he was remarkable among his young 
 associates for his sedate manners, his grave regard for truth, 
 and his appreciation of points of honor. 
 
 Turner Ashby never had the advantages of a college educa 
 tion, but he had a good, healthy mind ; he was an attentive 
 student of human nature, and a convenient listener where 
 information was to be gained ; and he possessed those ordinary 
 
THE SECOND YEAK. 
 
 stares of knowledge which may be acquired by a moderate itse of 
 books and an attentive intercourse with men. He was engaged 
 for some time in merchandise at Markham s Depot. The old 
 homestead of his father still stands near there, and not far from 
 the homestead of the Marshalls. The tastes of Ashby were 
 too domestic for politics. He was at one time Whig candidate 
 for the Virginia Legislature from Fauquier, but was defeated 
 by a small majority. This was his only public appearance in 
 any political strife, and but little else is known of him as a 
 politician beyond his ardent admiration of and personal attach 
 ment to Robert E. Scott. 
 
 Ashby s attachment to domestic life was enlivened by an 
 extreme fondness for manly pastimes. He was a horseman 
 from very childhood, and had the greatest passion for eques 
 trian exercises. His delight in physical excitements was 
 singularly pure and virtuous ; he shunned the dissipations 
 fashionable among young men, and while so sober and steady 
 in his habits as sometimes to be a joke among his companions, 
 yet he was the foremost in all innocent sports, the first to get up 
 tournaments and fox-chases, and almost always the successful 
 competitor in all manly games. His favorite horse was trained 
 for tournaments and fox-hunting, and it is said to have been a 
 common pastime of Ashby to take him into the meadow and 
 jump him over hay-cocks and stone fences. Some of his feats 
 of horsemanship are memorable, and are constantly related in 
 his neighborhood. While at Fauquier Springs, which he fre 
 quently visited, and where he got up tournaments after the 
 fashion of the ancient chivalry, he once displayed his horse 
 manship by riding into the ball-room, up and down steep 
 flights of steps, to the mingled terror and admiration of the 
 guests. No cavalier was more graceful. The reserve of his 
 manner was thrown aside in such sports, and his black eyes 
 and dark face were lighted up with the zeal of competition or 
 the excitement of danger. 
 
 The gravity so perceptible at times in Ashby s manner was 
 riot the sign of a melancholy or blank mind. He was too prac 
 tical for reveries ; he was rather a man of deep feelings. 
 While he scorned the vulgar and shallow ambition that seeks 
 for notoriety, he probably had that ideal and aspiration which 
 silent men often have, and which, if called " ambition" at aU 
 
398 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 is to be characterized as the noble and spiritual ambition that 
 wins the honors of history, while others contend for the baubles 
 of the populace. 
 
 " He was," writes a lady of his neighborhood, " a person of 
 very deep feelings, which would not have been apparent to 
 strangers, from his natural reserve of manner ; but there was 
 no act of friendship or kindness he would have shrunk to per 
 form, if called on. While he was not a professor of religion, 
 there was always a peculiar regard for the precepts of the 
 Bible, which showed itself in his irreproachable walk in life. 
 Often have I known him to open the Sabbath school at the re 
 quest of his lady friends, in a little church near his home, by 
 reading a prayer and a chapter in the Bible. Turner Ashby 
 seldom left his native neighborhood, so strong were his local 
 attachments, and would not have done so, save at his country * 
 call." 
 
 That call was sounded sooner than Ashby expected. At the 
 first prelude to the bloody drama of the war the John Brown 
 raid he had been conspicuous, and his company of horse 
 then called " The Mountain Rangers," did service on that oc 
 casion. He appeared to have felt and known the consequences 
 which were to ensue from this frightful crusade. Thencefor 
 ward his physical and intellectual powers were directed to the 
 coming struggle. On the occasion of the irruption of John 
 Brown and his felon band at Harper s Ferry, he remarked to 
 Mr. Boteler, the member of Congress from that district, that a 
 crisis was approaching, and that the South would be continu 
 ally subject to such inroads and insults, unless. some prevention 
 was quickly effected. He continued, however, a strong Union 
 man until the election of Lincoln : he was anxions that har 
 mony should be effected between the States, and the legacies 
 of the past should be preserved in a constitutional and frater 
 nal Union; but this hope was instantly dispelled by the result 
 of the election ; and as soon as it was announced, he went 
 quietly and energetically to work, drilling his men, promoting 
 their efficiency, and preparing for that great trial of anna 
 which he saw rapidly approaching. 
 
 The next time that Mr. Boteler met Ashby at Harper s Ferry 
 was on the night of the 17th of April, 1861. Mr. Boteler took 
 him aside, and said to him, " What flag are we going to fight 
 
THE SECOND YEAE. 399 
 
 .mder the Palmetto, or what?" Ashby lifted his hat, and 
 within it was laid a Virginia flag. Pie had had it painted at 
 midnight, before he left Eichmond. " Here," said he, " is the 
 flag I intend to fight under." That night the flag was run up 
 by the light of the burning buildings fired by the Yankees 
 and the next morning the glorious emblem of the Old Domin 
 ion was seen floating from the Federal flag-staff the first 
 ensign of liberty raised by Virginia in this war. 
 
 It was not long after the arrival of Capt. Ashby at Harper s 
 Ferry, with his cavalry, that he was placed in command at 
 Point of Eocks, by Gen. Johnston, supported by Capt. E. 
 Welby Carter s company of cavalry and Capt. John Q. Win- 
 field s infantry corps of " Brock s Gap Eiflemen." 
 
 About the same time Col. Angus "W. McDonald, senior, of 
 "Winchester, Virginia, was commissioned to raise a legion of 
 mounted men for border service, the lieutenant-colonelcy of 
 which was at once tendered to Capt. Ashby. Without final 
 acceptance of this position, he, with his command, entered the 
 legion, the organization of which was soon accomplished. 
 
 The original captains were Ashby, Winfield, S. W. Myers 
 Mason, Shands, Jordan, Miller, Harper, and Sheetz. 
 
 This force was assembled at Eomney, Hampshire county, very 
 Boon after the evacuation of Harper s Ferry by Gen. Johnston. 
 
 The difficulty which existed as to Capt. Ashby s acceptance 
 of the lieutenant-colonelcy of the legion, consisted in the fact 
 that he felt under special obligations to his company, who were 
 unwilling to dispense with his personal command. The arrival 
 of his brother, Eichard Ashby, from Texas, who joined the 
 company as an independent volunteer, appeared to open the 
 way of relieving this difficulty, as the company was prepared 
 to accept in him a captain, in order to secure the promotion of 
 their beloved leader. 
 
 But a melancholy providence was to occur at this time, 
 which was to color the life of Turner Ashby, and affect it more 
 deeply than any thing he had yet experienced. The county 
 of Hampshire had already been invaded by the enemy, and 
 Colonel, now Major-general, A. P. Hill had already visited the 
 county with several regiments of infantry, in order to repel the 
 invader. This county was also chosen for the labor of the 
 mounted legion. 
 
4:00 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 It was shortly after the organization of the command, i j 
 its active duty entered upon, that Capt. Ashbj led a detain- 
 ment to Green Spring station, on the Baltimore and Ohio rail 
 road, for the purpose of observation. He had with him eleveu 
 men, and his brother Richard led another small band of six. 
 The latter was proceeding along the railroad westward, in the 
 direction of Cumberland some ten miles away when he was 
 ambuscaded at the mouth of a ravine just beside the railroad 
 there, running just between the river bank and the steep moun 
 tain side. The enemy Vforce consisted of about eighteen men, 
 commanded by Corporal Hays, of the Indiana Zouave regi 
 ment, which was stationed at Cumberland. His men, at 
 length compelled to fall back before superior numbers, hasten 
 ed down the railroad to rejoin Turner Ashby. Covering their 
 retreat himself, he hastened to the rescue of one of his men, 
 severely wounded in the face by a sabre stroke, and in a hand 
 to hand fight with Corporal Hays, severely wounded him in 
 the head with his sabre. Following immediately his retreating 
 companions, the horse which he rode proved false, and fell into 
 a cattle-stop of the railroad with his unfortunate rider. He 
 was overtaken, beaten, bruised, wounded, and left for dead. 
 He was removed many hours afterwards, and lived for several 
 days, enjoying every kind attention, but his wounds proved 
 mortal. He was buried in the beautiful Indian Mound Ceme 
 tery at Romney, on the 4th of July, 1861. 
 
 During the engagement of his brother, Turner Abhby started 
 up the railroad to his rescue ; but in passing along the river s 
 brink, his force was fired upon from Kelly s Island, on the 
 north branch of the Potomac, about twelve miles east of Cum 
 berland. The island lies some sixty feet from the Virginia 
 bank, which is precipitous, and directly laid with the railroad 
 track. On the other side of the island, which was reached 
 through water to the saddle girth, there is a gently rising 
 beach, some thirty yards to the interior, which is thickly 
 wooded, and contains a dense undergrowth. Here in ambush 
 lay, as was afterwards reported, about forty of the Indiana 
 troops, and about sixty of Merley s branch riflemen Maryland 
 Union men of the vicinity woodmen, skilled with the rifle, 
 and many of them desperate characters. After receiving the 
 eneray s fire, Turner Ashby and his eleven at once charged, 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 401 
 
 and after a sharp engagement, routed and dispersed their forces. 
 It has been declared that not less than forty shots were tired at 
 Ashby on that occasion, but not he nor his horse were harmed 
 and at least five of the enemy were probably slain by hi 
 hand. 
 
 From the date of his brother s death, a change passed over 
 the life of Turner Ashby. He always wore a sad smile after 
 that unhappy day, and his life became more solemn and earn 
 est to the end of his own evanescent and splendid career. 
 " Ashby," said a lady friend, speaking of him after this period, 
 " is now a devoted man" His behavior at his brother s grave, 
 as it is described by one of the mourners at the same spot, was 
 most touching. He stood over the grave, took his brother s 
 sword, broke it and threw it into the opening; clasped his 
 hands and looked upward as if in resignation ; and then press 
 ing his lips, as if in the bitterness of grief, while a tear rolled 
 down his cheek, he turned without a word, mounted his horse 
 and rode away. Thenceforth his name was a terror to the 
 enemy. 
 
 Shortly after the death of his brother, his company consented 
 to yield him up in order that he might accept the lieutenant 
 colonelcy of the Legion, and elected First Lieut. William Tur 
 ner (his cousin) captain in his stead. The Legion, numbering 
 at that time nearly nine hundred effective men tolerably 
 equipped and mounted, continued on duty in Hampshire until 
 the 16th of July, 1861, when it started for Manassas, but did 
 not arrive until after the battle. The command was immedi 
 ately afterwards ordered to Staunton to join Gen. Lee s forces 
 subsequently to Hollingsworth, one mile south of Winchester. 
 In the mean time, Col. Ashby, with several companies, was sent 
 on detached duty to Jefferson, into which county the enemy 
 was making frequent incursions from Harper s Ferry and 
 Maryland. 
 
 In Jefferson, Ashby had command of four companies of 
 cavalry and about eight hundred militia. Yankee raids were 
 kept from the doors of the inhabitants, and the enemy made 
 but little appearance in this portion of Yirginia, until Banks 
 crossed the Potomac in February, 1862. 
 
 It was about this time that Ashby s cavalry acquired its 
 great renown. The Lincoln soldiers dreaded nothing so much 
 
 26 
 
402 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 as they did these hated troopers. Go where they would, out 
 of sight of their encampments, they were almost sure to meet 
 some of Ashby s cavalry, who seemed to possess the power 01 
 ubiquity. And, in truth, they had good cause both to hate 
 and to fear Ashby s cavalry ; for many a Federal horseman 
 dropped from his saddle, and many a Federal soldier on foot 
 dropped in his tracks, at the crack of Confederate rifles in the 
 hands of Ashby s fearless sharpshooters. 
 
 During the time of the encampment at Flowing Springs, 
 Col. Ashby rarely ever came into town, which was about a 
 mile and a half distant. Nothing could seduce him from his 
 duties ; no admiration, no dinner parties or collations, could 
 move him to leave his camp. He always slept with his men. 
 No matter what hour of the night he was aroused, he was 
 always wakeful, self-possessed, and ready to do battle. He was 
 idolized by his men, whom he treated as companions, and 
 indulged without reference to rules of military discipline. Ho 
 had great contempt for the military arts, was probably incapa 
 ble of drilling a regiment, and preserved among his men scarce 
 ly any thing more than the rude discipline of camp-hunters 
 But though not a stickler for military rules, he would have IK 
 toward or eye-soldier in his command. If a man was dissatis 
 ;fied, he at once started him off home. He allowed his men 
 ?many liberties. A gentleman asked him one day where his 
 *men were. " "Well," said he, " the boys fought very well yes 
 terday, and there are not more than thirty of them here to-day." 
 
 Ashby s influence over his men was principally due to the 
 brilliant and amazing examples of personal courage which he 
 always gave them in front of the battle. His men could never 
 find him idle. In battle his eye kindled up most gloriously. 
 He wore a gray coat and pants, with boots and sash ; he always 
 looked like work, was frequently covered with mud, and ap 
 peared to be never fatigued or dejected. He would come and 
 go like a dream. He would be heard of at one time in one 
 .part of the country, and then, when least expected, would come 
 dashing by on the famous white horse, which was his pride. 
 
 When the fight occurred at Boteler s Mill, the militia wero 
 : for the first time under fire. The enemy had encamped on tho 
 other side of the Potomac, opposite the mill. Our troops qui 
 vtly crept upon them, and planted two pieces of cannon within 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 403 
 
 range, and let drive at them with terrible effect, whereupon 
 they fled. They afterwards returned in force, and ranged 
 themselves on the other side with long-range guns. Ashby, 
 to encourage the militia, who were raw, advanced to the bank 
 of the- river, and rode his white horse up and down within 
 point-blank range of the enemy s fire. When the balls were 
 hurtling thickest, he would rein in his horse and stand perfectly 
 still, the very picture of daring and chivalry. 
 
 At Bolivar Heights, when the enemy were firing upon our 
 men and had shot down the gunners at the cannon, he sprang 
 from his horse and seized the rammer himself. He was con 
 spicuous in action at every point. His friends used to implore 
 him not to ride his white horse for he had also a black one 
 but he was deaf to every caution that respected the safety of 
 his person. 
 
 The key to Ashby s character <was his passion for danger. 
 He craved the excitement of battle, and was never happier 
 than when riding his noble steed in the thickest of the storm 
 of battle. There are some minds which find a sweet intoxica 
 tion in danger, and Macaulay has named a remarkable instance 
 in William III., the silent and ascetic king of England, who 
 was transformed into gayety by the excitement of personal 
 peril. "Danger," says the historian, "acted upon him like 
 wine ;" it made him full of animation and speech. Ashby s 
 delight in danger was a royal one. It came from no brutal 
 hardihood or animal spirits ; and the Virginia cavalier is thus 
 so far superior to other famous partisans in this war, that he 
 united with the adventurousness of courage the courtesies of 
 a gentleman and Christian, and the refinements of a pure and 
 gentle soul. He was never rude ", he was insensible to the hu 
 mors of the vulgar ; and he never even threw into the face of his 
 enemy a coarse taunt or a specimen of that wit common in the 
 army. 
 
 Turner Ashby was doubtless as perfect a specimen of modern 
 chivalry as the South even has ever produced. His brilliant 
 daring, his extreme courtesy to woman, his devotion to the 
 horse, his open-hearted manner, and his scorn of mean actions, 
 are qualities as admirable now as in the days of Froissart s 
 Chronicles. After the battle of Winchester, the Yankee 
 women and families of officers sometimes came to Ashby to 
 
SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 get passes. They were surprised to find with what readiness 
 permits were granted. They would say, " Colonel Ash by, you 
 may search our baggage. We assure you we are carrying 
 away nothing which we are not at liberty to do." His reply 
 was, " I have no right to look into ladies baggage, or to ex 
 amine their trunks. Southern gentlemen do no such thing." 
 They said, " Colonel, you may search our persons, and see if 
 we carry away any thing contraband." The reply was, " Vir 
 ginia gentlemen do not search the persons of ladies." 
 
 Few young men of Ashby s age could have resisted the in 
 toxication of praise heaped upon him from every quarter. The 
 fact was, no aged and stern devotee to duty was ever more in 
 sensible, in the performance of his task, to the currents of popu 
 lar favor than the young Paladin of the South. The following 
 copy of a letter, written at the height of his reputation to an 
 elderly gentleman of Stafford county, illustrates the modesty 
 which adorned the life of Turner Ashby, and the sense of duty 
 which insured its most brilliant successes : 
 
 "Mr DEAR SIR : I have just received your exceedingly kind 
 and most flattering letter. Let me assure you that it gives me 
 no little pleasure to know that my course, while doing my duty 
 to my country, meets your approval, whose age and experience 
 make it more to be estimated. That I have not sought self- 
 aggrandizement, or regarded any thing save what I believed 
 to be my duty to my country in this war, I hope it is needless 
 to assure you. When my course meets with the approval of 
 the old patriots, I feel doubly satisfied that I have not mistaken 
 what I believe to be my duty. What you are pleased to say 
 of my brother (who fell as I, too, expect to fall, if my country 
 needs it) is but too true. Had he been spared longer, he would 
 doubtless have been of great value to our country. His fall, 
 however, has not been without its lesson to the enemy, teach 
 ing them that Virginians know how to die as well as fight for 
 their liberty. He died without a regret, feeling that his life 
 was due to his country s cause. Please present me most kindly 
 to all my friends in Stafford, and accept my highest respecta 
 
 for yourself. 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "TURNER ASHBY." 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 405 
 
 We have already referred in the pages of this Listory to, 
 Ashby s share in the several glorious campaigns of Jacksoi* 
 in the Valley ; to his participation in the battle of Kernstown 
 to his famous adventure with the Yankee pickets at the bridge 
 and to some other of his daring exploits on the front and flank 
 of the enemy. It was on the occasion of the battle of Kerns- 
 town that his energy was exercised to an extraordinary degree 
 in protecting the retreat and annoying the skirts of the enemy. 
 In thirty-eight, out of forty-two days after this battle he was 
 fighting the enemy, keeping him in check, or cutting off his com 
 munications. The terrible fatigues he incurred never seemed 
 to depress him, or to tax his endurance. An acquaintance tes 
 tifies that it was not an infrequent feat for him to ride daily 
 over a line of pickets sixty or seventy miles in extent. 
 
 At a later period of the Yalley campaign, when Banks re 
 turned from Strasburg and our troops were chasing him, Ash- 
 by would follow and charge the Yankees as the Rockbridge 
 Artillery poured in their fire. At one time he was riding 
 abreast of three hundred infantry, who were passing along the 
 turnpike. All at once he wheeled his horse, and leaping the 
 fence with drawn sword, cut his way right through them ; then 
 wheeling, he did the same thing a second time. Hiding up to 
 the standard-bearer, he seized it from him and dashed him to 
 the earth. The terrified wretches never raised a weapon against 
 him. Seventy-five of them, whom he cut off, laid down their 
 arms, and sat down at his order in the corner of the fence, 
 where they remained until his men came up to take care of 
 them. The flag was that of a Vermont regiment. A few days 
 after, Mr. Boteler asked Ashby of the exploit. He drew the 
 flag from his bosom and gave it to him. It was presented by 
 Mr. Boteler to the Library of the State, at Richmond, where it 
 may now be seen a testimony to one of the most brilliant 
 deeds of Virginia s youthful hero. 
 
 A week after this adventure, Ashby was dead. But a few 
 days before the termination of his brilliant career, he received 
 the promotion which had been long due him from the govern 
 ment. Just before leaving Richmond, after the adjournmen 
 of the first session of the permanent Congress, Mr. Boteler, who 
 was a member of that body, and Ashby s constant friend, went 
 to the president, told him that he was going home, and asked 
 
4:06 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 that, one act of justice should be done to the people of the 
 Valley, which they had long expected. He wished to be able 
 to carry back to his people the assurance that Ashby should be 
 commissioned a brigadier-general. The order for the commis 
 sion was at once made out. When the announcement was made 
 to Ashby, he exhibited no emotion, except that his face waa 
 lighted up by one of those sad smiles which had occasionally 
 brightened it since the death of his brother. 
 
 The manner of Ashby s death has already been mentioned in 
 the preceding pages of the brief historical narrative of the 
 Valley campaign. The writer is indebted for the particulars 
 of that sad event to Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, the brave 
 Maryland officer whose command was conspicuous in the aifair 
 that cost Ashby his life, and earned an immortal honor in re 
 venging his death. He takes the liberty of extracting from a 
 letter of this officer an account of the engagement : 
 
 " On the morning of Friday, the 6th of June," writes Colonel 
 Johnson, " we left Harrisonburg, not having seen the enemy for 
 two days. To our surprise, in the afternoon his cavalry made 
 a dash into our rear-guard, and was whipped most eifectually 
 their colonel, Sir Percy Wyndham, being taken prisoner. My 
 regiment was supporting a battery a short distance behind this 
 cavalry fight. In half an hour we were ordered forward that 
 is, towards the enemy retracing the march just made. Our in 
 fantry consisted only of Brigadier-general George H. Stewart s 
 brigade, the 58th Virginia, 44th Virginia, two other Virginia 
 regiments, and the Maryland Line of the latter, only the 1st 
 Maryland was taken back ; the artillery and all the cavalry 
 were left behind us. The 58th Virginia was first, my regiment 
 (the 1st Maryland) next, then came the 44th and the rest. 
 
 " A couple of miles east of Harrisonburg we left the road 
 and filed to the right, through the fields, soon changing direc 
 tion again so as to move parallel to the road. General Ewell 
 soon sent for two of my companies as skirmishers. Moving 
 cautiously through the darkening shades of the tangled wood 
 nist as the evening twilight was brightening the trees in front 
 of us in an opening, spot, spot, spot, began a dropping fire from 
 the skirmishers, and instantly the 58th Virginia poured in a 
 volley. Another volley was fired. The leaves began to fall, 
 and the Sullets hit the trees around. General Ewell came up 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 407 
 
 in a gallop. Charge, colonel, charge to the left! And 1 
 charged, got to the edge of the wood, and found a heavy body 
 of infantry and cavalry supporting a battery on a hill six linn 
 dred yards in front of me. But the Yankee balls came fast 
 and thick on my flank. The 58th are firing into us, the lead 
 ing captain said. General Ewell and myself, the only mounted 
 officers, plunged after them, and found it was not their fire. I 
 got back. l Up, men, and take that hill, pointing to my right. 
 They went in with a cheer. In less than five seconds the first 
 rank of the second company went down. The color-sergeant, 
 Doyle, fell. The corporal who caught them from him fell. 
 The next who took them fell, when Corporal Shanks, a six- 
 footer, seized them, raising them over his head at arm s length. 
 Captain Robertson lay dead ; Lieutenant Snowden shot to 
 death ; myself on the ground, my horse -shot in three places. 
 But still we went forward, and drove the Bucktails from the 
 fence where they had been concealed " 
 
 It was as the brave Marylanders were pressing on in this 
 charge that Ashby, who was on the right of the 58th Yirginia 
 exhorting them, fell by an intelligent bullet of the enemy. 
 His death was quickly avenged. As our troops reached the 
 fence from which the shot had been fired, the line of Yankees 
 melted away like mist before a hurricane. 
 
 " The account I have given you," writes Colonel Johnson, 
 " of the manner of Ashby s death, is collated from the state 
 ments of many eye-witnesses of my skirmishing companies, who 
 were all around him when he fell. I did not see it, though not 
 thirty yards from him, but was busy with my own men ; and 
 I am specific in stating the source of his death, as there is a 
 loose impression that he was killed by a shot from the 58th 
 Virginia. I am persuaded this is not so, from the state 
 ments of two very cool officers, Captain Nicholas and Lieuten 
 ant Booth, who were talking to him the minute before he 
 fell. " 
 
 " Ashby was my first revolutionary acquaintance in Yirginia. 
 I was with him when the first blow was struck for the cause 
 we both had so much at heart, and was with him in his last 
 fight, always knowing him to be beyond all modern men in 
 chivalry, as he was equal to any one in courage. He coi ibined 
 the virtues of Sir Philip Sydney with the dash of Murat. I 
 
4:08 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 contribute my mite to his fame, which will live in the Yalle^ 
 of Yirginia, outside of books, as long as its hills and mountains 
 shall endure." 
 
 No word escaped from Ashby s lips as he fell. It was not 
 necessary. No dying legend, spoken in death s embrace, could 
 have added to that noble life. Itself was a beautiful poem ; a 
 sounding oration ; a sufficient legacy to the virtue of his coun 
 trymen. 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 409 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 i 
 
 The Situation of Richmond. Its Strategic Importance. What the Yankees had 
 done to secure Richmond. THE BATTSE OF SEVEN PINES. Miscarriage of Gen. 
 Johnston s Plans. THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMINY. Storming of the Enemy s 
 Intrenchments. McClellan driven from his Northern Line of Defences. The 
 Situation on the other Side of the Chickahominy. Magruder s Comment. The 
 Affair of Savage Station. The Battle of Frazier s Farm. A Terrible Crisis. Battle 
 of Malvern Hill. The Enemy in Communication with his Gunboats. The Failure 
 to cut him off. Glory and Fruits of our Victory. Misrepresentations of the Yan 
 kees. Safety of Richmond. The War in other Parts of the Confederacy. The 
 Engagement of Secessionville. The Campaign of the West. The Evacuation of 
 Corinth. More Yankee Falsehoods. Capture of Memphis. The Prize of the Mis 
 sissippi. Statistics of its Navigation. Siege of Vicksburg. Heroism of " the Queen 
 City." Morgan s Raid into Kentucky. The Tennessee and Virginia Frontier. 
 Prospects in the West. Plan of Campaign there. 
 
 RICHMOND is the heart of the State of Virginia. It is him 
 dreds of miles from the sea, yet with water communication t< 
 Old Point, to Washington, and to New York. It is the stra 
 tegic point of the greatest importance in the whole Confed 
 eracj. If Richmond had fallen before McClellan s forces, the 
 North expected that there would follow all of North Carolina 
 except the mountains, part of South Carolina, and all of Ten 
 nessee that was left to us. 
 
 On the Richmond lines, two of the greatest and most splendid 
 armies that had ever been arrayed on a single field confronted 
 each other ; every accession that could be procured from the 
 most distant quarters to their numbers, and every thing that 
 could be drawn from the resources of the respective countries 
 of each, had been made to contribute to the strength and 
 splendor of the opposing hosts. 
 
 Since the commencement of the war, the North had taxed 
 its resources for the capture of Richmond ; nothing was omit 
 ted for the accomplishment of this event ; the way had to bo 
 opened to the capital by tedious and elaborate operations on 
 the frontier of Virginia ; this accomplished, the city of Rich 
 mond was surrounded by an army whose numbers was all that 
 could be desired ; composed of picked forces ; having every 
 advantage that science and art could bestow in fortifications 
 
4-10 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and every appliance of war ; assisted by gunboat flotillas in 
 two rivers, and endowed with every thing that could assure 
 success. 
 
 The Northern journals were unreserved in the statement 
 that the commands of Fremont, Banks, and McDowell had 
 been consolidated into one army, under Major-gen. Pope, with 
 a view of bringing all the Federal forces in Yirginia to co 
 operate with McClellan on the Richmond lines. A portion of 
 this army must have reached McClellan, probably at an early 
 stage of the engagements in the vicinity of Richmond. In 
 deed, it was stated at a subsequent period by Mr. Chandler, a 
 member of the Federal Congress, that the records of the Wai- 
 Department at Washington showed that more than one hun 
 dred arid fifty thousand men had been sent to the lines about 
 Richmond. There is little doubt but that, in the memorable 
 contest for the safety of the Confederate capital, we engaged 
 an army whose superiority in numbers to us was largely in 
 creased by timely reinforcements, and with regard to the 
 operations of which the Northern government had omitted no 
 conditions of success. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SEVEN PINT2S. 
 
 Having reached the Chickahominy, McClellan threw a 
 portion of his army across the river, and, having thus estab 
 lished his left, proceeded to pivot upon it, and to extend his 
 right by the right bank of the Pamunkey, so as to get to the 
 north of Richmond. 
 
 Before the 30th of May, Gen. Johnston had ascertained that 
 Keyes corps was encamped on this side of the Chickahominy, 
 near the Williamsburg road, and the same day a strong body 
 of the enemy was reported in front of D. H. Hill. The fol 
 lowing disposition of forces was made for the attack the next 
 day, the troops being ordered to move at daybreak : Gen. 
 Hill, supported by the division of Gen. Longstreet (who had 
 the direction of operations on the right), was to advance by 
 the Williamsburg road to attack the enemy in front ; Gen. 
 Huger, with his division, was to move down the Charles City 
 road, in order to attack in flank the troops *ho might be en 
 gaged with Hill and Longstreet, unless he found in his front 
 force enough to occupy his division ; Gen. Smith was to march 
 

 GEN. J.E.JOHNSTON 
 
 .son ..PuVh-sher 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 411 
 
 to the junction of the New Bridge road and the Nine Mile 
 road, to be in readiness either to fall on Keyes right flank, or 
 to cover Longstreet s left. 
 
 The next day hour after hour passed, while Gen. Longstreet 
 in yarn waited for Huger s division. At two o clock in the 
 afternoon he resolved to make the attack without these troops, 
 and moved upon the enemy with his own and D. II. Hill s 
 division, the latter in advance. 
 
 Hill s brave troops, admirably commanded and most gal 
 lantly led, forced their way through the abattis which formed 
 the enemy s external defences, and stormed their intrench- 
 ments by a determined and irresistible rush. Such was the 
 manner in which the enemy s first line was carried. The 
 operation was repeated with the same gallantry and success as 
 our troops pursued their victorious career through the enemy s 
 successive camps and intrenchments. At each new position 
 they encountered fresh troops belonging to it, and reinforce 
 ments brought on from the rear. Thus they had to repel 
 repeated efforts to retake works which they had carried. But 
 their advance was never successfully resisted. Their onward 
 movement was only stayed by the coming of night. By night 
 fall they had forced their way to the " Seven Pines," having 
 driven the enemy back more than two miles, through their 
 own camps, and from a series of intrenchments, arid repelled 
 every attempt to recapture them with great slaughter. 
 
 The attack on the enemy s right was not so fortunate. The 
 strength of his position enabled him to hold it until dark, and 
 the intervention of night alone saved him from rout. On this 
 part of the field Gen. Johnston was severely wounded by the 
 fragment of a shell. 
 
 In his official report of the operations of the day, General 
 Johnston says : " Had Major-gen. Huger s division been in 
 position and ready for action when those of Smith, Long- 
 street, and Hill moved, I am satisfied that Keyes corps would 
 have been destroyed instead of being merely defeated." The 
 slow and impotent movements of Gen. Huger were excused by 
 himself on account of the necessity of building a bridge to 
 cross the swollen stream in his front, and other accidental 
 causes of delay. 
 
 But uot withstanding the serious diminution of the fortunes 
 
4:12 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of the day by Huger s mishaps, they were yet conspicuous. 
 WQ had taken ten pieces of artillery and six thousand muskets, 
 besides other spoils. Our total loss was more than four thou 
 sand. That of the enemy is stated in their own newspapers 
 to have exceeded ten thousand an estimate which is no doubt 
 short of the truth. 
 
 On the morning of the first of June, the enemy made a weak 
 demonstration of attack on our lines. The 9th and 14th Yir 
 ginia regiments were ordered to feel for the enemy, arid while 
 thus engaged suddenly came upon a body of fifteen thousand 
 Yankees intrenched in the woods. Under the murderous fire 
 poured into their ranks, our troops were forced to fall back, 
 but were rallied by the self-devoted gallantry of their officers. 
 Col. Godwin, the dashing and intrepid commander of the 9th, 
 received a Minnie ball in the leg, and a moment later had his 
 hip crushed by the fall of his horse, which was shot under him. 
 He was thirty paces in advance of his regiment when the attack 
 was made, encouraging his men. At last, reinforcements 
 oming up, the attack of the enemy was vigorously repulsed. 
 This was the last demonstration of the enemy, who proceeded 
 o strengthen those lines of intrenchments from which he had 
 not yet been driven. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMINY. 
 
 Upon taking command of the Confederate army in the field, 
 after Gen. Johnston had been wounded in the battle of Seven 
 Pines, Gen. Lee did not hesitate to adopt the spirit of that com 
 mander, wiiich had already been displayed in attacking the 
 enemy, and which indicated the determination on his part that 
 the operations before Richmond should not degenerate into a 
 siege. 
 
 The course of the Chickahoniiny around Richmond affords 
 an idea of the enemy s position at the commencement of the 
 action. This stream meanders through the Tide-water district 
 of Virginia it* course approaching that of the arc of a circle 
 in the neighborhood of Richmond until it reaches the lower 
 end of Charles City county, where it abruptly turns to th 
 south and empties into the James. A portion of the enemy s 
 forces had crossed to the south side of the Chick ahominy, and 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 413 
 
 were fortified on the Williarnsburg road. On the north bank 
 of the stream the enemy was strongly posted for many miles ; 
 the heights on that side of the stream having been fortified 
 with great energy and skill from Meadow Bridge, on a line 
 nearly due north from the city to a point below Bottom s 
 Bridge, which is due east. This line of the enemy extended 
 for about twenty miles. 
 
 Eeviewing the situation of the two armies at the commence 
 ment of the action, the advantage was entirely our own. 
 McClellan had divided his army on the two sides of the Chick 
 ahominy, and operating apparently with the design of half cir- 
 cumvallating Richmond, had spread out his forces to an extent 
 that impaired the faculty of concentration, and had made a 
 weak and dangerous extension of his lines. 
 
 On Thursday, the 26th of June, at three o clock, Major-gen. 
 Jackson fresh from the exploits of his magnificent campaign 
 in the Yalley took up his line of march from Ashland, and 
 proceeded down the country between the Cliickahominy and Pa- 
 munkey rivers. The enemy collected on the north bank of the 
 Chickahominy, at the point where it is crossed by the Brooke 
 turnpike, were driven off, and Brigadier-gen. Branch, crossing 
 the stream, directed his movements for a junction with the 
 column of Gen. A. P. Hill, which had crossed at Meadow 
 Bridge. Gen. Jackson having borne away from the Chicka 
 hominy, so as to gain ground towards the Pamunkey, marched 
 to the left of Mechanicsville, while Gen. Hill, keeping well to 
 the Chickahominy, approached that village and engaged the 
 enemy there. 
 
 With about fourteen thousand men (Gen. Branch did not 
 arrive until nightfall) Gen. Hill engaged the forces of the 
 enemy, until night put an end to the contest. While he did 
 not succeed, in that limited time, in routing the enemy, his 
 forces stubbornly maintained the possession of Mechanicsville 
 and the ground taken by them on the other side of the Chick 
 ahominy. Driven from the immediate locality of Mechanics 
 ville, the enemy retreated during the night down the river to 
 Powhite swarnp, and night closed the operations of Thursday 
 
414 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 STORMING OF THE KN KMT S INTRKNUHMENT8. 
 
 The road having been cleared at Mechanicsville, Gen. Lorg- 
 street s corps (Tarmee, consisting of his veteran division of the 
 Old Guard of the Army of the Potomac, and Gen. D. H. Hill s 
 division, debouched from the woods on the south side of the 
 Chickahominy, and crossed that river. Friday morning the 
 general advance upon the enemy began; Gen. A. P. Hill in 
 the centre, and bearing towards Cold Harbor, while Gen. Long- 
 street and Gen. D. H. Hill came down the Chickahominy to 
 New Bridge. Gen. Jackson still maintained his position in 
 advance, far to the left, and gradually converging to the Chick 
 ahominy again. 
 
 The position of the enemy was now a singular one. One 
 portion of his army was on the south side of the Chickahom 
 iny, fronting Richmond, and confronted by Gen. Magruder. 
 The other portion, on the north side, had fallen back to a new 
 line of defences, where McClellan proposed to make a decisive 
 battle. 
 
 As soon as Jackson s arrival at Cold Harbor was announced, 
 Gen. Lee and Gen. Longstreet, accompanied by their respect- 
 ve staffs, rode by Games Mill, and halted at New Cold Har 
 bor, where they joined Gen. A. P. Hill. Soon the welcome 
 sound of Jackson s guns announced that he was at work. 
 
 The action was now to become general for the first time on 
 the Richmond lines; and a collision of numbers was about to 
 take place eqr al to any that had yet occurred in the history of 
 the war. 
 
 From four o clock until eight the battle raged with a display 
 of the utmost daring and intrepidity on the part of the Con 
 federate army. The enemy s lines were finally broken, and his 
 strong positions all carried, and night covered the retreat of 
 McClellan s broken and routed columns to the south side of the 
 Chickahominy. 
 
 The assault of the enemy s works near Games Mill is a 
 memorable part of the engagement of Friday, and the display 
 of fortitude, as well as quick and dashing gallantry of our 
 troops on that occasion, takes its place by the side of the most 
 glorious exploits of the war. Gen. A. P. Hill had made the 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 415 
 
 first assault upon the lines of the enemy s intrenchments near 
 Games Mill. A fierce struggle had ensued between his di 
 vision and the garrison of the line of defence. Repeated 
 charges were made by Hill s troops, but the foimidable char 
 acter of the works, and murderous volleys from the artillery 
 covering them, kept our troops in check. Twenty-six pieces 
 of artillery were thundering at them, and a perfect hailstorm 
 of lead fell thick and fast around them. In front stood Fed 
 eral camps, stretching to the northeast for miles. Drawn up in 
 line of battle were more than three full divisions, commanded 
 by McCall, Porter, and Sedgwick. Banners darkened the air ; 
 artillery vomited forth incessant volleys of grape, canister, and 
 shell ; and the wing of death waved everywhere in the sul 
 phurous atmosphere of the battle. 
 
 It was- past four o clock when Pickett s brigade from Long- 
 street s division came to Hill s support. Pickett s regiments 
 fought with the most determined valor. At last, Whiting s 
 division, composed of the "Old Third" and Texan brigades, 
 advanced at a double-quick, charged the batteries, and drove 
 the enemy from his strong line of defence. The 4th Texas 
 regiment was led by a gallant Virginian, Col. Bradfute War 
 wick. As the regiment was marching on with an irresistible 
 impetuosity to the charge, he seized a battle-flag which had 
 been abandoned by one of our regiments, and, bearing it aloft, 
 he passed both of the enemy s breastworks in a most gallant 
 style, and as he was about to plant the colors on a battery that 
 the regiment captured, his right breast was pierced by a Minie 
 ball, and he fell mortally wounded. 
 
 The works carried by our noble troops would have been in 
 vincible to the bayonet, had they been garrisoned by men less 
 dastardly than the Yankees. All had been done on oui side 
 with the bullet and the bayonet. For four hours had our in 
 ferior force, unaided by a single piece of artillery, withstood 
 over thirty thousand, assisted by twenty-six pieces of artillery. 
 
 To keep the track of the battle, which had swept around 
 Richmond, we must have reference to some of the principal 
 points of locality in the enemy s lines. It will be recollected 
 that it was on Thursday evening when the attack was com 
 menced upon the enemy near Meadow Bridge. This locality 
 is about six mile^ distant from the city, on a line almost due 
 
4-16 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 north. This position was the enemy s extreme right. His 
 lines extended from here across the Chickahominy, near the 
 Powhite Creek, two or three miles above the crossing of the 
 York Eiver railroad. From Meadow Bridge to this railroad 
 the distance along the Chickahominy on the north side is about 
 ten miles. The different stages between the points indicated, 
 along which the enemy were driven, are Mechanicsville, about 
 a mile north of the Chickahominy ; further on, Beaver Dam 
 Creek, emptying into the Chickahominy ; then the New Bridge 
 road, on which Cold Harbor is located ; and then Powhite 
 Creek, where the enemy had made his last stand, and been re 
 pulsed from the field. 
 
 The York River railroad runs in an easterly direction, inter 
 secting the Chickahominy about ten miles from the city. South 
 of the railroad is the Williamsburg road, connecting with the 
 Nine Mile road at Seven Pines. The former road connects 
 with the New Bridge road, which turns off and crosses the 
 Chickahominy. From Seven Pines, where the Nine Mile road 
 joins the upper one, the road is known as the old Williamsburg 
 road, and crosses the Chickahominy at Bottom s Bridge. 
 
 With the bearing of these localities in his mind, the reader 
 will readily understand how it was that the enemy was driven 
 from his original strongholds on the north side of the Chicka 
 hominy, and how, at the time of Friday s battle, he had been 
 compelled to surrender the possession of the Fredericksburg 
 and Central railroads, and had been pressed to a position 
 where he was cut off from the principal avenues of supply 
 and escape. The disposition of our forces was such as to cut 
 off all communication between McClellan s army and the 
 White House, on the Pamunkey river ; he had been driven 
 completely from his northern line of defences; and it was sup 
 posed that he would be unable to extricate himself from his 
 position without a victory or capitulation. 
 
 On Sunday morning, it appears that our pickets, on the Nine 
 Mile road, having engaged some small detachments of the en 
 emy and driven them beyond their fortifications, found them 
 deserted. In a short while it became known to our generals 
 that McClellan, having massed his entire force on this side of 
 the Chickahominy, was retreating towards James river. 
 
 The intrenchments, which the enemy had deserted, were 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 found to be formidable and elaborate. That immediately 
 across the railroad, at the six-mile post, which had been sup 
 posed to be light earthwork, designed to sweep the railroad, 
 turned out to be an immense embrasured fortification, extend 
 ing for hundreds of yards on either side of the track. "Within 
 this work were found great quantities of fixed ammunition, 
 which had apparently been prepared for removal and then de 
 serted. All the cannon, as at other intrenchments, had been 
 carried off. A dense cloud of smoke was seen issuing: from the 
 
 C* 
 
 woods two miles in advance of the battery and half a mile to 
 the right of the railroad. The smoke was found to proceed 
 from a perfect mountain of the enemy s commissary stores, 
 consisting of sugar, coffee, and bacon, prepared meats, vege 
 tables, &c., which he had fired. The fields and woods around 
 this spot were covered with every description of clothing and 
 camp equipage. ~No indication was wanting that the enemy 
 had left this encampment in haste and disorder. 
 
 The enemy had been imperfectly watched at a conjuncture 
 the most critical in the contest, and through an omission of our 
 
 O 
 
 guard the facts of which are yet the subject of some contro 
 versy McClellan had succeeded in massing his entire force, 
 and taking up a line of retreat, by which he hoped to reach 
 the cover of his gunboats on the James. But the most unfor 
 tunate circumstance to us was, that since the enemy had escaped 
 from us in his fortified camp, his retreat was favored by a coun 
 try, the characteristics of which are unbroken forests and wide 
 swamps, where it was impossible to pursue him with rapidity, 
 and extremely difficult to reconnoitre his position so as to bring 
 him to decisive battle. 
 
 In an official report of the situation of forces on the Rich 
 mond side of the Chickahominy, Gen. Magruder describes it 
 as one of the gravest peril. He states that the larger portion 
 of the enemy was on that side of the Chickahominy ; that the 
 bridges had all been destroyed, and but one rebuilt the New 
 Bridge which was commanded fully by the enemy s guns; 
 and that there were but twenty-five thousand men between 
 McClellan s army of one hundred thousand and Richmond. 
 Referring to a situation so extremely critical, he says : " Had 
 McClellan massed his whole force in column, and advanced it 
 against any point of our line of battle, as was done at Auster- 
 
 27 
 
418 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 litz under similar circumstances, by the greatest captain of any 
 age, though the head of his column would have suffered greatly 
 its momentum would have insured him success, and the occu 
 pation of our works about Richmond, and, consequently, of the 
 city, might have been his reward." Taking this view of the sit 
 uation, Gen. Magruder states that his relief was great when it 
 was discovered the next day that the enemy had left our front 
 and was continuing to retreat. 
 
 The facts, however, are contrary to the theory of Gen. Ma 
 gruder and to the self-congratulations which he derives from 
 it. Our troops on the two sides of the river were only separ 
 ated until we succeeded in occupying the position near what is 
 known as New Bridge, which occurred before 12 o clock M., 
 on Friday, June 27, and before the attack on the enemy at 
 Games Mill. From the time we reached the position referred 
 to, our communications between the two wings of our army 
 may be regarded as re-establised. The bridge referred to and 
 another about three-quarters of a mile above were ordered to 
 be repaired before noon on Friday, and the new bridge was 
 sufficiently rebuilt to be passed by artillery on Friday night, 
 and the one above it was used for the passage of wagons, am 
 bulances, and troops early on Saturday morning. Besides this 
 all other bridges above New Bridge, and all the fords above 
 that point, were open to us. 
 
 THE AFFAIR AT SAVAGE S STATION. 
 
 During Sunday, a portion of the enemy was encountered 
 upon the York River railroad, near a place called Savage s Sta 
 tion, the troops engaged on our side being the division of Gen. 
 McLaws, consisting of Generals Kershaw and Semmes brigades, 
 supported by Gen. Griffith s brigade from Magruder s division. 
 The Federals were found to be strongly intrenched, and as 
 soon as our skirmishers came in view, they were opened upon 
 with a furious cannonade from a park of field-pieces. Kem- 
 per s battery now went to the front, and for three hours the 
 battle raged hotly, when the discomfited Yankees again re 
 sumed their retreat. Early in the day, on reaching the re 
 doubts, Gen. Griffiths, of Mississippi, one of the heroes of Lees- 
 burg, was killed by the fragment of a shell. He was the only 
 
THE SECOND YEAE. 419 
 
 general officer killed on our side during the whole of the bloody 
 week. 
 
 In this encounter with the enemy, the gallant 10th Georgia 
 regiment suffered severely, engaging the enemy hand to hand, 
 and leaving upon the field memorable evidences of their cour 
 age. The enemy, to use an expression of his prisoners, waa 
 " mowed down" by the close fire of our adventurous troops ; 
 and the failure of the attempt of McClellan to break through 
 our lines at this point, left him to continue a hopeless retreat. 
 
 By daybreak on Monday morning, the pursuit of the enemy 
 was actively resumed. D. H. Hill, Whiting, and Ewell, under 
 command of Jackson, crossed the Chickahominy by the Grape 
 vine bridge, and followed the enemy on their track by the 
 Williamsburg road and Savage s Station. Longstreet, A. P. 
 Hill, Huger, and Magruder pursued the enemy by the Charles 
 City road, with the intention of cutting him off. 
 
 The divisions of Generals Hill and Longstreet were, during 
 the whole of the day, moving in the hunt for the enemy. The 
 disposition which was made of our forces, brought Gen. Long- 
 street on the enemy s front, immediately supported by Gen. 
 Hill s division, consisting of six brigades. The forces com 
 manded by Gen. Longstreet were his old division, consisting 
 of six brigades. 
 
 The position of the enemy was about five miles northeast of 
 Darbytown, on the New Market road. The immediate scene 
 of the battle was a plain of sedge pines, in the cover of which 
 the enemy s forces were skilfully disposed the locality being 
 known as Frayser s farm. In advancing upon the enemy, bat 
 teries of sixteen heavy guns were opened upon the advance 
 columns of Gen. Hill. Our troops, pressing heroically for 
 ward, had no sooner got within musket range, than the enemy, 
 forming several lines of battle, poured upon them from his 
 heavy masses a devouring fire of musketry. The conflict be 
 came terrible, the air being filled with missiles of death, every 
 moment having its peculiar sound of terror, and every spot 
 its sight of ghastly destruction and horror. It is impossible 
 that in any of the series of engagements which had taken place 
 
420 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 within the past few days, and had tracked the lines of Kieh 
 inond with fire and destruction, there could have been more 
 desperate fighting on the part of our troops. Never was a 
 more glorious victory plucked from more desperate and threat 
 ening circumstances. While exposed to the double fire of th 
 enemy s batteries and his musketry, we were unable to contend 
 with him with artillery. But although thus unmatched, our 
 brave troops pressed on with unquailing vigor and a resistless 
 courage, driving the enemy before them. This was accom 
 plished without artillery, there being but one battery in Gen. 
 Hill s command on the spot, and that belonged to Longstreet a 
 division, and could not be got into position. Thus the fight 
 continued with an ardor and devotion .that -few battle-fields 
 have ever illustrated. Step by step the enemy were driven 
 back, his guns taken, and the ground he abandoned strewn 
 with his dead. By half-past eight o clock we had taken all 
 his cannon, and, continuing to advance, had driven him a mile 
 and a half from his ground of battle. 
 
 Our forces were still advancing upon the retreating lines of 
 the enemy. It was now about half-past nine o clock, and very 
 dark. Suddenly, as if it had burst from the heavens, a sheet 
 of fire enveloped the front of our advance. The enemy had 
 made another stand to receive us, and from the black masses 
 of his forces, it was evident that he had been heavily rein 
 forced, and that another whole corps cFarmee had been brought 
 up to contest the fortunes of the night. Line after line oi 
 battle was formed. It was evident that his heaviest columns 
 were now being thrown against our small command, and it 
 might have been supposed that he would only be satisfied with 
 its annihilation. The loss here on our side was terrible. 
 
 The situation being evidently hopeless for any further pur 
 suit of the fugitive enemy, who had now brought up such over 
 whelming forces, our troops retired slowly. 
 
 At this moment, seeing their adversary retire, the most 
 vociferous cheers arose along the whole Yankee line. They 
 were taken up in the distance by the masses which for miles 
 and miles beyond were supporting McClellan s front. It was 
 a moment when the heart of the stoutest commander might 
 have been appalled. The situation of our forces was now as 
 desperate as it well could be, and required a courage and 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 4:21 
 
 presence of mind to retrieve it, which the circumstances which 
 surrounded them were not well calculated to inspire. They 
 had fought for five or six hours without reinforcements. All 
 our reserves had been brought up in the action. Wilcox s 
 brigade, which had been almost annihilated, was re-forming in 
 the rear. 
 
 Riding rapidly to the position of this brigade, Gen. Hill 
 brought them by great exertions up to the front, to check the 
 advance of the now confident, cheering enemy. Catching the 
 spirit of their commander, the brave but jaded men moved up 
 to the front, replying to the enemy s cheers with shouts and 
 yells. At this demonstration, which the enemy, no doubt, sup 
 posed signified heavy reinforcements, he stopped his advance. 
 It was now about half-past ten o clock in the night. The 
 enemy had been arrested ; and the fight one of the most re 
 markable, long-contested, and gallant ones that had yet occurred 
 on our lines was concluded with the achievement of a field 
 under the most trying circumstances, which the enemy, with the 
 most overpowering numbers brought up to reinforce him, had 
 not succeeded in reclaiming. 
 
 Gen. Magruder s division did not come up until eleven 
 o clock at night, after the fight had been concluded. By orders 
 from Gen. Lee, Magruder moved upon and occupied the battle 
 ground ; Gen. Hill s command being in such a condition of 
 prostration from their long and toilsome fight, and suffering 
 in killed and wounded, that it was proper they should be re 
 lieved by the occupation of the battle-ground by a fresh corps 
 d armee* 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL. 
 
 Early on Tuesday morning, the enemy, from the position to 
 which he had been driven the night before, continued his 
 retreat in a southeasterly direction towards his gunboats in 
 James river. 
 
 General Magruder was directed to proceed by the Quaker 
 road, and to form on the right of Jackson. On account of a 
 misunderstanding as to which was the Quaker road, the wrong 
 route was taken by General Magruder ; and the direction 01 
 bis movement was subsequently changed, so as to place hii 
 
122 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 troops on the right of linger, who in the mean time had formed 
 on the right of Jackson. 
 
 The enemy had now placed himself in communication wit! 
 his gunboats in the river. He was strongly posted on the 
 crest of a bill, commanding an undulating field, which fell to 
 our right into a plain or meadow. His batteries of artillery 
 were numerous, and were collected into two large bodies, 
 strongly supported by infantry, and commanded perfectly the 
 meadow on our right, and the field in our front, except the 
 open ravines formed by the undulations of the ground. 
 
 An order was dispatched by General Magruder to bring up 
 from all the batteries thirty rifle pieces, if possible, with which 
 he hoped to shatter the enemy s infantry. While delay was 
 thus occasioned, he was ordered to make the attack. Return 
 ing rapidly to the position occupied by the main body of his 
 troops, he gave Brigadier-general Jones the necessary orders 
 for the advance of his division. While this was being done, a 
 heavy and crushing fire was opened from the enemy s guns, 01 
 great range and metal. 
 
 General Armistead having repulsed, driven back, and fol 
 lowed up a heavy body of the enemy s skirmishers, an order 
 was received from General Lee by Magruder, directing him 
 " to advance rapidly, press forward his whole line and follow- 
 up Armistead s successes, as the enemy were reported to be 
 getting off." In the mean time Mahone s and Ransom s bri 
 gades of Huger s division having been ordered up, General 
 Magruder gave the order that Wright s brigade, supported by 
 Mahone s, should advance and attack the enemy s batteries on 
 the right, and that Jones division, expected momentarily, 
 should advance on the front, and Ransom s brigade should 
 attack on the left. The plan of attack was to hurl about fifteen 
 thousand men against the enemy s batteries and supporting 
 infantry to follow up any successes they might obtain ; and if 
 unable to drive the enemy from his strong position, to continue 
 the fight in front by pouring in fresh troops ; and in case they 
 were repulsed, to hold strongly the line of battle where we 
 stood. 
 
 At about 5 o clock p. M., the order was given to our men to 
 charge across the field and drive the enemy from their posi 
 tion. Gallantly they sprang to the encounter, rushing into 
 
THE SECOND TEAR. 4:23 
 
 {lie field at a full run. Instantly, from the. line of the enemy s 
 breastworks, a murderous storm of grape and canister waa 
 hurled into their ranks, with the most terrible effect. Officers 
 and men went down by hundreds ; but yet, undaunted and 
 unwavering, our line dashed on, until two-thirds of the distance 
 across the field was accomplished. Here the carnage from the 
 withering fire of the enemy s combined artillery and musketry 
 was dreadful. Our line wavered a moment, and fell back to 
 the cover of the woods. Twice again the effort to carry the 
 position was renewed, but each time with the same result. 
 
 The hill was bathed with flames. Towards sunset the earth 
 quivered with the terrific concussion of artillery and huge ex 
 plosions. Shells raced athwart the horizon, exploding into 
 deadly iron hail. The forms of smoke-masked men ; the gleam 
 of muskets on the plains, where soldiers were disengaged ; the 
 artistic order of battle; the wild career of wilder horsemen 
 plunging to and fro across the field, formed a scene of exciting 
 grandeur. In the forest, where eyes did not penetrate, there 
 was nothing but the exhilarating and exhausting spasm of 
 battle. 
 
 As the night fell the battle slackened. "We had not carried 
 the enemy s pbsition, but we occupied the field, and during the 
 night posted our pickets within one hundred yards of his guns. 
 The brigades of Mahone and Wright slept on the battle-field 
 in the advanced positions they had won, and Armistead s bri 
 gade and a portion of Ransom s also occupied the battle-field. 
 
 The battle of Tuesday, properly known as that of Malvern 
 Hill, was perhaps the most sanguinary of the series of bloody 
 conflicts which had taken place on the lines about Richmond. 
 Although not a defeat, it broke the chain of our victories. It 
 was made memorable by its melancholy monument of carnage, 
 which was probably greater than Gen. Magruder s estimate, 
 which states that our loss fell short of three thousand. But it 
 had given the enemy no advantage, except in the unfruitful 
 sacrifice of the lives of our troops ; and the line of his retreat 
 w^as again taken up, his forces toiling towards the river through 
 mud, swamp, and forest. 
 
 The skill and spirit with which McClellan had managed to 
 retreat was, indeed, remarkable, and afforded no mean proofs 
 of his generalship. At every stage of his retreat he had con* 
 
424 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 fronted onr forces with a strong rear-guard, and had encoui 
 tered us with well-organized lines of battle, and regular dispo 
 sitions of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. His heavy rifle 
 cannon had been used against ns constantly on his retreat. A 
 portion of his forces had now effected communication with the 
 river at points below City Point. The plan of cutting off his 
 communication with the river, which was to have been executed 
 by a movement of Holmes division between him and the river, 
 was frustrated by the severe tire of the gunboats, and since 
 then the situation of the enemy appeared to be that of a divi 
 sion or dispersion of his forces, one portion resting on the river, 
 and the other, to some extent, involved by our lines. 
 
 It had been stated to the public of Richmond, with greal 
 precision of detail, that on the evening of Saturday, the 28th 
 of June, we had brought the enemy to bay on the South side 
 of the Chickahominy, and that it only remained to finish him 
 in a single battle. Such, in fact, appeared to have been the 
 situation then. The next morning, however, it was perceived 
 that our supposed resources of generalship had given us too 
 much confidence ; that the enemy had managed to extricate 
 himself from the critical position, and, having massed his forces, 
 had succeeded, under cover of the night, in opening a way to 
 the James river.* 
 
 Upon this untoward event, the operations of our army on the 
 Richmond side of the Chickahominy were to follow the fugi 
 tive enemy through a country where he had admirable oppor 
 tunities of concealment, and through the swamps and forests 
 
 * With reference to McClellan s escape from White Oak Swamp to the river, 
 letters of Yankee officers, published in the Northern journals, stated that when 
 McClellan, on Saturday evening, sent his scouts down the road to Turkey Island 
 hridge, he was astonished and delighted to find that our forces had not occupied 
 that road, and immediately started his wagon and artillery trains, which were 
 quietly passing down that road all night to the James river, whilst our forces 
 were quietly sleeping within four miles of the very road they should have occu 
 pied, and should have captured every one of the enemy s one thousand wagons 
 and four hundred cannon. It is further stated in these letters, that if we had 
 blocked up that only passage of escape, their entire army must have surrendered 
 or been starved out in twenty-four hours. These are the Yankees own accounts 
 of how much they were indebted to blunders on our part for the success ot 
 McClellan s retreat a kind of admission not popular with a vain and self 
 ftduljvtovy enemy. 
 
THE SECOND YEAP 425 
 
 of which he had retreated with the most remarkable ju Iginent, 
 dexterity, and spirit of fortitude. 
 
 The glory and fruits of our victory may have been seriously 
 diminished by the grave mishap or fault by which the enemy 
 was permitted to leave his camp on the south side of the Chick- 
 ahominy, in an open country, and to plunge into the dense 
 cover of wood and swamp, where the best portion of a whole 
 week was consumed in hunting him, and finding out his new 
 position only in time to attack him under the uncertainty and 
 disadvantage of the darkness of night. 
 
 But the successes achieved in the series of engagements 
 which had already occurred were not to be lightly esteemed, 
 or to be depreciated, because of errors which, if they had not 
 occurred, would have made our victory more glorious and more 
 complete. The siege of Richmond had been raised ; an army 
 of one hundred and fifty thousand men had been pushed from 
 their strongholds and fortifications, and put to flight ; we had 
 enjoyed the eclat of an almost daily succession of victories; we 
 had gathered an immense spoil in stores, provisions, arid ar 
 tillery ; and we had demoralized and dispersed, if we had not 
 succeeded in annihilating, an army which had every resource 
 that could be summoned to its assistance, every possible ad 
 dition to numbers within the reach of the Yankee government, 
 and every material condition of success to insure for it the 
 great prize of the capital of the Confederacy, which was now, 
 as far as human judgment could determine, irretrievably lost 
 to them, and secure in the protection of a victorious army. 
 
 The Northern papers claimed that the movements of Mo- 
 Clellan from the Chickahominy river were purely strategic, 
 and that he had obtained a position where he would establish 
 a new base of operations against Richmond. Up to the first 
 decisive stage in the series of engagements Cold Harbor 
 there were certainly plain strategic designs in his backward 
 movement. His retirement from Mechanicsville was probably 
 voluntary, and intended to concentrate his troops low r er down, 
 where he might fight with the advantages of numbers and his 
 own selection of position. Continuing his retreat, he fixed the 
 decisive field at Cold Harbor. Again having been pushed 
 from his strongholds north of the Chickahominy, the enemj 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 made a strong attempt to retrieve his disasters by renewing a 
 concentration of his troops at Frayser s farm. 
 
 From the time of these two principal battles, all pretensions 
 of the enemy s retreat to strategy must cease. His retreat was 
 now unmistakable ; it was no longer a falling back to concen 
 trate troops for action ; it is, in fact, impossible to disguise that 
 it was the retreat of an enemy who was discomfited and 
 whipped, although not routed. He had abandoned the rail 
 roads ; he had given up the strongholds which he had provided 
 to secure him in case of a check ; he had destroyed from eight 
 to ten millions dollars worth of stores ; he had deserted his 
 hospitals, his sick and wounded, and he had left in our hands 
 thousands of prisoners and innumerable stragglers. 
 
 Regarding all that had been accomplished in these battles ; 
 the displays of the valor and devotion of our troops ; the ex 
 penditure of blood ; and the helpless and fugitive condition to 
 which the enemy had at last been reduced, there was cause for 
 the keenest regrets that an enemy in this condition was per 
 mitted to secure his retreat. It is undoubtedly true, that in 
 failing to cut off McClellan s retreat to the river, we failed to 
 accomplish the most important condition for the completion of 
 our victory. But although the result of the conflict had fallen 
 below public expectation, it was sufficiently fortunate to excite 
 popular joy, and grave enough to engage the most serious 
 speculation as to the future. 
 
 The mouth of the Yankee government was shut from any 
 more promises of a speedy termination of the war ; the powers 
 of Europe saw that the Southern Confederacy was not yet 
 crushed, or likely to be crushed, by its insolent foe ; and the 
 people of the South had again challenged the confidence of the 
 world in the elasticity of their fortunes and the invincible 
 destiny of their independence. 
 
 The fortune of events in other parts of the Confederacy, 
 taking place about the time of the relief of Richmond, or 
 closely following it, although less striking and dramatic, was 
 not unpropitious. These events, a rapid survey of which takes 
 us from the seacoast to, the Mississippi frontier, added to tho 
 exultations which the victories of the Chiekahominy had occa 
 sioned, and, although qualified by some disasters, enlarged and 
 enlightened the prospects of the future. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 427 
 
 A few days before the great battles had been joined around 
 Richmond, a brilliant success over the Yankees had been ob 
 tained in an engagement on James Island in the neighborhood 
 of Charleston. The battle of Secessionville, as it was called, 
 occurred on the 16th of June. About four o clock in the 
 morning of that day, the enemy, taking advantage of the neg 
 ligence of our pickets, drove them in, or captured them, some 
 eight hundred yards in front of the battery at Secessionville, 
 and, advancing rapidly upon this work in line of battle, arrived 
 within a few hundred yards of it before we could open upon 
 him. The men, however, were at their guns, which were at 
 once well and rapidly served, while the infantry was moved 
 promptly into position under the orders of Col. J. G. Lamar, 
 the heroic commander of the post. It was not long after get 
 ting the infantry into position, that the enemy were driven 
 back in confusion. They were soon, however, reinforced, and 
 made another desperate charge, when they were again driven 
 back ; a third time they came, but only to meet with the most 
 determined repulse. They then made a flank movement on 
 our right, on the west of Secessionville, where they were gal 
 lantly met by the Charleston battalion, which was soon rein 
 forced by the Louisiana battalion. Three times had the heroic 
 band of Confederates repulsed (often at the point of the bay 
 onet) a force thrice their strength, under the fire of three gun 
 boats and four land batteries. About ten o clock the enemy 
 retreated in great confusion, leaving their dead and wounded 
 on the field, a number lying in our trenches. The loss of the 
 enemy was at least four hundred in killed, wounded, and pris 
 oner^ Their dead in front of the Secessionville works num 
 bered one hundred and sixty-eight. Our loss was forty killed, 
 and about twice that number wounded. 
 
 In the situation in the West some important changes had 
 transpired in the early months of the summer. 
 
 The evacuation of Corinth was determined upon by Gen. 
 Beauregard, after having twice offered the enemy battle outside 
 of his intrenched lines, and was accomplished on the 30th of 
 May. The transparent object of the Yankee commander was 
 to cut off our resources, by destroying the Mobile and Ohio 
 and Memphis and Charleston railroads. This was substantially 
 foiled by the evacuation and withdrawal of our forces along 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB, 
 
 the line of the former road. Remaining in rear of the Tus 
 cumbia and its affluents, some six miles from Corinth, iong 
 enough to collect stragglers, Gen. Beauregard resumed his 
 march, concentrating his main forces at Baldwin. On June 
 7th he left Baldwin, it offering no advantages of a defensive 
 character, and assembled the main body of his forces at Tupelo. 
 
 On the morning of the evacuation of Corinth, our effective 
 force did not exceed forty-seven thousand men of all arms ; 
 that of the enemy, obtained from the best sources of informa 
 tion, could not have been less than ninety thousand men of all 
 arms. The story of the evacuation was flourished by the 
 Yankees as a great success on their bide, and coupled with an 
 audacious falsehood reported by Gen. Pope to Gen. Halleck, 
 then in command of the enemy s forces in the West, to the 
 effect that he had taken ten thousand prisoners and fifteen 
 thousand stand of arms. The facts are, that the retreat was 
 conducted with great order and precision ; and that, despite 
 the boasts of the North to the contrary, we lost no more pris 
 oners than the enemy did himself, and abandoned to him in 
 stores not more than would amount to one day s expense of 
 our army. 
 
 The capture of Memphis was another step towards the reali 
 zation of the enemy s great object of opening the navigation 
 of the Mississippi, which was persistently demanded by the 
 Northwestern States, as the price of their contributions to the 
 war, and their support of the administration at Washington.* 
 This city had been formally surrendered to the Yankees after 
 a naval engagement in front of it on the 6th of June, in which 
 our loss was eighty killed and wounded and seventy-five taken 
 prisoners, and four gunboats sunk. 
 
 * The Board of Trade of St. Louis published a paper on this subject, which 
 assumed the ground that the object of the Confederacy was to hold the entire 
 and exclusive control of the Mississippi. It went into detail to show how great 
 a loss the present obstruction of that highway was to the "loyal" Western 
 States. It was the natural outlet to the produce of the Upper Valley. During 
 the year 1860, the shipments from Cairo and points above the Mississippi and its 
 tributaries, by way of the lower Mississippi, amounted to a million of tons, < 
 which 400,000 went from St. Louis. It averred that the difference in cost o 
 IVeighD by the river and the railroad was ten dollars a ton ; also, that this, with 
 the return freight, would amount to a total of $15,000,000 tax on the Western 
 people by reason of the closing of the river. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 429 
 
 The occupation of Memphis by the enemy was a serious dis 
 aster to the South, although it did not open the Mississippi 
 tor it gave him extraordinary facilities for almost daily rein 
 forcements of men and supplies, and for the preparation 01 
 expeditions to penetrate to the heart of the Confederacy. 
 
 But the enemy received a check on the Mississippi where 
 lie had least expected it. On the 24th of June, his combined 
 fleet retired, and abandoned the siege of Yicksburg, without 
 accomplishing any thing, after a siege of six weeks. No injury 
 was sustained by any of the batteries at Yicksburg. The 
 number of shells thrown into the city and at the batteries 
 amounted to 25,000. The casualties in the city were one 
 woman and one negro man killed, and among the soldiers on 
 guard and at the batteries there were twenty-two killed and 
 wounded. The lower bombarding fleet, under command of 
 Corns. Farragut and Porter, consisted of 18 gun and mortar 
 boats, 5 sloops-of-war and TO transports ; the upper fleet con 
 sisted of 11 gunboats and rams, and 13 transports, under 
 command of Com. Davis. 
 
 The people of the South found in the defence of Yicksburg 
 a splendid lesson of magnanimity and disinterested patriotism. 
 For several weeks the city had resisted successfully the attack 
 of the enemy s gunboats, mortar fleets, and heavy siege guns. 
 She was threatened by powerful fleets above and below, and 
 yet, with unexampled spirit, the Queen City of the Bluffs sus 
 tained the iron storm that was rained upon her for weeks with 
 continued fury. 
 
 New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Memphis were in 
 the hands of the Yankees, and their possession by the enemy 
 might have furnished to Yicksburg, jin its exposed and des 
 perate situation, the usual excuses of timidity and selfishness 
 for its surrender. But the brave city resisted these vile and 
 unmanly excuses, and gave to the world one of the proudest 
 and most brilliant illustrations of the earnestness and devotion 
 of the people of the South that had yet adorned the war. 
 
 The fact that but little hopes could be entertained of the 
 eventual success of the defence of Yicksburg against the 
 powerful concentration of the enemy s navy heightened the 
 nobility of the resistance she made. The resistance of the enemy 
 iii circumstances which afford but a feeble and uncertain pros- 
 
430 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 pect of victory requires a great spirit ; but it is more in volu 
 ble to us than a hundred easy victories ; it teaches the enemy 
 that we are invincible and overcomes him with despair ; it 
 exhibits to the world the inspirations and moral grandeur 
 of our cause ; and it educates our people in chivalry and 
 warlike virtues by the force of illustrious examples of self- 
 devotion. 
 
 But the people of the South had the satisfaction of witnessing 
 an unexpected issue of victory in the siege of Vicksburg, and 
 had occasion to learn another lesson that the history of all 
 wars indicates, that the practical test of resistance affords 
 the only sure determination whether a place is defensible 
 or not. With a feeling of inexpressible pride did Yicksburg 
 behold two immense fleets, each of which had been heretofore 
 invincible, brought to bay, and unable to cope with her, kept 
 at a respectful distance, and compelled to essay the extraordi 
 nary task of digging a new channel for the Mississippi. 
 
 In the month of July occurred the remarkable expedition of 
 the celebrated John Morgan into Kentucky. The expedition 
 of this cavalier was one of the most brilliant, rapid, and suc 
 cessful raids recorded in history. Composed of a force less 
 than one thousand, consisting of Morgan s own regiment, with 
 some partizan rangers from Georgia, and a Texas squadron, to 
 which was attached two companies of Tennessee cavalry, it 
 penetrated as far as Cynthianna. It was Morgan s intention 
 to make a stand at Richmond, Kentucky, to await reinforce 
 ments, as he was persuaded that nearly the whole people of 
 that State was ready to rise and join him; but finding that 
 the enemy were endeavoring to envelope him with large bodies 
 of cavalry, he was compelled to fall back. On reaching Som 
 erset, he took possession of the telegraph, and very coolly 
 countermanded all the previous orders that had been given by 
 Gen. Boyle at Louisville to pursue him. 
 
 He had left Knoxville on the fourth day of July with nine 
 hundred men, and returned to Lexington on the 28th with 
 nearly twelve hundred. In twenty-four days he had pene 
 trated two hundred and fifty miles into a country in full pos 
 session of the Yankees ; captured seventeen towns ; met, fought 
 and captured a Yankee force superior to his own in numbers 
 captured three thousand stand of arms at Lebanon ; and, from 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 431 
 
 Jrst to last, destroyed during his raid military stores, railroad 
 bridges, and other property to the value of eight or ten millions 
 of dollars. He accomplished all this, besides putting the 
 people of Cincinnati into a condition, described by one of their 
 newspapers, as " bordering on frenzy," and returned to Ten 
 nessee with a loss in all his engagements of not more than 
 ninety men in killed, wounded and missing. 
 
 While some activity was shown in extreme portions of the 
 West, we shall see that our military operations from Green- 
 brier county, Virginia, all the way down to Chattanooga, 
 Tennessee, were conducted with but little vigor. On the 
 boundaries of East Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia and 
 Kentucky, we had a force in the aggregate of thirty thousand 
 men, confronted by probably not half their number of Yankee 
 troops ; yet the Southwestern counties of Virginia and the 
 valley of the Clinch, in Tennessee, were entered and merci 
 lessly plundered by the enemy in the face of our troops. 
 
 But we shall have occasion to notice the campaign in tho 
 West on a broader arena. We shall see how movements in 
 this direction pressed back the discouraged and retreating foe. 
 We shall see how these movements of the Confederates were 
 intended to repossess the country previously occupied by them 
 and to go forward to the redemption of the State of Kentucky, 
 and the attack of one or more of the leading cities of the West ; 
 how, in the prosecution of this plan, North Alabama and Mis 
 sissippi were speedily cleared of the footsteps of the foe ; how 
 all of Tennessee, save the strongholds of Memphis and Nash 
 ville, and the narrow districts commanded by them, were 
 retrieved, and, by converging armies, nearly the whole of Ken 
 tucky was occupied and held and how, at last, all these 
 achievements were reversed in a night s time, and the most 
 valuable and critical points abandoned by our troops, or rather 
 by the will of the unfortunate general who led them. 
 
 But our narrative does not yet open on the chequered page 
 of the West. That important part of our history is prefaced 
 by the brilliant story of the summer campaign of the upper 
 Potomac, and is relieved by dazzling lights of glory on the old 
 I at tie-grounds of Virginia. 
 
132 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 Effort of McClellan s Defeat in the North. Call for more Troops. Wliy the Ncrth 
 was not easily dispirited. The War as a Money Job. Note: Gen. Washirgton s 
 Opinion of New England. The Yankee Finances. Exasperation of Hostilities. The 
 fankee Idea of a " Vigorous Prosecution of the War." Ascendancy of the Radicals. 
 War Measures at Washington. Anti-Slavery Aspects of the War. Brutality of the 
 Yankees. The Insensibility of Europe. Yankee Chaplains in Virginia. Seizures of 
 Private Property. Pope s Orders in Virginia. Steiuwehrs Order respecting Host 
 ages. The Character and Services of Gen. John Pope. The " Army of Virginia." 
 irruptjon of the Northern Spoilsmen. The Yankee Trade in Counterfeit Confederate 
 Notes. Pope s " Chasing the Rebel Hordes." Movement against Pope by "Stone 
 wall" Jackson. BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN. McClellan recalled from the Penin 
 nula. The Third Grand Army of the North. Jackson s Surprise of the Enemy al 
 Manassas. A Rapid and Masterly Movement. Change of the Situation. Attack by 
 she Enemy upon Bristow Station and at Manassas Junction. Marshalling of the 
 Hosts. Longstreet s Passage of Thoroughfare Gap. The Plans of Gen. Lee. Spirit 
 Df our Troops. Their Painful Marches. THE SKCOXD BATTLE OF MANASSAS. A ter 
 rible Bayonet Charge. Rout of the Enemy. A hideous Battle-field. Gen. Lee and 
 he Summer Campaign of Virginia. Jackson s Share in it. Extent of the Groat 
 . ictory of Manassas. Excitement in Washington. The Yankee Army falls back 
 upon Alexandria and Washington. Review of the Situation. Rapid Change in our 
 Military Fortunes. What the South had accomplished. Comparison of Material 
 Strength between North and South. Humiliating Result to the Warlike Reputation 
 of the North. 
 
 E effect of the defeat of McClellan before Eichmond was 
 received at the North with ill-concealed mortification and anx 
 iety. Beneath the bluster of the newspapers, and the affecta 
 tions of public confidence, disappointment, embarrassment and 
 alarm were perceptible. The people of the North had been so 
 assured of the capture (^f Richmond, that it was difficult to re 
 animate them on the heels of McClellan s retreat. The pros 
 pects held out to them so long, of ending the war in " sixty- 
 days," "crushing out the rebellion," and eating victorious din 
 ners in Richmond, had been bitterly disappointed and were 
 not to be easily renewed. The government at Washington 
 allowed its appreciation of the disaster its arms had sustained by 
 "making a call for three hundred thousand additional troops ;* 
 
 The Army Register, published at Washington, in its statement of the organ 
 ization of the regular army, enumerates as its force six regiments of cavalry, five 
 of artillery, ten of infantry (old army), and nine of infantry (new army). 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 and the people of the North were urged by every variety of 
 appeal, including large bounties of money, to respond to the 
 stirring call of President Lincoln. 
 
 There is no doubt but that the North was seriously discour 
 aged by the events that had taken place before Richmond. 
 But it was a remarkable circumstance, uniformly illustrated in 
 the war, that the North, though easily intoxicated by triumph, 
 was not in the same proportion depressed by defeat. There is 
 an obvious explanation for this peculiarity of temper. Aa 
 long as the North was conducting the war upon the soil of the 
 South, a defeat there involved more money expenditure and 
 more calls for troops ; it involved scarcely any thing else ; it 
 had no other horrors, it did not imperil their homes ; it might 
 easily be repaired by time. Indeed, there was some sense in 
 the exhortation of some of the Northern orators, to the effect 
 that defeat made their people stronger than ever, because, 
 while it required them to put forth their energies anew, it en 
 abled them to take advantage of experience, to multiply their 
 means of success, and to essay new plans of campaign. No 
 one can doubt but that the celebrated Manassas defeat really 
 strengthened the North ; and doubtless the South would have 
 realized the same consequence of the second repulse of the ene 
 my s movements on Richmond, if it had been attended by the 
 same conditions on our part of inaction and repose. 
 
 It is curious to observe how completely the ordinary aspects 
 of war were changed and its horrors diminished, with refer 
 ence to the North, by the false policy of the South, in keeping 
 
 The strength of this branch of the service in men, may be thus stated : 
 
 Total commissioned officers, 2,388 
 
 Total enlisted, 40,626 
 
 Aggregate, 43,014 
 
 The figures which are collected below, to show the organization of the volunteer 
 army of the North, refer to the date of the Register, August 1, 1862. 
 
 It appears that at this date there were in the volunteer army of the North 
 geventy regiments of cavalry, seventy of artillery, and eight hundred and sixty 
 regiments of infantry. 
 These startling official figures give the following result 
 
 Total commissioned officers, 39,922 
 
 Total rank and file, 1,052,480 
 
 Aggregate, 1,092,402 
 
434 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the theatre of active hostilities within her own borders. Defea 
 did not dispirit the North, because it was not brought to hei 
 doors. Where it did not immediately imperil the safety 01 
 the country and homes of the Yankees, where it gave time for 
 the recovery and reorganization of the attacking party, and 
 where it required for the prosecution of the war nothing but 
 more money jobs in Congress and a new raking up of the scum 
 of the cities, the effects of defeat upon the North might well 
 be calculated to be the exasperation of its passions, the inflam 
 mation of its cupidity, and the multiplication of its exertions 
 to break and overcome the misapplied power of our armies. 
 
 Indeed, the realization of the war in the North was, in many 
 respects, nothing more than that of an immense money job. 
 The large money expenditure at Washington supplied a vast 
 fund of corruption ; it enriched the commercial centres of the 
 North, and by artificial stimulation preserved such cities as 
 New York from decay ; it interested vast numbers of politi 
 cians, contractors, and dissolute public men in continuing the 
 war and enlarging the scale of its^ operations ; and, indeed, the 
 disposition to make money out of the war accounts for much 
 of that zeal in the North, which was mistaken for political 
 ardor or the temper of patriotic devotion.* 
 
 * The following is an extract from an unpublished letter from Gen. Washing 
 ton to Richard Henry Lee, and, as an exposition of the character of the Northern 
 people from a pen sacred to posterity, is deeply interesting. There can be no 
 doubt of the authenticity of the letter. It has been preserved in the Lee family, 
 who, though applied to by Bancroft, Irving, and others for a copy for publica 
 tion, have hitherto refused it, on the ground that it would be improper to give 
 to the world a private letter from the Father of his Country reflecting upon any 
 portion of it while the Union endured. But now, that "these people" have 
 trampled the Constitution under foot, destroyed the government of our fathers, 
 and invaded and desolated Washington s own county in Virginia, there can be 
 no impropriety in showing his private opinion of the Massachusetts Yankees : 
 
 [Copy.] 
 
 CAMP AT CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 29, 1775. 
 Dear Sir: * * * 
 
 As we have now nearly completed our lines of defence, we have nothing 
 more, in my opinion, to fear from the enemy, provided we can keep our men 
 to their duty, and make them watchful and vigilant ; but it is among the most 
 difficult tasks I ever undertook in my life, to induce these people to believe tha 
 there is or can be danger, till the bayonet is pushed at their breasts ; not that it 
 proceeds from any uncommon prowess, but rather from an unaccountable kind 
 f stupidity in the lower class of these people, which, believe me, prevails but 
 
THE SECOND TEAK. 435 
 
 But while politicians plundered the government at Washing 
 ton, and contractors grew rich in a single day, and a fictitious 
 prosperity dazzled the eyes of the observer in the cities of the 
 North, the public finances of the Yankee government had long 
 ago become desperate. It is interesting at this point to make 
 a brief summary of the financial condition of the North by 
 
 too generally among the officers of the Massachusetts part of the army, who are 
 nearly of the same kidney with the private, and adds not a little to my difficul 
 ties, as there is no such thing as getting officers of this stamp to exert them 
 selves in carrying orders into execution. To curry favor with the men (by whom 
 they were chosen, and on whose smiles possibly they may think they may again 
 rely) seems to be one of the principal objects of their attention. I submit it f 
 therefore, to your consideration, whether there is, or is not, a propriety in that 
 resolution of the Congress which leaves the ultimate appointment of all officers 
 below the rank of general to the governments where the regiments originated, 
 now the army is become Continental ? To me it appears improper in two points 
 of view first, it is giving that power and weight to an individual colony which 
 ought of right to belong to the whole^ Then it damps the spirit and ardor of 
 volunteers from all but the four New England governments, as none but their 
 people have the least chance of getting into office. Would it not be better, 
 therefore, to have the warrants, which the Commander-in-chief is authorized to 
 give pro tempore, approved or disapproved by the Continental Congress, or a com 
 mittee of their body, which I should suppose in any long recess must always sit ? 
 In this case, every gentleman will stand an equal chance of being promoted, 
 according to his merit ; in the other, all offices will be confined to the inhabit 
 ants of the four New England governments, which, in my opinion, is impolitic 
 to a degree. I have made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the 
 Massachusetts government abounds in since I came to this camp, having broken 
 one colonel arid two captains for cowardly behavior in the action on Bunker s 
 Hill, two captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they had men in 
 their company, and one for being absent from his post when the enemy appeared 
 there and burnt a house just by it. Besides these, I have at this time one colo 
 nel, one major, one captain, and two subalterns under arrest for trial. In short, 
 I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these people seem to be too inat 
 tentive to every thing but their interest. 
 
 ********.* 
 
 There have been so many great and capital errors and abuses to rectify sc 
 many examples to make, and so little inclination in the officers of inferior rank 
 to contribute their aid to accomplish this work, that my life has been nothing 
 else (since I came here) but one continual round of vexation and fatigue. In 
 short, no pecuniary recompense could induce me to undergo what I have ; espe 
 cially, as 1 expect, by showing so little countenance to irregularities and public 
 abuses as to render myself very obnoxious to a great part of these people. But 
 as I have already greatly exceeded the bounds of a letter, I will not trouble you 
 with matters relative to my own feelings. 
 
 Your affectionate friend and obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) GEO. WASHINGTON 
 
 Richard Henry Lee, Es%. 
 
436 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 a comparison of its public debt with the assets of the govern 
 merit. 
 
 The debt of the present United States, audited and float 
 ing, calculated from data up to June 30, 1862, was at leas 
 $1,300,000,000. The daily expenses, as admitted by the 
 Chairman of the Committee of "Ways and Means, was between 
 three and four millions of dollars ; the debt, in one year from 
 this time, could not be less than two thousand five hundred 
 millions of dollars. 
 
 Under the census of 1860, all the property of every kind 
 in all the States was estimated at less than $12,500,000,000. 
 Since the war commenced, the depreciation has been at leasl 
 one-fourth $3,175,000,000. From $9,375,000,000 deducl 
 the property in the seceded States, at least one-third 
 $3,125,000,000 ; leaving, in the present United States, 
 $6,250,000,000. 
 
 It will thus be seen, that the present debt of the North was 
 one-fifth of all the property of every kind it possesses ; and in 
 one year more it would probably be more than one-third. No 
 people on earth had ever been plunged in so large a debt in 
 so short a time. No government in existence had so large a 
 debt in proportion to the amount of property held by its 
 people. 
 
 In continuing the narrative of the campaign in Virginia, we 
 shall have to observe the remarkable exasperation with which 
 the North re-entered upon this campaign, and to notice many 
 deeds of blackness which illustrated the temper in which she 
 determined to prosecute the desperate fortunes of the war. 
 The military authorities of the North seemed to suppose that 
 better success would attend a savage war, in which no quarter 
 was to be given and no age or sex spared, than had hitherto 
 been secured to such hostilities as are alone recognized to be 
 lawful by civilized men in modern times. It is not necessary 
 to comment at length upon this fallacy. Brutality in war was 
 mistaken for vigor. War is not emasculated by the observ 
 ances of civilization ; its vigor and success consist in the 
 resources of generalship, the courage of troops, the moral 
 ardors of its cause. To attempt to make up for deficiency 
 in these great and noble elements of strength by mere brutal 
 eeverities such as pillage, assassination, &c. is absurd ; it 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 431 
 
 reduces the idea of war to the standard of the brigand ; it 
 ^ffends the moral sentiment of the world, and it excites its 
 ^nemy to the last stretch of determined and desperate exertion 
 
 There had 4ong been a party in the North who mistook bru 
 tality in war for vigor, and clamored for a policy which was 
 to increase the horrors of hostilities by arming the slaves, and 
 making the invaded country of the South the prey of white 
 brigands and " loyal" negroes. This party was now in the 
 ascendency. It had already obtained important concessions 
 from the Washington government. Nine-tenths of the legis 
 lation of the Yankee Congress had been occupied in some form 
 or other with the question of slavery. Universal emancipation 
 in the South, and the utter overthrow of all property, was now 
 the declared policy of the desperate and demented leaders of 
 the war. The Confiscation Bill, enacted at the close of the 
 session of Congress, confiscated all the slaves belonging to 
 those who were loyal to the South, constituting nine- tenths at 
 least of the slaves in the Confederate States. In the Border 
 States occupied by the North, slavery was plainly doomed 
 under a plan of emancipation proposed by Mr. Lincoln with 
 the flimsy and ridiculous pretence of compensation to slave 
 holders.* 
 
 These concessions to the radical party in the North excited 
 new demands. The rule which was urged upon the govern 
 ment, and which the government hastened to accept, was to 
 
 * According to the census of 1860 
 
 Kentucky had 225,490 slaves. 
 
 Maryland 87,188 " 
 
 Virginia 490,887 " 
 
 Delaware 1,798 " 
 
 Missouri 114,965 " 
 
 Tennessee 275,784 " 
 
 Making in the whole 1,196,112 " 
 
 At the proposed rate of valuation, these would amount to $358,833.660 
 
 Add for deportation and colonization $100 each 119,244,533 
 
 And we have the enormous sum of * $478,078,133 
 
 It is scarcely to be supposed that a proposition could be made in good faith, of 
 that in any event the proposition could be otherwise than worthless, to add th 
 ra3t amount to the public debt of the North at a moment when the treasury war 
 reeling under the enormous expenditures of the war. 
 
4-38 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 spare DO means, however brutal, to contest the fortunes of the 
 war, and to adopt every invention of torture for its enemy. 
 The slaves were to be armed and carried in battalions against 
 their masters. The invaded country of the South was to be 
 pillaged, wasted, and burnt ; the Northern troops, like hungry 
 locusts, were to destroy every thing green ; the people in the 
 invaded districts were to be laid under contributions, compelled 
 to do the work of slaves, kept in constant terror of their lives, 
 and fire, famine, and slaughter were to be the portion of the 
 conquered. 
 
 Before the eyes of Europe the mask of civilization had been 
 taken from the Yankee war ; it degenerated into unbridled 
 butchery and robbery. But the nations of Europe, which 
 boasted themselves as humane and civilized, had yet no inter 
 ference to offer in a war which shocked the senses and appealed 
 to the common offices of humanity. It is to be observed, that 
 during the entire continuance of the war up to this time, th 
 British government had acted with reference to it in a spirit 
 of selfish and inhuman calculation ; and there is, indeed, but 
 little doubt that an early recognition of the Confederacy by 
 France was thwarted by the interference of that cold and 
 sinister government, that ever pursues its ends by indirection, 
 and perfects its hypocrisy under the specious cloak of extreme 
 conscientiousness. ISTo greater delusion could have possessed 
 the people of the South than that the government of England 
 was friendly to them. That government, which prided itself 
 on its cold and ingenious selfishness, seemed to have discovered 
 a much larger source of profit in the continuation of the Amer 
 ican war than it could possibly derive from a pacification of 
 the contest. It was willing to see its operatives starving and 
 to endure the distress of a " cotton famine," that it might have 
 the ultimate satisfaction, which it anticipated, of seeing both 
 parties in the American war brought to the point of exhaus 
 tion, and its own greatness enlarged on the ruins of a hated 
 commercial rival. The calculation was far-reaching ; it was 
 characteristic of a government that secretly laughed at all sen 
 timent, made an exact science of selfishness, and scorned the 
 weakness that would sacrifice for any present good the larger 
 fruits of the future. 
 
 This malevolent and venomous spirit of anti-slavery in the 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 439 
 
 war pervaded the whole of Northern society. It was not only 
 the utterance of such mobs as, in New York city, adopted as 
 their war-cry against the South, " kill all the inhabitants / 
 it found expression in the political measures, military orders 
 and laws of the government ; it invaded polite society, and 
 was taught not only as an element of patriotism, but as a vir 
 tue of religion. The characteristic religion of New England, 
 composed of about equal quantities of blasphemy and balder 
 dash, went hand in hand with the war. Some of these pious 
 demonstrations were curious, and bring to remembrance the 
 fanaticism and rhapsodies of the old Puritans.* 
 
 The Yankee army chaplains in Virginia alternately disgusted 
 and amused the country with the ferocious rant with which they 
 sought to inspire the crusade against the South. One of these 
 pious missionaries in Winchester, after the regular Sunday ser 
 vice, announced to the assembled Yankee troops an imaginary 
 victory in front of Richmond, and then called for "three cheeis 
 and a tiger, and Yankee Doodle." In a sermon preached near 
 the enemy s camp of occupation, the chaplain proclaimed the 
 mission of freeing the negroes. He told them they were free, 
 and that, as the property amassed by their masters was the 
 fruit of the labors of the blacks, these had the best title to it 
 
 " * No one affected the peculiarity of the Puritans more than GOT. Andrews, of 
 Massachusetts. The following pious rant is quoted from one of his speeches at 
 Worcester ; in blasphemy and bombast it equals any of the fulminations of the 
 4 Pilgrim Fathers" 
 
 I know that the angel of the Lord, one foot on the earth and one on the 
 sea, will proclaim in unanswerable language, that four millions of bondme*) 
 shall ere long be slaves no longer. We live in a war, not a riot ; as we thought 
 last year, with a half million in the field against an atrocious and rebellious foe. 
 Our government now recognizes it as a war, and the President of the United 
 States, fulminating his war-orders, has blown a blast before which the enemy 
 must fly. Rebellion must fall, and they who hare stood upon the necks of sc 
 many bondsmen shall be swept away, and four million souls rise to immortality.. 
 
 " Ah, foul tyrants ! do you hear him where he comes ? 
 Ah, black traitors ! do you know him as he comes ? 
 In the thunder of the cannon and the roll of the drums, 
 As we go marching on. 
 
 11 Men may die and moulder in the dust 
 Men may die and arise again from the dust, 
 Shoulder to shoulder in the ranks of the just, 
 When God is marching on." 
 
44l SOUTHEBN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 and should help themselves. At another place, near the scene 
 of the execution of John Brown for violation of law, sedition, 
 and murder, a sermon was preached by an army chaplain on 
 ome text enjoining " the mission of proclaiming liberty ;" and 
 the hymn given out and sung was 
 
 "John Brown s body hangs dangling in the air, 
 Sing glory, glory, hallelujah!" 
 
 These, however, were but indications displayed of a spirit in 
 the North, which, with reference to the practical conduct of the 
 war, were serious enough. 
 
 By a general order of the Washington government, the 
 military commanders of that government, within the States of 
 Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Missis 
 sippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, were directed to seize 
 and use any property, real or personal, belonging to the in 
 habitants of this Confederacy which might be necessary or con 
 venient for their several commands, and no provision was made 
 for any compensation to the owners of private property thus 
 seized and appropriated by the military commanders of the 
 enemy. 
 
 But it^was reserved for the enemy s army in Northern Vir 
 ginia to exceed all that had hitherto been known of the savage 
 -cruelty of the Yankees, and to convert the hostilities hitherto 
 waged against armed forces into a campaign of robbery and 
 murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the 
 soil. 
 
 On the 23d of July, 1862, Gen. Pope, commanding the 
 ; forces of the enemy in Northern Virginia, published an order 
 requiring that "all commanders of any army corps, divisions, 
 brigades, and detached commands, will proceed immediately 
 to arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines, or within 
 their reach, in rear of their respective commands. Such as 
 are willing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, 
 and will furnish sufficient security for its observance, shall be 
 permitted to remain at their homes and pursue in good faith 
 their accustomed avocations. Those who refuse shall be con 
 ducted South, beyond the extreme pickets of this army, and be 
 notified that, if found again anywhere within our lines, or at 
 any point in rear, they shall be considered spies and subjected 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 441 
 
 to the extreme rigor of military law. If any person, having 
 taken the oath of allegiance as above specified, be found to 
 have violated it, he shall be shot, and his property seized and 
 applied to the public use." 
 
 By another order of Brigadier-general Steinwehr in Pope 
 command, it was proposed to hold under arrest the most prom 
 inent citizens in the districts occupied by the enemy as hos 
 tages, to suffer death in case of any of the Yankee soldiers 
 being shot by "bushwhackers," by which term was meant the 
 citizens of the South who had taken up arms to defend their 
 homes and families. 
 
 The Washington government had found a convenient instru 
 ment for the work of villany and brutality with which it pro 
 posed to resume the active campaign in Virginia. 
 
 With a view to renewed operations against Richmond, large 
 forces of Yankee troops were massed at Warrenton, Little 
 Washington and Fredericksburg. Of these forces, entitled the 
 " Army of Virginia," the command was given to Maj.-gen 
 John Pope, who boasted that he had come from the West, 
 where " he had only seen the backs of the enemy." 
 
 This notorious Yankee commander was a man nearly forty 
 years of age, a native of Kentucky, but a citizen of Illinois. 
 He was born of respectable parents. He was graduated at 
 West Point in 1842, and served in the Mexican War, where 
 he was breveted captain. 
 
 In 1849 he conducted the Minnesota exploring expedition, 
 and afterwards acted as topographical engineer in New Mexico, 
 until 1853, when he was assigned to the command of one of 
 the expeditions to survey the route of the Pacific railroad. He 
 distinguished himself on the overland route to the Pacific by 
 " sinking" artesian wells, and government money to the amount 
 of a million of dollars. One well was finally abandoned incom 
 plete, and afterwards a perennial spring was found by other 
 parties in the immediate vicinity. In a letter to Jefferson 
 Davis, then Secretary of War, urging this route to the Pacific 
 and the boring these wells, Pope made himself the especial 
 champion of the South. 
 
 In the breaking out of the war, Pope was made a brigadier 
 geneial of volunteers. He held a command in Missouri foi 
 some time before he became particularly noted. When Gen 
 
442 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Halleck took charge of the disorganized department, Pope waa 
 placed in command of the District of Central Missouri. He 
 was afterwards sent to Southeastern Missouri. The cruel dis 
 position of the man, of which his rude manners and a vulgar 
 bearded face, with coarse skin, gave indications, found an 
 abundant field for gratification in this unhappy State. His 
 proceedings in Missouri will challenge a comparison with the 
 most infernal record ever bequeathed by the licensed murderer 
 to the abhorrence of mankind. And yet, it was his first step 
 in blood the first opportunity he had ever had to feast his 
 eyes upon slaughter and regale his ears with the cries of human 
 agony. 
 
 Having been promoted to the rank of major-general, Pope 
 was next appointed to act at the head of a corps to co-operate 
 with Halleck in the reduction of Corinth. After the evacua 
 tion of Corinth by Gen. Beauregard, Pope was sent by Halleck 
 to annoy the rear of the Confederate army, but Beauregard 
 turned upon and repulsed his pursuit. The report of Pope to 
 Halleck, that he had captured 10,000 of Beauregard s army, 
 and 15,000 stand of arms, when he had not taken a man or a 
 musket, stands alone in the history of lying. It left him with 
 out a rival in that respectable art. 
 
 Such was the man who took command of the enemy s forces 
 in Northern Virginia. His bluster was as excessive as his 
 accomplishments in falsehood. He was described in a Southern 
 newspaper as " a Yankee compound of Bobadil and Munchau- 
 sen." His proclamation that he had seen nothing of his ene 
 mies " but their backs," revived an ugly story in his private 
 life, and gave occasion to the witty interrogatory, if the gen 
 tleman who cowhided him for offering an indignity to a lady 
 was standing with his back to him when he inflicted the chas 
 tisement. The fact was, that Pope had won his baton of marshal 
 by bragging to the Yankee fill. He was another instance, 
 besides that of Butler, how easily a military reputation might 
 be made in the North by bluster, lying, and acts of coarse 
 cruelty to the defenceless. On what monstrous principles he 
 commenced his career in Virginia, and what orders he issued, 
 are still fresh in the public memory. 
 
 " I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases 
 ^said Pope to his army), which I am sorry to find much in vogue 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 443 
 
 among yon. I hear constantly of taking strong p )sitions and 
 holding them ; of lines of retreat and bases of supplies. Le< 
 us discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should 
 desire to occupy is the one from which he can most easily ad 
 vance upon the enemy. Let us study the probable line of re 
 treat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of itself. 
 Let us look before, and not behind. Disaster and shame lurk 
 in the rear." 
 
 On establishing his headquarters at Little "Washington, the 
 county seat of Rappahannock, Pope became a source of mingled 
 curiosity and dread to the feeble villagers. They were in a 
 condition of alarm and anguish from the publication of his 
 jrder, to banish from their homes all males who should refuse 
 to take the Yankee oath of allegiance. Dr. Bisphaw of the 
 village was deputed to wait upon the Yankee tyrant, and ask 
 that the barbarous order be relaxed. 
 
 He painted, at the same time, the agony of the women and 
 children, and stated that the effect would be to place six new 
 regiments in the rebel service. " We can t take the oath of 
 allegiance," said the Doctor, "and we won t man, woman, or 
 child but we will give a parol to attend to our own business, 
 afford no communication with the South, and quietly stay upon 
 our premises." 
 
 " I shall enforce the order to the letter," said Gen. Pope. "I 
 did not make it without deliberation, and if you don t take the 
 oath you shall go out of my lines." 
 
 In the short period in which Pope s army was uninterrupted 
 in its career of robbery and villany in Northern Virginia, 
 every district of country invaded by him, or entered by his 
 marauders, was ravaged as by a horde of barbarians. This 
 portion of Virginia will long bear the record and tradition of 
 the irruption of the Northern spoilsmen. The new usage 
 which had been instituted in regard to protection of Confed 
 erate property, and the purpose of the Washington government 
 to subsist its troops upon the invaded country, converted the 
 "Army of Virginia" into licensed brigands, and let loose upon 
 the country a torrent of unbridled and unscrupulous robbers. 
 The Yankee troops appropriated remorselessly whatever came 
 within their reach. They rushed in crowds upon the smoke 
 houses of the farmers. On the march through a section ol 
 
44 i SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 country, every spring-house was broken open; butter, milk 
 eggs, and cream were ingulfed ; calves and sheep, and, in 
 fact, any thing arid every thing serviceab e for meat, or drink, 
 or apparel, were not safe a moment after the approach of the 
 Yankee plunderers. Wherever they camped at night, it would 
 be found the next morning that scarcely an article, far which 
 the fertility of a soldier could suggest the slightest use, remained 
 to the owner. Pans, kettles, dishcloths, pork, poultry, provisions, 
 and every thing desirable had disappeared. The place was strip 
 ped, and without any process of commissary or quartermaster. 
 
 Whenever the Yankee soldiers advanced into a new section, 
 the floodgates were immediately opened, and fac-simile Con 
 federate notes (this spurious currency being manufactured in 
 Philadelphia, and sold by public advertisement for a few cents 
 to Yankee soldiers) were poured out upon the land.* They 
 were passed indiscriminately upon the unsuspecting inhabitants, 
 poor as well as rich, old and young, male and female. In fre 
 quent instances, this outrage was perpetrated in return for kind 
 nursing by poor, aged women. 
 
 These spurious notes passed readily, and seemed to be taken 
 gladly for whatever was held for sale. Bank-notes and shin- 
 plasters were given for change. Horses and other valuable 
 property were often purchased with this bogus currency. A 
 party of Yankee soldiers entered a country store, fortified with 
 exhaustless quantities of Philadelphia Confederate notes, and 
 
 * The Northern trade in this counterfeit money was open and undisguised ; 
 enticing advertisements of its profit were freely made in the Northern journals, 
 and circulars were distributed through the Federal army proposing to supply the 
 troops with "rebel" currency almost at the price of the paper on which the 
 counterfeit was executed. We copy below one of these circulars found on the 
 person of a Yankee prisoner ; the curiosity being a court paper in the possession 
 of Mr. Commissioner Watson, of Richmond : 
 
 " $20 Confederate Band ! ! I have this day issued a fac-simik $20 Confederate 
 Bond making, in all, fifteen different fac-simile Rebel Bonds, Notes, Shinplasters, 
 and Postage Stamps, issued by me the past three months. 
 
 " Trade supplied at 50 cents per 100, or $4 per 1,000. All orders by mail or 
 express promptly executed. 
 
 gff " All orders to be sent by mail must be accompanied with 18 cents in post 
 age stamps, in addition to the above price, to prepay the postage on each 100 
 wiered. Address, S. C. UPHAM, 
 
 403 Chesnut Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 " N. B I shall have a $100 Rebel Note out this week. 1 
 
THE SECOND TEAR. 445 
 
 commenced trade. Forty pounds 3f sugar was first ordered, 
 and the storekeeper, pleased with the sudden increase of busi 
 ness, called in his wife to assist in putting up the order in small 
 parcels. Seventy-five cents a pound was the cost. That was a 
 small matter. Matches were purchased. Twenty-five cents 
 per box was the charge. Tobacco also found a ready market. 
 Each man provided himself with a straw hat ; but the crown 
 ing act of all was the abstraction from the till of money 
 already paid to the dealer for his goods, and the purchase of 
 more goods with the same spurious medium. 
 
 Such acts of villany and the daily robberies committed by 
 Pope s soldiers were very amusing to the Northern people, and 
 gave them a stock of capital jokes. " I not long ago saw/ 
 wrote a correspondent of a Yankee newspaper, " a dozen sol 
 diers rushing headlong through a field, each anxious to get the 
 first choice of three horses shading themselves quietly under a 
 tree. The animals made their best time into the farthest cor 
 ner of the field with the men close upon them, and the fore 
 most men caught their prizes and bridled them as if they had 
 a perfect immunity in such sort of things. A scene followed. 
 A young lady came out and besought the soldiers not to take 
 her favorite pony. The soldiers were remorseless and unyield 
 ing, and the pony is now in the army." 
 
 It is not within the design of these pages to pursue the sto 
 ries of outrage, villany, and barbarism of the enemy s army 
 in Virginia; but with what we have said, intended only to 
 show the spirit of that army and the character of its leader, 
 we shall hasten to describe the series of events which, at last, 
 confronted it with an army of avengers on the historic Plains 
 of ManaSsas, and culminated there in a victory, which liber 
 ated Virginia from its invaders, broke the " line of the Poto 
 mac" from Leesburg to Harper s Ferry, and opened an avenue 
 for the first time into the territory of the North. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN. 
 
 The Northern newspapers declared that Pope was right 
 when he said that he was accustomed to see the backs of hia 
 enemy, and were busy in assuring their readers that his only 
 occupation was to chase u the re iel hordes." It was said that 
 
44:6 SOUIHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 he had penetrated as far as Madison Court-house without see* 
 ing any enemy. The Southern troops, it was prophesied, would 
 keep on their retreat beyond the Virginia Central railroad 
 Pope s army was now as far in the interior, by overland 
 marches, as any of the Yankee troops had ever been. The 
 position of his advance was described as about ten miles east 
 of Port Republic, with an eye on the Shenandoah Valley ; and 
 it was boasted that the second Napoleon of the Yankees had 
 already complete possession of the country north of the Rapi- 
 dan river, and only awaited his leisure to march upon Rich 
 mond. 
 
 These exultations were destined to a sharp and early disap 
 pointment. The Confederate authorities in Richmond knew 
 that it was necessary to strike somewhere before the three hinv 
 dred thousand recruits called for by the Washington govern 
 ment should be brought to the field to overwhelm them. It 
 was necessary to retain in the strong works around Richmond 
 a sufficient force to repulse any attack of McClellan s army ; 
 but at the same time the necessity was clear to hold Pope s 
 forces in check and to make an active movement against him. 
 The execution of this latter purpose was intrusted to Jackson, 
 the brave, eccentric, and beloved commander,* who had 
 achieved so many victories against so many extraordinary 
 odds and obstacles ; all the movements of the campaign being 
 directed by the self-possessed, controlling, and earnest mind of 
 Gen. Lee. 
 
 The insolent enemy received his first lesson at the hands of 
 
 * There have been a great many pen and ink portraits of the famous "Stonewall" 
 Jackson ; the singular features and eccentric manners of this popular hero afford 
 ing a fruitful subject of description and anecdote. A gentleman, who was known 
 to be a rare and quick judge of character, was asked by the writer for a descrip 
 tion of Jackson, whom he had met but for a few moments on the battle-field. 
 " He is a fighting man," was the reply; "rough mouth, iron jaw, and nostrils 
 big as a horse s." This description has doubtless much force in it, although 
 blunt and homely in its expression. The impression given by Jackson is that 
 of a man perhaps forty years old, six feet high, medium size, and somewhat 
 angular in person. He has yellowish-gray eyes, a Roman nose, sharp ; a thin, 
 forward chin, angular brow, a close mouth, and light brown hair. The expres 
 sion of his face is to some extent unhappy, but not sullen or unsocial. He is 
 impulsive, silent, and emphatic. His dress is official, but very plain, his cap-front 
 resting nearly on his nose. His tall horse diminished the effect of his size, so 
 that when mounted he appears less in person than he really is 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 447 
 
 the heroic Jackson, on the wooded sides and cleared slopes of 
 the mountainous country in Culpepper. In consequence of the 
 advance of the Confederates beyond the Rapidan, Major-gen. 
 Pope had sent forward two army corps, commanded by Gen. 
 Banks, to hold them in check. 
 
 On the evening of the 8th of August, a portion of Gen 
 Jackson s division, consisting of the 1st, 2d, and 3d brigades, 
 under the command of Gen. Charles S. Winder, crossed the 
 Rapidan river, a few miles above the railroad, and, having 
 advanced a mile into Culpepper county, encamped for the night. 
 The next morning, the enemy being reported as advancing, our 
 forces, Swell s division being in advance, moved forward on 
 the main road from Orange Court-house to Culpepper Court 
 house, about three miles, and took position our left flank rest 
 ing on the Southwest Mountain, and our artillery occupying 
 several commanding positions. At 12 M., our forces commenced 
 cannonading, which was freely responded to by the enemy, 
 who did not seem ready for the engagement, which they had 
 affected to challenge. Indeed, some strategy seemed necessary 
 to bring them to fight. About 3 p. M., Gen. Early s brigade 
 (Swell s division) made a circuit through the woods, attacking 
 the enemy on their right flank, the 13th Virginia regiment be 
 ing in the advance as skirmishers. At 4 o clock the firing be 
 gan, and soon the fight became general. As Gen. Jackson s 
 division, then commanded by Gen. Winder, was rapidly pro 
 ceeding to the scene of action, the enemy, guided by the dust 
 made by the artillery, shelled the road with great precision. 
 It was by this shell that the brave Winder was killed. His 
 left arm shattered, and his side also wounded, he survived but 
 an hour. At a still later period, a portion of (ren. A. P. Hill s 
 division was engaged. The battle was mainly fought in a 
 large field near Mrs. Crittenden s house, a portion being open, 
 and the side occupied by the Yankees being covered with lux 
 uriant corn. Through this corn, when our forces were consid 
 erably scattered, two Yankee cavalry regiments made a desper 
 ate charge, evidently expecting utterly to disorganize our lines. 
 The result was precisely the reverse. Our men rallied, ceased 
 to fire on the infantry, and, concentrating their attention on 
 the cavalry, poured into their ranks a fire which emptied many 
 a saddle, and caused the foe to wheel and retire, which, how- 
 
4:48 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ever, they effected without breaking their columns. For some 
 time the tide of victory ebbed and flowed, but about dark the 
 foe finally broke and retreated in confusion to the woods, leav 
 ing their dead and many of their wounded, with a large quan 
 tity of arms and ammunition, upon the field. Daylight faded, 
 and the moon in her full glory appeared, just as the terrors of 
 the raging battle gave way to the sickening scenes of a field 
 where a victory had been won. 
 
 The bat.tle of Cedar Mountain, as it was entitled, may be 
 characterized as one of the most rapid and severe engagements 
 of the war. In every particular it was a sanguinary and des 
 perate struggle, and resulted in a complete and decisive victory 
 for our arms. Our forces engaged amounted to about eight 
 thousand, while those of the enemy could not have been less 
 than fifteen thousand. Our loss was near six hundred killed, 
 wounded, and missing ; that of the enemy little, if any., less than 
 two thousand. We captured nearly five hundred prisoners, over 
 fifteen hundred stand of arms, two splendid Napoleon guns, 
 twelve wagon-loads of ammunition, several wagon-loads of new 
 and excellent clothing, and drove the enemy two miles beyond 
 the field of battle, which we held for two days and nights. 
 
 The battle was remarkable for an extraordinary and terrific 
 " artillery duel." In fact, the fire was conducted with artil 
 lery alone for more than three hours. The opposing batteries 
 unlimbered so close to each other that, during the greater part 
 of the firing, they used grape and canister. Those working 
 our battery could distinctly hear the hum of voices of the in 
 fantry support of the Federal battery. The Louisiana Guard 
 artillery and the Purcell battery were ordered to take position 
 and open on the enemy from the crest of a hill. Here they 
 found themselves opposed by five batteries of the enemy within 
 short range. The battle raged fiercely, the enemy firing with 
 great precision. The accuracy of our fire was proved by the 
 fact that the enemy, though their guns were more than twice 
 as numerous, were compelled to shift the position of their bat 
 teries five different times. Once during the fight, the enemy s 
 sharpshooters, under cover of a piece of woods, crept up within 
 a short distance of our batteries and opened on them, but were 
 instantly scattered by a discharge of canister from one of the 
 howitzers. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 44:9 
 
 The battle of Cedar Mountain was the natural preface to 
 that larger and severer contest of arms which was to baptize, 
 for a second time, the field of Manassas with the blood of 
 Southern patriots, and illuminate it with the splendid scenes 
 of a decisive victory. It convinced the North of the necessity 
 of a larger scale of exertion and a concentration of its forces 
 in Virginia to effect its twice-foiled advance upon the capital 
 of the Confederacy. It was decided by the Washington gov 
 ernment to recall McClellan s army from the Peninsula, to 
 unite his columns with those of Pope, to include also the forces 
 at Fredericksburg, and, banding these in a third Grand Army 
 more splendid than its predecessors, to make one concentrated 
 endeavor to retrieve its unfortunate summer campaign in Vir 
 ginia, and plant its banners in the city of Richmond. 
 
 Not many days elapsed before the evacuation of Berkeley 
 and Westover, on the James river, w^as signalled to the an 
 thorities of Richmond by the large fleet of transports collected 
 on the James and the Rappahannock. It became necessary to 
 meet the rapid movements of the enemy by new dispositions of 
 our forces; not a day was to be lost; and by the 17th of Au 
 gust, General Lee had assembled in front of Pope a force suffi 
 cient to contest his further advance, and to balk his threatened 
 passage of the Rapidan. 
 
 After the battle of Cedar Mountain, the forces under Stone 
 wall Jackson withdrew from the vicinity of the Rapidan, and 
 were for some days unheard of, except that a strong force was 
 in the vicinity of Madison Court-house, some twelve miles to 
 the westward, in the direction of Luray and the Shenandoali 
 valley ; but it was supposed by the enemy that this was only a 
 wing of the army under Ewell, intended to act as reserves to 
 Jackson s army, and to cover his retreat back to Gordonsville. 
 Not so, however. Those forces of Ewell, as afterwards dis 
 covered by the Yankees to their great surprise, were the main 
 body of Jackson s army, en route for the Shenandoali valley. 
 
 It was probably the design of Gen. Lee, with the bulk of 
 the Confederate army, to take the front, left, and right, and 
 engage Gen. Pope at or near the Rapidan, while Jackson and 
 Ewell were to cross the Shenandoali river and mountains, cut 
 off his supplies by way of the railroad, and menace his rear. 
 The adventure, on the part of Jackson, was difficult and des 
 
 29 
 
4: 50 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 pcrate ; it took the risk of any new movements of Pope, bj 
 which he (Jackson) himself might be cut off. It was obvious 
 indeed, that if Pope could reach Gordonsville, he would cut oil 
 Jackson s supplies, but in this direction he was to be confronted 
 by Gen. Lee with the forces withdrawn from Eichmond. With 
 the movement of Jackson the object was to keep Pope between 
 the Eapidan and the Eappahannock rivers until Jackson had 
 attained his position at Manassas, or perhaps at Eappahannock 
 bridge ; but Pope s retreat to the Eappahannock s north bank 
 frustrated that design, and rendered it necessary for General 
 Lee to follow up his advantage, and, by a system of feints, to 
 take Pope s attention from his rear and divert it to his front. 
 
 On Monday, the 28th of August, at daybreak, Gen. Jack 
 son s corps, consisting of Gen. Swell s division, Gen. Hill s 
 division, and Gen. Jackson s old division, under command of 
 Gen. Taliaferro, and a force of cavalry under Gen. Stuart, 
 marched from Jeffersonton, in Cnlpepper county, and crossed 
 the Eappahannock eight miles above that place, and marched 
 by Orleans to Salem, in Fauqnier. The next day they passed 
 through Thoroughfare Gap, of Bull Eun Mountains, to Bristow 
 and Manassas stations, on the Orange and Alexandria railroad, 
 effecting a complete surprise of the enemy, capturing a large 
 number of prisoners, several trains of cars, and immense com 
 missary and quartermaster stores, and several pieces of artil 
 lery. The distance marched in these two days was over fifty 
 miles. On Wednesday, Manassas station was occupied by 
 Jackson s old division, while Ewell occupied Bristow, and Hill 
 and Stuart dispersed the force sent from Alexandria to attack 
 what the enemy supposed to be only a cavalry force. 
 
 The amount of property which fell into our hands at Manas 
 sas was immense several trains heavily laden with stores, ten 
 first-class locomotives, fifty thousand pounds of bacon, one 
 thousand barrels of beef, two thousand barrels of pork, several 
 thousand barrels of flour, and a large quantity of oats and corn. 
 A bakery, which was daily turning out fifteen thousand loaves 
 of bread, was also destroyed. Next to Alexandria, Manassaa 
 was probably the largest depot established for the Northern 
 army in Virginia. 
 
 The movement of Jackson, which we have briefly sketched, 
 is the chief element of the situation in which the decisive en 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 451 
 
 gagements of Manassas were fought. In this connection it 
 must be studied ^ it was the brilliant strategic preface to the 
 most decisive victory yet achieved on the theatre of the war. 
 The corps of Jackson, having headed off the Federal army 
 under Pope, had now possession of Manassas Plains, It had 
 accomplished its design, which was to force Pope back de 
 prive him completely of direct communication with Washing 
 ton or Alexandria, and eventually induce his surrender or an 
 nihilation. 
 
 The principal and anxious topic in the North was, by what 
 eccentric courses the famous Confederate commander had man 
 aged to get around the right wing of Pope s army, when it was 
 supposed and in fact the hasty exultation had already been 
 caught up in the Yankee newspapers that it was the " rebel 75 
 general who was cut off, and that he would probably make a 
 desperate retreat into the mountains to escape the terrors of 
 Pope. Indeed, it was some time before the full and critical 
 meaning of the situation dawned upon the prejudiced mind of 
 the "Northern public. The idea was indulged that the capture 
 of Manassas was only a successful raid by a body of rebel 
 guerillas ; and so it was dismissed by the newspapers, with a 
 levity characteristic of their insolence and ignorance. 
 
 Weak and credulous as Gen. Pope was, it is probable that 
 the moment he heard that Jackson was in his rear, he was 
 eatisfied that it was no raid. The situation had been changed 
 almost in a moment. Pope had evacuated Warrenton Junc 
 tion, and was moving along the railroad upon Manassas, anx 
 ious to secure his " line of retreat," and expecting, doubtless, 
 with no little confidence, by rapid marches of a portion of his 
 forces by the turnpike upon Gainesville, to intercept any rein 
 forcements by the way of Thoroughfare Gap to Jackson, and 
 to fall upon and crush him by the weight of numbers. A por 
 tion of the Confederate army now fronted to the South, and the 
 Federal army towards Washington. The latter had been swol 
 len by reinforcements, and the advance corps from Burnside 
 was inarching on rapidly from Fredericksburg to complete the 
 amassment on the Federal side. 
 
 Although the situation of Gen. Pope was one unexpected by 
 himself, and surrounded by many embarrassments, he yet had 
 many circumstances of advantage in which to risk a gieat and 
 
452 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 decisive battle. The New York journals persisted in declaring 
 tl at it was not the infallible Pope, but the " rebel" army that 
 was " in a tight place." At any rate, Pope was not in the 
 situation in which McClellan found himself when his right wing 
 was turned by the Confederates in front of Richmond that 
 is, without supports or reinforcements. On the contrary, on 
 his right, and on the way up from. Fredericksburg, was the 
 new army of the Potomac under Burnside : while advancing 
 forward from Alexandria was the newly organized army ot 
 Virginia under McClellan. Such was the array of force that 
 threatened the army we had withdrawn from Richmond, and 
 in which the Northern populace indulged the prospect of a 
 certain and splendid victory. 
 
 An encounter of arms of vital consequence was now to en 
 sue on the already historic and famous Plains of Manassas 
 the beautiful stretch of hill and dale reaching as far as Cen- 
 treville, varied by amphitheatres an admirable battle-ground ; 
 with the scenery of which the Southern troops associated the 
 exciting thoughts of a former victory and a former shedding 
 of the blood of their beloved and best on the memorable and 
 consecrated spots that marked the field of battle. 
 
 THE ENGAGEMENT OF WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF AUGUST. 
 
 On Wednesday, the 27th, an attack was made by the enemy 
 upon Bristow station, and also at Manassas Junction. 
 
 On the morning of that day, at about eleven o clock, Gen. 
 Taylor s brigade, of Major-gen. Slocum s division of the 
 army of the Potomac, consisting of the first, second, third, 
 and fourth New Jersey regiments, were ordered to proceed to 
 Manassas by rail from their camp near Fort Ellsworth, Alex 
 andria. 
 
 The brigade arrived at Bull Run bridge about seven o clock 
 in the morning. The troops landed and crossed the bridge 
 with as little delay as possible, and marched towards Manassas. 
 After ascending the hill emerging from the valley of Bull Run, 
 they encountered a line of skirmishers of the Confederates, 
 which fell back before them. The brigade marched on in the 
 direction of Manassas, not seeing any of the enemy until within 
 range of the circular series of fortifications around the Junction, 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 4:53 
 
 when heavy artillery was opened upon them frcm all direc 
 tions. Gen. Taylor retired beyond the range of our guns to 
 the rear of a sheltering crest of ground, from which he waa 
 driven by our infantry. Crossing at Blackburn s ford, he waa 
 pursued by our horse artillery, which fired into him, creating 
 the utmost havoc. The brigade retreated in a disorganized 
 mass of flying men towards Fairfax ; it was pursued by oui 
 eager troops beyond Centreville, and the track of the flying 
 and cowardly enemy was marked with his dead. 
 
 The flight of the enemy was attended by the most wild and 
 terrible scenes, as he was pursued by our horse artillery, pour 
 ing canister into his ranks. The brigade was almost annihi 
 lated. Gen. Taylor himself, his son 011 his staff, and his nephew 
 were wounded ; also one-half of his officers. 
 
 At 3 o clock, p. M., of the same day, the enemy attacked 
 Gen. Ewell, at Bristow, and that general, after a handsome 
 little fight, in which he punished the enemy severely, retired 
 across Muddy Run, as had previously been agreed upon, to 
 Manassas Junction. This attack was made by the division of 
 the enemy commanded by Gen. Hooker, which was dispatched 
 to that point and detached from the advancing forces of Pope, 
 who, of course, claimed the result of the affair as a signal 
 Federal success. 
 
 MOVEMENTS OF THURSDAY, THE TWElTTY-EIGHTH OF AUGUST. 
 
 After sunset, on Thursday, Gen. Jackson accomplished one 
 of the most beautiful and masterly strategic movements of the 
 war. He found himself many miles in advance of the rest of 
 our army. The enemy might throw his immense columns be 
 tween him and Longstreet Alexandria and Washington was 
 to his rear when he turned to attack the enemy. He deter 
 mined to throw himself upon the enemy s flank, to preserve 
 the same nearness to Alexandria, to place himself within sup 
 port of the remainder of our army, and to occupy a position 
 from which he could not be driven, even if support did not ar 
 rive in time. All this he accomplished that night, after de 
 stroying the stores, buildings, cars, &c., and burning the rail 
 road bridges over Muddy Run and Bull Run. He marched at 
 night with his entire force from Manassas station to Manassas 
 
454 SOUTHEBN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 battle-field, crossing the Warrenton turnpike, and placing Ma 
 troops in such position that he could confront the enemy should 
 they attempt to advance by the Warrenton pike or by the Sud 
 ley road and ford, arid have the advantage of communicating 
 by the Aldie road with Longstreet, should he not have passed 
 the Thoroughfare Gap, and at all events gain for himself a 
 safe position for attack or defence. At seven o clock, A. M., 
 on Friday, Gen. Stuart encountered the enemy s cavalry near 
 Gainesville, on the Warrenton pike, and drove them back ; 
 and during the morning the 2d brigade of Gen. Taliaferro s 
 division, under Colonel Bradley Johnson, again repulsed them. 
 It was now ascertained that the enemy s column was advancing 
 (or retreating) from Warrenton, along the line of the railroad 
 and by way of the Warrenton turnpike, and that they intended 
 to pass a part of their force over the Stone bridge and Sudley 
 ford. Gen. Jackson immediately ordered Gen. Taliaferro to 
 advance with his division to attack their left flank, which was 
 advancing towards Sudley Mill. Gen. EwelPs division marched 
 considerably in the rear of the 1st division. After marching 
 some three miles, it was discovered that the enemy had abau 
 doned the idea of crossing at Sudley, and had left the War 
 renton pike to the left, beyond Groveton, and were apparently 
 cutting across to the railroad through the fields and woods. 
 In a few minutes, however, he advanced across the turnpike to 
 attack us,, and Jackson s army was thrown forward to meet 
 him. 
 
 From this sketch of the movements of the corps commanded 
 by Gen. Jackson, it will be seen that though a portion of our 
 forces, under Gens. Ewell and Jackson, were on Tuesday and 
 a part of Wednesday, the 26th and 27th of August, on the 
 Orange and Alexandria railroad, between Pope and Alexandria, 
 on the approach of Pope from Warrenton they withdrew to the 
 west, and halted in the vicinity of the Warrenton turnpike, ex 
 pecting to be rejoined by Longstreet, where they awaited the 
 approach of the enemy and delivered him battle. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF FRIDAY, THE TWKKTY-NINTH OF AUGUST. 
 
 The conflict of Friday occurred near the village of Groveton, 
 our right resting just above and near the village, and the left 
 
L T GEN. LONCSTREET. 
 
 From a Plioinqraph taken from. life. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 455 
 
 npon the old battle-field of Manassas. The division of Gen. 
 Anderson had not yet arrived, and the corps of Longstreet had 
 not been fully placed in position. The enemy, probably aware 
 of our movements, selected this opportunity to make an attack 
 upon Jackson, hoping thereby to turn our left, destroy our 
 combinations, and disconcert the plans which had already be 
 come apparent to the Federal commanders. 
 
 Gen. Longstreet s passage of the Thoroughfare Gap, in the 
 face of a force of two thousand of the enemy, is one of the 
 most remarkable incidents of the late operations in Northern 
 Virginia. The Gap is a wild, rude opening through the Bull 
 Run Mountains, varying in width from one hundred to two 
 hundred yards. A rapid stream of water murmurs over the 
 rocks of the rugged defile, along which runs a stony winding 
 road. On either side arise the mountains, those on the left 
 presenting their flat, precipitous faces to the beholder, witli 
 here and there a shrub jutting out and relieving the monoto 
 nous gray of the rocky mass ; and those on the right covered 
 thickly with timber, impassable to any but the most active men. 
 The strong position afforded by this pass, which might have 
 been held against almost any force by a thousand determined 
 troops and a battery of artillery, had been possessed by the 
 enemy, who had planted his batteries at various points and 
 lined the sides of the mountains with his 1 skirmishers. As it 
 was, the passage was effected by Longstreet s division with the 
 loss of only three men wounded. This result was accomplished 
 by a decisive piece of strategy, by which a small column ot 
 three brigades Pryor s, "Wilcox s and Featherstone s, and two 
 batteries of rifle pieces were thrown through Hopewell Gap, 
 some three miles to the left of Thoroughfare Gap, as we ap 
 proached Manassas. 
 
 Under Jackson and Longstreet, the details of the plan of 
 Gen. Lee had been so far carried out in every respect. For 
 ten days or more the troops of both of these generals in the 
 advance were constantly under fire. The former had been en 
 gaged in no less than four serious fights. Many of the men 
 were barefooted, in rags ; provided with only a single blanket 
 as a protection against the heavy dews and severe cold at night , 
 frequently they would get nothing from daylight to daylight; 
 rations at best consisted of bread and water, with a rare ant? 
 
4:56 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 economical intermingling of bacon ; and the troops were in 
 what at any other time they would have characterized as a sut 
 fering condition. Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances 
 not a murmur of complaint had been heard ; marches of twenty 
 and in one instance of thirty, miles a day had been patiently 
 endured, and the spirit of the army, so far from being broken, 
 was elevated to a degree of enthusiasm which foreboded nothing 
 but the victory it won. 
 
 On the morning of the 29th, the Washington Artillery of 
 N"ew Orleans and several other batteries were planted upon a 
 high hill that commanded the extensive ground over which the 
 enemy were advancing, and just in front of this, perhaps a 
 little to the left, the fight began. The Federals threw forward 
 a heavy column, supported by field batteries, and under cover 
 of their fire made a bold stroke to divide our line. The blow 
 fell upon a portion of Swell s troops, who were concealed be 
 hind the embankment of a railroad ; but no sooner had the 
 enemy appeared within close range, than they received a ter 
 ribly galling fire, which drove them panic-stricken from that 
 portion of the field. As they ran, our artillery opened upon 
 the flying mass with shell and round shot. Every ball could 
 be seen taking effect. The enemy fell by scores, until finally 
 the once beautiful line melted confusedly into the woods. Again 
 they renewed the attack, and gradually the fight became gen 
 eral along nearly the entire column of Jackson. 
 
 As the afternoon progressed, however, Gen. Lee discovered 
 that strong Yankee reinforcements were coming up, and he 
 accordingly ordered the division of Gen. Hood, belonging to 
 Longstreet s corps, to make a demonstration on the enemy s 
 left. This was done, perhaps an hour before dark, and the 
 moment they became engaged the difference became percep 
 tible at a glance. Jackson, thus strengthened, fought with re 
 newed vigor, and the enemy, not knowing the nature of the 
 reinforcements, and diverted by our onset, which compelled 
 him to change his lines, was proportionately weakerfed. The 
 result was, that at dark Hood s division had driven the forces 
 in front of them three-quarters of a mile from our starting- 
 point, and, had it not been for the lateness of the hour, might 
 have turned the defeat into an utter rout. 
 
 The conflict had been terrific. Our troops were advanced 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 457 
 
 several times during the fight, but the enemy fought with Jos 
 peration, and did not retire until nine o clock at night, when 
 they sullenly left the field to the Confederates. During the 
 night orders came from head-quarters for our troops to fall back 
 to their original positions, preparatory to our renewal of the 
 action in the morning. It might have been this simple retro 
 grade movement which led to the mendacious dispatch sent by 
 Pope to Washington, stating that he had whipped our army, 
 and driven us from the field,* but confessing that the Federal 
 loss was eight thousand in killed and wounded. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SATURDAY, THE THIRTIETH OF AUGUST. 
 
 The grand day of the prolonged contest was yet to dawn. 
 For two days each wing of our army under Generals Long- 
 street and Jackson had repulsed with vigor attacks made on 
 them separately. Gen. Pope had concentrated the greatei 
 portion of the army under his command for a desperate re 
 newal of the attack on our lines. Friday night found those oi 
 our men who were not engaged in burying the dead and bring 
 ing away the wounded, sleeping upon their arms. All the 
 troops of Longstreet s corps, with the exception of Gen. II. H. 
 Anderson s, which was only three or four miles- in the rear, had 
 taken their places in the line of battle, and every one looked 
 forward to the events of the coming day, the anticipations of 
 which had sustained our soldiers under the terrible fatigue, 
 discomforts, and deprivations of the ten days tedious inarch, 
 by which reinforcements had at last reached the heroic and 
 unyielding Jackson. 
 
 "With the first streak of daylight visible through the light 
 mist that ascended from the woods, our men were under arms. 
 The pickets of the two armies were within a few hundred yards 
 of each other. Every circumstance indicated that the battle 
 would commence at an early hour iu the morning. The waking 
 
 * It appears that Gen. R. H. Anderson s division, which came down the turn 
 pike on their way to Sudley Church, where they had been ordered the day be 
 fore, were stopped by our pickets, and told that the enemy were in strong force 
 Immediately in front. The general countermarched his division, wagons, and 
 artillery, and fell back in rear of Longstreet for the night. It is probable that 
 the enemy, seeing this, supposed it to be the falling back of our whole army. 
 
4:58 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of a portion of our batteries into life soon after daylight, and 
 the frequent cannonading thereafter, the almost incessant skir 
 mishing in front, with its exciting volleys of musketry, al) 
 conspired to produce this impression. 
 
 Our line of battle was an obtuse crescept in shape, and at 
 least five miles long. Jackson s line, which formed our left, 
 stretched from Sudley, on Bull Run, along the partly exca 
 vated track of the Manassas Independent line of railroad, for a 
 portion of the way, and thence towards a point on the Warren- 
 ton turnpike, about a mile and a half in rear or west of Grove- 
 ton. His extreme right came within about six hundred yards 
 of the turnpike. 
 
 Longstreet s command, which formed our right wing, ex 
 tended from the point near the turnpike on which Jackson s 
 right flank rested, and prolonged the line of battle far to the 
 right, stretching beyond the line of thd Manassas Gap railroad. 
 
 It is thus seen that a point on the Warrenton turnpike, a 
 mile and a half west of Groveton, was the centre of our posi 
 tion, and the apex of our crescent, whose convexity was to 
 wards the west. It was here, in an interval between Jackson s 
 right and Longstreet s left that our artillery was placed. Eight 
 batteries were planted on a commanding elevation. 
 
 The enemy s line of battle conformed itself to ours, and took, 
 therefore, a crescent form, of which the centre or more ad 
 vanced portion was at Groveton, whence the wings declined 
 obliquely to the right and left. Their batteries were in rear 
 of their infantry, and occupied the hills which they had held 
 in the fight of July, 1861, but pointed differently. 
 
 The disposition of the enemy s forces was, Gen. Heintzel- 
 man on the extreme right and Gen. McDowell on the extreme 
 left, while the army corps of Generals Fitz John Porter and 
 Seigel, and Reno s division of Gen. Burnside s army, were 
 placed in the centre. 
 
 The elevation occupied by our artillery, under command of 
 Col. Stephen D. Lee, of South Carolina, was the most com 
 manding ground that could have been selected for the purpose. 
 It was about the centre of the entire army. To the front, the 
 land breaks beautifully into hill and dale, forming a sort of 
 amphitheatre. Around the field, and occasionally shooting 
 into it in narrow bands, are heavy woods. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 459 
 
 Early in tlie morning the immense masses of the enemy s 
 infantry were seen in line of battle, and far in the distance 
 immense clouds of dust filled the heavens. During this timo 
 our batteries were pitching their shot and shell into the Fed 
 eral ranks, and returning the fire of their artillery on the brow 
 of an opposite hill. Sometimes it was fierce, but generally it 
 was a deliberate interchange of fire. 
 
 About 1 A. M. a regiment advanced rapidly on the enemy s 
 left, determined to drive out our pickets from an orchard, 
 where all the morning they had been keeping up a brisk fire. 
 This effort succeeded, and our brave sharpshooters retired 
 through the orchard in good order. As soon as they got well 
 out of the way, our batteries opened upon the enemy, and in 
 ten minutes they were retreating, sheltering themselves in the 
 ravines and behind a barn. At 2 o clock the forces that had 
 been moving almost the whole day towards our left, began to 
 move in the opposite direction, and it appeared that they were 
 retiring towards Manassas, two or three miles distant. Several 
 attempts were now made to advance upon our left like those 
 to drive in our pickets on our right, but a few shells served to 
 scatter the skirmishers and drive them into the woods that 
 skirted this beautiful valley on either hand. When it appeared 
 more than probable that the enemy, foiled in his attempt to 
 make us bring on the fight by these little advances on our 
 right and left, was about to retire, and merely kept up the can 
 nonading in order to conceal his retreat, suddenly, at 4 p. M., 
 there belched forth from every brazen throat in our batteries a 
 volley that seemed to shake the very earth. 
 
 It was at this instant that the battle was joined. As the 
 sporting whirls of smoke drifted away the cause of the tumult 
 was at once discerned. A dense column of infantry, several 
 thousand strong, which had been massed behind and near a 
 3trip of woods, had moved out to attack Jackson, whose men 
 were concealed behind an excavation on the railroad. As soon 
 as they were discovered our batteries opened with tremendous 
 power, but the Federals moved boldly forward, until they came 
 "within the range of our small-arms, where for fully fifteen 
 minutes they remained desperately engaged with our infantry 
 As the fight progressed, a second line emerged from the cover 
 and went to the support of those in front, and finally a third 
 
60 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 line marched out into the open field below us and there halted 
 hesitated, and soon commenced firing over the heads of their 
 comrades beyond. 
 
 Jackson s infantry raked these three columns terribly. Re 
 peatedly did they break and run, and rally again under the 
 energetic appeals of their officers, for it was a crack corps of 
 the Federal army that of Generals Sykes and Morrell ; but 
 it was not in human nature to stand unflinchingly before that 
 hurricane of fire. As the fight progressed, Lee moved his bat 
 teries to the left, until reaching a position only four hundred 
 yards distant from the enemy s lines, he opened again. The 
 spectacle was now magnificent. As shell after shell burst in 
 the wavering ranks, and round shot ploughed broad gaps among 
 them, one could distinctly see through the rifts of smoke the 
 Federal soldiers falling and flying on every side. With the 
 explosion of every bomb, it seemed as if scores dropped dead, 
 or writhed in agony upon the field. Some were crawling on 
 their hands and knees ; some were piled up together ; and some 
 were lying scattered around in every attitude that imagination 
 can conceive. 
 
 Presently the Yankee columns began to break and men to 
 fall out to the rear. The retreating numbers gradually in 
 crease, and the great mass, without line or form, now move 
 back like a great multitude without guide or leader. From a 
 slow, steady walk, the great mass, or many parts of it, move 
 at a run. Jackson s men, yelling like devils, now charge upon 
 the scattered crowd ; but it is easily seen that they themselves 
 had severely suffered, and were but a handful compared with 
 the overwhelming forces of the enemy. The flags of two or 
 three regiments do not appear to be more than fifty yards 
 apart. The brilliant affair has not occupied more than half 
 an hour, but in that brief time more than a thousand Yankees 
 have been launched into eternity, or left mangled on the ground. 
 
 The whole scene of battle now changes. It will be seen in 
 referring to the disposition of our forces, that Jackson s line, 
 which formed our left, stretched from Bull Run towards a point 
 on the Warrenton turnpike. In his severe action with the en 
 emy, his left, advancing more rapidly than his right, had swept 
 around by the Pittsylvania House, and was pressing the Fed 
 erals back towards the turnpike. It was now the golden op 
 
THE SECOND YEAK. 461 
 
 portunity for Longs tree t to attack the exposed left flank o: the 
 enemy in front of it. 
 
 Hood s brigade charged next the turnpike. In its track it 
 met Sickles Excelsior brigade, and almost annihilated it. 
 The ground was piled with the slain. Pickett s brigade was 
 on the right of Hood s, next came Jenkins brigade, and next 4 
 was Kemper s, which charged near the Conrad House. Evans 
 and Anderson s were the reserve, and subsequently came into 
 action. 
 
 JSTot many minutes elapsed after the order to attack passed 
 along our entire line before the volleys of platoons, and finally 
 the rolling reports of long lines of musketry, indicated that 
 the battle was in full progress. The whole army was now in 
 motion. The woods were full of troops, and the order for the 
 supports to forward at a quick step was received with enthusi 
 astic cheers by the elated men. The din was almost deafen 
 ing, the heavy notes of the artillery, at first deliberate, but 
 gradually increasing in their rapidity, mingled with the sharp 
 treble of the small-arms, gave one an idea of some diabolical 
 concert in which all the furies of hell were at work. Through 
 the woods, over gently rolling hills, now and then through an 
 open field we travel on towards the front. From an elevation 
 we obtain a view of a considerable portion of the field. Hood 
 and Kemper are now hard at it, and as they press forward, 
 never yielding an inch, sometimes at a double quick, you hear 
 those unmistakable yells, which tell of a Southern charge or a 
 Southern success. 
 
 Reaching the vicinity of the Chinn House, the eye at once 
 embraces the entire vista of battle at least that portion of it 
 which is going on in front of Longstreet. Some of our men 
 are in the woods in the rear, and some in the open field where 
 stretches the undulating surface far away towards Bull Run. 
 The old battle-ground is plainly discernible less than two miles 
 distant, and to the right and left, as well as in front, the coun 
 try is comparatively unobstructed by heavy woods. Just be 
 fore you, only three or four hundred yards away, are the in 
 fantry of the enemy, and at various points in the rear are their 
 reserves and batteries. Between the armies, the ground is 
 already covered with the dead and wounded, for a 
 lengthwise of nearly a mile. 
 
4:62 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Our own artillery are likewise upon commanding position^ 
 and you hear the heayy rush of shot, the terrible dumps into 
 the ground, and the crash of trees through which they tear with 
 resistless force on every side. 
 
 Nothing can withstand the impetuosity of our troops. Every 
 line of the enemy has been broken and dispersed, but rallies 
 again upon some other position behind. Hood has already 
 advanced his division nearly half a mile at a double-quick, the 
 Texans, Georgians, and Hampton Legion loading and firing as 
 they run, yelling all the while like madmen. They have cap 
 tured one or two batteries and various stands of colors, and are 
 still pushing the enemy before them. Evans, at the head of 
 his brigade, is following on the right, as their support, and 
 pouring in his effective volleys. Jenkins has come in on the 
 right of the Chinn House, and, like an avalanche, sweeps 
 down upon the legions before him with resistless force. Still 
 further to the right is Longstreet s old brigade, composed of 
 Virginians veterans of every battle-field all of whom are 
 fighting like furies. The First Virginia, which opened the 
 fight at Bull Eun on the 17th of July, 1861, with over six 
 hundred men, now reduced to less than eighty members, is 
 winning new laurels ; but out of the little handful, more than 
 a third have already bit the dust. Toombs and Anderson, 
 with the Georgians, together with Kemper and Jenkins, are 
 swooping around on the right, flanking the Federals, and driv 
 ing them towards their centre and rear. Eschelman, with his 
 company of the "Washington artillery ; Major Garnett, with 
 his battalion of Virginia batteries, and others of our big guns, 
 are likewise working around upon the enemy s left, and pour 
 ing an enfilading fire into both their infantry and artillery. 
 
 While the grand chorus of battle is thundering along our 
 front, Jackson has closed in upon the enemy on their right, and 
 Longstreet has similarly circumscribed them on their left. In 
 other words, the V shaped lines with which we commenced the 
 engagement have opened at the angle, while the two opposite 
 ends of the figure are coming together. Lee has advanced his 
 battalion of artillery from the centre, and from hill-top to hill 
 top, wherever he can effect a lodgm&nt, lets loose the racing 
 masses of iron that chase each other through the Federal 
 ranks. Pry or, Featherstone, and Wilcox being on the ex- 
 
THE SECOND TEAK. 463 
 
 treme left of L;)ngstreet s line, are co-operating with the army 
 of Jackson. 
 
 It was at this point of the battle, when our infantry, pouring 
 down from the right and left, made one of the most terrible 
 and sublime bayonet charges in the records of war. There was 
 seen emerging from the dust a long, solid mass of men, coming 
 down upon the w^orn and disheartened Federals, at a bayonet 
 charge, on the double-quick. This line of bayonets, in the dis 
 tance, presented a spectacle at once awful, sublime, terrible, and 
 overwhelming. "They came on," said a Northern account, re 
 ferring to the Confederates, " like demons emerging from the 
 earth." With grim and terrible energy, our men came up 
 within good range of the enemy s columns ; they take his fire 
 without a halt ; a momentary confusion ensues as the leaden 
 showers are poured into our ranks; but the next moment the 
 bugles sound the order to our phalanxes, and instantly the huge 
 mass of Confederates is hurled against the enemy s left wing. 
 The divisions of Keno and JSchenck the choicest veterans of 
 the Federal army are swept away. Setting up a yell of tri 
 umph, our men push over the piles of their own dead and the 
 corpses of many a Federal, using the bayonet at close quarters 
 with the enemy. 
 
 The rout of the enemy was complete. It had been a task 
 of almost superhuman labor to drive the enemy from his 
 strong points, defended as they were by the best artillery and 
 infantry in the Federal army, but in less than four hours from 
 the commencement of the battle our indomitable energy had 
 accomplished every thing. The arrival of K. H. Anderson 
 with his reserves soon after the engagement was fairly opened, 
 proved a timely acquisition, and the handsome manner in which 
 he brought his troops into position showed the cool and skilful 
 general. Our generals, Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Hood, Kem- 
 per, Evans, Jones, Jenkins, and others, all shared the dangers 
 to which they exposed their men. How well their colonels 
 and the subordinate officers performed their duty is best testi 
 fied by the list of killed and wounded. 
 
 In determining the fortunes of the battle our cavalry had. in 
 more than one instance played a conspicuous part. 
 
 As the columns of the enemy began to give way, Gen. Bev 
 erly Robinson was ordered by Gen. Longstreet to charge the 
 
464: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 flying masses with his brigade of cavalry. The brigade mim 
 bering a thousand men, composed of Munford s, Myers , Har- 
 man s, and Flourney s regiments, was immediately put in mo 
 tion, but before reaching the infantry, Gen. Robinson discovered 
 a brigade of the enemy, fifteen hundred strong, drawn up on 
 the crest of a hill directly in his front. Leaving one of his 
 regiments in reserve, he charged with the other three full at 
 the enemy s ranks. As our men drew near, the whole of the 
 Yankee line fired at them a volley from their carbines, most of 
 the bullets, however, whistling harmlessly over their heads. 
 In another instant the enemy received the terrific shock of our 
 squadrons. There was a pause, a hand-to-hand fight for a 
 moment, and the enemy broke and fled in total rout. All 
 organization was destroyed, and every man trusted for his 
 safety only in the heels of his horse. 
 
 Night closed upon the battle. When it was impossible to 
 use fire-arms the heavens were lit up by the still continued 
 flashes of the artillery, and the meteor flight of shells scatter 
 ing their iron spray. By this time the enemy had been forced 
 across Bull E-tm, and their dead covered every acre from the 
 starting-point of the fight to the Stone bridge. In its first 
 stages, the retreat of the enemy was a wild, frenzied rout; the 
 great mass of the enemy moving at a full run, scattering over 
 the fields and trampling upon the dead and living in the mad 
 agony of their flight. The whole army was converted into a 
 mob ; regiments and companies were no longer distinguisha 
 ble ; and the panic-stricken fugitives were slaughtered at every 
 step of their retreat our cavalry cutting them down, or 0111 
 infantry driving their bayonets into their backs. 
 
 In crossing Bull Run many of the enemy were drowned, 
 being literally dragged and crushed under the water, which was 
 not more than waist deep, by the crowds of frenzied men press 
 ing and trampling upon each other in the stream. On reach 
 ing Centreville the flight of the enemy was arrested by the 
 appearance of about thirty thousand fresh Yankee troops 
 Gen. Franklin s corps. The mass of fugitives was here rallied 
 into the extent of forming it again into columns, and with this 
 appearance of organization, it was resolved by Gen. Pope to 
 continue his retreat to the intrenchments of Washington. 
 
 Thus ended the second great battle of Manassas. We had 
 
THE SECOND TEAK. 465 
 
 driven the enemy up hill and down, a distance of two and a 
 half miles, strewing this great space with his dead, captured 
 thirty pieces of artillery, and some six or eight thousand stand 
 of arms. Seven thousand prisoners were paroled on the field 
 of battle. For want of transportation valuable stores had to 
 be destroyed as captured, while the enemy at their various 
 depots are reported to have burned many millions of property 
 in their retreat. 
 
 The appearance of the field of battle attested in the most 
 terrible and hideous manner the carnage in the ranks of the 
 enemy. Over the gullies, ravines, and valleys, which divided 
 the opposite hills, the dead and wounded lay by thousands, as 
 far as the eye could reach. The woods were full of them. In 
 front of the Chinn House, which had been converted into a 
 hospital, tho havoc was terrible. The ground was strewn not 
 only with men, but arms, ammunition, provisions, haversacks, 
 canteens, and whatever else the affrighted Federals could 
 throw away to facilitate their flight. In front of the positions 
 occupied by Jackson s men, the killed were more plentiful. In 
 many instances as many as eighty or ninety dead marked the 
 place where had fought a single Yankee regiment. Around 
 the Henry and Robinson Houses the dead were more scattered, 
 as if they were picked off, or killed while running. The body 
 of a dead Yankee was found lying at full length upon the 
 grave of the aged Mrs. Henry, who was killed by the enemy s 
 balls in the old battle that had raged upon this spot. Three 
 others were upon the very spot where Bartow fell, and within 
 a few feet of the death-place of Gen. Bee was still another 
 group. A little further on a wounded Federal had lain for the 
 last two days and nights, where by extending his hand on either 
 side he could touch the dead bodies of his companions. His 
 head was pillowed on one of these. Confederate soldiers were 
 also to be found in the midst of these putrefying masses of 
 death ; but these were comparatively rare. The scenes of the 
 battle-field were rendered ghastly by an extraordinary circum 
 stance. There was not a dead Yankee in all that broad field 
 who had not been stripped of his shoes or stockings and in 
 numerous cases been left as naked as the hour he was born 
 Our barefooted and ragged men had not hesitated to supply their 
 necessities even from the garments and equipments of the dead, 
 
 30 
 
4-66 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The enemy admitted a loss down to Friday night of 17,000 
 men, Pope officially stating his loss on that day to have been 
 8,000. In one of the Baltimore papers it was said that the 
 entire Yankee loss, including that of Saturday, was 32,000 
 men killed, wounded, and prisoners. This statement allow? 
 15,000 for the loss on Saturday. That the loss of that par 
 ticular day was vastly greater than the enemy admit, we take 
 to be certain. They are not the persons to over-estimate their 
 own losses, and, in the mean time, Gen. Lee tells us that ovei 
 7,000 of them were taken and paroled on the field. If they 
 fought the battle with any thing like the desperation they pre 
 tend, considering that it lasted five hours, they certainly had 
 more than 8,000 killed and wounded. Four days after the 
 battle there were still three thousand wounded Yankees un- 
 cared for within the lines of Gen. Lee. It is very certain, if 
 they were not cared for, it was because the number of wounded 
 was so great that their turn had not come. Our own wounded, 
 not exceeding, it is said, 3,000, could very well be attended to 
 :m a day, and then the turn of the Yankees would come. Yet 
 io numerous were they, that at the end of four days three 
 thousand of them had not received surgical assistance. This 
 indicates an enormous list of wounded, and confirms the report 
 of one officer, who puts down their killed at 5,000, and their 
 wounded at three times that figure, making 20,000 killed and 
 wounded, and of others who say that their killed and wounded 
 tfere to us in the proportion of five, six, and even seven to one. 
 As many prisoners were taken, who were not included in the 
 7,000 paroled men mentioned by Gen. Lee, we do not think we 
 make an over-estimate when we set down the whole Yankee loss 
 at 30,000 in round numbers. Their loss on Friday, estimated 
 oy Pope himself at 8,000, added to their loss on Saturday, 
 makes 33,000. Previous operations, including the battle of 
 Cedar Run, the several expeditions of Stuart, and the various 
 skirmishes in which we were almost uniformly victorious, we 
 should think would fairly bring the total loss of the enemy to 
 50,000 men, since our forces first crossed the Rapidan. This 
 is a result almost unequalled in the history of modern cam 
 paigns. 
 
 The results of Gen. Lee s strategy were indicative of the 
 resources of military genius. Day after day the enemy were 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 4.67 
 
 beaten, until his disasters culminated on the plains of Ma- 
 nassas. Day after day our officers and men manifested their 
 superiority to the enemy. The summer campaign in Virginia 
 had been conducted by a single army. The same toil-worn 
 troops who had relieved from siege the city of Richmond, had 
 advanced to meet another invading army, reinforced not only 
 by the defeated army of McClellan, but by the fresh corps of 
 Generals Burnside and Hunter. The trials and marches ot 
 these troops are extraordinary in history. Transportation was 
 inadequate ; the streams which they had to cross were swollen 
 to unusual height ; it was only by forced marches and repeated 
 combats they could turn the position of the enemy, and, at 
 last succeeding in this, and forming a junction of their columns, 
 in the face of greatly superior forces, they fought the decisive 
 battle of the 30th of August, the crowning triumph of their 
 toil and valor. 
 
 The route of the extraordinary marches of our troops pre 
 sented, for long and weary miles, the touching pictures of the 
 trials of war. Broken-down soldiers (not all "stragglers") 
 lined the road. At night-time they might be found asleep in 
 every conceivable attitude of discomfort on fence rails and in 
 fence corners some half bent, others almost erect, in ditches 
 and on steep hill-sides, some without blanket or overcoat. Day 
 break found them drenched with dew, but strong in purpose ; 
 with half rations of bread and meat, ragged and barefooted, 
 they go cheerfully forward. No nobler spectacle was ever pre 
 sented in history. These beardless youths and gray-haired 
 men, who thus spent their nights like the beasts of the field, 
 were the best men of the land of all classes, trades, and pro 
 fessions. The spectacle was such as to inspire the prayer that 
 ascended from the sanctuaries of the South that God might 
 reward the devotion of these men to principle and justice by 
 crowning their labors and sacrifices with that blessing which 
 always bringeth peace. 
 
 The victory which had crowned the campaign of our armies 
 in Virginia, illuminates the names of all associated with it. 
 But in the achievement of that victory, and in the history of 
 that campaign, there is one name which, in a few months, had 
 mounted to the zenith of fame ; which in dramatic associations, 
 m rapid incidents, and in swift and sudden renown, challenged 
 
468 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 comparison with the most extraordinary phenomena in the 
 annals of military genius. This remark is not invidious in its 
 spirit, nor is it forced into the context of this sketch. A per 
 sonal allusion may be sparer in the narrative, when that allu 
 sion is to the most remarkable man in the history of the war. 
 
 We refer to Gen. Stonewall Jackson and that wonderful 
 chapter of military achievements which commenced in the Val 
 ley of Virginia and concluded at Manassas. It was difficult to 
 say what this man had not accomplished that had ever before 
 been accomplished in history with equal means and in an equal 
 period of time. 
 
 In the spring, Gen. Jackson had been placed in command of 
 the small army of observation which held the upper valley of 
 the Shenandoah and the country about Staunton. It was in 
 tended that he should remain quasi inactive, to watch the 
 enemy and to wait for him ; but he soon commenced manoeuv 
 ring on his own responsibility, and ventured upon a scale of 
 operations that threw the higher military authorities at Rich 
 mond into a fever of anxiety and alarm. 
 
 In less than thirty days he dashed at the Yankee advance 
 and driving it back, wheeled his army, swept down the Valley 
 and drove Banks across the Potomac. Returning to the uppe* 
 Valley, he manoeuvred around for three weeks in the mean 
 time dealing Fremont a heavy blow at Cross Keys and defeat 
 ing Shields in the Luray valley and then suddenly swept 
 down the Virginia Central railroad, via Gordonsville, on 
 McClellan s right, before Richmond. The part he played in 
 winding up the campaign on the Peninsula is well known. 
 Almost before the smoke had lifted from the bloody field of 
 the Chickahominy, we hear of him again on his old stamping 
 ground above Gordonsville. Cedar Mountain was fought and 
 won from Pope before he knew his campaign was opened. 
 Jackson fell back, but only to flank him on the right. Pope 
 retired from the Rapidan to the Rappahannock, but Jackson 
 swung still further round to the North, and outflanked him 
 again. Yet again he gave up the Rappahannock and fell back 
 eouth of Warrenton, and, for the third time, Jackson outflanked 
 him through Thoroughfare Gap, and at last got in his rear. 
 Pope now had to fight ; and the victory which perched upon 
 our banners was the most brilliant of the war. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 It is curious to observe with what insolent confidence the 
 North had anticipated a crowning triumph of its arms on the 
 field of Manassas, even when the air around Washington was 
 burdened with the signals of its defeat. The North did not 
 tolerate the idea of defeat. On the very day of the battle, 
 Washington was gay with exultation and triumph over an im 
 agined victory. At thirty minutes past twelve o clock, the 
 Washington Star published a dispatch, declaring that it had 
 learned from parties just from Fairfax county, that the firing 
 had stopped ; and added, " we trust the fact means a surrender 
 of the rebels, and do not see how it can mean aught else." At 
 a later hour of the afternoon, a dispatch was received at the 
 War Department, from Major-gen. Pope, announcing a bril 
 liant victory in a decisive battle with the Confederate forces 
 on the old Bull Run battle-field. It was stated that he had 
 defeated the Confederate army, and was driving it in discom 
 fiture before him. This dispatch had a magical effect. The 
 War Department, contrary to its usual custom, not only per 
 mitted, but officially authorized the publication of the dispatch. 
 Citizens of every grade, of both sexes and of all ages, were 
 seen in groups around the corners, and in the places of public 
 resort, speculating upon the particulars and the consequences 
 of the decisive victory reported. The triumph of the Federal 
 arms was apparently shown to be more complete by reason of 
 the announcement that Gen. Stonewall Jackson, with sixteen 
 thousand of his troops, had been cut off and captured. 
 
 It was at this point of exultation that another dispatch was 
 received from Gen. Pope, stating that the uncertain tide of 
 battle had unfortunately turned against the Federal army, and 
 that he had been compelled to abandon the battle-field during 
 the evening. The revulsion was great ; the untimely hallelu- 
 ; ahs were interrupted, and the population of Washington, from 
 its hasty and indecent exultations of the morning, was soon to 
 be converted into a panic-stricken community, trembling for 
 its own safety. 
 
 Indeed, the victory achieved by the Confederates was far 
 more serious than the most lively alarm in Washington could 
 at first imagine. The next morning after the battle, the last 
 feeble resistance of the Federals at Centreville was broken. 
 The finishing stroke was given by the Confederates under Gen. 
 
4-70 SOUTHERN- HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 A.. P. Hill, who, on the first of September (Monday), encoun 
 tered a large body of the enemy at Germantown, a small vil 
 lage in Fairfax county, near the main road leading from Cen- 
 treville to Fairfax Court-house. The enemy, it appears, had 
 succeeded in rallying a sufficient number of their routed troops 
 at the point named, to make another show of opposition to 
 the advance of the victorious Confederates on their territory 
 On Sunday, the pursuit of Pope s army was commenced and 
 pressed with vigor on the Fairfax Court-house road, and on 
 Monday morning at daylight the enemy was discovered drawn 
 up in line of battle across the road, their right extending to 
 the village of Germantown. Gen. Hill immediately ordered 
 the attack, and after a brief but hotly contested fight, the 
 enemy withdrew. During the night, the enemy fell back to 
 Fairfax Court-house and abandoned his position at Centreville. 
 The next day, about noon, he evacuated Fairfax Court-house, 
 taking the road to Alexandria and Washington. 
 
 Thus were realized the full and glorious results of the second 
 victory of Manassas ; thus were completed the great objects of 
 the brilliant summer campaign of 1862 in Virginia ; and thus, 
 for a second time, on the famous borders of the Potomac, the 
 gates were thrown wide open to the invasion of the North, and to 
 new fields of enterprise for the victorious armies of the South. 
 
 The rapid change in the fortunes of the Confederacy, and 
 the sharp contrast between its late forlorn situation and what 
 were now the brilliant promises of the future, were animating 
 and suggestive topics. 
 
 Little more than three months had elapsed since the columns 
 of a hostile army were debouching on the plains near Rich 
 mond, when the evacuation of the city and a further retreat of 
 the Confederate army were believed by nearly all official per 
 sons the most prudent and politic steps that the government 
 could take under the circumstances. Little more than three 
 months had elapsed since our armies were retreating weak and 
 disorganized before the overwhelming force of the enemy, 
 yielding to them the sea-coast, the mines, the manufacturing 
 power, the grain fields, and even entire States of the Confed 
 eracy. Now we were advancing with increased numbers, im 
 proved organization, renewed courage, and the prestige of 
 victory, upon an enemy defeated and disheartened. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 47i 
 
 As the opposing armies of the war now stood, the South 
 had causes for congratulation and pride such, perhaps, as no 
 other people ever had in similar circumstances. The North 
 had a population of twenty -three millions against eight mil 
 lions serving the South, and of these eight millions nearly 
 three millions were African slaves. The white population of 
 New York and Pennsylvania was greater than that of the 
 Confederate States. Manufacturing establishments of all de 
 scriptions rendered the North a self-sustaining people for all 
 the requirements of peace or war, and, with these advantages, 
 they retained those of an unrestricted commerce with foreign 
 nations. The North had all the ports of the world open to its 
 ships ; it had furnaces, foundries, and workshops ; its manufac 
 turing resources, compared with those of the South, were as 
 five hundred to one ; the great marts of Europe were open to 
 it for supplies of arms and stores ; there was nothing of mate 
 rial resource, nothing of the apparatus of conquest that was 
 not within its reach. 
 
 The South, on the other hand, with only a few insignificant 
 manufactories of arms and materials of war, textile fabrics, 
 leather, &c., had been cut off by an encircling blockade for 
 fifteen months from all those supplies upon which she had de 
 pended from the North and from Europe, in the way of arms, 
 munitions of war, clothing, medicines, and many of the essen 
 tials of subsistence. The South was without the vestige of a 
 navy, except a straggling ship or two, while that of the North 
 in this war was equal to a land force of three or four hundred 
 thousand men. The South was nearly exhausted of the com 
 monest articles of food, while the Northern States had a super 
 abundance of all the essentials and luxuries of life. The 
 Northern troops, en masse, were better armed, equipped, and 
 subsisted than those of any other nation, while those of the 
 South were armed with all sorts of weapons good, bad, and 
 indifferent clothed in rags and fed upon half rations. 
 
 The result of all this immense and boasted superiority on 
 the part of the North, coupled with the most immense exor- 
 tions, was that the South remained unconquered. The result 
 was humiliating enough to the warlike reputation of the North. 
 It had not been separated from its feeble adversary by seas or 
 mountains, but only by a geographical line ; nature had not 
 
472 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 interfered to protect the weak from the strong. Three " grand 
 armies" had advanced against Richmond ; and yet not only 
 was the South more invincible in spirit than ever, but her ar 
 mies of brave and ragged men were already advancing upon 
 the Northern borders, and threatening, at least so far as to 
 alarm their enemy, the invasion of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and 
 the occupation of the Northern capital. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 473 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 Rescue of Virginia ironi the Invader. Gen. Loring s Campaign in the Kanawha 
 Valley. A Novel Theatre of the War. Gen. Lee s Passage of the Potomac. His 
 Plans. Disposition of our Forces. McClellan again at the Head of the Yankee 
 Army. THE BATTLE OF BOONSBORO . THE CAPTURE OF HARPER S FERRY. Its Fruits 
 THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG. Great Superiority of the Enemy s Numbers. Fury 
 of the Battle. The Bridge of Antietam. A Drawn Battle. Spectacles of Carnage. 
 The Unburied Dead. Gen. Lee retires into Virginia. McClellan s Pretence of 
 Victory. The Aif air of Shepherdstown. Charges against McClellan. His Disgrace. 
 Review of the Maryland Campaign. Misrepresentations of Gen. Lee s Objects. 
 His Retreat. Comment of the New York " Tribune." The Cold Reception of the 
 Confederates in Maryland. Excuses for the Timidity of the Marylanders. What 
 was accomplished by the Summer Campaign of 1862. The Outburst of Applause in 
 Europe. Tribute from the London " Times." Public Opinion in England. Dis 
 tinction between the People and the Government. The Mask of England. OUR FOR 
 EIGN RELATIONS IN THE WAR. An Historical Parallel of Secession. Two Remarks on 
 the " Neutrality" of Europe. The Yankee Blockade and the Treaty of Paris. The 
 Confederate Privateers. Temper of the South. Fruits of the Blockade. 
 
 THE close of the summer found the long-harassed soil ot 
 Virginia cleared of the footsteps of the invader. The glorious 
 victory of Manassas was followed by other propitious events in 
 this State of lesser importance, but which went to complete 
 the general result of her freedom from the thraldom of the 
 Yankee. 
 
 In the early part of September the campaign of Gen. Loring 
 in the valley of the Kanawha was consummated by a vigorous 
 attack on the enemy at Fayette Court-house, and the occupa 
 tion of Charlestown by our troops. On the 10th of that month 
 we advanced upon the enemy s front at Fayette Court-house, 
 while a portion of our forces made a detour over the mountain 
 so as to attack him in the rear. The fighting continued from 
 noon until night, our artillery attacking desperately in front ; 
 and the enemy took advantage of the darkness to effect his es 
 cape, not, however, without leaving his trains in our hands. 
 
 The Yankees made a stand at Cotton Hill, seven miles fur 
 ther on. A few hours fighting dislodged them, and we pur 
 sued on to Kanawha Falls, where they again made a stand; 
 but a few hours contest made us again masters of the field, 
 with more than a million dollars worth of stores and some 
 prisoners. 
 
4:74 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The advance of our troops to Chariest-own was the signal to 
 the enemy for an inhuman attempt to burn the town, the 
 women being driven from their homes on fifteen minutes no 
 tice. As our troops approached the town, dense clouds of black 
 smoke were seen to hang over it, mingled with the lurid glare 
 of burning buildings, while the shrieks of frightened women 
 and children filled the air. The sight stung to madness our 
 troops. Two regiments of Kanawha valley men, beholding 
 in plain view the homes of their childhood blazing, and catch 
 ing the cries of distress of their mothers, wives, and sisters, 
 rushed, furious and headlong, to the rescue. Happily they 
 were not too late to arrest the conflagration, and a few public 
 buildings and some private residences were all that fell under 
 the enemy s torch. 
 
 The campaign of the Kanawha was accomplished by us with 
 a loss of not more than a hundred men. The results were ap 
 parently of great importance, as we had secured the great 
 salines of Virginia,* driven the enemy from the valley of the 
 Kanawha, and put our forces in position to threaten his towns 
 on the bank of the Ohio. But unhappily we shall have occa 
 sion hereafter to see that these results were ephemeral, and 
 that this unfortunate part of Virginia was destined to other 
 experiences of the rigor of the enemy. 
 
 For the present the progress of events takes us from the old 
 battle-fields of the South and introduces us to a novel theatre 
 of the war that theatre being located for the first time on the 
 soil and within the recognized dominions of the enemy. 
 
 On the fourth day of September, Gen. Lee, leaving to his 
 right Arlington Heights, to which had retreated the shattered 
 army of Pope, crossed the Potomac into Maryland. 
 
 The immediate designs of this movement of the Confederate 
 
 * But few persons, even in the South, have adequate ideas of the resources 
 and facilities for the production of salt in the Kanawha valley, and of the value 
 of that small strip of Confederate territory. In Kanawha county alone forty fur 
 naces were in operation ; some operated by gas and some by coal. Salt by the 
 million of bushels had been sold here from year to year at twelve cents and 
 twenty cents per bushel, filling the markets of the West and South. Ships for 
 Liverpool had formerly taken out salt as ballast ; and yet, at one time in the 
 war. owing to the practical cutting off of the saline supplies in Virginia, this 
 article, formerly of such cheap bulk, had been sold in Richmond at a dollar and 
 a half a pound. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 475 
 
 commander were to seize Harper s Ferry and to test the spirit 
 of the Marylanders ; but in order to be unmolested in his plans, 
 he threatened Pennsylvania from Hagerstown, throwing Gov. 
 Curtin almost into hysterics, and animating Baltimore with 
 the hope that he would emancipate her from the iron tyranny 
 of Gen. Wool. 
 
 After the advance of our army to Frederick, the Northern 
 journals were tilled with anxious reports of a movement of our 
 troops in the direction of Pennsylvania. While the people of 
 the North were agitated by these reports, the important move 
 ment undertaken for the present by Gen. Lee was in the direc 
 tion of Virginia. It appears that for this purpose our forces 
 in Maryland were divided into three corps, commanded by 
 Generals Jackson, Longstreet, and Hill. The forces under 
 Jackson having recrossed the Potomac at Williamsport and 
 taken possession of Martinsburg, had then passed rapidly be 
 hind Harper s Ferry, that a capture might be effected of the 
 garrison and stores known to be there. In the mean time, the 
 corps of Longstreet and Hill were put in position to cover the 
 operations of Jackson, and to hold back McClellan s forces, 
 which were advancing to the relief of Harper s Ferry. 
 
 Gen. McClellan had resumed the chief command of the 
 Federal armies on the second day of September. On the 
 fourteenth of that month, he fought his first battle in Mary 
 land, called the battle of Boonesboro , or of South Mountain. 
 
 When Jackson had diverged to the left from the line of 
 march pursued by the main body of the Confederates, recross- 
 ing the Potomac and moving rapidly upon Harper s Ferry, 
 Gen. Longstreet had meanwhile continued his march to Ha 
 gerstown, and there awaited the result. To frustrate this de 
 sign, and relieve Gen. Miles and the ten or twelve thousand 
 men who occupied Harper s Ferry, the enemy moved their 
 entire force upon the Gap in the mountains, to which we have 
 iilluded, and there sought to break through the barriei we were 
 bo jealously guarding, divide our lines, and defeat our armies 
 in detail. Foreseeing this intention on the part of the Fed 
 erals, Gen. Lee had posted the division of Gen. D. H. Hill in 
 
476 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and around the Gap, on the opposite side and summit, with in 
 structions to hold the position at every hazard, until he was 
 notified of the success of the movement of Jackson and his 
 co-operates. It was certainly no part of the original plan to 
 fight a pitched battle here, except to secure this one desirable 
 result. 
 
 The pass is known as Boonesboro Gap, being a continuation 
 over the broad back of the mountain of the national turnpike. 
 The road is winding, narrow, rocky, and rugged, with either a 
 deep ravine on one side and the steep sides of the mountain on 
 the other, or like a huge channel cut through a solid rock. 
 Near the crest are two or three houses, which, to some extent, 
 overlook the adjacent valleys, but elsewhere the face of the 
 mountain is unbroken by a solitary vestige of the handiwork 
 of man. 
 
 The battle commenced soon after daylight, by a vigorous 
 cannonade, under cover of which, two or three hours later, first 
 the skirmishers and then the main bodies became engaged. A 
 regular line of battle on our part, either as regards numbers 
 >r regularity, was impossible, and the theatre of the fight was 
 therefore limited. The fortunes of the day, which were des 
 perate enough in the face of the most overwhelming numbers, 
 were stubbornly contested by the Confederates. The brigade 
 of Gen. Garland of Virginia, the first engaged, lost its brave 
 commander. While endeavoring to rally his men, he fell, 
 pierced in the breast by a musket ball, and died upon the field. 
 
 While our lines were giving way under the pressure of the 
 enemy s numbers, the welcome sounds of reinforcements were 
 borne on the air. The corps of Gen. Longstreet was at Ha- 
 gerstown, fourteen miles distant, and at daylight commenced 
 its march towards the scene of action. Hurrying forward 
 with all speed, stopping neither to rest nor eat, the advance 
 arrived at the pass about four o clock, and were at once sent 
 into the mountain. Brigade after brigade, as rapidly as it 
 came up, followed, until by five o clock nearly the entire com 
 mand, with the exception of the brigade of Gen. Toombo, 
 which had been left at Hagerstown, was in position, and a por 
 tion of it already engaged. Evans was assigned to the extreme 
 left, Drayton to the right, and Hood, with his " ragged Tex- 
 ans," occupied the centre. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 477 
 
 
 
 The accession of fresh numbers at once changed the tone 
 and temper of the combat. The ominous volleys of musketry 
 rolled down the mountain in almost deafening succession. 
 But advance we could not. The enemy in numbers were like 
 a solid wall. Their bayonets gleamed from behind every rock 
 and bush. Ketreat we would not, and thus we fought, dog 
 gedly giving and taking the fearful blows of battle, until long 
 after nightfall. 
 
 The cessation of firing left the respective forces, with some 
 exceptions, in nearly the same relative situation as at the com 
 mencement of tne battle. The enemy gained nothing and we 
 lost nothing. On the contrary, our object had been obtained. 
 We had encountered a force of the enemy near fivefold our 
 own, and after a bloody day, in which our killed and wounded 
 were quite twenty-five hundred and those of the enemy prob 
 ably more, we had held him in check until Gen. Jackson was 
 heard from and the success of his enterprise rendered certain. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF HAKPKlt s FEKRT. 
 
 While the action of Boonesboro was in progress, and the 
 enemy attempting to force his way through the main pass on 
 the Frederick and Hagerstown road, the capture of Harper s 
 Ferry was accomplished by the army corps of Gen. Jackson. 
 
 During the night of the 14th of September, Gen. Jackson 
 planted his guns, and in the morning opened in all directions 
 on the Federal forces drawn up in line of battle on Bolivar 
 Heights. The white flag was raised at twenty minutes past 
 seven. At the moment of surrender, Col. Miles, the Federal 
 commander, was struck by a piece of shell, which carried away 
 his left thigh. "My God, I am hit," he exclaimed, and fell 
 into the arms of his aid-de-camp. 
 
 The extent of the conquest is determined by the fact that we 
 took eleven thousand troops, an equal number of small-arms, 
 seventy-three pieces of artillery, and about two hundred wagons. 
 The force of the enemy which surrendered consisted of twelve 
 regiments of infantry, three companies of cavalry, and six com 
 panies of artillery. The scene of the surrender was one of 
 deep humiliation to the North. It was indeed a repetition of 
 the revolutionary glories of Yorktown, to see here the proud, 
 
478 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 gayly-dreseed soldiers of the oppressor drawn up in line, stack 
 ing their arms, and surrendering to the ragged, barefoot, half- 
 starved soldiers of liberty.* 
 
 * OFFICIAL REPORT OF OPERATIONS OF GEN. JACKSON S COMMAND, from 
 September 5th to September 27th, 1862. 
 
 Headquarters 2d Corps A. W. V., ) 
 April 23d, 1863. f 
 
 General, I have the honor to submit a report of the operations of my com- 
 mand from the 5th to the 27th of September, 1862, embracing the capture of 
 Harper s Ferry, the engagement at Shepherdstown, and so much ol the battle 
 of Shurpsburg as was fought by my command. 
 
 My command comprised A. P. Hill s division, consisting of the brigades of 
 Branch, Gregg, Field (Col. Brockenbrough commanding), Fender, Archer, and 
 Col. Thomas, with the batteries of the division, under Lieut.-col. R. L. Walker ; 
 Swell s division, under Brigadier-gen. Lawton, consisting of the brigades of 
 Early, Hays (Col. Strong), Trimble (Col. Walker), and Lawton (Col. Douglas), 
 with the artillery under Major Courtney ; and Jackson s division, under Briga 
 dier-gen. Starke, consisting of the brigades of Winder (Col. Grigsby), Jones (Col. 
 B. T. Johnson), Taliaferro (Col. Warren), and Starke (Col. Stafford), with the 
 artillery under Major Shumaker, Chief of Artillery. 
 
 On the 5th of September my command crossed the Potomac at White s ford, 
 and bivouacked that night near the Three Springs, in the State of Maryland. 
 Not having any cavalry with me except the Black Horse, under Capt. Randolph, 
 I directed him, after crossing the Potomac, to take a part of his company and 
 scout to the right, in order to prevent a surprise of the column from that direc 
 tion. For the thorough and efficient manner in which this duty was performed, 
 and for the valuable service rendered generally whilst attached to my head- 
 quarters, I desire to make special mention of this company and of its officers, 
 Capt. Randolph, and Lieuts Paine., Tyle, and Smith, who frequently transmit 
 ted orders, in the absence of staff-officers. 
 
 The next day we arrived in the vicinity of Frederick City. Jackson s division 
 encamped near its suburbs, except the brigade of Gen. Jones (Col. Bradley T. 
 Johnson commanding), which was posted in the city as a provost guard. Ewell s 
 and Hill s divisions occupied positions near the railroad bridge, on the Mono- 
 cacy, guarding the approaches from Washington city. In obedience to instruc 
 tions from the commanding general, and for the purpose of capturing the Fed 
 eral forces and stores then at Martinsburg and Harper s Ferry, my command 
 left the vicinity of Frederick City on the 10th, and passing rapidly through 
 Middletown, Booneshorough, and Williamsport, recrossed the Potomac into Vir 
 ginia, at Light s ford, on the llth. Gen. Hill moved with his division on the 
 turnpike direct from Williamsport to Martinsburg. The divisions of Jackson 
 and Ewell proceeded towards the North Mountain depot, on the Baltimore and 
 Ohio railroad, about seven miles northwest of Martinsburg. They bivouacked 
 that night in the vicinity of the depot. In order to prevent the Federal forces 
 then at Martinsburg from escaping westward unobserved, Major Myers, com 
 manding the cavalry, sent part of his troops as far south as the Berkeley and 
 Hampshire turnpikes. Brigadier-gen. White, who was in command of the 
 Federal forces at Martinsburg, becoming advised of our approach, evacuated 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 479 
 
 THK BATTLE OF SHARPSBTJRG. 
 ^ 
 
 On the 17th of September Gen. Lee had retired to unite hi8 
 forces, as far as possible, to confront the still advancing forces 
 
 the place on the night of the llth, and retreated to Harper s Ferry. On the 
 morning of the 12th, our cavalry entered the town, as in the course of the day 
 did the main body of my command. At this point, abandoned quartermaster, 
 commissary, and ordnance stores fell into our hands. Proceeding thence to 
 wards Harper s Ferry, about 11 o clock, A. M., on the following morning (13th), 
 the head of the column came in view of the enemy drawn up in force at Boli 
 var Heights. Gen. Hill, who was in the advance, went into camp near Halls- 
 town, about two miles from the enemy s position. The two other divisions 
 encamped near by. 
 
 The commanding general, having directed Major-gen. McLaws to move with 
 his own and Gen. R. H. Anderson s division, to take possession of the Mary 
 land Heights, overlooking Harper s Ferry, and Brigadier-gen. J. G. Walker, 
 pursuing a different route, to cross the Potomac, and move up that river on the 
 Virginia side, and occupy the Loudon Heights, both for the purpose of co-oper 
 ating with me, it became necessary, before making the attack, to ascertain 
 whether they were in position. Failing to learn the fact by signals, a courier 
 was dispatched to each of these points for the required information. During 
 the night the courier from the Loudon Heights returned, with a message from 
 Gen. Walker, that he was in position. In the mean time, Gen. McLaws had 
 attacked the Federal force posted to defend the Maryland Heights, had routed 
 it, and taken possession of that commanding position. The Potomac river 
 flowed between the positions respectively occupied by Gen. McLaws and my 
 self, and the Shenandoah separated me from. Gen. Walker ; and it became ad 
 visable, as the speediest mode of communication, to resort to signals. Before 
 the necessary orders were thus transmitted, the day was far advanced. The 
 enemy had, by fortifications, strengthened the naturally strong position which 
 he occupied along Bolivar Heights, extending from near the Shenandoah to the 
 Potomac. McLaws and Walker, being thus separated from the enemy by in 
 tervening rivers, could afford no assistance, beyond the fire of their artillery, 
 and guarding certain avenues of escape to the enemy. And from the reports 
 received from them by signals, in consequence of the distance and range of 
 their guns, not much could be expected from their artillery, so long as the 
 enemy retained his advanced position on Bolivar Heights. 
 
 In the afternoon (14th), Gen. Hill was ordered to move along the left bank 
 of the Shenandoah, turn the enemy s left, and enter Harper s Ferry. Gen. 
 Lawton, commanding Ewell s division, was directed to move along the turnpike 
 for the purpose of supporting Gen. Hill, and of otherwise operating against the 
 enemy to his left. 
 
 Gen. J. R. Jones, commanding Jackson s division, was directed, with one oi 
 his brigades, and a battery of artillery, to make a demonstration against the 
 enemy s right, whilst the remaining part of his command, as a reserve, moved 
 along the turnpike. Major Massie, commanding the cavalry, was directed to 
 keep upon our left flank, for the purpose of preventing the enemy from escaping 
 Brig.-gen. Walker guarded against an escape across the Shenandoah river. 
 
480 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of McClellan, which, having obtained possession of Crampton s 
 Gap, on the direct road from Frederick JDity to Sharpsburg, 
 were pressing our forces, and seemed determined on a decisive 
 
 Fearing lest the enemy should attempt to escape across the Potomac, by meani 
 of signals I called the attention of Major-gen. McLaws, commanding on the Ma 
 ryland Heights, to the propriety of guarding against such an attempt. The 
 demonstration on the left against the enemy s right was made by Winder s bri 
 gade (Col. Grigsby commanding). It was ordered to secure a commanding hill 
 to the left of the heights, near the Potomac. Promptly dispersing some cav 
 alry, this eminence, from which the batteries of Poague and Carpenter subse 
 quently did such admirable execution, was secured without difficulty. In exe 
 cution of the orders given Maj.-gen. Hill, he moved obliquely to the right until 
 he struck the Shenandoah river. Observing an eminence, crowning the ex 
 treme left of the enemy s line, occupied by infantry, but without artillery, and 
 protected only by an abatis of fallen timber, Pender, Archer, and Brocken- 
 brough were directed to gain the crest of that hill, while Branch and Gregg 
 were directed to march along the river, and during the night to take advantage 
 of the ravines, cutting the precipitous banks of the river, and establish them 
 selves on the plain to the left and rear of the enemy s works. Thomas followed 
 as a reserve. The execution of the first movement was intrusted to Brig.-gen. 
 Pender, who accomplished it with slight resistance ; and during the night, 
 Lieut.-col. Walker, chief of artillery of if ill s division, brought up the batteries 
 of Captains Pegram, Mclntosh, Davidson, Braxton, and Crenshaw, and estab 
 lished them upon the position thus gained. Branch and Gregg also gained the 
 positions gained for them, and daybreak found them in rear of the enemy s line 
 of defence. 
 
 As directed, Brig.-gen. Lawton, commanding Ewell s division, moved on tho 
 turnpike in three columns one on the road, and another on each side of it 
 until he reached Hallstown, where he formed line of battle, and advanced to 
 the woods on School-house Hill. The division laid on their arms during the 
 night, Lawton and Trimble being in line on the right of the road, and Hays on 
 his left, with Early immediately in his rear. During the night, Col. Crutch- 
 field, my chief of artillery, crossed ten guns of Ewell s division over the Shen 
 andoah, and established them on its right bank, so as to enfilade the enemy s 
 position on Bolivar Heights, and take his nearest and most formidable fortifica 
 tions in reverse. The other batteries of Ewell s division were placed in position 
 on School-house Hill and Bolivar Heights, on each side of the road. 
 
 At dawn, Sept. 15th, 6en. Lawton advanced his division to the front of the 
 woods, Lawton s brigade (Col. Douglas commanding) moved by flank to the 
 bottom between School-house Hill and Bolivar Heights, to support the advance 
 of Maj.-gen. Hill. 
 
 Lieut.-col. Walker opened a rapid enfilade fire from all his batteries at about 
 one thousand yards range. The batteries on School-house Hill attacked the 
 enemy s line in front. In a short time the guns of Capts. Brown, Garber, Lati- 
 mer, and Dement, under the direction of Col. Crutchfield, opened from the rear. 
 The batteries of Poague and Carpenter opened -fire upon the enemy s right. 
 The artillery upon the London Heights of Brig.-gen. Walker s command, under 
 Capt. French, which had silenced the enemy s artillery near the superin- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 481 
 
 battle. Sharpsburg is about ten miles north of Harpe/s Ferry, 
 and about eight miles west of Boonesboro . 
 
 This town lies in a deep valley. The country around it is 
 broken. Ascending a bill just on the outer edge of the town, 
 
 tendent s house, on the preceding afternoon, again opened upon Harper s Ferry, 
 and also some guns of Maj.-gen. McLaws, from the Maryland Heights. In an 
 hour the enemy s fire seemed to be silenced, and the batteries of Gen. Hill were 
 ordered to cease their fire, which was the signal for storming the works. Gen. 
 Fender had commenced his advance, when, the enemy again opening, Pegram 
 and Crenshaw moved forward their batteries and poured a rapid fire into the 
 enemy. The white flag was now displayed, and shortly afterwards, Brig.-gen. 
 White (the commanding officer, Col. D. S. Miles having been mortally wounded), 
 with a garrison of about 11,000 men, surrendered as prisoners of war. 
 
 Under this capitulation we took possession of 73 pieces of artillery, some 
 13,000 small-arms, and other stores. Liberal terms were granted Gen. White 
 and the officers under his command in the surrender, which I regret to say, 
 do not seem, from subsequent events, to have been properly appreciated by 
 their government. 
 
 Leaving Gen. Hill to receive the surrender of the Federal troops, and taking 
 the requisite steps for securing the captured stores, I moved, in obedience to 
 orders from the commanding general, to rejoin him in Maryland with the re 
 maining divisions of my command. By a severe night s march, we reached the 
 vicinity of Sharpsburg on the morning of the 16th. 
 
 By direction of the commanding general I advanced on the enemy, leaving 
 Sharpsburg to the right, and took position to the left of Gen. Longstreet, near 
 a Dunkard church, E well s division (Gen. Lawton commanding), forming the 
 right, and Jackson s division (Gen. J. R. Jones, commanding), forming the left 
 of my command. Major-gen. Stuart, with the cavalry, was on my left. 
 
 Jackson s division (Gen. Jones commanding), was formed partly in an open 
 field and partly in the woods, with its right resting upon Sharpsburg and 
 Hagerstown turnpike, Winder s and Jones brigades being in front, and Talia- 
 ferro s and Starke s brigades a short distance in their rear, and Poague s battery 
 on a knoll in front. 
 
 Swell s division followed that of Jackson to the wood on the left of the road 
 near the church. Early s brigade was thus formed on the left of the line of 
 Jackson s division to guard its flank, and Hays brigade was formed in its rear 
 Lawton s and Trimble s brigades remaining during the evening with arms 
 stacked near the church. 
 
 A battery of the enemy, some five hundred yards to the front of Jackson s 
 division, opening fire upon a battery to the right, was silenced in twenty 
 minutes by a rapid and well-directed fire from Poague s battery ; other batteries 
 of the enemy opened soon after upon our lines and the firing continued until 
 after dark. 
 
 About 10 P. M., Lawton s and Trimble s brigades advanced to the front to 
 relieve the command of Brigadier-general Hood (on the left of Major-general 
 D. H. Hill), Avhich had been more or less engaged during the evening. Trim 
 ble s brigade was posted on the right, next to Ripley s, of D. H. Hill s division, 
 and Lawton s on the left. 
 
 81 
 
4:82 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and looking towards the Blue Ridge, the eye ranges over the 
 greater portion of the eventful field. To the right and left is 
 a succession of hills, which were occupied by the Confederates. 
 In front is the beautiful valley of the Antietam, divided longitu- 
 
 The troops slept that night upon their arms, disturbed by the occasional fire 
 of the pickets of the two armies, who were in close proximity to each other. At 
 the first dawn of day, skirmishing commenced in front, and in a short time the 
 Federal batteries, so posted on the opposite side of the Antietam as to enfilade 
 my line, opened a severe and damaging fire. This was vigorously replied to 
 by the batteries of Poague, Carpenter, Brockenbrough, Raine, Caskie, and 
 Wooding. About sunrise the Federal infantry advanced in heavy force to the 
 edge of the wood on the eastern side of the turnpike, driving in our skirmishers. 
 Batteries were opened in front from the wood with shell and canister, and our 
 troops became exposed, for near an hour, to a terrific storm of shell, canister, 
 and musketry. Gen. Jones having been compelled to leave the field, the com 
 mand of Jackson s division devolved upon Gen. Starke. With heroic spirit oui 
 lines advanced to the conflict and maintained their position in the face of supe 
 rior numbers. With stubborn resolution, sometimes driving the eaemy before 
 them and sometimes compelled to fall back, before their well-sustained and 
 destructive fire. Fresh troops from time to time relieved the enemy s ranks, 
 and the carnage on both sides was terrific. At this early hour Gen. Starke 
 was killed, Col. Douglas (commanding Lawton s brigade) was also killed ; Gen. 
 Lawton, commanding division, and Col. Walker, commanding brigade, were 
 severely wounded. More than half of the brigades of Lawton and Hays were 
 either killed or wounded, and more than a third of Trimble s, and all the regi 
 mental commanders in those brigades except two were killed or wounded. 
 Thinned in their ranks and exhausted of their ammunition, Jackson s division 
 and the brigades of Lawton, Hays, and Trimble retired to the rear, and Hood, 
 of Longstreet s command, again took the position from which he had been be 
 fore relieved. 
 
 In the mean time, Gen. Stuart moved his artillery to a position nearer to the 
 main command and more in our rear. Early being now directed, in conse 
 quence of the disability of Gen. Lawton, to take command of Ewell s division, 
 returned with his brigade (with the exception of the 13th Virginia regiment, 
 which remained with Gen. Stuart), to the piece of wood where he had left the 
 other brigades of his division when he was separated from them. Here he 
 found that the enemy had advanced his infantry near the wood in which waa 
 the Duukard church, and planted a battery across the turnpike near the edge 
 of the wood and an open field, and that the brigades of Lawton, Hays, and 
 Trimble had fallen back some distance to the rear. Finding here Cols. Grigsby 
 and Stafford with a portion of Jackson s division, which formed on his left, he 
 determined to maintain his position there if reinforcements could be sent to his 
 support, of which he was promptly assured. Col. Grigsby, with his small com 
 mand, kept in check the advance of the enemy on the left flank while Gen. 
 Early attacked with great vigor and gallantry the column on his right and 
 front. The force in front was giving way under this attack, when another 
 heavy column of Federal troops were seen moving across the plateau on hie 
 left flonk. By this time the expected reinforcements, consisting of Semmes 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 483 
 
 dinally by the river, which empties into the Potomac on your 
 right, and behind, forming a background to the picture ; only 
 two miles distant are the steep, umbrageous sides of the Blue 
 Ridge. 
 
 and Anderson s brigades, and a part of Barksdale s of McLaw s division, arrived, 
 and the whole, including Grisby s command, now united, charged upon the 
 enemy, checking his advance, then driving him back with great slaughter en 
 tirely from and beyond the wood, and gaining possession of our original position. 
 No further advance, beyond demonstrations, was made by the enemy on the 
 left. In the afternoon, in obedience to instructions from the commanding gen 
 eral, I moved to the left with a view of turning the Federal right, but I found 
 his numerous artillery so judiciously established in their front and extending 
 so near to the Potomac, which here makes a remarkable bend, which will be seen 
 by reference to the map herewith annexed, as to render it inexpedient to hazard 
 the attempt. In this movement Major-gen. Stuart had the advance and acted 
 his part well. This officer rendered valuable service throughout the day. His 
 bold use of artillery secured for us an important position, which, had the enemy 
 possessed, might have commanded our left. At the close of the day my troops 
 held the ground which they had occupied in the morning. The next day we 
 remained in position awaiting another attack. The enemy continued in heavy 
 force west of the Antietam on our left, but made no further movement to the 
 attack. 
 
 I refer you to the report of Major-gen. A. P. Hill for the operations of his com- 
 mand in the battle of Sharpsburg. Arriving upon the battle-field from Har 
 per s Ferry at half-past two o clock of the 17th, he reported to the commanding 
 general, and was by him directed to take position on the right. I have not 
 embraced the movements of his division, nor his killed and wounded of that 
 action in my report. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 19th we recrossed the Pctomac river into Vir- 
 gmia, near Shepherdstown. The promptitude and succ >ss with which this 
 movement was effected reflected the highest credit upon the skill and energy 
 of Major Harman, chief quartermaster. In the evening the command moved on 
 the road leading to Martinsburg, except Lawton s brigade (Col. Lamar, of the 
 61st Georgia, commanding), which was left on the Potomac Heights. 
 
 On the same day the enemy approached in considerable force on the northern 
 side of the Potomac, and commenced planting heavy batteries on its heights. 
 In the evening the Federals commenced crossing under the protection of their 
 guns, driving off Lawton s brigade, and Gen. Pendleton s artillery. By morn 
 ing a considerable force had crossed over. Orders were dispatched to Gens. 
 Early and Hill, who had advanced some four miles on the Martinsburg road, to 
 eturn and drive back the enemy. 
 
 Gen. Hill, who was in the advance, as he approached the town, formed his 
 line of battle in two lines, the first composed of the brigades of Pender, Gregg, 
 and Thomas, under the command of Gen. Gregg ; and the second of Lane s, 
 Archer s, and Brockenbrough s brigades, under command of Gen. Archer. 
 Gen. Early, with the brigades of Early, Trimble, and Hays, took position in the 
 wood on the right and left of the road leading to the ford. The Federal infan- 
 try line^ the high banks of the Virginia shore, while their artillery, formidable 
 
484 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 The morning of the 17th found Gen. Lee strongly posted, 
 but with no more than forty-five thousand men when the bat 
 tle commenced. The force of the enemy could not have been 
 much short of one hundred and fifty thousand men, of whom 
 one hundred thousand were trained soldiers, disciplined in camp 
 and field since the commencement of the war. 
 
 The forces of the enemy were commanded by McClellan in 
 person, and numbered the whole command of Gen. Burnside 7 
 recently augmented by the addition of several new regiments ; 
 the army corps lately under Gen. McDowell, now under com 
 mand of Gen. Hooker; Gen. Sumner s corps; Gen. Franklin s 
 corps ; Gen. Banks corps, commanded by Gen. "Williams ; and 
 Sykes division of Fitz John Porter s corps. Their line of 
 battle was between four and five miles long, with their left 
 stretching across the Sharpsburg road. Burnside was on the 
 extreme left; Porter held a commanding eminence to the right 
 
 in numbers and weight of metal, crowned the opposite heights of the Potomac. 
 Gen. Hill s division advanced with great gallantry against the infantry, in the 
 face of a continued discharge of shot and shell from their batteries. The Fed 
 erals massing in front of Fender, poured a heavy fire into his ranks, and then 
 extending with a view to turn his left. Archer promptly formed on Fender s 
 left, when a simultaneous charge was made, which drove the enemy into the 
 river, followed by an appalling scene of the destruction of human life. Two 
 hundred prisoners were taken. This position on the banks of the river we con 
 tinued to hold that day, although exposed to the enemy s guns and within 
 range of his sharpshooters posted near the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Our 
 infantry remained at the river until relieved by cavalry under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. 
 
 On the evening of the 20th the command moved from Shepherdstown and 
 encamped near the Opequon, in the vicinity of Martinsburg. We remained near 
 Martinsburg until the 27th, when we moved to Bunker Hill, in the county of 
 Berkeley. The official lists of the casualties of my command during the period 
 embraced in this report, will show that we sustained a loss of 38 officers killed, 
 171 wounded ; of 313 non-commissioned officers and privates killed, I r 859 wound 
 ed ; and missing 57 making a total loss of 2,438, killed, wounded, and missing. 
 
 For these great and signal victories our sincere and humble thanks are duo 
 unto Almighty God. Upon all appropriate occasions we should acknowledge 
 the hand of Him who reigns in heaven and rules among the powers of the earth, 
 In view of the arduous labors and great privations which the troops were called 
 on to endure, and the isolated and perilous position which the command occu 
 pied while engaged with the greatly superior force of the enemy, we feel the 
 encouraging consolation that God was with us and gave to us the victory, and 
 unto His holy name be all> gratitude and praise. 
 
 I am, general, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 T. J. JACKSON, Lieutenant-geneiaL 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 485 
 
 di Bnrnside, though "Warren s brigade of Porter s corps was 
 subsequently posted in the woods on the left in support 01 
 Burnside s men ; Sumner s corps was on an eminence next to 
 the right, or north from Porter, and Gen. Hooker had the 
 extreme right. 
 
 On the afternoon of Tuesday, the 16th, the enemy opened 
 a light artillery fire on our lines. At three next morning 
 every man was at his post, and awaited in solemn silence the 
 day dawn. ]STo sooner did the light break in the east than the 
 picket firing began, and increased in fury until about sunrise, 
 when artillery and infantry together grappled in the terrible 
 fight. 
 
 Large masses of the Federal^, who had crossed the Antietam 
 above our position, assembled on our left. They advanced in 
 three compact lines. The divisions of Generals McLaws, R. H. 
 Anderson, A. P. Hill and Walker, who were expected to have 
 joined Gen. Lee on the previous night, had not come up. Gen 
 erals Jackson s and Ewell s divisions were thrown to the left of 
 Generals Hill and Longstreet. The enemy advanced between 
 the Autietam and the Sharpsburg and Hagerstown turnpike, 
 and was met by Gen. D. H. Hill s and the left of Gen. Long- 
 street s divisions, where the conflict raged, extending to our 
 entire left. 
 
 When the troops of D. H. Hill were engaged, the battle 
 raged with uncommon fury. Backwards, forwards, surging 
 and swaying like a ship in storm, the various columns are seen 
 in motion. It is a hot place for the enemy. They are directly 
 under our guns, and we mow them down like grass. The raw 
 levies, sustained by the veterans behind, come up to the work 
 well, and fight for a short time with an excitement incident to 
 their novel experiences of a battle ; but soon a portion of their 
 line gives way in confusion. Their reserves come up, and 
 endeavor to retrieve the fortunes of the day. Our centre, how 
 ever, stands firm as adamant, and they fall back. 
 
 Prior to the arrival of the divisions of McLaws, Anderson 
 and Walker, who had been advanced to support the left wing 
 and centre, as soon as they had crossed the Potomac on the 
 morning of the 17th, that portion of our line was forced back 
 by superior numbers. As soon, however, as these forces could 
 be brought into action, the enemy was driven back, our line 
 
486 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 was restored, and our position maintained during the rest of 
 the day. 
 
 Time and again did the Federals perseveringly press close 
 ap to our ranks so near, indeed, that their supporting bat 
 teries were obliged to cease firing, lest they should kill their own 
 men, but just as often were they driven back, by the combined 
 elements of destruction which we brought to bear upon them. 
 It was an hour when every man was wanted. And nobly did 
 our brave soldiers do their duty. "It is beyond all wonder," 
 writes a Federal officer, " how men such as the rebel troops 
 are can fight as they do. That those ragged wretches, sick, 
 hungry, and in all ways miserable, should prove such heroes 
 in fight, is past explanation. Men never fought better. There 
 was one regiment that stood up before the fire of two or three 
 of our long-range batteries and of two regiments of infantry ; 
 and though the air around them was vocal with the whistle of 
 bullets and the scream of shells, there they stood and delivered 
 their fire in perfect order."* 
 
 In the afternoon the enemy advanced on our right, where 
 Gen. Jones division was posted, and he handsomely main 
 tained his position. The bridge over the Antietam creek was 
 guarded by Gen. Toombs brigade, which gallantly resisted the 
 approach of the enemy ; but their superior numbers enabling 
 them to extend their left, they crossed below the bridge, and 
 forced our line back in some confusion. 
 
 Our troops fought until they were nearly cut to pieces, and 
 then retreated only because they had tired their last round. 
 It was at this juncture that the immense Yankee force crossed 
 the river, and made the dash against our line, which well-nigh 
 
 * There are some characteristic anecdotes of the close quarters in which the 
 battle of Sharpsburg was fought, and the desperate valor shown in such straits. 
 A.t one passage of the battle, Col. Geary, of the famous Hampton Legion, one 
 of the most celebrated corps of the army, found himself confronted by an over 
 whelming force of the enemy. An officer came forward and demanded his sur 
 render. " Surrender ! Hell !" exclaimed the intrepid South Carolinian, as with 
 the spring of a tiger he seized the officer and clapped a pistol to his head, if 
 you don t surrender your own command to me this instant, you infernal scoun 
 drel, I ll blow your brains out." The astonished and affrighted Yankee called 
 out that he surrendered. But his men were not as cowardly as himself, and 
 the flag of the regiment he commanded was only taken after the color-bear el 
 had been cut down by our swords. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 487 
 
 proved a success. But it was at this moment also that wel 
 come and long-expected reinforcements reached us. At fouj 
 o clock in the afternoon Gen. A. P. Hill s division came up and 
 joined the Confederate right. It was well that Gen. Burnside s 
 advance on the Federal left was so long delayed, and was 
 eventually made with overwhelming numbers. The day closed 
 with Gen. Burnside clinging closely to the bridge, beyond 
 which he could not advance, with Gen. Jackson on the same 
 ground as the Confederates held in the morning, upon as level 
 and drawn a battle as history exhibits. But it was fought for 
 half the day with 45,000 men on the Confederate side, and for 
 the remaining half with no more than an aggregate of 70,000 
 men, against a host which is admitted to have consisted of 
 130,000, and may have been more. 
 
 It is certain that if we had had fresh troops to hurl against 
 Burnside at the bridge of Antietarn, the day would have been 
 ours. The anxious messages of this officer to McClellan for 
 reinforcements were again and again repeated as the evening 
 wore on, and the replies of that commander showed that he 
 understood where was the critical point of the battle. As the 
 sun was sinking in the west, he dispatched orders to Gen. 
 Burnside, urging him to hold his position, and as the messen 
 ger was riding away he called him back " Tell him if he 
 cannot hold his ground, then the bridge, to the last man ! 
 always the bridge ! If the bridge is lost, all is lost." 
 
 The enemy held the bridge, but of other portions of the 
 field we retained possession. Varying as may have been the 
 successes of the day, they left us equal masters of the field 
 with our antagonist. But our loss had been considerable ; it 
 was variously estimated from five to nine thousand ; and we 
 had to deplore the fall of Gens. Branch and Starke, with 
 other brave and valuable officers. The loss of the enemy was 
 not less than our own.* They had fought well and been ably 
 
 * The New York Tribune said : " The dead lie in heaps, and the wounded 
 are coming in by thousands. Around and in a large barn about half a mile 
 from the spot where Gen. Hooker engaged the enemy s left, there were counted 
 1,250 wounded. In Simmer s corps alone, our loss in killed, wounded and 
 missing amounts to five thousand two hundred and eight. The 15th Massa 
 chusetts regiment went into the battle with five hundred and fifty men, and 
 same out, with one hundred and fifty-six. The 19th Massachusetts, of four 
 
SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 commanded. But they had the advantage not only of nuin 
 bers, but of a position from which they could assume an offen 
 sive or defensive attitude at will, besides which their signal 
 stations on the Blue Ridge commanded a view of our every 
 movement. 
 
 The battle-field of Sharpsburg will long be remembered from 
 the terrible and hideous circumstances that so many of the 
 dead were left unburied upon it. Some of them laid with their 
 faces to the ground, whither they had turned in the agony ot 
 death, and in which position they had died ; others were heap 
 ed in piles of three and four together, with their arms inter 
 locked, and their faces turned upwards towards the sky. Scores 
 of them were laid out in rows, as though the death-shot had 
 penetrated their breasts as they were advancing to the attack. 
 Covered with mud and dust, with their faces and clothes smear 
 ed with blood and gore, there they rotted in the sun ! 
 
 The close of this great battle left neither army in a condition 
 to renew the conflict, although our own brave troops were des 
 perately ready to do so. But the next morning McClellan had 
 disappeared from our front, and, knowing the superiority 01 
 the enemy s numbers, and not willing to risk the combinations 
 he was attempting, Gen. Lee crossed the Potomac without mo 
 lestation, and took position at or near Shepherdstown. 
 
 The enemy claimed a victory, but the best evidence, if any 
 were wanting, to prove that he was really defeated and his 
 army crippled, is found in the fact that he did not renew the 
 fight on the succeeding day, and on the next permitted Gen. 
 Lee to recross the Potomac without an attempt to obstruct 
 him. The pretence of victory on this occasion cost McClelian 
 his command. On the 20th of September he made a feint or 
 a weak and hesitating attempt to cross the Potomac at Shep 
 herdstown, when the column which had crossed was fallen 
 upon by A. P. Hill and pushed into the river, which was filled 
 with the dead and wounded attempting to escape. 
 
 The charges against McClellan consequent upon his pre- 
 
 hundred and six, lost all but one hundred and forty-seven. The 5th Ne\? 
 Hampshire, about three hundred strong, lost one hundred and ten enlisted 
 men and fourteen officers. Massachusetts, out of eight regiments engaged, 
 loses upwards of fifteen hundred, and Pennsylvania has suffered more than 
 anv other State." 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 4:89 
 
 tended victory, were sustained by the official testimony of the 
 Yankee commander-in-chief. The report of Geri. Halleck ac 
 cased McClellan of disobedience of orders, in refusing to ad 
 vance against the enemy after the battle of Sharpsburg, upon 
 the plea that the army lacked shoes, tents, stores, and other 
 necessaries, which Gen. Halleck held to be entirely unfounded, 
 asserting that all the wants of the army were duly cared for, 
 and that any causes of delay that might have occurred were 
 trivial and speedily remedied. He furthermore charged 
 McClellan with willful neglect of a peremptory order of the 
 6th of October to cross the Potomac immediately, to give battle 
 to the Confederates or to drive them south. 
 
 A fatal consequence to the Yankees of the campaign ir 
 Maryland was the sacrifice to popular clamor and official env} 
 of him whom they had formerly made their military pet and 
 " Napoleon," and who, although the extent of his pretensions 
 was ridiculous, was really esteemed in the South as the ablest 
 general in the North. The man who succeeded him in the com 
 mand of the army of the Potomac was Gen. Ambrose Burn 
 Bide, of Rhode Island. He had served during the Mexican 
 war as a second lieutenant ; and at the time he was raised to 
 his important command, the captain of the company with 
 which he had served in Mexico, Edmund Barry, was a recruit 
 ing agent in Richmond for the " Maryland Line." 
 
 We have perhaps imperfectly sketched the movements of 
 the Maryland campaign.* But we have sought to determine 
 
 * It would be difficult to find a more just summary of the campaign in North 
 ern Virgiafca and on the Upper Potomac, or one the statements of which may 
 be more safely appropriated by history than the following address of Gen. Lee 
 to his army : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA,) 
 October 2d, 1862. J 
 
 General Orders, No. 116. 
 
 In reviewing the achievements of the army during the present campaign, the 
 commanding general cannot withhold the expression of his admiration of the 
 indomitable courage it has displayed in battle, and its cheerful endurance of 
 privation and hardship on the march. 
 
 Since your groat victories around Richmond you have defeated the enemy at 
 Cedar Mountain, expelled him from the Rappahannock, and, after a conflict of 
 three days, utterly repulsed him on the Plains of Manassas, and forced him to 
 take shelter within the fortifications around his capital. 
 
 Without halting for repose you crossed the Potomac, stormed the heights of 
 
490 . SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 its historical features without any large enumeration of details 
 It was mixed with much of triumph to us ; it added lustre to 
 our arms ; it inflicted no loss upon us for which we did not ex 
 act full retribution ; it left the enemy nothing but barren re 
 sults ; and it gave us a valuable lesson of the state of public 
 opinion in Maryland. 
 
 There is one point to which the mind naturally refers for a 
 just historical interpretation of the Maryland campaign. The 
 busy attempts of newspapers to pervert the truth of history 
 were renewed in an effort to misrepresent the designs of Gen. 
 Lee in crossing the Potomac, as limited to a mere incursion, 
 the object of which was to take Harper s Ferry, and that ac 
 complished, to return into Virginia and await the movements 
 of McClellan. It is not possible that our commanding gene 
 ral can be a party to this pitiful deceit, to cover up any failure 
 of his, or that he has viewed with any thing but disgust the 
 offer of falsehood and misrepresentation made to him by flat 
 terers. 
 
 Harper s Ferry, made prisoners of more than eleven thousand men, and captured 
 upwards of seventy pieces of artillery, all their small arms and other munitions 
 of war. 
 
 While one corps of the army was thus engaged, the other insured its success 
 by arresting at Boonesboro the combined armies of the enemy, advancing under 
 their favorite general to the relief of their beleaguered comrades. 
 
 On the field of Sharpsburg, with less than one-third his numbers, you resisted, 
 from daylight until dark, the whole army of the enemy, and repulsed every at 
 tack along his entire front, of more than four miles in extent. 
 
 The whole of the following clay you stood prepared to resume the conflict on 
 the same ground, and retired next morning, without molestation, across the 
 Potomac. 
 
 Two attempts, subsequently made by the enemy to follow you cross the 
 river, have resulted in his complete discomfiture, and being driven back with 
 loss. 
 
 Achievements such as these demanded much valor and patriotism. His 
 tory records few examples of greater fortitude and endurance than this army 
 has exhibited ; and I am commissioned by the President to thank you, in the 
 name of the Confederate States, for the undying fame you have won for their 
 arms. 
 
 Much as you have done, much more remains to be accomplished. The 
 enemy again threatens us with invasion, and to your tried valor and patriot 
 ism the country looks with confidence for deliverance and safety. Your past 
 exploits give assurance that this confidence is not misplaced. 
 
 R. E. LEE, 
 General Commanding. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 491 
 
 Let it be freely confessed, that the object of Gen. Lee in 
 crossing the Potomac was to hold and occupy Maryland ; that 
 his proclamation issued at Frederick, offering protection to the 
 Marylanders, is incontrovertible evidence of this fact ; that ho 
 was forced to return to Virginia, not by stress of any single 
 battle, but by the force of many circumstances, some of whicli 
 history should blush to record ; that, in these respects, the 
 Maryland campaign was a failure. But it was a failure re 
 lieved by brilliant episodes, mixed with at least one extra 
 ordinary triumph of our arms, and to a great extent compen 
 sated by many solid results. 
 
 In the brief campaign in Maryland, our army had given the 
 most brilliant illustrations of valor ; it had given the enerny at 
 Harper s Ferry a reverse without parallel in the history of the 
 war; it had inflicted upon him a loss in men and material 
 greater than our own ; and in retreating into Virginia, it left 
 him neither spoils nor prisoners, as evidence of the successes 
 he claimed. The indignant comment of the New York Tribune 
 on Lee s retirement into Virginia is the enemy s own record of 
 the barren results that were left them. " He leaves us," said 
 this paper, " the debris of his late camps, two disabled pieces 
 of artillery, a few hundred of his stragglers, perhaps two thou 
 sand of his wounded, and as many more of his unburied dead. 
 ISTot a sound field-piece, caisson, ambulance, or wagon, not a 
 tent, a box of stores, or a pound of ammunition. He takes 
 with him the supplies gathered in Maryland, and the rich spoils 
 of Harper s Ferry." The same paper declared, that the failure 
 of Maryland to rise, or to contribute recruits (all the acces 
 sions to our force, obtained in this State, did not exceed eight 
 hundred men), was the defeat of Lee, and about the only defeat 
 he did sustain ; that the Confederate losses proceeded mainly 
 from the failure of their own exaggerated expectations ; that 
 Lee s retreat over the Potomac was a masterpiece ; and that 
 the manner in which he combined Hill and Jackson for the en 
 velopment of Harper s Ferry, while he checked the Federal 
 columns at Hagerstown Heights and Crampton Gap, was prob 
 ably the best achievement of the war. 
 
 The failure of the people of Maryland to respond to the 
 proclamation of Gen, Lee issued at Frederick, inviting them 
 tolas standard, and generously assuring protection to all classes 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OP THE WAK. 
 
 of political opinion, admits of some excuse; but tLe expla 
 nations commonly made on this subject do not amount to thei. 
 vindication. It is true tliat when Gen. Lee was in Frederick, 
 he was forty-five miles from the city of Baltimore a city 
 surrounded by Federal bayonets, zealously guarded by an armed 
 Federal police, and lying in the shadow of Fort Mcllenry 
 and of two powerful fortifications located within the limits of 
 the corporation. It is true that our army passed only through 
 two of the remote counties of the State, namely Frederick 
 and Washington, which, with Carroll and Alleghany, are well 
 known to contain the most violent " Union " population in 
 Maryland. It is true that the South could not have expected 
 a welcome in these counties or a desperate mutiny for the 
 Confederacy in Baltimore. But it was expected that Southern 
 sympathizers in other parts of the State, who so glibly ran the 
 blockade on adventures of trade, might as readily work their 
 way to the Confederate army as to the Confederate markets ; 
 and it was not expected that the few recruits who timidly ad 
 vanced to our lines would have been so easily dismayed by the 
 rags of our soldiers and by the prospects of a service that prom 
 ised equal measures of hardship and glory. 
 
 The army which rested again in Virginia had made a history 
 that will flash down the tide of time a lustre of glory. It had 
 done an amount of marching and fighting that appears almost 
 incredible, even to those minds familiar with the records of 
 great military exertions. Leaving the banks of James river, 
 it proceeded directly to the line of the Rappahannoek, and 
 moving out from that river, it fought its way to the Potomac, 
 crossed that stream, and moved on to Fredericktown and Ha- 
 gerstown, had a heavy engagement at the mountain gaps be 
 low, fought the greatest pitched battle of the war at Sharps- 
 burg, and then recrossed the Potomac back into Virginia. 
 During all this time, covering the full space of a month, the 
 troops rested but four days. Of the men who performed these 
 wonders, one-fifth of them were barefoot, one-half of them in 
 rags, and the whole of them half famished. 
 
 The remarkable campaign which we have briefly sketched 
 extending from the banks of the James river to those of the 
 Potomac, impressed the world with wonder and admiration, 
 excited an outburst of applause among living nations, which 
 
THE SECOND FEAK. 
 
 pr.ticipated the verdict of posterity, and set the whole of 
 Europe ringing with praises of the heroism and fighting quali 
 ties of the Southern armies. The South was already obtain 
 ing some portion of the moral rewards of this war, in the esti 
 mation in which she was held by the great martial nations of 
 the world. She had purchased the rank with a bloody price. 
 She had extorted homage from the most intelligent and influ 
 ential organs of public opinion in the Old World, from men 
 well versed in the history of ancient and modern times, and 
 from those great critics of contemporary history, which are 
 least accustomed to the language of extravagant compliment. 
 
 The following tribute from the London Times the great 
 organ of historic precedent and educated opinion in the Old 
 World was echoed by the other journals of Europe: 
 
 "The people of the Confederate States have made themselves 
 famous. If the renown of brilliant courage, stern devotion to 
 a cause, and military achievements almost without a parallel, 
 can compensate men for the toil and privations of the hour, 
 then the countrymen of Lee and Jackson may be consoled 
 amid their sufferings. From all parts of Europe, from their 
 enemies as well as their friends, from those who condemn their 
 acts as well as those who sympathize with them, comes the 
 tribute of admiration. When the history of this war is written, 
 the admiration will doubtless become deeper and stronger, for 
 the veil which has covered the South will be drawn away and 
 disclose a picture of patriotism, of unanimous self-sacrifice, of 
 wise and firm administration, which we can now only see in 
 distinctly. The details of extraordinary national effort which 
 has led to the repulse and almost to the destruction of an in 
 vading force of more than half a million men, will then become 
 known to the world, and whatever may be the fate of the new 
 nationality, or its subsequent claims to the respect of mankind, 
 it will assuredly begin its career with a reputation for genius 
 and valor which the most famous nations may envy." 
 
 It is at first appearance strange, that while such was the 
 public opinion in England of our virtues and abilities, that that 
 government should have continued so unjust and obstinate with 
 respect to our claims for recognition. But the explanation is 
 easy. The demonstrations of the conflict which awakened such 
 genero is admiration of us in the breasts of a majority of the 
 
494 SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 English people were to the government the subjects only of 
 jealous and interested views. We had trusted too much to 
 manifestations of public opinion in England ; we had lost sight 
 of the distinction between the people and government of that 
 country, and had forgotten that the latter had, since the be 
 ginning of this war, been cold and reserved, had never given 
 us any thing to hope from its sympathies or its principles, and 
 had limited its action on the American question to the unfeel 
 ing and exacting measures of selfishness. 
 
 The bloody and unhappy revelation which the war has made 
 of enormous military resources has naturally given to Europe, 
 and especially to England, an extraordinary interest in its con 
 tinuation. It is probable that she would not have hesitated to 
 recognize the South, unless firmly persuaded of our abilit}^ and 
 resolution to carry on the war, and unless she had another ob 
 ject to gain besides that of a permanent division in the nation 
 ality and power of her old rival. That object was the exhaus 
 tion of both North and South. England proposed to effect the 
 continuation of the war, as far as possible, to the mutual ruin 
 of the two nations engaged in it, by standing aside and trusting 
 that after vast expenditures of blood and wacte of resources the 
 separation of the Union would be quite as surely accomplished 
 by the self-devotion of the South, as by the less profitable mode 
 of foreign intervention. 
 
 In this unchristian and inhuman calculation, England had 
 rightly estimated the resolution and spirit of the South. We 
 were prepared to win our independence with the great prices 
 of blood and suffering that she had named. But we under 
 stood what lurked behind the mask of British conscience, and 
 we treasured the lesson for the future. 
 
 OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE WAR. 
 
 It is not amiss in this connection to make a summary in ref 
 erence to the relations between the Confederacy and the neu 
 tral powers of Europe during the progress of the war to the 
 present period of our narrative. 
 
 The confederation of the Southern States in 1861 was the 
 t lird political union that had been formed between the States 
 of North America. The first act of secession dates as far back 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 495 
 
 as 1789, when eleven of the States, becoming dissatisfied with 
 the old articles of confederation made in 1778, seceded and 
 formed a second union. When in 1861 eleven of the States 
 again seceded and united themselves under the style of the 
 Confederate States of North America, they exercised a right 
 which required no justification, and which in a former instance 
 had not been contested by any party at home, or made the sub 
 ject of discussion with any third power. 
 
 On every attempt for the opening of formal diplomatic in 
 tercourse with the European powers, the commissioners of the 
 Confederate States had met with the objection that these pow 
 ers could not assume to judge between the conflicting represen 
 tations of the two parties as to the true nature of their previous 
 mutual relations ; and that they were constrained by interna 
 tional usage and the considerations of propriety to recognize 
 the self-evident fact of the existence of a war, and to maintain 
 a strict neutrality during its progress. 
 
 On this neutrality, two remarks are to be -made : 
 
 First. It was founded upon the grave error that the separate 
 sovereignty and independence of the States had been merged 
 into one common sovereignty ; an error easily induced by the 
 delegation of power granted by these States to the Federal gov 
 ernment to represent them in foreign intercourse, but one that 
 should have been as easily dispelled by appeals to reason and 
 historical fact. 
 
 Secondly. The practical operation of this falsely assumed and 
 falsely named " neutrality " was an actual decision against the 
 rights of the South, and had been but little short of active hos 
 tilities against her. 
 
 By the governments of England and France, the doctrines 
 announced in the treaty of Paris were ignored, and the mon 
 strous Yankee blockade, t>y some forty or fifty vessels, of a 
 coast line nearly three thousand miles in extent, came to be 
 acknowledged and respected. When this recognition of the 
 blockade was made, it is very certain that the whole Yankee 
 navy, if employed on that service and nothing else, could not 
 furnish vessels enough to pass signals from point to point along 
 the coast. At the time this paper blockade was declared and 
 acknowledged, the Navy Eegister shows that the Federal Gov 
 ernment had in commission but forty vessels, all told These 
 
496 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 were scattered over the world : some of them were in the Cnina 
 seas, some in the Pacific, some in the Mediterranean, some in 
 our own part of the world, and some in another. The actua. 
 force employed in the blockading service did not give one ves 
 sel for eveiy fifty miles of coast. In addition to these con 
 siderations, it had been shown by unquestionable evidence, fur 
 nished in part by the officials of tlje European powers them 
 selves, that the few Southern ports really guarded by naval 
 forces of the Yankees had been invested so inefficiently that 
 hundreds of entries had been effected into them since -the dec 
 laration of the blockade. 
 
 During nearly two years of struggle had this boasted " neu 
 trality" of the European powers operated as active hostility 
 against us, for they had helped the enemy to prevent us, with 
 a force which was altogether inadequate, from obtaining sup 
 plies of prime necessity. 
 
 JS"or was this all. WQ had no commerce ; but in that the 
 enemy was rich. "We had no navy ; in that he was strong. 
 Therefore, when England and Her allies declared that neither 
 the armed cruisers nor the prizes of either of the belligerents 
 should have hospitality and protection in neutral ports, the 
 prohibition, directed against both belligerents, was in reality 
 effective against the Confederate States alone, for they alone 
 could find a hostile commerce on the ocean. 
 
 Thus it was that, in the progress of the war, the neutral 
 nations of Europe had pursued a policy which, nominally im 
 partial, had been practically most favorable to our enemies 
 and most detrimental to us. 
 
 The temper which this injustice produced in the South was 
 f ortunate. The South was conscious of powers of resistance of 
 which the world was incredulous ; and the first feverish ex 
 pectations of recognition by the European powers were re 
 placed by a proud self-reliance and a calm confidence, which 
 were forming our national character, while contributing at the 
 same time to the immediate successes of our arms. 
 
 The recognition by France and England of Lincoln s paper 
 blockade, had by no means proved an unmitigated evil to us. 
 It had forced us into many branches of industry, into which, 
 but for that blockade, we should have never entered. "We had 
 excellent powder-mills of our own, and fine armories whicb 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 497 
 
 turned out muskets, rifles, sabres, &c. The war found no 
 more than half a dozen furnaces in blast in the whole Confed 
 eracy, and most of those had been destroyed by the enemy. 
 But the government had given such encouragement to the iron 
 men that new mines had been opened in other parts of the 
 Confederacy, and furnaces enough were already up or in the 
 course of erection, to supply the wants of the government. In 
 the last spring we had planted not more than one-fourth of the 
 usual breadth of land in cotton, and our surplus labor was di 
 rected to breadstuff s and provisions. All these were the fruits 
 to us of a blockade which threatened England especially with. 
 a terrible reaction of her own injustice, and was laying up a 
 store of retribution for Europe. 
 
498 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIEL 
 
 Movements in the West. The splendid Programme of the Yankees. Kentucky 
 the critical Point. Gen. Kirby Smith s Advance into Kentucky. THK BATTLE o* 
 RICHMOND. Reception of the Confederates in Lexington. Expectation of an Attack 
 on Cincinnati. Gen. Bragg s Plans. Smith s Movement to Bragg s Lines. Escape 
 of the Yankee Forces from Cumberland Gap. Affair of Munfordsville. Gen. Bragg 
 between the Enemy and the Ohio. An Opportunity for a decisive Blow. Buell s 
 Escape to Louisville. The Inauguration of Governor at Frankfort. An idle Cere 
 mony. Probable Surprise of Gen. Bragg. THE BATTUE OF PERRYVILLE. Its Im 
 mediate Results in our Favor. Bragg s failure to concentrate his Forces. His Reso 
 lution of Retreat. Scenes of the Retreat from Kentucky. Errors of the Campaign. 
 A lame Excuse. Public Sentiment in Kentucky. The Demoralization of that 
 State. The Lessons of Submission. 
 
 ON the same day that victory perched on our banners on 
 the plains of Manassas, an important success was achieved by 
 our brave troops in another part of the Confederacy. A vic 
 tory gained at Richmond in Kentucky gave a companion to 
 Manassas, and opened in the West a prospect of the advance 
 of our troops simultaneous with the dawn of new hopes and 
 aspirations in the East. 
 
 A few paragraphs are sufficient for the rapid summary of 
 events necessary to the contemplation of the situation in the 
 West, in which the battle of Richmond was won. 
 
 The North had prepared a splendid programme of opera 
 tions in the country west of the Alleghanies. But few persons 
 on the Southern seaboard had adequate ideas of the grandeur 
 of the enemy s preparations, or of the strength of the forces 
 concentrating on the march in the Western country. These 
 preparations exceeded in magnitude all military movements 
 designed or attempted since the commencement of the war ; 
 for they contemplated not only the expulsion of our forces 
 from Kentucky and Tennessee and the States west of the Mis 
 sissippi, but the penetration through the Gulf States of the 
 heart of the South. The army, now well on its way into Mid 
 dle Tennessee, had Northern Alabama and Georgia for its 
 ultimate destination ; that of Grant was already advanced into 
 Mississippi ; that of McClernand, organizing at Columbus and 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 199 
 
 Memphis, was intended to operate on the Mississippi ; another 
 army was already operating in Missouri and Arkansas ; and a 
 gunboat fleet had been placed on the waters of the Mississippi 
 which was said to be terrible in destructiveness, and impreg 
 nable in strength. Such was the extent of the enemy s plans 
 of campaign in the West. 
 
 The situation left the South but little choice than that of 
 making an aggressive movement by which North Alabama 
 and Middle and East Tennessee might be cleared of the forces 
 of the enemy, and they compelled to fall back to assist Gen. 
 Buell in Kentucky this State being fixed as the critical point 
 in the West, and the field of the active campaign. The brief 
 retirement of Gen. Beauregard from ^active command on ac 
 count of ill health, which was made shortly after his evacua 
 tion of Corinth, left the way open to the promotion of Gen. 
 Bragg, a favorite of the administration, who had a certain 
 military reputation, but, as an active commander in the field, 
 had the confidence neither of the army nor of the public. 
 The first steps of the campaign were easily decided by this 
 commander : it was to use the forces of Gen. Kirby Smith to 
 threaten Cincinnati, and thus distract the attention and divide 
 the forces of the enemy ; while Gen. Bragg himself, co-opera 
 ting with Smith, was to fulfil the great purpose of the cam 
 paign, which was the expulsion of the enemy from Kentucky 
 and the capture of Louisville thus subjecting the whole ot 
 that great grain-growing and meat-producing commonwealth, 
 with all its rich stores, to our control. 
 
 Early in the month of August, Gen. McCown, under the 
 orders of Gen. Smith, moved his division from London to 
 Knoxville in East Tennessee. Thence our troops moved to 
 the gaps in the Cumberland mountains, being joined by Clai- 
 borne s division at the lower gap, when the whole force was 
 ordered through, with the trains and artillery. From this time 
 our troops made forced marches until they reached Barbours- 
 ville, which is on the main thoroughfare by which the Yankees 
 received their supplies at the gap by way of Lexington. Halt 
 ing there long enough only to get water, our wearied army 
 was pushed on to the Cumberland ford. Here a few days 
 rest was allowed to the troops, who had performed their hard 
 inarch over stony roads, with their almost bare feet, and with 
 
500 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 green corn garnished with a small supply of poor beef for 
 their food. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF EIOHMOND. 
 
