PICKET! AND HIS MEN LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT (MRS. GEN. GEORGE E. PICKETT) SECOND EDITION ATLANTA, GA. THE FOOTE & DAVIES COMPANY PRINTERS AND BINDERS 1900 COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT. All riff Jits reserved. DEDICATION. To my husband, the noble leader of that band of heroes whose deeds are sparkling jewels set in the history of the great Army of Northern Vir ginia, I would gladly inscribe this book to him alone, to whom my life has been dedicated; but remembering how often, in the humility of his great soul, he has said, "I did not do it my men did it all," I feel that he would be better pleased to know that the brave men whom he led through those four long, dark years have held a high place in my thought as I have written. Hence To the men of Pickett s Division, who yet clasp hands with me in the friendship that was cemented in blood to grow stronger through all the passing years, and to the memory of those who have gone from our sight to be ever present in our hearts and on the most glorious page of our country s history, this volume is lovingly dedicated. M~~ PREFACE. Why do I write this book? To add my tribute to the memory of my hero husband and the noble men who fol lowed him through the trials, dangers and hardships of a four years war. The impulse which moves me is love, and I have endeavored that nothing should be written un worthy of that motive. If anything expressed or implied shall give pain to any, whether he wore the gray or the blue, it is contrary to the purpose or the wishes of the author contrary to the chivalrous soul of the soldier and patriot, George E. Pickett, whose courage and con stancy this work is intended to commemorate. In the compilation of this record the reader must know that I could not bring personal witness to the events de scribed. They are based upon the official and other re ports of eye-witnesses and participants. In treating of the maneuvers and engagements herein mentioned, I have excluded every disparaging statement which the facts of history and justice to all participants would possibly per mit. I have purposely avoided reading histories of the conflict by authors on both sides, and based my own nar rative upon original material, to avoid the possibility of traveling over ground already covered by others. Upon the battle-field I visited last year grew a wonder ful wealth of white daisies, piled drift upon drift like the ba^nks of snow that glitter in the light of the winter sun. So blossom the flowers of peace and love and hope in the hearts which yet fondly cherish the memory of the long- gone days of darkness and of blood. VIII PREFACE. Though the dream nation about which Clustered so many beautiful visions will never take its place among the courts and powers of the world; though the ideal which led the South through efforts of heroism not sur passed in all the records of the world will never be crys tallized into that reality known to mortal eyes, yet in that higher realm of thought, where the ideal is the true real, it dwells in transcendent glory which transmutes into a golden veil of light the war-clouds by which it was en shrouded. That dream nation did not crumble into ruins and fade away into naught. The setting sun reflected from its gleaming minarets makes more radiant the light by which our united country marches on its way to national glory The bells in its towers ring out a paean to swell the grand symphony which circles the world. The gallant sons of heroic fathers who fell on battle fields of North and South now stand together to defend our common country. Side by side North and South are marching against the foe; step by step they keep time to the mingled notes of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Dixie," blending into the noblest battle-hymn that ever thrilled the heart of soldier to deeds immortal. Three phases of loyalty sway the Southern heart to day loyalty to memory, loyalty to present duty, loyalty to hope. There is no rivalry among these phases of the same noble sentiment. Together they work for the evolu tion of a regenerated nation. He who is untrue to the past is recreant to the present and faithless to the future. LASALLE CORBELL PICKETT. WASHINGTON, D. C., August 15, 1898. CONTENTS. CKAPTEK. PAGE. I. THE FALL OF RICHMOND 1-9 II. ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS 10-16 III. "WHOA, LUCY" 17-21 IV. GEORGE JUNIOR S FIRST GREENBACK 22-28 V. " SKOOKUM TUM-TUM " 29~33 VI. CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY 34-46 VII. " EDWARDS is BETTER " . 47-5 1 VIII. ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALT 52-60 IX. A FAMILIAR FACE 61-66 X. VISITORS, SHILLING A DOZEN OUR LEFT-HANDERS 67-76 XI. BORN WITH EMERALDS NEMO NOCETUR . . . 77-85 XII. TURKEY ISLAND 86-89 XIII. MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS 90-98 XIV. SAN JUAN 99-110 XV. SAN JUAN CONTINUED 111-125 XVI. PICKETT S WEST POINT APPOINTMENT AND MILITARY SERVICES IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY . . 126-129 XVII. SLAVERY 130-138 XVIII. SECESSION , . i39~ I 53 XIX. AT YORKTOWN AND WlLLIAMSBURG 154-161 XX. SEVEN PINES 162-174 XXI. GAINES S MILL 175-186 XXII. FRAZIER S FARM 187-190 XXIII. SECOND MANASSAS 191-194 XXIV. ANTIETAM 195-204 XXV. REORGANIZATION 205-211 XXVI. PICKETT S GENERALS 212-218 XXVII. FREDERICKSBURG 219-232 XXVIII. " DOGS OF WAR" IN LEASH 233-235 XXIX. FORAGING EXPEDITION SUFFOLK 236-239 XXX. CHANCELLORSVILLE 240-249 XXXI. THE HIGH TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY . , . . 250-256 XXXII. PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN 257-266 CONTENTS. XXXIII. GETTYSBURG FIRST DAY . . . . *. . 267-279 XXXIV. GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY 280-292 XXXV. GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY 293-309 XXXVI. WHERE WERE THE GUNS? 310-314 XXXVII. DETAILED FOR SPECIAL DUTY 3*5-323 XXXVIII. TWICE TEARS TO SMILES 324-329 XXXIX. NEWBERN 330-336 XL. PICKETT S VOLUNTARY DEFENSE OF PETERSBURG . 337-344 XLI. A STRANGE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION .... 345-351 XLII. COLD HARBOR 352-356 XLIII. "LEE S MISERABLES " 357-361 XLIV. THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES 362-370 XLV. THE PEACE COMMISSION THE LAST REVIEW OF PICKETT S DIVISION 371-378 XLVI. ON TO DINWIDDIE COURT-HOUSE 379-384 XLVII. FIVE FORKS . . 385-398 XLVIII. SAILOR S CREEK 399-407 XLIX. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 408-422 APPENDIX 425-429 INDEX 431-439 INTRODUCTION. The distinguished subject of these memoirs I first met as a cadet at West Point in the heyday of his bright young manhood, in 1842. Upon graduating he was as signed to the regiment to which I had been promoted, the Eighth United States Infantry, and Lieutenant Pickett served gallantly with us continuously until, for merito rious service, he was promoted captain in 1856. He served with distinguished valor in all the battles of General Scott in Mexico, including the siege of Vera Cruz, and was always conspicuous for gallantry. He was the first to scale the parapets of Chapultepec on the I3th of Septem ber, 1847, an d was the brave American who unfurled our flag over the castle, as the enemy s troops retreated, firing at the splendid Pickett as he floated our victorious colors. In memory I can see him, of medium height, of grace ful build, dark, glossy hair, worn almost to his shoulders in curly waves, of wondrous pulchritude and magnetic pres ence, as he gallantly rode from me on that memorable 3d day of July, 1863, saying in obedience to the impera tive order to which I could only bow assent, "I will lead my division forward, General Longstreet." He was de voted to his martial profession, tolerating no rival near the throne, except the beautiful, charming and talented lady, whose bright genius and loyal heart have penned these memoirs to her noble soldier husband, and who, since he left her, has fought, single-handed and alone, the battle of life. Of her and other ex-Confederate widows it can be said that they have, since the war between the XI XII INTRODUCTION. States, fought as fierce battles as ever their wjirrior hus bands waged, for in the silent passages of the heart many severer battles are waged than were ever fought at Get tysburg. George E. Pickett s greatest battle was really at Five Forks, April I, 1865, where his plans and operations were masterful and skilful, and if they had been executed as he designed them, there might have been no Appomat- tox, and despite the disparity of overwhelming numbers, a brilliant victory would have been his, if reinforcements which he had every reason to expect had opportunely reached him; but they were not ordered in season and did not join the hard-pressed Pickett until night, when his position had long since been attacked by vastly su perior numbers with repeating rifles. He was of an open, frank and genial temperament, but he felt very keenly the distressing calamities entailed upon his beloved Sunny South by the results of the war, yet with the characteristic fortitude of a soldier, he bowed with resignation to the inevitable, gracefully accepted the situation, recognized the duty of the unfortunate to ac cept the results in no querulous spirit, and felt his obliga tion to share its effects. No word of blame, or censure even, of his superior offi cers ever escaped Pickett s lips, but he nevertheless felt profoundly the sacrifice of his gallant soldiers whom he so loved. At Five Forks he had a desperate but a fight ing chance, and if any soldier could have snatched victory from defeat, it was the intrepid Pickett, and it was cruel to leave that brilliant and heroic leader and his Spartan band to the same hard straits they so nobly met at Gettys burg. At Five Forks Pickett lost more men in thirty minutes than we lost, all told, in the recent Spanish- American war from bullets, wounds, sickness or any INTRO D UCTION. other casualty, showing the unsurpassed bravery with which Pickett fought, and the tremendous odds and in superable disadvantages under and against which this in comparable soldier so bravely contended; but with George E. Pickett, whether fighting under the stars and stripes at Chapultepec, or under the stars and bars at Gettysburg, duty was his polar star, and with him duty was above con sequences, and, at a crisis, he would throw them over board. Fiat Justitia, pereat mundus. 11 Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. " JAMES LONGSTREET. GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA, October 12, 1898. PICKETTAND HIS MEN. CHAPTER I. j J / ^ O O . > THE FALL OF RICHMOND. When some one applied to President Lincoln for a pass to go into Richmond, he gravely replied: " I don t know about that; I have given passes to about two hundred and fifty thousand men to go there during the last two years, and not one of them has got there yet/ Some of those passes had been used and their bearers had arrived at last, having made the slowest time on rec ord since the first camel bore the pioneer traveler over an Oriental desert. The queen city of the South had fallen. The story of the great nation which had hovered upon the horizon of our visions had been written out to its last sorrowful word. On the morning of Sunday, April 2, in the holy calm of St. Paul s Church, we had assembled to ask the great Father of heaven and earth to guard our loved ones and give victory to the cause so dear to us. Sud denly the glorious sunlight was dimmed by the heavy cloud of disappointment, and the peace of God was broken by the deep-voiced bells tolling the death-knell of our hopes. There was mad haste to flee from the doomed city. President Davis and his Cabinet officers were in the 2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. 41 church, and to them the news first came. They hurried to the State-house to secure the Confederate archives and retreat with them to some place of safety. Fear and dread fell over us all. We were cut off from our friends and communication with them was impossible. Oyr/sqldierS might have fallen into the hands of the eheiny^we knew not. They might have poured out their Kffi- bJoo d An tfre battle-field we knew not. In our help less, 6!eserte"a! condition, all the world seemed to have been struck with sudden darkness. The records having been secured, an order was issued to General Ewell to destroy the public buildings. The one thing which could intensify the horrors of our posi tion fire was added to our misfortunes. General J. C. Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, with a wider hu manity and a deeper sense of the rights of his people, tried in vain to have this order countermanded, knowing that its execution could in no way injure or impede the victorious army, while it would result in the ruin of many of our own people. The order was carried out with even a greater scope than was intended. The Shockoe warehouse was the first fired, it being re garded as a public building because it contained certain stores belonging to France and England. A breeze springing up suddenly from the south fanned the slowly flickering flames into a blaze and they mounted upward until they enwrapped the whole great building. On the wings of the south wind they were carried to the next building, and the next, until when the noon hour struck all the city between Seventh and Fifteenth streets and Main street and the river was a heap of ashes. Still the flames raged on. They leaped from house to house in mad revel. They stretched out great burning arms on all sides and embraced in deadly clasp the THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 3 stately mansions which had stood in lofty grandeur from the olden days of colonial pride. Soon they became tow ering masses of fire, fluttering immense banners of flame wildly against the wind, and fell, sending up myriads of fiery points into the air, sparkling like blazing stars against the dark curtain that shut out the sky. A stormy sea of smoke, wave upon wave, surged over the town here a billow of blackness that seemed of suf focating density there a brilliant cloud, shot through and through with arrows of crimson fire. The cruel wind swept on, and the magnificent ocean of smoke and flame rolled before it in surges of destruction over the once fair and beautiful city of Richmond. The terrified cries of women and children arose in agony above the roaring of the flames, the crashing of falling buildings, and the trampling of countless feet. Piles of furniture and wares lay in the streets, as if the city had struck one great moving-day, when every thing was taken into the highways, and left there to be trampled to pieces or buried in the mud. The government stores were thrown out to be de stroyed, and a mob gathered around to catch the liquors as they ran in fiery rivers down the streets. Very soon was drunkenness added to the confusion and uproar which reigned over all. The officers of the law, terror- stricken before the reckless crowd, fled for their lives. The firemen dared not make any effort to subdue the flames, fearing an attack from the soldiers who had exe cuted the order to burn the buildings. Through the night the fire raged, the sea of darkness rolled over the town, and crowds of men, women and chil dren went about the streets laden with what plunder they could rescue from the flames. The drunken rabble shat tered the plate-glass windows of the stores and wrecked 4 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. everything upon which they could seize. The populace had become a frenzied mob, and the kingdom of Satan seemed to have been transferred to the streets of Rich mond. About nine o clock Monday morning a series of terrific explosions startled even ears which would seem to have endured every possible vnriety of painful sounds. Every window in our home was shattered, and the old plate-glass mirrors built into the walls were broken. It seemed as if we were called upon to undergo a bombardment, in addi tion to all our other misfortunes, but it was soon ascer tained that the explosions were from the government arsenal and laboratory, which had now been caught by the flames. Fort Darling and the rams were blown up. Every bank was destroyed, the flour-mills had caught fire, the War Department was in ruins, the offices of the Enquirer and Dispatch had been reduced to ashes, the county court-house, the American Hotel, and most of the finest stores of the city were ruined. The Presbyterian church had escaped. The flames seemed instinctively to have avoided Libby Prison, as if not even fire could add to the horrors of that gloomy place. While the flames were raging in full force the colored troops of General Weitzel, who had been stationed on the north side of the James, a few miles from Richmond, en tered the city. As I saw th^ir black faces shining through the gloom of the smoke-environed town, I could not help thinking that they added the one feature needed, if any there were, to complete the demoniacal character of the scene. They were the first colored troops I had ever seen, and the weird effect produced by their black faces in that in fernal environment was indelibly impressed upon my mind. General Weitzel sent Major A. H. Stevens, of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, and Major E. E. Graves, THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 5 of his staff, at the head of a hundred mounted men, to reconnoiter the Richmond roads and works. At the forti fications beyond the junction of the Osborne turnpike and New Market road they were met by a flag of truce waved from a dilapidated old-fashioned carriage drawn by a pair of skeleton-like horses. The truce party con sisted of the Mayor of Richmond, Colonel Mayo; Judge Meredith, of the Supreme Court; Judge Lyons, a representative man of Virginia, and at one time minister to England; and a fourth, whom I do not now recall. The carriage was probably in the early part of the century what might have been called, if the modern clas sic style of phraseology had prevailed at that time, a "tony rig." At the period of which I write, it had made so many journeys over the famous Virginia roads that it had become a sepulchral wreck of its former self. There may have been a time when the reminiscences of animals that dragged out from the burning capital the ruins of the stately chariot were a span of gay and gal lant steeds, arching their necks in graceful pride, champing their bits in scorn of the idea that harness made by man could trammel their lofty spirits, pawing the earth in dis dain of its commonplace coarseness. If so, the lapse of years and an extended term of Confederate fare had re duced those noble coursers to shambling memories. This dignified body, thus borne in impressive man ner along the highway, had in custody a piece of parchment, shall I say? Yes, if I wish to preserve the historic dignities, after the manner of my good friend, Judge Lyons. Should I yield to the mandates of historic truth,! should be compelled to state that it was a frag ment of wall-paper. What of it? The chariot of state might be the wreck of former grandeur, the horses might be the dimmest of PICKETT AND HIS MEN. (tt) recollections, the official parchment might be but a torn bit of wall-paper, turned wrong side out for convenience in writing. Was not Judge Lyons still Judge Lyons a member of Old Dominion aristocracy a former minister to the court of St. James? With all the cold and stately formality with which he might once have presented to the Queen of England a representative of 1 ie wealth and culture of his nation, he "had the honor" to introduce his companions to Major Stevens, and if there was any lack of dignity in the manner in which the aforesaid slip of wall-paper was conveyed to that probably astonished officer, it was from no failure of duty on the part of him upon whom yet rested some shadow of the royal glory which pervaded the court of St. James. Upon the un adorned side of the wall-paper were inscribed these words: It is proper to formally surrender to the Federal authorities the city of Richmond, hitherto capital of the Confederate States of America, and the defenses protecting it up to this time. Major Stevens courteously accepted the surrender on behalf of his commanding general, to whom the docu ment was transmitted, and proceeded to reduce the newly acquired property to possession by valiantly fighting the flames which were sturdily disputing ownership with him. Having utilized to good effect what little remnant of the fire department he could find, he ordered the stars and stripes to be raised over the Capitol. Two soldiers of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, one from Company E and one from Company H, mounted to the summit of the Capitol and in a few moments, for the first time in more than four years, the national flag fluttered unmo lested in the breezes of the South. The stars of the Union were saluted, while our "warrior s banner took its flight to meet the warrior s soul." THE FALL OF RICHMOND. J That flag which almost a century before had risen from the clouds of war, like a star gleaming out through the darkness of a stormy night, with its design accredited to both Washington and John Adams, was raised over Virginia by Massachusetts, in place of the one whose kinship and likeness to the old banner had never been entirely destroyed. In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress adopted the stars and bars three horizontal bars of equal width, the middle one white, the others red, with a blue union of nine stars in a circle. This was so like the national flag as to cause confusion. In 1863 this flag was replaced by a banner with a white field, having the battle-flag (a red field charged with a blue saltier on which were thirteen stars) for a union. It was feared that this might be mistaken for a flag of truce, and was changed by cov ering the outer half of the field with a vertical red bar. This was finally adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America. Richmond will testify that the soldiers of Massachu setts were worthy of the honor of first raising the United States flag over the Capitol of the Confederacy, and will also bear witness to the unvarying courtesy of Major Stevens, and the fidelity with which he kept his trust. It has seemed appropriate that I should begin my story with the burning city, for fire has followed me all my life. My story, I say? Semmes has said: "To write history we must be a part of that history," My story has been so closely allied with that of Pickett and his division that it does not seem quite an in trusive interpolation for me to appear in the record of that warrior band. How could I tell the story, and the way in which that story was written, and not be a part of it? 5 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Kindled by the vandal hand of General Butler, in re taliation for the telegram which General GTrant sent to President Lincoln "Pickett has bottled up Butler at Bermuda Hundred" fire destroyed our beautiful colo nial home on the James. The good old hero of Ap- pomattox was my husband s very dear friend, and he would have been more economical with his telegrams had he known that his friend must pay so heavy a toll upon them. The United States government was also charged enormously heavy rates upon that message, for the ancestral home stood very far away from the line of war, and Butler, coming from City Point at an expense of many millions, made a draft on the war fund out of all proportion to any beneficent result accomplished by the gratification of his personal spite. In the burning of Richmond all my bridal presents and my household furniture were consumed. When the General was made president of Southern agencies for the Washington Life Insurance Company, we shut up our little cottage home on Turkey Island and took apartments at the Spotswood Hotel in Richmond. The following Christmas we went to spend the sacred season with our dear grandmother her last Christmas- tide on earth. On our return the next night, the General ordered the driver to take us to the Spotswood. " Lawd! Lawd! Marse Gawge, deed an deed, suh, ef I wuz to do dat I d be bleeged to dribe you smack down ter destruck- shunment, fer fo de Lawd, suh, de po ole Spotserd is dun an bu nt up smack down ter de groun las night; yas, suh, dat she did." The occupants of that part of the building where our rooms were located were burned to death. Though fire had again robbed us of our effects, through a merciful Providence our lives had been spared. To my home in Washington late one night came a THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 9 poor man who asked for help. He said that he was one of " Pickett s men" that he had come to the end of his rope and had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. I went back to my son s room to get some money, and thought I smelled something burning. Opening the door leading down into the basement just beneath my son s room, a puff of smoke struck me in the face. Hur rying back to the porch where I had left the man stand ing, I sent him to the nearest drug-store to give the alarm. The engines came in time, and for once, by what seemed a mere accident, I escaped the fate which has fol lowed me with such unwavering persistence. A flame of gas, lit by a careless servant, destroyed the oil portrait of the General, given me by " Pickett s men." It hung upon my wall, guarded on one side by the beautiful Confederate flag presented to me by the " Phila delphia Brigade" and on the other by a handsome United States flag, a treasured gift from my loved Southland. The two banners for which so much blood and treas ure had been sacrificed were fastened together by a scarf of Confederate gray and Union blue, the design of a deaf and dumb boy, a son of one of Pickett s men, and met above the pictured head of the soldier who had fought so bravely under them both. When the flames were ex tinguished, the portrait was a charred ruin, and flags and scarf were a heap of ashes on the floor. Fire destroyed the first manuscript of the story of Pickett and his men, in the preparation of which thirteen years of labor had been spent. Let me hope that the only fire which will attach to my present effort to record the history of those gallant soldiers is the long-ago-burnt- out flames which surged over the unfortunate capital of the Confederacy. CHAPTER II. ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. The fire revealed many things which I would like never to have seen and, having seen, would fain forget. One of the most revolting sights was the amount of provisions and shoes and clothing which had been accu mulated by the speculators who hovered like vultures over the scene of death and desolation. Taking advan tage of their possession of money and their lack of both patriotism and humanity, they had, by an early corner in the market and by successful blockade-running, bought up all the available supplies with an eye to future gain, while our soldiers and women and children were abso lutely in rags and barefoot and starving. Not even war, with its horrors and helplessness, can divert such harpies from their accustomed methods of accumulating wealth at the expense of those of their fel low men who have spent their lives in less self-seeking ways. All my own little store was a small quantity of flour and meal and a bag of beans; no salt even to season them; and I an officer s wife. How much worse it must have been for those less favored than I. The General had left me in Richmond when he went away to fight the battle of Five Forks, telling me to stay until he returned or sent for me. "I shall surely come," he said. So, like Casabianca, I waited, and not even " the flames that lit the battle s wreck " should frighten me away. ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. 1 1 Though my husband s friend, General Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, had, in his thoughtfulness, offered me the opportunity of leaving our dear old Confederate capital with him and his family, I remembered that Gen eral Pickett had left me here, and obediently determined to remain until he should come or send for me. I grate fully thanked General Breckenridge for his kindness, but said: " I am like the boy who stood on the burning deck. I can not go until the one voice calls me." So my husband s good friend was regretfully forced to leave me. The days were made up of fears and anguish unspeak able. The clock struck only midnight hours for me. Rumors of the death of the General were credited (I saw by the look in everybody s face), though no word was said, and I would not ask a question nor let anybody speak to me of him. The last letter I had received from him had been dated the 30th of March, at Hatcher s Run, the extreme right of the Confederate line at that time. Most of the letter was written in Chinook. This is a quotation from it: Heavy rains; roads and streams almost impassable. While Gen eral Lee was holding a conference with his chiefs this morning a mes sage came from General Fitz Lee, stating that through a prisoner he had learned that the Federal cavalry, fifteen thousand strong, supported by heavy infantry, were at or near Dinwiddie Court-House. This decided the General s plans, and he has placed General Fitz Lee in command of the whole cavalry, Rosser s, W. H. F. Lee s, and his own, with orders to march upon Five Forks. I am to support with my small force of artillery and infantry this movement and take command of the whole force. The letter was in full faith of a short separation and that all would be well, that he would surely return, and 12 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. implored me not to listen to or credit any Tumors to the contrary, and urged me in an added line to be brave and of good cheer to keep up a " skookum turn-turn." This letter was brought to me by Jaccheri, a daring, fearless Italian in my husband s employ as a headquarters post master. He was sagacious and loyal, perfectly devoted to my husband and his cause, and was trusted with letters of the strictest confidence and importance all through the war. As 1 said before, our people were on the verge of star vation. The army had been living on rations of corn and beans, with " seasonings " of meat, for weeks before we left camp. A rat even had been considered a bonne bouche for months past. The game had been trapped and killed throughout the whole country, and my breakfast that morning had consisted of a few beans cooked in water; no salt; for salt had been a luxury for a long time in the Confederacy. All the old smokehouses had been moved, that the earth might be dug up and boiled down to get the salt which in the many years it had absorbed. John Theophelas, my dear little brother, nine years old, was a great comfort to me in these days of trial. He had just brought up my beans and was lovingly coaxing me to eat them when Jaccheri came. A plate was filled for Jaccheri, and after he had finished his meager break fast, seasoned with his adventures in getting to me, swim ming the river at one place with his clothes tied up in a bundle on his head, etc., he said he must go. I added a few lines to my diary of all my acts, which I always kept for the General, and gave it to our faithful letter-carrier to take back to him. "Ina da days to come," said Jaccheri, in his soft Ital ian voice, "ina all landa, no matter, mucha people mucha gloly, nadia money, no matter, you find Jaccheri ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. 13 here and here " first putting his hand over his heart and then drawing from his boot and gracefully brandish ing a shining blade. " Gooda-by." At the door he turned back and, untying his cravat, wiggled out five pieces of money, three gold dollars and two ninepences. He walked over on tiptoe to where our baby was sleeping, crossed himself, and, kneeling by the cradle, slipped into baby s little closed hand two of the gold dollars and around his neck a much worn and soiled scapula. " Da mon Confed noa mucha good, noa now much accountable youa mighta want some; want her vely bad before you nota get her. Gooda-by, some moa." Dear, faithful old Jaccheri, he would take no refusal, so I let baby keep the money and used it to buy milk for him, for I had not a penny in the world. I was reading aloud, lovingly and reverently, the torn words on the ragged red-flannel scapula which Jaccheri had given to baby: " Cease, the heart of Jesus is with me," when baby opened his sweet eyes and crowed over the little fortune which had come to him in his dreams, and just then my little brother, who had gone down-stairs with Jaccheri, came rushing back, his eyes wide open, all excitement, exclaiming: "Sister, sister! There s a Yankee down-stairs! Come to see you, but don t you go; hide, hide, sister! I ll stand by the door, and he daresen t pass by me. Quick, sister, hide! He said he was one of brother George s friends, but don t you believe him, sister! He has killed brother George, and now he wants to kill you! " " Oh, no, no, my child," I said reassuringly, trying to soothe and calm him. " No, no; don t be such a little cow ard, dear. If he is one of your brother George s friends he is mine, too, and he would do me no hurt. I am not 14 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. in the least afraid, and I will go down right ^.way and see him." " You are not afraid of anything, sister, and. you will get killed yet, as sure as you are born, and brother George told me to take care of you. What will he say when he comes back and finds you dead and gone and nobody to bury you? Course I ll nurse the poor baby for you if you will go, but, sister, please marm, don t go. I shall be scared to death till you come back." "That s a sweet boy; take care of the baby," I said, and, kissing them both, closed the door behind me. As I entered the parlor a tall, thin gentleman with the sweetest of smiles and the kindest of voices, dressed in the uniform of a United States surgeon, arose and said as he bowed, holding his hat against his breast, thus avoiding offering me his hand: "My name is George Suckley, madam. I am one of George Pickett s friends, although, as soldiers, we have been enemies in the field for more than three years. That, however, does not interfere with us when we are not on duty. I have heard that you Southern women were very bitter, and I did not know how you, his wife you are Pickett s wife, are you not, madam? would take a visit from me, but I came, nevertheless. Knowing Pickett as well as I do, I know he would appreciate my motive in coming." "Your name is a very familiar one, Dr. Suckley," I said. "I have often heard the General speak of you, and remember many stories of your adventures your love for bugs and beetles for all natural history, in fact." I wished him to know that I remembered him and had not mistaken him for another, and also that I had reason to wonder at seeing him in his present position. "He often spoke of your having been with him at Fort Bel- ANXIETY, SUSPENSE, LONELINESS. 1 5 lingham Bay, and knowing how you felt when he left the old army, he has often wondered at your remaining, and going to the front." " I am a surgeon in Grant s army," said Dr. Suckley, proudly, ignoring and, by his manner, almost resenting my reference to his former sympathy with the South. " I love Pickett, and came, as he would have come had our positions been reversed, to see his wife and offer her my services." I thanked this kind-hearted gentleman and distin guished officer, but was too bitter to accept the smallest courtesy at his hands, even in my husband s name, and though offered for love s sake so bitter that suffering was preferable to such obligation. He bowed and was going, when I said: "Doctor, is there any news of the army ours, I mean? " "The war is over, madam. You have my address, if you should change your mind and will show me how I can serve you." He bowed and left. He, too, had heard that the Gen eral had been killed, and believed it, and I hated him worse because of his belief. On the evening of the 3d of April I was walking the floor. Baby was asleep, and my little brother was walk ing behind me, when I heard: "Grand victory at Five Forks! Pickett killed, and his whole division captured!" It seemed very strange to me that in the streets of Richmond, my dear old home, the capital of the Confed eracy, the death of Pickett and the capture of his whole division should be heralded as a "grand victory." How great a change had come in so short a time! Even the newsboys had gone over to the enemy. 1 6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. " Tisn t so, sister; tisn t so! Don t you believe him!" said my little brother. "Hush, sir; hush!" he excitedly called out of the window to the newsboy. "Hush this minute, hallooing your big stories out loud and scaring everybody to death. I d like to stick those five forks through your old black gizzard, for you haven t got any heart, I know. Ain t you ashamed of yourself, you good- for-nothing old scalawag, you! There ain t a word of truth in brother George being killed, and you know it, you old thing! I ll go down and mash his mouth for him and kick him to death for scaring you so, my poor sister poor sister! Yes, I d just like to kill that boy, sister, deed I would; but it isn t so, my sister. You trust in the Lord. I know brother George is not killed, for he said he wouldn t get killed." " No, it is not so. You are right, my darling. Your brother George is not killed," I said. "Yes, he will come back! he will come back! He said he would, and he will." I thanked God then, and I thank God now, for the sweet comfort of that precious little brother, John T. Corbell my little confidant and friend and for his loy alty and love in all the succeeding years. Oh, the sleepless nights that followed each other after that in monotonous successionl CHAPTER III "WHOA, One morning I had mechanically dressed baby George and had taken him to the window to hear the spring sounds and breathe the spring balm and catch the sun shine s dripping gold wreathing the top of the quivering blossoms of the magnolia- and tulip-trees. It was the time when the orchestra of the year is in perfect accord, when all the world is vocal when the birds sing of love, the buds and blossoms of joy, the grains and grasses of hope and faith, and when each rustle of wind makes a chime of vital resonance. Through the quiver and curl of leaves and perfume of flowers and soft undertone of dawn-winds came the words, " Whoa, Lucy; whoa, little girl!" Oh, those tones, those words, that voice thrilled my heart so that I wonder it did not burst from very glad ness! Such joy, such gratitude as flooded my soul only the Giver of all good can know! All the privation and starvation and blood-stains of the past four years, and the woes and trials, griefs and fears, of those last dreadful days were swept away by those blessed, precious words, "Whoa, Lucy!" spoken in my husband s tender tones. How I ot down the stairs I do not know; I do not remember. With baby in my arms, we were both of us in my husband s almost before Lucy had been given into the hands of the hostler. I do not know how to describe the peace, the bliss of that moment it is too deep and too sacred to be translated into words. I think that it 2 17 1 8 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. is akin to the feeling that will come to me in the here after, when I have gone through all these dark days of privation and of starvation of heart and soul here, victo rious, and at last am safe within the golden gates and, waiting and listening, shall hear again the voice that said, "Whoa, Lucy!" here, bidding me welcome there. All through the war Lucy had brought the General to me. Spirited and beautiful, she had many times car ried him twenty miles in an evening to see me, often through dangers greater than battle. Lucy was not the General s war-horse. She was the little thoroughbred chestnut mare he always rode when he came to see me. His "peace-saddle," his "love-pony," he called her, and Bob, the General s valet, referring to her would say: " Dat hoss Lucy she Marse George s co tin -filly; an you daresent projick wid dat hoss needer, kaze Marse George iz mos ez especkful to her ez ef she wuz sho - nuff real folks." The horse the General used in battle he called " Old Black," a steady, sure-footed, strong, fearless animal that, while obedient to the General s slightest touch or command, allowed no one else, on peril of death, to mount her. My father s home was in Chuckatuck, Nansemond County, Virginia, about thirty miles from Norfolk, diago nally opposite Newport News. After the evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate forces all that part of the country was neutral ground, being occupied one day by Federal troops, and another by the Confederates. Lying thus between the two lines, a constant warfare was car ried on by the scouts of both armies. I had not been to my father s home since I was mar ried, and was not prepared for the changes war had made. Our own home on the James had been burned to ashes at the command of Butler, and for awhile we had nowhere "WHOA, LUCY." IQ to go but to my father s. We had nothing. We both knew, however, that a loving welcome awaited us there in my father s home. We knew that he had an abundance to eat. Nature s great larder, the Chuckatuck, ran but a stone s throw from the back door, supplying with but lit tle labor terrapin, fish, oysters and crabs in abundance, and bait was plentiful. It was there, then, to my childhood s home, that the General decided we should go. But, how? There was no way of getting there, no steamers running, and the railroad was derailed for miles around. Then again, there was no money; my husband had not a penny in the world, and our friends were no better off. On the afternoon of the second day after the General s return, while we were planning about going, my little brother Johnny came running in, saying: " Sister, I saw riding by the door just now that same Yankee who came here to see you the other day, and who said he was brother George s friend. He knew me, and asked how you were, and how s the baby." "Oh, I forgot; I must tell you all about it," I said, and I then told the General of the visitor I had had be fore he came back. When I had told him all, his gray eyes filled with tears, and looking down he said, tenderly: "Dear old Suckley! God bless him! That s just like him. Where is his card? Find it for me, please, little one. Dear old Suckley dear old fellow so true!" he said, looking at the card. I stooped down and took the General s dear head in both my hands, and raising it up looked down search- ingly into his earnest, loving eyes to see how he could possibly speak so kindly and so affectionately of a Yankee. " So you have that same kind of off-duty feeling, too, I see, that this Yankee doctor spoke of having," I said 20 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. with surprise, and rather disrespectfully fof me, too, I am afraid. " I must find the dear old fellow," the General said, graciously overlooking my smallness of spirit, and excus ing himself and taking leave of baby and me, he went out at once. In a little while he came back, saying: " It is very fortunate for us, little one, that I went out when I did. Suckley goes down the river to-morrow to Norfolk in the surgeon-general s steamer, and he has kindly invited us to go with him, dear old big-hearted bug-catcher! Come, let us lose no time. Let us hurry and get our little traps together and be ready. We will not say anything about our plans to any one till to-morrow morning, when we can announce our intentions and say our good-bys simultaneously." Not only had this Yankee officer, in his "off-duty" feeling for the General, kindly volunteered to transport us to our home, but to carry our trunks and horses, in fact, all we had, which, alas! was very, very little. Most of our worldly possessions all of our bridal presents, linen, library, pictures, silver, furniture, harp, piano, china, everything except a few clothes, had been stored at Kent, Payne & Co. s, and had been burned in the awful fire the night of the evacuation of Richmond. The General s staff had, one by one, come in during the day from the field and camp, and all breakfasted with us for the last time next morning in the old Pickett home at the corner of Sixth and Leigh streets. The military family had broken up at Appomattox after Lee s surren der, and the dear old headquarters Confederate flag the General himself unstaffed, tore into strips and divided among them. Such a happy family they had been. The second social parting was sad, too, for they had taken me, "the child wife," into their lives twenty months "WHOA, LUCY." 21 oefore, and they all loved me and called me " sister." Their pride in each other and in their command, the perils that together they had endured, the varied experiences of good times and bad, had bound them together in links stronger than steel. Spite of the partings, the loss of our cause, our dis appointment and poverty, there was to me a sweet, restful, peaceful feeling of thankfulness in my heart and gratitude to God that the war was over, that my husband had been spared and belonged now only to me, that we were going home, and together, free from intrusion, could rest under the shade of our own trees. CHAPTER IV. GEORGE JUNIOR S FIRST GREENBACK. The next morning at ten o clock Dr. Suckley called in his headquarters ambulance to take us to the steamer. Just at the close of breakfast we had announced our in tention of going. There was to be a sudden breaking up and severing of old associations. The staff were all en route to their respective homes except the adjutant- general, Major Charles Pickett. He and Mrs. Dr. Bur- well, only brother and sister of my husband, were to remain with their families for a time in the old Pickett home. We said our sad good-by in the great fruit- and flower- garden at the rear of the house, and passing all alone through the large parlors and wide halls, crept quietly out and softly closed the door behind us. The only evi dence of life in the dear old home as we looked back was Dr. Burwell s big dog which, having escaped from the back yard, howled mournfully within the gates. The blinds and window-shades had not been opened or raised since the Federal forces had occupied the city. As we boarded the steamer that morning I realized for the first time that our cause was lost. Never before in all the days of my dear married life but cheer after cheer had greeted us wherever we had gone salute from sol dier or sailor, whether on or off duty. This morning these honors were replaced by stares of surprise, of mingled curiosity and hate. Dr. Suckley recognized this feeling at once, and, with a quizzical smile at my caged-tigress 22 GE OR GE JUNIOR S FIRS T GREENE A CK. 2 3 expression of rage, put his arm in that of the General, and with a haughty glance at the men, walked boldly on board. I was shown into the surgeon-general s stateroom, in which there were many evidences of thoughtful care for my comfort. We were soon under way. The General and Dr. Suckley called each other by their given names and laughed and talked as cordially as if they had loved the same dear cause and fought for it side by side. At the table they drank to each other s health and to the friends and memories of olden times. A stranger could not have told which of the two soldiers had furled his banner. They chatted of Texas, and the great annexation strife which had changed the political complexion of the nation away back in what seemed to my youthful view a remote antiquity. They talked of Mexico, and the General re called reminiscences of the battles in which he had fought in that wonderful tropical country. They dis cussed the wild, free, fresh, novel life of the far-off Pacific coast, the wealth of the gold-mines of California, its luscious and abundant fruits, and the friends they had known there. They talked of the great Northwest, that was like a mythologic region to me, of the Chinook In dians, and of San Juan Island and the English officers who had occupied the island conjointly with the General. I found myself wondering if it had been a dream, and there had been no internecine strife. Just before reaching City Point, which is a few hours distance from Richmond, Dr. Suckley came up to me and said: "We are going to stop for General Ingalls, who wishes to come on board to pay his respects to you and George. I don t suppose there is any one in the wide world Rufus Ingalls loves more than he does your hus- 24 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. band, and I hope, madam, you will meet him with more cordiality than you did another of your husband s friends. At least, for the sake of their lifelong friendship, you will not hurt him." He turned for sympathy to my husband, who looked acquiescingly at him and beseechingly at me. Presently the General drew me to one side and whispered: " Suckley voiced my wishes, my little wife, and I want ycu to meet my old friend just as cordially as you can. Put your little hand in his and forget everything except that he is one of your husband s oldest and dearest friends." I promised my husband with all my heart to do what he asked, and I really meant to do it. I loved to do every thing he bade me. I liked him to make things hard for me sometimes, that I might show him how sincere and loving my obedience was. But when General Ingalls came on board, was given a salute and received, as became his rank, with the honors the absence of which I had marked when my own General came, I slipped my hand out of my husband s and ran back to my stateroom as fast as I could. There I burst out crying and shook our baby, waking him, and told him how papa had been treated that poor papa had not had any honors paid him at all, and that a dreadful old bad Yankee general had come on board and taken them all, and that when he grew up and was a big man he must fight and fight and fight, and never sur render, and never forgive the Yankees; no, not even if his poor, dethroned papa asked him to do so. I told him how his papa had asked me to shake hands with this Yankee general, because he was his friend, and that I was going to do it because papa wanted me to; that I tried and could not, and that he never must, either never, never. GEORGE JUNIOR S FIRST GREENBACK. 2$ I did not know there was a witness to all my bitter ness till I heard a smothered chuckle and, looking up, saw my husband and his friend, General Rufus Ingalls, standing over me. With a twinkle in his eye, and in a voice full of suppressed laughter, General Ingalls said, as he patted me on the head: "I don t blame you one bit, little woman not a damn bit. I should feel just as terrible about it as you do if I were in your place. It s all different with Pickett and me, you see. We don t mind. Why, do you know, child, we have slept under the same blanket, fought under the same flag, eaten out of the same mess- pan, dodged the same bullets, scalped the same Indians, made love to the same girls aye, Pickett, it won t do, by Jove, to tell her all we have done together no, no come, shake hands. I am dreadful sorrywe have had this terrible kick-up in the family, and all this row and blood shed, but we are all Americans, damn it, anyhow, and your fellows have been mighty plucky to hold out as they have. Come, that s a good child; shake hands. May I kiss her, Pickett? No damn it, I shan t ask you. There, there! Here is a basket of trash I had the orderly rake together. I don t know what it all is, but I told the man to do the best he could. Here, Mr. George junior with your bright eyes and your won t-cry mouth here is a green chip for a pair of red shoes." General Ingalls put into our baby s hands his first greenback, and it was the only money we had, too every cent. Baby and I said good-by, and he and the Gen eral went out on deck. While I was peeping into the basket "Mr. George junior" tore the note in two. I caught the pieces and stuck my bonnet-pin through them till I could paste them together. One of the officers brought me some glue, and I cut a hundred-dollar Con- 26 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. federate note in two to mend it with. Poor*Con federate money! * Representing nothing in God s earth now, And naught in the waters below it; As the pledge of a nation that passed away, Keep it, dear friend, and show it. Show it to those who will lend an ear To a tale this trifle will tell Of Liberty born of a patriot s dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell. Too poor to possess the precious ores, And too much of a stranger to borrow, We issued to-day our promise to pay, And hoped to redeem on the morrow. The days rolled on, and weeks became years, But our coffers were empty still; Coin was so scarce that the treasury quaked When a dollar should drop in the till. But the faith that was in us was strong, indeed, Though our poverty well we discerned; And this little check represents the pay That our suffering veterans earned. They knew it had hardly a value in gold, Yet as gold our soldiers received it; It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay, And every true soldier believed it. But our boys thought little of price or pay, Or of bills that were overdue We knew if it brought us our bread to-day Twas the best our poor country could do. Keep it! It tells all our history over, From the birth of our dream till its last; Modest, and born of the angel Hope, Like our visions 6f glory, it passed. * These verses v/cre written on the back of a Confederate note, and for a time were ascribed to John Esten Cooke, and to Colonel Wythe Mumford. They were afterwards attributed to Colonel Jonas. GEORGE JUNIOR S FIRST GREENBACK. 2/ Baby s first greenback was put up to dry, and then I turned my attention to the big covered basket the sailor had brought in. What an Aladdin treat it was! Raisins the first I had seen in years and years coffee, real "sho - nuff" coffee sugar, crushed sugar how nice! (we had had nothing but sorghum-juice sugar and sweet- potato coffee for so long) rice and prunes, Jamaica rum and candy French brandy and sherry and port oh, me! and figs nothing ever had tasted so good as that first fig and well the Yankee general who gave them all to me the tones of his voice made more peace than his words. Eating the figs, I repeated them over to baby, saying: " Never mind, baby, about hating this Yankee. He said papa and he had trailed after the same Indians and smoked their venison at the same camp-fire and had drunk from the same flask. He said you looked like your papa, and he said you were a beautiful boy. So you need not mind about hating just this one. He said geography and politics had forced your papa and him to take opposite courses and it took four years to settle for their hot-head- edness and ambitions. You must never be a politician, and you may love this o?ie Yankee a tiny bit, and may suck a piece of his beautiful candy." Dr. Suckley not only took us to Norfolk, which was the end of his route, but he took us up the Nansemond River, thirty miles, and up Chuckatuck Creek, to my fa ther s wharf. No one was expecting us. They thought, of course, it was the " Yankees come again," and had all run off and hidden, except my father who came down to catch the boat-line and welcome the travelers, whoever they might be. Oh, the joyful welcome of my great big- hearted father! Soldiers and sailors, one and all, came and shook hands with us. Baby and my little brother, Johnny, had 23 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. made friends of them all for us. Baby kneV no differ ence between those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray, and some of them had little ones at home. We said good-by, with many a regret, to our kind friend and benefactor, Dr. Suckley, and to the sail ors and officers, and this time cheer after cheer went up for my noble hero husband, as the little steamer hauled in the lines and puffed away, and more names were added to the list of Yankees for baby not to hate. CHAPTER V. "SKOOKUM TUM-TUM." The General did not like to fight his battles over. He said that the memories they revived were too bitter to be cherished. The faces of the dead and dying sol diers on the field of battle were never forgotten. The sor row of widows and orphans shadowed all the glory for him. In the presence of memory he was silent. The deepest sorrow, like the deepest joy, is dumb. "We are both too worn and weary now for aught else but to rest and comfort each other," he said. "We will lock out of our lives everything but its joys. From adversity, defeat and mourning, shall spring calmness for the past, strength for the present, courage for the future. Now that, in obedience to the command of General Lee, I have finished and sent off the report of the last fight of the old division, the closing days of our dear lost cause, we will put up the pen for awhile, and lay aside our war thoughts. We will rest and plan for peace, and then after a time we will take up the pen again and write down our memories for our children and perhaps for the children of the old division. We will build us a nest over the ashes of our once grand old colonial home on the James, and plant a new grove in the place of the sturdy old oaks cut down." The General possessed the greatest capacity for hap piness, and such dauntless courage and self-control that, to all appearances, he could as cheerfully and buoyantly steer his way over the angry, menacing, tumultuous surges 29 3O PICKETT AND HIS MEN. of life as over the waves that glide in tranquil smooth ness and sparkle in the sunlight of a calm, clear sky. This sweet rest which we had planned for ourselves, however, was of but short duration. We had been at my father s home only a few days, when a private messenger brought letters of warning from some of the General s old army friends. Two officers high in authority, solicitous for his welfare, advised that, in the existing uncertain, in cendiary, seditious condition of things, he should absent himself for a while, until calm reflection should take the place of wild impulse, and time bring healing on its wings, and make peace secure. Butler, who had not yet recovered from the "bottling- up" experience, had instigated a movement to indict the General for treason, and was making bitter speeches against him in Congress. The people everywhere, in censed and furious over the assassination of their beloved, martyred President, cried aloud for vengeance and blood and the revival of the law of Moses. The nation had gone mad with grief and rage. The waves of passion rose mountain-high, and from the awful storm the angels of justice, mercy and peace took flight. All that was bad in the hearts of men arose to the sur face; all that was good sank to the depths. The first per son who could be seized upon was regarded as the proper victim to the national fury. The weakest and most de fenseless was made the target of popular wrath, because rage could thereby most quickly spend itself in ven geance. Mrs. Surratt was imprisoned, and the whole coun try was in a state of frenzy and on the verge of revolution. The strictest secrecy was enjoined upon us. Only my father and mother were taken into our confidence. Lucy was bridled, saddled and brought to the door. I walked with my husband, he holding the bridle, to the SKO OKUM TUM- TUM. " 31 upper gate. It was ten o clock; the moon was shining brightly, and all was quiet and still. The General s plan for me was that I should go next day to Norfolk, take the steamer to Baltimore, and visit his aunt, whose husband had been in the old army, and who had not left it to join the Southern Confederacy, though his sons had fought on that side, one of them hav ing been detailed on duty at my husband s headquarters. "My aunt will welcome you," he said, "and you will remain with her until a telegram shall come to you, say ing, Edwards is better. " (Edward was my husband s middle name.) That telegram would mean that he was safe and that I was to join him, starting on the next train. I was to telegraph to "Edwards" from Albany, on my way to him, sending the message to the point from which his telegram had been dated. If his telegram should say, "There is still danger of contagion," I was not to start, but remain with his aunt until another message came. "Cheer up, the shadows will scatter soon. Already bright visions and happy day-dreams flit through my brain and thrill my heart; so keep up a skookum turn- turn, little one, and take care of yourself. Watch for the telegram, Edwards is better, for it will surely come. Now, keep up your courage and have faith; for it will surely come. God bless you." I smiled up at him as he repeated the familiar old say ing, "Keep up a skookuoi turn-turn (a brave heart), little one." He had learned the phrase from an old Chinook war rior on the Pacific coast, and in the darkest days of the ill-fated struggle, when hope died in the heart and the sun seemed to have left the sky forever, he ivould lift my face upward, look down upon it with his kind tyes f 32 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. smile gently, and say in a cheerful voice,- "Keep up a skookum turn-turn, dear one." I listened to the sound of the footsteps of the horse, (his "co tin -filly " dear old Lucy) away in the dis tance, long after he was out of sight. Then I remem bered a trick of my childhood, which had been taught me by a half-Indian, half-negress, and, putting my ear to the ground, I listened for the steps until the last echo was lost. The night-wind sighed with me as I walked back, re peating " Keep up a skookum turn-turn." My pathway lay parallel with the Chuckatuck Creek, a stone s throw to the left. The tide was high and still coming in. The surg ing of its waves seemed to call out to me, "Skookum turn-turn! Skookum turn-turn!" I could not be all deso late, when the most beautiful forces of nature, echoing his words, called to me, "Keep up a brave heart brave heart!" My precious old father had waited to have us say good-by alone, and was now coming forward to meet me. Our baby awakened just as we got in. I confided to baby the secret of the telegram, and told him papa said it would surely come, and papa always said what was true. The stars were burning brightly in the midnight sky to light the traveler on his way as he went afar off. Could there be light on the pathway that led him from me? Had his face been turned southward, with his eyes fixed joyfully upon the loved home where he would be welcomed when his journey 1 was over, what radiant glory would have flooded the way! Far up in the zenith I could see "our star" gleaming brilliantly, seeming to reach out fingers of light to touch me in loving caress. It was a pure white star, that sent down floods of silvery radiance. Near it was a red star, SKO OKUM TUM- TUM. " 33 gleaming and beautiful, but I did not love it. It seemed to glow with the baleful fires of war. My great loving, tender, white star was like a symbol of peace looking down with serenest compassion. " Our star," he had said, as we stood together only one little evening before how long ago it seemed and gazed upward to find what comfort we might in its soft radiance. " Wherever we may be, we will look aloft into the night sky, where it shines with steady light, and feel that our thoughts and hearts are together." I fell asleep, saying softly in my heart, " God s lights to guide him." There were no steamers and no railroads from my home to Norfolk, but my father secured a pungy a lit tle oyster-boat and the following day we, baby and I, started off. My father s heart was almost broken at parting from me so soon again. I was going, he knew not where, but knowing that "what God hath joined to gether, no man should put asunder," he could not say one word to keep me. A storm came up just after we had gotten out of Chuckatuck Creek, and we were delayed in arriving at Norfolk. We had hoped to be there some hours before the departure of the Baltimore steamer, but reached the wharf as the plank was about to be taken in, so that my father barely had time to say good-by to me and put me on board. CHAPTER VI. CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. Alone, except for baby George, for the first time in all my seventeen years! Perhaps no timid little waif thrown out upon the deep sea of life ever felt more utterly desolate. I stepped on board the Baltimore steamer and was piloted into the saloon by a porter whose look and man ner showed that he was perfectly cognizant of my igno rance and inexperience. In the midst of my loneliness and the consciousness of my awkwardness and my real sorrows, sympathy for myself revived my olden-time compassion for poor David Copperfield, whom Steerforth s servant had made to feel so "young and green." So little did I know of traveling and the modes and manners of travelers, that I sent for the captain of the steamer to buy my ticket and arrange for my stateroom and supper. I wondered a little, as I waited for him, what he would think of my childishness, and if he often had such helpless passengers, and if he had, what he did with them, and if life was not sometimes made a burden to him because of them. There was always an undercur rent, though, of realization of my position, and of dread because of it. I had one comforting reflection, however the captain could not take me for a conspirator. My innocence was too genuine and embarrassing to be mis taken for assumed guilelessness. I had been told on leaving my home that the slightest jmprudence or careless word from me might cause 34 CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. 35 my arrest, and that, in any event, if it were known who I was, it was more than possible that I might be held as a hostage for my husband. After consideration it had been decided that I should travel, not under my own name, but under my maiden name. The more I studied the subject the more bewildered I became. How could I keep my precious secret? I determined to be very silent and guard my tongue closely and answer in mono syllables that would discourage intimacies. I began to draw my face down and look serious and wise and assume an expression of profound abstraction. Then it occurred to me that this attitude would never do. In the few novels I had read, the people who had secrets were al ways silent and mysterious. Their demeanor said more plainly than words could have expressed: " Behold, the modern Sphinx, whose riddle can never be read!" Every one would recognize immediately the fact that my mind was the repository of something dangerous. Then I thought I would cultivate a light and chatty style, more in accordance with my natural character. So I was soon, in my thought, in conversation with some im aginary person on home scenes and pleasures, assuming an animation that ought to remove from the mind of the most suspicious person the fancy that I could possibly have anything to conceal. I found that my mental allusions to what the General said and did were quite too frequent and enthusiastic to be in accordance with my as sumed character of an unknown little wife and mother, traveling for the innocent purpose of spending a few days with relations, expecting her obscure husband to come for her after awhile from a little farm that he was industriously tilling. If I could neither talk nor be silent, what could I do? $6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. While I wrestled with these perplexities my train of thought was interrupted by the ringing of a bell and a loud voice shouting: " Passengers will please walk into the custom-house office and show their passports!" The laws were so strict that no one could leave any city in the South without a passport from the military authorities stationed there. My grandmother had given me her " oath of allegiance," which everybody in those dread days immediately after the surrender of the army was compelled to take, in order to purchase medicine, food or clothing of any sort, or for the transaction of any kind of business whatsoever. It was a rare occurrence that a man was found who would take this iron-clad oath, for, no matter how great the exigencies might be, he was branded as a traitor if he yielded to them. Consequently, the women, who were most bitter, too, in their feelings, were obliged to make a sacrifice of their convictions and prin ciples, and take this oath in order to alleviate or prevent the absolute suffering of their loved ones. Illness in the family and the urgent necessity for quinine and salt left my unselfish little grandmother no alternative, and hav ing taken this oath herself she found in it a kind of safety. It had, at any rate, brought her relief, and she wanted that I should have it with me, as a sort of "mascot" or safeguard. With carpet-bag, basket and baby, I started into the custom-house office and explained to the officer in charge: " I am very sorry, sir, that I have no passport. The steamer was about to sail as I reached Norfolk. I came from a little village thirty miles beyond, where passports are not given. I have an oath of allegiance, if that will answer in its place." The officer, laughing, said: CARPE T-BA G, BA SKE T AND BAB Y. 3 7 " No; never mind. It is all right. Only register your name. I remember you did come on board just as the whistle blew; but was there not another passenger who came on with you a gentleman?" "Yes, sir," I said. " It was my precious father, and he went back home on the little sail-boat." There must have been something to excite suspicion in the way I wrote my name, or else in my manner. I boldly wrote out my given name, and then as I started to write my last name, I looked all around me, confused, and changed the letter "P" to "C," writing "Corbell." Then I began to erase " Corbell " and write " Phillips," the name in my oath of allegiance. While there was really nothing very false in what I did, I felt guilty and was frightened, for I had been brought up to be strictly truth ful, and to keep faithfully even the word of promise. I had not been long in the saloon when baby became restless and fretful. I was impatiently awaiting the com ing of the captain, whom I had sent for, when a man ap peared. He had short, curly hair, deep, heavy eyebrows, eyes sunken and close together, as if they had to be focused by his big, hooked nose or they would not be able to see. He was chewing alternately one end of his crinkly moustache and one side of his thick, red lip, and was making a sucking noise with his tongue, as he said: " Madam, you sent for the captain of the boat, I be lieve." "Yes, sir." "What do you wish?" " I want you to be kind enough to get my ticket and stateroom, please. My father had not time to see after me. He barely had time to put me on board." "Certainly; with pleasure. You stop in Baltimore long?" 38 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. "I don t know," I said. "You have been there before, I suppose?" "Oh, no; never. I have been nowhere outside of Virginia and North Carolina. Most of my traveling be fore my marriage was in going to and from Lynchburg, where I was at school. " Lynchburg is a hilly city. It was founded by an Irish emigrant, John Lynch, whose brother, Colonel Charles Lynch, of Revolutionary fame, instituted the lynch-law. Colonel Lynch was a great Whig, and too impatient to wait for the superfluous ceremony of legally administering justice upon the lawless Tories. " Once I rode on horseback to the Peaks of Otter, which are among the highest mountains of the South. You can t imagine how glorious it was to be up there so far away from the earth. When I first looked down from their lofty heights the sky and the earth seemed to be touching, and presently the rain began to pour. I could see the glimmering, glittering drops, but could not hear them fall. I was above the clouds and the rain up in the sunshine and stillness, the only audible sound a strange supernatural flapping. It was the hawks and buzzards flapping their wings. Suddenly the rain ceased, the haze vanished, and I saw below the rugged moun tains and what seemed in the distance a vast ocean. It was the level country below. "The words of John Randolph echoed in my heart with this infinite mystery of nature. He with only a servant had spent the night on those mighty rocks, and in the morning as he was watching the glory of the sun rise, having no one else to whom to express his thought, he pointed upward with his long, slender hand and charged his servant never from that time to believe any one who said there was no God. CARPE T-BA G, BA SKE T AND BAB Y. 39 "No, sah, Marse John; no, sah, said the awe-stricken servant. I ain t a-gwine ter, sah. I neber had no notion er bedoutin sich a stronagin fack ez dat w at you jes say, nohow, but I clar ter gracious now, Marse John, atter d:s, I ain t gwine ter let none er Marse Thomas Didy- muses tempshus bedoutin tricks cotch no holt pun dis nigger, fum dis day forward fereber no mo. "Once, too, I- "You have relatives in Baltimore?" said the gentle man, abruptly interrupting me; otherwise, feeling that geography and history were safe subjects, I should have rattled on till I had told him all I knew. "Yes, sir," said I. " I am going to visit them." "Where were you from this morning?" "I came from a little country village about thirty miles from Norfolk Chuckatuck, a village in Nanse- mond County. It used to be the capital city of a tribe of Indians called the Nansemums." " I saw your father as he was leaving the steamer. I was attracted to him because he made an appeal to all Masons, asking of them poor man with his hands raised to God, their protection and care for his child and grandchild. He thus was making himself known to any of us, his brothers, who might be aboard, when he was lost sight of by the turn of the boat. So, you see, you can safely confide in me, and I will help you in any way I can/ "Thank you," I said. "I know my dear, dear papa is a Mason. I know he was anxious about me; but I have nothing to confide nothing. I only want a stateroom and my tickets and some milk for the baby. I do not wish for any supper myself. I am so lonesome I could not eat. It is wicked to feel blue and down-hearted, with baby and all the kind friends to watch over me, as you say; and then, too, God is always near." 40 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. "Yes, that is true. Did you lose your husband in the war?" "No, sir." " He was in the war, though, was he not?" "Yes, sir." A fear came into my heart that I was talking too much. I did not want him to know anything concerning my husband, whose rank I especially desired to keep se cret. I encouraged myself with the reflection that the end justified the means, even though I might deviate slightly from the truth, and said: "You could not have heard of him, and he was not of sufficient rank to have made an impression upon you, even if you had." "Where is he now?" "In the country." "And you are leaving him?" " For a little while, only." Then he talked of how much the Southerners had lost, and how much they had to forgive; how easy it was to bear victory and how hard to bear defeat, and said that if he had been born South he would have been a rebel, and that his sympathies even now were with the Southern people. Then a sudden suspicion came to me, and I said: " I wish there had never been any rebels at all; no, not even the first rebel, George Washington; and, now, sir, please, 1 do not want to talk about the war. I am very weary and sleepy, and would like to retire. If you please, sir, will you get me my stateroom and ticket? I am so tired so very tired." Baby was lying asleep on my lap, hypnotized by the chandeliers. The man looked down on him for a mo ment, and then said, "Of course, I will get them for you," and was going, when an ex-Confederate officer, one of my CARPE T-BA G, BA SKE T AND BABY. 41 husband s old comrades and friends, came up and, cor dially reaching out his hand, said: " How do you do, Mrs. Pickett? Where is the General? What are you doing here, and where are you going?" He himself was returning to his home in the far South, but had been called back to Baltimore on business. " Thank you, General B ," I said. " My husband has gone to farming. He has turned his sword into a plow share, and 1 am going to visit his aunt, whom I have never seen. He is to come to us after a little while; could not leave conveniently just now. He is very well, I thank you." " I am so glad to have seen you," he said. " Will see you later on," andwas hobblingaway on his crutches. He saw by my manner that he had said something to embar rass me, something hurtful to me, and left with a pained look. He was dressed in his old Confederate gray. The brass buttons had all been cut off, in obedience to the order at the custom-house office. For several moments not a word was spoken. Then I looked up and said: " My tickets and stateroom, please." " I thought you said your name was Corbell," said he of the hooked nose, as he held my money shaking in his hand. " I thought you said your husband s rank was not sufficient to have made an impression; that in all proba bility I had never heard of him." Oh, that smacking sound of jaw and tongue, and that beak of a nose, and those little black eyes which grew into Siamese twins as they glared at me like a snake! He did not move, but said, while an undefined fear of him made me tremble and grow cold: " Your name was Corbell, and your husband was in the country. He was an officer of low rank." 4 2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. He repeated this, more to himself than \o me. "Did I say that?" I said, and, with a face all hon esty and truth, I looked straight into those eyes, divided by that vulture feature, and told, without blushing, with out a tremor in my voice, the first deliberate falsehood I had ever told: "Did I say so? Well, my mind has been unbalanced, my friends think, by the way the war has ended, and they are sending me from home to new scenes and new asso ciations to divert me, with the hope of making me well and strong again. Corbell was my maiden name, but I do not know how I happened to say that my husband s rank was low, for I was so proud of it. I could not have been thinking. Won t you please be so good as to get my ticket? I am so tired I don t know what I am saying." He went away, and the stateroom keys were brought to me by a waitress. She unlocked the door for me. I went in, too frightened now to think of supper, too frightened to sleep, and wondering if, in my imprudence, I had hurt my husband and what would happen if I had. All night long the noise of the wheel was to me the ax of the executioner. All night long it rose and fell through seas, not of water, but of blood the heart s blood of valiant men, of devoted women, of innocent little children. All night long it went up and down, dripping from the awful sea dripping with my hus band s blood, with my father s, with the blood of all the friends I had known and loved. Then it seemed as if all the world but me had been slain to make that dread sea, and I was doomed to move over it forever, with the sound of the crushing wheels grinding my heart to powder and never consuming me. Why had I, of the whole human race, been left alone to go always up and down in that horrible waste of blood? Near morning I fell asleep and CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. 43 dreamed that it was I who had destroyed all that world of people whose life-blood surged around me with a mad dening roar, and that I was destined to an eternity of remorse. When I awoke the boat had landed. I got up and dressed hurriedly. Starting to go out, I found that the door was locked on the outside. The chambermaid not answering my repeated call, I beckoned to a sailor passing the window and begged that he would tell the chambermaid that I was locked in and ask her to come and let me out. She came to the door and said: "You can not get out." "I do not understand," I said. "Are we not at Bal timore?" An officer was with her, who answered: "Yes, but you can not get off, madam. You are to be detained upon the boat until the authorities come and either release or imprison you. You are supposed to be a suspicious character." On a slip of paper I wrote: "A Master Mason s wife and daughter in distress de mands in their name that you will come to her." I said to the chambermaid: "Will you give this to the captain?" On her hesitating, the officer said: "You might as well." She went. In a little while a very little while be fore I thought she could possibly have reached the cap tain, while I was trying to hush the baby, who was hungry, a voice as kind and gentle as the benevolent face into which I looked, said: "What can I do for you, madam? You sent for me." " No, sir," I said, " I sent for the captain of the boat, 44 PICK S TT AND HIS MEN. but I am glad you came; you seem so kind, and may help me in some way in my trouble." "I am the captain of the boat," he said. "What can I do for you?" "You are not the gentleman who represented himself as the captain of the boat last night, sir, and bought for me my ticket. He was short and dark As I was describing the pseudo-captain the gentleman interrupted me with: " He is a Federal detective, madam, and has advised that you be detained on the steamer until his return with the authorities and warrant." " But," I said, " he told me he had seen my father, as he left the steamer, make the sign of a Master Mason in distress, placing me in the care, not only of himself, but of all Masons on this steamer, and he told me I was safe and protected in their care, and he asked my confidence, but I had none to give him. He suspects me of what?" The captain said: "Your father did make that sign; your father did place you in our care. His appeal was to all Masons, and in their protection he did leave you. Come; I am cap tain of this steamer, and a captain is king on his own boat. Where did you say you wished to go? Stand aside," he said to the officer in charge. Giving me his arm, he placed me and baby, carpet bag and basket, in a carriage and the driver was told to drive to 97 Brenton street. "Yis, sor," said the Irishman. "97 Brinton strate, shure." "God bless you and watch over you! Good-by, lit tle baby." After driving some time, the Irishman impatiently told me there was no street by that name and I would CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY. 45 have to get out, but not until I had paid him for the two hours he had been hunting "for the same." " I will pay you the money," said I, " but there must be such a place. Come, here is the letter and the instructions." "There s no place of the koind, an the letther is all wrong," he said, spelling it out, "an" phat s to be done, an where am I to be laving you? It s to the daypo I ve got to be afther going to now." " Oh, I don t know," I said. " Why did you not tell the captain of the steamer you did not know, and have him tell you where to go?" "Shure, I thought you would be afther knowin yure own moind, an there s no one knows the place betther an the loikes of me an it s there to be a-finding." I did not know enough to get out and go to a drug store and hunt in the directory. I was at my wits end, if I had ever had any wits. There was not a soul in the city that I knew. I thought of the captain of the boat, the only friend I had, yet I was afraid to go back to seek him for fear the power he had would not be strong enough to protect me, once I had left his boat. I could think of no one else, nowhere else to go, and there was that in the captain s voice and manner of daring and strength that made me willing to trust myself with him, so I said: " Drive me back to the captain of the boat, please. I don t know what else to do." When I went on board the captain was not yet gone, which was an unusual thing. He had waited to see the officers before leaving. I answered the smile that came into his face, in spite of his kind heart, by handing him my aunt s letter, who wrote not only a very peculiar hand, but a very illegible one, saying: "Read, captain, and see if this is not Brenton street, the place my aunt has written me I must come." 46 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. " Go to 97 Brenton street, where my niece^ Mrs. C will bring you to my house, " he read. " It might be any thing else as well as Brenton," he said. "It looks like Brenton, but I have lived here all my life and have never heard of such a street. I ll get my directory, how ever, and look. No," he said, " but it may be Preston ; let s look, but there are no C s living there. You might try this house, at any rate, 97 Preston street, and if you do not find your friends living there then come to this number, where my wife and I will be happy to have you as our guest, you and the little lost bird, till you can write to your friends and find out where they do want you to come." Off again I started with the Irishman, who had become interested in me by this time, and had forgotten all about the depot. " Here you are, marm, 97 Priston strate, an a nice house it is, marm. Shall I take yure things in, marm?" " No; first take up my card, if your horses will stand." "Av coorse, marm, an they will." I wrote on my card: "Does Mrs. C live here a niece of Mrs. S ?" In a moment there were two or three faces at the windows, and in another moment as many voices at the carriage-door, asking, "Is this George Pickett s wife and child?" and I was so thankful to be once more where they knew George Pickett s wife and child. Besides the lovely people whose home it was, there was with them, on her way to her mother s, a daughter of Mrs. S , Mrs. General B , who was one of the most charming women I ever met. She had just returned from the South. Her husband, too, was in the Confederate army. The next day we both went out to her mother s, my husband s aunt s home. CHAPTER VII. The week I spent in Hartford County, Maryland, at the General s aunt s reminded me of my childhood, when I used to play that I was a " Princess or a Beggar," or " Morgiana of the Forty Thieves," or "The White Cat," or whatever character it would please me to select to play, for my heart and soul were separated from my body. I was not what I pretended to be. My body went to parties and receptions and dinners, and re ceived people and drove and paid calls, while my soul waited with intense longing for the telegram, " Edwards is better." One day I had been_ out to dine and, coming home, found awaiting me the message for which eyes and heart had been looking for a time that seemed almost eternal. That night I took the train for New York, starting out all alone again, baby and I. I was tired and sleepy, but there was such joy and gladness in my heart as I thought of so soon seeing my husband that I did not think of my discomforts. I repeated the telegram, " Edwards is better, Edwards is better, " over and over again. I sang it as a lullaby, putting baby to sleep to the measure of the happy words, " Edwards is better. " I crooned it softly with shut lips, lest some stranger should hear the precious words, " Edwards is better. " Only for baby and me was that sweet refrain. When baby slept I leaned back and closed my eyes and saw a world of beauty and bloom as the glad words went dancing through my heart. Was 47 48 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. there ever so sweet a slumber-song since babies were first invented to awaken the deepest melody of mother hearts? I went to sleep with baby in my arms. I had not money enough to get a berth just barely enough to buy my ticket and pay my expenses through to Montreal, Canada, from which point the telegram was dated. When I awakened later I found that a homespun shawl had been placed under my head. I never thought about who had been so kind, nor why the shawl was there. All my life long every one had been thoughtful of me; things had been done for me, courtesies had been extended to me, and I had learned to accept kindnesses as only what I had a right to expect from the human race. Murmuring softly the comforting words, "Edwards is better," I turned my face over and went to sleep again on the shawl. I slept until my baby became restless from the jolting. We took the steamer up the Hudson from New York to Albany. Something made poor little baby sick. I censured myself for having allowed him to catch cold on the train while I was sleeping. He was teething, and was very fretful. He had been used, too, to his nurse, his black mammy. He missed her customary care and atten tion, his cradle and rocking, and was unhappy and could not understand it. She used to give him his bath, to sing to him her negro melodies, and to dance him up and down in her strong arms, only bringing him to me for his daily nourishment and kisses and my own enjoyment of him, or when sometimes she wanted to go to her meals before Thomas was ready to put him in his little wagon. So, in his discomfort, he would reach out his hands and nod to anybody to take him. He was tired of me, and thought that I must, in some way, be the cause of all these privations and the pain and suffering he was then under going. ED WARDS IS BE TTER. 49 The philanthropic ladies on board the steamer seemed very much concerned, and at a loss to understand why he was so unhappy with me, and, apparently, preferred any body and everybody else. " Nurse, why do you not take the child to its mother?" one would say, and a look of incredulity would follow my assertion that I was its mother. "Then, why don t you quiet the child, if you are, and find out what is the matter with it?" and so on. How indignant I was! Something in my manner must have made them believe that it was not all right with me and the child, for they followed me about, asking many intrusive questions and making many offensive remarks. The crying of the baby was as disagreeable to them as it was distressing to me, and I was walking the deck, try ing to quiet him, all tired and worn out as I was, when a gentleman came up to me. On his shoulder I recognized the shawl that had been put under my head on the cars the night before. It introduced "one of the least of these." He said: " Madam, excuse me, but I do not think you have had any dinner, and you must be worn out with hunger and fatigue from fasting and carrying the baby. Won t you let me hold him while you go down and eat something?" Even though he carried the shawl which bespoke my faith, I was afraid to trust him with so precious a treasure as my baby, and would rather have starved than have per mitted it to go out of my sight. "Thank you, very much, but I could not think of troubling you, " I said. "No oh, no." Then said he: " May I order something for you here? " I was hungry, and was so glad for the open way he had found for me, and said, " Yes, " handing him twenty-five 4 SO PICKETT AND HIS MEN. cents. It was all I could afford to pay for dinner, but as I looked at the tray when it was brought to me, I thought, "How cheap things must be in New York," for there was soup and fish a kind of yellow fish I had never seen before, salmon, I afterward learned it was stewed with green peas, a bird, some asparagus and pota toes, ice-cream, a cup of coffee and a glass of sherry. Upon his insisting that perhaps it would be restful to the baby, I let him hold it while I ate my dinner. I did not know how hungry I was, nor how much I was in need of nourishment. Baby immediately became quiet in his arms. Whether it was the change or not, I do not know, but in a little while he was fast asleep. I covered him up with the shawl to which the gentleman pointed, finished eating my delicious dinner, taking my time and enjoying it, while he read his book and held my baby. When the servant came and took away the tray, I arose and, thank ing the stranger for his kindness, said: " I will take the, baby now, if you please." " If you would rather," he said, " yes, but I think he will be more comfortable with me for awhile. Then, too, you might awaken him if you moved him. Let me hold him while you rest. Here is a sweet little book, if you would like to read it. I think, however, it would be better for you to rest; to sleep, if you could. You look really fagged out." The book he gave me was a child s book it may have been "Fern Leaves." I can t remember the name, but written on the fly-leaf, in a child s irregular hand, were these words: For my dear darly popsy who is gon to fite the war fum his little darly dorter little mary Dear popsy don kill the por yangees and don let the yangees kill you my por popsy little mary Dear popsy com back soon to me an mama an grandad thats all I says your prayers popsy ebry day fum little mary "EDWARDS IS BETTER." 51 Beneath little Mary s name was this line: Little Mary died on the i6th of May, 1864 her fifth birthday. 1 rested, but thought of little Mary as I watched my own baby who was sleeping so sweetly in this childless stranger s arms till presently the waves brought back to me the days of my childhood the story of the sailor with his stolen mill, grinding out salt, forever and forever, and the lost talisman lost still back to my grandmother s knee, listening with wonder-eyes to " Why the sea is salt," the while my soul anon chanted to music those all- healing, blissful words, " Edwards is better," gaining strength for the o erhanging trial I least dreamed of and the shadows rose to make place for one darker still. CHAPTER VIII. ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. My attention was attracted by a man in close con versation with the conductor. I was evidently the object of it, for they would look carefully over the paper they held and then at me, as if comparing me with something therein described. Had I been a hardened criminal, they would probably not have taken the risk of thus warning me of the fact that I was under suspicion. As my ap pearance would seem to indicate that, if a law-breaker, I was a mere tyro in vice, they supposed they could safely take notes of me. I was absolutely sure that I was the subject of the conversation, and trembled with a pre sentiment of coming evil. I tried in vain to turn my face toward the window, but my eyes seemed fascinated. A thousand preposterous fears passed in review through my mind, though the real one never suggested itself. I endeavored to dispel them each in turn, arguing that the scrutiny of the men foreboded nothing, because I seemed an object of curiosity to everybody, and now, as I recall my appearance, I don t wonder, for I was very odd-looking. In the first place, I was dressed so quaintly and looked so entirely unlike those around me, and was all uncon scious of any peculiarity or deficiency in my apparel being garmented in my very best, the traveling-gown, etc., in which I had been married, and which had been bought and made under such difficulties, and kept after ward with such scrupulous care. So I was perfectly well satisfied with myself. 52 ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. 