ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA MEMORIAL VOLUME. COMPILED BY REV. J. WILLIAM JONES, D. D. \ Secretary Soutltfni Historical Society, AT THE REQUEST OF THE VIRGINIA DIVISION OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION. J. W. RANDOLPH & ENGLISH, 1302 & 4 MAIN STREET, RICHMOND. 1880. Copyrighted, 1879, by J. WILLIAM JONES. GEO. W. GARY, PRINTER, RICHMOND, VA. TO OUR FALLEN COMRADES OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, WHOSE MEMORY WE ENSHRINE IN OUR HEARTS, AND WHOSE HEROIC DEEDS WE COMMIT TO HISTORY, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY ONE WHO COUNTS IT A PROUD PRIVILEGE TO HAVE AN HUMBLE PLACE ON THE ROLL TO WHICH THEY SO NOBLY RESPONDED. M188332 PREFACE. If any apology were needed for this volume, it could be found in the frequently expressed desire of comrades in different sec tions of the country to possess in permanent form the matter herein contained, and in the unanimous and hearty vote by which, at its annual reunion in October, 1878, the Virginia Division, Army of Northern Virginia Association, requested me to pre pare it. The addresses will be found very important contributions to the material for a future history of the Army of Northern Vir ginia; and it is hoped that the Roster and Statement of Relative Numbers will be found of interest and value. The volume has been delayed by circumstances over which I had no control, but I feel sure that subscribers will consider the delay amply atoned for in its enabling me to add to the matter originally promised General Fitz. Lee s address on Chancellors- ville. The book is sent forth in the full confidence that it will prove an acceptable offering to those who prize the honor of belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia, to our brothers of the other armies of the Confederacy, to friends of our cause everywhere, and even to brave men who fought against us but are willing to o o o admit that they had "foemen worthy of their steel." J. W. J. Richmond, Virginia, December ist, CONTENTS. I AGE LEE MEMORIAL MEETING, NOVEMBER 3d, 1870 9 Call and Organization 0-10 Remarks of General Early 10 Address of President Davis 14 Memorial Resolutions 18 Address of Colonel C. S. Venable 19 Address of General John S. Preston 21 Address of General John B. Gordon 22 Address of Colonel Charles Marshall 27 Address of General Henry A. Wise 30 Address of Colonel William Preston Johnston 32 Address of Colonel Robert E. Withers 35 List of Officers Elected 37 ARMY MEETING, NOVEMBER 4th, 1870 38 Remarks of General Early 38 Committees and Permanent Organization 42-3 Remarks of General B. T. Johnson 44 Remarks of General Early 4G Officers Elected is THIRD ANNUAL MEETING OF VIRGINIA DIVISION OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION 49 Address of Colonel C. S. Venable on Campaign from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor 49 FOURTH ANNUAL REUNION 69 Address of Colonel Charles Marshall on the Strategic Value of Rich mond G9 The Banquet 89 FIFTH ANNUAL REUNION 90 Address of Major John W. Daniel on Gettysburg 90 The Banquet 12G SIXTH ANNUAL REUNION.. 127 Address of Captain W. Gordon McCabe on the Defence of Peters burg ]27 The Banquet 175 Viii CONTENTS. SEVENTH ANNUAL REUNION 176 Address of Private Leigh Robinson on u The Wilderness" 176 The Banquet 260 EIGHTH ANNUAL REUNION 261 Address of Colonel William Allan on Jackson s Valley Campaign... 261 The Banquet 290 Speech of Hon. A. M. Kcilcy on "The Model Infantryman" 290 NINTH ANNUAL REUNION 293 Address of General Fitzhugh Lee on Chancellorsville 293 The Banquet 333 ROSTEK OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA 334 Seven Days Battles 334 June 1st, 1863 338 RELATIVE NUMBERS OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 343 At Seven Days Battles 343 At Second Manassas 3-14 At Sharpsburg or " Antietam " 344 At Fredericksburg 345 At Chancellorsville 345 At Gettysburg 346 In Campaign of 1864 ... 346 Just Before the Fall of Petersburg 347 At Appomattox Courthouse 347 LEE MEMORIAL MEETING. On the 25th clay of October, 1870, the following address ap peared in the public prints: To tlic Surviving Officers and Soldiers of tJic Anny of XortJicru Comrades The sad tidings of the death of our Great Com mander came at a time when, by the interruption of all the ordi nary modes of traveling, very many of us were debarred the privilege of participating in the funeral ceremonies attending the burial of him we loved so well, or, by concerted action, of giving expression to our feelings on the occasion. While the unburied remains of the illustrious hero were yet under the affectionate care of friends who were bowed down with a sorrow unutterable, the hoarse cry of "treason" was croaked from certain quarters, for the vile but abortive purpose of casting a stigma upon his pure and exalted character. His fame belongs to the world, and to history, and is beyond the reach of malignity; but a sacred duty devolves upon those whom, in defence of a cause he be lieved to be just and to which he remained true to the latest moment of his life, he led so often to battle, and for whom he ever cherished the most affectionate regard. We owe it to our fallen comrades, to ourselves and to posterity, by some suitable and lasting memorial, to manifest to the world, for all time to come, that we were not unworthy to be led by our immortal CIHKF, and that we are not now ashamed of the principles for which Lee fought and Jackson died. Already steps have been taken by some Confederate officers and soldiers, assembled at Lexington, the place of General Lee s death and burial, to inaugurate a memorial association; and being, as I believe, the senior in rank of all officers of the Army of Northern Virginia now living in the State, I respectfully suggest and invite a conference at Richmond, on Thursday, the 3d day of November next, of all the survivors of that army, whether officers or privates, and in whatever State they may live, who can conveniently attend, for the purpose of procuring concert of action in regard to the proceeding contemplated. I would also invite to that conference the surviving officers and soldiers of IO MEMORIAL VOLUME. all the other Confederate armies, as well as the officers, sailors and marines of the Confederate navy. This call would have been made sooner but for my absence up to this time in a county where there are no railroads or tele graphs, and where I was detained by imperative duties. Your friend and late fellow soldier, J. A. EARLY. LYNCHBURG, VA., October 24, 1870. Pursuant to this call, the soldiers and sailors of the Confede rate States met to do honor to the memory of their great chief tain, General ROBERT EDWARD LEE, in the First Presbyterian Church, in the city of Richmond, on Thursday evening, the 3d day of November, A. D. 1870. The meeting was called to order by Brigadier-General Bradley T. Johnson, on whose motion Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early Avas appointed temporary chairman, and Captain George Walker, of Westmoreland, Captain Campbell Lawson, of Richmond, and Sergeant George L. Christian, of Richmond, temporary secre taries. General Early, on taking the Chair, delivered an appropriate address. ADDRESS OF GENERAL EARLY. Friends and Comrades When the information of the death of our illustrious Commander was flashed over the telegraphic wires to all parts of the civilized world, good men everywhere mourned the loss of him who, in life, was the noblest exemplar of his times of all that is good, and true, and great in human nature; and a cry of anguish was wrung from the hearts of all true Con federate soldiers, which was equalled only by that which came up from the same hearts when the fact was realized that the sword of Robert E. Lee was sheathed forever, and that the banner to which his deeds had given such lustre was furled amid gloom and disaster. After the first burst of grief had subsided, the inquiry arose in the breasts of all, What can we do to mani fest our esteem and veneration for him we loved so well? It was but necessary that the suggestion should be made to elicit an expression of the general sentiment. I thought that I could take the liberty of making that suggestion to my old comrades, and I therefore made the call under which you are here assembled. Although I made that call as the former senior in rank of all the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia now living in the State, I desire to say to you that at the tomb of General Lee all dis tinctions of rank cease. The private soldier who, in tattered ADDRESS OF GENERAL EARLY. I I uniform and with sore and bleeding feet, followed the banner upheld by Lee and Jackson, and did not desert his post or skulk in the hour of danger, but did his duty faithfully to the end of the war, and is now doing his duty by remaining true to the principles for which he fought, is the peer of the most renowned in fame or exalted in rank among the survivors. He has an equal share in the proud heritage left us in the memory of the glorious deeds and exalted virtues of our great Chieftain. All such I greet and welcome here, as I do those of every rank, claiming them all as my friends, comrades and brothers. My friends, if it is expected that I shall on this occasion de liver a eulogy on General Lee, you will be disappointed. I have -not the language with which to give expression to my estimate of the greatness and goodness of his character. I will say, how ever, that as extended as is his fame, the world at large has not fully appreciated the transcendant abilities of General Lee, nor realized the perfection of his character. No one who has not witnessed the affectionate kindness and gentleness, and often play fulness, of his manners in private, his great self-control and dig nity in dealing with important public affairs, the exhibition of his high and unyielding sense of duty on all occasions, and the majestic grandeur of his action and appearance in the shock of battle, can form more than an approximate estimate of his real character. Monuments of marble or bronze can add nothing to the fame o of General Lee, and to perpetuate it it is not necessary that such should be erected. But the student of history in future ages who shall read of the deeds and virtues of our immortal hero, will be lost in amazement at the fact that such a man went down to his grave a disfranchised citizen by the edict of his cotemporaries which infamous edict, by the fiat of an inexorable despotism, has been forced to be recorded on the statute book of his native State. We, my comrades, owe it to our own characters, at least, to vindicate our manhood and purge ourselves of the foul stain, by erecting an enduring monument to him, that will be a standing protest, for all time to come, against the righteous ness of the judgment pronounced against him, without arraign ment, without trial, without evidence, and against truth and jus tice. The exact locality of that monument I do not now propose to suggest. When we are in a condition to erect it, it will, in my opinion, be the proper time to settle definitely its locality; and I merely say now that it should be where it will be accessi ble to all his boys and their descendants. Something has been suggested with regard to the resting place of all that was mortal of our beloved commander. This is a 12 MEMORIAL VOLUME. question, at this time, solely for the determination of the imme diate family of General Lee. Let us respect the feelings of those who have sustained so terrible a bereavement. I am sure that the soldiers who followed him through such dreadful trials will have regard for the wishes of that noble Virginia matron, who, being allied to Washington, has been through life the cherished bosom companion of Lee. Comrades, I am more than gratified at the fact that the great statesman and pure patriot who presided over the destinies of the Confederate States who selected General Lee to lead her armies and gave him his entire confidence throughout all his glorious career is here to mingle his grief with ours, and to join in pay ing tribute to the memory of him we mourn. The Rev. Charles Minnigerode, D. D., Rector of Saint Paul s Church, Richmond, then made a fervent and appropriate prayer. General Bradley T. Johnson moved the appointment of Com mittees on Permanent Organization and Resolutions; whereupon the Chair appointed the following: OX PERMANENT ORGANIZATION. General WILLIAM TERRY, Chairman Bedford. Major ROBERT STILES Richmond. Sergeant J. VANLEW MCCREERY Richmond. Corporal WILLIAM C. KEAN, Jr Louisa. Lieutenant JOHN E. ROLLER Rockingham. Lieutenant HENRY C. CARTER Richmond. General GEORGE E. PICKETT Richmond. General JOHN R. COOKE King William. General HARRY HETH Baltimore. Colonel THOMAS H. CARTER King William. Colonel H. P. JONES Hanover. Private W. H. EFFINGER Rockingham. Captain JAMES WILLIAM FOSTER Leesburg. Colonel THOMAS L. PRESTON Albemarle. General WILLIAM H. PAYNE... Fauquier. Colonel ROBERT S. PRESTON.... Montgomery. Captain W. (J, NICHOLAS Maryland. Colonel WILLIAM ALLAN Lexington. Private ABRAM WARWICK Richmond. Major A. R. VENABLE Prince Ed\vard. Lieutenant SAMUEL WILSON Surry. Major ROBERT VV. HUNTER Winchester. Lieutenant JAMES POLLARD King William. Colonel WILLIAM NELSON Hanover. Captain R. I). MINOR Richmond. General JAMES H. LANE North Carolina. Colonel W. W. GORDON New Kent. Hon. WILLIAM WELSH Kent county, Md. Captain J. L. CLARKE Baltimore. OX PERMANENT ORGANIZATION. 13 ON RESOLUTIONS. Colonel CHARLES S. VENABLE. Chairman Albemarle. Hon. R. T. BANKS Baltimore. Major JOHN W. DANIEL Lynchburg. Lieutenant RICHARD H. CHRISTIAN Richmond. Major WILLIAM H. CASKIE Richmond. General BEX. HUGKR Fanqnier. " General WILLIAM MAIIONE Petersburg. General L. L. LOMAX Fanquier. GEORGE H. PAGELS, Esq Baltimore. Colonel EDMUND PENDLETON Botetourt. Private JOHN A. ELDER Richmond. Commodore MATTHEW F. MAUKY Lexington. General GEORGE H. STEUART Baltimore. General C. W. FIELD Virginia. General W. S. WALKER Georgia. Sergeant LEROY 8. EDWARDS Richmond. Lieutenant, S. V. SOUTHALL ,. Albemarle. Captain J. M. HUDGINS Caroline. Colonel WILLIAM E. CAMERON Petersburg. Colonel WILLIAM WATTS Koanoke. General HARRY HETH Baltimore. General WILLIAM B. TALIAFERRO Gloucester. General SAMUEL JONES Amelia. Private .JOHN B. MORDECAI Hcnrieo. Captain J. McIlENRY HOWARD Baltimore. Captain E. GRISWOLD Baltimore. Lieutenant II. C. JONES Alleghany Co., Mtl. After an absence of a few minutes the Committee on Perma nent Organization, through their chairman, General Terry, made the following report, which was unanimously adopted, amidst great applause: For President Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS. For I Ice-Presidents Major-General JOHN B. GORDON. Major-General FITZ. LEE. Major-General EDWARD JOHNSON. Major-General 1. R. TRIMBLE. Major-General W. B. TALIAFERRO. Brig.-General WM. N". PENDLETON. Major WILLIAM X. BERKELEY. Major-General WILLIAM SMITH. Coloiu HEXRY PEYTON. J. L. FRENCH. ROBERT E. WITHERS. WILLIAM WILLIS. WM. PRESTON JOHNSTON, Colone Colonel CHARLES MARSHALL. Captain MANN PAGE. Colonel WALTER IT. TAYLOR. Corporal WILLIAM c. KEAN. Colonel W. K. PERRIN. Private ROBERT MARTIN. Colonel PEYTON X. WISE. Private G. HOUGH. General M. RANSON. Private G. ELDER. Captain ROBERT PEGRAM. Sergeant W. WIRT ROBINSON. General L. L. LOMAX. For Secretaries Captain E. S. GREGORY. Private ABNER ANDERSON. Sergeant GEORGE L. CHRISTIAN. Captain THOMAS I). HOUSTON. Captain C. G. LAWSON. Captain GEORGE WALKER. Sergeant JAMES I*. COWARDIN. Major WILLIAM B. MYERS. Captain W. A. ANDERSON. 14 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Mr. Davis advance to the chair was hailed with a burst of irrepressible enthusiasm he was cheered to the echo and his address enchained every eye and thrilled every heart in the audience from the outset to the end. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. Soldiers and Sailors of the Confederacy, Countrymen and Friends Assembled on this sad occasion, with hearts oppressed with the grief that follows the loss of him who was our leader on many a bloody battlefield, there is a melancholy pleasure in the spectacle which is presented. Hitherto men have been hon ored when successful; but here is the case of one who amid disaster went down to his grave, and those who were his com panions in misfortune have assembled to honor his memory. It is as much an honor to you who give as to him who receives, for above the vulgar test of merit you show yourselves competent to discriminate between him who enjoys and him who deserves success. Robert E. Lee was my associate and friend in the Military Academy, and we were friends until the hour of his death. We were associates and friends when he was a soldier and I a con gressman, and associates and friends when he led the armies of the Confederacy and I held civil office; and therefore I may claim to speak as one who knew him. In the many sad scenes and perilous circumstances through which we passed together, our conferences were frequent and full ; yet never was there an occa sion on which there was not entire harmony of purpose and accordance as to means. If ever there was difference of opinion, it was dissipated by discussion, and harmony was the result. I repeat, we never disagreed, and I may add that I never saw in him the slightest tendency to self-seeking. It was not his to make a record; it was not his to shift blame to other shoulders; but it was his, with an eye fixed upon the welfare of his country, never faltering, to follow the line of duty to the end. His was the heart that braved every difficulty; his was the mind that wrought victory out of defeat. He has been charged with "want of dash." I wish to say that I never knew Lee to decline to attempt anything man should dare. An attempt has also been made to throw a cloud upon his character because he left the army of the United States to join in the struggle for the liberty of his State. Without enter ing into politics, I deem it my duty to say one word in reference to this charge. Virginian born, descended from a family illus trious in the Colonial history of Virginia, more illustrious still. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. 15 in her struggle for independence, and most illustrious in her recent effort to maintain the great principles declared in I//6; given by Virginia to the service of the United States, he repre sented her in the Military Academy at West Point. He was not educated by the Federal Government, but by Virginia; for she paid her full share for the support of that institution, and was entitled to its benefits as well as to demand in return the services of her sons. Entering the army of the United States, he repre sented Virginia there also, and nobly performed his duty for the Union of which Virginia was a member, whether we look to his peaceful services as an engineer, or to his more notable deeds upon foreign fields of battle. He came from Mexico crowned with honors, covered by brevets, and recognized, young as he was, as one of the ablest of his country s soldiers. And to prove that he was estimated then as such, not only by his associates, but by foreigners also, I may mention that when he was a Cap tain of Engineers, stationed in Baltimore, the Cuban Junta in New York invited him to be their leader in the revolutionary effort in that island. They were anxious to secure his services, and offered him every temptation that ambition could desire and pecuniar} emoluments far beyond any which he could hope otherwise to acquire. He thought the matter over, and came to Washington to consult me as to what he should do. After a brief discussion of the complex character of the military problem which was presented, he turned from the consideration of that view of the question, by stating that the point on which he wished particularly to consult me, was as to the propriety of entertaining the proposition which had been made to him. He had been educated in the service of the United States, and felt it wrong to accept place in the army of a foreign power, while he held the commission which must have caused the offer to be made. Such was the extreme delicacy, such the nice sense of honor, of the gallant gentleman we deplore. But when Virginia the State to which he owed his first and last allegiance with drew from the Union and thus terminated her relations to it, the same nice sense of honor and duty which had guided him on a former occasion, had a different application, and led him to draw his sword and, throwing it in the scale, to share her fortune for good or for evil. When Virginia joined the Confederacy, and the scat of Gov ernment was moved to Richmond, Lee was the highest officer in the little army of Virginia, and promptly co-operated in all the movements of the Confederate Government for the defence of the common country. When he was sent to Western Virginia, he made no inquiry as to his rank, but continued to serve under 1 6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the impression that he was still an officer of Virginia; and though he had, in point of fact, then been appointed General by the Con federate Government, he was so careless of himself as never to have learned the fact, and only made inquiry when, ordered to another State, he deemed it necessary to know what would be his relative position towards other officers with whom he might be brought in contact. You all remember the disastrous character of that campaign in Western Virginia to which I have referred. He came back carrying the heavy weight of defeat and unappreciated by the people whom he served; for they could not know that if his plans and orders had been carried out, the result would have been victory rather than retreat. You did not know it, for I would not have known had he not reported it, with the request, however, in consideration for others, that it should not be made public. The clamor which then arose followed him when he went to South Carolina; so that it became necessary to write a letter to the Governor of that State, telling him what manner of man Lee was. Yet, through all this, with a magnanimity rarely equalled, he stood in silence, without defending himself or allow ing others to defend him, for he was unwilling to injure any one who was striking blows for the Confederacy. [Mr. Davis then spoke of the straits to which the Confederacy was reduced, and of the danger to which her capital was ex posed just after the battle of Seven Pines, and told how General Lee conceived and executed the desperate plan to turn the enemy s flank and rear, and how, after seven days bloody battle, the pro tection of Richmond was secured, and the enemy, driven far from the city, cowered on the banks of the James river, under the cover of his gunboats. The speaker referred also to the cir cumstances attending General Lee s crossing the Potomac and the march into Pennsylvania, and to the censures to which that movement had been subjected by those who did not comprehend the purpose for which it was undertaken. He said that if neces sary he had always been willing to assume the responsibility of it, and had at the time written a vindication of the enterprise. Whatever" were the sacrifices of that campaign, it achieved the result for which it w r as intended. The enemy had long been concentrating his forces, and it was evident that if they con tinued their steady progress, the Confederacy would be over whelmed. Our only hope was to drive him to the defence of his own capital, that we, thus relieved, might be enabled in the mean time to reinforce our shattered army. How well General Lee carried out that dangerous experiment need not be told. Rich mond was relieved, the Confederacy was relieved, and time was ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT DAVIS. I/ obtained, if other things had favored, to reinforce the army.] Mr. Davis then proceeded : I shall not attempt to review the military career of our deceased Chieftain. Of the man, how shall I speak? He was my friend, and in that word is included all that I could say of any man. His moral qualities rose to the height of his genius. Self-deny ing always intent upon the one idea of duty self-controlled to an extent that many thought him cold. His feelings were really warm, and his heart melted readily at the sufferings of the widow and the orphan, and his eye rested with mournful tenderness upon the wounded soldier. During the war he was ever con scious of the insufficiency of the means at his control; but it was never his to complain or to utter a doubt it was always his to do. When in the last campaign he was beleagured at Petersburg, and painfully aware of the straits to which we were reduced, he said: "With my army in the mountains of Virginia, I could carry on this war for twenty years longer." His army greatly dimin ished, his transportation deficient, he could only hope to protract the defence until the roads should become firm enough to enable him to retire. An untoward event caused him to anticipate the projected movement, and the Army of Northern Virginia was overwhelmed. But in the surrender he trusted to conditions that should, both for policy and good faith, have been fulfilled he expected his army to be respected and his paroled soldiers to be allowed the peaceful enjoyment of civil rights and property. Whether these conditions have been fulfilled, I leave it to others to determine. Here he now sleeps in the land he loved so well, and that land is not Virginia only, for they do injustice to Lee who believe he fought only for Virginia. He was ready to go anywhere, on any service, for the good of his country, and his heart icas as broad as tJic fifteen States struggling for tJic principles tliat our forcfatlicrs fought for in tJic Revolution of i*/~/f>. He sleeps with the thous ands who fought under the same flag and happiest the} who first offered up their lives; he sleeps in the soil to him and to them most clear. That flag was furled when there was none to bear it. Around it we are assembled, a remnant of the living, to do honor to his memory, and there is an army of skeleton senti nels to keep watch above his grave. This good citizen, this gal lant soldier, this great general, this true patriot, had yet a higher praise than this or these he was a true Christian. The Chris tianity which ennobled his life gives to us the consolatory belief that he is happy beyond the grave. But while we mourn the loss of the great and the true, drop we also tears of sympathy with her who was an helpmeet to him I 8 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the noble woman who, while her husband was in the field leading the army of the Confederacy, though an invalid herself, passed the time in knitting socks for the- marching soldiers! A woman fit to be the mother of heroes and heroes are descended from her. Mourning with her, we can only offer the consolations of the Christian. Our loss is not his, but he now enjoys the re wards of a life well spent and a never wavering trust in a risen Saviour. This day we unite our words of sorrow with those of the good and great throughout Christendom, for his fame is gone over the water. His deeds will be remembered by the liberty- loving patriot of every age and of every clime; when the monu ment we build shalLhave crumbled into dust, his virtues will still live, a high model for the imitation of generations yet unborn. MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS. Colonel C. S. Venable then presented the following report of the Committee on Resolutions: Whereas, it is a high and holy duty, as well as a noble privi lege, to perpetuate the honors of those who have displayed emi nent virtues and performed great achievements, that they may serve as incentives and examples to the latest generation of their countrymen, and attest the reverential admiration and affectionate regard of their compatriots; and whereas, this duty and privilege devolves on all who love and admire General Robert E. Lee throughout this country and the world, and in an especial manner upon those who followed him in the field, or who fought in the same cause, who shared in his glories, partook of his trials, and were united with him in the same sorrows and adversity, who were devoted to him in war by the baptism of fire and blood, and bound to him in peace by the still higher homage due to the rare and grand exhibition of a character pure and lofty and gentle and true, under all changes of fortune, and serene amid the greatest disasters: therefore, be it 1. Resolved, That we form an association to erect a monument at Richmond to the memory of Robert E. Lee, as an enduring testimonial of our love and respect and devotion to his fame. 2. Resolved, That while donations will be gladly received from all who recognize in the excellences of General Lee s character an honor and an encouragement to our common humanity and an abiding hope that others in coming generations maybe found to imitate his virtues, it is desirable that every Confederate soldier and sailor should make some contribution, however small, to the proposed monument. ADDRESS OF COLONEL VEXABLE. 19 j. Resolved, That for the purpose of securing the requisite efficiency and dispatch in the erection of the monument, an ex ecutive committee of seven, with a president, secretary, treasurer, auditor, &c., be appointed to invite and collect subscriptions, to procure designs for said monument, to select the best, to provide for the organization of central executive committees in other States, which may serve as mediums of communication between the executive committee of the Association and the local asso ciations of those States, and to do whatever else is required in the premises. ./. Resolved, That we respectfully invite the ladies of the Hol lywood Association to lend us their assistance and co-operation in the collection of subscriptions. 5. Resolved, That we cordially approve of the local monu ments to our beloved Chieftain, proposed by the Associations at Atlanta, and at Lexington, his home, whose people were so closely united with him in the last sad years of his life. 6. Resolved, That while we cordially thank the Governor and Legislature of Virginia for the steps they have taken to do honor to the memory of General Lee, yet, in deference to the wishes of his loved and venerated widow, with whom we mourn, we will not discuss the question of the most fitting resting place for his ever glorious remains, but will content ourselves with ex pressing the earnest desire and hope that at some future proper time they will be committed to the charge of this Association. Colonel Venable supported the resolutions with the following remarks : ADDRESS OF COLONEL VEXAI5LE. j\fy Countrymen and Felloiv Soldiers In presenting these reso lutions from the Committee, I will make no studied effort to add to the eulogies of General Lee which have been pronounced throughout the world. I will not speak of his fame and military genius. \Ve can leave these in perfect confidence to the calm verdict of history. Be it mine to relate a single incident to show what his great soul suffered for us amid those last sad hours of the life of the Army of Northern Virginia, at Appomattox Court house. At three o clock on the morning of that fatal day, Gen eral Lee rode forward, still hoping that we might break through the countless hordes of the enemy which hemmed us in. Halt ing a short distance in rear of our vanguard, he sent me on to General Gordon to ask him if he could break through the ene my. I found General Gordon and General Fitz. Lee on their front line in the dim light of the morning, arranging an attack. 2O MEMORIAL VOLUME. Gordon s reply to the message (I give the expressive phrase of the gallant Georgian) was this: "Tell General Lee I have fought my corps to a frazzle, and I fear I can do nothing unless I am heavily supported by Longstreet s corps." When I bore this message back to General Lee, he said: "Then there is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant,* and I would rather die a thousand deaths." Convulsed with passionate grief, many were the wild w r ords which we spoke, as we stood around him. Said one, "Oh! General, what will history say of the surrender of the army in the field?" He replied, "Yes, I know they will say hard things of us; they will not understand how we were overwhelmed by numbers; but that is not the question, Colonel; the question is, is it right to surrender this army? if it is right, then / will take tf//the responsibility." Fellow soldiers, though he alone was calm, in that hour of humiliation the soul of our great Captain underwent the throes of death, for his grand old army surrendered, and for his people so soon to lie at the mercy of the foe; and the sorrows of this first death at Appomattox Court house, with the afflictions which fell upon the devoted South, weighed upon his mighty heart to its breaking, when the wel come messenger came from God to translate him to his home in heaven. We are met together to begin the erection of a monument to liis memory. And where shall this monument be reared? In the words of the resolutions, we say, here at Richmond, which was founded by the companions of his knightly ancestors; at Richmond, the objective point of those attacks made with all the accumulated resources of modern warfare, which he repelled for four long years; Richmond, where lie so many of the brave sol diers who went gaily to death at his bidding some who fell with their last looks upon the spires of her temples; others nursed in their dying hours by the tender hands of her women, and others still who gave their souls to God and their bodies to the enemy at Gettysburg, brought hither by the loving care of the same true devoted women. Yes, let his monument be near them here in Richmond; and when the first flush of the resurrection morn tinges the skies, may their unsealed eyes behold the grand figure of him whom they loved so well. The Chair then introduced General John S. Preston, of South Carolina. Field s and Mahono s divisions of Lonpstreet .s corps, staunch in the midst of all our dis asters, were holding Meade back in our rear, and could not be spared for the attack. ADDRESS OF GENERAL PRESTON. 2L ADDRESS OF GENERAL PRESTON. Mr. President and Comrades of tlic Annies of tlic Confederate States There was a time when, with wicked and impatient infi delity, I feared it was not a kind providence which permitted men with grey beards to survive our war. But having seen Robert Lee live as righteously as he fought gloriously, and that we are now spared to the holy duty of honoring his memory and perpetuating his faith, I recant the heresy and meekly wait the way of the Lord, and am grateful for that consideration which calls me to appear in this stately procession. Yet I scarcely dare to bring my little blade of grass to lay upon a grave already glittering with tears and pearls, flowing from the eyes and hearts of a mourning world. On no occasion of my life have I been so utterly unable to tell the feelings of my heart, or the crowding thoughts which come rushing on my brain. But, comrades, we are not here to find rhetorical forms, modes and shows of trrief, not even to speak singly, but altogether, as in o 1 o ,/ " . o these complete resolutions, with one tongue, one heart, in the simplest words of our language, to join our grief and our honor. As a Virginian, as a Confederate, as a man, as a friend, I am overwhelmed with the emotions which emanate from all these attributes of my being. Standing here before the most illustrious and the bravest living, I feel as if I were in the very presence of the greatest dead who has died in my generation of him to whom my spirit bowed as to the anointed Champion of the purest human faith I have ever cherished of him, who, by his great deeds, by his pure life, by his humble faith in the meek and lowly Jesus, has justified to the world and is now pleading with a God of Truth for that cause which made him the most illus trious living man and the most mourned of all the dead who died in his generation. It was the greatness of his cause, and the purity of his faith in that cause, which made Robert Lee great, for we who know him best do know that Robert Lee could never have achieved greatness in an ignoble cause, or under an impure faith. God gave him to us, to sanctify our faith, and to show us and the world that, although we might fail, His chosen servant had made that cause forever holy. We who have been associated with the man in the gentler affections of friendship, or even in the rage and turmoil of battle, can scarcely appreciate the perfect symmetry and dazzling splen dor of that character which stands out the foremost of our age. Those who come after us, freed from our personal love, and from the present glow of his virtues, will see in all their plentitude ;22 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the god-like hero, the great Captain, the exalted Christian gentle man, the devoted son, who drew his sword in defence of the honor, the liberties and the sovereignty of Virginia, and who, as surely as if he had been shot to death on her bloodiest battle field, did die for Virginia, for he had laid all his love, all his faith, all his life, at her feet. Virginians ! can we forget the mother for whose honor, liberty and sovereignty Robert Lee has just died? Lee s patriotism was that God-given virtue which makes demi gods of men, and was as wide as his country, from Maryland to Texas; but he was a Virginian, body and soul, heart and spirit. He told his commander so when he sheathed his sword from the service of her enemies ; he told the wife of his bosom so when the Virginia matron again girded on his sword; and here, glow ing like a promised god, in the presence of the assembled sove reignty of Virginia, he told them he drew his sword in defence of the honor, the liberty and the sovereignty of Virginia. She was his fortress, his citadel, his palladium, the very temple in which he worshiped; and it was here, when the circling fire was girdling nearer and nearer around her sacred Capitol, that the mighty powers of his soul came forth to redeem his pledge, for it was the last stronghold of his faith. And it was here, beneath the shadow of these monuments which attest her glory, that he rose to be peer of those whose images grow brighter by his great deeds. Here, then, comrades of Robert Lee, is the ground made sacred by himself for the repose of his ashes. Here, in front of the Capitol of Virginia, let there be reared side by side with the monument to George Washington, an equal monument to Robert Lee, that in all time to come our children s children may render equal reverence to the faith of the Father of his Country and that of the Confederate Soldier. General John B. Gordon, of Georgia, was introduced by the Chair, and spoke as follows: ADDRESS OF GENERAL GORDON. Mr. Chairman^ Ladies and Fellow Soldiers If permitted to indulge the sensibilities of my nature, I would gladly have fled the performance of this most honorable task your kindness has imposed, and in silence to-night have contemplated the virtues of the great and good man whose loss we so deplore. I loved General Lee, for it was my proud privilege to know him well. I loved him with a profound and filial awe a sincere and unfeigned affection. We all loved him, and it is not a matter of ADDRESS OF GENERAL GORDON. 23 surprise that the sons and daughters of Virginia should contend for that sweetest of all privileges now left us to keep special watch over his grave. But where his remains shall lie is not the subject we are here to consider. We are met to provide, as suggested by the reso lutions, for the erection of a monument in honor of our great Captain. Honor, did I say? Honor General Lee! How vain, what utter mockery do these words seem. Honor Lee! Why, my friends, his deeds have honored him. The very trump of Fame is proud to honor him. Kurope and the civilized world have honored him supremely, and history itself will catch the echo and make it immortal. Honor Lee! Why, sir, the sad news of his death, as it was borne to the world, carried a pang even to the hearts of marshals and of monarchs; and I can easily fancy that amidst the din and clash and carnage of battle, the cannon, in transient pause at the whispered news, briefly ceased its roar around the walls of Paris. The brief time it would be proper for me to occupy to-night is altogether insufficient to analyze the elements which made him great. But I wish to say that it has been my fortune in life to have come in contact with some whom the world pronounced great; but of no man whom it has ever been my fortune to meet can it be so truthfully said, as of Lee, that, grand as might be your conceptions of the man before, he arose in incomparable majesty on more familiar acquaintance. This can be affirmed of few men who have ever lived or died, and of no other man whom it has been my fortune to approach. Like Niagara, the more you gazed the more its grandeur grew upon you, the more its majesty expanded and filled your spirit with a full satisfaction, that left a perfect delight without the slightest feeling of oppres sion. Grandly majestic and dignified in all his deportment, he was genial as the sunlight of May, and not a ray of that cordial, social intercourse but brought warmth to the heart, as it did light to the understanding. But as one of the great Captains of the word, he will first pass review and inspection before the criticism of history. We will not compare him with Washington. The mind revolts instinct ively at the comparison and competition of two such men, so equally and gloriously great. But with modest, yet calm and unflinching confidence, we place him by the side of the Marl- boroughs and Wellingtons, who fill such high niches in the pan theon of immortality. Let us dwell for a moment, my friends, on this thought. Marlborough never met defeat, it is true. Victory marked every step of his triumphant march; but when, where and whom did 24 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Marlborough fight? The ambitious and vain but able Louis XIV had already exhausted the resources of his Kingdom be fore Marlborough stepped upon the stage. The great Marshals Turenne and Condi were no more, and Luxemburg, we believe, had vanished from the scene. Marlborough, pre-eminently great, as he certainly was, nevertheless, led the combined forces of England and of Holland, in the freshness of their strength and the fulness of their financial ability, against prostate France, with a treasury depleted, a people worn out, discouraged and dejected. But let us turn to another comparison. The great Von Moltke, who now "rides upon the whirlwind and commands the storm " of Prussian invasion, has recently declared that General Lee, in all respects, was fully the equal of Wellington, and you may the better appreciate this admission when you remember that Wel lington was the benefactor of Prussia, and probably Von Moltke s special idol. But let us examine the arguments ourselves. France was already prostrate when Wellington met Napoleon. That great Emperor had seemed to make war upon the very elements themselves, to have contended with nature, and to have almost defied Providence. The Nemesis of the North, more savage than Goth or Vandal, mounting the swift gales of a Rus sian winter, had carried death, desolation and ruin to the very gates of Paris. Wellington fought at Waterloo a bleeding and broken nation a nation electrified, it is true, to almost super human energy, by the genius of Napoleon; but a nation prostrate and bleeding, nevertheless. Compare this, my friends, the con dition of France with the condition of the United States, in the freshness of her strength, in the luxuriance of her resources, in the lustihood of her gigantic youth, and tell me where belongs the chaplet of military superiority, with Lee or with Marlborough or Wellington? Even that greatest of Captains, in his Italian campaigns, flashing his fame in lightning splendor over the world, even Bonaparte met and crushed in battle but three or four, I think, Austrian armies; while our Lee, with one army, badly equipped and in time incredibly short, met and hurled back, in broken and shattered fragments, five admirably prepared and most magnificently appointed invasions. Yes, more: he dis crowned, in rapid succession, one after another, of the L^nited States most accomplished and admirable commanders. Lee was never really beaten. Lee could not be beaten! Over powered, foiled in his efforts, he might be; but never defeated until the props which supported him gave way. Never until the platform sank beneath him, did any enemy ever dare pursue. On that most melancholy of pages, the downfall of the Confederacy, no Leipsic, no Waterloo, no Sedan can ever be recorded. ADDRESS OF GENERAL GORDON. 2 5 General Lee is known to the world only as a military man, but it is easy to divine from his history how mindful of all just authority, how observant of all constitutional restrictions, would have been his career as a civilian. When, near the conclusion of the war, darkness was thickening about the falling fortunes of the Confederacy; when its very life was in the sword of Lee, it was my proud privilege to note, with special admiration, the modest demeanor, the manly decorum, and the respectful homage which marked all his intercourse with the constituted authorities of his country. Clothed with all power, he hid its every symbol behind a genial modesty, and refused to exert it save in obedience to law. And even in his triumphant entry into the territory of the enemy, so regardful was he of civilized warfare, that the observance of his general orders as to private property and private rights left the line of his march marked and marrjd by no devastated fields, charred ruins or desolated homes. But it is his private character, or rather, I should say, his per sonal emotion and virtues, which his countrymen will most delight to consider and dwell upon. His magnanimity, trans cending all historic precedents, seemed to form a new chapter in the book of humanity. \Yitncss that letter to Jackson, after his wounds at Chancellorsville, in which he said: "1 am praying for you with more fervor than I ever prayed for myself"; and that other more disinterested and pathetic: "I could, for the good of my country, wish that the wounds which you have received, had been inflicted upon my own body"; or that of the later message: "Say to General Jackson that his wounds are not so severe as mine, for he loses but his left arm, while I, in him, lose my right"; or that other expression of unequalled magnanimity in which he ascribed the glory of their joint victor}- to the sole credit of the dying hero. Did I say unequalled? Yes, that was an avowal of unequalled magnanimity, until it met its parallel in his own grander self-negation, in assuming the sole responsibility for the failure at Gettysburg. Aye, my countrymen, Alexander had his Arbela, Caesar his Pharsalia, Napoleon his Austerlitz, but it was reserved for Lee to grow grander and more illustrious in defeat than ever in victory grander, because in defeat he showed a spirit grander than victory, the heroism of battles, or all the achievements of the war a spirit which crowns him with a chaplet greener far than ever mighty conqueror wore. I turn me now to that last closing scene at Appomattox, and draw thence a picture of this man as he laid aside the sword of the unrivaled soldier, to become the most exemplary of citizens. I can never forget the deferential homage paid this great Cap tain by even the Federal soldiery, as with uncovered heads they 3 26 MEMORIAL VOLUME. contemplated in mute admiration this now captive hero, as he rode through their ranks. Impressed forever, daguereotyped on my heart, is that last parting scene with the handful of heroes still crowding around him. Few, indeed, were the words then spoken; but the quivering lip and the tearful eye told of the love they bore him, in symphonies more eloquent than any language can describe. Can I ever forget? No, never, never, can I forget the words which fell from his lips as I rode beside him amidst the dejected and weeping soldiery, when, turning to me, he said: "I could wish that I were numbered among the fallen in the last battle"; and oh! as he thought of the loss of the cause of the many dead, scattered over so many fields, who sleeping neglected, Avith no governmental arms to gather up their remains, sleeping isolated and alone beneath the tearful stars, with naught but their soldier blankets about them oh ! as these emotions swept over his great soul, he felt that he would fain have laid him down to rest in the same grave where lies buried the common hope of his people. But Providence willed it otherwise. He rests now forever, my countrymen, his spirit in the bosom of that Father whom he so faithfully served, his body in the Valley, surrounded by the mountains of his native State mountains, the autumnal glories of whose magnificent forests now seem but habiliments of mourning in the Valley, the pearly dewdrops on whose grass and flowers seem but tears of sadness. No sound shall ever, wake him to martial glory again. No more shall he lead his invincible lines to victory. No more shall we gaze upon him and draw from his quiet demeanor lessons of life. But oh! it is a sweet consolation to us who loved him that no more shall his bright spirit be bowed down to the earth with the burden of his people s wrongs. It is sweet consolation to us that this last victory, through faith in his crucified Redeemer, is the most transcendently glorious of all his triumphs. It is meet that we should build to his memory a monument here here in this devoted city here on these classic hills a monument as enduring as their granite foundations here beside the river whose banks are ever memorable and whose waters are vocal with the glories of his triumphs. Here let the monument stand as a testimonial to all peoples and countries and ages of our appreciation of the man who, in all the aspects of his career and character and attainments as a great Captain, ranking among the first of any age as a patriot, whose self-sacrificing devotion to his country renders him the peer of Washington as a Christian like Havelock, recognizing his duty to his God above every other consideration with a native modesty which refused to appropriate a glory all his own, ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 2/ and which surrounds with a halo of light his whole career and character \vith a fidelity to principle which no misfortunes could shake with an integrity of life and sacred reverence for truth which no man can dare to assail must ever stand peerless among men in the estimation of Cristendom. Mr. Davis then requested Colonel Charles Marshall, of Balti more, to address the meeting. Colonel Marshall replied that he felt unworthy to stand upon ground which had been occupied by the eminent speakers who had preceded him, and therefore preferred remaining on the floor. The Chair at once replied, "The friend and military secretary of Lee is worthy to occupy anv ground, sir," and insisted that Colonel Marshall should come upon the stand, which he then did amid great applause, and spoke as follows: ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. Nothing but an earnest desire to do all in my power to pro mote the object of our meeting to-night induces me to occupy this stand. I feel my unfitness to address those who have lis tened to men whose names, I may say, without flattery, are his toric whose valor and constancy deserved and enjoyed the con fidence of our great leader. More especially am I unworthy to stand where just now he stood who, amidst all the cares and trials of the eventful period during which he guided the destinies of the Confederacy, amidst all the dangers and difficulties that surrounded him, amidst all the vicissitudes of victory and dis aster, always and on all occasions, gave the aid of his eminent abilities, his unfaltering "courage and his pure patriotism, to our illustrious chief. But on behalf of those who are with me to-night from Mary land, I desire to say a few words in support of the resolutions of the Committee. These resolutions require that a monument shall be erected, and that it shall be erected in Richmond. In both propositions we most heartily concur. We are assembled not to provide for the erection of a tomb stone on which to write, " Here lies Robert E. Lee," but to rear a cloud-piercing monument which shall tell to coming generations, "Here lived Robert E. Lcc" We desire something worthy to transmit the lesson of his example, and of our undying love, to posterity, and to this end we invoke the aid not only of those who followed the flashing 28 MEMORIAL VOLUME. of his stainless sword, but of all who reverence the memory of his spotless life. We wish to concentrate all efforts upon the attainment of this great end, not that we may honor him, but that we may preserve, for the good of all mankind, the memory of his achievements and the teaching of his example. And it is eminently proper that such a monument should be erected in Richmond. Here was the scene of his greatest labors and his greatest triumphs. In defence of this city he displayed those great quali ties which have given him the lofty position assigned him by the unanimous voice of his time and secured for him the love, the gratitude and the affectionate veneration of the people for whose liberties he fought. All his campaigns, all the battles, whether among the hills of Pennsylvania and Maryland, or upon the banks of the Chicka- hominy and the Appomattox, had for their great object the pro tection of Richmond. Here lie buried the dead of every State, from Maryland to Texas, and to this spot, to Hollywood, the hearts of wives, of mothers and of sisters, from the banks of the Potomac to those of the Rio Grande, are ever sadly but proudly turning. No other place in the South unites so entirely the sympathies and affections of her people. To raise his monument here, within sight of the fields on which he won his fame and among the graves of those who were faithful to him unto death, seems to us, therefore, to be most appropriate. We do not propose now to say what that monu ment shall be, but to adopt measures which will enable us to invite the taste, the cultivation and the genius of our age to compete in furnishing a suitable design. And we hope to find some one who can rise to the height of the great argument, grasping the subject, realizing the character and achievements of our leader, feeling the love, the gratitude, the veneration of our people, and grouping all, around this hal lowed spot, write in one enduring word the story of General Lee, his army and his country. There is one other reason why we should erect a monument, and why we should erect it here. It is that we may perpetuate for our guidance the lesson taught by his example when war was done and all his efforts had ended in failure. In that lesson the whole country has an immediate interest. History presents no parallel to the sudden cessasion of resistance on the part of the Southern people after the surrender at Appomattox. In a few short weeks, where armies had but lately confronted each ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL 29 other, peace was fully restored and not an armed Southron could be found within our borders. It seemed as if their mother earth Had swallowed up her warlike birth." The Federal Government manifested its confidence in the pledges made by the soldiers and people of the Confederacy by sending companies and regiments to control those before whom corps and armies had fled. That Government knew well that the handful of troops sent ostensibly to overawe the South could repose securely upon that honor which they insulted by their presence. And in that confidence, shame be it said, wrongs were inflicted upon our people, which we have the authority of unquestioned loyalty for saying ought not to be meekly borne by men of English blood. But the Federal Government knew that the Southern people looked for guidance to their leaders, and that foremost among 1 o t> those leaders they looked to General Lee. He had given the pledge of his honor, and his people regarded his honor as their own. Relying upon his influence with his countrymen, and knowing that his influence would be exerted to secure the most perfect compliance with the terms of his surrender, the dominant party in the North entered upon a course of systematic oppression and insult which would have justified him in renouncing the oblina- J o o tions of the terms made at Appomattox. But his word was given and nothing could change it. The dastardly wrongs inflicted upon his people could break and did break his great heart, but could not make him swerve from his truth. He bore all in silence until he died, and his people looked upon him and gathered strength to bear. New outrages upon our liberties and rights, new insults to our honor, may tempt us sometimes to forget that our hands no longer hold the sabre or the rifle. To whom shall we turn for that strength which will enable us to keep faith with the faithless? We can no longer see the noble example which he set before us; but that we may not err from the path in which he trod, let us here, at the place towards which the eyes and hearts of all our people turn, rear a monument, to which, when tempted to resist, we may look and learn afresh the lesson of that sublime patience which he illustrated, and which,, my fellow soldiers and countrymen, be assured, will, like the anvil, wear out many hammers. 3O MEMORIAL VOLUME. Colonel Marshall was succeeded by General Henry A. Wise, who spoke as follows: ADDRESS OF GENERAL WISE. Mr. President and Comrades of the Confederacy I cannot trust the fullness of my heart at the moment of this meeting to prompt my lips with the words becoming the bier of General Robert E. Lee, whose death has called together some of his surviving com rades. It is no occasion for any sketch of biography or history; eulogy upon his life and death is vain; his character excels all praise; his merits need not to be disclosed and his faults had no "dread abodes," for they all leaned to virtue s side. Whatever faults he had, and whatever blame belonged to him, no friend or foe could point them out half as readily as his truthful ingenuous ness would admit and mourn them. He was swifter than the accuser to accuse himself, and ever generous to the faults of others; he was ever foremost to acknowledge his own. If noth ing is to be said of the dead but what is good, there is a super abundance of good in his life and death to compose volumes for the instruction of mankind. He is departed and gone to his Father, but it cannot be said of him that he is "no more." His fame is left to earth for all time his great and good soul is in heaven for all eternity; and from his example proceeds a moral power and divine force which all the arms of earth and powers of darkness cannot subdue, a wisdom and virtue which shall hover over the land he loved, and spread it with the fruits of righteousness and truth. That is enough to be said of him, and it is left for us to cherish his memory and keep the legacies of lessons he taught. The first fruit of his demise is the happy result of bringing us together for the first time since he gave up the sword which he accepted with the pledge to devote it to the gods and the altars of his home, and to sheath it only when his work was finished. He sheathed it not until his whole duty was discharged and his work was done. He made us honor, love and confide in him, and taught us how to deserve the honor, love and confidence of each other; and I pray you now to form a brotherhood in peace which shall perpetuate our comradeship in war, worthy of the armies of the Confederacy and of their illustrious Chief. In its initiation let it be like what the Cincinnati Society after the first American Revolution was to Washington full of affec tions and memories of which the great Chief was the centre but let it never fail or expire as the Cincinnati did, for reason or ADDRESS OF GENERAL WISE. 3! suspicion even of any designs of paltry party politics. Let our standards be still the standard of Robert E. Lee God, Religion, Honor, Truth and our Country! Let us unite in one grand Confederate brotherhood, with subordinate auxiliary organiza tions for each Confederate army, to foster our affections, to cherish our memories, and to preserve our history. There is a necessity for all this, for we are scattered and separated from each other, and may lose our fellow feeling; we are fast dying away from memory, and may soon be forgotten ; and the spoiler is now busily and rapidly taking from us, by the pen, the truth of history, more precious to us than all the spoils of war which were ever captured by his sword. This, I trust, will be the main object of this meeting. Mourn we must, in silent submission to God s will, but we must act to save what is most precious to us and our children, as well as grieve for what is lost. \Ve have lost much, but we did much. We were obliged to fail, and we did fail; but what men on earth ever did more, or as much, in a struggle for "hope against hope"? Will Paris, with her millions, stand as long as Richmond did? Will the Belle of Nations, that lily of their garden, France, endure against equal odds as long as the devoted Confederacy stood against all the odds of all the earth? Passing events point to the justice due us, and we will not be true to ourselves if we neglect or omit to claim our own in history. Contrasts now casting lights and shadows on earth are illustrating causes of failures in battles and causes of the downfall of nations. We fell in weakness of mere numbers, and there are causes for that weakness which we must scan. And we have not only affections to foster, memories to cherish, truth to preserve, but liberties to be regained. This is a great work, and we ought to be up and about it. Monuments are but mites compared with this work. General Lee s remains are in a Temple of the Living God, selected by himself for the depository of his body amidst the last of his labors. Stone and mortar can t add one cubit to his stature; his monument is in the heart of the Confederacy; and on that topic I have but a word to add: that I would delight to see a design of true art placed over or at his tomb no meretricious mockery of all taste, such as Northern mechanics have put upon the monu ment of George Washington in the Captiol Square of this metrop olis but a work of some native artist of the South, like that of Houdon, worthy of the man it moulds. We have an artist here, Mr. Edward Valentine, of Richmond, who has already made the plaster speak a very Lee, and he can make the Parian express him to the very life. 32 MEMORIAL VOLUME. And now, sir, pardon, I pray you, the egotism of an old man when I add that the age of General Lee was within a few days the same as my own. I was with him from the very first to the very last of his campaigns. I honored, loved and obeyed him for four years. He has, in the words of his last moments, struck his tent. In a very short time I shall receive the mandate to strike my tent too, and I now pray that when that order comes to you and to me, that we may all be ready to follow him in the march to that "bourne whence no traveler returns" to join him in that innumerable army of the Captain of Salvation, who is invincible, who hath demanded of Death his sting, and of the grave its victory. There is no more sting for General Lee, and his now is the victory. In defeat he was glorious, and in death more than victorious. Colonel William Preston Johnston, of Kentucky, next occu pied the stand. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON. Mr. President and Fellow Soldiers A few minutes since I was informed that I was expected to address you. This unexpected honor greatly embarrasses me, tired with two days travel, just off the cars, and physically unfit to appear before you. It would ill become me, moreover, to follow with any elaborate attempt the golden-mouthed orator of Virginia, or to utter panegyric after him whose lightest word makes history, and who, while he stood at the head of the Confederacy, never failed to cheer his chosen Captain with counsel and comfort, or to uphold his arm in the hour of battle with all the force at his command. It would ill become me here, surrounded by the soldiers who shared in the glories of Lee, and after the speeches of his trusted military friends and of his great Lieutenants, who rode down with him to battle, to paint again the meridian splendor of his great campaigns. But if you are williftg to listen to some brief passages of his latter life, I will not detain you long. It was my fortune after the war to be called from my distant home in Kentucky by a request which, in the mouth of General Lee, was equivalent to a command. For four years I have watched with reverential affection the final scenes of that life, so magnificent in achievements and then so beautiful towards its end. When he had gone down through the bitter waters of Appomattox from the martial glories of the war to the quiet of civic pursuits, that life, always consecrated to duty, was rounded to a perfect close. Turning his face to the desolated land for ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON. 33 which he had done and suffered so much, he stretched forth his hand to staunch the wounds he had been unable to avert, and that hand willingly did the work it found to do. As President of Washington College, teaching the sons of his soldiers by pre cept and example, he presented to the world the noble spectacle of one who could take up the severed threads of a career broken by disaster and bind them in all their former strength and use fulness. Here, in the sunset of his days, shone forth his exalted worth, the wonderful tenderness of his nature, and the dignity and com posure of his soul. As an illustration of some of these qualities, I may mention that the last hours of his active life were spent in a vestry meeting, where I was present, and that he there evinced great solicitude that the veteran Soldier of the Cross who served as his minister should be secure of a decent mainte nance, and that the House of God where he worshiped should be a not unworthy temple to His name. Yet even there he passed the few minutes preceding the meeting in smoothing away the asperities springing from differences of opinion, with playful anecdote and pleasant reminiscence of that saintly servant of God, Bishop Meade, and that noble pillar of constitutional juris prudence, Chief Justice Marshall. Fifteen minutes after we parted with him he was stricken with his last illness, and during this it was sometimes my sad duty to minister to his needs. I feel that in an assembly where every heart throbs with sorrow for our departed Chieftain, I violate no confidence by adverting to a death-bed every way worthy of the life it ended. Once in the solemn watches of the night, when I handed him the prescribed nourishment, he turned upon me a look of friendly recognition, and then cast down his eyes with such a sadness in them that I can never forget it. J^ut he spoke not a word; and this, not because he was unable, for when he chose, he did speak brief sentences with distinct enunciation, but because, before friends or family or physicians feared the impend ing stroke, he saw the open portals of death and chose to wrap himself in an unbroken silence as he went down to enter them. He, against whom no man could charge in a long life a word that should not have been spoken, chose to leave the deeds of that life to speak for him. To me, this woful silence, this voice less majesty, was the grandest feature of that grand death. I did not come here to-night expecting to speak; but as the opportunity is afforded me, I cannot forbear to remove the great misapprehension, by whatsoever means and for whatsoever pur poses propagated, that I discover in Richmond, as to the burial of General Lee. I claim the right to disabuse your minds as to 34 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the conduct of the authorities of Washington College and the people of Rockbridge, by a calm statement of facts. When General Lee died, our people only did that which we could not have left undone without disrespect to the dead, disregard to the feelings of the living, and disgrace to ourselves. We tendered a vault for the deposit of the honored remains, not only without stipulation as to retaining them, but with the express assurance to Mrs. Lee that if at any time she should desire their removal, her slightest wish would be respected. This offer was accepted, and the hands of soldiers committed the great Soldier to the tomb. We considered the decision of where his final resting place should be a subject too delicate and too sacred for discus sion, much less altercation, and felt that the sure instinct of domestic affection would furnish the safest guide. To the be reaved widow, unconstrained by popular clamor, belonged the custody of the dead, and the right to weep over the loved and the lost was more sacred than even the gratification of a laudable State pride. When we had placed him in the grave, we resolved to decorate his tomb in a manner worthy of the spot where he lay; for even if his ashes were removed, his spirit would abide with us and preside over us, and should be honored with fitting memorials. When the request for his removal was made by the Legislature, the soldiers who had followed his coffin, in coming from his burial, said they would esteem it a high honor to guard the sacred dust, if his family approved; and the hearts of all our people responded. Certainly an honor, certainly a sacred charge, certainly a sure influence for good among all the hundreds of repre sentative young men who would keep constant watch and ward in solemn vigil about the tomb! And even if hereafter these earthly relics are borne away, a mighty memory will remain where he stood and wrought and died. Most assuredly I am swayed by no merely local feeling. If born upon another soil, yet the blood of a Virginian ancestry flows in my veins, and it was to offer my sword in defence of Virginia that I left my native State. I know the heroism of this city, for I stood within its fire-girdled walls in the hour of its greatest straits, and oh ! how well I remember the bitter agony and the heart-breaks of those years. I know that it was for the protection of this city that General Lee won his just renown. Yes! here is the place to build a monument, here is the spot to rear a cenotaph, to him who stood like a rock of defence before you. My colleagues and I will do our full share towards this noble expression of a nation s love; and the people of the Valley, who followed him and fought for you, will delight to help raise in this capital city of the Confederacy a splendid and enduring monument to his fame. But if the hearts ADDRESS OF COLONEL ROBERT E. WITHERS. 