 On the 29th of August our troops were in striking distance 
 of the enemy at Richmond. Until our advance descended the 
 Big Hill, it met with no opposition from the enemy. Here, 
 on the morning of the 29th, the enemy was discovered to be 
 in force in our front, and a bold recormoissance of the cavalry 
 tinder Colonel Scott, in the afternoon, indicated a determina 
 tion to give us battle. Although Churchill s division did not 
 get up until quite late in the afternoon, and then in an appar 
 ently exhausted state, Gen. Smith determined to march to 
 Richmond the next day, even at the cost of a battle with the 
 whole force of the enemy. The leading division, under Gen. 
 Claiborne, was moved early the next morning, and, after ad 
 vancing two or three miles, they found the enemy drawn up in 
 line of battle in a fine position, near Mount Zion church, six 
 miles from Richmond. "Without waiting for Churchill s divi- 
 fcion, Claiborne at once commenced the action, and by half- 
 past seven o clock in the morning, the fire of artillery was 
 orisk on both sides. As our force wag almost too small to 
 storm the position in front, without a disastrous loss, Gen. 
 Churchill was sent with one of his brigades to turn the enemy s 
 right. While this movement was being executed, a bold and 
 well-conducted attempt on the part of the enemy, to turn 
 Claiborne s right, was admirably foiled by the firmness of Col. 
 Preston Smith s brigade, who repulsed the enemy with great 
 daughter. In the mean time Gen. Churchill had been com 
 pletely successful in his movement upon the enemy s right 
 flank, where, by a bold charge, his men completed a victory 
 already partially gained by the gallantry of our troops on the 
 left. 
 
 The Yankees having been repulsed and driven in confusion 
 from this part of the field, might have retreated without risk 
 ing another passage at arms, had they not misapprehended our 
 movements. 
 
 Gen. Smith having ordered the cavalry to go around to the 
 north of Richmond and attempt to cut off the retreat of the 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 501 
 
 enemy, our artillery ceased firing, and the enemy, thinking 
 our army was preparing for a retreat, had the foolhardiness to 
 rally on their own retreat and attempt a charge upon the 
 Texas and Arkansas troops under McCray, who, to the grea 
 astonishment of the enemy, instead of running away, met 
 them on the half-way ground. This gallant brigade of Texans 
 and Arkansians had to fight the battle alone. Although the 
 odds opposed to them were fearful, yet by reserving their own 
 fire, under the deafening roar of the enemy s guns, and by a 
 well-timed and dashing charge upon the advancing lines, they 
 completely routed and put to flight the hosts of the enemy. 
 They fled in the wildest confusion and disorder. Their knap 
 sacks, swords, pistols, hats, and canteens, scattered along the 
 road, would have marked the route they travelled, even if their 
 dead and dying had not too plainly showed the way. 
 
 In passing a deserted camp of the enemy, Gen. Smith found 
 from some of the wounded that Gen. Nelson, the Yankee com 
 mander, with reinforcements, had arrived after the second 
 battle. A march of two miles brought us within sight of the 
 town, in front of which, and on a commanding ridge, with both 
 flanks resting upon woods, Nelson had determined to make a 
 final stand. Churchill, with a brigade, was sent off to the left, 
 when a deafening roar of musketry soon announced the raging 
 of a furious combat. In the mean while, Preston Smith, bring 
 ing up his division at a double-quick, formed in front of the 
 enemy s centre and left. Almost without waiting the com 
 mand of the officers, this division coolly advanced under the 
 murderous fire of a force twice their number, and drove them 
 from the field in the greatest confusion, and with immense 
 slaughter. The exhausted condition of our men, together with 
 the closing in of night, prevented the pursuit of the enemy 
 more than a mile beyond Richmond. 
 
 The results of the day were gratifying enough. With less 
 than half his force, Gen. Smith had attacked and carried a very 
 strong position at Mount Zion church, after a hard fight of 
 two hours. Again, a still better position at White s farm, in 
 half an hour , and finally, in the town of Richmond, just be 
 fore sunset, our indomitable troops deliberately walked (they 
 were too tired to run) up to a magnificent position, manned by 
 ten thousand of the enemy, many of them perfectly fresh, and 
 
502 SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 carried it in fifteen minutes. In the last engagement, we tool: 
 prisoners from thirteen regiments. Our loss in killed and 
 wounded was about four hundred ; that of the enemy was 
 about one thousand, and his prisoners five thousand. The im 
 mediate fruits of the victory were nine pieces of artillery and 
 ten thousand small-arms, and a large quantity of supplies. 
 These latter were greatly increased by the capture of Rich 
 mond and Frankfort, the whole number of cannon taken being 
 about twenty. 
 
 On the 1st day of September Gen. Smith took up the line ot 
 march for Lexington ; and on the morning of the fourth day 
 of that month, our forces, consisting of a Texas brigade and an 
 Arkansas brigade, under the command of Gen. Churchill, and 
 Gen. Claiborne s division and Gen. Heath s division, all under 
 the command of Gen. Kirby Smith, marched through the cit> 
 amidst the hearty and generous welcome of thousands of mevi, 
 women, and children. 
 
 The entrance of our troops into Lexington was the occasion 
 of the most inspiriting and touching scenes. Streets, window?*, 
 and gardens were filled with ladies and little girls with stream - 
 ers of red and blue ribbons and flags with stars. Beautiful 
 women seized the hard brown hands of our rough and ragged 
 soldiers, and with tears and smiles thanked them again and 
 again for coming into Kentucky and freeing them from the 
 presence and insults of the hated and insolent Yankees. For 
 hours the enthusiasm of the people was unbounded. At every 
 corner of the streets, baskets of provisions and buckets of water 
 were placed for the refreshment of our weary soldiers, and hun 
 dreds of our men were presented with shoes and hats and coats 
 and tobacco from the grateful people. Private residences 
 were turned for the time into public houses of entertainment, 
 free to all who could be persuaded to go and eat. But if the 
 reception of the infantry was enthusiastic, the tears, the smiles, 
 and shouts and cheers of wild delight which greeted Gen. 
 John Morgan s cavalry as they came dashing through the 
 streets amidst clouds of dust, was without a parallel. The 
 wildest joy ruled the hours. The bells of the city pealed forth 
 (heir joyous welcome, whilst the waving of thousands of white 
 handkerchiefs and tiny Confederate flags attested the gladness 
 and delight of every heart. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 503 
 
 It would have been well if the enthusiasm which welcomec 1 
 Gen. Smith in this town could have been confirmed as a true 
 token of the public sentiment of Kentucky. But while thig 
 sentiment was developing itself, the exultation which greeted 
 our troops at Lexington was reflected in other parts of the Con 
 federacy ; and from the results already achieved in the West 
 ern campaign, the Southern public was raised to the pinnacle 
 of hopeful expectation. When it was known at the seat of 
 government in Virginia that Gen. Smith, after crushing the 
 force opposed to him at Eichmond. had gone on and captured 
 Lexington, Paris, and Cynthiana, and established his lines al 
 most in sight of Cincinnati, the public indulged the prospect 
 of the speedy capture of this great city of the West, with its 
 valuable stores and yards for building gunboats. What might 
 have been the result of a sudden attack on this city (for one 
 of our brigades was in striking distance of it) is left to conjee 
 ture. The order was to menace, not to attack ; and the pur 
 poses of the campaign projected by Gen. Bragg required thai 
 Smith s command, after making its demonstration on the Ohio 
 should fall back into the interior to co-operate with the splen 
 did army he had already brought into Kentucky. 
 
 Gen. Bragg had entered the State by the eastern route from 
 Knoxville and Chattanooga. The direct route by the way ol 
 Nashville would have brought him on Buell s front ; but he 
 chose to make the crossing of the Cumberland river several 
 miles above Nashville, apparently with the design of making 
 a flank movement on Buell. The immediate effect of this 
 movement was to cause the Yankees to evacuate East Tennes 
 see^ and to relieve North Alabama from Federal occupation ; 
 but the enemy, learning that Cincinnati was not in immediate 
 danger, had abundant time to remove -the forces collected for 
 the defence of that city, to be united with BuelFs army in 
 Kentucky. * 
 
 The sudden disappearance of Smith from in front of Cincin 
 nati, and the rapidity of his movement, intimated clearly 
 enough that he was making a forced march to reach Bragg 
 and strengthen him before a decisive trial of his strength with 
 Buell. But the movement deprived us of a victory that might 
 have been cheaply won ; for it gave opportunity of escape to 
 the Yankee Gen. Morgan, who had been completely hemmed 
 
504 SOUTHEEN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 in at Cumberland Gap, with an army of ten or twelve thou 
 sand men and abundance of arms and equipments. 
 
 The distance to the Ohio river is about two hundred and 
 fifty miles, and includes the most mountainous portions of Ken 
 tucky. There are scarcely fifty miles of the entire route in 
 which there are not defiles and passes where a small force 
 could have kept the enemy at bay. The famous cavalry com 
 mander, John H. Morgan, had been sent with a portion of his 
 command to harass the retreating enemy ; and this intrepid 
 officer, with seven hundred and fifty men, arrested the Yankee 
 army for five days, and might have captured them with the 
 half of Marshall s infantry, who were within little more than 
 a day s march. But reinforcements were not sent forward, and 
 no alternative was left to Morgan but aftei inflicting such 
 damage as he could upon the enemy to rejoin Smith s march, 
 which had now taken the direction of Frankfort. 
 
 On the 17th of September, Gen. Bragg captured about five 
 thousand of the enemy at Munfordsville, with the inconsider 
 able loss on our side of about fifty men in killed and wounded. 
 He had thrown his lines between Buell s force at Bowling 
 Green and Louisville, and it was confidently expected that he 
 would engage him, drive him across the Ohio or the Missis 
 sippi, or at least disconcert his hopes of preparations and 
 increase of forces at Louisville. Buell s entire force at this 
 time was not computed at over thirty-five thousand, for which 
 
 our army, in. the best possible spirits and confidence, was an 
 
 overmatch. 
 
 It is probable that at this juncture the struggle in Kentucky 
 night have been decided by a fight on a fair field with an 
 army our inferior in all respects. Yiewed in the light of sub 
 sequent events, it is -difficult to determine what good object 
 Gen. Bragg could have had in declining a contest with the 
 enemy but a few miles distant. It is still more inexplicable 
 that after the success of Munfordsville he should have stood 
 idly by and suffered Buell and his wagon trains to pass be 
 tween him and the Ohio river, almost in sight of his lines. 
 He had passed Buell to enter Kentucky, and having accom 
 plished it, his reasons for allowing his enemy to repass him and 
 enter Louisville are inadmissible to any justification that can 
 be offered by practical good sense. Whatever explanations 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 505 
 
 have been made of them, it is certain that at this time the 
 public has not abandoned its opinion, that General Bragg s 
 failure to deliver battle at the important conjuncture which 
 placed him between the enemy and the Ohio, was the fatal 
 error of the Kentucky campaign. 
 
 On the 4th of October, Gen. Bragg joined Smith s army at 
 Frankfort, where was conducted the inauguration of the Pro 
 visional Governor of Kentucky, Mr. Hawes. This ceremony, 
 however, was scarcely any thing more than a pretentious farce. 
 Scarcely was it completed, when the Yankees threatened the 
 State capital, and the newly installed Governor had to fleo 
 from their approach. The delusion, that Buell s army was 
 quietly resting in Louisville, was dispelled by the news received 
 at Frankfort on the inauguration day, to the effect that the 
 Yankees were in large force within twelve miles of the place 
 But the apparent movement on Frankfort was a mere feint, 
 while the enemy was concentrating to force our left wing near 
 Perryville. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE. 
 
 Having arrived at Harrodsburg from Frankfort, Gen. Bragg, 
 finding the enemy pressing heavily in his rear near Perryville^ 
 determined to give him battle there, and ordered Gen. Polk to- 
 make the attack next day. But he had made an unfortunate 
 disposition of his forces, for on the day before the division of 
 Wiihers had been sent to Salvisa to reinforce Gen. Kirby 
 Smith and cut off Sill s division. Hardee s and Buckner s 
 divisions were marched to Perryville, leaving Gen. Cheatham s 
 at Harrodsburg, which, however, came up to Perryville on the 
 night of the 7th of October, before the engagement. Withers 
 failed to intercept Gen. Sill s division, but captured the rear 
 guard, consisting of seven hundred and fifty men, with an 
 ammunition train ; and on the morning of the 9th, Gen. With 
 ers and Gen. Kirby Smith s forces reached Harrodsburg, hav 
 ing been too late to participate in the decisive events of the 
 preceding day. 
 
 The morning of the 8th of October found not more than 
 fifteen thousand Confederate troops confronting an enemy three 
 times their numbers. The forces opposed to us at Perryville 
 
506 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE W.iR. 
 
 consisted of the right wing of the " Army of the Ohio," com 
 posed of Bu ell s veteran army, with Major-gen. Geo. W. Tlomag 
 as commander-in-chief of the field, and Gen. Alex. McCook 
 commanding the first corps. We fought nine divisions of the 
 Abolition army, composed at least of five thousand each, mak 
 ing forty-five thousand men. 
 
 Gen. Buckner s division, which was posted on our extreme 
 right, with Anderson s division, formed the left wing of the 
 army of the Mississippi, under Major-gen. Hardee. Cheat- 
 ham s and Withers divisions formed the right wing, under 
 Major-gen. Polk. Thus we had but three divisions in the 
 field. 
 
 The action opened a little past noon. It was only skirmish 
 ing for a considerable time, Col. Powell s brigade holding the 
 extreme left of our lines, and gallantly driving the enemy 
 back for about a mile against superior forces. It was about 
 this time, towards 4 P. M., when Gen. Smith s brigade, belong 
 ing to Cheatham s division, was ordered back to our assistance, 
 that Gen. Adams, with his brave Louisianians, was holding the 
 enemy in check against fearful odds, when he was forced to fall 
 back from his position. Gen. Hardee, seeing the importance 
 of holding the point, ordered Gen. Adams to retake it, telling 
 him he would be supported by reinforcements. It was while 
 advancing again, and anxiously looking for the reinforcements, 
 that Gen. Adams, seeing some -soldiers firing at what he sup 
 posed to be our own men, ordered them to cease firing. " I 
 tell you, sir, they are Yankees," cried one of the officers. " I 
 think not, and you had better go forward first and ascertain," 
 replied Adams. " 111 go, sir, but I don t think it necessary, 
 for I know they are Yankees," insisted the officer. " Well," 
 said Adams, " I ll go myself," and dashing forward on his 
 charger, he had not proceeded one hundred yards when a fu 
 rious storm of Minie balls whizzed by his ears from the enemy. 
 The general turned immediately, and riding up, shouted to 
 our troops to pour in their fire. Towards six o ck ck the firing 
 became incessant on both sides. There stood Adams, with his 
 little, brigade, holding back a division of the enemy, left, as it 
 were, alone to his fate, until, seeing no chance of being re 
 inforced, he gradually fell back, in most excellent order, but not 
 without considerable loss. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 507 
 
 Towards night the engagement subsided. Fearfully out 
 numbered, our troops had not hesitated to engage at any odds, 
 and despite the checks they had encountered at times, the 
 enemy was driven two miles from his first line of battle. As 
 darkness fell, the conflict was over. A few shots from long 
 range guns were exchanged. The full round moon rose in the 
 east and lighted the dismal scene. In half an hour the picket 
 fires of the opposing armies were visible five hundred yards 
 distant, and our wearied men laid down on their arms. 
 
 The immediate results of the battle ef Perryville were in 
 our favor. We had captured fifteen pieces of artillery by the 
 most daring charges, had inflicted the loss of four thousand 
 men on the enemy, and held several hundred of his prisoners. 
 Our own loss was estimated at twenty-five hundred in killed, 
 wounded, and missing. The enemy had lost one of their best 
 generals on the field Jackson. Seeing his men wavering, he 
 had advanced to the front line, and, waving his sword, cheered 
 and urged them on. While thus displaying an extraordinary 
 courage he was struck in the right breast by a piece of an ex 
 ploded shell, and fell from his horse. It is said by thof^ 
 near him that he said only, " O God !" and died without ?, 
 struggle. 
 
 But the success of Perryville was of no importance to us ; 
 it was merely a favorable incident and decided nothing. It in 
 probable Gen. Bragg had it inhis power here, by concentrat 
 ing his troops, to crush the enemy s force in Kentucky ; but 
 he allowed himself to be deceived as to the disposition of- the 
 enemy s forces, scattered his own, and engaged and defeated 
 the head of the Yankee column with less than fifteen thousand 
 men.* Had he fallen with his whole available force, forty 
 thousand men, on the enemy at Perryville, it is not improba 
 ble that he might have dispersed the Yankee army and given 
 it such a blow that it would not have made a stand this side 
 the Ohio river. 
 
 * It is proper to state, that an apology for Gen. Bragg, in this matter, was 
 offered in the public prints, to the effect that before the battle of Perryville 
 Gen. Kirby Smith had communicated to Gen. Bragg his positive belief that the 
 real attack was threatened upon him, whilst the feint was upon Perryville, 
 and urge! reinforcements ; and that this was the reason why Gen. Withers di 
 vision was sent to Gen. Kirby Smith and was not sent to Generals Polk and 
 Hardee. 
 
508 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Unfortunately the battle of Perryville was another experi 
 ence of Shiloh, without any decisive results. Had we have 
 had five thousand more men, or had. Withers been there, we 
 might have completely routed the enemy, leaving us the waj> 
 clear to Louisville. No troops in the world ever fought 
 with more desperate courage than ours. Whole regiments of 
 our men went into that fight barefooted, fought barefooted 
 and had marched barefooted from Chattanooga. The brunt of 
 the battle was borne by Gen. Cheatham s gallant Tennesseeans. 
 No soldiers of the ^ Confederacy ever fought with greater 
 bravery. 
 
 Ascertaining that the enemy was heavily reinforced during 
 the night, Gen. Bragg withdrew his force early the next morn 
 ing to flarrodsburg, where he was joined by Smith and With 
 ers. On the 10th, all our forces fell back to Camp Breckin- 
 ridge (Dick Robinson), the cavalry holding the enemy in check 
 at Danville. It was supposed that Gen. Bragg would have 
 made a stand here, as the place was very defensible and gave 
 him the opportunity of sweeping the country and driving off 
 by private enterprise or cavalry force vast herds of cattle, so 
 much needed by our army. The camp is in an acute angle 
 formed by the junction of Kentucky and Dick s rivers, with 
 high and impassable and perpendicular cliffs for long distances 
 up these rivers, except at a few crossings ; and the upper line 
 of the angle has high and commanding hills, suited for ar 
 tillery defences. It was said that it was impregnable to any 
 other attack than that of famine. 
 
 But moved by various considerations, and excited by the su 
 periority of Buell s numbers, it was determined by Gen. Bragg 
 that the whole army should make its exodus from Kentucky ; 
 and in order to secure the immense quantity of captured stores, 
 goodsj clothing, &c., much of which, had also been purchased, 
 with some five thousand head of cattle, horses, mules, &c., that 
 the retreat should commence on the night of the 12th. On 
 uiat day, Sunday, orders were received to cook four days ra- 
 ; ions for the march. Major-gen. McCowan, with Gen. Hilliard s 
 Legion, and a cavalry force and artillery, was ordered to de- 
 iend Fishing Ford, across Dick s river, and commanding the 
 
 ad to Camp Breckinridge, in our rear, to the last extremity. 
 
 The distress of those people of Kentucky who were friendly 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 509 
 
 to the South, on learning that they were to be abandoned by 
 our troops, was the most affecting circumstance of the sad re 
 treat. When our troeps abandoned Lexington, the terror, 
 dismay, and anguish of the inhabitants were extreme. The 
 women ran through the streets crying and wringing their 
 hands, while families hastily gathered their clothing, packed 
 their trunks, and obtained wagons to depart, the greatest dis 
 tress prevailing. 
 
 The retreat commenced on Sunday night, the 12th October, 
 Major Adrain s cavalry conducting the advance train of Gen. 
 Kirby Smith. That night piles of goods, clothes, &c., were 
 burned that could not be carried off from the warehouse. 
 Long before day on the morning of the 13th, the whole camp 
 was astir. If any one doubted that we were actually retreat 
 ing, the burning piles of abandoned stores, gun-carriages,. &c., 
 was sufficient to convince him of the deplorable fact. 
 
 At gray dawn the troops reached Bryantsville, about two 
 miles from the camp, where the whole command of conducting 
 the retreat was turned over to Gen. Polk. Already train after 
 train of wagons had passed, and others were still forming and 
 joining in the immense cavalcade. Ammunition trains and 
 batteries of captured artillery had preceded. Then followed 
 trains of goods, wares, and merchandise, provision trains of 
 army stores, trains of captured muskets, escorts of cavalry, 
 artillery drawn by oxen. Then came private trains of refugee 
 families, flying with their negroes for safety ladies and chil 
 dren in carriages, stage-coaches, express wagons, omnibuses, 
 buggies, ambulances, jersey wagons, and every conceivable 
 vehicle imaginable, and following, came the wagons of the dif 
 ferent brigades of Gen. Smith s army, with infantry, cavalry, 
 and artillery in the rear. Intermixed with the throng were 
 thousands of head of cattle, horses, and mules. 
 
 The effect of our retreat along the road everywhere was 
 sinking and depressing in the extreme. ~No miniature -banners 
 waved, no white kerchiefs greeted our troops with approving 
 smiles from lovely women, and no wild cheer was heard r e- 
 pjxmsive to the greetings which had attended their march into 
 Kentucky. Trembling women stole to the doors to look upon 
 the strange, mystified scene before them, and as the truth 
 gradually forced itself upon them, their eyes filled with tears, 
 
510 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and they shrank back, fearing even to make the slightest 
 demonstration, of friendliness all was sullen, downcast, and 
 gloomy. 
 
 The enemy was in pursuit, and making a strong effort to 
 flank us, so as to cut-off our trains, and it was necessary to 
 urge on the teams night and day for fear of capture. For 
 some portion of the way the road lay along the bed of Dick s 
 river, a miserable rocky branch, which our troops had to cross 
 and recross for six miles in a dark and hazy night. Scenes of 
 terrible confusion and delay occurred along this road. Wag 
 ons broke down, were overturned, and frequently stalled, and 
 in the former case were often abandoned. The bawling of the 
 teamsters to their mules, the cracking of their whips, and vol 
 leys of oaths in the most outlandish gibberish, which none but 
 the mules could understand, were kept up all night. In the 
 daytime more cheerful scenes relieved the retreat. The foli 
 age of the forest trees and brushwood enlivened the wayside 
 with their rich hues of dark maroon splendor to brilliant 
 crimson. 
 
 The retreat was admirably covered by Gen. Wheeler. From 
 the battle-field at Perryville to Cumberland Gap this general 
 conducted his movements in the same masterly manner that 
 had characterized him in the previous part of the campaign. 
 He retarded the enemy by various means. When he reached 
 the hilly country he obstructed the road by felled trees. By 
 all such ingenious devices, he, with a small force, enabled the 
 baggage trains and straggling infantry to escape capture. 
 From Altamont to Cumberland Gap he encountered the enemy 
 twenty-nine times, seriously damaged him, and saved much of 
 our infantry from capture. At Rock Castle the enemy aban 
 doned the pursuit ; our whole train of stores being up, and 
 not even a wagon lost, except those abandoned on account of 
 breaking down. 
 
 We must leave here an account of the movements of Gen. 
 Bragg until the time shall come for us to see how his retreat 
 from Kentucky through Cumberland Gap transferred the most 
 important scenes of the war in the West to the memorable 
 Jines of Nashville. Deplorable as was this retreat, it was not 
 without some circumstances that palliated it, or relieved the 
 grief of the public mind. It is certain that it was a disap- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 51 I 
 
 pointment to the enemy, who had expected to crush our forces 
 in Kentucky, arid were not prepared for the news of their liber 
 ation from the coils which they nattered themselves had been 
 so industriously and elaborately woven around them. 
 
 It is probable, too, that under the circumstances, after oui 
 own army had blundered so badly in the first steps of the cam 
 paign, its retreat from Kentucky, without the burden of defeat 
 and without material losses, was preferable to alternatives 
 which otherwise would have probably befallen it. It had en 
 tered into Gen. Beauregard s plan of campaign in the West, 
 before he had been superseded, to regain the control of the 
 Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, and thus prepare for future 
 operations. The construction of works on the Cumberland 
 and Tennessee rivers so as to command them, was plainly an 
 important concern ; and, according to Gen. Beauregard s idea, 
 should have been preliminary to the active campaign in the 
 West. With these works, it appears probable that an advance 
 might have been made with safety into Kentucky ; and even 
 had we failed in the taking of Louisville arid Cincinnati, which 
 was a part of Gen. Beauregard s plan, and been compelled to 
 fall back, it is thought not improbable that we could have 
 made a successful stand on the Cumberland. But Gen. Bragg 
 had failed to adopt these suggestions. Had he succeeded, after 
 our victory at Perry ville, in driving the enemy back to Louis 
 ville, unless he had been able to take that place, he would have 
 been compelled to retreat so soon as the Tennessee and Cum 
 berland rivers should have risen sufficiently to have admitted 
 the entrance of the enemy s gunboats and transports. Taking 
 this view, it may be said that as we did not have command of 
 these rivers, it was fortunate that our army left Kentucky when 
 it did, otherwise it might have found great difficulty, after the 
 winter rains commenced, in getting away at all. 
 
 For the failure of Gen. Bragg s campaign in Kentucky, the 
 excuse was offered that the people of that State had been un 
 friendly, that they had not joined his standard in considerable 
 numbers, and that they had disappointed his own and the com 
 mon expectation of the Southern public with respect to their 
 political sentiments. It is scarcely necessary to remark how 
 little applicable such an excuse is to positive blunders in the 
 conduct of an army, and to those imperfections of judgment 
 
512 
 
 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ind faults of strategy which, whatever may be their remote 
 connection, are the immediate occasions and responsible causes 
 of disaster. 
 
 But it is to be admitted that the South was bitterly disap 
 pointed in the manifestations of public sentiment in Kentucky; 
 that the exhibitions of sympathy in this State were meagre and 
 sentimental, and amounted to but little practical aid of our 
 cause. Indeed, no subject was at once more dispiriting and 
 perplexing to the South than the cautious and unmanly recep 
 tion given to our armies, both in Kentucky and Maryland. 
 The references we have made to the sentiment of each of these 
 States, leaves but little room to doubt the general conclusion, 
 that the dread of Yankee vengeance, and love of property, 
 were too powerful to make them take risks against these in 
 favor of a cause for which their people had a mere preference, 
 without any attachment to it higher than those of selfish calcu 
 lation. 
 
 There must, indeed, be some explanation for the extraordi 
 nary quiet of the people of Maryland and Kentucky under the 
 tyranny that ruled them, and for that submission the painful 
 signs of which we had unwillingly seen. This explanation was 
 not to be found in the conduct of the United States. It is a 
 remarkable fact that the Lincoln government had not taken 
 any pains to change the opinions and prejudices of the people 
 in these two States. It had made no attempt to conciliate 
 them ; it had performed no act calculated to awaken their 
 affection ; it had done nothing to convert their hearts to the 
 support of an administration to which they were originally 
 hostile. 
 
 It would be a foolish and brutal explanation to attribute the 
 submission of these States to cowardice. The people of these 
 States were brave ; they were descended from noble ancestries, 
 and they had the same blood and types of race that were com 
 mon to the South. The sons of Kentucky and Maryland who 
 had fought under the Confederate flag were as noble specimens 
 of the Southern soldier as any to be found in our armies. But 
 the people of these States, who had stayed at home and been 
 schooled in the lessons of submission, appeared to have lost the 
 spirit and stature of their ancestors, and dragged the names oi 
 Maryland and Kentucky in the dust. . 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 513 
 
 The only just explanation that can be furnished of the abject 
 attitude of these States is, that having taken the first steps of 
 submission to a pitiless despotism, they had been easily cor 
 rupted into its subjects. The lessons of history furnish many 
 exhibitions of how easily the spirit of a community is crushed 
 by submission to tyranny ; how the practice of non-resistance 
 makes of men crawling creatures. The mistake is in making 
 the first step of submission ; when that is accomplished, de 
 moralization becomes rapid, and the bravest community sinks 
 into emasculation. Under the expf/uence of non-resistance to 
 the rule of a despot, men become timid, artful, and miserly ; 
 they spend their lives in consulting the little ends of personal 
 selfishness. This corruption in Kentucky, as well as in Mary 
 land, had gone on with visible steps. Their history was a les 
 son which the South might well remember, of the fatal conse 
 quences of any submission to despotic will ; for however spe 
 cious its plea, all records of man s experience have shown that 
 it undermines the virtues of a people, and degenerates at last 
 into servile acquiescence in its fate. 
 
 M 
 
514 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 Our Lines im tLe Southwest. Gen. Breckenridge a Attack on Baton Rouge. De 
 struction of the Ram Arkansas. Gen. Price s Reverse at luka. Desperate Fighting. 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. Van Dorn s hasty Exultations. The Massacre of College 
 Hill. Wild and terrible Courage of the Confederates. Our Forces beaten Back. 
 Our Line of Retreat secured. The Military Prospects of the South overshadowed. 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Romance of the War in Missouri. 
 Schofield s Order calling out the Militia. Atrocities of the Yankee Rule in Missouri. 
 Robbery witnout "Red Tape." The Guerilla Campaign. The Aifair of Kirks- 
 ville. Execution of Col. McCullough. The Aflair of Lone Jack. Timely Reinforce 
 ment of Lexington by the Yankees. The Palmyra Massacre. The Question of Re 
 taliation with the South. THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION. Survey of the 
 Military Situation. Capture of Galveston by the Yankees. The Enemy s NavaX 
 Power. His Iron-clads. Importance of Foundries in the South. Prospect in the 
 Southwest. Prospect in Tennessee. Prospect in Virginia. Stuart s Raid into Penn 
 sylvania. Souvenirs of Southern Chivalry. The "Soft-mannered Rebels." Political 
 Complexion of the War in the North. Lincoln s "Emancipation Proclamation." 
 History of Yankee Legislation in the War. Political Error of the Emancipation Proc 
 lamation. Its Effect on the South. The Decay of European Sympathy with the 
 Abolitionists. What the War accomplished for Negro Slavery in the South. Yankee 
 Falsehoods and Bravadoes in Europe. Delusion of Conquering the South by Starva 
 tion. Caricatures in the New York Pictorials. The noble Eloquence of Hunger and 
 Rags. Manners in the South. Yankee Warfare. The Desolation of Virginia. The 
 Lessons of harsh Necessity. Improvement of the Civil Administration of the Con 
 federacy. Ordnance, Manufacturing Resources, Quartermasters Supplies, etc. 
 
 THE crisis in Kentucky was probably hastened by certain 
 disastrous events which had taken place on our lines in the 
 Southwest. A large Confederate force had been left in North 
 Mississippi when Gen. Bragg moved into Kentucky, and the 
 speculation was not remote that, with the Memphis and Charles 
 ton railroad open from Chattanooga to a point near the posi 
 tion of our army in Mississippi, that portion of our forces in 
 the West might render important assistance to, or, in some 
 emergency, effect a co-operation with the armies that had been 
 marched into Kentucky. 
 
 But the story of the Southwest was one of almost unbroken 
 disaster, owing less, perhaps, to inadequate numbers than to 
 the blind and romantic generalship which carried them into 
 the jaws of destruction. There was one golden link in the 
 chain of events here, and that was the heroic defence of Vicks- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 515 
 
 burg. But while this famous town so nobly dispited the palm 
 of the Mississippi, her example of victorious resistance was 
 obscured, though, not overshadowed, by other events in the 
 Southwest. 
 
 On the 5th of August, an attack made by Gen. Breckenridge 
 with less than three thousand men on Baton Rouge, was se 
 verely repulsed by an enemy nearly twice his numbers, fight 
 ing behind fortifications which were almost impregnable ? and 
 assisted by a fleet of gunboats in the river. The unequal attack 
 was made by our troops with devoted courage ; they succeeded 
 in driving the enemy to the arsenal and tower, and to the 
 cover of his gunboats ; but they were compelled to withdraw 
 with diminished and exhausted numbers before a fire which it 
 was impossible to penetrate. 
 
 This check (for it deserves no more important or decisive 
 title) was in a measure occasioned, or, at least, was accompa 
 nied, by a disaster of real importance. This was the destruc 
 tion of the great Confederate ram Arkansas, already famous 
 for having run the gauntlet of the hostile fleet at Vicksburg, 
 and the promises of whose future services had given to the 
 South many brilliant but illusory hopes. The Arkansas left 
 Vicksburg to co-operate in the attack upon Baton Rouge. 
 After passing Bayou Sara her machinery became deranged or 
 disabled. But two alternatives were left to blow her up OF 
 Buffer her to be captured by the Yankee gunboats. The for 
 mer was resorted to, and this proud achievement of naval 
 architecture floated a wreck on the Mississippi river. 
 
 The failure of another enterprise of attack on the enemy, 
 made by Gen. Price at luka on the 20th of September, was 
 much more disastrous than the affair of Baton Rouge. Over 
 matched by numbers, Gen. Price was, after some partial and 
 temporary success, forced back, with a loss greater than that 
 of the enemy. In this engagement our loss was probably eight 
 hundred in killed and wour led. But never had troops fought 
 with more terrible resolution )r wilder energy than the soldiers 
 of Price. The fighting was almost hand to hand ; and as an 
 instance of the close and deadly combat, it may be mentioned 
 that an Ohio battery was taken by our men four different 
 times, and as often retaken by greatly superior numbers of the 
 enemy. The desperation of our soldiers astonished those who, 
 
516 
 
 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 by the weight of numbers alone, were able to resist them. 
 Several of our men endeavored to tear the colors from the 
 hands of the Yankees by main force, and either perished in the 
 attempt or were made prisoners. In one spot next morning, 
 there were counted seventeen Confederate soldiers lying dead 
 around one of their officers. Sixteen feet square would cover 
 the whole space where they died. 
 
 But there was yet to jnsue the great disaster which was to 
 react on other theatres of the war and cast the long shadow of 
 misfortune upon the country of the West. It was destined to 
 take place at Corinth, where Major-gen. Rosecrans, command 
 ing the Yankee army of the Mississippi and Tennessee, was 
 stationed with at least forty thousand men. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. 
 
 The armies of Generals Yan Dorn and Price under Gen. 
 Van Dorn as the ranking officer having formed a junction at 
 Ripley, marched thence for the purpose of engaging the enemy 
 n battle, though it was well known that the battle must be 
 waged under the serious disadvantages of great disparity in 
 numbers and strength of position. 
 
 On the 2d of October our forces marched from Poeahontas 
 to Chewalla, points on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, 
 thus moving from the west on Corinth, the stronghold of the 
 enemy. That night the soldiers rested on their arms, in eager 
 and confident expectation of meeting the foe in battle array on 
 the ensuing morning. 
 
 On Friday, October 3d, the order of battle was formed th 
 right being held by Gen. Yan Dora s troops, composing only 
 one division, under Gen. Lovell ; while the left was occupied 
 by Gen. Price s troops, composed of two divisions the extreme 
 left under Gen. Herbert, and the right under Gen. Maury, 
 whose division, as thus placed, formed the centre of the whole 
 force. Advancing in this order, at half past 7 o clock in the 
 morning Gen. Lovell s division arrived within long range of tho 
 enemy, who had marched out some miles in front of the extreme 
 outer lines of his fortifications. Immediately the artillery ot 
 Gen. Yillipigue, whose brigade was in the advance, opened fire 
 npon the enemy, who in a short time began to give way and 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 517 
 
 fall back, and continued to do so for two hours, undei a heavy 
 and effective fire from the advancing batteries of Gen. Lovell s 
 division. 
 
 At half-past 9 o clock, the enemy having made a stand one 
 half mile in front of his fortifications, Gen. Lovell advanced his 
 infantry and poured a destructive musketry fire into the ranka 
 of the Yankees, who replied with spirit ; and now, Gen. Price 
 having ordered up his divisions under Generals Maury and 
 Herbert, the battle raged all along the line the enemy suffer 
 ing terribly. At length a charge was ordered, Gen. Lovell a 
 division leading. In double-quick time our soldiers, pressing 
 forward with loud cheers, drove the enemy behind his intrench- 
 ments. Simultaneously almost, the divisions of Gen. Maury 
 and Herbert, the one after the other, charged the enemy in 
 front of them with equal success. 
 
 There was now a strange lull in the battle. The Yankees 
 had withdrawn entirely behind their fortifications, their fire 
 had dropped off, and the tumult of the fierce strife died away. 
 The unexpected quiet lasted for a whole hour. By that time, 
 the Yankees having brought several field batteries in front, 
 opened from these, and at the same time from his heavy artil 
 lery, a most tremendous cannonade. This fire was directed 
 chiefly, if not wholly, against the right wing under Gen. Lovell, 
 and, though so tremendous in sound, produced but little effect. 
 Our soldiers remained silent and stood firm. They were wait 
 ing for orders. Presently the second charge was ordered. 
 Gallantly was it made by Gen. Lovell s division, and as gal 
 lantly was it supported by charges all along the centre and 
 right wing by the divisions of Generals Maury and Herbert. On, 
 on our glorious columns swept through the leaden rain and 
 iron hail ; the first line of fortifications is reached and passed ; 
 and the Yankees do not stop until they have reached the next 
 line of intrenchments. 
 
 On Friday night the news of a great victory was dispatched 
 by Gen. Yan Dorn to Richmond. This announcement was 
 made with an exultation so hasty and extreme, that it is to be 
 supposed that this commander was entirely unaware of the 
 strength of the enemy s works at Corinth, and, consequently, 
 of the supreme trial which yet remained for the courage and 
 devotion of his troops. 
 
518 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The next morning the general relation of our troops to each 
 other and to the enemy remained as it was on the previous 
 day Gen. Yan Dora, in supreme command, occupying the 
 centre, Gen. Price the left wing, and Gen. Lovell the right 
 wing. Gen. Lovell s division held ground west of Corinth and 
 just south of the Memphis and Charleston railroad. Gen. 
 Maury s division was posted north of the Memphis and 
 Charleston railroad, and between it and the Memphis and 
 Ohio railroad. Gen. Herbert s division was on the left, east 
 of the Memphis and Ohio railroad thus advancing from the 
 north upon Corinth. 
 
 The battle was commenced by Gen. Price early in the morn 
 ing, one half-hour before daylight. The artillery having been 
 moved forward, opened upon the enemy in his intrenchmenta 
 at a distance of four hndred yards. The enemy replied, and 
 a heavy cannonading, by both sides, ensued for one hour. 
 Our troops suffered but little damage from this fire, and the 
 artillery was withdrawn with the view of advancing the infan 
 try. Now heavy skirmishing followed all along the line, which 
 was kept up until about 10 o clock. Then beginning with 
 Gen. Lovell s division, who were immediately seconded by 
 Gen. Price s army Gen. Herbert s division first, and then 
 Gen. Maury s, our whole line advanced upon the intrench- 
 ments of the enemy. 
 
 Here occurred one of the most terrible struggles of the war. 
 The shock of the tremendous onset was terrible. One portion 
 of our lines rushed pell-mell into Corinth, losing in their con 
 fidence of victory almost every semblance of order, infantry 
 and cavalry being crowded together in a dense mass, wild 
 with excitement, and rending the air with fierce and exulting 
 yells. But the batteries of the enemy were situated to com 
 mand the village as well as the approaches to it. 
 
 The serried ranks of the enemy, now prepared to receive 
 us, afforded convincing proof that victory was yet distant from 
 our grasp, and that a hard and bloody fight was at hand. A 
 portion of Maury s division was ordered to charge the formi 
 dable fort on College Hill. This was the forlorn hope. Dis 
 appointed *in gaining a lodgment in the village, we must con 
 fess to a defeat, if that battery be not taken. Once in our pos 
 session, the town is ours. The men, massed in single column, 
 
THE SECOND TEAR. 519 
 
 eight deep, moved forward in silenc-% regardless of the shower 
 of bullets which whistled about thei~ ears and decimated their 
 ranks. The decisive moment the turning point of the en 
 gagement had arrived. Every battery of the enemy bearing 
 on the column was double charged with grape and canister 
 which burst over the heads of our trtops. Scores were killed 
 at every discharge, but they moved steadily on, maintaining 
 the silence of the grave. As fast as one soldier fell, his com 
 rade behind stepped forward and f K>k his place. They 
 charged up to the battery, reserving their fire until they 
 reached the parapets. Twice repulsed, the third time they 
 reached the outer works, and planted their flag upon the es 
 carpment. It was shot dpwn and agrxn planted, but shot 
 down again. 
 
 These devoted troops now held partiyJ possession of the 
 works. But the triumph was of short duration. According 
 to previous instructions, the enemy s gunners fell back behind 
 the works, and the next instant from their batteries threw a 
 murderous fire into our ranks at the shortest possible range 
 Nothing human could withstand such a firef the confusion it 
 produced was irretrievable ; our men were driven back and 
 the day lost. 
 
 But the attack was not abandoned without instances of wild 
 and terrible courage that were almost appalling. In their 
 madness and desperation, our men would rush up to the very 
 mouths of the cannon, and many were blown to pieces by the 
 rapid and constant discharges. Such spectacles of courage 
 were curious and terrible to behold. An officer, standing a 
 little way out from his men, was shouting, " Give it to the 
 scoundrels." The words had but passed from his lips, when 
 the first shell from a Parrott gun struck his left shoulder, tear 
 ing off his whole side. He turned his head a little to cue side, 
 his mouth opened, his eyes glared, and he fell dead. 
 
 The attack on the enemy s batteries was rash and magnifi 
 cent. The intensity of the fight may be judged from th fact 
 that two hundred and sixty dead bodies were found in and 
 about the trenches, within a distance of fifty feet of the works. 
 It is impossible to enumerate the examples of daring which, 
 adorn the story* of this attack. The Second Texas Infantry, 
 under Col. Rogers, led the charge, and the colonel himself fell 
 
520 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 on the enemy s breastworks, with the colors of his regiment in 
 his hand. A piece of paper was found under his clothing, 
 giving his name and rank and the address of his friends. As 
 Gen. Cabell mounted the enemy s parapet, the first man he 
 encountered was a Yankee colonel, who cried out, " Kill that 
 d d rebel officer." The next instant a blow from the gen 
 eral s sabre placed his antagonist at his feet. In the brigade 
 of this brave officer, J. H. Bullock, adjutant of the 13th Ar 
 kansas regiment, a noble specimen of the Southern soldier 
 for, though blessed in estate and family, a son-in-law of Chiei 
 justice Parsons, of North Carolina, and the master of a beauti 
 ful and prosperous home, he had volunteered as a private and 
 been advanced for merit made a display of courage to ani 
 mate his men that was a splendid picture of heroism, as he 
 stood out and exposed himself to the enemy s fire until his 
 clothing was pierced by balls, his life being saved only by that 
 unseen shield with which Providence protects its agents. The 
 gallant commander of this ever-glorious regiment, Col. Daly, 
 had fallen, while himself engaged in the animation of his men 
 cheering and leading them on to the attack. 
 
 Under the necessities of the case, our troops had fallen 
 
 back ; and though in doing so they were exposed to a terrible 
 
 and destructive fire, there was no panic, no rout the wounded, 
 
 except those who fell right at the intrenchments, having been 
 nearly all brought away. Our army retired to the woods at a 
 
 distance of only six hundred yards, and there, while our artil- 
 Qery resumed fire and kept it up for a short time, formed again 
 
 in order of battle. But the enemy appearing indisposed to 
 renew the conflict, Gen. Van Dorn, at three o clock, drew off 
 his whole force, being most ably supported in doing so by Gen. 
 Price and the other general officers. 
 
 The next morning, at half past eight o clock, our advance, 
 consisting of Gen. Phifer s brigade, and Col. Whitfi eld s Le- 
 .gion, with one battery not exceeding one thousand five hun- 
 dred in all crossed the Davis bridge at Hatchie river, to 
 engage the enemy, a large body of whom, from Bolivar, had 
 the day before reached that point, and had there been held in 
 check by Col. Slemmon s and Adams cavalry, with one bat 
 tery. Our advance having crossed the bridge and gone a little 
 distance, received a heavy fire at short range from a concealed 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 521 
 
 battery, which was followed directly by a charge from a largely 
 superior force. Our troops retreated in a good deal of confu 
 sion across the bridge -having suffered a loss, perhaps, of three 
 hundred killed, wounded, and missing. The reinforcements 
 arriving, our troops formed in line, and a fight with musketry 
 ensued and was kept up for some time across the river, but 
 with very little loss on our side. Meanwhile, our field-pieces 
 opened upon the enemy and they replying, cannonading was 
 continued during the greater part of the day. During this 
 time our advance was gradually withdrawn, and following the 
 other troops, with the long wagon train of supplies, wounded, 
 &c. the artillery having also been brought off made a suc 
 cessful crossing of Hatchie river, some miles higher up the 
 stream. The retreat was eventually halted at a point a little 
 north of Ripley. 
 
 Our loss in all the three days engagements was probably 
 quite double that of the enemy. In killed and wounded it ex 
 ceeded three thousand ; and it was estimated, besides, that we 
 had left more than fifteen hundred prisoners in the hands of 
 the enemy. 
 
 The defeat of Corinth was followed by swift news of disaster 
 arid discouragement. The military prospect was not dark, but 
 it hud lost much of the brightness it had only a few weeks 
 before. Kentucky had been gloomily abandoned. In Vir 
 ginia the hopes of conquering a peace on the Potomac had for 
 the time been given up ; the Kanawha Yalley had again been 
 mostly surrendered to the enemy ; and Marshall s forces, back 
 again in Southwestern Virginia, were consuming the sub 
 stance of the country with but little return of other service. 
 In other parts of the Confederacy, the prospect was not much 
 relieved. 
 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 The events in the department of the Trans-Mississippi were 
 too distant to affect the general fortunes of the war ; they were 
 but episodes to the great drama of arms that passed over the 
 broad and imposing theatres of Virginia, Kentucky, and Ten 
 nessee; but they were replete with romance, and if their inter 
 est is at present partial, it is so, perhaps, for the reason that 
 they are imperfectly known. 
 
522 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Missouri had the better of other seats of hostility for the real 
 romance of war. The remote geography of the country, the 
 rough character of the people, the intensity and ferocity of the 
 passions excited, and the reduction of military operations to a 
 warfare essentially partisan and frontier, gave to the progress 
 of the war in this quarter a wild aspect, and illustrated it with 
 rare and thrilling scenes. 
 
 Gen. Schofield, the Yankee commander, who had been left 
 by Halleck with the brief and comprehensive instructions " to 
 take care of Missouri," found the power of the Confederates 
 broken in nearly three-fourths of that State, but the South 
 western portion threatened by the active movements of Gen. 
 Hindman, in command of State forces raised in Arkansas and 
 Texas. But in no part of Missouri was the spirit of the people 
 broken. Guerrilla bands made their appearance in all parts 
 of the State ; and their numbers rapidly augmented under the 
 despotic edict of Schofield, calling out the militia of the State 
 to murder their own countrymen. 
 
 The dark atrocities of the Yankee rule in Missouri, enacted 
 as they were in a remote country, and to a great extent re 
 moved from * observation, surpassed all that was known in 
 other parts of the Confederacy of the cruelty and fury of the 
 enemy. The developments on this subject are yet imperfect ; 
 but some general facts are known of the inordinate license of 
 the enemy in Missouri, while others of equal horror have es 
 caped the notice of the public. 
 
 In other parts of the Confederacy many of the excesses of 
 the enemy were performed under certain formalities, and to 
 some extent regulated by them. But in Missouri there was no 
 " red tape," no qualification of forms ; the order of the day 
 was open robbery, downright murder, and freedom to all crimes 
 of which " rebels" were the victims. Citizens were plundered 
 with barefaced audacity. Those citizens of St. Louis county 
 alone, who were suspected by Gen. Schofield to sympathize 
 with the South, were taxed five hundred thousand dollars to 
 arm, clothe, and subsist those who were spilling the blood of 
 their brothers, and threatening their own homes with the torch 
 uud with outrages to which death is preferable. 
 
 The sanguinary guerrilla warfare in Missouri may be said to 
 have commenced in the month of July, by the assembling ol 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 523 
 
 bands under Porter, Poindexter, Cobb, and others. The prin 
 cipal theatre of guerrilla operations was at this time the north 
 eastern division of Missouri, where the almost devilish cruelties 
 of the Yankee commander, the notorious Colonel McNeil, had 
 lashed the people into incontrollable fury. 
 
 On the 6th of August, Porter s band was attacked at Kirks- 
 ville by McNeil with a large force of cavalry and six pieces of 
 artillery. This gallant partisan made a resistance of four 
 hours against overwhelming numbers, and retired only after 
 such a demonstration of valor, leaving the Yankees to claim 
 as a victory an affair in which they had sustained a loss of 
 more than five hundred in killed and wounded, probably double 
 our own. 
 
 The day after the action, a party of Yankee scouts suc 
 ceeded in capturing, near Edina, Col. F. McCullough, who was 
 attached to Porter s command, and at the time of his capture 
 was quite alone. The next morning a train with an armed 
 escort proceeded from Edina to Kirksville. McCullough was 
 sent along. On arriving at Kirksville, the news of the capture 
 of this famous partisan excited the most devilish feeling among 
 the Yankee troops. He was confined a brief time with the 
 prisoners. Meantime a court-martial was held, and he was 
 sentenced to be shot that very afternoon. He received the 
 information of his fate with perfect composure, but protested 
 against it. Leaning against the fence, he wrote a few lines to 
 his wife. These, with his watch, he delivered to the officer, to 
 be given to her. Upon the way to his execution, he requested 
 the privilege to give the command to fire, which was granted. 
 All being ready, he said : " What I have done, I have done as 
 a principle of right. Aim at the heart. Fire !" 
 
 The command taking the soldiers by surprise, one fired 
 sooner than the rest. The ball entering his breast, he fell, 
 while the other shots passed over him. Falling with one leg 
 doubled under the body, he requested to have it straightened 
 out. While this was being done he said: "I forgive you for 
 this barbarous act." The squad having reloaded their pieces, 
 another volley was fired this time into his body, and he died. 
 
 On the 15th of August occurred the more important action 
 of Lone Jack. Large Yankee forces were moved from Lex- 
 ington, with orders to effect a junction near Lone Jack and 
 
524 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OP THE WAR. 
 
 attack the forces under Hughes and Quantrell, supposed to be 
 soul owhere in Jackson county. The disaster which met the 
 Yankees here was the most serious of the guerrilla campaign, 
 Their command was defeated, with a loss of three hundred 
 killed and wounded, two pieces of their artillery captured on 
 the field, their routed forces turned back upon Lexington, and 
 that place put in imminent peril. The timely reinforcement of 
 Lexington by all the available forces of the enemy in north 
 eastern Missouri alone saved the place from capture by the 
 Confederates, and disconcerted their plans of relieving their 
 comrades north of the river. 
 
 The guerrilla campaign of Missouri is made memorable by the 
 fearful story of the "Palmyra massacre." The important 
 incidents of this tragedy are gathered from the enemy s own 
 publications, and it was from Yankee newspapers that the peo 
 ple of the South first learned the barbarous and exultant news 
 that McNeil had executed ten Confederate prisoners because a 
 tory and spy had been carried off a captive by our forces. 
 
 From the enemy s own accounts, it appears that the missing 
 man, Andrew Allsman, was a legitimate prisoner of war ; that 
 on the descent of the Confederate forces upon Palmyra he 
 was captured by them ; that he belonged to the Federal 
 cavalry, but that being too old to endure all the hardships of 
 active duty., he was detailed as a spy, being "frequently," as 
 one of the Yankee papers states, " called upon for information 
 touching the loyalty of men, which he always gave to the ex 
 tent of his ability." 
 
 When McNeil returned to Palmyra in October, he caused a 
 notice to be issued that unless Allsman was returned in ten 
 days he would shoot ten Confederate prisoners as " a meet 
 eward for their crimes, among vhich was the illegal restrain 
 ing of said Allsman of his liberty." The ten days elapsed, 
 md the prisoner was not returned. The following account of 
 ,,hat ensued, is condensed from the Palmyra Courier, a 
 
 Union" journal, without any variation from the language in 
 . iiich it describes the deed of the demons with whom it was in 
 , inpathy : 
 
 "The tenth day expired with last Friday. On that day ten 
 rebel prisoners, already in custody, were selected to pay with 
 their lis-es the penalty demanded. A little after 11 o clock, 
 
THE SECOND \EAK. 525 
 
 A. M., the next day, three government wagons drove to the jail. 
 One contained four, and each of the others three rough board 
 coffins. The condemned men were conducted from the prison 
 and seated in the wagons, one upon each coffin. A sufficient 
 guard of soldiers accompanied them, and the cavalcade started 
 for the fatal grounds. The ten coffins were removed from the 
 wagons and placed in a row, six or eight feet apart, forming a 
 line north and south. Each coffin was placed upon the ground 
 with its foot west and head east. Thirty soldiers of the 2d M. 
 S. M. were drawn up in a single line, extending north and 
 south, facing the row of coffins. The arrangements completed, 
 the men knelt upon the grass between their coffins and the 
 boldiers. At the conclusion of a prayer by the army chaplain, 
 each prisoner took his seat upon the foot of his coffin, facing 
 the muskets which in a few moments were to launch them into 
 eternity. They were nearly all firm and undaunted. The most 
 noted of the ten was Captain Thomas A. Sidner of Monroe 
 county, whose capture at Shelbyville, in the disguise of a 
 woman, we related several weeks since. He was now elegantly 
 attired in a suit of black broadcloth, with a white vest. A 
 luxurious growth of beautiful hair rolled down upon his 
 shoulders, which, with his- fine personal appearance, could not 
 but bring to mind the handsome but vicious Absalom. There 
 was nothing especially worthy of note in the appearance of 
 the others. A few moments after 1 o clock the chaplain in 
 attendance shook hands with the prisoners. Two of them ac 
 cepted bandages for the eyes, the rest refused. A hundred 
 spectators had gathered around the amphitheatre to witness the 
 impressive scene. The stillness of death pervaded the place. 
 The officer in command now stepped forward, and gave the 
 word of command Ready ! aim ! fire ! The discharges, how 
 ever, were not made simultaneously probably through want 
 of a perfect understanding of the orders to fire. Two of the 
 rebels fell backwards upon their coffins and died instantly, 
 dipt. Sidner sprang forward and fell with his head towards the 
 soldiers, his face upwards, his hands clasped upon his breast, 
 and the left leg drawn halfway up. He did not move again, 
 but died immediately. He had requested the soldiers to aim 
 at his heart, and they obeyed but too implicitly. The othei 
 
5i!G SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 seven were not killed outright ; so the reserves were called in 
 who dispatched them with their revolvers." 
 
 The " Palmyra massacre " was destined to a long and painful 
 emembrance by the people of the South, not only because of 
 its tragic interest, but because it was a comment scrawled in 
 olood on that weak and remiss policy of our government, which 
 aad so long submitted to the barbarous warfare of the enemy 
 tnd hesitated at the rule of retaliation. 
 
 THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION. 
 
 A slight survey of the military situation at this time adds 
 something to the list of our disasters, and is necessary to un 
 derstand the proportions of the crisis at which the fortunes of 
 the South had arrived. 
 
 The capture of Galveston on the coast of Texas, on the 9th 
 of October, was another repetition of the almost invariable 
 story of disaster at the hands of the enemy s naval power. It 
 was made almost without resistance. In the early part of the 
 war, the defenceless condition of Galveston had been repre 
 sented to the government, as in fact there was no ordnance 
 available there but a lot of old cannon captured from the 
 United States. These representations in the letters and peti 
 tions of the people of Galveston were made without effect, 
 until at last, some time in the summer of 1861, a deputation 
 of citizens waited upon the authorities at Richmond, begging 
 piteously a few cannon to defend them from the enemy. The 
 whole extent of the response of the government to this and 
 other appeals was to send to Galveston eleven or thirteen guns, 
 two of which were rifled ; and transportation for these was 
 only given to New Orleans, whence they had to be dragged 
 over piney hills and through swamps to their destination. The 
 consequence was, that the enemy had made an easy prize of 
 one of our principal seaports: when, after threatening it foi 
 eighteen months, he at last found it practically defenceless. 
 
 The fall of Galveston again turned the perplexed attention 
 of the people of the South to the enormous and rapid increase 
 of the enemy s naval power in this war as one of its most pain 
 ful subjects of interest. This arm had grown to such size as 
 to threaten us in many respects more seriously than the ene- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 527 
 
 my s land forces. It was calculated that, with the completion 
 of their vast number of naval structures already on the stocks, 
 the Yankees would have 388 vessels, mounting 3,072 guns 
 nearly nine guns to the vessel. Of these, thirty were iron 
 clad, mounting ninety of the heaviest guns in the world, each 
 weighing 42,240 pounds, and throwing a solid shot, fifteen 
 kiches in diameter, weighing 480 pounds. 
 
 It is not wonderful that in view of these vast preparations 
 m the North, the people of the South should have watched 
 with intense interest the long lines of their sea-coast, and been 
 on the tiptoe of expectation for the fleets of the Yankees, 
 which were to sweep upon them in numbers and power yet un 
 equalled by any naval demonstration of the enemy in this war. 
 It was easy to see that the South would have to look to its 
 foundries to set-off the naval power of the enemy. When we 
 could match their naval armaments with our batteries on shore, 
 we might expect to hold our sea-coast against their fleets. The 
 authorities at Richmond were instructed that there was but one 
 way of replying to the Yankee iron-clads on equal terms ; 
 and that was by iron-clad batteries, with powerful guns in 
 them, and with the use of steel-pointed or wrought-iron pro 
 jectiles. 
 
 In the Southwest, the strong tenure which we maintained 
 of Vicksburg was a stumbling-block to the Yankee schemes for 
 the conquest of Mississippi. The fate of that State was also 
 confidently intrusted to the brave troops under the command 
 of Gen. Pemberton, who was assisted by Van Dorn and Price 
 and an increasing army. 
 
 But it was to Tennessee that the minds of the intelligent 
 were turned to look for the earliest and severest conflict of the 
 campaign in the Welt. The enemy already held the western 
 portion of the State and a part of the middle, and evidently 
 desired to obtain possession of the eastern portion. He was 
 reported to be coming down from Kentucky for the purpose, 
 in heavy columns, under Gen. Rosecrans, by way of Nash 
 ville ; and there was reason to suppose that he would endeavor 
 to make a flank movement on Knoxville, and, at the same 
 time, capture Chattanooga, as the key of North Alabama and 
 Georgia. 
 
 In Virginia a lull had followed the famous summer campaign, 
 
528 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and our army in the northern part of the State quietly re- 
 cruited, and was daily improving in organization and numbers 
 The only incident that had broken the monotony of our canip 
 was the renewal in the North of the phantom of " invasion by 
 the rebels" by a raid into Pennsylvania, accomplished by the 
 rapid and brilliant commander of our cavalry, Gen. J. E. B. 
 Stuart, with about two thousand men. The expedition pene 
 trated to Charnbersburg, which was occupied for a short time 
 by our troops on the 10th of October. It met with no resist 
 ance, accumulated no stores, and accomplished nothing beyond 
 the results of a reconnoissance, and the wonder of one of tho 
 most rapid marches on record. 
 
 This expedition left to the Yankees a remarkable souvenir 
 of Southern chivalry. Private property was uniformly re 
 spected by our troops ; Yankee civilians were treated with 
 scrupulous regard ; and many kindnesses were shown the 
 alarmed people in a knightly style, which would have been 
 creditable to us had it not been made ridiculous by excess of 
 courtesy and a tender and ceremonious politeness which was 
 in very absurd contrast to the manners of our enemy. On en 
 tering Chambersburg, " the soft-mannered rebels," as CoL 
 McClure, the Yankee commander of the post, described them, 
 treated him with the most tender politeness. Indeed, the nar 
 rative of this officer s experience furnishes a curious leaf in 
 the history of the war. To the great amusement of the peo 
 ple of the North, Col. McClure gave a long account in the 
 newspapers of the strained chivalry of our troops. He re 
 lated how they had " thanked him for being candid," when he 
 told them that he was a Republican ; how he was politely asked 
 for food by the officers ; and how a private in Stuart s terrible 
 command had, " with a profound bow, asked for a few coals to 
 light a fire." 
 
 The story of these courtesies and salaams to our enemy is 
 not one for our amusement. It affords an instructive illustra 
 tion that is valuable in history, of the over-amiable disposition 
 and simple mind of the South ; and it places in stark and hor 
 rible contrast an agreeable picture with that of the devilish 
 atrocities and wanton and mocking destruction of the Yankee 
 armies on the soil of the Confederacy. 
 
 While the war lagged, we are called upon to notice new 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 52 
 
 sources of resolution and power in the South, which were per 
 haps more valuable than victories in the field. In this depart 
 ment of interest, which is quite equal to that of battles and 
 sieges, it will be necessary to pass in review some political 
 acts of the rival governments, and some events of moral import 
 ance. 
 
 At last the Abolitionists of the North had had their wild 
 and wicked will. On the 22d day of September, President 
 Lincoln issued his celebrated proclamation of " emancipa 
 tion"* of the slaves of the South, to take effect after the 1st of 
 next January, thus unmasking the objects of the war, and ex 
 hibiting to the world the sublime of administrative madness. 
 
 * The following is a copy of this remarkable document : 
 
 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES A PROCLAMATION. 
 
 Washington, Sept. 22, 1861 
 
 I, Abraham Lincoln, President of th^e United States of America, and Com 
 mander-in-Chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and ac, 
 clare, that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object oft 
 practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States anc* 
 the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended ov 
 disturbed ; that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again 
 recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniaiy aid to the 
 free acceptance or rej.ection of all the slave States, so called, the people whereof 
 may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and whicn {States may 
 then hav.e voluntarily adopted or thereafter may voluntarily aaopi the imme 
 diate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits ; and that 
 the efforts to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon the 
 continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the govern 
 ments existing there, will be continued ; that on the 1st day of January, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held 
 as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people where 
 of shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward 
 and forever free ; and the executive government of the United States, includ 
 ing the naval and military authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the 
 ireedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or 
 any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom ; that the 
 Executive will, on the 1st day of January, aforesaid, by proclamation, designate 
 the States and parts of States, if any, hi which the people thereof respectively 
 shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and the fact that any 
 State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in 
 the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections 
 wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, 
 shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive 
 evidence that such State and the people thereof have not been in rebellion 
 against the United States. 
 
 34 
 
i } BOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 Sib co wo commencement of the war, the Abolitionists had 
 gradually compassed their ends at Washington, or rather the 
 ~eal objects and inherent spirit of the war had been gradually 
 developed. They had legislated slavery forever out of the 
 Territories; they had abolished it in the District of Columbia; 
 they had passed laws confiscating the property of "rebels" 
 and emancipating their slaves, and declaring all fugitive slaves 
 free within their military lines ; they had made it a crime on 
 the part of their military officers to restore or aid in restoring 
 any fugitive slave to his master ; and finally, they had pro 
 cured from President Lincoln a proclamation declaring all the 
 slaves in the Confederate States, beyond the lines of their land 
 and naval forces, " henceforward and forever free." 
 
 This infamous proclamation, while regarded by the South as 
 a fulmination of exasperated passion, was in the North a source 
 of weakness and division. It divided the North and strength 
 ened the enemies of Mr. Lincoln s administration without cre 
 ating any enthusiasm among its friends. The few in the North 
 who still had some regard for the written constitution under 
 which they lived, contended that the President could not pro 
 claim emancipation except under the pressure of military ne 
 cessity, and what sort of a military necessity, it was asked, was 
 that which admitted of a delay of a hundred days. Thefulmen 
 Itrutum issued to appease the anti-slavery party proved a fire 
 brand at home. Many, even of this party, were dissatisfied, 
 and decried the proclamation because of its tardiness. "There 
 was a time," said the New York Tribune, "when even this bit 
 of paper could have brought the negro to our side ; but now 
 slavery, the real rebel capital, has been surrounded by a Chick- 
 
 And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military 
 and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce within 
 their respective spheres of service the act and sections above recited. 
 
 And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the 
 United States, who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, 
 shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United 
 States and their respective States and people, if the relation shall have been 
 suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United 
 States, including the loss of slaves. 
 
 In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the 
 United States to be affixed. 
 
 ABRAHAM LIN<X>LN. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 531 
 
 ahominy swamp of blunders and outrages against that race 
 which no paper spade can dig through," 
 
 To the South the fulmination of Lincoln was a crowning 
 proof of the true principles of the party that had elevated him 
 to the Presidency, and that on its accession to power had made 
 perfidious use of the most solemn pledges.* It was a public 
 confession of the fact that conquest, extermination, and eman 
 cipation were the real objects of the war a fact which the 
 enemy for a while had affected to deny. It attempted to ac 
 complish by the horrors of servile insurrection what our enemy 
 had failed to accomplish by military operations. It confessed 
 to the world his inability and failure to accomplish his pur- 
 
 * One of the most singular juxtapositions between the professions of the 
 North at the commencement of hostilities and its present ideas, is afforded in 
 Mr. Seward s famous letter, written to the French government on the 22d April, 
 1861, and his subsequent circular to the Yankee ministers in Europe. It is 
 one of the most singular of all the juggleries and summersaults of Yankee 
 diplomacy. 
 
 In the first pronunciamento of Secretary Seward, written " by the direction 
 irf the President," occurs the following passage : 
 
 " The condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same, 
 whether it succeeds or fails. The rights of the States, and the condition of 
 every human being in them, will remain subject to exactly the same laws and 
 form of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it 
 shall fail. Their constitutions, and laws, and customs, habits, and institutions, 
 in either case will remain the same. It is hardly necessary to add to this 
 Incontestable statement, the further fact that the new President, as well as the 
 citizens through whose suffrages he has come into the administration, has 
 always repudiated all designs whatever, and wherever imputed to him and 
 them, of disturbing the system of slavery as it is existing under the constitution 
 and laws. The case, however, would not be fully presented were I to omit to 
 gay that any such effort on his part would be unconstitutional, and all his acts 
 in that direction would be prevented by the judicial authority, even though 
 they were assented to by Congress and the people." 
 
 Within eighteen months after Seward declares officially to one of the minis 
 ters of the government that the President has no wish and no right to inter 
 fere with the institutions of the "rebellious" States, he writes another letter, 
 also directed to the ministers abroad, announcing the adoption of a policy 
 which, if it could be carried out, would make a complete revolution in the 
 social organization of the South. Utterly regardless of his former position and 
 declaration, he undertakes to justify the "emancipation" proclamation of the 
 Yankee President. But this is not all. What shall we say, of the effrontery 
 of the lie, when Seward asserts that the abolition proclamation is not only a 
 { ust and proper act, but avows his belief that the world will recognize "the 
 moderation and magnanimity with which the government proceeds in a matter 
 to solemn and important !" 
 
532 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 poses "by regular and honorable hostilities. It was, in shrrt, 
 the diabolical attempt of an infatuated ruler, unworthy of 
 authority, in a fit of disappointed malice, to inflict the worst 
 horrors known to human nature upon eight millions of people 
 who had wisely rejected his authority. 
 
 The " emancipation" proclamation not only strengthened 
 the South and nerved her to greater exertions in the war, but 
 it fortunately gave occasion to the world for a more interested 
 observation and closer study of the peculiar institution of the 
 Confederacy. The sympathies of Europe with the anti-slavery 
 party in America were depressed by the conduct of that party, 
 its exhibitions of ferocity, and by the new manifestations which 
 the war had made of the nature and moral condition of negro 
 slavery in the South. 
 
 Indeed, the war had shown the system of slavery in th 
 South to the world in some new and striking aspects, and haa 
 removed much of that cloud of prejudice, defamation, false 
 hood, romance, and perverse sentimentalism through which oi>r 
 peculiar institution had been formerly known to Europe. )i 
 had given a better vindication of our system of slavery than 
 all the bocks that could be written in a generation. It had 
 shown that slavery was an element of strength with us ; that 
 it had assisted us in our struggle ; that no servile insurrection a 
 had taken place in the South, in spite of the allurements of our 
 enemy ; that the slave had tilled the soil while his master had 
 fought ; that in large districts unprotected by our troops, and 
 with a white population consisting almost exclusively of women 
 and children, the slave had continued at his work quiet, cheer 
 ful, and faithful ; and that, as a conservative element in our 
 social system, the institution of slavery had withstood the 
 shocks of war, and been a faithful ally of our arms, although 
 instigated to revolution by every art of the enemy, and 
 prompted to the work of assassination and pillage by the most 
 brutal examples of the Yankee soldiery.* 
 
 * The missionary settlements of the Yankees on the coast of South Caro 
 lina were an ackaowledged failure, so far as the proposed education and exalta 
 tion of the blacks were concerned. The appearance of the ancient town of 
 Beaufort, since it had fallen into the enemy s possession, indicated the peculiari 
 ties of Yankee rule, and afforded an interesting exhibition of their relations 
 with the negro. The inhabitants had taken nothing away with them but theii 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 533 
 
 Since the commencement of the war the North had had 
 almost exclusive access to the ear of the world, and had poured 
 into it whatever of slander or of misrepresentation human in 
 genuity could suggest. This circumstance, which was at first 
 thought to be a great disadvantage to us, had not only proved 
 a harmless annoyance, but had resulted in invaluable benefit. 
 It had secured sympathy for us; it had excited the inquiries oi 
 the intelligent, who, after all, give the law to public opinion ; 
 and it had naturally tempted the North to such lying and 
 bravado as to disgust the world. 
 
 At the beginning of the war the North had assured the 
 world that the people of the South were a sensual and bar 
 barous people, demoralized by their institution of slavery, and 
 depraved by self-will and licentiousness below the capacity for 
 administrative government. The best reply to these slanders, 
 was our conduct in this war. Even the little that was known 
 in Europe of the patriotic devotion, the dignity and cultivated 
 humanity of the people of the South, as shown in the war, had 
 been sufficient to win unbounded encomiums for them. We 
 had not only withstood for nearly two years a power which had 
 put thirteen hundred thousand men in the field ; but we had 
 
 personal property and their valuable domestic slave servants. The furniture 
 was left untouched in the houses. These houses were owned by the Barn wells, 
 the Ehetts, the Cuthberts, .the Phillipses, and other distinguished families of 
 North Carolina. The elegant furniture, the libraries, the works of art, had 
 nearly all disappeared. They had been sent North from time to time by Yankee 
 officers, and many of these officers of high rank. The elegant dwelling-houses 
 had been converted into barracks, negro quarters, hospitals, and storehouses. 
 The best houses had been put in complete order, and were occupied by the 
 officers of the department and the abolitionist missionaries from Boston and 
 elsewhere. The efforts of these missionaries to teach the negroes their letters 
 and habits of cleanliness met witli no success. Beaufort was full of negroes, 
 well clothed, at government expense, fat, saucy, and lazy. The town looked 
 dirty and disorderly, and had the appearance of a second-class Mexican village. 
 Some of the missionaries had been elevated to the position of planters, and 
 occupied the estates of the old Carolinians. The labor on these estates was 
 performed by contraband negroes. These abolition lords assumed all the 
 hauteur and dignity of the Southern planter. The only difference to the black 
 laborer was that he had the name of freeman ; his labor was as unrelenting as 
 ever. Massachusetts missionaries and Massachusetts speculators enjoyed the 
 larger share of government patronage here. The department of Hunter aj>- 
 peared to be experimenting in attempts to elevate a negro to equality with the 
 white man. Military operations were secondary considerations. 
 
534 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE vVAK. 
 
 shown that we were a people able in public affairs, resolute^ 
 brave, and prudent. 
 
 Another characteristic Yankee misrepresentation, made to 
 the world about this time on the subject of the war, was, that 
 it was to be concluded at an early day by the force of destitu 
 tion and suffering in the South. The delusion of conquering 
 the "rebels" by famine easily caught the vulgar ear. The 
 North made it a point to exaggerate and garble every thing it 
 could find in Southern newspapers, of the ragged condition of 
 our armies, the high prices of the necessaries of life, and the 
 hardships of the war. The Yankees were pleasantly entertained 
 with stories of our suffering. Their pictorials were adorned 
 with caricatures of "secesh" in skeleton soldiers and gaunt 
 cavalrymen with spurs strapped to their naked heels. Their 
 perfumed fops and dainty ladies had the fashion of tittering at 
 the rags of our prisoners. They had an overwhelming sense 
 of the ludicrous in the idea of Southern women cutting up the 
 carpets in their houses to serve for blankets and garments for 
 the soldiers. 
 
 The fact was that our sufferings were great ; but their mute 
 eloquence, which the enemy misinterpreted as a prospect ol 
 craven submission, was truly the sign of self-devotion.* What 
 ever was suffered in physical destitution was not to be regret 
 ted. It practised our people in self-denial ; it purified theii 
 spirit ; it brought out troops of virtues ; it ennobled our wo 
 men with offices of charity ; it gave us new bonds of sympathy 
 and love, and it trained us in those qualities which make a 
 nation great and truly independent. 
 
 In the whirl of passing events, many strange things were 
 daily happening around us that at a remoter period of history 
 will read like romance. The directions of our industry were 
 changed. Planters raised corn and potatoes, fattened hogs and 
 cultivated garden vegetables, while cotton was by universal 
 consent neglected. Our newspapers were of all sizes and 
 colors, sometimes containing four pages, sometimes two, and 
 not a few were printed on common brown wrapping paper. 
 Politics were dead. A political enemy was a curiosity only 
 read of in the records of the past. Our amusements hud been 
 revolutionized. Outside of Richmond, a theatre was remem 
 bered only as an institution of by-gone times. Most of our 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 525 
 
 people did their own playing and their own singing ; and the 
 ladies spent the mornings in sewing coarse shirts or pantaloons 
 for the soldiers to wear, and sung in public at night to gain 
 n*oney for the soldiers equipments. 
 
 The footprints of the enemy, in Yirginia especially, had 
 marked lines of desolation such as history seldom records. 
 Starting from Fortress Monroe and running westward to Win 
 chester, scarcely a house within fifty miles of the Potomac but 
 bore evidence of Yankee greed and spoliation. In nearly 
 every county the court-house in which the assizes for each 
 county used to be held, was rudely demolished, doors and win 
 dows torn down ; while within, upon the white walls in every 
 phase of handwriting, were recorded the autographs of the 
 vandals, whose handiwork surrounded the beholder. 
 
 While the people of the South suffered, the resources of the 
 country were developed by harsh necessity ; and about the pe 
 riod where our narrative reaches, we are called upon to notice 
 that happy change in the administration of our government, in 
 which short-sighted expectations of peace were replaced by 
 the policy of provision and an amassment of stores for a war 
 of indefinite duration. Measures were adopted to afford ade 
 quate supplies of ordnance, arms, and munitions for the army. 
 Of small-arms the supply was more adequate to the regiments 
 of the army than at any other time. They had increased from 
 importation and capture not less than eighty thousand. Es 
 tablishments for making ordnance were founded in different 
 parts of the South; a nitre corps was organized for service; 
 and former dread of deficiency of the munitions of war no 
 longer existed. The manufacturing resources of the country, 
 especially in iron, were liberally patronized by the government, 
 by large advances and liberal contracts ; but in this the public 
 service met great embarrassment from the temptations con 
 stantly offered to contractors to prefer the superior profitb 
 which they could command by supplying the general market. 
 The quartermaster s department was under the direction of 
 Gen. Myers, of South Carolina, whose contributions to the cause 
 of the South, in the zeal and ability which he brought into his 
 important office, must take a high rank in all the histories of 
 the war. He contended against the great obstacles of the 
 blockade, the difficulties of railroad transportation, and the 
 
536 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 constant losses in the enemy s ravages of the country, and per 
 formed wonders under the most unfavorable circumstances. 
 "Woollens and leather were imported from Europe through 
 trains of difficulties , the most devoted exertions were made to 
 replenish the scant supplies of blankets and shoes in the army , 
 and by using to the utmost our internal resources, by the es 
 tablishment of factories and the organization of workshops ; 
 and by greater economy in the use of our supplies, the suffer 
 ings of our soldiers were alleviated and their zeal refreshed for 
 the campaign. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 537 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 fhe Heroism of Virginia. Her Battle-fields. Burnside s Plan of Cam] nign. 
 Calculations of his Movement upon Fredericksburg. Failure to eurprise Gen. Lee. 
 THE BATTLE OF FREDERIOKSBURGK The Enemy crossing the Eiver. Their Bombard 
 ment of the Town. Scenes of Distress. The Battle on the Eight Wing. The Story 
 of Marye s Heights. Repulse of the Enemy. The old Lesson of barren Victory. 
 Death of Gen. Cobb. Death of Gen. Gregg. Romance of the Story of Fredericks- 
 burg. Her noble Women. Yankee Sacking of the Town. A Specimen of Yankee 
 Warfare in North Carolina. Designs of the Enemy in this State. The Engagements 
 of Kinston. Glance at other Theatres of the War. Gen. Hindman s Victory at Prai 
 rie Grove. Achievements of our Cavalry in the West. The Affair of Hartsville. Col. 
 Clarkson s Expedition. Condition of Events at the Close of the Year 1862. 
 
 VIRGINIA, had borne the brunt of the war. Nearly two- 
 thirds of her territory had been overrun by the enemy, and 
 her richest fields had been drenched with blood or marked by 
 the scars of the invader. The patriotic spirit and the chival 
 rous endurance of this ancient and admirable commonwealth 
 had not only supported these losses and afflictions without a 
 murmur, but these experiences of the war were the sources or 
 new inspiration, and the occasions of renewed resolution and 
 the reinforcement of courage by the sentiment of devotion. 
 "When we add to the consideration of the grand spirit of this 
 State the circumstances that the flower of the Confederate 
 army was naturally collected on this the most critical theatre 
 of the war, and that the operations in Virginia were assisted 
 by the immediate presence of the government, we shall natu 
 rally look here for the most brilliant and decisive successes of 
 the war. 
 
 When the Confederate army fell back into Virginia, after 
 Its short but eventful campaign in Maryland, Gen. Lee, by the 
 skilful disposition of his forces in front of Winchester, ren 
 dered it impracticable for McClellan to invade the Valley of 
 the Shenandoah, and forced him to adopt the route on the east 
 side of the Blue Kidge. The Federal commander accepted 
 this alternative the more readity, since he hoped, by an osten 
 tatious display of a part of his forces near Shepherdstown, to 
 deceive Gen. Lee and gain his flank and rear at W-"nton 
 
SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 On his arrival at this latter place, however, much to his sur 
 prise and dismay, he found the forces of Lee quietly awaiting 
 him on the south bank of the Rappahannock. 
 
 McClellan having been superseded by Burnside, that officer 
 undertook a plan of campaign entirely on his own responsi 
 bility, in opposition to the suggestions of Halleck and to what 
 were known to be the predilections of the military authorities 
 at Washington. The plan of Gen. Burnside was to concentrate 
 the army in the neighborhood of Warrenton, to make a small 
 movement across the Rappahannock as a feint, with a view to 
 divert the attention of the Confederates and lead them to be 
 lieve he was going to move in the direction of Gordonsville, 
 and then to make a rapid movement of the whole army to 
 Fredericksburg, on the north side of the Rappahannock. 
 
 In moving upon Fredericksburg, Gen. Burnside calculated 
 that his army would all the time be as near Washington as 
 would the Confederates, and that after arriving at Fredericks 
 burg it would be at a point nearer to Richmond than it would 
 be even if it should take Gordonsville. 
 
 This novel, enterprise against the Confederate Capital was 
 hailed by the Northern newspapers with renewed acclamations 
 of " on to Richmond ;" and the brazen and familiar prophecy 
 of the fall of the city " within ten days" was repeated with 
 new emphasis and bravado. In the mean time the plans of 
 Burnside, so far as they contemplated a surprise of the Con 
 federates, had failed, and at Fredericksburg, as at Warrenton, 
 his army found itself, by the active movements of Gen. Lee, 
 confronted by a force sufficient to dispute its advance and to 
 deliver battle on a scale commensurate with the stake. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF FREDKKICKSBURG. 
 
 Gen. Burnside having concentrated his army at Fredericks 
 burg, employed himself for several days in the latter part of 
 November in bringing up from Aquia Creek all the pontoons 
 he could for building the bridges which were necessary to 
 throw his forces across the river. Several councils of war were 
 called to decide about crossing the Rappahannock. It was 
 finally determined to cross at Fredericksburg, under the im 
 pression that Gen. Lee had thrown a large portion of his force 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 539 
 
 down the river and elsewhere, thus weakening his defences in 
 front. 
 
 On the night of the 10th of December the enemy commenced 
 to throw three bridges over the Rappahannock two at Fred 
 ericksburg, and the third about a mile and a quarter below 
 near the mouth of Deep Run. In the prosecution of this 
 work, the enemy was defended by his artillery on the hills of 
 Stafford, which completely commanded the plain on which 
 Fredericksburg stands. The narrowness of the Rappahannock, 
 its winding course, and deep bed, afforded opportunity for the 
 construction of bridges at points beyond the reach of our artil 
 lery, and the banks had to be watched by skirmishers. The 
 houses of Fredericksbnrg afforded a cover for the skirmishers 
 at the bridges opposite the town, but at the lowest point of 
 crossing no shelter could be had. 
 
 The 17th Mississippi regiment, Barksdale s brigade, being on 
 picket within the town, were ordered to the bluff overlooking 
 the site of the old railroad bridge. The moon was brilliant, 
 and by its light our men could distinguish the enemy s forces 
 working on a pontoon bridge stretching from the Stafford bank 
 towards the foot of the bluff. In the course of an hoar the 
 bridge had been stretched within sixty yards of the southern 
 shore. The work was going bravely on, when the two com 
 panies of the 17th, who were lying on the extreme verge of the 
 bluff, were ordered to fire. The order was deliberately given 
 and executed. At the crack of our rifles, the bride-builders 
 scampered for the shore ; but the next moment there was 
 opened upon the bluff a terrific fire of shell, grape, and mus 
 ketry, which was kept up until our troops retired. Twice again, 
 at intervals of half an hour, the enemy renewed the attempt 
 to complete the .bridge, but was in each instance repulsed. 
 After the third repulse of the enemy, the whole of Barksdale s 
 brigade was ordered to the support of the 17th regiment, and 
 were put into position, some in the rear of the bluff and others 
 higher up and lower down the stream. At this juncture the 
 enemy s fire from cannon and small-arms became so tremen 
 dous and overwhelming, that our troops were only preserved 
 from destruction by lying flat on their faces. In every instance 
 in which a man ventured to raise his head from the earth, he 
 was instantly riddled by bullets or torn to pieces by grapcshot. 
 
540 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 The emergency may be understood when it is borne in mind 
 that the position occupied by our men was swept by the enemy 5 
 batteries and sharpshooters not two hundred yards distant on 
 the opposite heights. 
 
 Towards five o clock in the afternoon of the llth of Decem 
 ber, three rousing cheers from the river bank beneath the bluff 
 announced that the enemy had completed the bridge, and that 
 his troops had effected a landing on the southern bank. About 
 this time the order for a retreat was received by our men. 
 The regiments of the brigade fell back by different streets, 
 firing as they retreated upon the enemy, who closely followed 
 them. The brigade rendezvoused at the market-house and 
 faced the enemy. A sharp skirmish ensued, but our troops, 
 acting under orders, again fell back and left the town in pos 
 session of the enemy. 
 
 It having become evident to Gen. Lee that no effectual op 
 position could be offered to the- construction of the bridges or 
 passage of the river, it only remained that positions should be 
 selected to oppose the enemy s advance after crossing. Under 
 cover of the darkness of the night of the 12th and of a dense; 
 fog, a large force passed the river, and took position on the 
 light bank, protected by their heavy guns on the left/ 
 
 The effects of the enemy s bombardment upon the unfortu 
 nate town were deplorable. The majority of the population 
 had long ago fled the city at the prospect of its destruction ; 
 and the touching spectacles of their misery and suffering were 
 seen for miles around the city, where houseless women and 
 children were camped out or roaming shelterless and hungry 
 through the fields. A number of citizens who had returned to 
 the town under the delusion that it would not be attacked, left 
 it during the day the enemy crossed the river, single or in 
 families, and sought for refuge and safety in the country. 
 They were scattered about some in cabins, some in the open 
 air, and others wandering vacantly along the railroads. Little 
 children with blue feet trod painfully the frozen ground, and 
 those whom they followed knew as little as themselves where 
 to seek food and shelter. Hundreds of ladies wandered home 
 less over the frozen highway, with bare feet and thin clothing, 
 knowing not where to find a place of refuge. Delicately nur 
 tured girls, with slender forms, upon which nc rain had ever 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 54:1 
 
 heat, which no wind had ever visited too roughly, walked hur 
 riedly, with unsteady feet, upon the road, seeking only some 
 place where they could shelter themselves. "Whole families 
 sought sheds by the wayside, or made roofs of fence-rails and 
 straw, knowing not whither to fly, or to what friend to have 
 recourse. This was the result of the enemy s bombardment. 
 Night had settled down, and though the roar of the batteriea 
 had hushed, the flames of burning houses still lit up the land 
 scape. 
 
 The sun of the 13th of December rose clear, but a dim fog 
 shrouded the town of Fredericksburg and the circumjacent 
 valleys, and delayed the opening of the antagonistic batteries. 
 At two o clock in the morning our troops were all under arms, 
 and batteries in position to receive the expected attack of the 
 enemy. 
 
 The Rappahannock, in its coursft from west to east, is skirted 
 just at the point where Fredericksburg stands on its southern 
 bank, by low crests of hills, which on the northern bank run 
 parallel and close to the river, and on the southern bank trend 
 backward from the stream, and leave a semicircular plain six 
 miles in length and two or three in depth, inclosed within their 
 circumference before they again approach the river in tho 
 neighborhood of Massaponax creek. Immediately above the 
 tow^a, and on the left of the Confederate position, the bluffs 
 are bold and bare of trees ; but south of the railroad, begin 
 ning near the town and running to a point at Hamilton s cross 
 ing, and also parallel with the river, is a range of hills covered 
 with dense oak forest, fringed on its northern border by pine 
 thickets. Our forces occupied the whole length of this forest. 
 Longstreet s corps occupied the highlands above, opposite and 
 for a mile below the town. Jackson s corps rested on Long- 
 street s right, and extended away to the eastward, the extreme 
 right, under A. P Hill, crossing the railroad at Hamilton s 
 crossing, and stretching into the valley towards the river. 
 Our front was about six miles in length. Most of tne batteries 
 of both corps were posted in the skirts of the forest, along 
 the line of the railroad, the seven batteries in Col. Lindsey 
 Walker s regiment and Stuart s horse artillery being stationed 
 in the valley, between the railroad at Hamilton s crossing and 
 the river. The enemy s forces occupied the valley north of 
 
54:2 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the railroad from Fredericksburg to within half a mile of oui 
 extreme right. His light batteries were posted over the south 
 ern extremity of the valley, at from a quarter of a mile to a 
 mile from the railroad, while the hills on the northern banks of 
 the river from Falmouth to Fitzhugh s farm, five miles below 
 Fredericksburg, were studded at intervals of half a mile with 
 his batteries of heavy guns. 
 
 At noon the fog had cleared away, but there was a thick 
 haze in the atmosphere. About this time the enemy s infantry 
 moved forward from the river towards our batteries on the 
 hills. As they pressed forward across the valley, Stuart s 
 horse artillery from our extreme right opened upon them a de 
 structive enfilading fire of round-shot. This fire, which an 
 noyed them sorely, was kept up in spite of six batteries which 
 were directed against the horse artillery as soon as it was un 
 masked. By one o clock the Yankee columns had crossed the 
 valley and entered the woods -south of the railroad. The bat 
 teries on both sides slackened their fire, and musketry, at first 
 scattering, but quickly increasing to a crash and roar, sounded 
 through the woods. Dense volumes of smoke rose above the 
 trees, and volley succeeded volley, sometimes so rapidly as to 
 blend into a prolonged and continuous roar. A. P. Hill s di 
 vision sustained the first shock of battle. The rest of Jack 
 son s corps were in different lines of reserves. D. H. Hill s 
 division was drawn up in J. L. Marye s field, under a long hill, 
 in rear of our line of battle. Here they remained during the 
 most of the day, being moved from time to time to the right 
 or left, as the exigencies of battle dictated. Shortly after the 
 infantry fight began, a brigade of this division %vas moved at a 
 double-quick a mile and a half to the right, and posted in a 
 dense clump of pines, in supporting distance of Stuart s horse 
 artillery. In ten minutes they were brought back to theii 
 original position. The celerity of this movement made a sin 
 gular and exciting spectacle. A long black line shoots from 
 the position of the reserves, crosses the railroad at Hamilton s 
 station, skims across the valley, and in a few moments is lost 
 in the pines nearly two miles away. After scarcely a breath 
 ing spell, the same line emerges from the pines and retraces 
 its steps to its original position. As this brigade resumed its 
 position in reserve, the fire of musketry directly in its front 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 543 
 
 slackened. A few crackling shots were heard to our left, 
 along Longstreet s division, and then a succession of volleys, 
 which were kept up at intervals during the remainder of the 
 evening. The musketry lire on our right was soon renewed, 
 and the battle raged with increased fury. Our batteries along 
 our whole front again reopened, and Col. Walker s artillery 
 regiment, composed of Latham s, Letcher s, Braxton s, Pe- 
 gram s, Crenshaw s, Johnson s and Mclntosh s batteries, sta 
 tioned in the open low grounds, to the east of the railroad at 
 Hamilton s station, moved forward several hundred yards in 
 the direction of Fredericksburg. Hill s and Early s troops 
 had driven the enemy from the woods and across the railroad 
 in the direction of their pontoon bridges near Deep Run. Our 
 men pursued them a mile and a half across the bottom land, 
 and fell back only when they had gotten under the shelter of 
 their batteries. Again the enemy rallied and returned to re 
 new the contest, but were again driven back. All the batteries 
 of Jackson s corps were at this time in full play, and in the 
 approaching twilight the blaze of the guns and the quick 
 flashes of the shells more distinctly visible, constituted a scene 
 at once splendid and terrific. 
 
 On the right wing the enemy had been driven back with 
 great loss. Gen. Stuart had well redeemed his grim dispatch 
 that he was " going to crowd em with artillery." The enor 
 mous strength of this military arm had been used with desper 
 ation on one side and devoted courage on the other. The 
 enemy had twenty thousand men engaged on this wing, while, 
 altogether, from first to last, we had not more than ten thou 
 sand in the line of fire. 
 
 But while the battle was dashing furiously against the lines 
 of Jackson, the enemy was crossing troops over his bridges at 
 Fredericksburg and massing them in front of Longstreet, in 
 the immediate neighborhood of the town. 
 
 On reference to the positions of the battle-field, it will be 
 apparent that the left of the Confederate army a portion of it 
 stationed not more than four hundred yards from Fredericks 
 burg occupied a much stronger position than the centre and 
 right. There was not sufficient room for the Yankee troopa 
 destined for the attack of the nearest Confederate batteries to 
 deploy and form, except under a deadly Confederate fire, 
 
544 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 whereas, the Yankee troops who attacked the Confederate 
 centre and right, had a large plain on which to deploy, and 
 had much fewer disadvantages of ground to contend with, in 
 asmuch as they advanced against lower hills and had the long 
 spurs of copse to assist them as points of attack, calculated to 
 protect and serve as points tfappui to the Yankees if they 
 could once have succeeded in carrying and holding them. 
 
 In this part of the field the enemy displayed a devotion that 
 is remarkable in history. This display does not adorn the 
 Yankees ; it was made by a race that has left testimonies of 
 its courage in such stories as Waterloo and Fontenoy. To the 
 Irish division, commanded by Gen. Meagher, was principally 
 committed the desperate task of bursting out of the town of 
 Fredericksburg, and forming under the withering fire of the 
 Confederate batteries, to attack Marye s Heights, towering 
 immediately in their front. The troops were harangued in 
 impassioned language by their commander, who pointed to the 
 heights as the contested prize of victory. 
 
 The heights were occupied by the Washington Artillery and 
 a portion of McLaws division. As the enemy advanced, the 
 artillery reserved their fire until he arrived within two hundred 
 and fifty yards, when they opened on the heavy masses with 
 grape and canister. At the first broadside of the sixteen guns 
 of the battalion, hundreds of the enemy went down, and at 
 every successive discharge, great furrows were plowed through 
 their ranks. They staggered repeatedly, but were as often 
 rallied and brought forward. Again and again they made 
 frantic dashes upon our steady line of fire, and as often were 
 the hill-sides strewn for acres with their corpses. At last, no 
 longer able to withstand the withering fire, they broke and fled 
 in confusion. They were pressed into town by our infantry. 
 Our victory was complete all along the line. When the voices 
 of our officers in the darkness ordered the last advance, the 
 combat had terminated in the silence of the foe. 
 
 The enemy left behind him a ghastly field. Some portions 
 of it were literally packed with his dead. At the foct ot 
 Marye s Heights was a frightful spectacle of carnage. The 
 bodies which had fallen in dense masses within forty yards 
 of the muzzles of Col. Walton s guns, testified to the gallantry 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 545 
 
 )f die Irish division, and showed what manner of men they 
 \vwre who pressed on to death with the dauntlessness of a race 
 whose courage history has made indisputable. The loss of tho 
 enemy was out of all comparison in numbers with our own ; 
 the evidences of its extent do not permit us to doubt that it 
 was at least ten thousand ; while our own killed and wounded, 
 during the operations since the movements of the enemy began 
 at Fredericksburg, amounted to about eighteen hundred. 
 
 At the thrilling tidings of Fredericksburg the hopes of the 
 South rose high that we were at last to realize some important 
 and practical consequences from the prowess of our arms. We 
 had obtained a victory in which the best troops of the ISTorth 
 including Sumner s grand division had been beaten ; in 
 which defeat had left the shattered foe cowering beneath the 
 houses of Fredericksburg ; and in which he had been forced 
 into a position which left him no reasonable hope of escape, 
 .with a river in his rear, which, though threaded by pontoon 
 bridges, would have been impassable under the pressure of 
 attack. It is remarkable that, so far as the war had progress 
 ed, although fought on an almost unparalleled scale in num 
 bers, it was yet not illustrated by the event so common in the 
 military history of Europe, of the decisive annihilation of any 
 single army. But it was thought that Fredericksburg, at least, 
 would give an illustration of a decisive victory in this war. 
 The Southern public waited with impatience for the comple 
 tion of the success that had already been announced, and tho 
 newspapers were eagerly scanned for the hoped-for intelligence 
 that Gen. Lee had, by the vigor of a fresh assault, dispatched 
 his crippled enemy on the banks of the river. But no such 
 assault was made. While the public watched with keen im 
 patience for the blow, the announcement came that the enemy, 
 after having remained entirely at his leisure one day in Fred 
 ericksburg, had the next night crossed the Rappahannock 
 without accident or a single effort at interruption on our part, 
 and that the army of Burnside, which was a short while ago 
 thought to be in the jaws of destruction, was quietly reorgan 
 izing in perfect security on the north bank of the river. It 
 was the old lesson to the South of a barren victory. The story 
 of Fredericksburg was incomplete and unsatisfactory ; and 
 
 35 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE 
 
 there appeared no prospect but that a war waged at 
 sacrifices was yet indefinitely to linger in the trail of bloody 
 skirmishes. 
 
 The victory, which had only the negative advantage of hav 
 ing checked the enemy without destroying him, and the vulgar 
 glory of our having killed and wounded several thousand men 
 more than we had lost, had been purchased by us with lives, 
 though comparatively small in numbers, yet infinitely more 
 precious than those of mercenary hordes arrayed against us. 
 Two of our brigadier-generals Gen. Thomas E. E. Cobb of 
 Georgia and Gen. Maxcy Gregg of South Carolina had fallen 
 on the field. The loss of each was more conspicuous from ex 
 traordinary personal worth than from mere distinctions of 
 rank. Gen. Cobb was the brother of Gen. Howell Cobb, and 
 was an able and eloquent member of the Provisional Congress, 
 in which body he had served in the important capacity of 
 chairman of the committee on military affairs. 
 
 Of the virtues and services of Gen. Maxcy Gregg it is not 
 necessary to remind any portion of the people of the South 
 by a detailed review of incidents in his career. His name was 
 familiarly coupled with the first movements of the war, he 
 having been appointed to the command of the 1st South Caro 
 lina regiment, the first force from the State which arrived in 
 Virginia, and whose advent at Richmond had been hailed with 
 extraordinary demonstrations of honor and welcome. The term 
 of the service of this regiment having expired, it returned to 
 South Carolina, but its commander, Col. Gregg, remained in 
 Virginia, and subsequently reorganized the regiment, which 
 had since been constantly and conspicuously in service. Its 
 commander was subsequently made a brigadier-general. 
 
 Gen. Gregg, although the occupations of his life were prin 
 cipally professional, had a large and brilliant political reputa 
 tion in his State. He was a leading member of the bar, and 
 practised his profession with distinction and success for a 
 period of more than twenty years in Columbia. In politics he 
 was an extreme State Eights man, and stood, with others, at 
 the head jf that party in South Carolina. He took a promi 
 nent part in favor of the policy of reopening the slave-trade 
 which had been the subject of some excited and untimely dis 
 cusfoion in the South some years ago; he and ex-Governoi 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 54:7 
 
 Adams, of South Carolina, being associated as the leading 
 representatives of that idea in the cotton States. 
 
 Gen. Gregg was remarkable for his firm and unflinching 
 temper. In the army he had an extraordinary reputation for 
 self-possession and sang froid in battle. He was never discon 
 certed, and had the happy faculty of inspiring the courage of 
 his troops, not so much by words as by his cool determination 
 and even behavior. 
 
 The romance of the story of Fredericksburg is written no 
 less in the quiet heroism of her women than in deeds of arms. 
 The verses of the poet rather than the cold language of a mere 
 chronicle of events are most fitting to describe the beautiful 
 courage and noble sacrifices of those brave daughters of Vir 
 ginia, who preferred to see their homes reduced to ashes, 
 rather than polluted by the Yankee, and who in the blasts of 
 winter, and in the fiercer storms of blood and fire, went forth 
 undismayed, encouraging our soldiers, and proclaiming their 
 desire to suffer privation, poverty, and death, rather than the 
 shame of a surrender or the misfortune of a defeat. In all 
 the terrible scenes of Fredericksburg, there were no weakness 
 and tears of women. Mothers, exiles from their homes, met 
 their sons in the ranks, embraced them, told them their duty, 
 and with a self-negation most touching to witness, concealed 
 their want, sometimes their hunger, telling their brave boys 
 they were comfortable and happy, that they might not be 
 troubled with domestic anxieties. At Hamilton s crossing, 
 many of the women had the opportunity of meeting their rela 
 tives in the army. In the haste of flight, mothers had brought 
 a few garments, or perhaps the last loaf of bread for the sol 
 dier boy, and the lesson of duty whispered in the ear gave to 
 the young heart the pure and brave inspiration to sustain it in 
 battle. ~No more touching and noble evidence could be offered 
 of the heroism of the women of Fredericksburg than the grati 
 tude of our army ; for, afterwards, when subscriptions for their 
 relief came to be added up, it was found that thousands of 
 dollars had been contributed by ragged soldiers out of their 
 pittance of pay to the fund of the refugees. There could be 
 no more eloquent tribute than this offered to the women of 
 Fredericksburg a beautiful and immortal souvenir of their 
 sufferings and virtues. 
 
5 3 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 What was endured in the Yankee sacking of the town, finds 
 scarcely anywhere a parallel in the history of civilized races. 
 It is impossible to detail here the murderous acts of the 
 enemy, the arsons, the robberies, the torture of women, and 
 the innumerable and indescribable villanies committed upon 
 helpless people. The following extract from the New York 
 Tribune, written by one of its army correspondents in a tone 
 of devilish amusement, affords a glimpse of Burnside s brig 
 ands in Fredericksburg, and of the accustomed barbarities of 
 the enemy : 
 
 " The old mansion of Douglas Gordon perhaps the wealth 
 iest citizen in the vicinity is now used as the headquarters of 
 General Howard, but before he occupied it, every room had 
 been torn with shot, and then all the elegant furniture and 
 works of art broken and smashed by the soldiers, who burst 
 into the house after having driven the rebel sharpshooters from 
 behind it. When I entered it early this morning, before its 
 occupation by Gen. Howard, I found the soldiers of his fine 
 division diverting themselves with the rich dresses found in 
 the wardrobes; some had on bonnets of the fashion of last 
 year, and were surveying themselves before mirrors, which, an 
 hour or two afterwards, were pitched out of the window and 
 smashed to pieces upon the pavement ; others had elegant 
 scarfs bound round their heads in the form of turbans, and 
 shawls around their waists. 
 
 " We destroyed by fire nearly two whole squares of build 
 ings, chiefly used for business purposes, together with the fine 
 residences of O. McDowell, Dr. Smith, J. H. Kelly, A. S. 
 Cott, William Slaughter, and many other smaller dwellings. 
 Every store, I think, without exception, was pillaged of every 
 valuable article. A fine drug-store, which would not have 
 looked badly on Broadway, was literally one mass of broken 
 glass and jars." 
 
 The records of the Spanish and Moorish struggles, the wars 
 of the Roses, and the thirty years war in Germany, may be 
 safely challenged for comparisons with the acts of barbarity 
 of the Yankees. Their worst acts of atrocity were not com 
 mitted in the mad intoxication of combat, but in cold and 
 cowardly blood on the helpless and defenceless. While the 
 lawless and savage scenes in Fredericksburg, to whieb we 
 
THE SECOND YEAH. 549 
 
 have i eferred, <vere still fresh in the public nJnd, the enemy in 
 another department of the war, was displaying the same fiend 
 ish temper, stung by defeat and emboldened with the prospect 
 of revenging his fortunes on the women and children of the 
 South. The Yankee incursions and raids in North Carolina 
 in the month of December are companion pieces to the sack of 
 Fredericksburg. 
 
 " On entering Williamstown, North Carolina," says an eye 
 witness, " the Yankees respected not a single house it mat 
 tered not whether the owner was in or absent. Doors were 
 broken open and houses entered by the soldiers, who took 
 every thing they saw, and what they were unable to carry 
 away they broke and destroyed. Furniture of every descrip 
 tion was committed to the flames, and the citizens who dared 
 to remonstrate with them were threatened, cursed, and buffeted 
 
 about The enemy stopped for the night at Mr. 
 
 Ward s mill. Mr. Ward was completely stripped of every 
 thing, they not even leaving him enough for breakfast. While 
 on a sick-bed, his wife was, in his presence, searched and rob 
 bed of five hundred dollars. The Yankees went about fifteen 
 miles above Hamilton, when, for some cause, they suddenly 
 turned and marched back, taking, with some slight deviations 
 in quest of plunder, the same route they had come. The town 
 of Hamilton was set oh fire and as many as fifteen houses laid 
 in ashes. During the time the Yankees encamped at Wil 
 liamstown every thing which they left unharmed when last 
 there was demolished. Every house in town was occupied 
 and defaced. Several fine residences were actually used as 
 horse-stables. Iron safes were broken open, and in the pres 
 ence of their owners rifled of their contents. Several citi- 
 Eeris were seized and robbed of the money on their persons. 
 . . . . On Sunday morning Williamstown was fired, and 
 no effort made to arrest the flames until several houses were 
 burnt. No attempt was made by the Yankee officers, from 
 Gen. Foster down, to prevent the destruction of property. On 
 the contrary, they connived at it, and some of the privates did 
 not hesitate to say that they were instructed to do as they had 
 done. Two ladies at Williamstown went to Gen. Foster to be 
 seech protection from his soldiers, and were rudely and arnV 
 gantly ordered from his presence 
 
550 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 Referring to the same scenes, a correspondent writes : " Fam 
 ilies who fled in dismay at the approach of the invader, re 
 turned and found, as well as the few who remained at home, 
 clothes, beds, bedding, spoons, and books abstracted ; cost.lv 
 furniture, crockery, doors, harness, and vehicles demolished ; 
 locks, windows, and mirrors broken ; fences burned ; corn, po 
 tatoes, and peas gathered from the barns and fields consumed , 
 iron safes dug to pieces and thrown out of doors, and their con 
 tents stolen-. 7 
 
 The object of the enemy s movements in North Carolina, 
 long a subject of anxious speculation, was- at last developed, in 
 time, for a severe check to be given- it. At the time that the 
 enemy assaulted our lines in front of Fredericksburg, following 
 his favorite policy of simultaneous attack in different depart 
 ments, he had planned a movement upon the Wilmington and 
 "Weldon railroad ; and on the same day that the battle of Fred- 
 ericksburg was fought, occurred an important passage of arm* 
 in North Carolina. 
 
 On the 13th of December, Brigadier-gen. Evans encoim 
 tered, with two thousand men, the advancing enemy, and with 
 this small force held hrm in check at Southwest creek, beyond 
 Kinston. The Yankee force, commanded by Foster, consisted 
 of fifteen thousand men and nine gunboats. Having delayed 
 their advance for some time, Gen. Evans succeeded in with 
 drawing his force, with small loss, to the left bank of the Neuse 
 river at Kinston. He held the Yankees at bay until the 16th T 
 when they advanced on the opposite side of the river, and 
 made an attack at Whitehall bridge, about eighteen miles 
 below Goldsboro ; in which they were driven back by Gun. 
 Robertson, with severe loss. 
 
 The important object on our side was to protect the railroad 
 bridge over the Neuse, and the county bridge about halt a 
 mile above; and to effect this, reinforcements having reached 
 us, a rapid disposition of our forces was made. During the 
 17th, the enemy appeared in force before Gen. Clingman s three 
 regiments, aritl he withdrew, across the county bridge, to this 
 side of the river. The artillery of the enemy was j laying upon 
 the railroad bridge ; and Evans brigade had at last to move 
 forward by the county road, and cross, if at all, the bridge a 
 half mile above the railroad. About two o clock in the after- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR* 
 
 651 
 
 noor. one bold and daring incendiary succeeded in reading the 
 bridge, and covered by the wing wall of the abutment, lighted 
 ii flame which soon destroyed the superstructure, leaving the 
 masonry, abutments, and pier intact. 
 
 It was very important for us now to save the county bridge, 
 the only means remaining of crossing the river in the vicinity. 
 Evans and Clingman s brigades were ordered to cross, sup 
 ported by Pettigrew s brigade; and the Mississippi brigade, 
 just coming in, was ordered to move forward at once. The 
 enemy were driven back from their position on the line of the 
 railroad, but on account of the lateness of the hour, the nature 
 of the ground, and the fact that our artillery, cavalry, and a 
 large portion of the reinforcements had not yet arrived, it was 
 not deemed advisable to attack their strong second position that, 
 evening. During the night the enemy made a hurried retreat 
 to their fortifications and gunboats, moving with such celerity 
 that it was useless to attempt pursuit with any other arms than 
 cavalry, of which, at that time, unfortunately, we had none. 
 
 Our loss in these engagements was inconsiderable seventy- 
 one killed and two hundred and sixty-eight wounded. Th& 
 enemy s occupation of Kinston, and the bridge there, pre 
 vented a body of our men, about five hundred in number, from 
 escaping. The greater part were taken prisoners and paroled, 
 and some few succeeded in escaping higher up on the river. 
 
 The substantial achievements of the grand army of invasion 
 were, that they burned the superstructure of two bridges, which 
 cost originally less than ten thousand dollars. They had ut 
 terly failed to attempt to take advantage of the temporary 
 and partial interruption of our railroad line, for the purpose 
 of striking a decisive blow at any important point before we 
 could thoroughly re-establish our communication without it. 
 
 In other quarters of the war less important than Virginia or 
 North Carolina, the early months of the winter were distin 
 guished by some combats of various importance. The feeble 
 campaign in the country west of the Mississippi was marked 
 by one engagement, the dimensions of which were large for 
 that campaign, but the situation of which was too distant to 
 affect the general condition of the Confederacy. 
 
 On the 27th of November, Gen. Hindman came up with the 
 enemy at Prairie Grove, near Fayetteville, Arkansas, with a 
 
552 
 
 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 force of about nine thousand men. The enemy, under the 
 command of Gen. Blount, was already largely superior in 
 numbers; and it was the object of Hindman to cut off rein 
 forcements of seven or eight thousand, which were on the 
 inarch. In this he failed ; but, nothing daunted, brought on 
 the attack at daylight, capturing, in the first charge of Gen. 
 Marmaduke s cavalry, a whole regiment, and twenty-three 
 wagons heavily laden with quartermaster and medical stores. 
 Soon after sunrise the fight commenced in good earnest, and 
 with no cessation the artillery continued until nightfall. Our 
 whole line of infantry were in close conflict nearly the whole 
 day with the enemy, who were attempting, with their force of 
 eighteen thousand men, to drive us from our position. In every 
 instance they were repulsed, and finally driven back from the 
 field ; Gen. Hindman driving them to within eight miles of 
 Fayetteville, when our forces fell back to their supply depot, 
 between Cane Hill and Yan Buren. "We captured three hun 
 dred prisoners and vast quantities of stores. The enemy s loss 
 in killed and wounded was about one thousand; the Confeder 
 ate loss, in killed, wounded, and missing, about three hundred. 
 In one of the charges of the engagement, Gen. Stein, of the 
 Missouri State Guard, was killed, a ball passing directly through 
 his brain. 
 
 The close of the year 1862 leaves little to record of events of 
 importance sufficient to affect the fortunes of the war, beyond 
 what has been related in these pages with more or less par 
 ticularity of detail. In that large expanse of country between 
 the Mississippi and the tributaries of the Atlantic, events, since 
 our last reference to these theatres of the war, were of little ap 
 parent importance, although they were preparing for a grand 
 tragedy of arms upon which we shall find that the first page 
 of the new year opens. There were daring forays, brilliant 
 skirmishes and enterprises of our cavalry, to which a brief 
 reference is only possible in these pages. Such were the ex 
 ploits of Generals Forrest and Morgan, our distinguished cav 
 alry commanders in West Tennessee, in which they annoyed 
 the enemy, destroyed railroad bridges and Federal property, 
 and captured several towns in successful raids. On the 7th of 
 December a single expedition, sent out under Morgan from 
 G-en. Bragg s lines, attacked an outpost of the enemy at Harts- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 553 
 
 rille, on the Cumberland, killed and wounded two hundred, 
 captured eighteen hundred prisoners, two pieces of artillery, 
 and two thousand small-arms, and all other stores at the po 
 sition. Nor in our slight record of indecisive but gallant 
 incidents of the war, must we neglect to mention the brave 
 enterprise of Col. Clarkson, another choice spirit of Southern 
 chivalry, who, with a detachment of the Virginia State line, 
 penetrated into Kentucky, captured the town of Piketon on 
 the 8th of December, secured a large amount of stores, and 
 nipped an important enterprise of the enemy in the bud. 
 
 In the mean time some important new assignments of mili 
 tary command had been made in preparation for the winter 
 campaign, and happily inspired the country with renewed 
 confidence in the fortunes of the war. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith, 
 whose patriotism was as enthusiastic as his military genius waa 
 admirable (for he had broken ties as well as restraints in es 
 caping from the North to join the standard of his native 
 South), had taken command in North Carolina. Gen. Beau- 
 regard had been assigned to the important care of the defences 
 of Charleston and Savannah, threatened by the most formida 
 ble armadas that the warlike ingenuity and lavish expenditure 
 of the enemy had yet produced. Gen. Pemberton had relieved 
 Van Dorn of the army of the Southwest at Holly Springs, 
 which had been taken by surprise on the 20th of December, 
 and was now in our possession ; and that latter officer, ill- 
 B tarred by fortune, but whose gallantry and enterprise were 
 freely acknowledged, was appropriately appointed to take 
 command of the cavalry forces in the West. The command 
 of all the forces between the Alleghany and the Mississippi 
 was intrusted to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, whose matchless 
 strategy had more than once enlightened the records of the 
 war, and whose appointment to this large and important com 
 mand was hailed with an outburst of joy and enthusiastic confi 
 dence in all parts of the South. 
 
554 SOUIHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 The eastern Portion of Tennessee. Its Military Importance. Composition Oi 
 Bragg s Army. THE BATTLE or MURFREESBORO . The Eight Wing of the Enemy 
 routed. Bragg s Exultations. The Assault of the 2d of January. " The bloody 
 crossing of Stone River." The Confederates fall back to Tullahoma. Review of the 
 Battle-field of Murfreesboro . Repulse of the Enemy at Vicksburg. THE RECAP 
 TURE OF GALVESTON. The Midnight March. Capture of the " Harriet Lane." 
 Arkansas Post taken by the Yankees. Its Advantages. The affair of the Rams in 
 Charleston Harbor. Naval structure of the Confederacy. Capture of the Yankee 
 gunboat " Queen of the West." Heroism of George Wood. Capture of the " In- 
 dianola." The War on the Water. The Confederate Cruisers. Prowess of the 
 " Alabama." 
 
 THE eastern portion of Tennessee abounds in hills, rocks, 
 poverty, and ignorance. But its military situation was one of 
 great importance to the Confederacy. The enemy already 
 held West and Middle Tennessee. It required but to occupy 
 East Tennessee to have entire possession of one of the most 
 valuable States of the Confederacy. They also felt bound in 
 honor and duty to render the long-promised assistance to the 
 Unionists of East Tennessee. Tennessee would be more 
 thoroughly theirs than Kentucky, when once they filled thia 
 eastern portion of it with their armies. The essential geo 
 graphical importance of this country to the Confederacy was 
 too obvious to be dwelt upon. It covered Georgia and involved 
 the defences of the cotton region of the South. Through it ran 
 a great continental line of railroad, of which the South could 
 not be deprived* without unspeakable detriment. The impor 
 tance of this road to the supply of our armies was no less con 
 siderable than to the supply of our general population. 
 
 The gallant and heroic army of the Confederacy, commanded 
 by Gen. Braxton Bragg, composed of Floridians, Louisianians, 
 South Carolinians, Georgians, and Kentuckians, numbering be 
 tween thirty and forty thousand men, had occupied Murfrees 
 boro for over a month, in confidence and security, never 
 dreaming of the advance of the enemy. President Davis had 
 visited and reviewed the brave veterans of Fishing creek, 
 
GEN. BRAXTON BRAGG. 
 
 C. B. Richards on, 
 Publisher. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 555 
 
 Pensacola, Donelson, Shiloh, Perrjville, and Hartsril e, and, 
 satisfied of their ability to resist any foe who should have the 
 temerity to attack them, he withdrew from our forces Steven- 
 son s division, of Kirby Smith s corps, numbering about eight 
 thousand men, leaving scarcely thirty thousand men to defend 
 what was left to us of Tennessee. 
 
 Balls, parties, and brilliant festivities relieved the ennui of 
 the camp of the Confederates. On Christmas eve scenes of 
 revelry enlivened Murfreesboro , and officers and men alike 
 gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the hour, with an 
 abandonment of all military cares, indulging in fancied se 
 curity. 
 
 The enemy s force at Nashville, under command of Rose- 
 crans, was not believed to have been over forty thousand, and 
 the opinion was confidently entertained that he would not 
 attempt to advance until the Cumberland should rise, to aiford 
 him the aid of his gunboats. Indeed,- Morgan had been sent 
 to Kentucky to destroy the Nashville road and cut off his 
 supplies, so that he might force the enemy to come out and 
 meet us. Yet, that very night, when festivity prevailed, the 
 enemy was marching upon us ! 
 
 The grounds in front of Murfreesboro had been surveyed 
 and examined a month before, in order to select a position for 
 battle in case of surprise, and our troops were thrown forward 
 to prevent such a misfortune. Folk s corps, with Cheatham s 
 division, occupied our centre, Maney s brigade being thrown 
 forward towards Lavergne, where Wheeler s cavalry was annoy 
 ing the enemy. A portion of Kirby Smith s corps, McCown s 
 division, occupied Readyville on our right, and Hardee s corps 
 occupied Triune on our left, with Wharton s cavalry thrown 
 out in the vicinity of Franklin. 
 
 Festival and mirth continued on Christmas day, but the day 
 following, Friday, the 26th, was a most gloomy one. The rain 
 fell in torrents. That same- evening couriers arrived and 
 reported a general advance of the enemy. All was excitement 
 and commotion, and the greatest activity prevailed. The 
 enemy had already driven in our advance front. Hardens 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAS. 
 
 corps fell back from Triune. Major-gen. McCown s division 
 was ordered to march to Murfreesboro at once, having received 
 the order at midnight. Heavy skirmishing by Wheeler and 
 Wharton s cavalry had continued since the 25th. On the 27th 
 the ground for our line of battle was selected in front of the 
 town, about a mile and a half distant on Stone s river. The 
 enemy had now advanced beyond Triune, his main body 
 occupying Stuart s creek, ten miles from town. On the 28th 
 our troops took up their position in line of battle. Folk s 
 corps, consisting of Withers and Cheatham s divisions, formed 
 our left wing, and was posted about a mile and a half on the 
 west side of Stone s river, its right resting on the Nashville 
 road, and its left extending as far as the Salem pike, a distance 
 of nearly six miles. Hardee s corps, consisting of Breckin- 
 ridge s and Cleburne s divisions, was formed on the east bank 
 of the river, its left resting near the Nashville road, and its 
 right extending towards the Lebanon pike, about three miles 
 in length, making our line of battle about nine miles in length, 
 in the shape of an obtuse angle. McCown s division formed 
 the reserve, opposite our centre, and Jackson s brigade was 
 held in reserve on the right flank of Hardee. Stone s river 
 crosses the Salem pike about a mile and a half on the south 
 side of the town, making a curve below the pike about a mile 
 further south, and then runs nearly north and south in front 
 of Murfreesboro , crossing the Nashville pike and extending 
 towards the Lebanon pike, some half a mile, when it makes 
 another turn or bend and runs nearly east and west, emptying 
 into the Cumberland river. The river, at the shoals, where 
 it crosses the Nashville pike, was fordable, and not over ankle 
 deep. The banks above and below were rather steep, being 
 some five to eight feet high, with rocky protrusions. The 
 nature of the country was undulating, but mostly level in our 
 front, with large, open fields. To the right or the west side 
 the ground was more rolling, with rocky upheaval and crop- 
 pings of limestone and thick cedar groves. On the side of the 
 river towards the Lebanon pike were thin patches of woods 
 and rocky^ projections. 
 
 On the 29th there was continued skirmishing by our cavalry 
 forces, the enemy gradually advancing. On the 30th the 
 enemy had advanced by three columns and took up his posi- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 557 
 
 tion about a mile in < /nr front. At noon lie shelled our 
 right and centre, in order to feel our reserves. At 3 p. M. 
 the enemy made an advance on our left, and attempted to 
 drive us back in order to occupy the ground for his right wing. 
 A spirited engagement immediately commenced, Gen. Polk 
 having ordered forward a portion of Withers division. Eobin- 
 son s battery held the enemy in check, keeping up a most 
 deadly and destructive fire. Three times the enemy charged 
 this battery, but were repulsed by the gallant one hundred and 
 fifty-fourth Tennessee. Col. Loornis, commanding Gardner s 
 brigade, and the brigade formerly Duncan s, with the South 
 Carolinians, Alabamians, and Louisianians, were most hotly 
 engaged, and though suffering considerably, succeeded in dri 
 ving back the enemy with great slaughter. It was now clear 
 that the enemy intended to mass his forces on our left, in order 
 to make a flank movement the next day, and obtain, if possible, 
 the Salem pike, which, if successful, would give him possession 
 of the Chattanooga railroad. Cleburne s division, of Hardee s 
 corps, and Major-gen. McCown s division, were immediately 
 ordered over towards the Salem pike to reinforce our extreme 
 left wing. Wheeler s cavalry had already gained the enemy s 
 rear, and had captured a train of wagons and a number of 
 prisoners. A cold, drizzling rain had "set in, and our troops 
 were greatly exposed, being without shelter, and bivouacking 
 by their camp fires. 
 
 On the morning of the 31st, the grand battle was opened. 
 At the break of day on the cold and cloudy morning, Gen. 
 Hardee gave the order to advance, and the fight was opened 
 by McCown s division, with Cleburne, advancing upon the 
 enemy s right wing under Gen. McCook. The charge was of 
 the most rapid character. The alarm given by the enemy s 
 pickets scarcely reached his camp before the Confederates 
 were upon it. The sight of our advance was a most magnifi 
 cent one. Two columns deep, with a front of nearly three- 
 fourths of a mile, the line well preserved arid advancing with 
 great rapidity, on came the Confederate left wing, the bayo 
 nets glistening in a bright sun, which had broken through the 
 thick fog. 
 
 The enemy wns taken completely by surprise, their artillery 
 hordes nc^ even being hitched up. Such was the impetuosity 
 
558 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAS,. 
 
 of the tharge, that the enemy fell back in disn.ay, our troops 
 pouring in a most murderous fire. "With such rapidity did our 
 men cross the broken ploughed fields, that our artillery could 
 not follow them. Wharton s cavalry had charged a battery, 
 the horses not being harnessed, and driving back the infantry 
 supporting it, succeeded in capturing it. The enemy having 
 gradually recovered, now disputed our further advance, and 
 the battle raged with terrific violence. They continued to fall 
 back, however, under our fire, until we had swung round nearly 
 our whole left on their right, as if on a pivot, driving the en 
 emy some six miles towards his centre, when Withers and 
 Cheatham also hurled their divisions on the foe with such ter 
 rible effect, that battery after battery was taken, and their 
 dead lay in heaps upon the field. The enemy was now driven 
 towards the Nashville road, about a mile in front of our centre, 
 and took a commanding position on an eminence overlooking 
 the plain, and which was protected by rocks and a dense cedar 
 wood. 
 
 The battle had been terrific ; crash upon crash of musketry 
 stunned the ear ; the ground trembled with the thunder of ar 
 tillery ; the cedars rocked and quivered in the fiery blast, and 
 the air was rent with the explosion of shells. The enemy at 
 several points offered a most gallant resistance, but nothing 
 human could withstand the impetuosity of that charge. A 
 spirit of fury seemed to possess our men, from the command 
 ers down to the common soldiers, and on they swept, shot and 
 shell, canister, grape, and bullets tearing through their ranks, 
 until the way could be traced by the dead and dying. Still on 
 they went, overturning infantry and artillery alike, driving the 
 enemy like the hurricane scatters the leaves upon its course, 
 capturing hundreds of prisoners, and literally blackening the 
 ground with the dead. Such a charge was never before wit 
 nessed. For miles, through fields and forests, over ditches, 
 fences, and ravines, they swept. Brigade after brigade, bat 
 tery after battery, were thrown forward to stay their onward 
 march ; but another volley of musketry, another gleaming of 
 the bayonet, and like their predecessors they were crushed into 
 one common ruin. 
 
 It was now about noon. Our charge had been one of splen- 
 Ud results. We had already captured some five thousand 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 559 
 
 , jisoners, nearly thirty pieces of cannon, some five thousand 
 6 and of arms, and ammunition wagons. We had broken the 
 enemy s right, having driven him for nearly five hours on a 
 cui re, a distance of over five miles from our extreme left to 
 the enemy s centre, and backwards about three miles from onr 
 centre. The Yankees had made a stand only where the natu 
 ral adjutages of the ground sheltered them. 
 
 Kosecrans had not been dismayed by the events of the morn- 
 ing, and had watched them with an air of confidence which his 
 subordinate officers found it difficult to understand. Referring 
 to his adversary, he said : " I ll show him a trick worth two of 
 his." Gen. H^secrans was well aware of the danger of advan 
 cing reinforcements from his left or centre. The Confederates 
 lay in his front, within sight and almost within hearing. He 
 knew that they were anxiously watching his movements, and 
 waiting to see wLich part of his line would be weakened. But 
 though he declined to send McCook reinforcements, Rosecrans 
 employed himself in so preparing his line as to aid McCook to 
 get safely on his right. His preparations were to halt the Con 
 federates on his defeated right without exposing his left and 
 centre to imminent danger. For this purpose he quickly de 
 termined to mass his artillery on the position occupied by the 
 centre. These movements were masked by immense cedar 
 forests. Thus prepared, at the proper moment the centre of 
 the enemy was advanced a few hundred yards, and soon after 
 the Confederates appeared in force pursuing his right wing. 
 
 The position of the enemy was on an oval-shaped hill not 
 very high, but furnishing an excellent position for his artillery 
 It was determined to carry this stronghold at all hazards, and 
 the brigades of Chalmer and Donelson, supported by Manley s 
 and Stewart s brigades, with Cobb s, Byrne s, Chas. Smith s, 
 and Slocomb s batteries, were ordered to prepare for the 
 charge. It was a forlorn hope, but our men faced the mighty 
 whirlwind of shot and shell with heroic firmness, and did not 
 fall back till they had captured two batteries. The brigades 
 of Generals Adams and Jackson, of Breckinridge s division, 
 who held our right, were now ordered across the river to re 
 lieve our broken columns, and advanced towards the enemy s 
 grand battery with a like coolness and heroism, but they weru 
 also reprised and fell back under the enemy s terrible fire. 
 
560 SOUTHERN" HISTOKY OF THE WAS. 
 
 A portion of Gen. Ilardee s command bivouacked for the 
 night in the cedars, within five hundred yards of the enemy s 
 lines. That night it was cold to freezing. Upon the battle 
 field lay thousands of the enemy s dead and wounded, who 
 froze stiff, presenting a ghastly scene by moonlight. 
 
 The scene in the cedars was fearful and picturesque. A 
 brilliant winter moon shed its lustre amid the foliage of the 
 forest of evergreens, and lighted up with silver sheen the 
 ghastly battle-field. Dismounted cannon, scattered caissons, 
 glittering and abandoned arms strewed the forest and field. 
 The dead lay stark and stiff at every step, w r ith clenched hands 
 and contracted limbs in the wild attitudes in which they fell, 
 congealed by the bitter cold. It was the eve of the new year. 
 Moans of the neglected dying, mingled with the low peculiar 
 shriek of the wounded artillery horses, chanted a miserere for 
 the dying year. 
 
 Amid the dim camp-fires, feebly lighted to avoid attracting 
 the artillery of the enemy, groups of mutilated and shudder 
 ing wounded were huddled, and the kneeling forms of surgeons 
 bending in the firelight over the mangled bodies of the dying, 
 added to the solemnity of the night. 
 
 The appearance of the dead on the field was remarkable, for 
 the large proportion was evidently slain by artillery. The 
 bodies of many of the Confederates who had advanced to the 
 assault on the enemy s masked batteries were literally torn to 
 pieces. The cross-fire of the artillery had had this terrible 
 effect. " I saw," says a spectator of this terrible seen, " an 
 officer, whose two legs, one arm, and body lay in separate parts 
 of the field. 1 saw another whose dislocated right arm lay 
 across his neck, and more than half his head w r as gone." 
 
 On the day succeeding the fight, Gen. Bragg telegraphed to 
 Richmond the news of a great victory, presented his compli 
 ments to the authorities, and wrote k< God has granted us a 
 happy new year." His exultations were over hasty, for though 
 we had routed on the morning of the preceding day the right 
 wing of the enemy, the final contest was yet to be decided. 
 
 In the mean time, Rosecrans fearing that his position might 
 be flanked, or from some suspicion that it was not secure, 
 abandoned it that night, only to take up a still stronger one 
 in the bend of the river, towards the Lebanon pike, on a couple 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 561 
 
 of hillocks, which he again crowned with his strongest bat 
 teries. 
 
 Many of his generals felt despondent ; some favored retreat; 
 but the constancy of Rosecrans remained untouched. One of 
 his staff-officers remarked, " Your tenacity of purpose, general, 
 is a theme of universal comment." "I guess," he replied, 
 " that the troops have discovered that Bragg is a good dog, 
 but hold-fast is better." 
 
 The first of the year found the enemy strongly intronched, 
 with his right drawn up a little on the south side of the Nash 
 ville pike, while his left remained fortified in the bend of the 
 river, already Described. Our position was greatly advanced 
 on the left and centre, but otherwise remained the same. On 
 that day Gen. Bragg issued the following address to his army : 
 
 " The general commanding is happy to announce to the 
 troops the continued success of our arms yesterday. Generals 
 "Wheeler and Wharton, with the cavalry, again assaulted the 
 enemy s line of communication, capturing over two hundred 
 wagons and other stores. Twice have we now made the cir 
 cuit of the enemy s forces, and destroyed his trains, and not 
 less than six hundred wagons, and three thousand mules have 
 
 fallen into our hands Our success continues 
 
 uninterrupted. One more struggle, and the glorious victory 
 already achieved will be crowned by the rout of the enemy, 
 who are now greatly demoralized. The general commanding 
 has every confidence that his gallant troops will fully meet his 
 expectations." 
 
 It was confidently believed that the enemy would retreat 
 on the night of the 31st, but as he did not, it was concluded 
 to wait and see if he would make any attack. The day conse 
 quently passed off quietly, excepting some slight skirmishing. 
 
 On the 2d of January, the ill-omened Friday, the attitude 
 of the two armies remained the same during the morning, and 
 without incident, except some shelling on our right. 
 
 By three o clock it was determined to assault the enemy s 
 stronghold on the bend of the river. It was a desperate de 
 termination. Unfortunately, Gen. Bragg had given the enemy 
 nearly two days to reorganize and concentrate his baffled 
 army, so that he might the more effectually make a stubborn 
 
 86 
 
582 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OP THE WAR. 
 
 The enemy had taken up a position at a point near the bend 
 of the river where it takes a westerly course. Here rises a 
 high ridge covered by a skirt of woods, on which the enemy 
 had planted their artillery, supported by a line of infantry. 
 Behind this ridge, and in the woods and rocky ravines, lay 
 concealed also a large force of the enemy. Further to the 
 enemy s left was another skirt of woods, which the enemy also 
 occupied, out-flanking our front nearly one thousand yards. 
 Near the first skirt of woods mentioned is a ford of the river, 
 the opposite banks of which, from its elevated position, over 
 looks and commands the ridge above described on this side, or 
 the south and east bank of the river, while one mile further 
 down the river is another ford. It was at this commanding 
 position in the river bend where the enemy had made his cita 
 del, having massed his batteries of artillery and infantry in 
 such a skilful manner as to protect his centre on the Nashville 
 pike, and his extreme left, which now extended on our side of 
 the river. Such was the position of the enemy on our extreme 
 right on the morning of that memorable day of slaughter, the 
 2d of January. 
 
 Gen. Breckinridge was ordered to carry, by assault, the po 
 sition of the enemy on the ridge already described. He form 
 ed his division in two lines, changing front from his former 
 position to nearly a right angle, and facing in the direction of 
 the river. Gen. Hanson s brigade, with Palmer s, now com 
 manded by Gen. Pillow, formed the first line, with Pillow on 
 the right ; the second line being formed by Preston s and Gib 
 son s, two hundred yards in the rear. Col. Hunt s regiment, 
 of Hanson s brigade, was left to support Cobb s battery on the 
 hill. From the enemy s commanding position across the river, 
 he was enabled to see all of our movements, and consequently 
 prepared to resist us. Between Gen. Breckin ridge s division 
 and the enemy s batteries on the ridge was an intervening space 
 of eight hundred yards, extending over an open field skirted 
 by woods, along which the enemy s skirmishers were in such 
 force as almost amounted to a line of battle. 
 
 The attack was to be made at four o clock, and a signal gun 
 was to announce the hour. In those battalions stood the noble 
 soldiers of Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, 
 and North Carolina in battle array, firm and inflexible, await- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 563 
 
 ing the signal for combat. The report of a cannon had not 
 died upon the ear before the bugle from Hanson s brigade 
 sounded a charge. The brigades moved rapidly forward 
 through the thinned woods until gaining the open fields, the 
 men having been instructed not to deliver their fire until close 
 upon the enemy, and then to charge with the bayonet. On 
 came Pillow, followed by Preston ; forward hurried Hanson, 
 followed by Gibson. From the moment of gaining the field 
 the enemy s artillery from the ridge opened a sweeping fire, 
 and a whirlwind of Minnie balls from their infantry, with shot 
 and shell, filled the air. Our men were ordered to lie down 
 for a few minutes to let the fury of the storm pass. Then the 
 cry from Breckinridge " Up, my men, and charge I" rang 
 out. With the impetuosity of a torrent they rushed forward 
 to the woods sloping the ridge. On dashed Wright s battery 
 of Preston s brigade at a furious gallop, and soon opened fire 
 upon one of the enemy s batteries about three hundred yards 
 to our right. The enemy, awed by the mad bravery of our 
 men, recoiled ; their ranks thinned rapidly, notwithstanding 
 they received reinforcement after reinforcement. Their left 
 wing, which already out-flanked us on our right, was driven 
 back towards the river bank, the 20th Tennessee capturing 
 some two hundred prisoners. The contest now raged fierce 
 and bloody. It was one continuous roar of musketry and artil 
 lery. Facing the storm of death, our heroes charged with 
 fury, and so effective was the firing of our lines, that we car 
 ried the ridge with a wild demoniac yell, driving the enemy 
 from it, with his artillery, down the hill-side and across the 
 river. Capt. Wright soon reached the top of the ridge with 
 his battery, and opened on the enemy with spherical case. At 
 this time the concentrated fire of the enemy became terrible 
 and appalling. A sheet of flame was poured forth from their 
 artillery on the hills on the opposite side of the river overlook 
 ing our left and front, and from their batteries on the river 
 bank, while the opposite side also swarmed with their infantry, 
 who poured in on us a most murderous fire. Still our men 
 never quailed, but pressed forward and crossed the river, the 
 enemy making frightful gaps in our ranks, but which were 
 immediately closed up. Here ir was that in less than half an 
 Lour over two thousand of our brave boldiers went down ! Tiit 
 
564 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 ntter hopelessness of carrying the opposite heights, and of con 
 tending against the overwhelmingly superior numbers of the 
 enemy, without artillery or reinforcements to support us, hav 
 ing been fully tested, Gen. Breckinridge ordered his division 
 to fall back. It was nearly dark when the conflict closed, and 
 during the night he occupied a portion of the field in advance 
 of that he occupied during the day. 
 
 It was after the capture of the enemy s position on the ridge, 
 when our men drove him across the river with terrible slaugh 
 ter of his forces, that the noble Hanson fell mortally wounded, 
 exclaiming, " Forward forward, my brave boys, to the 
 charge ;" and afterwards, when brought from the field, he said 
 with his flickering breath, " I am willing to die with such a 
 wound received in so glorious a cause." We had held the 
 enemy s position on the ridge for about half an hour, Capt. 
 E. E. Wright s battery doing admirable execution, when that 
 gallant officer fell at his guns mortally wounded, the enemy 
 having charged within seventy-five yards of his pieces. 
 
 The final repulse of Breckenridge was a sad blow to our 
 hopes. The prudence of this terrible attack upon the impreg 
 nable position of the enemy has been seriously questioned, and 
 military critics of the battle of Murfreesboro have also found 
 room for censuring the neglect of Gen. Bragg in not previously 
 securing the hillocks in the bend of Stone s river, which he 
 permitted the enemy to occupy. As it happened, it was a bad 
 repulse, and the vivid recollections of the " bloody crossing of 
 Stone s river," in which in less than one hour two thousand 
 of our men were killed and wounded, long survived in our 
 army. It lost us the vantage ground we had gained over the 
 enemy on the 31st and greatly depressed our troops. But for 
 this we would still have held Murfreesboro . On the 3d the 
 rain fell in torrents, and as our troops were worn out and 
 nearly exhausted, it was determined to fall back that night, 
 and not run the risk of meeting the enemy s reinforcements, 
 which, it was reported, he was receiving. Every thing had 
 previously been provided for the retreat. It was conducted 
 with order and composure.* 
 
 * In liis official report of the battle, Gen. Bragg makes the following state 
 ment on the subject of the first day s operations, relative to their check and th 
 failure to break the enemy s centre : 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 565 
 
 Sunday morning Rosecrans moved into Murfreesboro 5 , und 
 Gen. Bragg retired to the position of Tullahorna. This place 
 is in Coffee county, Tennessee, situated on Rock creek, and 
 offers admirable means of defence. It is seventy-one miles 
 from Nashville and thirty-two from Murfreesboro , and lies im 
 mediately on the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, where 
 it is intersected by the McMinnville and Manchester road. As 
 a base of operations, and as a position of defence, the place 
 offered great advantages. 
 
 So far as the relative amount of carnage affects the question 
 of victory, no doubt can be entertained to which side in the 
 battle of Murfreesboro is to be ascribed the superiority. In 
 the iirst day s fight, the number of the enemy s killed and 
 wounded was probably six or seven thousand ; in the engage 
 ment which succeeded, our loss was disproportionate to the 
 enemy s ; but at the close of the whole affair, the Yankees were 
 doubtless greater losers in life than ourselves. In point of cap- 
 
 " To meet our successful advance, and retrieve his losses in the front of his 
 left, the enemy early transferred a portion of his reserve from his left to that 
 flank, and by two o clock had succeeded in concentrating such a force in Lieii- 
 tenant-gen. Hardee s front as to check his further progress. Our two lines had 
 by this time become almost blended, so weakened were they by losses, exhaus 
 tion, and extension to cover the enemy s whole front. As early as 10 o clock, 
 A.. M., Major-gen. Breckenridge was called on for one brigade, and soon after for 
 a second, to reinforce or act as a reserve to Lieutenant gen. Hardee. His reply 
 to the first call represented the enemy crossing Stone s river in heavy force^ la 
 his immediate front, and on receiving the second order, he informed me that 
 they had already crossed in heavy force, and were advancing to attack his 
 lines. He was immediately ordered not to await attack, but to advance and 
 meet him. About this same time a report reached me that a heavy force of 
 the enemy s infantry was advancing on the Lebanon road, about five miles in 
 Breckenridge s front. Brigadier-gen. Pegram, who had been sent to that road 
 to cover the flank of the infantry with his cavalry brigade, save two regiments 
 detached with Wheeler and Wharton, was ordered forward immediately to de 
 velop any such movement. The orders for the two brigades from Brecken 
 ridge were countermanded, whilst dispositions were made, at his request, to re 
 inforce him. Before they could be carried out, the movements ordered disclosed 
 the fact that no force had crossed Stone s river ; that the only enemy in oui 
 immediate front then was a small body of sharpshooters ; and that there was 
 no advance on the Lebanon road. These unfortunate misapprehensions on tha 
 part of the field, which with proper precaution could not have existed, withheld 
 from active operations three fine brigades until the enemy had succeeded in 
 checking our progress, had re-established his lines, and had collected many of 
 hia broken battalions." 
 
SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tures and with respect to the number of prisoners taken, th 
 battle of Murfreesboro may be accounted a Confederate suc 
 cess. The ground which the North has for claiming a victory 
 is, that our forces fell back, and that their positions were occu 
 pied. But the occupation of Murfreesboro was no important 
 consideration ; the works were neither extensive nor strong ; 
 and the new line of defence reorganized by Gen. Bragg was, 
 as we shall see, quite sufficient to hold the enemy in check. 
 The truth is, that the Yankees, although their claims to the 
 victory of Murfreesboro are questionable, had great reasons 
 to congratulate themselves that an army which, in the first 
 day s battle, had its right wing broken and one-third of its ar 
 tillery lost, should have escaped destruction and extricated 
 itself in a manner to assure its further safety. 
 
 But however the issue of Murfreesboro is to be decided, the 
 South had reason to expect considerable material advantages 
 from events in other parts of the West. The siege of Yicks- 
 burg by land was for the time virtually abandoned. Some 
 engagements had taken place before this town, which were ex 
 aggerated by the telegraph ; but they were mere skirmishes, 
 intended to feel the strength of the defences. Being satisfied 
 that they were too strong to be attacked with safety, and prob 
 ably learning that Grant s army would never effect a junction 
 with it, the Yankee force before Yicksburg re-embarked, with 
 a great loss of material employed in the intrenchments pre 
 paratory to the siege. 
 
 THE RECAPTURE OF GALVESTON. 
 
 While the new year had doubtfully opened in Tennessee, a 
 brilliant success marked the same period in the distant State 
 of Texas. An expedition was skilfully planned and gallantly 
 executed by the brave and energetic Magruder, the results of 
 which were the capture of the city and harbor of Galveston, 
 a large quantity of arms, ammunition, stores, &c., the famous 
 Yankee steamer Harriet Lane, and some other craft of less 
 mportance. 
 
 On the night of the 31st of December, Gen. Magruder silently 
 marched along the road to Galveston city. Our forces con 
 sisted of several regiments of infantry and about twenty-two 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 567 
 
 pieces of artillery, though the principal attack was to be made 
 by the artillery, as there Avere only about three hundred of the 
 enemy in the city, and they were behind a barricade at the 
 outer end of the wharf. 
 
 Our troops reached the suburbs of the city about three 
 o clock. The streets were completely deserted ; the few in 
 habitants who had remained in the city were sleeping soundly, 
 and had our men not awaked and warned them of their danger, 
 they would have slept on until the cannon s roar had startled 
 them. The march of our troops through the city was a quiet 
 procession. 
 
 The scene, the dead hour of night, and the fact that this was 
 to be the first battle of many of them, all conspired to make 
 them serious. Then, too, the great heavy waves came tum 
 bling and roaring in from the Gulf, chanting out upon the still 
 night air, as they dashed along, something that sounded like a 
 funeral dirge. But onward our men stole, through long, lonely 
 streets, now around this corner and now turning that, until at 
 length they reached Strand -street, which runs parallel with 
 the water, and is the next one to the wharves. The moon 
 was now down, and every thing was enveloped in darkness ; 
 the guns were noiselessly placed in position and loaded, the 
 men looking like so many shadows as they took their places in 
 the gloom. There, within three hundred yards lay the Har 
 riet Lane, the Owasso, the Clifton, and two other boats, with 
 their broadsides turned towards our troops, and ready to open 
 upon them the moment they fired. This they knew, for the 
 Yankees had been ashore the day before and told the people 
 that they knew all about the plans of the " rebels," and were 
 waiting for them. In fact, they were so certain of victory that 
 they allowed our men to place their guns in position without 
 firing upon them. 
 
 Gen. Magruder opened the" attack by firing the first gun. 
 In a few moments the bright flashes, the booming reports, and 
 whizzing shells told plainer than words that the action had begun 
 in earnest ; for the next hour the roar of cannon was incessant. 
 The clear keen crack of our little rifled guns, the dull sound 
 of our sea-coast howitzers, and the mighty thundering bass of 
 the columbiads and 100-pound Parrott guns on the gunboats, 
 combined to form a piece of music fitted for Pandemonium. 
 
568 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The fight raged furiously on both sides, but it was fast be 
 coming evident that our land forces alone were no match for 
 the Yankee boats, with their great guns and mortars, which 
 vomited a half bushel of grape and canister at every discharge. 
 Early in the engagement a charge was made by three hundred 
 of our infantry on three companies of the 42d Massachusetts 
 regiment, stationed behind a barricade at the end of Kuhn s 
 wharf. The enemy had torn up the planks from the wharf, and 
 made a breastwork of them. Our men rushed out into the 
 waters with their scaling ladders and dashed up to them, but 
 the position was too strong and they had to retire, leaving our 
 artillery to shell them out. We lost some ten or fifteen iu this 
 charge, and would have lost more, but it was pitch dark and 
 the Yankees fired very wildly. 
 
 Daylight at length arrived, and every one was anxiously 
 looking for our boats, which ought to have been up two hours 
 before. They had come down within sight at about 12 o clock, 
 and, hearing nothing of our troops, retired five or six miles, 
 under the impression that the land attack had been postponed. 
 There they waited until about three o clock, when the land 
 rattack began. As soon as Major Smith, who commanded the 
 ^expedition, saw that the work had begun, he ordered all steam 
 >to be put on and started back. He was then a considerable 
 * distance from the city, and was unable to reach it until day 
 light. At that time the Bayou City and Neptune, followed in 
 the distance by the John F. Can and Lucy Gwinn, hospital 
 boats, bore steadily down upon the Harriet Lane, then lying at 
 the end of the wharf, opposite the Cotton Press. 
 
 The Harriet Lane had for some time directed her fire at 
 them, but fortunately without effect; but when within about 
 fifty yards, the Neptune received several balls, damaging her 
 . considerably. She kept steadily on her way, however, and in 
 .a few moments more ran into the Lane amidship. The enemy s 
 decks were soon cleared with the buckshot from the double- 
 barrel guns of the Neptune s crew, who would have boarded 
 her, but it was discovered that the Neptune was rapidly sink 
 ing, in consequence of the damages she had received. She was 
 accordingly run into shoal water, about fifty yards from the 
 Xane, where she sunk immediately. In the mean time the 
 Yankee crow, seeing the predicament of the Neptune, came 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 569 
 
 np on deck again, and were preparing to give her a broadside 
 when the Bayou City fortunately interfered with their prepa 
 rations, by running into the Lane s wheel-house. Anothei 
 volley of buckshot again cleared her decks. The next instant 
 the crew of the Bayou City were aboard of her, Major Smith 
 gallantly leading the way, and shooting the Lane s command 
 ing officer (Capt. Wainwright) as he leaped upon the deck. 
 The vessel was immediately surrendered, and down came the 
 Stars and Stripes and up went our flag. It was found that the 
 captain and first lieutenant of the boat were both killed, and 
 about thirty of her crew killed or wounded. Our loss on the 
 boats was about sixteen killed, and thirty wounded. 
 
 The Yankee boats, the Clifton and Owasso, saved themselves 
 by beating out of the harbor, while the Bayou City was in 
 some way entangled with her prize. The Westfield was burnt, 
 as she was fast aground. Our prize was one of which we 
 might well be proud. The Harriet Lane was a vessel of six 
 hundred tons burden, was originally built for the revenue ser 
 vice, but at the beginning of the war with the South she was 
 turned over to the navy, and at once underwent such altera 
 tions as were thought necessary to adapt her to her new ser 
 vice. At the time of her capture, she mounted eight guns ot 
 heavy calibre, her bow gun being a fifteen-inch rifle. 
 
 The recapture of Galveston and the advantages which en 
 sued, were perhaps outbalanced by a disaster which shortly 
 followed and overshadowed much of the prospect in the remote 
 regions west of the Mississippi. This was the forcible occupa 
 tion by the Yankees of Arkansas Post and the surrender of its 
 entire garrison. 
 
 The troops garrisoning Arkansas Post at the time of attack, 
 consisted of three brigades, mostly Texans, and commanded 
 respectively by Cols. Garland, Deshler, and Dunnington, the 
 whole forming a division under the command of Brigadier- 
 gen. T. J. Churchill, and numbering, on the day of the fight, 
 not more than thirty-three hundred effective men. On the 9th 
 day of January a scout from below brought intelligence to 
 Gen. Churchill of a Yankee gunboat having made its appear 
 ance in the Arkansas river, some thirty miles below the Post. 
 Some hours later, on the same day, aitother scout brought news 
 of other gunboats, followed by transports, making their way 
 
570 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 np the river. Upon the receipt of this intelligence, Gen. 
 Churchill ordered every thing in readiness for an attack, and 
 ere night closed in, all the troops were distributed along the 
 line of intrenchments, where they remained all night, in a 
 pelting storm of rain. The enemy, in the mean time, had 
 landed a force about two miles below the fort, but they made 
 no demonstration until about nine or ten o clock the next morn 
 ing, when they commenced shelling the fort from their advance 
 gunboats, that were cautiously and slowly feeling their way up 
 the river. 
 
 Our troops held the position first taken by them until about 
 four o clock, p. M., when the general, fearing a flank movement 
 on our left, ordered the men to fall back to a line of intrench 
 ments near the yet unfinished fort, which line was speedily 
 completed and all the troops properly distributed before night 
 set in. Just as darkness was drawing near, four gunboats ap 
 proached the fort and commenced their bombardment, our 
 guns from the fort answering gallantly ; and after two hours 
 terrific shelling, the gunboats retired, one of them, the East- 
 port, badly disabled. Our loss up to this time consisted of 
 only three killed and some three or four wounded. 
 
 The next morning, at ten o clock, the enemy renewed the 
 attack with gunboats and land forces combined. They had 
 also erected a battery on the opposite side of the river, by 
 means of which they kept up a terrible cross-fire that swept 
 the whole area of ground occupied by our men. The firing 
 continued until about four o clock in the evening, when Gen. 
 Churchill, seeing his defences exposed to a raking fire and 
 storming parties closing upon his rear, surrendered, Gen. 
 McClernand taking the whole force, making more than three 
 thousand men prisoners. Our loss in killed and wounded was 
 not two hundred men. 
 
 The results of this success of the Yankees were many thou 
 sand prisoners of war, and a fortified point guarding the navi 
 gation of the Arkansas river, and shutting out its commerce 
 from the Mississippi. But the prospect which they indulged 
 of ascending without interruption to Little Rock and taking 
 full possession of the Arkansas capital, was rather pr.ematn.re. 
 
 There is nothing yet important to record of the operations 
 of the immense fleets of the enemy collected on our coast in 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 571 
 
 the winter of 1862. The armadas were as yet silent. For 
 months a large fleet of the enemy had been at the mouth 01 
 Charleston harbor, or picketed off the coast. 
 
 On the 30th of January the Confederate rams in the harbor 
 of Charleston, under command of Capt. Ingraham, had made a 
 sally towards the enemy s fleet. The success of this sally was 
 ignorantly exaggerated by the Confederates, and a claim made 
 that the blockade had been raised, which pretension was after 
 wards abandoned. The fact was, that one of the Yankee ves 
 sels the Mercedita was seriously injured, and another the 
 Keystone State got a shot through her steam-drum, causing 
 the death of t went) -one persons. The Mercedita was saved by 
 the treachery of the Yankees, who represented the ship to be 
 in a sinking condition, thus deceiving the Confederates as to 
 the extent of the damage they had inflicted. She steamed 
 down to Port Royal, after our rams had left her, under the sup 
 position that she was sinking in shoal water. Her commander 
 had called out, " "We are in a sinking condition," and the reply 
 of Capt. Ingraham was that she could only sink as far as he* 
 rails, and we could not take her crew aboard. A mean and 
 cowardly falsehood saved the vessel, but in Yankee estimation 
 the triumphs of such villany were quite equal to the congratu 
 lations of a victory. 
 
 Our victory at Galveston, of which we have given some 
 account, was the precursor of other captures of the enemy s 
 vessels, which were important accessions to our little navy. 
 That arm of service, in which we were so deficient, and had 
 shown such aptitude for self-destruction, was not entirely pow 
 erless ; for we not only had rams for harbor defences and three 
 fleet privateers at sea, but our power on the water was enlarged 
 even beyond our expectations, as we shall see, by captures 
 from the enemy. 
 
 The Yankee gunboat Queen of the West, having succeeded 
 in running our batteries at Yicksburg, had for some weeks 
 been committing ravages, penetrating the country of the Red 
 river. On the 14th of February she encountered in this rivei 
 and captured a small Confederate steamer, the Era. The crew 
 and passengers of the Era were taken prisoners, and all were 
 guarded 011 board the Era by a band of soldiers, save Mr. 
 George Wood, the pilrl, who was ordered aboard the Queen 
 
572 SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAK. 
 
 of the West, and, with threats, directed to her pilot-wheel to 
 assist her pilot in directing her onward to the capture of our 
 fort on the river. On they glided, but not distrustful, and 
 much elated at their success, till they came in reach of our 
 battery at five p. M., when the vessel commenced firing, still 
 advancing. She had come within a quarter of a mile of our 
 battery and on the opposite shore in full range for our guns, 
 when the gallant Wood, who directed her wheel, had her 
 rounded, ran her aground, breaking her rudder and thus crip 
 pling her and turning her broadside to give our guns a fair 
 chance. This gallant man, in the confusion, made good his 
 escape. Thus crippled and disabled by the hand that drove 
 her on to her destiny, she lay like a wounded falcon, at the 
 mercy of her adversaries. 
 
 The night was dark and stormy, the heavens overhung witl/ 
 clouds, which now and then pealed forth their muttering thun 
 der, and drenched the earth with rain. Thus in the rain-storm 
 this crippled Queen lay beaten by the tempest. She was well 
 barricaded witli cotton bales. On seeing all hope of success 
 gone, the commanding officer, Col. Ellett, made his escape, 
 with nearly all his crew, by getting on cotton bales and float 
 ing down the river. She raised the white signal, as the storm 
 abated, as it was seen by the light of a burning warehouse, but 
 it was not answered till next morning. Thirteen of the crew 
 remained in silence till daylight, then her white banner was 
 still afloat, and then, and not till then, our soldiers crossed the 
 river and took possession of her. 
 
 The fog which had enabled the Queen of the West to get by 
 Vicksburg had also availed for the passage of another gunboat, 
 the Indianola. This vessel had also continued for weeks to go 
 at large, preying on the boats that were transporting our sup 
 plies, and harassing our forces in every way. Seeing the great 
 injury and havoc that she might do, a council was held, and 
 the capture of the Indianola at every sacrifice was determined 
 upon. 
 
 Accordingly an expedition was ntted out, consisting of twc 
 gunboats the Queen of the West and the Webb and two 
 steamers the Era and Dr. Batey. The expedition was com 
 manded by Major Walker, with Captain Hutton as executive 
 officer of the fleet. All being ready, the expedition started 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 573 
 
 .t from the mouth of the Bed river in pursuit of the Indian 
 nla. Coming up the Mississippi to Grand Gulf, it was learned 
 that the Indianola was not far off, and a halt was ordered that 
 all the vessels might come up. All being in line, the expedi 
 tion put up the river, and on the 24th of February came upon 
 the Indianola, overhauling her about five miles below New 
 Carthage, and some thirty below Yicksburg. It was about 
 nine o clock at night. The enemy had received no information 
 of the movement, and was not aware of our approach until we 
 were within a half mile of her. Seeing the rapid approach of 
 the vessels, the Indianola at once knew that it was an attempt 
 to capture her, and she immediately rounded her broadside to, 
 lashing a coal barge alongside her to parry the blows that 
 might be made to run in and sink her. On the vessels nearing, 
 fire was opened, and a most terrific and desperate engagement 
 ensued, lasting over an hour. Putting on all her steam, the 
 Queen of the West made a blow at the Indianola, cleaving the 
 barge in two and striking her with such tremendous force that 
 the Indianola s machinery was badly injured. Here the action 
 on both sides became desperate. The blow of the Queen of 
 the West was quickly followed up by the Webb with a terrific 
 " butt" at full speed. This finished the work. The Indianola 
 was discovered to be in a sinking condition, and was put for 
 the shore on the Louisiana side. Seeing this, the Dr. Batey 
 was ordered to board her. On bearing alongside her, the In 
 dianola surrendered, and all her officers and crew number 
 ing in all about one hundred and twenty men were made 
 prisoners. 
 
 These additions to our naval structures on the Mississippi 
 were important. We now possessed some power in the inte 
 rior waters of the Confederacy ; to our harbor defences we had 
 already added some rams ; and our deficiency in a navy was 
 not a laughing-stock to the North as long as our few privateers 
 were able to cruise in the Atlantic, and carry dismay to the 
 exposed commerce of the Gulf. 
 
 The few ships the North possessed that were the equals in 
 point of speed of the Confederate privateers, the Alabama and 
 Florida, were, with a single exception, purchased vessels, built 
 for the merchant service, and exceedingly liable to be disabled 
 in thoir machinery on account of its being nearly all above the 
 
574 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 water-line. Taking, as samples of vessels of this class, the 
 Vanderbilt, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, the North had 
 three ships which, for the purpose they were intended, were 
 without superiors ; but the chances were that, if coming under 
 the fire of the Alabama or Florida, they would be, by a well- 
 directed shot or shell at close quarters, crippled and become an 
 easy prize. 
 
 The exploits of our cruisers were sufficient to show the value 
 and efficiency of the weapon of privateering, and to excite 
 many regrets that our means in this department of warfare 
 were so limited. One national steamer alonethe Alabama 
 commanded by officers and maimed by a crew who were de : 
 barred by the closure of neutral ports from the opportunity 
 of causing captured vessels to be condemned in their favor as 
 prizes, had sufficed to double the rates of marine insurance in 
 Yankee ports, and consigned to forced inaction numbers oi 
 Yankee vessels, in addition to the direct damage inflicted by 
 captures at sea. The Northern papers paid a high tribute to 
 the activity and daring of our few privateers in the statement 
 that, during one month of winter, British steamers had carried 
 from San Francisco to Europe six and a quarter millions of 
 gold, whilst during the same time from the same port there 
 had arrived in New York only two hundred and fifty thou 
 sand dollars of the precious metal. In view of such results, 
 it would be difficult to over-estimate the effects, if we had 
 had a hundred of private armed vessels, and especially if we 
 could have secured from neutral Europe the means of dis 
 posing of such prizes as we might make of the commerce of 
 the enemy. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 575 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 An extraordinary Lull in the War. An Affair with the Enemy on the Black- 
 water. Raids in iho West. Van Dorn s Captures. THE MEETING OF CONGRESS. 
 Character of this Body. Its Dulness and Servility. Mr. Foote and the Cabinet. 
 Two Popular Themes of Confidence. Party Contention in the North. Successes of 
 the Democrats there. Analysis of the Party Politics of the North. The Interest of 
 New England in the War. How the War affected the Northwestern Portions of the 
 United States. Mr. Foote s Resolutions respecting the Northwestern States. How 
 they were received by the Southern Public. New War Measures at Washington. 
 Lincoln a Dictator. Prospect of Foreign Interference. Action of the Emperor Na 
 poleon. Suffering of the Working Classes in England. The Delusions of an early 
 Peace. The Tasks before Congress. Prostrate Condition of the Confederate Fi 
 nances. President Davis s Blunder. The Errors of our Financial System. The 
 Wealth of the South. The Impressment Law of Congress. Scarcity of Supplies. 
 Inflated Prices. Speculation and Extortion in the Confederacy. Three Remarks 
 about these. The Verdict of History. 
 
 THE battle of Murfreesboro was followed by an extraordi 
 nary lull of the movements of the war. For months the great 
 armies in Tennessee and Virginia were to stand agaze of each 
 other. The events of this period are slight, and easily re 
 counted. 
 
 While the lines of the Rappahannock remained undisturbed, 
 our forces on the Blackwater had an engagement of outposts 
 on the 31st of January, which was unduly magnified into a 
 battle. The success of the affair was not wholly unimportant, 
 as a loss of some hundreds was inflicted upon the enemy before 
 our forces fell back to Carrsville, which they were compelled 
 to do in the face of superior numbers. 
 
 In Tennessee there was a series of exploits of our cavalry, 
 the details of which it is impossible now to recount. The most 
 remarkable of these successes was probably that of Yan Dorn, 
 who, on the 1st day of March, at Thompson s station, between 
 Columbia and Franklin, captured five regiments of the enemy s 
 infantry, comprising twenty-two hundred officers and men. 
 
 THE MEETING OF CONGRESS. 
 
 The reader will be interested in turning from the unim 
 portant military events of this period to notice the reassein- 
 
576 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAK. 
 
 bling of the Confederate Congress, and its proceedings in the 
 early months of 1863. It is not to be disguised that this body 
 fell below the spirit and virtue of the people, and 1 was remark 
 able for its destitution of talents and ability. Not a single 
 speech that has yet been made in it will live. It is true that 
 the regular Congress, elected by the people, was an improve 
 ment upon the ignorant and unsavory body known as the Pro 
 visional Congress, which was the creature of conventions, and 
 which was disgraced in the character of some of its members; 
 among whom were conspicuous corrupt and senile politicians 
 from Virginia, who had done all they could to sacrifice and 
 degrade their State, who had " toadied " in society, as well as 
 in politics, to notabilities of New England, and who had taken 
 a prominent part in emasculating, and, in fact, annulling the 
 Sequestration Law, in order to save the property of relatives 
 who had sided with the North against the land that had borne 
 them and honored their fathers. 
 
 But the regular Congress, although it had no taint of dis 
 loyalty or Yankee toadyism in it, was a weak body. It had 
 made no mark in the history of the government; it was desti 
 tute of originality ; its measures were, generally, those which 
 were recommended by the Executive, or suggested by the news 
 papers ; it had produced no great financial measure ; it made 
 not one stroke of statesmanship ; it uttered not a single fiery 
 appeal to the popular heart, such as is customary in revolu 
 tions. It afforded, perhaps, a proof of the frequent assertion 
 that our democratic system did not produce great men. The 
 most of the little ability it had was occupied with servility to 
 the Executive and demagogical displays. 
 
 It is difficult, indeed, for a legislative body to preserve its 
 independence, and to resist the tendency of the Executive to 
 absorb power in time of war, and this fact was well illustrated 
 by the Confederate Congress. One of the greatest political 
 scholars of America, Mr. Madison, noticed this danger in the 
 political constitution of the country. He said: "War is in 
 fact the true nurse of Executive aggrandizement. In war a 
 physical force is to be created, and it is the Executive will 
 which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be 
 unlocked, and it is the Executive hand which is to dispense 
 them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 577 
 
 multiplied, and it is the Executive patronage under which they 
 are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to he 
 gathered, and it is the Executive brow they are to encircle." 
 
 There was but little opposition in Congress to President 
 Davis ; but there was some which took a direction to his cabi 
 net, and this opposition was represented by Mr. Foote of Ten 
 nessee a man of acknowledged ability and many virtues of 
 character, who had re-entered upon the political stage after a 
 public life, which, however it lacked in the cheap merit of 
 partisan consistency, had been adorned by displays of wonder 
 ful intellect and great political" genius. Mr. Foote was not a 
 man to be deterred from speaking the truth ; his quickness to 
 resentment and his chivalry, which, though somewhat Quixotic, 
 was founded in the most noble and delicate sense of honor,, 
 made those who would have bullied or silenced a weaker per 
 son stand in awe of -him. A man of such temper was not 
 likciy to stint words in assailing an opponent; and his sharjt 
 declamations in Congress, his searching comments, and hia 
 gri-at powers of sarcasm, used upon such men as Mallory, 
 Benjamin, and Northrop, were the only relief of the dulness of 
 the Congress, and the only historical features of its debates. 
 
 Mr. Foote was of a temperament that easily indulged the 
 prospects of peace which so generally existed when Congress 
 resumed its session in the opening of the new year. At an 
 early period of the session resolutions were introduced by him 
 inviting the Northwestern States to abstention from the war, 
 and expressing a lively and friendly confidence in the negotia 
 tion which the Emperor of the French had just undertaken 
 for a qualified mediation in the war in America. Of these two 
 popular themes of confidence some explanation is due. 
 
 Since the commencement of the war, there had been some 
 few people in the North who had opposed its prosecution, and 
 many more who were averse to its policy and measures. The 
 removal of McClellan added a bitter feud to animosities al 
 ready existing, and the enunciation at Washington of the 
 policy of emancipation contributed to the party divisions in. 
 the North. The result of the Northern elections in the fall o 
 18t>2 was apparently an emphatic and impressive popular ver 
 dict against the Abolition party, which had ruled the govern 
 ment at Washington. In the face of a majority of 107,000 
 
 37 
 
578 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 against them in 1860, the Democrats had carried the State 01 
 New York. The metropolis of New York was carried by a 
 Democratic majority of 31,000 a change of 48,000 votes in 
 twelve months. Within the great States of New Jersey, New 
 York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the results or 
 the popular elections were a more or less emphatic avowal of 
 opposition to the schemes of those who were using the power of 
 the government to advance and fasten upon the country their 
 political vagaries, regardless of right and written constitutions. 
 These six States contained a majority of the free State popula 
 tion. They furnished the majority of the troops in the field 
 against us. They had two-thirds of the wealth of the North. 
 It was clear that the Washington government needed men 
 and money to carry on the war, and to have a united North 
 the Democratic States must furnish more than half of either. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the 
 people of the South should have convinced themselves that an 
 important reaction was taking place in public sentiment in the 
 North, and that it naturally tended to a negotiation for peace. 
 But in one-half of this opinion they were mistaken. There 
 was a reaction in the North ; but it had scarcely any thing 
 more than a partisan significance. It was a struggle between 
 those in power and those out of power ; the issues of which 
 were feigned and exaggerated ; in which much that was said 
 against the war was not really meant; and at the close of 
 which the passions it had excited suddenly evaporated. Mr. 
 Van Buren, who, in the Democratic campaign in New York, 
 had made speeches quite warm enough for Southern latitudes, 
 was after the elections an advocate of the war and a mocker 
 of " the rebellion." Many more followed the distinguished 
 lead of the demagogue in raising a clamor about the admin 
 istration merely for party purposes, and having served those 
 purposes, in returning to the advocacy of a war, in which, by 
 giving false encouragement to the North, and holding out 
 hopes of " reconstruction," they were enemies more fatal to 
 the South than the blind and revengeful radicals who sought 
 her destruction. 
 
 It is probable that the movements in the Northwestern 
 States against the administration, were better founded in prin 
 ciple than those that had taken place in other parts of tha 
 
THE SECOND YEAJK. 579 
 
 North, and that they denoted a sincere aversion to tne war. 
 The opposition of Mr. Vallandigham, who assumed to repre 
 sent this sentiment of the Northwest in Congress, was appa 
 rently superior to the demagogical clamor of such men as 
 Van Buren and Seymour of New York. The sentiment was 
 undoubtedly sincere, whatever the merits or demerits of its 
 officious representative.* 
 
 The pecuniary interest of New England in the war was 
 plain enough. The demand for the products of her industry 
 for objects of this war was greater than at any former period 
 in the history of this continent. Her workshops were in full 
 blast. Ships and locomotives were to be built, the weapons of 
 war were to be created, and the ironmongers of New England 
 found a vast and profitable employment in answering these 
 demands. The spinners and weavers and blanket-makers and 
 artisans were kept busy at their avocations, and everywhere in 
 these avaricious districts of the North arose the hum of profit 
 able industry. 
 
 But while New England rioted in the gains of the war, it 
 was stark ruin to the agricultural States of the Northwest. 
 
 * There is unavoidable reason for doubting the virtue of Mr. Vallandigham. 
 [t is difficult to discover the motives of the Yankee. The people of the South 
 have reason to know, from former political association with this faithless race, 
 how indirect are their courses and how affected their zeal. What appears to be 
 the inspiration of virtue, may be the deep design of a selfish ambition ; singu 
 larity of opinion may prove nothing but an itch for a cheap reputation ; and 
 an extraordinary display of one s self before the public may, at best, be but 
 the ingenious trick of a charlatan. 
 
 When* Mr. Vallandigham was exiled for obstructing enlistments in the 
 North, he had an opportunity, in his travels in the Confederacy, of learning the 
 sentiments of the people, and of these he gave the following report in an ad 
 dress to the people of Ohio : 
 
 " Travelling a thousand miles and more through nearly one-half of the Con 
 federate States, and sojourning for a time at widely different points, I met not 
 one man, woman, or child, who were not resolved to perish rather than yield 
 to the pressure of arms, even in the most desperate extremity. 
 
 Neither, however, let me add, did I meet any one, what 
 ever his opinion or station, political or private, who did not declare his readi 
 ness, when the war shall haw ceased and invading armies be withdrawn, to con 
 sider and dib itss tlie question of reunion. And who shall doubt the issue of 
 the argument ?" 
 
 A man who can be guilty of such a deliberate falsehood, and one evidently 
 planned to catch votes for his political hobby, can certainly make no preten- 
 iion to heroism, and may even have his claims te honesty justly doubted. 
 
580 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The people there were growing poorer every day in the midst 
 of plenty. The great Southern market which their resources 
 supplied had been closed, and there was no new demand for 
 tneir agricultural products. The corn, wheat, and bacon oi 
 Indiana and Illinois were scarcely worth the cost of transporta 
 tion to the Atlantic coast. The railroads connecting the West 
 with the seaboard were principally in the hands of the Eastern 
 capitalists, ard the rates of freight were so enormous, that the 
 surplus agricultural product of the Northwestern farmers was 
 in many instances left to rot on their lands, or be used as fuel. 
 
 This violent contrast between New England and the West, 
 in the effects on each of the war, was developed in a formida 
 ble opposition of opinion. Indications of this opposition had 
 already been given in the press of St. Louis and Chicago. 
 The jealousy of the agricultural States of the North was being 
 inflamed by the unequal profits of the war and the selfish 
 policy of the Abolitionists ; and the opinion plainly grew in 
 the press and public discussion that the West had not a single 
 interest in the war beyond securing the free navigation of the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 How far statesmanship in the South might have profited by 
 this disaffection in the Northwestern States is left a matter oi 
 conjecture and controversy. The efforts made in the Confed 
 erate Congress by Mr. Foote in this direction, tendering to 
 these States a complete assurance of the free navigation of the 
 Mississippi, and proposing an alliance with the Confederacy, 
 without political complications, met with feeble encourage 
 ment in that body, a doubtful response from the army, and 
 divided comments of the press. Whatever may have been the 
 merits of Mr. Foote s proposition, it admitted of no delay. 
 While our government treated it with hesitation, the authori 
 ties at Washington were making anxious and immense prepar 
 ations to overcome the disaffection of the people and to cany 
 on the war ; and the means to do this were supplied by an act 
 suspending the habeas corpus, and making Lincoln absolute 
 dictator ; by new measures of finance, and by a conscription 
 law which called into the field three million of men. 
 
 The prospect of a termination of the war by any action of 
 foreign governments, was more distant than that afforded by 
 party elections and movements in the North. This action was 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 581 
 
 limited to the French Emperor alone ; it had not piogresscd 
 further at this time than an invitation to England and Russia 
 made in November, 1862, to unite in proposing an armistice to 
 the Washington government, which should merely give an op 
 portunity for discussion, without affecting in any way the pres 
 cnt military interests and positions of the belligerents. Mild 
 as the French proposition was, it was rejected by Russia and 
 England. Lord Russell replied for his government that the 
 time was riot ripe for such mediation as was proposed, and that 
 it would be better to watch carefully the progress of opinion in 
 America, and wait for some change in which the three Courts 
 could offer their friendly counsel with a prospect of success. 
 The British statesman had nothing to plead for the mass of 
 suffering humanity in his own land, which the war he was im 
 plored to stop or to ameliorate had occasioned ; for humanity 
 was easily outweighed by political reasons, which are as often 
 worked out through the blood and tears of its own people as 
 through the misfortunes of others.* 
 
 * In a letter of Mr. Cobden, published during the early winter in an English 
 Journal, he declares that in travelling from Manchester to Blackburn, over a 
 country covered with snow, he found hundreds of wasted victims of cold and 
 want. He says : " Hitherto the distressed population have felt little more than 
 the want of food. Now and from henceforth blankets, fuel, and clothing are 
 as essential to health as bread and soup." He argues that it is useless to save 
 people from dying by hunger, only that they may perish by fever, or by the 
 exhaustion consequent on cold and insufficient food. 
 
 The early advent of winter enhanced the misery of the suffering. In many 
 districts there was no fuel, no means of warmth except the scanty allowance 
 of coals distributed in some places by the Relief Committees. Everywhere 
 the people had too little to eat, and that little was not sufficiently nutritious ; 
 everywhere they suffered from cold yet more cruelly than from hunger ; and 
 nowhere was there a fund sufficient to provide for their necessities. 
 
 The humane shuddered with horror as they read the frightful accounts of 
 the suffering of the poor published day after day in the London Times. A 
 letter from Stockport described the people there as " suffering all the horrors 
 of a protracted famine." The same writer says : " One poor man upon whom 
 I called this morning, having stripped the walls of every little ornament to 
 purchase bread for his wife and three little children, took the fender and sold 
 it for a shilling." The cases of distress reported in the newspapers merely 
 represented the average condition of the unemployed. An aged couple, we are 
 told, had saved thirty-six pounds ; this is gone, their furniture is pawned, the 
 husband is in the infirmary, and the old woman living on a charitable dole of 
 half a crown per week, with some soup and bread. In another case five per 
 sons, among them a sick woman, are living on seven shillings a week. One 
 
582 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 But while the prospect "of an early peace dissolved before 
 the eyes of Congress, a subject of instant and practical impor 
 tance was sorely pressing upon its attention. The vast volume 
 of Treasury notes issued by the government had occasioned a 
 rapid depreciation of our currency, inflated prices, and pro 
 duced serious financial difficulties. So crude and short-sighted 
 had been our notions of public finance, that at the meeting of 
 Congress in August, 1862, we find President Davis recom 
 mending to it that the public creditors should not be paid in 
 bonds, but that unlimited issues of currency should be made. 
 He then said in his written message to Congress : " The legis 
 lation of the last session provided for the purchase of supplies 
 with the bonds of the government, but the preference of the 
 people for Treasury notes has been so marked, that legislation 
 is recommended to authorize an increase in the issue of Treas 
 ury notes, which the public service seems to require. No 
 grave inconvenience need be apprehended from this increased 
 issue, as the provision of law by which these notes are con 
 vertible into eight per cent, bonds, forms an efficient and per- 
 
 family of six considered to be particularly well off have seven ah tilings, ac 
 allowance of coals and gome soup and bread from their former employer. An 
 other family of six or seven had lived for twelve months on six shillings a 
 week. 
 
 The University of Oxford had subscribed about 4000 towards the relief oi 
 the suffering people. A meeting was held to promote further action, at which 
 the following facts were stated by the Hon. E. L. Stanley of Baliol College : 
 
 " They received from America before the blockade five-sixths of their cotton - t 
 five days of the week they worked on what came from America ; only one day 
 on what came from other countries. That supply was now practically at an 
 end. The few ships that ran the blockade made no noticeable difference, and 
 even if other countries should double their production, we should be only sup 
 plied with material for one-third of our usual work. The country, then, was 
 losing two-thirds of the industry engaged in this trade, and two-thirds of the 
 capital were making no return. And this trade was such a main part of the 
 industry of the nation, that what affected it must affect all. A Parliamentary 
 return gave the persons actually engaged in the mills at near 500,000. If they 
 reckoned their families, the traders who supplied them, the colliers, machinists, 
 builders, and shipping interest engaged in supplying cotton, they would proba 
 bly not overstate the number of dependents on cotton only at 8,000,000. These 
 people were now deprived of fully two-thirds of their subsistence." 
 
 Such is a picture of the " Cotton Famine" in England. The most remark- 
 able circumstance in connection with it was the profound indifference of the 
 English Ministry to the distress of near a million of those for whose lives and 
 happiness they were responsible. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 583 
 
 manent safeguard against any serious depreciation of the 
 currency. 
 
 The consequences of this ignorant and wild financial policy 
 were, that, by the next meeting of Congress, the volume 01 
 currency was at least four times what were the wants of the 
 community for a circulating medium ; that prices were inflated 
 more than an equal degree, for want of confidence in the paper 
 of the government had" kindled the fever of speculation ; that 
 the public credit, abused by culpable ignorance and obstinate 
 empiricism, had fallen to an ebb that alarmed the cauntry 
 more than any reverse in the military fortunes of the war ; 
 and that the government was forced to the -doubtful and not 
 very honorable expedient of attempting to restore its currency 
 by a system of demonetizing its own issues. 
 
 The redundancy of the currency was the chief cause of its 
 depreciation. The amount of money in circulation in the 
 South, in time of peace, was $80,000,000. In January, 1863, 
 it was $300,000,000. In September, 1861, Confederate notes 
 were about equal to specie ; before December, specie was at 
 20 per cent, premium; before April, 1862, it was at 50 per 
 cent. ; before last September, at 100 ; before December, at 
 225 ; before February, at 280 ; and in the spring of 1863, at the 
 frightful premium of 400 per cent., while bank bills were worth 
 190 cents on the dollar. 
 
 Since the foundation of the Confederate government, its 
 finances had been grossly mismanaged. The Treasury note 
 was a naked promise to pay ; there was no fund pledged for 
 its redemption ; and the prospect of the rigid liquidation of the 
 enormous debt that this class of paper represented six months 
 after the restoration of peace, depended solely on the specula 
 tive prospect of a foreign loan to the amount of many hun 
 dred millions of dollars. At the commencement of the war 
 the South had the elements for the structure of one of the 
 most successful and elastic schemes of finance that the world 
 had seen. The planters were anxious to effect the sales of 
 tkeir cotton and tobacco to the Confederate States ; these would 
 have supplied the government with a basis of credit which 
 would have been extended as the prices of these staples 
 advanced, and therefore kept progress with the war ; but thia 
 scheme was opposed by the -Secretary of the Treasury, Mr, 
 
584 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Memminger, and defeated by his influence. He was unfortu 
 nately sustained by an Executive grossly incompetent on sub 
 ; ects of finance ; which was ignorant of the principle of political 
 economy, that there are no royal ways of making money 
 out of nothing, that governments must raise money in the 
 legitimate way of taxation, loans, &c. ; which relied upon the 
 manufacture of a revenue out of naked paper obligations; and 
 which actually went to the foolish extremity of recommending 
 that the creditors of the government should take their payment 
 in currency rather than in the public stocks. It appears, 
 indeed, that our government was ignorant of the most primitive 
 truths of finance, and that it had not read in history or in 
 reason the lesson of the fatal connection ~betioeen currency and 
 revenue. 
 
 It is true that some appreciation of this lesson was at last 
 shown by Congress in its new tax-bill ; for the theory of that 
 bill was, by an enormous weight of taxation, to pay, at least 
 measurably, the expenses of the war as it progressed, and to 
 risk no further connection between the two distinct financial 
 concerns of revenue and currency. But on the other hand, its 
 Bystem of forcing the funding of treasury notes >y arbitrary 
 reductions of interest, betrayed the ignorance of Congress ; left 
 incomplete and embarrassed a system of finance which might 
 have otherwise been carried to a point of extraordinary suc 
 cess ; and aimed a direct blow at the integrity of the public 
 credit. 
 
 It was easy to see that slight differences in rates of interest 
 would afford but feeble inducements for the conversion of the 
 treasury note into the bond, when money was easily doubled 
 or quadrupled in the active commercial speculations peculiar 
 to the condition of the South in the war, unless the bond could 
 be readily used as a medium of exchanges ; and in that event 
 there would only be a change in the form of the paper, the 
 volume of the currency would be undiminished, and its depre 
 ciation therefore remain the same. But while the analysis of 
 this system of funding shows it to be a transparent juggle, it 
 was by no means certain that it did not contain the germ of 
 many positive evils. The right of a government to make ar 
 bitrary changes in any of the terms of its obligations which 
 ttffe t their value, is questionable, and the commercial honor 
 
THE SECOKD YEAH. 585 
 
 of such an expedient is more than doubtful. While it intro 
 duced the shadow of repudiation only to weak and suspicious 
 minds, it is yet to be regretted that even whispers on that sub 
 ject were ever heard in the South. But as far as our foreign 
 credit was concerned, there is no doubt that the empirical action 
 of Congress, which involved, even to the smallest extent, the in 
 tegrity of our obligations, was of serious prejudice. It might 
 indeed have been logically arid certainly expected that the gen 
 eral confidence in Europe in the military fortunes of the Con 
 federacy would have been productive of unlimited credit to us 
 abroad, had the faith of Europe in the management of our 
 finances equalled that in the success of our arms.* 
 
 On the subject of the financial management of the new Con 
 federacy, one general reflection at least admits of no doubt. 
 The attentive reader will recognize as the most remarkable cir 
 cumstance of this war, that within two years the public finances 
 of the Confederacy should have been brought to the brink of 
 ruin. The sympathy of the people with the revolution was 
 unbounded. The disposition, of all classes towards the govern 
 ment was one of extreme generosity. The property of the 
 States of the Confederacy was greater per capita than that of 
 any community on the globe. No country in the world had 
 export values comparable in magnitude to those of the South, 
 jind the exports of all other countries were produced at a cost 
 in labor four times that of ours. In such circumstances it is 
 highly improbable that ths government of the Confederacy 
 
 *It is true that a small foreign loan lias been negotiated in Europe; but it 
 affords no test of our credit in present circumstances, as it was made on a pledge 
 of cotton. It shows, however, what might have been done, if the cotton had 
 been purchased by the government and mobilized, for the whole crop might 
 have been secured in 1861 at seven cents a pound. But against this scheme 
 the government had set its face as flint, and when it did become distrustful of 
 its former conclusion, it had only the nerve to make a very limited experiment 
 in the application of this staple to support a credit almost hopelessly abused by 
 paper issues. 
 
 It was estimated that there remained in the States of the Confederacy at this 
 time 3,500,000 bales of cotton, which could be exported in the event of the port 
 being opened to trade. This estimate is made after deducting from the crop 
 of 1861 and 1862 the quantity of cotton which had run the blockade, the amount 
 destroyed to prevent capture by the Yankees, and the quantity used for home 
 consumption, which, since the commencement of the war, had enormously in 
 creased, being now fully 500,000 bales per annum. 
 
586 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 could, within two years, have wrecked its credit with its own 
 people, unless by the most ignorant trifling with great ques 
 tions and the childish management of its treasury. 
 
 At an early period of the war it had been our boast that we 
 had spent only fifteen millions, while the Yankees had spent 
 ten or fifteen times that amount. But we find that the debt of 
 the general government of the Confederate States in January 
 last was $556,000,000, with the prospect, at the current rate 
 of expenditure, that it would reach nine hundred millions by 
 the close of the fiscal year on the first of July ; and it is curi 
 ous to observe what miscalculations were made of public debt 
 both in the North and in the South. The newspapers of the 
 two nations flourished the estimates of their debt in enume 
 rations only of the obligations of the general government ot 
 each, and made complacent comparisons of these sums with 
 the debts of European governments. But according to the 
 estimates of Europe, and the calculations of plain reason, the 
 true volume of the debt of each of these nations was repre 
 sented not only by what was owed by the Richmond and 
 Washington governments, but by the aggregate amount of the 
 indebtedness of the several States composing each confedera 
 tion. Here could be the only true and just measure of the 
 national debt of either the South or the North, in comparison 
 with the debts of other governments, to which the system of 
 the division of powers between a central authority and State* 
 was unknown. The debt of each member of the Southern 
 Confederacy, as well as that of a central authority, was a bur 
 den on the nation, for the problem of its payment was at last 
 to resolve itself into a tax upon the people. It is only by a 
 calculation of these aggregates that just comparisons could be 
 made between our financial condition and that of the North or 
 European nations ; and although such comparisons on our side 
 were to the disadvantage of our enemies, yet they exhibited 
 facts which were unpleasant enough to ourselves. 
 
 The law of impressment enacted by Congress affords the 
 evidence of the scarcity of supplies in the South. The ques 
 tion of food with that of finance divided the attention of the 
 government. The grain-growing and provision-raising coun 
 try, which stretches from the Potomac at Harper s Ferry to 
 Memphis on the Tennessee, was now exhausted of it provi- 
 
THE SECOND YEAE. 587 
 
 eions. Much of the productive portions of North Carolina 
 and the Gulf States had been also exhausted. The great and 
 true source of meat supply, the State of Kentucky, which 
 contained more hogs and cattle, two or three to one, than were 
 left in all the South besides, had fallen into the undivided pos 
 session of the Yankees. The general scarcity of all sorts of 
 supplies was attested by the high prices of every thing eatable. 
 The advance in prices induced by the scarcity of supplies, was 
 still further enormously enhanced by the greedy commercial 
 speculation which distressed the South, and threw a shadow of 
 dishonor upon the moral aspects of our struggle. 
 
 It is a subject of extraordinary remark, that the struggle 
 for our independence should have been attended by the ignoble 
 circumstances of a commercial speculation in the South unpar 
 alleled in its heartlessness and selfish greed. War invariably 
 excites avarice and speculation ; it is the active promoter of 
 rapid fortunes and corrupt commercial practices. But it is a 
 matter of surprise that more than an ordinary share of this 
 bad, avaricious spirit should have been developed in the South 
 during a war which involved the national existence, which pre 
 sented so many contrasts of heroic self-sacrifice, and which 
 was adorned with exhibitions of moral courage and devotion 
 such as the world had seldom seen. 
 
 But of this social and moral contradiction in our war for 
 independence, some explanation may be offered. It may, in 
 some measure, be found in three facts : first, that a distrust oi 
 the national currency prevailed in the country ; secondly, that 
 the initiative (for it is the first steps in speculation which are 
 more responsible) was made by Jews and foreign adventurers 
 who everywhere infested the Confederacy ; and thirdly, that 
 the fever of gain was greatly inflamed by the corruptions of 
 the government, the abuse of its pecuniary patronage, and a 
 system of secret contract, in which officials who were dishon 
 est shared the profits, and those who were incompetent were 
 easily overreached in the negotiation. The only serious blot 
 which defaced our struggle for independence was, at least to 
 some extent, the creature of circumstances ; and that is lost to 
 the eye of humane and enlightened history in the lustre of 
 arms and virtues shed on the South in the most sublime trials 
 of the war. 
 
588 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Character of Military Events of the Spring of 1863. Repulse of the Enemy at Fort 
 McAllister. THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURCK The Yazoo Pass Expedition. Confederate 
 Success at Fort Pemberton. The Enemy s Canals, or " Cut-offs." Their Failure. 
 BOMBARDMENT OF PORT HUDSON. Destruction of "The Mississippi." A Funeral 
 Pyre. Plappy Effects of our Victory. A Review of the line of inland Hostilities. 
 Hooker s hesitation on the Rappahannock. The Assignment of Confederate com 
 mands west of the Mississippi. -The Affiiir of Kelly s Ford. Death of Major Pel- 
 ham. NAVAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON. Destruction of " The Keokuk." Scenery of 
 the Bombardment. Extent of the Confederate Success. Events in Tennessee and 
 Kentucky. Pegram s Reverse. The Situation of Hostilities at the close of April, 1862. 
 
 ALTHOUGH but little is to be found of a decisive character in 
 the military events of the Spring of 1862, there was yet a series 
 of interesting occurrences which went far to prove the ineffi 
 ciency of the most boasted naval structures of the enemy, and 
 the progress we had made in defensive works on the lines of 
 our harbors and the banks of our rivers. 
 
 The first of these may be mentioned as the repulse of the 
 enemy at Fort McAllister on the 3d of March. This fort is on 
 the outer line of the defences of Savannah. Off the Georgia 
 coast, and eighteen miles to the southward of the Savannah 
 river, is Ossabaw sound. Into this sound flows the Ogechee 
 
 7 O 
 
 river, a stream navigable some distance up some thirty miles 
 to vessels of a larger class. On the Ogechee river, four 
 miles above the sound, is situate Fort McAllister. The fort 
 stands on the mainland, directly on the river bank, and com 
 mands the river for a mile and a half or two miles. 
 
 The attack of the enemy on this fort was made with three 
 iron-clads and two mortar-boats. The result of a whole day s 
 bombardment was, that one gun was dismounted, but the fort 
 remained uninjured, and no loss of life was sustained on our 
 side. The iron-clad Montauk was struck with solid shot 
 eventy-one times, and was lifted clear out of the water by 
 the explosion of a torpedo under her bow, but the Yankees 
 stated that she was not seriously injured. Indeed, they de 
 clared that the whole affair was nothing more than an experi- 
 inentum crucis, to ascertain the power of their new iron-dads 
 
THE SECOND YEAE. 589 
 
 to resist cannon shot, and that me result of the encounter was 
 all that they had hoped. If the enemy was pleased with the 
 result, the Confederates had certainly no reason to dispute his 
 satisfaction, as long as they had the solid gratification of hav 
 ing resisted a bombardment of eight hours, without injury to 
 their works or the loss of a single life. 
 
 While the enemy menaced the seaboard, he had found an 
 other theatre for his naval power on the waters of the Missis 
 sippi river. His operations there were even more important 
 than those on our sea lines, for they were an essential part of 
 the campaign in the West. In fact, Yicksburg was for a long 
 time the point on which depended the movements in Tennes 
 see and the resolution of the great crisis in the West. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. 
 
 The siege of Yicksburg furnishes a most remarkable in 
 stance of the industry and physical perseverance of the Yan 
 kees. Ever since December, 1862, they had been busily en 
 gaged in the attempt to circumvent our defences, even to the 
 extremity of forcing our internal navigation of swampy la 
 goons and obstructed creeks for a distance of four hundred and 
 fifty miles. 
 
 The enemy s operations in other directions kept him quiet 
 directly in front of Yicksburg, but his purpose was all the 
 same the capture and occupation of the place. The enemy 
 had three distinct projects for compassing the capture of 
 Yicksburg : Slrst, the canal across the isthmus opposite the 
 city; secondly, the project of getting through the Yazoo 
 Pass ; third, the Lake Providence canal project. It had been 
 all the time the principal aim of the Yankees to get in the 
 rear or below Yicksburg. Their present plan, and one on 
 which they were now at work, was to get through the Yazoo 
 Pass, in the hope of getting in our rear and cutting off our 
 supplies. Their idea was to flank Yicksburg, capture Jack 
 son, cut off Grenada, and destroy all possibility of our ob 
 taining supplies throughout that rich country, by this one bold 
 stroke. 
 
 The route mapped out by the Yankees commences near 
 Helena, Arkansas, where the Yazoo Pass connects the Mia 
 
590 SOUTHEEN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 sissippi with the Coldwater river, through Moon lake. The 
 distance from the Mississippi to the Coldwater, by this pass, is 
 about twenty miles a very narrow and tortuous channel, only 
 navigable when the Mississippi is quite high arid its waters 
 overflow the low lands of this region. The Coldwater river 
 empties into the Tallahatchie, and the Tallahatchie into the 
 Yazoo. The whole distance by this route from the Mississippi 
 to the mouth of the Yazoo, in the neighborhood of Vicks- 
 burg, is some five hundred miles, and over one-half of it, or 
 to the mouth of the Tallahatchie, it is easily obstructed. The 
 Yankees met with no obstruction on their ascent of the TaDa- 
 hatchie, except the overgrowth and tortuousness of the stream 
 which prevented the gunboats, in some instances, from mak 
 ing more than three and four miles a day until reaching the 
 rnouth of the Tallahatchie, or its neighborhood, where they 
 encountered the batteries known as Fort Pemberton, which 
 stood as the barrier against the entrance of their fleet into the 
 Yazoo river, formed by the confluence of the Tallahatchie and 
 Yalabusha rivers. 
 
 This fort was nothing more than an indented line of earth 
 works, composed of cotton bales and mud, thrown up on the 
 neck of a bend of the Tallahatchie river, where the river was 
 only two hundred and fifty yards wide. The site was selected 
 by Major-gen. Loring as the best position on the Yazoo or 
 Tallahatchie river. 
 
 It was here, on the 13th of March, that the Yazoo expedi 
 tion was intercepted and driven back by our batteries, which 
 achieved a splendid victory over the Yankee gunboats. The 
 Yalabusha river unites with the Tallahatchie in the bend, 
 forming the Yazoo, so that the right flank of our works rest 
 ed upon the Tallahatchie, and the left upon the Yazoo, both, 
 however, being really the same stream. The left flank was 
 opposite Greenwood, which is situated on the east side of 
 the Yazoo. The Tallahatchie, under the guns of the fort, was 
 obstructed by an immense raft, behind which the Star of the 
 West was sunk in the channel. The intervention of the point 
 above the bend masked the whole of our line except the left, 
 upon which, consequently, the fire of the enemy s boats was 
 directed. The fire was terrific, uninterrupted for four hours, 
 from ten to sixteen heavy calibre guns on gunboats, two heavy 
 
THE SECOND YEAK. 591 
 
 guns on land and one mortar. Yet the line of our batteries 
 was maintained. The loss of the enemy in this unsuccessful 
 attack is not known ; but his gunboats and batteries were con 
 stantly hit, and large quantities of burning cotton were struck 
 from them. 
 
 The defeat of the enemy at Fort Pemberton prevented his 
 fleet from passing by to the lower Yazoo. But this was not 
 the only canal project of the Yankees. One at Lake Provi 
 dence, was intended to afford a passage from the Mississfppi 
 to the head-waters of the Red river, by which they might com 
 mand a vast scope of country and immense resources. This 
 canal, which it was said was to change the bed of the Missis 
 sippi and turn its mighty current in the Atchafalaya river on 
 its way to the Gulf of Mexico, was also a failure. The canal 
 had been opened, and an enormous extent of country sub 
 merged and ruined, but it was found that no gunboais or 
 transports could ever reach the Mississippi below Yicksburg 
 by that route. Snags and drift choked up the tortuous 
 streams formed by the flood from the cut levees, and even if 
 navigation had been possible, the channel might have been 
 rendered impassable in a hundred places by a score of active 
 guerrillas. 
 
 In the mean time, there was every reason to believe that the 
 Yankees were content to abandon the project of cutting a 
 ditch through the mainland opposite Yicksburg, by which it 
 was hoped to force the current of the Mississippi into an un 
 accustomed course, through which to pass their vessels without 
 going within range of our batteries. 
 
 It was thus that the enemy was apparently brought to the 
 point of necessity of either attacking our fortifications at Sny- 
 der s Bluff on the Yazoo, or our batteries in front of the city. 
 These were the only two points left against which he could 
 operate, and they were the same which he had been trying to 
 avoid for the last three months. When he first arrived, these 
 were the only points susceptible of assault, but wishing to 
 flank them, he had wasted three months time, lost a number of 
 gunboats and transports, and many thousands of his troops. 
 
 "An attack directly in front of the city plainly threatened 
 the most serious disaster to the enemy. From a point of the 
 river above, where high land begins, there is a high and pre- 
 
592 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 cipitous bluff, which would not afford any landing-place for the 
 troops only about two acres of ground are to be found where 
 a landing could be effected, and upon this a formidable battery 
 was ready to receive them, and in the rear there were number 
 less other batteries to protect it. The whole bluff, extending 
 distance of two miles, was also frowning with guns, all of 
 which would bear upon an enemy in the river. 
 
 The expedition of the enemy on the Tallahatchie, which 
 met such unexpected and disgraceful defeat from the guns of 
 a hastily made fort, is memorable as another of those Yankee 
 raids which, unable to accomplish military results, was left to 
 gratify itself with the plunder of citizens and the cowardly 
 atrocities of marauders. From the barbarity of the Yankee, 
 Mississippi was a distinguished sufferer as well as Virginia 
 Two-thirds of Sherman s army was composed of new troops 
 from Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and they had conn* 
 down the Mississippi with the intention of burning and de 
 stroying every thing they could lay their hands on. The whole 
 line of their march was one continued scene of destruction. 
 Private dwellings were burned, women and children driven out 
 of their houses, and even the clothes stripped from their backs, 
 to say nothing of acts committed by the soldiery which might 
 make the blackest-hearted libertine blush for shame.* 
 
 Another attempt of the enemy to force our strongholds on 
 the Mississippi, which we have to relate at this time, was made 
 
 * The following is a private confession taken from the letter of a Yankee 
 officer, attached to Sherman s command : " I have always blamed Union gen 
 erals for guarding rebel property, but I now see the necessity of it. Three weeks 
 of such unbridled license would ruin our army. I tell you the truth when I 
 say we are about as mean a mob as ever walked the face of the earth. It is 
 perfectly frightful. If I lived in this country, I never would lay down my arms 
 while a Yankee remained on the soil. I do not blame Southerners for being 
 secessionists now. I could relate many things that would be laughable if they 
 were not so horribly disgraceful. For instance, imagine two privates in an 
 elegant carriage, belonging to some wealthy Southern nabob, with a splendid 
 span of horses riding in state along the road we are marching over, with a 
 negro coachman holding the reins in all the style of an English nobleman, 
 and then two small drummer-boys going it at a two-forty pace, in an elegant 
 buggy, with a fast horse, and the buggy loaded with a strange medley of house 
 hold furniture and kitchen utensils, from an elegant parlor mirror to a pair of 
 fire-dogs, all of which they have cramped from some fine house, which, frou 
 sheer wantonness, they had rified and destroyed." 
 
THE SECOND YEAH. 593 
 
 on Port Hudson on the 15th of March. We have seen how 
 fatal, so far, had been the enemy s attempts to run our batter 
 ies and to get to the south of Vicksbnrg. His first attempt 
 was with the Queen of the West, his second with the Indianola; 
 but though successful in these two cases in running our batter 
 ies, the boats were soon captured by our men, and the enemy 
 completely foiled in his design. It was now proposed that the 
 enemy s fleet should attack Port Hudson and attempt to force 
 a passage up the river. 
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT OF PORT HUDSON. 
 
 Port Hudson is a strongly fortified position on the lower 
 Mississippi about sixteen miles above Baton Rouge and 
 three hundred below Vicksburg. It is situated on a bend in 
 the river, and its great strength as a place of defence against 
 a fleet consists in the height of its cliffs and the peculiar for 
 mation of the river at that place. The cliffs are very high, 
 and also very steep in fact, almost perpendicular. The river, 
 just at the bend opposite the town, suddenly narrows, so that 
 the rapid current strikes against the west bank, and then 
 sweeps through a narrow channel just at the base of the cliff. 
 Our batteries were located on a bluff at the elbow of the river, 
 and commanded a range of three miles above and below, com 
 pelling any vessel which might attempt the passage to run the 
 gauntlet of a plunging fire. 
 
 Six vessels were to comprise the enemy s expedition, divided 
 into two divisions. The vanguard was to consist of the flag 
 ship Hartford, a first-class steam sloop-of-war, carrying twenty- 
 six eight and nine inch Paixhan guns, leading, followed by the 
 Monongahela, a second-class steam sloop, mounting sixteen 
 heavy guns, and the Eichmond, a first-class steam sloop of 
 twenty-six guns, principally eight and nine inch columbiad:. 
 The rear-guard was composed of the first-class steam sloop 
 Mississippi, twenty-two guns, eight and nine inch, and the 
 gunboats Kinnes and Genesee, each carrying three columbiads 
 and two rifled thirty-two pounders. The Mississippi was a 
 side- wheel steamer. All the others were screw propellers. 
 The vanguard was commanded by Admiral Farragut in per 
 son, on board the Hartford. The rear was under command of 
 
 38 
 
594: SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Captain Melancthon Smith, flying his pennant from the Missis 
 sippi. They were to proceed np the stream in a single iile, the 
 Btern of the one following close upon the stern of another, and 
 keeping their fires and lights well concealed until they should 
 be discovered by our batteries, when they were to get by the 
 best they could, fighting their passage ; and once above, they 
 
 . believed they would have the stronghold on both sides, their 
 guns covering every part of the encampment. 
 
 Shortly before midnight, the boats having formed the line of 
 battle as described, their decks cleared for action, and the men 
 at their quarters, the Hartford led the way and the others 
 promptly followed her direction. At the moment of their dis 
 covery, a rocket was to be sent up from the admiral s flag-ship, 
 as the signal for the Essex and her accompanying mortar-boats 
 to commence work. 
 
 Although there had been no indications of such a determined 
 night attack by Farragut, the usual vigilant precautions were 
 in force at our batteries. Every gun was ready for action, 
 and around each piece slept a detachment of gunners. So 
 
 dark was the night, however, and so slightly had the armed 
 
 .craft nosed their way up, that the flag-ship had passed some 01 
 
 . our guns, and all the fleet were within easy range before their 
 approach was known. Almost at the same time a rocket from 
 our signal corps, and the discharge of muskets by an infantry 
 
 -picket, aroused our line. Quick as a flash, while the falling 
 fire of our alarm rocket was yet unextinguished, there shot 
 up" into the sky, from the Hartford s deck, another. Then came 
 one grand, long, deafening roar, that rent the atmosphere with 
 its mighty thunder, shaking both land and water, and causing 
 the hi^h battery-crowned cliffs to tremble, as if with fear and 
 wonder. 
 
 , The darkness of the night gave extraordinary sublimity to 
 the scene of bombardment. The sheets of flame that poured 
 
 1 from the sides of the sloops at each discharge lit up nearly the 
 whole stretch of river, placing each craft in strong relief against 
 the black sky. On the long line of bluff, the batteries, but a 
 moment before silent as the church-yard, now resounded to the 
 hurrying tread of men, while the quick, stern tones of command 
 were hear"d above the awful din, and the furtively glancing 
 
 : rays of light from the battle-lanterns revealed the huge instru- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 595 
 
 ments of death and destruction, and showed the half-cohered 
 way to magazines. 
 
 Minute after minute passed away, and the fleet kept its un 
 checked course up the stream. The feeling of its officers was 
 one of amazement at the silence of the batteries. The question 
 was seriously propounded, had not the Confederates deserted 
 them ? But only too soon did the enemy discover that we 
 were but waiting to bring their whole fleet irretrievably under 
 our guns before we went to work. 
 
 For fifteen minutes had they plied at their monster cannon, 
 and now they were commencing to relax from sheer vexation, 
 when a flash of light from the crest of a cliff lights the way 
 for a shell to go plunging through the Hartford s deck. This 
 was the monitor, and at once the enemy saw a cordon of vivid 
 right as long as their own. 
 
 Now commenced the battle in all its terrible earnestness. 
 Outnumbered in guns and outweighed in metal, our volleys 
 were as quickly repeated, and the majority of them unerring in 
 their aim. As soon as the enemy thus discovered our batter 
 ies, they opened on them with grape and canister, which was 
 more accurately thrown than their shells, and threw clouds of 
 dirt upon the guns and gunners ; the shells went over them in 
 every conceivable direction except the right one. 
 
 The Hartford, a very fast ship, now made straight up the 
 river, making her best time, and trying to divert the aim of 
 our gunners by her incessant and deafening broadsides. She 
 soon outstripped the balance of the fleet. Shot after shot struck 
 her, riddling her through and through, but still she kept on 
 her way. 
 
 Every craft now looking out for itself and bound to make 
 *ts very best time to get by, the fleet lost its orderly line of 
 battle, and got so mixed up, it was difficult, and sometimes im 
 possible to distinguish one from another. It was speedily ap 
 parent to the enemy that the flre was a great deal hotter and 
 more destructive than had been expected, and the captains oi 
 the two gunboats and of the Monongahela, doubtless resolved 
 quickly that it would be madness to attempt to run such a ter 
 rific gauntlet of iron hail. Whether the commanders of the 
 Eichmond and Mississippi had already arrived at the same de 
 termination, or came to it soon after, is not known ; but thej 
 
596 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 all, except the Hartford, undertook to put about and return 
 the way they came. 
 
 For this purpose the Richmond came close in to the left 
 bank, under the batteries, and then circled round, her course 
 reaching nearly up to the opposite point. In executing this 
 manoeuvre, she gave our batteries successively a raking posi 
 tion, and they took excellent advantage of it, seriously damag 
 ing her, as the crashing of her timbers plainly told. 
 
 The Mississippi undertook to execute the same manoeuvre, of 
 turning round and making her escape back to the point she 
 started from. She had rounded and just turned down stream, 
 when one of our shots tore off her rudder, and another went 
 crushing through her machinery. Immediately after came the 
 rushing sound of steam escaping from some broken pipe, and 
 the now unmanageable vessel drifted aground directly opposite 
 our crescent line of batteries. Her range was quickly gained, 
 and she was being rapidly torn to pieces by our missiles, when 
 her commander gave the order for all hands to save themselves 
 the best way they could. At the same time fire broke out in 
 two places. At this time her decks were strewn with dead 
 and wounded. Some fifty-five or sixty persons saved them 
 selves by jumping overboard and swimming to the shore. 
 
 The dead and wounded were left upon the Mississippi, which 
 soon floated off and started down with the current. All the 
 other vessels were now out of range, and the spectacle of the 
 burning ship was a grand and solemn one, yet mingled with 
 painful thoughts of the horrible fate of those mangled unfor 
 tunates who were being burned to death upon this floating 
 funeral pyre. As the flames would reach the shells lying 
 among her guns, they exploded one by one, adding to the 
 novel grandeur of the sight. The light of the burning wreck 
 could be seen, steadily increasing its distance, for two hours 
 and a half. At five minutes past five o clock, when the Mis 
 sissippi was probably within five miles of Baton Rouge, a sud- 
 ileu glare lit up the whole sky. The cause was well known to 
 be the explosion of the magazine. After a considerable inter 
 val of time, a long rumbling sound brought final proof that 
 the Mississippi, one of the finest vessels of the United States 
 navy, which had earned an historical fame before the com 
 mencement of the present war, for her usefulness in the Gulf 
 
THE SECOND \EAR. 597 
 
 during the Mexican war, and as the flag-ship of the Japan ex 
 pedition, was a thing of the past. 
 
 The victory of Port Hudson forms one of the most satisfac 
 tory and brilliant pages in the history of the war. The fleet, 
 with the exception of the Hartford, had been driven back by 
 our batteries, and a grateful surprise had been given to many 
 of our people, who had acquired the disheartening conviction 
 that gunboats could treat shore batteries with contempt. So 
 far our strongholds on the Mississippi had bid defiance to the 
 foe. and months of costly preparation for their reduction had 
 been spent in vain. 
 
 While these events were transpiring on the Mississippi, the 
 long line of inland hostilities remained unvaried and almost 
 silent. In Yirginia and in Tennessee, the powerful armies of 
 Lee and Hooker, Bragg and Rosecrans, had camped for months 
 in close proximity, without a cannonade, and almost without a 
 skirmish. To some extent the elements had proclaimed a 
 truce, while the hesitating temper of the enemy betrayed a 
 policy strangely at variance with the former vigorous campaign 
 in the same season of the last year. Especially was the hesi 
 tation remarkable in Virginia, where the new commander-in- 
 chief of the enemy Hooker was a violent member of the 
 Abolitionist party. He was the chief of that clique among 
 the Yankee officers who made the war, not to realize the dream 
 of a restored Union, but for the subjugation and destruction 
 of the Southern social system, the massacre or exile of the in 
 habitants of the Southern country, and the confiscation of their 
 entire real and personal property. 
 
 Beyond the Mississippi there was scarcely any thing to re 
 mark but a new assignment of military commands. We had 
 now west of the Mississippi Lieutenant-gen. Kirby Smith, Gen. 
 Price, Gen. Magruder, and Gen. Sibley. Gen. Smith had been 
 placed at the head of the department, and had already issued 
 an order announcing that fact; Gen. Price was assigned to 
 lead the field movements for the redemption of Arkansas and 
 his own State, Missouri ; Gen. Sibley was moving to other irn 
 portant points; and Gen. Magruder s field of operations was 
 Texas. 
 
 We have to record but a single incident in the spring of 
 1863, to break the long silence of the lines of the Kappahan- 
 
598 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 nock. On the morning of the 17th of March the enemy dous 
 ed the river at Kelly s ford, with both a cavalry and artillery 
 force, numbering probably three thousand men. Thej ad 
 vanced within six miles of Culpepper Court-house, where <hey 
 were engaged by the brigade of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. The 
 fight was severe and lasted several hours. The Yankees *ere 
 finally repulsed, and fell back routed and panic-stricken, after 
 having inflicted a loss upon us of about one hundred in killed 
 and wounded. They had fought with some advantages at first, 
 bravely contesting their ground, and it is not improbable that 
 a report of reinforcements coming up to us was the occasion of 
 their retreat. When the retreat was ordered, they fled in 
 dismay and confusion. 
 
 This affair if it was worth any thing cost us the life of 
 one of the most brilliant artillery officers in the army. Major 
 Pel ham, of Alabama, who had acquired the title of "the gal 
 lant Pelham" from the hands of Gen. Lee in the official report 
 of the battle of Fredericksburg, was killed by the fragment ot 
 a shell. At Fredericksburg, he had distinguished himself by 
 sustaining the concentrated fire of a number of the enemy s 
 batteries. In that terrible trial he had stood as a rock. In 
 the aifair which cost him his life, he had just risen in his sad 
 dle to cheer a troop of cavalry rushing to the charge, when 
 the fatal blow was given. He was only twenty-two years of 
 age, and had been through all the battles in Virginia. Un 
 usual honors were paid his remains, for they were laid in the 
 capitol, and tributes of rare flowers strewn upon the bier oi 
 " the young Marcellus of the South." 
 
 NAVAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON. 
 
 The city of Charleston had long been the object of the 
 enemy s lust ; it was considered a prize scarcely less important 
 than the long-contested one of Richmond; and with more than 
 their customary assurance, the Yankees anticipated the glory 
 and counted the triumphs of the capture of the cradle of the 
 revolution. It was thought to be an easy matter for Admiral 
 Dupont s iron-clad fleet te take the city, and the Yankee news 
 papers for months had indulged the prospect of the capture oi 
 Charleston as a thing of the future that only awaited theii 
 pleasure. 
 
THE SECOND YEAK. 599 
 
 On Sunday morning, the 5th of April, four " monitors," tho 
 Ironsides (an armor-plated frigate with an armament of twenty- 
 two 10, 11, and 15-inch guns), and thirty vessels of various 
 sizes, were seen off the bar. Four monitors and thirty-five 
 wooden vessels were added to the fleet on the following day v 
 thirty-five vessels, for the most part transports, appeared in 
 the Stono, and the enemy landed a force -of about six thousand 
 men on Coles and Battery Islands. These facts, with other 
 indications, led Gen. Beauregard to count upon an attack on 
 Tuesday, and the expectations of that sagacious and vigilant 
 commander were not disappointed. 
 
 The atmosphere early on Tuesday morning, 7th of April, 
 was misty, but as the day advanced, the haze lightened, and 
 the monitors and the Ironsides were seen lying off Morris 
 Island. Between two and three o clock in the afternoon, a dis 
 patch from Col. Rhett, commandant of Fort Sumter, informed 
 Gen. Beauregard that five monitors and the Ironsides were ap 
 proaching the fort. The fleet were seen rounding the point of 
 Morris Island, the Keokuk in the advance. It was a happy 
 moment for the defenders of Charleston. So long had sus 
 pense reigned in that city, that the booming of the signal gun 
 and the announcement that at last the battle had begun was a 
 positive relief. A thrill of joy came to every heart, and tho 
 countenances of all declared plainly that a signal victory over 
 the mailed vessels was reckoned upon without doubt or mis 
 giving. The long-roll beat in Fort Sumter; the artillerists 
 in that work rushed to their guns. The regimental flag of the 
 1st South Carolina Artillery, and " the stars and bars" of the 
 Confederate States, flaunted out from their flagstaff s on tho 
 fort, and were saluted as the enemy advanced with an out 
 burst of " Dixie" from the band and the deep-mouthed roar of 
 thirteen pieces of heavy artillery. 
 
 On came the mailed monitors. Their ports were closed, and 
 they appeared deserted of all living things. They moved 
 northwardly towards Sullivan s Island, and at a distance from 
 ts batteries of about 1,200 yards they began to curve around 
 towards Sumter. A flash, a cloud of srnoke, a clap of thunder, 
 herald a storm of heavy shot, which bursts from the island 
 upon the side of the frigate. The ships move on silently. Tho 
 deep-mouthed explosions of Sumter in the next instant burst 
 
600 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THfi WAR. 
 
 upon the advancing ships, and hurl tremendous bolts of 
 wrought iron against the armor of the Ironsides. The frigate 
 halts. At a distance of about twelve hundred yards from that 
 work-she delivers from seven guns a broadside of 15-inch shot 
 that dashes against the sea- face of Sumter with a heavy crash. 
 Bricks fly from the parapet and whirl from the traverse. A 
 shell smashes a marble lintel in the officers quarters, hustles 
 through a window on the other side, and, striking the parapet, 
 hurls a tornado of bricks far to the rear. The works on Morris 
 Island burst into the deafening chorus on land and on sea, 
 from all the batteries of the outer circle, from all the turrets of 
 the inner circle. 
 
 It was manifest that the Ironsides was appointed to test the 
 strength of the fort. Fort Sumter acknowledged the compli 
 ment by pouring the contents of her biggest guns into that 
 pride of the Yankee navy. Advancing on her circling course, 
 the Ironsides made way for her attendant warriors ; and one by 
 one, as their turrets moved in the solemn waltz, they received 
 the fire, sometimes diffused, sometimes concentrated, of the 
 surrounding circle of batteries. The first division of the ships 
 curved on its path under an iron storm that rended the air with 
 its roar, and burst upon their mail in a quick succession 01 
 reports ; sometimes with the heavy groan of crushing, some 
 times with the sharp cry of tearing. Delivering a fire of shot 
 and shell as they passed the works on Morris Island, the Iron 
 sides and her monitors moved slowly out of range. As the 
 Ironsides withdrew from the action, taking position to the south 
 of Fort Sumter, steam was seen issuing from her in dense vol 
 umes, and it was believed that she was seriously damaged. 
 
 The Keokuk, a double-turreted iron-clad, led into the fight 
 four monitors. More bold than even the Ironsides, she advanced 
 under a tornado of shot to a position within about nine hundred 
 yards of Fort Sumter. Halting at that distance, she discharged 
 her 15-inch balls from her turrets against the sea-face of that 
 fort. Crushing and scattering the bricks on the line of her 
 tremendous fire, she failed, however, to make any serious im 
 pression on the walls. A circle of angry flashes radiated to 
 wards her from all sides, while a tempest of iron bolts and 
 round-shot crashed against her sides. For about twenty min 
 utes she stood still, in apparent helplessness. At the expiration* 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 601 
 
 of that time she moved slowly on, and after receiving the fire 
 of the works on Morris Island, passed out of range. She was 
 fairly riddled, for she had been the target of the most powerfr.l 
 guns the Confederates could command. Great holes were visi 
 ble in her sides, her prow, her after-turret, and her smoke 
 stack. Her plates were bent and bolts protruded here and 
 there ail over her. She was making water rapidly, and it was 
 plain to see that she was a doomed ship. 
 
 After the Keokuk and her companions had passed out of 
 range, the circular movement was not renewed. The ships 
 retired outside the harbor to their anchorage ; and after about 
 two hours and a half of a most terrible storm of shot and thun 
 der of artillery, Fort Sumter and its supporting batteries set 
 tled down under sluggish clouds of smoke into triumphs of 
 quiet. 
 
 Our victory was one of unexpected brilliancy, and had cost 
 us scarcely more than the ammunition for our guns. A drum 
 mer boy was killed at Fort Sumter and five men wounded. 
 Our artillery practice was excellent, as is proved by the fact 
 that the nine Yankee vessels were struck five hundred and 
 twenty times. The Keokuk received no less than ninety shots. 
 She did not outlive the attack on Fort Sumter twelve hours. 
 The next day her smoke-stack and one of her turrets were 
 visible during low water off Morris Island, where she had 
 sunk. 
 
 The battle had been fought on the extreme outer line of fire, 
 and the enemy had been defeated at the very threshold of our 
 defences. Whether his attack was intended only, as a recon- 
 noissance, or whether what was supposed to be the preliminary 
 skirmish was in fact the whole affair, it is certain that our suc 
 cess gave great assurances of the safety of Cha/leston ; that it 
 had the proportions of a considerable victory ; and that it went 
 far to impeach the once dreaded power of the iron-clads of the 
 enemy.* 
 
 * It is a question of scientific interest whether, in the construction of iron- 
 clads, the Confederate plan of slanted sides is not superior to the Yankee plan 
 of thick-walled turrets the Virginia-Merrimac, and not the Monitor, the true 
 model. The Yankee monitor is an upright, cylindrical turret. If a shot strikes 
 the centre line of this cylinder, it will not glance, but deliver its full force. On 
 the contrary, the peculiarity of the Virginia-Merrimac was its roof-shaped sides, 
 
602 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The month of April has but few events of military note je- 
 yond what has been referred to in the foregoing pages. The 
 check of Van Dorn at Franklin, Tennessee, and the reverse of 
 Pegram in Kentucky, were unimportant incidents ; they did 
 not affect the campaign, and their immediate disasters were 
 inconsiderable. The raid of the latter commander into Ken 
 tucky, again revived reports of the reaction of public sentiment 
 in that unhappy State in favor of the Confederacy. It was on 
 his retreat that he was set upon by a superior force of the en 
 emy near Somerset, from which he effected an escape across 
 the Cumberland, after the loss of about one hundred and fifty 
 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
 
 This period, properly the close of the second year of hostili 
 ties, presents a striking contrast with the corresponding month 
 of the former year with respect to the paramount aspects of 
 the war. In April, 1862, the Confederates had fallen back in 
 Virginia from the Potomac beyond the Rappahannock, and 
 were on the point of receding from the vicinity of the lower 
 Chesapeake before the advancing army of McClellan. Now 
 they confronted the enemy from the Rappahannock and hov 
 ered upon his flank within striking distance to the Potomac, 
 while another portion of our forces manosuvred almost in the 
 rear and quite upon the flank of Norfolk. Twelve months ago 
 the enemy threatened the important Southern artery which 
 links the coast of the Carolinas with Virginia ; he was master 
 of Florida, both on the Atlantic and the Gulf; and Mobile 
 trembled at every blast from the Federal bugles of Pensacola. 
 Now his North Carolina lines were held exclusively as lines of 
 occupation ; he was repulsed on the seaboard ; his operations 
 in Florida were limited to skirmishing parties of negroes ; and 
 Mobile had become the nursery of cruisers in the very face of 
 his blockading squadron. A year ago the grasp of the enemy 
 
 on which the shot glances. The inventor of that noble naval structure, Com 
 mander Brooke, claimed the slanted or roof-shaped sides as constituting the 
 original feature and most important merit of his invention. We may add now 
 that to the genius of this accomplished officer the Confederacy was variously 
 indebted ; for it was a gun of his invention " the Brooke gun" that fired the 
 bolt which pierced the turret of the Keokuk, and gave the first proof in the 
 war that no thickness of iron, that is practical in the construction of such a 
 machine, is sufficient to secure it 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 603 
 
 was ciosing on the Mississippi from Cair_ to the Gulf; but 
 while Butler was enjoying his despotic amusements and build 
 ing up his private fortunes in the Crescent City, the strong 
 holds of Vicksburg and Port Hudson were created, and held 
 at bay the most splendid expeditions which the extravagance 01 
 the North had yet prepared. A year ago the enemy, by his 
 successes in Kentucky and Tennessee, held the way almost into 
 the very heart of the Confederacy, through Eastern Tennessee 
 and Western Virginia. Now the fortunes of the war in that 
 whole region were staked upon the issues of impending battle. 
 For three months the " grand hesitation" of the North had 
 continued. With some seven or eight hundred thousand sol 
 diers in the field and countless cruisers swarming on our coasts, 
 the enemy had yet granted us a virtual suspension of arms 
 since the great battles of Fredericksburg and .Mnrfreesboro , 
 interrupted only by petty engagements and irresolute and fruit 
 less bombardments. He had shown that he possessed no real 
 confidence in the success of his arms ; he had so far failed to 
 reduce any one of " the three great strongholds of the rebel 
 lion," Richmond, Charleston, and Yicksburg; and he had ceased 
 to map out those plans of conquest of which he was former! v 
 BO prolific. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAP.. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 Close of the Second Year of the War. Propriety of an Outline o ?ome succeed 
 ing Events. Cavalry Enterprises of the Enemy. The raids in Mississippi and Vir 
 ginia. SKETCH OF THE BATTLES OF THE KAPPAHANNOOK. The Enemy s Plan of Attack. 
 The Fight at Chancellorsville. The Splendid Charge of "Stonewall" Jackson. 
 The Fight at Fredericksburg. The Fight at Salem Church. Summary of our Victory. 
 DEATH OF " STONEWALL" JACKSON. His Character and Services. 
 
 THE second year of the war, having commenced with the 
 fall of New Orleans, 1st of May, 1862, properly closes with 
 the events recorded in the preceding chapter. Of succeeding 
 events, which have occurred between this period and that of 
 publication, we do not propose to attempt at this time a full 
 narrative; their detail belongs to another volume. It is pro 
 posed at present only to make an outline of them, so as to 
 give to the reader a stand-point of intelligent observation, 
 from which he may survey the general situation at the time, 
 these pages are given to the public. 
 
 The next volume of our history will open on that series of 
 remarkable raids and enterprises on the part of the enemy s 
 cavalry, which, in the months of April and May, disturbed 
 many parts of the Confederacy. We shall find that the ex 
 tent of these raids of Yankee horsemen, their simultaneous 
 occurrence in widely removed parts of the Confederacy, and 
 the circumstances of each, betrayed a deliberate and extensive 
 purpose on the part of the enemy and a consistency of design 
 deserving the most serious consideration. 
 
 We shall relate how the people of Richmond were alarmed 
 by the apparition of Yankee cavalry near their homes. But 
 we shall find causes of congratulation that the unduly famous 
 expedition of Stoneman was not more destructive. The dam 
 age which it inflicted upon our railroads was slight, its hurried 
 pillage did not amount to much, and the only considerable., 
 capture it effected was a train of commissary wagons in King 
 William county. 
 
 Other parts of the Confederacy, visited about the same time 
 
TFE SECOND YEAR. 605 
 
 by Yankee cavalry, were not so fortunate. The State of Mis 
 sissippi was ransacked almost through its entire length by the 
 Grierson raid. Starting from Corinth, near the northern 
 boundary of Mississippi, a body of Yankee horsemen, cer 
 tainly not exceeding two thousand, rode down the valley of 
 the Tombigbee, penetrated to a point below the centre of the 
 State, and then making a detour, reached the Mississippi Gulf 
 coast in safety. This force, so insignificant in numbers, made 
 the entire passage of the State of Mississippi, from the north 
 east to the southwest corner ; and the important town of En 
 terprise was barely saved by reinforcements of infantry which 
 arrived from Meridian just fifteen minutes before the Yankees 
 demanded the surrender of the place. 
 
 We shall have to add here cotemporary accounts of another 
 Yankee raid in Georgia. That adventure, however, was hap 
 pily nipped in the bud by Forrest, who captured the Yankee 
 commander, Stuart, and his entire party, at Rome, Georgia, 
 after one of the most vigorous pursuits ever made of an enemy. 
 
 The interest of these raids was something more than that of 
 the excursions of brigands. That of Stoneman was an im 
 portant part of the great battle which signalized the opening 
 of the month of May on the banks of the Rappahannock, and 
 broke at last the " grand hesitation" of the enemy, which had 
 been the subject of so much impatience in the South. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE BATTLES OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK. 
 
 The plan of attack adopted by Gen. Hooker may be briefly 
 characterized as a feint on our right, and a flank movement in 
 force on our left. It was determined to throw a heavy force 
 across the river just below the mouth of Deep Run, and three 
 miles below Fredericksburg, and pretend to renew the attempt 
 in which Burnside had previously been unsuccessful. The ob 
 ject of this movement was two-fold first, to hold the Confed 
 erate forces at that point ; and second, to protect Hooker s 
 communications and supplies, while the other half of the army 
 should make a crossing above the fortifications, and sweeping 
 down rapidly to the rear of Fredericksburg, take a strong po 
 sition and hold it until they could be reinforced by the portion 
 of the arrry engaged in making the feint, which was to with- 
 
606 SOUTHERNS HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 draw from its position, take the bridges to the point of the 
 river which had been uncovered by the flank movement, and 
 the whole army was thus to be concentrated in the rear of 
 Fredericksburg. 
 
 The execution of this plan was commenced on Monday, the 
 26th of April. Three corps d armee the Fifth, Eleventh, and 
 Twelfth were ordered to march up the river with eight days 
 rations to Kelly s ford, on the north bank of the Rappahan- 
 nock, near the Orange and Alexandria railroad. This force, 
 under the command of Gen. Slocum, of the Twelfth corps, 
 reached the point at which it was to cross the Rappahannock 
 on Tuesday night. On the same night three other corps the 
 First, Third, and Sixth were sent to the mouth of Deep Run, 
 three miles below Fredericksburg, to be ready to undertake 
 the crossing simultaneously with the other corps at Kelly s 
 ford on Wednesday morning, before day. The movement 
 was successfully conducted at both points, and without serious 
 opposition from the Confederates. 
 