53 I wore a long, loose-fitting black silk mantilla with three ruffles at the bottom, while those around me were dressed in tight-fitting, short cloth jackets. My bonnet was of gray straw, plaited and dyed by the servants on the plantation at home, and sewed into shape by our fash ionable village milliner; a poke shape, extending far over the face, a wreath of pink moss-rosebuds on the inside, tangled in with my dark-brown hair, while it was trimmed on the outside with several clusters and bunches of grapes of a lighter shade of gray, also hand-made. The grapes were formed of picked cotton, covered with fleek-skin* and then tinted. My collar was one of my bridal presents from our pastor s wife made of tat ting and embroidery, about five inches wide, and was pinned in front with a lava breast-pin. The prevailing collar worn by the fashionable world was made of linen, very narrow, only an edge of it showing, while very small, jaunty hats, worn back on the head, were the style. The conductor seemed to be arguing with this man as I caught his eye, and just then my baby sprang forward and snatched the newspaper from an old gentleman who was sitting, reading it, in front of me, and shrieked when it was loosened from his baby hands, while the old gen tleman looked daggers in answer to my apologies; but, thank heaven! when I looked again after this diversion, the two men were gone. I had just settled back, a little unnerved and weak, however, when from behind me came a touch on my shoulder, and, turning around, I saw the officer and the conductor. The former said, " I have a warrant for your arrest, madam," and forthwith served it upon me. There on the cars, all alone, miles away from home and friends, two dollars and ten cents all my little store, * Fleek-skin is the thin covering of leaf lard. 54 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. I was arrested for stealing! Stealing my own child! I could not read the warrant as it trembled in my hands I had never seen one before. Baby thought it was a compromise for the old gentleman s paper, and it was with difficulty rescued from him. As soon as my confused wits grasped the meaning of this I said: "This baby? This baby, sir? It is mine mine it is named after its father it is mine! I can prove it by everybody in the world, and " "Well, well," said the conductor kindly, as his voice trembled, "that s all he wants, lady. You will only have to be detained, in all probability, till the next train." " But I must go on," I said, " for my husband is looking for me, and I could not stand staying away another min ute longer than the time at which he expects me. Please, everybody, help me." Some were too refined even to look toward me; others merely glanced over their glasses or looked up from their books and went on reading. Some kept their faces care fully turned toward the landscape; and a few, just as heartless and more vulgar, gazed in open-mouthed curi osity. One woman s good heart, thank God, redeemed them all. She came forward, her tender blue eyes moist with sympathy, her black crepe veil thrown back from her lovely face and her waving hair with the silver threads among the gold all too soon, and said, in a voice so sweet that it might have come from the hearts of the lilies of the valley that she wore bunched at her swan- white throat: " Come, I will stop off with you if it must be. Let me see the paper." Simultaneously with her, the gentleman of the home- ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. 55 spun shawl came from I don t know where, and asked, too, to see the paper, and both got off the train with me. I was so weak I could hardly hold or carry my baby, for all at once there came over me the sense of my utter helplessness to prove that my child was my own. There was no one I could telegraph to without exposing who and what I was, and where, and perhaps why, I was going. A telegram to my friends at home not only might betray me, but would alarm them. A telegram to my husband would jeopardize his safety, for he would surely come to me at once. "Look! Look!" I said to the magistrate and officers, as they read aloud the suspicions and accusations of the philanthropic ladies who were with me on board the Albany steamer, and who, in their zeal to secure a right and correct a wrong, without understanding the causes of my child s discomfort and unhappiness with me, or the reasons for my rather suspicious manner and embarrass ment, had caused my arrest. Thus do the pure and holy ever keep guard over the sins of the world and throw the cable-cord of justice around the unregenerate to drag them perforce into the path of rectitude. May they reap the reward to which their virtues entitle them! " Look at its eyes and look at mine," holding his little face up against my own. " Can t you every one see that it is my child my very own child?" " That may be, but give us the name of some one to whom we may telegraph some tangible proof. If it is all right, there must be some one who knows you and who can testify in your behalf." " No, no," I said, "there is no one. I have nobody to help me, and if God does not show you all some way, and $6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. your own hearts do not convince you, I dort t know what I shall do." My poor, little, half-starved, in-litigation baby refused to be comforted. The kind gentleman with the shawl could amuse him no longer. He had dashed from him the keys, and pushed the watch from his ear, and de manded impatiently of me the rights of sustenance. The dear, good woman beside me, with the smile of the re deemed lighting up her face, touched mine, whispering in my ear while I held baby s hands to prevent him in his im patience from tearing apart my mantle and untying my bonnet-strings: "Do you nurse your baby?" 11 Yes," I said, "and he is so hungry poor little thing." Then she stood up, leaning on her cane, for she was slightly lame, and said in a voice clear and sweet: "Gentlemen, I have a witness" my heart almost stood still " here, in the child who can not speak. It is not always a proof of motherhood, but with the circum stantial evidence and the youth of this mother, this be yond peradventure is proof convincing. The child is still nourished from her own body," and she opened my mantle. I, who had never nursed my baby in the presence of even my most intimate friends, bared my bosom before all those strange men and v/omen and nursed him as proof that I was his mother, while tears of gratitude to the sweet friend and to God flowed down my cheeks and dropped on baby s face as he wonderingly looked up, trying to pick off the tears with his little dimpled fingers, and thank fully enjoyed the proof ". The men turned aside and tears flowed down more than one rugged face. The kind stranger with the shawl lifted his eyes heavenward as if in thanksgiving, and then turned them earthward and breathed a bitter curse, deep and heartfelt. Perhaps the ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. tf recording angel jotted down the curse on the credit side of the ledger with as great alacrity as he registered there the prayer of thanks. I trust that the philanthropic ladies, when the evidence was sent them, were as surely convinced as all these peo ple were, that I had not stolen my child. I hope they were pleased by this indication of the existence of some degree of innocence in the world, outside of their own virtuous hearts, but I don t know. " Take thy fledgling, poor mother dove, under thy trembling wings, back to its nest and the father bird s care. I shall go a few miles further where I stop to see my baby," said my new friend. " This little boy who brought me back to life is older than yours. He is the child of my only son, whose young life ebbed out on the battle-field of Gettysburg, and whose sweet spirit has joined that of his noble father, my husband, which, in his very first battle, was freed. This baby blesses our lives the young mother s and the old mother s." The train due twenty minutes before was signaled; baby finished his " proof" on the car which was taking me faster and faster to the loving heart and protecting care that even this kind stranger saw how sadly I needed. The friend so kind to me on the steamer succeeded in getting us seats, though apart. The cars were crowded with soldiers returning home after the war; disbanded soldiers, soldiers on furlough, and the released prisoners, with their pale, cadaverous, unshaven faces and their long, unkempt hair. One from Andersonville, more emaciated and ragged than the others, was selling his pictures and describing the horrors of his prison life, and, as he told of his sufferings and torture, amid the groans of sympathy, maledictions and curses were hurled against my people; and once his long, bony 5 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. arm and hand seemed to be stretched menacingly toward me as he drew the picture of " the martyred Lincoln, whose blood," said he, " cries out for vengeance. We follow his hearse; let us swear a hatred to these people against whom he warred, and as the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression, renew with each sound unappeasable hatred. * I crouched back into my seat, almost holding my breath as I pressed my baby against my beating heart. The sweet new friend touched my brow with her lips, leaving there a kiss and a prayer, put the lilies in my hand, and was gone. The cars moved on, leaving a great void in my heart as I thought of my God-given friend, so lately found, so swiftly lost. All this was more than thirty years ago, but one of the lilies yet lies in my prayer-book, glorifying with the halo of a precious memory the page on which it rests. A man, not a soldier, I think, for brave soldiers are magnanimous and generous always, stood up in a seat almost opposite mine and said: "When I think of the horrors of Libby and Anderson- ville and look at these poor sufferers, I not only want to invoke the vengeance of a just God, but I want to take a hand in it myself. Quarter should be shown to none every man, woman and child of this accursed Southern race should be made the bondsman of his own slave for a specified length of time, that they might know the curse of serfdom. Their lands should be confiscated and given to those whom they have so long and so cruelly wronged." As he in detail related the story of their scanty allow ance, the filth and darkness of their cells, I longed to get up and plead for my people, and tell how they, too, were without soap, food or clothes; that we had no medicines even, except what were smuggled through the lines, and that our own poor soldiers were barefooted and starving; ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL. 5Q and that all the suffering of prisoners on both sides could have been avoided by carrying out the terms of the cartel proposed by the Confederate government. If I had only dared to raise the veil and reveal the truth, sympathy would have tempered their bitterness; the flame of divine kinship smoldering in their veins, hidden as in a tomb, would have miraged over the gulf of wrongs a bridge of holier feelings. Yet the memory of the woman whose son had been killed on the field of Gettys burg, and whose lily, now browned and withered with the years, I cherish with such tender care, softened the words that were like blows to my ear and heart. Thus the power of one pure heart radiating its love upon the world as an odorous flower, diffuses fragrance on the surrounding atmosphere, uplifts the sorrowful spirit and strengthens it to withstand the rude assaults of a vin dictive world. The official figures of Secretary of War Stanton and Surgeon-General Barnes show that over three per cent, more Confederates perished in Northern prisons than Federals in Southern prisons. The report of Mr. Stanton, July 19, 1866, says: " Of the Federal prisoners in Confed erate prisons during the war, 22,576 died. Of Confeder ate prisoners in Federal prisons, 26,436 died. Surgeon- General Barnes said that the Confederate prisoners num bered 220,000; the Federal prisoners, 270,000. Out of 270,000 Federals more than 22,000 died; of 220,000 Confederates more than 26,000 died.* General Grant, in his letter to General Butler from City * Mr. Elaine accounts for the greater mortality of Southern prison ers by saying that the Southern men were "ill-clad, ill-fed and diseased, so that they died of disease they brought with them. " That being true, how then could the South provide any better for Northern prisoners than for her own soldiers? 60 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Point, July 19, 1864, thus bespeaks his acffcord with his government in opposing the exchange of prisoners: It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. Every man released on parole, or otherwise, becomes an active soldier against us at once, either directly or indirectly. If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold on to those caught, they amount to no more than dead men. At this particular time to re lease all rebel prisoners North would ensure Sherman s defeat and would compromise our safety here. ,, Q p Lieutenant-General. General Grant further said, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, February, 1865: " Exchanges of prisoners having been suspended by reason of disagreement on the part of agents of exchange on both sides before I came into command of the armies of the United States, and it then being near the opening of the spring campaign, I did not deem it advisable or just to the men who had to fight our battles to reiriforce the enemy with thirty or forty thousand disciplined troops at that time. An immediate resumption of exchanges would have had that effect without giving us corresponding benefits. The suf fering said to exist among our prisoners South was a pow erful argument against the course pursued, and so I felt it." In the light of historic facts, the right entry will be made of the suffering of the prisoners, North and South. CHAPTER IX. A FAMILIAR FACE. Owing to the delay, all the staterooms in the Lake Champlain steamer had been taken, and my little sick baby and its poor tired mother were very thankful when, after the long, dreary night, they welcomed the dawn of day which counted them many miles nearer to their Mecca. I have forgotten the name of the place from which we took the train for Montreal after leaving the steamer, but I remember a fact of more consequence concerning it that it was the wrong place. I received my first tariff lesson on reaching the Canada side, when the passengers were summoned to the custom house office to have their baggage examined, and I, with my carpet-bag, basket and baby, followed my fellow voy agers. When my turn came I handed the officer my keys and checks, which, after a glance, he gave back to me, saying with haste and indifference, as if it might have been the most trivial of matters: "Your luggage has been left on the States side. Your checks were not exchanged." This was "the last straw." The camel s back had been broken by no clothes. Heroically I had borne up under dangers and hardships, accusations and imminent trage dies, but the loss of my wardrobe, that greatest calamity which has ever been known to darken the career of mortal woman, was too much, and I wept aloud. Not that I had so large and so valuable an array of personal adornments. The few clothes I had were intrinsically worthless except, 61 62 PICKETT AND HIS MEN- perhaps, as so many curios. There were gowns remodeled and refashioned from court dresses over a hundred years old. There were others entirely new as to texture, and grotesquely original as to style, woven on our crude looms, made streaked and striped with our natural dyes, trimmed with an improvised passementerie made of canteloupe and other seeds, and laces knit from fine-spun flax, with buttons of carved and ornamented peach-stones. Then there was my wedding-robe, constructed after approved models, somewhere in the unknown regions of the frozen North, and basely smuggled across the lines to me, an un- regenerate reprobate, who wickedly ( but artistically, be it known) put it on and went, an unrepentant receiver of smuggled goods, proudly to the altar, positively glorying in villainy. In the Confederacy a new wedding-dress was a rare and precious feature in costumery. Its intro duction into a community was a social event of great importance. Its possession was a distinction which ren dered its fortunate owner especially subject to the gra cious law of noblesse oblige. My bridal-robe had draped the form of more than one fair maid since it had first eluded the vigilant eyes which guarded the Federal line. It was last worn by one of the most beautiful girls of the Confederacy when she became the wife of a distin guished officer, and was put away forever when, a few hours later, the groom was brought back to his bride, wrapped in the white shroud of death. The purity of the bridal-robe gave place to the sombreness of the widow s weeds, which for many years were faithfully worn in memory of her fallen hero. My genuine grief for the loss of all my clothes touched the heart of the sturdy Englishman into vouchsafing the information that I would better return the checks for exchange and I would receive my luggage on the next A FAMILIAR FACE. 63 train. The delight consequent upon this information, taken in connection with my previous grief, may have im pressed the British mind with the conviction that the missing trunks contained an entire outfit just from Worth, Felix being at that time yet in the realm of the unevolved. Taking the wrong train at the wrong point put me into Montreal later than I was expected, but I religiously fol lowed instructions to remain on the train which stopped over at Montreal, until I should be claimed, like a general- delivery letter. Every passenger had left the coach, and baby and I were alone. I was waiting and watching breathlessly for my claimant, when my hungry eyes caught sight of three gentlemen coming straight toward me. It was with but a languid interest that I regarded them, for I had pre conceived convictions as to the appearance of the one who should assert proprietary rights over me, and neither of these newcomers seemed at first glance adapted to re spond to those convictions. The face of one seemed rather familiar, but I was not sure, so I drew my little baby closer to me and looked the other way. I felt them com ing, and felt them stop right by my side. "What will you have of me?" I asked. There were tears in the eyes of the gentleman whose face had seemed a familiar one, and the next minute baby and I were in his great strong arms, and his tender voice was reproachfully asking: "Don t you know your husband, little one?" I was looking for my General as I had been used to seeing him dressed in the dear old Confederate uniform, and with his hair long and curling. The beautiful hair had been trimmed, and while he was not subject to the limitations of Samson in the matter of personal strength, a critical observer might have detected variations in per- 64 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. sonal beauty. An English civilian suit of* rough brown cloth took the place of the old Confederate gray. The two gentlemen with him were Mr. Corse, a banker, a brother of one of the General s brigadiers, and Mr. Symington, of Baltimore, a refugee. I noticed that these gentlemen called the General "Mr. Edwards" and me " Mrs. Edwards," which made me feel somewhat strange and unnatural, but I reflected that I was in a foreign country, and very far north of our old home, and perhaps even people s names were affected by political and cli matic conditions. Knowing our poverty, I had expected the General to take us to a quiet little room in some unpretentious board ing-house, but was too tired to voice my surprise when we were driven in a handsome carriage to a palatial home. I remember the beautiful grounds, the fountain, and flow ers; the big English butler with side-whiskers who opened the large carved doors; and the pretty girl in a cap who took baby from my arms. After that I remember only being tired so tired so very tired. When I had rested enough to remember again, 1 was on a sofa dressed in a pretty, soft, silken robe, and I heard a kind voice saying: "The lady is better; she will be all right. Let her sleep." Glancing up, I saw a benevolent-looking old gentleman and a pair of spectacles. I closed my eyes and heard the gentleman with the familiar face say such beautiful, such sweet, pleasant things, and his voice and touch thrilled my heart so that I kept my eyes shut and never wanted to open them again; and presently the pretty girl with the cap on came in and baby was in her arms, dressed in a beautiful robe. "Ze petite enfant very much no hungry now he eat A FAMILIAR FACE. 6$ tres much pap he sleep he wash he dress he eat tres much. He no hungry; he eat some more tres much again. He smile; he now no very much hungry again some more." Was I in the land of fairies, and was the gentleman with the familiar face the prince of fairies, as he was the prince of lovers? Our baby s outstretched arms and cry for me as he recognized me dispelled any such delusion, but I was too tired to hold out my hands to him. I soon felt his little face, however, nestling close against my own, and felt, too, the touch of yet another face, and heard the same voice which had made my heart thrill with bliss whisper again more things like unto those other things it had whispered, but I was too tired and too happy to speak, and my blessings seemed too sacred to open my eyes upon, so I kept them closed. When the old English physician came in the next day he said: "Ah, ha! Ah, ha! The lady is most well. Keep on feeding her and sleeping her. She is half-starved, poor lady, and half-dazed, too, by sleeplessness. Ah, ha! Ah, ha! Poor lady! That will do feed her and sleep her; feed her and sleep her. Ah, ha! Ah, ha! That s all." When the old doctor was gone I remember listening for the tread of the sentinel outside confusing the "ah, ha! ah, ha!" with the tramp, tramp, tramp and as I asked, the question brought back the memory that the war was over, the guns were stacked, the camp was broken, and the General was all my very own. I looked around inquiringly and up into the familiar face for an swer, and he, my General, explained our pleasant sur roundings. His old friends, Mr. and Mrs. James Hutton, he said, had been suddenly summoned to England, and had prayed him, as a great favor to them, to be their guest until their 66 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. return, as otherwise the delay to make the necessary ar rangements for their going would prevent their catching the first steamer. Thus we had a beautiful home in which to rest, to grow well and strong, to forget all that could be forgotten of the past, and to enjoy the present. CHAPTER X. VISITORS, SHILLING A DOZEN. OUR LEFT-HANDERS. The first week in June the French maid came to our room with a telegram for Mr. Edwards, announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Hutton would sail for home from England the following week. My husband calculated about what time they would arrive, and how soon we would be forced to give up the comforts of their beautiful and luxurious home, which we were then enjoying. We began to hunt for a place to live, commencing with the hotels and larger boarding-houses, and v/inding up with the smaller ones. After a week of varied, and some very funny, experiences, we decided at last upon one house, principally because of its attractive court and the pleasant verandas overlooking it. "With its glistening fountain and pretty shrubbery and flowers, how nice for our baby," I said. " How cool and refreshing the sound of the water, and the glimpse of green." So, for baby s sake, the selection was made and our rooms engaged. Our landlady was a very dark bru nette, and prided herself upon being a French Canadian, but "That man of mine," she sorrowfully said, "is a soggy Englishman, and you would hardly believe it possible he could be the father of our two beautiful daughters. Both of them are going to do well, but they don t take after their pa. The oldest is engaged to be married to a Stateser with nine businesses!" 67 68 PIC ICE TT AND HIS MEN. By the "nine businesses" and "Stateser" I gathered, from her explanation, which she volunteered in answer to my puzzled look, that the fortunate son-in-law-to-be was a Yankee living in a small town in the State of Ver mont, and owning a little country store where woolen and cotton goods, silks and flannels, pottery, queensware, hardware, groceries, grain, and so forth, were sold. In her admiration of him, after each alleged "business" she affixed the, to her, high-sounding title of "merchant." The second daughter, she told me, was learning to sing. "She has a sweet voice, but she don t take after her pa," she said, "and the young preacher student in the next room to the right of the one you have chosen is very much taken with her, and it looks like I d get both girls off my hands before long." She said she could not give me the use of the parlors when the girls wanted them. "The Stateser comes a long ways, you know, and has to have it all to himself when he is here." But she generously suggested that if none "of them" were using the parlor at the time when my "company came," she would let me entertain my visitors in it at the rate of a " shilling a dozen" which arrangement I con sidered a very good one for me, as I did not expect to have more than a shilling s worth of visitors perhaps, in six months. Our meals were to be served in our own room, except on Sundays, when we would have to dine in the public dining-room and do our own "waiting," like the others. We did not exactly understand what that meant, but one day s experience proved it to be anything but comfort able. The dinner had all been cooked on Saturday and was cut up and piled on the table in the center of the A SHILLING A D OZEN. "OUR LEFT-HANDERS. 69 room, and we each had to serve ourselves. I could not help thinking of the time when my General had been served by butlers and waiters, each anxious to be the first to anticipate his wishes, and all feeling amply rewarded for every effort by a pleasant word or an appreciative smile. I wondered how any one of those obsequious at tendants would feel to see us now. The following menu was about the average dinner (with the exception, of course, that on week-days it was warm): Corned beef, mutton pie, potato salad, pickled snap-beans, gooseberry tarts, and milk. Our breakfast was always cold; the first one was cold bread, preserves, a baked partridge (which is the same as our pheasant), and delicious coffee and butter. Our rooms had one discomfort: we were awakened every morning by the young lady making love to the bird of her preacher beau while she arranged his room. "Dear ittle birdie! birdie dot a Dod? birdie dot a soul? ittle birdie sings praises to Doddie? Dear ittle birdie dot a dear ittle papa, and dear ittle papa must det him a dear, dood ittle wifey dood ittle Tistian wifey, who will take tare of birdie and help him to make hi*, people dood Tistians, and help birdie and birdie s papa to sing praises, too; tiss again, ittle birdie A sound as of the door opening, a rustling and a confused "Oh, dear!" and then "Good-morning" was fol lowed by the invariable excuse for not having finished tidying up the room and cage before he came, "because birdie and I are such friends ain t we, birdie and time slips so quickly don t it, birdie?" I would know she was being forgiven, though I could hear only the sounds of his deep, low tones between the chirping to birdie, of course. Neither my husband nor I meant to listen to these chirpings to birdie, of course, 7O PICKETT AND HIS MEN, and I always put my fingers in his ears at the sound of them. After our breakfast was over and baby had been made comfortable, I usually sent him out with Annie for his walk, and she was delighted at having him all to herself. "Shure, and I ll not be having the interfarence of so many others whose rasponsability I don t be a-wanting; for the bairn, God save him, was afther being that kissed, his dinner wouldn t agray with him at all, at all. There was the cook and John s wife and John and the coach man and that ugly French Lizette (sorra a bit am I t6 be rid of her, the vain prig) would be all afther kissing him until he d be that sick his milk would curdle in him, and for the loife of me I couldn t be kaping the clothes clane on him with all their crumpling and handling; and it s glad that I am entirely, the saints save us, having him to mesilf, the blissed child!" The rooms were comfortable, and we found the long veranda, where we spent our evenings and most of our mornings, not only a very pleasant change, but a source of amusement as well. My curiosity was greatly excited concerning our neighbors on the left. I was uncertain how many there were of them, though I put them down in my mind as not less than half a dozen. The first morning these " Left-handers," as I called them, were as silent as the grave till about noon, when, all at once, without any premonitory noises, they com menced a most animated conversation, interspersed with laughter, mirthful and scornful. Then the tones of their voices would change from anger to reproach and then to grief, so that at one time I was so full of sympathy with the poor man who was being driven out into the cold world that it was all I could do not to go in and plead for him; but while I was hesitating all became quiet. I sup- A SHILLING A D OZEN. "OUR LEFT-HANDERS, J I posed he was gone and all was over with him, and invol untarily I offered up a prayer all the help I could give. Imagine, if you can, my surprise when the next morn ing at a little later hour I heard a repetition of the same painful scene. The poor man had returned, I reasoned. Taking them all together, I thought they certainly were a most curious family, and I determined to enlist my hus band s interest as soon as he came in. Something had prevented my telling him the day before. That evening as we were sitting on the veranda I carried my resolution into effect and, though he listened with his usual sweet patience, my description of the disturbance, to my sur prise, excited in him more mirth than sympathy. Just as I had finished telling him, our baby was brought in to be enjoyed and put to sleep. "The little pig went to market," "the mouse ran up the clock," "the cock horse" was ridden "to Banbury Cross," and after innum erable " Hobble-de-gees," baby was ready, and so were we, for his "Bye Baby Bunting." When his sweet little "ah-ah-ah" accompanying ours grew fainter and fainter, we began to sing in the Chinook jargon the Lord s Prayer, which my husband had taught to so many of the Indians on the Pacific coast, and which we always sang at the last to make baby s sleep sound. At the words, " Kloshe mika tumtum kopa illahie, kahkwa kopa saghalie" (Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven), from through the open door of the room to our left a voice clear and sweet joined in the same jargon with ours to "Our Father," and as the last invocation was chanted, " Mahsh siah kopa nesika konaway massachie Kloshe kahkwa " (Send away far from us all evil Amen), a handsome stranger stepped out and, with outstretched hand, said to the General, with great cordiality, " Klahowya sikhs, potlatch lemah" (How do you do, friend; give me 72 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. your good hand). Then followed a conversation between them about the Pacific coast, Fort Vancouver, San Juan Island, Puget Sound, the Snohomish tribe and their many mutual friends of the Salmon Illehe. All the while I was wondering what could have become of the other family if they could have gone and yet now and then I caught a tone in his voice as he talked to my husband, that sounded very similar to the tones of the man in trouble belonging to them, though I did not see how it would be possible for any one to drive, or wish to drive, him out of their home. When, after awhile, 1 came in for the compliments of the season, my astonish ment knew no bounds when I learned that he had been the sole occupant of that room since Sunday night. The clock in the court struck seven. Rising hastily, and with many apologies, this strange-family man wrote something on his card, and handing it to my husband, said, "I am playing at the theater here, to-night come and see me," and was gone. To this kind stranger, William Florence, I was in debted for my first taste of the pleasures of the theater. Almost every evening he, with our permission, joined us on the veranda, shared our play with baby, cheered and entertained the General, and kindly took us afterward to seethe play. Yet, during the whole of his stay four days he never once, in the most remote way, intruded himself upon our confidence; and though he knew there was some mystery, in his innate delicacy he made no allusion to it. On Saturday evening, when his engagement was over and he came to say good-by, after lingering over the pleasant evenings we had passed together, and putting great stress upon the benefit they had been to him, he stopped abruptly, saying: 1 A SHILLING A D OZEN. "OUR LEFT-HANDERS, ?$ "Confound it all! Forgive me, if I put my foot in it but here is something to buy a rattle for the youngster. I swear I absolutely have no use for it. In fact, I never had so much money at one time before in my whole life, and it belongs by rights to the young rascal; for, if it had not been for the cat s in the fiddle, the cow jumping over the moon, getting the poor dog a bone, and Our Father who art in heaven, I should have spent every red cent of it on the fellows. Please I insist," he said, as my husband refused. " I know you have had more money than you seem to be bothered with now; take this/ Though we were both very much touched by the kind generosity of this stranger in a strange land, the General was firm in his refusal. " Well, good-by, and good luck to you," he said. " You are as obstinate as an allegory on the banks of the Nile. Here it goes," putting the fifty dollars back into his pocket, and turning to me, with a tone I so well remem bered, he wished me happiness. "Good-by, "I said; "may Our Father who art in heaven and his little ones whom he says suffer to come unto me, keep your heart thoughtful for others, and gen tle and kind all through this life. Believe in soul and be very sure of God." In all the years that came afterward, the friendship formed then between my husband and our first "Left hander" was never broken and to me it was a legacy. The following week I noticed his rooms were taken by a very strangely acting lady and gentleman. I saw there were two of them this time. The second evening, as I was putting baby, who was unusually restless and fretful and would not be amused or comforted, to sleep, the queer lady, with a " Banquo-is-buried-and-can-not-come- out-of-his-grave " tone and manner, said, "The child is t 74 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ill, or doth it need the rod withal?" Whether the child needed "the rod with all" or Mrs. Winslow s soothing- syrup, he stopped crying at once, and while she talked on, never took his startled eyes from her face till he wearily closed them, hypnotized to sleep. "Hast thou a nurse one that thou call st trust worthy?" she asked, after I had put baby in his little bed. "Yes, madam," I answered "one whose love makes her so." "It is well," she said, "and if thou dost not fear to leave the watch with her, wilt thou and thy husband come as our guests to see our Hamlet as we have conceived him to be?" It was the first of Shakespeare splays I had ever seen, and my blood ran cold as I breathlessly watched the portrayal of it by these, the most celebrated actors of their day (Charles Kean and his wife, Ellen Tree), and with talents so versatile that I cried over the tragedy as if my heart would break, and laughed with equal heartiness over "Toodles," the farce which followed. At the close of the play the actress brought her hus band into the box and introduced him. Unlike her, he did all his acting on the stage, while she stabbed her po tatoes and said, "What! no b-e-a-n-s?" We accepted their kind invitation to share their car riage back to the house, and enjoyed, too, some of the delicious supper prepared for them. It was their last year on the stage, and I never saw them again, though I treasure their little keepsake, given me in exchange for one not half so pretty, and gratefully remember the pleasure they put into our lives during the days they were our "Left-handers." Among others, there came in time that king of come dians, noble in mind as he was perfect in art, Joe Jeffer- A SHILLING A D OZEN. "OUR LEFT-HANDERS. 7 5 son. He was accompanied by his wife, a fascinating, motherly little woman. The second morning after meeting them, I, in compli ment to her inquiries about my baby, asked after their lit tle dog, to whom I had heard her husband talking as if it had been a child. She laughed and explained "Schneider," and told me the story which has since become the property of the newspapers, about how the great comedian had been identified to the entire satisfaction of the bank-teller by means of this same "Schneider," the most wonderful dog that ever existed in the human mind. Nor did this pleasant acquaintance end with our Canadian experience. The next time we saw Joe Jeffer son was in Richmond, where he gave a performance and turned over the whole proceeds to a war-ruined Confeder ate, and all in such a quiet manner as to fulfill the spirit of the Scriptural injunction regarding the right and left hands. The kindness which was shown by the wealthy tobacconist the seeming favorite of fortune to the poor lad in the beginning of that career the distinction of which, even then, one could foretell, was thus gracefully repaid a thousand times by the successful actor. Our landlady made a tour of inspection of all the rooms every Friday, but to us she made her visits longer each time, showing a growing interest in our affairs. She could not solve the mystery of our having come from such a palatial home to her boarding-house. Then, too, one of my "shilling visitors" happening to be the Gov ernor-General, and another an English officer, they were also a cause of wonder. She was so insistent in this un bounded curiosity that we were compelled to seek a larger house where we should be more lost sight of, espe cially as just at. this time two prominent Southern gen- /6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. tlemen, Mr. Beverly Tucker and Mr. Beverly Saunders, had been gagged and taken through the lines, though their release was immediately demanded by the English government. Much to my husband s relief, I volunteered to assume the disagreeable task of notifying her, which notice she seemed intuitively to have anticipated and determined to thwart by telling of her troubles, all of which she laid at "that Johnson s" (her husband s) door. " He is got so high-minded now," she said, " he refuses to blacken all the boots at night leaves the top floor ones till morning. Wants to set up-stairs with me and the girls, instead of staying down in the kitchen, looking for chaws and to be handy; expects us to hunt tins to shine and mend, and nails to drive; won t eat the board ers leavings; reads the Stateser s newspaper that he sends to his girl; sets on it when he hears us coming; took money from Stateser, too, and was that sly he was going to spend it on himself, and I giving him all he needs." Taking advantage of her pause for sympathy, I edged in my notice. She immediately put all the blame of our going on "that Johnson," and, though I assured her that he had nothing whatever to do with it, wailed: "You can t fool us, you can t fool us he drives every boarder out of the house." Our next rooms opened on the Champs de Mars, the attractions of which in part made up for the loss of the veranda, but not for that of our " Left-handers," who had come and gone, making oases in our lives. CHAPTER XL BORN WITH EMERALDS NEMO NOCETUR. "Cast away this cloudy care come, look at the sol diers," I said, as I saw a shadow in the General s smile and heard a sigh, when the music, almost under our very windows, signaled the hour for dress-parade. The shapeless, senseless ghost of despair vanished with my entreaties, as we stood at the window and watched the soldiers, keeping time with them to step and tune outwardly, while hiding the muffled sound within, each playing we were enjoying it, without one marring thought of the crumpled-browed past, trying to fool each other till we really fooled ourselves. It was with thank fulness that I saw the General watch with unfeigned in terest the maneuvers of the soldiers, day after day, and pleasantly welcome reveille and tattoo. Our baby learned to march almost before he walked. While we were enjoying our congenial surroundings and each other, spite of poverty, fears for the future, and grief for the past, my husband became very ill. In the crisis of his illness, while he required all my attention, our baby was seized with croup. The kind old English man, recommended by my good friends, was very at tentive, but failed to inspire me with my wonted faith. The chief reason, I think, must have been that he was not called "Doctor," but "Mister." For two weeks he came once, and sometimes twice, a day, going first to* see and bring me news of baby, who had been kindly taken by our friends to their home to be cared for. I 77 7 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^| was a source of unending amusement, an unsolvable mystery, to the English doctor, though we were very good friends. During all this long illness I never once stopped to consider the cost of anything, whether it were food, medi cines or delicacies of any kind, if prescribed or sug gested, but purchased regardless of expense. When the danger was past, and our board bill was sent up, I counted over our little store and found there was not enough left to meet it. My husband was still too ill to be annoyed or troubled about anything, and with the bill hidden away in my pocket, I was making a plan of battle and maneuvering how I could fight my way out of the intrenchments, when he noticed that I was looking pale, and suggested that I go out for a little fresh air. Eagerly taking advantage of the excuse thus offered, I put on my bonnet and went down to the office and took from my box in the safe an old-fashioned set of emeralds and, asking the proprietor to direct me to the most reliable jeweler and to send some one to sit with my husband until my return, I went out. I had had very little experience in buying of mer chants, and none whatever in selling to them, but I feigned great wisdom and dignity as I told the young man who stepped forward to wait upon me that my busi ness was with the head of the firm. He took me back to an inner office, where an old man with grizzly-gray hair and a very moist countenance was looking intently through something, which very much resembled a napkin-ring screwed into his right eye, at some jewels lying on a tray before him. He wore his teeth on the outside of his mouth, and his upper lip was so drawn, in the intensity of his look, as to be almost hidden under his overreach- B ORN WITH EMERALDS NEMO NO CE TUR. 79 ing nose. His face, too, was wrinkled up into a thou sand gullies in his concentration upon his work. We don t hemploy young women ere," he said, looking up and frowning as he suddenly became aware of my presence. "I came," I explained, taking out my emeralds and handing them to him, "to ask you if you would not, please, sir, kindly buy some of these stones from me, or, at least, advance me some money on them." "This is not a pawnbroker s shop, heither, mum," he replied, as he carefully examined the jewels, and then, suddenly popping the napkin-ring out of his eye, turned both of the piercing little gray twinklers upon me and said: "Where did you get these hemeralds from, miss?" "I was born with them, sir," I said, indignantly. Either from my appearance, or for some other cause, he became suddenly suspicious, and not only would not purchase them of me, but refused to let me have them till I could prove my right to them. I was too young and inexperienced to be anything but furious, and the bitter, scalding tears that anger sometimes unlocks to re lieve poor woman s outraged feelings, were still falling fast when I reached the hotel with the clerk whom the jeweler had sent back with me that I might prove by the proprietor my ownership of the jewels with which I was born. He, in his sympathy, shared my anger and, after ex pressing his sincere regret that I should have been sub jected to such an indignity, advised, as he snatched the case from the clerk with a withering look of scorn trans lated into more emphatic language, that I should look carefully over them to be sure that neither this hireling nor his master had abstracted any of the stones, for his experience had been that suspicion was born of guilt. 80 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. As he again locked up my emeralds irf his safe he kindly asked how much money I needed, and begged that in the future I would permit him to advance for me if I should need any, and furthermore, "as to the board and expenses here," he said, " Mr. Edwards and I will ar range all that when he is well entirely well." Through the goodness of God and the skill of my kind physician, my loved ones were spared to me, and one day, some time after they were well, as I was reading the paper to my husband, I chanced across an advertise ment for a teacher of Latin in Miss Mclntosh s school. The professor was going abroad and wanted some one to take his place during his absence. The chuckle of de light which I involuntarily gave as I read it, provoked from the General the remark that I was keeping some thing very good all to myself. I slyly determined that this little suspicion should be verified and that I would make an application at once for the position; then, if I should fail, I alone would suffer from the disappointment. So, just as soon as I could arrange it, I donned my best clothes, assumed a most dignified mien, went to the num ber advertised and asked to see the professor. I was shown into the primmest of parlors the kind of room one feels so utterly alone in, without even the suspicion of a spirit around to keep your own spirit com pany. Each piece of furniture was placed with mathe matical precision, and all was ghost-proof. The proprie tress, who came in response to my call, seemed put up in much the same order. She was tall and angular, and her grizzly-red hair was arranged in three large puffs (like fortifications, I thought) on each side of her long, thin face, high cheek-bones, Roman nose, and eyes crowded up together under gold-rimmed spectacles. As she held my card in her hand and looked at me with a narrow-gauge BORN WITH EMERALDS NEMO NOCETUR. 8 1 gaze, piercing my inmost thoughts, and with that dis couraging " Well !-what-can-I-do~for-you?" expression, I felt all my courage going. My necessities aroused me from my cowardice, and I said as bravely as I could: " I have had the good fortune to read your advertise ment, madam, in the paper this morning, and have come in answer to it. May I see the professor?" Looking curiously at my card and then over her glasses at me, she said, in a voice like an animated telephone through which some one was speaking at the other end: "The advertisement was for a teacher, not for a pupil." "I am perfectly aware of that," I answered, "and came in response, to offer my services to the professor." A most quizzical expression bunched up the corners of her mouth and wiggled across her little colorless eyes, as she said: "I will send the professor down to you." Looking over her spectacles again, as if for a verifica tion of her first impression of me, she was gone. Returning after a little while, she said: "The professor requested me to ask if you would be so good as to come up into the recitation-room." I saw as soon as I had entered that a description of me had preceded my coming, and not a very flattering one, either, I judged, from the faces of the professor and the pupils. The class consisted of fourteen young ladies, all of them apparently older than I was. The professor fin ished the sentence he was translating on the board, rubbed it out, wiped his hands on the cloth, replaced it, came forward and was duly presented by Miss Mclntosh, who remained in the room. He had a pleasant, round, smooth face, a bald head and large gray eyes, was short and stout, with a sympathetic, cultured voice and manner. 82 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. " Miss Mclntosh tells me you came in reply to my ad vertisement. I have been forced to advertise in order to save time, as my going abroad is unexpected and brooks no delay." " I am very glad you had no option but to advertise, else it might not have been my good fortune to know of, and respond to, your wants, sir." " And you have really come to apply for the position ? " he asked. " I have, sir." The expression on Miss Mclntosh s face, the nudging and suppressed titter among the pupils which this an swer brought forth was not calculated to lessen my em barrassment. " Have you had any experience in teaching?" "No, sir," I said. " May I ask where you were educated." " At home, except for two years, sir," I answered. <( Then I went to Lynchburg College, where I was graduated." "Is that in England?" "Oh, no, sir," said I, with astonishment at his igno rance, and then recollecting myself just as I was about to inform him that Lynchburg was the fifth town in popu lation in Virginia, was on the south bank of the James River, one hundred and sixteen miles from the capital of the State, and within view of the Blue Ridge mountains and Peaks of Otter, I stopped short, embarrassed by my imprudence. The professor, taking no notice of my con fusion, went on to say: "And so you were graduated there? My class here has just finished Caesar. Do you remember how Caesar commences? " " Yes, sir," I said, and repeated: " Gallia est omnis di- visa in partes ires" BORN WITH EMERALDS NEMO NOCETUR. 83 "You have the Continental pronunciation, I see." He gave me several sentences to translate; then an ode from Horace and some selections from Catullus and Tibullus. By this time the pupils were silent, and Miss Mclntosh s expression was changed. He then asked me to write and parse a sentence, which I did, saying sotto voce as he took the chalk from me: "That was a catch question." " Please translate and parse this," said he, without noticing my aside, and he wrote in Latin, "The President of the United States said * nobody is hurt " Before he wrote any further, instead of translating, I looked up at him and said: " But, oh, sir! somebody was hurt." Quickly he cleared the board, put down the cloth, wiped his hands, turned his face to me and offering his hand, said, not to my surprise, because I had faith in prayer, but rather to that of Miss Mclntosh and the young ladies: " I will engage you, Mrs. Edwards, and will be respon sible for you." We then went down to the parlor, and I gave him the names of the only friends I had in Montreal of whom he could make inquiries regarding me. The next day I gave my first lesson to the class. I became very fond of them all and, after my embarrassment of the first few days, got along very well with them. The General was very curious to know where I went every day, but, knowing it gave me great pleasure to be thus mysterious, humored me and asked no questions. My first month s salary was spent in part payment on an overcoat for him, and only Our Father and the angels know what joy filled my heart, that with the work of my hands I could give him comfort. Then my secret was out. 8 4 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. I was sorry when the cold weather came. The snows not only put an end to the military reviews, but covered up the beautiful green. There were very few diversions for us, but I was just as happy as it was possible for me to be. Indeed, those were the very happiest days of my whole life, and I was almost sorry when General Rufus Ingalls wrote a letter to my husband, inclosing a kind personal letter from General Grant, together with the fol lowing official assurance of his safety: cml $nnrtcis BORN WITH EMERALDS NEMO NOCETUR. 85 General Grant also wrote that it had not been at all necessary for us to go away in the first place, and that the terms of his cartel should have been respected, even though it had necessitated another declaration of war. We stopped in New York en route to Virginia, ex pecting to remain there only three or four days, but we found that our board had been paid in advance for two weeks, that a carriage had been put at our service for that length of time, and that in our box was a pack of wine- cards marked "Paid." To this day I do not know how many people s guests we were, for a great many of Gen eral Pickett s old army friends were there at the time, and they all vied with each oth.r in making it pleasant and happy for us. CHAPTER XII. TURKEY ISLAND. As soon as we could make our plans we went down to Turkey Island, our plantation on the banks of the James River. A rough cottage, hastily built, stood on the site of the grand old colonial mansion burned by Butler. Around it were the great melancholy stumps of the old oaks and elms which Butler had seen fit to cut down. Turkey Island, called by the Federal soldiers Turkey Bend, is in Henrico County, which is one of the original shires into which Virginia was divided in 1634. Historic Richmond, the State capital, a town estab lished in the reign of George II., on land belonging to Colonel Byrd, is its county-seat. Brandon, the home of the Harrisons; Shirley, the home of the Carters; and Westover, the home of the Byrds, where Arnold landed on the 4th of January, 1781, and proceeded on his march toward Richmond, are neighboring plantations; and Mal- vern Hill, where one of our internecine battles was fought, adjoins Turkey Island. Not far distant is the famous Dutch Gap canal, the useful legacy which Butler left to the State of Virginia, and which, in the advantages it gave the commonwealth, to some extent atoned to my General for the destruction of the Pickett home. Diverting his troops for a time from wanton spolia tion, Butler set them to digging a canal at Dutch Gap to connect the James and Appomattox, thereby shortening 86 TURKE Y ISLAND. 8 J by seven miles the road to Richmond, and placing the State traffic under a permanent obligation to his memory. To protect his men while they worked, he stationed his prisoners in the trench beside them, in order that the Confederates might not yield to the otherwise irresistible temptation to fire upon them. Butler may not have been gifted with that fascinating suavity of demeanor which is necessary to render a man an ever-sparkling ornament to society, but, from a prac tical, business point of view, he was not wholly destitute of commendable qualities. His Dutch Gap canal is not only a lasting monument to his progressive spirit, but a benefit to commerce, and an interesting feature which has attracted visitors from many nations. Out on a point of the plantation, back from the river in a clump of trees the beginning of the big woods is still standing a most interesting monument. The top of it was broken off by Butler s troops in a search for hid den treasure. It was erected by William and Mary Ran dolph in 1771. The following is a copy of the inscription on one of its sides: The foundation of this pillar was laid in 1771, when all the great rivers of this country were swept by inundations never before experi enced; which changed the face of nature and left traces of their violence that will remain for ages. My first visit to this monument is one of the sweetest memories of my Turkey Island life. I had gone with my husband to hunt rabbits and birds a hunt more for the meat than for the sport in those poverty-stricken days, when our larders were greatly dependent upon the water and the woods. The day was fine, and the dew was yet glistening as we came suddenly and without warning within touch of 00 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. the gray, broken monument shut in and surrounded by the great forest trees. In silence and solemn awe, in the strange light and sudden cool beneath the shadows my hero-soldier stacked his gun and, raising his cap, he gently and silently reached for my hand. I slipped it into his and drew close to him. A bird was singing in the distance. "God s choir," he said, and in his beautiful voice sang his favorite hymn, "Guide me, O, thou great Jehovah." Then he taught me these lines: The groves are God s first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them ere he framed The lofty vault to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. " Is not that monument one of the oldest in Virginia?" 1 asked of my General, who, I believed, knew everything. " No," he said. " There are many older, but the oldest one in the United States, I believe, is one erected to a poor fellow who died on your birthday. It is on the banks of Neabsco Creek in Fairfax County. Once when I was on furlough Snelling and I came across it and copied it down. The poor fellow was a companion of John Smith. The inscription on the monument simply said: " Here lies ye body of Lieut. William Herris, who died May 16, 1608, aged 65 years; by birth a Briton; a good soldier, a good husband and neighbor. " These rambles over the fields and woods, through the clover and sweetbrier, keeping step and chitting with my General where he, as a boy, had often tramped with his TURKEY ISLAND. 89 father, are among the blessedest of my blessed memories. My husband s classic taste and perfect harmony and sim ple, pure heart made him a great lover of nature, and the trees and the plants, the stones, the sod, the ground, the waters, the sky, and all living animals, were his kin. Though my warrior was a lion in battle, he was gentle, amiable, good-humored, affectionate, and hospitable in his home. The same exuberant and hopeful spirit which cheered and encouraged his soldiers in the field was felt in his home life. All the world are witnesses of his pa triotism and unselfishness, as he offered his life for the success of the cause in which he had faith. He was never disheartened by the most complicated difficulties. Un spoiled by fame, just and loyal, he deserved the love he received for he was worshiped by his family, idolized by his soldiers, honored by all parties and all nations my brave warrior, as simple as a child, as high-minded as he of whom the word-magician said: Every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man. It was here, on the site of the old home, beautiful still, though so sadly changed, among the dead stumps where once waved the foliage of the magnificent ancestral trees, we began to write our story for our children and, as the General said, " for the children of the old division, if it is good enough." Far away from our dear old Turkey Island and the sweet old days I finish the task which we, in happy mood, set for ourselves. CHAPTER XIII. MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. " Right or wrong, my country." Statesmen may argue soldiers must fight. When in 1819 the United States, in the exuberance of her territorial wealth, voluntarily threw Texas into the hands of Spain as a bonus for the cession of Florida, for which adequate compensation had been already given, it would have taken a far-sighted statesman to foretell that the lavish extravagance would sometime furnish occasion for an unjust war of aggression. The seeds were sown then with spendthrift hand, to be reaped in a harvest of darkness little more than a quarter of a century later and, whatever a soldier may have thought of the justice of the cause, his duty was to follow his flag. The West Point class of 1846 probably held that all that "pomp and circumstance of glorious war" was set upon the stage especially for their instruction and em ployment. Whether it was or not, that fortunate class was ushered upon the scene just in time to get the full benefit of the situation. Thus it happened that when General Scott led to the siege of Vera Cruz his devoted band of warriors, accompanied by a pontoon-train, " to cross rivers," in a region conspicuously devoid of those picturesque physical features, Lieutenant George E. Pickett, just from West Point, was one of the number. I quote from a letter just received from Major Edwin A. Sherman, 90 which ai it would that the occaso o . issation Had been* already g a far-sighted statesman to foretell extravagance would sometime furnish unjust war of aggression, e sown then with sr ~> be ~st of darkness iiitle more -than *. <{*&rtef ter and, whatever a tidier s*a hvc ^tice oi the cause, h that "p upon t] ployme us it ii iij iege of V icd b int class of 1846 probably held tital all circumstance of glorious wa* " wns set especially for their instruction and em 2th"er it was or not, that fortunate class n the scene just in time to get the full >n. tijcd that *hcn General Scott Ie<l U a CTM J^ $e#oted band ol w^flhNW% i t " to cro- ir / MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. QI of California, a comrade of Lieutenant Pickett in those early days: I knew the gallant George E. Pickett when he first received his commission as second lieutenant in the United States army and joined his regiment, the Eighth United States Infantry, Colonel and Brevet Major-General William J. Worth, soon after the battle of Monterey; and at Saltillo, Mexico, under General Zachary Taylor; and under Gen eral Winfield Scott from Vera Cruz to the capture of the City of Mexico. He was in the first line in order of landing on the beach of Collado on the gth of March, 1847, when the setting sun was reflected from the silvery crown of Ori zaba, the batteries of San Juan de Ulloa frowning down upon the intruders and giving them grim welcome with a menacing salute of heavy guns. On March 22 General Scott summoned the city of Vera Cruz and the castle to surrender, an invitation which was declined with that distinguished politeness which marks the bearing of the Spaniard, whether in the sunny land of the ancient Castilian, or the more rugged sur roundings which environ the inhabitants of the Spanish regions of the New World. Unfortunately for the gallant little city of Vera Cruz, revolutions do not stop in Spanish- American countries for a slight circumstance like a foreign invasion. Invasions are, in a manner, accidental and epidemic in character revo lutions are endemic, perennial, and necessary to civic and aesthetic existence. The only time that a Spanish-Ameri can may be said to be in danger of falling into melan cholia and contracting hypochondriac dyspepsia is in the accidental interlude that may once in a very great while intervene between revolutions. One of these festivities was at that time prevailing in the City of Mexico, and the brave little town of Vera Cruz, with its garrison of thirty-three hundred and sixty 92 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. men, counting the castle force, was left to cht>ose between death and the eternal stain of infamy which would blot her honor if she tamely surrendered. She chose death. The sister city of Puebla, having a vacation between revolutions, sent twenty thousand dollars to assist in pre paring for the siege, and medical and surgical supplies were procured with money gained by the ladies of Vera Cruz by means of amateur theatrical performances. Per haps it is well for the race that the human mind does not lose its interest in the mimic stage even in the presence of the most solemn and impressive tragedy of real life. With a thorough knowledge of the fact that the city could not be successfully defended by an inside force, even though it had been much larger than it actually was, heroic little Vera Cruz shut herself up within her old Spanish walls to die for honor. For seven days the doomed city endured a combined assault of Scott s army and a terrific tempest of wind and sand which nature had precipitated upon the unfortunate little town. On the morning of the 2Qth of March the garrison marched out with all the honors of war through the Gate of Mercy, stacked arms in the Plain of Cocos, the lowered colors saluted by a conqueror whose respect and admiration could withhold no honor which might be granted to a vanquished but not inglorious foe. It may be interesting to the reader of subsequent his tory to note that the batteries turned with such telling effect against the courageous little garrison of Vera Cruz were arranged by Robert E. Lee, captain of engineers, a member of General Scott s military staff, with the assist ance of Lieutenant Beauregard. Plucky little Vera Cruz having been disposed of, Gen eral Scott started on a northwest march, his object being the City of Mexico, two hundred miles away. Santa Anna MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. 93 had some days the start of him, and when the division of General Twiggs reached the pass of Cerro Gordo he found there a battery and a hostile line crossing the road. Captain Joseph E. Johnston, topographical engineer, discovered these obstacles to comfortable progress, hav ing the misfortune, while prospecting for them, to arrest two musket-balls proceeding on their lively way. Some of us may be impressed by the fact that Joseph E. early formed the habit of stopping musket-balls, and that it lingered with him uncomfortably until a much later period in his military career. Santa Anna, being aware of these explorations on the part of the invader, spent the I2th of August in examin ing his lines and preparing for an attack the next day. Having attended to his military duties, he dined with his staff and high officers, enjoying the patriotic music of his fine band, and congratulating himself and his friends upon the prospect of having yellow fever as a valuable ally in fighting the enemy, a pious aspiration which has since been known to bring solace to the Spanish mind. The longed-for ally did not appear in time to be of service, and the next day the crags of Cerro Gordo, through which Santa Anna had said "not even a goat could pick his way," were overrun with the soldiers of General Shields. Santa Anna s chief of cuirassiers, Velasco, fell at the foot of Telegrafo; and Vasquez, the central hero of the Mexican army, the admiration of friend and foe alike, surrounded by the guns of his bat tery, had the happiness to meet a soldier s glorious death. In the rocky cliffs of the Telegrafo, Captain John B. Magruder gave evidence of those fighting qualities which were afterward to be used against the flag for which he was now doing such valiant battle. 94 PICK S TT AND HIS MEN. The way to Mexico was opened on the igth and 20th of August by the battle of Contreras, in which our young Second-Lieutenant Pickett received his first wound in the service of his country. This experience, however, did not prevent his doing good work at the battle of Churubusco, he being in one of the two regiments which crossed the Rio Churubusco and held the causeway which led to the city. The historian says: Brevet-Major George Wright, Captains Bumford and Larkin Smith, First Lieutenant and Adjutant James Longstreet, Second Lieutenants James G. S. Snelling and George E. Pickett, of the Eighth Infantry, were all distinguished at this point. There is more than one name in that list of the glorious old Eighth which will be seen again in the record of the nation s history. The brevet which Lieutenant Pickett received for distinguished gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco must have had as much influence as the min istrations of the surgeons in healing all his wounds. He was more fortunate in the battle of El Molino del Rey from which, though he was one of the storming party that Worth sent against the mill in this most bloody of the battles of the Mexican war, he emerged without a scratch. His brother lieutenant, J. G. S. Snelling, was less happy, being severely wounded in the charge. After this battle, which resulted in the complete rout of the Mexican army, Santa Anna, to revive the sinking spirits of his people, proclaimed that he had won a great victory. This circumstance may serve to recall to the mind of the reader of recent events the old adage, " His tory repeats itself." East of Molino del Rey was a magnificent grove of cypress trees planted by the kings away back in the days of Aztec glory. Here Montezuma had his villa, Chapul- MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. Q5 tepee, "the hill of the grasshopper," and here, on the morning of July 13, 1847, ^ e ^ the last descendant of that brave old monarch, fighting with the usurpers under whose cruel hand had sunk the glory of his great ancestor. Chapultepec was the key to the City of Mexico and, as it stood in sullen strength, crowned by batteries, sur rounded by breastworks and defended by mines, it must have seemed to the observer that the capital was securely locked and bolted. Fourteen hours of steady fire on the I2th of Septem ber prepared the way for the grand assault of the I3th. In this attack Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. Johnston led one column. Lieutenant Lewis A. Armistead, of the Sixth Infantry, was the first to leap into the great ditch sur rounding the fortress. Ascending the hill to the castle, Lieutenant James Longstreet was severely wounded, and was carried off the field by Captain Bumford. As he fell Lieutenant Pickett sprang to his place and led on the men. The colors of the regiment were borne by Corporal McCauly of Company I, who fell wounded, being the sixth color-bearer to be shot within five days. Lieutenant Pickett seized the flag, carried it as he charged up the height, and, while the battle raged below, took down the Mexican standard and planted the colors of the Eighth Regiment with the national flag in triumph on the summit of the castle of Chapultepec. For this act of gallantry he was brevetted captain. Mr. Sherman says of Lieutenant Pickett at this time: In all the battles from the siege of Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Chu- rubusco, and Molino del Rey, when he was the first to plant the American flag and the colors of his regiment upon the parapet of the castle of Chapultepec, to the surrender of the City of Mexico, he carved a path way of glory and fame in the years of his younger manhood, that com manded the admiration and pride of all who had the honor to serve with and under him to the entrance of the Halls of the Montezumas. His ex- g PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ample inspired the rank and file of his regiment to the highest pitch of courage and valor, that warranted the promotion of some of them from the ranks to commissioned officers in the army for gallantry upon the field of battle. Lieutenant Jackson, later known to fame as "Stone wall," led a section of Magruder s artillery, and was bre- vetted major for skill and bravery. The battle of Chapultepec was pervaded with a literary atmosphere by the presence of Captain Mayne Reid. Having successfully turned the key, the American army proceeded to march on to the citadel by the way of the gates Belen and San Cosme. Over the Belen gate Quitman, after a fierce contest, waved the flag of the Palmetto regiment in token of victory. The gallant Eighth was a part of the column led by Worth against the gate of San Cosme. In the fierce struggle which resulted in the surrender of the last bar rier to the Mexican capital, Lieutenant Pickett did valiant service, for which he has received honorable mention in history. On the night of the I3th Santa Anna evacuated the City of Mexico, and on the morning of the I4th Scott s army took possession of the Halls of the Monte- zumas. Thus the curtain fell on the first act in the drama of the military career of the youthful warrior who was des tined to lead the greatest charge known to history. After the close of the Mexican war Lieutenant Pickett served for a number of years in Texas and upon the southern frontier. He commanded a company in the Ninth Infantry, which was recruited and organized at Old Point Comfort in the summer of 1855. Early in December the regiment was ordered to the Pacific coast by way of the Isthmus, and left Fortress Monroe on the St. Louis. Before it MEXICAN AND INDIAN WARS. 97 reached the Isthmus it was divided, six companies under Colonel Wright being placed on one of the Pacific steam ers. Four companies, one of which was Captain Pick- ett s, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Casey, set sail on another steamer. The voyage to San Francisco, where the first stop was made, consumed between three and four weeks. Here the regiment was ordered to Oregon and Washington Territories, six companies going to Fort Vancouver, and four to Puget Sound. Captain Pickett s company was one of those which went to the Sound, and was soon after stationed at Bel- lingham Bay, where their captain remained as command ing officer. An Indian war was then raging, the tribes in all the region from California to British America, numbering about forty-two thousand warriors, having risen against the northwestern settlers. Opposed to this formidable array were fourteen hundred regulars and two thousand volunteers. Two years of warfare reduced the Indians to such a degree of submission that no tribe among them, except the Modocs, ever again made war. Captain Pickett was greatly distinguished in this war, not only as a soldier, but as a promoter of the arts of peace. He made friends even of his enemies, learning the dialects of the different tribes, that he might be able to teach them better principles of life than any they had known. Over them he exerted an almost mesmeric influence. The red men were all his friends, but the most devoted among them were the Nootkams and Chinooks, who greeted and spoke of him always as "Hyas Tyee," "Hyas Kloshe Tyee," "Nesika Tyee," "Great Chief," "Great Good Chief," "Our Chief." He translated into their own 98 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. tp jargon, and taught them to say, and to sing, some of our most beautiful hymns and national airs, and the Lord s Prayer: Nesika Papa klaksta mitlite kopa saghalie, tik-egh pee kloshe kopa nesika turn-turn Mika nem; Kloshe pee Kloshe Mika hyas Saghalie Tyee kopa konaway tilikum: Klosha kwah-ne-sum Mika turn-turn kopa illahie, kakwa kopa Mika saghalie. Potlatch konaway sun nesika muck- amuck pee chuck pee itl-wil-lie. Spose nesika mamook masachie, wake Mika hyas Saghalie Tyee hyas solleks, pee spose klaksta massachie kopa nesika, klaksta mitlite kee-kwi-he, nesika solleks kopa klaska. Mam-ook tip- shin nesika kok-shut. Mahsh siah kopa nesika kon-away massachie. Nesika turn-turn pee tik-egh. Wah-ne-sun. Kloshe kahkwa. Our Father who lives in the far above, beloved and hallowed in our hearts [be] Thy name; Great and good Thou great The above Chief among all people: Good always Thy will upon earth as in Thy far above. Give every day our food and water and meat. If we do ill, [be] not Thou [the] great far above Chief very angry, and if any one evil towards us, not we angry towards them. Mend up our broken ways. Send away far from us all evil. Thine is the great strength and love. For all the suns. Good so. When Captain Pickett quitted the Pacific coast he left no truer mourners than these simple aborigines, whose hearts had yielded to kindness as the flower opens to the gentle rays of the sun. CHAPTER XIV. SAN JUAN. When Charles II., on the i6th of May, 1670, granted a charter to the Hudson s Bay Company, composed of Prince Rupert and seventeen other enterprising spirits, with the primary object of "the discovery of a new pas sage into the South Sea," as the Pacific Ocean was then known, and the secondary purpose of trade with foreign countries, he did not look forward to the complications which would arise therefrom for future generations to un ravel. It was not a characteristic of the Stuarts to take thought of the morrow. They followed their own sweet will to-day, happy if on the morrow some other head came off instead of their own. In the case of the Hud son s Bay Company, in addition to other disadvantages, a nice piece of other people s property was lost to the English crown, an experience which is regarded as dele terious to the British constitution. Charles II., like some other men, had come into the world nearly a century too late for the full perfection of his plans; that is, if he ever had any plans except for the extraction of as much amusement as possible out of the passing moment, and the murder of the unfortunate peo ple who had been most loyal to him in his exile. If his schemes included any permanent designs upon the north west coast of America, Alexander VI., Pope of Rome, had thwarted them by preceding the royal robber and making the most of the advantage which accrues to the man who is first upon the field, if he has the wit to 99 100 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. I comprehend his privileges and the force to seize upon them. Under the papal bull of 1493, Spain claimed by dis covery the entire Pacific coast from Panama to Nootka Sound on Vancouver s Island, including harbors, islands and fisheries, and extending indefinitely inland, covering the original Oregon Territory, which contained Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia, up to fifty-four forty. Spain has never fallen behind the most enterpris ing regions of the world in the matter of claiming things. Her weakness lies mainly in respect to holding them. In 1513, when, from a promontory, the delighted vision of Balboa first rested upon the peaceful waves of the Pacific, which by their gentle movement gave to the great sea its reposeful name, the discoverer of this majestic ocean took possession of it for his king as a private sea. In 1558 that most distinguished pirate, Sir Francis Drake, visited the northwestern coast, and in 1579 he erected a monument there to signify the fact that he had graciously accepted the sovereignty of that region for his queen, who occasionally turned from her amiable vocation of cutting off the heads of her lovers and otherwise bringing those devoted victims to discomfiture, to the truly royal British diversion of accepting her neighbor s lands. The first attempt of the English to open traffic on the northwestern coast met with opposition from the Spanish government, and for nearly two centuries the rival nations enjoyed the privilege, so dear to regal souls, of carrying on a desultory warfare over the territory occupied by beasts clothed in furs worth far more in the markets of the world than the human beings who, tortured by the greed and oppression of despotic European powers, might have found a refuge here. It is not alone in the SAN JUAN. JP 1 nineteenth century that man has fallen below par in the market-place. England claimed the right to the trade accruing from the facilities so lavishly afforded by nature on the north western coast, but when she attempted to enforce that al leged right Spain captured and confiscated her vessels. This action brought the question into the tangled web of diplomacy, wherein verbal niceties are skilfully made to do service instead of batteries and bayonets, as being safer and better adapted to the gradually deteriorating physiques of men. In 1789 the issue was made at Nootka Sound. The younger Pitt, actuated by an inherited hatred of Spain, shaped the policy which ended in the Nootka treaty of 1790. There is no doubt as to the strength of Pitt s ani mosity to the rival country, but the power of his diplo macy may be questioned, in view of the fact that Great Britain failed in her effort to secure the coveted division of territory, and was granted only the right to navigate, trade and fish on the northwestern coast. The treaty was exclusively commercial, and in nowise territorial. Spain retained her sovereignty over all the land. Four years later Spain, without formally relinquishing her rights, withdrew from Nootka Sound and fixed her boundary at the present northern limit of California. This removed from the situation Spain as an actual claimant. This treaty was abrogated in 1796 by the war between England and Spain. As a result of the fall of the French power in North America on the Plains of Abraham one sad September day in 1759, France transferred to Spain all her territorial possessions on the west of the Mississippi, being impelled thereto by the necessities of war and by the fear that her remaining American possessions might fall into British PICKETT AND HIS MEN. % hands. She never recovered from this blow to her inter ests and her pride, and in 1800 was quite ready to accept the offer of the King of Spain to exchange Louisiana for Tuscany, in order to secure a bridal present for his daughter, who, having married too small a fraction of the earth for a royal potato-patch, must be provided with a piece of ground worth reigning over. This Spanish territory of Louisiana included the former territory of Oregon, and by this barter passed over to France. Failing in his ambition to restore a grand new France in America, and fearing the growing encroachments of the English, Napoleon, in 1803, sold the territory to the United States, who, by this purchase, acquired all that Spain had ever held in the Northwest above the forty- second parallel, which Spain claimed extended to fifty- four forty. The claim to all the coast up to the forty-ninth parallel is made absolute by the fact that the treaty of Utrecht fixed the limit of the French possessions at that point, and when France yielded to Spain in 1762 all her possessions west of the Mississippi, Spain had constantly affirmed her title up to fifty-four forty. Subsequently she conveyed to France all her claim to the forty-ninth paral lel and it was afterward conveyed to the United States by France. In 1814 a new commercial treaty was made between Great Britain and Spain, reaffirming the Nootka treaty, which was a virtual concession by Great Britain of the claim of Spain to fifty-four forty. Anything that Spain owned beyond this was ceded to the United States by the Florida treaty of 1819, which transferred all the Spanish possessions north of forty-two. These transactions left the question of boundary which followed the old Spanish claim to be settled by England, Russia and the United States, Russia s claim being based on the discoveries of Bering. Later Russia put forth a SAN JUAN. 103 claim to all the northwest coast and islands north of lati tude fifty-one. John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, denied that Russia had any claim south of fifty-five. Great Britain also protested. The American objections were emphasized in 1823 by the Monroe Doctrine, which provided that the American continents were not to be considered subjects of colonization by any European power. It was finally agreed that the United States should not make claims north of fifty-four forty, nor the Russians south of that line. A like agreement was made with Great Britain, and the two were to continue ten years, with the privilege of navigation and trade where they had previously existed. At the end of the stipulated decade Russia served notice on the other two governments of the discontinuance of British and American trade and navi gation north of fifty-four forty. Russia had previously established two posts in Cali fornia, the existence of which was an annoyance to Eng land, and after various devices for ridding the lower coast of the unwelcome intrusion, Russia agreed, at the re quest of the United States, to withdraw from California and relinquish all claim south of fifty-four forty. This removed Russia from the competition for Oregon, and left England and the United States to adjust the quarrel be tween themselves. Among the claims made by Great Britain was that of the Columbia River, a claim based upon " original dis covery." There were other "original" things connected with this subject besides the "discovery"; in fact, much more "original" than the discovery. Captain Robert Gray, of the American ship Columbia, found the river and gave it the name of his vessel. He afterward told Vancouver of the existence and location of the stream, whereupon Vancouver, with true British en- IO4 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. terprise, went to the point designated and proceeded to discover the river with scientific precision and phenome nal keenness. It is possible that, to the obscure vision of an unenlightened world, such a "discovery" might not come strictly under the descriptive title of "original," but the English government promptly invested it with novelty by inventing a phase of "original discovery" henceforth to be known as "progressive." In the fine art of diplomatic verbiage England has always held the position of past master. From this time Oregon furnished a subject of con tention for the statesmen of England and the United States. It lay like a smoldering fire, half darkened under its ashes until a little wind of excitement would blow suddenly against it and fan it into a vivid flame to burn brightly till the breeze shifted to some other quarter and the flame would sink again into a fitful slumber. It was claimed by the United States that the Oregon country between forty-two and fifty-four forty was part of the Louisiana cession made by Napoleon in 1803. England refusing to recognize this claim, the question re mained unsettled until 1818, when a treaty of joint occu pancy was agreed upon, and renewed in 1827. The con ditions of this treaty were that there should be equality between the two nations in their occupancy of this terri tory. It is unnecessary to state that the equality, if it ever existed, soon disappeared. There may come a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb on some other condition than the one predicted by a modern prophet, that the lamb will be inside of the lion, but the lion in the case will not be of that species known as the British lion. This situation, with all its discomforts, continued until the Presidential campaign of 1844, when the Democratic SAN JUAN. IO5 platform sent the war-cry of " fifty-four forty or fight," resounding throughout the land. This belligerent alternative was averted by the treaty of June 15, 1846, which drew the line of division south ward in such a way as to give the whole of Vancouver s Island to the English and reserve to the United States the archipelago of which San Juan Island is a part. This concession was made by the United States to avoid cut ting through Vancouver s and thus depriving the British of a part of the island. A few months later Great Britain manifested a desire to claim a line through Rosario Strait, near the continent, as the boundary, thus throwing all the islands of the Haro Archipelago within British juris diction. This attempt was promptly met by Mr. Ban croft, then minister to England, and for a time it was apparently abandoned. In January, 1848, Mr. Crampton, the British minister to the United States, submitted a proposition which in volved the transference to Great Britain of all the islands in the Haro Archipelago. In 1852 the Territory of Oregon included the Haro Archipelago in one of its counties. After this the Hud son s Bay Company, always the rival and enemy of the United States in the Northwest, established a post on San Juan. This company had for nearly two centuries been the obstacle in the way of peace and progress in the North west. Prince Rupert and his seventeen capitalists had developed into a corporation as fiercely opposed to civi lization as modern monopolies have proven themselves. The Hudson s Bay Company was the precursor in the New World of the oil monopoly, the harbinger of the sugar trust. Like them, it laid its heavy hand upon every enterprise that might benefit the race. The desert 106 PICKET T AND HIS MEN. that might have been developed into a flower-garden must be kept in its barrenness lest the bloom of the roses should attract some human interest beside the monstrous one of greed. The wilderness that might have given way to happy homes and golden fields of grain must be kept in its pristine stage of gloomy silence not for the sake of the glory of its stately trees and the solemn grandeur of its mystic twilight aisles, nor for the melody of its birds and the grace and beauty of its wild-beast life. Not for any of these must nature forever reign queen of the North Pacific coast, but only that the steel trap of the hunter might never lack a victim, and the pockets of Prince Rupert s worthy descendants never go empty. Since the bird of unwisdom saved the queen city of the world, and two great nations fought a bloody war on ac count of an old bucket, subjects usually regarded as trivial have been known to play important parts in the history of nations. The story of San Juan was enlivened by the festive gambols of a cheerful pig belonging to the Hud son s Bay Company. This enterprising animal had a habit of pursuing his useful vocation of rooting, in a gar den pertaining to Mr. Lyman A. Cutlar, an American occupant of the island. The relations of Mr. Cutlar to the invaded premises prevented his appreciating to their full worth the frugal virtues which in other circumstances might have won high respect. He remonstrated with the company to no effect and, taking the matter into his own hands, the unfortunate pig fell a victim, like many another innocent creature, to the strained political relations of the two rival nations. Having permanently removed the pig as an animated factor ofj.dissension, Mr. Cutlar offered to pay twice the value of it by way of establishing amicable relations with its former owners. Pork had experienced a sudden rise SAN JUAN. ID/ in the British market, and the worth of this particular sample had risen into the realm of international ethics and was not to be computed in terms of filthy lucre. The next day the British steamer Beaver brought an officer ashore to arrest Cutlar and take him to Victoria for trial. Pointing his rifle at the officer, Cutlar replied that they might take him to Victoria, but they would have to kill him first. The officer, not feeling quite safe in precipitating a crisis just then, withdrew, and the porcine incident was diplomatically regarded as closed. When the northern part of Oregon was separated into a new Territory called Washington, the islands of the Archipelago were included in Whatcom County. In 1855 the Hudson s Bay Company refused to pay the taxes as sessed upon its property, and that property was adver tised and sold to meet the demand. In the correspond ence which ensued between the governors of Vancouver s Island and Washington Territory, the governor of Van couver s asserted his instructions to regard the islands as a part of the British dominion. Crampton laid this corre spondence before the State Department with a renc vval of his proposition for a joint commission to determine the boundary-line, suggesting "the expediency of the adoption by both governments of the channel marked as the only known navigable channel by Vancouver as that desig nated in the treaty." This meant to run the line through Vancouver s Strait and give up to Great Britain the Haro Archipelago. On the nth of August, 1856, an act was passed au thorizing a commission to unite with similar officers ap pointed by the British government, each commissioner being instructed as to the duties he was t<* perform. Archibald Campbell was appointed commissioner on the part of the United States, with John G. Parke, chief as- 108 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. tronomer and surveyor; and Captain James G. Prevost, first commissioner for the British government, and Cap tain Richards, chief astronomer and surveyor of the British commission, as second commissioner. On the 27th of June, 1857, the first official meeting of the joint commission was held. The British commander stated that he could do nothing until the arrival of Cap tain Richards. Having waited until the close of Octo ber, Captain Prevost decided to accept the coast-survey charts as accurate, and consented to adopt them for the determination of the boundary. On the 26th of October the commission met at Esquimalt Harbor, Vancouver s Island, with the understanding that they were invested with full powers. The discussion of the boundary ques tion was had with this understanding on the part of the United States commissioner. As was to be expected, the commissioners failed to agree on the subject of a satisfactory boundary, it being somewhat difficult to interpret satisfactorily a treaty with some one who has in advance made up his mind, and openly declared his intention, as had the British com missioners, to accept only that interpretation which will award to him the subject-matter of contention. A decision which shall in no way rffect the claim of one of the parties to the dispute is scarcely worth the trouble of making. The United States claimed the Canal de Haro as the boundary, because it was the main channel south of the forty-ninth parallel leading into the Strait of Fuca, and it would secure the sole object for which the line was deflected south from the forty-ninth parallel, that is, to give the whole of Vancouver s Island to Great Britain. The British commissioner claimed Rosario Strait as the boundary, on the ground that it coincided with what he called "the very peculiar wording" of the treaty. He SAN JUAN. IO9 assumed that the Rosario Strait answered to the require ment of the language, "separates the continent from Van couver s Island," whereas Canal de Haro merely "sepa rates Vancouver s Island from the continent," an illustra tion of the importance of linguistic purism in the science of diplomacy. As his nation had drawn up the treaty, and was therefore responsible for the peculiar wording, it was scarcely becoming in him to set forth that claim, in violation of the law of nations which provides that a difficulty of construction shall not be decided in favor of the nation creating the obscurity. Being unable to support his claim, he offered as a substitute a smaller channel which would include San Juan in the British possessions. The United States com missioner refused to accept this compromise. The British commissioner had received rigid instructions, and had no power to accept any line that would not give San Juan to Great Britain. He said, "beyond what I now offer I can no further go." It was only reasonable to suppose that the nearest natural boundary which would avoid the necessity of cutting Vancouver s Island would be the one sought. This boundary was the Canal de Haro. In the communi cation by Mr. McLane, who had been sent specially to Great Britain to aid in the negotiations, to Mr. Buchanan, then Secretary of State, he specifically mentions the ex tension of the line by the Canal de Haro and the Strait of Fuca to the ocean, no reference being made to Rosario. He states that this proposition now made by Lord Aber deen was suggested by his (Mr. McLane s) immediate predecessor as one which his government might accept. Again he refers to the modified extension of the line as being adapted to avoid the southern cape of Vancouver s Island. I IO PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Mr. Benton, in a speech in the Senate fn favor of the treaty, mentioned the slight deflection of the line with the object of avoiding the cutting of the south end of Vancouver s Island. Again he spoke of the line through the Channel de Haro, and stated that it pre served for the United States that cluster of islands be tween the Channel de Haro and the continent. Even Mr. Crampton, the British minister, did not claim that Rosario was the channel meant, but thought that it must refer to Vancouver s Channel, erroneously supposing it to be the only one answering the description which had up to that time been surveyed and used. It is a noticeable fact that the Strait of Rosario did not appear upon any map, south of the forty-ninth paral lel, until it was needed by the British government to cut off a piece of somebody else s land, when it was hastily moved southward and dated back to a period antedating the treaty. CHAPTER XV. SAN JUAN CONTINUED. In 1853 the Hudson s Bay Company sent an agent with a flock of sheep to take possession of San Juan Island, a very peaceable purpose to which to devote a territory sur rounded by such warlike associations. As it turned out, however, not even the pastoral symphony of bleating lambs could infuse harmony into the situation. On the night of the 26th of July, in 1859, General Harney, commander of the Department of Oregon, stationed troops on the island. Captain Pickett and a co mmand of sixty-eight men were silently transferred from the mainland and when the morning came were in possession of the disputed territory. As the bold Britons, one thousand nine hundred and forty strong, looked from their five ships of war coastward through the dawn and beheld this slight force, comfortable in the re flection that they had a cannon for every interloper there except two, they must have experienced something of the prospective triumph which swelled the heart of the giant in sacred story as he hastened to meet the shepherd youth armed with but a helpless-looking sling and stone. Later in the game they had yet more reason to remember the experience of that famous champion, and draw dis couraging parallels. To a proposition from the English commander for a joint military occupation of San Juan, Captain Pickett replied: "As a matter of course, I, being here under orders from 112 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. my government, can not allow any joint occupation until so ordered by my commanding general." The English captain said, "I have one thousand men on board the ships ready to land to-night." " Captain, you have the force to land, but if you under take it I will fight you as long as I have a man." "Very well," answered Hornby, "I shall land them at once." "If you will give me forty-eight hours," said Captain Pickett, "till I hear from my commanding officer, my orders may be countermanded. If you don t, you must be responsible for the bloodshed that will follow." "Not one minute," was the English captain s reply. Captain Pickett gave orders for the drawing up of his men in lines on the hill facing the beach, where the Eng lish would have to land. "We will make a Bunker Hill of it, and don t be afraid of their big guns," said Pickett to his men. The following is an extract from the report of General Harney to General Scott: The senior officer of three British ships of war threatened to land an overpowering force upon Captain Pickett, who nobly replied that whether they landed fifty or five thousand men his conduct would not be affected by it; that he would open his fire, and, if compelled, take to the woods fighting; and so satisfied were the British officers that such would be his course, that they hesitated in putting their threat into execution. The following letter from General Harney to Captain Pickett defines at length his purpose in transferring troops to San Juan: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF OREGON, FORT VANCOUVER, W. T., July 18, 1859. CAPTAIN: By Special Orders No. 72, a copy of which is inclosed, you are directed to establish your company on Bellevue or San Juan Island, in some suitable position near the harbor at the southeastern SAN JUAN CONTINUED. 