35 of his family should decide that the proper resting place of the great hero is where it would keep unbroken the family circle, and leave it to repose amid the scenes of his last labors, in the very chapel built as it were by his own hands, at the home where he chose to live and chose to die, his old soldiers here will not grudge to the faithful hearts he had called around him in his last years the privilege and the honor of guarding his tomb. When I speak of the chapel he built with his own Jiamis, out of the first fruits of the offerings of the South to enable him to carry out his work of education, I go but little beyond the litteral fact. His hand tried with plummet and trowel almost every stone in the massive foundation of that stately structure, and the fact has a melancholy significance when we reflect that it incloses his tomb. I said he chose to live and to die at Lexington. No action of his admirable life was an accident, and it was with a settled purpose that he took charge of the education of the youth of the South when, oppressed by overwhelming numbers, he selected this retreat. You remember that it was these mountains that Washington named as the fortress of American freedom, and where, as you have heard, General Lee said he could keep the enemy at bay twenty years ; and here he spent the remnant of his clays in usefulness and honor. And now, comrades, I have only to add that, while a beautiful memorial will be erected above the present tomb of General Lee to testify our love and reverence, I trust no effort will be spared to rear in Richmond a stately monument to his fame, worthy of the man and of the cause in which he suffered. Colonel Robert K. Withers, of Virginia, followed in support of the resolutions. ADDRESS OF COLONEL ROBERT E. WITHERS. Mr. President and Comrades After the gorgeous offerings which, in such rich profusion, have been laid in votive heaps on the tomb of our departed hero, it is perhaps but meet that I should appear bearing the feeble tribute of my love, and with respectful reverence place the modest chaplet on the same holy shrine; for I stand before you the representative of the mass of officers and men of his command. It was to have been expected that the companions of his earlier years and the friends of his later man hood that those endeared by the sweets of daily social inter course, and yet more, those trusted heroes who launched with red right hand the bolts of his admirable strategy upon the fore-front of the enemy that these should give utterance to feelings of 36 MEMORIAL VOLUME. high appreciation, of profound admiration, of reverential regard. But I can lay claim to no such enviable intimacy. My personal intercourse with Genetal Lee was unfrequent; yet I, in common with every ragged and dust-begrimed soldier who followed his banner, loved him with deepest devotion. And why was this the predominant sentiment of his soldiery? The answer is obvious: Because lie loved his men. His military achievements may have been rivaled, possibly surpassed, by other great commanders. Alexander, Marlborough, Wellington, Napoleon, each and all excited the admiration, enjoyed the confidence and aroused the enthusiasm of their soldiers; but none of these were loved as Lee was loved. They considered their soldiers as mere machines prepared to perform a certain part in the great drama of the battlefield. They regarded not the question of human life as a controlling element in their calculations. With unmoved eye and unquick- ened pulse, they marched their solid columns into the very vor tex of destruction, without reck or care for the waste of life involved. But General Lee never forgot that his men were fellow-beings as well as soldiers. He cared for them with paren tal solicitude, nor ever relaxed his efforts to promote their com fort and protect their lives. , A striking exemplification of this trait can be found in his constant habit of turning over to the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospital such delicate viands as the partiality of friends furnished for his personal consumption, preferring for himself the plain fare of the camp, that his sick soldiers might enjoy the unwonted luxuries. These facts were well known throughout the army; and hence his soldiery, though often ragged and emaciated, though suffering from pri vations, and cold, and nakedness, never faltered in their devotion, or abated one tittle of their love for him. They knew it was not his fault. Of the indignities and injuries inflicted on General Lee and his countrymen it becomes us not now to speak. I have no resentful feelings towards those who met us in manly conflict, but the recollection of the atrocities perpetrated since the war upon a defenceless people, arouses a storm of angry feeling which neither the solemnity of the occasion nor the sanctity of the place will suffice to quell. I can only raise my eyes to Lee s God, and pray for grace to forgive as I hope to be forgiven. The resolutions proposed by the Committee meet my hearty appro val. Monumental rewards are but the expression of a nation s gratitude for distinguished service and reverence for the mighty dead. They are not designed to do honor to the dead, but mark the respect and love of the living; and surely no one has ELECTION OF OFFICERS. 37 commanded such respect and gratitude or excited such love as our late Commander. Whether the monument be reared in Richmond or in Lexington whether it casts its shadows over the rushing waters of the James, or bathes its summit in the pure air of the mountains, amid which his parting spirit took its upward flight it will cause all who gaze upon it to feel their hearts more pure, their gratitude more warm, their sense of duty more exalted, and their love of country touched by a holier ffame. But neither classic bust, nor monumental marble, nor lofty cenotaph, nor stately urn, nor enduring bronze, nor ever lasting granite, can add to his glory in this land he loved so well for here u The meanest rill, the mightiest river. Roll mingling with his fame forever." The resolutions, as reported, were then unanimously adopted, and the following officers of the Lee Monument Association therein recommended were elected: President Lieutenant-General JLT.AL A. KARI.Y. J^x ecu tire Committee. Colonel WALTER II. TAYLOR Xorfolk. Brigadier-General B. T. . JOHNSON Richmond. Major ROBERT STILES Richmond. R. II. MAURY, Esq Richmond. Colonel THOMAS H. CARTER King William county. Colonel C. S. VEVABLE rnivci>ity of Va. Captain R. D. MINOR Richmond. Secretary. Colonel T. M. R. TALCOTT Richmond. Treasurer. Colonel W. II. PALMER.., ...Richmond. Sergeant C. P. ALLEN Richmond. Chairmen of State Executive Committees. Major-General I. R. TRIMBLE Maryland. Major-General J. C. BRECKINRIDGE Kentucky. Major-General J. S. MARMADUKE Missouri. Lieutenant-General N. B. FORREST Tennessee. Major-General R. F. HOKE North Carolina. Lieutenant-General WADE HAMPTON South Carolina. Major-General JOHN B. GORDON Georgia. Brigadier-General PERRY Florida. Lieutenant-General WILLIAM J. HARDEE Alabama. Brigadier-General B. G. HUMPHREYS Mississippi. General G. T. BEAUREGARD Louisiana. Brigadier-General W. L. CABELL Arkansas. Major JOHN S. SELLERS Texas. W. W. CORCORAN, Esq Washington, D. C. ORGANIZATION OF ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION. Pursuant to appointment of the preceding evening, the officers and soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia met at the Theatre at eleven o clock on Friday morning. The meeting was called to order by Colonel Robert E. Withers, on whose motion General Early was elected Chairman, and de veloped the objects of the meeting in his opening address. REMARKS OF GENERAL EARLY. Gentlemen I thank you sincerely for the kind feelings you manifest towards me, but this meeting has been called for busi ness, and the occasion is not one for speaking. Before I take my seat, however, I desire to say to you that it comes within my own knowledge that our lamented Commander was preparing to write a history of the campaigns of the Army of Northern Vir ginia. The execution of this work by him has been prevented by his death, and it devolves upon the survivors of that army to see that the truth of history is vindicated, and that the deeds of themselves and their fallen comrades are not transmitted to pos terity, through the medium of crude histories compiled, by mer cenary writers, from the accounts of newspaper correspondents, who remained in the rear and never went to the front, or in the libellous productions of our adversaries, who have been con stantly engaged and are now engaged in the effort to make our cause and its adherents odious by all the arts of writing, speak ing, painting and illustrated printing, as well as by penal enact ments. Books purporting to be histories of our late war have been published, with the claim that they were written with the sanction and by the authority of General Lee; and I take this occasion to state to you that I have it from his own lips that he never gave his sanction to any such publications. I make this statement because I know that intelligent foreigners have been misled by this claim, as they could not understand how any writer could have the impudence to make such pretensions unless REMARKS OF GENERAL EARLY. 39 they were founded in truth. General Lee was not in the habit of correcting misrepresentations of his words and acts in the public prints, as, conscious of his own rectitude, he was willing to trust the vindication of his character to his country, his soldiers and his God. His views on this subject I happened to learn from a gentle rebuke he once gave me, when I undertook to correct a misrepresentation of a correspondent in regard to myself an offence I did not repeat after that rebuke. On that occasion he informed me that he rarely ever read the papers, unless when some staff officer brought them to him and called his attention to something of especial importance. As confirmatory of what was so eloquently said by President Davis last night in regard to General Lee s extended views of patriotism and his devotion to the whole South, and as indicative of his constant regard for and his desire to do justice to the soldiers who fought under him, I will read you some extracts from two letters from him to myself, and I do this not from any feelings of egotism, but because I wish to give you his own Avords. I must say to you that just as I was leaving the country on my voluntary exile, I wrote him a letter, to be sent as soon as I was beyond the reach of danger that is, I reported to him as my commander, as I did immediately on my return to the State, for I always considered him as such to the hour of his death; and now that he is gone, I will endeavor to follow his precepts and example, as far as a sinful mortal can do. In answer to my letter, he wrote me the one I now hold in my hand, which is dated at "Lexington, November 22d, 1865," and which reached me at Nassau, New Providence. From that letter I read you the following extracts, omitting what is personal to myself. He says: u LEXINGTON, November 22, 18G5. " I am very glad to hear of your health and safety, but regret your absence from the country, though I fully under stand your feelings on the subject. I think the South requires the presence of all her sons now more than at any period of her history, and I determined at the outset of her difficulties to share the fate of my people I desire, if not pre vented, to write a history of the campaigns in Virginia. All my records, books, orders, &c., were destroyed in the conflagration and retreat from Richmond. Only such of my reports as were printed are preserved. Your reports of your operations in 1864 and 1865 are among those destroyed. Cannot you repeat them and send me copies of such letters, orders, &c., of mine (includ ing the last letter to which you refer), and particularly give me 4O MEMORIAL VOLUME. your recollection of our effective strength at the principle battles? My only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth to posterity, and do justice to our brave soldiers." When I arrived at Havana in December, 1865, I saw the re ports of Secretary Stanton and General Grant of the military operations of the years 1864 and 1865, containing many errors of fact. Provoked by these, and also by some newspaper state ments about my having applied for pardon, I wrote a letter to the New York Ncius, which perhaps some of you saw and read. It was such a letter as General Lee would not have written him self, because he was a man of unlimited self-control, whereas I am accustomed to speak and write just as I feel, and sometimes I use what some would regard as strong language. That letter was written just in that view. Again, on reaching the City of Mexico, I found a Northern journal, which has long been in the habit of slandering our people, both by its articles and its illus trations, which contained a very abusive article in regard to Mr. Davis, written by one who had held a commission in the Con federate army, and I had also learned that some who took espe cial pains to be out of the country during the war, though they professed to be very strong Confederates after the close, were in the habit of speaking very harshly of our President. Indignant at all this, I wrote a letter in vindication of him, in which I took especial care to speak my sentiments freely about those who were engaged in the work of defaming that great and good man, who then was suffering a cruel imprisonment and persecution for the cause in which all of us had been engaged. This letter was first published in the Mexican Times (Governor Allen s paper), and afterwards in some of the American papers. I make this statement in order that you may understand the allusions in the second letter to me, which was in answer to one of mine, and is dated the I5th of March, 1866. In that letter General Lee says: " It will be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought, and the destruction and loss of all of the returns of the army embarrasses me very much. I read your letter from Havana to the New York Ne^vs with much interest, and was pleased with the temper in which it was written. I have since received the paper containing it published in the City of Mexico, and also your letter in reference to Mr. Davis. I understand and appreciate the motive which prompted both letters, and think they will be of service in the way you intended. I have been much pained to see the attempts made to cast odium upon Mr. Davis, but do not think they will be successful with REMARKS OF GENERAL EARLY. 41 the reflecting or informed portion of the country. The accusa tions against myself I have not thought proper to notice, or even to correct misrepresentations of my words and acts. We shall have to be patient and suffer for awhile at least, anct all contro versy, I think, will only serve to prolong angry and bitter feel ings, and postpone the time when reason and charity may resume their sway. At present the public mind is not prepared to re ceive the truth. "I hope, in time, peace will be restored to the country, and that the South may enjoy some measure of pros perity. I fear, however, that much suffering is still in store for her, and that her people must be prepared to exercise fortitude and forbearance." You must recollect, my friends, that these letters were written by a Virginian who had thought it his duty to remain and share the fate of his people, whatever it might be, to another Virginian who had taken upon himself a voluntary exile which he then expected to be perpetual. They were written under circum stances that induced the supposion that they would never meet the eye of any one but him to whom they were written. You will see that General Lee, though he was a Virginian in every proper sense of the term, did not confine his patriotism and his affections to his native State, but embraced the whole South, and claimed her people as his people and what a glorious privilege it was to be a part of his people! You will also perceive his great anxiety to do justice to the soldiers who fought under him, and for whom he cherished a paternal affection as long as he lived. The history which he wfis prevented from writing must be written by some one competent to the task, and the world must be made to know that Confederate soldiers are not ashamed of the great struggle they made for constitutional liberty, and regret nothing, in that respect, except that they failed to accom plish their great purpose. The materials for that history must be furnished by those who participated in the struggle and were in a condition to know and understand the facts, and that will be one of the prime objects of the Association which it is now pro posed to form. On motion of General Trimble, of Maryland, the following Committee on Permanent Organization was appointed: Major-General T. H. TRIMBLE. Colonel WALTER H. TAYLOR. Colonel R. T. PRESTON. Private A. WARWICK. Major-General C. W. FIELD. Private E. S. GREGORY. Major-General JOHN B. GORDON. Captain J. II. CHAMBEELAYNE. Brig.-Gfneral GEORGE H. STEUART. Captain MANN PAGE. 42 MEMORIAL VOLUME. The Committee, after a brief absence, recommended the fol lowing Permanent Organization, and the report was unanimously adopted : President Lieutenant-General JUBAL A. EARLY. Vice-Preside tits Major-General GEORGE E. PICKETT. Major-General WILLIAM SMITH. Major-General EDWARD JOHNSON. Colonel WOODRIDGE. Major-General DABNEY II. MAURY. Private SPENCER, Jr. Private GEORGE E. HARRISON. Lieutenant W. W. ROBINSON. Lieutenant A. C. TRIGG. Private LESLIE SPENCE. Colonel WILLIAM WHITE. Secretaries Captain J. II. CHAMBERLAYNE. Major R. W. HUNTER. Private E. S. GREGORY. On motion of General Bradley T. Johnson, the following Committee was appointed to report a plan for the organization of the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia: Brig.-Gen. BRADLEY T. JOHNSON. Private JERVIS SPENCER. Brig.-General WM. N. PENDLETON. Colonel HENRY E. PEYTON. Colonel E. J. HARVIE. Captain J. MC!!ENRY HOWARD. Major WILLIAM S. BASSINGER. Private JAMES TILLMAN. Brigadier-General SETH BARTON. Private O. G. KEAN. Major-General EDWARD JOHNSON. Major JED HOTCHKISS. Major-General FITZHUGH LEE. Major A. W. GARBER. Sergeant WALTER BLAIR. Brigadier-General J. H. LANE. Brigadier-General M. D. CORSE. Major-General JOHN B. GORDON. Colonel R. SNOWDEN ANDREWS. Lieutenant F. C. SLINGLUFF. The Committee made the following report: /. Resolved, That this meeting will at once adopt a plan of organization for an Association of the Army of Northern Vir ginia. 2. Resolved, That we earnestly request that similar organiza tions be formed by the officers and men of all the armies, and by the navy of the Confederate States, in order that the friendships formed may be perpetuated, and that the memory of the deeds achieved by the Confederate arms, on land and sea, may be pre served and the truth of history vindicated, and justice done to the living and the dead. The meeting then adopted a plan of organization for the Army of Northern Virginia Association, and elected (or appointed through the Chair) the following officers : 43 OFFICERS. President. Lieutenant-GeneralJUBAL A. EARLY. Corresponding Secretary. Colonel WALTER II. TAYLOR. Recording Secretary. Colonel CHARLES S. VENABLE. Treasurer, Colonel CHARLES MARSHALL. Executive Committee. Brigadier-General BRADLEY T. JOHNSON, Chairman. Colonel ROBERT E. WITHERS. Brigadier-General JAM re II. LANE. Colonel JOHN S. MOSBY. ( apt. -L HAM CIIAMBERLAYNE. Colonel THOMAS H. CARTER. Segeant J. VANLEW McCREERY. Major ROBERT STILKS. Captain MANN PAGE. Brigadier-General \V. II. PAYNE. Vice-Presidents and Assistants appointed bv tJie President. Maryland -Major-General I. R. TRIMBLE, Vice-President. Brigadier-General GEO. II. STEUART, ) . . Colonel R. SNOWDEX ANDREWS, j A Virginia Major-General FIT/HUGH LEE, Vice-President. Brigadier-General \\ M. B. TALIAFERRO, ) Assistants in East- Brigadier-General JAMES L. KEMPER, / ern Virginia. Brigadier-General JOHN McCAUSLAND, ) Assistants in West- Colonel JOHN S. HOFFMAN, / ern Virginia. Kentucky Major-General JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE, Vice-President. Brigadier-General BASIL DUKE, ") . , ... Colonel J. STODDARD JOHNSTON, / Tennessee Lieutenant-General R. S. EWELL, Vice-President. Brigadier-General VAUGHAN, \ The senior surviving officer of the Tennessee reg- j- Assistants, iinents in ARCHER S old brigade, J 1ST. Carolina Major-General D. II. HILL, Vice-President. Major-General R. F. HOKE, ) . . , Brigadier-General SCALES, j A S. Carolina Lieutenant-General ^V 7 AD^: HAMPTON, Vice-President. Major-General J. B. KERSHAW, \ A . Brigadier-General McGoWAN, J Georgia Major-General JOHN B. GORDON, Vice-President. Brigadier-General A. H. WRIGHT,) A . , Brigadier-General BENNING, J Alabama Brigadier-General BATTLE, Vice-President. Brigadier-General FORNEY, \ Colonel E. A. O NEAL, / Mississippi Lieutenant-General S. D. LEE, Vice-President. Brigadier-General B. G. HUMPHREYS, ) ... , Brigadier-General \V. T. MARTIN, / ASS1 44 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Louisiana General G. T. BEAUREGARD, Vice-President. Major-General DABNEY H. MAURY, \ . . Brigadier-General \VILLIAM K. PECK, / Arkansas Brigadier-General WILLIAM L. CABELL. Vice-President. The two senior surving officers of the Arkansas") . regiments which were in the Army of North- V Assistants. ern Virginia, J Texas Brigadier-General ROBINSON, Vice-President. The senior surviving officer of the regiments of ") KOBINSON S brigade, L Assistants. Major WILLIAM P. TOWNSEND, J Florida Brigadier-General PERRY, Vice-President. The two senior surviving officers of the regi- \ A . nients in PERRY S brigade, / ASI irs> REMARKS OF GENERAL JOHNSON. In presenting the report of the Committee, General Johnson said: Comrades and Friends I have been instructed to report the plan just read for the organization of the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia. That plan proposes a General Association, of which General Early is to be President, with Secretaries, Treasurer, and an Executive Committee of ten, together with a Vice-President and two assistants for each State, who are to be members of the General Association, and who are charged with the duty of organizing the Society in the States to which they belong. These State Societies are called Divisions, and are to have subordinated to them sub-societies, to be called Sections. The Sections report to the Divisions, and the Divisions to the Association. The duty of all is to collect materials for history, muster rolls and all other information relative to the Army of Northern Virginia, and forward them to the General Society, in whose archives they will be deposited, in charge of Colonel Venable, as Recording Secretary. Thus we will accumulate whatever we can of mate rial for future history, that the achievements of that army may be perpetuated and justice be done our dead comrades, ourselves and the cause for which they fell. We hope by future meetings to preserve the friendships formed in the service of our country, and as long as we live to show the world and our fellow countrymen how proud we are of the part which it has been our good fortune to have borne in our great contest for civil liberty. Among the greatest crimes known to civilization is the muti lation of the corpses and the desecration of the memories of the REMARKS OF GENERAL JOHNSON. 45 dead. And yet so far as we are concerned, such has been the treatment which our departed comrades have experienced at the hands of our conquerors. After the surrender of the Confederate armies, all our records and the archives of our Adjutant-General s office were taken possession of at Charlotte, North Carolina, and they are now preserved in a special bureau at Washington. The evidence they contain is, for us, invaluable; and yet, within the last few months, Avhen application was made by a gentleman of rank now before me, for leave to examine those records, in order to get informa tion for the use of the highest authority as to this war, recog nized by you and me, he was informed that all inquiries would be answered, but no examination of them would be allowed by him. Thus the materials of our history, the weapons of our defence, and the arguments of our complete and thorough vindication and justification, as an army, are in the hands of our enemies, who refuse us access to them. It behooves us, therefore, diligently to collect from our surviving comrades all such matter as they have on paper, or in their recollection, so that we may supply the place of and even more than supplement those records so sedu lously sealed at Washington. We propose to testify to the world and to history our abiding faith and perfect confidence in the cause in which we fought, as the cause of Patriotism and Honor, Justice and Right, and, above all, that it is the cause of constitutional and civil liberty on this continent. We are not of those who believe that this is a lost cause. The race from which we sprang have made this contest, time and again, in the last thousand years. Over and over, our ancestors have made the issue of physical force in favor of liberty against irresponsible power. Many times they have failed, as we have done, before the overwhelming odds of numbers or wealth., or organization or resources, arrayed against and pressed on them. Many times they have fallen, crushed, as it seemed, beneath the enormous mass of power hurled on them. Thus it seemed when the State absorbed all the power of the Barons and all the estates of the Church, and the liberties of the Commons of England appeared lost forever. Thus it seemed when the Long Parlia ment rode triumphant over the heritage of British freedom, and when the system of Stafford seemed to have established the Star Chamber and abolished the trial by jury. But these were only incidents of the struggle, and the freeborn race rose and re-estab lished their rights, regaining by arms what had been bought by blood. So we believe that the issue of the late struggle is but temporary. That State rights are but the incidents to preserve 46 MEMORIAL VOLUME. public liberty. That all institutions staked and lost were but the means to accomplish our end, the perpetuation of oitr liberties and rights, inherited from our fathers centuries before the Puritans touched Plymouth Rock or the Cavalier landed at Jamestown. They were but the earthworks which we then defended great and important bulwarks and defences to be sure but when they are lost all is not lost. The great defences are still left. Trial by jury, free speech, free press, a voice in government and a share in making the laws. With these weapons we shall regain our lost rights, we shall recover our despoiled liberties, making the contest with the sure and steady belief in the certainty of success, and the fixed and ready purpose, whenever it is necessary and unavoidable, again to vindicate our worthiness of victory and liberty, as our fathers have done from Runny Mede down to Manassas. For awhile, the disasters which befell us clouded our vision, and the dust of the battle we mistook for the darkness of death. But time has enabled us to see that though broken in fortune, shattered in our civil constitution, pressed beneath the yoke of conquest, the ancestral spirit is still burning, the ancestral love of liberty is still unquenchable, and with the coming years our ability to achieve our deliverance will be ever increasing. With a firm faith in the future, with a perfect belief in the blood which flows in our veins, we move on with a certain con fidence that we or our children will regain all we have tempo rarily lost, and in the meantime we teach them to revere, love and honor the memory of the great men who fell in defence of the Starry Cross, and to cherish and maintain the cause in which it waved and for which they fell. In propounding the question on the adoption of the resolutions from the Committee on Organization of the Army of Northern Virginia, General Early made the following remarks: My Friends I will take the liberty of saying a word or two to you before taking the vote on the proposition now before you. There are very many facts illustrative of the devotion of our soldiers, which, though not proper to have been introduced into the formal official reports which were made at the time, ought not to be lost to history. Let it be our care to collect all these, and put them in a tangible form for the use of the future histo rian who shall undertake to portray our wonderful struggle. The duty of preserving the facts and putting them in some available form I have constantly urged since the close of the war. This duty ought to be performed, whether the parties wht> REMARKS OF GENERAL JOHNSON. 47 furnish them shall think proper to publish them or not. In the last interview I had with General Lee, in speaking of that last hour of the struggle, when he so reluctantly surrendered at Ap- pomattox, he informed me that in fact there were only seven thousand five hundred men who were surrendered with arms in their hands; and he told me that before going to that interview which resulted in the surrender, he gave orders to that gallant Georgian, who he knew and I knew, and every one who came in contact with him knew, never failed to obey with alacrity all orders given to him, and when occasion required did not wait for orders I mean General John B. Gordon, whom I am happy to meet and welcome here and that other, whose name I will not call on this occasion, for reasons you will perhaps understand to hold their com mands in readiness to fight, with the determination to cut his way out at all hazards, if such terms were not granted as he thought > o o his army was entitled to demand. Now, gentlemen, of all who gained honor in the war, in my opinion, the private soldier who volunteered in the beginning, without waiting for the conscript officer, and after doing his duty was found with arms in hand at Appomattox, still ready to obey the orders of his Commander, is entitled to take rank with the proudest, and the names of all such ought to preserved and transmitted to posterity. The report of the Committee was adopted unanimously and with great enthusiasm. The two meetings were attended by immense crowds, and it was a touching scene as these veterans of an hundred battles gathered to honor their grand old Chieftain and take measures to vindicate the cause for which they fought. * o VIRGINIA DIVISION OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION. On the 2d day of November, 1871, the "Virginia Division of the Army of Northern Virginia Association" was organized at a meeting held in the Hall of the House of Delegates, in the State Capitol, at Richmond. A suitable constitution and by-laws were adopted, and the following officers elected : President General FITZHUGH LEE. Vice-Presidents General Edward Johnson, General James A. Walker. Secretaries General James H. Lane, Colonel Joseph Mayo, Jr. Treasurer Major Robert Stiles. Executive Committee General William B. Taliaferro, General William H. Payne, General D. S. Weisiger, Colonel F. W. M. Holliday, and Colonel James H. Skinner. SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. The second annual meeting was held in the State Capitol, Rich mond, on Thursday evening, October 3ist, 1872, when, in the absence of the orator elect (General John B. Gordon, of Georgia, who was detained by sickness in his family), there were stirring speeches by the President, General Fitzhugh Lee, Colonel Joseph Mayo, Jr., General J. A. Early, and General W. H. Payne. The following officers for the ensuing year were elected: President General FITZHUGH LEE. Vice-Presidents General Edward Johnson and General J. A. Walker. Executive Committee General William H. Payne, Sergeant J. V. L. McCreery, Lieutenant John E. Laughton, Colonel Walter K. Martin, Colonel Thomas H. Carter. TIIII1D ANNUAL MEETING. Thursday evening, October 3Oth, 1873, a large crowd assem bled in the State Capitol at Richmond. After an appropriate prayer by Rev. Dr. Minnigerode, General Fitzhugh Lee made brief but stirring remarks, and appropriately presented as the chosen orator of the occasion, Colonel diaries S. Vcnablc^ the tried and trusted staff-officer of General R. E. Lee, who was greeted with enthusiastic applause, and was frequently interrupted with applause as he delivered the following address: ADDRESS OE COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. Comrades and Friends \Yarmly appreciating the kindness and good-will of the Executive Committee in extending to me the honor of an invitation to address you on this occasion, and recog nizing the duty of every Confederate soldier in Virginia to do his part in the promotion of the objects of this Association, I am here in obedience to your call. Fellow soldiers, we are not here to mourn over that which we failed to accomplish; to indulge in vain regrets of the past; to repine because, in accepting the stern arbitrament of arms, we have lost; nor merely to make vain-glo rious boast of victories achieved and deeds of valor done. But we are met together as citizens of Virginia, as American freemen (a title won for us by the valor and wisdom of our forefathers), with a full sense of our responsibilities in the present and in the future which lies before us, to renew the friendships formed in that time of trial and of danger, when at the call of our grand old Mother we stood shoulder to shoulder in her defence. More than this: we are met to preserve to Virginia to the South and to America the true records of the valor, the constancy and heroic fortitude of the men who fought on field and flood under the banner of the Southern Cross. With this view, I have thought it not inappropriate on this occasion to give a brief out line of some facts and incidents of the campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Petersburg, which may be of some little use as a memoir to some future seeker after historic truth. I am aware that in this I am in danger of repeat ing much that has been told by different biographers and histo rians; but my desire is to give correctly some incidents of which 5<D MEMORIAL VOLUME. I was an eye-witness in that wonderful campaign, and to state in brief outline some facts accurate contemporary knowledge of which I had the opportunity of obtaining and to present these in their proper connection with the statements of high Federal autho rities. These incidents will enable us, in some measure, to appre ciate that self-sacrificing devotion to duty which characterized our great leader, and will serve to show how worthy the men of that army, which he loved so well, were of his confidence and leadership. And here let me say that no man but a craven, unworthy of the name of American freeman, whether he fought with us or against us whether his birthplace be in the States of the South or in the States of the North would desire to obliterate a single page or erase a single line of the fair record of their glo rious deeds. When General Lee set out from Orange Courthouse on the .morning of the fourth of May to meet the Army of the Potomac, which moved at midnight of the third of May from Cul- peper, he took with him Swell s corps (diminished by General Robert Johnston s North Carolina brigade, then at Hanover Court house, and Hoke s North Carolina brigade of Early s division, which was in North Carolina) and Heth s and Wilcox s divisions of A. P. Hill s corps, leaving Anderson s division of Hill s corps on the Rapidan heights, with orders to follow the next day, and ordering Longstreet to follow on with his two divisions (Kershaw s and Field s) from Gordonsville. So, on May 5th, General Lee had less than twenty-six thousand infantry in hand. He resolved to throw his heads of columns on the Old turnpike road and the Plank road, and his cavalry on the Catharpin road on his right, against General Grant s troops, then marching through the Wil derness to turn our position at Orange Courthouse. This was a movement of startling boldness when we consider the tremen dous odds. General Grant s forces at the beginning of the cam paign have been given as more than one hundred and forty thous and of all arms, or about one hundred and twenty thousand in fantry, and all of these, except Burnside s corps of twenty thous and, were across the river with him on the 5th. General Lee had less than fifty-two thousand men of all arms, or forty-two thousand infantry fifteen thousand of which, under Longstreet and Anderson, a day s march from him, and the two North Caro lina brigades, under Johnston and Hoke, which reached him, the one on the 6th of May, and the other on the 2ist of May at Spotsylvania Courthouse. And here in the beginning was re vealed one great point in General Lee s bold strategy, and that was his profound confidence in the steady valor of his troops, and in their ability to maintain themselves successfully against ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. 51 very heavy odds a confidence justified by his past experience and by the results of this campaign. He himself rode with Gen eral A. P. Hill at the head of his column. The advance of the enemy was met at Parker s store and soon brushed away, and the march continued to the Wilderness. Here Hill s troops came in contact with the enemy s infantry and the fight began. This battle on the Plank road was fought immediately under the eye of the Commanding-General. The troops, inspired by his presence, maintained the unequal fight with great courage and steadiness. Once only there was some wavering, which was immediately checked. The odds were very heavy against these two divisions (Heth s and Wilcox s), which were together about ten thousand strong. The battle first began with Getty s Federal division, which was soon reinforced by the Second corps, under General Han cock. Hancock had orders, with his corps and Getty s division of the Sixth corps, to drive Hill back to Parker s store. This he tried to accomplish, but his repeated and desperate assaults were repulsed. Before night Wadsworth s division and a brigade from Warren s corps were sent to help Hancock, thus making a force of more than forty thousand men, which was hurled at these devoted ten thousand until 8 o clock P. M. in unavailing efforts to drive them from their position. Ewell s corps, less than sixteen thousand strong, had repulsed Warren s corps on the Old turnpike, inflicting a loss of three thousand men or more, and two pieces of artillery. Rosser, on our right, with his cavalry brigade, had driven back largely superior numbers of Wilson s cavalry division on the Catharpin road. These initial operations turned Grant s forces from the wide sweeping march which they had begun, to immediate and ur gent business in the Wilderness. The army which he had set out to destroy had come up in the most daring manner and presented itself in his pathway. That General Lee s bold strategy was very unexpected to the enemy, is well illustrated by the fact recorded by Swinton, the Federal historian, that when the ad vance of Warren s corps struck the head of EwelUs column, on the morning of the 5th, General Meade said to those around him, "They have left a division to fool us here, while they con centrate and prepare a position on the North Anna; and what I want is to prevent these fellows from getting back to Aline Run." Mine Run was to that General doubtless a source of unpleasant reminiscences of the previous campaign. General Lee soon sent a message to Longstreet to make a night march and bring up his two divisions at daybreak on the 6th. He himself slept on the field, taking his headquarters a few hundred yards from the line of battle of the day. It was his intention to relieve Hill s 52 MEMORIAL VOLUME. two divisions with Longstreet s, and throw them farther to the left, to fill up a part of the great unoccupied interval between the Plank road and Ewell s right, near the Old turnpike, or use them on his right, as the occasion might demand. It was unfortunate that any of these troops should have become aware they were to be relieved by Longstreet. It is certain that owing to this im pression, Wilcox s division, on the right, was not in condition to receive Hancock s attack at early dawn on the morning of the 6th, by which they were driven back in considerable confusion. In fact some of the brigades of Wilcox s division came back in disorder, but sullenly and without panic, entirely across the Plank road, where General Lee and the gallant Hill in person helped to rally them. The assertion, made by several writers, that Hill s troops were driven back a mile and a half, is a most serious mistake. The right of his line was thrown back several hundred yards, but a portion of the troops still maintained their position. The danger, however, was great, and General Lee sent his trusted Adjutant, Colonel W. H. Taylor, back to Parker s store, to get the trains ready for a movement to the rear. He sent an aid also to hasten the march of Longstreet s divisions. These came the last mile and a half at a double quick, in parallel columns, along the Plank road. General Longstreet rode forward with that imperturable coolness which always characterized him in times of perilous action, and began to put them in position on the right and left of the road. His men came to the front of disordered battle with a steadiness unexampled even among vete rans, and with an elan which presaged restoration of our battle and certain victory. When they arrived, the bullets of the enemy on our right flank had begun to sweep the field in the rear of the artillery pits on the left of the road, where General Lee was giving directions and assisting General Hill in rallying and reforming his troops. It was here that the incident of Lee s charge with Gregg s Texas brigade occurred. The Texans cheered lustily as their line of battle, coming up in splendid style, passed by Wil cox s disordered columns, and swept across our artillery pit and its adjacent breastwork. Much moved by the greeting of these brave men and their magnificent behavior, General Lee spurred his horse through an opening in the trenches and followed close on their line as it moved rapidly forward. The men did not perceive that he was going with them until they had advanced some distance in the charge; when they did, there came from the entire line, as it rushed on, the cry, "Go back, General Lee! Go back!" Some historians like to put this in less homely words; but the brave Texans did not pick their phrases. "We won t go on unless you go back!" A sergeant seized his bridle ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VENABLE. 53 rein. The gallant General Gregg (who laid down his life on the 9th October, almost in General Lee s presence, in a desperate charge of his brigade on the enemy s lines in the rear of Fort Har rison), turning his horse towards General Lee, remonstrated with him. Just then I called his attention to General Longstreet, whom he had been seeking, and who sat on his horse on a knoll to the right of the Texans, directing the attack of his divisions. He yielded with evident reluctance to the entreaties of his men, and rode up to Longstreet s position. With the first opportunity I informed General Longstreet of what had just happened, and he, with affectionate bluntness, urged General Lee to go farther back. I need not say the Texans went forward in their charge and did well their duty. They were eight hundred strong, and lost half their number killed and wounded on that bloody day. The battle was soon restored, and the enemy driven back to their position of the night before. Wilcox s and Heth s divisions were placed in line, a short distance to the left of the Plank road. General Lee s immediate presence had done much to restore confidence to these brave men and to inspire the troops who came up with the determination to win at all hazards. A short time afterwards General Anderson s division arrived from Orange Courthouse. The well-known flank attack was then planned and put into execution, by which Longstreet put in, from his own and Anderson s divisions, three brigades on the right Hank of the enemy, rolled it up in the usual manner, uncovering his own front, thus completely defeating Hancock s force and sending it reeling back on the Brock road. The story of this and of Longstreet s unfortunate wounding is familiar to all. His glori ous success and splendid action on the field had challenged the admiration of all. As an evidence of the spirit of the men on this occasion, tlu Mississippi brigade of Heth s division, com manded by the gallant Colonel Stone, though the division was placed further to the left, out of the heat of battle, preferred to remain on the right, under heavy fire, and fought gallantly throughout the day under Longstreet. When General Grant commenced his change of base and turn ing operation on the evening of the /th, General Lee, with firm reliance on the ability of a small body of his troops to hold heavy odds in check until he could bring assistance, sent Anderson, who had been promoted to the command of Longstreet s two divisions, to confront his columns at Spotsylvania Courthouse. Stuart, too, threw his cavalry across Grant s line of march on the Brock road. The enemy s cavalry (division) failing to dislodge Stuart, gave up the accomplishment of that work to the Fifth corps (Warren s). When Anderson arrived at Spotsylvania Courthouse, he found 54 MEMORIAL VOLL MK. the cavalry (Fitz. Lee s division), at the Courthouse, maintaining gallantly an unequal fight with the Fifth corps and Torbert s cav alry division. Torbert was checked on his right, and Stuart, with with the assistance of several brigades of infantry sent to him by Anderson, soon created in the enemy what Swinton describes as "an excited and nervous condition of mind and a tendency to stampede" ascribed by him, however, to want of rest and Wil derness experience. Stuart stopped their advance, and they fell to entrenching of their own accord. The conduct and skill of Stuart in this fight on the 8th, on which so much depended, always met the warm approval of the Commanding-General, and he spoke of it, with grateful remembrance, in the days of March, 65, when disasters began to crowd upon us. Let us lay this laurel on the tomb of him who so soon afterwards rendered up his life leading, with heroic courage, his mere handful of wearied men against Sheridan s overwhelming numbers. That General Grant did not push tap other troops to Warren s assistance to enable him to drive these two divisions (now perhaps not more than eight thousand strong) from his front, is attributable to the fact that he detained Hancock (the nearest supporting corps) to meet an anticipated attack from General Lee on his rear. That Gene ral Lee with his small force, reduced by two days heavy fighting, should check this great body of one hundred and twenty thous and infantry (reduced by Wilderness experience), and at the same time threaten its rear and cause the Federal commander to send to Washington for reinforcements, is a thing almost unparalleled in the history of war. On General Lee s arrival with Kwell s corps in the afternoon, after a second repulse of the enemy, the line of Spotsylvania was taken up. That a part of the line was weak on Rodes right and General Edward Johnson s salient, has often been asserted. The reason for taking it was that the road in the rear might be left free from missiles for the convenient use of the trains. The repulse of Hancock s corps in its attempt to threaten our left and rear by General Early with Heth s division, and the terrible repulses given by Anderson s corps (Field s and Ker- shaw s divisions) to the repeated assaults of heavy columns, thrown against them from the Second and Fifth corps, and to the grand assault by both of these corps simultaneously at five o clock in the afternoon, are matters of record. The odds here were seven or eight thousand men against one-half the Federal in fantry. Nothing but the absolute steadiness and coolness of our men could have met and repelled these onslaughts. Our men would often call out, "Yonder they come, boys, with five lines of battle!" and after driving them back, would creep out cautiously ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. 55 and gather up the muskets and cartridges of the dead braves who had fallen nearest our line; so that to meet subsequent attacks, many of the men were provided each with several loaded mus kets. This extemporaneous substitute for breech-loaders was not to be despised when we consider the thinness of our troops in the defences, the absence of reserves, the tremendous odds of the Federal forces, and the remorseless manner with which their corps commanders sent them into these repeated assaults. Indeed, it became pitiful to see the slaughter of these brave men in their unavailing attacks and to hear their groans as they lay dying near the Confederate line. One brave youth, a ser geant of a New York regiment, who fell shot through both knees not far from our breastworks, was for man} hours an especial object of sympathy to his foes. He was seeii making in his miser\ r vain efforts at self-destruction. Repeated attempts were made by our men to bring him in, but the Federal sharpshooters were very active and rendered it impossible to get to him, and on the i ith May, when the Federal forces had withdrawn from that part of our line, there, amidst the blackened, swollen corpses of the assailants, whose sufferings had been more brief, lay this boy with the fresh, fair face of one just dead. On the afternoon of the iQth a portion of the Sixth corps (General Sedgwick s) succeeded in piercing Rodes line on the front, occupied by Dole s Georgia brigade. General Lee had his quarters for the clay on a knoll about a hundred and fifty yards in the rear of this part of the lines and in full view of it. He at once sent an aid-de-camp to General Fdward Johnson, on Rodes right, and mounting his horse, assisted in rallying the troops and forming them for the recapture of the lines. Under his eye, Rodes troops and Gordon s brigade, which had been brought up from the left, went forward in handsome style, recovering the lines and the batter} , which, after doing much execution at short range, had fallen into the hands of the attacking force. Swinton, blindly followed by several other writers, speaks here of the capture of nine hundred prisoners from Rodes. This is an entire mistake the captured were very few. On the I ith General Grant withdrew from our left, and General Lee became convinced that he was going to swing round to turn our right; he, therefore, ordered the artillery on a portion of our left to be withdrawn from the immediate front so as to be ready to move at a moment s notice. On that night General Johnson, hearing the enemy massing on his front, sent a message to his corps com mander (General Fwell) asking the return of his artillery. He also sent to General Gordon, commanding Farly s division, asking a reinforcement of two brigades (Hays and Pegram s), which he 56 MEMORIAL VOLUME. placed in a second line on the rear of what he considered the weakest of his defences. The delay of the artillery and consequent disaster to Johnson s division are matters of record. The actual loss in captures was about three thousand men (his division was four thousand strong at the beginning of the campaign) and eighteen pieces of artillery, which the enemy did not get, however, for twenty hours. Johnson s message to his corps commander about the massing of the enemy in his front did not reach General Lee. He usually, in these days at Spotsylvania, left the battlefield at nine or ten o clock in the evening for his tent, a short distance in the rear. Rising at 3 A.M. and breakfasting by candle light, he returned to the front. On the morning of the I2th, hearing the firing, he rode rapidly forward, but did not know of the disaster to Johnson s division until he reached the front. Before he arrived, Brigadier-General Gordon, commanding Early s division, in obedience to orders previously given by General Lee to support any portion of the line about the salient which might be attacked, hearing the firing about daylight, had moved forward towards the salient with his division. Moving in column in the dim light, with General Robert Johnston s North Carolina brigade in front, he came in contact with Hancock s line advancing through the woods, it having overrun General Edward Johnson s division, capturing his lines and a large number of his men. The enemy s line thus moving on stretched across our works on both their -flanks, thus taking our men in the trenches on both sides the captured angle com pletely in flank. They fired on Gordon s advancing column, severely wounding General Robert Johnston and causing some confusion among the men. It was still not light the woods dense, and the morning rainy. A line of troops could not be seen a hundred yards off. It was a critical moment. Gordon halted his column, and with that splendid audacity which charac terized him, deployed a brigade as skirmishers extending, as he supposed, across the whole Federal front and ordered a charge by this line of skirmishers. This charge caused that part of the Federal troops whose front they covered to hesitate long enough to enable him to get his troops into line; but the Federal line on Gordon s right still pressed on, threatening his right-rear and the right flank of Hill s corps (commanded by General Early) in the trenches. They were here checked by General Lane s North Carolina brigade, who, throwing his left flank back from the trenches, confronted their advance. Gordon soon arranged the left of his division to make an effort to recapture the lines by driving the enemy back with his right. As he was about to move forward with his Georgia and Virginia ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. 57 brigades in the charge, General Lee, who had reached the front a few minutes before, rode up and joined him. Seeing that Lee was about to ride with him in the charge, the scene of the 6th of May was repeated. Gordon pointed to his Georgians and Vir ginians, who had never failed him, and urged him to go to the rear. This incident has passed into history, and I will not repeat the details here. Suffice it to say Lee yielded to his brave men, accepting their promise to drive the enemy back. Gordon, carrying the colors, led them forward in a headlong, resistless charge, which carried every thing before it, recapturing the trenches on the right of the salient, and a portion of those on the left, recovering some of the lost guns and leaving the rest of them on disputed ground between our troops and the portion of the line still held by the enemy. As Hancock s left and centre were thus checked by Gordon s audacious line of skirmishers and Lane s disposition of his brigade on Hill s left, and finally hurled back by this splended charge of Gordon s brigades, so his right was met by Ramseur s North Carolina brigade, of General Rodes division, who attacked and pressed it steadily back towards the angle. Rodes bringing up the rest of his division to Ram seur s assistance, Hancock \vas thrown completely back on that portion of the captured line to the left of the salient, and here, in this narrow space, was waged the tremendous combat throughout the entire da} . In the space between the contending lines lay fourteen of the eighteen pieces of artillery, swept over by the Fed erals as they leaped into the salient in the early morning, before they were even unlimbered neither party being able to take posession of them. What was left of Johnson s division had been im mediately attached to Gordon s command, and at an early hour a portion of Gordon s men were set to work to make a strong entrenched line, about three hundred yards in rear of the cap tured salient, in order thus to render its occupation of no advan tage to the foe. The Sixth corps was sent by General Grant about 6 A. M. to reinforce Hancock, and somewhat later he sent two divisions of Warren s corps. General Lee sent to the assistance of General Rodes, on whose front the confined battle raged, three brigades during the clay McGowan s South Carolina brigade, Perrin s Alabama brigade and Harris brigade of Mississippians. Now, Rodes division at the beginning of the campaign was about six thousand five hundred muskets, and it had already done some heavy fighting in the Wilderness and on the Spotsylvania lines. The brigades sent to his assistance did not number twenty-five hundred men. So that Rodes, with less than ten thousand men, kept back for eighteen hours more than one-half of General 5 58 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Grant s infantry, supported by a heavy fire of Federal artillery. There was one continuous roll of musketry from dawn till mid night. The Spotsylvania tree cut down by bullets was a proof, not only of the closeness of the contestants, but of the narrow space to which the battle was confined. During the day there was a second repetition of the occurrence of the 6th May. Gene ral Lee had his position nearly all day near a point on Heth s line to the left of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Rodes sent to him asking for reinforcements. He sent me to the right of the line to guide Harris brigade of Mississippians from the right of our line down to Rodes. The brigade, in coming across from the right, passed near General Lee s position. He rode out from a little copse alone and placed himself by General Harris side at the head of his column. Soon the troops came under the artillery fire of the enemy. General Lee s horse reared under the fire, and a round shot passed under him very near the rider s stirrup. The men halted and shouted to him to go back, and, in fact, refused to move if he marched with them. He told them he would go back if they would only promise him to retake the lines. The men shouted, in response, "We will! We will, General Lee!" He then repeated the order to me to guide them down to General Rodes, and rode slowly away towards Heth s lines. The Mississippians marched on with steady step to the front " Into the mouth of hell, marched the eight hundred;" theirs but to do and die, for they had promised Lee. They cheered lustily the gallant Rodes, as they passed into the deadly fray. Coming in at a time when Ramseur was heavily pressed, the day was saved. This was the last reinforce ment sent in. The lines were not retaken, but the enemy was pressed back into the narrow angle and held there on the defen sive until midnight. The homely simplicity of General Lee in these scenes of the 6th and I2th of May, is in striking contrast with the theatrical tone of the famous order of Napoleon at Austerlitz, in which he said: "Soldiers, I will keep myself at a distance from the fire, if with your accustomed valor you carry disorder and confusion into the enemy s ranks; but if victory appear uncertain, you will see your Emperor expose himself in the front of battle." It is the contrast of the simple devotion to duty of the Christian patriot, thoughtless of self, fighting for all that men held dear, with the selfish spirit of the soldier of fortune, " himself the only god of his idolatry." I have been thus particular in giving this incident, because it has been by various writers of the life of Lee confounded with the other two incidents of a like character which I have before given. In fact, to our great Commander, "so low in his opinion ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. 59 of himself and so sublime in all his actions," these were matters of small moment; and when written to by a friend in Maryland (Judge Mason), after the war, as to whether such an incident ever occurred, replied, briefly, "Yes; General Gordon was the General" alluding thus concisely to the incident of the early morning of the I2th, when General Gordon led the charge, pass ing over the similar occurrences entirely, in his characteristic manner of never speaking of himself when he could help it. But that which was a small matter to him was a great one to the men whom he thus led. At nightfall our line of battle still covered four of the eighteen contested guns. The interior line was finished later, and our wearied heroes were withdrawn to it about midnight. Unfortu nately, the four recaptured pieces, through the darkness of the night and difficulty of the ground, became bogged in a swamp while being brought off, and so were left outside of the new lines and fell again into the hands of the enemy. During the clay, the enemy, under the impixs.-.ion that General Lee had weakened his lines to reinforce our troops in Hancock s front, made an attack, which was repulsed with heavy loss to the attacking column. The repulse of this attack of Burnside on Wilcox s front, the splendid execution done by the artillery of Heth s line on the flank of the attacking part} , and the counter attacks by brigades of Hill s corps, sent out in front of our lines during the day, have been recorded by the graphic pen of Gene ral Early, who had been assigned to the command on account of General Hill s sickness on the /th of May.* The restoration of the battle on the 1 2th, thus rendering utterly futile the success achieved by Hancock s corps at daybreak, was a wonderful feat of arms, in which all the troops en-gaged deserve the greatest credit for endurance, constancy and unflinching courage; but without unjust discrimination, we may say that Gordon, Rodes and Ramseur were the heroes of this blood} day. General Lee recommended Gordon to be made Major-General of date I2th May. Rodes and Ramseur were destined alas! in a few short months, to lay down their noble lives in the Valley of Virginia. There was no victor s chaplet more highly prized by the Roman soldier than that woven of the grass of early spring. Then let the earliest flowers of May always be intertwined in the garlands which the pious hands of our fair women shall lay on the tombs of Rodes and Ramseur and of the gallant dead of the battle of twenty hours at Spotsylvania.f * General Hill, thoiurh unable TO sit up, in these days of Spotsylvariia, would have himself drawn up in his ambulance immediately in rear of the Lues, such was his a.ixiety to be near his troops. tThe question has been ask^d since the war why General Lee sent no telegram to Rich mond concerning this battle of May 12th. He did send such a telegram to the War Depart ment. Of its further history I know nothing. 6O MEMORIAL VOLUME. The captured angle, now useless to the enemy, was abandoned by them on the I4th. The attacks made on our lines by General Grant on the I4th and i8th were very easily repulsed. On the afternoon of the iQth, General Lee sent Ewell with his corps to the north side of the narrow Ni river to attack the Federal trains and threaten Grant s line of communication with Fredericksburg. After Ewell crossed and was already engaged with Tyler s divi sion of the enemy, guarding the trains, General Lee became aware for the first time that on account of the difficulties of the way through the flats on the river, he had not taken his artillery with him. He was rendered uneasy by this, and sent orders to General Early to extend his left so as to close up, as far as prac ticable, the gap between his corps and General Ewell s. Fortu nately, General Hampton, who accompanied Ewell with his cav alry brigade, carried with him a battery of horse artillery, and did good service in relieving the difficulties of General Ewell s situation. In this movement some execution was done on some of Grant s newly arrived reinforcements before they were rein forced by troops from the Second and Fifth corps. General Ewell withdrew to the south side of the Ni without much loss. This affair delayed the contemplated turning movement of the Federal army for twenty-four hours. On the night of the 2Oth of May, having discovered, after twelve days of hopeless effort, that Lee s position could not be carried, General Grant began his movement to the North Anna. General Lee had received no reinforcements since the begin ning of the campaign, except the two absent brigades of Ewell s corps, mentioned before. He telegraphed to General Breckin- ridge, after the victory of the latter over Siegel at New Market on May i6th, to come to him with his division, and Pickett s division was moving to him from North Carolina and Petersburg. Grant left his dead unburied in large numbers both at the Wilder ness and Spotsylvania Courthouse, and many thousand muskets scattered through the woods. The Confederates being in pos session of these battlefields, the Ordnance officers were instructed to collect the materials of war left thereon. Among other tilings, they obtained more than one hundred and twenty-two thousand pounds of lead in bullets, which were recast in Richmond and fired again at the enemy before the close of the campaign. The head of Pickett s division reached the army as we began the march to the Northanna, and Breckinridge s division from the Valley, about two thousand seven hundred strong, was added to the Army of Northern Virginia at Hanover junction on the 24th of May. When General Grant s troops, on the morning of May 23d, ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. f 6l reached the north bank of the North Anna, he found the Army of Northern Virginia in position on the south side. Not much force was wasted in preventing the crossing of the Federal forces. Warren s corps crossed on our left at Jericho ford, without oppo sition, and Hancock soon overcame the few men left in the old earthworks at the bridge. Once on the south side it was another matter. General Grant found General Lee s centre near the river; his right reposed on the swamps and his left thrown back obliquely towards the Little river behind him. He discovered, at a heavy cost of life, that in this position he could make no pro gress in attempting to force it. In fact one onslaught on our right was repulsed by merely doubling the line of skirmishers in front of the division (Rodes ) attacked. The Federal com mander says, in his report: "Finding the enemy s position on the North Anna stronger than either of his previous ones, I with drew on the night of the 26th to the north bank of the North Anna." Says the chronicler of the Army of the Potomac: "The annals of war seldom present a more effective checkmate than was thus given by Lee." But it would be a mistake, in estimating General Lee as a o soldier, to assume that it was his rule to permit General Grant to move around his Hank at will, and then to content himself by our interior and shorter lines, to throw himself across his path once more. He was constantly seeking an opportunity to attack the Federal army, now dispirited by the bloody repulses of the repeated attacks on our lines, so obstinately persisted in by General Grant. He hoped to strike the blow at the North Anna or between the Annas and the Chickahominy. He hoped much from an attack on Warren s corps, which, having crossed at Jeri cho ford, several miles higher up the North Anna, lay in a haz ardous position, separated from the rest of the Federal army. General Hill, who was now sufficiently recovered to be in the saddle, at the head of his corps, was also sanguine of success in this attack; but the main plan miscarried through some mishap, though one or two minor successes on this our left flank nota bly one by General Mahone s division were effected. But, alas! in the midst of these operations on the North Anna, General Lee was taken sick and confined to his tent. As he lay prostrated by his sickness, he would often repeat: "We must strike them a blow; we must never let them pass us again we must strike them a blow." But though he still had reports of the operations in the field constantly brought to him, and gave orders to his officers, Lee confined to his tent was not Lee on the battlefield. I know it is unprofitable now to consider what might have 62 MEMORIAL VOLUME. happened, but I cannot refrain from venturing to express the opinion, that had not General Lee been physically disabled, he would have inflicted a heavy blow on the enemy in his march from the Pamunkey to the Chickahominy. An officer, whose opinions are entitled to much consideration, has often expressed the opinion that the opportunity was offered for this blow near Haw s shop, where the Confederate cavalry, under Hampton and Fitz. Lee, met General Sheridan, sustained heavily by the Fede ral infantry. However that may be, Grant found Lee always in his front whenever and wherever he turned. After some desul tory but sharp fighting on the Totopotomoy, he found his old adversary in position at Cold Harbor* a place, the reminiscen ces of which were more inspiring to the Confederate than to the Federal troops. General Grant, as soon as he crossed the Pamunkey, made ar rangements to draw troops to him from Butler, who was lying in compulsory leisure in his " Bermuda bottle." His reinforcements received before the arrival of those can be fairly estimated at more than fifty thousand men. These came to him by Acquia creek, Port Royal and the White House on York river, and in cluding these four divisions drawn from the Tenth and Eigh teenth corps, Northern authorities put Grant s effectives from the begining of the campaign up to the days of the Chicka hominy conflict, at more than two hunderd and twenty thousand men of all arms. In addition to the troops already mentioned, General Lee drew to himself Hoke s division of Beauregard s army at Petersburg, and was reinforced by Finnegan s Florida brigade and Keitt s South Carolina regiment. These bodies, amounting to between seven and eight thousand men, came to him on the Chickahmoiny. Our cavalry was also reinforced during the latter days in May by two regiments from South Carolina and a battalion from Georgia. The victory of the third of June, at Cold Harbor was per haps the easiest ever granted to Confederate arms by the folly of Federal commanders. It was a general assault along a front of six miles and a bloody repulse at all points, and a partial success at one weak salient, speedily crushed by Finnegan s Floridians and the Maryland battalion. The loss on the Federal side was conceded to be about thirteen thousand ; on our side it was about twelve hundred. When a renewal of the attack was ordered by General Grant in the forenoon, most of his troops refused to move, and says Swinton : " His immobile lines pronounced a silent *It may he worth notng that this Cold Harbor, now made famous by two great bat- tl8, is the; old English name for an ordinary or tav. rn. where the traveler could g -t lodging without food. One of the sets of apartments in Mi -to\vnof London is called - Cold Harbor." ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VEXABLE. 