 The Second corps, under Couch, which had remained at 
 Banks ford, four miles above the town, was moved up to the 
 United States ford, just below the point of confluence of the 
 Rappahannock and Rapidan, and crossed to join Gen. Slocum, 
 who had crossed the Rappahannock several miles higher up at 
 Kelly s ford, and the Rapidan at Germania Mills and Ely s 
 ford, and marched down to Chancellorsville. These move 
 ments occupied Wednesday and Thursday. Hooker now as 
 sumed command of the right wing of his army. He took his 
 position across the plank-road and turnpike at Chancellorsville, 
 eleven miles from Fredericksburg, in order to cut on our an 
 ticipated retreat in the direction of Gordonsville, and strength 
 ened his naturally formidable position by a series of elaborate 
 abatis and field-works. 
 
 The North eagerly seized upon the different circumstances 
 of the existing situation as indicative of victory. Gen. Hooker 
 had made himself conspicuous in the eyes of the Yankees, 
 lie was confident, when examined before the Congressional 
 Committee on the conduct of the war, that he could have 
 marched into Richmond at any time at his ease had he been 
 at the head of the Army of the Potomac instead of Gen 
 McClellan ; and if he had had command instead of Burnside 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 607 
 
 he would have achieved wonders. He had recently stated 
 that the army he led was u the finest on the planet," u an army 
 of veterans," as the Tribune remarked, " superior to that of the 
 Peninsula;" and so large was it that Northern journals as 
 serted that Hooker had more troops than he knew what to do 
 with. ]S"or was this all. He was allowed by Lee to cross the 
 Eappahannock, without opposition and without loss, and to se 
 cure a position deemed impregnable one which, according ta 
 the order he issued on Thursday the 30th of April, had ren 
 dered it necessary that " the enemy must either ingloriously 
 fly, or come out from behind his defences and give us (the Yan 
 kee army) battle on our own ground, where certain destructioa 
 waits him." 
 
 In the mean time, Gen. Lee was not slow to meet the dispo 
 sitions of his adversary. The enemy continued to pour across 
 the river at Deep Run, until three entire corps, numbering be 
 tween h fty and sixty thousand men under Gen. Sedgwick, had 
 crossed to the south side. Lee calmly watched this movement, 
 as well as the one higher up the river under Hooker, until he 
 had penetrated the enemy s design, and seen the necessity of 
 making a rapid division of his own forces, to confront him on 
 two different fields, and risking the result of fighting him in 
 detail. 
 
 About noon on Wednesday, the 29th, information was re 
 ceived that the enemy had crossed the Rappahannock in force 
 at Kelly s and Ellis fords above, and were passing forward 
 towards Germania Mills and Ely s ford on the Rapidan. Two 
 brigades of Anderson s division, Posey s Mississippians, and 
 Mahoue s Virginians, numbering about 8,000 men, and one 
 battery of four guns, were, and had been for several weeks, 
 stationed in the neighborhood of Ely s ford on the Rapidan, 
 and United States ford on the Rappahannock, guarding the 
 approaches to Fredericksburg in that direction. It was appa 
 rent that this small force would be entirely inadequate to ar 
 rest the approach of Hooker s heavy column, and Wright s 
 brigade was ordered up to their support. At daylight on 
 Thursday morning, the head of Wright s brigade reached 
 Chancellorsville, at which point Posey and Mahone had con 
 centrated their forces with a view of making a stand. Major- 
 gen. Anderson having also arrived in the latter part of the 
 
608 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 night, and having obtained further information of the number 
 of the Yankee forces, upon consultation with his brigade com 
 manders, determined to fall back from Chancellorsville in the 
 direction of Fredericksburg, five miles, to a -point where the 
 Old Mine road, leading from the United States ford, crosses 
 the Orange and Fredericksburg turnpike and plank-road. 
 The turnpike and plank- road were parallel to each other 
 from Chancellorsville to the point where the Old Mine road 
 crosses them, and from there to Fredericksburg they make one 
 road. 
 
 Chancellorsville is eleven miles above Fredericksburg, and 
 about four miles south of the point of confluence of the Rapi- 
 dan with the Rappahannock, and consists of a large two-story 
 brick house, formerly kept as a tavern, and a few out-houses. 
 It is situated on the plank-road leading from Fredericksburg 
 to Orange Court-house, and is easily approached by roads 
 leading from Germania Mills, and Ely s, United States, and 
 Banks fords. Between Chancellorsville and the river and 
 above lies the Wilderness, a district of country formerly 
 covered with a scrubby black-jack, oaks, and a thick, tangled 
 under-growth, but now somewhat cleared up. The ground 
 around Chancellorsville is heavily timbered, and favorable for 
 defence. Seven miles from Chancellorsville, on the road to 
 Fredericksburg, and four miles from the latter place, is Salem 
 Church. 
 
 During the night of Thursday, Gen. Lee ordered Jackson to 
 march from his camp below Fredericksburg, with A. P. Hill s 
 and Rhodes (formerly D. H. Hill s) division, to the relief of 
 Anderson. Gen. Lee brought up the divisions of Anderson 
 and McLaws. He occupied the attention of the enemy in 
 front, while Gen. Jackson, with the divisions of Hill, Rhodes, 
 and Trimble, moved by the road that leads from the Mine 
 road, behind the line-ot -battle, to the road that leads to Ger 
 man a ford. This movement of General Jackson occupied 
 nearly the whole of Saturday, May 2d, so that he did not get 
 into position at the Wilderness Church until near sunset of 
 that day. 
 
 While Jackson was gaining the enemy s rear, McLaws and 
 Anderson had successfully maintained their position in front. 
 Hooker had been felicitating himself upon his supposed good 
 
THE SECOND TEAK. 609 
 
 fortune in gaining our rear. What must have been his sur 
 prise, then, to find Stonewall Jackson on his extreme right and 
 rear. Jackson s assault was sudden and furious. In a short 
 time he threw Siegel s corps (the llth) of Dutchmen into a 
 perfect panic, and was driving the whole right wing of the 
 Yankee army fiercely down upon Anderson s and McLaw s 
 sturdy veterans, who, in turn, hurled them back, and rendered 
 futile their efforts to break through our lower lines, and made 
 it necessary for them to give back towards the river. 
 
 There was an intermission of about one hour in the firing 
 from three until nine o clock. It was at this time that Jack 
 son received his death wound from his own men, who mistook 
 him for the enemy. Gen. Hill, upon whom the command now 
 devolved, was soon afterwards wounded also, when Gen. Rhodes 
 assumed command until Gen. Stuart could arrive upon that 
 part of the field. Stewart renewed the fight at nine o clock, 
 night as it w r as, in accordance with Gen. Jackson s original 
 plan, and did not withhold his blows until the enemy s right had 
 been doubled in on his centre in and around Charicellorsville. 
 
 At daylight Sunday morning, our army, which now sur 
 rounded the enemy on all sides except towards the river, com 
 menced advancing and closing in upon him from all points. 
 The enemy had dug rifle-pits and cut abatis in front and along 
 his whole line, while his artillery, well protected by earth 
 works, covered every eminence and swell of rising ground, so 
 as to get a direct and enfilading fire upon our advancing 
 columns. But on our gallant men moved, their ranks plaved 
 upon by an incessant fire of shell, grape, and canister, from the 
 front, the right, and left. On they pressed through the wood, 
 over the fields, up the hills, into the very mouths of the enemy s 
 guns and the long line of rifle-pits. With a terrible shout they 
 sprang forward, and rushing through the tangled abatis, they 
 gained the bank in front of the rifle-pits, when the foe gave 
 way in great confusion arid fled. 
 
 An extraordinary victory appeared to be in our grasp. The 
 capture or destruction of Hookers army now appeared certain. 
 
 Gen. Lee, finding the enemy still in force towards the river, 
 ordered the army to form on the plank-road above Chancellors- 
 ville, extending his line in a southeasterly direction down the 
 turnpike below Chancellorsville, with his centre resting about 
 
 39 
 
610 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 X 
 
 " the latter point. Just then, news was received tiat Sedgwick< 
 taking advantage of our weakness, had crossed the river at 
 Fredericksburg, driven Barksdale from the town, and occupied 
 Marye s hill, after capturing several pieces of the Washington 
 Artillery. It was also stated that Sedgwick was advancing up 
 the plank-road upon Lee s rear. This movement of the enemy 
 was all that saved Hooker from destruction. 
 
 The story of the reverse at Fredericksburg is easily told. 
 Our forces in defence of the line, commencing at Marye s hill 
 and terminating at Hamilton s crossing, consisted of Gen. 
 Barksdale s brigade and Gen. Early s division. Gen. Barks- 
 dale held the extreme left. His line had its beginning at a 
 point two hundred yards north of Marye s heights, and ex 
 tended a mile and a half to a point opposite the pontoon bridge 
 on the left of Mansfield. This brigade, on the morning of the 
 battle, did not exceed two thousand in numbers, rank and file, 
 and throughout the entire length of its line had no other sup 
 port than six pieces of the Washington Artillery, which were 
 posted on Marye s heights, and Read s battery, which was 
 placed in position on the hill to the left of Howison s house. 
 
 Against this position the enemy brought to bear the com 
 mand of Gibbins on the left flank, and about twenty thousand 
 of Sedg wick s corps. The first assault was made in front of 
 the stone wall, as in the case of last December, and was sig- 
 
 -nally repulsed. This was repeated three times, and on each 
 occasion the handful of men behind the wall, with shouts of 
 enthusiasm and deadly volleys, drove tack the assailants. The 
 first charge was made before sunrise, and the others in as rapid 
 succession as was possible after rallying and reinforcement. 
 About nine o clock in the morning the enemy adopted the ruse 
 of requesting a flag of truce, for the alleged purpose of carry 
 ing off the wounded, but for the real object of ascertaining our 
 force. The flag was granted, and thereby our insufficient de 
 fence was exposed, the bearer coming up on the left flank from 
 a direction whence our whole line was visible. Immediately 
 after the conclusion of the truce, the enemy reinforced their 
 front, and threw the whole of Gibbins division on our Jeft, de 
 fend 3d by the 21st Mississippi regiment alone, commanded by 
 Col. B. J. Humphreys. This regiment faced the advancing 
 host without quailing, and, after firing until but a few feet iu 
 
THE SECOND YEAH. 6H 
 
 (ervened between them and the foe, they clubbed muskets and 
 aiccessfully dashed back the front line of their assailants. The 
 enemy, by the force of overwhelming numbers, however, broke 
 through our line, and Marye s hill was flanked about eleven 
 o clock Sunday morning. 
 
 The turn which events had taken in front of Fredericksburg 
 made it necessary for Gen. Lee to arrest the pursuit of Hooker, 
 and caused him to send back to Fredericksburg the divisions of 
 Anderson and McLaws to check the advance of Sedgwick. 
 Gen. McLaws moved down the plank-road to reinforce Barks- 
 dale and Wilcox, the latter of whom had been observing 
 Banks ford, and who had been driven back to Salem Church. 
 McLaws reaching Salem Church in time to relieve Wilcox 
 from the pressure of overwhelming numbers, checked the ad 
 vance of Sedgwick, and drove him back, with great loss to both 
 parties, until night closed the conflict. 
 
 The enemy, however, was not yet defeated. One more 
 struggle remained, and to make that the enemy during the 
 night massed a heavy force against McLaws left in order to 
 establish communication with Hooker along the river road. 
 Anderson moved rapidly to the support of McLaws, and 
 reached the church about 12 M., having marched fifteen miles. 
 Gen. Lee having arrived on the field, ordered Anderson to 
 move round the church and establish his right on Early s left, 
 (Early having come up from Hamilton s crossing, in rear of 
 the enemy). The enemy having weakened his left in order to 
 force McLaws and gain the river road, Gen. Lee massed a 
 heavy force upon this weakened part of the enemy, and at a 
 concerted signal, Anderson and Early rushed upon the enemy s 
 left. 
 
 The signal for the general attack was not given until just 
 before sunset, when our men rushed upon the enemy like a 
 hurricane. But little resistance was made, the beaten foe hav 
 ing fled in wild confusion in the direction of Banks ford. At 
 dark a short pause ensued ; but as soon as the moon rose, the 
 enemy was speedily driven to Banks ford, and on that night 
 of the 4th of May ended this remarkable series of battles on 
 the lines of the Rappahannock. 
 
 The enemy being driven from every point around Freder- 
 jcksburg, Gen. Lee determined to make short work of Hookei 
 
612 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAB. 
 
 at United States ford. Therefore, Tuesday noon Anderson 
 was ordered to proceed immediately back to Chancellorsville, 
 while McLaws was instructed to take up his position in front 
 of United States ford, at or near the junction of the Old Mine 
 and River roads. But a drenching storm of wind and rain set 
 in and continued without cessation until Wednesday forenoon, 
 when it was discovered that Hooker, taking advantage of the 
 darkness and the storm, had also retreated across the river the 
 preceding night. 
 
 Our forces engaged in the fight did not exceed fifty thousand 
 men. The enemy s is variously estimated at from one hundred 
 thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. Yet the greater 
 gallantry of our troops, even despite the emergency into which 
 their commander had brought them, enabled him not only to 
 beat this immense army, but to capture several thousand pris 
 oners, thirty or forty thousand sma,H-arms, several stands of 
 colors, and an immense amount of personal property, and to 
 kill and wound some twenty-five thousand men. It was a glo 
 rious week s work.* 
 
 "We have not at present those lights before us necessary for 
 a just criticism of the military aspects of these battles of the 
 Eappahannock. They were undoubtedly a great victory for 
 the Confederacy. But there were two remarkable misfortunes 
 which diminished it. The breaking of our lines at Fredericks- 
 burg withdrew pursuit from Hooker. When thereupon our 
 
 * The army which accomplished this work was, according to the Yankee de 
 scription of it, a curiosity. Some of the military correspondence of the Yankee 
 journals was more candid than usual, and admitted a shameful defeat by the 
 " ragged rebels." One of these correspondents wrote : 
 
 "We had men enough, well enough equipped and well enough posted, to 
 have devoured the ragged, imperfectly armed and equipped host of our ene 
 mies from off the face of the earth. Their artillery horses are poor, starved- 
 frames of beasts, tied on to their carriages and caissons with odds and ends of 
 rope and strips of raw hide. Their supply and ammunition trains look like a 
 congregation of all the crippled California emigrant trains that ever escaped 
 off the desert out of the clutches of the rampaging Camanche Indians. The 
 men are ill-dressed, ill-equipped, and ill-provided a set of ragamuffins that a 
 man is ashamed to be seen among, even when he is a prisoner and can t help 
 it. And yet they have beaten us fairly, beaten us all to pieces, beaten us so 
 easily that we are objects of contempt even to their commonest private soldiers, 
 with no shirts to hang out of the holes in their pantaloons, and cartridge-boxen 
 tied round their waists with strands of rope." 
 

 
 L T CEN. T. J. JACKSO N. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. -613 
 
 forces were turned upon Sedgwick, a second misfortune robbed 
 us of a complete success ; for he managed to secure his retreat 
 by Banks ford, which exit might possibly have been cut off, 
 and the exclusion of which would have secured his surrender. 
 Of these events there is yet no official detail. 
 
 But a shadow greater than that of any partial misfortunes 
 on the field rested on the Confederate victory of Chancellors- 
 ville. It was the death of Gen. Jackson. This event is impor 
 tant enough to require, even in the contracted limits of these 
 supplementary pages, a separate title and a notice apart from 
 our general narrative. 
 
 THE DEATH OF "STONEWALL" JACKSON". 
 
 It was about eight o clock on Saturday evening, 2d of May, 
 when Gen. Jackson and his staff, who were returning on the front 
 of our line of skirmishers, were fired upon by a regiment of his 
 own corps, who mistook the party for the enemy. At the time 
 the general was only about fifty yards in advance of the enemy 
 He had given orders to fire at any thing coming up the road, 
 before he left the lines. The enemy s skirmishers appeared 
 ahead of him and he turned to ride back. Just then some one 
 cried out, " Cavalry ! charge !" and immediately the regiment 
 fired. The whole party broke forward to ride through our line 
 to escape the fire. Captain Boswell was killed and carried 
 through the line by his horse, and fell amid our own men. The 
 general himelf was struck by three balls : one through the left 
 arm, two inches below the shoulder joint, shattering the bone 
 and severing the chief artery ; another ball passed through the 
 same arm, between the elbow and wrist, making its exit through 
 the palm of the hand ; a third ball entered the palm of the right 
 hand about its middle, and passing through, broke two of the 
 bones. As Gen. Jackson was being borne from the field, one 
 of the litter-bearers was shot down, and the general fell from 
 the shoulders of the men. receiving a severe contusion, adding 
 to the injury of the arm, and injuring the side severely. Th 
 enemy s fire of artillery on the point was terrible. Gen. Jack 
 son was left for five minutes, until the fire slackened, then 
 placed in an ambulance and carried to the field hospital at 
 
614: SOUTHERN HISTORF OF THE WAR. 
 
 Wilderness Run. He lost a large amount of blood, and at one 
 time told Dr. McGuire he thought he was dying, and would 
 have bled to death, but a tourniquet was immediately applied. 
 For two hours he was nearly pulseless from the shock. 
 
 Amputation of the arm was decided upon, and the operation 
 was borne so well that hopes of a speedy recovery were confi 
 dently entertained. A few days had elapsed, and his physi 
 cians had decided to remove the distinguished sufferer to 
 Richmond, when symptoms of pneumonia were unfortunately 
 developed. The complication of this severe disease with his 
 wounds, left but little hope of his life, and on Sunday, the 
 eighth day of his suffering, it was apparent that he was rap 
 idly sinking, and he was informed that he was dying. The 
 intelligence was received with no expression of disappointment 
 or anxiety on the part of the dying hero ; his only responsb 
 was, "It is all right," which was repeated. He had pre 
 viously said that he considered his wounds " a blessing," aa 
 Providence had always a good design in whatever it ordained, 
 and to that Providence in which he had always trusted he 
 had committed himself with uninterrupted confidence. But 
 once he regretted his early fall, and that was with reference 
 to the immediate fortunes of the field. He said : " If I had 
 not been wounded, or had had an hour more of daylight, 
 I would have cut off the enemy from the road to the 
 United States ford, and we would have had them entirely 
 surrounded, and they would have been obliged to surrender or 
 cut their way out ; they ha<J no other alternative. My troops 
 sometimes may fail in driving the enemy from a position, but 
 the enemy always fail to drive my men from a position." This 
 was said with a sort of smiling playfulness. 
 
 The following account of the dying moments of the hero is 
 taken from the authentic testimony of a religious friend and 
 companion: 
 
 " He endeavored to cheer those who were around him. No 
 ticing the sadness of his beloved wife, he said to her tenderly, 
 4 1 know you would gladly give your life for me, but I am per 
 fectly resigned. Do not be sad I hope I shall recover. Pray 
 for me, but always remember in your prayer, to use the peti 
 tion, Thy will be done. Those who were around him noticed 
 a remarkable development of tenderness in his manner and 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 615 
 
 feelings during Ins illness, that was a beautiful mellowing oi 
 that iron sternness and imperturbable calm that characterized 
 him in his military operations. Advising his wife, in th 
 event of his death, to return to her father s house, he remarked, 
 i You have a kind and good father ; but there is no one so kind 
 and good as your Heavenly Father. When she told him that 
 the doctors did not think he could live two hours, although he 
 did not himself expect to die, he replied, It will be infinite 
 gain to be translated to Heaven and be with Jesus. He theu 
 said he had much to say to her, but was too weak. 
 
 " He had always desired to die, if it were God s will, on the 
 Sabbath, and seemed to greet its light that day with peculiar 
 pleasure, saying, with evident delight, It is the Lord s day; 
 and inquired anxiously what provision had been made for 
 preaching to the army ; and having ascertained that arrange 
 ments were made, he was contented. Delirium, which occa 
 sionally manifested itself during the last two days, prevented 
 some of the utterances of his faith, which would otherwise 
 have doubtless been made. His thoughts vibrated between 
 religious subjects and the battle-field; now asking some ques 
 tions about the Bible, or church history, and then giving an 
 order Pass the infantry to the front. Tell Major Hawks 
 to send forward provisions to the men. Let us cross over the 
 river, and rest under the shade of the trees, until at last his 
 gallant spirit gently passed over the dark river and entered on 
 its rest." 
 
 It is not proposed here, nor could space be found within the 
 limits of a supplementary chapter to make a record of the life 
 and services of Gen. Jackson. A very brief sketch is all that 
 is possible ; and indeed it is scarcely necessary to do more, as 
 so much of his military life is already spread on the pages of 
 this volume and intermixed with th^ general narrative of the 
 war. 
 
 Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born in Harrison county. 
 Virginia, in 1825, and graduated at West Point in 18-16. His 
 first military services were in the Mexican war, and he behaved 
 so well that he was breveted major for his services. The Army 
 Register and the actual history and facts of the Mexican war 
 do not furnish the name of another person entering the war 
 without position or office, who attained the high rank of major 
 
616 SOUTHERN HISTORY of THE WAR. 
 
 in the brief campaign and series of battles from Yera Cruz tc 
 the city of Mexico 
 
 At the close of the Mexican war Jackson resigned his posi 
 tion in the army, and obtained a professorship in the Virginia 
 Military. Institute. His services were not conspicuous here. 
 Col. Gilharn was considered as the military genius of the 
 school, and Thomas Jackson was but little thought of by the 
 small hero-worshippers of Lexington. The cadets had but 
 little partiality for the taciturn, praying professor. 
 
 Perhaps none of the acquaintances of Jackson were more 
 surprised at his brilliant exhibitions of genius in this war, than 
 those who knew his blank life at the Institute, and were familiar 
 with the stiff and uninteresting figure that was to be seen every 
 Sunday in a pew of the Presbyterian Church at Lexington. But 
 true genius awaits occasion commensurate with its power and 
 aspiration. The spirit of Jackson was trained in another school 
 than that of West Point or Lexington, and had it been confined 
 there, it never would have illuminated the page of history. 
 
 In the early periods of the war, Jackson, commissioned colonel 
 by the Governor of Virginia, was attached to Gen. Johnston s 
 command, on the Upper Potomac. At Falling Waters, on the 
 2d of July, 1861, he engaged the advance of Patterson, and 
 gave the Yankees one of the first exemplifications" of his ready- 
 witted strategy ; as Patterson never knew that, for several hours, 
 he was fighting an insignificant force, skilfully disposed to con 
 ceal their weakness, while Johnston was making his dispositions 
 in the rear. 
 
 The first conspicuous services of Jackson in this war were 
 rendered at Manassas, in 1861 ; although the marks of active 
 determination he had shown on the Upper Potomac, and the 
 affair at Falling Waters, had already secured for him promo 
 tion to a brigadier-generalship. The author recollects some 
 paragraphs in a Southern newspaper expressing great merri 
 ment at the first apparition of the future hero on the battle 
 field. His queer figure on horseback, and the habit of settling 
 his chin in his stock, were very amusing to some correspond 
 ents, who made a flippant jest in some of the Southern news 
 papers of the military specimen of the Old Dominion. The 
 jent ia forgiven and forgotten in the tributes of admiration and 
 ] -rs "Ariiich were to ensue to the popular hero of the war. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 617 
 
 / 
 
 We have already given in another part of this work (the 
 first volume), an account of the remarkable expedition of Jack 
 son in the depth of the winter of 1861-2, to Winchester, where 
 he had been sent from Gen. Johnston s lines. The expedition 
 was successful, and the inarch was made through an almost 
 blinding storm of snow and sleet, our troops bivouacking at 
 night in the forest, where many died from cold and exhaustion. 
 
 Without doubt, the most brilliant and extraordinary passages 
 in the military life of General Jackson was the ever famous 
 campaign of the summer of 1862 in the Valley of Virginia. 
 From the valley he reached by rapid marches the lines of the 
 Chickahominy in time to play a conspicuous part in the splen 
 did conclusion of the campaign of the Peninsula. 
 
 Since the battles of the Chickahominy, the military services 
 of General Jackson are comparatively fresh in the recollections 
 of the public. We have already seen in these pages that the 
 most substantial achievements and brilliant successes of last 
 Bummer s campaign in Virginia are to be attributed to him. 
 
 The participation of Jackson in the campaign of Maryland, 
 and that of the Rappahannock, shared their glory, but without 
 occasion for observation on those distinct and independent 
 movements which were his forte, and for the display of which 
 he had room in the valley .campaign, and that against Pope. 
 
 The most noble testimony of the services of the departed 
 hero in the battle of Chancellorsville is to be found in the note 
 of Gen. Lee, which is characteristic of his own generosity and 
 worth. Gen. Lee wrote him : 
 
 " General : I have just received your note informing me 
 that you were wounded. I cannot express my regret at the 
 occurrence. Could I have dictated events, I should have chosen 
 for the good of the country to have been disabled in your 
 stead. 
 
 " I congratulate you upon the victory which is due to your 
 skill and energy." 
 
 Jackson s response to his attendants on hearing the note read 
 is said to have been, " Gen. Lee should give the glory to God." 
 It was an expression of his modesty and reverence. 
 
 A friend relates that a few nights before this battle, an 
 equally characteristic incident occurred that is w^-fhy of 
 
618 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 record. lie was discussing with one of his aids the proba 
 bility and issue of a battle, when he became unusually excited, 
 After talking it over fully, he paused, and with deep humility 
 and reverence said, " My trust is in God ;" then, as if the 
 sound of battle was in his ear, he raised himself to his tallest 
 stature, and, with flashing eyes and a face all blazoned with the 
 fire- of the conflict, he exclaimed, " I wish they would come." 
 
 A strong religious sentiment combined with practical energy, 
 and an apparent dash of purpose qualified by the silent calcu 
 lations of genius, were the remarkable traits of the character 
 of Jackson. It was his humble Christian faith combined with 
 the spirit of the warrior that made that rare and lofty type of 
 martial prowess that has shrined Jackson among the great 
 heroes of the age. 
 
 From all parts of the living world have come tributes to his 
 fame. " He was," says the London Times, " one of the most 
 consummate generals that this century has produced. . . . 
 That mixture of daring and judgment, which is the mark oi 
 Heaven-born generals, distinguished him beyond any man 
 of his time. Although the young Confederacy has been 
 illustrated by a number of eminent soldiers, yet the applause 
 and devotion of his countrymen, confirmed by the judgment 
 of European nations, have given the first place to Gen. Jack 
 son. The military feats he accomplished moved the minds of 
 the people with astonishment, which it is only given to the 
 highest genius to produce. The blows lie struck at the enemy 
 were as terrible and decisive as those of Bonaparte himself." 
 
 It is proposed already that the State of Virginia shall build 
 for him a stately tomb, and strike a medal to secure the 
 memory of his name. These expressions of a nation s grati 
 tude may serve its own pleasure. But otherwise they are un 
 necessary. 
 
 " Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 
 What need st thou such weak witness of thy name !" 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 
 
 CHAFTEE XXV. 
 
 A Period of Disasters. DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Granfa March upon 
 Vicksbnrg. Its Steps and Incidents. The Engagement of Port Gibson. The Evacu 
 ation of Jackson. The Battle of Baker s Creek. Pemberton s Declarations as to tha 
 Defence of Vicksburg. A grand Assault upon the "Heroic City." Its Repulse. 
 The Final Surrender of Vicksburff.Row the Public Mind of the South was shocked. 
 Consequences of the Disaster. How it involved affairs on the Lower Mississippi. 
 Other Theatres of the War. THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MAINLAND. 
 Hooker manoeuvred oat of Virginia. The Recapture of Winchester. The Second 
 Invasion of the Northern Territory. The Alarm of the North. Gen. Lee s object ia 
 the Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania. His Essays at Conciliation. The Er 
 ror of such Policy. The advance of his Lines into Pennsylvania. The Battle ol 
 Gettysburg. The Three Days Engagements. Death of Barksdale. Pickett s splen 
 did Charge on the Batteries. Repulse of the Confederates. Anxiety and Alarm in 
 Richmond. Lee s sate Retreat into Virginia. Mystery of his Movement. Recovery 
 
 of the Confidence of the South Review of the Present Aspects of th a 
 
 War. Comparison between the Disasters of 1862 and those of 1863. The Vitals of 
 the Confederacy yet untouched. Review of the Civil Administration. President 
 Davis, his Cabinet, and his Favorites. His private Quarrels. His Deference to Euro 
 pean Opinion. Decline of the Finances of the Confederacy. Reasons of their Decline. 
 The Confederate Brokers. The Blockade Runners. The Disaffections of Property- 
 holders. The Spirit of the Army. The Moral Resolution of the Confederacy. How 
 the Enemy has strengthened it. The Prospects of the Future. 
 
 WE find it necessary to give another chapter to the exten 
 sion of our narrative beyond its appropriate limit. We shall 
 proceed rapidly with a general reference to such events as may 
 exhibit the condition of the Confederacy at the time of this 
 writing, reserving details for another volume that will properly 
 cover the period of the third year of the War. That year has 
 opened with disasters, at which we can now glance only im 
 perfectly, for upon them the lights of time have scarcely yet 
 developed. 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 As the attention of the reader returns to the busy scenes of 
 the war, it is taken by one of those sudden translations, so 
 common in this history, from Virginia to the distant theatres 
 of the West. The smoke of battle yet lingered on the Ilappa 
 kj when the attention of the public was suddenly drawn to 
 
or i in K\ msTOKY VN Tin.:. \v \K 
 
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 bloxv \vowM ho $trnok, o- --.ohahlo *vi\jwtim> of 
 
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TJIK IfJCOfD ITrfAlt 
 
 
 
 
 
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 f >ok portion of Jii 
 
 Gen* Johnaion wa i/ 
 
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622 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAE. 
 
 but still glorious little army. The unfortunate commander ap* 
 peased the clamor against himself by an apparently noble can 
 dor and memorable words of heroism. He said that it had 
 been declared that he would sell Yieksburg, and exhorted hia 
 soldiers to follow him to see the price at which he would sell 
 it for it would not be less than his own life and that of every 
 man in his command. Those words were not idle utterances ; 
 they deserve to be commemorated ; they were heroic only in 
 proportion as they were fulfilled and translated into action. 
 
 The events of the 19th, 20th, and 21st of May wearied the 
 Yankees, who imagined that they saw in their grasp the palm 
 of the Mississippi. So fully assured were they of victory, that 
 they postponed it from day to day. To storm the works was 
 to take Yicksburg, in their opinion ; and when it was known, 
 on the morning of the 21st, that at ten o clock next morning 
 the whole line of Confederate works would be assaulted, the 
 credulous and vain enemy accounted success so certain that it 
 was already given to the wings of the telegraph. 
 
 Indeed, there is no doubt that at one hour of this famous 
 day, McClernand, the Yankee general who made the assault 
 on the left, sent a dispatch to Grant that he had taken three 
 forts, and would soon be in possession of the city. But the 
 success was a deceitful one. The redoubts carried by the en 
 emy brought him within the pale of a devouring fire. At every 
 point he was repulsed ; and with reference to completeness ot 
 victory, exhibitions of a devoted courage, and the carnage ac 
 complished in the ranks of the enemy, these battles of Yicks- 
 Durg must be accounted among the most famous in the annals 
 of the war. 
 
 But despite the discouragements of the repulse, there still 
 remained to the enemy the prospects of a siege under circum 
 stances of peculiar and extraordinary advantage. Although 
 Grant s attack was made from Grand Gulf, that place was not 
 long his base; and when he gained Haines Bluff and the 
 Yazoo, all communication with it was abandoned. He was 
 enabled to rely on Memphis and the river above Yicksburg for 
 food and reinforcements ; his communications were open with 
 the entire "West; and the Northern newspapers urgently de 
 manded that the utmost support should be given to a favorite 
 
THE SECOND YEAH. 023 
 
 general, and that the Trans-Mississippi should be sti ipped 01 
 troops to supply him with reinforcements. 
 
 But the South still entertained hopes of the safety of Ticks- 
 burg. It was stated in Richmond by those who should have 
 been well informed, that the garrison numbered considerably 
 more than twenty thousand men, and was provisioned for a 
 siege of six months. Nearly every day the telegraph had 
 some extravagance to tell concerning the supreme safety oi 
 Yicksburg and the confidence of the garrison. The heroic 
 promise of Pernberton that the city should not fall until, the 
 last man had fallen in the last ditch was called to the popular 
 remembrance. The confidence of the South was swollen even 
 to insolence by these causes ; and although a few of the intel 
 ligent doubted the extravagant assurances of the safety of 
 Yicksburg, the people at large received them with an unhesi 
 tating and exultant faith. 
 
 Under these circumstances the -surprise and consternation of 
 the people of the South may be imagined, when, without the 
 least premonition, the announcement came that the select an 
 niversary of the Fourth of July had been signalized by the 
 capitulation of Yicksburg, without a fight; the surrender of 
 twenty odd thousand troops as prisoners ; and the abandon 
 ment to the Yankees of one of the greatest prizes of artillery 
 that had yet been made in the war. The news fell upon Rich 
 mond like a thunder-clap from clear skies. The day of our 
 humiliation at Yicksburg had been ill-selected. But it was 
 said that Gen. Pemberton was advised that the enemy intended 
 to make a formidable assault on the next day, and that he was 
 unwilling to await it with an enfeebled garrison, many of whom 
 were too weak to bear arms in their hands. The condition of 
 the garrison, although certainly not as extreme as that which 
 Pemberton had heroically prefigured as the alternative of sur 
 render, and although holding no honorable comparison with 
 the amount of privation and suffering borne in other sieges re 
 corded in history, was yet deplorable. Our troops had suffered 
 more froih exhausting labors than from hunger; and their 
 spirit had been distressed by the melancholy isolation of a siege 
 in which they were cut off from communication with their 
 homes, and perhaps by other causes which are not now cer 
 tainly known. Patience is not s, virtue of Southern soldiers, 
 
624 SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and for it at least the garrison of Yicksburg will not be con 
 spicuous in history. 
 
 It is not possible at this time to determine the consequences 
 of the fall of Yicksburg. That it was the ostensible key to a 
 vast amount of disputed territory in the West, and that it in 
 volved a network of important positions, were universally ad 
 mitted in the South. But this estimate of its importance is 
 intricate and uncertain, and awaits the development of events. 
 The army of Johnston was saved, instead of being risked in 
 an attack on Grant s rear at Yicksburg, and is still disputing 
 the enemy s encroachments in the Southwest. We must leave 
 its movements to more convenient and future narration. 
 
 But we must recognize the fact of various disasters which 
 have immediately ensued from the fall of Yicksburg. It com 
 pelled the surrender of Port Hudson as its necessary conse 
 quence.* It neutralized in a great measure a remarkable series 
 
 * The fall of Port Hudson did not take place until after a prolonged and gal- 
 ant resistance, the facts of which may be briefly commemorated here. On the 
 morning of the 22d of May, the enemy, under command of Gen. Banks, pushed 
 his infantry forward within a mile of our breastworks. Having taken his posi 
 tion for the investment of our works, he advanced with his whole force against 
 the breastworks, directing his main attack against the left, commanded by Col. 
 Steadman. Vigorous assaults were also made against the extreme left of Col. 
 Miles and Gen. Beale, the former of whom commanded on the centre, the latter 
 on the right. On the left the attack was made by a brigade of negroes, com 
 posing about three regiments, together with the same force of white Yankees 
 across a bridge which had been built over Sandy creek. About five hundred 
 negroes in front advanced at double-quick within one hundred and fifty yards 
 of the works, when the artillery on the river bluff, and two light pieces on our 
 left, opened upon them, and at the same time they were received with volleys 
 of musketry. The negroes fled every way in perfect con usion, and, according 
 to the enemy s report, six hundred of them perished. The repulse on Miles 
 left was decisive. 
 
 On the 13th of June a communication was received from Gen. Banks, de 
 manding the unconditional surrender of the post. He complimented the gar 
 rison in high terms for their endurance. He stated that his artillery was equal 
 to any in extent and efficiency ; that his men outnumbered ours five to one, 
 and that he demanded the surrender in the name of humanity, to prevent a 
 useless sacrifice of life. Gen. Gardner replied that his duty required him to de 
 fjnd the post, and he must refuse to entertain any such proposition. 
 
 On the morning of the 14th, just before day, the fleet and all the land oat- 
 teries, which the enemy had succeeded in erecting at one hundred to three hun 
 dred yards from our breastworks, opened fire at the same time. About day 
 light, under cover of the smoke, the enemy advanced along the whole line, and 
 
THE SECOND .YEAR. 625 
 
 of successes on the Lower Mississippi, including the victory of 
 Gen. Taylor at Ashland, Louisiana, which broke one of the 
 points of investment around Yicksburg, and his still more 
 glorious achievement in the capture of Brashear City. The 
 defence of the cherished citadel of the Mississippi had involved 
 exposure and weakness in other quarters. It had almost strip 
 ped Charleston of troops ; it had taken many thousand men 
 from Bragg s army ; and it had made such requisitions on his 
 force for the newly organized lines in Mississippi, that that 
 general was compelled or induced, wisely or unwisely, to fall 
 back from Tullahoma, to give up the country on the Memphis 
 and Charleston railroad, and practically to abandon the de 
 fence of Middle Tennessee. 
 
 While people in Richmond were discussing the story of 
 Yicksburg, the grief and anxiety of that disaster were sud 
 denly -swallowed up by what was thought to be even more 
 
 in many places approached within ten feet of onr works. Our brave soldier* 
 were wide awake, and, opening upon them, drove them back in confusion, a 
 great number of them being left dead in the ditches. One entire division and 
 a brigade were ordered to charge the position of the 1st Mississippi and the 9th 
 Alabama, and by the mere physical pressure of numbers some of them got 
 within the works, but all these were immediately killed. After a sharp con 
 test of two hours, the enemy were everywhere repulsed, and withdrew to their 
 old lines. 
 
 During the remainder of the month of June, there was heavy skirmishing 
 daily, with constant firing night and day from the gun and mortar boats. Du 
 ring the siege of six weeks, from May 27th to July 7th, inclusive, the enemy 
 must have fired from fifty to seventy-five thousand shot and shell, yet not more 
 than twenty-five men were killed by these projectiles. They had worse dangers 
 than these to contend against. 
 
 About the 29th or 30th of June, the garrison s supply of meat gave out, when 
 Gen. Gardner ordered the mules to be butchered, after ascertaining that the 
 men were willing to eat them. At the same time the supply of ammunition 
 was becoming exhausted, and at the time of the surrender there were only 
 twenty rounds of cartridges left, with a small supply for artillery 
 
 On Tuesday, July 7th, salutes were fired from the enemy s batteries and gun 
 boats, and loud cheering was heard along the entire line, and Yankees who 
 were in conversing distance of our men told them that Vicksburg had fallen. 
 That night about ten o clock Gen. Gardner summoned a council of war, who, 
 without exception, decided that it was impossible to hold out longer, consider 
 ing that the provisions of the garrison were exhausted, the ammunition almost 
 expended, ard a large proportion of the men sick or so exhausted as to be unfit 
 for duty. The surrender was accomplished on the morning of the 9th. The 
 number of the garrison which ejirrendered was between fiveand^six thousand, 
 of whom not more than half were effective men for duty. 
 
 40 
 
626 % SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 painful news from the army of Gen. Lee. For once it appeared 
 to the popular imagination that a great disaster in the West 
 had a companion in the East. The fall of Yicksburg was pre 
 ceded but one day by the battle of Gettysburg. To that bat 
 tle-field we must translate the reader by a very rapid summary 
 of the operations which led to it. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 By a series of rapid movements, Gen. Lee had succeeded 
 in manoeuvring Hooker out of Yirginia. On the extreme left, 
 Jenkins with his cavalry, began the movement by threatening 
 Milroy at Winchester, while, under the dust of Stuart s noisy 
 cavalry reviews, designed to engage the attention of the ene 
 my, Swell s infantry marched into the valley by way of Front 
 Royal. Advancing by rapid marches across the Blue Eidge, 
 Gen. Ewell, the successor to Jackson s command, fell like a 
 thunder-bolt upon .Milroy at Winchester and Martinsburg, 
 capturing the greater part of his forces, many guns, and heavy 
 supplies of grain, ammunition, and other military stores. The 
 Yankees own account of their disaster indicated the magni 
 tude of our success. The New York Herald declared, u not a 
 thing was saved except that which was worn or carried upon 
 the persons of the troops. Three entire batteries of field artil 
 lery and one battery of siege guns all the artillery of the 
 command, in fact about two hundred and eighty wagons, 
 over twelve hundred horses and mules, all the commissary 
 and quartermaster s stores, and ammunition of all. kinds, over 
 six thousand muskets and small arms without stint, the private 
 baggage of the officers and men, all fell into the hands of the 
 enemy. Of the seven thousand men of the command, but 
 from sixteen hundred to. two thousand have as yet arrived 
 here, leaving to be accounted for five thousand men." 
 
 After accomplishing his victory at Winchester, Gen. Ewell 
 moved promptly up to the Potomac, and occupied such fords 
 as we might desire to use, in the event it should be deemed 
 proper to advance into the enemy s country. The sudden ap 
 pearance of Ewell in the valley of the Shenandoah, coupled 
 with the demonstration at Culpepper, made it necessary for 
 Hooker to Abandon Fredericksburg entirely, and to occupy the 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 627 
 
 strong positions at Centreville and Manassas, so as to inter 
 pose his army between us and Washington, and thus prevent 
 a sudden descent from the Blue Ridge by Gen. Lee upon the 
 Yankee capital. Meanwhile, Longstreet and Hill were follow 
 ing fast upon Ewell s track, the former reaching Ashby s and 
 Snicker s Gaps in time to prevent any movement upon Ewell s 
 rear, and the latter (Hill) getting to Culpepper in good season 
 to protect Longstreet s rear, or to co-operate with him in the 
 event of an attack upon his flank, or to guard against any de 
 monstration in the direction of Richmond. 
 
 Having gained over the Yankee commander the important 
 advantage of the military initiative, and firmly established his 
 communications in the rear of his base of operations on the 
 other side of the Potomac, Gen. Lee was in a position to hurl 
 his forces wherever he might desire ; and it was soon announced 
 in the North that Hooker had declined a battle in Virginia, 
 and that the second invasion of the Northern territory had 
 been commenced by the Confederates under auspices that had 
 not attended the first. It was soon known that the light horse 
 men of Lee had appeared upon his war path in the southern 
 region of Pennsylvania. For weeks the dashing and adventu 
 rous cavalry of Jenkins and Imboden were persistently busy in 
 scouring the country between the Susquehannah and the Alle- 
 ghanies, the Mouocacy and the Potomac, and from the lines 
 before Harrisburg to the very gates of Washington and Balti 
 more their trumpets had sounded. 
 
 The North was thrown into paroxysms of terror. At the 
 first news of the invasion, Lincoln had called for a hundred 
 thousand men to defend Washington. Governor Andrews of 
 fered the whole military strength of Massachusetts in the ter 
 rible crisis. Governor Seymour of New York, summoned 
 McClellan to grave consultations respecting the defences oi 
 Pennsylvania. The bells were set to ringing in Brooklyn. 
 Regiment after regiment was sent off from New York to Phil 
 adelphia. The famous Seventh regiment took the field and 
 proceeded to Harrisburg. The Dutch farmers in the valley 
 drove their cattle to the mountains, and the archives were re 
 moved from Harrisburg. 
 
 Nor did the alarm exceed the occasion for it. It was obvi 
 ous to the intelligent in the North that their army of the Po- 
 
SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tomac was the only real obstacle which could impede the 
 triumphant march of the army of Lee into the very heart of 
 the Yankee States, and in whatever direction he might choose 
 to push his campaign. The press attempted some ridiculous 
 comfort by writing vaguely of thousands of militia springing 
 to arms. But the history of modern warfare afforded better 
 instruction, for it taught clearly enough that an invading army 
 of regular and victorious troops could only be effectively 
 checked by the resistance of a similar army in the field, or of 
 fortified places strong enough to compel a regular siege. In 
 certain circumstances, a single battle had often decided the 
 fate of a long war ; and the South easily indulging the pros 
 pect of the defeat of Hooker s forces, was elated with renewed 
 anticipations of an early peace. 
 
 While the destruction of Hooker s army was the paramount 
 object of Gen. Lee s campaign, he had unfortunately fallen 
 into the error of attempting to conciliate the people of the 
 North and to court the opinions of Europe by forswearing all 
 acts of retaliation and omitting even the devastation of the 
 enemy s country. The fertile acres of the Pennsylvania valley 
 were untouched by violent hands ; all requisitions for supplies 
 were paid for in Confederate money ; and a protection was given 
 to the private property of the enemy, which had never been 
 afforded even to that of our own citizens. So far as the orders 
 of Gen. Lee on these subjects restrained pillage and private 
 outrage, they were sustained by public sentiment in the South, 
 which, in fact, never desired that we should retaliate upon the 
 Yankees by a precise imitation of their enormities and crimes. 
 But jetaliation is not only the work of pillagers and marauders. 
 Its ends might have been accomplished, as far as the people of 
 the South desired, by inflicting upon the enemy some injury 
 commensurate with what they had suffered at his hands; the 
 smallest measure of which would have been the devastation of 
 the country, which, done by our army in line of battle, would 
 neither have risked demoralization nor detracted from disci 
 pline. Such a return for the outrages which the South had 
 Buffered from invading hordes of the Yankees, would in fact 
 have been short of justice, and so far have possessed the merit 
 of magnanimity. But Gen. Lee was resolved on more exces 
 sive magnanimity ; and at the time the Yankee armies, par- 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 629 
 
 dcularly in the Southwestern portion of the Confederacy, were 
 enacting outrages which recalled the darkest days of mediaeval 
 warfare, our forces in the Pennsylvania valley were protecting 
 the private property of Yankees, composing their alarm, and 
 making a display of stilted chivalry to the amusement of the 
 Dutch farmers and to the intense disgust of our own people.* 
 
 If Gen. Lee had supposed that his moderate warfare would 
 conciliate the Yankees, he was greatly mistaken ; for it is pre 
 cisely this warfare which irritates a people without intimidat 
 ing them. The simple object of his campaign appears to have 
 been the defeat of Hooker, which would uncover Washington 
 and Baltimore. The critical conjuncture which had been so long 
 sought was the battle of Gettysburg. 
 
 We must spare here many of the details of those movements 
 which brought the two armies in contact, and trust ourselves 
 to a brief and general account of this great engagement in 
 Pennsylvania, followed, as it is, by a rapid current of events 
 there and elsewhere. 
 
 * A letter from our lines in Mississippi thus describes the outrages of the 
 enemy there, which were cotemporary with Lee s civilities in Pennsylvania : 
 
 " I thought the condition of Northern Mississippi, and the country around 
 my own home in Memphis, deplorable. There robberies were committed, 
 houses were burned, and occasionally a helpless man or woman was murdered ; 
 but here, around Jackson and Vicksburg, there are no terms used in all the 
 calendar of crimes which could convey any adequate conception of the revolt 
 ing enormities perpetrated by our foes. Women have been robbed of their 
 jewelry and wearing apparel stripped almost to nakedness in the presence ot 
 jeering Dutch ; ear-rings have been torn from their ears, and rings from bleed 
 ing fingers. Every houee has been pillaged, and thousands burned. The 
 whole country between the Big Black and the Mississippi, and all that district 
 through which Grant s army passed, is one endless scene of desolation. This 
 is not the worst ; robbery and murder are surely bad enough, but worse than 
 all this, women have been subjected to enormities worse than death. 
 
 " Negroes, men and women, who can leave their homes, are forced or enticed 
 away. The children alone are left. Barns and all descriptions of farmhouses 
 have been burned. All supplies, bacon and flour, are seized for the use of the 
 invading army, and the wretched inhabitants left to starve. The roads along 
 which Grant s army has moved, are strewn with all descriptions of furniture, 
 wearing apparel, and private property. In many instances husbands have been 
 arrested and threatened with instant death by the hangman s rope, in order to 
 make their wives reveal the places of concealment of their valuable effects. 
 The poor women are made to ransom their sons, daughters, and husbands. Th* 
 worst slaves are selected to insult, taunt and revile their masters, and the wive* 
 and daughters of their masters." 
 
G30 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 Having crossed the Potomac at or near Willia*naport, the 
 Confederates marched to Hagerstown, to Greencastle, and 
 thence to Chambersburg. Ewell, who held the advance, went 
 as far as Carlisle, some twelve miles from Harrisburg. Mean 
 while, Hooker, having withdrawn his forces from Stafford, 
 moved to and across the Potomac, and took up a line extend 
 ing from "Washington to Baltimore, expecting Gen. Lee to offer 
 him battle in Maryland. Finding himself disappointed in this, 
 and compelled by pride or by his superiors, he relinquished 
 his command to Mead, who> finding out that Lee had deflected 
 in his march through Pennsylvania, and was moving down the 
 Baltimore turnpike from Chambersburg, moved from Balti 
 more on the same road to meet him. The two armies which 
 had ceased to confront each other since the breaking up of the 
 Fredericksburg lines, found themselves again face to face near 
 Gettysburg, on Wednesday, July 1st. 
 
 The action of the 1st July was brought on by Gen. Reynolds, 
 who held the enemy s advance, and who thought himself in 
 superior force to the Confederates. He paid the penalty ot 
 his temerity by a defeat ; he was overpowere4 and outflanked, 
 and fell mortally wounded on the field. 
 
 In this fight the corps of A. P. Hill was generally engaged ; 
 but, about one hour after its opening, Gen. Ewell, who was 
 moving from the direction of Carlisle, came up and took a po 
 sition on our extreme left. Two divisions of this corps, Rhodes 
 and Early s, advanced upon and engaged the enemy in front. 
 Longstreet, who was not engaged in the fight of the first day, 
 swung around his column to A. P. Hill s right, but did not 
 take position for action until Thursday morning. The result 
 of the first day was that the enemy was repulsed at all points 
 of the line engaged, and driven over the range of hills to the 
 south of Gettysburg, through the town and about half a mile 
 beyond. At this point is a mountain which commands the 
 ground in front for a mile on all sides. This the enemy re 
 treated to after their repulse, and immediately fortified, their 
 line occupying the mountain, and extending on the right and 
 Jeftofit. 
 
 The early part of Thursday, the 22d of July, wore away 
 without any positive demonstration of attack on either side. 
 Late in the afternoon an artillery attack was made by our 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 631 
 
 forces on the left and centre of the enemy, which was rapidly 
 followed by the advance of our infantry, Longstreet s corps on 
 our side being principally engaged. A fearful but indecisive 
 conflict ensued, and for four hours the sound of musketry was 
 incessant. In the fight we lost a number of officers, among 
 them Gen. Barksdale of Mississippi, whose brave and generous 
 spirit expired, where he preferred to die, on the ensanguined 
 field of battle. Of this " haughty rebel," who had fallen within 
 their lines, the Yankees told with devilish satisfaction the story 
 that his end was that of extreme agony, and his last words 
 were to crave as a dying boon a cup of water and a stretcher 
 from an ambulance boy. The letter of a Yankee officer testi 
 fies that the brave and suffering hero declared with his last 
 breath that he was proud of the cause he died fighting for ; 
 proud of the manner in which he received his death ; and con 
 fldent that his countrymen were invincible. 
 
 The third day s battle was commenced by the Confederates. 
 The enemy s position on the mountain was apparently impreg 
 nable, for there was no conceivable advance or approach that 
 could not be raked and crossed with the artillery. The reserve 
 artillery and all the essentials to insure victory to the Yankees 
 were in position at the right time. All the heights and every 
 advantageous position along the entire line where artillery 
 could be massed or a battery planted, frowned down on the 
 Confederates through brows of brass and iron. On the slopes 
 of this mountain occurred one of the most terrific combats of 
 modern times, in which three hundred cannon were belching 
 forth their thunders at one time, and nearly two hundred 
 thousand muskets were being discharged as rapidly as men 
 hurried with excitement and passion could load them. 
 
 The battle of Friday had commenced early in the morning. 
 With the exception from ten o clock in the morning to one in 
 the afternoon, it lasted all day. The Confederates did not suc 
 ceed in holding any of the crests, although one or two were 
 reached ; and night again closed on the smoke- wrapped field. 
 
 The most glorious incident of Gettysburg, and the one upon 
 which the eye of history will beam, was the charge of our 
 devoted men upon the deadly heights where turned the tide of 
 battle. The principal stronghold of the enemy was known aa 
 McPherson s heights, where his centre rested. In Thursday s 
 
032 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 light this important position had for a short time been in pop 
 session of a single one of our brigades Wright s noble Geor 
 gians : who had charged it with the bayonet and captured the 
 heavy batteries on the crest, but were unable to hold it for 
 want of timely support. 
 
 In Friday s contest, a more formidable and elaborate attempt 
 was to be made to wrest from the enemy the crest which was 
 the key of his position. Pickett s division being in the ad 
 vance, was supported on the right by Wilson s brigade, and on 
 the left by Heth s division, commanded by Pettigrew. The 
 steady movement of Pickett s men into the tempest of fire and 
 steel, against a mountain bristling with guns, had nothing to 
 exceed it in sublimity on any of the battle-fields of the revolu 
 tion. Into the sheets of artillery fire advanced the unbroken 
 lines of our men. The devoted Confederates are struggling 
 not only against the enemy s artillery, but against a severe fire 
 from heavy masses of his infantry, posted behind a stone fence. 
 But nothing checks their advance ; they storm the fence, they 
 shoot the gunners, and Kemper s and Armistead s banners are 
 already planted on the enemy s works. 
 
 There is no doubt but that at this auspicious moment a 
 f -proper amount of support to Pickett would have secured his 
 . position, and carried the fortunes of the day. But that sup- 
 ; port was not at hand. Pettigrew s division had faltered, and 
 \ tlial gallant commander in vain strove to rally the raw troops. 
 In, -the mean time, the enemy had moved around strong flank 
 ing, bodies of infantry, and was rapidly gaining Pickett s rear. 
 With overwhelming numbers in our front, almost hemmed in 
 by the .enemy, the order is given to fall back. The retreating 
 line is pressed heavily. It does not give way ; but many noble 
 spirits .who had passed safely through the fiery ordeal of the 
 advance and charge, now fall on the right and on the left. 
 
 Iii this great battle, though unfavorable to us, the enemy s 
 loss probably exceeded our own, as the Yankees were closely 
 crowded on the hills, and devoured by our artillery fire. The 
 information of the enemy s loss is perhaps most accurately ob 
 tained .from the bulletin furnished by his Surgeon -general, 
 which stated that he had something over 12,000 Yankees 
 wounded Jiinder his control. Counting one killed for four 
 wounded,; and making some allowance for a large class of 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 633 
 
 wounded men who had not come under the control of the 
 official referred to, we are justified in stating the enemy s loss, 
 in casualties at Gettysburg, as somewhere between fifteen and 
 eighteen thousand. Our loss, slighter, by many thousands in 
 comparison, was yet frightful enough. On our side, Pickett s 
 division had been engaged in the hottest work of the day, and 
 the havoc in its ranks was appalling. Its losses on this day 
 are famous, and should be commemorated in detail. Every 
 brigadier in the division was killed or wounded. Out of 
 twenty-four regimental officers, only two escaped unhurt. The 
 colonels of five Virginia regiments were killed. The 9th Vir 
 ginia went in two hundred and fifty strong, and came out with 
 only thirty-eight men, while the equally gallant 19th rivalled 
 the terrible glory of such devoted courage. 
 
 The recoil at Gettysburg was fatal, not necessarily, but by 
 the course of events, to Geri. Lee s campaign ; and the return 
 of his army to its defensive lines in Virginia, was justly re 
 garded in the South as a reverse in the general fortunes of the 
 contest. Yet the immediate results of the battle of Gettys 
 burg must be declared to have been to a great extent negative. 
 The Confederates did not gain a victory, neither did the enemy. 
 The general story of the contest is simple. Lee had been 
 unable to prevent the enemy from taking the highlands, many 
 of them with very steep declivities, and nearly a mile in slope. 
 The battle was an effort of the Confederates to take those 
 heights. The .right flank, the left flank, the centre, were suc- 
 cessively the aim of determined and concentrated assaults. 
 The Yankee lines were broken and driven repeatedly. But 
 inexhaustible reserves, and a preponderant artillery, advan 
 tageously placed, saved them from rout. 
 
 The first news received in Kichmond of Gen. Lee s retreat 
 was from Yankee sources, which represented his army as a dis 
 organized mass of fugitives, unable to cross the Potomac on 
 account of recent floods, and at the mercy of an enemy im 
 mensely superior in numbers and flushed with victory. This 
 news and that of the fall of Vicksburg reached the Confeder 
 ate capital the same day. Twenty -four hours served to dash 
 the hope of an early peace, and to overcloud the horizon of the 
 war. The temptation of despair was again whispered to weak 
 minds. It was the second period of great disaster to the 
 
634 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 South, and renewed a grief similar to what had been expended 
 a year ago upon the sorrowful stories of Donelson and New 
 Orleans. 
 
 But happily in this instance the public despondency was of 
 short duration. A few days brought news from our lines, which 
 exploded the falsehoods of the Yankees, and assured the people 
 of the South that the engagements of Gettysburg had resulted 
 in worsting the enemy, in killing and wounding a number ex 
 ceeding our own, and in the capture of a large number of 
 prisoners. The public was yet further satisfied that the fall 
 ing back of our army, at least as far as Hagerstown, was a 
 movement dictated by general considerations of strategy and 
 prudence. It consoled itself that the subsequent retirement of 
 our forces into Virginia was the excess of safety ; and it found 
 reason for congratulation that the retreat of Lee to his old 
 lines was accomplished with a dexterity and success that foiled 
 the enemy, and disappointed the greater portion of his tri 
 umph. 
 
 But notwithstanding these causes of moderate thankfulness, 
 it must be confessed that the retreat from Hagerstown across 
 the Potomac was an inconsequence and a mystery to the intel 
 ligent public. Lee s position there was strong ; his force was 
 certainly adequate for another battle ; preparations were made 
 for aggressive movements; and in the midst of all came a 
 sudden renouncement of the campaign, and the retreat into 
 Virginia. The history of this untimely retreat -has not been 
 developed ; but there is one fact to assist the explanation of it, 
 and that is that the authorities at Richmond were much more 
 alarmed than Gen. Lee, and much less capable than the com 
 mander himself of judging the military situation from which 
 his army was recalled. The troops availed themselves of no 
 other refuge than that of their own soil ; they had not been 
 defeated or seriously worsted ; and so far the public had 
 its secondary wish for the safety of the army. But this did 
 not exclude mortification on the part of those who believed that 
 Gen. Lee had abandoned the enemy s territory, not as a conse 
 quence of defeat, but from the undue timidity or the arrogant 
 disposition of the authorities who controlled him. The grounds 
 of such a belief are not certainly stated; but its existence iu 
 che public mind is a fact to be recognized by the historian, and 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 635 
 
 to be determined by evidence, when time and occasion ehaL 
 
 produce it. 
 
 ######*##* 
 
 The check at Gettysburg and the fall of Yicksburg, which 
 we have seized upon as the prominent events of the summer o- 
 1863, and of which we hope hereafter, in another volume, to 
 give a more minute and faithful account, in connection with 
 many contemporary or closely consequent events, which are 
 here omitted, afford a natural pause in which we may well 
 review the events of the revolution, and speculate on its distant 
 or ultimate future. 
 
 The disasters to which we have briefly referred, although 
 considerable, were far from being desperate, and were scarcely 
 occasions of any serious alarm in the South, as to the ultimate 
 issue of the struggle. The military condition of the country 
 was certainly far better than at the former unhappy period of 
 the spring of 1862. Then our armies were feeble, and, in a 
 great measure, disorganized ; the conscription law had not gone 
 into operation, and our reduced forces were scattered along an 
 extended frontier. Now well-disciplined and seasoned armies 
 hold with compact forces the critical positions in the Confed 
 eracy. The loss of territory, .which in a European campaign, 
 where inland fortresses and great cities give convenient foot 
 holds to an invading army, would have been estimated as a 
 fatal disadvantage, had a very different signification in a war 
 between the two great American powers. Indeed it may be 
 said that the armies of our enemy scarcely did more than hold 
 the ground they stood upon, and that in a war now passing 
 into its third year, they had failed to touch the vitals of the 
 Confederacy. The temporary cession of large bodies of terri 
 tory to them, was really to their disadvantage in military re 
 spects ; for it occasioned the necessity of extending their lines 
 of communication, exposing their rear, and subjecting them 
 selves, on every side, to the dangers of a hostile country, where 
 there were no great fortresses or citadels to protect them. 
 
 But it must be confessed that there were to be found at this 
 time but few subjects of congratulation in the internal condi 
 tion of the Confederacy. The civil administration, in many oi 
 the departments, was ignorant, defective, and, in some in 
 stances, oppressive. The appendage of Congress might well 
 
636 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 have been dispensed with in our revolution, for it accomplished 
 nothing; all its legislation was patch-work, and its measures 
 but the weak echoes of the newspapers. The extraordinary 
 cabinet of Mr. Davis still survived as a ridiculous cipher ; for 
 its members never dared to raise their voices on any public 
 measure, or to assert their existence beyond signing their names 
 to certify the laws and orders of the government, or the will of 
 the President. 
 
 The military pragmatism of the President was his worst fail 
 ing. He had treated Price, among the earliest heroes of the 
 war, with cold and insolent neglect* He had constrained Gus- 
 tavus Smith to resign, and deprived the country of one of its 
 most brilliant generals. He had taken the unfair opportunity 
 of a sick furlough on the part of Beauregard, to deprive him 
 of his command in the West and give it to a favorite. He 
 had even attempted to put Jackson in leading-strings ; for it 
 was the Presidential order that set bounds to his famous Win 
 chester expedition, and that would have timidly recalled him 
 from his splendid campaign in the valley. Nor was this all. 
 There was reason to suppose that Lee s return from the terri 
 tory of the North was constrained by the views of the Execu 
 tive, and that the President, who had once defeated the cap 
 ture of Washington, by his interference at the first field ot 
 Manassas, had again repeated his intermeddling, removed a 
 decisive victory from the grasp of our army y and turned back 
 the war for years. 
 
 While such was the envious or ignorant interference of the 
 President with our most meritorious generals, he was not with 
 out favorites. While he quarrelled with such men as Price, 
 Beauregard, Gustavus Smith, and Johnston, he maintained 
 such favorites as Holmes, Heth, Lovell, and Pemberton. No 
 man was ever more sovereign in his likes and dislikes. Favor 
 ites were elevated to power, and the noblest spirits consigned 
 to obscurity by the fiat of a single man in the Confederacy, 
 and that man one of the strongest prejudices, the harshest ob- 
 ruinacy, and the most ungovernable fondness for parasites. 
 
 in this war Mr. Davis has evidently been anxious to appear 
 in .the eyes of Europe as the military genius of the Confederacy 
 a& well as the head of its civil administration. He has been 
 careless of public opinion at home. But this has been no proof 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 637 
 
 of stoicism or of greatness ; it has merely shown his conceit to 
 be in a different direction. This conceit has been that of 
 " provincialism" the courting of that second-hand public 
 opinion which is obtained from the politicians and journalists 
 of Europe ; the bane of political and civil society in the South. 
 No man of equal public station on this continent has ever 
 courted the opinions of Europe more assiduously than the 
 President of this Confederacy. The proclamations of the Ex 
 ecutive, the general orders of the army, the pronunciamentoes 
 of chivalry which have denied the rights of retaliation, bilked 
 the national conscience, and nursed a viperous enemy with the 
 milk of kindness, have all been composed with an eye to Eu 
 ropean effect. Compromises of dignity and self-respect have 
 been made to conciliate foreign nations. Consuls drawing their 
 exequaturs from the Washington government a standing dero 
 gation to the Confederacy which has received them have been 
 sheltered and endured here ; and Europe, which denies our 
 rights over our territory, has received at our hands the safety 
 of her citizens. 
 
 We have referred in other pages to the low condition of the 
 finances of the Confederacy in the opening months of this year. 
 It had since declined much further. In February, 1862, Presi 
 dent Davis had made the most extravagant congratulations to 
 the country on our financial condition, and pointed with an 
 air of triumph to the failing fortunes of the enemy s treasury. 
 In less than eighteen months thereafter, when gold w T as quoted 
 in New York at twenty-five per cent, premium, it was selling 
 in Richmond at nine hundred per cent, premium ! Such have 
 been the results of the financial wisdom of the Confederacy, 
 dictated by the President, who advised Congress to authorize 
 illimitable issues of treasury notes, and aggravated, no doubt, 
 by the ignorance of his Secretary, who invented a legerdemain 
 of funding which succeeded not only in depreciating the cur 
 rency, but also in dishonoring the government. 
 
 The experiments of Mr. Memminger on the currency was 
 the signal of multiplied and rapid depreciation. While the 
 eccentric and pious Secretary was figuring out impossible 
 schemes of making money, or ransacking the bookstores for 
 works on religious controversy, unprincipled brokers in the 
 Confederacy were undermining the currency with a zeal for 
 
638 SOUTHEKN HISTORY" OF THE WAE. 
 
 the destruction of their country not less than that of the Yan 
 kees. The assertion admits of some qualification. Sweeping 
 remarks in history are generally unjust. Among those en 
 gaged in the business of banking and exchange in the South, 
 there were undoubtedly some enlightened and public-spirited 
 men, who had been seduced by the example or constrained by 
 the competition of meaner and more avaricious men of the 
 same profession, to array themselves against the currency, and 
 to commit offences from which they would have shrunk in hor 
 ror, had they not been disguised by the casuistry of commerce 
 and gain. 
 
 It was generally thought in the South reprehensible to re 
 fuse the national currency in the payment of debts. Yet the 
 broker, who demanded ten dollars in this currency for one in 
 gold, really was guilty of nine times refusing the Confederate 
 money. It was accounted shocking for citizens, in the South 
 to speculate in soldiers clothing and bread. Yet the broker, 
 who demanded nine or ten prices for gold, the representative 
 of all values, speculated alike in every necessary in the coun 
 try. Nor was this the greatest of their offences. With unsur 
 passed shamelessness brokers in the Confederacy exposed the 
 currency of the North for sale, and demanded for it four hun 
 dred per cent, premium over that of the Confederacy ! This 
 act of benefit to the Yankees was openly allowed by the gov 
 ernment. A bill had been introduced in Congress to prohibit 
 this traffic, and to extirpate this infamous anomaly in our his 
 tory ; but it failed of enactment, and its failure can only be at 
 tributed to the grossest stupidity, or to sinister influences of 
 the most dishonorable kind. The traffic was immensely prof 
 itable. State bonds arid bank bills to the amount of many 
 millions were sent North by the brokers, and the rates of dis 
 count were readily submitted to when the returns were made 
 in Yankee paper money, which, in the Richmond shops, was 
 worth in Confederate notes five dollars for one. 
 
 One but only one cause of the depreciation of the Con 
 federate currency was illicit trade. It had done more to 
 demoralize the Confederacy than any thing else. The inception 
 of this trade was easily winked at by the Confederate authori 
 ties ; it commenced with paltry importations across the Poto 
 *nac ; it was said that the country wanted medicines, surgica. 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 639 
 
 instruments, and a number of trifles, and that trade with the 
 Yankees in these could result in no serious harm. But by 
 the enlarged license of the government it soon became an in 
 famy and a curse to the Confederacy. What was a petty trafllc 
 in its commencement soon expanded into a shameless trade, 
 which corrupted the patriotism of the country, constituted an 
 anomaly in the history of belligerents, and reflected lasting 
 disgrace upon the honesty and good sense of our government. 
 The country had taken a solemn resolution to burn the cotton 
 in advance of the enemy ; but the conflagration of this staple 
 soon came to be a rare event ; instead of being committed to 
 the flames it was spirited to Yankee markets. Nor were these 
 operations always disguised. Some commercial houses in the 
 Confederacy counted their gains by millions of dollars since 
 the war, through the favor cfr the government in allowing 
 them to export cotton at pleasure. The beneficiaries of this 
 trade contributed freely to public charities and did certain 
 favors to the government ; but their gifts were but the parings 
 of immense gains ; and often those who were named by weak 
 and credulous people or by interested flatterers as public- 
 epirited citizens and patriotic donors, were, in fact, the most 
 unmitigated extortioners and the vilest leeches on the body 
 politic. 
 
 In this war we owe to the cause of truth some humiliating 
 confessions. "Whatever diminution of spirit there may have 
 been in the South since the commencement of her struggle, it 
 has been on the part of those pretentious classes of the 
 wealthy, who, in peace, were at once the most zealous " seces 
 sionists," and the best customers of the Yankees, and wL 
 now, in war, are naturally the sneaks and tools of the enemy. 
 The cotton and sugar planters of the extreme South who prior 
 to the war were loudest for secession, were at the same time 
 known to buy every article of their consumption in Yankee 
 markets, and to cherish an ambition of shining in the society 
 of Northern hotels. It is not surprising that many of these 
 affected patriots have found congenial occupation in this war 
 in planting in copartnership with the enemy, or in smuggling 
 cotton into his lines. The North is said to have obtained in 
 the progress of this war, from the Southwest and Charleston, 
 enough cotton at present prices to uphold its whole system of 
 
640 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 currency a damning testimony of the avarice of the planter. 
 Yet it is nothing more than a convincing proof, in general, that 
 property, though very pretentious of patriotism, when identi 
 fied with selfishness, is one of the most weak and cowardly 
 things in revolutions and the first to succumb under the hor 
 rors of war. 
 
 It is pleasing to turn from the exhibition of ignorance and 
 weakness in the government, and the vile passions of its 
 favorites, to the contemplation of that patriotic spirit which 
 yet survives in the masses of the people and keeps alive the 
 sacred animosities of the war. We rejoice to believe that the 
 masses are not only yet true, but that a haughtier and fiercer 
 spirit than ever animates the demand of our people for inde 
 pendence, and insures their efforts to obtain it. The noble 
 people and army who have sustained and fought this war will 
 have cause to rejoice. Society in the South is being upheaved 
 by this war, and with our independence will be re-established 
 on new orders of merit. The insolent and pampered slave- 
 holding interest of the South; the planters aristocracy, blown 
 with conceit and vulgar airs of patronage ; the boast of lands 
 and kin, give way before new aspirants to honor. The repub 
 lic gives new titles to greatness. Many of those who were 
 esteemed great politicians before the war, are now well-nigh 
 forgotten. The honors of State, the worship of society, the 
 rewards of affection, are for the patriots of the revolution that 
 will date our existence. Such are the great prizes, intertwined 
 with that of independence, which stir our people and army 
 with noble desires and beckon them to victory. 
 
 It is not only in the present external situation of the war 
 that encouragement is to be found for the South. With con 
 siderable additions to her material elements of success, the 
 South has in the second year of the war abated none of that 
 moral resolution which is the vital and essential principle of 
 victory, whatever co-operation and assistance it may derive 
 from external conditions. That resolution has been strength 
 ened by recent developments ; for as the war has progressed, 
 the enemy has made a full exposure of his cruel and savage 
 purposes, and has indicated consequences of subjugation more 
 terrible than death. 
 
 He has, by the hideous array of the instruments of torture 
 
THE SECOND YEAH. ; 
 
 wiiich lie has prepared for a new inauguration oi his authority 
 among those who have disputed it, not only excited the zeal ot 
 a devoted patriotism to war with him, but has summoned even 
 the mean but strong passions of selfishness to oppose him. 
 The surrender to an enemy as base as the Yankee, might well 
 attract the scorn of the world, and consign the South to de 
 spair. The portions of such a fate for the South are gibbets, 
 confiscation, foreign rule, the tutelage of New England, the 
 outlawry of the negro, the pangs of universal poverty, and the 
 contempt of mankind. 
 
 War is a thing of death, of mutilation and fire ; but it has 
 its law of order ; and when that law is not observed, it fails in 
 effecting the purpose for which it is waged, and the curse it 
 would inflict recoils upon itself. It is remarkable in the pres 
 ent war, that the policy of the Washington government has 
 been an increase in every feature of the first cause of the re 
 volt. But this has been fortunate for the South. The con 
 sequences of such despotic and savage violences, as the eman 
 cipation proclamation, the arming of slaves, and the legali 
 zation of plunder, have been the growth of new hostility 
 to the Union, and an important and obvious vindication to 
 the world of the motives of the South, and the virtues of her 
 cause. 
 
 Regarding the condition of events in which this record closet , 
 the broad lustre of victories covering the space of so many 
 months ; the numbers of our forces in the field, unequalled ;it 
 any other period of the war; and the spirit animated by the 
 recollections of victorious arms, and stung by the fresh cruel 
 ties of an atrocious enemy, we may well persuade ourselves 
 that there is no such word as "fail" in this struggle. Even 
 
 oo 
 
 beneath the pall of disaster, there is no place for such a word,. 
 The banners of the Confederacy do not bear the mottoes and 
 devices of a doubtful contest. That brave phrase we may apply 
 to ourselves, which is the law of progress and success ; which 
 summons the energies of mankind and works out the problems 
 of human existence ; which is at once an expression of the will 
 of the Creator, and the power of the creature ; and which 
 beautifully harmonizes the dispensations of Providence with 
 the agency of men " FOKTUNA FOETIBUS." 
 
 41 
 
64:2 SOUTHEEN HISTORY O^ THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYT. 
 
 REVIEW- -POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE NORTH 
 
 The Dogma of Numerical Majorities. Its Date in the Yankee Mind. Demoraliza 
 tion of the Idea of the Sovereignty of Numbers. Experience of Minorities in Ameri 
 can Politics. Source of the Doctrine of " CONSOLIDATION." The Slavery Question the 
 logical Eesult of Consolidation. Another Aspect of Consolidation in the Tariif. 
 Summary of the Legislation on the Tariff. A Yankee Picture of the Poverty of the 
 South. John C. Calhoun. President Davis Opinion of his School of Politics. 
 Nullification," as a Union Measure. Mr. Webster s "Four Exhaustive Proposi 
 tions." The True Interpretation of the Present Struggle of the South. The North 
 ern Idea of the Sovereignty of Numbers. Its Results in this War. President Lin 
 coln s Office. The Revenge of the Yankee Congress upon the People. The easy 
 Surrender of their Liberties by the Yankees. Lincoln and Cromwell. Explanation 
 of the Political Subserviency in the North. Superficial Political Education of the 
 Yankee. His " Civilization." The Moral Nature of the Yankee unmasked by the 
 War. His new Political System. Burnside s " Death Order." A Bid for Confeder 
 ate Scalps. A new Interpretation of the War. The North as a Parasite. The Foun 
 dations of the National Independence of the South. Present Aspects of the War. 
 Its external Condition and Morals. The Spirit of the South and the Promises of the 
 fc uture. 
 
 THE chief value of history is the moral discoveries it makes. 
 What is discovered in the records of the old Union and the 
 events of the present war, of that portion of the American 
 people commonly known as the Yankees, furnishes not only 
 food for curiosity, but a valuable fund of philosophy. 
 
 In exploring the character and political experience of the 
 people of the North, much of what is generally thought to be 
 a confusion of vices may be traced to the peculiar idea that 
 people have of the nature and offices of government. Their 
 idea of government may be briefly stated as the sovereignty of 
 numbers. This conception of political authority is of no late 
 date with the people of the North ; it came in their blood and 
 in their traditions for centuries ; it was part of the Puritanical 
 idea ; it was manifest in the Revolution of 1776 (the issues 01 
 which were saved by the conservatism of the South) ; and it is 
 to-day exhibited in the passionate and despotic populace that 
 wages war upon the Confederacy. 
 
 The peculiarities of this idea .of government are very inter 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 613 
 
 esting, and its consequences are visible in every part and fibre 
 of the society of the North. It excludes all the elements of 
 virtue and wisdom in the regulation of political authority ; it 
 regards numbers as the great element of free government ; it 
 represents a numerical majority as infallible and omnipotent ; 
 and it gives opportunity to the flattery of demagogues to pro 
 claim the divine rights and sagacity of numbers, and to de 
 nounce all constitutions which restrict liberty as most un 
 righteous inventions. 
 
 It is unnecessary to comment at length upon the error and 
 coarseness of this idea of government. According to the in 
 terpretation of the Yankees, the body politic ought simply to 
 have a political organization to bring out and enforce the will 
 of the majority ; and such an organization was supposed to be 
 the general government made by our forefathers. But while 
 it is unnecessary to discuss the fallacy of this view, it is enter 
 taining and instructive to observe the train of demoralization 
 it introduced into the society of the North and the conse 
 quences it involved, 
 
 The Northern idea of government was materialistic ; it de 
 graded political authority, because it despoiled it of its moral 
 offices and represented it as an accident determined by a com 
 parison of numbers. It destroyed the virtue of minorities; 
 compelled them to servile acquiescence ; and explains that 
 constant and curious phenomenon in much of American poli 
 tics the rapid absorption of minorities after the elections. It 
 laid the foundations of a despotism more terrible than that of 
 any single tyrant; destroyed moral courage in the people; 
 broke down all the barriers of conservatism ; and substituted 
 the phrase, "the majority must govern" for the conscience and 
 justice of society. 
 
 This idea, carried out in the early political government of 
 America, soon attained a remarkable development. This 
 development was the absurd doctrine of CONSOLIDATION. It 
 denied the rights of the States ; refused to interpret the Union 
 from the authority of contemporaries, or from the nature of the 
 circumstances in which it was formed, or from the objects 
 which it contemplated ; and represented it as a central political 
 organization to enforce the divine pleasure of a numerical 
 majority. The Union was thus converted, though with diffi- 
 
644 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 culty, into a remorseless despotism, and the various and cori 
 flicting interests and pursuits of one of the vastest political 
 bodies in the world were intrusted to the arrogant and reckless 
 majority of numbers. 
 
 The slavery question was the logical and inevitable result o 
 Consolidation. It is remarkable how many minds in America 
 have proceeded on the supposition that this agitation was acci 
 dental, and have di&tracted themselves with the foolish inquiry 
 why the Yankees assailed the domestic institutions of the South, 
 while they neglected to attack the similar institutions of Cuba 
 and Brazil. These minds do not appreciate the fact that the 
 slavery agitation was a necessity of the Northern theory of 
 government. Duty is the correlative of power; and if the 
 government at Washington in Yankee estimation was a con 
 solidated organization, with power to promote the general 
 welfare by any means it might deem expedient, it was propei 
 that it should overthrow the hated institution of slavery in 
 the South. The central government was responsible for its 
 continuance or existence, in proportion to its power over it. 
 Under these circumstances, the duty of acting upon the sub 
 ject of slavery was imperious, and amounted to a moral ne 
 cessity. 
 
 But the slavery agitation was not the only remarkable con 
 sequence of the Northern idea of the divine rights of ma 
 jorities. It may be said that every political maxim of the 
 North has its practical and selfish application as well as its 
 moral and sentimental aspect. The same idea of the power of 
 numerical majorities that kindled the slavery disputes, gave 
 birth to the tariff and other schemes of legislation, to make the 
 Southern minority subservient and profitable to those who were 
 their masters by the virtue of numbers. 
 
 The slavery and tariff issues are singularly associated in 
 American politics ; for one at least was an important auxiliary 
 to the other. It was necessary for the Northern people to 
 make their numerical power available to rule the Union ; and 
 as slavery was strictly a sectional interest, it only had to be 
 made the criterion of the parties at the North to unite this 
 section and make it master of the Union. When the power of 
 the North could thus be united, it was easy to carry out its 
 measures of sectional ambition, encroachment, and aggrandize- 
 
IHE SECOND YEAR. 645 
 
 The history of the enormous despotism of Yankee 
 tariffs is easily summed up. 
 
 The war of 1812 left the United States with a debt of one 
 hundred and thirty millions. To provide for the payment of 
 this debt, heavy duties were laid on foreign goods ; and as in 
 the exigencies of the war some home manufactures had sprung 
 up, which were useful and deserving, and which were in dan 
 ger of sinking under foreign competition, on the return of peact 
 it was proposed to regulate the tariff so as to afford them some 
 assistance. Protection was an incidental feature in the tariff 
 of 1816, and as such was zealously recommended even by John 
 C. Calhoun, who was a conspicuous advocate of the bill. But 
 the principle of protection once admitted, maintained its hold 
 and enlarged its demands. In the tariffs of 1820, 24:, and 28, 
 it was successively carried further ; the demand of the North 
 for premiums to its manufacturing interests becoming more 
 exacting and insolent. 
 
 In 1831 the public debt had been so far diminished as to 
 render it certain that, at the existing rate of revenue, in three 
 years the last dollar would be paid. The government had 
 been collecting about twice as much revenue as its usual ex 
 penditures required, and it was calculated that if the existing 
 tariff continued in operation, there would be, after three years, 
 an annual surplus in the treasury of twelve or thirteen millions. 
 Under these circumstances, the reduction of the tariff was a 
 plain matter of justice and prudence; but it was resisted by 
 the North with brazen defiance. Unfortunately, Mr. Clay was 
 weak enough to court popularity in the North by legislative 
 bribes, and it was mainly through his exertions that enough 
 was saved of the protection principle to satisfy the rapacity of 
 the Yankee ; for which the statesman of Kentucky enjoyed a 
 brief and indecent triumph in the North. 
 
 As an engine of oppression of the South, the tariff did its 
 work well ; for it not only impoverished her, but fixed on her 
 a badge of inferiority, which was an unfailing mark for Yankee 
 derision. The South had no great cities. Their growth was 
 paralyzed, and they were scarcely more than the suburbs or 
 Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South 
 were the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; 
 yet Southern cities did not carry it on. The resources of this 
 
646 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 unhappy part of the country were taxed for the benefit of the 
 Northern people, and for forty years every tax imposed by 
 Congress was laid with a view of subserving the interests of 
 the North. 
 
 The blight of such legislation on the South was a source oi 
 yaried gratification to the Yankee , especially that it gave him 
 the conceit that the South was an inferior. The contrast be 
 tween the slow and limited prosperity of the South and the 
 swift and noisy progress of the North, was never more remark 
 able than at the period of the great tariff controversy of 1831-2. 
 The condition of the country at this time is described by Par- 
 ton, the Yankee biographer of Andrew Jackson, with flippant 
 self-complacency. He says : 
 
 " The North was rushing on like a Western high-pressure 
 steamboat, with rosin in the furnace, and a man on the safety 
 valve. All through Western New York, Ohio, Indiana, and 
 Illinois, the primeval wilderness was vanishing like a mist, and 
 towns were springing into existence with a rapidity that ren 
 dered necessary a new map every month, and spoiled the gazel 
 teers as fast as they were printed. The city of New York 
 began already to feel itself the London of the New World, and 
 to calculate how many years must elapse before it would b 
 the London of the world. 
 
 " The South meanwhile was depressed and anxious. Cotton 
 was down, tobacco was down. Corn, wheat, and pork were 
 down. For several years the chief products of the South had 
 either been inclining downward, or else had risen in price too 
 slowly to make up for the (alleged) increased price of the com 
 modities which the South was compelled to buy. Few new 
 towns changed the Southern map. Charleston languished, or 
 seemed to languish, certainly did not keep pace w r ith New York, 
 Boston, and Philadelphia. No Cincinnati of the South became 
 the world s talk by the startling rapidity of its growth. No 
 Southern river exhibited at every bend and coyne of vantage 
 a rising village. No Southern mind, distracted with the im 
 possibility of devising suitable names for a thousand new places 
 per annum, fell back in despair upon the map of the Old World, 
 and selected at random any convenient name that presented 
 itself, bestowing upon clusters of log huts such titles as Utica, 
 Koine, Palermo, Naples, Kussia, Egypt. Madrid, Paris, Elba, 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 647 
 
 f.nd Berlin. No Southern commissioner, compelled to find 
 names for a hundred streets at once, had seized upon the letters 
 of the alphabet and the figures of arithmetic, and called the 
 avenues A, B, C, and D, and instead of naming his cross streets, 
 numbered them." 
 
 For forty years the North reaped the fruits of partial legis 
 lation, .while the South tasted the bitterness of oppression. 
 The shoemakers, the iron men, the sailmakers, and the cotton 
 and woollen spinners in the North, clamored for protection 
 against their English, Swedish, and Kussian competitors, and 
 easily obtained it. The South paid duties upon all articles 
 that the tariff kept out of the country ; but these duties, in 
 stead of going into the treasury as revenue, went into the 
 purses of manufacturers as bounty. After paying this tribute 
 money to the North, the South had then to pay her quota for 
 the support of the government. The North, for there was per 
 fect free trade between the States, had a preference over all the 
 world for its wares in the markets of the South. This prefer 
 ence amounted to 20 or 30, or 40 or 50 per cent., and even 
 more, according to the article and the existing tariff. It ex - 
 tended over a country having twelve millions of customers. 
 The sum of the Yankee profits out of the tariff was thus enor 
 mous. Had the South submitted to the "Morrill tariff," it 
 would have exacted from her something like one hundred mil 
 lion dollars as an annual tribute to the North. But submission 
 has some final period, and the South has no longer a lot in the 
 legislation at Washington. 
 
 Iii the tariff controversy of 1831-2, we find the premoni 
 tions of the present revolution. It is a curious circumstance 
 that in the excitement of that period some medals were se 
 cretly struck, bearing the inscription, "John, C. Calhoun, 
 First President of the Southern Confederacy" The name of 
 the new power was correctly told. But the times were not 
 ripe for a declaration of Southern independence, and even the 
 public opinions of Mr. Calhoun resisted the suggestion of a dis 
 solution of the Union. 
 
 The " nullification" doctrine of the statesmen of North Caro 
 lina, is one of the most interesting political studies of America ; 
 for it illustrates the long and severe contest in the hearts of the 
 Southern people between devotion to the Union and the sense 
 
648 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 of wrong and injustice. Mr. Calhoun either did not dare 
 to offend the popular idolatry, or was sincerely attached to the 
 Union ; but at the same time he was deeply sensible of the 
 oppression it devolved upon the South. Nullification was 
 simply an attempt to accommodate these two facts. It pro- 
 fesped to find a remedy for the grievances of States without 
 disturbing the Union ; and the nullification of an unconstitu 
 tional law within the local jurisdiction of a State, was proposed 
 as the process for referring the matter to some constitutional 
 tribunal other than the Supreme Court, whose judgments should 
 be above all influences of political party. It was a crude 
 scheme, and only remarkable as a sacrifice to that peculiar 
 idolatry in American politics which worshipped the name of 
 the Union. 
 
 The present President of the Southern Confederacy Mr. 
 Jefferson Davis has referred to the political principles of Mr. 
 Calhoun, in some acute remarks made on the interesting occa 
 sion of his farewell to the old Senate at Washington. Pie says : 
 
 " A great man, who now reposes with his fathers, and who 
 has often been arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, 
 advocated the doctrine of nullification, because it preserved the 
 Union. It was because of his deep-seated attachment to the 
 Union, his determination to find some remedy for existing ills 
 Bho i of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to 
 the other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of 
 nul ification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful ; to be within 
 the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only to 
 be the means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of 
 the States for their judgment." 
 
 ] i defending, in the speech referred to, the action of the 
 Sta*;e of Mississippi in separating herself from the Union, Mr. 
 Da ds remarks with justice, that Secession belongs to another 
 ela f :s of remedies than that proposed by the great South Caro 
 linian. The Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, long 
 th** political text of the South, bore the seeds of the present 
 resolutions for they laid the foundation for the right of seces- 
 sk a in the sovereignty of the States ; and Mr. Calhoun s de- 
 diction from them of his doctrine of nullification was narrow 
 ?*-d incomplete. 
 
 But we shall not renew here vexed political questions. We 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 64.9 
 
 have referred at some length to the details of the old United 
 States tariffs and the incidental controversies of parties, be 
 cause we shall find here a peculiar development of the political 
 ideas of the North. To all the ingenious philosophy of State 
 rights; to the disquisitions of Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Tyler; to 
 the discussions of the moral duties of the government, the 
 North had but one invariable reply, and that was the sover 
 eignty of the will of the majority. It recognized no sovereign 
 but numbers, and it was thought to be a sufficient defence of 
 the tariff and other legislation unequal to the South, that it was 
 the work and the will of the majority. 
 
 It was during the agitation of the tariff that the consolida 
 tion school became firmly established. Mr. Webster, the 
 mouth-piece of the manufacturing interest in the North, at 
 tempted by expositions of the Constitution to represent the 
 government as a central organization of numbers, without any 
 feature of originality to distinguish it from other rude democ 
 racies of the world. In his attempt to simplify it, he degraded 
 it to the common-place of simple democracy, and insulted the 
 wisdom of those who had made it. The political opinions or 
 Mr. Webster wre summed up in what he arrogantly called 
 " Four Exhaustive Propositions." These propositions were fa 
 mous in the newspapers of his day, and may be reproduced 
 here as a very just summary of the political ideas of the North. 
 
 MR. WEBSTER S FOUR EXHAUSTIVE PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 1. "That the Constitution of the United States is nt>t a 
 league, confederacy, or compact between the people of the 
 several States in their sovereign capacity ; but a government 
 founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct re 
 lations between itself and individuals." 
 
 2. "That no State authority has power to dissolve these re 
 lations ; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution ; and 
 that, consequently, there can be no such thing as secession 
 without revolution. 1 
 
 3. " That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Consti 
 tution of the United States, acts of Congress passed in pur 
 suance of it, and treaties; and that in cases not capable of as 
 suming the character of a suit in law or equity, Coiiff 1 ""^ 1 must 
 
650 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 judge of, and finally interpret this supreme law, as often as it 
 has occasion to pass acts of legislation ; and in cases capable 
 of assuming the character of a suit, the Supreme Court of the 
 United States is the first interpreter." 
 
 4. "That the attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nul 
 lify an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her 
 limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is uncon 
 stitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the 
 general government, and on the equal rights of other States ; 
 a plain violation of the Constitution ; and a proceeding essen 
 tially revolutionary in its character and tendency." 
 
 It is in the light of these propositions that the present as 
 sertion of the independence of the South is denounced by the 
 North as rebellion. And it is with reference to them and 
 their savage doctrine of the power of numbers in a union of 
 sovereign States, that we may in turn challenge the world to 
 declare if the South in this struggle is not enlisted in the cause 
 of free government, which is more important to the world than 
 " the Union," which has disappeared beneath the wave of 
 history. 
 
 In the present war the North has given faithful and constant 
 indications of its dominant idea of the political sovereignty, as 
 well as the military omnipotence of numbers. It is absurd to 
 refer to the person of Abraham Lincoln as the political master 
 of the North ; he is the puppet of the vile despotism that rules 
 by brute numbers. We have already referred to some of the 
 characteristics of such despotism. We shall see others in this 
 war, in the timidity and subservient hesitation to which such a 
 government reduces party minorities, and in that destitution of 
 honor which invariably characterizes the many-headed despot 
 ism of the people. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was elected on a principle of deadly antagonism 
 to the social order. His party found him subservient to their 
 passions, and with the President in the hollow of their hand, 
 for two years they have reigned triumphantly in the Congress 
 ut Washington. Such has been the stupendous lunacy and 
 knavery of this body, that it will be regarded in all coming 
 time as a blotch on civilization and a disgrace to the common 
 humanity of the age. 
 
 There are some minds in the Soi\th which are prejudiced by 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 651 
 
 the impression that the power of the Lincoln party was bioken 
 by the fall elections of 1862 ; that it has lost the majority 01 
 numbers in the North ; and that thereby the despotism which 
 we have described as characteristic of the North is rapidly 
 approaching the period of its dissolution or an era of reaction. 
 But this reply to our theory 4oes not take into account all the 
 facts. The Eepublican party in the North still has the 
 majority of force a majority more dangerous and appalling 
 than that of numbers, as it finds more numerous objects of 
 revenge among its own people. 
 
 The Yankee Congress rejected at the polls has taken fearful 
 revenge on the people who ventured an opinion hostile to the 
 ruling dynasty. They have passed the bank, conscription, 
 and habeas corpus suspension bills, thus placing every life and 
 every dollar, and, indeed, every right of twenty millions of 
 freeborn people at the absolute mercy of Abraham Lincoln. 
 They have abated none of their legislation against the interests 
 of humanity and the written and unwritten law of civilization 
 in this war. They have added to it. They are organizing 
 insurrections in South Carolina ; they have sent a negro arnry 
 into Florida; they are organizing black regiments in Tennessee 
 But a few months ago the infamous law was passed at Wash 
 ington known as " the Plunder Act," in which the Secretary 
 of the Treasury was authorized to appoint agents to go South, 
 collect all- property, send it North, and have it sold. In 
 different parts of the Confederacy the Yankee troops are now 
 destroying all farming implements, seizing all provisions, and 
 preventing the planting of crops, with the avowed determina 
 tion of starving the Southern people into submission. Such a 
 warfare contemplates the extermination of women and children 
 as well as men, and proposes to inflict a revenge more terrible 
 than the tortures of savages and the modern atrocities of the 
 Sepoys. 
 
 It is, perhaps, not greatly to be wondered at that a peopl- 
 like the Yankees should show a brutal rage in warfare upoi 
 an enemy who has chastised their insolence and exasperated 
 their pride, and that they should therefore be generally ready 
 to give their adhesion to any train of measures calculated for 
 revenge upon the South. But it is a matter of grave and 
 solicitous inquiry that this people should so easily tolerate 
 
652 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 measures in the government which have been pia/nly directed 
 against their own liberties, and which, while they have been 
 applauding a " vigorous prosecution of the war," have estab 
 lished a savage despotism at home. It is yet more remarkable 
 that the erection of this despotism should be hailed with a cer 
 tain applause by its own victims. History has some instances 
 of the servile and unnatural joys of a people in the surrender 
 of their liberties ; but none grosser than that in which has 
 been inaugurated the throne of Abraham Lincoln at "Wash 
 ington. 
 
 There are numerous examples in history where great abilities 
 or some scattered virtues in the character of a despot have won 
 the flattery of minds not ignoble and unconscious of their 
 humiliation. Milton in his Latin superlatives spoke of Crom 
 well very much after the same manner in which Mr. Lincoln 
 is spoken of in Yankee vernacular. Eum te agnoscunt omnes, 
 Cromuelle, ea tu civis maximus et gloriosissimus, dux publici 
 consilii) exercitum, fortissimorum impcrator, pater patricR 
 gessisti. But the Western lawyer and tavern -jester is not a 
 Cromwell. No attractions of genius are to be found in the 
 personal composition of Abraham Lincoln. His person in fact 
 is utterly unimportant. He holds the reins for a higher power ; 
 and that power is the many-headed monster of Fanaticism, 
 which by numbers or by force constrains the popular will and 
 rules with the rod of iron. 
 
 The disposition generally of the Northern people to submit 
 to or tolerate the assaults of the Washington government on 
 their own liberties and the destruction of their civil rights, 
 must proceed from permanent and well-defined causes. We 
 have already hinted in these pages an explanation of this ser 
 vile acquiescence in the acts of the government. It is doubt 
 less the fruit of the false political education in the North, that 
 gives none other but materialistic ideas of government, and 
 inculcates the virtue of time-serving with all political majori 
 ties. It is to be attributed to the demoralization of the Yan 
 kee ; to the servile habit of his mind ; to his long practice of 
 ubmission to the wild democracy of numbers, all proceeding 
 from that false idea of government which recognizes it only a*, 
 the organ of an accidental party, and not as a self-existent 
 principle of right arid virtue. It is a melancholy fact that the 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 653 
 
 people of the North have long ceased to love or to value lib 
 erty. They have ceased. to esteem the political virtues; to 
 take any account of the moral elements of government ; or to 
 look upon it else than as a physical power, to be exercised at 
 the pleasure of a party, and to be endured until reversed by 
 the accident of numbers. 
 
 The superficial political education of the people of the North 
 explains much that is curious in their society. Time-serving 
 of power gave them wealth, while it degraded their national 
 character. In the old government they easily surrendered their 
 political virtue for tariffs, bounties, &c. ; and the little left of 
 it is readily sacrificed on the devilish altars of this war. Their 
 habit of material computation made them boastful of a " civili 
 zation" untouched by the spirits of virtue and humanity, con 
 sisting only of the rotten, material things which make up the 
 externals and conveniences of life, and the outer garments of so 
 ciety. Their wealth was blazed out in arts and railroads ; com- 
 iron schools, the nurseries of an insolent ignorance ; and gilded 
 churches, the temples of an impure religion. No people haa 
 ever established more decisively the fact of the worthlessnesa 
 of what remains of " civilization," when the principle of liberty 
 is subtracted, or more forcibly illustrated how much of phos 
 phorescent rottenness there is in such a condition. 
 
 " Their much-loved wealth imparts 
 Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts ; 
 But view them closer, craft and fraud appear, 
 Even liberty itself is bartered here ; 
 At gold s superior charms all freedom flies, * 
 The needy sell it and the rich man buys ; 
 A land of tyrants and a den of slaves." 
 
 The present war has sufficiently demonstrated the mistake of 
 the North in the measure of its civilization, and convinced the 
 world that much of what it esteemed its former strength was 
 " but plethoric ill." It has done more than this, for it has un 
 masked the moral nature of the Yankee. It has exposed to 
 the detestation of the world a character which is the product 
 of materialism in politics and materialism in religion the 
 spawn of the worship of power and the lust of gain. The 
 Yankee who has followed up an extravagance of bluster by 
 the vilest exhibitions of cowardice who has falsified his prate 
 
654 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of humanity by the deeds of a savage who, in the South, has 
 been in this war a robber, an assassin, a thief in the night, and 
 at home a slave fawning on the hand that manacles him has 
 secured for himself the everlasting contempt of the world. The 
 characteristics of a people who boasted themselves the most 
 Enlightened of Christian nations, are seen in a castrated civili- 
 -ation ; while the most remarkable qualities they have dis 
 played in the war are illustrated by the coarse swagger and 
 drunken fumes of such men as Butler, and the rouged lies of 
 such " military authorities" as Halleck and Hooker. 
 
 All vestiges of constitutional liberty have long ago been 
 lost in the North. The very term of " State rights" is men 
 tioned with derision, and the States of the North have ceased 
 to be more than geographical designations. No trace is left of 
 the old political system but in the outward routine of the gov 
 ernment. The Constitution of the United States is but " the 
 skin of the immolated victim," and the forms and ceremonies 
 of a republic are the disguises of a cruel and reckless des 
 potism. 
 
 During the two miserable and disastrous years that Mr. Lin 
 coln has held the presidency of the United States, he has made 
 the institutions of his country but a name. The office of presi 
 dent is no longer recognized in its republican simplicity ; it is 
 overlaid with despotic powers, and exceeds in reality the most 
 famous imperial titles. Not a right secured by the Constitution 
 but has been invaded ; not a principle of freedom but has been 
 overthrown ; not a franchise but has been trampled under foot. 
 The infamous " death order" published by Burnside, more 
 bloody than the Draconian penalty and more cruel than the 
 rude decrees of the savage, is without a parallel in the domes 
 tic rule, or in the. warfare of any people making the feeblest 
 pretence to civilization. It assigns the penalty of death t^ 
 " writers of letters sent by secret mails," and to all persons 
 who "feed, clothe, or in any manner aid" the soldiers <f the 
 Confederacy. This infamous decree will live in history ; it is 
 already associated with a memorable martyrdom that of 
 Clement Yallandigham. 
 
 It is remarkable that the North finds great difficulty in as^ 
 signing to the world the objects of the present mad and inhu 
 man war. The old pretences made by the Yankees of f gbting 
 
THE SECOND YEAR. 655 
 
 for a constitutional Union, and contesting the cause of free 
 government for the world, are too absurd and disgusting to be 
 repeated. They are unwilling to admit that they are fighting 
 for revenge, and prosecuting a war, otherwise hopeless, for the 
 gratification of a blind and fanatical hate. They have re 
 cently changed the political phrases of the war, and the latest 
 exposition of its object is, that the North contends for " the life 
 of the nation." If this means that a parasite is struggling for 
 existence, and that the North desires the selfish aggrandize 
 ments of the Union, and its former tributes to its wealth, we 
 shall not dispute the theory. But the plain question occurs, 
 what rio-ht has the North to constrain the association of a 
 
 o 
 
 people who have no benefit to derive from the partnership, and 
 who, by the laws of nature and society, are free to consult theii 
 own happiness ? The North has territory and numbers and 
 physical resources enough for a separate existence, and if she 
 has not virtue enough to sustain a national organization, she 
 has no right to seek it in a compulsory union with a people 
 who, sensible of their superior endowments, have resolved to 
 take their destinies in their own hands. 
 
 There is one sense, indeed, in which association with the 
 South does imply the national welfare of the North. The 
 South gave to the old government all its ideas of statesman 
 ship ; it leavened the political mass with its characteristic con 
 servatism ; and it combated, and, to some extent, controlled 
 the brutal theory that represented numbers as the element of 
 free government. The revolutionary and infidel society of the 
 North was moderated by the piety and virtues of the South, 
 and the old national life was in some degree purified by the 
 political ideas and romantic character of that portion of the 
 country now known -as the Confederacy. It is in this sense 
 that the Southern element is desirable to the North, and that 
 the Union involves " the life of the nation ;" and it is precisely 
 in the same sense that an eternal dissociation and an independ 
 ent national existence are objects to the South not only of de 
 sire, but of vital necessity. 
 
 We can never go back to the embraces of the North. There 
 is blood and leprosy in the touch of our former associate. We 
 can never again live with a people who have made of this war 
 a huge assassination ; who have persecuted us with savage and 
 
656 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 cowardly hate ; who gloat over the fancies of starving A omen 
 and children ; who have appealed to the worst passions of the 
 black heart of the negro to take revenge upon us ; and who, 
 not satisfied with the emancipation proclamation and its scheme 
 of servile insurrection, have actually debated in their State 
 Legislatures the policy of paying negroes premiums /or the 
 murder of white families in the South.* 
 
 While we congratulate ourselves on the superiority of our 
 political ideas over those of the North, and the purer life of 
 our society, we do not forget that, although we have carried 
 away much less of the territory and numbers of the old Union . 
 than have been left to our enemy, we still have a sufficiency of 
 the material elements of a national existence. 
 
 The South has attempted to lay the foundations of national 
 independence, w r ith a territory as great as the whole of Europe, 
 with the exception of Russia and Turkey ; with a population 
 four times that of the continental colonies ; and with a capacity 
 for commerce equivalent to nearly four-fifths of the exports of 
 the old Union. 
 
 It is only necessary to glance at the contemporary aspects of 
 the war to reassure our confidence in its destiny, and to renew 
 our vows" upoii its altars. The hope of reconstruction is a van 
 ity of the enemy. To mobocratic Yankees; to New England 
 
 * The following is taken from an Abolition pamphlet (1863), entitled " In 
 teresting Debate," etc., in the Senate of Pennsylvania. It is characteristic of 
 the blasphemous fanaticism of the Yankee and his hideous lust for blood : 
 
 " Mr. LOWRY I believed then and now that He who watches over the spar 
 row will chastise us until we will be just towards ourselves and towards four 
 millions of God s poor, down-cast prisoners of war. I said that I would arm 
 the negro that I would- place him in the front of battle and that I would 
 invite his rebel master with his stolen arms to shoot his stolen ammunition 
 into his stolen property at the rate of a thousand dollars a shot. I said further, 
 that were I Commander-in-chief, by virtue of the war power and in obedience 
 to the customs of civilized nations, and in accordance with the laws of civilized 
 nations, I would confiscate every rebel s property, whether upon two legs or 
 four, and that I would give to the slave who would bring me his master s dis 
 loyal scalp one hundred and sixty acres of his master s plantation ; nor would 
 I be at all exacting as to where the scalp was taken off, so that it was at sonic 
 point between the bottom of the ears and the top of the loins. This, sii, WKS 
 my language long before Fremont had issued his immortal proclamation. The 
 logic of events is sanctifying daily these anointed truths. Father, forgive thou 
 those who deride and vilify me, because I enunciated them: they know ao< 
 they do." 
 
THE SECOND YEAB. 657 
 
 " majorities ;" to the base crews of Infidelity and Abolitionism ; 
 to the savages who have taken upon their souls the curse of 
 fratricidal blood and darkened an age of civilization with unut 
 terable crime and outrage, the South can never surrender, giv 
 ing up to such a people their name, their lands, their wealth, 
 their traditions, their glories, their heroes newly dead, then 
 victories, their hopes of the future. Such a fate is morally im 
 possible. We have not paid a great price of life for nothing. 
 "We have not forgotten our dead. The flower of our youth and 
 the strength of our manhood have not gone down to the grave 
 in vain. "We are not willing for the poor boon of a life dishon 
 ored and joyless to barter our liberties, surrender our homes to 
 the spoiler, exist as the vassals of Massachusetts, or become 
 exiles, whose title to pity will not exceed the penalty of con 
 tempt. Any contact, friendly or indifferent, with the Yankee, 
 since the display of his vices, would be painful to a free and 
 enlightened people. It would be vile and unnatural to the 
 people of the South if extended across the bloody gulf of a 
 cruel war, and unspeakably infamous if made in the attitude of 
 submission. 
 
bnn ^t 
 
 iftnov ij 
 
 oi nwof 
 
 rrr 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 

 x 
 sts0t 
 
 H . RicJuardson.Pulilisher 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE WAR. 
 
 
 E. A. POLLARD, 
 
 XDITOB OF THK M BIOHMOKD B X AH !*." 
 
 TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 CHARLES B. RICHARDSON, 
 
 640 BBOADWAT. 
 
 1866. 
 
Yinrmn HimiTiK 
 
 A W :>I 11 T 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18C0; 
 
 BT CHAELE8 B. EICHAEDSON, 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern Dietrtet 
 
 ,* I / 1 A i 
 
 HI aaMITJOT OWT 
 
 ff o.a 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 Review of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Two Defects in the Victory of the Con 
 federates." The Finest Army on the Planet." Analysis of the Victory. General 
 ship of Lee. Services and Character of the great Confederate Leader. His Com 
 monplaces and his Virtues. The Situation in Virginia. Lee s Preparations for the 
 Summer Campaign. Hooker to be Maneuvered out of Virginia. Reorganization of 
 Lee s Army. The Affair of Brandy Station. THE CAPTURE OF WINCHESTER. The 
 Affair of Aldie s Station. Lee s Army Crossing the Potomac. Invasion of Pennsyl 
 vania. Alarm in the North. Hooker Out-Generalled and Removed. The Mild 
 Warfare of the Confederate Invaders. Southern "Chivalry." General Lee s Error. 
 His Splendid March from Culpepper Court House to Gettysburg. Feverish Anti 
 cipations in Richmond. THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. First Day s Engagement. ~ 
 A Regiment of Corpses. Charge of Gordon s Brigade. The Nine Mississippi! 
 Heroes. The Yankees Driven through Gettysburg. A Fatal Mistake of the Con 
 federates. General Lee s Embarrassments. THE SECOND DAT. Cemetery Hill. 
 Early s Attack Almost a Success. Adventure of Wright s Brigade. THE THIRD 
 DAY. Sublime Terrors of the Artillery. Heroic and Ever-Memorable Charge of 
 Pickett s Division on the Heights. Half a Mile of Shot and Shell. Pickett s Sup 
 ports Fail. The Recoil General Lee s Behavior. His Greatness in Disaster. Im 
 mense Carnage. Death of General Barksdale, " the Haughty Rebel." General Lee s 
 Retreat. The Affair of Williamsport. Lee Recrosses the Potomac. Success of his 
 Retreat. Yankee Misrepresentation. Review of the Pennsylvania Campaign. Half 
 of Lee s Plans Disconcerted at Richmond. Results of the Battle of Gettysburg Ne 
 gative. Lee s Retreat Across the Potomac an Inconsequence. Disappointment in 
 Richmond. The Budget of a Single Day in the Confederate Capital PAGE 19 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 Vicksburg, " the Heroic City." Its Value to the Confederacy. An Opportunity 
 Lost by Butler. Lieutenant-general Pemberton. A Favorite of President Da 
 vis. The President s Obstinacy. Blindness of Pemberton to the Enemy s De 
 signs. His Telegram to Johnston. Plan of U. S. Grant. Its Daring. THE BATTLE 
 OF PORT GIBSON. Exposure of General Bowen by Pemberton. The First Mistake. 
 Pemberton s Disregard of Johnston s Orders. Grant s advance against Jackson. 
 Johnston s Evacuation of Jackson. His Appreciation of the Situation. Urgent Or 
 ders to Pemberton. A Brilliant Opportunity. Pemberton s Contumacy and Stupid 
 ity. His Irretrievable Error. Yankee Outrages in Jackson. THE BATTLE OF BAKER S 
 CREEK, &c. Stevenson s Heroic Fight. Alleged Dereliction of General Loring. 
 His Division Cut Off in the Retreat. Demoralization of Pemberton s Troops. The 
 Enemy s Assault on the Big Black. Shameful Behavior of the Confederates. A 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Georgia Hero. Pemberton and the Fugitives. His Return to Vicksburg. Recrim 
 inations as to the Disaster of the Big Black. How Pemberton Was in the Wrong. 
 Johnston Orders the Evacuation of Vicksburg. Pemberton s Determination to 
 Hold It . PAOB 47 
 
 CHAPTEE HI. 
 
 The Defences of Vicksburg. Pemberton s Force. His Troops Reinspirited. A 
 Memorable Appeal. Grant s Assault on the Works. Confidence of the Yankees. 
 Their Repulse and Losses. Commencement of Siege Operations. Confidence in 
 Richmond. Johnston s Secret Anticipation of the Fall of Vicksburg. His Alleged 
 Inability to Avert it. Critical Condition of the Confederate Armies in Numbers. 
 Secret Correspondence of Richmond Officials. Mr. Seddon s Bait of Flattery. Suf 
 ferings of the Garrison of Vicksbnrg. Johnston s Attempt to Extricate them. Pro 
 posed Diversion in the Trans-Mississippi. Its Failure. A Message from Pemberton. 
 A Gleam of Hope. An Important Despatch Miscarries. The Garrison Unable to 
 Fight Their Way Out. But Their Condition not Extreme. Pemberton s Surrender 
 on the Fourth of July. Surprise in Richmond Mendacity of the Telegraph. The 
 Story of the Rats and Mules. Pemberton s Statement as to his Supplies. His Ex 
 planation as to the Day of Surrender. The last Incident of Humiliation. Behavior 
 of the Vicksburg Population. A Rival of "The Beast." Appearance and Manners 
 of the City under Yankee Rule. Consequences of the Fall of Vicksburg. THE YAN 
 KEE REOCCUPATION OF JACKSON. Johnston s Second Evacuation. The Enemy s Rav 
 ages in Mississippi. How they Compared with Lee s Civilities in Pennsylvania. 
 THE FALL OF PORT HUDSON, &c. Enemy s Capture of Yazoo City. THE BATTLE 
 >>F HELENA. THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Repulse of the Confederates. Abandonment 
 ;.f Little Rock. The Trials and Sufferings of the Trans-Mississippi Department. 
 Jlindman s Memorable Rule. Military Autocracy. The Generous and Heroic Spirit 
 .<f the Trans-Mississippi PAGE 65 
 
 CHAPTEK IY. 
 
 Elasticity of the Spirit of the Confederacy. What it Taught. Decay of Confi 
 dence in President Davis s Administration. His Affection for Pemberton. A Season 
 of Encouraging Events. THE CAMPAIGN IN LOWER LOUISIANA. Capture of Brashear 
 City. The Affair of Donaldson. THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON. Operations of the 
 Enemy on Folly Island. General Beauregard s Embarrassments. Assault of the 
 Enemy of Fort Wagner. His Foothold on Morris Island. Beauregard s Designs. 
 Bombardment of Fort Wagner. Second Repulse of the Enemy s Assault. Gilmcre s 
 Insolent Demand. His Attempt to Fire Charleston. A Noble Reply from Beavre- 
 i, r ard. Bombardment of Fort Sumter. The Fort in Ruins. Evacuation of Mr /ris 
 Hand by the Confederates. The Yankee Congratulations. Devilish Penalties for 
 " the Secession City." Dahlgren s Part of the Programme. His Night Attack on 
 Miinter. His Failure. Safety of Charleston. Bitterness of Yankee Disappointment. 
 --MORGAN S EXPEDITION INTO INDIANA AND OHIO. His Capture of Lebanon. ^in 
 Unnatural Encounter. Murder of Captain Magennis. The Incursion Th rough Indi 
 ana. The Yankee Pursuit. A Chaplain s Trick. Operations in Ohio. The Affair 
 of Buffington Island. Morgan s Attempt to Escape. His Capture ami imprison 
 ment. Results of his Expedition, Strategic and Material. The Vaiuo of Military 
 Adventure ... ., i^as 87 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK Y. 
 
 Contrast between our Military Fortunes in the East and in the West. Som 
 Reasons for our Success in Virginia. Her Hearty Co-operation with the Confederate 
 Authorities. Her Contributions to the War. General Bragg s Situation in Tennes- 
 Bee> Confederate criticisms on General Eosecrans. Opinion of the " Chattanooga 
 Rebel." An Extensive Movement Contemplated by Rosecrans.- Bragg s Eetreat to 
 Chattanooga. The Yankees on a Double Line of Operations. Buckner s Evacuation 
 of Knoxville. THE SURRENDER OF CUMBERLAND GAP. President Davis s Comment 
 on the Surrender. THE BATTLES OF CHICKAMAUGA. Braggs Evacuation of Chatta 
 nooga. Topography of the Battle-field. Thomas s Column of Yankees in McLemore s 
 Cove. Disobedience of Orders by Lieutenant-general Hill of the Confederates. 
 Bragg s Orders to Lieutenant-general Polk. Two Opportunities Lost. Note: 
 Bragg s Secret and Official Eeport of the Miscarriage of His Plans. The First Day s 
 Engagement on the Chickamanga. Second Day. General Polk s Fight on our 
 Right. Longstreet s Successful Attack on the Left. The Grand Charge. Rout of 
 the Enemy. Longstreet s Message to Bragg. Forrest Up a Tree. Bragg Declines to 
 Pursue. His Hesitation and Error. His Movement upon Chattanooga. Boast of 
 Rosecrans. An Empty Victory for the Confederates. Bragg s Awkward Pause. 
 Discussions of the Campaign. His Supposed Investment of Chattanooga. Two 
 Blunders of the Confederate Commander. Chickamauga a Second Edition of Bull 
 Run. Note : Observations of a General Officer of the Confederate States Army on 
 .he Campaign in the West PAGE 112 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 Political Movements in the Fall of 1863. The "Peace Party" in the North. The 
 f ankee Fall Elections. The War Democrats in the North. The South s Worst 
 , Enemies. Yankee Self-Glorification. Farragut s Dinner-Party. The Russian Ban 
 quet. Russia and Yankeedom. The Poles and the Confederates. THE POLITICAL 
 TROUBLES IN KENTUCKY. Bramlette and Wickcliffe. The Democratic Platform in 
 Kentucky. Political Ambidexterity. Burnside s Despotic Orders. The Kentucky 
 "Board of Trade." An Election by Bayonets. The Fate of Kentucky Sealed. OUR 
 EUROPEAN RELATIONS. Dismissal of the Foreign Consuls in the Confederacy. 
 Seizure of the Confederate " Rams" in England. The Confederate Privateers. 
 Their Achievements. British Interests in Privateering. The Profits of So-called 
 "Neutrality." NAVAL AFFAIRS OF THE CONFEDERACY. Embarrassments of Our 
 Naval Enterprise. The Naval Structures of the Confederates. LEE S FLANK MOVE 
 MENT IN VIRGINIA. Affair of Bristoe Station. Failure of Lee s Plans. Meade s 
 Escape to Centreville. Imboden s Operations in the Valley. Capture of Charlestown. 
 OPERATIONS AT RAPPAHANNOCK BRIDGE. Kelley s Ford. Surprise and Capture of 
 Hayes and Hoke s Brigades. Gallantry of Colonel Godwin. Lee s Army on the 
 Rapidan. THE AFFAIR OF GERMANIA FORD. Meade Foiled. The "On-to-Rich- 
 mond" Delayed PAGE 140 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Chattanooga Lines. Grant s Command. The Military Division of the Missis^ 
 eippi. Scarcity of Supplies in Chattanooga. Wheeler s Raid. Grant s Plans. Ha 
 Opens the Communications of Chattanooga. THE AFFAIR OF LOOKOUT VALLEY. 
 Belief of Chattanooga. THE BATTLK OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. Bragg s Unfortunate 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 Detachment of Longstreet s Force. His Evacuation of Lookout Mountain.- lh 
 Attack on Missionary Ridge. Hardee s Gallant Resistance. Rout and Panic ol the 
 Confederates. President Davis s First Reproof of the Confederate Troops. Bragg a 
 Retreat to Dalton. Cleburne s Gallant Affair. LONGSTREET S EXPEDITION AGAINSI 
 KKOXVILLE. More of Bragg s Mismanagement. Insufficiency of Longstreet s Force. 
 Difficulty in Obtaining Supplies. His Investment of Knoxville. An Incident of 
 Personal Gallantry. Daring of an English Volunteer. Longstreet s Plans Discon 
 certed. The Assault on Fort Sanders. Devotion of Longstreet s Veterans. The 
 Yankee " Wire-net." The Fatal Ditch. Longstreet s Masterly Retreat. His Posi 
 tion in Northeastern Tennessee. He Winters his Army there. THE AFFAIR OF 
 SABINE PASS, TEXAS. THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Franklin s Expedition Defeated. 
 The Upper Portions of the Trans-Mississippi. The Missouri " Guerillas." Quan- 
 trell. Romantic Incidents. THE VIRGINIA-TENNESSEE FRONTIER. Operations of 
 General Sam Jones. An Engagement near Warm Springs. The Affair of Rogers- 
 ville. BATTLE OF DROOP MOUNTAIN. The Enemy Baffled. Averill s Great Decem- 
 oer Raid. The Pursuit. THE NORTH CAROLINA SWAMPS. The Negro Banditti in the 
 Swamps. Wild, Butler s " Jackal." His Murder of Daniel Bright. Confederate 
 Women in Irons. Cowardice and Ferocity of the Yankees PAGE 159 
 
 CHAPTEK Yin. 
 
 The President s Declaration to the Confederate Congress of 1863-64. " Want 01 
 Capacity" in the Confederate Authorities. Character of Jefferson Davis. Official 
 Shiftlessness at Richmond. Early Prognostications of the War. The " Statesman 
 ship" of the Confederates. Ludicrous Errors of Confederate Leaders. What " King 
 Cotton" might have done. Gross Mismanagement of the Confederate Finances. Mr. 
 Memminger s Maladministration. The Moral Evils of an Expanded Currency. The 
 Military Situation in December. Secretary Seddon s Shameful Confession." De- 
 magogism" in the Confederate War Department. Seddon s Propositions. Military 
 " Substitutes." An Act of Perfidy. Bullying in Congress. Spirit of the Confederate 
 Soldiery. LINCOLN S "PEACE PROCLAMATION." Its Stupidity, Insolence, and Out- 
 ra ge._How the Confederates Replied to it. A New Appeal Against "Recon 
 struction." THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN THE WAR. A French Opinion. The 
 Abolitionists Unmasked. Decay of European Sympathy with Them. Review of 
 Lincoln s " Emancipation" Policy. The Arming of the Blacks. The Negro Coloni 
 zation Schemes. Experiments of New England "Civilization" in Louisiana. 
 Frightful Mortality of " Freedmen." The Appalling Statistics of Emancipation. 
 The Contraband Camps in the Mississippi Valley. Pictures of Yankee Philanthropy. 
 "Slavery" Tested by the War. The Confederates the True Friends of the African 
 Laborer. The System of Negro Servitude in the Confederacy. The " War-to-the- 
 Knife" Party in the North. HISTORY OF THE " RETALIATION" POLICY. The Outrages 
 of Yankee Warfare. President Davis s Sentimentalism. The Record of his Unpar 
 donable and Unparalleled Weakness. A Peep into Yankee Prisons. The Torture- 
 Houses of the North. Captain Morgan s Experience Among "the Convict-Drivers." 
 President Davis s Bluster. His Two Faces. Moral Effects of Submission to Yankee 
 Outrage. The Rival Administrations in December 1863. Richmond and Washing 
 ton. Mr. Lincoln s Gaiety. New Issues for the Confederacy PAGE 180 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 The Important of the Winter Campaigns of the War. A Series of Remarkable 
 
 vents. Encouragement of the Confederacy. ROSSER S RAID. A Magnificen 
 
 p r i ze> PIOKBTT S EXPKDITION AGAINST NEWBKRN. The Fight on Bachelor s Creek. 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 DeBtruction of the Yankee Gunboat "Underwriter." The BriL.ant Exploit Df Com 
 mander Wood. Results of the Expedition. THE AFFAIR OF JOHN S ISLAND. General 
 Wise s Fight. THE BATTLE OF OCEAN POND. History of the Yankee Expeditions int 
 Florida. Lincoln s Designs upon Florida. Their Utter Defeat. F olitical Jugglery 
 of Seymour s Expedition. Price of " Three Electoral Votes."--SHERMAN 8 EXPEDI 
 TION IN THE SOUTHWEST. What it Contemplated. Grant s Extensive Designs. Th 
 Strategic Triangle. Grant s Proposed Removal of the Mississippi River. Polk a Re 
 treat into Alabama. Forrest s Heroic Enterprise. His Defeat of Smith s and Grier 
 son s Columns. Sherman s Retreat to Vicksburg. His Disgraceful Failure. Th 
 Yankee Campaign in the West Disconcerted. The Lines in North Georgia. Repulse 
 of the Yankees. . . PAGE 21 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Auspicious Signs of the Spring of 18(54. Military Successes of the Confederates. 
 Improvements in the Internal Polity of the Confederacy Two Important Measures 
 of Legislation. Revolution of our Finances. Enlargement of the Conscription. 
 Theory of the New Military Law. A Blot on the Political Record of the Confeder 
 acy. Qualified Suspension of the Habeas Corpus. An Infamous Edict, but a " Dead- 
 letter." An Official Libel upon the Confederacy. The Real Condition of CiviJ 
 Liberty in the South. The Conscription not properly a Measure of Force. Im 
 pressments but a System of Patriotic Contribution. Development of the Yankea 
 Government into Despotism. An Explanation of this. The Essence of Despotisn. 
 in One Yankee Statute. MILITARY RESOURCES OF THE CONFEDERACY. Its Military 
 System, the Best and Most Elastic iu the World. The War Conducted on A Volun 
 tary asu. Supplies. Scarcity of Meat. The Grain Product. Two Centres of Sup 
 plies. A Dream of Yankee Hate. Great Natural Resources of the North. Summarj 
 of the Yankee Military Drafts. Tonnage of the Yankee Navy. The Yankee Wai 
 Debt. Economic Effects of the War. Its Effects on European Industry. Yanke 
 Conquest of the South an Impossibility. A Remarkable Incident of the War. 
 DAHLGREN S RAID AROUND RICHMOND. Kilpatrick s and Custar s Parts of the Expe 
 dition. Dahlgren and his Negro Guide. His " Braves" Whipped by the Richmond 
 Clerks and Artisans. Death of the Marauder. Revelation of his Infamous Designs. 
 Copy and History of "the Dahlgren Papers." A Characteristic Yankee Apothe 
 osis. Ridiculous and Infamous Behavior of the Confederate Authorities. A Bru 
 tal and Savage Threat. President Davis in Melodrama PAGE 284 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 The Current of Confederate Victories. THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. Banks Am 
 bitious Designs. Condition of the Confederates West of the Mississippi. Banks 
 Extensive Preparations. A Gala Day at Vicksburg. Yankee Capture of Fort De 
 Kussy. Occupation of Alexandria. Porter s Warfare and Pillage. Banks Con 
 tinued Advance. Shreveport, the Grand Objective Point. Kirby Smith s Designs. 
 General Green s Cavalry Fight. BATTLE OF MANSFIELD. Success of the Confeder 
 ates. BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL. The Heroic and Devoted Charge of the Confeder 
 ates. The Scene on the Hill. Banks Fatally Defeated. Price s Capture of Yankee 
 Trains. Grand Results of Kirby Smith s Campaign. Banks in Disgrace. Yankee 
 Tenure of Louisiana. FORREST S EXPEDITION INTO KENTUCKY. His Gallant Assault 
 on Fort Pillow. The Yankee S ory of u Massacre." Capture of Union City. Con 
 federate Occupation of Paducah. Chastisement of the Yankees on their own Theatre 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 f Outrages CAPTURE OF PLYMOUTH, N. C. General Hoke s Expedition. Capture 
 of" Fort Wessel." Exploit of the " Albemarle."~The Assaults upon the Town. 
 Fruits of its Capture. The Yankees in North Carolina PAGE 252 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Close of the Third Year of the War. Sketch of the Subsequent Operations in Vir 
 ginia and Georgia. GRANT S * ON-TO-RICHMOND." The Combination Against the 
 Confederate Capital. THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. A Thrilling Crisis. Grant 
 en the Verge of Rout. His First Design Baffled. THE BATTLES OF SPOTTSYLVANIA 
 COURT-HOUSE. Death of General Sedgwick. THE CARNAOE OF MAY THE 12TH. Five 
 Battles in Six Days. Grant s Obstinacy. "The Butcher." Sheridan s Expedition. 
 Death of General "Jeb" Stuart. Butler s Operations on the South Side of the 
 James. "The Beast" at the Back-Door of Richmond. He is Driven to Bermuda 
 : Hundred by Beauregard. Defeat of Sigel in the Valley. Grant s Movement Down 
 the Valley of the Rappahannock. His Passage of the Pamunkey. Re-organization of 
 General Lee s Lines. Grant s Favorite Tactics. Yankee Exultation at his Approach 
 to Richmond Caricatures of the Confederacy. A Hasty Apotheosis. A True The 
 ory of Grant s " Flank Movements." His Occupation of McClellan s Old Lines. THE 
 BATTLE OF THE CHIOKAHOMINY OR COLD HARBOR. A Confederate Victory in Ten 
 Minutes. What Had Become of Yankee Exultation. Review of the Rival Routes to 
 Richmond. Grant Crosses the James River. His Second Grand Combination Against 
 Richmond. Hunter s Capture of Staunton. THE BATTLES OF PETERSRORG.- General 
 Wise s Heroic Address. Engagement of 16th June. Grand Assault, of 13th June. 
 on " the Cockade City." A Decisive defeat of the Yankees. Engagement at Port 
 Walthal Junction Sheridan s Defeat Near Gordonsville. Hunter s Repulse at 
 Lynchburg. Two Affairs on the Weldon Railroad. Grant s Second Combination a 
 Complete Failure. Discouragement of the North. The Gold Barometer. Secretary 
 Chase s Declaration. SHERMAN S " ON-TO- ATLANTA." His Flanking Movement. 
 Engagement in Resaca Valley. Johnston s Retreat. Engagement at New Hope. 
 Johnston s Telegram to Richmond. Defeat of Sturgis s Expedition in Mississippi. 
 BATTLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN. Sherman s Successful Strategy. The Confederates 
 Fall Back to Atlanta. THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. Hood s Gallant Defence. .... 
 The Military Situation in July, 1864. Grant s Failure. His Consumption of Troops. 
 Review of Yankee Atrocities in the Summer Campaign of 1864. Sherman s Char 
 acter. His Letter on " Wild Beasts." His War on Factory Girls. Sufferings of 
 Confederate Women and Children. Ravages in Georgia. Hunter s Vandalism in 
 Virginia. "The Avengers of Fort Pillow." Sturgis and his Demons. The Spirit of 
 the Confederates. . . . Some Words on " Peace Negotiations." A Piratical Prop 
 osition and an Infamous Bribe. The Heroic Choice of the Confederates. . . .PAGE 267 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AMERICAN IDEAS : A REVIEW OF THE WAR. 
 
 Sentimental Regrets concerning American History. The European Opinion ot 
 "State" Institutions. Calhoun, the Great Political Scholar of America. His Doc 
 trines. Conservatism of "Nullification." Its " Union" Sentiment. Brilliant Vision 
 of the South Carolina Statesman. W T ebster, the Representative of the Imperfect and 
 Insolent " Education" of New England. Yankee Libels in the shape of Party 
 Nomenclature. Influence of State Institutions. How they were Auxiliary to the 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CTnion Th Moral Veneration of the Union Peculiarly a Seniiment of tht Soutk. 
 What the South had done for the Unioji. Senator Hammond s Speech. TU 
 tates not Schools of Provincialism and Estrangement. The Development of 
 America, a North and South, not Hostile States. Peculiar Ideas of Yankee Civil- 
 nation. Ideas Nursed in "Free Schools." Yankee Materialism. How it ha 
 Developed in the War. Yankee Falsehoods and Yankee Cruelties. His Commer 
 cial Politics. Price of his Liberties. Ideas of the Confederates in the War. How 
 the Washington Routine was introduced. The Richmond Government, Weak and 
 Negative. No Political Novelty in the Confederacy. The Future of Confederate 
 Ideas. Intellectual Barrenness of the War. Material of the Confederate Army. 
 The Birth of Great Ideas. The Old Political Idolaters. The Recompense of 
 Suffering PAG * 2** 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 Condition of tne Confederacy in the early summer of 1864. The expectations and 
 hopes of the South. GRANT S " QN TO RICHMOND." Ulysses S. Grant and his com 
 mand. His services and character. THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. A heroifl 
 stand. Heth s and Wilcox s divisions. A critical conjuncture. Grant s whole 
 army on the threshold of ruin. Grant s change of front and General Lee s neV 
 line. The Northern newspapers go into ecstasies. THE BATTLES OF SPOTTSYL- 
 VANIA COURTHOUSE. A crisis. A thrilling scene." General Lee to the rear !" 
 Six days of battle. Grant s obstinacy. Shsridan s expedition. A fight at Yellow 
 Tavern. Death of General " Jeb" Stuart. Butler s movement up the James. 
 Beauregard drives him to Bermuda Hundred." The Buzzard and the Falcon." 
 THE ENEMY S OPERATIONS IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. The combination there. Three 
 movements. Sigel s defeat a-t Newmarket. McCausland checks Crook at Dublin 
 Depot. Morgan defeats Averill at Wytheville. Grant moves down the Valley of 
 the Rappahannock. Engagements near Hanover Junction. Grant crosses the Pa - 
 munkey. He is within a few miles of Richmond. The true theory of his move 
 ments, defeat, not victory. His immense losses. Lee s admirable movements 
 and positive successes. Nonsense of the newspapers PAGE 809 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Grant essays the passage of the Chickahominy. BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR. A bril 
 liant and extraordinary victory for the Confederates. Grant s stock of expedients. 
 He decides to move to the south side of the James. OPERATIONS IN WESTERN 
 VIRGINIA. Shocking improvidence of the Richmond authorities. Hunter cap 
 tures Stannton. Death of General Jones. Grant s new combination. Hunter s 
 part. Sheridan s part. THE BATTLES OF PETERSBURG. Butler attempts to steal 
 a march upon "the Cockade City." Engagements of the 16th, 17th, and 18th of 
 June. Port Walthal Junction. Defeat of Sheridan at Trevillian Station. Defeat 
 of Hunter near Lynchburg. Morgan draws Burbridge into Kentucky. Two af 
 fairs on the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad. THE GREAT MINE EXPLOSION. A 
 scene of infernal horror. Yankee comments on Grant s failures. Great de 
 pression in the North. Mr. Chase s declarations. General Lee s sense of success. 
 His singular behavior. THE SINKING OF THE PRIVATEER ALABAMA. A Yan 
 kee trick of concealed armor. The privateer service of the Confederates. I n- 
 t"-o8t.ing statistics PAGE 325 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Sherman s cam] aign in Georgia. How parallel with that in Vrginia.- The tasks 
 of Grant and Sherman compared. Numerical inferiority of General Johnston s 
 forces. His proposition to the Richmond authorities. Pragmatism of President 
 Davis and his secretary. Engagement in Resaca Valley. General Johnston s 
 designs. Why he retreated. His disappointment of a battle at Cassville. EN 
 GAGEMENT AT NEW HOPE CHUROH. True theory of the retrograde movement oi 
 Johnston. BATTLE or EENESAW MOUNTAIN. Sherman s confession. Sherman 
 master of the Chattahoochee. Johnston falls back to Atlanta. The vexed ques 
 tion of Johnston s retreat What it surrendered. What it secured. Its strategic 
 advantages. The enemy s movements in Virginia and Georgia both in check. 
 Disappointment of the enemy. Statistics of Yankee recruiting. Another Con 
 federate success. Defeat of Sturgis. " The Avengers of Fort Pillow." Barbar 
 ities of the enemy s summer campaign. Augmentation of Yankee ferocity. Its 
 effect on the Confederates. Offensive operation of the Confederates. Three 
 projects of invasion. EABLY S INVASION OF .MARYLAND, &c. Sigel s retreat. 
 BATTLE OF MONOOACY BRIDGE. Early loses the great opportunity of 1864. Result* 
 of his expedition. Engagement at Kernstown. MORGAN S INVASION OF KEN - 
 TCOKY. His failure. PRICE S INVASION OF MISSOURI. Pilot Knob. General ETT 
 ing s retreat. Price retires PAGE 841 
 
 CHAPTEE X.VLL 
 
 Great revulsion in the public mind of the North in the summer of 1864. A general 
 outcry for peace. Spirit of Yankee newspapers. The Niagara Falls "Commi- 
 sion." The Jacques-Gilmore Affair. Sorry figure of the Confederacy in ther** 
 negotiations. The question of peace negotiations in the Confederacy. Tnw 
 method of peace. Manifesto of the Confederate Congress. Position of President 
 Davis His letter to Governor Vance, of North Carolina. The CHICAGO CONVEN 
 TION, etc. Speeches, etc. The real programme of the Democratic party. Why 
 it broke down. No virtue in public opinion in the North. The true peace men 
 of the North. Their Convention at Cincinnati. A reaffirmation of Jeffersonian 
 Democracy. A masterpiece of statesmanship. The Presidential campaign of 
 /864. The RIVAL ADMINISTRATIONS AT RICHMOND AND WASHINGTON. A COMPARA 
 TIVE VIEW OF NORTHERN DESPOTISM. The conscription and impressment laws of the 
 Confederacy. The offerings of Southern patriotism. The Yankee record in the 
 matter of slavery. " Military necessity." The Yankee record in the matter of 
 civil liberty. An outrage upon history PAGE 359 
 
 CHAPTEE XYHL 
 
 The business of blockade-running. Its risks. Interesting statistics. Value of the 
 port of Mobile. NAVAL FIGHT AND CAPTURE OF THE FORTS IN MOBILE BAY. A 
 frightful disparity of force. Heroic fight of the ram Tennessee. Absurd boasts 
 of the Yankees. Surrender of Fort Gaines. Fall of Fort Morgan. THE GEORGIA 
 CAMPAIGN. Its importance. Johnston s situation at Atlanta. His removal by 
 President Davis. A fatal error. Lieutenant-General Hood. THE BATTLES OF 
 ATLANTA, THE FALL OF "THE GATE CITY." Reckless and desperate fighting 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 Yankee raid on the Macon road. Hood s "magnificent advance." Bombard 
 ment of Atlanta. Hood s fatal mistake. Sherman s new movement. He "cuts 
 the Confederates in two." The Yankees in Atlanta. Sherman s cruelties. Hi 
 depopulation of Atlanta. Enormity of the order. Sherman as a pacificator,- 
 Governor Brtwn s letter. Position of Vice-President Stephens. Effects of the 
 fall of Atlanta. President Davis Macon speech. Its swollen tone. CAPTURE OF 
 THK CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER FLORIDA. Its cowardice and outrage. Yankee idea 
 of glory. THK DESTRUCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE RAM ALBEMARLE. Yankee es 
 timation of the exploit. The North Carolina Sounds. THK ST. ALBANS RAID. 
 Stories of the savage vengeance of the Confederates. How much truth there was in 
 them . PAGE 377 
 
 . 
 
 CHAPTER *TX 
 
 Wtl- 2. 
 
 The Richmond lines. THE FALL OF FORT HARRISON, ETC. The attempt to retake it 
 Why it failed. ENGAGEMENT ON THE CHARLES CITY ROAD. Death of General 
 Gregg. ENGAGEMENT ON THE WILLIAMSBURG AND BOTDTON ROADS. ANOTHER 
 GRAND ATTEMPT ON RICHMOND. A shameful failure. The " electoral necessity" at 
 Washington. THE CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. Early s mission in the 
 Valley. How a part of the combination to protect Richmond. Sheridan s com 
 mand. His strategy. BATTLE NEAR WINCHESTER. A critical moment. The en 
 emy s centre broken. He recovers. Misconduct of the Confederate cavalry. 
 Early retreats to Fisher s Hill. THE BATTLE OF FISHER S HILL. A most unex 
 pected reverse to the Confederates. Misgivings and alarm in Richmond. The 
 capture of Staunton. Sheridan s devastations of the Valley. " Barn-burning." 
 An affair of Rosser s cavalry." Thel Savior of the Valley." BATTLE OF CEDAR 
 CREEK. Two-thirds of Sheridan s- army completely routed. Early s awkward 
 pause. Plunder of the Yankee camp. The enemy regains the day. Shameful 
 rout of the Confederates. The Valley campaign virtually ended. SOUTHWESTERN 
 V IRGINIA. Breckinridge s campaign. The Yankees capture the salt-works at 
 Saltville. Destruction of the works . . PAGE 394 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 Ifr. Lincoln s extraordinary triumph. Reassembling of the Richmond Congress. ~ 
 President Davis review of the situation. A memorable boast. New demands of 
 the Confederate conscription. Military resources of the North and South com 
 pared. Plethoric wealth of the North.-" Twenty against one." Two advantages 
 the South had in the war. Its conditions of success. The value of endurance on 
 the part of the South. THE HOOD-SHERMAN CAMPAIGN. Speeches at headquarters. 
 Hood commences his march. Capture of Dalton. Sherman follows as far as 
 Gaylesville. He turns back. Georgia and South Carolina " at his mercy." An 
 extraordinary campaign.- Hood and Sherman marching away from each otheK 
 flood crosses into Tennessee. The Yankee retreat to Franklin. THE BATTLE OF 
 FRANKLIN. Great loss in Confederate officers. The enemy retreats to Nashville. 
 BATTLE ow NASHViLLE.-The giving way of Bates division. A shameful stampede. 
 Hood s losses.- -The whole scheme of Confederate defence west of the Al!- 
 ghanies broken down. The errors of Hood s campaign PAGE 412 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Sherman s march from the mountains to the sea. Yankee boasts. Easy raturo : 
 Sherman s enterprise. " Grand" mistake of the Confederates. The burning o 
 Atlanta. Five thousand houses in ruins. Sherman s route to Milledgeville. 
 Second stage of the march to Millen. Last stage of the march. Wheeler s cavalry 
 THE FALL OF SAVANNAH. Capture of Fort McAllister. Probable surprise of 
 Hardee. The Confederates evacuate Savannah. Sherman s Christnuu-gift to Mr. 
 Lincoln. The true value of Sherman s exploit. His own estimation of it. De 
 spondency in the South. Depletion of the Confederate armies. THK EXCHANGE or 
 PRISONERS, etc. Bad faith of the Yankees. Their misrepresentations. The ques 
 tion of recaptured slaves. A Yankee calculation. The Washington Government 
 responsible for the sufferings of Yankee prisoners. How capital was made out of 
 their sufferings. A game with " sick" prisoners. How "rebel barbarities" were 
 manufactured. Noble conduct of General Grant. Its commentary on the Wash 
 ington cabinet. His " victory" over that body PAGE 426 
 
 CHARTER XXII. 
 
 The blockade at Wilmington. How ineffective. FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT 
 FISHER. Butler s powder-ship. The two days bombardment. Landing of 
 Butler s troops. Butler- decides not to attack. His sudden departure. He is 
 removed from command. SECOND EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT FISHER. FALL o 
 WILMINGTON. Landing of Terry s command. Movements of General Hoke. The 
 assault on the fort. A feu cPenfer. Desperate fighting. The Confederates 
 overpowered. Surrender of Fort Fisher. Evacuation of Fort Anderson. Yankee 
 occupation of Wilmington. How a part of General Sherman s campaign in the 
 Carolinas. SHERMAN S SIXTY DAYS IN THE CAROLINAS. Direction of his march. - 
 Crossing the Savannah River. Mismanagement of the Confederate troops. Shei- 
 man at Branchville. THE FALL OF CHARLESTON. Hardee joins BeauregarJ. 
 Conflagration in Charleston. Explosion at the railroad depot. A scarred city. 
 Charleston as seen through Yankee eyes. CAPTURE AND BURNING or COLUMBIA. 
 Wild and savage scenes of pillage. The city on fire. Four thousand citizens 
 homeless. Sherman s march northward. His organization of "bummers." 
 The column of smoke. The Yankees at Winnsboro . More of the enemy s atro 
 cities. Sherman s feint upon Charlotte. His occupation of Fayetteville. Hamp 
 ton attacks Kilpatrick. Sherman s appointment of a rendezvous with Schofield. 
 Hardee s fight near Averysboro*. What he did with half a corps of Confeder 
 ates. THE BATTLE OF BENTONVILLE. Success of the Confederates. No decisive 
 results. Sherman s move towards Goldsboro . Schofield s movement. Sher 
 man s success. His congratulatory order. A military conference st City Point, 
 Virginia PAOB 4ST 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 The date of distrust in the Southern mind. Observation of General Lee. A pecu 
 liar moral condition of the Confederacy. Want of confidence in President Davis 
 administration. Impatience of the prolongation of the war. Davis unpopularity. 
 Weak attempts in Congress at a counter-revolution. General Lee made com- 
 mander-in chief. The title a nominal one. The Virginia delegation and the Pres 
 ident. Mr. Sed den s resignation. President Davis defiance to Congress. Th 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 Davia- Johnston imbroglio. Senator Wig fall s speeches. Johnston s restoration. 
 President Davis opinion of homoeopathy. Sullen and indifferent disposition o< 
 the Southern people. How they might have accomplished their independence. 
 Review of the military situation. Analysis of the peace feeling in the North. 
 How it was likely to be developed by a long war. The Union not the enemy s tint 
 qua non. Two contingencies that limited the war. The worthless title of Tanke* 
 invasion. "Cob-web" occupation of the Confederacy. Note: an address in. the 
 Richmond newspapers. The two fatal facts in the condition of the Confederacy. 
 THE FORTRESS MONROE COMMISSION. How it was brought about. The Yankee 
 ultimatum. Official narrative of the Confederate commissioners. A new attempt 
 to rally the spirit of the South. The meeting at the African church in Richmond. 
 President Davis boasts. His noble allusion to history. How the cause of the 
 Confederacy was in danger. PROPOSITION TO ARM THE SLAVES OF THE SOUTH. 
 Indicative of a desperate condition of the public mind. General Lee s opinion. 
 The slaveholding interest. Its selfishness and insolence. A weak conclusion of 
 the matter. "Catching at straws" in the Confederate Congress. Character of 
 
 this body PACK 465 
 
 
 
 UH>. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER XX1T. 
 
 The last address and appeal of the Confederate Congress. The war in a geographical 
 point of view. THB CONFEDERATE CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT DAVIS. THE EXECU 
 TIVE DEPARTMENTS. A sharp recrimination. A committee of the Senate reply ta 
 President Davis. Maladministration in the War Department Two-thirds of th 
 Confederate Army absentees. Lee loses nearly half his army by desertions. The 
 Other half threatened with starvation. Ample supply of food in the country. 
 The fault in the Commissary Department. Commissary Northrop a " pepper-doc 
 tor" as the favorite of Davis. Analysis of President Davis character for firmness. 
 How Northrop starved Richmond. HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSA- 
 BIAT. Secret testimony in Congress. President Davis refusal to trade cotton for 
 meat. Persistent delusion about "king cotton." Venality of the enemy. Davia 
 takes no advantage of it.-r-Reoord of the rations in Lee s army. Startling statis 
 tics. Attempts to get meat from Europe. General Lee s army without meat.-- 
 His telegram to President Davis. The necessities of the Commissary Department 
 summed up in secret session of Congress. But little done to meet them. How the 
 cause of the Confederacy would have failed without a catastrophe of arms. The 
 military narrative resumed. MILITARY EVENTS IN VIRGINIA IN THK WINTER o 
 1864-5. SHERIDAN S RAID. Thirteen counties traversed. Amount of destruction 
 accomplished by the enemy. THE RICHMOND LINES. HATCHER S RUN. Extension 
 of Grant s line. BATTLE OF HARES HILL. Gallantry of Gordon s command. Vigor 
 and brilliancy of the fighting of the Confederates. No decisive results.. PAGK 474 
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 THK BATTLES AROUND PETERSBURG. The movement of Sheridan s cavalry. The Five 
 Forks. General Lee s counter-movement. Repulse of Sheridan. Re-enforced by 
 Grant. The Confederates flanked at the Five Forks. The situation in front o. 
 Petersburg. Lee s lines broken in three places. Capture of Fort Mahorie by the 
 enemy. General Lee loses his entire line of defence, and the Southside Railroad. 
 THE EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. Great surprise in the Confederate capital. The 
 news in the churches. Dr. Hoge s address. Consternation and uproar in th* 
 
16 CONTENTS. 
 
 treets. The city on fire. -A reckless military order. Scenes of horror. Mobs of 
 plunderers. The scene at the commissary depot. WeitzePs entry into Richmond. 
 Suffering of the people. Scene on Capitol Square. Devastations of the fire. 
 The burnt district. Weitzel s and Shepley s general orders. Yankee rejoicings 
 over the fall of Richmond. Bell-ringings, hymns, and dancing in the streets of 
 New York. A grand illumination in Washington.--Yankee mottoes. A memor 
 able speech ..... PAGK 487 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 I7hat the Confederates anticipated on the fall of Richmond. Two opinions. Pro 
 phetic words of the Richmond Examiner. Disintegration of Lee s army. The 
 line of his retreat. Grant s pursuit. Sheridan captures prisoners, guns, and wag 
 ons. Sheridan s dispatch. Change in the movements of both armies. The situa 
 tion at Appomattox Court-house. How Lee was surrounded. SURRENDER OF THE 
 ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. A frightful demoralization of the army. More than 
 two-thirds of the men deserted. Pickett s division. Reasons to suppose that Gen 
 eral Lee had predetermined a surrender on moving from Richmond and Peters 
 burg. Straggling of his soldiers. Official correspondence concerning the surren 
 der. Interview between General Lee and General Grant at McLean s house. How 
 General Lee looked. Grant s generous conduct. Scenes between the lines of the 
 two armies.- -An informal conference of officers. How the news of surrender was 
 received in the Yankee army. How received at Washington. Secretary Stanton a 
 dispatch. President Lincoln s speech." Dixie" in Washington. General Lee s 
 farewell address to his army. His return to Richmond. Effect of Lee s surrender. 
 -General Johnston s department. MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHWEST. FALL OF MO 
 BILE. Wilson s cavalry expedition through Alabama and Georgia. SURRENDER 
 OF JOHNSTON S ARMY. Sherman s " basis of negotiations" repudiated at Wash 
 ington. The policy of the Northern Government unmasked. Sherman s reply. 
 SURRENDER OF TAYLOR S ARMY. SURRENDER OF KIRBY S SMITH S ARMY. "War 
 meetings" in Texas. Want of public resolution. The last act of the war. A sud 
 den peace, and what it implied PAGE 502 
 
 i . 
 
 APPENDIX No. I. 
 m j 
 
 I. 
 
 olitical Iconoclasm in America. The two idols of " the Constitution" and " tLe 
 Union." Extravagant praises of the Constitution. Its true value. It contained a 
 noble principle and glaring defects. Character of the founders of the Constitution. 
 Hamilton. Franklin. His cookery-book philosophy. His absurdities in the 
 Convention. The call for the Convention that formed the Constitution. Three 
 parties in the Convention. The idea of a * national" government. Conflict be 
 tween the small and large States. The result of this, the distinguishing feature of 
 the Constitution. That feature an accident, and not an a priori discovery. Enu 
 meration of defects in the Constitution. The weakness and ignorance of ita framer*. 
 IU one conspicuous virtue and original principle. Combination of State-rig hta 
 
CONTENTS. 17 
 
 with a common authority. How involved in the construction of the Senate. How 
 made more precise in the Amendments. Particulars in which the element of th* 
 States was recognized. A new rule of construction applied to the American Union. 
 The necessity which originated it. The Constitution of the United States not a 
 political revolution. The creature of the States. True interpretation of its moral 
 grandeur. The bond of the Union a voluntary one. No mission* apart from the 
 States. Why coercion of the States was not necessary. How the Union stood 
 for an American nationality. Its power to reach individuals. The Union, in 
 practice, rather a rough companionship than a national identity. Right of seces 
 sion. Not necessary to discuss it. The development of the Union a North and 
 South, and not disintegrated States. Profound invention of Calhoun of South Car 
 olina. How it was a Union measure, and not " Nullification." 529 
 
 II. 
 
 What the American colonies contended for. Burke s idea. The first American Con 
 gress. Its demands. How the question of independence was developed. Vir 
 ginia the first to move for independence. The Declaration of Independence. The 
 Articles of Confederation. Diverse character and circumstances of the colonies.- 
 The gentry of Virginia and the Carolinas. Early type of the YanTcee. Difference 
 of races. Its value in historical inquiries. Commercial spirit of New England 
 in the revolution. The nature and the value of " the Confederation." John Ad 
 ams idea. " Perpetual Union." The Confederation a makeshift of the war. 
 " State-rights" in the treaty qf 1783. How the revolution succeeded. Its illustra 
 tion of the value of endurance. Liberty invariably the fruit of rebellion. Tha 
 two conditions of all history 544 
 
 III. 
 
 The times of Thomas Jefferson. Manners and appearance of the man. His Demon- 
 racy. Its application to the relations of the States and Federal Government. Ori 
 gin of the Republican or Democratic party. The idea of consolidation. Nevf 
 York, and the New England States. Early political preaching in New England. 
 The Alien and Sedition laws. How the latter infringed the rights of the States. 
 The Kentucky Resolutions. A fact not in the record. Mr. Jefferson on " nullifi 
 cation." Why the Kentucky Resolutions were modified. The Virginia Resolutions, 
 The replies of the New England States, and of New York. Jefferson s triumph. 
 A new era at Washington -. 55$ 
 
 IV. 
 
 Tie slav.ery question. A libel on political nomenclature. A brief moral de 
 fence of negro servitude in the South. The history of its establishment. 
 Accommodation of the slavery question in the Constitution. Political history of 
 the question. The Hartford Convention.-w-Two blows aimed at the South. Devel 
 opment of the slavery controversy. Mr. Jefferson s opinion as to slavery in 
 the territories. The Missouri restriction. The initial point of the war of sections. 
 Mr. Jefferson s alarm. The trace of disunion. Real causes of conflict between 
 the North and the South. The slavery question subordinate and yet conspicu 
 ous. Why so ? How it was bound up in the conflict between State-rights and 
 consolidation. Northern civilization. An insolent democracy. Yankee " gentle 
 men." Plainness of the South. A noble type of civilization. Effect of slavery 
 on the political and social character of the South. Yankee vulgarity. ^hy the 
 South was the nursery of American statesmen 562 
 
 a 
 
It CONTENTS. 
 
 Y. 
 
 Contrast between the North and South in material progress. The times of 
 Jackson. The tariff controversy. Calhoun and Webster as representat.ve men 
 The latter a sophomore in American politics. Mr. Webster s private correspon 
 dence and pdfetry. His superficial accomplishments. " Nullification," anothei 
 libel of political nomenclature. A true explanation and analysis of Mr. Calhoun s 
 scheme to save and perpetuate the Onion. Jefferson Davis defence of Calhoun. 
 New England s regard for the Union. The veneration of the Union peculiarly a 
 Southern sentiment. Mr. Calhoun s Fort Hill speech. The ignorance or hypoc 
 risy of Webster and his party. How the South was driven to " disunion.". . . 570 
 
 YI. 
 
 A Fourth of July sentiment in 1851. Slavery not the Cause of Disunion. The War 
 of 1861. What it has decided. The incense of weak minda to the Yankee. 
 Last sentiment of President Davis.. .. 580 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE THIRD YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Review of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Two Defects in the Victory of the Con 
 federates." The Finest Army on the Planet." Analysis of the Victory. General- 
 chip of Lee. Services and Character of the great Confederate Leader. His Com 
 monplaces and his Virtues. The Situation in Virginia. Lee s Preparations for the 
 Summer Campaign. Hooker to be Maneuvered out of Virginia. Reorganization of 
 Lee s Army. The Affair of Brandy Station. THE CAPTURE OF WINCHESTER. The 
 Affair of Aldie s Station. Lee s Army Crossing the Potomac. Invasion of Pennsyl 
 vania. Alarm in the North. Hooker Out-Generalled and Removed. The Mild 
 Warfare of the Confederate Invaders. Southern "Chivalry." General Lee s Error. 
 His Splendid March from Culpepper Court House to Gettysburg. Feverish Anti 
 cipations in Richmond. THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. First Day s Engagement. 
 A Regiment of Corpses. Charge of Gordon s Brigade. The Nine Mississipp 
 Heroes. The Yankees Driven through Gettysburg. A Fatal Mistake of the Con 
 federates. General Lee s Embarrassments. THE SECOND DAT. Cemetery Hill. 
 Early s Attack Almost a Success. Adventure of Wright s Brigade. THE THIRB 
 D AY ._Sublime Terrors of the Artillery. Heroic and Ever-Memorable Charge of 
 Pickett s Division on the Heights. Half a Mile of Shot and Shell. Pickett s Sup 
 ports Fail. The Recoil. General Lee s Behavior. His Greatness in Disaster. Im 
 mense Carnage. Death of General Barksdale, " the Haughty Rebel." General Lee s 
 Retreat. The Affair of Williamsport. Lee Recrosses the Potomac. Success of his 
 Retreat. Yankee Misrepresentation. Review of the Pennsylvania Campaign. Half 
 of Lee s Plans Disconcerted at Richmond. Results of the Battle of Gettysburg Ne 
 gative. Lee s Retreat Across the Potomac an Inconsequence. Disappointment in 
 Richmond. The Budget of a Single Day in the Confederate Capital. 
 
 IN the close of a former volume, we proposed to open the 
 Third Year of the War with a revised and extended account 
 of the battles fought between Fredericksburg and Chancellors- 
 vine, on the 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th of May, 1863. On examina 
 tion, however, of what has already been written of these 
 events, we find so little of authentic detail to add to it, that we 
 shall content ourselves with a general reference to this impor 
 tant series of engagements (known collectively as the battle of 
 Chancellorsville), and a concise statement of results. 
 
 We have here again the old story of a great and bloody 
 battle, defective in conclusion and barren in practical results. 
 The Confederates had failed to capture Sedgwick s corps by 
 
20 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. , 
 
 not seizing Banks Ford. The capture of his wlu .e corps 
 would then have been inevitable, for we held the access to 
 Fredericksburg guarded. As it was, Hooker was able to cross 
 the river under cover of night with all of his army but what 
 had been lost in the casualties of the fight ; and the Southern 
 public were again treated to the old excuse that we had neither 
 the men nor the facilities to pursue him. 
 
 But, notwithstanding these deficiencies of our victory, it was 
 a great and brilliant one, and it gave the Confederacy occasion 
 of pride second to none in the war. The Confederates had 
 whipped what Hooker entitled " the finest army on the planet." 
 They had done this with an effective fighting force which, com 
 pared with that of the enemy, was as three to ten. They had 
 put thirty thousand of the enemy hors du coinbat^ while our 
 own casualties did not foot up more than one-third of that 
 number. This battle, more than anything else, confirmed the 
 fame of General Lee ; for, however it had failed in accomplish 
 ing all that was possible, it was at least a victory won against 
 an enemy of superior numbers, who had the advantage of the 
 initiative and naturally secured that of position. 
 
 General Hooker had come with eight days rations and a plan 
 of battle combining all that was essential on paper to a com 
 plete success. General Lee had to watch the movements of 
 Hooker until they were developed ; to arrest his progress by 
 attack ; to engage him at the same time with a flank movement 
 with a portion of his forces ; and then to transfer his blows to 
 Sedgwick. All this was done with a readiness of combination 
 that showed a high order of military ability. Hooker was de 
 feated by two critical circumstances : the flank movement of 
 Jackson, executed with signal rapidity and decision, and the 
 failure of Sedgwick to effect a junction. It was these move 
 ments and interpositions directed by Lee which ranked him 
 among the greatest of modern strategists. He was now recog 
 nized as the master military mind of the Confederacy. 
 
 General Lee had, by a perceptible progress, risen to be one 
 of the most remarkable men of the revolution. His military 
 life had been one of steady advancement. He had graduated 
 at West Point in 1829, at the head of his class ; and it is said 
 that, in that severe school and early test of the soldier, he had 
 never been marked with a demerit or had received a repri- 
 
GEN. S. COOPE R. 
 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 21 
 
 n and. He had twice been brevetted in the Mexicar. war. For 
 thirty years he had served the United States, and the period of 
 disunion found him lieutenant-colonel of that famous regiment 
 of cavalry of which Sydney Johnson was colonel. 
 
 Upon the secession of Virginia he was appointed commander 
 in-chief of her forces, and organized an army with a system and 
 rapidity that at once surprised and gratified the public. When 
 President Davis made his appointments of generals, he was the 
 third on the list : General Cooper being first, and General 
 Sydney Johnson second. The appointments were made with 
 reference to the rank held by each officer in the old army. The 
 unfortunate campaign of General Lee in Western Virginia in 
 the first year of the war threw a shadow on his fame ; it disap 
 pointed his admirers and occasioned a very general denuncia 
 tion of his ability. The battles around Richmond secured his 
 fame. There was, in fact, but little military merit in them; 
 but there was a great success, and results alone are the stand 
 ards of popular appreciation. It was when General Lee moved 
 out to the line of the Rappahannock that the true display of 
 his abilities commenced; and his title to a substantial and 
 abiding fame he had now crowned with the victory of 
 Chancellors ville. 
 
 No one had ever accused General Lee of "genius." A 
 eedate, methodical man, putting duty before everything else, 
 illustrating the unselfish and Christian orders of virtue, almost 
 sublime in his magnanimity, and uniting with these qualities 
 a fair intellectual ability and an excellent practical judgment, 
 this modern copy of Washington had nothing with which to 
 dazzle mankind, but much with which to win its sober admira 
 tion. It has often been remarked how entirely limited by pro 
 fessional routine was the circle of intellectual accomplishments 
 in the old army of the United States. Thirty years in this 
 school had not made General Lee an "Admirable Crichton." 
 Outside of his profession, his conversation was limited to a few 
 commonplaces; he knew nothing of literature, and never 
 attempted to draw an illustration from history. But the 
 stranger who was at first shocked at such poverty of accom 
 plishments in one so famous was soon won to admiration by 
 the charming simplicity of a man who knew but little out 
 side of the line of his duty, but in that was pre-eminently able 
 
22 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAB. 
 
 and thoroughly heroic. It may be said of him that he was one 
 of those few self-depreciating men whose magnanimity was not 
 sentimental, and whose modesty was not unmanly. 
 
 In taking up the thread of our story after the battle of Chan 
 cellorsville, we must now follow this great commander in on 
 of the most extraordinary movements of the war, and to on 
 of its most critical and imposing fields. 
 
 A great battle had now been twice fought on the line of the 
 Bappahannock with no other effect than driving the enemy 
 back to the hills of Stafford. The position was one in which 
 he could not be attacked to advantage. It was on this reflec 
 tion that General Lee resolved to maneuver Hooker out of Vir 
 ginia, to clear the Shenandoah Valley of the troops of the 
 enemy, and to renew the experiment of the transfer of hostili 
 ties north of the Potomac. It was a blow to the summer cam 
 paign of the enemy, calculated to disarrange it and relieve 
 other parts of the Confederacy, but, above all, aimed at the 
 prize of a great victory on Northern soil, long the aspiration 
 of the Southern public. 
 
 The movement commenced on the 3d of June. The army 
 of Northern Virginia had been thoroughly reorganized, and 
 the question of Stonewall Jackson s successor had been deter 
 mined to the satisfaction of the country. About the 20th of 
 May the President commissioned both Major-generals R. S. 
 Ewell and A. P. Hill as lieutenant-generals in the army of 
 Northern Virginia. To each of these generals a corps was 
 assigned, consisting of three divisions, General Longstreet, for 
 this purpose, parting with one of his divisions (Anderson^), 
 and A. P. Hill s old division being reduced by two brigades, 
 was assigned to Major-general W. D. Pender. The two 
 brigades thus taken from A. P. Hill s division, were united 
 with Pettigrew s and another North Carolina brigade, and 
 assigned to Major-general Heth, who, with Major-general 
 Pender, was promoted from the rank of brigadier-generals. 
 General A. P. Hill was assigned to the command of this corps, 
 whilst General Ewell retained General Jackson s old corps, 
 consisting of Early s division ; Early having been made a 
 Major-general in February, and receiving command of Swell s 
 old division ; Kode s division and Trimble s division, to whici 
 General Edward Johnson, then just promoted to a major-gen 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 23 
 
 eralship, was assigned. Five of the six major- generals in the 
 infantry department of this army, and the two corps generals, 
 received their promotion within the twelve months past. 
 
 On the 3d of June McLaw s division of Longstreet s corps 
 left Fredericksburg for Culpepper Court-house, and Hood s di 
 vision, which was occupied on the Rapidan, marched to the 
 same place. General Ewell s corps took up the line of march 
 from its camps near Fredericksburg on the morning of June 
 4th, moving in the direction of Culpeper Court-House. On 
 the same evening Longstreet s corps moved in the same direc 
 tion. On Friday, June 5th, the enemy crossed a force below 
 Fredericksburg, near the Bernard House, as if they intended to 
 move once more upon our lines, stretching from Hamilton s 
 crossing up to Fredericksburg. Ewell and Longstreet were 
 halted at or near Locust Grove, in Orange county, to await the 
 issue of the movement. Hooker having made this diversion in 
 our front, set himself to work in removing his stores and ia 
 retiring his troops from the Stafford heights. 
 
 The forces of Longstreet and Ewell reached Culppeper Court 
 house by the 8th, at which point the cavalry, under Genera! 
 Stuart, was also concentrated. On the 9th a large force of 
 Federal cavalry, strongly supported by infantry, crossed the 
 Rappahannock at Beverly s and Kelly s fords, and attacked 
 General Stuart. A severe engagement ensued, continuing 
 from early in the morning until late in the afternoon, when 
 the enemy was forced to recross the river with heavy loss, 
 leaving four hundred prisoners, three pieces of artillery, and 
 several colors in our hands. 
 
 This affair, popularly known as that of Brandy Station, was 
 distinguished by an extraordinary exploit of Confederate troops. 
 In one of the charges the Eleventh Virginia cavalry, under Col 
 onel Lomax, captured, the third and last time, a battery of three 
 pieces, the Sixth regiment and Thirty-fifth battalion having done 
 so before them. Pushing his success, he divided his regiment, 
 sending a squadron after the fugitives east of the railroad, 
 while, with the remainder of his regiment, he assailed three 
 regiments of cavalry, awaiting him at the depot. He routed 
 this whole force completely. 
 
24 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 General Jenkins, with his cavalry brigade, had beer, ordered 
 to advance towards Winchester to co-operate with the infantry 
 in the proposed expedition into the Lower Valley, and at the 
 same time General Imboden was directed, with his command, 
 to make a demonstration in the direction of Romney, in order 
 to cover the movement against Winchester, and prevent the 
 enemy at that place from being reinforced by the troops on the 
 line of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Both of these officers 
 were in position when General Ewell left Culpepper Court 
 house, on the 16th. Crossing the Shenandoah near Front 
 Royal, he detached Rodes division to Berry ville with instruc 
 tions, after dislodging the forces stationed there, to cut off the 
 communication between Winchester and the Potomac. With 
 the divisions of Early and Johnson, General Ewell advanced 
 directly upon Winchester, driving the enemy into his w r orks 
 around the town on the 13th. On the same day the troops at 
 Berry ville fell back before General Rodes, retreating to Win 
 chester. Lieutenant-general Ewell, after consultation with 
 Major-general Early, determined upon a flank movement, in 
 order to reduce the town, as preferable to an assault in front. 
 General Early at once began to move to attack a work of the 
 enemy on the Pughtown road, on a hill commanding their main 
 fort. 
 
 About an hour before sunset, on the evening of the 14th ot 
 June, General Early, without encountering scout or picket, was 
 in easy cannon range of the enemy s work, which it was his 
 purpose to assault. He at once set to work making disposition 
 of his forces preparatory to the attack. Twenty pieces of ar 
 tillery were placed in position. Hay s Louisiana brigade was 
 now ordered to prepare for the charge. Our artillery opened 
 a vigorous and well-directed fire on the enemy s works and 
 guns. They responded with considerable spirit. Then Hay s 
 Lonsianians moved forward to the music of our cannon, which 
 were still playing upon the works of the enemy. No i r ankee 
 dared show his head above the parapet. When our men got 
 -within two hundred yards of the enemy s works, suddenly our 
 artillery ceased. And now Hay s men charge over an abattis, 
 

 L T GEN. R. S. EWELL 
 
 C.B. Richardson 
 Publisher 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 25 
 
 capturing the work and taking six pieces of artilk.y. 
 enemy vainly attempted, tinder cover of the guns of their main 
 to form in the bottom, between the two hills, and letako 
 the works, but Hay s men manned and turned the enemy s 
 own guns upon them. A few well-directed shots quickly broke 
 them in confution, and they retreated to the inner fort. 
 
 General Edward Johnston had been ordered to move to the 
 Martinsburg road, arid intercept the expected retreat of the 
 enemy. His dispositions had scarcely been made when the 
 Yankees charged, with loud jelling, hoping to break through 
 our lines and escape. The battle raged for nearly an hour, our 
 troops (but little over twelve hundred men) being greatly out- 
 n umbered. Just, however, as the last of our cartridges gave out, 
 General "Walker came up. The enemy had by this time divided 
 into two columns, for the purpose of endeavoring to turn both 
 of our flanks simultaneously. General Walker charged the 
 party attempting to turn our right flank, and they surrendered. 
 General Johnson moved the two Louisiana regiments, held iii 
 reserve, against the body of the enemy attempting to pass our 
 left flank, and captured the greater part of them. Though 
 Milroy and three hundred cavalry, besides some straggling in 
 fantry, made their escape, our captures here amounted to some 
 twenty-five hundred men. The unfortunate Yankee com 
 mander fled to Harper s Ferry with his small party of fugi 
 tives. 
 
 General Kodes marched from Berry ville to Martinsburg, 
 entering the latter place on the 14th, where he took seven 
 hundred prisoners, five pieces of artillery and a considerable 
 quantity of stores. These operations cleared the valley of the 
 enemy, those at Harper s Ferry withdrawing to Maryland 
 Heights. More than four thousand, prisoners, twenty-nine 
 pieces of artillery, two hundred and seventy wagons and am 
 bulances, with four hundred hcrses, were captured, besides a 
 larjre amount of military stores. Our loss was small. On the 
 night that Ewell appeared at Winchester, the Federal troops 
 in front of A. P. Hill, at Fredericksburg, recrossed the Eap- 
 pahannock, and the next day disappeared behind the hills of 
 Stafford. 
 
 The onward movement of General Lee had now fairly com 
 menced. The success of Winchester was a brilliant * - 
 
26 SOUTHERN HISTORY Or THE WAR. 
 
 tion to the campaign. The men who had achieved this success 
 and who had been trained in marching, fighting and endurance, 
 under Stonewall Jackson, were appropriately placed in the van 
 of the imposing movement that now threatened the territory 
 of the agitated and alarmed North. 
 
 The whole army of General Hooker withdrew from the lin 
 of the Rappahannock, pursuing the roads near the Potomac, 
 and no favorable opportunity was offered for attack. It seemed 
 to be the purpose of General Hooker to take a position which 
 would enable him to cover the approaches to Washington 
 City. 
 
 With this view, he occupied strong positions at Centreville 
 and Manassas, so as to interpose his army between us and 
 Washington, and thus prevent a sudden descent from the Blue 
 Ridge by General Lee upon the Yankee capital. Meanwhile, 
 Longstreet and Hill were following fast upon Ewell s track, 
 the former reaching Ashby s and Snicker s gaps in time to pre 
 vent any movement upon Ewell s rear, and the latter (Hill) 
 getting to Culpepper in good season to protect Longstreet s 
 rear, or to co-operate with him in the event of an attack upon 
 his flank, or to guard against any demonstration in the direc 
 tion of Richmond. 
 
 When Longstreet occupied the mountain gaps, the cavalry, 
 under General Stuart, was thrown out in his front to watch the 
 enemy, now reported to be moving into London. On the 
 17th, his cavalry encountered two brigades of ours, under 
 General Stuart, near Aldie, and was driven back with loss. 
 The next day the engagement was renewed, the Federal cavalry 
 being strongly supported by infantry, and General Stuart, in 
 turn, was compelled to retire. 
 
 The enemy advanced as far as Upperville and then fell back. 
 In these engagements General Stuart took about four hundred 
 prisoners and a considerable number of horses and arms. 
 
 In the meantime, a portion of Ewell s corps had crossed the 
 Potomac at Williamsport. No report had been received that 
 the Federal army had crossed tl e Potomac, and the absence 
 of the cavalry rendered it impossible to obtain accurate infor 
 mation. In order, however, to retain it on the east side of the 
 mountains after it should enter Maryland, and thus leave open 
 our commun/ option with the Potomac, through Hagerstown 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 27 
 
 nnd Wiliiamsport, General Ewell had been .nstrueted to send 
 a division eastwards from Chambersburg to cross the South 
 Mountains. Early s division was detached for this purpose, and 
 proceeded as far east as York, while the remainder of the corps 
 proceded to Carlisle. 
 
 On the 24th, the whole of A. P. Hill s corps crossed the Po 
 tomac at Shepherdstown, that of Longstreet having previously 
 reached the Maryland shore by the Williarnsport ford the 
 corps of General JLougstreet being composed of the divisions of 
 McLaws, Pickett and Hood, whilst that of Hill consisted of 
 Pender, Heth and Anderson. The columns reunited at Hagers- 
 town, and advanced thence into Pennsylvania, encamping near 
 Chambersburg on the 27th. 
 
 The invasion of Pennsylvania had now progressed to a crisis, 
 which was the signal of unbounded excitement in the North. 
 On the 29th, Brigadier-general Jenkins and command went 
 within sight and artillery range of Harrisburg, with a view, it 
 was thought, of attack. The light horsemen of the Confederates 
 scoured the southern region of Pennsylvania. For weeks the 
 dashing and adventurous cavalry of Jenkins and Imboden were 
 persistently busy in scouring the country between the Susque- 
 hannah and the Alleghanies, the Monocacy and the Potomac, 
 and from the lines before Harrisburg their trumpets had 
 sounded. 
 
 At the first news of the invasion, Lincoln had called for a 
 hundred thousand men to defend Washington. Governor 
 Andrews offered the whole military strength of Massachusetts 
 in the terrible crisis. Governor Seymour, of New York, sum 
 moned McClellan to grave consultations respecting the de 
 fences of Pennsylvania. The bells were set to ringing in 
 Brooklyn. Kegiment after regiment was sent off from New 
 York to Philadelphia. The famous Seventh regiment took the 
 field, and proceeded to Harrisburg. The Dutch farmers in the 
 valley drove their cattle to the mountains, and the archives 
 were removed from Harrisburg. 
 
 Hooker had declined a battle in Virginia. This hesitation 
 was to cost him his command ; it was the theme of bitter 
 reproach in the North. Lee had been allowed to obtain the 
 important advantage of the military initiative, and had gained 
 time enough to firmly establish his communications in the real 
 
28 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 of his base of operations on the other side of the Potomac, 
 Having brought up and consolidated his forces with consum 
 mate address he was in a position to hurl them wherever he 
 might desire. 
 
 On crossing the Potomac, Hooker had taken up a line ex 
 tending from Washington to Baltimore, expecting General Lee 
 to offer him battle in Maryland. Finding himself disappointed 
 in this, and compelled by his superiors at "Washington, or 
 smarting under their distrust, he relinquished his command to 
 George C. Meade, who, finding that Lee had deflected in his 
 inarch through Pennsylvania, moved towards Chambersburg 
 to meet him. 
 
 General Lee had proposed to attack Harrisburg. On the 
 30th, as General Ewell was preparing to march to Harrisburg, 
 twenty miles distant, an order came to him to unite his corps 
 with the rest of the army near Gettysburg. Major-general 
 Early, of this corps, who, after crossing the river, had moved 
 to York, and who was then at that place, was at once notified, 
 and the corps immediately took up the line of march. 
 
 Important news had been received. On the night of the 
 29th, information was brought to General Lee s head-quarters 
 that the Federal army, having crossed the Potomac, was ad 
 vancing northwards, and that the head of the column had 
 reached the South Mountain. As our communications with 
 the Potomac were thus menaced, it was resolved to prevent his 
 further progress in that direction by concentrating our army 
 on the east side of the mountains. Accordingly, Longstreef 
 and Hill were directed to proceed from Chambersburg f,o 
 Gettysburg, to which point General Ewell had been also in 
 structed to march. 
 
 A day pregnant with a momentous issue was at hand. The 
 two armies which had ceased to confront each other since the 
 breaking up of the Fredericksburg lines found themselves 
 again face to face near Gettysburg, on Wednesday, July 1st. 
 
 Before turning to the bloody page of Gettysburg, the curi 
 osity of the reader naturally inquires into the conduct of the 
 Confederate army on the long march which had at last pene 
 trated the fruitful fields of Pennsylvania. Considering what 
 the country and homes of the Confederacy had suffered from 
 the ferocity of the enemy, it might have been supposed that 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 29 
 
 Lee s army would have improved thejr grand opportunity in 
 Pennsylvania, not indeed by an imitation of the enemy s out 
 rages in the South, hut by that eminently justifiable retaliation 
 which, \\hile it scorns to mete out in kind the enemy s crime, 
 in arson, pillage and innocent blood, insists upon doing him 
 some commensurate injury by severe acts of war, done with 
 deliberation and under the authority of superiors. Such ex 
 pectations were disappointed. Every just and intelligent 
 reader of the records of this war must wonder that General 
 Lee gave a protection to the citizens of Pennsylvania which 
 had never been accorded to our own people ; that, with an ob- 
 tuseness that is inexplicable, he confounded two very different 
 classes of retaliation ; and that, while forbidding the irregular 
 pillage of the country, and threatening marauders with death 
 (which admirable orders were heartily approved by all people 
 in the South), he also restrained his army from laying waste 
 the country in line of battle, or destroying the enemy s subsis 
 tence. Such tenderness, the effect of a weak and strained 
 chivalry, or more probably that of deference to European 
 opinion, is another of the many instances which the war has 
 furnished of the simplicity and sentimental facility of the 
 South. 
 
 General Lee attempted conciliation of a people who were 
 little capable of it, but were always ready to take counsel of 
 their fears. The effect of his moderate warfare on such a people 
 was to irritate them without intimidating them ; in fact, to com 
 pose their alarms and to dissuade them from what had been 
 imagined as. the horrors of invasion. In this respect, his move 
 ment into Pennsylvania gave to the enemy a certain moral 
 comfort, and encouraged the prosecution of the war. 
 
 With reference, now, to the military features of the move- 
 ment, it must rank with the most remarkable marches on re 
 cord. Looking back to the Kappahannock, we now see what 
 Lee had accomplished. When he set out upon the northern 
 expedition, he was confronted by one of the largest and best- 
 appointed armies the enemy ever had in the field. Winchester, 
 Martinsburg, Harper s Ferry and Berryville were garrisoned 
 oy hostile forces. The cavalry of the enemy were in splendid 
 condition. General Lee marched over the Blue Jtidge and 
 across the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. The mountain 
 
30 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 passes and the fords of the rivers might have been effectually 
 blockaded. The whole of the lower valley was in possession 
 of the enemy. And yet, starting from Culpepper Court-house^ 
 General Lee conducted his army across the mountains, along 
 the valley and over the rivers, without encountering serious 
 opposition. Except a few cavalry engagements, the armj 
 marched from Culpepper Court-house to Gettysburg, in Penn 
 sylvania, without resistance. 
 
 The conjuncture which had been reached was the most criti 
 cal of the war. Meade s army was the only real obstacle which 
 could impede the triumphant march of the army of Lee into 
 the very heart of the Yankee States, and in whatever direction 
 he might choose to push his campaign. The press attempted 
 some ridiculous comfort by writing vaguely of thousands of 
 militia springing to arms. But the history of modern warfare 
 afforded better instruction, for it taught clearly enough that an 
 invading army of regular and victorious troops could only be 
 effectively checked by the resistance of a similar army in the 
 field, or of fortified places strong enough to compel a regular 
 Biege. In Richmond, the garish story of the newspapers pre 
 pared the public mind for a great victory. There was the re 
 newed and feverish anticipation of an early peace. The elated 
 public of the Confederate capital little imagined that, in a few 
 days, events were to occur to turn back the war for years. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 The march towards Gettysburg was conducted slowly. At 
 10 o clock A. M., on the 1st instant, Heth s division, of Hill s 
 corp, being ahead, encountered the enemy s advance line, the 
 Eleventh corps, about three miles west of Gettysburg. Here a 
 gharp engagement ensued, our men steadily advancing and 
 driving the enemy before them to the town, and to a range of 
 hills or low mountains running out a little east of south from 
 the town. 
 
 General Reynolds, who commanded the enemy s advance, 
 rode forward to inspect the ground and select a position for hia 
 line of battle. The Confederates, distinguishing him from his 
 uniform to be an officer of high rank, opened upon him with 
 
THE THIRD TEAK. 31 
 
 heavy volleys of infantry lire. He was struck by several oalls, 
 and died instantly without uttering a word. 
 
 About an hour after the opening of the engagement, which 
 was principally of artillery, General Ewell, who was moving 
 from the direction of Carlisle, came up and took a position on 
 our extreme left. Eodes came into the engagement on the 
 flank of the enemy, who were confronting A. P. Hill, and oc 
 cupied the most commanding point of the very ridge with 
 artillery which the enemy were upon. This ridge runs in the 
 shape of a crescent around Gettysburg, following the windings 
 of a creek which is between it and the town. 
 
 After our artillery had been engaged for some half an hour, 
 with admirable effect, the enemy were observed to be moving 
 rapidly from Hill s front to that of Rodes, and to be advanc 
 ing their new columns against Rodes from the town. Rodes, 
 his dispositions having been made, advanced his whole line. 
 It had first to cross a field, six hundred yards wide, and enter 
 woods immediately upon entering which it became hotly 
 engaged. 
 
 The Alabama brigade (Rodes old command) advanced some 
 what confusedly, owing, it is said, to a misconception as to the 
 direction which it should take, and, whilst confused, became 
 engaged, and was forced back with its lines broken, though re 
 inforced by the Fifth Alabama, which uncovered Lawson s 
 brigade. This brigade was thought to have behaved badly ; 
 it was reported to General Rodes, in the midst of the fight, that 
 one of the regiments had raised the white flag, and gone over 
 in a body to the enemy. The only foundation for this report 
 was, that two of the regiments were almost entirely surrounded, 
 in consequence of the giving way of the Alabama brigade and 
 the concentration of the enemy at that point, and were either 
 killed or captured almost to a man. The gallant resistance, 
 however, which they made is shown by a statement coming 
 from General Rodes himself : that, riding along behind where 
 their line had been, he thought he Dbservcd a regiment lying 
 down, as if to escape the Yankee fire. On going up, however, 
 to force them into the fight, he found they were all corpses. 
 
 As the battle wavered General Early came up, and got his 
 artillery into position so as to enfilade and silence batteriea 
 which were then occupied in an attempt to enfilade Rodes 
 
32 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 battery, As the enemy attempted a flank movement, Gordon s 
 brigade of gallant Georgians was ordered to make a charge. 
 They crossed a small stream arid valley, and entered a long 
 narrow strip of an opposite slope, at the top of which the enemy 
 had a strong force posted. For live minutes nothing could be 
 heard or seen save the smoke, and roar proceeding from the 
 heavy musketry, and indicating a desperate contest ; but the 
 contest was not long or uncertain. The Yankees were put to 
 flight, and our men pressed them, pouring a deadly fire at the 
 flying fugitives. Seeing a second and larger line near tho 
 town, General Early halted General Gordon until two other 
 brigades (Hayes and Hoke s) could come up, when a second 
 charge was made, and three pieces of artillery, besides several 
 entire regiments of the enemy, were captured. 
 
 There should not be lost from the records of the individual 
 heroism of the Confederacy an incident of this battle. During 
 a lull in the engagement, when the enemy were reforming and 
 awaiting reinforcements, Lieutenant Koberts, of the Second Mis 
 sissippi, observing, some distance off, but nearer the enemy s than 
 our own fires, two groups, each consisting of from seven to ten 
 men, and each guarding a stand of colors, called for volunteers 
 to take them. Four gallant spirits from his own, and an equal 
 number from the Forty-second Mississippi regiment, readily re 
 sponded, and soon a dash is made for the colors. A hand-to-hand 
 fight ensued, in which all on both sides were either killed or 
 wounded, except Private McPherson, who killed the last 
 Yankee color-bearer and brought off the colors, Lieutenant 
 Roberts being killed just as he was seizing one of the colors. 
 
 The result of the day s fight may be summed up thus : We 
 had attacked a considerable force ; had driven it over three 
 miles; captured five thousand prisoners, and killed and 
 wounded many thousands. Our own loss was not heavy, 
 though a few brigades suffered severely. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, the enemy, driven through Gettys- 
 ourg, got possession of the high range of hills south and east 
 of the town. Here was the fatal mistake of the Confederates. 
 In the engagement of the 1st instant, the enemy had but a 
 small portion of his force up, and if the attack had been pressed 
 in the afternoon of that day there is little doubt that our forces 
 tould have got the heights and captured this entire detach- 
 
THE TH1ED YEAR. 33 
 
 ment of Meade s army. But General Lee was not aware of the 
 enemy s weakness on this day. In fact, he had found himself 
 unexpectedly confronted by the Yankee army. He had never 
 intended to fight a general battle so far from his base. He was 
 forced to deliver battle where prudence would have avoided 
 it ; he. could obtain no certain information of the disposition of 
 Meade s forces ; and the inaction of an evening the failure to 
 follow up for a few hours a success enabled the Yankee com 
 mander to bring up his whole army, and post it on an almost 
 impregnable line which we had permitted a routed detachment 
 of a few thousand men to occupy. 
 
 During the night, General Meade and staff came up to the 
 front. Before morning all his troops but the Sixth corps, com 
 manded by General Sedgwick, arrived on the field. The forces 
 of the enemy were disposed on the several hills or ridges, so as 
 to construct a battle-line in the form of a crescent. 
 
 The town of Gettysburg is situated upon the northern slope 
 of this ridge of hills or mountain range, and about one and a 
 half or two miles from its summit. The western slope of this 
 range was in cultivation, except small " patches," where the 
 mountain side is so precipitous ac to defy the efforts of the 
 farmer to bring it into subjection to the ploughshare. At the 
 foot of the mountain is a narrow valley, from a mile to two 
 miles in width, broken in small ridges running parallel with 
 the mountain. On the western side of the valley rises a long, 
 high hill, mostly covered with heavy timber, but greatly in 
 ferior in altitude to the mountain range upon which the enemy 
 had taken position, but running nearly parallel with it. The 
 valley between this ridge and the mountain was in cultivation, 
 and the fields were yellow with the golden harvest. About 
 four or five miles south from Gettysburg, the mountain rises 
 abruptly to an altitude of several hundred feet. Upon this the 
 enemy rested his left flank, his right being upon the crest of 
 the range about a mile or a mile and a half from Gettytburg. 
 
 Our line of battle was formed along the western slope of the 
 second and inferior range described above, and in the follow 
 ing order : Swell s corps on the left, beginning at the town 
 with Early s division, then Rodes division; on the right 01 
 Rodes division was the left of Hill s corps, commencing with 
 Heth s, then Fender s and Anderson s divisions. On the right 
 
 3 
 
34 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of Anderson s division was Longstreet s left, McLaw s division 
 being next to Anderson s, and Hood on the extreme right of 
 our line, which was opposite the eminence upon which the 
 enemy s left rested. 
 
 THE SECOND DAT. 
 
 The preparations for attack were not completed until the 
 afternoon of the 2d. Late in the afternoon an artillery attack 
 was made by our forces on the left and centre of the enemy, 
 which was rapidly followed by the advance of our infantry, 
 Longstreet s corps on our side being principally engaged. A 
 fearful but indecisive contest ensued, and for four hours the 
 sound of musketry was incessant. The main object of the 
 attack of the Confederates was the famous Cemetery Hill, the 
 key of the enemy s position. The enemy s artillery replied 
 vigorously. The roar and thunder and flame and smoke of 
 artillery, and the screech of shells, so completely tilled the 
 heavens that all else seemed forgotten. 
 
 General Ewell had been ordered to attack directly the high 
 ground on the enemy s right, which had already been partially 
 fortified. It was half an hour of sunset when Johnson s infan 
 try were ordered forward to the attack. In passing down the 
 hill on which they had been posted, arid whilst crossing the 
 creek, they were much annoyed by the fire to which they were 
 subjected from the enemy s artillery, which, from Cemetery 
 Hill poured nearly an enfilade fire upon them. The creek was 
 wide, and its banks steep, so that our men had to break ranks 
 in order to cross it. Having passed the creek, General Jones 
 brigade was thrown into disorder and retired a short distance. 
 
 On the extreme left, General G. H. Stewart s brigade was more 
 successful. Pushing around to the enemy s left, he enfiladed 
 and drove the enemy from a breastwork they had built in 
 order to defend their right flank, and which ran at right angles 
 to the rest of their lines up the mountain side. The enemy, 
 however, quickly moved forward a force to retake it, but were 
 repulsed, our troops occupying their own breastworks in order 
 to receive their attack. General Stewart made no further 
 effort to advance. Night had nearly fallen, and the ground 
 was new to him. 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. 35 
 
 General Early, upon hearing General Johnson s infantry en 
 gaged, sent forward Hayes Louisiana and Hoke s North Caro 
 lina brigades. The troops, advancing as a storming party, 
 quickly passed over a ridge and down a hill. In a valley be 
 low they met two lines of the Federals posted behind stone 
 walls. These they charged. At the charge the Federals broke 
 and fled up the hill closely pursued by our men. It was now 
 dark ; but Hayes and Avery, still pursuing, pushed the enemy 
 up the hill and stormed the Cemetery heights. 
 
 The contest here was intensely exciting and terrible. Th6 
 gloom of the falling night was lighted up by the flashes of the 
 enemy s guns. Thirty or forty pieces, perhaps more, were 
 firing grape and canister with inconceivable rapidity at Early s 
 column. It must have been that they imagined it to have been 
 a general and simultaneous advance, for they opened on our 
 men in three or four directions besides that which they were 
 attacking. 
 
 Hayes and Hoke s brigades pressed on and captured two or 
 three lines of breastworks and three or four of their batteries 
 of artillery. For a few moments every gun of the enemy on 
 the heights was silenced ; but, by the time General Hayes could 
 get his command together, a dark line appeared in front of 
 them and on either flank a few yards off. The true situation 
 soon became clear. The Yankees were bringing up at least a 
 division to retake the works. General Hayes, being unsup 
 ported by the troops on his right (which were from Hill s 
 corps), was compelled to fall back. 
 
 Major-general Rodes commenced to advance simultaneously 
 with General Early. He had, however, more than double the 
 distance of Early to go, and being unsupported by the troops 
 on his right, who made no advance, he consequently moved 
 slower than he would have done had he been supported. 
 Before reaching the enemy s works Early had been repulsed, 
 and so General Rodes halted, thinking it useless to attack since 
 he was unsupported. 
 
 When the second day closed this was the position of E well s 
 corps. Johnson s left had gained important ground, part of it 
 being a very short distance from the top of the mountain, 
 which, if once gained, would command the whole of the 
 enemy s position ; but his right had made no progress. Early a 
 
36 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 attack, almost a brilliant success, had produced DO results, a.id 
 he occupied nearly his former position. Rodes, having ad 
 vanced nearly half-way to the enemy s works, and finding 
 there good cover for his troops, remained in his advanced po 
 sition. 
 
 But we must take the reader s attention to another part of 
 the field, where a more dramatic circumstance than Early s 
 momentary grasp of victory had occurred. 
 
 General Hill had been instructed to threaten the centre of 
 the Yankee line, in order to prevent reinforcements being sent 
 to either wing, and to avail himself of any opportunity that 
 might present itself to attack. 
 
 On the right of Hill s corps and the left of Longstreet, be 
 ing joined on to Barksd ale s brigade of McLaw s division, was 
 Wilcox s brigade, then Perry s, Wright s, Posey s, Mahone s. 
 At half-past five o clock Longstreet commenced the attack, and 
 Wilcox followed it up by promptly moving forward ; Perry s 
 brigade quickly followed, and Wright moved simultaneously 
 with him. The two divisions of Lou gstreet s corps soon en 
 countered the enemy, posted a little in rear of the Emmets- 
 burg turnpike, which winds along the slope of the range upon 
 which the enemy s main force was concentrated. After a short 
 but spirited engagement, the enemy was driven back upon the 
 main line upon the crest of the hill. McLaw s and Hood s 
 divisions made a desperate assault upon their main line ; but, 
 owing to the precipitate and very rugged character of the 
 slope, were unable to reach the summit. 
 
 After Barksdale s brigade, of McLaw s division, had been en 
 gaged for some time, Wilcox, Wright, and Perry, were ordered 
 forward, encountering a line of the enemy, and soon putting 
 them to rout. Still pressing forward, these three brigades met 
 with another and stronger line of the enemy, backed by twelve 
 pieces of artillery. No pause was made. The line moved 
 rapidly forward and captured the artillery. 
 
 Another fresh line of battle was thrown forward by the 
 enemy. Wright had swept over the valley under a terrific 
 fire from the batteries posted upon the heights, had encoun 
 tered the enemy s advance line, and had dri-ren him across the 
 Emmetsburg pike, to a position behind a stone wall, or fence, 
 which runs parallel with the pike, and about sixty or eighty 
 
THE THIKI) YEAR. 37 
 
 /ards in front of the batteries on the heights, and immediately 
 under them. Here the enemy made a desperate attempt to 
 retrieve his fortunes. The engagement lasted for fifteen or 
 twenty minutes. Charging up the steep sides of the moun 
 tains, the Confederates succeeded in driving the enemy from 
 behind the wall at the point of the bayonet. Rushing forward 
 with a shout, they gained the summit of the heights, driving 
 the enemy s infantry in disorder and confusion into the woods 
 beyond. 
 
 The key of the enemy s position was for a moment in our 
 hands. But the condition of the brave troops who had wrested 
 it by desperate valor, had become critical in the extreme. 
 Wilcox, Perry, and "Wright, had charged most gallantly over a 
 distance of more than three-quarters of a mile, breaking two or 
 three of the enemy s lines of battle, and. capturing two or three 
 batteries of artillery. Of course, our lines were greatly thinned, 
 and our troops much exhausted. No reinforcements were sent 
 this column by the Lieutenant-general commanding. The ex 
 tent of their success was not instantly appreciated. A de 
 cisive moment was lost. 
 
 Wright s little brigade of Georgians had actually got in the 
 enemy s entrenchments upon the heights. Perceiving, after 
 getting possession of the enemy s works, that they were iso 
 lated more than a mile from support that no advance had 
 been made on their left, and just then seeing the enemy s 
 flanking column on their right and left flanks rapidly converg 
 ing in their rear, these noble Georgians faced about, abandon 
 ing all the guns they had captured, and cut their way back 
 to our main lines, through the enemy, who had now almost en 
 tirely surrounded them. 
 
 The results of the day were unfortunate enough. Our troops 
 had been repulsed at all points save where Brigadier-general 
 Stewart held his ground. A second day of desperate fighting 
 and correspondingly frightful carnage was ended. But Gen 
 eral Lee still believed himself and his brave army capable of 
 taking these commanding heights, and thus to be able to dic 
 tate a peace on the soil of the free States. 
 
38 SOUTHERN HISTORY OP THE WAB. 
 
 THE THIRD DAY. 
 
 The third day s battle was again to be commenced by the 
 Confederates. At midnight a council of war had been held by 
 the enemy, at which it was determined that the Confederates 
 would probably renew the attack at daylight on the following 
 morning, and that for that day the Yankees had better act 
 purely on the defensive. 
 
 The enemy s position on the mountain was well-nigh impreg 
 nable, for there was no conceivable advance or approach that 
 could not be raked and crossed with the artillery. All the 
 heights and every advantageous position along the entire line 
 where artillery could be massed or a battery planted, frowned 
 down on the Confederates through brows of brass and iron. 
 On the slopes of the mountain was to occur one of the most 
 terrific combats of modern times, in which more than two hun 
 dred cannon were belching forth their thunders at one time, 
 and nearly two hundred thousand muskets were being dis 
 charged as rapidly as men hurried with excitement and passion 
 could load them. 
 
 Early in the morning preparations were made for a genera] 
 attack along the enemy s whole line, while a large force was to 
 be concentrated against his centre, with the view of retaking 
 the heights captured and abandoned the day before. Long- 
 street massed a large number of long-range guns (fifty-five in 
 number) upon the crest of a slight eminence just in front of 
 Perry s and Wilcox s brigades, and a little to the left of the 
 heights, upon which they were to open. Hill massed some 
 sixty guns along the hill in front of Posey s and Mahone s 
 brigades, and almost immediately in front of the heights. At 
 twelve o clock, while the signal-flags were waving swift intel 
 ligence along our lines, the shrill sound of a "Whitworth gur; 
 broke the silence, and the cannonading commenced. 
 
 The enemy replied with terrific spirit, from their batteries 
 posted along the heights. Never had been heard such tremend 
 ous artillery firing in the war. The warm and sultry air was 
 hideous with discord. Dense columns of smoke hung over the 
 beautiful valley. The lurid flame leaps madly from the can 
 non s mouth, each moment the roar grows more intense ; now 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 39 
 
 chime in volleys of small arms. For one hour and a half this 
 most terrific fire was continued, during which time the shriek 
 ing of shells, the crashing of falling timber, the fragments of 
 rock flying through the air, shattered from the cliffs by solid 
 shot, the heavy mutterings from the valley between the oppos 
 ing armies, the splash of bursting shrapnel, and the tierce 
 neighing of wounded artillery-horses made a picture terribly 
 grand and sublime. 
 
 But there was now to occur a scene of moral sublimity and 
 heroism unequalled in the war. The storming party was 
 moved up Pickett s division in advance, supported on the 
 right by Wilcox s brigade, and on the left by Heth s division, 
 commanded by Pettigrew. With steady measured tread the 
 division of Pickett advanced upon the foe. Never did troops 
 enter a fight in such splendid order. Their banners floated 
 defiantly in the breeze as they pressed across the plain. The 
 flags which had waved amid the wild tempest of battle at 
 Games Mill, Frazer s Farm, and Manassas, never rose more 
 proudly. Kemper, with his gallant men, leads the right ; 
 Garnett brings up the left ; and the veteran Armistead, with 
 his brave troops, moves forward in support. The distance is 
 more than half a mile. As they advance the enemy fire with 
 great rapidity shell and solid shot give place to grape and 
 canister the very earth quivers beneath the heavy roar wide 
 gaps are made in this regiment and that brigade. The line 
 moves onward, cannons roaring, grape and canister plunging 
 and ploughing through the ranks, bullets whizzing as thick as 
 hail-stones in winter, and men falling as leaves fall in the blasts 
 of autumn. 
 
 As Pickett got well under the enemy s fire, our batteries 
 ceased firing, for want, it is said, of ammunition. It was a 
 fearful moment one in which was to be tested the pride and 
 mettle of glorious Virginia. Into the sheets of artillery fire 
 advanced the unbroken lines of Picketts brave Virginians. . 
 They have reached the Emmettsburg road, and here the j meet a. 
 severe fire from heavy masses of the enemy s infantry, posted 
 behind the stone fence, while their artillery, ^now free from the 
 annoyance of our artillery, turn their whole fire upon this 
 devoted band. Still they remain firm. Now again they ad 
 vance. They reach the works the contest rages with intense 
 
40 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 fury men fight almost hand to hand the red cross and the 
 " stars and stripes" wave defiantly in close proximity. A Fed 
 eral officer dashes forward in front of his shrinking columns, 
 and with flashing sword, urges them to stand. General Pick- 
 ett, seeing the splendid valor of his troops, moves among them 
 as if courting death. The noble Garnett is dead, Armistead 
 wounded, and the brave Kemper, with hat in hand, still cheer 
 ing on his men falls from his horse. But Kemper and Armis 
 tead have already planted their banners in the enemy s works. 
 The glad shout of victory is already heard.* 
 
 But where is Pettigrew s division where are the supports ? 
 The raw troops had faltered and the gallant Pettigrew himself 
 had been wounded in vain attempts to rally them. Alas, the 
 victory was to be relinquished again. Pickett is left alone to 
 contend with the masses of the enemy now pouring in upon 
 him on every side. Now the enemy move around strong 
 flanking bodies of infantry, and are rapidly gaining Pickett s 
 rear. The order is given to fall back, and our men commence 
 the movement, doggedly contesting for every inch of ground. 
 The enemy press heavily our retreating line, and many noble 
 spirits who had passed safely through the fiery ordeal of the 
 .advance and charge, now fall on the right and on the left. 
 
 This division of Virginia troops, small at first, with ranks 
 mow torn and shattered, most of the officers killed or wounded, 
 mo valor able to rescue victory from such a grasp, annihilation 
 
 or capture inevitable, slowly, reluctantly, fell back. It was 
 
 * A correspondent of a Yankee paper thus alludes to the traces of the strug 
 gle at the Cemetry : 
 
 " Monuments and headstones lie here and there overturned. Graves, once carefully 
 tended by some loving hand, have been trampled by horses feet until the vestiges of 
 verdure have disappeared. The neat and well-trained shrubbery has vanished, or is 
 but a broken and withered mass of tangled brushwood. On one grave lies a dead 
 
 artillery horse fast decomposing under a July sun. On another lie the torn garments 
 .5f some wounded soldier, stained and saturated with his blood. Across a small head 
 stone, bearing the words "To the memory of our beloved child, Mary," lie the frag 
 ments of a musket, shattered by a cannon shot. In the centre of the space enclosed 
 by an iron fence and containing a half-dozen graves, a few rails are still standing 
 where they were erected by our soldiers and served to support the shelter tents of a 
 bivouacking -squad. A family shaft has been broken to fragments by a shell, and 
 only the base remains, with a portion of the inscription thereon. Stone after stone 
 felt the effect of the feu cPenfer that was poured upon the crest of the hill. Cannon 
 thundered, and foot and horse soldiers trampled over the sleeping-places of the dead. 
 Other dead wereadded to those who are resting there, and many a wounded soldiei 
 till liven to reiaember the contest above those silent graves." 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 41 
 
 not given to these few remaining brave men to accomplish 
 human impossibilities. The enemy dared not follow them be 
 yond their works. But the day was already lost. 
 
 The field was covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily 
 retiring in small broken parties under a heavy fire of artillery. 
 There was no panic. Never did a commanding general be 
 have better in such trying circumstances than did Lee. He 
 was truly great in disaster. An English colonel who witnessed 
 the tight, says : " I joined General Lee, who had, in the mean 
 while, come to the front on becoming aware of the disaster. 
 General Lee was perfectly sublime. He was engaged in rally 
 ing and encouraging the broken troops, and was riding about 
 a little in front of the wood quite alone the whole of his staff 
 being engaged in a similar manner further to the rear. His 
 face, which is always placid and cheerful, did not show signs 
 of the slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance, and he was 
 addressing to every soldier he met a few words of encourage 
 ment, such as, < All this will come right in the end ; we ll talk 
 it over afterwards; but, in the meantime, all good men must 
 rally. We want all good and true men just now, &c. He 
 spoke to all the wounded men that passed him, and the slightly 
 wounded he exhorted ; to bind up their hurts and take up a 
 musket in this emergency. Very few failed to answer his ap 
 peal, and I saw many badly wounded men take off their hats 
 and cheer him." 
 
 u It is difficult," says the same intelligent spectator, " to ex 
 aggerate the critical state of affairs as they appeared about this 
 time. If the enemy or their general had shown any enterprise 
 there is no saying what might have happened. General Lee 
 and his officers were evidently fully impressed with a sense of 
 the situation ; yet there was much less noise, fuss, or confusion 
 of orders, than at any ordinary field day ; the men, as they 
 were rallied in the wood, were brought up in detachments and 
 lay down quiet and coolly in the positions assigned to them." 
 
 At night the Confederate army held the same position from 
 which it had driven the enemy two days previous. The starry 
 eky hrng over a field of hideous carnage. In the series of en 
 gagements a few pieces of artillery were captured by the Con- 
 federates and nearly seven thousand prisoners taken, two thou- 
 Band of whom were paroled on the field. Our loss in killed, 
 
C2 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 wounded, and prisoners, was quite ten thousand. The enemy s 
 loss probably exceeded our own, as the Yankees were closely 
 crowded on the hills, and devoured by our artillery fire. The 
 information of the enemy s loss is perhaps most accurately ob 
 tained from the bulletin furnished by his Surgeon-general, 
 which stated that he had something over twelve thousand 
 Yankee wounded under his control. Counting one killed for 
 four wounded, and making some allowance for a large class of 
 wounded men who had not come under the control of the offi 
 cers referred to, we are justified in stating the enemy s loss in 
 casualties at Gettysburg as somewhere between fifteen and 
 eighteen thousand. Our loss, slighter by many thousands in 
 comparison, was yet frightful enough. On our side Pickett s 
 division had been engaged in the hottest work of the day, and 
 the havoc in its ranks was appaling. Its losses on this day are 
 famous, and should be commemorated in detail. Every brig 
 adier in the division was killed or wounded. Out of twenty- 
 four regimental officers, only two escaped unhurt. The Ninth 
 Virginia went in two hundred and fifty strong and came out 
 with only thirty-eight men. 
 
 Conspicuous in our list of casualties was the death of Major- 
 general Fender. He had borne a distinguished part in every 
 engagement of this army, and was wounded on several occa 
 sions while leading his command with admirable gallantry and 
 ability. Brigadier-generals Barksdale and Garnett were killed, 
 and Brigadier-general Semmes mortally wounded, while lead 
 ing their troops with the courage that had always distin 
 guished them. The brave and generous spirit of Barksdale 
 had expired, where he preferred to die, on the ensanguined 
 field of battle. Of this "haughty rebel," who had fallen 
 within their lines, the Yankees told with devilish satisfaction 
 the story that his end was that of extreme agony, and his last 
 words were to crave, as a dying boon, a cup of water, and a 
 stretcher from an ambulance boy. The letter of a Yankee 
 officer testifies that the brave and suffering hero declared with 
 his last breath that he was proud of the cause he died fighting 
 for ; proud of the manner in which he received his death ; and 
 confident that his countrymen were invincible. 
 
 The fearful trial of a retreat from a position far in the 
 enemy s country was now reserved for General Lee. Happily 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 43 
 
 he had an army with zeal unabated, courage intrepid, devotion 
 unclulled ; with unbounded confidence in the wisdom of that 
 great chieftian who had so often led them to victory. The 
 strength of the enemy s position ; the reduction of our ammu 
 nition ; the difficulty of procuring supplies, these left no choice 
 but retreat. 
 
 On the night of the 4th, General Lee s army began to retire 
 by the road to Fairfield, without any serious interruption on 
 the part of the enemy. In passing through the mountains, in 
 advance of the column, the great length of the trains exposed 
 them to attack by the enemy s cavalry, which captured a num 
 ber of wagons and ambulances ; but they succeeded in reach 
 ing Williamsport without serious loss. 
 
 They were attacked at that place on the 6th, by the enemy s 
 cavalry, which was gallantly repulsed by General Irnboden. 
 The attacking force was subsequently encountered and driven 
 off by General Stuart, and pursued for several miles in the 
 direction of Boonsboro . The army, after an arduous march, 
 rendered more difficult by the rains, reached Hagerstown on 
 the afternoon of the 6th and morning of the 7th July.* 
 
 * The following official communication from General Lee illustrates the 
 unreliability of despatches emanating from Yankee generals : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA, ) 
 21st July, 1863. j 
 
 GENERAL S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector- General G. S. A., Bichmond. Va. : 
 
 General I have seen in Northern papers what purported to be an official despatch 
 from General Meade, stating that he had captured a brigade of infantry, two pieces of 
 artillery, two caissons, and a large number of small arms, as this army retired to the 
 south bank of the Potomac, on the 13th and 14th infet. 
 
 This despatch has been copied into the Kichtnond papers, and as its official charac 
 ter may cause it to be believed, I desire to state that it is incorrect. The enemy did 
 not capture any organized body of men on that occasion, but only stragglers and such 
 as were left asleep on the road, exhausted by the fatigue and exposure of one of the 
 most inclement nights I have ever known at this season of the year. It rained with 
 out cessation, rendering the road by which our troops inarched to the bridge at 
 Falling Waters very difficult to pass, and causing so much delay that the last of the 
 troops did not cross the river at the bridge until 1 p. M. on the 14th. While the col 
 umn was thus detained on the road, a number of men, worn down with fatigue, lay 
 down in barns and by the roadside, and though officers were sent buck to arouse 
 them, as the troops moved on, the darkness and rain prevented them from finding 
 nil, an i many were in this way left behind. Two guns were left in the road. The 
 horses that drew them became exhausted, and the officers went forward to procure 
 others. When they returned, the rear of the column had passed the guu8 so far thai 
 it was deemed unsafe to send back for them, and they were thus lost. No anna, 
 cannon, or prisoners were taken by the enemy in battle, but only such as were left 
 
4A SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 The enemy in force reached our front on the 12th. A posi 
 tion had been previously selected to cover the Potomac from 
 Williarnsport to Falling Waters, and an attack was awaited 
 during that and the succeeding day. This did not take place, 
 though the two armies were in close proximity, the enemy 
 being occupied in fortifying his own lines. Our preparations 
 being completed, and the river, though still deep, being pro 
 nounced fordable, the army commenced to withdraw to the 
 south side on the night of the 13th. The enemy offered no 
 serious interruption, and the movement was attended with no 
 loss of material, except a few disabled wagons and two pieces 
 of artillery, which the horses were unable to move through the 
 deep mud. 
 
 The following day the army marched to Bunker Hill, in the 
 vicinity of which it encamped for several days. It subse 
 quently crossed the Blue E-idge, and took position south of the 
 Rappahannock. 
 
 Any comment on Gettysburg must necessarily be a tantaliz 
 ing one for the South. The Pennsylvania campaign had been 
 a series of mishaps. General -Lee was disappointed of half of 
 his plan, in the first instance, on account of the inability or 
 unwillingness of the Richmond authorities to assemble an 
 army at Culpepper Court-house under General Beauregard, so 
 as to distract the enemy and divide his force by a demonstra 
 tion upon Washington. Johnston was calling for reinforce 
 ments in Mississippi ; Bragg was threatened with attack 
 Beauregard s whole force was reported to be necessary tc 
 cover his line on the sea-coast ; and the force in Richmond 
 and in Norm Carolina was very small. Yet with what force 
 Lee had, his campaign proposed great things the destruction 
 of his adversary, which would have uncovered the Middle and 
 Eastern States of the North ; for, behind Me* Je s array, there 
 was nothing but militia mobs and home-guards incapable of 
 making any resistance to an army of veterans. It was in 
 
 ; ,ohind under the circumstances I have described. The number of stragglers thus 
 t^st, I am unable to state with accuracy, but it is greatly exaggerated in the despatch 
 referred to. 
 
 I am, with great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 K. E. LEE, General, 
 
THH THIRD YEAR. 45 
 
 anticipation cf this great stake that Richmond was on the 
 tiptoe of expectation. For once in the Confederate capital 
 gold found no purchasers, prices declined, speculation was at 
 its wits end, and men consulted their interests as if on the eve 
 of peace. * 
 
 The recoil at Gettysburg was fatal, perhaps, not necessarily, 
 but by the course of events, to General Lee s campaign ; and 
 the return of his army to its defensive lines in Virginia was 
 justly regarded in the South as a reverse in the general for 
 tunes of the contest. Yet the immediate results of the battle 
 of Gettysburg must be declared to have been to a great extent 
 negative. The Confederates did not gain a victory, neither did 
 the enemy. The general story of the contest is simple. Lee 
 had been unable to prevent the enemy from taking the high 
 lands, many of them with very steep declivities, and nearly a 
 mile in slope. The battle was an effort of the Confederates to 
 take those heights. The right flank, the left flank, the centre, 
 were successively the aim of determined and concentrated 
 assaults. The Yankee lines were broken and driven repeated 
 ly. But inexhaustible reserves and a preponderant artillery, 
 advantageously placed, saved him from rout. 
 
 The first news received in Richmond of General Lee s 
 retreat was from Yankee sources, which represented his army 
 as a disorganized mass of fugitives, unable to cross the Poto 
 mac on account of recent floods, and at the mercy of an 
 enemy immensely superior in numbers and flushed with vic 
 tory. A day served to dash the hope of an early peace, and to 
 overcloud the horizon of the war. 
 
 A few days brought news from our lines, which exploded 
 the falsehoods of the Yankees, and assured the people of the 
 South that the engagements of Gettysburg had resulted in 
 worsting the enemy, in killing and wounding a number 
 exceeding our own, and ic capturing a large number of pris 
 oners ; and that the falling back of our army, at least as far as 
 Hagerstown, was a movement dictated by general considera 
 tions of strategy and prudence. 
 
 And here it must be confessed that the retreat from Hagers 
 town across the Potomac wao an inconsequence and a mystery 
 to the intelligent public. Leo s position there was strong ; his 
 force was certainly adequate for another battle ; preparations 
 
4:6 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 were apparently inade for aggressive movements ; and in the 
 midst of all came a sudden renouncement of the campaign and 
 the retreat into Virginia. The public had its secondary wish 
 for the safety of the army. But this did not exclude mortifi 
 cation on the part of those who bettered that General Lee had 
 abandoned the enemy s territory, not as a consequence pf de 
 feat, but from the undue timidity or arrogant disposition of the 
 authorities who controlled him. 
 
 But news of an overshadowing calamity, undoubtedly the 
 greatest that had yet befallen the South, accompanied that of 
 Lee s retreat, and dated a second period of disaster more fright 
 ful than that of Donelson and New Orleans. The same day 
 that Lee s repulse was known in Richmond, came the astound 
 ing intelligence of the fall of Vicksburg. In twenty-four hours 
 two calamities changed all the aspects of the war, and brought 
 the South from an unequalled exaltation of hope to the very 
 brink of despair. 
 
THE THIRD YKAB. 
 
 CHAPTEK IL 
 
 Vieksburg, "the Heroic City." Its Value to the Confedsracy. An Opportunity 
 Lost by Butler. Lieutenant-general Pemberton. A Favorite of President Da 
 vis. The President s Obstinacy. Blindness of Pemberton to the Enemy s De 
 signs. His Telegram to Johnston. Plan of U. S. Grant. Its Daring. THE BATTLI 
 OF PORT GIBSON. Exposure of General Bowen by Pemberton. The First Mistake. 
 Pemberton s Disregard of Johnston s Orders. Grant s advance against Jackson. 
 Johnston s Evacuation of Jackson. His Appreciation of the Situation. Urgent Or 
 ders to Pemberton. A Brilliant Opportunity. Pemberton s Contumacy and Stupid 
 ity. His Irretrievable Error. Yankee Outrages in Jackson. THE BATTLE OF BAKER S 
 CREEK, &c. Stevenson s Heroic Fight. Alleged Dereliction of General Loring.-- 
 His Division Cut Off in the Retreat. Demoralization of Pemberton s Troops. The 
 Enemy s Assault on the Big Black. Shameful Behavi-or of the Confederates. A 
 Georgia Hero. Pemberton and the Fugitives. His Eeturn to Vicksburg. Recrim 
 inations as to the Disaster of the Big Black. How Pemberton Was in the Wrong. 
 Johnston Orders the Evacuation of Vicksburg. Pemberton s Determination to Hold 
 It. 
 
 YICKSBURG had already become famous in the history of the 
 war, from the cupidity of the enemy and the gallantry of its 
 resistance. The habitual phrase in the Yankee newspapers 
 was " the three strongholds of the rebellion, Richmond, 
 Vicksburg, and Charleston." The possession of Richmond 
 would have given an important eclat to the enemy, and some 
 strategic advantages. That of Charleston would have given 
 him a strip of sea-coast and an additional barrier to the block 
 ade. Yicksburg was a prize almost as important as Richmond, 
 and much more so than Charleston. It was the key of the 
 navigation of the Mississippi, and the point of union between 
 the positions of the Confederacy on the different sides of this 
 river. 
 
 At the time of the fall of New Orleans, the defence of Yicks 
 burg was not even contemplated by the authorities at Rich 
 mond ; and the city was given up for lost by President Davis, 
 as appears by an intercepted letter from one of his family. It 
 was a characteristic want of appreciation of the situation by 
 the Confederate Administration. It is not improbable, that il 
 Butler had had the enterprise and genius to direct a land 
 attack against Yicksburg, it might have readily fallen, on ac- 
 
48 SOUTHERN- HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 count of the feebly nature of its defences and the insufficiency 
 of its garrison. But the tyrant of New Orleans was a man 
 utterly destitute of military ability, whose ferocious genius 
 was expended in a war upon non-combatants. He let slip the 
 golden opportunity which the pre-occupatiori of Beauregard 
 with Halleck gave him to operate upon Yicksburg, and at once 
 complete the Yankee victory, which had been gained at the 
 mouth of the Mississippi. 
 
 The time the enemy gave for strengthening the defences of 
 Yicksburg was improved ; and we have seen in another volume 
 how it passed comparatively unscathed through one bombard 
 ment ; how it resisted Sherman s expedition of 1862 ; and how 
 it defied the gigantic enterprises of the enemy to encompass it 
 with the waters of the Mississippi turned from their channel. 
 But, unfortunately, the battle of Corinth had placed its desti 
 nies in the hands of a commander who had not the confidence 
 of the army ; who encountered a positive hostility among the 
 people within the limits of his command ; and whose haughty 
 manner and military affectation were ill-calculated to win the 
 regard of the soldier or reconcile the dislike of the civilian. 
 
 But a short time after the battle referred to, Major-general 
 Earl Yan Dorn was removed from command, and Major-gen 
 eral Pemberton was placed in command of the Department of 
 Mississippi and East Louisiana, and, in consequence of his be 
 ing outranked by both General Yan Dorn and General Lovell, 
 was soon after appointed a Lieutenant-general. He was raised 
 by a single stroke of President Davis s patronage from the ob 
 scurity of a major to the position of a lieutenant-general. He 
 had never been on a battle-field in the war, and his reputation 
 as a commander was simply nothing. He was entirely the 
 creature of the private and personal prejudices of President 
 Davis. Never was an appointment of this president more self- 
 willed in its temper and more unfortunate in its consequences 
 It might have been supposed that the fact that Pemberton did 
 not command the confidence of his troops or of any considera 
 ble portion of the public would, of itself, have suggested to the 
 President the prudence of a change of commanders, and dis 
 suaded him from his obstinate preference of a favorite. But 
 it had none of this effect. The Legislature of Mississippi 
 elicited the removal of Pemberton. Private delegations from 
 
TUB THIKD YEAR. 4:9 
 
 Congress entreated the President to forego his personal preju 
 dices and defer to the public wish. But Mr. Davis had that 
 conceit of opinion which opposition readily confirms ; and the 
 effect of these remonstrances was only to increase his obstinacy 
 and intensify his fondness- for his favorite. To some of them 
 he replied that Pemberton was " a great military genius," not 
 appreciated by the public, and destined on proper occasion to 
 astonish it. 
 
 General Pemberton took command amid the suppressed 
 murmurs of a people to whom he was singularly unwelcome. 
 The first evidence of his want of comprehension was his ignor-. 
 ance and bewilderment as to the enemy s designs. We have 
 referred to the failure of the canal projects. The enemy, after 
 long-continued and streneous efforts to reach the right flank of 
 Vicksburg, by forcing a passage through the upper Yazoo 
 river, finally relinquished his design, and on the nights of the 
 4th and 5th of April, re-embarked his troops, and before day 
 light was in rapid retreat. About the same time a heavy force 
 of the enemy, which had been collected at Baton .Rouge, wa* 
 mostly withdrawn and transferred to western Louisiana, leav 
 ing but one division to occupy that place. 
 
 So blind was Pemberton to the designs of the enemy, that 
 for many weeks he continued to believe that the object of the 
 movements of Ulysses S. Grant the last commander sent from 
 Washington to contest the prize of the Mississippi was not 
 Vicksburg, but Bragg s army in Tennessee. In this delusion, 
 and the self-complacent humor it inspired, he telegraphed to 
 General Johnston, on the 13th of April : " I arn satisfied that 
 Rosecrans will be reinforced from Grant s army. Shall I 
 order troops to Tullahoma?" The aberration was soon dis 
 pelled. A few days after this despatch, information obtained 
 from Memphis indicated that Grant s retrogade movement 
 was a ruse ; and thus suddenly Pemberton was called upon to 
 prepare for one of the most extraordinary and audacious games 
 that the enemy had yet attempted in this war. 
 
 We know that it is customary to depreciate an adversary in 
 war, by naming his enterprise as desperation, and entitling his 
 B iccess as luck. We shall not treat with such injustice the 
 enemy s campaign in Mississippi. In daring, in celerity of 
 movement, and in the vigor and decision of its steps it was the 
 
50 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 most remarkable of the war. The plan of Grant was, in btief, 
 nothing else than to gain firm ground on one of the Confederate 
 Hanks, which, to be done, involved a march of about one hun 
 dred and fifty miles, through a hostile country, and in which 
 communication with the base of supplies was liable at any 
 moment to be permanently interrupted. In addition, a resist 
 ance to his advance could be anticipated, of whose magnitude 
 nothing was certainly known, and which, for aught he knew, 
 might at any time prove great enough to annihilate his entire 
 army. 
 
 The plan involved the enterprise of running a fleet of trans 
 ports past the batteries, crossing the troops from the Louisiana 
 shore, below Yicksburg, to Mississippi, and then marching the 
 army, by the way of Jackson, through the heart of the Con 
 federacy, so to speak, to the rear of Yicksburg. On the night 
 of the 22d of April, the first demonstration was made, in ac 
 cordance with the newly-formed plan, by the running past our 
 batteries of three gunboats and seven transports. 
 
 Grand Gulf is situated on the east bank of the Mississippi 
 river, immediately below the rnouth of the Big Black river. 
 It was not selected as a position for land-defence, but for the 
 protection of the mouth of the Big Black, and also as a pre 
 cautionary measure against the passage of transports, should 
 ihe canal before referred to prove a success, which then seemed 
 highly probable. The necessary works were constructed under 
 She direction of Brigadier-general Bowen, to defend the bat 
 teries against an assault from the river front, and against a di- 
 ifect attack from or across Big Black. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF PORT GIBSON. 
 
 The enemy having succeeded in getting his transports past 
 Vicksburg, an attack on Grand Gulf was anticipated. Twelve 
 miles below this, at the rnouth of the Bayou Pierre, is Brains- 
 burg, and at this point the enemy landed in heavy force, on 
 the 30th of April, and prepared for an advance movement. 
 
 As soon as General Bowen received information of the land- 
 iog of the enemy, he crossed Bayou Pierre, and advanced 
 towards Port Gibson, situated several miles south-east of Grand 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 61 
 
 Gulf. In the vicinity of this place General Bowen met the 
 enemy advancing in full force, and immediately prepared for 
 battle, having previously telegraphed to Yicksburg for rein 
 forcements. He was left with a few thousand men to confront 
 an overwhelming force of the enemy, as Pemberton had in 
 sisted upon putting the Big Black between the enemy and the 
 bulk of his own forces, which he declared were necessary to 
 cover Vicksburg. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 1st of May, General Green, who 
 had been sent out on the Brainsburg road with about a thou 
 sand men, encountered the enemy. He was joined by General 
 Tracy, with not more than fifteen hundred men. The enemy s 
 attack was sustained with great bravery until between nine 
 and ten o clock, when, overwhelmed by numbers and flanked 
 on the right and left, General Green had to fall back. Courier 
 after courier had been sent for General Baldwin, who was on 
 the way with some reinforcements, but his troops were so ut 
 terly exhausted that he could not get up in time to prevent 
 this. Just as the retreat was taking place General Baldwin 
 arrived, and was ordered to form a new line about one mile in 
 rear of General Green s first position. General Baldwin had 
 no artillery, and that ordered up from Grand Gulf had not 
 arrived. Colonel Cockrell, with three Missouri regiments came 
 up soon after. General Bowen now had all the force at his 
 command on the field, excepting three regiments and twc 
 battalions, which occupied positions which he could not re 
 move them from until the last moment. He ordered them up 
 about one o clock, but only one of them arrived in time to 
 cover the retreat and burn the bridges. Between twelve and 
 one o clock General Bowen attempted, with two of Colonel 
 Cockrell s regiments, to turn the enemy s right flank, and 
 nearly succeeded. The enemy formed three brigades in front 
 of a battery, to receive our charge. The first was routed, the 
 second wavered, but the third stood firm, and after a long and 
 desperate contest, our troops had to give up the attempt. It is 
 probable, however, that this attack saved the right from being 
 overwhelmed, and kept the enemy back until nearly sunset. 
 All day long the fight raged fiercely, our men everywhere 
 maintaining their ground. Just before sunset a desperate at 
 tack was made by the enemy, they having again received fresh 
 
52 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 troops. Our right was forced to give ground, and General Bowe/i 
 was reluctantly compelled to fall back. The order was given and 
 executed without confusion. The enemy attempted no pursuit. 
 
 Though unsuccessful, the bloody encounter in front of Port 
 Gibson nobly illustrated the valor and constancy of our troops, 
 and shed additional lustre upon the Confederate arms. In his 
 official report, General Bowen declared that the enemy s force 
 engaged exceeded twenty thousand, while his own did not 
 number over fifty -five hundred. 
 
 It was the first mistake with which Pembertori had opened 
 his chapter of disasters. On the 28th of April he ascertained 
 that the enemy was landing troops at Hard Times, on the west 
 bank of the river ; he became satisfied that neither the front 
 nor right (north) of Yicksburg would be attacked, and he 
 turned his attention to the left (south) of Yicksburg ; but un 
 fortunately he did not concentrate "all" his troops on that 
 side of Yicksburg. On the 29th of April he telegraphed Gen 
 eral Johnston that the enemy were at Hard Times, and " can 
 cross to Brainsburg;" and on the 1st of May that " a furious 
 battle has been going on all day below Port Gibson."" On the 
 2d of May General Johnston replied : "If General Grant 
 crosses nnite all your troops to beat him. Success will give 
 back what was abandoned to win it." Unfortunately it was not 
 done. His explanation why it was not done, was, that to havo 
 marched an army across Big Black of sufficient strength to 
 warrant a reasonable hope of successfully encountering his very 
 superior forces, would have stripped Yicksburg and its essen 
 tially flank defences of their garrisons, and the city itself might 
 have fallen an easy prey into the eager hands of the enemy. 
 His apprehensions for the safety of Yicksburg were morbid. 
 While he was gazing at Yicksburg, Grant was turning towards 
 Jackson. 
 