113 extremity. The general commanding instructs me to say the object to be attained in placing you thus is twofold, viz. : First. To protect the inhabitants of the island from the incursions of the northern Indians of British Columbia and the Russian posses sions. You will not permit any force of these Indians to visit San Juan Island or the waters of Puget Sound in that vicinity over which the United States have any jurisdiction. Should these Indians appear peaceable you will warn them in a quiet but firm manner to return to their own country and not visit in future the territory of the United States; and in the event of any opposition being offered to your demands, you will use the most decisive measures to enforce them, to which end the commander of the troops stationed on the steamer Massachusetts will be instructed to render every assistance and co-operation that will be necessary to enable your command to fulfill the tenor of these in structions. Second. Another serious and important duty will devolve upon you in the occupation of San Juan Island, arising from the American citizens and the Hudson s Bay Company establishment at that point. This duty is to afford adequate protection to the American citizens in their rights as such, and to resist all attempts at interference by the British authori ties residing on Vancouver s Island, by intimidation or force, in the con troversies of the above-mentioned parties. This protection has been called for in consequence of the chief fac tor of the Hudson s Bay Company, Mr. Dallas, having recently visited San Juan Island with a British sloop of war, and threatened to take an American citizen by force to Victoria for trial by British laws. It is hoped a second attempt of this kind will not be made, but to ensure the safety of our citizens the general commanding directs you to meet the authorities from Victoria at once, on a second arrival, and inform them they can not be permitted to interfere with our citizens in any way. Any grievances they may allege as requiring redress can only be exam ined under our own laws, to which they must submit their claims in proper form. The steamer Massachusetts will be directed to transport your com mand, stores, etc., to San Juan Island, where you are authorized to construct such temporary shelter as the necessities of the service may demand. Any materials, such as doors, window-sash, flooring, etc., that can be rendered available will be taken with you from Fort Bellingham. To secure to your command the vegetables of your garden, a small detach ment will be left to gather them when grown. 114 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. % The general commanding is fully satisfied, from the varied experi ence and judgment displayed by you in your present command, that your selection to the duties with which you are now charged will ad vance the interests of the service, and that your disposition of the sub jects coming within your supervision and action will enhance your repu tation as a commander. In your selection of a position, take into consideration that future contingencies may require an establishment of from four to six compa nies retaining the command of the San Juan harbor. I am, Captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. PLEASANTON, Captain Second Dragoons, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General. CAPTAIN GEORGE PICKETT, Commanding Company D, Ninth Infantry, Fort Bellingham, Puget Sound. The following correspondence between Captain Pick- ett and the military officers and the agent of the Hud son s Bay Company will sufficiently indicate the existing situation upon the island: MILITARY CAMP, SAN JUAN ISLAND, W. T., July 30, 1859. MY DEAR COLONEL: I have the honor to inclose you some notes which passed this morning between the Hudson s Bay authorities and myself. From the threatening attitude of affairs at present, I deem it my duty to request that the Massachusetts may be sent at once to this point. I do not know that any actual collision will take place, but it is not comfortable to be lying within range of a couple of war-steamers. The Tribune, a thirty-gun frigate, is lying broadside to our camp, and from present indications everything leads me to suppose that they will attempt to prevent my carrying out my instructions. If you have any boats to spare I shall be happy to get one at least. The only whale-boat we had was, most unfortunately, staved on the day of our departure. We will be very much in want of some tools and camp equipage. I have not the time, Colonel, to make out the proper requisition, but if SAN JUAN CONTINUED. 1 1 5 your quartermaster can send us some of these articles they will be of great service. I am, sir, in haste, very truly, your obedient servant, G. E. PICKETT, LIEUTENANT-COLONEL S. CASEY, Captain Ninth Infantry. Ninth Infantry, Commanding Fort Steilacoom, W. T. P. S. The Sbubrick has rendered us every assistance in her power, and I am much indebted for the kindness of officers. BELLEVUE FARM, SAN JUAN, July 30, 1859. SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the Island of San Juan, on which your camp is pitched, is the property and in the occupation of the Hudson s Bay Company, and to request that you and the whole of the party vs iO have landed from the American vessels will immediately cease to occupy the same. Should you be unwilling to comply with my request, I feel bound to apply to the civil authorities. Awaiting your reply I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, CHAS. JNO. GRIFFIN, CAPTAIN PICKETT, Agent Hudson s Bay Company. Commanding Company D, Ninth Infantry, Island of San Juan. MILITARY CAMP, SAN JUAN, W. T., July 30, 1859. SIR: Your communication of this instant has been received. I have to state in reply that I do not acknowledge the right of the Hudson s Bay Company *o dictate my course of action. I am here by virtue of an order from my government, and shall remain till recalled by the same authority. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, GEORGE E. PICKETT, Captain Ninth United States Infantry, Commanding. MR. CHARLES J. GRIFFIN, Agent Hudson s Bay Company, San Juan Island, W. T. MILITARY POST, SAN JUAN, W. T., August 3, 10 P.M. CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report the following circumstances: The British ships the Tribune, the Plumper, the Satellite are lying here Il6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. O in a menacing attitude. I have been warned ojf by the Hudson s Bay agent; then a summons was sent to me to appear before a Mr. DeCour- cey, an official of her Britannic Majesty. To-day I received the in closed communications, and I also inclose my answer to same. I had to deal with three captains, and I thought it better to take the brunt of it. They have a force so much superior to mine that it will be merely a mouthful for them; still I have informed them that I am here by order of my commanding general, and will maintain my position if possible. They wish to have a conjoint occupation of the island; I decline anything of that kind. They can, if they choose, land at almost any point on the island, and I can not prevent them. I have used the utmost courtesy and delicacy in my intercourse and, if it is possible, please in form me at such an early hour as t prevent a collision. The utmost I could expect to-day was to suspend any proceeding till they have time to digest a pill which I gave them. They wish to throw the onus on me, because T refuse to allow them to land an equal force, and each of us to have military occupation, thereby wiping out both civil authorities. I say I can not do so until I hear from the general. I have endeavored to impress them with the idea that my authority comes directly through you from Washington. The Pleiades left this morning for San Francisco with Colonel Hawkins. The excitement in Victoria and here is tremendous. I suppose some five hundred people have visited us. I have had to use a great deal of my peace-making disposition in order to restrain some of the sovereigns. Please excuse this hasty and, I am afraid, almost unintelligible letter, but the steamer is waiting, and I have been writing under the most un favorable circumstances. I must add that they seem to doubt the au thority of the general commanding, and do not wish to acknowledge his right to occupy this island, which they say is in dispute, unless the United States government has decided the question with Great Britain. I have so far staved them off by saying that the two governments have undoubtedly settled this affair, but this state of affairs can not last, and therefore I most respectfully ask that an express be sent me immedi ately for my future guidance. I do not think there are any moments to waste. In order to maintain our dignity we must occupy in force, or al low them to land an equal force, which they can do now, and possibly will do in spite of my diplomacy. I have the honor to inclose all the correspondence which has taken SAN JUAN CONTINUED, 1 1 7 place. Hoping that my course of action will meet with the approval of the general commanding, and that I may hear from him in regard to my future course at once, I remain, Captain, your obedient servant, G. E. PICKETT, Captain Ninth Infantry, Commanding Post. CAPTAIN A. PLEASANTON, Mounted Dragoons, Adjutant-General, Department of Oregon, Fort Vancouver, W. T. HER MAJESTY S SHIP TRIBUNE, GRIFFIN BAY, ISLAND OF SAN JUAN, August 3, 1859. SIR: Having received instructions from his Excellency Governor Douglas to communicate with you in reference to the landing of the United States troops under your command on the island of San Juan, I have the honor to propose a meeting should take place between yourself and any other officers of the United States military forces on the one part, and captains of her Majesty s ships on the other (on board her Majesty s ship Tribune), at any hour that may be convenient to you, that we may, if possible, conclude such arrangements as will tend to preserve harmony between the subjects of the two states in this island. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, GEOFFREY PHIPPS HORNBY, CAPTAIN PICKETT, Captain. Commanding Detachment United States Troops, Island of San Juan. MILITARY POST, SAN JUAN, W. T., August 3, 1859. SIR: Your communication of this instant, favored by Lieutenant Dunlop, has been received. I have the honor to say, in reply, that I shall most cheerfully meet you, in my camp, at whatever hour you may choose to designate. Be assured that my wish corresponds with yours to preserve harmony between our respective governments. I remain, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, GEORGE E. PICKETT, Captain Ninth United States Infantry, Commanding. CAPTAIN PHIPPS HORNBY, Commanding her Britannic Majesty s ship Tribune, Harbor of San Juan, W. T. 1 1 8 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. 41 HER MAJESTY S SHIP TRIBUNE, GRIFFIN BAY, ISLAND OF SAN JUAN, August 3, 1859. SIR: In reply to your letter of this morning, I have to inform you that I shall do rayse!" the honor of calling on you at 2 P. M., in company with the captains of her Britannic Majesty s ships. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, G. PHIPPS HORNBY, CAPTAIN PICKETT, Captain. Commanding Detachment of United States Troops, Island of San Juan. HER MAJESTY S SHIP TRIBUNE, SAN JUAN ISLAND, August 3, 1859 SIR: In accordance with your request for a written communication, I have the honor to transmit the substance of the declarations and propo sitions made by me to you to-day. Having drawn your attention to the extract of a despatch from Mr. Marcy, Secretary of State, to his Excellency, Governor Stevens, dated July 14, 1855, prescribing the conduct that should be pursued by the officers of the United States in respect of the disputed grounds, I asked if that was the tenor of your present instructions, or if the relations of the two states had been placed on other than a friendly footing by any of a more recent date. To this you replied by referring to the date of the despatch. I then asked you, in the name of Governor Douglas, the terms on which you had occupied the island of San Juan; to which you replied that you did so by order of the "general commanding," to protect it as a part of the United States territory, and that you believed he acted under orders from the government at Washington. I then presented to you the Governor s protest against any such oc cupation or claim. I represented to you that the fact of occupying a disputed island by a military force necessitated a similar action on our part; that again involved the imminent risk of a collision between the forces, there being a magistrate of each nation now acting on the island, either of whom might call on those of their country for aid. To prevent the chance of such collision, I suggested that a joint mili tary occupation might take place, and continue until replies could be re ceived from our respective governments; and, during such times, that the commanding officers of the forces should control and adjudicate between their respective countrymen, the magistrates being withdrawn on both SAN" JUAN CONTINUED. 1 19 oides, or the action of their courts suspended for the time being, theii employment not being necessary under a joint military occupation. I suggested this course as apparently the only one left (short of en tire evacuation by the troops under your command) likely to produce the object so much to be desired, viz., the prevention of a collision between the forces or authorities of the two countries, landed or in the harbor of San Juan, an event which must lead to still more disastrous results, by permanently estranging the friendly relations subsisting between Great Britain and the United States of America. You replied that you had not authority to conclude such terms, but suggested the reference of them to General Harney and Governor Douglas, without interference in any way with our liberty of action. I pointed out that my proposition was strictly in accordance with the principles laid down in Mr. Marcy s despatch, and that yours, on the other hand, offered no security against the occurrence of some im mediate evil. That, as officers of the United States had committed an act of ag gression by landing an armed force on this island pending the settle ment of our respective claims to its sovereignty, without warning to us, and without giving to you a discretionary power of making any neces sary arrangements, the United States and its officers alone must be responsible for any consequences that might result, either immediate or future. I agreed to your request to furnish you with the substance of the conversation in writing, and concluded by informing you that, having now made what seemed to me a most equitable and simple proposition, I reserved to myself, in the event of your non-acceptance of it, entire liberty of action either for the protection of British subjects and prop erty, or of our claims to the sovereignty of the island, until they are set tled by the Northwestern Boundary Commission, now existing, or by the respective governments. I believe I have now given you the substance of our conversation, and have only to add my regret that you were not able to agree to a course which it appears to me would totally avoid the risk of a col lision. The responsibility of any such catastrophe does not, I feel, rest on me or on her Majesty s representative at Vancouver s Island. I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient, humble servant, GEOFFREY PHIPPS HORNBY, CAPTAIN GEORGE PICKETT, Captain and Senior Officer. Commanding Detachment of United States Ninth Regiment. 120 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. MILITARY POST, ISLAND OF SAN JUAN, W. T., August 3, n P.M. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communi cation of this date, in reference to the conversation which was held to day between ourselves and Captains Prevost and Richards. Your recol lection of said conversation seems to be very accurate. There is one point, however, which I dwelt upon particularly, and which I must en deavor, as the officer representing my government, to impress upon you, viz. : That, as a matter of course, I, being here under orders from my government, can not allow any joint occupation until so ordered by my commanding general; and that any attempt to make any such occupation as you have proposed, before I can communicate with General Harney, will be bringing on a collision which can be avoided by awaiting this issue. I do not for one moment imagine that there will any difficulty occur on this island which will render a military interference necessary; and I therefore deem it proper to state that I think no discredit can re flect upon us, or our respective flags, by remaining in our present posi tions until we have an opportunity of hearing from those higher in authority. I hope, most sincerely, sir, you will reflect on this, and hope you may coincide with me in my conclusion. Should you see fit to act otherwise, you will then be the person who will bring on a most disas trous difficulty, and not the United States officials. I have thus hurriedly answered your communication in order to avoid any delay and its consequences. I remain, with much respect, your obedient servant, GEORGE E. PICKETT, Captain Ninth Infantry, Commanding Post. CAPTAIN G. PHIPPS HORNBY, Commanding her Britannic Majesty s ship Tribune, Harbor of San Juan, Washington Territory. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF OREGON, FORT VANCOUVER, W. T., August 6, 1859. CAPTAIN: The general commanding instructs me to inform you of the receipt of Governor Douglas s protest to the occupation of San Juan Island, and directs me to inclose a communication, which you will re quest Captain Hornby, of her Majesty s ship Tribune, to transmit to Governor Douglas with all convenient despatch. The general approves the course you have pursued, and further di- SAN JUAN CONTINUED, 121 reels that no joint occupation or any civil jurisdiction will be permitted on San Juan Island by the British authorities under any circumstances. Lieutenant-Colonel Casey is ordered to reinforce you with his com mand as soon as possible. Send Lieutenant Howard to Fort Steilacoom in arrest. I am, Captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. PLEASANTON, Captain Second Dragoons, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General. CAPTAIN GEORGE PICKETT, Ninth Infantry, Commanding on San Juan Island, Pug-t Sound, W. T. In November Captain Pickett was ordered to Fort Bellingham, where he remained until April 10, when he was replaced in command at San Juan, of which order he was notified in the following: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF OREGON, FORT VANCOUVER, W. T., April 16, 1860. CAPTAIN: You will perceive by Special Orders No. 41, of this date, a copy of which is inclosed, that the general commanding has replaced you in command of your company on San Juan Island. For your information in this position you will receive, as accom panying papers, the correspondence and instructions of Lieutenant- General Scott with reference to San Juan Island, with an extract from the orders of Rear-Admiral Baynes, commanding her Britannic Majesty s naval forces in the Pacific, to Captain George Bazalgette, of the Royal Marines, commanding a detachment of Royal Marines landed on San Juan Island by the consent of General Scott. These orders of Admiral Baynes communicr.te to his officer that he is placed on the island for the protection of British interests, and to form a joint military occupation with the troops of the United States. To meet these orders of the admiral, and to remove any miscon ception on the part of the British authorities as to your duties, I am directed to impart to you the following explanations and requirements of the general commanding, a copy of which you will furnish Captain Bazalgette for the information of Rear-Admiral Baynes: First. Lieutenant-General Scott has left no orders or instructions with the general commanding to grant a joint military occupation of 122 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. San Juan Island with British troops; neither has any authority been delegated by the government of the United States to the general to offer or accept such occupation of that island. The offer made by General Scott, when in command here, was not accepted by Governor Douglas at the time, and consequently concluded that transaction. No arrange ment has been made since to renew it, within the knowledge of the general commanding. Second. The British authorities having submitted the assurance to General Scott that no attempt would be made by them to dislodge by force the United States troops on San Juan Island, they were per mitted to land troops for similar purposes to which your command was designed in the original orders conveyed to you in July last, viz., the protection of our citizens from Indians, both native and foreign. In connection with this service, the general commanding takes occasion to present you to Admiral Baynes and the officers with whom you will be brought in contact, as an officer possessing his highest confidence, and nothing will be omitted in maintaining a frank and generous intercourse in all matters coming within your powers to establish a practical solu tion of the present misunderstanding, which shall prove honorable and satisfactory to all parties, until a final settlement is attained by the gov ernments. Third. Under the organic act of the Congress of the United States for the establishment of the Territorial government of Washing ton, the first legislative assembly in 1854 passed an act including the island of San Juan as a part of Whatcom County. This act was duly submitted to Congress, and has not been disapproved; it is, therefore, the law of the land. You will be obliged, consequently, to acknowl edge and respect the civil jurisdiction of Washington Territory in the discharge of your duties on San Juan, and the general commanding is satisfied that any attempt of the British commander to ignore this right of the Territory will be followed by deplorable results, out of his power to prevent or to control. The general commanding will inform the Governor of Washington Territory that you are directed to communi cate with the civil officer on the island in the investigation of all cases requiring his attention. In the event of any British interests being in volved, you will notify the officer placed there by Admiral Baynes to enable him to propose some arrangement satisfactory to his instructions, as well as those of the civil officer. Let it be understood in case of dis agreement of these parties that no action is to be taken until the case has been referred to Admiral Baynes and the Governor of Washington Territory, respectively. SAN JUAN CONTINUED. 12$ These suggestions will be acceptable to the conditions which govern the Territorial authorities of Washington, while satisfying the obliga tions of the military service to their own as well as the civil laws of the country, and it is fair to presume they will be adopted by Admiral Baynes, since the tenor of his instructions to Captain Bazalgette is sufficiently liberal to justify this conclusion. I remain, Captain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, A. PLEASANTON, Captain Second Dragoons, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General. CAPTAIN GEORGE E. PICKETT, Commanding Company D, Ninth Infantry, Fort Bellingham, Puget Sound, W. T. CAMP PICKETT, SAN JUAN, April 30, 1860. SIR: I have the honor to inform you that, in obedience to orders received from the Headquarters of Department of Oregon, I have to-day relieved Captain Hunt, and assumed command of this post. In accordance with orders emanating from the same source, I here with inclose an extract from my letter of instructions. With every desire that the cordial understanding existing between you and Captain Hunt shall continue to be maintained between our selves, I am, sir, your most humble servant, G. E. PICKETT, Captain Ninth Infantry, Commanding Post. CAPTAIN G. BAZALGETTE, Royal Marines, her British Majesty s Troops. From this time until the State of Virginia was forced into the ranks of secession, carrying her noblest sons with her, Captain Pickett remained on the island of San Juan. Then he resigned his commission, and, narrowly escaping arrest, hastened South to cast in his fortunes with the struggling new dream nation. The military leaders on the Pacific coast had an ul terior purpose, hidden from the world but lying close to the hearts of them all, of far greater magnitude than the mere saving of a fragment of earth. They had seen the " little cloud, no bigger than a man s hand," drifting along 124 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. the southern horizon, and had read its threatening im port. They knew that within it were hidden the thun ders and lightnings of war, and they dreaded the moment when the storm should break over the land. To avert this disaster they were ready to risk their lives at the mouths of British guns. The elements of discord that had lain at the heart of all our national history since the adoption of the Consti tution and the division of parties into Federalists and Republicans had at last reached the point where an outbreak could be avoided only by a foreign war which would unite all parts of the country into one grand whole for the purpose of national defense. If a war with Eng land could be precipitated the danger of civil faction would be over. All hearts would respond at once to the call of the nation for help. The first British gun that should launch its thunder against the Pacific coast would echo and re-echo across a continent and send its rever berations to the remotest limits, North, South, East and West. The spirit of patriotism would awaken and the star-spangled banner would float once more over a united nation. The little waves of sectional strife that looked so stormy now would sink into the great sea of patriotic en thusiasm that would roll in majestic grandeur from the farthest snow-line of Minnesota to the sunny orange- groves of Florida, from the islands that bathe themselves in the far-off Atlantic waves to the Golden Gate that opens the way to the pearl-caves of the Pacific. To this end Captain Pickett, who had won his commis sion by gallant service under the old flag, would gladly have given his life. Like many others who afterward fought as bravely against the national government as they had in happier times fought for it, he loved the Union. Every star in that flag which he had so often borne to SAN JUAN CONTINUED. 12$ victory shone upon his heart with the radiance of love and hope. The white of its fluttering folds was like the purity of heaven toward which his soul ever aspired; the red was as the wine of life that surged through his veins. It is difficult for the reader to appreciate fully, from this account, the great responsibility resting upon Captain Pickett in his position on San Juan. Upon his firmness and courage hung the honor of his country; upon his coolness and discretion depended the lives of untold thousands, with millions of treasure. In early manhood he measured up to the occasion and gave true prophecy of what he would afterward accomplish. CHAPTER XVI. PICKETT S WEST POINT APPOINTMENT AND MILITARY SERVICE IN UNITED STATES ARMY. George E. Pickett was appointed to West Point through the political power and friendship of Mr. Abraham Lin coln, by Congressman John G. Stuart, of the Third Illinois District. Mr. Lincoln was then associated in the practice of law with Pickett s uncle, Mr. Andrew Johnston (not Andy Johnson), who was later of the firm of Johnston, Williams & Boulware, of Richmond, Virginia, and was one of the most successful, prominent and wealthy lawyers of that city. Mr. Johnston was a great scholar and was highly esteemed by President Lincoln, who desired him to be come Governor of Virginia and guide her in her return to the Union. Naturally, the great lawyer was desirous that his nephew should follow in his own footsteps, and become a power in the legal world, but a military bent of mind was hereditary in the Pickett family, and manifest destiny was not to be thwarted. It so happened, too, that just at this time Pickett s martial ardor was stimulated by the ap pointment to West Point of his cousins, Heth, Duke and Morgan, and several of his schoolfellows. Mr. Lincoln was very fond of George Pickett, and when Pickett confided to him his military aspirations, he se cretly determined they should be gratified, and went at once systematically to work to secure his appointment. From Washington, the great statesman wrote his young friend a letter, from which the following is an extract: 126 SERVICE IN UNITED STATES ARMY. 12; I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the -worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are. Notwith standing this copy-book preamble, my boy, I am inclined to suggest a little prudence on your part. You see I have a congenital aversion to failure, and the sudden announcement to your Uncle Andrew of the suc cess of your "lamp-rubbing" might possibly prevent your passing the severe physical examination to which you will be subjected in order to enter the Military Academy. You see, I should like to have a perfect soldier credited to dear old Illinois no broken bones, scalp wounds, etc. So I think perhaps it might be wise to hand this letter from me, in to your good uncle through his room-window after he has had a comfort" able dinner, and watch its effect from the top of the pigeon-house. In one of the letters which the young cadet received from Mr. Lincoln soon after entering West Point is the following passage: I have just told the folks here in Springfield on this mth anniver sary of the birth of him whose name, mightiest in the cause of civil lib erty, still mightiest in the cause of moral reformation, we mention in solemn awe, in naked, deathless splendor, that the one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God s green earth. Recruit for this victory. At the close of the letter he said: Now, boy, on your march, don t you go and forget the old maxim that "one drop of honey catches more flies than a half-gallon of gall." Load your musket with this maxim, and smoke it in your pipe. Pickett remembered, for there was not a drop of gall in his whole life. Short as was Mr. Lincoln s time when he passed through Richmond after its surrender, he came to the old Pickett home to hunt up his friend and former partner, the Gen eral s uncle. He asked about the General himself, and 128 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. then for the General s wife. I had seen the carriage and the guard and retinue, but did not know who the visitors were. In those suspicious times of trouble and anxiety we did not wait for formal announcements, and we were following on after the servant who went to answer the bell. When I heard the caller ask for George Pickett s wife, I came forward with my baby in my arms. " I am George Pickett s wife," I said. "And I am Abraham Lincoln." "The President?" "No; Abraham Lincoln, George s old friend." Seeing baby s outstretched arms, Mr. Lincoln took him, and little George opened wide his mouth and gave his father s friend a dewy baby kiss, seeming to feel with the prescient infant instinct the tie that binds. As I took my baby back again, Mr. Lincoln said in that deep and sympathetic voice which was one of his greatest powers over the hearts of men: "Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of your mother s smile and your bright eyes." I had sometimes wondered at the General s reverential way of speaking of President Lincoln, but as I looked up at his honest, earnest face, and felt the warm clasp of his great, strong hand, I marveled no more that all who knew him should love him. When, but a few days later, the wires flashed over the world the tragic message which en veloped our whole nation in mourning, General Pickett said: "My God! My God! The South has lost her best friend and protector, the surest, safest hand to guide and steer her through the breakers ahead. Again must she feel the smart of fanaticism." The following is the official statement of Pickett s military services: SERVICE IN UNITED STATES ARMY. 129 WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL S OFFICE, WASHINGTON, March 10, 1887. Statement of the military service of George E. Pickett, late of the United States Army, compiled from the records of this office: He was a cadet at the United States Military Academy from July i, 1842, to July i, 1846, when graduated and appointed brevet second lieutenant Eighth Infantry; promoted second lieutenant Second Infantry March 3, 1847; transferred to Seventh Infantry July 13, 1847, and to the Eighth Infantry July 18, 1847; first lieutenant June 28, 1849; ap pointed captain Ninth Infantry March 3, 1855. Brevetted first lieutenant August 20, 1847, "for gallant and meri torious conduct in the battles of Contreras, and Churubusco, Mexico "; and captain September 13, 1847, "for gallant and meritorious conduct at Chapultepec, Mexico." He joined his regiment in Mexico, November, 1846, and served therewith in the war with that country (being engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, March, 1847; battle of Cerro Gordo, April 17 and 18, 1847; capture of San Antonio, August 20, 1847; battle of Molino del Rey, Sep tember 8, 1847; storming of Chapultepec, September 13, 1847; and as sault and capture of the City of Mexico, September 13 and 14, 1847) to July, 1848. En route to and at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., to November 23, 1848; on leave to June 19, 1849; with regiment in Texas to Decem ber 22, 1850; on leave to July 10, 1851; with regiment in Texas to De cember 13, 1851; on leave to May 4, 1852; and with his regiment in Texas to June, 1855. He joined the Ninth Infantry September 20, 1855, and served with it at Fort Monroe, Va., to November 14, 1855; on court-martial duty in Florida to March 20, 1856; rejoined and served with his company in Washington Territory to June 6, 1858; on leave to January 14, 1859; commanding company at Fort Bellingham, W. T., to July 27, 1859; at San Juan Island, W. T., to October, 1859; at Fort Bellingham to April 28, 1860; and at San Juan Island to June 25, 1861, when he resigned. Q D QREENE> Assistant Adjutant-General. CHAPTER XVII. SLAVERY. The commercial greed of England anchored the negro race upon America against the earnest protests of the colonists. In 1620, when a Dutch vessel landed twenty slaves at Jamestown, the enlightened sense of Virginia quickly took alarm, and laws against the wicked traffic were promptly passed. For more than a century Virginia fought most valiantly against the wrong which she fore saw would work irreparable injury, not only to the South, but to the whole country. In 1770 the King commanded the Governor "under pain of highest displeasure to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohib ited or obstructed." Two years later, after a prolonged and earnest debate, the Assembly of Virginia submitted to the King a memorial setting forth the inhumanity of the trade, and its exceeding great danger to the existence of his American dominions, and praying that the interests of the British dealers who would be financially benefited by the criminal traffic might not be permitted to take precedence of the welfare of the entire colonies. As England has never been known to hold any colony with the smallest reference to the benefit of its inhabitants, the petition was of course unavailing. Thus was forced upon Virginia a gigantic evil which she bravely supported for generations, and the wrongs of which she did all in her power to ameliorate. 130 SLAVERY. 131 In the winter of 1735-36 Oglethorpe returned to Georgia from England, carrying two acts of Parliament, which, in the absence of testimony to the contrary, indi cate that their bearer must have been the champion opti mist of his generation. One of these Parliamentary decrees prohibited the sale of spirituous liquors, the other forbade the holding of slaves. The principal result of this moral effort was a frame of mind in the com munity succinctly set forth in the following dedication of a remonstrative pamphlet to the Parkhurst of the period: The valuable Virtue of Humility is secured to us by your Care to prevent our procuring, or so much as seeing, any Negroes (the only human Creatures proper to improve our Soil) lest our simplicity might mistake the poor Africans for greater slaves than ourselves: And that \ve might fully receive the Spiritual Benefit of those whole some Austerities, you haVe wisely denied us the Use of such Spirituous Liquors as might in the least divert our minds from the Contemplation of our Happy Circumstances. This soulful tribute to the lofty philanthropy of the pioneer reformer would seem to signify that the primitive Georgian was not above the vice of sarcasm, and appears to have had a demoralizing influence upon the purifier of coloriial politics, as a little later in history we find him in the character of a Carolina slaveholder, applying the profits of his new career of usefulness to the support of his Georgia orphan asylum, piously thanking God that his investment was profitable, and finding fault with the tyrannical law which obliged him to have his slaves and his orphans on different sides of the dividing line. Whether he sought consolation for his misfortune in Manhattan cocktails or arf-an - arf, is not recorded. Through the charitable efforts of this severe moralist, slavery was fastened upon Georgia, and there was fur- 132 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. nished an early illustration of the modern definition of vice as "a virtue gone to seed." Many of the English sovereigns invested in slave- ships, and in 1776 slavery existed in all thirteen States. A regular traffic was carried on between New England and Africa. Virginia fought this revolting trade in the Federal Convention, but New England voted with South Carolina and Georgia that for another twenty years this terrible crime should blot our escutcheon. Still the Southern leaders fought, and in 1790 the Con gress of the United States declared that it possessed "no power to interfere with slavery or the treatment of slaves within the States." In the meantime the Northern States had discovered that it was not so lucrative to hold slaves in a rigorous cli mate as it was to catch them on the African coast and sell them into conditions more favorable to the tropical consti tution and to the production of those crops to the man agement cf which the African intelligence was best adapted. Consequently the North was seized upon by a severe spasm of virtue which demanded that she should, for value received, transfer her human possessions to the South, after the manner of the enthusiastic young convert who announced in prayer-meeting that her eyes had been graciously opened to see that her feathers and ribbons and laces were carrying her straight down to hell, so she pulled them all off and gave them to her sister. In 1820, when Missouri was admitted into the Union, the first halt was effected. The East was greatly opposed to the extension of the Union toward the southwest, and carried out its resolution that slavery should not be rec ognized as legal in the Territories north of the parallel 30 30 . Patrick Henry, Marshall, Jefferson, Henry Clay, and SLAVERY. 133 John Quincy Adams, all recognized the great evil and fought for the remedy. In 1829 Henry Clay said: "If I were to invoke the greatest blessing on earth which heaven, in its mercy, could now bestow on this nation, it would be the sepa ration of the two most numerous races of its population, and their comfortable establishment in distant and differ ent countries." Notwithstanding this, the House, in 1836, reaffirmed the declaration of 1790. Thus, despite her protests, the blight of slavery was fixed upon the South, and all her industries were para lyzed by the heavy hand of unskilled labor. The earth teemed with agricultural possibilities which never de veloped into realities. The soil was wholly given over to the production of those crops which could be tilled and harvested with the least effort of intelligence. Great stores of mineral wealth lay sleeping in their subterranean beds, waiting through the generations for the morning dawn to awaken them. The Southern planter and his family subsisted on food procured from Northern markets. They were garbed in raiment woven in Northern or European factories. No Southern steamers rode triumphantly out from Southern harbors, laden with the fruits of Southern soil and South ern skill. Southern productions were shipped by North ern dealers from Northern ports in Northern vessels, and in return the South received supplies through the North, ornamented with a Northern tariff. From the cradle to the grave the dweller in the South was an animated ad vertisement of the disadvantages of an obsolete Oriental system of labor grafted on to the most recent form of modern Occidental civilization. The political disasters resulting from the enforced con- 134 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. 41 dition were no less than its economic disadvantages. A system which a few generations earlier had been regarded in the North as a mere economic blunder gradually came to be viewed as a crime. The North had rid herself of the burden of slavery, why could not the South? The North had freed herself by the simple and easy process of unloading upon the South. There was no remoter South to serve its turn in the descending scale, unless it were the Gulf of Mexico, against which, laying aside the matter of expense, certain considerations of humanity might obtain. The system became a component part of the life of the South. To separate it from that life was like taking a vital part from a highly evolved organism and expecting its func tions to continue. Laying aside the financial difficulties of getting rid of slavery, there still remained the one great problem, what could we do with the slave if he should become politically free? He could not be morally and economically free, because his nature and training had not fitted him for liberty. The political and social dangers of any form of eman cipation were considered to outweigh the economic dis advantages of the existing condition, and for years the war of contending political parties went on with a degree of acrimony probably never before equaled in political discussion between the different parts of the same coun try. It passed through all the stages of fugitive-slave laws, Dred Scott decision, Kansas-Nebraska bill, abolition warfare, underground railways, and reached the acute phase of the slavery and free-soil war in "bleeding Kansas." From the smoke of that conflict, like a genie from a malignantly enchanted box in " Arabian Nights," arose the most striking figure of the long and bitter strife SLAVERY, 135 between freedom and slavery John Brown of Osawat- omie, variously regarded, according to the viewpoint of the beholder, as all the way from a holy prophet adorned with the mystic halo, sent by a divine power to herald the dawn of a new civilization, to a vicious ruffian and criminal, actuated by designs of the most evil character. Probably he was only the victim of an acute degree of fanaticism, such as occasions of great excitement are likely to produce. From long dwelling upon one idea he had become a monomaniac, in whose eyes all objects took the coloring of his own imaginings. Being a lineal descendant of the Puritan Pilgrims, he set about his self-appointed task with the grim determina tion which inspired his forefathers in their crusade against witchcraft and their Christian efforts for the reformation of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. A complete stranger to the life of the South, he had become imbued with the delusion, then prevalent in the North, that the slaves were a grievously oppressed and suffering race, constantly under an agonizing sense of then wrongs, and ready to seize upon every suggestion of an opportunity of avenging them. The personal devotion which afterward led many of the slaves to risk their lives for the safety and support of their masters families and to forego their own freedom for the sake of those whom they rightly regarded as their best friends, was something entirely outside of the ex perience or observation of this erratic mind which had been perverted from all sense of reason or justice by ex clusive devotion to one erroneous idea. Having secured money and arms through a secret com mittee in Boston, composed of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Frank B. Sanborn, George L. Stearns and T. Wentworth Higginson, Brown prepared to strike the blow in May PICKETT AND HIS MEN. of 1858. He was betrayed by Forbes, an English adven turer, who had joined in the project and who, being dis appointed in his effort to depose Brown and usurp his place, took this method of avenging himself. For this reason action was postponed to the following year. In the autumn of 1859 John Brown assembled together eighteen other minds almost as warped as his own, and made his disastrous descent upon Harper s Ferry, falling into the hands of Colonel Robert E. Lee and his detach ment of United States marines, and met the fate that is most likely to befall a man who mistakes both himself and the era in which he lives. The singular qualities of this most morbidly erratic character in the whole dark history of slavery agitation are thus set forth by Governor Wise, of Virginia, who vis ited him in the guard-house: "They are mistaken who take him for a madman. He is a man of clear head, courageous fortitude, and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, and indomitable; and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners; and he inspired all with great trust in his in tegrity and as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful, and intelligent." On the 2d of December, 1859, the name of John Brown was added to the roll of martyrs on one side of the divid ing line, and to the list of defeated criminals on the other, and it would have been lost in the dust which time throws upon the name and fame of all ill-guided enthusiasts, had not the rapid succession of startling events immediately subsequent to this period kept "his soul marching on." Though these things all happened but one year be fore South Carolina formally seceded from the Union, Wendell Phillips said over the coffin of the fallen fanatic: "I do not believe slavery will go down in blood." SLAVERY. 137 In how short a time did that long-contested institution go down in blood, and from its ruins arose a new South to give the world impressive lessons in the eternal persist ence of vital force. Never before in the history of the world did any peo ple pluck from defeat so glorious a victory. The blow which struck the South to earth severed her shackles and set her free. In the past decade the wealth of the South has in creased nearly four billions, far exceeding the property value of the slaves set free by the war. The increase is becoming still greater as the years pass on. One-fourth of all the spindles in the country belong to the Southern States, and the South can now consume one-tenth of all the product of her cotton-fields. Her iron area is seven hundred miles in length, and two hundred in width, paralleled by belts of limestone and coal. English producers can not compete with the prices Alabama is now furnishing. From the whispering foliage of her majestic forests floats over all her broad land a message of prosperity, of wealth, of commercial greatness. Over the fields where once grew only cotton, rice, to bacco, and sugar, now waves the golden-tasseled corn, in happy prophecy of the harvest of gold which the autumn will bring. The Southland, once dependent upon her Northern sister for the merest necessities of life, now subsists upon her own never-failing resources, and her intense vitality and rapid progress prove that her children are worthy of the glorious heritage which has been bestowed upon them. In the measuring of the "grist" which "the mills of the gods" have ground, the Fifteenth Amendment has 138 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. not proved an unmitigated evil. It has imposed upon the South a political burden she was little able to bear, but it has also given her a political strength which she would not otherwise have enjoyed. Though it has wrought injury to its unfortunate victim, who was help lessly and unconsciously legislated into duties for which he was not fitted and responsibilities of which he had not the faintest conception, retarding his progress and lead ing him to depend upon politics instead of individual effort, it has increased Southern representation in Con gress and given the South a legislative power which she never before exerted. It has created race prejudice where it did not before exist, but its worst effects will melt away in the sunlight of the prosperity which has dawned so gloriously for the summer-land. Thus, the dark shadow lifted from her pathway, the South moves forward on her heaven-lit course to her brilliant destiny. CHAPTER XVIII. SECESSION. The victims of a lost cause are not alone those wha go down in its wreck. Perhaps its saddest victims are its precursors those who have marked out the pathway to the field on which the great battle is to be fought and lost. Thus it was with many who led the way to the final adjustment of the long-disputed question of States rights, a quarrel which had begun away back in the beginning of constitutional history. When Hamilton and Jefferson separated on the question of centralization of power, they laid out a long and circuitous route to a tragic ending of the dispute which began with the failure of the Articles of Confederation and led up to the dra matic exit of the Southern members from the halls of Congress, more than half a century later Article II. in the "Articles of Confederation" stipu lated that, "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence." Article III. specified that, "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other." The great advocate of Federalism, Alexander Hamil ton, was among the first to appreciate the advantage which the State government possessed in the affections of the people. He perceived that in a clash of State with national interests, the State interests would receive the support of the people. 139 140 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Under the Articles of Confederation the States had shown more disposition to take back the powers which had been delegated to the general government than to give up any that might remain. The State was the mother of the people; the general government was an unsympathetic, overbearing master. The bond between the State and the individual had become a fixed habit of affection. To rend the State government would be the act of a matricide; it would even be self-destruction. Should the general government fall to pieces in some sudden political earthquake life would, according to the popular view, go on much the same as it had always done. In certain large affairs of life the people looked to the national government in the small things of every-day existence they looked to the State. The small things are what make up life. Large events occur once or twice in a lifetime; small ones happen every day. The people paid taxes to the State; in return therefor they shared in the institutions which were supported by those taxes. They constructed and repaired roads for the State; they walked and drove over those roads. They supported schools for the State; their children reaped the advantages of those schools. They elected the law makers of the State; they looked to the State laws for protection. The State officers were their fellow-citizens, some of them near and dear friends. In them they felt a much stronger personal interest than in the President and Cabinet, too far away to seem to hold any connection with the mass of the people. One of the delegates to the Federal Convention had expressed his opinion that the people would be rather more attached to the national government, as being more important in itself, and more flattering to their pride. SECESSION. 141 Hamilton, stern old Federalist though he was, and some what cold, as he was regarded, yet recognized the fact that with the mass of the people State feeling is likely to outrank national pride. Even the selfish passions, avarice, ambition, interest, he felt, would flow with the stream of State power. So great was his apprehension of the power of the State over the popular mind that he was almost hopeless of uniting such varied and inharmonious interests into one republic of States. He felt apprehen sive that only the British form of government would hold together the diverse sentiments in America. Had public opinion permitted Hamilton to extinguish the State governments in setting up the national govern ment founded upon the Constitution, which owes its ex istence, perhaps, more to him than any one else, there would have been no question of States rights to develop into the discordant element which it became in a few years after the adoption of the Constitution. As things remained, the States adopted the Constitution, but the people continued true to the old State governments to which they were accustomed. In 1783, after peace was established, the States from time to time began to grow jealous of the powers of each other, and in 1789 the Federal government acted upon a basis of secession from the Articles of Confederation of 1781. Virginia emphatically reserved the right to with draw from the compact if she found it against her interest to remain in it, as did the ten other States. The Constitution held each State to be self-governing. This construction held until 1798, when the alien and sedi tion laws were passed. Kentucky and Virginia denounced these laws as contrary to the Constitution, which was a compact between the States. The celebrated Virginia and Kentucky resolutions followed, declaring that when 142 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Congress passed acts beyond its constitutional powers the States were not bound to obey, anS, what was of far more moment, that each State had the right to determine the question of constitutionality. These resolutions possessed the greater power by rea son of their authorship. That of Virginia was drawn up by Madison, one of the immortal three to whom the nation was indebted for its Constitution, and who might be supposed to know, if any man could, what that Consti tution meant. The Kentucky resolution was prepared by Jefferson, then Vice-President, who may fairly be ranked as the founder of the doctrine of States rights. In the original draft Jefferson had written: "Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; every State has a natural right, in cases not within the compact, to nullify, of their own authority, all assumptions of power by others within their limits." Though this passage was omitted from the resolutions of 1798, it was in substance restored the next year. In 1803 Napoleon said, regarding the proposed sale of Louisiana to the United States: "Perhaps it may be objected that the Americans will be found too powerful for Europe in two or three centuries, but my foresight does not embrace such remote feats. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations which are called perpetual only last till one of the contracting parties finds it to his interest to break them." The prophecy of this astute political reasoner was justified in 1811 when Louisiana sought to enter the Union. Among the violent opposers of this movement was Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, who, on the floor of Congress, declared: SECESSION. 143 " 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 obligation; 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." As a result of the Embargo Act, in 1809, Massachusetts called a convention of the maritime States to form a union against the Federal government, a movement which was prevented by the repeal of the obnoxious act. In 1812, when the United States was presenting to the world the novel and striking spectacle of waging through one of its political parties a foreign war which was violently opposed by the other great political party, the doctrine of States rights again threatened to reach its legitimate conclusion of secession. President Madison was denounced as a usurper of powers from which he was debarred by the Constitution. From the beginning Massachusetts had denied the right of the government to call for troops, holding, as has since been held in somewhat notable instances, that it was for the Governor of the State, and not for the President, to decide whether there was sufficient reason for calling out State militia. Rhode Island and Connecticut refused to put their troops under the command of Federal officers, the latter declaring her sovereign independence, and holding with unswerving tenacity the theory that the United States was a confederated republic, not a nation. The leaders of the Federalist party were seriously con templating the question of whether the Union was a failure, and considering the feasibility of withdrawing and setting up a new little union for themselves. Two years later the Hartford Convention, called by 144 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. the Massachusetts Legislature, expressed the opinion that "events may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent," and when that shall appear "a separation by equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance by constraint among nominal friends but real enemies, inflamed by mutual hatred and jealousy, and in viting by intestine divisions contempt and aggression from abroad." In the return of peace, the causes of controversy were forgotten, and the vexed question was left to be de cided in a different way and at a fearful cost. In the first half-century of constitutional history there was no lack of opportunities for testing the prophetic in sight of the great First Consul as to what might be ex pected in the event of a clash of interests between the sections. Such a clash of interests arose in the late 2o s over the sale of public lands in the West, and led to a war of words in which the subject of nullification was discussed as a possible way out of intersectional difficulties. In 1831 the controversy over the protective tariff led the great apostle of States rights, Calhoun, to make the assertion : " The great dissimilarity and ; as I must add, as truth compels me to do, contrariety of interests in our country are so great that they can not be subjected to the unchecked will of a majority of the whole without defeat ing the great end of government without which it is a curse justice." A short time before, at a public dinner, he had followed the President s toast, "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved," with "The Union, next to our liberty the most dear; may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union." The word " nullification " was first used by Jefferson in SECESSION, 145 the Kentucky resolution of 1798. In 1832, Mr. Clay s bill providing for " a reduction of duties upon foreign prod ucts, except where they came in conflict with articles of domestic manufacture," was regarded by the South as fix ing upon the country the protective system, a policy which was favorable to the manufacturers of the North, but not to the agriculturists of the South. On the 24th of November, 1832, the convention called by the Legislature of South Carolina declared the tariff act to be null and void, and that the State would be ab solved from allegiance to the Union if the government should attempt to enforce the act, and would establish an independent government. The threatened war was averted by the efforts of the great " Compromiser," Clay, who modified his tariff bill to meet the demands of South Carolina, and secession was once more postponed to the future. The general opinion among the leaders of the South is thus illustrated by the following statement made by the great nullifier: "Nothing short of a negative, absolute or in effect, on the part of the government of a State can possibly protect it against the encroachments of the united government of the States, whenever their powers come in conflict." In the closing year of his long life, that wise and far- sighted statesman, Madison, wrote: "The visible suscep tibility to the contagion of nullification in the Southern States, the sympathy arising from known causes, and the in culcated impression of a permanent incompatibility of in terest between the North and the South, may put it in the power of popular leaders, aspiring to the highest stations, to unite the South, on some critical occasion, in some course of action of which nullification may be the first step, se cession the second, and a farewell separation the last." n 146 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. The "incompatibility of interest," which Mr. Madison recognized as one of the leading elements of discord capable of resulting in "nullification," "secession," and "farewell separation," was impressively illustrated in the discussions of the commercial convention which met in 1838 at Augusta, Georgia, and afterward at Charleston, South Carolina. In this convention a comparison was made between the relative commercial conditions of North and South before and after the Union. In coloniil times the com merce of the South was far superior to that of the North; under the Constitution the difference was very largely in favor of the North. In 1760 the importations of Virginia amounted to 850,000 pounds st jrling, and that of South Carolina to 555,000 pounds sterling. The imports of New York at the same period were only 189,000; of Pennsyl vania, 490,000, and of all the New England colonies col lectively only 561,000 pounds sterling. In 1,821 the im ports into New York had risen to about seventy times its colonial import at an equal time before the adoption of the Constitution. Those of South Carolina were about the same as in 1760. In the nullification period of South Carolina the difference had increased to an enormous ex tent. New York had more than doubled, Virginia had fallen off one-half, South Carolina two-thirds. There were natural and inherent causes for a difference in the commercial magnitude of the two sections, but, making due allowance for these, the convention held that unfair legislation was the prevailing cause of their busi ness depression. The plan of the convention, providing for the opening of the Southern ports to trade with for eign countries, failed. This failure, though partly the ef fect of Northern advantages of navigation, business apti tude, and free labor, was yet held by the South to be in SECESSION. 147 great degree due to Congressional legislation, which had resulted in giving commercial success to the North in pref erence to the South. The undeniable facts still remained, that in colonial days the South was the seat of power, and that she had now fallen to a minor place. Again, in 1842-43 Massachusetts and Ohio proposed a "peaceful dissolution of the Union," as preferable to re maining a part of a commonwealth which included Texas in its territory. The next year the American anti-slav ery party announced that it was their duty to withdraw from the Union and repudiate a Constitution which toler ated slavery. In 1844, when the discussion of the annexation of Texas was raging hotly, the question of secession again arose in the South. A meeting was held at Ashley, South Caro lina, to unite the Southern States in support of annexa tion, and to invite the President to convene Congress to arrange terms of separation if Texas should not be admit ted. One of the resolutions passed at that meeting was: That the President of the United States be requested by the general convention of the slave States, to call Congress together immediately; when the final issue shall be made up, and the alternative distinctly pre sented to the free States, either to admit Texas into the Union, or to proceed peaceably and calmly to arrange the terms of a dissolution of the Union. That such dissolution could not be "peaceably and calmly" effected evidently did not occur to any member of the convention. According to the doctrine of States rights to which they had been trained there was no valid reason for making objection to such an arrangement. At Beaufort in the same State it was resolved, "that we will dissolve this Union sooner than abandon Texas." At a large meeting in the Williamsburg District it was re solved that "we hold it to be better and more to the in- 148 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^ terest of the southern and southwestern portions of this confederacy to be out of the Union with Texas than in it without her." For the time, this movement was suppressed by dis senting views earnestly promoted in other parts of the South, but the subject was only postponed to break out later in a more violent form. Thus all the history of the United States, North and South, since the adoption of the Constitution, pointed to ward secession as the remedy for all sectional wrongs and misfortunes. The young men of martial instincts went to West Point and learned the doctrine of States rights, under the foster ing care of the United States government, from the same text-books from which they absorbed the art of war. Soon after the New England States had threatened to secede unless the war with Great Britain was adjusted sat isfactorily to them, a Northern lawyer named Rawle pre pared a work known as " Rawle on the Constitution." In this book the right of secession was clearly set forth as one guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. In view of the circumstances, this work may fairly be sup posed to represent the sentiment of the North on the sub ject of States rights. When Calhoun was Secretary of War he caused this book to be included in the course of study as pursued at West Point, where it remained until it was superseded in 1861 by some other text-book which presented a different view of the vexed question. For nearly half a century the only treatise on the Constitution ever seen by a West Point cadet was Rawle s "Commentaries on the Constitu tion," from which they were taught the principle that at a later period became a political crime. Politicians followed the lead of that greatest of all SECESSION. 149 Southern statesmen, Calhoun, the unparalleled champion of States rights. What wonder that, when the vital crisis came, the South should resort once more to that course which had served her so well in the past secession? Abraham Lincoln s avowed principle was that if slav ery was wrong for the North, it was wrong for the South, and that the Federal Union must be all slave or all free territory. When, in 1860, he was elected President the Southern States looked upon the Union as substantially broken and the cotton States wanted to secede at once. They summoned conventions, in accordance with the prec edent of 1787 in the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Through these conventions they revoked the assent of each commonwealth to the federal compact and, as sovereign commonwealths, they formed a new federal compact, as the Southern Confederacy. The border States, were bitterly opposed to secession, taking no part in the movement, anxiously and prayerfully awaiting the policy of President Lincoln but, alas! they interpreted his inaugural speech as a declaration of war. After his Cabinet meeting, March 29, 1861, he ordered a naval expedition to be in readiness to move on to Sumter and Pickens. On April 12, 1861, Beauregard, in opposi tion to this armed invasion, opened fire, and Mr. Lincoln further verified the interpretation of his address by issuing an official call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to over come " combinations too powerful to be suppressed by ju dicial proceedings." The border States, who had hereto fore been for peace, at once put on their war-paint. Virginia, who, but a month before, had by a vote of ninety to forty-five rejected the ordinance of secession, now immediately passed it. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas followed in hot haste. ISO PICKETT AND HIS MEN. d Thus North and South, each charging the other with aggression, sprang to arms, father against son, brother against brother; the North to " save the Union," the South to defend her homes and firesides. General Pickett was stationed at San Juan Island on the Pacific coast when his State seceded, and the follow ing letter to one of his loved ones, written on his way back to offer his services to his beloved Virginia, will show the contending feelings of his brave and loving heart: I pray God that this direful revolution which has come about because of misunderstandings, and for which I see no real necessity, may yet in some way be averted. Of course, President Lincoln s call to march against the South, the encampment around Washington, the invasion of Maryland by a Mas sachusetts regiment, the blockading of the Southern ports against the commerce of the whole world, mean war and leave but one honorable course open to me. Dearly, therefore, as I love the Union, and proud as I am of my country and the great name of American citizen, I can not invade my own fireside I can not raise my arm against my own kith and kin. All my ambition and patriotism shall henceforth live only in the defense of my beloved State, which has the first claim upon my allegiance, and demands this my immediate return to her. I hope the South has thought to keep our flag, the stars and the stripes, for the star-spangled banner will be worth more to us in the coming conflict than the people of the South, who only know their own State flag, have any idea of The war between the States has now been over thirty- three years. The falsehoods and misrepresentations as to the causes which led up to that gigantic struggle should have since been truthfully and candidly written, but the powers which have mainly controlled affairs since the war have seemed to find it necessary to justify their actions by an unfair statement of the motives and principles which drove the Southern States to secession. SECESSION. 1 5 1 Histories, paintings, theatrical exhibitions, panoramas, and all things which contribute to form public opinion, have, in order to secure financial success, been made to pander too much to the tastes and prejudices of those who should be furnished with the substantial truth. Though the American people, as a class, are as intelli gent generally as the foremost nations of the world, yet comparatively few have had the time, thought, or interest thoroughly to investigate the causes which prompted the action of the South. If the question should be asked of the average citizen north of the Potomac, "What was the cause of the Civil War?" his reply would be, "The South attempted to destroy the Union to perpetuate human slavery." In my humble tribute to the history of the struggle, I feel it due to the memory, patriotism, statesmanship and pure Christian character of the thousands and tens of thousands of our beloved Southern men who offered up their all in this mighty struggle, to say here, that I wish to prevent, as far as it is possible for my feeble effort to do so, any such falsification of so important a page in history. The right of secession, as shown in the historical facts set forth in this chapter, has at different periods been claimed by every section of this country. To deny this is to deny history. In his speech in Congress on the "Spot Resolutions," Mr. Lincoln said: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the riglit to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing govern ment may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of a territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may I $2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . revolutionize, putting down a minority, mingled with or near to them, who may oppose their movements. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own revolution. We see that secession had been acknowledged as a right by all parts of the country. When at the Hartford Convention New England threatened to secede because she felt that her interests were prejudiced by the war with England, she asserted her faith in the doctrine of the right of States to protect that which most nearly concerned their own citizens, though they had no such, legal cause of secession as the South had. Mr. Lincoln was elected on a platform which directly assailed the rights of our people granted by the Constitu tion. Thus he violated the Constitution adopted for a more perfect union, and thereby made the first assault upon the integrity of the Union. Sections 7 and 8 of the platform set forth: That the new dogma, that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a danger ous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that in strument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent; is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, " it be comes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to vio late it; and we deny the authority of Congress, or a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States. Not only the rights of slavery were attacked in the Republican platform, but the right of occupancy to ter ritory won in great part by the blood and treasure of our SECESSION. 153 people was denied. The States, therefore, which had con tributed so much to the formation, protection and exten* sion of the American Union were made to feel that they no longer had any part in a government for which, when treated with justice and fairness, they would gladly have died. Thus thousands of broken-hearted, patriotic, union- loving men bade farewell to a Union in which their rights and privileges were forcibly wrested from them. Under the Southern flag there were no traitors, no rebels. To state the reverse of this proposition is to falsify his tory; to charge it is a crime. The bravest, truest survivors who wore the gray are as ready to defend our country as any man who wore the blue. They thank God that no question of slavery, secession, or anything else can ever again disturb our unity, our interest, or our pride in our grand and glorious country. But history will not fail to teach us the lesson that we should learn, and which we hope our country has learned so thoroughly as never to be for gotten, that the majority, no matter how powerful, can not with impunity trample upon the rights of the minority. The war which has just been happily concluded showed the love and heroism of all parts of this country, and teaches all what I would teach my reader in this chapter that the manhood, courage and patriotism of each sec tion of our country must not be disparaged by any other portion of our Union. We are Americans all. CHAPTER XIX. AT YORKTOWN AND WILLIAMSBURG. On the I4th of February, 1862, General Picket! was appointed brigadier-general, and assigned to the com mand of Cocke s Virginia brigade of infantry. Pickett s brigade was composed of the Eighth, Eigh teenth, Nineteenth and Twenty-eighth Virginia Regi ments. The Eighth Regiment was commanded by Col onel Eppa Hunton, and was recruited in Loudon County, Virginia. The Eighteenth Regiment was commanded by Colonel Robert E. Withers, and was recruited in Pittsyl- vania County, Virginia. The Nineteenth Virginia Regi ment was commanded by Colonel J. R. Strange, and was recruited in Albemarle County. The Twenty-eighth Regi ment was commanded by Colonel Robert T. Preston, and was recruited in Roanoke County. The first movement of the brigade after General Pickett assumed command was the occupation of the Peninsula in front of Yorktown under General Joseph E. Johnston, where it maintained the line of defense in several severe skirmishes with the Federal forces under General George B. McClellan. Of the four ways in which the Army of the Potomac might have advanced toward Richmond, McClellan chose the one by Fortress Monroe into the Peninsula and up between the James and York rivers. Thus the ground which had been made famous less than a hundred years before, by the surrender of Corn- wallis to the combined forces of Washington and Ro- 154 A T YORKTO WN AND WILLIAM SB URG. I $ 5 chambeau, again became the scene of important historic events. President Davis, being uncertain as to whether McClel- lan s army was intended for the invasion of Virginia, or was on its way to North Carolina, had sent General John G. Walker s brigade from Fredericksburg to North Caro lina, and the brigade of General Wilcox from the Rapidan to reinforce Magruder near Yorktown. When the ad vance upon Yorktown became evident the divisions of D. H. Hill, D. R. Jones, and Early were sent from the Army of Northern Virginia to the Peninsula. Jackson s division was left at Mount Jackson, Ewell s on the Rap- pahannock, Longstreet s at Orange Court-house, and G. W. Smith s at Fredericksburg. Reports from General Magruder at Yorktown indi cating that McClellan s whole army was moving toward Richmond, Major-General Longstreet and General Smith were ordered to Richmond, the latter leaving a portion of his troops in front of Fredericksburg. With his small force General Magruder opposed the march of the Federals, with the design of delaying them until his army could be reinforced, which he so far suc ceeded in doing as to impress McClellan with the idea that the Confederate forces were much larger than they really were. In the conference which took place about this time, between President Davis and his leading generals, John ston urged a consolidation of all the available forces in front of Richmond, to receive the impending attack of McClellan and repel it with such vigor as to destroy the Army of the Potomac, thus hoping to end the war at a stroke. Longstreet wished to attack Washington, thereby compelling McClellan to turn his attention to affairs nearer home. PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^ As Davis and Lee opposed Johnston s suggestion, lest it might dangerously weaken other important points, and Longstreet was not permitted to elaborate his plan, a suc cession of small engagements took place, decisive of nothing in particular, unless it might be of the value of "On to Richmond!" as a war-cry. The first of these was the siege of Yorktown, which began the 5th of April and was in progress on the 1 7th, when Joseph E. Johnston took command of the Army of the Peninsula. Upon the arrival of Smith and Longstreet the Con federate forces amounted to fifty thousand, Magruder s division forming the right wing, Longstreet s the center, D. H. Hill s the left, Smith s the reserve. There was some long-range skirmishing and a daily cannonading, and a line of batteries was constructed. As the time drew near for the attack to begin, Johnston de termined to abandon his works, rather than expose his troops to a fire resulting in a loss so serious that it could not be compensated for by the few days which might be gained for the reinforcement of his army. Accordingly, on Saturday, the 3d day of May, Yorktown was evacu ated, and General Huger was ordered from Norfolk to Richmond. Of the withdrawal from Yorktown Comte de Paris says: "The retreat was under the direction of Longstreet, who had already given evidence of the posses sion of those qualities which afterward made him the greatest of Lee s lieutenants." At noon on the 4th Williamsburg was reached. At four o clock the cavalry on the Yorktown road were driven in, and a skirmish took place near Fort Magruder, where the Federal troops were defeated and lost a piece of artillery. There was a heavy fall of rain on the night of the 4th, and on the next morning Smith s division and the bag- A T YORKTO WN AND WILLIAM SB URG. 157 gage-train marched out through rain and mud. The Fed erals attacked the fort, and the brigades of Wilcox and A. P. Hill were sent to its assistance, and later, as the fire increased, Pickett s and Colston s brigades reinforced the troops in the fort. Johnston had ridden forward to join the troops on the march, but the battle became so hot that he turned back and ordered the division of D. H. Hill, which had gone forward, to return to Longstreet s assistance. In his offi cial account of the engagement, General Johnston says: "The action gradually increased in magnitude until about three o clock, when General Longstreet, commanding the rear, requested that a part of Major-General Hill s troops might be sent to his aid. Upon this I rode upon the field, but found myself compelled to be a spectator, for General Longstreet s clear head and brave heart left no apology for interference." At Williamsburg, on this 5th day of May, 1862, Pick ett s brigade, as a brigade, fought its first battle, helping to repulse the superior force of the Federals with much honor and glory to themselves and great loss to the enemy. General McClellan never made another attack upon the Confederates after the battle of Williamsburg, never came upon striking terms with them again, but kept them at a prudent and respectful distance till he had safely crossed the Chickahominy. The Williamsburg conflict, though unsought by the Confederates, was important to them, in that it not only appeased their impatience for action for ennui is a lash but opened a vista of hope, while to the Federals it showed what havoc might be wrought by the mere fragment of an army they were following. The original fie Id-notes from which General Pickett made 158 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. 9 his revised and condensed report of the battle of Williams- burg are as follows: HEADQUARTERS THIRD BRIGADE, SECOND DIVISION, SECOND CORPS, May , 1862. CAPTAIN: I have the honor to report that on the morning of the 5th instant my brigade -was on the march from our bivouac in rear of the Old College of Williamsburg. About eight o clock I received an order from Major-General Longstreet to countermarch and follow in rear of General Wilcox s brigade. My brigade, Captain Bearing s battery leading, was halted near the Old College, and then ordered to move toward the redoubts in front of the town to the point where the " King s Mill " branches from the main road. In accordance with directions I informed Brigadier-General Ander son of my presence. Within two hundred yards of the point designated I found that the ground immediately in advance was exactly in range of the enemy s fire. I at once sent forward my aide, Lieutenant Pickett.to Fort Magruder to notify General Anderson of our position. He directed me to remain in my position, as he did not then need assistance. Half an hour later I received an order from General Anderson to bring on my brigade as soon as possible. Hearing a sharp firing in the point of woods in front, and not knowing the ground to be suitable for the maneuvering of artillery, I ordered Captain Bearing to halt until I should ascertain where he would be needed. On my way to the skirt of woods I met General Stuart, who pointed out the best route. In a few moments I reported to General Anderson. Learning from him that the battery in Fort Magruder had suffered severely, I, with his approval, sent back an order to Captain Bearing to take a section of his battery to its relief. The order was promptly ex ecuted. General Anderson directed me to take my brigade into the woods to the right of the point at which General Wilcox had first entered, and where General Hill with his brigade had also gone in to his assistance. The object was to extend well to the right and, if possible, turn the left flank of the enemy. I had scarcely filed in with the Eighth Virginia when I was recalled. I gave the necessary directions to Lieutenant- Colonel Berkeley commanding the Eighth, and upon reaching the edge of the woods was ordered to move the other three regiments to the front where our forces were hotly engaged. Thus the Eighth was separated from its brigade during the action. A T YORKTO WN AND WILLIAM SB URG. 1 59 The Eighteenth, followed by the Nineteenth and Twenty-eighth, re lieved a portion of Wilcox s brigade, which had suffered severely. We drove back the enemy in front to a very strong position of felled trees forming a perfect abatis. Here I placed the Eighteenth, Lieutenant- Colonel Carrington, in line, and the Nineteenth, Colonel Strange, on its left. As the ground on the left of this regiment was occupied by the Nineteenth Mississippi Regiment, Colonel Mote, and the Seventeenth Virginia, Colonel Corse, I placed the Twenty-eighth slightly in rear as a reserve for the Eighteenth and Nineteenth. From the movements of the enemy at this time I judged that they were very strongly reinforced. They advanced to within thirty or forty yards of our position, cheering and opening a most severe, well-directed and determined fire along the front of the Eighteenth and the right of the Nineteenth, which regiments maintained their ground, returning the fire with most telling effect. This deadly work was kept up half an hour without cessation or giving way on either side. Then, from the renewed cheering and the clear ringing of their guns, I think the enemy was again reinforced. Fearing that our men were wasting their ammunition, I consulted with Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington and, finding that he had no field-of ficer, told him to use his utmost endeavors on the right of his regiment to prevent his men from throwing away a shot, while I would personally superintend the execution of the order on the left, and pass it on to the Nineteenth. While endeavoring to do so, much to my surprise I found the whole line from right to left abandoning our dearly bought position and falling back through the woods. Some one, it appears, had passed down an order from the right of the line to fall back. I let them know at once that this was false, that no such order had been given, and none should be given by me. In a few minutes, with the valuable assistance of Lieutenant-Colonel Gantt and my aides, Lieutenants Baird and Pickett, they were stopped in time to prevent a great disaster. They moved forward to their place, all coming up gallantly with a cheer. The Twenty-eighth relieved the Eighteenth, its ammunition being low, and Lieutenant-Colonel Carrington fell to the rear a sufficient dis tance partially to refill his cartridge-boxes from the knapsacks of the enemy s dead. I sent a courier to the major-general commanding to in form him that we were in want of ammunition. I met the gallant and lamented Colonel Irby with four companies of the Eighth Alabama Regiment of General Pryor s brigade, who reported to me for duty. I directed him to move slightly to the right of where the Eighteenth had been. He rushed on eagerly at the head of his men, 160 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^ and coming close on to a party of the enemy, was about to fire, wheQ they called out, "We are friends; don t fire!" at the same time holding up their hands. While partially turning to caution his men not to fire, the brave colonel, with many of his men, was killed by a volley poured in by the accomplished cowards. When the fire was returned at such short range they fled in mad haste. I ordered Colonel Irby s body to be immediately carried from the field. About this time reinforcements came up from Colston s and Pryor s brigades. Upon consultation with Generals Hill and Pryor, a general charge along the whole line was determined on, and I moved to the right to look after the Eighth Regiment. At the moment of the charge the enemy on the right, who had been silent for some time, appeared again in numbers, but were gallantly repulsed and driven from the field by the Eighth Regiment of my brigade, and the Fourteenth Louisiana Regiment of Pryor s brigade. The Nineteenth, supported by the Eighteenth, cap tured a battery and a number of prisoners. By order of General Wilcox the Twenty-eighth advanced at a charge over an open space in front of the captured battery under a heavy fire, still driving the enemy before them. Colonel Allen, of the Eighteenth, was for a few moments in the hands of the enemy, but was rescued by his own presence of mind and the timely assistance of some of bis men. Shortly after this I reported in person to the major-general com manding, and received instructions from him about bringing off our wounded and retiring after dark. These instructions I communicated to all the brigadier-generals except General Pryor, whom I failed to find because of the darkness and smoke. I dispatched messengers, however, to notify him. The gallantry and energy exhibited by both officers and men can not be too highly commended. After difficult night marches, through drenching rains, with but scanty rations, they met enemies well fed, su perior in numbers, better armed, better equipped, and well posted, and drove them a mile during the engagement. I take pleasure in stating to the major-general commanding that their confidence in their own abil ity and their cause is redoubled since this action. The ground in front of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth was literally covered with dead. The color-bearer of the Eighteenth (Sergeant Solon A. Boston) was shot down while gallantly waving the standard in front of the regiment, leading it to the charge. I can not close without expressing my appreciation of the prompt ness of the regimental commanders and Lieutenant-Colonel Gantt in A T YORKTO WN AND WILLIAMSB URG. 1 6 1 carrying out orders and the ability they evinced in conducting their regiments when separated from me. I take pleasure in calling attention to the efficient service rendered to my own brigade, as well as to others, by the gallant Captain Manning, aide-de-camp to the major-general commanding. To my personal staff, Captain Croxton and Lieutenants Baird and Pickett, I am much indebted for the continuous and arduous duties they performed under a most galling fire. Having been sent with an order, Captain Croxton was with General Pryor and Lieutenant-Colonel Berkeley, of the Eighth, during the early part of the engagement. These gentlemen speak of the great assistance which he rendered them. I respectfully call the attention of the major-general commanding to those specially mentioned by their colonels in regimental reports. I must also mention the dastardly subterfuges of an enemy professing to be civilized, such as raising a white flag and pretending to surrender in order to stop our fire, to allow their reinforcements to come up and enable them to pour in deadly volleys upon an honorable and too un suspicious foe. Our loss was severe: Officers killed, two; enlisted men killed, twenty-four; officers wounded, nine; enlisted men wounded, one hundred and twenty-nine; officers missing, one; enlisted men missing, twenty-five. Total killed, wounded and missing, one hundred and ninety. The brigade entered the action with fifteen hundred and twenty-nine muskets. Ac companying is a full list of casualties. I am, Captain, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, G. E. PICKETT, To CAPTAIN G. M. SORREL, Brigadier-General Commanding. Assistant Adjutant-General. CHAPTER XX. SEVEN PINES. The June roses were in bloom when the battle of Seven Pines, May 31 and June I, was fought. There were never before such wonderful June roses as those which glorified the gardens of the South in that blood-stained summer. It seemed as if the crimson of all the battle-fields of that ensanguined year had concentrated in the royal red of their velvet petals, and the spirit of devotion and patriotic ardor had breathed a new fragrance into their glowing hearts. They brought a world of comfort to the wounded men, lying helpless on couches of pain. The name of this rose-time battle is different with the two armies being called by the Federal troops "Fair Oaks," from a little railway-station of that name near which it was fought, and by the Confederates "Seven Pines," from a neighboring group of pine-trees. By this latter name it is always known in the common parlance of the country. The fighting occurred at the intersection of the Seven- Mile Williamsburg road and the Nine-Mile road, while "Fair-Oaks," where there was only a skirmish with the rear guard, in which the Federal troops were victorious, is on the northern side of the York River Railroad, and to the left of " Seven Pines." But for the adverse direction of the wind there would, in all probability, never have been any dispute as to the final results of "Seven Pines" or " Fair Oaks." By the 25th of May the left wing of the Federal army, 162 SEVEN PINES. 