63 yet emphatic verdict against further slaughter." On the 4th of June we had a renewal of the painful scenes of Spotsylvania, with the dead and the dying assailants lying in front of our lines. On the 5th of June, General Grant asked permission to bury his dead. By that time his wounded, who had lain so long under the summer s sun, were now counted with the dying, and the dying with the dead. General Grant lay in his lines until the night of the I2th of June. The notice here of his "resolution to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer" seeming "now "to be sicklied o er by the pale cast of thought." On that day Sheridan was defeated by Hampton, whose force consisted of his own and Fitz. Lee s divisions, at Trevyllian s depot. The main object of Sheridan s march towards Gorclonsville was to make a junction with Hunter s and Crook s united corps, and bring it down to Grant s army. This operation being rendered impossible by Sheridan s defeat, on the night of the 1 2th of June, the Federal army began its march to the south side of the James. General Grant had at first been of the opinion that the south side of the James was the best position for attack, and doubtless his north side experience had made this opinion a positive con viction. Says his chronicler: "The march of fifty-five miles across the peninsula was made in two days, and with perfect suc cess." Surely after so much unsuccessful fighting, the Federal commander is entitled to all praise for this successful marching. The overland campaign was at an end. To the Federal army it had been a campaign of bloody repulses, and even when a gleam of success seemed to dawn upon it for a moment fas at the Plank road on May 6th and at Spotsylvania on the morning of the I 2th), it was speedily extinguished in blood, and immediate disaster covered over the face of their rising star of victory. Says the historian of the Army of the Potomac: "So gloomy was the military outlook after the action of the Chickahominy, that there was at this time great danger of the collapse -of the war. The history of this conflict, truthfully written, will show this. Had not success elsewhere come to brighten the horizon, it would have been difficult to have raised new forces to recruit the Army of the Potomac, which, shaken in its structure, its valor quenched in blood and thousands of its ablest officers killed and wounded, was the Army of the Potomac no more." In a foot note to this he adds: "The archives of the State Depart ment, when one day made public, will show how deeply the Gov ernment was affected by the want of military success, and to what resolutions the Executive had in consequence come." That the morale of General Lee s army was high at this time there can be no doubt. The strain of continuous bloody fight- 64 MEMORIAL VOLUME. ing at Spotsylvania had been great; but the campaigns of the North Anna and Chickahominy had given them much more re pose. They were conscious of the success of the campaign, and were on better rations than they had been for a long time. The fat bacon and (Weathersfield?) onions brought in at that time from Nassau were very cheering to the flesh, and the almost prodigal charity with which several brigades contributed their rations to the suffering poor of Richmond was a striking incident in the story of these days on the Chickahominy. But cheerful and in high spirits though they were, there was a sombre tinge to the soldier wit in our thinned ranks which expressed itself in the homely phrase, "What is the used of killing these Yankees? it is like killing musquitoes two come for every one you kill." As General Lee had sent Breckinridge back towards the Valley on June 8th and General Early, with the Second corps (now numbering about eight thousand muskets it having suffered more than either of the other corps), on the I2th to meet Hunter at Lynchburg, and restored Hoke s division to General Beaure- gard at Petersburg, the odds against him were much increased, as he had now with him only from twenty-five to twenty-seven thousand infantry. These bold movements show what he thought of the condition of the Federal army and his undiminished confidence in the morale of his own troops. When Grant reached the James in safety, after his successful march, he did not repose under the shadow of his gunboats, as did the sorely bruised McClellan in 1862. Being essentially a man of action and obstinate persistency and, more than all, having the advantage of McClellan in the consciousness that his Government had staked all on him and \vould support him with all its resources he crossed the James and pushed on to Peters burg. He attacked Beauregard on the Petersburg lines on the 1 5th with Smith s corps, sent in transports from the Wliite House. Reinforcing Smith heavily, he attacked him again on the 16th, and pushed corps after corps to the front. On the i/th Beaure gard had all Grant s army to deal with. Fighting against overwhelming numbers, he had exacted a bloody tribute for every foot gained by the enemy. Though Grant met with partial success in carrying the outer lines, held by a mere handful of troops, yet Beauregard s small force, strengthened by his brigades withdrawn from the Bermuda Hundred lines and by the return of Hoke s division from Cold Harbor, held him in check at the interior lines until General Lee s arrival, with rein forcements, on the 1 8th of June. General Lee remained on the north side of the James until ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VENABLE. 65 June 1 5th. On the night of that day he camped near Drewry s Bluff. On the l6th and i/th of June, he superintended person ally the recapture of the Bermuda Hundred lines by Field s and Pickett s divisions. These lines had been occupied by Butler after the withdrawal of Beauregard s troops for the defence of Petersburg on the day before. The incident of the volunteer attack of our men on these lines, various incorrect versions of which have been given, happened thus: By the afternoon of the I /th all of the line had been retaken except a portion in front of the Clay house. The order had been given to Generals Field and Pickett to move against them from the lines which they held. But meantime the engineers reported that the line already taken up by our troops was of sufficient strength, and that it would be an unnecessary waste of life to attack the part still held by the enemy. The orders to make the attack were countermanded by General Lee. This countermanding order reached General Field in time, but did not reach General Pickett until his troops were already involved in the attack under his orders. General Pickett sent a message to General Gregg, of the Texas brigade, of Field s division, which was next to his right, urging him to go in and protect his flank. Gregg consented at once, but could not wisely move until he had sent a like message to the troops on his right, as the interval between the line held by our troops and that held by the enemy widened much from left to right in front of Field s division. At this moment, however, Pickett s advancing lines opened fire, and in an instant the men of the brigades of Field s division, on General Gregg s right (first squads of men and offi cers, then the standards, and then whole regiments), leaped over our entrenchments and started in the charge without orders, and General Gregg and his Texans rushed forward with them, and in a few moments the line was ours. It was a gallant sight to see; and a striking evidence of the high spirit and splendid elan of troops who had now been fighting more than forty days, in one continuous strain of bloody battles. It was a hazardous move ment, as the position attacked was a very strong one; but it was found to be held by a mere handful of the enemy, and our loss was very slight. I have been thus particular in the details of this incident, of which I was an eye-witness, as General Lee, who was at the Clay house, was not acquainted with all the facts when he sent the well-known message to General Anderson, mention - ing only Pickett s men. On the next day, June iSth, General Lee marched to Peters burg with the van of his army, Kershaw s division, with which he at once reinforced Beauregard s troops in the line of defence. Both Generals were on the field that day, when the assault along 66 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the whole line was made by the Federal corps, which met with such a complete and bloody repulse. During the action a young artillery officer fell by General Lee s side, shot through the body. The attack made no impression whatever on our lines. The easy repulse of the Federal corps on this occasion, and the result of the attack made by Hill with a part of Wilcox s and Mahone s divisions on the Second and Sixth corps, near the Jerusalem plank-road, on the 2ist, when sixteen hundred prisoners and four pieces of artillery were captured by Mahone, made it plain that the opportunity had arrived for a decisive blow. So on the night of the 22d, General Lee sent for General Alexander, the accom plished Chief of Artillery of Longstreet s corps, and made arrange ments for the disposition of the artillery for an attack on the morning of the 24th. The attack was to begin at daylight, with a heavy fire of artillery from Archer s hill, on the north bank of the Appomattox, enfilading the enemy s line near the river; then the infantry of Hoke s division, sustained by Field s division, was to begin with the capture of the line next the river, and then sweep along the line uncovering our front, thus rolling up the Federal right, and compelling General Grant to battle in the open field at a disadvantage. At daybreak on the 24th the ar tillery opened fire and did its work well. The skirmishers of Hagood s brigade of Hoke s division went forward very hand somely and captured the lines next the river. But through some mistake this success was not followed up the gallant skirmish ers were not sustained, and were soon made prisoners by the forces of the enemy turned against them. And thus the whole plan, so well conceived and so successful in its beginning, was given up much to the sorrow of the Commanding-General. In the preliminary operations about Petersburg up to July 1st, Grant s losses footed up fifteen thousand men. On the 6th of July, his engineers pronounced the Confederate works impreg nable to assault. From this date the operations partook of the nature of a siege. As it is not my intention to give any record of events after the siege of Petersburg, I will close my address at this point in the campaign of 64 a campaign, the full history of which would leave the world in doubt, whether most to admire the genius of our great leader or the discipline, devotion, courage and con stancy of his soldiers. On the 4th of May four converging invading columns set out simultaneously for the conquest of Virginia. The old State, which had for three years known little else save the tramp of armed legions, was now to be closed in by a circle of fire, from the mountains to the seaboard. ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VENAHLE. 6/ Through the Southwestern mountain passes, through the gates of the lower valley, from the battle-scarred vales of the Rappa- hannock, from the Atlantic seaboard, by the waters of the James, came the serried hosts on field and flood, numbering more than two hundred and seventy-five thousand men (including in this number also reinforcements sent during the campaign). No troops were ever more thoroughly equipped or supplied with a more abundant commissariat. For the heaviest column, transports were ready to bring supplies and reinforcements to any one of three convenient deep-water bases Acquia creek, Port Royal and the White House. The column next in importance had its deep-water base within nine miles of a vital point in our defences. In the cavalry arm (so important in a campaign in a country like ours) they boasted overwhelming strength. The Confederate forces in Virginia, and those which could be drawn to its defence from other points, numbered not more than seventy-five thousand men. Yet our great Commander, with steadfast heart, committing our cause to the God of battles, calmly made his dispositions to meet the shock of the invading hosts. In sixty days the great invasion had dwindled to a siege of Peters burg (nine miles from deep-water) by the main column, which, "shaken in its structure, its valor quenched in blood, and thous ands of its ablest officers killed or wounded, was the arm} of the Potomac no more." Mingled with it in the lines of Petersburg lay the men of the second column, which, for the last forty days of the campaign, had been held in inglorious inaction at Bermuda Hundreds by .Beauregard, except when a portion of it was sent to share the defeat of June 3d on the Chickahominy ; while the third and fourth columns, foiled at Lynchburg, were wandering in disor derly retreat through the mountains of \Yest Virginia, entirely out of the area of military operations. Lee had made his works at Petersburg impregnable to assault, and had a movable column of his army within two clays march of the Federal capital. He had made a campaign unexampled in the history of defensive warfare. My comrades, I feel that I have given but a feeble picture of this grand period in the history of the time of trial of our beloved South a history which is a great gift of God, and which we must hand down as a holy heritage to our children, not to teach them to cherish a spirit of bitterness or a love for war, but to show them that their fathers bore themselves worthily in the strife when to do battle became a sacred duty. Heroic history is the living soul of a nation s renown. When the traveler in 68 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Switzerland reads on the monument near Basle the epitaph of the thirteen hundred brave mountaineers who met the over whelming hosts of their proud invaders, and "fell, not conquered, but wearied with victory, giving their souls to God and their bodies to the enemy"; or when he visits the places sacred to the myth of William Tell, transplanted by pious, patriotic fraud from ]the legends of another people to inspire the youth of that mountain-land with the hatred of tyrants and the love of heroic deeds; or when he contemplates that wonderful monument by Thorwaldsen, on the shores of Lake Lucerne, in commemoration of the fidelity in death of the Swiss Guard of Louis XVI a colossal lion, cut out of the living rock, pierced by a javelin, and yet in death protecting the lily of France with his paw, he asks himself, how many men of the nations of the world have been inspired with a love of freedom by the monuments and heroic stories of little Switzerland? Comrades, we need not weave any fable borrowed from Scan dinavian lore into the woof of our history to inspire our youth with admiration of glorious deeds in- freedom s battles done. In the true history of this Army of Northern Virginia, which laid down its arms " not conquered, but wearied with victory," you have a record of deeds of valor, of unselfish consecration to duty, and faithfulness in death, which will teach our sons and our son s sons how to die for liberty. Let us see to it that it shall be transmitted to them. After the address of* Colonel Venable the following officers were elected : President General FITZHUGH LEE. Vice-Presidents Colonel R. E. Withers and General B. T. Johnson. Treasurer Major Robert Stiles. Secretaries Sergeants George L. Christian and Leroy S. Edwards. Executive Committee General W. H. Payne, Sergeant J. V. L. McCreery, Major W. K. Martin, Colonel T. H. Carter, Colonel J. B. Cary. FOURTH ANNUAL KKUNION. The interest in these annual reunions continued to grow, and a larger crowd than ever assembled in the State Capitol on the evening of October 29th, 1874 among them a large number of our most distinguished officers and most heroic private soldiers. After a fervent and most appropriate prayer by Rev. J. L. M. Curry, D. D., General Fitz. Lee, in well chosen words and appropri ate terms, greeted his comrades and welcomed them to their reunion. He stated that the Association was organized for both historical and social purposes, but said that the gathering of historical material had now been turned over to the Southern Historical Society, over which presides the indomitable and "al- ways-tell-the-truth " General Jubal A. Early. But the social feature of the organization remained, and it was meet that they should gather to revive memories of the brave old clays, to grasp the hands of comrades, and to keep fresh the recollections of the gallant struggle we made against overwhelm ing numbers and resources. After other appropriate remarks, General Lee gracefully introduced, as orator of the evening, Colo nel Charles Marshall, of Baltimore, "the Military Secretary and confidential friend of General R. K. Lee." Colonel Marshall was enthusiastically greeted and was fre quently interrupted with loud applause as he delivered the follow ing address: ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. Mr. President and Fel/oic Soldiers of tlie Army of Nortliern \lrginia \Yhen the Executive Committee honored me with the invitation that brings me before you to-night, I was at a loss to choose from the teeming annals of the Arm}- of Northern Vir ginia a subject appropriate to the occasion, and one that my in formation would enable me to present without trespassing too much upon your patience. The short history of that army is crowded with events and incidents which will furnish Material to the historian, the orator, the poet and the painter as long as heroic courage, uncomplain ing endurance, magnanimity in the hour of victory, and fortitude under adverse fortune, continue to command the admiration and attract the sympathy of mankind. But I do not feel at liberty to choose at will from those inci- 7O MEMORIAL VOLUME. dents, nor can I venture to utter the thoughts that start first to my mind as I look upon the faces of old comrades in arms, and upon some young faces that remind me of comrades who have passed away. I dare not trust myself to speak to you of those memories of our army life, dearest to the heart of a soldier, but which make no part of the world s history of war. Time does not permit me to attempt a description of any of the great bat tles in which you bore an honorable part, nor would such a description, however accurate, as well illustrate the magnitude of the service performed by the Army of Northern Virginia, or afford as clear a view of the difficulties against which it had to contend, and of the burden imposed upon its courage and endu rance, as will be derived from the subject to which I propose to invite your attention, if I can succeed in presenting that subject properly. Indeed, it requires no little courage to undertake to fight any of the battles of the war "o er again." It has been sixty years since Waterloo, and to this day writers are not agreed as to the facts of that famous battle. English historians claim that the steadfast lines of the Iron Duke turned the scale of victory, while the Germans, with equal confidence, assert that the glory is due to him for whose coming Wellington is said to have prayed, as he watched the dubious tide of battle. Victor Hugo, with all the light of history before him, has amused every man who ever saw a battle with his description of the field that decided the fortune of Napoleon and of Europe. It is not fourteen years since our war began, and yet who on either side of those who took part in it is bold enough to say that he knows the exact truth, and the whole truth, with refe rence to any of the great battles in which the armies of the North and South met each other? Was not Mr. Sumner censured by the Legislature of Massa chusetts because, prompted in part at least, let us hope, by the love of truth, he renewed in the Senate of the United States after the war a resolution which in substance he had previously brought forward? " Resolved, That it is inexpedient that the names of victories obtained over our own fellow citizens should be placed on the regimental colors of the United States." This resolution would erase from the colors of the United States army such names as those of Cold Harbor, Manassas, Fred- ericksburg, and Chancellorsville, which you have seen inscribed upon captured flags. Now we believe that zve won those fights,. ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. /I and we wonder why a resolution of Congress should be neces sary to blot them from the list of Union victories recorded on the standards of its armies. \Ve think that we know something about the second battle at Manassas, and yet is not General Fitz John Porter, who fought us so stubbornly at the first battle of Cold Harbor, now in dis grace, because it was proved to the satisfaction of a Federal courtmartial that half the Confederate army was not where we all know it was on the morning of August 29th, 1862? And on our side, have we not read General Joseph F. Johnston s "Con tribution of materials for the use of the future historian of the war between the States," and has any one risen from the perusal of that interesting book, without the conviction that its distinguished author is mistaken as to some of his statements, or that all cotemporaneous history is in error? I will venture to present only two of the perplexities in which "the future historian of the war between the States" will find himself involved when he comes to compare the "material" con tributed by General Johnston with the other "material" con tributed by official records and documents, which General John ston seems not to have seen, or not to have consulted: General Johnston says, page 145 of his "Narrative": "The authors of Alfriend s life of Jefferson Davis and sonic other biographies represent, to my disparagement, that the army with which General Lee fought in the Seven Days was only that which I had commanded. It is very far from the truth. General Lee did not attack the enemy until the 26th of June, because he was employed from the 1st until then in forming a great army, by bringing to that which I had commanded fifteen thous and men from Xortk Carolina, under Major-General Holmes; twenty -two thousand men from SoutJi Carolina and Georgia, and above sixteen thousand men from the Valley* in the divisions of Jackson and Rwell, which the victories of Cross Keys and Port Republic had rendered disposable." General Johnston states in a note the sources of his informa tion. He says " General Holmes told me, in General Lee s presence, just before the fight began on the 3ist (of May), that he had that force (fifteen thousand men) ready to join me when the President should give the order." He then refers to other evidence, which he says is in his possession, going to show that the reinforcements brought by General Holmes to General Lee, and which took part in the "Seven Days" Battles, amounted to fifteen thousand men. As to the twenty-two thousand from South Carolina and Georgia, General Johnston says: "General Ripley gave in this number. He 72 MEMORIAL VOLUME. brought the first brigade, five thousand men. General Lawton told me that his was six thousand ; General Drayton that his was seven thousand. There was another brigade, of which I do not know the strength." Now the "future historian" ought not lightly to doubt the ac curacy of any statement of General Johnston, and upon that high authority he would record that before the battles of the "Seven Days," General Lee received from three of the sources mentioned by General Johnston reinforcements to the number of thirty-seven thousand men, who took part in those engagements which resulted in dislodging General McClellan from his position on the Chickahominy. And yet how hard the "future liistorian" will be put to it to reconcile "Johnston s Narrative" with the official reports made, at the time. In the first volume of the official reports of the opera tions of the Army of Northern Virginia, published by authority of the Confederate Congress, at page 151, will be found General Holmes statement of the number of men brought by him to take part in the battles around Richmond during the " Seven Days." General Holmes there says, that upon crossing the James, river he was joined on the 3Oth June by General Wise with two regiments of seven hundred and fifty-two bayonets and two bat teries of artillery, and adds: "The effective force under my orders thus amounted to six tlwitsand infantry and six batteries of artil lery" being less by nine thousand infantry than General John ston s "Narrative" assigns to General Holmes. General John ston says that Ripley s brigade was five thousand strong, and that General Ripley so informed him. There may have been that number of men borne upon the rolls of the brigade, but we have .General Ripley s official report of the number of troops under his command that actually took part in the battles around Richmond. At page 234, volume I of the official reports already referred to, General Ripley says: "The aggregate force which entered into the series of engagements on the 26th of June was twenty- tJiree hundred and sixty-six, including pioneers and the ambulance corps." The "Narrative" puts the force under General Lawton at six thousand men, but before the "historian of the war" ventures to make use of this contribution to his materials, he will do well to look at the official reports, at page 270 of the first volume, where he will find that General Lawton gives the force which he carried into the battle of Cold Harbor, on the 2/th June, 1862, as thirty-five hundred men.. ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 73 I have not been able to find General Drayton s report of the part taken by his command in the battles around Richmond if he did take part in them and therefore cannot compare the number assigned to General Drayton in those engagements by General Johnston s "Narrative" with any official documents, but if the reports of Holmes, Lawton and Ripley be correct, they brought less than eleven thousand eight hundred and sixty-six men to participate in those battles, instead of twenty-six thou sand as stated by General Johnston. Ripley and Lawton, according to their reports, had five thou sand eight hundred and sixty-six men in the " Seven Days " battles, instead of eleven thousand, according to Johnston s Nar rative. It follows, therefore, that Drayton s brigade, and the other, whose strength General Johnston says he does not know, must have made up the rest of the twenty-two thousand men who we are informed came to General Lee from South Carolina and Georgia to aid in driving McClellan from the Chickahominy that is, those two brigades, Drayton s and the unknown, must have numbered about sixteen thousand men. General Johnston says that General Drayton told him that his brigade was seven thousand strong, so that the unknown brigade must have numbered nine thousand to make up the twenty-two thousand from South Carolina and Georgia. It may have been so. There may have been a brigade in Gen eral Lee s army nine thousand strong, but in speaking about it before you, I think it safer to refer to it as the " unknown brigade." And in this connection let me suggest to the future historian of the war that before he writes Drayton s brigade down as con tributing seven thousand men to the army around Richmond in the "Seven Days " Battles, it will be well for him to inquire whether that brigade joined the army at all until after McClellan had been driven from the Chickahominy and the arm}- had marched northward upon a new campaign. He will find no trace of this brigade in the reports of the Seven Days Battles, although they are so much in detail as to include the reports of captains of companies. A Confederate brigade seven thousand strong would probably have taken some part worth reporting, and its name ought to appear in the official account. Drayton s command will be found mentioned in the official reports of subsequent operations of the army at Manassas and in Maryland. As to the " unknown brigade," that, I think, will turn out to 6 74 MEMORIAL VOLUME. be a small command under General Evans, of South Carolina, who did not join the army until after it moved from Richmond.* Another instance of the difficulties which surround those who venture to enter upon a detailed history of the war, will be found in the same Narrative. On page 140 General Johnston says: "About noon (of the 1st June) General Lee was assigned to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia by the President, and at night the troops were ordered by him to return to their camps near Richmond, which they did soon after daybreak Monday" (June 2d). On the next page General Johnston proceeds to describe the relative forces and positions of the armies that had been engaged on Saturday, and says, with reference to the condition of affairs on Sunday, June ist: "After nightfall, Saturday, the two bodies * It is proper to remark that the army around Richmond received a larger reinforcement from North Carolina than the number given in General Holni"s official report. General Holmes had under his command in North Carolina four brigades, which afterwards cam" to Virginia, and which are no doubt the troops referred to by GeneralJohnston as coin- prising the fifteen thousand men that joined General Lee after the battle of Seven Pines. These brigades were commanded by General Branch, General Ransom and General J. G. Walker; and a fourth, known as the Third North Carolina brigade, was commanded during its service at Richmond by Colonel Junius Daniel. Of these. Branch s brigade joined the army at Richmond before the battle of Seven Pines. It was engaged with the enemy near Hanover Junction on the twenty-sixth May, and after wards formed a part of A. P. Hill s division. General Ransom s brigade consisted of six regi ments, one of which, the Forty-eighth North Carolina, was transferred to Walker s brigade. Hansom s tive regiments numbered about three thousand, though his effective force was somewhat less. It was attached to Huger s division on the twenty-fifth June, and is counted in that division. Walker s brigade, as reported by Colonel Manning, who succeeded General Walker after the latter was disabled on the first July, was about four thousand strong; and the Third brigade, under Colonel Daniel, was about one thousand seven hundred, according to the lat ter officer. (See Reports of Army of Northern Virginia, volume 1, pages 322 and 325.) These last two commands composed the force mentioned by General Holmes in his report. General Johnston s statement that fifteen thousand men came from North Carolina, under General Holmes, is theiefore calculated to give an erroneous idea of the actual increase of the army under General Lee between the battle of Seven Pines and the battles around Rich mond. Branch s brigade should not be included in the troops that came from North Caro lina, under Holmes, because that brig/de was with the army before General Johnston was wounded; and for the further reason, that as it afterwards formed part of A. P. Hill s division, it would be counted twice if it also be treated as part of the troops brought by General Holmes. A similar error would be likely to occur with reference to Ransom s brigade, which is counted as part of Huger s division, and should be excluded from the troops under Holmes. In fact, I have seen an estimate of General Lee s forces in the Seven Days Battles, based upon the statement of General Johnston, above referred to, in which General Holmes com mand is put down as fifteen thousand stiong; while Ransom s and Branch s brigades are at tlie same time counted as part of the divisions of Huger and A. P. Hill, thus doubling the strength of those brigades. It should also be observed in connection with the statement of General Johnston, as to the number of troops that came from South Carolina and Georgia, that there is danger of a ]ike error. Among those troops was Lawton s brigade. Now Lawton did not come directly to Richmond from the South. When he reached Burkeville, on his way to Richmond, General tee was about to cover the contemplated movement against General McClellan, by creating the impression that Jackson was to be reinforced, so as to resume the offensive in the Valley. For this purpose, Lawton was sent from Burkeville, by way of Lynchburg, to join Jackson near Staunt on, and Whiting s division, of two brigades, \vasdetached from the army before Richmond. IJoth Lawton and Whiting joined Jackson, and formed part of the command with which he came to Rich mond and engaged in the Seven Days Battles. (See Jackson s report, volume I, page 129, Reports of Army of Northern Virginia, where it will be seen that Lawton was attached to Jackson s division.) This fact should be borne in mind in estimating the strength of General Lee s army, because General Johnston s Narrative counts tli - force under Jackson as com posing paYt of the reinforcements received by General Lee. (See Narrative, page 14i>.) Lawton must b counted as part of the twenty-two thousand, or as part of Jackson s com mand. Whiting should not be counted among the reinforcements, because he belonged to the army under General Johnston. ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 75 of Federal troops were completely separated from the two corps of their right, beyond the Chickahominy, by the swollen stream which had swept away their bridges, and Simmer s corps, at Fair Oaks, was six miles from those of Heintzelman and Keyes, which was at Bottom s bridge; but the Confederate forces were united on the front and left flank of Sumner s corps. Such advantage of position and superiority of numbers would have enabled them to defeat that corps on Sunday morning before any aid could have come from Heintzelman, after which his troops, in the condition to which the action of the day before had rendered them, could not have made effectual resistance." And again, on page 143, General Johnston says: "No action of the war has been so little understood as that of Seven Pines. The Southern people have felt no interest in it, because, being unfinished in consequence of the disabling of the commander, they saw no advantage derived from it; and the Federal com manders claimed the victor} , because the Confederate forces did not renew the battle on Sunday, and fell back to their camps on Monday." The meaning of these extracts is that the Confederate army lost a great opportunity to destroy part of that of General Mc- Clellan the day after General Johnston was wounded, and that General Lee is responsible for the loss of that opportunity, because he took command about noon on Sunday and at night ordered the troops back to their camps near Richmond, instead of pressing the advantage they had gained on Saturday and availing himself of the separation of the Federal forces caused by the flood in the Chickahominy. Xow, I believe that General Johnston is the last person in the world to endeavor to magnify his own great merits by depre ciating the conduct of others, and especially by depreciating the conduct of one whose name, canonized by death, is treasured by the Southern people in their inmost hearts. And yet General Johnston has fallen into an error in those parts of his narrative that I have quoted, which is calculated to give the sanction of his great name to a reflection upon the capacity and conduct of the illustrious chief under whom the Army of Northern Virginia won its undying renown. General Lee was on the battlefield on Sunday, June ist, as he was also the day before; but General Lee did not take actual command of the army until June 2d, and when he did the troops were already in the camps around Richmond, whence General Johnston had led them to fight the battle of Seven Pines. When, unfortunately for the country, General Johnston was wounded, General G. \V. Smith succeeded to the command, but was unable to retain it by reason of his feeble health. /6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. The opportunity spoken of by General Johnston was not re ported until after the army had returned to its encampment, and could not therefore have been made use of as General Johnston seems to think it should have been.* When you see that those who have every desire to tell the truth, and whose opportunities of knowing the facts of which they write are so far superior to my own, have fallen into errors which I am sure they will be the first to correct, you will readily understand why I do not venture to select from all the events which marked the history of the Army of Northern Virginia any one of its great battles as the subject of my address to night. I have been engaged for two or three years, as some of you may know, in trying to write an account of the life and achievements of the great leader of the Army of Northern Vir ginia, and conscious of my inability to "rise to the height of that great argument," I have spared no labor to make what I may write accurate, however in other respects it may fall below the dignity of the subject. The Secretary of War saw proper to deny my request (pre ferred by a distinguished Senator of the United States, who hon ored me with his confidence and friendship) to be permitted to examine the captured records of the Confederate Government, of the contents of which some Federal officers, more fortunate than myself, have from time to time given what the lawyers call "parol testimony." I have thus been thrown back upon other sources of informa tion, and while I am most grateful for the assistance I have re ceived from officers, both Federal and Confederate, to whom I have applied, candor compels me to acknowledge that the seeker after truth has a hard time of it when he undertakes to describe with anything like minuteness any of the great battles of the war. Ever since the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse I have regarded myself as a man of peace; but I am obliged to admit that on one or two occasions, in my pursuit of information, I have been tempted to forget my peaceful character, when some zealous Federal officer has insisted upon convincing me that the Confederate army was beaten in the Wilderness, or some unre constructed Rebel has refused to admit that we were repulsed at Gettysburg. Knowing, therefore, the difficulties that beset the way of the honest inquirer, I cast the mantle of charity over the errors of Northern officers do not agree with General Johnston as to the situation of the Federal army on the 1st June, and the existence of the opportunity referred to in the " Narrative" is far from being one of those " materials " upon which the future historian can rely as established beyond dispute. ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 77 those who venture to provide "materials for the use of the future historian of the war between the States," but I shrink from fol lowing- their example, lest I also fall into the same condemnation. There are, however, some undisputed facts with reference to the war, from the study of which a better understanding of mili tary operations can be derived than from a detailed history of marches and battles, and I propose to invite your attention to one of those interesting and instructive subjects. I refer to the influence upon the conduct and issue of the war in Virginia which was exerted by the selection of the city of Richmond as the seat of the Confederate Government, and the establishment here of those depots and arsenals necessary to supply an army operating north of the James river. It is not possible, in fact, to explain the operations of the con tending armies in Virginia without a clear understanding of the importance which the possession of Richmond acquired during the progress of the war. For four years the greatest efforts of the Federal Government were directed to the capture of the city, while the strongest army of the Confederacy was arduously engaged and finally exhausted in its defence. The political consequence assigned by common consent to the capital of a country, and especially to the capital of a country struggling for recognition, would doubtless have rendered any place which the Confederate Government might have selected for that purpose a prominent object of attack ; but Richmond had a value in a military point of view that far exceeded its political importance. The great region of country between the James river and the Potomac has become historic. It was the Flanders of the war, and it is no exaggeration to say that nearly or quite a quarter of million of men perished in the fierce struggle for its possession in which the armies of the North and South were engaged for nearly four years. This territory was of great value to the Confederacy, on account of the supplies it furnished to the army and the recruits whom its brave and patriotic population sent to our ranks. But it was not the supplies and the recruits which gave it its chief value. The effectiveness of any army of the Confederacy depended in a great degree upon its proximity to the enemy s country, and it soon became apparent that the same number of Confederate troops could not be placed where they would give occupation to so much of the vastly superior force of the enemy, as in that region between the James and the Potomac, within reach of the sensitive Southern 78 MEMORIAL VOLUME. frontier of the United States, on whose extreme border stood the city of Washington, for the safety of which the Federal authori ties considered no preparation excessive, no sacrifice too great. A few considerations will suggest, rather than fully explain, the importance to the Confederacy of being able to maintain in Northern Virginia an army sufficiently strong to keep alive the anxiety of the Washington Government for the safety of the capital and the defence of the avenues of approach to the large cities of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The resources of the Federal Government greatly exceeded those of the Confederacy. After the first battle of Manassas, Mr. Lincoln perceived that while the moral effect of treating the war as one waged for the suppression of a rebellion was of service in uniting the different political parties in the North, and in giving the prestige of legitimacy to his Government, yet, that in truth, the North, under the name of the " United States," had entered upon a war of conquest, and he forthwith began to prepare for it on a scale adequate to the emergency. More than half a million -of men were called to arms, and a navy was speedily launched, strong enough to perform the great task committed to it of blockading the Southern coast from the Capes of Virginia to the mouth of the Rio Grade, and ultimately to turn the doubtful scale in favor of the baffled armies of the Union. The results of this vigorous policy were soon manifested. Vast armies gathered along our frontier, nimble gunboats and powerful iron-clads swarmed in our rivers and along our coasts, and every part of the South felt itself exposed to invasion. It was manifestly impossible for the Confederate Government to attempt, with any hope of success, to oppose this vast force at every point that might be assailed. The undisputed control of the water, and the extensive coasts and great navigable rivers of the South, enabled the Federal Government to threaten so many points at once, that to oppose the enemy everywhere would require a ruinous dispersion of the Confederate forces. The fatal consequences of such an attempt had been demonstrated as soon as military operations were re sumed in the beginning of 1862. Kentucky and a great part of Tennessee were quickly over run; Missouri was practically lost; the unfortunate city of New Orleans fell into the hands of the enemy; General Johnston found himself obliged to retire from Northern Virginia, and strong ex peditions of the enemy succeeded in establishing themselves along our Atlantic coast. The Confederates had some troops everywhere, but not enough anywhere. ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 79 But although they had to abandon the plan of opposing the enemy successfully at every point of attack, it was still possible, by concentrating their forces upon some vulnerable part of the Federal frontier, to compel the enemy to pursue the same policy of concentration, and thus impair his means of assailing exposed localities which the Confederacy did not posess the power to defend. The position of the city of Washington, and the paramount importance attached by Mr. Lincoln and his advisers to its safety, afforded such an opportunity to the Confederate commander. The safety of the Federal capital was regarded by the authorities at Washington as essential to a successful prosecution of the war, and the precautions taken for its defence were always in propor tion to their estimate of its importance, rather than the actual danger of losing it. The presence of General Johnston s army at Ma- nassas detained that of General McClellan, nearly three times as strong, at Washington during the autumn and winter of 1861 O * O T"> 62. The advance of the small force of Jackson down the Val ley, when he drove General Banks across the Potomac, at a time when the Federal armies were nearly everywhere successful, ex cited such apprehensions for the city of Washington that the strong army of McDowell was recalled from Fredericksburg to oppose him, and General McClellan was deprived of its co-opera tion in his intended attack on Richmond. These results were so entirely out of proportion to the actual danger to which at any time Washington was exposed, as naturally to suggest the idea that by availing ourselves of the extreme sensitiveness of the Federal authorities on the subject, we could compel the concentration of their forces, and cause them to abandon some parts of our country which we were not strong enough to protect. This will be found to be a marked feature of the operations of the Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of General Lee. It will be remembered that he resorted to this plan to compel the army of General McClellan to withdraw from the James after it had been dislodged from its position on the Chickahominy. He did not hesitate, notwithstanding the declaration by General McClellan of his intention to renew his operations against Rich mond from his new base, to detach the whole of Jackson s com mand, which was speedily followed by the strong division of A. P. Hill. These troops, under the energetic lead of Jackson, crossed the Rapidan, and attacked the army of General Pope with a bold ness which caused him to concieve a very exaggerated idea of their numbers. 8O MEMORIAL VOLUME. Pope s advance was checked, and the troops of General Burn- side, which had been recalled to assist McClellan, were brought to Fredericksburg, to co-operate with Pope in resisting the ad vance of the Confederate army. This movement of Burnside made it evident that nothing would be undertaken by McClellan, and General Lee immediately began to move the last of his army northward, confident that he would thereby accelerate the recall of McClellan from the James. At the same time the troops of D. H. Hill, which had been stationed south of James river, were drawn to Richmond, with such reinforcements as the withdrawal of General Burnside from North Carolina had made disposable, with orders to follow the main body of the army northward as soon as General McClellan should be recalled. Thus was completed that great step towards the concentration of the Confederate forces which resulted in the formation of the powerful Army of Northern Virginia. It is worthy of notice that the army did not receive its name until after it had returned from Northern Virginia and was engaged in defending Richmond. The name seems to have been inspired by the conviction that Northern Virginia was destined to be the scene of its operations. This concentration on our part, and the danger with which Washington was supposed to be menaced, brought about the re sults anticipated by General Lee. McClellan s army was brought to reinforce Pope; troops were taken from the coast of Carolina and from Western Virginia to aid in defending the Federal capital, and it became evident that a Confederate army could not render more efficient service and afford more complete protection to the country than by arousing the apprehensions of the authorities at Washington for the safety of that city. The advantage which the Confederacy derived from its ability to maintain a strong army near the Northern and Northeastern border of Virginia will also appear if we reflect what would have been the condition of affairs had the Confederate army retired from that region and fallen back towards the North Carolina line, as it must have done in order to keep up its connections with the South. It is evident that in that case the whole Southern border of the United States, including the city of Washington, would have been relieved of serious apprehension, and the troops occupied in providing against an expected invasion on our part would have been disposable for aggressive movements against us. The effect of the loss of Kentucky and the greater part of ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 8 1 Tennessee opon military operations in the West will further illus trate my meaning. After our troops in the West had fallen back so far from the Northern border as to interpose between them and the States beyond the Ohio river an extensive district of country, practically in the possession of the enemy, the Federal Government had a much greater force at its command for use in the field than would have been the case had it been required to guard its long South ern border. Time will not permit me to point out all the advantages result ing from the tenure of Northern Virginia by the Confederacy, but I have said enough to indicate to my thoughtful hearers that the great struggle of nearly four years, which was waged for the possession of this region, involved consequences to the Confede racy of far greater importance than the mere loss of territory, or of the recruits and supplies it derived from Northern Virginia. But while the presence of our army in Northern Virginia was of advantage in many ways, some of which I have suggested, it is apparent that to enable that army to accomplish its object, it needed all the strength the Confederacy could give it. It was near the Northern border, in the presence continually of the most powerful of all the Union armies, and constantly exposed to the attack of superior numbers. With all the important consequences which depended upon the ability of that army to maintain itself, and in view of the gigantic task imposed upon it of meeting the repeated efforts of the enemy to force it further back from the Union frontier, and from the Federal capital, it would seem that the army had as much as it could do, and that the skill of its leader and the courage of his men would be full} occupied in performing the arduous task immediately before them. You will now understand the subject to which I propose to in vite your attention that is, the influence which the situation and military importance of the city of Richmond exerted upon the conduct and issue of the war. Valuable as Northern Virginia was to the Confederacy, its pos session came to depend entirely upon our ability to defend the city of Richmond. Flere were established the depots and arsenals of the army operating in Northern Virginia, or through Rich- J L O fc> O mond it had the chief means of access to sources of supply further South. With Richmond in the hands of the enemy, it is evident that no large Confederate army could have been maintained in North ern Virginia. There was no other city in Virginia that had railroad conncc- 82 MEMORIAL VOLUME. tions with the South sufficient to furnish transportation for the supply of such an army as it was important to maintain in North ern Virginia. Lynchburg might have been connected with the railroads in North Carolina, and thus have had an interior line of communi cation with the South less accessible to the enemy than any that Richmond posessed, but no such communication was made, nor does it profit now to inquire whether it could have been made. If I have succeeded in impressing you with a sense of the im portance of Northern Virginia to the prosperous maintenance of the war on the part of the Confederacy, you cannot fail to per ceive that in addition to the great task which devolved upon that army in the immediate field of its operations, it had also to assume all the difficulties which the situation of Richmond im posed upon those who undertook to defend it. Early in the second year of the war, the Confederacy was com pelled to yield to the enemy quiet possession of the James river to within a few miles of Richmond. From that time it was always possible for the Federal Government to transport troops from the North and land them within less than a day s march of the city, without the fear or even the possibility of interruption by us. It is unnecessary to refer to the additional facilities of approach to Richmond which the York river afforded to the enemy. The place upon the safety of which so much depended was in fact almost as accessible from the North by water as the city of Alex andria. Its distance from the base of a Federal army operating against it gave it no advantage if that army could almost reach its gates by a safe and rapid water transportation. In attacking the city, situated as it was, the powerful flotilla of the enemy was able to co-operate efficiently with his land forces, so that the defenders of Richmond had to resist the combined efforts of the Federal army and navy. Nor did Richmond for purposes of defence possess any of the advantages of an inland town, even should the enemy, renouncing the facilities which his command of the water afforded him, attempt to approach the city by land. The movement of General Grant in 1864 from Culpeper Court house to the James river illustrates clearly the disadvantages which the army defending Richmond was forced to incur, owing to the peculiar situation of the city. General Grant marched from Culpeper Courthouse, abandon ing his communications with Washington by the Orange and Alexandria road. But he had no need to care for his old com munications, as his first halt in the Wilderness, and his next at ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 83 Spotsylvania Courthouse, afforded him an easy and safe access to the Potomac river at Acquia Creek, within a few hours rail of Washington, by a road directly in the rear of and covered by his army. As General Grant advanced further south from Spotsyl vania Courthouse to the Annas, the Rappahannock below Fred- ericksburg gave him new water communications with his base, using Port Royal in the rear of his army as a landing. When his third stage brought him to the Pamunkey, another and per fectly safe communication was opened with Washington by the York river and Chesapeake bay, and when his last march brought him to the James, his communication with Washington and all Northern ports became safe and perfect, without requiring the detachment of a single man from his arm} to guard it. It will thus be seen that although General Grant s march was through Virginia, it was attended with few of the difficulties that beset such a movement in a hostile country. The Federal army was not troubled with the protection of its lines of communication, for it abandoned one only to find another and a safer at the end of ever} march. Deprived thus of the opportunities that such a movement usually affords those who resist an army seeking to penetrate the interior of a country, the army of General Lee could only oppose direct resistance to the progress of the enemy, and hence the bloody contests between the few and the man}- that strewed the road from the Rapidan to the James with thousands of dead and wounded. But while Richmond could thus be easily approached by water, and while it had none of the advantages of an interior position, even as against an advance of the enemy by land, the difficulty of defending it, in case a Federal army too strong to be clisloged should succeed in establishing itself near the city, was insuper able. Such a state of affairs would reverse all the conditions of a successful resistance to a strong by a weaker force. It would impose upon the smaller army the protection of long lines of railroad, without which neither the troops nor the population could be supplied, while its stronger adversary would be perfectly safe in its communications, and free to use every man for the purpose of attack. But it is unnecessary for me to point out to those who took part in the defence of Richmond the manifold and fatal disadvan tages they struggled so bravely to overcome. I have said enough to show the difficulties that beset that de fence, and yet all these difficulties were added to the duties, cares and labors of the Army of Northern Virginia. I have only time to refer to one or two illustrations of the dis- $4 MEMORIAL VOLUME. advantages which the defence of Richmond, added to its other great labors, imposed upon the army disadvantages proceeding altogether from the exposed situation of the city, and the absolute naval supremacy of the enemy. It is plain that the necessity of looking to the defence of the city against the great peril to which it was constantly exposed could not fail to influence and control the operations of the army. You will remember how, in the winter of 1862 63, the fear of an advance of the enemy on the south side of the James caused the detachment from the army at Fredericksburg of the greater part of Longstreet s corps, and the apprehension of danger to Richmond from that direction was so great, that it was not con sidered expedient to return these troops to the army, even for the purpose of taking part in the battle of Chancellorsville. Their absence exposed the army of General Lee to the greatest peril, and perhaps stripped the victory of Chancellorsville of the fruits it might have borne. Again, you will remember that the presence of a Federal fleet in the James, and the movement of a Federal army from Ber muda Hundreds, detained from us one of the strongest divisions of Longstreet s corps, while we were grappling with our gigantic enemy in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Courthouse. The same necessity prevented us from calling to our assistance the other troops under General Beauregard on the south side of the James, with whose aid we might have once more rolled the tide of war back to our Northern border, and made the result of the enemy s campaign of 1864 like that of 1862 and of 1863. But the most marked influence which the situation of Rich mond, and the necessity of providing for its defence, exerted upon the conduct of the war in Virginia, is seen in its connection with the expeditions of the army beyond the Potomac. This I shall endeavor briefly to explain. The great advantages which the enemy would have in besieging Richmond, were so apparent that it was a saying of the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, that Richmond was never so safe as when its defenders were absent. His meaning was that the safety of Richmond depended upon our ability to employ the enemy at a distance, and prevent his near approach to the city. Such was the policy adopted by him, and which secured the comparative safety of Richmond from the time the army moved Northward in 1862, to the time when, worn out with more than two years of exhausting war, it was forced to retire within the entrenchments of Richmond before the great and ever increasing multitudes of its adversary. But it was only by acting upon the apprehensions of the enemy ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 85 that such a result could be attained with the force under General Lee s command. Accordingly, when, by the second battle of Manassas, he had driven the united forces of Pope and McClellan, with all the rein forcements that had been added to them, back upon the defences of Washington, it became necessary for General Lee to decide how he could prevent them from sending an expedition by water against Richmond, and thus necessitate the withdrawal of the army from Northern Virginia to defend the city. To have done this would have been practically to give up the advantages we had gained in the campaign from Richmond to Manassas. It was out of the question to attempt to besiege the Federal army in the defences of Washington south of the Potomac, even had General Lee been provided with the means to do so, nor, could those works have been taken, would any advantage have resulted at all commensurate with the sacrifice of life that would have attended the effort, as the army would still have been separated from Washington by a river crossed by a high bridge more than a mile long, and commanded by the enemy s gunboats. Nor was it possible for the army to remain near its late battle fields, as the country around was entire!) stripped of supplies, and there was no railroad to Richmond except from the Rapidan. To have fallen back southward far enough to open railroad communications with Richmond, besides sacrificing to a great extent the moral effect of the Confederate successes, might have invited a renewel of the attempt on the city by way of the James river. Under these circumstances, there was but one course left for him to pursue, if he would save Richmond from the peril which he knew would attend its investment by the large army of the enemy. He must give occupation to that army, and such occu pation as would compel the largest concentration of its forces-. By this means he might even induce the enemy to withdraw troops from other parts of the Confederacy, and thus obtain additional reinforcements for himself. These results, however, required that he should continue to threaten Washington and the Northern States, and this he could not do effectually unless he could put his army near Washington, and at the same time where it could be supported. It was for these reasons, as we learn from the report of General Lee s first invasion of Maryland, that he crossed the Potomac, and for like reasons, as it would be easy to show, he invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania in 1863. It is not my intention to trace the campaigns of the army be yond the Potomac, interesting and imperfectly understood as the 86 MEMORIAL VOLUME. events of those campaigns are, but I have accomplished my present purpose if I have succeeded in explaining that the situa tion of Richmond was intimately connected with the designs of General Lee in undertaking those expeditions, and that the bat tles of Sharpsburg and Gettysburg were, in fact, but a part of the plan by which General Lee sought to defend Richmond, and thereby maintain his army in Northern Virginia and in proximity to the enemy s border. It would, perhaps, be going too far to say that General Lee would not have crossed the Potomac but for the peculiar situation and vital importance of Richmond. It is not impossible that had the objective point of Federal operations in Virginia been some less exposed and less accessible place, the Confederate army might have gained advantages that would have enabled it to assume the offensive in fact as well as in appearance. But it is more probable that in such an event, the Confederate Government would have availed itself of the opportunity to reinforce its armies in the South and West rather than engage in the invasion of the North. That it had the incli nation to pursue this policy, is demonstrated by the detachment of two divisions of Longstreet s corps to reinforce General Bragg, at a time when it was thought that General Lee would not require his whole force in Virginia. In fact, I may mention that while the army lay on the Rapidan in the winter of 1863 and 1864, it was at one time in contemplation to send General Lee himself to take command of the army in Georgia. The confidence of General Lee in the belief that Richmond could not be successfully de fended except by keeping the enemy at a distance, was illustrated to the last. The close of three years of bloody war found his diminished forces struggling with fresh and ever increasing numbers, and yet so strong was General Lee s conviction of the necessity of preventing the enemy from forming the siege of Richmond, that he did not hesitate to reduce his strength still further, in order to aim one last blow at the Federal capital, in the hope that he might thus cause General Grant to send a part of his army to its defence. Such was the object of General Early s expedition to Mary land. It was not supposed that General Karly s small force would cause the withdrawal of General Grant s army, but it was hoped that the latter would be induced to detach a part of his force, and in that event reinforcements could have been sent to General Karly, until at last the scene of hostilities might once more have been transferred from Richmond to the Northern frontier, and one more expensive campaign of the enemy have been frustrated. ADDRESS OF COLONEL MARSHALL. 8/ But the vast superiority of the enemy in numbers enabled him to provide for the defence of Washington without seriously diminishing the army of General Grant, and the siege of Rich mond remained unbroken. I have thus imperfectly endeavored to present to you, in a general way, the difficulties under which the Army of Northern Virginia had to struggle, and I think, if I have made myself under stood, that yon will be able to form a better idea of the extent and magnitude of its services than could be derived from a de scription of its various battles, the most accurate comparison of its strength with that of the enemy, or the most careful enumera tion of the losses it sustained or inflicted. With the burden of Richmond s weakness constantly resting upon one arm, with the other it dealt those ponderous blows under which the gigantic power of the Federal Government shook to its foundation. These are reflections which add new interest to the recollec tion of our battles and our marches. 1 he} give unit} and consist ency to a narrative that is commonly regarded as made up of detached and independent events. But time will not permit me to pursue the subject further now, nor do 1 believe that when we meet, as on this occasion, to revive the recollections and associations ot our arm}* life, you give your first thoughts to battles and campaigns. Such names as Cold Harbor, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and imper ishable Petersburg, recall proud memories 1 know. But your thoughts, my comrades, when you hear those names, recur first to the dear friends who la} by your side in the bivouac of the night, and were struck dead by your side in the battle of the morrow. You cease to think of the stirring events of the combat when you recall the scenes after the battle, when "Our bugle sang truce, and the night clouds had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky, And thousands had sunk to the ground overpowered, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die." You remember how you sat by some comrade whose life-blood was fast ebbing, and received from lips, soon to be sealed in death, the last fond words to mother, wife, child, friend. You recall a son kneeling over the prostrate body of his father, or a father, leaning on his musket, and gazing with mingled agony and pride upon a brave young face, white in death, his hope, his treasure, dead yes, but dead on the field of duty and honor dead in honor s foremost ranks. 