 The battle of Port Gibson won, Grant pushed his columns 
 directly towards Jackson. Pemberton s want of cavalry did 
 not permit the interruption of Grant T s communications, arid 
 he moved forward unmolested to Clinton. General Petnber- 
 ton anticipated u a raid on Jackson," and ordered the removal 
 of " the staff department and all valuable stores to the east ;" 
 but he regarded Edwards Depot and the Big Black Bridge a 
 the objects of Grant s movement to the eastward. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 53 
 
 The movement of the enemy was one of extreme peril On 
 one flank was General .Joseph E. Johnston with a force whose 
 strength was unknown to General Grant ; and on the other was 
 Lieutenant-general Pemberton. To have remained at Grand 
 Gulf would have ruined the Federal army, and, with this know 
 ledge, Grant determined to make certain movements on the 
 west bank of the Big Black, while he marched rapidly on Jack- 
 son, Mississippi, with his main force. The object of the Yankee 
 commander was to make sure of no enemy being in his rear 
 when he marched on Yicksburg. 
 
 By glancing at a map it will be seen that the country in 
 cluded between Grand Gulf, Jackson and Big Black river, at 
 the railroad crossing, forms a triangle. In moving forward, 
 Grant s forces kept upon the line which leads from Grand Gulf 
 to Jackson ; but, instead of all going to Jackson, as might have 
 been expected, the advance only continued toward that point, 
 while the remainder of the army turned off to the left, at in 
 tervals, and proceeded along lines which converged until they 
 met in the angle of the triangle located at the Big Black rail 
 road crossing. 
 
 Many persons have doubtless been astonished at the ease 
 with which Grant s forces advanced upon and took possess ior. 
 of Jackson. Its importance as a railroad centre and a depot 
 for Confederate supplies warranted the anticipation that the 
 place would be vigorously defended and only surrendered in 
 the last extremity. 
 
 Unfortunately such a resistance could not be made. General 
 Johnston had arrived too late to prepare a defence of the capital 
 of Mississippi. On reaching Jackson, on the night of the 13th 
 of May, he found there but two brigades numbering not more 
 than six thousand men ; and, with the utmost that could be 
 relied upon from the reinforcements on the way, he could not 
 expect to confront the enemy with more than eleven thousand 
 men. But he comprehended the situation with instant and 
 decisive sagacity. He ascertained that General Pemberton s 
 forces, except the garrison of Port Hudson (five thousand) and 
 of Yicksburg, were at Edwards Depot the general s head- 
 quarter s at Bovina; and that four divisions of the enemy, 
 under Sherman, occupied Clinton, ten miles west of Jackson, 
 between Edwards Depot and ourselves. 
 
54 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 Not a moment was to be lost. A despatch was hurried t& 
 Pemberton on the same night (13th), informing him of John 
 ston s arrival, and of the occupation of Clinton by a portion of 
 Grant s army, urging the importance of re-establishing corn 
 munications, and ordering him to come, up, if practicable, on 
 Sherman s rear at once, and adding, " to beat such a detach 
 ment would be of immense value." " The troops here," wrote 
 Johnston, "could co-operate. All the strength you can quickly 
 assemble should be brought. Time is all-important." 
 
 It appears from General Pemberton s official report that he 
 had preconceived a plan of battle ; that he expected to fight at 
 Edwards Depot ; and that he was unwilling to separate him 
 self further from Yicksburg, which he regarded as his base. 
 He had the choice of disobeying Johnston s orders, and falling 
 back upon his own matured plan, or of obeying them, and 
 taking the brilliant hazard of crushing an important detach 
 ment of the enemy. He did neither. He attempted a middle 
 course a compromise between his superior s orders and his 
 own plans, the weak shift and fatal expedient of military in- 
 competency. He telegraphed to Johnston, " I comply at once 
 with your order." Yet he did not move for twenty-eight hours. 
 A council of war had been called, and a majority of officers 
 approved the movement indicated by General Johnston. Pem 
 berton opposed it; but he says, " I did not, however, see n t to 
 put my own judgment and opinion so far in opposition as to 
 prevent a movement altogether." So he determined upon an 
 advance, not to risk an attack on Sherman, but, as he says, to cut 
 the enemy s communications. lie abandoned his own former 
 plans; he disobeyed Johnston s order, and invented a compro 
 mise equally reprehensible for the vacillation of his purpose 
 and the equivocation of his despatch. He moved, not on Sher 
 man s resw at Clinton, but in another direction toward Ray 
 mond. The purpose of General Johnston s order was to uuiro 
 the two armies and attack a detachment of the enemy. Thu 
 result of General Pemberton s movement towards Raymond 
 was to prevent this union, and to widen the distance between 
 the two armies. 
 
 In a moral view, it is difficult to find any term but that of 
 the harshest censure for this trifling compromise of General 
 Pemberton between the order? of his superior and the prefer 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 55 
 
 ences of his own mind. In a military view it was eq&allj re 
 prehensible. When the several corps of the enemy were 
 separated into two or more distinct columns, separated by 
 twelve or fifteen miles, it would be naturally supposed that the 
 true opportunity of ( Pemberton would have been to strike at 
 one separately, rather than to wait until all the enemy s forces 
 concentrated, and attacked him on his uncertain march. 
 
 The error was irretrievable. While General Pemberton was 
 in " council of war," on the 14th, the enemy, from Clinton and 
 Raymond, marched on Jackson and compelled its evacuation. 
 Had General Pemberton promptly obeyed General Johnston s 
 order, and boldly marched on Clinton, the enemy could not 
 have marched to Jackson, as that would have been to facilitate 
 the union of Johnston and Pemberton and to have encountered 
 their concentrated armies. The audacity of Johnston s orde:r, 
 if executed, might have reversed the fate of Yicksburg. The 
 vacillation of General Pemberton, and his loss of a day and a 
 half, caused the evacuation of Jackson, and opened the waj> 
 to Yicksburg. 
 
 The occupation of Jackson was the occasion of the usual 
 scenes of Yankee outrage. The watchword of McPhersorrs 
 corps, which first entered it, was plunder. The negroes were 
 invited to assist and share in the pillage. Supposing that the 
 year of jubilqe had finally come, the blacks determined to en 
 joy it, and, with this end in view, they stole everything they 
 could carry off. " Nothing," says a Yankee spectator, " came 
 amiss to these rejoicing Africans ; they went around the streets 
 displaying aggregate miles of double-rowed ivory, and bend 
 ing under a monstrous load of French mirrors, boots, shoes, 
 pieces of calico, wash-stands and towels, hoop-skirts, bags of 
 tobacco, parasols, umbrellas, and fifty other articles equally 
 incongruous." 
 
 McPherson left Jackson on the afternoon of the 15th, and, 
 in the morning of the next day, Sherman s corps took up its 
 line the whole moving westward along the south side of the 
 railroad to Yicksburg. As the e^etny left Jackson it resem 
 bled more the infernal regions than the abode of civilization. 
 V r ast volumes of smoke lay over it, through which, here and 
 there, rolled fiercely up great mountains of flame, that made 
 infernal music over their work of destruction. The Confederate 
 
36 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 State-house a large new wooden building the Penitentiary, 
 several private house and several government buildings were 
 all in flames. It was the first step of that catalogue of horrors 
 of invasion in which Mississippi was to rival Virginia, and the 
 Big Black was to be associated with the Potomac in the ghastly 
 romances of ruin aud desolation. 
 
 We return to Pernberton and his ill-starred march. On the 
 15th, at the head of a column of seventeen thousand men, he 
 had taken the direction of Raymond. On the morning of the 
 16th, at about six and a half o clock, he ascertained that his 
 pickets were skirmishing with the enemy on the Raymond 
 road, some distance in his front. At the same moment a cour- 
 rier arrived and handed him a despatch from General Johnston 
 announcing the evacuation of Jackson, and indicating that the 
 only means by which a union could now be effected between 
 the two forces was that Pemberton should move directly to 
 Clinton, whither Johnston was retiring. The order of counter 
 march was given by Pemberton. It was too late. Just as 
 this reverse movement commenced, the enemy drove in his 
 cavalry pickets, and opened with artillery, at long range, on 
 the head of his column on the Raymond road. The demon 
 strations of the enemy soon becoming more serious, orders 
 were sent by General Pemberton to the division commanders 
 to form in line of battle on the cross-road from the Clinton to 
 the Raymond road Loring on the right, Bowen in the centre, 
 and Stevenson on the left. The enemy had forced the Con 
 federates to give battle on the ground of his own selection, 
 under the disadvantages of inferior numbers and in circum 
 stances which had all the moral effect of a surprise. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BAKEIi s CREEK, ETC. 
 
 But the ground itself was not unfavorable to our troops. 
 The line of battle was quickly formed, in a bend of what is 
 known as Baker^s creek, without any interference on the part 
 of the enemy ; the position selected was naturally a strong one, 
 and all approaches from the front well covered. The enemy 
 made his first demonstration on our right, but, after a lively 
 artillery duel for an hour or more, this attack was relinquished 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 57 
 
 and a large force was thrown against our left, whore el 
 
 ing became heavy about ten o clock, and the battle began in 
 
 earnest along Stevenson s entire front about noon. 
 
 At this time Major-general Loring was ordered to move for 
 ward, and crush the enemy in his front, and General Bowen 
 was directed to co-operate with him in the movement. The 
 movement was not made by Loring. He replied that the 
 enemy was too strongly posted to be attacked, but that he 
 would avail himself of the first opportunity of successful as 
 sault. The opportunity never came to him. 
 
 Stevenson s troops sustained the heavy and repeated attacks 
 of the enemy. Six thousand, five hundred men held in check 
 four divisions of the enemy, numbering, from his own state 
 ment, twenty-five thousand men. Such endurance has its 
 limits. The only reinforcements that came to the relief of 
 these devoted men were two brigades of Bowen, among them 
 Cockrell s gallant Missourians. This was about half-past two 
 o clock. The combined charge of these forces for a moment 
 turned the tide of battle. But the enemy still continued to 
 move troops from his left to his right, thus increasing his 
 vastly superior forces against Stevenson s and Bowen s divis 
 ions. Again orders -were despatched to General Loring to 
 move to the left as rapidly as possible leaving force enough 
 only to cover the bridge and ford at Baker s Creek. He d id 
 not come. He seems still to have been engaged with the 
 movements of the enemy in his front, and to have supposed 
 that they were endeavoring to flank him. 
 
 In the mean time the contest raged along Stevenson s lines, 
 the enemy continuing his line movement to our left. Here 
 were displays of gallantry, which, unable to retrieve the disas 
 ter, adorned it with devotion. Here fell the gallant Captain 
 Eidley, commanding a battery, refusing to leave his guns, 
 single-handed and alone fighting until he fell, pierced with six 
 shots, receiving, even from his enemies, the highest tribute of 
 admiration. Nothing could protect the artillery horses from 
 the deadly fire of the enemy ; almost all were killed, and 
 along the whole line, the pieces, though fought with despera 
 tion, on the part of both officers and men, almost all fell into 
 the hands of the enemy. In this manner the guns of Corput s 
 and Johnston s batteries, and WaddelFs section, y lost. 
 
58 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Doulle shotted, they were fired until, in many instances, 
 swarms of the enemy were in amongst them. Officers and 
 men stood by them to the very latest moment that they could 
 be served. 
 
 About 5 o clock p. M., a portion of Stevenson s division broke 
 and fell back in disorder. General Pemberton rode up to 
 Stevenson and told him that he had repeatedly ordered two 
 brigades of Loring to his assistance. The brave commander, 
 who had fought the enemy since morning, replied that the re 
 lief would be too late and that he could no longer hold the 
 field. " Finding," says General Pemberton, " that the enemy s 
 vastly superior numbers were pressing all my forces engaged 
 steadily back into old fields, where all advantages of position 
 would be in his favor, I felt it too late to save the day even 
 should Brigadier-general Featherstone s brigade of General 
 Loring s division come up immediately. I could, however, 
 learn nothing of General Loring s whereabouts ; several of my 
 staff officers were in search of him, but it was not until after 
 General Bowen had personally informed me that he could not 
 hold his position, arid not until I had ordered the retreat, that 
 General Loring, with Featherstone s brigade, moving, as I sub 
 sequently learned, by a country road, which was considerably 
 longer than the direct route, reached the position on the left, 
 known as Champion s Hill, where he was forming line of bat 
 tle when he received my order to cover the retreat. Had the 
 movement in support of the left been promptly made, when 
 first ordered, it is not improbable that I might have main 
 tained my position, and it is possible the enemy might have 
 been driven back, though his vastly superior and constantly 
 increasing numbers would have rendered it necessary to with 
 draw during the night to save my communications with Vicks- 
 burg."* 
 
 * In a correspondence wliicli ensued between the Richmond authorities and 
 General Pemberton as to the cause of the defeat, the Secretary of War wrote, 
 in a letter dated October 1st, 1863 : " I should be pleased to know if General 
 Loring had been ordered to attack before General Cummings brigade gave 
 way ; and whether, in your opinion, had Stevenson s division been promptly 
 sustained, the troops with him would have fought with so little tenacity and 
 resolution as a portion of them exhibited? Have you had any explanation of 
 the extraordinary failure of General Loring to comply with your reiterated or 
 ders to attack ? And do you feel assured your orders were received by him V 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 59 
 
 But the disaster of the day was not yet complete. The re 
 treat of the Confederates was by the ford and bridge of Baker s 
 Creek. Bowen s division was directed to take position on the 
 left bank, and to hold the crossing until Loring s division, 
 which was directed to bring up the rear, had effected the pas 
 sage* The intelligence of the approach of Loring was awaited 
 in vain. Probably another unfortunate misapprehension had 
 occurred. He had covered the retreat with great spirit, it 
 was in this part of the contest that Brigadier-general Lloyd 
 Tilghman, one of the bravest officers in the Confederate army, 
 fell, pierced through his manly breast with a fragment of a 
 shell. He was serving with his own hands a twelve-pound 
 howitzer, trying to dislodge a piece which was annoying the 
 retreat. It is said that General Loring was under the impres 
 sion that a force of the enemy had got in the rear of the 
 bridge, and that Stevenson had been compelled to continue his 
 retreat in the direction of Edwards Depot. At any rale, he 
 resolved to make his retreat through the east, turn Jackson, 
 and effect a junction with the forces of General Johnston, then 
 supposed to be near Canton. He succeeded, but with the loss 
 of his artillery. 
 
 Pemberton had retired from the battle-field with a demoral 
 ized army. It had lost nearly all of its artillery ; it was weak 
 ened by the absence of General Loring s division ; it had 
 already shown the fatal sign of straggling ; and, worse than 
 all, it had conceived a distrust of its commander, who had car 
 ried his troops by a vague and wandering march on the very 
 front of the concentrated forces of the enemy. 
 
 On Sunday morning, the 17th of May, the enemy advanced 
 in force against the works erected on the Big Black. The 
 river, where it is crossed by the railroad bridge, makes a bend 
 somewhat in the shape of a horse-shoe. Across this horse-shoe, 
 
 His conduct, unless explained by some misapprehension, is incomprehensible 
 to me." 
 
 To this General Pemberton replied, on the 10th of November: "General 
 Loring had been ordered to attack before General Cummings brigade gave way 
 and the order had been again and again repeated ; and, in iny opinion, had 
 Stevenson s division been promptly sustained, his troops would have deported 
 themselves gallantly and creditably. I have received no explanation of the 
 extraordinary failure of General Lormg to comply with my reiterated orders to 
 attack ; and I do feel assured that my orders were received by him. " 
 
60 SOUTHERN H7STOBY OF THE WAR. 
 
 at its narrowest part, a line of rifle-pits had been constructed, 
 making an excellent cover for infantry, and, at proper inter 
 vals, dispositions were made for field artillery. The line of 
 pits ran nearly north and sooth, and was about a mile in length. 
 North of, and for a considerable distance south of the railroad, 
 and of a dirt-road to Edwards Depot, nearly parallel with it 
 extended a bayou, which, in itself, opppsed a serious obstacle 
 to an assault upon the pits. This line abutted north on the 
 river, and south upon a cypress brake, which spread itself 
 nearly to the bank of the river. In addition to the railroad 
 bridge, which had been floored for the passage over of artillery 
 and wagons, a steamer, from which the machinery had been 
 taken, was converted into a bridge, by placing her fore-and- 
 aft across the river. Between the works and the bridge, about 
 three-quarters of a mile, the country was open, being eitRer 
 clear or cultivated fields, affording no cover should the troops 
 be drawn from the trenches. East and north of the railroad, 
 the country over which the enemy must necessarily pass was 
 similar to those above described ; but north of the railroad, 
 and about three hundred yards in front of the rifle-pits,* a 
 copse of wood extended from the road to the river. Our line 
 was manned on the right by the gallant Cockrell s Missouri 
 brigade, the extreme left by Brigadier- general Green s Missouri 
 and Arkansas men, both of Bowen s division, and the centre 
 by Brigadier-general Vaughan s brigade of east Tennesseeans, 
 in all about four thousand men, as many as could be advan 
 tageously employed in defending the line with about twenty 
 pieces of field artillery. 
 
 The position was one of extraordinary strength, yet this 
 position was abandoned by our troops, almost without a strug 
 gle, and with the loss of nearly all that remained of our artil 
 lery. 
 
 It would be well if this page could be omitted from our mar 
 tial records, and its dishonor spared. But it is easily told, and 
 the charitable reader is already prepared for it. Early in the 
 morning the enemy opened his artillery at long range, and 
 very soon pressed forward, with infantry, into the copse oi 
 wood north of the railroad ; about the same time he opened on 
 Colonel Cockrell s position with two batteries, and advanced a 
 line of skirmishers, throwing forward a column of infantry, 
 
THE THIKD YEAE. 61 
 
 which was quickly driven back by our batteries. Prettj 
 heavy skirmishing was, for awhile, kept up along our whole 
 line, but presently the enemy, who had massed a large force 
 in the woods immediately north of the railroad, advanced at a 
 run with loud cheers. Our troops in their front did not 
 remain to receive them, but broke and fled precipitately. 
 
 The retreat was disgraceful. It soon became a matter of 
 sauve qui pent. A strong position, with an ample force of 
 infantry and artillery to hold it, was shamefully abandoned, 
 almost without resistance. Between the troops occupying the 
 centre and the enemy there was an almost impassable bayou. 
 They fled before *the enemy had reached that obstacle. In 
 this precipitate retreat but little order was observed, the object 
 with all being to reach the bridge as rapidly as possible. 
 Many were unable to do so, but effected their escape by swim 
 ming the river ; some were drowned in the attempt. A con 
 siderable number, unable to swim, and others too timid to 
 expose themselves to the fire of the enemy by an effort to 
 escape, remained in the trenches, and were made prisoners. 
 A captain, who disgraced the Confederate uniform, laid down 
 in the rifle-pits, and was captured by the enemy. Another 
 behaved more bravely. Captain Osborne, of the Thirty-sixth 
 Georgia, took his place just behind his line, and, with drawn 
 revolver, swore he would shoot the first unwourided man who 
 turned his back. The consequence was that his company, and 
 the fragment of another, were soon left alone in the field where 
 the steady line of the enemy were advancing under the smoke 
 of their own murderous tire. Completely flanked, and in peril 
 of capture, he gave the order to " march a retreat," but still 
 with revolver and voice checking any unwise or unbecoming 
 haste. When satisfied with his distance, he halted his com 
 pany, and dressed the line ; just then General Cumming rode 
 up, and, taking off his hat, said : " Captain, I compliment 
 you upon having the only organized body of men on the 
 field." 
 
 Lieutenant-general Pemberton rode up and down the lines 
 trying to rally the men ; but- his courage was not well re 
 warded. One of his staff threatened to shoot a runaway with 
 his pistol. " Bigger guns than that, back there," said the sol 
 dier, and went on. 
 
62 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF 1HE WAR. 
 
 General Pemberton told a fellow to stop and to go back, 
 and, to give force to the order, said : " I am Lieutenant-general 
 Pemberton, commanding this department." The fellow looked 
 up and said, "You are!" and proceeded the same way. 
 
 Who could have recognized in the flying mob the same men 
 whose heroic defence of Yicksburg had attracted the attention 
 and won the applause of the world ! 
 
 About ten o clock, Sunday night, the main body of Pern 
 berton s army entered Yicksburg. A scene of terror ensued. 
 Many planters living near the city with their families, aban 
 doned their homes and entered our lines with the Confederate 
 forces. The stillness of the Sabbath night was broken in upon, 
 and an uproar in which the blasphemous oath of the soldier 
 and the cry of the child mingled, heightened the effect of a 
 scene which the pen cannot depict. There were many gentle 
 women and tender children, torn from their homes by the ad 
 vance of a ruthless foe and compelled to fly to our lines for 
 protection ; and mixed up with them, in one vast crowd, were 
 the gallant men who had left Vicksburg three short weeks 
 befoie in all the pride and confidence of a just cause, and return 
 ing to it under the shame of a defeat, and with the panic of a 
 mob. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter at length into the recrimination 
 which ensued between Pemberton and Johnston, as to the 
 memorable disaster of the Big Black. It was argued on Pem- 
 berton s side that had it riot been for Johnston s order to move 
 on the enemy at Canton, he never would have advanced in 
 any direction beyond the Big Black. To this the reply of 
 General Johnston was neat and conclusive. "It was," he 
 said, "a new military principle that when an officer disobeys 
 a positive order of his superior, that superior becomes respon 
 sible for any measure his subordinate may choose to substitute 
 for that ordered." 
 
 Pemberton had neither obeyed the order referred to, nor 
 fallen back upon his original plan ; he had supplanted both by 
 a new movement which concluded in one of the worst disas 
 ters of the war. The order of the 13th directed truly a " haz 
 ardous movement," but it was nevertheless a great conception 
 it was one of those bold and audacious moves that charac 
 terize military genius, and is a practical illustration of Napo- 
 
THE THIED TEAR. 63 
 
 icon s maxim, that " a great captain supplies all deficiencies by 
 his courage, and marches boldly to meet the attack." It was 
 a wise order, for it tended to concentration and the union 01 
 both detachments of his army ; and, if promptly and boldly 
 executed, might have resulted in saving Vicksburg. For if 
 Sherman had been defeated between Clinton and Jackson 
 Grant could not have invested Vicksburg. 
 
 As it was, the fall of Vicksburg had become but a question 
 of time. General Johnston was convinced of the impossibility 
 of collecting a sufficient force to break the investment of the 
 city, should it be completed. He appreciated the difficulty of 
 extricating the garrison. It was with this foresight that, on 
 learning that Pemberton had been driven from the Big Black, 
 he ordered the evacuation of Vicksburg. He wrote: "If 
 Hay ties Bluff be untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and 
 cannot be held. If, therefore, you are invested in Vicksburg, 
 you must ultimately surrender. Under such circumstances, 
 instead of losing both troops and place, you must, if possible, 
 save the troops. If it is not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and 
 its dependencies, and march to the northeast." 
 
 It was a grave order. It commanded the surrender of valua 
 ble stores and munitions of war ; the surrender of the Mississippi 
 river; and the severance of the Confederacy. But Johnston 
 had presented to his mind a given alternative : that of the loss 
 of Vicksburg, and that of the loss of Vicksburg and an army 
 of twenty-five thousand men, and he had the nerve to accept 
 with promptness the lesser of two evils. It required the great 
 est moral courage to come to such a conclusion ; for so de 
 luded were the Confederate people as to the safety of Vicks 
 burg, and so firmly persuaded were they that Grant was a 
 desperate fool " who would butt his brains out against the 
 stockades of Vicksbnrg," that had this order of Johnston been 
 known at the time it would have produced from one end of 
 the Confederacy to the other an outbreak of indignation, and 
 have probably made him the victim of an incorrigible popular 
 passion and ignorance. 
 
 Pemberton received the order with dismay ; he called a conn 
 cil of war. It was unanimous for its rejection ; but the reas 
 on given was peculiar and but little creditable. It was de 
 cided that it wts impossible to withdraw the army with such 
 
04 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 morale and material as to be of future service to the Confeder 
 acj ; and this, although there were eight thousand fresh troops 
 in Yicksburg. Pemberton replied : " I have decided to hold 
 Yicksburg as long as possible, with the firm hope that the 
 Government may yet be able to assist me in keeping this ob 
 ctruction to the enemy s free navigation of the Mississippi 
 river. I still conceive it to be the most important point in the 
 Confederacy." While the council of war was assembled, the 
 guns of tlie enemy opened on the works. 
 
THE THIRD YEAB 65 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 The Defences of Vicksburg. Pemberton s Force. His Troops Reinspirited. ~ A 
 Memorable Appeal. Grant s Assault on the Works. Confidence of the Yankees. 
 Their Repulse and Losses. Commencement of Siege Operations. Confidence in 
 Richmond. Johnston s Secret Anticipation of the Fall of Vicksburg. His Alleged 
 Inability to Avert it. Critical Condition of the Confederate Annies in Numbers. 
 Secret Correspondence of Richmond Officials. Mr. Seddon s Bait of Flattery. Suf 
 ferings of the Garrison of Vicksburg. Johnston s Attempt to Extricate them. Pro 
 posed Diversion in the Trans-Mississippi. Its Failure. A Message from Pembcrton. 
 A Gleam of Hope. An Important Dispatch Miscarries. The Garrison Unable to 
 Fight Their Way Out. But Their Condition not Extreme. Pemberton s Surrender 
 on the Fourth of July. Surprise in Richmond Mendacity of the Telegraph. Th 
 Story of the Rats and Mules. Pemberton s Statement as to his Supplies. His Ex 
 planation as to the Day of Surrender. The last Incident of Huniiliation. Behavior 
 of the Vicksburg Population. A Rival of "The Beast." Appearance and Manners 
 of the City under Yankee Rule. Consequences of the Fall of Vicksburg. THE YAN- 
 ME REOCCCPATION OF JACKSON. Johnston s Second Evacuation. The Enemy s Rav 
 ages in Mississippi. How they Compared with Lee s Civilities in Pennsylvania. 
 THE FALL OF PORT HUDSON, &c. Enemy s Capture of Yazoo City. THE BATTLE 
 OF HELENA. THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Repulse of the Confederates. Abandonment 
 of Little Rock. The Trials and Sufferings of the Trans-Mississippi Department. 
 Hindman s Memorable Rule. Military Autocracy. The Generous and Heroic Spirit 
 of the Trans-Mississippi. 
 
 THE line of defence around the city of Yicksburg consisted 
 of a system of detached works (redans, lunettes, and redoubts) 
 on the prominent and commanding points, with the usual pro 
 file of raised field works, connected, in most cases, by rifle-pits. 
 The strength of the city towards the land was equally as strong 
 as on the river side. The country was broken, to a degree 
 affording excellent defensive positions. In addition to this, 
 the ravines intervening the ridges and knolls, which the Con 
 federates had fortified, were covered with a tangled growth ot 
 cane, wild grape, &c., making it impossible for the enemy to 
 move his troops in well-dressed lines. 
 
 To man the entire line of fortifications, General Pernberton 
 was able to bring into the trenches about eighteen thousand 
 five hundred muskets ; but it was absolutely necessary to keep 
 a reserve always ready to reinforce any point heavily threat 
 ened. It became indispensable, therefore, to reduce the num 
 ber in the trenches to the minimum capable of holding tb<sm 
 
 5 
 
66 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 until a reserve could come to their aid. It was also necessary 
 that the reserve should be composed of troops among the 
 best and most reliable. Accordingly, Bowen s division (about 
 twenty-four hundred) and some other forces were designated 
 for that purpose, reducing the forces in the trenches to little 
 over fifteen thousand five hundred men. 
 
 Fortunately, the army of Yicksburg had speedily recovered 
 from its demoralization, reassured, as the troops were, of a 
 prospect of Johnston s co-operation, and inspired by a remark 
 able appeal from Pemberton. This unfortunate commander 
 appeased the clamor against himself by an apparently noble 
 candor and memorable words of heroism. He said that it had 
 been declared that he would sell Vicksburg, and exhorted his 
 soldiers to witness the price at which he would sell it, for it 
 would not be less than his own life, and that of every man in 
 his command. Those words deserve to be commemorated in 
 relation to the sequel. 
 
 The stirring words of Pemberton were circulated through 
 the Confederacy, and satisfied the public that either Yicksburg 
 was safe, or that the catastrophe would be glorious. They 
 called to mind Le} 7 den and Genoa, Londonderry and Saragossa, 
 and the people of the Confederacy expected that a name no 
 less glorious would be added to the list of cities made immortal 
 by heroism, endurance, suffering, and, as they hoped, triumph. 
 Much of this elation, it is true, was from ignorance of the true 
 situation ; but even the intelligent refused to entertain a sequel 
 so humiliating and disastrous to the South as that which was 
 to ensue. 
 
 The troops of Grant were flushed with victory, and had pro 
 posed to finish their work by a single assault. The events of 
 the 19th, 20th, and 21st of May, wearied those who imagined 
 that they saw in their grasp the palm of the Mississippi. So 
 fully assured were they of victory, that they postponed it from 
 day to day. To storm the works was to take Vicksburg, in 
 their opinion, and when it was known on the morning of the 
 21st, that at ten o clock next morning the whole line of Con 
 federate works would be assaulted, the credulous and vain 
 enemy accounted success so certain, that it was already given 
 to the wings of the telegraph. 
 
 On the 22d, the fire from the enemy s artillery and sharp- 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. . 67 
 
 shooters in the rear was heavy and incessant until noon, when 
 his gnnboats opened upon the city, while a determined assault 
 was made along Moore s, Hebert s, and Lee s lines. At about 
 one o clock p. M., a heavy force moved out to the assault on the 
 lines of General Lee, making a gallant charge. They were 
 allowed to approach unmolested to within good musket range, 
 when every available gun was opened upon them with grape 
 and canister, arid the men, rising in the trenches, poured into 
 their ranks volley after volley, with so deadly an effect that, 
 leaving the ground literally covered in some places with their 
 dead and wounded, they precipitately retreated. The angle 
 of one of our redoubts having been breached by their artillery 
 previous to" the assault, when the repulse occurred, a party of 
 about sixty of the enemy, under the command of a Lieutenant- 
 colonel, made a rush, succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the 
 ditch at the foot of the redoubt, and planted two colors on the 
 parapet. It was of vital importance to drive them out, and, 
 upon a call for volunteers for that purpose, two companies of 
 Waul s Texas legion, commanded respectively by Captain 
 Bradley and Lieutenant Hogue, accompanied by the gallant 
 and chivalrous Colonel E. "W. Pettus, of the Twentieth Ala 
 bama regiment, musket in hand, promptly presented them 
 selves for the hazardous service. The preparations were quiet 
 ly and quickly made, but the enemy seemed at once to divine 
 the purpose, and opened upon the angle a terrific fire of shot, 
 shell, and musketry. Undaunted, this little band, its chival 
 rous commander at its head, rushed upon the work, and, in 
 less time than it requires to describe it, it and the flags were 
 in our possession. Preparations were then quickly made for 
 the use of our hand-grenades, when the enemy in the ditch, 
 being informed of the purpose, immediately surrendered. 
 
 On other parts of our lines the enemy was repulsed, although 
 he succeeded in getting a few men into our exterior ditches at 
 each point of attack, from which they were, however, driven 
 before night. Our entire loss in this successful day was com 
 paratively very small, and might be counted in a few hundreds 
 So accustomed had the population of Yicksburg become to the 
 fire and rage of battle, that the circumstance is no less true thar 
 curious that throughout the day stores in the city were open 
 and women and children walked *i streets, as if no missile,. 
 
68 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of death were filling the air and bursting and scattering tLc 
 fragments around. There is no reliable account of the enemy s 
 loss this day ; but, in killed and wounded, it was several thou 
 sands. Two thousand had fallen in front of General Forney s 
 lines alone, according to the report of that commander. The 
 dead lay before our works, while thousands of wounded men 
 were carried off as soon as they fell. 
 
 The result of this engagement was a lesson to the temerity 
 of the enemy. After this decided repulse, the enemy seemed 
 to have abandoned the idea of taking Yicksburg by assault, 
 and went vigorously at work to thoroughly invest and attack 
 by regular approaches. The weakness of our garrison pre 
 vented anything like a system of sallies, but, from time to 
 time, as opportunities offered, and the enemy effected lodg 
 ments too close to our works, they were made with spirit and 
 success. But these were unimportant incidents. The patience 
 of Southern soldiers a virtue for which they are riot remark 
 able was now to be tried by the experiences of a siege : 
 exhausting labors, scant rations, a melancholy isolation, and 
 the distress of being entirely cut off from their homes and 
 friends. 
 
 The siege was established by the enemy under circumstances 
 of peculiar and extraordinary advantage. Although Grant s 
 attack was made from Grand Gulf, that place was not long his 
 base; and, when he gained Haines Bluff and the Yazoo, all 
 communication with it was abandoned. He was enabled to 
 rely on Memphis and the river above Yicksburg for food and 
 reinforcements ; his communications were open with the entire 
 West ; and the Northern newspapers urgently demanded that 
 the utmost support should be given to a favorite general, and 
 that the Trans-Mississippi should be stripped of troops to supply 
 him with reinforcements. 
 
 But the South still entertained hopes of the safety of Yicks 
 burg. It was stated in Richmond, by those who should have 
 been well informed, that the garrison numbered considerably 
 more than twenty thousand men, and was provisioned for a 
 siege of six months. Nearly every day the telegraph had soma 
 extravagance to tell concerning the supreme safety of Yicks 
 burg and the confidence of the garrison. The heroic promise 
 of Pemberton, that the city should not fall until the last man 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 69 
 
 had fallen in the last ditch, was called to the jopula: remem 
 brance. The confidence of the South was swollen even to in 
 solence by these causes ; and, although a few of the intelligent 
 doubted the extravagant assurances of the safety of Yicksburg, 
 the people at large received them with an unhesitating and 
 exultant faith. 
 
 The prospect of Johnston s relief to Yicksburg was a delu 
 sion of its unhappy garrison and of an ignorant public. In 
 deed, on learning of the Baker creek disaster, Johnston had 
 given up Yicksburg for lost, and considered that Pemberton 
 had made a fatal mistake in determining to be besieged in 
 Vicksburg, rather than maneuvering, in the first instance, to 
 prevent a siege. The fact is, that at no time after the disaster 
 referred to did General Johnston have at his disposal half the 
 troops necessary to risk an assault on Grant. After the evac 
 uation of Jackson he had retired to Canton, and the force he 
 had collected there, including reinforcements to the amount of 
 eight thousand men from Bragg s army in Tennessee, and 
 above six thousand from Charleston, scarcely exceeded twenty- 
 four thousand men. Grant s army was estimated at sixty 
 thousand or eighty thousand men, and drawn, as they were, 
 principally from the Northwestern States, they were of the 
 best material. His great excess of force was being daily en 
 larged by reinforcements, while the Richmond authorities re 
 fused to give or to promise more troops to Johnston. On the 
 5th of June, Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secretary of "War, 
 telegraphed to Johnston : " You must rely on what you ,have, 
 and the irregular forces Mississippi can afford." 
 
 The fact is, that the resources of the Confederacy were at 
 this time in the most critical condition. In Yirginia we were 
 outnumbered by the enemy more than two to one ; and with 
 reference to Bragg s condition in Tennessee, General Johnston 
 did not hesitate to declare that, to take from him a force suffi 
 cient to oppose Grant, would involve the yielding of that State. 
 He advised the Richmond authorities that it was for them to 
 decide between Mississippi and Tennessee. He informed 
 Pemberton that it was impossible for him (Johnston) with the 
 force at his command to raise the siege of Yicksburg, and all 
 that he could attempt was to extricate the garrison by a simul 
 taneous attack on some part of the enemy s lines. 
 
70 SOUTHEKtf HISTORY OF THE WAE, 
 
 On the 15th of June, General Johnston communicated fo 
 the government his opinion that, without some great blunder 
 ,of the enemy, we could not hold both Mississippi and Tennes 
 see, and that he considered saving Vicksburg hopeless. In 
 deed such an attempt had now become utterly desperate 
 Grant had entrenched his position, and protected it by power 
 ful artillery. His reinforcements alone equalled Johnston s 
 whole force. The Big Black covered him from attack, and 
 would cut off our retreat, if Johnston had been defeated in his 
 niad enterprise of attack. 
 
 And now ensued a series of extraordinary communications 
 from Richmond, remarkable even among the curiosities of the 
 .secret correspondence of officials. A favorite of the Richmond 
 Administration had entangled himself in a hopeless siege, and 
 the proposition was to be recklessly made to General Johnston 
 to effect the relief of the favorite, or to cover his disaster by 
 ,an attempt, which he (General Johnston) had declared would 
 be tantamount to the sacrifice of himself and army, and which 
 all the circumstances of the situation plainly denounced ag 
 hopeless. The authorities essayed the dictatorial style, and de 
 clared that the aim justified " any risk and ^11 probable con 
 sequences." General Johnston could not be convinced. They 
 attempted the persuasions of flattery : " The eyes and the 
 hopes of the whole Confederacy are upon you," wrote Mr. Sed- 
 don to Johnston, " with the full confidence that you will act." 
 General Johnston could not be cajoled. The Richmond au 
 thorities were left to await the development of that for which 
 they themselves were most responsible. 
 
 The situation revealed in this correspondence was a close 
 secret to the public. It was known to Pemberton, but most 
 studiously kept from his troops, who, whenever a courier 
 reached Vicksburg, imagined certain tidings of Johnston s 
 approach. At times, the unhappy men listened for the sound 
 of his guns. The hardships of the siege were telling upon 
 them. The enemy were mining at different points, and it re 
 quired the active and constant attention of our engineers to 
 repair at night the damage inflicted upon our works during 
 he day, and to meet his different mines by countermining 
 The same men were constantly in the trenches. The enemy 
 bombarded day and night from seven mortars on the opposite 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 71 
 
 of the peninsula. He also kept up a constant fire on cur 
 lines by artillery and sharpshooters. Many officers and men 
 were lost by this fire. Among the first, was the brave Briga 
 dier-general Green, of Missouri, who was shot in the neck by 
 a minie ball. His wish was gratified u he lived not to see 
 Yicksburg fall." 
 
 But although General Johnston despaired of the ability or 
 his army to save Yicksburg, he was busy with efforts to extri 
 cate the garrison or to cut the enemy s communications, hop 
 ing, from day to day, there might possibly be some new de 
 velopment of the situation. On arriving in Mississippi he had 
 informed General Kirby Smith, commanding the forces west 
 of the Mississippi river, of the condition of Yicksburg and 
 Port Hudson, and requested his aid and co-operation. Gen 
 eral Smith did send troops to give all possible aid to Yicks 
 burg. General Taylor was sent with eight thousand men to 
 co-operate from the west bank of the Mississippi, to throw in 
 supplies and to cross with his force if expedient and practi 
 cable. On the 27th of June* General Johnston telegraphed 
 Pemberton that these troops "had been mismanaged, and had 
 fallen back to Delhi." All prospect of relief from this quarter 
 was thus terminated. 
 
 A few days before this disappointment Pemberton had com 
 municated to Johnston the suggestion, that he (Johnston) 
 should make to Grant propositions to pass the army of Yicks 
 burg out with all its arms and equipages. He renewed the 
 hope, however, of his being able, by force of arms, to act with 
 Johnston, and expressed the opinion that he could hold out for 
 fifteen days longer. Johnston was reassured by this spirit of 
 determination. He still had some hopes of the co-operation 
 of Kirby Smith. He replied to Pemberton, that something 
 might yet be done to save Vicksburg, and to postpon* the 
 modes suggested of merely extricating the garrison. 
 
 This despatch never reached Yicksburg. " Had I received," 
 said General Pemberton, " General Johnston s despatch of the 
 27th of June, in which he encouraged the hope that both 
 Yicksburg and the garrison might be saved, I would have 
 lived upon an ounce a day, and have continued to meet the 
 assaults of all Grant s army, rather than have surrendered 
 the city until General Johnston had realized or relinquished 
 
72 SOUTHERN HISTOBY OF THE W.LE. 
 
 that hope ; but I did not receive his despatch until the 
 20th day of August, in Gainesville, Alabama, nor had I the 
 most remote idea that such an opinion was entertained by 
 General Johnston ; he had for some weeks ignored its possi 
 bility." 
 
 Whatever may be the merit of this declaration, Johnston s 
 reassurance was too late. The very day it was penned, Pem- 
 berton had proposed a capitulation. 
 
 Forty-five days of incessant duty, with short rations, had had 
 a marked effect upon the troops of Yicksburg. The trials of the 
 siege were extraordinary. The men had been exposed to burn 
 ing suns, drenching rains, damp fogs, and heavy dews, and had 
 never had, by day or by night, the slightest relief. The extent 
 of our works required every available man in the trenches, and 
 even then they were, in many places, insufficiently manned. 
 It was not possible to relieve any portion of the line for a sin 
 gle hour. Confined to the narrow limits of a trench, with 
 their limbs cramped and swollen, without exercise, constantly 
 exposed to a murderous storm of shot and shell, while the 
 enemy s unerring sharpshooters stood ready to pick off every 
 man visible above the parapet, the troops had suffered many 
 combinations of hardship which had told upon their health and 
 spirits. It is undoubtedly true, that in the condition in which 
 the troops were, they would not have been able to cut their 
 way through the enemy s lines, without the abandonment of a 
 large number of sick, and the loss of, probably, half their ef 
 fective strength. Such an enterprise was discouraged by all 
 the division commanders. But however unequal the condition 
 of the troops to an enterprise of such vigor and hardihood, it 
 is certain that it was yet equal to sustain for many days longer 
 the fatigues and hardships of a siege. The condition of the 
 garrison was certainly not as extreme as that which Peinberton 
 had heroically prefigured as the alternative of surrender ; and 
 it must be said, in the severe interest of truth, that it holds no 
 honorable comparison with the amount of privation and suffer 
 ing borne in other sieges recorded in history. 
 
 On the 3d of July, Pemberton proposed terms of capitula 
 tion for the morrow, to " save the further effusion of blood, 
 " feeling himself fully able to maintain his position for a yet 
 indefinite period." There was but little dispute about terms : 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. 73 
 
 the parole of the garrison. Grant s persistent refusal to rnake 
 any stipulation with regard to the treatment of citizens, and 
 the surrender of this latter point by Peinberton. 
 
 On the morning of Saturday, the Fourth of July, the anni 
 versary of American Independence, the troops of Yicksburc 
 marched from the lines of entrenchments they had defended 
 and held for nearly two months, and, after stacking their arms 
 and lowering their standards which had proudly floated upon 
 many a battle-field, returned inside of the works, prisoners of 
 war to a detested and exultant foe. At the hour of noon the 
 Yankee flag was raised over the Court-house amid the shouts 
 and cheers of Grant s troops. Demoralized as was Pember- 
 ton s army, there were yet those whose hearts throbbed or eyes 
 filled with tears as they saw the hated ensign floating over a 
 city which the Confederacy had boasted to be impregnable, 
 and which had at last been surrenderred to signalize an Amer 
 ican holiday. 
 
 The public confidence of the South with regard to the safety 
 of Yicksburg had been abused by the silly mendacities of the 
 telegraph, which, to the last, reported the garrison in supreme 
 spirits and the enemy in woful plight. Under these circum 
 stances the surprise and consternation of the people of the 
 South may be imagined, when, without the least premonition, 
 the announcement came that the select anniversary of the. 
 Fourth of July had been signalized by the capitulation of 
 Vicksburg, without a fight : the surrender of twenty odd 
 thousand troops as prisoners; and the abandonment to the 
 Yankees of one of the greatest prizes of artillery that had yet 
 been made in the war. The news fell upon Richmond like a 
 thunder-clap from clear skies. It was at first denounced as an 
 invention of speculators in sugar. The people were unwilling 
 to reconcile themselves to a misfortune so unexpected in its 
 aLnoiincement, and so monstrous in its particulars. 
 
 The authorities of Richmond maintained a sullen silence. 
 But the truth, at last, came out stark and unwelcome. We 
 had surrendered to the enemy a force of more than twenty- 
 three thousand men, with three major-generals, and nine 
 brigadiers ; upwards of ninety pieces of artillery, and abou 
 forty thousand small arms, large numbers of the latter having 
 been taken from the enemy during the siege. 
 
74: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The statement that the garrison of Yicksburg was surren 
 dered on account of an inexorable distress, in which the sol* 
 diers had to feed on mules, with the occasional luxury of rats, 
 is either to be taken as a designing falsehood, or as the crudi 
 ties of that foolish newspaper romance so common in the war 
 In neither case does it merit refutation. A citizen of Yicks- 
 burg declares that the only foundation for the rat story is that 
 a pie spiced with this vermin was served up in some of the 
 officers messes as a practical joke, and that for days after the 
 surrender he himself had dined on excellent bacon from Pem- 
 berton s stores. In his officia"! report Pemberton declares that 
 he had at the time of the surrender of Yicksburg about 
 40,000 pounds of pork and bacon, which had been reserved for 
 the subsistance of his troops in the event of attempting to cut 
 his way out of the city. Also 51,241 pounds of rice, 5,000 
 bushels of peas, 112,234 pounds of sugar, 3^240 pounds of 
 soap, 527 pounds of tallow candles, 27 pounds of star candles, 
 and 428,000 pounds of salt.* 
 
 There appears, then, to have been no immediate general oc 
 casion for the surrender of Yicksburg other than Pemberton a 
 desire " to save the further effusion of blood." The explana 
 tion of his motives for selecting the Fourth of July as the day 
 of surrender implies a singular humiliation of the Confederacy ; 
 as he was willing to give this dramatic gratification to the 
 vanity of the enemy in the hope of thus conciliating the ambi 
 tion of Grant, and soliciting the generosity of the Yankees. 
 He says : " If it should be asked why the Fourth of July was 
 
 * But it must be stated that Pemberton s supplies of Vicksburg, which he 
 had a year to provide, were criminally scant ; and that as the failure of sup 
 plies would in all probability have decided the fate of Vicksburg, had he not 
 anticipated it by a surrender, he cannot be acquitted of blame in this particu 
 lar. He declined to provision Vicksburg in prospect of a siege. When one of 
 the Confederate generals, from Mississippi, pointed out to him vast supplies in 
 certain counties of the State accessible to his garrison, he dismissed the advice 
 with a haughtiness that almost amounted to personal insult. 
 
 As proof of the abundance of the country around Vicksburg, we have Grant s 
 official report of his Mississippi campaign, in which he states that, with a view 
 of rapid movement and surprise, having calculated that twenty days would 
 place him before Vicksburg, he permitted his troops to take only four days 
 provisions,, trusting to the country for the other sixteen days supply, and, in 
 fact, supplied his army (50,000 men), from the country lying about the line oJ 
 his march. 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 75 
 
 selected as tlie day for the surrender, the answer is olnious ; J 
 believed that, upon that day, I should obtain better terms. 
 Well aware of the vanity of our foes, I knew they would attach 
 vast importance to the entrance, on the Fourth of July, into 
 the stronghold of the great river, and that, to gratify their na 
 tional vanity, they would yield then what could not be ex 
 torted from them at any other time." Such an incident of 
 humiliation was alone wanting to complete the disaster and 
 shame of Vicksburg. 
 
 What the Confederacy had proudly entitled its "heroic 
 city," was now destined to the experience of Yankee despot 
 ism, and, what was worse, to the shame of those exhibitions of 
 cowardly submission which suited the interests of those who 
 were left to herd with their country s destroyers. The citizens 
 of Vicksburg had suffered little more than mere inconvenience 
 from the siege. There had been but little loss of life among 
 them in the bombardment. The city was filled with groups 
 of caves on every hill-side. In these caves the women and 
 children were sheltered during the nights, and occasionally in 
 the daytime when the firing was very severe. The excava 
 tions branched out in various directions after passing the en 
 trance. They were not very desirable bed-chambers, but they 
 seemed to have answered a very good purpose. In one or two 
 instances shells entered them, and two women and a number 
 of children were thus killed during the siege. 
 
 On the same day the Yankees entered Vicksburg, several 
 places of business were opened. Signs were hoisted on express 
 offices, book and fruit stores, informing the new customers that 
 the proprietors were in and ready to serve them. A well- 
 known citizen of Vicksburg took the oath of allegiance and 
 accommodated General Grant with headquarters at his resi 
 dence. The Jewish portion of the population, composed princi 
 pally of Germans, with but one honorable exception, went for 
 ward and took the oath of allegiance to the United States. 
 
 These tokens of submission were rewarded in the enemy s 
 usual way. At first the citizens were placed under very little 
 restraint. They were permitted to come in and go out of the 
 lines almost at pleasure. In a few days, however, the reins 
 were tightened. Vicksburg found a second edition of Beast 
 Butler in General Osterhaus, a tawny Dutchman, who peremp 
 
76 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 torily stopped the ingress and egress of the people; forbid 
 citizens from purchasing provisions without first registering 
 their names; re-enacted much of the ingenious despotism oi 
 New Orleans; and declared that the height of his ambition 
 was to get our people to hate and abhor him. 
 
 A Mississippi paper declared that it had no word of excuse 
 or charity for the men who had remained in Yicksburg under 
 the enemy s flag. To quote from their own slang dialect, " the 
 Confederacy was about gone up, and there was no use in fol 
 lowing its fortunes any further." But it repeated the charac 
 teristic story of the conquered cities of the South. The spirit 
 of the women of Yicksburg was unbroken ; and amid all its 
 shameful spectacles of subserviency, female courage alone re 
 deemed the sad story of a conquered and emasculated city. 
 There was but a single exception to the compliment ; and she 
 a Northern school-teacher who was first to sing " the Bonnie 
 Blue Flag" in Yicksburgj at the commencement of the war, to 
 raise the means to clothe our soldiers. She forgot the " hope- 
 crowned past," and attended a social gathering at MacPher- 
 son s headquarters, where during the evening a sword was 
 presented "in honor of the surrender of Yicksburg." 
 
 The city had been accounted one of the most beautiful of the 
 South, of commanding situation, and adorned with a profusion 
 of shrubbery ; but the rain of shot and shell had sadly marred 
 its beauty. But few buildings were entirely demolished ; yet 
 there was scarcely a house in Yicksburg that remained unscath 
 ed ; in all of them were frightful looking holes in the walls and 
 floors. The streets had been ploughed up by shells. In walk 
 ing along the pavement one had to exercise care not to tumble 
 into a pit dug by a projectile from a thirteen-inch mortar, or from 
 a Parrott gun. The yards, gardens, and open lots were cut up 
 with shot holes. Nearly every gate in the city was crowned 
 with unexploded thirteen-inch shells placed a-top of each post, 
 and the porches and piazzas were adorned with curious collec 
 tions of shot and shell that had fallen within the inclosures. 
 Everywhere were to be found evidences of the fiery ordeal 
 through which the city had passed. 
 
 It is impossible to recount with precision the various inter 
 ests involved in the fate of Yicksburg. It compelled, as its 
 necessary consequence, the surrender of other posts on the 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 77 
 
 Mississippi, and cut the Confederacy in twain. It neutralised 
 successes in Lower Louisiana, to which we shall presently re 
 fer. Its defence had involved exposure and weakness in other 
 quarters. It had about stripped Charleston of troops ; it had 
 taken many thousand men from Bragg s army ; and it had 
 made such requisitions on his force for the newly organized 
 lines in Mississippi, that that general was compelled or in 
 duced, wisely or unwisely, to fall back from Tullahoma, to 
 give up the country on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, 
 and practically to abandon the defence of Middle Tennessee. 
 
 The fall of Yicksburg was followed by the enemy s re-occupa 
 tion of Jackson, the capitulation of Port Hudson, the evacua 
 tion of Yazoo city, and important events in Arkansas, which 
 resulted in the retreat of our army from Little Rock and the 
 surrender to the enemy of the important valley in which it is 
 situated. To these events we must now direct the attention of 
 the reader. 
 
 THE YANKEE RE-OCCUPATION OF JACKSON. 
 
 General Grant advanced his forces on Jackson, to which 
 point Johnston retreated so soon as he learned the Yicksburg 
 disaster. His policy was to march rapidly to the capture or 
 discomfiture of General Johnston s army. On the evening of 
 the 9th of July, his advance drove in our outer line of pickets. 
 The troops employed in this expedition were Sherman s army 
 corps, the Fifteenth, commanded by General Steele ; the Thir 
 teenth army corps, General Ord, commanding, with Lauman s 
 division of Sixteenth army corps attached, a portion of the 
 Sixteenth and Ninth army corps, commanded by General Par 
 ker, and McArthur s division of General MePherson s corps 
 in all about four army corps. 
 
 The works thrown up for the defence of Jackson consisted 
 of a line of rifle-pits, prepared at intervals for artillery. These 
 extended from a point north of the town, a little east of the 
 Canton road, to a point south of the town, within a short dis 
 tance of Pearl river, and covered most of the approaches west 
 of the river; but were badly located and constructed, pre 
 senting but a slight obstacle to a vigorous assault. 
 
 The troops promptly took their assigned positions in the 
 
78 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 intrencliments on the appearance of the enemy, in expectation 
 of immediate assault : Major-general Loring occupying the* 
 right; Major-general Walker the right of the centre; Major- 
 general French the left of the centre, and Major-general Breck- 
 inridge the left. The cavalry, under Brigadier-general Jackson, 
 was ordered to observe and guard the fords of Pearl river, 
 above and below the town. 
 
 But the enemy, instead of attacking, as soon as he ar 
 rived, commenced intrenching and constructing batteries. On 
 the 10th, there was spirited skirmishing with slight cannonad 
 ing, continuing throughout the day. This was kept up with 
 varying intensity. Hills commanding and encircling the 
 town, within easy cannon range, offered favorable sites for 
 batteries. A cross-fire of shot and shell reached all parts of 
 the town, showing the position to be entirely untenable against 
 a powerful artillery. 
 
 On the 12th, besides the usual skirmishing, there was a 
 heavy cannonade from the batteries near the Canton and 
 sonth of the Clinton roads. The missiles reached all parts of 
 the town. An assault, though not a vigorous one, was also 
 made on Major-general Breckinridge s line. It was quickly 
 repelled, however, principally by the direct fire of Cobb s and 
 Slocumb s batteries, and a flank attack of the skirmishers of the 
 First, Third and Fourth Florida and Forty-seventh Georgia 
 regiments. The enemy s loss in killed, wounded, and prison 
 ers, was at least five hundred.* 
 
 On the 16th, General Johnston, obtained information that a 
 large train from Yicksburg, loaded with ammunition, was near 
 the enemy s camp. This, and the condition of the enemy s 
 batteries, made it probable that Sherman would the next day 
 concentrate upon Jackson the fire of near two hundred guns. 
 
 * During the heavy bombardment Colonel Withers was killed by the ex 
 plosion of a shell near his own residence. He had just returned from the front 
 when he was killed. He was buried at night by his faithful slave, who was 
 fired upon by the enemy during the interment. This boy s conduct to his de 
 ceased master was a rebuke to the enemy. In the face of the enemy s position, 
 at night, within easy range of the enemy s sharpshooters, he, with the assist 
 ance of two Confederate officers, and by the flickering light of a lamp which 
 was shot out of his hand while he was performing his sacred duty carried 
 the body of his dead master and interred it with as much affection and tende 
 care as if it were his own child. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 79 
 
 The evacuation of Jackson was determined on and effected on 
 the night of the 16th. The evacuation was not discovered by the 
 enemy until the next day ; and Johnston retired by easy march 
 es to Morton, distant about thirty-five miles from Jackson. 
 
 When Sherman s troops entered Jackson, exasperated ^y the 
 losses which their ranks had sustained, they commenced a de 
 struction of the houses by fire, which was kept Tip until there 
 was but little left of the town but ashes. Jackson has been an 
 ill-fated place. When it was captured before there was a 
 great destruction. Now, where was but lately a thriving and 
 pretentious town of between four and five thousand inhabitants, 
 with a State-house, lunatic asylum, and many other public 
 buildings, there was a heap of ruins. 
 
 The country between Yicksburg and Jackson was com 
 pletely devastated. A letter from our lines in Mississippi thus 
 described the outrages there : 
 
 " I thought the condition of northern Mississippi and the 
 country around my own home in Memphis deplorable. There 
 robberies were committed, houses were burned, and occasion 
 ally a helpless man or woman was murdered ; but here, 
 around Jackson and Yicksburg, there are no terms used in all 
 the calendar of crimes which could convey any adequate con 
 ception of the revolting enormities perpetrated by our foes. 
 Women have been robbed of their jewelry and wearing 
 apparel stripped almost to nakedness in the presence of jeer 
 ing Dutch ; ear-rings have been torn from their ears, and rings 
 from bleeding fingers. Every house has been pillaged, and 
 thousands burned. The whole country between the Big Black 
 and the Mississippi, and all that district through which Grant*3 
 army passed, is one endless scene of desolation. This is not 
 the worst ; robbery and murder are surely bad enough, but 
 worse than all this, women have been subjected to enormities 
 worse than death. 
 
 " Negroes, men and women, who can leave their homes, are 
 forced or enticed away. The children alone are left. Barn a 
 and all descriptions of farm-houses have been burned. All 
 supplies, bacon and flour, are seized for the use of the invad 
 ing army, and the wretched inhabitants left to starve. The 
 roads, along which Grant s army has moved, are strewn with 
 all descriptions of furniture, wearing apparel, and private 
 
80 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 property. In many instances husbands have been arrested, 
 and threatened with instant death by the hangman s rope, in 
 order to make their wives reveal the place of concealment of 
 their valuable effects. The poor women are made to ransom 
 their sons, daughters, and husbands. The worst slaves are 
 selected to insult, taunt, and revile their masters, and the 
 wives and daughters of their masters." 
 
 "We must remember that these enormities were contemporary 
 with Lee s civilities in Pennsylvania. It was bad enough for 
 that commander to make such return for what he had experi 
 enced in Virginia ; but the enemy s warfare in distant and 
 remote parts of the Confederacy exceeded in atrocity what had 
 been known on the lines of the Potomac. It appears to have 
 been aggravated in proportion to its distance from the centres 
 of intelligence. In the Southwest it was not denied that the 
 policy of the enemy was the destruction of all resources of live 
 lihood, but on the border (in Missouri, for instance), the enemy 
 was bold enough to announce the policy of the extermination 
 of the inhabitants.* But to this subject we shall have occa 
 sion to refer again. 
 
 THE FALL OF PORT HUDSON, ETC. 
 
 The fate of Port Hudson was necessarily involved in that of 
 Yicksburg. But it did not fall until after a prolonged and 
 gallant resistance, the facts of which may be briefly commemo 
 rated. On the morning of the 22d of May, the enemy, under 
 
 * For instance, a Missouri paper, speaking of the policy of General Ewing 
 (the Yankee general in command of that department), towards the secession. 
 ists of that country, says : 
 
 " General E wing s policy towards these wretches from the very start hag 
 been simply extermination nothing less. His orders have been to take no 
 prisoners from them, and the orders have been strictly obeyed." 
 
 Again, the St. Louis Democrat, an abolition sheet, says, in referring to the 
 troubles on the Missouri border : 
 
 " The Seventh Missouri State militia are burning all the houses of rebel 
 sympathizers all along the border. A fearful state of things exists in all the 
 border counties, and general Devastation is observable." 
 
 One of these ruffians, a Yankee colonel, declared that he would hang every 
 man without " protection papers." He said that " the whole duty" of his regi 
 ment (the Fifteenth) would be " to kill rebels ;" and closed with the following 
 atrocious boast : " We carry the flag ; kill with the sabre ; and hang with the 
 gailows." 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 81 
 
 comn and of General Banks, pushed his infantry forward 
 within a mile of our breastworks. Having taken his position 
 for the investment of our works, he advanced with his whole 
 force against the breastworks, directing his main attack against 
 the left, commanded by Colonel Stead man. Vigorous assault? 
 were also made against the extreme left of Colonel Miles and 
 General Beale, the former of whom commanded on the centre, 
 the latter on the right. On the left the attack was made by a 
 brigade of negroes, composing about three regiments, together 
 with the same force of white Yankees, across a bridge which 
 had been built over Sandy creek. About five hundred, negroes 
 in front advanced at double-quick within one hundred and fifty 
 yards of the works, when the artillery on the river bluff, and 
 two light pieces on our left, opened upon them, and at the 
 same time they were received with volleys of musketry. The 
 negroes fled every way in perfect confusion, and, according to 
 the enemy s report, six hundred of them perished. The repulse 
 on Miles left was decisive. 
 
 On the 13th of June a communication was received from 
 General Banks, demanding the unconditional surrender of the 
 post. He complimented the garrison in high terms for their 
 endurance. He stated that his artillery was equal to any in 
 extent and efficiency ; that his men outnumbered ours five to 
 one; and that he demanded the surrender in the name of 
 humanity, to prevent a useless sacrifice of life. General Gard 
 ner replied that his duty required him to defend the post, and 
 he must refuse to entertain any such proposition. 
 
 On the morning of the 14th, just before day, the fleet and 
 all the land batteries, which the enemy had succeeded in 
 erecting at one hundred to three hundred yards from our 
 breastworks, opened fire at the same time. About daylight, 
 under cover of the smoke, the enemy advanced along the 
 whole line, and in many places approached within ten feet of 
 our works. Our brave soldiers were wide-awake, and, opening 
 upon them, drove them back in confusion, a great number of 
 them being left dead in the ditches. One entire division and 
 a brigade were ordered to charge the position of the First Mis 
 sissippi and the Ninth Alabama, and by the mere physical 
 pressure of numbers some of them got within the works, but 
 all these were immediately killed. After a sharp contest of two 
 
82 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 hours, the enemy were everywhere repulsed, and withdrawn to 
 their old lines. 
 
 During the remainder of the month of June there was heavy 
 skirmishing daily, with constant firing night and day from the 
 gun and mortar boats. During the siege of six weeks, from 
 May 27th to July 7th, inclusive, the enemy must have fired 
 from fifty to seventy-five thousand shot and shell, yet not more 
 than twenty-five men were killed by these projectiles. They 
 had worse dangers than these to contend against. About the 
 29th or 30th of June, the garrison s supply of meat gave out, 
 when General Gardner ordered the mules to be butchered 
 after ascertaining that the men were willing to eat them. At 
 the same time the supply of ammunition was becoming ex 
 hausted, and at the time of the surrender there were only 
 twenty rounds of cartridges left, with a small supply for 
 artillery. 
 
 On Tuesday, July 7th, salutes were fired from the enemy s 
 batteries and gunboats, and loud cheering was heard along the 
 entire line, and Yankees, who were in conversing distance of 
 our men, told them that Yicksburg had fallen. That night 
 about ten o clock, General Gardner summoned a council of 
 war, who, without exception, decided that it was impossible to 
 hold out longer, considering that the provisions of the garrison 
 were exhausted, the ammunition almost expended, and a large 
 proportion of the men sick or so exhausted as to be unfit for 
 duty. The surrender was accomplished on the morning of the 
 9th. The number of the garrison which surrendered, was be 
 tween five and six thousand, of whom riot more than half were 
 effective men for duty. 
 
 A few days later, and another disaster is to be noticed in 
 Mississippi : the enemy s capture of Yazoo city. He advanced 
 against Yazoo city, both by land and water, on the 13th of 
 July. The attack of the gunboats was handsomely repulsed 
 by our heavy battery, under the command of Commander 
 Isaac IS". Brown of the navy. The De Kalb, the flag-ship of 
 the hostile squadron, an iron-clad, mounting thirteen guns, 
 was sunk by a torpedo. To the force advancing by land no 
 resistance was made by the garrison, commanded by Colonel 
 Creasman, of the 29th North Carolina regiment. 
 
 The greatest misfortune of this event was our loss in boats 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 83 
 
 and material of a crraracter much needed. Some twenty vessels 
 were scuttled and destroyed ; and of the fine fleet of boats 
 that had sought refuge in the Yazoo river, not more than four 
 or five were saved, which were up the? Tall^hatchie and Yello- 
 busha. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF HELENA. THE TKANS-MTSSISSIPPI. 
 
 The Yicksburg disaster was attended with a grave mis 
 fortune on the other side of the Mississippi : the repulse of the 
 Confederates at Helena. Our army arrived within five miles 
 of Helena on the evening of the 3d of July, when General 
 Holmes assumed immediate command, detached Marmaduke f 
 division and left Price but two brigades McRae s Arkansians 
 and Parsons Missourians with which he was ordered to as 
 sume position, assault and take what was known as the Grave 
 yard Hill the next morning. 
 
 The route lay for the greater part of the way across abrupt 
 hills and deep ravines, over which it was utterly impossible to 
 move artillery during the darkness. General Price ordered 
 his artillery to be left behind until daybreak, and moved for 
 ward with details from each battery accompanying the in 
 fantry, in order to command the guns which he expected to 
 capture. 
 
 Within half a mile of the enemy s works, Price s troops 
 were formed into two columns of divisions, Parsons brigade 
 occupying the right, moving in front. Both brigades moved 
 forward rapidly, steadily, unflinching, and in perfect order 
 under a storm of grape, canister, and minie balls , which were 
 poured upon them not only from the Graveyard Hill in their 
 front, but from the fortified hills upon the right and left, both 
 of w r hich were in easy range. The enemy gave way before the 
 impetuous assault of the attacking columns, which entering the 
 works almost simultaneously, planted the Confederate flag on 
 the summit of the Graveyard Hill. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the attack of the enemy s works 
 on Price s left, which was to have been made by General 
 Fagan, had been repeatedly repulsed ; although the men 
 fought gallantry, and more than once drove the enemy from 
 his rifle pits, under a heavy enfilading fire from one of the 
 
84 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 enemy s strongest forts and a gunboat in front of the town 
 General Price had ordered McRae s brigade to reinforce Fa 
 gan ; but it soon became obvious that it had been so mucL 
 weakened by losses, and by the straggling of men overcome 
 by thirst and the intense heat of the day, or disheartened by 
 the failrfre of the other assaulting column, that it could not be 
 detached without too greatly endangering General Price s own 
 position. Under these circumstances, an order came from 
 General Holmes to Price to withdraw his division. The at 
 tack was abandoned after a loss to the Confederates of about 
 five or six hundred killed and wounded, and probably twice 
 that number of prisoners. 
 
 But the result was important in other respects than that of 
 the casualties of the fight. It, in connection with the fall oi 
 Yicksburg, terminated all hope of the connection of the Trans- 
 Mississippi with the eastern portions of the Confederacy, and 
 was the first step of the retreat which, at last abandoning 
 Little Rock, was to surrender into the hands of the enemy the 
 most valuable portion of Arkansas. 
 
 It was supposed that the worst consequences of these events 
 would be to estrange the Trans-Mississippi, and easily subject it 
 to the arms or to the persuasions of the enemy. Never were 
 fears of Confederate statesmen so little realized. They found 
 in this distant section of the Confederacy a virtue which had 
 been maintained under all disasters, and which should be com 
 memorated here in a brief review of the history of this section. 
 
 The spirit of the Trans-Mississippi was most conspicuous and 
 noble in view of the peculiar sufferings it had endured. It 
 had made a proud record of patriotic integrity. In another 
 volume we have seen how the Confederate forces, in anticipa 
 tion of a grand contest near Corinth, were moved east of the 
 Mississippi by order of General Albert Sidney Johnson, then 
 commanding the Western Department. We may look back 
 to that dark poriod. The Confederates took with them from 
 Arkansas all material of war and public property, of every 
 description. Immediately afterwards, Brigadier-general Pike 
 retreated southward, to the vicinity of Red river. Thus Mis 
 souri was left hopeless of early succor, Arkansas without a 
 soldier, and the Indian country undefended, except by its own 
 inhabitants. A Federal force, five thousand strong, was organ- 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 85 
 
 ized at Fort Scott, under the name of the " Indian expedition," 
 and with the avowed intention to invade the Indian country 
 and wrest it from our control. Hostile Indians began collect 
 ing on the border, and Federal emissaries were busy among 
 the Cherokees and Creeks, inciting disaffection. Detachments 
 of Federal cavalry penetrated, at will, into various parts of the 
 upper half of Arkansas, plundering and burning houses, steal- 
 ing horses and slaves, destroying farming utensils, murdering 
 loyal men or carrying them into captivity, forcing the oath of 
 allegiance on the timid, and disseminating disloyal sentiments 
 among the ignorant. Tory bands were organized in many 
 counties, not only in the upper, but in the lower half of the 
 State likewise, and depredations and outrages upon loyal citi 
 zens were of constant occurrence. Straggling soldiers, belong 
 ing to distant commands, traversed the country, armed and 
 lawless, robbing the people of their property, under the pre 
 tence of "impressing" it for the Confederate service. The 
 governor and other executive officers fled from the capital, 
 taking the archives with them. The courts were suspended, 
 and civil magistrates almost universally ceased to exercise 
 their functions. Confederate money was openly refused, or 
 so depreciated as to be nearly worthless. This, with the short 
 crop of the preceding year, and the failure, on all the uplands, 
 of the one then growing, gave rise to the cruelest extortion in 
 the necessaries of life, and menaced the poor with actual 
 starvation. 
 
 But it was not only the omissions of the Richmond Admin 
 istration of w T hich the Trans-Mississippi had to complain. 
 There were perpetrated upon it such positive outrages of the 
 Confederate authority as had never been ventured or imagined 
 in other portions of the country. The excesses of Major-gen 
 eral Hindman, who assumed, by a certain color of authority 
 from Richmond, to be commanding-general of the Trans-Mis 
 sissippi, had been severely censured by members of the Con 
 federate Congress, and were the subject of an investigation in 
 that body. They were such as might have moved any people 
 from their allegiance, whose patriotism was not paramount tc 
 all other considerations. He suspended the civil authority, 
 and instituted what he called " a government ad interim" In 
 the summer of 1863. he had proclaimed martial law. To make 
 
86 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 this declaration effective, a provost martial was appointed in 
 each count} T , and all the independent companies therein were 
 placed under his control. Over these were appointed provost 
 marshals of districts which included several counties. The 
 provost marshal general, at General Hind man s headquarters 
 had command over all. 
 
 Whatever may have been the good intentions or the pallia 
 live circumstances of this singular usurpation, it certainly 
 could not be agreeable to a people accustomed to civil liberty ; 
 and it was an excrescence of the war, after the fashion of Yan 
 kee " vigor," which did serious dishonor to the Confederacy. 
 "We have referred to it here to illustrate the virtues of a people, 
 whose steadfast patriotism could survive such trials. 
 
 As we have elsewhere seen, General Holmes assumed com 
 xnand of the Trans-Mississippi Department in the latter part 
 of 1862. His operations had been feeble and unsuccessful. 
 The fall of Yicksburg and the defeat at Helena, were irrepara 
 ble disasters. Communication was interrupted between the 
 two sections of the Confederacy, and each thrown on its own 
 resources. It was supposed that this division of the efforts of 
 the Confederacy would tend to weakness and jealousies. But 
 these fears were dismissed, when it was known that the gov 
 ernors of the States of the Trans Mississippi had made the 
 recent disasters an occasion of official conference, in which 
 they had taken the noble resolution to do their respective parts 
 in the war, and to take care that the common cause of our 
 independence should not suffer by a division of the efforts to 
 obtain it. They declared that, instead of such division of effort 
 being occasion of jealousy, it should be that of noble and 
 patriotic rivalry. 
 
 It is not to be denied that it was unfortunate that the East 
 ern States and those of the Trans-Mississippi had been con 
 strained to separate efforts in the war. But it was an especial 
 subject of congratulation and pride that the spirit and unan 
 imity of the South were unaffected by such an event, and that 
 the most distant people of the Confederacy, not only faithfully 
 kept, but fondly cherished their attachment to the vital prin 
 iple of our struggle and the common cause of our arms. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 87 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 Elasticity of the Spirit of the Confederacy. What it Taught. Decay of Con& 
 dence in President Davis s Administration. His Aifection forPemberton. A Season 
 of Encouraging Events. THE CAMPAIGN IN LOWER LOUISIANA. Capture of Brasheat 
 City. The Affair of Donaldson. THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON. Operations of the 
 Enemy on Folly Island. General Beauregard s Embarrassments. Assault of the 
 Enemy of Fort Wagner. His Foothold on Morris Island. Beauregard s Designs.-- 
 Bombardment of Fort Wagner. Second Repulse of the Enemy s Assault. Gilmore s 
 Insolent Demand. His Attempt to Fire Charleston. A Noble Reply from Beaure- 
 gard. Bombardment of Fort Sumter. The Fort in Ruins. Evacuation of Morris 
 Island by the Confederates. The Yankee Congratulations. Devilish Penalties for 
 "the Secession City." Dahlgren s Part of the Programme. His Night Attack on 
 Sumter. His Failure. Safety of Charleston. Bitterness of Yankee Disappointment. 
 MORGAN S EXPEDITION INTO INDIANA AND OHIO. His Capture of Lebanon. An 
 Unnatural Encounter. Murder of Captain Magennis. The Incursion Through Indi 
 ana. The Yankee Pursuit. A Chaplain s Trick. Operations in Ohio. The Affair 
 of Buffington Island. Morgan s Attempt to Escape. His Capture and Imprison 
 ment. Results of his Expedition, Strategic and Material. The Value of Military 
 Adventure. 
 
 THE most remarkable quality displayed by the Southern 
 mind in this war has been its elasticity under reverse, its 
 quick recovery from every impression of misfortune. This, 
 more than any thing else, has attested the strength of our res 
 olution to be free, and shown the utter insignificance of any 
 " peace party," or element of submission or compromise in the 
 Confederacy. Great as were the disasters of Vicksburg and 
 Gettysburg they were the occasions of no permanent depres 
 sion of the public mind ; and as the force of misfortune could 
 scarcely, at any one time, be expected to exceed these events, 
 it may be said they taught the lesson that the spirit of the 
 Confederacy could not be conquered unless by some extremity 
 close to annihilation. A few days after the events referred to 
 President Davis took occasion, in a proclamation of pardon to 
 deserters, to declare that a victorious peace, with proper exer 
 tions, was yet immediately within our grasp. Nor was he ex 
 travagant in this. The loss of territory which we had sustained, 
 unaccompanied as it was by any considerable adhesion of its 
 population to the enemy, though deplorable indeed, was not a 
 
88 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 vital incident of the war : it had reduced the resources of sub 
 sistence, but it had multiplied the spirit of resistance, and it 
 was yet very far from the centre of our defence. TVlrile Mr. 
 Seward was making to Europe material calculations of Yan 
 kee success in the square miles of military occupation and in 
 the comparative arithmetic of the military power of the bellig 
 erents, the Confederacy had merely postponed its prospect of 
 a victorious peace, and was even more seriously confident of 
 the ultimate issue than when it first declared its independence. 
 But it must not be disguised that one, and perhaps the most 
 important of the disasters referred to the fall of Yicksburg 
 while no occasion of despair to the Confederacy, was yet that 
 of another great decline of popular confidence in the Adminis 
 tration of President Davis. Happily, every page of the his 
 tory of this war attests *hat the dissatisfaction of the Confed 
 erate people with the Richmond Administration was compa 
 tible with steady attachment to that cause for which they 
 fought and which was impersonal and sublime. It is the fact 
 of these two existing conditions in the Confederacy, a puzzle 
 to many, that gives the sublimest quality to this war, and con 
 tains its most valuable lesson. 
 
 v Never had the obstinate adhesion of President Davis to his 
 favorites been more forcibly illustrated than in the case of 
 Pemberton. The criticism of the public had no charity for 
 this commander, and his recent campaign, culminating in the 
 surrender of Yicksburg, was denounced by the intelligent as a 
 series of blunders, and by others less just and more passionate 
 as the device of treason. President Davis had retained him in 
 command in spite of the most powerful remonstrance ever 
 made by a people against the gratification of a personal con 
 ceit in their ruler. Indeed, the President went further than 
 mere opposition to the public sentiment. He defied and al 
 most insulted it ; for after the disaster of Yicksburg, Pember 
 ton, with the public reproaches clinging to him, and public 
 sentiment clamoring in vain for an inquiry into his conduct, 
 was ostentatiously entertained as the President s guest in Eich 
 mond, and given the distinction of one of his suite in the sub 
 sequent official visit of the President to our armies in the 
 West ! It was said by Mr. Foote, in public session of Con 
 gress, that when the President, with a peculiar hardihood, e&- 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. 89 
 
 sayed to ride down tlie lines of our troops, with Pcni barton at 
 liis side, angry exclamations assailed them, and passed from 
 lip to lip of the soldiers. 
 
 There were certain events which aided in relieving the ini 
 pression of the Yicksburg disaster, or, at least, served to divert 
 the public mind. Of these were the operations of the Con 
 federate general, Taylor, in Lower Louisiana, some of which 
 had preceded the fall of Yicksburg, and, at one time, had kin 
 dled in the South the hope of the recapture of New Orleans. 
 
 HEE CAMPAIGN IN LOWER LOUISIANA. 
 
 Information received from Southwest Louisiana had deter 
 mined General Taylor to organize an attack upon Brashear 
 City and its forts. Colonel Majors, who commanded a brigade 
 of cavalry on the Atchafalaya, was to push boldly through the 
 GroBse Tete, Marangoin and Lafourche country, to Donaldson- 
 ville, thence to Thibodeaux, cut off the railroad and telegraph 
 communication, then push rapidly to Bceuf river, in the rear 
 of Brashear City, while a force under Generals Mouton and 
 Green was to co-operate in front of the enemy s position, on 
 Berwick s Bay. 
 
 On the 22d of June General Mouton had succeeded in col 
 lecting some thirty-seven skiffs and other row-boats, near the 
 mouth of the Teche, with a view to co-operate, fronj the west 
 side of the Atchafalaya, with Colonel Majors command, then 
 on the Lafourche. An expedition, numbering three hundred^ 
 and twenty-five gallant volunteers, under Major Sherod Hun 
 ter, started at 6 o clock p. M., to turn the enemy s stronghold 
 at Brashear City. It was a hazardous mission to cross the lake 
 (twelve miles) in these frail barks, to land at midnight on the 
 enemy s side, in an almost impenetrable swamp, and await the 
 dawn of day, to make the desperate attempt which would in 
 sure victory or a soldier s death. 
 
 The boat-expedition having got off, General Thomas Green, 
 with the Fifth Texas mounted volunteers, the Second Louisi 
 ana cavalry, Waller s Texas battalion, and the Yalverde and 
 Nicholls batteries, advanced, under cover of night, to opposite 
 the enemy s camp. The Seventh and Fourth Texas r" 
 
90 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 were thrown across the Atchafalaya, to Gibbons Island, durir.g 
 the night. General Green was to attract the enemy s atten 
 tion and fire, while the troops on Gibbons Island were to bo 
 thrown across to the support of Major Hunter, as soon as the 
 boats returned from the latter s landing-point, in rear of the 
 enemy s position. 
 
 Immediately after daylight, General Green fired the first 
 gun from the Valverde battery, at a gunboat of the enemy, 
 which was steaming up the bay in the direction of the upper 
 fort (Buchanan). Instantly the whole bay was in a blaze, our 
 guns playing upon the long lines of the enemy s tents. The 
 Yankees were completely surprised. Their heavy guns, from 
 three forts, opened on Green. There was a keen anxiety on 
 our side for the sound of Colonel Majors guns, for it only re 
 mained for him to occupy the Bceuf crossing, to cut off com 
 pletely the enemy s communication. At last the long-distant 
 sound of artillery told that Majors was there; and at the same 
 moment the storming party of Major Hunter made its appear 
 ance on the edge of a piece of woods. - With a real Texas 
 yell the latter dashed at once, with bayonets fixed and pistols 
 drawn, full at the threatening walls of the proud fort in 
 twenty minutes they had climbed its walls, dispersed its gar 
 rison, torn down the stars and stripes, and hoisted the Con 
 federate flag over its ramparts. This heroic charge was made 
 at the point of the bayonet, with unloaded muskets. In half 
 an hour Generals Taylor, Mouton, and Green, with their re 
 spective staffs, had their headquarters in the city of Brashear. 
 
 The immediate fruits of the capture were one thousand 
 prisoners, ten heavy guns, and a large amount of stores of all 
 descriptions. The position obtained by General Taylor, with 
 that of Thibodeaux, gave him command of the Mississippi 
 river above New Orleans ; enabled him, in a great measure, 
 to cut off Banks supplies, and, it was hoped, might eventually 
 force Banks to the choice of losing New Orleans or abandon 
 ing his operations against Port Hudson. 
 
 But the plan which General Taylor had arranged for an at 
 tack on New Orleans unfortunately fell through, in conse 
 quence of his disappointment of reinforcements. His active 
 force, not including the garrison at Berwick s Bay, was less 
 than four thousand. He had obtained from New Orleans in- 
 
THE THIRD YEAH. 91 
 
 telligence of the fall of Yieksburg, and this, with the conse 
 quent fate of Port Hudson, rendered his position in the La 
 fourche extremely hazardous, and not to be justified on military 
 grounds. 
 
 On the 28th of June General Green had been repulsed in 
 an attack on Donaldson ville, after a desperate struggle, with 
 two hundred and sixty casualties. On the 12th of July, after 
 the fall of Port Hudson, the enemy, over four thousand strong, 
 advanced six miles from Donaldsonville, where he was met by 
 General Green, with his own and a part of Majors brigade 
 (in all twelve hundred men), and driven from the field, with a 
 loss of about five hundred in killed and wounded, some three 
 hundred prisoners, three pieces of artillery, many small arms, 
 and the flag of a New York regiment. The gallant Green 
 dismounted from his horse, placed himself at the head of his 
 old regiment, captured the enemy s guns, and drove his forces 
 into the fort, and under the guns of the fleet. 
 
 These operations in Lower Louisiana were not followed by 
 the important consequences which were at one time anticipa 
 ted : for, as w r e have seen, Taylor s force was not competent to 
 hold the Lafourche country against the overwhelming forces 
 of the enemy released from the siege of Port Hudson. Yet 
 the events we have briefly narrated, had afforded a certain en 
 couragement to the South ; for they were, at least, some relief 
 from the unwelcome news we had hitherto had from an ill- 
 starred portion of the Confederacy. 
 
 But one must look in another direction for the first impor 
 tant wave of the returning tide of victory that was to cover 
 the popular recollection of Yicksburg, and again exalt the 
 hopes and confidence of the Confederacy. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF CHAELI 8TON. 
 
 The enemy had prepared to follow up the achievements of 
 the summer campaign, by a vigorous attempt upon Charleston. 
 It had been determined by General Gilmore, in command of 
 the Yankee forces, to take Folly Island, as the base of siege 
 operations against Charleston, and to possess, if possible, Mor 
 ris Island, under the belief that it was the key to Charleston. 
 
92 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 This Utter island is an outer strip of land, lying directly on the 
 ocean. It is some three and a half miles in length, and the 
 northern end, crowned by Cummings Point Battery, was the 
 goal aimed at by the enemy, as it bore directly on Fort Sum- 
 ter and the channel leading by it to the city. At the southern 
 extremity of the island was another battery, pointing out 
 towards the north end of Folly Island, where the Yankees had 
 been encamped for many months, and constructing heavy 
 works. It was known and reported to the Confederate gov 
 ernment, that Folly Island was occupied in force since the 7th 
 of April, and, as a consequence, that Morris Island was threat 
 ened. The changes of land and naval commanders of the en 
 emy were reported as presages of impending hostilities. But 
 in vain. All ideas of attack were scouted at Richmond, as 
 late even as the first week in July. 
 
 General Beauregard s force at Charleston had been greatly 
 reduced by the authorities, under the persistent belief that the 
 city and adjoining coast were safe from any serious military 
 operations of the enemy. He was left to provide against at 
 tacks upon Charleston in no less than five different directions. 
 There is no doubt that he had been seriously embarrassed in 
 his attempts to put Morris Island in condition to meet the at 
 tack of the enemy, by the want of labor to carry out the plans 
 for its defence ; want of armament for the works necessary to 
 that end ; and last, but not least, want of men to hold and 
 fight any works which might have been thrown up at the south 
 end of Morris Island, without stripping other important po 
 sitions of the feeble supports left them. 
 
 But although General Beauregard must have had a general 
 expectation of attack in this direction, it is not to be disguised, 
 that he was surprised in the time and manner of its develop 
 ment. It is said, that he had not force enough, left to venture 
 upon a thorough reconnoissance of the enemy s outposts on 
 Folly Island. For a number of weeks the enemy had been 
 busily engaged on this point of land, in building sand batteries 
 and mounting heavy guns within eight hundred yards of our 
 works on Morris Island. The work was all performed under 
 cover of the night. Screened from observation by the nature 
 of the ground, hundreds of men were engaged night after 
 night, silently and industriously throwing up earthworks, and 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. 93 
 
 mounting heavy guns so near to the Confederates that a loud 
 word might have revealed the work. Shortly before daylight 
 brush would be so disposed as to conceal the work of the pre 
 vious night, without exciting the suspicions of the Confederates. 
 The morning light would dawn upon a quiet and deserted 
 scene not a soul to be seen not a sound to be heard not a 
 thing to indicate offensive operations that the night had con 
 cealed. In this manner batteries were thrown up, and guns 
 and mortars put in position. 
 
 On the evening of the 9th, a division of the enemy" was sent 
 up Stono river to effect a landing on James Island, near a 
 place called Stevens Point. This movement was partially 
 intended to occupy the attention of our forces, and conceal 
 from them the real object of the large fleet of vessels hovering 
 about Stono Inlet, and movements of the enemy on Folly 
 Island. At nightfall small boats, loaded with armed men, 
 began to dash out from either shore. These men were to 
 make their way up the narrow creek, which makes into Morris 
 Island, and there wait till morning, when on a given signal 
 they would assault the battery. This force was under General 
 Strong. 
 
 At daybreak on the following morning, the brush and 
 boughs, which had served to conceal the battery on Folly 
 Island from observation, were hastily removed, and the guns 
 exposed to the Confederates. At five o clock the first gun 
 was heard from the enemy s battery. The battery was some 
 what screened from view by a grove of trees, but the incessant 
 cannonade, and the dense white smoke, which rose above the 
 tall pines, told how fearfully the contest raged. 
 
 In the meantime the assaulting column of the enemy, con 
 sisting of three regiments, moved on slowly and silently up 
 the beach, until they arrived within two hundred yards of 
 Fort Wagner, when the Confederate pickets were encountered. 
 The order to charge was given. The fort opened with three 
 eight-inch howitzers, hefavily charged with grape and canister. 
 The Seventh Connecticut, which was in the advance, pressed 
 through the fort, but the Pennsylvania and New York regi 
 ments, which were to support them, staggered back and lost 
 their distance, when all three regiments broke into a shamefui 
 run, scattering down the beach. 
 
94 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAK. 
 
 The assault of the enemy was a shameful failure. The loss 
 of life was inconsiderable, as two of the regiments kept out of 
 the fire, and we may imagine how many were " missing" 
 when the casualties in the storming party were officially 
 enumerated by the enemy as three hundred and thirty-four. 
 But as our lower battery had been abandoned, the Yankees 
 had succeeded in getting possession of the lower end of the 
 island. They had gained a foothold, and were now to direct 
 all their energies to get possession of Fort Wagner. This 
 strong earthwork was near midway of the island, and had to 
 be reduced before the enemy could reach Cummings Point, 
 and operate from there on Fort Sumter. 
 
 The enemy having once obtained a foothold on Morris 
 Island, it might have been easily foreseen that he would 
 eventually compel an evacuation by the operations of siege, 
 and the impossibility of defending forever a small island cut 
 off from communication by an enormous fleet v But it was not 
 to be given up without a brilliant incident of arms ; for Gen 
 eral Beauregard had determined to hold it, while works were 
 elsewhere erected, and until the door of honorable retreat was 
 open. 
 
 In about a week the Yankees had occupied Black Island a 
 small spot between James and Morris Islands and thrown up 
 a battery ; they had erected two or three additional batteries 
 on Morris Island, about one and three-quarter miles from Fort 
 "Wagner, and they had concentrated their fleet, consisting of 
 four monitors, the Ironsides, a frigate, and four gunboats, 
 some of which threw shell from mortars. Altogether, the 
 circle of fire embraced not far from seventy guns. At day 
 light, of the 18th August, these opened, first deliberately ; but 
 as the morning wore on the fire increased. Two monitors, two 
 mortar boats, and the Ironsides, had by ten o clock formed a 
 line nearly in front of Battery Wagner, and about noon these 
 were joined by two additional monitors. Until six o clock in 
 the evening the firing was incessant. There was scarcely an 
 interval that did not contain a reverberation of the heavy 
 guns, and the shock of the rapid discharges trembling through 
 the city called hundreds of citizens to the battery, wharves, 
 steeples, and various look-outs, where, with an interest never 
 felt before, they looked on a contest that might decide the fate 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 95 
 
 of their fair city. Above Battery Wagner, bursting high in 
 air, striking the sides of the work or plunging into the beach, 
 and throwing up pillars of earth, were to be seen the quickly* 
 succeeding shells and round shot of the enemy s guns. Bat 
 tery Gregg at Cummings Point and Fort Sumter took part in 
 the thundering chorus. As the shades of evening fell upon 
 the scene the entire horizon appeared to be lighted up with 
 the fitful flashings of the lurid flames that shot out from mon 
 ster guns on, land and sea. 
 
 As night began to fall the bombardment relaxed. But it 
 was known to our officers commanding that such a demon 
 stration on the part of the enemy was not without its object ; 
 and every man was ordered, by General Taliaferro, who com 
 manded our side, to the parapet to prepare for the expected 
 assault of the enemy. 
 
 At dusk two brigades of the enemy were formed in line on 
 the beach. The regiments were disposed in columns, except a 
 Massachusetts regiment of blacks, which, for peculiar reasons, 
 was given the post of extreme honor and extreme danger in 
 the advance, and was drawn up in line of battle, exposing its 
 full front to our fire. 
 
 The enemy moved forward at quick time and in deep silence. 
 As they reached the vicinity of our rifle-pits, our batteries 
 opened, and grape and canister was thrown into their ranks 
 with fearful precision and execution. Checked for an instant 
 only, they closed up the ragged gaps in their lines and moved 
 steadily on until within less than eighty yards. . 
 
 Barely waiting for the Yankees to get within a destructive 
 range our infantry opened their fusilade, and from a fringe of 
 fire that lined the parapet leaped forth a thousand messengers 
 of death. Staggering under the shock, the first line seemed 
 for a moment checked, but, pushed on by those in the rear, 
 the whole now commenced a charge at a " double-quick." Our 
 men could not charge back ; but they gave a Southern yell in 
 response to the Yankee cheer, a.nd awaited the attack. On 
 they came over the sawd-hills, tripping and stumbling in the 
 huge pits their own shells had dug, until they reached the 
 ditch of the battery ; then it was but a moment s work lor 
 those who survived our terrible fire of musketry to clamber up 
 the sloping sides of the fortification and attempt to effect a 
 
% SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 lodgment. But the men who met them on the parapet were aa 
 desperate as themselves, and the contest that ensued was biief 
 ind bloody. The antagonists were breast to breast, and South 
 ern rifles and Southern bayonets made short work of human 
 life. We could stop to take no prisoners then. The parapet 
 was lined with dead bodies, white and black, and every second 
 was adding to the number. It was one of those rencounters in 
 which one side or the other must quickly yield or fly. The 
 enemy took their choice. . 
 
 In less than five minutes probably, the first line had been 
 shot, bayoneted, or were in full retreat rolling into the ditch 
 or dragging their bloody bodies through the sand-hills on theii 
 hands and knees. But another line came, and another and 
 another, each reinforcing its predecessor, until the battle waxed 
 hot, fierce, and bloody. Finally, however, the whole wero 
 driven back, either into the broad trench at the base of the 
 battery, out of reach of our guns, or scampering out of view in 
 the darkness of the night. 
 
 There was now a comparative lull in the firing, but in fifteen 
 or twenty minutes a second column of Yankees filed down on 
 the beach towards the left of the fort in much the same manner 
 as that pursued by the first. These repeated the experiment 
 that had just before terminated so disastrously to their com 
 panions, and, with a bravery that was worthy of a better 
 cause, dashed upon the work. The first assault failed utterly, 
 but with the reinforcements that joined the defeated party, 
 they came again with such strength and impetuosity that 
 between the extreme darkness of the night, which had now 
 enveloped the entire scene, the difficulty of distinguishing 
 friend and foe, and the confusion incident to such an occasion, 
 some two or three hundred, as is estimated, effected a lodg 
 ment in the vicinity of the chambers occupied by two of our 
 guns. Most of these were taken prisoners. 
 
 About midnight the enemy gave the order to retire. His 
 repulse had been terribly disastrous in loss of life. His killed 
 and wounded, according to his own accounts, was fifteen 
 hundred and fifty ; and the next day we buried six hundred of 
 his dead left on the field. Our own loss was comparatively 
 light, not more than one hundred in killed and wounded. 
 
 While the enemy was constrained to fall back upon siege 
 
THE TIIIBD YEAR. 97 
 
 operations against Fort Wagner, it was determined by Gi.more 
 to employ liis batteries in the reduction of Fort Sumter, over 
 the heads of both Wagner and Gregg. 
 
 But there was an episode, which was an introduction to 
 these operations against Sumter, and which must" not bo 
 omitted here. On the 21st of August, Gilmore addressed to 
 General Beauregard a demand, which was curiously without 
 signature, for the evacuation of Morris Island and Fort Sumter ; 
 stating that Surater was already doomed to swift and complete 
 demolition, and that, if the Confederate commander did not 
 comply with his demand within four hours, a fire would bo 
 opened on the city of Charleston from batteries already estab 
 lished within easy and effective reach of the heart of the city. 
 In the following night and without further notice fire was 
 opened on the city from Morris Island batteries. Twelve 
 eight-inch shells fell in the city ; several flew in the direction of 
 St. Michael s steeple; but fortunately no one was injured. 
 
 Of this atrocious and cowardly episode General Beauregard 
 said in a letter addressed to Gilmore : " It would appear, Sir, 
 that, despairing of reducing these works, you now resort to tho 
 novel means of turning your guns against the old men, the 
 women and children, and the hospitals of a sleeping city ; an 
 act of inexcusable barbarity from your own confessed point of 
 sight, inasmuch as you allege that the complete demolition of 
 Fort Sumter within a few hours by your guns seems to you a 
 matter of certainty ; and your omission to attach your signature 
 to such a grave paper must show the recklessness of the course 
 upon which you have adventured, while the fact that you 
 knowingly fixed a limit for receiving an answer to your de 
 mand, which made it almost beyond the possibility of receiving 
 any reply within that time, and that you actually did open fire 
 and threw a number of the most destructive missiles ever used 
 in war into the midst of a city taken unawares, and filled with 
 sleeping women and children, will give you a bad eminence in 
 history even in the history of this war." 
 
 The same day that Gilmore made his feeble attempt to 
 execute the threat he had so fiercely and confidently breathed 
 against Charleston, he opened heavily against the east face of 
 Fort Sumter from his land batteries enfilading it. The can 
 nonade was continued throughout the day, nine hundred arid 
 
 7 
 
98 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 forty- three shots being fired. The effect was to batter the 
 eastern face heavily, doing considerable damage, and to disable 
 one ten-inch gun and a rifled forty-two pounder. On the 22d 
 the enemy threw six hundred and four shots at the fort, dis 
 abling some of the barbette guns, demolishing the arches of the 
 north-west face, and scaling the eastern face severely. The next 
 day the fire from the enemy s land batteries was kept up on 
 Sumter, disabling the only ten-inch columbiad that remained, 
 and the three rifled forty-two-pounders in the northern salient 
 of the second tier. The eastern face was badly scaled, and the 
 parapet seriously injured. The flag-staff was twice shot away, 
 but the flag each time immediately replaced. 
 
 On the 24th of August General Gilmore announced in des 
 patches to Washington that " Fort Sumter w as a shapeless and 
 harmless mass of ruins." His chief of artillery reported its 
 destruction so far complete that it was no longer of any avail 
 in the defence of Charleston. But in this there was some 
 mistake. Fort Sumter was in one respect stronger than ever ; 
 for the battering down of the upper walls had rendered the 
 casemated base impregnable, and the immense volume of stone 
 and debris which protected it was not at all affected by the 
 enemy s artillery. It had been held through the siege and 
 cannonade by the First South Carolina artillery, under Colonel 
 Alfred Rhett, until its armament had been disabled ; and the 
 services of the artillerymen being elsewhere required, General 
 Beauregard determined that it should be held by infantry. On 
 the night of the 4th of September, the Charleston battalion, 
 under Major Blake, relieved the garrison ; Major Stephen 
 Elliot relieving Colonel Rhett in command of the post. 
 
 In the mean time the enemy s operations on Morris Island 
 had fearfully progressed. His sappers had advanced up to the 
 very moat of Wagner. On the night of the 4th September the 
 enemy kept up a continual fire, and on the morning of the 5th 
 the Ironsides combined her fire with the enemy s land bat 
 teries, all concentrated on Wagner. The effect was to severely 
 injure the traverses and communications, and to disable the 
 guns and equipments still more effectually. But Wagner was 
 not the only object of this bombardment. During the night 
 of the 5th the enemy displayed from the deck of a monitor otf 
 Morris Island an immense calcium light, and several monitors 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 99 
 
 after moved up find opened on battery Giegg. Monltrie 
 and Gregg replied with spirit. At a quarter to two a rocket 
 was thrown up, and ere many minutes elapsed, the enemy 
 were discerned approaching Morris Island at a point between 
 Gregg and Wagner. They had come down in barges through 
 a creek west of Morris Island, obviously with the design of as 
 saulting Gregg in the rear. Advancing in line of battle they 
 were permitted to come very near, when a nine inch Dahlgren 
 opened upon them at short range, with double canister. Our 
 howitzers then commenced a fire of shrapnel and canister, 
 while our infantry, admirably posted, poured into them a fire 
 of musketry. This the Yankees could not withstand, and 
 though for a very short while they maintained a fire of mus 
 ketry and grape shot from their barges, they were soon forced 
 to withdraw. 
 
 For three days and nights battery Wagner had been sub 
 jected to the most terrific fire that any earthwork had under 
 gone in all the annals of warfare. In these nights the whole of 
 Charleston harbor had been lighted up in a scene of terrible 
 beauty. From Moultrie almost to Secessionville a whole semi 
 circle of the horizon was lit up by incessant flashes from 
 cannon and shell. As peal on peal of artillery rolled across 
 the waters, one could scarcely resist the belief that not less 
 than a thousand great guns were in action. All this went on 
 beneath a waning September moon, which, with its warm 
 Southern light, mellowed by a somewhat misty atmosphere, 
 brought out softly, yet distinctly, the most distant outlines of 
 the harbor. 
 
 The effect of the fire on Wagner had been terrible. The 
 immense descending force of the enormous Parrott antf mortar 
 shells of the enemy had nearly laid the wood work of the 
 bombproofs entirely bare, and had displaced the sand to so 
 great a degree that the sally-ports were almost entirely blocked 
 up. Wagner and battery Gregg had now been held under a con 
 tinued and furious cannonade, by land and sea, for fifty-seven 
 days ; two assaults had been signally and gloriously repulsed ; 
 the enemy had been forced to expend time, men and material, 
 most lavishly in approaching the first ; but at this time he was 
 within a few yards of the salient ; most of the guns of the fort 
 were injured, transportation and supply had become most 
 
1QO SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 difficult with the inefficient means at our disposal, the possi 
 bility of throwing heavy reinforcements in time to resist an 
 assault by the enemy s overwhelming forces, issuing from his 
 trenches only a few yards distant, out of the question, and the 
 practicability of keeping a sufficient force on the island for the 
 purpose, under the furious cannonade from land and sea, with 
 out protecting shelter, scarcely less so. This matter had been 
 some time under consideration by General Beauregard, and 
 after receiving reports concerning the state of the works, and 
 our capabilities for reinforcing the garrison, it was determined 
 not to subject those brave men, the flower of our force, to the 
 desperate chances of assault. Orders were accordingly given, 
 on the morning of the 6th, to prepare for evacuation. 
 
 It commenced about 9 p. M., and was concluded at about 
 twelve. The guns of the batteries were spiked and implements 
 generally destroyed. Matches were fixed to explode the maga 
 zines, but, from some unfortunate cause, both those at Wagner 
 and Gregg failed to explode. The enemy threw his calcium 
 light on Wagner during the whole night, and one of the most 
 furious bombardments on record, even during this war, was 
 continuously kept up while the movements were progressing ; 
 but he did not ascertain the evacuation until the last of the 
 boats were leaving. Then his guard-boats discovered the 
 movement of our boats engaged in the embarkation, and 
 creeping up upon the rear succeeded in cutting off and cap 
 turing three barges. 
 
 Thus ended the defence of Morris Island one relieved by 
 much of glory to Confederate arms, and its conclusion, as we 
 shall soon see, an empty advantage to the enemy. The de 
 fence had been prolonged far beyond what was deemed possi 
 ble at first, and the brave garrisons who had held it deserved 
 the admiration of their countrymen. The aggregate of casual 
 ties in the struggle for the Island have been on our side about 
 seven hundred killed, wounded, and missing. The enemy s 
 loss was estimated at several thousand. 
 
 The occupation of Morris Island was the signal to the enemy 
 of great but temporary exultation. The Yankee newspapers 
 flattered their readers that it was the key of Charleston. But 
 the fact was that no one point in its fortification could be so 
 called. In the system of Vaughan there was always such a 
 
 
THE THIRD YEAR, 101 
 
 point; once taken, it commanded the rest. But the excel 
 lence of the new system of defence, illustrated at Cornorn and 
 Sebastopol, and repeated at Charleston, was the necessity of a 
 siege for every battery, in which the besiegers were always 
 exposed to the fire of others. It was easily seen by the Con 
 federates that such a defence, if conducted with courage, by an 
 army which could not be surrounded and starved, might be 
 easily rendered interminable. 
 
 But such was not the opinion of Gilmore. On his occupa 
 tion of the island he announced to the exultant authorities at 
 Washington: "The city and harbor of Charleston are now 
 completely covered by my guns." Now was the time, de 
 clared the newspapers, for the famous Greek fire to pour de 
 struction upon " the secession city," " General Gilmore, 
 said the Baltimore American, " may be expected to roll his 
 fire-shells through the streets of Charleston," That com 
 mander had already been experimenting in liquid fire, and in 
 a new style of bombs filled with fuses. During the bombard 
 ment of Sumter, in one of his official despatches he had de 
 clared with devilish complacency : " the projectiles from my 
 batteries entered the city of Charleston, and General Beaure- 
 gard himself designates them as the most destructive missiles 
 used in war." 
 
 But the enemy s fleet was now to appear upon the scene to 
 accomplish the reduction of Charleston. General Gilmore had 
 proposed firstly, the occupation of the southern portion of 
 Morris Island ; secondly, the capture of Wagner and Gregg ; 
 thirdly, the reduction of Sumter. At that point Admiral 
 Dahlgren was to take up the wotk, for it was calculated that 
 if Gilmore succeeded in his designs, the navy would find it a 
 comparatively easy task to ascend the harbor of Charleston. 
 
 But had the condition as to Sumter been fulfilled ? On the 
 7th of September Admiral Dahlgren sent in a flag of truce de 
 manding a surrender of the fort. General Beauregard tele 
 graphed to Major Elliot to reply that the Yankees could have 
 Fort Sumter when they took it and held it, and that, in the 
 mean time, such demands were puerile arid unbecoming. 
 
 Dahlgren was left to complete the programme in Charleston 
 Harbor, and the North waited to hear that the possession of 
 * the shapeless mass of ruins" that had once been Fort Suui 
 
102 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 ter was readily accomplished, and that Charleston, the CT no- 
 sure of Yankee hatred, was at last the prize of the costly and 
 protracted operations. It remained for the Yankee admiral to 
 accept the invitation to assault Sumter, and he proposed to do 
 so by an elaborate surprise. A special force of picked men 
 from all the fleet was organized for a night attack. 
 
 It was midnight of the 8th of September, when the expedi 
 tion, consisting of over twenty boats, and with thirty-four 
 officers and four hundred and thirteen men, of which one 
 hundred and twenty were marines, all under the command oi 
 Commander Stevens, polled its way silently and cautiously 
 towards Fort Sumter. The plan was to assail the fort on three 
 sides one party landing on the gorge- wall, and attempting to 
 ascend the debris and gain the parapet ; a second was to at 
 tempt to gain entrance through the lower embrasures, and a 
 third was to act as a reserve. 
 
 At half-past one in the morning the first line of boats was 
 close upon the fort. The enemy had supposed it to be feebly 
 garrisoned, and had hoped to find an unguarded moment. 
 The garrison consisted of the Charleston Battalion, command 
 by Major Stephen Elliot. They were not asleep. As the 
 Yankee boats crept up to the huge and shapeless mass of 
 shivered walls, all was dark and still ; the great black rifted 
 mound seemed some long-deserted ruin, where the lizards had 
 crept into their holes for the night, and the very bats and owta 
 had gone to bed. They approached with beating hearts. IE 
 appeared, indeed, that the hour of doom for Sumter and for 
 Charleston was come. 
 
 Suddenly a "fire of hell* streamed from out of the night 
 The stilly ruin becomes as a throat of the bottomless pit ; the 
 bay is lighted with signals; and on the instant, from Fort 
 Moultrie and from a gunboat in the harbor, hail of shot and 
 shell comes crashing around the barges. 
 
 Major Elliot had caused his fire to be reserved until the 
 enemy was within a few yards of the southern and eastern 
 faces upon which the landing was attempted. A close fire oi 
 musketry devoured those who had landed ; while three of the 
 boats were torn to pieces by hand grenades or shells from the 
 distant batteries. The garrison lined the walls of Sumter, and 
 as the Yankees landed on the rocks, received them with sharp 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. l(/3 
 
 volleys of musketry, which added confusion to their already 
 bewildered movements. A strong party of the enemy now 
 hastily gathered and made an attempt to climb over the ruin 
 of the sally-port, which had been torn down by the tremen 
 dous fire of their land batteries. Our men received them 
 breast to breast, pelting them with brickbats and pouring in a 
 spattering shower of balls. Some bolder than the others, dashed 
 forward, and seizing Yankees, one in each hand, dragged them 
 by main force inside. Thus the fight raged for twenty or 
 thirty minutes, when the Yankees, finding themselves over 
 powered, and likely to be cut to pieces, threw down their 
 arms, retreated to the shelter of the walls and surrendered. 
 Those who remained in the boats, not already lauded, made 
 their escape under the cover of the night, followed, however, 
 by the spiteful balls of the batteries of Moultrie and of the 
 gunboat Chicora. 
 
 Not a life was lost on our side. Major Elliot succeeded in 
 securing five boats, five stand of colors, twelve officers, and 
 one hundred and nine men, including two officers and seven 
 teen men wounded. Amongst the captured colors was a worn 
 and torn garrison-flag, reported by some of the prisoners as 
 being that which Major Anderson was permitted to take from 
 the fort, on the occasion of his being compelled to surrender, 
 in April, 1861. This had been brought to hoist on the fort, 
 and to be made the subject of boast and Yankee "sensation," 
 had the assault succeeded. " It was," says a Charleston paper, 
 " the identical gridiron carried from Fort Sumter in 1861 ; 
 exhibited to a monster mass meeting in New York shortly 
 after ; talked, cheered, and prayed over until almost sanctified ; 
 wrapped around the gouty limbs of General Scott, and finally 
 brought back under oath that it should be victoriously 
 replanted on the walls where it was first lowered in recogni 
 tion of the Southern Confederacy." 
 
 This unsuccessful attempt to open the way to Charleston, 
 leaves but little to record of the operations of the enemy 
 against this famous city. Those operations were to be nomi 
 nally continued for many long and weary months ; there were 
 daily bulletins of bombardments ; but the more intelligent 
 persons of the North were not to be deceived by the noisy and 
 expensive display, and readily came to the conclusion that the 
 
104 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 siege of Charleston was a failure, and that, despite Dahlgreu a 
 noisy protest, it was virtually abandoned. Months were to 
 pass, and the Yankee admiral was to make no attempt to 
 move up the harbor and complete not only the remaining part 
 of the expedition, but that which he had promised to do when 
 he assumed command of the fleet. 
 
 It is unnecessary to pursue here the desultory record of a 
 fruitless bombardment. The Yankee public had had such a 
 series of emotions, surprises, and disappointments about 
 Charleston, that it sickened of the name, and seemed to be 
 fast progressing to the opinion that the monitors were a fail 
 ure, that their Parrott guns and monster artillery had been 
 greatly overrated, and that sand-bank fortifications were sub 
 stantially impregnable to their vaunted artillery. " How 
 many times," asked an indignant Philadelphia paper, " has 
 Fort Sumter been taken ? How many times has Charleston 
 been burned ? How often have the people been on the eve of 
 starvation and surrender ? How many times has the famous 
 Greek fire poured the rain of Sodom and the flames of hell 
 upon the secession city ? We cannot keep the count though 
 those can who rang the bells and put out the flags, and 
 invoked the imprecations, and rejoiced at the story of confla 
 gration and ruin." 
 
 We must leave here the story of Charleston : the city safe 
 beneath the pale autumn sky, with the waters of its beautiful 
 bay unvexed by the busy keel of commerce, yet sleeping 
 quietly ; while across them might be seen the Yankee flag 
 floating from the parapet of Wagner, then the enemy s bat 
 teries, still beyond these the white tents of the enemy, and 
 further yet, over the woods of James Island, the masts of the 
 fleet. A large besieging force was in sight of the spires oi 
 Charleston, and yet the city was safe, and proclaimed to the 
 Confederacy new lessons of brilliant courage and hope. 
 
 We have referred to the period which this chapter traverses 
 as one of encouraging events for the South. The reader s 
 attention must be turned back from the coast to the fields of 
 the West, for another in the list of successes which made this 
 period fortunate. 
 
C. B 
 
THE TIIIKD YEAR. 105 
 
 MORGAN S EXPEDITION INTO INDIANA AND OHIO. 
 
 The command of General Morgan, consisting of detachments 
 from two brigades, numbering two thousand and twenty-eight 
 effective men, with four pieces of artillery two Parrotts and 
 two howitzers left Sparta, Tennessee, on the 27th of June, 
 and crossed the Cumberland near Burkesville on the 2d July. 
 
 On the 4th of July, the expedition took up the line of march 
 for Green river bridge. An attack was here made upon the 
 enemy, who were found to be posted in a strong position, pro 
 tected by well constructed stockades. On account of the 
 superior strength of the works our forces failed to carry the 
 position. 
 
 From Green river bridge Morgan next directed his atten 
 tion to the town of Lebanon. He encamped within five miles 
 of the place on the night of the 4th. He at once demanded 
 the surrender of the place, which was refused by the Yankee 
 officer in command of the post. A heavy engagement ensued 
 next day, which lasted, with considerable spirit, for some 
 hours, the Yankees stubbornly resisting, firing from the 
 houses. Finally a charge was ordered, and the town was 
 captured, together with the whole Yankee force, consisting of 
 about six hundred effective men, together with a large amount 
 of stores, arms, &c. In the charge was killed Lieutenant Thos. 
 Morgan, a brother of the general, who was shot through the 
 heart. He fell at the very first volley. His only words were, 
 " Brother Gaily, they have killed me"" 
 
 The commandant of the post was Colonel Hanson, a brother 
 of General Hanson, who had fallen on our side at Murfrees- 
 boro . He had behaved with extraordinary gallantry. When 
 a surrender was demanded by Morgan, at his first approach, 
 Colonel Hanson quietly remarked, " If it was any other dav 
 he might consider the demand, but the 4th of July was a bad 
 day to talk about surrender, and lie must, therefore, decline." 
 His command had been raised in the heart of the Blue Grass 
 region, and among them were brothers and other near relatives 
 of Morgan s own men. This unnatural encounter between 
 men of the same blood and same family a painful incident 
 of all the Kentucky campaigns was heightened ir ^ 
 
106 SOUTR^SKK HISTORY 0F THE WAB. 
 
 ble ferocity by the death of General Morgan s brother, a favor 
 ite of his comrades, who undertook to revenge his death, and 
 who were with difficulty restrained by their officers from the 
 indiscriminate slaughter of the enemy and pillage of the town. 
 
 It is to be remarked that, in all his expeditions, General 
 Morgan restrained his men from all outrages, and was very 
 severe upon those bad men inseparable from adventures of his 
 sort, and who accompanied them simply for plunder. But the 
 day before the Lebanon fight, a terrible incident had occurred 
 in his little army. An officer of- the expedition, whose journal 
 lies before us, writes of this occurrence : " About three o clock, 
 as I rode on about forty yards in advance, I heard the general 
 exclaim something in a very excited tone which I could not 
 understand ; and heard at the same time the report of a pistol. 
 I turned, and, great God ! to my horror, I saw Captain Ma- 
 gennis falling from his horse, with the blood rushing out of his 
 mouth and breast. His only remark was, c Let me down easy. J 
 In another moment his spirit had fled. He was killed by 
 Captain Murphy, because Magennis, by the direction of Gen 
 eral Morgan, had ordered Murphy to restore a watch taken 
 from a prisoner." 
 
 Leaving Lebanon, Morgan proceeded to Bardstown, where 
 lie captured some cavalry, advanced then upon the Louisville 
 and Nashville railrood, and next reached Garnettsville, when 
 a feint was made upon the city of Louisville, whilst prepara 
 tions were on foot to effect a crossing of the Ohio river. A 
 scouting party was sent to the river at Brandensburg, at which 
 point two steamers were captured. Here the command effected 
 a crossing of the river, after a severe fight with the enemy. 
 They captured about one hundred Home Guards, one rifled 
 twelve-pounder piece, and successfully repulsed two gunboats. 
 
 On the 8th of July, Morgan s little command stood on the 
 goil of Indiana. He immediately took up the line of march 
 for the town of Cory don, where he captured about 600 militia 
 and some few regular soldiers. Salem was the next point 
 which invited his attention, where an immense amount of 
 damage was inflicted upon the enemy by the destruction of 
 railroad property, bridges, depots, stores, &e. 
 
 The expedition from this point visited the interior of the 
 State, and was enabled to find any quantity of work to per- 
 
THE nrifii? 04 a. 107 
 
 form, which embraced the destruction of vast amounts o-f pub 
 lic property, such as railroads, bridges, depots, and govern 
 ment stores generally. 
 
 At Salem, Morgan first learned from the telegraph wires" 
 of the tremendous excitement his unexampled invasion had 
 created, and the station and numbers of the enemy around for 
 the hunt. He discovered that Indianapolis was running over 
 with them that New Albany contained 10,000 that 3,OOC 
 had just arrived at Mitchell and, in fact, 25,000 men were 
 armed and ready to meet the " bloody invader." 
 
 Morgan moved rapidly forward to Lexington, thence to Yer- 
 non, and frdin Yernon to Yersailles, scattering destruction and 
 dismay along the route. Near the latter place, an amusing 
 and characteristic incident occurred. A Presbyterian chap 
 lain, in Morgan s command, captured an entire company of 
 militia. He was moving ahead, when he found that he had 
 flanked the advance, and run upon a full company of State 
 militia. Imitating his commander s demeanor, he boldly rode 
 up to the company and inquired for the captain. Being in 
 formed that there was a dispute as to who should lead them, 
 he volunteered his services, expatiating largely upon the part 
 he had played as an Indiana captain at Shiloh, and was soon 
 elected to lead the valiant Hoosiers against " the invading 
 rebs." Twenty minutes spent in drilling, inspired complete 
 confidence; and when the advance guard of Morgan s com 
 mand had passed without Captain P. permitting the Hoosiers 
 to fire, he ordered them into the road, and surrendered them 
 to our command. Crest-fallen, indeed, were the Yankees ; but 
 General Morgan treated them kindly, and, returning to them 
 their guns, advised them to go home and not come hunting 
 such game again, as they had every thing to lose and nothing 
 to gain by it. 
 
 Leaving the State of Indiana, General Morgan struck the 
 Ohio line at a place called Harrison. Here he completely 
 destroyed a very long bridge of great strength and value. A 
 feint was^ here made upon Cincinnati. The whole Ohio coun 
 try, in this direction, is chequered over with railroads, and the 
 attention of the expedition was particularly directed to these, 
 Immense damage was thus inflicted upon the enemy. The 
 Mississippi and Ohio railroad was greatly injured. The com- 
 
108 SOUTHERN HISTCRY OF THE WAR. 
 
 niand approached within eight miles of the city of Cincinnati, 
 and it is said that some of Morgan s scouts were within the 
 suburbs of the city. 
 
 On the march, the command bore to the left of the city, 
 striking the little Miami railroad, capturing a valuable train 
 of cars soon after reaching the road, together with about 200 
 Federal soldiers. The train was, of course, destroyed, which 
 was the usual disposition made of such captures. 
 
 After passing Cincinnati, Morgan next went in the direc 
 tion of Camp Denison, upon which point he made another 
 feint for the purpose of deceiving the enemy, who were at this 
 time harassing him as he proceeded. Leaving the neighbor 
 hood of Camp Denison, he proceeded through the interior of 
 the State, operating upon an extensive scale, in destroying the 
 railroads in which that section abounds. 
 
 Upon arriving near the town of Pomeroy, another feint was 
 here resorted to. The numerous roads in this section were 
 generally very effectively blockaded, and much difficulty was 
 experienced in overcoming these obstacles. Near Pomeroy 
 General Morgan encountered a force of the enemy of several 
 thousand men, consisting of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. 
 Whilst the skirmishers were engaged at this point, the main 
 fcfody of the command moved around the town to the left, with 
 the view of reaching the river, which they accomplished about 
 daylight on the morning of the 18th of July, at Buffington 
 Island. Here the enemy came up with them, with a strong 
 force, assisted by gunboats in the river, which prevented a 
 crossing at this point. 
 
 The rear guard of the expedition held the enemy in check, 
 whilst the main body was enabled to move off from the river, 
 to a point further up, called Belleville. Here another effort 
 was made to cross. About two hundred of the command had 
 succeeded in crossing the river when the gunboats again made 
 their appearance, and also a force of cavalry and infantry, 
 evidently the same which had opposed them at Buffington. 
 Only two men were drowned of the number which attempted 
 to cross the river. Morgan being thus prevented from crossing 
 his whole command, those who effected a crossing succeeded 
 in keeping the gunboats at bay until he could remove his force 
 to f point higher up the river. The enemy claimed to have 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 10,* 
 
 taken seventeen hundred prisoners in the running fight. At 
 any rate, the few hundred who had crossed the Ohio, thus 
 cut off from the main hody, had no other alternative left them 
 but to make their way as they best could to the Confederate 
 lines, which they succeeded in doing passing through the 
 mountains of West Virginia to Lewisburg, near which place 
 they encamped. 
 
 Morgan and about two hundred of his men had broken 
 through the enemy s lines, on the north side of the Ohio. He 
 had by some means got into a carriage. A Yankee major saw 
 him, and, galloping up, reached for him. Morgan jumped out 
 at the other side of the carriage, leaped over a fence, seized 
 a horse, and galloped off as fast as horse-flesh could carry 
 him. 
 
 The fugitive commander, with the remainder of his scat 
 tered forces, pressed three citizens of Salineville into their 
 service as guides, and continued their flight on the New Lisbon 
 road. One of the impressed guides made his escape and rode 
 back, conveying intelligence of the route taken, which it was 
 believed was with the ultimate design of reaching the Ohio 
 river higher up. Forces were immediately despatched from 
 Wellesville to head him off, whilst another force followed hotly 
 in his rear, and a^trong militia force from New Lisbon came 
 down to meet him. 
 
 About two o clock, in the afternoon, these various detach 
 ments closed in around Morgan in the vicinity of West Point, 
 about midway between New Lisbon and Wellesville. The 
 Confederates were driven to a bluff from which there was no 
 escape, except by fighting their way through or leaping from 
 a lofty and almost perpendicular precipice. Finding them 
 selves thus cooped, Morgan surrendered himself and the rem 
 nant of his command. 
 
 We shall have occasion elsewhere to refer to the enemy s 
 treatment of this distinguished captive. It is sufficient to con 
 clude for the present our narrative of this remarkable expedition 
 to say, that its brave and generous leader and his officers were 
 confined in felons cells in the Ohio Penitentiary ; were sub 
 jected to cruelties at which the blood runs cold ; and that on 
 the 20th day of November, Morgan and six of his officers 
 escaped from the confinement and torture of their infamous 
 
110 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 prison. They had dug out of their cells with small knives, 
 after weeks of constant toil. Morgan left behind to his enemj 
 an account of his toil and escape, "with two small knives," 
 with this legend : " La patience Jest amere, mais son fruit e^ 
 loux" " Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." 
 
 So far from Morgan s expedition being accounted a failure, 
 on account of its termination in a surrender, it is to be taken 
 as one of the most fruitful and brilliant of Confederate suc 
 cesses. There were persons who accused him of rashness in 
 crossing the Ohio. But those who preferred this flippant 
 accusation probably did not know that although the passage 
 of the Ohio was not, at the outset, a part of General Morgan s 
 programme, it created an important diversion of Burnside s 
 army, large detachments of which were drawn after Morgan 
 into and through Kentucky; prevented the Yankee general 
 from marching on Knoxville and getting in rear of Bragg s 
 army, then menaced in front by Kosecrans, at Shelby ville ; 
 thus disconcerted the Yankee campaign in the West, and de 
 layed its operations for many valuable weeks. 
 
 It is true that Morgan lost about two thousand prisoners. 
 But for this number added to the Yankee exchange list, he had 
 exacted an immense and brilliant compensation. With twenty- 
 five hundred men he traversed two enormous States from 
 end to end occupied their towns almost at pleasure cut 
 their principal arteries of communication, burnt depots, de 
 stroyed engines, sunk steamboats innumerable. He threw 
 several millions of people into frantic consternation for the 
 safety of their property, turned entire populations into fugi 
 tives, and compelled several thousand men to leave their occu 
 pations for weeks and go under arms only as an equivalent 
 to him and his twenty-five hundred troops. He paroled near 
 six thousand Yankees, they obligating themselves not to take 
 up arms during the war. He destroyed thirty-four important 
 bridges, destroying the track in sixty places. His loss was by 
 no means slight: twenty-eight commissioned officers killed, 
 thirty-five wounded, and two hundred and fifty men killed and 
 wounded. By the Yankee accounts he killed more than two 
 hundred, wounded at least three hundred and fifty, and cap 
 tured, as before stated, near six thousand. The damage to 
 railroads, steamboats, and bridges, added to the destruction 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. Ill 
 
 of public stores and depots, was not less than ten millions of 
 dollars. 
 
 This brilliant expedition taught Confederates the value of ad 
 venture. Want of enterprise had been the curse of the South 
 in war as in peace ; and the counsels of the war in the Confed 
 eracy had been too much to the effect that it must do nothing 
 but parry that it must never presume to thrust. However 
 unwelcome the ultimate misfortune of General Morgan, it 
 did not rob his expedition of its glory, or its profit to the 
 Confederacy. 
 
112 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Contrast between our Military Fortunes in the East and in the West. S5m 
 Reasons for our Success in Virginia. Her Hearty Co-operation with the Confederate 
 Authorities. Her Contributions to the War. General Bragg s Situation in Tennes 
 see. Confederate criticisms on General Rosecrans. Opinion of the " Chattanooga 
 Rebel." An Extensive Movement Contemplated by Rosecrans. Bragg s Retreat to 
 Chattanooga. The Yankees on a Double Line of Operations. Buckner s Evacuation 
 of Knoxville. THE SURRENDER OF CUMBERLAND GAP. President Davis Comment 
 on the Surrender. THE BATTLES OF CHICKAMAUGA. Braggs Evacuation of Chatta 
 nooga. Topography of the Battle-field. Thomas s Column of Yankees in McLeniorc a 
 Cove. Disobedience of Orders by Lieutenant-general Hill of the Confederates. 
 Bragg s Orders to Lieutenant-general Polk. Two Opportunities Lost. Note: 
 Bragg s Secret and Official Report of the Miscarriage of His Plans. The First Day s 
 Engagement on the Chickamauga. Second Day. General Polk s Fight on our 
 Right. Loncrstreet s Successful Attack on the Left. The Grand Charge. Rout of 
 the Enemy. Longstreet s Message to Bragg. Forrest Up a Tree. Bragg Declines to 
 Pursue. His Hesitation and Error. His Movement upon Chattanooga. Boast of 
 Rosecrans. An Empty Victory for the Confederate*. Bragg s Awkward Pause. 
 Discussions of the Campaign. His Supposed Investment of Chattanooga. Two 
 Blunders of the Confederate Commander. Chickamauga a Second Edition of Bull 
 Rnn. Note : Observations of a General Officer of the Confederate States Army OB 
 the Campaign in the West. 
 
 TENNESSSEE was a conspicuous theatre of the war, but one of 
 strange misfortune to the Confederates. We have in preceding 
 volumes of this work, and at different periods in the history of 
 the war, referred to the marked and striking contrast between 
 our military fortunes in the East and in the West. True, the 
 picture was not entirely free from lights and shadows on either 
 side. Roanoke Island somewhat marred the one, while the first 
 day of Shiloh, the brilliant forays of Morgan, Wheeler, and 
 Forrest, and the unexpected success with which, for more than 
 a year, Vicksburg defied three successive expeditions, until an 
 evil star shed its malignant influence over her, lighted up the 
 sombre tints of the other. The steady tendency and actual re 
 sult on each side was, however, clear and unmistakable. Two 
 years ago our army was encamped at Bowling Green, and our 
 batteries, on the beetling cliff of Columbus, scowled defiance 
 to Cairo. From the time General Johnston fell back from 
 
THE THIKD YEAK. 113 
 
 Bowling Green, a dark and bloody struggle ensued, which cul 
 minated in the disasters of Bragg s Kentucky campaign. The 
 battle of Murfreesboro , in which we won a brilliant victory, on 
 the 31st of December, 1862, afterwards proved but a drawn 
 battle, and on the night of the 2d of January following, th 
 Confederates had retreated to Tullahoma. 
 
 The remarkable and persistent contrast between our military 
 affairs in the West and those east of the Alleghanies, especially 
 on the grand theatre of Virginia, affords a curious study for 
 the future and elaborate historian of the war. But some par 
 tial explanation of it is to be found in obvious circumstances. 
 The army of Virginia was undoubtedly superior in composition 
 to that of the West. The Virginia troops it may be said with 
 out invidiousness, where there is so much of common glory for 
 every member of the Confederate army were especially com 
 plimented by General Lee for a remarkable union of spirit and 
 tractability, which made them the best soldiery in the world. 
 And it may be said emphatically, that no other State, whose 
 soil was the theatre of war, had exhibited such happy accord, 
 and such thorough and generous co-operation with the Confed 
 erate authority as had Virginia. It is in the circumstance of 
 this zealous and devoted co-operation of Virginia with the Con 
 federate authority in contrast with the conduct of certain 
 other States, in whose borders was pitched the theatre of war 
 that we shall especially find an explanation for those triumphs 
 of the common arms of the South, which so frequently and so 
 uniformly graced her soil. 
 
 No embarrassments of party politics, no indecent bickerings 
 of demagogues, chilled the zeal of Virginia, or divided her ef 
 forts in the war. From the beginning of the contest she had 
 poured out a lavish stream of contributions to every necessity 
 of the general government. In the fall of 1863, it was officially 
 reported in her legislature, that she had already furnished 
 102,915* soldiers to the Confederate service, and that, in ad 
 dition, thirty thousand conscripts had just passed through the 
 camp of instruction, and that she had issued in this time, 
 103,840 muskets, 399 pieces of cannon, and other arms in pro 
 portion. 
 
 * Statement of the Number of Troops Furnished the Confederate States tytlt, 
 
 8 
 
 
114 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 In adverting to the fortunes involved by the fall of Ticks- 
 burgh, we have already said, that General Bragg s army in 
 Tennessee had been considerably weakened by drafts upon it 
 to reinforce the lines in the Southwest. He was in a critical 
 condition at Tullahoma. Eosecrans had nearly double his num 
 bers in his front, and Burnside, who commanded what the 
 Yankees called the Army of the Cumberland, was in a position, 
 by an advance towards Knoxville, to threaten his rear. 
 
 Kosecrans, whose name is coupled with so much of the mil 
 itary history of the West, enjoyed a divided reputation in the 
 Confederacy, being esteemed by many as the most skilful and 
 formidable of Yankee generals, and by others, as a lucky mil 
 itary adventurer, who would soon run his career of good 
 fortune. In the early stages of the war, he had made great 
 reputation by his successes over Lee in Western Virginia, the 
 latter being taken quite out of his element, in a contracted 
 mountain warfare, and being easily bewildered by a man who, 
 as an itinerary speculator, a peddler in " oil springs," had made 
 himself minutely familiar with these mountains. He was now 
 at the head of the class in President Lincoln s academy, for the 
 graduation of young and sudden h eld-marshals. In the De 
 partment of Tennessee his star had been in the ascendant ; h 
 had yet to sustain a defeat ; but such fortune, said those who 
 disputed his generalship, was simply that likely to attend the 
 march of a much superior army of well-disciplined western 
 troops, against a small army of brave ,and patient, but badly 
 handled Confederates. The Chattanooga Rebel quoted against 
 
 State of Virginia, as taken from the first Rolls on file in the Adjutant and 
 Inspector-general s Office. 
 
 Sixty-four regiments infantry 52,496 
 
 Twenty regiments cavalry 14,175 
 
 Two regiments artillery 1,779 
 
 Twenty -eight battalions, cavalry, infantry and artillery . . 11 ,717 
 
 Nine battalions artillery, Army Northern Virginia 4,500 
 
 Two hundred and fourteen unattached companies, artil 
 lery, infantry and cavalry 18,248 
 
 Total number of men 102,915 
 
 The above statement does not embrace the recruits or conscripts furnished 
 v the State of Virginia. 
 
 October, 1S68. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 115 
 
 him a vulgar, but trite axiom, among the backwoodsmsn of 
 Tennessee : " There is no telling the luck of a lousy calf he 
 lives all the winter, and dies in the spring." 
 
 Rosecrans was now to test his generalship by one of the 
 most extensive movements in the West: the occupation of 
 East Tennessee, and a movement thence into the heart of the 
 cotton States. This military Hercules, said a Northern paper, 
 had, of all others, been selected to " drive a wedge into the 
 centre of the Confederacy." 
 
 Since his retreat to Tullahoma General Bragg had advanced 
 to Wartrace and Shelby ville, and was apparently ready to give 
 the enemy battle. A portion of his forces having been with 
 drawn to Mississippi, he considered that he was left as a mere 
 army of observation. The enemy at last succeeded in surprising 
 our forces at Liberty and Hoover s Gaps by a flank movement, 
 and General Bragg, to save his army, fell back, on the 27th of 
 June, to Chattanooga. The enemy followed at leisure to the 
 banks of the Tennessee. 
 
 The enemy s advance on Chattanooga was in two columns, 
 on axiouble line of operations Rosecrans moving on Chatta 
 nooga, and Burnside moving on Knoxville. It was thought to 
 be necessary that the exposed left flank of Rosecrans army 
 should be covered while he made a right swinging movement 
 on Chattanooga, and this appeared to be the whole purpose of 
 the co-operation of Burnside s column. The possession of 
 Knoxville, under the circumstances, was not supposed to be of 
 vital moment, for, Chattanooga in the enemy s possession, 
 Knoxville and the whole line was turned and fell of its weight. 
 
 On the 20th of August, it was ascertained certainly that 
 Rosecrans had crossed the mountains to Stevenson and Bridge 
 port. His force of effective infantry and artillery amounted 
 to fully 70,000, divided into four corps. About the same time 
 General Burnside advanced from Kentucky towards Knoxville, 
 East Tennessee, with a force estimated by the General com 
 manding that department at over 25,000. In view of the great 
 superiority of numbers brought against him, General Buckner 
 concluded to evacuate Knoxville, and with a force of about 
 5000 infantry and artillery, and his cavalry, took position in 
 the vicinity of London. Two brigades of his command, Frazier a 
 at Cumberland Gap and Jackson s in Northeast Tennessee, 
 
116 SOFTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAK. 
 
 were thus severed from us. The enemy having already ol> 
 tained a lodgment in East Tennessee by another route, the 
 continued occupation of Cumberland Gap became very hazard 
 ous to the garrison and comparatively unimportant to us. Its 
 evacuation was accordingly ordered, but on the appeal of its 
 commander, stating his resources and ability for defence, favor 
 ably endorsed by Major-Gen eral Buckner, the orders were 
 suspended on the 31st of August. The main body of our army 
 was encamped near Chattanooga, whilst the cavalry force, 
 much reduced and enfeebled by long service on short rations, 
 was recruiting in the vicinity of Home, Georgia. 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF CUMBERLAND GAP. 
 
 We may anticipate our narrative to say here that Cumber 
 land Gap was surrendered on the 9th of September by General 
 Frazier; a garrison, consisting of four regiments, about two 
 thousand men, and fourteen pieces of artillery being uncon 
 ditionally surrendered to the enemy without firing a gun. 
 
 The first demand for a surrender was made on the 5th by 
 the Yankee General Shackelford; and Colonel De Courcy 
 having come up with a brigade on the Kentucky side, renewed 
 the demand on the evening of the 9th September. General 
 Frazier replied under flag of truce, asking De Courcy the 
 number of forces to which he was ordered to surrender. De 
 Courcy replied nearly twelve o clock at night, refusing to give 
 the number of forces under his command, stating that it was 
 from motives entirely disconnected with the attack upon the 
 gap that he did so. General Frazier then refused to surrender, 
 and it was understood that the fight would open at twelve 
 o clock the next day. A council of the commanding officers of 
 regiments was called, which resulted in the refusal of all to be 
 surrendered. A majority preferred the risk of cutting their 
 way throngh the Yankee lines to being surrendered on any 
 terms. A fight was therefore confidently expected. Near 
 twelve o clock on Wednesday, the 9th, when all was in anxious 
 expectation for the fight to open, General Frazier received from 
 Burnside, under flag of truce, a demand for the unconditional 
 surrender of himself and his command. Yery soon after its 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 117 
 
 reception, one of General Frazier s aid-de-camps came in great 
 haste down the mountain and ordered the battle-flag down, 
 and a white one to be hoisted in its stead.* 
 
 This surrender was declared bj the Richmond Dispatch to 
 be " one of the most disgraceful occurrences of the war." In 
 a message to Congress President Davis said of it : " The coun 
 try was painfully surprised by the intelligence that the officei 
 in command of Cumberland Gap had surrendered that import 
 ant and easily defensible pass without firing a shot, upon the 
 summons of a force still believed to have been inadequate to 
 its reduction, and when reinforcements were within supporting 
 distance, and had been ordered to his aid. The entire garri 
 son, including the commander, being still held prisoners by the 
 enemy, I am unable to suggest any explanation of this disas 
 ter, which laid open eastern Tennessee and south-western Vir 
 ginia to hostile operations, and broke the line of communica 
 tion between the seat of government and middle Tennes- 
 
 * The following communication with respect to this surrender was published 
 in the Richmond newspapers from Major McDowell, one of the officers of the 
 garrison. 
 
 " Various statements have been made in regard to the conduct of the troops 
 composing the command at Cumberland Gap. I assert most positively that 1 
 have yet to see troops in finer spirits, or more determined to hold their ground 
 than the troops in the gap. I have learned that an attempt is being made to 
 justify the surrender of the gap upon the ground that the troops in the gap 
 would not fight, and that some of them shouted when, the flag was ordered 
 down. The last charge was made against the Sixty-second North Carolina regi 
 ment. The first is false, and the second not only false, but is a base and cowardly 
 effort to protect those that may be guilty at the expense of the innocent, brave, 
 patriotic and true. We were surrendered, then, to General Burnside on 
 Wednesday, the 9th, at 4 o clock p. M. Many made their escape after the 
 surrender. We had when we were surrendered provisions upon which we 
 could have subsisted thirty days. We had all the ammunition on hand that 
 we had when the gap was first invested. My regiment had 150 rounds to the 
 man, and I presume other regiments had the same. If the surrender was a 
 matter of necessity, it was from causes other than a want of provisions, 
 ammunition, or a willingness on the part of the men to do their duty." 
 
118 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF CHICKAMAUGA. 
 
 Before proceeding to discuss those movements, by whicli the 
 forces of Rosecrans and of Bragg at last joined in decisive bat 
 tie, a topographical coup d ceil is necessary. 
 
 The Cumberland range is a lofty mass of rocks, separating 
 the waters which flow into the Cumberland from those which 
 flow into the Tennessee, and extending from beyond the Ken 
 tucky line in a south- westerly direction nearly to Athens, 
 Alabama. The Sequatchie Valley is along the river of that 
 name, and is a canon or deep cut splitting the Cumberland 
 range parallel to its length. 
 
 Chattanooga commands the southern entrance into Tennes 
 see, and is one of the great gateways through mountains to 
 the champaign counties of Georgia and Alabama. It is situ 
 ated on the Tennessee river, at the mouth of the Chattanooga 
 Valley a valley following the course of the Chattanooga 
 creek, and formed by Lookout Mountain and Missionary 
 Ridge. The former is a vast palisade of rocks, rising twenty- 
 four hundred feet above the level of the sea, in abrupt rocky 
 cliffs, from a steep, wooded base. East of Missionary Ridge, 
 and running parallel with it, is another valley Chickamauga 
 Valley following the course of Chickamauga creek, which, 
 with the Chattanooga creek, discharges its waters into the 
 Tennessee river the first above, and the last below the town 
 of Chattanooga, and has with it a common source in McLe- 
 more s Cove the common head of both valleys, and formed 
 by Lookout Mountain on the west, and Pigeon Mountain to 
 the east. Wills Valley is a narrow valley lying to the west 
 of Chattanooga, formed by Lookout Mountain and Sand 
 Mountain, and traversed by a railroad, which takes its name 
 from the valley, and which, branching from the Nashville and 
 Chattanooga Railroad, where the latter crosses the valley, has 
 its present terminus at Trenton, and future at Tuscaloosa, 
 Alabama. The wagon-road from Chattanooga to Rome, 
 known as the Lafayette road, crosses Missionary Ridge into 
 Chickamauga Valley at Boss v ill e, and, proceeding in a south 
 westerly direction, crosses Chickamauga creek, eleven miles 
 from Chattanooga, at Lee and Gordon s Mills, and, passing to 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 119 
 
 the east of Pigeon Mountain, goes through Lafayette, distant 
 some twenty-two miles from Chattanooga, and "Summerville 
 within twenty-five miles of Rome. 
 
 Immediately after crossing the mountains to the Tennessee 
 the enemy threw a corps by the way of Sequatehie Yalley tc 
 strike the rear of General Buckner s command, whilst Burn- 
 side occupied him in front. One division, already ordered to 
 his assistance, proving insufficient to meet the force concen 
 trating on him, Buckner was directed to withdraw to the 
 Hiawassee with his infantry, artillery, and supplies, and to 
 hold his cavalry in front, to check the enemy s advance. As 
 soon as this change was made, the corps threatening his rear 
 was withdrawn, and the enemy commenced a movement in 
 force against our left and rear. On the last of August it be 
 came known that he had crossed his main force over the Ten 
 nessee river at or near Caperton s Ferry, the most accessible 
 point from Stevenson. By a direct route, he was now as near 
 our main depot of supplies as we were, and our whole line of 
 communication was exposed, while his own was partially 
 secured by mountains and the river. By the timely arrival of 
 two small divisions from Mississippi, our effective force, 
 exclusive of cavalry, was now a little over thirty-live thousand, 
 with which it was determined to strike on the first favorable 
 opportunity. Closely watched by our cavalry, which had 
 been brought forward, it was soon ascertained that the 
 enemy s general movements were towards our left and rear, in 
 the direction of Dalton and Rome, keeping Lookout Mountain 
 between us. The nature of the country, and the want of sup 
 plies in it, with the presence of Burnside s force on our riglit, 
 rendered a movement on the enemy s rear, with our inferior 
 force, extremely hazardous, if not impracticable. It was now, 
 therefore, determined to meet him in front whenever he should 
 emerge from the mountain gorges. To do this and hold Chat 
 tanooga was impossible, without such a division of our small 
 force as to endanger both parts. Accordingly, our troops 
 were put in motion on the Tth and 8th of September, and took 
 position from Lee and Gordon s Mills to Lafayette, on the road 
 leading south from Chattanooga, and fronting the east slope of 
 Lookout Mountain. 
 
 On Monday, September Tth, Lieutenant-general D. H. Hill 
 
120 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 was ordered to move with his corps to Lafayette, and General 
 Polk to Lee and Gordon s Mills, and Major-general Buckner, 
 with the army of East Tennessee, and Major- general Walker, 
 with his division from the army of Mississippi, to concentrate 
 at Lafayette, and Brigadier-general Pegram to cover the rail 
 road with his cavalry. These dispositions having been made 
 of the Confederate forces, Major-general Crittenden command 
 ing the left wing of Rosecrans army, which had not moved 
 with the right and centre, but had been left in the Sequatchie 
 Valley, crossed the Tennessee river at the mouth of Battle 
 creek, and moved upon Chattanooga. Major-general McCook, 
 commanding the right wing, was thrown forward to threaten 
 Rome, and the corps of Major-general Thomas was put ID 
 motion over Lookout Mountain, in the direction of Lafay 
 ette. 
 
 During the 9th of September it was ascertained that a col 
 umn of the enemy had crossed Lookout Mountain into the 
 cove by the way of Stevens and Cooper s. Thrown off his 
 guard by our rapid movement apparently in retreat, when in 
 reality we had concentrated opposite his centre, and deceived 
 by information from deserters and others sent into his lines, 
 the enemy pressed on his columns to intercept us, and thus 
 exposed himself in detail. 
 
 A splendid opportunity was now presented to Bragg. The 
 detached force in McLemore s cove was Thomas s corps. Be 
 ing immediately opposite Lafayette, at and near which General 
 Bragg had all his forces concentrated, it was completely at the 
 mercy of the latter. It was only necessary that General Bragg 
 should fall upon it with such a mass as would have crushed it ; 
 then turned down Chattanooga Yalley, thrown himself in be 
 tween the town and Crittenden, and crushed him ; then passed 
 back between Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee river into 
 Wills Yalley, and cut off McCook s retreat to Bridgeport ; 
 thence moved along the Cumberland range into the rear of 
 Burnside, and disposed of him. 
 
 No time was to be lost in taking advantage of a blunder of 
 the enemy, into which he had fallen in his stupid conceit that 
 the Confederates were retreating. Instant orders were given 
 to Major-general Hindman to prepare his division to move 
 against Thomas, and he was informed that another division 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 121 
 
 from Lieutenant- general D. II. Hill s command, at Lafayette, 
 would move np to him and co-operate in the attack. 
 
 General Hill received his orders on the night of the 9th 
 He replied that he conld not undertake the movement; that 
 the orders were impracticable; that Clebnrne, who commanded 
 one of his divisions, was sick ; and that both the gaps, Dug 
 and Catlett s, through which he was required to move, were 
 impassable, having been blocked by felled timber. 
 
 Early the next morning, Hindman was promptly in position 
 to execute his part of the critical movement. Disappointed at 
 Hill s refusal to move, General Bragg, with desperate haste, 
 despatched an order to Major-general Buckner to move from 
 his present position at Anderson, and execute, without delay, 
 the orders issued to Hill. 
 
 It was not until the afternoon of the 10th, that Buckner 
 joined Hindman, the two commands being united near Davis s 
 Cross-roads in the cove. The enemy was still in flagrant 
 error moving his three columns, with an apparent disposition 
 to form a junction at or near Lafayette. To strike in detail 
 these isolated commands, and to fall upon Thomas, who had 
 got the enemy s centre into McLemore s Cove, such rapidity 
 was necessary as to surprise the enemy before he discovered 
 his mistake. 
 
 Lieutenant-general Polk was ordered to Anderson s, to cover 
 Hindman s rear, who, at midnight of the 10th of September, 
 again received orders, at all hazards to crush the enemy s 
 centre, and cut his way through to Lafayette. The indomita 
 ble Cleburne, despite the obstructions in the road, had moved 
 up to Dug Gap ; was jn position at daylight ; and only waited 
 the sound of Hindman s guns to move on the enemy s flank 
 and rear. 
 
 Courier after courier sped from Dug Gap to urge Hindman 
 on. But it was too late. The enemy had discovered the mis 
 take that had well-nigh proved his ruin. He had taken advan 
 tage of our delay, retreated to the mountain passes ; and so the 
 movement upon Thomas, which promised such brilliant results, 
 was lost by an anachronism by which the best laid military 
 schemes are so frequently defeated. 
 
 But it was not easy for Rosecrans to repair his error wholly, 
 and extricate himself from the meshes of a bad militfw move- 
 
122 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 merit. The movement upon Thomas in McLemore s Cove hav 
 ing failed, he having effected his escape up the mountain, 
 Rosecrans, who, by this time, had discovered Bragg s where 
 abouts, recalled McCook into Wills Valley, and ordered him 
 to follow Thomas, who was again put in motion over the moan 
 tain into the cove. But the third corps, under Crittenden, 
 moving from the direction of Chattanooga, was yet in position 
 to be attacked ; and dispositions were rapidly made by Gen 
 eral Bragg to fall upon it, and thus retrieve in some measure 
 the miscarriage of his other plans. 
 
 Crittenden had moved on towards Ringgold, with the hope 
 of cutting off Buckner. On reaching the point on the Georgia 
 railroad at which Buckner crossed, he discovered he was too 
 late, and turned towards Lafayette to follow him. He moved 
 up the Chickamauga, on its east side, in the direction of La 
 fayette, and was confronted by the cavalry under Generals 
 Pegram and Armstrong. After skirmishes with them, in 
 which there were some brilliant dashes on the part of our 
 cavalry, the latter retired slowly before the enemy, falling 
 back towards Lafayette. To meet this movement, General 
 Bragg ordered a force of two divisions, under Lieutenant-gen 
 eral Polk, to move to the front. These divisions, Cheatham s 
 and Walker s, were put in motion, and were in line of battle 
 before daylight, covering the three roads on which the enemy s 
 three divisions were marching. Hindman came up after day 
 light, and Buckner was thrown forward as a supporting force 
 to guard Polk s left against Thomas and McCook in the cove. 
 Crittenden, finding himself confronted, declined battle, and re 
 tired during the night, falling back on the Chickamauga, which 
 he crossed at Lee and Gordon s Mills. This placed the whole 
 of Eosecrans three corps on the east side of the Chickamauga, 
 and in easy supporting distance. 
 
 Thus had failed the preliminary plans to take the enemy in 
 a flagrant error of generalship, and at vital disadvantage; and 
 nothing remained but to fight out the issue against his concen 
 trated forces on the banks of the Chickamauga.* 
 
 * To avoid recriminations, which resulted in Generals Hill and Polk being 
 deprived of their commands in Bragg s army, we annex here what has never 
 been published in the Confederacy: General Bragg s official letters and orders 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. l23 
 
 On Saturday, the 19th September, General Bragg had 
 moved his army by divisions and crossed it at several fords of 
 the Chickamauga and bridges north of Lee and Gordon s Mills. 
 Reinforcements had reached him. Johnston had arrived with 
 
 with respect to the alleged dereliction of these officers. General Polk was also 
 blamed in subsequent operations, as we shall see. 
 
 Major-general Hindman received verbal instructions on the 9th 
 
 to prepare his division to move against this force [Thomas s corps], and was 
 informed that another division from Lieutenant-general Hill s command, at 
 Lafayette, would join him. That evening, the following written orders were 
 issued to Generals Hindman and Hill : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, ) 
 Lee and Gordon s Mills, 11| P. M., Sept. 9th, 1863. j" 
 
 GENERAL : You will move your division immediately to Davis s X roads 
 on the road from Lafayette to Stevens Gap. At this point you will put your 
 self in communication with the column of General Hill, ordered to move to the 
 same point, and take command of the joint forces, or report to the officer com 
 manding Hill s column, according to rank. If in command you will move 
 upon the enemy, reported to be 4,000 or 5,000 strong, encamped at the foot of 
 Lookout Mountain, at Stevens Gap. Another column of the enemy is reported 
 to be at Cooper s Gap, number not known. 
 I am, General, &c., 
 
 Signed, KINLOCK FALCONER, A. A. General. 
 
 To MAJOR-GENERAL HINDMAN, 
 
 Commanding Livision. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, ) 
 Lee and Gordon s Mills, 11 f P. M., Sept. Uth, 1863. j 
 
 GENERAL: I enclose orders given to General Hindman. General Bragg 
 directs that you send or take, as your judgment dictates, Cleburne s division 
 to unite with General Hindman at Davis s X roads to-morrow morning. Hind- 
 man starts at 12 o clock to-night and he has thirteen miles to make. The 
 commander of the column thus united will move upon the enemy encamped at 
 the foot of Stevens Gap, said to be 4,000 or 5,000. If unforeseen circumstances 
 should prevent your movement, notify Hindman. A cavalry force should ac 
 company yotir column. Hindman has none. Open communications with 
 Hindman with your cavalry, in advance of the junction He marches on the 
 road from Dr. Anderson s to Davis s X roads. 
 
 I am, General, &c., &c., 
 
 KINLOCK FALCONER, A. A. General. 
 
 LIE DTEN ANT-GENERAL HlLL, 
 
 Commanding. 
 
 On the receipt of his order, during the night, General Hill replied that th 
 movement required by him was impracticable;, as General Cluburne was sick, 
 and Uoth the gaps Dug and Catlett s had been blocked by felling timber, 
 which would require twenty-four hours for its removal. Not to lose this favor 
 able opportunity, Hin Iman, by prompt movement, being ready in position, the 
 
124 SOUTHEEN HISTOEY OF THE T\ \E. 
 
 two brigades from Mississippi, and reinforcements from Gen 
 eral Lee s lines in Virginia were hurrying tip to what was to 
 be the scene of one of the most critical and magnificent actions 
 of the war. The latter reinforcements consisted of five brig- 
 following orders were, issued at 8 o clock, A. M., on the 10th, for Major-general 
 Buckner to move with his two divisions, and report to Hindman. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, ) 
 Lee and Gordon s Mills, 8 o clock A. M., Sept. 10th, 1863. ) 
 GENERAL : I enclose rders issued last night to Generals Hill and Hind 
 man. General Hill has found it impossible to carry out the part assigned to 
 Cleburne s division. The general commanding desires that you will execute 
 without delay the order issued to General Hill. You can move to Davis s X 
 roads by the direct road from your present position at Anderson s, along which 
 General Hindman has passed. 
 
 I am, General, &c., &c., 
 
 Signed, GEO. W. BRENT, A. A. General. 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL BUCKNER, 
 
 Anderson s. 
 
 And both Hindman and Hill were notified. Hindman had halted his divis. 
 ion at Morgan s, some three or four miles from Davis s X roads, in the cove, 
 and at this point Buckner joined him during the afternoon of the 10th. Re 
 ports fully confirming previous information in regard to the position of tha 
 enemy s forces, were received during the 10th, and it became certain that h* 
 was moving his three columns to form a junction upon us at or near Lafayette. 
 
 The corps near Colonel Winston s moved on the mountain towards Alpine, * 
 point twenty miles south of us. The one opposiV") the cove continued its move 
 ment and threw forward its advance to Davis s X roads, and Crittenden moved 
 from Chattanooga on the roads to Ringgold and Lee and Gordon s Mill. To 
 strike these isolated commands in succession was our obvious policy. To se 
 cure more prompt and decided action in the movement ordered against the 
 enemy s centre, my Headquarters were removed to Lafayette, where I arrived 
 about Hi on the 10th, and Lieutenant-general Polk was ordered forward 
 with his remaining division to Anderson s, so as to cover Hindman s rear dur 
 ing the operations in the cove. At Lafayette I met Major Nocquet, engineer 
 officer on General Buckner s staff, sent by General Hindman after a junction of 
 their commands, to confer with me and suggest a change in the plan of opera 
 tions. After hearing the report of this officer, and obtaining from the active 
 and energetic cavalry commander in front of our position, Brigadier general 
 Martin, the latest information of the enemy s movements and position, I ver 
 bally directed the major to return to General Hindman, and say that my plans 
 could not be changed, and that he would carry out his orders. At the same 
 time the following written orders were sent to the general by a courier: 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, 
 Lafayette, Ga., 12 P. M., Sept. 10th, 1863. 
 GENERAL : Headquarters are here and the following is the information : 
 Crittenden s corps is advancing on us from Chattanooga. A large force from 
 the South has advanced to within seven miles of this point. Polk is left at 
 
THE TRIED YEAR. 125 
 
 ades of Longstreet s corps ; and these were without artillery 
 and transportation. The Virginia troops landed from the rail 
 road at Kinggold, and were moved rapidly forward to the 
 Chickamauga. 
 Eosecrans army was distributed from the head of McLe- 
 
 Anderson s to cover your rear. General Bragg orders you to attack and force 
 your way through the enemy to this point, at the earliest hour you can see 
 him in the morning. 
 
 Cleburne will attack in front the moment your guns are heard. 
 
 I am, General, &c., 
 
 Signed, GEO. W. BRENT, A. A. General 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL HINDMAN, 
 
 Commanding, &c. 
 
 Orders were also given for Walker s reserve corps to move promptly and 
 join Cleburne division at Dug Gap to unite in the attack. At the same time 
 Cleburne was directed to remove all obstructions in the road in his front, 
 ivhich was promptly done, and by daylight he was ready to move. The ob- 
 Ptructions in Catlett s Gap were also ordered to be removed to clear the road 
 in Hindman s rear. Breckinridge s division, Hill s corps, was kept in position 
 south of Lafayette to check any movement the enemy might make from thai 
 direction. 
 
 At daylight I proceeded to join Cleburne at Dug Gap, and found him wait 
 ing the opening of Hindman s guns to move on the enemy s flank and rear. 
 Most of the day was spent in this position, waiting, in great anxiety, for the 
 attack by Hindman s column. Several couriers and two staff officers were des 
 patched at different times, urging him to move with promptness and vigor. 
 About the middle of the afternoon the first gun was heard, when the advance 
 of Cleburue s division discovered the enemy had taken advantage of our delay 
 and retreated to the mountain passes. The enemy now discovered his error 
 and commenced to repair it by withdrawing his corps from the direction of 
 Alpine to unite with the one near McLemore s Cove, while that was gradually 
 extended towards Lee and Gordon s Mills. Our movement having thus failed 
 in its justly anticipated results, it was determined to turn upon the third corps 
 of the enemy approaching us from the direction of Chattanooga. The forces 
 were accordingly withdrawn to Lafayette, and Folk s and Walker s corps were 
 moved immediately in the direction of Lee and Gordon s Mills. The one corps 
 of the enemy in this direction was known to be divided one division having 
 been sent to Ringgold. Upon learning the dispositions of the enemy from our 
 cavalry commander in that direction on the afternoon of the 12th, Lieutenant 
 general Polk, commanding the advance forces, was directed in the following 
 note. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, ) 
 Lafayette, Ga., 6 P. M., 12th Sept. ) 
 
 GENERAL: I enclose you a despatch from General Pegram. This presents 
 you a fine opportunity of striking Crittenden in detail, and I hope you wxl] 
 avail yourself of it at daylight to-morrow. This division crushed and flia 
 
126 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 more s Cove, along and down the west side of the Chicka- 
 iriauga Valley, as far as Lee and Gordon s Mills, Chickamauga 
 creek separating it from the army of the Confederates. 
 
 The enemy commenced the affair of the 19th by a vigorous 
 attack on Major-general "Walker s corps. Our line was formed 
 with Buckner s left resting on the Chickamauga about one 
 
 others are yours. We can then turn again on the force in the cove. Whee 
 ler s cavalry will move on Wilden so as to cover your right. 
 I shall be delighted to hear of your success. 
 
 Very truly, Yours, 
 
 Signed, BRAXTON BRAGG. 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL POLK. 
 
 Upon further information the order to attack at daylight on the 13th, was re 
 newed in two notes, at later hours of the same day, as follows : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, ) 
 Lafayette, 8 P. M., Sept. 12th, 1863. ) 
 
 GENERAL : I enclose you a despatch marked " A " and I now give you the 
 orders of the commanding general, viz. : to attack at day-dawn to-morrow the 
 infantry column reported in said despatch at | of a mile beyond Pea-vine 
 church, on the road to Qraysville from Lafayette. 
 
 Signed, GEO. W. BRENT, A. A. General 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL POLK, 
 
 Commanding Corps 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY TENNESSEE, ) 
 Lafayette, Georgia, Sept. 12th, 1863. ) 
 
 GENERAL: The enemy is approaching from the South, and it is highly 
 Important that your attack in the morning should be quick and decided. Let 
 
 no time be lost. 
 
 I am, General, &c., 
 
 Signed, GEO. W. BRENT, A. A. General. 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL POLK, 
 
 Commanding Corps. 
 
 At 11 P. M. a despatch was received from the general stating that he had 
 taken a strong position for defence, and requesting that he should be heavily 
 reinforced. He was promptly ordered not to defer his attack, his force being 
 already superior to the enemy, and was reminded that his success depended 
 upon the promptness and rapidity of his movements. He was further in 
 formed that Buckner s corps would be moved within supporting distance the 
 next morning. Early on the 13th I proceeded to the front, ahe*d of Buckner s 
 command, to find that no advance had been made on the enemy, and that hii 
 forces had formed a junction and recrossed the Chickamauga. 
 
 BRAXTON BRAGG, General. 
 To GENERAL S. COOPER, 
 
 Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond, Va. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 127 
 
 mile below Lee and Gordon s Mills. On his right camo 
 Wood with his own and Johnston s divisions, with Walker on 
 the extreme right, Cheatham s division being in reserve. 
 General Walker found a largely superior force of the enemj 
 opposed to him. He drove them handsomely, however, and 
 captured several batteries of artillery in most gallant charges 
 Before Cheatham s division, ordered to his support, could 
 reach him, he had been pressed back to his first position 
 by the extended lines of the enemy assailing him on both 
 flanks. 
 
 The two commands united were soon enabled to force the 
 enemy back again, and recover our advantage, though we 
 were yet greatly outnumbered. 
 
 These movements on our right were in a direction to leave 
 an opening in our line between Cheatham and Hood. Stew 
 art s division forming Buckner s second line was thrown to the 
 right to fill this, and it soon became hotly engaged, as did 
 Hood s whole front. 
 
 The enemy, whose left was at Lee and Gordon s Mills when 
 our movement commenced, had rapidly transferred forces from 
 his extreme right, changing his entire line, and seemed dis 
 posed to dispute with all his ability our effort to gain the main 
 -oad to Chattanooga in his rear. 
 
 Lieutenant-general Polk was ordered to move his remaining 
 division across at the nearest ford and to assume the command 
 in person on our right. Hill s corps was also ordered to cross 
 below Lee and Gordon s Mills and join the line on the right. 
 Whilst these movements were being made our right and cen 
 tre were heavily and almost constantly engaged. 
 
 Stewart by a vigorous assault broke the enemy s centre and 
 penetrated far into his lines, but was obliged to retire for 
 want of sufficient force to meet the heavy enfilade fire which 
 he encountered from the right. 
 
 Hood, later engaged, advanced from the first fire and con 
 tinued to drive the force in his front until night. 
 
 Cleburne s division of Hill s corps, which first reached the 
 
 ight, was ordered to attack immediately in conjunction with 
 
 the force already engaged. This veteran command, under its 
 
 gallant chief, moved to its work after sunset, taking the enemy 
 
 completely by surprise, driving him in great disorder for nearly 
 
128 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 a mile, and inflicting a very heavy loss. Night found us ma* 
 ters of the ground, after a series of very obstinate contests witi 
 largely superior numbers. 
 
 For the grand and decisive work of the next day, the forces 
 of Bragg s army were divided into two wings. 
 
 The right wing was placed under Lieutenant-general Polk, 
 and the left under Lieutenant-general Longstreet. The former 
 was composed of Lieutenant-general Hill s corps, of two divis 
 ions, Major-general Cleburne s and Major-general Breckin- 
 ridge s; of the division of Major-general Cheathaai, of Lieu 
 tenant-general Folk s corps, and the division of Major-general 
 W. H. T. Walker. 
 
 The left was composed of the divisions of Major-genera-? 
 Stewart, and Brigadier-general Freston and Bushrod Johnson, 
 of Major-general Buckner s corps; Major-general Hindman, 
 of Lieutenant-general Folk s corps, and Benning s, Lane s and 
 Robertson s brigades, of Hood s division, and Kershaw s and 
 Humphrie s brigades, of McLaw s division, of his own (Lieu 
 tenant-general Longstreet s) corps. 
 
 The front line of the right wing consisted of three divisions 
 Breckinridge and Cleburne, of Hill s corps, and Cheatham, 
 of Folk s corps which were posted from right to left in 
 the order named. Major-general Walker was held in re 
 serve. 
 
 The left wing was composed of Major-general Stewart s di 
 vision on the right with Hood s on the left. On Hood s left 
 was Hind man s division of Lieutenant-general Folk s corps, 
 with Preston s division of Buckner s corps on the extreme 
 left. 
 
 Orders were given to Lieutenant-general Polk to commence 
 the attack at daylight. The left wing was to await the attack 
 by the right, take it up promptly when made, and the whole 
 line was then to be pushed vigorously and persistently against 
 the enemy throughout its extent. 
 
 "Before the dawn of day," writes General Bragg in his offi 
 cial report, u myself and staff were ready for the saddle, occu 
 pying a position immediately in rear of and accessible to all 
 parts of the line. With increasing anxiety and disappoint 
 ment I waited until after sunrise without hearing a gun ; and 
 at length despatched a staff officer to Lieutenant-general Polk 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 129 
 
 to ascertain the cause of the delay, and urge him to a prompt 
 and speedy movement. This officer not finding the general 
 with his troops, and learning where he had spent the night, 
 proceeded across Alexander s Bridge, to the east side of the 
 Chickamauga, and there delivered my message. Proceeding in 
 person to the right wing, I found the troops not even prepared 
 for the movement. Messengers were immediately despatched 
 for Lieutenant-general Polk, and he shortly after joined me. 
 My orders were renewed and the general was urged to their 
 prompt execution, the more important as the ear was saluted 
 throughout the night with the sounds of the axe and falling 
 timber as the enemy industriously labored to strengthen his 
 position by hastily constructed barricades and breastworks. 
 A reconnoissance made in the front of our extreme right dur 
 ing this delay crossed the main road to Chattanooga, and 
 proved the important fact that this greatly desired position 
 was open to our possession. The reasons assigned for this un 
 fortunate delay by the wing commander, appear in part in the 
 reports of his subordinates. It is sufficient to say they are 
 entirely unsatisfactory." 
 
 But it was said, on the other side of the story, that Polk s 
 delay was due to circumstances beyond his control ; that, prior 
 to giving the order to move forward to the Attack, General 
 Polk discovered that owing to the want of precaution on the 
 part of the proper authority in the formation of the general 
 line of battle, a portion of the line of the left wing had been 
 formed in front of his line a portion amounting to a whole 
 division and that had the order to make the attack at, daylight 
 been obeyed, this division, from its position, must inevitably 
 have been slaughtered. It was saved by an order to halt 
 Cheatharn s division, and by orders to the left of Cleburne ad 
 vising it of its whereabouts. 
 
 The action was opened upon the right of the Confederates 
 about ten o clock in the morning by a forward movement oi 
 Breckiriridge, followed and accompanied by Cleburne. The 
 enemy had during the night thrown up breastworks of heavy 
 timber, cut down from the forest, behind which he had en 
 trenched himself. These lay chiefly in Cleburne s front. He 
 moved direct upon them, while Breckiriridge swung round tc 
 flank them. The assault was a desperate one. General Poli 
 
130 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 informed by General Hill that the enemy was threaten 
 ing his right flank, Polk ordered Walker immediately to move 
 to the right and form an echelon upon Breckinridge, over 
 lapping his right. It was then ascertained that no enemy was 
 there. But the forward movement of the front line had resulted 
 in a severe conflict, desperately contested, which drove the 
 enemy around on the extreme left a mile or more across the 
 Chattanooga road. 
 
 For two hours the fight raged with sublime fury. Again 
 and again, as we struck the enemy, did his stately lines of 
 soldiers crumble into masses of terror-stricken fugitives. 
 Thomas commanded the Yankee s left. Heavy reinforcements 
 being sent from the enemy s right to him, he was enabled to 
 regain a portion of the ground he had lost. Xever did Yankees 
 fight better than just here. They drove back Cleburne s magni 
 ficent division, and it appeared at one time as if our right 
 and centre were giving way before Thomas s extraordinary 
 attack. 
 
 But while such were the operations on our right wing, the 
 tide of battle running from right to left had reached Long- 
 street a extreme left about eleven o clock. Hood and others 
 were ordered to make a vigorous assault in front ; Buckne 
 was made to execute a successful flank movement ; and under 
 the vigor of the combined attack Rosecrans found his lines 
 steadily giving way, and McCook and Crittenden forced far to 
 the right. He had moved most of his strength to the left 
 where Thomas had fought so brilliantly, but with the advantage 
 of superior numbers. Negley, hard pressed on the left, reported 
 to Rosecrans. " Tell General Negley I can t help him," was 
 the reply. 
 
 The Yankees in Longstreet s front had sought a position on 
 a high ridge. From this position they were driven, with heavy 
 loss in killed, wounded, prisoners, artillery, small-arms and 
 colors, after a desperate struggle, by the brigades of Kershaw 
 and Humphries, under the command of Brigadier-general 
 Kershaw, in the absence of Major-general McLaws, reinforced 
 by Gracise s, Kelley s, and Trigg s brigades, of Major-general 
 Preston s division, Major-general Hind man completing the 
 general work of the line to the left by driving the enemy on 
 his front before him along with those driven from the ridge by 
 
THE THIRD YEAE. 131 
 
 Preston and Kershaw. Kosecrans, perceiving what was taking 
 place on his right, ordered up reinforcements from his left to 
 support his retiring or rather frightened battalions, which, 
 finding a good position, awaited their arrival, turning upon 
 their pursuers with the fierceness of a temporary and desperate 
 energy. Brigadier-general Law, commanding Hood s division, 
 perceiving this movement, ordered a battery of ten guns to a 
 position from which he could enfilade the reinforcing column 
 as it advanced. The battery opened just as it was about 
 wheeling into position, and, at the same time, Stewart s divi 
 sion, posted on the extreme right, was thrown forward on its 
 flank. The shock was terrible. The enemy halted, staggered 
 backwards, and fell into confusion. % 
 
 It was late in the evening when the whole Confederate line 
 was revised and posted, and a forward movement in all its 
 length ordered. The right swung round with an extended 
 sweep, with its firm supports, and the left rallied once more to 
 the charge of the works, before which it had suffered so 
 severely in the morning. Never did troops move up to their 
 work with more resolution ; the daring Breckinridge with his 
 Kentuckians and Louisianians, and Cleburne with his Arkan- 
 eians and Alabarnians, and Walker with his South Carolinians, 
 Mississippians, and Georgians, and Cheatham with his Tennes- 
 seeans all moved forward in one mighty tide amidst the 
 thunders of some twenty batteries, and the roar of thousands 
 of muskets and rifles. The scene was one of surpassing sublim 
 ity and grandeur. Sweeping forward as the flood of a mighty 
 river, it carried every thing before it, nothing being able to 
 stand in the resistless line of its path. The enemy s works, 
 which opposed such a stubborn resistance in the morning, suc 
 cumbed before the torrent, and the brave men of Cleburne s 
 division, which had been repulsed in the morning, had, by 
 their extraordinary gallantry in the evening, the opportunity 
 of avenging the experiences of the earlier part of the day. The 
 whole field was carried triumphantly, and the enemy driven as 
 chaff before the wind. He withstood as long as human powers 
 of endurance could bear up against such a pressure, then 
 yielded, and fell back partly upon and into the hands of the 
 right wing, where several hundred were captured, the residue 
 crossing the Chattanooga road and retreating in the direction 
 
132 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of Missionary Eidge. Night interposed, and though it brought 
 with it a magnificent moon, no orders were received to pursue, 
 and the troops were halted, giving expression to their sense of 
 the glorious victory won, and unconquerable desire to pursue 
 it to an absolute success in the enemy s utter annihilation, in 
 such long, loud and triumphant cheering, as would almost 
 seem to rend the heavens. 
 
 Never was a more disorderly retreat of an enemy. Long- 
 street, who had contributed so much to the fortunes of the day, 
 now saw that by a forward movement of the whole army, 
 Hosecrans whole force might be captured in twenty-four 
 hours, and that no obstacle was between us and the Ohio, and 
 perhaps peace. He sent word to Wheeler, who was on his left, 
 to dash forward between Chattanooga and the enemy and cut 
 him to pieces; but just as Wheeler was about to execute this 
 movement, he received an order from Bragg directing him to 
 pick up arms and stragglers. It was said that Longstreet had 
 not heard from Bragg but once during the day, and then it 
 was to say that he was beaten on the right. He now sent to 
 beg him to advance; but the General-in-chief declined to 
 do so. 
 
 General Forrest had climbed a tree and from his lofty perch 
 watched the retreating enemy. He saw the blue uniforms 
 swarming over the fields, and the disorganized masses of the 
 enemy choked with flight, and struggling in mortal panic as 
 sounds of feeble pursuit followed on their heels. He shouted 
 to a staff officer : " Tell General Bragg to advance the whole 
 army ; the enemy is ours." 
 
 Bragg did not catch the inspiration. He tells us in his official 
 report : " The darkness of the night and the density of die forest 
 rendered further movements uncertain and dangerous, and 
 the army bivouacked on the ground it had so gallantly 
 won." 
 
 But granting that reasons, substantive reasons, existed for not 
 pursuing on Sunday night, what hindered General Bragg from 
 pursuing on Monday morning at daylight ? Chattanooga was 
 only ten miles from the battle-field, and unfortified ; our pursu 
 ing cavalry could see their head of column, and urged General 
 Bragg by repeated messages to pursue, that every hour s delay 
 would be equal to the loss :>f a thousand men. Citizens along 
 
THE THIRD YE^E. 133 
 
 the road reported that many of the Yankee commands passed 
 their dwellings in the utmost disorder, without arms or accoutre 
 ments, and many without hats, as a confused and routed mob, 
 not as troops in column, everything in Chattanooga arid on the 
 road inviting rather than forbidding attack. Even if they had 
 had good defensive works, with the condition as reported ^ 
 above, by a prompt pursuit our army would have gone into 
 Chattanooga with theirs, and thus broken the effect of their 
 fire ; and if such could have been the result with good defen 
 sive works, what might not the result have been without them, 
 and the enemy panic-stricken because of the knowledge that 
 none such existed ? What hindered General Bragg from pur 
 suing is not known, but it is known that, while pursuit seems 
 to have been invited, he did not pursue. He simply sent out 
 detachments to the battle-field to gather up the fruits of vic 
 tory, in arms large arid small, to be secured and sent to the 
 rear, and caused the captured banners to be collected to be 
 sent to Richmond, and prisoners to be counted and sent to 
 the rear. 
 
 The enemy s immediate losses in the battle of Chickamauga 
 were immense. It was officially stated that we captured over 
 eight thousand prisoners, fifty-one pieces of artillery, fifteen 
 thousand stand of small arms, and quantities of ammunition, with 
 wagons, ambulances, teams, medicines, hospital stores, &c., in 
 large quantities. 
 
 The enemy s loss in killed and wounded have been by many 
 thousands greater than ours ; and General Bragg, in his official 
 report, makes the appalling confession that, on this " River of 
 Death," he lost " two-fifths " of his troops. Our loss in general 
 officers was conspicuous. Brigadier-general B. H. Helm,* 
 Preston Smith, and James Deshler, had died on the field. The 
 
 * Brigadier-general Helm was a grandson of Ben Hardin, well known to the 
 oldest inhabitants of Kentucky, as a leading public-spirited gentleman of high 
 moral worth in the earlier days of the Warrior State. General Helm wae 
 born in Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1831 graduated at West Point, and 
 afterwards retired from the army of the United States to take up the study of 
 law. He entered the Southern army without a commission, but from the rank 
 of private he was soon made colonel, and commanded the first Kentucky 
 cavalry in the Confederate service. He was made brigadier-general in March, 
 1862. The Kentucky brigade, which he commanded in the battle of Chicks 
 
134: SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAB: 
 
 lion-hearted Hood, the luminary of Texas chivalry and couragGj 
 was so severely wounded that he had to suffer amputation ol 
 the thigh. The notice of his extraordinary gallantry hy Long- 
 street, who with generous ardor communicated it in a special 
 letter to his government, obtained for him the commission of a 
 Lieutenant-general, and ranged him with the popular heroes 
 of the war. 
 
 The day following this terrible conflict, General Bragg 
 ordered the troops under arms, and marched them down the 
 Chattanooga road until they came near to Rossville, where 
 Forest and Pegram were thundering away with their batteries 
 at the retreating enemy, there had them filed to the right, and 
 thrown down the Chickamauga creek, that they might rest from 
 their fatigues and be in a good position to move upon Burn- 
 side or flank Roseerans, as future contingences might dictate. 
 On Wednesday, the 23d of September, an order was issued for 
 the whole army to move upon Chattanooga. It moved up to 
 and over Missionary Ridge, where it was halted. And there 
 it was to remain halted for many long weeks. 
 
 Chickamauga had conferred a brilliant glory upon our arms, 
 but little else. Rosecrans still held the prize of Chattanooga, 
 and with it the possession of East Tennessee. Two-thirds ot 
 our nitre beds were in that region, and a large proportion of 
 the coal which supplied our foundries. It abounded in the 
 necessaries of life. It was one of the strongest countries in the 
 world, so full of lofty mountains, that it had been called, not 
 unaptly, the Switzerland of America. As the possession of 
 Switzerland opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany 
 and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave easy 
 access to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. 
 
 manga, went into the fight with seventeen hundred and sixty-three men, and 
 came out with only four hundred and thirty-two. 
 
 General Helm s wife was a half-sister of Mrs. Lincoln. Immediately after 
 the fall of Fort Sumter, in 1861, President Lincoln sent him a commission aa 
 major in the regular army of the United States ; and apprehending that he 
 might not be willing to be employed to murder his own people, the Yankee 
 Secretary of War proposed, as a salve for any scruples, to send him as pay 
 master to New Mexico. The gallant Kentuckian spurned the bribe, gave his 
 services, and at last his life, to the Confederacy, and fell in the numerous 
 throng of brave defenders of truth, justice and liberty. His wife lives, known 
 as one of the most enthusiastic and devoted patriot women of the South 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 135 
 
 Kosecrans found occasion after the battle to congratulate 
 his army on their retention of Chattanooga. He said, " You 
 have accomplished the great work of the campaign ; you hold 
 the key of East Tennessee, of Northern Georgia, and of the 
 enemy s mines of coal and nitre." He claimed that he held in 
 his hands the substantial fruits of victory, and sought to per 
 suade his government that the battle of Chickamauga was 
 merely an incident to the concentration of his forces and his 
 cover of Chattanooga. He lost no time in reorganizing his 
 army at Chattanooga. He assumed a fortified line about a 
 mile and a half in length, covering the pontoons, stores and 
 hospitals, and commanding all the south-east and eastern ap 
 proaches to the place, leaving Bragg no chance to dislodge him 
 by direct attack, only by long and toilsome maneuvers and 
 narches threatening his communications. 
 
 Bragg s awkward pause before Chattanooga was the occa 
 sion of new propositions of the campaign on our side. Of one 
 of these General Bragg communicated as follows to the War 
 Department at Richmond. 
 
 " The suggestion of a movement by our right immediately 
 after the battle, to the north of the Tennessee, and thence upon 
 Nashville, requires notice only because it will find a place in 
 the files of the Department. Such a movement was utterly 
 impossible for want of transportation. Nearly half our army 
 consisted of reinforcements just before the battle, without a 
 wagon or an artillery horse, and nearly, if not quite, a third of 
 the artillery horses on the field had been lost. The railroad 
 bridges too had been destroyed to a point south of Einggold, 
 and on all the roads from Cleveland to Knoxville. To these 
 insurmountable difficulties were added the entire absence of 
 means to cross the river, except by fording at a few precarious 
 points too deep for artillery, and the well known danger of 
 sudden rises by which all communication would be cut, a con 
 tingency which did actually happen a few days after the 
 visionary scheme was proposed. But the most serious objec 
 tion to the proposition was its entire want of military propri 
 ety. It abandoned to the enemy our entire line of communi 
 cation, and laid open to him our depots of supplies, while it 
 placed us with a greatly inferior force beyond a difficult, and 
 at times impassable river, in a country affording no subsist- 
 
136 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 ence to men or animals. It also left open to the enemy, at a 
 distance of only ten miles, our battle-field, with thousands of 
 our wounded, and his own, and all the trophies and supplies 
 we had won. All this was t-9 be risked and given up, for 
 what? to gain the enemy s rear and cut him off from his depot 
 of supplies, by the route over the mountains, when the very 
 movement abandoned to his unmolested use the better and 
 more practicable route half the length, on the south side of tho 
 river. 
 
 "It is hardly necessary to say the proposition was not even 
 entertained, whatever may have been the inferences drawn 
 from subsequent movements." 
 
 The plan preferred by General Bragg was to invest Chatta 
 nooga, and starve the enemy out. Rosecrans shortest and 
 most important road to his depot at Bridgeport lay along the 
 south bank of the Tennessee ; and, as Bragg held this, the 
 enemy was forced to a road double the length, over two ranges 
 of mountains, by wagon transportation, upon which long and 
 difficult route our cavalry might operate with advantage. 
 Looking to a speedy evacuation of Chattanooga, for want of 
 wood and forage, General Bragg declared that he " held the 
 enemy at his mercy, and that his destruction was only a ques 
 tion of time." Alas, we shall see hereafter how vain were the 
 Banguine expectations and the swollen boast of this ill-starred 
 and unfortunate commander ! 
 
 General Bragg has burdened the story of Chickamauga with 
 recriminations of his officers : a resource to which he showed, 
 on all occasions, a characteristic and ungenerous tendency. 
 His course, in this respect, invites and justifies severe criticism 
 of himself. Whatever may have been the faults of his subor 
 dinate officers in the action of Chickamauga, it is certain that 
 the military opinion of the Confederacy indicated two import 
 ant errors of his own in the conduct of this famous battle. 
 
 1. That he failed to cut off the enemy s exit to Chattanooga, 
 which it is considered he might have done, if he had marched 
 his army by the right flank, and crossed lower down on the 
 Chickamauga ; at such point throwing his army across the 
 creek and valley, forming it at right angles to the Lafayette 
 and Chattanooga road, and so covering the exit from the valley 
 in the direction of Chattanooga. As it was, he crossed his 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 137 
 
 army north of Lee and Gordon s Mills, ordered a d em "list ra 
 tion there, which might have been well used as a cover for the 
 proper movement, and utterly failed, as his critics say, to grasp 
 the situation. 
 
 2. That he failed to pursue a routed and disorganized 
 enemy, threw away the opportunity of completing his victory, 
 realized no substantial fruit from it, and, after one of the most 
 splendid successes in the record of Confederate arms, left his 
 enemy in statu quo, reorganizing at leisure. 
 
 In this latter respect, Chickamauga must indeed be con 
 fessed to be a second and enlarged edition of the famous Bull 
 Run. It will stand conspicuous among the various fruitless 
 victories gained by the Confederates among the least pardon 
 able blunders and shortcomings of history.* 
 
 * We may place here, in conjunction with CMckamauga, some interesting 
 passages from a private letter of a distinguished general officer in the West, 
 reviewing the campaign there, and criticising with great intelligence, the gen 
 eral military policy of the Confederacy : 
 
 .... It would be a laborious task to review the campaigns even of tho 
 Army of Tennessee. Yet what profound lessons do they teach ? What errors 
 have been committed ? What opportunities have been lost ? The man who 
 does not see these, and who has not learned from them powerful lessons for 
 the future, is totally unfit for any responsible military position in the pregnant 
 future, on which the destiny of untold millions now trembles. 
 
 We lost Donelson, and as a consequence Middle Tennessee, from the want of 
 rapid combination and concentration. We lost Shiloh first by delay, then by 
 want of persistence in the first day s fight, then for the want of the proper dis 
 tribution of troops at the close of that day. We threw away the golden mo 
 ments at Mumfordsville, in Kentucky, and further neglected to make security 
 doubly sure by concentrating the two armies, Smith s and Bragg s ; and vet 
 again these two armies, for the want of proper generalship and energy together, 
 precipitately and inglorlously abandoned the broad territory between the Ohio 
 and the Cumberland rivers. It is remarkable, that this campaign in Kentucky 
 presented more glorious opportunities for great results, than any other in this, 
 or, perhaps, any other war, and all was lost for the want of the simplest com 
 binations. Again, Nashville, garrisoned by a few thousand Federals, was not 
 taken, simply because the attack was prohibited. God knows how often this 
 city might have been taken before the battle of Murfreesboro , while the two 
 armies wer* lying idle or being slowly moved, without any decided plan or 
 purpose. How often before ano! subsequent to the battle of Murfreesboro , did 
 the dispersed condition of the Yankee forces offer the opportunity for a good 
 general to make a vigorous find rapid movement, such as would have destroyed 
 its fragments in detail ? Murfreesboro was lost by want, first, of proper com 
 bination on the field, and then by want of persistence in the fight, especially on 
 the left. In six weeks after the battle of Murfreesboro , our army in Tennessee 
 
138 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 was as strong as when it fought that battle, and could have driven Rosecrans 
 from Tennessee with ordinary generalship. From March till June, in 1863, 
 we remained idly stretching from Shelbyville to the right, while the Yankees, 
 holding a line from Franklin to Woodbury, again and again afforded us an op 
 portunity to fall, by rapid combinations, upon detached masses, and thus de 
 stroy their army. In July we occupied a strong ridge, stretching from Bell- 
 Buckle towards Bradyville, very strong by nature on the right, and made strong 
 by fortifications on the left, in front of Shelbyville. An injudicious disposition 
 of forces left Hoover s Gap undefended by our army. Rosecrans advanced upon 
 Hoover s Gap. Three brigades of Confederates moved rapidly up and held 
 them in the gap for over forty hours. A rapid concentration of our forces at 
 Hoover s Gap, or one half of them, by moving on the enemy s flank and rear, 
 to a commanding position, which lay invitingly before us, would have routed 
 the enemy, and planted us still more firmly in Tennessee. But we were or 
 dered to retreat, and we retired before the scattered forces of the enemy, when 
 a rapid combination and a vigorous attack, with a sudden change from a retro- 
 grade to an advance movement on some one of the enemy s masses in motion, 
 might have insured victory. In that retrograde movement we also abandoned 
 some remarkably strong positions without taking advantage of them, or making 
 an effort to repulse the enemy, even when we could have done so without dan 
 ger to our army. 
 
 At Chickamauga, the world knows, we lost the fruits of the victory for want 
 of vigorous pursuit. On the night of the 20th of September there should have 
 been no sleep and no repose. A vigorous, persistent, onward movement would 
 have destroyed Rosecrans army. How deplorable has been the consequences 
 of our want of energy, want of activity, and want of persistence ! The army 
 of Tennessee being tied to no special line of operations, and embarrassed by no 
 important point, such as Richmond, requiring to be defended, had greatly the 
 advantage over the army of Virginia, yet the former has constantly yielded up 
 territory to a conquering foe, and the latter has overthrown every army that 
 came against it. 
 
 I have meant merely to allude to the errors on our line of operations. Thec*> 
 are greater errors than these, greater because they pertain to the management 
 of all the Confederate forces. They are errors in what is usually denominated 
 grand strategy. 
 
 We now have, I may say, numerous independent armies in the field, each 
 fecting almost without reference to all the others, and rarely co-operating with 
 any other army. 
 
 The Allied Armies, in 1814, entered France with 400,000 men, and had a 
 numerous force hovering on the borders of that empire. Napoleon had but 
 120,000 in the field, exclusive of the forces shut up in fortifications and ope 
 rating beyond the boundaries of France. We know how nearly he came to 
 vanquishing the Allied Powers, and even his enemies have demonstrated how 
 he could have completely overthrown the armies against which he contended 
 A rapid concentration of forces upon detafched armies, is a well-established 
 means by which inferior forces must conquer superior numbers. Superior mo 
 bility in strategy, and the concentrated, swift, lightning stroke in the hour of 
 battle, must compensate for inferiority of numbers. Napoleon, Frederick the 
 Great, and Charles the XII., have illustrated these facts, and they have become 
 the most familiar Lessons of the soldier. But, with proper strategy, in my 
 
THE THIBD YEAR. 139 
 
 opinion, we need seldom fight superior forces. Look at the position of all our 
 armies now. We are remaining listlessly waiting for the enemy to mass his 
 forces and men upon us. Can any one contemplate this attitude of our armies, 
 and not feel utterly astonished at our policy, and the repose into which we have 
 sunk on every hand? Where is that activity which should belong to inferior 
 forces ? It is rather to be found among our enemies, whose superior numbers 
 would entitle them to the repose which we have quietly assumed. 
 
UO SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTEK VL 
 
 Political Movements in the Fall of 1863. The " Peace Party" in tl e North. The 
 Yankee Fall Elections. The War Democrats in the North. The South s Worst 
 Enemies. Yankee Self-Glorification. Farragut s Dinner-Party. The Russian Ban 
 quet. Russia and Yankeedom. The Poles and the Confederates. THE POLITICAL 
 TROUBLES IN KENTUCKY. Brarnlette and Wickcliffe. The Democratic Platform in 
 Kentucky. Political Ambidexterity. Burnside s Despotic Orders. The Kentucky 
 "Board of Trade." An Election by Bayonets. The Fate of Kentucky Sealed. OUR 
 EUROPEAN RELATIONS. Dismissal of the Foreign Consuls in the Confederacy. 
 Seizure of the Confederate "Rams" in England. The Confederate Privateers. 
 Their Achievements. British Interests in Privateering. The Profits of So-called 
 "Neutrality." NAVAL AFFAIRS OF THE CONFEDERACY. Embarrassments of Our 
 Naval Enterprise. The Naval Structures of the Confederates. LEE S FLANK MOVE 
 MENT IN VIRGINIA. Afiair of Bristoe Station. Failure of Lee s Plans. Meade s 
 Escape to Centreville. imboden s Operations in the Valley. Capture of Charlestown. 
 OPERATIONS AT RAPPAHANNOCK BRIDGE. Kelley s Ford. Surprise and Capture of 
 Hayes and Hoke s Brigades. Gallantry of Colonel Godwin. Lee s Army on the 
 Rapidan. THE AFFAIR OF GERMANIA FORD. Meade Foiled. The "On-to-Rich- 
 inond" Delayed. 
 
 must take the reader s attention from military campaigns 
 to certain political movements, which, in the fall of 1863, ap 
 parently involved more or less distinctly the fortunes of the 
 war. 
 
 The long-continued delusion, indulged by Southern men, of 
 u a peace party" in the North, which would eventually compel 
 peace on the terms of the Confederacy, is to be compared to 
 that similar delusion of Northern politicians, which insisted 
 that " a Union party" existed in the. South, and that it was 
 only temporarily suppressed by a faction. There was not the 
 least foundation in fact for either of these opinions ; and the 
 agreeable confidence of the South, in . ts supposed friends in the 
 North, was to be rudely dispelled by events that admitted of 
 but one construction. The South had mistaken for substantial 
 tokens of public sentiment the clamors and exaggerations of 
 party elections. The Democratic party in the North went into 
 the fall elections of 1863, on the issue of a general opposition 
 to the Lincoln Administration ; at the same time, promising a 
 vigorous " constitutional" prosecution of the war, while their 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 141 
 
 vag ie allusions to an impossible peace and platitudes of fra 
 ternal sentiment were merely intended to catch favor in the 
 South, and really meant nothing. Even Mr. Seymour, of New 
 York, managed, while cozening the South, to maintain, on the 
 other hand, a cordial understanding with the authorities at 
 Washington ; and lie found it necessary to conclude one of his 
 finest speeches by saying, " never have I embarrassed the Ad 
 ministration, and I never will." 
 
 But even on its moderate issues, with reference to the war, 
 which, as we have seen, proposed only certain constitutional 
 limitations, the Democratic party in the North was badly beaten 
 in the fall elections. From Minnesota to Maine, the Democrats 
 were defeated. In the latter, which was supposed to be the 
 least fanatical of the New England States, the Republicans 
 carried the election by an overwhelming majority. In Ohio, 
 Vallandigharn was defeated. He was still in exile. Voorhies, 
 who had proclaimed doctrines somewhat similar to his, in a 
 neighboring State, narrowly escaped being lynched by the 
 soldiers. The elections were followed by a remarkable period 
 of political quiet in the North. Those who had the courage to 
 confront the administration of Lincoln, had either been sup 
 pressed by the strong hand of lawless power, or had supinely 
 sought safety in silence. The overthrow of free government in 
 the North was complete. 
 
 The South was not easily imposed upon by that organized 
 hypocrisy, the War Democracy of the North. While it pro 
 fessed constitutional moderation in the conduct of the war, it 
 aimed at the reconstruction of the Union, which was only a 
 different phrase for the military conquest of the South. It 
 must be observed that so far as questions of the constitutional 
 conduct of the authorities at Washington were made in the 
 North, they were questions entirely between their domestic 
 parties, which did not properly interest the people of the Con 
 federacy, inasmuch as their demand for independence, simple 
 and absolute, had nothing to do with the modifications of the 
 different parties which opposed it. Indeed, with regard to this 
 demand, the War Democrat at the North was a far more 
 dangerous enemy to the Confederacy than the open and avowed 
 Abolitionist. The former was more plausible; his programme 
 of reconstruction carried an appearance of possibility to entice 
 
142 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the popular faith which that of naked conquest did not possess 
 But both programmes that of the War Democrat and that of 
 the Abolitionist were equally fatal to the Confederacy : as it 
 mattered not what was the formula of subjugation, if the 
 people of the South once placed themselves within the power 
 of their treacherous enemies, and submitted to any form of their 
 authority. 
 
 The North had yet shown no real disposition to abandon the 
 war. The Yankees were still busy with the game of self-glori 
 fication. Their conceit, their love of display, their sensations 
 amused the world. Their favorite generals were all Napoleons; 
 in the cities mobs of admirers chased them from hotel to hotel ; 
 in the New England towns deputations of school-girls kissed 
 them in public. Farragut, their successful admiral, was enter 
 tained in New York with feasts, where a plaster of ice-cream 
 represented the American Eagle, and miniature ships, built of 
 sticks of candy, loaded the table. These childish displays and 
 vain glory had culminated in an immense banquet given to a 
 Russian fleet in the harbor of New York, at which distinguished 
 Yankee orators declared that the time had come when Russia 
 and the United States were to be taken as twins in civilization 
 and power, to hold in subjection all others of Christendom, and 
 to accomplish the " destiny" of the nineteenth century. 
 
 And really this festive fervor but gave insolent expression 
 to an idea that had long occupied thoughtful minds in distant 
 quarters of the world. Christendom was called upon to wit 
 ness two political murders. While twenty millions of Yankees 
 sought to strangle the Southern Confederacy, fifty millions of 
 Muscovites combined to keep ten or twelve millions of Poles 
 under a detested yoke. In their infamous attempt upon Poland, 
 Russians tried to pass themselves off as the defenders of liberal 
 ideas against Polish aristocracy ; and it was declared that the 
 Polish nobility was in rebellion in order not to be forced to 
 emancipate the serfs. " Russia and the United States," said a 
 French writer of the time, " proclaim the liberty of the serf 
 and the emancipation of the slave, but in return both seek to 
 reduce to slavery all who defend liberty and independence." 
 
 Liberty of the press, of speech, of public meetings, even the 
 venerable privilege of habeas corpus, inherited from England 
 had already been put under the feet of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
THE THIRD TEAR. 143 
 
 While the Democratic party was timidly protesting in tie 
 Northern States, Mr. Lincoln had prefaced the farce of the 
 fall elections in the North by an outrage upon the ballot in 
 Kentucky, which Yankee Democrats were too weak or too dis 
 honest to resent. 
 
 A history of the Kentucky troubles, in some details, is the 
 best commentary we can choose from events, upon the condi 
 tion to which the whole system of political liberty had fallen 
 *n the North. 
 
 THE POLITICAL TROUBLES IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 In the last days of August, 1862, the Hon. Beriah Magoffin 
 resigned his office as Governor of the State of Kentucky. From 
 causes into which it is not necessary now to enter, he had in 
 curred the suspicion of a great majority of the Union party, 
 and through the Legislature they had succeeded in divesting 
 him of all real power in the government. The executive con 
 trol of the State had rapidly fallen into the hands of the mili 
 tary officers of the United States, and for months the people 
 had been subject to martial law in all its oppressiveness, with 
 out its declaration in form. Under these circumstances, and 
 for the purpose of relieving the people, and especially that por 
 tion of them known as "Southern-rights Men," who had been 
 the peculiar objects of persecution, Mr. Magoffin, in a pub 
 lished letter, declared his willingness to resign whenever he 
 could be assured of the election of a successor of conservative 
 views, who, commanding the confidence at the same time of 
 the Administration at AVashington and of the people of Ken 
 tucky, would be able and willing to secure every peaceful 
 citizen in the exercise of the rights guaranteed to him by the 
 Constitution and laws. James F. Hobinson, then a member of 
 the Senate, was indicated to him, and he consented to resign 
 in his favor. 
 
 For the August election of 1863, Thomas E. Bramlette was 
 
 O t 
 
 offered as a candidate for governor. Mr. Bramlette main 
 tained general^ the rightfulness of the suspension of the writ 
 of habeas corpus, and the extension of martial law over Statoa 
 where war did not exist, and gave in a quasi adhesion to Mr. 
 Lincoln s policy. 
 
14.4 SOUTHERN IIISTOBT OF THE WAR. 
 
 A number of Kentucky Democrats presented a ticket in 
 opposition, headed by C. A. "Wickcliffe for governor, and pub 
 lished the following expressions of their views, as comprising 
 the issues of the approaching election. 
 
 "We cannot consent to the doctrine that the Constitution and laws are 
 inadequate to the present emergency ; that the constitutional guarantees of 
 liberty and property can be suspended by war. 
 
 " Our fathers certainly did not intend that our Constitution should be a fair- 
 weather document, to be laid away in a storm, or a fancy garment to be worn 
 only in dry weather. On the contrary, it is in times like the present that con 
 stitutional restraints on the power of those in authority are needed. 
 
 " We hold the Federal government to be one of limited powers, that cannot 
 be enlarged by the existence of civil commotion. 
 
 " We hold the rights reserved to the States equally sacred with those granted 
 to the United States. The government has no more right to disregard the 
 Constitution and laws of the States than the States have to disregard the Con 
 stitution and laws of the United States. 
 
 " We hold that the Administration has committed grave errors in confisca 
 tion bills, lawless proclamations, and military orders setting aside constitutions 
 and laws, and making arrests outside of military lines where there is no pub 
 lic danger to excuse it. 
 
 " It is now obvious that the fixed purpose of the Administration is to arm 
 the negroes of the South to make war upon the whites, and we hold it to be 
 the duty of the people of Kentucky to enter against such a policy a solemn 
 and most emphatic protest. 
 
 " We hold as sacred and inalienable the right of free speech and a free 
 press that the government belongs to the people and not the people to the 
 government. 
 
 "We hold this rebellion utterly unjustifiable in its inception , and a dissolu 
 tion of the Union the greatest of calamities. We would use all just and con- 
 stitutional means adapted to tho suppression of the one and the restoration oi 
 the other." 
 
 Notwithstanding these resolutions, which so carefully sound 
 ed in "loyalty," and exhibited the usual ambidexterity of the 
 War Democracy, it soon became evident that the authorities 
 at Washington were determined to interfere in the Kentucky 
 election, and force it exactly to their purpose. Messrs. Wolfe 
 and Trimble, candidates for Congress in the First and Fifth 
 districts, and Mr. Martin, candidate for the Legislature in Lyon 
 and Livingston counties, were arrested by the provost-mar- 
 bhals. 
 
 On the 31st of July, Burnside declared martial law in Ken 
 lucky. The following is a summary of the most outrageous of 
 the despotic orders which followed in quick succession the dec 
 laration of imirtial law. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 145 
 
 1. By way of precaution, the people are informed that when 
 ever any property is needed for the use of the United States 
 army, it will be taken from rebel sympathizers, and receipts 
 given for the same marked " disloyal," and to be paid at the 
 end of the war, on proof that the holder is a loyal man. 
 
 2. Rebel sympathizers are defined to be riot only those who 
 are ill favor of secession, but also those who are not in favor ot 
 a vigorous prosecution of the war, and of furnishing men and 
 money unconditionally for that purpose. " Loyalty" is to be 
 proved by the vote given at the election. 
 
 3. County judges are required to appoint none but "loyal" 
 men as judges of election, notwithstanding the provisions of 
 our laws, which require the officers of election to be taken 
 equally from each political party. 
 
 4:. Persons offering to vote, whose votes may be rejected by 
 the judges, are notified that they will be immediately arrested 
 by the military. 
 
 5. The judges of election are notified that they will be ar 
 rested and held responsible by the military, should they permit 
 any disloyal men to vote. 
 
 In addition to all this there was at work beneath the surface 
 a potent machinery, whose labors could be traced only by 
 results, for the work was done in darkness and in secret. 
 
 In every city, town, and considerable village in the common 
 wealth, there had long been organized, under the authority of 
 .the Secretary of the Treasury, a body of men known as a 
 " Board of Trade," an innocent title, little expressive of their 
 true functions. Under the same regulations of the Secretary, 
 no shipments of goods to the interior of the State could be 
 made without the permit of the United States custom-house 
 officers at Cincinnati or Louisville. In order to obtain such a 
 permit, the individual applying must have procured the recom 
 mendation of the " Board of Trade" located nearest to his place 
 of business, arid the recommendation was given to none but 
 " loyal" men, each Board establishing its own test of " loyalty." 
 Without such recommendation no merchant could hope to add 
 to his stock by importation no mechanic to replenish the ma 
 terials necessary in his calling. These inquisitorial bodies, 
 therefore, held in their hands the absolute fate of every trades 
 man and mechanic in the State. The prosperous merchant 
 
 10 
 
116 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and needy shopkeeper were alike at their mercy. The trades 
 man and mechanic were thus left to choose between a vote for 
 Bramlette and the utter ruin of their business. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which the election of 
 August 3d was begun. In twelve counties not a single vote 
 was permitted to be cast for Wickliffe. In eight others he re 
 ceived less than ten votes to the county. In fifteen others he 
 received less than fifty votes to the county. In sixteen others 
 he received less than one hundred votes to the county. These 
 fifty-one counties embraced many of the strongest Democratic 
 counties in the State. In only twenty-eight counties of the 
 State did Bramlette receive a majority of the population en 
 titled to vote. Less than two-fifths of the population entitled 
 to vote made him Governor of Kentucky. Thus was the fate 
 of Kentucky sealed, and, on the 1st of September, Bramlette 
 entered upon the duties of the office into which he had been 
 foisted by bayonets. 
 
 We have briefly seen what little comfort there was for the 
 Confederates in the fall elections of 1863, and the contemporary 
 political movements in the North. We naturally glance from 
 this part of the situation, external to the military campaigns, 
 to the European relations of the Confederacy. Here there wa 
 quite as little encouragement for the South as in that othe) 
 alternative of hope outside the war Yankee politics. 
 
 OUE EUROPEAN RELATIONS. 
 
 Some feeble attempt was made by the Confederacy in the 
 fall of 1863 to reassert its dignity by the dismissal of the 
 foreign consuls, who had been, oddly enough, allowed for 
 nearly three years to reside in the Confederate States, and exer 
 cise super-consular powers under authority granted by the 
 government with which we were at war. The force of this pro 
 ceeding was, however, much impaired by the fact that it was 
 attributed to certain objectionable action of the British consuls 
 in the Confederacy, and not based, as it should have been, upon 
 the conduct and bearing towards us of the British Government 
 itself. Put upon that ground, the dismissal would have marked 
 distinctly our sense of British injustice. 
 
 We have referred in former pages to the prejudicial effect 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 
 
 of so-called British " neutrality " with respect to the Confede 
 rate States. Another instance was now to be afforded of its 
 unequal and unjust disposition in the seizure by the British 
 Government of two two-thousand-ton iron-clads, combining the 
 ram and monitor principles, which were being built for the 
 Confederacy by the Messrs. Laird, at Birkenhead. The seizure 
 was made without any evidence to justify it. The Messrs. 
 Laird were forbidden to allow these vessels to leave their yard 
 " without an ample explanation of their destination and a sus 
 tainable reference to the owner or owners for whom they are 
 constructed." It was curiously held by Lord Russell that 
 " Messrs. Laird were bound to declare and sustain on unim 
 peachable testimony such declaration the government for 
 whom the steam rams have been built." In other words, with 
 out an affidavit or other legal foundation for proceedings 
 against them, these gentlemen were required to come forward 
 and prove their innocence. 
 
 The animus displayed in this proceeding was in keeping with 
 the whole conduct of the British ministry towards this country. 
 They suspended, to our great detriment, the law of nations 
 which allowed captures at sea to be taken into neutral ports for 
 condemnation. They ignored and violated their own solemn 
 engagement in the Treaty of Paris, requiring that a blockade, 
 to be acknowledged and binding, should be such as actually to 
 exclude ships from ingress or egress. They allowed their 
 Foreign Enlistment Act to be inoperative against our enemy, 
 permitting them not only to supply themselves with vast quan 
 tities of arms and ammunition, but even to recruit their armies 
 from British dominions. But they had revived against us a 
 law practically obsolete, and, in order to give it force and 
 make it applicable, they had reversed a principle of law to be 
 found in the codes of all free countries. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the invidiousness of foreign powers, 
 especially against the naval efforts of the Confederacy, it was 
 a matter of surprise how much we had accomplished upon the 
 sea against an enemy whose navy was his particular boast. A 
 few solitary ships, hunted by vast navies, had maintained in 
 foreign seas a warfare that required not only the loftiest cour 
 age, but the most consummate skill, the most sleepless vigilance, 
 and the most perfect self-reliance. 
 
148 SOUTHEEN HISTOEY OF THE WAB. 
 
 Two years had passed since Semmes commenced his cruise 
 in the Sumter, since which time about one hundred and fifty 
 Yankee vessels, valued, with their cargoes, at ten million 
 dollars, had been captured by vessels under the Confederate 
 flag. From the first appearance of the little schooner, Jeff 
 Davis, the Confederate navy had been the terror of the entire 
 Yankee mercantile marine.* 
 
 The effect of our privateering on Yankee commerce and ton 
 nage was already immense. Since the commencement of the 
 war, three hundred and eighty-five vessels, with an aggregate 
 tonnage of more than one hundred and sixty-six thousand tons, 
 had been transferred to foreigners at the port of New York 
 alone, most of which were sailing under the flag of Great 
 Britain, the most prominent commercial rival of the Yankee. 
 At other ports the same practice had prevailed, and it would 
 be fair to estimate the loss of Yankee tonnage under it, during 
 the past two years, at three hundred thousand tons. This loss 
 to the North, as a matter of course, involved a consequent in 
 crease of the tonnage and power of its rivals. 
 
 In the first six months of the year 1860 the number of ves 
 sels cleared at New York for foreign ports was seventeen hun 
 dred and ninety-five, of which eleven hundred and thirty-three 
 were American and six hundred and sixty-two foreign a dif 
 ference of nearly one hundred per cent, in favor of American 
 vessels ; while, during the same period of the present year, 
 there had been twenty-one hundred and ninety-seven clear 
 ances, of which fourteen hundred and fifty were foreign and 
 only seven hundred and forty-seven American showing an 
 increase in the number of foreign vessels, and a difference in 
 their favor, as compared with the first named period, of about 
 two hundred per cent. 
 
 The Yankees had a navy which was daily increasing, and 
 one which, in war-making power, already exceeded vastly any 
 navy in the world. Yet it was impotent against a few Con- 
 
 * A report was made to the Yankee Congress of captures by Confederate 
 cruisers up to the 30th of January, 1864. The list, which was not complete, 
 foots up 193, with a tonnage of 89,704. At fifty dollars a ton, the vessels are 
 valued at $4,485,200 ; the cargoes, at one hundred dollars a ton, are estimated 
 at $8,970,400. Total value, $13,455,500. Sixty-two were captured by the Ala 
 bama, twenty-six by the Sumter, and twenty-two by the Florida. 
 
THE THIRD YEAH. 149 
 
 federate cruisers which defied its power, and burnt Yankee 
 Teasels even within sight of their commercial marts. 
 
 NAVAL AFFAIRS OF THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 We take occasion here to make a brief summary of what 
 had been accomplished in the naval affairs of the Confederacy 
 since the commencement of the war. At that time, but seven 
 steam war vessels had been built in the States now forming 
 the Confederacy since the war of 1812, and the engines of 
 only two of these had been contracted for in these States. All 
 the labor or materials requisite to complete and equip a war 
 vessel could not be commanded at any one point of the Con 
 federacy. 
 
 To these disadvantages was to be added the notorious incom- 
 petency of the Confederate Secretary of the Navy. His con 
 tracts were injudicious; and there was traced more or less 
 directly to his mismanagement, the destruction of the Yir- 
 ginia-Merrimac, the Louisiana, the Mississippi, the vessels in 
 Lake Ponchartrain, bayou St. John, the Yazoo and Mississippi 
 rivers, and elsewhere. 
 
 Yet the department, with all its drawbacks, could now 
 exhibit results of no mean order. It had erected a powder- 
 mill, which supplied all the powder required by our navy ; 
 two engine-boilers and machine-shops, and five ordnance work 
 shops. It had established eighteen yards for building war 
 vessels, and a rope-walk, making all cordage, from a rope-yarn 
 to a nine-inch cable, and capable of turning out eight thousand 
 per month. 
 
 Of vessels not iron-clad, the department had purchased and 
 otherwise acquired and converted to war vessels, forty -four. 
 
 Had built and completed as war vessels, twelve. 
 
 Had partially constructed and destroyed to save from the 
 enemy, ten. 
 
 And had now under construction, nine. 
 
 Of iron-clad vessels, it had completed and ha 1 now in com 
 mission, fourteen. 
 
 Had completed and destroyed, or lost by capture, four. 
 
150 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Had in progress of construction and in various stages of for 
 wardness, twenty. 
 
 It had, also, one iron-clad floating battery, presented to th 
 Confederate States by the ladies of Georgia ; and one iron-clad 
 ram partially completed and turned over to the Confederacy 
 by the State of Alabama. 
 
 Taking into consideration the poverty of our means, and 
 the formidable naval power and boundless resources of our 
 enemy, at the beginning of this war, our people had no 
 sufficient cause for shame or discouragement in the operations 
 ,of our navy. 
 
 We must return from the discussion of these general subjects* 
 to -the military campaign of the later months of 1863, and take 
 up the long-suspended story of Lee s army in Yirginia. 
 
 Since its campaign into Pennsylvania, it had rested on the 
 Rapidan. In October General Lee was prepared to put into 
 execution a campaign which promised the most brilliant re 
 suits, as its ultimate object appears to have been to get between 
 Meade and Washington. 
 
 With the design of bringing on an engagement with the 
 Yankee army, which was encamped around Culpepper Court 
 house, and extending thence to the Rapidan, Lee s army 
 crossed that river on the 9th instant, and advanced by way oi 
 Madison Court-house. Our progress was necessarily slow, as 
 the march was by circuitous and concealed roads, in order to 
 avoid the observation of the enemy. 
 
 General Fitz Lee, with his cavalry division and a detachment 
 of infantry, remained to hold our lines south of the Rapidan ; 
 General Stuart, with Hampton s division, moved on the right 
 of the column. With a portion of his command he attacked 
 the advance of the enemy near James City, on the 10th, and 
 drove them back towards Culpepper. Our main body arrived 
 near that place on the llth instant, and discovered that the 
 enemy had retreated towards the Rappahannock, removing or 
 destroying his stores. We were compelled to halt during the 
 rest of the day to provision the troops, but the cavalry, under 
 
THE THIRD YEAR, 151 
 
 General Stuart, continued to press the enemy s rear guard 
 towards the Rappahannock. A large force of Federal cavalry, 
 in the mean time, had crossed the Rapidan, after our move 
 ment begun, but was repulsed by General Fitz Lee, and pur 
 sued towards Brandy Station. 
 
 Near that place the commands of Stuart and Lee united, on 
 the afternoon of the llth, and, after a severe engagement, 
 drove the enemy s cavalry across the Rappahanuock, with 
 heavy loss. 
 
 On the morning of the 12th, the army marched in two 
 columns, with the design of reaching the Orange and Alexan 
 dria railroad, north of the river, and interrupting the retreat of 
 the enemy. 
 
 After a skirmish with some of the Federal cavalry at Jeffer- 
 sonton, we reached the Rappahannock at Warrenton Springs, 
 in the afternoon, where the passage of the river was disputed 
 by cavalry and artillery. The enemy was quickly driven off 
 by a detachment of our cavalry, aided by a small force of in 
 fantry and a battery. Early next morning, 13th, the march 
 was resumed, and the two columns united at Warrenton in the 
 afternoon, when another Halt was made to supply the troops 
 with provisions. The enemy fell back rapidly along the line 
 of the railroad, and early on the 14th the pursuit was con 
 tinued, a portion of the army moying by way of New Balti 
 more towards Bristoe Station, and the rest, accompanied by 
 the main body of the cavalry, proceeded to the same point by 
 Auburn Mills and Greenwich. Near the former place a 
 skirmish took place between General Ewell s advance and the 
 rear guard of the enemy, which was forced back and rapidly 
 pursued. 
 
 The retreat of the enemy was conducted by several direct 
 parallel roads, while our troops were compelled to march by 
 difficult and circuitous routes. We were consequently unable 
 to intercept him. General Hill arrived first at Bristoe Station, 
 where his advance, consisting of two brigades, became engaged 
 with a force largely superior in numbers, posted behind the 
 railr<! ad embankment. 
 
 The action of Bristoe Station was a disastrous affair for the 
 Confederates. Hill s brigades were repulsed with considerable 
 loss in killed and wounded, and the loss of five pieces of 
 
152 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 i 
 
 artillery. The Yankees reported their loss at fifty-one killed 
 and three hundred twenty-nine wounded, and claimed to have 
 captured four hundred and fifty prisoners. 
 
 The repulse at Bristoe proved the end of General Lee s 
 plans, so far as they embraced the view of getting on Meade a 
 communications, or reaching Centreville before him. Before 
 the rest of the troops could be brought up to Hill s assistance 
 and the position of the enemy ascertained, Meade retreated 
 across Broad Run. The next morning he was reported to be 
 fortifying beyond Bull Eun, extending his line towards the 
 Little River Turnpike. 
 
 The vicinity of the entrenchments around Washington and 
 Alexandria rendered it useless to turn his new position, as it 
 was apparent that he could readily retire to them, and would 
 decline an engagement unless attacked in his fortifications. A 
 further advance was therefore deemed unnecessary, and after 
 destroying the railroad from Cub Run southwardly to the 
 Rappahannock, the army returned on the 18th to the line of 
 that river, leaving the cavalry in the enemy s front. 
 
 The fall campaign in Virginia must be confessed a failure. 
 It was an attempt by Lee to flank Meade and get between him 
 and "Washington. Unfortunately the enemy appears to have 
 become cognizant of the plan at the moment of its execution, 
 and to have retreated with sufficient deliberation to destroy all 
 their stores that they did not carry off to the fortifications of 
 Centreville. It was impossible to follow them, for the country 
 was a desert in which our army could not live, while the enemy 
 would be at the door of the magazines in Washington. 
 
 But while General Lee s flank movement had thus terminated 
 in disappointment, a contemporary and accompanying opera 
 tion in the Valley district had been most fortunate. When 
 the movement of the army from the Rapidan commenced, 
 General Imboden was instructed to advance down the Valley 
 and guard the gaps of the mountains on General Lee s left. 
 This duty was well performed by that officer, and on the 18th 
 October he marched upon Charlestown, and succeeded by a 
 well- concerted plan in surrounding the place. Imboden found 
 the epemy occupying the court-house, jail, and some con 
 tiguous buildings, in the heart of the town, all loop-holed for 
 musketry, and the court-house yard enclosed by a heavy wall 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 153 
 
 of oak timber. To his demand for a surrender, Colonel Simp 
 son, the Yankee commander, requested an hour for consider 
 ation. Imboden offered him five minutes, to which he replied 
 "Take me, if you can." Imboden immediately opened on the 
 building with artillery at less than two hundred yards, and 
 with half a dozen shells drove out the enemy into the streets, 
 where he formed and fled towards Harper s Ferry. At the 
 edge of the town he was met by the Eighteenth cavalry and 
 Gilmore s battalions. 
 
 One volley was exchanged, when the enemy threw down his 
 arms and surrendered unconditionally. The Colonel, Lieuteri- 
 ant-colonel, and five others who were mounted, fled at the first 
 fire, and ran the gauntlet, and escaped towards Harper s Ferry. 
 The force captured was the Ninth Maryland regiment and 
 three companies of cavalry, numbering between four and five 
 hundred, men and officers. 
 
 As was expected, the Harper s Ferry forces, infantry, artil 
 lery, and cavalry, appeared at Charlestown in a few hours 
 after Imboden had fired the first gun. The brave Confederate 
 retired, fighting back this largely superior force, bringing off 
 his prisoners and captured property, and inflicting considerable 
 damage upon the pursuing column. 
 
 In the course of these operations in Virginia, in the month 
 of October, two thousand four hundred and thirty-six prisoners 
 were captured, including forty-one commissioned officers ; of 
 the above number, four hundred and thirty-four were taken by 
 General Imboden. 
 
 OPERATIONS AT RAPPAHANNOCK BRIDGE. 
 
 After the return of General Lee s army to the Rappahan- 
 nock, it was disposed on both sides of the Orange and Alexan 
 dria railroad, General E well s corps on the right and General 
 Hill s on the left, with the cavalry on each flank. To hold the 
 line of the Rappahannoek at this part of its course, it was 
 deemed advantageous to maintain our- communication with the 
 north bank, to threaten any flank movement the enemy might 
 make above or below, and thus compel him to divide hia 
 forces, when it was hoped that an opportunity would "he pre- 
 
154: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 sented to concentrate on one or the other part. Fur thi# 
 purpose a point was selected a short distance above the site 01 
 the railroad bridge, where the hills on each side of the river 
 afforded protection to oar pontoon bridge and increased the 
 means of defence. The hill on the north side was converted 
 into a tete-de-pont, and a line of rifle trenches extended along 
 the crest on the right and left, to the river bank. The works 
 on the south side were remodelled, and sunken batteries for 
 additional guns constructed on an adjacent hill to the left. 
 Higher up, on the same side and east of the railroad, near the 
 river bank, sunken batteries for two guns, and rifle-pits, were 
 arranged to command the railroad embankment, under cover 
 of which the enemy might advance. 
 
 Four pieces of artillery were placed in the tete-de-pont, and 
 eight others in the works opposite. 
 
 The defence of this position was intrusted to Lieutenant- 
 general Ewell s corps, and the troops of Johnson s and Early s 
 divisions guarded them alternately, Rodes division being 
 stationed near Kelley s ford. 
 
 The enemy began to rebuild the railroad as soon as we with 
 drew from Bristoe s Station, his army advancing as the work 
 progressed. His movements were regularly reported by our 
 scouts, and it was known that he had advanced from Warren- 
 ton Junction a few days before the attack. 
 
 His approach towards the Rappahannock was announced on 
 the 6th of November, and about noon next day his infantry 
 was discovered advancing to the bridge, while a large force 
 moved in the direction of Kelley s ford, where the first attack 
 was made. 
 
 General Rodes had the Second and Thirtieth North Carolina 
 regiments, of Ramsenr s brigade, on outpost duty at the river. 
 As soon as he perceived that the enemy was in force, he ordered 
 his division to take position in rear of the ford. While it was 
 getting into line, the enemy s artillery opened upon the Second 
 North Carolina, and soon drove it to shelter. The Thirtieth 
 North Carolina was advanced to the assistance of the Second, 
 but in moving across the open ground, was broken by the con 
 centrated fire of the enemy s artillery, and took refuge behind 
 some buildings, at the river. The enemy, being unopposed 
 except by the party in the rifle- pits, crossed at the rapids 
 
THE THIRD YEAR* 155 
 
 above the ford, and captured the troops defending it, together 
 with a large number of the Thirtieth North Carolina, who re 
 fused to leave the shelter of the houses. 
 
 It was not intended by General Lee to attack the enemy un 
 til he should have advanced from the river, where it was hoped, 
 that by holding in check the force at the bridge, we would be 
 able to concentrate upon the other. "With this view, General 
 Johnson s division was ordered to reinforce General Kodes. 
 
 In the mean time a large force was displayed in our front, at 
 the bridge, upon receiving information of which, General A. 
 P. Hill was ordered to get his corps in readiness, and Ander 
 son s division was advanced to the river, on the left of the rail 
 road. The artillery was also ordered to move to the front. 
 General Early put his division in motion towards the bridge, 
 and hastened thither in person. The enemy s skirmishers ad 
 vanced in strong force, with heavy supports, and ours were 
 slowly withdrawn into the trenches. 
 
 Hoke s brigade, of Early s division, under Colonel Godwin 
 (General Hoke being absent with one regiment on detached 
 service), reinforced General Hayes, whose brigade occupied the 
 north bank. No other troops were sent over, the two brigades 
 mentioned being -considered sufficient to man the works, and 
 though inferior to the enemy in numbers, the nature of the po 
 sition was such, that he could not attack with a front more ex 
 tended than our own. 
 
 It was not known whether the demonstration of the enemy 
 was intended as a serious attack, or only to cover the move 
 ment of the force that had crossed at Kelley s ford, but the late 
 ness of the hour and the increasing darkness induced the belief 
 that nothing would be attempted until morning. It was be 
 lieved that our troops on the north side would be able to main 
 tain their position if attacked, and that, in any case, they could 
 withdraw under cover of the guns on the north, the location 
 of the pontoon bridge being beyond the reach of a direct fire 
 from any position occupied by the enemy. 
 
 As soon, however, as it became dark enough to conceal hia 
 movements, the enemy advanced in overwhelming numbers 
 against our rifle-trenches. It was a simultaneous advance, un 
 der cover of the darkness, of the entire force of the enemy. 
 The first line of the enemy was broken and shattered by our 
 
156 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 fire, but the second and third lines continued to advance at a 
 double-quick, arms at a trail, and a column formed by compa- 
 panies, moving down the railroad, was hurled upon our right, 
 which, after a severe struggle, was forced back, leaving the 
 battery in the hands of the enemy. General Hayes ordered a 
 charge of the Ninth Louisiana regiment, for the purpose of jjp- 
 taking the guns ; but his centre having been broken, and the 
 two forces opposed to his right and centre having joined, ren 
 dered the execution of his purpose impracticable. Forming a 
 new line after this junction, facing up the river, the enemy ad 
 vanced, moving behind our works, towards our left, while a 
 line which he had formed in a ravine, above our extreme left, 
 moved down the stream, thus enclosing Hoke s brigade, and 
 the Seventh and Fifth Louisiana regiments, in a manner that 
 rendered escape impossible. Nothing remained but surrender. 
 Many of our men effected their escape in the confusion some 
 by swimming the river, and others by making their way to the 
 bridge, amidst the enemy, and passing over under a shower of 
 balls. General Hayes owed his escape to the fact, that after he 
 was completely surrounded, and was a prisoner, his horse took 
 fright and ran off, and as the enemy commenced firing on him, 
 he concluded to make the effort to escape across the bridge, 
 and was successful. 
 
 Unfortunately no information of this attack was received on 
 the south side of the river until too late for the artillery, there 
 stationed, to aid in repelling it. Indeed, the darkness of the 
 night, and the fear of injuring our own men who had surren 
 dered, prevented General Early from using artillery. 
 
 Colonel Godwin s efforts to extricate his command, were 
 made with a gallant desperation, that has adorned with glory 
 this disaster. He continued to struggle, forming successive 
 lines as he was pushed back, and did not for a moment dream 
 of surrendering ; but, on the contrary, when his men had 
 dwindled to sixty or seventy, the rest having been captured, 
 killed, wounded, or lost in the darkness, and he was completely 
 surrounded by the enemy, who were, in fact, mixed up with 
 his men, some one cried out that Colonel Godwin s order was 
 for them to surrender. He immediately called for the man 
 who made the declaration, and threatened to blow his braina 
 out if he could find him, declaring his purpose to fight to the 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 157 
 
 last moment, and calling upon his men to stand by him. He 
 was literally overpowered, by mere force of numbers, and was 
 taken witb his arms in his bands. 
 
 Of this unfortunate surprise, which cost us the greater por 
 tion of two brigades, there is to be found some excuse in the 
 circumstances that the enemy was aided by a valley in our 
 front in concealing his advance from view, and that a very 
 high wind effectually prevented his movements from being 
 heard. General Lee declared, with characteristic generosity, 
 that " the courage and good conduct of the troops engaged had 
 been too often tried to admit of question." Our loss in pri 
 soners was very considerable. General Rodes reported three 
 hundred of his men missing. General Early s loss in prisoners 
 was sixteen hundred and twenty-nine. 
 
 The loss of the pobition at Rappahannock Bridge made it 
 necessary for General Lee to abandon the design of attacking 
 the force that had crossed at Kelley s ford ; and his army 
 was withdrawn to the only tenable line between Culpep- 
 per Court-house and the Rappahannock, where it remained 
 during the succeeding day. The position not being regarded 
 as favorable, it returned the night following to the south side 
 of the Rapidan. 
 
 THE AFFAIR OF GERMANIA FORD. 
 
 We shall complete here the record of General Lee s army 
 for 1863 with a brief account of another affair which occurred 
 at Germania ford, on the Rapidan, on the 27th of November. 
 
 This affair appears to have been an attempt by Meade of a 
 flank movement on General Lee s position, his immediate ob- 
 ect being to get in the rear of Major-general Johnson s divi 
 sion. This division was composed of the Stonewall brigade, 
 under Brigadier-general J. A. Walker, and Stuart s, J. M. 
 Jones s, and Stafford s brigades, with four pieces of Anderson s 
 artillery. These were the only troops engaged in the affair on 
 our side. Opposed to them were Major-general French s corps 
 (the Third), and one division of the Fifth corps. The enemy 
 were in position, and opened the attack before our forces knew 
 of their presence. Their object was to make a sudden attack 
 from their concealed position upon our flank, disperse the 
 
15S SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 troops and capture our wagon train. They not only failed of 
 their object, but were driven from the field with considerable 
 slaughter. Our loss in killed and wounded was about four 
 hundred and fifty ; that of the enemy was certainly double. 
 