163 comprising the corps of Heintzelman and Keyes, had crossed the Chickahominy. McClellan was trying to bridge the stream for the crossing of his artillery, an ef fort greatly impeded by the heavy rains which carried the bridges away as fast as they could be constructed. Sumner, Franklin and Porter extended their troops on the east bank along a line of eighteen miles. Johnston s design was to attack Heintzelman and Keyes as soon as they should be far enough removed from the rest of the army to make such a movement practicable. On the morning of the 3<Dth a reconnoitering party un der General Garland reported indications of the presence of at least a corps of Federals west of Seven Pines. Gen eral Johnston seems to have made the mistake of underes timating the strength of the force which he was about to attack, it consisting of two corps instead of one, as he supposed. In the evening he issued the following com mands: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, MAJOR-GENERAL G. W. SMITH. May 30, 9:15 P.M. GENERAL : If nothing prevents, we will fall upon the enemy in front of Major-General Hill (who occupies the position on the Williamsburg road from which your troops moved to the neighborhood of Meadow Bridge) early in the morning as early as practicable. The Chicka hominy will be passable only at the bridge, a great advantage to us. Please be ready to move by the Gaines road, coming as early as possi ble to the point at which the road to New Bridge turns off. Should there be cause for haste, Major-General McLaws, on your approach, will be ordered to leave his ground for you, that he may reinforce General Longstreet. Most respectfully your obedient servant, J. E. JOHNSTON. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. MAJOR-GENERAL HUGER. Ma y 30, 1862, 8:30 P.M. GENERAL: The reports of Major-General D. H. Hill give me the impression that the enemy is in considerable strength in his front. It 1 64 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. seems to me necessary that we should increase our force also; for that object I wish to concentrate the troops of your division on the Charles City road, and to concentrate the troops of Major-General Hill on the Williamsburg road. To do this it will be necessary for you to move, as early in the morning as possible, to relieve the brigade of General Hill s division now on the Charles City road. I have desired General Hill to send you a guide. The road is the second large one diverging to the right from the Williamsburg road. The first turns off near the toll- gate. On reaching your position on the Charles City road, learn at once the route to the main roads, to Richmond on your right and left, especially those to the left, and try to find guides. Be ready if an ac tion should begin on your left, to fall upon the enemy s left flank. Most respectfully your obedient servant, % J. E. JOHNSTON. P. S. It is necessary to move very early. Longstreet received instructions to form his own and Hill s division in two lines at right angles across the Williamsburg road and attack in that order. Huger was to come down the Charles City road, attacking the enemy on the left as soon as the engagement in front should be on. Smith was to prevent the passage of the enemy across the river to assist Heintzelman and Keyes. Should no such occasion arise, he was to attack the right of the forces engaged with Longstreet. A violent storm of the 3Oth had flooded the level ground, and Longstreet was delayed by the necessity of constructing a bridge at Gillis Creek. This difficulty sur mounted he reached position at nine o clock and waited with Hill for the arrival of the troops from Norfolk, who had been manning the defenses of that city. At two o clock Longstreet s division, with Hill s, marched toward the enemy, meeting the advanced troops at three o clock and driving them back to the first line of Keyes s corps Casey s division. Here a vigorous fight took place and the Federals fell back to the second line, the division of Couch at Seven Pines. The entire corps of SEVEN PINES. 165 Keyes was broken and driven from its ground, most of them along Williamsburg road to Heintzelman s line and two brigades into White Oak swamp. In the meantime, Johnston had left the control to Longstreet and Hill, and had gone to the Nine-Mile road to watch for reinforcements which might be sent to the Unionists from beyond the Chickahominy. He had supposed that the sound of the musketry at the opening of the action would be audible from that point. By some fatality, the wind carried the sound away from him, only four miles distant from the scene of action, and bore it to McClellan, lying ill ten miles away, who recognized the situation and sent Sumner forward to Fair Oaks. Johnston, with Smith and Whiting, was to have made an attack upon the Federals right simultaneously with Longstreet s advance, but was prevented by his failure to catch the reports of the musketry fire until it was too late to co-operate fully. He then sent Smith forward along the Nine-Mile road. The Sixth North Carolina, being in advance, encountered the Federal skirmishers and drove them back. As Johnston rode on with Hood s brigade, he stopped near Fair Oaks to witness a contest between Smith and a body of Federal infantry supported by a battery, but supposing that Smith was able to hold his ground, he sent Hood on to join Longstreet and attack the right flank of the Federals. General Couch had gone toward Fair Oaks to attack the Confederate left when he was met by Smith and Johnston. At 4.30 General Sumner arrived at Fair Oaks with Sedgwick s division and Kirby s battery, having suc ceeded in crossing the river on two bridges not yet com pleted. Here he was attacked by Smith with Hampton s, Pettigrew s and Hatton s brigades. Smith was repulsed, 1 66 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Hatton killed, Pettigrew wounded and taken prisoner, and Hampton wounded. While the battle yet continued darkness came to force a truce. Johnston ordered his troops to sleep on their lines to be ready for the morning. Shortly after seven he was slightly wounded by a musket-shot. A little later he observed that one of his colonels was trying to dodge the shells. He turned toward him and said, "Colonel, there is no use dodging; when you hear them they have passed." Just then a shell exploded, striking him on the breast, and he fell unconscious into the arms of one of his couriers, Drury L. Armistead. When he regained con sciousness he found that his sword and pistols were gone. "The sword was one worn by my father in the Revo lutionary War," he said, "and I would not lose it for ten thousand dollars; will not some one please go back and get it and my pistols for me?" Armistead returned to the field, found them and carried them safely off through a storm of artillery, receiving one of the pistols as a token of the gratitude of the wounded chief. The pistols had been presented to Johnston by the inventor, Colonel Colt. Johnston was so severely wounded that he was not able to return to the service until the following November, a serious loss to the Confederacy, as few have equaled him in military skill and sagacity, in high soldierly qualities, and in the art of winning the hearts of his fellow soldiers. The command passed temporarily to General G. W. Smith, as the next in rank, to be soon succeeded by Gen eral R. E. Lee. Smith, a short time later, resigned his commission and went to Georgia. Hill spent the night of the 3ist in the comfortable tent of Casey, surrounded by the luxuries which that officer had selected more, perhaps, with reference to his own tastes than to those of a Confederate leader. In war SE VEN PINES. 1 67 times, however, there are certain crises in which a soldier is not inclined to be fastidious, and if a few of Hill s pet fancies had been neglected he did not complain. The next day was spent by Longstreet in fighting along the Williamsburg road. On this day Pickett s brigade played an important and gallant part, an account of which may be best given in Pickett s report to General Johnston: SIR: On the afternoon of May 31, 1862, just as the battle of Seven Pines was being opened by Major-General Longstreet, I was directed by that officer to move with my brigade to the York Railroad bridge, cover the same, repel any advance of the enemy up that road, and hold myself in readiness to move to the support of our advance, if needed. About 9 P.M. I received orders from General Longstreet to march my brigade at daylight and report to Major-General D. H. Hill, at or near Seven Pines. I moved accordingly, and found General Hill at General Casey s late headquarters, just in rear of the enemy s redoubt. My brigade had marched on some four hundred yards in advance of this point when it was there halted. General Hill directed me to ride over to the railroad and communicate with Brigadier-General Hood, whose right was resting on that road. I asked General Hill where the enemy were. He said they were some distance in advance; I had no definite idea where, as I saw none, and had not time to examine the position or the nature of the ground. With two of my staff-officers, Captains Pickett and Archer, I pro ceeded through the undergrowth and thickets toward the railroad some four hundred yards, when I was met by a part of the Louisiana Zouaves (who had evidently been on a plundering expedition), rustling past me at a most headlong speed. I seized on one fellow who was riding a mule with a halter, and detained him for explanation. He said the enemy were within a few yards of us, and entreated me to let him save himself. I immediately rode back with him at a gallop, and as briefly as pos sible informed General Hill of the circumstances. He ordered me to at tack, and I supposed the same order was given to the other brigade com manders. I rejoined my brigade at once and, by a change of front for ward, put it in line of battle nearly perpendicular to the railroad and advanced, Armistead on my left, Pryor and Wilcox (the latter I did not see, but heard he was there) on my right. 1 68 PICKET y AND HIS MEN. . Within a short distance we struck the enemy, who opened heavily on us, drove him through an abatis, over a cross-road leading to the rail road, and was advancing over a second abatis when I discovered that Armistead s brigade had broken, and were leaving the field pell-mell. At this moment I was on foot and half-way across the abatis, the men moving on beautifully and carrying everything before them. I could scarcely credit my own eyes on witnessing this misfortune on my left. I immediately rode to that part of the field and found nothing between me and the railroad except the gallant Armistead himself with a regimental color and some thirty persons, mostly officers. I saw our danger at once, and despatched a courier to General Hill asking for more troops to cover the vacuum. Receiving no reply, and the enemy pressing forward in force, brigade after brigade, and threat ening my left flank, I threw back the left wing of the Nineteenth Virginia, the left regiment, so as to oppose a front to them, despatched a staff- officer to General Hill with a request for troops, and after awhile sent a second despatch, similarly worded. As a matter of course, from having been the attacking party, I now had to act on the defensive. Fortunately, the enemy seemed determined on attacking and carrying my front and driving me out of the abatis, which our men succeeded in preventing, though with considerable loss. About this time I learned that Pryor s brigade was being withdrawn from my right. I had, in the meantime, sent all my staff and couriers back to General Hill, the last message being that if he would send more troops and some ammunition to me we would drive the enemy across the Chickahominy. I have always believed this would have been done but for the misfortune which happened to our general on the previous even ing. Had he not been wounded, but on the field with us, the result would have been entirely different. I do not mean to cast any blame on the brave and heroic Hill, for after the fall of the master-spirit there seemed to be no head, and Hill, I know, was bothered and annoyed with countermanding orders. No assisiance, no demonstration was given or made from the other side of the railroad. A most perfect apathy seemed to prevail. Not a gun ivas fired, and I subsequently learned from Brigadier-General Hood that he saw the enemy pouring his forces across the railroad, not more than six or eight hundred yards in his front, and concentrating their attack on me, and that one piece of artillery placed in the rail road cut would have stopped this and drawn their attention to his front. But he said he had instructions to make no movement, but to zvait for orders. A forward movement then by the left wing of our army would SEVEN PINES. 169 have struck the enemy in flank and at any rate have stopped their con centration. At this perilous juncture, hearing nothing from General Hill, I rode as rapidly as possible to him, and explained as laconically as I could the position of affairs. He asked me if I could not withdraw my brigade. I said yes, but I did not wish to do so; that I would leave all my wounded, lose many more men, and that the enemy would pour down on the dis organized mass, as he himself termed the troops about him. He then sent two regiments of Colston s, which Captain Pickett put in position on my left, and asked me to take Mahone s brigade and put it on my right, which was done, Mahone becoming hotly engaged a few moments after getting in position. I had ordered my men, as far as possible, to reserve their fire. From that circumstance, I suppose, and from the fact that the enemy had become aware of the small force actually opposed to them, a brigade debouched from the piece of woods in my front and moved steadily toward my left flank. They came up to within short range, when their com mander, seeing his men about to commence firing, stopped them and called out, " What troops are those?" Some of our men shouted, "Vir ginians!" He then cried out, "Don t fire! they ll surrender; we ll capture all these Virginians!" Scarcely were the words uttered when the Nineteenth and the left of the Eighteenth rose in the abatis and poured a withering volley into them, killing their commanding officer, and literally mowing down their ranks. Just then Colston s regiments came up on the left and Mahone on the right. The enemy retreated to their bosky cover and their fire immediately slackened. No other at tempt was made by them to advance, and about i P.M. (I judge), by General HilVs order, I withdrew the ic holc of our front line, Pryor and Wilcox and some other troops I do not remember being in position some four hundred yards in our rear. We withdrew in perfect order. Not a gun was fired at us, and we brought off all our wounded. This was the conclusion of the battle of Seven Pines. No shot was fired afterward. Our troops occupied the same ground that evening, June i, and that night which they had held on the previous night. Gen eral Mahone and his brigade occupied the redoubt, and our line of pick ets was thrown out well in advance. I know this of my own personal knowledge, for General Hill sent for me about one o clock at night or, rather, morning of June 2, and I went to the redoubt in search of him, and still further on toward our picket-line. General Hill gave me special orders to cover the withdrawal of the troops with my brigade, which, by the way, proved a much easier task I7O PICKETT AND HIS MEN. than I had anticipated. I had formed my line of battle, two regiments, on each side of the road, some little distance in rear of the redoubt. Half an hour after sunrise the whole of our force had filed past. I then leisurely moved off, not an enemy in sight, nor even a puff of smoke. My brigade consisted of the Eighth Virginia, Lieutenant-Colonel Berkeley; Eighteenth, Colonel Withers; Nineteenth, Colonel Strange; Twenty-eighth, Colonel Walter. Aggregate, seventeen hundred. Loss three hundred and fifty killed and wounded. No prisoners. Very respectfully, (Signed) G. E. PICKETT, To GENERAL Jos. E. JOHNSTON. Brigadier-General. This battle brought the war closer to me than any other had yet done. The school had closed and my vacation was just beginning. I could not return to my home, which was within the Federal lines, and my mother had accepted an invitation for me from friends in Rich mond. The library and parlors of the beautiful home of my friends had been given up for the comfort of the wounded soldiers. The city was in tears; the horrors of .war had become a reality. Busy, bustling, sad enough scenes were being enacted on every side. New regiments from the far South had but just arrived and were marching through the streets, cheering and waving their hats as they passed. Batteries of artillery were hurrying along the thoroughfares, all going toward the front, down Main and Broad streets into the Williamsburg road. Long lines of ambulances coming from the opposite way toiled slowly along, filled with the wounded from the battle-field who were being carried to the various hospitals, the long, torturing way marked by the trail of blood that oozed drop by drop from human veins. Here and there might be seen a wagon-load of dead, piled one upon another, their stiffened, rigid feet exposed to view, showing to the horrified spectators that for just so many the cares and SEVEN PINES. I?! sorrows of this life, its pains and miseries, were passed forever. Every vehicle of any description was utilized and crowded to its utmost capacity. The less severely wounded were made to walk, and long lines of them could be seen hobbling along the street, their wounds bound up in bloody rags. The citizens turned out in full force and did all in their power to alleviate the sufferings of the soldiers. Not a home in all the city wherein some wounded were not taken to be nursed with tenderest care. Every possible space, parlors, passages, and chambers, were converted into temporary hospitals, and everything done that un wearied nursing and gentlest attention could devise, and that for the roughest soldier in the ranks as readily as for the general who wore the stars. Women stood before their doors with wine and food, ministering it unsparingly to the wounded going by. The Capitol square, the news-mart and general rendez vous at all times for the soldiers, was now filled with offi cers, privates and citizens, and many who were in doubt as to the fate of some loved one, turned their steps to this little park as the surest and easiest way of gaining information. Comrades met and congratulated each other on escape. Citizens were listening to recitals of the battle. Dirty, mud-covered soldiers, husbands, brothers and lovers, were clasped in whitest arms. The soft-voiced women of the South had dauntless souls, and when sobbing in agony at parting they yet could murmur with pallid lips like the Spartan mother when handing the shield to her son "Return with it or upon it!" It had been a terrible time of anxiety to the people of Richmond. All day long the cannon had thundered and roared. With agonized feelings they had listened to the 172 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. death-sounds, and with nerves strained to the highest ten sion awaited the results. Not only did they have their own near and dear to think of, but from all the South had poured in letters to friends and relatives, with the sacred charge, "care for and watch out for our loved ones if wounded." From all quarters of the Confederacy wives followed their husbands to the scene of action. Every available house, public and private, was sought for by the refugees in the city. To these strangers in a strange land it had been a trial of no slight moment to listen to those death-dealing monsters and know that a dear one s life was at stake. Ah, yes; this battle had thrilled the city to its center. Richmond authorities were unprepared for so extraordi nary a call upon their accommodations. Buildings were hastily fitted up with the barest of comforts; medical and all other stores were inadequate to the demand. The doctors were employed day and night. The women, young and old, volunteered their services as nurses. In every house soups and other delicacies were made for the wounded. Though much suffering was in a measure mitigated, many a precious life, which otherwise might have been saved, was lost for want of ordinary attention. For days and nights wagons and ambulances never ceased to empty their wretched loads before the doors of each of these hastily improvised hospitals until the build ings overflowed with maimed humanity. There was not an empty store in which rude pallets were not strewn over the floor and counter. In the dressing of the wounds rough it must have seemed, in spite of every effort to make it gentle the racking of quivering nerves passed all bounds of patient endurance. Screams of agony would sometimes break out upon the open air with startling emphasis. SEVEN PINES. 173 Here was a poor fellow being taken from an ambulance, with an arm shot so nearly off that it needed only the knife to finish the work; another with a mangled leg. It were better to look away from such a piteous spectacle. Here a boy with his face so torn by a shell that his mother would not have recognized him, and there, a dying soldier, his countenance already pallid in the fast-coming chill of death. "And this one is dead; died on the way," they said as they lifted a corpse from the wagon, while the passer-by, grown rapidly familiar with such fearful sights, glanced hastily and passed on. So the long procession of wounded, nearly five thou sand, youngboys, middle-aged and white-haired men, from the private to the highest ranks, hurt in every conceivable manner, suffering in every way; parched, feverish, ago nized, wearing a look of mute agony no words may describe, or else lapsed into a fortunate unconsciousness, wended their way to the hospitals. There went men from every State, pouring out blood like water and offering up lives of sacrifice for the cause they had espoused. No city in the world was sadder than our Richmond in those days. All the miseries and woes of Seven Pines had been emptied into her fair homes and streets. She had " no language but a cry," an exceedingly bitter cry, that rose in its might to God on high "if the heavens were not brass." As you walked the streets some scene to make the heart ache would be enacted before your eyes. The dreaded ambulance might draw up before some residence whose doors would open to receive a burden borne in tenderly, brother, son, or husband. There would gather hastily on the steps members of the family to receive him, dead or hurt. From some wife, sister, or mother you heard words of 174 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. jp tenderest meaning, or bitterest weeping, or scream of agony as you passed along; or it might be that you caught only a look of mute despair as if she had turned to stone, for we take such things differently, we women. Black waved its sad signal from door to door. It was no unusual thing to see four or five funeral processions at the same time on their way to the city of the dead. People realized with a sudden shock the actualities of an internecine strife; it was brought to their very doors. Before they had seen only its pride and pomp, and its martial showing. They had heard only the rattling of artillery over the stony streets, and the tread of passing columns. All at once, with the sound of hostile guns, gaunt, grim-visaged war touched their hearts and sickened their souls with horror. It rendered them more determined, more earnest, more sincere. It made them feel that it was time to perform their part of the great tragedy, and not waste the hours in light comedy, vain regrets, or childish longings. In one day Richmond was changed from a mirth-loving, pleasure- seeking place, into a city of resolute men and women, nerved to make any sacrifice for their cause. CHAPTER XXI. GAINES S MILL. Lee s army on June 25, 1862, received orders to cook three days rations, draw eighty rounds of ammunition, and be ready to march at sound of the bugle. Richmond at that time had but few, and very imper fect, fortifications. The Federals had already sent up two of their gunboats as far as Drury s Bluff and, though they had been repulsed, great fear for the safety of the city was felt by all. Congress, then in session, was dis cussing the propriety of its evacuation. Consequently, the success of the Confederates in the battles of Williamsburg and Seven Pines, though not so brilliant as some subsequent ones, was of great moment to them, not only in its moral effect, but in preventing McClellan s immediate approach to Richmond. Pickett s brigade was increased after these battles by Colonel William D. Stuart s Fifty-sixth Virginia Regi ment, temporarily commanded by its lieutenant-colonel, Peyton Slaughter. The regiment was greatly depleted in numbers, having belonged to the Army of the West, and been cut up at Fort Donelson. General Joseph E. Johnston was severely wounded in the battle of Seven Pines, and General Robert E. Lee for the first time personally assumed command of the army. Anxiety was felt for the safety of Richmond. Mc- Clellan was threatening it from the north side of the Chickahominy. Lee s plan was to send Jackson down 175 i;6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Iff the valley of the Shenandoah toward Washington, attract ing the attention of the Federal forces to that quarter, while he secretly instructed Jackson to co-operate with him upon McClellan s right flank. Two hours before daybreak on the 26th of June, Pickett s brigade was ordered out of its cantonments on the Williamsburg road, and before daylight was on the Mechanicsville turnpike leading northward out of Rich mond. In the afternoon of the same day General A. P. Hill s division set in motion Lee s plan of attack upon McClellan, crossing the Chickahominy by the Meadow Bridge road and Mechanicsville turnpike, and capturing by sundown McClellan s right position at Mechanicsville. That evening Pickett s brigade crossed the Chicka hominy and bivouacked on their arms in front of Mechan icsville. Between half past two and three o clock next morning the attack was recommenced, General Lee driv ing the Federals before him till he reached Ellyson s Mill, a strongly fortified point, which Lee carried with considerable loss. McClellan then continued his retreat, burning and de stroying everything of any value that could not be carried away, until he reached Watts s Farm, a wonderful natural, as well as improved, stronghold, known also by the names of Gaines s Mill and Cold Harbor. There was fought the greatest battle of the war up to that time the battle of Gaines s Mill, so called because a mill of that name was near the central point of attack. The great stage-painter, Nature, had never arranged a more picturesque scene for a battle than that which was set for Gaines s Mill, one of the most awful contests of the Civil War. It was an undulating plain, gracefully rising into gentle swells, crowned by dense growths of trees. G AMES S MILL. 1 77 It terminated in a tall cliff, a great rounded mass of rock, which had been hurled from its native bed so many centuries before as to be now covered with a large forest. This cliff furnished a position which seemed to ensure victory to that leader who should be so fortunate, or so wise, as to gain this point of vantage. It was here that General George B. McClellan, the astute engineer, brilliant but most unfortunate of military leaders, recognizing at once the natural advantages and strength of the position from which the battle was to be fought, elected to make his stand. The position was formidable in itself, and his clever corps of engineers soon made it almost impregnable. Directly in front of the cliff, separated from it by a deep gorge, was a low, level field of about eight hundred acres. This field was partly covered with a heavy crop of oats which, together with a rank natural growth of broom-sedge, afforded concealment to McClellan s sharp shooters and lines of skirmishers. The Confederates, in order to make an attack upon the stronghold on which McClellan stood at bay, were obliged to advance over this field, a distance of about six hundred yards, in direct line of approach. The cliff was defended by three tiers of field artillery and a heavy infantry support. The battle was fought June 27, 1862. It was the turn ing-point of the Seven Days Battles around Richmond. For months " On to Richmond" had been the war-cry of the Federals. No event of the memorable campaign which had followed that slogan was more important in its results than this desperate conflict. Pickett s brigade was ordered to the front and formed in line of battle just under the brow of the hill, on the edge of the field with its luxuriant covering of oats and sedge* Kemper s brigade was stationed near Pickett s. 12 178 PICKET!^ AND HIS MEN. . Jackson s column was supposed to be somewhere on the left, though as yet nothing had been heard from him, he having been delayed by the obstructions which the Federals in passing had taken the precaution to put in his way. Lee had given a general order to make an attack in front upon hearing Jackson s musketry open upon the enemy. The Federal forces were under command of General Fitz John Porter, and extended over two miles, from the Chickahominy to Cold Harbor. Upon the dominant points of the field he had posted sixty cannon. Near the noon hour the battle in all its fury was on. The hills trembled under the roar of one hundred and twenty pieces of artillery. The plain was shrouded in smoke so dense that the two armies were lost to view. In these days of smokeless powder no battle-field can equal those of the olden time in terrific majesty and mys terious fascination. The mists which enshroud war, as well as many other subjects, are gradually passing away, and we are beginning to see things as they are. The banks of the chasm which protected the Army of the Potomac in its strong post on the cliff were lined with serried ranks awaiting the signal for action. Squadrons of troopers were dashing over the field; dense columns of infantry were rushing madly into the fray; the field was agleam with the flashing of bayonet and sword. Through the clouds of the cannonade A. P. Hill s division charged again and again with what a Northern writer has called "a disregard of death never surpassed." Out from the dells and from behind the trees the Federal reserves rushed forth and beat them back, but not until the foeman s ranks were thinned almost to the point of break ing. Not a gun was left which Porter could call into service. GAINES S MILL. l?g The Federal general, Butterfield, had his horse shot from under him, narrowly escaped a fragment of shell that struck his hat, and had been protected from a mus ket-ball by his sword, which was indented by the impact. Several of his aides had been killed at his side. He con tinued to rally his men. Longstreet was ordered to threaten the left and thus draw away troops from the right. Near sunset Lee sent word to Longstreet that "all other efforts had failed and unless he could do something the day was lost," where upon Pickett and Anderson were ordered to assault and Kemper was called as reserve. Whiting, having lost his commander, Jackson, asked to be put into battle and was placed with his and Hood s brigades on the left of Pickett and Anderson. Pickett directed Withers, colonel of the Eighteenth Regiment, to throw out a line of skirmishers to feel the enemy. Pickett had noticed that on the right of his line, partially concealed in a clump of trees, was a force of the Federals. He at once detached the Eighth and Eight eenth Regiments from the right of his line, and advanced with them in person to rout them from that point. At this time there was no appearance or sign of the enemy in his front. As Pickett moved out of cover with the two regiments, commanded respectively by Eppa Hunton and Robert E. Withers, the sudden puffs of smoke and simultaneous sharp rifle-cracks from the field of oats and sedge revealed to him that the enemy were not only con cealed there, but were watching and were cognizant of his every movement. Pickett had temporarily charged Colonel Walter Har rison, whom he had ordered to remain behind with the three regiments, to execute at once the order of the com manding general, should the signal to advance come be- 180 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. * fore his return. Pickett had but just crossed over when Major Sorrell, Longstreet s adjutant-general, brought the order to advance. The Nineteenth Regiment, commanded by Colonel Strange, was now on the right, being the center of the brigade. The Twenty-eighth, led by Colonel Robert T. Preston, was next. The Fifty-sixth, under Colonel Peyton Slaughter, was on the left. In this order the three regi ments charged at double-quick upon the enemy s works, in the teeth of a tempest of death-dealing projectiles of every description, across this field of oats and sedge. Pickett simultaneously moved down with the other two regiments. From the extreme right the five regi ments were again united in the center of the field, and charged in full line of battle, brigade front, Pickett leading his men and cheering them on. The skirmish line was soon driven in. The fire from the Federal bat teries and small arms was something terrific. The brigade pushed on on through a continuous rain of shot and the roar of guns. Whiting says: "The enemy, concealed in the woods and protected by the ravine, poured a destructive fire upon the advancing line for a quarter of a mile, and many brave officers and men fell. Near the crest in front of us and lying down appeared the fragments of a brigade; men were skulking from the front in a shameful manner; the woods on our left and rear were full of troops in safe cover, from which they never stirred; but on the right of the Third a brigade (Picket? s) was moving manfully up; still further on the extreme right our troops appeared to be falling back." Colonel Robert E. Withers, commanding the Eight eenth Regiment, and Colonel Peyton Slaughter, leading the Fifty-sixth, were shot down both mortally wounded GAINES S MILL. l8l it was alleged at the time. Though their lives were spared, it was their last battle. They were too badly wounded ever to return to the service. So terrific was the fusillade, so incessant, so concentrated, and at such close range, that the escape of any one of them seemed miraculous. Once the brave old brigade wavered under the heavy fire upon its shattered, depleted ranks. It was just be fore they reached the deep ravine, and then only for a moment, for at this crisis R. H. Anderson came up with his brave South Carolina brigade. With the rebel yell mingling with the death-sounds and echoing and rever berating, these two brigades, Pickett s and Anderson s, rushed together into the ravine and charged the death- dealing batteries and infantry that crowned the cliff. Straight up they dashed against a storm of shot and shell, not once faltering before the deadly rain that beat upon them. They had almost reached the reserve when a cavalry charge descended upon them. Of this charge the Prince de Joinville, who was serving on the staff of McClellan, says: "I saw the troopers draw their swords with the sudden and electrical im pulse of determination and devotion. As they got into motion I asked a young officer the name of his regiment. The Fifth Cavalry, he replied, brandishing his saber with a soldier s pride in his regiment. Unfortunate young man! I saw the same regiment the next day. From the charge of that evening but two officers had returned. He was not one of them." Pickett was shot from his horse, leading and cheering on his men his shoulder pierced by a Minie-ball. He paused but for a moment, then pressed forward on foot, still leading his brigade, waving his cap and cheering his 1 82 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. men, his arm hanging limp and helpless at his side his well-trained, almost human, battle-horse following as closely and circumspectly behind as if the lame, shot arm, strong and well, had held the rein and led him on. Though the charge was repelled the check had given the artillery time to open a fire which for a time made gaps in the lines of the assailants. The gunners, however, soon abandoned their guns and fled, leaving twenty-two pieces as Confederate prizes. The horses had all been either killed or so badly wounded that they had to be killed. General Randolph, at that time the Confederate Sec retary of War, who, with others, viewed the scene from an adjacent height, said that never on any battle-field was there witnessed a more gallant action or a more glorious sight. He not only made special mention of General Pickett, paying him the highest encomiums, but wrote him a most appreciative personal letter, which I hold as a legacy for the George E. Picketts of the future. In Whiting s report he says: " In the meantime, my division steadily continued to advance, though suffering terribly, until night found them completely across the plateau and beyond the battle-field. Pickett s brigade had ably fought on the right; the general himself was severely wounded in the charge." On the Cold Harbor road, Stonewall Jackson had been engaged on the right of the Federals, and was pressing down on their flank. McClellan, the clever en gineer, the clean-hearted man and fearless soldier, fiercely attacked thus in front and flank, was forced from his stronghold and driven into the Chickahominy swamp. Under the cover of the darkness he made his way out, which would have been impossible, had he not, with his foresight and training in military engineering, corduroyed GAINES S MILL. 183 and trestle-bridged the otherwise swampy streams and swales and bogs. Porter s troops were saved from a disorderly rout by the valor of the brigades of French and Meaghef, who arrived as Porter was retreating, and held the crest under a storm of shells and balls. Colonel R. Estvan, of the Confederate cavalry, says: " A Federal brigade, commanded by Meagher, and consist ing chiefly of Irishmen, offered the most heroic resistance. After a severe struggle our men gave way, and retired in great disorder. At this critical moment, foaming at his mouth with rage, and without his hat, General Cobb has tened up, sword in hand, with his legion and renewed the attack. But the efforts of these troops were in vain. The brave Irishmen held their ground with a determina tion which excited the admiration even of our own offi cers." Porter s troops, exhausted by the long fight, threw themselves upon the ground to rest, while French and Meagher s heroic six thousand kept guard in front. Night gloomed over the awful field of death a night of horrible darkness. The silence was no longer disturbed by the battle-thunder, but it was yet more agonizingly broken by the sounds of unutterable suffering. Colonel Estvan writes: "In bygone days I had been on many a battle-field in Italy and Hungary; but I confess that I never witnessed so pitiable a picture of human slaughter and horrible suffering." Lee in hot pursuit the next morning followed McClel- lan with his whole force, including the remnant of Pick- ett s brigade. There could probably never be a sadder commentary on the horrors of warfare than the true history of the re treat of McClellan s army to the protection of the gun- 1 84 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . boats on the James River. If any mind, possessed of a germ of humanity, could realize the terrors of that death- march, it would never again be able to contemplate the possibility of war without a shudder of revulsion. All the ambulances which could be obtained were filled with wounded, and those for whom there was no place were left to die upon the field or by the roadside, or to be car ried off as prisoners. Gentle death, kinder far than life, came with each hour to relieve some sufferer of the pain which had become insupportable. Many, overcome by the heat, fell by the way, raving deliriously. At the White House the retreating army burned its stores to prevent their falling into the hands of the pur suers. There was but little rescued from the flaming pile of Federal provisions, and the only prize which fell into the hands of the Confederates was a load of overcoats, which they stored away for cold weather. At Savage Station hundreds of barrels of provisions were piled up into pyramids and devoted to the flames. It was not so easy to get rid of powder and shells to pre vent their being used against their former owners. They were put into a train of cars and fired and the cars sent on their flaming way, the powder and shells exploding and sending out the most brilliant pyrotechnic displays, like a traveling Fourth of July celebration. Here occurred perhaps one of the saddest scenes of the whole war, if in such a succession of horrors there can be any one event surpassing all the rest in sorrowfulness. It was here determined that the safety of the army re quired the abandoning of the sick and wounded. It was not possible to convey them along that difficult march, halting by the way to fight the pursuers. Then followed parting of father from son, of brother from brother, of friend from friend, with no hope of any future meeting. GAINES S MILL. 1 85 In Richmond every hospital was filled with our wounded, and two hundred unfortunate sufferers taken by Colonel Estvan into the city were, in the first moments of confusion and dismay, obliged to be sheltered in an open warehouse until such time as the friendly doors of the private homes could be opened to supplement the overcrowded hospitals. As soon, however, as the good people of Richmond realized the sad condition of these brave men, who, in de fense of the beautiful homes in the capital city, had suf fered "hunger, thirst, heat, and faced death in its most fearful form/ they were unsparing in their efforts to al leviate their miseries and to give them every comfort within their power. This fight, the battle of Gaines s Mill, was altogether decisive of McClellan s change of base. The loss was heavy, and nothing but the courage and valor of Pickett and Anderson and their brave Virginians and South Carolinians could have won the fight. Hood s gallant Texas brigade distinguished them selves upon the right flank of McClellan s position, but they did not pass over the bloody field. That attack in front at Gaines s Mill was made by George E. Pickett s and R. H. Anderson s brigades alone. General Longstreet, in a letter to General Robert E. Lee, written a year after the close of the war, says of this battle: There is one portion of our record as written that I should like cor rected the battle of Gaines s Mill. Your report of that battle does not recognize the fact that the line in my front, that is, the enemy s line, was broken by the troops that were under my orders and handling. A part of Jackson s command, being astray, reported to me just as I was moving my column of attack forward Whiting s division and I put it in my column of attack, as stated in my report. I think that you must have overlooked my report on this point, and have been guided by 1 86 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Jackson s. Jackson knew nothing of the matter of my having his troops,. I suppose, and merely made his report from riding over the ground after the battle. I presume that he was not within one mile of the division when I put it in, and had no idea of its whereabouts. General Whiting reported to me that he had lost his way, and did not know where to find General Jackson, and offered his troops if I had use for them. I was then moving to assault, and put Whiting in a little behind Pickett s brigade. The commands made the assault together, and broke the enemy s line. Anderson s brigade followed and secured it, the assault ing columns being somewhat broken in making the charge. Just after breaking his lines the enemy made a severe attack, and would have re covered his position, I think, but for the timely support of Anderson s and Kemper s brigades at this point. Another fact should not be lost sight of in this connection. A. P. Hill had made several formidable at tacks at the same point, and had fought manfully against it for several hours, and though not entirely successful, he must have made a decided impression, and have injured the enemy as much as he was himself in jured, and thus weakened the enemy s lines so as to enable us to break them. It is quite common to give those credit only who show results, but it frequently happens, as in this case, that there are others who merit as much who are not known by results that is, who are not seen by others than those on the ground. General Pickett was severely wounded, and was kept out of the field until September of that year, when he joined his brigade at Martinsburg, Virginia, though even then he was unable to wear the sleeve of his coat upon that arm. Immediately upon his return to the field General Pickett was assigned to the command of a division, and on the 10th of October, 1862, was promoted major-general. CHAPTER XXII. FRAZIER S FARM. General Pickett s severe wound necessarily obliging him to leave the field after the battle of Gaines s Mill, June 27, 1862, the command of Pickett s brigade devolved for a few days upon Colonel Eppa Hunton, of the Eighth Regiment, in spite of his ill health at that time. On the 3Oth of June the battle of Frazier s Farm (Glen- dale) was fought. It began with an artillery duel between Jackson and Franklin, during the progress of which Long- street s division was drawn up in line of battle, waiting for Jackson to cross the White Oak swamp, and for Huger to come up along the Charles City road. Jackson not be ing able to cross the swamp, and Huger being detained down the road by Slocum s battery, they did not reach the field as expected. Hearing the sound of cannon toward the Charles City road, Longstreet supposed that Huger was approaching, and returned the supposed signal. This drew fire from the Federal batteries, which barely missed President Davis, who had come upon the field to consult with his generals. As the President was not prepared to take an active part in the fight, he was carried off with all possible speed to a place of safety. Colonel Jenkins, with his battalion of sharpshooters, being nearest the impetuous battery, was ordered to silence it. As half-way measures did not lie within the possibilities of the dashing Jenkins, he charged upon and captured the offending battery, and the battle was opened. 187 1 88 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Pickett s brigade, under command of Hunton, was brought up in line of battle, where it was exposed to a furious cannonade. Hunton becoming separated from his command because of exhaustion, consequent upon his feeble condition, Colonel John B. Strange, of the Nineteenth Virginia, took command, and under his leader ship the brigade charged upon and captured a battery, which was afterward turned with good effect upon its former owners. Longstreet had been sustaining the attack of McCall, Sedgwick, Kearny, Slocum and Hooker, in the expecta tion that Huger would attack the Federal right and Jack son come up in the rear, while Hill was to bring fresh troops in support. As neither Jackson nor Huger ap peared, Hill was called to relieve Longstreet, and together they held the ground until night came to close the con test. McCall endeavored to recover his lost ground, but was separated from his command in the dusk, and was captured by the Forty-seventh Virginia Regiment, led by Colonel Robert Mayo. Longstreet says of this general: "He was more tenacious of his battle than any one who came within my experience during the war, if I except D. H. Hill at Sharpsburg." The next day, meeting Surgeon Maish, of McCall s division, who had remained upon the field to tend the wounded, Longstreet said: "Well, McCall is safe in Richmond, and if his division had not offered the stub born resistance it did on this road, we would have captured your whole army. Never mind; we will do it yet." It was in this fight at Frazier s Farm, three days after the battle of Gaines s Mill, in which General Pickett had been wounded, that his only brother, his plucky, fear less assistant adjutant-general, Major Charles Pickett, FRAZIER S FARM, 189 was almost fatally wounded. Though Major Pickett nar rowly escaped death, and reported for duty at a period far in advance of the expectation of the most sanguine of those who knew of his terrible wound, he was made lame for life. Major Pickett and Captain W. Stuart Symington, aide- de-camp, volunteered on Hunton s staff for the finish of the seven days fight, notwithstanding Pickett s order that both should report to him in Richmond, as members of his personal staff, which order they disobeyed. Captain Symington was the only officer who went into the battle mounted. His horse was shot seven times, and finally killed under him. For his brave and meritorious action in this battle at Frazier s Farm, Major Charles Pickett received not only the highest praise from his comrades, but favorable official mention from his ranking officers. In his report of the battle Colonel Strange says: I would also bring to your notice the name of Captain Charles Pickett, assistant adjutant-general, who acted with the most conspicuous gal lantry, carrying a flag by my side at the head of the brigade on foot (hav ing lost his horse) and urging forward all the time forward until shot down seriously wounded, and then begging those who went to bear him off the field to leave him and go to the front if they could not bear him off conveniently, but to leave him his flag, which he still held, and let him die there under its folds. " The battle the little major fought down at Frazier s Farm," the soldiers called it at the time, and they still cherish in their hearts the glorious memory of that bril liant fight. Major Pickett was the best loved officer in the brigade, and every soldier there would willingly have followed him to death. Happily, the major did not die under the flag he so IQO PICKETT AND HIS MEN. loved that death would have been welcome if sheltered by its folds. He yet lives to gladden the hearts of his comrades by the touch of his friendly hand and the sound of the voice which cheered them on to valiant deeds in the old heroic days. At the battle of Malvern Hill Pickett s brigade, with the rest of Longstreet s corps, was held in reserve. This was the last of the Seven Days Battles, which had resulted, as General Lee, in his return of thanks to his army, July 7, expressed it, in "the relief of Richmond from a state of siege; the rout of the great army that so long menaced its safety; the taking of many thousand prisoners, includ ing officers of high rank; the capture or destruction of stores to the value of millions; and the acquisition of thousands of arms and forty pieces of superior artillery." CHAPTER XXIII. SECOND MANASSAS. Some one has said that the first battle of Bull Run gave such great satisfaction to the audience that an encore was demanded. The Federal government prepared for a suc cessful repetition of the piece as first presented by assign ing General Pope to the command of the newly formed Army of Virginia, thereby securing his services as lead ing man, and appointing Halieck general-in-chief of the Federal armies, thus making him stage-manager. These preliminary arrangements were completed in the latter part of June, and near the close of August the cur tain rose upon the second presentation of that martial drama. On the 22d of August, the dashing Stuart effected his bold ride around the lines of Pope, and secured the papers which revealed to Lee the intended movements of his op ponent,* and Lee s line of march was modified in accord ance with that information. He divided his army and sent part of it under Jackson to cut off Pope from Wash ington. Pickett s brigade, under the leadership of Eppa Hun- ton, was a part of Longstreet s corps which held Water loo Bridge against Pope while Jackson crossed the Rap- pahannock. Having safely passed the river, Jackson * Among the articles taken from Pope s tent was a sword, belonging to him. I have just this moment (November 24, 1898) laid my hand on this weapon a reminder of Pope s boasts of prowess in the home of my friend, Dr. J. B. Hodgkin, of Virginia. 191 I Q2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. % encamped on the night of the 25th near Salem, and on the next day passed the Bull Run mountains through Thoroughfare Gap and in the evening was at Bristoe Sta tion between Pope and the Federal capital. With him were the cavalry brigades of Robertson and Fitzhugh Lee, led by J. E. B. Stuart. From here he sent a detachment to capture supplies at Manassas Junction, taking posses sion of a large number of prisoners, horses and tents, and great quantities of stores. All the supplies which could not be used were burned. A force which was sent to recapture them was repulsed, and their leader, General Taylor, mortally wounded. Jackson went on to Manassas Junction and left Ewell s division with the Fifth Virginia Cavalry at Bristoe Sta tion, where they repelled a Federal attack. New troops arriving, it became evident tha.t Pope had learned the situation and had directed his whole force against Jack son. Ewell then drew back and rejoined Jackson at Manassas Junction and they withdrew west of the War- renton and Alexandria turnpike to unite with the ap proaching force of Longstreet. On the 28th, the divisions of Hill, Ewell and Taliaferro halted near the old battle-field of Bull Run. The Fed erals, moving down toward Alexandria, were attacked by Jackson and driven back. Among the wounded were Major-General Ewell, who lost a leg, and Brigadier- General Taliaferro. Longstreet had followed on after Jackson, being de tained upon the way by demonstrations of Federal cavalry, he having no cavalry with which to reconnoiter. When he reached Thoroughfare Gap he found it strongly de fended, and was forced to fight his way through. At ten o clock the next morning the Federal artillery opened upon Jackson s right, the design being to destroy SECOND MAN ASS AS. 1 93 him before the arrival of Longstreet. When that officer reached the field he was placed on the right of Jackson. Pickett s brigade was on Longstreet s right, with the re mainder of Kemper s division. It was one of the brigades supporting the advance of Hood and Evans, which re sulted in the victory for that day, a piece of artillery, several regimental standards, and a number of prisoners being taken. The morning of the 3<Dth was given to a heavy artillery combat between Colonel S. D. Lee, and the Federal artil lery, in which Colonel Lee was as successful as he had been on the previous day. In the afternoon Pickett s brigade was a part of the force which received and repelled the onset of Fitz John Porter. In the magnificent charge which finally cleared the field and won victory for the Confederate arms, Pickett s men proved their valor as loyally as they had done when they followed their own leader, who was far away, his gallant soul chafing under the sad necessity which kept him off the field. Lee again sent Jackson to secure a position between Pope and the capital, but Pope, having foreseen this movement, fell back to Chantilly, where he was attacked by Jackson on the 1st of September. Here the Federal army lost the brilliant general, Philip Kearny, who rode within the Confederate lines and was shot in attempting to escape. Kearny had been a Chasseur d Afrique in Algeria, where his bravery won for him the cross of the Legion of Honor. He had lost an arm at the siege of Mexico. He had fought with the French army in the bathes of Magenta and Solferino, and had again received from Emperor Napoleon III. the decoration of the Legion of Honor. 13 194 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. He was an old comrade of Lee in the United States army, and the day after the battle the Confederate leader sent his body under a flag of truce to General Pope, thinking, as he said in a kind note, that it might be a con solation to his family. Thus is the battle-field sometimes glorified by the gentleness of the truly chivalrous heart. CHAPTER XXIV. ANTIETAM. General Lee, having won the second battle of Ma- nassas, pushed on into Maryland with his whole army, arriving at Frederick City on the 8th of September. The next day he issued Order No. 191, afterward known as the " Lost Order." This order directed Jackson to go through Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac, capture Martinsburg, and help take Harper s Ferry. Longstreet was to remain at Boonsboro with the trains. McLaws was to station his command on the heights of Harper s Ferry and capture the force in the town, assisted by Walker, and guarded in the rear by D. H. Hill. After these movements had been effected the commands were to meet again at Boonsboro or Hagers- town. This was a well-laid plan, and Lee had carefully pre pared the order for the guidance of his own generals and not for the instruction of the Federal commander. A copy was sent from headquarters to D. H. Hill who, hav ing been transferred to Jackson s command, received his order from the hand of his new chief. The copy which was intended for him served the useful purpose of a cigar- wrapper until it chanced to be left behind in camp, where it was found by a prowling Federal soldier. On the morning of September I3th it was placed in the hands of McClellan, and in the afternoon he was on the way to the pass in South Mountain on the Boonsboro and Fredericksburg road. 195 196 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Franklin s corps was ordered to pass through Cramp- ton s Gap and attack McLaws, thereby relieving Harper s Ferry, while Burnside, with the commands of Reno and Hooker were sent to Turner s Gap, the second of the two principal roads through the South Mountain. A North ern writer has said of this movement that it "was quick for McClellan but not quite quick enough for the emer gency." He did not reach the passes until the morning of the I4th, when Jackson was already knocking vigorously at the gates of Harper s Ferry, supported on the right by Walker and on the left by McLaws and R. H. Anderson, having sent A. P. Hill with his division to Martinsburg. Lee had learned of McClellan s movement and had or dered Hill to guard Turner s Gap, supported by Long- street, who was recalled from Hagerstown for the pur pose. On the long, hot march Longstreet had lost half his number from exhaustion. Pickett s brigade, led by General Garnett, had been marched and countermarched under conflicting orders until, after twenty-three miles of wearisome effort, it reached the battle, exhausted, having lost heavily on the way. It took position under a heavy fire of artillery which opened upon it as soon as it came in sight. Upon gaining its post it was immediately attacked by a force many times as great as its own. Under the fierce assault the left fell back. The right being unsupported, was forced to retire, when the contest was renewed in the rear, but the darkness prevented objects from being dis tinguishable. As Jenkins advanced to the attack, Garnett was ordered to bring off his brigade. He had been in command only a few days. In his report Garnett says: "We have to mourn in this action many of our companions as killed and wounded, who go to swell the list of noble martyrs who ANTIETAM. IQ7 have suffered in our just cause. It was my lot to be ac quainted with but one of the officers who fell on this oc casion, Colonel John B. Strange, Nineteenth Virginia Volunteers. His tried valor on other fields, and heroic conduct in animating his men to advance upon the enemy, with his latest breath, and after he had fallen mortally wounded, will secure imperishable honor for his name and memory." Captain Brown, of Colonel Strange s regiment, says: "In this engagement Colonel J. B. Strange fell, seriously wounded, and in the retreat was left behind. His voice was heard after he had received his wound, urging his men to stand firmly, and he commanded with that cool ness and daring that is found only in the truly brave." In this contest at Turner s Gap the command of Reno, one of the finest officers on the Union side, met the brigade of our gallant and brilliant General Garland, and both leaders were killed. Among the wounded was Lieu tenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, commanding the Twenty-third Ohio, who received a rifle-ball in his arm. The fight at Crampton s Gap between a part of Mc- Laws s forces with Stuart s cavalry and Franklin s com mand had taken place at the same time. At nightfall Franklin s banner waved from the crest above Crampton s Gap, and Lee ordered the withdrawal of his troops from Turner s Gap and their removal to Sharpsburg. The battle was lost, but the delay suffered by McClellan in winning it had enabled Jackson to take possession of Harper s Ferry. At noon of the next day Lee received the following note from Jackson: "Through God s bless ing, Harper s Ferry and its garrison are to be surren dered." At that moment Lee resolved to stand and meet the enemy at Sharpsburg. igS PICKET T AND HIS MEN. 4) Had Lee made a battle-field for himself he probably could not have constructed a more desirable one than that which he had chosen. In the front was a gentle rise and fall like the graceful undulations of a sea in a calm. In the rear rose the hills, crest upon crest, as if nature in martial mood might have formed them with an eye to the location of artillery. Ridges swelled here and there, to afford hiding-places for reserves. The short line of the Confederates across the angle of the Antietam and Po tomac facilitated reinforcement at any point. The sluggish little Antietam, coming down from the hills of Pennsylvania, is crossed by four stone bridges the upper one on the Keedysville and Williamsport road; the second on the Keedysville and Sharpsburg turnpike, two and a half miles below; the third about a mile below the second, on the Rohrersville and Sharpsburg road; the fourth near the mouth of Antietam Creek, on the road from Harper s Ferry to Sharpsburg, three miles below the third. Lee s line of battle was ranged along Sharpsburg Heights, the cavalry and horse artillery near the eastern bend of the Potomac. Single batteries were posted along the line and below the crest of the heights, and the Wash ington Artillery was on Longstreet s right. When Jack son arrived from Harper s Ferry with his division and Ewell s, he was posted west of the Hagerstown turnpike. Walker was stationed with his two brigades to the right of Longstreet. When Pickett s brigade, led by Garnett, reached the field, it was posted under a heavy fire on the southeast of Sharpsburg in a hollow at the rear of the Washington Artillery to support some batteries. Here it was for some hours exposed to a severe fire of shot and shell, losing a number of its men. ANTIETAM. 1 99 McClellan s advance was delayed by a meeting with Fitzhugh Lee s cavalry. When he reached the field he placed his batteries near the center and massed his corps on both sides of the Sharpsburg turnpike. Four batteries were on the height above Antietam at the right; on the crest near the third bridge, afterward known as the Burn- side Bridge, were Weed s and Benjamin s guns. Between these points were ten or more batteries. On the Hagerstown road was a chapel known as Dunker Church. West of this church Hood was placed to defend the road, supported by S. D. Lee s artillery, to the east and beyond the road. North of the church was a field of corn turning golden in the warm sunlight. All around grew the soft grass, green and beautiful, on the banks of the life-giving river. Beyond were the cool shades of the East Wood. On the west of the road was the West Wood, a towering forest of oaks. On the western side of the turnpike, its left sheltered by the West Wood, was the Stonewall division under D. R. Jones. McClellan s Ninth Corps under Cox was stationed with Burnside on the left at Burnside Bridge. Hooker, with the First Corps, was on the right. At two o clock Hooker crossed the creek at Williamsport Bridge and attacked Longstreet s left brigades. As he advanced to the charge, his muskets flashing brilliantly in the last rays of the sun, he was received and repelled by Hood and the batteries of S. D. Lee. When the crossing of Hooker was reported to General Lee, he sent Jackson to command the entire battle of the left wing. At the East Wood Hooker s skirmishers met McLaw s veterans and were driven back to the edge of the wood. As they retired the curtain of night fell slowly over the scene and the soft rain descended, as if nature, with gentle hand, would wash away the stains of war. 200 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. The 1 7th of September, 1862, makes its crimson mark upon the page of history as the bloodiest day yet of the long struggle between North and South. Of the conflict which raged on the banks of the Antietam on that gloomy day McClellan telegraphed to Halleck: " We are in the midst of the most terrible battle of the war, perhaps of history." The little stream of Antietam, meandering drowsily between its grass-grown banks, started to sudden life with the tide of brave hot blood which flowed into it, and went rushing on its way to the sea as impetuously as if the blood of North and South were even yet waging tempest uous warfare. In the night, McClellan had ordered Mansfield to cross by the upper bridge to support Hooker s attack upon Jackson. At early dawn the assault was made, assisted by Doubleday, who swept down the Hagerstown turnpike and struck the center of Jackson s division. Across the river, to and fro the guns hurled their deadly missiles, and space was filled with flying balls and frag ments of shell, and heavy clouds of smoke, and the air was shivered with the thunderous reports. Jones, who led the Stonewall division, was wounded, and the command devolved upon Starke, who in a short time was killed. Grigsby sprang to the command, rallied the men, and dashed upon Doubleday, who retreated. The Federal lines were several times repulsed, but were heavily reinforced and flung themselves so impetuously upon Jackson that his forces fell back and took a strong post in the rear. The corn-field which had been so beautiful in the Sep tember sun shook under the fearful storm that swept over it, and its promise of golden harvest went down forever under the rush of murderous feet. Lawton, leading Ewell s division, was wounded, and ANTIETAM 2OI most of the field-officers were killed or wounded. As Lawton was carried off the field, Hood s brigades came dashing up from the church, leaving their half-cooked breakfast to the tender mercies of the camp-fire. At the same time three of D. H. Hill s brigades came through the Confederate center and attacked Ricketts. Before this onslaught Hooker retreated to the protec tion of his guns, leaving about one-fourth of his men on the field. Mansfield led out his two divisions in an effort to regain the ground which Hooker had lost. The battle in the corn raged anew and Mansfield went to swell the roll of the fallen. Early, who had taken the place of the wounded Law- ton, held the position left vacant by Jackson s division, which had been withdrawn at seven o clock. Hood, who had returned to the field, joined with Early and held the ground under a heavy fire of a force far greater than their own. At half past eight Sumner crossed the Antietam and en tered East Wood, followed by Sedgwick. As he turned with his six thousand toward the West Wood, he was met by a storm of shells from Stuart s guns and a shower of canister from Jackson s batteries. Behind the ledges of rock stood Grigsby and his three hundred, and from their points of vantage they held Sumner in check until his way to de struction was prepared. Hood s division had been shat tered, but McLaws had reached the field and, with Ander son and Walker, came to the support of Grigsby and Early, and Sumner was swept away in a storm of fire. This was followed by a heavy attack on the center, which was hurled back by G. B. Anderson and Rodes, of D. H. Hill s division, and part of Walker s command, with a few pieces of artillery. French s brigades took refuge behind the crest of a hill from which they kept up a des- 202 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ultory fire. An attack by Richardson was then repulsed. Through mistake, Rodes s brigade was withdrawn from position and the Federals took advantage of the gap thus formed to break through G. B. Anderson s line, Anderson being mortally wounded. General R. H. Anderson and General Wright were also wounded and taken from the field. The object of all this display by Hooker was to enable Burnside to effect a crossing at the Rohrersville turnpike, over the bridge since known as " Burnside s Bridge," op posite the right wing of Longstreet. The western end of this bridge was held by Toombs with three Georgia regi ments and one of Jenkins s South Carolina regiments, supported by batteries stationed among the trees. Upon this bridge Sturgis led a bayonet charge, sup ported by a heavy cannonade, but was forced to retreat by the concentrated fire of Longstreet s gun and the rifles. There were just six hundred of Toombs s gallant riflemen, brave as the dashing six hundred who have charged down the highway of history ever since Balaklava, and four times they sent the storming party back across the east end of the bridge. There was a sheltered ford below the bridge, and Rodman s division made a double-quick charge across it and reached the west bank. This rendered the position at the bridge untenable, and a little later Burn- side s corps crossed the bridge and climbed the heights, attacking Longstreet and driving back the brigades of Drayton, Kemper and Garnett ( Pickett s brigade). Jones s division broke and retreated to Sharpsburg. Burnside had been successful against Longstreet, but A. P. Hill came upon the field with three thousand four hundred men ready to descend upon Burnside s brigades, notwithstanding a march of seven hours, in which time they had made seventeen miles. A flood of fire poured. ANTIETAM. 203 from the batteries on the height and the Federals re treated to their guns on the other side of the Antietam. When night brought silence to this terrible field of the Civil War, Mclntosh s battery, taken when A. P. Hill first arrived upon the scene, had been regained, and the ground lost by Longstreet had been recovered. When Pickett s brigade had been for some hours in rear of the artillery it was ordered forward to the crest of the hill to dislodge the Federal skirmishers and protect the artillery eastward. Shortly after, S. D. Lee s battalion took the place of the Washington Artillery, and the Fifty- sixth Regiment under Captain McPhail, Colonel William D. Stuart being ill, was sent back to protect the move ment. When Burnside crossed the river the brigade again took position in front in a corn-field, the Fifty-sixth Regi ment being recalled to the left wing of the main body. Here it opened fire on a large number of skirmishers and drove them back. From the woods of Antietam a moving wall of bayonets bore down upon the little band. Only two hundred of the gallant Virginians were left, but with two rifled pieces they bravely held their ground. After an hour of heavy work the right began to yield. A number of Federal flags were seen upon a hill in rear of Sharpsburg, the only ave nue of escape. Garnett, seeing that his small force was in danger of being surrounded and captured, was forced to withdraw it, the Nineteenth under Major Cabell halting to protect a section of artillery. The brigade filed out from its position of peril and passed around to the north of the town. The battle had been fought and lost, but it could scarcely be said to have been won. It stopped, apparently be cause both sides were too much exhausted to go on. Lee 204 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. had gained advantages of position, and McClellan had lost very many men who would have been saved but for his sending his army out in detachments to be killed in detail, instead of subjecting Lee s army to that process, as he had previously claimed that he would do. He had held back all his reserves, he and Porter agreeing in the opinion that reserves are articles of luxury not to be utilized in the practical affairs of life. If the battle was indecisive from a military point of view, it had political significance of great importance. Lee withdrew from Maryland, and Lincoln, in accordance with his previous announcement, issued the EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. CHAPTER XXV REORGANIZATION. The Army of Northern Virginia had just returned from the first Maryland campaign, greatly reduced in number, and was falling back toward Winchester when Brigadier- General Pickett reported for duty at Martinsburg. This was in September, 1862, and the General was yet only able to wear his coat across the wounded arm and shoulder, which still caused him severe suffering. At Martinsburg a reorganization of the army was made. Pickett s and Kemper s Virginia brigades and Jenkins s South Carolina brigade were consolidated into a division and attached to Longstreet s corps. The command of the di vision was assigned to Brigadier-General George E. Pickett. Brigadier-General Richard B. Garnett was assigned to Pickett s old brigade, and from this date its designation was changed to Garnett s brigade, and it became merged into the general record of Pickett s division. Under its new leader it well sustained its olden glory. In September, 1862, at Culpeper Court-house, Briga dier-General Lewis Addison Armistead s brigade, which had heretofore belonged to Huger s division, was assigned to Pickett s division. This brigade had been engaged in the second day s fight at Seven Pines, in the battles of Malvern Hill and Sharpsburg, and had been with Lee s army in the first Maryland campaign. On October 10, 1862, Brigadier-General Pickett was offi cially promoted major-general, and permanently placed in command of Pickett s division. 205 206 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. General Pickett s staff consisted of Major Charles Pickett, assistant adjutant-general; Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Harrison, assistant adjutant and inspector-general; Captain Robert Johnston, assistant adjutant-general, colonel of cavalry, 1861 and 1862; Major Charles W. Chancellor, chief surgeon until 1863, when Major M. M. Lewis took his place. Major James A. McAlpine was medical inspector from 1864 to 1865. Major R. Taylor Scott was chief quartermaster; Major Horace W. Jones, chief commissary; Captain David Meade, Captain Thomas P. Wallace, Captain William B. Edmonds, assistant quar termasters. Captain A. W. Williams was paymaster of division from 1864 to 1865. Captain W. Douglas Stuart was chief engineer officer; Lieutenant John S. Morson, assistant engineer officer; First Lieutenant Samuel G. Leitch, chief ordnance officer, 1862 to 1864; Captain Howe P. Coch- rane, chief ordnance officer from 1864 to 186$. Lieutenant Edward R. Baird, Robert A. Bright and W. Stuart Symington were aides-de-camp; Lieutenant I. W. Gossett and F. W. Brooke, provost guard; Major Ray mond Fairfax, chief pioneer corps; Captain Charles Floyd, assistant quartermaster and division sutler. The couriers and orderlies at headquarters were Messrs. Harrie Hough, chief clerk; Richard Avery, assistant chief clerk; Robert Hempston, Thomas R. Friend, James Ryals, Martin Van Buren Campbell, John E. Whitlock, and George Stultz, orderlies. Four batteries of field artillery, under command of Major James Dearing, were attached to Pickett s division near the time of the battle of Fredericksburg and followed it through the Suffolk campaign, Gettysburg, Newbern and Plymouth, until the summer of 1864, when it was detached. Its brilliant leader, Major Dearing, became brigadier-gen- REORGANIZATION. 207 eral of cavalry, and fell at the head of his brigade in a skirmish with a party of bridge-burners at the High Bridge a few days before the surrender said to have been the last Confederate killed in the war. The oldest of these batteries was the Richmond-Fay- ette, named for Lafayette, who was visiting Richmond when the battery was formed, May 29, 1824. In acknowl edgment of the compliment, he presented to his name sake battery two brass six-pounders which he had brought to the United States during the Revolution. Colonel John Rutherford first led the company, and it was after ward commanded, in 1861, at the opening of tha war, by Captain Henry Coalter Cabell. In 1861 it went to the Peninsula under Colonel J. B. Magruder, being first engaged at Yorktown and opening the battle of Williamsburg. Its notable actions are too many to be named, but among them was its support of the ill-fated charge upon Cemetery Height at Gettysburg. Thirty-seven of its men were killed in action. It was known as the Macon battery, from Captain Miles C. Macon, who succeeded in command when Captain Cabell was promoted colonel of artillery, and who was killed in the last action in which his battery took part. The Hampden Artillery was also known as Caskie s battery, from its second leader, Captain William H. Caskie, who succeeded to the command at the end of the first year of service. It was organized in Richmond in 1861, and mustered into service shortly afterward, Cap tain Lawrence S. Marye being its commander. After many brilliant actions it was assigned to Pickett s division in March, 1863, and was with it in the charge at Gettys burg. With horses at a hard gallop it led the charge upon Newbern, Captain Caskie, whose horse had been wounded, leading on foot, carrying a musket with which he did good 208 PICKETT AND HIS MEN service. To replace his wounded horse, General Pickett gave him one which was captured on the field. After Captain Caskie s promotion in the spring of 1864, the bat tery was led by Captain John E. Sullivan, under whose leadership it maintained its well-earned distinction. The Fauquier Artillery received this name from the circumstance of having been recruited in Fauquier County, Virginia. It was known as Stribling s battery, from its commander, Captain Robert M. Stribling. After many brilliant engagements with R. H. Anderson s South Carolina brigade and Kemper s Virginia brigade, and at Malvern Hill with Toombs s brigade, it repulsed a charge of cavalry at Turkey Island. For this action it received the compliment of special mention in the Federal reports for the precision and effect of its fire. In this engage ment its guns were directed by Lieutenants Marshall and Carroll. After distinguished service with Stuart at Ma- nassas Plains, where it advanced in front of the infantry and supported a cavalry charge until the Federals were defeated, it was then attached to Bearing s battalion and accompanied General Longstreet to Suffolk where, being surrounded by an overwhelming force, it suffered the loss of many fine guns and the capture of its com mander and his officers. After their exchange the battery was reorganized and equipped at Richmond and furnished with six Napoleon guns, and its next engagement was at Gettysburg in the cannonade of the third day which ushered in the final charge. Upon the promotion of Cap tain Stribling, Lieutenant Marshall succeeded him as captain. Under his command it was in many brilliant ac tions until the surrender, when it went on to Lynchburg, destroyed its guns and disbanded. The Latham-Dearing-Blount battery was first Latham s battery, from its commander. Then it passed under the RE OR GA NIZA TIGN. 209 leadership of Dearing and, upon his promotion, became Blount s battery, Captain J. R. Blount being its leader. It was organized in Lynchburg in 1861, and did good serv ice at the first battle of Manassas, being said to have fired the first guns on that day. In 1862, it was in active service in the Peninsula, and supported Pickett s brigade with distinguished honor at Seven Pines and Gaines s Mill. In December, 1862, it was made a part of Dearing s battalion and attached to Pickett s division, serving in the expedi tion to Suffolk and at Gettysburg, and in many subsequent engagements. It was neither captured nor surrendered, but pushed its way on to its native city of Lynchburg where it disbanded and destroyed its guns. On the first of November, 1862, Pickett s division was moved from Orange Court-house to Fredericksburg, where it was confronted with Burnside s Army of the Potomac. Here a brigade was formed for Colonel M. D. Corse, and became a part of Pickett s division. Colonel Corse had also previously commanded Pickett s brigade for a short time while Pickett lay wounded. Pickett s division at this time was about ninety-one hundred strong. The fate of many a brave man is yet to be recorded before these pages are finished. The colonels were First Virginia: P. T. Moore, wounded at Bull Run., July, 1861, and promoted brigadier-general; Lewis B. Wil liams, Jr., killed, Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; Frederic G Skinner, wounded and disabled, Second Manassas. Third Virginia: Roger A. Pryor, promoted brigadier general, 1862; Joseph Mayo, Jr., wounded, Gettysburg. Seventh Virginia: James L. Kemper, promoted briga dier-general in 1862, wounded at Gettysburg, major-gen eral in 1864; W. Tazewell Patton, killed, Gettysburg; C. C. Floweree, 1863-65. 14 210 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Eighth Virginia: Eppa Hunton, promoted brigadier- general, 1863; Norbourne Berkeley, wounded, Gettys burg. Ninth Virginia: David Godwin; J. Owens, killed, Gettysburg; J. J. Phillips, wounded, Gettysburg. Eleventh Virginia: Samuel Garland, promoted briga dier-general, and killed, Boonsboro, 1862; David Funsten, Maurice S. Langhorne, and Kirk Otey, all wounded. Fourteenth Virginia: James G. Hodges, killed, Gettys burg; William White, wounded, Gettysburg. Fifteenth Virginia: Thomas P. August, wounded and disabled, Malvern Hill, 1862. Seventeenth Virginia: M. D. Corse, promoted briga dier-general, 1862; Morton Marye, wounded and disabled, 1862; Arthur Herbert. Eighteenth Virginia: Robert E. Withers, wounded and disabled, Gaines s Mill; Henry A. Carrington, wounded. Nineteenth Virginia: Armistead Rust, 1861; J. B. Strange, killed, Sharpsburg, 1862; Henry Gantt, wounded, Gettysburg. Twenty-fourth Virginia: Jubal A. Early, wounded, and promoted lieutenant-general; William R. Terry, wounded and promoted brigadier-general; Richard L. Maury, wounded and disabled, Drury s Farm, 1864. Twenty-eighth Virginia: Robert F. Preston, 1861; Robert Allen, killed, Gettysburg; William Watts, 1863-65. Twenty-ninth Virginia: Austin Moore; James Giles. Thirtieth Virginia: R. Milton Gary, 1861; Archy T. Harrison; Robert S. Chew. Thirty-second Virginia: Edgar B. Montague. Thirty-eighth Virginia: E. C. Edmonds, killed, Gettys burg; George K. Griggs. Fifty-third Virginia: Harrison B. Tomlin, 1861; J. Grammer; William R. Aylett, wounded, Gettysburg. RE ORGANIZA TION. 2 1 1 Fifty-sixth Virginia: W. D. Stuart, killed, Gettys burg; William E. Green, wounded; Peyton P. Slaughter, wounded and disabled, Gaines s Mill. Fifty-Seventh Virginia: Lewis A. Armistead, pro moted brigadier-general in 1862, killed at Gettysburg; E. F. Keene; J. B. Magruder, killed, Gettysburg; and C. R. Fontaine. CHAPTER XXVI. PICKETT S GENERALS. Brigadier-General Richard Brooke Garnett was born in Essex County, Virginia, in 1819. He was graduated from West Point in 1841, in the class which furnished the largest list of officers killed in action, six falling on the battle-fields of Mexico, and eight among them the heroic Garnett himself in the Civil War. Upon his graduation he was appointed second-lieuten ant in the Sixth Infantry; served in the Florida war, in New Orleans, and San Antonio, Texas, on the frontier, and was stationed at Benicia, California, at the beginning of the war between the States. Feeling it his duty to serve his native State, he re signed from the United States army, May 17, 1861. He was appointed brigadier-general in the Confederate army ancl served with Jackson in the Valley of Virginia. For a time he commanded the celebrated Stonewall Brigade. When the ammunition was exhausted at the battle of Kernstown, Garnett retired his brigade, thereby in curring the displeasure of Jackson, who claimed that, but for Garnett s action, he could have won the battle. The offending officer was arrested and temporarily re lieved from duty. The sensitive mind of the brave gen eral, who was as courageous on the field as he was hon orable in the performance of all the duties of a soldier s life, never recovered from what he regarded as a stigma upon his military reputation. This feeling was proba bly, at least in part, the cause of his insisting upon PICKETT S GENERALS. 21$ leading his brigade at Gettysburg when he was so ill as to be scarcely able to sit upon his horse. His magnanimity is attested by the fact that no more sincere a mourner followed the great leader "Stonewall" to his untimely grave than the man in whose heart still rankled the wound which would be healed only when the gallant soul had passed into that higher phase of life where all the hurts of this narrow existence pass away. Garnett commanded Pickett s brigade in the absence of its leader while wounded, and when Pickett was pro moted to the command of a division the brigade was placed permanently under Garnett, who led it with dis tinguished success, winning the respect and affection of officers and men. It was at the head of this grand old brigade that he rode down into the valley between the hills of Gettysburg, cheering on his men with all the en thusiasm he had shown in his greatest vigor and health, to meet the death to which every true soldier looks for ward as the crowning glory of a noble life. Brigadier-General Lewis Addison Armistead com manded the second brigade of Pickett s division. He was born in Newbern, North Carolina, February 18, 1817. The son of an army officer, it was inevitable that he should enter West Point, from which he would probably have been graduated with most brilliant honors, had not his martial instincts so far overruled the discipline of that rigid institution as to result in the smashing of Jubal Early s head with a plate. Although it is not the avowed intention of that conservatory of war to repress the heroic soul, yet in this particular case it was deemed best that the belligerent instincts should be permitted to develop in a less restricted atmosphere, and so the scholastic career of the future Confederate leader was suddenly terminated. 214 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. In 1839 Armistead was appointed second-lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment of infantry, then in General Zachary Taylor s command. He served in the Florida war under his father, General W. K. Armistead, and in 1844 was promoted to a first-lieutenancy by President Tyler. He was brevetted for gallant conduct in Mexico, being at Chapultepec, as we are told, "the first to leap into the great ditch." At the opening of the Civil War he was a captain in the regular army. He resigned, was commissioned colo nel, and placed in command of the Fifty-seventh Regi ment of Virginia infantry. In 1862 he was made briga dier-general and organized a brigade of infantry, which was assigned to Huger s division of Longstreet s First Army Corps. It was first engaged in the second day s fight at Seven Pines, where its brave general was espe cially distinguished. In September, 1862, it was added to Pickett s division of Longstreet s corps. In his re port of the battle of Malvern Hill, General Magruder says: "Brigadier-General Armistead held the line of battle in the wood which secured the field, and after bringing on the action in the most gallant manner by re pulsing an attack of a heavy body of the enemy s skir mishers, skilfully lent support to the contending troops in front when it was required." It was at the head of this brigade that he stormed up the deadly slope of Cemetery Hill, broke the Union lines and, with his hand resting on a Federal gun and the shout of victory on his lips, fell, as noble a sacrifice as ever sanctified a battle-field. Brigadier-General James Lawson Kemper was com mander of the Third Brigade of Pickett s division. He was born in 1824, of a Virginia family whose his tory dates back to the beginning of the eighteenth cen- PICKETT S GENERALS. 21$ tury. He seems to have had no predilection for a war rior s life, as he prepared himself carefully for profes sional work. In 1847 ne was commissioned captain of volunteers by President Polk, and joined Taylor s army of occupation after the battle of Buena Vista, thus taking no active part in the war. He afterward served for a number of years in the political and military affairs of his State. On the 2d of May, 1861, he became colonel of volun teers, and at Manassas took command of the Seventh Regiment of infantry. After the first battle of Manassas the regiment was joined temporarily to Early s brigade. Three days later it was assigned to Longstreet s brigade, afterward commanded by A. P. Hill. Under this com mand Colonel Kemper with his regiment fought for nine successive hours at Williamsburg, capturing some pieces of artillery and four hundred prisoners. He was im mediately after made commander of the brigade, and led it through the historic Seven Days. In the second battle of Manassas General Kemper commanded a division composed of several brigades after ward in Pickett s division, and made so successful a move ment that General Lee sent him a request to repeat it, thus assisting very greatly in the final success of that battle. He commanded his own brigade at South Moun tain and Antietam. After the Maryland campaign Kemp- er s brigade was joined to Pickett s division. At Fredericksburg General Kemper with his brigade advanced under a heavy fire to unite with the troops on Marye s Heights. Early in 1863, he and his brigade were sent to North Carolina; returning to Pickett s division in front of Suffolk. General Kemper bravely led his brigade in the great charge on the last day of Gettysburg, and was carried 2l6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. out, never again to inspire his gallant warriors by his pres ence on the field. He was afterward placed in command of the forces at Richmond, where he did good service, and in 1864 was promoted major-general. After the war, he most ably served the State of Vir ginia as governor, and won in civic life laurels no less un fading than he had gained in war. Brigadier-General Montgomery D. Corse was a native of Alexandria, Virginia, and a graduate of a military school. In 1846, he was elected captain of volunteers, and served in the war with Mexico. After the close of the war, he spent some years in California, and was captain of the Sutter Rifles in Sacramento. In 1860, he organized the Old Dominion Rifles of Alexandria, and a battalion of volunteers, of which he was major. The infantry com panies of this battalion were afterwards a part of the cele brated Seventeenth Regiment of Virginia infantry, and Major Corse was made its colonel, leading it with distinc tion at Manassas and the battles in that vicinity. He commanded Kemper s regiment in the second battle of Manassas, where he was slightly wounded. He was wounded while leading his regiment at Boonsboro, and again at Antietam, where he went into battle with fifty-six men and came out with seven. On November I, 1862, Colonel Corse was commissioned brigadier-general, and for a time was in command of Pickett s brigade. Soon after he was assigned to a new brigade made up of the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Thirtieth and Thirty-second Virginia regiments, afterward includ ing the Twenty-ninth Virginia. It served with Pickett s division throughout the war, but being, unfortunately, detached from it and left at Hanover Junction in the campaign of 1863, the division was deprived of its assist ance at Gettysburg. PICKETT S GENERALS. 