88 MEMORIAL VOLUME. These are the memories which the survivors of the army cher ish nearest their hearts, and with which they go back to their battlefields, not as to the scenes of triumph or of disaster, but as to holy ground on which brave comrades fell ground on which they tread with veiled eyes and unsandelled feet. It was not our fortune to reap the fruits of successful war. It was not ours, coming back to our homes, to hear from those for whom our arms had won liberty and safety, the grateful wel come " O ! day thrice lovely ! when at length the soldier Returns home into life; when he becomes A fellow-man among his fellow-men. The colors are unf uri d, the cavalcade Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed and, hark ! Now the soft peace march beats, home, brothers, home." But as I look back over the whole history of the Army of Northern Virginia, from its birth, through its life of arduous toil and danger, to the hour when its unstained sword dropped from its exhausted hand, I feel that it is worthy to have applied to it the noble words addressed by the English poet to the fallen oak "Thou who unmoved, hast heard the whirlwind chide, Full many a winter round thy craggy bed, And like an earth-born giant has outspread Thy hundred arms and Heaven s own bolts defied, Now liest along thy native mountain side Uptorn ! Yet deem riot that I corne to shed The idle drops of pity o er thy head, Or basely to insult thy blasted pride. No ! still tis thine, though fallen, Imperial Oak, To teach this lesson to the wise and brave, That tis far better, overthrown and broke, In Freedom s cause to sink into the grave, Than in submission to a Tyrant s yoke, Like the vile reed, to bow and be a slave." The Association then elected the following officers for the en suing year: President General GEORGE E. PICKETT. Vice-Presidents General W. H. F. Lee, General R. Ransom, General A. L. Long, General H. Heth, Captain D. B. McCorkle. Treasurer Major Robert Stiles. Secretaries Sergeant George L. Christian, Sergeant L. S. Ed wards. Executive Committee General B. T. Johnson, Colonel Thomas H. Carter, Major T. A. Brander, Major Walter K. Martin, Private Carlton McCarthy. BANQUET. THE BANQUET. The Association then adjourned to the Exchange Hotel where an excellent supper was served. After full justice had been done to the viands a number of regular toasts were read, and eloquent responses were made by Governor Kemper, General W. B. Tal- liaferro, General W. H. Payne, General J. A. Early, General Eitz. Lee, General W. H. E. Eee, General R. Lindsay Walker, General J. A. Walker, Dr. Cullen, Dr. Carrington, Judge Farrar, General Bradley T. Johnson, General Robert Ramson, General E. H. Smith, Colonel C. S. Venable, Colonel Charles Marshall and Ser geant George L. Christian. FIFTH ANNUAL REUNION. On Thursday evening, October 29th, 1875, the Hall of the House of Delegates was packed to its utmost capacity. The First Vice-President, General W. H. F. Lee, called the meeting to order. Rev. Dr. J. William Jones opened the exercises with prayer. General Lee made a graceful and touching allusion to the recent death of General George E. Pickett, President of the Associa tion, and paid an eloquent tribute to his memory. He then made a brief but most appropriate address, and introduced as orator of the evening Major John W. Daniel, of Lynchburg "one known in the annals of the State, as well as a gallant soldier who served on General Early s staff." Major Daniel was received with deafening applause, and was frequently cheered to the echo as he delivered the following address : ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. Fellow Soldiers of the Army of NortJiern Virginia Not With the ringing bugle nor the throbbing drum in our van, nor with the battle flag floating proudly o er our tattered uniforms and bright muskets," come we again to the historic city which was once the busy arsenal and the glowing heart of the Confederate revolution. Stately palaces* now line the avenues so lately filled with charred and smoking ruins. The fields around us smile in culti vated beauty where lately trod the iron hoof of war, "fetlock deep in blood." The lordly river, no longer grim with batteries on its banks and iron-clads upon its surface, nor choked with obstructions in its channel, rolls its majestic tides in unbroken currents to the sea. And save here and there, where some rude earthwork, overgrown with grass and weeds, scars the landscape, fair nature tells no tale of the devastation of civil strife. But long after the elements of changing seasons and the slow process of time have obliterated from the physical world every scar and stain of conflict, the scenes around us, animate with their heroic actors, shall be portrayed to other generations with all the vividness of artist s brush and poet s song, and faithful chroniclers shall recount to eager ears the story which has made ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 9! the name of Richmond not ^ss memorable than the name of ancient Troy, and has immortalized those more than Trojan heroes the devoted citizen soldiery of the Army of Northern Virginia. Surviving comrades of that valiant host, I hail you with a com rade s warmest greeting. In Virginia s name I welcome you back to Virginia s capital city, amongst those generous people who nerved your arms by their cheerful courage, who bent over your wounds with ministering care, who consoled adversity by fidelity, and plucked from defeat its sting. Here to-night we come as men of peace faithfully rendering unto Cajsar the things that are his but happy to touch elbows once more together in the buttle of life, and proud to revive the cherished memories of the "brave clays of yore," and to renew the solemn and high resolve that their bright examples and great actions shall not perish from the records of time. Happier, indeed, would I have been if, on this occasion, the task of reproducing some page of your famous history haul been confided to other and abler hands than mine; for in this distin guished presence, with my superiors in rank, ability and military services around me, the soldier s sense, of subordination creeps over me, and I would fain fall back into the ranks of those who are seen but not heard. But since it is I who am appointed to play the role of the old soldier u \Vho shoulders his crutch And >hows how fields, were won," I bow obediently to orders, trusting that the splendor of my themes may obscure the deficiences of your orator, and that your generosity as characteristic of the soldier as his courage may sheathe the critic s sword in its scabbard. THEME SUGGESTED. In their courteous letter of invitation, your Committee ex pressed the desire that I should select as the subject of my dis course some one of the great campaigns or battles of the Army of Northern Virginia. And, acceding to their wishes, I reviewed in my mind the long line of its splendid achievements, no little embarrassed, by their very variety and brilliancy, in fixing atten tion upon any particular one. There was no campaign of that matchless army that did not abound in glorious exploits of both generals and soldiers. There was no single action, whatever its result, that draped the battle flag in dishonor, and it is a signifi- 92 MEMORIAL VOLUME. cant fact an eternal eulogy in itself to that stout-hearted band of heroes that it never was driven in disorder from any field of battle under its enemy s fire, until when, worn out by ceaseless strife with constant levies of fresh men, it was overwhelmed by Grant at Petersburg, and closed its career with undiminished glory on the field of Appomattox. IXDECISIVENESS OF THE VIRGINIA BATTLES. But there is this equally remarkable fact in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia that almost all of its engagements were attended by no decisive results. The capitals of the two belligerant nations (Washington and Richmond) were but one hundred and thirty miles distant, and that portion of Virginia lying between them became an immense amphitheatre of conflict, within which the armies of the Potomac and of Northern Vir ginia, like fierce gladiators, repeated from year to year their bloody contests, with fortunes varying only sufficiently to brighten hope or beget depression, but continually postponing the glitter ing prize which each aimed to attain. To and fro from the heights around Alexandria, whence the soaring dome of the National capitol loomed up before the Con federate s vision, back to these memorable fields around Rich mond, whence the Federal pickets sighted its tempting spires rolled the incessant tides of battle, with alternations of success, until all Northern Virginia became upheaved with entrenchments, billowed with graves, saturated with blood, seared with fire, stripped to desolation, and kneaded under the feet, hoofs and wheels of the marching columns. At the first battle of Manassas the cordon of fortifications around Washington prevented a rout from becoming an annihi lation, and that battle only decided that other battles would be needed to decide anything. At Williamsburg, McClellan, who succeeded McDowell, the displaced commander of Manassas, received a sharp rebuff, which decided nothing but that the antagonists would have to close together. At Seven Pines the fall of our skillful General Joseph E. John ston, at a critical moment, and the consequent delay which en abled Sedgwick to cross the swollen waters of the Chickahominy, ended the prospect of making that more than a field of gallant and brilliant endeavor. At Malvern Hill a curious mistake, which led one subordinate to pursue a wrong road, and the lamentable delay of others, com bined with the really valorous defence of that key-position, ex- ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 93 tinguished the high tide of victory in the volcanic fires of that battery-crowned summit, and closed with the escape of the enemy to his gunboats and the disappointment of his adversary. The second field of Manassas, in which the redoubtable John Pope, who, having seen before "only the backs of his enemies," entered the fact of record that his curiosity was entirely satiated with a single glimpse of their faces, was only the prelude of a more deadly struggle at Sharpsburg; and as Manassas only de cided that it would require another effort of the Federal army to beat us on our own soil, Sharpsburg only decided that we would have to gird our loins once more to overwhelm it upon its own. At Fredericksburg in December, 1862, Burnsidc, having blindly hurled his army against Lee s entrenchments, managed to repeat the manoeuvre of the French King, who "marched up the hill and down again" and to regain the opposite bank of the Rap- pahannock without a foot of ground lost or won leaving that ill-starred field behind him as a memorial of nothing but wasted life and courage on the one side, and cool, steady, self-poised in trepidity on the other. And at Chancellorsville, in the spring of 1863, when Hooker assailed by flank the same field which Burnside charged in front, a famous stroke of generalship, directed by Lee and executed by Jackson, placed him side by side on the stool of penitence with his predecessor. But there a great calamity planted a thorn in the crown of victory, gave pause to the advance of the con quering banner, and turned to safe retreat what promised to be the rout and annihilation of the Federal army. That calamity was the fall of "Stonewall" Jackson Lee s incomparble lieuten ant whose genius had shed undying lustre on the Confederate arms and before whose effigy to-day the two worlds bow in honor. And so the end of two years found the two armies still pitted against each other in the same arena, with proud Washington behind the one, still egging it to the attack for the honor of the old flag and the solidarity of the Union; and defiant Richmond still behind the other, upholding it with words and deeds of cheer, and bidding it never to weary in well doing for the cause of liberty and Confederate independence. THE CRISIS OF 1863. But while the status of the combatants in Virginia had re ceived no decisive change, it became obvious in the spring of 1863 that an hour big with destiny \vas near at hand. The Army of the Potomac had become disheartened by continuous adversity. Five chosen chieftains McDowell, McClellan, Pope, 94 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Burnside, Hooker had led it to battle in superb array; but its ranks had only been recruited to march again to defeat and decimation. The term of enlistment of nearly forty thousand of its rank and file had now expired,* and as they marched to the rear, homeward bound, no counter column was moving to sup ply their vacant places. With the Northern people hope of vic tory deferred had made the heart sick of strife, and the " Copper head" faction, like the Republicans of Paris when Napoleon was marching against the allied armies of Waterloo, was agitating schemes against the Government and the prolongation of the war. The paper currency, like a thermometer on the stock ex change, showed that the pulse of the popular faith was beating low. Factory hands, without cotton to spin, cried for bread, and were not content to take muskets and go to the feast of blood. Foreign powers had lost confidence in Mr. Seward s three- months promissory notes of victory, which had so often been renewed and had now gone to protest; and it is said that our diplomatic agents abroad authoritatively announced that should Lee establish now a lodgment in the North, his triumph should be greeted with the long-sought boon of foreign recognition. On the Confederate side our line of battle, although in the east unbroken, was but an iron shell with emptiness within. Hungry mobs had been rioting through Richmond with the fear ful cry of Bread !" Bread!" The plantations had not only been swept of their provender, but the tillers of the soil and their beasts of burden had likewise been absorbed into the ranks of war. And to increase the gravity of the situation, our W^est- ern horizon was overhung with omens of disaster. There the progress of the Union arms had been steadily forward. Missouri, Kentucky and parts of Tennessee and Arkansas had been con quered. Along the Mississippi river, Columbus, Island No. 10, Fort Pillow, Memphis and New Orleans had fallen; and now Vicksburg, a solitary sentinel upon its banks, alone prevented the Father of Waters from "rolling unvexed to the sea." This post, like a ligature upon an artery, severed the Federal line of military communication from the Northwest to the Gulf of Mexico, and isolated the Western States from their markets. Its early conquest was foreshadowed, and with that the Northern heart would be again fired with hope and a blow struck into the very vitals of the Confederacy. *See volume I, Conduct of the War. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 95 THE PROJECT OF INVASION. Could the hitherto invincible Army of Northern Virginia now launch forth a telling blow against its adversary, and anticipate the bursting of the storm cloud in the West by a sunburst of de cisive victory in the East, disaster there would be counterbalanced, if not forestalled and prevented. The peace party of the North would be reinforced in numbers and strengthened in resolution; recruits would be deterred from enrolling under the blighted ban ners of defeat; the bonds and Treasury notes of the United States would rapidly decline in value, thus relaxing the sinews of war; and foreign powers, hungry for cotton, and weary of idle factories and freightless ships and marketless wares, would stretch forth the hand of recognition, and welcome the young battle- crowned Confederacy into the family of nations. The broad military mind of General Lee full}- compassed the crisis, and he boldly projected the scheme of forcing Hooker from his position opposite to Fredericksburg, expelling Milroy from the Valley, and, to use his language, "transferring the scene of hostilities beyond the Potomac." THE SEQUEL AT GETTVSnURr,. The sequel of this plan of operations was the battle of Gettys burg, fought in the heart of the enemy s country. There for three days the two armies wrestled over hill and plain in terrific struggle. There, on the third day, the most magnificent charge of infantry known in the annals of modern war, closed with the bloody repulse of the Confederate assaulting column. And while Lee was marshaling his troops in front of Cemetery Ridge, the white flag was flying over Pemberton s works at Vicksburg. Those memorable days marked the meridian of the Confede rate cause. It was not then extinguished, but its sun paled and descended slowly t to its setting. As the water-shed of the Alleghanies is the division line between the waters which flow eastward into the Atlantic ocean and those which empty into the Gulf through the Mississippi Valley, so Cemetery Ridge marks the turning point of the tides of battle. Up to that rugged crest they rolled in triumph, pour ing the trophies of victory into the lap of the Confederacy. Beyond they rolled in sullen and gloomy turbulence toward the final catastrophe of Appomattox. These considerations induced me, comrades, to invite your attention to the campaign of Gettysburg. 96 MEMORIAL VOLUME. I know it requires no little courage to fight a battle " o er again " but those whose valor deserved success need never shrink from the memory of adversity. PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS IN VIRGINIA. On June 3, 1863, General Lee broke his camp before Fred- ericksburg; and leaving Hill s corps to watch Hooker s army, which was separated from it only by the Rappahannock river, turned the heads of Longstreet s and E well s corps northward. His design was to draw Hooker out into the open field and defeat him before crossing the Potomac. But in this he was disappointed, not so much by the skill of his adversary as by the absence of harmony in his councils. Hooker s plan was to cross the Rappahannock, fall upon Hill with his whole army, and then make a bold push for Richmond. Had he made this effort Lee intended to take him in flank; and the result I scarcely think would have been doubtful. But Mr. Lincoln positively forbade Hooker to make this attempt, quaintly saying that he (Hooker) would thus become "entangled upon the river like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear without a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." On the contrary, Lincoln desired Hooker to attack Lee s army while stretched out on the line of march; and on the I4th of June, the very day that our vanguard struck Milroy at Winchester, we find him sending Hooker another characteristic message from Washington : " Major-General Hooker So far as we can make out here the enemy have Milroy surrounded at Winchester and Tyler at Mar- tinsburg. If they could hold out a few days could you help them ? If the head of Lee s army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville the animal must be very slim somewhere.* "A. LINCOLN." So it happened that Lincoln, not liking Hooker s plan, nor Hooker Lincoln s (which was concurred in by Halleck, com- mander-in-chief at Washington), neither was adopted. And Hooker contented himself (after sending a corps south of the Rappahannock and then withdrawing it) with falling back to the vicinity of Fairfax Courthouse and closely hugging his entrench ments. * See Volume I, Conduct of the War, page 260. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 97 In these preliminary movements all the advantage in general ship and in results was on the Confederate side. Hooker has been much complimented for supposed skill in his manoeuvres, but they were the result of his quarrel with Lincoln, and not of design; and the reports show that he was in a state of great per plexity and indecision, on one day dispatching to the Government his opinion that invasion was Lee s "settled purpose" and "an act of desperation,"* and two days later suggesting that the move ment was a mere cavalry raid, "a cover to Lee s reinforcing Bragg or moving troops to the West."f LEE S MARCH TO PENNSYLVANIA. While Hooker thus crouched under his heavy works, Lee marched triumphantly toward the Potomac; and on the I4th of June the first laurel of the campaign was plucked by Ewcll at Winchester, where a brilliant flank movement, conceived by Gen eral Early and executed by his division, with the co-operation of Johnson s, resulted in the capture of that place with four thou sand prisoners, twenty-three pieces of artillery, three hundred wagons, three hundred horses, and an immense supply of much- needed stores and munitions. On the same day General Rodes captured at Martinsburg one hundred prisoners and five pieces of cannon; and thus the great Northern highway, "the Valley pike," was cleared of all obstruc tions and the gate to Pennsylvania thrown open. On the 1 5th of June General Jenkins with his cavalry crossed the Potomac. Within the next ten days the three infantry corps of our army, under Longstreet, Ewell and A. P. Hill, likewise crossed, and on the 24th of June the whole Army of Northern Virginia, in magnificent fighting trim and flush with victory, stood upon the enemy s soil. THE MOVEMENTS OF THE CAVALRY. While these movements were progressing, the cavalry under Stuart had several times crossed sabres with the troopers of Pleasanton, without detriment to their own reputation or that of their General. And in leaving Virginia with his main force, General Lee had taken every precaution to utilize these "eyes and ears" of the army by sending them to watch and impede Hooker s movements. His orders to General Stuart were "to guard the passes of the mountains and observe the movements * See volume I, Conduct of the War, page 101. t See same work, page 271. 90 MEMORIAL VOLUME. of the enemy, whom he was instructed to harass and impede as much as possible should he attempt to cross the Potomac. In that event General Stuart was directed to move into Maryland, crossing the Potomac east or west of the Blue Ridge, as in his judgment should be best, and take position on the right of our column as it advanced." (Lee s first report.) In operating under these instructions, an untoward circum stance occurred, which eliminated the cavalry from the available forces of Lee at a time when he most needed it. Stuart had followed closely upon the rear of Hooker in Fairfax and Loud- oun counties, when, upon the 24th of June, the latter determined to fall back no further, and suddenly threw his army forward into Maryland to seize the Turner s and Crampton s gaps of South mountains, near Boonsboro , which covered the line of advance from Lee s army to Baltimore through Frederick, Maryland.* The effect though not the design of this movement was to throw Hooker between Stuart and Lee; and as the former was crossing the Potomac at Edwards ferry, near Leesburg, it became necessary for Stuart to make a wide detour south in order to cross above him, or to cut in between Hooker and Washington, and pass northward, in order to rejoin his Commander. Acting within the discretion given him (and not otherwise, as some have supposed), Stuart adopted the latter route as the shortest, cross ing at Seneca Falls. f But, unfortunately, Hooker continued his march northward, continuously interposing himself before Stuart; and thus, when he had advanced so far as to be right upon the flank of Lee s only line of retreat to Virginia, the latter, who had distributed his forces near Chambersburg, Carlisle and York, was utterly ignorant of the enemy s movements, and, receiving no message from Stuart, supposed that Hooker still remained on the Virginia side of the Potomac. LEE S CONCENTRATION FOR BATTLE. On the night of June 28th (not the 2Qth, as stated in Lee s first report), a cavalry scout of General Longstreet s rode into that officer s headquarters, near Chambersburg, with the momen tous tidings that the Army of the Potomac had crossed the river and was then gathering near Frederick, Maryland. Hooker was thus in position to seize the South mountain passes and cut off Lee s communications. General Lee was at the time about to push forward and capture Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylva- *See volume I, Conduct of the War, page 169. t See G-jiieral Lee s second report in Southern Magazine for August, 1872, page 210. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 99 nia, scarce a day s march distant, which, being defended by mili tia mainly, under General Couch, could not have withstood the assault of our veteran troops. But with Hooker thus on his flank and rear, the continuance of the scheme became hazardous, and he determined at once to concentrate his army east of the mountains, thus threatening Baltimore and Washington, and in order to deter the enemy, to use his language, from advancing further west and intercepting our communications with Virginia." Accordingly the movement against Harrisburg was abandoned, and the next day General Lee issued orders for the concentra tion of all liis troops at Cashtown, a village five miles from Gettys burg, and on the direct road which passes through that place to Baltimore. The report of Longstreet s scout was true, anil Lee had keenly divined his enemy s intentions; for Hooker had moved forward into Maryland and had given directions to General Reynolds, who commanded the right wing of the army, to seize the moun tain passes which have been mentioned, and to take position at Middletown, in rear of them, in the valley between the South mountain and the Catoctin range. At the same time he had himself gone to Harper s Ferry, whence he proposed to move with the Twefth corps and the garrison there of eleven thousand men directly upon \Yilliamsport, thus severing Lee s line of communication to Virginia, and stopping the transit of supplies which he was sending back in immense quantities from Pennsyl vania. On the morning of the 27th of June he had seated himself and was engaged in writing an order for the abandonment of that post at daylight, with a view to proceeding with this plan of ope rations. But just at that moment a dispatch was received from General Halleck, requiring the garrison to remain there. The latter officer, whose self-conceit was only equalled by his inca pacity, excited the indignation of Hooker by thus trammeling him, while in the face of Lee s army, with instructions full of foil}-; for Harper s Ferry, at this juncture, was a strategic point of no earthly consequence, and rather than submit to such interfer ence he at once requested to be relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac. His request was at once granted. GENERAL MEADE. On the night of the same day, Major-General G. C. Meade, commanding the Fifth corps of the Army of the Potomac, was ICO MEMORIAL VOLUME. asleep in his tent near Frederick, Maryland, when he was aroused by General Hardie, a bearer of dispatches from Washington. Meade, who had severely criticised Hooker for his alleged inca pacity at Chancellorsville, supposed that he was about to be placed under arrest by that officer, who had threatened to do so, and he immediately inquired of Genral Hardie if he came for that purpose. The latter, evading the question, struck a light and placed in his hand an order directing him to assume com mand of the Army of the Potomac, and committing to him all the powers of the Executive and the constitution, to the end that he might wield untrammeled all the resources of the nation to meet the emergency of the invasion." On the next day, June 28th, while yet Lee was threatening Harrisburg, Meade assumed command ; and on the 29th, ignorant that Lee had abandoned that movement, he determined to move at once from the vicinity of Federick toward Harrisburg, to compel L^e (to use Meade s language) "to loose his hold on the Susquehannah and meet him in battle at some point." Accord ingly, on the very day that Lee s columns moved eastward toward Baltimore, in order to counteract a supposed manoeuvre upon his communications, Meade, equally ignorant of his antag onist s change of front, moved northward to stay a supposed advance upon Harrisburg. And adding to these complications, Stuart, who had swept around Meade s flank, was at the same time moving toward Carlisle, he himself being as ignorant of Lee s intentions as Meade, and supposing that he would find his Commander upon the line of the Susquehannah. Now, right in the line of Meade s northward march, and of Lee s eastward march, lies the old-fashioned town of Gettysburg, and to that point the two hostile forces were now converging, each in utter darkness as to the other s movements, and little imagining that that sequestered hamlet was destined to become the scene of a tremendous struggle, which would make its name resound throughout the ages as memorable as that of Waterloo. THE 3OTH OF JUNE. The 3Oth of June was a day of busy preparation. On that day the new commander of the Federal Army issued his orders of march, directing the seven corps of which his forces were composed to move as follows: The Third to Fmmettsburg, Second to Taneytown, Fifth to Hanover, Twelfth to Two Tav erns, Sixth to Manchester, while the First and Eleventh, con stituting, with the Third, the right wing, under Reynolds, were to proceed with Buford s cavalry division to Gettysburg. That ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. IOI same morning, Pettigrew s brigade, of Heth s division, Hill s corps, which had deen ordered to Gettysburg to procure shoes and supplies, approached that place on the Cashtown road, and its head of column had reached the crest of Seminary Ridge, within easy cannon-shot of the town, when at the same time the advance of Buford s cavalry reached the town from the opposite direction.* The Confederate brigade retired to Cashtown, some five miles distant, and Buford, occupying the place, established his division in front, along or near the line of Willoughby run, covering the approaches to it by the Chambersburg, Mummas- burg, Carlisle and Harrisburg roads. General Reynolds, with the First and Eleventh corps, came at the same time to within a few miles of Gettysburg, on the Kmmettsburg road, and halted for the night. That evening Meade became satisfied, from tidings received, that Lee was moving towards Gettysburg; but neither he nor General Lee seem to have had any knowledge of the great strategic consequence of that place; and the latter, still without report from his cavalry, fitly termed the "eyes of the army," was groping like a blind Titan for his enemy, unconscious that Meade s advance columns were within a few hours march of his own. Such is war a game of skill and chance a game of chess, . and "blind man s buff" compounded together. THE FIRST DAY OF JULY. With the dawn of July 1st, Heth s and Fender s divisions of Hill s corps sallied forth from Cashtown to reconnoitre and assail the force seen by Pettigrew the day before; and at the same time Rodes and Early s divisions started for Cashtown from Heidlers- burg, where they had rested the preceding night. Longstreet s corps slowly brought up Lee s rear from Chambersburg, and Johnson s division was yet over the mountains, near Greencastle and Scotland, with Ewell s reserve artillery. A little before ten o clock Hill s advance came up with Buford s cavalrymen, who were dismounted and posted as infantry; and a skirmish com menced, which swelled into a combat; a combat, which swelled into the greatest battle ever fought on this continent for there, unconsciously to all, the battle of Gettysburg began. Hill ad vanced cautiously, supposing that he fought infantry, and for two hours there were sharp passages between the contestants without important results. From the steeple of the Theological Seminary, which gives * G jueral H. Heth confirms this statement. IO2 MEMORIAL VOLUME. name to the ridge in front of which Buford s troops were in line> the signal officer of that General at this moment discerned in the distance the corps headquarters flag of Reynolds, and Buford him self, sighting the telescope, recognized that succor was coming, and exclaimed, "We can now hold the place." In a few moments Reynolds himself dashed up, and swiftly after him the First corps, under Doubleday, came pouring across the fields, and in a short time a desperate engagement was raging along the line. Reyn olds at once dispatched for the Eleventh corps, of Howard, and the Third, of Sickles, which were a few miles away, to hasten to the field. But while they were being summoned to the rescue, the intonations of cannon had reached the ears of Ewell, Rodes and Early. No other than these sightless couriers of the air" needed they, and, turning off from the Cashtown road, those gallant soldiers pushed on their columns toward the booming of the guns. Howard s leading brigades had scarcely strengthened the lines of Doubleday, when Rodes came thundering upon his front, and until two o clock the contending forces charged and countercharged, each fighting with an ardor worthy of the great stake that was trembling in the balance. THE ADVANCE OF EARLY. If you will look at the map you will perceive that the Union line of battle, parallel with Seminary Ridge, ran almost due north and south. The road from Heidlersburg to Gettysburg strikes this position right on the rear of the right flank, and on this road Early s veterans their steps quickened by every note of the guns were pressing on, with all the celerity which had earned some of them under Jackson the soubriquet of the " foot-cavalry of the Valley." It was about two o clock. General Early rode at the division head with his staff. A heavy mist was falling, and the hot sun of July subdued by its refreshing moisture. As we neared the scene of conflict a few cavalry pickets scampered off. When reaching an eminence about a mile from the town at once the glorious panorama of battle was spread before our eyes; and indeed it was " A glorious sight to see To him who had no friend, no brother there." Aye! more glorious still to those whose friends and brothers iccrc there making the field radiant with deeds worthy of old Sparta s time, when there were giant s upon the earth. Just in front, nestling on the slope of Cemetery Hill, lay Get- ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 1 03 tysburg. Fields, rich with the summer harvests and dotted with cosy, rustic homes, stretched forth in our front, while on the right of the town, scarce a mile distant, wreathed in the smoke of batteries and battalions, could be distinctly seen the long lines of Confederate gray and Union blue, now rushing to the charge, now pouring volleys into each other s bosoms, now commingled in undistinguishable tnclt\\ while ever and anon there rose over the sullen roar of musketry and cannon the mechanical "Hip, hip! hurrah!" of the Federal infantry, or soared aloft that sound once heard, never to be forgotten the clear, sonorous, hearty, soul-stirring ring of the Confederate cheer. General Farly saw with a glance that he was right on the Federal flank, and that a charge with his division would settle the fortunes of the day. "Tell Gordon, Hays, A very and Smith to double-quick to the front," said he, "and open the lines of infantry for the artillery to pass." Scarce said but done. Colonel Hilary P. Jones, with his batteries, came thundering to the front, with his horses at a run; and with their men at a double-quick, Gordon, Hays and Avery (commanding Hoke s brigade) deployed right and left, while gallant old "Extra Billy" Smith formed in reserve. As Jones guns were getting into position, a battery at the gallop took post in front, and General Howard, whose corps was on the Federal right, stretched it out and bent it around to head off this portentous movement. Midway between us and the town flowed a little creek with rugged, wooded banks, and as our troops were double-quicking forward into line, Barlow s division was forming behind this stream to meet them. Riding behind Gordon s brigade, we heard the ringing voice of the gallant Georgian as he shouted, " Forward, Georgians! " And steadily forward across the yellow wheat fields we saw the line of Georgians, Louisianians and Carolinians roll, their burnished bayonets making a silver wave across a cloth of gold. Now they disappear in the copse of woods along the stream ; then comes the wild cheer and the crashing volley, and a cloud of smoke wraps the combatants; a moment more and the open fields beyond were filled with the heavy, disordered masses of Howard s corps flying in wild confusion. The slaughter was terrific. In front of Gordon, where Barlow was aligned, lay a line of wounded and dead men who had fallen as they stood, and in their midst lay Barlow himself sorely stricken. Not Dessaix at Marengo, nor Blucher at Waterloo, struck a more decisive blow. The Federal flank had been shriveled up as a scroll, and the whole force gave way. On all sides, pouring up the slopes into Gettysburg, fled the broken host, while closely at their heels followed Hill and Rodes on the one side and Early on the other. IO4 MEMORIAL VOLUME. At this time a band of Rodes division struck up a soul-stirring strain, and with triumphant music chiming in with the sharp rattle of the pursuing muskets, the Confederates drove their beaten enemy into and through the streets of the captured town. IN GETTYSBURG. Reaching the town, the joyous veterans of the Second corps exclaimed, as their officers passed along their lines, " Let us go on ! " General Early, the first officer of his rank to reach the place, at once sought General Ewell to urge "an immediate advance upon the enemy before he could recover from his evi dent dismay"; but before he could be found, a report came from General (better known as "Extra Billy") Smith, that a heavy column of infantry, artillery and cavalry was marching upon our left flank on the York road. Gordon s brigade had to be de tached to go the threatened point, and this for a time diverted attention from the pursuit. General Early, not finding Ewell, sent a messenger to General A. P. Hill urging that an immediate advance be made upon the enemy, who had fallen back to the heights beyond the town. In the meantime, General Ewell came up, and he at once re solved to seize a wooded height called Gulp s Hill, which com manded the enemy s position on the left, as soon as Johnson s division, yet absent, should arrive. Between five and six o clock in the afternoon a "rough and ready" looking soldier, bronzed-face, with a heavy staff in his hand, which looked as combative as an Irishman s shillalah, rode up to our lines, and behind him, covered with the stains of a rapid march, came streaming along, with faces eager for the fray, the famous soldiers of the old Stonewall division, now under General Edward Johnson " Old Alleghany," as they loved to call him who looked, as he rode with his heavy club at their head, as if he could thrash out an army himself with that ponderous weapon. Now, thought our gallant men, who were chafing to be un leashed, we shall go on; now, thought all, the tide has come which "taken at its flood leads on to fortune"; but in the mean time the enemy sent forward a line of infantry and occupied the hill which Ewell designed to seize. Our artillery, from the nature of the field, could not be served to advantage, and the report was revived that a column was moving upon our left flank. This report was utterly groundless, but before it could be sifted and Johnson s division gotten into position, darkness had thrown its protecting wings over the shattered Federal lines. And so the tide went by. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. IO5 SHOULD WE HAVE PRESSED OX? It has been the almost universal sentiment of soldiers and civilians that a great blunder was made in not pressing on after the enemy when he was driven through Gettysburg, and Gene rals Ewell and Lee have both been sharply criticised for halting. "Never," says Mr. Swinton, one of the best war writers, "was pause at the door of victory more fatal to the hopes of a com mander."* It is true there existed many temptations to press the pursuit. We had met the enemy for the first time on the soil of a North ern State and disastrously routed two corps of his army, with a loss to them of two cannon and nearly five thousand prisoners, f and how shattered their remnants must have been is evidenced by the fact that the Eleventh corps, which mustered seven thou sand four hundred muskets that morning, could scarcely count half that number that night; while the First was reduced from eight thousand two hundred to two thousand four hundred and fifty scarcely a fouth being left. But General Lee s situation was a peculiar one. The cavalry was absent, and he had no in formation of the whereabouts or numbers of his adversary. The prisoners stated that Meade with his main force was rapidly approaching Gettysburg, and some of our own officers reported that heavy colums were threatening our left Hank. Besides, we had suffered severe losses. Under these circumstances, says General Lee in his report, "without information as to its (Meade s army s) proximity, the strong position which the enemy had assumed could not be attacked without danger of exposing the four divisions present, already weakened and exhausted by a long and bloody struggle, to overwhelming numbers of fresh troops, "j and so it was determined to await the arrival of Long- street. Now, it happens that General Lee s speculations were entirely verified, and it is very doubtful indeed whether, if accurate in formation had been possessed as to the enemy s situation, a renewal of the attack would have been prudent. It is disclosed in the Federal reports of this campaign that when General How r - ard on that morning had marched to the relief of Reynolds, he had (what Napoleon said a good general ought always to do in going into battle) provided against exactly what followed a disastrous defeat. * See Swiuton s Decisive Battles, page 332. t See Swinton s Decisive Battles, page 331. i See Lee s second report. IO6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Noticing that Cemetery Hill, just in rear of Gettysburg, was a position of commanding importance, he had posted there one of his divisions, commanded by General Alexander von Stein- werh, an accomplished officer, who had been schooled in the Prussian service. That officer had planted his artillery along the crest of that hill, and around its base were low stone walls rising tier above tier, behind which he had posted his infantry. While the battle was raging in front he had thrown up lunettes around each gun, and, according to the Northern historian of Gettysburg, "they were not mere heaps of stubble and turf, but solid works of such height and thickness as to defy the most powerful bolts which the enemy (Confederates) could throw against him, with smooth and level platforms on which the guns could be worked."* Besides this fresh division, Buford s dismounted cavalry division had retired in good order to the crest of this hill, and when the two infantry corps were driven back upon Cemetery Hill they came, to use the same writer s language, "into the folds of an impregnable fortress. "f Now, in the light of these events, bold is he who assumes to be the censor. Had Ewell hurled his two divisions against this natural fortress now doubly fortified with pick and spade be fore Johnson came up, and been repulsed by the heavy artillery and fresh troops lying in wait, who would not have said it was rash, hot-headed and ill-considered? Had Lee, without waiting o for Longstreet, pushed on when he came up and then been beaten, who would not have said that ardor had gotten the better of his discretion ? And, indeed, by the hour Lee arrived, the Twelfth corps, under Slocum, and the Third, under Sickles, had gotten within supporting distance of their comrades, and they actually reached the field between six and seven o clock.]; On tl\e whole, it is difficult to see that either General Lee or General Ewell is open to just criticism for not pushing on, though such is my own faith in the superb gallantry of our troops, that I believe they would have annihilated the forces then in their front. But this would have been far from a decisive result, as Meade, with the great body of his army, would then have fallen back and formed a new line nearer to Washington. A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. The conflict of July 1st had been entirely a chapter of accidents. Commencing with the affair of Heth s division with Buford s * See Bates History of the Battle of Gettysburg, page 76. t Ibid, page 80. t See Bates History, page 181, and Everett s o-ition, fourth volume Everett s Orations and Speeches, page 635. Birncy s division of the Third corps formed on Cemetery Kidge about five o clock. See General Birney s statement, first volume Conduct of the War, page 366. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. IO/ cavalry, it had attracted reinforcements from both armies by the sound of its guns, as the maelstrom gathers into its vortex the craft that float upon the surrounding waters. At the very hour when Buford s men were going into action, an order, dated that very day, was being distributed by Meade from his headquarters, at Taneytown, fourteen miles away, among his corps commanders, announcing his intention " to withdraw his army from its presents position, and form line of battle, with the right resting in the neighborhood of Middleburg, and the left at Manchester the general direction being that of Pipe creek"* (which stream is about fifteen miles from Gettysburg); and when General Reynolds rode to Buford s rescue he fell upon the field to which the guns had summoned himt with an order in his pocket to fall back from Gettysburg and Emettsburg with the First, Eleventh and Third Corps, which were under him, to Middleburg. The tidings of the battle, borne %ack to Meade at Taneytown, were accompanied with the announcement that General Reynolds had fallen. Still he did not himself go to the front, so slow was he to appreciate that there the great battle-cloud would burst; but he sent forward General Hancock, the best of his lieutenants. That officer reached the field just as the broken columns of the First and Eleventh corps were flying for refuge to the summit of Cemetery Hill. Hancock was a fighting man, of resolute gal lantry and magnetic presence. He soon restored order along the lines, and, sending Wadsworth s division to Gulp s Hill, check mated the movement of Ewell to get that commanding height efore him.* Having made his dispositions, he rode back to Meade, at Taneytown, and reported that the field was favorable for a general action. At ten o clock that night Meade started forward, and reached Cemetery Hill at one o clock, while all along behind him the roads were filled by the artillery and in fantry of his army, pressing on to the stage which fate, rather than foresight, had appointed for the great drama of war. By morning all his corps had reached within supporting dis tance of the field, except the Sixth, which was started from Man chester, thirty-six miles distant* the afternoon before. On our side all the infantry but Pickett s division was up. Stuart, "the indefatigable" Stuart, "the lion-hearted" with Hampton and "Light Horse" Lees, had come. The plume that never danced so joyously as in the storm of battle, the sabre whose electric light had so often cleaved with a flash the path to victory, were ready to lead the squadrons to the onset once * See Conduct of the War, volume I, pige 353. tlbid, page 354. iSee General Hancjck s testimony, page 405, Conduct of the War, volume J. 108 MEMORIAL VOLUME. more. And there, crowning the opposite ridges with batteries, bayonets and sabres, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac surveyed each other, marshaled in solid, well-ordered array of battle. LEE RESOLVES TO ATTACK. u It had not been intended," says General Lee (see his first report), "to fight a general battle at such a distance from our base unless attacked by the enemy; but finding ourselves unex pectedly confronted by the Federal army, it became a matter of difficulty to withdraw through the mountains with our large trains. At the same time, the country was unfavorable for col lecting supplies while in the presence of the enemy s main body, as he was enabled to restrain our foraging parties by occupying the passes of the mountains with regular and local troops. A battle thus became, in a measure, unavoidable. 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." So the first day s fight had changed our Com mander s plan ; and when he left a conference held with Generals Ewell, Early and Rodes, at the close of the day, the understand ing was that with the light the contest should be renewed. In planning for the assault, the vigilant eye of Lee had not failed to take in the salient points of THE FEILD OF BATTLE. Away to the right of our line there rose up a bold promontory, known as little "Little Round Top" a bald granite spur, con stituting a natural fortress, and commanding, from the Federal left, the Cemetery Ridge, on which Meade s army was aligned a Gibraltar to the Union General once possessed a key position, unlocking his strength, if once in Confederate hands. About a quarter of a mile further on south, rises the still bolder knob known as " Round Top." Between Little Round Top and Get tysburg stretches the Cemetery Ridge due north in a straight line for two miles. Just in the rear and south of the town this ridge curves like a fish-hook and projects into Cemetery Hill, which derives its name from the town grave yard thereon, wherein "The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." Then the ridge bends around eastward, and a rugged, wooded ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. height, with rocky face, known as Gulp s Hill, guards the eastern flank. This hill commands Cemetery Hill from the northeast, as Little Round Top commands the ridge from the southwest. The left wing of our army, looking due south, faced Gulp s and Cemetery Hills. The centre and right wings, almost at right angles with the left wing, looked eastward, facing the Cemetery Ridge. A General Lee s plan was for Ewell to attack Cemetery Hill "by way of diversion" "at dawn," to be converted into a real attack, if opportunity offered, while Longstreet was to make the main attack on the enemy s right, seize Round Top and Little Round Top, and turn the Federal flank. FAILURE OF THE SECOND DAY S PLAN "SOME ONE HAS BLUNDERED " WHO ? Before dawn, while marshaling his troops for the assault, Ewell received orders from General Lee to wait for the sound of Longstreet s guns.* But the dawn came, and no guns heralded the action. Said Mr. Edward Lverett, in his oration at Gettys burg: "And here I cannot but remark on the Providential inaction of the Rebel army. Had the contest been renewed by it at day light on the 2d of July, with the First and Eleventh corps ex hausted by the battle and retreat, the Third and Twelfth weary from their forced march, and the Second, Fifth and Sixth not yet arrived, nothing but a miracle could have saved the armv from a o ^ great disaster. Instead of this, the day dawned, the sun rose, the cool hours of the morning passed, and a considerable part of the afternoon wore away, without the slightest aggressive move ment on the part of the qjiemy. Thus time was given for half of our forces to arrive and take their places in the lines, while the rest of the army enjoyed a much-needed half clay s repose. "f I have searched in vain all accessible sources of information for some explanation of General Lee s failure to carry out the plan resolved upon the night before a plan eminently sagacious in itself, and which, had it been pursued promptly at dawn, would doubtless have resulted in the disastrous overthrow of the Fede ral army, so graphically indicated by Mr. Everett; for Little Round Top, which, passing strange to say, had not been occu pied by the enemy, would have fallen into our hands, and the key of victory gained without a struggle; nor was it occupied till later in the day, when our troops were moving upon it.* * S ^ General Ewell s report. + See volume IV, Everett s Orations, page 537. iSee volume I, Conduct of the War, page 332. IIO MEMORIAL VOLUME. The secret of that fatal delay, which to my mind was the great mistake or misfortune of the campaign, may perhaps be forever buried in our Commander s bosom. I apprehend that the tardi ness of General Longstreet s movements, and the prolonged absence of Pickett s division, was the cause; but lest injustice be done to General Longstreet, I forbear expressing an opinion. At any rate, the fault was not Lee s, for he was anxious to attack at dawn. He sent back orders to hasten the march of tfie absent troops (see his report), and some overruling reason must have stayed his hand. But, alas! the opportunity was lost forever. "Opportunity," saith the old adage, "has hair in front, behind she is bald; catch her by the forelock and a little child can hold her, but once gone, Jupiter himself cannot catch her again." And such was our experience at Gettysburg. THE SECOND DAY S ATTACK AND ITS RESULTS. Finally, by three o clock the preparations were made. The Union army had been formed with Slocum s Twelfth corps and Wadsworth s division of the First holding Gulp s Hill and the right flank opposite to Johnson s division. Howard s Eleventh corps, with Robinson s and Doubleclay s divisions of the First, held Cemetery Hill opposite to Early s and Rodes divisions. Then came Hancock s Second corps, opposite to Hill s, on Cem etery Ridge, and Sickles Third corps extending towards Round Top, opposite to Longstreet. Sykes Fifth corps was in reserve on the Federal right, and Sedgwick, who reached the field just as the battle was commencing, took place in reserve upon the left. I should have little pleasure, even did time permit, in detailing the events of this day; for, though it abounds in bright exploits, the attack was rendered disjointed and ineffectual by strange misunderstandings to use no harsher term. Longstreet, with Hood s and McLaws divisions, struck the Federal left and came within an ace of possessing Little Round Top, which was hastily occupied by the enemy after our lines were put in motion. As soon as this attack on the Federal right got well under way, Johnson s division, with magnificent valor, rushed up the rough, rocky ledges of Gulp s Hill; and Hoke s and Hays brigades of Early s division, who took their signal of assault from Johnson s guns, charged the enemy s batteries on Cemetery Hill, and planted their standards on its summit, cap turing his cannon, routing two lines of infantry, and cutting the right centre of the Federal line.* * Hoke s brigade was commanded in this battle (General Hoke being absent, wounded) by Colonel .1. E. Avery, of the Sixth North Carolina regiment one of the bravest and best of the many excellent soldiers that North Carolina gave to the Confederate cause. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. I I I But here Wo, the while! this splendid sally was robbed of its fruits. Early was to attack when he heard Johnson s guns; Rodes, on Early s right, was to continue it when he heard Early s guns. Early s part was nobly done, and Rodes started to fulfill his part. But Rodes, it seems, had a much greater distance to traverse than Early, and for some reason, nowhere explained in Lee s or Swell s reports (General Rodes report I have been unable to see), at the time when the men of Hoke s and Hays brigades surmounted the Federal works, the gallant Rodes was just moving out to assault those in his front. Before he did so the Federal reserves were hurled upon Early, and these two thin brigades, wasted by the charge and separated from all support, were driven from the crest by fresh troops, and the prize fell from the victorious hands which had already grasped it. The shades of night had fallen before the battle closed, and, though everywhere the troops had borne themselves in a manner worthy of their fame, the unhappy miscarriage of Rodes move ment had prevented the consummation of Lee s well-designed plan. But some advantages had been gained and some trophies won. On our right the Federal line had been driven back by Long- street, some guns and standards captured, and some advanced positions carried. On our left Johnson s division had driven the enemy from his works, and had maintained an advanced footing on Gulp s Hill. In Early s front the soldiers of the old North State, led by Colonel Avery who there sealed his devotion to the Southern cause with his heart s blood had won another wreath for the brow of Carolina; and the gallant Louisianians, led by Harry Hays, had brought down from the crest of Ceme tery Hill four regimental standards, seized from the cannon s mouth, and after a fierce hand-to-hand wrestle with the infantry which defended them. THE LOUISIANIANS. Brave spirits of Louisiana! Now deeper in misfortune; hence to our hearts closer and to memory clearer. Leading one of the regiments that climbed the summit of that terrible crest was Davidson B. Perm, a native of Virginia, and now, by the voice of his people, the rightful Lieutenant-Governor of the Pelican State. Take heart, brave leader and brave people! To-night your old comrades of the Army of Northern Virginia send you fraternal greetings. No longer separated from each other by a line of fire, the hearts of the liberty-loving people of this great nation, whether they once beat under the Confederate gray or the Union 112 MEMORIAL VOLUME. blue, now beat in sympathy with your brave endeavor to restore Louisiana to the sisterhood of States, with a government worthy of the republican name and of the Caucasian race. The gallant souls who met you in the shock of battle know, as well as we who cheered you on, that the stout arms which drove the bayonets though the Federal lines on that "well- foughten field" were filled with blood that can never flow in the feeble pulses of sycophants and slaves. Side by side the boys in blue and the boys in gray are coming to your rescue. Over the tumults of the polls we hear the pibroch ringing; and in 1876, when the guns are heralding the hundredth anniversary of free dom s birth, God grant that they may sound to Louisiana the dawn of its resurrection! . THE FINAL DAY. There was this significant feature in the second day s fight: The Confederate troops had everywhere borne themselves with unsurpassed audacity and intrepidity, carrying the most difficult positions by storm; and they could well say to their countrymen, with the Athenian general, that "so far as their fate depended on them they were immortal." They had failed, but from mistakes and misunderstandings of their superiors. This fact only increased General Lee s un bounded faith in his men, and he resolved to advance again. "The result of this day s operations," says he, "induced the belief that with proper concert of action, and with the increased support that the positions gained gn the right would enable the artillery to render the assaulting columns, we should ultimately succeed, and it was accordingly determined to renew the attack."* The general plan was unchanged. Longstreet was to assail the left- centre, and Ewell the extreme right. Early in the day, Johnson s division, on our left, had a pro longed struggle, and drove the enemy from a part of his entrench ments, but was unable to carry the main works on the crest of Culp s Hill. It was designed that Longstreet should attack simultaneously with him; but the dispositions were, for some reason, so slow that Johnson had concluded his drawn combat before Longstreet was ready to begin. It was arranged now that Hood s and McLaws divisions should guard our right flank; then, Pickett strengthened on his left by Heth s division, under Pettigrew, and Lane s and Scales brigades of Pender s division, under Trimble, and on his right by Wilcox s brigade of Ander son s division was to constitute the assaulting column. At See Lee s second report. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. I 1 3 seven o clock that morning the fresh division of Pickett, which had rested the night before a few miles from the field, marched to the position from which it was to be launched upon the enemy s works, and formed in line just behind Seminary Ridge, protected from view by the swell of ground and the foliage of the oak forest that grows along its crest. From the summit of this ridge the long grim line of Cemetery Ridge, just opposite, loomed up in clear profile against the summer sky, bristling with the artillery and infantry lines of the foe; and all during the hot hours of morning and noon the men picked for the assault con templated the frowning heights against which they were to be hurled. Green fields decked forth in all the rich garniture of fertile summer-time, here and there separated by stone walls and fences, filled the intervening space a slope down, then a valley, and then a slope again right up to the batteries and lines charged with death in every form that lead and iron and steel could be wrought by the destructiue genius of man. THE CANNONADE. Upon the crest of Seminary Ridge, General Lee had planted about one hundred and twenty guns, covering the front of his storming column.* Right opposite, about ninety guns faced them, and on either Hank from Cemetery Hill and Round Top other battaries, comprising two hundred more guns, were ranged to join in chorus. To prepare the way, our batteries were first to cannonade the enemy s lines, and as they closed the infantry were to move out and pierce with their bayonets the Federal left- centre. At one o clock a single gun broke the Sabbath-like still ness that had brooded for hours over the field, then another single gun the preconcerted signal and then all Seminary Ridge burst forth with flames, as over one hundred guns poured forth their iron charges upon the Federal lines. Gun answered gun, and then for two hours the two armies were wrapt in the smoke of the most tremendous connonade that ever in the open field darkened the sky of the Western world; shells screamed, rush ing through the air like devils on wing of fire; through murky, sulphurous clouds the sun glared " with blood-shot eye "; the earth itself was tremulous, as if internal commotion shook its foundations ; and so rapid were the discharges of cannon, that the sound of no particular gun could be distinguished no more than the roar of a single wave when angry ocean tosses its bil- * General Meade estimates our suns th"n enframed atone hundred and tw. ntv-five. See volume I, Conduct of the War, pag >s 3P,?,-:i3S. Mr. Swinton places them at on a . hundred and .fifty-five. I have no accurate Information, but think one hundred and twenty about right. I 14 MEMORIAL VOLUME. lows mountain-high in midwinter storm. Nor was this, as is: generally the case with artillery duels, mere "sound and fury, signifying nothing." Our infantry were for the most part sheltered but on the Federal side, says the historian of Gettysburg, "not withstanding every precaution was taken to shelter the Union troops, the destruction was terrible. Men were torn limb from limb and blown to atoms by the villainous shells; horses were disembowelled and thrown prostrate to writhe in death agonies; caisons filled with ammunition were exploded; cannon rent; and steel-banded gun-carriages knocked into shapeless masses."* THE CHARGE. At the end of two hours the fire slackened then closed like some grand orchestral chorus announcing the curtain s rise as tragedy itself steps forth upon the stage. As silence once more reigned over the smoking heights, from behind the sable curtain that still hung over Seminary Ridge, there emerged the long double lines of the Confederate infantry, in none of the "pomp and circumstance of war," but clad in sombre homespun, brown and gray, with nothing bright about them save the blood-red battle flags twinkling in their midst and the glittering sheen of cold steel. Old Virginia had the post of honor that day. In the centre of the assaulting line moved Pickett s men, "in battle s magnificently stern array" Kemper on the right, connecting with Wilcox; Garnett on the left, connecting with Pettigrew; Armistead be hind them Virginians all. Down the slope from Seminary Ridge they moved forth to the assault, not impetuously, says Mr. Swinton, " at the run or double-quick, as has been repre sented in the over-colored descriptions in which the famous charge has been so often painted, but with a disciplined steadi ness a quality noticed by all who saw this advance as its charac teristic feature."f Mounted on his familiar iron-gray, war-horse Traveler, General Lee, from the summit of Seminary Ridge, watched his veterans as they advanced to this supreme endeavor, as did Napoleon, from the slope of La Belle Alliance, watch the advance of the Old Guard upon the allied centre at Waterloo. Scarcely had they debouched into the field, before once more Cemetery Ridge, in their front, was fringed with fire, and into their faces came the hissing shot and shell. And, unfortunately for us, our oivn batteries, liaving nearly exliausted their ammunition, (a fact unknown to General Lee when the assault commenced),, were unable to reply. \ * See Bates History of the Battle of Gettysburg, page 154. t See Swinton s Decisive Battles, page 343. JSee Lee s second report. Wnuse fault was this ? ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. I I 5 Our left, under the noble Trimble, who was soon struck down, staggered at the start, but soon regained their step; and while shell burst overhead, and solid shot opened frightful gaps, the lines closed up and moved on. Half way over this death- devoured field Pickett s men paused and rearranged their lines, and then moved obliquely to the left, so as to strike "the highest point and apparent centre of the enemy."* Now, it happened that Wilcox did not close on to Pickett s right, thus leaving a gap open upon his flank ; and now, at close range, the enemy from his shotted guns poured canister right into their bosoms; but still they pressed right on. And now from behind stone walls and trenches on the top plateau of Cemetery Ridge, the fire of musketry flashed into their faces. Kemper and Gar- nett, while leading their men like the Paladins of old, had fallen; but the men faltered not, and with a bold forward rush they clove the Federal line. Brave Armistead, leading his men afoot, sprung upon the enemy s works, while all around him clustered the resolute soldiers of the Virginia Division, who had "Charged an Aruiv While all the world wondered. With calm countenance, but heart elate, General Lee, from his post, with his field-glass fixed upon this point, now saw the battle-flags waving over the smoke that wreathed the crest of Cemetery Ridge, like a cluster of blood-red mountain blossoms amidst thick foliage; and for the while Pickett s men stood con querors on this blood-won summit, while all along their front the Federal troops, dismayed by their astonishing intrepidity, fled the field, leaving their batteries in the victors hands. X But, alas! they stood alone. For at least twenty minutes (I am told by Captain John Holmes Smith, of the LynchbuPg Home Guard, who, though wounded, climbed that perilous height), the few who got there held undisputed possession of the field. But where were their supports? Where were their coadjutors? Pettigrew s and Trimble s men had broken before the tornado of canister in their front, and had disappeared. f And now, upon their right, the gap left by Wilcox was being filled by Federal troops; and marshaling in their front the Fed eral reserves, summoned from every point to the rescue, stood in masses four lines deep. * Major Walter Harrison in his volume, entitled Pickett s Men, so states. See page 1^3. t General Trimble lost a leg in this charge. There is no reproach for him. General Heth had been wounded in the first day s fight, and was absent, and his division, under Pettigrew, had been decimated in the first day s fight. General Trimble had been placed in command during the engagement. Il6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Anxiously they looked for support, but instead of succor their antagonists closed upon them front and flank, and this little wasted band could no more live, in the concentric lines of fire emptied on their devoted heads, than the child s play-boat could breast the surge of an ocean storm. Sword in hand, on the farthest verge of the advance, brave Armistead rfell, death-stricken; and from this highest pinnacle to which ever the waves of the Confederate war dashed their bloody spray, the surviving handful of Pickett s men relaxed their hold, and sullenly turned their faces back to the Confederate lines and toward the setting sun. The sun, alas ! whose waning rays lighted for the last time to many a fallen heroe the scenes of earth the sun, alas! whose waning rays seemed prophetic of the waning cause, dearer to them than light or life. And so Virginia s spear was broken the banner of the Confederacy was blighted the battle of Gettysburg was done! THE LOSSES. I pause to contemplate the havoc wrought in these three days of battle We have authentic official reports that the loss on the Federal side amounted to two thousand eight hundred and thirty-four killed, thirteen thousand seven hundred and nine wounded, and six thousand six hundred and forty-three missing in all, twenty-three thousand one hundred and eighty-six.* The author of " Harper s Pictorial History of the War" which could be more fitly termed "Harper s Pictorial Fib" estimates our loss at thirty-six thousand in all; and Mr. Bates, the historian of Gettysburg, estimates it at twenty-seven thou sand five hundred wounded, five thousand five hundred killed, and thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-one prisoners, wiiich would make forty-six thousand six hundred and twenty- one f a most preposterous conclusion, worthy only of Gulliver or Munchausen. I am enabled to state from the official reports the losses of two corps of our army. General Longstreet s losses were nine hun dred and thirty-three killed, four thousand four hundred and fifty-three wounded, and two thousand three hundred and seventy- three missing total, seven thousand six hundred and fifty-nine. General Ewell s were eight hundred and eighty-three killed, three thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven wounded, and one thou sand three hundred and forty-seven missing total, six thousand and ninety-four. Aggregate in the two corps, thirteen thousand *See General Meade s report. tSee Bates History, pages 199-200. tSee official report in Southern Magazine for April, 1874 Appendix page 55. gSee General Ewell s report in Southern Magazine for June, 1873, page 695. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. I I/ seven hundred and fifty-three. It is not probable that Hill s losses exceeded Longstreet s, as he suffered less than any corps commander on the second day. Putting them at eight thousand, we would have as a grand aggregate twenty-one thousand seven hundred and fifty-three this includes artillery and infantry and allowing one thousand more, which must be excessive, for cavalry and for nurses who were left with the wounded, and still our losses would be less than those of the enemy. In Pickett s division the frightful loss attests its devoted cou rage. It carried into action four thousand four hundred and eighty-five muskets, about four thousand seven* hundred rank and file. Its loss was two thousand eight hundred and sixty- three. Two of its brigadiers (Armistead and Garnett) were killed, and the third (Kemper) wounded, but, thank heaven, not lost. Of fifteen regimental commanders, seven were killed and eight wounded; and of its whole complement of field officers, only one, the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph R. Cabell, who was afterwards killed at Drewry s farm, returned from the charge unscathed. M MIJKKS ENGAGED. As to the numbers engaged the Federals have given us pretty thorough information as to their side. General Meade estimated liis available force at ninety-five thousand men and about three hundred cannon.* Some of these guarded his trains, and many must have straggled. Discounting ten per cent, tfor these, he must have had, in his seven army corps, not less than eighty thousand men upon the field. The Federal estimates of our force are very extravagant, and some of them not a little curious. General Hooker says in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War: " With regard to the enemy s force I had reliable information. Two Union men had counted them as they passed through Hagerstown ; and in order that there might be no mistake, they compared notes every night, and if their accounts differed, they were satisfactorily adjusted by compromise. In round numbers, Lee had ninety-one thousand infantry and two hundred and eighty pieces of artillery. Marching with that column were six thousand cavalry. "f He then estimates Stuart s cavalry at five thousand, and sums up his count of Lee s men as ninety thou sand infantry, four thousand to five thousand artillery, and ten thousand cavalry in all about one hundred and four thousand. The miraculous performance of these two reliable Union men *See General Meade s testimony, first volume Conduct of the War, pages 337-S. t First volume Conduct of the War, page 173. Il8 MEMORIAL VOLUME. can be well appreciated when it is remembered that all of Lee s army did not pass through Hagerstown Early s command, for one, going through Sharpsburg and this spectacle of a com mander basing a calculation on such trivial statements can only excite ridicule. I am not able to state General Lee s force; but I can contribute a few items which may serve partially toward an estimate. I hold in my hand the original tri-monthly field return of Early s division, made and signed by myself as its Adjutant-General, on the 2Oth of June, two days before it crossed the Potomac. The total present for duty was five hundred and fourteen officers and five thousand one hundred and twenty-four enlisted men aggregate, five thousand six hundred and thirty- eight. This division was fully an average one of the army. Pickett s division, as stated by Major Walter Harrison, its Adju tant-General, numbered on the field four thousand four hundred and eighty-one muskets about four thousand seven hundred rank and file. But allowing six thousand as the general division strength, we would have fifty-four thousand men. The cavalry could not have exceeded seven thousand, nor the artillery three thousand, and allowing ten per cent, discount for straggling and train guards, about fifty-six thousand would represent our avail able strength. This, I believe, runs over the mark, but it shows how groundless are the wild speculations of the writers who have put our numbers at such high figures. We have also some general data which show that the weight of numbers must have greatly preponderated on the Federal side. In a work entitled a "History of the Battle of Gettysburg," from the pen of Samuel P. Bates, State historian of Pennsylvania, we have a tabular statement showing the regiments of both armies. From that it appears that there were one hundred and sixty-four Confederate and two hundred and forty-one Federal regiments of infantry engaged that is, seventy-seven regiments in excess of ours. Three hundred is a large average regiment, and allow ing that as the general average, our force would be forty-nine thousand two hundred, and the Federal force seventy-two thou sand three hundred a result, I think, nearly approximating the facts.