 If Meade had designed a general battle and the fact that, 
 before this movement, his army had supplied itself with eight- 
 days rations argues such design this repulse and the heavy 
 rains appear to have damped his ardor ; and the " on-to- 
 Kichmond " was reserved for another year. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 159 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Chattanooga Lines. Grant s Command. The Military Division of the Missis- 
 ippi.- -Scarcity of Supplies in Chattanooga. Wheeler s Raid. Grant s Plans. He 
 Opens the Communications of Chattanooga. THE AFFAIR OF LOOKOUT VALLEY. 
 Relief of Chattanooga. THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. Bragg s Unfortunate 
 Detachment of Longstreet s Force. His Evacuation of Lookout Mountain. Tho 
 Attack on Missionary Ridge. Hardee s Gallant Resistance. Rout and Panic of the 
 Confederates. President Davis s First Reproof of the Confederate Troops. Bragg s 
 Retreat to Dalton. Cleburne s Gallant Affair. LONGSTREET S EXPEDITION AGAINST 
 KNOXVILLE. More of Bragg s Mismanagement. Insufficiency of Longstreet s Force. 
 Difficulty in Obtaining Supplies. His Investment of Knoxville. An Incident of 
 Personal Gallantry. Daring of an English Volunteer. Longstreet s Plans Discon 
 certed. The Assault on Fort Sanders. Devotion of Longstreet s Veterans. The 
 Yankee " Wire-net." The Fatal Ditch. Longstreet s Masterly Retreat. His Posi 
 tion in Northeastern Tennessee. He Winters his Army there. THE AFFAIR OF 
 SABINE PASS, TEXAS. THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. Franklin s Expedition Defeated. 
 The Upper Portions of the Trans-Mississippi. The Missouri " Guerillas." Quan- 
 trell. Romantic Incidents. THE VIRGINIA-TENNESSEE FRONTIER. Operations of 
 General Sam Jones. An Engagement near Warm Springs. The Affair of Rogers- 
 ville. BATTLE OF DROOP MOUNTAIN. The Enemy Baffled. Averill s Great Decem 
 ber Raid. The Pursuit.; THE NORTH CAROLINA SWAMPS. The Negro Banditti in the 
 Swamps. Wild, Butler s "Jackal." His Murder of Daniel Bright. Confederate 
 Women in Irons. Cowardice and Ferocity of the Yankee*. 
 
 left Rosecrans in Chattanooga and General Bragg 
 hopefully essaying the investment of that place. The defeat ot 
 Rosecrans at Chickamauga had, despite all his attempts to 
 qualify it. cost him his command, and added him to the long 
 list of the victims of popular disappointment* 
 
 * In an official statement on the Tennessee campaign, the Yankee commander- 
 in-chief, General Halleck, attributed the defeat of Chickamauga to a disobedience 
 of his orders. He stated that Burnside was ordered to connect his right with 
 Rosecrans left, and, if possible, to occupy Dalton and the passes into Georgia 
 and North Carolina, so that the two armies might act as one body, and sup 
 port each other. Rosecrans was not to advance into Georgia or Alabama at 
 that time, but to fortify his position and connect with Burnside. If his weak 
 point his right and the communications with Nashville were threatened, he 
 was to hand over Chattanooga to Burnside, and swing round to cover that 
 flank. At the same time forces were ordered up from Memphis and other quar 
 ters to guard that side, as well as his long line of communications. General 
 Burnside, as alleged by Halleck, entirely disobeyed or neglected his orders, and 
 did not connect with the Army of the Cumberland, leaving a great gap be- 
 
 
160 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 On the 18th of October General Ulysses S. Grant assumed 
 command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, compris 
 ing the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the 
 Tennessee. He was invested with plenary powers, and a mil 
 itary autocracy that extended from the Alleghanies to the 
 Mississippi. Thomas was placed in command of the Cumber 
 land, and Burnside commanded at Knoxville. 
 
 Grant proceeded directly to Chattanooga. He had tele 
 graphed Thomas to hold the place to the last extremity, and 
 the latter had replied, somewhat ominously, that he should do 
 BO until his army " starved." The fact was, the Yankee forces 
 at Chattanooga were practically invested, the Confederate lines 
 extending from the Tennessee river above Chattanooga to the 
 river at and below the point at Lookout Mountain, below 
 Chattanooga, with the south bank of the river picketed to 
 near Bridgeport, our main force being fortified in Chattanooga 
 Valley, at the foot of and on Missionary Ridge and Lookout 
 Mountain, and a brigade in Lookout Valley. The enemy s 
 artillery horses and mules had become reduced by starvation. 
 It was estimated that ten thousand animals perished in supply 
 ing half-rations to the Yankee troops by the long and tedious 
 route from Stevenson and Bridgeport to Chattanooga over 
 Waldron s Ridge. 
 
 While Bragg thus held the Yankees in Chattanooga at the 
 point of starvation, his cavalry had not been idle in their rear. 
 General Wheeler had crossed the river in the face of a division 
 of the enemy at Cotton Port Ford, and proceeded in the direc 
 tion of McMinneville, when after a sharp fight he captured a 
 large train and seven hundred prisoners. The train was loaded 
 with ammunition and other stores, and supposed to consist o,. 
 seven hundred wagons, all which were burned. He then at 
 tacked McMinneville, capturing five hundred and thirty pris 
 oners, and another large train, destroyed several bridges, an 
 engine and a train of cars. He then moved to Shelbyville, 
 where he captured a large amount of stores and burned them. 
 The amount of property destroyed by him was almost without 
 precedent in the annals of raiding. 
 
 tween the two armies. It was claimed by General Halleck that had the in- 
 etructions of the department been strictly followed, the disaster of Chickama uga 
 would not have occurred. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 161 
 
 On arriving at Chattanooga, General Grant seems to have 
 at once appreciated the situation. It was decided that Hook 
 er s command at Bridgeport should be concentrated ; the plan 
 agreed upon being for it to cross to the south side of the river, 
 and to move on the wagon road, by the way of Whitesides, 
 to Wauhatchie in Lookout Valley. On the 28th of October 
 Hooker emerged into Lookout Valley at Wauhatchie, with the 
 Eleventh army corps under Major-general Howard, and Geary s 
 division of the Twelfth army corps. 
 
 In the mean time Grant had planned an expedition to seize 
 the range of hills at the mouth of Lookout Valley, which easily 
 succeeded. Hooker proceeded to take up positions for the de 
 fence of the road from Whitesides, over which he had marched, 
 and also the road leading from Brown s Ferry to Kelly s 
 Ferry ; and Major-general Palmer, who had moved up to 
 Whitesides, also took position to hold the road passed over by 
 Hooker. By these movements Grant calculated to secure two 
 good lines for supplies from the terminus of the railroad at 
 Bridgeport ; that at Whitesides and Wauhatchie, and that by 
 Kelly s Ferry and Brown s Ferry. 
 
 THE AFFAIR OF LOOKOUT VALLEY. 
 
 The Confederates were not idle observers of these move 
 ments. On the night of the 29th October, a night attack wa9 
 made by a portion of Longstreet s forces, with the hope oi 
 opening the way to the possession of the lines which had been 
 lost to us by surprise, and with the immediate object of cap 
 turing Hooker s wagon-train. The expedition unexpectedly 
 found itself fighting a whole Yankee corps, the Twelfth, under 
 command of Slocum. Our force consisted of but six resri- 
 
 o 
 
 rnents. By the vigor of our attack the enemy s lines were 
 broken. At one time the Yankees had fallen back in front, 
 and on the right and left flanks, until wagon-trains and prison 
 ers were captured in the rear. But the pressure of the Yan 
 kee columns from Brown s Ferry, where it was known there 
 were at least two corps, threatened the integrity of our posi 
 tiori. It had become critical in the extreme ; and an order 
 was given to retire. In this action Jenkins s brigade suffered 
 
 11 
 
163 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 severely ; its loss in killed and wounded was said to be three 
 hundred and sixty-one. 
 
 Grant s possession of the lines of communication south of 
 the Tennessee river was no longer disputed. By the use of 
 two steamboats he was enabled to obtain supplies with but 
 eight miles of wagoning. His relief of Chattanooga was to be 
 taken as an accomplished fact. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE. 
 
 President Davis had visited General Bragg s lines, and on 
 his return therefrom made, in public, certain mysterious allu 
 sions to a campaign that was to retrieve our fortunes in the 
 West. The country was shortly afterwards surprised to learn 
 that Bragg had detached Longstreet from his front, and moved 
 him in the direction of Knoxville, to attack Burnside. 
 
 Of this event, so untoward for the Confederates, Grant says, 
 in his official report : " Ascertaining from scouts and deserters 
 that Bragg was despatching Longstreet from the front, and 
 moving him in the direction of Knoxville, Tennessee, evi 
 dently to attack Burnside, and feeling strongly the necessity 
 for some move that would compel him to retain all his forces 
 and recall those he had detached, directions were given for a 
 movement against Missionary Ridge, with a view to carrying 
 it and threatening the enemy s communication with Long- 
 etreet, of which I informed Burnside by telegraph on the 7th 
 November." 
 
 Lookout Mountain was evacuated by the Confederates, on 
 the 24th of November, being no longer important to us after 
 the loss of Lookout or Wills Valley, and no longer tenable 
 against such an overwhelming force as General Grant had con 
 centrated around Chattanooga. General Bra^ abandoned 
 
 CD OO 
 
 also the whole of Chattanooga Vallev, and the trenches and 
 
 O / 
 
 breastworks" running along the foot of Missionary Ridge and 
 across the valley to the base of Lookout, and moved his troops 
 up to the top ot the ridge. It was found necessary to extend 
 his right well up towards the Chickamauga, near its month, in 
 consequence of the heavy forces which the enemy had thrown 
 up the river in that direction. The ridge varies in height from 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 163 
 
 four to six hundred feet, .and is crossed by several roads lead 
 ing out from Chattanooga. The western side next to the enemy 
 was steep and rugged, and in some places almost bare, the 
 timber having been cut away for firewood. Our pickets occu 
 pied the breastworks below, while the infantry and artillery 
 were distributed along the crest of the ridge from McFarlan s 
 Gap almost to the mouth of the Chickamauga, a distance of 
 BIX miles or more. In addition to the natural strength of the 
 position we had thrown up breastworks along the ridge wher 
 ever the ascent was easy. 
 
 Determined to make his attack upon Bragg s reduced num 
 bers as formidable as possible, Grant waited for Sherman to 
 come up : Sherman, strengthened by a division from Thomas s 
 command, to cross the Tennessee river below the mouth of 
 Chickamauga, to form a junction with Thomas, and advance 
 towards the northern end of Missionary Ridge. On the night 
 of the 23d November, Sherman, with four divisions, com 
 menced crossing the river. By daylight of the 24th, eight thou 
 sand Yankees were on the south side of the Tennessee, and 
 fortified in rifle-trenches. By noon the remainder of Sherman s 
 force was over, and before night the whole of the northern ex 
 tremity of Missionary Ridge was in his possession. In the 
 mean time, Hooker scaled the western slope of Lookout Moun 
 tain. On the night of the 24th, the Yankee forces maintained 
 an unbroken line, with open communications, from the north 
 end of Lookout Mountain, through Cheat Valley, to the north 
 end of Missionary Ridge. 
 
 On the 25th of November, the enemy prepared for his grand 
 assault. The Yankee army was marshalled under Grant, 
 Thomas, Hooker, and Sherman, and did not number less than 
 eighty-five thousand veteran troops. The Confederate army, 
 under Bragg, Hardee and Breckinridge, did not number half 
 BO many. Longstreet s Virginia divisions and other troops had 
 been sent to East Tennessee. Had these been present, with 
 their steady leader at the head of them, we might have won a 
 victory. As it was, we ought to have won the day ; especially 
 considering the advantages of our position, by which the ranks 
 of the enemy were exposed to an artillery fire while in the 
 plain, and to the infantry fire when they attempted the ascent 
 of the hill or mountain. 
 
164: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE VFAB. 
 
 Grant deployed Ins immense masses in two heavy lines of 
 battle, and sometimes in three, supported by larg-t reserve 
 forces. The spectacle was magnificent as viewed from the 
 crest of Missionary Ridge. He advanced first against our 
 right wing, about ten o clock, where he encountered Hardee, 
 who commanded on the right, while Breckinridge commanded 
 on the left. Hardee s command embraced Cleburne s, Walker s 
 (commanded by General Gist, General Walker being absent), 
 Cheatham s and Stevenson s divisions. Breckinridge s em 
 braced his old division, commanded by Brigadier-general 
 Lewis, Stewart s, part of Buckner s, and Hindman s com 
 manded by Patton Anderson. The enemy s first assault upon 
 Hardee was repulsed with great slaughter, as was his second, 
 though made with double lines, supported with heavy reserves. 
 
 The attack on the left wing was not made until about noon. 
 Here, as on the right, the enemy w r as repulsed ; but he was 
 obstinate, and fought with great ardor and confidence, return 
 ing to the charge again and again in the handsomest style, 
 until one of our brigades in the centre gave way, and the 
 Yankee flag was planted on Missionary Ridge. The enemy 
 was not slow in availing himself of the great advantages of his 
 new position. In a few minutes he turned upon our flanks 
 and poured into them a terrible enfilading fire, which soon 
 threw the Confederates on his right and left into confusion. 
 Under this confusion, the gap in our lines grew wider and 
 wider, and the wider it grew the faster the multitudinous foe 
 rushed into the yawning chasm. A disgraceful panic ensued. 
 The whole left wing of the Confederates became involved, gave 
 way, and scattered in unmitigated rout. The day was lost, and 
 shamefully lost. Hardee still maintained his ground ; but no 
 success of the right wing could restore the left to its original 
 position. With cheers answering cheers the Yankees swarmed 
 upwards. Color after color was planted on the summit, while 
 muskets and cannon poured their deadly thunder upon the fly 
 ing Confederates. Grant was surprised at the ease with which 
 he had won a victory such as he had never before obtained, 
 and attributed it to the dismay of the Confederates at his 
 " audacity," and the " purposeless aiming " of our artillery 
 from the crest of the ridge. 
 
 Our casualties were shamefully small. Granted stated his 
 

 
 L T GEN. HARDEE 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 165 
 
 own loss as about five thousand in killed and woui-ded. He 
 claimed to have taken over six thousand prisoners, forty pieces 
 of artillery, and seven thousand stand of small arms. 
 
 The disaster of Missionary Ridge was not only a great mis 
 fortune, but a grievous disgrace. Of the unhappy event, Pre 
 sident Davis said : " After a long and severe battle, in which 
 great carnage was inflicted on the enemy, some of our troops 
 inexplicably abandoned positions of great strength, and, by a 
 disorderly retreat, compelled the commander to withdraw the 
 forces elsewhere successful, and finally to retire with his whole 
 army to a position some twenty or thirty miles to the rear. It 
 is believed that if the troops who yielded to the assault had 
 fought with the valor which they had displayed on previous 
 occasions, and which was manifested iu this battle on the other 
 parts of the line, the enemy would have been repulsed with 
 very great slaughter, and our country would have escaped the 
 misfortune, and the army the mortification of the first defeat 
 that has resulted from misconduct by the tuoops." 
 
 On the night of the 25th of November, Bragg was in full 
 retreat ; and all of his strong positions on Lookout Mountain, 
 Chattanooga Valley and Missionary Ridge were in the hands 
 of the enemy. His army was put in motion on the road to 
 Ringgold, and thence to Dalton. 
 
 The disgrace of this retreat was somewhat relieved by the 
 spirit of the brave and undaunted Cleburne. He had been 
 left to bring up the rear. The Yankee pursuing column, num 
 bering, it is estimated, about ten thousand men of all arms, as 
 saulted him before he reached Tunnel Hill. This column con 
 sisted of picked troops, who moved rapidly and fought gal 
 lantly ; but Cleburne succeeded in restraining them whenever 
 he encountered them. After some desultory fighting, he suc 
 ceeded in ambuscading Thomas s advance at Taylor s Ridge. 
 He managed to conceal his forces, including his artillery, until 
 the enemy got within a few paces of his guns, when they poured 
 grape and canister into them with the most destructive effect. 
 The road was filled with their dead and wounded. Our infan 
 try then sprang forward from their covert on either side of the 
 road, and literally mowed them down by their well-directed 
 shot. The enemy fled in confusion, leaving two hundred and 
 fifty prisoners and three flags (the latter taken by the artille- 
 
166 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 rists) in our hands, and from one thousand to fifteen hundred 
 killed and wounded in the road. Grant desisted from pursuit, 
 convinced hy Cleburne s lesson, that the Confederates were not 
 demoralized, and impressed with the necessity of despatching 
 reinforcements to aid Burnside, at Knoxville. 
 
 LONGSTREET S EXPEDITION AGAINST KNOXVILLE. 
 
 We must turn, to follow the fortunes of Longstreet s ill-ad 
 vised and worse-furnished expedition against Knoxville. 
 
 . It is an indisputable fact that, when Longstreet was sent frorc 
 General Bragg s lines, he was furnished with no subsistence 
 whatever ; and in way of transportation, was provided only 
 with some refuse teams by Bragg s quartermaster. Despite 
 these difficulties, he succeeded in subsisting his army, and in 
 capturing an aggregate amount of stores from the enemy, which 
 alone was a valuable result of the campaign. At Lenoir Station 
 he captured a train of eighty-five wagons, many of them loaded 
 with valuable medical stores. At Bean Station he captured 
 thirty wagons, a quantity of forage, and some horses. In the 
 Clinch Valley he captured forty other wagons a particularly 
 rich spoil, as they were mostly laden with sugar and coffee. 
 
 He had been disappointed in the force which was placed 
 at his command. When he started on his expedition, Steven 
 son s division was then at London, some thirty miles from 
 Knoxville. Stevenson was hastily recalled to Chattanooga by 
 Bragg, who was suddenly awakened to the danger of an attack 
 on his front ; and the first train which carried Longstreet a 
 troops through to London, returned with those of Stevenson. 
 It appears that Longstreet s movement was thus uncovered, and 
 that he was left with only eleven thousand infantry to conduct 
 the campaign, arduous in all respects, against an enemy twice 
 his numbers. 
 
 On the 18th of November, Longstreet drove the enemy from 
 his advance lines, in front of Knoxville, close under his works. 
 This sortie was the occasion of one of those dashing feats of in 
 dividual gallantry which demands a passing notice. A breast 
 work was charged by our infantry. They winced under the 
 galling fire of the enemy, and wavered, when Captain Stephen 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 167 
 
 Ncrthrop, an Englishman, formerly Captain of Her Britannic 
 Majesty s 22d foot, who had joined our ranks, and was on duity 
 in Alexander s artillery battalion, stationed several hundred 
 yards from the scene of conflict, mounted his horse, and dash 
 ing across the plain the only horseman in the melee rode in 
 advance of the wavering line, up to the very works of the en 
 emy ; a hundred rifles were lowered upon him, but he moved 
 on, and rallied the wavering line ; the work was carried, and 
 Northrop borne away, with a minie ball through his shoulder, 
 his sword-scabbard broken by another, and the point of iris 
 sword cut off by yet another. His escape was miraculous. 
 
 Longstreet s investment of Knoxville was nearly complete. 
 The enemy could only procure supplies from one side of the 
 river, and the Yankees were already restricted in their rations. 
 
 But in the mean time news had come of Bragg s disaster, and 
 nothing remained for Longstreet but to trust to the vigor of a 
 decisive assault. It is not improbable that a few days more 
 might have starved the Yankees into a surrender ; but we 
 could not wait for the event. The enemy s cavalry were al 
 ready on the line of the railroad between Knoxville and Chick- 
 amauga. Communication with General Bragg had been sev 
 ered, and London was threatened. 
 
 Knoxville was well fortified. College Hill was fortified with 
 a heavy fort, carrying a siege-piece of artillery. Another fort 
 was thrown tip on the hills, near the Summit House. The hill 
 on the right of the street leading from the public square to the 
 depot, had a strong fort. Near the Humphrey s was another. 
 The hill known as Temperance Hill, had two heavy forts. 
 Another rise had two batteries. The heights south of Knox 
 ville were also fortified, and connected with these immense for 
 tifications was one continuous line of rifle-pits and breastworks, 
 from the extreme east of Knoxville, on the river, to the west, 
 on the river. The point of attack was a strong work on the 
 north-west angle of the enemy s line (the salient angle north 
 west the immediate point to be assailed). The fort was on a 
 hill of considerable eminence, near the Kingston road, known 
 as Fort Sanders. 
 
 The force which was to attempt an enterprise which ranks 
 with the most famous charges in military history, should be 
 mentioned in detail. It consisted of three brigades of McLaw s 
 
168 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 division : that of General "Wolford, the Sixteenth, Eighteenth, 
 and Twenty -fourth Georgia regiments, and Cobb s and Phillips s 
 Georgia legions ; that of General Humphrey, the Thirteenth, 
 Seventeenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second and Twenty-third 
 Mississippi regiments, and a brigade composed of General An 
 derson s and Bryant s brigades, embracing, among others, the 
 Palmetto State Guard, the Fifteenth South Carolina regiment, 
 and the Fifty-first, Fifty-third and Fifty-ninth Georgia regi 
 ments. 
 
 The signal gun broke the silence of the early dawn of the 
 29th of November. The assaulting column of the Confederates 
 moved up to the attack over the slope, in front of the fort, in 
 a direction oblique to the London road. A heavy artillery- 
 fire was opened upon them at the first advance. Despite the 
 Btorm of canister which howled around them, on came the de 
 voted men, with brigade front, slowly pouring over the rail 
 road cut, and anon quickening in motion as the ground pre 
 sented less obstruction, until at last, emerging from the nearest 
 timber, they broke into the charge. 
 
 Across the open space which intervened between the timber 
 and the fort, and which was crossed with logs and the stumps 
 of felled trees, the Confederates came at impetuous speed. But 
 the enemy had prepared for them a device quite worthy of 
 Yankee ingenuity. Among the stumps which covered the 
 elope, the Yankees had woven a network of wire. Lines of 
 telegraph wire had been stretched through the low brush, and 
 coiled from stump to stump, out of ordinary view. The fore-, 
 most of the assaulting column stumbled, one falling over an 
 other, and were thrown into some confusion, until the cause of 
 the obstruction was discovered. The enemy took advantage of 
 the momentary halt and confusion to pour a devouring fire upon 
 the broken lines. The embrasures of the fort, and the whole 
 line of the parapet blazed at once with discharges. But still 
 the gallant Confederates pressed on, their battle-flags of red, 
 with cross of blue, floating triumphantly above their heads. 
 Kallying over the temporary obstruction, leaping the stumps 
 and logs, and pushing through the brush, they were soon within 
 pistol shot of the fort. The enemy reserved his fire. He had 
 treble-shotted some of his guns, and others were loaded with 
 lerrible canister. 
 
THE TEI1KD YEAR. 1(59 
 
 Suddenly all the enemy s guns launched forth their in smiles 
 of death. Our lines were shattered ; but with a terrible cour 
 age, some of the Confederates sprang into the ditch, clambered 
 up the glacis, and almost side by side with the Yankee flag 
 planted their own. But the rear of the assaulting column had 
 given way. Others remained with their officers, who valiantly 
 kept the lead to the very fort itself, and in the attempt to scale 
 the glacis. There was a spatter of blood and brains as each 
 head appeared above the parapet. A Confederate captain, 
 with an oath, demanded the surrender of the garrison, as he 
 pushed his body through one of the embrasures, and faced the 
 very muzzle of the cannon. The answer to him was the dis 
 charge of the piece, when, rent from limb to limb, his mangled 
 corpse, or what was left of it, was hurled outward into the air. 
 His comrades, yet essaying to get within the work, were now 
 subjected to the fire of hand-grenades, extemporized by cutting 
 short the fuses, and the shells being then tossed over the edge 
 of the parapet. Baffled at every point, and unsupported by 
 the rest of the charging column, these brave men surrendered, 
 and were hauled within the fort ; but not until the trench was 
 tilled with the dead and dying. 
 
 In this terrible ditch the dead were piled eight or ten feet 
 deep. In comparatively an instant of time, we lost seven hun 
 dred men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Colonel McEI- 
 roy of the Thirteenth Mississippi arid Colonel Thomas of the 
 Sixteenth Georgia, had both fallen mortally wounded in the 
 ditch. The Yankees lost in the action not more than twenty 
 men killed and wounded. 
 
 Never excepting Gettysburg was there in the history of 
 the war a disaster adorned with the glory of such devoted 
 courage as Longstreet s repulse at Knoxville. It left him, 
 considering the consequences of Bragg s defeat at Missionary 
 Ridge, with no other alternative than to raise the siege and 
 occupy a new line of operations. A retreat to Bragg s line 
 was not contemplated, and he decided to transfer his base to a 
 point where he could threaten Knoxville from the opposite 
 Bide of the town, and establish communications with Bristol, 
 Lynchburg, and Richmond. These intentions, It is said, were 
 known to President Davis in advance, who, it is further said, 
 advised with General Longstreet on the subject, and left 
 
170 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 to his discretion the plan of campaign to be pursued in tha 
 future. 
 
 It was in the exercise of an independant judgment, that 
 Lpngstreet made his retreat to Kussellville. It was one of the 
 most fortunate retreats of the war. It was made without the 
 slightest loss. It evaded a large column of the enemy at Lou- 
 don. Its immediate object was Rogersville, where Longstreet 
 expected to get supplies and milling for his army. Our forces, 
 however, being pressed by the enemy, who followed them to 
 Bean Station, on the Cumberland Gap road, turned upon the 
 Yankees, inflicted upon them a severe defeat, and drove them 
 twelve lines before Russellville. 
 
 Ey an admirable movement, Longstreet selected a position 
 in Northeastern Tennessee, where he could hold communica 
 tion with his superiors in Richmond, and intrenching himself 
 against all possibility of surprise, he proceeded to carry out 
 what remained of his military plans. The Army of the Ohio 
 was weak, and he knew it. It was strong enough to hold 
 Knoxville, as he had learned by sad experience. The rein 
 forcements which were sent from Chattanooga, were with 
 drawn. He, therefore, organized his forces for conquest, not 
 necessarily of territory, but of material for the subsistence of 
 his troops. In this way he managed to overrun the entire sec 
 tion of the State east of a line drawn from Cumberland Gap to 
 Cleveland ; to gather within his lines all that was valuable in 
 supplies of food ; and to make his army quite self-subsisting in 
 a tract of country where it was thought it was impossible for 
 him to remain without external aid. 
 
 While events of dominant importance were taking place on 
 the lines of Generals Lee and Bragg, there were distant and 
 minor theatres of the contest, which, at various times in the 
 fall of 1863, exhibited some remarkable episodes in the war. 
 "We shall make a rapid resume of these minor events, taking 
 the reader s attention from the Gulf Coast to the distant regions 
 of the Trans-Mississippi, and thence to the frontiers of some 
 of the eastern States of the Confederacy. 
 
 THE AFFAIR AT 8AEINE PASS, TEXAS. THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 An engagement with the Yankee navy had occurred at Sa- 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 171 
 
 bine Pass, the dividing line between Louisiana and Texas, on 
 the 8th of September. A brilliant victory was won by the 
 little Confederate garrison of Sabine Pass against the fleet of 
 the enemy. Attacked by five gunboats, the fort, mounting 
 but three guns of small calibre, and manned by the Davis 
 Guards, Lieutenant E. M. Dowliug, assisted by Lieutenant 
 Smith, of the engineers, supported by about two hundred men, 
 the whole under command of Captain F. A. Odium, steadily 
 resisted their fire, and at last forced the surrender of the two 
 gunboats Clifton and Sachem, badly crippling another, which 
 with the others escaped over the bar. The result of this gal 
 lant achievement was the capture of two fine gunboats, fifteen 
 heavy guns, over two hundred prisoners (among them the 
 commodore of the fleet), and over fifty of the enemy killed and 
 wounded, while not a man was lost on our side, or a gun 
 injured. 
 
 This demonstration of the Yankees, under command of Gen 
 eral Franklin, was part of an expedition from General Banks 
 lines against Texas. A column under "Washburne had moved 
 by railroad to Erashear and Bayou Bceuf ; and another Yankee 
 column had been taken by steamboats to the mouth of Ked 
 Kiver to go to Simmsport. But Franklin s disaster at Sabine 
 Pass caused him to abandon his part of the movement ; and 
 on this account, and also, it is said, the low state of water, an 
 expedition elaborately and ambitiously planned by Banks was 
 wholly abandoned. 
 
 In the upper portions of the Trans-Mississippi, Confederate 
 operations had assumed an irregular character. The States 
 beyond the great river possessed many advantages for the 
 maintenance of their defence. In provisions they abounded 
 beyond any other part of the Confederacy. In the various 
 equisites for establishing and supplying an army they were 
 by no means destitute. Through Mexico they had been en 
 abled to make good their deficiencies, to some extent, by 
 importation. 
 
 Great activity seemed to pervade the Trans-Mississippi, and 
 brilliant actions performed by small bodies of men charac 
 terized it, instead of sanguinary and resultless battles. The 
 nature of the country and the requirements of the situations 
 had no doubt wrought a considerable chango in the character 
 
172 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of the warfare carried on in that region ; but although no 
 signal indications of strategic skill might be traceable, marks 
 of dash and daring were plainly discernible. 
 
 But while Texas and Arkansas still maintained formidable 
 military organizations, in unhappy Missouri the Confederates 
 were well nigh driven to the wall. Quantrell, the famous 
 partisan chief, was compelled, in the fall of 1863, to make his 
 exodus from Missouri. 
 
 Towards the middle of September the guerillas reunited at 
 Blackwater, and were ready in a few hours to leave their ren 
 dezvous for their march South. Cold nights and occasional 
 frost had warned them to leave Missouri, and like poor house 
 less birds of passage, beaten by the pitiless storm, they sought 
 a more genial clime, where the grass was green and Yankees less 
 numerous. Missouri would afford no shelter of safety after win 
 ter had set in ; the bare and leafless forests no hiding places, 
 and the pure driven snow would afford to the enemy the best 
 means of tracking the hunted and hungry guerillas whenever 
 they should leave their holes in search of food. Outlawed by 
 an order of General Blount, proscribed by every Yankee offi 
 cial, the citizens warned against furnishing food or shelter 
 under the cruelest and severest penalties, the very earth almost 
 denying them a resting-place, the gallant three hundred broke 
 np their rendezvous and left for the plains of Texas. 
 
 The romantic adventures of these men in the Indian coun 
 try were of thrilling interest. At one time, they came upon 
 a party of Yankees near Fort Smith, who mistook them for 
 comrades. The little Confederate command was drawn up in 
 line of battle, motionless as statues, with Quantrell at their 
 head on his war-horse, looking grimly at a brilliant cavalcade of 
 horsemen forming beautifully about three hundred yards in 
 front. The whisper ran through the line, " It is old Blount, 
 and he thinks we are Yankees coming out to give him a recep 
 tion !" It was true. There rode General Blount and staff, 
 glittering in blue cloth and gold lace, and about two hundred 
 of his body guard ; just then the cavalcade moved, ard the 
 band commenced playing Yankee Doodle. Quantrell moved 
 also ; but the quick eye of Blount discovered something wrong 
 and called a halt. But the guerillas by this time were under 
 full gallop, and down they swept upon the brilliant cortege 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 173 
 
 like an avalanche and hurled them to the earth. The struggle 
 was short and fierce; the shock terrific, as guerilla rodt over 
 both horse and his rider, and dashed out the brains of the lat 
 ter as he passed. Again and again they turned and fired, 
 charged and recharged, until the ground was strewn with the 
 dead, ambulances overturned, and horses flying madly in every 
 direction.* 
 
 THE VIRGINIA-TENNESSEE FRONTIER. 
 
 The frontier in which we include the vast body of land lying 
 generally between General Lee s lines in Virginia and East 
 Tennessee, was one of the most important of the minor theatres 
 of the war. 
 
 What was known as the Department of West Virginia and 
 East Tennessee, was under the command of Major-general Sam 
 
 * A stirring episode of this engagement is told by one who participated in it 
 We give it, in his words, as a characteristic incident of the romance of parti- 
 Ban warfare : 
 
 "Lieutenant-colonel Curtis, adjutant-general on General Blount s staff, rodo 
 a magnificent horse, richly caparisoned, and was himself dressed in the richest 
 uniform of his rank. He %vas a remarkably handsome man, fair, and rosy, eyes 
 blue as those of the fairest blonde of his own clime ; pale, fair, tall, slender 
 figure with features as beautiful as those of a woman. He was well armed 
 with pistol and sabre, and usod them gallantly. He sees that his force is de 
 feated, and determines to escape. But as he turns his horse s head he encoun 
 ters the fierce eye of a young guerilla as handsome, as brave and as well 
 mounted as himself, bearing right down upon him. He observes the adjutant- 
 general endeavoring to escape ; calls to him to stop and fight. He does 
 turn to meet the guerilla now swooping down upon him like an eagle on its 
 prey. The Yankee fires a long-range gun, but misses his aim ; he draws his 
 six-shooter and rapidly, nervously discharges the contents at his adversary, 
 who all this time is gaining on him and dashing straight at him. 
 
 "As an eagle swoops down on his prey, gracefully and grandly ferocious, 
 beautiful even in the act of destruction, so does Peyton Long, the young hero, 
 gallantly bear down on the " cutt" Yankee ; he reserves every shot, while 
 Curtis is wasting his ; he dashes upon him both pause for an instant as if in 
 mutual admiration but only for a moment. Peyton Long watches his antag 
 onist, and sways his body to the left to escape the sabre cut of the Yankee ; 
 the next instant the inevitable six-shooter of the guerilla is pointed at the head 
 of the splendid-looking fellow ; it is the work of an instant ; Peyton strikes 
 like an eagle, and all is over! A shout of triumph rose from the throng ol 
 guerillas, who had ceased the fight to watch the encounter between this well 
 matched couple." 
 
174: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Jones, one of the most active of Confederate commanders. Of 
 events in his department we must make a rapid summary, 
 which, however, will admit some detail of his most interesting 
 operations. 
 
 For many months operations had been active in this De 
 partment to cope with raids under the energetic direction of 
 the somewhat famous Yankee commander General Averill. 
 On the 26th of August a portion of General Jones s forces en 
 countered the enemy about a mile and a half from Dublin, on 
 the road leading to the Warm Springs. Every attack made by 
 the enemy was repulsed. At night each side occupied the 
 same position they had in the morning. The next morning the 
 enemy made two other attacks, which were handsomely re 
 pulsed, when he abandoned his position and retreated towards 
 Warm Springs, pursued by cavalry and artillery. The troops 
 engaged were the first brigade of Jones s army, Colonel George 
 S. Patton commanding. The enemy were about three thousand 
 strong, with six pieces of artillery, under Brigadier-general 
 Averill. Our loss was about two hundred killed and wounded. 
 The enemy s loss was not known. We took about one hundred 
 and fifty prisoners and a piece of artillery. 
 
 On the 6th November occurred* an affair at Rogersville, 
 East Tennessee, which was a considerable success for the Con 
 federates. Information of a reliable character was received by 
 General Ransom of the exact position, numbers and condition 
 of the Yankees at Big Creek, four miles east of Rogersville. 
 The nearest supporting force being at Greenville, he conceived 
 the idea of cutting them off by a rapid night march of cavalry 
 upon their front and rear. The attack was successful. Among 
 the fruits of the expedition were eight hundred and fifty pri 
 soners, four pieces of artillery, sixty wagons, and several hun 
 dred animals. 
 
 BATTLE OF DROOP MOUNTAIN. 
 
 On the same day (6th November) occurred an important 
 action between another portion of General Jones s forces, and 
 the redoubtable Averill. 
 
 At nine o clock on the morning of the 6th of November 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 175 
 
 Echols brigade, consisting of a regiment and battalion of 
 infantry, and six pieces of artillery, came up to the support of 
 Colonel Wm. L. Jackson, commanding Confederate forces in 
 the Northwest (who was closely pushed by General Averill), 
 on Droop Mountain, in the county of Pocahontas, twenty- eight 
 rniles north-east of Lewisburg. The entire forces of the two 
 commands thus united, amounted to about fifteen hundred 
 infantry and dismounted cavalry, and eight pieces of artillery. 
 The position of our men, naturally a very strong one, was 
 selected with great judgment by Colonel Jackson, on the 
 western extremity of Droop Mountain. At * ten o clock, the 
 enemy, who had remained in the front of Colonel Jackson 
 since daybreak, with a force amounting to seven thousand five 
 hundred mounted infantry and cavalry, and eight pieces of 
 artillery, commenced his advance upon us, by posting his long- 
 range guns on an eminence to our right, and by advancing his 
 line of skirmishers upon our right and left ; and brisk skirmish 
 ing then ensued, which continued from time to time until the 
 fight became general between our infantry and dismounted 
 cavalry and those of the enemy. 
 
 The monstrously unequal combat was kept up for several 
 hours. Our men fought with the utmost gallantry and deter 
 mination, and stubbornly maintained their position against an 
 enemy five times their number until they were well nigh sur 
 rounded. Human endurance could hold out no longer; the 
 troops on the right gave away before overwhelming numbers, 
 while the enemy were rapidly flanking those on the left. Just 
 at this stage of proceedings, General Echols, seeing that if he 
 remained longer his retreat would be cut off, withdrew the 
 troops from the field and ordered a retreat in the direction of 
 Lewisburg. Our loss in killed and wounded was about three 
 hundred. Although the action terminated in the retreat of 
 the Confederates, yet they had given an exhibition of spirit 
 among the proudest in the war. Our little army had wrestled 
 in deadly conflict with an enemy five times its strength for 
 seven long hours; and when they did retreat, succeeded in 
 bringing off all of our quartermaster and commissary stores 
 together with our trains and artillery, leaving to the enemy no 
 trophies over which to exult, save the bodies of our gallant 
 dead. 
 
176 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 So far as the beneficial results of the expedition to the 
 enemy could be estimated they amounted to nothing. They 
 came with two large forces, amounting, in the aggregate, t; 
 nearly ten thousand men, with the expectation of capturing 
 the command of Colonel Jackson and General Echols brigade, 
 and of moving then upon our interior lines of railroad. By 
 fighting, however, so far from the interior, and by being so 
 checked and damaged and baffled as they were, they failed in 
 the one object and abandoned the other. 
 
 But the great raid of Averill seems to have been reserved 
 for December. He came from New Creek, a depot on the 
 Baltimore and Ohio railroad, in the county of Hardy, along 
 the western base of the Shenandoah mountains, through 
 Covington to Salem, burning and destroying what he could in 
 his path. His command consisted of four regiments of mounted 
 infantry, a battalion of cavalry, and a battery. On the 16th 
 of December he cut the Virginia and Tennessee railroad at 
 Salem. Here three depots were destroyed, the contents of 
 which were officially stated by Averill to have been 2,000 
 barrels of flour, 10,000 bushels of wheat, 100,000 bushels of 
 shelled corn, 50.000 bushels of oats,. 2,000 barrels of meat, 
 several cords of leather, and 1,000 sacks of salt. 
 
 On his retreat, the adventurous Yankee had to run the 
 gauntlet of different Confederate commands, arranged in a 
 line extending from Staunton to Newport upon all the avail 
 able roads to prevent his return. Having captured a despatch 
 from General Jones to General Early, Averill deflected from 
 the line of his retreat and instead of passing through Buchanan, 
 moved towards Covington. 
 
 Colonel William L. Jackson moved his command down to 
 Jackson s river depot, and directed the bridge to be burned as 
 soon as it was ascertained that the enemy were advancing to 
 wards it. Jackson then took a strong position near the Jackson s 
 river depot, at the point where the Rich Patch road connects 
 the Covington turnpike. He then directed his mounted men, 
 under Captain Sprague, to move on the Rich Patch road until 
 they met the enemy s advance, and to attack them desperately, 
 and cut the column in two, if possible. At four o clock on 
 Saturday evening, the 19th December, a courier from Captain 
 Sprague announced the approach of the enemy by that road, 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. 177 
 
 and that he had commenced a skirmish with Averili s advanced 
 forces. Jackson immediately ordered an advance of the Twen 
 tieth Virginia Regiment by a blind road, so as to attack the 
 enemy obliquely. He also ordered the Nineteenth Virginia 
 Regiment to advance on the Coving tori turnpike road, and to 
 attack the enemy directly. At- that point Jackson conceived 
 the idea of taking a detachment of about fifty men, and move 
 forward with them for the purpose of striking the enemy vigo 
 rously, and cutting his column in two. In this he succeeded 
 perfectly. One half of the Yankees were thus separated from 
 the other half, which was under the immediate command of 
 Averill, and who rapidly passed forward towards the Island 
 Ford bridge. Persons entrusted with the burning of the Island 
 Ford bridge failed to do so, however, owing to the rapid ad 
 vance of the enemy upon that point. The advance, under 
 Averill in person, thus managed to make their escape across 
 the bridge. 
 
 There remained in Jackson s hand about two hundred pri 
 soners. Averill continued his retreat to Pocahontas county. 
 On the 22d December he wrote to the War Department at 
 "Washington : "My command has marched, climbed, slid and 
 swam three hundred and fifty miles since the 8th instant." 
 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA SWAMPS. 
 
 We have referred in this chapter to the occult romances of 
 warfare in the Trans-Mississippi. But there was a district 
 much nearer the capital of the Confederacy, to which all eyes 
 were turned to witness certain thrilling scenes, a drama of 
 cruelty such as the world had seldom seen, even in the wars 
 and outrages of barbarians. 
 
 We refer to the north-eastern parts of North Carolina. In 
 Camden and Currituck counties, and in the country lying 
 generally between Franklin on the Blackwater and the Roan- 
 oke river, a series of atrocities was committed by the envniy at 
 which the blood runs cold. It is difficult to find words ol" de 
 scription for the,pictures of the wild and terrible consequences 
 of the negro raids in this obscure theatre of the war. The 
 country was traversed by negro banditti; they burned houses; 
 they entered the parlors of their masters ; they compelled "fadies 
 
 12 
 
178 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 to entertain them on the piano, cursed and abused them, 
 stripped them of their jewelry and clothing, and offered them 
 indignities which it would offend delicacy to describe. 
 
 The fiat seemed to have gone forth for stern and terrible 
 work on the North Carolina frontier, in this dark and melan 
 choly country of swamps, overrun with negro banditti, and 
 now the especial theatre of the war s vengeance. The country 
 was a rich one, comparing favorably with the Mississippi bot 
 toms, and one of the most important sources of meat supplies 
 which was at this time accessible to our armies. To protect 
 this country as far as possible, forces were raised, under autho 
 rity of the Government of North Carolina, for local defence 
 and to repel invasion ; they were duly organized, and their 
 officers were commissioned by the governor, and for a year or 
 more had been in the regular service of the State. The 
 Yankees found it convenient to designate these forces as 
 "guerillas," in order to justify the fiendish warfare of negro 
 partisans and white banditti, who were invited to prey upon 
 the population. 
 
 In December, a force of negroes, under the command of 
 Brigadier-general Wild, who emulated the brutal disposition 
 and ferocious cowardice of his master, " Beast " Butler, invaded 
 the north-eastern parts of North Carolina. In the county of 
 Pasquotank, forty miles from Norfolk, he hung Daniel Bright 
 at his own house. He seized more than one hundred thousand 
 dollars worth of personal property in the adjoining counties; 
 stripped the farmers of every living thing, and brought it all 
 away, leaving hundreds of inhabitants without a pound of meat 
 or a peck of meal. 
 
 Daniel Bright was a member of the Sixty-second Georgia 
 regiment, under command of Colonel J. R. Griffin, and had 
 received authority from the Governor of North Carolina to 
 raise a company in the county for local defence. Failing in 
 the effort, he had retired to his farm, and was there seized, car 
 ried off and executed. He was hung on the side of the public 
 road, and a placard fastened upon his back. 
 
 But the most brutal of all the outrages of Wild was the seiz 
 ure, as u hostages " for two of his negroes who had been cap 
 tured, of two most respectable married ladies, Mrs. Phcebo 
 Munden, wife of Lieutenant W. J. Munden, and Mrs. Elizabeth 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 179 
 
 Weeks, wife of Private Fender Weeks, of Captain John T 
 Elliot s company. The first was arrested at her own house, in 
 the presence only of her three children, of whom the oldest was 
 ten years of age, conveyed a few miles to Elizabeth City, con 
 fined in a room without fire, bed or bedding, with several male 
 prisoners, and tied by the feet and hands. A negro guard was 
 placed in charge of the prisoners. The succeeding day, the 
 other lady, Mrs. Weeks, was placed in the same room. They 
 were constantly guarded, and neither was allowed to leave the 
 room for the most necessary duty, but in company with an 
 armed negro soldier. Mrs. Munden was in delicate health, and 
 forced from a home immediately laid in ashes, with all it con 
 tained, without other apparel than she wore upon her person, 
 and passed several nights in the cheerless and cold apartment 
 to which she was confined at that inclement season, before the 
 humanity of her captors was so far softened as to permit 
 blankets to be furnished for her use. They were kept some 
 days and then removed to Norfolk. When Mrs. Munden was 
 carried off, her wrists were bleeding with the stricture of the 
 cord with which she was bound, and it is said that a negro waa 
 allowed by Wild to hold the cord that bound her, and thus 
 drive her into Norfolk. 
 
 Such were the scenes which illustrated the Yankee idea of 
 prosecuting the war with " vigor," and gratified the vile and 
 cowardly revenge of those who, in luxurious cities and com 
 fortable homes, clamored for the blood of " rebels," and eves 
 claimed women and children as their victims. 
 
180 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 CHAPTER Yin. 
 
 The President s Declaration to the Confederate Congress of 1863-64. "Want > 
 Capacity" in the Confederate Authorities. Character of Jefferson Davis. Officia. 
 Shiftlessness at Richmond. Early Prognostications of the War. The " Statesman 
 ship" of the Confederates. Ludicrous Errors of Confederate Leadens. What " King 
 Cotton" might have done. Gross Mismanagement of the Confederate Finances. Mr. 
 Memminger s Maladministration. The Moral Evils of an Expanded Currency. The 
 Military Situation in December. Secretary Seddon s Shameful Confession. "De- 
 magogueism" in the Confederate War Department. Seddon s Propositions. Military 
 " Substitutes." An Act of Perfidy. Bullying in Congress. Spirit of the Confederate 
 Soldiery. LINCOLN S " PEACE PROCLAMATION." Its Stupidity, Insolence, and Out 
 rage. How the Confederates Eeplied to. it. A New Appeal Against " Recon 
 struction." THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN THE- WAR. A French Opinion. The 
 Abolitionists Unmasked. Decay of European Sympathy with Them. Review of 
 Lincoln s "Emancipation" Policy. The Arming of the Bhcks. The Negro Coloni 
 zation Schemes. Experiments of New England "Civilization" in Louisiana. 
 Frightful Mortality of " Freedmen." The Appalling Statistics of Emancipation. 
 The Contraband Camps in the Mississippi Valley. Pictures of Yankee Philanthropy. 
 "Slavery" Tested by the War. The Confederates the True Friends of the African 
 Laborer. The System of Negro Servitude in the Confederacy. The " War-to-the- 
 Knife" Party in the North. HISTORY or THE " RETALIATION" POLICY. The Outrages 
 of Yankee Warfare. President Davis s Sentimentalism. The Record of his Unpar 
 donable and Unparalleled Weakness. A Peep into Yankee Prisons. The Torture- 
 Houses of the North. Captain Morgan s Experience Among "the Convict-Drivers." 
 President Davis s Bluster. His Two Faces. Moral Effects of Submission to Yankee 
 Outrage. The Rival Administrations in December 1863. Richmond and Washing 
 ton. Mr. Lincoln s Gaiety. New Issues for the Confederacy. 
 
 At the meeting of the Confederate Congress, in December, 
 1863, President Davis said: "We now know that the only 
 reliable hope for peace is in the vigor of our resistance, while 
 the cessation of their [the enemy s] hostility is only to be ex 
 pected from the pressure of their necessities." The Confederate 
 Administration had at last arrived at the correct comprehension 
 of the war. But it had reached this conclusion only after a 
 period of nearly three years of ignorance, short-sighted conceit 
 and perversity. 
 
 The careful and candid reader of the pages of two volumes 
 of the history of the war, by this writer, will bear him witness 
 that at no time has he reflected upon the patriotism or the 
 public integrity of President Davis. The accusation, which 
 
THE THIRD YEAH. 181 
 
 has run Wi rough these volumes, is simply this: want of capacity 
 in the ^ministration of public affairs. 
 
 It is not possible that any historian of this war can overlook 
 certain admirable qualities of the President of the Confederacy : 
 his literary abilities, his spruce English, his ascetic morals, the 
 purity of his private life, and the extraordinary facility of his 
 manners. But he was not a statesman ; he had no administra 
 tive capacities; he lacked that indispensable and practical 
 element of success in all political administrations knowledge 
 of the true value of men ; and he was probably, unconscious 
 ly through Lie vanity accessible to favorites. In the old gov 
 ernment, Mr. Davis had never been accounted as a statesman, 
 but was quite as obtuse as most of the public men of that day. 
 He it was, of Southern politicians, who declared in a public 
 letter, in 1858, that the " Kansas Conference bill" was " the 
 triumph, of all for which we contended." He had failed to see 
 the origin and occasion of the revolution which he assumed to 
 conduct. 
 
 His choice of favorites in the field had been as unapt as hia 
 selection of political advisers in the Cabinet. This President, 
 who depreciated Price as a militiaman, and held (or probably 
 affected) a light opinion of Beauregard, was convinced that 
 Pemberton was a genius who should be raised by a single 
 stroke of patronage from the obscurity of a major to the posi 
 tion of a Lieutenant-general; recognized Heth as a young 
 Napoleon ; selected Lovell as the natural guardian of the 
 Mississippi ; declared that Holmes, who had let the enemy 
 slip out of his lingers at Richmond, was the appointed deliverer 
 of Missouri and Arkansas, and competent to take charge of the 
 destinies of an empire ; and prophesied with peculiar emphasis 
 of mystery, but a few weeks before the session of Congress, in 
 a public speech in a Southern city, that Bragg by that time 
 would be in the heart of Tennessee, and on the pinnacles ot 
 victory ! 
 
 The civil administration of Mr. Davis had fallen to a low 
 ebb. There are certain minds which cannot see how want of 
 capacity in our government, official shiftlessness and the mis 
 management of public affairs yet consist with the undeniable 
 facts of the successes of our arms and the great achievements 
 of tho Confer! pracv. But it is possible that these two conditions 
 
182 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 may consist that, in a revolution, the valor and determination 
 of a people may make considerable amends for the faults of its 
 governors. If the history of this war has proved one proposi 
 tion clearly it is this: that in all its subjects of congratulation, 
 the "statesmanship" of Eichmond has little part or lot. Let 
 those who deny the justice of this historical judgment, which 
 refuses to attribute to the official authorities of this government 
 such success as we have had in this war, say what they have 
 contributed to it. 
 
 The evidences of the " statesmanship" of Richmond were not 
 to be found in our foreign relations : these were absurdities. 
 They were not to be found in our provisions for the war : these 
 were make-shifts from month to month. They were not to be 
 found in our financial calculations : these had proved the most 
 ridiculous failures in the monetary annals of the world. We 
 owe this melancholy confession to history, that we do not 
 know of any real and substantial particulars in which the 
 administration of Mr. Davis has contributed to this war. The 
 reverse of the proposition need not be repeated here. 
 
 It is mortifying, indeed, to look back upon the currents of 
 our history, to observe the blindness and littleness of mind, 
 the conceit, the perversity, the short-sighted management on 
 all which we have drifted into this present vastness of war and 
 depths of distress. In Montgomery, at the period of the pro 
 visional inauguration of the Confederacy, any one who had the 
 hardihood to insist upon the probability of a war, became a 
 butt of raillery or the object of suspicion. The war once b< 
 gun, the next idea in the minds of the Confederate leaders wa? 
 that it was to be despatched in a few months by mere make 
 shifts of armies and money, and with the scant supply of 
 munitions already on hand. Months intervened between Lin 
 coln s declaration of war and the actual establishment of the 
 blockade. But no use was made of this golden opportunity, 
 and our importations of army supplies from Europe during all 
 these months, actually may be counted in a few thousand stand 
 of small arms. Secretary Mallory laughed off contractors in 
 New Oi leans, who offered to sell to the government a large 
 amount of navy supplies. Judah P. Benjamin, at the head o? 
 the War Department, wrote to a friend in the first winter o 
 the war, that within sixty days the country would be at peace 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 18 J 
 
 later still, in the winter of 1862, President Davis, in a speech 
 before the Legislature of Mississippi, had pronounced the 
 solemn opinion that the war would soon come to an end. Yet 
 we find the same eminent personage now declaring to the 
 Congress of 1863, his belief in an indefinite prolongation of 
 the war, and his despair of his many brilliant former prospects 
 of peace, through instrumentalities other than that of our arms. 
 
 Able and candid journals of the North, have repeatedly con 
 fessed that they were puzzled by the extraordinary want of 
 foresight and judgment displayed by the Confederate leaders, 
 in their calculation at different periods of the war of the course 
 likely to be pursued by Europe and the North. These errors 
 might have been expected from men of little education, to 
 whom self-interest in its lowest sense was the key to all politi 
 cal problems, but by no means from persons who had studied 
 politics in books. u The notion," said the New York T imes, 
 " that the North, being a commercial community, devoted to 
 the pursuit of gain, was, for that reason, sure not to fight, was 
 rather the conclusion of a backwoodsman than of a student. 
 The lesson of history is that commercial communities are 
 among the most pugnacious and ambitious and most obstinate 
 of belligerents : witness Carthage, Yenice, Genoa, Holland, and 
 England," 
 
 The utter failure of the calculations of the Confederate Ad 
 ministration, regarding France and England, had exhibited & 
 hasty and passionate reasoning, of which Mr. Davis and his 
 associates might well be ashamed. The idea is ludicrous now 
 that at the very beginning of the American revolution, France 
 and England, with their centuries of vast and varied experi 
 ence, in peace and war, would fling themselves into a convul 
 sion which their great politicians easily saw was the most 
 tremendous one of modern times. Yet this idea was enter 
 tained by President Davis ; and as proof of it, the Confederate 
 commissioners were instructed to apply to Earl Russell for 
 recognition in England after the first battle of Mariassas! 
 
 At the commencement of the war, cotton was pronounced 
 " King ;" and the absurd and puerile idea was put forward by 
 the politicians of the Davis school, that the great and illustri 
 ous power of England would submit to the ineffable humilia 
 tion of acknowledging its dependency on the infant Confed- 
 
184 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WA*. 
 
 eracy of the South, and the subserviency of its empire, it& 
 political interests, and its pride, to a single article of trade that 
 was grown in America! And what indeed is the ^um of 
 advantages which the Confederacy drew from the royal re 
 sources of cotton ? It is true that these resources could not 
 compel the political interests and pride of England. But, 
 properly used, they might have accomplished much for the 
 interests of the Confederacy. In point of fact they accom 
 plished nothing. For one year after the war commenced, the 
 blockade was so slight that the whole of the cotton might have 
 been shipped to Europe, and there sold at two shillings ster 
 ling a pound, giving the government, purchasing at twenty 
 cents, a clear profit of six hundred millions of dollars ! We 
 may even suppose one-fifth of this captured by the enemy, and 
 we would still have had a balance in our favor, which would 
 have enabled us to have drained every bank in Europe of its 
 Bpecie ! Or if we had drawn for this sum as we needed it, our 
 treasury notes would have been equal to gold, and confidence 
 in our currency would have been unshaken and universal. 
 
 The Confederacy had thus the element at ready hand for the 
 structure of one of the most successful schemes of finance in 
 the world. But the government was too grossly ignorant to 
 see it. The purchase of the cotton to the government was 
 decried by Mr. Memminger, as a scheme of " soup-house legis 
 lation ;" and the new government was started without a basis 
 of credit; without a system of revenue; on the monstrous de 
 lusion that money might be .manufactured at will out of paper, 
 and that a naked "promise to pay," was all sufficient for the 
 wants of the war ! 
 
 It is to be frankly admitted that the South commenced the 
 war \^\i\\ financial advantages which the North did not have 
 that is, without reference to commercial incidents of the block 
 ade, but with respect to the sustention of its credit at home. 
 The South had the cotton and the tobacco. It had the un 
 bounded sympathies of its people. It had larger taxable values 
 per capita than any other country in the world. It is not pos 
 sible that with these advantages it could have wrecked its 
 credit with its own people, unless through a great want of 
 capacity in the administration of the government. It is not 
 possible, that, with these advantages, its currency should havo 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 185 
 
 declined with its own people ten times faster than that of the 
 North with its people, unless through a gross mismanagement 
 of public affairs. These are logical conclusions which are not 
 to be disputed. 
 
 At the organization of the permanent government of tTie 
 Confederacy, in February, 1862, President Davis had made 
 the most extravagant congratulations to the country, on on** 
 financial condition in comparison with that of the North. In 
 less than eighteen months thereafter, when gold was quoted in 
 New York at twenty-five per cent, premium, it was selling in 
 Richmond at nine hundred per cent, premium ; and by the 
 time that the Confederate Congress met, in December, 1863, 
 gold in Richmond was worth about two thousand per cent, 
 premium, and was publicly sold, one for twenty in Confeder 
 ate notes ! Such had been the results of the financial wisdom 
 of the Confederacy. It had been dictated by the President, 
 who advised Congress (as late as August, 1862) to authorize 
 illimitable issues of treasury notes, without fear of their depre 
 ciation, and aggravated, no doubt, by the igitorance of his 
 secretary, who invented the legerdemain of "funding," that 
 had given the last stab to the currency, and who opened the 
 doors of the treasury to brokers, blockade-runners, and the 
 vast tribes of those who lived on the depreciation of the public 
 credit* 
 
 * The experiments of Mr. Memminger on the currency was the signal of 
 multiplied and rapid depreciation. While the eccentric and pious Secretary 
 was figuring out impossible schemes of making money, or ransacking the book 
 stores for works on religious controversy, unprincipled brokers in the Confed 
 eracy were undermining the currency with a zeal for the destruction of their 
 country not less than that of the Yankees. The assertion admits of some quali 
 fication. Sweeping remarks in history are generally unjust. Among those 
 engaged in the business of banking and exchange in the South, there were 
 undoubtedly some enlightened and public-spirited men who had been seduced 
 by the example or constrained by the competition of meaner and more avari 
 cious men of the same profession, to array themselves against the currency, 
 and to commit offences from which they would have shrunk in horror, had 
 they not been disguised by the casuistry of commerce and gain. 
 
 It was generally thought in the South reprehensible to refuse the national 
 currency in the payment of debts. Yet the broker, who demanded eighteen 
 or twenty dollars in this currency for one in gold, really was guilty of so many 
 times refusing the Confederate money. It was accounted shocking for citizena 
 in the South to speculate in soldiers clothing and bread. Yet the broker, who 
 
186 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Of all the features of maladministration in the Confederacy, 
 which we have unwillingly traced, that of the currency was, 
 certainly, the most marked,, and, perhaps, the most vital. 
 Nothing could be more absurd than the faith of Mr. Davis 
 and Mr. Memminger in the virtues of paper money, and 110 
 empiricism more ignorant and destructive than that which 
 made the mere emission of paper issues a system of revenue. 
 In the old government, we had had many emphatic lessons on 
 the subject of paper money. Indeed, it is a curious and inter 
 esting fact, that in sixty years of our past history, the banking 
 
 demanded twenty prices for gold, the representative of all values, speculated 
 alike in every necessary in the country. Nor was this the greatest of their 
 offences. With unsurpassed shamelessness, brokers in the Confederacy ex 
 posed the currency of the North for sale, and demanded for it ten hundred per 
 cent, premium over that of the Confederacy ! This act of benefit to the Yan 
 kees was openly allowed by the government. A bill had been introduced in 
 Congress to prohibit this traffic and to extirpate this infamous anomaly in our 
 history ; but it failed of enactment, and its failure can only be attributed to the 
 grossest stupidity, or to sinister influences of the most dishonorable kind. The 
 traffic was immensely profitable. State bonds and bank bills to the amount oi 
 many millions were sent North by the brokers, and the rates of discount were 
 readily submitted to when the returns were made in Yankee paper money, 
 which, in Richmond shops, was worth in Confederate notes ten dollars for one 
 One but only one cause of the depreciation of the Confederate currenc. 
 was illicit trade. It had done more to demoralize the Confederacy than any 
 thing else. The inception of this trade was easily winked at by the Confed 
 erate authorities ; it commenced with paltry importations across the Potomac ; 
 it was said the country wanted medicines, surgical instruments, and a number 
 of trifles, and that trade with the Yankees in these could result in no serious 
 harm. But by the enlarged license of the government it soon became an infa 
 my and a curse to the Confederacy. What was a petty traffic in its commence 
 ment soon expanded into a shameless trade, which corrupted the patriotism of 
 the country, constituted an anomaly in the history of belligerents, and reflected 
 lasting disgrace upon the honesty and good sense of our government. The 
 country had taken a solemn resolution to burn the cotton in advance of the 
 enemy ; but the conflagration of this staple soon came to be a rare event ; 
 instead of being committed to the flames it was spirited to Yankee markets. 
 Nor were these operations always disguised. Some commercial houses in the 
 Confederacy counted their gains by millions of dollars since the war, through 
 the favor of the government in allowing them to export cotton at pleasure. 
 The beneficiaries of this trade contributed freely to public charities, and did 
 certain favors to the government ; but their gifts were but the parings of im 
 mense gains ; and often those who were named by weak and credulous people 
 or by interested flatterers as public-spirited citizens and patriotic donors, were, 
 in fact, the most unmitigated extortioners and the vilest leeches on the bodj 
 politic." The Second Year of the War," pp. 804, 305 
 
TEE THIED YEAR. 1ST 
 
 institutions of America had been, more or less, in a state of 
 suspension for one-third of the time. 
 
 But despite the protest of historical facts, against all sys 
 tems of paper expansion, Mr. Memminger had succeeded by 
 the time of the meeting of Congress, in putting afloat some 
 seven hundred millions of currency ; although at another time, 
 he himself had declared that the business of the country could 
 not conveniently absorb more than one hundred arid fifty mil 
 lions.* And even that estimate of absorption was ridiculously 
 excessive. It was so for this particular reason: that in the 
 state of war, with its commerce cut off by the blockade, with 
 no merchant ships, with few manufactures, with few enter 
 prises open to capital, the South afforded but little scope for 
 the profitable employment of its currency. The difficulty was 
 that of stagnant capital, as well as that of an expanded cur 
 rency. 
 
 At least one reason for the comparative financial prosperity 
 of the North, during the war, was its capacity of absorbing 
 large amounts of currency in the various functions of its active 
 commercial life : in its trade open with all the world ; in its 
 shipping whitening every sea ; in its immense internal trade, 
 borne over immense lines of railroad and navigable waters \ in 
 its manufactures, enjoying the monopoly given them by a tariff, 
 which shut out foreign competition ; in its stocks, which made 
 fortunes by the million in Wall street.f 
 
 * Before the war the paper money of the whole country, North and South, 
 was two hundred and twelve millions ; the gold and silver, say one hundred 
 and fifty millions total circulation, three hundred and sixty-two millions. 
 
 f The hey-day of " Wall street" is thus described in a New York paper 
 (August, 1863) : " Stocks have advanced on an average fully three hnndred per 
 cent. For example, the Erie formerly sold for five ; it is now one hundred and 
 twenty. The Galena and other roads of the same kind, which were down to 
 thirty and forty, are now up to one hundred and thirty and one hundred and 
 forty. The Harlem railroad, that nobody would take at six, has risen to one 
 hundred and seventy. Formerly the average receipts of the Erie railroad were 
 five millions ; now they are eleven millions. The receipts of the New York 
 Central formerly averaged seven millions ; now they average eleven and a hall 
 millions. Formerly the Hudson River never could pay its debts ; this year it is 
 making thirty per cent. The Fort Wayne road formerly received two and a 
 half millions annually ; its receipts this year are five millions. The Central 
 Illinois increased its receipts last week, by fifty thousand dollars, and it wiT 
 earn this month four hundred thousand dollars." 
 
188 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 But the agricultural South was inunda red with, a curiencjr 
 for which there was no outlet except in that pernicious and un 
 productive speculation whose sphere of trade is within itself, 
 and whose operations can be only those of engrossing and ex 
 tortion. The evils of the expanded currency of the Confede 
 racy, were not only financial ; they were also moral. The su 
 perabundance of paper money was the occasion of a wild 
 speculation, which corrupted the patriotism of the country ; in 
 troduced extravagance and licentiousness into private life; be 
 stowed fortune upon the most undeserving ; and above all, bred 
 the most grave and dangerous discontents in the army. As 
 long as there was a spirit of mutual sacrifice and mutual ac 
 commodation in the war, our soldiers were content and cheer 
 ful. But when they had to compare their condition the hard 
 ships of the camp ; the pittance of eleven dollars a month, that 
 could scarcely buy a pair of socks ; the poverty of the dear 
 home left behind them with the easy and riotous wealth of 
 those who had kept out of the army merely to wring money 
 out of the necessity and distress of the country ; who, in snug 
 shops in Richmond, made thousands of dollars a day, or, by a 
 single stroke of speculation, became rich for life ; it is not to 
 be wondered, that bitter conclusions should have been drawn 
 from the contrast, and that the soldier should have given his 
 bosom to the bullets with less alacrity and zeal, when he re 
 flected that his martyrdom was to protect a large class of men 
 grown rich on his necessities, and that too, \ith the compliance 
 and countenance of the Government he defended ! 
 
 At the period of the assembling of Congress, the military 
 situation in the Confederacy, which in the early part of 1863 
 had encouraged, not without apparent reasons, hopes of an early 
 and honorable peace, had become overshadowed, critical, and, 
 to some extent, truly alarming. At the time of the fall of 
 Yicksburg, the enemy had also obtained an important and per 
 manent success in Arkansas. The greater portion of the South 
 west he had now overrun. Missouri, Kentucky and North 
 western Virginia, were exclusively occupied by the forces of 
 the enemy. North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama, 
 were partial ly invaded by him. He had passed the barrier 
 of the Cumberland mountains, established his dominion ia 
 East Tennessee, and from his lines in the central West, now 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 189 
 
 hoped to inundate South Carolina, Georgia, and South Al 
 abama. 
 
 In the face of this critical military situation, came the ad 
 founding disclosure from the Confederate Secretary of War 
 Mr. James Seddon, that the effective force of the army was 
 " not more than a half, never two-thirds of the soldiers in tho 
 ranks." 
 
 In stating this deplorable fact, the Secretary avoided attrib 
 uting it to its paramount causes the fault of his own ad 
 ministration ; the remissness of discipline ; the weak shunning 
 of the death-penalty in our armies, and that paltry quackery 
 which proposed to treat the great evil of desertion with 
 "proclamations" and patriotic appeals. He did what was 
 worse than this insincerity ; for he proposed to repair that 
 evil of absenteeism, which the government itself had occa 
 sioned, by new and violent measures to replenish the army. 
 These were an extension of the conscription, which endangered 
 the exhaustion of the military reserves of the country ; the ex 
 post facto annulment of all contracts for substitution, which 
 was to the scandal of the moral world, and to the lively dis 
 satisfaction of more than seventy thousand persons, many of 
 whom were indispensable in civil employments and by their 
 wealth and social position, commanded an influence which the 
 government could not afford to despise ; and, to crown all, 
 the supc/sedure of all exemptions by a system of details in the 
 War Department, which would have transferred the question of 
 all relief w r ith respect to the burdens of the war, from the 
 proper constitutional jurisdiction and collective wisdom of 
 Congress, to the exclusive discretion, caprice or malice of a 
 
 single official.* 
 
 \ 
 
 * There is a little piece of official history which may be properly given here. 
 
 On the 8th of January, 18G4, Mr. Dargan, of Alabama, referred in the House 
 of Representatives to " ads of merciless crwlty" on the part of the authorities, 
 with reference to exemptions, which it was then proposed, by a certain dema 
 gogical bill in the House, to entrust exclusively and omnipotently to the Ex 
 ecutive. He illustrated the epithets applied by an instance where a man had 
 been mercilessly put in the military service, who had never walked and never 
 been able to walk a quarter of a mile in any one day in his life, and all the ef 
 forts made by Mr. Dargan with the Secretary of War to procure his release 
 had so far been unavailing. 
 
 Yet it appears, from a certain record, that the same official who had been BO 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Such measures were finished pieces of demagoguism. 11,6 
 various propositions made to Congress for further military 
 drafts, at the expense of the public faith and the gravest in 
 terests of the citizen and producer, were calculated to find favor, 
 of course, in the army, which, as designing politicians knew, 
 contained the great body of voters in the country, and was 
 destined to hold the balance of political power in the Con 
 federacy. 
 
 The vice of our public men was an inordinate passion for an 
 ephemeral and worthless popularity. The entire legislation of 
 the country, Confederate and State, was demoralized by a pe 
 culiar demagoguism. All the legislative bodies of the coun 
 try were filled with schemes of agrarianism for the benefit 
 of the soldier, and assaults on the most important civil rights 
 
 exacting to the cripple, and who solicited from Congress plenary powers on the 
 subject of exemptions, had given, over his own name, a special, secret exemp 
 tion to a man who professed to him that he was writing a history of the war ; 
 in which it was, of course, expected that Mr. James Seddcn would be one of the 
 figure-heads in the gallery of celebrities. 
 
 This little piece of nefarious traffic in an official s vanity is of record : else it 
 might be doubted whether, even in our Democratic system, a man occupying 
 Mr. Seddon s position could be so easily and shamefully used. 
 
 We copy the extraordinary paper below, omitting the name of its beneficiary, 
 because it is not necessary to history, and because we &re anxious to spare all 
 private feelings which are not materially involved in a public issue : 
 
 CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,) 
 
 WAR DEPARTMENT, > 
 
 RICHMOND, October 20, 1863. ) 
 
 Mr. , not being a native 01 naturalized citizen of the Confederacy, AND 
 
 MOREOVER, being engaged in compiling a work of interest to our people, and ad 
 vantageous to our cause, is exempt until further orders from conscription. 
 
 JAMES A. SEDDON, 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 Of this curious paper two remarks are to be made : 
 
 1. If Mr. had relied for exemption upon his alienage (a plea we must 
 
 suppose him unwilling to admit, after his literary exploits for the Confederacy), 
 then it was quite unnecessary for the Secretary to assign " moreover" his lite 
 rary adventure as a cause of exemption. 
 
 2. If Mr. had relied for exemption upon his alienage, it was not for 
 
 the Secretary of War, but for the consular authority of the courts, to give him 
 
 he benefit of that plea. 
 
 This record may appear to be a small matter for history. It is not : it is one 
 evidence, selected because it is indisputable, of the spirit that is fast reducing 
 tne administration of the Confederate affairs to schools of demagoguism and 
 paltry inventions of personal vanity. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 191 
 
 and interests at the instance of the blind passicra of the 
 army. 
 
 The annulment, by the Confederate Congress, of contracts 
 heretofore concluded for military substitutes, was an act of un 
 paralleled infamy. In making the assertion, that the substitu 
 tion was not a contract, but a privilege accorded by the au 
 thorities, the government adopted the argument of the despot 
 to this effect, that the rights of the people is the pleasure of the 
 sovereign, to be enjoyed with becoming humility. In assum 
 ing to break the contract as to the principal, and, at the same 
 time, maintain it in force against the substitute, the govern 
 ment stultified itself, and violated the plainest and justest of 
 legal maxims, that a contract broken on one side, is broken on 
 all sides. In attempting this violence in the face of the admit 
 ted fact, that nearly half of the army were eut of the ranks, 
 the government avoided the plain duty of replenishing the 
 army with these absentees ; proposed to replace seasoned vete 
 rans by raw malcontents ; and, for a nominal accession to its 
 military forces, to sacrifice recorded pledges ; to wound the 
 confidence and affections of the people ; and to perpetrate a 
 great moral evil, for which the compensation in any practical 
 benefit was utterly disproportionate. 
 
 If such an act of perfidy had been accomplished by the Lin 
 coln government, the Southern newspapers would have ex 
 claimed against it as an unequalled example of despotism. 
 But when it was perpetrated by their own government, South 
 ern journals, with few honorable exceptions, were base enough 
 to sustain or disguise it ; and one Southern Senator, at least 
 a man of the name of Brown was ready in his official seat, 
 and in the security of his own exemption from military ser 
 vice, to bully the people with an insufferable insolence, and t<r 
 flourish from the shelter of his parliamentary position, the vul 
 gar and detestable threat of " military power." 
 
 But it is not necessary to pursue here the legislation of the 
 Confederate Congress on military subjects. We have forborne 
 to say here that the condition of our arms was desperate : it 
 was critical, but there was no real occasion for despair, or for 
 that violent anxiety which approaches it. There was yet much 
 room for hope. We have stated that the amount of absentee 
 ism in the army was, at l^asf in great part, the fault of the au 
 
192 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 thorities, and it is therefore not to be taken as the indication of 
 decay in the spirit of our soldiery. That spirit was yet brave 
 and resolute. The displacement of Bragg from his command, 
 which was at last unwillingly made by the President, had com 
 posed a dangerous discontent in the armies of the West, and 
 was the occasion of the re-organization of our forces there, and 
 a reassurance of the spirits of the troops. In Virginia, Lee 
 still held the enemy at bay, and possessed the unanimous and 
 enthusiastic confidence of the country and the army. At 
 Charleston, Beauregard had checked the enemy, broken the 
 line of his successes on the coast, and was advanced even in 
 his former reputation as a skilful commander. If the prospect 
 was chequered in the West, it was without a serious shadow 
 in the East ; and, although a large portion of the Confederacy 
 had passed into the possession of the enemy, the general 
 condition, at least, externally, was not so serious as when, 
 in 1862, Richmond was threatened, and there were two hund 
 red and ten thousand Federal soldiers in Virginia alone. 
 
 LINCOLN 8 
 
 In the mean time there came a new and powerful appeal to 
 the patriotism and resolution of the Confederacy. The Yan 
 kee Congress had assembled simultaneously with that of the 
 Confederacy, and, for the first time in the war. the conditions 
 upon which peace would be made with the South were offici 
 ally announced. They were contained in the message and 
 proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.* They were briefly these : 
 
 * The following are the material portions of this remarkable proclamation : 
 
 Whereas, In and by the Constitution of the United States, it is provided 
 that the President shall have power to give reprieves and pardons for offences 
 against the United States, except in cases of impeachment, and 
 
 Whereas, a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal State Governments 
 of several States have for a long time been subverted, and many persons 
 have committed, and are now guilty, of treason against the United States, 
 and 
 
 Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason, laws have been en 
 acted by Congress declaring forfeitures and confiscations of property and lib 
 eration of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated; and also declar 
 ing that the President was thereby authorized at any time thereafter, by proo 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 193 
 
 the forcible emancipation of the slaves ; the perpetuity of con 
 fiscations ; pardon on condition of an oath of allegiance to the 
 government, to the Union, and to the Abolition party of the 
 North ; the exception from this pardon of all important ranks 
 in the army, and conditions in political life; and finally, the 
 monstrous republican anomaly that one-tenth of the voters iu 
 any of the Confederate States, declaring for these terms, " should 
 be recognized as the true government of the State." In pro- 
 
 lamation, to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing rebel 
 lion in any State, or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions, 
 and at such times, and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the 
 public welfare, and 
 
 Whereas, the Congressional declaration for limited and conditional pardon 
 accords with the well-established judicial exposition of the pardoning power, 
 and 
 
 Whereas, with reference to the said rebellion the President of the United 
 States has issued several proclamations and provisions in regard to tlfb libera 
 tion of slaves, and 
 
 Whereas, it is now desired by some peisons heretofore engaged in said re- 
 bellion, to assume their allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate 
 loyal State Governments within and for their respective States ; 
 
 Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, 
 declare, and make known to all persons who have directly or by implication 
 participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that 
 a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with rest 
 ation of all rights of property except as to slaves, and in property < 
 where the rights of third parties shall Jiave intervened, and upon the cc- 
 dition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thence* 
 forward keep and maintain such oath inviolate, and which oath shall be reg 
 istered for permanent preservation, and shall be of the tenor and eifect follow 
 ing, to wit : 
 
 " I, , do solemnly swear in the presence of Almighty God, that I wiJJ 
 
 henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the Uni 
 ted States and the Union of the States .thereunder, and that I will in like man 
 ner abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the ex 
 isting rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modi 
 fied, or held void by Congress or by decision of the Supreme Court, and that 
 I will, in like manner, abide and faithfully support all proclamations of tho 
 President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so fei 
 as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court. So help 
 me God." 
 
 The persons excepted from the benefits of the foregoing provisions are all 
 who are or shall have been civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called 
 Confederate Government ; all who have left judicial stations under the United 
 States to aid in the rebellion ; all who are or shall have been military or naviU 
 officers of said so-called Confederate Government above the rank of Colonel ia 
 
 II 
 
194: SOUTHERN" HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 posing these utterly infamous terms, this Yankee minster j>f 
 inhumanity and falsehood had the audacity to declare, that in 
 some of the Confederate States the elements of reconstruction 
 were ready for action ; that those who controlled them differ 
 ed, however, as to the plan of action ; and that, " by the pro 
 clamation, a plan is presented which may be accepted by them 
 as a rallying point, and which they are assured in advance will 
 not be rejected here." 
 
 This insulting and brutal proposition of the Yankee govern 
 ment was the apt response to those few cowardly factions 
 which in North Carolina, and in some parts of Georgia and 
 Alabama, hinted at " reconstruction. 7 It was as the sound of 
 a trumpet to every brave man in the South to meet and to 
 contest a question of life and death. Appeals had formerly 
 been made in the Confederacy against "reconstruction/ on 
 such arguments as the conduct of the enemy in the war; his 
 political prostitution; his vandalism; and sentimental motives 
 of vengeance. There were truth and eloquence in those ap 
 peals. But now there was another added to them which 
 
 the army, of Lieutenant in the navy ; all who left seats in the United States 
 Congress to aid the rebellion : 
 
 All who resigned commissions in the army or navy of the United States, and 
 afterwards aided the rebellion, and all who have engaged in any way in treat 
 ing colored persons or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully 
 as prisoners of war, who have been found in the United States service as sol 
 diers, seamen, or in any other capacity. 
 
 And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, that whenever, in 
 any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ala 
 bama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of 
 persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such States ; 
 at the Presidential election of the year of our Lord, 1800, each having taken 
 the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified 
 voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so- 
 called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall re-establish a State 
 Government, which shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said 
 oath, such shall be recognized as the true Government of the State, and the 
 State shall receive thereunder the benefit of the Constitutional provision whteh 
 declares that 
 
 " Tl e United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republi 
 can form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, on 
 application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cau- 
 aot be convened, against domestic violence." 
 
THE THIRD TEAR. 195 
 
 addressed us not only in our passions, bnt in every fibre of our 
 selfishness, and in every ramification of our interests. It wag 
 the authoritative exposition to the South of the consequences 
 of its submission. These could no longer be misconstrued: 
 they were gibbers, proscription, universal poverty, the sub 
 version of our social system, a feudal allegiance to the Aboli 
 tionists and the depths of dishonor. 
 
 THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN THE WAR. 
 
 The proclamation of President Lincoln was made under cer 
 tain affectations of benevolent zeal for the negro. He declared 
 that his former " emancipation" proclamation had " much im 
 proved the tone of public sentiment in foreign countries," and 
 he insisted that to abandon it would be to the negro " a cruel 
 and astounding breach of faith." 
 
 In view of these pretensions, it is not out of place here to 
 make a brief summary of the true questions of the war, and its 
 real relations to negro slavery in the South. 
 
 A French pamphlet on the American war, published at 
 Paris, holds the following language : 
 
 "The pride of the North will never stoop to admit the 
 superiority of Southern men ; and yet it is from these that the 
 Union drew its best statesmen and a majority of its presidents. 
 The pride of the North will bend only to necessity, because it 
 has not kept pace with the progress of the age. To-day the 
 Americans of the North are as completely foreign to the family 
 of nations as they were twenty years ago. They understand 
 nothing but the narrowest and most mechanical mercantilism, 
 the art of purchase and sale ; and they long to annihilate the 
 Confederate States in order that the South, by its intelligence, 
 its enterprise, and the talent of its statesmen, may not throw 
 
 down the rampart it has built up against Europeanism 
 
 The Federals are so well aware of this that the war which they 
 are^ waging is really and mainly a war of interest. The pro 
 ducing, agricultural South was the commercial vassal of the 
 North, which insists upon keeping its best customer: emanci 
 pation is merely a skilful device for entrapping the sympathies 
 of European liberalism The Northern idea of the 
 
196 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 abolition of slavery by making the negro food for powder^ 
 or by exiling him from his home to die of hunger, is now 
 thoroughly understood in Europe. Our notions of philanthropy 
 and our moral sense alike revolt from these ferocious exagger 
 ations of the love of liberty." 
 
 The above is an admirable summary of the questions of tho 
 war especially of the ^slavery question." There is no doubt 
 that the Anti-Slavery party in the North had, through the 
 violence of its measures, and the exposure of its hollow 
 pretensions for the negro, lost much of that sympathy in 
 Europe which it had formerly obtained ; while the war had 
 also given occasion to intelligent persons in all parts of the 
 world for a more tfiorough, a more interested, and a more 
 practical study of slavery in the South. The old stones 
 which the newspapers of the enemy revived of fiendish 
 masters in the South, and pandemoniums on the cotton plan 
 tations, had now come to be objects of scepticism or derision 
 in Europe. 
 
 In connection with the subject of the relations of slavery to 
 the war, it becomes interesting to inquire what real benefits to 
 the negro were accomplished by the political measures of the 
 Lincoln government. The famous "emancipation" proclama 
 tion extended "freedom" to the negro merely to subject him 
 to a worse fate, and to transfer him from the peaceful service 
 of the plantation to that of the military camp. It was followed 
 by various acts of Congress to enlist the negro in the military 
 service. It was stated by Mr. Seward, in a diplomatic circu 
 lar, dated August the 12th, 1863, that nearly seventy thousand 
 negroes were at that time employed in the Yankee armies, oi 
 whom twenty-two thousand were actually bearing arms in the 
 field ; and at a later date (that of the meeting of the Yankee 
 Congress in December), the whole number of these African 
 allies of the North was said to exceed one hundred thousand. 
 The employment, as soldiers, against the Confederacy, of this 
 immense number of blacks, was a brutality and crime in sight 
 of the world ; it was the ignoring of civilization in warfare ; jt 
 was a savage atrocity inflicted on the South ; but it, cer 
 tainly, was no benefit to the negro. It could be no benefit to 
 him that he should be exposed to the fury of the war, and 
 translated from a peaceful and domestic sphere of laboi 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 197 
 
 to the hardships of the camp and the mortal perils of the 
 battle-field. 
 
 The scheme of the colonization of the negro in the invaded 
 districts of the South was alike destitute of benefit to him, and 
 destructive of the white " civilization" under whose auspices it 
 was conducted. Wherever this new system of labor was intro 
 duced, the negro suffered, the plantation relapsed into weeds, 
 the garden disappeared, and desolation and ruin took up their 
 abodes. It had converted the rice coasts of South Carolina 
 into barrens. It had been instituted on a grand scale in Louisi 
 ana. The result was, to use the language of a Yankee writer, 
 this beautiful State was fast becoming " an alligator pleasure- 
 ground." Where formerly had flourished rich and teeming 
 plantations, were to be seen here and there some show ot 
 cultivation, some acres of corn and cane; but these were 
 "government" plantations; the able-bodied negroes had been 
 forced into the Yankee military service, and a few aged and 
 shiftless negroes, who poked lazily through the weed-growth, 
 were the only signs of labor in the vast districts occupied by 
 the enemy. In Louisiana, where the Yankees had indulged 
 such hopes of "infusing new life" by free labor and the scien 
 tific farming of Massachusetts, the development of the country, 
 its return in crops, in wealth, amounted to little more than 
 nothing. The negro had merely exchanged his Southern 
 master for a Massachusetts shoe-maker, who was anxjous to 
 become a Louisiana sugar-maker. His condition was not im 
 proved, his comforts were decreased ; and the country itself, 
 redeemed by the most tedious labors from the waters of the 
 Mississippi, and brought to a point of fertility unexampled in 
 American soils, was fast reverting to the original swamp. 
 Louisiana had taken more than fifty years to raise the banks 
 of the Mississippi, to drain and redeem the swamp lands, and 
 to make herself a great producing State. But, said the New 
 York World, "it has required only a few months for the 
 Administration at Washington to prepare the State for its 
 return to its original worthlessness ; to restore 5 it to barbar 
 ism ; to re-people it, in spots, with half-bred bastards ; to drive 
 out every vestige of civilization, and to make the paradise ot 
 the South a rank, rotten, miasmatic, alligator and moccasin 
 ewamp-grourid again." 
 
198 SOUTHERN H1STOKY d" THE WAR. 
 
 The fact is indisputable, that in all the localities of the Con 
 federacy whei;e the enemy had obtained a foothold, the negroes 
 had been reduced by mortality during the war to not mor 
 than one-half their previous number. 
 
 To this statement, the deliberate assertion of President 
 Davis to the Confederate Congress, we may make an official 
 addition of the most melancholy interest. In the winter of 
 1863-64, the Governor of Louisiana, in his official message, 
 published to the world the appalling fact, that more negroes 
 had perished in Louisiana from the cruelty and brutality of 
 the public enemy than the combined number of white men, in 
 loth armies, from the casualties of war. In illustration he 
 stated, that when the Confederate forces surprised and cap 
 tured Berwick s Bay, last summer, they found about two 
 thousand negroes there in a state of the most utter destitution 
 many of them so emaciated and sick that they died before 
 the tender humanity of the Confederates could be applied to 
 their rescue from death. 
 
 The fate of these poor wretches was to be attributed to sheer 
 inhumanity. The Yankees had abundant supplies of food, 
 medicines and clothing at hand, but they did not apply them 
 to the comfort of the negro, who, once entitled to the farce of 
 " freedom," was of no more consequence to them than any 
 other beast with a certain amount of useful labor in his 
 anatomy. 
 
 The practice of the enemy in the parts of the Confederacy 
 he had invaded, was to separate the families of the blacks 
 without notice. Governor Moore officially testified to this 
 practice in Louisiana. The men were driven off like so man v 
 cattle to a Yankee camp, and were enlisted in the Yankee- 
 army. The women and children were likewise driven off in 
 droves, and put upon what are called " Government planta 
 tions" that is, plantations from which the lawful owners had 
 been forced to fly, and which the Yankees in Louisiana were 
 cultivating. 
 
 The condition of the negroes at the various contraband 
 camps in the Mississippi valley furnishes a terrible volume of 
 human misery, which may some day be written in the fright 
 ful characters of truth. Congregated at these depots, without 
 employment, deprived of the food to which they had been ac- 
 
THE THIRD i r EAK. 190 
 
 tustomed, and often without shelter or medical care, these 
 helpless creatures perished, swept off by pestilence or the cruel 
 ties of the Yankees. 
 
 We may take from Northern sources some accounts of these 
 contraband camps, to give the reader a passing picture of what 
 the unhappy negroes had gained by what the Yankees called 
 their " freedom." 
 
 A letter to a Massachusetts paper said : " There are, be 
 tween Memphis and Natchez, not less than fifty thousand 
 blacks, from among whom have been culled all the able-bodied 
 men for the military service. Thirty-five thousand of these, 
 viz., those in camps between Helena arid Natchez, are furnished 
 the shelter of old tents and subsistence of cheap rations by the 
 Government, but are in all other things in extreme destitution. 
 Their clothing, in perhaps the case of a fourth of this number, 
 is but one single worn and scanty garment. Many children 
 are wrapped night and day in tattered blankets as their sole 
 apparel. But few of all these people have had any change of 
 raiment since, in midsummer or earlier, they came from the 
 abandoned plantations of their masters. Multitudes of them 
 have no beds or bedding the clayey earth the resting place 
 of women and babes through these stormy winter months. 
 They live of necessity in extreme filthiness, and are afflicted 
 with all fatal diseases. Medical attendance and supplies arc 
 very inadequate. They cannot, during the winter, be disposed 
 to labor and self-support, and compensated labor cannot be 
 procured for them in the camps. They cannot, in their present 
 condition, survive the winter. It is my conviction that, unre 
 lieved, the half of them will perish before the spring. Last 
 winter, during the months of February, March and April, I 
 buried, at Memphis alone, out of an average of about four thou 
 sand, twelve hundred of these people, or twelve a day." 
 
 Another Yankee correspondent wrote as follows respecting 
 the negroes who had come into Yicksburg after the surrender 
 of General Pemberton : 
 
 " About the 1st of August the military authorities became 
 alarmed lest a pestilence should break out among them and 
 extend to the army. Peremptory orders were issued to at once 
 remove across the river all negroes, of every age and sex, 
 whether sick or well, who were not in some employment. 
 
200 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 " One morning I went out to inform a certain Lieutenant 
 
 W , who, with an inadequate force, was executing the 
 
 order, that one of them in the Baptist church was dead, and 
 that another, a woman, was lying behind a fence, dying. He 
 told me that he had detailed, for the purpose of removing the 
 negroes, 20 army wagons ; that he had hauled thenij well, sick 
 and dead, with all their traps, to the river, where he had a 
 steamer to convey them across to a point opposite the lower 
 part of the city ; that he had one wagon to haul the dead, and 
 that some days he found as many as twenty ; that in one house 
 he found six dead bodies, with living ones sitting and lying 
 around them, apparently unconscious of their situation. Holes 
 were dug on the river s bank and the dead buried. The search 
 ing out and removal of these negroes consumed about fifteen 
 or twenty days. About three hundred were thus removed to 
 the low grounds opposite Yicksburg, and there left in the 
 weeds without any shelter, under the care of a man who was 
 appointed to organize them into a camp, and separate small 
 pox cases from the rest. 
 
 u The chaplain told me that these negroes had suffered and 
 were still suffering untold want and wretchedness ; that nearly 
 four hundred had died since he had taken charge of them ; 
 that from sixteen to twenty died daily. Sometimes they would 
 crawl off into the woods and die, where their bodies would be 
 found only by the stench which arose from their decay. That 
 there was no white man with them but a nephew of his ; that 
 rations were furnished them by the Government, but sometimes 
 lie had difficulty in getting them over the river ; that once 
 they were live days without receiving any food, and the negroes 
 in their despair threatened to kill him, thinking the fault was 
 his. He also stated that they had no tents or shelter except 
 brush to shield them from the sun, or storm, or dews of night. 
 
 Oaptain A stated to me that there were in his camp two 
 
 thousand ; at Young s Point, eight thousand five hundred and 
 fifty-one ; on Papaw Island, where he purposed gathering most 
 of -them, two thousand eight hundred ; and on Black s planta 
 tion, on the Yazoo, two thousand four hundred in all over 
 sixteen thousand. One morning I went among the wretched 
 masses where they were hauled to the bank of the river, pre 
 paratory to being: sent across. I tried in vain to find some 
 
THE THIKP YEAB. 201 
 
 women who were able to work, as we wished their labor at 
 our house. All were either sick or taking care of the sick. 1 
 saw nothing but one sad scene of misery." 
 
 The war had tested slavery in the South with results that 
 could not escape the intelligent attention of the world. While 
 it had exhibited the horrors of " emancipation " on the one 
 side, it had shown, on the other, the docility and fidelity of the 
 slave in his proper condition of servitude. It is true that the 
 negroes, in cases of invasion, had flocked to the standards of 
 the Yankee ; but such a course was to be ascribed purely to 
 their ignorance and tractability, seduced as they were by the 
 word u liberty," by bribes and by frauds. It was no evidence 
 of any real discontent, still less of hostility to the masters they 
 deserted. The majority of negroes lost by us were those allured 
 to the Yankees by promises of freedom, no work, and bountiful 
 supplies of good things. Deceived in their anticipation of 
 otium cum dignitate, and finding the spade and the musket in 
 health, and cold neglect in sickness, in lieu of it their wives 
 and children, their old and infirm, subjected to privations and 
 Bufferings never experienced from their masters as many as 
 could returned home. 
 
 In all the war there had been no servile insurrection in the 
 South not a single instance of outbreak among the slaves a 
 conclusive evidence that the negro was not the enemy of his 
 master, but, in his desertion of him, merely the victim of 
 Yankee bribes. Assured, through a thousand channels, as 
 these negroes were, that they were the victims of the most 
 grinding and cruel injustice and oppression ; assured of the 
 active assistance of the largest armies of modern times, and of 
 the countenance and sympathy of the rest of the world ; assured 
 that such an enterprise would not only be generous and heroic, 
 but eminently successful, our enemies had heretofore failed to 
 excite one solitary instance of insurrection, much less to bring 
 on a servile war. 
 
 It was thus that the war itself had greatly cleared up our 
 moral atmosphere, and swept away much mist and darkness 
 of doubt and delusion. After nearly three years of bloody 
 struggle, we had at least already attained this result: the 
 assurance that it was we, the Confederates, who had in charge 
 the cause of freedom in the Western continent against the wild 
 
202 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 anarchy of ignorant mobs we, who were saving civilization 
 from the frenzy of democracy run mad we, above all, who 
 were guarding the helpless black race from utter annihilation 
 at the hands of a greedy and bloody " philanthropy," which 
 sought to deprive them of the care of humane masters only 
 that they might be abolished from the face of the earth, and leave 
 the fields of labor clear for that free competition and demand- 
 and-supply, which reduced even white workers to the lowest 
 minimum of a miserable livelihood, and left the simple negro 
 to compete, as he best could, with swarming and hungry mil 
 lions of a more energetic race, who were already eating one 
 another s heads off, and who regarded him and his claims as an 
 intrusion and superfluity upon earth to be retrenched and got 
 rid of in the most summary manner. 
 
 The affectation of the Yankee for the good of the negro was 
 intended, as we have seen, to solicit the sympathies of Europe 
 in the war. It was not very effectual in this respect. But, at 
 least, it could no longer hope to impose upon the South, and 
 it did not hesitate to unmask to it its brutal and ferocious in 
 sincerity. In the mean time, the " war-to-the-knife" party in 
 the North, with the large accession of so many blacks to its 
 armies, and a recent confirmation at the polls of its party 
 strength, was preparing for new careers of atrocity and crime.* 
 
 * In referring to the condition of the negro in this war, we use the terra 
 "slavery" in these pages under strong protest. For there is no such thing in 
 the South ; it is a term fastened upon us by the exaggeration and conceit of 
 Northern literature, and most improperly acquiesced in by Southern writers. 
 There is a system of African servitude in the South ; in which the negro, so fai 
 from being under the absolute dominion of his master (which is the true mean 
 ing of the vile word " slavery"), has, by law of the land, his personal rights 
 recognized and protected, and his comfort and " right" of " happiness" con 
 sulted, and by the practice of the system, has a sum of individual indulgences, 
 which makes him altogether the most striking type in the world of cheerful 
 ness and contentment. And the system of servitude in the South has this pe 
 culiarity over other systems of servitude in the world : that it does not debase 
 one of God s creatures from the condition of free-citizenship and membership 
 in organized society and thus rest on acts of debasement and disenfranchise- 
 ment, but elevates a savage, and rests on the solid basis of human improve 
 ment. The European mind, adopting the nomenclature of our enemies, luia 
 designated as "slavery" what is really the most virtuous system of servitude 
 in the world. 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 203 
 
 RETALIATION" POLICY. 
 
 While thus the war waxed in the hands of the North, tin 
 Administration at Richmond had nothing to respond to its 
 ferocity but a feeble sentirnentalism and a weak protest for the 
 rights of humanity, which amused the enemy and disgusted 
 the stern spirit of a people fighting for their liberties. " Retal 
 iation" had by this time become a lost word in our vocabula 
 ry. In the year now well nigh past, the Yankees had enacted 
 barbarities greater than those of former years, in proportion as 
 they were encouraged by impunity. They had burned the 
 town of Darien, arid this, one of the oldest towns in Georgia, 
 the New Inverness of Oglethorpe s time, was now a plain of 
 ashes and blackened chimneys. They had, in a raid on the 
 Combahee, committed to the flames the beautiful town of 
 BlufFton. They had attempted to destroy Charleston by an 
 incendiary composition. They had made a desert of the whole 
 country between the Big Black and the Mississippi, and in 
 every district of the South which they had penetrated, houses 
 had been either pillaged or burnt, crops laid waste, and enor 
 mities committed which exhausted the calendar of crimes. 
 
 Yet we have seen that when General Lee invaded the terri 
 tory of the North he had omitted even the devastation of the 
 enemy s country, had paid the Yankees own prices for theii 
 supplies, and had, in fact, given a protection to their property 
 which had never been afforded that of our citizens, either 
 from the rapacity of the soldier or that of the impressment 
 agent. 
 
 It is true that of this singular behavior President Davis said 
 in his message to Congress: "Though the forbearance may 
 have been unmerited and unappreciated by the enemy, it was 
 imposed by their [our soldiers ] own self-respect, which for 
 bade their degenerating from Christian warriors into plunder 
 ing ruffians." But herein the President sought to impose 
 upon the public mind not only a wretched piece of seritimen- 
 talism, but a glaring fallacy, alike unworthy of his intellect. 
 The punishment of the Yankees for what they had done in the 
 South certainly did not mean an imitation of the wrong a 
 retaliation in kind. The Southern people had almost unani- 
 
204 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 mously applauded General Lee s orders in Pennsylvania re 
 straining pillage and private outrage. But there were penalties 
 other than those of marauding which might have been meas 
 ured out to the enemy, and have inflicted upon him some 
 injury commensurate with what we had suffered at his hands. 
 It would not have been unjust, it would not have been immoral, 
 it would not have detracted from our " self-respect," it would 
 not have endangered the discipline of our troops, it would not 
 have been an act unbecoming " Christian warriors," to have 
 laid waste the enemy s country, if done under the justification 
 of retaliation, with the deliberation of official orders, and by 
 the army acting in line of battle. But no such orders were 
 given ; no such line of battle carried with it the chastisements 
 of real war ; and the fertile acres of the Pennsylvania Yalley 
 were untouched by the " Christian warriors." 
 
 The subject of " retaliation" brings to the mind a number of 
 specific acts in which the Confederate government had failed, 
 alike, in the execution of justice and in the protection of its 
 own people. The record of these affords an exhibition of 
 weakness that is, positively, without parallel in the history of 
 governments. In contrasting the rival administrations of the 
 North and South, it is indispensable here to make a brief re 
 view of the incidents to which we have referred in the history 
 of the " retaliation" policy. They are rapidly grouped in the 
 summary which follows: 
 
 1. Shortly after the capture of New Orleans, General Butler 
 executed a citizen of the Confederacy, William B. Mumford, 
 for the extraordinary crime of " disrespect" to the Yankee flag. 
 
 Instead of making prompt retaliation, the Confederate gov 
 ernment found a conveniently circuitous course in addressing, 
 several months after the event, the singularly gratuitous inquiry 
 to the Lincoln government, whether the act of Butler was 
 " approved" by it ? 
 
 The authorities at Washington returned this answer: 
 
 HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ) 
 
 WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 1862. \ 
 GEN L R. E. LEE, Comd g, &c. : 
 
 General: Your two communications of the 2d inst., witti 
 inclosures, are received. As these papers are couched in lan 
 guage exceedingly insulting to the Government of the United 
 
THE TH.BD YEAR. 205 
 
 States, I must respectfully decline to receive them. They are 
 returned here with. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your ob t serv t, 
 
 H. W. HALLKCK, Gen 1-in-Chief F. S. Army. 
 
 And here ended the whole matter. 
 
 2. At Palmyra, in Missouri, General McNeil murdered, in 
 cold blood, ten soldiers of the Confederacy. 
 
 Although the Confederate government must have had prompt 
 official intelligence of this outrage, it was only several months 
 thereafter, when "the Palmyra massacre" had been inconve 
 niently noised in the newspapers, that President Davis ordered 
 by telegraph the execution in retaliation, of ten Yankee pris 
 oners, in the Department of the Trans-Mississippi, 
 
 The bloody telegram, communicated by the Richmond au 
 thorities to the press with peculiar liberality of information, 
 quieted it and consoled the public. But that was all ; the 
 telegraphic order was never executed; it was a dead letter, 
 that died in the public mind ; and the Palmyra massacre was 
 not only unavenged, but justice itself was cheated by a false 
 and most unworthy show of compliance with its demands. 
 
 3. Under the "Death Order" of Burnside, two Confederate 
 officers, Captains Corbin and McGraw, had been executed for 
 recruiting white soldiers in Kentucky, a part of our own terri 
 tory embraced in our political system and represented in our 
 Congress ; at a time when the Yankees were recruiting negro 
 soldiers in our political jurisdiction, and in the circle of our 
 homes. 
 
 By the order of the Confederate government, two Yankee 
 prisoners were selected by a formal lot at Richmond, upon 
 whom retaliation Avas to be visited. The day of their execu 
 tion was fixed. But instead of hanging them, President Davis 
 arranged a back-door of mercy by commissioning a personage 
 no less considerable than Mr. Stephens, Yice-president of the 
 Republic, to make arrangements in Washington " to temper 
 the present cruel character of the contest." The " back-door 
 of mercy" was closed in his face. Mr. Stephens went as far as 
 Hampton Roads, where he was stopped by the enemy s admi 
 ral, with the curt information from Washington, that the 
 
206 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 enemy wished no further communication with the Confederacy 
 than it already had through the ordinary military channels. 
 
 In the mean time, the Yankee government, without troub 
 ling itself with a selection by lot, had summarily designated 
 two of the most important prisoners in its hands as victims to 
 repay with their lives the tragedy that had been appointed at 
 Richmond. The consequences were, that the tragedy did not 
 come off, but the Confederate government replied with some 
 brave words, that it was not dismayed by the threat, but 
 would, at its convenience, execute the penalties it had pro 
 nounced. The day of execution passed ; there was no public 
 notice of respite or pardon ; there was no other day of execu 
 tion appointed ; and the convenient silence of the authorities 
 was evidence enough that the matter was dropped, and that 
 they desired it to pass out of the public mind. Thus termin 
 ated this issue of " retaliation." 
 
 4. A notorious renegade, Rucker, was taken in the ranks of 
 the enemy in Western Virginia, and committed as a spy and 
 murderer. The Yankees threatened the life of one of our 
 prisoners of war, if he should be executed. 
 
 The criminal was kept fifteen months without a trial, and at 
 last conveniently escaped. There was no possible occasion for 
 the extraordinary delay of a trial, unless that the Confederate 
 authorities feared to risk its conclusion, for the evidence was 
 ready, abundant, and immediately at hand to convict him. 
 
 5. The Yankees imprisoned women for waving handker 
 chiefs at our prisoners. For offences not much more consid 
 erable, they put them in political jails, and subjected them to 
 the vilest indignities, and to penalties which made no distinc 
 tion of sex. 
 
 In the summer of 1863, a Mrs. Patterson Allen, a Yankee 
 woman, was detected in Richmond holding the most brutal 
 and treasonable communication with the enemy ; pointing out 
 to him objects for his resentment; and proposing to betray 
 into his hands as prisoner a minister of Christ, under whose 
 roof, at the time the letter was written, the Yankee spy and 
 traitress was herself a guest, and a sick child of the minister 
 was dying in the absence of its father. 
 
 By special direction of the Confederate Secretary of War 
 Mr. Seddon, Mrs. Patterson Allen, a fashionable woman, was 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 207 
 
 sent, not to prison, but to the Asylum, Francis de Sales, in 
 Richmond. Her trial had riot yet taken place ; and for nearly 
 six months the vulgarity of a legal prison was spared her, and 
 a romantic confinement in a charitable institution was the 
 ehivalric invention of the Confederacy for the crime of trea 
 son I 
 
 6. It had been estimated by the Confederate Commissioner 
 of Exchange, in the fall of 1863, that the enemy held in im 
 prisonment not less than one thousand citizens of the Confed 
 eracy, who had been captured in peaceful employments, and 
 were in no way amenable as combatants in the war. 
 
 In a correspondence on the subject of exchange of prisoners, 
 the Confederate government protested against the outrageous 
 practice of the enemy in arresting non-combatants and kid 
 napping private citizens within his military lines or elsewhere 
 within his reach. Bat the enemy continued these arrests, arid 
 no retaliation was ever attempted. At the time unarmed citi 
 zens of the Confederacy were torn from their homes in Missis 
 sippi and sent to the jails of Memphis, General Lee protected 
 the citizens of Pennsylvania, and allowed them even to avow 
 their political animosity in his camps. 
 
 7. When General Morgan was captured by the enemy, he 
 was carried to Cincinnati, and thence he and twenty-eight of 
 his officers were taken to Columbus, Ohio, where they were 
 shaved, their hair cut close by a negro convict, and then locked 
 up in cells. Seven days afterwards, forty-two more of General 
 Morgan s officers were conveyed from Johnston s Island to the 
 penitentiary, and subjected to the same indignities. 
 
 A correspondence ensued between the Commissioners of 
 Exchange on the subject of these cruelties and indignities, in 
 which the excuse was made by the enemy that the Federal 
 authority was not responsible for them, implying that the 
 State of Ohio having these captives in her custody, had chosen 
 to associate them with convicts. 
 
 Yet, at this time, our government was, in deference to " gen 
 eral orders" at Washington, treating as prisoners of war 
 negroes captured in arms, who were clearly responsible to the 
 authority of the States, under State laws, as criminals. No 
 surrender of these criminals was made to any of the States of 
 the Confederacy, and when South Carolina made some motion 
 
208 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 in the matter, it was strangely hushed up, and the negro ma.- 
 efactors retained to this day by the Confederate authority in 
 full enjoyment of the privileges aceorded them by Yankee 
 edict, as " prisoners of war." 
 
 8. The enemy had violated the cartel. Under this cartel, 
 for many months, we had restored to the enemy many thou 
 sands of prisoners in excess of those whom he held for ex 
 change. But in July, when the fortune of war favored the 
 Yankees, and they held the excess of prisoners, they had bro 
 ken the cartel ; they had refused to return to our lines the 
 prisoners taken at Gettysburg; and they had gone further 
 even than this treachery, for they had not only retained the 
 prisoners captured by them, but they had declared null the 
 paroles given by the prisoners captured by us in the same 
 series of engagements. 
 
 What were the returns of the Confederate government for 
 this outrage? It allowed the prisoners in our hands comforts 
 not enjoyed by the men who captured them in battle. It per 
 mitted the Yankee captives in Richmond to receive stores 
 from the North to the amount of half a million of dollars. It 
 indulged them in a festival ; and while our prisoners were 
 sighing in the dungeons and penitentiaries of the North, or at 
 Johnston s Island, were (to use President Davis s own state 
 ment), dying from the slow tortures of cold, "exposed to the 
 piercing cold of the Northern lakes, by men who cannot be 
 ignorant of, even if they do not design, the probable result," a 
 table cThoU was spread in the Libby Prison at Richmond, with 
 all the luxuries that the teeming markets of the Northern 
 cities could afford. And this licentiousness, with its awful 
 and terrible contrast to our own people, went by the name oi 
 Christian charity in Richmond, and was a pleasant humanity 
 to be told to Europe ! 
 
 9. The Confederacy treated prisoners of war according to 
 the rules of war; consulted their comfort as well as their secu 
 rity ; enacted a law allowing them the same rations as Con 
 federate soldiers in the field ; and, in fine, considering the 
 scarcity of supplies in the South, made a provision for pris 
 oners of war of extreme generosity. 
 
 It is true that statements were made by the North much to 
 the contrary ; that Yankee newspapers circulated ghastly 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 209 
 
 romances of their starving prisoners ; and that pictorial illus 
 trations of the horrors of Libby Prison and Belle Isle were 
 manufactured into a public document by a Yankee Congress 
 for circulation throughout Christendom. However, these sto 
 ries were but little entitled to the credit or sympathy of the 
 world ; so often had it been imposed upon by Yankee fictions, 
 and so little reason had it to suppose that a people false in one 
 particular were even tolerably truthful in another. 
 
 It was not to be supposed, indeed, that in a war in which 
 the favorite object of the Yankee was to plunder and starve 
 the Confederacy, and in which the first men of the Confed 
 eracy were forced to live scantily on bread and beef, and to 
 deny themselves such luxuries as tea, coffee, sugar, and vege 
 tables, Yankee prisoners of war could have many of the com 
 forts which they had been accustomed to obtain from their 
 own bountiful commissariat. But it is seriously true that 
 they fared as well as our own worn and hardened soldiers in 
 the field. They were allowed, in many instances, to receive 
 supplies from friends in the North, and it frequently happened 
 that the occupants of the Libby actually lived better than the 
 cabinet ministers of the Confederacy. 
 
 What was the Yankee treatment of prisoners of war in 
 comparison with these humanities of the Confederacy ? Their 
 system of imprisonment was essentially a penal one. They 
 assumed the right to punish prisoners of war; to enact the 
 part of magistrate over soldiers and citizens of the Confederacy; 
 to sentence them to terms of years, to add ball and chain, to 
 subject them to penalties of the felon, and to employ upon 
 them the tortures of the common penitentiary. Even women, 
 accused of sympathy with the South, were required to employ 
 their time in prison with " sewing for Union soldiers." The 
 right to punish prisoners of war was assumed quite as much 
 as that to secure their persons. 
 
 We have already referred to the outrageous incarceration of 
 General Morgan and his command. We may refer here to the 
 experience at length of one of these unfortunate captives 
 which was personally narrated to the writer of these pages. 
 
 This statement was taken from the Tips of Captain Calvin C 
 Morgan, a brother of the famous General Morgan. 
 
 Captain Morgan was among those of his brother s expedi 
 
 14 
 
210 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tion who, in last July, were incarcerated in the penitentiary of 
 Ohio. On entering this infamous abode, Captain Morgan and 
 his companions were stripped in a reception room and their 
 naked bodies examined there. They were again stripped in 
 the interior of the prison, and washed in tubs by negro con 
 victs ; tjieir hair cut close to the scalp, the brutal warden, who 
 was standing by, exhorting the negro barber to " cut off every 
 lock of their rebel hair." After these ceremonies, the officers 
 were locked up in cells, the dimensions of which were thirty- 
 eight inches in width, six and a-half feet in length, and about 
 the same in height. In these narrow abodes our brave soldiers 
 were left to pine, branded as felons, goaded by "convict- 
 drivers," and insulted by speeches which constantly reminded 
 them of the weak and cruel neglect of that government, on 
 whose behalf, after imperilling their lives, they were now 
 suffering a fate worse than death. But even these sufferings 
 were nothing to what was reserved for them in another 
 Invention of cruelty without a parallel, unless in the secrets of 
 the infernal. 
 
 It appears that, after General Morgan s escape, suspicion 
 alighted on the warden, a certain Captain Merion, who, it was 
 thought, might have been corrupted. To alleviate the suspicion 
 (for which there were really no grounds whatever), the brute 
 commenced a system of devilish persecution of the unfortunate 
 Confederate prisoners who remained in his hands. One part 
 of this system was solitary confinement in dungeons. These 
 dungeons were close cells, a false door being drawn over the 
 grating, so as to exclude light and air. The food allowed the 
 occupants of these dark and noisome places, was three ounces 
 of bread and half a pint of water per day. The four walls 
 were bare of every thing but a water-bucket, for the necessities 
 of nature, which was left for days to poison the air the prisoner 
 breathed. He was denied a blanket ; deprived of his overcoat, 
 if he had one, and left standing or stretched with four dark, 
 cold walls around him, with not room enough to walk in to 
 keep up the circulation of his blood, stagnated with the cold, 
 and the silent and unutterable horrors of his abode. 
 
 Confinement in these dungeons was the warden s sentence 
 for the most trivial offences. On one occasion one of our 
 prisoners was thus immured because he refused to tell MerioD 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 211 
 
 which one of his companions had whistled contrary to tht 
 prison rules. But the most terrible visitation of this demon s 
 displeasure remains to be told. 
 
 Some knives had been discovered in the prisoners cells, and 
 Merion accused the occupants of meditating their escape. 
 Seven of them, all officers, were taken to the west end of the 
 building and put in the dark cells there. They were not 
 allowed a blanket or overcoat, and the thermometer was below 
 zero. There was no room to pace. Each prisoner had to 
 struggle for life, as the cold benumbed him, by stamping his 
 feet, beating the walls, now catching a few minutes of horrible 
 sleep on the cold floor, and then starting up to continue, in the 
 dark, his wrestle for life. 
 
 "I had been suffering from heart disease," says Captain 
 Morgan, speaking of his own solitary confinement on another 
 occasion. "It was terribly aggravated by the cold and horror 
 of the dungeon in which I was placed. I had a wet towel, one 
 end of which I pressed to my side ; the other would freeze, and 
 I had to put its frozen folds on my naked skin. I stood this 
 way all night, pressing the frozen towel to my side and keeping 
 my feet going up and down. I felt I was struggling for my 
 life." 
 
 Captain Morgan endured this confinement for eighteen 
 hours, and was taken out barely alive. The other prisoners 
 endured it for sixteen days and nights. In this time they were 
 visited at different periods by the physician of the penitentiary 
 Dr. Loring who felt their pulses, and examined their con 
 dition, to ascertain how long life might hold out under the 
 exacting torture. It was awful, this ceremony of torture, this 
 medical examination of the victims. The tramp of the prison 
 ers feet, up and down (there was no room to walk), as they 
 thus worked for life, was incessantly going on. This black 
 tread-mill of the dungeon could be heard all through the cold 
 and dreary hours of the night. Dr. JLoring, who was compara 
 tively a humane person, besought Merion to release the un 
 happy men ; said they had already been taxed to the point of 
 death. The wretch replied, "They did not talk right yet." 
 He wished them to humble themselves to him. He went into 
 the cell of one of them, Major Webber, to taunt him. " Sir," 
 the officer, "I defy you. You can kill rne, but you can 
 
212 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 add nothing to the sufferings jou have already inflicted. Pio- 
 ceed to kill me ; it makes not the slightest difference." 
 
 At the expiration of sixteen days the men were released froir. 
 the dungeons. Merion said "he would take them out this time 
 alive, but next time they offended, they would be taken out 
 feet foremost." Their appearance was frightful; they could 
 no longer be recognized by their companions. With their 
 bodies swollen and discolored, with their minds bordering on 
 childishness, tottering, some of them talking foolishly, these 
 wretched men seemed to agree but in one thing a ravenous 
 desire for food. 
 
 " I had known Captain Coles," says Captain Morgan, " as 
 well as my brother. When he came out of his dungeon, I 
 swear to you I did not know him. His face had swollen to two 
 or three times its ordinary size, and he tottered so that I had 
 to catch him from falling. Captain Barton was in an awful 
 state. His face was swollen and the blood was bursting from 
 the skin. All of them had to be watched, so as to check them 
 in eating, as they had been starved so long." 
 
 We had had in this war many examples of Yankee cruelty. 
 But the statement given ahove, may be said to take precedence 
 of all that had ever yet been narrated of the atrocities of the 
 enemy ; and it is so remarkable, both on account of its matter 
 and the credit that must naturally attach to its authorship 
 that we doubt whether the so-called civilized world of this 
 generation has produced anywhere any well-authenticated 
 story of equal horror. 
 
 In his message to Congress, President Davis elo 
 quently adverted to the savage ferocity of the enemy and his 
 crimes. But he had not a word to say of what had become ot 
 all his proclamations, pronunciamentos, gloomy appeals and 
 terrible threatenings with respect to retaliation. The truth 
 was they had never resulted in one solitary performance ; they 
 were a record of bluster and an exhibition of weakness and 
 shame upon which the President might well turn his back. 
 It is remarkable that Mr. Davis in all these proceedings touch 
 ing questions of retaliation should have shown a character so 
 different from that which he exhibited in the domestic contro 
 versies and intrigues of his administration. In his contro 
 versies with his military officers, he was very obstinate, ver^ 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 213 
 
 bitter; in bis attachment to certain favorites and to certain 
 measures of domestic policy lie was immovable and defiant. 
 It was only when bis duty brought him in contact with the 
 enemy that these imperious traits of character disappeared, and 
 were replaced by halting timidity and weak hesitation. 
 
 Tt was unfortunate that the Confederate President ever made 
 any threats of retaliation, since he had not the resolution to 
 perform them. They had been ineffectually repeated until 
 they had become the sneer of the enemy. But the most un 
 fortunate consequence of the want of a proper response to the 
 cruel assumptions of power by the North was the moral effect 
 it had upon our own people ; for it implied a certain guilt, a 
 certain moral inferiority in the South, of which the enemy had 
 the right to take advantage. It converted the relations be 
 tween us and our foes to those of the malefactor and the con 
 stable ; it depressed our sense of right ; and it gave to the sol 
 dier the bitter reflection that his government cared but little 
 for him, in that martyrdom on the gallows or captivity in dun 
 geons with the terrors of which the enemy assailed him. 
 
 Finally, there is this to be said of the rival administrations 
 of Richmond and "Washington : that if in the former there 
 were to be found many evidences of weakness, these, at least, 
 were not crimes, while if in the latter there were to be seen 
 vigor and decision, they were associated with the insolence of 
 the reprobate and the inhumanity of the savage. If the his 
 tory of the retaliation policy and other questions which we 
 have traced, exhibits imbecility on the part of the Confederate 
 authorities, it has this compensation : that it has inseparably 
 connected with it a fearful record of the inhumanity and crime 
 of the enemy. 
 
 In this conflict, which, as to goverments, was that between 
 the weakly good and the resolutely evil, the people of the Con 
 federacy had but little to expect from their political authori 
 ties; but it was precisely the condition in which they had 
 much to expect from the resources of their own righteous and 
 aroused passions. 
 
 In connection with his " peace" proclamation, the Yankee 
 President pointed with an air of triumph to the great resources 
 of the North for the prosecution of the war. There was an 
 actual surplus in its treasury. While the Confederacy had 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 collected only one hundred millions from its tax and revenue 
 system, the receipts of the Yankee treasury were nine hundred 
 millions. The Yankee army was increased. The Yankee 
 navy now numbered nearly six hundred vessels, and seventy- 
 five of them were iron-clads or armored steamers. The Yan 
 kee political parties had accommodated their differences and 
 no longer embarrassed the authorities at Washington. "The 
 crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the Union ia 
 past," said Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 The Washington government had now a united people, an 
 unexhausted treasury, enlarged military resources, and a con 
 fidence more insolent than ever. 
 
 Richmond, in December, 1863, was a sombre city. An air 
 of gloom pervaded the public offices. In Congress, Mr. Foote 
 told his endless story of official corruption and imbecility, and 
 had his savage jokes on "the pepper-doctor from North Caro 
 lina," who governed the commissariat of the* Confederacy. 
 There were no social gaieties, although disreputable balls and 
 gambling "hells" still amused those immoral mobs, at all 
 times inseparable from a metropolis. In the streets there waa 
 the perpetual juggle of bargain and sale, apparently uncon 
 scious of the war, simply because engrossed in individual ava 
 rice ; the clatter of the auction sales ; the levity of the tho 
 roughfare. But there was the seriousness of anxiety, if not the 
 gloom of despair, in the home, in the private sanctuary, in the 
 public office in every place where thoughtful minds contem 
 plated the future, and looked beyond the circle of the twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 Washington was gay, in the mean time, not with thought 
 lessness, but with exultations over the prospects of the war, 
 and the promises of its government. Balls, "diamond" wed 
 dings, presidential levees, social parties, with splendid arrays 
 of silks and jewels, with all the fantasy of wealth, the inso 
 lence of licentiousness, and the fashionable commerce of lust, 
 amused the hours. Mr. Lincoln was jocose again. He snapped 
 his fingers at " the rebellion." He attended the theatre night 
 ly. This piece of human jacquerie chattered incessantly over 
 the success of his schemes. The Northern newspapers indulged 
 the almost immediate prospect of a peace, which was to irra 
 diate the Yankee arms, humiliate thn South, and open the dooi 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 215 
 
 to the prosperity of the conquerors in an indiscriminate plun 
 der, and the lasting vassalage of the vanquished. The New 
 York Herald declared, that even if this event did not happen 
 in the festivities of the Christmas season of 1863, it would cer 
 tainly be celebrated in the early part of the ensuing year. 
 
 Intelligent men of the South, understood the ap 
 proaching issues. The war was to be prosecuted by the North 
 with certain important accessions to its former advantages ; 
 and, on the side of the South, there was a demand for a new 
 measure of that devotion in the minds of the people, which 
 wins success on unequal terms and without which all expe 
 dients of States, all violence of legislation, and all commands 
 of authority are utterly in vain. 
 
216 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Importance of the Winter Campaigns of the War. A Series of Remarkable 
 Events. Encouragement of the Confederacy. ROSSER S RAID. A Magnificent 
 Prize. PICKETT S EXPEDITION AGAINST NEWBEKN. The Fight on Bachelor s Creek. 
 Destruction of the Yankee Gunboat " Underwriter." The Brilliant Exploit of Com 
 mander Wood. Results of the Expedition. THE AFFAIR OF JOHN S ISLAND. General 
 Wise s Fight. THE BATTLE OF OCEAN POND. History of the Yankee Expeditions into 
 Florida. Lincoln s Designs upon Florida. Their Utter Defeat. Political Jugglery 
 of Seymour s Expedition. Price of "Three Electoral Votes." SHERMAN S EXPEDI 
 TION IN THE SOUTHWEST. What it Contemplated. Grant s Extensive Designs. The 
 Strategic Triangle. Grant s Proposed Removal of the Mississippi River. Polk s Re 
 treat into Alabama. Forrest s Heroic Enterprise. His Defeat of Smith s and Grier- 
 son s Columns. Sherman s Retreat to Vicksburg. His Disgraceful Failure. The 
 Yankee Campaign in the West Disconcerted. The Lines in North Georgia. Repulse 
 of the Yankees. 
 
 So far in the history of the war, the winter had been com 
 paratively an uninteresting period. That of 1863-64 was not 
 an exception to this observation. But although there was, in 
 this period, no battles on the dominant military lines in Yir- 
 ginia and North Georgia, there was a series of remarkable 
 events, running through several months, each one a marked 
 success for the Confederacy, and, collectively, an important 
 Bum of victory which did much to raise the hopes of the Con 
 federacy and relieve the dark days in which the year 1863 had 
 expired. These events transpired at considerable distances 
 from each other, and they have no other connection than a 
 chronological one, and their singular concurrence in uniform 
 success. In this connection we shall treat them. 
 
 BOBBER 8 EAID. 
 
 On the 30th of January, a brilliant expedition of Genera? 
 Rosser in the Yalley district culminated in the capture of a train 
 jf ninety-three wagons loaded with commissary stores and forage 
 on the way from New Creek to Petersburg, and was prosecuted 
 in a few days thereafter to a most unexpeck d and gratifying 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 217 
 
 vnccess. The incidents of this expedition were of unufeiuil IT. 
 terest. 
 
 For several months past the enemy had kept a garrison at 
 the village of Petersburg, in Hardy county, as an outpost to 
 their defences of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Peters 
 burg was some forty-two miles from New Creek, their princi 
 pal depot for supplies and operations. 
 
 General Early, who had lingered in the Valley since the 
 Averill raid, concluded to go over and capture this party 
 at Petersburg, numbering about one thousand, and strongly 
 fortified. He sent General Rosser s brigade (cavalry) and 
 four pieces of McClannahan s battery (Imboden s com 
 mand) through Brock s Gap, and pushed on himself with 
 Thomas s brigade of infantry from New Market, by Orkney 
 Springs, to the same destination Moorefield, in Hardy. 
 Moorefield is between Petersburg and the railroad, eleven 
 miles from the former place. Rosser and the artillery arrived 
 first. The plan was for Early to remain with the infantry at 
 Moorefield, preventing the enemy s escape to the railroad by 
 that route, while Rosser passed over Patterson Creek mountain 
 fifteen miles across and took position on the turnpike lead 
 ing from Petersburg to New Creek. When Rosser reached 
 Moorefield he learned that the road from that place across Pat 
 terson Creek mountain to the turnpike had been blockaded by 
 felling numberless trees and cutting away the road itself. He 
 also learned that a large train of wagons were coming up from 
 New Creek to Petersburg, heavily guarded by infantry. He 
 started across the mountain with his brigade and the four 
 pieces. In the gap he met one or two hundred of the enemy, 
 perfecting the blockade and guarding the pass. They were 
 charged by the Twelfth cavalry and fled. The pioneers went 
 to work heartily. Never did axes fly more rapidly. The train 
 was near the point on the turnpike opposite the mouth of the 
 gap. If it passed that place, the probability was of its escape 
 within the breastworks at Petersburg, which was only ten 
 miles distant. The fortifications were strong, and the chances 
 were against the capture of this place, being reinforced by the 
 wagon guard. In an hour the obstructions were cleared away, 
 and the horsemen and cannon rushed into the turnpike, and 
 saw, with exultation, a long line of snowy-covered wagons 
 
218 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 slowly moving towards them. Our position was difficult. If 
 the twelve hundred infantry guarding the wagons should make 
 a stubborn resistance, the force at Petersburg might come up 
 and fall upon our rear. Kosser had only about eight hundred 
 cavalry. The dispositions were soon made. Colonel White s 
 (Lige) battalion and three pieces were sent towards Petersburg 
 the balance of the brigade and one piece of artillery ad 
 vanced upon the train. The enemy were so certain of success, 
 that they never even turned their wagons around, but stopped 
 them facing us in the pike. 
 
 The Yankees were posted at right angles with the pike, be 
 hind a ten-rail fence. The long-range guns were dismounted 
 and advanced as infantry. A squadron of cavalry were sent 
 to the left to flank the enemy, while another was placed in the 
 pike. The piece opened. The dismounted men trudged through 
 a miry meadow, sinking to their ankles, right up a hill to meet 
 twelve hundred Yankees with their guns resting upon the 
 fence. Four hundred cavalry, on foot, in an open field, with 
 boots and spurs, and without the advantage of order, faced 
 such odds and such position ! The enemy s artillery, which 
 had accompanied the train from "New Creek, thinking all safe, 
 turned back a few miles below, hence they were without can 
 non. We had only one piece. It being placed in a flat, and 
 firing up hill, the recoil came almost directly against the axle, 
 and it broke. Still it continued to fire, carrying dismay 
 among the wagoners and the enemy s line. 
 
 The action lasted about twenty minutes. The squadron on 
 the left charged a Yankee squadron up hill, some on foot lead 
 ing their horses, and as each one reached the plateau mounted 
 and spurred after the frightened enemy, who fled without 
 making but a feeble resistance. Meanwhile the party behind 
 the fence were routed and fled ; but being too swift for boots 
 and spurs, the cavalry on the pike charged upon them. The 
 immense train, now in a mass of confusion, so blocked the pike 
 as to prevent overtaking the fugitives. The whole train was 
 now in our hands.* 
 
 * The prize is thus described by a correspondent who participated in the 
 affair : " There stood ninety-three six-mule wagons, loaded to the very sheet 
 with commissary stores, new gear, new wagons, new everything. Contents, 
 
THE TH1KD YEAR. 219 
 
 After securing his prize, Rosser moved rapidly on to co* 
 operate with Early in the capture of Petersburg. But infor 
 mation of the advance had been received, and the garrison 
 evacuated the place during the night. They had powerful 
 works and six pieces of cannon,*and, if- they had been less 
 cowardly, might have given us a terrible reception. 
 
 Rosser, when he had discovered the escape of the Yankees,, 
 wheeled and moved upon the railroad, destroying two bridges 
 one over Patterson creek, the other the North Branch of the 
 Potomac. 
 
 The expedition got back safely into the valley. Rosser 
 brought off two hundred and seventy prisoners, fifty wagons 
 and teams, twelve hundred cattle and five hundred sheep. 
 
 The town of Newbern, situated at the junction of the Trent 
 and Neuse, was a place of some note in North Carolina. Soon 
 after the fall of Roanoke Island, on the 14th day of February, 
 1862, it fell into the hands of the Yankees, since which time 
 it had been in their possession, and had been the seat of some 
 of their most important military operations. Immediately 
 after occupation, extensive fortifications were erected, and the 
 lines extended over some twenty miles of surrounding country. 
 The regiments stationed here had been composed principally 
 of men from Massachusetts and New York, the blackest of 
 Abolitionists, full of schemes and plans for negro emancipation, 
 equalization and education. Negro regiments had been organ 
 ized ; companies of disloyal Carolinians put in service against 
 us ; the most tyrannical rule established ; and both men and 
 officers had been guilty of the grossest outrages and atrocities. 
 For many months they had occupied the town securely, retain 
 ing undisturbed possession, scarcely dreaming of the possibility 
 of an attack. In the river some two or three gunboats were 
 
 in part,* corn, oats, flour, bacon, ad infinitum ; coffee, two thousand pounds 
 nicely roasted ; candles (adamantine), fifty boxes ; sugar, by the barrel ; fiesh 
 oysters, one thousand cans ; brandy peaches, five hundred cans ; cheese, Lats, 
 &c., &c., too numerous to mention. One bushel of pocket-knives." 
 
^20 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE W A.R. 
 
 generally lying, either anchored off the town or cruising up or 
 down the Neuse or Trent, to the great terror of the inhabitants 
 living near their banks. 
 
 General Pickett s demonstration upon Newbern, which sur 
 prised the Yankees, on the 1st of February, appears to have 
 followed just in the retiring footsteps of a Yankee raiding 
 party which had been sent out from the^town. He had with 
 him two brigades only Clingrnan s and Hoke s while Gene 
 ral Barton had been sent up the Trent to fall upon the town 
 simultaneously with those in front. An expedition of boats, 
 under command of Commander Wood, of the Confederate 
 Navy, was to make a demonstration upon the enen^ s gun 
 boats, and to essay, if possible, their capture or destruction. 
 
 Early on the morning of 1st February, the Yankee outposts 
 at Bachelor s creek were attacked by the Confederates. The 
 force of the enemy here occupied a strong line of fortifications 
 along the edge of the creek, on both flanks of a powerful 
 blockhouse, which commanded the approach to the bridge. 
 
 While a furious shower of shot and shell was kept up near 
 the bridge, the right of our line succeeded in pushing through 
 the marsh and effected a crossing, flanking the enemy. A 
 vigorous attack was made by the Confederates, and the Yan 
 kees were driven out, and began falling back. Those of our 
 men on the other side of the creek rushed upon the bridge, 
 laid the pontoon planks, crossed, and joined the light. Charg 
 ing with a yell, they broke the line of the enemy, and pursued 
 them to the cover of the fortifications of Newbern. 
 
 The night passed without a general attack ; but not withou 
 a bold achievement by the Confederates. 
 
 The Yankee gunboat, Underwriter, had passed up the Neuso 
 river near Fort Stephenson, throwing out her anchors and 
 placing all her guns, to be in readiness for any service in case 
 of an attack on the town. About one o clock at night, the sen 
 tinel saw some boats approaching, and, hailing them, received 
 no reply. They were Wood s boats. As they came up tho 
 Yankees greeted them with a volley of musketry, which 
 flashed in the very faces of the daring Confederates, the balk 
 whistling unpleasantly into the boats or into the water beyond. 
 But the boats were soon at the side of the steamer, the grap 
 nels thrown on, and a hand-to-hand combat joined between 
 
THE THIRD YEAR- 221 
 
 the boarding-party and the crew. But the Yankees sc on cried 
 for quarter, and the steamer was ours. The Confederate engi 
 neer Gill was lying in the gangway, shot in four places and 
 mortally wounded, and midshipman Saunders, cut down in a 
 hand-to-hand fight, was breathing his last upon the decks. 
 
 , The Underwriter was moored, head and stern, to the shore, 
 under three of the largest batteries, and hardly a stone s throw 
 from the wharf. The flash of the guns and the report of 
 musketry had aroused the soldiers on shore, and they were 
 now witnesses of the scene, but determined not to be inactive 
 ones ; for, regardless of their own prisoners on board, they 
 fired a shell into the steamer, which, striking the upper ma 
 chinery and exploding on the deck, produced a terrible shock. 
 To spare the prisoners and wounded, Captain Wood ordered 
 them to be put into the boats and the ship made ready for fir 
 ing. As the steam was down, it was found it would be impos 
 sible to take time to get it up under the heavy fire of batteries 
 not one hundred yards away ; and so, the wounded and pris 
 oners being put into the boars, the vessel was fired. In a few 
 minutes the Underwriter was one mass of flame, burning up 
 the dead bodies of the Yankees killed in action. 
 
 General Pickett having ascertained the strength of the for 
 tifications of Newbern, concluded that it would be useless to 
 risk an assault upon them, and appears to have been satisfied 
 with the results his expedition had already accomplished. In 
 deed, he represented to the War Department that he had at 
 tempted nothing more than a "reconnoissance in force." But 
 the results of the reconnoissance was not a mean victory. 
 Pickett had met the enemy in force at Bachelor s creek, killed 
 and wounded about one hundred in all, captured thirteen offi 
 cers and two hundred and eighty prisoners, fourteen negroes 
 two rifled pieces and caissons, three hundred stand of small 
 arms, four ambulances, three wagons, fifty-five animals, a 
 quantity of clothing, camp and garrison equipage, and two 
 flags. The destruction of the Underwriter was an important 
 pait of the success. She was the largest and best of the Yan 
 kee gunboats in the sounds; had engines of eight hundred 
 horse power, the largest the Yankees had taken across Hatteraa 
 swash ; mounted four guns two large eight-inch shell guns 
 one twelve-pound rifle, and one twelve-pound howitzer. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 An incident " worthy of note" was at last to occur in what 
 fir months had been the dull vicinity of famous Charleston. 
 
 On the 9th of February the enemy came over in force from 
 Folly to Kiawah Island, and thence crossed over at a place 
 called the Haulover, to John s Island, killing, wounding, and 
 capturing some nine men of Major Jenkins s command. With 
 about one hundred and fifty men only, he fought them until 
 night, when Colonel Tabb reinforced him, and the Colonel im 
 mediately attacked the enemy at night, with but a battalion, 
 and staggered them so that they paused and did not advance 
 again until Colonel Page reinforced them with another battal 
 ion of the 26th Virginia, the next morning. 
 
 General Wise sent forward more troops, and went in person 
 on the 10th, and got there just as five hundred and fifty in 
 fantry, with one battery and two hundred cavalry were drawn 
 up in line under the fire of two thousand, at least, of the 
 enemy. Seeing they were about to turn our left flank, Gen 
 eral Wise ordered our forces to fall back to a point called the 
 " Cocked Hat." There we took a position and awaited rein 
 forcements. They came up in time to increase our numbers to 
 about one thousand infantry, and two batteries of artillery. 
 
 The enemy did not advance until the llth. By 3 p. M. they 
 came up to our front. Just at this moment General Colquitt 
 reinforced us with nine hundred men. At 3.25 p. M. we 
 opened upon the enemy with six pieces, the Marion battery, 
 and one section of Charles s, at about three-quarters of a mile 
 distance. The enemy replied with three pieces Parrott s and 
 Blakely s. They ceased tiring at forty minutes past 5 P. M., 
 and retreated rapidly, leaving some of their dead. Four bod 
 ies were found on the ground. General Wise s men were too 
 much broken and fatigued to follow them. The enemy retired 
 in confusion to Haulover, burnt the Seabrook houses there, and 
 before day crossed back to Kiawah, burning the bridge behind 
 them. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 223 
 
 THE BATTLE OF OCEAN POND. 
 
 But the month of February was to be distinguished by an 
 important battle, and that in a part of the Confederacy which 
 had yet attracted but little notice in the war. 
 
 The Yankees had invaded Florida in the spring of 1862, 
 when they occupied Jacksonville. They then said they came 
 to protect the city against the reprehensible incendiarism of 
 some of our own people ; and, after this profession of protec 
 tion, and making great promises of an intention to hold the 
 place forever, thus duping a good many disaffected citizens to 
 take sides with them in some sort of a State government which 
 they proposed, and finding much less of Union sentiment than 
 they expected, but more of a military demonstration in their 
 front than they looked for, they departed, after a three weeks 
 stay in the " water-oak city." 
 
 They came again in October, 1862. But this expedition 
 turned out to be a very heavy negro trade ; and General 
 Brannon, who commanded it, after collecting a large number 
 of " contrabands," took his departure. 
 
 Again, in March, 1863, the Yankees invaded Florida, to try 
 the experiment there of recruiting blacks. They were only 
 partially successful ; and the third experiment of invasion 
 ended, leaving its malignant track in the burning of two 
 churches, and laying waste a number of squares of private re 
 sidences in the beautiful little city of Jacksonville. 
 
 The fourth invasion was designed at Washington, and con 
 templated nothing less than the taking and holding of the 
 whole State of Florida, reincorporating it into the Union, and 
 erecting a State government there under the auspices of Mr. 
 Lincoln s private secretary, who was sent to Florida to engineer 
 the political part of the movement. The times were thought 
 to be ripe for so extensive a design upon Florida. The opera 
 tions against Charleston were virtually abandoned ; surplus 
 troops were on hand ; and deserters and fugitives had per 
 suaded the Yankees that the pathway was open, and that all 
 there was to resist them was a local force of not more than a 
 dozen companies scattered broadcast over the State. It was 
 so .m known that a force of six or seven thousand Yankee 
 
224 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 troops, under command of Major-general Seymour, had left 
 Charleston harbor in eighteen transports for what was supposed 
 to b e the easy conquest of Florida. 
 
 The State was in General Beauregard s military department, 
 and that alert commander had hastened General Colquitt down 
 to meet the movement of the enemy. General Finnegan was 
 in command of a small force at Camp Finnegan, where the 
 enemy had expected to surprise him. He eluded him by with 
 drawing his forces through the woods. The enemy advanced 
 twenty miles on the railroad, and took the junction of the other 
 railroad crossing it, the place or village known as Baldwin. 
 Our rail lines in their hands, our case seemed desperate. The 
 enemy advanced still westward towards Lake City, which had 
 long been the head-quarters of the Eastern Department. His 
 advance cavalry had come within three miles of Lake City. 
 But troops were pouring in to Finnegan. General Colquitt 
 and his brigade were en route. The celebrated Chatham artil 
 lery of Savannah, which stood the brunt of Fort Wagner for 
 long weeks, arrived. They were hurried down. Body aftei 
 body of troops arrived. Clinch s cavalry were expected to 
 onter the State in the rear of the enemy, and thus cut off theii 
 xetreat while the main body of the troops pushed them back. 
 ( )ur forces concentrated and fortified at Oulustre, a spot pre 
 f erving its Indian name. It was the headwaters of a creek of 
 that name, being a continuous swamp on the right of the rail 
 road, inclining southward, Ocean Pond, or one of the inland 
 lakes of Florida, lying not far north, thus forming a good de 
 fensible position. Our forces there concentrated about five 
 thousand men. Our rifle-pits and redoubts connected with 
 the swamp on the south, and Ocean Pond on the north. 
 
 On the morning of the 20th February, General Finnegan 
 was notified that the enemy was approaching. About 12 
 &., they were reported as distant four miles. The command 
 was then moved out to meet them. 
 
 When we had marched three iniles from camp, our cavalry 
 was discovered falling back rapidly. Our line of battle 
 was formed at once, but so rapidly did the enemy advance that 
 a furious fire commenced before the line was completed. The 
 fire soon became general. The battle opened at 2 o clock P. M. 
 For two hours the enemy was steadily pushed back, though 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 225 
 
 they resisted most obstinately. We had captured in this time 
 five pieces of artillery, and the enemy were at their last line. 
 Just then our ammunition became exhausted. It was a trying 
 time to all our troops. Their conduct, however, was above 
 praise. They remained steadfast in line under a heavy fire, to 
 which there was scarcely any reply. But as soon as cartridges 
 were distributed, the men moved forward, and drove them again. 
 
 Just at sunset, the Twenty-seventh Georgia, commanded by 
 Colonel Zachry, made a furious attack upon, the centre. This 
 movement was seconded by a flank attack of the Sixth Georgia, 
 Colonel Lofton, upon the enemy s right. They now broke and 
 fled in great confusion. We pursued until dark. The Yankees 
 did not halt until they had placed the St. Mary s river in their 
 rear, twenty miles from the battle-field. The fruits of the vic 
 tory were five pieces of artillery, two stands of colors, two 
 thousand small arms, and five hundred prisoners. The enemy 
 left upon the field three hundred and fifty dead. They also 
 abandoned the severely wounded. 
 
 Our loss amounted to eighty killed and six hundred and fifty 
 wounded. The fight was in the open pine woods peculiar to. 
 Florida. This accounts for the large number wounded in pro 
 portion to the killed. The enemy could not have lost less than 
 two thousand killed and wounded. General Finnegan reported 
 that the roads for three miles were strewn with the enemy s 
 dead and wounded. More than one half of the two negro 
 regiments that Seymour had placed in front were said to have 
 been killed and wounded. 
 
 The enemy fell back to Jacksonville, forty-five miles from 
 where they fought the battle. Our forces followed them along 
 the road, and stragglers and wounded were picked up as they 
 went. A lady reported that General Seymour passed along, look 
 ing haggard and pale, saying he had lost half of his troops. 
 
 The victory was a subject of extraordinary congratulation. 
 Had the enemy been successful at Ocean Pond, there were not 
 five hundred men between them and the capital, and, with the 
 capture of our rolling stock at Lake City, they would soon 
 have reached Tallahassee and fallen back on St. Mark s as a 
 base, and by water held their communications perfectly. Viewed 
 in this respect, it was one of the decisive battles of the war, 
 and had preserved the State of Florida to the Confederacy. 
 
 15 
 
226 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The Yankee journals (probably for political reasons ) were 
 more candid in their admissions of defeat at Ocean Pond than 
 on any other occasion of disaster to them in the war. An in 
 vestigation was ordered in the Yankee Congress. The Xe\v 
 York Herald declared that the whole movement grew out of 
 the political jugglery for the next Presidency, and the whole 
 thing was a trick to secure the electoral vote of Florida. It 
 said that " a thousand lives were lost in the attempt to get 
 three electoral votes." 
 
 SHERMAN S EXPEDITION IN THE SOUTHWEST. 
 
 In the winter of 1864, the enemy had planned a grand mili 
 tary combination in the Southwest, which, properly viewed, 
 was one of the greatest projects of the war. It was imperfect 
 ly known by the Confederates at the time, who, for many 
 weeks vainly imagined the object of Sherman s movement into 
 Mississippi at the head of an infantry column of thirty-five 
 thousand men. 
 
 Events developed the scheme, and indicated Grant, the Yan 
 kees present military idol, as its originator. It was the con 
 ceit of this General that the u rebellion " presented its most 
 formidable front in North Georgia and that he was so circum 
 stanced as to render it extremely difficult to turn his advant 
 age, in the possession of Chattanooga, to account. His disad 
 vantages were the enormous prolongation of the line connect 
 ing the front of operations with the base of supplies, the im 
 perfect character of the communications, and the difficulty of 
 accumulating sufficient supplies for a long and severe campaign 
 in the Gulf States. 
 
 A ISTew York paper declared that it had been recognized as 
 a necessary condition to any advance from Chattanooga, look 
 ing to great and decisive results, that a water base be opened 
 up, whence a powerful column should march to connect with, 
 and support, the Union army advancing from Chattanooga. 
 A possible point from which a water base could be opened up 
 was Mobile. 
 
 It was known by the beginning of February that three dis 
 tinct Yankee columns, from as many different points, were now 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 227 
 
 under way in the Southwest. A very powerful cavalry col 
 umn, under command of Generals Smith and Grierson, had 
 started from Corinth and Holly Springs. An infantry column, 
 composed of the two corps of Hurlbut and McPherson, under 
 command of General Sherman, was under way from Yicksburg. 
 A combined land and naval expedition was moving from New 
 Orleans. 
 
 "While Mobile was the plain objective point at which the 
 latter force aimed, it is probable that Sherman did not design 
 to make an overland march from Yicksburg to Mobile about 
 three hundred miles. There is reason to believe that he ex 
 pected, when he marched out of Yicksburg, to reach Selma, 
 in Alabama. The heavy column of cavalry that started from 
 Memphis, and constituted an important part of his forces, was 
 to move rapidly across Mississippi and Alabama, cut the in 
 terior railway lines, destroy the bridges and Government work 
 shops, lay waste the country, and gain the rear of General 
 Polk, harass and delay his retreat, and, if possible, force him 
 down towards Mobile, while Sherman rushed upon him in 
 front. Had General Polk retreated upon Mobile, the attack 
 upon which by the Federal fleets was calculated if not design 
 ed to draw him in that direction, Sherman would have occu 
 pied Meridian, Demopolis, and Selma, and thus have rendered 
 his escape impossible, and the fall of Mobile, from lack of pro 
 visions and without a blow, a matter of absolute certainty. 
 The possession of Mobile and Selma would have given the 
 Federal commander two important water bases, the one on the 
 Mississippi, at Yicksburg, the other at Mobile, on the Gull, 
 two navigable rivers communicating with the latter the Ala 
 bama and Tombigbee and two railways ready to hand, viz. : 
 the Mobile and Ohio, and the Yicksburg and Jackson roads. 
 Once in possession of these important points and his army firm 
 ly established in the triangle formed by the Alabama and Tom 
 bigbee rivers, and the railroad leading from Selma to Demop 
 olis and Meridian, and we should no more have been able to 
 dislodge him from his position than we had been to drive the 
 enemy from the Yirginia Peninsula and Fortress Monroe. 
 
 It must be confessed that there were in these combinations 
 the marks of a bold, brilliant, original conception. General 
 Grant had contemplated, so to speak, the removal of the Mis- 
 
228 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 sissippi river from Yicksburg and New Orleans to 
 erj and Mobile ; while at the same time the organization of 
 this line would have operated as a flank movement upon Gen 
 eral Johnston s army, and might have resulted in the fall of 
 Atlanta, and the occupation by the legions of the enemy of the 
 northern half of the great State of Georgia. He proposed thus 
 to get possession of the only remaining line of defence which 
 it was possible for the Confederates to take up when he should 
 advance from Chattanooga. Military men of the North had 
 recognized that, if the Confederates were once turned at Atlan 
 ta, the line of the Tombigbee was the only available position 
 left them. The other line led directly into a cul-de-sac, end 
 ing in Florida. If, therefore, the present movements were suc 
 cessful, it would clutch this single position at which the Con 
 federates could have hoped to make any protracted stand. 
 
 But Grant and it will be found to be his characteristic 
 fault had overtasked himself. His formidable combination 
 was to fail because too much was attempted, and because it 
 was to be met by the Confederates with consummate skill and 
 courage. The co-operating columns were too widely separated, 
 were exposed to too many chances of failure, and were entrusted 
 to too many different heads. 
 
 The expedition so largely planned was inaugurated by the 
 moving of the first two columns. Sherman left Yicksburg the 
 1st of February, at the head of thirty-five thousand infantry, 
 two or three thousand cavalry, and from sixty to eighty pieces 
 of artillery. Almost simultaneously Grierson or Smith began 
 their march through North Mississippi with about ten thou 
 sand cavalry and mounted infantry. Mobile, at the same time, 
 was threatened by water with the enemy s fleet of gunboats, 
 and by land from Pensacola and Pascagoula. 
 
 General Polk had recently been placed by the Confederate 
 authorities in command of the Department of the Southwest. 
 He assumed command late in December, and scarcely had 
 more than familiarized himself with the command, and had 
 but little time to organize his troops and collect together all 
 the energies of his department. 
 
 General Polk took the field. Forrest was still detached 
 from the main army, and remained so as to watch the move 
 ments of Grierson and his command. Sherman with his thirty 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 229 
 
 five thousand men could only be opposed by Loring, French, 
 and Lee. 
 
 From Yicksburg the enemy moved very rapidly and vigor 
 ously on to Jackson, and from that point they threatened Me 
 ridian, the railroad centre of the Southwestern Department. 
 At this time General Polk borrowed from the Mobile garrison 
 two or three brigades to retard the enemy in order to enable 
 him to save his supplies, which had accumulated at different 
 points of the railroads for the past two years. It would have 
 been the height of folly to have given the enemy battle under 
 the circumstances. Our force, when strengthened by the rein 
 forcements from Mobile, did not reach over half that of the 
 enemy, inclusive of our cavalry. 
 
 With the additional force from Mobile the enemy was checked, 
 enabling General Polk to save his accumulated stores and protect 
 his supplies. The little army fell back from Brandon in per 
 fect order slowly and successfully. The enemy moved his 
 bodies of infantry, artillery and cavalry, with caution and 
 prudence. Lee hung upon his flanks and compelled him to 
 move in compact column, giving him but little time to forage 
 or to depredate upon the country. In the mean time General 
 Polk, with all his acknowledged energy, was moving all his 
 stores from points of the different railroads likely to fall into 
 the enemy s hands. 
 
 On Sunday, the 14th, Lieutenant-general Polk evacuated 
 Meridian, with his little army, heavily pressed by an enemy 
 thirty-five thousand strong. Before the evacuation, however, 
 every article belonging to the different departments of the Gov 
 ernment had been moved. The rolling stock of four important 
 railroads had been saved not a car was left, and scarcely a 
 wheel left. The locomotives and cars belonging to the Mobile 
 and Ohio road were safely housed in Mobile. Those of the other 
 roads were brought to the Tombigbee and safely placed upon 
 the other side of the river. It was a literal and positive evac 
 uation of this great railroad centre. The little town of Merid 
 ian stood lonely amid the silence of pine barrens, without a 
 noise to disturb its solitude or to arouse its inhabitants. The 
 garrison belonging to Mobile had been safely returned to their 
 duties there, and Mobile was as safe as the department at 
 Richmond intended it to be. General Polk retired to De- 
 
230 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 mopolis, Alabama, and prepared for the gathering emcr 
 gencj. 
 
 The enemy s cavalry column under Smith and Grierson was 
 to pass through one of the richest districts of the Confederacy 
 to the assistance of Sherman. 
 
 From Pontotoc, Mississippi, to the southern boundary line or 
 Noxubee county, a distance of eighty or ninety miles from 
 forty to fifty in width, there was an area of country rich as the 
 Delta of the Nile. Magnificent plantations were spread on 
 either side of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, level as the sea, 
 and dotted with abodes of wealth and intelligence. Pontotoc, 
 Aberdeen, Columbus, and Macon, were the centres of local 
 trade for all this region. These towns had an aggregate pop 
 ulation of perhaps thirty thousand, and the narrow territorial 
 limits of their trade illustrated the fact that this district was 
 the richest granary of the South. 
 
 Owing to the exhaustion of his horses, the want of arms and 
 munitions, and other causes, Forrest could array a force of 
 only two thousand four hundred men to confront Smith and 
 Grierson s column of seven thousand of the best equipped cav 
 alry the Yankees had ever put in the field. Forrest s men, 
 too, were mostly new and untried, especially in the cavalry 
 service. He had recently recruited them in West Tennessee. 
 It seemed the extreme of rashness and recklessness, to attempt 
 with such a force to arrest the march of a column of seven 
 thousand splendidly mounted and equipped men, led by expe 
 rienced officers, whose march thus far had been uninterrupted, 
 who were buoyant and confident, and were charged with such 
 an important mission. The junction of this cavalry force with 
 Sherman at Meridian, was the key of the Yankee plan for the 
 occupation and subjugation of the Southwest. If successful, 
 Sherman would have been in a condition to advance upon 
 Demopolis and Selma, and these important points, as well as 
 the rich countries adjacent, would have been at the mercy 
 of the enemy. 
 
 General Polk, with his scant infantry force, quickly per 
 ceived the momentous issue which depended upon the result 
 of the cavalry movement from Memphis, and after securing 
 his small army on the east side of the Tombigbee, and remov 
 ing all his supplies and munitions and returning to Mobile the 
 
THE THIRD TEAK. 231 
 
 troops he had borrowed from General Maury, sent imperative 
 orders to Lee and Forrest to unite their forces, and at every 
 cost to crush and drive back Smith and Grierson s cav 
 airy. 
 
 Lee did not receive these orders in time to reach Forrest 
 with his force, which was already greatly exhausted by the 
 continual skirmishing with Sherman s column. Forrest, there 
 fore, was left alone with his two thousand four hundred 
 men to perform this immense undertaking. Confronting the 
 enemy on the broad prairies near West Point, on the Tibbee 
 river, he prepared for action. The enemy formed in a long 
 and most imposing line, outflanking Forrest and threatening 
 the instant demolition of his small and imperfectly organized 
 force. The charge was given, and the Yankees advanced with 
 great boldness and an air of certain victory. Great was their 
 surprise when, as they approached Forrest s line, they observed 
 his men slip from their horses, converting themselves into 
 infantry, each man taking the most favorable position, availing 
 themselves of every advantage the ground afforded, and await 
 ing with the utmost coolness the impetuous charge of the Yankee 
 chivalry. On came the splendidly mounted dragoons, under 
 those far-famed Yankee chiefs, Smith and Grierson, with such 
 fierce displays of valor and determination as augured badly for 
 Forrest s infantry scouts, scattered through the bushes and over 
 the prairie in rather an irregular and unmilitary style. But 
 these valorous horsemen did not advance far before the balls of 
 two thousand riflemen began to rattle through their ranks with 
 fearful effect. Scores of men and horses fell at the first fire, 
 and their onward movement was checked, and before they 
 could recover and reform the volley was repeated again and 
 again until dismay and terror began to prevail in their ranks, 
 and they soon broke into confusion and fled. 
 
 Having discovered the small force of Forrest, several at 
 tempts were made by Smith and Grierson to rally their men 
 and resume the offensive. Their efforts were successful on the 
 hills, just beyond Okalona, when the last grand charge was 
 made by them on the 21st of February. The fight commenced 
 late in the evening, and was obstinate, as the enemy were 
 forced to make repeated stands to hold us in check, and to save 
 their pack mules, &c., from a stampede. It closed with a 
 
232 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 grand cavalry charge of the enemy s whole force. We re 
 pulsed them with heavy loss, and completely routed them. 
 
 General Forrest s command was too tired to continue the 
 pursuit. General Gholson, with six or seven hundred State 
 troops, arrived and went in pursuit. The enemy never halted 
 for a moment in his retreat, and when last heard from, the 
 remnant of this splendid force was hastening fast to Memphis, 
 in far different plight from that in which it had so recently 
 emerged from its fortifications. 
 
 The disastrous retreat of Grierson and Smith upon Memphis 
 was decisive of the campaign. Their retreat naturally inter 
 rupted Sherman s communications all along the line of the Mo 
 bile and Ohio Railroad, and deprived his army of an important 
 source of supply, without which he was incapable of maintain 
 ing his ground. Worse still, the falling back of these two of 
 ficers took away from him the cavalry force upon which he re 
 lied to prosecute his operations. He was left to retrace his 
 steps in disappointment and disgrace, and to retire to Vicks- 
 burg. Back there he dragged his weary, broken-down column, 
 in a demoralized state ; having accomplished not a single mil 
 itary result in his campaign, and having achieved no other 
 glory than that of warfare upon private property and inoffen 
 sive people, a cheap triumph of the ruffian and the plunderer. 
 
 In a congratulatory order to his army, General Polk said : 
 " The concentration of our cavalry on the enemy s column of 
 cavalry from West Tennessee formed the turning point of the 
 campaign. That concentration broke down his only means of 
 subsisting his infantry. His column was defeated and routed, 
 and his whole force compelled to make a hasty retreat. IvTever 
 did a grand campaign, inaugurated with such pretension, ter 
 minate more ingloriously. With a force three times that which 
 was opposed to its advance, they have been defeated and forced 
 to leave the field with a loss of men, small arms and ar 
 tillery." 
 
 The Yankees made an absurd attempt to cover up Sherman s 
 defeat with the stereotyped lie, that the expedition had " ac 
 complished all that was intended." It could hardly be possible 
 that the object of an expedition of such magnitude as that con 
 ducted by Sherman through Mississippi was simply to inarch 
 over a sterile country one hundred and fifty miles, take posses- 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 233 
 
 sion of a comparatively insignificant point, and then march 
 back again. 
 
 The truth was, Grant s grand combination in the West had 
 completely broken down ; and Sherman s defeat had given the 
 Confederacy two months more time to prepare for the great 
 campaign of 1864. 
 
 "While the events we have been narrating were transpiring 
 in the Southwest, as part of the grand plan, there had been a 
 movement on the lines in North Georgia. Thomas, in imme 
 diate command of the Yankee forces there, had attempted an 
 advance on the 25th of February. For a whole day he at 
 tempted to penetrate our lines, but was compelled suddenly to 
 fall back upon his base at Chickamauga. The " On-to- Atlanta" 
 was a programme all parts of which had been disconcerted, 
 and to amend which the campaign in the "West had to be pu* 
 over until the fighting month of May. 
 
234 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 Auspicious Signs of the Spring of 18(54. Military Successes of the Confederates.^ 
 Irnprc vernents in the Internal Polity of the Confederacy Two Important Measures 
 of Legislation. Revolution of our Finances. Enlargement of the Conscription. 
 Theory of the New Military Law. A Blot on the Political Record of the Confeder 
 acy. Qualified Suspension of the Habeas Corpus. An Infamous Edict, but a " Dead- 
 letter." An Official Libel upon the Confederacy. The Real Condition of Civil 
 Liberty in the South. The Conscription not properly a Measure of Force. Im 
 pressments but a System of Patriotic Contribution. Development of the Yankee 
 Government into Despotism. An Explanation of this. The Essence of Despotism 
 in One Yankee Statute. MILITARY RESOURCES OF THE CONFEDERACY. Its Military 
 System, the Best and Most Elastic in the World. The War Conducted on A Vlun- 
 tary Bans. Supplies. Scarcity of Meat. The Grain Product. Two Centres of Sup 
 plies. A Dream of Yankee Hate. Great Natural Resources of the North. Summary 
 of the Yankee Military Drafts. Tonnage of the Yankee Navy. The Yankee War 
 Debt. Economic Efl ects of the War. Its Effects on European Industry. Yankee 
 Conquest of the South an Impossibility. A Remarkable Incident of the War. 
 DAHLGREN S RAID AROUND RICHMOND. Kilpatrick s and Custar a Parts of the Expe 
 dition. Dahlgreu and his Negro Guide. His "Braves" Whipped by the Richmond 
 Clerks and Artisans. Death of the Marauder. Revelation of his Infamous Designs. 
 Copy and History of " the Dahlgren Papers." A Characteristic Yankee Apothe 
 osis. Ridiculous and Infamous Behavior of the Confederate Authorities. A Bru 
 tal and Savage Threat. President Davis in Melodrama. 
 
 THE auspicious signs of the spring of 1864 was the theme 
 everywhere of the Confederate press. We have seen how a 
 current of success had set in for the South. Mr. Lincoln s 
 shocking experiment in Florida ; Thomas s disastrous repulse 
 in North Georgia; Sherman s magnificent failure, were glad 
 auguries for the Confederate arms in the coming campaigns. 
 The situation was being rapidly improved. Not to speak just 
 yet of our achievements in Texas, in \Yestern Louisiana, and 
 along the banks of the Mississippi, we could refer with satisfac 
 tion to Longstreet s exploits in East Tennessee, subsequent to 
 the raising of the siege of Knoxville, and fancied permanent 
 occupation of East Tennessee by the enemy. The siege ot 
 Charleston had proven only a running sore, where the strength 
 and wealth of the enemy were wasted without the slightest 
 prospect of advancing one step beyond the landward beach of 
 Morris Island. Florida had afforded nothing but disaster to 
 them and glory to us. The rainy season would soon render it 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 235 
 
 as uninhabitable to a Northern army as it has hitherto been 
 unconquerable. " Dixie," said the Yankee papers, was " in 
 fine feather." 
 
 This period of military success was coincident, too, with cer 
 tain important improvements in the internal polity of the Con 
 federacy. The Confederate Congress of 1863-64, had accom 
 plished two important measures of legislation. It had revolu 
 tionized the Confederate finances by a law which required the 
 currency to be funded, under the penalty, within certain dates, 
 of thirty-three and a third per cent., stopped further issues ot 
 paper money, and provided for the public revenues by heavy 
 taxation, and the sale of five hundred millions of six per cent, 
 bonds. It had enlarged the conscription and qualified it by a 
 system of details, the administration of which, though it prop 
 erly resided in Congress, and should not have been delegated 
 to the Executive branch of the Confederacy, which was noto 
 riously corrupted by favoritism, was especially designed to 
 compose and protect the vexed industry and resources of the 
 country. 
 
 The new military law was designed to devote to the army, 
 directly or indirectly, the whole physical power and energy ot 
 the country. Providing, first, recruits for the ranks by an ex 
 tended conscription, it then organized the remaining labor 01 
 the country, for the sole use and benefit of the army and the 
 country s cause. The great pervading principle of this mili 
 tary bill was that every man owed to his country the duty of 
 defending it, either in or out of the ranks, and the law provided 
 for the discharge of this paramount duty by putting in the 
 ranks all men capable of bearing arms, except certain persons 
 who could be of more service to the cause out of, than in the 
 army. Exemptions and details were to be permitted upon the 
 great and important principle of promoting the public service. 
 Recognizing the absolute dependence of the country s cause 
 upon the great agricultural interest, the Confederate Congress, 
 while protecting this great interest, had made it contribute to 
 the support of the army, for. the privilege of its exemption 
 thus protecting the production of the country, without depriv 
 ing the army of the recruits necessary to its reinforcement. 
 
 It is, however, to be confessed, with pain, that the Confed 
 erate Congress of 1863-64-, marred the work of this legislative 
 
236 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 year by a base imitation of the Washington despotism in a sns 
 pension of the habeas corpus. It was an act of criminal stu 
 pidity, the fruit of an inferiority of mind in our legislators that 
 aped the precedents of the Yankee. It is true that the law 
 authorizing the suspension of the great writ of liberty was 
 qualified by a stringent bill of particulars.* But what can be 
 
 * The following is a copy of this unfortunate law : 
 A bill to suspend the privilege of the writ of HABEAS CORPUS in certain cases. 
 
 Whereas, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America provides, in 
 article 1, section 9, paragraph 3, that " the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus 
 shall not be suspended, unless when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public 
 safety may require it ;" and, whereas the power of suspending the privilege of 
 said writ, as recognized in said article 1, is vested solely in the Congress, which 
 is the exclusive judge of the necessity of such suspension ; and, whereas, in the 
 opinion of the Congress, the public safety requires the suspension of said writ 
 in the existing case of the invasion of these States by the armies of the United 
 States ; and, whereas the President has asked for the suspension of the writ of 
 habeas corpus, and informed Congress of conditions of public danger which ren 
 der the suspension of the writ a measure proper for the publjc defence against 
 invasion and insurrection ; now, therefore : 
 
 1. That during the present invasion of the Confederate States, the privilege 
 of the writ of liabeas corpus be, and the same is hereby, suspended ; but such 
 suspension shall apply only to the cases of persons arrested or detained by order 
 of the President, Secretary of War, or the general officer commanding the 
 Trans-Mississippi Military Department, by the authority and under the control 
 of the President. It is hereby declared that the purposes of Congress in the 
 passage of this act is to provide more effectually for the public safety by sus 
 pending the writ of habeas corpu* in the following cases, and no other : 
 
 I. Of treason or treasonable efforts or combinations to subvert the Govern 
 ment of the Confederate States. 
 
 II. Of conspiracies to overthrow the Government, or conspiracies to resist the 
 lawful authority of the Confederate States. 
 
 III. Of combining to assist the enemy or of communicating intelligence to 
 the enemy, or giving him aid and comfort. 
 
 IV. Of conspiracies, preparations and attempts to incite servile insurrection. 
 
 V. Of desertions or encouraging desertions, of harboring deserters, and of 
 attempts to avoid military service ; Provided, that in cases of palpable wrong 
 and oppression by any subordinate officer, upon any party who does not legally 
 owe military service, his superior officer shall grant prompt relief to the op 
 pressed party, and the subordinate shall be dismissed from office. 
 
 VI. Of spies and other emissaries of the enemy. 
 
 VII. Of holding correspondence or intercourse with the enemy, without no 
 cessity, and without the permission of the Confederate States. 
 
 VIII. Of unlawful trading with the enemy and other offences against th 
 laws of the Confederate States, enacted to promote their success in the war. 
 
 IX. Of conspiracies, or attempts to liberate prisoners of war held by the Con 
 federate States. 
 
THE THIRD YEAE. 237 
 
 most said, to wipe from the record of the Confederacy the stain 
 of this infamous edict, is, that it was never put into practice- 
 It was not put into practice for the simple reason that there was 
 no occasion for it; no one doubted the integrity and patriotism 
 of our judiciary ; that branch of the government was practically 
 permitted to continue its dispensations of law and justice ; and 
 the worst that can be said of the law suspending the habeas 
 corpus was, that it was a stain upon our political history. It 
 was an uncalled for libel upon the Confederacy ; but although 
 it might blacken our reputation, yet it is a satisfaction to know 
 that it did not practically affect our system of liberties. 
 
 In contrasting the political systems of the North and South 
 in this war, we find an invariable superiority in the latter with 
 respect to all questions of civil liberty. This, indeed, is to be 
 taken as the most striking and significant moral phenomenon 
 of the war. 
 
 Despite the conscription and other harsh necessities of legis 
 lation, the principles of liberty were yet substantially secure 
 in the Confederacy. The spirit of the devotion of the people 
 was ; in most instances, in advance of the demands of the gov- 
 
 X. Of conspiracies, or attempts or preparations to aid the enemy. 
 
 XI. Of persons aiding or inciting others to abandon the Confederate cause, 
 or to resist the Confederate States, or to adhere to the enemy. 
 
 XII. Of unlawfully burning, destroying, or injuring, or attempting to burn, 
 destroy, or injure any bridge or railroad, or telegraph line of communication, 
 or other property with the intent of aiding the enemy. 
 
 XIII. Of treasonable designs to impair the military power of the Govern 
 ment by destroying or attempting to destroy the vessels, or arms, or munitions 
 of war, or arsenals, foundries, workshops, or other property of the Confederate 
 States. * 
 
 SEC. 2. The President shall cause proper officers to investigate the cases of 
 all persons so arrested or detained, in order that they may be discharged if 
 improperly detained, unless they can be speedily tried in the due course of law. 
 
 SEC. 8. That during the suspension aforesaid, no military or other officer 
 shall be compelled, in answer to any writ of habeas corpus, to appear in person, 
 or to return the body of any person detained by him by the authority of the 
 President, Secretary of War, or the general officer commanding the Trans- 
 Mississippi Department ; but upon the certificate, under oath, of the officer 
 having charge of any one so detained that such person is detained by him as a 
 prisoner under the authority aforesaid, further proceedings under the writ of 
 habeas corpus, shall immediately cease and remain suspended so long as this 
 act shall continue in force. 
 
 SEC. .4. This act shall continue in force for ninety days after the next meeting 
 of Congress, and no longer. 
 
238 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 eminent. The people of the Confederacy were more heartily 
 willing than the Yankees to contribute of their substance and 
 convenience to the war, but much less willing than they to 
 sacrifice their civil liberties to its fancied necessities. In the 
 Confederacy the impressments of property were, in fact, in the 
 majority of instances, voluntary contributions. In the Con 
 federacy, the conscription was not, in effect, a measure of force, 
 but was rather to be regarded as a measure to organize the 
 proffer of patriotic devotion, and to equalize its service. It was 
 the purer spirit and superior motives of the Confederacy in the 
 war that made its administration so superior to that of the 
 enemy, with regard to the constitutional standards of liberty, 
 and the well recognized principles of conservatism. 
 
 The North presented a different picture. The process by 
 which the Yankee Government had developed itself into one 
 of the vilest despotisms on the earth is one of the most inter 
 esting problems of the history of the war. In an address of 
 the Confederate Congress, which met in the spring of 1864, a 
 reference was made to Yankee despotism as " engendered in a 
 desperate warfare upon the liberties of another and kindred 
 people." The language of this reference contains the key of 
 the problem. The unholy passions of this war, its hate, its 
 greed, its dire revenge, its desperation, induced the people of 
 the North to compromise their constitutional rights. They 
 were willing to purchase the gratification of their passions at 
 the expense of their liberty, and those who gainsayed the 
 price were denounced as disloyal persons, and threatened as 
 traitors. 
 
 Personal liberty was no longer a thing of any account in 
 the eyes of " the best government the world ever saw." There 
 was a law on the statute-book of the Government at Washing 
 ton, which not only undertook to deprive the judicial tribunals 
 of the States of all cognizance, civil and criminal, over pro 
 ceedings instituted against persons who had done any act 
 injurious to a citizen, by order of President Lincoln, but which 
 also made the order of the President, or of any one acting 
 under his authority, a full and perfect defence, in all courts, in 
 any civil or any criminal proceeding in which the act was 
 drawn in question. This law annihilated the liberties of th 
 citizen ; perfected the despotism at "Washington ; and gav 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 239 
 
 Abraham Lincoln a power above all judicial redress in tho 
 country, and as irresponsible as any autocracy on earth. 
 
 MILITARY RESOURCES OF THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 The military system of the South was, perhaps, the most 
 admirable and elastic in the world. The conscription, which, 
 as we have seen, was not regarded in the Confederacy as an 
 edict of violence, but was in fact merely an organized form of 
 public spirit, was constantly and harmoniously in operation ; 
 and it had the especial merit of avoiding that agitation and 
 public demoralization inseparable from a system of periodical 
 drafts. It provided a class of reserves, from sixteen to eighteen 
 years of age, which was constantly passing within the limits of 
 the active military age. The army was thus steadily replen 
 ished. It was qualified by a system of details, the administra 
 tion of which was to be constantly concerned in adjusting the 
 demands of the military service to precise necessities, and 
 accommodating the conscription, either enlarging or contract 
 ing it, to the state of the country. The military system of the 
 Confederacy had thus an elasticity which was indeed its most 
 valuable quality. 
 
 Ignorant minds appear to have been much impressed with 
 the idea that the Confederacy would break down for the want 
 of men. There had been yearly repetitions of this idea since 
 the commencement of the war ; and yet, strange to say, for all 
 this time tiie Confederate armies had not declined in numbers. 
 Fighting on the defensive, their losses were much less than 
 those of the Yankees ; occupying interior and shorter lines, 
 and commanded by generals who carefully economized human 
 life, they did not require the same numbers as the enemy ; 
 and, even if they were decreasing, there was this compensa 
 tion : that while they declined in numbers, the Yankee army 
 was declining, at a much more rapid rate, in & personnel, which 
 had come to be mostly composed of negroes and foreigners, 
 and in those measures of courage and devotion which best 
 insure victory. 
 
 The advantage which the Confederacy had in the conduct 
 of the war was that every thing was, really and substantially, 
 
24:0 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 on the voluntary basis. The impressment law, though violent 
 in form, like the conscription, was, in fact, the conduit of patri 
 otic contributions. Every thing that was asked for the war 
 was generally given with cheerful consent ; and supplies 
 poured in upon the Government, from private sources, much 
 faster than the transportation of rail-cars, boats, and wagons 
 could dispose of them. 
 
 The scarcity of meat was a difficulty which could be com 
 paratively endured. There was an impression, long prevalent 
 with us, that the South was dependent upon the North for a 
 large portion of the meat we consumed. "We actually reared 
 and slaughtered more animals in proportion to population than 
 the North, and it was simply owing to the fact of our almost 
 wasteful use of meat, in which they economized, that we 
 became annual purchasers of this article to so great an extent. 
 Thrown upon our own resources, diverting our agriculture 
 from the production of our great commercial staples to that of 
 breadstuffs, and, along with it, to raising animals, hogs especi 
 ally, since the war began, in sections undisturbed by the 
 march of armies, or not affected by epidemics among our 
 stock, the supplies of meat were far more bountiful than evei 
 before. 
 
 But although it must be confessed that our meat supplies 
 which would otherwise have been superabundant, had been 
 sadly diminished by the enemy s occupation of Kentucky and 
 Tennessee, and the isolation of the Trans-Mississippi, yet none 
 but the most ignorant could doubt our sufficiency of other sub 
 sistence in a country where the cereals might be produced on 
 every acre of arable land. The difficulty was in the ready 
 equalization of supplies by transportation, not in the want of 
 them. There were two centres of supplies in the Confederacy, 
 inaccessible to the enemy, either of which was sufficient to sub 
 sist our entire army and people ; one whose lines radiated 
 through north-western Carolina and the southern tier of coun 
 ties in Virginia, and the other in the unequalled grain districts 
 of south-western Georgia and Alabama. To " starve " the 
 South was the atrocious dream of Northern hate, scarcely the 
 calculation of Yankee shrewdness and intelligence. 
 
 The North had great material resources, but it was wasting 
 them in a war the advance of which was more than doubtful, 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 241 
 
 and the object of which morally unattainable. It Lad put two 
 millions of soldiers in the field.* The tonnage of its navy was 
 but little short of half a million. But while Yankee pride 
 took delight in the exhibits, they were not merely displays of 
 power, they were also evidences of debt. 
 
 The expenditures of the Yankee Government during the war 
 had constantly exceeded the official estimates, while the receipts 
 had fallen off. 
 
 Mr. Chase estimated the expenses for 1864 at $750,815,088; 
 Congress had already appropriated $1,104,000, 000 for the War 
 Department alone! The rate at which the debt had accumu 
 lated, and the amount of claims yet to be adjusted, made it 
 certain that the public debt was not far from $3,000,000,000.f 
 
 * The following is a list, compiled from official sources, of Mr. Lincoln s 
 
 enormous calls for troops : 
 
 April 16, 1861 , 75,000 
 
 May 4, 1861 64,748 
 
 From July to December, 1861 500,000 
 
 July 1, 1862 300,000 
 
 August 4, 1862 300,000 
 
 Draft, summer of 1863 300,000 
 
 February 1, 1864 500,000 
 
 Total 2,039,748 
 
 f The following figures, which we find compiled to our hand, show the various 
 
 loans and liabilities of the Yankee Government thus far authorized by various 
 a^ts of Congress : 
 
 Loan of 1842 $242,621 
 
 Loan of 1847 9,415,250 
 
 Loan of 1848 8,908,341 
 
 Texas indemnity loan of 1850 3,461,000 
 
 Loan of 1858 20,000,000 
 
 Loan of 1860 7,622,000 
 
 Loanof 1861 18,415,000 
 
 Treasury notes, March 1861 512,910 
 
 Oregon war loan, 1861 1,016,000 
 
 Another loan of 1861 50,000,000 
 
 Three years treasury notes 139,679,000 
 
 Loan of August, 1861 320,000 
 
 Five-twenty loan 400,000,000 
 
 Temporary loans 104,933,103 
 
 Certificates of indebtedness 156,918,437 
 
 Unclaimed dividends 114,115 
 
 Carried over 921,557,777 
 
 16 
 
242 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 Mr. Chase s statement of his administration exhibited the fol 
 
 l owing interesting figures : 
 
 Government expenses, 72 years, 1789 to 1861, $1,458,790,786 
 Government expenses, 4 years, 1861 to 1865, 2,692,086,941 
 
 Excess in four years .... $1,238,294,155 
 So we find that, accepting the figures and estimates of the 
 Yankee Secretary of the Treasury, the expenditures of the 
 Government during the administration of Abraham Lincoln 
 would nearly double those of the whole period from the estab 
 lishment of the government to the inauguration of the "age 
 of purity." 
 
 It is impossible, with the imperfect materials at present at 
 hand, to make a pecuniary estimate of the losses due to the 
 ehock and derangement of the war. These losses were not 
 only shared by the North and South ; the whole commercial 
 world was involved in the misfortunes of the war, and dragged 
 into its vortex. 
 
 The South, with a population of ten millions, of whom four 
 millions were slaves, with about one million of these engaged 
 in the production of our great commercial staples, with but 
 little artificial labor, but with only the simplest implements of 
 husbandry, her peculiar social institution and her climate, had 
 yet furnished^all the vitality, had actually created and brought 
 into existence the greater part of all the great wealth-pro 
 ducing artificial labor in other nations. Her productions, which 
 could be supplied or substituted from no other avenue without 
 enormous additional expense, were indispensable to the capital 
 invested and the labor developed. English factories had al 
 ready many of them suspended, or were reduced greatly in 
 !he ; r operations. Northern newspapers informed us that not a 
 
 Brought over 921,557,777 
 
 Demand treasury notes 500,000 
 
 Legal tenders, 1862 397,767,114 
 
 Legal tenders, 1863 104,969,937 
 
 Postal and fractional currency 50,000,000 
 
 Old treasury notes outstanding 118,000 
 
 Ten-forty bonds 900,000,000 
 
 Interestrbearing treasury notes 500,000,000 
 
 Total ... $2,774,912,828 
 
THE THIRD TEAR. 243 
 
 spindle at Lowell was in operation. The manufacture! s of 
 France were already clamorous. The only wonder was, that 
 civilized nations could so long remain unmoved by such catas 
 trophes so long remain disinterested spectators of a war upon 
 the South for the destruction of our system of natural labor, 
 whether for a mere sentiment or for any other cause, that of 
 necessity involved the loss to them of an immense invested 
 capital, and was destructive of artificial labor equivalent, in 
 operatives, to many hundred-fold the number of our slaves. 
 
 And what of the results of conquest ? what of the indica 
 tions of final success ? what of the signs of conclusion had the 
 war accomplished ? Eight hundred thousand square miles was 
 too large an area for decisive war. When we imagine the toil 
 some inarches, the mighty mountains, the dense and unhealthy 
 swamps, the innumerable and impassable rivers and inlets, 
 when we see a resolute people enduring outrage and destitu 
 tion, ever ready to sting the heel of the invader, it is obvious 
 that no human force can traverse those distances, subdue that 
 people, and establish any other government than what such a 
 people shall approve. A territory so extensive could not be 
 held by the policy of plunder and extermination. The miser 
 able gains of the thief, the marauder, the ruffian, and the plun 
 derer the achievements of banditti, might discourage any 
 government and dissatisfy any soldiery.* 
 
 * A curious attempt was that of the Yankees to represent to the world the 
 extent and permanency of their conquests by bogus State organizations ; alto 
 gether, one of the vilest cheats of the war. Arkansas, Louisiana, and other 
 States, were made to play false parts upon paper, and were claimed as acquisi 
 tions for " the Union," when a Yankee dared not show Ms face in his new do 
 minions outside of his picket lines. It was by the management of bayonets 
 that bogus delegates met at Little Rock, and concocted a paper which they 
 termed a "Constitution," declaring that slavery should not exist in the State of 
 Arkansas, and sent men to Washington to ask to be received back into the 
 Union. 
 
 In Louisiana the farce of a State election had just been completed. How 
 far such an election represented the franchise or free will of the people we 
 may infer from the following extract from General Order No. 23, issued by 
 General Banks, and paraded in every Government paper the morning of the 
 election : 
 
 "Open hostility cannot be permitted. Indifference will be treated as a 
 crime, and faction as treason. Men who refuse to defend their country with 
 the ballot-box have no just claim to the benefits of liberty regulated by law 
 
2-14 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 We leave these discussions to follow the current of military 
 events. 
 
 DAHLGREN S KAID AROUND RICHMOND. 
 
 In the month of March, 1864, was to occur one of the most 
 remarkable incidents of the war ; inasmuch as it was the oc 
 casion of certain documentary evidence of the savage and 
 ^atrocious spirit of our enemies, which heretofore, though it had 
 been the constant assertion of the Confederates, had been per 
 sistently denied in Yankee prints, and concealed from the 
 world by brazen lies, audacious recrimination, and the stereo 
 types of Yankee hypocrisy. 
 
 On the 28th of February, a raid was undertaken towards 
 Kichmond by the Yankee cavalry under General Kilpatrick. 
 Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, a son of the Yankee admiral of 
 Charleston "sensation," was second in command. After 
 reaching Beaver Dam and destroying the water station and 
 tearing up a few hundred yards of the track at that point, the 
 force divided, Kilpatrick with his command passing through 
 the upper part of Hanover into Louisa, where he took the 
 mountain road, which he followed until he struck the Brook 
 turnpike, which led into Richmond. 
 
 After the force was divided, Dahlgren s command proceeded 
 to Frederick Hall, in Louisa county, where they captured sev 
 eral of our officers who were holding a court-martial at the 
 time. Among these officers was Captain Dement, of a Balti 
 more battery, who was compelled to follow the expedition. 
 After tearing up the railroad for some distance, Dahlgren pro 
 ceeded rapidly towards the James River Canal, which ho 
 struck in Goochland county. He burnt a grist-mill here, some 
 barns, injured some of the locks on the canal, and did other 
 
 X 
 
 Whoever is indifferent or hostile, must choose between 
 
 the liberty which foreign lands afford, the poverty of the rebel States, and the 
 innumerable and inappreciable blessings which our Government confers upon 
 its people." 
 
 Thirty-five thousand Louisianians had already gone to partake oi the " pov 
 erty of the rebel States," and about eleven thousand played the farce of voting 
 to continue " the blessings, which the Yankee Government confers upon its 
 people." 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 24:5 
 
 trifiii.g damage. His men were allowed to amuse themselves 
 for some hours at the farm-houses, in hacking up furniture and 
 stealing silver spoons. His purpose was to cross the Jamee 
 river here, get into Richmond by a surprise on the south 
 side, and do his peculiar work in that city of the Confederacy. 
 
 He had employed a negro to guide him to a ford of the river. 
 He had paid him for the proposed service with what appeared 
 to be a five-dollar bill, but was in fact a barber s " token," in 
 the shape of a bank note, after the ingenious fashion of Yan 
 kee advertisements. The negro conducted him to a ford, but 
 finding the water too high to cross, and imagining that he had 
 been duped, Dahlgren turned upon the helpless black, had 
 him instantly hanged, and to expedite the horrible deed, 
 furnished a rein from his own bridle to strangle his victim. 
 
 Finding that he could not cross the river, Dahlgren direct 
 ed his movements to make a junction with Kilpatrick. But 
 in the mean time all the other parts of the expedition had 
 failed. 
 
 One part had been to distract attention by a movement of 
 General Ouster, with cavalry and artillery, in the direction of 
 Charlottesville. It had come to grief. It had reached the 
 vicinity of Rio Mills, where Stuart s horse artillery, under 
 Major Beckham, was stationed. As soon as the enemy crossed 
 the Rivanna river, the artillery, supported by some furlough- 
 ed and dismounted men, opened on the advancing column. 
 This seemed entirely unexpected, some of the Yankees exclaim 
 ing, " By , the Secesh have been reinforced ; let s go 
 
 back," which they did at a double-quick ; nor did they halt 
 to camp until they reached their infantry supports at Madison 
 Court-house, 
 
 Kilpatrick s part of the expedition had manifested a similar 
 ludicrous cowardice. He had reached the outer line of the 
 Richmond fortifications at a little past ten on the morning of 
 the 1st of March. A desultory fire was kept up for some 
 hours, in which the Yankees who had proposed a desperate in 
 road into Richmond never once got within range of our artil 
 lery, and, satisfied to boast that they had been within sight of 
 the city, withdrew, and took up their line of march down the 
 Peninsula. 
 
 Unapprised of these dastardly events, Dahlgren, on the 
 
246 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 night of the 1st of March, pursued his way towards Richmond 
 following the Westham plank-road, with some seven or eigh 
 hundred horsemen. An exhibition of cowardice was reserved 
 for him, unequalled even by that of Ouster, or Kilpatrick. 
 
 All that stood in the darkness of that night between Dalil 
 gren and Richmond, between the ferocious Yankee and the 
 revenge he had plotted to pour in blood and iire upon the de 
 voted capital of the Confederacy, was a force of local soldiery, 
 composed of artisans from the Richmond Armory, and clerks, 
 many of them young boys, from the departments of the gov 
 ernment. Such was the force that was to give to Dahlgren a 
 * braves" a lesson for their temerity. 
 
 The Armory battalion was on the enemy s flank, and ap 
 pears to have been surprised. But when the enemy came in 
 contact with Henly s battalion (the clerks), the valorous cav 
 alry broke at the first fire. The first volley of musketry seems 
 to have done all the disaster that occurred, and to have finished 
 the business. Eleven of Dahlgren s Yankees were killed and 
 thirty or forty wounded, while the rest scattered in shameful 
 flight. 
 
 After this disgraceful affair, Dahlgren seemed to be anxious 
 only for his retreat. He divided his forces so as to increase 
 the chances of escape. The force under his immediate com 
 mand moved down the South bank of the Pamunkey, and 
 crossed the river at Dabney s Ferry. From the ferry they pro 
 ceeded by the most direct route to Ayletts on the Mattapony, 
 watched closely at every step by scouts detached from Lieu 
 tenant Jarnes Pollard s company of Lee s Rangers, then on 
 picket duty and recruiting service in King William County, 
 the residence of most of it members. Pollard, himself, while 
 passing through the streets of Richmond, had chanced to see ai. 
 a newspaper office a bulletin giving some account of the retreat 
 of Dahlgren s party, and declaring that he would make them 
 "pay toll" on their route, had posted to intercept the 
 fugitives. 
 
 The ferry-boat on the Mattapony having been previously re 
 moved, and Pollard s arrangements for disputing the passage 
 of the Yankees when they reached the King and Queen 
 Bide being suspected, they dashed across the river as. precip 
 itately as possible under the tire of a small squad of rangers. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 24:7 
 
 The Yankees had no sooner reached King and Qr..ecn 
 County than they were harassed, both front and rear, Dy the 
 Bangers, showing fight as they advanced, until Pollard was 
 reinforced by Captain Fox of the Fifth Virginia Cavalry and 
 some of his men then on furlough in the county, some mem 
 bers of .Lieutenant-colonel Robins cavalry, and a few home 
 guards. 
 
 While Dahlgren, with his party of fugitives constantly slip 
 ping from him by straggling, and with sinking spirits, pursued 
 the road to Walkerton, the improvised force of Confederates 
 kept pressing him, while a detachment, making a rapid circuit, 
 got ahead of him, and awaited his approach in the darkness 
 of the night. Seeing some figures ahead on the road, Dahl- 
 gien rode towards them, requiring for his protection that 
 Captain Dement, the prisoner he had taken at Frederick Hall, 
 should ride by his side. " Surrender," he shouted, to what he 
 supposed was a few skulkers, who would instantly accede to 
 the command. " Fire," was the reply. " Give em hell, boys," 
 yelled Pollard ; and the woods were lighted up with a volley 
 from Confederate muskets. It was enough. Dahlgren fell 
 dead from his horse, two bullets in the head, two in the body, 
 and one in the hand. Captain Dement s horse was shot under 
 him. The woods were filled with fugitive Yankees, who had 
 fled at the first volley, and who might be heard in the dark 
 ness of the night imploring the Confederates to have the kind 
 ness to come up and accept their surrender. The remnant of 
 Dahlgren s party captured here in the night was one hundred 
 and forty negroes and Yankees. 
 
 On the body of their leader were found the remarkable doc 
 uments to which we have referred : papers showing the fiend 
 ish purpose of his expectation, and revealing to the startled 
 sensibilities of the people of Richmond, the horrors which they 
 had narrowly escaped. 
 
 The following address to the officers and men of the com 
 mand was written on a sheet of paper having in printed letters 
 on the upper corner, " Headquarters Third Division, Cavalry 
 Corps, , 1864 :" 
 
 Officers and Men : 
 
 You have been selected from brigades and regiments as a picked command 
 to attempt a desperate undertaking an undertaking which, if successful, wi]] 
 
248 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 write your names on the hearts of your countrymen in letters that can never 
 be erased, and which will cause the prayers of our fellow soldiers now confined 
 In loathsome prisons to follow you and yours wherever you may go. 
 
 We hope to release the prisoners from Belle Island firs* *nd having seen 
 them fairly started we Avill cross the James river into Ricnmond, destroying 
 the bridges after us, and exhorting the released prisoners to destroy and burn 
 the hateful city, and do not allow the rebel leader Dam, and his traitorous crew 
 to escape. The prisoners must render great assistance, as you cannot leave 
 your ranks too far, or become too much scattered, or you will be lost. 
 
 Do not allow any personal gam to lead you off, which would only bring you 
 to an ignominious death at the hands of citizens. Keep well together and 
 obey orders strictly, and all will be well, but on no account scatter too far ; for 
 in union there is strength. 
 
 With strict obedience to orders, and fearlessness in the execution, you will be 
 sure to succeed. 
 
 We will join the main force on the other side of the city, or perhaps meet 
 them inside. 
 
 Many of you may fall ; but if there is any man here not willing to sacrifice 
 his life in such a great and glorious undertaking, or who does not feel capable 
 of meeting the enemy in such a desperate fight as will follow, let him step out, 
 and he may go hence to the arms of his sweetheart, and read of the braves wko 
 swept through the city of Richmond. 
 
 We want no man who cannot feel sure of success in such a holy cause. 
 
 We will have a desperate fight ; but stand up to it when it does come, and 
 all will be well. 
 
 Ask the blessing of the Almighty, and do not fear the enemy. 
 
 U. DAHLGREN, Colonel Commanding. 
 
 The following special orders were written on a similar sheet 
 of paper, and on detached slips, the whole disclosing the dia 
 bolical plans of the leaders of the expedition : 
 
 " Guides Pioneers (with oakum, turpentine, and torpedoes) Signal Officer 
 Quartermaster Commissary : 
 
 " Scouts and pickets men in rebel uniform : 
 
 " These will remain on the north bank and move down with the force on the 
 south bank, not getting ahead of them ; and if the communication can be kept 
 up without giving alarm, it must be done ; but everything depends upon a 
 surprise, and NO ONE must be allowed to pass ahead of the column. Informa 
 tion must be gathered in regard to the crossings of the river, so that should 
 we be repulsed on the south side we will know where to recross at the nearest 
 point. All mills must be burned, and the canal destroyed; and also every thing 
 which can be used by the rebels must be destroyed, including the boats on the 
 river. Should a ferry-boat be seized, and can be worked have it moved down. 
 Keep the force on the south side posted of any important movement of the 
 enemy, and, in case of danger, some of the scouts must swim the river and 
 bring us information. As we approach the city, the party must take great care 
 that they do not get ahead of the other party ou the south side, and must con- 
 seal themselves and watch our movements. We will try and secure the bridge 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 249 
 
 to the city (one mile below Belle Isle), and release the prisoners .it the sane 
 time. If we do not succeed, they must then dash down, and we will try and 
 carry the bridge from each side. 
 
 " When necessary, the men must be filed through the woods and along the 
 river bank. The bridges once secured, and the prisoners loose and over the 
 river, the bridges will be secured and the dty destroyed. The men must keep 
 together and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed, and 
 Jeff Dams and Cabinet killed. 
 
 " Pioneers will go along with combustible material. The officer must use 
 his discretion about the time of assisting us. Horses and cattle, which we do 
 not need immediately, must be shot rather than left. Every thing on the canal 
 and elsewhere, of service to the rebels, must be destroyed. As General Custer 
 may follow me, be careful not to give a false alarm. 
 
 " The signal-officer must be prepared to communicate at night by rockets, 
 and in other things pertaining to his department. 
 
 " The Quartermasters and Commissaries must be on the lookout for their de 
 partments, and see that there are no delays on their account. 
 
 " The engineer officer will follow to survey the road as we pass over it, &c. 
 
 " The pioneers must be prepared to construct a bridge or destroy one. They 
 must have plenty of oakum and turpentine for burning, which will be rolled in 
 soaked balls and given to the men to burn when we get in the city. Torpe 
 does will only be used by the pioneers for destroying the main bridges, &c. 
 They must be prepared to destroy railroads. Men will branch off to the right 
 with a few pioneers and destroy the bridges and railroads south of Richmond, 
 and then join us at the city. They must be well prepared with torpedoes, &c. 
 The line of Falling Creek is probably the best to work along, or, as they ap 
 proach the city, Goode s Creek ; so that no reinforcements can come up on any 
 cars. No one must be allowed to pass ahead, for fear of communicating news. 
 Rejoin the command with all haste, and, if cut off, cross the river above Rich 
 mond and rejoin us. Men Avill stop at Bellona Arsenal and totally destroy it, 
 and anything else but hospitals ; then follow on and rejoin the command at 
 Richmond with all haste, and, if cut off, cross the river and rejoin us. As 
 General Custer may follow me, be careful and not give a false alarm." 
 
 The exhibition of these papers, disclosing a Yankee plot of 
 incendiarism and murder that challenged comparison with the 
 atrocities of the darkest ages, produced a profound sensation in 
 Richmond. Our people, although already familiar with out 
 rages of the enemy, were scarcely prepared to imagine such 
 extremity of excess ; whi/e these bloody papers were to the 
 world an important evidence of the spirit of Yankee warfare.* 
 
 * Yankee newspapers, with persistent hardihood, disputed the authenticity 
 of these papers. The writer, whose relative was engaged in the affair, and who 
 himself was familiar with all the incidents relating to these papers, may assert 
 most positively that there is not a shadow of ground to question their authen 
 ticity. He saw the originals. In half an hour after they were fou^ Dahl 
 
250 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAE. 
 
 It is partly amusing to notice that flimsy and flippant hjpr- 
 crisy which, in Yankee newspapers, declared that Dahlgren, 
 who had come on such an errand, when killed in a fight with 
 our troops was " assassinated," or which, through the offices of 
 an alliterative strong-minded woman, the peculiar creature of 
 Yankeedom one " Grace Greenwood" apotheosized, through 
 public lectures to Yankee soldiers, one of the worst of their 
 kind, and proclaimed him as " the young hero of the North." 
 The dramatic account of the stripping of the body of the 
 marauder, and the cutting off the joint of a finger to get from 
 it a diamond ring, is, however revolting to a tender humanity, 
 nothing but aii ordinary circumstance in a war where both 
 sides have admitted what is indeed a deplorable practice that 
 of "peeling " on the battle-field. 
 
 But there were some acts of the Confederate authorities in 
 relation to the Dahlgren affair, which deserved a severe cen 
 sure, and which were wholly indefensible. Many persons in 
 the Confederacy very justly thought that Dahlgren s raiders 
 were not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but 
 should be turned over to the State authorities as thieves, incen 
 diaries, and felons in all respects. The Confederate authorities, 
 from motives which could only have been fear of the enemy s 
 displeasure, declined to accede to this demand. But popular 
 clamor was to be appeased ; and to do so the old game of 
 "retaliation" was to be played, and its plain demands put oflf 
 by melodramatic expedients honorable to tell, but in reality 
 amounting to nothing. 
 
 gren s body they were placed in the hands of General FitzHugh Lee ; and the 
 Boiled folds of the paper were then plainly visible. The words referring to the 
 murder of the President and his cabinet were not interlined, but were in the 
 regular context of the manuscript. The proof of the authenticity of the papers 
 is clinched by the circumstance that there was also found on Dahlgren s body 
 a private note-book, which contained a rough draft of the address to his soldiers, 
 and repetitions of some of the memoranda copied above. The writer has care 
 fully examined this note-book a common memorandum pocket-book, such as 
 might be bought in New York for fifty cents in which are various notes, 
 some in ink and some in pencil ; the sketch of the address is in pencil, very im 
 perfect, written as one who labored in composition, crossed and recrossed. It 
 does not differ materially in context or language from the more precise com 
 position, except that the injunction to murder the Confederate leaders is in f h*> 
 rough draft made with this additional emphasis, " killed on the spot." 
 
THE THIHD YEAR. 251 
 
 Dahlgren s body was buried out of sight, with the puerile 
 mystery of a concealed grave. The Libby Prison was under 
 mined, several tons of powder put under it, and the threat 
 made that if any demonstration on Richmond, such as Dahl- 
 gren s, was ever again to occur, the awful crime, the appaling 
 barbarity would be committed of blowing into eternity the 
 hundreds of helpless men confined in a Confederate prison. 
 JS"o one can believe that such an atrocity was ever intended, 
 under any circumstances, to be executed by the Confederacy, 
 or that it was any thing more than the melodrama by which 
 our weak authorities had been accustomed to avoid the real 
 and substantial issues of " retaliation." This was not the first 
 instance in which the Confederacy had needlessly blackened 
 its reputation by exaggerated pretences of retaliation, which 
 it was thought necessary to make very ferocious in their con 
 ception, in proportion as they were to be failures in execution , 
 
252 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Current of Confederate Victories. THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. Banks Am 
 bitious Designs. Condition of the Confederates West of the Mississippi. Banks 1 
 Extensive Preparations. A Gala Day at Vicksburg. Yankee Capture of Fort Da 
 Rossy. Occupation of Alexandria. Porter s Warfare and Pillage. Banks Con 
 tinued Advance. Shreveport, the Grand Objective Point. Kirby Smith s Designs.- 
 General Green s Cavalry Fight. BATTLE OF MANSFIELD. Success of the Confeder 
 ates. BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL. The Heroic and Devoted Charge of the Confeder 
 ates. The Scene on the Hill. Banks Fatally Defeated. Price s Capture of Yankee 
 Trains. Grand Results of Kirby Smith s Campaign. Banks in Disgrace. Yankee 
 Tenure of Louisiana. FORREST S EXPEDITION INTO KENTUCKY. His Gallant Assault 
 on Fort Pillow. The Yankee Story of " Massacre. "Capture of Union City. Con 
 federate Occupation of Paducah. Chastisement of the Yankees on their own Theatre 
 of Outrages CAPTURE OF PLYMOUTH, N. C. General Hoke s Expedition. Capture 
 of "Fort Vessel." Exploit of the " Albemarle." The Assaults upon the Town. 
 Fruits of its Capture. The Yankees in North Carolina. 
 
 THE current of victory for the Confederacy was still to en 
 large. The spring campaign of General Kirby Smith in the 
 Trans-Mississippi was to terminate for us in one of the most 
 decisive and fruitful successes of the war. On account of the 
 remoteness of the theatre of action and its very imperfect com 
 munications with Richmond, we have now at hand but scant ma 
 terials for composing the history of these events, which termi 
 nated in the overwhelming defeat of Banks, and the complete 
 demolition of his extensive schemes in Western Louisiana 
 and Texas. 
 
 THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. 
 
 To understand the importance of Banks great expedition 
 np the Red River, it is necessary to review the military situa 
 tion in the beginning of March. Sherman had returned to 
 Vicksburg from his grand ,but disappointed expedition into 
 Mississippi, and instead of directing his forces towards Mobile, 
 the point of the greatest concern to the Confederates, he 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 253 
 
 detached a portion of them to General Banks assistance, who, 
 it appears, had predetermined on scattering or demolishing the 
 Confederate force in West Louisiana, operating against Texas, 
 and opening to Yankee spoliation and theft one of the richest 
 cotton regions of the South. A very general impression 
 existed in the North that the Confederate cause west of the 
 Mississippi was particularly hopeless. General Steele had cap 
 tured Little Bock, and was thought to have control of almost 
 the entire country north of the Red river. General Banks had 
 captured Brownsville, and occupied several points on the 
 Texas coast, with Yankee forces. The discouragement of the 
 Confederate leaders was said to be so complete that the story 
 found believers among the Yankees that Kirby Smith had 
 determined to pay off his army, furlough his men for an indefi 
 nite period, and then retire with his principal officers into 
 Mexico. 
 
 The preparations of Banks, however, showed that he either 
 contemplated a much greater resistance than what vulgar 
 opinion in the North anticipated, or that he was determined to 
 insure success by that exaggeration of means which timidity 
 always suggests. The expedition had been the .occasion of a 
 complete change in his plan of military operations in the 
 Department of the Gulf. Altogether, it was the most import 
 ant military enterprise ever attempted west of the Mississippi, 
 and the largest army ever assembled in that section (amount 
 ing, besides the fleet, to at least forty thousand men), was 
 entrusted with its execution. 
 
 About the 1st of March the columns under General Franklin 
 proceeded from New Orleans to Brashear City, and thence 
 took up the line of march along the Bayou Teche. The forces 
 under General A. J. Smith, from the Department of Tennessee, 
 comprising the brigades under Generals F. S. Smith, Thomas, 
 and Ellet, embarked at Yicksburg on the 10th of March, and 
 proceeded down to the mouth of Red river, where they 
 found a fleet of twenty gunboats ready for the ascent. The 
 twenty transports, preceded by the twenty gunboats, started 
 from the Mississippi on the 10th. As for the naval force oi 
 the expedition, a Northern paper stated that a more formida 
 ble fleet was never under a single command than that now on 
 the western rivers under Admirtil Porter. 
 
254 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The day of the embarkation at Yicksburg was a gala one 
 for the Yankees. " The scene on the Mississippi river, oppo 
 site Yicksburg," says a Yankee correspondent, " was sublime. 
 From the deck of this steamer, the flagship of the expedition, 
 went up the long, shrill whistle, the signal for our departure, 
 which was instantly answered by the immense fleet, each 
 steamer s whistle screaming a reply, All ready, in notes 
 ranging from C sharp to B flat. In five minutes the gigantic 
 flotilla was in motion, the variegated lights swinging to and 
 fro from the mastheads, while the crowded decks glistened 
 with loyal bayonets, and the cabin windows reflected a brilliant 
 light upon the rushing waters. Add to this picture the lively 
 music of several brass bands, the cheering of the soldiers, eager 
 for the approaching conflict, and their simple shelter-tents 
 spread in miniature encampments on the upper decks of the 
 steamers, while from the monster black chimneys the sparks 
 fell in golden showers over the whole scene, and perhaps a 
 slight idea will be conveyed of the romantic beauty of this rare 
 war spectacle." 
 
 The imposing expedition proceeded up the Ked river with 
 out serious opposition ; and its first achievement was the cap 
 ture, on the 14th of March, of Fort De Hussy* The fort was 
 easily taken by General Smith s advance, as it was garrisoned 
 by only two or three companies of Confederates. Had it been, 
 fully manned it would have been a difficult point to capture. 
 The fort was intended for a large force. It consisted of a very 
 strong water-battery, mounting four guns, and a bomb-proof 
 battery of three guns, only two of which were really mounted. 
 Both these batteries fully commanded the approaches, and 
 were connected with a strong fort, about a quarter of a mile to 
 the rear, by a causeway, protected by high breastworks, thus 
 enabling the men to pass from the battery to the fort in action 
 with comparative safety. The bomb-proof was covered with 
 two feet of solid timber and two layers of railroad iron of the 
 T style, fitted into each other. 
 
 Porter s gunboats were not engaged ; and the garrison of 
 the fort missed the coveted opportunity of testing the power of 
 their superb water-battery. The Yankees took here two hun 
 dred and eighty-three prisoners and several heavy guns 
 Among the prisoners taken was Lieutenant-colonel Byrd, for- 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 255 
 
 merly in command of the fort. He was put in double irons, 
 and sent to the penitentiary at Baton Rouge ! 
 
 Fort De Russy having fallen, Porter had no difficulty in 
 steaming up to Alexandria, a place of about fifteen hundred 
 inhabitants, and the county-seat of Rapides parish. It was sit 
 uated on the Red river, about one hundred and fifty miles 
 above its confluence with the Mississippi. The advance of 
 General A. J. Smith s forces in transports, and Admiral 
 Porter s fleet of iron-clad gunboats, anchored before the red 
 clay bluffs of Alexandria on the evening of the 16rh March. 
 
 The Yankees had now penetrated the famous cotton district 
 of the Red river ; and Porter, who had already obtained in 
 the South the unenviable title of " the Thief of the Missis 
 sippi," took the initiative in a system of pillage that might 
 have disgraced the most ruthless and ferocious banditti. 
 Many of the planters applied the torch to their cotton rather 
 than it should fall into the hands of the rapacious enemy. 
 Porter reported to his Government that upwards of four thou 
 sand bales of cotton had been confiscated and rescued by his 
 gunboats : a boastful estimate, much above the truth. If 
 cotton could not be found, the Yankees had no hesitation in 
 making prizes of other property ; and when disappointed of 
 plunder, they could at least give vent to their feelings in a 
 spirit of destruction and wanton ferocity. 
 
 Alexandria was occupied without resistance ; and from that 
 point Smith continued his advance towards Shreveport, one 
 hundred and seventy miles higher up Red river. In the 
 meantime, Franklin was making his way with all haste across 
 the country via Franklin, New Iberia, and Opelousas, with 
 the intention of joining Smith at Alexandria ; but he arrived 
 at that place too late for the purpose. Smith s forces had 
 already gone up the river, and, therefore, in order to consum 
 mate the junction, it was necessary for Franklin to move 
 towards Shreveport over land. The Yankee army, now under 
 command of General Banks, passed Grand Ecore, sixty miles 
 from Alexandria, the fleet having, meanwhile, got within ore 
 hundred miles of Shreveport. 
 
 This latter place, on the Louisiana boundary, appears to 
 have been the grand objective point of Banks campaign. The 
 Trans-Mississippi district might be considered as having its 
 
256 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 centie oi supplies and resources at Shreveport, and it was an 
 obvious base of operations against Texas. Appreciating its 
 importance, and with a view of sustaining and uniting with 
 Price, who was falling back in Arkansas, General Kirby 
 Smith, in command of the Confederates, in giving up Fort De 
 Russy and the adjoining country had resolved to make a stand 
 to cover Shreveport, and had merely designed to draw Banks 
 to a decisive point of the campaign. 
 
 On the 7th of April, Banks encountered a body of Confed 
 erate cavalry, under General Green, about two miles beyond 
 Pleasant Hill. A desultory fight ensued, in which Green s 
 cavalry, lighting in the strips of woods along the road, severely 
 harassed the Yankees. The appearance of this force had 
 probably taken Banks by surprise. He despatched a courier 
 to Franklin urging him to " hasten up," and announcing that 
 he was " surrounded by rebel cavalry." 
 
 BATTLE OF MANSFIELD. 
 
 Four miles from the town of Mansfield, on the 8th of April. 
 General Banks found himself encountered by a considerable 
 Confederate army, composed of forces under Kirby Smith, 
 Dick Taylor, Mouton, Green, and some of Price s men. The 
 Yankee cavalry were cautiously advancing, when the Confed 
 erates suddenly assailed the enemy s front in strong force. 
 The contest continued fiercely for several hours, when the 
 Yankees were driven back with great loss, and both wings of 
 Banks army flanked. A retreat appeared to be inevitable, 
 should the Confederates continue to assault the enemy s front. 
 The Yankee artillery played furiously upon the Confederate 
 lines. But they continued to advance boldly, our devoted 
 men evincing a desperate determination to conquer or perish 
 in the attempt. An order of retreat was at last given by 
 Banks. But the retreating force found the road blocked up 
 by their trains, which had got into confusion. The retreat 
 /soon became a route and a panic ensued. The Confederates 
 pushed on in pursuit, capturing eighteen guns, all of General 
 Lee s wagon trains, and driving the panic-stricken mass of 
 fugitive Yankees for ten miles to Pleasant Hill. Here 
 

 
 LT GEN. KIRBY SMITH 
 
 C- B. Richardson. 
 Publisher. 
 
THE THIKD YEAR. 25 1 
 
 Franklin, who had at last come up, opened his line of battle 
 and allowed the latter to pass. The Yankees reported their 
 loss about fifteen hundred killed, wounded, and missing. 
 Among the Confederates, General Mouton had fallen in the 
 action, his body pierced by four balls. 
 
 BATTLE OF PLEASANT HILL. 
 
 The next day Banks had his forces well in hand ; during the 
 night General A. J. Smith having arrived with fresh troops. 
 The place he had selected for a decisive battle was a large open 
 field, once cultivated, but now overgrown with trees and 
 bushes. In the centre of the field was a slight elevation, from 
 which the name, Pleasant Hill, was taken ; and a semicircular 
 belt of timber ran around the field on the Shreveport side. 
 
 The engagement of the two armies was scarcely more than 
 skirmishing until about five o clock in the .afternoon. One of 
 the most thrilling scenes of mortal contest was now to take 
 place. The Confederates reached the open ground and moved 
 on to the attack in three lines of battle. The Yankee batteries 
 and infantry opened with terrible effect, making great slaugh 
 ter with grape and canister, while the Confederate artillery, 
 being in the woods and in bad position, did scarcely any dam 
 age. The fighting was terrific. The Confederates pressed 
 furiously on. The Yankees were pushed back, Taylor s bat 
 tery taken, and the enemy s line pushed up the hill. As the 
 second line of Confederates appeared on the crest of the hill, 
 the death-signal was sounded, and from the long line of can 
 non and crouching forms of men there leaped a terrible and 
 destroying fire. Thousands of rifles blazed away, and cannon 
 loaded nearly to the muzzles belched forth destruction. Find 
 ing it impossible to force the enemy further, the Confederates 
 fought their way slowly and steadily back to their original 
 line. The enemy could not be rallied after such proof of 
 valor. In vain General Smith ordered a charge. Night was 
 
 O f3 
 
 near at hand, and the engagement dwindled into desultory 
 skirmishing. 
 
 The loss of the enemy in this engagement is not exactly 
 known, though probably much greater than he reported two 
 
 17 
 
258 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 thousand. After the battle Banks fell back to the line of the 
 Red River, and took position at Grand Ecore, near Nachitoches. 
 Thus ended the fearful aud bloody struggle for the control of 
 Western Louisiana, and the important destinies it involved. 
 
 Some days later there was an exchange of fire between 
 Porter s gunboats and a force of Confederate mounted infantry 
 about twenty-five miles above Grand Ecore, in which, un 
 happily, the brave General Green was killed by the fragment 
 of a shell. 
 
 The Yankees made various pretences to conceal the extent 
 of their disaster. It was declared that the redoubtable Banks 
 had only fallen back for " rest and rations," and that Steele 
 was pushing forward from Arkansas with fifteen thousand 
 men. The fact was that the latter commander had left Little 
 Rock with twelve thousand infantry, and three thousand cav 
 alry ; but Price, whom he imagined he was driving helplessly 
 before him, had turned at Camden, and captured all his trains. 
 The Yankee version of this event was that Steele had broken 
 through Price s lines and got back to Little Rock to save it 
 from Marmaduke who was advancing upon it. 
 
 The results of the campaign of Kirby Smith were for us the 
 most substantial ever achieved in the Trans-Mississippi. Th 
 expedition of Banks had proved a failure, and nothing was left 
 for him but to retreat to Alexandria, after losing several thou 
 sand prisoners, and thirty-five pieces of artillery. The expedi 
 tion of Steele into Western Arkansas had, as we have seen, 
 ended in a complete disaster. The immediate points of our 
 victories, as summed up in the official report of General Kirby 
 Smith, were eight thousand killed and wounded, six thousand 
 prisoners, thirty-five pieces of artillery, twelve hundred wagons, 
 one gunboat, and three transports. These wagons comprised 
 the whole of Steele s train, which had been captured in Arkan 
 sas. It was supposed, at one time, that the portion of Por 
 ter s fleet, above the falls at Alexandria, would have to be 
 abandoned ; but they were released from their unpleasant 
 position by building a tree-dam of six hundred feet across the 
 river at the lower falls, which enabled all the vessels to pass 
 the back-water of the Mississippi reaching Alexandria, and 
 enabled the vessels to pass over all the shoals and the obstruc 
 tions planted by the Confederates, to a point of safety. 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 259 
 
 ft was late in the month of May, when Banks arrived at 
 IN ;w Orleans, with the remnants of his army. In moving 
 across the country, during his retreat from Alexandria, he left 
 the .Red River at Fort De Russy, and struck for Sernmesport, 
 where he crossed the Atchafalaya, and then marched to Mor- 
 ganza, on the Mississippi. The complete failure of the expe 
 dition was beyond disguise, and was the topic of severe criti 
 cism in the North. Although Banks was still permitted to 
 remain in command of his department, as were Rosecrans and 
 Steele, he was placed under the order of General Canby, whose 
 first business was to resupply the troops brought back by Gen 
 eral Steele and General Banks from the disastrous campaign 
 of the Red River, and to reorganize from these disjected mate 
 rials the army of the Trans-Mississippi. 
 
 Banks splendid empire west of the Mississippi was now 
 practically reduced to the tenure of New Orleans, the banks of 
 the river, and a strip of coast. "If," said a "loyal" observer, 
 at New Orleans, " our friends at the North choose to amuse 
 themselves with the idea that Louisiana is reclaimed, and again 
 loyal, we ought not to complain of so cheap an entertainment. 
 In truth, under the mild sway of Governor Hahn, who was 
 elected by several thousand majority, there is just so much of 
 Louisiana in the Union as is covered by our pickets. Outside 
 of New Orleans, no Union officer or citizen can ride alone in 
 safety two miles from the Mississippi, except where our organ 
 ized soldiery move." 
 
 Banks had stripped the coast and frontier for his expedition 
 towards Shreveport. He had played a heavy stake in his 
 campaign, and he had plainly and irrevocably lost it. 
 
 FORREST 8 EXPEDITION INTO KENTUCKY. 
 
 
 
 On the other side of the Mississippi we left Forrest, the fa 
 mous cavalry chief of the West, driving back the Yankee 
 cavalry that had threatened to descend through Northern Mis 
 sissippi with lire and sword. The unwearied Confederate was 
 on the war path again. 
 
 By long and rapid marches, Forrest and his men found them 
 selves, in the month of April, on the waters of the Ohio, sweep- 
 
 
260 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ing the enemy before them, wherever they could meet the Yan 
 kees, capturing hundreds of prisoners, and valuable and needed 
 stores in the quartermaster and ordnance departments. 
 
 On the 12th of April, at Fort Pillow, near Columbus, Ken 
 tucky, our brave men, in the face of a murderous fire from two 
 Yankee gunboats and six pieces of artillery, stormed the works, 
 and killed or captured the entire garrison, a motley herd of 
 negroes, traitors, and Yankees. 
 
 The attack was made with a part of Bell s and McCullogh s 
 brigades, under Brigadier-general J. II. Chalmers. After a 
 short fight, we drove the enemy, seven hundred strong, into 
 the fort under cover of their gunboats, and demanded a surren 
 der, which was denied by Major L. W. Booth, commanding 
 the Yankee forces. General Forrest then stormed the fort, and 
 after a contest of thirty minutes captured the entire garrison, 
 killing five hundred, and taking one hundred horses and a large 
 amount of quartermaster s stores. The officers in the fort were 
 all killed, including Major Booth. General Forrest sustained 
 a loss of twenty killed and sixty wounded. Over one hundred 
 citizens, who had fled to the fort from conscription, ran into 
 the river and were drowned. 
 
 Yankee newspapers entitled this affair "the Fort Pillow 
 Massacre." There is no doubt that, for some moments, the 
 Confederate officers lost control of their men, who were mad 
 dened by the sight of negro troops opposing them. It is to bo 
 remarked, too, that the Yankees and negroes in Fort Pillow 
 neglected to haul down their flag. In truth, relying upon their 
 gunboats, the Yankee officers expected to annihilate our forces 
 after we had entered the fortifications. They did not intend to 
 surrender. 
 
 At the first fire, after Forrest s men sealed the walls, many 
 of the negroes threw down their arms, and fell as if they were 
 dead. They perished in the pretence, or could only be re 
 stored at the point of the bayonet. To resuscitate some of 
 them, more terrified than the rest, they were rolled into tlit? 
 trenches made as receptacles for the fallen. This is the extent 
 of the Yankee story of u burying negroes alive." 
 
 The fall of Fort Pillow was soon followed by the news of the 
 surrender of Union City, and five hundred and fifty " tories," 
 to a force under command of Colonel Falker, of Kentucky In 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 261 
 
 the meantime, Forrest had pressed rapidly to Paducah, which 
 place was reached about ten o clock in the morning of the 
 25th of April. 
 
 The Yankee force here was two thousand infantry, one negro 
 regiment and two gunboats of large size, carrying heavy siege 
 pieces and rifled six pounders. Two siege pieces were mounted 
 at the fort, and a battery of light artillery inside. The attack 
 began at once, not, however, with the object of capturing or 
 routing the enemy here ; for it was well known that he would 
 take shelter behind his fortifications, which were strong and 
 made impregnable by abattis, ditches and spikes; but for the 
 purpose of getting possession of the town, and capturing or de 
 stroying the immense quantities of commissary, quartermaster, 
 ordnance and medical supplies. The enemy was immediately 
 driven into and beyond the town, behind his fortifications, 
 where he was kept until night, while the Confederates were 
 capturing or destroying his stores. 
 
 Our forces retiring at nightfall, the enemy immediately set 
 fire to two blocks of buildings behind which our men had been 
 fighting, fearing that the attack would be renewed in the morn 
 ing. Nearly the whole town was thus burned to ashes, and 
 great damage done to the remainder by shelling. 
 
 The results of this expedition across the State of Kentucky 
 were especially gratifying to the Confederacy, not only for its 
 valuable results in captures, but for the well merited chastise 
 ment it had inflicted upon the enemy in a quarter where, with 
 his convenient allies in white "tories" and negro banditti, he 
 had long practised with impunity the most infamous outrages. 
 The Yankees liberally applied to this expedition the epithets 
 of " assassination," " massacre," &c. ; but these were nothing 
 more than their usual terms for those Confederate successes 
 under which they especially smarted. 
 
 CAPTURE OF PLYMOUTH, NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 The detached military events of the latter part of the winter 
 of 1863-64-, and the ensuing spring all of them successes for the 
 Confederacy were to be crowned with an important victory 
 in North Carolina. 
 
 After some hesitation by the Confederate authorities, Briga- 
 
SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 dier-general Hoke, a young and energetic North Carolinian, 
 was permitted to organize and lead an expedition against Ply 
 mouth, on the south bank of the Roanoke, about one hundred 
 and twenty-five miles below "Weldoii. 
 
 Our forces consisted of Hansom s and Hoke s North Carolina 
 brigades, commanded by General Ransom and Colonel Mercer, 
 of the Twenty-first Georgia ; Kemper s Virginia brigade, com 
 manded by Colonel Terry; Colonel Dearing s regiment ot 
 cavalry, and seven batteries of field artillery, under Lieutenant- 
 colonel Branch and Major Reid General Hoke, as senior 
 brigadier, commanding the entire force. 
 
 For nearly twelve months the Yankees had been busy with 
 pick and spade at Plymouth. They had thrown up a very 
 heavy fortification in front, extending from the river to Conoby 
 creek a distance of a mile with a deep ditch in front. At 
 short intervals along this line were siege arid field guns in em 
 brasure ; and in the centre was the " Williams Fort," mounting 
 six very heavy siege and three field guns in batteries. This 
 fort occupied a commanding elevation ; was exceedingly 
 strong, with a deep ditch and impenetrable stockade surround 
 ing it, enclosed on all sides, and, in case of assault, was pro 
 tected with a heavy gate and drawbridge, thus closing the 
 only entrance into the fort. Inside of this line were three 
 other forts, mounting two to four siege guns in barbette, pro 
 tecting their left flank and rear. Immediately upon the river 
 was one two-hundred-pound Parrott rifle in position. On the 
 right flank, about six hundred yards in advance of the main 
 line, was " Fort Wessell," similar to Fort Williams not so 
 large and mounting two guns. One mile higher up the river 
 was " Fort Warren," of like construction, mounting one one- 
 hundred-pound Parrott, and several other guns of heavy cali 
 bre, all commanding the river and any land attack. In addi 
 tion were four gunboats to co-operate with these forts. 
 
 The force in the town and at Warren Neck consisted of the 
 Sixteenth Connecticut, Eighty-fifth New York, One Hundred 
 and First and One Hundred and Third Pennsylvania, two com 
 panies of Massachusetts heavy artillery, one battery of light artil 
 lery, and two squadrons of cavalry, the whole commanded by 
 Brigadier-general Wessell, of the old United States army. 
 
 On the 17th of April, our forces were within two miles oi 
 
TH.b THIRD YEAR. 
 
 Plymouth, having marched through swamps and acre ss swollen 
 creeks a distance of seventy-five miles without the knowledge 
 of the enemy. Kemper s brigade, with a battery of twelve 
 pounder Napoleons and three twenty-pounder Parrotts, was de 
 tached to attack Warren Neck, a strong position on the river 
 a mile above the town, which the enemy thought, and w^ 
 feared, would effectually stop the passage of our " ram " the 
 Albemarle and so deprive us of her valuable aid. 
 
 About sunset, Bearing and Reid, with their rifle artillery, 
 opened a brisk fire upon Fort Warren, at fifteen hundred 
 yards, with marked effect, soon cutting down the garrison flag 
 staff. The gunboats steamed up to the assistance of the fort. 
 One was speedily sunk and another seriously damaged. 
 
 Early the next morning, our artillery under Colonel Branch 
 opened a heavy fire upon the enemy s works, which they vigor 
 ously responded to. That afternoon General Hoke determined 
 to carry " Fort Wessell " with his and Kemper s brigades, and 
 one battery under Major Reid ; he ordered Ransom, with his 
 brigade, and Branch, with fourteen pieces of artillery, to make 
 a heavy demonstration simultaneously with his attack. 
 
 Ransom s brigade, with the 8th North Carolina, was drawn 
 up in the woods, facing the works on the Washington, Lee s 
 Mill, and Bath roads. A heavy line of skirmishers was thrown 
 out, and advancing rapidly with the peculiar gait of the sharp 
 shooters, and the yell with which Confederate troops go to the 
 charge, drove the enemy back into his works, and approached 
 within two hundred and fifty yards of the fort, earnestly de 
 manding to be led into the place. Meanwhile, Pegram s bat 
 tery dashed forward at a run, supported by the infantry, anc 
 unlimbering, delivered a furious fire upon the devoted place 
 Three times the infantry advanced, each time nearer, unti* 
 within good charging distance ; but the artillery had it all to 
 themselves. The movement was merely a demonstration to 
 call off the enemy s attention from Hoke s attack 1 upon Fort 
 Wessel. 
 
 The enemy being now fully engaged on the right, General 
 Hoke made a vigorous attack upon Fort Wessell with artillery 
 and infantry the enemy opposing a spirited resistance. Our 
 infantry again and again charged the fort, the enemy hurling 
 at. them hand-grenades; but the strong stockade, deep ditch, 
 
264 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and liigli parapet prevented our men from scaling it. Dnrir.g 
 one of these charges, the intrepid Colonel Mercer, command 
 ing Iloke s brigade, fell mortally wounded at the head of his 
 command. Finally, our infantry surrounded the fort, the ar 
 tillery advanced to within two hundred yards of it, and Colo 
 nel Dearing, in behalf of General Hoke, demanded a surrend 
 er of the place, which was immediately complied with, and 
 fifty-two prisoners marched to the rear. 
 
 About two o clock the next morning, our iron-clad, the Al- 
 bemarle, mounting two Brooke rifled guns, and commanded 
 by Captain Cooke, passed easily over the obstructions from 
 the high water, passed Fort Warren without eliciting a shot, 
 our sharpshooters so closely investing the fort that the coward 
 ly cannoniers would not man their guns. Steaming just below 
 Plymouth, she met the Miami, commanded by Flusser, and the 
 Southfield, under French. They were side by side of each other^ 
 and connected by heavy iron cables, with the hope of entan 
 gling the Albemarle and running her ashore, or breaking her 
 propeller, and then boarding her. Each of these boats carried 
 eight guns of very heavy calibre, and were regarded equal to 
 any in the waters of Eastern Carolina. The gallant Cooke 
 headed directly for the Southfield, gave her the contents of his 
 bow gun, and striking her forward with his prow, she imme 
 diately began to sink, and with such rapidity, that before the 
 Albemarle could disengage herself she was well nigh carried 
 down, water running in at her ports. This occasioning 
 some delay, the Miami fled, but not until she was severely 
 punished, her commander, Flusser, and many of her crew be 
 ing killed. 
 
 Having obtained possession of Fort "Wessell, General Hoke 
 arranged his forces for an assault upon the town, sending Han 
 som on the right to make a demonstration or attack as he 
 thought best, while Hoke, with his and Kemper s brigades, 
 would attack on the left. 
 
 At early dawn on the morning of the 28th, our infantry 
 moved forward, and our artillery, consisting of Elount s, Mar 
 shall s, and Lee s batteries, under Colonel Branch, dashed for 
 ward at a full gallop into position, and opened immediately 
 upon the town and forts at about twelve hundred yards. The 
 enemy by this time had concentrated a most terrific fire from 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 205 
 
 their siege and field gvms. Just at this time General Iloke 
 opened, with his artillery, a very rapid and tremendous lire, 
 and his infantry sent up yell after yell as if charging. Ransom 
 caught 1 the sound, and rising in his stirrups, from the head and 
 right of the line, in a elear and ringing voice gave the com 
 mand, " Charge, boys, and the place is yours." 
 