21 J Longstreet mentions the distinguished gallantry and skill of Corse while commanding a regiment at the battle of Frazier s Farm. He led his brigade brilliantly at Five Forks, was captured at Sailor s Creek, and remained a prisoner until some months after the close of the war. The dashing Micah Jenkins fought with great ability , at Seven Pines, and brought on the battle of Frazier s Farm by leading his battalion of sharpshooters in a charge upon a battery, which he captured. He was afterward placed in command of a brigade which was incorporated into Pickett s division, and was held in reserve at Fred- ericksburg. Greatly to the regret of General Pickett, and the crippling of the division, he was left on guard-duty when Pennsylvania was invaded and the battle of Gettys burg was fought. When General Longstreet was transferred to Tennessee, Jenkins, with his brigade of South Carolinians, was at tached to Hood s division and accompanied him. He dis played great skill in leading his command across Lookout Mountain after the attack upon Hooker s rear-guard. In the Wilderness he rode next to Longstreet and said: "I am happy; I have felt despair of the cause for some months, but am relieved, and feel assured that we will put the enemy back across the Rapidan before night." Scarce had the words left his lips when the party, mistaken for an advance of the enemy, was fired upon, Jenkins falling mortally wounded, and Longstreet being shot through shoulder and throat. Among those members of the division who distin guished themselves in less prominent positions was Colo nel Eppa Hunton of the Eighth Regiment. Colonel Hunton did not seem to find his long experience in por ing over musty files in a law-office any obstacle to a gal lant military career. By common consent of humanity, 218 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. law-files are always regarded as "musty," though, as a matter of fact, it stands to reason that a new case must occasionally come into a law-office. He led Pickett s brigade for a time at Gaines s Mill when its commander was compelled by his wound to leave the field. Colonel Hunton being too ill to retain the com mand, it devolved upon Colonel John B. Strange, of the Nineteenth Regiment. At Frazier s Farm, Colonel Hun- ton gave the order to charge, but as he was too weak from illness to keep up with the command it again fell to the direction of Colonel Strange, who led it with great ability. Colonel Strange was killed at South Mountain. Colonel Hunton was promoted brigadier-general in 1863. He was among those who were so unfortunate as to be captured at Sailor s Creek, the last chapter in the history of Pickett s division. From 1872 until 1881, Colonel Hunton was a member of the United States Congress, and served upon the Elec toral Commission. CHAPTER XXVII. FREDERICKSBURG. After the battle of Antietam General Lee reorganized his army into corps and held them between the Potomac and Winchester through most of the month of October. On the 8th of that month General Stuart, of the cav alry force, began his celebrated circuit of McClellan s army, leading three cavalry brigades across the Potomac and on to Chambersburg the first invasion of the North. Stuart seriously disturbed the mental equilibrium of the Army of the Potomac, cut the telegraph-wires, so that annoying messages in regard to him might not be sent to his enemies, destroyed government depots, secured pro visions, and returned to the south side of the river on the I2th, having made the entire round with a loss of but few of his men, who were slightly wounded in a skirmish with Pleasanton. On the 26th McClellan moved southward and crossed the river east of the Blue Ridge. Longstreet kept a cor responding march on the south side, while Jackson guarded the passes. McClellan halted at Warrenton on the 5th of November, and Longstreet, with the divisions of McLaws, R. H. Anderson and Pickett, arrived at the same time at Culpeper Court-house. On the day that McClellan reached Warrenton orders were issued from Washington relieving him of command and appointing General Burnside as general-in-chief of the Army of the Potomac. Whatever the North may have thought of the change, the Southern leaders were 219 220 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^ of the opinion that the removal of McClellan was fortu nate for their cause. The Army of the Potomac, through all its disastrous career, had never lost faith in " Little Mac," as it fondly called him. If securing and retaining the confidence of his men is a proof of military ability, no American leader had ever been more fitted for his responsible position than was the commander whose requisitions upon the military department at Washington had won for his army the derisive title of "The Umbrella Brigade." It was with reluctance that General Burnside accepted an appointment which he had twice declined, and which would thrust upon him the arduous task of winning the men from their former idol, or ensure his failure. Subsequent events seemed to indicate that he had done well in twice declining, and might have done better by persisting in that course. However, we may give him credit for having been actuated by good motives, and regard his subse quent career as one of the fortunes, or misfortunes, of war. Burnside prepared for an aggressive movement which might prove his metal and secure the good will of the nation and the army. He consolidated the six corps of the Army of the Potomac into three grand divisions of two corps each, the right under General E. V. Sumner; the center, General Joseph Hooker; the left, General W. B. Franklin. He spent ten days in reorganizing and get ting under control his dissatisfied army, who placed little confidence in his plans. Wearied by the slow prepara tions of his predecessor for a forward movement which never took him anywhere, the administration at Washing ton insisted upon knowing what the new commander pur posed doing. In response to this demand, Burnside labored with such celerity that within two days from tak ing command his plan was ready to be submitted. FREDERICKSB URG. 221 This plan differed from that which Lee was expecting of him. The Confederate general had prepared to oppose a movement north of Culpeper Court-house. Burnside moved south, with the intention of crossing the Rap- pahannock near Fredericksburg and securing a position between Lee s army and Richmond, designing to cut off communication and prevent the Southern army from gain ing access to their capital. On the I5th, he began to put this plan into operation, attempting to conceal it by a demonstration on Gordonsville. Lee was not thus to be deluded, and on the same day the Confederate outpost at Fredericksburg was reinforced by a battery of artillery and a regiment of infantry. On the 1 7th, Lee received information that the right division had gone south, led by General Sumner, and he ordered General W. H. F. Lee s cavalry to Fredericksburg. Fredericksburg is a small town, at that time of about five thousand inhabitants, situated on the south bank of the Rappahannock. It is north of Richmond, and about half-way between Richmond and Washington. Low ranges of hills extend along the river; on the north, they are close to and parallel with the stream; on the south they stretch backward from the river and inclose a plain six miles long and nearly three miles wide; above the river they rise boldly and present a rugged, unforested front; eastward they are lower and wooded, and spurs, covered with a growth of trees, run down to the plain. Had nature formed the design of creating an appro priate location for a victorious army, she could have suc ceeded no better than she did in her operations upon the south of the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg. In front were bold, bare crests, on whose natural ramparts artillery might be placed to hurl destruction upon the helpless plain below. On the flanks the woodland spread 222 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. out its sheltering arms to screen troops from the fire of an attacking party. The hand of man had come to the assistance of nature in rearing this gigantic fortification, and had constructed, probably for some peaceful purpose now unknown, a road guarded by a stone wall. Behind this wall a force of musketry might be concealed, from which an incessant fusillade could be kept up, with no pos sibility of an effective counter-fire. On the i8th, one of Longstreet s divisions under Mc- Laws set out for Fredericksburg, another under Ransom marching toward the North Anna. The next day, finding that the whole Union army was on the way to Fredericks- burg, Lee ordered the remaining divisions to go forward. On the iQth, Longstreet took possession of the heights of Fredericksburg, thereby securing an advantage which assured him the victory, those hills being invincible when well fortified. There was Longstreet on the 2ist day of November, when General Sumner called Fredericksburg to surrender. In the meantime, Burnside had reached Falmouth, where he intended to cross. Here he was delayed by the fact that the bridges had been destroyed by heavy rains, and the pontoons which had been ordered from Washing ton had failed to arrive, by reason of a mistake as to whose duty it was to send them forward, and the indifference of the commander-in-chief as to whether they went forward or not. While Burnside waited with what patience he might, Lee s army beyond the river busied itself in forti fying the heights. On the igth of November, Franklin and Hooker en camped about ten miles from Falmouth on the northeast side of the river, Franklin at Stafford Court-house and Hooker at Hartwood. The Federal batteries, one hundred and forty-seven siege-guns and long-range field-batteries FREDERICKSBURG. 22$ were posted on Stafford Heights, a range of hills through which the Rappahannock flows a little more than a mile above Fredericksburg. On the opposite bank the brigade of McLaws was picketed. Lower down the river were extended parts of the divisions of R. H. Anderson and Hood, supporting Stuart s cavalry. The Confederate left was on Taylor s Hill on a level with Stafford Heights on the northern bank. General Longstreet rested on Marye s Hill, just south of Fredericksburg. On the crest of Marye s Hill was Colonel Walton s Washington Artillery, supported by a Georgia rifle regi ment commanded by Colonel McMillan, an Irish officer. The batteries belted the height, tier upon tier, guarding the approaches to Fredericksburg. The sunken road be low with its wall of stone, formed a defense for the hill. On the heights of Fredericksburg Lee, confident in the invincibility of his position, awaited with serenity the at tack, surrounded by more than three hundred guns which looked menacingly down upon the foe from all nature s points of vantage. In the valley of the Massaponax River, near Hamilton s Crossing, General Jackson was stationed. To the rear of his left, in the valley of Deep Run, was Hood s division. Thus Fredericksburg was fortified be~ fore the end of November, and the battle was won some three weeks before the first shot was fired. Looking down from the crest of the battery-encircled hill on the day be fore the battle, General Longstreet s chief of artillery, Colonel Alexander, said: " We will comb it as with a fine-tooth comb. A chicken could not live on that field when we open fire." Now that the tables were so effectually turned, and Lee had made himself completely master of the field which Burnside had fondly regarded as his own, the 224 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . Federal commander might, from the point of view pre sented by military prudence, have refrained from pushing his project. Urged on by a sense of what was required of him by popular opinion, and actuated by the thought of the demoralization which would follow a retreat before the first blow was struck, he persisted in crossing. On the evening of the gth of December, he called a council of his commanders and stated his intention of mak ing a direct assault upon Marye s Hill, which he called the key of the enemy s position. Though this assemblage included " Fighting Joe" Hooker, and Sumner, whose military ardor burned all the more fiercely as the winds of increasing winters fanned its flames, not one voice in the council gave assent. Those gallant veterans knew that the key to the Confederate position was held so tightly in the hand of its owner that any attempt to turn the lock could result in nothing but disaster to the daring marauder. At three o clock on the morning of December 11, the heavy roll of cannon from Marye s Hill aroused the Con federate army to the fact that the Federals were about to cross the river. D. H. Hill s division and the Second Corps took position along the woodland over Hamilton s Crossing. Barksdale s Mississippians and three regiments of R. H. Anderson s division protected the river line. The curtain of mist that hung between the opposing armies was not so heavy but that Barksdale s sword of flame could pierce it, and soon the passage of the Federals was suspended. Marye s Hill possessed a fatal fascination for Burn- side, and he persisted in crossing under its frowning crest instead of seeking a safer place to effect the passage. In the hope of dislodging the Mississippians he ordered the bombardment of Fredericksburg. About the middle of FREDERICKSBURG. 22$ the day the lingering purple mist grew flame-red, and the two armies knew that the town was on fire. Not until three regiments had gained the Confederate side of the river in the boats that had not yet been made a part of the bridge, and had driven back the Mississip- pians, could the bridges be finished and the army set across, having suffered heavy loss from Lee s sharp shooters. The Confederate general had no desire seri ously to impede the passage of Burnside s army, having been waiting for some time to give it a hospitable recep tion, but he had no objection to making his presence felt in the meantime. Not even yet satisfied by the advantage which cir cumstances and the blunders of his adversary had given to Lee, Burnside still further strengthened the Con federate position by remaining inactive for about forty- eight hours, during which the forces upon the heights were effectively massed. For two days the Confederate army had been ready and waiting for the attack. On the night of the I2th, General Jackson had concentrated his divisions on the field and the whole army was now for the first time on the ground. On the afternoon of the I2th, A. P. Hill had relieved Hood at the woods near Hamilton s Crossing, Hood was stationed on the heights between Deep Run and Hazel Run, and Pickett s division took position at the foot of the hills between Hazel Run and the Telegraph Road, which extends across the plain and leads to Rich mond. Pickett s command was under arms, waiting for orders. McLavvs s and Anderson s line was reinforced by Ransom, and Cooke s brigade was at the left of the stone wall. Taliaferro s brigade formed a line behind A. P, Hill. D. H. Hill and Ewell arrived at dawn, having marched 15 .226 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . 4) the whole of the night of the I2th. D. H. Hill was placed on the right, behind Taliaferro. Ewell took position with his right in front of Hamilton s Crossing. The Second Corps, in the valley of the Massaponax, was supported by Stuart with eighteen pieces of artillery. On the morning of the I3th, the mists had risen from the river and lay, a heavy purple veil, over the valley of Fredericksburg. Through its dense folds no eye of friend or foe could look. Nature had put on her mourning veil, prophetic of the bloody day that was to follow. Through the heavy curtain Meade s division at half past eight, supported by the other two divisions of the corps under Gibbon and Doubleday, moved in the direction of Jackson. Their march was slow, being delayed by their ignorance of the ground, which was broken by ravines. Through the dense fog the commands of the opposing offi cers were distinctly heard, crossing as on a cloud bridge between the terraced heights on which the Confederates were stationed and the plain where the Union army was struggling through the mist curtain to its doom. At ten o clock, the fog lifted, and Stuart s cannon from the plain of Massaponax was turned full upon the solid ranks of Meade s division, compelling it to halt until Meade s artillery could repel the fire. While the artillery duel went on, Meade advanced and gained some ground, but the gallant defense of Early, combined with the rem nant of A. P. Hill s command, forced him to retreat. Jackson s line had engaged with Meade, and Pickett, re garding this as the signal for an advance of his division in conjunction with Hood s, went to that leader and rep resented that the time had arrived, as provided for before the action began, but Hood was slow in taking that view and the opportunity was lost. While the battle was raging around the woodland near FREDERICKSBURG. 22; Hamilton s Crossing, a still more bloody struggle was tak ing place on the height opposite the town. When the mist that had filled the valley with evanescent beauty cleared away, Burnside, from his headquarters beyond the river, looked across to the fair object of his ambition, Marye s Hill. As the last purple wreath of mist floated gracefully upward in the soft breeze, the brilliant rays of the sun struck blinding flashes from the long gleaming lines of bayonets far up on the ramparts of the hill. From its triple terraces circle upon circle of Confederate guns looked down menacingly upon the valley. The mist has quite left the vale; it no more hangs like a circling mantle of love about the heights to guard it from the ravages of opposing armies. For a moment Marye s Hill stands silent, majestic, bathed in the light of the sun. Then a cloud drifts slowly up from its in trenched terraces and rises to its summit where it rests like an opal crown with sapphirine tints glinting through. It is not the mist; that has floated away forever. It hangs ominously over the stately head of Marye s Hill. It is the first greeting of Walton s batteries to the Union sol diers massed in the town below. Will Burnside heed the warning? "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." From the head quarters of the Army of the Potomac, beyond the peaceful river rippling on its silvery way in the light of the sun, came the signal for the first movement in one of the mad dest, bravest, most reckless, most daring, and most hope less charges that ever threw a blood-stain across the pages of the world s history. Under the consuming flame which flashed forth from all the batteries of McLaws, French s columns dashed to the assault, cut through and through by cannon-ball until they reached within the range of musket-shot, when the 228 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . infantry opened fire upon them, a man falling for every shot that sped its way through the battle-charged air. From Stafford s Heights Hunt s artillery was trying to stop the storm of shot and shell from Marye s Hill, but in vain. After a futile effort he silenced his own guns lest they destroy friend instead of foe. The assaulting party could not pass beyond the deadly rain that showered upon them from the musket-lined stone wall that guarded the ramparts of the hill. They retired, leaving one-third of their number on the ground, and three Union flags to mark their furthest advance line and flutter out upon the smoke- filled air a mute call for support. Up the steep and slippery heights rushed Hancock s men, led by their commander, their eyes fixed upon the stars on the blue field of their banner, shining down up on the dead. From every cannon-crowned rampart of Marye s Hill a storm of shot and shell burst upon them, covering the valley with slain. Meagher s Irish brigade dashed out from Fredericks- burg and formed in the deadly rain from the batteries on the crested heights. A correspondent of the London Times, watching the battle from the hill, and writing after ward from Lee s headquarters, says of the gallant brigade of the heroic sons of Ireland: Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, nor at Waterloo, was more undoubted courage displayed by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic dashes which they directed against the almost impregnable position of their foe. . . . The bodies which lie in dense masses within forty yards of the muzzles of Colonel Walton s guns are the best evidence of what manner of men they were who pressed on to death with the daunt- lessness of a race which has gained glory on a thousand battle-fields, and never more richly deserved it than at the foot of Marye s Heights on the i3th day of December, 1862. In his official report Meagher says: "Of the one FREDERICKSBURG. 22Q thousand and two hundred I led into action, only two hundred and eighty appeared on parade next morning." Speaking of the character of the Irish as soldiers, Gen eral Lee says: " Cleburne, on our side, inherited the intre pidity of his race. On a field of battle he shone like a meteor in a clouded sky. As a dashing military man, he was all virtue; a single vice did not stain him as a warrior. His generosity and benevolence had no limits. The care which he took of the fortunes of his officers and soldiers, from the greatest to the least, was incessant. His integ rity was proverbial, and his modesty was an equally con spicuous trait in his character. Meagher, on your side, though not Cleburne s equal in military genius, rivaled him in bravery and in the affections of his soldiers. The gallant stand which his bold brigade made on the heights of Fredericksburg is well known. Never were men so brave. They ennobled their race by their splendid gal lantry on that desperate occasion. Though totally routed, they reaped harvests of glory. Their brilliant, though hopeless, assaults on our lines excited the hearty applause of our officers and soldiers." It has been estimated that on that portion of the plain over which the Union forces charged upon the heights of Fredericksburg the killed and wounded, on the night of the I3th, averaged a thousand to the acre one out of every twenty being a soldier of the Irish brigade. For the first time the Irish brigade went into battle unsheltered by the flag of Erin, that has waved over deeds of Irish heroism on the battle-fields of every nation on the globe, the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts being the only regiment that bore the national colors. The flags of the other regiments had been sent to New York, that their tattered folds might be cherished in sacred memory of Gaelic virtue; a new set of colors had been provided 230 PICKETT AND 211 S MEN. by a number of Americans, in testimony of their apprecia tion of the gallant sons of Erin, but had failed to arrive in time for the battle. Meagher, however, would not permit his men to go into action unguarded by the color sacred to their own dear Emerald Isle, so he placed in his own cap a sprig of evergreen and each man followed his example. In the attack of Howard s division the Confederate commander, General Cobb, was killed. At the same time General Cooke was seriously wounded. Ransom s brigade came to the relief of Cooke s; McLaws sent Kershaw to the assistance of Cobb s troops. Pickett and the troops posted at the south angle of Marye s Hill were keeping up a lively fire with Sturgis and Getty, who were also sub jected to a cross-fire from Hood and McLaws. The battle which had been practically won weeks be fore when Longstreet first posted his men on Marye s Hill was now dedicated to the Confederates by a chrism of fire, but Burnside would not believe it. From beyond the river he viewed the contest, ignorant of the ground, knowing nothing of the insurmountable obstacles to a successful attack on the height, and unwilling to believe what was told him by those who had survived the attempt, saying to Hooker: "That crest must be carried to night." Hooker knew that it was impossible, and Han cock, French and the other officers, including the fiery Sumner, agreed with him, but Burnside had determined upon another assault, and was immovable. For the first time in his military career " Fighting Joe" was averse to living up to the soubriquet which he had won by gallant deeds on the field. Resolved upon saving his men, if possible, and at least throwing off the responsi bility for their sacrifice, he adopted the strong measure of making a personal appeal to the commander of the Army FREDERICKSB URG. 231 of the Potomac. Pleasanton saw him ride up on his white steed, and said that when Hooker dismounted he was the maddest man he ever saw; he made the air blue with ad jectives. Burnside, bent upon self-destruction, would not yield, and Hooker went back with the old order ringing in his ears: "That crest must be carried to-night." In the fast-falling shadows of the night Hooker began a fire of artillery, hoping, as he said, to make "a hole suf ficiently large for a forlorn hope to enter," with no more impression "than if it had been made against a mountain of rock." The Confederate artillery on the crest had ceased firing through failure of ammunition. At sunset Humphreys with four thousand men pushed onward, ignorant of the sunken road before him, where a line of infantry four deep was ranged, protected from view and from attack by the stone-lined road. A short distance from this road the Union column fell before a solid sheet of flame and bullets that burst forth from the Confederate front. And there, before Marye s Hill, were piled the Union dead and wounded. Hooker ob serves with grim sarcasm: "Finding that I had lost as many men as my orders required, I suspended the at tack." In making this assault, Hooker knew that he was violating one of Napoleon s most important rules of war fare, " Never do anything which the enemy wishes you to do," as, in addition to having learned Lee s wishes by a sad experience, he, Burnside, and Sumner had all been in formed that morning of the desire of Lee in regard to the attack. Being under orders, he could do nothing but push on. It had taken Burnside less than ninety days to plan and lose the battle of Fredericksburg, to efface the glory 232 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. of his own military career, and to project a yet further assault upon the victorious Confederates, which would have resulted in a demoralization of the Army of the Potomac from which it would probably never have re covered. Fortunately for him and the North, the strong opposition of his generals prevented his carrying into effect this crowning blunder, which he had carefully planned for the I4th. Longstreet has said: "They fully expected Burnside would renew the battle the next day. They knew that another day would nearly ruin the Army of the Potomac. If Burnside would attack such a strongly fortified posi tion, it was reasonable to suppose that he would repeat his folly the next day." This would seem to indicate that Lee and his generals had a realizing sense of the military acumen of their ad versary. Lee himself was too astute to leave his strong position and descend to the open plain to attack upon a level a beaten foe who might suddenly change from conquered to conqueror, so the two armies watched each other in sullen silence until the night of the 1 5th, when the Army of the Potomac recrossed the river. CHAPTER XXVIII. "DOGS OF WAR" IN LEASH. Pickett s division was composed of Garnett s, Armi- stead s, Kemper s and Corse s Virginia brigades, and Jen kins s (formerly R. H. Anderson s) South Carolina brigade. The division, as a division, was on a field of battle for the first time December 13, 1862, at the battle of Fred- ericksburg, where it held in reserve the center of Long- street s corps and, though it was eager and impatient to be allowed to take part in the fight, it was never fully reached. General Longstreet gave instructions to his division commanders, Pickett and Hood, simply to hold their ground in defense, unless they should see an opportunity to attack the enemy while engaged with A. P. Hill on the right. Pickett saw this opportunity when Franklin s column advanced on the extreme right just a little beyond their front, thus leaving the enemy s flank open, and, pointing it out to Hood, suggested that it was the opportune time, and that they should at once turn their forces upon Franklin s column in the open field through which they were forced to pass. General Pickett in person made the suggestion to Hood, pointing out the advantages of the movement, and the eagerness of the men in leash to be allowed to take a part, and urged that they should avail themselves of the optional privileges of the directions left them by Long- street. Hood perfectly agreed with Pickett as to the op- 233 234 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. portuneness and advantages of the attack but, being more cautious and chary of assuming responsibility than Pickett, insisted upon first sending a brief of their intentions to- General Longstreet, who was with General Lee in another part of the field watching the progress of the battle, ask ing him if, in the detailed circumstances, they should not at once push in with their divisions. Any delay at such a moment was, of course, disastrous, and before the as sent of General Longstreet was obtained and the order given the opportunity was lost. The strength of the division at the time of its forma tion was about nine thousand, though only a part of one brigade of the division (Kemper s) was actively engaged in this their first battle as a division the battle of Fred- ericksburg. The casualties of the battle, as a division, were of course trifling, but enough, alas, to make many a heart ache, many a hearthstone desolate. About forty- seven wounded, dead and dying were found near the "stone fence" at Marye s Hill. The fearless Federal commander, Burnside, was bold,, determined and fierce in his attack, and had he been drawn still deeper into the toils which had been set for him on this field of battle by our General Lee, it is more than probable that his whole army would have been destroyed. General Lee s position was so strongly and so thoroughly protected that General Burnside s attack was repulsed with great loss at every point. Only a portion of Lee s first line, near Hamilton s Crossing, was driven back by Franklin s daring assault upon it, but even that ground Lee at once recovered. Pickett s division remained bivouacked in the rear,, picketing the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg. Then it was removed to the left to meet Burnside s at tempted crossing at Banks s Ford. "DOGS OF WAR" IN LEASH. 235 In the early part of February, 1863, it started out on Longstreet s expedition to Suffolk, Virginia, and North Carolina, marching to Richmond and thence to the breast works around Petersburg, where it made but a short stay, and then pushed ahead to further the end conceived by the wise, practical brain and great tender heart of Old Peter, their stern but humane commander, to procure food for his men. It was hard winter weather, cold, inclement and trying, and during their continued march of ten days the ground was covered with sleet and snow. Hundreds of the men were without shoes, blankets or hats. Many were shod with improvised moccasins of raw beef-hide. The wives, mothers, sisters and friends of Pickett s men could scarcely have recognized in these bedraggled, muddy, ragged men the trim, dainty soldier-boys whom they had sent out from their homes to win fame and glory two years before, dressed then in their new uniforms, with shining equipments, with knapsacks and haversacks well stuffed by loving hands, and almost every man taking with him cook and valet. They had won fame and glory beyond the most san guine conception, and that they were heroes and warriors, showed in their will-power and endurance, in the moral firmness with which, without halt or straggling, they passed through Richmond and all along the lines of their homes, receiving the cheers and hurried greetings of their many relatives and friends whom they had not seen for months and might never see again. Even now they could give to those dear ones only a fleeting recognition from the ranks, a passing smile of grateful thanks for the loving note, the flower, or the piece of bread and meat which was hastily thrust into their hands as tramp, tramp, tramp, they marched away once again from home and friends. CHAPTER XXIX. FORAGING EXPEDITION SUFFOLK. Knowing the needs of his men, and having their com fort at heart, Longstreet called to mind that Dalgetty, the prince and prototype of the military Bohemian, as signed the highest place in the soldier s scale to " rations." When proof beyond peradventure was brought to him that, stored away in the northeastern counties of North Carolina, were large quantities of corn and bacon, he may have remembered the "lean and hungry Cassius." He may have surmised that, the record of history to the con trary notwithstanding, the Romans conquered the world because they were generous feeders; that Napoleon lost Waterloo because of an empty, aching stomach; that the rice of the Hindoos and the potato of the Irish could not fight against roast beef. Longstreet determined that, if it was possible, he would procure for his half-fed Confederates these tempt ing provisions. After mature deliberation, he planned to make a strong demonstration against Suffolk, Virginia, and at the same time to send troops into North Carolina, and wagon-trains to procure and bring out these coveted supplies, even though the price should be blood. With that end in view, Pickett s and Hood s divisions of Longstreet s corps had been detached from the Army of Northern Virginia, leaving McLaws s division, also of his corps, behind at Fredericksburg with General Lee. Hood s division and Jenkins s brigade of Pickett s division went to Suffolk direct. Armistead s and Corse s brigades 236 FORAGING EXPEDITION SUFFOLK. 237 of Pickett s division went via the James River and the line of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad toward Suffolk. Bearing s artillery, which was attached to Pickett s divi sion, and all the available artillery around and about Petersburg were sent to Suffolk direct. Garnett s and Kemper s brigades went on separate expeditions into eastern North Carolina. Suffolk, a small town established by law in 1742, was burned by order of Sir Henry Clinton in 1779. It is on a line of railroad, and is about eighteen miles from Nor folk and eighty-five from Richmond. It has a consider able share of the commerce of North Carolina. All of that section of the country was in quiet possession of the Fed eral forces at the time of Longstreet s expedition, and had been since the capture of Roanoke Island by the Federals and the abandonment of Norfolk and Suffolk by the Con federates. The Confederate lines extended only to the Blackwater River on the east, where a small body of Con federate troops was stationed to keep the Federal force in check. Longstreet s strategical maneuver was a great success and benefaction to the country, and was accomplished thus: In March, 1863, he threatened Suffolk in front, and kept its garrison so successfully within their own strong works, almost without any material opposition, that he took out and carried off wagon-train after wagon-train of corn and bacon. There was no distinct battle fought, and no prolonged engagement during this foraging expedi tion, though all through the entire period there was a great deal of heavy skirmishing, and frequent sallies from time to time were made by the Federal force from Suffolk, but they were always driven back with heavy loss. The price of the bacon and corn for the Gray was the 238 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^ blood of the Blue and the Gray, yet who can say that it was, under the circumstances, unnecessarily high? There are many functions of civilized life which can be postponed to more convenient occasions, but dining is not one of them. If it be true that the soul of man, as some philos ophers assert, is located in the stomach, how few will be lost through the voluntary neglect of this tabernacle of the Holy Ghost. The Confederate loss in officers and men was consider able, but the saddest loss, saddest because it seemed so unnecessary, was the loss of the Fauquier Artillery (Strib- ling s battery) attached to Pickett s division. The battery had been detached by the order of General French, commander of artillery, and placed in an old earthwork on the Nansemond River far in advance of our lines, situated on a point of land unprotected in the rear. The battery was supported only by two small companies of infantry. Two gunboats of the Federals attempted to run by this battery, one of which was sunk and the other driven away. The Federals made no other attempt to pass, but for two days and nights kept up a heavy and incessant fire from their gunboats and land batteries. Under cover of this fire they landed three of their regiments in the rear of the isolated and indefensible position. After a fierce resist ance the gallant little Confederate band, cut off and over whelmed, fighting hand to hand at the guns, were all either killed or made prisoners, except the drivers with the bat tery horses under Lieutenant Carroll, who, being some distance in the rear, managed to make their escape. The battery was one of the finest in the service, having been captured by us from the Federals. It consisted of five magnificent guns three brass Napoleons and two twenty-four pound howitzers, all of which were recaptured. FORAGING EXPEDITION SUFFOLK. - 239 Captain Stribling was in no way responsible for the sacri fice of his men or the loss of his battery. He simply obeyed the orders of his commander, General French. On the 4th of May, General Longstreet, the old "War- horse of the Confederacy," or " Old Peter," as he was more commonly called, having successfully accomplished the object of his maneuver, and secured quantities of meat and grain even beyond his most sanguine expecta tions, quietly withdrew his whole force from Suffolk. So stealthily was this done that our soldiers were across Blackwater River before the Federal troops were aware that we had gone. Hood s division was hurried on from Blackwater River : by rail to rejoin Lee s army, who had just gained a vic tory at Chancellorsville. Pickett s division had orders to follow, when information was brought that raiding cav alry was passing down the south side of James River en route to Suffolk, and a peremptory order came to Pickett to proceed by the Jerusalem plank road to Petersburg with three brigades of his division and intercept the riders. With that end in view the division, with the exception of Jenkins s brigade which, much against General Pickett s will, was left on the Blackwater River, marched to Peters burg. The report was false. There was no cavalry raid. Pickett s division, without Jenkins s brigade, marched through Petersburg and on to Richmond, to rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia at Culpeper Court-house. On the 1st of June, 1863, after four months of hard ship, marching all the way, going and coming, three brigades of Pickett s division were on nearly the same ground they had left in the winter. Almost immediately afterward they started on that disastrous Pennsylvania campaign. CHAPTER XXX. CHANCELLORSVILLE. The military star of the Federal commander, Burn- side, had gone down in the sea of blood that followed the reckless and fatal charge upon the heights of Fredericks- burg. Two days after the sun had set on what the cor respondent of the London Times called that " memorable day to the historian of the decline and fall of the Ameri can Republic," the Army of the Potomac recrossed the Rappahannock, alleged to be defeated, broken, spiritless. After the battle desertions became startlingly numer ous. The soldiers had not been paid for six months, and the letters which came from home told sad tales of the destitution and suffering of the loved ones who were to have been provided for as a reward for the sacrifices which their natural protectors were making for their coun try. Friends at home sent citizens clothes in which the soldier-boys might escape from a service that was grow ing intolerably burdensome. The subordinate generals were severe in their criti cisms of the new commander, and assisted in nurturing the growing discontent. Some of them represented the con dition in its most discouraging view to the President in Washington. General Burnside was absorbed in plans for regaining the confidence of the army and of his chiefs in Washing ton. He formed a design for crossing the river below Fredericksburg, sending the cavalry under Averell to the Rapidan to cross at Kelly s Ford and destroy communica- 240 CHANCELL ORSVILLE. 24 1 tion between General Lee and the Confederate capital. The objection to this plan was that it necessitated cross ing in view of the Southern army, for Lee could not be depended upon to keep his eyes shut while the movement was being effected. On the 3<Dth of December, Averell, with the cavalry, was at Kelly s Ford and the infantry was ready to move when Burnside received an order from the President pro hibiting him from taking any action without consulting him. The commander offered his resignation, which was not accepted. He asked permission of the President either to resign or to move forward. Mr. Lincoln con sented to the advance, and Burnside proceeded to put into operation a new plan which involved the passage of the river above Fredericksburg, and the surprise of Lee, who expected him to cross at a lower point. In prepara tion for this movement Sigel s corps was appointed to guard Falmouth, and Couch was to make a demonstration below Fredericksburg to divert the attention of the Con federates. Roads were constructed. Banks s Ford, above Fredericksburg, was selected as the point for crossing, and on January 20, Franklin and Hooker bivouacked near that point. Banks s Ford is a ford only in summer. In January it must be crossed on bridges. All of the 2Oth was spent in preparing for the passage. Had the movement begun three days earlier, or had the good weather prevailed three days longer, Burnside might have had opportunity to fight down all the resent ment which resulted from the battle of Fredericksburg. On the night of the 20th, the rain began to flood the earth, and by the 22d, the army, the artillery and wagons were swamped in the sticky paste which is produced by the combination of water and Virginia soil. Burnside was still on the wrong side of the river, while the storm af 16 242 PICKETT AND HIS MEN* forded Lee opportunity to range his army opposite, in preparation to receive Burnside, if he should succeed in crossing, and thus place himself between Lee s army and a river that was too swollen to be passed. The Confeder ate sharpshooters, watching the movements of the Army of the Potomac as it endeavored to struggle through the mud, called across the river to offer their services in as sisting to build the bridges. When the Army of the Potomac set out upon its dis astrous expedition it destroyed many of the camps. Those which were left proved now a welcome shelter. On the 22d, the army retreated, and on the 23d, reached its former position, and the famous mud march was ended. On the 25th, Burnside, at his own request, was relieved of a command for which he had from the beginning felt himself unfitted, and Major-General Joseph Hooker was assigned to the vacancy thus created. Sumner, broken by age and infirmity, was retired from active service, and Franklin was deprived of his command, thus leaving Hooker the senior general of this branch of the army. " Fighting Joe" devoted himself with his usual energy to the reorganization and drill of his army. President Lincoln had written a private letter to the new commander, which accompanied the order of appointment. After commending him for his soldierly qualities and freedom from political intrigue, and censuring him for his un friendly criticisms of his predecessor, he closes thus: I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the array, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give i;s victories. CHANCELLORSVILLE. 243 Officers were required to have their absent men re turn. A system of furloughs was established. Presi dent Lincoln granted amnesty to all deserters who re turned by the first of April. Recruits began to come in. The cavalry was placed under command of Stoneman, an able officer, but not a great cavalry leader. The dash ing ardor of "Fighting Joe" infused new spirit into the army and won the confidence of all who love a dazzling warrior, and who does not? Perhaps the most peaceable soul on earth is not dead to the thrill which a martial hero excites. Lincoln visited the army and reviewed the troops. A Northern writer has said that "every visit he made to the army was equal to the addition of a new brigade." As he left he gave Hooker and Couch this final warning: "I want to impress you two gentlemen in your next fight put in all your men." We shall see how well the injunc tion was obeyed. By the end of April Hooker had what he called "the finest army on the planet," but it would not remain so long. He must fight an early battle, or lose the assistance of forty-one regiments whose time would expire. Lee expected either that Hooker would cross by the upper fords, or that he would move against Richmond. Longstreet laid out lines of defense for these fords, and was then ordered with the divisions of Hood and Pickett and the artillery of Bearing and Henry to a point near Petersburg to meet the possible movement on to Rich mond. McLaws and R. H. Anderson remained to finish the work in connection with the fords. It was important to Hooker that he attack Lee in the absence of Long- street and his divisions. Lee s cavalry was also much worn by its series of brilliant raids, so dashing and suc cessful that a Northern writer has said in connection with 244 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. them: "Nothing that might be asserted of Confederate audacity or Federal imbecility is absolutely incredible." Lee was rapidly recruiting his army by conscription, and by the return of sick and wounded who had suffi ciently recovered to report for service. D. H. Hill was sent to North Carolina, and his division was placed under Rodes. Early retained his command, and Trimble led Jackson s old division. In order to take advantage of every point in his favor, Hooker planned an attack upon Chancellorsville, a short distance from Fredericksburg, intending to cross the river by the two fords above the junction of the Rapidan with the Rappahannock, these fords having been left un guarded. The heavens seemed to be as strongly opposed to the progress of the new commander as they had been to that of his predecessor. Heavy rains delayed action until the 27th, when the march began, and on the 28th the passage across the river was effected by way of Kelly s Ford on the Rappahannock above the mouth of the Rapidan, twenty-seven miles from Fredericksburg, by the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps under Howard and Slocum, and the Fifth Corps under Meade. The next day the Rapidan was easily crossed, and Chancellorsville was reached on the 3Oth, when Couch crossed on a pontoon at the United States Ford. Meanwhile the remainder of the army had crossed below Fredericksburg. On May I, Sickles ar rived in Chancellorsville. So far, the bold movement of Hooker had succeeded. When, on the 3Oth of April, 1863, the Federal com mander rode up to the one house which at that time con stituted Chancellorsville, conscious of being followed by seventy thousand men, he probably felt in every nerve his confident words: "I have Lee s army in one hand and CHANCELLORSVILLE. 245 Richmond in the other." He was to learn later that his birds were in the bush instead of in the hand. With heartfelt satisfaction he announced to the Army of the Potomac that the "enemy must either ingloriously fly" or present himself "where certain destruction awaits him." General Hooker was new to command, and had the over-enthusiasm of youth. Hooker seemed to have exhausted himself in the crossing. He suddenly ceased to be " Fighting Joe," and became waiting Joe. His boasted ground upon which he had expressed his confident intention of devoting the Confederates to destruction appeared to be well adapted to the purpose, but he waited nearly twenty-four hours before proceeding to put his design into execution. Lee left Early to hold the heights of Fredericksburg against Sedgwick, and hastened the rest of his forces on to Chancellorsville during the evening and midnight of the 3<Dth. On the morning of May I, his cavalry met Sykes s division and a sharp skirmish followed. Lee s cavalry skirmishers were repulsed, but Hooker, instead of sup porting his advanced columns, ordered them to fall back to their old positions. In spite of all remonstrance, Hooker insisted upon his order, and the Federals fell back, thereby relinquishing the ground which Hooker had in the beginning so proudly claimed as "our ground," and losing the battle of Chancellorsville in advance. The positions thus yielded were occupied by the Confederates, who placed their batteries on the ridges running in the direction of the Federal lines, and enfiladed the retreating troops. Night closed upon a field in which the Confeder ates were well posted for offensive operations, while Hooker was very weakly fortified for defense. In the morning, Lee kept up a fierce cannonading along his right and center to conceal the movements of Stone- 246 PICKETT AND HIS MEN: 9 wall Jackson, whom he sent with twenty-six thousand men to attack the Federal right. To accomplish the movement required the careful effort of an entire day, but it was suc cessfully effected. A little before six o clock in the after noon, when the Federal troops on the right of the Union line, unconscious of danger, had stacked their arms and were preparing their supper, they were surprised by a sud den burst of Jackson s men from the forest, before which they fled in confusion, suffering great loss in the rout. Jackson s movement had been observed early in the day and reported to Hooker, who imagined it to be a re treat. Wavering in this supposition at one time, he sent a warning to Slocum and Howard on the right, but it never reached them. The surprise was complete. Hooker hurried up and ordered Birney s division, formerly his own, to charge with the bayonet. This move ment resulted in checking the onset of Jackson and forc ing him into the woods commanding abandoned intrench- ments where some Federal guns were left unprotected. In a moment the Confederates would seize them and turn them upon their former possessors. It was in front of these batteries, though not through them, that the darkest shadow which had yet fallen upon the Southern cause lowered down into a starless night. It was here that Stonewall Jackson fell, shot down by the men who would have given their lives at any moment to save him. On that moonlit evening in May, when vic tory had perched upon the banner of the South, when the heart of the Confederacy thrilled with exultant hope, he whom a Northern writer has called "that thunderbolt in war," the leader whose presence meant victory, the man from whose deep eyes flashed forth the signal-flame of triumph, the soldier in whose voice rang the battle-cry to which all Southern hearts responded, furled his flag CHANCELLORSVILLE. 247 and left the field forever. As has been truly said by a Northern historian, it is doubtful whether all the advan tages gained to the Southern cause in the battle of Chancel- lorsville were not dearly purchased by the loss of Thomas Jonathan Jackson. He died at Guiney s Station, Virginia, on the loth of May. Pleasanton, having gained an aggressive position, pro ceeded to fortify it, arranging batteries and constructing roads across the marshy ground, until he had so strength ened his position that he thought, with the support of Sickles s infantry, he could maintain himself against all Lee s army. By unremitting efforts during the night of the 2d, Sickles succeeded in recovering a part of the ground and some of the guns which had been lost the day before, but upon reporting to Hooker was surprised by an order to fall back to Chancellorsville. Thus the key of the military position was abandoned by the Federals, and the Confederates seized it to unlock the door of success. On the 3d, thirty Confederate guns were placed upon the point of vantage and, covered as Lee s army was by thick woods which concealed it from the opposing force, it was no difficult matter to hold at bay the disorganized Federals, who were unnerved by disaster, and disabled by ignorance of the geography of the dense forest in which they could never know anything about the magnitude of the force they were to encounter. Sickles was attacked by the old corps of Jackson, now commanded by Stuart, the men crying out as they ad vanced: " Remember Jackson!" Stuart was singing, with gleeful appreciation, "Old Joe Hooker, come out of the wilderness." Sickles s men fought, as one of their officers said, " like devils," but a flanking fire from the artillery on the ground which they had relinquished that morning by the order of the commanding general, and a furious front attack PICKETT AND HIS MEN. by the Confederate infantry caused them to retire to a line which they succeeded in holding to the end of the day. The roads centering at Chancellorsville passed under control of the Confederates, who pressed forward until Stuart, fighting the Union right, effected a junction with Lee s main army. As the Union forces fell back, the Confederate artil lery was brought more into play, and the Chancellor House, where Hooker had his headquarters, was soon under fire. Hooker was struck by a falling column and for a while was supposed to be dead. Much time was lost before he became conscious, and his dazed condition for the rest of the day rendered him incapable of determinate direction. Sedgwick waited at Fredericksburg until the night of the 2d, when he received orders to destroy the Confeder ate force and march at once to Chancellorsville, falling upon Lee s rear while Hooker attacked him on the front. To do this, the heights of Fredericksburg must be scaled, Early driven off, and a march of eleven miles effected. These arduous duties were so far accomplished as to bring him out upon the Chancellorsville road in pursuit of Barksdale s Mississippians, with Banks s Ford in his rear, affording him an opportunity of recrossing the river should it become necessary. Here he was met by Mc- Laws, sent by Lee to stop Sedgwick s progress. Sedgwick soon found that he must either avail himself of the opportunity of retreat furnished by the proximity of Banks s Ford, or fight the whole Army of Northern Virginia, with no support from Hooker, whose despatches indicated a vacillation of mind which foreboded no good to any one whose safety depended upon prompt action by -^e commander-in-chief. CHANCELLORSVILLE, 249 Lee, no longer apprehensive of an attack from the main army, was able to concentrate himself upon Sedg- wick and, reoccupying the heights of Fredericksburg, at tacked him on the flank and during the night forced him across the river with a loss of five thousand men. The next day, the 5th, passed quietly, and in the even ing Hooker determined to recross, a movement which he effected without molestation from the Confederates. The only obstacle to his withdrawal was a violent storm which flooded the river. From the north side of the river on the 6th of May, Hooker issued a congratulatory order in which he claimed, if not a victory, technically speaking, .at least most of the advantages of one. The South, how ever, and the Army of the Potomac, the Northern people and the administration at Washington, all united in re garding it as a defeat, which further demoralized the Army of the Potomac and dispelled all illusions regarding " Fighting Joe" as a great military leader. Not quite a month had passed since Lincoln had given his parting charge to the two commanders. Notwithstand ing this injunction from one in whom common sense well took the place of strict military training, over forty thou sand men, eager for the fray, had been left inactive. CHAPTER XXXI. THE HIGH TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY. At no time since the lightnings of war had flashed their signal of terror across the continent had the cause of the South risen so high, nor that of the North sunk so low, as in the spring of 1863. The Confederacy had reached its high tide. From the beginning of the conflict the nations of Europe had seized upon the opportunity of "feeding fat the ancient grudges" they bore the United States. They saw in the new departure of the South the beginning of the fall of the republic and, like vultures, they hovered over the scene of the contest ready to swoop down when the carnage should be over and the field left quiet that the birds of prey might gorge themselves. They were ready to proffer assistance to any cause which seemed to be in line with their own ambitions, and thus gave to the South their self-interested sympathy. Spain, always sensible of the dangerous influence of a vigorous republic so near her own oppressed and down trodden insular possessions, had lost no time in signify ing her approval of the Southern movement. Within six months from the time the first gun at Fort Sumtcr had sent a shudder through the great republic and thrilled the world with the first thunders of the storm that had for so long sent its premonitory mutterings through the trembling air, she had given formal recognition to the dawning independence of the struggling new nation, thus affording it a moral support which would resolve itself 250 HIGH TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY. 251 into practical aid when other nations should have been induced to follow her example. England, actuated by her unfailing policy of seizing everything in sight which can be laid hold of without danger to herself, was more than ready to give assistance to any cause which seemed to promote her own designs. Early in the war the strongest man in the British Parlia ment had risen in the House of Commons to advocate the acknowledgment of the Southern Confederacy, on the plea that England could successfully rival the North and South separately, but she never could while they re mained one. Only the presence of the Russian fleet near the coast of South America, and the well-known fact that Russia would unite with any power on earth against her ancient foe, England, prevented the British government from accepting the overtures of Napoleon III. to that end. Notwithstanding this obstacle, the advocates of the Confederacy in England lost no opportunity of indicating their desire for its success, and their intention of assisting it in every way in their power. The Russian fleet would not always be in American waters, and if it should be, a combination of all the forces hostile to the United States government would nullify the power of Russia to oppose any effective bar to the designs of Great Britain. Louis Napoleon, the inveterate enemy of the United States, who had never believed in the power of the old government to maintain itself, was looking forward with ambitious aspirations to the time when the banner of the South would float from the Capitol in Washington. He had never forgiven the American Republic for the pur chase of Louisiana, and still regarded the land involved as rightfully belonging to France. He kept up a sem blance of friendship with the government at Washington, and in his efforts to plant himself so firmly upon Ameri- 5 2 PICKETT AND HIS can soil that he could never be uprooted, he made his protestations of amity the cloak for every possible device against the administration party. He strove to induce other powers to join him in plots against the North, not from any friendship for the South, but with the design, as he expressed it to one of his confidants, of "restoring to the Latin race on the other side of the ocean its force and prestige." Should the South be successful, he hoped that Louisiana and Texas, at least, might fall an easy prey into his hands, thereby furnishing him with a territory larger than all France, upon which he might experiment with his scheme for Latin restoration. Let the tide of war roll from the South to the North, and foreign alliances would be made, loans would be secured in London and Paris, supplies would be sent from European ports, a fleet might be fitted out in foreign waters for raising the blockade. While the foreign assistance which might be expected in the event of a successful aggressive movement was a strong incentive to bold action, the situation in the North seemed to indicate that such success would not be very difficult of attainment. From the beginning of the war the Northern States had been permeated with a Southern element. Not all the friends of the South breathed the magnolia-scented atmosphere of the sunny clime. They flourished as vigorously, and almost as helpfully, in the steely frosts of the North as in the pearly dews of the South. This element had been greatly strengthened by recent events. The fatality which seemed to have followed with the faithfulness of an echo the tramp, tramp, tramp of the Northern army had encouraged the Southern sympathizers and added to their number, while it had in like measure disheartened and weakened the supporters of the North. HIGH TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY. 2$$ The measures of policy adopted by the administration had an almost equal effect in depressing Northern senti ment. The enthusiasm of volunteers in the beginning of the war had paled and weakened through disaster, and the growing reluctance to throwing away any more lives on a cause that did not seem to be verging toward success made it necessary to recruit the army by drafting. This method was not in accordance with the deeply rooted American sentiment of independence, and caused groat dissatisfaction, which finally grew into riot. In September, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, to take effect in January of the following year. This policy did not meet the approval of many who had until that time remained loyal to the North, and had a strong influence in strengthening the anti-war party. The suspension of the habeas corpus excited opposi tion as an ultra war measure. Before the close of 1862, the national debt had reached the alarming proportions of $5 1 5,000,000. Americans have never accepted the British view, that a public debt is a safeguard to a nation, and they viewed these figures as a menace to national honor and to future liberty. The financial condition kept the public in that state of irritation which is likely at any moment to develop into revolt. Specie payments were suspended, and an irre deemable paper currency threatened to swamp the coun try. People were weary of watching the oscillations of gold which followed every political or military movement. They groaned under heavy taxation and equally heavy ex penses for the most ordinary necessities of life. As prices rose patriotism fell. " The adverse conditions were intensified by the politi cal situation at Washington, where politicians pulled wires as vigorously as if no storm of fire and blood were sweep- 254 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. * ing over the country to call the attention of all men to the fact that there was something of more importance to think about than personal schemes for the aggrandizement of selfish partisans. A cabinet crisis, produced by the dif ferences of radical and conservative members, supervened, to the still further alarm and depression of the country, and, though the excitement was promptly allayed by the tact of Lincoln, it exercised its influence upon the nation, and it might at any time be repeated. The misfortunes which had overtaken the Federal army during the year had greatly assisted the anti-war party at the polls in 1862, and had resulted, among other things unfavorable to the North, in the election of a man of well-known Southern sympathies as governor of New York. The city of New York was the center of a Southern element which had its ramifications in all the other great cities of the North. Generally speaking, the North, un like the South, is ruled by her cities. The great centers of population, composed of representatives of many nationalities, of diverse training and discordant political and social beliefs, play the winning card in most of the national games. In the South the community was more homogeneous, and more united in battling for their cause. Although many sons of the South still sheltered them selves under the old flag, the South, in the main, stood together in the gallant fight for nationality. Most of these weaknesses of the North were known to Lee, and to the whole South, and presented strong in ducements to an aggressive movement upon Northern soil. The personal needs of the Army of Northern Virginia were irresistible incentives to a raid which, if successful, would provide the ragged, barefoot, hungry, suffering fol- HIGH TIDE OF THE CONFEDERACY. 2$$ lowers of Lee with clothing and food that would support them until the final blow could be struck, and win for the South an unfailing store of supplies for the future. For the greater part of four years the South had been constantly supplying and never garnering. The men who had formerly tilled the soil were now engaged in pursuits that were not immediately productive, and the willing earth lay with all its treasures deeply hidden in its heart, waiting for the hand of peaceful toil to reach down and gather the wealth that would be so freely given for the asking. In vain Mother Earth held there her glorious fruitage, while her wayward children rushed murderously on, trampling to death the fresh green carpet which she had spread over her, as a living promise of what she would give if they would accept. Rivers of blood overwhelmed her, while she lay prostrate, with her jewels held to her own heart, because her children would not stretch out their hands and take them from her grasp. Across the Pennsylvania line the verdant hills and gen erous green valleys seemed to smile and beckon a loving invitation to the starving, unclad Army of Northern Vir ginia to come over and be fed and clothed. Nature is neither Northern nor Southern she is universal. If she were let alone to carry out her will she would provide for all alike. What wonder that hungry eyes looked long ingly northward where her full garner offered abundant stores! Once across the line, Lee hoped to turn the tables and give the Northern army a taste of warfare with an empty commissariat. His first step would be to destroy the rail roads and suspend communication from the North to the Army of the Potomac. He would interrupt supplies and reduce Hooker s army in a few days to the same condi tion as his own. 256 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . The public sentiment of the South, having demanded this movement, was looking forward with vivid imagina tion to its possible results. The daily press thrilled the popular heart with pictures of the devastation which would accrue to the North and the consequent advantage to the South of the invasion. The occupation of the principal cities of Pennsylvania would cut the North in two. The coal-fields would be destroyed and business would be paralyzed. Another incentive to Lee s aggressive action was the necessity of relieving the pressure upon the west. Grant was thundering at the gates of Vicksburg. A strong movement toward the north might result in calling him from Mississippi, and Rosecrans from Tennessee, back to- Washington. If Vicksburg should fall, a success on Northern ground would go far toward alleviating the bad effects of that disaster. To crown all, the Union army itself was believed to- be dispirited by defeat. Want of harmony among its- generals, especially between Halleck, the commander-in- chief, and the commander of the Army of the Potomac, gave promise of an easy victory. The battle of Antietam had delayed Lee s raid, pro jected in 1862, but subsequent events had seemed to point to it as the one way to success. In all the history of warfare, had ever a commander of a great army resisted such alluring temptations as spread themselves before Lee, as he looked across the Southern border into the smiling meadows of the North gleaming in the golden sunshine of June? CHAPTER XXXII. PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN. Lee disclosed his plan of campaign to General A. L. Long, his military secretary, in the camp near Fredericks- burg. He traced on the map the proposed route of his army. His first thought was to maneuver Hooker out of his position on the Rappahannock and force him to fight at Chambersburg, York or, perhaps, Gettysburg. He was confident of victory a victory which meant the evacua tion of Washington, and the recall of the Federal troops from the siege of Vicksburg. Lee had about sixty thousand veterans. The artil lery, under Pendleton, aggregated two hundred guns. The strength of the cavalry was about six thousand, under Stuart, Hampton, Robertson, and Jones. The in fantry was reorganized into three army corps, desig nated as the First, Second, and Third Corps, commanded by Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill. On June 3, 1863, Longstreet began to push on to ward Culpeper, followed by Ewell. A. P. Hill was left in front of Fredericksburg to restrain Hooker from ad vancing against Richmond, and to conceal the movements of the main army. With unceasing vigilance he prevented any communication between the two sides of the river, capturing the scouts who had been sent out by Hooker to ascertain Lee s movements. On the 5th Hooker sent a corps to the south side of the river. As Hill perceived that it was intended merely for observation, it was not opposed. 17 257 258 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. The 8th of June Stuart s cavalry and the two corps under Longstreet and Ewell concentrated near Culpeper. Here Lee reviewed his cavalry, led by that brilliant meteor which flashed vividly across the firmament of war, General J. E. B. Stuart. The military ardor of this dashing cav alier had not been satisfied by the excitement of real war, and he had fought a mock battle for the entertainment of his superior officer. Real cannon thundered their grim message out upon the winds, until the foe across the river thought a battle was on and prepared hastily for whatever action might be re quired as the situation should develop. The gallant ten thousand who so gracefully performed their intricate evo lutions under the leadership of the most famous cavalry commander on the western continent, before the admiring eyes of Lee and his staff, were, as Heth had said, "the eyes and ears of the army." Calmly upon his battle-horse, majestic and stately, with the stars and bars waving protectingly over him as if to promise him victory, Lee sat watching the mimic fray, as a man who has been struggling through some tragedy of real life, with death ir/ his soul, may go to the theater to rest his wearied mind in the tinseled ebb and flow of assumed emotions. The Federal cavalry, under Pleasanton, crossed the Rappahannock on the Qth of June to attack Stuart near Brandy Station. The infantry assisted in driving it back, large spoils remaining in Stuart s possession. Pleasanton recrossed the river, carrying with him less artillery than he had brought, but more information. Among the items of knowledge which he had gained were the facts that Ewell and Longstreet were not far from the Shenandoah Valley, and that Lee s cavalry was a third stronger than Hooker s. The fight at Brandy Station was o^ impor- PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN. 2$$ tance chiefly as being the first regular cavalry engage ment of the war. Lee s army was able to seize and hold all the fords of the river, was secure from attack on the march, and when it reached the valley was protected by the Blue Ridge. Lee had drawn every available man. A like concentra tion had not been effected by his adversary, owing to the hostility of the commander-in-chief at Washington against Hooker. Lee, on June 10, despatched Ewell from Culpeper toward the valley to capture Milroy. Imboden was at the same time ordered to lead his horsemen as far as Romney, and Jenkins moved down upon Winchester. On the morning of the I2th of June the right wing of the Union army, under Reynolds, was put in motion toward Manassas, and the next day three other corps were ordered to the northward. On June 13 Ewell was in possession of Martinsburg, Imboden held control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and Jenkins was pressing northward to Williamsport. Longstreet was encamped at Culpeper. A. P. Hill was at Fredericksburg. Hooker was trying, according to orders, to maintain his position between Lee s army and Washington. Ewell, on June 15, gained a victory over Milroy at Win chester, capturing four thousand prisoners and twenty- nine guns, scattering Milroy s ten thousand, driving the Federal garrison from Harper s Ferry, and crossing the Potomac with his vanguard. On the evening of June 15 Jenkins advanced toward Chambersburg. Longstreet was moving out of Culpeper to take the passes of the Blue Ridge. Hill was going toward Culpeper. The Confederate cavalry under Stuart, on the I7th, 26O PICKETT AND HIS MEN. m met the Federal cavalry led by Pleasanton near Aldie and drove it back. The next day the attack was renewed and, Pleasanton having been reinforced by infantry, Stuart was compelled to retire, having taken about four hundred prisoners and some horses and arms. At this time the Confederates were outstretched from Culpeper, where A. P. Hill now was, to Cham- bersburg, which had been raided by Jenkins. Ewell oc cupied Hagerstown and Sharpsburg. Longstreet was guarding the pass at the Blue Ridge. Stuart was at the gap of the Bull Run Mountains, veiling the movements of the army. On June 18 Lee ordered his entire army to cross the Potomac. Hill passed behind Longstreet s line through Chester Gap into the valley and on to Shepherdstown in search of Ewell. Longstreet, with Pickett s three bri gades and the divisions of McLaws and Hood, followed on after Hill. On the 2 1st, the division of McLaws was sent back to support Stuart at Ashby s Gap in the Blue Ridge. Imboden entered Pennsylvania, and Sam Jones advanced into West Virginia. Ewell, on June 23, swept up the Cumberland Valley to ward Carlisle. Stuart was to pass around Hooker s rear, cross the Potomac to the eastward of Hooker s army, and come into touch with Ewell s advance at York. He easily gained the point for which he had started, but failed in his design of capturing supplies intended for the Union forces, and was cut off from his own army. He left two brigades under Robertson in the mountains with instruc tions, it is said, to report to General Longstreet, though Longstreet states that such order was not given. Thus the Army of Northern Virginia was rendered blind and deaf, being without its cavalry, "the eyes and ears of an army." Stuart pushed on to Carlisle, and did not PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN. 26 1 know that a battle was fought at Gettysburg on the 1st of July. Lee had consented to his making this ride, expecting that Stuart would be able to return by the time his serv ices were needed. He was the ideal cavalry leader, bold, dashing and ardent, impetuous of heart, and zealous in the cause for which he fought, and Lee s army was indeed blind and deaf without his sleepless vigilance. But for the absence of such information as the cavalry could have obtained for him in his northern invasion, who knows what changes might have been wrought in the map of the western hemisphere? Hooker crossed the Potomac at Edwards s Ferry on the 25th and 26th, and marched directly upon Frederick, Maryland. Here he intended to send the Twelfth Corps (Slocum s) through the South Mountain passes to the west ward to join eleven thousand troops under General French at Harper s Ferry, and attack Lee s rear, interrupting com munications, capturing trains, and exposing him to a gen eral attack. Halleck would not allow the troops to be taken from Harper s Ferry, saying that Maryland Heights must be held "as the key to Maryland." Hooker said that it was useless to hold the key " now that the door had been smashed in," and tendered his resignation, thus snapping the already severely strained relations existing between himself and the authorities at Washington. On the 27th he was relieved from command. Assistant Adjutant-General James A. Hardie was sent by special train with the double order one relieving Hooker, the other appointing General George G. Meade to the com mand of the Army of the Potomac. Thus the star of Hooker went down at Chancellorsville, to remain in eclipse until it rose again above the clouds of Lookout Mountain. 262 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. About ten days earlier General Dix, at Fortress Monroe, had been ordered to threaten Richmond, left with but a weak defense. Troops were sent to Yorktown and the White House. Seven thousand men under General Getty moved to Hanover Junction to destroy Lee s communica tions. General Keyes with about five thousand troops went from White House to Bottom s Bridge on the Chicka- hominy, clearing the way for an advance on Richmond. On the 1 5th his command was only fifteen miles from the city. For a time it was feared that Lee must be recalled to the defense of Richmond. Reinforcements from the south were sent up, the militia called out, and the danger was over. On the 24th and 25th Lee s entire force was north of the river. They were surprised to find a country so rich, and they seized all kinds of supplies, rigidly insisting upon paying for them with Confederate scrip, explaining, when the unwilling sellers objected, that if they gave their aid to the invaders the money which they now viewed with suspicion would be worth its face value. Ewell, in advance of Lee, went from Chambersburg to Carlisle, where he arrived on the 2/th of June with the divisions of Rodes and Johnson, and Jenkins s cav alry brigade. Early marched from Boonsboro to Green wood and thence to York. Longstreet and Hill followed Ewell and arrived at Chambersburg when Ewell reached Carlisle. Lee s whole army was now in the State of Pennsylvania, his advance threatening Harrisburg. Early was to tear up the Northern Central Railroad at York, and go on to Wrightsville. He desired to secure the bridge at that place, as it would furnish a passage for Lee s army across a difficult stream which would otherwise present an impassable barrier. When he appeared the Pennsylvania militia retreated across the bridge and set I PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN. 263 fire to it. As Early could not cross the Susquehanna, he returned to his corps. At Chambersburg, Lee delivered an address with the refrain, "Vengeance is Mine," and issued an order that there should be no retaliation, and that private property should not be destroyed. Lee s army had been increased to its maximum strength. Pickett s division had reinforced Longstreet s corps. The Fourteenth Virginia Regiment marched to join Pickett s division, and was afterward in time for the close of the battle of Gettysburg, where it fought in Armistead s brigade, and its colonel, James G. Hodges, was killed in the great charge of July 3. So thoroughly had Lee con centrated his army that when he suggested to President Davis that Beauregard should make a demonstration upon Culpeper to divert Hooker s attention Davis replied that there were not enough men left to make it possible. Jenkins had taken possession of Greencastle and Chambersburg. At the latter place he proceeded to gather in the supplies of which his army was in great need, pay ing for them in the most liberal manner with Confederate scrip. Of his commercial methods the editor of a Cham bersburg paper said : True, the system of Jenkins would be considered a little informal in business circles; but it s his way, and our people are agreed to it, per haps, to some extent, because of the novelty, but mainly because of the necessity of the thing. On Jenkins personally he commented thus: He graduated at Jefferson College in this State, and gave promise of future usefulness and greatness. His downward career commenced some five years ago, when in an evil hour he became a member of Con gress from Western Virginia, and from thence may be dated his decline and fall. 264 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Though there had been a sudden removal of all the sup plies that could be carried into the mountains and across the Susquehanna, yet Jenkins secured a goodly quantity, which he handed over to the main army through Ewell, who, for that purpose, remained between Hagerstown and the Potomac. In addition to gaining provisions, this raid was intended to induce Hooker either to uncover Wash ington or to attack the Confederates and give Lee an op portunity of fighting a defensive battle, in which he was confident of success. On Sunday, the 2ist of June, Jenkins attended church with Ewell at Hagerstown. On Monday he returned to Chambersburg, accompanied by Ewell s infantry and Rodes s and Early s divisions, under Ewell s command, and followed by Johnson. General Imboden of the cavalry had broken up the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and destroyed the canal to prevent troops from West Virginia from attacking Lee upon the flank. Then he struck out for Fulton County, having a skirmish on the way with a part of the First New York Cavalry, and took possession of McConnellsburg. The Cumberland Valley Railroad had also been de stroyed, and so completely was communication interrupted that the people of the North had yet no conception of the magnitude of the raid, and their papers were still holding out the view that the situation was by no means alarming. On the 28th of June, the movement of Ewell having failed to draw the Federals from their mountain covert, Lee determined to relieve the rear of his army from the pressure which bore upon i:. With this design, he checked the northern march by issuing a counter-order direct ing the concentration of his army east of the mountains, at Cashtown. This order recalled Hill s division from PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN, 265 the Susquehanna, which he had expected to cross in the direction of Philadelphia or Harrisburg. His leading division under Heth went to Cashtown on the 29th. On the 30th, Hill, with Fender s division, marched for the same place, and was followed, on July I, by R. H. Ander son s division. When the order came, Ewell, at Carlisle, was moving forward to attack Harrisburg. He had with him the divi sions of Rodes and E. Johnson and the reserve artillery. Early s division was at York. In accordance with the order to concentrate around Cashtown, on the 30th of June, Rodes was at Heidlersburg, ten miles from Gettys burg, Early was not far away, Johnson, with the reserve artillery and trains, was near Green Village, twenty-three miles from Gettysburg, and Stuart, having torn up the railroad between Meade and Washington, was raiding around York and Carlisle. Pickett s three brigades had been left at Chambersburg under orders to guard -trains. Meade advanced northward from Fredericksburg, and made his headquarters at Taneytown, fourteen miles south east of Gettysburg, and about a mile north of Pipe Creek, where he expected to fight the coming battle. His First Corps, under Reynolds, was at Marsh Creek, six miles from Gettysburg, and the Sixth, under Sedgwick, at Manchester, to the south. Hunt, general in command of the artillery of the army, was with Meade at Taneytown, and Kil- patrick s, Gregg s, and Buford s cavalry were at Hanover, Manchester and Gettysburg. The rest of the Army of the Potomac was scattered around Gettysburg at Uniontown, Bridgeport, Union Mills, Emmitsburg and Littletown. On this momentous closing day of June, 1863, wondrous with startling results, Stuart was moving from Hanover toward York with the fatal captured wagon-train of two hundred mule teams. He passed within seven miles of 266 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Early s bivouac, that leader failing to warn him of the southward march. All unconscious of his proximity to his friends, he moved on toward Carlisle, while Lee anx iously awaited his coming, hoping to capture Harrisburg and offer determined battle at Cashtown. At sunset the heads of the two armies, each ignorant of the presence of the other, were close together. Twi light crept up softly from the distant forest and threw her purple veil over the mountains which grew wraithlike in its magic folds. The mists floated upward from the streams that made rippling, silvery lines through the grass-grown valley and quivered in changeful beauty in the shimmering air. Night came gently down, radiant with stars, fragrant with flower-laden breezes, musical with sweet summer sounds, peaceful as sleep, but with that solemn quietude with which sleep deepens into death. Such were the surroundings of the approaching armies. CHAPTER XXXIII. GETTYSBURG FIRST DAY. All through the ages has nature provided for coming events. With prophetic wisdom she foresees the cata clysms that yet lie hidden in the mysterious future, and brings all the forces of the universe to prepare for them. Thus, looking adown the far slope of time, she saw a great battle in which questions that had heretofore weak ened the unity of the nation should be settled at count less cost of blood and treasure, and prepared for that mighty conflict a fitting field. She created a rolling plain and proceeded to fortify it with her own matchless defenses. First, she fanned the subterranean fires which propelled the gigantic machinery of the planet till they flamed up with an intensity that rent the surface of the earth and threw out great masses of material, stored there through all the ages, waiting for their appointed time. Of this material a ridge was formed to the south of the wide plain in the shape of a fish-hook a deadly hook it would sometime prove to be, on which many a victim would be impaled. At the point of the hook she built an eminence, afterward called Wolf s Hill, appropriately enough, for were not wolfish deeds to be done there at a future bloody time? At the barb of the hook she made another mountain- peak which in time was known as Gulp s Hill. Between them she caused a sparkling stream of water to flow, so 267 268 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. hedged around and protected by magnificent and pic turesque rocks that in after time it was known as Rock Creek. The gigantic stem of the hook was formed by a suc cession of hills whereon there was later a sacred spot in which the earthly forms of loved ones, whose souls had passed beyond into the higher phase of life, were laid to rest with loving, tender care, beneath green sod radiant with the bloom of flowers watered by tears of love and hope. From this peaceful and holy place the chain took the name of Cemetery Ridge, a faithful prophecy of its destined purpose. The stem ends in two hills, Round Top and Little Round Top, the two keys which some day would lock and unlock the military treasure of the great Cemetery Ridge. A short distance northwest of Little Round Top was a cavern formed of piles of enormous rocks, wild and rugged and sinister-looking. So filled was it with appalling sug gestions and terrifying appeals to a sensitive imagination that it had received the name of Devil s Den. It came to pass in later days that, resounding with reports of deadly musketry, shrouded in smoke and flaming with fire, it bore well its demoniac name. Between the Round Tops and Devil s Den flows a lit tle marshy stream known as Plum Run name of gentle suggestions dear to the heart of the farmer s child. It is associated with summer orchards, with red fruit dropping down, with appetizing suppers in the soft gloaming of the summer day, with the sweet smell of the clover wafted up from the southern hillside meadow on the gentle wings of the summer air, and the luscious crimson fruit lying temptingly among green leaves on the white-draped table. GE TTYSB URG FIRST DA Y. 269 Westward from Cemetery Hill, beyond a valley from half a mile to a mile wide, extending north and south, is another range not quite so tall, crowned by a magnificent growth of oak-trees, from which it has the name of Oak Ridge. Afterward a theological seminary was built there and the chain became known as Seminary Ridge. All around nature left her choicest gifts of beauty and fascination, that the region might secure in the coming ages a concentration of the forces which should pave the way for the march of armies. In time, peach- and apple-orchards filled that peaceful valley with pink and white beauty. When summertide came, fields of wheat waved to the wind between the two sheltering ranges of hills. The fruits of the earth gave luxurious cheer to the happy dwellers in that beautiful plain when the bloom of the flowers floated upward into the crimson of the autumn leaves. Nature having erected her offensive and defensive posts and surrounded the place with impregnable fortifi cations, it remained for man to do his part in preparing this ground for its awful destiny. This he did by constructing numerous roads which, converging to it from all sides, caused it to be compared to "the hub of a wheel, receiving spokes from every direction." These roads were intended by those who constructed them as assistants in the peaceful vocations of life. Unwittingly, they were adapted to aid in the bloody harvest of death. A road from Chambersburg led down from the north west, the Carlisle road from the north, the Harrisburg road from the northeast, the York road from the east, the Balti more road from the southeast, the Taneytown road from the south, the Potomac roads from the southwest. Con venient avenues they proved in after years for the guid- 2/O PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ance of those who had long been warring with each other across the historic river. The selection of a battle field is of no less importance than its preparation away back in the geologic ages. The field for the greatest battle of the war between the States had been set apart for that purpose by a series of what might be regarded as trivial circumstances, were it not for the well-known fact that there are no trifles in the realm of destiny. The general-in-chief of the Army of Virginia and the commander of the Army of the Potomac each had con victions about the proper field for the battle. Lee chose Cashtown, as affording a strong background of mountains as a defense; Meade had set his martial mind upon fight ing at Pipe Creek. In the selection of battle-fields, gen erals propose, but Mars disposes. By his untrammeled will does the god of war choose the stage for the unfolding of each scene in his blood-red drama. Having made his selection, he leads thither his fol lowers by some slight incident in which his hand is unseen. The armies were guided to the field on which was to be fought the decisive battle of the Civil War by the somewhat homely detail of shoes. These minor articles, which have been rendered daily necessities by a highly evolved and complicated state of society, have played an important part in history; as, for example, the sandals that betrayed the unfortunate Empedocles and destroyed a faith upon which a whole school of philosophy depended for intel lectual and moral salvation. So, it happened that shoes which had never been on mor tal feet phantasmal shoes, which may have existed only in the imagination evanescent shoes, eagerly sought but never found though devoid of guiding feet, even ghostly ones, led the way to the battle-field of Gettysburg. GETTYSBURG FIRST DAY. 27! Heth called for the shoes to supply the needs of his soldiers, and Pettigrew set out for Gettysburg to procure them. Pettigrew did not find the shoes which he ex pected, but he did find two brigades of Buford s cavalry which he did not expect, and, being unprepared for the encounter, he fell back to Marsh Creek, half-way to Cash- town. Hill, supposing that merely a detachment of cavalry was in Gettysburg, sent Heth and Pender of his division on from Cashtown with battalions of artillery under Pegram and Mclntosh, thus precipitating a battle with two of Meade s corps whom Buford had summoned to his aid. The little white village of Gettysburg nestled peace fully in the greenery between the two ridges on that early July morning when the Army of Northern Virginia was hastening to concentrate itself upon the little town. The vapors of the recent rains yet hung in purple glooms over the valley, and the morning sun, struggling through, struck sharply against them and shattered them into prismatic tints that shed a glory over the scene and crowned the summit of South Mountain with a jeweled circlet. Before a storm all nature stands in hushed expectancy. The winds sleep in their far-off caves of rest. The air is motionless, and the earth breathes not. There is not the faintest quivering in the leaves of the mighty forest. The birds cower timidly, hidden away among the shady branches, their wings folded, their voices hushed in ter ror. The clouds droop heavily over the earth and do not seem to move. Earth and sea and sky, all trembling, wait. So, in the silence of the night of the 3Oth of June, the two armies concentrated their forces amid a hush un broken, in preparation for the mighty conflict that should shake the continent. PICKETT AND HIS MEN. m Lee spent the night of the 3Oth in Longstreet s camp in consultation, and the next morning the two generals rode through the mountain pass to the field of the ap proaching conflict. As they went they heard the reports of cannon shivering the silence of the soft June air. Lee left Longstreet and hastened toward Gettysburg. On the west of Gettysburg, beyond Seminary Ridge, is Willoughby Run, the companion stream to Rock Creek on the east. Here the Union troops, under Gamble, were stationed, extending to the Hagerstown road, the reserve being massed along the ridge which descends from Oak Hill in advance of Seminary Hill. The artillery was so displayed as to enfilade three roads. Thus it awaited the approach of Heth rapidly advancing along the Cashtown road. Heth deployed his two advance brigades, Davis s on the left and Archer s on the right, south of the Chambersburg road. About eight o clock, the Confederate line descended the wooded slope of the right bank of Willoughby Run, and the battle of Gettysburg, that wonderful event which resulted from so many unforeseen accidents and apparent trifles, was opened; the first battle upon the soil of a Northern State had fairly begun, the battle which was to decide how the map of the continent should in future be drawn perhaps the map of two continents, for all Europe was watching the conflict with an intensity of interest not based solely upon altruistic grounds. The banks of the little stream became the scene of a fierce conflict. Before the furious onset of Heth s divi sions, Buford held his ground by a desperate effort, endeav oring to gain time for Reynolds to arrive. He directed in person the fire of his artillery, prepared to lead back his small command to Cemetery Hill should it become necessary. Hill, at Cashtown, had heard the echo of the GE TTYSB URG FIRST DA Y. 273 cannon and had left his bed of illness to hasten to the conflict. When Buford was about to give the order for retreat the signal-officer in the observatory of the Seminary, look ing anxiously out to see if, perchance, he might find some hope for the Union cavalry, descried a column of infantry marching up the Emmitsburg road. He needed no glim mer of stars and stripes, no familiar battle-cry, to tell whether friend or foe was advancing. Only friends could come up that road. For the moment, Buford was saved. Reynolds had come, bringing with him the information that Wadsworth s division was near. It was forty-five minutes past nine o clock when Buford dashed pell-mell down the belfry-stairs to greet Reynolds with the somewhat profanely graphic statement, "The devil is to pay." " But we can hold on till the First Corps, comes," was the confident reply, and the two friends, with the battle-ardor hot upon them, galloped into the storm to cheer the sinking hearts of Gamble s men on the hotly contested banks of Willoughby Run. At ten o clock, Wadsworth s division, only two brigades, one under Cut ler and the other Meredith s Iron Brigade, whose metal would be thoroughly tested that day, presented a glitter ing array on Seminary Hill. West of Willoughby s Run was a small triangular piece of woodland which, for the Federals, became the scene of the greatest tragedy of the first day of Gettysburg. It reached almost to the summit of a ndge southwest of Oak Hill, and if Archer secured it he would have a safe cover for his attack. The advantage of this position was im pressed upon the minds of the opposing leaders at the same time. Reynolds and the Iron Brigade entered the wood and in the contest which followed Reynolds was shot. He was a Mexican veteran, a military leader of re- is 274 iUCfTETT AND HIS MEN. markabie power, who was described by Meade as the noblest and bravest of all whom the Army of the Potomac lost on the field of battle. Meredith s soldiers pushed on, and Archer was so quickly surrounded that he had no opportunity of com municating with Heth, and was compelled to surrender. As Heth was preparing to renew the attack Double- day received reinforcements, among them Stone s brigade of Pennsylvania " Bucktails," who were posted on the right of McPherson s Wood, where they were vigorously attacked by Pettigrew. "We have come to stay!" they cried as they took their places. General Doubleday said afterward, "They kept their word; for the ground was an open one, the position extremely exposed, and a large num ber of them fell upon that spot, never to leave it again." Noon brought Howard s corps, the Eleventh, two divi sions of which were posted on Seminary Ridge, and the other as reserves on Cemetery Hill. In the meantime Ewell, at Heidlersburg, had heard the cannon, and had been marching from early morning at the head of his veteran troops, and now swept down like a whirlwind upon Howard. The right flank wavered and broke beneath the onslaught of Rodes as he came southward from Oak Hill. Rodes having marched dur ing the morning in the direction of Cashtown before he received instructions to proceed to Gettysburg, had un fortunately lost two hours at a time when hours were too valuable to be estimated in terms of any other precious article. Ewell had been detained for a time by the Federal cavalry. He did not wish to become seriously engaged in battle until he heard from Early, who was to come from Heidlersburg. The importance of Oak Hill as a post of vantage impressed him at once, and he directed GETTYSBURG FIRST DAY. 2?