* * Mr. Bates states that Lee went Into battle with seventy-two thousand men. See his History, page 198. This work, written in a fair and manly spirit, though not disguising strong Northern partialities, is marred by its evident worthlessness so far as computation of num bers and losses are concerned. The ai chives of Confederate history will ere long bring to light data from which the truth may be elucidated ; and in the meantime it is to be hoped that Confederate soldiers who have means of information will carefully preserve and record their testimony on the subject. The probability is that there has been a double count of our losses in some casses that is, that those reported by ouronVers as \vounded. and afterwards falling into the enemy s hands on the retreat, have been also reported by the Federals as captured and thus the wounded captive counted as two men lost ! In some such way alone can we account for the extravagant estimates of our losses, directly at war with our authentic official reports. ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. THE AFTER PART. The first impulse of General Meade, when he saw Pickett s men break and fall back, was to hurl forward his whole army in countercharge againt Lee. He has been severely criticised by many of his Generals for not doing so; but it is well for him that his "native hue of resolution" was so soon "Sicklied o er with the pale cast of thought." The Federal army, as well as their commander, were appalled by the amazing boldness and bravery they had beheld. They were shocked and shattered by the terrific blow received. The arm that parried the stroke had been paralyzed by it. The victor stood aghast upon the field of carnage. The hand which wielded the scythe was too weak to strike back at the rival reaper, which had mowed clown his own ranks like a desolating storm. In the history of battles we generally find that a repulse like this is followed by the dismay, confusion and flight of the de feated army. But not thus passed away the glory of the Army of Northern Virginia, nor of that great Commander who, in the twinkling of an eye, saw the brimming cup of victory dashed from his ilps. On our right Hood and Me Laws, in the centre Anderson, and on the left the whole corps of Kwell, stood as steady and un moved as if they had witnessed the mimic evolutions of a holi day s review; and not only not dismayed, but eager to welcome their antagonists "with bloody hands to hospitable graves." As the remnant of Pickett s men fell back within our lines General Lee rode to meet them. "Never mind," said he, as he urged them to reform, "we ll talk of this afterwards; now \vc want all good men to rally"; and to General Wilcox, who rode up, he said, quietly and cheerfully: "Never mind, General, all this has been my fault, and you must help me out of it the best way you can." As the soldiers caught sight of their beloved Commander, whose serene, majestic countenance showed no trace of disap pointment, they raised their hats and, cheering, turned to their posts; and many a ragged veteran, with one arm wounded, grasped his musket in the other and stood ready to do or die. In a short time our lines were rearranged, and so effectually and coolly that, as said by Colonel Freemantle, a British officer, who was an eye-witness, "There was much less noise, fuss or confu sion than at an ordinary field-day."* * See Rev. John William Jones Reminiscences of General Lee. I2O MEMORIAL VOLUME. During the whole of the next day the whole Army of North ern Virginia stood in line of battle on Seminary Ridge, confront ing in solid array the Army of the Potomac. It* was rainy and chilly, and between the two hosts lay the thick-crowded victims of the battle, making the field in verity a valley of the shadow of death. Then slowly our columns turned their faces toward Virginia, while, slowly and timidly following, the Army of the Potomac hung upon our rear, willing enough to wound but yet afraid to strike. The instructions of Meade to his subordinates were by no means to bring on a general engagement; and on the night of the 1 3th July we recrossed the swollen waters of the Poto mac, and stood again, in thinned ranks but unbroken spirit, upon the soil of the Old Dominion. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. Thus, my comrades, I have told you in unvarnished language the story of Gettysburg. My ghief object has been to state facts, which will stand as landmarks of Confederate history, rather than to attempt melli fluous phrases which would roll away like rippling waters. And these selected from a mass are related only in the hope of stimulating farther researches and expositions, and not in the vain belief that they comprehend even half of these sad but brilliant annals. For many reasons it is important to you and to our people that the truth respecting this great action should be studiously explored and fully recounted. Fought at the farthermost North ern point to which our armies penetrated at any time, it is pro jected into a conspicuousness which belongs to no other field. Its result increased in the North the prominence imparted to it by its geographical location; and Northern painters, sculptors, essayists, orators and historians have exhausted the resources of art and language in picturing its actors and its scenes, and in celebrating the real and too frequently the fictitious exploits which the Union troops performed. Above all, it marked a decisive turn in the fortunes of war. It was, as Mr. Swinton styles it, " the high-water mark of the rebellion." It was, indeed, what the historian Hallam so finely says of the victory won by Charles Martel over the invading Saracens between Tours and Poictiers " one of those few battles of which the contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes." For had the grand assault on Cemetery Ridge been compensated by results ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 121 proportioned to the genius which directed and the courage which made it, Baltimore and Washington would have been its prizes, foreign recognition its reward, and the establishment of the Con- o o federate States as an independent nation its final fruitage. On the 4th clay of July, icSGj, while messengers were bearing back dispatches that carried unutterable grief to every Southern home, the telegraphic wires throughout the North were flashing with the news; bonfires and joyous bells wore welcoming the tidings that Pemberton had stacked arms before Grant at Yicks- burg, and that Lee had been repulsed by Meadc at Gettysburg. At once despondent hearts were elated; clamorous peace men were silenced; distracted councils were harmonized; a divided people were united. The rich, populous, world-assisted North stood in phalanx against the thin, impoverished and beleaguered people of the South. The policy of attrition was inaugurated, and henceforth the struggle though radiant with all the virtues that heroism, skill and self-sacrifice could put forth was only a con test between the sands of the hour-glass and time. While these causes have conspired to direct the eves of the world to the field of Gettysburg, they have made it to us a sore subject, reviving sorrow f>r "the unreturning brave" who fell there, increasing the poignancy of defeat by the contrast between the bright promise of the first day and the disastrous realizations of the third, and bringing to mind the sad refrain Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest arc thest 1 it ini^ht have been." Therefore its glorious annals have been neglected on our side; criticisms and censures upon gallant and worthy officers have gone unchallenged; and as yet no hand has unrolled the graphic scroll that shall tell to time the deeds which are worthy of eternity. Let no Confederate shrink before the name of Gettys burg because it was dark with disaster and bitter with disappoint ment. It was the remark of Wellington that the saddest thing next to a defeat was victory. With us not less glorious than any victory was this defeat. The gallant Frenchman blushes for Sedan and Metz the blush of shame ; but with us the cheek may well glow with honest pride as we recall the fact, that on the day of our misfortunes the flame of liberty was fed with the richest libation ever poured upon her altars, and glory opened to the Confederate brother hood who gathered around them the doors of immortality. The open fields over which the unsheltered heroes moved tell, more eloquently than the emblazoned pages of history, the tale of 9 122 MEMORIAL VOLUME. their devotion, and the everlasting hills of Cemetery Ridge raise aloft to heaven the records of their everlasting fame. And now we may apply to them the words of Pericles, pro nounced in memory of the Athenians who fell in the Samian war: "They are become immortal, like the Gods, for the Gods themselves are not visible to us, but from the honors they receive and the happiness they enjoy, we conclude they are immortal; and such should those brave men be who die for their country." GENERAL LEE. Nor let the Confederate shrink before that critic who, from the serene atmosphere of his sanctum, steps forth to pluck a laurel from the reputation of that great Commander who so boldly attempted what others would pale to think of. With the fall of Vicksburg imminent, General Lee felt that the hour de manded this Herculean effort. With the spirit of a Caesar or a Napoleon, he bravely cast and bravely stood the hazard of the die. By the very audacity of his well- aimed stroke he deserved by the steady heroism of Pickett s men he well-nigh won, and only by a series of those curious accidents which, in the game of war, confound the wisdom of the wise, did he loose that crown ing triumph which his supreme endeavor was so well devised to win. " It was all my fault," said he; but not such will be the verdict of the just historian, who with clear eye and steady hand shall trace, through the tumultuous and sanguinary incidents of the day, the course of him who, after exposing his person to all the dangers of the fray, would crucify, on self-erected cross, his own illustrious name, and make that reputation, more precious than life itself, vicarious sacrifice for his lieutenants and his men. And when the moralist shall seek the highest example of what is heroic and grand in action and martyr-like in spirit, that he may erect before humankind a model, that shall warm its finest fancies and excite its highest aspirations, he shall find it in the person of Robert E. Lee, upon the summit of Seminary Ridge, the mount of his transfiguration, where, sublimating all earthly instincts, the Divinity in his bosom shone translucent through the man, and his spirit rose up into the Godlike. And the day shall dawn when here in the Capitol Square we shall look again upon the warrior s form and face, moulded in perennial bronze shall see once more our great Commander, mounted on Traveler, his battle steed, the seeming image of Majesty and Victory. Here in th j after-time, when we too shall be sleeping under the sod with our departed comrades, our sons ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 123 and daughters shall look up to that commanding presence, re joicing to remember that their fathers fought under HIM. And here the eye of the wayfarer, the patriot and the pilgrim shall grow brighter, as it contemplates with one glance three illustri ous and congenial spirits, born to Virginia, given to humanity, world-renowned GEORGE WASHINGTON, STONEWALL JACKSON, and ROBERT EDWARD LEE. " O, good gray head, which all men knew; O, voice from which their omens all men drew; O, iron nerve, to true occasion true; O. fall n at length, that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew. Not once or twice in our State s rough story* The path of duty was the way to glory. Let his great example stand Colossal seen of every land, And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure, Till in all lauds and thro all human story The path of duty he the way to glory. ******** And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame For many and many an age proclaim, At civic revel and pomp and game, And when the long-illumined cities llame, Their ever loyal iron lender s fame, With honor, honor, honor, honor to him Eternal honor to his name." [ADDENDA. As it is the desire of the Association of Survivors of the Army of Northern Virginia to preserve the annual addresses delivered before it as historic memorials, I desire that my humble contri bution to its archives shall not pass on to others any errors which could be avoided; and have therefore though proper to add a few explanatory notes, respecting statements made, which may lead to the clearing up of controvented points, and to the elucida tion of truth. (i). In respect to the final charge at Gettysburg, I have said, on page 115, that our left under Trimble, "staggered at tJic start, but soon regained their step," In this I am now satisfied that I committed an error, and that instead of General Trimble s line wavering at the start, it was the line of General Pettigrew that did so. From General Trimble I have received a letter, in which he shows that the remark is erroneous, and I do not now doubt but that his line, which supported Pettigrew s, has been con- *The verbiage of this line has been slightly changed, from the text of Tennyson s noble ode, to suit the occasion. 124 MEMORIAL VOLUME. founded with it and hence the mistake made by others and followed by myself. (2). On page 115, I have said, "Pettigrew s and Trimble s men had brokon before the tornado of canister in their front, and had disappeared For this observation what seemed ample authority was before me, for not only was it sustained by the current his tories, but it had been officially recorded in General Longstreet s report, wherein he says : " The enemy s batteries soon opened upon our lines with canister, and the left seemed to stagger under it, but the advance was resumed and with some degree of steadiness. Pickett s troops did not appear to be checked by the batteries, and only halted to deliver a fire when close under musket range. Major-General Anderson s division was ordered forward to support and assist the wavering columns of Petti grew and Tiniblc. Pickett s troops, after delivering fire, advanced to the charge and entered the enemy s lines, capturing some of his batteries and gained his w r orks. About the same moment tlie troops tliat liad before hesitated, broke their ranks and fell back in great disorder, many more falling under the enemy s fire in retreating than whilst they were attacking. . . In a few moments the enemy, marching against both flanks and the front of Pickett s division, over powered it and drove it back, capturing about half of those of it who were not killed or wounded." This official document I quote thus fully that it may be seen how well my statement seemed to be verified. But General Trimble shows, in the letter already referred to, that his men are not properly included amongst those who failed to give Pickett full support; and it affords me great pleasure here to rectify an error, which while it could not shadow the reputation of that gallant veteran, known to be "without fear and without reproach" has been too long received as historic, and does injustice to his command. General Trimble states that his men did not leave the field until ordered, and I take leave to quote a passage from his letter, that full justice may be done them. "My men," says he, "were the last to leave the field. This / know, as I rode in the line between the brigades from the start dow r n to the Emmetts- burg road," &c. And after some details, he adds: "Thus I aver positively that my command continued the assault after Pickett s men had been repulsed and dispersed not that we fought longer or better, but because as a second line, and having farther to advance, we did not reach the enemy quite as soon as the troops on our right, and I knew it would be fool-hardy to continue the combat with two brigades alone." (3.) On page 115, it is said: "Now it happened that Wilcox did not close in to Pickett s right, thus leaving a gap open on his ADDRESS OF MAJOR DANIEL. 12$ f flank." This has been the generally accepted version of the affair, and will be found stated in Mr. Swinton s work, entitled "Decisive Battles of the War," pages 344-347; in Mr. Bates minute history of the battle, page 158, where it is said: "Wil- cox, instead of moving to the left with Pickett, kept straight on, leaving Pickctt s right uncovered, and open to a flank attack "; and in many other works and sketches, which have fallen under my eye, purporting to be historical. And it consisted with the statement of General Longstreet s official report, that "the enemy, marching against both flanks and the front of Pickett s division, overpowered it." Of course, if the right flank had been protected, this could not have been done. But I have recently understood that General Wilcox does not concur in the above account, which I adopted upon the authorities referred to ; and I regret that I have not been able to get, in time for this publication, his views in detail. Xo reflection was made or intended upon him ; and it is to be hoped that lie and others who directed or saw the movements during this stage of the battle, will make clear what they really were. I conclude with the request that any one who may notice any error in my statements, will be kind enough to call my attention to it. J. W. D.] After the address of Major Daniel, Lieutenant-Colonel Heros Von Borcke, late of General Stuart s staff, now of the Prussian army, and Major I. Scheibert, of the Royal Prussian Engineers, were elected members of the Association. Rev. J. William Jones was requested to prepare a roster of the Army of Northern Virginia. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President General W . H. F. LEE. ViccrPrisidents General Robert Ransom, General Marry Heth, General A. L. Long, General William Terry, Captain D. B Mc- Corkle. Treasurer Major Robert Stiles. Secretaries Sergeants George L. Christian and Lcroy S. Edwards. Executive Committee General B. T. Johnson, Colonel Thomas H. Carter, Major T. A. Brancler, Major Walter K. Martin, Private Carlton McCarthy. 126 MEMORIAL VOLUME. THE BANQUET. The Association and their invited guests then repaired to Monticello Hall, where a sumptuous banquet was spread, and most effective speeches were made by Ex-Governor John Letcher, Ex-Governor (General) William Smith, General W. H. F. Lee, General W. H. Payne, General Fitz. Lee, Major Robert Stiles, General B. T. Johnson, Colonel H. E. Peyton, Dr. Thorn, Captain Thomas Whitehead, Captain H. R. Garden, General J. A. Walker, General Early, Major J. W. Daniel and others. The unveiling of the Jackson statue the day before had attracted a large crowd of old Confederates, and the public meeting and the banquet were, therefore, both splendid successes. SIXTH ANNUAL REUNION. On the evening of November 2d, 1876, the Hall of the House of Delegates, State Capitol at Richmond, was packed to its utmost capacity with a brilliant audiance. In the absence of the President, General Harry Heth, Vice- President, presided over the meeting. Rev. Dr. J. William Jones opened the exercises with prayer. General Heth appropriately introduced as orator of the eve ning Captain W. Gordon McCabe, of Petersburg, who had served so gallantly as private in the Richmond Howitzers and Adjutant of the lamented Colonel Willie Pegram, the heroic " boy artillerist." Captain McCabe was received with deafening applause, and held his audiance spell bound to the close of his splendid address. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON McCABE. Comrades of the Army of Xortlicrn Virginia I am here in obedience to your orders and give you a soldier s greeting. It has fallen to me, at your behest, to attempt the story of a defence 1 more masterly in happy reaches of generalship than that of Sebastopol, and not less memorable than that of Zaragoza in a constancy which rose superior to accumulating disaster, and a stern valor ever reckoned highest by the enemy. It is a great task, nor do I take shame to myself that I am not equal to it, for, speaking soberly, it is a story so fraught with true though mournful glory a story so high and noble in its. persistent lesson of how great things may be wrested by human skill and valor from the malice of Fortune that even a Thu- cydides or a Napier might suffer his nervous pencil to droop, lost, perchance, in wonder at the surprising issues which genius, with matchless spring, extorted time and again from cruel odds, or stirred too deeply for utterance by that which ever kindles the hearts of brave men the spectacle of human endurance meeting with unshaken front the very stroke of Fate. And if intensity of sorrowful admiration might not unnatu rally paralyze the hand of the historian, who should undertake *From a strictly military point of view, the term "siege" cannot properly be applied to tli" operations around Petersburg-, for there was 1 tckintr what, according to Vauban, "is the first requisite in a siege perfect investment." The .same is true of Sjba.stopol. 128 MEMORIAL VOLUME. to transmit to posterity a truthful record of the unequal contest, what mortal among men could stand forth undismayed, when bidden to trace even the outlines of the story in presence of the survivors of that incomparable army, the followers of that match less leader veterans, to whom it has been given to see its every episode emblazoned in crimson letters by the very God of Battles. And yet it is because of this presence that I stand here not unwillingly to-night -for when I look down upon these bronzed and bearded faces, I cannot but remember that we have shared together the rough delights, the toils, the dangers of field of battle, and march and bivouac, and feel sure of indulgence in advance from those who are knit to even the humblest comrade by a companionship born of common devotion to that Cause* which is yet "strong with the strength" of Truth, and "im mortal with the immortality" of Right born of such common devotion, nurtured in the fire of battle, strengthened and sancti fied by a common reverence for the valiant souls who have fallen on sleep. It is not mine, comrades, to dazzle you with the tricks of rhetoric, nor charm your ear with smoothly flowing periods ; but even were such mastery given to me, it would scarce befit my theme for we have now to trace the history of the army to which we belonged, not in its full blaze of triumph, as when it wrote Richmond and Chancellorsville upon its standards, but in those last eventful days when its strength was well-nigh " too ;slender to support the weight of victory"; we have now to mark the conduct of its leader, not as when, the favored child of Mars, tfoe clangor of his trumpets from the heights of Fredericksburg haughtily challenged the admiration of astonished nations, but in that severer glory which shines round about him as he stands at bay, girt with a handful of devoted soldiery, staying the arm of Fate with an incredible vigor of action and a consummate mastery of his art, and, still unsubdued in mind, delivers his last battle as fiercely as his first. And in the prosecution of the task confided to me in my attempts to reconcile the conflicting testimony of eye-wit nesses, in sifting hostile reports, and in testing by official data the statements of writers who have essayed the story of this final campaign although at times it has seemed well-nigh a hopeless labor, and more than once recalled the scene in Sterne s inimitable masterpiece, in which Mr. Shandy, taking My Uncle Toby kindly by the hand, cries out, "Believe me, dear brother Toby, these military operations of yours are far above your strength," yet, remembering the spirited reply of My Uncle ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 1 2Q Toby, "What care I, brother, so it be for the good of the nation," even so have I been upheld, reflecting that if it should be my good fortune to restore to its true light and bearing even one of the many actions of this vigorous campaign, which may have been heretofore misrepresented through ignorance or through passion, it would be counted as a service, however humble, to that army, whose just renown can never be too jeal ously guarded by the men who were steadfast to their colors. That I should attempt a critical examination of that defence in detail, is manifestly impossible within the limits of an address, when it is remembered that, south of the Appomattox alone, thirteen pitched fights were delivered outside the works, beside numberless "affairs" on the part of the cavalry and small bodies of infantry, while each day was attended by a number of minor events, which, taken separately, appear to be of little historical importance, but, when combined, exerted no mean influence on the conduct of the campaign. Nor, on the other hand, has the time yet come, in the opinion of many officers of sound and sober judgment, for that larger treatment of my theme which would necessitate an impartial examination of the measure to which the military operations were shaped by considerations of a political character in other words, the time has not yet come when one ma} use the fearless frankness of Xapier, who justly reckons it the crowning proof of the genius of Wellington, that while resisting with gigantic vigor the fierceness of the French, he had at the same time to "sustain the weakness of three inefficient cabinets." I propose, therefore, to notice some of the leading events of the campaign in its unity, which will indicate the general concep tion of the defence of Petersburg, animated by no other feeling towards the many brave men and officers of the Army of the Potomac than one of heart} admiration for their courage and endurance, desirous, above all, that truth, so far as we can attain it now, shall be spoken with soldierly bluntness, and error be not perpetuated. And at the very outset, it is not only pertinent, but essential to a proper appreciation of the conduct of affairs, that we should consider the morale of the two armies as they prepared to move into those vast lines of circumvallation and contravallation, des tined to become more famous than Torres Vedras or those drawn by the genius of Turenne in the great wars of the Palatinate. The more so, that the most distinguished of Lee s foreign critics has declared that from the moment Grant sat down before the lines of Richmond, the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia saw that the inevitable blow "might be delayed, but I3O MEMORIAL VOLUME. could not be averted."* Other writers, with mawkish affectation of humanity, little allied to sound military judgment, have gone still further, and asserted that the struggle had assumed a phase so hopeless, that Lee should have used the vantage of his great position and stopped the further effusion of blood. Let us, the survivors of the Army of Northern Virginia, authoritatively de clare in reply, that such was not the temper of our leader nor the temper of his men. It would, indeed, have been an amazing conclusion for either army or General to have reached as the lesson of the CAMPAIGN FROM THE WILDERNESS TO COLD HARBOR. Grant had carried into the Wilderness a well-officered and thoroughly-equipped army of one hundred and forty-one thou sand men, to which Lee had opposed a bare fifty thousand. f Despite these odds, Lee had four times forced his antagonist to change that line of operations on which he emphatically declared he "proposed to fight it out if it took all summer." He had sent him reeling and dripping with blood from the jungles of the Wilderness, though foiled himself of decisive victory by a capri cious fortune, which struck down his trusted lieutenant in the very act of dealing the blow, which his chief, in a true inspiration of genius, had swiftly determined to deliver; barring the way again with fierce and wary caution, after a grim wrestle of twelve days and twelve nights, he had marked the glad alacrity with which the General, who but a few weeks before had interrupted the prudent Meade with the remark, "Oh, I never manoeuvre," now turned his back on the blood-stained thickets of Spotsyl- vania, and by " manoeuvring towards his left,"* sought the pas sage of the North Anna seeking it only to find, after crossing the right and left wings of his army, that his wary antagonist, who, unlike himself, did not disdain to manoeuvre, had, by a rare tactical movement, inserted a wedge of gray tipped with steel,, riving his army in sunder, forcing him to recross the river, and for the third time abandon his line of attack. Then it was that the Federal commander, urged, mayhap, to the venture by the needs of a great political party, whose silent clamors for sub stantial victory smote more sharply on his inner ear than did the piteous wail which rose from the countless Northern homes for * Colonel Chesney. Essays in Military Biography, page 119. t Staunton s report, 1865- 66 ; General Early s able article In Southern Historical Papers* volume II, July, 1876: Lee s letter to General David Hunter, U. S. A.; Lee s letter (October, 4th, 1867) to Colonel C. A. White; Swinton, A. P., pag<- 413. t"The 13th, 14th. 15th. 16th, 17th and 18th (of May) were consumed in manoeuvring and awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Washington." Grant s report of campaign. At this time Lee had not been reinforced by a single man. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. ( i- the forty-five thousand brave men whose bodies lay putrefyin in the tangled Golgotha from Rapidan to North Anna urged by these clamors, or else goaded into unreasoning fury by the patient readiness of his adversary, ordered up sixteen thousand of Butler s men from south of the James, and at break of day on June the 3d assaulted Lee s entire front resolute to burst through the slender, adamantine barrier, which alone stayed the mighty tide of conquest, that threatened to roll onward until it mingled with the waves of Western victory, which were even then roaring through the passes of Alatoona resolute, yet, like Lord Angelo, " slipping grossly," through "heat of blood and lack of tempered judgment" for the slender barrier yielded not, but when subsided the dreadful flood, which for a few brief mo ments had foamed in crimson fury round the embattled slopes of Cold Harbor, there was left him but the wreck of a noble army, which in sullen despair refused longer to obey his orders,* CONFIDENCE OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. Such was the retrospect of this thirty days campaign to Lee, as he sat in his simple tent pitched upon the very ground, whence, but two years before, with positions reversed, he had driven McClellan in rout and disaster to the James; and though Lee, the man, was modest, he was but mortal, and Lee, the soldier, could but be conscious of his own genius, and having proved the matchless temper of the blade, which Providence, or Destiny, or call it what you will, had placed within his hands, we may be sure that his heart was stirred with high hopes of his country s deliverance, and that through these hopes his pliant genius was inspired to discern in each new difficulty but fresh device. And his veterans of confirmed hardihood, watching the gracious serenity of that noble face, conscious of the same warlike virtues which made him dear to them, caught up and reflected this con fidence, remembering that he had declared to them in general orders after Spotsylvania: "It is in your power, under God, to defeat the last effort of the enemy, establish the independence of your native land, and earn the lasting love and gratitude of your countrymen and the admiration of mankind. "f And to an army intelligent as it was resolute, there was surely much to confirm this confidence, outside enthusiastic trust in the resources of their leader. The sobering consciousness of instant peril had quickened their discernment, and the patient watchers in the swamps of *Swinton, A. P., page 487; Draper, volume III, page 387. t Lee s general order, May 16th, 1&.C4. 13 2 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Chickahominy, no longer deluded by the ignis fatuus of foreign intervention, hopes of which had been kindled anew in the capi tal by the fiery speech of Marquis of Clanricarde, regarded only, but with eager exultation, the signs in camp and country of the enemy. Mr. Seward s thirty days draft on victory, though given to a superb army for collection, and endorsed by the credulity of the nation, had gone to protest, and Mr. Lincoln now signified his intention of calling for five hundred thousand additional men to enforce its payment.* No censorship of the press could restrain the clamorous dis content, which burst forth North and West, at this proposed call for half a million more men, and GOLD, 4 that unfailing barometer of the hopes and fears, the joy and de spair, of a purely commercial people, indicated clearly enough the gloomy forebodings of the nation. Every tick of the second hand on the dial registered an additional $35 to the national debt, or $2,100 per minute, $126,000 an hour, $3,024,000 a day. Ragged veterans, leaning on the blackened guns in the trenches, reading the newspapers just passed across the picket lines men who had left their ledgers and knew the mysteries of money marked, while their faces puckered with shrewd wrinkles of suc cessful trade, the course of the precious mercury. When Grant crossed the Rapidan, gold had gone down with a rush from 1.89 to 1.70, )" and though, from the Wilderness on, Mr. Stanton who was Napoleonic in his bulletins, if in nothing else persist ently chronicled success whenever battle was joined, gold rose with a like persistency after each announcement a signal exam ple of cynical unbelief in a truly good and great man. True, for a few days after Cold Harbor, the telegraph wires became mysteriously "out of working order," "owing," as he candidly confesses to General Dix in New York, "to violent storms on the Peninsula," but the dreadful story gradually leaked out, and gold gave a frantic bound to 2.03 to 2.30 before the end of the month to 2.52 while Congress in a flurry passed a silly "gold bill," and the New York Herald shrieked out curses against "Rebel sympathizers in Wall Street" as if Wall Street ever sympathized with anything save the Almighty Dollar. Of the temper of the enemy, I myself do not presume to speak, but there are not lacking indications that General Grant s * This draft of five hundred thousand men was actually made under act of July 4th, 1864. t The quotations of gold in this address were tabulated from files of the New York Herald for TSUI. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN \V. GORDON M CAIJE. 133 theory of action, which he summed up in the phrase "to hammer continuously," had become somewhat modified by experience, and that, at this time, his new evangel of "attrition" found but few zealous disciples in the Army of the Potomac. Lee had lost in the campaign between fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand men* veterans, whose lives, it is true, regarding them simply as soldiers, were precious beyond numerical reckoning. Of the Army of the Potomac, not counting tJic losses in tlic Tcntli and EigJitccntli corps, which had been called up to take part in the battle of Cold Harbor, more than sixty thousand men had been put Jiors dn combat, including three thousand officers a loss greater by ten thousand than the total force which Lee had carried into the Wilderness. f "Had not success dsiiclicrc come to brighten the horizon," says the historian of that army, "it would have been difficult to have raised new forces to recruit the Army of the Potomac, which, shaken in its structure, its valor quenched in blood, and thousands of its ablest officers killed and wounded, was the Army of the Potomac no more." This apparent digression from my theme has seemed to me, comrades, not impertinent, because, as I have said, the temper of this army at that time has been misunderstood by some and misrepresented by others; because the truth in regard to the matter, will alone enable those who come after us to understand how such a handful, ill-appointed and ill-fed, maintained for so long a time against overwhelming odds the fiercest defence of modern times. Nay, more, I believe that when the truth shall be tolel touching this eventful campaign, it will be shown that at no time during the war had the valor of this army and the skill of its leader been so near to compelling an honorable peace as in the days immediatel} succeeding Cold Harbor. Such is the testimony of Federal officers high in rank, whose courage you admired in war and whose magnanimity you have appreciated in peace. Mr. Greeley, in his "History of the Rebellion," says emphatically, these were "the very darkest hours of our contest those in which our loyal people most profoundly despaired of its successful issue. "T Swinton, a shrewd observer and candid historian, says: "So gloomy was th^5 military outlook after the action on the Chickahominy, and to such a degree by consequence *Ou May Hist, Lee. according to the return 5 *, had fortv-four thousand t\vo hundred and forty-seven men. Allowing him lifty Thousand men at the opening of the campaign, and nine thousand reinforcements at Hanover Courthouse, his loss wuiild be fourteen thousand s -veil hundred and fifty-three. To this we must add his loss at Cold Harbor, which was but a few hundreds. Swinton (page 4 .)4,> says thai / // .1 ///<// f tin- rt<nn<if Inxt at Icaxt tn-t;/iti/ it ten t<> Lee x one" in that battle, and puts Grant s loss at thirteen thousand one hundred and fifty-three. 1 Swinton, page 491. f ;IIe embraces period from Cold Harbor to Crater, inclusive. 134 MEMORIAL VOLUME. had the moral spring of the public mind become relaxed, that there was at this time great danger of a collapse of the war." And he adds, significantly: "The archives of the State Depart ment, when one day made public, will show how deeply the Government was affected by the want of military success, and to 7i f / hat resolutions tJie Executive Jiad in consequence come"* But, alas! the " success elsewhere," of which the historian speaks, /w<^ "come to brighten the horizon," and, continuing, quickened into vigorous action the vast resources of the North. Grant, reinforced by over thirty thousand men at Spotsylvania,f was heavily reinforced again; and putting aside with great firm ness the well known wishes of the Federal Executive, prepared to change his strategy for the fifth time, and ASSAIL RICHMOND FROM THE SOUTH. It was a determination based upon the soundest military prin ciples, for from that direction could an assailant hope to bring to bear with greatest assurance of success that cardinal maxim of military strategy, "operate on the communications of the enemy without endangering your own." Though the plan was now for the first time to be put to the test, it was no new conception. McClellan had proposed it to Halleck,J when that General vis ited the Army of the Potomac after what was euphemistically termed " its strategic change of base to the James," but the Chief of the Staff curtly rejected it as "impracticable." Lee, cautious of speech, had not hesitated to say to friends here in Richmond that the good people of the town might go to their beds without misgiving, so long as the enemy assailed the capital north and east, and left unvexed his communications with the Carolinas. General Grant himself, while still in the West, had urged upon the Government the adoption of this plan, which, in his eyes, was identical in its main features with that which had won for him the capitulation of Vicksburg. Why, when invested with supreme command, he should have rejected a plan which his judgment had approved but a year before, and adopted only after the loss of sixty thousand veteran troops a line of advance open to him at the outset without firing a gun is one of the myste ries of war, the key to which is most likely to be found in the political history of the time. * Swinton, page 495, note. t As the Secretary of War denies access to the archives at Washington, it is impossible to state the precise figures. Mr. Stanfon. in his report, says: " Meanwhile, in order to repair the losses of the Army of the Potomac, th chief jmrt of the forca designed to guard the Middle Department (Baltimore) and the Department of Washington (in all forty-seven thou sand seven hundred and lifty-one men; \vas called forward to the front." \ Memorandum of Halleck (July 27th, 18G2), in Keport on Conduct W T ar, Part I, page 454. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 135 Resolved upon this last change of base, General Grant pressed its execution. From the 4th to the iith of June, by a gradual withdrawal of his right flank, he had placed his army within easy marches of the lower crossings of the Chickahominy, and Sheridan, meanwhile, having been dispatched to destroy the Virginia Central railroad and effect a junction with Hunter, on Sunday night, June 1 2th, THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC WAS PUT IN MOTION FOR THE JAMES. Warren, with the Fifth corps and Wilson s division of cavalry, seizing the crossing at Long bridge, made his dispositions to screen the movement. Hancock s corps, marching past the Fifth, was directed upon Wilcox s Landing; Wright s and Burn- side s corps upon Douthat s, while Smith, with four divisions of the Tenth and Eighteenth corps, moved rapidly to White H6use and embarked for Bermuda Hundred.* Farly on the morning of the 1 3th, Warren, who executed his critical task with marked address, pushed forward Crawford s division on the New Market road, and compelling the few Con federate squadrons of observation to retire across White Oak swamp, threatened direct advance on Richmond, while the activity of his powerful horse completely shrouded for the time the movement in his rear. Lee did not attack, f for Farly had been detached for the de fence of Lynchburg, and the main body of his cavalry being absent under Hampton, he was compelled, like the Great Frede rick, when Traun s Pandours enveloped Silesia in midnight, "to read his position as if by flashes of lightning." On the next day, however, a small body of horse, under W 7 . H. F. Lee, boldly charging the enemy, drove them hotly past Malvern Hill, and on the same evening Lee received accurate information as to the whereabouts of his adversary. J But not a man of the Army of the Potomac had as yet crossed, and the conjuncture being now so nice that the slightest blunder would have been attended with irreparable disaster, he drew back his troops towards Chaffin s, dispatched Hoke early on the I5th from Drewry s Bluff to re inforce Bcauregard, and stood ready to repel direct advance by the river routes or to throw his army into Petersburg, as events might dictate. * Swiuton, A. P., page 493. t Wilcox s division of Hill s corps and Peram s artillery were sent down to develop the position of the enemy, and there was some sharp skirmishing on the 14th, but nothing in the nature of an attack. i Lee s dispatch, 9 P. M., June 14th, 1SC4. 136 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Grant s design, as we now know, was to SEIZE PETERSBURG BY A COUP DE MAIN, and it had certainly succeeded but for an incredible negligence on his own part. Smith s command reached Bermuda Hundred, where Grant was in person,* on the evening of the I4th, and being reinforced by Kautz s divison of cavalry and Hink s divison of negro in fantry, was at once directed to cross the Appomattox at Point of Rocks, where pontoons had been laid, and to move rapidly on Petersburg^ The passage of the river was effected during the same night, and early on the I5th Smith advanced in three col umns Kautz with his horsemen covering his left. Now, Han cock s entire corps had been ferried to the south side on the night of Smith s arrival at Bermuda Hundred, and might easily havd been pushed forward to take part in the assault, but, left in ignorance of the projected coup dc main, its commander, in obe dience to orders, was awaiting rations where he had crossed. In credible as it may seem, General Meade, the immediate com mander of the Army of the Potomac, was left in like ignorance, f and General Grant, hurrying back to the north side to push for ward reinforcements from the corps of Wright and Burnside, found that the army pontoon train had been sent to piece out the wagon train pontoons, which had proved insufficient for the pas sage of the Chickahominy at Coles ferry. Thus nearly a day was gained to the handful of brave men defending the lines of Petersburg, and lost to the Army of the Potomac a curious instance of the uncertain contingencies, of war, reminding the military student, with a difference, of the happy chance which saved Zaragoza in the first siege, when Lefebre Desnouettes, " missing the road to the bridge, missed that to victory." Smith, pushing forward his columns towards Petersburg early on the morning of the 1 5th, had scarcely advanced a distance of two miles, when he encountered a hasty line of rifle trenches, held by Graham s light battery and a meagre force of dismounted cavalry the whole under Bearing, a young brigadier of high and daring spirit and of much experience in war. This position, resolutely held for two hours, was finally carried by the infantry, yet Bearing, retiring slowly with unabashed front, hotly disputing every foot of the advance, so delayed the hostile columns that it was 1 1 o clock A. M. before they came upon the heavy line of entrenchments covering the eastern approaches to the town. * Grant anil His Campaigns, pago 348. t Swinton, pages 499 and 503-506. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 137 FIRST ASSAULT ON PETERSBURG. Shortly after that hour, Smith moved by the Baxter road upon the works in front of Batteries Six and Seven, but the men of Wise s brigade resisted his repeated assaults with "unsurpassed stub bornness" I use the exact language of Beauregard* while the rapid fire of the light batteries completed for the time his dis comfiture. Smith had been told that the works defending Petersburg were such that " cavalry could ride over them"- "a representation," says Mr. Swinton archly, "not justified by his experience," and he now proceeded to reconnoitre more carefully what was in his front. THE OLD DEFENCES OF PETERSBURG consisted of a heavy line of redans connected by powerful rifle trenches, and were of such extent as to require a garrison of twenty-five thousand men. In the opinion of General Beaure gard, this line was in many places faultily located, and especially vulnerable in the quarter of Batteries Five, Six and Seven. Reckoning his heavy gunners and the local militia, Beauregard had for the defence of this extended line, on the morning of the 15th, but two thousand two hundred men of all arms, while Smith confronted him with above twenty thousand troops. At 7.30 P. M. the enemy, warned by their heavy losses of the morn ing against assaulting in column in face of artillery served with such rapidity and precision, advanced at a charging pace in line, and after a spirited contest carried with a rush the whole line of redans from five to nine inclusive. Scarcely had the assault ended, when Hancock came up with the Second corps, and though the ranking officer, with rare gene rosity, which recalls the chivalric conduct of Sir James Outram to Havelock in front of Lucknow.t at once offered his troops to Smith, and stood ready to receive the orders of his subordinate. THE PRIZE WAS NOW WITHIN HIS GRASP had he boldly advanced and the moon shining brightly highly favored such enterprise but Smith, it would seem, though pos sessed of considerable professional skill, was not endowed with that intuitive sagacity which swiftly discerns the chances of the * For the Confcderat* operations from the if th to the 19tti Jane, inclusive, I am greatly in debted to General Beanregard s MS. report, kindly placed at my disposal. t Ontram s divisional order on night of September 16th, 1S57. Brock s Life of Havelock, page -213. 10 138 MEMORIAL VOLUME. moment, and thus halting on the very threshold of decisive vic tory, contented himself with partial success, and having relieved his divisions in the captured works with Hancock s troops, waited for the morning. Meanwhile, Hoke had arrived on the Confederate side, and Beauregard, having disposed his meagre force upon a new line a short distance in rear of the lost redans, ordered down Bushrod Johnson s three brigades from the Bermuda Hundred front, and made such preparation as was possible for the assault of the morrow. SECOND DAY S ASSAULTS. The situation was indeed critical, for though the enemy assaulted but feebly the next morning, and Johnson s brigades arrived at 10 A. M., there was stilksuch disparity of numbers as might well have shaken the resolution of a less determined com mander. Burnside s corps reached the Federal front at noon, and General Meade, having met General Grant on the City Point road,* was directed to assume immediate command of the troops and assault as soon as practicable. Thus at 5.30 on the evening of the 1 6th, more than seventy thousand troops were launched against the works manned by but ten thousand brave men, a dis parity still further increased by the arrival at dusk of Warren s corps, two brigades of which Miles and Griffin s took part in the closing assaults. For three hours the fight raged furiously along the whole line with varying success, nor did the contest subside until after nine o clock, when it was found that Birney, of Hancock s corps, had effected a serious lodgment, from which the Confederates in vain attempted to expel him during the night. On the same day Pickett s division, dispatched by Lee and leading the advance of Anderson s corps, recaptured the lines on the Bermuda Hundred front, which Beauregard had been forced to uncover, and which had been immediately seized by Butler s troops. It is surely sufficient answer to those who represent Lee as even then despondently forecasting the final issue, to find him writing next day in great good humor to Anderson: "I believe that the men of yeur corps will carry anything they are put against. We tried very hard to stop Pickett s men from captu ring the breastworks of the enemy, but could not do it."f * Grant and His Campaigns, page 340. t Lee d letter to Anderson, Clay house, June 17th, 1864. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 139 THE THIRD DAYS ASSAULTS. Fortunately for the weary Confederates, the enemy attempted no offensive movement until earl} noon of the next day, at which hour the Ninth corps, advancing with spirit, carried a redoubt in its front, together with four pieces of artillery and several hun dred prisoners, while Hancock s corps pressed back the Confede rates over Hare s Hill the spot afterwards known as Fort Stead- man, and made famous by Gordon s sudden and daring stroke. Later in the day the Xinth corps attacked again, but were driven back with severe loss. GRACIE S ALAHAMIANS TO THE RESCUE. Then along the whole front occurred a series of assaults and counter charges creditable to the courage and enterprise of both sides, yet so confused that an attempted narrative would neces sarily share that confusion. Suffice it to say that at dusk the Confederate lines were pierced, and, the troops crowding together in disorder, irreparable disaster seemed imminent, when suddenly in the dim twilight a dark column was descried mounting swiftly from the ravines in rear, and Grade s gallant Alabamians. spring ing along the crest with fierce cries, leaped over the works, cap tured over fifteen hundred prisoners, and drove the enemy pell- mell from the disputed point/" Then the combat broke out afresh, for the enemy, with reason, felt that chance alone had foiled them of decisive success, and despite the darkness, the fight raged with unabated fury until past midnight. Meanwhile, THE BELEAGUERED TOWN, GIRDLED WITH STEEL AND FIRE, bore herself with proud and lofty port, worthy her renown in other wars, and the fires of her ancient patriotism, quickened by the hot breath of peril, blazed forth with such surpassing bright ness as pierced the darkness of that gloomy night; nor could "the driving storm of war," which beat so pitilessly upon this heroic city for well-nigh a twelvemonth, ever quench the blaze which, even to the end, shone as a flaming beacon to the people of the vexed Commonwealth and to anxious patriots, who from afar watched the issues of the unequal contest. Her men fitted to bear arms were yonder with Lee s veterans, and now her * "Grade s brigade was promptly thrown into the <rap in the lines, and drove back the Federals, capturing from fifteen hundred to two thousand prisoners." Beauregard s MS. report, page 16. 140 MEMORIAL VOLUME. women, suddenly environed by all the dread realities of war, dis covered a constancy and heroism befiting the wives and mothers of such valiant soldiers. Some, watching in the hospitals, cheered on the convalescents, who, when the sounds of battle grew nearer, rose like faithful soldiers to join their comrades; others, hurry ing along the deserted streets, the silence of which was ever and anon sharply broken by screaming shell, streamed far out on the highways to meet the wounded and bear them to patriot homes. Nor shall we wonder at this devotion, for in the very beginning of those eventful days, these noble women, hanging for a few brief moments on the necks of gray-haired grandsires, or pressing the morther-kiss upon the brows of eager boys, had bidden them, with eyes brimming with prayerful tears, to go and serve the State upon the outer works; and surely, when thus duty and honor had weighed down the scale of natural love, they had learned, with an agony which man can never measure, that life itself must be accounted as a worthless thing when the safety of a nation is at stake. That it is no fancy picture, comrades, which I have drawn for you, is attested by that battle-tablet in old Blandford church, which records the names of the gray-haired men who fell in defence of their native town ; while, if you will pardon a personal allusion, it afterwards came to me, as a schoolmaster, to teach some of these veterans lads, who every day came to class with empty sleeves pinned across their breasts. BURNSIDE S CAPTURED DISPATCH. The battle, as we have seen, did not cease until half-past twelve on the night of the I7th, and the evacuation of the town seemed inevitable, when, by a happy accident, an officer of Burnside s staff, losing his way in the darkness, rode into the Confederate lines, bearing a dispatch from Burnside to Meade to the effect that the Ninth corps had been very roughly handled and should be promptly reinforced. This dispatch had been referred by Meade to Smith for his information, with the request that he at once reinforce Burnside with such troops as could be spared. Scarcely had Beauregard finished reading the captured missive, when a courier galloped up with a message from Hoke, stating that he had easily replused Smith s assaults and could lend a helping hand elsewhere.* But before this, Beauregard, foresee ing the rupture of his lines, as yet too extended for the strength of his command, now materially weakened by recent casualties, f * Thus incident is vouched for by two of General Beauregard s staff-officers. t Beauje.gard 3 MS. report. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON MCABE. 14! had selected a new and shorter line in rear, and shortly after the combat ceased the troops were ordered to retire upon this new position a delicate movement, considering the proximity of the enemy, yet executed rapidly and without confusion, for he had caused the line to be marked with white stakes, and required brigade and division staff officers to acquaint themselves with the positions to be occupied by their respective commands. This was the line held until the close of the defence. ASSAULTS OF THE FOURTH DAY. Grant had ordered Mcade to assault along the whole front at daylight of the i8th, but when the Federal skirmishers moved forward at that hour, it was found that the line so stoutly de fended the evening before had been abandoned by the Confede rates. This necessitated fresh dispositions, and Meade, having reconnoitred his front, now determined upon assault in column against certain selected points instead of a general attack in line, as originally intended. * At 8 _> A. M. Kershaw s division moved into position on right of the Confederate line, and at 9 o clock GEXERAL LEE RODE UPON THE FIELD. It was noon before the enemy essayed any vigorous attack, but then began a series of swift and furious assaults, continuing at intervals far into the evening from Martindale on the right, from Hancock and Burnside in the centre, from Warren on the left; but though their men advanced with spirit, cheering and at the run, and their officers displayed an astonishing hardihood, seve ral of them rushing up to within thirty yards of the adverse works, bearing the colors, yet the huge columns, rent by the plunging fire of the light guns, and smitten with a tempest of bullets, recoiled in confusion, and finally fled, leaving their dead and dying on the field along the whole front. The men of Anderson s and Hill s corps were now pouring into the Confederate works, division after division, battery after battery, and when night fell, those two grim adversaries, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, again confronted each other in array of battle, while General Grant had learned that Petersburg, as Napoleon said of Valencia, * Grant and His Campaigns, page 352. Meade s report of campaign of 13*34. 142 MEMORIAL VOLUME. In these four days of assault, from Wednesday to Saturday inclusive, the enemy confess to a loss of more than ten thousand men* a fact which attests with appalling eloquence the vigor of the defence. Sunday morning, June iQth, dawned with soft and dewy bright ness, and the Sabbath s stillness remained unbroken, save when at distant intervals a single gun boomed out from the great salients, or the rattling fire of the pickets on the river front fretted for a few brief moments the peaceful air. But it was no day of rest to the contending armies, for the Confederates were actively strengthening their crude position, while the enemy plied pick, and spade, and axe with such silent vigor, that, this comparative quiet reigning for two successive days, there arose, as if by touch of a magician s wand, a vast cordon of redoubts of powerful pro file, connected by heavy infantry parapets, stretching from the Appomattox to the extreme Federal left a line of prodigious strength, and constructed with amazing skill, destined long to remain, to the military student at least, an enduring monument of the ability of the engineers of the Army of the Potomac. This done, General Grant was now free to begin that series of attempts against Lee s communications, which, despite repeated disaster, he continued, with slight intermission, to the end. EXTENSION OF THE FEDERAL LEFT. On Tuesday, the 2ist, the Second and Sixth corps were put in motion to extend the Federal left the Second, to take position west of the Jerusalem plank-road, its right connecting with War ren s left, which rested at that point; the Sixth, to extend to the left of the Second, and, if possible, to effect a lodgment on the Weldon railroad. On the same day, Wilson, with about six thousand sabres, f consisting of his own and Kautz s divisions, was dispatched to destroy the Weldon road farther to the south, and thence, by a wide sweep to the west, to cut the Southside and Danville roads. The Second corps, now commanded by Birney for Hancock s wound, received at Gettysburg, had broken out afresh succeeded, after some sharp skirmishing with the Con federate cavalry, in taking position to the left of Warren, and the Sixth corps, moving up the same evening, established itself on a * Swinton, A. P., page 514. t Coppee (Grant and His Campaign", page 353) says "eight thousand men in all," but this seems, on investigation, an over-estimate. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 143 line in rear and parallel to the Second, its left slightly overlapp ing that corps. But the next morning the Confederate horse showed such a bold front, though twas but a scratch force with cattle like "walking trestles," that General Grant determined to suspend the movements to the railroad, and Birney was ordered "to swing forward the left of the Second corps so as to envelop the right Hank of the Confederates.* ACTION OK TWENTY-SECOND OF JUNE. This change of orders led to delay, which Lee, consummate master of that art which teaches that "offensive movements are the foundation of a good defence," was swift to improve. Riding to his right, he sent for Mahone, who, as civil engineer, had sur veyed the country and knew every inch of the ground hidden by the tangled chaparral. Few words were wasted. Mahone proposed that he be allowed to take three brigades of Anderson s old division and strike the enemy in flank. Lee assented. Pass ing his men quickly along the ravine, which screened them from the enemy s pickets, Mahone gained a point which he rightly conjectured to be beyond the hostile flank. Here, in an open field fronting the "Johnson house," he formed line of battle the brigades of Saunders and Wright in front, his own brigade, com manded by Colonel Weisiger, supporting the right, while Mcln- tosh of the artillery was directed to move with two guns in the opening on the left. Birney, meanwhile, had nearly completed his movement, which was executed without reference to the Sixth corps, and left an ever-widening gap between the two lines, as, "pivoting on his right division, under Gibbon, he swung forward his left."t Yet Mott s division had come into position on Gib bon s left, and had commenced entrenching, and Barlow was moving up to the left of Mott, when suddenly and swiftly, with a wild yell which rang out shrill and fierce through the gloomy pines, Mahone s men burst upon the flank a pealing volley, which roared along the whole front a stream of wasting fire, under which the adverse left fell as one man and the bronzed veterans swept forward, shriveling up Barlow s division as light ning shrivels the dead leaves of autumn; then, cleaving a fiery path diagonally across the enemy s front, spreading dismay and destruction, rolled up Mott s division in its turn, and without check, the woods still reverberatincf with their fierce clamor, o stormed and carried Gibbon s entrenchments and seized his guns. When night came down the victors returned to the main lines, * Swiuton, A. P., page 51-2. t Ib. 144 MEMORIAL VOLUME. guarding seventeen hundred and forty-two prisoners, and bear ing as trophies a vast quantity of small arms, four light guns,, and eight standards.* In this brilliant feat of arms, co-operation, it would appear, was expected from another quarter, but though, as Touchstone says, " there is much virtue in if," I am here to relate the actual events of the defence, rather than to speculate upon what might have been. FIRST BATTLE OF REAMS STATION. On the same day, Wilson with his cavalry struck the Weldon railroad at Reams station, destroyed the track for several miles, and then pushed westward toward the Southside road. Here, while tearing up the rails at " Blacks-and- Whites," having dis patched Kautz, meanwhile, to destroy the junction of the South- side and Danville roads at Burkeville, he was sharply assailed by W. H. F. Lee, who had followed him with his division of cavalry, and who now wrested from him the road upon which the raiders were moving. Again and again did Wilson seek to wrest it back, but Lee could not be dislodged. The combat was renewed next day, lasting from midday till dark, but at daylight of the 24th the Federal cavalry withdrew, leaving their killed and wounded on the field. f Wilson reached Meherrin station on the Danville road the same day, and Kautz having rejoined him, the two columns pushed on rapidly to Staunton River bridge. But the local militia, entrenched at that point, behaved with great firmness, and W. H. F. Lee boldly attacking, again drove the Fed erals before him until dark.J Wilson now turned to regain the lines in front of Petersburg, but his officers and men were ma rauding in a fashion which no prudent officer, on such service as his, should ever have allowed, while W. H. F. Lee hung upon his rear with an exasperating tenacity which brought delay and redoubled his difficulties. At every step, indeed, the peril thick ened, for Hampton, who had crossed the James, now came to W. H. F. Lee s help with a small body of horse, and attacking the enemy on Tuesday evening (June 28th), at Sappony church, drove him until dark, harassed him the livelong night, turned his left in the morning, and sent him helter-skelter before his horsemen. Wilson, fairly bewildered, sought to reach Reams station, * Lee s official dispatch, June 22<1, 1864. Swinton (page 512) says li two thousand five hun dred prisoners and many standards." It appears on close investigation that General Lee,, thn ujrh caution, very frequently understates, in first dispatches, the losses of the enemy. t Lee s official dispatch, June 25th, 1864. t Lee s official dispatch, June 26th, 1864. Lee s official dispatch, June 29th, 1364, 8 P. M. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 145 which he believed to be still in possession of the Federals a determination destined to be attended with irreparable disaster to him, for General Lee had dispatched thither two brigades of infantry (Finnegan s and Saunders ) under Mahone, and two light batteries (Brancler s and "the Parcel!"), under Pegram, followed by Fitz. Lee, who had just roughly handled Gregg at Nance s shop, and who now came down at a sharp trot to take part in the tumult. Wilson, reaching his objective, descried ominous clouds of dust rising on the roads by which he had hoped to win safety, but offering, in desperation, a seemingly bold front pre pared for battle. Informed by a negro, whose knowledge of the country notably expanded at sight of a six-shooter, that there was a "blind-road" leading in rear of Wilson s left, Fitz. Lee at once pushed forward with his dusky guide, and having assured himself by personal rcconnoissance of the truth of the information, quickly made his dispositions. Lomax s horsemen, dismounted, were formed across this road, with Wickham s mounted brigade in reserve, o the latter being instructed to charge so soon as Lomax had shaken the enemy. In a twinkling, as it seemed, the rattling fire of the carbines told that Lomax was hotly engaged, and on the instant the movement in front began the infantry, under Mahone, advancing swiftly across the open field, pouring in a biting volley, Pegram firing rapidly for a few moments, then limbering up and going forward at a gallop to come into battery on a line with the infantry, while Fitz. Lee, the Federals rapidly giving ground before his dismounted troopers, called up his mounted squadrons and went in with his rough stroke at a thundering pace on the enemy s left and rear.* Yor a brief space the confused combat, ever receding, went on fierce shouts of triumph mingling with the dismal cries of stricken men, ringing pistol shots, the clattering fire of cavalry carbines, the dull roar of the inms then, on a sudden, the head- *!^> long pace of " Runaway Down." The woods were now all ablaze, for Wilson had fired his trains, and the infantry and artillery, pressing forward through the stifling heat and smoke, were greeted by a sight not soon to be forgotten a score or two of Federal troopers, in gayly-trimmed jackets, lying dead upon their faces in the dusty road pistols, carbines, sabres, scattered over the ground in wildest profusion a long line of ambulances filled with wounded men, who gave vent to piteous moans a confused mass of guns, caissons, supply and ordnance wagons, dead horses, stolen vehicles of all kinds, from the won- * Fitz. Lee s MS. report. Lee s official dispatch. 146 MEMORIAL VOLUME. derful "one-horse shay" to the old family carriage, all of them crammed with books, bacon, looking-glasses and ladies wearing apparel of every description, from garments of mysterious pat tern to dresses of the finest stuff while cowering along the road side were nearly a thousand fugitive negroes, the poor creatures almost pallid with fright, the pickaninnies roaring lustily, several of the women in the pangs of childbirth. Nor was this shame ful pillage on the part of the men to be wondered at, for in the headquarter wagon of the Commanding-General was found much plunder among other articles of stolen silver a communion ser vice inscribed "Saint Joints Churchy Cumberland Parish, Lunen- bnrg."* FITZ. LEE, IN HOT PURSUIT, captured within a few miles two more light guns, and ordered the Federal artillerymen to turn them upon their flying com rades. Whether through pride in their well-known proficiency in this arm of the service, or because they were conscious of the exclusive, if not gratifying, attention of sundry lean-faced Con federates of determined aspect, I do not know, but certain is it that the cannoniers soon warmed to their work, and the gunners, stepping quickly aside to avoid the smoke, marked the success ful shots, and discovered their satisfaction by cries of approba tion to their men.f Thus Wilson, who but eight days before had crossed this road in all the pomp of war, with gaily-flaunting pennons and bur nished trappings flashing in the sun, while the earth trembled beneath the thunder of his trampling squadrons, now slunk across the Nottoway ("horses and men in a pitiable condition," says the Union historian), having abandoned to the Confederates his trains, a great quantity of valuable ordnance stores and small arms, the captured negroes, one thousand prisoners, besides his killed and wounded, and thirteen pieces of artillery. J Yet General Grant, to use his own phrase, felt "compensated," and the Confederates, forbearing to inquire too curiously into his reasons, were not dissatisfied, for the damage to the roads was soon repaired, * A list of Mic stolen silver may he found in the Richmond Examiner, July tth, 1864. In the same paper (June 27th) may be seen an official list, sent by General Lomax, of the silver found in Duster s headquarter wagon cantutvd at Trevvlian s. The silver was sent to W. H. McFarlaud, Esq., of Richmond, to be identified and reclaimed by its owners. tFitz. Lee s MS. report. Statement of Lieutenant Charles Minnigerode, A. D. C. t Lee s official dispatch, July 1st, Istu. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CAIJE. 147 AND THE CAMP WITS HAD GAINED ANOTHER JOKE the latter openly alleging that Wilson had given a striking ex ample of what is known in strategy as moving on parallel lines, for that, after eagerly tearing up the road, he had been no less eager in tearing doi^n the road. I have dwelt thus at length, comrades, on these two attempts of General Grant to extend his left and cut Lee s communica tions, because they were the first of a series of like enterprises, and illustrated fairly the repeated disaster which befell him in his efforts to reach the Confederate arteries of supply. Having made still another attempt on the 23d to extend the Sixth corps to the Weldon railroad, in which he suffered a loss of above five hundred prisoners, General Grant now sharply "re fused" his left on the Jerusalem plank-road, yet abated no whit the marvelous energy which lie had displayed since his partial investment of the town. Karly was at this time menacing Wash ington, uncovered by Hunter s extraordinary line of retreat, and thither, in obedience to urgent orders, Grant dispatched the Sixth corps. Hut, at the same time, he directed his engineers to ex amine the whole front south of the James with a view to direct assault, and pushed forward vigorously to completion his works, which when heavily armed with artillery, would be capable of as sured defence by a fraction of his preponderating force, leaving the bulk of his army available for active operations on the adverse flanks, or, should occasion offer, lor such assault as he contem plated. The latter stroke suited best the temper of the man, and the engineers reporting, after careful reconnoissance, the Bermuda Hundred front impracticable, but that held by Hurnside s corps as favoring, under certain conditions, such enterprise, he deter mined to assault from that quarter.* THE CRATER FIGHT. Burnside held an advanced position, carried in the assaults of the i/th and i8th of June by his own troops and Griffin s divi sion of Warren s corps, and had succeeded in constructing a heavy line of rifle pits scarcely more than one hundred yards distant from what was then known as the Elliott Salient. t Im mediately in rear of this advanced line the ground dipped sud denly, and broadening out into a meadow of considerable ex- * Grant s letter to Meade. Report on the Conduct of the War (18(55), volume I, page 42. t Burnside s report, August 13th, 1804. Report on the Conduct of the War (is<;r), volume I, page 151. 148 MEMORIAL VOLUME. tent, afforded an admirable position for massing a large body of troops, while working parties would be effectually screened from the observation of the Confederates holding the crest beyond.* Now, it happened that the Second division of the Ninth corps guarded this portion of the Federal front, and as early as the 24-thf of June, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants, command ing the First brigade of that division, a man of resolute energy and an accomplished mining engineer, proposed to his division commander that he be allowed to run a gallery from this hollow, AND BLOW UP THE HOSTILE SALIENT. Submitted to Burnside, the venture was approved, and at 12 o clock next day Pleasants began work, selecting for the service his own regiment, the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania, most of whom were miners from the Schuylkill region. But though Burnside approved, the Commanding-General of the Army of the Potomac and the military engineers regarded the scheme from the first with ill-concealed derision. Meade and his Chief of Engineers, Duane, declared that it was "all clap trap and nonsense" that the Confederates were certain to discover the enterprise that working parties would be smothered for lack of air or crushed by the falling earth finally, as an unanswerable argument, that a mine of such length had never been excavated in military ope rations. " I found it impossible to get assistance from anybody," says Pleasants, with an indignation almost pathetic; "I had to do all the work myself." Day after day, night after night, toiling laboriously, he came out of the bowels of the earth only to find himself in the cold shade of official indifference; yet the un daunted spirit of the man refused to yield his undertaking. Mining picks were denied him, but he straightened out his army picks and delved on; he could get no lumber for supports to his gallery, but he tore down an old bridge in rear of the lines and utilized that; barrows were wanting, in which to remove the earth taken from the mine, but he bound old cracker-boxes with hoops of iron wrenched from the pork-barrels and used them instead; above all, he needed an accurate instrument to make the necessary triangulations, and although there was a new one at army headquarters, he was forced to send to Washington for an old-fashioned theodolite, and make that answer his purpose. Despite all this and more, he persevered, working on until * Ib., page 211. t Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasants testimony. Ib., page 112. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. H9 THE BUSY HAMMERING OF THE CONFEDERATES OVERHEAD, engaged in laying platforms for their guns, assured him that he was well under the doomed salient. By July 23d the mine was finished. It consisted of a main gallery five hundred and ten and eight-tenths feet in length, with lateral galleries right and left, measuring respectively thirty-eight and thirty-seven feet, and forming the segment of a circle con cave to the Confederate lines.* From mysterious paragraphs in the Northern papers and from reports of deserters, though these last were vague and contradictor}-, Lee and Beauregard suspected that the enemy was mining in front of some one of the three salients on Beauregard s front, and the latter officer had, in con sequence, directed counter mines to be sunk from all three, mean while constructing gorge lines in rear, upon which the troops might retire in case of surprise or disaster. Batteries of eight and ten-inch and Coehorn mortars were also established to assure a cross and front fire on the threatened points. But the counter mining on part of the Confederates was after a time discontinued, owing to the lack of proper tools, the inexperience of the troops in such work, and the arduous nature of their service in the trenches, t The mine finished, official brows began to relax, and Pleasants asking for twelve thousand pounds of powder, got eight thou sand and was thankful, together with eight thousand sand bags to be used in tamping. On the 27 th July, the charge, consisting of three hundred and twenty kegs of powder, each containing twenty -five pounds, was placed in the mine, and before sunset of 28th the tamping was finished and the mine ready to be sprung. J General Grant, meanwhile, in his eagerness for the coveted prize so long denied him, resolved to tempt Fortune by a double throw, and not to stake his all upon the venture of a single cast. To this end, he dispatched, on the evening of the 26th, Han cock s corps and two divisions of horse under Sheridan to the north side of the James, with instructions to the former to move up rapidh* next day to Chaffin s and prevent reinforcements crossing from the south, while Sheridan, making a wide sweep to the right, was to attempt from the north a surprise of the thinly- garrisoned fortifications of Richmond. Meade was to spring the mine and assault from Burnside s front on the same day, General Grant stating in the telegraphic order, with * All of the foregoing statements regarding construction. &<_.. of the mine are based on. Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasauts official report, August, 1304. 1 Beauregard s MS. report of mine explosion t Pleasants official report. I5O MEMORIAL VOLUME. HIS HABITUAL RELIANCE ON SHEER WEIGHT OF NUMBERS, "Your two remaining corps, with the Eighteenth, make you relatively stronger against the enemy at Petersburg than we have been since the first day."* But the cautious Meade replied that he could not advise an assault in the absence of the Second corps, f while the rough treatment experienced by Sheridan indi cated that the Confederate capital was secure against surprise. But although the movement north of the James was not, as commonly represented, a skillful feint which deceived Lee, but a real attempt to surprise Richmond,;!; which he thwarted by con centrating heavily on his left, yet to parry the stroke the Con federate commander had been compelled so to denude the Peters burg front that there was left for its defence but four brigades of Bushrod Johnson s division and the divisions of Hoke and Ma- hone, which together with the artillery made up a force of little over thirteen thousand effective men. The conjuncture was still bright with success to the Federals, and it being now decided to spring the mine before daylight of the 3Oth, Hancock s movement was treated as a feint, and that officer was directed on the night of the 2pth to return with all secresy and dispatch to take part in the assault, while Sheridan was to pass in rear of the army, and with whole cavalry corps operate towards Petersburg from the south and west. || On the evening of the 29th, MEADE ISSUED HTS ORDERS OF BATTLE. As soon as it was dusk, Burnside was to mass his troops in front of the point to be attacked, and form them in columns of assault, taking care to remove the abatis, so that the troops could debouche rapidly, and to have his pioneers equipped for opening passages for the artillery. He was to spring the mine at 3.30 A. M., and, moving rapidly through the breach, seize the crest of Cemetery Hill, a ridge four hundred yards in rear of the Con federate lines. * Report on the Conduct of the War (18<>5), volume I, page 45. t "I canuof advise an assault with the Second corps absent. * * * It is not Mie numbers of the enemy, which oppose our taking Petersburg; it is their artillery and their works, which can b-.- held by reduced numbers against direct assault." Meade s telegram to Grant, July 26th, 18(54. t General Grant s testimony, " failing on the north bank of the river to surprise the ennmy as we expected or hoped to do." Report on the Conduct of the War (1805), volume I, page 169. { This estimate is based on the morning report of the Army of Northern Virginia, June 3(ith, ls< >4. It is, perhaps, excessive by a few hundreds. General Grant s information as to the Confederate force at Petersburg was entirely accurate. Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), volume I, page 170. 11 Swinton, A. P., page 52). ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON MCABE. 151 Ord was to mass the Eighteenth corps in rear of the Ninth, immediately follow Burnside and support him on the right. Warren was to reduce the number of men holding his front to the minimum, concentrate heavily on the right of his corps, and support Burnside on the left. Hancock was to mass the Second corps in rear of the trenches, at that time held by Ord, and be prepared to support the assault as events might dictate.* Engineer officers were detailed to accompany each corps, and the Chief Engineer was directed to park his pontoon train at a convenient point, ready to move at a moment s warning, for Meacle, having assured himself that the Confederates had no second line on Cemetery Hill, as he had formerly supposed and as Duane had positively reported,! was now sanguine of success, and made these preparations to meet the contingency of the meagre Confederate force retiring beyond the Appomattox and burning the bridges; in which event, he proposed to push imme diately across that river and Swift creek and open up communi cation with Butler at Bermuda Hundred before Eee could send any reinforcements from his five divisions north of the James. J To cover the assault, the Chief of Artillery was to concentrate a heavy fire on the Confederate batteries commanding the salient and its approaches, and to this end eighty-one heavy guns and mortars and over eight}- light guns were placed in bat tery on that immediate front. $ Burnside had urged that EERRERo s NEdRO DIVISION SHOULD LEAD THE ATTACK, declaring that it was superior in morale to the white divisions of his corps, but in this he was overruled by Mcade and Grant. || He therefore permitted the commanders of the white divisions to "draw straws" as to who should claim the perilous honor, and, Fortune favoring the Confederates, the exacting duty fell to General Ledlie, an officer unfitted by nature to conduct any enterprise requiring skill or courage. ^f This settled, Burnside, in his turn, issued his orders of assault.** Ledlie was to push through the breach straight to Cemetery Hill. * Report on the Conduct of the War (1S65), volume I, page 2*21. t It)., pages 43, 44. % Meade s testimony. Th., page 75. statement of General Hunt. Chief of Artillery, Army of Potomac. Report on the Con duct of tlie War (isi .ft), volume I, page 1S4; of Colonel H. L. Abbot. Ib., page 19S. 11 For Burnside s proposal regarding the negro troops. Ib., pages 17, IS; overruled by Meade and Grant. Ib., page 145; cf. specially. Ib. page 223. r General Grant says: "The lot happvn^d to fall on what I thought was the worst com mander in his corps." II)., page 110. See further on. ** Ib., page 243. 15 2 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Wilcox was to follow, and, after passing the breach, deploy on the left of the leading division and seize the line of the Jerusa lem plank-road. Potter was to pass to the right of Ledlie and protect his flank, while Fen-crcfs negro division, should Ledlie effect a lodgment on Cemetery Hill, was to push beyond that point and immediately assault the tow)i. Long before dawn of the 3Oth, the troops were in position, and .at half-past three, punctually to the minute, the mine was fired. THEN THE NEWS PASSED SWIFTLY DOWN THE LINES, and the dark columns, standing in serried masses, awaited in dread suspense the signal knowing that death awaited many on yonder crest, yet not animated by the stern joy of coming fight, nor yet resolved that though death stalked forth with horrid mien from the dreadful breach, it should be but to greet Victory. Minute followed minute of anxious waiting a trial to even the most determined veterans and now THE EAST WAS STREAKED WITH GRAY, yet the tender beauty of the dim tranquility remained unvexed of any sound of war, save one might hear a low hum amid the darkling swarm as grew the wonder at delay. Nor was the cause of hindrance easy to ascertain; for should it prove that the fuse was still alight, burning but slowly, to enter the mine was certain death. Thus time dragged slowly on, telegram upon telegram of inquiry meanwhile pouring in from Meade, who, unmindful of the dictum of Napoleon, that "in assaults a general should be with his troops," had fixed his headquarters full a mile away.* But these were all unheeded, for Burnside knew not what to answer. Then it was that two brave men, whose names should be men tioned with respect wherever courage is honored, Lieutenant Jacob Douty and Sergeant Henry Rees, both of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania, volunteered for the perilous service and entered the mine. Crawling on their hands and knees, groping in utter darkness, they found that the fuse had gone out about fifty feet from the mouth of the main gallery, relighted it and retired. "In eleven minutes now the mine will explode," Pleasants re ports to Burnside at thirty-three minutes past four, and a small * Meade s own statement. Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), volume I, page 72. . Cf. also General Warren s statement. Ib., page 169. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 153 group of officers of the Forty-eighth, standing upon the slope of the main parapets, anxiously await the result. " It lacks a minute yet," says Pleasants, looking at his watch. " Not a second," cried Douty,* "FOR THERE SHE GOES." A slight tremor of the earth for a second, then the rocking as of an earthquake, and with a tremendous burst which rent the sleeping hills beyond, a vast column of earth and smoke shoots upward to a great height, its dark sides flashing out sparks of fire, hangs poised for a moment in mid-air, and then hurtling downward with a roaring sound showers of stones, broken tim bers, and blackened human limbs, subsides the gloomy pall of darkening smoke flushing to an angry crimson as it floats away to meet the morning sun. PLEASAXTS HAS DONE HIS WORK WITH TERRIBLE COMPLETENESS, for now the site of the Elliott Salient is marked by a horrid chasm, one hundred and thirty-five feet in length, ninety-seven feet in breadth and thirty feet deep, and its brave garrison, all asleep, save the guards, when thus surprised by sudden death, lie buried beneath the jagged blocks of blackened clay in all, two hundred and fifty-six officers and men of the Eighteenth and Twenty-second South Carolina two officers and twenty men of Pegram s Petersburg battery. t The dread upheaval has rent in twain Elliott s brigade, and the men to the right and left of the huge abyss recoil in terror and dismay. Nor shall we censure them, for so terrible was the explosion that even the assaulting column shrank back aghast, and nearly ten minutes elapsed ere it could be reformed. J NOW A STORM OF FIRE bursts in red fury from the Eederal front, and in an instant all the valley between the hostile lines lies shrouded in billowing smoke. Then Marshall, putting himself at the head of the stormers, sword in hand, bids his men to follow. But there comes no response befitting the stern grandeur of the scene no trampling charge no rolling drums of Austerlitz no fierce shouts of warlike joy as burst from the men of the * Grant and His Campaigns, page 369. t Beauregard s MS. report of mine explosion; Lieutenant-Colonel Loring s statement. i Statement of General O. 15. Wilcox, V. S. A. Report on the Conduct of the War (IS65), volume I, page 79; Burnside s testimony. Ib., page 147. I I 154 MEMORIAL VOLUME. "Light Division" when they mounted the breach of Badajos, or from Frazer s " Royals" as they crowned the crimson slopes of Saint Sebastian. No, none of this is here. But a straggling line of the men of the Second brigade, First division, uttering a mechanical cheer, slowly mounts the crest, passes unmolested across the inter vening space,* and true to the instinct fostered by long service in the trenches, plunges into the Crater, courting the friendly shelter of its crumbling sides. Yonder lies Cemetery Hill in plain view, naked of men,t and, hard beyond, the brave old town, nestling whitely in its wealth of green. Silence still reigned along the Confederate lines, yet Ledlie s men did not advance, and now the supporting brigade of the same division running forward over the crest, and with an in credible folly crowding in upon their comrades, already huddled together in the shelving pit, all regimental and company organi zation was lost, and the men speedily passed from the control of their officers. J If we except Elliott, who with the remnant of his brigade was occupying the ravine to the left and rear of the Crater, no officer of rank was present on the Confederate side to assume imme diate direction of affairs, and a considerable time elapsed before Beauregard and Lee both beyond the Appomattox were in formed by Colonel Paul, of Beauregard s staff, of the nature and locality of the disaster. But almost on the moment, JOHN HASKELL, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, a glorious young battalion commander, whose name will be for ever associated with the artillery corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, galloped to the front, followed by two light batteries, and having disposed these pieces along the Plank road, and opened Planner s light guns from the Gee house, passed to his left to speak a word of cheery commendation to Lampkin of his battalion, who was already annoying the swarming masses of the enemy with his Virginia battery of eight-inch mortars. Passing through the covered way, Haskell sought Elliott, and pointing out to him the defenceless position of the guns on the Plank * Grant, Meade, Potter, Duane and others testify to this effect. Ib. page.-? 36, 87, 110, 116. t Statement of Captain P. U. Farquhar, United States Engineers: "There was not a soul between the Crater and that position, and I believe that position was the objective point of the assault." Ib. page 211 ; cf. testimony of other officers. Ib. i See testimony of General Grant. Ib., paire 110; Meade, page 36; Pleasants, page 116. As regards the men passing from control of their officers, see statement of Lieutenant- Colanel Loring. Ib., page 92 ; General Hartranf t, page 190. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 155 roacl, urged him to make such dispositions as would afford them protection. Essaying this, Elliott sprang forward, followed by a mere handful of brave fellows, but almost on the instant fell stricken by a grievous hurt and was borne from his last field of battle. The fire of the enemy s artillery was now very severe, owing to their superior weight of metal, and the guns on the Plank road, exposed in addition to the fire of sharpshooters, were suf fering such loss that it was determined to retire all but six pieces, and, as the situation seemed rather hopeless, to call for volun teers to man these. To Haskell s proud delight, every gun detachment volunteered to remain. Xor did the artillery to the right and left fail to bear them selves with the resolution of men conscious that, for the time, the hope of the army was centred in their steadiness, and that THEIR (IL NS ALONE BARRED THE ROAD TO PETERSr,L"R( I ; for, let me repeat, Cemetery Mill was naked of men. The offi cers of one batten , indeed, misbehaved, but these were promptly spurned aside, and the very spot of their defection made glorious by the heroic conduct of Hampton Gibbs, of the artillery, and Sam Preston, of Wise s brigade, both of whom fell desperately wounded while spurring hard from the hospital, with the fever still upon him, came Mampden Chamberlayne, a young artillery officer of Hill s corps, who so handled these abandoned guns that from that day the battery bore his name, and he wore another bar upon his collar.* Frank linger, who, like "Edward Freer of the Forty-third," had "seen more combats than he could count years," was, as always, to the fore, working as a simple cannonier at his heated Napoleons, cheering and encouraging his men by joyful voice and valiant example. Wright, of Halifax, opened too a withering fire from his light guns posted on a hill to the left, nor could he be silenced by the enemy s batteries, for his front was covered by a heavy fringe of pines;"*" and now the eight-inch mortars in rear of Wright, and Eanghorne s ten-inch mortars, from the Baxter road, took part in the dreadful chorus. On the Federal side, Griffin of Potter s division, not waiting for Wilcox, pushed forward his brigade, and gained ground to * As regards the execution of Chamberlayne s trims, see especially statement of General Warren. Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), volume I, page 166; General Hunt, pages 93, 184; Uuane, page loo ; and others. For general efficiency of the artillery lire see Meade s report, August lt>th, ls>(34. Ib., page 31 ; Colonel Loring s statement. Ib., page 95; General Potter, page 177. t Statement of General Potter. It)., page ST. Cf. statement of other Federal officers. Ib. 156 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the north of the Crater, and Bliss brigade of* the same division, coming to his support, still further ground was gained in that direction.* But his leading regiments, deflected by the hostile fire, bore to their left, and mingling with Ledlie s men swarming along the sides of the great pit, added to the confusion. Wilcox now threw forward a portion of his division and succeeded in occupying about one hundred and fifty yards of the works south of the Crater, but estopped by the fire of Chamberlayne s guns, and, whenever occasion offered, by the fire of the infantry, his men on the exposed flank gave ground, and pushing the right regiments into the Crater, the confusion grew worse confounded. Some of the men, indeed, from fear of suffocation, had already emerged from the pit and spread themselves to the right and left, but this was a matter of danger and difficulty, for the ground was scored with covered-ways and traverses, honey-combed with bomb-proofs, and swept by the artillery. Others of them pressed forward and got into the ditch of the unfinished gorge lines, while not a few, creeping along the glacis of the exterior line, made their way over the parapet into the main trench. In all this, there was much hand-to-hand fighting, for many men be longing to the dismembered brigade still found shelter behind the traverses and bomb-proofs, and did not easily yield. f Meanwhile, General Meade, "GROPING IN THE DARK," to use his own phrase, J sent telegram upon telegram to Burnside to know how fared the day, but received answer to none. At fifteen minutes to six, however, one hour after Ledlie s men had occupied the breach, an orderly delivered to him a note in pencil, written from the Crater by Colonel Loring, Inspector-General of the Ninth corps, and addressed to General Burnside. This was Meade s first information from the front and was little cheering, for Loring stated briefly that Ledlie s men were in confusion and would not go forward. Ord was now directed to push forward the Eighteenth corps, and the following dispatch was sent to Burnside: Burnside s official report, August 13th, 1864. Colonel Bliss, commanding First brigade, Second division, "remained behind with the only regiment of his brigade which did not go forward according to orders." Opinion of the Court of Inquiry Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), volume I, page 217. t For all statements in above paragraph, cf. Report on the Conduct of the War (1863), vol ume I, pages 21, 92, 94, 96, 121, 157, 177, 201. t "I have been groping in the dark since the commencement of the attack." Meade Ib., page 71. 5 Ib., page 53. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. I5/ HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, July 30th, 1864, 6 A. M. Major-General Burnside Prisoners taken say that there is no line in their rear, and that their men were falling back when ours advanced; that none of their troops have returned from the James. Our chance is now. Push your men forward at all hazards, white and black, and don t lose time in making forma tions, but rush for the crest. GEORGE G. MEADE, J\Iajor- General Commanding. But Orel could not advance, for the narrow debouches were still choked up by the men of the Ninth corps and by the wounded borne from the front, and although Burnside promptly trans mitted the order to his subordinates, the troops in rear moved with reluctant step, while no general of division was present with those in front to urge them forward.* Again did Meade telegraph to Burnside: " Every moment is most precious; the enemy are undoubtedly concentrating to meet you on the crest." But not until twenty minutes past seven did he receive a reply, and then briefly to the effect that Burnside "hoped to carry the crest, but it was hard work." Then Meade s patience seems fairly to have broken down. "What do you mean by hard work to take the crest?" he asks, " I understand not a man has advanced beyond the enemy s line which you occupied immediately after exploding the mine. Do you mean to say your officers and men will not obey your orders to advance? If not, what is the obstacle? I wish to know the truth, and desire an immediate answer. "GEORGE G. MEADE, ]\Iajor-Gcncral" To which Burnside, in hot wrath, straight-way replied: HEADQUARTERS XINTH CORPS. 7.35 A. M. General Mcade Your dispatch by Captain Jay received. The main body of General Potter s division is beyond the Crater. I do not mean to say that my officers and men will not obey my orders to advance. I mean to say that it is very hard to advance to the crest. I have never in any report said anything * See testimony of General Ord. Tb. pages 172, 173; General Grant, page 110; cf. also, Ib., pages 197, 210. For state of debouches, see Orel s official report, August 3, lbt>4. Ib., page lol. 158 MEMORIAL VOLUME. different from what I conceived to be the truth. Were it not insubordinate, I would say that the latter remark of your note was unofficerlike and ungentlemanly. A. E. BURNSIDE, Major-General. Griffin, it is true, in obedience to orders to advance straight for Cemetery Hill, had during this time attempted several charges from his position north of the Crater, but his men displayed little spirit, and, breaking speedily under the fire of the artillery sought their old shelter behind the traverses and covered ways.* The rest of Potter s division moved out but slowly, anal it was fully eight o clockf more than three hours after the explosion when Ferrero s negro division, the men beyond question inflamed with drink, J burst from the advanced lines, cheering vehemently,, passed at a double-quick over the crest under a heavy fire, and rushing with scarce a check over the heads of the white troops in the Crater, spread to their right, capturing more than two hundred prisoners and one stand of colors. At the same moment, Turner, of the Tenth corps, pushed forward a brigade over the Ninth corps parapets, seized the Confederate line still further to the north, and quickly disposed the remaining brigades of his division to confirm his success. || NOW WAS THE CRISIS OF THE DAY, and fortunate was it for maiden and matron of Petersburg, that even at this moment there was filing into the ravine between Cemetery Hill and the drunken battalions of Ferrero, a stern array of silent men, clad in faded gray, resolved with grim re solve to avert from the mother town a fate as dreadful as that which marked the three days sack of Badajos. Lee, informed of the disaster at 6.10 A. M.,T had bidden his aid, Colonel Charles Venable, to ride quickly to the right of the army and bring up two brigades of Anderson s old division, com manded by Mahone, for time was too precious to observe military etiquette and send the orders through Hill. Shortly after, the * Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), volume I, pages 9G, 228 (Meade s dispatch, 8 A. M. July 30th). t Ib., pages 103, 195, 196. % There are many living officers and men. myself among the number, who will testify to this. Ib., pages 96, 109. I! General Turner s statement. Ib., page 121. y The hour is taken from the note-book of the staff-officer who delivered the message from Beauregard to Lee, and who noted the exact time at the moment. This note-book was kindly placed at rny disposal. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN \V. GORDON M CAI5E. 159 General-in-Chief reached the front in person, and all men took heart when they descried the grave and gracious face, and " Trav eler" stepping proudly, as if conscious that he bore upon his back the weight of a nation. Beauregard was already at the Gee house, a commanding position five hundred yards in rear of the Crater, and Hill had galloped to the right to organize an attacking column,* and had ordered down Pegram.and even now the light batteries of Grander and Ellett were rattling through the town at a sharp trot, with cannoniers mounted, the sweet, serene face of their boy-colonel lit up with that glow which to his men meant hotly-impending fight. Venable had sped upon his mission, and found MAHONE S MEN ALREADY STANDING TO THEIR ARMS; but the Federals, from their loft} "look-outs," were busily inter changing signals, and to uncover such a length of front without exciting observation, demanded the nicest precaution. Yet was this difficult} overcome by a simple device, for the men being ordered to drop back one by one, as if going for water, obeyed with such intelligence that Warren continued to report to Aleade that not a man had left his front, t Then forming in the ravine in rear, the men of the Virginia and Georgia brigades came pressing down the Valley with swift, swinging stride not with the discontented bearing of soldiers whose discipline alone carries them to what they feel to be a scene of fruitless sacrifice, but with the glad alacrity and a< r L r res- o J o o sive ardor of men impatient for battle, and who, from long know ledge of war, are conscious that Fortune has placed within their grasp an opportunity which, by the magic touch of veteran steel, may be transformed to "swift-winged victory." Halting for a moment in rear of the " Ragland house," Mahone bade his men strip off blankets and knapsacks and prepare for battle. Then riding quickly to the front, while the troops marched in single file along the covered-way, he drew rein at Bushrocl John son s headquarters, and reported in person to Beauregard. In formed that Johnson would assist in the attack with the outlying troops about the Crater, he rode still further to the front, dis- * Statement of Lieutenant-Colonel \V. II. Palmer, chief-of-staff to General Hill. t The device was. of course, Mahone s. General Meade says : Generals Hancock and War ren "sent me reports that the enemy s lines in their front were strongly held, * * * tJmf tJ/e enemy Jiad sent av-rtu none f tl,,-ii- tr<i<>)< in their front, and it was impossible to do any thing there." Report on the Conduct of the War (1363), volume I, page 7. General Warren appears to have been hard to convince, for as iHte as December 20th, 1S04, he testifies that he is "quite well satisfied that they (the enemy in his immediate front) did not take part in the attack. Ib., page 82. l6o MEMORIAL VOLUME. mounted, and pushing along the covered-way from the Plank road, came out into the ravine, in which he afterwards formed his men. Mounting the embankment at the head of the covered- way, he descried within one hundred and sixty yards A FOREST OF GLITTERING BAYONETS, and beyond, floating proudly from the captured works, eleven Union flags. Estimating rapidly from the hostile colors the probable force in his front, he at once dispatched his courier to bring up the Alabama brigade from the right,* assuming thereby a grave responsibility, yet was the wisdom of the decision vindi cated by the event. Scarcely had the order been given, when the head of the Vir ginia brigade began to debouch from the covered-way. Directing Colonel Weisiger, its commanding officer, to file to the right and form line of battle, Mahone stood at the angle, speaking quietly and cheerily to the men. Silently and quickly they moved out, and formed with that precision dear to every soldier s eye the Sharpshooters leading, followed by the Sixth, Sixteenth, Sixty- first, Forty-first and Twelfth Virginiaf the men of Second Manassas and Crampton s Gap! But one caution was given to reserve their fire until they reached the brink of the ditch ; but one exhortation, that they were counted on to do this work, and do it quickly. Now the leading regiment of the Georgia brigade began to move out, when suddenly a brave Federal officer, seizing the colors, called on his men to charge. Descrying this hostile movement on the instant, Weisiger, a veteran of stern counte nance which did not belie the personal intrepidity of the man,| uttered to the Virginians the single word * This was "Jimmy Blakemore," well known in the Army of Northern Virginia as one of the most gallant lads in the service. In critical events Mahone would entrust to him the most important messages, and in no instance did he fail him. t The Virginia brigade moved up left in front, which accounts for the order of the regi ments. Before moving out of the covered-way, each regiment was counter-marched on its own ground. Singularly enough, the enwmy also moved forward left in front. Cf. Report on the Conduct of the War, "page 193. t "Captain Ilinton came up and reported that he ha 1 rep >rt"d to General Mahone as di rected, who said that I must await orders from him or Captain Girardey (who was then acting on Mahone s stall ). A few moments lat.er Girardey came up to us. Just at that time I saw a Federal officer leap from the works with a stand of colors in his hand, and at least lifty or more men with him, as I supposed purposing to charge us. I repeated my orders to Girardey and told him that if we did not move forward promptly all would be lost. He agreed with me, and I then requested him to report to Mahone the circumstances and that, I had moved forward. I then gave the command, Attention, Forward.** The men sprang to their feet and moved forward at a double-quick, reserving their lire, as ordered, until within a few feet of the enemy, when they delivered a galling lire and then used the bayonet freely." MS. report of Brigadier-Genera] D. A. Weisiger. statement of Captain D. A. Hinton, A. D. C., Adjutant Hugh Smith and others officers. General S G. Griffin, U. S. Volunteers, says : " The Rebels made a very desperate attack at this time." Report on the Conduct of War (18(55), volume I, page 1SS. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN \V. GORDON M*CABE. l6l FORWARD. Then the Sharpshooters and the men of the Sixth on the right, running swiftly forward, for theirs was the greater distance to traverse, the whole line sprang along the crest, and there burst from more than eight hundred warlike voices that fierce yell which no man ever yet heard unmoved on field of battle. Storms of caseshot from the right mingled with the tempest of bullets which smote upon them from the front, yet was there no answering volley, for these were veterans, whose fiery enthusiasm had been wrought to a finer temper by the stern code of discip line, and even in the tumult the men did not forget their orders. Still pressing forward with steady fury, while the enemy, appalled by the inexorable advance, gave ground, they reached the ditch of the inner works THEN ONE VOLLEY CRASHED FROM THE WHOLE LINE, and the Sixth and Sixteenth, with the Sharpshooters, clutching their empty guns and redoubling their fierce cries, leaped over the retrenched-cavalier, and all down the line the dreadful work of the bayonet began. How long it lasted none may say with certainty, for in those fierce moments no man heeded time, no man asked, no man gave quarter; but in an incredibly brief space, as seemed to those who looked on, the whole of the advanced line north of the Crater was retaken, the enemy in headlong flight,* while the tattered battle-flags planted along the parapets from left to right, told Lee at the Gee house that from this nettle danger, valor had plucked the flower, safety for an army. Redoubling the sharpshooters on his right, Mahone kept down all fire from the Crater, the vast rim of which frowned down upon the lower line occupied by his troops. And now the scene within the horrid pit was such as might be fitly portrayed only by the pencil of Dante after he had trod *Ib., pages 21, 121, 20S. General Ayres, U. S. Volunteers, says : " I saw the negroes coming hack to the rear like a sand-slide." Ib., page 165. General Ferrero, the commander of the negro division, who was censured by the Court of Inquiry (Ib., page 21<>) for "being in a bomb-proof habitually " on this day, also testifies emphatically to the disorderly flight, but scarcely much weight can be attached tu his statements unless corroborated by others. On August 31, 1S64, excusing the behavior of his troops, he testifies: "I would add that my troops are raw troops, and never had been drilled two weeks from the day tir- y entered the service till that day. Ib.,-page 1S1. On December 20th, 1S64. he testifies : (my troops) "were in fine condition better than any other troops in the army for that purpose . We wen* ex pecting to make this assault, and had drilled for u-eek* and were in good trim for it." Ib., page loi;. Perhaps his excuse for this discrepancy of statement may be that of the notorious Trenck of the life Guards, who, when reproached for his mendacity about the battle of Sohr, cried out: How could I help mistakes ? I had nothing but my poor agitated memory to trust to." Carlyle s Friedrich, volume VI, page 97. 1 62 MEMORIAL VOLUME. "nine-circled Hell." From the great mortars to the right and left, huge missiles, describing graceful curves, fell at regular in tervals with dreadful accuaracy and burst among the helpless masses huddled together, and every explosion was followed by piteous cries, and often-times the very air seemed darkened by flying human limbs. Haskell, too, had moved up his Eprouvette mortars among the men of the Sixteenth Virginia so close, in deed, that his powder-charge was but one ounce and a half and, without intermission, the storm of fire beat upon the hapless men imprisoned within. Mahone s men watched with great interest this easy method of reaching troops behind cover, and then, with the imitative inge nuity of soldiers, gleefully gathered up the countless muskets with bayonets fixed, which had been abandoned by the enemy, and propelled them with such nice skill that they came down- upon Ledlie s men "like the rain of the Norman arrows at Hastings." At half-past ten, the Georgia brigade advanced and attempted to dislodge Wilcox s men, who still held a portion of the lines south of the Crater, but so closely was every inch of the ground searched by artillery, so biting was the fire of musketry, that, obliquing to their left, they sought cover behind the cavalier- trench won by the Virginia brigade many officers and men tes tifying by their blood how gallantly the venture had been essayed. Half an hour later, the Alabamians under Saunders arrived, but further attack was postponed until after I P. M., in order to arrange for co-operation from Colquitt on the right. Sharply to the minute agreed upon, the assaulting line moved forward, and with such astonishing rapidity did these glorious soldiers rush across the intervening space that ere their first wild cries sub sided, their battle-flags had crowned the works.* The Confede rate batteries were now ordered to cease firing, and forty volun teers were called for to assault the Crater, but so many of the Alabamians offered themselves for the service, that the ordinary system of detail was necessary. Happily, before the assaulting party could be formed, a white handkerchief, made fast to a ram rod, was projected above the edge of the Crater, and, after a brief pause, a motley mass of prisoners poured over the side and ran for their lives to the rear. * After the recovery of the lines north of the Crater, Meacle determined to withdraw all his troops. The order was given at <).HO A. M., but Burn.side was authorized to use his dis cretion as to the exact hour, and it was nearly 12 M. before the order was sent into the Cra ter. Of course, no one knew this on the Confederate side, and the fact can in no way detract from the splendid conduct of the Alabamlans, but it accounts in great measure for the slight resistance they encountered. See Report on Conduct of the War (isr>5), volume I, pages 58, 157. General Hartranft s statement is very naive as to the conclusion he reached when he saw the Alabamians rushing forward with their wild cries: "This assaulting column of the enemy came up, and we concluded General Griffin and myself Ma? there was no use in hold ing it (the Crater) any longer, and so we retired." Ib., page 190. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN \V. GORDON M CAIJE. 163 In this grand assault on Lee s lines, for which Meade had massed sixty-five thousand* troops, the enemy suffered a loss of above five thousand men, including eleven hundred and one pris oners among whom were two brigade commandersf, while vast quantities of small arms and twenty-one standards fell into the hands of the victors. J Yet many brave men perished on the Confederate side. El liott s brigade lost severely in killed and prisoners. The Virginia brigade, too, paid the price which glory ever exacts. The Sixth carried in ninety-eight men and lost eigthy-eight, one company "the dandies," of course "Old Company F" of Norfolk, losing every man killed or wounded. Scarely less was the loss in other regiments. The Sharpshooters carried in eighty men and lost sixty-four among the slain their commander, William Broadbent, a man of prodigious strength and activity, who, leap ing first over the works, fell pierced by eleven bayonet rounds a simple captain, of whom we may say, as was said of Ridge: "No man died that da}- with more glory, yet many died and there was much glory." Such was the battle of the Crater, which excited the liveliest satisfaction throughout the army and the country. Mahone was created Major-General from that date; \Yeisiger, who was wounded, Brigadier-General; Captain Girardcy, of Mahonc s staff, also Brigadier the latter an extraordinary but just promotion, for he was a young officer whose talents and decisive vigor quali fied him to conduct enterprises of the highest moment; yet fate willed that his career should be brief, for within a fortnight he fell in battle north of the James, his death dimming the joy of victory. On the Federal side, crimination and recrimination followed what General Grant styled "this miserable failure." There was a Court of Inquiry, and a vast array of drsmal testimony, which disclosed the fact that of four generals of division belonging to *" General Burnside s corps, of fifteen thousand men, was * * * to rush through and pet on the crest beyond. I prepared a force of from forty thousand to fifty thousand men to take advantage of our success gained by General Burnside s corps." Meade Ib., page 37. tOne of these brigade commanders was that knightly soldier, General Francis W. Bartlett, whose death, since the delivery of this address, has been as sincerely mourned in Virginia as in Massachusetts. t After carefully analyzing all the Federal reports, General Mahone put the loss of the enemy at five thousand two hundred and forty ; Cannon (Grant s Campaign against Rich mond, page 245) at five thousand six hundred and forty ; General Meade (Report of August 16th, 1S04) puts loss at four thousand and four hundred in A. P. and Eighteenth corps, but does not give loss in Turner s division, Tenth corps. Company K, Sixth Virginia, carried in sixteen men ; eight were killed outright and seven wounded. The small number of men carried into the fight by the sixth is explained r>y the fact that quite half the regiment was on picket on the old front (.on the right), ami could not be withdrawn. The Forty-first Virginia lost one-fourth its number; the Sixty-first inthin-a fraction of half its number. The loss in the Sixteenth was nearly as great a* in the Sixth pro portionally, but I have been unable to get the exact figures in that regiment and in the Twelfth. 164 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the assaulting corps, not one Jiad followed his men into the Con federate lines.* Nay, that the very commander of the storming division, finding, like honest Nym, "the humor of the breach too hot," was at the crisis of the fight palpitating in a bomb-proof, beguiling a Michigan surgeon into giving him a drink of rum, on the plea that " he had the malaria, and had been struck by a spent ball"t legends of a hoary antiquity, whereof, let us humbly confess, we ourselves have heard. Three weeks of comparative quiet followed along the Peters burg front, yet during this time many brave men fell unnoticed in the trenches, for there was no change in the proximity of the hostile lines, and the dropping fire of the pickets by day, and fiery curves of mortar-shell by night, told that the portentous game of war still went on. Never was the Army of Northern Virginia more defiant in its bearing never more confident in the genius of its leader. De serters pouring into our lines brought consistent reports of the demoralization of the enemy gold rose to 2.90, the highest point it touched during the war while from the west and certain States in the North the clamors for peace redoubled, the New York Herald being loudest in demanding that an embassy be sent to Richmond, " in order to see if this dreadful war cannot be ended in a mutually satisfactory treaty of peace." J "An army," says the great Frederick, "moves upon its belly," and I am not prepared to say that the jaunty bearing of Lee s men, as "shrewdly out of beef" at this time as ever were the English at Agincourt, was not due in a measure to the fact that just then their eyes were gladdened by droves of fat cattle sent them by an old comrade Lieutenant-General Jubal Early, who, without the trifling formality of a commission from Governor Curtain, had assumed the duties of Acting Commissary-General of the rich Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We have seen that shortly after Grant s arrival in front of Petersburg, there was open to him "a swarm of fair advantages," for his superb line of formidable redoubts, capable of assured General Grant s statement. Report on the Conduct of War (1S65), volume I, page 110. See also finding of Court of Inquiry Ib., page 216. t The testimony of Surgeon O. P. Chubb, Twentieth Michigan (Ib., page 191), and of Sur geon H. E. Smith, Twenty-seventh Michigan (Ib., page 20(5), is cerminly very lively reading. Surgeon Smith is unable to say how of ten the doughty warriors, Ledlie a ad Ferrero, "smiled " at each other, for I was not in the bomb-proof all the while that they were there. It was perfectly safe in there, but it might not have been outside. 1 had to go out to look after the wounded." Ib., page 207. i 1 have collected a great number of sush excerpts fmm leading Northern and Western Eapers (18(>4), as being not without significance. Certainly no sucti utterances would have een tolerated in 18(51-62. Later (September 16th, 184), Hampton made his brilliant "cattle raid," in rear of the Army of the Potomac, in which he intlirt -d considerable loss on the enemy in killed and wounded, and brought off above three hundred prisoners and two thousand live hundred beeves. Lee s official dispatch. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN \V. GORDON M CABE. 165 defence by a fraction of his force, made it possible for him to operate on either Confederate flank with the bulk of his army, or, should the conjuncture favor, to assault in front. But now, tenacious of purpose as was the Union General, he had, according to his own explicit testimony,* satisfied himself that an attack on Richmond from the north side would be attended with frightful loss of life he had just received humili ating proof that Lee s front could not be shaken by mining or assault and thenceforward the campaign narrowed itself to a continuous effort to turn the Confederate right and cut Lee s com munications a series of rough strokes parried with infinite skill, although at times the "Thor-hammer" beat down the guard of the slender rapier, which so often pierced the joints of the giant armor. By the end of August, Grant was firmly established across the Weldon road a line of communication important, indeed, to Lee, but not absolutely necessary. Yet was it not yielded with out much desperate fighting, as was witnessed by the sharp "affair" of August 1 8th, favorable to the Confederates, who were commanded by General Harry Heth; by the brilliant action of August iQth, in which the troops were immediately commanded by Heth and Mahone (the brunt of the fighting falling on Heth s division and Pegram s artillery), and in which the enemy sustained a loss of many standards and above twenty-seven hundred pris oners ; by the battle of August 2ist, in which Mahone failed to dislodge the enemy, for, attacking with six small brigades, and twelve guns under Pegram, he encountered, instead of the weak flank his scouts had led him to expect, a heavily-entrenched front manned by an army corps, the approaches to which were swept by a powerful artillery ;f finally, by THE BATTLE OF REAMS STATION, August 25th, in which twelve stands of colors, nine pieces of artillery, ten caissons, twenty-one hundred and fifty prisoners, and thirty-one hundred stands of small arms fell into the hands of the victors, who suffered a total loss of but seven hundred and twenty men.J This brilliant stroke was delivered by Heth, under the immediate eye of A. P. Hill, and was mainly due to the steadiness of the North Carolina troops, for these constituted * Report on Conduct of the War (1865), volume I, page 110. t In this action the gallant Sauuders, who led the Alabamians at the Crater, was killed. Immediately on the repulse of the first attack, Mahoiie carefully reconnoitred, under sharp fire, the whole front, and told General Lee that with two more brigades he would pledge him self to dislodge Warren before nightfall. The division from which Lee at once consented to draw the additional support arrived too late to make the projected attack advisable. I A. P. Hill s official report. 1 66 MEMORIAL VOLUME. nearly the whole of the assaulting column, and the first colors planted on the hostile works were borne by Sergeant Roscoe Rich ards, Twenty-seventh North Carolina, Cooke s brigade, Heth s division. General Lee, writing to Governor Vance under date of August 29th, says: "I have been frequently called upon to men tion the services of North Carolina troops in this army, but their gallantry and conduct were never more deserving of admiration than in the engagement at Reams Station on the 25th instant." Heth, with a generosity as characteristic of the man as his taci turn pluck, declared that he did not believe that the works would have been " practicable" for any troops, had not Pegram first shaken the position by the terrific fire of his guns, and surely, so long as there is left a survivor of that memorable day, the superb conduct of the cavalry is not likely to be forgotten. Lee, who weighed his words if ever general did, bears emphatic testimony to their gallantry in his official dispatch, and states that Hampton " contributed largely to the successs of the day."* In these four engagements the enemy acknowledge a loss of above seven thousand men, and there is reason to believe that the occupation of the Weldon road during this month cost them between eight and nine thousand men. The Confederate loss was not above one-fourth that number. f Then followed the severe combats of September 3<Dth and Oc tober ist known as the "Battles of the Jones House," in which the enemy again lost heavily in prisoners^ after which suc ceeded a period of quiet, broken by several minor "affairs" brought on by continuous extension of the Federal left. The Presidential election in the North was now near at hand, and before settling down into winter quarters, General Grant deter mined to make one more vigorous effort to turn Lee s right, seize the Southside road, and compel the evacuation of Petersburg. For this purpose the Federal commander concentrated on his left the greater portion of three army corps,|| and on October 2 ^th was fought * Lee s official dispatch, August 26th, 1864. t This estimate is based on a careful collation of Federal and Confederate reports. * General Cadmus Wiloox, in his report, says the enemy s loss on September 30th was "over three hundred and fifty killed and about two thousand prisoners." On October 1st, in his front, " the Federal line was captured with three hundred prisoners." " My entire loss," he adds, "was two hundred and eighty-five; of this number only fifty-nine were killed. In Heth s brigades it was probably less." Transactions of Southern Historical Society, April, 1875. Swinton (A. P., page 539) puts the Federal loss " above twenty-five hundred." 5 Mr. Edward Lee Childe, usually well informed, makes a curious blunder on this point. He says: "Grant ytenait d autant plus qne l 61ect!on presidentielle approcha t, et que sea chances comme candidat augrnenterait si le succes le designait a, 1 admiration de ses con- citoyens." Le General Lee, Sa Vie et ses Campagnes, page 327. Following Swinton (A. P., page 543), he represents I.ce as present wn the fii-ld. At the time of the action L>e was north of the James. Nor was Hill on the field, as Swinton and Childe renr.-sent. Both largely overstate the numbers concentrated on the Confederate side during the night. fl Swinton, A. P., page 540. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CAI .K. l6/ THE 1JATTLE OF HATCHERS RUN, an action so confused by reason of the heavily wooded character of the country, that it would be impossible for you to follow the details without the aid of a map, so I must content myself with stating 1 simply that the attempt failed; not forgetting the caution to you, however, that so far as concerns the conduct of affairs, and the numbers engaged on the Confederate side, Mr. Swinton s narrative is a very fallacious guide. Once more, Air. Stanton, who had long preserved silence, ap peared to chronicle victory, and gold, which ever sympathizes with success, rose from 2.i8lj to 2.41 within ten days to 2.57. Xor shall we judge him harshly in this instance, for his bulletin was based upon the following dispatch: CITY POINT, October 27, .> P. M. I have just returned from the crossing of the Boydton plank- road with I latcher s creek. At every point the enemy was found entrenched and his works manned. No attack was made during the day further than to drive the pickets and cavalry inside the main works. Our casualties have been light probably less than two hundred. The same is probably true of the enemy. [Later] The attack on Hancock proves to be a decided suc cess. ITc lost no prisoners except the usual stragglers, who are always picked up. U. S. GRANT. General Lee s dispatch is as follows: HEADQUARTERS ARMY XORTIIERN VIRGINIA, October 28, 1SG4. Honorable Secretary of War General Hill reports that the attack of General Ileth upon the enemy on the Boydton plank- road, mentioned in my dispatch last evening, was made by three brigades under General Alahone in front and by General Hamp ton in rear. Mahone captured four hundred prisoners, three stands of colors, and six pieces of artillery. The latter could not be brought off, the enemy having possession of the bridge. In the attack subsequently made by the enemy, General Mahone broke three lines of battle, and during the night the enemy re treated, leaving his wounded and more tJian two Jiundred and fifty dead on the field. [Later] "The total number of prisoners, according to Gene ral Hill s report, is seven hundred." R. E. LEE, General. l68 MEMORIAL VOLUME. A discrepancy of statement which I leave to be reconciled by those better equipped for the task than I am, simply remarking that a perusal of the war dispatches of General Grant and Gene ral Sheridan often recalls to one that witty saying of Sidney Smith: "Nothing is so deceptive as figures, except facts." On the same day, General Field, north of the James, captured seven stands of colors and above four hundred prisoners,* and when it leaked out in the New York papers, as it gradually did, that this was no mere "advance for the purpose of reconnois- sance," as stated by Mr. Stanton in his bulletin, but a grand blow for the capture of Petersburg, which had been promptly parried with a loss to the Federals of above three thousand men, who shall wonder that for the time the "bulls," and not the bulletins,, had the best of it in Wall street? From THE TRIALS OF THE WINTER that followed, history would fain avert her eyes. They were such as can never be fogotten by those who watched and waited;, such as will never be credited by those who shall read the story hereafter in peace and plenty. To guard the long line of en trenchments from the Chickahominy to Hatcher s run, there was now left but a gaunt remnant of that valiant .host which had cheered Lee in the Wilderness as it passed to victory; which had hurled back nearly thrice its number at Cold Harbor, and wrought humiliation to the Army of the Potomac on a score of fields in this vigorous campaign. Living on one-sixth of a ration of corn-meal and rancid pork:f remember, men and women of Richmond, that they more than once offered to share that little with the starving poor of your beautiful city.J Thinly clad, their bodies indeed shivered under the freezing blasts of heaven, but their dauntless spirits cowered not under the fiery blasts of war. But there was to be added a pang deeper than the pang of hunger; sharper than the rigor of the elements or hurt of shot and steel. For now, from the cotton lands of Georgia and the rice fields of Carolina, came borne on every blast the despairing cry which wives and little ones raised to wintry skies lit by the baleful glare of burning homes, and the men of the "Old North State" bethought them of the happy homesteads which lay straight in the path of the ruthless con- * Lee s official dispatch, October 27th, 1864. t This was the case for a considerable time In Hill s corps. t The newspapers of the time are filled with resolutions to that effect, passed in general meeting by various regiments and battalions of the annv. On a number of occasions the scanty ration was evenly divided and actually sent ; and several times the men voted to> keep "fast-day " once a week, in order to send that day s rations. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M*CABE. 169 queror, who was waging war with an audacious cruelty "capable of dishonoring a whole nation." A subtle enemy, till then well- nigh unknown, attacked in rear this army which still haughtily held its front, and men, with bated breath and cheeks flushing through their bronze, whispered the dread word " DESERTION." The historian, far removed from the passions of the time, may coldly measure out his censure; but we, comrades, bound to these men by countless proud traditions, can only cry with the old He brew prophet, "Alas! my brother!" and remember that these were valiant souls, too sorely tried. Nor may I venture to portray the glorious vicissitudes of THE BRIEF CAMPAIGN OF 65. Foreign critics have censured Lee, who in February of this year was raised to the empty rank of General-in-Chief, because he did not take the commissariat into his own hands and perfect measures for the better care of his men; but it is criticism based on imperfect knowledge, for under General St. John the commis sariat at this time reached a creditable state of efficiency,* and these critics should not forget that the dictum of the foremost master of the art of war is, that "to command an army well, a general must think of nothing else." Others have expressed sur prise that a soldier of such nice foresight should have persisted for so long a time in endeavoring to maintain lines of such extent with a force constantly decreasing, ill fed and poorly clad; but surely they have failed to remember how often in war the sun of military genius has been obscured by the mists of politics. Too late was evacuation determined upon, and on March 25th Gordon made his brilliant assault against the Federal right; a daring stroke, indeed, but the daring of wisdom and not the rashness of ignoble despair, for by this means alone could Lee hope to force Grant to draw in his left flank which menaced the proposed line of retreat. How Gordon s sudden blow was at first crowned with success; how his guides ran away and left his storming columns groping in ignorance ;f how his supports failed to reach him; how, in short, a moody fortune defeated the accomplishment of the bold plan; how later, when, to use Lee s own phrase, "the line stretched so long as to break," the great commander yet yielded * General John C. Breckinriiljre was created Secretary of War on February 5th, 1365, and at once placed General I. M. St. John at the head of the Commissary Pep irtmeut. In a letter, now in my possession, written by General Breckinridge, he says: "General St. John s conduct of the department wns so satisfacrory, that a few weeks afterwards I received a letter from General Lee, in which he said that his army had not been so well supplied for many mouths." t Statement of Lieutenant-General John B. Gordon. 12 MEMORIAL VOLUME. not to fate, but struck again and again with the old, fierce skill all this, as well as the unsparing story of the ill-starred battle of Five Forks, will, I trust, be one day recounted to us by some comrade in memorable detail. On the evening of April 1st the battle of Five Forks was fought and lost to the Confederates, and at dawn next morning, from Appomattox to Hatcher s run, the Federal assaults began. Lee was forced back from the whole line covering the Boydton plank-road, and Gibbon s division of Ord s corps boldly essayed to break through into the town. The way was barred by an open work of heavy profile, known as " Battery Gregg," garrisoned by a mixed force of infantry, chiefly North Carolinians of Lane s brigade, and a score of artillerymen, in all two hundred and fifty men. Thrice Gibbon s columns, above five thousand strong, surged against the devoted outpost; thrice they recoiled, but about noon a fourth assault was ordered, and the assailants, rushing in front and rear, discovered with surprise and admira tion that of these two hundred and fifty brave men, two hundred and twenty had been struck down, yet were the wounded loading and passing up their muskets to the thirty unhurt and invincible veterans, with no thought of surrender, still maintained a biting fire from the front. A splendid feat of arms, which taught pru dence to the too eager enemy for the remainder of the day, for nearly six hundred of Gibbon s men lay dead and stricken in front of the work, and the most daring of the assailants recog nized that an army of such metal would not easily yield the inner lines.* ON THAT NIGHT PETERSBURG WAS EVACUATED. But though time admonishes me to pass over in such brief fashion these last eventful days, dutybids me pause to make mention of two, who, everywhere conspicuous in the defence, yielded up their lives at the end. One, high in rank, had been trained to the profession of arms, and at the very outbreak of hostilities offered to his native State a sword already forged to an heroic temper by fire of battle. Endowed by nature with commanding resolution and marvel- * The detachment from Lane s brigade was commanded by Lieutenant George H. Snow, Thirty-third North Carolina. There were also in the fort some supernumerary artillerymen, armed as infantry, a section of Chew s Maryland battery, and small detachments from Har ris Mississippi brigade (under Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan), and from Thomas Georgia brigade (under Captain William Norwood). The error of attributing this brilliant defence to Harris brigade alone, doubtless arose from Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan of that brigade being the rai king officer in the fort. The incident of the wounded men loading and passing up the muskets to their comrades, is attested by officers in the fort ; but I learn from General Lane s MS. report that the ammunition giving out, the men used rocks with great effect. General Lane s report has been published in the Southern Historical Society Papers. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. I/I ous energy, his " forward spirit" ever " lifted him where most trade of danger ranged," and from that thrice glorious day when, leading in at Mechanicsville his superb "Light Division" with all the fire of youth and skill of age, he dislodged McClellan s right flank on the upper Chickahominy, even to this memorable April morning, when, riding with a single courier far in advance of his men, he sough to restore his broken lines at Petersburg his every utterance and action was informed by the lofty spirit of a patriot, by the firmness and address of a valiant soldier. Much he suffered during this last campaign from a grivous malady, yet the vigor of his soul disdained to consider the weak ness of his body, and accepting without a murmur the privations of that terrible winter, he remained steadfast to his duty until the fatal bullet stilled the beatings of a noble heart which had so often throbbed responsive to the music of victory. No more splendid monument, no nobler epitaph, than of that Latour d Avergne, "the first grenadier of France," to whose name every morning at roll-call in the French army, answer was made, as the front-rank man on right of his old company stepped forward and saluted: Mort sur Ic champ dc bataillc "dead upon the field of battle." Such monument, such epitaph, at least, is that of and the men of his old corps remember with sorrowful pride that his name lingered last upon the dying lips of Lee and of Jackson.* Of the other, who fell but the evening before at Five Forks, I almost fear to speak, lest I should do hurt to that memory which I would honor. For to those who knew him not, the simplest outline of a character so finely tempered by stern and gentle vir tues would seem but an ideal picture touched with the tender exaggeration of retrospective grief; while to so many of you who knew him as he was the gentle comrade and the brilliant fighter any portrait must prove, at best, but a blurred semblance of the young soldier, whose simple, heroic, godly life rejects, as it were, all human panegyric. Yet even the coldest must allow that it was a life which afforded a notable example of how great a career may be crowded within the compass of a few years. In the spring of 6 1, a youth of modest demeanor, he entered the military ser vice as a private soldier; in the spring of 65, still a mere lad, he fell in action, Colonel of Artillery, mourned by an army. * "Tell Hill he -\ni(*t come up." Colonel William Preston Johnston s account of Lee s last moments Kev. J. Win. Jones Personal Reminiscences of General K. E. Lee, page 451. "A. P. Hill, prepare for action." Dabney s Life of Jackson, page 719. 