 In ten minutes the two outer forts, with eight guns, were 
 captured, our infantry scaling their parapets, and the artillery 
 within one hundred and fifty yards of the forts, horses and 
 limbers blown up and cannoniers shot down, and yet those re 
 maining stood to their guns, without shelter, confident of vic 
 tory and to avenge their dead. The whole command, officers 
 and men, infantry and artillery, seemed enthused with the in 
 spiration of certain victory. Several hundred prisoners were 
 captured in these forts, which were immediately sent to the 
 rear, and now began the contest for the town, more than half 
 a mile in length, the enemy s infantry slowly retiring, and 
 stubbornly resisting our advance; Fort Williams dealing out 
 grape and spherical case ; their field-pieces, at the further ex 
 tremities of the broad, straight streets, raking them with a 
 murderous fire ; their infantry, in the houses and cellars, and 
 behind fences, delivering galling charges of ininies ; but all 
 of no avail ; our men were aroused, confident, and irresistible. 
 They pressed on steadily, without halt or hesitation, tearing 
 down fences, hedges, and every obstacle that they met, cap 
 turing the enemy at every step. 
 
 The town was ours. But still Wessell, shut up in his strong 
 hold, Fort Williams, refused to yield. A heavy cannonade 
 was opened upon the fort, and the garrison was galled by our 
 sharpshooters. At last some of the Confederates, creeping for 
 ward through the intrenchments, got an enfilading fire upon 
 them, which soon brought them to terms, and hundreds of 
 them rushed out of the fort without arms and surrendered. 
 Just at this time a shell burst directly on the magazine, and 
 when the smoke cleared away, the hated flag was fluttering 
 rapidly down to the ground. 
 
 The fruits of this capture were sixteen hundred prisoners; 
 twenty-five pieces of artillery, vast quantities of commissary 
 and quartermaster supplies, arid immense ordnance stores. 
 Our loss in killed and wounded was about three hunrlrp/1. We 
 
266 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 had also destroyed two gunboats, and with all, had obtained 
 the strong position of Plymouth, which protected the whole 
 Roanoke valley. 
 
 The Yankees now held but two places on the North Carolina 
 coast, Washington, at the mouth of Tar river, and Newbern, 
 at the mouth of the Neuse. The latter was strongly gar 
 risoned, but the larger part of the forces at Washington had 
 been moved up to Plymouth. It was supposed that General 
 lioke would prosecute his campaign against Newborn ; but 
 his forces were suddenly to be recalled to more imposing 
 scenes, and to a participation in the great crisis of 1864 in 
 Virginia. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 267 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Close of the Third Year of the War. Sketch of the Subaequet y op> *Vi ns in Vir 
 ginia and Georgia. GRANT S " ON-TO-RICHMOND." The CommraaUjA Against the 
 Confederate Capital. THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. A Thrill/ \ Crisis. Grant 
 on the Verge of Rout. His First Design Baffled. THE BATTLES an GPOTTSYLVANIA 
 COURT-HOUSE. Death of General Sedgwick. THE CARNAGE OF MA* THE 12TH. Five 
 Battles in Six Days. Grant s Obstinacy. "The Butcher." Shdudan s Expedition. 
 Death of General "Jeb" Stuart. Butler s Operations on the South Side of the 
 uames. " The Beast" at the Back-Door of Richmond. He is Driven to Bermuda 
 Hundred by Beauregard. Defeat of Sigel in the Valley. Grant s Movement Down 
 the Valley of the Rappahannock. His Passage of the Pamunkey. Re-organization of 
 General Lee s Lines. Grant s Favorite Tactics. Yankee Exultation at his Approach 
 to Richmond Caricatures of the Confederacy. A Hasty Apotheosis. A True The 
 ory of Grant s " Flank Movements." His Occupation of McClellan s Old Lines. THE 
 BATTLE OF THE CHICKAHOMINY OR COLD HARBOR. A Confederate Victory in Ten 
 Minutes. What Had Become of Yankee Exultation. Review of the Rival Routes to 
 Richmond. Grant Crosses the James River. His Second Grand Combination Against 
 Richmond. Hunter s Capture of Staunton. THE BATTLES OF PETERSRURG. General 
 Wise s Heroic Address. Engagement of 16th June. Grand Assault of 18th June. 
 on " the Cockade City." A Decisive defeat of the Yankees. Engagement at Port 
 Walthal Junction Sheridan s Defeat Near Gordonsville. Hunter s Repulse at 
 Lynchburg. Two Affairs on the Weldon Railroad. Grant s Second Combination a 
 Complete Failure. Discouragement of the North. The Gold Barometer. Secretary 
 Chase s Declaration. SHERMAN S " ON-TO- ATLANTA." His Flanking Movement. 
 Engagement in Resaca Valley. Johnston s Retreat Engagement at New Hope. 
 Johnston s Telegram to Richmond. Defeat of Sturgis s Expedition in Mississippi. 
 BATTLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN. Sherman s Successful Strategy. The Confederates 
 Fall Back to Atlanta. THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. Hood s Gallant Defence. .... 
 The Military Situation in July, 1864. Grant s Failure. His Consumption of Troops. 
 Review of Yankee Atrocities in the Summer Campaign of 1864. Sherman s Char 
 acter. His Letter on " Wild Beasts." His War on Factory Girls. Sufferings of 
 Confederate Women and Children. Ravages in Georgia. Hunter s Vandalism in 
 Virginia. "The Avengers of Fort Pillow." Sturgis and his Demons. The Spirit of 
 the Confederates. . . . Some Words on " Peace Negotiations." A Piratical Prop 
 osition and an Infamous Bribe. The Heroic Choice of the Confederates. 
 
 THE third year of the war closes properly at the month of 
 May, according to our arrangement of dates in preceding vol 
 umes. But on account of the magnitude of what is closely 
 subsequent, it is thought advisable to give a summary and very 
 general SKETCH of the material events of the enemy s two grand 
 campaigns of the summer of 1864 the parallel operations or 
 Grant and Sherman in Yirginia and in Georgia; at least, so 
 
268 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 far as to bring the reader to a stand-point of intelligent obser 
 vation, with reference to questions of peace and negotiation 
 which were agitating the public mind at the time these pages 
 were committed to the press. We shall follow their campaigns 
 only to what appear to be their decisive stages in June and 
 July,. The period we shall thus rapidly traverse we hope to 
 go over in another volume with a more perspicuous narrative, 
 and certainly with much more abundant detail. 
 
 GRANT S " ON-TO-RICHMOND."* 
 
 General Ulysses S. Grant was now to answer the eager ex 
 pectation of the public by a campaign of unrivalled importance 
 in Virginia. He had hitherto been known in the North as the 
 great General of the West, and the Yankee newspapers had 
 entitled him the hero of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicks- 
 burg. His elevation had been rapid. Four years ago the 
 man who commanded all the armies of the North had been a 
 tanner, and at the beginning of the war had been accidentally 
 selected to lead a regiment of raw recruits. 
 
 From the moment of receiving his commission as Lieutenant- 
 General, Grant had transferred his personal presence to the 
 Army of the Potomac, leaving Sherman as his vicegerent to 
 carry out the Western campaign. Warren, Sedgwick, and 
 Hancock, were made the corps commanders of this army, and 
 Bnrnside was given a separate army corps. Butler at Fortress 
 Monroe was reinforced by the Tenth corps from Charleston 
 under Gilmore, and the Eighteenth from the West, under 
 " Baldy" Smith. To the infamous hero of New Orleans was 
 allotted the task of cutting oif the city of Richmond from its 
 southern lines of communication ; while Sigel operating in the 
 Shenandoah Valley was to cut the railroad which by way 01 
 Gordonsville connected Lee s army with his principal base of 
 supplies at Lynchburg. 
 
 Thus were the preparations completed for the most momen 
 tons campaign in American history. On Wednesday, May 4, 
 nist eight weeks from the day Grant received his commis 
 sion, his two grand columns were ready to move the one 
 
 * Tiiis, and the subsequent sketches of battles in this chapter, are treated 
 more fully in chapters xiv., xv., and xvi. 
 
THE TH1BD YEAR. 269 
 
 well in hand on the north bank of the Rapidan, seventy miles 
 north cf Richmond, and the other at Fortress Monroe, one 
 day s sail from Richmond on the James. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 At dawn on the 5th of May, the Army of the Potomac, 
 closely succeeded by that of Burnside, had crossed the Rapi- 
 dan river ; the Second corps at Ely s, the Fifth and Sixth corps 
 at Germania ford. Having crossed the river, the first demon 
 stration of the enemy was an attempt to turn the right flank 
 of Lee s army, between the Orange Court-house pike and the 
 river. The assault \vas sustained by Heth and Wilcox s di 
 visions of the Confederate Army, during the entire day ; and 
 that it was successfully sustained even the Northern account? 
 do not hesitate to admit. u No cheer of victory," says a Nor 
 them correspondent," swelled through the Wilderness thai 
 night." 
 
 During the day Hancock, Second corps, had come up, and 
 the Federal forces were concentrated. On the morning of the 
 6th their lines were consolidated and freshly posted ; the three 
 corps sustaining their respective positions Warren in the 
 centre, Sedgwick on the right, and Hancock on the left. 
 
 The attack was made by the Confederates ; Hill and Long- 
 street s corps attacking both of Hancock s flanks with such 
 fury, that the whole line of command thus assaulted is broken 
 in several places. The effort, however, of the Confederates to 
 pierce the enemy s centre is stayed, the Yankees having secured 
 their line of battle behind their entrenchments. 
 
 But with the expiration of the day was to occur a thrilling 
 and critical conjuncture. Just at dusk (the Confederates fa 
 vorite hour of battle) a column of Lee s army attacked the 
 enemy s left, captured Seymour and a large portion of his bri 
 gade, and excited a panic which put Grant s whole army on 
 the verge of irretrievable rout. Unfortunately, the Confed 
 erates had no idea of the extent of their success, and could not 
 imagine how fraught witli vital issue were those few moments 
 of encounter. The Yankee supply trains were thought to be 
 immediately threatened, and artillery was posted to bear upon 
 
270 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the Confederate advance in that direction. But the Confed 
 erates did not press their advantage. As it was, Generals 
 Shaler and Seymour, with the greater part of their commands, 
 wen? taken prisoners. 
 
 Such had been the two days battle of the Wilderness : a 
 marked success for the Confederates, disputed by the Northern 
 newspapers, of course, but manifest in the face of the facts. 
 The enemy confessed to a loss of twelve thousand. The im 
 mediate consequence of these engagements was, that Grant 
 being clearly outgeneralled in his first design of reaching Lee s 
 rear and compelling him to fight a battle with his communica 
 tions cut off, which would be decisive of the campaign, was 
 forced to change his plans, and with it his position ; falling 
 back to his entrenched line, between the Wilderness and Trigg s 
 Mill, nearly coincident with the Brock road, leading from the 
 Wilderness to Spottsylvania Court-house. 
 
 On the 7th, with some desultory fighting, Grant continued 
 his movement towards Fredericksburg, with the evident view 
 of attempting the Fredericksburg road to Richmond. It was 
 in consequence of this change of front that General Lee took 
 up a new line on the Po. It will amuse the candid reader to 
 find how this movement was interpreted by the mendacious 
 press of the North ; for, in the newspapers of New York and 
 Boston it was entitled, in flaming capitals, " A Waterloo De 
 feat of the Confederates," "The Retreat of Lee to Richmond," 
 &c. For a few days the North was vocal with exultation, and 
 for the hundredth time it had the Rebellion " in a corner," to 
 be conveniently strangled. But this imagination of easy 
 conquest, was to be dissipated as the many that had pre 
 ceded it. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE. 
 
 On the 8th of May two engagements weie fought at Spott 
 sylvania Court-house, between Longstreet s corps, under An 
 derson (General Longstreet having been wounded in the battle 
 of the 6th) and the Fifth corps, under Warren, supported by 
 cavalry. The enemy was repulsed, with heavy loss, in boti 
 instances. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 271 
 
 On the 9th, which was marked by some skirmishing, Gen 
 eral John Sedgwick, one of the most valuable corps command 
 ers in the Yankee army, was killed, probably by a stray bullet. 
 He had just been bantering his men about dodging and duck 
 ing their heads at the whistle of Confederate bullets in the dis 
 tance. " Why," said he, " they couldn t, hit an elephant at this 
 distance." The next moment a ball entered his face, just 
 below the left eye, and pierced his brain, causing instant 
 death. 
 
 On Thursday, the 12th of May, occurred what may be 
 entitled as the great battle of Spottsylvania Court-house. 
 The enemy had planned an attack on what was supposed to be 
 a vital section of the Confederates, a salient angle of earth 
 works held by Johnson s division of Ewell s corps. The storm 
 ing column advanced silently, and without firing a shot, up to 
 the angles of the breastworks, over which they rushed, taking 
 the forces within in flank, surrounding them, capturing nearly 
 the entire division of Johnson s, with its commander, and also 
 a brigade or two of other troops, Brigadier-general George H, 
 Stuart in command. 
 
 But the surprise was only momentary. For long hours a 
 battle raged over those intrenchments, the intense fury, hero 
 ism, and horror of which it is impossible to describe. From 
 dawn to dusk the roar of guns was ceaseless ; a tempest of 
 shell shrieked through the forest and ploughed, the field. 
 Ewell s corps held the critical angle with a courage that noth 
 ing could subdue. General Hill moved down from the right, 
 joined Ewell, and threw his divisions into the struggle. Long- 
 street came on from the extreme left of the Confederate line. 
 Column after column of the enemy was hewn down, or 
 repulsed and sent back like a broken wave. At all points the 
 enemy was repulsed with enormous loss. The ground in front 
 of the Confederate lines was piled with his slain. 
 
 The sixth day of heavy fighting had been ended. " It 
 would," says an intelligent critic of this period, " not be im 
 possible to match the results of any one day s battle with 
 btories from the wars of the old world ; but never, we should 
 think, in the history of man were five such battles as these 
 compressed into six clays." Grant had been foiled;, but his 
 obstinacy was apparently untouched, and the fierce and brutal 
 
272 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE 
 
 consumption of human life, another element of his generalship, 
 and which had already obtained for him with his soldiers the 
 soubriquet of " the butcher," was still to continue. He te.e 
 graphed to Washington : " I propose to fight it out on this 
 line, if it takes all summer." 
 
 But we must turn for a few moments from this dominant 
 field of action and interest to notice other movements, which 
 were parts of Grant s combination, and of the great military 
 drama in Virginia. 
 
 While Grant was engaged on the Rapidan, a cavalry expe 
 dition of the enemy, commanded by General Sheridan, moved 
 around Lee s right flank to the North Anna river ; committed 
 Borne damage at Beaver Dam ; moved thence to the South 
 Anna and Ashland station^ where the railroad was destroyed ; 
 and finally found its way to the James at Turkey Island, 
 where it joined the forces of Butler. The damage inflicted by 
 this raid was not very considerable ; but it was the occasion of 
 a severe fight, on the 10th May, at Yellow Tavern, on the road 
 to Richmond, where Sheridan encountered a Confederate cav 
 alry force, in which engagement was lost the valuable life o* 
 General J. E. B. Stuart, the brilliant cavalry commander, wh<_ 
 had so long made Virginia the theatre of his daring and chiv 
 alric exploits. 
 
 The column of Butler, the important correTpDndent to 
 Grant s movement, intended to operate against .fa Jimond on 
 the south side, had raised the hopes of the !NV.<:Ja merely tc 
 dash them by a failure decisive in its character, *nd ridiculous 
 in all its circumstances. On the 5ih of May, 3.v!er proceeded 
 with his fleet of gunboats and transports, a-<0 the Tenth and 
 Eighteenth army corps, up the James river, landing atWil- 
 eon s Wharf a regiment of Wild s negro troops, and two 
 brigades of the same color at Fort Fowhatan ; thence up to 
 City Point, where Ilinks division was landed ; and at Ber 
 muda Hundred, just below the mouth of the Appomattox, the 
 entire army was disembarked. 
 
 On the Tth, five brigades, under General Brooks, struck for 
 the Petersburg and Hichirond Hailroad, and succeeded in 
 destroying a bridge seven miles north of Petersburg. In the 
 menn time, Butler, after intrenching himself, closed about the 
 defences of Drury s Bluff. The Yankee genjral seemed confi- 
 
C EN. J. E.3. STUART. 
 un-lire . 
 
 Richardson 
 Lstier. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 273 
 
 dent that he could, by a little fighting, in conjunction with the 
 powerful flotilla upon the James, easily overcome the main 
 barrier to his approach to the rear of the Confederate capital, 
 presented in the defences of Drury s Bluff. It was already 
 announced to the credulous public of the North that Butler 
 had cut Beauregard s army, in twain ; that he had carried two 
 lines of the defences of Drury s Bluff; and that he held the 
 keys to the back-door of Richmond. 
 
 On Monday, the 16th of May, General Beauregard fell upon 
 the insolent enemy in a fog, drove Butler from his advanced 
 positions back to his original earthworks, and inflicted upon him 
 a loss of five thousand men in killed, wounded, and captured. 
 He had fallen upon the right of the Yankee line of battle with 
 the force of an avalanche, completely crushing it backward 
 and turning Butler s flank. The action was decisive. Tho 
 day s operations resulted in Butler s entire army being ordered 
 to leturn from its advanced position, within ten miles of Rich- 
 mond, to the line of defence known as Bermuda Hundred, be 
 tween the James aiid Appornattox rivers. 
 
 While Butler had thus come to grief, the failure of Sigel, 
 who threatened the valley of Virginia, was no less complete. 
 On the 15th his column was encountered near Newmarket by 
 General Breckinridge, who drove it across the Shenandoah, 
 captured six pieces of artillery and nearly one thousand stand 
 of small arms, and inflicted upon it a heavy loss ; Sigel aban 
 doning his hospitals and destroying the larger portion of hia 
 train. 
 
 We left Grant defeated in the action of the 12th in front of 
 Spottsylvania Court-house. On the 14rth, he moved his lines 
 by his left flank, taking position nearer the Richmond and 
 Fredericksburg railroad. On the 18th he attempted an assault 
 on Ewell s line, which was easily repulsed. It was admitted by 
 the enemy that the object of this attack was to turn Lee s left 
 flank, and that their line got no further than the abattis, when 
 it was " ordered " back to its original position. 
 
 A new movement was now undertaken by Grant : to pass 
 his army from the line of the Po, down the valley of the Rap- 
 pahannock. It thus became necessary for General Lee to evac 
 uate his strong position on the line of the Po ; and by an ad 
 mirable movement he had taken a new position between the 
 
 18 
 
274 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 ISTorth and South Anna, before Grant s army had arrived at the 
 Cornier stream. Having cut loose from Fredericksburg as a 
 oase (and established depots on the Lower Rappahannoek), on 
 the 21st Grant s forces occupied Milford Station and Bowling 
 Green, and were moving on the well known high roads to 
 Richmond. But they were again intercepted ; for Lee had 
 planted himself between Grant and Richmond, near Hanover 
 Junction. 
 
 On the 23d, and on the 25th, Grant made attempts on the 
 Confederate lines, which Were repulsed, and left him to the 
 last alternative. Another flanking operation remained for 
 him, by which he swung his army from the North Anna 
 around and across the Painunkey. On the 27th, Hanovertown 
 was reported to be occupied by the Yankee advance under 
 General Sheridan ; and on the 28th Grant s entire army was 
 across the Painunkey. 
 
 In the mean time, General Lee also reformed his line of bat 
 tle, north and south, directly in front of the Virginia Central 
 railroad, and extending from Atlee s Station, south, to Shady 
 Grove, ten miles north of Richmond. In this position he cov 
 ered both the Virginia Central and the Fredericksburg and 
 Richmond railroads, as well as all the roads leading to Rich 
 mond, west of, and including the Mechanicsville pike. 
 
 The favorite tactics of Grant appear to have been to devel- 
 ope the left flank ; and by this characteristic maneuver, he 
 moved down the Hanover Court-house road, and on the first 
 day of June took a position near Cold Harbor. 
 
 Grant was now within a few miles of Richmond. The vul 
 gar mind of the North readily seized upon the cheap circum 
 stance of his proximity in miles to the Confederate capital, 
 and exclaimed its triumph. The capture of Richmond was 
 discounted as an event of the next week. The Yankee periodi 
 cals were adorned with all those illustrations which brutal 
 triumph could suggest; Grant drubbing Lee across his knee ; 
 the genius of Yankee liberty holding aloft an impersonation of 
 the Southern Confederacy by the seat of the breeches, marked 
 " Richmond ;" Jefferson Davis playing his last card, ornament 
 ed with a crown of death s heads, and with his legs well girt 
 with snakes; and a hundred other caricatures alike character 
 istic of the vulgar t^ ight and fiendish temper of the Yankee. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 275 
 
 To such foolish extremity did this premature celebration go. 
 that a meeting was called in New York to render the thanka 
 of the nation to Grant, and twenty-five thousand persons com 
 pleted the hasty apotheosis. ^ 
 
 But for the candid and intelligent, the situation of Grant was 
 one of sinister import to him, implied much of disaster, and 
 was actually a consequence of his repeated disappointments. 
 The true theory of it was defeat, not victory. He did nothing 
 more than hold the same ground as that occupied by General 
 McClellan in his first peninsular campaign. This position, had 
 he come by that point, a day s sail from "Washington, he could 
 have occupied without the loss of a single man. But he had 
 occupied it by a devious route ; with a loss variously estimated 
 at from- sixty to ninety thousand men ; with the consumption 
 of most of his veteran troops, whom he had put in front; with 
 the disconcert and failure of those parts of the drama which 
 Butler and Sigel were to enact; and with that demoralization 
 which must unavoidably obtain in an army put to the test of 
 repeated defeats and forced marches. 
 
 "What was represented by the enemy as the retreat of Gen 
 eral Lee s army to Richmond, was simply its movement from 
 a position which its adversary had abandoned, to place itself 
 full before him across the new road on which he had deter 
 mined to travel. In this sense, it was Grant who was pursued. 
 He had set out to accomplish Mr. Lincoln s plan of an overland 
 march upon Richmond. Mr. Lincoln s scheme as detailed by 
 himself, in his famous letter to General McClellan, was to 
 march by the way of the Manassas railroad. The first move 
 ment of General Grant was to give up that route, and fall back 
 upon the line by which Generals Burnside and Hooker at 
 tempted to reach the Confederate capital that is, the Freder- 
 icksburg and Richmond line. But, repulsed at Spottsylvania, 
 this route proved untenable, and General Grant was forced 
 east and south, and adopted a new base at Fort Royal and 
 Tappahannock, on the Rappahannock river, which conformed 
 in a measure to General McClellan s first plan of a march upon 
 Richmond by way of Urbana. The next change Grant was 
 compelled to make was, after finding how strong the Confed 
 erates were, as posted on the South Anna, to cross the Pamun- 
 key and make his base at the White House, bearing thereafter 
 
276 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Btill further east and south to the precise ground of McCle. Ian * 
 operations. 
 
 The significance of all these movements was, that Grant had 
 utterly failed in his design of defeating Lee s army far from its 
 base, and pushing the fragments before him down to Rich 
 .mond, and had been forced to cover up his failure by adopting 
 the derided scheme of McClellan. The event of the 12th 01 
 May at Spottsylvania Court-house, had settled the question 
 whether he could beat Lee in the field and put him in a dis 
 astrous retreat. Unable to remove the obstacle on the thresh 
 old of his proposed campaign, nothing was left but to abandon 
 it. Grant makes his way down the valley of the Rappahan- 
 nock ; turns aside to Hanover Junction, to find a repetition of 
 Spottsylvania Court-house; deflects to the headwaters of the 
 York; and at last, by a monstrous circuit, reaches a point 
 where he might have landed on the 1st of May, without loss 
 or opposition. We may appreciate the amount of. gaseous non 
 sense and truculent blackguardism of Yankee journals, when 
 we find them declaring that these movements were a footrace 
 for Richmond, that Grant was across the last ditch, and that 
 the end of the rebellion was immediately at hand. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE CIIICKAHOMINY, OB COLD HABBOB. 
 
 But we must return to the events on the Richmond lines. 
 The position occupied by Grant on Wednesday, 1st of Jane, 
 had been obtained after some fighting, and by the enemy s 
 own admission had cost him two thousand men in killed and 
 wounded. An important and critical struggle was now to 
 ensue. Grant had secured a position, the importance of which 
 was that it was the point of convergence of all the roads, radi 
 ating whether to Richmond his objective point, or to White 
 House his base of supplies. He was now to essay the pas 
 sage of the Chickahominy, and we were to have another deci 
 sive battle of Cold Harbor. 
 
 There is good evidence that Grant s intention was to make 
 it the decisive battle of the campaign. The movements of the 
 preceding days, culminating in the possession of Cold Harbor 
 an important strategic point had drawn the enemy s lines 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 277 
 
 close in front of the Chickahominy, and reduced the military 
 problem to the forcing of the passage of that river a problem 
 which, if solved in Grant s favor, would decide whether Rich 
 mond could be carried by a coup de main, if a decisive victory 
 should attend his arms, or, whether he should betake himself 
 to siege operations or some other recourse. 
 
 Early on the morning of Friday, June 3d, the assault was 
 made, Hancock commanding the left of the Yankee line ot 
 battle, and leading the attack. The first Confederate line was 
 held by Breckinridge s troops, and was carried. The reverse 
 was but momentary, for the troops of Millegan s brigade and 
 the Maryland battalion, soon dashed forward, to retrieve the 
 honors which the Yankees had snatched. 
 
 On every part of the line the enemy was repulsed by the 
 quick and decisive blows of the Confederates. Hancock s 
 corps, the only portion of the Yankee army that had come in 
 contact with the Confederate works, had been hurled back in 
 a storm of fire ; the Sixth corps had not been able to get up 
 further than witlyn two hundred and fifty yards of the main 
 works ; while Warren and Burnside, on the enemy s right and 
 right centre, were staggered on the lines of our rifle pits. The 
 decisive work of the day was done in ten minutes. Never 
 were there such signal strokes of valor ; such despatch of vic 
 tory. It was stated in the accounts of the Confederates that 
 fourteen distinct assaults of the enemy were repulsed, and that 
 his loss was from six to seven thousand. No wonder that the 
 insolent assurance of the capture of Richmond was displaced 
 in the Yankee newspapers by the ominous calculation that 
 Grant could not afford many such experiments on the en 
 trenched line of the Chickahominy, and would have to make 
 some other resort to victory. 
 
 The battle of Cold Harbor was sufficient to dispel the delu 
 sion of weajmess and demoralization in Lee s army ; for this 
 derided army, almost in the time it takes to tell the story, had 
 repulsed at every point the most determined assault of the 
 enemy, and in the few brief moments of a single morning had 
 achieved an unbroken circuit of victories. Grant and his 
 friends were alike dismayed. The latter insisted that he should 
 have half a million more of men to accomplish his work. 
 "We should," said a Boston paper, "have a vigorous and 
 
278 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 over whelming war, or else peace without further effusion 01 
 blood." A certain portion of the Yankee press maintained th 
 unbroken lie, and told the story of an uninterrupted series o 
 victories. 
 
 An object of most curious and constant interest in the wa. 
 was the rivalry of the different routes to Richmond. Me 
 Clellan had chosen the peninsular approach, while Mr. Lin 
 coin dissented in favor o*f an advance from the Lower Rappa- 
 hannock, Burnside had chosen Fredericksburg as his base ; 
 Hooker had acted on the same choice. Meade had selected 
 the Eapidan, as. Pope had done before him. Grant came to 
 his command, unembarrassed and untramrneled by the prece 
 dents and comments of others. He had hunted up the roads 
 to Richmond, through the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court 
 house, and avowed his unchangeable purpose to adhere to that 
 as his true line. He had now wandered around to McClelland 
 old base. But the battle of July 3d, decided that Richmond 
 could no longer be approached with advantage from the 
 North, and the disconcerted, shifting commander, with his 
 stock of expedients well-nigh exhausted, found nothing now 
 left for him but to transfer his entire army to the south side 01 
 the James river. 
 
 On the 5th of June Hunter had obtained a success at Pied 
 mont, in Western Virginia, and had effected the capture oi 
 Staunton ; the saddest circumstance of which affair was the 
 loss of General W. E. Jones, one of the most distinguished 
 cavalry commanders of the Confederacy. 
 
 After occupying Staunton. Hunter had formed a junction 
 with the combined forces of Crook and Averill, and on the 
 13th of June was reported to be moving with his whole com 
 mand against Lynchburg. On the 7th, Sheridan had crossed 
 the Pamunkey, and was moving eastward in the direction of 
 the Gordonsville railroad. The main movement of the new 
 combination that of Grant across the James commenced 
 Sunday night the 12th of June. 
 
 The first plan of the enemy had comprehended the advance 
 of Sigel down the Shenandoah, and the capture of Petersburg, 
 if nothing more, by Butler, while General Grant engaged 
 Lee s army between the Rapidan and Richmond. That plan 
 having signally failed, the second comprised the capture of 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 279 
 
 Lynch burg by Hunter, of Gordon sville and Charlottesvflle by 
 Sheridan, and of Petersburg by Meade. It was thus hoped t< 
 isolate the Confederate capital by cutting off its communica 
 tions on every side. 
 
 It was, perhaps, not Grant s design to cross the river until 
 h# had made some attempt on the Central and New Market 
 roads leading into Richmond from the direction of Malvern 
 Hill. On the 13th June, he caused a reconnoissance in force 
 to be made from the Long Bridge toward the Quaker road, 
 and in an affair near the intersection of this road with the 
 Charles City road was repulsed, and drew off his forces, well 
 satisfied that the Confederates held with heavy forces all the 
 roads by which Richmond could be reached from the south 
 east. 
 
 The Eighteenth Yankee corps had proceeded by water to 
 Bermuda Hundred. The remaining corps had crossed the 
 Chickahominy at James Bridge and Long Bridge ; and after 
 the reconnoissance of the 13th, proceeded down the James, 
 and crossed in the neighborhood of City Point. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 Petersburg had alr<%dy sustained a considerable attack of 
 the enemy. An expedition from Butler s lines had essayed its 
 capture on the 9th of June. 
 
 Approaching with nine regiments of infantry and cavalry, 
 and at least four pieces of artillery, the enemy searched our 
 lines, a distance of nearly six miles. Hood s and Batles bat 
 talions, the. Forty-sixth Virginia, one company of the Twenty- 
 third South Carolina, with Sturdevant s battery, and a few 
 guns in position, and Talliaferro s cavalry, kept them at bay 
 The Yankees were twice repulsed, but succeeded at last in 
 penetrating a gap in our line ; when reinforcements corning up 
 drove back the insolent foe from approaches which their foot 
 steps fur the first time polluted. 
 
 The fortunate issue of this first attack on Petersburg encoui 
 aged the raw troops and militia who had been put under arms 
 for the defence of " the Cockade City." General Wise ad 
 dressed the troops of his command in a memorable and thrill 
 
280 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ing order ; " Petersburg," said he, " is to be, and shall be 
 defended on her outer walls, on her inner lines, at her corpora 
 tion bounds, in every street, and around every temple of God, 
 and altar of man." 
 
 The resolution of the gallant city with its defences rein 
 forced by the fortunate Beauregard was now to be put to a 
 much more severe test, for it was to encounter the shock of the 
 bulk of Grant s army. 
 
 Smith s corps having disembarked at Bermuda Hundred on 
 the 14th, moved rapidly upon Petersburg, and made an assault 
 on the batteries covering the approaches to the city on the 
 north-east. Having got possession of this line of works, held 
 principally by Confederate militia, Smith waited the coining 
 up of the Second corps. 
 
 On the evening of the 16th, an attack was ordered on the 
 Confederate line of works in front of Petersburg, Smith s corps 
 being on the right, on the Petersburg and City Point road, 
 west of the railroad, the Second corps in the centre, and Burn- 
 side on the left, reaching the Prince George Court-house road. 
 The assault was not only repulsed at every point, but our 
 troops, assuming the aggressive, drove the Yankees from their 
 breastworks, at Hewlett s House, captured some of their guns, 
 and opened upon them an enfilading fire, under which they 
 fled precipitately. 
 
 The most furious assault of the enemy had been made on 
 General Hoke s front, whose division occupied a position 
 facing batteries from Nine to Twelve inclusive. Three differ 
 ent charges were repulsed by these heroic troops. In the final 
 repalse of the enemy, a large portion of a Yankee brigade, 
 being exposed to an enfilading artillery fire from our guns, 
 sought shelter in a ravine, and surrendered to the Sixty-fourtl 
 Georgia regiment. 
 
 On Friday, 17th June, fighting was renewed without result. 
 The next day, it was resolved by the enemy to make an assault 
 along the whole line for the purpose of carrying the town. It 
 was thus that the action of the 18th was designed to be deci 
 sive of operations on the present position. 
 
 Three different assaults were made by the enemy during the 
 day at four in the morning, at noon, and at four in the after 
 noon. Each one was repulsed. Hancock and Burnside in the 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 281 
 
 centre suffered severely. After severe losses on the part of 
 all the Yankee corps, night found the Confederates still in 
 possession of their works covering Petersburg. 
 
 The disaster of this day left Grant without hope of making 
 any impression on the works in his front, and placed him under 
 the necessity of yet another change of operations. The series 
 of engagements before Petersburg had cost him at least ten 
 thousand men in killed and wounded, and had culminated in 
 another decisive defeat. 
 
 The misfortune of the enemy appeared, indeed, to be over 
 whelming. Pickett s division had given him another lesson 
 at Port Walthal Junction. It was here the heroes of Gettys 
 burg repulsed a force under Gilmore engaged in destroying 
 the railroad, took two lines of his breastworks and put him to 
 disastrous flight. 
 
 Nor was there any compensation to be found in the auxil 
 iary parts of Grant s second gryid combination. Sheridan 
 had failed to perform his part. lie was intercepted by Hamp 
 ton s cavalry at Trevillian station on the Gordonsville road, 
 defeated in an engagement on the 10th, and compelled to with 
 draw his command across the North Anna. Hunter had come 
 to similar grief, and his repulse at Lynchburg involved conse 
 quences of the gravest disaster to the enemy. 
 
 On the 18th of June, Hunter made an attack upon Lynch 
 burg from the south side which was repulsed by troops that 
 had arrived from General Lee s lines. The next day, more re 
 inforcements having come up, preparations were made to 
 attack the enemy, when he retreated in confusion. We took 
 thirteen of his guns, pursued him to Salem, and forced him to 
 a line of retreat into the mountains of Western Virginia. The 
 attempt of the Yankees to whitewash the infamous and cow 
 ardly denouement was more than usually refreshing. Hunter 
 officially announced that his expedition had been " extremely 
 successful ;" that he had left Lynchburg because " his ammu 
 nition was running short ;" and that as to the singular line he 
 had taken up, he was now "ready for a move in any di 
 rection." 
 
 But the measure of misfortune in Grant s distracted cam 
 paign appeared to be not yet full. On the 22d he made a 
 movement on his left to get possession of the Weldon railroad, 
 
282 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THL WAB. 
 
 but found the Confederates had extended their right to moot 
 him. While the Second and the Sixth corps of Grant s army 
 were attempting to communicate in this movement, the Con 
 federates, under General Anderson, pierced the centre, cap 
 tured a battery of four guns and took prisoners one entire 
 brigade, General Pearce s, and part of another. 
 
 Another attempt or raid on the railroad, by Wilson s and 
 Kautz s divisions of cavalry was terminated in disaster. In 
 the neighborhood of Spottswood river, twenty-five miles south 
 of Petersburg, on the 28th, the expedition was attacked, cut in 
 two, the greater part of its artillery abandoned and its wagon 
 trains left in the hands of the Confederates. The enemy had 
 been encountered by Hampton s cavalry, and Finnegan s and 
 Matron e a infantry brigades; and the results of the various 
 conflicts were enumerated as one thousand prisoners, thirteen 
 pieces of artillery, thirty wagons and ambulances, and many 
 small arms. 
 
 It was evident that the spirit of the North had commenced to 
 stagger under this accumulation of disaster. Gold had already 
 nearly touched three hundred. The uneasy whispers in Wash 
 ington of another draft gave new suggestions to popular discon 
 tent. The Confederate Congress had adjourned after the publi 
 cation of an address referring to recent military events and the 
 confirmed resolution of the South, and deprecating the contin 
 uance of the war. These declarations were eagerly seized upon 
 by Northern journals, who insisted that no time should be lost 
 in determining whether they might not possibly signify a 
 willingness on the part of the South to make peace on the 
 basis of new constitutional guaranties. The finances at Wash 
 ington were becoming desperate. Mr. Chase, the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, had peremptorily resigned. His last words of 
 official counsel were, that nothing could save the finances but 
 a series of military successes of undoubted magnitude. 
 
 SHERMAN S " ON-TO- ATLANTA." 
 
 Simultaneously with Grant s advance on Richmond, Shei 
 man moved on Dalton in three columns : Thomas in front, 
 Schofielcl from Cleveland on the north-east, while McPherson 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 233 
 
 threw himseli on the line of communication south-west at Re 
 saca, fifteen miles south of Dalton. On the 7th of June 
 Thomas occupied Tunnel Hill, ten miles north-west of Dal ton 
 and took up a strong position at Buzzard s Eoost. By the 
 flank movement on Resaca, Johnston was forced to evacuate 
 Dalton. 
 
 On the 14th the first important battle of the campaign was 
 "ought in Kesaca valley. Two efforts were made to carry the 
 breastworks of the Confederates, without success, when John 
 ston in the afternoon assumed the offensive and drove the en 
 emy some distance, with a loss which his own bulletins stated 
 to be two thousand. 
 
 On the 15th, there was desultory fighting, and on the 16th 
 General Johnston took up at leisure his line of retrograde 
 movement, in the direction of the Etowah river, passing 
 through Kingston and Cassville. At both places the enemy 
 was held in check. From Cassville, Sherman, having sent 
 the right of his army by way of Rome, moved his centre and 
 left across the Etowah west of the railroad, and then inarched 
 towards Dallas. 
 
 On the 28th, General Cleburne s division of Johnston s army 
 engaged the advance corps of the enemy under General Mc- 
 Pherson at !N"ew Hope, and signally repulsed him, with heavy 
 loss. So far, the retrograde movement of Johnston was, in 
 some respects, a success; it had been .attended with at least 
 two considerable victories ; it had been executed deliberately, 
 being scarcely ever under the immediate pressure of the ene 
 my s advance ; and it had now nearly, approached the decisive 
 line of the Chattahoochee or whatever other line he, who was 
 supposed to be the gneat strategist of the Confederacy, should se 
 lect for the cover of Atlanta. The events of the campaign, so far, 
 were recounted with characteristic modesty by General John 
 ston. On the 1st of June, he telegraphed to Richmond of his 
 army : "In partial engagements it has had great advantages, 
 and the sum of all the combats amounts to a battle." 
 
 In the mean time, the two armies continued to maneuver 
 for position. Sherman held both Altoona and Ack\vorth with 
 out a battle, the latter about twelve miles from Marietta. It 
 was said that these positions would enable him to maintain his 
 lines of communications with Chattanooga by railway intact. 
 
284: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and clear his rear of Confederates; but he found Jjlmstoi 
 opposing him with a strong rear-guard, and drawn close to hia 
 supplies in Atlanta and Augusta. 
 
 While these events were transpiring in Georgia, an import 
 ant event had taken place in the Southwest : the defeat of 
 the Yankee expedition under Sturgis on its way from Mem 
 phis to operate in Sherman s rear. In this action, at Gun town, 
 Mississippi, Sturgis lost most of his infantry and all of his ar 
 tillery and trains, and the Confederates, under Forrest, achiev 
 ed a victory that had an important influence on the campaign 
 in Georgia. Forrest took two thousand prisoners, and killed 
 and wounded an equal number. 
 
 BATTLE OF KKNESAW MOUNTAIN". 
 
 On the 27th of June, General Sherman directed an attack on 
 Johnston s position at Kenesaw Mountain. This mountain 
 was the apex of Johnston s lines. Both armies were in strong 
 works, the opposite salients being so near in some places that 
 skirmishers could not be thrown out. The assault of the enemy 
 was made in three columns, about eight o clock in the morn 
 ing. It was repulsed on every part of the Confederate 
 line. The loss of the enemy was considerable, even as stated 
 in his own official reports. General McPherson reported 
 his loss about five hundred, and Thomas, his, about two thou 
 sand. 
 
 In consequence, however, of a flanking movement of the 
 enemy on the right, Johnston on the 3d of July abandoned 
 the mountain defence and retired toward Atlanta. 
 
 It is true that Johnston s retreat to the immediate lines of 
 Atlanta, was consummated without any considerable military 
 disaster. But it was a sore disappointment to the public ; for 
 it had given up to the Yankees half of Georgia, abandoned 
 one of the finest wheat districts of the Confederacy, almost 
 ripe for harvest, and at Rome and on the Etowah river, had 
 surrendered to the enemy iron-rolling mills, and government 
 works of great value. 
 
THE THIKD TEAK. 2S5 
 
 THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. 
 
 But a lesson was reserved for Sherman on the Atlanta lines 
 oy the gallant and impulsive Lieutenant-general Hood, who 
 had taken command of the army that Johnston had, by a long 
 and negative campaign, brought back to Atlanta. 
 
 We shall not attempt here the details of the great battles of 
 Atlanta. 
 
 On the 20th of July, Hood attacked the enemy s right on 
 Peach-tree creek, near the Chattahoochee, driving him from 
 his works, and capturing colors and prisoners. 
 
 On the 22d of July, Hood s army shifted its position front 
 ing on Peach-tree creek, and Stewart s and Cheatham s corps 
 formed line of battle around the city. Hardee s corps made a 
 night march and attacked the enemy s extreme left at one 
 o clock, on the 22d, and drove him from his works, capturing 
 sixteen pieces of artillery and five stands of colors. Cheatham 
 attacked the enemy at four o clock in the afternoon, with a 
 portion of his command, and drove the enemy, capturing six 
 pieces of artillery. During the engagement we captured about 
 two thousand prisoners. 
 
 After the battle of the 22d, Sherman s army was transferred 
 from its position on the east side of Atlanta to the extreme 
 night of Hood s army, on the west side, threatening the Macon 
 road. Lieutenant-generals Stewart and Lee were directed by 
 Hood to hold the Lickskillet road for the day with their com 
 mands. On the 28th, a sharp engagement ensued, with no 
 advantage to either side ; the Confederate loss fifteen hundred 
 killed and wounded. 
 
 The results of these battles were, on the who)/*, a most 
 encouraging success for the Confederates ; revived their hopes 
 on what had been considered a doubtful theatre of action ; and 
 left Sherman, although still holding his lines of investment, in 
 a most critical condition, with an army, several hundred miles 
 in its country, having its rear exposed, and depending upon a 
 single line of railroad for its communications. 
 
 We may take leave here of the military situation ; satisfied 
 
SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 that a pause had now been given to the parallel operations of 
 the enemy in Virginia and Georgia : aimed, the one at .Rich 
 mond, which the Yankees entitled the heart and brains of the 
 Confederacy ; and the other at Atlanta, the centre of import 
 ant manufacturing enterprises, and the door to the great 
 granary of the Gulf States. Both movements were now 
 unmistakably in check ; and the interlude of indecision afford 
 ed a curious commentary on the boastful confidence that had 
 recorded the fall of Richmond and the capture of Atlanta as 
 the expectations of each twenty-four hours. 
 
 There was reason, indeed, for the North to be depressed. 
 The disappointment of the Yankees was with particular refer 
 ence to the campaign of Grant in Virginia. The advance 
 from the Rapidan, which we have followed to its recoil before 
 Petersburg, had been made under conditions of success which 
 had attended no other movement of the enemy. It was made 
 after eight months deliberate preparation. In the Congress 
 at Washington it was stated that, in these eight months, the 
 Government had actually raised seven hundred thousand men 
 an extent of preparation which indicated an intention to 
 overwhelm and crush the Confederacy by a resistless com 
 bined attack. Nor was this all. One hundred thousand 
 three-months men were accepted from Ohio and other States, 
 for defensive service, in order that General Grant might avail 
 himself of the whole force of trained soldiers. The result of 
 the Campaign, so far, did not justify the expectations on which 
 it had been planned. The Yankee Government which, since 
 the commencement of the war, had called for a grand total ot 
 twenty-three hundred thousand men, and had actually raised 
 eighteen hundred thousand men, of an average term of service 
 .f three years, to crush the Confederacy, saw in the fourth 
 year of the war the Confederacy erect and defiant, and Rich 
 mond shielded by an army which had so far set at nought the 
 largest preparations and most tremendous exertions of the 
 North. 
 
 We cannot close this brief sketch of important parts of the 
 summer campaign of 1864-, in Virginia and in the West, with 
 out adverting to the barbarities of the enemy, which especially 
 marked it, and which, indeed, by regular augmentatio 
 became more atrocious as the war progressed. In this year 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 287 
 
 they exceeded all that was already known of the brutal.ty of 
 our enraged enemy. 
 
 General Sherman illustrated the campaign in the "West, 
 by a memorable barbarity, in a letter of instructions to 
 General Burbridge, commanding in the Department of Ken 
 tucky, charging him to treat all partisans of the Confederates 
 in that State as " wildleazts" It was the invariable and con 
 venient practice of the Yankees to designate as " guerillas," 
 whatever troops of the Confederates were particularly trouble 
 some to them ; and the opprobrious term was made, by Gen 
 eral Sherman, to include the regularly commissioned soldiers 
 of General Morgan s command, and whatever bodies of Con 
 federate cavalry chose to roam over territory which the enemy 
 disputed.* 
 
 Some expressions, in the orders referred to, were character 
 istic of the Yankee, and indicated those notions of constitu 
 tional law which had rapidly demoralized the North. General 
 Sherman declared that he had already recommended to Gov 
 ernor Bramlette of Kentucky, " at one dash to arrest every 
 man in the country who was dangerous to it." " The fact is," 
 said this military Solomon, " in our country personal liberty 
 has been so well secured that public safety is lost sight of in 
 our laws and institutions ; and the fact is we are thrown back 
 one hundred years in civilization, laws, and every thing else, 
 
 * Burbridge was not slow to carry out the suggestions or instructions of Ids 
 masters. The following is a copy of a section of one of his orders : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT KENTUCKY, ) 
 
 FIFTH DIVISION, TWENTY-THIRD ARMY Cours,)- 
 
 LEXINGTON, Kentucky, July 16, 1864. ) 
 
 Rebel sympathizers living within five miles of any scene of outrage commit 
 ted by armed men, not recognized as public enemies by the rules and usages 
 of war, will be arrested and sent beyond the limits of the United States. 
 
 In accordance with instructions from the major-general commanding the 
 military district of the Mississippi, so much of the property of rebel sympathiz. 
 ers as may be necessary to indemnify the Government or loyal citizens for 
 losses incurred by the acts of such lawless men, will be seized and appropriated 
 for this purpose. 
 
 Whenever an unarmed Union citizen is murdered, four guerillas will be 
 selected from the prisoners in the hands of the military authorities, and pub. 
 icly shot to death in the most convenient place near the scene of outrage. Bj 
 ommand of 
 
 Brevet Major-general S. <>. BURBRIDQK, 
 J. B. DICKSON, Captain and A. A. General 
 
SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and wiJl go riglit straight to anarchy and the devil, if some 
 body don t arrest our downward progress. We, the military, 
 
 must do it, and we have right and law on our side 
 
 Under this law everybody can be made to stay at home and 
 mind his or her own business, and, if they won t do that, can 
 be sent away.- These sage remarks on American liberty were 
 concluded viih the recommendation that all males and 
 females, in eyrcpathy with so-called " guerillas," should be 
 arrested and sent down the Mississippi to some foreign land, 
 where they should be doomed to perpetual exile. 
 
 As Sherman advanced into the interior of Georgia he laid 
 waste the country, fired the houses, anJ even did not hesitate 
 at the infamous expedient of destroying the agricultural imple 
 ments of all those who produced from the soil subsistence for 
 man. He declared to the persecuted people that this time he 
 would have their property, bnt, if the war continued, next 
 year he would have their lives. Four hundred factory girls 
 whom he captured in Georgia he bundled i.nto army wagons, 
 and ordered them to be transported beyond the Ohio, where 
 the poor girls were put adrift far frcx.1 home and friends, in a 
 strange land.* 
 
 * Tlie following announcement appeared in th Lonisville Lbw^papera: 
 
 " ARRIVAL OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM: THE SOUTH - -The train v/Hch arrived 
 from Nashville last evening brought up from the South tvo hundred and forty-nine 
 women and children, who are sent here by order of General Sherman, to b^ trans 
 ferred north of the Ohio river, there to remain during tho war. We understand that 
 there are now at iNashvnle niteen Hundred women and chjiJrc. ., w.io <.re LJ a \cry 
 destitute condition, and who are to be sent to this place to be sj. v*. North. A num 
 ber of them were engaged in the manufactories at Sweet \\ aier. at the time thai 
 place was captured by our forces. Tlie.se people are mostly in a i\&H,itute condition, 
 having no means to provide for themselves a support. Why th^j thould. be se:it 
 here to be transferred North is more than we can understand." 
 
 It was also stated in these same papers that, when these woroor .rd children 
 arrived at Louisville, they were detained there and advertised to he hired out 
 as servants, to take the place of the large number of negroes wbo have been 
 liberated by the military authorities and are now gathered in large campa 
 throughout Kentucky, where they are fed and supported in Idleness ind 
 viciousness at the expense of the loyal taxpayers. Thus, while these np>*ro 
 women are rioting and luxuriating in the Federal camps, on the boiinty of be 
 Government, the white women and children of the South are arrested at iA ir 
 homes, and sent off as prisoners to a distant country, to be sold in bondage *a 
 he following advertisement fully attests : 
 
 NOTICE. Families residing in the city or the country, wisning se -unstress* 
 
THE THIRD YEAK. 289 
 
 From Chattanooga to Marietta there was presented to tho 
 eye one vast scene of misery. The fugitives from ruined vil 
 lages or deserted fields sought shelter in the mountains. Citiea 
 were sacked, towns burnt, populations decimated. All along 
 the roads were great wheat-fields, and crops sufficient to feed 
 all New England, which were to be lost for want of laborers. 
 The country had been one of the most beautiful of the Con 
 federacy. One looked upon tho gentle undulations of the val 
 leys, terminating in the windings of the rivers, and flanked by 
 the majestic barriers of the mountains. This beautiful country 
 had been trodden over by both armies. In every town the 
 more public buildings and the more conspicuous residences had 
 been devoured by fire, or riddled with shot and shell. Every 
 house used as headquarters, or for Confederate commissary 
 stores, or occupied by prominent citizens, had been singled out 
 by^the enemy for destruction. In some instances churches had 
 not escaped. They had been stripped for fire-wood or con 
 verted into barracks and hospitals. Fences were demolished, 
 and here and there a lordly mansion stood an unsightly ruin. 
 
 The vandalism of Hunter in Virginia drew upon him the 
 censure of the few journals in the North which made any pre 
 tension to the decencies of humanity. At Lexington, he had 
 burned the Virginia Military Institute with its valuable library, 
 philosophical and chemical apparatus, relics and geological 
 specimens ; sacked Washington College, and burned the houso 
 of ex-Governor Letcher. giving his wife only ten minutes to 
 save a few articles of clothing. 
 
 In the Southwest, the hellish crimes of the enemy were 
 enough to sicken the ear. The expedition of Sturgis, defeated, 
 as we have Been, in Mississippi by Forrest, flourished the title 
 of the " Avengers of Fort Pillow." " Before the battle," says 
 a correspondent, "fugitives from the counties through which 
 Sturgis and his troops were advancing, came into camp detail 
 ing incidents which made men shudder, who are accustomed 
 to scenes of violence and bloodshed. I cannot relate the stories 
 of these poor frightened people. Robbery, rapine, and the 
 assassination of men and women, were the -least crimes com 
 
 servants, can be suited by applying at the refugee quarters on Broadway, betweea 
 Ninth v.>d Tenth. This is sanctioned by Captain Jones, Provost Marshal." 
 
 ID 
 
290 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 mitted, while the Avengers of Fort Pillow overran and deso 
 lated the country. Rude unlettered men, who had fought at 
 Shiloh, and in many subsequent battles, wept liko children 
 when they heard of the enormities to which their mothers, sis 
 ters, and wives had been subjected by the negro mercenaries 
 of Sturgis." 
 
 Such enormities were monstrous enough ; they shocked the 
 moral sentiment of the age; yet they did not affright the soul 
 of the South. The outrages practised upon helpless women, 
 more helpless old age, and hopeless poverty, assured the people 
 of the Confederacy of the character of their enemies, arid the 
 designs of the war, and awakened resolution to oppose to the 
 last extremity the mob of murderers and lawless miscreants 
 who desecrated their soil and invaded their homes. The war 
 had obtained this singular hold on the minds of the Confed 
 erates; that every man considered that he had in it the prac 
 tical, individual stake of his personal fortunes. When such a 
 sentiment pervades a nation in war, who can say when or how 
 it may be conquered ! 
 
 ..... At the time these pages are given to the press, it 
 appears that the great disappointment of the North in the re 
 sults of the summer campaign of 1864, has given rise to a cer 
 tain desire to end the war by negotiations, arid that this desire 
 lias found some response in the South. The undignified and 
 somewhat ridiculous overtures for peace made in this summei 
 by parties, who, on each side, anxiously disclaimed that the} 
 had any authority from their governments, but, on each side, 
 by a further curious coincidence, represented that they were 
 acquainted with the wishes and views of their governments, 
 cannot be altogether a story of egotistical adventures. They 
 betray the incipiency, though an obscure one, of negotiations; 
 and the times are rapidly making developments of the tendency 
 of an appeal to compose the war. 
 
 We cannot anticipate what bribes may be offered the South 
 to confederate again with the North. But one has been already 
 suggested in the North : it is, to find an atrocious compensation 
 for the war in a combined crusade against foreign nations. 
 
 The New York Herald declares: "With a restored Union, 
 prosperity would once more bless the land. If any bad blood 
 remained on either side, it would soon disappear, or be purged 
 
THE THIRD YEAR 291 
 
 by a foreign war. With a combined veteran army of o\ er a 
 million of men, and a fleet more powerful than that of any 
 European power, we could order France from Mexico, England 
 from Canada, and Spain from Cuba, and enforce our orders i? 
 they were not obeyed. The American continent would then 
 belong to Americans. The President at Washington would 
 govern the New World, and the glorious dreams and prophe 
 cies of our forefathers would at length be realized." 
 
 To a proposition of such infamy of infamies, the attention of 
 the civilized world should be called. What a commentary 
 upon that European policy which has lavished so much of 
 sympathy and material comfort upon the North, and, on the 
 other hand, has rejected the cause of a people, who as they are 
 resolute in maintaining their own rights, are as equally, indeed 
 expressly and emphatically, innocent of any designs on the 
 right and welfare of others ! The suggestion is, that of a huge 
 and horrible Democracy, eager to prey upon the rights of 
 others, and to repair by plunder and outrage the cost of its 
 feuds and the waste of its vices. 
 
 The people of the Confederacy do not easily listen to sug 
 gestions of dishonor. Yet none are more open to the cunning 
 persuasion which wears the disguise of virtuous remonstrance 
 and friendly interest. It is here where the Yankee peacemaker 
 is to be resisted and unmasked. 
 
 It will be for the Confederacy to stand firm in every political 
 conjuncture, and to fortify itself against the blandishments and 
 arts of a disconcerted and designing enemy. It will remember 
 that enemy s warfare. It will remember that an army, whose 
 personnel has been drawn from all parties in the North, has 
 carried the war of the savage into their homes. It will re 
 member how Yankees have smacked their lips over their car 
 nage and the sufferings of their women and little ones. It will 
 remember how New England clergymen have advised that 
 "rebels," men, women and children, should be sunk beneath 
 the Southern sod, and the soil " salted with Puritanical blood, 
 to raise a new crop of men." To hate let us not reply with 
 hate. We reply with the superiority of contempt, the resolu 
 tion of pride, the scorn of defiance. Surely, rather than re 
 unite with such a people ; rather than cheat the war of " inde 
 pendence," and make its prize that cheap thing in American 
 
 
292 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 history- -a paper guarantee ; rather than cheat our dead of that 
 for which they died ; rather than entitle ourselves to the con 
 tempt of the world, the agonies of self-accusation, the reprooi 
 of the grave, the curses of posterity, the displeasure of the mer 
 ciftil God wlio has so long signified His providence in our en 
 deavors, we are prepared to choose more suffering, more trials, 
 even utter poverty and chains, and exile and death. 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AMERICAN IDEAS : A REVIEW OF THE WAR. 
 
 Sentimental Regrets concerning American History. The European Opinion- of 
 * State" Institutions. Calhoun, the Great Political Scholar of America. His Doc 
 trines. Conservatism of u N unification." Its " Union" Sentiment. Brilliant Vision 
 of the South Carolina Statesman. Webster, the Representative of the Imperfect and 
 Insolent "Education" of New England. Yankee Libels in the shape of Party 
 N jmenelature. Influence of State Institutions. How they were Auxiliary to the 
 Union. T/te Moral Veneration of the Union. Peculiarly a Sentiment of the South. 
 What the South had done tor the Union. Senator Hammond s Speech. The States, 
 not Schools of Provincialism and Estrangement. The Development of America, a 
 North and South, not Hostile States. Peculiar Ideas of Yankee Civilization, Ideas 
 Nursed in "Free Schools." Yankee Materialism. How it has Developed in the 
 War. Yankee False-hoods and Yankee Cruelties. His Commercial Politics. Price 
 of his Liberties. Ideas of the Confederates in the War. How the Washington 
 Routine was introduced. The Richmond Government, Weak and Negative. 
 No Political Novelty in the Confederacy. The Future of Confederate Ideas. 
 Intellectual Barrenness of the War. Material of the Confederate Army. Th 
 Birth of Great Ideas. The Old Political Idolaters. The Recompense of Suf 
 fering. 
 
 It has been a sentimental regret with certain European stu 
 dents of American History that the colonies of America, after 
 acquiring their independence, did not establish a single and 
 compact nationality. The philosophy of these optimists is that 
 the State institutions were perpetual schools of provincialism, 
 selfishness, and discontent, and that they were constantly edu 
 cating the people for the disruption of that Union which was 
 only a partial and incomplete expression of the nationality of 
 America. These men indulge the idea that America, as a na 
 tion, would have been colossal ; that its wonderful mountains 
 and rivers, its vast stretch of territory, its teeming wealth, and 
 the almost boundless military resources, which the present war 
 has developed and proved, would then have deen united in one 
 picture of grandeur, and in a single movement of sublime, ir 
 resistible progress. 
 
 These are pretty dreams of ignorance. Those who ascribe 
 to the State institutions of America our present distractions, 
 
29.4: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and discover in them the nurseries of the existing war, are 
 essentially ignorant of our political history. They are stran 
 gers to the doctrines of Calhoun of South Carolina the first 
 name in the political literature of our old government the 
 iirst man who raised the party controversies of America to the 
 dignity of a political philosophy and illuminated them with 
 the lights of the patient and accomplished scholar. 
 
 The great political discovery of Mr. Calhoim was this : that 
 the rights of the States were the only solid foundation of the 
 Union ; and that, so far from being antagonistic to it, they con 
 stituted its security, realized its perfection, arid gave to it all 
 the moral beauty with which it appealed to the affections ot 
 the people. It was in this sense that the great South Carolina 
 statesman, so frequently calumniated as "nullifier," agitator, 
 &c., was indeed the real and devoted friend of the American 
 Union. He maintained the rights of the States tiie sacred 
 distribution of powers between them and the general govern 
 ment as the life of the Union, and its bond of attachment in 
 the hearts of the people. And in this he was right. The State 
 institutions of America, properly regarded, were not discord 
 ant ; nor were they unfortunate elements in our political life. 
 They gave certain occasions to the divisions of industry ; they 
 were instruments of material prosperity ; they were schools oi 
 pride and emulation ; above all, they were the true guardians 
 of the Union, keeping it from degenerating into that vile and 
 short-lived government in which power is consolidated in & 
 mere numerical majority. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun s so-called doctrine of Nullification is one of 
 the highest proofs ever given by any American statesman ot 
 attachment to the Union. The assertion is not made for para 
 doxical effect. It is clear enough in history, read in the severe 
 type of facts, without the falsehoods and epithets of that Yan 
 kee literature which has so long defamed us, distorted our 
 public men, and misrepresented us, even to ourselves. 
 
 The so-called and miscalled doctrine of Nullification marked 
 one of the most critical periods in the controversies of Amer 
 ica, and constitutes one of the most curious studies for its 
 philosophic historian. Mr. Calhoun was unwilling to offend 
 the popular idolatry of the Union ; he sought a remedy fo 
 existing evils short of disunion, and the consequence was what 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 295 
 
 was called, by an ingenious slander, or a contemptible stu 
 pidity, Nullification. His doctrine was, in fact, an accommo 
 dation of two sentiments : that of Yankee injustice and that of 
 reverence of the Union. He proposed to save the Union b} 
 the simple and august means of an appeal to the sovereign 
 States that composed it. He proposed that should the general 
 government and a state come into conflict, the power should 
 be invoked that called the general government into existence, 
 and gave it all of its authority. In such a case, said Mr. Cal- 
 houn, " the States themselves may be appealed to, three- 
 fourths of which, in fact, form a power whose decrees are the 
 Constitution itself, and whose voice can silence all discontent. 
 The utmost extent, then, of the power is, that a State acting in 
 its sovereign capacity, as one of the parties to the constitu 
 tional compact, may compel the government created by that 
 compact to submit a question touching its infraction to the 
 parties who created it." He proposed a peculiar, conserva 
 tive, and noble tribunal for the controversies that agitated the 
 country and threatened the Union. He was not willing that 
 vital controversies between the sovereign States and the gen 
 eral government should be submitted to the Supreme Court, 
 which properly excluded political questions, and comprehend 
 ed those only where there were parties amenable to the pro 
 cess of the court. This was the length and breadth of Nullifi 
 cation. It was intended to reconcile impatience of Yankee 
 injustice, and that -sentimental attachment to the Union which 
 colors so much of American politics; it resisted the suggestion 
 of revolution ; it clung to the idolatry of the Union, and 
 marked that passage in American history in which there was 
 a combat between reason and that idolatry, and in which that 
 idolatry made a showy, but ephemeral conquest. 
 
 The doctrine, then, of Mr. Calhoun was this : he proposed 
 only to constitute a conservative and constitutional barrier-to 
 Yankee aggression ; arid, so far from destroying the Union, 
 proposed to eiect over it the permanent and august guard of a 
 tribunal of those sovereign powers which had created it. Ifc 
 was this splendid, but hopeless vision of the South Carolina 
 statesman, which- the North slandered with the catch-word of 
 Nullification ; which Northern orators made the text of indig 
 nation; on which Mr. Webster piped his schoolboy rhetoric; 
 
296 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and on which the more modern schools of New England have 
 exhausted the lettered resources of their learned blacksmiths 
 and Senatorial shoemakers. Mr. Webster, the representative 
 of that imperfect and insolent education peculiar to New Eng 
 land, appears never to have known that Mr. Calhoun s doc 
 trine was not of his own origination ; that its suggestion, a 
 least, came from one of the founders of the republic. We re 
 fer to that name which is apostolic in the earliest party divis 
 ions of America, and the enduring ornament of Virginia 
 Thomas Jelferson, the Sage of Monticello. At a late period of 
 his life, Mr. Jefferson said : " With respect to our State and 
 Federal governments, I do not think their relations are cor 
 rectly understood by foreigners. They suppose the former 
 subordinate to the latter. This is not the case. They are co 
 ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. But 
 you may ask if the two departments should claim each the 
 came subject of power, where is the umpire to decide between 
 them ? In cases of little urgency or importance, the prudence 
 of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable 
 ground ; but, if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a 
 Convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubt 
 ful power to that department which they may think best." 
 
 Here was the first suggestion of the real safety of the Union ; 
 and it was this suggestion, reproduced by Calhoun, which the 
 North slandered as Nullification, insulted as heresy, and 
 branded as treason. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that the South should have 
 tamely allowed the Yankees to impose upon her political lit 
 erature certain injurious terms, and should have adopted them 
 to her own prejudice and shame. The world takes its imprcs 
 eion from names ; and the false party nomenclature which the 
 North so easily fastened upon us, and which survives even in 
 this war, has had a most important influence in obscuring our 
 history, and especially in soliciting the prejudices of Europe. 
 
 The proposition of Mr. Calhoun to protect the Union by a 
 certain constitutional and conservative barrier, the North des 
 ignated Nullification, and the South adopted a name which 
 was both a falsehood and a slander. The well guarded and 
 moderate system of negro servitude in the South, the North 
 called Slavery ; and this false and accursed name has beec 
 
THE THIRD TEAK. 297 
 
 permitted to pass current in European literature, associating 
 and carrying with it the horrors of barbarism, and defiling us 
 in the eyes of the world. The Democratic party in the South, 
 which claimed equality under the Constitution, as a principle, 
 and not merely as a selfish interest, was branded by the North 
 as a pro-slavery party, and the South submitted to the desig 
 nation. 
 
 How little that great party deserved this title was well illus 
 trated in the famous Kansas controversy; for the history of 
 that controversy was simply this : the South struggled for the 
 principle of equality in the Territories, without reference to the 
 selfish interests of so-called Slavery, and even with the admis 
 sion of the hopelessness of those interests in Kansas ; while the 
 North contended for the narrow, selfish, practical consequence 
 of making Kansas a part of her Free-soil possessions. The 
 proofs of this may be made in two brief extracts from these 
 celebrated debates. These are so full of historical instruction 
 that they supply a place here much better than any narrative 
 or comment could do : 
 
 Mr. ENGLISH, of Indiana. I think I may safely say that there is not 
 Southern man within the sound of my voice who will not vote for the admis 
 sion of Kansas as a Free state, if she brings here a Constitution to that effect 
 Is there a Southern man here who will vote against the admission of Kansa 
 as a Free State, if it be the undoubted will of the people of that Territory tha 
 it shall be a Free State ? 
 
 MANY MEMBEKS. Not one. 
 
 At another stage of the Kansas debate occurs the following: 
 
 Mr. BARKSDALE, of Mississippi. I ask you, gentlemen, on the other side of 
 the House, of the Black Republican party, would you vote for the admission ol 
 Kansas into the Union, with a Constitution tolerating Slavery, if a hundred 
 thousand people there wished it ? 
 
 Mr. GIDDINGS, of Ohio. I answer the gentleman that I will never associate, 
 politically, with men of that character, if I can help it. I will never vote to 
 compel Ohio to associate with another Slave State, if I can prevent it. 
 
 Mr. STANTON. I will say, if the gentleman will allow me, that the Repub 
 lican members of this House, so far as 1 know, will never vote for the admis 
 sion of any Slave State north of 3G 80 . 
 
 We return to the influence of State institutions on America. 
 We contend that they were not hostile to the Union, 01 
 
298 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 malignant in their character ; that, on the contrary, tlity were 
 auxiliary to the Union ; that they stimulated the narional 
 progress; that, in fact, they interpreted the true glory of 
 America ; and that it was especially these modifications of our 
 national life which gave to the Union that certain moral 
 sublimity so long the theme of American politicians. From 
 these propositions we advance to a singular conclusion. It is 
 that the moral veneration of the Union, which gives the key to 
 so much of American history, was peculiarly a sentiment of 
 the South ; while in the North it was nothing more than a mere 
 affectation. 
 
 This may sound strange to those who have read American 
 history in the smooth surface of Yankee books ; who remember 
 Webster s apostrophes to the glorious. Union, and Everett s 
 silken rhetoric ; whose political education has been manu 
 factured to hand by the newspapers, and clap-traps of Yankee 
 literature about " nullification" and treason. But it is easy of 
 comprehension. The political ideas of the North excluded that 
 of any peculiar moral character about the Union ; the doctrine 
 of State Rights was rejected by them for the prevalent notion 
 that America was a single democracy ; thus, the Union to them 
 was nothing more than a geographical name, entitled to no 
 peculiar claims upon the affections of the people. It was 
 different with the South. The doctrine of State Rights gave 
 to the Union its moral dignity ; this doctrine was the only real 
 possible source of sentimental attachment to the Union ; and 
 this doctrine was the received opinion of the Southern people, 
 and the most marked peculiarity of their politics. The South 
 did not worship the Union in the base spirit of commercial 
 idolatry, as a painted machinery to secure tariffs and bounties, 
 and to aggrandize a section. She venerated the Union because 
 she discovered in it a sublime moral principle; because she re 
 garded it as a peculiar association in which sovereign States 
 were held by high considerations of good faith ; by the ex 
 changes of equity and comity ; by the noble attractions of 
 social order; by the enthused sympathies of a common destiny 
 of power, honor, and renown. It was this galaxy which the 
 South wore upon her heart, and before the clustered fires of 
 whose glory she worshipped with an adoration almost Oriental, 
 That Union is now dissolved; that splendid galaxy of stars ia 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 
 
 no more in the heavens; and where once it shone, the fierce 
 comet of war has burst, and writes a red history on the azure 
 page. 
 
 But let this be said by the historian of this war: that the 
 South loved the Union ; dissolved it unwillingly; and, though 
 she had had the political administration of it in her hands 
 during most of its existence, surrendered it without a blot on 
 its fame. "Do not forget," said a Southern Senator, when Mr. 
 Seward boasted in the United States Senate that the North was 
 about to take control at Washington,. " it can never be forgot 
 ten it is written on the brightest page of human history 
 that we, the slaveholders of the South, took our country in her 
 infancy, and, after ruling her for sixty out of the seventy years 
 of her existence, we shall surrender her to you without a stain 
 upon her honor, boundless in prosperity, incalculable in her 
 strength, the wonder and the admiration of the worl- Time 
 will show what you will make of her; but no time can ever 
 diminish our glory or your responsibility." 
 
 But there is one conclusive argument which we may apply 
 to the common European opinion, and the half-educated notion 
 of this country that the State institutions of America were 
 schools of provincialism and estrangement. If such had been 
 the case, the dissolution of the Union would have found the 
 States that composed it a number of petty principalities op 
 posed to each other, or, at least, diverse and heterogeneous. 
 But this war has found no such thing. It has found the people 
 of Virginia and Tennessee, the people of Missouri and South 
 Carolina, entertaining the same political ideas, pursuing a 
 single, common object in the war, and baptizing it in a com 
 mon bloodshed on its fields of contest and carnage. The States 
 of the Southern Confederacy offer to the world the example of 
 its inhabitants as one people, homogeneous in their social 
 systems, alike in their ideas, and unanimous in their resolves ; 
 and the States of the North afford similar illustrations ot 
 national unity. The war has found not discordant States, but 
 two distinct nations, in the attitude of belligerents, differing in 
 blood, in race, in social institutions, in systems of popular in 
 struction, in political education and theories, nn ideas, in man 
 ners ; and the whole sharpened by a long ajid fierce politica 
 controversy, that has arrayed them at last as belligerents. 
 
300 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and interposed the gage of armed and bloody contest. The 
 development of America has been a North and a South ; 
 not discordant States, but hostile nations. The present war 
 is not for paltry theories of political parties, or for domestic 
 institutions, or for rival administrations, but for the vital 
 ideas of each belligerent, and the great stakes of national 
 existence. 
 
 What have been the ideas which the North has developed or 
 illustrated in this war? We will answer briefly. 
 
 The North presents to the world the example of a people 
 corrupted by a gross material prosperity; their ideas of gov 
 ernment, a low and selfish utilitarianism; their conceptions of 
 civilization, prosperous railroads, penny newspapers, showy 
 churches. Their own estimates of their civilization never pene 
 trated beyond the mere surface and convenience of society; 
 never took into account its unseen elements; the public virtue, 
 the public spirit, the conservative principle, the love of order, 
 the reverence of the past, all which go to make up the grand 
 idea of human civilization. 
 
 It is amusing to the student of history to hear Mr. Sumner 
 of Massachusetts, asserting, with scholarly flourishes, that tli 
 South is barbarous, because she has no free schools : the sources 
 of that half education in the North, which have been mirserie. 
 of insolence, irreverence of the past, infidelity in religion, and 
 an itch for every new idea in the mad calendar of social re 
 forms. It is yet more amusing to hear his Senatorial peer 
 "the Natick cobbler." When, on the eve of the downfall of 
 the government at Washington, a Southern Senator depicted 
 the wealth that the South had poured info the lap of the 
 Union, the elements it had contributed to its civilization, and 
 the virtues it had brought to its adornment, Mr. Wilson, of 
 Massachusetts, had this reply: " Massachusetts has more re 
 ligious newspapers than all the slaveholding States of the 
 Union." 
 
 The people of the North have never studied politics as a 
 moral science. They have no idea of government as an inde 
 pendent principle of truth, virtue and honor; to them it is 
 merely an engine of material prosperity a mere auxiliary 
 appendage to a noisy, clattering world of trade, and steam, and 
 telegraphs. It is this low commercial sense of government 
 
THE THIRD YEAB. 301 
 
 which developed all the old Yankee theories of tariffs, uii 
 bounties, and free farms. 
 
 Indeed, the most fruitful study in American politics is the 
 peculiar materialistic idea of the Yankee. Its developments 
 are various, but all held together by the same leading idea: 
 superficial notions of civilization; agrarian theories; the sub 
 ordination of the principles of government to trade; mercantile 
 " statesmanship ;" the exclusion of moral ideas from politics; 
 the reduction of the whole theory of society to the. base measure 
 of commercial interests. Such are some of the developments 
 of the materialistic idea: the last and fullest is the present 
 war. 
 
 This war, on the part of the Yankee, is essentially a war of 
 interest: hence its negation, on his part, of all principles and 
 morals ; hence its adoption of that coarse maxim of commercial 
 casuistry, "the end justifies the means;" hence its treachery, 
 its arts of bad faith, its " cuteness" on all belligerent questions ; 
 hence its atrocities which have debased the rules of civilized 
 warfare to a code of assassins and brigands. It is true that the 
 IsTorth has affected in this war such sentiments as love of the 
 Union, reverence of the American nationality, a romantic 
 attachment to the old flag. But we repeat that the proof that 
 the North has fought for coarse, material interests in this war 
 is the conduct of the war itself. 
 
 War is horrible ; but it has its laws of order and amelioration. 
 Civilization has kindled the dark cloud of horrors with the 
 vestal observances of honor ; and the undying lights of human 
 ity have irradiated its aspects softened the countenance oi 
 the Giant who 
 
 " On the mountain stands, 
 His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, 
 With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands." 
 
 But where, in this war of the Yankee, shall we find exhibi 
 tions of the chivalry and amenity of modern belligerents. A 
 ghostly echo comes shrieking from fields blackened by fire, 
 jind scarred and tormented by the endless scourge of the tyrant. 
 The characteristics of the Yankee war are precisely those 
 which arise out of the materialistic idea : treachery dignified 
 us genius, and cruelty set up to gaze as the grandeur of power. 
 
S02 SOUTHERN HISTORF OF THE WAR. 
 
 The crooked woof of treachery the scarlet thread of the 1!< 
 have been woven by the Yankee into every part of this war.* 
 It is not necessary to unravel here the whole story of Yankee 
 falsehood. One instance will suffice. The government which 
 at the commencement of hostilities, played at the game of con 
 ciliation by affecting to arrest on the streets of its capital, 
 Washington, fugitive slaves, and to return them to their mas 
 ters ; which, in the first months of the war, declared that it 
 " repudiated all designs whatever, and wherever imputed to it, 
 of disturbing the system of slavery;" that any such effort 
 would be " unconstitutional;" and that "all acts of the Pres 
 ident in that direction would be prevented by the judicial au 
 thority, even though they were assented to by Congress and 
 the people " for such was the solemn assurance of Mr. Sew- 
 
 * It is a curious fact, in the indisputable records of American History, that 
 Ihe separation of the Southern States from the Union, is defensible, in all res 
 pects ; that is, as an assertion of State rights, and, again, as an Assertion of the 
 itill higher principle of self-government on grounds taken by our enemies, 
 when it suited them to take those grounds. 
 
 With reference to the ground of State Rights : 
 
 At the third session of the Eleventh Congress, in 1811, the dissolution of the 
 Union was spoken of for the first time, by a member from the State of Massa- 
 ihusetts. The bill to form a Constitution and State Government for the Terri 
 tory of Orleans, and the admission of such State, under the name of Louisiana, 
 Into the Union, was under consideration. 
 
 " Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts, in opposition to the bill, said : I am com 
 pelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion, that if this bill passes, the bonds 
 of this Union are virtually dissolved ; that the States which compose it are free 
 from their obligations, and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the 
 duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation amicably, if they can ; 
 violently, if they must. 
 
 " Mr. Quincy was here called to order by Mr. Poindexter. 
 
 "Mr. Quincy repeated and justified the remark he had made, which, to save 
 all misapprehension, he committed to writing in the following words : If 
 this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of 
 this Union ; that it will free the States from their moral obligations, and, as it 
 will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for 
 a separation amicably, if they can ; violently, if they must. " 
 
 In 1844, the Legislature of Massachusetts resolved that the annexation oi 
 Texas would be cause of dissolution of the Union. 
 
 With reference to the other, higher ground of Self-Government : 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, now President at Washington said : "Any people, any* 
 where, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and 
 shake off the existing Government, and form a new one that suits them better 
 Nor is this right confined to cases wl-ere the people of an existing Government 
 
THE THIED YEAR. 303 
 
 arcTs diplomatic circular of 1861; which promised the Scuth 
 " the Constitution as it was," and recited poetry in Congress 
 entreating South Carolina to return to the bosom of the Union 
 is to-day found making the boast rather, we may say, indulg 
 ing the fiendish exultation that it has Abolitionized ever) 
 district it lias invaded ; that it has forced into military service 
 one hundred thousand blacks, stolen from their masters; that 
 it lias forcibly consigned them from peaceful occupations to 
 the perils of the battle-field ; and that it has whetted their ig- 
 n^rant and savage natures with an appetite for the blood of 
 the white man of the Confederacy. And this stupendous lie is 
 called the genius of Yankee statesmanship, and the world is 
 asked to applaud it. 
 
 But it is in the atrocious warfare of the enemy that we find 
 the most striking instances of his exclusion of that noble 
 spirituality common to the great conflicts of civilized nations, 
 and the most characteristic evidence of the brutal selfishness 
 of his hostilities. The Yankee has never shown mercy in this 
 war, and not one touch of refinement from his hand has re 
 lieved its horrors. The track oi his armies has been marked 
 by the devouring flame, or by the insatiate plunder and horrid 
 orgies of a savage and cowardly foe. The weed-growth of 
 Louisiana, where once flourished the richest plantations of the 
 South ; the desert that stretches from the Big Black to the 
 
 may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolu 
 tionize, putting clown a minority^intermingled with or near about them, who 
 may oppose them." 
 
 In 1860, the New York Tribune declared: "Whenever a portion of this 
 Union large enough to form an independent, self-sustaining nation shall see fit 
 to say authentically to the residue, We want to get away from you, we shall 
 Bay and we trust self-respect, if not regard for the principle of self-govern 
 ment, will constrain the residue of the American people to say Go ! " 
 
 At the beginning of the secession movements, Secretary Seward used the 
 following language to Mr. Adams, the United States Minister at London 
 "For tlu-se reasons he would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma o 
 theirs (the Secessionists), namely that the Federal Government could not re 
 duce the seceding States to obedience by conquest, even although he were dis 
 posed to question that proposition. But in fact the President willingly accepts 
 it as true. Only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate thorough 
 ly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State. This Federal. Repub 
 lican system of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one most unfitted, 
 for Buch a labor." 
 
304: 80UTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Mississippi, once a beautiful expanse of happy homes ; the 
 black, mangled belt of territory that, commencing at Harper s 
 Ferry, extends to Fortress Monroe, bound like a ghastly pall 
 with the silver fringe of the Potomac ; these are the hideous 
 monuments of partial conquest which the Yankee has com 
 mitted to the memory of the world and to the inscriptions of 
 history. What has been safe in this war from the grasp of his 
 plunder or the touch of his desecration ? In the districts of the 
 Confederacy where his soldiers have penetrated they have ap 
 propriated or destroyed private property ; they have stolen 
 even works of art and ornament ; they have plundered churches ; 
 they have, desecrated the grave and despoiled the emblems 
 which love has consecrated to honor. And all this has been 
 done according to a peculiar theory of hostilities which makes 
 of war a sensual selfishness, and contemplates its objects as a 
 savage gain of blood and plunder. This is the true-and char 
 acteristic conception of the Yankee. lie is taught by his po 
 litical education, by his long training in the crooked paths of 
 thrift, that all the principles of civilized usage are to be set at 
 nought, when convenience and present policy interfere with 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 It is in this sense of narrow, materialistic expediency that 
 the Yankee has surrendered his liberties in this war, and pro 
 claimed the enormous doctrine, that the Constitution under 
 which he lives, and all his other monuments of liberty, are 
 suspended by the paramount necessity of conquering and de 
 spoiling the South. He has carried his commercial politics into 
 the war, and trades his own liberties for the material rewards 
 of an otherwise vain and fruitless conquest. 
 
 But we leave the subject of the Yankee to turn to the other 
 side of the question, and inquire what new political ideas the 
 South has developed in this war. Here is an extraordinary 
 blank. In the new government of the Confederacy we do not 
 discover any statesmanship, any financial genius, any ideas be 
 yond what are copied from the old effete systems that, it was 
 thought, the revolution replaced. There must be some expla 
 nation of this absence of new ideas, this barren negation in oui 
 revolution. 
 
 By a misfortune, not easily avoided, the new government of the 
 Confederacy fell into the hands of certain prominentpartisaiis, but 
 
THE THIRD TEAR. 305 
 
 mediocre politicians, who made a servile copy of the o. d Yankee 
 Constitution ; who had no ideas of political administration 
 higher than the Washington routine ; and who, by their igno 
 rance and conceit, have blindfolded and staggered the revolu 
 tion from its commencement. This observation gives the key 
 to the political history of the Confederacy in this war. A ser 
 vile copy of old political ideas, an ape of the Washington ad 
 ministration, without genius, without originality, rejecting the 
 counsels of the intelligent, and living in its own little circle of 
 conceit, the Confederate government has fallen immeasurably 
 below the occasion of this revolution, and misrepresents alike 
 its spirit and its object. 
 
 But this weak, negative government of the Confederacy is 
 but the early accident of this revolution ; and the people en 
 dure the accident of their present rulers merely from patriotic 
 scruples which contemplate immediate exigencies. We stand 
 but on the threshold of this revolution, and the curtain falls 
 over a grand future of new ideas. Those who expect that it 
 will terminate with the mere formality of a treaty with the 
 public enemy, and that we shall then have a plodding future 
 of peace, a repetition of old political ideas and manners, have 
 got their pleasant philosophy from newspaper articles and 
 street talk ; they have never read the exalted and invariable 
 lesson of history, that, on commotions as immense as this war 
 no matter what its particular occasion there are reared thosa 
 new political structures which mark the ages of public progress. 
 If it was true that this war, with its immense expenditures of 
 blood and treasure, was merely to determine the status of 
 negroes in the South merely to settle the so-called Slavery 
 question there is not an intelligent man in the Confederacy 
 but would spit upon the sacrifice. If it was true that this ter 
 rible war was merely to decide between two political adminis 
 trations of the same model, then the people of the Confederacy 
 would do right to abandon it. 
 
 Political novelty will come soon enough: it is the inevitable 
 offspring of such commotions as this war. We repeat, that the 
 Confederacy is now barren of political ideas, because those who 
 are accidentally its rulers are, without originality or force, 
 copyists of old rotten systems, and the apes of routine ; and 
 because the public mind of the South is now too forcibly en 
 
 20 
 
306 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 grossed with the publie enemy, either to replace their authority 
 or to chastise their excesses. It is under these peculiar re 
 straints that the Confederacy has produced such little political 
 novelty in this war. 
 
 But the revolution is not yet past. Those exalted historical 
 inspirations, which, with rapt souls and kindled blood, we read 
 in the printed pages of the past, are this day, with trumpet 
 Bound, at our doors. We live in great times; we are in the 
 presence of great events ; we stand in the august theatre of a 
 national tragedy. This struggle cannot pass away, until the 
 great ideas, which the public danger alone holds in abeyance, 
 have found a full development and a complete realization ; 
 until the South vindicates her reputation for political science 
 and eliminates from this war a system of government more 
 ingenious than a Chinese copy of Washington. 
 
 But while we thus reflect upon the intellectual barrenness of 
 this war, we must not forget that, while the Confederacy in 
 this time has produced but few new ideas, it has brought out 
 troops of virtues. In this respect, the moral interest of the war 
 is an endless theme for the historian ; and we may be pardoned 
 for leaving our immediate subject to say a few words of those 
 fields of grandeur in which the Confederacy lias found com 
 pensation for all other short-coinings, and stands most conspic 
 uous before the world. 
 
 We have put into the field soldiers such as the world has 
 seldom seen men who, half-clothed and half-fed, have, against 
 superior numbers, won two-thirds of the battles of this war. 
 The material of the Confederate army, in social worth, is sim 
 ply superior to all that is related in the military annals of man 
 kind. Men of wealth, men accustomed to the fashions of polite 
 society, men who had devoted their lives to learned professions 
 and polished studies, have not hesitated to shoulder their mus 
 kets and fight as privates in the ranks with the hard-fisted and 
 uncouth laborer, no less a patriot than themselves. Our army 
 presents to the world, perhaps, the only example of theoretical 
 socialism reduced to practice it has ever seen, and realizes, at 
 least in respect of defensive arms, the philosophers dream of 
 fraternal and sympathetic equality. 
 
 The hero of this war is the private soldier: not the officer 
 whose dress is embroidered with lace, and whose name gar 
 
THE THIRD YEAR. 307 
 
 nislies the gazette, but the humble and honest patriot of the 
 South in his dirt-stained and sweat-stained clothes, who toils 
 through pain and hunger and peril ; who has no reward but in 
 the satisfaction of good deeds ; who throws his poor, unknown 
 life away at the cannon s mouth, and dies in that single flash 
 of glory. How many of these heroes have been laid in un 
 marked ground the nameless graves of self-devotion. But 
 the ground where they rest is in the sight of Heaven. Noth 
 ing kisses their graves but the sunlight ; nothing mourns for 
 them but the sobbing wind ; nothing adorns their dust but the 
 wild flowers that have grown on the bloody crust of the battle 
 field. But not a Southern soldier has fallen in this war with 
 out the account of Heaven, and Death makes its registry of 
 the pure and the brave on the silver pages of immortal life. 
 
 It is said that some of our people* in this war have cringed 
 beneath disaster, and compromised with misfortune. These 
 are exceptions : they may be sorrowful ones. But in this war 
 the people of the Confederacy, in the mass, have shown a for 
 titude, an elasticity under reverse, a temperance in victory, a 
 self-negation in misfortune, a heroic, hopeful, patient, enduring, 
 working resolution, which challenge the admiration of the 
 world. It is not only material evils which have been thus 
 endured : the scourge of tyranny, the bitterness of exile, the 
 dregs of poverty. But the most beautiful circumstance of all 
 is the strange resignation of our people in that worst trial and 
 worst agony of war the consignment of the living objects of 
 their love to the bloody altars of sacrifice. These are the real 
 horrors of war, and patriotism has no higher tribute to pay 
 than the brave and uncomplaining endurance of such agony. 
 
 How have we been resigned in this war to the loss of our 
 loved ones! How many noble sorrows are in our hearts! 
 How many skeletons are in our closets! War may ruin and 
 rifle the homestead ; may scatter as chaff in the wind the prop 
 erty of years ; may pronounce the doom of exile but all these 
 are paltry afflictions in comparison with the bereavement oi 
 kindred, whose blood has been left on the furze of the field and 
 the leaves of the forest, and whose uncoffined bones are scat 
 tered to the elements. 
 
 The virtues and passions of the South in this war are not 
 idle sentimentalisms. They are the precursors of new and illus- 
 
308 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 trious ideas the sure indications of a new political growth 
 In the warmth of such passions are born noble and robust ideas 
 Thus we await the development of this war in ideas, in politi 
 cal structures, in laws, which will honor it, and for which we 
 shall not unduly pay the dreadful price of blood. 
 
 It is impossible that a nation should have suffered as the 
 South has in this struggle ; should have adorned itself with 
 such sacrifices ; should have illustrated such virtues, to relapse, 
 at the end, into the old routine of its political existence. Wo 
 have not pOured out our tears we have not made a monu 
 ment of broken hearts we have not kneaded the ground with 
 human flesh, merely for the poor negative of a peace, with 
 nought higher or better than things of the past. Not so does 
 nature recompense the martyrdom of individuals or of nations 
 it pronounces the triumph of resurrection. 
 
 We believe that a new name is to be inscribed in the Pan 
 theon of history ; not that of an old idolatry. All now is ruin 
 and confusion, but from the scattered elements will arise a new 
 spirit of beauty and order. All now is dark, but the cloud will 
 break, and in its purple gates will stand the risen Sun. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 
 
 OHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 Condition of the Confederacy in the early summer of 1864. The expectations and 
 hopes of the South. GRANT S " ONTO RICHMOND." Ulysses S. Grant and his com 
 mand. His services and character. THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. A heroia 
 stand. Heth s and Wilcox s divisions. A critical conjuncture. Grant s whole 
 army on the threshold of ruin. Grant s change of front and General Lee s new 
 li ne . The Northern newspapers go into ecstasies. THE BATTLES OF SPOTTSYL- 
 VANIA COUKTHOUSK. A crisis. A thrilling scene. "General Lee to the rear!" 
 Six days of battle.-- Grant s obstinacy. Sharidan s expedition. A fight at Yellow 
 Tavern. Death ol General " Jeb" Stuart. Butler s movement up the James. 
 Beauregard drives him to Bermuda Hundred. " The Buzzard and the Falcon." 
 THE ENEMY S OPKKATIONS IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. The combination there. Three 
 movements. Sigel s defeat at Newmarket. McCausland checks Crook at Dublin 
 Depot. Morgan defeats Averill at Wytheville. Grant moves down the Valley of 
 the Kappahannock. Engagements near Hanover Junction. Grant crosses the Pa- 
 munkey. He is within a few miles of Richmond. The true theory of his move 
 ments, defeat, not victory. His immense losses. Lee s admirable movements 
 and positive successes. Nonsense of the newspapers. 
 
 THE spirit of the Southern Confederacy was scarcely ever 
 more buoyant than in the month of May, 1864. The confidence 
 of its people in the ultimate accomplishment of their independ 
 ence was so firm and universal, that any other conclusion was 
 but seldom referred to in general conversation or in the pre 
 vision of one s private affairs ; and in Richmond and elsewhere 
 the hope was freely indulged that the campaign of 1864 was 
 to be decisive of the war, and to crown the efforts of the South 
 with peace and independence. 
 
 There had been abundant occasion for this revival of confi 
 dence in the public mind of the Confederacy. The winter just 
 past had been one of a large aggregate of success to the Con 
 federate arms. Several brilliant, expeditions had been planned 
 and accomplished by them ; while on the enemy s side all the 
 work he had cut out for the winter had come to grief, and 
 every one of his elaborate enterprises in that season had failed, 
 
310 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 with a concurrence of disaster most remarkable in the history 
 of the war. 
 
 The invasion of Florida had been a shocking failure. Thomas 
 had been repulsed ?n North Georgia, and was held completely 
 in check there. Sherman s grand expedition in the Southwest 
 and his famous experiment of " the strategic triangle" had 
 come to the most absurd arid disastrous conclusion " Half oi 
 his army," said this chieftain, " went to Memphis and half 
 went to h 11." Banks s proposed conquest of the Trans- 
 Mississippi had been to the Confederates the occasion of that 
 celebrated Red River campaign, the most glorious in the pages 
 of their history, in which they not only reclaimed the coast 
 and frontier of the Trans-Mississippi, but left the Massachusetts 
 hero scarcely more of Louisiana than was covered by his 
 pickets. ,And there had been other positive successes on the 
 Confederate side. Forrest, by long and rapid marches, had 
 spread terror along the banks of the Mississippi, and cut a 
 swath across the State of Kentucky ; and on the eastern fron 
 tier the expeditions of Pickett and of Hoke had been brilliant 
 events for the Confederacy, leaving the enemy only two places, 
 Washington and Newbern, on the coast of North Carolina, 
 
 No wonder that the events of this winter were accepted by 
 the Confederates as happy auguries for the ensuing campaign, 
 and fresh occasions of hope and confidence. Their internal 
 affairs, too, had improved along with this current of military 
 success. The army had been replenished by an enlarged con 
 scription ; a happy revolution was already going on in the 
 finances under the operation of the law which curtailed the cur 
 rency thirty-three per cent.; supplies had been accumulated 
 during the winter, and the storehouses of Richmond were filled 
 to* bursting with the subsistence that had been gathered, 
 through the course of several months, for the great campaign 
 in Virginia. 
 
 Such were the extraordinary prospects with which the Con 
 federacy entered upon the summer campaign of 1864. A gen 
 eral opinion had taken possession of the public mind that the 
 North would make its grand effort in this year for the conquest 
 of the South; and that even negative results would be fatal to 
 the enemy, as they would be insufficient to appease the grow 
 ing popular impatience of the war in the North, or sustain any 
 
THE LAST TEAK. 311 
 
 new demand of the government at Washington for men and 
 means. 
 
 This opinion was right, at least so far as it contemplated an 
 extraordinary exertion on the part of the North. Two grand 
 campaigns for the summer of 1864 had been elaborately 
 planned at Washington. They were the parallel operations oi 
 Grant and Sherman in Virginia and in Georgia. 
 
 GRANT S "ox TO RICHMOND." 
 
 General Ulysses S. Grant had hitherto been known in the 
 North as the great general of the West, and the Yankee news 
 papers had entitled him the hero of Fort Donelson and Vicks- 
 burg. He was now to answer the eager expectation of the 
 public by a campaign of unrivalled importance in Virginia. 
 His elevation had been rapid. Four years ago the man who 
 commanded all the armies of the North had been occupied 
 with the obscure experiments of life in the successive callings 
 of farmer, auctioneer, and tanner ; and at the beginning of the 
 war, having at first been refused an active military command 
 by Governor Yates of Illinois, he was accidentally selected to 
 lead a regiment of raw recruits. 
 
 The grade of lieutenant-general in the armies of the United 
 States had been conferred by brevet only on General Scott, 
 but as an actual rank in time of war ha d only been bestowed 
 on General Washington. It was revived by the Federal Con 
 gress, and the commission conferred on General Grant, the 
 hero of the West, who, despite the gap in his successes at Shi- 
 loh in 1862, and his narrow escape on that occasion from being 
 consigned to obscurity by the ungenerous and characteristic 
 changes in the fickle popular idolatry of the North, had had a 
 long run of success, and was in advance of all his contempora 
 ries in the coarse Yankee measure of greatness. The commis 
 sion bore date March 2, 1864 ; and on the 9th of that month 
 President Lincoln presented to Grant in person this commis 
 sion, assuring him of his own cordial personal concurrence in 
 the measure. General Hallcck, hitherto general-in-chief, was 
 relieved from duty and made chief of staff to the army at 
 Washington. 
 
312 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 The armies put under the command of Grant presented one 
 of the most imposing arrays in modern histor} . They dotted 
 the country from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and thence 
 around and along the sea-coast, and back to the Chesapeake. 
 It was said that the Yankee lines might be traced by the smoke- 
 of camp-fires through a zig-zag journey of five thousand miles. 
 
 A few words may be bestowed here upon the character of 
 the man, the designation of whom as the military idol of the 
 North was not extravagant. General Grant had but little educa 
 tion, and was a man of not much more than ordinary ability ; 
 but he had a Scotch pertinacity of character which was a con 
 stant and valuable assistance in his military campaigns. Asa 
 commander he possessed a rare faculty of combination. He 
 was a man who gathered his forces, who could " afford to 
 wait," who dealt deliberate and heavy strokes ; but he lacked 
 that quickness of perception which decides single fields and 
 illustrates military genius. His heart was certainly not a bad 
 one, and his disposition was above most of the little tricks of 
 the Yankee. On particular occasions he did some noble things, 
 as we shall see in other parts of this volume. He was one of 
 the few Yankee notabilities who, without affectation .and in 
 sincerity, avoided sensations and displays, had a horror of be 
 ing " lionized," and lived for history rather than for the gazette. 
 He had an imperturbable good-humor. In his appearance anct 
 manners he was very plain ; but it was not a plebeian plain 
 ness ; it was the plainness of a man trained to habits of self- 
 reliance, who never lost the dignity and self-poise which COIIIM 
 from a consciousness of one s merits without vanity. 
 
 From the moment of receiving his commission as lieutenant 
 general, Grant had transferred his personal presence to tht 
 Army of the Potomac, leaving Sherman as his vicegerent to 
 carry out the Western campaign. Warren, Sedgwick, and 
 Hancock were made the corps commanders of this a-rny, and 
 Burnside was given a separate army corps. Bi.cJdr, at Fortress 
 Monroe, was reinforced by the Tenth Corp;, fro:n Charleston 
 under Gillmore, and the Eighteenth froin the Y^est under 
 u Baldy" Smith. To the infamous horo of "New Orleans was 
 allotted the task of cutting off l"hc city of .Richmond fro in iu 
 southern lines of communication : while Sigel, operating in the 
 Shenandoah Valley, was to cut the railroad which by way uf 
 
THE LA.ST YEAK. 313 
 
 Gordonsville connected Lee s army with hit principal base of 
 supplies at Lynch burg. 
 
 Thus were the preparations completed for the most moment 
 ous campaign in American history. On Wednesday, May 4, 
 eight weeks from the day Grant received his commission, his 
 two grand columns were ready to move the one well in hand 
 on the north bank of the Rapidan, seventy miles nprth of 
 Richmond; and the other at Fortress Monroe, one day s sail 
 from Richmond on the James. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 At dawn on the 5th of May, the Army of the Potomac, 
 closely succeeded by that of Burnside, had crossed the Rapidan 
 River ; the Second Corps at Ely s, the Fifth and Sixth corps at 
 Germania Ford. Having crossed the river, the first demon 
 stration of the enemy was an attempt to turn the right flank 
 of Lee s army between the Orange Courthouse pike and the 
 river. 
 
 The enemy s attack on the line of the turnpike was sustained 
 by the division of General Edward Johnson of Swell s corps. 
 After a brief struggle the enemy succeeded in forcing back 
 part of Jones s brigade, which had been formed across the turn 
 pike; but the gap in our lines was speedily closed by Stewart s 
 brigade, and the Yankees driven back with the loss of some 
 guns. In the mean time Gordon s gallant brigade of Georgians 
 crushed through the enemy s first lines, and driving furiously 
 on, struck back the Yankee front in confusion upon its sup 
 ports. Another advance of the enemy upon Johnson s left 
 flank was gallantly repulsed by Pegram s Virginians and 
 Hays s Louisianians ; and the day s work on the left witnessed 
 the Confederates still hold: ig their advanced lines. 
 
 Hill had been ordered to inarch from Lee s left, and with 
 Ileth s division in advance had moved along the plank-road 
 in a direction somewhat parallel with the turnpike, eventually 
 effecting a junction with Gordon s brigade, on Swell s extreme 
 right. The line of battle, thus completed, presented a front ot 
 six miles. 
 
 About 3 o clock in the afternoon, the attack on Ewell having 
 
314 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 been repulsed, the enemy commenced a more decided demon 
 stration in front of Hill. Heth s division bore at first the whole 
 brunt of the attack, but about four o clock Wilcox s division 
 was moved up from Ewell s right. For more than three hours 
 the dreadful conflict continued, the enemy attempting to force 
 his way rather by constant pressure than by dashing enterprise 
 Never was a more gallant spectacle than these two divisions 
 of Confederates holding at bay the Yankee onslaught from 
 three o clock until half-past seven, firm and unbroken in all 
 that long and dreadful monotony of conflict. Night closed 
 upon the Confederate line in the position it had originally 
 taken. That the day was an unsuccessful one for the Yankees 
 even their own accounts did not hesitate to admit. " No cheer 
 of victory," says a Northern correspondent, " swelled through 
 the Wilderness that night." 
 
 During the day Hancock, Second Corps, had come up, and 
 the Federal forces were concentrated. On the morning of the 
 6th their lines were consolidated and freshly posted ; the three 
 corps sustaining their respective positions Warren in the 
 centre, Sedgwick on the right, and Hancock on the left. 
 
 The attack was made by the Confederates, Hill and Long 
 street s corps attacking both of Hancock s flanks with sucl 
 fury that the whole line of command thus assaulted was broken 
 in several places. The effort, however, of the Confederates to 
 pierce the enemy s centre was stayed, the Yankees having se 
 cured their line of battle behind their intrenchments. 
 
 But with the expiration of the day was to occur a thrilling 
 and critical conjuncture. Just at dusk (the Confederates fa 
 vorite hour of battle) a column of Lee s army attacked the en 
 emy s left, captured Seymour and a large portion of his bri 
 gade, and excited a panic which put Grant s whole army on 
 the verge of irretrievable rout. Unfortunately, the Confed- 
 ed rates had no idea of the extent of their success, and could 
 not imagine how fraught with vital issue were those few mo 
 ments of encounter. The Yankee supply-trains were thought 
 to be immediately threatened, and artillery was posted to bear 
 upon the Confederate advance in that direction. But the Con 
 federates did not press their advantage. As it was, Generals 
 Shaler and Seymour, with the greater part of their commands, 
 were taken prisoners. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 315 
 
 Such had been the two days battle of the Wilderness a 
 marked success for the Confederates, disputed by the Northern 
 newspapers, of course, but manifest in the face of the facts. 
 The enemy confessed to a loss of twelve thousand.* The im 
 mediate consequence of these engagements was, that Grant, 
 being clearly out-generalled in his first design of reaching Lee s 
 rear and compelling him to fight a battle with his communica 
 tions cut off, which would be decisive of the campaign, was 
 forced to change his plans, and with it his position ; falling 
 back to his intrenched line, between the Wilderness and Trigg a 
 Mill, nearly coincident with the Brock road, leading from the 
 Wilderness to Spottsylvania Courthouse. 
 
 On the 7th, with some desultory fighting, Grant continued 
 his movement towards Fredericksburg, with the evident view 
 of attempting the Fredericksburg road to Richmond. It was 
 in consequence of this change of front that General Lee took 
 up a new line on the Po. It will amuse the candid reader to 
 find how this movement was interpreted by the mendacious 
 press of the North ; for in the newspapers of New York and 
 Boston it was entitled, in flaming capitals, "A Waterloo De 
 feat of the Confederates," " The Retreat of Lee to Richmond," 
 &c. For a few days the North was vocal with exultation, arid 
 for the hundredth time it had the rebellion " in a corner," to 
 be conveniently strangled. But, this imagination of easy 
 conquest was to be dissipated as the many that had pre 
 ceded it. 
 
 * A correspondent of the London Herald, who witnessed the two days battle, 
 writes : " The results to the enemy in some parts of the field cannot be described 
 oy any word less forcible than massacre. Eleven hundred and twenty-five 
 Federal dead were buried in front of Ewell s line, lying to the left of the turn 
 pike. Five hundred more were buried on the right of that road ; and, in ad 
 dition to about one hundred dead officers, whose bodies must have been re 
 moved, the number of corpses lying on the field, within range of the enemy a 
 sharpshooters, is estimated at fully three hundred. The Federal killed in the 
 struggle on the right may, therefore, be declared positively to number as many 
 as two thousand. I have no data on which to estimate the breadth of the 
 slaughter in the fierce conflicts of the right ; but from the stubbornness and 
 volume of these, feel quite confident that they must have added to the slaiu 
 as awful an account as that rendered in front of Ewell. With three thousand 
 prisoners and four thousand dead, the usual proportion of six or seven to ono 
 for the wounded, would show that the losses of Grant in the battle of the WU 
 derness cannot have been less than thirty thousand men." 
 
316 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 THE BATTLES OB SPOTTSYAVAN1A COURTHOUSE. 
 
 On the 8th of May two engagements were fought at Spott 
 sylvania Courthouse, between Longstreet s corps, under An 
 dersori (General Longstreet having been wounded in the battle 
 of the 6th) and the Fifth Corps, under Warren, supported by 
 cavalry. The enemy was repulsed, with heavy loss, in both 
 instances. 
 
 On the 9th, which was marked by some skirmishing, Gen-eral 
 John Sedgwick, one of the most valuable corps commanders in 
 the Yankee army, was killed, probably by a stray bullet. He 
 had just been bantering his men about dodging and ducking 
 their heads at the whistle of Confederate bullets in the distance. 
 " Why," said he, " they couldn t hit an elephant at this dis 
 tance." The next moment a ball entered his face, just below 
 the left eye, and pierced his brain, causing instant death. 
 
 On Thursday, the 17th of May, occurred what may be en 
 titled as the great battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse. The 
 enemy had planned an attack on what was supposed to be a 
 vital sectioti of the Confederates, a salient angle of earthworks 
 held by Johnson s division of Ewell s corps. The storming 
 column advanced silently, and without tiring a shot, np to the 
 angle of the breastworks, over which they rushed, taking the 
 forces within in flank, surrounding them, capturing nearly the 
 entire division of Johnson s, with its commander, and also a 
 brigade or two of other troops, Brigadier-General George II. 
 Stusirr in command. 
 
 But the surprise was only momentary. One of the most 
 thrilling scenes of the war was to occur. In a moment when 
 all was excitement, and when it could be easily seen that un 
 less the Confederates could check the enemy s advance, the 
 consequence would be disastrous in the extreme, General Lee 
 rode forward in front of the Confederate line, his position be 
 ing opposite at the time to the colors of the Forty-ninth regi 
 ment of Pegram s brigade. Not a word did he say. lie 
 simply took off his hat. " As he sat on his charger," says 
 a near eyewitness of him, "I never saw a man look so noble 
 or witnessed a spectacle so impressive." 
 
 At this interesting moment General Gordon, spurring hia 
 
THE LAST YEAJR, 317 
 
 foaming charger to the front, seized the reius of General Lee s 
 horse, and turning him around, said, " General, these are Vir 
 ginians! These men have never failed! They never will! 
 Will you, boys?" Loud cries of "No, no!" "General Lee 
 to the rear!" "Go back!" "Go back!" "General Lee to 
 the rear!" burst from along the lines; and as one led the 
 general s horse to the rear, General Gordon gave the com 
 mand, "Forward, charge!" And with a shout and yell the 
 brigades dashed on, through bog and swamp, and briers and 
 undergrowth, to the breastworks. For long hours a battle 
 raged over the intrenchments, the intense fury, heroism, and 
 horror of which it is impossible to describe. From dawn to 
 dusk the roar of guns was ceaseless ; a tempest of shell shrieked 
 through the forest and ploughed the field. Ewell s corps held 
 the critical angle with a courage that nothing could subdue. 
 General Hill moved down from the right, joined Ewell, and 
 threw his divisions into the struggle. Longstreet came on from 
 the extreme left of the Confederate line. Column after column 
 of the enemy was stricken down, or repulsed and sent back like 
 a broken wave. The ground in front of the Confederate lines 
 was piled with his slain. 
 
 The works which the Yankees had captured in the morning 
 contained an angle in the form of an A, with the point towards 
 the enemy. At the close of .the day the enemy maintained 
 possession of about three hundred yards of our works in that 
 quarter. The loss in Johnson s division was probably between 
 3,000 and 3,500, including over 2,000 prisoners. Our whole 
 loss, during the day, amounted to between six and seven thou 
 sand. The enemy stated their loss at from 18,000 to 25,000. 
 They captured twenty pieces of artillery. This was their 
 t; great victory." 
 
 The sixth day of heavy fighting had been ended. " It 
 would," says an intelligent critic of this period, " not be im 
 possible to .match the results of any one day s battle with 
 stories from the wars of the old world ; but never, we should 
 think, in the history of man were five such battles as these 
 compressed into six days." Grant had been foiled ; but his 
 obstinacy was apparently untouched, and the fierce and brutal 
 consumption of human life, another element of his generalship, 
 and which had already obtained for him with his soldiers the 
 
118 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Boubiiquet of " the" butcher," was still to continue. lie tele 
 graphed to Washington : " I propose to fight it out on this 
 line, if it takes all summer." 
 
 But we must turn for a few moments from this dominant 
 field of action and interest to notice other movements, which 
 were parts of Grant s combination, and of the great military 
 drama in Virginia. 
 
 While Grant was engaged on the Rapidan, a cavalry expe 
 dition of the enemy, commanded by General Sheridan, moved 
 around Lee s right flank to the North Anna "River ; committed 
 some damage at Beaver Dam ; moved thence to the South 
 Anna and Ashland Station, where the railroad wns destnyyed ; 
 and finally found its way to the James at Turkey Island, 
 where it joined the forces of Butler. The damage inflicted by 
 this raid was not very considerable; but it was the occasion 
 of a severe fight, on the 10th of May, at Yellow Tavern, on the 
 road to Richmond, where Sheridan encountered a Confederate 
 cavalry force, in which engagement was lost the valuable life 
 of General J. E. B. Stuart, the brilliant cavalry commander, 
 who had so lono- made Virginia the threatre of his daring; arid 
 
 C7 O O 
 
 chivalric exploits. 
 
 The column of Butler, the important correspondent to 
 Grant s movement, intended to operate against Richmond on 
 the south side, had raised the hopes of the North merely to 
 dash them by a failure decisive in its character, and ridiculous 
 in all its circumstances. On the 5th of May, Butler proceeded 
 with his fleet of gunboats and transports, and the Tenth and 
 Eighteenth army corps, up the James River, landing at Wil 
 son s Wharf a regiment of Wild s negro troops, and two 
 brigades of the same color at Fort Powhatan ; thence up to 
 City Point, where Hinks s division was landed ; and at Ber 
 muda Hundred, just below the mouth of the Appomattox, the 
 entire army was disembarked. 
 
 On the 7th, five brigades, under General Brooks, struck for 
 the Petersburg and Richmond Railroad, and succeeded in 
 destroying a bridge seven miles north of Petersburg. In tho 
 mean time, Butler, after intrenching himself, closed about the 
 defences of Drury s Bluff . The Yankee general seemed con 
 fident that he could by a little fighting, in conjunction with 
 the powerful flotilla upon, the James, easily overcome the main 
 
THE LAST YEAE. 319 
 
 barrier to his approach to the rear of the Confederate capital, 
 presented in the defences of Drury s Bluff. It was already 
 announced to the credulous public of the North that Butlei 
 had cut Beanregard s army in twain ; that lie had carried two 
 lines of the defences of Drury s Bluff; and that he held the 
 ke} T s to the back-door of Richmond. 
 
 On Monday, the 16th of May, General Beauregard fell upon 
 the insolent enemy in a fog, drove Butler from his advanced 
 positions back to his original earthworks, and inflicted upon 
 him a loss of several thousand men in killed, wounded, and 
 captured. He had fallen upon the right of the Yankee line 
 of battle with the force of an avalanche, completely crushing 
 it backward and turning Butler s flank. The action was de 
 cisive. No result but that of victory could be expected in 
 Richmond when Butler was the combatant. The Richmond 
 Examiner designated the tight as that of " the Buzzard and 
 the Falcon." The day s operations resulted in Butler s entire 
 army being ordered to return from its advanced position, within 
 ten miles of Richmond, to the line of defence known as Ber 
 muda Hundred, between the James and Appomattox rivers 
 
 While Butler had thus come to grief, the failure of Sigel, 
 who threatened the Yalley of Virginia was no less complete. 
 
 Grant had made an extraordinary combination in Virginia, 
 His plan of campaign was clearly not limited to the capture 
 of Richmond. He might capture it without capturing the 
 government machinery and without overthrowing Lee s army. 
 In such event further operations were necessary ; and these were 
 already provided for in the ambitious and sweeping plan of 
 the campaign. 
 
 The movement of Sigel up the Shenandoah Valley towards 
 Stannton was designed with the view, first, of taking posses 
 sion of the Virginia Central Railroad, and ultimately effecting 
 a lodgment upon the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad at 
 Lynchburg. Averill was to move towards the same great 
 railroad with a design of striking it at Salem. General Crook 
 was to move with a strong force and large supplies from Charles- 
 
320 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAH. 
 
 town towards Dublin Depot; and a fourth movement 
 which, however, was not actively developed until the period, 
 some weeks later, of the second combination of forces in this 
 part of Virginia was designed on the Virginia side of the 
 Big Sandy towards Abingdon on the same railroad. 
 
 The invasion thus planned for Western Virginia compre 
 hended a heavy aggregate of forces. There were the six thou 
 sand of Crook, which came from the Lower Kanawha. These 
 last were joined by Averill, with twenty-five hundred cavalry, 
 corning from Northwest Virginia; and there was the army of 
 Sigel, whose strength was variously estimated, but was not 
 less than twelve thousand. The design was that these different 
 corps should strike the Lynchburg and Tennessee and the 
 Central railroads simultaneously at Abingdon, Wytheville, 
 Dublin Depot, and Stauriton, and should afterwards unite, 
 west of Lynchlmrg, and march against that city. Grant was 
 strongly impressed with the importance of this city. In sub 
 sequent attempts against it, his orders were that it should be 
 taken and held at any loss and at all hazards. 
 
 In pursuance of the phm of operations in Western Virginia, 
 at the very moment that Grant crossed the Rapidan it was 
 announced that Sigel was in motion upon Staunton, Crook 
 upon Dublin Depot, and Averill upon Wytheville, with de 
 sign, after destroying that town and the lead mines, to unite 
 with Crook at Dublin for a march towards Lynchburg ; but no 
 news came of a movement at that early day of Major-General 
 Burbridge upon Abingdon and Saltville. The sequel proved 
 that we were poorly prepared to meet this concerted assault. 
 Breckinridge had been ordered away from Dublin in a hurry, 
 with all the troops he could collect at short notice, and sent 
 down the Valley to confront Sigel, leaving nothing but a few 
 scattered troops, afterwards collected together by McCausland, 
 to oppose Crook at Dublin. 
 
 On the 15th of May, Sigel s column was encountered near 
 Newmarket by General Breckinridge, who drove it across the 
 Shenandoah, captured six pieces of artillery and nearly one 
 thousand stand of small-arms, and inflicted upon it a heavy 
 loss, Sigel abandoning his hospitals and destroying the larger 
 portion of his train. 
 
 But while Breckinridge defeated Sigel, and drove him back 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 321 
 
 in dismay and rout, McCausland was left at Dublin with only 
 1,500 men to resist Crook s 6,000. He fought bravely, how 
 ever, and so shattered Crook s army as to destroy his design of 
 proceeding towards Lynchburg, and compel a retreat as far as 
 Meadow Bluff, in Greenbrier, for the purpose of recruiting his 
 disorganized army and repairing damages. Crook left several 
 hundred prisoners and all bis wounded, but succeeded, before 
 leaving the region of the battle, in destroying the important 
 bridge over New River. 
 
 It so happened that the Confederates had a larger force at 
 that time in the extreme Southwest than anywhere else on the- 
 line of the Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad. The fact was 
 fortunate, for it enabled General W. E. Jones, then command 
 ing there, to spare General Morgan s command for services 
 further east. Thus it happened that General Morgan, making 
 a forced march from Saltville, arrived at Wythevillo with his 
 mounted men in time to save that town from Averill, and to 
 completely defeat that boasted cavalry officer, with a heavy 
 loss of killed, wounded, prisoners, and horses. This defeat was 
 very important, for it prevented Averill from joining Crook 
 before the battle at Dublin, and before that general had found 
 it necessary to fall back to Meadow Bluff. Averill arrived in 
 Dublin two days after Crook had gone. It was still further 
 fortunate that General Morgan, at the same time that he 
 marched from Saltville with his mounted men against Averill, 
 at Wytheville, was able to send his dismounted men by the 
 railroad to Dublin, which force arrived there just in time to 
 take part with McCausland in the fight which sent Crook back 
 to Meadow Bluff. 
 
 These occurrences took place in the early part of May, si 
 multaneously with Grant s operations in Spottsylvania. Mor 
 gan s fight at Wytheville, McCauslarid s at Dublin, and Breck- 
 inridge s at Newmarket, all occurred about the same time with 
 each other, and simultaneously with the great battles of the 
 Wilderness between Lee and Grant. 
 
 We left Grant defeated in the action of the 12th in front of 
 Spottsylvania Courthouse. On the 14th he moved his lines 
 by his left flank, taking position nearer the Richmond and 
 Fredericksburg railroad. On the 18th he attempted an assault 
 on Ewells line, which was easily repulsed. It was admitted 
 
 21 
 
322 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 by the enemy that the object of this attack was to turn Lee a 
 left flank, and that their line got no further than the abattis, 
 when it was " ordered" back to its original position. 
 
 A new movement was now undertaken by Grant to pass 
 his army from the line of the Po, down the valley of the Rap- 
 pahannock. It thus became necessary for General Lee to evac 
 uate his strong position on the line of the Po ; and by an ad 
 mirable movement he had taken a new position between the 
 North and South Anna, before Grant s army had arrived at the 
 former stream. Having cut loose from Fredericksburg as a 
 base and established depots on the lower Rappahannock, on 
 the 21st Grant s forces occupied Milford Station and Bowling 
 Green, and were moving on the well-known high roads to 
 Richmond. But they were again intercepted ; for Lee had 
 planted himself between Grant and Richmond, near Hanover 
 Junction. 
 
 On the 23d and on the 25th Grant made attempts on the 
 Confederate lines, which were repulsed, and left him to the 
 last alternative. Another flanking operation remained for 
 him, by which he swung his army from the North Anna 
 around and across the Pamunkey. On the 27th, Hanovertowa 
 was reported to be occupied by the Yankee advance unde 
 General Sheridan ; and on the 28th Grant s entire army was 
 across the Pamunkey. 
 
 In the mean time, General Lee also reformed his line of bat 
 tle, north and south, directly in front of the Virginia Central 
 Railroad, and extending from Atlee s Station south to Shady 
 Grove, ten miles north of Richmond. In this position he cov 
 ered both the Virginia Central and the Fredericksburc: and 
 
 O O 
 
 Richmond railroads, as well as all the roads leading to Rich 
 mond, west of and including the Mechanicsville pike. 
 
 The favorite tactics of Grant appear to have been to develop 
 the left flank ; and by this characteristic manoeuvre he moved 
 clown the Hanover Courthouse road, and on the first day of 
 June took a position near Cold Harbor. 
 
 Grant was now within a few miles of Richmond. The vul 
 gar mind of the Noi th readily seized upon the cheap circum 
 stance of his proximity in miles to the Confederate capital, and 
 exclaimed its triumph. The capture of Richmond was ac 
 counted as an event of the next week. The Yankee period!- 
 
THE LAST YEAH. 3 23 
 
 cals were adorned with all those illustrations which brutal 
 triumph could suggest ; Grant drubbing Lee across liis knee 
 the genius of Yankee Liberty holding aloft an impersonation Oi 
 the Southern Confederacy by the seat of the breeches, marked 
 "Richmond ;" Jefferson Davis playing his last card, ornamented 
 with a crown of death s heads, and with his legs well girt with 
 snakes ; and a hundred other caricatures alike characteristic of 
 the vulgar thought and fiendish temper of the Yankee. To 
 such foolish extremity did this premature celebration go, that 
 a meeting was called in New York to render the thanks of the 
 nation to Grant, and twenty-five thousand persons completed 
 the hasty apotheosis. 
 
 But for the candid and intelligent, the situation of Grant 
 was one of sinister import to him, implied much of disaster, 
 anct was actually a consequence of his repeated disappointments. 
 The true theory of it was defeat, not victory. He did nothing 
 more than hold the same ground as that occupied by General 
 McClellan in his first peninsular campaign. This position, had 
 lie come by another route, a day s sail from Washington, he 
 could have occupied without the loss of a single man. But he 
 had occupied it by a devious route ; with a loss variously esti 
 mated at from sixty to ninety thousand men ; with the con- 
 Burnption of most of his veteran troops, whom he had put in 
 front ; with the disconcert and failure of those parts of the 
 drama which Butler and Sigel were to enact ; and with that 
 demoralization which must unavoidably obtain in an army put 
 to the test of repeated defeats and forced marches. 
 
 What was represented by the enemy as the retreat of Gen 
 eral Lee s army to Richmond was simply its movement from 
 a position which its adversary had abandoned, to place itself 
 full before him across the new road on which he had deter 
 mined to travel. In this sense, it was Grant who was pursued. 
 He had set out to accomplish Mr. Lincoln s plan of an overland 
 march upon Richmond. Mr. Lincoln s scheme, as detailed by 
 himself in his famous letter to General McClellan, was to 
 march by the way of the Manassas Railroad. The first move 
 ment of General Grant was to give up that route, and fall back 
 upon the line by which Generals Burnside and Hooker at 
 tempted to reach the Confederate capital that is, the Freder- 
 icksburg and Richmond line. But, repulsed at Spottsylvania, 
 
324 SO Ul BEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 this route proved untenable, and General Grant was forced 
 east and south, and adopted a new base at Port Royal and 
 Tappahannock, on the Rappahannock River, which conformed 
 in a measure to General McClellan s first plan of a inarch upon 
 Richmond by way of Urbana. The next change Grant was 
 compelled to make was, after finding how strong the Confed 
 erates were, as posted on the South Anna, to cross the Pamun- 
 key and make his base at the White House, bearing thereafter 
 still further east and south to the precise ground of McClellan s 
 operations. 
 
 The significance of all these movements was, that Grant had 
 utterly failed in his design of defeating Lee s army far from 
 its base, and pushing the fragments before him down to Rich 
 mond, and had been forced to cover up his failure by adopting 
 the derided scheme of McClellan. The event of the 12th x>f 
 May at Spottsylvania Courthouse had settled the question 
 whether he could beat Lee in the field and put him in a dis 
 astrous retreat. Unable to remove the obstacle on the thresh 
 old of his proposed campaign, nothing was left but to abandon 
 it. Grant makes his way down the valley of the Rappahan- 
 nock ; turns aside to Hanover Junction, to find a repetition of 
 Spottsylvania Courthouse ; deflects to the head-waters of the 
 York ; and at last, by a monstrous circuit, reaches a point 
 where he might have landed on the 1st of May, without loss 
 or opposition. We may appreciate the amount of gaseous non 
 sense and truculent blackguardism of Yankee journals, when 
 we find them declaring that these movements were a foot-race 
 for Richmond, that Grant was across the last ditch, and that 
 the end of the rebellion was immediately at hand. 
 
THE LAST YEAR 325 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Grant essays tho passage of the Chickahominy. BATTLE o? COLD HARBOR. A liil- 
 liant and extraordinary victory for the Confederates, Grant s stock of expedients. 
 He decides to move to the south side of the James. OPERATIONS IN WESTERN 
 VIRGINIA. Shocking 1 improvidence of the Richmond authorities. Hunter cap 
 tures Stun n toil. Death of General Jones. Grant s new combination. Hunter s 
 part. Sheridan s part. THE BATTLES OF PETERSBURG. Butler attempts to steal 
 a march upon " the Cockade City." Engagements of the 16th, 17th, and 18th ot 
 June. Port Walthal Junction. Defeat of Sheridan at Trevillian Station. Defeat 
 of Hunter near Lynchburg. Morgan draws Burbridge into Kentucky. Two af 
 fairs on the Petersburg and Weldon Railroad. THE GREAT MINE EXPLOSION. A 
 scene of infernal horror. Yankee comments on Grant s failures. Great de 
 pression in the North. Mr. Chase s declarations. General Lee s sense of success. 
 His singular behavior. THE SINKING OF THE PRIVATEER ALABAMA. A Yan 
 kee trick of concealed armor. The privateer service of the Confederates. In 
 teresting statistics. 
 
 WK return to the events on the Richmond lines. The posi 
 tion occupied by Grant, on Wednesday, June 1st, had been 
 obtained after some fighting, and, by the enemy s own admis 
 sion, had cost him two thousand men in killed and wounded. An 
 important and critical struggle was now to ensue. Grant had 
 secured a position, the importance of which was that it was the 
 point of convergence of all the roads radiating, whether to 
 Richmond, his objective point, or to White House, his base 
 of supplies. He was now to essay the passage of the Chicka 
 hominy, and we were to have another decisive battle of Cold 
 Harbor. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR. 
 
 There is good evidence that Grant s intention was to make 
 it the decisive battle of the campaign. The movements of the 
 preceding days, culminating in the possession of Cold Harbor 
 an important strategic point had drawn the enemy s lines 
 close in front of the Chickahominy, and reduced the military 
 problem to the forcing of the passage of that river a problem 
 which, if solved in Grant s favor, would decide whether Rich- 
 tnorid could be carried by a coup de main^ if a decisive victory 
 
326 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 should attend his arms, or, whether he should betake himself 
 to siege operations or some other recourse. 
 
 Early on the morning of Friday, June 3d, the assault was 
 made, Hancock commanding the left of the Yankee line of 
 battle, and leading the attack. The first Confederate line was 
 held by Breckinridge s troops, and was carried. The reverse 
 was but momentary, for the troops of Milligan s brigade, and 
 the Maryland battalion, soon dashed forward to retrieve the 
 honors which the Yankees had snatched. 
 
 This engagement was on the right ; Breckinridge s division, 
 with Field s, constituting a part of Longstreet s corps. On the 
 left, General Early engaged the enemy. On every part of the 
 line the enemy was repulsed by the quick and decisive blows 
 of the Confederates. Hancock s corps, the only portion of the 
 Yankee army that had come in contact with the Confederate 
 works, had been hurled back in a storm of fire ; the Sixth 
 Corps had not been able to get up further than within two 
 hundred and fifty yards of the main works ; while Warren and 
 Burnside, on the enemy s right arid right centre, were stag 
 gered on the lines of our rifle-pits. The decisive work of the 
 day was done in a few minutes. Never were there such signal 
 strokes of valor, such dispatch of victory. It was stated in the 
 accounts of the Confederates, that fourteen distinct assaults of 
 the enemy were repulsed, and that his loss was from six to 
 seven thousand.* No wonder that the insolent assurance of 
 the capture of Richmond was displaced in the Yankee news 
 papers by the ominous calculation, that Grant could not af 
 ford many such experiments on the intrenched line of the 
 Chickahominy, and would have to make some other resort to 
 victory. 
 
 The battle of Cold Harbor was sufficient to dispel the delu 
 sion of weakness and demoralization in Lee s army ; for thia 
 derided army, almost in the time it takes to tell the story, had 
 
 * The lowest estimate of their own loss, in the Yankee newspapers, was five 
 thousand ; and the report of the adjutant-general at Washington stated 
 the loss in three days operations on the Chickahominy at seven thousand 
 five hundred. Yet Grant dispatched to Washington : " Our loss was not st> 
 vere, nor do I suppose the enemy to have lost heavily. We captured over 
 throe hundred prisoners, mostly from Breckinridge." 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 327 
 
 repulsed at every point the most determined assault of the 
 enemy, and, in a few brief moments of a single morning, had 
 achieved an unbroken circuit of victories. Grant and his 
 friends were alike dismayed. The latter insisted that he should 
 have half a million more of men to accomplish his work. 
 "We should," said a Boston paper, "have a vigorous and 
 overwhelming war, or else peace without further effusion of 
 blood." A certain portion of the Yankee press maintained the 
 unbroken lie, and told the story of an uninterrupted series of 
 victories. 
 
 An object of most curious arid constant interest in the war 
 was the rivalry of the different routes to Richmond. MeClel- 
 lan had chosen the peninsular approach, while Mr. Lincoln 
 dissented in favor of an advance from the Lower Rappahan- 
 nock ; Burnside had chosen Fredericksburg as his base ; 
 Hooker had acted on the same choice. Meade had selected 
 the Rapidan, as Pope had done before him. Grant came to 
 his command, unembarrassed and untrammelled by the prece 
 dents and comments of others. He had hunted up the roads 
 to Richmond, through the Wilderness and Spottsylvania 
 Court-house, and avowed his unchangeable purpose to adhere 
 to that as his true line. He had now wandered around to 
 McClellan s old base. But the battle of July 3d decided that 
 Richmond could no longer be approached with advantage 
 from the north, and the disconcerted, shifting commander, 
 with his stock of expedients well-nigh exhausted, found noth 
 ing now left for him but to transfer his entire army to the 
 south side of the James River.* 
 
 * 
 
 * A Richmond paper (the DispatcJi) made the following estimate of Grant s 
 enormous losses up to the time of crossing the James ; still leaving him, how 
 ever, a tremendous force in hand, compared with Lee s numbers : " Grant had 
 had first his own original army, 150,000; second, 25,000 veteran reinforce 
 ments ; third, 40,000 hundred days men ; fourth, 20,000 from Butler total, 
 225,000 men, under his own eye. Of these, he had lost 125,000 before he left 
 Cold Harbor. He crossed the river with 110,000 men, and there united his 
 operations with those of Butler, who had with him about 20,000 men, besides 
 those he had sent to Grant." 
 
328 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 OPERATIONS IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. 
 
 We have already referred to the failure in May of the ( pera. 
 tions in Western Virginia. They were to be enlarged by the 
 augmentation of the Yankee forces by several thousand troops, 
 drawn from the extreme Northwestern States, and by the 
 appointment of General Hunter, an officer of higher rank, to 
 command the same Hunter, by the by, who inaugurated 
 negro enlistments and miscegenation in the department of 
 Beaufort, South Carolina, as early as Ihe first winter of the 
 war. 
 
 This second combination in Western Virginia was imposing 
 enough. Crook and Averill were refitting and preparing at 
 Meadow Bluff for an advance on Staunton and Lynchburg; 
 Hunter was organizing at Winchester heavy reinforcements 
 for a second advance upon Lynchburg by way of Staunton ; 
 and Burbridge, in Kentucky, was getting ready to descend 
 upon extreme Southwestern Virginia, so as to prevent any 
 advance from that direction upon the rear of the combined 
 armies about to move on Lynchburg. 
 
 It is almost incredible how inadequate the preparations of 
 the Confederates were to meet these formidable enterprises of 
 the enemy. Breckiriridge, with the only army that could be 
 called such, which we had west of the Blue Ridge, was ordered 
 elsewhere, leaving nothing to confront some twenty-seven 
 thousand troops but a few small brigades of inferior cavalry, 
 about, two regiments of infantry, and a small brigade 
 (Vanghan s) of dismounted troops acting as infantry. To 
 supply the place of Breckinridge, McCauslarid s little force, 
 from Dublin, was sent to the front of Staunton, and General 
 William E. Jones was ordered to take all the troops he could 
 move from Southwestern Virginia to the same position in the 
 lower valley. Accordingly, General Jones not only got to 
 gether all the infantry west of the New River, but dismounted 
 Vaughan s brigade of cavalry also, and took all to Staunton, 
 leaving nothing in the extreme southwest but a few disjointed 
 bodies of cavalry and Morgan s command to meet Burbridge 
 coming in from Kentucky. 
 
THE ^AST YEAR. 
 
 On the 5 til of June, Hunter had obtained a success at Pied 
 mont, in Western Virginia, and had effected tb capture of 
 Staunton ; the saddest circumstance of which affair was the 
 loss of General Jones, one of the most distinguished cavalry 
 commanders of the Confederacy.* 
 
 After occupying Staunton, Hunter had formed a junction 
 with the combined forces of Crook and Averill, and on the 
 13th of June was reported to be moving with his whole com 
 mand against Lynch burg. On the 7th, Sheridan had crossed 
 the Pamunkey, and was moving eastward in the direction ot 
 the Gordonsville Eailroad. The main movement of the new 
 combination that of Grant across the James commenced 
 Sunday night the 12th of June. 
 
 The first plan of the enemy had comprehended the advance 
 of Sigel down the Shenandoah, and the capture of Petersburg, 
 if nothing more, by Butler, while General Grant engaged Lee a 
 army between the Rapidan and Richmond. That plan having 
 Bignally failed, the second comprised the capture of Lynchburg 
 by Hunter, of Gordonsville and Charlottesville by Sheridan, 
 and of Petersburg by Meade. It was thus hoped to isolate 
 the Confederate capital by cutting off its communications on 
 every side. 
 
 It was, perhaps, not Grant s design to cross the river until 
 he had made some attempt on the Central and New Market 
 roads, leading into Richmond from the direction of Malvern 
 
 * A correspondent thus writes of this officer whose eccentricities were 
 almost as well-known to Virginians as those of Stonewall Jackson : " General 
 Jones was a captain in the United States Army, ranking Stuart. A small, thin, 
 black-eyed arid whiskered man, he dressed very plainly, bordering on shabbi- 
 ness ; never shaved, never in uniform, no insignia of office. He had a line, 
 squeaking voice; was misanthropic, despising parade and every man that 
 indulged in it ; never courting any man s favor ; never, perhaps, speaking to a 
 congressman or the President, since the war commenced ; fearing no man 
 reverencing no mail ; speaking freely, if not curtly, to and of everybody. He was 
 a widower. When stationed in Texas he ]ost his wife, an accomplished lady, by 
 shipwreck in Galveston Bay ; since which he has never married again, and 
 has seemed, if not to wish for death, at least to hold his life very cheaply. He 
 was cool in a fight, and the bravest of the brave. With hat in hand, he was 
 cheering his men when he fell, pierced through his head by a minnie ball. 
 The enemy refused his body. Some citizens buried him in a neat coffin, and 
 marked the spot." 
 
33C SOUTHEKN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Hill. On the 13th of June he caused a reconnoissance in foice 
 to be made from the Long Bridge towards the Quaker road, 
 and in an affair, near the intersection of this road with tho 
 Charles City road, was repulsed, and drew off his force, well 
 satisfied that the Confederates held, with heavy forces, all the 
 roads by which Richmond could be reached from the southeast. 
 The Eighteenth Yankee corps had proceeded by water to 
 Bermuda Hundred. The remaining corps had crossed the 
 Chickahominy at James Bridge and Long Bridge ; and after 
 the reconnoissance of the 13th, proceeded down the James, and 
 crossed it in the neighborhood of City Point. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF PETERSBURG. 
 
 Petersburg had already sustained a considerable attack of 
 the enemy. An expedition from Butler s lines had essayed ita 
 capture on the 9th of June. 
 
 Approaching with nine regiments of infantry and cavalry, 
 and at least four pieces of artillery, the enemy searched our 
 lines a distance of nearly six miles. Hood s and Battles bat 
 talions, the Forty-sixth Virginia, one company of the Twenty- 
 third South Carolina, with Sturdevant s battery, and a fe\v 
 guns in position, and Talliaferro s cavalry, kept them at bay. 
 The Yankees were twice repulsed, but succeeded, at last, in 
 penetrating a gap in our line ; when reinforcements coming up 
 drove back the insolent foe from approaches which their foot 
 steps for the first time polluted. 
 
 The fortunate issue of this first attack on Petersburg encour 
 aged the raw troops and militia who had been put under arms 
 for the defence of " the Cockade City." General Wise ad 
 dressed the troops of his command in a memorable and thrill 
 ing order. " Petersburg," said he, " is to be, and shall be, de 
 fended on her outer walls, on her inner lines, at l^er corporation 
 bounds, in every street, and around every temple of God and 
 altar of man." 
 
 The resolution of the gallant city with its defences rein 
 forced by the fortunate Beauregard was now to be put to a 
 much more severe test, for it was to encounter the shock of the 
 bulk of Grant s army. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 331 
 
 Smith s corps, having disembarked at Bermuda Hundred on 
 the 14th, moved rapidly upon Petersburg, and made an assault 
 on the batteries covering the approaches to the city on the 
 northeast. Having got possession of this line of works, held 
 principally by Confederate militia, Smith waited the coming 
 up of the Second Corps. 
 
 On the evening of the 16th an attack was ordered on the 
 Confederate line of works in front of Petersburg, Smith s corps 
 being on the right, on the Petersburg and City Point road, 
 west of the railroad, the Second Corps in the centre, and Burn- 
 side on the left, reaching the Prince George Courthouse road. 
 The assault was not only repulsed at every point, but our 
 troops, assuming the aggressive, drove the Yankees from their 
 breastworks at Hewlett s House, captured some of their guns, 
 and opened upon them an enfilading fire, under which they fied 
 precipitately. 
 
 The most furious assault of the enemy had been made on 
 General Hoke s front, whose division occupied a position facing 
 batteries from Nine to Twelve inclusive. Three different 
 charges were repulsed by these heroic troops. In the final re 
 pulse of the enemy, a large portion of a Yankee brigade, being 
 exposed to an enfilading artillery fire from our guns, sought 
 shelter in a ravine, and surrendered to the Sixty -fourth Georgia 
 regiment. 
 
 On Friday, June 17th, fighting was renewed without result. 
 The next day it was resolved by the enemy to make an assault 
 along the whole line for the purpose of carrying the town. It 
 was thus that the action of the 18th was designed to be decisive 
 of operations in the present position. 
 
 Three different assaults were made by the enemy during the 
 day at four in the morning, at noon, and at four in the after 
 noon. Each one was repulsed. Hancock and Burnside in the 
 centre suffered severely. 
 
 After severe losses on the part of all the Tankee corps, night 
 f >und the Confederates still in possession of their works cover 
 ing Petersburg. 
 
 The disaster of this day left Grant without hope of making 
 any impression on the works in his front, and placed him under 
 the necessity of yet another change of operations. The series 
 of engagements before Petersburg had cost him at least ten 
 
332 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 thousand men in killed and wounded, and had culminated >n 
 another decisive defeat. 
 
 The misfortune of the enemy appeared, indeed, to be over 
 whelming. Pickett s division had given him another lesson at 
 Port Walthal Junction. It was here the heroes of Gettysburg 
 repulsed a force under Gillmore engaged in destroying the rail 
 road, took two lines of his breastworks, and put him to disas 
 trous flight. 
 
 Nor was there any compensation to be found in the auxiliary 
 parts of Grant s second grand combination. Sheridan had 
 failed to perform his part. He was intercepted by Hampton s 
 cavalry at Trevillian Station on the Gordonsville road, defeated 
 in an engagement on the 10th, and compelled to withdraw his 
 command across the North Anna. Hunter had come to similar 
 grief, and his repulse at Lynchburg involved consequences of 
 the gravest disaster to the enemy. 
 
 On the 18th of June, Hunter made an attack upon Lynch 
 burg from the south side, which was repulsed by troops that 
 had arrived from General Lee s lines. The next day, more re 
 inforcements having come up, preparations were made to attack 
 the enemy, when he retreated in confusion. The Confederates 
 took thirteen of his guns, pursued him to Salem, and forced him 
 to a line of retreat into the mountains of Western Virginia. The 
 attempt of the Yankees to whitewash the infamous and cow 
 ardly denouement was more than usually refreshing. Hunter 
 officially announced that his expedition had been u extremely 
 successful ;" that he had left Lynchburg Because " his ammu 
 nition was running short ;" and that as to the singular line he 
 had taken up, he was now " ready for a move in any di 
 rection." 
 
 In the mean time General Morgan had done his part in 
 breaking up the enemy s combination in Western Virginia. 
 General Jones being ordered from the extreme Southwest, to 
 gether with all the troops he could transport, to Staunton at 
 the very time that Southwest Virginia was about to be in 
 vaded by Burbridge, General Morgan held a brief and hasty 
 conference with him on the eve of his departure, in which it 
 was agreed b} T both generals that it would be in vain to meet 
 Burbridge in front, and that, as the enemy had much more to 
 lose in Kentucky than we had in Virginia, the only chance of 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 333 
 
 paving the Southwest was by Morgan s dashing be Idly into the 
 heart of Kentucky, and in that way drawing Burb ridge away, 
 This plan was carried into effect, and completely succeeded. 
 Burbridge was lured back, his army scattered and crippled, 
 Southwest Virginia saved for the time, and the discomfited 
 general set to reorganizing liis command, a task which occu 
 pied him until the necessities of General Sherman rendered all 
 available reinforcements from Kentucky neeSful at Chattanooga. 
 
 These latter movements all took place in the iirst part of 
 June, after the date of the battle of Cold Harbor. They were 
 designed by Grant as auxiliary to his own movement upon. 
 Petersburg, and were a material part of the comprehensive 
 plan he had formed for completely isolating Richmond. When 
 these important movements west of the Blue Ridge, which had 
 their focus at Lynchburg, are considered in connection with 
 Sheridan s great raid in the same central direction, and with 
 the enterprises of Wilson and Kautz against the Danville and 
 Weldon railroads, all of them auxiliary to Grant s attempt 
 upon Petersburg, we are obliged to accord to the enemy s plan 
 of campaign for June, the merit of unusual grasp and ability. 
 Thanks to the miracles of Providence wrought for us on the 
 west of the Blue Ridge, and to the valor of our soldiers and 
 skill of our generals, so eminently displayed on the east, these 
 formidable movements, to encircle and overwhelm the capital 
 of the Confederacy and the State of Virginia, had completely 
 failed. 
 
 And yet the measure of misfortune in Grant s distracted 
 campaign appea/ed to be not yet full. On the 22d of June he 
 made a movement on his left to get possession of the Weldon 
 Railroad, but found the Confederates had extended their right 
 to meet him. While the Second and the Sixth corps of Grant s 
 army were attempting to communicate in this movement, the 
 Confederates, under General Anderson, pierced the centre, 
 captured a battery of four guns, and took prisoners one entire 
 brigade, General Pearce s, and part of another. 
 
 Another attempt or raid on the railroad, by Wilson s and 
 Kautz s divisions of cavalry, terminated in disaster. In the 
 neighborhood of Spottswood River, twenty-five miles south 
 of Petersburg, on the 28th, the expedition was attacked, cut in 
 two, the greater part of its artillery abandoned, and its wagon- 
 
334: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 trains left in the hands of the Confederates. The enemy had 
 been encountered by Hampton s cavalry, and Finnegan s and 
 Mahone s infantry brigades ; and the results of the various 
 conflicts were enumerated as one thousand prisoners, thirteen 
 pieces of artillery, thirty wagons and ambulances, anil many 
 small-arms. 
 
 THE GREAT MINE EXPLOSION. 
 
 But some weeks later another remarkable and desperate 
 attempt was to be made by Grant upon Petersburg, the arti 
 fice and elaboration of which were among the greatest curiosi 
 ties of his campaign. A citizen of Petersburg had, early in 
 July, printed what was supposed to be a crazy letter, stating 
 that he had certain information, at which General Lee would 
 probably laugh, and which he preferred to communicate tc 
 the more credulous quarter of the newspapers, to the effect 
 that Grant designed to mine the city of Petersburg, blow it 
 into the air, and thus accomplish its destruction. 
 
 Although the scheme of the Yankees was not quite so ex 
 tensive, it was elaborate and formidable enough. For six weeks 
 Grant had been preparing a mine on the slopes of Cemetery 
 Hill, with the view of opening the way to an assault on the 
 second line of works that crowned its crest. From day to day, 
 by the aid of the shovel and the pick, the Yankee lines 
 had been insidiously advanced by zigzags and covered ways, 
 until the outlying pickets of both armies scarcely averaged 
 500 yards distance between them. Along portions of the line, 
 the interval between the rifle-pits was scarcely 150 yards. 
 The crest of Cemetery Hill frowning with guns was not more 
 than 800 yards distant from the advanced works of the 
 Yankees, and its gently sloping sides were welted with long 
 rows of earthworks, pitted with redoubts and redans, and 
 ridged with serried salients and curtains, and other skilful 
 defences. 
 
 To draw off the attention of the Confederates from his real 
 business, Grant had ordered the Second corps to cross to the 
 north side of the James ; and at the same time an empty train 
 of four hundred wagons crossed the Appomattox in view of 
 the Confederate signal stations. 
 
THE LAST YEAE. 335 
 
 it was appointed that the mine, which contained eight tons 
 of powder, should be exploded at three o clock in the morning 
 of the 30th July, and that thereupon Bnrnside, who com 
 manded the Yankee centre, should pierce the works in front ot 
 him. Simultaneously with the advance of the infantry, every 
 piece of siege artillery posted along the line was ordered to 
 open upon the Confederates ; and all the field artillery which 
 could be got into position, after the opening of the battle, was 
 to advance, as opportunity offered, and bring their batteries 
 into play. It was naturally expected that the shock of the ex 
 plosion, and of the suddenness of this awful fire, would have a 
 demoralizing effect, anfl so make the way of the infantry easier. 
 
 The mine was not exploded until half-past four o clock in the 
 morning. The earth was rent along the entire course of the ex 
 cavation, exhibiting a yawning chasm ; in some places it heaved 
 slowly and majestically to the surface; in others, where the 
 charge in the burrow was heaviest, immense masses of dull, 
 red earth were thrown high in air, and human forms, and gun- 
 carriages, and small-arms, might be seen shooting up in this 
 fountain of horror. 
 
 But the explosion had only demolished a six-gun battery 
 It was followed immediately by such a thunder of artillery as 
 had seldom been heard before. Ninety-five pieces niched in 
 every hill-side, commanding the position of the Confederates, 
 belched out their sheets of flame and milk-white smoke, while 
 screeching and howling shell sped forward in their work of 
 destruction. But the Confederates were not dismayed. In a 
 few moments their own pieces were replying, and banks of 
 angry smoke partially veiled the field from both sides. 
 
 In the midst of the shock of artillery, through the dense 
 clouds of flying dust, the assaulting column of the Yankees 
 passed through the crater, fifty feet in length, and half as many 
 wide, in what was supposed to be the easy attempt of carrying 
 the second line of Confederate works. But there were men 
 there ready to receive them who had never flinched from 
 death, and who were not to be alarmed by loud and furious 
 noises. Some col \red troops, under General White s com 
 mand, were pushed forward, but the poor creatures, unwilling 
 to be thus sacrificed, were soon panic-stricken and past con 
 trol. They crushed into the ranks of the white troops and 
 
336 SOUTHERN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 broke through to the rear. The demoralization was rapid. 
 The whole mass of Yankees, broken and shattered, swept back 
 like a torrent into the crater, which was soon choked with the 
 flying and the dead. An order was given to retreat to the old 
 lines, but to do this an open space had to be traversed, and 
 this again was closely dotted with Yankee dead. 
 
 The action was very brief, very terrible, very decisive. 
 Nothing in the war exceeded it in point of severity, and prob 
 ably no conflict had ever been attended with all the appoint 
 ments of war displayed in sucli graphic prominence. The 
 explosion of the mine, the tremendous peals of artillery and 
 musketry, the effort of the attacking column, the carnage, 
 and finally the retreat of the Yankees to their old lines, all 
 composed a scene of terrible and thrilling interest. 
 
 The Yankee loss was quite five thousand ; that of the 
 Confederates was trivial in comparison. It was thus stated in 
 detail : Mahone s division, four hundred and fifty ; Elliot s South 
 Carolina brigade, which was in the blown up fort, three hun 
 dred ; Ransom, Clingrnan, and Wise, whose commands were 
 under musketry and artillery firing for some time, three hundred. 
 
 The ghastly failure of this last of Grant s attempts upon 
 Petersburg appeared to be almost sufiicient to persuade the 
 Yankee public that his whole campaign had been a failure. 
 Some intelligent Yankee newspapers made peculiar comments 
 upon it. The Intelligencer, published in Washington, said : 
 u After a loss of more than five thousand men, the army haa 
 made no advance towards the capture of that city, which is 
 itself only an outpost of the city of Richmond. The delay in 
 springing the mine, the want of concert and promptitude in 
 following up the explosion with a dash by our assaulting 
 column, and the inaptitude which ordered that this assaulting 
 column should be selected from the least trustworthy and 
 homogeneous corps in the. army, are a sufficient explanation 
 perhaps of this calamity." The New York Times was yet 
 more querulous and explicit. It said : " Under the most favor 
 able circumstances, with the rebel force reduced by two great 
 detachments, we failed to carry their lines. Will they not 
 conclude that the twenty-five thousand men that held Grant 
 in check are sufficient to garrison the works of Petersburg ? 
 Will they not conclude that, if they were able thus to 
 
4 
 THE LAST YEAR. 337 
 
 hold their own with the force of from eighteen to twenty tliou 
 sand men sent to the north side of the James River neutral 
 ized, this force is available for active operations elsewhere ?" 
 
 It was evident that the spirit of the North had commenced 
 to stagger under this accumulation of disaster. Gold had al 
 ready nearly touched three hundred. The uneasy whispers in 
 Washington of another draft gave new suggestions to popular 
 discontent. The Confederate Congress had adjourned, after the 
 publication of an address referring to recent military events 
 and the confirmed resolution of the Southland deprecating the 
 enemy s continuance of the war. These declarations were 
 eagerly seized upon by Northern journals, who insisted that 
 no time should be lost in determining whether they might not 
 possibly signify a willingness on the part of the South to make 
 peace on the basis of new constitutional guaranties. The 
 finances at Washington were becoming desperate. Mr. Chase, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, had peremptorily resigned. His 
 last \vords of official counsel were, that nothing could save the 
 finances but a series of military successes of undoubted mag 
 nitude. 
 
 The brilliant and so far successful campaign of General Lea 
 in Virginia added, if that were possible, to the popular confi 
 dence and devotion which were concentrated upon liiiri more 
 than any other man of the South. lie had indulged in no 
 terms of exultation. He had written the history of his great 
 summer campaign of 186i, in brief telegrams in which there 
 was never a stray word, and the fullest expressions of which 
 were ascriptions of success to the providence of God. Now in 
 the highest moments of Confederate confidence and expectation, 
 when indeed the people of the South had reason to suppose 
 that they stood on the threshold of peace, and were about to 
 crown their hopes with triumph, General Lee was still the 
 modest and reserved commander, never raising his voice in a 
 note of triumph, or spending a comment upon the situation of 
 affairs. 
 
 A newspaper printed in Virginia complained that " General 
 Lee never speaks," and with playful but sagacious comment 
 continued : " What does he think about? None of us can read 
 the thoughts of that impenetrable bosom. It is appropriate 
 that the hero of this story should not be garrulous ; the sadneea 
 
* 
 .38 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 of the time renders it fitting that the helmsman should guido 
 the ship with few words spoken. Perhaps it is by his very 
 reserve that General Lee has contributed, as much as by any 
 other quality, to make the impression he has made on his fel 
 low-citizens. He came before them at the beginning of the 
 war by no means the American ideal of a great man. That 
 personage was expected to appear with a hullabaloo ; hp. was 
 to descend in a shower of fireworks, and environed by a myriad 
 of bursting lights and crackling explosions. For a quiet, un 
 demonstrative gentleman to step upon the scenes was not at all 
 to their liking ; and therefore in the beginning, General Lee 
 was not popular." 
 
 " Here comes a man bred in the army. He had been reared 
 a gentleman. He despised humbug. He loved order, and 
 every thing and everybody in his place. He told the ladies 
 at Culpepper Courthouse, in 1861, who came out to greet 
 him, to go home. In Richmond they said he had no man 
 ners ; he attended to his business, and spoke little. They sent 
 him to Western Virginia a small theatre, when Beauregard 
 was at Manassas and Johnston, was at Winchester ; he went, 
 and made no comment. The campaign failed they called 
 him Turveydrop he did not attempt to excuse himself. Soo 
 we find him in a blaze of glory, the hero of the battles around 
 Richmond. He is still silent. He marches to Manassas, and 
 achieves another great victory. Not a word escapes him. He 
 takes Winchester, is foiled at Sharpsburg for the want of men 
 defeats Burnside at Fredericksbnrsr Hooker at Chancellors- 
 
 O 
 
 ville but he breaks not his silence. He has the terrible trial 
 of Gettysburg he only remarked, It was my fault and then 
 in the present year he has conducted this greatest of all his 
 campaigns undoubtedly one of the finest in the war. Silent 
 still. When will he speak ? Has he nothing to say ? What 
 does he think of our affairs ? Should he speak, how the country 
 w aid hang upon every word that fell f om him !" 
 
 THE SINKING OF THE PKIVATEER ALABAMA. 
 
 We must note here, as belonging to the period of Confederate 
 ET ijcesses we have narrated, an event of the war which con 
 siderably qualified the general exultation of the South. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 339 
 
 While tne general situation on land, especially in Virginia, 
 was so advantageous for the Confederacy, and the grand events 
 of tho campaign of 1864 had so far been decided in its favor, 
 there occurred an incident of disaster, which, though distant 
 in point of space, and of but little real importance in the de 
 cision of the general fortune of the war, was yet the subject of 
 keen and peculiar regret to the Confederates. 
 
 This incident was the loss of the famous privateer Alabama. 
 She had eluded the Yankee naval vessels at the Cape of Good 
 Hope and Straits of Sunda, and returning westward had pro 
 ceeded to the French port of Cherbourg. Here Captain Semmes 
 of the Alabama was strongly persuaded probably by those 
 who valued the eclat abroad of the Southern arms more than 
 the substantial interests of the Confederacy, so unequally 
 matched in the war, especially in point of naval power to 
 risk his vessel in a gratuitous fight with a Yankee steamer 
 lying off the harbor the Kearsarge. The o nly object of such 
 a naval duel could be the desire of a certain glory on the part 
 of Captain Semmes, for which he took the unwarrantable risk 
 of sacrificing the only really formidable naval structure of the 
 Confederates. It should have occurred to him that, even in 
 the event of success, he would inflict no appreciable injury 
 upon the enemy s naval power, and would secure nothing more 
 than some of that idle glory which was already cheap with his 
 countrymen. 
 
 The ships were about equal in match, the tonnage being 
 about the same the Alabama carrying one 7-inch Blakely 
 rifled gun, one 8-inch smooth-bore pivot gun, and six 32- 
 pounders, smooth-bore, in broadside ; the Kearsarge carrying 
 four broadside 32-pounders, two 11-inch and one 28-pound 
 rifle. On the morning of the 19th of June, the Alabama steamed 
 out of the harbor of Cherbourg, for the purpose of engaging 
 the Kearsarge, which had been lying off-and-on the port for 
 several days previously. She came up with the latter at a dis 
 tance of about seven miles from the shore. The vessels were 
 about one mile from each other, when the Alabama opened 
 with solid shot upon the enemy, to which he replied in a few 
 minutes. 
 
 To prevent passing each other too speedily, and to maintain 
 their respective broadsides bearing, it became necessary to fight 
 
340 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 in a circle, the two ships steaming around a common centre, 
 and preserving a distance from each other of from a quarter to 
 half a mile. The enemy s shot and shell began to tell upon 
 the hull of the Alabama. Captain Semmes remarked that hia 
 shell, though apparently exploding against the sides of tho 
 Kearsarge, were doing her but little damage, and returned to 
 solid shot firing, afterwards alternating with shot and shell. 
 
 In little more than an hour, the Alabama was ascertained 
 to be in a sinking condition, the enemy s shell having exploded 
 in her sides and between decks, opening large apertures, 
 through which the water rushed with great rapidity. For 
 some few minutes Captain Semmes had hopes of being able to 
 reach the French coast, for which purpose he gave the ship all 
 steam, and set such of the fore and aft sails as were available. 
 The ship filled so rapidly, however, that before she had made 
 much progress the fires were extinguished in the furnaces, and 
 she was evidently on the point of sinking. 
 
 Captain Semmes hauled down his colors, when the Kearsargo 
 was within four hundred yards of him. Yet the enemy fired 
 upon the Alabama five times after her colors had been struck. 
 "It is charitable to suppose," says Captain Sernmes, " that a 
 ship of war of a Christian nation could not have done this in 
 tentionally." 
 
 As the Alabama was on the point of settling, every man, in 
 obedience to a previous order which had been given the crew, 
 jumped overboard and endeavored to save himself. There 
 was no appearance of any boat corning from the enemy after 
 the Alabama went down. Fortunately, however, the steam- 
 yacht Deerhound, owned by a gentleman of Lancashire, Eng 
 land, Mr. John Lancaster, who was himself on board, steamed 
 up in the midst of the drowning men, and rescued a number 
 of both officers and men from the water, among them Captain 
 Semmes himself. 
 
 The ]oss of the Alabama in killed and wounded was thirty. 
 There was no life lost on the Kearsarge ; and although she had 
 received thirteen or fourteen shots in and about the hull, and 
 sixteen or seventeen about the masts and risking, she was not 
 
 OO O 
 
 materially damaged. In his official report of the fight, Captain 
 Semmes said : " At the end of the engagement, it was discovered 
 by those of our officers who went alongside the enemy s ship with 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 311 
 
 the wounded, that her midship section, on both sides, was thor 
 oughly iron- coated; this having been done with chain con 
 structed for fhe purpose, placed perpendicularly from the rail 
 to the waters edge, the whole covered over by a thin outer 
 planking, which gave no indication of the armor beneath. 
 This planking had been ripped off in every direction by our 
 shot and shell, the chain broken and indented in many places, 
 and forced partly into the ship s side. She was most effectually 
 guarded, however, in this section from penetration." 
 
 The loss of the Alabama was a most severe blow to the pri 
 vateer service of the South. That service had already caused 
 nearly a thousand Yankee vessels to be sold to foreign shipping 
 merchants ; and it was officially reported at Washington that 
 478,665 tons of American shipping were flying other flags. Such 
 had been the terror inspired by Confederate privateers, of 
 which the Alabama had been, by far, the most formidable. 
 She alone had accomplished a work of destruction estimated 
 at from eight to ten millions of dollars. It was reported that 
 the news of her loss was received on the exchanges of New York 
 and Boston with a joy far livelier than would have been con 
 ceived by these commercial patriots, if they had heard of a 
 great victory over Lee s army in Virginia. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTEK XYI. 
 
 Sherman s campaign in Georgia. How parallel with that in Virginia. The t; sir* 
 of Grant and Sherman compared. Numerical inferiority of General Johnston s 
 forces. His proposition to the Richmond authorities. Pragmatism of President 
 Davis and his secretary. Engagement in Kesaca Valley. General Johnston * 
 designs. Why Le retreated. His disappointment of a battle at Cassville, E.\- 
 OAGEMENT AT NEW HOPE CHURCH. True theory of the retrograde movement oi 
 Johnston. BATTLE OF KENESAW MOUNTAIN. Sherman s confession. Sherman- 
 master of the Chattahoochee. Johnston falls back to Atlanta. The vexed ques 
 tion of Johnston s retreat, What it surrendered. What it secured. Its strategic 
 advantages. The enemy s movements in Virginia and Georgia both in check. 
 Disappointment of the enemy. Statistics of Yankee recruiting. Another Con 
 federate success. Defeat of Sturgis. " The Avengers of Fort Pillow." Barbar 
 ities of the enemy s summer campaign. Augmentation of Yankee ferocity. Its 
 effect on the Confederates. Offensive operation of the Confederates. --Three 
 projects of invasion. EARLY S INVASION OF MARYLAND, &c. Sigel s retreat.-- 
 BATTLE OF MONOCACY BRIDGE. Early loses the great opportunity of 1864. Res nit* 
 of his expedition. Engagement at Kernstown. MORGAN S INVASION OF KSN- 
 TCCKY. Rid failure. PRICE S INVASION OF MISSOURI. Pilot Knob. General Ew 
 ing s retreat. Price retires. 
 
 PARALLEL and concurrent with Grant s summer campaign 
 in Virginia, wag the more difficult but less deadly campaign 
 of Sherman in Georgia. Grant s point d appui was on the 
 Kapidan, while Sherman s was at Chattanooga, in Tennessee. 
 The Alleghany Mountains separated these grand movements; 
 a thousand miJos of distance intervened between them ; com 
 munication between them was rare, and, to a certant extent, 
 impossible. There is no doubt that Sherman had the more 
 difficult tasl: to accomplish. He had but a single line of rail 
 way to reac 7 i his objective point, Atlanta, and this traversed a 
 wild and mountainous country. Grant could change his baso 
 at pleasure, or as circumstances required it; he had water 
 eommuir>,tttion y/ith the North, and transports within hailing 
 distance; he could run no danger from lack of subsistence or 
 munitions of war. Again, Sherman, passing through a broken 
 and intricate country, had to guard his flanks and rear, at 
 every step, from cavalry. Grant had only to put an army of 
 occupation in the Shenandoah Valley to close the single defilo 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 343 
 
 fjetweeu the great mountain ridges of Virginia, and thus 
 securely protect his rear from even the possibility of danger. 
 
 It appears from the official report of General Sherman s oper 
 ations, that he had estimated the force required to reach and 
 capture Atlanta, at one hundred thousand men and two hundred 
 and fifty pieces of artillery : he started with ninety-eight thon 
 sand seven hundred and ninety-seven men and two hundred and 
 fifty-four guns. This force was divided as follows : Army of 
 the Cumberland, Major-General Thomas, sixr/ thousand seven 
 hundred and seventy-three men, one hundred and thirty guns; 
 Army of the Tennessee, Major-General McPherson, twenty- 
 four thousand four hundred and sixty-five men, ninety-six 
 guns ; Army of the Ohio, Major-General Schofield, thirteen 
 thousand five hundred and fifty-nine men, twenty-eight guns. 
 Sherman s intention was to make these proportions fifty thou 
 sand, thirty-five thousand, and fifteen thousand, but that 
 wretched fiasco known as the Red River Expedition kept back 
 some of McPherson s troops, and, besides ruining itself, did as 
 much as possible towards impeding Sherman. It will be seen 
 he was furnished within twelve hundred of the number of men 
 he asked for. 
 
 Here again we have the repetition of the story of fearful 
 odds against the Confederates. General Joseph E. Johnston, 
 who had taken command of the Army of Tennessee, had held 
 the Confederate lines in North Georgia, during the winter, 
 with thirty odd thousand men. On the 1st of December, 1864 t 
 he enumerated the effective total of the infantry and artillery 
 of the army, including two brigades belonging to the depart 
 ment of Mississippi, as 36,826. The effective total of the 
 cavalry, including Roddy s command at Tuscumbia, was 
 5,613. 
 
 In the last weeks of February, 1865, General Johnston .had 
 proposed to the government at Richmond an offensive move 
 ment against the enemy, on the just ground that he was in 
 creasing the disproportion of numbers, and would take the 
 Confederates at greater disadvantage than if they were to 
 essay at once a forward movement and try issues with him. 
 The proposition lingered in the War Department from Feb 
 ruary to May. General Bragg and President Davis had their 
 own plan of offensive operations. General Johnston in vain 
 
344 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 telegraphed to Richmond: "I expressly accept taking the 
 offensive ; I only differ with yon as to details." But " the 
 details" dictated at Richmond were insisted upon ; and when 
 eventually, in the latter part of April, President Davis sent an 
 officer to Georgia to explain his wishes to Johnston, the enemy 
 had already prepared to make his long-meditated and for mi 
 dahle movement. 
 
 On the 1st of May, General Johnston reported the enemy 
 ready to advance. The effective artillery and infantry of the 
 Army of Tennessee amounted then to 40,900 ; the effective 
 cavalry to about four thousand. With this force Johnston 
 had to fight more than twice his numbers, and had no other 
 prospect of compensation but in superior skill and strategy. 
 
 Sherman moved on Dalton in three columns ; Thomas in 
 front, Schofield from Cleveland on the northeast, while Mc- 
 Pherson threw himself on the line of communication southwest 
 at Resaca, fifteen miles south of Dalton. On the 7th of May 
 Thomas occupied Tunnel Hill, ten miles northwest of Dalton, 
 and took up a strong position at Buzzard s Roost. By the 
 flank movement on Resaca, Johnston was forced to evacuate 
 Dalton. 
 
 On the 14th the first important engagement of the campaign 
 took place in Resaca valley. Two efforts were made to carry 
 the breastworks of the Confederates, without success, when 
 Johnston, in the afternoon, assumed the offensive, and drove 
 the enemy some distance, with a loss which his own bulletins 
 stated to be two thousand. 
 
 On the 15th there was desultory fighting, and on the 16th 
 General Johnston took up, at leisure, his line of retrograde 
 movement in the direction of the Etowah River, passing 
 through Kingston and Cassville. 
 
 It was clear, in General Johnston s mind, that the great nu 
 inerical superiority of the Yankee army made it expedient to 
 risk battle only when position, or some blunder of the enemy, 
 might give him counter-balancing advantages. He therefore 
 determined to fall back slowly, until circumstances should put 
 the chances of battle in his favor, keeping so near the Yankee 
 army as to prevent its sending reinforcements to Grant, and 
 hoping, by taking advantage of positions and opportunities, to 
 reduce the odds against him by partial engagements. He also 
 
THE LAST YEAR. ,345 
 
 expected it to be materially reduced, before the end of Jinn;, by 
 the expiration of the terms of service of many of the regiments 
 which had not re-enlisted. In this way he fell back to Cassville 
 in two marches. 
 
 Expecting to be attacked, Johnston had drawn up his troops 
 in an excellent position on a bold ridge immediately in rear 
 of Cassville, with an open valley before it. But there appears 
 to have been some doubts among his officers as to the value of 
 the position. Lieutenant-Generals Polk and Hood together 
 expressed the Opinion, very decidedly, that the Yankee artillery 
 would drive them, the next day, from their positions, and urged 
 General Johnston to abandon the ground immediately, and 
 cross the Etowah. Lieutenant-General Hardee was confident 
 that he could hold his position. Of this dilemma, General 
 Johnston writes in his official report : " The other two officers, 
 however, were so earnest and unwilling to depend on the ability 
 of their corps to defend the ground, that I yielded, and the 
 army crossed the Etowah on the 20th of May, a step which J 
 have regretted ever since" 
 
 ENGAGEMENT AT NEW HOPE CHURCH. 
 
 On the 25th the enemy was found to be intrenched near and 
 east of Dallas. Hood s corps was placed with its centre near 
 New Hope Church, and Folk s and Hardee s ordered between 
 it and the Atlanta road, which Hardee s left was to cover. 
 An hour before sunset Stewart s division, at New Hope Church, 
 was fiercely attacked b}^ Hooker s corps, which it repulsed 
 after a hot engagement of two hours. Skirmishing was kept 
 up on the 26th and 27th. At half past five, P. M., on the 27th, 
 Howard s corps assailed Cleburne s division, and was driven 
 back, about dark, with great slaughter. In these two actions 
 the Confederates were not intrenched. Their loss in each was 
 about four hundred and fifty in killed and wounded. On the 
 27th the enemy s dead, except those borne off, were counted 
 six hundred, and a reasonable estimate of their entire loss may, 
 therefore, be stated as certainly not less than three thousand 
 
 So far, the retrograde movement of Johnston was, in some 
 respects, a success. It had been attended with at least two 
 
34:6 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 considerable victories Resaca and New Hope ; it had bu-n 
 executed deliberately, being scarcely ever under the immediate 
 pressure of the enemy s advance ; and it had now nearly ap 
 proached the decisive line of the Chattahoochee, or whatever 
 other line he, who was supposed to be the great strategist of 
 the Confederacy, should select for the cover of Atlanta. The 
 events of the campaign, so far, were recounted with character 
 istic modesty by General Johnston. On the 1st of June he 
 telegraphed to Richmond of his army : " In partial engage 
 ments it has had great advantages, and the sum of all the com 
 bats amounts to a battle." 
 
 The two armies continued to manoeuvre for position. Skir 
 mishing was kept up until the 4th of June, the enemy gradu 
 ally extending his intrenched line towards the railroad and 
 Ackworth. On the morning of the 5th the army was formed 
 with its left at Lost Mountain, its centre near Gilgath Church, 
 and its right near the railroad. On the 7th, the right, covered 
 by Noonday Creek, was extended across the Ackworth and 
 Marietta road. The enemy approached under cover of succes 
 sive lines of iutrenchments. On the 19th a new line was taken 
 by Johnston ; Hood s corps with its right on the Marietta and 
 Canton road, Loring s on the Kenesaw Mountain, and Hardee s 
 with its left extending across the Lost Mountain and Marietta 
 road. The enemy approached, as usual, under cover of in 
 trench ment. In this position there was incessant lighting and 
 skirmishing until July 3d, the enemy gradually extending hia 
 intrenched right towards Atlanta. 
 
 BATTLE OF KENK8AW MOUNTAIN. 
 
 On the 27th of June, General Sherman directed an attack on 
 Johnston s position at Keuesaw Mountain. This mountain 
 was the apex of Johnston s lines. Both armies were in strong 
 works, the opposite salients being so near, in some places, that 
 skirmishers could not be thrown out. The assault of the en 
 emy was made in three columns, about eight o clock in the 
 morning. It was repulsed on every part of the Confederate 
 line. The assaults were most vigorous on Cheatham s and 
 Clebu.ne s divisions of Hardee s corps, and French s and 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 347 
 
 featherstone s of Loring s. Lieutenant-General Hardee re 
 ported that Cheatham s division lost in killed, wounded, and 
 missing, one hundred and ninety-five. The enemy opposed to 
 *t, by the statement of staff-officers subsequently captured, lost 
 two thousand. The loss of Cleburne s division was eleven, 
 that of the enemy in his front, one thousand ; and Major-Gen 
 end Loring reported two hundred and thirty-six of his corps 
 killed, wounded, and missing. The loss of the enemy, by their 
 own estimates, was between twenty-five hundred and three 
 thousand. Of this affair General Sherman wrote, with rare 
 candor, or with peculiar recklessness, that it was a failure ; 
 but that it demonstrated to General Johnston the enemy s 
 courage that it " would assault, and that boldly." 
 
 Sherman, on the failure of the Kenesaw assault, again re 
 sorted to manoeuvring. McPherson s whole army was thrown 
 rapidly to the Chattahoochee. On the 22d of July, Johnston 
 finding the enemy s right nearer to Atlanta, by several rniles, 
 than our left, the army fell back, during the night, to Smyrna 
 Church. On the 4th, Major-General Smith reported that he 
 should be compelled to withdraw, on the morning of the 5th, 
 to the line of intrenchments covering the railroad bridge arid 
 Turner s Ferry. The army was, therefore, ordered to retire at 
 the same time to that line, to secure our bridges. The cavalry 
 crossed the Chattahoochee Wheeler observing it for some 
 twenty miles above, and Jackson as far below. 
 
 Sherman was left master of the Chattahoochee, and Atlanta 
 lay but eight miles distant. Peach-tree Creek, and the river 
 below its mouth, was now taken by Johnston for his line of 
 defence. _ A position on the high ground south of the creek 
 was selected for the army, from which to attack the enemy 
 while crossing. The engineer officers, with a large force of 
 negroes, were set to work to strengthen the fortifications of 
 Atlanta ; and the two armies confronted each other in what 
 was unmistakably the crisis of the Georgia campaign. 
 
 We can easily state the just and historical merits of that 
 question so much discussed in Confederate prints the retreat 
 of Johnston to Atlanta. Something may always be said on 
 both sides of a question which has divided the public mind, 
 and been a topic of a certain censure as well as of approbation. 
 
 It is true that, in some respects, Johnston s retreat to At- 
 
3i8 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 lanta was a sore disappointment to the Confederate public ; 
 for it had given up to the Yankees half of Georgia, abandoned 
 one of the finest wheat districts of the Confederacy, almost 
 ripe for harvest; and at Rome and on the Etowah River, had 
 surrendered to the enemy iron-rolling mills, and government 
 works of great value. 
 
 In other respects, however, the retreat had been a master 
 piece of strategy, and a solid as well as a splendid success. 
 The loss of our infantry and artillery, from the 5th of May, had 
 been about ten thousand in killed and wounded, and four 
 thousand seven hundred from all ojther causes. According to 
 the opinions of our most experienced officers, daily reports of 
 prisoners, and statements of Northern papers, the enemy s loss 
 in action could not have been less than five times as great 
 as ours. 
 
 The strategic advantages which Johnston had secured in hia 
 retreat were indisputable. " At Dalton," writes Johnston, 
 " the great numerical superiority of the enemy made the 
 chances of battle much against us ; and, even if beaten, they 
 had a safe refuge behind the fortified pass of Ringgold and in the 
 fortress of Chattanooga. Our refuge, in case of defeat, was in 
 Atlanta, one hundred miles off, with three rivers intervening. 
 Therefore, victory for us could have been decisive, while 
 defeat would have been utterly disastrous. Between Dalton 
 and the Chattahoochee we could have given battle only by 
 attacking the enemy intrenched, or so near intrenchments that 
 the only result of success to us would have been his falling 
 back into them; while defeat would have been our ruin. In 
 the course pursued, our troops, always fighting under cover, 
 had very trifling losses, compared with those they inflicted ; 
 so that the enemy s numerical superiority was reduced daily 
 and rapidly, and we could reasonably have expected to cope 
 with the Federal army on equal ground by the time the Chat 
 tahoochee was passed. Defeat on this side of the river would 
 have been its destruction. We, if beaten, had a place of 
 refuge in Atlanta, too strong to be assaulted, and too extensive 
 to be invested." 
 
 It was clear, in the month of July, that a pause had been 
 given to the parallel operations of the enemy in Virginia and 
 Georgia; aimed, the one at Richmond, which the Yankees 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 349 
 
 entitled the heart and brains of the Confederacy ; and tho 
 other at Atlanta, the centre of important manufacturing eu 
 terprises, and the door to the great granary of the Gulf States. 
 Both movements were for the time unmistakably in check; 
 and the interlude of indecision afforded a curious commentary 
 on the boastful confidence that had recorded the fall of Rich 
 mond and the capture of Atlanta as the expectations of eacli 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 There was reason, indeed, for the North to be depressed. 
 The disappointment of the Yankees was with particular ref 
 erence to the, campaign of Grant in Virginia, The advance 
 from the Rapidan, which we have followed to its recoil before 
 Petersburg, had been made under conditions of success which 
 had attended no other movement of the enemy. It was made 
 after eight months deliberate preparation. In the Congress 
 at Washington it was stated that, in these eight months, the 
 Government had actually raised seven hundred thousand men, 
 an extent of preparation} which indicated an intention to 
 overwhelm and crush the Confederacy by a resistless combined 
 attack. Nor was this all. One hundred thousand three 
 months men were accepted from Ohio and other States, for 
 defensive service, in order that General Grant might avail 
 himself of the whole force of trained soldiers. The result of 
 the campaign, so far, did not justify the expectations on 
 which it had been planned. The Yankee Government which, 
 since the commencement of the war, had called for a grand 
 total of twenty-three hundred thousand men, and had actually 
 raised eighteen hundred thousand men, of an average term of 
 service of three years, to crush the Confederacy, saw, in the 
 fourth year of the war, the Confederacy erect and defiant, and 
 Richmond shielded by an army which had so far set at naught 
 the largest preparations and most tremendous exertions of 
 the North. 
 
 There had been successes, too, in other parts of the Con 
 federacy than Virginia and Georgia. While the movements 
 we have just been relating were taking place in Georgia, an 
 important event had taken place in the Southwest the defeat 
 of the Yankee expedition under Sturgis on its way from 
 Memphis to operate in Sherman s rear. In this action, at 
 Guntown (13th June), Sturgis lost most of his infantry and all 
 
odO SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 of his artillery and trains, and the Confederates, under Forrest, 
 achieved a victory that had an important influence on the 
 campaign in Georgia. Forrest took two thousand prisoners, 
 and killed and wounded an equal number. 
 
 This expedition, so severely punished, was one of peculiai 
 atrocity. Its crimes were enough to sicken the ear. I 
 flourished the title of the "Avengers of Fort Pillow." " Be 
 fore the battle," says a correspondent, " fugitives from the 
 counties through which Sturgis and his troops were advan 
 cing came into camp, detailing incidents which made men 
 shudder, who are accustomed to scenes of violence and blood 
 shed. I cannot relate the stories of these poor frightened 
 people. Rude unlettered men, who had fought at Shiloh, and 
 in many subsequent battles, wept like children when they 
 heard of the enormities to which their mothers, sisters, and 
 wives had been subjected by the negro mercenaries of Sturgis." 
 
 Indeed, we may state here, that the enemy s summer cam 
 paign in Virginia and in the West was, more than any other, 
 marked by the barbarities of the enemy. These barbarities 
 had, by regular augmentation, become more atrocious as the 
 war had progressed. In this year, they exceeded all that was 
 already known of the brutality of our enraged enemy. 
 
 General Sherman illustrated the campaign in the West by a 
 letter of instructions to General Burbridge, commanding in the 
 Department of Kentucky, charging him to treat all partisans 
 of the Confederates in that State as "wild beasts" It was the 
 invariable and convenient practice of the Yankees to designate 
 as "guerillas" whatever troops of the Confederates were par 
 ticularly troublesome to them ; and the opprobrious term was 
 made, by General Sherman, to include the regularly commis 
 sioned soldiers of General Morgan s command, and whatever 
 bodies of Confederate cavalry chose to roam over territory 
 which the enemy disputed.* 
 
 * Burbridge was not slow to cany out the suggestions or instructions of liia 
 masters. The following is a copy of a section of one of his orders. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT KENTUCKY, 
 FIFTH DIVISION, TWENTY-THIRD ARMY CORPS, 
 
 Lexington, Kentucky, July 16, 1864. 
 
 Rebel sympathizers living within five miles of any scene of outrage coin 
 mitted by armed men, not recognized as public enemies by the rules and 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 351 
 
 Some expressions in the orders referred to were cliaiajter 
 istic of the Yankee, and indicated those notions of constitu 
 tional law which had rapidly demoralized the North. General 
 Sherman declared that be had already recommended to Gov 
 ernor Brainle ite of Kentucky, " at one dash to arrest every 
 man in the country who was dangerous to it." "The fact is, 
 said this military Solomon, " in our country personal liberty 
 has been so well secured, that public safety is. lost sight of in 
 our laws and institutions; and the fact is, we are thrown back 
 one hundred years in civilization, laws, and every thing else, 
 and will go right straight to anarchy and the devil, if some 
 body don t arrest our downward progress. "We, the military, 
 
 must do it, and we have right and law on our side 
 
 Under this law, everybody can be made to stay at home and 
 mind his or her own business, and, if they won t do that, can 
 be sent away." These sage remarks on American liberty were 
 concluded with the recommendation that all males and females, 
 in sympathy with so-called " guerillas," should be arrested and 
 sent clown the Mississippi to some foreign land, where they 
 should be doomed to perpetual exile. 
 
 As Sherman advanced into the interior of Georgia he laid 
 waste the country, fired the houses, and even did not hesitate 
 at the infamous expedient of destroying the agricultural imple 
 ments of all those who produced from the soil subsistence for 
 man. He declared to the persecuted people that this time he 
 would have their property, but, if the war continued, next 
 year he would have their lives. Four hundred factory girls 
 whom he captured in Georgia he bundled into army wagons, 
 
 usages bf war, will be arrested and sent beyond the limits of the United 
 States. 
 
 In accordance with instructions from the major-general commanding tht 
 military district of the Mississippi, so much of the property of rebel sympathiz 
 ers as may be necessary to indemnify the Government or loyal citizens for 
 losses incurred by the acts of such lawless men, will be seized and appropriated 
 for this purpose. 
 
 Whenever an unarmed Union citizen is murdered, four guerillas will be 
 selected from the prisoners in the hands of the military authorities, and pub. 
 licly shot to death in the most convenient place near the scene of outra,ge. B> 
 command of 
 
 Brevet Major-Qeneral S. G. BUKBRIDGE. 
 
 J. B. DICE.SON, Captain and A A. General. 
 
852 SOUTHEEN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and ordered them to be transported beyond the Ohio, where 
 the poor girls were put adrift, far from home and friends, in a 
 strange land.* 
 
 From Chattanooga to Marietta there was presented to the 
 eye one vast scene of misery. The fugitives from ruined vil 
 lages or deserted fields sought shelter in the mountains. Cities 
 were sacked, towns burnt, populations decimated. All along 
 the roads were great wheat-fields, and crops sufficient to feed 
 all New England, which were to be lost for want of laborers. 
 The country had been one of the most beautiful of the Con 
 federacy. One looked upon the gentle undulations of the val 
 leys, terminating in the windings of the rivers, and flanked by 
 the majestic barriers of the mountains. This beautiful country 
 had been trodden over by both armies. In every town the 
 more public buildings and the more conspicuous residences had 
 been devoured by fire, or riddled with shot and shell. Every 
 house used as headquarters, or for Confederate commissary 
 stores, or occupied by prominent citizens, hud been singled out 
 by the enemy for destruction. In some instances chureh es 
 
 * The following announcement appeared in tlie Louisville newspapers : 
 
 u ARRIVAL OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM THE SOUTH. The train which arrived 
 from Nashville last evening brought up from the South two hundred and forty-nina 
 women and children, who are sent here by order of General Sherman, to be trans 
 ferred north of the Ohio "River, there to remain during the war. We understand 
 that thore are now at Nashville fifteen hundred women and children, who are in a 
 very destitute condition, and who are to be sent to this place to be sent North. A 
 number of them were engaged in the manufactories at Sweet Water at the time that 
 place was captured by our forces. These people are mostly in a destitute condition, 
 having no means to provide for themselves a support. Why they should be sent 
 here to be transferred North is more than we can understand." 
 
 It was also stated in these same papers that, when these women and children 
 arrived at Louisville, they were detained there and advertised to be hired out 
 as servants, to take the place of the large number of negroes who had been 
 liberated by the military authorities and were now gathered in large campa 
 throughout Kentucky, where they were fed and supported in idleness and 
 viciousness at the expense of the loyal taxpayers. Thus, while these negro 
 women were rioting and luxuriating in the Federal camps, on the bounty ol 
 the Government, the white women and children of the South were arrested at 
 their homes, and sent off as prisoners to a distant country, to be sold in bond 
 age, as the following advertisement fully attests : 
 
 " NOTICE. Families residing in the city or the country, wishing seamstresses or 
 servants, can be suited by applying at the refugee quarters on Broadway, betwecc 
 Ninth a;id Tenth. This is sav.ctioned by Captain Jones, provost-marshal." 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 353 
 
 had not escaped. They had been stripped for fire-wood or con 
 verted into barracks and hospitals. Fences were demolished, 
 and here and there a lordly mansion stood an unsightly ruin. 
 
 The vandalism of Hunter in Virginia drew upon him the 
 censure of the few journals in the North which made any pre 
 tension to the decencies of humanity. At Lexington, he had 
 burned the Virginia Military Institute with its valuable library, 
 philosophical arid chemical apparatus, relics and geological 
 specimens ; sacked Washington College, and burned the house 
 of ex-Governor Letches, giving his wife only ten minutes to 
 save a few articles of clothing. 
 
 Such enormities were monstrous enough ; they shocked the 
 moral sentiment of the age; yet they did not affright the soul 
 of the South. The outrages practised upon helpless women, 
 more helpless old age, arid hopeless poverty, assured the people 
 of the Confederacy of the character of their enemies, and the 
 designs of the war, and awakened resolution to oppose to the 
 last extremity the mob of murderers and lawless miscreants 
 who desecrated their soil and invaded their homes. 
 
 We turn from the dominant and controlling events of the 
 
 O 
 
 campaign of 1864, in Virginia and Georgia, to other fields ol 
 the war, which were within, or close upon the period which 
 our narrative so far has traversed. 
 
 There properly belonged to the campaign of the summer 
 and early fall of 1864 three projects of the Confederate inva 
 sion of the territory held or disputed by the enemy. Theso 
 were Early s invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, Mor 
 gan s invasion of Kentucky, and Price s invasion of Missouri. 
 Their results were small; opportunities were badly used ; in 
 brief, the Confederate attempts of 1864 at invasion did not 
 differ from the former weak experiments of the kind. 
 
 EAKLY S INVASION OF MARYLAND, ETC. 
 
 The Confederates had planned a series of offensive opera 
 tions on a small scale, the object of which was to interrupt the 
 main campaigns in the East and West. This line of opera 
 tions began with Early s invasion of Maryland. About the 
 same time the enemy was startled by the news of an invasion 
 
 88 
 
354 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF .THE WAR. 
 
 of Kentucky by a considerable body of Confederates, moving 
 into that State through Pound Gap. But Early s movement 
 was the superior one, and commands attention first. 
 
 After the engagement at Lynchburg, June 18, Hunter 
 found no way of escape so convenient as through the Blue 
 Ridge to Gauley. This left the way open for Early to move 
 i.p the valley. He did so, accompanied by a cavalry force 
 under Hansom, and reached the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 
 July 3, at a point just above Harper s Ferry, threatening 
 Martinsburg. Sigel, holding the latter place, fell back towards 
 Sharpsburg. The Confederates immediately occupied Mar 
 tinsburg, where they captured valuable stores. The same day 
 a fight occurred at Leetown, south of the railroad, in which 
 General Mulligan, covering Sigel s retreat, was finally forced 
 back to Sharpsburg, where he joined Sigel, and another en 
 gagement occurred. The Yankee forces being overpowered, 
 fell back to Maryland Heights. Max "Weber, evacuating 
 Harper s Ferry, joined Sigel. In the mean time, General E. 
 B. Tyler, protecting the railroad from Baltimore to the Mono- 
 cacy, prepared for resisting the Confederates and to reinforce 
 Sigel. General Lew Wallace joined him on the afternoon of 
 the 3d. 
 
 On Saturday, July 9, the Confederates disappeared from 
 Greencastle, Hagerstown, and from other points threatened ; 
 but this was only for the purpose of concentration. The 
 Yankee forces had evacuated Frederick the previous night, 
 and fallen back to Monocacy Bridge. 
 
 BATTLE OF MONOCACY BRIDGE. 
 
 The bridge is four miles from Frederick City. The river 
 runs due north and south. The railroad and national road 
 cross the river at very nearly the same point. As our troops 
 advanced towards the river from Frederick it became apparent 
 that some forces of the enemy, supposed at the time to be cav 
 alry, were holding the east bank. A couple of our batteries 
 opened on them from the front, while our cavalry were ordered 
 to go up the stream and cross over the bridge At the same 
 time a considerable force of our infantry moved down the 
 
THE LAST YEAR, 355 
 
 stream, and crossing south of the bridge, formed in a piece of 
 woods on the high ground. It was still believed that the en 
 emy had nothing but cavalry on the ground, but our infantry 
 being ordered forward, emerged into an open field and dis 
 covered the enemy s infantry drawn up in line of battle along 
 the railroad at the further end of the field. The railroad being 
 several feet lower than the field, the enemy had all the advan 
 tages of an intrenched position. Evans s brigade charged 
 across this field under a heavy fire of musketry. When within 
 fifty yards of the enemy s position, another body of the enemy 
 emerged from the woods on our right and attacked the brigade 
 in flank, and rendered its position critical ; but other of our 
 forces coming up, the enemy s flank movement was coun 
 teracted. A simultaneous charge was then made by our whole 
 line, when the enemy broke and fled, leaving between a thou 
 sand and twelve hundred dead and wounded, and seven hun 
 dred prisoners in our hands. The enemy left the railroad and 
 national pike and fled north in the direction of Gettysburg. 
 
 In this action, which lasted about two hours from the time 
 of firing the first shot, we lost in killed and wounded between 
 five and six hundred men and some valuable officers. 
 
 Our forces did not follow the enemy, but proceeded directly 
 towards Washington and Baltimore, making rapid marches, 
 but collecting cattle and horses along the route. 
 
 The Yankee capital was in imminent peril, and the whisper 
 ran through the North that it was already lost or surely 
 doomed. General Early might have taken it by assault. 
 There were only a few regiments to man its defences, and the 
 advance of the Confederates was waited hourly by a popula 
 tion thrown into pitiable consternation. But General Early 
 did not seize the great opportunity of 1864. He passed the 
 time in which he might have struck the decisive blow in weak 
 hesitation ; he reconnoitred the defences of Washington ; he 
 scattered his forces into expeditions to destroy telegraphs and 
 intercept trains ; but he could not make up his mind to attack 
 the Yankee capital, and with that characteristic Confederate 
 stupidity which never completed its victories, and was easily 
 pleased with half-way successes, he was satisfied with the re 
 sults of a raid, where, with more enterprise and persistence, he 
 might have achieved the most decisive and brilliant success of 
 
I 
 
 356 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tlie war marched into Washington, and made his name as 
 illustrious as that of Stonewall Jackson. 
 
 About the middle of July the Confederates began to disap 
 pear across the Potomac fords, carrying with them many ui 
 the fruits of their expedition. It was reported by General 
 Early that he brought south of the Potomac five thousand 
 horses and twenty-five hundred beef cattle. Besides this, his 
 cavalry and artillery were all supplied with new and valuable 
 horses. He had also* created a useful diversion, and compelled 
 Grant to weaken his army materially before Petersburg. But 
 it must be confessed that the results of his expedition fell be 
 low public expectation in the South, and that he was justly 
 charged with not having made full use of his opportunities. 
 
 After crossing the Potomac, General Early had occasion to 
 give another sharp lesson to the enemy. He turned back 
 upon Crook, who was pursuing him with about 15,000 infantry 
 and cavalry. The fight commenced between Bartonsville ana 
 Kernestown, about five miles from Winchester. Our forces 
 ran the enemy to Bunker s Hill, twelve miles beyond Win 
 chester, and thoroughly routed them. General Crook con 
 fessed to a loss of one thousand in killed and wounded. Oui 
 entire loss was sixty. After this General Early occupied Mar- 
 tinsburg, and a pause ensued in the campaign in the "Valley 
 nothing of any importance occurring for some weeks, except 
 the raid of a few hundred Confederate cavalry to Chambers- 
 burg, Pennsylvania, who burned a considerable portion of the 
 town. 
 
 General John Morgan s expedition into Kentucky was, o? . 
 the whole, a failure. In the early part of June, with some 
 2,500 men, he entered Kentucky by Pound Gap, and by swift 
 movements got possession of Paris, Georgetown, Cynthia, 
 Williainstown, Mount Sterling, and other towns. A passenger 
 train on the Louisville and Lexington Railroad, near Smith- 
 fluid, was attacked, and two passenger cars and a baggage car 
 burned. Other trains were attacked, and railroad communi 
 cation was for some days interrupted. On the 9th of June 
 General Burbridge, who followed Morgan from Pound Gap. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 357 
 
 came np with him at Mount Sterling, and Lad an indecisive 
 engagement. A portion of Morgan s command entered Lex 
 ingtoii at two o clock the next morning, burned the Kentucky 
 Central Railroad depot, and left at ten o clock, in the direction 
 of Georgetown and Frankfort. Part of the town of Cynthia 
 was also burned. Two Ohio regiments stationed there were 
 captured. On the 12th June, General Bin-bridge fell upon 
 Morgan s forces while at breakfast near Cynthia, and after an 
 hour s hard fighting defeated him, killing three hundred, 
 wounding nearly as many, and capturing nearly four hundred, 
 besides recapturing nearly one hundred of the Ohio troops, 
 and over one thousand horses. 
 
 It was late in September when offensive operations were 
 essayed in the distant and obscure country west of the Mis 
 sissippi. In that month, General Price moved into Missouri 
 with a force estimated at from ten to twenty thousand men. 
 A great excitement was produced, and it was thought that a 
 raid was contemplated on St. Louis. 
 
 Price s main army moved against the village of Pilot Knob, 
 86 miles south of St. Louis, the terminus of the railroad, and 
 the depot for supply of the lower outposts. Several desperate 
 assaults were made on this strongly fortified position of the 
 enemy. Under cover of the night, General Ewing, the Yankee 
 in command, evacuated Pilot Knob, and effected a disastrous 
 retreat to Rolla. In his official report he said : "The refugees, 
 men, women, and children, white and black, who clung to the 
 command, nearly sacrificed it by their panics. I had to throw 
 out the available fighting force, infantry and cavalry, as ad 
 vance and rear guards and flankers, leaving in the body of the 
 column the affrighted non-combatants and two sections of ar 
 tillery, not often brought into action on the retreat. Repeated 
 and stubborn efforts were made to bring us to a stand, and 
 could they have forced a halt of an hour they would have en 
 veloped and taken us ; but our halts, though frequent, were 
 brief, and were only to unlimber the artillery, stagger the pur 
 with a few rounds, and move on." 
 
358 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 General Price stopped short of Holla. For some cause 
 probably the demoralization of his army and their disappoint 
 ment of active sympathy in the country they had penetrated 
 he seems to have abandoned at this stage the original designs 
 of his expedition. He subsequently went into winter-quarter? 
 in the vicinity of Washington. He collected but few supplies, 
 and his men were reported to be in worse plight than when 
 they left Arkansas. 
 
THE LAST YEAE. 359 
 
 CHAPTEE XYli. 
 
 itreat revulsion in the public mind of the North in the summer of 1864. A genera 
 outcry for pei.ee. Spirit of Yankee newspapers. The Niagara Falls "Commis 
 sion." The Jacques-Gilmore Affair. Sorry figure of the Confederacy in thesa 
 negotiations. The question of peace negotiations in the Confederacy. True 
 method of peace. Manifesto of the Confederate Congress. Position of President 
 Davis His letter to Governor Vance, of North Carolina. The CHICAGO CONVEN 
 TION, etc. Speeches, etc. The real programme of the Democratic party. Why 
 it broke down. No virtue in public opinion in the North. The true peace men 
 of the North. Their Convention at Cincinnati. A reaffirmation of Jeffersonian 
 Democracy. A masterpiece of statesmanship. The Presidential campaign of 
 18fi4. The RIVAL ADMINISTRATIONS AT RICHMOND AND WASHINGTON. A COMPARA 
 TIVE VIEW OF NORTHERN DESPOTISM. The conscription and impressment laws of the 
 Confederacy. The offerings of Southern patriotism. The Yankee record in the 
 matter of slavery. " Military necessity." The Yankee record in the matter oi 
 civil liberty. An outrage upon history. 
 
 GRANT S complete failure in the Virginia campaign, and Sher 
 man s dead-lock at Atlanta the first marked by the most 
 frightful slaughter had produced an evident and great re 
 vulsion in the public mind of the North. The masses in that 
 country appeared to have become at last thoroughly aroused 
 to a true sense of their condition. ,On every side arose the 
 demand for peace. Popular demonstrations had already taken 
 place in several localities, showing that the people of the 
 North were growing tired of the war, and demanded that it 
 should be stopped. Yankee newspapers, that were at one 
 time earnest advocates for a vigorous prosecution of the war, 
 were now still more earnestly in favor of a vigorous prosecu 
 tion of peace. They no longer spoke with bated breath and 
 whispering humbleness. They said what they meant.* 
 
 * As a most interesting evidence of the extent of this disposition to peace in 
 the Northern mind, we collate the following extracts from " the peace press," 
 ES well as from papers that had given a quasi support to the war : 
 
 From the New York Tribune. 
 
 We feel certain that two-thirds of the American people on either side of the 
 dividing line anxiously, absorbingly, desire peace, and are ready to make all 
 needful sacrifices t^ insure it. Then why shall it be long withheld? Let us 
 
360 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 In the summer of 1864 there were certain movements loot 
 ing to a special negotiation for peace, which drew no little oi 
 the public attention. These movements were fruitless in 
 some respects they were unworthy and absurd ; but they are 
 interesting as indicating, at the time they took place, a general 
 popular disposition to peace, proceeding from the Northern, 
 despondency on the one hand, and the consequent hopes of the 
 South. 
 
 know, as soon as may be, the most that the rebel chiefs will do to secure peace ; 
 let us know what is the " ultimatum" on our side. We have no sympathy 
 with the shuddering dread that our Government may, by listening to propo 
 sitions from the. rebels, virtually acknowledge their independence. Etiquette 
 is the disease of little minds, great souls are never troubled by it. 
 
 Washington Constitutional Union. 
 
 The cry for peace is rung into our ears from every section of the country 
 from all divisions and parties. Even the fanatics have cooled down, in meas 
 ure, from their fury for blood, have lost the vampire instincts; and, horrified 
 at the tales of slaughter they read, and shocked at the sights of hospital suf 
 fering, and of the maimed and crippled crawling about our streets, they even 
 wish the termination of strife which, unprocreative of benefit to either party, 
 even to the medius terminus, the negro, is crushing the vital and social exist 
 ence of both. Physical calamity constantly displayed before their vision, and 
 high prices crushing out the means of comfortable subsistence, has at length 
 softened the heart qf the hardened abolitionist into a lurking yearning for the 
 
 cassation of arms. 
 
 Dayton. (Ohio) Daily Empire. 
 
 We can have no peace so long as the men are allowed to prescribe its terms. 
 Let the people, in their sovereign might, command that this cruel war be, 
 ended, and all differences between the States be submitted to the arbitrament 
 
 of a convention. 
 
 Troy Daily Pitss. 
 
 To-day, the people of the " loyal" and seceded States would be able to agree 
 upon conditions of peace and stop the war. And it is the duty of the hour to 
 hasten an opportunity for this, by shoving aside extreme men and placing in 
 power those who believe that, in a government like ours, concession, concilia 
 tion and compromise, are better remedies for differences than eternal strife 
 
 and war. 
 
 Chicago Times. 
 
 The necessity for peace upon honorable terms is too imperative to prrmit 
 Its sacrifice to a blind, selfish, or corrupt partnership. The alternatives now 
 presented to the nation are peace with honor, and war with dishonor ; peace 
 with preservation of life, and war with its extended and murderous conflicts ; 
 peace with national and individual solvency, and war with national and indi 
 vidual bankruptcy. 
 
 From the World. 
 
 The new President, to be nominated at Chicago, and elected in November, 
 a man ready and willing to meet any and every overture for peacs, a 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 361 
 
 In the month of July the whole Northern public was aroused 
 by a sudden statement in the newspapers, that Messrs. 0. G. 
 Clay and Jacob Thompson, Southern Commissioners to nego 
 tiate a peace, and who had associated with them George 
 Saunders, and also obtained the intermediate services of 
 Horace Greeley, were at Niagara Falls soliciting a safe con 
 duct to Washington, and that " terms of peace were already 
 passing over the wires." 
 
 There was the usual Yankee exaggeration in this news. 
 Messrs. Clay and Thompson had sought a safe conduct to 
 Washington, for an informal conference to ascertain if there 
 was any possible com icon ground on which negotiations for 
 peace might be initiated ; and they had been unmercifully 
 snubbed by the authorities, after the usual Yankee fashion of 
 treating all the humble and begging attempts of the Confed 
 erates to reach the back-door of Washington. Mr. Lincoln dis 
 patched a reply, addressed " To whom it may concern" de 
 claring that the Union, with the additional and positive con 
 dition of the abandonment of slavery, was the sine qua non of 
 peace. 
 
 Almost contemporary with the Niagara Falls affair there 
 was an incident in Richmond, which put in striking contrast 
 the sturdy indifference of Mr. Lincoln, and the simplicity and 
 pliancy of the Confederate authorities. 
 
 In the same month of July a letter was received from Gen 
 eral Grant, asking permission of the Confederate authorities 
 for Colonel Jacques, of the 73d Illinois infantry, and one J. R. 
 Gilmore, to meet Colonel Quid, the Confederate Commissioner 
 of Exchange, between the lines of the two armies. Ould 
 brought the two Yankees to Richmond for the purpose of see 
 ing President Davis. It appeared that they came with the 
 knowledge and approval of President Lincoln, and under his 
 
 man who shall represent truly the dignity and power of the nation, and who 
 will not be unwilling even to tender an armistice suggesting a National Con 
 vention of all the States. 
 
 From the Neio York yews. 
 
 The peace Democracy will indorse a nomination that faithfully represents 
 he sentiments herein stated. They are willing to trust to the good sense and 
 patriotism of the people for the realization of a definite peace as the sequel of 
 n armistice and National Convention. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 pass ; and, while they disclaimed the character of authorised 
 commissioners, they professed to be directly acquainted with 
 the views of the Washington authorities, and plainly tinted 
 that their business was to pave the way for a meeting of formal 
 commissioners authorized to negotiate for peace. 
 
 These two obscure Yankees were treated with silly distinc 
 tion in Richmond. They were admitted to a personal inter 
 view with President Davis, who " grasped the hand of one of 
 them with effusion," and entertained them with a long disqui 
 sition on State Rights, Secession, etc. There was, of course, 
 some Yankee dramatization in the interview. Jacques had 
 arrived in Richmond attired in a large linen duster ; but no 
 sooner had he confronted the Confederate President than he 
 threw off the garment, disclosing the military uniform and in 
 signia of a Yankee colonel. 
 
 It appears that these parties had not a single definite 
 proposition to make, and that they sounded Mr. Davis thor 
 oughly, and, easily approaching his vanity, induced him to 
 make a very elaborate and rhetorical exposition of his views 
 and designs. They carried a long story back to the Yankee 
 newspapers, and made no little capital out of their visit to Rich 
 mond by " sensations" in the Northern pictorials and itine 
 rant " lectures" at twenty-five cents a head. 
 
 The more intelligent and worthy portion of the Confederate 
 public were greatly wounded in their pride by the behavior of 
 their authorities on the peace question. Many of these per 
 sons had, since the very commencement of the war, insisted on 
 the futility and impropriety of essaying to open any special ne 
 gotiations with the enemy on peace. There were the many 
 distinct avowals of the purpose of the war on our side, in the 
 declarations and acts of the Government, invariably protesting 
 our simple desire " to be let alone," which were already a clear 
 and standing tender of peace. The issues could not be made 
 more distinct or more urgent than in the official record. Why, 
 they argued, should we go beyond it by attempts at kitchen con 
 ferences, which might not only be insolently rebuffed by the en 
 emy, to the damage of our self-respect, but which, as our experi 
 ences had so far shown, were invariably misinterpreted, and not 
 without plausibility, as signs of decadence and weakness in our 
 military affairs. True, the proud and intelligent persons in 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 363 
 
 the Coi federacy were as anxious for peace as those who were 
 constantly professing their devotion to this end. But they 
 considered that the honor and self-respect of their countrymen 
 had been lowered by devious and unworthy attempts at nego 
 tiation. Having once announced the terms of peace sufficiently, 
 they judged they would do right, while awaiting the overtures 
 of the enemy, not to betray their anxiety, or open any unne 
 cessary discussions on the subject. And there could be no 
 doubt of the sufficiency of these announcements. 
 
 A few weeks before the Jacques-Gilmore " mission" the 
 Confederate Congress had published a manifesto naming the 
 terms of peace, sufficiently explaining to the enemy the de 
 mands of the Richmond Government, and certainly leaving 
 no occasion for discussing the matter with Yankee intermed- 
 dlers, who might choose to visit the Confederate capital on the 
 errands of curiosity, or perhaps in the office of spies. The 
 principles, sentiments, and purposes by which these States had 
 been actuated, were set forth in that paper with all the author 
 ity due to the solemn declaration of the legislative and execu 
 tive departments of the Government, and with a clearness 
 which left no room for comment or explanation. In a few 
 sentences it was pointed out that all we asked was immunity 
 from interference with our internal peace and prosperity, 
 " and to be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of those inalien 
 able rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which 
 our common ancestors declared to be the equal heritage of all 
 parties to the social compact. Let them forbear aggressions 
 upon us, and the war is at an end. If there be questions 
 which require adjustment by negotiation, we have ever been 
 willing, and are still willing, to enter into communication 
 with our adversaries, in a spirit of peace, of equity, and manly 
 frankness." 
 
 President Davis himself had even more explicitly indicated 
 the methods of peace, excluded special efforts at negotiation 
 with the enemy, and taken a position to which his conduct a 
 few months subsequently was absurdly and inexplicably op 
 posite. 
 
 Governor Vance of North Carolina had written to him, re 
 ferring to certain political discontent in that State, and pro 
 posing an effort at negotiation with the enemy, which would 
 
36-1 SOCTHEEN HISTOftY OF .HE WAR. 
 
 appease the malcontents, and, if unsuccessful, would strengthen 
 and intensify the war feeling. 
 
 On the 8th of January, 1864, President Davis wrote a long 
 letter in reply. Some passages of this letter are of sufficient 
 interest to be reproduced by the side of the events of the sum 
 mer of the same year. The President wrote : 
 
 " We have made three distinct efforts to communicate with 
 the authorities at Washington, arid have been invariably un 
 successful. Commissioners were sent before hostilities were 
 begun, and the Washington Government refused to receive 
 them or hear what they had to say. A second time I sent a 
 military officer with a communication addressed by myself to 
 President Lincoln. The letter was received by General Scott 5 
 who did not permit the officer to see Mr. Lincoln, but promised 
 that an answer would be sent. No answer has ever been re 
 ceived. The third time, a few months ago, a gentleman was 
 sent, whose position, character, and reputation were such as 
 to insure his reception, if the enemy were not determined to 
 receive no proposals whatever from the Government. Yice- 
 President Stephens made a patriotic tender of his services, in 
 the hope of being able to promote the cause of humanity ; and 
 although little belief was entertained of his success, I cheerfully 
 yielded to his suggestion, that the experiment should be tried. 
 The enemy refused to let him pass through their lines or to hold 
 any conference with them. He was stopped before he reached 
 Fortress Monroe, on his way to Washington. To attempt again 
 (in the face of these repeated rejections of all conference with 
 us) to send commissioners or agents to propose peace, is to in 
 vite insult and contumely, and to subject ourselves to indig 
 nity without the slightest chance of being listened to. . . . 
 
 u I cannot recall at this time one instance in which I have 
 failed to announce that our only desire was peace, and the only 
 terms which formed a sine qua ~ion were precisely those that 
 you suggested, namely, a demand only to be let alone. But 
 suppose it were practicable to obtain a conference through 
 commissioners with the Government of President Lincoln, is 
 it at this moment that we are to consider it desirable, or even 
 at all admissible? Have we not just been apprized by that 
 despot that we can only expect his gracious pardon by einan 
 cipating all our slaves, swearing allegiance and obedience ta 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 365 
 
 him and his proclamation, and becoming in point of fact the 
 slaves of our own negroes?" 
 
 But the peace movements in the North, to which we have 
 referred, were to take a more practical direction, in view 01 
 the approaching Presidential election in that .country. 
 
 THE CHICAGO CONVENTION, ETC. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention met at Chicago on the 
 29th of August. The Convention was called to order by Mr. 
 August Belmont, who said that " four years of misrule by a 
 sectional, fanatical, and corrupt party had brought our country 
 to the verge of ruin. The past and present are sufficient 
 warnings of the disastrous consequences which would befall us 
 if Mr. Lincoln s re-election should be made possible by our 
 want of patriotism and unity." 
 
 Mr. Bigler, formerly Governor of Pennsylvania, and Senator 
 in Congress, was chosen as temporary chairman. lie said : 
 " The termination of democratic rule in this country was the 
 end of the peaceful relations between the States and the people. 
 The men now in authority, through a feud which they have 
 long maintained with violent and unwise men at the South, 
 because of a blind fanaticism about an institution in some of 
 the States, in relation to which they have 110 duties to perform 
 and no responsibilities to bear, are utterly incapable of adopt 
 ing the proper means to rescue our country from its present 
 lamentable condition." 
 
 The Convention was permanently organized by appointing 
 as chairman, Horatio Seymour, the Governor of New York. 
 In his speech, upon assuming the chair, he inveighed bitterly 
 against the Lincoln Administration and the party in power. 
 They were," he said, "animated by intolerance and fanati 
 cism, and blinded by an ignorance of the spirit of our institu 
 tions, the character of our people, and the condition of our 
 land. Step by step they have marched on to results from 
 which at the onset they would have shrunk with horror ; and 
 even now, when war has desolated our land, has laid its heavy 
 burdens upon labor, and, when bankruptcy and ruin overhang 
 us, they will not have the Union restored unless upon condi- 
 
366 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 tions unknown to the Constitution. They will not let the 
 shedding of blood cease, even for a little time, to see if Chris 
 tian charity, or the wisdom of statesmanship, may not work 
 out a method to save our country. They will not even listen 
 to a proposal for peace which does not offer what this Govern* 
 ment has no right to ask. This Administration cannot now 
 save the country if it would. It has placed obstacles in its 
 pathway which it cannot overcome. It has hampered its own 
 freedom of action by unconstitutionalities." " The failure of 
 the policy of the Administration," he said, " was not due to 
 any want of courage or devotion on the part of the soldiers : 
 they had done all that arms could do ; and had wise states 
 manship secured the fruits of their victories, there would to-day 
 have been peace in the land." "This Administration," he 
 continued, " cannot save the Union. We can. We demand 
 no conditions for the restoration of the Union. We are 
 shackled with no hates, no prejudices, no passions. We wish 
 for fraternal relations with the people of the South. We de 
 mand for them what we demand for ourselves, the full recog 
 nition of the rights of the States." 
 
 x The platform of the Convention consisted of a series of six 
 resolutions drawn up by a committee appointed for that pur 
 pose, consisting of one member from each State, chosen by the 
 respective delegations. The two most important resolutions 
 were as follows : 
 
 " Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the 
 American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the 
 experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of a military necessity, 
 or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been 
 disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trod~den 
 down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, 
 humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be 
 made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of 
 all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practi 
 cable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the federal Union of the 
 States." 
 
 " Resolved, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve 
 the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired, and they hereby 
 declare that they consider the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and 
 dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution, the subversion of the civil 
 by military law in States not in insurrection, the arbitrary military arrest, im 
 prisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where civil law 
 exists in full force, the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press, the 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 367 
 
 denial of the right of asylum, the open and avowed disregard of Slate rights, 
 the employment of unusual test-oaths, and the interference with and denial of 
 the right of the people to bear arms, as calculated to prevent a restoration o 
 the Union, and the perpetuation of a government deriving its just powers frcn 
 the consent of the governed." 
 
 The platform was adopted with but four dissenting votes. 
 
 On the 31st the Convention proceeded to ballot for candi 
 dates. Governor Seymour, of New York, peremptorily refused 
 to allow his name to be used. The vote at first stood one 
 hundred and sixty-two for McClellan, and sixty-four for all 
 others. Several delegations then changed their votes, and the 
 result was two hundred and two and a half for George B. Mc 
 Clellan, and twenty-three and a half for Thomas H. Seymour. 
 Delaware and Maryland voted for Seymour, who also received 
 nearly half the votes of Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri. The re 
 maining eighteen States voted unanimously for McClellan, 
 whose nomination, on motion of Mr. Yallandigham, was made 
 unanimous. 
 
 Despite the protestations of attachment to the Union by the 
 Chicago Convention, there is but little doubt that the real pro 
 gramme of its operations had, for its final conclusion, the ac 
 knowledgrnent of the independence of the Confederate States. 
 
 It was proposed, perhaps, to get to this conclusion by distinct 
 and successive steps, so as not to alarm too much the Union 
 sentiment of the country. The first step was to be the propo 
 sition of the " Union as it was," in a convention of the States ; 
 if that was voted down, then the proposition of a new princi 
 ple of federation, limited to the foreign relations and to the 
 revenue ; if that was rejected, then the proposition of an Inter- 
 Confederate Union, to preserve, as far as possible, by an extra 
 ordinary league, the American prestige ; and, if all these prop 
 ositions, intended as successive tests of the spirit of the South, 
 were to fail, then, at last, the independence of the Confederate 
 States, made the sine quanon, was to be conceded by the Dem 
 ocratic party of the North, as the last resort of pacification, 
 and the one of two alternatives where their choice could no 
 longer hesitate. In short, it appeared to be the design of the 
 Democratic party to get the North on the naked issue of war 
 and separation. 
 
 Why this programme brc se down is explained almost in a 
 
 \ 
 
3G8 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 word. The military events which took place between the date 
 of the Chicago Convention and election-day put upon the war 
 , more encouraging aspect for the North, and with these 
 changes the Democratic party abandoned ground which they 
 took professedly on principle, but really on the mean consid 
 orations of expediency arid time-serving. The fact was that 
 all party changes in the North, since the war, might be said 
 to be constantly accommodating themselves to the course of 
 military events ; so little was there of virtue or of principle in 
 the public opinion of the Yankee. After the Chicago Conven 
 tion, the peace party moved inversely with the scale of military 
 success ; and, as that mounted in Northern opinion, it fell until, 
 as we shall see months later, it, almost approached zero. 
 
 It was to be expected, by those acquainted with the true 
 springs of action in Yankee politics, that the changes in the 
 military situation, during the fall months of 1864:, to the ad 
 vantage of the North, would induce the Democratic party and 
 their candidate, McClellan, to swerve from the resolutions ot 
 the Chicago Convention, and to adopt shifting and equivocal 
 grounds with reference to the war. This shameful departure 
 from the former professions and recorded principles of the so- 
 called Democratic party of the 4 North was the occasion of the 
 secession of that portion of it which, declaring for peace on 
 principle and disdaining time-serving, attempted the organiza 
 tion of a peace party upon " State Rights JefFersonian Demo 
 cratic principles." A convention of the true "peace men" 
 was called at Cincinnati on the 18th of October. It nominated 
 no candidates ; its actual political influence had become very 
 small; but it had the merit of placing on record one of the 
 most perspicuous and complete expositions of the American 
 system of government that had ever come from any modern 
 pen. As a reaffirmation of the old and true doctrine of that 
 once great organization in America known as the Democratic 
 party, applied to the conduct of the existing war, the platform 
 of the Cincinnati Convention has a noble and permanent in 
 terest; it deserves to be studied, both as a declaration of states 
 manship and as a piece of history. There was scarcely any 
 thing that could exceed in luminous, compact, and forcible 
 style the two following resolutions of this body : 
 
 * 1. Resolved^ That the several States composing the United 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 309 
 
 States are not united on the principle of unlimited submission 
 to their General Government, but that by a compact, under the 
 style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of 
 amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government 
 for special purposes delegated to the Government certain 
 definite powers, reserving each State to itself the residuary 
 mass of right to their self-government ; and that whenever the 
 General Government assumes undelegated power, its acts are 
 unauthoritative, void, and of no force ; that to this compact 
 each State acceded as a State, and as an integral party, its co- 
 States forming, as to itself, the other party ; that the Govern 
 ment created by this compact was not made the exclusive or 
 final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since 
 that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, 
 the measure of its powers ; but^ that, as in all other cases of 
 compact among powers having no common judge, each party 
 has an equal right to judge for itself, as well ot infractions as 
 of the mode and measure of redress. 
 
 "2. IZesolved, That as Jefferson made the rugged issue o 
 doctrine with Adams, so must we make it with the Federal 
 Administration, if we would resist effectually the infinitely 
 greater dangers which surround us. We do, consequently, 
 declare THE WAR WHOLLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and on that ground 
 we hold it should be stopped. If a majority of the copartner 
 ship States can retain a member by force, they may expel one 
 by force, which has not yet been pretended by anybody. The 
 Federal agency at Washington, backed up by a majority of 
 the States in Congress, without right, in the vain attempt to 
 subjugate the minority of the States, is destroying their liberty, 
 and crushing the federal system to atoms by thus attacking 
 the Constitution. The Administration, and that majority, are 
 the real enemies of the Union, which cannot and ought not to 
 exist after its conditions are destroyed. The Chicago platform, 
 and General McClellan and his war-record letter, which he has 
 laid over it, must all be repudiated by Democrats for the same 
 reason. If we admit that the war is constitutional, we must 
 not murmur at the monstrous abuses which attend it, for they 
 all naturally grow out of the original atrocity. 
 
 "The evils of paper money, of a protective tariff, of the public 
 debt; the military draft; the military governors ; the arbitrary 
 
 24 
 
370 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THL WAR. 
 
 arrests ; the provost-marshals ; the fifteen bastiles ; the drum 
 head courts-martial ; the bayonet elections ; the padlocked lips ; 
 the fettered press; the wholesale confiscation ; the constructive 
 treason ; our immense armies and navies, are mere incidents of 
 the war itself; and so are President Lincoln s futile proclama 
 tions of slave emancipation, and his general amnesties. Half 
 truths and narrow issues have been the bane of Democracy for 
 many years, and they have so contracted the minds and hearts 
 of Democrats, that all sense of justice, and all knowledge of 
 constitutional law which sat there so long enthroned, have de 
 parted, and left us an easy prey to the violence of President 
 Lincoln s Administration, and to corrupt managers of our own 
 party in State and national conventions." 
 
 We shall not undertake here to follow the course, or enu 
 merate the details of the Presidential campaign of 1864. We 
 may anticipate our narrative generally to say, that that cam 
 paign resulted in the signal triumph of fanaticism and violence 
 in the North, and in the election of Abraham Lincoln by the 
 vote of every Northern State except Delaware, Kentucky, and 
 New Jersey. 
 
 
 
 THK RIVAL ADMINISTRATIONS AT RICHMOND AND WASHINGTON. 
 
 A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF NORTHERN DESPOTISM. 
 
 While on political subjects in the war, it will not be amiss 
 here to put in comparison the internal administrations of the 
 rival governments at Washington and Richmond. We have, 
 on other occasions, developed some points of this comparison. 
 It is fruitful of many considerations; it is after all the most 
 interesting inquiry in the war ; and it comes up naturally and 
 conveniently for another review at the date of the Northern 
 election which approved Mr. Lincoln s policy, and bestowed 
 upon him a second term of office. 
 
 There were many persons to be found in the North, who, 
 admitting the rapid decline, since the commencement of the 
 war, of their government to despotism, attempted a consola 
 tion by the assertion that a similar lapse of liberty had taken 
 place in the Confederate States. This opinion obtained to a 
 remarkable extent, even among those who were not unfriendly 
 to the South, and certainly were not disposed to do her in- 
 
THE LAST YEAE. 371 
 
 mstice. It is to be largely ascribed to the very prevalent 
 ignorance in the North, even among men otherwise well in 
 formed and intelligent, of the internal policy of the Con fed 
 crate States, and of the true spirit of their peculiar legislation 
 with reference to the war. It was not only the Black Repub 
 lican party that circulated the idea of an iron-handed tyranny 
 in the Confederate States ; but that idea was admitted to a 
 large extent in the minds of those who were disposed to think 
 well of the Southern experiment, but were not proof against 
 the impressions derived from such peremptory laws as required 
 men to take up arms in mass, to devote certain property to the 
 government, and to hold themselves, generally, in subjection 
 to the necessities of the war. These measures wore the ap 
 pearance of the machinery of despotism to them, simply be 
 cause they did not understand their true nature; while they 
 added to their ignorance the mistake of viewing them from a 
 Btand-point which put the North and the South in the same 
 circumstances. 
 
 It is quite true that the conscription and impressment laws 
 of the Confederacy were apparently harsh measures. Yet 
 there is something to be said of them beyond the justification 
 of necessity ; and this is, that they were really nothing more 
 than the organized expressions of the popular devotion of the 
 South in the war ; intended only to give effect and uniformity 
 to it. They were not instances of violent legislation imposed 
 upon the people ; . they were merely the formulas of willing 
 and patriotic contributions of men and means to a war, in 
 which not only a nation fought for its very existence, but each 
 individual for the practical stake of his own fortune. It was 
 difficult to make Northern men understand this : that, while 
 they had a mortal terror of the draft and other demands of 
 the war, the people of the South were cheerfully willing to 
 take up arms, and to devote their substance to the government. 
 It is thus that the conscription and impressment laws, which, 
 m the North, would have been the essence of despotism, were 
 really in the South not edicts of violence, but mere conven 
 tionalisms of the war, through which the patriotism of the 
 people acted with effect and regularity. 
 
 But, beyond these laws, even the appearance of despotism 
 stopped in the Southern Confederacy. We have only to coin- 
 
372 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 pare the established routine there with what was constantly 
 observed in .the North, to show how divergent, since the first 
 gun was fired at Fort Sumter, had been the histories of tha 
 belligerents on all questions affecting political and civil liberty 
 There were no military governors in the Confederacy ; there 
 was no martial law there ; there was, properly called, no po 
 litical police there the police establishment being limited to a 
 mere detective force to apprehend, in the communities in which 
 they were placed, spies and emissaries of the enemy. At no 
 time in the war had soldiers ever been placed at a polling- 
 place in the Confederacy ; at no time had newspapers ever 
 been suppressed ; and at no time had a single instance of arbi 
 trary arrest, or of imprisonment without distinct charges and 
 the opportunity to reply, occurred within the Confederate ju 
 risdiction. These are facts which carry their own comment on 
 the base reflection that in the war the South had declined, 
 along with the North, in its civil administration, and had kept 
 company with it on its road to despotism. 
 
 When we speak of the despotism at Washington, we do not 
 design a figure or an exaggeration of rhetoric. We merely 
 name a clearly defined species of human government, as we 
 would any other fact in history. The Presidential election ot 
 lS6i gave occasion for a full review of the acts of the Wash 
 ington authorities. We may sum up that review in some 
 brief paragraphs, dividing it into two branches : First, Mr. 
 Lincoln s unconstitutional course on the rights of the States on 
 the slavery question ; second, his course on the rights of his 
 own people in all matters of civil liberty ; these two classes of 
 outrage being a convenient division of his Administration, 
 viewed both as to its intentions upon the South and its effects 
 upon the North. 
 
 As to the slavery question, it is only necessary to state the 
 record. 
 
 1. The convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln Pues- 
 ident of the United States in i860, passed a resolution affirm 
 ing " the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and 
 especially the right of each State to order and control its own 
 domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively? 
 
 2. Mr. Lincoln, in his inaugural of March, 1861, inserted 
 this resolution at length, and declared that to him it would be 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 373 
 
 u a law," and added, "I now reiterate these sentiments ;" i,nd 
 "in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most 
 conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that th& 
 property, peace, and security of no section are not to be in any 
 wise endangered by the now in-coming administration " In the 
 same State paper he had before said, quoting approvingly from 
 one of his own speeches, " I have no purpose, directly or indi 
 rectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
 where it now exists ;" and subjoined, "7 believe I have no law 
 ful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so" 
 
 3. In Secretary Seward s famous letter to the minister of the 
 United States, resident at Paris, designed as a diplomatic cir 
 cular to the European courts, and written " by direction of the 
 President," occurs the following paragraph : u The condition 
 of slavery in the several States will remain jnst the same, 
 whether it ( the rebellion ) succeeds or fails. The rights of the 
 States, and the condition of every human being in them, will 
 remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of adminis 
 tration, whether the revolution shall succeed, or whether it shall 
 fail. Their constitutions, and laws, and customs, habits and 
 institutions, in either case, will remain the same. It is hardly 
 necessary to add, to this incontestable statement, the further 
 fact that the new President, as well as the citizens through 
 whose suffrages he has come into the administration, has 
 always repudiated all designs whatever, and wherever imputed 
 to him and them, of disturbing the system of slavery as it is 
 existing under the Constitution and the laws. The case, how 
 ever, would not be fully presented were I to omit to say that 
 any such effort on his part would be unconstitutional, and all 
 his acts in that direction would be prevented by the judicial 
 authorities, even though they were assented to by Congress 
 and the people." 
 
 4. In his message to Congress of the 6th of March, 1862, 
 known as his emancipation message, after recommending to 
 that body that they should pass a resolution that the United 
 States ought to co-operate with the States by means of pecuni 
 ary aid in effecting the gradual abolishment of slavery, Mr. 
 Lincoln expressly disavowed, for the Government, any author 
 ity over the subject, except with State assent. His language 
 was, that his proposition " sets up no claim of a right, by Fed- 
 
374: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 eral authority, to interfere with shivery within State limits, 
 referring, as it does, the absolute control of the subject in 
 each case to the State, and its people immediately interested. 
 