$ Rodes to take possession of it. The arrival of Ewell on the Heidlersburg road would bring him to the rear of Doubleday, who would thus be imprisoned between him and Hill with whom he was fighting. This would more than compensate for Howard s reinforcement. Sickles was marching to the field, and Howard s line must be held until he came. Howard had not perceived the danger descending from the north, and directed Schurz to post Schimmelpfennig on Oak Hill, which he was pfo- ceeding to do when Rodes appeared upon the desired point. Just then Howard learned of the approach of Ewell, whose artillery opened fire obliquely upon Double- day s line, and was weakly met by an ineffective counter-fire. Ewell, coming down the Heidlersburg road, would probably strike the position which Schurz was trying to hold between Oak Hill and the Mummasburg road. From the western slope of Oak Hill, Rodes s artillery made incessant warfare on Doubleday s guns on the Cashtown road and drove them back almost to the Semi nary. Rodes sent O Neal s brigade against Doubleday s reserves who were advancing to his aid. From behind a stone wall the Federals repelled O Neal s desperate charge. Already shattered by Howard s batteries it was with great difficulty that O Neal rallied when beyond the reach of the fire. To the left the Union forces found an other wall behind which they met the charge of Iverson, and just at the crucial moment received reinforcements sent by Doubleday. Doubleday still held the points he had gained on Wil- loughby Run. Meredith retained that tragic wood where the Federals met with their saddest loss of the great battle. Behind the chain of hills Cooper s batteries enfiladed the slopes of Seminary Ridge from south to north. Iverson s force made an attack here, vigorous but un- 2/6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. availing, Daniel being far away and unable to arrive in time to support the brave Iverson. With the aid of Pet- tigrew he succeeded in driving Stone from his position. A concerted attack against the First Federal Corps sent it back to a cross-road between the Carlisle and the Mum- masburg roads, a fence-lined road at which Schim- melpfennig was able for a moment to reform his troops. Ewell had been watching the waste of strength directed against Doubleday, but now he saw in the distance a sure harbinger of victory, Early coming up the Heidlersburg road, the road which had brought so much comfort to the Confederates since morning dawned. Over the golden glory of the wheat-field, shining bril liantly in the sun, was a silvery gleam of bayonets. No fairer sight ever dawned upon the longing vision of a soldier on the battle-field. The sound of their musketry rang out in one grand report, and then they rushed to the assault. The Eleventh Corps retreated in confusion, the First continued the struggle for a time and fell back. The woodland which had been held by the Federals since the early morning contest was relinquished. At four o clock, Fender s three brigades held the first line, covering Heth s exhausted troops. They advanced toward Seminary Ridge where for a time they were checked by Doubleday. Before sunset the Federals had retreated to the little town and Hill held Seminary Ridge. The Federals made an effort to hold the town but were forced back to Cemetery Ridge, leaving four thousand of their number prisoners in the town, and abandoning in the streets two cannon which were secured by Ewell. Early was informed by one of his brigadiers, " Extra- Billy " Smith, that the Confederate left was threatened by a Federal force approaching on the York road. Gordon was sent to ward off this supposed danger. This left GE TTYSB URG FIRST DA Y. 2JJ only the brigades of Hoke and Hays to help Ewell pursue the Union forces and wrest from them the cov eted hill. Far up on the rugged height was a deadly crest of frowning guns rolling their awful thunder across the valley. Their lightnings flashed like merciless swords through the heavy clouds of battle-smoke. Gordon was still absent, and the brigades of Rodes were exhausted with heavy marching and yet heavier fighting. Ewell was brave, but there are times when even the bravest dare not. Hill s two divisions had been engaged in the recent at tack against the First Corps and he was not willing to send them again into battle. Longstreet s men had not been able to pass Swell s wagon-train. Johnson had eighteen rniles to march and had not arrived, and Anderson was in the rear of Johnson. When Johnson s division, which was the first reinforcement, came up, the sun had set and the plan of attack was abandoned. Johnson took position at Rock Creek, intending to oc cupy Gulp s Hill, almost joining Cemetery Hill on the east. Had he mounted a battery on Gulp s Hill the Fed eral position on Cemetery would have become untenable. Ewell also thought of taking possession of Gulp, and would not fall back to Seminary Ridge, in accordance with Lee s suggestion. At four o clock, Hancock arrived, took command of the defeated Union army and became the savior of the battle of Gettysburg to the Federals. The Eleventh Corps reformed around Von Steinwehr across the Taney- town and Baltimore roads. Hancock placed two of Doubleday s divisions on the heights resting on the Em- mitsburg road. Wadsworth s division was stationed on Gulp s Hill, which commands the valley of Rock Creek, faces Wolf s Hill and Benner s Hill, and protects Ceme- 278 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. tery Hill, a position the importance of which could not be overestimated in the crisis at which the fortunes of the Army of the Potomac had arrived. At the time of Hancock s arrival on the field Lee stood on the heights opposite and looked over at Cemetery and Gulp s. At his feet was Gettysburg filled with Ewell s victorious Southrons, flaming with ardor, strong with the intoxicating wine of success. Above were the slopes of Cemetery Hill, covered with defeated, disorganized, panic- stricken men, with no dominant mind to reduce them to order. One glorious rush across that blood-drenched vale, and another flag might proudly float over the seas of the world. Lee could not know the weakness of the opposing force. He knew that his own army was scattered. Long- street s men had marched all day and did not reach Wil- loughby Run until midnight. A general engagement could not be risked in the absence of so large a part of his army. "Gentlemen, we will attack the enemy in the morning as early as practicable," said General Lee at the close of a conference with his generals. Although Lee had said before leaving Virginia that he would not fight an offensive battle, the events which had taken place in his absence had produced a situa tion which rendered it very difficult to carry out his original purpose. He had captured more prisoners than he had lost and, though suffering greatly by the casual ties of the first day, he had inflicted heavy losses on the Federals and driven them from their strong posi tion. He had taken possession of the field and of the town. He had every reason to be satisfied with the work of his army. In his report, having set forth the situation which resulted from the events of the first day, he continues: GETTYSBURG FIRST DAY. 2/9 Encouraged by the successful issue of the engagement of the first day, and in view of the valuable results that would ensue from the defeat of the army of General Meade, it was thought advisable to renew the attack. At five o clock the Federals, under the skilful manage ment of Hancock, were strongly posted on Cemetery Hill, and held Gulp s Hill. Sickles and Birney were coming up the Emmitsburg road with troops yet unworn by the fatigue of battle. A little later Slocum arrived from Taneytown with the Twelfth Corps, and to him Hancock turned over the command. CHAPTER XXXIV. GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. At daybreak on the 2d, Ewell s corps held the town of Gettysburg, Benner s Hill, a ridge connecting Gulp s Hill with Cemetery Hill, and a line from Gettysburg to Semi nary Ridge, where the main army was drawn up. On the ridge, Fender was at the left above the Semi nary, Heth to the right, Anderson s division a mile and a half to the rear on the Cashtown road between Marsh Creek and Willoughby Run. At four o clock Hood, McLaws, and Anderson were advancing toward Gettysburg while waiting for orders to take position. Pickett was leaving Chambersburg, where he had been left with his three brigades to guard trains, and Stuart was quitting Carlisle in great haste to join Lee. By nine o clock in the morning the whole Confederate army was assembled around Gettysburg, except Stuart s cavalry and the five thousand infantry which Pickett could bring into line. Had this concentration taken place earlier, the attack could have been made against the scat tered forces of Meade with every prospect of success. Opposed to them was a force stretched along Ceme tery Ridge, and a division on Gulp s Hill, with lines in reserve. Meade came upon the field at one o clock, crossing the cemetery where, among the stones sacred to the happy dead, the wretched living lay, stretched out in a sorrowful death in life. Disturbed by the advancing tread of the horses of Meade and his staff, some of the exhausted men started up, looking like ghosts in the 280 GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. 28 1 light of the moon, and then lay down again, overcome by a fatigue for which there could be no rest. In the early dawn the Federal commander inspected the position and placed his troops as they arrived. Slo- cum was posted on Gulp s Hill, the barb of the fish-hook; Wadsworth at his left; Howard at the bend on Cemetery Hill, protected by the stone walls at the foot of the hill and Steinwehr s guns at the crest. When Hancock s corps, the Second, arrived at seven o clock in the morning it was placed on the stem of the hook to the left of Cemetery Hill. Sickles, with the Third Corps, who had come upon the field in the night, was posted on Hancock s left. Reynolds s corps, the First, commanded by Newton, who had been ordered from the Sixth Corps for the purpose, was in reserve at the east of the north part of the stem. Sykes, with the Fifth Corps, was placed behind Round Top as a reserve. It held this position until the arrival of the Sixth Corps, under Sedgwick, which had marched- from Manchester and was on the field at three o clock Then the Fifth Corps was moved forward to the extreme left of the line and the Sixth took its place. The Federal army occupied a space of about three miles, and formed a convex curve which admitted of ready condensation. Batteries gloomed darkly down from the crest of the ridge. Signal-flags fluttered from the tall peaks overlooking the valley. The line ex tended southward from Cemetery Hill to the Round Tops. It reached across the Baltimore road to the woodlands of Rock Creek and the ravines of Wolf s Hill. At nine o clock Meade s army was posted and waiting for the attack. As Meade was inspecting his ground while Aurora was yet coyly flirting with day, over on the opposite ridge Lee, Hill, Longstreet, and 282 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. |p Hood were consulting in regard to preparations for the coining ordeal. Lee might retire into the passes of the mountains. Then Meade would have to leave his strong position and go after him, thus losing all he had gained, and being unable to use to advantage the large reinforcements which had come to his aid. This would look like a retreat, and hav ing fairly won the first day Lee did not doubt his ability to win the second. He might wait where he was for Meade s attack, which would draw the Army of the Potomac from its stronghold and give Lee the advantage of position; but he could not stay long concentrated upon the hills, for he had no store from which to gain supplies. The ad vantage would be upon the side of the enemy. More over, the soldiers, full of the enthusiasm of success, would not keep their martial fire through a period of waiting. He must either draw Meade from his strong position, or attack him where he was. He decided to take the lat ter course, which was, perhaps, the more dangerous, but it had the advantage of meeting the wishes of his soldiers, upon whom retreat might have a demoralizing effect. Longstreet urged a movement around Meade s left. Lee rejected this plan, and expressed his impatience to have Longstreet begin his attack. "The enemy is here," he said, "and if we do not whip him, he will whip us." General Longstreet replied: "I never like to go into battle with one boot off, and I would rather wait for Pickett." Lee ordered Longstreef to lead his corps into action along the Emmitsburg road. General Lee then rode into Gettysburg and to Ewell s headquarters. When Ewell should hear the sound of the attack upon the left he was GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. 283 to open on the right, and the center was to fall into battle when the Federal line should appear to be shaken. Two divisions of Longstreet were on the right, Hill cen ter, Ewell left. Johnson s division was east of Gulp s Hill, and Early and Rodes formed a line through Gettysburg. To the right of Rodes was Fender s division. Extended along Seminary Ridge were the other divisions of the Third Corps. McLaws s division was opposite Sickles, and Hood s three brigades were bearing directly upon Round Top. Pickett s brigades were still at Chambers- burg and did not reach the field until the third. Law was marching from New Guilford. Along the eastern edge of the ridge the artillery looked out ominously to the enemy. The Confederate army formed a deadly five-mile crescent around Seminary Ridge and the east of Gettys burg, its concavity turned hospitably to the enemy op posite. It was sheltered by a dense growth of oaks and pines on the top and the western slope of the ridge. Down below mild-eyed cattle peacefully enjoyed their early breakfast, all unwitting of the baleful schemes of men. The golden wheat made a vivid sea of color, wav ing gently in the wind of the beautiful summer morning. Longstreet awaited the arrival of Law s brigade, which reached the field at noon after a march of twenty- eight miles in eleven hours. With the rest of Hood s division it took position behind the right of the Third Corps. Alexander s batteries were posted on Seminary Hill. Meade felt so strong in his position for defense that he supposed Lee would also recognize his invincibility, and would decline to attack him in front, confining his operations to a flank movement which would turn him out of his position. He held a council of his corpb com- 284 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . manders and, with their approval, directed Butterfield to prepare a detailed order for the withdrawal of the troops if his apprehensions should be verified. Longstreet s guns broke up the conference and called Meade to the de fense of his left. Sickles had left his troops in charge of Birney and had gone to the council in Meade s headquarters. When the roar of the cannon called the chiefs back to their posts, Meade followed Sickles, who was posted on ground that was low and commanded by an elevation in its front, being therefore untenable. He had applied for permission to occupy more elevated ground half or three-quarters of a mile in front. Receiving no order, and his outposts hav ing been driven back, he took the ground connecting with Round Top and Hancock, technically carrying out instructions. This weakened his line and presented too great a front for so small a corps. From the peach-or chard it was refused to a wheat-field, forming a deadly salient at the orchard, which has since held a gruesome place in history as the " Bloody Angle." Meade felt un certain as to whether this ground could be held, and sent for reinforcements. Sickles proposed to fall back, but it was too late. He was still further endangered by the re moval of Buford s cavalry from the left, which had been ordered away by Pleasanton. The weak points of the line were covered as well as possible by the five batteries of the Third Corps and three others from the reserve artillery. Thirty pieces of cannon defended the orchard. In the wheat-field were twelve howitzers. A battery on Devil s Den commanded the gorge of Plum Run and all the wooded slopes as far as the Emmitsburg road. Lee was quick to detect his advantage, and expected to reach the crest of the ridge from this point. He directed GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. 285 Longstreet to carry the position, while Ewell attacked the high ground to the right. General Hill threatened the center of the line. Longstreet formed his line of battle, with Hood upon the right and McLaws to the left, Anderson s division of Hill s corps being on the left of McLaws. On an elevation to the left he posted his artillery. Between three and four o clock the artillery engagement began with appalling effect on both sides. The tide of battle rolled on with frightful ve locity and power toward the peach-orchard and dashed upon the fatal angle, open to attack upon two sides. The artillery fire grew heavier, and Hood opened the right to the east. He perceiv d the importance of Little Round Top, hitherto left unguarded as a mere signal- station, and ordered Law to the attack. Robertson dashed forward against Devil s Den, and the fierce struggle which took place among its rocky slopes well proved its title to its name of ill omen. When the charge upon Little Round Top began only a thin Federal line, misty and insubstantial in the distance, protected that coveted point. When Hood s valiant men reached the frail barrier that had been like a gauze veil floating in the air it had suddenly concentrated into a wall of iron from which blazed forth blinding sheets of flame. Warren had a short time before ascended Little Round Top for the purpose of viewing the field, and had seen the long line of bayonets winding in and out like a silver ser pent among the leaves in the forest opposite. Recogniz ing the importance of the hill on which he stood he per ceived at once that the Confederates had also appreciated its value, and that it was the object of this gleaming array of arms. When the signal-officers on the crest of the hill saw the advance they furled their flags and prepared to leave 286 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. the position without a contest. Warren directed them to unfurl their flags and signal for help. Sykes sent Colonel Vincent with a brigade of the Fifth Corps to the foot of Little Round Top. Hazlett s battery struggled up the rocky acclivity and amid a heavy rain of bullets took posi tion, circling the crest with a deadly coronet. Colonel Patrick O Rourke, with the One Hundred and Fortieth New York, dashed up the hill and came face to face with the almost victorious soldiers of Law climb ing up the opposite side. The Federal muskets were empty but there was no time to load. "This way, boys!" shouted O Rourke, drawing his sword and circling it high in the air. Over the height he rushed and down the slope into a sea of fire and smoke from which his gallant soul went up above the warfare of the world. Hood s Texans dashed again and again upon the flam ing wall which protected Little Round Top. Again and again they were driven back, only to rush forward once more with still greater impetuosity. The gallant Hood, the inspiration of the ardent Texans, was wounded and Law led on the charge. Vincent, defending the hill at its base, followed O Rourke beyond the battle. Weed fell upon the flame-girdled crest, and Hazlett, bending over to catch his last dying words, sank lifeless across the dying chief. The valor of Hood s Texans and Law s men of Alabama had not dimmed, but they had lost heavily in their fierce charges. As they rushed again upon the height they were cut in two and overwhelmed by " Cham berlain s wedge," which was skilfully formed by accelerat ing the motion of the center of the regiment, the Twen tieth Maine, and retarding that of the wings. Brave Texans, noble sons of Alabama, no more price less treasure sanctifies the field of Gettysburg than your GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. life-blood which crimsoned the waves of Plum Run, rip pling past the foot of Little Round Top. In five minutes the Federals had gained the dominant point of the second day s fight. While the contest for Little Round Top was raging McLaws and Anderson attacked the refused line of Sickles, commanded by Birney, making the weak point near the peach-orchard the object of the fiercest assault. On the slopes of Plum Run was Meagher s Irish brigade, with the golden harp shining brilliantly on that field of green so dear to the sons of Erin, who have borne their flag in triumph over the battle-fields of all nations. " Meagher of the Sword," who had gallantly led them to battle on so many bloody fields, at whose signal they had rushed up Marye s Height where the "blossoms of blood on their sprigs of green " flower in immortal glory on the rugged slopes, was not with them now. The Irish hero had fallen a thrice-honored victim to the petty malice which pervaded the War Department in Washington, and had relinquished a position which his brave heart and sensitive honor would not permit him longer to hold. At the moment for joining the attack, the ranks knelt, and the priest, their chaplain, from a natural pulpit of stone, pronounced a general absolution. The command "Forward!" followed and the Irish brigade rushed into the fight and stopped Anderson s advance. Alexander s guns poured destruction upon the " bloody angle," moving forward in the desperate charge led by Barksdale against that fatal salient. Under that impetu ous assault Sickles s line fell back across the stone wall. Sickles, standing with his staff at the Trostle House, was struck by a ball which broke his leg and he was carried into the house. The command was transferred to Birney, 288 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Hancock having general supervision of the Second and Third Corps. To the west and south of the orchard the battle raged with increasing fury. It spread over the wheat-field, and the golden grain was crushed and stained with its crimson flow. Out of five thousand men Birney s division had lost two thousand. The batteries on the right of the line were withdrawn, the left continued firing, retreating a step at each discharge. As Birney s line fell back Hum phreys, looking toward the west, swung with it to preserve the line, leaving a weak point at the Emmitsburg road. Three brigades were on the march to attack Hum phreys, who had left half his troops on the field, and whose flags alone showed that but a short time ago, he had led ten regiments. Only one regiment, the First Minnesota, was within call, though heavy reinforcements could be brought to Humphreys s aid if a little time could be gained. "Do you see those colors?" cried Hancock, pointing to the flags which waved over the advancing brigade. " Take them!" The regiment dashed forward, losing eighty-two per cent, of its number, but the colors were captured, and in the pause which followed reserve artillery was brought forward, and reinforcements were sent from the Federal right. Anderson s and Fender s troops were waiting for an order to take Ziegler s Grove, but it did not come. Fender hastened forward, evidently to lead his men to the attack. A shell burst and Fender was carried back, mortally wounded. Anderson attempted to join lines with Mc- Laws, thereby weakening his line. The little wood in front of Round Top was still held by a Federal force which was retreating when the battle- chorus of a brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves was heard, and McCandless s men came sweeping down to the GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. 289 stone wall at the edge of the road behind which some Confederates lay hidden, bearing them back and ending the fight on the ground about the Round Tops. Day will not wait for victory or defeat. The sun glides down the west, just as on other days, and its last rays fall athwart Seminary Hill and become entangled in the bat tle-clouds that gloom over Cemetery Hill and the Round Tops. They grow dim and blurred in the heavy smoke and shiver into lurid tints. Thus it looks on the last effort of the gallant Confed erate right to save the second day of Gettysburg. It sees the valiant Barksdale, a vivid flame of war,, flashing over the battle-field, his long white hair stream ing like a snowy banner in the battle-wind. It sees him fall. It watches the heroic efforts of his ardent Missis- sippians to save him, and sees them beaten back, leaving their dying chief in the hands of the foe. It sees the wild dash of Wright at the head of his mag nificent Georgians, up the slope, over stone walls to the crest of the ridge, to the very mouths of the vengeful guns. Wilcox is at the base, Perry has fallen back, far away are all the troops which might have helped to hold the position so gallantly won. The Federal line closes up, Wright and his heroic Georgians fall back, and the day is lost. Lee, Hill, and Anderson, over on Seminary Hill, were also watching that sad and thrilling scene. The sun grew weary of it all, and went beyond the horizon to shine, we may hope, upon fairer scenes than these, but the other three looked until nightfall looked on in silence. The purple veil of the summer twilight fell slowly and solemnly over the field. The darker veil of defeat shrouded Longstreet s gallant men. So zealous had the Federal commander been in his 19 290 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. efforts to strengthen the left that he had reduced his right to the lowest point compatible with existence. Lee had directed Ewell to attack upon that side at the same time that Longstreet s guns opened upon the peach- orchard, the thunder of his cannon to be the signal. For the second time the wind had not blown fair for the Con federate cause, and the report of the guns did not reach the ear of Ewell. Consequently, his attack was delayed two hours after the opening on the right. The sound of Hill s guns at five o clock first announced to Ewell the fact that the battle was on, and his batteries began the at tack. They were soon silenced by the guns of Weiderick and Ricketts on Cemetery Hill, which being protected by lunettes, had an advantage over Ewell s unprotected batteries. To the east of Gettysburg from behind a hill came long lines of infantry moving on in grand array. Stevens s battery, between Cemetery Hill and Gulp s Hill, opened upon them a terrific fire, enfilading the line, and from the long blue ranks on Cemetery Hill poured a heavy rain of lead and flame, beating them to the earth. From the stone wall Howard s infantry swept them down like grain before the scythe. They did not pause. The famous Louisiana Tigers were leading, and they would go forward while there were enough of them left to charge upon the foe. The brigades of Hoke and Hays followed. They cleared the stone wall and Stevens ceased firing lest his friends should fall victims. Weiderick s men were borne back. Ricketts s guns alone poured death into the as saulting column. Over the battery was a fierce hand-to- hand struggle, and the gunners were almost overpowered, when Carroll s men rushed to the rescue, and the Tigers who had ascended the slope seventeen hundred strong, GETTYSBURG SECOND DAY. 2Q1 triumphant in the pride of never having been defeated in a charge, reeled back, five hundred in number, never again to be known to battle-field. Brave Tigers, whose lines of life were but faintly illu mined by the light in which evolves that inborn inheritance of all mankind, an undeveloped soul under the influence of a noble, grand and heroic purpose they displayed that God-given greatness which commanded the admiration and respect of both armies. While the Tigers were making their daring and bril liant charge Johnson crossed Rock Creek and came through the forest against the Union skirmishers, driving them in. Under the heavy fire of Greene s and Wads- worth s men, Johnson passed around to the right, and took possession of the breastworks which had been constructed with much labor and care and then vacated in the effort to reinforce Sickles. After a fierce battle Johnson was dislodged and passed through the woods in the rear and almost reached the Baltimore road, coming within mus ket-range of the headquarters of General Slocum, the commander of the Union right wing. Had Ewell known the advantage he had gained he might have set the whole Federal army in retreat. Behind Round Top the Sixth Corps alone kept guard through the long hours of the night, their gaze turned north ward, anxiously watching for the long dark line to loom up heavily in the spectral moonlight. The radiance of that fair July night lit no advancing columns, but only groups of gray-clad men resting on their arms under the whispering leaves of the forest of Rock Creek, and southward where Round Top stood deeply silhouetted against a silvery back ground, a dark wall of soldiers standing at gaze, their bayo nets flashing back the rays of the moon, and their guns glooming darkly against the glittering curtain of night. PICKETT AND HIS MEN. The mystic light grew dim and the moon hid behind dark veils of cloud. The soft rain fell on the woodlands of Rock Creek and on the Round Tops hidden away in the folds of the heavy clouds. It dropped gently on the stones above the peaceful sleepers in the mountain ceme tery and on the weary, restless slumberers on the blood- drenched ground. Still the gray groups sheltered them selves under the trees that bordered the rippling stream, and down behind the rugged slope of Round Top the watchers kept silent guard till the dawn of a new day faintly silvered the east. CHAPTER XXXV. GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. Pickett s division reserved for the last great scene in the tragedy of Gettysburg had not yet entered the circle of fire which environed the mountains, filled the valleys with death, and turned the silvery streams into rivers of blood. Until the night of July I j^the three brigades) under Pickett s command, Corse and Jenkins having been left behind(remained on guard at Chambersburg. ) Being then relieved by Imboden, at two o clock on the morning of the 2d, (they were under marching orders and moving along the Gettysburg road. ) In the pass of the South Mountain a fire flashed upon them from sharpshooters stationed in the gorges of the crags. On the east side of the range the air trembled with the battle-rage of Gettysburg. j^The ardor of the men kindled into flame, and with eager, impatient feet they pressed forward to answer the call. Through the intense heat of one of the most fiery days with which July ever scorched the earth Pickett s men marched twenty-four miles and at two o clock in the afternoon halted three miles from Gettysburg. \ Though tney were parched with heat and worn by the march, their commander sent his inspector-general, Colo nel Walter Harrison, to report to Lee their position and condition and to tell him that, notwithstanding their fa tigue, they could with two hours rest be in any part of the field in which he might wish to use them. 293 294 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Pickett rode on to meet Longstreet, who had ex pressed a desire to see him, and who, though relieved and delighted by his arrival upon the field, manifested great anxiety. While conversing with Longstreet Pickett viewed the ground and watched the fight in front of Lit tle Round Top, where the other two divisions of Long- street s corps under Hood and McLaws, having started twenty-four hours in advance of his three brigades, had struck the corps commanded by Sickles. He was thus engaged when Colonel Harrison rode up with Lee s reply: "Tell General Pickett that I shall not want him this even ing; to let his men rest, and I will send him word when I want him." Pickett and Harrison left Longstreet still fighting with fearless tenacity in front of Round Top, and rode back to the division to seek such rest as they might find. They had viewed the field, had studied its advantages and dis advantages, had witnessed the terrific struggle, had watched A. P. Hill s attack upon the center, thoroughly understood the situation, and knew that before them lay a dark and tragic day. Lee had not been so successful on the second day as on the first, but he had gained some ground by a series of brilliant movements, and his repulses had been attended with heavy loss to the enemy. In his report he says: "These partial successes determined me to continue the assault next day." On the afternoon of the 2d Stuart came in from Car lisle and joined Lee on Seminary Ridge. He was followed by Kilpatrick, who lost about thirty men in a skirmish with Hampton, the latter having been left by Stuart at Hunters- town to prevent the Federal troopers from falling upon Ewell s rear. Lee had concentrated more than a hundred guns GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 295 against the left center, under Hancock, posted on Ceme tery Ridge, with Howard on the right and Sedgwick, Sykes, and Sickles on the left. In the moonlight of that radiant night the Federals re formed their lines among their fallen comrades. Perhaps many a leader echoed in his heart the softly breathed as piration of Birney, " I wish I were already dead," as he looked upon the few who were left to follow him, and the many who lay in unbroken rest while the storm of battle swept unheeded over them. As early as three o clock on the morning of the 3d of July Pickett s division was under arms and moving to the right and southeast of the Cashtown and Gettysburg road. Line of battle was formed, facing Cemetery Ridge, Kemper s brigade on the right, Garnett s on the left, and Armistead immediately in rear of Kemper and Garnett, there not being room for all in extended line of battle. The fences and other obstructions were cleared away. The line was formed a little to the left of Meade s center. On the left was Heth s division, commanded by Brigadier-General Pettigrew. To Pettigrew s left and rear were two brigades of Pender s division, commanded by Brigadier-General Trimble. Wilcox s brigade was lying about two hundred yards in front of our line. Orders were given to the men to lie down and keep still, that they might not attract the attention of the enemy. In obedience to a summons from Longstreet, Pickett rode to the top of the ridge in front, where Lee and Long- street were making a reconnoissance of Meade s position, which seemed to be of invincible strength. The clouds of the early morning had drifted away and the sun shone out with intense brightness and heat. In its light were revealed all the difficulties of the ground between the Confederate line and the point of attack. Woods, 296 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. m streams, and steep hills impeded the movements of. the Confederate guns and necessitated a fight with infantry against the Federal batteries. In the lower ground, be yond this space, the enemy had thrown out a very heavy skirmish-line. The ridge was defended by two tiers of artillery, supported by a double line of infantry. Heavy reserves of infantry were ranged in double column on the crest of the heights, protected by a stone wall extending along the side of the ridge. Across the lowland was a rail fence to obstruct the march of our troops. In order to come to close quarters with the enemy our men would be compelled to charge over half a mile of open ground in the face of a terrible rain of canister and shrapnel. At twenty minutes to four the report of Geary s pistol rang out from the Federal lines, shivering the morning air with its ominous resonance. This was the signal for the beginning of the struggle for Gulp s Hill, to which Geary s division had returned in the night. The contest was still in progress while Pickett stood with Lee and Longstreet on the summit of the ridge. The Federal artil lery on Power Hill and McAllister Hill swept the plateau on which Johnson was stationed and where he met the ad vancing infantry. He fought alone until eleven o clock, when his battle was over and he fell back to Rock Creek. About eight o clock Pickett, in company with Lee and Longstreet, rode slowly up and down the long line of prostrate infantry, viewing them closely and critically. The men had been forbidden to cheer, but they volun tarily arose and stood silently with uncovered heads and hats held aloft, a motionless dark line against the white light of the morning with the gloom of the hills in the background. How many of those erect forms, standing so rigidly in soldierly strength and pride, would, when the sun should go down behind the purple hills, be lying on GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. the plain beyond, nevermore to thrill with the ardor of earthly battles! When this solemn, silent review was over detachments were thrown forward to support the artillery, consisting of one hundred and twenty cannon, stretched a mile along the crests of Oak Ridge and Seminary Ridge. For five hours the July sun poured its scorching rays almost vertically down upon the supporting detachments lying in the tall grass in the rear of the artillery-line, waiting in anxious suspense for some sound or movement to break the awful silence of the vast battle-field. The Federals on Ceme tery Hill marveled at the unexpected calm. Why did not the long-looked-for attack begin? Anderson held the wood west of the wheat-field, a little to the north of Devil s Den. On the Emmitsburg road were six batteries of the First Corps, forming, with the rest of the artillery of this corps stationed near it, a slightly concave line of seventy-five pieces along the ridge which Hum phreys had ineffectually tried to hold the day before. At the right of the orchard a cross-fire was effected by Henry s batteries. Alexander s were posted on the summit of a slope to the north, and on his left, a little to the rear, was the Washington Artillery, guarded by the battalions of Cabell and Dearing. Lee intended to batter the point of attack with Alexander s guns, which for that purpose were placed ahead of the infantry. The troops which were to make the attack were screened from view by the ridge, Pickett s three brigades being supported by one of Hill s light batteries. The assault was to be supported by Hill s artillery on Seminary Hill, and a part of Ewell s artillery was to fire on Cemetery Hill. Signal-flags fluttered their portentous messages up and down the line death-tokens alike to that living wall over which they waved and to the defenders of Cemetery 298 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Hill. The musketry and artillery fire, which opened at eleven o clock, continued about three-quarters of an hour and then ceased. Colonel J. J. Phillips, who had been with the division in every battle, relates the following to show how well the soldiers understood the work which had been marked out for them, and how far beyond their strength it was: "A gallant son of old Isle of Wight County, before the charge was made, and while the artillery thundered over the plain, turned to me and said, We are ordered to charge those heights? Yes, said I. Then/ said he, this will be a sad day for Virginia. After the battle an other brave soldier, whose fame has compassed the world, said, This is a sad day for us. He who said it before the battle was J. Frank Crocker, adjutant of the Ninth Virginia Infantry; and he who said it after the battle was General Robert E. Lee." This reminiscence is recalled to show that Pickett s men marched into the very jaws of death with the full knowledge that they were offering up their lives on the altar of duty. After the war, General Pickett said that he did not believe there was a man in his dear old division who did not know, when he heard the order, that in obeying it he was marching to death, yet every man of them marched forward unfalteringly. It was one o clock. The solemn silence which had reigned over the field was suddenly shivered by a cannon- shot. A minute passed. The Washington Artillery again sent its ominous message thundering through the valley and echoing and re-echoing from the mountain-sides. While the smoke from the gun still lingered over the plain, as if held down by the weight of its heavy meaning, and the echo was yet rolling along the distant defiles and GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 299 gorges, the whole line was ablaze, and the thunder and crash of more than a hundred guns shook the hills from crest to base. From another hundred guns along the front of Cemetery Ridge flashed forth an instant reply, and the greatest artillery duel of the western continent had begun. The two ridges were about fourteen hundred yards apart, and were like great blazing volcanoes. A mighty roar as of all the thunderbolts of the universe filled the plain. No command could be heard through the shriek ing shot and shell, for no sound of wind, water, volcano, thunder and cataract ever equaled this terrific uproar. The valley was filled with clouds of dust and suffocating smoke. A rolling sea of white and bluish and gray mist tossed its billows to and fro between the heights and blot ted out the rays of the sun. The fierce flames from the guns flashed through, cutting the dark mists like lightning sabers in a Titanic battle of the clouds. Fiery fuses shot across the field, leaving death and mutilation in their mur derous track. Flying missiles pierced the air, shells burst above troops, or tore up the ground and bounded off for another deadly strike. The Confederate line remained steady, although it was exposed to the fire of the enemy, which passed over the artillery and struck the infantry with terrible effect. The ammunition was failing; the artillery combat must be closed. After two hours the firing ceased. For half an hour silence settled over the blackened field, during which time the Confederates were rapidly forming an at tacking column just below the brow of Seminary Ridge. Long double lines of infantry came pouring out of the woods and levels, across ravines and little valleys, hurry ing on to the positions assigned them in the column. Two separate lines of double ranks were formed, a 300 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . hundred yards apart, and in the center of this column were the remnants of the three brigades of Pickett s di vision: Garnett s brigade, the Eighth, Eighteenth, Nine teenth, Twenty-eighth and Fifty-sixth Virginia; Armi- stead s brigade, the Ninth, Fourteenth, Thirty-eighth, Fifty-third and Fifty-seventh Virginia; Kemper s bri gade, First, Third, Seventh, Eleventh and Twenty-fourth Virginia; numbering in all forty-seven hundred and sixty-one privates, two hundred and forty-four com pany officers, thirty-two field-officers and four general officers. Pickett s three brigades were to attack in front where there was a bristling hedge of artillery and infantry. Heth s and Pender s divisions, under Pettigrew and Trim ble, their leaders having been wounded the day before, were to charge in second and third lines of battle, sup porting Pickett s advance. As Heth s division passed on it was to be joined by Wilcox s brigade, then about two hundred yards in front. Anderson was behind the two supporting divisions ready to take Trimble s place when he should leave it. Pickett rode up to Longstreet for orders. The latter seemed greatly depressed and said: " I do not want to have your men sacrificed, Pickett, so I have sent a note to Alexander, telling him to watch carefully the effect of our fire upon the enemy, and that when it begins to tell he must take the responsibility and notify 3 ou himself when to make the attack. He has been directed to charge with you at the head of your line with a battery of nine eleven-pound howitzers, fresh horses and full caissons." Just as Longstreet finished this statement a courier rode up and handed Pickett a note from Alexander, which read: GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 30 1 If you are coming, come at once or I can not give you proper sup port, but the enemy s fire has not slackened at all. At least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery itself. After Pickett had read the note he handed it to Long- street. "General Longstreet, shall I go forward?" he asked. Longstreet looked at him with an expression which seldom comes to any face. In that solemn silence mem ories of the long friendship may have flooded his soul. Possibly there came to his thought the time away back in history when he had fallen on the stormy slope of Cha- pultepec, and the boy lieutenant had taken his place and borne the battle-flag in triumph to the flame-crowned height. He held out his hand and bowed his head in as sent. Not a word did he speak. "Then I shall lead my division forward, sir," said Pickett, and galloped off. He had gone only a few yards when he came back and took a letter from his pocket. On it he wrote in pencil, " If Old Peter s nod means death, good-by, and God bless you, little one!" He gave the letter to Longstreet and rode back. That letter reached its destination in safety and, with its faint penciled words, is now one of my most treasured possessions. It was transmitted with one from Longstreet: GETTYSBURG, PENN., July sd. MY DEAR LADY: General Pickett has just intrusted to me the safe conveyance of the inclosed letter. If it should turn out to be his fare well the penciled note on the outside will show you that I could not speak the words which would send so gallant a soldier into the jaws of a useless death. As I watched him, gallant and fearless as any knight of old, riding to certain doom, I said a prayer for his safety and made a vow to the Holy Father that my friendship for him, poor as it is, should be your heritance. We shall meet. I am, dear lady, with great respect, Yours to command, JAMES LONGSTREET. 302 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Pickett gave orders to his brigade commanders and rode along down the line, his men springing to their feet with a shout of delight as he told them what was expected of them. He was sitting on his horse when Wilcox rode up. Taking a flask from his pocket, Wilcox said: "Pickett, take a drink with me. In an hour you ll be in hell or glory." Pickett declined to drink, saying: " I promised the little girl who is waiting and praying for me down in Virginia that I would keep fresh upon my lips until we should meet again the breath of the violets she gave me when we parted. Whatever my fate, Wilcox, I shall try to do my duty like a man, and I hope that, by that little girl s prayers, I shall to-day reach either glory or glory." At a quarter past three on that bright afternoon the order " Forward! " rang along the lines. The supreme mo ment had come. As far as the eye could reach, up and down on each side, the gaze of thousands of men of both armies was riveted on a long line of soldiers moving with all the precision of a grand review. The five thousand Virginians had begun their march to death. Longstreet joined Alexander, and they stood together by the batteries when that magnificent column went by, the officers saluting as they passed. Pickett led, mounted on his spirited charger, gallant and graceful as a knight of chivalry riding to a tournament. His long dark, auburn-tinted hair floated backward in the wind like a soft veil as he went on down the slope of death. Then came Trimble, riding lightly as he might have ridden in the golden glow through the rose-scented air of some brilliant festal morning. GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 303 It was no holiday work to which they went as they gracefully saluted in passing their commanding general, who acknowledged it in silent sadness. " Morituri, saluta- mus!" So they filed by, and went down into the heavy sea of smoke which hid them from view. As it lifted they were seen moving in solid ranks with steady step and with the harmonious rhythm of some grand symphony. The sun caught the gleam of their guns and flashed it back in myriads of sparkling rays. Behind them was a wall of light against which their dark forms were outlined in dis tinct silhouette. Pickett s Virginians were less than five thousand, but every one was a soldier in the fullest sense of the word. As they pressed onward in majestic order over the plain, like a moving wall of granite, the battle-flag of the South waved over them, its stars shining as if in promise of victory. Garnett was on the right; Armistead center. Garnett had been ill for many days, traveling in the ambulance, but no persuasion could keep him from the post of danger. Too weak to mount his horse, he had insisted upon being placed in the saddle that he might lead his brigade in the charge. The battle-smoke drifted away over the hills and into the clouds, where it arched itself above the field as if it would even yet spread a protecting mantle around those devoted men. The long Federal array with its double line of supports was revealed to view. As the advancing column came in sight Meade s guns opened upon it, but it neither paused nor faltered. Round shot, bounding along, tore through its ranks and ricochetted around it. Shells exploded, darting flashes before behind overhead. A long line of skirmishers, prostrate on the grass, sud denly arose within fifty yards, firing at them as they came 304 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. within view, then running on ahead, turning and firing back as fast as they could reload. The column took no heed of them, but moved on at a quickstep, not return ing their fire. Past the batteries and half-way over the field, amidst a terrific fire of shot and shell, Pickett gave the order, "Left oblique! " Coolly and beautifully the movement was made, changing the direction forty-five degrees from the front to the left. From Cemetery Hill burst the fire of forty cannon against the right flank. Pickett s men fell like grain be fore the sweep of the scythe. There was no pause. The survivors pressed on with a force which seemed to have grown stronger with the concentration of all the lives which had been freed from the fallen brave. Presently came the command, "Front forward!" and the column resumed its direction, straight down upon the center of the enemy s position on, on it moved with iron nerve. One hundred Federal guns now concentrated their whole fury of shot and shell upon the advancing line. Every inch of air seemed to be filled with some death- dealing missile. The men and officers were fast being slaughtered. Kemper went down, mangled and bleeding, never again to lead his valiant Virginians in battle. Up and down the line of his brigade rode Garnett, calling out in his strong voice: " Faster, men, faster! Close up and step out, but don t double-quick! " A long blue line of infantry arose from behind the stone fence, and as the column advanced poured into it a heavy fire of musketry. At once a scattering fire was opened all along the line, when Garnett galloped up afid called out: "Cease firing! Save your strength and am- GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 30$ munition ! " Under such perfect discipline were these vet erans that without slackening their pace they reloaded their guns, shouldered arms, and went on at a quickstep. The artillery made an effort to support the assault, but the ammunition was almost exhausted. The light pieces which were to have guarded the infantry had been re moved to some other part of the field, and none could be found to take their place. Pettigrew was trying to reach the post of death and honor, but he was far away, and valor could not quite annihilate space. His troops had suffered severely in the battle of the day before and their commander, Heth, had been wounded. They were now led by an officer ardent and brave, but to them unknown. The four brigades of Archer, Pettigrew, Davis and Brock- enbrough deployed from right to left on a single line, a line of battle very difficult to maintain. The left lagged a little; the right, following the gallant Trimble, made heroic efforts to join Pickett whose oblique movement had brought him nearer. Scales and Lane followed Pettigrew. Dauntlessly Pickett s men pressed forward, the grand est column of heroes^ that ever made a battle-field glorious. They reached the post-and-rail fence, upon the other side of which, and parallel to it, an ordinary dirt road ran straight through the field across which they were advanc ing. The fence was but a momentary obstruction. It was but the work of a few seconds to climb over it and into the road, while a hundred blazing cannon poured death- dealing missiles into their devoted ranks. Now and here was given to the -world the grandest exhibition of disci pline and endurance, of coolness and courage under a with ering fire, ever recorded in military history; a scene which has made the story of Pickett s charge the glory of American arms. There in the road, with the deafening 20 3 05 PICfCETT AND HIS MEN. explosion of unnumbered shells filling the air, their ranks plowed through and through again and again by the fiery hail which the batteries from the heights beyond were pouring into them, amid all this terrific roar and the not less disconcerting cries of the wounded and dying, they heard the command of their company officers: "Halt, men! Form line! Fall in! Right dress!" Imagine, if you can, these heroes reforming and align ing their ranks while their comrades dropped in death- agony about them, the shells bursting above their heads, and an iron storm beating them to the earth. Yet the line was formed, and coolly they awaited the command, "Forward!" At last it came: "Forward! Quick march!" With perfect precision, with all the grace and accuracy of the parade-ground instead of the bloodiest of battle-fields, Pickett s division took up its death-march, each man with "the red badge of courage" pinned over his heart. The like was never seen before, and the change in military tactics will prevent its ever being seen again. Friend and foe looked on in wondering awe. A thrill of admiration held the waiting enemy silent and motion less as they watched this grand and unsurpassable display of Virginia s valor. As they advanced toward Cemetery Hill there was seen in the open field to the right a long, dark line of men, half a mile distant and at right angles with their line. They were coming at double-quick upon that unprotected right flank, their muskets at right shoulder shift, their banners fluttering in the breeze, their burnished bayonets glistening in the sun. The enemy were strengthening their position, hurrying up reserves from right to left and from opposite directions doubling along the Confederate front. A heavy rain of shell and shrapnel poured down from GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 307 the height. In the fiery storm the thin ranks became yet thinner. Not an instant s disorder prevailed, but under the withering fire they marched steadily forward. "Faster, men, faster! We are almost there!" cried Garnett s clarion voice above the roar of battle. Then he went down among the dead, with the faith of a little child in his hero heart. There was a muffled tread of armed men from behind, then a rush of trampling feet, and Armistead s brigade from the rear closed up behind the front line. Their gal lant leader, with his hat on the point of his sword, took Garnett s place. The division was now four ranks deep. As often as the iron storm made gaps through it the cheer would come from private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant and captain alike: "Close up! Close up!" and "For ward!" The lines shortened, but never wavered, never halted. Closer and closer they drew to the foe till there remained only a bleeding remnant. Now they broke forward into a double-quick, while canister and grape whirred and whizzed through the air. On, on, they rushed toward the stone wall where the Fed eral batteries were pouring forth their deadly missiles. A hundred yards away a flanking force came down on a run, halted suddenly, and fired into the line a deadly storm of musketry. Under this cross-fire they reeled and staggered between falling comrades and the right came pressing down upon the center, making the line at this point twenty to thirty deep. A few, unable to resist temptation, with out orders, faced the enemy on their right, though the latter were sixty to one. The fighting was terrific. Mus kets seemed to cross. Men fired to the right and to the front. The fighting was hand-to-hand. The firing was into the enemy s faces. The Federals in front fell behind their guns to let them 308 PICKETT AND HIS ML N, belch their grape and canister into the oncoming ranks, piling up the dead and wounded almost in touch of them. When within a few feet of the stone wall the artillery de livered their last fire from the guns shotted to the muzzle. The division was now in the shape of an inverted V with the point flattened. On it swept over the ground covered with the dead and dying. Armistead, sword in hand, sprang over the stone wall, crying: "Come on, boys, come on! We ll give them the cold steel! Come on! Who will follow me? Who will fol low me?" He reached the battery, his hand touched one of Cush- ing s guns. Then he and Gushing fell together, and a crimson river washed the base of the copse of trees which marked the high tide of the Confederacy a river formed of the noblest blood that ever flowed in Ameri can veins. Victory was within their grasp. Alas, where were the promised supports? Worn and exhausted by the tension of the bloody fighting of the day before, in which they had suffered terribly, their leaders dead or wounded, they had crumbled away under the deadly hail of the artillery fire. Back from the flaming crest fell only a remnant of the division which had performed such deeds of valor as made the whole world wonder. The flags which floated a moment ago over Cemetery Hill, lay on the ground among the prostrate forms of the men who had so bravely borne them to the very verge of victory. Of the five thousand who had followed where the flash of Pickett s sword lit the way to glorious victory, or not less glorious defeat, three thousand five hundred had gone down to the soldier s triumphant death, to live forever in GETTYSBURG THIRD DAY. 309 our hearts and on the fame-crowned pages of their coun try s history. Virginia is rich in the names of great warriors, states men and leaders of men, but the charge of this Virginia division furnishes the most conspicuous proof in the his tory of the State that the rank and file of its citizen soldiery are the peers of any troops on earth, and the memory of this band of martyrs will be cherished in the hearts of her people forever and forever. With such fol lowers Virginia will never be without great leaders. It was fitting that in the descendants of the great sons of Virginia, who had led in all that had contributed to Ameri can grandeur, this consummation of chivalrous manhood should be attained. The battle-flag of the Confederacy had waved for a moment in triumph to droop forever around its staff. To the South was left the bitter sense of loss, the heartbreak of defeat. She had left, too, a memory which is enshrined forever in the proudest and grandest niche of her temple of fame, a glorified page of history to thrill the heart of the world while time lingers. It is the page on which is inscribed the grandest charge known in all the long and proud record of martial history; a charge which will live in song and story while the heart of man can throb responsive to immortal deeds; a charge which can never be obliterated from the roll of fame be cause, in the changed conditions of warfare, it can never be repeated or equaled; that transcendent charge which awakened echoes to roll through the halls of time and to incite to actions of supernal glory heroes of coming ages Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. CHAPTER XXXVI. WHERE WERE THE GUNS? Where were the guns when Pickett s men started on their grim march to death? is a query which has been often made, and to which Colonel E. P. Alexander is, perhaps, best fitted to give answer. On this point he says: Before daylight on the morning of the third I received orders to post the artillery for an assault upon the enemy s position, and later I learned that it was led by Pickett s division and directed on Cemetery Hill. Some of the batteries had gone back for ammunition and forage, but they were all brought up immediately and by daylight all then on the field were posted. The morning was consumed in waiting for Pickett s division, and possibly other movements of infantry. While forming for the attack I borrowed from General Pendleton, General Lee s chief of artillery, seven twelve-pound howitzers belong ing to the other corps under Major Richardson, which I put in reserve in a selected spot, intending them to accompany Pickett s infantry in the charge, to have the advantage of their horses and men and full chests of ammunition for the critical moment in case the batteries engaged in the preliminary cannonade should be so cut up and exhausted as to be slow in getting up. For more than half an hour Hill s artillery had a fight for a turn in between the lines; sixty-three guns. Not one of the seventy-five guns which I then had in line was allowed to fire a shot, as we had at best a short supply of ammunition for the work laid out. One hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty rounds are usually carried with each piece, about enough for one hour and a half of rapid firing. Am very sure we did not carry more than one hundred rounds to a gun, and think not over sixty rounds. About twelve Longstreet told me that when Pickett was ready he would himself give the signal for all our guns to open. He desired me to select a suitable place for reservation, and take with me one of Pick ett s staff and exercise my judgment in selecting the moment for Pickett s 310 WHERE WERE THE GUNS? 3! I advance. I selected the salient angle of the wood in which Pickett s line was now formed just on the left flank of my seventy-five guns. Re ceived note from Longstreet: "HEADQUARTERS, July 3, 1863. "COLONEL: If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or gradually demoralize him so as to make our efforts pretty certain, I would prefer that you should not advise General Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your good judgment to de termine the matter, and shall expect you to let General Pickett know when the moment offers. Respectfully, "J. LONGSTREET, Lieutenant-General. "To COLONEL E. P. ALEXANDER, "Artillery." " GENERAL: I will only be able to judge of the effect of our fire on the enemy by his return fire, for his infantry is too little exposed to view, and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer from your note, there is any alternative to this attack, it should be carefully con sidered before opening our fire, for it will take all the artillery ammuni tion we have left to test this one thoroughly, and if the result is unfavor able we will have none left for another effort. And if this is entirely successful, it can only be so at a very bloody cost. To this received following reply, which is still in my possession: "COLONEL: The intention is to advance the infantry if the artillery has the desired effect of driving the enemy off, or has other effect such as to warrant us in making the attack. When that moment arrives ad vise General Pickett, but of course advance such artillery as you can use in aiding the attack." I felt the responsibility very deeply, for the day was rapidly advanc ing (about twelve or a little later), and whatever was to be done was to be done soon. Meanwhile I had been anxiously discussing the attack with General A. B. Wright, who said that the difficulty was not so much in reaching Cemetery Hill or taking it his brigade had carried it the afternoon before but that the trouble was to hold it, for the whole Fed eral army was mustered in a sort of horseshoe shape and could rapidly reinforce the point to any extent, while our long enveloping line could not give prompt enough support. This somewhat reassured me, as I had heard it said that morning that General Lee had ordered "every brigade in the army to charge Cemetery Hill," and it was at least cer- 312 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ^ tain that the question of supports had had his careful attention. Before answering I rode back to converse with General Pickett, whose line was now formed or forming in the wood and, without telling him of the ques tion I had to decide, I found out that he was entirely sanguine of suc cess in the charge and was only congratulating himself on the op portunity. I was convinced that to make any half-way effort would ensure a failure of the campaign, and that if our artillery fire was once opened after all the time consumed in preparation for the attack the only hope of success was to follow it up promptly with one extreme effort, concentrating every energy we possessed into it, and my mind was fully made up that if the artillery opened Pickett must charge. Wrote to Longstreet: "GENERAL: When our artillery fire is doing its best I shall advise General Pickett to advance. It was my intention, as he had a long distance to traverse, that he should start not later than fifteen minutes after our fire opened. I sent for Richardson with his seven twelve-pounders to come up through the woods and be ready to move ahead of Pickett s division in the advance. To my great disappointment I learned just as we opened fire, and too late to replace him, that General Pendleton had sent four of his guns without my knowledge to some other part of the field, and the other three had also moved off and could not be found. Probably, however, the presence of guns at the head of this column would only have resulted in their loss, but it would have been a brilliant opportunity for them, and I always felt like apologizing for their absence. There have been many efforts to shift responsibility and to assign various causes to this repulse of the Army of Northern Virginia, but I can not find it in my heart, nor do I think it reasonable, to believe that any man or officer of that grand army, led by the peerless Lee, did aught but what the most profound sense of duty and pa triotism, controlled by the emergencies which surrounded him, suggested that he should do. General Imboden, describing an interview with Lee after the battle, states that in a voice tremulous with emotion, Lee said: "General, I never saw troops behave more magnifi- WHERE WERE THE GUNS? 313 cently than Pickett s division of Virginians did to-day in their grand charge upon the enemy. And if they had been supported, as they were to have been but for some reason, not yet fully explained to me, they were not we would have held the position they so gloriously won at such a fearful loss of noble lives, and the day would have been ours." After a moment he added in a tone almost of agony: " Too bad ! Too bad !! Too bad !/! " A report of the closing scene of the great battle was made by him who was best able to give the true story of Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. It was prepared from notes penciled on the backs of old letters, on scraps of wrapping-paper, on any fragment large enough to hold a sentence. They were jotted down amid the dead faces bordering the line of retreat, the groans of the wounded and dying, all the fearful sights and sounds of that death- march. They are the memories of a man only a few days away from the most appalling crisis of his life. This report was suppressed at the request of the com- mander-in-chief. Weighed down by the responsibility of a great army, Lee shrank from adding to the difficulties of the position by any dissension which might be excited by a bare statement of facts. In a kind and appreciative letter, which has become a part of the published records of the war, admitting the truth of the report, he asked that it might be withdrawn, adding, after setting forth the reasons for his request, the significant words, "We have the enemy to fight." It was in a spirit of true patriotism that the leader of the Army of Northern Virginia made this request. Those who knew him will remember that of all his many noble utterances none was more impressive than this: "Duty is the grandest word in human language." His duty was 3 M PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Ip to the cause for which he fought, and in the performance of that duty he asked that this thing might be done. His wishes were respected then, and through all the years that have passed since that time they have not been forgotten. The most alluring temptations have not brought that re port from the oblivion to which it was consigned in the far-away past. The hand which penned those blood-stained notes, reaching from the grave, is as powerful as when it un sheathed the sword upon the field of battle, and it draws across them still the mark of silence. They are all our own they who went down in the battle-fire, they who left the field with heavy hearts and reluctant steps, long ing to stay behind with their comrades who had passed beyond the conflict, our tried and true, our best-beloved. May the soft veil of mercy and love enfold them forever! CHAPTER XXXVII. DETAILED FOR SPECIAL DUTY. The temperature of the summer of 1863 seemed to keep pace with the high tide of war. The heat was so excessive that the schools were closed early. The first week in June I was graduated from my alma mater. I stopped in Richmond for a few days en route to my home within the Federal lines. The day after I arrived I received a letter dated at Culpeper Court-house, June 13, full of faith in a successful campaign, a short separation, and a "speedy termination of the difficulties." June 15 and 18 there came other letters, one written on the march to Winchester, the other after reaching that place, breathing the same spirit of confidence and hope. Until the fatal third of July such letters came to me, expressing hope and trust always hope and trust. Then drifted to us rumors, faint and indefinite at first, of a great battle fought at Gettysburg. Gradually they grew stronger and brighter, and the mind of the South became imbued with the impression that a grand victory had been won. Thus the news first came to us, trans muted in the balmy air of the South from the appalling disaster it really was into the glorious triumph which our longing hearts hoped it might be. A few days of this glowing dream, and then the heartbreaking truth. I could hear nothing of the General except the vague rumor that he had been killed in the final charge. Our mail facilities were very meager, and our letters were smuggled through the lines by any trustworthy person 315 316 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . who, having been given the privilege of going back and forth, happened to be at hand at the time. Many a mile I had ridden on mule-back, hoping to hear directly from the General, before I was rewarded. " Reck," our old mule, had been a benefaction not only to us but to the whole county. Every other mule and every horse had been confiscated and taken by the Federals. But for his wonderful memory, " Reck" would have changed owners, too, like all his half-brothers and -sisters, for he was a fine-looking mule. When a colt his leg had been broken in crossing a bridge, and all the powers of coaxing and whipping and spurring after that accident could not make him step on a plank, much less cross a bridge, unless you pretended to mend the bridge, and first walked across it yourself in safety, and then came back and led him over. My last ride on "Reck" brought me as compensation a package of five or six letters. The first was the letter which the General, as he went into battle, had handed to General Longstreet, with its sad superscription "If Old Peter s nod means death ." The next was written on the second day after the great catastrophe. Later there came to me the following: WlLLIAMSPORT, July 8, 1863. I am crossing the river to-day, guarding some four thousand prison ers back to Winchester, where I shall take command and try to recruit my spirit-crushed, wearied, cut-up people. It is just two months this morning since I parted from you, and yet the disappointments and sorrows that have been crowded into the interval make the time seem years instead. My grand old division, which was so full of faith and courage then, is now almost extinguished. But one field-officer in the whole command escaped in that terrible third of July slaughter, and alas ! alas ! for the men who fearlessly followed their lead on to certain death. DE TA I LED FOR SPE CIAL DUTY. 317 We were ordered to take a height. We took it, but under the most withering fire that I, even in my dreams, could ever have conceived of, and I have seen many battles. Alas ! alas ! no support came, and my poor fellows who had gotten in were overpowered. Your uncle, Colo nel Phillips, behaved most gallantly was wounded, but not seriously. Your cousins, Captain Cralle and C. C. Phillips, are among the missing. But for you, I should greatly have preferred to answer reveille on the fourth of July with the poor fellows over there, and how I escaped it is a miracle; how any of us survived is marvelous, unless it was by prayer. My heart is very, very sad, and it seems almost sacrilegious to think of happiness at such a time, but let my need of your sweet womanly sympathy and comfort in these sad hours plead extenuation, and be pre pared, I beseech you, at a moment s notice to obey the summons that will make you my wife. Two weeks later I received this letter: CULPEPER C. H., July 23, 1863. The short but terrible campaign is over, and we are again on this side of the Blue Ridge. Would that we had never crossed the Potomac, or that the splendid army which we had on our arrival in Pennsylvania had not been fought in detail. If the charge made by my gallant Vir ginians on the fatal third of July had been supported, or even if my other two brigades, Jenkins and Corse, had been with me, we would now, I believe, have been in Washington, and the war practically over. God in his wisdom has willed otherwise, and I fear there will be many more blood-drenched fields and broken hearts before the end does come. I wrote to you on Wednesday by Colonel Harrison, who went to Rich mond via Luray. I came on with my division, occupying both gaps of Front Royal, Manassas and Chester, where we had a brilliant skirmish with the enemy. For three days and nights I have been almost constantly in the saddle. Last night, the 22d, I had a tent pitched, and sat down to a meal at a camp-table, the first time since leaving Bunker Hill. We had been going al fresco. When we did sleep it was with the heavens for a canopy and a fence-rail for a pillow. We shall be here three or four days, perhaps longer. I thank the great and good God that he has spared me to come back and claim your promise, and I pray your womanly assistance in helping me to its immediate fulfilment. This is no time for ceremonies. The future is all uncertain, and it is impossible for me to call a moment my own. Again, with all the graves I have left behind me, and with all 318 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. the wretchedness and misery this fated campaign has made, we would not wish anything but a very silent, very quiet wedding, planning only the sacrament and blessing of the church, and, after that, back to my division and to the blessing of those few of them who, by God s miracle, were left. I gave Colonel Harrison a gold luck-piece which was a parting gift to me from the officers of the Pacific, and told him to have it made into a wedding-ring at Tyler s. I asked him to have engraved within "G. E. P. and S. C. Married , " and to leave sufficient space for date and motto, which you would direct. Perhaps no girl just out of school ever had a more diffi cult problem sprung upon her than that which confronted me. Had we been living under the old regime nothing would have been easier than to prepare for a grand wed ding in the stately old Southern style. Times had changed very greatly in the past few years, and how was a trousseau to be made away up in the frozen North, where all the pretty things seemed to have gone, and spirited through the lines to make a wedding brilliant enough to satisfy the girlish idea of propriety? And yet, how could a marriage take place without the accompani ments of white satin, misty laces, dainty slippers, and gloves, and all the other paraphernalia traditionally con nected with that interesting event in a young woman s life? However, if "Love laughs at locksmiths," he has more serious methods of treating other obstacles in his way, and all the difficulties of millinery were finally over come. But still there were lions in the path. Longstreet lay under a tree at Culpeper Court-house, seeking repose from the burdens which would necessarily weigh upon the mind of a man in whose care was the des tiny of the leading corps of the Army of Northern Vir ginia. As he leisurely reclined Pickett came up and sat on the grass beside him. "General," he said, "I am going to be married, and DE TAILED FOR SPECIAL DUTY. 319 want a furlough. This little girl " handing my picture to General Longstreet "says she is ready and willing to marry me at any minute, in spite of the risks of war, and will go with me to the furthest end of the earth, if need be." The younger man had consulted the older about many things since the day when he had rushed forward into the place made vacant by the wounding of his superior offi cer and carried the flag to victory, but he had never be fore confided to him an aspiration of so soulful and sacred a character. Longstreet considered the matter gravely for a time. " I can t give it to you, Pickett. They are not grant ing any furloughs now. I might detail you for special duty, and of course you could stop off by the way and be married," said General Longstreet, with a twinkle in his eye. It was not a time for insisting upon minor details, even in regard to very momentous subjects, and the General eagerly consented to be detailed for " special duty." Then there arose the problem of how to get the two necessary parties to the transaction within the essential proximity to each other. If the General attempted to cross the lines he might be arrested, and then not only would the wed ding be indefinitely postponed, but one of the divisions of Longstreet s corps would lose its leader. The General had purposed coming to meet me at the Blackwater River, which was the dividing line between the Federal and Confederate forces, but fortunately, through military exigencies, his plans were changed. As cautious as we had tried to be, the Federals, by some un known power, caught a glimmering of what was expected, and some poor fellow en route to the Blackwater, as inno cent of being the General as of committing matrimony, was ambushed and captured by a squad of cavalry sent 320 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. out from Suffolk for the purpose, and, though he pleaded innocent to the charges against him, put into Suffolk jail, before he was recognized and released. Thus, in the interests of the Confederacy, as well as of the marriage, it became necessary that I should be the one to cross the lines. My uncle was a physician and because of his profes sion was permitted to go where he wished, and I had often accompanied him on his professional visits. On the I4th of September, my father and I set out to cross the lines under the protecting wing of this good uncle. Just before we were ferried over the Blackwater River, we came upon the Federal cavalry, who looked at us somewhat critically but, recognizing Dr. Phillips, evidently assumed that he was bent upon a mission of mercy as, indeed, was he not? and did not molest us. We reached the railway-station in safety. " Waverley," it was called, and the romantic associations clustering around the name filled my youthful fancy with pleasure. There we were met by my uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, and his wife, and by the General s brother and his aunt and uncle, Miss Olivia and Mr. Andrew Johnston. Colo nel Phillips was a warm personal friend of the General and commanded a regiment in his division. He had been wounded at Gettysburg and was just convalescing. They accompanied us to Petersburg where, to my great delight, the General awaited me at the station. When we reached the hotel he and my father went out for the pur pose of procuring the license. They soon returned with the sorrowful announcement that, owing to some legal technicality, the license could not be issued without a special decree of court, I not being a resident of that jurisdiction. Court could not be convened until the next day, and the General must report at headquarters that DE TAILED FOR SPE CIAL DU7"Y. $21 evening. He went away sorrowful, and I fell into a flood of tears, thereby greatly shocking the prim, rigid maiden lady a friend of my mother who had accompanied me as monitor and bridesmaid, and who was intensely horri fied by the expression of my impatience and the general impropriety of my conduct in fretting over the delay. As I sat in my room, drowned in grief, I heard the newsboys crying the evening papers: "All about the marriage of General Pickett, the hero of Gettysburg, to the beautiful Miss Corbell,of Virginia!" You know, a girl is always "beautiful" on her wed ding-day, whatever she may have been the day before, or will be the day after. However, it was not my wedding-day, but only was to have been, and I had serious doubts as to whether my tear- washed eyes and disappointed, grief -stained face would be likely to answer anybody s preconceived convictions of the highest type of beauty. Again was my mother s "prunes and prisms" friend unnecessarily shocked, as I thought, because I had simply opened the window to buy a paper containing the account of my own marriage. The next day the General returned to Petersburg, and the court graciously convened. The license was granted, and we were married by the Rev. Dr. Platt in dear old St. Paul s Church before congregated thousands, for soldier and civilian, rich and poor, high and low, were all made welcome by my hero. We left for Richmond on the afternoon train amidst the salute of guns, hearty cheers, and chimes and bands and bugles. It may not be supposed that, in those dark days of the Confederacy, we were likely to find a sumptuous banquet awaiting us in the capital, but we did. The river and the woods had given of their varied treasures to do honor to 21 322 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. my General. It was in the sora season, and so plentifully was that game supplied that the banquet was afterward known as "the wedding-sora-supper." Had it required the expenditure of ammunition to provide this delicacy, it would probably have been lacking, for the South at that time could not afford to shoot at birds when there were so many more important targets to be found. They were killed at night with paddles, and many hundreds were sent as bridal presents by the plantation servants from Turkey Island. There were thousands of delicious beaten biscuit and gallons of terrapin stew made, and turkeys boned and made into salads, too, by the faithful old planta tion servants under the supervision of Mrs. Simms, the loyal old overseer s wife. Not having sugar, we had few sweets, but Mrs. Robert E. Lee had made for us with her own fair hands a beautiful fruit-cake, the General s aunt-in-law, Mrs. Maria Dudley, the mother of the pres ent Bishop, sent us as a bridal gift a black-cake that had been made and packed away for her own golden wed ding, and some of our other friends had remembered us in similar ways. So we even had sweets at our wedding- supper. It was a brilliant reception. The Army of Northern Virginia, then stationed around Richmond, came in uni form. Of the thousands present, only President Davis and his Cabinet, a few ministers, and a few very old men were in civilian clothes. The General and I greeted and welcomed them all as they came; then they passed on to the banquet and the dance dancing as only Richmond in the Confederacy could dance. With a step that never faltered she waltzed airily over the crater of a volcano. She threaded graceful mazes on the brink of the precipice. The rumbling of the coming earthquake struck no minor tones into her merry music. If people could not dance DE TAILED FOR SPE CIA L DUTY. 323 in the crises of life the tragedy of existence might be even darker than it is. So they danced through the beautiful, bright Septem ber night, and when the last guests were going my Gen eral and I walked out upon the veranda with them and, as they closed the outer gates, watched the stars of night fade away before the coming dawn and the morning star rise and shine gloriously upon a new, happy day. CHAPTER XXXVIII. TWICE TEARS TO SMILES. After the battle of Gettysburg Longstreet placed be fore the Secretary of War a proposition to take his corps to Tennessee to reinforce Bragg. It was the intention that Pickett should accompany this expedition, a plan which drew from the corps commander the following words of commiseration and encouragement: I am sorry for you, old fellow, but you must cheer up and "keep a stiff upper lip. " I will bring you back to dear old Virginia, and deliver you safely to your lady-love with additional laurels and covered with noble deeds. Most sincerely yours, J. LONGSTREET. Longstreet s proposed plan was clouded by the changed orders which assigned Pickett to the Department of North Carolina, with headquarters at Petersburg, Virginia. His command comprised all that portion of Virginia and North Carolina lying between the James River on the north and Cape Fear River on the south, extending on the east to the Federal lines around Suffolk and to the Blackwater and Chowan, and included all the troops in that region. Pickett having been relieved of the far-away duty to which he had previously been assigned, the leader of the expedition thus extended his congratulations and regrets commingled: 324 TWICE TEARS TO SMILES. $2$ I am glad of the change of orders for yourself, old fellow, and con gratulate you, but sorry enough for myself and the Cause that I am not to have you with me. You know I don t like this "one-boot business," anyhow, and I always feel certain and sure of Pickett and Pickett s men. Give my most respectful regards to your lady-love and tell her I should have brought you back to her covered with additional glory and noble deeds. I am sorry not to be at your marriage, but I shall remem ber the day and say a prayer, and ask you to kiss the sweet bride s hand for her husband s oldest friend and her well-wisher. Most sincerely yours, JAMES LONGSTREET. By order of the War Department, Pickett s division, "all that were left of them" after that fatal charge at Gettysburg two months before, had just been divided up for the purpose of recruiting its strength. Although separated, it still retained its organization, and was again consolidated in May, 1864, on the North Anna River, when it rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia. The Department of North Carolina was extended and important, and as early as the 2d of November Pickett re ported in person to our Secretary of War how ineffec tually it was protected on the tide-water and approaches toward Petersburg. Soon after this interview Pickett learned of the intended Federal expedition against Peters burg by way of the James. Conveying this information to Richmond, he asked for sufficient troops to meet such an attack, earnestly setting forth the immediate necessity of fortifying and obstructing the lower James. Later on, Pickett went to Richmond and, with Elzey, commander of the defenses at Richmond, had an inter view with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, representing the unprotected condition of his lines, of which the Federals would certainly take advantage. At the close of this interview Pickett was given the solemn promise that he should receive whatever rein- 326 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. forcements of troops could possibly be spared, that a gunboat should be stationed on the James River at Fort Powhatan on the south bank of the river, and that below that point the river should at once be further obstructed with torpedoes. These promises, for causes unknown, were not fulfilled, and subsequent events showed their importance. When we returned to Petersburg after our bridal visit with the General s sister and aunts, we found that loving, thoughtful hands had been unsparing in their tasteful ar rangement of our temporary abode. Affection had found a way, in spite of the check of war, to anticipate every luxurious requirement. Choicest selections were made by the General s friends from among their own treasures to adorn our rooms. It was here that the first tears of my married life were shed. It happened some months after we had entered our Petersburg home, upon a gloomy, rainy morning when the General was busy at his office and there was nothing to prevent my falling into the temptations which wait upon idle hands. Did you ever see or hear of a girl graduate who had never read a novel? Incredible as it may seem, such was I at this period of my life. From infancy I had been under the especial guidance of my good grandmother, a rigid churchwoman, who had unshakable convictions as to the influences which should surround a young girl. She did not approve of novels. Consequently I had never been subjected to the charm of their seductive pages. Having grasped a situation so remote from the proba ble, just imagine such an innocent, crude mind suddenly brought into contact with the tense tragedy of " East Lynne" a tragedy which probably has never been ex ceeded in literary history. So it happened to me. TWICE TEARS TO SMILES. Some one, more hardened to fictive woes than I, had been reading it and left it where it fell into my hands. When I began, I was not thinking much of the story. I was too greatly appalled by the enormity of my crime in reading a novel of any kind to have a clear idea of what it was about. I was remorsefully thinking, "What would my good grandmother think? What would she say?" As I read on I began to lose sight and memory of my grandmother. Her influence ceased to move me. The story exerted a miserable fascination for which there is no name. All the woe and heartbreak of it fastened itself upon me and became my own. The tragedy of a shat tered life filled me with a grief unspeakable. I read until my eyes were blinded with tears. Then I let the book fall upon the floor and gave way to a passion of sobs. I heard the General coming and hid the book, but I could not conceal the traces of my woe. He was filled with anxiety when he saw my tear-stained face. "What is the matter, little one?" he asked with tender solicitude. " Nothing," I sobbed, brokenly. "Are you ill?" " No-o-o, sir," with renewed floods of tears. " Have you hurt yourself?" He looked anxiously around in search of some weapon with which I might have accidentally inflicted upon my self an injury. No, I had not hurt myself. " Has any one wounded your feelings, or offended you in any way? " No, everybody had been kind and good to me. " Poor little thing. She is tired and lonely. Will you come and ride with me?" No, I would not ride. 328 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. It was the first time I had ever declined to ride with the General or, in fact, had refused to assent to any thing which he had suggested, and he was deeply hurt. In vain he implored an explanation. I was unable to divulge my grief, and he was forced to leave me in tears, and go forth with his great, honest soul clouded with perplexity. When he was gone I returned to "East Lynne" and irrepressible misery. When the General came back some time later I was yet more deeply drowned in seas of woe, and his anxiety was correspondingly increased. "Are you homesick?" he asked tenderly. "You shall go home to-morrow and stay as long as you like." " I am not homesick." "Do you want to see your father and mother? They shall be sent for at once." I did not want to see my father and mother. "Do you want your little sisters? They shall come and stay with you as long as you want them." I did not want my little sisters. Again was he forced to leave me, the dark mystery still unsolved. Again did I resort to "East Lynne" and uninterrupted woe. When evening came the situation was yet worse. I was hopelessly submerged in unillumined, measureless tides of despair. I threw myself upon a couch and oceans of wretchedness rolled over me and I wept floods of burn ing tears. The General was lost in mystification. A sudden fear possessed him. The "rift within the lute" had developed. So great was the darkness which the imaginary life of the fictitious heroine cast over me that I did not at first realize the cloud on our domestic horizon. It suddenly gloomed TWICE TEARS TO SMILES. 