1/2 MEMORIAL VOLUME. More than once in desperate and critical events were grave trusts confided to his prudence, skill and courage; more than once did he win emphatic praise from Hill, from Jackson, and from Lee. Thus it was his lot to be tried in great events and his fortune to be equal to the trial, and having filled the measure of perfect knighthood, "chaste in his thoughts, modest in his words, liberal and valiant in deeds," there was at last accorded him on field of battle the death counted " sweet and honorable." Such was WILLIAM JOHNSON PEGRAM, of the Third corps, who, at the early age of twenty-two, died sword in hand at the head of his men, with all his " honor-owing wounds" in front "to make a soldier s passage for his soul." On Sunday night, April 2d, the lines of Petersburg and Rich mond were, as I have said, evacuated, and the Army of North ern Virginia passed out in retreat. Thus were yielded at the last forty miles of entrenchments guarded by less than forty thousand men,* yet held during ten months of ceaseless vigil and fevered famine with such grim tenacity, as has made it hard for the brave of every nation to determine whether to accord their sorrowful admiration more to the stern prowess of the simple soldier, or to the matchless readiness of a leader who by the fervor of his genius developed from slender resources such amazing power. With the abandonment of these lines ends the task confided to me, comrades, by your generous partiality. To some other hand must be confided the story of that disastrous week which culminated in the surrender at Appomattox; a day which marked, indeed, the wreck of a nation, yet which may be recalled with no blush of shame by the men who there sadly furled those tattered colors emblazoned with the names of Manassas and Fredericksburg, of Chancellorsville and Cold Harbor who there returned a park of blackened guns wrested from the victors at Games Mill and Frazier s Farm, at Second Manassas and Har per s Ferry, at the Wilderness and Reams Station, at Appomattox Courthouse itself on that very morning who there, in the presence of above one hundred and forty thousand of their adversaries, stacked eight thousand of those "bright muskets" which for more than four years had "borne upon their bayonets" the mightiest Revolt in history. * In field returns for February, 1805, the number given is fifty-nine thousand and ninety, four for Department of Northern Virginia, but as General Early very pertinently remarks- this "affords no just criterion of the real strength of that army, as those return s included the forces in the Valley and other outlying commands not available for duty on the lines." Southern Historical Society Papers, July, 1ST6, page 19. General Lee himself says : "At the time of withdrawing from the lines around Richmond and Petersburg, the number of troops amounted to about thirty-five thousand." Letter to General William S. Smith, July 2Ith, 1868, Reminiscences of General Lee, page 268. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON MCABE. 1/3 Nor shall those men ever forget the generous bearing of the victorious host, which even in that supreme moment of triumph remembered that this gaunt remnant were the survivors of an army which but two years before had dealt them such staggering blows that there were more deserters from the Army of the Poto mac than there were men for duty in the Army of Northern Vir ginia* that they were the survivors of that army which, from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, had put hors du combat more men than Lee had carried into the campaign; which, from Cold Harbor to Five Forks, had again put hors du combat as great a number as was left him for the defence of Petersburg.^ Surely, it is meet that, with each recurring year, the survivors of such an army should gather themselves together to hear and know the truth. Thus shall the decorum of history be pre served and error be not perpetuated. It is a duty, comrades, which we owe to ourselves, which we owe to our children, which we owe to our leader, whose fame shall shine with added lustre when the true nature of his diffi culties shall be laid bare when it shall be made clear to all, to what measure Lee, the Soldier, stood in the shade of powers to which Lee, the Patriot, rendered patriotic obedience. Yet of this are we sure, that it is a fame which malice cannot touch, which florid panegyric cannot injure a fame which may well await the verdict of that time of which his ablest critic speaks with such prophetic confidence: When History, with clear voice, shall recount the deeds done on either side, and the citi zens of the whole Union do justice to the memories of the dead and place above all others the name of him who, in strategy mighty, in battle terrible, in adversity as in prosperity a hero indeed, with the simple devotion to duty, and the rare purity of the ideal Christian knight, joined all the kingly qualities of a leader of men." Above all, it is duty, which we owe those dauntless spirits who preferred death in resistance to safety in submission. " For a little while," says Dr. Draper, the Union historian, "those who have been disappointed clamor, then objurgation sub sides into murmurs, and murmurs sink into souvenirs, and souve nirs end in oblivion." * "At the moment I was placed in command (26th January, 1S63), T caused a return to be made of the absentees of the army, ami found the number to be two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two commissioned officers and elglity-one thousand nine hundred and sixty-four non-commissioned officers an< privates. The desertions were at the rate of about two hun dred a day." Testimony of Major-General Joseph Hooker before the Congressional Com mittee, March llth, lSt ,5, Report on the Conduct of the War, volume I, pag- 112. The field returns for month of January, 1S03, give seventy-two thousand two hundred and twenty-six men "for duty " in the whole Department of Northern Virginia. t This statement is the result of careful calculations of Federal losses, based entirely on figures given by Swinton and other Northern historians. MEMORIAL VOLUME. But no Time cannot teach forgetfulness When grief s full heart is fed by fame. Here, in this battle-crowned capital of our ancient Common wealth, shall "the men who wore the gray" yearly gather and recall the names of those who went forth to battle at the bidding of Virginia who now lie sleeping on the bosom of this mother, that not unmindful of their valor, not ungrateful for this filial devotion, shall keep forever bright the splendor of their deeds, "till earth, and seas, and skies are rended." No " Painted Porch " is hers, like that of Athens, where, for half a thousand years, the descendants of the men who had fol lowed Miltiades to victory might trace the glories of their Ma rathon; no gleaming Chapelle des Invalides, with the light flam ing through gorgeous windows on tattered flags of battle; no grand historic Abbey, like that of England, where, hard by the last resting place of her princes and her kings, sleep the great soldiers who have writ glorious names high upon their country s roll with the point of their stainless swords. Nay, none of this is hers. Only the frosty stars to-night keep solemn watch and ward above the wind-swept graves of those, who, from Potomac to James, from Rapidan to Appomattox, yielded up their lives that they might transmit to their children the heritage of their fathers. Weep on, Virginia, weep these lives given to thy cause in vain ; The stalwart sons who ne er shall heed thy trumpet-call again ; The homes whose light is quenched for aye ; the graves without a stone ; The folded flag, the broken sword, the hope forever flown. Yet raise thy hea l, fair land ! thy dead died bravely for the right; The folded flag is stainless still, the broken sword is bright ; No blot is on thy record found, no treason soils thy fame, Nor can disaster ever dim the lustre of thy name.* Pondering in her heart all their deeds and words, Virginia calls us, her surviving sons, "from weak regrets and womanish laments to the contemplation of their virtues," bidding us, in the noble words of Tacitus, f to "honor them not so much with transitory praises as with our reverence, and, if our powers permit us, with our emulation." Reminding her children, who were faithful to her in war, that "the reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another," she points to the tasks left unfinished when the "nerveless hands drooped * These lines are slightly altered from the noble poem entitled "The Ninth of April, 1865," by Percy Greg Interleaves in the Work Day Prose of Twenty Years London, 1875. t Agri., chapter xlvi. ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN W. GORDON M CABE. 1/5 over the spotless shields," and with imperious love claims a fealty no less devoted in these days of peace. I claim no vision of seer or prophet, yet I fancy that even now I descry the faint dawn of that day which thousands wait on with expectant eyes; when all this land still the fairest on the globe this land which has known so long what old Isaiah termed the "dimness of anguish" shall grow glad again in the broad sun light of prosperity, and from Alleghany to Chesapeake shall re sound the hum and stir of busy life; when yonder noble road stead, where our iron-clad "Virginia" revolutionized the naval tactics of two continents, shall be whitened by many a foreign sail, and you, her children, shall tunnel those grand and hoary mountains, whose every pass Lee and "old Stonewall" have made forever historic by matchless skill and daring. Thus, comrades, assured of her heroic past, stirred by a great hope for her future, may we to-night re-echo the cry of Richmond on Bosworth field: " Xow civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again ; That she may long live here, God say amen ! " The following officers were elected: President General W. H. F. LEE. Vice-Presidents General Robert Ransom, General Harry Heth, General A. L. Long, General William Terry and Captain D. B. McCorkle. Treasurer Major Robert Stiles. Secretaries Sergeants George L. Christian and Leroy S. Ed wards. Executive Committee General B. T. Johnson, Colonel Thomas H. Carter, Major T. A. Brancler, Major \V. K. Martin, Private Carlton McCarthy. THE BANQUET. After the exercises in the capitol, the Association and their invited guests assembled at a splendid banquet spread in the spacious dining room of the Saint Claire Hotel. In response to toasts, eloquent and thrilling speeches were made by General T. M. Logan, Captain James Lamb, Judge F. R. Farrar, Private C. McCarthy, Captain J. H. Chamberlayne, General Fitz. Lee, Dr. R. T. Coleman, Dr. J. S. D. Cullen, Rev. Alexander Weddell, Major John \V. Daniel, General B. T. John son, and others. SEVENTH ANNUAL REUNION. A splendid audience assembled in the State Capitol on the evening of the 1st of November, 1877. Rev. Dr. John E. Edwards opened the exercises with a fervent and appropriate prayer, after which the President, General W. H. F. Lee, made a brief but eloquent address, and introduced Leigh Robinson, Esq., of Washington, who had served as a gal lant private in the Richmond Howitzers, and had been chosen as the orator of the evening. Mr. Robinson was enthusiastically greeted, and frequently ap plauded as he delivered the following address: ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON.* I. Fellow Soldiers I will not detain you by the expression of the pride with which I received, and the sense of the honor to myself with which I accepted, the invitation to address you. From either feeling- excessive vanity alone could save me. But it is of more consequence, just at present, both to you and to myself, to show my appreciation of the compliment by at least my own endeavor to discharge, as best I may, the duty it im poses the duty at all times difficult, at all times delicate, of recounting, with due sensibility and without undue eagerness, honorable exploit with which, however humbly, we feel our selves identified. There is a reply of some celebrity from a Spartan to a rheto rician, who proposed to pronounce an eulogium on Hercules. "On Hercules," said the Spartan, "who ever thought of blaming Hercules?" And certainly man s valor, the hero s fear of evils greater than death and temporal disaster, by virtue of which he is man, and has virtue, as it does not require apology, on the one hand, not unbecomingly, perhaps, may dispense with eulogy on the other. Charles V said : " How many languages one knows, so many times he is a man." How, then, are we to reckon the polyglot Mezzofanti, who carried the tongues, not of all litera tures merely, but well-nigh of all articulate sound, in his head, NOTE BY THE COMPILER. Mr. Robinson omitted in the delivery about half of this address, but the Association asked the whole for publication. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 1 77 speaking one hundred and fourteen languages in all, yet leaving no memorable word in one? The tongue of fire, by which language is not only uttered but informed, and made itself a vital spark, was not among his members. How shall we compare this wonder of all tongues with Latour d Avergne, "the first grena dier of France," for whose death, while repulsing the front rank of a charge of imperial cavalry, a whole army wore mourning; to whose memory the republican General Desrolles erected a monument on the spot where he fell, which, "consecrated to vir tue and courage, and put under the protection of the brave of every age and country," received that protection from the enemy he resisted, and remained in a foreign land to the honor alike of the friend who raised and the foe who respected it? Here was, if not an audible, then, at least, a visible speech; the flame image of a hero, appealing to all races and all ranks, from the chariot and horses of fire by which he ascends to the skies. To fall on the field of battle, with the ties of some common cause of man hood behind, and in front the spears of some "proud Edward s power," is to live forever in the muster of the faithful; and in all ages, and to all nations, has seemed a sweet and honorable thing. In the front rank of duty, to opppose the odds of number and of fate, is man s highest act of faith, and not once, but always, is put under the protection of the brave of ever} age and country. The brave are one kindred; from age to age they are a sacred band. They are the true immortals. Theirs is the first of all gifts the gift to quit themselves like men. By how many times a man has greatly dared and overcome, or in unequal battle over borne, fought stoutly to the last, by so man} times he is a man. Properly, then, it may be asked, who ever thought of blaming such ? But if, in the comparatively trivial business of cooking a hare, first to catch him, according to the recipe of Mrs. Glass, is essen tial to success, surely, in, the paramount matter of a Hercules, we must do as much before we undertake to serve him up with or without the sauces. Even Hercules has counterfeits, and here, more than in any other prime necessity of life, the genuine arti cle is indispensable. Once put beyond controversy the facts of your prowess, and I agree with the Spartan, that panegyric be longs to the supererogatory works. But clearly, it is of the last importance to have and to hold the facts. Such a suggestion, reasonable at all times, can at no time be more certainly judicious than when the struggle to be recorded is the expression of the whole faculty and character of a people; stands forth as the most vivid image of what brains and sinew, and conscience, had arrived at in their case; and, being such, 178 MEMORIAL VOLUME. must more and more be accepted as the most infallible measure, which does or can exist, of whatever virtue or whatever want of virtue did dwell in them. The sum total of all which the past has done for them, of all which they have achieved and become in the past, in such case is comprehended and depicts itself in one supreme exhibition. History thus concentrates and reveals, itself in figures drawn to the life. Such a trial of arms, so commensurate with the whole tone and tension, settled light and shadow of the South, as to have received their image and superscription and be their revelation, has been transacted in our day and generation, by us and those we represent. That lantern in the vessel s stern, shining only on the waves that are behind, which all experience has been likened to that lantern is our civil war. By all means let all heroic facts be collected and protected. Let the truth with all sim plicity, if need be with all severity, be told. An association, then, pledged to find out and true answer make to the question, how was it that, with such disparity of force,, environed, blockaded, beleaguered by the world the very medi cine-chest interdicted how was it the unprovided South waged such a contest; more especially, how did that portion of it known, once and forever, as Army of Northern Virginia, not only endure the toils of war, but again and again carry off its honors, from greatly superior numbers and munitions ? such an association can hardly be overestimated by a people jealous of their honor.. It must tell the story of valor which was ineffectual, of fortitude which seems fallacious; of a cause to which the rich gave of their abundance and the poor of their penury; in whose behalf honorable eminence and honest poverty were willing to exceed the measure of exaction, " hoping all things, believing all things." It must tell how a whole people arose with one emotion and conviction; how, in a desperate game, the South played her rose nobles, if not against, then, at least, with as free a hand as if they were so many crooked half-pennies ; how victory to the South was as exhaustive as defeat, and defeat to the North answered the purposes of victory; how the life of the South waned as her glory waxed ; how she graved her faith on her escutcheon ; how her sons bore the ark of her strength, like a plume of victory, from Bethel to Gettysburg; how they clenched in their long death-grip, from the Wilderness to Appomattox, and how at the last, and to the last, a remnant which rose above the carnage of war, the ruin of homes, the cry of distress, still gathered around a chieftain s form with the self-immolation of despair. All this it must tell, and truly; if need be, severely tell. Surely it is now high time to admit that, with such object ia ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. view, you have applied to a quarter where, in the nature of things, the details of such knowledge must be plentifully lacking. You have applied, not to the officers of the field and staff, who led your hope, wielded and organized your force to none of these renowned men, but to one far different; to a private soldier in the lowest rank, and greatly undistinguished there. An ob scure artilleryman, especially when under fire, is liable to take the same dispassionate view of a conflict raging all along a line of miles, as the average politician seizes of the moral universe, of which, curiously enough, he, too, is part. The flat fish, having eyes only on one side, is badly built for the vocation of tourist or descriptive voyager; but a man whose whole duty for four years was to follow blindly, suddenly ordered to look, not on one side only, but on all sides that, too, after the lapse of years is worse off than a flat fish, or any other kind of fish, except, of course, a fish out of water. As the cockney tourist said to the Highlander, who addressed him is Gaelic, "Some explanation is necessary." Most unaffectedly I am embarrassed to find myself a critic of the deeds of them who led the history which I but followed. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that to every leader, were he the greatest, a follower is a quite indispensable appendage. Furthermore, in our cause, it may be said that leader and follower were one. We were his to follow; he was ours to lead. He was in the van, because the hearts he led were in the van, and we followed unconscious we were drawn. It seems you are resolved to know how this great matter shaped itself to the common soldier; how his mind, numerically the greatest, reconciled itself to the situation, and with decidedly ap proving conscience volunteered his body to be made food for powder. Not so illogically, after all, perhaps, for your "bottom facts" you have gone to your bottom man. The blood I shall shed to-night be on you. II. Any portrayal of any one of the scenes of our great civil strife is incomplete which has not for background the depth of sin cerity of conviction in the South, which rallied every principle of duty, and, answering exaction with devotion, made obedience a privilege. The history of the war, minus the justification of the war, it seems to me, were the principal character omitted. We believed in our capacity for local self-government; we be lieved in our right to community independence as the best means of attaining the honest welfare of a neighborhood. We believed in a Federal Union, and deemed this tantamount to saying we ISO MEMORIAL VOLUME. believed in republican institutions not the fancy, but the reality of commonwealths. We believed that such was the nature of the Federal compact to which we had acceeded, and that it was best for simplicity, best for economy, best for peace, best for lib erty, that it should be so. On the other hand, the centralizations which antagonize all this seemed to us to concentrate wealth and power in one quarter by abstracting it from others, not always prepared or content to spare; in this way to accumulate great wealth and greater pov erty; to replenish the palace and plunder the cottage; make the rich richer and the poor poorer; the strong more absolute, the weak more helpless. Vast empires, immense populations and resources have been administered by governments of this kind, but invariably under the shadow of domestic sedition. They rest on a sleeping lion. Power, which is false in its methods, must needs be oppressive in its measures. Louis Napoleon wielded just such a sceptre; but when he wished to join the shooting party of one of his subjects he went under the protec tion of the police, and when he visited Baron Rothschild the whole establishment was put under surveillance for two weeks beforehand. He said, "The empire is peace"; and in what a whirlwind did he and his rotten empire sweep from the earth. It is preposterous for maladministration to say, " Let us have peace!" and for freeman it is worse it is criminal to concede it. It is not peace established in power, but captured in shame; not throned on high by willing witnesses, but pinned to the earth by imperial steel the peace of the bayonet. We held that such a government was not for the public good, but for the public wrong, and by men and patriots should be re sisted. "We," said the barons of Arragon to their king, "who are each of us as good, and who are altogether more powerful than you, promise obedience to your government if you main tain our rights and privileges, but if not, not." The French rev olution was possible in the shape which it assumed, because ad ministrative centralization had swallowed up the provinces, and made Paris the throat by which a whole people could be collared and garroted. The Reign of Terror was little more than a dem ocratic application of the Old Regime. It was the combination of despotism and "equality," so-called. In a word, this idea of local self-government has been the vital germ of free institutions wherever they have existed. Bunsen finds this fact in the twen ty-seven nomes of ancient Egypt, and infers liberty then and there as a consequence. It is a kind of loose confederacy, the outgrowth of religion, treaties and international law, which gives the nations of modern ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. iSl Europe some of the advantages of a European commonwealth, makes them spectators and critics of each other, and stimulates, each to strive with rivals for the mastery. Nor is independence and the strength of independence the only blessing. From the passion of free thought beautiful thought naturally rises. Beauty, no less than freedom, may be served. The grand eye of Gðe, glancing at a map of France by Dupin, in which some of the departments were marked en tirely in black, to denote the mental darkness prevailing in those parts, incites him to ask: "Could this ever be if la belle France had ten centres instead of one? . . . Frankfort, Bre men, Hamburg and Lubeck are great and splendid cities. Their influence on the prosperity of Germany is immeasurable; but could they remain what they are, if deprived of their sover eignty they were to be degraded to the rank of provincial towns in some great German empire? I have reason to doubt it." When was it that Greece was the forehead of the world, as well as the heart which drank and rendered back its beauty? Was it when her once sovereign States, planed of their edges, were stuck, carbuncle shape, in Alexander s ring, or was it when the planes of her rose-diamond had each a focus of its own? Grote epitomized many histories into one paragraph, when he wrote of Athenian supremacy: "Every successive change of an armed ally into a tributary every subjugation of a scceder tended, of course, to cut down the numbers and enfeeble the authority of the Delian Synod; and what was still worse, it altered the reciprocal relations and feelings both of Athens and her allies, exalting the former into something like a despot, and degrading the latter into mere passive subjects." To drop wise saws for modern instances: See the Dutch re public in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries! See a league of seven crowned with pre-eminence in commerce and manu factures; see them become the workshop, the granary of many; adorn harbors with fleets, cities with elegance, a populous land with plenty; see them build the emporium to receive and distri bute to Europe the trade of Asia, fill libraries, fill galleries, belt the earth with colonies, lead the agitation for civil and re ligious liberty; making of the drain a statesman, of the dyke a hero, like an incantation of enchantment wrench from the sea the soil for a mighty people. If one \vere to ask, " But can this rope of sand" (as it is fashionable to call a federation), "maintain itself, can it fight?" it were enough to answer: The Spaniard, rallying in the rocky Asturias, by the brave, firm patience of eight centuries, had collected the strength to hurl the invader from his shore. Inch by inch he had fought his way from the 1 82 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Pyrenees to the Mediterranean, to find, as is wont to happen to such absolute success, he had vanquished the fear without to try conclusions with a more subtle foe within. There came a day when Columbus gave a new world to Castile and Leon, and con quest and marriage supremacy in the old to the sovereign of Spain ; when Cortez could say to Charles V, " I am the man who has gained you more provinces than your father left you towns"; but it was a day wherein the virtue of Spain had been exchanged for her empire. This Spaniard,. as Philip II, as the head of cen tralized tyranny, with the invincible chivalry of Spain at his back, launched a world against the League of Seven. The King of Spain and the Indies, the dominator in Europe, Africa and America Pharaoh and his hosts went down. The rope of sand the League of Seven passed over, and shines to us from afar like another Pleiad a beacon in the heaven. Indeed, when once we have arrived at the conclusion which, unless our premises are wholly sans cullottic, we must arrive at, that robberies, violences, murders, wrongs and injustices are to be resisted, if possible exterminated; that property, liberty, life, right and justice are to be established for the sake of each and all; that when the injured petition there should be both the will and the power to redress; since there is a limit both to human wisdom and to human power, it is no very abstruse metaphysics to suggest that the limit be not exceeded; that the law ward of the state be competent to his jurisdiction. When to an old wo man, who complained that her husband had been killed by rob bers, the Sultan Mahmud regretted the impossibility of keeping order in so distant a part of his dominions, the reply was, "Then why do you take kingdoms which you cannot govern?" Rulers at a distance, who cannot judge for us, should not act for us. Rightly to manage what lies about him and within his perview is enough to lay on any ruler. The Romans had a word for the government which has the public good for its object it is our word republic, community government, a people s transaction of their own affairs, as it were, the every fact of a community realized in the administration of its government a common weal. But another definition of a republic might be that arrangement of society which most tends to put the best citizen at the helm. " You see that Childebert is a man, obey him," is the first and the last philosophy of empire. Far as Thor can hurl his hammer in his realm. Feudal systems grow upon this basis that the strongest shall rule as far as his honest strength prevails. Roman discipline conquers the world, because with it travel laws and government for the world, amongst them the preservation of local law. " They held with ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 183 the plow what they gained by the sword." Norman conquests says: "I am stronger than you; I know how to conquer others, .first having learned to conquer myself; proclaim me, therefore, king over you in name, since I am king over you in fact." Long-haired Merovingian Donothings are nominal kings, power less to redress wrongs, to repulse Saracens, who, sweeping over Spain, have penetrated to the heart of I 7 ranee. Charles Martel and Pepin, mayors of the palace, are the real kings, and Pope Zacharias gave the decision which nature had already given, that he who possessed the power should bear the title of king. Merovingian Donothings arc relegated to the religious houses, where doing nothing is decorous, and relieved of the throne, where it is not so. At different times, in different ways, society passes its statute of uses, which transfers the legal title to the use, declares he who governs the estate is its master. "A fine liberty this," said the Cobbler, "which leaves me cob bling shoes as it found me"; but freedom has other definitions than "forty acres and a mule." The French Terrorists, who, in some sense, laid the axe unto the root of the tree, cannot be held to have gone to the root of the whole matter, when they ex claimed: "What! is this our liberty? Can we no longer kill whom we please?" Liberty, like the glorious element of the suns, has its tabernacle in the highest. It is no easy leap to pluck its bright honor thence, whatever Hotspur may think. But to dive into the bottom of the deep for it, as I lotspur would, is plainly unwise. It is not the sun we fish for in the pool at our feet not even a drowned sun but a counterfeit drowned sun. Libert} is not to be looked for in the mire it is to be climbed for in the stars. The apology for despotism is, that to get the ablest and wisest to the front, it must be accomplished by force. To have the same thing from preference is to have a republic, which thus clothes itself in a human shape. Freedom is the free dominion of the law. A republic also is the sway of the strongest, but of the strongest in truth ; the strongest raised to supremacy on the shield of faithful followers, not the strongest tottering on the subservience of mercenary bayonets; the strongest planting his spear in the field for all who love it to kiss, and saying, behold my banner and my pledge; the strongest standing in the fore front of the state, because the moral power of society is in his hands; not the strongest by an arithmetic which, like the pro posed new currency, is referred to a double standard. I low a man of real strength can walk upon the waves of human pas sion, and to a people rightfully infuriated and goaded to clespe- -rarion, say, "be still!" for them make his quiet word law nay 184 MEMORIAL VOLUME. more, make it gospel ! how such a man can walk erect in the flame of persecution, and firm amid the roar of ruin, we all saw last winter. When a party of human rights sent forth the edict, "Let every man worthy of freedom forthwith be deprived of it"; and a party of moral ideas had made of forgery " clerical error," and of perjury a facon de parler, in a victim state, it was pos sible for such a man to be. " He is the anointed of God," says Carlyle, "who melts all wills into his own, and hurls them as one thunderbolt." Even more, then, when the crisis calls, he who folds them in one bosom and does not hurl. How does a Wade Hampton make himself master of the situation, and exhort re luctant homage from the adversaries of his State? By strata gem? No, by character. By being a demagogue? No, by being a hero. Because his people hated and feared him? No, but because they loved and honored they obeyed him. Always and everywhere, the power which is truly a master is the power which is truly a blessing. A republic, like all noble things, has a basis of reality. It is "the powers that be." It is already anarchy when it is only the powers that seem. It is the authority of justice over iniquity, of greatness over baseness, of freedom over servility. The only valid representation of society is the sincere expression of its powers. When a community, by voluntary act, selects its best elements to rule the worst, its wisest to lead the weakest, the community is free, as any individual is who submits his will to his reason. The best government which is possible, then, rests on the consent of the governed. The North and South have wrestled in more than one great debate, which should not be omitted in any proper account of the causes of the war, and our convictions touching them, but which can only be adverted to here. " Bank of the United States," "tariff," "internal improvements," "American system" these are names for the decisive points in the battlefield of opin ion, where the constitution was at stake. The power and the poison of great national corporations, the ruinous fallacy of a lobby court, all the shamelessness, all the odiousness of class government was the issue, with what results we all know. The victors, fighting with more carnal weapons, it may be, were wiser in their generation. It was part and parcel of our doctrine to oppose the conces sion of vast powers where there was no common interest. To say, " In this way shall you appropriate your means, not as you wish and your interests call for, but as we, far away and dif ferent from you, require," is not government which rests on the consent of the governed, but fraud and spoliation in the ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. , 185 teeth of their protest. "It is from local leaving alone," says Victor Hugo, "that English liberty took its rise." This was our general tone, though neither so invariable nor so unanimous as could be desired. "You have no right," we said, "to force us to purchase from you at double and triple prices; to legislate your wares into our homes, and our purses into your pockets. It is idle to say you do not compel us to buy in one place, when you prohibit us from buying in any other." Protection said: "Sell to us in a cheap market, buy from us in a dear one. You, the millions, who now buy iron from abroad, agree that the price of this be raised to such a point as will justify the employment of labor at American prices, and still leave abundant supplies for profits; you, the millions, incur this enormous addition to your expense, that we, the dozens, may reap it in our profits. We will pay the wages of our labor out of the industry of yours ; you to do the work, or, what is the same thing, employ the labor, we to pocket the proceeds." This species of whole-souled patriotism has of late been exhibited, with something of the deforming power of an approximating class, by the concentra tion of the system within the limits of single cities. The ring master says: "Be patriotic; freely cast your portion into the public treasury, that I may take it out." In the interest of prosperity, in the interest of tranquility, what measure could be falser than the creation of a great cen tral vortex, drawing everything into its eddy? Has not this become the very marrow of a struggle for very life more and more rage of opposites over a prize of contest ever growing in dimensions, until now, when to grasp it is to wield the power of the Czar, and to la} it down, is, in the language of Dean Stanley, "to lay down a sceptre" and bean "ex-sovereign"? Our sys tem elevated an inferior race this has degraded an equal one. Then there is the question of African slavery. Self-government, the reduction by ourselves of our own unru- liness to order, is far the greatest miracle a moral nature can exhibit. It never has been and is not now a quite universal trait, but has been, and seems destined for some time to remain, the grandeur of an immortal few. The few are our real rulers. Robespierre, incorruptible charlatan that he was an anomaly in mountebank breed was able to see and to say, " La vertu fut toujours en minority sur la terre." The free are the feu*. They are, as Cowper says, " Whom the truth makes free." Better for Cowper s peace of mind had he seen the correlative of this, which Goethe supplies us with: "None are so grossly enslaved as they who falsely believe themselves free." The chosen feu- make the chosen people. 13 1 86 MEMORIAL VOLUME. It was our belief that we had a population within our borders which was not capable of self-government; which was dependent upon the control and dominion of others. It is a solecism to say that a savage can be free. You can emancipate him from the hand of a superior, but in doing so you hand him over to. his own vices and incoherences; you " grave the name of freedom on a heavier chain." Could thirteenth and fifteenth amendments, by the stroke of a pen, translate slavery into freedom and self-government, all men must rejoice. Great things are not wont to be done with this degree of ease, especially this thing. Freedom, like other forms of greatness, first takes on itself the form of a servant. The transition from slavery to freedom is precisely that transition the most civilized must pass through, with repeated failure and re peated pain, when he ceases to be the slave of appearance and becomes master of himself; performs that highest of moral acts his own self-government. Such transition, unspeakably im portant as it is, in the deepest and truest sense inestimable, is a question rather of authentic fact than of any legislation. Legis lation does not yet create. Legislation properly represents. We have now, it is said, an emancipated country. But how? From fraud, from rings, from well-nigh universal perjury and peculation from these are we emancipated? If the auction of slaves is bad, is not the sale of freemen worse? Through the streets of the Federal metropolis daily passes a black cloud of human beings, handcuffed and guarded (of late years caged and driven), despair, or sometimes stolid, even care less indifference, on their faces. These are emancipated slaves on their way from the police court to the jail disenthralled from the cuffs of the overseer to be enthralled in the handcuffs of the law. Cuffee still! Misguided! Alas! They who so need guidance told to guide themselves through a wild welter of crime and vice; in the infirmity of idleness and want told to steer themselves by their own ignorance. At last the emancipated goes to the magis trate, with more or less directness, saying: "Have me arrested in this, for me, impossible task of self-government. Suffer me to retire from a world I am unable to master, but which so inva riably masters me, to the religious retreat of criminal classes, known as penitentiary, that I, who know not self-control, there, at least, may be controlled, be mastered in that divine institu tion seek repentance carefully, with tears." The negro is not called upon to survive in the South the hostility dealt out to the Mongolian in San Francisco, by the "Thousand and one," backed by the whole power of the State and United States Governments, in scorn of treaty. Were this the case, it might be asked: "Is ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. l8/ it so kind, then, to throw a weak race in competitive, and there fore inimical, relations with a strong one?" But the negro is called on to be fit to survive his own inherent infirmities, and finds this no easy matter; wherefore the New York Times asks: "Are the negroes going the way of the Indian? Are they being civilized off the face of the earth?" John Randolph once saw a lady making shirts for the Greeks. "Madam," said Randolph, "the Greeks are at your doors." People who are not content unless they are reforming abuses, might often live at home and still be content. Our Roanoke statesman is the honored type of the Virginia emancipationist the Washington-Jefferson type which it may be the future will yet hold a wiser and a braver one, than the more vociferous and apostrophised kind. The spectacle of wrong and wretchedness, the cruelty of nar row minds and narrow hearts all the world over, is sad beyond expression. Think of the devoted Pole, taking his everlasting farewell of his home, and sent by the cruelest of task-masters to rot under the lash in the torture-press and poison-press of Sibe rian quicksilver mines. Think of the starving millions in the East. Nothing could wclfbe sader. But the most sorrowful to each should be the struggle of inadequate natures with imperi ous circumstance at his own door. Think of forty thousand vagrant children in the city of New York, destined, the most of them, to be thieves and prostitutes before the age of twelve. Think of the tenement house misery in the same city, which no crusading fanatics have moved heaven and earth to assuage. Think of that house, No. 98 North street, a small one, too, which was discovered by the police to contain ninety-nine families, or near five hundred people. The surplus sympathies of "the over- soul " can find an inexhaustible field in the life of every street railway car-driver. In 1226 the titular bishop of Prussia wrote: "What is the use of crusading far off in the East, when heathen ism and the kingdom of Satan hangs on our own borders, close at hand in the North?" A sermon on the duty of staying at home that is, of attending to one s nearest business, and as the very nearest, the circle of one s own breast might be derived from many lives, which had been useful had they not early lost all hope of the universe, save by their own undivided attention thereto. The dark flood of human misery swells around the bannered barge of the fortunate, whose oars it propels while re ceiving their stroke. Sacred forever are the chosen few who have lifted the burdens from the shoulders of the weak by placing them on their own; who, in this way, have borne in their own persons the transgressions of others; who once crucified, are now 1 88 MEMORIAL VOLUME. ascended! Here on earth they were filled with warm, manly- poignancy, with soft, feminine pity for the bent forms of poverty and pain, the sad faces of the ineffectual, the lives of the broken and disconsolate, and those wretched existences which are cra dled in despair, and suckled, one may say, on vice and disease, whose penalty they strove to mitigate. Surely they receive the mercy they showed. Pursue the evils which lie at your own doors fearlessly strike at them. Few are so unprovided but that they, too, may cast in their mite to the relief of sorrow and oppression. But see to it that the strife and the succor be not for appearance only, and end not in substituting the nominal for the actual. The philanthropy which has aggrandized itself in the decay and by the decay of the honor and conscience of the country, the philanthropy of Freedman s Banks and other such, is "suspect to me." Results have followed which are wont to happen, when sentimenal self- display mimics the great passions. It is no true boon when an external power abruptly transforms the whole outward circumstance, leaving the tenant of a feebler sphere to grapple with the aggregate of forces in a larger one, to which he stands in perpetual contradiction and disparity. The privilege of self-government to the inadequate, deficient is that such a boon? To give the blind man a rifle and tell him to hunt with the hunters for a living! To unyoke the dray-horse and bid him God-speed in winning the race from the swift! In this wise we reasoned in the years before the war upon premises which were none of our choosing, but were forced upon us by Old England first and New Fngland afterwards. Twenty- three statutes were passed by the House of Burgesses of Vir ginia to prevent the introduction of slaves, and all were nega tived by the British king. It was well said on the floor of the Virginia Legislature, by John Thompson Brown, in answer to English invective: "They sold us these slaves they assumed a vendor s responsibility and it is not for them to question the validity of our title." Virginia was the first State not only to prohibit the slave trade, but to make it punishable with death. From her came the chief opposition to the slave trade in the convention of 1/87. That trade was continued for twenty addi tional years not by the vote of a "solid South," but a solid New England. To New England, too, we might say: "You very obligingly sold us your slaves; voted like one man to keep open the slave trade; availed yourselves fully of all the prizes of that piracy. We bought your merchandise; you pocketed our money." How much of the elegant leisure to vituperate the South has been fed by inheritance of wealth derived from the ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 189 traffic in human flesh which supplied the South! The slave- traders of the North said to the slaveholders of the South: "You must not interfere with our business for twenty years" ; and on this the slave-traders outvoted the slaveholders. Then, when their slave contract had expired, the traders said: "Our conscience revolts against suffering you to profit by the merchan dise we sold, though it does not in the least revolt against retain ing the money you gave. It is our duty to see that the conside ration do not pass to you, but by no means our duty to relinquish that which has passed to us, nor to compensate you for the in jury of which we are the cause." In this transaction my eyes refuse to see the superior morals of the slave-traders. A writer in the October number of the Atlantic Afont/ily, for 1868, dealing with the post-bellum aspect of the negro one of the agents, too, of reconstruction (or, as it might be better called, of deconstruction) has this conclusion: "In short, the higher civilization of the Caucassian is gripping the race in many ways, and bringing it to sharp trial before its time. This new, varied, costly life of freedom this struggle to be at once like a race which has passed through a two thousand years growth in civ ilization will unquestionably diminish the productiveness of the negro, and will terribly test his vitality. It is doubtless well for his chances of existence that his color keeps him a plebeian. What judgment, then, shall we pass upon abrupt eman cipation merely with reference to the negro? It is a mighty experiment, fraught with as much menace as hope. To the white race alone it is a certain and precious boon." And, now, can such a perhaps as this, "fraught with as much menace as hope" to the black man in the South, vindicate the decimation and desolation of the white man? We had a system of society and subordination unencumbered by either criminal or pauper class, except in so far as "the sum of all villianies" made the sum total of society liable to indict ment a society exempt from strikes, exempt from tramps, ex empt from the dissension of capital and labor, which, by a dis cipline milder, certainly, than the jail and calls on the President for troops, made the inferior element of society orderly, tempe rate, obedient, secure from want, and, with little exception, secure from crime; so contented withal, that in the midst of the death- grapple of the hands that held the reins, nothing could tempt it to insurrection. Rings and their subsidized voices, tramps and the tramps gospel, grew and were fertilized elsewhere. We did not by legislative act seek to make negroes free. We did better: we kept them from being criminals. Did the South lag behind in the race of progress? The philanthropist is the last man who MEMORIAL VOLUME. should make this a reproach. It was lifting the black man up which pulled the white man back. The negro did not carry us, but we set him upon his legs. A few months ago the telegraph flashed over the land the news that Adam Johnson, sentenced to be hung for murder in South Carolina, "insisted upon the son of his old master during slavery standing by him to the last." In the wide world he could turn him to no other in that hour. Abolitionists and their civilization of scalawags and carpet baggers had brought him to this the freedom to be hung for murder! Let it be admitted that sentimentalism in politics was less con tagious at the South than in some other quarters; that what is known and honored as philanthropy struck us as a platform vir tue of the mutual-admiration kind; as such not greatly honora ble, nor by us honored. At no time did the sentiment of Ana- charsis Clootz, that "the principles of democracy are of such priceless value as to be cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of the whole human race," cause a quite universal enthusiasm. Liberty which was rhetorical merely was not our forte. We did not be lieve in a nominal republic, which would require large standing armies to show free citizens the way to freedom. Liberty is in a curious way which demands a large standing army to drive it home and make it rest on the consent of the governed. A bay onet is not such a good thing to set down on, that freedom should choose such a roost, or be set down very hard there, without sensible annoyance. Whether to make of the inferior element a bond slave was the absolutely best way, is a question which may now be safely left to determine itself by the result of a contrary policy. But that to do as our enemy did, make of the inferior element a master, is the absolutely worst way, may, without presumption, be asserted now and here. If the Southern master had a slave, he had a slave whom he protected. If the Southern slave had a master, he had a master whom he respected. Moralists hereafter will be sorely put to it to account for the well-nigh total absence of revenge, malevolence, animosity, on the part of the negro toward his old master, if his past was so invariably bitter. Either his forgive ness of injuries is the greatest ever known, or his sense of them the least. Let it be said, in his unqualified praise, that of all the races, the negro has made the best slave, has been faithful in that which is least; a better part, certainly, than that of being faithless in that which is greatest an accusation w r hich may yet be brought against the white race of the country. There is hope for the negro to-day greater than any which exists for the Indian, because the negro is docile, willing to serve and obey, and, un- ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. IQI like the Indian, could be made a slave of, and be controlled by others before being able to control himself; because he has by nature the faculty of truly revering that which is higher than himself; is not, in self-devouring pride, recusant to it. If now, in freedom, he be persevering, diligent, as in slavery he was do cile, tractable! His slavery! Has not that and nothing else lifted him from the condition of African savage to that of Ameri can freeman, worthy by our law to cast his ballot with the rest, which the Chinese, who is not, and since recorded time has not been a savage, is not worthy to do? The negro is to-day an American citizen, started in the race of civilization by virtue of what, pray? His thousands of years of African freedom, as some may term them, or his two hundred years of American bondage ? African liberty! What is it to deprive a man of that? The latest intelligence on the subject is that another step toward the civilization of Africa has been taken by England in inducing the King of Leucalia, a district lying to the southeast of St. Paul de Loanda, to .enter into an engagement to put a stop to all human sacrifices among his people. Suppose, then, that human beings w r ho otherwise are given over to the immolation and consump tion of one another, in this kind of honor preferring one another, are made bond slaves, halted in their religious and political economy, and made to cease to be their brothers keepers in this culinary way, and actually to begin to be useful to themselves and others, what great rights of man are the worse for it? No ble, not ignoble, is the dominion of the higher over the lower; beautiful the surrender of the lower to the higher, when, with pleased recognition of the truth, a soul bows in the presence of its master. Hard, indeed, must be the heart to resist the elo quence which says, "Behold! behold! I am thy servant." Sub ordination of inferior to superior is the supreme social act; all else is struggle, contention for society. It is one of the anomalies of this great controversy between opposing ideas and institutions that, after the North had pro claimed the necessity of amending the constitution to prevent social discrimination against the negro in the South, it was re served for a hotel of the State, and a bar association of the city of New York, to say to the race of Spinoza, Neander, of Heine and Meyerbeer, of Disraeli and Rothschild : " Come not near me, for I am holier than thou." MEMORIAL VOLUME. III. I must, however, ask you to assume, what is far enough from being the case, that these several differences of opinion and causes of dispute between the North and South have now been treated of in some not wholly disreputable manner; and that, to a Southern audience at least (and this is more probable), it has been made sufficiently clear that justice was on the side of the South in this great controversy. I pass- on to say that justice, too, must be strong. To be weak when you have the power to be strong, is itself an injustice. It is written, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion." You who otherwise have right on your side must see to it that you have strength on your side, else he whose iron is stronger than your gold, whose unscrupu lous force outweighs your legal right, will have judgment entered against you. To be entrenched in parchment to the teeth is not the whole of law; only a vantage ground for more readily assert ing it. Without prudence, without wakeful alertness, firm, even fierce assertion, the mere parchment right is but a castle without defenders. The great wall of China seems secure enough, run ning thirteen hundred miles over plain and over mountain; every foot of the foundation in solid granite, the structure solid ma sonry. But without a living wall of Chinese men behind it, un constitutional Tartars bound over its "strict construction" as a thing of course. "Your strict construction is ultra vires," they paradoxically say. It is not in the letter of a constitution, it is in the heart of a people that freedom is secured, if at all. The law protects not them who sleep upon their rights. Make your self strong, soon your right becomes clear. Every man holds his own by this tenure. Sleepless enemies lie in wait for all prowess, for all endowment, and are held in check by incessant labor, in cessant vigil. A chosen people are surrounded by Philistines, and must subdue them or be subdued. It is not heaven s will that men should meet together, and make a constitution and laws, which may dispense with vigilance and self-vindication. No charter of freedom can exonerate from this. An outrageous act impends. Men are heard to ask: "Is it credible our opponents will be such knaves? Will they have the audacity to commit an act of such turpitude, such shameless subornation?" Why, if you have not the audacity to defend, of course they will. The knave is in the world primarily for this purpose: to cut the tendons of the paltering when he beats a parley. The knave is the abler man. He has the audacity to stand up with the right all against him, while the other, with the ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 1 93, panoply of truth upon him, docs not stand up. The latter says, in effect: "My moral strength is weaker than your immoral effi cacy." When one set of men have scruples about doing duty, and another set have no scruples about violating it, the debate is practically ended. You cannot tie red tape around the rights of a people, pigeon-hole them, and then, by merely telling the sec retary to produce them at the proper moment, and show that they are labeled as you say, have every knee to bow instanter. Rights done up in red tape do not amount to much. By tying yourselves around them, and them around yourselves; by omit ting, wholly interdicting self-indulgent welcome to the foe, saying to snare and illusion, "get thee behind me"; by planting your selves manfully in front of your rights, resolutely and vigilantly staying there, your rights become available in time of need. One of Mahomet s companions said: "I will unloose my camel and commit him to Providence." "Friend," said Mahomet, "tie thy camel and commit him to Providence." Once, when fertile plains of Italy lay exposed to the hardy North, doughty protectionists, bearing their birth-rights on their backs, by dint of the sword for circulating medium, entered into and enjoyed the opulence which left itself defenceless. See how manners change, while the forces under them remain unchanged!. Behold another stubborn remnant, planted on a frozen soil, and far-off harvests and fields of snow; not cold, but warm; at slight est touch turning to gold. Kings of the Huns are not wanting, though differently accoutred. Their weapons are shrewdness, business ability, docility to be taught by experience, aptitude for the occasion, and then tenacity, perseverance in advantage, never letting go. Aggression, insufficiently opposed, is not slack to seize occasion. Old lines of order have been surprised, con fused their guns reversed against the old defenders. Somebody blundered, somebody slept, or worse. Somebody, whose duty it was to thrust and parr} , failed at the proper time to draw his sword. It is not having rights which makes the freeman, but knowing and maintaining them. The great victory had been won before the first shot had been fired of that military victory by which the political afterwards was ratified. A four years civil strife chiefly polled and announced the majority which was already waiting to be counted. The great victory was won when Northern leanness had exchanged itself for Southern fatness; when Northern enterprise laid under tribute Southern produce; when Northern energy brought the world s commerce to North ern ports, made a frozen coast a chosen coast, to which emigrant hosts repair, its highways of traffic, the accepted highways; by thrift and industry grew green and golden, studded with bright MEMORIAL VOLUME. villages, sounding with the whirr of labor in the hum of facto ries and the mart of commerce; when the mechanic, the strong arm of the century, dwelt in the North, and the bountiful acres of the South poured into his lap a conqueror s booty. The one victory of the North was \von when, by legislative legerdemain, she ranged material force on her side. Here was a country sub ject to a constitution which was supposed to greatly limit the objects for which public money could be appropriated this, nevertheless, interpreted and applied by representatives who could be approached, influenced, persuaded. Here was the stra tegic point. Acuteness, pertinacity, the long arm and sinewy grip of all the athletes of greed and impecunious alertness won the day. It will never do to forget our own faults in the explanation of our misfortunes. It is, indeed, our own faults, which, for our own sakes, it especially behooves us to bear in mind. The Spanish proverb says: "You must thank yourself if you break your leg twice over the same stone." It is well, however, also to observe that while he who permits injustice must suffer for it; he who commits it does not go without a day. Vainly will you expect to hold under the sanctions of law that which has been gained by violation of law. *Do you choose to thrive at the ex pense of the demoralization of society? Hope not to secure yourself as though society were moral. Every victory of man s mere avidity is the increase of his material at the expense of his spiritual part. The material accumulation goes on part passu with the moral depletion, so that a whole world arrived at un justly were a whole soul gangrened by the booty. "What is there wanting to me?" asked Ugolin, tyrant of Pisa. "Nothing but the anger of God." The mean advantage wins the day, to be sure; but, in doing so, receives wounds which can never be exhibited as honorable scars. Victory, which is composed of a stroke under the belt, is as sharp at the hilt as at the point. Thus it may be said that class legislation, followed by a war of coercion, with the illegal measures to prosecute, and after wards, avowedly, to consummate, have not established justice, have not insured the domestic tranquility, have not provided for the common defence, nor promoted the general welfare. They have not formed a more perfect Union, but a far less perfect one. The North was successful in rolling the South in the dust, but equally successful in rolling up a seething mass of discontent at her own doors. Selfish politicians have accumulated fortunes for themselves and their trencher friends, but they have accumu lated under them the American Commune. The American Com mune stands to-day, not by the cradle of American liberty, in- ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 195 deed, but by the side of that more modern cradle which was rocked in the torrent of anti-slavery agitation. The spoliation of the public seems a clever thing for the nonce, but when high handed jobbery has made a public of tramps and criminal classes it is not so clever. Without further illustration, it may be stated as a fact, which legislators will do well to take note of, that the victim of in justice has ever rising in him the burning sense that he has been wronged. A people s sleeping Samson, their staunchness, man hood, rectitude of life and business dealing, all the early, grand simplicity of act and counsel, in very wantonness of sleep is overborne first debauched and then shorn of its plume of honor. Low aims and "covetousness which is idolatry," the Philistines which lie in wait for this modern life, fall upon such slumbers swiftly, fatally. In some sort, a triumph of strength, a righteous retribution, is meted out then and there, whereby the moral power of a land is not only fettered, but blinded. On a precarious basis such victory ever rests victory which demands that wrong and fraud, and lies, shall remain stronger than the truth and right of things; victory which must hold its own against the true forces of society struggling to assert themselves. If those forces, roused at last, fall like a thunderbolt, strike back in heart-breaking rage, not in strength only, but in blind strength, what a dangerous thing for victory! One law is that the strong est for the time being shall prevail ; another is that for the strong est to continue victor, he must have not only might on his side, but right; that is, not one might, but all the mights. Thus it is in the game of oppression. While one side gains in physical, it loses in moral power; the other, losing in physical power, does gain in moral. According to the purely military estimate of Napoleon, the last is to the first as three to one. Thus it was in the war between the States. The fact that the odds, so long resisted by the South, were more cruel than three to one, must always be accepted as the measure of her moral power. To her mind it was very clear that she had been first robbed and then calumniated; because"*her feathers were the brightest in the plume of her adversary, she had none left to shine in her own. The wealth, the factories, the opulent cities of the North, were the bright spoil of her fields, which had never been retaliated. A political party which named itself "the poor man s friend " (Boss Tweed, and other Bosses, have since done the same thing on the same basis) was not to our taste. The surgeon of Le Sage possessed the talent of turning passengers into patients by a single stroke of his poinard, upon whom, however, he was then willing to exercise his curative abilities. " Hypocrites," 196 MEMORIAL VOLUME. says the Talmud, "first steal leather and then make shoes for the poor." One possession the South had not parted with the hearts of her children. These were hers only. John Brown s raid, and the immense import of a fiasco intrin sically mean, needs not be spoken of here an armed foray to< liberate slaves, whereby not a single slave was made insubordi nate! Wendell Phillips said of him: "He had conquered Vir ginia; made of her a disturbed State, unable to stand on her own legs for trembling, had not the vulture of the Union hovered over her; proved a slave State to be only fear in the mask of despotism. Had a hundred men rallied to him he might have marched across the quaking State to Richmond." In the full ness of time a million men rallied to him ; but "marching across the quaking State to Richmond," which was done with so much smooth facility on the platform, somewhat lagged in the field. "The vulture of the Union" changed sides completely, and still the trembling legs did not refuse to stand up with some stoutness. "Fear in the mask of despotism" disguised itself with a protracted and strange success. When every scandal and offence to the South took the offen sive against her the Morrill tariff, colossal jobbery, which has since spanned a continent; defiance of contract, which has since rained national banks and paper money, pledged determination to raze the foundations of the South and to topple the whole edi fice it was settled that she could be brought to terms by com plete exhaustion and defeat alone. When superior numbers rose againt her, and "false to freedom, sought to quell the free," the opportunity was given and seized to prove the honesty of her own convictions. The merchant closed his ledger; the clerk sprang over his desk; the student threw down his lexicon and shouldered a musket; the planter rode his best horse into the field; the churches melted their bells into guns, and women their jewels into the treasury. A storm of indignation swept over the land, in the tension and revolt of which, all the forces of society were bent like a bow and recoiled like a bolt. Purer devotion to a cause never was beheld. It has been said, men make the laws and women make the morals. "Laws," says Milton, "are masculine births." It is the prerogative of man, seldom as it is availed of, to clothe himself in their majesty, and on this earth to be their representative; but the history of morals is woman s history a deeply-important fact, if we consider another aphorism : " Men make laws, but we live by custom." You recall the sally of Fletcher of Saltoun: " I care not who makes the laws of a people, so I make their songs." The song is that which floats most directly from the. ADDRESS .OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBIXSOX. 197 heart of a people, and most directly floats back to it again. It is the expression of that which is anterior to all laws: the moral sense which makes them, and on which they must operate. It is the power behind the throne, greater than the throne, which makes the Queen of Song of such significance. You lay a hand on the pulse of a people when you touch and are touched by hers. In no wise, therefore, can it be omitted as a most literal fact, that in the discrimination of those times and fates, when the customary pilots of society, the priest, the poet, the newspaper editor, were so largely merged in the secular arm; when the minister of the Gospel fought through all grades, from private in the ranks up to Lieutenant-General Commanding; when the poet largely had his "headquarters in the saddle"; when the editor "associated himself with the staff," and there was nobody left to make either the laws or songs of a people in the terrible business of waging their wars: the tocsin of war said to woman here in the conservative South, "the more than Papal throne of public opinion, be that your throne, and be your proper mercy and your proper dignity your noblest sceptre." The subtler im pulses of the war fell into her hands, as well as its gentler min istrations. She was the voice of its heart and the interpreter of its passion. She staunched the wound and smoothed the pillow. She was the minister to the sick and the angel to the dying. She wove the banner and device which floated at the head of even- column. She girded on the harness for the fight, giving most proudly where she loved most dearly. U limit-red and un beneficed, she rose the true Pontiff of a Commonwealth. In this form, I have thought it worth while to review the con victions actuating us, in a contest which sealed their sincerity. That, at least, can never more be questioned; for, though when the war broke out, the doctrine of our assailants was, that some two hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders maintained such a reign of terror at the South, that the remaining population were driven into resistance, wherefore a United States army was neces sary in their midst to endow them with free speech; when the war ended, and this same population was not only free to express devotion to the Union, but greatly rewarded for doing so, and punished for not doing so, the legislation of a Northern Congress assumed that their devotion to their cause was such as no mis fortune could impair; that not a man of them could be trusted, and that a reign of terror and proscription, undeniable this time, must be put over them in consequence! The strength to do and suffer greatly, the strength of Ironsides, can only be had of men "knowing what they fight for and loving what they know." To embody the just sympathies of men, this it is to be a republic. 198 MEMORIAL VOLUME. To present those sympathies and that justice in their truest form,, this is the art of government. A government rests on intelli gence, when intelligence welcomes it as intrinsically noble and beneficent. More absolutely than any king, the citizens of such a State can say: "The State, it is ourselves, our sword, our hel met, our breastplate, our breast; the nobleness we ourselves have made and are made by." The country which is loved is the country which is lovely. No more compendious statement of the war has been given than that of Lord John Russell: "The North is fighting for em pire, the South for independence." To this may added another, by our President Davis, in the summer of 1864: "We are not fighting for slavery we are fighting for independence." We were not sapping, but supporting the principles of social order; fighting for no metaphysical, fighting for practical rights. The men of 76, when they spoke of the right of revolution, did not mean that it was a wrong, but that it was a right. The men of 87 did not mean to make bond and dependent the States, which were "and of a right ought to be free and independent." They did not organize a system of constitutional warfare between the States, but its constitutional prohibition a government under law and constitution; not over it, "outside the constitution." The men of 1861 said: "Better to have been subjugated by the arms of Great Britain, than by our own Federal compact." The present Executive of the United States, on a late tour through the country, several times quoted (if the newspapers quote him rightly), as coming from Andrew Jackson, the words: "The Union, it must and shall be preserved." But Jackson never made that speech. What he did say was, "The Federal Union, it must be preserved." Ours was the Federal army. In any correct use of terms, our assailant was the anti-Federal army. Henry Clay, in 1836, speaking of the Abolitionists, asked: "Is their purpose to appeal to our understandings and actuate our humanity? And do they expect to accomplish that purpose by holding us up to the scorn, and contempt, and detestation of the free States and the whole civilized world? . . . The Abolitionists, let me suppose, succeed in their present aim of uniting the inhabitants of the free States, as one man against the inhabitants of the slave States. Union on the one side will beget union on the other,, and this process of reciprocal consolidation will be attended with all the violent prejudices, embittered passions, and implacable animosities which ever degraded human nature. A virtual dis solution of tie Union will havj taken place, whi e the forms of its existence remain." In 1861 the causes enumerated by Clay had produced the anticipated results. The constitution was then ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBIXSOX. 