 5. The act of Congress of the 6th of August, 1861, emanci 
 pated only the slaves of " rebels" employed in the " rebellion/ 
 and submitted the decision of such cases exclusively to the 
 courts. Major-General Fremont, on the 30th of that month, 
 being then in command in Missouri, by proclamation declared 
 free all the slaves within the State. This, as soon as it came 
 to Mr. Lincoln s knowledge, he disapproved, and declared it, 
 in a formal order of llth of September r to be void as far as it 
 transcended the provisions of the act of Congress. And in a 
 letter of Mr. Joseph Holt to President Lincoln, of the 22d of 
 the month, that person, being alarmed for the effect of Fre 
 mont s order, stated that " the act of Congress was believed to 
 embody the conservative policy of your administration." This 
 statement Mr. Lincoln never denied. 
 
 6. On the 9th of May, 1862, Major-General Hunter, military 
 commander of the department of the South, embracing Geor 
 gia, Florida, and South Carolina, by an order of that date, 
 declared all slaves within such States free. On the 19th of the 
 month, even before he was officially advised of the measure, 
 Mr. Lincoln, by proclamation, declared the same " whether 
 genuine o 1 * false," to be " altogether void." In neither of 
 these instances was there the slightest intimation of a change 
 of opinion by Mr. Lincoln, either on the question of policy or 
 of power. As to both, he then entertained the same opinion 
 that he had announced in his inaugural. 
 
 7. On the 22d of July, 1862, Mr. Crittenden proposed, in the 
 House of Representatives at Washington, a resolution which, 
 after stating that the war was u forced upon the country by 
 the disunionists" of the Southern States, declared that it " is 
 not waged, on our part, in any spirit of oppression, or for any 
 purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing 
 or interfering with the rights of the established institution of 
 these States (the seceded), but to defend and maintain the su 
 premacy of the Constitution and the rights of the several 
 States unimpaired ; and that as soon as these objects are accom 
 plished the war ought to cease." In the House only two votes 
 were cast against it, and in the Senate but one Republican 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 375 
 
 vote, and it was at once and without hesitation approved by 
 the President. No pretence was here suggested that slavery 
 was to be abolished, or that any of the rights of the States in 
 regard to it were to be interfered with. 
 
 t? 
 
 Yet, in the face of all this accumulation of precedents, we 
 find Emancipation proclamations put forward under the claim 
 of executive power the first on the 22d of September, 1862, 
 and the second on the first day of the succeeding year. In the 
 last, all slaves in certain States or parts of States were declared 
 free : it mattered not whether the territory or the slaves should 
 fall within the military occupation of the United States or 
 not. 
 
 But it has been said that the emancipation proclamation was 
 a military measure, and to be justified as such from necessities 
 outside of the Constitution. It is difficult to find patience to 
 reply to such nonsense. The plea is the most absurd stuff 
 that was ever put in the mouth of fool or knave, to brazen out 
 against the good sense and conscience of the world his fraud 
 and outrage. Absurd, because we know, and all the world 
 knows, that it was at the dictation and under the influence of 
 a purely political party that the emancipation proclamation 
 was issued by Mr. Lincoln. Absurd, because we knew, and 
 had had recent assurance from Mr. Lincoln himself, that ha 
 did not intend emancipation of the negro to end with the war, 
 which it would do ipso facto if a mere military measure, but 
 had made the abandonment or extirpation of slavery the pre 
 liminary condition for peace, and thus, therefore, a primary 
 object of the war. 
 
 It was this same dogma of " military necessity," applied to 
 the slavery question, that Mr. Lincoln had used to fasten upon 
 the necks of the white citizens of the North a heavy yoke of 
 intolerance. It was only necessary to look upon what was 
 every day passing before the eyes. 
 
 There was seen this despotism in the unreasonable searches 
 and seizures of persons and papers, in direct violation of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 It was seen in arrests of obnoxious individuals, and their 
 imprisonment without warrant or charges preferred, and in 
 some instances cut off from all communication with family 
 friends, or counsel. 
 
376 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 It was seen in the suppression of newspapers, and wanton 
 arrest of editors. 
 
 It was seen in the assumption, by the President, of the 
 power to regulate the right of suffrage in the States, and estab 
 lish minority and aristocratic governments under the pretext 
 of guaranteeing republican governments. 
 
 These are not fancy sketches, or the exaggerations of a nar 
 rative written with passion. It was notorious that such things 
 had occurred in Missouri, Indiana, "West Virginia, Maryland, 
 Delaware, and New York ; and yet even to question their le 
 gality was deemed disloyal, and men who maintained their 
 inherited freedom in doing so, were designated by scurrilous 
 abuse, and threatened with the penalties of a despot s all-pow 
 erful displeasure. 
 
 To compare the falsehoods and crimes of the Washington 
 record with that rigor of measures in the Confederacy, which 
 was really nothing more than the logical incident and the 
 proper expression of resolute patriotism, is an outrage upon 
 history. The noble memorials of self-sacrificing patriotism are 
 very different from the scarlet record of ruthless despotism. 
 
THE LAST TEAK. 3 77 
 
 CHAPTER XYIH. 
 
 The business of blockade-running. Its risks. Interesting statistics. Value of tha 
 port of Mobile. NAVAL FIGHT AND CAPTURE OF THE Fours IN MOBILE BAY. A 
 frightful disparity of force. Heroic fight of the rain Tennessee. Absurd boasts 
 of the Yankees. Surrender of Fort Gaines. Fall of Fort Morgan. THE GEORGIA 
 CAMPAIGN. Its importance. Johnston s situation at Atlanta. His removal by 
 President Davis. A fatal error. Lieutenant-General Hood. THE BATTLKS OF 
 ATLANTA. THE FALL OF "T.IE GATE CITY." Reckless and desperate fighting 
 Yankee raid on the Macon road. Hood s " magnificent advance." Bombard 
 ment of Atlanta. Hood s fatal mistake. Sherman s new movement. He "cuts 
 the Confederates in two." The Yankees in Atlanta. Sherman s cruelties. His 
 depopulation of Atlanta. Enormity of the order. Sherman as a pacificator. 
 Governor Brown s letter. Position of Vice-President Stephens. Effects of the 
 fall of Atlanta. President Davis s Macon speech. Its swollen tone. CAPTUKE OF 
 THE CONFEDERATE PKIVATEER FLORIDA. Its cowardice and outrage. Yankee idea 
 of glory. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE RAM ALBKMARLE. Yankee es 
 timation of the exploit. The North Carolina Sounds. THE ST. ALBANS RAID. 
 Stories of the savage vengeance of the Confederates. How much truth there was in 
 them. 
 
 A LARGE capital in* the Confederacy was engaged in running 
 the blockade. The risks of this business were by no means so 
 great as generally supposed ; and it had made a steady and 
 valuable contribution to the war. The London insurance 
 offices had been in the habit of charging sixty per cent, pre 
 mium for policies on vessels and goods running the blockade. 
 This was a rate adopted at the beginning of the war, before 
 any facts had been developed to establish the real average of 
 risk. But persons engaged in the business soon found that 
 the real risk was by no means commensurate with the nominal 
 risk as established by the London offices, and they conse 
 quently ceased to insure ; or, in other words, adopted the plan 
 of being their own insurers.. This is naturally the case when 
 the true risk is much below the nominal risk. That such was 
 the case in the blockade-running business was clear from the 
 fact that those engaged in it no longer insured. 
 
 A correspondent of the London Index gave a list of vessels 
 employed in running the blockade from the port of Nassau, 
 between November, 1861, and March 10, 1864. The list com 
 
378 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE VFAB. 
 
 prised eighty-four vessels. Of these, thirty-seven had been 
 captured, twenty-five had been lost or beached, one foundered 
 at sea, one condemned, two converted into Confederate gun 
 boats, and the rest were supposed to be still in the business or 
 aid up. The total number of losses which can b6 ascribed to 
 causes connected with blockade-running was sixty-two. The 
 number of successful round trips made by these vessels wa 
 two hundred and fourteen. Thus the risk to the vessels on the 
 round trip was twenty-nine per cent. The percentage on 
 goods was not by any means so great. If the risks out and in 
 had been equal, it would have been fourteen and a half per 
 cent, each way. But the inward risk was much greater than 
 the outward. We are perhaps justified in assuming, on the 
 whole, that the real risk on goods imported into the Confederacy 
 through the blockade was not higher than twenty per cent. 
 
 Mobile was one of the principal ports for the blockade-run 
 ning trade. It was guarded at its entrance by two imposing 
 fortifications ; it was difficult to blockade ; it was a nursery oi 
 the Confederate navy ; and vessels were already being con 
 structed there with a view of raising the blockade. It had 
 been the steady purpose of the Yankees to get possession 01 
 Mobile Bay as soon as operations on the Mississippi would per 
 mit the detachment of a sufficient co-operating military force 
 for the expedition. 
 
 NAVAL FIGHT AND CAPTURE OF THE FORTS IN MOBILE BAY. 
 
 In the early part of August, Admiral Farragut, who com* 
 manded the Yankee fleet off Mobile, secured the military co 
 operation of General Canby for attacking and investing the 
 forts in the harbor of Mobile. On the morning of the 5th 
 of August, the Yankee fleet, numbering fourteen steamers and 
 four monitors, carrying in all more than two hundred guns, 
 and manned by twenty-eight hundred men, made their entree 
 into Mobile Bay. The entire Confederate naval force that was 
 to encounter this huge armada was composed of one iron-clad 
 and three wooden vessels. Such was the frightful disparity of 
 force in a fight which the Yankees afterwards claimed to tako 
 rank with the victories of Nelson ! 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 379 
 
 In the early light of the morning the attacking fleet moved 
 steadily up the main ship channel, when Fort Morgan opened 
 upon them, and was replied to by a gun from the Brooklyn 
 A moment later, and the Yankee iron-clad Tecnmseh, struck 
 by a torpedo, disappeared instantaneously beneath the waves 
 carrying with her her commander, T. A. M. Craven, and nearly 
 all her crew. The Yankee flag-ship Hartford now took the 
 lead, and had scarcely passed the fort, when the Confederate 
 ram Tennessee dashed out at her. The three Confederate 
 gunboats, the Morgan, the Gaines, and the Selma, were ahead. 
 After a desperate struggle between the fleets, the Gaines re 
 tired to Fort Morgan in a sinking condition ; the Selma, cut 
 off, surrendered ; and the Morgan escaped to Fort Morgan. 
 
 Having passed the forts and dispersed the gunboats, Farra- 
 gut ordered most of the vessels to anchor, when about nine 
 o clock he perceived the Confederate ram Tennessee standing 
 up for the Hartford. He immediately ordered all the Yankee 
 monitors, and such of his wooden ships as were adapted for the 
 purpose, to attack the ram, not only with their guns, but bows 
 on at full speed. And then began one of the most remarkable 
 naval conflicts of the war. A single vessel was beset by a 
 whole fleet. She was struck three times, and as the Hartford, 
 the third vessel which struck her, rasped along her side, tha 
 Yankee poured a whole broadside of nine-inch solid shot within 
 ten feet of her casement. The Chiekasaw was pounding away 
 at her stern ; the Hartford and three others of the fleet were 
 again heaving down upon her, determined upon her destruc 
 tion ; her smoke-stack had been shot away, her steering chains 
 were gone, and she lay at the mercy of the enemy. It was 
 not until resistance was hopeless that Admiral Buchanan, him 
 self wounded on the Tennessee, surrendered the vessel, and 
 ordered the white flag to be hoisted just as she was about be 
 ing struck by the vessels converging upon her, and when she 
 was already disabled, and her crew almost in a smothering 
 condition. 
 
 Such was the naval fight in Mobile Bay, which the Yankees 
 ranked among their most brilliant victories; exalting Farragut 
 above Nelson; apostrophizing their hero after the modern 
 New York fashion of big dinners, and having hired poets to 
 recite to him in public " masterly ballads." The Confederates 
 
380 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 had a very different and very plain estimation of the affair 
 Their loss in killed and wounded had been only twenty-two. 
 That of the enemy was near three hundred, not including tha 
 one hundred and twenty-three who went down in the Te- 
 cumseh. The Richmond Examiner gave a list of the twenty- 
 eight Yankee vessels engaged, having two hundred and twelve 
 guns, with the four Confederates having twenty-two guns. It 
 said : " It was a most unequal contest in which our gallant 
 little navy was engaged ; and we lost the battle, but our ensign 
 went down in a blaze of glory." 
 
 But although our little fleet in the bay of Mobile had been 
 destroyed or dispersed, the forts were still held, and the 
 Yankee success was incomplete. The fall of these, however, 
 was to follow unexpectedly to the South, and not without some 
 circumstances of humiliation. 
 
 On the 6rh of August, one of the Yankee iron-clads com 
 menced shelling Fort Gaines. This was a powerful work ; it 
 was provisioned for six months, and had a garrison of 600 
 men. Colonel Anderson, in command, communicated with 
 the enemy s fleet by flag of truce, without the sanction of Gen 
 eral Page, who was in command at Fort Morgan. General 
 Page inquired by signals what his purpose was, but received 
 no answer. His attention was attracted by signal-guns. Gen 
 eral Page repeatedly telegraphed, " Hold on to your fort." 
 The same night he visited Fort Gaines, and found Anderson 
 on board the Yankee fleet, arranging terms of capitulation. 
 He left peremptory orders for Anderson, on his return, not to 
 surrender the fort, and relieved him of his command. Fort 
 Morgan signalled the next morning, but no answer was re 
 ceived, except the hoisting of the Yankee flag over the ram- 
 parts of Fort Gaines. 
 
 From this time onward, movements of the enemy were in 
 progress for capturing Fort Morgan ; and on the 22d of August, 
 at day-dawn, a bombardment was opened from the shore bat 
 teries, the monitors and ships inside, and the vessels outside 
 the bay. At 6 A. M. of the 23d, a white flag was displayed by 
 the Confederates, and at 2 o clock P. M. tne fort was surren 
 dered. 
 
 Fort Powell had been already attacked on the night of the 
 5th, and blown up, the guns falling into the enemy s hands. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 381 
 
 The capture of Forts Powell, Gaines. and Morgan, arid the 
 destruction of the Confederate fleet, gave the Yankees posses 
 sion of the bay, and closed the port to all ingress or egress of 
 blockade-runners. The city of Mobile was still in possession 
 of the Confederates, and months were to elapse before the ene 
 my were to make any demonstration upon it, and then only 
 with the co-operation of a land force. The Yankee success, so 
 far, although the occasion of a brief blaze of excitement in the 
 North, was not of any great importance ; and it had been 
 dearly purchased. 
 
 THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN. 
 
 We return to more important events those of the Georgia 
 campaign which indeed were to put a new aspect on the 
 war ; to annihilate the peace party in the North ; to give a 
 new hope and impetus to the enemy; and to date the serious 
 and rapid decline of the fortunes of the Confederacy. 
 
 When we last left off the story of this campaign, Johnston 
 was holding Atlanta, and busied in strengthening its defences.* 
 His position in Atlanta was not less secure than that of Lee 
 in Petersburg; and judging prospective by past events, it was 
 impossible to doubt that he would have held Sherman as well 
 as Lee held Grant. He could at least have done that ; and if 
 he succeeded in destroying his land communications very 
 much more easy to reach than that of Grant over water he 
 might have forced the enemy into disastrous retreat on Ten 
 nessee. 
 
 At midsummer, therefore, the two campaigns, for which the 
 enemy had surrendered the Trans-Mississippi and North Caro 
 lina, were both failures. That military success which would 
 
 * In an official report, General Johnston said : " The proofs that I intended 
 to hold Atlanta are, the fact that under my orders the work of strengthening 
 Its defences was going on vigorously, the communication on the subject made 
 by me to General Hood, and the fact that my family was in the town. That 
 the public workshops were removed, and no large supplies deposited in the 
 town, as alleged by General Bragg, wore measures of common prudence, and 
 no more indicated the intention to abandon the place than the sending the 
 wagons of an army to the rear, on a day of battle, proves a foregone determine 
 ation to abandon the field." 
 
882 SOUTHEEN HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 
 
 alone bring him money, and by which alone could the Lincoln 
 government retain power, was not forthcoming, or even dimly 
 visible in the future. Had the campaign of Georgia pursued 
 its parallel with that of Virginia, McClellan or some other man 
 capable of negotiation would have been elected, and perhaps 
 an honorable peace could have been attained. If no peace, at 
 least the invasion would have lost its venom with its hope 
 the enemy would be a bankrupt, his army impotent, and hi? 
 people indisposed to further exactions. 
 
 These bright prospects were changed in a day. President 
 Davis, moved not so much by popular clamor as by a persist 
 ent personal dislike of Johnston, who resented his catechising 
 interference with his campaign, took occasion to remove from 
 the command of what had become the most important army 
 in the Confederacy a first-rate military man, who had never 
 lost a battle or a regiment in his whole career; who was exe 
 cuting the masterpiece of his professional life with a perfection 
 of design and detail which delighted his own troops and filled 
 his adversary with involuntary admiration ; who had done the 
 wonderful thing of conducting an armv in retreat over three 
 
 O O M 
 
 hundred miles of intricate country, absolutely without any 
 loss in material or prisoners. Johnston was removed, and 
 Lieu ten ant- General Hood put in command of the army Pres 
 ident Davis declaring that if the people wanted " a fighting 
 general" they should have such in this man, who was brave, 
 headstrong, incompetent ; who had the heart of a lion, but, 
 unfortunately, with it a head of wood. 
 
 THE BATTLES OF ATLANTA. THE FALL OF " THE GATE CITY." 
 
 The effective force which General Johnston transferred to 
 General Hood was about forty-one thousand infantry and ar 
 tillery, and ten thousand cavalry. It constituted one of the 
 largest armies the Confederacy had ever put in a single field, 
 and was only a little less numerous than that with which Gen 
 eral Lee had fought the campaign of the Rapidan. 
 
 On the 20th of July, Hood attacked the enemy s right on 
 Peach-tree Creek, near the Chattahoochee, gaining some tem 
 porary advantage, and capturing colors and prisoners. 
 
G f N . HOOD 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 383 
 
 It was one of the most reckless, massive, and headlong 
 charges of the war. A little past three in the evening, and 
 with the celerity of lightning, the bulk of Hood s army massed 
 in enormous columns against Newton s division, came on 
 without skirmishing, and with yells whose volume exceeded 
 any battle-shout that had yet been heard. It was the aim of 
 Hood to take advantage of a gap between Newton s division 
 and another division of Palmer s corps, to strike the enemy at 
 a vital point, and to destroy his forces on the right. The 
 charge was gallantly led by Walker s and Bates divisions ot 
 Hardee s corps. The column poured down an open but rocky 
 series of fields towards Newton s left, evidently aiming at his 
 bridges. At this point, however, the enemy succeeded, with 
 admirable quickness, in massing their artillery, and pouring a 
 terrible lire upon the Confederates. The Yankee gunner 
 worked with frantic energy ; the Confederate columns slack 
 ened pace, and began to waver an-d lose their careful arrange 
 ment ; and in less than half an hour the attack was drawn ofl 
 in good order, but having plainly and unquestionably failed to 
 accomplish its object. 
 
 On the 22d of July, Hood s army shifted its position, form 
 ing on Peach-tree Creek, and Stewart s and Cheatham s corps 
 formed line of battle around the city. Hardee s corps made a 
 night march, and attacked the enemy s extreme left at one 
 o clock on the 22d, and drove him from his works, capturing 
 sixteen pieces of artillery and five stands of colors. Cheatham 
 attacked the enemy at four o clock in the afternoon with a 
 portion of his command, and drove the enemy, capturing six 
 pieces of artillery. During the engagement we captured about 
 two thousand prisoners. 
 
 After the battle of the 22d, Sherman s army was transferred 
 from its position on the east side of Atlanta to the extreme 
 right of Hood s army, on the west side, threatening the Macon 
 road. He slowly and gradually drew his lines about Atlanta, 
 feeling for the railroads which supplied Hood s army and mado 
 Atlanta a place of importance. 
 
 It remained to break the Macon road. For this purpose 
 Stoneman was sent with five thousand cavalry, and McCook 
 with four thousand men, to meet on the railroad near Lovejoy a 
 and to tear it up, and also to attack and drive Wheeler. Stono 
 
384 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAS. 
 
 man did not go to Lovcjoy s. He tore np mud of the railroad, 
 find got down in front of Macon ; and on his retreat was 
 hemmed in by Iverson, and was himself captured, together 
 \vith one thousand of his men and two guns, besides losing 
 many in killed and wounded. McCook cut his way out, 
 losing about five hundred men as prisoners. " On the whole, * 
 Shennan reported, " the cavalry raid is not deemed a suc 
 cess." 
 
 On the 28th of July, Hood made another grand attack on 
 Sherman. Coming out of Atlanta by the Bell s Ferry road, 
 he advanced in parallel lines directly against the Fifteenth 
 Corps, expecting to catch that flank in air. Of this movement 
 General Sherman said: "His advance was magnificent, but 
 founded on an error that cost him sadly ; for our men coolly 
 and deliberately cut down his men, and, spite of the efforts of 
 the rebel officers, his ranks broke and fled. But they were 
 rallied again and again, as often as six times at some points; 
 and ajew of the rebel officers and men reached our lines of 
 rail-piles only to be killed or hauled over as prisoners." The 
 Yankee accounts claimed a loss on the Confederate side in this 
 engagement of six thousand men. General Hood stated hig 
 loss at fifteen hundred killed and wounded. The excellent in- 
 trenchmcnts of the Yankees and the skilful formation of tlieh 
 lines saved them from any considerable loss, and secured them 
 the fortune of the day. 
 
 General Sherman now extended his lines sou t Invest ward 
 towards East Point, in the hope of drawing the Confederates 
 out, from the fear of having their communications severed ; 
 but Hood extended his fortified line accordingly, and refused 
 to abandon his works. For several weeks Sherman continued 
 the siege of Atlanta, bombarding it with but little effect. lie 
 had satisfied himself that to take Atlanta he must resort to 
 new means, and had concluded to plant his armies away below 
 on the Macon road, Hood s main line of supply. The grand 
 movement was assigned for the 18th of August. 
 
 But at this time Hood made the fatal mistake. He sent off 
 Wheeler and his entire cavalry to raid on Sherman s line of 
 communications. "At last," wrote Sherman, "he made the 
 mistake we had waited for so long, and sent his cavalry to our 
 rear, far beyond the reach of recall." 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 385 
 
 Instantly the Yankee cavalry was on the Macon road. Sher 
 man followed quickly with his principal army. On the 31st 
 of August, Howard, on the right, had reached Jonesboro 
 Thomas, in the centre, was at Couch s; and Schon eld, on the 
 left, was near Rough and Ready. 
 
 The Confederate forces were at this time in a most singular 
 position. They had been divided into two main armies, sep 
 arated by an interval of twenty-two miles. One part of the 
 army was intrenched at Atlanta, and the other was at Jonesboro , 
 under General Hardee, and was also intrenched. The cause 
 of this separation of the forces arose from the fact that Hood 
 had found out, by Kilpatrick s raid, that it was necessary he 
 should protect his communication^ at that point by a large 
 force. Sherman s army was therefore between Hood s forces, 
 and had literally divided the Confederates in two. 
 
 On the evening of the 30th of August, the enemy made a 
 lodgment across Flint River, near Jonesboro . The Confed 
 erates attacked them there on the evening of the 31st, with two 
 corps, but -failed to dislodge them. Of this event, General 
 Hood telegraphed to Richmond : " This made it necessary to 
 abandon Atlanta, which was done on the night of the 1st ot 
 September." 
 
 On the evening of the 1st of September, General Hardee f 
 corps, in position at Jonesboro , was assaulted by a snperioi 
 force of the enemy; and being outflanked, was compelled tc 
 withdraw during the night, with the loss of eight guns. 
 
 The sum of Hood s disasters was now complete. He had 
 remained in Atlanta to find that he was outflanked, his line of 
 supply cut off r and the Yankee troops between him and a large 
 portion of his army. In order to save that portion of his com 
 mand then with him, he determined to evacuate the fortified 
 city ; and on the night of September 1st he blew up his maga 
 zines, destroyed all his supplies that he could not remove, con 
 sisting of seven locomotives and eighty-one cars loaded with 
 ammunition, small-arms, and stores, and left the place by the 
 turnpike roads. 
 
 Sherman dispatched to Washington : " Atlanta is ours, and 
 fairly won. Since the 5th of May we have been in one con 
 tinued battle or skirmish, and need rest." The pause in mil 
 itary operations afforded him the opportunity of launching 
 
 25 
 
386 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 measures of the most extraordinary cruelty against the non 
 combatant people of Atlanta. He ordered the entiie depopu 
 lation of the city, and proceeded to drive from their homes 
 thousands of helpless women and children. General Hood 
 protested against the measure as " unprecedented, studied, and 
 ungenerous cruelty." Sherman wrote diffuse replies to him 
 and to the Mayor of Atlanta. This Yankee general wrote a 
 sort of tangled English, interlarded with slang phrases, which 
 the North accepted as a model of forcible and elegant style. 
 He replied to Hood, " Talk thus to the marines^ and not to 
 me ;" and gave to the mayor this bit of military philosophy : 
 " War is cruelty, and you Cannot refine it" He continued: 
 " You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against 
 these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable ; and the 
 only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in 
 peace and quiet at home is to stop this war." 
 
 It appears that the Yankee general had shut his eyes to 
 every element and law of civilization in w r ar. He ordered 
 into exile the whole population of a city, drove men, women, 
 and children from their homes at the point of the bayonet, 
 under the plea that it was to the interest of his Government, 
 and on the claim that it was an act of " kindness to these fam 
 ilies of Atlanta," Butler only banished from New Orleans the 
 registered enemies of his Government, and acknowledged that 
 he did it as a punishment. Sherman issued a sweeping edict 
 covering all the inhabitants of a city, and added insult to the 
 injury heaped upon the defenceless by assuming that he had 
 done them a kindness. 
 
 Shortly after the fall of Atlanta, it was affirmed that many 
 of the leading men of Georgia, including Governor Brown and 
 Alexander H. Stephens, were in favor of that State withdraw 
 ing from the Confederacy and making a separate peace ; and 
 that negotiations to that effect had been opened with General 
 Sherman. The facts were these : A Mr. King had brought to 
 Governor Brown a message to the effect that he would be 
 pleased to confer with him and others upon the state of the 
 country, with a view to a settlement of the difficulties, and 
 would give him a pass through the Federal lines, going and 
 returning, for that purpose. To this the governor replied, that 
 l.e, as governor of a State, and General Sherman, as a com 
 
THE LAS1 YEAR. 387 
 
 minder of an army in the field, had no authority to enter upon 
 negotiations for peace. Georgia might perhaps be overrun, 
 but could not be subjugated, and would never treat with a- 
 conqueror upon her soil. That while Georgia possessed the 
 sovereign power to act separately, her faith had been pledged 
 by implication to her Southern sisters, and she would not ex 
 ercise this power without their consent and co-operation. She 
 had entered into the contest knowing all the responsibilities 
 which it involved, and would never withdraw from it with 
 dishonor. "She will never," he says, "make separate terms 
 with the enemy, which may free her territory from invasion 
 and leave her confederates in the lurch. Whatever may be 
 the opinion of her people as to the injustice done her by the 
 Confederate Administration, she will triumph with her con 
 federate sisters, or she will sink with them in common ruin. . . 
 The independent expression of condemnation of the measures 
 of the Administration is one thing, and disloyalty to our sacred 
 cause is another and quite a different thing." " If Mr. Lincoln 
 would stop the war, let him," said Governor Brown, " recognize 
 the sovereignty of the States, and leave to each to determine 
 for herself whether she will return to the old Union or remain 
 in her present league." 
 
 About the same time Yice-President Stephens explained his 
 own position in an elaborate letter, in which he declared that 
 the only solution for present and prospective troubles was " the 
 simple recognition of the fundamental principle and truth upon 
 which all American constitutional liberty is founded, and upon 
 the maintenance of which alone it can be preserved that is, 
 the sovereignty the ultimate, absolute sovereignty of the 
 States." He concluded : " All questions of boundaries, con 
 federacies, and union or unions would naturally and easily ad 
 just themselves, according to the interests of parties and the 
 exigencies of the times. Herein lies the true law of balance 
 of the power and the harmony of States." 
 
 The fall of Atlanta was a serious blow to the Confederacy. 
 " On that day," said the Richmond Examiner, " McClellan s 
 nomination fell still-born, and an heir was born to the Abolition 
 dynasty. On that day, peace waved those white wings, and 
 fled to the ends of the morning. On that, day, calculations of tlio 
 torar s duration ceased to be the amusements even of the idle," 
 
388 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The catastrophe moved President Davis in Kichmoml. To 
 wards the close of September, he made a journey to Georgia. 
 He delivered an elaborate and ill-tempered speech at Macon. 
 He said that it would have gladdened his heart to have met 
 his auditors in prosperity instead of adversity. Still, though 
 misfortune had befallen the Confederates from Decatur to 
 Jonesboro , the cause was not lost. Sooner or later Sherman 
 must retreat, and then he would meet the fate that befell Na 
 poleon in the retreat from Moscow. He knew the deep dis 
 grace felt by Georgia at the army falling back from Dalton to 
 the interior of the State ; but he was not one who felt that At 
 lanta was lost when the army crossed the Chattahoochee, and 
 he had put a man at the head of the army who would strike a 
 manly blow for the city. It did not become him to revert t-> 
 disaster. Hood s army must be replenished. He had been 
 asked to send reinforcements from Virginia to Georgia, but 
 the disparity in numbers was as great in Virginia as in Georgia. 
 The army under Early had been sent to the valley of the Shen- 
 andoah, instead of to Georgia, because the enemy had pene* 
 trated to Lynchburg; and now, if Early was withdrawn, thera 
 was nothing to prevent the Federal troops from putting a com 
 plete cordon of men around Eichmond. He had counselled 
 with General Lee upon all these points ; his mind had roamed 
 over the whole field, and his conclusion was, that " if one-haL 
 of the men now absent from the field would return to duty, 
 we can defeat the enemy. With that hope, I am now going 
 to the front. I may not realize this hope, but I know that 
 there are men there who have looked death too often in the 
 face to despond now." 
 
 The swollen tone of the Confederate President was not with 
 out effect upon the public mind. Confidence was in a measure 
 revived ; and expectation stood on tiptoe for the results of that 
 wonderful strategy which President Davis had counselled with 
 Hood, and which he promised his Macon audience was to re 
 cover Atlanta, and bring Sherman to a grief unparalleled in 
 the war. The President s vivid hint of such a campaign was 
 the occasion of new hopes with some people of the Confederacy 
 But they had forgotten of what ill omen had been his former 
 visits to the Western army ; how disaster had followed on hi 
 hoels ; and how his former plans of campaign in this depart* 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 
 
 ment, attended with like vapors, had turned out to be the 
 veriest clap-traps in military science. But the sequel of the 
 Macon speech belongs to another period of time, and must be 
 reserved for another chapter. 
 
 "We turn here, at this period, to the narration of some naval 
 arid military incidents which belong to it, and which, although 
 of no great importance in themselves, are of considerable in 
 terest, either on account of the principles they involved or the 
 spirit they illustrated. 
 
 CAPTURE OF THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER FLORIDA. 
 
 The Florida had originally sailed from England under the 
 name of Oreto, and under that name she was, on reaching 
 Nassau, brought before the court through the efforts of the 
 Yankee consul. The neutral authorities decided in favor of 
 the vessel, which was permitted to proceed. Leaving Nas 
 sau she went to Green Bay, where she received on board her 
 armament, ran into Mobile, changed her name to that of 
 Florida, and had since carried on an effective war on Yankee 
 commerce. 
 
 In February, 1864, availing herself of a dark night, she es 
 caped from Brest, eluding the Kearsarge, which was off that 
 port. In June, she visited the neutral port of St. Georges, 
 Bermuda, and remained there nine days. Leaving St. Georges 
 on the 27th of that month, she remained outside, but in sight, 
 for thr.ee or four days, boarding all vessels that approached the 
 island. On the 10th of July she captured the Electric Spark, 
 near the coast, while several vessels were cruizing for her ; but 
 she escaped, and was next heard from at Teneriffe, on the 4th 
 of August. Subsequently she entered the bay of San Salvador, 
 Brazil. 
 
 While the Florida was at her anchorage in this neutral port, 
 and a portion of her crew, with her commander, were ashore, 
 not dreaming of danger, Captain Napoleon Collins, of the 
 Yankee steamer Wachusett, had conceived the extraordinary 
 and outrageous design of stealing upon the Confederate vessel, 
 and destroying or capturing her by a cowardly stratagem in a 
 neutral port. 
 
390 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 About three o clock in the morning of the 7th .f October 
 the cables were slipped, and the Wachusett bore down upon 
 the Confederate vessel under a full head of steam. So little ex 
 pectation was there of such a proceeding, that one-half the 
 officers and crew of the Florida, seventy in number, and includ 
 ing Captain Morris, were on shore. The Florida s officer on 
 deck supposed the collision, which he saw to be imminent, to 
 be merely accidental, and cried out : u You will run into us if 
 you don t look out." The design of Captain Collins was to 
 strike the Florida amidships, with full steam on, crushing he? 
 side, and send her at once to the bottom. The Wachusett, 
 however, did not strike her adversary fairly, but hit her in. the 
 stern, carrying away the mizen-mast and main-yard. The 
 Florida was not seriously injured by the collision; but the 
 broken spar fell across the awning over her hatchway in such 
 a manner as to prevent her crew from getting on deck from 
 below. The recoil which followed the shock carried the Wa- 
 chusett back several yards. In the confusion which ensued, 
 several pistol shots were fired from both vessels, chiefly at 
 random and entirely without effect. Two of the guns of the 
 Wachusett were also discharged, but the shots did not strike 
 the Florida. 
 
 Captain Collins, of the Wachusett, immediately called out : 
 " Surrender, or I will blow you out of the water !" The lieu 
 tenant in charge of the Florida replied : " Under the circum 
 stances, I surrender." Without the delay of an instant, dozens 
 of Yankee sailors boarded the prize, and made fast a hawser, 
 connecting her with their own vessel, and the Wachusett 
 turned her course seaward, moving at the top of her speed, 
 and towing the Florida in her wake. 
 
 The fleet of Brazilian vessels was so situated, that the two 
 steamers were obliged to pass under the stern of one of the 
 largest in order to penetrate their line. The Wachusett was 
 challenged, but did not deign a word of reply, and the Florida, 
 when hailed and commanded to halt a moment after, replied 
 that a pause was impossible, as she was towed by the vessel in 
 front. The Brazilians soon divined the state of affairs, and in 
 another moment or two the her.vy guns of tho fort, under the 
 muzzles of which the capture had been made, opened fire on 
 the Wachusett as she disappeared in the darkness. Three 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 391 
 
 shots were fired after her, all passing harmlessly far atove her 
 pennant and striking the water. 
 
 To those familiar with the Yankee disposition to misrepre 
 sent and boast, it will not appear strange that this stroke of 
 Napoleon Collins genius a piece of cowardice and outrage 
 for which Mr. Seward was afterwards compelled to apologize , 
 to the Brazilian government should have been generally 
 thought, in the North, very commendable and admirable. 
 But what shall be said of this sentiment in a New York news 
 paper : " Certainly no page of history can show a more daring 
 achievement, or one executed with more brilliant rapidity or 
 more complete success /" 
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CONFEDERATE RAM ALBEMARLE. 
 
 A few weeks later, and another naval exploit of the Yankees 
 was heralded to the public. This was the destruction of the 
 formidable ram Albemarle, in the Roanoke River. With four 
 teen officers and men, Lieutenant Gushing, of the Yankee navy, 
 on the night of the 27th October, ascended the Roanoke to 
 Plymouth, in a torpedo boat, crept upon the ram at her wharf, 
 and sunk her by the explosion of the torpedo. 
 
 The exploit was a most dastardly one a rare exhibition of 
 cowardice ; for no sooner had the Yankees exploded the Albe 
 marle than, instead of making fight, they cried out, " We sur- 
 der, we surrender !" and while the vessel was sinking, called 
 for quarter from those upon whom they had stolen under the 
 cover of darkness. 
 
 The Confederates would have been justifiable in dispatching 
 these men on the spot. The Yankees had, in more than one 
 instance, executed in cold blood members of the torpedo corps 
 of the Confederate States ; and when Butler ascended the James 
 River, in May, 1864:, the story was grimly told in the New 
 York papers, that certain torpedo-men captured on that occa 
 sion " would never give any more trouble." But in the case 
 of the Albemarle, the Confederates, with characteristic softness 
 and simplicity of heart, took and treated as prisoners of war 
 the dastardly creatures, whose enterprise had bet>i of no more 
 peril than that of the assassin who stabs in the back, and, as 
 
892 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 his victim turns to revenge himself, throws up his hamls for 
 mercy. 
 
 It is a peculiarity of the Yankee that the success of an in 
 genious device of cowardice is more highly extolled than any 
 exhibition of real courage. No wonder, then, that the affair 
 of the Albemarle was exploited as one of the sensations of the 
 day ; and that Lieutenant Gushing, the commander of the 
 Yankee party, was dubbed " hero," and his physiognomy re 
 corded on the first pages of the New York pictorials. 
 
 The destruction of the Albemarle removed the reliable de 
 fence of Plymouth. On the 31st of October the Yankees took 
 possession of the place, capturing some prisoners and cannon, 
 and re-establishing their supremacy in the sounds of North 
 Carolina. 
 
 THE ST. ALBAN8 KAID. 
 
 In the month of October, a great and undue excitement was 
 created in the North by an expedition of twenty-five Confed 
 erates from the Canadian frontier into the town of St. Albans, 
 Vermont. The raid occurred on the 18th of October. The 
 banks were robbed of over one hundred thousand dollars, and 
 a citizen was shot ; the raiders declaring that they " intended 
 retaliation for Sherman s cruelties in Atlanta." They escaped 
 across the frontier, but were arrested by the Canadian author 
 ities. The raid was followed by great excitement, and in a 
 few hours the whole frontier was under arms. 
 
 The apparent complicity of the Confederate authorities in 
 the St. A] bans raid furnished the Yankees with the occasion 
 of connecting the Government at [Richmond with all sorts of 
 real and pretended schemes, concocted on the Canadian fron 
 tier, to execute savage justice upon the North. These stories 
 are familiar to the world. It was declared on affidavit, on 
 different occasions, that Confederate agents, on neutral terri 
 tory, had plotted the burning of Northern cities, the conflagra 
 tion of hotels, the destruction of railroad trains, the infection 
 of the Northern people with pestilence, and all manner of sa\ 
 age and inhuman retribution. 
 
 The slight element of truth in these libels is easily indicated. 
 No human creature is more ingenious and industrious in mis- 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 393 
 
 repiesentation than the Yankee; and his unscrupulous and 
 busy attempt to hand down the Confederates to history as a 
 savage foe, is to be constantly met in the history of the war. 
 
 It is true that President Davis was a credulous man, and 
 very accessible to the claims of foreign adventurers, to the pro 
 positions of " blowers," and the game of " confidence-men." 
 It is quite possible that he may have given countenance to 
 some of these plausible creatures, who afterwards exceeded 
 their instructions ; and having been designated for legitimate 
 " secret service," assumed, on their own account, the part of 
 highwaymen and incendiaries. But it is an incontestable fact 
 in history, that the Confederates, so far from being savage 
 avengers, were deficient in the policy and tame in the spirit 
 of retaliation ; that they moderated their warfare with an ex 
 cess of chivalry and sentirnentalism that was more than once 
 laughed at by the enemy, or seriously censured by the more 
 intelligent and just persons of the South; and that in their 
 general temper in the war, and its well-attested facts of his 
 tory, they give the conclusive and unmistakable contradiction 
 to the multitudinous Yankee stories of "rebel barbarities" ill 
 the episodes of the war. 
 
394: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 The Richmond lines. THE FALL OF FORT HARRISON, ETC. The attempt to icUfce it, 
 Why it failed. ENGAGEMENT ON THE CHARLES CITY ROAD. Death of General 
 Gregg. ENGAGEMENT ON THE WILLIAMSBUIJG AND BOYDTON ROADS. ANOTFIEH 
 GRAND ATTEMPT ON RICHMOND. A shameful failure. The "electoral necessity" at 
 Washington. THE CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. Early s mission in the 
 Valley; How a part of the combination to protect Richmond. Sheridan s com 
 mand. His strategy. BATTLE NEAR WINCHESTER. A critical moment. The en 
 emy s centre broken. He recovers. Misconduct of the Confederate cavalry. 
 Early retreats to Fisher s Hill. THE BATTLE OF FISHER S HILL. A most unex 
 pected reverse to the Confederates. Misgivings and alarm in Richmond. The 
 capture of Staunton. Sheridan s devastations of the Valley. "Barn-burning." 
 An affair of Rosser s cavalry." The Saviour of the Valley." BATTLE OF CEDAB 
 CREEK. Two-thirds of Sheridan s army completely routed. Early s awkward 
 pause. Plunder of the Yankee camp. The enemy regains the day. Shameful 
 rout of the Confederates. The Valley campaign virtually ended. SOUTHWESTERN 
 VIRGINIA. Breckinridge s campaign. The Yankees capture the salt-works at 
 Saltville. Destruction of the works. 
 
 THE events on the Richmond lines in the fall months of 1864: 
 were not without importance. 
 
 THE FALL OF FORT HARRISON, ETC. 
 
 Early on the night of the 28th of September it was dlscov* 
 ered that the enemy was crossing a force to the north side oi 
 the Jarnes, at Deep Bottom, and in a few hours developed the 
 fact that he was crossing infantry, cavalry, and artillery in 
 heavy columns. General Gregg, who was in command at that 
 point, after notifying General Ewell of the situation, placed 
 two brigades of Field s division in readiness to meet an attack. 
 
 At daybreak on the 29th, our pickets were driven in at sev 
 eral points, showing that a formidable advance was being made, 
 and that the force to oppose it was inadequate to cover all the 
 ground threatened. The best disposition possible, however, 
 was made of the small force present. The first determined as 
 sault was made near the Phillips House, on both sides of tha 
 Four Mile Run. The Texas brigade was hastened in double- 
 
THE LAST TEAK. 395 
 
 quick to that point, and placed in position just in time to repel 
 the attack. The enemy, in very heavy force, had reached the 
 abattis, thirty or forty yards in front, but were there met by 
 a most terrific and galling fire, which mowed them down with 
 terrible slaughter. The white troops fled in great confusion, 
 but, the entangled brush greatly impeding their speed, many 
 of them fell under the fire of the well-aimed rifles of the 
 Tex an s. 
 
 The negroes, who were driven up at the point of the bay 
 onet, lay flat upon the ground, just in rear of the abattis, hop 
 ing thereby to shield themselves from the sad havoc in their 
 ranks, but the Texans, mounting the works, shot them like 
 sheep led to the shambles. The New York Herald said one 
 hundred and ninety-four negroes were buried upon that spot. 
 Counting the wounded at five times as great, which is a low 
 estimate, at least twelve hundred killed and wounded cum 
 bered the ground in front of that little brigade. 
 
 Beaten back at this point, the enemy immediately hurled 
 another column of white troops against General Geary, near the 
 Drill House, on New Market Heights, and met a like bloodj 
 repulse. 
 
 Beaten back with terrible slaughter from the heights of Ne\v 
 Market, the Yankees determined to accomplish, by flank 
 movements and overwhelming numbers, what their courage 
 failed to do. 
 
 A heavy column moved up the river for the purpose of at 
 tacking the works on Chaffiri s farm, while others moved up 
 the Darby town and New Market roads. A force of Confederates 
 was hastened off in double-quick to reinforce Fort Harrison 
 and adjacent works; but before they could reach them the en 
 emy assaulted the fort, which, after a very feeble resistance ort 
 the part of the artillery and a portion of Colonel Maury s com 
 mand, was abandoned to the enemy. This fort occupied a 
 commanding position below Drury s Muff, and constituted 
 the main defence at that point. 
 
 In the mean time the 1* rce that moved up New Market road 
 had massed in a ravine on Taylor s farm, northwest of Forfc 
 
 *\ 
 
 Gilmer, and were moving in two heavy columns upon it and 
 the works to the left. Law s brigade of Field s division (under 
 Colonel Bowls), which had just arrived, opened a destructive 
 
896 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 fire on the line advancing upon the works to the left and re 
 pulsed them. The whole force was then hurled, with great im 
 petuosity, against Fort Gilraer. 
 
 The open plateau in front gave the Confederates, in and 
 to the left of the fort, an opportunity to pour a galling arid 
 destructive fire into the enemy s front and flank for several 
 hundred yards before they could reach the goal at which they 
 aimed. The negroes, as usual, were in front, and rushed for 
 ward frantically, under dread of the bayonets at their backs, 
 shooting but seldom, and wide of their mark. Their only 
 object seemed to be to gain the ditch, and save themselves 
 from slaughter. The white soldiers never reached the ditch. 
 They were repulsed, and fell back in confusion. 
 
 The total sum of the day s labor was six battle-flags, two 
 guidons, and about five hundred prisoners, besides at least 
 seven hundred of the enemy killed, and three thousand five 
 hundred wounded. 
 
 General Field arrived just prior to the assault upon Fort 
 Gilrner, and, after a careful survey of the situation, favored an 
 attack upon Fort Harrison that evening, before the enemy 
 could strengthen the position. But his superior officers 
 thought it best to defer it until the next day. The sequel 
 shows that General Field was right. Twenty-four hours 
 elapsed, during which time the enemy greatly improved and 
 strengthened his position. The plan determined upon was to 
 attack at two o clock on the evening of the 30th. Generals 
 Anderson s, Bratton s, and Law s brigades, of Field s division, 
 were to make the assault in front, while Hoke attacked at the 
 same time the side next to the Bluff. By means of a ravine 
 the latter was enabled to form within two or three hundred 
 yards of the fort, while Field was probably three times 
 that distance. At the expiration of a certain time, after a 
 given signal, the assault was to commence. As soon as Gen 
 eral Field s line moved up, on a line opposite to General Hoke, 
 he was to advance, and the attack was to be made simultane 
 ous. In accordance with this arrangement, the assaulting 
 columns were put in readiness, and the signal given. In order 
 to cause no delay, and to make sure of getting all the men out 
 of the trenches, a short while before the time expired, General 
 Field ordered General Anderson to move his brigade in front 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 397 
 
 of the works he then occupied, adjust his line, and make the 
 men lie down until the other two brigades could form upon it. 
 General Anderson failing to give his men the necessary in 
 struction as to his object, as soon as they leaped the breast 
 works they rushed forward with a yell, and he was unable to 
 control them. This necessitated rapid movement on the part 
 of the other brigades. General Hoke, awaiting the expiration 
 of the time, did not move forward as was designed, in concert 
 with the brigades of Field s division, and thus the enemy was 
 enabled to concentrate his lire upon both assaults. ^ 
 
 The troops did not attack with their usual impetuosity. 
 Law s brigade accomplished its object, in sweeping up the old 
 works, retaking a redan to the left of the fort, and thus pro 
 tecting our left flank. But the main attack failed. Iloke met 
 a like repulse. Had General Field s plan to attack the even 
 ing before been adopted, in all human probability the fort 
 would have been recaptured, and the enemy driven back acros? 
 the river. 
 
 ENGAGEMENT ON THE CHARLES CITY ROAD. 
 
 On the morning of the 6th of October, the Yankee host 
 forty thousand strong, lay encamped on the north side of James 
 River, the main body in the neighborhood of Fort Harrison, 
 ten miles southeast of Richmond, the Tenth (Birney s) army 
 corps and Kantz s cavalry being five and a half miles nearer 
 the city, and in position between the Darbytown and Charles 
 City roads. 
 
 With the first early light, General Geary s brigade of cavalry 
 and a considerable force of our infantry struck the enemy s 
 right, resting on the Charles City road, at a point from four 
 and a half to five miles from the city. The Yankees were com 
 pletely surprised, and with little resistance fled into their in- 
 trenchments, a short distance in their rear. Here they were 
 in strong force, and prepared for a desperate resistance ; but 
 our troops, following up their first blow with great impetuosity, 
 carried the works and drove the Yankees out, capturing nine 
 pieces of cannon, one hundred artillery horses, and 
 hundred prisoners. 
 
398 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 General Geary, by this time, had Kautz on the run, and was 
 driving him ahead of the infantry. 
 
 Our infantry continued to press the Tenth Corps hack. Our 
 troops then pressed forward towards a second line of the ene 
 my s intrenchments, which were carried after a sharp contest, 
 and the enemy routed and pursued some distance tow r ards Fort 
 Harrison, when our men were withdrawn from the pursuit to 
 the enemy s line of intrenchments just taken. 
 
 The enemy, in the course of an hour or two, having heen 
 rapidly reinforced from the grand army at Fort Harrison, ad 
 vanced with confidence to the recapture of their former posi 
 tion. They were, after a long and desperate light, repulsed 
 with great slaughter, and as night closed in we held all the 
 ground we had taken. 
 
 In this light the brave and chivalrous General Gregg, com 
 manding the Texan brigade, fell at the head of his troops, 
 pierced through the neck by a minie ball. 
 
 ENGAGEMENT ON THE WILLIAMSBURG AND BOYDTON ROADS 
 ANOTHER GRAND ATTEMPT ON RICHMOND. 
 
 On the 27th of October, General Grant moved against the 
 Confederate right and left flank. An interval of a month had 
 occurred since his capture of Fort Harrison, and the extension 
 of his right to the Darbytown road. The armies of the James 
 and the Potomac moved simultaneous^. 
 
 It was soon ascertained that the Eighteenth Corps had made 
 a detour around White Oak swamp, and was advancing in 
 heavy columns up the "Williamsburg and Nine Mile roads. 
 The object of this movement was to find, and if possible turn, 
 Lee s left flank. General Longstreet at once ordered General 
 
 O 
 
 Field to take position on the Nine Mile road. 
 
 He moved the division with great celerity, and gained the 
 Williamsburg road just in time to repel an assault and save 
 the fort and guns immediately on the road. 
 
 On his arrival, he found that the enemy s heaviest .^orcc was 
 massed upon that road, and that would be the point cf main 
 attack. 
 
 Two or three brigades of negroes had bee n sent up the Nine 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 399 
 
 Mile road, and had charged and carried the works, and cap 
 tured one piece of artillery, just as the Hampton Legion, of 
 Geary s cavalry, was going into position. But the Twenty-fourth 
 Virginia cavalry coming up, they, in conjunction with the 
 legion, charged and regained the works and artillery, and 
 drove the negroes back with heavy slaughter. 
 
 Severe skirmishing and artillery duels were being waged, on 
 the Darbytown and Charles City roads ; and one or two deter 
 mined assaults had been made upon Hoke s line, but had been 
 handsomely repulsed. 
 
 In the mean time, the enemy had planted two heavy field- 
 batteries near the Wiliiamsburg road, and were shelling our 
 works most furiously. Their artillery was handled with great 
 skill and precision. Our batteries did not respond, because 
 they desired to hold their fire for the advance of the infantry. 
 Their silence misled the enemy. Soon a line of battle de 
 bouched from the woods on the left of the Wiliiamsburg road, 
 evidently bent upon the capture of the fort. This time the 
 uegroes were in the rear, perhaps because the white soldiers, 
 believing that the fort and its guns were but feebly manned, 
 expected to make easy and quick work of it, and get all the 
 glory. In this they were disastrously deceived. They had to 
 advance through an open and level field for half a mile. The 
 fort opened upon them with grape and canister ; and when 
 within five hundred yards, Anderson s, the Texas, and Brat- 
 ton s brigades poured terrible volleys of minies from their En- 
 deld rifles into their wavering ranks ; and by the time they 
 arrived within two hundred yards, the fire from the artillery 
 and musketry had become so destructive that they broke in 
 every direction, and were charged by our skirmishers. The 
 result, in addition to one hundred dead and many wounded, 
 was the capture of 500 prisoners. 
 
 On the Boydton plank-road the day had been no less de 
 cisive. The main attack of the enemy here was directed 
 against the Southside Railroad. The enemy was encountered 
 here by three brigades under General Mahone in front, and 
 General Hampton in the rear. Mahone captured four hundred 
 prisoners, three stand of colors, and six pieces of artillery. The 
 latter could not be brought off, the enemy having possession 
 of the bridge. 
 
4:00 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 In the attack subsequently made by the enemy, General 
 Mahone broke three lines of battle, and during the night tho 
 enemy retreated from the Boydton road, leaving his wounded 
 and more than two hundred and fifty dead on the field. * 
 
 Thus failed, almost shamefully > Grant s ambitious movement 
 of October. It had been easily repulsed at all points. There 
 is no doubt that Grant had designed, at this season, an " On 
 to Richmond," which was to electrify the North antf carry for 
 Lincoln the approaching Presidential election, only a few days 
 distant. But he had utterly failed to respond to the " electoral 
 necessity" at Washington ; although it must be admitted that 
 events, to which we shall presently refer, in other parts of Vir 
 ginia, had amply supplied it, and adorned the Yankee arms 
 with no mean success. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 These Yankee successes were to occur in a quarter where 
 they were least expected in the Valley of Virginia, a district 
 heretofore illuminated by brilliant Confederate victories, and 
 associated with heroic names. 
 
 Early s army in the Valley, first designed to threaten Wash- 
 ington, and to do a not less important service in saving the 
 harvests of the Shenandoah, had become, in other respects, a 
 most necessary part of General Lee s combination to protect 
 Richmond. 
 
 Of the four railroads which enter Richmond, two the Frcdcr- 
 icksburg and the York River railroads had become of but 
 little account ; they drained a country already exhausted. But 
 the Gordonsville road, connecting Richmond with the fertile 
 
 * In the series of engagements on the Richmond lines just narrated. Field s 
 division had borne a conspicuous part, and deserves a distinct meniion. A 
 correspondent wrote : " For thirty days this division has stood at the gates of 
 the capital against overwhelming odds ; and, almost unaided, has beaten back, 
 with sad havoc, five of Grant s grand Ons to Richmond. It has lost, in 
 killed, wounded, and missing, about twelve hundred men ; and yet is stronger 
 to-day than it was a month ago. It has killed more than one thousand of the 
 enemy, wounded five times that number, captured over 1,200 prisoners, several 
 hundrjd stands of arns, five guidons, and fifteen battle-flags.* 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 401 
 
 Valley of the Shenandoah, was of great importance. It was a 
 part of Early s mission to guard this communication, but 
 more important part of that mission was to cover the approach 
 to Lynchburg. After the occupation of the Weldon road by 
 Grant, the safety of Lynchburg became absolutely essential to 
 the maintenance by Lee of any defensive position in Virginia, 
 For Lynchburg was then the key to all the communications 
 left to his army ; and if once captured by the Yankee forces 
 arid made a military station, it could be held by a small army, 
 and made the centre of a new system of operations on the west 
 side of Richmond. 
 
 On the 8th of August, General Sheridan was placed in com 
 mand of what was called the Middle Military Division, super 
 seding General Hunter, his force consisting at that time of the 
 Sixth, Eighth, and Nineteenth Corps, together with Crook s, 
 Averill s, and Kelly s commands On receiving his command, 
 Sheridan established his headquarters at Harper s Ferry. 
 
 Concentrating his troops at once along the Potomac, in tho 
 immediate vicinity of the Shenandoah Valley, whither General 
 Early, now in command of the Confederate forces, had with 
 drawn, Sheridan gradually advanced upon the important posi 
 tions of Martinsburg, Williamsport, etc., garrisoning these as 
 fast as they were relinquished, and establishing complete and 
 prompt communications between his headquarters and the ad 
 vanced posts. Early fell back gradually, for the purpose of 
 luring Sheridan on. As Early retired, Sheridan took the op 
 portunity of seizing and securing- Winchester on the 12th of 
 August, throwing out a cavalry detachment to Front Royal. 
 This accomplished, he fell back in turn, abandoning Winches 
 ter, and awaiting at Harper s Ferry and its vicinity the concen 
 tration of his forces. 
 
 On the 18th of September, General Early, with compara 
 tively a small force, was confronting Sheridan north of Win 
 chester. Sheridan attacked him on Opequan Creek, and 
 captured fifty men belonging to the Eighth South Carolina 
 regiment, who were on picket. Immediately Sheridan tele 
 graphed to Stan ton, " I have captured one entire regiment, 
 oilicers included." 
 
 26 
 
4:02 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 BATTLE NEAE WINCHESTER. 
 
 On the morning of the 19th of September, the enemy a(> 
 vanced upon Winchester, near which place General Early met 
 his attack. About daylight the enemy advanced, by the Ber- 
 r} T ville road, on Rarnseur, who was posted at the Spout Spring, 
 on the same road, some four miles east of Winchester. Gen 
 eral Gordon was at Bunker Hill, twelve miles from Winchester, 
 and ten miles from Martineburg, on a reconnoissance. General 
 Rhodes was at Hopewell Church, near Whitehall, to the left ot 
 the Martirisburg road, and about eight miles below Winchester. 
 Gordon commenced moving back to the point of attack about 
 daylight, and Rhodes moved in the same direction about seven 
 o clock. Wharton, meanwhile, remained on the extreme left, 
 on the Martinsburg road, a short distance below Winchester. 
 Between ten and eleven o clock all of our troops were in posi 
 tion on the field, our line facing towards the east, the enemy s 
 towards the west. The situation was as follows : Ramseur s 
 troops stretched from Abraham Creek to the Berryvilje pike ; 
 Rhodes had taken position between Ramseur and Gordon ; and 
 Wharton, as above stated, held the left. The battle now 
 raged heavily, and bore strongly towards our left. It was 
 about half-past twelve when General Rhodes, while placing a 
 Dattery in the gap between himself and Gordon, was struck in 
 the head by a ball, and borne from the field. He was carried 
 to Winchester, where he died in about half an hour after 
 reaching the place. 
 
 In some battles there is a marked crisis, when the fortune of 
 the day is visibly and instantly decided. As the enemy pressed 
 forward in the attack, a brigade, in G rover s division of the 
 Nineteenth Corps, was forced to retire ; another was thrown 
 into confusion, and the entire left of the division subsequently 
 gave way. A Confederate battery opened upon the flying 
 troops. Their shells, descending among the broken columns of 
 Grover, demoralized and shattered them still more. The entire 
 infantry of the Confederates charged in turn, pouring in severo 
 and rapid volleys towards the point of breakage. 
 
 " The moment," says a Yankee correspondent, " was a fearful 
 
THE LAST TEAK. 4:03 
 
 one. Such a sight rarely occurs more than once in any battle, 
 as was presented on the open space between two pieces of 
 woodland, into which the cheering enemy poured, in their 
 eagerness. Thefr whole line, reckless of bullets, reckless even 
 of the shells of our batteries, constantly advanced. Captain 
 Steven s battery, posted immediately in their front, poured its 
 fire unflinchingly into their columns to the last. The men of 
 the battery kept it at work in the face of the foe, who advanced 
 at least within two hundred yards of the muzzles of the guns. 
 General Rickett s division, pressed heavily in flank, gradually 
 broke, and commenced falling back. General Getty s division, 
 on the left, partially fell back likewise. The day, had such a 
 situation been suffered to continue fifteen minutes longer, 
 would certainly have been lost to us." 
 
 The enemy ordered up his reserves in the rear of his broken 
 centre. His columns were gradually reformed, and the battle 
 raged with renewed fury. 
 
 The Yankees now continued to push their line around our 
 left, and about four o clock in the afternoon, their cavalry, on 
 the extreme right, made a charge upon our cavalry, completely 
 routing it. Up to this time the battle had been progressing 
 very favorably ; but the stampede of our cavalry enabled the 
 enemy to pass on our flank and in our rear, and made it neces 
 sary for our infantry to fall back, which it did, reaching Win 
 chester about sundown. The same evening our whole army 
 retired to Newtown, and the next morning to Fisher s Hill. 
 This position, pronounced by military men to be the strongest 
 in the Valley, was eighteen miles from Winchester, and 
 seventy-two from Staunton. It was overlooked, from the east, 
 by the Massanutton Mountain, from which it was separated by 
 the north branch of the Shenandoah River, while on the west 
 it was protected by the North Mountain, and along its front 
 base flowed a small branch called Cumberland Run. 
 
 The disaster of this defeat was painfully recognized by the- 
 Confederate public. In the fight, General Early lost three 
 thousand men, from all causes, and three cannon. The misbe 
 havior of our cavalry was an especial subject of mortification. 
 It had undoubtedly lost the day. Though outnumbered four 
 to one our troops had met the attack nobly, and actually beat 
 Sheridan s infantry, and were driving them back at all points, 
 
4:04: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 when our cavalry, who were relied upon to protect our flanks, 
 gave way on our right. The enemy s cavalry immediately as 
 saulted the right of our victorious columns, and the fortunes of 
 the day were changed, and a defeat of the Confederates ensued. 
 i r et it was at least hoped that Early would be able to hold the 
 immensely strong position of Fisher s Hill against all comers, 
 and that there the tide of disaster would be stayed. But in 
 this the Confederate public was to be infinitely disappointed. 
 
 On the 22d of September, Sheridan brought up his entire 
 force to assault the strong position of the Confederates on 
 Fisher s Hill. The works were too formidable to be carried 
 by an attack in front alone, and therefore, while keeping up a 
 feint of a front attack, the Eighth Corps was sent far to thn 
 right, and, sweeping about Early s left, flanked him, and at 
 tacked him in the rear, driving him out of his intrenchments 
 while the Sixth Corps attacked at the same time in the centre 
 front, and the Nineteenth Corps on the left. Confused and di? 
 organized by attacks at so many different points, the Confed 
 erates broke at the centre, and fled, in disorganization, toward? 
 Woodstock. Artillery, horses, wagons, rifles, knapsacks, and 
 canteens were abandoned, and strewn along the road. Several 
 hundred prisoners and twelve pieces of artillery were captured. 
 The pursuit was continued until the 25th, and did not conclude 
 until Early had been driven below Port Republic- 
 
 This second most unexpected reverse of Early was the occa 
 sion of no little despondency in Richmond. The total of his 
 losses in men and material was considerable ; and although the 
 story of the Yankees, that in one week ten thousand of his 
 men had been put out of combat, was absurdly false, enough 
 was known in Richmond of the extent of the disaster to occa 
 sion the most serious misgivings and alarm. The harvests of 
 the Shenandoah "Valley had been lost ; the most productive 
 districts of Virginia were opened to the waste of the enemy ; 
 and the second capture of Staunton, that was to ensue, was to 
 be the signal of another alarm for the safety of Lynchburg. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 405 
 
 While Sheridan made his headquarters at Port Republic, he 
 sent his cavahy, under Torbert, forward to Staunton ; which 
 place the}^ captured, and destroyed all the storehouses, machine- 
 shops, and other buildings, owned or occupied by the Confed 
 erate government, and also the saddles, small-arms, hard-bread, 
 and other military stores found in the place. They then pro 
 ceeded to Waynesboro , also on the Virginia Central Railroad ; 
 tore up seven miles of the railroad track, destroyed the depot, 
 the iron bridge over the Shenandoah, a government tannery, 
 and other stores. General Sheridan also improved the time of 
 holding possession of the Shenandoah Valley to destroy all the 
 grain, hay and forage to be found there, excepting what was 
 necessary for the subsistence of his own army. The whole 
 valley being thus devastated, General Sheridan moved leisurely 
 northward, and on the 6th of October made his headquarters 
 at Woodstock. South of this point over two thousand barns 
 filled with wheat and hay, and over seventy mills stocked with 
 wheat and flour had been destroyed ; and a vast herd of stock, 
 and more than three thousand sheep had been reserved for the 
 supply of the army. The Luray Valley, as well as the Little 
 Fort Valley, were subjected to the same devastation. In the 
 marauding expedition into the former valley, sixty-live hundred 
 head of cattle, and five hundred horses were captured, and 
 thirty-two large flouring mills, thirty distilleries, four blast-fur 
 naces, and over fifty barns were destroyed. 
 
 The horror and crime of this devastation was remarkable 
 oven in Yankee warfare. They impoverished a whole popula 
 tion ; they reduced women and children to beggary and star 
 vation ; they left the black monuments of Yankee atrocity all 
 rhe way from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain. It is 
 remarkable that the worst of Yankee atrocities were always 
 done in the intoxication of unexpected success, when no longer 
 the fears of previous disasters held in check their cruel coward 
 ice, and intimidated their native ferocity. 
 
 On the 9th of October, Sheridan had an affair with Rosser s 
 cavalry, which had hung on his rear. One division of the 
 Yankee cavalry charged along the Strasburg pike, while 
 another, moving by a back road, took Rosser in flank. Sher 
 idan claimed in this affair to have taken eleven pieces of ar 
 tillery, and over three hundred prisoners. He wrote to the 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE 
 
 War Department, at "Washington, a dispatch in which profan 
 ity and slang marked his lively sense of victory. lie had 
 " finished the Savior of the Valley, " and the worsted Con 
 ^ederates he had pursued " on the jump" for twenty-six miles 
 
 THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 
 
 The most important battle of the campaign in the Vallej 
 was yet to take place. 
 
 On the 18th of October, Early lay at Fisher s Hill with two 
 corps of Sheridan s army in his front, on the north side of 
 Cedar Creek. Another corps, the Sixth, was between Middle- 
 town and Newtown. Sheridan himself was at Winchester, 
 and his cavalry a little withdrawn from the front. The two 
 corps on Cedar Creek were heavily fortified on the left (look 
 ing towards Middletown) of the turnpike, but their works on 
 the right of the road were complete. 
 
 This being the situation, Early determined to attack and, it 
 possible, to surprise the force at Cedar Creek. Accordingly, 
 at nightfall of the 18th, he marched out of his works at Fisher s 
 Hill to the stone bridge which crosses the little stream at the 
 foot of the hill. Here his army was divided, the larger column 
 moving to the right of the turnpike, the lesser to the left the 
 object being simultaneous attack on both flanks of the enemy. 
 In order to flank the enemy s works on the right of the road, 
 it was necessary to move the larger column through a narrow 
 pass in the mountains, where two men could not walk abreast. 
 Thus, marching in single file, the whole night was consumed 
 before the large column found itself in a proper position to 
 make the attack. Seven miles of rugged country was to be 
 marched along the mountain eide, and down hills so steep 
 that horses could hardly travel, the men holding by bushes, 
 and moving in single rank. The Shenandoah had to be crossed 
 twice, the last time in the face of the enemy s pickets. Can 
 teens had been left at camp, and the men required to keep 
 silent. 
 
 Everybody was up to time; every thing ready. Payne 
 charged across the river, driving in the pickets at a gallop, 
 and pressing in the direction of Sheridan s headquarters, and 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 407 
 
 towards Middletown. The infantry was then rushed across, 
 Gordon s division in front, next Ramseur s Pegram s in re 
 serve. Nothing was to be done but close up ranks, face to the 
 front, and fight rapidly. The firing began at all points, Ker 
 shaw charging in front, and with great success. 
 
 The enemy was struck by a fatal and terrible surprise. The 
 Eighth and Nineteenth Corps were entirely routed. Great 
 numbers of the Yankees were slain in their camps. Eighteen 
 pieces of artillery were captured, fifteen hundred prisoners, 
 small arms without number, wagons and camps, every thing on 
 the ground. Two-thirds of Sheridan s army was routed ; noth 
 ing was left to cover their disorderly retreat but the Sixth 
 Corps and their cavalry, which had not as yet been brought 
 into action. It was now ten in the morning. Had our victo 
 rious fo-rces pressed on in hot and vigorous pursuit and struck 
 the Sixth Corps, they would have involved the whole of Sher 
 idan s army in complete rout, and achieved one of the most 
 magnificent successes of the war. 
 
 But our troops stopped. There was no more rushing, no 
 more charging. They had betaken themselves to plundering 
 the enemy s camp ; demoralization was fast ensuing ; the fire 
 and flush of their victorious charge was quendied ; the fighting 
 was now at long range ; the infantry was pushed forward at a 
 snail s pace ; there was no longer any ardor or enthusiasm. 
 
 For four or five hours there was comparative quiet ; the 
 Confederates ranging the camps of the enemy for plunder, and 
 taking no further notice of his forces in the distance, beyond 
 some skirmishing and desultory firing. 
 
 The enemy, in the mean time, were not idle. Sheridan had 
 slept at Winchester the previous night, but, hearing the can 
 nonade in the morning, he took his horse and pushed on 
 towards Strasburg at full gallop, arriving on the field at ten 
 o clock A. M., just as the army had taken up its position north 
 of Middletown. On his way he had met the throng of wounded 
 and stragglers. He immediately ordered a new line of battle : 
 the Nineteenth Corps on the right, the Sixth in the centre, 
 and the recovered Eighth Corps on the left. Custer s cavalry 
 was on the extreme right, and Merritt s on the left. At three 
 o clock Sheridan assumed the offensive, and attacked with 
 vigor. 
 
408 SOUTHEEN HISTOHY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Gordon s division, notwithstanding his efforts, soon broke* 
 Kershaw s and Ramsenr s divisions were lighting well, bul 
 soon followed the example of Gordon s division. Five or six 
 guns in the rear were immediately driven back when the lino 
 broke, and placed on a high hill, where, with no aid from the 
 infantry, who were flying in every direction, they kept the 
 enemy at bay for an hour or more. Having exhausted their 
 ammunition, they were compelled to withdraw. 
 
 By this time Wharton s and Pegram s men had caught the 
 panic, and the field became covered with flying men. The 
 artillery retired, firing slowly, and sustained only by Pegram s 
 old brigade and Evans brigade. After the creek was crossed, 
 Pegram s and Evans brigades participated in the demoraliza 
 tion the road was filled with fugitives. The enemy s cavalry 
 charged again in the rear of our train, and not a gun was fired 
 in its defence. Many ordnance and medical stores, and twenty- 
 three pieces of artillery, besides those taken by us in the morn 
 ing, were captured. 
 
 It was a shameful rout. Our troops behaved as they never 
 behaved before. Our loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners 
 was, perhaps, not greater than three thousand ; but the route 
 of the retreat was strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, 
 and small arms thrown away by the panic-stricken fugitives. 
 Early had lost nearly all of his artillery. He had, in fact, 
 received a stunning defeat from which his army never re 
 covered.* 
 
 * The following address of General Early to his troops, on the occasion of 
 this disaster, testifies to its causes, and is one of the most candid and memor 
 able papers of the war : 
 
 HEADQUAUTERS VALLEY DISTRICT, October 22, 1864. 
 {Soldiers of the Army of the Valley : 
 
 I had hoped to have congratulated you on the splendid victory won by you 
 on the morning of the 19th, at Belle Grove, on Cedar Creek, when you sur 
 prised and routed two corps of Sheridan s army, and drove back several miles 
 the remaining corps, capturing eighteen pieces of artillery, one thousand five 
 hundred prisoners, a number of colors, a large quantity of small arms, and 
 many wagons and ambulances, with the entire camps of the two routed corps ; 
 but I have the mortification of announcing to you that, by your subsequent 
 misconduct, all the benefits of that victory were lost, and a serious disaster 
 Incurred. Had you remained steadfast to your duty and your colors, the vie* 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 409 
 
 From this point the Valley campaign ceased to engage much 
 of the public attention ; and with the withdrawal of the bulk 
 of the opposing forces to the Richmond lines, the interest in 
 military events was again transferred to that quarter. 
 
 For six weeks after the battle of Cedar Creek, there were 
 occasional skirmishes of greater or less severity between Tor- 
 
 tory would have been one of the most brilliant and decisive of tta war ; you 
 would have gloriously retrieved the reverses at Winchester and Fisher s Hill, 
 and entitled yourselves to the admiration and gratitude of your country. But 
 many of you, including some commissioned officers, yielding to a disgraceful 
 propensity for plunder, deserted your colors to appropriate to yourselves the 
 abandoned property of the enemy ; and, subsequently, those who had previously 
 remained at their posts, seeing their ranks thinned by the absence of the plun 
 derers, when the enemy, late in rhe afternoon, with his shattered columns, 
 made but a feeble effort to retrieve the fortunes of the day, yielded to a needless 
 panic, and fled the field in confusion, thereby converting a splendid victory 
 into a disaster. 
 
 Had any respectable number of you listened to the appeals made to you, 
 and made a stand, even at the last moment, the disaster would have been 
 averted, and the substantial fruits of victory secured. But under the insane 
 dread of being flanked, and a panic-stricken terror of the enemy s cavalry, you 
 would listen to no appeal, threat, or order, and allowed a small body of cavalry 
 to penetrate to our train, and carry off a number of pieces of artillery an 
 wagons which your disorder left unprotected. You have thus obscured the 
 glorious fame won in conjunction with the gallant men of the Army of Northern 
 Virginia, who still remain proudly defiant in the trenches around Richmond 
 and Petersburg. Before you can again claim them as comrades, you will have 
 to erase from your escutcheons tho blemishes which now obscure them. And 
 this you can do if you will but be true to your former reputation, your country, 
 and your homes. You who have fought at Manassas, Richmond, Sharpsburg, 
 Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and from the Wilderness to tho 
 banks of James River ; and especially you who were with the immortal Jackson 
 in all his triumphs are capable of better things. 
 
 Arouse yourselves, then, to a sense of your manhood, and appreciation of 
 the sacred cause in which you are engaged ! Yield to the mandates of disci 
 pline ; resolve to stand by your colors in future at all hazards, and you can yet 
 retrieve your reputation, and strike effective blows for your country and the 
 cause. Let every man spurn from him the vile plunder gathered on the field 
 of the 19th ; and let no man, whatever his rank, whether combatant or non- 
 combatant, dare exhibit his spoils of that day. They will be badges of his 
 dishonor ; the insignia of his disgrace. The officer who pauses in the career of 
 victory to place a guard over a sutler s wagon, for his private use, is as bad aa 
 the soldier who halts to secure for himself the abandoned clothing or money 
 of a flying foe ; and they both soil the honor of the army, and the blood of 
 their country for a paltry price. He who follows his colors into the ranks of 
 the enemy in pursuit of victory, disdaining the miserable passion for gathering 
 booty, comes out of the battle with his honor untarnished ; and thongh bare* 
 
410 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 bert s cavalry, or some portion of it, and the Confederate v,-av. 
 airy officers Rosser and Lomax ; but Early, though moving 
 uneasily up and down the Yalley from Mount Jackson or New 
 Market to Fisher s Hill, carefully avoided any thing like a 
 general engagement, and in December sent a part of his forces 
 to strengthen General Lee. 
 
 SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA. 
 
 In Southwestern Virginia, during the period we have tra 
 versed and the early winter of 1864, there was a desultory cam 
 paign, to which we should briefly refer. 
 
 footed and ragged, is far more to be envied than he that is laden with rich 
 spoils gathered in the trail of his victorious comrades. There were some ex 
 ceptions to the general misconduct on the afternoon of the 19th, but it would 
 be difficult to specify them all. Let those who did their duty be satisfied with 
 the consciousness of having done it, and mourn that their efforts were para 
 lyzed by the misbehavior of others. Let them be consoled, to some extent, by 
 the reflection that the enemy has nothing to boast of on his part. 
 
 The artillery and wagons taken were not won by his valor. His camps 
 were destroyed ; his army terribly shattered and demoralized ; his losses far 
 heavier than ours, even in proportion to the relative strength of the armies 
 his plans materially impeded ; and he was unable to pursue by reason of hia 
 crippled condition. Soldiers of the Army of the Valley, I do not speak to you 
 in anger ; I wish to speak in kindness, though in sorrow. My purpose is to 
 show you the cause of our late misfortune, and point out the way to avoid 
 similar ones in future, and insure success to our arms. Success can only be 
 secured by the enforcement and observance of the most rigid discipline. Offi 
 cers, whatever their rank, must not only give orders, but set the example of 
 obeying them, and the men must follow that example. 
 
 Fellow-soldiers, I am ready to lead you again in defence of our common 
 cause ; and I appeal to you by the remembrance of the glorious career ia 
 which you have formerly participated, by the woes of your bleeding country, 
 the ruined homes and devastated fields you see around you, the cries of an- 
 guish which come up from the widows and orphans of your dead comrades, 
 the horrors which await you and all that is yours in the future, if your coun 
 try is subjugated, and your hopes of freedom for yourselves and your posterity, 
 to render a cheerful and willing obedience to the rules of discipline, and to 
 shoulder your musket again with the determination never more to turn your 
 bucks upon the foe, but to do battle like men and soldiers until the last vestigo 
 of the footsteps of our barbarous and cruel enemies is erased from the soil they 
 desecrate, and the independence of our country is firmly established. If you 
 will do this, and rely upon the protecting care of a just and merciful God, all 
 will be well ; you will a,gain be what you once were, and I will be proud to 
 lead you once more to battle. 
 
 J. A. EARLY. Lieutenant-Genera I. 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 411 
 
 On the 2d of October, General Breckinridge, who had re 
 lieved Echols in Southwestern Virginia, encountered Bur 
 bridge, who was advancing on the salt-works at Saltville, Vir 
 ginia, and on the banks of the Holtston River defeated him, 
 giving him a severe lesson. In November, Breckinridge, hav 
 ing joined Vaughn in East Tennessee, defeated the Yankeo 
 General Gillem, at Morristown, taking four hundred prisoners ; 
 and on the 18th of the month, engaged and defeated the enemy 
 again at Strawberry Plains. 
 
 On the 20th of December, the salt-works at Saltville were 
 captured by the Yankees, who in the early part of the month 
 had been raiding on the Tennessee road. Our forces there 
 were attacked by the whole force of Burbridge, numbering 
 about five thousand. The fight was kept up all the evening, 
 mainly with artillery, our forces being commanded by Colonel 
 Preston, and numbering, it is said, not more than three hun 
 dred and fifty. When night fell they still held their own ; 
 but, under cover of the darkness, the Yankees succeeded in. 
 reaching Fort Breckinridge, one of the main defences of the 
 place, in overpowering numbers, and captured it. Colonel 
 Preston, deeming it impractible to hold the works longer, then 
 ordered the evacuation. The works were fired the next morn 
 ing. The Yankees did not remain long, and left for East Ten 
 nessee. At Abingdon, they destroyed two entire blocks of 
 buildings. 
 
4:12 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln s extraordinary triumph. Reassembling of the Richmond CongMe?. 
 President Davis review of the situation. A memorable boast. New demands of 
 the Confederate conscription. Military resources of the North and South com 
 pared. Plethoric wealth of the North. " Twenty against one." Two advantages 
 the South had in the Avar. Its conditions of success. The value of endurance on 
 the part of the South. THE HOOD-SHERMAN CAMPAIGN. Speeches at headquarters. 
 Hood commences his march. Capture of Dalton. Sherman follows as far as 
 Gaylesville. He turns back. Georgia and South Carolina " at his mercv." An 
 
 extraordinary campaign. Hood and Sherman marching away from each other. 
 Hood crosses into Tennessee. The Yankee retreat to Franklin. THE BATTLK OF 
 FKANKLIN. Great loss in Confederate officers. The enemy retreats to Nashville. 
 BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. The giving way of Bates division. A shameful stampede. 
 Hood s losses. The whole scheme of Confederate defence west of the Alle- 
 ghunies broken down. The errors of Hood s campaign. 
 
 have already stated that the military successes of the 
 two or three preceding months secured the re-election of Pres 
 ident Lincoln on the 8th of November. His re-election was 
 singularly triumphant. General McClellan received only the 
 electoral vote of Delaware (3), Kentucky (11), and New Jersey 
 (7), 21 in all. Mr. Lincoln received that of the remaining 22 
 States, 213 in all. Mr. Lincoln had the vote of all the States 
 which he received in 1860, with the exception of the half vote 
 of New Jersey, which was cast for him in consequence of a 
 division in the opposition party. Besides these, he received 
 the 7 electoral votes of Maryland, which in 1860 were cast for 
 Mr. Breckinridge ; the 11 votes of Missouri, cast for Douglas ; 
 and the 11 votes of the new States of Kansas, West Virginia, 
 and Nevada. In the States which voted at this election, there 
 was in 1860 a, popular majority of about 100,000 against Mr. 
 Lincoln ; t)/>e popular majority in his favor now was ahout 
 330,000. 
 
 A few flays before this election, the Confederate Congress 
 had reassembled in Richmond. The message of President 
 Davis opened with an ingenious review of the campaign of 
 1864. " At the beginning of the year," he said, Texas was par 
 tially in the possession of the enemy ; now no Federal soldiers 
 
THE LAST YE.iR. 413 
 
 were in the State, except as prisoners. In Northwestern 
 Louisiana, a large Federal army and fleet had been defeated, 
 and had only escaped with a loss of one-third of its numbers, 
 and a large part of its munitions and vessels. Arkansas had 
 been nearly recovered ; and the Confederate forces had pene 
 trated into Missouri. On the east of the Mississippi, in spito 
 of some reverses, the Confederates had been on the whole suc 
 cessful ; Northern and Western Mississippi, Northern Ala 
 bama, and Western Tennessee were in their possession. On 
 the seacoast, the successes of the Federals had been confined 
 to the capture of the outer defences of Mobile Bay. Their 
 armies had been defeated indifferent parts of Virginia ; and 
 after a series of defeats around Richmond, they were still en 
 gaged in the effort, commenced four months before, to capture 
 Petersburg. The army of Sherman, though it had captured 
 Atlanta, had gained no real advantage beyond the possession 
 of a few fortified points which could be held only by large 
 garrisons, and were menaced with recapture." 
 
 President Davis concluded his review with a memorable 
 boast. "The Confederacy," he declared, " had no vital poinfo. 
 If Richmond, and Wilmington, and Charleston, and Savannah, 
 and Mohile were all captured, the Confederacy would remain 
 as defiant as ever, and no peace would be made which did not 
 recognize its independence." 
 
 The Confederate President, while professing to see no cause 
 for despondency in the military situation, took occasion to re 
 commend the repeal of all laws granting exemption from mili 
 tary service. He said that " no position or pursuit should 
 relieve -any one who is able to do active duty from the enrol 
 ment in the arm} r ," unless he could be more useful in another 
 sphere, and this could not be the case with entire classes. The 
 military authorities should have the power to exempt individ 
 uals only, whose services may be more valuable in than out 
 oi the army. In regard to the question of the employment of 
 slaves in the army, Mr. Davis recommended that slaves to the 
 number of 40,000 should be acquired" by the general gov 
 ernment, who should be employed not merely as ordinary 
 laborers, cooks, and teamsters, but as engineer and pioneer 
 laborers. He recommended that these slaves should be liber 
 ated on their discharge, after faithful service, rather than that 
 
414 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 they should be manumitted at once, or retained in servitude 
 He was opposed, under present circumstances, to arming the 
 slaves; but he added: "The subject is to be viewed solely in 
 the light of policy and our social economy. Should the alter 
 native ever be presented of subjugation or of the employment 
 of the slave as a soldier, there seems to be no reason to doubt 
 what then should be our decision." 
 
 We have, at different periods in the history of the war, in 
 stituted a comparison between the material resources of the 
 belligerents. They were terribly unequal at this period. Mr. 
 Lincoln, in his message to Congress, referred to a fact which 
 could not be denied : that the steady expansion of popula 
 tion, improvement, and governmental institutions over the 
 new and unoccupied portion of the North had scarcely been 
 checked, much less impeded or destroyed by the war. New 
 and immense resources had been recently developed by the 
 enemy ; and it seemed, indeed, that providential circumstances 
 had come to his aid in the war. The discovery and develop 
 ment of petroleum had added immensely to the national wealth, 
 and it was calculated that in a few years it would become an 
 article of export to the extent of one hundred and fifty millions 
 of dollars. Mineral resources, almost fabulous, had been 
 brought to light. What once seemed a barren and uninhabit 
 able waste, between the Atlantic States and those which had 
 grown up on the Pacific Ocean, had proved a new El Dorado. 
 It was estimated that the products of the mines of gold, silver, 
 and cinnabar in that region had, in the past year, exceeded one 
 hundred millions of dollars. It was discovered that a vast 
 belt of some one or two hundred miles in width and eight or 
 nine hundred in length, embracing portions of Idaho, Nevada, 
 acd Arizona, was rich in silver ore. The North had be 
 come suddenly plethoric with wealth ; and for men and ma 
 terial for the purposes of war, it had the whole world to draw 
 upon. 
 
 A Yankee newspaper said : " We have now over twenty-six 
 millions of people within the Union lines, against less than five 
 millions (over one-half negro slaves) within the lines of Davis. 
 All things considered, the actual, positive available strength 
 of Lincoln against Davis is more than twenty against one. 
 The war, then, should be, at the furthest, brought to an end 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4:15 
 
 within six mu.ths, and with becoming energy on the part of 
 the administration it might be finished in three." 
 
 But there was one element which the newspaper did not 
 take into its calculation ; and which, despite the almost appall 
 ing disparity of resources between the belligerents, insured, 
 on certain conditions, the final success of the South. It waa 
 the vast extent of territory which the North proposed to sub 
 jugate, and which never yet, in the history of wars, was 
 brought to such a fate, on the single condition that its people 
 remained firm in their resolution and purpose. Against the 
 inequality of resources between the North and the South, we 
 may put these considerations, in which the latter had immense 
 advantages : that the South was fighting on the defensive, and 
 had, therefore, no need of positive victories; that she only 
 sought a negative conclusion, and might win by endurance; 
 and that her territory was so extensive that it would take 
 several millions of men to garrison it, as long as its people 
 were firmly disposed to dispute the authority of the in- 
 raders. 
 
 With reflecting persons in the North, the real question 
 touching the war had come to be the measure of Southern en 
 durance ; and this virtue had obtained a new and vital value 
 in the stages through which the war was now passing. It was 
 fashionable for Yankees to laugh at Confederate expectations 
 of political revolutions or financial rupture in the North ; they 
 concluded that the time was past when the Confederates could 
 expect to win their independence by a grand military coup or 
 force of military successes. All these calculations were lightly 
 or insolently regarded by Northern men. Their real anxiety 
 was, the measure of endurance on the part of the South. The 
 great curiosity of Northern politicians was as to the real spirit 
 of the South, and the questions of thinking men among them 
 invariably went to the point of the probable term of Southern 
 endurance. This quality had assumed a new value in Northern 
 eyes. It had become mcrally certain that by force of it alone 
 the South would obtain her independence. Such was the silent 
 but general concession of the Northern mind. There was but 
 one condition to assure the independence of the South : that 
 the spirit of the people and the army would not break by some 
 unworthy impatience, or not be deliberately broken down by 
 
4:16 SOUTHERN BISTORT OF THE WAR. 
 
 insane persistence in felly on tlie part of Davis and his clique 
 of toadies and encouragers. 
 
 There were two parties in the North, perhaps equally intel 
 ligent, and each claiming to draw their opinions from Southern 
 sources of information, which differed as to the real spirit o. 
 the South: one claiming that it was resolute, and even in the 
 last necessity desperate; the other contending that it was fast 
 being broken by reverses, and would end in submission. One 
 found this question in every circle in the North. Reliable in 
 formation upon it was far more valuable to the Washington 
 Government than maps of all the fortifications in the Confed 
 erate States. To convince the North of the spirit of the 
 Southern people was more important than half-a-dozen vic 
 tories; for it was to convince them of the hopelessness of \\ar, 
 and to put before their eyes the immediate necessity of con 
 scription. 
 
 President Davis said rightly that the Confederacy " had no 
 vital points ;" but the declaration implied the condition that 
 the spirit of the people, despite of temporary disasters, was to 
 remain erect and unbroken. And a period of the war was 
 now approaching when precisely that condition was to be 
 tested, and the spirit of the people of the Confederacy was to 
 be tried, as it had never before been, by the tire and sword of 
 the invader. To the events of this remarkable period we must 
 now draw the attention of the reader. 
 
 THE HOOD-SHEKMAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The public did not have long to wait for the development 
 of that curious strategy which President Davis had planned 
 with Hood for the compensation of the loss of Atlanta. In 
 deed, no secret was made of its general movement and designs. 
 
 On the 18th of September, President Davis arrived at Gen 
 eral Hood s headquarters, and the following day reviewed tho 
 whole army. In the evening, the President addressed the sol 
 diers in hopeful and encouraging tones. Turning to Cheat- 
 ham s division of Tennesseeans, he said : u Be of good cheer, 
 for within a short while your faces will be turned homeward, 
 and your feet pressing Tenrcssee soil." 
 
 General Hood was enthusiastically called for. He 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 417 
 
 l< Soldiers, it is not my province to make speeches : I was not 
 born for such work ; that I leave to other men. Within a few 
 days I expect to give the command Forward ! and I believe 
 you are, like myself, willing to go forward, even if we live on 
 parched corn and beef. 1 am ready to give the command 
 4 Forward ! this very night. Good-night." 
 
 On the 29th of September, Hood began his march, getting 
 well in the rear of Sherman, and next day encamping near the, 
 old battle-ground of New Hope Church. His first movement 
 attracted but little attention. The incautious language ol 
 President Davis first led the enemy to suppose that this move 
 ment was preliminary to something more extensive, and Gen 
 eral Sherman s suspicions also were apparently aroused by it; 
 for we find him about this time sending his spare forces to the 
 rear, under General Thomas, and distributing strong detach 
 ments, under Newton, Corse, and Schofield, at different points 
 immediately in the rear of Atlanta. He also ordered frequent 
 reconnoissances of the enemy in his position near Newrian. 
 The Yankee cavalry reported, on September 27, further move 
 ments of Hood towards the Chattahoochee. On October 1, 
 Generals Fuller and Ransom made a reconnoissance towards 
 Ne\vnan, and discovered that the Confederates had crossed the 
 Chattahoochee River on September 29 and 30, and had con 
 centrated in the vicinity of Powder Springs, Ga. On the 3d 
 of October, General Sherman, with the bulk of his army, 
 moved in pursuit, vowing his intention to destroy Hood. 
 
 On the 5th of October, when Hood s advance assaulted Al- 
 latoona, Sherman was on Kenesaw Mountain, signalling to the 
 garrison at Allatoona, over the heads of the Confederates, to 
 hold out until he relieved them. Hood moved westward, and 
 crossing the Etowah and Oostananla rivers by forced marches, 
 attacked Dalton on the 12th, which was surrendered. 
 
 After obstructing Snake Creek Gap as much as possible, in 
 order to delay Sherman, who continued to press him, Hood 
 moved west, passing through the gap of Pigeon Mountain, and 
 entered Lafayette on the 15th of October. He had now ad 
 vanced as far north as it was thought possible to do without 
 fighting, and a battle appeared to be imminent in the vicinity 
 of the old battle-field of Chickamauga. But Hood, after hold 
 ing the gaps of Pigeon Mountain as long as possible, suddenly 
 
 37 
 
4:18 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 moved south from Lafayette to Gadsden, Alabama, closely fol 
 lowed as far as Gaylesville by General Sherman. This move 
 ment was looked upon as a retreat, and as the end of the great 
 raid of which Hood and Davis had promised and boasted so 
 much. But it soon became apparent that Hood was not yet 
 at the end of his strategy, and that the campaign was only 
 about to begin in earnest. 
 
 On October 23, Hood moved from Gadsden, through Look 
 out Mountain, towards Gunter s Landing and Decatnr, on the 
 Tennessee Kiver, near the last of which places he formed a 
 junction with a portion of General Dick Taylor s army, which 
 had meantime quietly moved up the Mobile and Ohio Kail- 
 road to Corinth, and thence to Tuscumbia, the new base of 
 supplies. He thus placed himself far in General Sherman s 
 rear before that officer could take steps to transfer his army to 
 the new front of the Confederates on the Tennessee. Hood s 
 advance had probably reached the Tennessee before Sherman 
 positively knew that he had abandoned Gadsden. Undoubt 
 edly it was much to his surprise when, on October 25, he tried 
 the gap and found it abandoned by Hood. The position was 
 certainly startling. He dared not follow, thus abandoning his 
 line of supplies to venture in a mountainous country, through 
 which a large army had just passed. It was impossible to 
 transfer his entire army to Hood s front in time to meet him 
 and thus hold his communications intact. The position de 
 manded resolution and action. 
 
 Genera] Sherman seems here to have comprehended Hood s 
 designs. On the junction of Taylor s army with him, he rea 
 soned that the two would strike a blow for the recovery of 
 Middle Tennessee ; and, if successful, then for East Tennessee 
 also. But he calculated that Tennessee would be safe in charge 
 of General Thomas, to whom he could assign a force sufficient 
 to grapple with Hood, Taylor, or Beauregard ; while for him 
 self he had projected another campaign. Turning eastward, 
 then, from Gaylesville, he announced to his army that he 
 should follow Hood no longer, but let him go north as far as 
 he pleased. " If he will go to the river," he said, "I will give 
 him his rations." Giving his instructions to General Thomas, 
 and dividing his army so as to spare him a part of the Army 
 of the Cumberland and the Army of the Ohn, he moved 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 4:19 
 
 southeast towards Atlanta by the 1st of November, causing 
 the railroad track to be removed from Atlanta to Chattanooga, 
 and sent to the latter city. On the 4th of November, he be 
 gan his preparations for his new movement; and the same day 
 telegraphed his intentions to Washington, in the following 
 words: "Hood has crossed the Tennessee. Thomas will take 
 care of him and Nashville, while Schon eld will not let him 
 into Chattanooga or Knoxville. Georgia and South Carolina 
 are at my mercy and I -shall strike. Do not be anxious 
 about me. I am all right." The campaign he had projected 
 was neither more nor less than this : with the four corps, and 
 the cavalry force still under his immediate command, an army 
 of not far from sixty thousand infantry and artillery, and about 
 five thousand cavalry, he purposed, cutting loose from all bases, 
 and constituting a strictly movable column, with thirty or 
 forty days rations, and his train reduced to the smallest pos 
 sible dimensions, to move southeastward, through the heart of 
 the country, upon Savannah ; and thence, should circumstances 
 favor, northward through South Carolina and North Carolina, 
 to compel the surrender or evacuation of Richmond. 
 
 And now commenced one of the most extraordinary cam 
 paigns of any war presenting the singular spectacle of two 
 great antagonistic chieftains both at once acting on the offen 
 sive, day after day marching away from each other, and mov 
 ing diametrically apart. 
 
 On the 20th of November, General Hood commenced to 
 move his army from Northern Alabama to Tennessee. His 
 line of march from Florence followed two parallel roads to 
 die chief town of Wayne County, in Tennessee Waynesboro . 
 Simultaneously with this advance, the Yankees evacuated or 
 surrendered Decatur and Huntsville. The Fourth Army 
 Corps, under General Stanley, two divisions of the Twenty- 
 third Corps, under General Schon eld, and an aggregation of 
 fort-garrisons from the surrounding country, under General 
 Richard W. Johnson, concentrated at Pulaski. Hood, imme 
 diately after his arrival at Waynesboro , changed front to the 
 northwest ; and, while marching directly upon Columbia, 
 threatened, with Forrest s cavalry, to cut off the Yankee re 
 treat from Pulaski. That position, about to be flanked, was at 
 once abandoned. Schon eld, with the force that had been con- 
 
420 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 centrated there, retreated on the 23d ; and, while his cavalrj 
 were being pressed in upon his rear by those of Hood y at 
 tempted, by a forced march, to reach Columbia. Forrest had, 
 however, fallen upon the Yankee base, and, having forced 
 them back rapidly, had advanced within four miles of Colum- 
 lu a. Schofield s infantry had, however, come up in time to- 
 sa-,e the place from capture, and to hold back the Confederates 
 until the works covering the place had been made impassable 
 by a chevaux defrize of Yankee bayonets. 
 
 Hood s infantry marched on. On the 25th, they had com 
 menced a movement for flanking Columbia on the eastward, in 
 conjunction with an attempt of Forrest to cut that place ofJ 
 from railroad communication with Nashville. Under heavy 
 skirmishing and cannonading, Forrest succeeded in extending 
 his flank to Duck River, and in throwing a large force of his 
 cavalry to the opposite bank. The Confederate infantry, filing 
 at the same time around the place on the east, the state of af 
 fairs became critical, and compelled Schofield to fall bac 1 * 
 hurriedly, with a loss of stores, on the night of the 26rh. 
 
 The retreat to Franklin was one of constant fighting. Slur 
 mishing of the very heaviest and deadliest character wag 
 maintained all the way. Forrest hung like a raging tiger upon 
 the rear, and occasionally pressing Wilson back, brought face 
 to face the retreating and the pursuing infantry. On the 29th, 
 General Cox, commanding Schofield s rear, was brought to bay 
 at Spring Hill, midway between Columbia and Franklin, and. 
 after a struggle to delay the advance, retreated successfully to 
 the main body at Franklin. 
 
 The Confederates pressed on, Forrest leading, Stewart next, 
 and Cheatham following. Lee was still in the rear, but coming 
 up. The enemy were closely pushed, retreated rapidly, and 
 left evidences of their haste on every side ; wagons half burned 
 or with wheels cut, and animals, weltering in their own fresh 
 blood, were strewn along the road. After travelling in this 
 manner for about seven miles, Stewart sent word to the rear 
 that he had brought the Yankees to bay, and they were two 
 miles in his front, in line of battle, occupying a ridge of hills. 
 
 By the time a disposition of our forces was made for an as- 
 gault, the Yankee columns broke into marching order, and 
 moved on as before. A short distance ahead the Yankees 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 
 
 Bgain made a stand. The Confederates prepared, as before, to 
 attack. No sooner were the preparations complete, however, 
 than the Yankees resumed their march, and thus gained time 
 for their wagon trains and artillery. On reaching the last 
 bridge on which the enemy had halted, Hood saw before him 
 the town of Franklin, and in front of it three strong lines o* 
 battle, in three heavy series of breastworks. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN. 
 
 It was late in the evening of the 30th of November, when 
 the Confederate army approached Franklin. General Hood 
 resolved to attack at once. Had he waited till the next morn 
 ing, a new and formidable line of works would have confronted 
 him, and the second and inner line would have been so greatly 
 strengthened, that, it would have been madness to have attacked. 
 General Hood knew that Thomas would endeavor to hold 
 the old line of Nashville, Murfreesboro , and Franklin ; and he 
 felt that if he could fight the battle of Nashville at Franklin, 
 and be successful, that Nashville would fall, Tennessee be 
 given up, and the war transferred to the Ohio. 
 
 Stewart and Forrest made a detour to the right, and by five 
 o clock had struck the enemy a stunning blow on his left flank. 
 Cheatham now moved up, and joining his right, as near as 
 practicable, to Stewart s left, the battle was joined, and waged 
 with fierceness on both sides. 
 
 Thousands of our soldiers were standing once more on their 
 own native soil, and some in sight of their own homes ; and 
 they fought with every incentive in their hearts that can urge 
 manhood to noble deeds. The enthusiasm of the troops was 
 glorious ; the country a vast, unbroken plain, as level as a 
 table ; and the sight of those long dark lines, fringed with fire 
 and smoke, with twenty thousand rifles mingling their sharp 
 notes with the deeper thunders of the artillery, was well cal 
 culated to inspire the heroism which impelled our army on to 
 victory. Major-generals, brigadiers, and colonels rode in front 
 of their commands, waving hats, and urging on the troops. 
 Men fell wounded and dead o-reat rents were torn but, with 
 
422 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAE. 
 
 I 
 
 the steadiness of veterans, the gaps were filled by the living 
 and the column moved on. 
 
 The first line of breastworks was swept clean. Our loss had 
 been great. General Pat. Cleburne, the " Stonewall Jackson 
 of the West, fell, shot through the head with four balls, and 
 died on the ramparts. General Gist, previously wounded in 
 the leg, had refused to leave the field, limping along on foot, 
 cheering his men, and finally received a ball through the 
 breast, killing him instantly. Brown, Manigault, Johnson, 
 Strahl, and scores of field and staff officers, who had ex 
 posed themselves at the head of their troops, were either 
 killed or wounded. Still our men faltered not. Dashing on, 
 they reached the second line. The Yankees were stubborn. 
 On the right they had charged Bates division, and gained a 
 momentary advantage ; but recovering, that gallant officer 
 was again at the front, and, with his brave Tennesseeans, doing 
 splendid service. 
 
 For a time the Yankees held their breastworks, and the 
 fighting was hand to hand between those in the ditch on the 
 outside, and those behind the intrenchments. But the struggle 
 was not long, and again the foe was flying across the field. 
 It was night, however, and the difficulties of continuing the 
 battle so great, that at two o clock A. M., save the occasional 
 spattering of musketry, the grand chorus of battle was at an end. 
 The next morning it was discovered that the Yankees had 
 evacuated the position, and were in full retreat to Nashville. 
 It was likewise discovered that Thomas had been largely rein 
 forced, and thus enabled to make the stubborn resistance 
 which had not been anticipated by General Hood. 
 
 Just before the battle of Franklin had been joined, Hood 
 had ridden along the lines of his arm} 7 , telling his men that the 
 Yankee lines were weak, and that once broken, the army 
 would be driven out of Tennessee. He had been extravagant 
 in his promises. The Yankee General Thomas lay at Nashville 
 with his main force. 
 
 Hood now advanced upon Nashville, and laid siege t3 it on 
 the 2d of December, closely investing it for a fortnight. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4-23 
 
 THE BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 
 
 While Hood was intrenching before Nashville, Thomas wa 
 preparing for an assault on the Confederate position. Rein 
 forcements were received from several sources, until by the 
 12th the Yankee ranks were swelled to an extent which war 
 ranted Thomas to advance to the attack whenever his arrange 
 ments were completed. A consultation of the Yankee com 
 manders was held on the 12th, and it was determined to attack 
 the Confederate lines on the following day. This plan was 
 frustrated by Hood, who fell back to a stronger position, two 
 miles south of that held by him on the 12th. Another council 
 was held on the 14th, and all things being in readiness, it was 
 agreed to make the attack next morning. 
 
 On the morning of the 15th of October, the enemy attacked 
 both flanks of Hood s army. They were repulsed on the right 
 with heavy loss ; but towards evening they drove in the Con 
 federate infantry outposts on the left flank. 
 
 The next day the enemy made a general attack on Hood a 
 entire line. The battle raged furiously from dawn till dark. 
 Thomas overwhelming numbers enabled him to throw heavy 
 columns against Hood s left and centre. All the enemy s as 
 saults were repulsed until about half-past three o clock in the 
 afternoon. When it was supposed by General Hood that lie 
 had in his grasp a splendid victory, a stampede suddenly took 
 place in one of his divisions, and the day was lost in a moment. 
 
 Bates division was to the left of the Confederate centre. It 
 had repulsed the enemy in the morning. He advanced again 
 late in the evening, and was repulsed again from the other 
 points of the line fronting Bates division, but rushed over this 
 point, and by sheer force of numbers beat down and run over, 
 killing, wounding, and capturing, in the ditches, nearly every 
 man holding them. Support had been asked for by General 
 Bates and General Walthall, as is understood ; both of them 
 were within forty yards of this point all the day. Instead of 
 getting support at this, the only salient point in the whole 
 Confederate line, one brigade was taken from the right and 
 another from the left of this point, to save the extreme left 01 
 
424 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the line. "When this was done, so confident was General Batea 
 of the coming disaster, that he ordered his artillery back on 
 the Franklin pike, which was then its only exit. 
 
 The break in Bates division was the signal for a general 
 panic in Hood s army. The moment a small break was made 
 in his lines, the whole of two corps unaccountably and in 
 stantly fled from their ditches, most of. them without firing a 
 gun. It was a disgraceful retreat. Fifty pieces of artillery 
 and nearly all of Hood s ordnance wagons were left to the 
 enemy. Our loss in killed and wounded was disgracefully 
 small ; and it was only through want of vigor in Thomas pur 
 suit that Hood s shattered and demoralized army effected itp 
 retreat. 
 
 He finally made his escape across the Tennessee River with 
 the remnant of his army, having lost from various causes more 
 than ten thousand men, half of his generals, and nearly all of 
 his artillery. Such was the disastrous issue of the Tennessee 
 campaign, which put out of existence, as it were, the splendid 
 army that Johnston had given up at Atlanta, and terminated 
 forever the whole scheme of Confederate defence west of the 
 Alleghanies. 
 
 General Hood recrossed the Tennessee at Florence, General 
 Forrest covering his retreat, and was at Tupelo on the 6th of 
 January, 1865, where, on the 23d, he took leave of the army 
 in the following order : 
 
 " HEADQUAKTERS ARMY OP THE TENNESSEE, 
 TUPELO, Miss., Jan. 23, 1805. 
 
 " SOLDIERS At my request, I have this day been relieved 
 from the command of the army. In taking leave of you, ac 
 cept my thanks for the patience with which you have endured 
 your hardships during the recent campaign. I am alone re 
 sponsible for its conception, and strove hard to do my duty in 
 its execution. I urge upon you the importance of giving your 
 entire support to the distinguished soldier who now assumes 
 command, and shall look with deep interest on all your future 
 operations, and rejoice at your success. 
 
 "J. B. HOOD." 
 
 The complete and disastrous failure of General Hood was 
 freely acknowledged in the Confederacy ; and the glaring 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4:25 
 
 errors in his campaign did not escape the savage criticisms rf 
 the Richmond newspapers. It was said, with obvious justice, 
 that his greatest mistake had been at Nashville. He had sat 
 down before that city for a fortnight, and proceeded to invest 
 it on the south. Had he struck boldly across the Cumberland, 
 and settled himself on the Yankee communications, he would 
 have forced Thomas to evacuate Nashville and fall back to 
 wards Kentucky. But he adopted another plan, and paid tho 
 penalty of his error in defeat and heavy loss. 
 
 While at one end of the line of the Tennessee-Georgia cam 
 paign the Confederates had thus come to grief, at the other 
 end, stretching towards the sea, there were other more import 
 ant disasters and occasions of peculiar trial, such as the spirit 
 of the Confederacy had never before experienced. The effect 
 of Sherman s march to the sea on the morale of the Confed 
 eracy dates the first chapter of its subjugation. 
 
426 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Sherman s march from the mountains to the sea. Yankee boasts. Easy nature 11 
 Sherrna j s enterprise. " Grand" mistake of the Confederates. The burning o/ 
 Atlanta. Five thousand houses in ruins. Sherman s route to Millcdgcville. 
 Second stage of the inarch to Millen. Last stage of the march. Wheeler s cavalry. 
 THE FALL OF SAVANNAH. Capture of Fort McAllister. Probable surprise of 
 Hardee. The Confederates evacuate Sav-annah. Sherman s Christmas-gift to Mr. 
 Lincoln. The true value of Sherman s exploit. His own estimation of it. De 
 spondency in the South. Depletion of the Confederate armies. THE EXCHANGE OF 
 PRISONERS, etc. Bad faith of the Yankees. Their misrepresentations. The ques 
 tion of recaptured slaves. A Yankee calculation. The Washington Government 
 responsible for the sufferings of Yankee prisoners. How capital was made out of 
 their sufferings. A game with " sick" prisoners. How " rebel barbarities" were 
 manufactured. Noble conduct of General Grant. Its commentary on the Wash 
 ington cabinet. His * victory" over that body. 
 
 THERE was scarcely a Yankee newspaper that did not find 
 more or less frequent occupation in extolling the genius of tho 
 march which Sherman had undertaken from the mountains oi 
 Georgia to the sea, and placing it above the achievements ol 
 Hannibal, Napoleon, and Marlborough. But the simple fact 
 was, that the Davis-Hood strategy was a grand mistake, and 
 Sherman s advantage of it proportionally grand. By this 
 strategy Georgia was uncovered, and Sherman had plain march 
 ing to the sea. There was no considerable force to opposo 
 him. The whole plan, which Tiad originated in the brain of 
 President Davis, to compensate for the enemy s offensive 
 movement in Georgia by penetrating Tennessee was outrage 
 ously foolish, from the simple consideration that the two inva 
 sions were necessarily unequal: for that into the enemy s 
 country could not seriously affect his superabundant resources, 
 while that into the Southern interior went right into the heart 
 of the Confederacy ; and having once passed the frontiers, on 
 which the South had necessarily thrown out all its resources in 
 men, was destined to realize General Grant s assertion, that the 
 Confederacy was merely a shell. 
 
 Before undertaking his great campaign towards Savannah, 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 427 
 
 Sherman ordered the destruction of most of the inhabitable 
 part of Atlanta. He destroyed, in all, nearly live thousand 
 houses here, and left behind him a picture of ruin and desola 
 tion, such as is seldom to be found in the ravages of war.* 
 
 On the 15th day of November, Sherman began his march to 
 the sea. He moved forward in two columns, General Howard 
 commanding the right and General Slocum the left, while his 
 cavalry covered his flanks. General Howard s column moved 
 through East Point, Rough-and-Ready, Griffin, Jonesboro , 
 
 * An agent of Governor Brown, of Georgia, made the following official report 
 of tlie extent of the destruction done by the enemy in Atlanta : " The property 
 of the State was destroyed by fire, yet a vast deal of valuable material remains 
 in the ruins. Three-fourths of the bricks are good, and will be suitable for re 
 building if placed under shelter before freezing weather. There is a quantity 
 of brass in the journals of burned cars, and in the ruins of the various ma 
 chinery of the extensive railroad shops ; also, a valuable amount of copper 
 from the guttering of the State depot, the flue pipes of destroyed engines, stop 
 cocks of machinery, etc., etc. 
 
 The car- wheels that were uninjured by fire were rendered useless by break 
 ing the flanges. In short, every species of machinery that was not destroyed 
 by fire, was most ingeniously broken and made worthless in its original form 
 the large steam-boilers, the switches, the frogs, etc. Nothing has escaped. 
 The fire-engines, except Tallulah No. 3, were sent North. Tallulah has been 
 overhauled, and a new fire-company organized. Nos. 1 and 2 fire-engine 
 houses were saved. All the city pumps were destroyed, except one on 
 Marrietta-street. The car-sheds, the depots, machine shops, foundries, rolling 
 mills, merchant mills, arsenal, laboratory, armory, etc., were all burned. 
 
 In the angle between Hunter-street, commencing at the City Hall, running 
 east, and McDonough-street, running south, all houses were destroyed. The 
 jail and calaboose were burned. All business houses, except those on Alabama- 
 street, commencing with the Gate City Hotel, running east to Lloyd-street, 
 were burned. All the hotels, except the Gate City, were burned. By referring 
 to my map you will find about four hundred houses standing. The scale oi 
 the map is four hundred feet to one inch. Taking the car-shed for the centre, 
 describe a circle, the diameter of which is twelve inches, and you will perceivo 
 that the circle contains about three hundred squares. Then, at a low esti 
 mate, allow three houses to every four hundred feet ; and we will have thirty- 
 six hundred houses in the circle. Subtract the number of houses indicated on 
 the map as standing, and you will see by this estimate the enemy have de 
 stroyed thirty-two hundred houses. Refer to the exterior of the circle, and 
 you will discover that it is more than half a mile to the city limits in every 
 direction, which was thickly populated, say nothing of the houses beyond, and 
 you will see that the enemy have destroyed from four to five thousand houses 
 Two-thirds of the shade-trees in the park and city, and of the timber in the 
 suburbs have been destroyed. The suburbs present to the eye one vast, naked, 
 ruined, deserted camp." 
 
428 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 McDonough, Forsythe, Hillsboro , Monticello, and bridging 
 the Ocmulgee entered Milledgeville on the 20th of November. 
 Here General Sherman made his headquarters for a few days, 
 while Howard moved on through Saundersville, Griswold, to 
 wards Louisville, the point of rendezvous, with the left wing. 
 That wing, under the command of General Slocum, had mean 
 time passed through Decatur, Covington, Social Circle, Madi 
 son ; made a feint of an attack upon Macon ; parsed through 
 Buckhead and Queensboro , and, dividing one detachment, 
 moved towards Augusta, and the other to Eatonton and Sparta. 
 The second stage of Sherman s march may be taken as from 
 Milledgeville to Millen. The distance was about seventy -five 
 miles, and the time occupied in the march eight days, from 
 November 24th to December 2d. 
 
 The Yankee troops left Milledgeville admirably clothed 
 and equipped. Each man had eighty rounds of ammunition : 
 while their wagons contained fixed material without stint. 
 Rations for forty days had been prepared, and they suffered 
 for nothing. The Yankee cavalry, with the left wing, on 
 crossing the Oconee, had visited Sparta, which is on a line be 
 tween Warrenton and Milledgeville, about equi-distant from 
 both. On the evening of the 24th, General Slocum s advance 
 encamped at Devereux, seven miles west of Sparta, and the 
 cavalry scoured the whole country, one of the most fertile and 
 ihiekly settled in the whole State, and vast quantities of forage 
 *ind provisions, many horses, and mules were obtained, and 
 jomch cotton burned. For several days the Yankees raided 
 through the entire country between the two railroads in the 
 vicinity last described. Abundance of food and forage was 
 secured, and every thing was destroyed which could be useful 
 to the enemy. The march was leisurely Sherman evidently 
 finding himself master of the situation. He did not start 
 directly for the seaboard until he had all the provisions he 
 desired. 
 
 Sherman was now ready to enter upon the third and last 
 stage of his march. Behind him the Georgia Central Railroad lay 
 destroyed for more than a hundred miles, and the Georgia road 
 for full sixty. The railroad-bridge over the Oconee and the 
 Ogecchee, on the Georgia Central, had been destroyed, and 
 also those over Brier Creek and Buckhead Creek, en the 
 
THE LAST YEAB, 429 
 
 W&ynesboro Branch connecting Augusta with Mfllen. In 
 calculable damage had been done. It only remained to move 
 down to the Atlantic, and crown the campaign in the capture 
 of Savannah. 
 
 From Millen, then, on the 2d of December, the Yankee 
 army swung southerly down on the final stage of its journey 
 to Savannah, in half a dozen columns, moving over as many 
 different roads for the sake of convenience and speed. The 
 Confederate forces, massed at Augusta, were left hopelessly in 
 Sherman s rear. The army was protected on either flank by a 
 large river, and cavalry formed the vanguard and rear-guard. 
 Its mission, as a curtain for the concealment of infantry opera 
 tions, had now been accomplished. The country traversed was 
 covered with pine forests, cut up by numerous creeks, and in 
 tersected by wide stretches of swamps ; and further on the 
 coastwise, swamps and the low rice-fields became the prevalent 
 character of the region. 
 
 So far General Sherman s inarch had been almost without 
 opposition. It had had one or two small conflicts with Wheel 
 er s cavalry ; and some few militiamen and conscripts, hastily 
 assembled and badly organized, were easily brushed from his 
 path. Ten miles from Savannah, where his left wing struck 
 the Charleston Railroad, he encountered Confederate skir 
 mishers posted in a swamp near by, which indicated the 
 presence of the Confederate forces under Ilardee for the first 
 time. 
 
 THE FALL OF SAVANNAH. 
 
 On the 10th of December, Sherman lay in line of battle, con 
 fronting the outer works of Savannah, about five miles distant 
 from the city. It was easy for him to see that his first task 
 was to open communication with the fleet. * 
 
 That part of the coast of Georgia, at the mouth of the Sa 
 vannah, is of that amphibious character which marks so much 
 of the Southern co-ast in general the ravelled and unfinished 
 ends of nature s web, where sea and land join. The ocean 
 breaks in between Great Wassaw and Ossabaw Islands, form 
 ing Ossabaw Sound, and into this estuary flow the Great and 
 Little Ogeechee and the Vernon rivers. The land, or rathei 
 
30 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the marsh on each side of the Ogeechee, was almost d flcur 
 cTeau, certainly hardly rising a foot above the level of the river, 
 while at times it is entirely submerged. For miles and miles 
 on every hand there was nothing to be seen but these low and 
 level islands and islets, covered with reeds and rank grasses, 
 save where a lustier vegetation had pushed up in occasional 
 clumps of trees called " hummocks." 
 
 About six miles from the mouth of Ossabaw Sound, near 
 where the Savannah, Albany, and Gulf Railroad crosses the 
 Ogeechee, the river jets out into a promontory named Point 
 Genesis, covered by one of these hummocks of more than 
 ordinary size. Behind this, hidden from the river, lay Port 
 McAllister, an earthwork of considerable strength, erected by 
 the Confederates early in the war. Its batteries completely 
 commanded the river. 
 
 On the 12th of December, Hazen s division of the Fifteenth 
 Corps was selected for the important work of carrying Fort 
 McAllister. At half-past four o clock of the 13th, the division 
 went forward to the assault, another division supporting it, 
 over an open space of more than five hundred yards. The 
 Yankees rushed on at the double-quick. The fort was ap 
 proached and stormed from all sides. Resistance was useless, 
 as by a singular improvidence the fort was garrisoned by not 
 more than two or three hundred Confederates ; and there is no 
 doubt that General Hardee had been surprised by the quick 
 ness and decision of the enemy. 
 
 Sherman himself had ordered the assault, and witnessed the 
 execution of the order from the top of a house not far distant; 
 and as soon as he saw the men on the parapets, he exclaimed 
 to his staff, " The fort is ours ! Order me a boat I am going 
 down to the fleet." 
 
 The possession of Fort McAllister opened Ossabaw Sound, 
 effected communication with Dahlgren s fleet, and made the 
 capture of Savannah, where Hardee had allowed himself to be 
 shut up with fifteen thousand men, but a question of time. In 
 fact Sherman had now invested the city on all but the eastern 
 side. His right held King s Bridge, far in the rear of Savan 
 nah, and controlled the Ogeechee, whence his lines stretched 
 across the Savannah River, his left being about three miles 
 above the city. He had cut off all the railroad supplies of 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 431 
 
 Savannah. On the south, he had struck the Savannalr Albany, 
 and Gulf Railroad, winch formerly had transported large sup* 
 plies of cattle and provisions from Florida to Savannah. 
 The railroads from Augusta and Macon were thoroughly 
 broken. Foster s batteries had gotten within shelling distance 
 of the Charleston Railroad, and prevented the passage o. 
 trains. It only remained to mov.e regularly upon the city by 
 systematic approaches. It could not hope for outside succor 
 of any kind ; Sherman s prompt seizure of Fort McAllister 
 having prevented reinforcements down the Charleston road, 
 and cut off General G. "W". Smith, who, with several thousand 
 Confederates, was on the other side of the Ogecchee. 
 
 From the 10th to the 16th of December heavy artillery 
 firing and skirmishing went on all along the lines, but no 
 regular engagement occurred. On the 16th, Sherman for 
 mally demanded the surrender of the city from its commander, 
 Hardee, who declined next day to accede to the demand. Sher 
 man instantly hurried more heavy siege-guns upon his lines, and 
 on the 20th was prepared to bombard the city and assault its 
 works. But Hardee had already taken the alarm. Finding that 
 only the eastern exit was open to him, and that on that Sherman 
 was already cannonading, and soon might capture it by assault, 
 Hardee resolved to evacuate Savannah. On the afternoon of the 
 20th, his iron-clads and batteries opened a tremendous tire, 
 lasting into the night, and, under cover of the demonstration, the 
 Confederate general crossed his fifteen thousand men and his 
 large force of negro laborers upon a pontoon bridge, laid below 
 his rear batteries, to the South Carolina side, and marched 
 them off towards Charleston on the Union causeway. The 
 night was exceedingly favorable for such a movement, it being 
 very dark, with a west wind blowing. Next morning, at 
 break of day, the pickets of Geary s division crept forward, 
 advanced still farther, and went over the works ; and Geary 
 himself, marching into Savannah, received, on the morning of 
 the 21st December, 1864, its formal surrender at the hands of 
 its mayor. The troops were gone. The navy-yard, two iron 
 clads, many smaller vessels, and avast amount of ammunition v 
 ordnance stores, and supplies had been destroyed before tho 
 evacuation, but all the rest of the uninjured city fell into tho 
 hands of the Yankees. 
 
432 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Sherman sent a characteristic dispatch to Washington. He 
 wrote to President Lincoln : u I beg to present you, as a 
 Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and 
 fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 
 twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." 
 
 And so ended Sherman s famous march to the sea an ex 
 ploit which Yankee newspapers declared had not been excelled 
 since William of Normandy crossed the English Channel and 
 burned his boats on the shore ; arid since Hernando Cortez 
 plunged into Mexico, on the most astounding of expeditions, 
 and stranded his ships at Yera Cruz. But Sherman himself 
 had a much juster and more modest estimation of his exploit. 
 On receiving the congratulations of the President and also of 
 his personal friends, on account of his success, and seeing him 
 self greatly praised in the public journals at home and abroad, 
 he wrote : " I am now a great favorite because I have been 
 successful ; but if Thomas had not whipped Hood at Nashville, 
 six hundred miles away, my plans would have failed, and I 
 would have been denounced the world over." In his special 
 congratulatory orders, he said : "The armies serving in Georgia 
 and Tennessee, as well as the local garrisons of Decatur, 
 Bridgeport, Chattanooga, and Murfreesboro , are alike entitled 
 to the common honor, and each regiment may inscribe on its 
 colors at pleasure the words Savannah or Nashville. " 
 
 The fall of Savannah was the occasion, whether duly or not, 
 of great despondency in the South. The single disaster was 
 not very considerable ; but the march through Georgia that 
 had led to it had afforded a painful exhibition of the decay of 
 the spirit of the Confederates, and the moral effect of this ex 
 hibition was far worse than any disaster the South had ever 
 yet suffered in the field. It suggested a general review of the 
 situation of the Confederacy ; the people commenced to cal 
 culate the cost and sacrifices of the war, and to estimate the 
 terrible depletion that had taken place in the armies of the 
 Confederacy during the campaign of 1864:. 
 
 That depletion had ensued from various causes. The Yankees 
 had encouraged desertion to an extent never known before, 
 and they had managed to keep in captivity nearly every prisoner 
 they had taken west of the Mississippi since the battle of Get 
 tysburg. The history of Yankee finesse in this matter deserves 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 43S 
 
 a distinct place in the records of the war, and may properly bo 
 reviewed here at the close of the year 1864. 
 
 THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS, ETC. 
 
 It may be truly and emphatically said that on no subject had 
 the enemy shown such bad faith as on that of the exchange of 
 prisoners. During the year 1864, the Confederate authorities 
 had, at different times, put forth every exertion to obtain an 
 exchange of prisoners; but such exertion to this end was met 
 by some new pretence of the Yankees, who had resolved to 
 avoid a general exchange, and to coin a certain advantage out 
 of the sufferings of their own men in Southern prisons. 
 
 The Confederate authorities had at first insisted upon the re 
 lease of all prisoners, the excess to be on parole. The enemy 
 refused to comply with this plain requirement of the cartel, 
 and demanded, when a delivery of prisoners was made, art 
 equal number in return. Seeing a persistent purpose on thf 
 part of the Yankee Government to violate its agreement, OIP 
 authorities, moved by the sufferings of the brave men wh* 
 were so unjustly held in the Northern prisons, determined tc 
 abate their just demands. On the 10th of August, 1864 
 Colonel Ould, the Confederate commissioner, offered to ex 
 change the prisoners respectively held by the two belligerents, 
 officer for officer and man for man. Although this offer was 
 substantially what had often been proposed by the Yankee 
 authorities, and w r ould have left in their hands whatever excess 
 of prisoners they might have had, yet it was not accepted. 
 
 Another pretence put forth by the Yankees for declining a 
 general exchange of prisoners was, that the Confederates had 
 refused to include in the cartel neoro soldiers. This was a 
 
 O 
 
 misrepresentation. The extent of the claim of the Confederate? 
 on this point was simply that they would not return to th<3 
 enemy recaptured slaves ; for to do this the Confederate Gov 
 ernment would stultify itself, ignore the law of its social system, 
 and be a party to an outrage on the rights of property in its 
 own citizens. 
 
 But this proper position of the Confederate authorities in 
 volved the disposition of only a few hundred persons; and it is 
 
 28 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 not reasonable to suppose that a punctilious care for them 
 really stood in the way of the duties of humanity to forty or 
 fifty thousand white captives. This professed care for two or 
 three hundred black slaves, which was made to weigh down 
 all considerations of humanity in behalf of thousands of white 
 men pining in prison, was plainly nothing more than a pre 
 tence, a new ground of frivolous excuse, to refuse a general 
 exchange. In November, Colonel Ould wrote to the Confed 
 erate secretary of war : 
 
 " My own firm conviction is, that even if we were to agree 
 to the unjust demands of the enemy in this respect, we would 
 not secure a general exchange. I think it 
 
 very doubtful whether they would agree to a general ex 
 change, even if we consented to treat recaptured slaves as 
 prisoners of war, and delivered those whose term of service had 
 not expired. I am satisfied their course is the result of a con 
 viction forced upon them by the events of the war, that a Con 
 federate soldier is more valuable than a Federal. The miseries 
 of tens of thousands of their own people are as nothing whea 
 weighed against a calculation." 
 
 Here was the true secret of the game which the North 
 >>layed on the subject of exchange. Men were scarce in th 
 tlouth ; the Confederate soldier was superior in prowess to the 
 Yankee; and thus the Government at Washington was con 
 duced that any exchange, man for man, would be to its dis 
 advantage, and deliberately adopted the remorseless and in- 
 uman policy of enforcing the captivity, with all its attendant 
 
 offerings, of the prisoners on both sides during the war. This 
 *olicy of the Yankees exhibited to the unhappy victims from 
 
 heir army an amount of ingratitude that was to the last 
 ckegree monstrous. General Sherman had not hesitated to 
 avow, with utter disregard of the claims of his captive soldiers 
 on his consideration and protection, that as the terms of service 
 f many had expired, they were not to be regarded as sub 
 jects of general exchange. 
 
 But the Washington Government was not satisfied, for con 
 siderations of certain advantage, to consign its soldiers to the 
 extraordinary sufferings of imprisonment incident to the scant 
 supplies in the South, which indeed it was daily endeavoring 
 to diminish by blockade and devastation. It went a step 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 435 
 
 further. It paraded these very sufferings, for which it was 
 responsible, which indeed its own malignity had produced, to 
 raise a clamor about the cruelty of the Confederates, and thus 
 engage the sympathies of the world. 
 
 It is almost impossible to sound the depths of Yankee 
 cruelty in this subject of exchange. 
 
 At one time, in the fall of 1864, the Yankees refused to ex 
 change any prisoners but those who were sick / and then to 
 accuse the inhumanity of the Confederates, the poor, wasted 
 victims of prison diseases were paraded through the country, 
 and had their photographs taken for pictorials, as fair speci 
 mens of the results of life in Confederate prisons. The calcu 
 lation that could have prompted such an exhibition appears 
 indeed to partake of an ingenuity of beings other than man.* 
 
 * The following expose was made in a Richmond paper. It refers to an ex- 
 change of sick prisoners made in the fall of 1864 : 
 
 " The mortality among our unfortunate prisoners sent by sea to Savannah to 
 be exchanged was very remarkable. We have published a list of one hundred 
 and seventeen who died on the passage to Savannah ; also a list of thirty-two 
 who died within a few days after being landed. Distressing as is this mortal 
 ity, the Confederate newspapers have not been so inconsiderate as to impute it 
 to a wrong cause. Revolting at the shocking inhumanity which limits ex 
 changes to the sick, the feeble, and the dying, we have received home our 
 brethren, emaciated as they are with long-protracted disease, and we have 
 wondered, not that so many died, but tha tso many, travelling in such a con 
 dition, should live. 
 
 " We have sent to the truce-boat a similar class of the Federal prisoners in 
 our hands ; it is for these only that the Yankees have bargained. When the 
 poor creatures reach them, worn and wasted by sickness, and evidencing, in 
 tlieir appearance, that they should be in the hospitals instead of travelling, in 
 place of the sense of shame which the Yankee authorities and people should 
 feel at the consequences of their inhuman policy, with such audacious hypoc- 
 ...sy as a Yankee only can manifest, they seize the occasion to calumniate the 
 Confederates, a reluctant party to a commerce worse than the middle pas 
 sage, and only better than protracted imprisonment. They pretend to con- 
 eider the returned men as samples of those who have been left behind ; they 
 charge their weakness and emaciation to starvation, and not to sickness ; they 
 clamor like so many howling lervishes ; and with an effrontery that tho 
 world beside cannot equal, they extract self-glorification out of their own 
 crime, and heap reproaches on us who are its victims ! 
 
 " We know that their treatment of our prisoners is horrible enough. But, 
 much as we execrate such conduct, and the people who can practise it, we 
 respect ourselves too much to slander them. We do not pretend that the sick 
 men who are sent home to us are samples of the rest. We are not so false aa 
 to represent their emaciation as due to starvation and not to disease, v alti- 
 
436 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE 
 
 In connection with the history of the prisons of the war, 
 there is something of tribute to be paid to the conduct ol 
 General Grant. This high officer, however profuse of the lives 
 of his men in battle, had certainly an unaffected sympathy 
 and interest for the imprisoned soldier. It was through his 
 offices that, in the later months of 1864, an agreement, first 
 proposed by General Lee, w r as concluded, to the effect that, 
 without releasing either Government from the obligation of 
 affording due provision to its captives, each should have the 
 right of furnishing to its own prisoners, in the possession of the 
 other, under the direction of officers among them, to be paroled 
 for the purpose, such additional supplies of necessary articles 
 as it might deem expedient to send. It is, indeed, indicative 
 of the remorseless policy of the Yankee Government that such 
 concessions to the claims of humanity should have been made 
 sooner by the stern soldier in the field than by their statesmen 
 in the cabinet. 
 
 We may add here, in advance of the order of our narrative, 
 that General Grant, having been subsequently empowered 
 with the duties of exchanging prisoners, and put in a position 
 to overrule the behests of such men as Stanton and Butler, did 
 himself immortal honor in instantly authorizing a general ex 
 change, and breaking by a stroke of the pen all the tissues of 
 falsehood and cunning in which this matter had been so long 
 entangled. This act has done more for his reputation in just 
 and humane history than any victory of his in the field. But 
 the benefit of it came too late for the South, and only a few 
 thousand Confederate prisoners reached home in time to wit 
 ness the catastrophe of the spring of 1865. 
 
 tudes of the poor sufferers die, as we have seen, on their way to our lines. 
 Many die before we can take them to our arms. Many die before we can get 
 them into our hospitals ; and many there languish and dio without a Right oi 
 the home for which they risked the travel. In all our distress a.*, this mor 
 tality, we are candid enough to recognize the cause, and to :V *Jit t rth nj>icl 
 our resentments. Not so the Yankees." 
 
THE LAST TEAR. 4:37 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The blockade at Wilmington. How ineffective. FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT 
 FISIIEU. Butler s powder-ship. The two days bombardment. Landing of 
 Butler s troops. .Butler decides not to attack. His sudden departure. lie ia 
 removed from command. SECOND EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT FISHER. FALL OF 
 WILMINGTON. Lauding of Terry s command. Movements of General Hoke. The 
 assault on the fort. A feu d enfer. Desperate fighting. The Confederates 
 overpowered. Surrender of Fort Fisher. Evacuation of Fort Anderson. Yankee 
 occupation of Wilmington. How a part of General Sherman s campaign in the 
 Carolhias. SHERMAN S SIXTV DAYS IN THE CAROLINAS. Direction of his march. 
 Crossing the Savannah River. Mismanagement of the Confederate troops. Sher 
 man at Branch ville. THE FALL OF CHARLESTON. Hardee joins Beauregard. 
 Conflagration in Charleston. Explosion at the railroad depot. A scarred city. 
 Charleston as seen through Yankee eyes. CAPTURE AND BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 
 Wild and savage scenes of pillage. Tho city on fire. Four thousand citizens 
 homeless. Sherman s march northward. His organization of "bummers." 
 The column of smoke. The Yankees at Winnsboro . More of the enemy s atro 
 cities. Sherman s feint upon Charlotte. His occupation of Fayetteville. Hamp 
 ton attacks Kilpatrick. Sherman s appointment of a rendezvous with Schofield 
 Hardee s fight near Averysboro . What he did with half a corps of Confeder 
 ates. THE BATTLE OF BENTONVILLE. Success of the Confederates. No decisive 
 results. Sherman s move towards Goldsboro . Schofield s movement. Sherman 
 success. His congratulatory order. A military conference at City Point, Virginia, 
 
 WILMINGTON had long been a thorn in the enemy s side. 
 Mr. Welles, the Yankee secretary of the navy, had declared, 
 in his last official report, that Wilmington, owing to the pecu 
 liarity of its situation, could not be absolutely closed to block 
 ade-runners, without the co-operation of the army ; for the 
 forts which protected it were in such shoal water that the 
 neavily armed ships could not get at them. Fifty fast Yankee 
 steamers had been unable to close this port. 
 
 FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT FISHER. 
 
 At the close of the summer of 1864, an expedition had been 
 
 planned against Fort Fisher, according to Mr. Welles sugges- 
 
 ion of the co-operation of a land force. It was delayed, for 
 
 various reasons, until the winter. Yice Admiral Farragut was 
 
438 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 selected by the Yankee Government to take charge of the naval 
 force, but was unable to assume that duty on account of ill 
 -lealth. Rear-Admiral Porter was then transferred from the 
 command of the Mississippi squadron to the command of the 
 North- Atlantic blockading squadron. The most powerful fleet 
 ever known in American history was assembled at Hampton 
 Roads, under command of Admiral Porter. The land force 
 consisted of six thousand five hundred infantry, two batteries 
 of artillery, and a few cavalry. On the 13th and 14th of De 
 cember the expedition started, General Butler with the army 
 transports proceeding to a place twenty-five miles off New 
 Inlet. Admiral Porter, with his fleet, proceeded to Beaufort 
 to complete taking on his ammunition and supplies, including 
 some powder for a vessel proposed to be exploded before Fort 
 Fisher, and some ammunition for the monitors, which were 
 towed light from Fortress Monroe to Beaufort. 
 
 Wilmington was then but feebly garrisoned. A number of 
 Confederate troops there had been sent to increase the forces 
 opposed to Sherman in his march across the State of Georgia 
 General Butler had supposed that he would find an easy con 
 quest there; and, in fact, he had foisted himself upon the expe 
 dition to get what he supposed would be a cheap glory, for the 
 command of it had been given to General Weitzel, and Butler 
 had insisted upon accompanying him, for the reason that the 
 scene of operations was within his department, and the troops 
 from his command. 
 
 A novel feature was introduced into the expedition against 
 Fort Fisher, viz., a vessel loaded with a large quantity of 
 powder to be exploded as near the fort as possible. The idea 
 appears to have originated with General Butler, in consequence 
 of reading of the terrible effects of the explosion of a large 
 quantity of gunpowder at Erith, England, some time before. 
 He suggested it to the departments at Washington, and they 
 submitted it to their engineer and ordnance officers for exam 
 ination and report. Those officers, while not anticipating any 
 very wonderful results from this new experiment, still deemed 
 it of such importance as to reccanmend its trial. 
 
 On Friday, 23d of December, Admiral Porter gave orders 
 that the powder vessel be sent in as near Fort Fisher as possi 
 ble, and exploded that night at one o clock. Information ot 
 
THE LAST YEA-IS. 
 
 what he proposed to do was sent to General Butler at Beau- 
 fort> but did not reach him until Saturday morning, when ho 
 immediately started for Fort Fisher, ordering the transports tc 
 follow as rapidly as possible. The powder-boat was exploded a 
 little before two o clock on Saturday morning, and the Yankee 
 navy commenced their bombardment about noon of that day. 
 
 The explosion of the powder-boat was a ridiculous fa Jure, 
 and attracted such little attention in the fort that General 
 Whiting, who was in command there, supposed it to be nothing 
 more than the bursting of one of the enemy s guns. The bom 
 bardment of the fort continued for two days. It was probably 
 the heaviest which had ever occurred in the annals of naval 
 warfare. The huge frigates of Porter s fleet led the way ; then 
 the grim ugly Ironsides ; then the monitors and the great line 
 of smaller vessels, stretching away out, almost as far as the 
 eye could reach. From every vessel could be seen the white 
 curl of smoke, and high up in the air hundreds of smoky rings 
 ^ere formed from the explosion of guns. Thick flew the shell ; 
 oud sounded the thunder of artillery ; lurid were the flashes 
 of great guns as they vomited forth their missiles of death and 
 destruction. JSTobly stood the Confederates to their guns. 
 From Shephard s battery to the mound, they stood unquailing 
 and defiant, loading and firing coolly and calmly ; the gunners 
 sighting their guns as if they were practising at a target. 
 
 After the arrival of General Butler a conference was had 
 with Admiral Porter as to operations next day. It was ar 
 ranged that General Weitzel should land with some two or 
 three thousand troops, and reconnoitre the fort with the view 
 of assaulting it. 
 
 The expectation of the garrison that they would have a 
 night-fight was not realized. The night was spent in watch 
 ing and in repairing the slight damage sustained by the fight. 
 As the morning dawned, the fleet could be discerned in the 
 distance getting ready to renew the attack; but it was not 
 expected that operations would commence before high tide, 
 which would be about half-past twelve o clock. However, 
 every man was at his post, ready, at any moment, to again 
 engage the fleet. About ten o clock the fleet commenced mov 
 ing in their extreme right resting near Gatlin s battery, about 
 eis miles up the beach, and their left extending down to the 
 
140 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 fort. The Ironsides led the attack, the frigates resting on her 
 right and left, and the monitors to the right of the frigates. 
 There were counted fifty-two vessels in all one Ironsides 
 three or four monitors, four frigates, and forty-seven other ves 
 sels. They steamed in very slowly, two of the frigates going 
 round to the sea front of the fort, and the iron-clads and moni 
 tors lying abreast of the centre front. The Ironsides* and 
 monitors came up within a mile ; the rest of the fleet remained 
 out about one and a-half miles. At half-past ten A. M. the first 
 gun was fired by the Ironsides, followed by the rest of the fleet 
 firing very slowly and deliberately for the while. The fort 
 reserved its fire, thinking that the wooden fleet would be 
 tempted to come in closer range. Finding, however, that they 
 would not come closer, it opened, also firing very slowly. 
 
 About noon the fleet commenced firing with great rapidity. 
 The dull, heavy, thumping sounds of the enemy s guns, as 
 they were fired, could be heard first, and then the whistling, 
 shrieking sound of the shells as they came whizzing and buzz 
 ing through the air. Their explosion and the myriad frag 
 ments that went rattling by, thick almost as hail, were terrible 
 to listen to. The air was hot with fire ; the earth shook ; there 
 was no interval of quiet ; all was noise crash, bang, and crash 
 all the time. 
 
 A shell whistled close to General Whiting. It buried itself, 
 exploding, and covering him all over with the wet sand. He 
 did not even move, not even take his pipe from his mouth, and 
 only remarked coolly, " Well, it spattered me." 
 
 While the bombardment was at its height, it was discovered 
 that the enemy had succeeded in landing a force at Anderson 
 and Holland batteries, and that their line of skirmishers were 
 advancing on the fort. All was excitement now. The infan 
 try man the parapets, and the sharp crack of the rifle is heard 
 instead of the heavy booming of guns. The lull was of short 
 duration the most terrific bombardment now commenced ; 
 the fleet had seen their land forces, and they opened with 
 greater fury than ever to keep the Confederates from engaging 
 the skirmishers. 
 
 But there was to be no battle on land. Weitzel had re 
 ported to Butler that it was not advisable to attack; and that 
 commander had very promptly desisted from the enterprise. 
 
, THE LAST YEAR. 441 
 
 His troops (more than two thousand had been landed; were 
 ordered back to the transports ; and his whole force, consisting 
 of sixty-five hundred men, was summarily withdrawn from 
 the expedition, and with such singular celerity that the nex> 
 day they were on the way back to Fortress Monroe. 
 
 As night came on the fire of the fleet fell off. The fort had 
 made a gallant and complete defence; and the success of the 
 Confederates could no longer be disputed. The enemy s at 
 tack the first day lasted five hours ; on the second day, seven 
 hours ; firing altogether over twenty thousand shots from fifty 
 odd vessels. 
 
 The Confederates responded with six hundred and sixty-two 
 shots the first day, and six hundred the second. Their loss 
 was only three killed and fifty-five wounded. 
 
 The ground in front and rear of the fort was covered with 
 shells, and was torn in deep pits. But the damage to the 
 works was not considerable. Two jnins in the fort burst, two 
 
 O 7 
 
 were dismounted by the Confederates, and two by the enemy s 
 tire ; but the fort was unhurt. 
 
 The failure of the expedition against Fort Fisher, the out 
 post of the defences of Wilmington, was the occasion of some 
 sharp recrimination between Admiral Porter arid General 
 Butler. It is very certain that the latter officer, who had 
 boasted that he would eat his Christmas dinner at Wilmington, 
 was generally considered to have retired from the scene of 
 action in disgrace, and that a few days thereafter he was made 
 to pay the penalty of his failure by an order from Washington, 
 removing him from the Army of the James, and sending him 
 to his home in Massachusetts.* 
 
 * General Grant testified as follows before a committee of the Yankee Con 
 gress, appointed to inquire into Butler s conduct : 
 
 Question The expectation was to surprise the fort? 
 
 Answer Yes, sir ; and my instructions were very clear, and if they effected 
 a landing there above Fort Fisher, that in itself was to be considered a suc 
 cess ; and if the fort did not fall immediately upon their landing, then they 
 were to intrench themselves, and remain there and co-operate with the navy 
 until the fort did fall. In my instructions I provided for a bold dash for the 
 capture of Wilmington, in case Fort Fisher did fall immediately upon the 
 landing of the troops. If it did not fall, then they were to intrench, enter upon 
 a siege of the place, and remain there until it did fall. And the capture of Wil. 
 mington would thus become a matter for future consideration. General Butler 
 came away from Fort Fisher in violation of the instructions which 1 :ave him. 
 
44:2 SOUTHERN HISTOET OF THE WAR. 
 
 SECOND EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT FISHEK. FAIL OF WILMINGTO5* 
 
 Neither General Grant nor the Washington authorities wen* 
 satisfied with Butler s conclusion that Fort Fisher was impreg 
 nable. The naval force remained in the vicinity during some 
 very stormy weather, while a second military force was organ 
 izcd under command of General Terry. This force consisted 
 of some eight thousand five hundred men, with siege guns and 
 intrenching tools. On the 13th of January, the troops were 
 landed on the beach above Fort Fisher, and proceeded tc 
 throw up intrenchments. 
 
 The enemy landed, under cover of his fleet, near Battery 
 Gatlin, about nine miles from Fort Fisher. "While he was 
 landing, General Hoke appeared and drew up in line parallel, 
 to watch his movements, and intercept them when possible to 
 do so. It was not possible to prevent the landing, owing to 
 the situation of the point chosen. The enemy landed on the 
 banks, just above the neck of the sound, thus interposing a 
 small surface, of water between them and an attacking force; 
 or compelling such force to circle around the lower extreme of 
 the sound either of which movements would have to be dono 
 under the fire of the whole fleet. 
 
 When General Hoke found this to be the situation, he es 
 tablished a line facing the sea, and threw out cavalry pn his 
 right flank, towards Battery Anderson, which was down the 
 beach towards Fort Fisher, about four miles. The intervening 
 country here was broken ; and the low places were grown up 
 with thick bushes, and were marshy. The purpose of the 
 cavalry was to observe the movements, and give the signal of 
 the first advance of the enemy towards establishing a line 
 across the neck of land to the river, it being the order and 
 purpose of General Bragg to have General Hoke attack him as 
 soon as he advanced. During the night, however, the enemy, 
 passing between the cavalry, and threading their way through 
 the thick, marshy undergrowth, made their way to the river, 
 and next morning General Hoke found an intrenched line on 
 his right flank, extending across the peninsula, from the sea 
 to, or near to the river. He succeeded, however, in maintain 
 ing his base at Sugarloaf, immediately changed his line, and 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 443 
 
 informed General Bragg of the situation. Then General Bragg 
 gave the order to charge the enemy in their works. In tho 
 mean time, General Hoke had made a close reconnoissance, 
 under the fire of the enemy, and discovered the strength 01 
 their force and position. On receiving the order to charge 
 he communicated the result of his observations, and asked 
 General Bragg to reconnoitre in person, which he did ; and 
 both of these officers concurred that it was not proper to 
 assault the lines. It was then determined to re-enforce the 
 fort. By this time the enemy, four thousand strong, were 
 secure behind their works ; and the fleet proceeded to bombard 
 Fort Fisher, which was done uninterruptedly until Sunday, 
 the 15th of January, about six o clock in the evening. 
 
 At this time the column of assault, numbering about four 
 thousand, moved from the enemy s lines, and as they ad 
 vanced, they were plainly visible from Fort Fisher. But the 
 beleaguered garrison was kept close confined within the bomb- 
 proofs by the concentrated and continued fire of seven hundred 
 guns pouring torrents of shell and missiles on every spot. On 
 the land side of Fort Fisher the Confederates had seventeen 
 guns sufficient, could they have been used, to make it impos 
 sible that any force could have advanced under their fire. 
 But, as the line of assailants got nearer to the fort, the whole 
 fleet concentrated the fire, in richochet shot, on the land side, 
 and speedily dismounted every gun ; and this unintermitterit 
 fau d?cnfer was kept up until the enemy s line was within sixty 
 yards of the works. Then it ceased, and with a rush and yell 
 the charge was made. Captain Braddy commanded the com 
 pany guarding the sally-port. On him the hope of the garri 
 son hung to keep the assailants out until the men and officers, 
 who had been packed in the bomb-proofs for fifry-six hours, 
 could get out and make ready. This officer and his command, 
 it is said, surrendered, and the enemy entered the open gate. 
 The Confederates were benumbed and exhausted, and the 
 thing was the work of a moment. They were obliged to fall 
 back in order to rally. Colonel Lamb brought his men into 
 line near headquarters, General Whiting being present, en 
 couraging and cheering on the troops and creating enthusiasm 
 by his ardent heroism. Under these inspiring influences the 
 men were brought to the charge. The numbers were agair . 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 them in the proportion of four thousand, aided by two thousand 
 marines, to two thousand, but they forced the enemy back to 
 the mound, and a harid-to-hand fight, of unmitigated despera 
 tion and fury, ensued, continuing from seven to about ten 
 o clock, when bravery, endurance, and devotion failed to over 
 come numbers. The Confederates were overpowered, and the 
 work of assault was accomplished ; but not until the enemy 
 had paid dearly for his prize. Pie had not lost a man until he 
 entered the fort. 
 
 Thus fell Fort Fisher after a heroic defence. About mid 
 night, General "Whiting surrendered himself and his men to 
 General Terry as prisoners of war, numbering over eighteen 
 hundred, the remainder of his force being killed or wounded. 
 The enemy confessed a loss of seven or eight hundred in killed 
 and wounded. General Whiting received three wounds in 
 the thigh, and thus wounded was fated to languish and die in 
 a Yankee prison. 
 
 The fall of Fort Fisher did not clear the way to Wilmington. 
 Yet it was decisive of the fate of that city. On the 19th of 
 February, Fort Anderson, higher up the river, was evacuated 
 under a heavy fire from Porter s fleet, with a co-operating 
 Yankee force eight thousand strong, which Schofield had 
 moved up from Smithville. The troops were pushed for Wil 
 mington, while at the same time Porter s vessels passed the 
 obstructions and steamed up the river. Wilmington was 
 occupied without resistance. The eight or ten thousand Con 
 federate troops there, under the command of General Bragg, 
 had been withdrawn towards what was now the dominant 
 theatre of the war in the interior of the Carolinas. 
 
 The capture of Wilmington, indeed, had been an arranged 
 parallel of Sherman s grand expedition through the Carolinas ; 
 it was intended to open still another base of operations towards 
 Richmond ; and it proved, in fact, a great element of success in 
 that extraordinary march that carried the Yankee banners 
 from Savannah to Goldsboro . To that movement attention 
 must now be directed in the logical order of our narrative. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 445 
 
 About the 16th of January, hardly a month from his entry 
 into Savannah, Sherman had reviewed and reorganized bis 
 command, but only partially refitted it, owing to delays in for 
 warding the necessary supplies. Appreciating the value of 
 time, he hurried forward his preparations, and dispatching 
 Howard s wing by water to Beaufort, from whence it penetrated 
 up the Pocotaligo, deceived the Confederates into the belief 
 that this force was the advance of his army moving upon 
 Charleston. The interval between the embarkation of Howard 
 at Savannah and his arrival in front of the Branchville and 
 Charleston Railroad was well employed by Sherman, who 
 marched Slocum s wing towards Augusta, Davis corps on the 
 Georgia side, and William s on the Carolina side of the Savan 
 nah River, to Sister s Ferry. 
 
 The laborious duty of the campaign commenced with the 
 crossing of the Savannah River. The Confederate forces to 
 oppose Sherman were scattered all the way from Augusta to 
 Charleston ; the design being to guard all the approaches to 
 the railway that connected Charleston with the interior. This 
 want of concentration was the secret of Sherman s success. 
 
 Early in February, Sherman struck the railroad between 
 Branchville and Charleston, compelled the Confederates to 
 evacuate Branchville oh the llth of February, and broke up 
 the South Carolina Railroad for sixty or seventy miles, thus 
 preventing any reinforcements from the west. The left wing, 
 by rapid marches of eighteen miles per day, had made a 
 detour far to the left, within thirty miles of Augusta, gained a 
 lodgment upon the road, and severed communications. Here 
 was a dangerous position for the Confederates; Sherman s 
 whole force of cavalry, militia, and veterans at Branchville, 
 and Augusta open to capture by a sudden swoop of Kilpat- 
 rick s cavalry. That city, with its arsenals, laboratories, 
 machine-shops, rolling stock, and cotton, was too valuable to 
 be neglected ; and Cheatham s corps of Hood s army, was 
 marched night and day to its relief, arriving there in time to 
 find t mt Sherman had turned the cold shoulder upon Augusta,. 
 
446 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 by a dexterous movement thrown his left wing between 
 Hill and the main force in his front. 
 
 Continuing his march north, Sherman entered Orangebnrg 
 on the 16th of February ; and General Bean regard, who, owing 
 to the extraordinary dispersion of the Confederate plan of de 
 fence, had certainly not more than ten thousand men at Co 
 lumbia, was already preparing to evacuate the capital of South 
 Carolina. 
 
 THE FALL OF CHARLESTON. 
 
 In the mean time, the movement of Sherman had already 
 been decisive of the fate of Charleston. General Hardee find 
 ing himself flanked at Charleston, and appreciating the instant 
 necessity of effecting a junction with Beauregard and Cheat- 
 ham, and concentrating all available forces in Sherman s path, 
 resolved to evacuate this city, so famous in the war and so 
 long coveted by the Yankees. But he was resolved to leave 
 as little as possible for the enemy s rapacity. 
 
 At an early hour of the morning, before the retirement oi 
 General Hardee s troops, every building, warehouse, or shed, 
 stored with cotton, was fired by a guard detailed for the pur 
 pose. The engines were brought out, but w r ith the small force 
 at the disposal of the fire department, very little else could be 
 done than to keep the surrounding buildings from igniting. 
 On the western side of the city the conflagration raged with 
 great fury. 
 
 The horrors of the conflagration were heightened by a ter 
 rible catastrophe. It appears some boys had discovered a 
 quantity of powder at the depot of the Northwestern Railroad, 
 and amused themselves by flinging handfuls of it upon the 
 masses of burning cotton in the streets. It was not long before 
 the powder running from their hands formed a train upon the 
 ground leading from the fire to the main supplies of powder in 
 the depot. The result is easily conjectured. A spark ignited 
 the powder in the train, there was a leaping, running fire 
 along the ground, and then an explosion which shook the city 
 to its very foundation from one end to the other. The build 
 ing was. in a second, a whirling mass of ruins, in a tremeudou. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 447 
 
 volume of flame and smoke. About two hundred lives were 
 lost by the explosion, and not less than one hundred and fifty 
 bodies were found charred in that fiery furnace. 
 
 From the depot the fire spread rapidly, and communicating 
 with the adjoining buildin gs, threatened destruction to that 
 part of the town. Four squares, embracing the area bounded 
 by Chapel, Alexander, Charlotte, and Washington-streets, were 
 consumed before the conflagration was subdued. 
 
 The destruction of public property in Charleston had been 
 as complete as General Hardee could make it. He burned the 
 cotton warehouses, arsenals, quartermaster s stores, railroad 
 bridges, two iron-dads, and some vessels in the ship-yard. 
 
 Among the captured property were two hundred pieces of 
 artillery, spiked and temporarily disabled, as they could not 
 be brought off. 
 
 The Yankees occupied Charleston on the 18th of February. 
 A scarred city, blackened b}^ fire, with evidences of destruction 
 and ruin wrought by the enemy at almosj; every step, had at 
 last come into their possession ; but not until a heroic defence 
 running through nearly four years, and at last only by the 
 stratagem of a march many miles away from it. The- appear 
 ance of the city was eloquent of the sacrifice and heroism of its 
 people. A Yankee correspondent who had joined in the 
 triumphal entry into Charleston thus described the scene be 
 fore his eyes : "Not a building for blocks here that is exempt 
 from the marks of shot and shell. All have suffered more or 
 less. Here is a fine brown-stone bank building, vacant and 
 deserted, with great gaping holes in the sides and roof, 
 through which the sun shines and the rain pours, windows and 
 sashes blown out by exploding shell within, plastering knocked 
 down, counters torn up, floors crushed in, and fragments of 
 mosaic pavement, broken and crushed, lying around on the 
 floor, mingled with bits of statuarj^, stained glass, and broken 
 parts of chandeliers. Ruin within and without, and its neigh 
 bor in no better plight. The churches, St. Michael s and St. 
 Philip s, have not escaped the storms of our projectiles. Their 
 roofs are perforated, their walls wounded, their pillars demol 
 ished, and within the pews filled with plastering. From Bay- 
 Btreet, studded with batteries, to Cal noun-street, our shells have 
 carried destruction and desolation, and often death witli them," 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CAFPURE AND BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 
 
 "While the Yankees were making a triumphal entry into the 
 burning city of Charleston, a scene yet more terrible and 
 dramatic was taking place in the capital of South Carolina. 
 General Beauregard had evacuated Columbia in haste. Sher 
 man entered it on the 18th of February. A white flag riis- 
 played from the steeple of the City Hall announced the 
 surrender of the town. With bands playing, drum-corps 
 beating, flags flying, and their men in step, the Yankee army 
 inarched down Main-street to the Capitol square. 
 
 No sooner had the enemy entered Columbia than a wild and 
 savage scene of pillage commenced. Stragglers, " bummers, * 
 pontoon men, and the riffraff of the army were to be met in 
 every street and almost every house. If they wanted a pair of 
 boots tltey took them from one s feet. Watches were in con 
 stant demand in several instances being snatched from thb 
 persons of ladies. Ear and finger-rings were taken by force, 
 and, in isolated cases, the dresses of ladies were torn from their 
 bodies b.y villains who expected to lind jewels or plate con 
 cealed. Search for silver and provisions was made in every 
 conceivable place. Ramrods were used as probes to indicate 
 where boxes were buried ; and gardens, outhouses, cellars, 
 garrets, chimneys, and nooks, never thought of by anybody but 
 a thief in search of plunder, were turned, so to speak, inside 
 out. Rev. Mr. Shand, the Episcopalian clergyman, while con 
 veying a trunk containing the communion service of silver 
 from the church to the South Carolina College, was accosted 
 by a Yankee and a negro, who compelled him, under threat of 
 death, to give it up. 
 
 The conflagration which destroyed the city commenced 
 about dusk. The fire started near the rear of the jail. A 
 high wind prevailed, and in a short time the flames were in 
 full and unconquerable progress, spreading rapidly in three 
 directions up and down Main-street and eastwardly. From 
 ten until three o clock in the morning the scene was appalling. 
 The sky was one broad sheet of flame, above which, amid the 
 lurid smoke, drifted in eddying circles a myriad of .sparks. 
 These falling scattered the conflagration on every side. The 
 
THE LAST YEAR. . 
 
 monotone of the roaring, leaping, hissing tongues of flame, as 
 they careered on their wild course, alone filled hearts with 
 dismay. The air was like that of a furnace. Many of the 
 streets were impassable. Frightened men, women, and chil 
 dren ran in all directions, some only to flee again from the fresh 
 attacks of the destroying element. Property thrown out of 
 houses was either burned or stolen. Many of the Federal 
 soldiers, maddened by liquor, dashed through the city with 
 lighted torches to inflame the dwellings yet untouched. Morn 
 ing revealed to some extent the broad sweep of destruction. 
 Four thousand or more citizens were houseless and homeless. 
 From the State-house to Cotton Town, and an average of two 
 or three squares on each side of Main-street, nothing but 
 blackened ruins remained. Every vestige of the once busy 
 street was gone. 
 
 After having completed, as far as possible, the destruction of 
 Columbia, Sherman continued his march northward. The 
 Seventeenth and Twentieth corps moved in two columns upon 
 Winnsboro , thirty miles north, on the Columbia and Charlotte 
 Kailroad ; the Seventeenth destroying the railroad, and twisting 
 the rails so that they could not be used again. From Winris- 
 boro , where they found many of the refugees from Charleston 
 and Columbia, General Sherman sent Kilpatrick s cavalry still 
 northward towards Chester ville, to keep up the delusion that 
 lie was moving on Charlotte, but Sherman himself with his 
 main army moved directly eastward, crossing the Catawba or 
 Wateree nearly east of Winnsboro , and moving his left wing 
 directly towards Cheraw, while the right threatened Florence. 
 
 After leaving Columbia, Jihe rapidly increasing mass of 
 refugees, black and white, who followed the army, were organ 
 ized into an emigrant train, and put under the charge of the 
 officers and men who had escaped from the Confederate prisons 
 at Salisbury and elsewhere on the route. Under the direction 
 of their escort they foraged for themselves, and being supplied 
 liberally with horses and mules, wagons and other vehicles, of 
 which large numbers were taken along the route, they moved 
 on with very little expense or trouble to the army. This 
 organization, known as that of " Sherman s bummers," often 
 mixed up with the regular troops of the army, carried devas 
 tation, ruin, and horror along the march. It was said, indeed, 
 
 29 
 
50 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 that Sherman s march through the Carolinas was tracked by a 
 column of smoke, and that stragglers never found any 
 difficulty in rejoining the command, when this ghastly evi 
 dence of its march stood constantly in the sky. 
 
 At Winnsboro , private dwellings were entered ruthlessly 
 all kind of necessaries and luxuries of life were stolen, and, in 
 some cases, helpless women were cursed and threatened to be 
 shot if they did not deliver up keys of apartments. This town 
 was also fired. Charred ruins met the eye, where once the 
 busy feet of men passed in the daily pursuits of life. Wedding- 
 rings and mementos of deceased husbands or parents were 
 stolen as ruthlessly as gold coin would have been ; watches 
 and jewelry were cut from the persons of ladies, and, in some 
 instances, their shoes removed on the pretence of searching for 
 rings. 
 
 Leaving this town, the enemy took their line of march on 
 the State road leading to Blackstocks. On the route their road 
 could be easily distinguished by tall chimneys standing solitary 
 and alone, and blackened embers, as it were, laying at theix 
 feet. Every fine residence, all corn-cribs, smoke-houses, cotton 
 gins all that could give comfort to man were committed to 
 the flames ; dead animals horses, mules, cows, calves, and 
 hogs slain by the enemy, were scattered along the road. Tha 
 railroad track from Winnsboro to about four hundred yard* 
 on the other side of Blackstocks was in one mass of ruins. 
 Horses and mules that were hid in dense forests were found 
 and taken. Corn, fodder, and shucks that the enemy could 
 not use were burned ; gentlemen were robbed of what funds 
 they had about their person ; watches were jerked from the 
 pockets of both male and female; in truth every indignity and 
 every insult that could be offered to citizens was perpetrated.* 
 
 * Tlie following are extracts from some private letters giving some account 
 of Sherman s pillagers in the Caroliuas : 
 
 " MY DEAR : Sherman has gone, and terrible has been the storm that has 
 
 fwept over us with his coming and going. They deliberately shot t\vo of our 
 citizens murdered them In cold blood one of them a Mr. Murphy, a wounded 
 soldier, Confederate States Army. They hung up three others and one lady, 
 merely letting them down just in time to save life, in order to make them tell 
 where their valuables were concealed. There was no place, no chamber, 
 trunk, drawer, desk, garret, closet, or cellar that was private to their unholy 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 451 
 
 On the 3d of March Sherman occupied Cheraw. The feint 
 upon Charlotte was intended to uncover Fayetteville to Sher 
 man and Goldsboro to Schofield, who, with a large and vic 
 torious army, was sweeping tip from the coast with reinforce- 
 
 eyes. Their rude hands spared nothing but our lives, and those they would 
 have taken but they knew that therein they would only accomplish the death 
 of a few helpless women and children they would not in the least degree 
 break or bend the spirit of our people. Squad after squad unceasingly came 
 and went and tramped through the halls and rooms of our house day and 
 night during the entire stay of the army. 
 
 " At our house they killed every chicken, goose, turkey, cow, calf, and every 
 living thing, even to our pet dog. They carried off our wagons, carriages, and 
 horses, and broke up our buggy, wheelbarrow, garden implements, axes, 
 hatchets, hammers, saws, etc., and burned the fences. Our smoke-houses and 
 pantry that a few days ago were well stored with bacon, lard, flour, dried 
 fruit, meal, pickles, preserves, etc. now contain nothing whatever, except a few 
 pounds of meal and flour, and five pounds of bacon. They took from old 
 men, women, and children alike, every garment of wearing apparel save what 
 we had on, not even sparing the napkins of infants ! Blankets, sheets, quilts, 
 etc., such as did not suit them to take away, they tore to pieces before our 
 eyes. After destroying every thing we had, and taking from us every morsel 
 of food (save the pittance I have mentioned), one of these barbarians had to 
 add insult to injury by asking me * what you (I) would live upon now? I re 
 plied, Upon patriotism ; I will exist upon the love of my country as long as 
 life will last, and then I will die as firm in that love as the everlasting hills. " 
 
 A lady residing in South Carolina, who was in the enemy s lines for five 
 days, writes her experience to a friend in Augusta as follows : 
 
 " Pauline came rushing up to me saying the Yankees had come, 
 A hasty glance from the window confirmed her words, and we instantly re 
 treated to aunt s room. This being on the first floor, was speedily filled with 
 armed men. At first I very politely unlocked several trunks, assuring them 
 that they only contained ladies apparel, but as the number increased we gladly 
 retreated to the sitting-room, where the whole family soon collected. There 
 we remained from twelve to six o clock, while this band of one hundred and 
 fifty men ransacked every nook and corner ; breaking open trunks and boxes, 
 singing, whistling, swearing. Many passed through the room in which we 
 were. At first none addressed us. At last one young villain came in, fastened 
 the door, demanded our watches, and using the most profane language and 
 terrible threats, ordered us to confess where our gold and silver was buried ; 
 laid his hands on Pauline s shoulder and mine, while we obediently emptied 
 our v-ockets. They then marched Dr. - into the entry, stripped the poor 
 old tfonMeman to the waist, robbing him of the one thousand dollars he had 
 succeeded in bringing from his own house, which meanwhile has been laid in 
 ashes so he is homeless. We have lost in silver, china, and glass. All our 
 blankets, quilts, bowls, and all the pillow-cases were used us bags to reaiove 
 provisions. Great destruction in clothing, dresses torn up, etc. Hardly a 
 handkerchief in the house." 
 
452 SOUTHER 5T HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ments for Sherman, establishing a line of supplies as he 
 moved. 
 
 On the afternoon and night of the 6th of March, the Yankee 
 army crossed the Great Pedee River in safety, and swept for 
 ward the next day the main army, in four columns, moving 
 on Laurel Hill and Montpelier, North Carolina, and the 
 cavalry, under Kilpatrick, guarding the extreme left, and 
 approaching Rockingham, North Carolina, where they came in 
 contact with Butler s division of Wade Hampton s cavalry, 
 with which they had some desultory skirmishing. A long and 
 heavy rain delayed somewhat the Yankee approach to Fayette- 
 ville, but that place was reached on the llth of March. 
 
 Some more severe and important fighting than Sherman had 
 yet experienced since he and Johnston parted at Atlanta was 
 now to take place ; the latter general having been put in com 
 mand of the Confederate forces in the Carolinas. 
 
 On the 10th of March General Wade Hampton approached 
 before daylight Kilpatrick s headquarters, at Monroe s planta 
 tion, and administered to him a severe lesson, taking guns and 
 prisoners. 
 
 At Fayetteville Sherman communicated with Schofiold at 
 Wilmington. He had fixed upon the vicinity of Goldsboro as 
 the place where he would form a junction with Schon eld, and 
 the 22d of March as the time before leaving Savannah 
 and having brought his army thus far in time, he was dis 
 posed to move slowly to allow Schoiield time to reach tho 
 rendezvous. 
 
 On the 16th of March General Hardee, with about half a 
 corps (Rhett s and Elliot s brigades), was intrenched between 
 Black Creek and Cape Fear River, at no great distance from 
 the confluence of these streams. This small detachment of 
 Confederate force was attacked here by two corps of Sherman a 
 veterans, under Slocurn, together with Kilpatrick s cavalry. 
 The Confederates held their ground with the most determined 
 valor. Three diiferent charges of the enemy were repulsed. 
 At last, to prevent being flanked, General Hardee had to fall 
 back with the loss of two guns. This engagement took place 
 at Averysboro , on the Cape Fear River, about halt- way 
 between Raleigh and Fayetteville. The loss of the enemy was 
 out. of all proportion to our own. General Johnston tele- 
 
GEN. WADE HAMPTON. 
 
 C . B . Rich ar dson 
 Publisher 
 
THE LAST YEAH. 453 
 
 graphed to Richmond that the total Confederate loss was four 
 hundred and fifty ; that of the Yankees thirty-three hundred. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BENTONVILLE. 
 
 On the 19th of March a yet more important engagement 
 was to occur. It was Johnston s purpose to cripple Sherman, 
 if possible, before he could effect a junction with Schofield ; 
 and, accordingly, he brought what troops he had in hand by a 
 forced inarch into position at Bentonville, intending to fling 
 them upon Sherman s left wing, commanded by Slocum. 
 
 About nine o clock in Xhe morning the fight commenced. 
 On the right, Bate s and Cleburne s division charged and car 
 ried two lines of breastworks, driving the enemy two miles. 
 Hill, commanding Lee s corps, and Loring, commanding 
 Stewart s corps, did similarly on the left. The Confederates 
 fought gallantly. Three guns were taken from the enemy, and 
 his whole line pushed back. 
 
 A mile in rear the enemy rallied upon fresh troops, but was 
 forced back slowly, until six o clock p. M., when, receiving 
 more troops, he apparently assumed the offensive, which 
 movement was resisted without difficulty until dark. 
 
 During the night the enemy threw up heavy intrenchments, 
 and the next morning General Johnston did not think it advis 
 able to renew the attack. The engagement had been a very 
 severe one. The total loss of the Confederates was about 
 twenty-five hundred. Although they had achieved a success, 
 Johnston appears to have been well convinced that he had not 
 force sufficient to cope with Sherman and resist his junction 
 with Schofield. On the night of the 20th the enemy aban 
 doned their works and moved towards Goldsboro . General 
 Johnston then withdrew towards Raleigh. 
 
 In the mean time, Schofield, from Newbern, had entered and 
 occupied Goldsboro , and Terry, from Wilmington, had secured 
 Cox s bridge crossing, and laid a pontoon bridge across the 
 Neuse River. Sherman was thus in the position he had 
 planned more than two months ago in Savannah ; he had 
 brought up every part of the combination in perfect order; 
 and so far had achieved a success at once brilliant and coin- 
 
454 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 plete. On the 22d of March he published in Goldsboro a con 
 gratulatory address to his troops. He said : " After a mure! 
 of the most extraordinary character, nearly five hundred miles 
 over swamps and rivers deemed impassable to others, at th 
 most inclement season of the year, and drawing our chief sup 
 plies from a poor and wasted country, we reach our destination 
 in good health and condition." 
 
 We must leave Sherman at Goldsboro the proper termi 
 nation of his campaign in the Carolinas. The position was 
 critical enough for the Confederates. Between Sherman s 
 army, augmented by the corps of Schofield and Terry, and the 
 army of Grant, the Confederacy was in danger of being 
 crushed. The two armies were separated by only one hun 
 dred and fifty miles, and a railroad*, which conld be rapidly 
 put in order, connected them. No sooner had Sherman dis 
 posed his army in camp at Goldsboro than he hastened to 
 City Point, Virginia, for an interview with General Grant and 
 President Lincoln. The results of that conference were soon 
 to be known to the Confederacy, and meant any thing else 
 than that "peace negotiation" info which some lively imagi 
 nations in Richmond construed this collection of distinguished 
 persons. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4-55 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 The date of distrust in the .Southern mind. Observation of Gereral Lee. A pecu 
 liar moral condition of the Confederacy. Want of confidence in President Davis 
 administration. Impatience of the prolongation of the war. Davis unpopularity. 
 V\ eak attempts in Congress at a counter-revolution. General Leo made com- 
 mander-in chief. The title a nominal one. The Virginia delegation and the Pres 
 ident. Mr. Seddon s resignation. President Davis defiance to Congress. The 
 Davw-Johnston imbroglio. Senator Wig fall s speeches. Johnston s restoration, 
 President Davis opinion of homoeopathy. Sullen and indifferent disposition of 
 the Southern people. How they might have accomplished their independence. 
 Review of the military situation. Analysis of the peace feeling in the North. 
 How it was likely to be developed by a long war. The Union not the enemy s sint 
 qua non. Two contingencies that limited the war. The worthless title of Yankee 
 invasion. "Cob-web" occupation of the Confederacy. Note: an tiddresB in thd 
 Richmond newspapers. Tiie two fatal facts in the condition of the Confederacy. 
 THE FORTRESS MONROE COMMISSION. How it was brought about. The Yankeo 
 ultimatum. Official narrative of the Confederate commissioners.- A new attempt 
 to rally the spirit of the South. The meeting at the African church in Richmond. 
 President Davis boasts. His noble allusion to history. How the cause of the 
 Confederacy was in danger. PROPOSITION TO ARM THE SLAVES OF THK SOUTH. 
 Indicative of a desperate condition of the public mind. General Lee s opinion. 
 The slavchohling interest. Its selfishness and insolence. A weak conclusion of 
 the matter. "Catching at straws" in the Confederate Congress. Character of 
 this body. 
 
 IN the winter of 18645, intelligent minds in the Confed- 
 ,racy became, for the first time, impressed with the idea that 
 its victory and independence were no longer certain conclu 
 sions, and conceived a painful distrust as to the issues of the 
 war. 
 
 General Lee, a man who used few words, and had the faculty 
 of going directly to the point of a discussion, and putting 
 sagacious judgments in plain phrases, once said of the conduct 
 of the people of the Confederacy in the war, that " they were 
 only half in earnest." But this remark, unlike most of Lee s 
 judgments, was only half true. No one can doubt that the 
 Confederates had been thoroughly and terribly in earnest in 
 the first periods of the war ; and if, in its later periods, they 
 appeared to lack earnestness, the truth was they did not lack 
 it so much as they did confidence in their rulers, and a dispo 
 
456 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 sition to continue the war under an administration, whoso 
 squanderings and make-shifts turned all the sacrifices of the 
 people to naught. In the later periods of the terrible conflict 
 through which the Confederacy had passed, its moral condition 
 was peculiar. All confidence in the administration at Ilich- 
 rnond was gone; the people were heart-broken ; they had been 
 cheated too often by the highly colored prophesies of President 
 Davis, and those boastful predictions, which are unfailing 
 characteristics of the weak mind ; they saw that their sacrifices 
 were squandered, and their most patriotic efforts misapplied ; 
 they were so far demoralized by want of confidence in their 
 authorities, and, in some instances, by positive antipathy to 
 them, that it may be said that in the last periods of the war, a 
 majority of the people of the Confederacy actually deprecated 
 any single success, and did not desire a victory to their arms 
 which might give a new occasion of prolongation of the war 
 for having already taken it for granted as hopeless, they prayed 
 in their hearts that it would be closed at the earliest moment. 
 They did not desire the delay of any mere fluctuations of for 
 tune, which they were sure was to be adverse at the last. "If 
 failure was to ensue, then the sooner the better. 5i> Such was 
 the phrase of the vulgar judgment which everywhere in tho 
 Confederacy assailed the ears of nobler and more resolute men 
 
 Whatever share the maladministration at Richmond may 
 have had in producing this public demoralization, it is not to 
 be excused entirely on this account. It involved with it much 
 that was shameful, for which the people had themselves to 
 blame, and to charge to the account of their own disposition 
 to let the war lapse to its final conclusions of defeat and ruin. 
 
 For months Mr. Davis had been a President, with nothing at 
 his back but a clique of office-holders. The pec pie had be 
 come thoroughly estranged from him. If all did not speak of 
 him in terms of derision or hate, there were but few who named 
 him without expressions of distrust. But although the country 
 was thus thoroughly dissatisfied with Mr. Davis administra 
 tion, there was not nerve enough in it, not courage enough 
 among its public men, to overthrow his rule, or put it under a 
 severe and effective check. 
 
 In the first months of 1865 there were introduced in Con 
 gress some partial but remarkable measures to correct the 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 457 
 
 administration. They indicated public sentiment; but they 
 failed and utterly broke down in their execution, and left 
 Davis the defiant and angry master of the Held. 
 
 The first of these was an act of the Confederate Congress 
 making: General Lee commander-in-chief of the armies. The 
 
 ? 
 
 intention of this law was never executed. Lee was unwilling 
 to accept practically its trust ; he was unwilling, too, to break 
 a personal friendship with the President; and so he remained 
 in immediate command of the Army of Northern Virginia, and 
 Davis continued in the practical control of the armies at large, 
 without any diminution of his power or insolence. 
 
 In January, 1865, the Virginia delegation in the House of 
 .Representatives, headed by Mr. Bocock, the speaker of the 
 House, addressed to the President an earnest, but most respect 
 ful paper, expressing their want of confidence in the capacity 
 and services of his cabinet, the members of which for four 
 years had been mere figure-heads in Richmond. Mr. Davis 
 resented the address as impertinent. Mr. Seddon, the secre 
 tary of war, a citizen of Virginia, recognizing the censure as 
 coming from Virginians, and, therefore, as peculiarly applicable 
 to himself, and conscious of the excessive unpopularity he had 
 incurred in the administration of his office an ugly little cir 
 cumstance of which had recently come to light, namely, that 
 while he had been impressing the grain of the Virginia farm 
 ers at nominal prices, he had sold his own crop of wheat to the 
 Government at forty dollars a bushel insisted upon resigning, 
 and thus appeasing the public indignation against himself. 
 Mr. Davis opposed this action- of his secretary, sought to dis 
 suade him from it; and when Mr. Seddon did resign, the Pres 
 ident went out of his way to declare in a letter, published in 
 the newspapers, that the event of this resignation would in no 
 manner change the policy or course of his administration, arid 
 thus, in words not to be mistaken, threw down his defiance to 
 Congress and the country. 
 
 Another point which Congress made with the President was 
 the restoration of General Joseph E. Johnston to command. 
 For weeks in the Confederate Senate, Mr. Wigfall, of Texas 
 a course, heavy man, of large brain, who, under an unsenti 
 mental exterior, possessed more of the courage and fire of the 
 orator than any other man in the South dealt his sledge-han> 
 
4-58 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 mer blows on the President, who, he declared, not satisfied 
 with persecuting Johnston, was trying to make him the scape 
 goat for liis own sins. The debate in the Johnston-Davis im 
 broglio was a memorable one in the dreary annals of the Con 
 federate Congress. The fierce impatience of Mr. Wigfall more 
 than once caused him to launch into philippics against the 
 President, which most of the Richmond newspapers did not 
 dare to report. The President was denounced without mercy. 
 "He was," said Mr. Wigfall, summing up on one occasion his 
 points of indictment, "an amalgam of malice and mediocrity." 
 
 The President did restore Johnston ; but under circum 
 stances which made it no concession to the public. To an inti 
 mate friend he remarked with grim humor, that " if the people 
 wanted to try homoeapathic treatment similia simililus cur- 
 antur he would give them another dose of Johnsron." lie 
 restored this commander, as he well knew, to the conduct of a 
 campaign that was already lost; he put him in command of a 
 broken and disorganized force that Sherman had already swept 
 before him through two States into the forests of North Caro 
 lina ; and Johnston was right when some weeks before he 
 wrote to a private friend that he was quite sure that if the 
 authorities at Richmond restored him to command, they were 
 resolved not to act towards him in good faith and with proper 
 support, but to put him in circumstances where defeat was 
 inevitable, and thus confirm to the populace the military judg 
 ment of President Davis. 
 
 The people of the Confederacy, towards the final periods of 
 the war, may be said to have looked with folded arms upon 
 the sins of its Government, and to have regarded its general 
 tendency to disaster and ruin with a sullen disposition to let 
 matters take their own course, or with weak and blank despair. 
 These sins were not only the fruit of Mr. Davis violent and 
 imperious animosities; they covered the whole conduct of his 
 administration, and involved as much the want of capacity as 
 that of official candor and personal impartiality. Everywhere 
 the military establishment was falling to decay, and although 
 the Confederacy was still full of fighting men and war mate 
 rial, there was nothing but the dregs of its resources at the 
 practical command of the Government. 
 
 The most remarkable fact in the later days of the Confed 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 45 
 
 eraey was, that while the country was really capable of fight 
 ing the war indefinitely, and accomplishing its independence- 
 it by nothing more, yet surely by the virtue of endurance, it 
 bad in active employment but the smallest portion of its re 
 sources, and was loitering on the brink of destruction at a 
 time when victory, with proper efforts, was never more surely 
 in its grasp. 
 
 To understand this great and melancholy fact in the history 
 of the war that the Confederates, with an abler government 
 and a more resolute spirit, might have accomplished theii 
 independence we have only to review, with candor, the 
 situation as it existed in the opening of the memorable year 
 of 1805. 
 
 In the summer of 1864 everywhere the thought of the North 
 was peace; not so much in the newspapers, whose office, 
 especially with the Yankees, was rather to disguise public sen 
 timent than to express or apply it; but in every circle of con 
 versation, and every quarter where men dared to unmask their 
 minds and to substitute their true convictions fur the stereo 
 types of affectation, there was to be found a real desire for 
 peace, which had almost ripened into a popular demand, ready 
 to detine its terms and resolved to insist upon its concession. 
 The Chicago Convention meant peace; this and that man, 
 least suspected of generosity to the Confederacy or of deference 
 to truth, privately confessed the war to be a failure; even He- 
 publicans of Mr. Lincoln s school, seizing upon certain amiable 
 expressions in the Confederate Congress of the summer of 
 1804, wanted to know if they might not mean some accommo 
 dation of the question of the war, and replied to them with 
 those affectations of generosity with which the dexterous cow 
 ardice of the Yankee is always ready to cover his sense of 
 defeat. 
 
 This disposition of the public mind in the North was easily 
 accounted for, when it was closely observed. It was clearly 
 not the fruit of any decisive disasters to the Northern arms in 
 the summer campaign of 1864. But that campaign had been 
 negative. Atlanta had not fallen. All the engagements in 
 Northern Georgia had not amounted, as Johnston said, to the 
 sum of more than one battle, and it was yet doubtful on which 
 side to strike the average of success. Kichmond was erect and 
 
460 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 defiant ; and Lee s army had given new and conspicuous proofs 
 of fortitude at Cold Harbour and Petersburg. Nowhere, then, 
 could the enemy find any prospect of the speedy termination 
 of the war; and though lie had searched every link of the 
 armor of the Confederacy he had been unable to plant any 
 where a serious wound. It was simply because the enemy s 
 campaign was negative; simply in prospect of a prolongation 
 of the war that, in midsummer of ISGi, the Yankee public 
 halted in its opinions and seriously meditated a proposition of 
 peace. 
 
 The great lesson which the South was to learn of public 
 opinion in the North was this : that the prospect of a long 
 war was quite as sure to obtain the success and independence 
 of the Confederacy, as the positive victories of her arms. It 
 might not have been so in the first periods of the war, when 
 the resolution of the enemy was fresh and patient, and the 
 Union was then really the apple of his eye. But it was when 
 patience had been worn threadbare by promises when expec 
 tation had stood on tip-toe until it had ached ; when the senti 
 ment of Union had lost all its original inspiration; when "the 
 Union as it was" had become more and more impossible to 
 the hopes of the intelligent, and the attempt to realize it had 
 fallen from the resolution of a sovereign necessity to a mere 
 preference of alternatives that we find the enemy quite as 
 likely to be defeated by the prospect of a prolonged war, as 
 by the dint of positive disaster, and, in fact, meditating more 
 anxiously the question of Southern endurance, than the imme 
 diate fortunes of any military campaign. 
 
 It was a great mistake to suppose that in these later years 
 of the war, the North was fighting for the Union as the sine 
 qua non, the indispensable thing. That was the clack of Yan 
 kee newspapers and the drone of demagogues. But the facts 
 were to the contrary. It was to be admitted that the North, 
 in the development of her resources in the war, and the discov 
 ery contemporary with it of an almost fabulous wealth in her 
 oil regions and mines, and new fields of enterprise opened 
 along the entire slope of the Rocky Mountains, had obtained 
 a confidence which had assured her, among other things, that, 
 even apart from the South, she had in herself the elements of 
 a great national existence. It was this swollen wealth some 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 461 
 
 of it the windfalls of a mysterious Providimce which had 
 appeased much of that avarice which formed so large a share 
 in the Northern desire for the Union. Again, as the war had 
 progressed, it had become more and more obvious to countless 
 intelligent persons in the North, that it had wasted what was 
 most desirable in the Union ; destroyed its esprit ; left nothing 
 to be recovered but its shadow, and that along with such pal 
 try recovery of a mere name, were to be taken the conse 
 quences of such despotic government as would be necessary to 
 hold two hostilized countries under a common rule. It was 
 thi-s that the sentiment of the Union had lost much of its 
 power in the North. The first fervors of the war were scarcely 
 now to be discovered among a people who had chosen to carry 
 on hostilities by the mercenary hands of foreigners and negroes, 
 and had devised a system of substitution a vicarious warfare 
 to an extent that was absolutely without parallel in the his 
 tory of any modern nation. 
 
 All persons in the North, with the exception of some hun 
 dreds, professed that they preferred the Union ; it was a uni 
 versal desire spoken everywhere; but spoken only as a prefer 
 ence and desire, and no longer as a passion that insisted upon 
 an object which it considered death and ruin to dispense with. 
 Of all who declared for the Union, but few were ready to tes 
 tify sincerely that they were for it at all hazards and conse 
 quences. Whatever might be the convenient language or the 
 fulsome protestation of public opinion in the North, two things 
 were certain. 
 
 First, that the North would not insist upon the Union in 
 plain prospect of a war indefinitely- prolonged. 
 
 And second, that the North would never fight the war be 
 yond that moderate point of success on the part of the South, 
 where she would be disposed to accommodate the enemy with 
 certain treaty favors which might stand in lieu of the old 
 Union, and where she would not be quite confident enough in 
 her position to insist upon a severe independence. 
 
 It was thus that the war, on the part of the North, was 
 limited by contingencies, which were very far short of decisive 
 results one way or the other, and which might transpire even 
 without any very signal successes of the Confederate arms. 
 
 What had been said of the peace movement in the North 
 
4 62 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 in tlie summer of 1864, before the fall of Atlanta, has its ap 
 plication to the times of which we are now writing. That 
 movement was simply the result of a conviction, not that the 
 South was about to accomplish a positive triumph, but that 
 she was able to endure the war much longer than had been 
 expected, and yet had riot readied that point of confidence 
 where she would not be likely to make valuable concessions 
 to the North for the early and graceful acknowledgment of 
 her independence. That acknowledgment the North was then 
 on the eve of making under certain disguises, it is true, of 
 party convenience, but none the less certainly because it sought 
 decent excuse for the act. The Democratic party was then 
 well nigh a unit on the subject of peace. " Burn my letter," 
 wrote a distinguished politician of New England to a Confed 
 erate then in New York; u but when you get to Richmond, 
 hasten to President Davis, and tell him die Chicago Conven 
 tion means peace, and nothing biu peace." It was the mili 
 tary events which followed t>at interrupted this resolution, 
 and showed how little there was of principle or of virtuous 
 intention in Yankee parties; and with the fall of Atlanta, Sa 
 vannah, Wilmington, and Charleston, and Sherman s campaign 
 of magnificent distances, the Northern mind had again be 
 come inflamed with the fervor of new hopes, and clamored 
 for unconditional war, when it thought that it was in the last 
 stages of success. 
 
 Yet in face of this clamor it was plain enough that if the 
 Confederates could ever regain substantially nothing more 
 than the status quo of seven months ago ; if they could ever 
 present to the North the same prospect of a long war as ihey 
 did then, and put before them the weary task of overcoming 
 the fortitude of a brave people, they would have peace and 
 independence in their grasp. It was a vulgar mistake that to 
 accomplish our success in this war wx3 had to retrieve all of 
 the past and recover by arms all the separate pieces of our 
 territory. It was to be remembered that, we were fighting on 
 the defensive, and had only to convince the enemy that we 
 were able to protect the vital points of our country to compel 
 him to a peace in which all was surrendered that he had over 
 ran, and all the country that he held by the worthless title of 
 invasion, would fall from him as by the lawof giv.vit.itio:i. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 463 
 
 It may be said briefly that if the Confederates could only 
 regain the situation of the last summer, or even if the} would 
 only give a proof to the enemy that they were not at the ex 
 tremity of their resources, or at the last limits of resolution 
 that they were able and determined to tight the war indefi 
 nitely they had then accomplished the important and vital 
 condi; ions of peace. JS\>r was the first impossible to recover 
 substantially, in all important respecrs, the losses of the past 
 few months, and even add to the status quo of last summer new 
 elements of advantage for us. To defeat Sherman at any stage 
 short of Richmond would be to reopen and recover all the 
 country he had overrun. If the enemy was left in possession 
 of the seaports, these had but little value to us as ports of 
 entry, and were but picket-posts in our system of defences. 
 Sherman s campaign clearly came to naught if he could not 
 reach Grant nothing left of it but the brilliant zig-zag of a 
 raid vanishing as heat lightning; in the skies. The conso- 
 
 O O O 
 
 quences of Sherman s misadventure would be obvious enough. 
 Grant s army, without the looked-for aid from the Carolina?, 
 was by no means certain of the capture of Richmond. It. WHS 
 true that. Grant was within a few miles of the Confederate 
 capital, when the same time last year he was on the Rapidau. 
 Put that was a fool s measure of danger, for in each case \ve 
 had the same army shielding Richmond, and whether that 
 shield was broken ten or one hundred miles away was of no 
 importance to the interest it covered. 
 
 There was nothing really desperate in the military situation 
 of the Confederacy, unless to fools and cowards who drew lines 
 on paper to show how the Yankees were at this place and at 
 that place, and thought that this cob-web occupation of the 
 country, where the enemy had no garrisons and no footholds, 
 indicated the extent of Yankee conquest and gave the true 
 measure of the remnant of the Confederacy ! And yet this was 
 too much the popular fashion of the time in estimating the 
 military situation. Men were drawing for themselves pictures 
 of despair out of what were, to those who thought profoundly 
 and bravely, no more important than the passages of the hour. 
 It is not to be disguised that the condition of the Confederacy 
 was demoralized in the extreme, and that it was difficult to re 
 organize, as the pa: riots of IStil, men who were now exclaim 
 
4:64: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ing everywhere their despair, and counselling embassies cf 
 submission.* 
 
 Briefly, if the fatal facts in the condition of the Confede- 
 
 * In March, 1865, the author printed an address in the Richmond news 
 papers, of which the following was the concluding portion. The occasion and 
 spirit of this address are significant enough of what was taking place in 
 Richmond at that time : 
 
 "I am determined to express the truth,. no matter how painful to myself or 
 unwelcome to others. In the first period of this war who was not proud of 
 the Confederacy and its heroic figure in history! Yet now it is to be confessed 
 that a large portion of our people have fallen below the standards of history, 
 and hold no honorable comparison with other nations that have fought and 
 struggled for independence. It is easy for the tongue of the demagogue to trip 
 with flattery on the theme of the war ; but when we come to the counsels of 
 the intelligent the truth must be told. We are no longer responding to the 
 lessons and aspirations of history. You speak of the scarcity of subsistence. 
 But Prussia, in her wars, drained her supplies until black bread was tiie only 
 thing eat in the king s palace ; and yet, under Frederick, she won not only 
 her independence, but a position among the five great powers of Europe. You 
 speak of the scarcity of men. Yet with a force not greater than that with 
 which we have only to hold an invaded country and maintain the defensive, 
 Napoleon fought his splendid -career, and completed a circle of victories that 
 touched the boundaries of Europe. 
 
 " It is enough to sicken the heart with shame and vexation that now, when, 
 of all times, it is most important to convince the enemy of our resolution 
 now, when such a course, for peculiar reasons, will insure our success there 
 are men who not only whine on the streets about making terms with the 
 enemy, but intrude their cowardice into the official places of the Government, 
 and, sheltered by secret sessions and confidential conversations, roll the word 
 1 reconstruction under the tongue. Shame upon the Congress that closed its 
 doors that it might better consult of dishonorable things ! Shame upon those 
 leaders who should encourage the people, and yet have broken down their con 
 fidence by private conversations ; and who, while putting in newspapers some 
 cheap words of patriotism, yet in the same breath express their despair by a 
 suspicious cant about trusting in Providence, and go off to talk submission 
 with their intimates in a corner ! Shame upon those of the people who have 
 now no other feeling in the war than an exasperated selfishness ! who are 
 ready to sink, if they can carry down in their hands some little trash of 
 property ! who will give their sons to the army, but not their precious negro 
 slaves ! who are for hurrying off embassies to the enemy to know at what 
 price of dishonor they may purchase some paltry remnants of their posses- 
 Bions ! Do these men ever think of the retributions of history ? 
 
 " When Cato the Younger was pursued to Utica by the victorious arms ol 
 Caesar, Plutarch relates of him on this occasion certain conversations and seuti 
 ments which singularly apply to our own condition in a besieged city, and 
 may almost be taken as repeated in the streets of Richmond : 
 
 " One of the Council, writes Plutarch, observed the expediency of a de 
 cree for enfranchising the slaves, and many commended the motion. Cato, 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 465 
 
 racy at the time of which we write, are to be summed up, they 
 are simply these : 
 
 1. A want of confidence in the administration of Mr. Davis 
 
 however, said : He would not do that, because it was neither just nor lawful ; 
 but such as their masters would voluntarily discharge, he would receive, pro 
 vided they were of proper age to bear arms. This many promised to do ; and 
 Cato withdrew, after having ordered lists to be made out of all that should offer. 
 All of the patrician order with great readiness enfranchised and 
 armed their slaves ; but as for tho three hundred, who dealt in traffic arid loans 
 of money at high interest, and whose slaves were a considerable part of their 
 fortune, the impression which Cato s speech had made upon them did not last 
 long. As some bodies readily receive heat, and as easily grow cold again when 
 the fire is removed, so the sight of Cato warmed and liberalized these traders ; 
 but when they came to consider the matter among themselves, tiie dread of 
 Caesar soon put to flight their reverence for Cato and for virtue. For thus 
 they talked : What are we, and what is the man whose orders we refuse to 
 receive ? Is it not Caesar, into whose hands the whole powei of the Roman 
 empire is fallen? And surely none of us is a Scipio, a Pompey, or a Cato, 
 Shall we, at a time when their fears make all men entertain sentiments be 
 neath their dignity shall we, in Utica, fight for the liberty of Rome with a 
 man against whom Cato and Pompey the Great durst not xnake a stand An 
 Italy? Shall we enfranchise our slaves to oppose Caesar, ^no have no more 
 liberty ourselves than that conqueror is pleased to leave UK ? Ah I wretches 
 that we are ! Let us at last know ourselves, and send deputies to intercede 
 with him for mercy. .... They told Catc, that they had re 
 solved to send deputies to Caesar to intercede first and princi pally for him. If 
 that request should not be granted, they would have no obi igation to him foi 
 any favor to themselves, but as long as they had breath woald fight for Cato. 
 Cato made his acknowledgments for their regard, and advised them to send 
 immediately to intercede for themselves. For me, said Le, intercede not. 
 It is for the conquered to turn suppliants, and for those who have done an in 
 jury to beg pardon. For my part, I have been unconquered through life, and 
 superior in the things I wished to be ; for in justice and hunor I am Caesar s 
 superior. 
 
 " The arguments of the traders and time servers in Utica are not unknown 
 in Richmond. But shall we not also find in this city something of the aspira 
 tions of Cato a determination, even if we are overcome by force, to be uncon 
 quered in spirit, and, in any and all events, to remain superior to the enemy 
 in honor. 
 
 " I do not speak to you, my countrymen, idle sentiinentalism. I firmly be 
 lieve that the great commonwealth of Virginia, and this city, which has a 
 peculiar title to whatever there is of good and illustrious report in this war, 
 have been recently, and are yet in some measure on the verge of questions 
 which involve an interest immeasurably greater than has yet been disclosed in 
 this contest that of their historical and immortal honor. 
 
 " I know I have had opportunities of informing myself that there are in 
 fluences at work to place tho State of Virginia, in certain contingencies, 
 
 80 
 
466 SOUTHERN" HISTOKY OP THE WAR. 
 
 sucn as was never before exhibited between a people and ita 
 rulers in a time of revolution. 
 
 communication with the public enemy, for terms of peace, which cannot be 
 otherwise than coupled with the condition of her submission to the Federal 
 authority. The extent of this conspiracy against the honor of Virginia has 
 been screened by secret sessions, and been covered up by half-mouthed sugges 
 tions, and the ifa and ands of men who are not yet ready to disclose their cor 
 ruption, and to spit from their lips the rottenness in their hearts. I know the 
 fashionable arguments of these men. If there is to be a wreck/ say they, 
 why not save what we can from it ? Honor/ they say, is a mere rhetorical 
 laurel / General Lee talks like a school-girl when he speaks of preferring to 
 die on the battle-field to getting the best terms of submission he can ; let us 
 be done with this sentimental rubbish, and look to the care of our substantial 
 interests. 
 
 " My friends, this is not rubbish. The glory of history is indifferent to 
 events ; it is simply honor. The name of Virginia in this war is historically 
 and absolutely more important to us than any other element of the contest ; 
 and the coarse time-server who would sell an immortal title of honor as a 
 trifling sentimentalism, and who has constantly in his mouth the phrase of 
 substantial interests/ is the inglorious wretch who laughs at history and 
 grovels in the calculations of the brute. 
 
 " Those who have lived entirely in the South since the commencement of 
 this war have little idea of the measure of honor which Virginia has obtained 
 in it, and the consideration she has secured in the eyes of the world. One 
 away from home, finds even in intercourse with our enemies, that the name of 
 Tirginian is an ornament to him, and that the story of this her heroic 
 capital the record of Richmond is universally accepted in two hemispheres 
 IU3 the most illustrious episode of the war. Honor such as this is not a piece 
 of rhetoric or a figure of speech ; it is something to be cherished under all cir 
 cumstances, and to be preserved in all events. 
 
 " It is scarcely necessary to say that I regard subjugation but as the vapor 
 of our fears. But if remote possibilities are to be regarded, I have simply to 
 Bay, that in all events and extremities, all chances and catastrophes, I am for 
 Virginia going down to history, proudly and starkly, with the title of a subju 
 gated people a title not inseparable from true glory, and which has often 
 claimed the admiration of the world rather than as a people who ever sub 
 mitted, and bartered their honor for the mercy of an enemy in our case a 
 mercy whose pittance would be as a mess of pottage weighed against an im 
 mortal patrimony I 
 
 " The issue I would put before you is : No submission ; no State negotia 
 tions with the enemy ; no conventions for such objects, however proper for 
 others. Let Virginia stand or fall by the fortunes of the Confederate arms, 
 with her spotless honor in her hands. 
 
 " If Virginia accepts the virtuous and noble alternative, she saves, in all 
 events, her honor, and by the resolution which it implies, may hope to secure 
 
 positive and glorious victory ; and I, among the humblest of her citizens, will 
 be proud to associate myself with a fate which, if not happy, at least can 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 467 
 
 2. And as main consequence of that want of confidence, 
 when all measures to repair it had failed, a general breaking 
 down of the public virtue, and the debasement of a people 
 who, having lost hope in the existing order rather the exist 
 ing disorder and having no heart for a new experiment, or 
 thinking it too late, descend to the condition of time-servers, 
 and those who tamely and infamously submit to fortune. 
 
 THE FORTRESS MONROE COMMISSION. 
 
 But another and last appeal was to be made to the reso 
 lution of the South. 
 
 In January, 1865, Mr. Francis P. Blair, of Maryland, made 
 several visits to Richmond, which were the occasion of much 
 speculation and curiosity in the public mind. He had gone to 
 Richmond with Mr. Lincoln s pass; but the objects of his 
 mission were not committed to paper. However, they were 
 soon developed. On his return to Washington, Mr. Blair 
 showed Mr. Lincoln a letter which President Davis had 
 written, stating that Mr. Blair was at liberty to say to Mr. 
 Lincoln that Mr. Davis was now, as he always had been, 
 willing to send commissioners, if assured they would be re 
 ceived, or to receive any that should be sent ; that he was not 
 disposed to find obstacles in forms. He would send commis 
 sioners to confer with the Northern President with a view to 
 the restoration of peace between the two countries, if he could 
 be assured they would be received. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, therefore, on the 18th day of January, ad 
 dressed a note to Mr. Blair, in which, after acknowledging 
 that he had read the note of Mr. Davis, he said that he was, 
 and always should be, willing to receive any agent that Mr. 
 Davis, or any other influential person now actually resisting 
 the authority of the Government, might send to confer in- 
 
 never be ignoble. But, if she chooses to submit, and make terms for Yankee 
 clemency, the satisfaction will at least remain to me of not sharing in the dis- 
 honpr of my native State, and of going to other parts of the world, where I 
 may say : I, too, was a Virginian, but not of those who sold the jewels of hex 
 lastory for the baubles and cheats of her conquerors. " 
 
468 SOUTHERN HISTOSY OF THE WAR. 
 
 formally with him, with a view to the restoration of peace to 
 the people of " our common county." 
 
 In consequence of this notification President Davis re 
 quested Yice-President Stephens, Senator Hunter, and Judge 
 John A. Campbell, to proceed through the lines to h<>ld a con 
 ference with Mr. Lincoln, or such persons as he might depute 
 to represent him. The following report, made by the Confeder 
 ate commissioners, gives the official narrative of the affair : 
 
 RICHMOND, February 6th. 
 To the President of the Confederate States : 
 
 SIR Under your letter of appointment of commissioners, of the 8th, we 
 proceeded to seek an informal conference with Abraham Lincoln, President of 
 the United States, upon the subject mentioned in the letter. A conference 
 was granted, and took place on the <j()th, on board the steamer anchored in 
 Hampton Roads, where we met President Lincoln and Hon. Mr. Seward, sec 
 retary of State of the United States. It continued for several hours, and wan 
 both full and. explicit. We learned from them that the message of President 
 Lincoln to the Congress of the United States, in December last, explains clear!* 
 his sentiments as to the terms, conditions, and mode of proceeding by whick 
 peace can be secured to the people ; and we were not informed that they wouM 
 be modified or altered to obtain that end. We understood from him that ff 
 terms or proposals of any treaty or agreements looking to an ultimate settb 
 ment would be entertained or made by him with the authorities of the Con 
 federate States, because that would be recognition of their existence as a sepa 
 rate power, which, under no circumstances, would be done ; and for like rea 
 sons, that no such terms would be entertained by him from the States sepa* 
 rately ; that no extended truce or armistice, as at present advised, would b 
 granted or allowed, without the satisfaction or assurance in advance, of the 
 complete restoration of the authority of the constitution and laws of the 
 United States over all places within the States of the Confederacy; that 
 whatever consequence may follow from the re-establishment of that author 
 ity, it must be accepted ; but all individuals subject to the pains and penalties 
 under the laws of the United States, might rely upon a very liberal use of the 
 power confided to Mm to remit those pains and penalties if peace be restored. 
 During the conference, the proposed amendments to the constitution of the 
 United States, adopted by Congress on the 31st, was brought to our notice. 
 These amendments provide that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, 
 except for crime, should exist within the United States or any place within its 
 jurisdiction, and Congress should have power to enforce the amendment by 
 appropriate legislation. Of all the correspondence that preceded the confer 
 ence herein mentioned, and leading to the same, you have heretofore been 
 informed. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servants. 
 
 A. H. STEPHENS, 
 R. M. T. HUNTER,. 
 J. A. CAMPBELL. 
 
 Of the conference Mr. Seward testified that "the Richmond 
 

 
 
 A L E X. H. 5TEPH ENS 
 Frcm a 
 
 C. B. Richardson, FiJoLisher 
 
LAST YEAR. 
 
 party approached the chscussion rather indirectly, and at no 
 time did they make categorical demands, or tender formal stip 
 illations or absolute refusals; nevertheless, during the confer 
 ence, which lasted four hours, the several points at issue be 
 tween the Grovernin jnt and the insurgents were distinctly 
 raised and discus?? ! fully, intelligently, and in an amicable 
 spirit. What the Insurgent party seemed chiefly to favor was 
 a postponement of the question of separation upon which the 
 war was waged, and a mutual direction of the efforts of the 
 Government, as well as those of the insurgents, to some extra 
 neous policy or scheme for a season, during which passions might 
 be expected to subside, and the armies be reduced, and trade 
 and intercourse between the people of both sections be resumed." 
 
 The proposition which looked to an armistice or truce was 
 distinctly answered by Mr. Lincoln, who stated that he 
 would agree to.no cessation or suspension of hostilities unless 
 on the basis of t oe disbandment of the Confederate forces. 
 There were no n j/ es of the conference. There was no attend 
 ance of clerks o? secretaries; and nothing was written or read. 
 But the result of the whole conversation, which was earnest 
 and free, may be summarily stated to have shown that the 
 enemy refused to enter into negotiations with the Confederate 
 States, or any of them separately, or give to their people any 
 other terms or guarantees than those which Congress might 
 grant; or to permit the Southern people to have a vote on any 
 other ba^is than unconditional submission to their rule, coupled 
 with the acceptance of the recent legislation at Washington, 
 including an amendment to the Constitution for the emancipa 
 tion of all negro slaves. 
 
 The failure of the Fortress Monroe commission was made 
 the occasion in the South of a new attempt to rally the spirit of 
 its people, and to infuse into the war a new element of desper 
 ate passion. The people were told that the result of the con 
 ference at Fortress Monroe showed plainly enough that every 
 avenue to peace was closed, except such as might be carved 
 out by the sword. It was calculated ingeniously enough that 
 t!e party in the South which had so long clamored for nego 
 tiations with Wasmngton would now abandon its visions of 
 reconciliation and generosity, and give in their adhesion to a 
 renewed and even desperate prosecution of the war. 
 
470 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 These expectations were not realized. The attempt to ra.se 
 the drooping spirits of the South, and to introduce, as some oi 
 the public men in Richmond fondly imagined, a new era oi 
 resolution and devotion in the war, shamefully failed. The 
 Fortress Monroe affair produced in the Confederacy a feeble 
 flare of excitement which was soon extinguished. A mass- 
 meeting was called at the African church in Richmond, that 
 the people might renew their testimony of devotion to the 
 Confederacy. The meeting was held at high noon ; all busi 
 ness in the city of Richmond was suspended, as if to give ex 
 traordinary solemnity to the occasion ; fiery addresses were 
 made, and tokens of enthusiasm were said in the newspapers 
 to have been abundant. But speeches and hurrahs are cheap 
 things. The public mind of the South made but a sickly re 
 sponse to what was undoubtedly, in all its circumstances, one 
 of the most powerful appeals ever calculated to stir the heart 
 and nerve the resolution of a people lighting for liberty ; and 
 in its relapse into the abject and timid counsels of the submit 
 sionists, exhibited a want of spirit which, it must be confessed, 
 must ever make a painful and humiliating page in the history 
 of the Confederacy. 
 
 Mr. Davis also spoke at the African church. He did not 
 omit the occasion of exhorting the people. But he unfortu 
 nately fell into that style of boastful prediction and bombastic 
 speech which was characteristic of all his public addresses ; 
 which was evidence of his weak mind ; and whi.cb furnished 
 the grave ground of accusation against him that in his public 
 declarations he never dealt with the people in a proper spirit 
 of candor. He declared that the military affairs of the Con 
 federacy were in excellent condition ; he hinted at great vic 
 tories which were about to be accomplished ; he boasted that 
 u Sherman s march through Georgia would be his last ;" he 
 completed his rhetorical flourish with the strange prediction 
 that before the summer solstice fell upon the country it would 
 be the Yankees who would be asking for terms of peace and 
 the grace of conferences in which the Confederates might 
 make known their demands. 
 
 But in this unfortunate address of the President there was 
 one just and remarkable sentiment. He referred to the judg 
 ment of history upon Kossuth, who had been so weak as to 
 
THE LAST YEAB. 471 
 
 abandon the cause of Hungary with an army of thirty thousand 
 men in the field ; and spoke of the disgrace of surrei. der, if the 
 Confederates should abandon their cause with an army on our 
 side and actually in the field more numerous than those which 
 had made the most brilliant pages in European history ; an 
 army more numerous than that with which Napoleon achieved 
 his reputation ; an army standing among its homesteads ; au 
 army in which each individual man was superior in every 
 martial quality to each individual man in the ranks of the 
 invader, and reared with ideas of independence, and in the 
 habits of command ! 
 
 It was very clear that the Confederacy was very far from 
 the historical necessity of subjugation. But it was at any time 
 near the catastrophe of a panic. If the cause was to be lost, 
 it was to be so by weak despair ; by the cowardice of suicide ; 
 by the distress of weak minds. 
 
 PROPOSITION TO ARM THE SLAVES OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 A measure indicative of the desperate condition of the South 
 ern mind was that to extend the conscription to the slaves. 
 A proposition to arm the negroes of the South, and use them 
 as soldiers in the Confederate Army, had been debated in the 
 Richmond press as early as the fall of 1864. It was favored 
 by General Lee, but variously received by the general public. 
 There were many persons who argued that the negro might be 
 effectively used in this new department of service ; that mili 
 tary experience had shown that a soldier could be made of 
 any thing that had arms and legs; that the United States had 
 formerly recruited its regular army from the dregs of human 
 ity; that the experience of the North with the negro had 
 shown him to be a serviceable soldier; and that the South 
 could offer him superior inducements to good service, by mak 
 ing him a freeman in his own home, and could give him offi 
 cers who could better understand his nature, and better prompt 
 his good qualities, than his Yankee military taskmasters. 
 These views were encouraged by General Lee. Indeed, this 
 distinguished officer made no secret of his opinion, that the 
 military service of the slave should be secured on the basis 01- 
 
472 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 general emancipation ; arguing, with no little ingenuity, thai 
 the institution of slavery had been so shaken by the invasions 
 and raids of the enemy, which had -penetrated every portion 
 of the country, that its practical value had become but a small 
 consideration in view of the insecure tenure of the property ; 
 that it might, eventually, be broken up if the war continued ; 
 and that, by a decree of emancipation, the South might make 
 a virtue of necessity, remove a cause of estrangement, however 
 tin j nst, between it and the Christian world, and possibly neu 
 tralize that large party in the North, whose sympathy and 
 interest in the war were mainly emplo} T ed with the negro. 
 
 The question divided the country. The slaveholding inter 
 est, in its usual narrow spirit in its old character of a greedy, 
 vulgar, insolent aristocracy took the alarm, and in Congress 
 and in the newspapers, proclaimed that the use of negroes as 
 soldiers was the entering wedge of Abolition; that it would 
 stultify the whole cause of the Confederacy; that it would 
 give up what they falsely imagined to be the leading object 
 of the war the protection of the interests of less than a 
 quarter of a million of people who owned slaves in the South. 
 The Charleston Mercury declared that if the slaves were 
 armed, South Carolina could no longer have any interest in 
 prosecuting the war. 
 
 But beyond the opposition of the slaveholders and the cotton 
 aristocrats, there were many intelligent men in the South who 
 seriously doubted both the capacity and fidelity of the nesrro 
 as a Confederate soldier. General Lee and many of his dis 
 tinguished officers were not among these. 
 
 A majority of the Confederate Army were probably in favor 
 of the experiment of negro soldiers; and many who doubted 
 their efficiency at the front were persuaded that they might be 
 made useful, in other parts of the military field. General 
 Ewell, who commanded in the Department of Henrico, declared 
 that the employment of the negroes in the trenches, around 
 .Richmond, would relieve fifteen thousand white soldiers, who 
 might be used on the enemy s front, and thus make an import 
 ant accession to our forces actually in the field. 
 
 The action of the Confederate Congress with reference to 
 the military employment of the negro was characteristic of 
 that body. The subject was debated threadbare, discussed 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 473 
 
 and dissected in open and secret session ; T>ut .10 puu tii^l 
 action could be obtained on the matter, but what was too late 
 in respect of time, and absurdly small with reference to the 
 measure of the necessities by which legislation on the subject 
 had been invoked. 
 
 Congress took no action on the subject until at the heel of 
 its session. A bill was passed on the 7th of March authoriz 
 ing the President to ask and accept from the owners of negro 
 slaves as many able-bodied negroes as he might deem expedi 
 ent, to perform military service in any capacity he might 
 direct, and providing that nothing in the act should be con 
 strued to alter the existing relation between master and slaves. 
 
 The entire results of this ridiculously small and visionary 
 legislation, which proposed to obtain negro soldiers from such 
 volunteers as their masters might patriotically dedicate to the 
 Confederate service, and was ominously silent on the subject 
 of their freedom, were two fancy companies raised in the city 
 of Richmond, who were allowed to give balls at the Libby, 
 and to parade in Capitol Square, and were scarcely intended 
 to be more than decoys to obtain sable recruits. But they 
 served not even this purpose. The measure passed by Con 
 gress may be taken, indeed, as an indication of that vague des 
 peration in the Confederacy which caught at straws, and had 
 not nerve enough to make a practical and persistent effort at 
 safety. 
 
 The Congress of the Confederate States was a weak, spas 
 modic body. There was no organization of opinion in it; no 
 leaders; plenty of idle debate, capricious measures, weak re 
 crimination, and but little of the sense and order of legislative 
 assemblies. It went in and out of secret session almost every 
 twenty-four hours; it was fruitful of propositions without 
 results; and it finally adjourned on the 18th of March, after 
 a session of four months, in which it had failed to enact any 
 effective measure to recruit the arm} T , to improve the finances, 
 to mobilize the subsistence of the country, or, in fact, ta serve 
 one single important interest in the Confederacy 
 
74: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The last address and appeal of the Confederate Congress. The war in a geographic*.! 
 point, of view. THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT DAVIS. THE EXECU 
 TIVE DEPARTMENTS. A sharp recrimination. A committee of the Senate reply to 
 President Davis. Maladministration in the War Department. Two-thirds of the 
 Confederate Army absentees. Lee loses nearly half his army by desertions. Tho 
 other half threatened witli starvation. Ample supply of food in the country. 
 The fault in the Commissary Department. Commissary Northrop a "pepper-doc 
 tor" as the favorite of Davis. Analysis of President Davis character for firmness. 
 How Northrop starved Richmond. HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSA 
 RIAT. Secret testimony in Congress. President Davis refusal to trade cotton for 
 meat. Persistent delusion about "king cotton." Venality of the enemy. Davis 
 takes no advantage of it. Record of the rations in Lee s army. Startling statis 
 tics. Attempts to get meat from Europe. General Lee s army without meat.-- 
 His telegram to President Davis. The necessities of the Commissary Department 
 Bummed up in secret session of Congress. But little done to meet them. How the 
 cause of the Confederacy would have failed without a catastrophe of arms. The 
 military narrative resumed. MILITARY EVENTS IN VIRGINIA IN THE WINTER or 
 \864-5. SHERIDAN S RAID. Thirteen counties traversed. Amount of destruction 
 accomplished by the enemy. THE RICHMOND LINES. HATCHER S RUN. Extension 
 of Grant s line. BATTLE or HARES HILL. Gallantry of Gordon s command. 
 Vigor and brilliancy of the fighting of the Confederates. No decisive results. 
 
 ON the occasion of what was to be its final adjournment, 
 Congress published an address to the people of the Confederate 
 States. It was more prolix than other documents of this sort 
 Jhit it, contained one just and admirable reflection, to which 
 we have already referred in the pages of the preceding chapter. 
 
 It said : " The extent of our territory, the food-producing 
 capacity of our soil, the amount and character of our popula 
 tion, are elements of strength which, carefully husbanded and 
 wisely employed, are amply sufficient to insure our final tri 
 umph. The passage of hostile armies through our country, 
 though productive of cruel suffering to our people, and great 
 pecuniary loss, gives the enemy no permanent advantage or 
 foothold. To subjugate a country, its civil government must 
 be suppressed by a continuing military force, or supplanted by 
 another, to which the inhabitants yield a voluntary or forced 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 475 
 
 obedience. The passage of hostile armies through our territory 
 cannot produce this result. Permanent garrisons would have 
 to be stationed at a sufficient number of points to strangle all 
 civil government before it could be pretended, even by the 
 United States Government itself, that its authority was ex 
 tended over these States. How many garrisons would it re 
 quire ? How many hundred thousand soldiers would suffice 
 to suppress the civil government of all the States of the Con 
 federacy, and to establish over them, even in name and form, 
 the authority of the United States? In a geographical point 
 of mew, therefore, it may le asserted that the conquest of these 
 Confederate States is impracticable" 
 
 THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT DAVIS. THE EXEC 
 UTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 
 
 The last Confederate Congress concluded with a sharp re 
 crimination between it and President Davis as to the responsi 
 bility for the low state to which the public defence had lapsed. 
 The President had charged, in a public message, that the meas 
 ures of Congress for recruiting the army were insufficient, and 
 that it had generally neglected to supply the urgent need of 
 men and supplies for the army. 
 
 A committee of the Senate made an elaborate reply to this 
 accusation. It declared that all the measures recommended 
 by the President, to promote the efficiency of the army, had 
 been adopted, except the entire repeal of class exemption ; and 
 that seme measures not suggested by him such as the creation 
 of general-in-chief were originated and passed by Congress, 
 with a view to the restoration of public confidence and the 
 energetic administration of military affairs. 
 
 The committee retorted upon the executive the charge that 
 by a system of details, in which corruption and favor were 
 dominant, the Conscription Law had been robbed of its legiti 
 mate fruits, arid the army enfeebled. They said that in re 
 markable contrast to the number of persons relieved from 
 military service by the exemptions enacted by Congress, the 
 report of the Conscript Bureau exhibited the fact, that east of 
 the Mississippi Eiver, twenty-two thousand and thirty-live IP en 
 
4:76 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 bad been detailed by executive authority. It was, they de 
 clared, in consequence of this abuse of the power of detail, 
 that Congress had passed an act revoking all details, and lim 
 iting the exercise of that power in the future. 
 
 We shall not go at large into the merits of this recrimina 
 tion between the Confederate Congress and the executive. 
 Each, undoubtedly, had its share of responsibility for the 
 general improvidence and mismanagement that had fatally 
 involved the fortunes of the Confederacy. But the mal-admin- 
 istraiion in the War Department was even greater than Con 
 gress chose to indicate. From that department the confession 
 had repeatedly gone forth, that two-thirds of our army were 
 absentees; and yet nothing was done to enforce discipline or 
 to punish desertions, and the morale of the Confederate Army 
 was left entirely to the regulation of loose patriotic sentiment 
 among those who composed it. No more forcible commentary 
 can be made on the feeble execution of the military laws ot 
 the Confederacy, and the omission of the most ordinary disci 
 pline in the army, than to state the simple and indisputable 
 fact that in the winter of 1864-5 Lee lost nearly half his army 
 by desertions alone. 
 
 And that half was frequently in a condition bordering on 
 starvation. There was really no lack of supplies in the coun 
 try. It is needless to go into details, or to adduce statistics in 
 proof of this. It is obvious to every well-informed mind. 
 Although the occupation by the enemy, and his ruthless policy 
 of destroying the harvests, granaries, and agricultural imple 
 ments of the people, wherever he moved, had, undoubtedly, 
 diminished the amount of cereals in the South, still, in view ot 
 the fact that in every State of the Confederacy without excep 
 tion, its agricultural labor had been devoted almost exclusively 
 to the raising of breadstuffs (while before the war it was mainly 
 devoted to the production of cotton, tobacco, and other ex 
 ports), it was impossible to doubt that there was ample supply 
 of food in the country. 
 
 The fault was in the Commissar} 7 Department at Richmond ; 
 where a man flagrantly incompetent, appointed to the most 
 important post in the country, on no other ground of selection 
 than that many years ago he had been the college churn of the 
 President, seemed busy for almost four years in bearing down 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 47 7 
 
 all common sense and advice, practising the most ridiculous 
 quackeries, and stifling the very life of the Confederacy. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact in history that many famous men 
 who have prided themselves on their firmness and resolution 
 in public affairs, and indeed have displayed these qualities to 
 the generality of mankind, have yet been discovered to bo 
 under the dominion of the most paltry influences in many 
 instances governed by women, court-jesters, and the smallest 
 of favorites. Such an apparent contradiction of character was 
 to be found in President Davis. Pie could brace his mind and 
 Bet his face against Congressmen and counsellors generally. 
 But he was absurdly uxorious ; he was surrounded by adven 
 turers and " confidence-men ;" and some old West Point or 
 Yrashington acquaintance might readily obtain his car and 
 favor when they were denied to the first men of the Confed 
 eracy. 
 
 Commissary Northrop, whose profession Mr. Foote declared 
 in Congress had been that of a "pepper doctor," was one of 
 the small favorites of President Davis. This old man was an 
 extraordinary combination of ignorance and obstinacy ; and 
 it was remarked of him that such was his perversity, tlwt 
 whenever advice or suggestion was offered to him, he instantly 
 and invariably took the precisely opposite course. 
 
 Richmond was now almost destitute of supplies, through tho 
 mismanagement and conceit of this man. His latest fancy had 
 been to prohibit to the general public the importation of any 
 supplies whatever into the Confederate capital. The farmer 
 could not bring a bushel of corn or a pound of meat into 
 .Richmond without running the gauntlet of impressment 
 agents. Permits to get flour into Richmond were valued at 
 high figures, and obtained only through special favors. The 
 consequences of Mr. Northrop s folly were, that large stocks of 
 supplies were kept at home in different parts of the interior of 
 Virginia ; that they were thus exposed to Yankee devastation, 
 and, in time, became an easy prey of the enemy s raids. It 
 was through such mismanagement that the rich harvests of the 
 Shenandoah were lost to the Confederacy. There had been 
 ample time to have gathered into Richmond at least a large 
 portion of these rich and accessible supplies. Numerous per- 
 eons had gone to Commissary JSTorthrop with the proposition 
 
478 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 to bring into Richmond grain and flour from the Valley and 
 were willing to make the condition that any part of their 
 stocks would be given up to the Government, whenever there 
 was any occasion for it to encroach upon the private store 
 houses of Richmond. But Mr. Northrop closed the door to 
 all such applications, and the commission houses and provision 
 stores of Richmond were left almost empty ; while the law of 
 supply and demand was sending prices up far beyond the 
 reach of the general customer. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE COMMISSARIAT. 
 
 In the last Congress of the Confederate States, a secret com 
 mission was appointed to investigate the affairs of the Com 
 missary Department. There was thus obtained within closed 
 doors a mass of testimony which covered the whole history of 
 the commissariat, and contains, indeed, subjects of the great 
 est interest in the war. This testimon} 7 was never permitted 
 to see the light in the Confederacy ; probably because it so 
 deeply involved President Davis and his associates in the 
 charge of maladministration. 
 
 It appeared before the secret commission that as early as 
 the second year of the war, the meat supplies of the Confed 
 eracy were discovered to be largely deficient. This became 
 e ndent enough on the successive captures of Forts Donelson 
 ai d Henry. The subsequent campaign lost us Kentucky and 
 much of Tennessee, and left us comparatively bare of meat. 
 
 At this time a number of propositions were made to the 
 Richmond authorities, by responsible parties, to exchange 
 through the enemy s lines meat for cotton. One man, whose 
 ability to meet his engagements was never questioned, offered 
 to deliver thirty thousand hogsheads of bacon through the 
 lilies in exchange for cotton. It was urged that there was 
 enough cotton to feed and clothe our army, in a section tribu 
 tary to Memphis which city was then, and had been for some 
 time previous, in the secure possession of the enemy ; that 
 guch cotton must otherwise probably be destroyed, to prevent 
 its falling into the hands of the enemy ; but that the owners 
 as a general rule, though willing to let the Government have 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 479 
 
 their crops, were averse, if not stubbornly opposed, to having 
 them destroyed. 
 
 Against every proposition to get meat through the inland 
 military lines, President Davis set his face as flint. He had 
 got an idea into his head that the enemy s finances were about 
 to collapse, and that if a little cotton might be kept from them 
 they would be unable to pay the January interest of 18b3. 
 It appears, indeed, to have been impossible for him and his 
 associates to rid themselves of their early conceit of the power 
 of cotton ; and it was this wretched delusion in hoarding this 
 inert wealth of the South, that did more than any thing else to 
 wreck the finances of the Confederacy, and eventually to 
 reduce the rations of its armies to one-quarter of a pound of 
 meat a day per man. 
 
 The venality of the enemy afforded full opportunity to the 
 Richmond authorities to use the Mississippi from Memphis to 
 New Orleans, until all their needed supplies should be ob 
 tained. But no advantage was ever taken of this ample and 
 obvious opportunity. The arguments used against trade in 
 cotton through the lines were : 
 
 First That the Federal finances were in such a condition 
 that if they could not obtain cotton, upon which to draw bills 
 wherewith to pay their then accruing interest, their credit 
 would explode, and the war would speedily cease from the 
 bankrupting of our assailants. Hence they wanted cotton. 
 
 Second That they did not want cotton, but only sought, 
 under cover of a contract for supply, to find out the channels 
 of navigable streams, to ascertain the location and condition 
 of certain defences, and otherwise to spy out the land. 
 
 Third That the trade on the part of the Government would 
 demoralize the people among whom it might be conducted. 
 
 Fourth That to trade through New Orleans, and let cotton 
 clear from that port, " would make Europe think we had caved, 
 who thereupon would decline to recognize us, or to intervene." 
 
 The reader will recognize for himself the little value of these 
 arguments some of them childish by the side of the great 
 necessity of feeding the armies of the South. 
 
 The record of the r arrow escapes of Lee s army alone from 
 btarvation, is sufficient commentary upon the management at 
 Richmond. In consequence of the refusal to be allowed to 
 
4:80 SOUTHERN HISTOEY OF TJIE 
 
 i 
 
 purchase on the Mississippi, the army, especially in Virginia 
 was put upon short rations. First, they were reduced to one- 
 half pound of meat per day, which, if it could have been 
 kept up at that, would have been sufficient; then to one-third 
 of a pound though this allowance was not agreed to or ad 
 hered to by several of the generals commanding; and then t<\ 
 one-quarter of a pound. Upon this last allowance the Army 
 of Northern Virginia wintered in 1864-5. 
 
 On the 18th of October, 1864, a memorandum was commii 
 nicated to President Davis, showing that there were on hand 
 in the Confederate States 4.105,048 rations of fresh meat, 
 and 3,426,519 rations of bacon and pork, which would 
 subsist three hundred thousand men twenty-five days. The 
 authorities were now compelled to subsist, independent of 
 the armies of the Confederacy, many thousand prisoners of 
 war who were collected in different camps throughout the 
 country. 
 