329 over me, bringing contrition and remorse. Yet how could I explain and risk the contempt which I felt my deception warranted. I watched the General as he paced up and down the floor, vainly endeavoring to analyze the problem with which he had been so unexpectedly confronted. Sympathy, doubt, grief, amazement seemed to commingle in his mind. After a time he came and stood beside me, looking at me with such an expression of sadness that, under the influence of that gaze, there was nothing left me but to acknowledge the cause of my hitherto unuttered woe. Blushing and confused, I sobbed out my mournful story and took the poor paper-back book, the cause of our first and only misunderstanding, from its hiding-place beneath the cushion and sheepishly handed it to him, and all the clouds drifted away in smiles. CHAPTER XXXIX. NEWBERN. Newbern, North Carolina, was held by the Federals, and was reported to General Pickett as being weak in its de fenses and protected by a small force. It was a place of storage, and its alleged stock of provisions and clothing was a most tempting bait for our nearly naked, barefooted, famished soldiers. "Newbern" is the modern form of New Berne, so named in the latter part of the seventeenth century by its founder, Christopher, Baron de Graffenried, in memory of his former home, Berne, Switzerland. In its early infancy Newbern had been baptized in blood, and its sinister beginning seemed to have ushered it into a career of turbulence, occasioned more by its location than by any consequence attaching to it from size or other characteristic adapted to attract attention. Its position as an important seaport of the Confederacy early rendered it an object of desire to the enemy. It is near the confluence of the Neuse and the Trent, and the only two roads by which it may be reached by land lie through an almost impassable swamp. There was once a railroad from Newbern to Kinston and Goldsboro, passing through the marshy ground, but it had been de stroyed. On March 14, 1862, Burnside advanced upon Newbern, destroying a fortification of little value in the vicinity, and capturing and partially burning the town, being sup ported by gunboats which cleared the way by a heavy 330 NEWBERN. 331 rain of shells. Burnside captured forty-six guns, three light batteries, and a large amount of stores. In the be ginning of 1864, Newbern was held by the Federal gen eral Foster, with a small force. Pickett laid a plan for an attack upon Newbern which was approved of and applauded by both Lee and Beaure- gard, and was guarded with strictest secrecy. On the ist day of February, 1864, Hoke s and Cling- man s North Carolina brigades and a part of Corse s Vir ginia brigade, with a battalion of Reid s artillery (the Thirty-eighth Virginia), commanded by Pickett, set out from Kinston on the Neuse River in North Carolina. They were to threaten Newbern on the south side of the Neuse River. On the north side of the Neuse there was to be a demonstration by Bearing s cavalry and three regiments of infantry. Matt. Ransom s North Carolina brigade, Barton s and Terry s Virginia brigades, under command of Barton, marched along the Trent River to destroy the railroad to Morehead City, and were di rected to attack on the south side as soon as the Federals should be diverted by the threatened assault of Pickett and Bearing. Simultaneously with these movements, Colonel R. Taylor Wood, with a naval force in small boats, was to make a night excursion down the Neuse River to Newbern and attack the gunboats. The troops left Kinston just after nightfall in order that they might make their appearance at the specified points at daylight. They were buoyant and hopeful. The start was excellent. Everything seemed propitious, victory apparently smiling on the efforts of all. Bearing s feint upon the north was successful in attract ing the attention of the Federals from the real objective point. Colonel Wood effected a complete surprise, and cap tured the gunboat Underwriter under the guns of the forts. 33 2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . At two o clock in the morning, Pickett s infantry met the Federal troops at Bachelor s Creek seven miles dis tant from Newbern. The advance picket and vedette were silently captured, and the reserve sought protection in a small fort just beyond the bridge. This bridge, be ing made of loose planks, was taken away by the guard in the retreat, and the stream, too deep to ford, proved an impassable barrier to the assailants. Thus the Con federate advance was checked, and the gallant little Fed eral force held its position till it was reinforced. During this engagement sixty-seven men were killed; among them, Colonel Shaw, who was supporting the advance. Early in the morning Hoke s brigade crossed the stream, flanking the Federals and opening the way to Newbern. Corse had already crossed, captured a large force of Federals, which had been encamped on the rail road, and forced back the garrison into Newbern. The Confederates had succeeded in surprising New bern, and had taken all the outworks and defenses in front. Almost victorious, they waited with impatience for the attack on ihe other side, which was to have been made by Barton s column, and which would have enabled them to enter Newbern without opposition. Not a sound was heard. The suspense was unbearable. Fear and anxiety began to crowd out hope. The marsh prevented communication between the dif ferent divisions of the troops. The failure was incom prehensible to all. Hour after hour of restless impatience went by and yet no gun was fired, no attack was made by Barton s column. Through a whole day of torture Pickett waited in deathlike suspense with the prize of Newbern almost within his grasp. Barton, it seems, regarded the Federal defenses as too formidable to attack with any reasonable hopes of success. NEWBERN. 333 Pickett remained the whole of the next day in front of Newbern, hoping against hope, and praying still that Bar ton would even yet make an attack. The special couriers he had sent out at intervals to try to reach Barton not re turning, the next morning, heart-sick and disappointed, he deemed it expedient to retire toward Kinston. Though the Newbern expedition failed in its primal object, it resulted in important advantages. Besides the capture of five hundred prisoners and over two hundred horses, the Confederates found comfort and temporary relief in the valuable capture of subsistence stores, cloth ing, shoes and camp equipage. General Pickett gives an account of Newbern in the following field-notes: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT o"F NORTH CAROLINA, February 15, 1864. GENERAL: I have the honor to report that, in accordance with in structions received from General Lee, under date of January 20, 1864, the expedition left Kinston, as follows: On the morning of the 3oth ultimo General Barton, with his own brigade and that of Kemper, three regiments of Ransom s, eight rifled pieces, six Napoleons, and six hundred cavalry, started to cross the Trent and take the works in front of Newbern, in reverse, and prevent the enemy from being reinforced by land or water. Later in the day I sent off the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Virginia, with three pieces of artillery, Whitford s regiment, and three hundred cavalry, to report to Colonel Bearing on the north side of the Neuse River. He was to have attacked, if practicable, Fort Anderson, Harrington s. Commander Wood, of the navy, with his boat party, left on the 3ist ultimo, and I, with Hoke s bri gade, three regiments of Corse s and two of Clingman s brigades, five rifled pieces, five Napoleons, and thirty cavalry, started on the evening of the 30th ultimo. The attack was to have been made simultaneously by the different parties on Monday morning. Barton, with his cavalry, was to cut the railroad and cross Brice s Creek, taking the forts on the bank of the Neuse, and pass across the railroad bridge. If he succeeded only in the first step he would effectually cut off reinforcements. Bearing, by tak- 334 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ing Fort Anderson, would have a direct fire upon the town, and an enfilading fire upon the works in front of it. Commander Wood, having received the gunboats, would co-operate, and I, with the party under my command, would create a diversion, draw off the enemy and, if the chance offered, enter the town. Accordingly, on Monday morning, at one o clock, I pushed forward General Hoke. He was met at Bachelor s Creek, nine miles from New- bern, by a strong force of the enemy, who were evidently surprised. The night being dark, and the enemy being posted in a strong position after having destroyed the bridge, it was impracticable for General Hoke to force a passage till after daylight. This he did in most gallant style. At this time the enemy, reinforcing heavily by railroad, and trying to rake our lines with the guns on the steam ironclads, attempted to turn my right flank. I threw Corse forward to drive them in, which he did handsomely, and Clingman, with his two regiments, followed General Hoke. After effecting the crossing, the enemy were hotly pursued, but as we had no cavalry, and our men were much worn by the long night s march, and had not been allowed fires, we were unable to press our ad vantage as we would have done had there been fresh troops on hand. In fact, it was three o clock before General Corse could come to the cross ing of the Neuse road with the railroad, some two and a half miles from the town. There was unfortunately no co-operation, the other parties having failed to attack, and I found we were making the fight single- handed. Commander Wood went down the Neuse on the night of the 3ist, with his party, but did not find the gunboats. Bearing found Fort Anderson too strong to attack. Barton s cavalry failed to cut the rail road and telegraph at Morehead City. This was afterwards done by General Martin, but no communication of the fact was received from General Barton till some time after we moved back. General Barton sent a message to me by courier, on Tuesday morning, saying he found the work laid out for him impracticable. This not being satisfactory to me, I sent Captain Bright, my aide-de-camp, across the Trent to com municate with him in person. This was accomplished by Captain Bright at a great risk. General Barton stated to him that he had been entirely misinformed as to the strength of the place. He pronounced the works too strong to take, saying that he had made no advance and did not intend to, and that he had twice sent out his cavalry to cut the railroad, and they had returned without accomplishing it. Captain Bright then, by my direction, ordered him to join me. Gen eral Barton said he would try to cross at Pollocksville, but would be un- NEWBERN. 335 able to do it that night (the 2d). He expressed some doubt as to whether he could cross at that point. Should he fail there he would be com pelled to go much higher up the river. Thus the earliest possible mo ment at which he could have joined me would have been on the evening of the 3d instant. This would have delayed my attack until the 4th. General Barton afterwards informed me that he could, positively, have done nothing on his side of the river. General Barton had orders from me, in case he found it impracti cable to perform his part of the work, which was the most important, to cross at once to me, and let me try a coup de main. I could, how ever, hear nothing from him for some time, and when I did, it was through the unsatisfactory note I have mentioned. On the night of the ist instant, Commander Wood gallantly at tacked and took the six-gun steamer Underwriter, but was compelled to burn her, thus losing her invaluable service. The enemy having had ample time to reinforce, both by water and land, and the whole plan by which the place was to be reduced having failed, I deemed it prudent, after consulting with my officers, to withdraw, which we did at our leisure. The result may be summed up as follows, viz. : Killed and wounded, about one hundred; captured, thirteen officers, two hundred and eighty- four privates (fourteen colored), two rifled pieces and caissons, three hundred stand of small arms, four ambulances, three wagons, two hun dred animals, a quantity of clothing and garrison equipage, and two flags. Commander Wood, Confederate States navy, captured and de stroyed United States gunboat Underwriter. Our loss about forty- five killed and wounded. A correct list will be forwarded. I found the ground in my front swept by half a dozen forts, one of them mounting seven rifled guns, with which they fired at pleasure over and into our line of battle. Had I had a whole force in hand, I have little doubt that we could have gone in easily, taking the place by sur prise. I would not advise a movement against Newbern or Washington again until the ironclads are done. In the meantime, having received despatches that the enemy were in force at Suffolk and advancing on Blackwater, I deemed it prudent to send General Clingman back to Petersburg. I have as yet received no written report from General Barton, but from the light which I have, am of the opinion that he should have ad vanced at the same time that I did. Had he done so, the enemy being fully employed by me, he would probably have carried out this part of the plan. I am informed that there was no infantry on that side of the river. 336 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. The present operations I was afraid of from the first, as there were too many contingencies. I should have wished more concentration, but still hope the effect produced by the expedition may prove beneficial. I am, General, very respectfully, G. E. PICKETT, GENERAL S. COOPER, Major-General Commanding. Major-General Commanding, Assistant Inspector-General, Richmond, Va. Barton s explanation of his inaction at Newbern is, that although he had made every safe and proper exertion to gain information regarding the position of the enemy, and had been assured by those whom he was forced to be lieve trustworthy that there were no fortifications at Newbern other than those abandoned by the Confederates at the capture of the place, yet when he got there he found an invincible array of forts, breastworks and field-works, bristling with so deadly an array of guns that further prog ress was impossible. CHAPTER XL. PICKETT S VOLUNTARY DEFENSE OF PETERSBURG. The expedition to capture Plymouth, the capital of Washington County, North Carolina, which General Pick- ett had planned to take effect some time before, was just then about to set out. This town, situated a few miles south of Roanoke River where it enters Albemarle Sound, had been captured in 1862 by an expedition led by Burnside, and was now oc cupied by twenty-four hundred men under command of Wessells. Pickett now maintained that too much time had been wasted, and that the delay of this project, which delay had had its origin with the authorities at Richmond, rendered the execution of the plan at this late hour both rash and in expedient. He held that, inasmuch as danger threatened Petersburg, the troops then in North Carolina for the pur pose of moving on to Plymouth, instead of being kept there, should be ordered back at once to the defense of the endangered city. Pickett again pointed out the weakness of Petersburg, how ineffectual were the defenses on the tide-water and approach to Richmond, and pleaded that immediate action should be taken in that direction. He asked that the ex pedition be abandoned, and that the three brigades of his division (Barton s, Corse s and Terry s) which had been left in North Carolina after the affair of Newbern should be sent to him without delay. Hunton s brigade of his di vision was still retained around the defenses of Richmond. 22 337 338 PICKETT AND II IS MEN. The authorities at Richmond giving no heed to Pick- ett s warning, and taking no cognizance of his appeals in behalf of Petersburg, he, in his desperation, sent a special courier with a confidential letter to General Lee, who was then on the Rapidan with the Army of Northern Virginia, telling him of his unheeded repeated warnings and re quests, and of his fruitless interview with the Secretary of War. General Pickett pointed out to General Lee the ex treme danger to the Confederacy at that point and the perils of further procrastination. General Lee, by return courier, wrote as follows: Consult at once with General Beauregard. I myself, General Pick ett, am in perfect sympathy with your apprehensions Will despatch officer to Richmond to-night, urging immediate action upon your request R. E. LEE, General. Beauregard was then in command around Charleston, South Carolina. Without loss of time he and Pickett met by appointment at Weldon, North Carolina. Pickett laid before Beauregard the letter of General Lee, and explained the actual critical condition of affairs, the absolute cer tainty of the immediate attack of the Federals on this the most vulnerable approach to the capital of the Con federacy, and the inadequacy of any force which he had at his command to repel such an attack. Beauregard expressed himself at once as being in per fect unison of sentiment with Pickett, agreeing to the pro priety of all he said. He proffered his co-operation and assistance, and promised to reinforce Pickett as speedily as possible with whatever troops he could spare. Upon Pickett s return to Petersburg he found that in the face of all argument, in spite of all warning, the expe dition to Plymouth had been ordered forward. PICKE TTS DEFENSE OF PE TERSB URG. 3 39 General Pickett having planned the capture of Plym outh, he was, of course, to have commanded in person, but just upon the eve of his starting out from his head quarters at Petersburg he received a despatch from the War Department at Richmond, directing him to turn over the command to Brigadier-General Hoke. The command consisted of Hoke s, Terry s and Ransom s brigades. Barton s, Corse s and Terry s brigades were kept in North Carolina against the advice and warning of both Beaure- gard and Pickett, who strongly urged that they be sent to Petersburg to the support of Pickett, who had but a hand ful of men to guard the weakest point of the Confederacy, the open gate to Richmond, its capital. Beauregard sent a cipher despatch to Pickett, saying: I have no control over these troops, or they should be ordered at once to your relief. With you, I am nonplused and at sea with con jectures. It is but a question now On the 2d day of May, 1864, Pickett was ordered to report to the Army of Northern Virginia, and Beauregard was assigned to the division of North Carolina. The 3d of May, my uncle, Dr. John T. Phillips, who was a practicing physician at Ivor on the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, sent a special message by a trusty old neighbor to Pickett, to the effect that Butler, with fleet and transports all in readiness, was only awaiting orders to advance. This letter Pickett sent over at once to the War Department and telegraphed its contents to Beauregard, who, being ill, sent to Pickett his inspector- general, Major Giles T. Cooke, and his chief engineer, Colonel D. B. Harris. On the 5th of May, the very day of Butler s advance, Colonel Walter Harrison, Pickett s inspector-general, and Major Giles T. Cooke, Beauregard s inspector-general, 340 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. had gone down from Petersburg to inspect the lines of defense and troops on the Blackwater River at Ivor on the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. They learned that the signals on the James River were telegraphing the passage of Butler s fleet and transports. Colonel Harrison hastened back in the train to Petersburg and confirmed the information already signaled to Pickett. Butler had only been awaiting the co-operation of Gen eral Grant, who was to move from the Rapidan on to Richmond from the north. On the 5th of May, the at tack against which Pickett had so often warned the War Department was made. Butler came up the James River with his whole force in transports, protected by his gun boats, and landed without opposition at City Point and Ber muda Hundred, lying between the James and Appomat- tox Rivers. A whole division of his cavalry moved di rectly toward Petersburg along the line of the Blackwater. Notwithstanding the repeated warning of Pickett, the gov ernment was totally unprepared and the country at large completely surprised. Thus the world heeds its clear- visioned seers now, who tell of evil because they must, no more than in the olden days when the sorrowful Cassandra wandered sadly and alone in the sacred laurel grove of Apollo and poured forth her mournful plaint for a nation that would not see. As stated above, on the night of the 2d of May. when Beauregard was assigned to the Department of North Carolina, Pickett received orders to report to the Army of Northern Virginia. He could not, however, turn a deaf ear to the pleadings of the council and the prayers and entreaties of the panic-stricken people of Petersburg, as well as to the mandates of his own brave and tender heart, and leave the city to the mercy of sword and flame. He instantly made every available disposition for the de- PICKE TT S DEFENSE OF PE TERSE URG. 34 1 fense of the place, with the small means at his command, which, all told, was one regiment of infantry of Cling- man s North Carolina brigade, and a few pieces of artil lery. On the Blackwater River there was a portion of Cling- man s brigade, one regiment of infantry the Twenty-ninth Virginia one battery of artillery, and a small squad of cavalry. The only infantry regiment he moved out in front of the works on the City Point road and put on picket-duty all along the line. The eleven pieces of artillery, which was all he had, he placed in the works at that point. In his defense of Petersburg, Pickett verified the state ment of General Grant, "The rebels are robbing the cradle and the grave," for the militia and every available citizen of every sort and condition were ordered out and com manded to advance in the direction of the Federals. The small force on the Blackwater River was ordered back immediately. The heroic, unselfish wives and daughters of the Confederacy carried the despatches and cooked the food for their soldiers and defenders. Now, with but six hundred men, two hundred of whom were only partially effective, Pickett awaited the approach of Butler with his thirty thousand strong. A small force it was, counted by men and guns, but how inconceivably strong and great when measured by determination, by ardor, by enthusiasm, and, greatest of all, by a firm and abiding love. Did not every man from the brave leader to the weakest private feel his heart thrill tumultuously as he reflected that behind him stood home, friends, loved ones, the closest and dearest of family ties, all that his heart held dear in life, dependent on the valor and skill with which he held his ground? A small and feeble band, it might be said, to face such 34 2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. odds, but it was led by the same Pickett who, with one company of United States regulars, held the whole British fleet at bay at San Juan Island, and made the English lion crouch to the star-spangled banner. Would not he who had fought so bravely for a little strip of earth on which a nation had risked its honor, after the reckless fashion of nations, battle with yet more ardent heroism for home and loved ones, dearer to every true man than aught else? A portion of Haygood s South Carolina brigade, the first reinforcement of troops from the south, arrived on the 6th of May, the next day after the attack. Pickett stationed them at Port Walthall Junction, on the railroad between Richmond and Petersburg, about six miles dis tant from the latter place. The whole of Beauregard s army was south of Petersburg and was on its way toward the defense of Richmond on the south side. Hence it was all-important that this connection between Petersburg and Richmond should be kept open. Pickett, knowing this, detained this brigade on his own responsibility, although he had been ordered in a telegram from Bragg, of the War Department in Richmond, to send them directly on to Richmond. It was only by the intervention of this gallant little force of Haygood s brave South Carolinians, who had a sharp skirmish with Butler s advance column, driving them back, that the Federals were kept off of the railroad and the connection between the two cities was preserved unbroken. The Weldon Railroad was threatened by Kautz s cavalry division, which had worked its way around in the rear and to the south of Petersburg and attempted to intercept Beauregard s troops on that railroad. Though they failed, they yet caused delay in transportation of these troops. On the ^th of May, Wise s Virginia brigade arrived in PICKETT S DEFENSE OF PETERSBURG. 343 Petersburg, and was sent out on the line toward City Point. Then the three brigades of Pickett s division began coming in as fast as the broken-down, worn-out express could bring them. All now breathed easier and felt less apprehension of immediate danger, but the fear and anxiety of the women and children during those days of trial and danger is beyond description. The roar of cannon, shot and shell, filled their ears through all the long day and night. Every reverberation brought a new, swift dart of pain. Who had lost a loved one with that shot? Whose heart was made desolate with this sudden, deafening roar? Whose husband, father, son, brother or sweetheart would go with the next death- knell? How soon will our homes be in ashes? Will they capture the city? Thus the deadly balls from the cruel guns tore through our hearts with every passing moment. Years away from that time of anguish and terror I awaken suddenly with the crash of those guns still in my ears, their fearful sounds yet echoing in my heart, only to find myself safe in my soft, warm bed with my little grand son, the golden-haired George E. Pickett IV., nestling close in my arms. Our home in Petersburg was situated on High street, the old Mcllwaine House, a beautiful home with a large yard and tall trees and flowers, green grass and fountains. It was filled with anxious, troubled hearts, women and children coming and going all day and all night. To one and all I said: " Be not afraid. As long as General Pickett s arm is raised in your defense no harm can come to you. I, his wife, share your danger, and the General will obey no order that will take him away from your defense till you 344 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. are safe. You can depend upon my noble, self-sacrificing hero. Trust and wait." They not only trusted in their brave defender, but gave him of their courage and strength in helping him to keep up a brave show and deceive the enemy, cheering the trains as they came in, though, alas ! they were but empty coaches. They would gather at the station as each train was due from the short trip it made into the country to keep up the appearance of transacting a large business in transpor tation, and send up cheer after cheer of welcome, fondly hoping the Federals would not be cognizant of the fact that there were none to be welcomed except the feeble, half-starved men who ran the trains. There were none, to the eye, but to the heart were not those whistling, rumbling trains full to overflowing with gallant forms, clad in the beautiful gray that we loved, adorned with flashing swords, carrying muskets that meant protection for us, and above all, with faces that had bent in truest love to our own? Such a week of anxiety as the General passed, only he can know who holds in his hand the homes, the lives, the honor, of men, women and children. For almost that length of time Pickett had not slept, and for three days had not been near our home. His soup and bread and coffee, I myself had carried to him out on the lines. I had George and Bob and Charles, my cook, butler and gardener, out on despatch-duty. Each and all had done their part, and they had not trusted in vain in the bravery and strategy of their fearless defender, for, as General Grant had said in his telegram to President Lincoln, Pickett had bottled up Butler at Petersburg. CHAPTER XLI. A STRANGE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. "General Pickett, a miracle has been performed. You have saved Petersburg, and you have made a longer-lived nation of the Confederacy." This was the salutation of Beauregard to Pickett, upon his relieving Pickett, at Petersburg, in May, 1864. Our equipments were all packed, and we were on the eve of departing from Petersburg, in conformity with the orders received by the General before the Federal attack upon the city. Now that our people were no longer in danger, we were to go, taking with us the thanks of the council and the love and gratitude of the whole city. We left Petersburg on Monday, the i6th of May, 1864, as the morning of my birthday was dawning. I was in a carriage with my maid and a few of my personal effects. Tom Friend, a courier, was riding in front, and Bob, the valet, was on the General s battle-horse, " Old Black," and leading my riding-horse, " Mileaway," saddled, so that I could ride with the General when he felt that it was judi cious to gratify me. When the General and his staff rode up I was looking back at the city in the distance, my soul flooded with the blessed memories of our happy bridal days. The sun was rising and lighting with its early rays the far-off church wherein eight months before we had plighted our troth. We looked into each other s eyes, my General and I, then back at the church, then upward and onward. We under- 345 346 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. . stood; our souls translated for us the poem of the look then the General rode on. In many ways had my dear ones always shown loving memory of my birthday, but to-day a new celebration was in store for me. The Federals were to grace the occasion. I could not help contrasting in my mind various kinds of entertainment, and wondering if many young people had celebrated their natal days in so many different manners. Child, almost, as I was, I wondered if I should ever again dance with light feet and a merry heart at a real birth day fete. Thus I rode through the dewy morn, the first golden rays of the sun making a veil of glory from the mist that shimmered in evanescent beauty to the touch of the gentle wind. They lit with an amber glow the edges of the fresh, newly opened leaves, rustling to the soft movement of the morning breeze. They struck glittering shafts through the dewdrops that quivered on the blades of grass, and changed them to diamonds pendent, trembling in emerald settings. The echo of the cannonade that had thundered against the loved city in which were centered so many sweet memories and so many reminiscences of terror yet seemed to strike upon ear and heart, but a little bird in a tree close by arched its irised neck and from its tiny throat came a flood of melody that drowned discordant recollections. The bottled general being still " corked up," and Peters burg being for the time safe, Beauregard deemed it ex pedient to move with the greater portion of his force toward Richmond and Drury s Bluff on the James River, leaving Whiting in command at Petersburg. Beaure- gard s lines extended from the Hewlett House on the James River to Fort Clifton on the Appomattox below Petersburg. On the south side of the Appomattox there was a very small force for the defense of Petersburg. A STRANGE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. 347 On the 1 5th of May, 1864, Whiting received orders from Bragg, of the War Department at Richmond, to with draw his whole force from Petersburg and move by a roundabout road some distance in the rear of Drury s Bluff so as to get into the defenses of Richmond from the rear. Whiting was both amazed and indignant at being obliged to abandon Petersburg after its almost miraculous escape and to leave it thus entirely unprotected, but, fear ing to disobey, he, in accordance with Bragg s directions, issued marching orders for the following day. This most remarkable order of Bragg was signaled to Beauregard by Colonel Walter Harrison who, at the solicitation of Whiting, was for the time serving on his staff. Beaure gard at once sent an order through Colonel Logan to Whiting, directing him to move with his command at daylight on the i6th of May, and attack Butler on his left, thus co-operating with Beauregard in his attack. Whiting was delighted by this change of order, and most enthusiastic at the prospect of meeting the Fed erals. At Drury s Bluff, where some of the batteries were stationed to prevent the fleet from passing up the river, Beauregard had three divisions under Ransom, Hoke and Colquitt. In Ransom s division were two of Pickett s brigades, Barton s, commanded by Colonel Fry, and Kemper s old brigade, under Terry. Another of Pickett s brigades, Corse s, was in Hoke s division. Beauregard s intention was to cut off the Federals from their base of operations at Bermuda Hundred, and on the 1 5th of May, he issued orders for battle on the next day. In a letter written some years after the close of the war Beauregard thus sets forth his intentions in regard to this battle: 348 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. We reached Dairy s Bluff at three o clock in the morning in a ter rible rain-storm, passing between Butler s left and the river. Sent Col onel Stevens of the Engineers to President Davis to tell him that if he would that day (the i4th) send me ten thousand men from the troops about Richmond (five thousand under Ransom) and General Lee s army, I would take Butler s thirty thousand men (who had been successful on the afternoon of the 13th in taking the outer line of defenses) and capture or destroy them by twelve on the i5th. I would then move to attack Grant on his left flank and rear, while Lee attacked him in front, and I felt sure of defeating Grant and probably opening the way to Washing ton, where we might dictate $cace. Beauregard was not successful in his efforts to induce Bragg to issue the necessary orders to enable him to carry out his plans though he appealed to him with an earnest ness which might seem irresistible: " Bragg, circumstances have thrown the fate of the Confederacy in your hands and mine. J^st us play our parts boldly and fearlessly! Issue those orders and I will carry them out to the best of my ability. I will guarantee success." Notwithstanding the rigidness of Bragg and the con flicting orders issued to Whiting, Beauregard fought and won his battle on the i6th, starting out in the heavy fog of the early dawn. He almost totally annihilated Heck- man s Star Brigade, took prisoners its leader and several hundred of the men, and drove Butler s entire army toward Bermuda Hundred. Three brigades of Pickett s division, Barton s, Corse s and Terry s, were engaged in this battle, behaving with great gallantry, but suffering heavily. Colonel Joseph C. Cabell, of the Thirty-eighth Vir ginia, the only field-officer who came out of the battle of Gettysburg unhurt, was killed in this action. Among the many who were killed was Colonel Ham- brick, of the Twenty-fourth Virginia. Major Robert H. A STRANGE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. 34g> Simpson, of the Seventeenth Virginia, was so severely wounded that he died shortly afterward. Whiting so far obeyed the instructions of Beauregard as to cross the Appomattox River at daylight and move with his command toward Drury s Bluff, but his energy, alas! was paralyzed by a second order from Bragg, and he fell back upon Petersburg without striking a single blow, without giving any substantial aid to Beauregard s project. Beauregard was distressed and disappointed. He affirmed that, had Whiting assisted him in the conjoint attack which he had planned, Butler s entire army would have been destroyed. Beauregard, on being informed that Grant was cross ing to the south side of James River below City Point, was obliged to abandon his position, in order that he might defend Petersburg, on the south side of the Ap pomattox. Lee was promptly notified by Beauregard of his inten tions, but was unable to relieve him in time. Beauregard was, in consequence, forced to leave the intrenchments, and Butler, on the morning of the i6th of May, walked into them without opposition. He thus reached the Rich mond and Petersburg Railroad, which was unprotected, and had begun destroying it, when run off by the advance of Pickett s division. At daylight, also on the i6th of May, Hunton s bri gade set off in advance from Malvern Hill, followed by the rest of Longstreet s corps. Between two and three o clock in the afternoon, while this column was moving along the Petersburg turnpike, about ten miles from Petersburg, Anderson, who was then commanding the corps, and Pickett with his staff, riding along together about a quar ter of a mile in advance of the column, were ambushed and fired upon by a portion of Butler s troops. Hunton s 35 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. brigade was hurried up as quickly as possible, followed by the other brigades. The Federal forces were driven back toward Bermuda Hundred. They fought hard to hold the line recently given up by Beauregard, but the whole line was retaken, and was held by Pickett s division from that time on until March, 1865, when it was relieved by Mahone s division and sent off to meet Sheridan s cavalry raid upon the upper James and around Richmond. Lee said it was not his intention that this attack on Bermuda Hundred should be carried to such an extent, but he was so delighted and gratified with the result, and so proud of the perseverance and daring of his brave Virginians that he afterward wrote a complimentary acknowledgment of their service in the following letter to Anderson: CLAY S HOUSE, 5.30 P.M., June 17, 1864. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL R. H. ANDERSON, Commanding Longstreet s Corps. GENERAL: I take great pleasure in presenting to you my congratula tions upon the conduct of the men of your corps. I believe they will carry anything they are put against. We tried very hard to stop Pick ett s men from capturing the breastworks of the enemy, but could not do it. I hope his loss has been small. I am, with respect, your obedient servant, R. E. LEE, General. On the I7th, the morning after the battle of Drury s Farm, Longstreet s corps pursued the Federals to the Hewlett House on the James River, and bivouacked for the night in an unfinished earthwork not more than six hundred yards from the Federal gunboats and monitors, which kept up an incessant shelling throughout the night. On the i8th, the corps marched toward Manchester, and thence on the morning of the 20th, by way of the Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad to Milford Station, A STRANGE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. 35! where it had a skirmish with the Federals. It is said that this fight, together with the misleading statement by some captured scouts that Lee s headquarters were just across the river in the large white house, and that his whole army was close by, delayed Grant for several hours and enabled Lee to cross the North Anna in advance, for which point he set out the next day. On Wednesday, the 25th of May, the old division was again reunited, and moved to the right on a parallel line with the Federal army, frequent skirmishing along the iront making the death-roll larger. CHAPTER XLII. COLD HARBOR. In Revolutionary days Cool Arbor was a favorite sum mer resort for Virginia society. We can imagine our fore fathers and foremothers retreating before the vindictive assaults of the fierce rays of the Virginia sun to the re freshing shades which gave to Cool Arbor its invigorating title. Perhaps the Father of his Country rested here from the cares devolved upon him by his unmanageable infant. Alexander Hamilton, turning from contemplation of state papers and military reports, may have unbent his austere mind in this sylvan spot, seeking that social relaxation in which the gravest intellect must sometimes indulge. Through the corridors of Cool Arbor Inn gracious co lonial dames and demoiselles walked in majestic array, or gracefully moved through the mazes of the dance, hap pily unconscious of the complicated labyrinths of her aldry they were weaving for future generations. Heroic followers of Mars turned from devotion to their stern divinity and enlisted in the service of Cupid, willingly relinquishing their laurels as conquerors, and con senting to deck their brows with the myrtles of the con quered. Alas, that classic and poetic situations will in time and so short a time, too fade into the merest traditions and become only fanciful ornamentations for works of fiction. With the lapse of generations Cool Arbor, with all its delightful umbrageous suggestions, became com- 352 COLD HARBOR. 353 monplace Cold Harbor, with occasional deterioration into Coal Harbor, grimy and repellant. No more trailing of soft silken and lace robes through the shaded corridors of the old colonial inn. No more tread of martial step, soft ened deferentially to keep pace with the graceful fall of delicately slippered feet. As Cold Harbor, the domain was wrested from the gentle sway of the tender gods and relegated to the sterner rule of crimson-hued Mars. The old inn, which in its ancient Cool Arbor days had softly echoed to the melodious notes of harp and spinet, became the head quarters of the commander-in-chief of a great army, and its walls resounded with military orders and the multi tudinous discords of war. For a second time Cold Harbor became the scene of a battle. In the evolution of the wheel of time the two armies drew near each other at almost the same point ort the historic river which two years before had furnished a field for the battle of Gaines s Mill, otherwise known as the first battle of Cold Harbor. Grant had been appointed lieutenant-general and placed in command of all the United States armies, choos ing his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, in heroic defiance of the political wires which had been woven into a death-trap for most of the commanders whose fortunes had heretofore been linked with the east ern branch of the Federal army. Over a crimson road had the two armies returned to Cold Harbor. The Wilderness had become one great, wide graveyard. The wind which soughed through the dark and heavy forest sighed a requiem over nearly fifty thousand of Grant s men. From October, 1863, until May, 1864, Pickett s division was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia. On* 23 354 PICKETT AND HIS MEN, May 25 it reported to Lee at Hanover Junction, and was stationed at the front to oppose Grant s attempted cross ing of the North Anna. Hunton s brigade was near the old battle-field of Gaines s Mill. While it held this posi tion Captain Charles F. Linthicum, the adjutant-general of the brigade, was killed, and Lieutenant John H. Jones, aide-de-camp, was severely wounded. They had both done valiant service with the old division ever since 1862. On the night of the 3ist of May the First Corps under Anderson, Longstreet having been wounded in the Wilder ness a few days before, marched with its artillery to a point near Cold Harbor to join General Hoke in an at tack upon Grant s left. As the Federal army was strongly defended, the assault was postponed and the Confederates prepared fortifications. Grant had reached nearly the same point in his march down the river which McClellan, in 1862, had gained in his upward progress. He was expecting reinforcements from the Army of the James, then lying before Richmond. Fear ing that they would be met and cut off by Lee from the south, he drew down upon the northern bank to intercept any such movement. Sheridan was sent with his cavalry and an artillery force to secure Cold Harbor, where he was heavily attacked on the morning of June I, maintaining his ground with great difficulty until late in the afternoon, when he was reinforced by the Sixth Corps and ten thou sand troops under General W. F. Smith. In the afternoon of June I, a fierce attack was made by Smith and Wright upon Hoke and Kershaw, whose outer line was broken. So gallant a defense they made that the advance of the assailants was arrested, and the price of the position gained by the attack was two thou sand killed and wounded, many of them officers. At the same time there was a contest on the left of the COLD HARBOR. 355 line, in which the Federals were repulsed. The forest was so dense that artillery could not be used, but some guns were placed along the lines of Kershaw, Pickett and Field and did good service through the next day. Night closed the contest of June I. Before morning Grant had transferred his right to a point beyond Cold Harbor road, and Lee had sent Hill and Breckenridge to the defense of his right. Pickett s division was sta tioned, with the rest of the First Corps, between new and old Cold Harbor. The troops of Breckenridge and Hill extended to the Chickahominy. Fitzhugh Lee s cavalry guarded the line between the Chickahominy and the James. North of the First Corps and to its left was Ewell s corps, commanded by Early. At the extreme left was Heth s division. Over them the June sun poured down floods of heat and around them surged heavy clouds of dust as the troops marched over the field on the 2d of June. The afternoon of the 2d Lee ordered an assault upon Grant s right, which was found to be so strongly posted as to be invincible; whereupon Early erected de fenses and waited. At about five o clock in the afternoon a heavy fall of rain began, continuing into the night. That night orders were issued by Grant for an assault all along the line. About half past four the next morning, Friday, a single gun to the left of the Federal line gave the signal for the advance upon the Confederate position. Through the rain of the gray dawn of June 3, a grand assault was made along the whole six miles of the line. The Confederate guns opened the counter-attack, and were followed by the advance of Pickett s skirmishers, in which Captain Campbell G. Lawson, of the Fifteenth Virginia, was so badly wounded that he was never again on a field of battle. PICKETT AND HIS MEN. From all the angles of the Confederate lines poured a stream of fire which left no living thing in its track. Bar low s division of Hancock s corps fell back before a heavy rain of shot and shell. Gibbon s division reached the parapets and recoiled. Wright and Smith were driven back after an hour s fierce contest. While Warren held the Confederate line in front, Burnside was to attack the left. The outposts fell back before his charge, but the order to attack in force was countermanded, the failure of the assault on the other part of the line having convinced Meade that the works could not be carried. Three thou sand of Hancock s men lay upon the field. The order to withdraw was given by Meade, the battle of Cold Harbor was over, and nearly ten thousand of Grant s troops had gone to reinforce the army of the lost in that gloomy and blood-stained Wilderness. Grant or dered a renewal of the attack, but his generals refused to obey. CHAPTER XLIII. "LEE S MISERABLES." As previously stated, the line from Hewlett House on the James, opposite Dutch Gap Canal, across to Swift Creek and Fort Clifton on the Appomattox, was held by Pickett s division after the retaking of the lines of Ber muda Hundred, and we were posted in a grove between Hewlett s and Chester. My brother-in-law and his little family were in a log cabin within a stone s throw from our own, and many of the officers had brought their wives to cheer their winter hours. So there was no lack of social diversion. In a small way we had our dances, our con versaziones and musicales, quite like the gay world that had never known anything about war except from the pages of books and the columns of newspapers. True, we did not feast. Our larders were empty. But we rode, and drove, and walked, and made calls, very much as leisurely people do in peaceful days, when something must be found to occupy the idle mind. A want more painful for many than the lack of food or clothing was the poverty of our libraries. Perhaps you think you know the value of the art of printing. You go into your library and seat yourself in an easy chair and look around with complacent air upon your literary treasures. You could not imagine life with out your favorite authors. You hear them speak to you through the silence. You feel the air pulsating with their swift, strong, warm heart-beats. You stretch out eager hands and feel the tender clasp of the hands that grasped 357 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. life s deepest forces in the ages gone. You stand with prophets, poets, kings, of the great world of thought. Down in the depths of your soul you thank Faust and Gutenberg for having been born. You will never have an adequate sense of the extent of your indebtedness to those grand old Teutons until you have grown accustomed to regarding even a last week s newspaper as a gracious benefaction, a summer novel as an Olympian gift, a fugitive stanza, drifted across your way by a friendly wind, as a great rose-garden of the mind, filling your world full of beauty and fragrance. If you had known all these things you would realize what my feelings were when our good friend, General Rufus Ingalls, of the United States army, sent to us across the lines a beautiful copy of " Les Miserables." How we wept with Fantine and Cosette! How we loved the good Mayor Madeleine, all the dearer to us because he had once been Jean Valjean! How we hated Javert, that cold and stony pillar of "authority"! How we starved with Marius and waxed indignant in contemplating his frigid grandfather! How we fought over and over the wonder ful battle of Waterloo, and compared it with other con tests of which we knew! The soldiers, with a quick instinct of appropriateness born of experience, rechristened the work "Lee s Miser ables," and certainly no book ever achieved the popularity of that most marvelous picture of life. They watched with eager eyes and hearts its progress along the line. They formed groups around the camp-fire and the man who was deemed to have the greatest elocutionary devel opment was appointed reader for the assembly. "It s our turn now. The General s wife said we were to have Lee s Miserables next," one would cry out triumphantly. "LEE S MISERABLES." 359 " It is too good a book to be lent around in this way to the men," said a book-lover, jealously, glancing over the many penciled marks; for after the initiatory christening and comments the men began in turn as they read it to write their sentiments, till every space margin, fly-leaf, every spot, in fact, where the pencil could find room for a name, a word, a thought was covered. "Let them have the book and mark it all they want to, for nothing is too good for the poor devils," said the General, as he smilingly read aloud these marginal notes: "Abe Lincoln re-elected; has called for a million of men; and Jeff Davis says war to the knife. What shall we do? " And again, "We sadly miss thy green persimmons, dear old Chester, with which thy fields did once so abound, and which did mercifully help us in our efforts to draw up our stomachs to the size of our rations." " As our fore fathers resisted British tyranny, so we shall resist the as sault upon our constitutional freedom and the sovereignty of the States of the Confederacy." I have the old book now, and, in comparison with it, the most gorgeous edition de luxe of Victor Hugo ever sent out by enterprising publisher to ravish the eye of the connoisseur is of no value whatever. " Les Miserables" was one of the few books published in Charleston, and was printed on paper manufactured in the Confederacy. The General sent on and bought for his men a number of copies of it and of several other books published at that time. One of my greatest pleasures was to ride along the lines with the General. The easy, graceful movement of my horse, the amber sunlight, the glint of color in a late autumn flower which had escaped the tramp of heavy feet, the ringing cheers of the men as they saw us coming, all helped to make me lose sight for a moment of the awful cause of our being there. 360 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. One morning as we rode along the Hewlett House line, I saw a puff of smoke rise in the distance, drifting, scat tering, becoming a mere film as it floated higher and higher until it was lost against the blue sky. " How pretty that smoke is," I said. The General looked at it attentively, then said anx iously: "Yes, dangerously beautiful. It is from a shell. The enemy have begun firing again. Come, you d better ride on as fast as you can and let me get you beyond the danger." " No, no, General. I could not do that," I replied, with something of the indignation which a soldier might have felt upon being recommended to run away from battle. "Never, never, in the wide world would I let Pickett s men see your wife riding fast to get away from danger." As we rode slowly along amid the cheers of the sol diers, looking as carelessly over at the beautifully curl ing columns of smoke as if they were harmless clouds, Captain Smith rode up. "They are not firing at us," he said, greeting me and saluting the General. "They are testing their guns, I think, for the entertainment of Mrs. Grant, who, I learn, has this morning come down to the lines. She is just over there, as you see, looking on," handing us his glass. "Nevertheless, our position is not a safe one. A stray ball might accidentally strike us here. Would it not be better for you to take Mrs. Pickett away? Turn to the left into that clump of trees." "She will not go," said the General, "and I can not is sue a military order, as I might in the case of any other insubordinate. The only disadvantage, Captain, of having a wife is that, whatever place you may hold on the army rolls, she outranks you." "LEE S MISERABLES." 361 Thus we sat our horses in the glory of the sunbright Southern morning, and chatted gaily of anything, every thing, nothing just what came to us on the fleet wings of the passing moment, while the guns over on the enemy s lines troubled the air with their thunderous roar, the puffs of smoke adding their touches of artistic grace to the landscape. The balls were aimless. They harmed nothing but the helpless and unresisting earth, which was scarred where they fell. It was a playtime of war. The captain bade us adieu, lifted his hat and rode on in advance, riding in that graceful way which the South erner has by inheritance from a long line of ancestors who have been accustomed to ride over wide reaches of land. I watched him as he rode on, then my heart in terror stands still even now, as I faintly try to record the dread sight. The captain s horse dashed on down the lines, bearing a headless body. One of the aimless balls, .alas! had found a mark. CHAPTER XLIV. THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES. When I returned to the Bermuda Hundred lines, bringing back with me our blessed little baby, there was none of the pomp and panoply of war, though Rich mond and Petersburg were one large camp of soldiers. Day by day the North was growing stronger, the South weaker. A number of Pickett s men had learned of our ex pected arrival, and when the General, thinking the secret of our coming was all his own, emerged on horseback from a clump of trees near the railway-station, he found Colonel Floweree with his band, squads from the dif ferent regiments, the members of his staff and some of the brigade and regimental officers, there before him, waiting to welcome the new little soldier who was com ing to share with him and them the privations of their camp-life. As the old train creaked slowly into the station, Floweree s band struck up, "See the Conquering Hero Comes," and cheer after cheer went up for "the General s baby," for whom bonfires had boen lighted twenty-nine days before while the happy father was riding hastily into Richmond to welcome his little namesake son. He could stay only a few hours, and when leaving he leaned over the cradle, thanked God for the blessing of our precious little baby, and put into his tiny hand the following passport and congratu lations: 362 THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES. 363 HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. July 17, 1864. Major-General Pickett has permission to visit Richmond and return. By order of General Lee. W. H. TAYLOR, Acting Adjutant-General. DEAR GENERAL: Accept through me the congratulations of the general commanding and the whole army. My best wishes in addition. Yours truly, TAYLOR. The General, with bowed head and hat in hand, in grateful acknowledgment of this delicate expression of the love of his comrades in coming to greet us, rode on past them and boarded the train just before it reached the station. As soon as he handed us off, his men sur rounded us, eager to take a peep into the great bundle of swaddling-clothes which hid from view their "little gen eral" as they then christened him. We were hurried into the carriage, too soon for some, at least, of the dear soldiers. One, whose name was Young, and who, as the General told me afterward, had been wounded in the battle of June 17, coming near losing his head, which was just missed by a ball, took George Junior, sans ceremonie^ from my arms, and held him up to the welcoming gaze of his comrades. With many a word of love and blessing, our baby was passed on down the line from one to another. Tenderly, almost reverently, they touched him, our blessed baby, and many a tear was dropped on the pillow upon which his thoughtful black mammy, to ensure his safety, had carefully fastened him. Meanwhile, the young hero, in wise and dignified si lence, with closed eyes and clenched fists, received the love and honors thrust upon him. He may have made faces, but not a sound did he utter as he passed on in this his first review. No; Pickett s baby gracefully left the rebel yell for Pickett s men to make. 364 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. I am ashamed to confess it, but, notwithstanding the gentleness of the soldiers, baby s quiet, peaceful mien, and the General s continued assurance that he was all right, I, his very new and solicitous mother, suffered agonies of torture and anxiety until he was back again in my arms; and oh, dear, what a greasy, dirty, grimy little bundle it was when I did get it back. One would hardly have recognized the snow-white baby of a few minutes before. Nor was the soiled linen the only price the " little general" had to pay for honor and glory there were other emoluments. Our poor army, for want of soap and clothes, had superior numbers of graybacks as well as bluecoats to fight, and this enemy put our young gen eral through his first contest and, in spite of our raising the black flag, and of the combined heroic and immediate remedies of surgeon, mother, and nurse, it was many days before our wee, wee soldier recovered from the wounds received in his first battle. Our army at this time, numbering about forty to fifty thousand, was holding a line from a point north of Fort Harrison, on the north side of the James, to Hatcher s Creek, south of Petersburg, several miles in length, bounded on all sides by the Federal army. The Con federates were in constant fear that Grant would at any moment swing around our right and shut us up in Rich mond and Petersburg to starve. He had possession of the Weldon road and was threatening the Richmond and Danville Railroad, our only remaining line connecting us with the Southern States from which we received our supplies. The line from Hewlett House, on the James River opposite Dutch Gap Canal, across to Swift Creek and Fort Clifton on the Appomattox, a distance of about three miles, was held by Pickett s division, which numbered THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES. 365 between four and five thousand men. Our line was so drawn out when thrown into the trenches that it made scarcely more than a strong skirmish-line, while the Fed eral lines were full. Pickett s men worked hard to make their position a strong one, and were always on the qui vive for an assault. At many points the Confederate and Federal lines were so close together that the soldiers of the two armies could talk to each other in an ordinary tone of voice, could exchange newspapers, tobacco for coffee, and so on. The venturesome Confederates frequently made cap tives of the Federal pickets, once sweeping their line of rifle-pits for more than a hundred yards, and taking a hundred and thirty-six prisoners. On one occasion the leader of the Southern band had been promised some music-sheets in exchange for some Confederate bonds and, at the appointed time, went out midway between the lines for the proposed exchange. When they sepa rated the Federal bandmaster handed to him a roll of paper. On regaining our lines he found the papers to be a proclamation of General B. F. Butler, offering to de serters twenty dollars in cash, or employment in the com missary or quartermaster s department of the army or navy, or transportation to their homes if within the Fed eral lines. There was a promised reward for the judi cious disposition of these papers, but the loyal band master brought them to headquarters, where they were all destroyed except two, one of which I have. After this, strenuous efforts were made by the officers to break up all social intercourse. The chivalry and devotion of the soldiers of Pickett s division in the defense of their homes and firesides as an inherent, inalienable right had drawn them very near to each other. The humanity and kindliness of these sol- PICKETT AND HIS MEN. diers was a beautiful sermon. As a class, they were free from vice, immorality and quarreling. Card-playing, one of the sad dissipations of the first two years of the war, had disappeared. The religious spirit awakened in the division by Dr. Tyler at Taylorsville in 1863, when hun dreds of the soldiers professed Christ, seemed still to prevail. Now and again in passing along in the rear of the tents the ragged, ill-fed Confederate would be seen on his knees, pouring out his soul to his tTiessed Saviour and invoking his blessing on our cause, and his protecting care for the loved ones at home. Our chaplains were as patriotic as they were zealous, many being wounded and killed in battle. The venerable General Pendleton, chief of artillery, who, at the first battle of Manassas, would say as he led his men on, "Lord, have mercy on their souls! Fire, men! Fire!" often prayed and preached for the division. Reverend J. Taylor Frazier organized a Young Men s Christian Association, and was one of the most earnest of the workers in the cause of Christianity. It was noticeable that whenever religious services were held almost every man off duty would be in attendance. Many of these soldiers who, I have heard, were wild, profane, and some of them dissipated, have since become ministers, and three, that I know of, are now bishops. They needed, too, poor fellows, all the comfort that religion could bring, for these were dark and trying days. Every turn of the wheel reduced the supplies and in creased the demands of the waning Confederacy. The price of the necessaries of life had risen to such an enor mous height that the soldier s pay of eleven dollars a month was not sufficient to buy a half-bushel of wheat. His rations were a fourth of a pound of bacon, one pint THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES. 367 of corn-meal, unsifted, with now and then a bottle of sor ghum, a few beans or peas, or a little rice; no sugar, coffee, or soap. It took sixty of our dollars to buy one dollar in gold. One pound of soda cost fourteen dollars; a loaf of bread, two dollars; unbleached cotton and calico, six dollars a yard; shoes, from one to three hundred dollars a pair. But the privations of camp-life and the dangers of the battle-field were nothing to the poor soldier in com parison with the almost certain knowledge that his wife and children and mother were cold and hungry. What wonder is it, then, devoted though they were to their cause, that there should yet be some desertions from their ranks? The following incident will show what ex cuse mercy, if not justice, might plead in their defense. One morning when my nurse returned from the de serters pen, where I had sent her with a bucket of sor ghum cakes for its poor doomed occupants, she told me that the guard said that one of the men in the pen was from my home, and knew me, and that he had been beg ging to be allowed to send me a letter. " Go back at once," I said, impulsively, "and tell the guard to get the letter and give it to you to bring to me." She soon returned, bringing a package tied up in a corn-husk. On the husk was written, " For the General s wife when I am dead." The package contained three let ters, a little sealed box, and two rings carved out of charcoal. A slip of paper on one said, "For Pa s little lady"; on the other, "For Pa s little man; and he mustn t forget his Pa; and he must be a good boy, and look after his Ma." The box and letters were directed to his mother and wife. The unsealed letter was written on both sides of the paper. One side was written to me. On the other side was a letter from his wife, as follows: 368 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. B N , Dec. 17, 1864. MY DEAR B : Christmus is most hear again, and things is worse and worse. I have got my last kalica frock on, and that s patched. Everything me and children s got is patched. Both of them is in bed now covered up with comforters and old pieces of karpet to keep them warm, while I went long out to try and get some wood, for their feet s on the ground and they have got no clothes, neither; and I am not able to cut the wood, and me and the children have broke up all the rails roun the yard and picked up all the chips there is. We haven t got nothing in the house to eat but a little bit o meal. The last pound of meet you got from Mr. G is all eat up, and so is the chickens we raised. I don t want you to stop fighten them yankees till you kill the last one of them, but try and get off and come home and fix us all up some and then you can go back and fight them a heep harder than you ever fought them before. We can t none of us hold out much longer down hear. One of General Mahone s skouts promis me on his word to carry this letter through the lines to you, but, my dear, if you put off a-comin twon t be no use to come, for we ll all hands of us be out there in the garden in the old graveyard with your ma and mine. The letter to me said: When I got this letter on the back hear from you see how twas. I knowed they want a-givin" no furloughs, but I knowed, too, that whether they was or no, I was a-goin home to look after , but I wanted to go strait if I could, so I went up to headquarters, and I saw the General hisself. He said he didn t have no power to do nothin hisself, that his orders were strick, but that he would give it a strong indorse and send it up. I couldn t hardly wait till the next day, but I kep a-sayin 1 to myself, "Go strait, Billy, go strait if you can; but if you can t go strait, Billy, by golly, go anyhow"; an when it come back re fused, I says to em all, "I m a-goin 1 , "an 1 then I went back and told my captin I was a-goin , for would never have written a letter like that unless she was mighty bad off; and I went. I got home all right and seed after them. If I had a staid down thar I would a been a de serter; but I didn t stay no, I come back, and I ain t one. Seems like luck was against me, though, for just as I was nigh onto a half-mile of camp that old G p arrested me and I was found guilty, and am in the next passel that s got to be took out. When the thing is all done and over I want you, please, marm, to write to the folkes and sorter smooth THE BERMUDA HUNDRED LINES. 369 it down bout how it all happened to be. They all remembers you and always asks after you. They sets a heep of store by me, and I don t want them to think nothin bad of me, and then mought blame herself some if she knowed; so please, marm, kiver it all over. Kiverin it won t hurt nothin and it mought ease things a bit. I know all your folkes and I went to school to your Uncle Jasper close onto a year. I knowed your brother Tom before he died, and he want afeered of nothin on earth; he d pull off his cott and roll up his sleeves and fight a elefant if the elefant had a 1 been a-tryin to impose on him or anybody else littler than him. Well, this is the end of the paper, and when you get this t will be the end of me, too. God bless you, God in heaven bless you double times. Please, ;narm, don t let none of them douun home lose store by me if you can help it. Please, marm, and that is all. Thus on the cold and cheerless hearth of the lowly cabin burned the fires of patriotic ardor, and the poor r unlettered soldier, having to the best of his small abil ity ministered to the wants of his suffering family, had voluntarily returned to his duty under his flag, regard less of the danger of meeting a deserter s unhonored death. I went into the next room where the General and Colonel Harrison were working over a map, and handed the letter to the General. As he read it his great, glorious, gray eyes filled with tears. Scolding me for what I had done, he gave the letter to Colonel Harrison. "Well," said the Colonel, as he returned the letter, "there is nothing to be done about it, dear lady. These miserable wretches have got to be shot in the morning, and all your pretty play is pretty play. They have been tried by court martial, their sentence approved, and the General has nothing on earth to do with it, and can t help it. You and Lady H. not only look very much alike, but you are very much alike." 37 PICKET T AND HIS MEN, "Discipline and the exigencies of the service demand a rigid enforcement of military laws," said the General. I knew my General s great, generous heart, and I knew that those men would not be shot. The next morning before sunrise the execution of the sentence was post poned. Three days afterward an order came from Rich mond reprieving all deserters. CHAPTER XLV. THE PEACE COMMISSION. THE LAST REVIEW OF PICKETT s DIVISION. In spite of the darkening gloom, the fall of Fort Fisher, the evacuation of Tennessee by Hood s army, Sherman s march to Charleston, danger, starvation and cold, Pick- ett s men were hopeful and full of faith. All through the winter the men had been in the trenches and the officers alert to prevent surprise. They had small huts to shelter them from the beating storm. To add to their qMscomfort fuel was very scarce and dif ficult to secure. They were dependent upon a small belt of timber between their own and the Federal skirmish- line. It was necessary that a guard should accompany the party procuring the wood, in order to ward off sur prise. Notwithstanding all precautions, many were captured. One of the pluckiest and most venturous of the wood- gatherers, Adam Thompson, the mascot of the division, became so absorbed that before he knew it he was taken prisoner. Such an immense man was Mr. Adam, with such an enormous foot, that special orders had to be given to the quartermaster for his shoes and clothes. In an nouncing this capture, the Federals said: " One milk- white prisoner, three and a half feet across the back, legs in proportion, and each foot encased in a side of sole leather." Later on, when exchanging some prisoners cap tured in the rifle-pits, the Federals demanded four of their mep for our Mr. Adam, to which demand we gladly acceded. 371 37 2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. The last of January the peace commissioners ap pointed by the Confederate government to meet the representatives of the Federal government passed through the lines and went down the James River. The whole army was full of hope that an amicable adjustment would be made. Alas! Our commissioners were Vice- President Stephens, As sistant Secretary of War Campbell, and R. ]VL T. Hunter, Confederate Senator for Virginia. They were instructed to meet any representative whom President Lincoln should select, with the purpose of treating for peace be tween the " two countries." Lincoln had consented to the meeting to discuss measures of restoring peace to "our common country." This discrepancy had not a tendency to pave the way to a satisfactory conference. Lincoln appointed Seward to meet the representatives of the Confederate government, and in his letter of in structions said: You will make known to them that three things are indispensable, to wit : i. The restoration of the national authority throughout the States. 2. No receding by the Executive of the United States on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon in the late annual message to Congress and in preceding documents. 3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government. You will inform them that all propositions of theirs, not inconsistent with the above, will be considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will hear all that they may choose to say and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely consummate anything. As the first meeting of Seward with the Confederate commissioners was not successful, Lincoln was induced by Grant to go in person to meet the Southern representa tives. Mr. Stephens set forth the theory that secession was THE PEACE COMMISSION. THE LAST REVIEW. 373 the best remedy for sectional differences. As this view was not favorably received, he suggested a union for the purpose of expelling the French from Mexico. Lincoln and Seward agreed with him as to the undesirability of the new Gallic neighbors, but thought the United States government able to drive them away. Mr. Lincoln would treat only on the basis of reunion and the abolition of slavery. Mr. Hunter s report contains the following: Mr, Lincoln said that a politician on his side had declared that four million dollars ought to be given by way 01 compensation to the slave holders, and in this opinion he expressed his concurrence. Mr. Seward was impatient and walked across the floor and said that he thought the United States had done enough in expending so much money on the war, and had suffered enough in enduring the losses incident to carrying on the war. Mr. Lincoln said that if it was wrong in the South to hold slaves it was wrong in the North to carry on the slave-trade and sell them to the South and to hold on to the money thus procured if the slaves were to be taken by them again. Mr. Lincoln said, however, that he was not authorized to make such a proposition, nor did he make it. The President said he could not treat with armed men. Hunter answered that this had often been done, especially by Charles I. when at war with his Parliament. Lincoln replied that he did not know much about history; that he usually left that kind of thing to Seward. All that he dis tinctly recalled about Charles I. was that he lost his head. Of this conference, which took place February 3, 1865, on board the River Queen, Lincoln thus made report to Congress: On the morning of the 3d, the three gentlemen, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter and Campbell, came aboard of our steamer and had an interview with the Secretary of State and myself, of several hours duration. No question preliminary to the meeting was then and there made or men tioned. No other person was present. No papers were exchanged or pro duced; it was in advance agreed that the conversation was to be informal 374 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. and verbal merely. On our part the whole substance of the instructions to the Secretary of State hereinbefore recited was stated and insisted upon and nothing was said inconsistent therewith; while by the other party it was not said in any event or in any condition they ever would consent to reunion; and yet they equally omitted to declare that they never would so consent. They seemed to desire a postponement of that question and the adoption of some other course first, which, as some of them seemed to argue, might or might not lead to reunion; but which course we thought would amount to an indefinite postponement. The conference ended without result. The news of the unsuccessful termination of the peace commission soon spread through the whole army, and hope died in all hearts. Anxious faces indicated the deep sorrow with which the failure of the conference was re garded. It was possible that the leaders might know of a prospect of foreign intervention of which the army was ignorant. Unless this was true, nothing was left but to fight it out to the bitter end. After the failure of the peace commission was known there was held in General Pickett s tent a consultation of the officers of his division. As they talked, their words drifted out to me. Said one: "We must hush all hope of peace in our hearts with the cry of, War to the knife! All skulkers and absentees must be driven into the army. I believe the Yankees are as tired of war as we are." Another suggested: "Why not free the negroes? They would be as loyal to us if we freed them as to our enemies, who can give them certainly no more than we can, unless it is better rations and pay, but their love for us and the confi dence they have in us will more than counterbalance that." "Certainly," responded another, " they are no dearer than our own sons. We are willing to sacrifice our sons, our fathers, and ourselves; why not our property? Is our property dearer than our own lives?" THE PEA CE COMMISSION. THE LAST RE VIE W. 375 Another said: "I believe the great bulk of the army is ready to make any sacrifice for our separate existence as a people and the cause of liberty. As our forefathers resisted British tyranny, we must resist Northern oppres sion." Said another: "Our object is, not the negro, but in dependence and a separate government, for which I am willing to abolish slavery and give up any and every thing else." "With such patriotism such valiant soldiery," said the General, "our independence shall be accomplished. The North is turning the Southern negro into Northern bonds, and I, too, believe that the majority of the army want to free the negro and make him help us to work. I know that the majority of Pickett s men favor it. We shall lose everything else if we attempt to preserve and perpetuate slavery, and in the end, of course, lose that. It should have been done in 1863." "Well, at any rate," it was agreed, "the last hope of peace, save that which follows in the tread of the con queror, is over for the South." The last winter of the Confederacy had been one of privation, hardship and painful anxiety. The end was drawing near. The March winds and gusts of the pre vious days had lulled themselves to sleep, and March had borrowed from her sister month one of her softest, most beautiful days for this the last review, on this side of the dark waters, of the grand old Virginia division of Pickett s men. I was on horseback beside the General, proudly witnessing this last review of his beloved command. The order to march was handed to the General just after the first brigade had passed on. When the last man had passed in review, and the last salute had been given and acknowledged, the order to 376 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. march was read and published. There was not a man in the whole division who did not feel the hopelessness of prolonging this strife, who did not know that it was then but a mere calculation of the few days and weeks which would elapse until the end. Yet, without a complaint, these brave men received marching orders. Sheridan, the untiring and unconquerable, with his ten thousand cavalry, had routed Early at Waynesboro and dispersed his little band of three thousand men, and was on his way to Richmond, it was reported, via Char- lottesville, from the North, and the command was moving up to Richmond and to the outer line of intrenchments north of the city. Pickett was to go and look after him. We should take away with us many sacred memories of our eventful camp life. The years of common suffer ing, of sharing each other s pleasures and bearing each other s woes, had bound us all together by the most sacred and loyal of ties, till "comrade" seemed to me a closer, truer tie than "brother." The camp was broken. The last review of Pickett s division was over. Our baby, the " little general," with hearty blessings, had been sent on ahead with his faithful mammy two hours in advance of my departure. I was waiting, ready to start. I had listened to the tramp of regiment after regiment as they in turn folded their tents and marched away. The drums of the rear guard were growing fainter and fainter in the distance, as we caught sight of Lucy with her silken coat and limpid eyes full of tenderness and fire, and her slim, clean legs and small, unerring feet, as she skimmed over the field with blood as blue as that of her matchless rider. Tom Friend, one of the General s couriers, was riding behind him. They were coming back from the front for me. Bob promptly brought up my horse which was saddled THE PEA CE COMMISSION. THE LAST RE VIE W. 377 and waiting. I mounted and galloped forward to meet the General. As we rode slowly away he looked thought fully and sadly around him and sighed a farewell to tent and camp of Hewlett House, Chester and the lines of breastworks. This position, important as the main line of defense between Richmond and Petersburg, and oppos ing any advance by the Federals, he had occupied since the i6th of May, 1864. Through the soft lights and shades and the perfumed breath of the dawn of the year, we rode away from our first and last camp, and on together to the old Pickett home in Richmond, where the General was to leave me and rejoin his division. He said good-by, and as we knelt beside our baby s cradle we placed each other in God s holy keeping. "Take care of mamma, my little man, if papa should not come back. I leave her to you, my dear, dear little namesake son. Ask mamma to tell you what papa says, and if there, there," he said cheerily; "I must go now. Smiles come, smiles give me smiles; no tears, mind," and he went out of the door and down the steps, two at a time, whistling "The Girl I Left Behind Me." A little while later I heard the drums beating, and baby s nurse rushed in to say: "Dem sojer troops an drums you yeahs a-comin is ourn. Yas m, dey is; dey is we all s derwision-troops, an hit certainly is scand lus de way dey is a-playin music an gwine on, an de folks de folks, dey is bad ez de sojers, fer dey is hollerin an cheerin an waffin dar hank chers an apuns an hats at em, jis lak dey wuz gwine ter a darncin - party, bestid er gwine ter dar def-warrants, lak dey is. Deed an deed, hit s turrible deed, tis. Dey ought ter be singin hymns an prayin an sayin amen, Lord amen! Deed, dey ought." 378 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. I brushed away my tears, caught up my baby, who had just awakened, snatched from the nurse s hand the bunch of white violets which she said she had "jes* bruck fum off n dem li le low-growin bushes what dey sed Marse Gawge s ma had plant de year fo she tuck sick an die," and ran down the steps to the gate. The division halted as it drew near. When its leader came to say good-by I closed baby s hands over the cluster of white violets and held it out to him. He carried the snowy blossoms away with him, as the division marched forward shouting, "Three cheers for the little general and his mother!" Ten years later, brown and withered, with time, the tiny cluster of violets went down to the grave with all that was mortal of the soldier who carried them in their sweet perfume and snowy bloom at the head of his brave division. CHAPTER XLVI. ON TO DINWIDDIE COURT-HOUSE. It is a heartaching service to record the gathering gloom of the last days of the Confederacy, when the noblest blood of the Southland stained the mother clay as her sons uselessly gave up their lives, gun in hand and faces forward, where their officers led, the officers feeling, as they gave the order, how vain, alas! it all was. To us who lived through the darkness of those days there is yet a black shadow falling around us like the memory of an awful dream. Poor Confederacy! She had nothing to oppose to the affluence of resources possessed by the enemy save the unconquerable gallantry of her children, who fought against such odds as had never before stood in the way of freedom. When Pickett received and obeyed the telegram from Lee, ordering him to move to the right of Petersburg, he knew, and his men knew, that it was a forlorn hope. No cheek blanched, no muscle quivered, as the order was read. There was no weakening of their proud res olution to fight the battle for principle through sacrifice, however vain, to the end. As I humbly, reverently, record these last days, I lov ingly lay the immortal laurel of gratitude, prayer, love and tears entwined on "The sacred grave Of these last men who, vainly brave, Died for the land they could not save." 379 380 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Pickett received the order from Lee on the 29th day of March, 1865, at Swift s Creek, where he, with two of his brigades, Corse s and Terry s, were bivouacked. Stuart s brigade was west of Petersburg, and was ordered to join Pickett en route. Hunton s brigade, the brave old com mand at the head of which Garnett met his glorious death on the field of Gettysburg, was with Longstreet on the north of the James River. The entire division had been ordered to march, but it was found that there was transportation for only three brigades. In order to secure a whole division, Longstreet suggested drawing Mahone from Bermuda Hundred and allowing Pickett to replace him, but Lee preferred a part of Pickett s division, and ordered the three brigades for ward. Pickett, in carrying out the order of Lee, endeavored to make the movement as stealthily as possible, though he knew it was impossible to conceal entirely from the knowledge of the Federals the action of Stuart s brigade near Petersburg, it being in the range of vision from the Federal lookout-stations. Pickett, with the brigades of Corse, Terry and Stuart was to cross the Appomattox River, passing Petersburg, where they were to take the cars by the South-side Rail road to Sutherland s Station, ten miles west of Peters burg, and to move thence to Sutherland s Tavern on the railroad. Fitz Lee s cavalry had already preceded the in fantry to the tavern, and he had from that point com municated with Pickett who, with the three brigades, reached the station a little after nine o clock in the evening. At ten o clock the same night (the 2Qth), R. H. An derson sent an order to Pickett to come on with his three brigades by a cross-road to the White Oak road, over ON TO DINWIDDIE COURT-HOUSE. 381 Hatcher s Run, and take a position to the right of Bush- rod Johnson s division, at the extreme right of the Con federate line. The roads and streams were almost impassable, but Pickett s indefatigable men without a murmur moved on through the drenching rain, over the muddy roads, ford ing streams and gullies. Pickett, with his soldierly mien, led them on, ever and anon appearing among them, his genial, sunny smile help ing many a jaded infantryman to step out with a brighter face and a firmer tread, as he would pass on, whistling with his inimitable, beautiful whistle, " Dixie," "The Bon nie Blue Flag," "Maryland," "Annie Laurie," "The Girl I Left Behind Me," or some other familiar air equally dear to the soldier s heart. Or, with a word of good cheer, he would wave his cap and go on, leaving the air behind him radiant with sympathy and affection. The presence of the born leader of soldiers is as strong and uplifting in arduous and wearisome marches as it is inspiring in battle. About daybreak of the 3Oth, with the rain still pouring, Pickett with his command arrived upon the White Oak road between Dinwiddie Court-house and Five Forks, the brigades extending for some distance up the road. At about ten o clock of the morning of the same day General Lee came up to the right of the Confederate line and held a consultation with his chiefs. During this council a prisoner was brought into camp. He was a cap tain in Sheridan s cavalry, and was captured near Five Forks. Upon the examination of this officer, he let out the information that the whole Federal cavalry, more than fifteen thousand strong, supported by a heavy infantry force, was at or near Dinwiddie Court-house. Lee did not give much credence to the statements 382 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. of the Federal captain, nor did Heth, who was one of the chiefs mentioned as being in consultation with him, but just about this time a message came from Fitz Lee, stat ing that the enemy s cavalry were in great force at Five Forks, and had driven in all of his pickets. Upon this information, Lee at once sent orders to Fitz Lee to take command of the whole cavalry, his own divi sion, the division of W. H. F. Lee, and a part of Rosser s division, and make an attack upon the cavalry force at Five Forks. At noon on the same day Lee ordered Pickett to move on to Five Forks with his small force of artillery and in fantry, consisting of his own three brigades, Matt Ran som s and Wallace s brigades (both together not equal to a full brigade), and six rifled pieces of artillery under Colonel Pegram, and take command of the whole force. The main object of the attack was to break the Federal left. The proposed plan to further that end was that Pick ett should press down upon Dinwiddie Court-house, and as far down upon the front as possible, and that R. H. Ander son should at the same time make an attack in front. The Federal cavalry was in strong force between the right of the Confederate line and Five Forks, and Pick- ett s men, being compelled to drive the Federals out of their way the entire distance, the skirmishing in their front and flank being continuous, they could not of course make much of a record as to speed. After eighteen hours of continuous marching through the discomforts of rain, slush and hunger, and the dan gers of shot, shell and saber, Pickett reached Five Forks. There had already been a sharp skirmish at this point be tween the two cavalry forces. Immediately on Pickett s arrival he threw out two regiments of infantry, and the Federal cavalry was soon driven in. ON TO DINWIDDIE COURT-HOUSE. 383 It was Pickett s intention to push on to Dinwiddie Court-house, but, after consultation with Fitz Lee, the other cavalry not as yet having joined him, the night be ing dark and rainy, and his own men tired and worn out, it was decided that he should stop. In order to keep the Federals at a respectful distance during the night, Pickett threw out two of his brigades on the Court-house road. Corse and Terry advanced almost a mile, driving the Federal cavalry before them ; though, be ing dismounted and armed with the repeating rifle, the troopers made a vigorous fight. The strength of the enemy was beyond conjecture. On the morning of the 3ist, Lee led McGowan s, Gracie s, Hunton s and Wise s brigades against the Fed eral Fifth Corps, commanded by Warren, which was posted between Pickett s command and the Confederate forti fications. Warren was driven back behind Gravelly Run. Pickett placed W. H. F. Lee s and Rosser s cavalry on the right, followed by the infantry and artillery. Fitz Lee s division, commanded by Thomas T. Mumford, was at the left. W. H. F. Lee s cavalry preceded the infantry column on the direct road to a crossing at Chamberlayne s Creek, and Mumford moved by an immediate road in the same direction. At the fork of Chamberlayne s Creek, W. H. F. Lee made one of the most brilliant and severe cavalry fights of the war, forcing a crossing immediately in face of a superior force of the Federal troops, who had all the advantages of position, with a stream of water in front. The infantry were unable to cross at this point, and sought a passage lower down, Terry s brigade leading. It suffered serious loss in the passage, though it made a brilliant dash across the creek and killed and captured about a hundred of the enemy, driving their forces back to Dinwiddie Court-house. 