 In 1863 a feeble and badly organized attempt had been 
 made to get meat from Europe through the blockade. Much 
 of it was allowed to remain at Nassau and Bermuda until i f 
 spoiled. Contracts for supplies, payable in cotton in our At 
 lantic ports, were made with several parties ; but in no instance 
 with success. Either the amount involved was too small, tc 
 tempt the venality of those who could control or purchase an 
 evasion of the blockade ; or the engagement to deliver meal 
 alone, was found to be too small an inducement to those en 
 gaged in blockade-running. 
 
 In the winter of 1864 the subsistence of the Confederate 
 armies appeared to be in the last stages of exhaustion. Major 
 Ruffin, assistant-comrnissary-general, testifies before a secret 
 committee of Congress : 
 
 " On the 5th of December I brought the condition of things 
 to the attention .of the Secretary of War, coupling it with a 
 statement of subsistence on hand, which showed nine days* 
 rations on hand for General Lee s army ; and, quoting his let 
 ter to the commissary-general, that day received, stating that 
 his men were deserting on account of short rations, I urged 
 prompt action; but none was taken. On the 14th of Decem 
 ber, nine days afterwards, General Lee telegraphed Mr. Dayia 
 liat his armv was whliout meat." 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4:81 
 
 In January, 1865, the following points were presented in 
 secret session of Congress : 
 
 First That there was not meat enough in the Southern 
 Confederacy for the armies it had in the field. 
 
 Second That there was not in Virginia either meat or bread 
 enough for the armies within her limits. 
 
 Third That the bread supply from other places depended 
 absolutely upon the keeping open the railroad connections ol 
 the South. 
 
 Fourth That the meat must be obtained from abroad 
 through a seaport, and by a different system from that which 
 has heretofore prevailed. 
 
 Fifth That the bread could not be had by impressment, 
 but must be paid for in market rates. 
 
 Sixth That the payment must be made in cash, which, so 
 far, had not been furnished ; and, if possible, in a better medi 
 um than treasury scrip. 
 
 Seventh That the transportation was not adequate, from 
 whatever cause, to meet the necessary demands of the service. 
 
 Eighth That the supply of fresh meat to General Lee s 
 army was precarious; and if the army fell back from Richmond 
 and Petersburg, there was every probability that it would ceaso 
 altogether. 
 
 Nothing was done by the Confederate Government com 
 mensurate with the necessities indicated above nothing, in 
 fact, done to meet them beyond a visionary scheme, enacted in 
 the last days of Congress, to raise three millions in specie to 
 purchase supplies from those producers of the Confederacy 
 who were no longer willing to take scrip for their commodi 
 ties. But few persons outside of official circles in the Confed 
 eracy were acquainted with the true state of affairs; so hedged 
 in with secrecy was the weak and recluse government of Mr. 
 Davis. To the well-informed and intelligent the appalling 
 fact was manifest that the whole system of Confederate de 
 fence was hound to brealc down by sheer mismanagement in 
 the commissariat, even without a catastrophe of arms. 
 
 Before we reach the final and sudden catastrophe that was 
 to befall the arms of the Confederacy, there is a slight space 
 in our military narrative which we have to cover by a brief 
 relation of the events of the war in Virginia in the winter of 
 
 81 
 
4:82 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 1864^-5. This record is a very slender one. But it is the 
 ace, in pcint of time at least, to those great events which, in 
 April, 18G5, were to bring the war to a singularly abrupt close, 
 and with a precipitation heretofore l)ut little known in the 
 history of great contests. 
 
 MILITARY EVENTS IN VIRGINIA IN THE WINTER OF 1864r 5 
 
 Our last reference to the campaign in the Valley of Vir 
 ginia was, when the forces there had been much reduced and 
 the scale of operations had become inconsiderable ; the bulk 
 of Early s troops having been withdrawn to General Lee s 
 lines. Sheridan, too, had sent most of his infantry to Grant. 
 In December, the Sixth Corps was returned to the Army of 
 the Potomac ; and the Army of the Shenandoah for nearly two 
 months acted principally as an army of observation. 
 
 Towards the last of February, 1865, Sheridan began to " ride" 
 again up the Yalley of the Shenandoah, leaving Hancock in 
 command of his department at Winchester. On reaching 
 Waynesboro a battle occurred between Early and Ousters 
 divisions, which resulted in the rout of the Confederates. 
 Sheridan captured about thirteen hundred prisoners nearly 
 all of Early s little command ; which indeed fell an easy prey 
 to the magnificent Yankee cavalry. Early himself escaped 
 with difficulty, some of his staff-officers and his personal bag 
 gage being captured. 
 
 Charlottesville was surrendered the next day. From this 
 point, on the 6th of March, Sheridan moved in two columns 
 southward towards the James. One division, under General 
 Deven, took a directly southern route to Scottsville> destroying 
 all mills, merchandise, and bridges on the line of march, and 
 along the Hivanria River to Columbia. The other division 
 proceeded down on the railroad to Lynchburg, destroying ii 
 as far as Amherst a distance of over forty miles. From 
 Scottsville, Deven s division proceeded westward along the 
 lanks of the James, destroying every lock on the canal as fa) 
 as Dugaldsville, twenty miles from Lynchburg. ]S"ot being 
 able to cross the James on account of the high water, Sheridan 
 

 THE LAST YEAR. 433 
 
 moved around the north side of Richmond, and, crossing at 
 Deep Bottom, joined General Meade s army south of Peters 
 burg. 
 
 The destruction accomplished by this raid was serious 
 enough. The country through which it passed was devastated, 
 and a Yankee correspondent, who accompanied the expedition, 
 boasted that two million dollars worth of provisions and war 
 material were destroyed in a single day. The damage to the 
 Kanawha and James River Canal was almost irreparable ; as 
 to the railroads between Waynesboro and Charlottesville, 
 Charlottes ville and Amherst Court-house, and Louisa Court 
 house, and the South Anna, and between Chesterfield Station 
 and the Chickahominy River, every bridge, nearly every cul 
 vert, and scores of miles of the rail itself, had been completely 
 destroyed ; and in thirteen counties traversed by the expedi 
 tion, mills of various kinds, tobacco warehouses, manufactured 
 and leaf tobacco, and various other descriptions of private 
 property were pillaged or destroyed. 
 
 THE RICHMOND LINES HATCHER^S RUN. 
 
 On the lines around Richmond and Petersburg, during the 
 winter of 1864-5, there were no very important events. Two 
 very considerable engagements were fought on them in this 
 time ; but they were wholly indecisive and strangely barren 
 of results commensurate with the scale of fighting. Pegram s 
 division, of Lee s army, whilst reconnoitring on the morning 
 of the 6th of February, was attacked by cavalry and infantry 
 in heavy force. The enemy s cavalry at one time broke 
 through one of his brigades, but the men fought them all the 
 while. Capturing some in rear of our lines, driving the others 
 oil , the division was pressed slowly back, occupying a very 
 long line, but fighting obstinately, under the direction of its 
 gallant commander. 
 
 Evans, commanding Gordon s division, arrived, and was 
 formed on the left. The two divisions now charged, and drove 
 the enemy back. They were finally overpowered, and driven 
 back a short distance; but reforming, charged again and 
 again. 
 
464: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The battle raged fiercely for hours over a space of groniui 
 not more than live hundred yards in width. Every effort of 
 the Yankees to break through the Confederate lines was re 
 pulsed. Mahone s division came up and reported late in the 
 afternoon, and was formed between the other two, when the 
 three divisions made a most spirited advance and drove the 
 enemy in the greatest disorder from the field to his fortifica 
 tions on Hatcher s Run. The pursuit was continued until 
 after dark. General Pegram fell in the last charge, just be 
 fore Mahone s division came up. 
 
 The enemy kept his position on Hatcher s Hun, which pro 
 longed his line, but did not advance it in the direction of Pe 
 tersburg. The advantage of this extension was even question 
 able ; and after this important movement quiet was resumed 
 on the Richmond lines, unbroken by any remarkable incident 
 for several weeks. 
 
 At daylight, on the 25th of March, General Lee suddenly 
 attacked Grant s lines south of the Appomattox. The attack 
 was immediately directed by General Gordon on the enemy s 
 works at Hare s Hill. But there is no doubt that General 
 Lee s plan was more extensive ; that his design was to follow 
 up the first success by the capture of the neighboring works, 
 and then making the line a part of his own, to command 
 Grant s military railroad. If his success should be all that 
 he hoped, he might even venture to cut Grant s entire left 
 from its base at City Point and from the army north of the 
 James. 
 
 About iour o clock in the morning, every thing being in 
 readiness, the corps of sharpshooters, about two hundred and 
 fifty strong, left our works, and, with empty guns, advanced 
 stealthily but rapidly upon the enemy s positions. They fell 
 like a thunder-clap upon the Yankees, behind the first line of 
 works they struck, clubbing such as they found awake with 
 their muskets, taking a good many prisoners, and capturing 
 several hundred yards of breastworks. Not a musket was 
 fired, and not a man injured on our side. Meantime the 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 485 
 
 several brigades massed, both to support and assist them, caine 
 up, and the formidable force on Hare s Hill, with a consider 
 able portion of the heavy line of works adjoining and connect 
 ing with it, were charged and captured, additional prisoners 
 and numerous mortars and guns falling into our hands. Un 
 fortunately some of the Yankees, who had escaped in the dark 
 ness, fled and aroused the men in the rear line of works; and 
 the alarm was quickly spread throughout the reserve camps 
 behind, so that a formidable force was soon alert. By the 
 time our troops had formed into line on either side of the cap 
 tured fort the enemy was thoroughly aroused, and was pre 
 pared for further offensive operations on our side; otherwise 
 the advance of our troops would have been irresistible and 
 successful beyond anticipation. As it was, they came into a 
 position subject to an enfilading fire on either side, and con 
 fronted by heavy forts and breastworks. The Yankees were 
 not slow to take advantage of the opportunity thus afforded 
 them, and they quickly massed artillery in the neighboring 
 forts and infantry in our front. They made several fierce 
 assaults upon our columns in heavy lines, which were repulsed 
 with great coolness and vigor; and in which, it is believed, the 
 enemy sustained much loss. Finding it impossible to dislodge 
 the Confederates by their infantry attacks, the enemy opened 
 upon them with their artillery. A battery on the river, and 
 Fort Steadman on the right, both so situated as thoroughly to 
 command and enfilade the captured fort and works, belched 
 forth their terrible discharges of shell, grape, and canister into 
 our ranks, and rendered the position almost untenable. Fur 
 ther advance by our troops, in the face of the terrible obsta 
 cles that presented themselves, was deemed impracticable, and 
 General Gordon gave the command to retire. 
 
 The success of the day was incomplete, and of but little 
 value, although Gordon had shown the greatest gallantry, and 
 the Confederates had fought with a vigor and brilliancy that 
 reminded one of Lee s old campaigns. They had swept the 
 enemy s lines for a distance of four or five hundred yards to 
 the right and left, and two efforts made to recover the cap 
 tured works had been handsomely repulsed. It was only 
 when it was found that the inclosed works in rear, command 
 ing the enemy s main line, could only be taken at a great 
 
486 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 sacrifice, that our troops were withdrawn to their original 
 position. 
 
 Gordon captured nine pieces of artillery, eight mortars 
 find between five and six hundred prisoners, amongst them 
 one brigadier-general and a number of officers of lower 
 Ejrade. It being impracticable to bring off the captured guns, 
 owing to the nature of the ground, they were disabled and 
 left. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4:87 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIY. 
 
 TUK BVTTLES AROUND PETERSBURG. The movement of Sheridan s cavalry. The Five 
 Forks. General Lee s counter-movement. Repulse of Sheridan. Re-enforced by 
 Grant. The Confederates flanked at the Five Forks. The situation in front of 
 Petersburg. Lee s lines broken in three places. Capture of Fort Mahone by the 
 enemy. General Lee loses his entire line of defence, and the Southside Railroad. 
 THE EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. Great surprise in the Confederate capital. The 
 news in the churches. Dr. Hoge s address. Consternation and uproar in the 
 streets. The city on fire. A reckless military order. Scenes of -horror. Mobs of 
 plunderers. The scene at the commissary depot. Weitzel s entry into Richmond. 
 Suffering of the people. Scene on Capitol Square. Devastations of the fire. 
 The burnt district. Weitzel s and Shepley s general orders. Yankee rejoicings 
 over the fall of Richmond. Bell-ringings, hymns, and dancing in the streets of 
 New York. A grand illumination in Washington. Yankee mottoes. A memor 
 able speech. 
 
 GRANT was quick in retaliating for General Lee s attempt on 
 his lines, which, as we have seen, drove the enemy at Hare a 
 Hill, but did not hold the ground it traversed, or accomplish 
 any decisive results. 
 
 THE BATTLES AROUND PETERSBURG. 
 
 On the 29th of March, Grant began a heavy movement to 
 wards the Southside Railroad. The cavalry command, con 
 sisting of General Crook s division and Sheridan s cavalry, 
 moved out on the Jerusalem plankroad, about three and a 
 half miles from Hancock Station, where they took the country 
 road leading across the Weldon Railroad at Ream s Station, 
 and into the Vaughn road cne mile from the Dinwiddie Court 
 house, General Crook s division going in advance. They 
 reached Dinwiddie Court-house about four o clock in the 
 evening. 
 
 In the mean time the Fifth and Second corps of infantry had 
 been moving in a parallel line on the Vaughn road. Gen- 
 
488 .SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 eral Grant s headquarters on the night of the 29th were en 
 the Boydtown Plankroad, in the neighborhood of Gravelly 
 Bun. 
 
 The next day heavy rains impeded operations ; but the force 
 of the enemy pressed on towards the Five Forks, the extreme 
 right of Lee s line on the Southside Railroad. 
 
 General Lee had not been idle in meeting this movement. 
 On the 31st of March, the enemy found on his front, prepared 
 to contest the prize of the railroad, Pickett s division of in 
 fantry, and General Fitzhugh Lee s and General William II. 
 Lee s divisions of cavalry. In the afternoon of the day, the 
 Confederates made a determined and gallant charge upon the 
 whole cavalry line of the Yankees, forced it back, and drove 
 the enemy to a point within two miles of Dinwiddie Court 
 house. 
 
 But the news of Sheridan s repulse had no sooner reached 
 General Grant, than the Fifth Corps was moved rapidly to his 
 relief. The re-enforcement arrived in time to retrieve the for 
 tunes of the enemy. The next day, April 1st, the combined 
 forces of Yankee cavalry and Warren s infantry advanced 
 against the Confederates. Overpowered by numbers, the Con 
 federates retreated to the Five Forks, where they were flanked 
 by a part of the Fifth Corps, which had moved down the 
 White Oak road. It was here that several thousand prisoners 
 were taken. 
 
 On the night of Saturday, April 1st, the prospect was a 
 most discouraging one for General Lee. Grant had held all 
 his lines in front of Petersburg, had manoeuvred troops far to 
 his left, had turned Lee s right, and was now evidently pre 
 pared to strike a blow upon the thin lines in front of Pe 
 tersburg. 
 
 By daylight, on Sunday, April 2d, these lines were assaulted 
 in three different places by as many different Yankee corps. 
 They were pierced in every place. The Sixth Corps went 
 through first, at a point about opposite the western extremity ot 
 Petersburg; the Twenty-fourth, a little way further west; and 
 the Ninth Corps further east, near to the Jerusalem plankroatl, 
 capturing Fort Mahone, one of the largest forts in the Peters 
 burg defences. The Confederates made a desperate struggle 
 tor Fort Mahone, which was protracted through the day, but 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 489 
 
 without success. At dark the position of the contending par 
 ties was the same as during the day. 
 
 The Yankees had congratulated themselves that, by the suc 
 cess of the Sixth Corps, they hud cut Lee s army in two rdit- 
 ting off the troops that were not in Petersburg. As that place 
 was supposed to be the Confederate point of manoeuvre as it 
 was supposed that troops could not cross the Appomattox ex 
 cept through the city their capture was taken as certain by 
 the enemy, since they were hemmed in between Sheridan, the 
 Sixth Corps, and the river. But in this they were mistaken. 
 The Confederates easily forded the river ; and the close of the 
 day found Lee s army brought together within the inner line 
 of the Petersburg defences.* 
 
 * Among the Confederate killed was the brave General A. P. Hill, whose 
 name had been illustriously connected with the Army of Northern Virginia 
 all during the war. He had desired to obtain a nearer view of a portion of the 
 Yankee line during the attack of the 2d of April, and leaving his staff behind 
 in a place of safety, rode forward, accompanied by a single orderly, and soo 
 came upon a squad of Yankees, who had advanced along ravines far beyond 
 their lines. He immediately ordered them to surrender, which they were on 
 the point of doing, under the supposition that a column of troops were at hi 
 heels, They soon discovered he was Dearly unattended, and shot him through 
 the heart. 
 
 General Hill was a native of Culpepper County, Virginia, and descended 
 from an ancient family, famous in the political annals of that portion of the 
 commonwealth ; although he himself had had nothing to do with civil or po 
 litical life. He appeared to be about thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age, 
 and was a soldier by profession. He was graduated at West Point, entered the 
 army, and served in the Mexican war, and made arms not only his profession, 
 but an enthusiastic study, to which he was prompted by the natural tastes and 
 disposition of his mind. 
 
 General Hill was, undoubtedly, a commander of remarkable talents and 
 qualities. He had risen rapidly in the war by the force of personal merit. At 
 the famous field of Manassas he was colonel of the Thirteenth Virginia regi 
 ment, i" General Johnston s army, which, it will be recollected, arrived on the 
 field in time to secure and complete the great victory of that memorable day. 
 At the battle of Williamsburg he had risen to the rank of brigadier-general ; 
 and in that fight he exhibited an extraordinary spirit and energy, which were 
 recognized by all who observed his behavior on that field, and drew the eyes 
 of the public upon him. 
 
 General Hill made his greatest reputation by his conspicuous part in the 
 seven days battles around Richmond, in the summer of 18G2. Having then 
 been made major-general, he occupied, with his division, the extreme left ol our 
 position in the neighborhood of Meadow Bridge. He was put in command of 
 one of the largest divisions of the Army of Richmond, his division being com 
 
490 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 But the disasters which had already ocurred were, in General 
 Lee s opinion, irretrievable. In killed and wounded his loss 
 had been small two thousand would probably cover it in 
 the entire series of engagements ; but he had lost an entire lino 
 of defence around Petersburg, and with it the Southside 
 Railroad, so important to Richmond as an avenue of supply 
 
 THE EV AGITATION OF RICHMOND. 
 
 The morning of Sunday, the 2d of April, broke calmly and 
 pleasantly over the city of Richmond. The usual crowds were 
 collected at the Post-office and the War Department, asking 
 for news, discussing common-places, arid idling away the irk 
 some hours of the Sabbath in Richmond. There was not a 
 breath of excitement in the general community. It is a re 
 markable circumstance that, outside of official circles, not half 
 a dozen persons in Richmond knew, on that Sunday morning, 
 of the three days fighting that had taken place around Peters 
 burg, and at the distance of only a few hours ride from the 
 capital. For months past, the Government had been reticent 
 of all military news whatever; the newspapers had beer 
 warned not to publish any military matters, but what shouk. 
 be dictated to them from the War Department ; and the public 
 was left to imagine pretty much what it pleased concerning the 
 progress of the war. Indeed, the idea current in the streets on 
 this Sunday morning was rather pleasant and reassuring than 
 
 posed of the brigades of Anderson, Branch, Fender, Gregg, Field, and perhaps 
 some others. He rapidly brought his division to perfection in organization, 
 It was made his duty to cross at Meadow Bridge, and make the first attack 
 upon McClellan s forces. He performed this duty alone, without waiting for 
 other movements ; and, unassisted by a portion of his command (for Generals 
 Branch and Gregg did not come up until late in the evening), he sustained a 
 terrible conflict with the enemy, encouraging his troops by examples of per 
 sonal audacity, which kept him constantly exposed to the enemy s fire. That 
 position of the enemy being gained, the division of General Hill followed his 
 subsequent movements, being placed first in the line of our advance, and 
 bearing the brunt of the action to Fra/ier s farm, where occurred the memor 
 able engagement in which the command of General Hill, composed of his own 
 division and one division of General Longstreet s two, fought the whole Yan 
 kee force, and achieved a success which broke the spirit of the enemy, and 
 completed the circuit of our famous victories around Richmond in 1862. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 
 
 otherwise ; for there was a general impression that Johnston 
 was moving to Lee s lines, and that the combined force was tc 
 take the offensive against the enemy. Beyond this general 
 anticipation, the Richmond public had on the day referred to 
 not the slightest inkling of the situation. The news which a 
 few hours later was to overwhelm them, of the reverse of Lee 
 and the forced evacuation of Richmond, was to burst upon 
 them like a thunderclap from clear skies. 
 
 The first breath of the report was obtained in the churches. 
 While President Davis was seated in his pew in St. Paul s 
 church, the services were interrupted by a messenger handing 
 him a dispatch. It was from General Lee ; it stated that his 
 lines had been broken in three places, and that preparations 
 should be made to evacuate Richmond by eight o clock the ensu 
 ing night, in the event that he should be unable to re-establish 
 his lines. The President left the church with a measured, but 
 nervous step. It was the constrained calmness of despair. 
 No one but himself knew the exact contents of the dispatch ; 
 but an uneasy whisper ran through the congregation, and, as 
 they were hastily dismissed, the rumor was caught up in the 
 streets that Richmond was to be evacuated, and was soon car 
 ried to the ends of the city. 
 
 In another of the churches, the news was more plainly told. 
 Dr. Hoge, the beloved pastor of the Presbyterian church, 
 than whom there was no brighter Christian or nobler patriot 
 within the limits of Richmond, had, at the conclusion of hia 
 sermon, given out a beautiful hymn to be sung by his congre 
 gation. Before they raised their voices, he told them, with his 
 own voice broken with emotion, that he had sad news to com 
 municate ; that our army had " met with a reverse ;" that with 
 out being exactly apprised of the extent" and nature of the re 
 verse, he was convinced that it was probable that they might 
 never again meet in that house of God ; and then he spoke to 
 those who had so long known and loved him a tender farewell, 
 in such beautiful and plaintive words that there was not a dry 
 eye among all those dismayed faces which hung upon hia 
 words. 
 
 Men, women, and children rushed from the churches, pass 
 ing from lip to lip news of the impending fall of Richmond 
 And yet it was difficult to believe it. To look up to the calm, 
 
492 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 beautiful sky of the spring day unassailed by one single noise 
 of battle, to watch the streets un vexed by artillery or troops, 
 stretching away into the quiet hazy atmosphere, and believer 
 that the capital of the Confederacy, so peaceful, so apparently 
 secure, was in a few hours to be the prey of the enemy, and tc 
 be wrapped in the infernal horrors of a conflagration ! 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when the signs of evacuatioo 
 became apparent to the incredulous. Wagons on the streete 
 were being hastily loaded at the departments with boxes, trunks, 
 etc., and driven to the Danville depot. Those who had de 
 termined to evacuate with the fugitive Government looked on 
 with amazement ; then, convinced of the fact, rushed to follow 
 the Government s example. Vehicles suddenly rose to a pre 
 mium value that was astounding; and ten, fifteen, and even a 
 hundred dollars in gold or federal currency was offered for a 
 conveyance. Suddenly, as if by magic, the streets became 
 tilled with men, walking as though for a wager, and behind 
 them excited negroes with trunks, bundles, and luggage of 
 every description. All over the city it was the same wagons, 
 trunks, bandboxes, and their owners, a mass of hurrying fugi 
 tives, filling the streets. The banks were all open, and deposit 
 ors were as busy as bees removing their specie deposits ; and 
 the directors were equally active in getting off their bullion. 
 Hundreds of thousands of dollars of paper money was de 
 stroyed, both State and Confederate. Night came, and wiih 
 it came confusion worse confounded. There was no sleep for 
 human eyes in Richmond that night. 
 
 The ciry council had met in the evening, and resolved to 
 destroy all the liquor in the city, to avoid the disorder con 
 sequent on the temptation to drink at such a time. About the 
 hour of midnight the work commenced, under the direction of 
 committees of citizens in all the wards. Hundreds of barrels 
 of liquor were rolled into the street and the heads knocked in. 
 The gutters ran with a liquor freshet, and the fumes filled and 
 impregnated the air. Fine cases of bottled liquors were tossed 
 into the street from third sicry windows, and wrecked into 
 a thousand pieces. As the work progressed, some stnirgling 
 soldiers, retreating through the city, managed to get hold of a 
 quantity of the liquor. From that moment law and order 
 ceased to exist. Many of the stores were pillaged, and the 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 
 
 sidewalks were encumbered with broken glass, where the 
 thieves had smashed the windows in their reckless haste to get 
 their hands on the plunder within. The air was tilled with 
 the wild cries of distress, or the yells of roving pillagers. 
 
 But a more terrible element was to appear upon the scene. 
 An order had been issued from General Ewell s headquarters to 
 fire the four principal tobacco warehouses of the city namely, 
 the public warehouse, situated at the head of the basin, near the 
 Petersburg Railroad depot; Shockoe warehouse, situated near 
 the centre of the city, side by side with the Gallego flour-mills ; 
 Mayo s warehouse, and Dibrell s warehouse, on Gary-street, a 
 square below the Libby prison. 
 
 Late in the night, Mayor Mayo had dispatched, by a com 
 mittee of citizens, a remonstrance against this reckless military 
 order, which plainly put in jeopardy the whole business portion 
 of Richmond. It was not heeded. Nothing was left for the 
 citizens but to submit to the destruction of their property. 
 The warehouses were fired. The rams in the James River 
 were blown up. The Richmond, Virginia, and another one, 
 were all blown to the four winds of heaven. The Patrick 
 Henry, a receiving ship, was scuttled. Such shipping, very 
 little in amount, as was lying at the Richmond wharves, was 
 also fired, save the flag-of-truce steamer Allison. 
 
 The bridges leading out of the city namely, the Danville 
 Railroad bridge, the Petersburg Railroad bridge, Mayo s 
 bridge, leading to Manchester and the opposite side of the 
 James, were also tired, arid were soon wrapped in flames. 
 
 Morning broke upon a scene such as those who witnessed *t 
 can never forget. The roar of an immense conflagration 
 sounded in the ears ; tongues of flame leaped from street to 
 street ; and in this baleful glare were to be seen, as of demons, 
 the figures of busy plunderers, moving, pushing, rioting ; 
 through the black smoke and into the open street, bearing 
 away every conceivable sort of plunder. 
 
 The scene at the commissary depot, at the head of the dock, 
 beggared description. Hundreds of government wagons were 
 loaded with bacon, flour, and whiskey, and driven off in hot 
 haste to join the retreating army. Thronged about the depot 
 were hundreds of men, women, and children, black and white 
 provided with capacious bags, baskets, tubs, buckets, tin pans 
 
4:94: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and aprons; cursing, pushing, and crowding, awaiting the 
 throwing open of the doors, and the order for each to help 
 himself. 
 
 About sunrise the doors were opened to the populace, and 
 a rush, that almost seemed to carry the building off its founda 
 tion, was made, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of bacon, 
 flour, etc., were soon swept away by a clamorous crowd. 
 
 In the mean time, let us see what was passing on the Yankee 
 lines. When General Ord withdrew to the lines investing 
 Petersburg, he carried with him exactly one-half of hi? 
 army. On the north side, occupying his entire line, he left 
 Weitzel, with Kautz s division -of the Twenty -fourth Corps, 
 and Ashborne s and Thomas divisions of the Twenty-fifth 
 Corps. 
 
 While the fighting was in progress around Petersburg 
 Weitzel s entire line was perfectly quiet, not a shot anywhere. 
 His command had orders to make as great a show as possible. 
 At night he set all his bands to work upon national airs, and 
 the night was filled with melodious strains. 
 
 Towards midnight this musical entertainment ceased, and 
 a silence, complete and absolute, brooded over the contending 
 lines. At this hour, the enemy s camps were startled into life 
 again, by explosions heard in Richmond. 
 
 To Weitzel s brain the full meaning of the event came home 
 at once, and he did not need the confirmatory lurid light he 
 saw hanging over the Confederate capital to tell him that the 
 hour had come. His orders were to push on, whenever 
 satisfied of his ability to enter the city. 
 
 Day had no sooner broke than Weitzel dispatched Major A. 
 H. Stevens, of the Fourth Massachusetts cavalry, and Major 
 E. E. Graves, of his staff, with forty cavalry, to investigate the 
 condition of affairs. The troops rode steadily into Richmond. 
 On a trot they proceeded to the Capitol, and creeping to its 
 summit, planted the stars and stripes. The symbols of the 
 United States thus hoisted by the halyards, consisted of two 
 guidons from companies E and II of the Fourth Massachusetts 
 cavalry, of which Stevens was one of the field-officers. The 
 colors of the enemy fluttered in the early morning light over 
 the Capitol of the Confederacy. 
 
 As the day advanced, Weitzel s troops poured through the 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 495 
 
 streets of the city. Long lines of negro cavalry swept by the 
 Exchange Hotel, brandishing their swords and uttering savage 
 shouts. These shouts, the roar of devouring flames, the endless 
 processions of plunderers passing from street to street, tugging 
 away the prizes they had drawn from the hellish circle of the 
 fire, made up an indescribable horror. Here were the garish 
 Yankee troops sweeping up towards the Capitol Square, with 
 music and wild cheers ; everywhere, almost, the pandemonium 
 of fire and pillage ; and in the midst of all the wild agony, the 
 fugitive distress of women and children rushing towards the 
 open square for a breath of pure air, all that was now left them 
 in heaven s great hollowness. And even that was not to be 
 obtained there. The air, even in the square of the Capitol, was 
 almost choking ; and one traversed it blinded by cinders and 
 struggling for breath. Beneath the trees, on the sward, were 
 piles of furniture, dragged from the ruins of burning homes ; 
 and on carpets, stretched on the slopes of the hill, were family 
 groups, making all sorts of uncouth arrangements to protect 
 their little ones, and to patch up, with broken tables and 
 bureaus, some sort of home in the open air. 
 
 In the afternoon, the fire had burned itself out. It had con 
 sumed the very heart of the city. A surveyor could scarcely 
 have designated more exactly the business portion of the city, 
 than did the boundaries of the fire. Commencing at the 
 Shockoe warehouse, the fire radiated front and rear, and on 
 two wings, burning down to, but not destroying, the store No. 
 77 Main-street, south side, half way between Fourteenth and Fif 
 teenth streets, and back to the river, through Gary and all the 
 intermediate streets. Westward, on Main, the fire was stayed 
 at Kinth-street, sweeping back to the river. On the north side 
 of Main the flames were stayed between Thirteenth and Four 
 teenth streets. From this point the flames raged on the north 
 side of Main up to Eighth-street, and back to Bank-street. 
 
 Among some of the most prominent buildings destroyed 
 were, the Bank of Richmond, Traders Bank, Bank of the Com 
 monwealth, Bank of Virginia, Farmers Bank, all the banking 
 houses, the American Hotel, the Columbian Hotel, the En 
 quirer building on Twelfth-street, the Dispatch office and job 
 rooms, corner of Thirteenth and Main-streets ; all that block 
 of buildings known as Belvin s Block ; the Examiner office, 
 
4:06 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 engine, and machinery rooms ; the Confederate Post-office Do 
 partment building; the State Courthouse, a fine old building 
 situated on Capitol Square at its Franklin-street entrance ; the 
 Mechanics Institute, vacated by the Confederate War Depart 
 inent, and all the buildings on that square up to Eighth-stree 
 and back to Main-street ; the Confederate arsenal and labora 
 tory, Seventh-street. 
 
 The streets were crowded with furniture and every descrip 
 tion of wares, dashed down to be trampled in the mud or 
 burned up where it lay. All the government storehouses 
 were thrown open, and what could not be gotten off by the 
 Government was left to the people. 
 
 Next to the river the destruction of property was fearfully 
 complete. The Danville and Petersburg Eailroad depots, and 
 the buildings and shedding attached, for the distance of half 
 a mile from the north side of Main-street to the river, and be 
 tween Eighth and Fifteenth streets, embracing upwards of 
 twenty blocks, presented one waste of smoking ruins, black 
 ened walls, and solitary chimneys. 
 
 On the occupation of Richmond, General Weitzel established 
 his headquarters in the State Capitol, in the hall lately occu 
 pied by the Virginia House of Delegates, and instituted meas 
 ures to restore order. He immediately issued the following 
 order : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS DETACHMENT ARMY OF THE JAMES, 
 Richmond, Va., April 3, 1865. 
 
 Major-General Godfrey Weitzel, commanding detachment of the Army of 
 the James, announces the occupation of the city of Richmond by the Armies of 
 the United States, under command of Lieutenant-General Grant. The people 
 of Richmond are assured that we come to restore to them the blessings of peace, 
 prosperity, and freedom, under the flag of the Union. 
 
 The citizens of Richmond are requested to remain, for the present, quietly 
 within their houses, and to avoid all public assemblages or meetings in the 
 public streets. An efficient provost-guard will immediately re-establish order 
 and tranquillity within the city. 
 
 Martial law is, for the present, proclaimed. 
 
 Brigadier-General George F. Shepley, United States Volunteers, is hereby 
 appointed military governor of Richmond. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Fred. L. Manning, provost-marshal-general, Army of 
 the James, will act as provost-marshal of Richmond. Commanders of detach 
 ments doing guard-duty in the city will report to him for instructions. 
 By command of 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL WEITZEL. 
 
 D. D WHEELER, Assistant Adjutant-General. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 4:97 
 
 Brigadier-General G. F. Shepley, having been announced as 
 military governor of Richmond, issued the following order : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS MILITARY GOVERNOR OP RICHMOND 
 Richmond, Va., April 3, 1865. 
 
 I. The armies of the rebellion having abandoned their effort to enslave tho 
 people of Virginia, have endeavored to destroy by fire the capital which they 
 could not longer occupy by their arms. Lieutenant-Colonel Manning, provost- 
 marshal-general of the Army of the James and provost-marshal of Richmond, 
 will immediately send a sufficient detachment of the provost-guard to arrest, 
 if possible, the progress of the flames. The fire department of the city of 
 Richmond, and all the citizens interested in the preservation of their beautiful 
 city, will immediately report to him for duty, and render every possible assist 
 ance in staying the progress of the conflagration. The first duty of the Armies 
 of the Union will be to save the city doomed to destruction by the armies of 
 the rebellion. 
 
 II. No person will leave the city of Richmond, without a pass from the office 
 of the provost-marshal. 
 
 III. Any citizen, soldier, or any person whatever, who shall hereafter pluii* 
 "Tier, destroy, or remove any public or private property of any description what 
 ever, will be arrested and summarily punished. 
 
 IV. The soldiers of the command will abstain from any offensive or insult 
 ing words or gestures towards the citizens. 
 
 V. No treasonable or offensive expressions, insulting to the flag, the cause, 
 or the Armies of the Union, will hereafter be allowed. 
 
 VI. For an exposition of their rights, duties, and privileges, the citizens of 
 Richmond are respectfully referred to the proclamations of the President of the 
 United States in relation to the existing rebellion. 
 
 VII. All persons having in their possession, or under their control, any prop 
 erty whatever of the so-called Confederate States, or of any officer thereof, or 
 the records or archives of any public officer whatever, will immediately report 
 the same to Colonel Manning, provost-marshal. 
 
 In conclusion, the citizens of Richmond are assured that, with the restora 
 tion of the flag of the Union, they may expect the restoration of that peace, 
 prosperity, and happiness which they enjoyed under the Union, of which that 
 flag is the glorious symbol. 
 
 G. F. SHEPLEY, Brigadier-General U. S. V., 
 and Military Governor of Richmond, 
 
 While the scenes of terror and destruction we have nar 
 rated were taking place in Richmond, the North was cele 
 brating, with those fervors and shows known only to the Yan 
 kee, the fall of the Confederate capital. In New York and in 
 Washington were the most swollen exhibitions of the popular 
 triumph. 
 
 In the former city there was an unlimited display of flags ; 
 bells were rung ; impromptu meetings were gotten up, and 
 
498 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 wild and enthusiastic congratulations were exchanp-cd on the 
 streets. The New York Herald said: "People fairly danced 
 in the excess of enthusiasm. To state that they howled would 
 sound harsh and flat, but it would nevertheless be the simple 
 truth. Huzzaing and cheering were heard, as never they 
 were heard before. Singing also formed part of the popula. 
 mode of letting off the exuberant feelings of the masses. 
 Down in Wall-street, a chorus, which Maretzek could never 
 hope to rival, almost made the ancient piles of stone and brick 
 tremble in sympathy." 
 
 The rage for flags was immense. Half an hour after the 
 receipt of the news of the capture of the Confederate capital, 
 there was, says a New York paper, not a single large flag of a 
 national character in the whole city left unpurchased. Every 
 housekeeper showed his loyalty and satisfaction, by exhibiting 
 the stars and stripes from some portion of his establishment. 
 The railway cars and horses were decorated with miniature* 
 flags. Carts, stages, and wagons, all over the city, displayed 
 the same symbol of loyalty ; and every spot, where a piece of 
 bunting could properly be fastened, w r as so decorated. 
 
 At noon, the bells of Trinity and St. Paul churches were 
 rung. The chimes of Trinity resounded melodiously through 
 the air, above the din of rumbling stages and heavy vehicles 
 of every description. The example of these two churches was 
 speedily followed by almost every church in the city ; and for 
 half an hour or more the ringing was heard from Trinity to 
 Harlem a distance of six miles. 
 
 A large meeting of leading merchants, and other prominent 
 citizens, was held at the custom-house, to make arrangements 
 for a suitable celebration of the great victory. A number of 
 speeches were made on the occasion. At the conclusion of 
 one of the speeches, some persons present, with a grand chorus, 
 began the hymn, to the tune of " Old Hundred, generally 
 known in churches as the Doxology : 
 
 "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow ; 
 Praise Him, all creatures here below ; 
 Praise Him above, ye heavenly host ; 
 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 
 
 The whole crowd joined in. The chimes of Trinity came in 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 499 
 
 at the proper time *~ith good effect , and, as the voice* of over 
 twenty thousand singers subsided, the echoes of the chime? 
 from the towers of Trinity came floating on the breeze, and 
 repeating in musical accord 
 
 " Praise Him, all creatures here below." * 
 
 * From the appearance of the New Tork papers one would suppose that the 
 general excitement, produced by the capture of Richmond, had culminated in 
 the commercial metropolis of the North. 
 
 The Tribune occupied one-half of its first page with an enormous spread 
 eagle, and the eighth page with a map of Richmond. The editor, while con 
 gratulating his readers on the fall of Richmond, could not avoid saying, that 
 " it might have been ours long ago." An Irish drinking song, prepared for the 
 occasion, and beginning, " Bad luck to the man who is sober to-night," was 
 published on the inside, and proposed a good health to every official who had 
 been connected with the military department of the Government, not excepting 
 " Shtanton." 
 
 The World s columns were chiefly occupied with a brilliant and lengthy 
 account of the battles, but the displayed heads of the news were jubilant and 
 expressive; and the editor declared, that " the taking of Richmond was a greater 
 event, and more fully justified exuberant rejoicing, than any previous achieve* 
 ment in the history of the war." 
 
 The New York Herald declared, that the taking of Richmond was " one o 
 the grandest triumphs that had crowned human efforts for centuries." 
 
 The following specimen of Yankee poetry on the occasion was published in 
 a New York paper : 
 
 RICHMOND 18 OUHS ! 
 
 Richmond is ours ! Richmond is ours I 
 
 Hark ! to the jubilant chorus ! 
 Up, through the lips that no longer repress it, 
 Up, from the Heart of the People ! God bless it ! 
 Swelling with loyal emotion, 
 Leapeth our joy, like an ocean! 
 Richmond is ours ! Richmond is ours I 
 Babylon falls, and her temples and towers 
 Crumble to ashes before us 1 
 
 Glory to Grant ! Glory to Grant ! 
 
 Hark ! to the shout of our Nation ! 
 Up, from the Irish heart, up from the German- 
 Glory to Sheridan ! Glory to Sherman I 
 
 Up, from all peoples uniting 
 
 Freedom s high loyalty plighting 
 Glory to all ! Glory to all ! 
 Heroes who combat, and martyrs who fall I 
 
 Loft we our joyous ovation 1 
 
500 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR, 
 
 The people of "Washington vied with those of New York in 
 demonstrations of joy over the fall of Richmond and Peters 
 burg. In accordance with the recommendation of the Secre 
 tary of State, the Executive Mansion, the Capitol, and all the 
 departments and other public buildings, and the City Hall, 
 were at night illuminated, and each in a blaze of light was ex 
 hibited in its beautiful proportions. The National flag was a 
 prominent adornment, and appropriate mottoes were conspicu 
 ously displayed. Pennsylvania Avenue and the principal 
 streets were thronged with pedestrians. Bonfires were kindled 
 in various parts of the city, and rockets ignited. Washington 
 was, in short, ablaze with lights. The residences of the head? 
 of the departments, and other officers of the Government, were 
 also adorned and illuminated. 
 
 The Capitol made a splendid appearance. It was the centre 
 of attraction, and from basement to dome was a blaze of light. 
 Over the main entrance, fronting on Pennsylvania Avenue, 
 was a large transparency, on which was inscribed, " This is 
 the Lord s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." 
 
 Over the main entrance to the War Department was the 
 motto, " The Union must and shall be preserved," and under 
 neath an eagle, the word, " Richmond." 
 
 Over the main entrance to the Patent Office building was 
 an immense gas-jet, displaying the word, " Union." Over the 
 
 Ming out the Flag ! Flash out the Flag I 
 
 Up from each turret and steeple ! 
 Up from the cottage, and over the mansion, 
 Fling out the symbol of Freedom s expansion I 
 
 Victory crowneth endeavor ! 
 
 Liberty seals us forever ! 
 Up from each valley, and out from each crag, 
 Fling out the Flag ! Flash out the Flag ! 
 
 Borne on the breath of the People I 
 
 Richmond is ours ! Richmond is ours ! 
 
 Hark ! how the welkin is riven ! 
 Hark ! to the joy that our Nation convulses, 
 Timing all hearts to the cannon s loud pulses ; 
 
 Voices of heroes ascending, 
 
 Voices of martyred ones blending : 
 Mingling like watchwords on Liberty s towers, 
 u Richmond is ours ! Richmond is ours 1" 
 
 Freedom, rejoiceth in Heaven ! 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 501 
 
 lower entrance of the Treasury building, on Fifteen tli-street, 
 was a huge transparency representing a ten-dollar Treasury 
 note, over which was the motto, " U. S. greenbacks and U. S 
 Grant Grant gives the greenbacks a metallic ring." 
 
 Over the front entrance of the State Department was dis 
 played the motto, " At home, union is order, and order is 
 strength ; abroad, union is strength, and strength is peace." 
 Over the Fifteenth-street entrance was the following motto, 
 " Peace and good-will to all nations ; but no entangling 
 alliances, and no foreign intervention." 
 
 Thousands of persons of both sexes attended a public meeting 
 at the southern portico of the Patent Office, where the word 
 " Union" was largely prominent in flaming gas-jets. Speeches 
 were delivered by a number of persons, among them Yice- 
 President Johnson. He made a long and intensely Union 
 speech, in the course of which he said he could live down all 
 the slanders which had been uttered against him. He was 
 particularly severe on " the rebels," at the head of whom he 
 placed Jefferson Davis, and he asked, what should be done 
 with him. The response from many voices was, " Hang him ! 
 hang him!" To this he agreed, and applause succeeded his 
 remark that Davis ought to be hanged twenty times higher 
 than Hainan. 
 
 The following are passages from Yice-President Johnson s 
 ijpeech : 
 
 " At the time that the traitors in the Senate of the United States plotted 
 against the Government, and entered into a conspiracy more foul, more ex 
 ecrable, and more odious than that of Catiline against the Romans, I happened 
 to be a member of that body. I was then and there called upon to know what 
 I would do with such traitors, and I want to repeat my reply here. I said, if 
 we had an Andrew Jackson, he would hang them as high as Haman. Humble 
 as I am, when you ask me what I would do, my reply is, I would arrest them ; 
 I would try them ; I would convict them ; and I would hang them. I say this : 
 The halter to intelligent, influential traitors. But to the honest boy, to the 
 deluded man, who has been deceived into the rebel ranks, I would extend 
 leniency ; 1 would say, return to your allegiance, renew your support to the 
 
 Governnieni, and become a good citizen ; but the leaders I would hang 
 
 It is not my intention to make any imprudent remarks or allusions, but the 
 houi will come when those nations that exhibited towards us such insolence 
 and improper interference in the midst of our adversity, and, as they supposed, 
 of our weakness, will learn that thid is a Government of the people, possessing 
 power enough to make itself felt anvl respected." 
 
502 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The passages of this speech, quoted above, as we must pre 
 6nme correctly, from the columns of a New York paper, ob 
 tained a most important significance in view of the tragical 
 death of Mr. Lincoln, on the 14th day of April, and the succes 
 sion of Mr. Johnson to the office of President of the United 
 States, and that of dictator of the programme of subjugation 
 consequent upon the war. But these events lie beyond the 
 period and purpose of our narrative of the war, and we make 
 only this brief and passing reference to them. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 503 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 What the Confederates anticipated on the fall of Richmond. Two opinions. Pro 
 phetic words of the Richmond Examiner. Disintegration of Lee s army. Th<e 
 line of his retreat. Grant s pursuit. Sheridan captures prisoners, guns, and wag 
 ons. Sheridan s dispatch. Change in the movements of hoth armies. The situa 
 tion at Appomattox Court-house. How Lee was surrounded. SURRENDER OF THM 
 AUMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. A frightful demoralization of the army. More than 
 two-thirds of the men deserted. Pickett s division. Reasons to suppose that Gen 
 eral Lee had predetermined a surrender on moving from Richmond and Peters 
 burg. Straggling of his soldiers. Official correspondence concerning the surren 
 der. Interview between General Lee and General Grant at McLean s house. How 
 General Lee looked. Grant s generous conduct. Scenes between the lines of th 
 two armies.- -An informal conference of officers. How the news of surrender was 
 received in the Yankee army. How received at Washington. Secretary Stanton s 
 dispatch. President Lincoln s speech, " Dixie" in Washington. General Lee s 
 farewell address to his army. His return to Richmond. Effect of Lee s surrender. 
 -Geireral Johnston s department. MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHWEST. FALL OF MO 
 BILE. Wilson s cavalry expedition through Alabama and Georgia. SURRENDER 
 OF JOHNSTON S ARMY. Sherman s " basis of negotiations" repudiated at Wash 
 ington. The policy of the Northern Government unmasked. Sherman s reply. 
 SURRENDER OF TAYLOR S ARMY, SURRENDER OF KIRBY S SMITH S ARMY. " Wi 
 meetings" in Tc-xas. \\ ant of public resolution. The last act of the war. A sad 
 den peace, and what it implied. 
 
 FOR a long time there had been two opinions in the Confed 
 eracy, as to the effect the fall of Richmond would have upon 
 the war. Many intelligent persons considered that Richmond 
 was not a vital point in the Confederacy ; and now that it had 
 been evacuated, there were not a few persons who still indulged 
 the hope of the supremacy of the Southern arms and the dream 
 of independence. There were found sanguine persons in Rich 
 mond the day after the evacuation, who pleased themselves 
 with the imagination that that event was only about to date a 
 new era in the Confederate defence ; that the Government 
 would re-establish itself, perhaps, in Georgia, and with advan 
 tages and under auspices it had never had before ; that it might 
 reopen Georgia and the Carolinas, and thus place itself nearer 
 its resources of subsistence, and have the control of a territory 
 practically much larger than that in the Richmond jurisdiction. 
 But these hopeful and ingenious persons wholly failed to take 
 
504: SOUTHERN HI .TORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 mto account the moral effect of the loss of the Confederate 
 capita], and to calculate the easy transition in such circum* 
 stances from despondency to despair. 
 
 Several weeks before the catastrophe the Richmond Ex 
 aminer had used the following almost prophetic language 
 " The evacuation of Richmond would be the loss of all respect 
 ar.d authority towards the Confederate Government, the disin 
 tegration of the army, and the abandonment of the scheme 01 
 an independent Southern Confederation. Each contestant in 
 the war has made Richmond the central object of all its plans 
 and all its exertions. It has become the symbol of the Con 
 federacy. Its loss would be material ruin to the cause, and, in 
 a moral point of view, absolutely destructive, crushing the 
 heart and extinguishing the last hope of the country. Our 
 armies would lose the incentive inspired by a great and worthy 
 object of defence. Our military policy would be totally at 
 sea; we should be without a hope or an object; without civil 
 or military organization ; without a treasury or a commissariat 
 without the means of keeping alive a wholesome and active 
 public sentiment ; without any of the appliances for supporting 
 a cause depending upon a popular faith and enthusiasm ; with 
 out the emblems or the semblance of nationality." 
 
 These sad but intelligent anticipations were now to bo 
 vividly realized. The disintegration of Lee s army com 
 menced with its withdrawal from the Richmond and Peters 
 burg lines. 
 
 In his last telegram to Richmond from Petersburg, Sunday 
 evening, the 2d of April, General Lee stated that some time 
 during the night he would fall back behind the Appomattox 
 that is, to the north bank of that stream, to prevent being 
 flanked. The Appomattox rises in Appomattox County, eighty 
 miles west of Petersburg, flows northeast to Matoax Station, 
 on the Danville Railroad, twenty-seven miles from Richmond, 
 and thence southeast to City Point. When Lee sent his tele 
 gram above alluded to, his troops were holding a semicircular 
 line south of the river, and including Petersburg; his left rest 
 ing on the Appomattox, his right on the Southside Railroad, 
 Borne fifteen miles west of- the town. The Yankee armies were 
 pressing his whole line, Sheridan being on his extreme right. 
 During Sunday night he got across the Appomattox, and com 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 505 
 
 menced to push up the north bank of that stream. The Fan- 
 kee forces were hurried up the Southside Railroad to Burkee- 
 ville Junction to cut him off. Sheridan made direct pursuit, 
 with the double object of harassing the rear of the retreating 
 columns, and cutting off such troops as were retreating from 
 Richmond and attempting to join Lee. 
 
 Grant was possessed of the interior or shorter lines to 
 Burkesville. He might thus hope to cut off Lee s retreat from 
 Danville or from Lynchburg. Indeed, there appeared but one 
 way for Lee to escape namely, a tremendous run up the 
 bank of the Appomattox, to reach the Southside Railroad at 
 Farmville, destroying the bridges in his rear. Even this 
 chance Sheridan was sanguine of cutting off. 
 
 On the 5th of April, Sheridan made an important capture of 
 prisoners, guns, and wagons. It appears that Lee s army was 
 moving as rapidly west as his limited transportation and the 
 demoralized condition of his troops would permit, on the road 
 between Amelia Court-house and Jetersville. The Yankee 
 cavalry having gained possession of the Danville Railroad 
 some time previous, were not long in discovering his where 
 abouts. Sheridan immediately sent Davies brigade around 
 on his left flank ; and although they were repulsed and driven 
 back upon the infantry, it was not until they had taken several 
 hundred prisoners, five guns, and a number of wagons. 
 
 On the evening of the 5th of April, a portion of the advance 
 of Grant s army was at Burkesville Station (the junction of the 
 Southside and Danville railroads). Sheridan, with the main 
 body of his cavalry, at three p. M. of that day, was at Jeters 
 ville, on the Danville road, a station forty-three miles from 
 Richmond. Lee, at the same date, with the remnants of his 
 army, was at Amelia Court-house, a point thirty-six miles from 
 Richmond, and seven miles north of Sheridan s advance. 
 
 In this situation Sheridan telegraphed to Grant : " I feel 
 confident of capturing the entire Army of Northern Virginia, 
 if we exert ourselves. I see no escape for Lee." 
 
 On the 6th, at daylight, General Meade, with the Second, 
 Fifth, and Sixth corps, was at Burkesville Station, Lee being 
 near Amelia Court-house ; the Yankee forces were south and 
 west of him. Sheridan s advance was at Jetersville ; and, as it 
 moved towards Amelia Court-house, its left stretched well on 
 
5D6 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 towards Painesville, a point about ten miles northwest of 
 Amelia Court-house, and directly on the line of Lee s retieat 
 towards the Appomattox. 
 
 It seemed as if Sheridan s position at Jetersville, with hi 
 left across the line of Lee s westward march to the Appomat 
 tox, would compel Lee to stand still. Hence the enemy s 
 movement towards the Appomattox was given up, and the 
 men were faced about and moved northeast, towards Amelia 
 Court-house, expecting to fight Lee there. Lee, however, was 
 already on his way from the court-house towards the river; 
 and when this became known, the direction of the enemy s 
 movement was changed once more. 
 
 On the evening of the 6th, two divisions of the Sixth Army 
 Corps came up with Lee s retreating columns at the intersec 
 tion of the Burkesville Station road with the road upon which 
 they were moving. Some desultory fighting ensued. Sheri 
 dan telegraphed : " If the thing is pressed, I think Lee will sur 
 render." He claimed already to have captured Generals 
 Ewell, Kershaw, Button, Corse, De Bare, and Custis Lee, sev 
 eral thousand prisoners, fourteen pieces of artillery, with cais 
 sons, and a large number of wagons. 
 
 The position into which the remnant of Lee s army had no\i 
 been forced was one from which it was impossible to extricate 
 it without a battle, which it was no longer capable of fighting. 
 His army lay massed a short distance west of Appomattox 
 Court-house; his last avenue of escape towards Danville, on 
 the southwest, was gone ; he was completely hemmed in. 
 Meade was in his rear on the east, and on his right flank north 
 of Appomattox Court-house; Sheridan had headed him off 
 completely, by getting between him and Lynchburg; General 
 Ord was on the south of the court-house, near the railroad ; 
 the Yankee troops were in the most enthusiastic spirits, and 
 what remained of the Army of Northern Virginia was plainly 
 doomed. 
 
 SURRENDER OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. 
 
 The line of Lee s retreat afforded ample evidence of the ex 
 cessive, frightful demoralization of his army. It was strewn 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 507 
 
 with arms and accoutrements, with abandoned caissons, -vvirh 
 knapsacks, blankets, and clothing in short, with whatever could 
 be most readily cast away in flight. The whole intervening 
 country was tracked by deserters returning in squads to their 
 homes ; and who, anticipating a surrender of the army, were 
 anxious to avoid what they supposed would be the conditions 
 of such an event. The extent of this desertion was without 
 precedent. Lee s whole army had almost ran through his 
 fingers. He had had on the lines he had abandoned between 
 twenty-seven and twenty-eight thousand men ; at Appomattox 
 Court house he had scarcely ten thousand men for a battle, 
 and actually surrendered less than eight thousand.* On the 
 Petersburg lines Piekett s division had been roughly estimated 
 at eight thousand men. It surrendered only forty-five muskets. 
 Such were the moral effects of the fall of Richmond, and such 
 the necessities which brought with it the terrible consequence 
 of the surrender of what had been by far the most formidable 
 army the Confederates had ever had in the field. 
 
 There can be no doubt in history that General Lee, in taking 
 his army away from .Richmond and Petersburg, had decided, 
 in his own mind, upon the hopelessness of the war, and had 
 predetermined its surrender. The most striking proof of this 
 is, that on his retreat there was no order published against 
 straggling a thing unprecedented in all deliberate and strategic 
 retreats and nothing whatever done to maintain discipline. 
 The men were not animated by the style of general orders 
 usual on such occasions. They straggled and deserted almost 
 at will. An idea ran through the Virginia troops that with 
 the abandonment of Richmond the war was hopeless, and that 
 they would be justified in refusing to fight outside the limits 
 of their State. Nothing was done to check the notorious 
 
 * The looseness of historical statement in the North with reference to the 
 war is very remarkable. We must expect exaggeration and brag in Yankee 
 newspapers ; but in the magazine, pamphlet, report, and those deliberate forma 
 of literature, which stand between the daily paper and the bound volume, some 
 effort at accuracy of statement is to be expected. Yet we see in the columns 
 of a popuHr Northern magazine that Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court 
 house fifty thousand men! And this absurd statement is quite as likely to go 
 into Yankee history as any other absurd piece of statistics about the extent 
 and glory of Yankee conquests. 
 
508 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 circulation of this notion in the army. The Virginia troops 
 scattered off to their homes at almost every mile of the route, 
 We have seen that Pickett was left with only a handful 01 
 rnen. Some of the brigade commanders had not hesitated to 
 advise their men that the war was virtually over, and that they 
 had better go home and " make crops." 
 
 But there are other proofs, besides the omission of the 
 measures against straggling usual on retreats, that General 
 Lee had prevised a surrender of his army. He carried off from 
 Petersburg and Kichmond all the transportation of his army, 
 sufficient, perhaps, for one hundred thousand men, certainly 
 largely in excess of the actual needs of the retreat. The ex 
 cessive number of Virginia troops who were permitted to drop 
 out of the ranks and return to their homes, shows very well 
 that there was no firm purpose to carry the war out of the 
 limits of that State. Prisoners taken on the retreat invariably 
 reported that the army was soon to be halted for a surrender ; 
 and General Custis Lee, when captured by the enemy, is 
 alleged to have made the same revelation of his father s 
 designs. 
 
 While the pursuit of Lee s army by Grant s overwhelming 
 forces was still in progress, the following correspondence ensued 
 between the two commanders : 
 
 APRIL 7, 1865. 
 GENEBAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A. : 
 
 GENERAL The result of the last week must convince you 
 of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army 
 of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and 
 regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of 
 any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender 
 of that portion of the Confederate Southern army, known as 
 the Army of Northern Virginia. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. GRANT, 
 Lient.-Gen. commanding Armies of the United States 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 509 
 
 n. 
 
 APRIL 7, L865. 
 
 GENERAL I have received your note of this day. Though 
 not entirely of the opinion you express of the hopelessness ol 
 further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and 
 therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms 
 you will offer on condition of its surrender. 
 
 K. E. LEE, General. 
 To LIEUTENANT-GENERAL U. S. GRANT, 
 
 Commanding Annies of the United States. 
 
 in. 
 
 APRIL 8, 1865. 
 
 To GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A. : 
 
 GENERAL Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of 
 the same date, asking the coriditions on which I will accept 
 the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia is just re 
 ceived. 
 
 In reply, I would say, that peace being my first desire, there 
 is but one condition that I insist upon, viz. : 
 
 That the men surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up 
 arms again against the Government of the United States until 
 properly exchanged. 
 
 I will meet you, or designate officers to meet any officers 
 you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to 
 you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon 
 which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be 
 received. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General, 
 Commanding Armies of the United States. 
 
 IV. 
 
 APRIL 8, 1865. 
 
 GENERAL I received, at a late hour, your note of to-day in 
 answer to mine of yesterday. 
 
 I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of 
 Northern Virginia, but to ask the terras of your proi osition 
 
510 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call 
 for the surrender. 
 
 But as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of 
 all, I desire to know whether jour proposals would tend to 
 that end. 
 
 I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the 
 Army of Northern Virginia ; but so far as your proposition 
 may affect the Confederate States forces under my command 
 and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to 
 meet you at ten A. M. to-morrow, on the old stage-road to 
 Richmond, between the picket-lines of the two armies. 
 Yery respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 E. E. LEE, General C. S. A 
 Te LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 Commanding Armies of the United States. 
 
 V. 
 
 APRIL 9, 1805. 
 
 GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A. : 
 
 GENERAL Your note of yesterday is received. As I have 
 no authority to treat on the subject of peace, the meeting pro 
 posed for ten A. M. to-day could lead to no good. I will state, 
 however, General, that I am equally anxious for peace with 
 yourself; and the whole North entertain the same feeling. 
 The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. 
 By the South laying down their arms they will hasten that 
 most desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and 
 hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed. 
 
 Sincerely hoping that all our difficulties may be settled 
 without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself, 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. GRANT, 
 Lieutenant-General United States Army 
 
 APRIL 9, 1865. 
 
 GENERAL I received your note of this morning on the 
 picket-line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 511 
 
 definitely what terms were embraced in youi proposition of 
 yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. 
 
 I now request an interview in accordance with the ofi ei 
 contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 R. E. LKE, General. 
 To LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 Commanding Armies of the United States. 
 
 VII. 
 
 APRIL 9, 1865. 
 
 GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A. : 
 
 Your note of this date is but this moment, 11.50 A. M., re 
 ceived. 
 
 In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and 
 Lynchburg road to the Farmville and Lynchburg road, I am, 
 at this writing, about four miles west of Walter s Church, and 
 will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. 
 
 Notice sent to me on this road where you wish the interview 
 to take place, will meet me. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE, April 9, 1865 
 GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A.: 
 
 In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of tho 
 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army ol 
 Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit : 
 
 Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, 
 one copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other 
 to be retained by such officers as you may designate. 
 
 The officers to give their individual parole not to take arms 
 against the Government of the United States until properly 
 exchanged; and each company or regimental commander to 
 sign a like parole for the men of their commands. 
 
 The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and 
 Blacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to 
 receive them. 
 
512 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 Tin s will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their 
 private horses or baggage. 
 
 This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to 
 their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so 
 long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where 
 they may reside. 
 
 Yery respectfully, 
 
 U. S. GRANT, Lieu tenant-General. 
 
 IX. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April 9, 1865. 
 LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT, Commanding U. S. A. : 
 
 GENERAL I have received your letter ot this date, contain 
 ing the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
 as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as 
 those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they are accepted. 
 I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the 
 stipulations into effect. 
 
 Yery respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 R. E. LEE, General. 
 
 Thus in two days time, and by means of nine short letters, 
 was accomplished the decisive event of the war, and what in 
 fact was to prove its complete conclusion. 
 
 General Lee and General Grant had met at the house of Mr. 
 Wilmer McLean. The interview was very simple, and unat 
 tended by any ceremony. General Lee was attended only by 
 Colonel Marshal, one of his aids, while with Grant there were 
 several of his staff-officers ; and a number of Yankee generals 
 entered the room during the interview. The two commanders 
 greeted each other with courtesy, and without idle words or 
 dramatic flourishes proceeded at once and simply to business. 
 
 General Lee immediately alluded to the conditions of the 
 surrender, characterized them as lenient, and said he would 
 leave the details to General Grant s own discretion. General 
 Grant stated the terms of the parole ; that the arms should be 
 stacked, the artillery parked, and the supplies and munitions 
 turned over tr him, the officers retaining theii side-arms, 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 613 
 
 horses, and personal effects. General Lee promptly assented 
 to the conditions, and the agreement of surrender was engrossed 
 and signed by General Lee at half-past three o clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 A Yankee correspondent thus described the appearance oi 
 General Lee in this memorable interview : " General Lee 
 looked very much jaded and worn, but, nevertheless, presented 
 the same magnificent physique for which he has always been 
 noted. He was neatly dressed in gray cloth, without em 
 broidery or any insignia of rank, except three stars worn on 
 the turned portion of his coat-collar. His cheeks were very 
 much bronzed by exposure, but still shone ruddy underneath 
 it all. He is growing quite bald, and wears one of the side 
 locks of his hair thrown across the upper portion of his fore 
 head, which is as white and fair as a woman s. He stands 
 fully six feet one inch in height, and weighs something over 
 two hundred pounds, without being burdened with a pound of 
 superfluous flesh. During the whole interview he was retired 
 and dignified to a degree bordering on taciturnity, but was 
 free from all exhibition of temper or mortification. His do 
 meaner was that of a thoroughly possessed gentleman whc 
 had a very disagreeable duty to perform, but was determined 
 to get through it as well and as soon as he could." 
 
 It is to be fairly and cheerfully admitted that Genera. 
 Grant s conduct, with respect to all the circumstances of the 
 surrender, exhibited some extraordinary traits of magnanimity. 
 He had not dramatized the affair. He had conducted il 
 with as much simplicity as possible, avoided " sensation," and 
 spared every thing that might wound the feelings or imply 
 the humiliation of a vanquished foe. Such conduct was 
 noble. Before the surrender, General Grant had expressed to 
 his own officers his intention not to require the same for 
 malities as are required in a surrender between the forces of 
 two foreign nations or belligerent powers, and to exact no 
 conditions for the mere purpose of humiliation. 
 
 While the interview with reference to the surrender was 
 taking place between the commanders, a strange scene was 
 transpiring between the lines of the two armies, and occupied 
 the period of the armistice. An. informal conference and 
 mingling of officers of both armies gave to the streets of thr 
 
 ss 
 
514: SOUTHERN H1STOEY OP THE WAB. 
 
 village of Appomattox Court-house a strange appearance. On 
 the Yankee side were Generals Ord, Sheridan, Crook, Gib 
 bon, Griffin, Merritt, Ayres, Bartlett, Chamberlain, Forsyth, 
 and Michie. On the Confederate side were Generals Long- 
 street, Gordon, Heth, "Wilcox, and others. The conference 
 lasted some hour and a half. None but general officers were 
 allowed to pass through the skirmish line. There were mutual 
 introductions and shaking of hands ; and soon was passed about 
 Borne whiskey, and mutual healths were drank. Gradually the 
 area of the conference widened. The parties filled the streets, 
 and before this singular conference closed, some were seated on 
 the steps, and others, for lack of more comfortable accommo 
 dations, chatted cosily, seated on a contiguous fence. 
 
 Between the skirmish lines of the two armies there was a 
 great suspense, for it was felt that great interests were at stake 
 between them. Skirmish line confronted skirmish line, lines 
 of battle confronted lines of battle, cannon confronted cannon. 
 Eager hopes hung on the interview between the opposing 
 great commanders of the two armies. Peace might follow 
 this interview. It might end in resumption of hostilities, in 
 fiercest battle, in terrible carnage. The two armies were plainly 
 visible to one another. The Confederates skirted a strip of wood 
 in rear of the town. Through the vistas of the streets might 
 be seen their wagon-trains. The minutes passed but slowly. 
 The approach of every horseman attracted an eager look. Two 
 o clock had been appointed by Grant for the resumption of 
 hostilities. It arrived, and the Yankee skirmish line com 
 menced to advance. The Confederate pickets were in plain 
 eight, and stationary. A moment more, and the crack of the 
 rifle would indicate the resumption of carnage. But a clatter 
 of hoofs is heard, and a flag of truce appears upon the scene, 
 with an order from General Grant that hostilities should cease 
 until further orders. 
 
 After the interview at McLean s house, General Lee returned 
 to his own camp, about half a mile distant, where his leading 
 officers were assembled awaiting his return. He announced the 
 result, and the terms. They then approached him in order of 
 rank, shook hands, expressing satisfaction at his course and their 
 regret at parting, all shedding tears on the occasion. The fact 
 of surrender and the terms were then announced to the troops 
 

 THE LAST YEAR. 515 
 
 and when General Lee appeared among them he was loadlj 
 cheered. 
 
 At four o clock it was announced in Grant s army that the 
 surrender had been consummated, and the articles signed. 
 And now the enthusiasm which had been restrained by uncer 
 tainty broke loose. The various brigade commanders an 
 nounced the joyful news to their commands, and cheers of the 
 wildest description followed. The men threw their hats high 
 in the air, leaped, ran, jumped, threw themselves into each 
 other s arms, and seemed mad with joy. 
 
 But this scene of joy was but slight in comparison with 
 what was taking place in distant parts of the North, where the 
 news of the surrender had been carried by the telegraph. Sec 
 retary Stan ton, in Washington, immediately telegraphed an 
 order to the headquarters of every army and department, and 
 to every fort and arsenal in the United States, to fire a salute 
 of two hundred guns in celebration of the event. To Grant he 
 dispatched : " Thanks be to Almighty God for the great vic 
 tory with which He has this day crowned you and the gallant 
 armies under your command. The thanks of this department, 
 and of the Government, and of the people of the United States 
 their reverence and honor have been deserved will be ren 
 dered to you and the brave and gallant officers and soldiers 01 
 your army for all time." 
 
 The clerks of the departments, in "Washington, went in pro 
 cession to the President s house, and entertained him with the 
 " Star Spangled Banner" and " Old Hundred." A crowd of 
 several thousands were soon assembled in front of the executive 
 mansion. They shouted for Mr Lincoln. The President tes 
 tified his participation in the joy by calling for the once popular 
 secession song of " Dixie." He said : " I have always thought 
 that Dixie was one of the best songs I ever heard. Our ad 
 versaries over the way, I know, have attempted to appropriate 
 it ; but I insist that on yesterday we fairly captured it. I re 
 ferred the question to the attorney-general, and he gave it as hia 
 legal opinion that it is now our property. (Laughter and loud 
 applause.) I now ask the band to give us a good turn upon it." 
 
 The day after the surrender General Lee bid farewell to his 
 army in the following simple address, so characteristic of his 
 plain and manly style of writing : 
 
516 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 GENERAL ORDER NO. 9. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN 
 April 10, 1865. 
 
 After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and for 
 titude, tho Army of Northern Virginia lias been compelled to yield to over 
 whelming numbers and resources. 
 
 I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have re 
 mained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no dis 
 trust of them ; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing 
 that could compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuation 
 of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose 
 past services have endeared them to their countrymen. 
 
 By the terms of agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and 
 remain there until exchanged. 
 
 You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness 
 of duty faithfully performed ; and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will 
 extend to you his blessing and protection. 
 
 With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your coun 
 try, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of 
 myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell 
 
 R. E. LEE, General. 
 
 A few days after the surrender, General Lee, attended bj 
 five members of his staff, rode into Richmond over the pontoon 
 bridge at the foot of Seventeenth-street, and thence up Main 
 street to his residence on Franklin-street between Seventh and 
 Eighth streets. 
 
 Passing rapidly through the city he was recognized by but 
 few citizens, who raised their hats, a compliment which waa 
 in every case returned ; but on nearing his residence, the fact 
 of his presence having spread quickly, a great crowd rushed to 
 see him, and set up a loud cheering, to which he replied by 
 simply raising his hat. As he descended from his horse, a 
 large number of persons pressed forward and shook hands with 
 him. In a few moments the General made his way into his 
 house, the crowd dispersed, and thus quietly passed from the 
 theatre of action and public observation the great and famous 
 commander of the Army of Northern Yirginia. 
 
 The surrender of General Lee drew after it important and 
 rapid consequences, and, in effect, terminated the war. 
 
 It left Johnston with no alternative but surrender. On the 
 26th of April, by the official returns of the Army of Tennessee, 
 
THE LAST YEAH. 517 
 
 the number of infantry and artillery, present and absent, was 
 seventy- thousand five hundred and ten ; the total present, 
 eighteen thousand five hundred and seventy-eight; the ef 
 fective fighting force, fourteen thousand one hundred and 
 seventy-nine. The effective total of the cavalry was only a 
 a little over five thousand. These statistics afford a startling 
 exhibition of the demoralization of the Confederates, and 01 
 the amount of that offence in our armies mildly called " ab 
 senteeism ;" but for which, in military language, there could 
 be no name but desertion. 
 
 The limits of Johnston s command included North and South 
 Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In the distant districts of his 
 department the situation was even more deplorable and des 
 perate than in the vicinity of Raleigh. In South Carolina the 
 Confederates had only a division of cavalry, less than one 
 thousand, and in Florida they were as weak. 
 
 In General Dick Taylor s department there had been disas 
 trous events. Mobile had fallen, and there were no means ot 
 opposing the formidable Yankee army under General Canby. 
 
 MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHWEST. FALL OF MOBILE, ETC. 
 
 The operations against this city had been renewed late in 
 March, when two corps of Canby s army invested the Spanish 
 Fort, one of the principal defences on the east side of the bay. 
 The design of this renewal of operations against Mobile was to 
 give the crowning stroke to the system of Confederate defence 
 in the Southwest. After Hood s defeat before Nashville, Gen 
 eral Thomas indicated to the Washington authorities that he 
 would not, on account of the state of the roads and for other 
 reasons, be able to enter immediately upon another campaign. 
 But he offered to co-operate with General Canby by sending 
 to the latter one-half of his infantry force, and almost all his 
 cavalry, the former under the command of General A. J. 
 Smith, the latter under General Wilson. 
 
 In addition to these movements, another column of Yankee 
 troops under Steele had left Pensacola, Florida, on the 20th of 
 March, arrived in front of Mobile, and opened communication 
 with General Canby s force. On his march General Steele had 
 
518 SOUTHEKN HISTORf OF THE WAJR. 
 
 considerable skirmishing, but met with no serious opposition 
 His command arrived on the 22d of April, having cut the Mo 
 bile and Montgomery Railroad near Pollard. 
 
 On the 8th of April, an extraordinary force was brought to 
 bear upon Spanish Fort. Twenty-two Parrott guns were got 
 within half a mile of the work, while other powerful batteries 
 were still nearer. Two gunboats joined in the tremendous 
 cannonade. The result was, that the fort surrendered a little 
 after midnight. Fort Alexandria followed, and the guns ot 
 these two were turned against Forts Tracy and Huger, in the 
 harbor, at the mouth of the Blakely and Appalachee rivers. 
 But these had already been abandoned. The monitors then 
 went busily to work removing torpedoes, and ran up to within 
 shelling distance of the city. On the 12th of April the city 
 of Mobile was occupied by the Yankee forces, General Maury, 
 the Confederate commander, having evacuated the city with 
 the bulk of his army. 
 
 In the mean time Wilson s movements were completing the 
 plan of subjugation in the Southwest. His cavalry force had 
 moved almost unresisted through the Southwest, captured 
 Selma, in Alabama, were already in the vicinity of Macon 
 Georgia, and might easily calculate upon the capture of every 
 place of importance west of Augusta. 
 
 Selma was occupied by the Yankee forces on the 2d 01 
 April. The first resistance met by the enemy s forces was at 
 Monticello, where, after a short engagement, they continued to 
 advance. On the 1st of April, Forrest, Lyon, and Chalmers 
 having formed a junction, the first named took command, and 
 the Confederates again made a stand, and were driven back 
 with loss. They then retreated to Selma, where an obstinate 
 defence was prepared for. On the next day, the 2d of April, 
 Wilson moved to the attack of the place, and after about an 
 hour of severe fighting, the fortifications were carried by as 
 sault, and his troops entered the town, capturing over two 
 thousand prisoners, one hundred cannon, large numbers of 
 horfes and mules, and immense quantities of supplies, ammu 
 nition, etc. Besides these, there fell into the enemy s posses* 
 eion millions of dollars worth of cotton, a large arsenal, naval 
 iron-works and other manufactories, all of which were de 
 stroyed 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 519 
 
 Mcntgomery, the first Confederate capital, was peaceably 
 surrendered on the 12th. Columbus, Georgia, was captured 
 on the 16th. Macon was approached on the 21st. Here "Wil 
 son was met by a flag of truce from Howell Cobb, announcing 
 an armistice between Sherman and Johnston. 
 
 The survey of the situation south of Virginia leads to the 
 conclusion that to carry on the war east of the Mississippi the 
 Confederacy had to depend on Johnston s army alone. The 
 enemy could have brought against it twelve or fifteen times its 
 number in the armies of Generals Grant, Sherman, and Can- 
 by. With such odds against us, without the means of procur 
 ing ammunition or repairing arms, without money or credit to 
 provide food, it; was thought by Johnston impossible to con 
 tinue the war with any reasonable hope of success. 
 
 SURRENDER OF JOHNSTON S ARMY. 
 
 This conclusion the Confederate commander announced to 
 the governors of the States within his department by telegraph 
 as follows : 
 
 " The disaster in Virginia, the capture by the enemy of all our workshop* 
 for the preparation of ammunition and repairing of arms, the impossibility 01 
 recruiting our little army, opposed to more than ten times its number, or sup 
 plying it except by robbing our own citizens, destroyed all hope of successful 
 war. I have, therefore, made a military convention with Major-General Sher 
 man to terminate hostilities in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 
 I made this convention to spare the blood of this gallant little army, to pre 
 vent further suffering of our people by the devastation and ruin inevitable from 
 the marches of invading armies, and to avoid the crime of waging a hopeless 
 
 Johnston had at first made an attempt to obtain terms to 
 give security to citizens as well as to his own soldiers. The 
 first result of his negotiations with Sherman was a basis of 
 agreement, which that Yankee commander declared in a cir 
 cular address was to secure instant peace in all parts of the 
 country, and would involve the surrender of every battalion 
 of Confederates within the limits of the United States. Thn 
 following is a copy of the important paper signed by the com 
 nianders of the two armies : 
 
5ilO SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 MEMORANDUM, OR BASIS OF AGREEMENT, made this eighteenth day of April 
 A. D., J865, near Durham Station, in the State of North Carolina, by and be. 
 tween General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding Confederate Army, and 
 ulajor-General W. T. Sherman, commanding Army of the United States, in 
 North Carolina, both being present : 
 
 1. The contending armies now in the field to maintain the status quo, until 
 notice is given by the commanding general of any one to its opponent, and 
 reasonable time, say forty-eight hours, allowed. 
 
 2. The Confederate armies now in existence to be disbanded, and conducted 
 to their several state capitals, therein to deposit their arms and public property 
 In the state arsenal, and each officer and man to execute and file an agreement 
 to cease from acts of war, and to abide the action of both State and Federal 
 authorities. The number of arms and munitions of war to be reported to the 
 chief of ordnance at Washington City, subject to the future action of the Con 
 gress of the United States, and in the mean time to be used solely to maintain 
 peace and order within the borders of the States respectively. 
 
 3. The recognition by the Executive of the United States of the several State 
 governments, on their officers and legislatures taking the oath prescribed by 
 the constitution of the United States ; and where conflicting State govern 
 ments have resulted from the war, the legitimacy of all shall be* submitted to 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 4. The re-establishment of all federal courts in the several States, with 
 powers as defined by the constitution and laws of Congress. 
 
 5. The people and inhabitants of all these States to be guaranteed, so far as 
 the Executive can, their political rights and franchises, as well as their rights 
 of person and property, as defined by the constitution of the United States 
 and of the States respectively. 
 
 6. The executive authority of the Government of the United States not to 
 disturb any of the people by reason of the late war, so long as they live in 
 peace and quiet and abstain from acts of armed hostility, and obey the laws 
 In existence at the place of their residence. 
 
 7. In general terms, the war to cease a general amnesty, so far as the 
 Executive of the United States can command, on the condition of the disband- 
 ment of the Confederate armies, distribution of the arms, and the resumption 
 of peaceable pursuits by the officers and men hitherto composing said armies. 
 
 Not being duly empowered by our respective principals to fulfil these terras, 
 we individually and officially pledge ourselves to promptly obtain an answer 
 thereto, and to carry out the above programme. 
 
 W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General, 
 
 Commanding Army U. S. in N. C. 
 J. E. JOHNSTON, General, 
 
 Commanding C. S. A. in N. C. 
 
 Sherman s vivid vision of restoring " peace to the banks ot 
 the Ilio Grande" did not take at Washington. The announce 
 ment there of the nature and terms of Ins conference with 
 Johnston was the signal for the outpouring of such censure 
 .nd denunciation as required all his military reputation to 
 
THE LAST*" YEAR. 5ljj 
 
 withstand. In fact, Sherman had committed the unpardonable 
 offence of attempting to substitute for the idea of subjugation 
 that of a restored Union ; and it was easy enough now to see 
 that the profession of the latter purpose had all along been 
 nothing more than the mask of the real designs of the Wash 
 ington Government, which would be content with nothing 
 short of the abolition of slaver} in the South, the extinction of 
 the State governments, or their reduction to provisional estab 
 lishments, and the programme of a general confiscation of 
 property. The President rejected Sherman s terms; the de 
 partment disallowed them, and General Grant, although a 
 warm personal friend of Sherman, disapproved them. 
 
 It was fiercely argued by the Washington authorities that 
 the terms proposed by Sherman would bring the war to naught; 
 that if the State governments were re-established in the South, 
 they might re-enact slavery, and set up a power in defiance of 
 the General Government ; and that it was the madness of gen 
 erosity to abolish the confiscation laws, and relieve " rebels" 
 from all pains and penalties for their crimes. 
 
 General Sherman replied to the censures uttered or instigated 
 at Washington, by including in the official report of his cam 
 paign an elaborate justification of his course in entering upon 
 the convention with Johnston which was disavowed by the 
 Government. The substance of his defence was, that General 
 Johnston wished, in addition to the terms granted to General 
 Lee, some general concessions that would enable him to con 
 trol his followers until they could be got back to the neighbor 
 hood of their homes, thereby saving North Carolina from the 
 devastation which would result from turning the men loose 
 and unprovided for, and by the pursuit of these scattered bodies 
 through the State. All of Sherman s generals were in favor 
 of his granting, as far as lay in his power, such concessions. 
 At the next meeting Sherman stated that Johnston satisfied 
 him that he had power to disband all the Confederate armies, 
 as well as those under his own immediate command. What 
 the Confederate commander especially dreaded was, that the 
 States would be dismembered and deprived of any political 
 existence, and that the absolute disarming of his men would 
 leave the South powerless and exposed to the depredations of 
 assassins and robbers. " In any case," concluded Sherman, 
 
522 SOUTHERN" HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 " the memorandum was a mere basis for reference to the Pres 
 ident, to enable him, if he chose, at one blow to dissipate the 
 power of the Confederacy, which had threatened the national 
 safety for years. It admitted of modification, alteration, and 
 change. It had no appearance of an ultimatum, and by no 
 false reasoning can it be construed into a usurpation of powers 
 on my part." 
 
 The dissatisfaction at Washington with Sherman s conduct 
 was so extreme, that Grant was ordered to proceed at once to 
 North Carolina, to take control of Sherman s army, and to 
 force Johnston to an immediate and unconditional surrender. 
 In this instance, Grant again showed that magnanimity which 
 seems to have been largely developed in the hours of hia 
 triumph, and in the last scenes of the war at a time, indeed, 
 when the true character of the popular hero is most surely 
 tested. In the most fortunate period of the life of any living 
 man in America, Grant was not intoxicated by vanity or 
 conceit. He was incapable of an attempt upon the reputation 
 of a rival. He went to North Carolina, but he kept the opera 
 tions in the hands of Sherman. He insisted upon giving him 
 the honor of concluding the final negotiations with Johnston 
 and receiving his surrender. It was concluded on the sanio 
 terms as had been conceded to General Lee. 
 
 On the 4th of May, General Dick Taylor surrendered to 
 General Canby all " the forces, munitions of war, etc., in the 
 Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana." 
 The negotiations for this surrender took place at Citronville, 
 Alabama. The terms were essentially the same as those ac 
 corded to Johnston : officers and men to be paroled until duly 
 exchanged or otherwise released by the United States ; officers 
 to give their individual paroles ; commanders of regiments and 
 companies to sign paroles for their men ; arms and munitions 
 to be given up to the United States ; officers and men to be 
 allowed to return to their homes, and not to be molested so 
 long as they kept their paroles, and obeyed the laws where 
 they reside, but persons resident in Northern States not to 
 
THE LAST YEAK. 523 
 
 return without permission ; officers to be allowed to retain their 
 side arms, private horses, and baggage; horses, the private 
 property of enlisted men, not to be taken from them, but they 
 to be allowed to retain them for private purposes only. This 
 surrender virtually involved that of the Confederate vessels 
 blockaded in the Tombigbee River. 
 
 SURRENDER OF KIRBY SMITH S ARMY. 
 
 In the first days of May, 1865, all the Confederate forces 
 east of the Mississippi River had been surrendered. But west 
 of that stream, in Western Louisiana and Texas, there remained 
 a considerable force of Confederates, under command of 
 General E. Kirby Smith. There was yet a prospect that the 
 war might be continued there for some indefinite period. The 
 country was ill adapted for the advance of an invading army. 
 The fortune of the Confederate arms in the Trans-Mississippi 
 had been superior, in the average of successes, to that east 01 
 the river ; because there our forces, not tied down to any par 
 ticular cities or forts, or any particular line of defence which 
 indeed had been the cardinal error in the general system of the 
 Confederate warfare had fought as opportunity occurred, and 
 generally on ground of their own selection. 
 
 When the news of Lee s surrender first reached Kirby Smith, 
 he issued, from his headquarters at Shreveport, a stirring gen 
 eral order to his troops. He reminded them that they had the 
 means of long resisting invasion ; he declared that they had 
 hopes of succor from abroad ; he promised them that if they 
 protracted the struggle, they would surely receive the aid of 
 nations who already deeply sympathized with them. He 
 said : 
 
 "The great resources of the department, its vast extent, the 
 numbers, discipline, and the efficiency of the army, will secure 
 to our country terms that a proud people can with honor 
 accept, and may, under the providence of God, be the means 
 of checking the triumph of our enemy, and securing the final 
 success of our cause." 
 
 War meetings were held in different parts of Texas. At 
 Houston, General Magruder addressed the citizens ; he declared 
 
524: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 that lie was not at all discouraged by the position of affairs ; 
 ar d he ended by protesting that he had rather be a " Camanche 
 Indian" than bow the knee to the Yankees. In Washington 
 County, the citizens submitted to the military authorities a pro 
 position that every white male over the age of thirteen years 
 should be called into the army; that every male slave should 
 be brought in with his master; and that every white female 
 should be provided with arms. Resolutions and plans of this 
 sort were rife for some weeks in Texas. 
 
 But these were but spasmodic expressions of the public 
 mind in the first moments of disappointment and rage; they 
 lacked resolution and steadiness. When Kirby Smith published 
 his address at Shreveport, the extent of the disasters east of 
 the Mississippi River was not fully known. When it was fully 
 known, a demoralization, which it was impossible to check, 
 quickly ensued in Smith s army, and involved most of the 
 people of Texas. His force was daily wasting away by deser 
 tions, and it had received but few accessions from across the 
 Mississippi. On the 23d of May, he sent officers to General 
 Canby, at Baton Rouge, to negotiate terms of surrender. 
 These were agreed upon on the 26th of May, and were such as 
 had been conceded to the other Confederate forces.* 
 
 With this act there passed from the great stage of the war 
 the last armed Confederate. The last action of the war had 
 been a skirmish near Brazos, in Texas. Peace now reigned 
 from the Potomac to Rio Grande. 
 
 Contrary to the plausible expectations of those who supposed 
 that if the war went adverse to the South, it would drag out 
 its last terms in irregular fighting in mountain warfare, and 
 such desultory contests, complete and profound peace fell 
 
 * On the 1st of June, General Brown, commanding the Yankee forces, 
 occupied and garrisoned Brownsville. On the 2d of June, Generals Kirby 
 Smith and Magruder met, in the harbor of Galveston, General A. J. Smith, 
 representing Major-General Canby, and General Kirby Smith then and there 
 signed the terms of surrender previously agreed on at New Orleans. On the 
 fith of June, full and formal possession of Galveston was delivered up to the 
 Yankee forces, and the flag of the Union raised. On the 8th of June, Admiral 
 Thatcher went ashore, and was received by the Confederate naval and 
 military authorities, who requested a part of the United States naval force to 
 remain there for their protection. General Sheridan was subsequently 
 assigned to command in Texas, and the blockade of Galveston raised. 
 
THE LAST YEAR. 525 
 
 upon the Confederacy as the calm after the hurricane. " Sur 
 render" was the word, as the news of Lee s disaster travelled 
 from point to point, from camp to camp, in the Confederacy. 
 The quick succession of these surrenders the suddenness and 
 completeness of the catastrophe show plainly enough that 
 there was a widely spread rottenness in the affairs of the Con 
 federacy, and that its cause went down :n a general demoraliza 
 tion of the arnr r and people. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX No. I. 
 
 AMERICAN IDEAS: THE KEYS TO THE HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 I. 
 
 Political Iconoclasm in America. The two idols of " the Constitution" and " the 
 Union." Extravagant praises of the Constitution. Its true value. It contained a 
 noble principle and glaring defects. Character of the founders of the Constitution. 
 Hamilton. Franklin. His cookery-book philosophy. His absurdities in the 
 Convention. The cull for the Convention that formed the Constitution. Three 
 parties in the Convention. The idea of a " national" government. Conflict be 
 tween the small and large States. The result of this, the distinguishing feature of 
 the Constitution. That feature an accident, and not an a priori discovery. Enu 
 meration of defects in the Constitution. The weakness and ignorance of its framcrs. 
 Its one conspicuous virtue and original principle. Combination of State-righU 
 with a common authority. How involved in the construction of the Senate. How 
 made more precise in the Amendments. Particulars in which the element of tk 
 States was recognized. A new rule of construction applied to the American Union. 
 The necessity which originated it. The Constitution of the United States not a 
 political revolution. The creature of the States. True interpretation of its moral 
 grandeur. The bond of the Union a voluntary one. No mission apart from the 
 States. Why coercion of the States was not necessary. How the Union stood 
 for an American nationality. Its power to reach individuals. The Union, in 
 practice, rather a rough companionship than a national identity. Right of seces 
 sion. Not necessary to discuss it. The development of the Union a North and 
 South, and not disintegrated States. Profound invention of Calhoun of South Car 
 olina. How it was a Union measure, and not " Nullification." 
 
 AN effect of great civil commotions in the history of a peo 
 ple is to liberate reason, and to give to intelligence the oppor 
 tunity to assert itself against the traditions and political 
 idolatries of the past. Such a period is essentially one of 
 political iconoclasm the breaking of idols which we find we 
 have heretofore unduly cherished, and with it the recovery 
 from the delusions of an unworthy and traditional worship. 
 When there is little in the present to interest men, and their 
 
 84 
 
530 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 lives are passed in an established routine, it is natural for them 
 to exaggerate and to adorn the past. But when the present 
 has its own historical convulsion, it is then that men find new 
 standards with which to judge the past, and a period in which 
 rightly to estimate it, destroying or dwarfing, it is true, much 
 that before claimed their admiration or enchained their wor 
 ship ; but, on the other hand, ofttimes exalting what before 
 had had an obscure and degraded place in popular estimation. 
 It is in such periods that the native historian of his country 
 finds the justest time for determining the correct value of the 
 past, arid distinguishing between what were its mere idols, and 
 what should have been its true aspirations. 
 
 It is thus, from the stand-point of the recent great war in 
 America, that one may justly contemplate the true value of 
 its past history, measure correctly its great men of a former 
 period, and master the delusions of an old political idolatry. 
 The world knows how before this war the people of North 
 America had, for nearly three-quarters of a century, wor- 
 ehipped, as its two political idols, the Federal constitution and 
 the Union of States formed under it. Looking back at these 
 from the present period in American history, which has freed 
 us from the restraints of mere sentiment and tradition, he who 
 thus makes the calm and intelligent retrospect is astonished to 
 find what extravagance and delusion were in the minds of 
 these worshippers, and what acts of devotion were made to 
 what were ofttimes but gilded images of clay. 
 
 For two generations of men, the almost miraculous wisdom 
 of the Federal constitution of America has been preached and 
 exclaimed, until it was thought to be political blasphemy to 
 impugn it. Its praises were hymned by poets. The public 
 orator was listened to with impatience who had not some ex 
 aggerated tribute to pay to the sacred virtues of what Daniel 
 Webster called the consti-itew-tion. and the almost angelic 
 excellence of " the forefathers" who had framed it. It was 
 seriously asserted, that in this instrument had been combined 
 the political wisdom of all ages, and that it was the epitome 
 of the human science of government. The insolent heights to 
 which this extravagance arose were astounding. The world s 
 last hopes of good government were said to be contained- in 
 these dozen pages of printed matter. 
 
APPENDIX. 531 
 
 Unhappily for such hopes, or for such boasts, we are now at 
 i period when we may estimate the right value of this won 
 derful constitution, and take the severe judgment of history 
 upon it. We may now dare to state that judgment briefly: 
 it is, that never did a political instrument contain, from the 
 necessity of its circumstances, a nobler principle, or present 
 the folly and ignorance of men in more glaring defects, than did 
 the Federal constitution of the United States. 
 
 It is no longer required, by the political fashion of the times, 
 for an American to say, that the men who formed this consti 
 tution were either intellectual giants or wonderful scholars. 
 Beyond a few names such as Randolph and Patrick Henry, 
 " the forest-born Demosthenes," of Virginia, Pinckney and 
 Luther Martin, of Maryland, Hamilton, of New York, and 
 Franklin, of Pennsylvania the Convention which formed this 
 instrument may be described as a company of very plain men, 
 but little instructed in political science, who, in their debates, 
 showed sometimes the crudities and chimeras of ignorant re 
 form, and exhibited more frequently a loose ransacking of 
 history for precedents and lessons, such as rather might have 
 been expected in a club of college sophomores than in a council 
 of statesmen. 
 
 The two last names mentioned on the list of distinction in 
 the Convention Hamilton and Franklin may be taken as ex 
 amples of the American exaggeration of their public men, 
 which, indeed, more peculiarly belonged to the people of the 
 Northern States that division of the American people which 
 after-events have classified as Yankees. Hamilton, who had a 
 school of his own in the Convention, was readily exalted as an 
 idol by the party which he so early begot in the history of his 
 country. The man who was honored by pageants and proces 
 sions in the streets of New York, at the close of the Conven 
 tion, must be declared, by the just and unimpassioned historian, 
 to have been superficial as a statesman, and defective as a 
 scholar. He had, indeed, neither the intuition of genius, nor 
 the power of analysis. He was a man of little mind. But he 
 had studied a peculiar style in writing, which Washington was 
 weak enough to take for a model, and, it is said, sometimes 
 appropriated. There was no point or sharp edges in the style 
 either of Alexander Hamilton or George Washington. Both 
 
532 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 wrote and spoke in those long sentences in which common 
 places are pompously dressed up, and in which the sense is so 
 overlaid with qualifications that it is almost impossible to 
 probe it. But Washington made no pretensions to literature 
 and scholarship, while Hamilton had no titles to fame other 
 than these. And in these it must be confessed that he had 
 scarcely any other merit than that of a smooth constructer of 
 words, a character which with the vulgar often passes for both 
 orator and statesman. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin was thoroughly a representative Yankee, 
 the first clear-cut type we recognize in history of that material 
 ism, coarse selfishness, pelf, low cunning, and commercial 
 smartness, which passes with the contemporary Yankee as the 
 truest philosophy and highest aim of life. It is alike curious 
 and amusing to examine the grounds of estimation in the minds 
 of his countrymen, which conferred the high-sounding title of 
 philosopher on an old gentleman in blue stockings, who, in 
 France, was the butt of the Parisian wits, and who left a legacy 
 of wisdom to posterity in the " Mtvxim.s of Poor Richard? 
 How many modern Yankees have been educated in the school 
 of the "Maxims" of Franklin it would be difficult to over-esti 
 mate. If a gross and materialistic value of things is to pass 
 as " philosophy ;" if the hard maxims of selfishness, and the 
 parings of penuriousness, such as "Poor Kichard" dins to 
 American youth, do really contain the true lessons and mean 
 ing of life, then we may declare, in the phrases of Yankee ad 
 miration, that Benjamin Franklin was a philosopher and a sage, 
 who eclipsed all other lights in the world, and u whipped tho 
 universe." But really, after all, may we not doubt the value of 
 this cookery-book philosophy of smart things ; think it doubt 
 ful whether the mighty problem of how pence make pounds, 
 be the largest or best part of human wisdom ; and conclude 
 that Benjamin Franklin, though not the greatest celebrity 
 America has ever produced, was neither worse nor belter 
 than a representative Yankee. 
 
 We are almost inclined to laugh at the part which this queer 
 figure acted in the Convention which formed the constitution 
 of the United States. No member had irore clap-traps in the 
 way of political inventions. His ignorance of political science 
 and of popular motives was alike profound ; and we find him 
 
APPENDIX. 533 
 
 pro] osing to govern the country after a fashion scarcely less 
 beautiful and less practicable than the Republic of Plato and 
 the Arcadia of Sydney. He thought that magistrates might 
 serve the public from patriarchal affection or for the honor 
 of titles. He quoted in the Convention a maxim that sounds 
 curiously enough to American ears : that u in all cases of public 
 service, the less profit, the greater honor." He was in favor 
 of the nonsense of a plural executive. He insisted in the Con 
 vention on the practicability of "finding three or four men in 
 all the United States with public spirit enough to bear sitting 
 in peaceful council, for perhaps an equal term, merely to pre 
 side over our civil concerns, and see that our laws were duly 
 executed." Such was the political sagacity of this person, 
 who, it must be confessed, made what reputation he had rather 
 in the handbooks of Yankee economy than iu monuments of 
 statesmanship. 
 
 But we shall find a better key to the real value of the con- 
 fititution in a summary review of its debates, than in a portrait 
 ure, however interesting, of the men who composed it. The 
 Convention of delegates assembled from the different States at 
 Philadelphia, on the second Monday in May, 1787, had met on 
 a blind errand. They had been called by Congress, "for the 
 sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confedera 
 tion, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures 
 euch alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed 
 to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal 
 constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the 
 preservation of the Union." 
 
 This singularly confused language, in the call of the Conven 
 tion, naturally gave rise to differences of opinion. One party 
 in the Convention representing what was known as the New 
 Jersey proposition took the ground that its power was limited 
 to a mere revision and amendment of the existing Articles of 
 Confederation : that it was, therefore, necessary to take the 
 present federal system as the basis of action, to proceed upon 
 terms of the federal equality of the States; in short, to remedy 
 the defects of the existing government, not to supplant it. 
 Ham il ton and his party were for a new and violent system of 
 reform. They were said to favor the establisment of a mon 
 archy. The extent to which this was true is, that they were in 
 
534 SOUTHERN HISIOEY OF THE WAB. 
 
 favor of the annihilation of the State governments and the perma 
 nent tenure of public offices. A third party in. the Conventioi 
 avoided both extremes, insisted upon a change of the federa 
 principle, and proposed a " national" government, in the sense 
 of a supreme power with respect to certain objects eommor- 
 between the States, and committed to it, and which would 
 have some kind of direct compulsory action upon individuals 
 The word " national" was used only in this limited sense. The 
 great defect of the existing Confederation was, that it had nc 
 power to reach individuals, and thus enforce its decrees. The 
 proposed Union, or " national" government, was to be a league 
 of States, but with power to reach individuals ; and yet these 
 only in certain severely defined respects, and through powers 
 expressly delegated by the States. In the nature of things, this 
 power could not act upon the States collectively ; that is, nofc 
 in the usual and peaceful mode in which governments are con 
 ducted. All that was claimed for it, and all that could b<~ 
 claimed for it, was to reach individuals in those specification*- 
 of authority that the States should make to it. 
 
 The plan of this party was no sooner developed in the Con 
 vention than it met the furious opposition of the smalle* 
 States. It was declared by Luther Martin, that those who 
 advocated it " wished to establish such a system as could give 
 their own States undue power and influence in the government 
 over the other States." Both Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, and 
 Mr. Pinckney, of Maryland, who had brought before the 
 Convention drafts of the plan referred to, agreed that the 
 members of the Senate should be elected by the House of 
 Representatives ; thus, in effect, giving to the larger States 
 power to construct the Senate as they chose. Mr. Randolph 
 had given additional offence to the smaller States. He pro 
 posed that, instead of an equal vote by States, " the right of 
 suffrage in the National Legislature ought to be proportioned 
 to the quotas of contribution, or to the-number of free inhabit 
 ants." 
 
 There was thus excited in the Convention a jealousy between 
 the larger and smaller States; the former insisting upon a 
 preponderating influence in both houses of the National 
 Legislature, and the latter insisting on an equality of repre 
 sentation in each house. This jealous controversy is tracked 
 
APPENDIX. 5 "5 
 
 tLrough the debates of the Convention. It proceeded to a 
 degree of warmth and anger in which the Convention was on 
 the point of dissolution. When the vote was taken, five States 
 were for an equality of representation and five against it. At 
 this critical period, a conference committee was appointed. It 
 resulted in a compromise ; the opponents of an unequal repre 
 sentation agreeing to yield their objections to it in the lower 
 House, provided its advocates would pledge themselves to 
 support an equal representation in the Senate : and on this 
 basis of agreement was reared the constitution of the United 
 States of America. 
 
 The reader must observe here, that the great distinguishing 
 feature of this constitution, the peculiar virtue of the American 
 system namely, the mixed representation of the people and 
 the States was purely the result of a jealousy between the 
 larger and the smaller States, the fruit of an accident. It 
 contained the true virtue of a political instrument, which, as 
 we shall see, was otherwise full of faults and glaring with 
 defects. It was that in which it was original. But it was 
 not an a priori discovery. It was not the result of the wisdom 
 of our ancestors. History abounds in instances where acci 
 dental or empirical settlements have afterwards been discovered 
 to contain great elements of wisdom and virtue ; and it has 
 been natural and pleasing for succeeding generations to ac 
 count these rather as the result of human reason and prescience, 
 than as the product of blind circumstances. But we are forced 
 to confess, that in that great political novelty of the American 
 system in which the world was to see, for the first timo 
 combined and harmonized, the principle of geographical 
 sovereignties with that of a confederate unity, which, for 
 certain purposes, was to stand for national identity the 
 " wisdom" of our forefathers had no part, but acted uncon 
 sciously under the pressure of circumstances, or the direction 
 of divine Providence. 
 
 This statement is not pleasant to American vanity. But 
 it is due to the truth of history. It is highly probable that 
 the framers of the constitution did not fully comprehend the 
 importance of the principles of the combination of State 
 sovereignty with that of the simple republic on which they 
 had stumbled. If t>hey had, it might be supposed that they 
 
636 SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 would have defined with a much severer accuracy the political 
 relations of the States and the General Government ; for it 
 has been for the want of such accuracy that room has been 
 found, at least for disputation, and the creation of two po 
 litical parties, which have run through the whole of American 
 history. 
 
 And here it is we must turn from the consideration of that 
 principle in the constitution which was its distinctive feature 
 and its saving virtue, to view briefly the enormous defects and 
 omissions of an instrument that has shared so much of the 
 undue admiration of mankind. 
 
 It is impossible to resist the thought, that the framers of the 
 constitution were so much occupied with the controversy of 
 jealousy between the large and the. small States that they over 
 looked many great and obvious questions of government, 
 which have since been fearfully developed in the political 
 history of America. Beyond the results and compromises of 
 that jealousy, the debates and the work of the Convention show 
 one of the most wonderful blanks that has, perhaps, ever 
 occurred in the political inventions of civilized mankind. 
 They left behind them a list of imperfections in political pre 
 science, a want of provision for the exigencies of their country, 
 gxich as has seldom been known in the history of mankind. 
 
 A system of negro servitude existed in some of the States. 
 It was an object of no solicitude in the Convention. The only 
 references in the constitution to it are to be found in a provision 
 in relation to the rendition of fugitives " held to service or 
 labor," and in a mixed and empirical rule of popular represen 
 tation. However these pro visions may imply the true status 
 of slavery, how much is it to be regretted that the Convention 
 did not make (what might have been made so easily) an ex 
 plicit declaration on the subject, that would have put it beyond 
 the possibility of dispute, and removed it from even the 
 plausibilities of party controversy ! 
 
 For many years the very obvious question of the power of 
 the General Government to make " internal improvements" 
 has agitated the councils of America ; and yet there is no text 
 in the constitution to regulate a matter which should have 
 
 O 
 
 .stared its authors in the face, but what may be derived, by 
 
APPENDIX. 537 
 
 the most forced and distant construction, from the powers of 
 Congress " to regulate commerce," and to u declare war," and 
 u raise and support armies." 
 
 For a longer period, and with a fierceness once almost fatal 
 to the Union, has figured in the politics of America, " the 
 tariff question," a contest between a party for revenue arid a 
 party for protective prohibitions. Both parties have fought 
 over that vague platitude of the constitution, the power of 
 Congress " to regulate commerce ;" and in the want of a more 
 distinct language on a subject of such vast concern, there has 
 been engendered a controversy which lias progressed from the 
 threshold of the history of the Union up to the period of its 
 dissolution. 
 
 With the territorial possessions of America, even at the date 
 of the Convention, and with all that the future promised in the 
 expansion of a system that yet scarcely occupied more than 
 the water-slopes of a continent, it might be supposed that the 
 men who formed the constitution would have prepared a full 
 and explicit article for the government of the territories. 
 That vast and intricate subject the power of the General 
 Government over the territories, the true nature of these 
 establishments, the status arid political privileges of their 
 inhabitants is absolutely dismissed with this bald provision 
 m the constitution of the United States : 
 
 * New States may be admitted by Congress into this Union." ART. iv., 
 SEC. 3. 
 
 But however flagrant these omissions of the constitution, 
 and however through them sprung up much that was serious 
 and deplorable in party controversy, we must lose neither 
 sight nor appreciation of the one conspicuous and character 
 istic virtue of this instrument. That was the combination of 
 State rights with an authority which should administer the 
 common concerns of the States. This principle was involved 
 in the construction of the Senate. It was again more fully 
 and perfectly developed in the amendments of the constitu 
 tion ; these amendments having a peculiarity and significance 
 as parts of the instrument, since they were, in a certain sense, 
 
588 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 conditions precedent made by the States to their ratlficaticii 01 
 it. They provide : 
 
 " The enumeration in the constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con 
 Btrued to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 
 
 " The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor 
 prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
 people/ * 
 
 It may be said, that whereas the element of the States was 
 recognized in the construction of the Senate, that element was 
 precisely adjusted and admeasured in the amendments which 
 we have just quoted. In the debates in the legislatures of the 
 different States on the ratification of the constitution, it was 
 never doubted that their original existence was already rec 
 ognized in it ; not only in the text of the instrument, but m 
 the composition by States of the convention that framed it, 
 and in the ratification by States which was necessary to pro 
 mulgate it, and give it force and existence. The design of the 
 amendments referred to, was simply to adjust in more precise 
 language a vital and important element in the new system, 
 and to declare formally what sense the States had of it, and 
 with what understanding they approved it. 
 
 * These amendments, which were the fruit of the legislative wisdom of the 
 States, not of that of the Convention, and were designed to give a full devel 
 opment and a proper accuracy to what was certainly ill-performed work in it, 
 will be found embodied in the official declarations of at least six of the States, 
 coupled with their ratification of the constitution. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. " That it be explicitly declared, that all powers not ex 
 pressly delegated by the aforesaid constitution, are reserved to the several 
 States, to be by them exercised." 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. " That it be explicitly declared, that all powers not ex 
 pressly and particularly delegated by the aforesaid constitution, are reserved 
 to the several States, to be by them exercised." 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA. " This convention doth also declare, that no section or 
 paragraph of the said constitution warrants a construction that the States do 
 not retain every power not expressly relinquished by them, and vested in the 
 General Government of the Union." 
 
 VIRGINIA. " We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, etc., do, in the 
 name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that 
 the powers granted under the constitution, being derived from the people of 
 the United States, may be resumed by them, whensoever the same shall be 
 perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted there 
 by remains with them, and at their will ; that, therefore, no right, of any de 
 nomination, can bo cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by the Con- 
 
APPENDIX. 539 
 
 But even if these official texts are as a partj in America 
 has long contended insufficient to establish the political 
 element of the States, and to measure it as the depository of 
 sovereignty by the rule of reserved rights, we are left a rule 
 of construction as to the true nature of the American Union, 
 which is completely out of the reach of any ingenious torture 
 of language, and far above any art of quibble on words.* 
 
 gress, by the Senate, or House of Representatives, acting in any capacity, by 
 the President, or any department or officer of tlie United States, except in 
 those instances in which power is given by the constitution for those purposes ; 
 and that, among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience, and of the 
 press, cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by any authority 
 of the United States." 
 
 NEW YORK. " That the powers of government may be resumed by the 
 people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness ; that every 
 power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said constitution clearly 
 delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the Gov 
 ernment thereof, remains to the people of the several States, or to their respec 
 tive State governments, to whom they may have granted the same ; and thai 
 those clauses in the said constitution, which declare that Congress shall not 
 have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any 
 powers not given by the said constitution ; but such clauses are to be con 
 strued either as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted merely 
 for greater caution." 
 
 RHODE ISLAND. " That those clauses in the constitution which declare that 
 Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress 
 is entitled to any powers not given by the said constitution ; but such clauses 
 are to be construed as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted 
 merely for greater caution." 
 
 * It is curious to notice to what lengths of verbal torture that party in 
 America that denied the sovereignty of the States, and represented the Union 
 as a popular consolidated government, have gone. 
 
 Thus it has been fashionable to quote in the school of consolidation a decla 
 ration in the letter of George Washington, president of the Convention, sub 
 mitting the constitution to the States for their ratification, in which he says : 
 
 " It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of these States 
 to secure A~LL the rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide 
 for the interest and safety of all." Eliot s Debates, Vol. I., p. 17. 
 
 Yet the word " ALL," which we have capitalized for emphasis, and which a 
 hasty reader might lose in the context, is directly opposed to the theory of 
 consolidation, and directly implies the residuum of sovereignty in the States. 
 
 Again, the word " United States" has been used as a popular argument for 
 a consolidated government. Yet we find in the history cf America that the 
 same words designated all the former associations of the colonies and of thp 
 States ; that the first assembly of delegates to take into consideration th< 
 grievances that led to the revolt from the British crown were known as thp 
 
540 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 That rule is found in the historical circumstances and exigen 
 cies in which the constitution of the United States was formed. 
 It is decisive. For surely there is no juster measure of a grant 
 of political powers than the necessity which originated it, if 
 that necessity be at once intelligible arid precise. 
 
 Such was the necessity which originated the constitution of 
 the United States. It was a necessity for purely economical 
 purposes. It could not have been intended as a revolution in 
 the sense of a proclamation of new civil polit}^; for the civil 
 institutions of the States, as derived from the common law of 
 England, were already perfect and satisfactory, and have 
 remained without material change for nearly a century. The 
 constitution of the United States was thus not a political revo 
 lution. It was a convenience of the States, growing out of 
 their wants of a system by which they might have a common- 
 agent and a uniform code on concerns common between them- 
 selves. Is it too much to conclude, therefore, that the new 
 Union had no mission apart from the States; that it was the 
 government of the States; that, in short, it could not have 
 been intended to destroy the very bodies which invoked it as 
 a benefactor to each as well as to all? 
 
 It is in this sense that the moral grandeur of the American 
 Union is interpreted : in this sense that its great political 
 virtue was contained. There was put before the eye of man- 
 
 Congress of delegates of the United States; that the Declaration of Indepen 
 dence emanated from " the representatives of the United States of America," 
 and that the style of the subsequent confederation was declared 111 its first 
 article to be, " The United States of America." So, if the words " United 
 States" are at all to be considered, their natural force and their precedent 
 use are alike in direct opposition to the dogma of consolidation. 
 
 Of a similar style of puerile argument for this dogma is this : Whereas, tho 
 preamble of the constitution recites, " We, the people of the United States," 
 the people are, therefore, represented as one corporation. Daniel Webster, who 
 was always ready to catch at sophomorial crudities, actually descended to an 
 argument so absurd. The explanation of this phraseology is simple to the 
 last degree. The names of the contracting States were first inserted in the 
 preamble of the constitution. They were suppressed because it was still un 
 certain what States would adopt it ; and as it was impossible to know which 
 might be the first nine States of the Union that number being necessary to 
 establish the constitution as between themselves it was agreed to use the 
 corporate style we have quoted in the preamble, that it might include those 
 only who adheied to it. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 kind, not a consolidated nationality ; not a simple republic, 
 with an anomalous and indefinable appendage of " States," 
 which were not provinces, or cantons, or territories, and yet 
 subordinate ; not some undefined and misshapen political 
 mongrel ; but a spectacle such as it had never seen an asso 
 ciation of coequal and sovereign States, with a common 
 authority, the subjects of which were yet sufficient enough to 
 give it the effect of an American and national identity ; " a 
 republic of republics ;" a government which derived its entire 
 life from the good-will, the mutual interests, and the uncon 
 strained devotion of the States which at once originated and 
 composed it. 
 
 It may be said that the admission of the sovereignty of the 
 States breaks at once the bond of their association. . Yet, this 
 can be said only in a low and narrow sense. The wants and 
 hopes of men operate with the same effect in political bodies 
 as in the social community. Men will scarcely withdraw from 
 a society in which they are alike happy and fortunate. Nor 
 was it to be supposed that any of the American States would 
 be SD mad as to withdraw from a Union through which they 
 were to be profited and to ascend, as long as it fulfilled its de 
 signs of affording them protection against foreign powers, 
 commercial interchanges, justice and welcome among them 
 selves, the charms and benefits of social intercourse ; or that 
 after these, its essential designs might have, within the exigen* 
 cies of history or the possibilities of human depravity, ceased 
 to be fulfilled, any State could be held in it without violating 
 quite as well the spirit of republican institutions, and the obli 
 gations of public morals, as the written text of a compact. 
 
 Such undoubtedly were the designs and the law of the 
 American Union. It was a compact which covered only the 
 interests which it specified ; yet quite large enough to stand 
 as an American nationality for all practical purposes. It had 
 no dynastic element ; it had no mission separate from the 
 States ; it had no independent authority over individuals, 
 except within the scope of the powers delegated to it by the 
 States. The States retained the power to control their own 
 soil, their own domestic institutions, and their own morals. 
 In respect to the powers which they prohibited to the General 
 Government, they retained, of necessity, the right of exclusive 
 
642 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 judgment. That Government was not a mere league ; it did 
 have the power to reach individuals within the scope of powers 
 delegated by the States ; and as to these powers, its own courts 
 the Federal judiciary were made the exclusive judge. In 
 this sense only in this sense it had the qualities of a gov 
 ernment ; but a government founded exclusively on the good 
 of the States, resting in their consent, and to which the law of 
 force was as foreign in respect of its maintenance, as it had 
 been in respect of its ordination. 
 
 The Union was beautiful in theory. It might have been 
 beautiful in practice. If it did prove in the history of America 
 rather a rough companionship, scarcely ever a national iden 
 tity in the common concerns intrusted to it, such was not the 
 result of inherent defects, but of that party abuse and usurpa* 
 tion, in which have been wrecked so many of the political 
 fabrics of mankind. 
 
 The right of secession, whether involved or not by the prin 
 ciple of State sovereignty, was not necessarily the weak point 
 of the Union. We shall see hereafter that the development 
 of this Union was two hostile sections a political North and 
 a political South and not disintegration of States ; that the 
 Union was sacrificed, not to the dogma of secession, but to the 
 overruling event of a sectional rupture. In view of, and in 
 connection with, these events, it will be wholly unnecessary to 
 discuss " the right of secession." 
 
 Forty years after the ordination of the constitution of the 
 United States, we shall see how there sprung up the profound 
 invention of the greatest political scholar of America John 
 C. Calhoun, of South Carolina to avoid this very issue ot 
 secession ; how it was designed to erect over the Union a 
 council of States, and to submit it to their august guardian 
 ship ; how it represented the true and sublime theory of the 
 association of the States ; and how, avoiding the issue of seces 
 sion, it proposed a measure that would have perpetuated the 
 Union, carried the constitution of the United States to the 
 highest point of development, perfected the American system, 
 introduced into it the principle of adaptability to all circum 
 stances, and given it that elasticity which is the first virtue of 
 wise governments, and the best element of their endurance. 
 We shall see how this scheme of the South Carolina statesmen 
 
APPENDIX. 543 
 
 emphatically a Union measure was rejected by the 
 Northern States under a shallow clamor and the coarsest and 
 most ignorant of all party libels in America " Nullification ; ?> 
 and how this rejection left no other resource to dissatisfied 
 States than what Mr. Calhoim of all men most deplored, and 
 most sought to avoid disunion. These assertions may already 
 Bound strange to those who have got their political history oi 
 America from Northern sources. But we must not anticipate 
 too much here what is undoubtedly the most interesting period 
 in American history, between the dates of Union and Disunion 
 
 the era of Calhoun. 
 ***** 
 
54:4: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR 
 
 II. 
 
 What the American colonies contended for. Bnrke r s idea. The first American C u 
 gross. Its demands. How the question of independence was developed. Vir 
 ginia the h rst to move for independence. Tlie Declaration of Independence. The 
 Articles of Confederation. Diverse character and circumstances of the colonies. 
 The gentry of Virginia and the Carolinas. Early type of the Yankee. Difference 
 of races. Its value in historical inquiries. Commercial spirit of New Kngland 
 in the revolution. The nature and the value of the Confederation." John Ad 
 ams ide* " Perpetu&l Union." The Confederation a makeshift of the war. 
 ** State- rights" in the treaty of 1783. How the revolution succeeded. Its illustra 
 tion of the value of endurance. Liberty invariably the fruit of rebellion. Tho 
 two conditions of all history. 
 
 IN their dissatisfaction with the British government, the 
 American colonies did not at first propose the experiment of 
 independence. They onbf claimed equality with Englishmen 
 at nome in respect of rights; contending that the ancient and 
 existing charters of Englishmen the guaranties of Magna 
 Charta, arid the later muniments acquired under the Stuarts 
 were theirs by birthright ; and resenting the idea that they 
 were an inferior class of British subjects, to be governed as 
 Charles I. proposed, and as even that luminary of the law 
 Bhickstone with curious obtuseness justified, as the denizens 
 of a conquered country. 
 
 No man in England better understood the temper of the 
 colonists, or better divined the future as containing the ques 
 tion of peace and war between Great Britain and America, 
 than did Edmund Burke. This illustrious man, who was riot 
 only a superb artist of words, but an orator in action, defended 
 the cause of the colonies with a happiness of expression, and a 
 measure of zeal, that have since confirmed to the world his repu 
 tation as the most acute and eloquent of English statesmen. 
 " Freedom," said he, " arid not servitude, is the cure of an 
 archy." He declared in the House of Commons a plan of 
 pacification alike simple, generous, and effective. " My idea," 
 he said, u without considering whether we yield as matter of 
 right, or grant as matter of favor, is, to admit the people oi 
 our colonies into an interest in our constitution." 
 
APPENDIX. 515 
 
 The pacific counsels did not prevail. The " day-star of the 
 English constitution," as Burke termed it alba stella was 
 not decreed to arise over the troubled waters and shed its influ 
 ence of peace. The colonists were left to contest as best they 
 might their claim of equality with other subjects of the Brit 
 ish crown. 
 
 They did nothing more than this on the very threshold of 
 the revolution. In 1774, the first American Congress of dele 
 gates met at Philadelphia. On the 14th of October it made 
 a declaration and adopted resolutions relative to the rights and 
 grievances of the colonies. It was unanimously resolved, " that 
 the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of Eng 
 land, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege 
 of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the 
 course of that law;" "that they were entitled to the benefit, 
 of such statutes as existed at the time of their colonization, 
 and which they have, by experience, respectively found to bei 
 applicable to their several and local circumstances ;" and that 
 their ancestors, at the time of their immigration, were " entitled 
 to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural- 
 born subjects within the realms of England." 
 
 But with actual hostilities came the full development of the 
 question, the opportunity to compromise which had been lost. 
 It was the assertion of independence. Such was the reply ot 
 the colonies, provoked by the insolence of power that had too 
 long disdained all means of peace, but what it supposed the 
 easy compulsion of three millions of people by the arms of an 
 empire, upon which it was boasted the sun never set. 
 
 To Virginia belongs the honor of the first motion for inde 
 pendence. In Congress, on the 7th of June, 1776, the dele 
 gates from Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from 
 their constituents, that the Congress should declare that " these 
 United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde 
 pendent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to 
 the British crown; that all political connection between them 
 and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis 
 solved ; and that measures should be immediately taken for 
 procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a confederation 
 formed to bind the colonies more closely together." 
 
 The proposition aroused a deep anxiety, arid was received 
 
 85 
 
546 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 with no little opposition. Other colonies had not kept pace 
 with the spirit of Virginia. The middle colonies Maryland, 
 Delaware, Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, and New York were no 
 ripe for the dissolution of the British connection. Their dele 
 gates declared that it would be improper for Congress to take 
 such a capital step until the voice of the people drove them into it. 
 
 The final decision was postponed to the 1st of July. It was 
 taken on the original motion made by the delegates of Vir 
 ginia; but the ultimate question was postponed for a day, in 
 order to obtain unanimity ; and on the second of July twelve 
 colonies gave their voice for it, New York withdrawing from 
 the question for instructions, but subsequently adhering to the 
 others through the decision of her convention. But the hesi 
 tation of Congress was not yet entirely over. The motion of 
 Virginia has been triumphantly carried ; but it remained to 
 pass upon the text of the u declaration" of independence. 
 "The pusillanimous idea," said Thomas Jefferson, the author 
 of this famous paper, "that we had friends in England worth 
 keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many." But 
 the declaration was at last and substantially agreed to on the 
 evening of the fourth of July, and subscribed by the auto 
 graphs of the members present; and thus from this paper 
 which introduced as it were the august ceremony of personal 
 pledges, rather than from the official act of Congress on the 
 motion of Virginia, concluded on the second of July, dates the 
 aatal day of American Independence. 
 
 The natural companion of the act of independence " the 
 Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of 
 America" was the confederation of the States, to enable them 
 to conduct the war with a common and effective purpose. It 
 had been proposed on the motion of Virginia. Eight days 
 after the declaration of independence, articles of confederation 
 were reported. It was an obvious necessity of the war. The 
 average population of the colonies was less than two hundred 
 and thirty thousand inhabitants ; and it would have been 
 absurd for any one of them to attempt to measure arms singly 
 with the British power, and for each to conduct the war on" its 
 own responsibility. 
 
 It was fortunate indeed that a common military necessity 
 fluppL td what scarcely any thing else could have sup- 
 
APPENDIX. 54:7 
 
 plied a political bond between colonies suddenly erected into 
 sovereign States. There had been no similarity of natural cir 
 cumstances to unite the colonies. They had been planted at 
 different times, from 1606 to 1732, and by different stocks or 
 population. Differences of government, the sharpest antago 
 nism of religious faith, the natural difficulties of intercourse, and- 
 the obstructions of trade between them, as the effect of the 
 navigation laws, which hindered the development of their 
 marine, had not only separated the colonies, but drawn 
 through them lines of exasperated division. 
 
 The New England colonies were settled by a people very 
 different from those who laid the foundations of empire in 
 Virginia and the Carolinas. In those latter countries the 
 notions of chivalry were early planted by the Cavaliers ; and 
 in Virginia especially, the British gentry founded many 
 families whose names have become illustrious in American 
 history.* With such a stock of ancestors in the South the 
 
 * Dr. Randall, in his Life of Jefferson (Vol. I., pp. 3, 4, and 5), has drawn a 
 strong and graphic picture of the early lowland aristocracy of Virginia, which 
 we reproduce here for its historical interest, especially with reference to its 
 contrast to the Puritan stock of population in America : 
 
 " In the early settlement of Virginia, the inhabitants found the river-bot 
 toms of the tide-water region more fertile than the intervening sandy ridges ; 
 and the rivers themselves for a long period furnished the only convenient 
 means for transporting heavy products to or from the seaboard. The popula 
 tion, therefore, clung to their banks, each new wave of foreign emigration, or 
 younger and spreading generation of the inhabitants, advancing higher towards 
 their sources. Lands were obtained on easy conditions from the government 
 and otherwise ; and provident individuals secured vast estates. This was par 
 ticularly the case on James River, where the most enterprising and wealthy 
 of the earlier emigrants established themselves. Some of these, men of par 
 ticular mark and energy, acquired possessions vying in extent with those of 
 the proudest nobles of their native land. These were perpetuated in their 
 families by entails, the laws regulating which were ultimately rendered more 
 stringent in Virginia than in England itself. As their lands rose^ gradually 
 in value, the great lowland proprietors began to vie with English nobles in 
 wealth as well as in territory. Many of them lived in baronial splendor. 
 Their abodes, it is true, were comparatively mean, as the country did not . yet 
 furnish permanent building materials, except at vast cost, nor did it furnish 
 architects to make use of them ; but their tables were loaded with plate and 
 with the luxuries of the old and new world ; numerous slaves, and white per 
 sons whose times they owned for a term of years, served them in everj 
 capacity which use, luxury, or ostentation could dictate ; and when they trav, 
 elled in state, their cumbrous and richly appointed coaches were dragged \sy 
 
518 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAK. 
 
 Eoundhead regicide of the New England settlements had but 
 little sympathy, and few points of agreement. The religion o, 
 the Puritan settler; his fierce and relentless persecution, even 
 to the extremity of death, of those who dissented from dissent; 
 his hypocritical and canting selfishness, with which he robbed 
 the Indians of their lands for "the Lord s people," and sold 
 some of them into West Indian slavery ; his pious formulas of 
 selfish aggrandizement, were a detestable barrier between him 
 and the Episcopalian of Virginia and the Carolines ; and a 
 diversity prominent in religion naturally ran through the 
 manners, morals, and politics of the two early stocks of popu 
 lation in America. 
 
 BIX horses, driven by three postillions. But usually the mistress of the house 
 hold, with her children and maids, appropriated this vehicle. The Virginia 
 gentleman of that day, with much of the feeling of earlier feudal times, whea 
 the spur was the badge of knighthood, esteemed the saddle the most manly 
 if not the only manly way of making use of the noblest of brutes. He accord 
 ingly performed all his ordinary journeys on horseback. When he wen* 
 forth with his whole household, the cavalcade consisted of the mounted whitn 
 males of his family, the coach-and-six lumbering through the-sands, and a ret 
 inue of mounted body-servants, grooms with spare led horses, etc.. in the rear. 
 " In their general tone of character, the lowland aristocracy of Virginia 
 resembled the cultivated landed gentry of the mother country. Numbers o 
 them were highly educated and accomplished by foreign study and travel ; 
 and nearly all, or certainly much the largest portion, obtained an excellent 
 education at William and Mary College, after its establishment, or respectablo 
 acquirements in the classical schools kept in nearly every parish by the 
 learned clergy of the established Church. As a class, they were intelligent, 
 polished in manner, high-toned, and hospitable and sturdy in their loyalty 
 and in their adherence to the national Church. Their winters were often- 
 spent in the gayeties and festivities of the provincial capital ; their summers, 
 when not connected with the public service, principally in supervising their 
 immense estates, in visiting each other, and in such amusements as country 
 life afforded. Among the latter the chase held a prominent place. Burn 
 almost to the saddle and to the use of firearms, they were keen hunters ; antf 
 when the chase was over they sat round groaning boards, and drank con 
 fusion to Spaniard and Frenchman abroad, and to Roundhead and Prelatist 
 at home. When the lurking and predatory Indian became the object of pur- 
 t, no strength of the red-man could withstand, no speed of his elude this 
 y and gallantly mounted cavalry. The social gulf which separated this 
 from the common class of colonists became about as deep and wide, and aa 
 difficult to overleap in marriage and other social arrangements, as that which 
 divided the gentry and peasantry of England. Such were the Curlers, the 
 Carys, the Bur wells, the Byrds, the Fairfaxes, the Harrisons, the Lees, tho 
 Randolphs, and many other families of early Virginia." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 It is certainly not a mere speculation which, has thought 
 to discover in the history of the New England settlements 
 some of the elements of the character of the modern Yankee. 
 We must, however, take care not to push the speculation too 
 far. It has been often an over-refinement in the treatment of 
 history to trace up the character of nations to differences in 
 race and blood ; forgetting how much of that character is due 
 to those developments of events and interests which have 
 taken place between the first beginnings of a people and the 
 period of historical retrospect. We are not disposed to risk 
 the analysis of the modern Yankee character on those elements 
 of race and blood which were involved in the early settlement 
 of America. We shall see, in the progress of this inquiry, how 
 much of this character was due to subsequent development and 
 education in the crooked paths of their political history, and 
 vrhat a lar^e and various addition of meanness was thus made 
 
 O 
 
 to the nature and habit of the original New England colonist. 
 
 But in that early type of the colonist we certainly do dis 
 cover some traits, more or less imperfect, of the Yankee of a 
 liAter period. We would only warn the reader from expecting 
 tx> discover too much here, reminding him that the character 
 of a people, although undoubtedly deriving some elements from 
 its ancestry, takes, as does the individual life, additions and 
 modifications from the school of events and influences ; that, 
 iisi short, the geometrical accuracy of ethnology is an imperfect 
 and sophistical guide to the truth of history. 
 
 Modern events have most largely produced the Yankee of 
 our day. Yet in the sniffling Puritan, with his stock of pious 
 excuses for every ferocious scheme of selfishness, and in the 
 Massachusetts " trader," with his early code of commercial 
 politics, which, in fact, he carried into the revolution of 1776, 
 we find no slight likeness to the present generation of their 
 Northern descendants. It is not overstating the case to say, 
 that the New England colonies went into the revolution rather 
 resenting the restraints upon their commerce than animated by 
 the pure love of liberty. Their commercial casuistry had long 
 defied the laws and authority of the mother country. Sir 
 William Berkeley, the Governor of Virginia, when remon- 
 Btrating, in 1671, against the Navigation Act cutting off all 
 trade with foreign countries, made it the subject of particular 
 
550 SOUTHEKN HISTOKY OF THE WAR. 
 
 complaint that, while the Virginians were " most obedient to 
 all laws, the New England men break through, and men trad* 
 to any place that their interest leads them." He had already 
 discovered two different rales of public morals in the begin 
 uings of American history. 
 
 It is no wonder that the confederation, despite the plain 
 military necessity which demanded it, was an achievement oi 
 no tittle difficulty, and a bond of very partial and imperfect 
 effect. It was debated for nearly five years. It was not con 
 summated until the 1st of March, 1781. It lasted nominally 
 about eight years, but, practically, not more than two. It 
 was distinctly founded on the sovereignty of the States ; was 
 ratified by the State legislatures, and gave Congress the power 
 of determining questions only by the vote of the States. True, 
 it was something more than a military alliance. It was in 
 tended to umtr the resources of the States, and to establish a 
 foundation for public credit for the purposes of the war. It 
 was intended for nothing more. In the circular letter of Con 
 gress, urging the reluctant States to accede to the confedera 
 tion, they were urged " to conclude the glorious compact, which, 
 by uniting the wealth, strength, and councils of the whole, might 
 bid defiance to external violence and internal dissensions^ whilst 
 it secured the public credit at home and abroad." 
 
 The compact had been ostentatiously styled in its title a 
 " perpetual Union," and Mr. John Adams, of Massachusetts, 
 had really .desired to incorporate into it the features of a con 
 solidated government. These, however, were the fancies oi 
 ignorance, and the dreams of extravagance. The confedera- 
 tion, indeed, even as an association to give a common direction 
 .to, and create a common fund for, the war, was very imperfect 
 and lamentably loose. It had no power to reach individuals, 
 ,and to enforce the common will of the States. It could only 
 apportion the quota to be paid by each State, but had no way 
 of compelling the payment. It could make commercial treaties 
 with foreign States, but, unless the legislatures of the States 
 chose to adopt such commercial regulations in their ports as 
 might be necessary, the treaties might be utterly inoperative. 
 Such an anomaly, such a weak pretence of a common govern 
 ment, could scarcely be expected to last beyond the war, of 
 which it was the makeshift. At the peace, it naturally went 
 
APPENDIX. 551 
 
 t) pieces. " Each State," says Madison, " yielding to the voice 
 of immediate interest or convenience, withdrew its support 
 from the confederation, till the frail and tottering edifice was 
 ready to fall upon our heads and crush us beneath its ruins.* 
 The " perpetual Union" was practically terminated by the 
 uninterrupted free will of the States which composed it. 
 
 The treaty of 1783, which crowned the success of the Amer 
 ican revolution, contained the only description which had evei 
 been made, on the part of Great Britain, of the nature of the 
 new power which was recognized in recognizing American 
 independence. What was recognized, was the independence 
 severally of the thirteen States formerly colonies. And it is 
 especially to be remarked that these States were recognized 
 severally, arid not jointly, in the treaty. 
 
 The revolution was thus crowned with success. But it 
 is- doubtful whether there was any merit in obtaining it 
 other than endurance. The American armies were generally 
 unsuccessful ; the American troops however American vanity 
 may proclaim the contrary fought no better than the British 
 veterans. George Washington was not a military genius. The 
 diplomacy of the revolution was neither a monument of wisdom 
 nor of letters.* The result of the war was the triumph of the 
 endurance of a people resolved to be free, over the less deter 
 mined wishes and interests of those who desired merely an ad 
 dition of empire. 
 
 The war of the American States added another illustration 
 to a curious fact in all history. This fact is, that no system of 
 liberty ever yet emanated from the generosity or wisdom of 
 human rulers ; it has invariably been the fruit of rebellion 
 the result of a contest between the natural tendency of power 
 to centralize and exaggerate its authority, and the opposition of 
 its subjects, naturally intermittent, in its checks on usurpation. 
 
 * It is true that the American States, in 1 their war with Great Britain, made 
 connections and some advantageous arrangements in Europe ; but these were 
 natural results, rather than skilful achievements. The diplomacy of the revo 
 lution was a botch. In the beginning of the revolution the foreign correspond, 
 ence was intrusted to a committee. The confederation included a department 
 of foreign affairs ; but the secretary had no power to perform any thing but 
 the specific acts authorized by Congress, which, at that time, was at once the 
 executive and the legislative power. 
 
552 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 "We embrace here the two conditions of history : the tendency 
 of all political power, and the disposition of its subjects. So 
 true are these of man, everywhere, that they have passed into 
 two general declarations, which have the force of maxims. 
 The first is, that "tyranny, when possible, is always certain." 
 The second is found in the text of the American Declaration of 
 Independence: " All experience hath shown that mankind are 
 more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right 
 themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are ac 
 customed." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 553 
 
 III. 
 
 The times of Thomas Jefferson. Manners and appearance of the intn. His Democ 
 racy. its application to the relations of the States and Federal Government. Ori 
 gin of the Republican or Democratic party. The idea of consolidation. New 
 York, and the New England States. Early political preaching in New England.- 
 The Alien and Sedition laws. How the hitter infringed the- rights of the States. 
 The Kentucky Resolutions. A fact not in the record. Mr. Jefferson on " nullifi 
 cation." Why the Kentucky Resolutions were modified. The Virginia Resolutions. 
 The replies of the New England States, and of New York. Jefferson s triumph. 
 A new era at Washington. 
 
 IT has been fashionable for two generations to entitle Thomas 
 Jefferson, of Virginia, the father of the Democratic party of 
 America. Unlike most of the party phrases of tradition, this 
 is strictly true. 
 
 The name of Jefferson fills a large space in American his 
 tory ; it is identified with an important and enraged political 
 crisis ; it is connected with much of party controversy ; and 
 for more than sixty years his name has been, on t}ie one hand, 
 adorned with titles of popular adulation, and on the other, 
 coupled with the very same terms which Hamilton, his contem 
 porary enemy, and the best representative of Federalist ran 
 cor, applied to him " an atheist in religion, and a fanatic in 
 politics." 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was a remarkable man. He was thor 
 oughly a Virginian ; and he was by nature a Democrat. 
 Born of a moderate family in Chesterfield County, he carried, 
 through all the honors and illustrious passages of his life, the 
 plain, unostentatious, and kindly manners of a Virginia farmer. 
 His sandy hair, and strong features, and large bones, were 
 Virginian. His dress had always the quaintness of a country 
 man ; he wore nnder-waistcoats and woollen tippets ; and his 
 manners, unaffected as his dress, invited all classes of persons 
 to approach him. 
 
 We have said that Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat by 
 nature. His official residence in France, as minister to that 
 court from 1784 to 1Y89, is reported to have been the occasion 
 
55*1 SOUTEEKN HISTOBY 01 THE WAR. 
 
 of contracting peculiar views on the subject of popular rights 
 It, no doubt, added something to them ; but he had contracted 
 his king-phobia in the Revolution, in his own country, and 
 before there ,was such a thing as a Democrat in France. His 
 hatred of monarchy was expressed in such intense words, as 
 could only have come from ideas identified with the constitu 
 tion of the mind. There was a savage sincerity in all he ever 
 said or wrote of monarchies. The people who lived under 
 them, he divided into two classes, " wolves and sheep." 
 Among the lessojis which he recommended to those of hi? 
 countrymen, who were, in 1787, debating the idea of a new 
 constitution, were " never to call on foreign powers to settle 
 their differences ; to guard against hereditary magistrates ; to 
 prevent their citizens from becoming so established in wealth 
 and power, as to be thought worthy of alliance, by marriage, 
 with the nieces, sisters, etc., of kings ; and, in short, to besiege 
 the throne of Heaven with eternal prayers, to extirpate from 
 creation that class of human lions, tigers, and mammoths, called 
 kings." There is an unpleasant excess in these views. But 
 we may certainly pardon something to the rhetorical fervor of 
 strong convictions. 
 
 When Jefferson returned to America, the name of Democrat 
 was not popular there. His most careful biographer, Dr. 
 Randall says : " In 1786, and for some period later, there 
 were few, if any, prominent Americans who avowed them 
 selves in favor of a broadly Democratic system. In the 
 Federal Convention of 1787 (which framed our constitution), 
 not a man could be found who advocated such systems, or was 
 willing to be suspected of, at he-art, favoring them. There 
 were gentlemen in that Convention who avowed themselves 
 monarchists in theory ; but not one could be found who would 
 take the name of Democrat ! Jefferson was the first, and for 
 a long time the only very prominent American we know of, 
 who was \villing persistently to avow that Democracy con 
 stituted the essence of his system, or the rule of construction 
 which he would apply to the mixed forms of the State and 
 Federal Governments." 
 
 It is in its application to the relations subsisting between 
 the State and Federal authority that we find the technical 
 meaning of that broad nomenclature the Democratic party 
 
APPENDIX. 655 
 
 of America. The application of the general principle of 
 mocracy the doctrine of popular rights to this relation wag 
 obvious. Mr. Jefferson was, to the end of his life, persuaded 
 that there was a monarchical party, more or less disguised, in 
 America. It is probable that he fought nothing more than a 
 shadow in this, and mistook a fondness of the Federalists foi 
 the traditions and fashions of the ante-revolutionaiy period a 
 depraved appetite for social ceremonies in New York and 
 Philadelphia as a desire for the substance as well as the trap 
 pings of monarchy. 
 
 But Jefferson had a real substance to fight in the consolida 
 tion school of politics, which was early established in New 
 York, and in the New England States. It is true that the 
 propositions of this school bordered on the monarchical idea ; 
 but it is extravagant to say that they fully implied it. They 
 suggested no change in the republican forms of the General 
 Government. But the idea of the Federalists was to accumu 
 late power in that Government at the expense of the States ; to 
 impair these original political institutions of America ; and to 
 strike down, in the States, that principle of local sovereignty 
 which had been interposed between the general authority and 
 people, and which, in fact, from the days of the Saxon^Octar 
 chy to those of the American Union, may be taken as consti 
 tuting the most important bulwark of popular liberty. 
 
 The idea of consolidation had obtained early popularity and 
 rapid growth in the Northern States. Mr. Jefferson found his 
 most powerful enemies in the compact masses of Federalists 
 in New England. It was during his party contests with Mr. 
 Adams administration, and his subsequent campaign, for the 
 presidency, that we may find the development of the peculiar 
 spirit of hierocracy in New England a disposition of the 
 clergy to control in secular affairs and date that era of polit~ 
 ical preaching, which has had so much to do with Yankee 
 politics, and the party education of Northern mobs. Mr. 
 Jefferson was never pelted from the hustings and ward-rooms 
 with viler abuse, than from the pulpits of New England. 
 Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, of Shena, declared that he had 
 been guilty of l fraud arid robbery ;" and with that usual 
 decent and Christian weapon of New England an attack on 
 private life deluged him with vituperations from the pulp f 
 
556 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 and pronounced stern maranatlia on the man. At other New 
 England divine made an elaborate parallel between the dis 
 tinguished Virginian and the wicked Rehoboam, printed his 
 u sermon," and distributed it through the land. This Puri 
 tanical rancor mingled largely in the party conflicts of Mr. 
 Jefferson s time; but probably disturbed him less than any 
 other element of enmity. He had a greater contempt for 
 religious fanaticism than for any other form of error ; he was 
 inclined to jest on it ; he was never disposed to appease attacks 
 on his private character; he was satisfied to trust himself to 
 the tests of reason, and to do his work faithfully and patiently 
 for history. That work was the foundation of the Republican 
 party, known long after him as the Democratic, or State- 
 rights party of America. 
 
 The administration of John Adams was distinguished by 
 two important assaults on the liberties of the country one of 
 them involving an obvious infringement of the principle of 
 State sovereignty. These were the Alien and the Sedition laws. 
 The first, passed Congress on the 22d day of June, 1798, 
 authorized the President to deport at pleasure, aliens whom 
 he might judge "dangerous to the peace and safet} T of the 
 United States." The second, passed the 14th of July, 1798, 
 abridged the freedom of the press, by an odious bill of penalties, 
 and assumed to punish, bj 7 fine and imprisonment, " false, 
 scandalous, and malicious writings" against the Government. 
 It did more than aim a blow at civil liberty: it conv^ed an 
 attack against the structure of the Government, and the vital 
 principle of the Federal compact. It was inferred, from the 
 existence of State laws on the subject, that Congress had a 
 similar power of legislation ; that its authority might thus be 
 deduced from implication ; violating the cardinal principle of 
 the Democratic or Republican school, that the State sovereign 
 ties w6re only diminished by the powers specifically enume 
 rated, and that the Federal agency had no power whatever to 
 intrude upon the reserved ground. It is easily seen that the 
 extent of the pretension was to endow Congress with a power 
 of legislation in all cases whatsoever, to strip the States of their 
 sovereignty, and to despoil them of all the rights they had 
 reserved to themselves. 
 
 Against this tremendous pretension, Jefferson raised the 
 
APPENDIX- 557 
 
 stai.dard of party revolt. The leading republicans in Congress 
 formed a plan of action, which was, *-to retire from that Held, 
 and take a stand in the State legislatures" against Federalist 
 enterprises on the constitution. The co-operation of Kentucky 
 with Virginia was assured. Mr. Jefferson was consulted, and 
 from his pen emanated the famous Kentucky Resolution^ 
 which were passed almost unanimously by the Legislature ot 
 that State, in November, 1798, and which have since con 
 stituted the most august text of the principles of American 
 Democracy, and for two generations have been the exacting 
 standard of party authority. 
 
 The first of these resolutions was in the nature of a general 
 declaration of principles, while others of the series practically 
 applied to the Alien and Sedition laws and other excesses of 
 the Federalists. It is sufficient to quote it : 
 
 " Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, 
 are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General 
 Government ; but that by compact, under the style and title of a constitution 
 of the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General 
 Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite 
 powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own 
 self-government ; and, that whensoever the General Government assumes 
 undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that 
 to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party ; that 
 this Government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or 
 final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would 
 have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers ; 
 but, that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common 
 judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions 
 as of the mode and measure of redress." 
 
 But there was something behind this record which is not 
 to be omitted from history. Mr. Jefferson, in the original 
 draft of the resolutions, as it came from his hand, had proposed 
 the remedy for an assumption by Congress of powers not 
 delegated to it. He was too logical to slate conclusions del 
 icately. He declared the right- of nullification. In the ninth 
 of the series of resolutions, he wrote: "That in cases of an 
 abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General 
 Government being chosen by the people, a change by the 
 people would be the constitutional remedy ; but, where powers 
 are assumed which have not been delegated, a nulliricatiou of 
 
558 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the act is the rightful remedy ; that every State has a natural 
 light in cases not within the compact (casus non fwderis), to 
 lullity, of their own authority, all assumptions of power by 
 others within their limits ; that, without this right, they would 
 be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever 
 might exercise this right of judgment over them ; that, never 
 theless, this commonwealth, from motives of regard and respect 
 for its co-states, has wished to communicate with them on the 
 subject." 
 
 It remained for another generation of American people to 
 consider the "rightful remedy" of nullification, and for the 
 masterly mind of Mr. Calhoun to develop Mr. Jefferson s idea 
 expressed above ; to modify it, as Mr. Jefferson himself, in 
 another period of his life, did modify it to a call of convention 
 of States ; and to draw out of this first crude suggestion of a 
 remedy the most finished and conservative plan that was ever 
 devised in the politics of America, to exorcise the spirit of 
 sectionalism, and to save an imperilled Union. 
 
 But the peril of 1798 was not important enough to force a 
 discussion of the remedy which Mr. Jefferson had indicated. 
 He was satisfied to declare the right of it. It was supposed 
 that the repeal of the Alien and Sedition laws might be effected 
 without invoking extraordinary remedies ; and that it was 
 best to accomplish it without unnecessary ferment, and through 
 the- forms of polite remonstrance. Mr. Jefferson thought so. 
 He wrote to a friend : " For the present, I shall be for resolv 
 ing the Alien and Sedition laws to be against the constitution, 
 and merely void, and for addressing the other States to obtain 
 similar declarations ; and I would not do any thing at this 
 moment which should commit us further, but reserve ourselves 
 to shape our future measures, or no measures, by the events 
 which may happen." 
 
 It was in a similar conviction, and probably with the con 
 currence of Mr. Jefferson, that the Kentucky Legislature 
 modified the eighth resolution, so as to omit any allusion to 
 ulterior remedies, simply requiring their representatives to use 
 their best endeavors for the repeal in Congress of the obnoxious 
 legislation referred to. The governor was requested to transmit 
 the resolutions to the other States, and solicit their concurrence 
 in procuring the desired repeal. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Virginia followed the action of Kentucky. In December, 
 1798, her legislature passed a series of resolutions responsive 
 to those of Kentucky. They were drafted by Mr. Madison. 
 They referred to the spirit of the Federal Government " to 
 enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional 
 charter," and " so to consolidate the States by degrees into 
 one sovereignty." They peremptorily declared that they 
 viewed "the powers of. the Federal Government, as resulting 
 from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited 
 by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting 
 that compact, as no further valid than they are authorized by 
 the grants enumerated in that compact ; and that in case of a 
 deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, 
 not granted by the said compact, the States, who are parties 
 thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose 
 for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining 
 within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and 
 liberties appertaining to them." 
 
 The resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky were communi 
 cated to the other States for council and co-operation. They 
 drew upon them a unanimous burst of Federalist denunciation 
 from all of the New England States. The replies of these 
 States, and that of New York, reveal the extent of the early 
 establishment of the consolidation school in the North, and 
 discover those principles from which have flowed the more 
 modern political principles of the Yankee. 
 
 Each of the New England States, confounding judicial cases 
 with political questions, declared that the State legislatures 
 had no power to supervise the acts of the General Govern 
 ment (which, it is scarcely necessary to say, parenthetically, 
 was to nullity the political influence of the States) ; that the 
 construction of such laws as the Alien and Sedition acts was 
 exclusively vested in the judicial courts of the United States. 
 Yet each of these States went out of the way to affirm, specu- 
 latively, the constitutionality and expediency of these acts. 
 Massachusetts declared, that in no circumstances had the State 
 legislatures " the right to denounce the administration of that 
 government to which the people themselves, by a solemn 
 compact, had exclusively committed their national concerns." 
 The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation declared, 
 
560 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 that the resolutions of Virginia were " very unwarrantable, >J 
 and " hazarded an interruption of the peace of the States b^ 
 civil discord." Connecticut "explicitly disavowed" the 
 principles contained in these resolutions. New Hampshire 
 thought the State legislatures were not the proper tribunals 
 to pass upon the laws of the General Government. Vermont 
 "highly disapproved" of the Virginia resolutions, and thought 
 them " unconstitutional in their nature, and dangerous in 
 their tendency." New York, then united to New England 
 by the tie of Federalism, and long kept in that bad alliance 
 by the influence of Hamilton, exceeded even the intolerance 
 of her Puritan associates. Her legislature declared that they 
 observed with anxiety and regret " the inflammatory and per 
 nicious sentiments, and doctrines which are contained in the 
 resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky. 1 " 
 
 On the issues involved in the Virginia and Kentucky resolu 
 tions, Mr. Jefferson achieved a decisive triumph, and by his 
 election to the presidency in 1800 put the Federalist party 
 almost out of existence. After that event, it may be said to 
 have degenerated into a mere local faction. Mr. Jefferson 
 launched the country into a career of Democratic simplicity, 
 and real substantial prosperity, that ran through many years. 
 
 He abolished all the stately ceremonials which had grown 
 up in Washington s administration. He discontinued the 
 levees at the Executive Mansion ; he dispensed with the 
 pageant of opening Congress ; he threw the doors of that 
 assembly open, for the first time, to newspaper reporters, and 
 broke down, as far as possible, every barrier of ceremony and 
 exclusiveness between the Government and the people. The 
 simplicity of his inauguration into office made people stare. 
 Ail English spectator thus describes his appearance on the 
 occasion : " His dress was of plain cloth, and he rode on horse 
 back to the Capitol, without a single guard, or even servant, 
 in his train; dismounted without assistance, and hitched the 
 bridle of his horse to the palisades." 
 
 But Mr. Jefferson marked the administration of his high 
 office with changes much more important than outward tokens 
 of Democratic simplicity. He instituted a rule of rigid econ 
 omy in every department of the Government. By economy 
 aloue, he reduced the public debt twelve millions of dollars. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 By tlie purchase of Louisiana and treaties with the Indiar.s, 
 he doubled the area of the United States. The second census 
 of the United States presented an increase of t.r.fjif\& from 
 nineteen to ninety-four millions of dollars. The rvitry v r a? 
 on the high and plain road to prosperity. 
 
SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAB. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The slavery question. A libel on political nomenclature. A brief moral de 
 fence of negro servitude in the Soirth. The history of its establishment. 
 Accommodation of the slavery question in the Constitution. Political history ol 
 the question. The Hartford Convention. Two blows aimed at the South. Devel 
 opment of the slavery controversy. Mr. Jefferson s opinion as to slavery in 
 the territories. The Missouri restriction. The initial point of the war of section*. 
 Mr. Jefferson s alarm. The trace of disunion. Real causes of conflict between 
 the North and the South. The slavery question subordinate and yet conspicu 
 ous. Why so ? How it was bound up in the conflict between State-rights and 
 consolidation. Northern civilization. An insolent democracy. Yankee "gentle 
 men." Plainness of the South. A noble type of civilization. Effect of slavery 
 on the political and social character of the South. Yankee vulgarity. Why the 
 South was the nursery of American statesmen. 
 
 THE peaceful and fortunate career on which Mr. Jefferson s 
 administration launched the country was to meet with a 
 singular interruption. That interruption was the sectional 
 agitation which finally broke the bonds of the Union and 
 plunged North and South into one of the fiercest wars of 
 modern times. The occasion of that conflict was what the Yan 
 kees called by one of their convenient libels in political no 
 menclature slavery but what was in fact nothing more than 
 a system of negro servitude in the South ; well guarded by laws, 
 which protected the negro laborer in the rights of humanity ; 
 moderated by Christian sentiments which provided for his 
 welfare ; and, altogether, one of the mildest and most benefi 
 cent systems of servitude in the world. 
 
 It is not our purpose here to enter upon a moral defence of 
 slavery in the South (using, as we would remind the reader, 
 that opprobrious term, wherever it occurs in these pages, 
 under a constant protest, and simply because it has become 
 the familiar word in the party controversies of America to 
 describe the peculiar institution of labor in the South). Our 
 object in these pages is simply with the political complications 
 of slavery. But as a problem in morals there are but two 
 principles which decide it ; and these T ve may briefly turn our 
 
APPENDIX. 563 
 
 pen to announce, candidly believing them to be the summary 
 of the entire ethics of negro servitude in the South : 
 
 1. The white being the superior race, and the black the in 
 ferior, subordination, with or without law, must be the status 
 of the African in the mixed society of whites and blacks. 
 
 2. It thus becomes the interest of both races, especially of 
 the inferior race, that this status should be fixed and pro 
 tected by law ; and it was simply the declaration and defini 
 tion of this principle that went by the name of negro slavery 
 in the South. 
 
 Slavery (without that moderation of legislative checks and 
 Christian sentiments which were the constant employment of 
 the South) had been planted in America by the direct and 
 persistent action of the British government. It was the com 
 mon law of the thirteen colonies before their separation from 
 England. The mother country established negro slavery in 
 the colonies. It maintained and protected the institution. It 
 originated and carried on the slave trade. It forbade the col 
 onies permission either to emancipate or export their slaves. 
 It prohibited them from inaugurating any legislation in dimi 
 nution or discouragement of the institution. Even after the 
 Continental Congress had been assembled, and the battle of 
 
 O / 
 
 Lexington had been fought, the earl of Dartmouth, British 
 Secretary of State, in answer to a remonstrance from the agent 
 of the colonies on the subject of the slave trade, replied : " We 
 cannot allow the colonies to check or discourage in any degree 
 a traffic so beneficial to the nation." 
 
 In the constitution of the United States, the slavery question 
 had been singularly accommodated. Two clauses covered it. 
 The first guaranteed to the South its property it provided for 
 the return of slaves recognized as the property of their South 
 ern masters. Another clause, in the interest of the North, 
 prevented a disturbance of the representative system by an 
 importation of slaves, and provided that the South should not 
 increase her negro population (five of which in the basis of 
 representation were made equal to three white men) by im 
 portation after the lapse of twenty years. 
 
 The political history of the slavery question in the early 
 periods of the American Union is scarcely more than an 
 enumeration of dates or of measures which were taken aa 
 
564: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 matters of course. The action of the first Congress, in relation 
 to slavery in the territories, was simply to acquiesce in a 
 government for the Northwest territory, "based upon a pre 
 existing anti-slavery ordinance the ordinance of 1781-87. 
 The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was passed without opposition 
 and without a division in the Senate ; and in the House, by a 
 vote of forty-eight to seven. The slave trade was declared 
 piracy. Petitions upon the slavery question were at first re 
 ferred to a committee ; and afterwards were rejected, and in 
 one instance returned to the petitioner. Louisiana and Florida, 
 both slaveholding countries, were added to our territories 
 without agitation in Congress. Kentucky, Tennessee, Missis 
 sippi, and Alabama were admitted into the Union, bringing 
 the institution of slavery with them, without a murmur of 
 opposition. 
 
 It is to be remarked, however, that that jealousy of South 
 ern domination which was the characteristic and controlling 
 element of the Northern mind, and which afterwards became 
 singularly associated with the slavery discussion, may be 
 dated with the acquisition of Louisiana. The famous Hartford 
 Convention, held in 1814, aimed two remarkable blows at the 
 power of the South. It proposed to strike down the slave rep 
 resentation in Congress, and to have the representation con 
 formed to the number of free persons in the Union \ and as a 
 further restriction upon the power of the South the extension 
 of our territory being then in that direction it proposed an 
 amendment to the constitution, to the effect that no new 
 States should be admitted into the Union without the concur 
 rence of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress. 
 
 But the slavery question was as yet only incidental to this 
 sectional rivalry, and was scarcely yet developed into a dis 
 tinct and independent controversy. There was some genera) 
 discussion as to the policy of the extension of slavery into the 
 new territories ; and some political union, without, however, 
 any distinct lines of party organization, had already been 
 occasioned in the North by a proposition to extend the ordi 
 nance of 1787 west of the Mississippi River. It is a remarkable 
 circumstance, in connection with these early discussions of 
 the " Free- Soil " school, that Mr. Jefferson, notwithstanding his 
 connection with the ordinance of 1787, was in favor of the free 
 
APPENDIX. 565 
 
 and unlimited extension of slavery ovei the new soil acquired 
 by the United States. And he maintained this view on a 
 very singular and ingenious ground: it was that "the dif 
 fusion of the slaves over a greater surface would make them 
 ndividually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accom 
 plishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burden on a 
 greater number of coadj utors." 
 
 It may be said generally notwithstanding the episode of 
 the Hartford Convention which fell into early disrepute 
 that there was nothing in the precedents of the Government to 
 betoken that wild and violent controversy nursed in the selfish 
 mind of the North, which, in 1820, was to break through the 
 bonds of secret jealousy and array the country into two 
 sectional parties struggling for supremacy, on opposite con 
 victions, or perhaps on opposite pretences, with regard to the 
 slavery question. 
 
 The Missouri legislation by which the institution of slavery 
 was bounded by a line of latitude naturally divided the 
 United States into geographical parties, and tore the country 
 in twain. It create-d for the first time a distinct political 
 North and a distinct political South. It is to be taken as the 
 proper initial point of that war of sections which raged in 
 America for forty years, and at last culminated in an appeal 
 to arms. The discussion of the Missouri matter awoke the 
 anti-slavery sentiment of the country that had for some years 
 past been almost completely dormant. It was the occasion 
 of a call of a convention of abolitionists at Philadelphia. It 
 tired the passions of the populace, and to the serious statesmen 
 of the country gave unbounded alarm. " From the battle of 
 Bunker s Hill to the treaty of Paris we never had so ominous 
 a question," said Mr. Jefferson. To a friend he wrote : " This 
 momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened 
 and filled me with terror." After the passage of what was 
 called " a compromise " in Congress, he wrote : " The question 
 sleeps for the present, but is not dead." " A geographical 
 line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, 
 once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men will 
 not be obliterated ; and every new irritation will make it 
 deeper and deeper." The Sage of Monti cello spoke propheti- 
 
566 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAK. 
 
 cally, and in one of his letters put on record this remarkable 
 declaration : 
 
 " I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useles 
 sacrifice of themselves, by the generation of 1776, to acquire 
 self-government and happiness to their- country, is to be thrown 
 away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons ; and 
 that my only consolation is to be, I live not to weep over it. 
 If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they 
 will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to 
 be affected by union than by scission, they would pause before 
 they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of 
 treason against the hopes of the world." 
 
 Mr. Jefferson was right in designating the Missouri Re 
 striction as the preliminary trace of disunion. Thereafter, the 
 slavery question was developed as a well-defined controversy ; 
 and for forty years the most ingenious attempts to appease it, 
 and to erase the geographical line, which was drawn in 1820, 
 were worse than ineffectual. 
 
 But it is to be remarked that the true causes of sectional 
 .animosity between the North and the South were beyond the 
 slavery question, although unavoidably and indissolubly con 
 nected with it. If we are to analyze that animosity, we shall 
 discover that its deep-lying causes were certain radical an 
 tipathies, which discovered slavery as the most prominent 
 ground of distinction between the two sections, and seized 
 upon it as the readiest point of controversy. We must not 
 fall into the common error of taking occasions for original 
 agents, and confounding as one a number of causes, attached 
 to each other, or even grown out of each other, and yet logi- 
 .cally distinct. The war between North and South was es 
 sentially a war between two great political schools, and 
 what is more, between two distinct civilizations. Yet in both 
 regards, the slavery question was bound up in the conflict, be 
 ing, in the first place, an inevitable issue between the States- 
 rights and consolidation schools; and, in the second place, 
 itself being the most prominent cause of the distinction between 
 the civilizations, or social autonomies of North and South. 
 
 It is thus that the slavery question, although subordinate 
 although, so to speak, a smaller question than those with 
 which it was associated pervaded al 1 of American politics. 
 
APPENDIX. 567 
 
 and played the conspicuous part in the dissolution of tho 
 Union. The two great political tendencies in America that 
 of consolidation and that of State-rights naturally joined 
 issue on slavery ; for the first school, recognizing the authority 
 at Washington as a national one, could easily presume it 
 responsible for what was denounced as " the plague-spot of 
 the country," and deplored as a tarnish of the American 
 name. Again, as the North envied the peculiar intellectual 
 civilization of the South, its higher sentimentalism, and its 
 superior refinements of scholarship and manners,, it would 
 naturally find the leading cause of these things in the peculiar 
 institution of slavery, and concentrate upon it all the unscru 
 pulous rage of jealousy, and that singularly bitter hate, which 
 is inseparable from a sense of inferiority. 
 
 Free labor founded in the North a material civilization, a 
 pestilent system of public schools, and that insolent democ 
 racy which went by the phrase, " D n you, I am as good as 
 you." That, and "commercial" politics, made the North pros 
 perous; a showy, glittering mass of all the national elements 
 of civilization, by the side of the apparently scanty, but re 
 fined, South. Northern men were apt to sneer at the uncul 
 tivated aspects of the South ; to point to the slight nets of 
 internal improvements that stretched over tracts of wild 
 timber and swamps ; to laugh at the plain architecture in tho 
 cities of the South ; and to talk, with great self-complacency, 
 of " the want of enterprise" in the slaveholding States. Yet 
 after all, the Yankee trader had a sneaking, irrepressible con 
 sciousness that the Southern planter, in his homespun garb, 
 was infinitely his superior as a gentleman ; that he could not 
 compete with him in courage, in the sentiment of honor, in 
 the refinements of manners, or in any of the solid and merito 
 rious accomplishments of manhood. The sleek business men 
 of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia might be very im 
 pressive in their exteriors, but they never had any manners; 
 they were not even accustomed to the words, "Sir" and "gen 
 tleman," in their conversation ; they might talk a learned 
 iargon about stocks and markets, but beyond that, in matters 
 of history and literature, many of these well-dressed men were 
 as ignorant as the draymen at their door. 
 
 Despite the plainness of the South, and the absence there ot 
 
668 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 the shows and gauds of material prosperity, and the insepar 
 able companion of such prosperity in a moneyed aristocracy, 
 there was recognizable, in this slaveholding country, a noble 
 and singularly pure type of civilization. Slavery introduced 
 elements of order and conservatism in the society of the 
 South ; and yet, after all, there was no truer democracy in the 
 world than there : the lower white classes recognizing, it is 
 true, certain distinctions in social intercourse ; but outside of 
 these, having a manly sense of equality, and claiming, from 
 the more prosperous orders of society, a consideration and 
 measure of respect that the poor man in the North, where 
 society was made up of browbeating on the one hand, and an 
 insolent assertion of equality on the other, in vain contended 
 for. Slavery trained the white race of the South in habits of 
 command ; and though, sometimes, these may have degenerated 
 into cruelty and insolence, yet they were generally the occasions 
 of the revival of the spirit of chivalry in the nineteenth 
 century ; of the growth of many noble and generous virtues ; 
 and of a knightly polish of manners, that the shopkeeping 
 aristocracy of the North, being unable to emulate, was satis 
 fied to ape in its hotels and caravansaries. Slavery relieved 
 the better classes in the South from many of the demands ol 
 physical and manual labor ; but although in some instances 
 idle or dissolute lives may have been the consequence of this, 
 yet it afforded opportunity for extraordinary intellectual cul 
 ture in the South, elevated the standards of scholarship and 
 mental cultivation there, and furnishes some explanation of 
 the extraordinary phenomenon in American history, that the 
 statesmanship of the country was peculiarly, and almost ex 
 clusively, the production of the slaveholding States. 
 
 The vulgar North envied the South, even down to the small 
 hands and feet of its people. For the better civilization and 
 higher refinement of slaveholders, the North retaliated that 
 the South was dull and unenterprising, and had to import all 
 of its luxuries, and many of its comforts from Yankee shops 
 This was true ; but it proved nothing, or it might prove more 
 than .the Yankee argument might desire, for with Northern 
 luxuries there came into the South Northern vices. It was said, 
 with a coarse wit, but with not a little meaning, that there were 
 ** three things" for which the South would always be depend 
 
APPENDIX. 609 
 
 ent upon the North, and never could produce for herself; they 
 were u ice, play-actors, and prostitutes." There is a certain 
 exaggeration in every bon mot / but the witticism is a good 
 one, as it gives an indication of that coarse, vulgar measure of 
 superiority which the North applied to itself to compensate 
 for its detects in refinement, and in the nobler attributes of 
 national life by the side of the South. 
 
 With reference to the singular point of contrast between 
 the North and the South in the exhibitions of statesmanship 
 and political scholarship, we discover the most remarkable 
 feature of American history. Slavery appears, indeed, to 
 have been the school of American statesmanship, for it is from 
 its domains there came by far the most considerable contribu 
 tion to the political literature of the country. The smallness 
 of Yankee contribution in this respect has been a subject of 
 remark by every impartial historian of America; and there 
 are but few candid persons who will deny that the quality of 
 Yankee statesmanship was always intensely sophomorical. 
 It may have been that slavery afforded to the statesmen of 
 the South certain fields of observation, and applied certain 
 influences of conservatism that qualified them for their pecu 
 liar studies ; but it is unquestionably true, that to them we 
 must look for the monuments of political literature in Amer 
 ica. It has been acutely remarked by a Yankee writer, in the 
 anonymous pages of a magazine, that the public men of the 
 North were generally actuated by an ambition to make a 
 show on what they imagined the theatre of national life; 
 that they neglected the obscure theatres, but noble schools, of 
 State politics ; and that to this shallow, ostentatious ambition 
 is to be attributed much of the Yankee distaste for the 
 severity and exclusiveness of the States-rights schoo]. 
 
5? SOUTHEKN HISTORY OF THE WAS. 
 
 V. 
 
 Contrast between the North and South in material progress. The times of Andrew 
 Jackson. The tariff controversy. Culhoun and Webster as representative men. 
 The latter a sophomore in American politics. Mr. Webster s private correspon 
 dence and poetry. His superficial accomplishments. " Nullification," another 
 libel of political nomenclature. A true explanation and analysis of Mr. Calhoun s 
 scheme to save and perpetuate the Onion. Jefferson Davis defence of Calhoun. 
 New England s regard for the Union. The veneration of the Union peculiarly a 
 Southern sentiment. Mr. Calhoun s Fort Hill speech. The ignorance or hypoc 
 risy of Webster and his party. How the South was driven to " disunion." 
 
 THE inequality between the North and the South, with 
 respect to material progress, was perhaps never more marked 
 than at the time of the memorable administration of Andrew 
 Jackson. Eeferring to this period, a Northern biographer of 
 President Jackson writes in the following style of Yankeo 
 ct>nceit : 
 
 " The North was rushing on like a Western high-pressur 
 steamboat, with resin in the furnace and a man on the safety 
 valve. All through "Western New York, Ohio, Indiana, and 
 Illinois, the primeval wilderness was vanishing like a mist, 
 and towns were springing into existence with a rapidity that 
 rendered necessary a new map every month, and spoiled the 
 gazetteers as fast as they were printed. The City of New York 
 began already to feel itself the London of the New World, and 
 to calculate how many years must elapse before it would be 
 the London of the World. 
 
 " The South, meanwhile, was depressed and anxious. Cotton 
 was down ; tobacco was down ; corn, wheat, and pork were 
 down. For several years the chief products of the South had 
 either been inclining downward, or else had risen in price too 
 slowly to make up for the (alleged) increased price of the com 
 modities which the South was compelled to buy. Few new 
 towns changed the Southern map. Charleston languished, or 
 seemed to languish certainly did not keep pace with New 
 
APPENDIX; 571 
 
 York, Boston, and Philadelphia. No Cincinnati of the South 
 became the world s talk by the startling rapidity of its growth. 
 No Southern river exhibited at every bend and coyne of van 
 tage a rising village. "No Southern mind, distracted with tho 
 impossibility of devising suitable names for a thousand new 
 places per annum, fell back in despair upon the map of the Old 
 World, and selected at random any convenient name that pre 
 sented itself, bestowing upon clusters of log huts such titles as 
 [Ttica, Rome, Palermo, Naples, Russia, Egypt, Madrid, Paris, 
 Elba, and Berlin. No Southern commissioner, compelled to 
 find names for a hundred streets at once, had seized upon the 
 letters of the alphabet and the figures of arithmetic, and called 
 the avenues A, B, C, and D, and, instead of naming his cross 
 streets, numbered them." 
 
 The Yankee writer attributes this inequality of conditions to 
 the influence of negro slavery in the South. But it has another 
 interpretation. The tariff measures, which were closely asso 
 ciated with the slavery question being the commercial appli 
 cation of that doctrine of the power of numerical majorities, 
 taught in the consolidation schools, which had attained ita 
 moral and sentimental development in the war upon slavery 
 had been used by the North as the stepping-stones to pros 
 perity, and the most profitable expedients of sectional aggran 
 dizement. In 1831 the public debt of the United States was 
 near extinction ; and it was calculated that, with the tariff 
 then in force, there would be, in three years thereafter, a sur 
 plus in the treasury. The South demanded the repeal of a 
 measure which was no longer necessary for the purposes of 
 public revenue ; which had been used to promote the manu 
 facturing and commercial interests of the North ; and which, 
 taxing her for the benefit of the Yankees, had restricted and 
 embarrassed her resources, and put upon her the badge of 
 inferiority. 
 
 The tariff controversy of 1831-2 introduced on the political 
 stage two of the most remarkable men in America, who more 
 than any others, are to be regarded as the representative men 
 of the North and the South, and the clear-cut anti-types of 
 consolidation and State-rights. They were John C. Calhoun, 
 of South Carolina, and Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts. The 
 issue between these men wa^ the broadest and most compre- 
 
572 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 ever rop/le in the political history of the country, in 
 volving not only the slavery and tariff questions, but going to 
 the very roots of the constitution, arid embracing the whole 
 American system of pol/ties. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun was a sp iendU type of the accomplished scholar 
 of the South, and a cor.PWflimate champion of State-rights. 
 He was the opposite of the shallow and rhetorical Massa 
 chusetts man in every respect. He was an ascetic in his pri 
 vate habits and tasto, ; he was a devotee of "the midnight 
 lamp;" he was the* /^ost exact logician that ever figured in 
 political life; he had no ad captandum arguments for the 
 vulgar ; his phrases were almost syllogisms, and his language 
 as clear-cut as the diamond. 
 
 If Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, can be described by a 
 phrase, he may be briefly designated as a representative of the 
 smattering of New England education and the rhapsody of 
 " spread eagleism." This may offend the taste of his wor 
 shippers ; but of that we are careless, as long as we do not 
 offend the truth of history. To the end of his days, Mr. "Web 
 ster was nothing more than a ready-spoken sophomore in 
 politics a man who adorned common-places with silken ora 
 tionswho had an unrivalled " Fourth-of-July" style of public 
 speaking but who never invented or discovered any thing in 
 politics, and who defended his doctrines much more with frothy* 
 sentiments than with sound arguments. There is nothing so 
 injurious to posthumous reputation as the publication of " pri 
 vate correspondence," where the great man is discovered in 
 undress; and the officious friends of Mr. Webster, who pub 
 lished two octavo volumes of his letters, after his death, have 
 exhibited the intellectual hero of Massachusetts as a vapid, 
 sophomorical, shallow statesman, who could not afford to wear 
 his literary court-dress a tinsel one at that but on state 
 occasions. Mr. Webster had the weakness of putting scraps of 
 law Latin in his correspondence; and it is doubtful whether his 
 attainments in the dead languages extended beyond this cheap 
 collection from his professional glossary. In his early days he 
 affected a taste for poetry, and wrote tawdry and conceited 
 verses to his friends. In one instance as a specimen of his 
 muse, some years after his admission to the bar we are given 
 this bit of the Yankee pastoral : 
 
APPENDIX. 573 
 
 "Nor health alone be four more blessings thine ! 
 CASH, and the Fair One, Friendship, and the Nine." 
 
 But it is scarcely just to estimate Mr. "Webster s mind from 
 his experiments in Latin or in verse, or from any other of hi 
 notoriously weak efforts at scholarship. In his political life 
 his so-called " statesmanship" he was an excellent represent 
 ative of the shallowness and fluency of the New England 
 mind. He had the Yankee tact of showing his little learning 
 to the greatest advantage. In vulgar estimation, he could 
 overwhelm the most logical opponent by the beauty of a 
 peroration. He had an abundance of catch-phrases and bril 
 liant illustrations ; his manner was pompous, slow, and sage ; 
 his figure, in social life, was that of a good liver a well-fed 
 and well-drunken Sir Oracle. In short, he was a man who 
 might easily be imposed upon the vulgar as a proficient in 
 eloquence and a pundit in politics. A mind like Mr. Web 
 ster s readily seized upon the crude plausibilities of the con 
 solidation school of politics, and was admirably suited to 
 employ, to the best advantage, its superficial though captiotfa 
 arguments. 
 
 In connection with the tariff dispute, Mr. Calhoun devel 
 oped his so-called scheme of " Nullification." This masterly 
 scheme of politics was misrepresented by a Yankee word, so 
 adept were the Northern people in conveying libels in the 
 party nomenclature they imposed upon the world. Mr. Cal- 
 houn s proposition was in no sense nullifiGation. Strange as it 
 may sound to those who have got American history from the 
 narrow and sophistical pages of Yankee books, it was emphati 
 cally a Union-saving measure; devised in deference to the 
 Union sentiment of the country ; and better calculated, in 
 reality, to maintain the bonds of confederation between the 
 States than any thing ever planned or suggested by the 
 American mind. 
 
 A loose impression has gained in the world, that our State 
 institutions were schools of provincialism; that they were a 
 partial and incomplete expression of the nationality of 
 America ; and that their logical tendency was to the disrup 
 tion of the confederate bond. Mr. Calhoun was not the first 
 to conceive, although more than any other he expressed logi 
 cally and clearly, that the rights of the States were the only 
 
574: SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 solid foundation of the Union ; and that, so far from being an 
 tagonistic to it, they constituted its security, realized its per- 
 fection, and gave to it all the moral beauty with which ! 
 appealed to the affections of the people. It was in this sense 
 that the great South Carolina statesman, so frequently caltim 
 niated as " nullifier," agitator, etc., was indeed the real and 
 devoted friend of the American Union. He maintained the 
 rights of the States the sacred distribution of powers between 
 them and the General Government as the life of the Union, 
 and its bond of attachment in the hearts of the people. And 
 in this he was right. The State institutions of America, 
 properly regarded, were not discordant; nor were they unfor 
 tunate elements in our political life. They gave certain occa 
 sions to the divisions of industry ; they were instruments oi 
 material prosperity ; they were schools of pride and emula 
 tion ; above all, they were the true guardians of the Union, 
 keeping it from degenerating into that vile and short-lived 
 government in which power is consolidated in a mere numeri 
 cal majority. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun s so-called doctrine of Nullification is one of 
 the highest proofs ever given by any American statesman of 
 attachment to the Union. The assertion is not made for para 
 doxical eifect. It is clear enough in history, read in the severe 
 type of facts, without the falsehoods and epithets of that Yan 
 kee literature which has so long defamed us, distorted our 
 public men, and misrepresented us, even to ourselves. 
 
 The so-called and miscalled doctrine of Nullification marked 
 one of the most critical periods in the controversies of America, 
 and constitutes one of the most curious studies for its philoso 
 phic historian. Mr. Calhoun was unwilling to oifend the 
 popular idolatry of the Union ; he sought a remedy fur exist 
 ing evils short of disunion, and the consequence was what wag 
 called, by an ingenious slander, or a contemptible stupidity, 
 Nullification. His doctrine was, in fact, an accommodation 
 of two sentiments : that of Yankee injustice, and that of rever 
 ence of the Union. He propos-ed to save the Union by the 
 simple and august means of an appeal to the sovereign States 
 that composed it. He proposed that should the General Gov 
 ernment and a State come into conflict, the power should be 
 invoked that called the General Government into existence 
 
APPENDIX 575 
 
 and gave it all of its authority. " In such a case," said Mr. Cal- 
 houn, " the States themselves may be appealed to, three-fourths 
 of which, in fact, form a power whose decrees are the constitu 
 tion itself, and whose voice can silence all discontent. The 
 utmost extent, then, of the power is, that a State acting in its 
 sovereign capacity, as one of the parties to the constitutional 
 compact, may compel the Government created by that com 
 pact to submit a question touching its infraction to the parties 
 who created it." He proposed a peculiar, conservative, and 
 noble tribunal for the controversies that agitated the country 
 and threatened the Union. He was not willing that vital con 
 troversies between the sovereign States and the General Gov 
 ernment should be submitted to the Supreme Court, which 
 properly excluded political questions, and comprehended those 
 only where there were parties amenable to the process of the 
 court. This was the length and breadth of Nullification. It 
 was intended to reconcile impatience of, Yankee injustice, and 
 that sentimental attachment to the Union which colors so much 
 of American politics; it resisted the suggestion of revolution ; 
 it clung to the idolatry of the Union, and marked that passage 
 in American history in which there was a combat between 
 reason and that idolatry, and in which that idolatry made a 
 marked conquest. 
 
 The doctrine, then, of Mr. Calhoun was this : he proposed 
 only to constitute a conservative and constitutional barrier to 
 Yankee aggression ; and, so far from destroying the Union, 
 proposed to erect over it the permanent and august guard 01 
 a tribunal of those sovereign powers which had created it. It 
 was this splendid, but hopeless vision of the South Carolina 
 statesmen, which the North slandered with the catch-word of 
 Nullification ; which Northern orators made the text of indig 
 nation; on which Mr. Webster piped his schoolboy rhetoric; 
 and on which the more modern schools of New England have 
 exhausted the lettered resources of their learned blacksmiths 
 and senatorial shoemakers. 
 
 The suggestion of the real safety of the Union, first made by 
 Jefferson,* and reproduced by Calhoun, the North slandered 
 
 * At a late period of his life Mr. Jefferson wrote : " With respect to oiu 
 State and Federal governments, I do not think their relations are correctly 
 
576 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 as millificfl.tion, insulted as heresy, and branded as treason. 
 "It was, 1 fiaid Jefferson Davis, on occasion of his taking-leave 
 of the United States Senate in 1SG1, u because of his deep- 
 seated attachment to the Union, his determination to find some 
 remedy for existing ills*, short of a severance of tho ties which 
 bound South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun 
 advocated the doctrine of Nullification, which he proclaimed 
 to be peaceful, to be within the limits of State power; not to 
 disturb the Union, but only to be the means of bringing the 
 agent before the tribunal of the States for their judgment. 
 Mr. Davis, on that occasion, publicly confessed that the South, 
 was about to resort to another class of remedies than that pro 
 posed by the great South Carolinian SKCESSION and, vindi 
 cating the name of Calhoun, suggested that, as the door had 
 been closed to his great and efficient proposition to sate the 
 Union, there was no longer any hope for the South but in vio 
 lent measures. 
 
 Daniel Webster had no complicated or nice theory about the 
 American Union. In his eyes, the Government at Washington 
 was nothing more than a central organization of numbers, with 
 scarcely any feature of originality to distinguish it from other 
 rude democracies of the world. " It had," he said, u created 
 direct relations between itself and individuals ;" and " no State 
 authority had power to dissolve these relations." He scouted the 
 whole doctrine of State-rights. lie spoke as the mouth-piece 
 of manufacturing interests in the North ; apostrophized " the 
 glorious Union ;" declared its benefits and gains, and easily led 
 the whole North to worship the Union, in the base spirit of 
 commercial idolatry, as a pretty machinery to secure tariffs 
 nd bounties, and to aggrandize a section. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun and his school worshipped the American 
 Union in a very different sense from the Yankee material- 
 
 understood by foreigners. They suppose the former subordinate to the latter. 
 This is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and in 
 tegral whole. But, you may ask, if the two departments should claim each 
 the same subject of power, where is the umpire to decide between them ? In 
 cases of little urgency or importance, the prudence of both parties will keep 
 them aloof from the questionable ground ; but, if it can neither be avoided nor 
 compromised, a convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubtfiL 
 power to that department which they may think best." 
 
APPENDIX. 577 
 
 jsts. The moral veneration of the Union was peculiarly a 
 Bentiment of the South. The political ideas of the North, as 
 represented by Mr. Webster and his school, excluded that of 
 any peculiar moral character about the Union ; the doctrina 
 of State-rights was rejected by them for the prevalent notion 
 that America was a single democracy ; thus, the Union to 
 them was nothing more than a geographical name, entitled to 
 no peculiar claims upon the affections of the people. It was 
 different with the South. The doctrine of State-rights gave 
 to the Union its moral dignity ; this doctrine was the only 
 really possible source of sentimental attachment to the Union ; 
 and this doctrine was the received opinion of the Southern 
 people, and the most marked peculiarity of their politics. 
 The South venerated the Union, because she discovered in 
 it a sublime moral principle; because she regarded it as a 
 peculiar association, in which sovereign States were held by 
 high considerations of good faith ; by the exchanges of equity 
 and comity ; by the noble attractions of social order ; by the 
 enthused sympathies of a common destiny of power, honor, 
 and renown. 
 
 In his famous Fort Hill speech, delivered in 1831, Mr. Cal- 
 houn said : 
 
 u I yield to none, I trust, in a deep and sincere attachment 
 to our political institutions and the Union of these States. I 
 never breathed an opposite sentiment; but, on the contrary, I 
 have ever considered them the great instruments of preserving 
 our liberty, and promoting the happiness of ourselves and of 
 our posterity ; and next to these I have ever held them most 
 dear. Nearly half of my life has passed in the service of the 
 Union, and whatever public reputation I have acquired is 
 indissolubly identified with it. With these strong feelings of 
 attachment, I have examined with the utmost care the bearing 
 of the doctrine in question ; and so far from anarchical or 
 revolutionary, I solemnly believe it to be the only solid foun 
 dation of our system, and of the Union itself; and that the 
 opposite doctrine, which denies to the States the right of pro 
 tecting their reserved powers, and which would vest in the 
 General Government (it matters not through what department) 
 the right of determining exclusively and finally the powers 
 delegated to it, is incompatible with the sovereignity of the 
 
 87 
 
578 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE VTAR. 
 
 States and of the Constitution itself, considered as the basia 
 of a Federal Union. * * * To realize the perfection 01 
 this Union, we must view the General Government and the 
 States as a whole, each in its proper sphere sovereign and 
 independent; each perfectly adapted to their respective 
 objects; the States acting separately, representing and pro 
 tecting the local and peculiar interests; acting jointly, through 
 the General Government, with the weight respectively assigned 
 to each by the constitution, representing and protecting the 
 interests of the whole, and thus perfecting, by an admirable 
 but simple arrangement, the great principle of representation 
 and responsibility, without which no government can be free 
 or just. To preserve this sacred distribution as originally 
 settled, by coercing each to move in its prescribed orb, is the 
 great and difficult problem, on the solution of which the dura 
 tion of our constitution, of our Union, and in all probability, 
 our liberty depends. * * * I must think the fear of weak 
 ening the Government too much in this case to be in a great 
 measure, unfounded, or at least, that the danger is much less 
 from that than the opposite side. I do not deny that a power 
 of so high a nature," [that of demanding the judgment of a 
 convention of States on questions disputed with the General 
 Government,] "may be abused by a State; but when I reflect 
 that the States unanimously called the General Government 
 into existence, with all of its powers, which they freely surren 
 dered on their part, under the conviction that their common 
 peace, safety, and prosperity required it ; that they are bound 
 together by a common origin, and the recollection of common 
 suffering and common triumph in the great and splendid 
 achievement of their independence; and the strongest feel 
 ings of our nature, and among the love of national power and 
 distinction, are on the side of the Union ; it does seem to mo 
 that the fear which would strip the States of their sovereignty, 
 and degrade them, in fact, to mere dependent corporations, 
 lest they should abuse a right indispensable to the peaceable 
 protection of those interests, which they reserved under their 
 own peculiar guardianship, when they created the General 
 Government, is unnatural and unreasonable." 
 
 Such were the just views and noble sentiments of the man 
 whom "Webster and his party hounded as a traitor, and who 
 
APPENDIX. 579 
 
 lias gone down to history in Yankee books in the utterly false 
 character of a Disunionist. 
 
 The failure of Mr. Calhoun s scheme to bind up the right 
 of the States with the interests and glory of the Union, was to 
 the consolidation school a new and decisive era of power 
 State-rights fell into a loose disrepute from which they never 
 recovered ; the sectional controversy between North, and South 
 went on with increased force; and influences were combining 
 to force the South at last to abandon all conservative expe 
 dients and to accept the conclusion of Disunion. That conclu 
 sion remained as the only possible protection against that 
 Northern party which founded the school of consolidation 
 only to use the Government at Washington as the organ o/ 
 numerical majorities and the engine of sectional oppression. 
 
580 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 VI 
 
 A Fourth of July sentiment in 1851. Slavery not the Cause of Disunion. The wai 
 of 1861. What it has decided. The incense of weak minds to the Yankee. 
 Last sentiment of President Davis. 
 
 ON the Fourth of July, 1851, the foundation was laid for an 
 addition to the Capitol at "Washington. Under the corner 
 stone of the addition, Daniel Webster deposited a paper, in 
 his own handwriting, containing the following sentence: "If 
 therefore, it shall be hereafter the will of God that this struc 
 ture shall fall from its base, that its foundations be upturned, 
 and the deposit beneath this stone brought t g the eyes of men, 
 be it then known that on this day the Union of the United 
 States of America stands firm that their constitution still 
 exists unimpaired, and with all its original usefulness and 
 glory, growing every day stronger and stronger in the affec 
 tions of the great body of the American people, and attracting 
 more and more the admiration of the world." 
 
 But ten years after this glowing tribute to the permanency 
 of American institutions, the Union was rent in twain, and the 
 States which composed it were ranged in one of the most im 
 mense and violent wars of modern times. On the Fourth of 
 July, 1861, a remnant of Congress met at Washington, to raise 
 armies and means for a war upon the Southern States, which 
 having realized the constitution as a farce, and the Union as 
 the penalty of association of the oppressed with the oppressors, 
 were prepared to take their political destinies in their own 
 hands. 
 
 The disruption of the Union, in 1861, was by no means the 
 direct or the logical consequence of the slavery discussion. 
 The dispute on that subject had at last narrowed down to a 
 solitary point whether it was competent for the Congress ot 
 the United States, directly or indirectly, to exclude slavery 
 from the territories of the Union ; and to this proposition the 
 Supreme Court of the United States had given a negative 
 answer. 
 
APPENDIX. 581 
 
 The terrible war which ensued on Disunion mast be taken 
 as the result of a profound and long-continued conflict between 
 the political and social systems of North and South, with 
 which slavery had a conspicuous connection, but was not in 
 deed an independent controversy; a conflict on which was 
 ranged on one side the party that professed the doctrines 01 
 consolidation and numerical majorities; that represented the 
 material civilization of America; that had the commerce and 
 the manufactures, the ships, the workshops, the war-material 
 of the country on the other side, the party that maintained 
 the doctrines of State-rights, studied government as a s}^stem 
 of checks and balances, and cultivated the highest schools ot 
 statesmanship in America ; that represented a civilization 
 scanty in shows and luxuries, but infinitely superior in the 
 moral and sentimental elements ; that devoted itself to agricnl- 
 
 O 
 
 ture, and had nothing but its fields and brave men to oppose 
 to a people that whitened every sea with their commerce, and 
 by the power of their wealth and under the license of "legiti 
 macy," put the whole world under tribute for troops and 
 munitions. 
 
 It is said that in this war the material civilization of the 
 North has conquered; that the principle of consolidation is 
 supremely triumphant, and that hereafter, under the captiva 
 ting title of an Imperial Republic, it is to found, without dis 
 pute, a new and permanent order of things in America. 
 
 The latter part of the proposition we dispute. The principle 
 of State- rights, which for three generations has been harbored 
 in the American mind, cannot be destroyed by an act of war. 
 The just opinions of men are immortal ; suppressed or terrified 
 at times, they reassert themselves on opportunity ; punished 
 in one instance, although they may never resort again to the 
 fatal experiment, they discover new resources of contest, and 
 find new modes of expression and activity. 
 
 Since the close of the war, a newspaper published by Vir 
 ginians in Virginia has thus attempted to state the issues it 
 decided : 
 
 " We accept the verdict ; we renounce our theory of the 
 Federal compact ; we abandon our ideas of State sovereignty ; 
 we abjure our faith in the right of secession. Henceforth, in 
 our conception, the Federal Government is supreme." 
 
589 ^ SOUTHEKN HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 
 
 The declaration is gratuitous ; it is not even demanded by 
 the enemy; it is the passing and -ephemeral incense of weak 
 minds to the Yankee. We shall tind in another instance a 
 truer indication of the future of the South, arid a better ex 
 pression of what remains of its spirit. When Jefferson Davis, 
 the President of the Confederate States, was seeking safety in 
 flight, a fellow traveller remarked to him that the cause of the 
 Confederates was lost. He replied : 
 
 " It appears so. But the principle for which we contended 
 is lound to reassert itself, though it may le at another time and 
 in anothwform" 
 
CONSTITUTION" 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 WE, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in 
 its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a per 
 manent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tran 
 quillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- 
 terity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do 
 ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States 
 of America. 
 
 ARTICLE I. 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 All legislative powers herein delegated shall be vested in a Con 
 gress of the Confederate States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members 
 chosen every second year by the people of the several States ; and 
 the electors in each State shall be citizens of the Confederate States, 
 and have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numer 
 ous branch of the State Legislature; but no person of foreign birth, 
 not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall be allowed to vote for 
 any officer, civil or political, State or Federal. 
 
 2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have 
 attained the age of twenty-five years, and be a citizen of the Con 
 federate States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant 
 of that Stnte in which he shall be chosen. 
 
584 CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
 the several States which may be included within this Confederacy, 
 according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined 
 by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those 
 bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not 
 taxed, three-fifths of all slaves. The actual enumeration shall be 
 made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress o* 
 the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten 
 years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of 
 Representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand ; but 
 each State shall have at least one Representative ; and until such 
 enumeration shall be made, the State of South Carolina shall be 
 entitled to choose six ; the State of Georgia ten ; the State of Ala 
 bama nine ; the State of Florida two ; the State of Mississippi seven ; 
 the State of Louisiana six ; and the State of Texas six. 
 
 4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, 
 the Executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill 
 such vacancies. 
 
 5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and 
 other officers ; and shall have the sole power of impeachment ; except 
 that any judicial or other federal officer resident and acting solely 
 within the limits of any State, may be impeached by a vote of two- 
 thirds of both branches of the Legislature thereof. 
 
 SECTION 3. 
 
 1. The Senate of the Confederate States shall be composed of 
 two Senators from each State, chosen for six years by the Legis 
 lature thereof, at the regular session next immediately preceding the 
 commencement of the term of service ; and each Senator shall have 
 one vote. 
 
 2. Immediately after they shall be assembled, in consequence of 
 the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into 
 three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be 
 vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second class, 
 at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class, at the 
 expiration of the sixth year ; so that one-third may be chosen every 
 second year ; and if vacancies happen, by resignation or otherwise, 
 during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive, 
 thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting 
 of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. 
 
 3. 1STO person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained the 
 o^e of thirty years, and be a citizen of the Confederate States; and 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 585 
 
 who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of the State for which 
 he shall be chosen. 
 
 4. The Vice-president of the Confederate States shall be President 
 of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided. 
 
 5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a Presi 
 dent pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-president, or when he 
 ehall exercise the office of President of the Confederate States. 
 
 6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. 
 When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. 
 When the President of the Confederate States is tried, the Chief- 
 justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the 
 concurrence of two-thirds of the members present. 
 
 7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further 
 than removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any 
 office of honor, trust, or profit under the Confederate States ; but 
 the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to in 
 dictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law. 
 
 SECTION 4. 
 
 1. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators 
 and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legis 
 lature thereof, subject to the provisions of this Constitution ; but the 
 Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, 
 except as to the times and places of choosing Senators. 
 
 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year; and 
 such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they 
 shall, by law, appoint a different day. 
 
 SECTION 5. 
 
 1. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and 
 qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall con 
 stitute a quorum to do business ; but a smaller number may adjourn 
 from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance 
 of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each 
 House may provide. 
 
 2. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, pun 
 ish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence 
 of two-thirds of the whole number, expel a member. 
 
 3. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and, from 
 time to time, publish the same, excepting such parts as may in its 
 judgment require secrecy, and the ayes and nays of the members oi 
 
586 CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of 
 those present, be entered on the journal. 
 
 4. Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without 
 the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to 
 any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. 
 
 SECTION 6. 
 
 1. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation 
 for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the 
 Treasury of the Confederate States. They shall, in all cases except 
 treason and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during 
 their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in 
 going to and returning from the same ; and for any speech or debate 
 in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. 
 
 2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which 
 he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority 
 of the Confederate States, which shall have been created, or the 
 emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time ; 
 and no person holding any office under the Confederate States shall 
 be a member of either House during his continuance in office. But 
 Congress may, by law, grant to the principal Officer in each of the 
 Executive Departments a seat upon the floor of either House, with 
 the privilege of discussing any measure appertaining to his depart 
 ment. 
 
 SECTION 7. 
 
 1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
 Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with 
 amendments as on other bills. 
 
 2. Every bill which shall have passed both Houses, shall, before 
 it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the Confederate 
 States ; if he approve, he shall sign it ; but if not, he shall return it 
 with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, 
 who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed 
 to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that 
 House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with 
 the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be recon 
 sidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become 
 a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be 
 determined by yeas and nays, and the names ;>f the persons voting 
 for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House 
 respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President 
 within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been pre 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 587 
 
 sented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had 
 signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its 
 return ; in which ease it shail not be a law. The President may 
 approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation 
 in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate 
 the appropriations disapproved ; and shall return a copy of such 
 appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill 
 shall have originated ; and the same proceedings shall then be had 
 as in case of other bills disapproved by the President. 
 
 3. Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of 
 both Houses may be necessary (except on questions of adjournment) 
 shall be presented to the President of the Confederate States ; and 
 before the same shall take effect shall be approved by him ; or being 
 disapproved by him, may be repassed by two-thirds of both Houses, 
 according to the rules and limitations prescribed in case of a bill. 
 
 SECTION 8. 
 
 The Congress shall have power 
 
 1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for 
 revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common 
 defence, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; 
 but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury ; nor shall any 
 duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to 
 promote or foster any branch of industry ; and all duties, imposts, 
 and excises shall be uniform throughout, the Confederate States. 
 
 2. To borrow money on the credit of the Confederate States. 
 
 3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the 
 several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any 
 other clause contained in the Constitution, shall be construed to 
 delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any inter 
 nal improvement intended to facilitate commerce ; except for the 
 purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to 
 navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors, and 
 the removing of obstructions in river navigation, in all which cases 
 such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may 
 be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof. 
 
 4. To establish uniform laws of naturalization, and uniform laws 
 on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the Confederate States, 
 but no law of Congress shall discharge any debt contracted before 
 the passage of the same. 
 
 5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, 
 and fix the standard oi weights and measures. 
 
588 CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities 
 and current coin of the Confederate States. 
 
 7. To establish post-offices and post-routes ; but the expenses of 
 the Post-office Department, after the first day of March, in the year 
 of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be paid out of 
 its own revenues. 
 
 8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by secur 
 ing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right 
 to their respective writings and discoveries. 
 
 9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court. 
 
 10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the 
 high seas, and offences against the law of nations. 
 
 11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and 
 make rules concerning captures on land and water. 
 
 12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money 
 to that use shall be for a longer term than two years. 
 
 13. To provide and maintain a navy. 
 
 14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land 
 and naval forces. 
 
 15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of 
 the Confederate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. 
 
 16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the mili 
 tia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the 
 service of the Confederate States, reserving to the States respectively 
 the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the 
 militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. 
 
 17. To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over 
 such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession oi 
 one or more States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the 
 seat of the Government of the Confederate States; and to exercise 
 like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legis 
 lature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of 
 forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings, 
 and 
 
 1 8. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for car- 
 rying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 
 vested, by this Constitution, in the Government of the Confederate 
 States, or in any department or officer thereof. 
 
 SECTION. 9 
 
 1. The importation of negroes of the African race, from an} 
 foreign country, other than the slaveholding States or Territories o* 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 589 
 
 tne United States of America, is hereby forbidden, and Congress is 
 required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same. 
 
 2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction 01 
 slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging 
 to, this Confederacy. 
 
 3. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus 
 pended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public 
 safety may require it. 
 
 4. No bill of attainder, or ex post facto law, or law denying or 
 impairing the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed. 
 
 5. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in pro 
 portion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be 
 
 *ken. 
 
 6. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any 
 State, except by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses. 
 
 7. No preference shall be given, by any regulation of commerce 
 or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another. 
 
 8. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in con 
 sequence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement 
 and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money 
 shall be published from time to time. 
 
 9. Congress shall appropriate no money from the treasury except 
 by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses, taken by yeas and nays, 
 unless it be asked and estimated for by some one of the heads oi 
 departments, and submitted to Congress by the President ; or for 
 the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies ; or for 
 the payment of claims against the Confederate States, the justice of 
 which shall have been judicially declared by a tribunal for the 
 investigation of claims against the government, which it is hereby 
 made the duty of Congress to establish. 
 
 10. All bills appropriating money shall specify in federal currency 
 the exact amount of each appropriation, and the purposes for which 
 it is made ; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any 
 public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall 
 have been made or such service rendered. 
 
 11. No title of nobility shall be granted by the Confederate 
 States ; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under 
 them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any 
 present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any 
 king, prince, or foreign state. 
 
 12. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment d 
 itiligion, or orohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the 
 
590 CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 freedom of speech or of the press ; or the right of the people 
 peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress oi 
 grievances. 
 
 13. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a 
 free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not 
 be infringed. 
 
 14. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house 
 without the consent of the owner ; nor in time of war, but in a 
 manner prescribed by law. 
 
 15. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
 papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall 
 not be violated ; and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, 
 supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing tho 
 place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized. 
 
 16. No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
 infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand 
 jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 
 militia, when in actual service, in time of war, or public danger; nor 
 shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in 
 jeopardy of life or limb; nor be compelled in any criminal case to 
 be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or 
 property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be 
 taken for public use without just compensation. 
 
 17. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right 
 to a, speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and 
 district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district 
 shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed 
 of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be confronted with 
 the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining 
 witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of counsel for his 
 defence. 
 
 18. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy 
 shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be pre 
 served ; and no fact so tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined 
 in any court of the Confederacy than according to the rules of the 
 common law. 
 
 19. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines im 
 posed, nor cruel or unusual punishments inflicted. 
 
 20. Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall 
 relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the 
 title. 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 
 
 SECTION 10. 
 
 1 No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation 
 rant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ; make any thing 
 but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts ; pass any 
 oill of attainder, or ex post facto law, or law impairing the obliga 
 tion of contracts; or grant any title of nobility. 
 
 2. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any im 
 posts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely 
 necessary for executir ^ its inspection laws ; and the net produce of 
 all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall 
 be for the use of the Treasury of the Confederate States ; and all 
 such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress. 
 
 3. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty 
 of tonnage, except on sea-going vessels, for the improvement of its 
 rivers and harbors navigated by the said vessels ; but such duties 
 shall not conflict with any treaties of the Confederate States with 
 foreign nations; and any surplus of revenue thus derived, shall, 
 ifter making such improvement, be paid into the common treasury; 
 nor shall any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, 
 enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a 
 foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such 
 imminent danger as will not admit of delay. But when any river 
 divides or flows through two or more States, they may enter into 
 compacts with each other to improve the navigation thereof. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 1. The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
 Confederate States of America. He and the Vice-president shall 
 hold their offices for the terra of six years ; but the President shall 
 not be re-eligible. The President and Vice-president shall be 
 elected as follows: 
 
 2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature 
 thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number 
 of Senators and Representatives to which the State maybe entitled 
 in Congress ; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding 
 an office of trust or profit under the Confederate States, shall be 
 appointed an elector. 
 
 3. The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by 
 ballot for President and Vice-president, one of whom, at least, shaU 
 
592 CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they slab 
 name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in tlis 
 tinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-president, and they shall 
 make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all 
 persons voted for as Vice-president, and of the number of votes for 
 each ; which list they shall sign, and certify, and transmit, sealed, 
 to the Government of the Confederate States, directed to the Pre 
 sident of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the 
 presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the 
 certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; the person having 
 the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, 
 if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors ap 
 pointed ; and if no person have such majority, then, from the per 
 sons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of 
 those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall 
 choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But, in choosing the 
 President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation 
 from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall 
 consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and 
 a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if 
 the House of Representatives shall not choose a President, whenever 
 the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day 
 of March next following, then the Vice-president shall act as Presi 
 dent, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the 
 President. 
 
 4. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-presi 
 dent shall be the Vice-president, if such number be a majority of the 
 whole number of electors appointed ; and if no person have a 
 majority, then, from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate 
 shall choose the Vice-president; a quorum for the purpose shall con 
 sist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority 
 of the whole number shall be necessary for a choice. 
 
 5. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office ot Presi 
 dent shall be eligible to that of Vice-president of the Confederate 
 States. 
 
 G. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, 
 and the day on which they shall give their votes ; which day shall 
 be the same throughout the Confederate States. 
 
 7. No person except a natural born citizen of the Confederate 
 States, or a citizen thereof at the time of the adoption of this Con- 
 ptitution, or a citizen thereof born in the United States prior to the 
 20th December, 1860, shall be eligible to the office of President 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 593 
 
 neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have 
 attained the ago of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resi- 
 dent within the limits of the Confederate States, as they may exist 
 at the time of his election. 
 
 8. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of hi8 
 death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties 
 of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-president; and 
 the Congress may, by law, provide for the case of the removal, 
 death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice-pre 
 sident, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such 
 officer shall act accordingly until the disability be removed, or a 
 President shall be elected. 
 
 9. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a 
 compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished 
 during the period for which he shall have been elected; and he 
 shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the 
 Confederate States, or any of them. 
 
 10. Before he enters on the execution of the duties of his office, 
 lie shall take the following oath or affirmation : 
 
 * l l do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the 
 office of President of the Confederate States, and will, to the best 
 of my ability, preserve, protect, arid defend the Constitution thereof. * 
 
 k 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 1. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and 
 navy of the Confederate States, and of the militia of the several 
 States, when called into the actual service of the Confederate 
 States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal 
 officer in each of the Executive Departments, upon any subject 
 relating to the duties of their respecting offices.; and he shall have 
 power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the Con 
 federate States, except in cases of impeachment. 
 
 2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of 
 the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators 
 present concur ; and he shall nominate, and, by and with the advice 
 and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other publ o 
 ministers, and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all oth -r 
 officers of the Confederate States, whose appointments are nt 
 herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established ly 
 law ; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of siu it 
 inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President ilouo, ir M* 
 courts of law, or in the haads of departments. 
 
694: CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 3. The principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, 
 and all persons connected with the diplomatic service, may be 
 removed from office at the pleasure of the President. All other 
 civil officers of the Executive Department may be removed at any 
 time by the President, or other appointing power, when their ser 
 vices are unnecessary, or for dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, 
 misconduct, or neglect of duty ; and when so removed, the re- 
 moval shall be reported to the Senate, together with the reasons 
 therefor. 
 
 4. The President shall have power to fill all vacancies that may 
 happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissiona 
 which shall expire at the end of their next session ; but no person 
 rejected by the Senate shall be reappointed to the same office during 
 their ensuing recess. 
 
 SECTION 3. 
 
 The President shall, from time to time, give to the Congress in- 
 formation of the state of the Confederacy, and recommend to their 
 consideration such measures as he shall judgo necessary and ex 
 pedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, 
 or either of them ; and, in case of disagreement between them, with 
 respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such 
 time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and 
 other public ministers ; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully 
 executed, and shall commission all the officers of the Confederate 
 States. 
 
 SECTION 4. 
 
 The President, Vice-president, and all civil officers of the Con 
 federate States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, 
 and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and mis 
 demeanors. 
 
 ARTICLE III. 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in 
 one Superior Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress 
 may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of 
 the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good 
 behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a com 
 pcnsation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance 
 in office. 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 595 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under this 
 Constitution, the laws of the Confederate States, and treaties made 
 or which shall be made under their authority ; to all cases affecting 
 ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls ; to all cases of ad- 
 mirality and maritime jurisdiction ; to controversies to which the 
 Confederate States shall be a party ; to controversies between two 
 or more States; between a State and citizens of another State, 
 where the State is plaintiff; between citizens claiming lands under 
 grants of different States, and between a State or the citizens there 
 of, and foreign States, citizens, or subjects; but no State shall be 
 sued by a citizen or subject of any foreign State. 
 
 2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and 
 consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme 
 Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before 
 mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both 
 as to law and fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations 
 as the Congress shall make. 
 
 3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall 
 be by jury, and such trial shall be held in the State where the said 
 crimes shall have been committed ; but when not committed within 
 any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress 
 Diay by law have directed. 
 
 SECTION 3. 
 
 1. Treason against the Confederate States shall consist only m 
 levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving 
 itheni aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason 
 unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or 
 im confession in open court. 
 
 2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of 
 treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, 
 or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public 
 lets, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And 
 the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which 
 tucli acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect 
 
596 CONSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges 
 arid immunities of citizens of the several States, and shall have the 
 right of transit and sojourn in any State of this confederacy, -\vith 
 their slaves and other property ; and the right of property in said 
 slaves shall not be thereby impaired. 
 
 2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other 
 crime against the laws of such State, who shall flee from jastice, 
 and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the Executive 
 authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be 
 removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. 
 
 3. No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State 
 or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof 
 escaping or unlawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence oi 
 any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
 labor ; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom 
 such slave belongs, or to whom such service or labor may be due. 
 
 N 3. 
 
 1. Other States may be admitted into this Confederacy by a vote 
 of two-thirds of the whole House of Representatives, and two-thirds 
 of the Senate, the Senate voting by States; but no new State shall 
 be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State ; nor 
 any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts 
 of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States con 
 cerned as well as of the Congress. 
 
 2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make aU 
 needful rules and regulations concerning the property of the Con 
 federate States, including the lands thereof. 
 
 3. The Confederate States may acquire new territory ; and Con 
 gress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the 
 inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, 
 lying without the limits of the several States, and may permit them, 
 at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to 
 form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such terri 
 tory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Con 
 federate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and 
 by the territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several 
 Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to 
 such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States 
 or Territories of the Confederate States. 
 
CONFEDERATE STATES. 597 
 
 4. The Confederate States shall guarantee to every State that 
 now is or hereafter may become a member of this Confederacy, a 
 republican form of government, and shall protect each of them 
 against invasion ; and on application of the Legislature (or of the 
 Executive when the Legislature is not in session,) against domestic 
 /iolenoe. 
 
 ARTICLE V 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their 
 several Conventions, the Congress shall summon a Convention of all 
 the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Con 
 stitution as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time 
 when the said demand is made; and should any of the proposed 
 amendments to the Constitution be agreed on by the said Conven 
 tion voting by States and the same be ratified by the Legislatures 
 of two-thirds of the several States, or by Conventions in two-thirds 
 thereof as the one or the other mode of ratification may be pro 
 posed by the general Convention they shall thenceforward form a 
 part of this Constitution. But no State shall, without its consent 
 be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate. 
 
 ARTICLE VI. 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 1. The Government established by this Constitution is the suc 
 cessor of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of 
 America, and all the laws passed by the latter shall continue in force 
 until the same shall be repealed or modified ; and all the officers 
 appointed by the same shall remain in office until their successors 
 are appointed and qualified, or the offices abolished. 
 
 2. All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the 
 adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the Con 
 federate States under this Constitution as under the Provisional 
 Government. 
 
 3. This Constitution, and the laws of the Confederate States made 
 in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made 
 under the authority of the Confederate States, shall he the supreme 
 law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, 
 any thing in* the Constitution or laws of any State to the crutrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
598 CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES. 
 
 4. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the 
 members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and 
 judicial officers, both of the Confederate States and of the several 
 States, shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this Con 
 stitution ; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualifica 
 tion to any office of public trust under the Confedeiate States. 
 
 5. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall 
 not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people 
 of the several States. 
 
 6. The powers not delegated to the Confederate States by the 
 Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
 States respectively, or to the people thereof. 
 
 ARTICLE VII. 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 1. The ratification of the Conventions of five States shall be suf 
 ficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States 
 so ratifying the same. 
 
 When five States shall have ratified this Constitution in the man- 
 ner before specified, the Congress, under the provisional Constitu 
 tion, shall prescribe the time for holding the election of President 
 and Vice-president, and for the meeting of the electoral college, and 
 for counting the votes and inaugurating the President. They shall 
 also prescribe the time for holding the first election of members oi 
 Congress under this Constitution, and the time for assembling the 
 same. Until the assembling of such Congress, the Congress under 
 the provisional Constitution shall continue to exercise the legislative 
 powers granted them; not extending beyond the time limited by 
 the Constitution of the Provisional Government. 
 
 Adopted unanimously, March 11, 1861, 
 
 AT MONTGOMEEY, ALABAMA. 
 
EERATA. 
 
 THE attention of the author was directed to Borne particulars of his work, 
 which required some correction or explanation, at the time when it was pass 
 ing through the press. It was then too late to modify the passages referred to, 
 unless in the form of a postscript or appendix. The author congratulates hinv 
 slf that he has found real occasion for so few corrections or explanations. 
 
 Page 42. The date of Anderson s evacuation of Fort Moultrie should be th 
 26th of December instead of the 20th ; the error occurred through a mistake of 
 ihe digit 6 for in the rough notes of the author. 
 
 Page 183. In noticing the expedition of our cavalry to Guyandotte, wi 
 should have associated with this bold enterprise the name of Col. Clarkson 
 who originated it and was intrusted with its execution by Gen. Floyd. Th* 
 services of Col. Clarkson on this and other enterprises, and his intrepidity on 
 some of the most critical occasions in the western Virginia campaign, deserve 
 mention, and we regret that we can give it no further within the limits of this 
 postscript, than to supply the omission of credit justly due him in connection 
 with the famous expedition of our cavalry to the Ohio. 
 
 Page 253. The circumstances in which Governor Harris left Nashville 
 were imperfectly known at the time ; and there is no doubt but that some 
 injustice was done to one of the most ardent and courageous patriots of the 
 South, in attributing his conduct on this occasion to panic or embarrassment. 
 The circumstances in which he acted have been ascertained from unquestion 
 able sources of testimony, and may be briefly narrated here : On the morning 
 of Sunday, the IGth of February, at ten minutes after 4 o clock, a messenger 
 arrived at Gen. Johnston s head-quarters at Edgefield, opposite Nashville, with 
 a dispatch announcing the fall of Donelson. Orders were at once issued to 
 push the army forward acrons the river as soon as possible. The city papers 
 or extras of that morning published dispatches announcing a " glorious vic 
 tory." The city was wild with joy. About the time the people were assem 
 bling at the churches, it was announced by later extras that " Donelson had 
 fallen." The revulsion was great. Governor Harris, however, had been 
 informed of the fact early in the morning, and had proceeded to Gen. John 
 ston s head-quarters to advise with him as to the best course to adopt under 
 the altered circumstances. The action of the State authorities would, ot 
 course, be greatly influenced by the course Gen. Johnston intended to adopt 
 vrih the army. The general told the governor that Nashville was utterly 
 
1258 ERRATA. 
 
 indefensible, that the arny would pass right through the city; that any 
 attempt to defend it with the means at his command would result, in disaster 
 to the army and the destruction of the city ; that the first and highest duty 
 of the governor was to the public trusts in his hands, and he thought, to dis 
 charge them properly, he should at once remove the archives and public rec 
 ords to some safer place, and call the Legislature together elsewhere than a 
 Nashville. Governor Harris did all this quietly, energetically, and patriotic- 
 lly. Just as soon as he had deposited these papers, he returned to Nashville 
 The confusion at Nashville did not reach its height until a humane attrrnp 
 was made to distribute among the poor a portion of the public stores which 
 could not be removed. The lowest passions seemed to have been aroused in a 
 large mass of men and women, and the city appeared as if it was in the hands 
 of a mob. The military authority, however (Gen. Floyd having been put in 
 command by Gen. Johnston), asserted its supremacy, and comparative order 
 was restored. During these excitements it became publicly known, for the 
 first time, that Governor Harris was out of the city, but few really knowing 
 that he had quietly gone away in the discharge of a public duty. His absence 
 was wholly misunderstood, and, of course, misrepresented. There is no doubt 
 but that, in the course of these misrepresentations in the newspapers, injustice 
 was done to a man who illustrated his devotion to the South by distinguished 
 courage on the battle-field, and who, from the moment that he- first rebuffed 
 the Washington government in his famous defiance to Lincoln s call for 
 troops, down to recent periods in the history of the revolution, had given the 
 most constant and honorable proofs of his attachment to the liberties and 
 fortunes of the South. 
 
A CO3\I3?LH:T3i: SOUTHERN HISTORY ! 
 
 SOUTHERN HISTORY OF THE WAR: 
 
 By EDWARD A.. 
 
 Late Editor of the Richmond Examiner. 
 
 One Volume 8vo. 1258 Pages, 
 Cloth, ........................... $5.00 | Half Calf, Library Binding, .. $7.50 
 
 \VirH SPLENDID STEEL PORTRAITS OP 
 
 Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, Gen. W. J. Hardee, 
 
 . Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, Gen. Braxton Bragg, Gen. John Morgan, 
 
 Gen. T. J. Jackson, Gen R. S. Ewell, Gen. Samuel Cooper, 
 
 Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, Gen. E. Kirby Smith, Jefferson Davis, 
 
 Gen. James Longstreet. Gen. Sterling Price, Alex. H. Stephens, 
 
 Gen. A. P. Hiil, Gen. Wade Hampton, Edward A. Po!Iard. 
 
 Gen. John B. Hood, Gen. Leonidas Polk, 
 
 Mr. Pollard s editorial position during the War placed at his disposal a vast 
 amount of ofH 3ial ani authentic information in regard to the events then 
 transpiring, and it is one of the chief excallences of this History that, being 
 written while the intense interest of its great subject was unabated, it has all 
 the vividness and graphicness of such contemporary writing. No work writ 
 ten at a later date can have this charm of life-like vividness ; and the prepara 
 tion of an elaborate-, scientific History, is the work of many years, and cannot 
 yet be attempted. 
 
 The excellence and value of this History consist largely in the fact that it 
 daguerreotypes the swiftly occuring events of the hour speaks of them as 
 they were thought of at the time describes them as they seemed to the actors 
 in them and brings back to mind with their early freshness and interest the 
 Changing impulses and feelings of the past time. 
 
 This History alons has this interest and excellence, and the public are cau- 
 tionod against expecting such merit in any subsequently written works. Intelli 
 gent readers desire to know what was thought at ih& Urns of their occurrence of 
 the great events of History. 
 
 Tiie completeness and cheapness of this work make it most desirable. It is 
 a comprehensive and fully detailed History of the momentous four years dur 
 ing which Secession was fought for and lost. It begins with the causes leading 
 to the War describes carefully and vividly all the brilliant and extraordinary 
 campaigns of the long conflict points out the political relations of events 
 describes picturesquely and graphically the fall of Eichmond and closes with 
 the surrender of the several Confederate armies, and the consequent end of 
 the War ; while its very low price makes it the 
 
 CHEAPEST HISTORY NOW PUBLISHED! 
 
 It is one-half larger than any other work of its kind, and its twenty finely 
 engraved, full page, steel portraits are alone worth the entire cost of the book. 
 
 The almost unanimous commendation of the press the approval of the 
 Confederate loaders and the immense sale of the book everywhere, aro suffi 
 cient proofs of its great value. 
 
 RICHARDSON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 54O Hroadway, New i r or7f. 
 
A. BOOK OB 1 ABSORBINGS INTEREST ! 
 
 LEE AND HIS GENERALS: 
 
 By C-A.3PT, "WM. 3?.A.I:iTv!EIR SN"OTV, 
 
 One Volume 8vo., 500 Pages. 
 Cloth $3.50 | Half calf, library style 
 
 WITH SPLENDID STEEL PORTRAITS OF 
 
 Gen. Eobert E. Lee, Gen. B. S. Ewell, Gen. John B. Hood, 
 
 Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, Gen. Leonidas Polk, Gen. E. Kirby Smith, 
 
 Gen. T. J. Jackson, Gen. Wade Hampton, Gen. Sterling Price, 
 
 Gen. P. G. T. Bsauregard, Gen. James Longstreet, Gen. W. J. Hardee, 
 
 Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, Gen. A. P. Hill, Gen. John Morgan. 
 
 Gen. Braxton Bragg, Gen. Samuel Cooper, 
 
 And an Engraving of Gen. Lee s Ancestral Home in Virginia. 
 
 No book more excellent than this as regards its treatment of its subjects, 
 its beauty of appearance, and its universal popularity, is now offered to the 
 public. No expense lias been spared to secure excellence in all its features, 
 and the Author, by the most pains-taking care and diligent research, has, 
 prepared a 
 
 VOLUME OF HEROIC BIOGRAPHIES, 
 
 which will be of lasting value and interest. These renowned Generals were 
 the life of the Southern Armies, and these graphic and complete sketches of 
 their lives and campaigns, form really a 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE WAR. 
 
 Such records of personal adventure and accomplishment form the most 
 intensely interesting history ; they have a direct and absorbing attraction, pos 
 sessed by no other style of writing. The first desire of each one in regard to 
 every prominent man, is to know more intimately his personal life and doings, 
 to become acquainted with the man himself. 
 
 This information can rarely be obtained in elaborate Histories ; but is dis 
 tinctively the province of such a work as " Lee and his Generals " 
 
 The finely engraved full page steel Portraits are a distinguishing feature in the 
 book. They are the finest portraits yet issued, and are alone worth the entire 
 cost of the work. The immense sale of the book in every section of the 
 country, assures us that our estimate of its excellence, is in no way too high. 
 
 RICHARDSON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 54O Broadway, New Yor?& 
 
A BOOK FOR EVERY SOUTHERN HOME 
 
 OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Edited by W. GILMORE SIMMS, L L. D. 
 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 Ono "Volume ISmo-, 488 3?ages. 
 
 Cloth $2.50 Morocco Cloth extra, Gilt Edges, $3,5O 
 
 The Publishers take great pleasure in issuing a volume of Southern Poetry, 
 occasioned by the late War, such as, it is believed, will happily vindicate 
 the taste and talent of the Southern people. The collection has been made 
 by an author whose reputation is general throughout all the States. He has 
 thus enjoyed the greatest advantages in making the collection ; contributions 
 having been freely sent him from all parts of the late Confederacy. 
 The various pieces will be found to represent all classes of people; all 
 aspects of popular feeling; the enthusiasm which glows with triumph; thfl 
 dispondency which mourns over defeat ; the pride which exults in the hero ; 
 and the despair which sees ruin in his fall. Here is the lyric which times thf* 
 march to battle ; the slogan which inspires the charge ; the rally which re- 
 inspires after reverse ; and the elegy which recites the virtues of the beloved 
 one the subdued sorrow of the palace, and the unmeasured wail of the cot 
 tage. Every home in the South, every affection, feeling and sympathy here 
 finds its illustrative record in melodious verse. In every home this volume will 
 prove a family book, to be fondly pored over, with various recollections, and 
 fondly and frequently referred to, as embodying a record precious to the grow 
 ing generations. It is a grateful, though melancholy record, and although it 
 tell? of defeat and overthrow, and the forfeiture of confident hopes, and of 
 proud anticipations, it is still a monument of pride, as it tells of heroic struggle 
 to the last, arid of a sublime resignation, even after the defeat of every hope. 
 Many of these poems are from pens already well known and honored in the 
 literature of the nation. Others from less known and humbler sources are yet 
 not unworthy of their association. The whole constitutes a memorial at 
 once to the patriotism and the genius of the Southern people. It would be 
 invidious were we to refer to particular names, and to invite attention^ to par 
 ticular pieces, for the whole will be read with respect and a great portion with 
 highest admiration. There will be found, we trust, no small number of these 
 pieces quite worthy of a place in any collection of American and patriotic 
 Poetry. The volume well merits to become 
 
 A FASVilLY BOOK IN EVERY SOUTHERM HOME. 
 
 Agents will find this admirable and interesting bock received with enthusi- 
 everywhere, and its sale universal. 
 
 RICHARDSON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 Broadivay, New York 
 
JUST PUBLISHED! 
 Ax*. Elegant arid. Ch.airm.ing Boole, 
 
 WOMEN OF THE SOUTH: 
 
 DISTINGUISHED IN LITERATUEE. 
 
 1 Vol. 8ro.; 511 Pages. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH SPLENDID PORTRAITS, ON STtEL, FROM LIFE, OF 
 
 MME. OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT, 
 Miss MARIA J. McIxTOSn, 
 MKS. ROSA VERTNER JOHNSON, 
 
 Mus. ANNA CORA RITCHIE, 
 Miss AUGUSTA J. EVANS, 
 MRS. L. VIRGINIA FRENCH, 
 
 MARION HARLAND. 
 And containing FULL BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES ant specimen extracts from the most 
 
 celebrated writings in prose and versa, of 
 33 DISTINGUISHED LITERAHY WO3IBX OP THE SOUTH." 
 
 This charming book has bean prepared with the utmost care, and at very great 
 expense, and is one of the most valuable and interesting works yet issued. It is 
 a storehouse of the best productions of this large number of our most talented 
 and popular Female Writers, and is 
 
 A LIBRARY OF ELEGAHT LITERATURE 1$ ITSELF, 
 
 Many of the writers in this brilliant company have achieved a world-wide repu 
 tation, and among the extra2ts from their writings gathered into the volume, are 
 many of the most celebrated productions in our American Literature. 
 
 Tfye Portrait* alone are worth more than the cost of tlte Volume. 
 
 The book is beautifully printed on fine paper, and neatly bound in cloth. 
 Price $3.50. An extra Library edition Morocco cloth, Gilt Edges, $4.50. 
 
 LIFE, SEEVICES AND CAMPAIGNS 
 
 OP 
 
 STONEWALL JACKSON: 
 
 BY A VIRGINIAN. 
 
 1 Volume, 12mo; 325 pages; $1.50. 
 
 "With Authentic Portraits of 
 
 JACKSON, and his Successor EWELL, on Steel. 
 
 STONEWALL JACKSON has made so profound and lasting an impression on the 
 public mind that an authentic biography is sought after with the greatest avidity. 
 This is a life written by a Confederate Officer, who knew him well, served under 
 him in his brilliant career, was assisted in the work by Mrs. JACKSON, and had 
 access to all his papers. 
 
 It contains the only authentic portrait of JACKSON being the one taken from 
 life ; shortly before the battle of Chancellorsville, for Mrs. JACKSOJT. 
 
iN" O V IS IL, T 
 
 G-AME OF BATTLE 
 
 The subscriber has tho pleasure cf presenting to the public a new and beautiful Game, 
 invented during the war by Col. Charles Richardson, of the Artillery of General Lee s Army, 
 and pronounced by distinguished military critics and chess-players, one of the most attractive 
 find "ingenious Games of strategy yet offered to the public. It is a game of the highest 
 interest and morifc. 
 
 War-Chess, or tho Game of Enltlp, is phycd by two persons with figures representing 
 Soldiers (Cavalry, Artillery, and Infantry), forming two antagonistic armies, operating on a 
 board as seen above. The board represents a comparatively level country traversed by a 
 river, passable at three points only, viz. : the bridge and two fords. 
 
 On one side of tho river there is a figure repiesenting a City which is to bo defended, and 
 if captured, the player of that side loses tho game. On the other side is a figure representing 
 a Wagon " tho supply train" of that Army which must be carefully guarded, as its loss 
 is the defeat of the pluycr of tl.o side TowLich it belongs. 
 
 The figures (representing tho different arms of tho military service) have different powers 
 and capacities, as in actual warfare, and the game is thus inado to resemble uud illustrate a 
 real conflict. 
 
 A book of explanations accompanies cnch copy of the Game, giving its composition, rules 
 for playing, suggestions to players, remarks illustrating the po\ver of the figures as compared 
 with that of the" troops represented; plates illustrating certain moves, &c., and indeed ex 
 plicitly showing how the game is to be played. 
 
 Price $5.00. The figures silvered and bronzed, and the board very tastefully lithographed. 
 We prepare a finer edition, also, the figures full length (as in cut), silvered and bronzed, 
 the board coverc; 1 wUh fine morocco, and every detail finished in the most elegant manner. 
 Price $20.00. This set makes an elegant parlor ornament. Carefully packed and sent by 
 express, upon receipt of price. The Trade supphod upon liberal terms. 
 
 C. B. RICHARDSON, & CO., Publishers, 
 
 54=0 Jlroaclwa.y* Wow 
 
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