384 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. * The loss of the Confederates was chiefly confined to W. H. F. Lee s cavalry and Terry s and Corse s brigades. Many valuable officers were killed. Although the Fifth Corps had suffered great loss, it rallied and charged against Lee s brigades, but was again forced back to White Oak road and then to the fortifica tions. The darkness of night fell over the Confederates with in but half a mile of Dinwiddie Court-house. Had some good Southern Joshua been there to stop the sun in its course for even one little half-hour the court-house would have been ours. The Federals were being strongly reinforced with in fantry, Grant, in response to Sheridan s request, having ordered up the Fifth Corps under Warren, numbering fifteen thousand. The whole of Sheridan s and Kautz s cavalry were in front, MacKenzie s division, sixteen thou sand strong, having been sent forward. When the battle was over Pickett sent a courier to Lee, who was on the lines at Petersburg, telling him of the suc cess of the day, but stating that he had just ascertained, through his scouts, the certainty of the heavy infantry support to Sheridan s cavalry at Dinwiddie Court-house, and that he had no option but to withdraw with his small force. This he proposed to do under cover of the night. Further assurance of the truth of this report proved to Pickett that his decision was a judicious one. He ac cordingly left the front of Dinwiddie Court-house at two o clock on the morning of the 1st day of April, and started back toward Five Forks. Thus ended another scene in the fifth act of the tragedy on which the dark curtain was so soon to fall. CHAPTER XLVII. FIVE FORKS. For nearly two years after the fatal battle of Gettys burg the war had drawn its slow length along with vary ing fortunes, and now the end had almost come. Im penetrable gloom had closed around the Confederacy, and its shadow fell heavily over those who for four years had so heroically borne the heartbreak of ineffectual struggle. In February, 1865, President Davis relinquished his military authority, and General R. E. Lee became gen- eral-in-chief of the Confederate armies. All communi cation with foreign powers was closed, and no more hope of assistance remained. Lee s object was to reach the mountainous regions of Virginia and North Carolina and join Johnston s forces, while Grant s policy was to prevent the juncture. On the last of March Lee s army of less than forty thousand was stretched until its extreme right rested on Five Forks, fifteen miles southwest of Petersburg, a situ ation which justified Lee s reflection on the 2d of April, when the line had been penetrated by the Federal Sixth Corps, and the gallant A. P. Hill lay dead on the field near Petersburg: "It has happened as I told them at Rich mond it would happen. The line has been stretched until it has broken." During the long struggle of the South for nationality, no more desperate and heroic action occurred than took place at Five Forks on April I, 1865. When Federal reinforcements were sent to Sheridan 25 385 386 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. at Dinwiddie Court-house the intention of Grant was that the Fifth Corps, fifteen thousand strong, should attack Pickett s left and cut off retreat. Grant was general-in-chief of the United States Army, and his power was exceedingly great, but he could not control the elements. The rain fell heavily on the night of the 3ist, and the Fifth Corps, toiling over the difficult road, found no enemy awaiting it at the end of its weari some journey. Pickett, having notice of the projected attack, changed his orders for battle, and withdrew to Five Forks, which he reached early in the morning of April i, followed by Sheri dan s troops. The movement was made in perfect order and as discreetly and quietly as possible. They brought all their wounded off the field and buried all their dead. After a fatiguing march over roads and streams almost impassable because of the heavy rains, Five Forks was reached, where, having a few hours the start of Sheridan, Pickett halted to rest, but almost immediately upon his arrival he received a message from Lee, in response to one sent by Pickett the preceding day, saying: Hold Five Forks at all hazards. Protect road to Ford s Depot and prevent Union forces from striking the South-side Railroad. Re gret exceedingly your forced withdrawal, and your inability to hold the advantage you had gained. R. E. LEE. Five Forks, the point which Lee ordered Pickett to "hold at all hazards," is simply a crossing at right angles of two country roads and the deflecting of a third road bisecting one of these angles. It is situated in a low, flat country, and has no natural points of defense. Its only fortification was a hastily constructed breastwork. The place was absolutely not capable of being pro tected except by a very large body of troops, and the FIVE FORKS. 387 small force directed to hold it could easily have been turned on the right or left and isolated from the main army at Petersburg. It was, therefore, a most unfortu nate selection of a field on which to meet a superior force, and yet six thousand men infantry, cavalry and artillery, all told were stationed here to hold the ground against an attack by thirty-five thousand troops, supported by heavy artillery. The task was impossible of achievement, but the effort was, nevertheless, most bravely made. Where nature supports a small force of men the com bination may prove invincible, even to an army much su perior in numbers. She throws up impregnable defenses, erects stone walls and creates caves of darkness for the protection of her chosen few. On a straight, wide plain nature stands aside and views the antagonists with im partial eye, while Mars radiantly smiles upon the largest army and the heaviest guns. Pickett had all his trains parked in rear of Hatcher s Run, and would have greatly preferred to hold his posi tion at that point. He inferred, however, from Lee s selection of Five Forks and his positive order to hold it "at all hazards," that he, of course, intended to send to him at once a strong reinforcement. Immediately, therefore, upon the receipt of Lee s per emptory order to "hold Five Forks" Pickett formed his line of battle on the White Oak road, at right angles and across the Ford road which intersects the South-side Railroad, and set his men to throwing up breastworks. They dug a ditch, felled pine-trees, and threw the earth up behind the felled logs, and though they knew the holding of Five Forks would be hazardous, cheerfully worked and waited. It was nine o clock on Saturday morning, when the line was formed. The number and disposition of the Confederate force was as follows: 388 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Matt Ransom s and Wallace s brigades, acting as one, and, combined, not numbering over eight hundred men, were on the left. Stuart s brigade, amounting to about one thousand, was next on the right, and extended to the forks of the roads. Then came Corse s brigade, one thousand strong, and then Terry s, eight hundred strong, support ing Corse s on the right of the line. The six rifled pieces of artillery were placed along the line at wide intervals. Fitz Lee s cavalry was ordered into position on the left flank; W. H. F. Lee s on the right flank; McCausland s and Bearing s cavalry were all of Rosser s division that were present, though they did fine service. The cavalry numbered in all about twenty-five hundred men. Thus cavalry, infantry and artillery amounted to not over six thousand men, to meet Sheridan s cavalry, numbering in itself more than five times that of Pickett s whole com mand. In addition to Sheridan s own force, he was sup ported by Warren s infantry corps. As soon as the Confederates were in position they be gan cutting down trees, piling up logs, digging trenches and erecting obstructions. Their work was interrupted only when they were compelled to seize their guns to re pel an attack. Three times the labor was thus suspended, the Federals having begun the attack upon the front as soon as the line was formed. Having repelled the foe, they would immediately return to their work, which they enlivened by singing "My Maryland," "Dixie," and "Bonnie Blue Flag." The hurried work of three hours of these hungry, march-fatigued veterans, a shallow ditch, a few loose, dirt- covered pine logs were their only line of breastworks, and yet these devoted men were ready to " do or die." About two o clock in the afternoon, a general advance and attack began along the whole front and on the right FIVE FORKS. 389 flank, which was quickly repulsed with considerable loss to the enemy. Pickett had a short time before ridden to the north side of Hatcher s Run and, hearing the sound of battle, he galloped through a rain of fire and balls from Crawford s troops on the Ford road. Soon after he reached his command Colonel Pegram of the artillery was mortally wounded, and fell near where the General was standing reforming his line. Pegram was shot from his horse by a sharpshooter just after the charge had been repulsed, and fell in rear of two of his guns. A few minutes after this attack a terrific fire of mus ketry to the left and rear was heard. The apprehension of Pickett s troops that the left wing had been turned and doubled back and that they would be taken in reverse proved unhappily true. Warren s corps had swept around to the left flank, while Sheridan s cavalry, mounted and dismounted, was engaging the front and right. Warren forced Ransom and Wallace back and doubled them on Stuart s brigade of Pickett s division. Hunton s brigade was withdrawn from the front, moved double-quick to the left and thrown forward to meet the attacking column, Pickett leading, cheering on the men, waving the Confederate battle-flag. He dashed up to Colonel Floweree, whose regiment was on the left. Informing him of the situation of affairs, he said: "I depend upon your regiment to save the day. You will have to grapple with twice your number, but I know I can depend upon you." Colonel Floweree, was a fearless, gallant, determined soldier, and a jovial, jolly fellow. "I shall follow the moon, Marse George [meaning he should go westward], and we ll save the day, if our last man has to bite his daddy s dust. Your boys are all 39 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. too gallant and deferential to bite the dust of their mammy, you know, Marse George." The General smiled and rode on. He crossed the road to higher ground within forty paces of where the enemy s columns were massed, whence came showers of bullets falling around him, but his life seemed a charmed one. The men were dropping at every volley, and the order to retreat was repeated three times, but his "boys" re fused to move till their General should come, and then they retreated at double-quick and in good order. " Follow the moon!" called out Colonel Floweree. Death or prison was their choice. Many chose the former. Pickett, Terry, Corse, Stuart and Ransom were across the road calling on the men to get into line to meet the next onslaught. A part of the famous Glee Club, with Gentry leading, were singing, " Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again." Near them was the ensign of the First Virginia Regiment with his colors and guard, cheering and sing ing. As they sang Pickett rode up, still waving the battle-flag which he had taken from the hand of a fallen color-bearer, and his deep voice joined with theirs in the rallying-song. There were very few to rally around that battle-flag, stained crimson with the noblest blood of the South, sacred to a cause for which many a brave man had died, and many another had offered his life, willing to fall rather than see that banner suffer dishonor. Very few they were, compared with the host arrayed against them, but their voices rang out boldly and the notes of their battle-song echoed and re-echoed from the forest. At this time the Confederates were just four hundred yards in rear of Five Forks, and though the Federals hail FIVE FORKS. 391 captured many prisoners, principally from Ransom s, lace s and Stuart s brigades, they had gained but little ground. Pegram s men stood with their horses, ready to return to their guns as soon as the opportunity should present. The Federals charged upon the front and right, straight through the open field to the woods in which the Confed erate line was formed. A heavy force was thrown around the right and left, the Federal cavalry poured down on the right and rear. Pickett s men were entrapped, held as in a vise by the cavalry, with a line of infantry in the rear, a deadly fire from all sides. They formed in front, north and south, and met with desperate valor this double onset. Cut to pieces, de feated, captured, all that were left of them still pressed on in sullen determination. The closest fighting of the war was done here. So near together were the opponents that they clubbed each other with their muskets. Again and again the heroic little band rallied " round the flag," fighting on this ground, unknown to them, until darkness fell so heavily that the} r knew not friend from foe. Never were troops more hardly pressed, never did troops fight more gallantly. Surrounded by a force which outnumbered them more than five to one, with no de fenses, no fortifications, starving, famishing, they simply yielded to overwhelming numbers and could have been cap tured by Warren and Sheridan any time after two o clock in the afternoon. They would probably all have been de stroyed on the retreat but for the brave stand of Corse s brigade and the gallantry of W. H. F. Lee s cavalry, who held the Federal troopers until the woodland was reached. As the General rode off the field he saw a band of sol diers who had paused and seemed to be drawing toward 39 2 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. themselves the fire of the enemy. He did not know why they did this. He learned later that the devoted little group were offering their lives to save him. There were but few to leave the field. The many stayed behind, lying in heaped-up masses on that ground which they had so heroically defended. Night reverently covered them with her dark shroud and her tears fell softly on their still, white faces. The stars crept out one by one in the deep, wide waste of sky and kept solemn vigil over the dead. General Longstreet says: The position was not of General Pickett s choosing, but of his orders; and from his orders he assumed that he would be reinforced. His execution was all that a skilful commander could apply. He re ported as to his position and the movements of the enemy threatening to cut off his command from the army, but no force came to guard his right. The reinforcements joined him after night, when his battle had been lost and his command disorganized. The cavalry of his left was in neg lect in failing to report the advance of the enemy, but that was not for want of proper orders from his headquarters. Though taken by sur prise, there was no panic in any part of the command; brigade after bri gade changed front to the left and received the overwhelming battle as it rolled on, and was crushed back to the next, before it could deploy out to aid the front, or flank attack, until the last right brigade of the brave Corse changed and stood alone on the left of W. H. F. Lee s cavalry, fronting at right angle against the enemy s cavalry columns. It is not claiming too much for that grand division to say that, aided by the brigades of Ransom and Wallace, they could not have been dis lodged from their intrenched position by parallel battle even by the great odds against them. As it was, Ayres s division staggered under the pelting blows that it met, and Crawford s drifted off from the blows against it, until it thus found the key of the battle away beyond the Con federate limits. In generalship Pickett was not a bit below the "gay rider" [Sheri dan]. His defensive battle was better organized, and it is possible that he would have gained the day if his cavalry had been diligent in giving information of the movements of the enemy. FIVE FORKS. 393 After the surrender of Appomattox Court-house, Gen eral Pickett received the following letter: HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April 10, 1865. GENERAL: General Lee wishes you to make at once a short report of the operations of your command from the time of the recent attack of the enemy near Petersburg to the present. He desires you also to call upon the commanders of the divisions which were assigned to you since the recent operations commenced, for reports embracing their opera tions between the time of the attack above referred to and the time of their assignment to your command. He wishes to have these before the army is dispersed, that he may have some data on which to base his own report. Very respectfully your obedient servant, (Signed) W. H. TAYLOR, Assistant Adjutant-General. Official: LATROBE, A. A.-G. MAJOR-GENERAL G. E. PICKETT, Commanding. In response to this request, General Pickett sent the following statement: COLONEL: I have the honor to report that on the 2pth of March, a tele gram from headquarters of the Army of Northern Virginia was received at my headquarters at Swift Creek, ordering me to proceed with two brigades at that point (Corse s and Terry s), to cross the Appomattox and take the cars on the South-side Railroad for Sutherland s Station, Stuart s brigade, then in position in front of Petersburg, to join me en route. Hunton s bri gade was at this time on the north side of the James. Accordingly the col umn was put in motion, the three brigades reaching Sutherland s about nine o clock in the evening. Shortly afterward came an order from Lieutenant-General Anderson, to come on to the White Oak road and take position on the right of Major-General Bushrod Johnson s division. This was done by daybreak, through a drenching rain, the three bri gades extending some distance up the road. The commander-in-chief, about twelve in the day, ordered me to move on with my three brigades, and two brigades under command of Brigadier-General M. Ransom (his own and Wallace s), and a battery of artillery under Colonel Pegram, to the Five Forks. Here Major-General Fitz Lee was with his division of cavalry, and Major-Generals W. H. F. Lee and Rosser were to join 394 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. him with their divisions. The march was necessarily slow, on account of the continual skirmishing, front and flank, with the Federal cavalry. They at one time charged in on the wagon-train, but were repulsed by Ransom. In front we had to drive them out of the way nearly the whole distance until we joined Fitz Lee at the Five Forks about sunset. I learned then that part of the ordnance-train had been turned back, it was said, by orders from the commander-in-chief. General Ransom had his ordnance-wagons, and on these we had to depend for supplying the whole command in the engagements which followed. I was about to push on toward Dinwiddie Court-house, when, upon consultation with General Fitz Lee (the other cavalry not having joined him, and it being nearly dark, and the men much in need of rest from an almost con tinuous march of eighteen hours), I determined to throiv out merely a couple of brigades, on the Court-house road, so as to keep the enemy at a respectful distance during the night. This was done, Corse and Terry advancing some three-quarters of a mile, driving the Federal cavalry, \vho, however, being dismounted and armed with the repeating rifle, made a vigorous fight. It rained throughout the night, and up to about twelve the next day. General Fitz Lee s scouts and guides could not ascertain exactly the opposing strength, but, from the prisoners taken up to this time, I knew we had no infantry in our front. We discovered at daylight, that the enemy were quite strongly posted in a good position on the Court-house road. The rest of the cavalry having gotten up about ten o clock in the morning, I determined to push on along a road still further to the right, cross the stream higher up with General W. H. F. Lee s and Rosser s cavalry, and the infantry, leaving Fitz Lee s division to come up the direct road toward the Court-house, as we advanced on the right. The rain had greatly swollen the streams, which was the chief reason for the delay of the cavalry. General W. H. F. Lee, with his division, very gallantly charged over the creek, but the enemy were too strong to be repulsed. The infantry, consequently, were not able to cross at that point and (the stream not being fordable) were compelled to draw back. I pushed the infantry across lower down, Terry s brigade leading, Colonel Mayo with the Third Virginia in advance. This regi ment suffered a good deal, but the men gallantly dashed over the creek and swamp, killing and capturing, after a sharp engagement, about a hundred. Our whole force then moved on. Our adversary, meanwhile strongly reinforced, made a determined resistance, and it was dark when we arrived within half a mile of the Court-house. W. H. F. Lee s cav alry had crossed at the same point and Fitz Lee s division had come up on the left. FIVE FORKS. 395 This engagement was quite a spirited one, the men and officers be having most admirably. Our loss was principally confined to W. H. F. Lee s cavalry and Terry s and Corse s brigades, among them many valu able officers. The Federals suffered heavy loss; half an hour more of daylight and we would have reached the Court-house. As it was, some prisoners were taken belonging to the Fifth Corps (Warren s) The fact being thus developed that our opponents were reinforcing with infantry, and knowing the whole of Sheridan s and Kautz s cavalry were in our front, I was induced to fall back at daylight in the morning to the Five Forks, which I was directed- by telegram from the com- mander-in-chief to hold, so as to protect the road to Ford s Depot. This movement was made in perfect order, bringing off all our wounded and burying all our dead. The enemy was, however, pressing upon our rear in force. I had all trains parked in rear of Hatcher s Run and would have preferred that position, but from the telegram referred to, I supposed the commanding general intended sending up reinforcements. I had, in the meantime, reported by telegram, and informed the general commanding of the state of affairs, that the enemy was trying to get in between the main army and my command, and asking that diversion be made or I should be isolated. This evidently was intended, as Hunton s brigade did come up to Sutherland s, but not till after dark. The best arrangements were made of which the nature of the ground admitted; W. H. F. Lee s cavalry on the right, then Corse, Terry, Stuart, Ran som and Wallace. General Fitz Lee was ordered to cover the ground between Wallace s left and the creek, with his cavalry dismounted. The Federals pushed up steadily from the Court-house and commenced ex tending to our left. General Ransom moved still further to the left, and I extended Stuart s brigade so as to cover his ground. General Ran som sent word to me that the cavalry were not in position. General Fitz Lee was again ordered to cover the ground at once, and I supposed it had been done, when suddenly the enemy in heavy infantry column appeared on our left front, and the attack which had, up to that time, been confined principally to our front toward the Court-house now be came general. Charge after charge was repulsed; but the Federals still kept pouring up division after division, and pressing round our left. General Ransom, perceiving this, took his brigade from behind his tem porary breastworks and boldly charged the heavy column, effecting great havoc and temporarily checking its movement. His horse was killed, he falling under him, and his assistant adjutant-general, the brave but unfortunate Captain Gee, was killed. The few cavalry, however, which had taken position, gave way, and the assailants came 396 PICKETT AND HIS ME if. pouring in on Wallace s left, causing his men to fall back. Pegram had been mortally wounded, the captain of the battery killed, and many of the men killed and wounded. I succeeded, nevertheless, in getting a sergeant, with men enough for one piece, put in position on the left, and fired some eight rounds into the head of the Federal column, when the axle broke, disabling the piece. I almost immediately withdrew Terry s brigade from its position, and threw it on the left flank, charging over Wallace s men and forcing them back to their position. Even then, with all the odds against us, we might have held till night, which was fast approaching, but the ammunition was rapidly failing. Colonel Floweree s regiment, after their cartridges were expended, fought hand to hand, but it was of no avail, and, although the Federal dead lay in heaps, we were obliged to give way, our left being com pletely turned. Wallace s brigade again broke, though some of its offi cers behaved most gallantly and used their utmost exertions to reform it, but in vain! Everything assumed the appearance of a panic, when, by dint of great personal exertion on the part of my staff, together with the general officers and their staff-officers, we compelled a rally and stand on Corse s brigade, which was still in perfect order and had repelled, as had W. H. F. Lee s cavalry, every assault. One of the most brilliant cavalry engagements of the war took place on this part of the field, near Mrs. Gilliam s residence. Here the Fed eral cavalry made a most determined attack in heavy force, but were in turn charged by General W. H. F. Lee, and completely driven off the field. This, with the firm stand made by Corse s men, and those that could be rallied at this point, enabled many to escape capture. Thus the shades of the evening closed on the bloody field. Had the cavalry on the left done as well as that on the right, the day would probably have been ours; as it was, it was most stubbornly contested against great odds. The whole of Sheridan s cavalry joined with Kautz s, the Second Corps and part of the Sixth, were attacking us. I learned a few days afterward, from a general of division in Warren s corps, that it was nineteen thousand strong, making the whole force probably thirty-five thousand, while we had not more than six thousand engaged. Our loss in killed and wounded was very severe, and many were captured. Colonel Mumford, commanding General Fitz Lee s division, was quite active, and lent great assistance personally. During the evening, a large portion of the command having been assembled on the railroad, I proceeded with them toward Exeter Mills, intending to cross the Ap- pomattox at that point, and rejoin the main army. While at that point I received orders, by a staff-officer, to report to Lieutenant-General FIVE FORKS. 397 R. H. Anderson at Sutherland s. At daylight the following morning I started to comply with the order, but had not proceeded far when I found the road strewn with unarmed stragglers from Wilcox s and Heth s divisions, who informed me that the lines in front of Petersburg had been forced. I decided immediately to follow up the river and join General Anderson, who, I learned, had gone in that direction, striking for Amelia Court-house. I omitted to mention that most of Ransom s brigade had crossed the river at Exeter Mills. I reported to General Anderson on the same day, and that night Hunton s brigade reported. They had also been in a heavy fight and had suffered severely, though they had acted with their usual good conduct. From this point up to the battle of Sailor s Run (a report of which I forwarded through General Anderson) there is nothing of any moment to relate except occasional skirmishing and continual marching night and day, with scarcely any rations. The second day after the battle referred to, not being able to find General Anderson s headquarters, I reported to Lieutenant-General Longstreet, and continued to receive orders from him until the army was paroled and dispersed. Early on the morning of the surrender, when the Federals made an advance from toward Ap- pomattox Court-house, Lieutenant-General Longstreet sent to General Heth a staff-officer (Captain Dunn) with orders to move up at once with his division. I had the remnant of my division, some eight hun dred aggregate, drawn up on Heth s left, and informed Captain Dunn of the fact, and that we would move with Heth; this he authorized, and afterwards informed me of General Longstreet s approval. The order to advance was, however, shortly afterward countermanded. I mention this fact merely to show that, even at the last, what few men of the old division were left were willing and ready to do their utmost to maintain the name they had so nobly won for heroism during four years of a bloody and terrible war, in which Virginia s sons had poured out (as a sacrifice for a liberty unfortunately not to be gained) the best blood of the proud old State. It is needless in this my last report of Pickett s division, to recall to the commander-in-chief, the trials, hardships and battles through which they have passed. Baptized in war at Bull Run and the First Manassas, under Lieutenant-General Longstreet s instruction, they con tinued to follow the lessons first taught them, on their various marches; in the lines about Yorktown; at the glorious battle of Williamsburg, when they, with Wilson s Alabama brigade, withstood the advance of the whole of McClellan s Grand Army, and absolutely drove it back; at the Seven Pines, when they were so highly complimented by General Jos. 39 8 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. * E. Johnston; and at Gaines s Mill, Frazier s Farm, Second Manassas, Boonsboro, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, and the engagements about the lines in front of Bermuda Hundred, Fort Harrison, etc., which came under the personal observation of the commander-in-chief. The writ ten and spoken acknowledgments of their worth from him have been gratefully appreciated by them. There having been no brigade or regimental reports handed in, it is impossible to state the casualties which have occurred in the last cam paign. I must not conclude without mentioning the gallantry and un tiring zeal in the cause exhibited by the brigade commanders, Generals Corse, Hunton, Terry, and Stuart, and their valuable staff-officers, some of whom were killed and others wounded (General Terry s aide-de camp, Lieutenant Harris, was killed, and Captain Fitzhugh, General Hunton s assistant adjutant-general, wounded, and Captain Bryaat, General Terry s assistant adjutant-general, wounded); and of the offi cers of my staff, Majors Pickett and Harrison, adjutant and inspectors- general ; Major Horace Jones, commissary of subsistence ; Major R. Taylor Scott, quartermaster; Chief Surgeon M. M. Lewis; Captains Baird, Symington, and Bright, aide-de-camps; Captain Cochrane, ord nance officer. In connection with this department (ordnance) I must not forget to mention the name, for ability and efficiency, of Captain S. G. Leitch, who had charge of it for three years; in fact, up to a short time before the campaign commenced. To the commanding officers of regiments my thanks and those of our State are due for their maintenance of discipline in their regiments, their continual and unswerving confidence in the cause, and their personal ac tivity on the many battle-fields, in leading on their men to victory, or sustaining them under their various hardships. Such names as those of Montague, Phillips, Strange, Edmonds, Stuart, Herbert, Carrington, Green, Mayo, the Berkeleys, Floweree, White, Gantt, Preston, Peyton, Patton, Gary, Garland, Withers, Magruder, Langhorne, Otey, Hodges, August, Marye, Moore, Chew, Aylett, Slaughter, etc., should not be for gotten in Virginia s history. I am, Colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant. (Signed) G. E. PICKETT, Major-General Commanding. COLONEL W. H. TAYLOR, Assistant Adjutant-General, Army of Northern Virginia. CHAPTER XLVIII. SAILOR S CREEK. Pickett s command, nobly acquiescent in the sacri fices incidental to their defeat at Five Forks, calmly confident in the justice of their cause, ever maintained unwavering loyalty. They held themselves in readi ness to follow their beloved and fearless commander with undaunted courage wheresoever he should lead them. During the evening of the 1st of April the command collected, and assembled on the railroad, rallying around their headquarters flag. War-worn and weary, weakened by sufferings inconceivable, sadly reduced in numbers by losses in killed and captured, depressed, not only by past disasters but by the certainty of future defeat, they gathered bravely around their leader and their flag, with a courage which might lead them to death but would for ever preserve them from dishonor. Early Sunday morning, the 2d of April, following the battle of Five Forks, Pickett, after reviewing his men, thanked them for their confidence in him, and for their valiant services in the last onslaught through which they had just passed. With words of courage he gave the order to march, proceeding with them toward Exeter Mills, at which point it was his intention to cross the Appomattox River and rejoin the main army. While the command, however, was at a halt at Exeter Mills, Pickett received, through a staff-officer, an order from R. H. Anderson to report to him at Sutherland s 399 400 PICKETT AND HIS MEN, Tavern. Most of Matt Ransom s brigade had already gone across the river at Exeter Mills. On the following morning, just as the day was breaking, Pickett, in accordance with the orders received from Ander son, started out with his command, but he had not gone very far on his way when he found the road blocked and strewn with stragglers from Heth s and Wilcox s divisions. These wanderers informed Pickett that the lines in front of Petersburg had been forced, that they had been cut off from Petersburg, and that Anderson had gone on toward Amelia Court-house. Assured of the truth of this information, Pickett immediately followed on up the river, and on the evening of the same clay (the 2d of April) joined Anderson at Deep Creek, nearly famished, for no rations had been issued since the scanty supply of the 29th and yet not a murmur was heard. A few hours afterward Hunton s brigade, numbering about nine hundred, reported. This brigade had also been severely engaged, meeting with serious loss. On their march they learned that their beloved A. P. Hill had been killed at Petersburg, and just as they were going into bivouac came, too, the first sad intelligence of the evacuation of Richmond and its partial destruction by fire. These mournful tidings struck a knell of despair to every heart, but especially to those whose families and homes, together with all their worldly possessions, were within the captured, burning city. With the light which we now have, it seems strange that this blow should have been made heavier by com ing as a surprise, but the fact was, that the loss of their capital was a calamity for which the Confeder ate soldiers were wholly unprepared. It seemed, how ever, but to strengthen their resolve as they perseveringly marched on. SAILOR S CREEK. 401 To describe the sufferings of the march on to Amelia Court-house and thence to Sailor s Creek would be to paint a picture of the darkest horror. The army supplies were utterly exhausted. There was no food to be had in the country. All the homes along the line had been stripped by those who had come in advance. There was nothing to eat but a little parched corn when they stopped long enough to parch it. This "they shelled from the ear as they marched along. Many of the men, overcome by fatigue and suffering, loss of sleep and hunger, succumbed by the way, and others found themselves going to sleep as they walked along and would stumble and fall in the road. Now and then they made a halt for a skirmish, with the enemy, who were on all sides, front, rear and both flanks. Time and again during the forty-eight hours they were forced to halt and not only draw up in line of battle, but form a hollow square to prevent capture. The tortures of the march were intensified by the fact that it led through a country in which lived the families and friends of many of these soldiers who were marching on to death, imprisonment, or to the humiliation of de feat. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that they were within a few hours of their homes and loved ones, whom they had not seen, many of them for months and many for years, there was but little straggling. Although it was not safe to stray far from the com mand on account of the enemy s cavalry, yet now and then some one of these starving heroes, impelled by the pangs of hunger, would venture off in a vain search for food, only to fall from weakness by the wayside. All the sufferings, privations, and hardships of the four preceding years put together would not equal those en dured on this march to Amelia Court-house, yet they went bravely on, sustained by the hope that food awaited them: 26 402 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. there. Lee, knowing that they had started off with only a day s rations, had ordered provisions to that point. In the meantime the fatality foreseen by the prescient Lee had taken place. The last blow had fallen upon the doomed Confederacy. The dread message which had flashed across the wires on the morning of Sunday, the 2d of April, had interrupted the devotions of the government officials in St. Paul s Church in Richmond, to tell them that their capital had fallen. They hastened from the church to the State-house* to secure the Confederate archives and convey them to a place of safety. Then, giving orders for the firing of the city, they left on the evening train, lighted on their way by the flames which illumined the capital, and followed by the thunderous reports of the exploding ironclads on the James. Next morning the victorious army came scurrying across country, pell-mell, in a wild race to see which could be first in at the death, for Richmond had fallen. At the very time that the ragged, hungry, weary, suf fering soldiers of a lost cause were marching on their painful journey, cheering themselves with the hope of succor at the next halting-place, the flag of the victors was waving over the capital city of the Confederacy. Upon arriving at Amelia on the afternoon of the 4th, the army ascertained that the supplies ordered by Lee had been brought to the point designated, but the authori ties had immediately sent the train containing them to Richmond to bring away the officials of the fallen capi tal, and by some strange misunderstanding it had gone on without waiting to unload! Thus was the great army of brave, patient, suffering men, who had offered for their cause life, home, and all the hopes and aspirations they had ever known, sacrificed SAILOR S CREEK. 403 for a few civic officers and the archives of a nation which had died in its birth. The Confederate forces were now widely scattered. Lee recognized the necessity of concentration. On leaving Richmond, his intention was to retreat to Danville, on the southern boundary of Virginia, southwest of Richmond, from which point he hoped to effect a projected union with Johnston. His first objective point was Burkesville, fifty-two miles south of Richmond, at the junction of the Richmond and Danville and the Norfolk and Western railroads. This place safely reached, he could destroy the roads in the rear and for a time escape pursuit. He had gained some hours, and might have carried his plan to success but for the delay caused by the fatal mistake in ordering off the loaded train of supplies which he had taken such pains to provide. The sufferings of the starving army, and the consequent halts which were made in efforts to obtain subsistence, enabled Sheridan to overpass Lee and reach Jetersville on the Danville Railroad, seven miles southwest of Amelia, from which place he telegraphed Grant at Petersburg. Grant arrived at Jetersville at mid night, presented himself at the headquarters of Sheridan, who, roused from his slumbers, hastened to meet him. Sheridan explained the position by means of a sketch hastily drawn upon a letter which he took from his pocket. " Lee is caught," said Grant. " It will be hard for him to get away." Perhaps it was hard, but when Sheridan arrived at Amelia on the morning of the 6th of April, he found that the difficult feat had been accomplished, and Lee had once more eluded a well-laid plot. On the morning of the 6th, Pickett reached Sailor s Creek, where for some hours he made a halt in line of 404 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. battle. This creek is a marshy stream, difficult to cross, running westerly into the Appomattox. In the meantime every effort was being made by the Confederates to push on their wagon-trains and artillery across the Appomattox River at Farmville, a small town west of the Danville Railroad. The mud and mire and famishing animals made the progress slow. Soldiers may live for a time on hope and patriotism, but mules and horses must have fodder and corn. Both the wagon-road to Lynchburg and the South-side Railroad cross the Ap pomattox at Farmville, and the latter again five miles east of it, at High Bridge. The river being too deep to ford, Farmville therefore became an important point to both armies. Ewell s command was on Pickett s left, and Mahone s division was on his right. Sheridan, with his thousands of well-fed, well-equipped cavalry, was in front, making every demonstration to delay the Confederates from at tacking until he should be reinforced by his infantry. Meantime Mahone received orders to move on, thus leaving a gap in the Confederate line, which grew wider as Mahone advanced. Hunton, from his position on the right of Pickett s division, observed this movement and gave notice of it to Pickett, who at once made a report to Anderson of Mahone s withdrawal, and of the consequent danger to his own command, and asked permission to follow Mahone. The order, however, which Anderson had received from the commander-in-chief to "hold on in connection with Ewell s command, unfortunately prevented him," he said, "from complying with Pickett s request." In the meanwhile, the gap between Pickett and Mahone was increasing. SAILOR S CREEK. 405 Colonel Huger s battalion of artillery attempted to cross this gap when Mahone was a mile or more in advance of Pickett. This movement was defeated by Sheridan, who made a swift and vigorous attack upon Huger. Pickett, witnessing this byplay, immediately pushed with his division across Sailor s Creek and charged upon the Federals with two of his brigades, and the other two quickly followed. Sheridan, taken by surprise, was driven back more than half a mile, abandoning two of Huger s captured guns in his haste. He carried off Colonel Huger with him, but Captain Grattan, Colonel Huger s adjutant, made his es cape on one of the artillery-horses, carrying a gun with him. Pickett then formed line of battle and held it against the repeated attacks of Sheridan s dismounted cavalry. His division was by this time completely isolated, both flanks being unprotected. About three o clock shout after shout was echoed from the Federal lines. Pickett s men knew it meant that the infantry, so anxiously looked for by Sheridan, had come to his aid, and they realized the increased perils of their position. The Federal cavalry and infantry began at once to close around the Confederate right. Anderson, seeing that Pickett s men were being hemmed in on all sides, and knowing that it was too late then for him to move on his line of march, gave the order to Pickett to draw off his brigades to the rear, and to cut his way out in any man ner possible. Anderson, in order that he might assist Pickett in this movement, deployed Wise s brigade in the rear of Pick ett s line of battle. Sheridan at once charged on every side. Pickett s men, overwhelmed by numbers, fighting hand-to-hand, stubbornly resisted to the bitter end their 406 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. flfe inevitable fate. Many of the men broke their guns, and many of the officers snapped their swords in two, rather than surrender them to the enemy. They fought as hero ically and nobly on this, their last battle-field, when all hope was gone, as they had ever done in any battle, even when in their first flush of glory, and in perfect faith of ultimate success. Corse and Hunton were taken prisoners, with almost the entire remnant of their commands. Stewart and Terry succeeded in getting off the field. Pickett himself, with Colonel Walter Harrison and his medical director, Dr. M. M. Lewis, escaped death or capture almost by a miracle. Pickett, seeing several squadrons of cavalry rid ing directly down upon them, rallied around him a mere squad of his beloved old division, and with this last rally the men fired their parting shot into the faces of the ad vancing horsemen, and in the momentary check they made their escape. In the annals of warfare there is found no page which glows more vividly with the light of heroism than does that which records the retreat of the Confederate army after the battle of Sailor s Creek. Starving, jaded by forced marches and strenuous exertion in battle, it yet found strength to turn and with its old-time impetu osity and transcendent effort, force back twice across the stream the strong, well-fed, victorious army of Sheridan. Friend and foe alike have marveled over such wondrous gallantry displayed in the face of so great suffering and disaster. Truly the last flashes of the expiring flames of Southern hopes and Southern ambitions have shed imperishable glory over the record of the men who kept those flames alive through over four years of heroic struggle against overwhelming odds of men and resources. SAILOR S CREEK. 407 After the battle of Sailor s Creek occurred the first reunion of the Blue and Gray. It was when Sheridan s soldiers shared their rations with Pickett s men until Grant issued orders for their supply. Thus the voice of a common ancestry of blood and kinship was heard as an echo to the roar of cannon. In after years came other reunions. CHAPTER XLIX. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. When Abraham Lincoln stood at the foot of Cemetery Ridge and looked upward to where the frowning cannon had so short a time before sent its leaden death to the valley below, some one said to him, " Think of the men who held these heights!" "Yes," he replied, "but think of the men who stormed these heights!" As Pickett s division, weary, foot-sore and heart-sore, wended their toilsome way through Pennsylvania, on the march which ended on the field of Gettysburg, they passed a small Dutch house nestling away in the greenery of a pleasant village. As they came near a little maid rushed out upon the porch, waving the stars and stripes in a wild burst of patriotic enthusiasm. For a moment the leader of that wayworn band felt apprehensive that not all its members could be depended upon to maintain their chivalry in the presence of that ban ner which to them represented so much of wrong done upon their native soil. Many of them had come from the war- ravaged district of Suffolk, and Southerners will know what that flag meant to them. Instantly the General wheeled from the line and, taking off his cap, bowed to the little maid with all that grace for which he was noted in camp as well as drawing-room, and respectfully saluted the flag of his foes. Then turning he lifted his hand, and when the long line had passed every man in it had doffed his cap to the youthful patriot and had saluted the banner which she had made her gage of battle. 408 THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 409 The delighted little maiden, who had never before re ceived the homage of a whole division, cried out in a glow of gratitude: "I wish I had a Confederate flag; I would wave that, too!" The General was asked afterward how he could bring himself to salute the enemy s flag. " I did not salute the enemy s flag," he replied. "I .saluted the heroic womanhood in the heart of that brave little girl, and the glorious old banner under which I won my first laurels." On the twenty-fourth anniversary of the greatest battle of the western continent the men who held those heights and the men who stormed those heights all that were left of them met on the old blood-stained field where the bravest deeds known to history had been performed. Peace had laid her soft mantle over the heights which nearly a quarter of a century before had been frowned upon by war s wrinkled visage. In majestic silence the peaks looked skyward through the golden sun. An amber glory lay over the summit of Little Round Top, and the stream at its base which had once flowed crimson now reflected in silvery gleams the light above it. The clouds of battle had drifted away long ago, and in their place were only soft gray mists, sun-tinted, float ing like a veil of peace around the crest where once the Philadelphia brigade met the onset of Pickett s men. The war-clouds had vanished, but many of the brave defenders of the height yet remained. As generous in peace as they had been brave in war, they had come with outstretched hands to welcome all who were left of the ragged veterans who so valiantly scaled Cemetery Heights on that terrible July day which had burned its fiery mark upon the pages of our history. 4IO PICKETT AND HIS MEN. j Every part of that ground had been consecrated by a deed of heroism. The banner of the South furled itself in sadness around its broken flag-staff long ago, but the field on which its heroes fought and fell is sacred to all Southern hearts. Here, upon this spot, fell a young lieu tenant, wounded unto death, carrying the battle-flag of the South. When the searchers from the hospital went over the field to perform their sad duty they found him lying under a tree with a worn blanket for a pillow. His youthful face was white with pain and exhaustion. Such a very young face it was, one could not help thinking that the arm of a loving mother would be a far more fitting pil low than the rough old army blanket for the boyish head. The farewell kisses of home seemed yet to linger upon the gentle lips. He was sadly wounded, but refused to be taken to the hospital, stating as a reason for the rejection of the prof fered aid that he was comfortable, and others worse hurt than he should be cared for first. So they left him, be cause he urged them to do so, and when they came later the brave soul had passed beyond the darkness and the pain. When he was lifted they saw why he had sent them away. He had been lying upon his battle-flag, carefully folded and placed beneath him that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy. The banner which he had protected in life he guarded still in death. Tenderly Northern hands wrapped it around the dead hero whose life-blood had saturated its folds. "And it was his martial cloak and shroud." Never was warrior more proudly draped for his last long sleep. Never did the mightiest of earth lie in grander state than did this boy soldier in the protecting folds of the flag he had so loved. Stranger hands laid in a Northern grave that noble son of the South. " Unknown," the grave is marked; THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 411 unknown to the passer-by, but known forever to his God. Stranger eyes let fall the tears which sank into the earth to unite with nature s subtle forces and spring upward in love s life and beauty to bloom in violets above that hero heart. Who shall say that the winds, blowing southward, did not lift upon their radiant wings a breath of those sweet flowers and carry it like a holy benediction to wait ing, sorrowing hearts in his beloved Southland? A young officer rushed up in front of Cowan s battery, brandishing his sword and crying: "Take that battery!" Colonel Cowan shouted, "Fire!" The artillery flamed out its fiery death and all within its range fell. After the battle was over Colonel Cowan picked up the officer s sword which had been so defiantly brandished in front of his battery and carried it with him in honor of the brave soldier who had borne it to his death. For years he made efforts to find some one who might claim it by right of kinship with its brave owner. Failing in this, he brought it with him to the reunion on the historic ground from which he had taken it, and, in an eloquent speech, pre sented it to Pickett s men amid tears for the noble dead and cheers for the noble living. It is still treasured as a priceless relic of battle-days, and the luster with which it is adorned by the bravery of its wearer and the generosity of its captor will never fade. Over there is where Pettigrew with his brave North Carolinians fought with desperate courage to support the left flank of Pickett s column as the artillery plowed death-furrows through its ranks. Hopeless effort, but not vain, for the valor with which it was made is a coronet of glory on the brow of the good North State. Here the plain, honest man of the people stood and gave utterance to his thought in words which appeal not to those alone to whom he spoke. They sprang from a 412 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. deep, sympathetic soul and struck responsive chords in all hearts whose bravest and dearest had helped to make that ground so sacred that no living presence could deepen its consecration. Here manhood reached a height of courage and ardent love from which it could not recede, and had gone beyond into the highest. "The last full measure of devotion " had been given by the Gray and the Blue alike. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the propo sition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or subtract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom and that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. " The brave men, living and dead The living come with generous hand of greeting, North and South, and their voices speak only friendship. The dead? I look beyond and see their loved and loving faces. On the crest of life s sublimest height they fell, to rise again in supernal triumph. From the eternal silence they look down and are glad. Over the long pathway on which Armistead, Garnett, THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 4*3 and thousands of other brave ones marched to death the daisies were blossoming in a great white sea. As I looked they seemed to fall, crushed under the rush of martial feet, and through the mists of a quarter century I saw that long line moving forward in the wondrous charge of which the poet has written: WHEN PICKETT CHARGED AT GETTYSBURG.* When Picket! charged at Gettysburg, For three long days with carnage fraught, Two hundred thousand men had fought; And courage could not gain the field, Where stubborn valor would not yield. With Meade on Cemetery Hill, And mighty Lee thundering still Upon the ridge a mile away; Four hundred guns in counterplay Their deadly thunderbolts had hurled The cannon duel of the world When Pickett charged at Gettysburg. When Pickett charged at Gettysburg, Dread war had never known such need Of some o ermastering, valiant deed; And never yet had cause so large Hung on the fate of one brief charge. To break the center, but a chance; With Pickett waiting to advance: It seemed a crime to bid him go, And Longstreet said not "Yes" nor "No," But silently he bowed his head. "I shall go forward!" Pickett said. Then Pickett charged at Gettysburg. *" Pickett s Charge," by Fred Emerson Brooks, in Metropolitan Magazine. PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Then Pickett charged at Gettysburg: Down from the little wooded slope, A-step with doubt, a-step with hope, And nothing but the tapping drum To time their tread, still on they come. Four hundred cannon hush their thunder, While cannoneers gaze on in wonder! Two armies watch, with stifled breath, Full eighteen thousand march to death, At elbow-touch, with banners furled, And courage to defy the world, In Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. Tis Pickett s charge at Gettysburg: None but tried veterans can know How fearful tis to charge the foe; But these are soldiers will not quail, Though Death and Hell stand in their trail I Flower of the South and Longstreet s pride, There s valor in their very stride! Virginian blood runs in their veins, And each his ardor scarce restrains; Proud of the part they re chosen for; The mighty cyclone of the war, In Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. Tis Pickett s charge at Gettysburg: How mortals their opinions prize When armies march to sacrifice, And souls by thousands in the fight On battle s smoky wing take flight. Firm-paced they come in solid form The dreadful calm before the storm. Those silent batteries seem to say: "We re waiting for you, men in gray I" Each anxious gunner knows full well Why every shot of his must tell On Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 415 Tis Pickett s charge at Gettysburg: What grander tableau can there be Than rhythmic swing of infantry At shouldered arms, with flashing steel? As Pickett swings to left, half-wheel, Those monsters instantly outpour Their flame and smoke and death! and roar Their fury on the silent air Starting a scene of wild despair; Lee s batteries roaring: "Room! Make room!!" With Meade s replying: "Doom! Tis doom To Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. " Tis Pickett s charge at Gettysburg: Now Hancock s riflemen begin To pour their deadly missiles in. Can standing grain defy the hail? Will Pickett stop? Will Pickett fail? His left is all uncovered through That fateful halt of Pettigrew! And Wilcox from the right is cleft By Pickett s half-wheel to the left! Brave Stannard rushes in the gap No more disastrous thing could hap To Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. Tis Pickett s charge at Gettysburg: How terrible it is to see Great armies making history: Long lines of muskets belching flame! No need of gunners taking aim When from that thunder-cloud of smoke The lightning kills at every stroke! If there s a place resembling hell, Tis where, mid shot and bursting shell, Stalks Carnage arm in arm with Death, A furnace-blast in every breath, On Pickett s charge at Gettysburg. 4l6 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. Tis Pickett s charge at Gettysburg: Brave leaders fell on every hand! Unheard, unheeded, all command! Battered in front and torn in flank; A frenzied mob in broken rank! They come like demons, with a yell, And fight like demons, all pell-mell! The wounded stop not till they fall; The living never stop at all Their blood-bespattered faces say, 11 Tis death alone stops men in gray, With Pickett s charge at Gettysburg!" Stopped Pickett s charge at Gettysburg Where his last officer fell dead, The peerless, dashing Armistead! Where ebbed the tide and left the slain Like wreckage from the hurricane That awful spot which soldiers call "The bloody angle of the wall, " There Pickett stopped, turned back again Alone, with just a thousand men! And not another shot was fired So much is bravery admired! Pickett had charged at Gettysburg. Brave Pickett s charge at Gettysburg! The charge of England s Light Brigade Was nothing to what Pickett made To capture Cemetery Hill To-day a cemetery still, With flowers in the rifle-pit, And no one cares to capture it. The field belongs to those who fell; They hold it without shot or shell; While cattle yonder in the vale Are grazing on the very trail Where Pickett charged at Gettysburg. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 417 Where Pickett charged at Gettysburg, In after years survivors came To tramp once more that field of fame; And Mrs. Pickett led the Gray, Just where her husband did that day. The Blue were waiting at the wall, The Gray leaped over, heart and all! Where man had failed with sword and gun, A woman s tender smile had won: The Gray had captured now the Blue, What mortal valor could not do When Pickett charged at Gettysburg. This twenty-fourth anniversary of the greatest battle of the war was not the first reunion, within my experience, of the Blue and the Gray. When the great Civil War closed it left me, as it did other Southern women, with a bitterness of heart which could conceive of nothing good in those whom I regarded as enemies. The General had his old army friends with whom he had fought side by side on the fields of Mexico, whom he had loved through all the terrible four years, and whose affection for him had never wavered. The sword had severed the few ties which had linked me with the North. The same bitterness went with me on our return from Canada, when we so unexpectedly became the guests in New York of some of the General s dearest and most in timate comrades in arms in the olden days. As I became acquainted with these true and generous friends I learned that men may honestly differ politically and even draw their swords against each other, and still keep warm and faithful hearts that only await the opportunity to give ex pression to their brotherly feeling. I remembered that my hero had fought as bravely under the stars and stripes as he had ever fought under the stars and bars. While my beloved South held the highest place in my af- 27 4l8 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. lections, next to her was the North that could produce brave and noble men whose friendship could stand a test so severe. I took the General s watch, which he had carried through two wars, and had inscribed on the inner side of the case the names of the battles in which he had fought under each flag. On the outside I had enameled the two flags, joined together with two ribbons, one of blue, the other of gray. I had not consulted the General about this "reunion," and the pleasure which mingled with his surprise showed how dear to him were the mem ories of his old-time battle-fields, and the love of his old- time friends. A solemn reunion took place when we collected the bodies of the Confederate and Federal soldiers and gave them burial in the ground which had been made sacred by their blood. Ofttimes the dust of the Blue and the Gray mingled in the same coffin. Out from the infinite their hands, united, reach down to us and point the way to a higher and purer national life. Years later there was a sad reunion, when the Phila delphia brigade came to Richmond to attend the unveil ing of Pickett s monument on Gettysburg Hill in Holly wood Cemetery, the first time that such a token of remem brance had ever been offered to a fallen foe. Brave men, come to do honor to a hero who had fought against them, their presence was a touching tribute which appealed to the depths of the Southern heart, and the friendships formed then can never be broken. In the year in which I write the Philadelphia brigade and Pickett s men met again in the beautiful Quaker City, whose generous heart had devised a succession of exquisite pleasures for the entertainment of her guests. It was a happy reunion, saddened only by the absence of loved ones who once met with us in genial comradeship. We THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 419 still seemed to hear their voices recounting memories of the olden days when not even the most prophetic soul could have foretold the time when the hand of the Gray would clasp the hand of the Blue in a friendship that was cemented in blood. A few weeks afterward there was a pathetic reunion when the members of Sedgwick Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of Wakefield, Rhode Island, escorted the "Daughter of the Confederacy" when she started on her last solemn journey to the South which she so loved. Sweet Winnie Davis, her noble and gracious life too early ended upon earth, sleeps the long, long sleep in the heart of that land which held her so dear, and on her sacred grave North and South alike gently place the myrtle of love. And now lately, at Atlanta, our President, in whose administration North and South have come nearer, per haps, than at any other time since the beginning of our constitutional history, and whose justice and sympathy have had great influence In promoting this friendly union, has awakened by tender and loving words renewed im pulses to thrill through the deep heart of our great Union. The tempest of war did not sweep away the traditions which formed so large a part of the basis of life in the South. They dwell deep in the hearts of the people, where they give light and glory to life, as the sunlight of the ages, locked up in the depths of earth, transmutes its glow into the sparkle of the glittering gem. The flag of the South floats not in triumph from the masts of great ships that ride the sea in splendor, but far above in the deepest arch of the highest firmament of life its stars glitter in eternal radiance. The South has left its lotus-land, with its mystic purple shades and soft odors that lull the soul to ravish- 420 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. ing dreams, and entered the bracing atmosphere and healthy light of the world of to-day. She has delved into the depths of the earth and brought up the mighty forces of civilization which nature in the beginning stored away for this time of her awakening. She sits not amid the ruins of her temples, like a sor rowing priestess with veiled eyes and depressed soul, mourning for that which hath been. With face turned sunward and heart aflame with ardor, she goes bravely forth with faith and trust to meet that which shall be. Janus-like, she looks to the past and the future; to the the past for the deeds of heroism from which she gains that inspiration needed in peace as in war, to the future for that prosperity which can be found in unbroken unity alone. The sacred memories of the long and heroic struggle of the South belong not within the limits of geographic lines. They are the possession of our country, one and undivided. They have become the heritage of the nation. The river of blood that flowed on its crimson way through our land a generation ago has fertilized the soil for bear ing yet more luxuriant blossoms of patriotism. The star of the South burns in golden flame against the pulsing arch of sky which bends above the sunny land; on the distant horizon the star of the North sparkles in iridescent gleams upon crests of snow, and their mingled light illumes the pathway on which our nation moves to a glorious destiny. While I was the guest of Pickett s men in the parade at the reunion of the Gray in Atlanta, my son was in the army of the Blue, serving his country against a foreign foe. For the only time in our many meetings to com memorate the past, he was absent from my side; but my arm was around his child, the namesake grandson of the THE BLUE AND 7 HE GRAY. 421 great Confederate leader, and the little blue-eyed boy was waving the flag of Virginia with as enthusiastic loyalty as could have been displayed by a much older son of that great State. Directly behind our coach marched veterans of the George E. Pickett, the Pickett-Buchanan, and the R. E. Lee camps, clad in their old uniforms of Confederate gray, and carrying the tattered and battle-stained flags which they had so valiantly borne in deadly conflict in a genera tion past. Old and feeble they were, many of them dis abled by the wounds of that fearful time. The presence of many of them there was due to a whole year, perhaps, of self-denial on the part of themselves and their families, who had made every sacrifice in order that the old sol dier might meet once more with his comrades of the olden days "for the last time," one of them said to me with touching sadness. Gallantly they marched on, no more heeding the pouring rain than they had heeded it in the brave days of old. As they toiled along through the drenching rain my heart went back to the time when those war-worn veterans first donned the old uniform of gray and lifted high above their ranks those banners, now battle-scarred, then bright and beautiful, and floating out upon the spring-time breeze as if to promise a glorious future for the hearts that loved them and saw in their stars the light of victory. "These are my boys!" proudly exclaimed General Pickett to me, pointing to his long line of Southern heroes, when I first went into camp where, with my hus band, I spent the early years of my marriage. It seems fitting that these heroic men who followed their leader so bravely on the hardest-fought fields of the South should have a distinctive place in history. They poured out their blood for the cause which was to 422 PICKETT AND HIS MEN. them the dearest on earth. Their memory is a golden thread in the strong and beautiful web of Southern life. Their graves make sacred the historic ground of the land for which they fought and fell. The star of their country s fame gleams more brightly in the great world- sky because they have lived and died. A few of these boys yet linger on the shores of time, and their voices greet us with the thrill of the olden days. Far more have drifted away on the sea of silence. If the flower of memory which I lovingly plant on the grave of the dead shall bloom to cheer the heart of the living I asi content. APPENDIX. GENERAL GEORGE E. PICKETT.* To all Virginians and to all the survivors of the Army of Mexico the announcement of the death of this admirable officer will give a thrill of pain. Perhaps there is no doubt that he was the best infantry soldier developed on either side during the Civil War. His friends and admirers are by no means confined to the Southern people or soldiers to whom he gave his heart and best affections and of whom he was so noble a type, but throughout the North and on the Pacific coast where he long served, his friends and lovers are legion. He was of the purest type of the perfect soldier, possessing manly beauty in the highest degree; a mind large and capable of taking in the bearings of events under all circumstances; of that firm and dauntless texture of soul that no danger or shock of conflict could appall or con fuse; full of that rare magnetism which could infuse itself into masses of men and cause any mass under his control to act as one; his per ception clear; his courage of that rare proof which rose to the occasion; his genius for war so marked that his companions all knew that his mind worked clearer under fire, and in the "deadly and imminent breach," than even at mess-table or in the merry bivouac, where his genial and kindly comradeship and his perfect breeding as a gentleman made him beloved by his friends. He will live in history as nearer to Light Horse Harry, of the Revo lution, than any other of the many heroes produced by old Virginia his whole history when told, as it will be by some one of the survivors of Pickett s men, will reveal a modern type of the Chevalier Bayard, Sans eur et sans rej)roche. George Pickett graduated at the Military Academy in 1846. He im mediately joined his regiment, the Eighth United States Infantry, in * Written and published by the General s old friend, General George B. McClellan, August 7, 1875. A copy of the manuscript and a touch ing letter was sent to our boy, "the General s namesake son," and to me, "the devoted wife." 425 426 APPENDIX, Mexico; was actively engaged in seven general engagements and distin guished in all. At the assault of the castle of Chapultepec he was of the storming party, as second lieutenant, with Longstreet as first lieuten ant of the company. Here his activity and personal valor was such as to carry him the first man to the Mexican standard which floated on the citadel of that formidable stronghold. Amid a storm of Mexican bullets he pulled down the emblem of the Aztec and ran up the flag of the Eighth Infantry. He won and received three brevets for his service in Mexico, and these before he had reached the age of twenty-five. After that war he served in Texas and upon the southern frontier till 1856, when he was sent with his regiment, being then a captain, to the Pa cific to aid in suppressing an Indian war then raging in Oregon and Wash ington Territory and involving all the tribes from the Modocs on the bor ders of California to the Indian tribes on the confines of British America to the north. The braves of tribes numbering forty-two thousand souls had arisen to "wipe out" the few settlers of the Northwest, and to en counter them the general government had but fourteen hundred regulars who, with the two thousand volunteers of Oregon and Washington Terri tory, after fighting two years, so effectually subdued these savages that, with the exception of the Modocs, they have never made war since. In this remote and obscure war, George Pickett was distinguished. At its close he was directed by General Harney, then commanding the military department of the Northwest, to build a fort on the northern boundary between the United States and the British provinces on Puget Sound, and garrison it. In 1859 the question of ownership between the United States and Great Britain of the Island of San Juan arose, and General Harney ordered Captain Pickett to occupy the island. Pickett by a masterly movement threw himself and company by night upon the disputed territory, raised the flag and erected earthworks he had but sixty-eight men all told. Within forty-eight hours the British fleet came upon the adjacent British island of Vancouver, five ships-of-war and six teen hundred men, and demanded that Pickett evacuate; he answered by a defiance and announced his intention to fight as long as a man of his com mand lived. After exhausting both threats and diplomacy the British ad miral and the governor of Vancouver s Island agreed to leave the matter of the occupation of the island to their respective governments, and Gen eral Winfield Scott was sent by the United States to the coast, where the matter was settled by the joint occupation by garrisoning both of Ameri can and British troops, and a fort called Camp Pickett was erected and Commanded by Captain Pickett till the commencement of the Civil War. It is a fact not generally known, that the movements which are re- MEMOIR. 427 ferred to here in the occupation of San Juan had their origin in a patri otic attempt on the part of General Harney, Governor Stevens, of Wash ington Territory, and other Democratic Federal officers on that coast, with the knowledge and zealous concurrence of Captain Pickett, to force a war with Great Britain, in the hope that by this means the then jarring sections of our country would unite in a foreign war, and so avert the civil strife which they feared they saw approaching. For this purpose Captain Pickett gladly volunteered to risk his life, and so endeavored to force the Englishmen to open fire upon him when he first occupied the disputed island on which the British had settlements, but which was afterwards awarded to the United States by the Emperor of Germany, under the Geneva Conference. It is certain that in this adventure Pickett would gladly have spilled his blood to have averted, at the cost of a foreign war, that civil war which he and so many others tried to avert, yet to which, when it came, they gave their best efforts forced into it by their principles of honor and affection to their people. As soon as the State of Virginia seceded Pickett resigned and re turned to Virginia. The military government on the Pacific coast en deavored to arrest him, but he made his way to Virginia, was immedi ately appointed colonel, afterwards brigadier-general, and in October, 1862, was a major-general. At Gaines s Mill he was badly wounded, leading his gallant Virginians against the Federals commanded by his old captain, General S. Casey, under whom he had in youth gained re nown in the forlorn hope at Chapultepec. He signally defeated the di vision opposed to him. Upon his rapid recovery from his wounds he was assigned to the command of that division of the Army of Virginia which gained such imperishable renown, that for all time to come the proud boast, "I am descended from one of Pickett s men," will be held equivalent to the words in France, "One of the Old Guard, which dies but never surrenders." We here quote, from the Norfolk Virginian, an article written a few days since, while the great soldier and paladin of the infantry of the Confederacy lay dead in that city. But, says the Norfolk Virginian, it was the ever memorable day of July 3, 1863, that covered Pickett and Pickett s men with imper ishable glory and linked their names with the noblest and saddest story of Confederate achievements. The day rose bright and smiling on the buoyant hopes of a brave army, till then victorious over all opposition, and full of confidence in coming victory. It witnessed an assault which for desperate daring has rarely been equaled in the wars of nations, when, from the hill which they had occupied, down its descent, and up 428 APPENDIX. to the enemy s front, full half a mile of open and exposed ground, amid the iron hail of two hundred cannon belching shot and canister and schrapnel, and the leaden rain poured out from the massed infantry that thickly lined the crest of Cemetery Ridge, Pickett, with Kemper and Garnett and Armistead, led his division, a forlorn hope, forty-five hundred men against the concentrated strength of the Federal army. No grander sight ever fascinated the gaze of military men than that of those noble heroes charging in steady and unbroken line of battle, through smoke and fire and death, up that fatal hill, to and over the breastworks that lined it, over two lines of guns, over two lines of in fantry, up to the very brow of the hill, up to the very verge of victory. But, alas! it might not be, valor had done its utmost; it was not fated that they should win, then and there, another independence day. Un supported, broken, disrupted, scattered, the survivors who reached the crest found themselves but the skeleton of the division that but a few minutes before had so proudly marched down the opposite descent; while around them closed countless masses of hostile infantry and on them was concentrated the fire of a dozen batteries; and then com menced the retreat, from which emerged but one-fourth of the command before the charge. That charge has gone into history, a testimony to the valor of Confederate soldiers that will never fade." The close of the war left Pickett poor and broken. He was a sol dier, pure and simple, of illustrious qualities, and his life from the age of fifteen entirely devoted to the profession he so well loved and had so adorned. General B. F. Butler, who was perhaps as complete an opposite to Pickett as the race can produce, made an effort to have him tried by a military commission, "organized to convict." Butler had been bottled by General Pickett at Bermuda Hundred, and sought this revenge. Gen eral Grant, who, in common with hundreds of the old army, loved Pick ett, saved him. After Grant became President he gave further proof of his affection by sending for Pickett and offering him the marshalship of the State of Virginia. "You can not afford to do this, " said Pickett, "and I can not afford to accept it from you. " "I can afford to do whatever I choose, Pickett," said the soldier President. The man who had fought for the Confederacy realized the difficulties and responsibilities which environed both himself and the President of the United States, and persistently declined the position which he so much needed. The Khedive of Egypt had previously offered him the position of brigadier-general in his army; but Pickett refused. As, like all brave MEMOIR. 429 men, he loved his lovely and devoted wife, he refused to leave her for foreign service, and accepted the position of general agent of the Wash ington Life Insurance Company of New York, for Virginia, and in the exe cution of his duty in this civil capacity, in Norfolk, his war-worn frame succumbed to the disease which attacked him only a few days before. Could he have had his wish he had died amid the roar of battle. No man of our age has better illustrated the aptitude for war of his class of our country, and with these talents for war was united the truest and sweetest nature. No man of his time was more beloved of women, of men and of soldiers. He was to the latter a rigid disciplinarian, and at the same time the soldier s friend. Virginia will rank him in her roll of fame with Lee, with Johnston, with the Jackson they love as Stonewall; and mourners for the noble and gallant gentleman, the able and accomplished soldier, are legion. True and noble soul, rest in peace; and may the God he revered give that consolation He only can to his devoted wife and namesake son. M&fflr^r^K INDEX. Adams, J. Q., 103, 133. Aldie, 260. Alexander, E. P., 223, 283 et seq. Alien and sedition laws, 141. Allen, R., 160, 210. Anderson, G. B., 201. Anderson, R. H., 158, 179-186, 196- 202, 208, 219-224, 233, 243, 265, 280-300, 349, 354, 380, 382, 393- 397. 399, 400, 44. 4Q5- Antietam, 195 et seq., 216, 219, 256. Anti-slavery party, 147. Archer, J. J., 272, 274, 305. Archer, R., 167. Armistead, D. L., 166. Armistead, L. A., 95, 168, 205, 211, 213, 214, 233, 236, 295 et seq., 308, 412, 428. Armistead, W. K., 214. August, T. P., 210. Averell, General, 240, 241. Avery, R., 206. Aylett, W. R., 210, 398. Ayres, General, 392. Baird, E. R., 159, 161, 206, 398. Bancroft, 105. Barksdale, General, 224,249,287,289. Barlow, General, 356. Barnes, Surgeon-General, 59. Barton, General, 331, 339, 347. Baynes, Admiral, 121-123. Bazalgette, Captain George, 121,123. Beauregard, G. T., 263, 338-340, 342, 345 et seq. Belen Gate, 96. Bellingham Bay, 97. Benjamin, General, 199. Benton, Thomas, no. Berkeley, N., 158, 161, 170, 210, 398. Bermuda Hundred, 340, 347-350, 357. 362. Birney, General, 246, 279 et seq. Blaine, James G., 59. Blount, J. R., 209. Boonsboro, 195, 210, 216. Boston, S. A., 160. Bragg, B., 324, 342, 347~349- Breckenridge, General J. C., 2, u, 355- Bright, R. A., 206, 334, 398. Bristoe Station, 192. Brockenbrough, General, 305. Brooke, F. W., 206. Brooks, F. E., 413. Brown, Captain, 197. Brown, John, 135 et seq. Bryant, Captain, 398. Buena Vista, 215. Buford, General, 265, 271-273, 284. Bull Run, 191, 192, 209. Bumford, Captain, 94, 95. Burnside, General A. E., 196, 199, 202-203, 209, 219-232, 234, 240- 242, 330, 331, 337- 356. Butterfield, General, 179. Butler, B. F., 8, 30, 59, 86, 87, 339- 342, 344, 349, 365, 428. 432 INDEX. Cabell, H. C., 207. Cabell, J. C., 203, 297, 348. Calhoun, J. C., 144, 145. Campbell, A., 107. Campbell, M. VanB., 206. Canal de Haro, 108-110. Carrington, H. A., 159, 210, 398. Carroll, Lieutenant, 208, 238. Cary, R. M., 210, 398. Casey, General S., 97, 164, 166. Caskie, W. H., 207, 208. Cerro Gordo, 93, 95, 129. Chamberlain, Colonel, 286. Chambersburg, 219, 257. Chancellor, C. W., 206. Chancellorsville, 239, 244 et seq. Chantilly, 193. Chapultepec, 94-96, 129, 214, 426. Chester, 357^ seg., 377. Chew, R. S., 210, 398. Churubusco, 94, 95, 129. Clay, H., 132, 133, 145. Cleburne, General, 229. Clingman, General, 331, 334, 335, 341- Cobb, General, 183, 230. Cochrane, H. P., 206, 398. Cocos Plain, 92. Cold Harbor, 176-178, 182, 352 et seq. Collado, 91. Colquitt, General, 347. Colston, General, 157, 160, 169. Colt, Colonel, 166. Commercial Convention, 146. Comte de Paris, 156. Confederation, Articles of, 139. Connecticut, 143. Convention of Maritime States, 143. Contreras, 94, 129. Cooke, General J. R., 225, 230. Cooke, Major G. T., 339. Cooke, J. E., 26. Cooper, S., 336. Corse, M. D., 159, 209-210, 216- 217. 233, 236, 293, 317, 331, 332, 334. 337, 347, 348, 380, 383, 384, 388, 390, 392-397, 406. Couch, General, 164, 241, 243, 244. Cowan, Colonel, 411. Cox, General, 199. Cralle, C. C., 317. Crampton s Gap, 196, 197. Crawford, General, 389, 392. Crocker, J. F., 298. Croxton, Captain, 161. Culpeper Court-house, 219. Gushing, Colonel, 308. Cutler, General, 273. D Daniel, General, 276, Daughter of Confederacy, 419. Davis, J., i, 155, 156, 187, 263, 322, 348, 385. Davis, J. R., 272, 305. Dearing, Jas., 158, 206-209, 237, 243, 297, 331, 333, 334, 338. Deserter, letter of, 368. Dinwiddie Court-house, 379 et seq., 386. Dix, General, 262. Donelson, Fort, 175. Doubleday, General, 200, 226, 274- 277. , Drake, Sir Francis, 100. Drayton, General, 202. Dred Scott Decision, 134. Drury s Bluff, 175, 210, 346 et seq. Dudley, M., 322. INDEX. 433 Dunn, Captain, 397. Dutch Gap Canal, 86, 87, 357, 363. Early, General J. A., 155, 201, 210, 213, 215, 244, 245, 248, 262-266, 274, 276, 283, 355. "East Lynne, " 326. Edmonds, E. C., 210. Edmonds, W. B., 206, 398. Egypt, Khedive of, 428. Elzey, General, 325. Emancipation Proclamation, 204, 253. Embargo Act, 143. Estvan, Colonel, 183, 185. Evans, General, 193. Ewell, General R. S., 155, 192, 198, 200, 225, 226, 257, 258, 260, 262, 264, 265, 274-278, 280, 282, 285, 290, 291, 294, 297, 355, 404. Fairfax, R., 206. Pair Oaks, 162. Field, General, 355. Fitzhugh, Captain, 398. Five Forks, 10, n, 217, 385 et seq. Florence, W., 72, 73. Floweree, Colonel C. C., 209, 288, 289, 362, 389, 398. Floyd, C., 206. Fontaine, C. R., 211. Foster, General, 331. Franklin, General W. B., 163, 187, 196, 220, 222, 733, 241, 242. Frazier sFarm, 187 et seq. t 217, 218. Frazier, J. T., 366. Frederick City, 195. Fredericksburg, 206, 215, 217, 221, 226-232, 234, 241. French, General, 238, 239. French, General W. H., 183, 227, 230, 261. Friend, T. R., 206. Fry, Colonel, 347. Funsten, D., 210. Gaines s Mill, 176 et seq., 187, 209*. 211, 218, 353, 427. Gamble, General, 272, 273. Gantt, H., 159-160, 210, 398. Garland, General S., 163, 197, 210, 398. Garnett, General R. B., 196, 198, 202, 203, 205, 212, 233, 237, 295, 300, 303-304, 307, 4 12 - Geary, General, 296. Gee, Captain, 395. Georgia, 131 et seq. Getty, General, 230, 262. Gettysburg, 206-211, 213, 215, 217, 257, 261, 263, 265, 267 et seq., 408 et seq. Gibbon, General, 226, 356. Giles, J., 210. Glendale, 187. Godwin, D., 210. Gordon, General J. B., 276, 277. Gordonsville, 221. Gossett, I. W., 206. Gracie, General, 383. Grammer, J., 210. Grant, General U. S., 8, 59, 60, 84, 85, 34 1 - 344. 348, 349, 35*, 353~ 356, 372, 384-386, 403, 407, 428. Grattan, Captain, 405. Graves, E. E., 4. Gray, Captain R., 103, Gregg, General, 265. Green, W. E., 121, 398. 434 INDEX. Greene, G. S., 291. Greene, O. D., 129. Griggs, G. K., 210. Grigsby, General, 200, 201. H Hagerstown, 195, 196. Halleck, General, 191, 200, 256, 261. Hambrick, Colonel, 348. Hamilton, A., 139, 141. Hampton, W., 165, 166, 294. Hancock, General W. S., 228, 230, 277-279, 281, 288, 295, 356. Hardie, J. A., 261. Harney, General, in, 112, 426. Haro Archipelago, 105, 107. Harper s Ferry, 195-198. Harris, Colonel D. B., 339. Harris, Lieutenant, 398. Harrison, A. T., 210. Harrison, W., 179, 206, 293, 317, 3i8, 339, 340, 347, 398, 406. Hartford Convention, 143. Hatton, General, 165. Hayes, R. B., 197. Haygood, General, 342. Hays, General, 277, 290. Hazlett, Captain, 286. Heckman, General, 348. Heintzelman, General, 163-165. Hempston, R., 206. Henry s Battery, 243, 297. Henry, Patrick, 132. Herbert, A., 210, 398. Heth, General, 258, 265, 271, 272, 274, 276, 280, 295, 300, 355, 382, 397, 400. Higginson, T. W., 135. High Bridge, 207. Hill, A. P., 157, 158, 176, 178, 186, 188, 192, 196, 203, 215, 225, 226, 233, 257, 259, 262, 264, 265, 271, 272, 275, 277, 281, 283, 285, 289- 290, 294, 297, 310, 355, 385, 400. Hill, D. H., 155-157, 163, 164, 166- 169, 188, 195, 201, 224-226, 244. Hodges, J. G., 210, 263, 398. Hodgkin, Dr. J. B., 191. Hoke, General, 277, 290, 331-334, 339, 347, 354- Hood, General J. B., 165, 167, 168, 179, 185, 193. 199, 201, 217, 223, 225, 226, 230, 233, 236, 239, 243, 260, 280, 282, 283, 285, 286, 294, 37i. Hooker, J., 188, 196, 199-202, 217, 220, 222, 224, 230, 231, 241-249, 257-261, 263, 264. Howard, General, 230, 244, 246, 274, 275, 281, 290, 295. Huger, General, 156, 163, 164, 187, 188, 205, 214, 405. Humphreys, General, 231, 288, 297. Hunt, General, 228, 265. Hunter, R. M. T., 372, 373. Hunton, Colonel E., 179, 187-189, 191, 210, 217, 218, 337, 349, 354, 380, 383, 389, 393, 395-397, 4o. I Idaho, 100. Imboden, General, 259, 260, 293, 312. Indians, 97, 113. Indian War, 97. Ingalls, R., 23, 24, 84, 358. Irby, Colonel, 159. Iverson, General, 275, 276. J Jackson, T. J., 96, 155, 175, 178, 179, 182, 186-188, 191-193, 195- 201, 212, 219, 223, 225, 226, 244, 246-248. INDEX. 435 Jefferson, Joe, 74. Jefferson, Thos., 132, 139, 142, 144 Jenkins, General M., 187, 196, 202 205, 217, 233, 236, 239, 259, 262- 264, 293, 317. Johnson, B., 381, 393. Johnson, General Edward, 262, 264 265, 277, 283, 291, 296. Johnston, A., 126, 320. Johnston, J.E., 93, 95, 154-157, 163- 167, 170, 175, 385, 398, 403. Joinville, Prince de, 181. Jones, D. R., 155, 199, 202. Jones, H., 398. Jones, J. H., 354. Jones, S., 257, 260. K Kautz, General, 384, 395, 396. Kean, Charles, 74. Kearny, General Phil., 188, 193. Keenan, Major, 246. Keene, E. F., 211. Kemper, General W. L., 177, 179, 186, 193, 205, 208, 209, 214-216, 233-234. 237- 295, 300, 304, 347. Kentucky resolutions, 141, 145. Kernstown, 212. Kershaw, General, 230, 354. 355. Keyes, General, 163-165, 262. Kilpatrick, General, 265, 294. Kirby, General, 165. L Lafayette, 207. Lane, General, 305. Langhorne, M. S., 210, 398. Last review, 375. Latham, Captain, 208. Lawton, General, 200, 201. Lee, F., n, 192, 199, 355, 380, 382, 388, 393-395- Lee, R. E., n, 92, 136, 156, 175, 178, 179, 183, 185, 190, 191, 194, J 95. 197. 199, 203, 204, 221-223, 225, 229, 232, 236, 239, 241-245, 247, 249, 254-264, 266, 270, 272, 277, 278, 280-284, 289, 290, 293- 296, 298, 310-313, 333, 338, 348, 350, 351, 354. 355. 36:, 379-381, 385. 386, 393, 402, 403, 421. Lee, S. D., 193, 199, 203. Lee, W. H. F., u, 221, 382-384, 388, 391-395- "Lee s Miserables, " 358. Leitch, S. G., 206, 398. Lewis, M. M., 206, 398, 406. Lincoln, A., i, 8, 30, 126-128, 204, 241-243, 249, 254, 344, 372-373. 408, 412. Linthicum, C. S., 354. Logan, Colonel, 347. Long, A. L., 257. Longstreet, J. A., 94, 95, 155-158, 163-165, 167, 179, 185, 187, iS8, 190-193, 195 196, 198, 199, 202, 203, 205, 208, 214, 215, 217, 219, 222, 223, 230, 232-237, 239, 243, 257-260, 262, 263, 272, 277, 278, 281-283, 285, 289, 290, 294-296, 300-302, 310-312, 316, 318, 319, 324. 325. 349. 350. 354. 38o, 392, 397. 426. "Lost Order," 195. Louisiana Tigers, 290. Lynchburg, 208, 209. Lyons, Judge, 5. M McAlpine, J. A., 206. McCall, General, 188. McCandless, General, 288. McCauly, Corporal, 95. 436 INDEX. McCausland, General, 388. McClellan, G. B., 154, 155, 157, 163, 175, 176, 177, 181-183, 185, 195, 196, 199, 200, 219, 220, 354, 425. McGowan, General, 383. Mclntosh, General, 203, 271. MacKenzie, General, 384. McKinley, President, 4ig. McLane, 109.- McLaws, General L., 163, 195-197, 201, 219, 222-223, 225, 227, 230, 236, 243, 249, 260, 280, 283, 287, 288, 294. McMillan, Colonel, 223. McPhail, Captain, 203. Macon, M. C., 207. Madison, James, 142-143, 145, 146. Magruder, Colonel, 398. Magruder, General J. B., 93, 96, 155, 156, 207, 211, 214. Mahone, General, 169, 350, 380, 404. Maish, Surgeon, 188. Malvern Hill, 190, 208, 210, 214. Manassas, 191 et seq., 208, 209, 215. Manning, Captain, 161. Mansfield, General, 200, 201. Marshall, Lieutenant, 208. Marshall, Judge, 132. Martin, General, 334. Martinsburg, 195, 196. Marye, L. S., 207. Marye, M., 210, 398. Maury, R. L., 210. Mayo, J., 209. Mayo, Colonel R., 5, 188, 394, 398. Meade, D., 206, 226, 244, 261, 265, 270, 27i, 274, 279-284. 295, 303, 356. Meagher, General T. F., 183, 228- 230, 287. Meredith, General, 273-275. Meredith; Judge, 5. Mexican War, 90 et seq. Mexico, City of, 91, 95, 96, 129. Milroy, General, 259. Molino del Rey, 94, 95, 129. Montague, E. B., 210, 398. Monterey, 91. Montezuma, 94. Mumford, Colonel, 396. N Napoleon, 102, 104, 142, 231. Napoleon III., 251. Newbern report, 333 et seq. Newton, General, 281. Nootka Sound, 100. Nootka treaty, 102. Nullification, 144. O Oglethorpe, J., 131. O Neal, General, 275. Oregon, 97 et seq. , 426. Orizaba, 91. O Rourke, P., 286. Otey, K., 210, 398. Owens, J., 210. P Patton, W. T., 209, 398. Peace Commission, 372 et seq. Pegram, Colonel, 271, 382, 389, 391, 393, 396. Pender, General, 265, 271, 276, 280, 283, 288, 295, 300. Pendleton, General, 257, 310, 312, 366. Perry, General, 289. Petersburg, 337~344 4- Pettigrew, General, 165, 271, 274, 276, 295, 300, 305, 411. Peyton, Colonel, 398. INDEX. 437 Philadelphia Brigade, 409 et seq. Phillips, Colonel J. J., 210, 298, 317, 320, 398. Phillips, Dr. J. T., 320, 339. Phillips, W., 136. Pickett, Major C., 22, 158, 159, 161, 167, 169, 189, 206, 398. Pickett, G. E., 90-98, in, 112, 114, 115, 117, 120, 123 et seq., 129, 150, 154, 157, 158, 167, 170, 176, 177, 179-182, 185-191, 193, 196, 198, 202, 203, 205-209, 213-219, 225, 226, 230, 234-239, 243, 260, 263, 280, 283, 293-313, 315-329, 331, 333, 336-345 et seq. , 353, 355, 359, 362, 363, 365, 37i, 374, 375 et seq., 379 et seq., 386 et seq., 399-407, 408, 413, 425. Pitt, 101. Platt, Dr., 321. Pleasanton, A., 219, 231, 246, 247, 258, 260, 284. Plymouth, 206. Polk, President, 215. Pope, General, 191-194. Porter, General, 163, 178, 183, 193, 204. Preston, R. T., 154, 180, 398. Pryor, General R., 159-161, 168, 169, 209. Q Quincy, J., 142. Quitman, General, 96. R Randolph, M., 87. Randolph, W., 87. Randolph, Secretary of War, 182. Ransom, General, 222, 225, 230, 339, 347, 348, 382, 388-395, 397, 400. Reid, 331. Reid, Mayne, 96. Reno, General, 196, 197. Reynolds, General, 259, 265, 272, 273, 281. Richards, Captain, 108, 120. Richardson, General, 202, 310, 312 Richmond, i et seq., 86, 87, 170 et seq., 400, 402, 403. Ricketts, General, 201, 290. Robertson, General, 192, 257, 285. Rodes, General, 201, 202, 244, 262 V 264, 265, 274, 275, 277, 283, 291. Rodman, General, 202. Rosario Strait, 105, 108-110. Rosecrans, General, 256. Rosser, General, u, 382, 383, 388, 393- Rupert, Prince, 99, 105, 106. Rust, A., 210. Rutherford, J., 207. Ryals, J., 206. Sailor s Creek, 217, 218, 399-407. Salem, 192. Saltillo, 91. San Antonio, 129, 212. Sanborn, F. B., 135. San Cosme, 96. San Juan, 23, 105-121, 426, 427. San Juan de Ulloa, 91. Santa Anna, 92, 93, 96. Saunders, B., 76. Savage Station, 184. Scales, General, 305. Schimmelpfennig, General, 275, 276, Schurz, General C., 275. Scott, R. T., 206, 398. Scott, W. S., 90-92, 96, 112, 121. Secession, 139 et seq. 438 INDEX. Sedgwick, General, 165, 188, 201, 245, 248, 249, 265, 281, 295. Seven Pines, 162 et seq., 175, 209, 214, 217. Seward, Secretary, 372, 373. Shaw, Colonel, 332. Shenandoah, 176. Sheridan, Phil., 350, 354, 376, 381, 384 et seq., 403-405, 407. Sherman, E. A., 90, 95. Sherman, W. T., 60, 371. Sickles, General, 244, 247, 248, 275, 279, 281, 283, 284, 287, 291, 294, 295- Sigel, General, 241. Simpson, R. H., 349. Skinner, F. G., 209. Slaughter, P. P., 175, 180, 211, 398. Slavery, 130 et seq. Slocum, General, 188, 244, 246, 261, 279, 281, 291. Smith, Captain, 360. Smith, General, 276. Smith, G. W., 155, 156, 163-166. Smith,W. F.,354, 356. Snelling, J. G. S., 88, 94. Sorrel, G. M., 161, 180. South Mountain, 195, 196. Spain, 250. Stanton, Secretary, 59. Stearns, G. L., 135. Steinwehr, General, 277, 381. Stephens, Alexander, 372, 373. Stevens, A. H., 4, 6, 7. Stevens, Colonel, 290, 348. Stevens, Governor, 427. Stewart, General, 406. Stone, General, 274, 276. Stoneman, General, 243. Strange, J. R., 154* J 59, 170, 180, 188, 189, 197, 210, 218, 398. Stribling, R. M., 208, 238, 239. Stuart, J. E. B., 191, 192, 197, 208, 219, 248, 257-261, 265, 294. Stuart, W. D., 175, 203, 206, 211, 380, 388-391, 393, 395, 398. Stultz, G., 206. Sturgis, General, 202, 230. Suckley, Dr. George, 14, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26. Suffolk, 208, 209, 236. Sullivan, I. E., 208. Sumner, General E. V., 163, 165, 201, 220-222, 224, 230, 231, 242. Sykes, General, 245, 281, 286, 295. Symington, W. S., 189, 206, 398. Taliaferro, General, 192, 225, 226. Taylor, General Z., 91, 192, 214, 215- Taylor, W. H., 363, 393, 398. Terry, General, 210, 331, 337, 339, 347, 348, 380, 383, 384, 388, 390, 393-398, 406. Texas, 90, 96, 129 147, 212, 426. Thompson, A., 371. Thoroughfare Gap, 192. Tomlin, H. B., 210. Toombs, General, 202, 208. Tree, Ellen, 73. Trimble, General, 244, 295,300, 302, 305- Turkey Island, 8, 86 et seq., 208. Turner s Gap, 196, 197. Twiggs, General, 93. Tyler, Dr., 366. Tyler, President, 214. U Underwriter, 335. Utrecht, treaty of, 102. INDEX. 439 Vancouver s Island, ioo, 105, 107-1 10. Velasco, 93. Vera Cruz, 90-92, 95, 129. Vincent, General, 286. Virginia resolutions, 141. W Wadsworth, General, 273, 277, 281, 291. Walker, General J. G., 155, 195, 198, 201. Wallace, T. P., 206, 382, 388, 389, 391-396. Walter, Colonel, 170. Walton, General, 227. Warren, General, 285, 286, 356, 383, 384, 388, 389,391, 395, 396. Waterloo Bridge, 191. Watts, W., 210. Weed, General, 199, 286. Weiderick, General, 290. Weitzel, General, 4. Wessells, General, 337. White, W., 210, 398. White House, 184, 262. Whitford, 333. Whiting, General, 165, 179, 180, 182, 186, 346-349. Whitlock, J., 206. Wilcox, General, 155, 157-159, 169, 289, 295, 302, 397, 400. Wilderness, 353, 356. Williams, A. W., 206. Williams, L. B., 209. Williamsburg, 154 et seg., 175, 215. Wise, General, 342, 383, 405. Withers, Colonel R. E., 154, ivo, 179, 180, 210, 398. Wood, R. T., 331, 333-335- Wright, General, 202, 289, 311. York, 257. Yorktown, 156, 262. Young, 363. 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