199. "marching on" to be operated "outside the constitution, liors la loi, as Robespierre would say; and since that time, as we know, has been planted definitely "on the side of freedom" of freedom to be violated with impunity! IV. A despairing audience must long since have decided that this address is as slow in getting into the Wilderness, as the Children of Israel were in getting out of one. But wildernesses abound in this world in order that faith may more abound. Sooner or later they are arrived at by almost every path that of this association being no exception which, indeed, least of all was to be expected. It has seemed to me that the illustration of the foregoing premises might best be found, not in the day of elation which closed at Gettysburg; but at the point of depression, ex haustion, and " wearing out by attrition" the campaign of 1864. Since September 22 J, 18^2, the United States, in the language of Mr. Wendell Phillips, " had turned its face Zionward" that is to say, President Lincoln, who one or two clays earlier had pro nounced a proclamation of emancipation to be "the Pope s bull against the comet"; on the day above mentioned let fly at the comet, in the papal and bovine manner he himself described, with results which full} justified his first impressions. We take up our line of march on the banks of the Rapidan. In the name of the river, as in the names Northanna, Southanna, Rivanna, Fluvanna, we have preserved once more the kindly- affectioned zeal, which Virginia so long retained for the courtly and sparkling reign of Anne, making the surface of our soil the bark of an old tree, in which the same initials perpetually recur. The country about the border line between Orange and Spot- sylvania, extending back from the Rapidan, is a dismal region of barrens covering rich veins of ore; on the Spotsylvania side more especially of iron, on the other of gold a fact which has written itself upon the localities and creeks of the neigoborhood, one of which, Aline run, gives the name to the battle which closed the previous campaign. The origin of the name goes back to the first settlement of the country. When the Knights of the Gol den Horse Shoe set out on their tramontane ride in 1/16, to scale the Appalachians and drink his Majesty s health on the summit of Mount George (sic juvat transcendcre ]\Iontcs\ the journal of their expedition chronicled the following: "At half- past two we got the horses; at three we mounted, and at half an hour after four we came up with our baggage, at a small river three miles on the way, which we call Mine River, because there 2OO MEMORIAL VOLUME. \vas an appearance of a silver mine by it." In a good sense it came to pass afterwards that what glittered was not silver. The country is one of gold, but of melancholy, forbidding ex terior. It is as if it said: "My severity is seeming, my bounty is real. I hold one of the prizes of life, therefore not to be turned up in the first furrow or the first week; the reward of dis crimination, persistency, wise, discriminating method; one of the great prizes of life, which cannot be bought simply, but must be wrought withal. I carry my frowns on my brow, my beams in my breast." It is a country of iron and gold, as it were, of gold, and the iron to defend the gold; a fountain of wealth, and the mailed hand needful to assure it; a country of untamed forest and coppice, presenting an aspect of savagery unchanged from the time when the savage was its lord. Endless successions of jungle have come and gone, each in turn rotting at the base of another like unto itself; as savage hordes, as wild beasts come and go; their whole past the dust under their feet. So here the foliage of each recurring spring rises out of the mast of all the autumns packed about the roots a savage past, which fades as the leaf, and is then most useful when turned into manure. All the ages of the past lie there, pressed into a few handfuls of inorganic mould, feeding the labyrinth of to-day. He who wishes to see a district in the heart of the oldest of American Commonwealths, which looks as it did when the white man first landed on our shores, will find it here. "So thou art Brasse without, but Golde within," written under the portrait of Captain John Smith, might be written over this portion of the State he so greatly helped to found. The last time I saw it, looking back from a rise in the road, the mellow gush of a perfect October Sabbath was throwing its deep, delicate farewell, at once the noblest and the tenderest of the year, over the changing autumn leaf; where one might say a perpetual Sabbath reigned, were rest mere idleness, and not "the fitting of self to its sphere"; were it not "loving and serving the highest and best"; but as it was, one might have said that the rest of the Lord poured a ray from his halo around the lair of his adversary, making the wrath of the Wilderness to praise Him: so that, for the instant, one might see, as in creation week, that all is good. The tall, gaunt pines, and clumps of pines, rising alternately in light and shadow, waved aloft like green peaks and islands in a rolling sea, far as the eye could stretch, of autumn glory. It must ever be a satisfaction to remember that the same Henry, Earl of Southampton, who with one hand lifted up in the East the "Glorious Morning" of a Shakespeare s Sun, with the other planted in his "golden face" the tops and meadows of Virginia, ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 2OI <~md poured over both the age of Elizabeth. He was a great Henry who was "the tenth muse" to those eternal numbers and these pathless wilds: architect of those stirring fortunes, which in 1607 planted the Cross at the foot of the foils of James rizer. One cannot read now without emotion the verses of the poet Drayton, written at the time of embarkation: You hrave, heroic mind?. Worthy your country s mime. That honor still pursue. Whilst loitering hinds Lurk here ut home with shame, Go and subdue. And cheerfully nt sen. Success you .-till entice. To get the pearl and gold, And ours to hold Virginia. Earth s only paradise. But it is the leaf of a century later which I wish to hold up for a moment, because there happens to be on it an impression of tlir scenery upon which we ;uv immediately to enter. One of the merriest of the narratives of Colonel William Byrd re lates certain journeys of the Sovereign of Westover, called by him "A progress to the Mines," which finally drew rein at " Colonel Spotswood s enchanted castle," on one side of a Ger- manna street, opposite "a Baker s dozen of ruinous Tenements," where "so many German Families had dwelt some years ago." Only Mrs. Spotswood was at home, "who received her old acquaintances with main* a gracious smile." "I was carried," he writes, "into a room elegantly set off with Pier-Glasses. A brace of tame deer ran familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a stranger. But, unluckily, spying his own figure in the glass, he made a spring over the Tea-Table that stood under it and shattered the glass to pieces, and falling back upon the tea-table made a terrible Fracas among the China. . . But it was worth all the Damage to show the moderation and good humor with which she bore this disaster. In the evening the noble Colonel came home from his mines, and Mrs. Spots- wood s sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him en cavalier." The next day the visitor was instructed in the mystery of making iron, wherein Spotswood had led the way, and was the Tubal Cain of Virginia, being the first in North America to erect a fur nace. However, the furnace was still great part of the time, and 2O2 M K.MORI AL VOLUME. Spotswood said " he was rightly served for committing his affairs to a mathematician, whose thoughts were always among the stars." ijater in the day there was shown a marble fountain, "where Miss Theky often sat and bewayled her virginity" not ineffectually, since she left descendants. "At night we drank prosperity to all the Colonel s Projects in a Bowl of Rack Punch, and then retired to our devotions." The next night the two Barons "quitted the threadbare subject of iron, and changed the scene to Politics." Spotswood said the "ministry had receded from their demand upon New England to raise a standing salary for all succeeding Governors, for fear some curious members of the House of Commons should inquire how the money was dis posed of that had been raised in the other American colonies for the Support of their Governors. . . . He said further, that if the Assembly in New England w r ould stand Bluff, he did not see how they could be forced to raise money against their will. . . Then the Colonel read me a lecture upon Tar," &c. Here was a man who a year later, making a visit to his planta tion, laid off a tract at the Point of Appomattox to be called Petersburg, and another at Shoccoe s to be called Richmond, supping with another who had erected the first furnace in America ; led the first troops over the mountains; who promoted Benjamin Franklin to be postmaster of Pennsylvania; a veteran of Blen heim, wounded in the breast there, and afterwards dying on his way to take command in the army against Carthagena. Cineas, had he stepped in to spend the evening, would have been em barrassed to find Tubal Cain and Triptolemus under the same roof. The whole logic of the Revolution was considered by that host and guest, as they sat in the September mildness with their feet under the mahogony, to teach us what a thing it is condcrc gcntcin. It is a simple and a grand old day which has come down to us from those founders of commonwealths, the knightliest of that knightly band u Who rode \\\\\\ > pot* wood round the l:\nd, And rode \\ith Raleigh round the seas" ; when the planter had his own capital, his own Birmingham, his own standing army, his own navigable river, and shipped his tobacco at his own doors; when, after the union of England and Scotland, the escutcheon of the Colony was quartered with the arms of England, France and Ireland, crested by a maiden queen, with the motto, "En dat Virginia quartaui" (before the union quintan!) ; when the Atlantic ocean was the Virginia sea in Cap- ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 203 tain Smith s geography, and so exposed in the highly ornamented map which has come down from him, with a group of naked savages on one side, and, properly enough, "Honi soit qui mal v pcnsc" on the other. One other sentence from this old past, and I am done. "Three miles farther," writes Colonel Byrcl of his journey forward, "we came to the Germanna road, where I emitted the chair and con tinued my journey on horseback. I rode eight miles together over a stony road, and had on either side continual poisoned Fields, with nothing but saplings growing on them." Here in 1/32 is the description which serves us for to-tiny. The Lord of \\cstover is gone. His broad empire is gone. All that ren.ains of the most accomplished hand and courtly mind, on this side of the Atlantic, are these paintings of his pen, around which for ever wantons the merry laughter of a witty lip, giving us the best, it not the only picture of the time and ot himself, who almost was the time. Triptolcmus and his gay steeds, with the revering slaves who held the stirrup for their lord, have scudded to far-off lands; are clean gone and scattered here as the autumn leaf they strode home in. Tubal Cain is gone. The (i<ldcn Horse-Shoer backed the pale horse in season, and took his fare well ride doubtless in the old knightly fashion. Marlborough s veteran has fought his last fight, and, faithful son of the church, we \vill hope received his death wound, too, in the breast. Spots- wood s "enchanted caslle," the "gracious smile" which made it so, the tame deer, and the pier-glass through which they darted panic stricken, as wiser animals have been before and since by a "coun terfeit presentment," are melted into air. The German colony is gone. Their ruinous tenements have ceased even to be ruinous. 1 he marble fountain and its virginal wail are gone, or at most only the wail is left. The banquets are gone. No fiscal Moffett, with his monitory bell-punch, had been conceived in 1732, and "the Bowl of Rack Punch" has left not a rack behind. But those "poisoned Fields" remain. They are the battlefields of the \Yil- derness, where Spots wood s descendant massed again the iron of a people, leading another kind of Horse-Shoe Knights, "red-wat shod." Through this country run two principal roads, known as the Orange and Fredcricksburg turnpike (or more commonly- Old pike), and south of this the Orange and Freclericksburg plank-road. These two roads, about the point of the battlefield, run nearly parallel, at a distance varying 1 from two miles and a half to two miles and a quarter, but beyond that point converge very rapidly, and form a junction at the old Wilderness church, some two miles further on. South of the Plank road, and MEMORIAL VOLUME. diverging from it, where the line of battle ran on the 6th of May, some three quarters of a mile, is the roadbed of the then unfin ished Orange and Fredericksburg railroad. Crossing the two established highways, and crossing each other so as to make an X, are the Germanna plank-road and the Brock road, the former running from Germanna ford in a southeasterly direction, and constituting, in connection with the latter, the direct road to Richmond from Germanna ford. The Cath?rpin road intersects the Brock road about eight miles south of the Plank road, at Todd s tavern, and connects with the road from Ely s ford at Aldrich, two miles southest from f hancellorsville. Confederate resistance in the field meant, from the beginning, 3. general s strategy and an army s patience equalizing unequal numbers and resources. It meant the show of troops at many points; their rapid concentration at a few, even at the expense of the exposure of the rest. It meant forced marches, meagre equipment, deficient food and forage. It meant this the first year of the war. It meant it more than ever in the last. The greatest and best appointed army of modern times, the army which marched to Moscow, moving in midsummer through the friendly country of Lithuania from the Nieman to the Dwina, a distance of some two hundred and fifty miles, in a time which made the average rate of travel less than twelve miles a day, lost ten thousand horses and nearly one hundred thousand men; left a hundred and fifty guns and five hundred caissons at Wilna, and twenty-five thousand sick and dying in the hospitals and villages of Lithuania. These losses, the bulletin says, arose from "the uncertainty, the distresses, the marches and countermarches of the troops, their fatigues and sufferances." The want of dry fodder for the horses, and the necessity of supporting them upon the green crop which was growing in the fields, mowed them down in such heaps. Just such marches arid countermarches, fatigues, and sufferings of the troops, was the price of all Confederate achievement. Campaigns in the Valley, battles around Rich mond, sieges of Petersburg, all depended upon this. On the eve of his long wrestle with Grant, Lee had to close with forces, not only worn and torn by three bloody years, but now pinched by famine in the track of armies, a portion of whose strategy was, as Sheridan s correspondent boasted of that marauder s opera tions in the Valley, "so to desolate, that a crow flying over would have to carry his own rations." Three years of such warfare had not told exclusively on one side. Immigration, it is true, did much to relieve recruiting in the North. At the same time the working classes were becom ing dissatisfied, and dimly perceived that the cost of the struggle ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 2O5 fell on them in the end, since they who paid it recovered it in the prices charged on the necessaries of life. They felt that the value of money had fallen more than wages had risen. The financier who had matured the " Morrill Tariff," imposing a duty of thirty-three per cent, upon all articles of European manufac ture, in May, 1864, proposed to raise the same to sixty-six per cent., in order to double the duties. Chase had hitherto suc ceeded in carrying on an expensive war, as it seemed, without taxation. He had succeeded in manipulating trade into the spec ulation which thrives upon war. By building up a war business upon and by reason of the disorganization of all other business, he had created a public policy which owed its success to private demoralization. The few taxes he had laid, in the main, had not been paid. His excise duties did not prove a success. His in come tax was far from realizing expectations. His main stay was paper money a sword which was sure to pierce the hand which leaned on it. Truly it will be good fortune if they who drew that sword do not perish by it. At length he had announced that five hundred million dollars a year, which he deemed a trifle, must be raised from the pockets of the people. In 1864 six per cent, gold-bearing bonds brought only fifty per cent, in gold. "We will put forth one more effort," said Thaddeus Stevens, "to lift our sinking credit by the hair of its head fom the sea of bankruptcy." At the opening of this campaign the Southern prospect was sufficiently cheering to men accustomed to peril. The two great armies of attack were opposed in the East and the West by armies of defence, both determined to dispute, and one not unable to become an army of offence and even of invasion. In Louisi ana, on the 8th of April, Banks had been defeated and stampeded at Mansfield by General Taylor. There followed a second en counter between the same Generals on the Qth, wherein the Northern papers claimed a victory, wliich, they said, "was marred by an order from Banks to retreat." This order, if it was given, was so excessively complied with as to result in a flight, in which the wounded were abandoned. About the same time, General Forrest made repeated and suc cessful attacks upon the posts of the enemy on the Mississippi. With no ordinary feeling, I make this passing allusion to one who can never hear it. To-night resolutions are read to you in commemoration of his life and services. The bold rider is down; the swift sabre is quenched. The gray uniform which in life he- covered with honor now covers the trooper in his grave, also with honor. He lies, as it were, wrapt in his own valor. In the East, General Hoke, who had been detached from Gene- 2C)6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. ral Lee s army for the purpose, had captured the town of Ply mouth in North Carolina, and a Confederate ram had sunk three iron-clads in Roanoke sound. In addition, a new line of supplies had been opened just as all the old ones were closing. The new Orleans custom-house drove a traffic in "permits," under which goods were conveyed, at a cost of about one-third the invoice of the goods, into the Confederate lines. Ordinarily the worst charge you can bring against an officer of government is to say that he co-operates with those who make money by jobbing in the public funds. In a most pernicious way he gives "aid and comfort to the enemy." But this New Orleans business heaped coals of fire on his head with the face which "good men wear who have done a virtuous action." But though such gleams of advantage to longing minds, which clutched at gleams as drowning men at straws did brighten the sky, the sky was not a bright one. "Undeniably," writes Doctor Mahan, in his History of the War (from official records, and giving the data of his computations), "the Union armies outnumbered those of the Confederacy, in all cases as two, commonly as three, and during the entire period that Gene ral Grant was our Commander-in-Chief, as four to one." The re port of Secretary Stanton shows that on May 1st, 1864, the aggre- grate military force of all arms in the service of the United States numbered nine hundred and seventy thousand seven hundred and ten men, and that on May I, 1864, there was an available force present for duty of six hundred and sixty-two thousand three hundred and forty-five, and that of these there were on that day under Grant one hundred and forty-one thousand one hundred and sixty officers and men ; in the neighboring departments of Washington, Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, and the middle department at Baltimore, an additional force of one hun dred and thirty-seven thousand six hundred and seventy-two men, which Grant could draw upon for his operations in Virginia. In the meantime, the draft was enforced, volunteering stimulated by high bounties, and in the Northwest hundred days troops ordered out to relieve the troops on garrison and local duty, and send them to the front. Orders were given for the movement of all the armies not later than the fourth of May. Grant s thou sands struck their tents on the night of the third. Lee s letters on the threshold of this campaign are the letters of one in straits. On the 8th of March, we find him writing to Longstreet, then in East Tennessee, that it is simply impossible for him to recruit the command of the latter without stripping all others; and if horses could be obtained for Longstreet, where is forage to come from ? There is none to be had nearer than ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 2O/ Georgia. It cannot be furnished by the railroad. No, the best thing were for Longstreet and Johnston to make a combined movement into Middle Tennessee, where forage and provisions can be had, cut the armies at Chattanooga and Knoxville in two, draw them from these points, and strike at them in succession as opportunity offers. Again and again Lee returns to this. But if this is not practical, then every preparation should be made to meet the approaching storm which will burst upon Vir ginia. Accumulate supplies at Richmond, or at points conve nient, as fast as possible. Notify Beauregard of the transfer of troops from Charleston and Fortress Monroe. We shall have to glean troops from every quarter. All pleasure travel (think of it at such a time !) should cease; everything be devoted to necessary wants. Reinforce Johnston from Polk, Mobile, and Beauregard. Tell Longstreet to come to me; throw his corps rapidly into the Valley to counteract any movement of the enemy in that quarter, and be where he can unite with me, or I with him, as circumstances require. "Forward Moke s command," he writes Pickett, "the enemy will advance as soon as the roads will permit." Imboden and Breckinridge, in the Valley, must be prepared to cross the Blue Ridge at a moment s notice. \Ye know how Breckinridge did afterwards, like the young and old lion, sweep the Valley, and then bound over the mountains to the side of Lee, his true place. On April I2th Lee writes to the President: "My anxiety on the subject of provisions is so great that I cannot refrain from expressing it to your Excellency." On the 1 5th he would draw Longstreet and Pickett to him, and "move right against the enemy on the Rappahannock. But to make this move I must have provisions and forage. I am not yet able to call to me the cavalry or artillery." On the 22cl Longstreet has reached Cobham from East Tennessee. On the 29th he writes: "I shall be too weak to oppose Meade s army without Hoke s and Johnston s brigades." On the 3<Dth scouts report that Meade s pontoon trains have advanced south of the Rappahannock. One other little sentence has a touch of pathos in the sheer simplicity with which it joins events. "The grass is springing now," Lee wrote on the 28th of April, "and I am draw ing the cavalry and artillery near to me." In this correspondence, thus hastily glanced at, is given the outline of an army s urgency; the wide compass of its watch at the instant the enemy had couched his spear; the need to decide quickly and surely upon different lines of operations and probabil ities of attack; to concentrate in an instant upon the decisive points of a theatre of war; to fall with the whole weight of a .smaller army upon fractions of a larger one, wherever they were 2O8 MEMORIAL VOLUME. exposed, which, to be done with the destructiveness of lightning had to be done with the rapidity as well. A good general will always say to his troops, as Napoleon did : " I would rather gain victory at the expense of your legs than at the price of your blood." Here was an army, whose transportation alarmingly prognosticated the spavined state, which had to make up in ve locity what it wanted in weight. Horace Walpole tells one of his funny stories of a General of the Duke of Marlborough, at a dinner with the Lord Mayor. An imposing, keenly speculative alderman, who sat next to the General, addressed him with "Sir, yours must be a very laborious profession." "O, no," replied the General, "we fight about four hours in the morning, and two or three after dinner, and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves." But this absurdity came near to being the fact of a fight now approaching, ushered in in May and ushered out in April following. Our season of rest, our long hybernation was over, leaving us anything but replen ished. General Heth has stated, in a late communication to the Philadelphia Weekly Tii/ies, that at this period (in 1864) "the ra tion of a general officer was double that of a private, and so mea gre was that double supply, that frequently to appease my hunger I robbed my horse. . . . What must have been the condition of the private" a problem vastly pleasanter to propound now than to solve then. But on the 28th of April the grass was springing. Nature was recruiting. She too must be pressed into the ranks. Her ways, of pleasantness and paths of peace, sweet as ever, were announc ing then that the seed-corn of a people was ripe for the harvest of death, where men were to fall like grain. Her robe of increase was to be our martial cloak. In that fair springtime man seemed to say to nature: "Thou must increase, but I must decrease; a material world become more and more in this new era, the higher and nobler less and less." The notes and shapes of spring had come again; the birds were blithe as ever in the branches; the skies were bending with old-time kindness overhead; the blue hills of Virginia, to the slopes of which her army stretched, stood in their rampart strong and beautiful as ever. Spring, fresh- tinted, was glittering once more where, so tragically, all that glittered was not gold. Nature was preaching peace and peaceful increase on the Rapidan, as elsewhere, when there was no peace there in the throat of war. And so General Lee drew the cavalry and artillery near to him, since the grass was springing on the 28th of April. Mr. Swinton has stated no doubt with his habitual fidelity to the means of information in his reach that " Lee s army, at this. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 2OQ time, numbered fifty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-six men of all arms," a statement derived from the monthly returns of the Army of Northern Virginia, now at the archive office at Washington. General Early is satisfied that General Lee s army did not exceed fifty thousand effective men of all arms. General Lee has himself stated (page 268 of Personal Reminiscences) that the number of effective men under his command on May 4th, 1864, of all arms, was between forty-five and fifty thousand. His right, under Ewell, extended to the mouth of Aline run; the left, under Hill, to Liberty Mills. Two divisions of Longstreet were encamped in the rear near Gordonsville. The other division, under Pickett, which had not accompanied the corps commander to the West, had been and continued to be retained near Rich mond. The brigade of Hoke was absent. That of R. D. John ston arrived just in time to take part in the fight of the second day. This army had now to deal with a General who proposed to meet the clanger of defeat in detail by the altogether simple expedient of having more troops everywhere than the Confederates had any where (a plan so simple, that the moment a man of genius men tioned it, every other must have felt mortified at .not having thought of it himself), and whose generalship was, in his own sober second thought, composed after the event, "to hammer con tinuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission," &c. Xot a bad way, per haps the only way, to conquer freemen, this of "wearing them out by attrition"; this of dashing superior numbers, in wave after wave, upon freedom s living wall until the last foe has been slain, and the dashing troops can hear no sound "save their own dash- ings." If in no other way it can be done, then in this one way it must be done, until there be "nothing left to him." Grant cer tainly was of this opinion, for when his lieutenant suggested to him that he might supplement the programme with a little ma- nceuvring, he replied, "I never mancL-uvre." Credit must be given Grant for his turn for keeping his own counsel. He did not succeed in preventing his plans from cross ing to General Lee, the moment they were known definitely to himself; but he did succeed, as none of his predecessors had done, in keeping them from his own army correspondents. It was not until long after this that Wendell Phillips said of him: "As in the case of another animal, we took him for a lion until we heard his voice." A valuable faculty this of reticence. He who is in capable of this is incapable of everything. He who has it, though he has nothing else, is capable of something. One of the very 2IO MEMORIAL VOLUME. ablest things Grant ever did was for some years to lock his jaws over his tongue. Loquacity does not fight battles, still less does it win them. To the thin vapidity of skin-depth, glibness is al most a necessity. The signs are, latterly, that Grant s silence is but skin-deep; which again, in his case, is no ordinary thickness. Frederick the Great said that if his night-cap knew what was in his head he would throw it into the fire. Grant, doubtless, had less difficulty in keeping his night-cap from being surprised. Many a time, in the campaign "on that line if it took all the summer," which by several lines was conducted to the following spring, he must have felt himself in the condition of Napoleon, when he wrote to his brother Joseph : " You will so manage that the Spaniards will not suspect the course I intend to pursue. This will not be difficult, for I have not fixed upon it myself." The whole hammering and attrition stratagem of massing so many troops, that before the enemy could kill them all he would be killed himself, with which Grant is now known to have ad vanced from Culpepcr Courthouse, enjoys the advantage of hav ing been definitely proclaimed for the first time on the 22d of July, 1865, when, on no other rational hypothesis, could Grant s series of repulses be wrought into a consistent scheme of victory. This is far the most infallible way, both to prepare and to predict. In his military life Grant was a reserved, silent man, and deserv edly owed much to that. With such a masterpiece of strategy to relieve his brain of, after some hesitation as to whether he would cross the Rapidan above Lee s left or below his right, the Lieutenant-General de cided on the latter, which he believed would force Lee back to Richmond. As late as the 2d of May, Field s division of Long- street s corps had been ordered to the north of Gordonsville, to meet an expected advance of the enemy by way of Liberty Mills. One may easily speculate as to what might have been the result to that "Grand Army," if it had dared to try a flank, which for once would have separated it from gunboats and navigable rivers. But, more judiciously, Germanna ford, which was some ten or twelve miles below our right, was seized on the night of the 3d of May, a t nd under starlight of the 4th Grant moved for the lower fords. The reorganized Army of the Potomac consisted of the Second, Fifth and Sixth corps, under Hancock, Warren and Sedgwick, respectively, who reported immediately to General Meade. Each corps consisted of four divisions. The cavalry, numbering over ten thousand sabres, had been placed under Sheridan. The Ninth corps, under Burnside, reported immediately to Grant, and also comprised four divisions. The advance to the Rapidan was made in two columns. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 211 Under the soft light of the stars, bright glancing from the arms of a host countless as the stars, the grand army is launched into the night. Deep in the sands of the Rapidan is the heavy tramp of two columns, as the sands for number. Ah! in that deep night into which they march what dreams may come! into that deep silence what a roar burst! and those heavenly fires, soft- glancing now in the great deep, like light-house lamps, be the last bright thing which many a shipwrecked man shall see! Warren s corps, preceded by Wilson s cavalry division, and forming the advance of the right column, moved from the neigh borhood of Culpeper Courthouse at midnight; reached Ger- manna ford by six o clock on the morning of the 4th; by one o clock was completely over, and marching six miles, bivouacked near Old Wilderness tavern, at the intersection of the Germanna Ford road with the Orange and Fredericksburg turnpike. The cavalry was properly disposed to prevent surprise. Sedgwick followed Warren in the afternoon, and encamped close to the river. Hancock, who led the left column, broke up camp, near Stcvensburg, advanced to Fly s ford, six miles lower down, pre ceded by Gregg s division of cavalry, and by nine, on the morn ing of the 4th, had pushed forward to Chancellorsville, five miles east of the Old Wilderness tavern, and two miles east of the junction of the Plank road and Old turnpike. The cavalry was thrown out towards Fredericksburg and Todd s tavern. Burnside s orders were to hold Culpeper Courthouse for twenty- four hours, and then follow the other corps. The morning of the 5th found Grant with a hundred thousand men across the Rapidan, and nearer to Richmond than Lee, on the direct road from Germanna ford. Meade s orders for May 5th, I 864, were for Sheridan to move with Gregg s and Torbert s divisions against the Confederate cavalry, in the direction of Hamilton s crossing; Wilson, with the Third cavalry division, to move at 5 A. M. to Craig s meet ing-house, on the Catharpin road; Hancock, at the same hour, to take up his line of march for Shady Grove church (on the Catharpin), and extend his right towards the Fifth corps, at Parker s store; Warren is simultaneously to head for this same Parker s store, on the Plank road, and extend his right towards the Sixth corps at Old Wilderness tavern. To the last mentioned point Sedgwick is to move so soon as the road is clear. Shady Grove church is two miles east of a road which connects the Catharpin with the Plank road at Parker s store. After first throwing out Griffin s division to the west, on the turnpike, to protect Sedgwick, who was to come up after him on the morning of the 5th, Warren pointed his van in conformity to orders. 13ut 212 MEMORIAL VOLUME. as Crawford, whose division was leading, approached the store,, he met the cavalry retreating before a hostile column which was pressing down the Plank road. In the meantime, Griffin reported a Confederate force on the turnpike. This was about 8 o clock in the morning. Grant and Meade were riding, and pleasantly chatting, with their staff officers, on the road to Old Wilderness tavern, when a message to this effect was received. An hour later Meade was saying to Warren: "The enemy have left a division to fool us here, while they concentrate and prepare a position towards the Northanna; and what I want is to prevent those fellows from getting back to Mine run." Orders were, therefore, given to Warren "to brush away or capture the force in his front." But Warren had stumbled on some other game than a fox which had taken to the cover. Lee had fallen back in the wrong direction. He had retreated north. Moreover, he was not "fooling." His broad-shouldered dead-lift intended the opposite. He meant a strain from "spur to plume." He was rushing, fast as spavined transportation could carry him, to seize his antagonist by the throat; and the hand which was raised to brush him away, fell shattered. Most children have hung with delight over that wonderful shrewdness of William Wallace, who, when he was on one side of the river Forth, and the Earl of Warren on the other, dared the latter to cross; and who, when the Warren of that day, contrary to his own judgment, was pushed into doing so by Cressingham the Treasurer, coolly waited until one-half of the English had crossed the bridge, and then, charging with his whole army, routed the Earl. But in modern times, with or without bridges, rivers are no insuperable barrier. The Danube is navigable as far as Ulm, and along its navigable length varies in width, from seven hundred and sixty to upwards of two thou sand yards, and so varies in depth, in the course of twenty-four hours, as to baffle the pilots of its steamers. But at Wagram, between the hours of three and six in the morning, Napoleon crossed from the southern to the northern bank with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand infantry, thirty thousand cavalry, and six hundred pieces of artillery, while the Archduke Charles was furiously (as he supposed) repulsing him above. The mod ern invader has a portable bridge, which he can throw down, at whatever point of crossing he may choose, and then, by concen trating a sufficient weight of metal at that point, can render it impossible to dispute effectively his passage. Accordingly, at the first battle of .Fredericksburg, and afterwards, General Lee chose rather to select positions, with a view to resist the advance of the enemy, than incur the loss which would attend an attempt to prevent his crossing. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROP.IXSOX. 213 On May 3d it was known that the Northern army was about to abandon its winter quarters and move as it did. Orders were issued that day to the troops to be prepared with three days cooked rations (which a special Providence gave them to pre pare), and Grant had hardly begun to march, before Lee began his countermarch. Signal fires blazing southward from Clarke s mountain beat the wardrum of that long roll, not in sound, but in light. The scene survives with especial vividness in my mem ory, because the battery of which I was a member, and which during the winter had been on picket, suddenly marched out and halted on the side of the road, greeted in succession the hurry ing commands, while waiting for its own to arrive. It was an army of comrades which was marching there, where each com- mand had familiar faces for each other. Playmates of boyhood, schoolmates of peace, host and guest of other days, recognized one another, and brothers and old friends shook hands, once more, to shake hands no more on earth. We were marching that morning to fight for freedom and society. To fight on the side of the true cause of mankind we were marching there; against the rage of untried speculation; against invasion to sub vert the frame and order of a commonwealth, by the corruption of the lower with the spoliation of the higher; against invasion, which was none the less vindictive that it named itself friendship for the human race. \Ye were the few against the many, and we knew it as we marched that morning happy that we, too, were to be seen in honor s ranks "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers." The cheer which rang out, the historic Rebel cheer, was no longer the cheer of sanguine invincibility, which echoed for the last time on the slopes of Cemetery hill, but something which went deeper a yell of defiance from men who had cause to fear, and for themselves defied the worst. Leaving Early s division and Ramseur s brigade to watch the fords of the Rapidan, Lwell, whose corps consisted of Early, Johnson and Rodes (in all fourteen thousand men, Larly says), crossed Mine run, moving on the Orange and Fredericksburg turnpike, and camped on the afternoon of the 4th at Locust Grove, about five miles west of Old Wilderness tavern. At cS o clock in the morning, Grant was counting that the orders which had been given would carry his army clear across the Wilder ness by the evening of the 5th. At that very instant, Lee s left hand was feeling through the jungle for the collar of his ad versary, while his right was lifted to deal his heaviest blow. Heth and Wilcox moved down the Plank road and bivouacked the evening of the 4th, Heth at Mine run and Wilcox at Vidiers- ville. These two divisions numbered fourteen thousand men. 214 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Anderson s division of Hill s corps was left at Orange Court house to protect our trains and secure our rear, with instructions,, as soon as it was ascertained there would be no movement on the part of the enemy in the direction of the Courthouse, to join the corps. Longstreet, marching from Gordonsville, was put in motion on a road which led into the Catharpin. On the )6th of April, Lee had written to General Bragg: "The brigades in motion with General Longstreet will amount to about nine thou sand men." The head of Ewell s column had advanced rather more than half the distance from Locust Grove to Old Wilder ness tavern, and was just in advance of the point where a road diverges to the Germanna Ford road, when the enemy, in heavy force, was encountered. It was Warren and his brush. On the side of Ewell, Jones brigade of Johnson s division and Battle s brigade of Rodes division received the attack of these troops, and were driven back in confusion by it. The Second Virginia brigade was broken and Jones himself killed in endeavoring to rally it "the gallant J. M. Jones," as General Lee called him in his dispatch who, together with his aid, Lieutenant Early, pre ferred death to retreat in that supreme emergency. The brigade had been placed on the crest of a gentle slope, its right resting on the turnpike; Battle supported it on the right both swept away. This was Ewell s van, all that had come up, which was faring thus badly. Of the five brigades composing Rodes division Battle s, Dole s, Ramseur s, Daniel s, and R. D. Johnston s the latter had been sent to Hanover Junction, some time before, to prevent a cav alry raid, and was still absent. Ramseur had been on picket at Morton s ford, and had not yet rejoined his command. Battle had just given way; but the brigades of Daniel and Doles imme diately formed, and dashed with such vigor on the enemy as to arrest and, for the moment, stagger him with an unexpected blow. Ewell, riding back to hurry up his troops, one-legged as he was, fairly rose in his stirrups as he met Gordon riding ahead on his black charger, and knew that Early, the stout old Roman, was be hind. "The fate of the army depends on you, General Gordon," he said. Gordon is said to have replied: "We will save the day/ or words to that effect; but, what is of more importance, in acts to that effect he did give such a reply. Eiling to the left in the pine thicket he halted, fronted, and led a countercharge, which, in conjunction with Daniel and Doles, broke through the enemy s advancing line, and Gordon swept to the rear. The fight was thus proceeding when Ramseur came up, and the right being extended by Gordon and himself, an advance was made, and Warren was forced back at all points. Ayres brigade of regulars, on the right ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 215 of Griffin, who had formed across the turnpike, was driven back by our left, carrying Bartlett s brigade with it, and leaving two guns which had been advanced on the turnpike to take advan tage of the first success. Wadsworth, in moving to the left of Griffin, instead of taking a course due west from the Lacy house, which would have brought him on the prolongation of Griffin s line, started facing northwest, so that when he came up his line of battle faced the turnpike almost at right angles to Ewell s, which came square upon Wadsworth s flank with a destructive fire, throwing it back in confusion. McCandliss brigade of Craw ford s division, which was to the left of Wadsworth, was sur rounded and driven from the field, with the loss of two whole regiments. Warren had designed that the left of the Sixth corps should sustain his own right; but the woods in their jungle foueht against Warren. t~> c"> Our extreme left, occupied by the Stonewall brigade, was at one time overlapped by the enemy. The personal gallantry and skill of Colonel W. W. Randolph, of the Second Virginia regiment, sec onding the conspicuous efforts of the brigade commander (General Walker) prevented disaster here. Later in the day the tall form of Randolph and all the courage it contained was laid lo\v. Gen eral Stafford, of the Louisiana brigade, was also killed. After the enemy had been repulsed Hays brigade, and still later Pegram s, was sent by Early to Johnson s left. The latter, just before night, sustained and repulsed a heavy attack, in which Pegram received a wound which must have been severe, since for some months it detained that officer from the field. At the close of the day Kwell s corps had captured over a thousand prisoners, besides inflicting on the enemy very heavy losses in killed and wounded, and capturing two pieces of artillery. Gordon occupied the posi tion he had gained on the right till after dark, when he was with drawn to the extreme left. Karly s division comprising, in the absence of Hoke, the brigades of Gordon, Hays and Pegram was now on the left of the road diverging from the turnpike, in extension of Johnson s line. Rodes occupied the ground he had won, his left resting on the turnpike in contact with Johnson, and his right in the air, A. P. Hill being at some unknown distance. Larly in the morning of the 5th, A. P. Hill s two divisions had resumed their march, Heth leading. They soon encountered the enemy s skirmishers dismounted cavalry. A regiment was de ployed on either side of the road, and heavy skirmishing con tinued until a point was reached on the Plank road, about half a mile west of where it crosses the Brock road at right angles, at which the enemy refused to be driven any farther by our skirmish line. At this point Heth deployed his division, as it came up, in 2l6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. line of battle three brigades to the right, one to the left, of the Plank road and perpendicular to it. Could Lee interpose the head of his column between Hancock and the remainder of Grant s army, while Lonstreet, moving on the Cartharpin, has something to say to Hancock! But it was not to be in any part. Spavined transportation had missed the junction of the two roads by half a mile, and Hancock had hastily returned by the Brock road, in stead of marching forward on the Catharpin and hearing from Longstreet as was our preference. Hancock, whose four divisions commanded by Barlow, Gib bon, Birney and Mott numbered, at lowest calculation, twenty- seven thousand men, bivouacked at Chancellorsville, as we have seen. On the morning of the 5th he had advanced about two mijes beyond Todd s tavern, when, at 9 A. M., he received a dis patch from Meade to halt, as the enemy were in some force on the Wilderness turnpike. Two hours later he was directed to move his command up on the Brock road, to its intersection with the Orange plank-road. Hancock rode ahead, found Getty s com mand in line of battle on the Brock road, his left resting near the junction. At 2 P. M. Birney joined Getty, and formed on his left in two lines of battle. Mott and Gibbon came up rapidly, and took their position on Birney s left, in the same formation. Bar low with the exception of Frank s brigade, which was stationed at the junction of the Brock road and the road leading to the Catharpin furnaces held the left of the line, and was thrown for ward on some high, clear ground in front of the Brock road. Hancock directed all the artillery of his command, with the ex ception of Dorr s Maine battery and one section of Ricketts , to be placed in position. Dorr s battery was placed in position in the second line of battle, near the left of Mott, and the section of Ricketts was sent to Getty on the Plank road. Immediately upon going into position the division commanders were directed to erect breastworks, which they did. The second line of battle threw up breastworks in rear of the first, and subsequently a third line was constructed in rear of the Third and Fourth divisions. At 2:30 P. M. Hancock received a dispatch from the chief of staff of the army telling him that a portion of A. P. Hill s corps was moving down the Plank road, had driven back the cavalry from Parker s, and directing him to unite with Getty in driving back A. P. Hill beyond that point; then to occupy it and unite with Warren s left, which was said to extend from the right to within one and a half miles of the Plank road in the vicinity of the store. Between three and four o clock he was ordered to attack with Getty s com mand, supporting the advance with his whole corps. At 4:15 P. M. Getty moved forward, and at once became hotly engaged. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 2 1/ Finding that Getty had met the enemy in force, the divisions of Birney and Mott immediately moved forward on his right and left. At 4:30 P. M. Carroll s brigade of Gibbon s division ad vanced to the support of Getty s right. A few minutes later Owen s brigade of Gibbon s division, and still later the Irish bri gade and the Fourth brigade of Barlow s division went into action and attacked vigorously. The section of Ricketts batter}- on the Plank road was captured and recaptured. The advances and attacks just narrated, not having been trans acted in the depths of the forest merely for scenic effect, it will be surmised, did not alight quite like a spent ball on our own troops. About half-past three o clock, or a little later, Lee had sent an officer of his staff (Colonel Marshall) to lleth with this message: "General Lee directs me to say that it is very important for him to have possession of the Brock road, and wishes you to take that position, provided you can do so without bringing on a general engagement." lleth replied, in effect, that the only way to find out whether it would or would not bring on a general en gagement, was to make the attempt to take the position, which he would make if desired. Before a reply could be received he was himself attacked with great fury. \Ve had not thrown up the usual impromptu breastworks; we were in a body of woods, studded thick with heavy undergrowth. The enemy was, for the first time, full\- disclosed when within about ninety yards. He was driven back. So soon as the first attacking column could be cleared away, a second column advanced to share the fate of the first. A third, a fourth, a fifth advanced. These assaults were well prepared and well delivered. The} were not victorious, but no one can say the} were ineffectual. 1 he equal fierceness of brave men was locked in those lonely shadows. The issue had come to this simple one: who can stand most killing? On one side of such an issue, lleth, with not quite seven thousand mus kets, held at bay for nearly two hours, Hancock and (jetty, Han cock alone having twenty- seven thousand muskets, and support ing the attack with his whole corps. I say Heth; it should be lleth and his brigade commanders his brigade commanders and the men the} commanded all welded into one fierce sword, whose handle rested in Heth s grasp, and whose temper it may well be his pride to have matched with his own. The brigade commanders were Colonel J. M. Stone, Brigadier-General John R. Cooke, Brigadier-General II. II. Walker, and Brigadier-Gene ral YY. W. Kirkland. The names of the men the} commanded I cannot give you. When the head of Hill s column had been brought to a halt, and there was reason to believe that a strong force was in his 2l8 MEMORIAL VOLUME. front, which a strong skirmish line could no longer drive, Lee naturally felt uneasiness, at the separation of the two corps of his army, and the uncertainty of the distance separating them. He, therefore, ordered Wilcox, who came up after Heth, to move through the woods towards the Old turnpike, and open commu nication with Ewcll. Wilcox, after advancing through the forest nearly half a mile, came to a field of about that width, and at a house several hundred yards in front saw a small party of the enemy. Thirty or forty were captured several officers among the number. From this house was a good view of the Old Wil derness tavern, and the enemy could be seen distinctly near it. This fact was reported to General Lee. Leaving two of his bri gades (McGowan s and Scales ) in the woods near the field, and reporting this also, Wilcox pressed forward in search of Ewell s right. Having crossed Wildnerness run and reached the woods beyond, in a field to the right and front, the right of Gordon s brigade, the extreme right of Ewell s corps, was found. Wilcox rode up to Gordon, but had barely spoken to him when a volley of musketry was heard in the woods, into which his brigades had entered but a few minutes before. Riding rapidly to the woods, he was met by a courier from General Lee, with orders to return at once to the Plank road, in consequence of the attack on Heth by the enemy, believed to be in great force. The brigades were recalled at once, and brought back with them some three hun dred prisoners. While recrossing the open field, the enemy were seen again, this time moving towards the Plank road in the direc tion of the musketry, then raging furiously. McGowan s bri gade had already been ordered into the fight. Scales was in the act of moving forward to take position on the right of the road, where the firing was heaviest. The great interval was now left to take care of itself. A Missouri newspaper asserts that hogs are so fat in Missouri, that, in order to find out where their heads are, it is necessary to make them squeal, and then judge by the sound. Heads and fronts of offending were judged of by similar methods that after noon. It was a battle in a tangled chaparral of scrub oaks and chinquapins. Only at short distances the troops engaged could be seen. The rattle of musketry was the message, as to where the struggle was severest, and the reinforcing brigades most needed. Thus guided, the third brigade of Wilcox (Thomas ) went in, on the left of the road, to take position on Heth s left. Thomas reported the enemy in Heth s rear, became engaged at once, and fought in line parallel with the road. Nelson, in the Bay of Aboukir, told his sea giants, that if, in the foaming wres tle of sea monsters and ocean gods, in which they were about to ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH RO151XSOX. 2I(J grapple, any should be troubled with misgivings as to the pre cise orders of the day, he would find an easy way out of his embarrassment, by simply closing with an enemy s ship a sea- god s order, which applies to all sea fights before and since; to land fights also; to life itself, indeed, whose great order for every da) r is to close with the enemy s ship, and sink it, if such a thing can be done. It \vns the one order which stood any chance of fulfillment in the blind foam and wrestle of the Wilderness. Bri gade after brigade was led into its depths with but one sure knowledge to resist the enemy, whether he was in front, whether he was on the flank, whether he was in the rear, and to keep on resisting. Right royally, with a monarch s disdain, as of a mon arch on a burning, sinking throne, the sun went clown upon their wrath, in the vapors of that 5th of May. His rich handfuls of crimson and gold fell among the vapors. For lie went clown red; a warrior breathing his last, and shaming the foe ere he expire, with the grand scorn of a splendid eye. And many a warrior went down with him. The South was one clay to go clown like him. Placid, stately clouds played upon and lit up with noble, beautiful expression, sailed tranquilly over, making the face of things, like the great face of a strong mind, beneath which great passions are raging. Just at nightfall the enemy made a supreme effort to crush our right. Scales brigade was bent back almost at right angles to the line. To hold Scales in place Hill must send for his last brigade. His chief of staff, Colonel Palmer, finds this on the point of going in under Wilcox, further to the left, where, undoubtedly, it was needed. Hut promptly it is now brought to the extreme right, where it is more needed. The musketry unloosed by this brigade, as it went in, reverberated through the woods as if it might be the ordnance of a fresh "Grand Arm) ." As Colonel Palmer was returning to the road, after the brigade was well under fire, he met Stuart and Colonel Venable sitting on their horses. One of them exclaimed: "If night would only come!" "It is Lane s brigade going in," said Colonel Palmer; "I feel assured the right will be held until night," and Colonel Venable rode off to say as much to the Commanding-General. All this time the interval between Kwell and Hill had been left to take care of itself, which it managed to do with marked ability. There was Grant s there, at least, was a general s opportunity. One body suddenly emerges about two hundred yards from where Lee, Stuart and Hill are dismounted and lying down. If they will but come on swiftly, the General of the army, the General of the corps, and the General of the cavalry are their prisoners. The officer in command, it turns out, is as much 22O MEMORIAL VOLUME, amazed as the officers he has surprised; chooses rather to be swift in the opposite direction, and as the Confederate Generals jump and mount in hot haste, gives the command "right about," and disappears in the timber. This was, indeed, early in the day; perhaps before a shot had been fired in the battle on the right. Almost immediately Heth s men were thrown forward. But through the day detachment after detachment of the enemy stumbled upon and stumbled through the interval. It was only necessary to do, in force and by direction, what was done by accident and in detachment, and the Confederate line would have been hopelessly cut in two. It was such an opportunity as this which Napoleon seized on the plains of Olmutz, when Soult, at the head of the French right wing, rushed forward upon the interval between the Austro-Russian centre and left, and, inter secting their line, severed the left wing entirely from the centre. The Sun of Austerlitz burned on his glowing axle as that was done. Just as Lane s brigade went in, the enemy came through this interval once more. We had no reserves, no forlorn hope left. The whole army was the forlorn hope. The Fifth Alabama battalion, the provost guard of Hill s corps, then guarding pris oners, and numbering about a hundred men, was all that was available to meet this emergency. With a thin line they held whatever was in front of them. Night came at last. To battle as to other things it does come. To the stiffened sinew, to the galled shoulder, to the bleeding feet and beating heart, it comes. But it did not come till after eight o clock on that 5th of May. When night put an end to the long strain, the two divisions on our right sank down exhausted. Where they fought there they sank down. And well they might lie down to the warrior s sleep upon the warrior s bed. Brave men had marched against them, strong men been driven back. From the beginning of the war to the end, no more stubborn fight was made, against a force so well directed and overwhelm ing, than this which Heth and Wilcox made. Forty thousand men under Hancock had been launched against them and resisted, not without fearful inroads on their own line, if line it could now be called. The right and left were bent almost at right angles to the front, while the front was at every imaginary angle. The troops of the enemy going for water would walk into our lines, and our men into theirs. Brigades and regiments crossed each, other. Some brigades of Heth s division were on the right, some on the left of the Plank road. Some presented a flank to the enemy, others a front. The alternate charges and repulses of a battle in the night, and that night in the Wilderness, had so confused them. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 221 Just back of Heth s line on the left of the Plank road was an open field (the same in which Lee and his Generals were so near to capture), some seventy-five acres in extent, and running from east to west, perhaps, five hundred yards. In this field Hill had directed guns of Poague s and Mclntosh s battalions to be put in battery. A few sticks kindled near the gun nearest the road marked the headquarters of the corps. Thither very speedily Heth came to report the position and condition of the troops and to ask permission for \Yilcox and himself to fall back in order to rectify their lines, since the proximity of the opposing army prevented a forward movement for that purpose. As the divisions were situated,, at the order to fire they were exposed to the danger of firing into each other. "A thin skirmish line," said Heth, "can whip them as -they are." But Hill said: "No, I will not have the men disturbed. Let them rest as they are. It is not intended they shall fight to-morrow. Longstreet is now at Mine run. General Lee has ordered him to move at 12 o clock- to-night. He has only eight miles to march. He will be here long before day. He will form in line back of you and Wilcox. Your divisions will fall back through Longstreet s." Wilcox went to Lee himself to represent the condition of his command. Lee no sooner saw him than he said: "A note has been received from Anderson saying he will bivouac at Vidiersville to-night, but I have ordered him forward. He and Longstreet will both be up and in position before or by daylight, when you will be relieved." Under this impression \Yilcox returned without hav ing asked permission to withdraw. "Let the men rest for the night," Hill had said the wearied, hard-fought men; the much indented Heth-YYilcox sword, hacked and gashed with its own hard hewing, and bent back now to the very hilt, with hard blows given and received. LI ill did not believe it practicable, in the disorder in which the action had left the troops, to reform his line in the woods and serve ammunition before daylight. V. On the 5th the word had been, "If night will only come!" On the 6th it was, "If morning will only stay!" Longstreet must be there, or defeat will be there. \ r ou remember how the lull between the bloody work of one day and the approximation of another is a thing of asperity. The stars glance down with keen, in adversity it seems, a bitter brightness. Voices of the night, the loves of happy, the pulse of tender creatures, fall like a mockery of the impending storm. The kindness of the clews becomes unkind to the soldier turning on the pillow of his bended arm. 222 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Early in the morning, Ewcll rode over (probably had been sent for) to see Lee. The latter was seated on an army blanket spread on the ground, and in this primitive fashion held his divan. Some disturbance breaking out at a distance to the left, Lieutenant Burwell, who accompanied Ewell, is sent to find out what it is. On the return of the latter, he discovers that, in riding rapidly through the woods, he has lost his saddle blanket, and bestirs himself to pick up some substitute therefor. The instant the action caught the eye of Lee, he sprang up, and offered the blanket on which he had been sitting, which, however, was respectfully declined. "The inborn courtesy of the man, which no preoccupation of mind could make him forget for a moment, and the simple-hearted kindness of the action," writes my correspondent, "made a very deep, impression on me, and I have never forgotten the scene." The ability to maintain the dignity, while putting aside all the pomp and circumstance of a position, seems to me to be passing away with the older school of Virginia gentlemen. This, however, I have always remarked in General Lee s character as written, and as shown the few times I was in his presence." It is a scene which deserves to make a deep impression on the country of Lee, and never to be forgotten. I give this picture of the early morn, as a ray of night fallen in the darkness; the peep of a chivalric day shining in the manner of its captain the thoughtful, courteous grace of a commanding mind. No foe too mighty for his prowess, no back too humble for his pity. The galled shoulder shall have his own blanket, if there be no other the wide, capacious breast, filling with sympathy for the humblest sorrow, even when in act to shoulder himself the galling weight of war, with "the blanket of the dark," his one blanket; that now worn quite threadbare. The true knight is here. " No preoccupation of mind" suffers it to be obscure. The dark ground and night are a foil for its beauty. Let prosperity seize one by nature "bound in shallows," and bearing him on a tide " taken at the flood," clothe him in purple, throne him in empire, place a sceptre of absolute dominion in his hand, and still base ness will show by the familiarity of its approach, how little that satrap is king of men. On the other hand, take Robert E. Lee, strip him of house and home, dress him in the soldier s weather- beaten rag, seat him on a fence-rail or the ground, and the am bassadors of the mightiest king will do homage in his presence. Could we but once more have such a mirror of the South! What if this "little touch of Harry in the night" define our own unworthiness? Early on the morning of the 6th, Burnside s Ninth corps ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 223 arrived on the field. This included the divisions of Stevenson, Potter, Wilcox and Ferrero; the Provisional brigade under Colo nel Marshall; the reserve artillery, and the artillery of the several divisions. Stevenson and Ferrero were ordered to report to Hancock and Sedgwick respectively. With his remaining troops, Burnside moved" in between Warren and Hancock, and made his dispositions to seize Parker s store. By dawn of the 6th, the enemy s line of battle, facing westward, ran north and south, without a gap, for about five miles. The methods by which a strong force is brought into the field are, in importance, second only to the conduct of it when there. Let no one dream that natural magic and inspiration of the moment are equal to such achievement. On one side, what organization, what disposition can do, is now done. The might) columns of the grand army have moved into the places appointed for them. "Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one." "The last reason of kings" is in place to give, judgment. If the conclusion follow regularly from the premises, if the argument do not jump clear off from the premises, like Seward s letter in the Mason and Slidell matter, victonvis the ultimatum. Yet in this trial-fire of war, holding a future hell-fire of reconstruc tion, what contingences are still in doubt, some one of which may make the final judgment swerve! In ever) voyage of life, wherever the sail be spread, there is but a plank, and that the narrowest, between preservation and destruction. The event of time mathematically adjusts itself, on an even keel, to the great deep of eternity, which holds it, as in the hollow of a hand; a hand which will close a fist of iron on the first open seam, which, improvident of pitch and oakum, springs a leak. Between Sam son s strength and Samson s weakness is but the difference of a hair. For the present, on one side, the miracle, which organiza tion and discipline perform, has been wrought. The sword of a hundred thousand is in the hand of one. The monster faner o which the wand of society evokes, when the game is an empire s neck, has uncoiled its huge length in continuous battle front, whose units of length are miles. By dawn ! Some of you have been, no doubt, on one of our Southwest ern bayous, or some similar spot, where the first notification of day, in that darkest hour which precedes the dawn, was the lull of the wolf s long howl ; in place of which there came as herald of breaking day the trill of every songster in the woods, like the different and successive notes of some musical instrument; the sparrow s twitter, the thrush s warble, the mocking-bird s wild lute; and jay-bird and cat-bird, and hawk and heron, the ducks and the shrill cranes, the garrulous squirrels and the meek doves 224 MEMORIAL VOLUME. mixed their concords and their discords in a hymn to sunrise and far above the song of the songster, the scream of the screamer, and the flight of the high-flyer, the silent wing of the solitary eagle, a music in itself. Yet all this Sabbath song and sight is the outward mask of universal and ceaseless, death-deal ing strife. The battle of night, between deer and wolf, has ended, and the batttle of day, between bird and fish and worm, has be gun. The proverbially early bird has quit his nap betimes. The little fish are making fountain jets in the air, in their terrified leap from the big ones. This is nature waking up. Or if it has been your lot to walk into some great city as day was breaking, you have noted as the first sign of waking the day laborers leav ing the town to work in the country, or the country to work in the town, the hucksters and the first choppings of the butcher stalls, then the earliest rumblings of carriages and street cars, the waking flutter by candlelight in the humbler tenements, fol lowed by the appearances of the servants at the doors of the greater ones, and in between the waking of the shanty and the mansion, the steaming up of foundry and factory, like the snort of some great animal; then- the throwing open of window-blinds, the parade of shop-windows, the bustle of traffic, the whirl and tumult of an eager, hurrying multitude. You have watched a great city, like a mighty leviathan turn and toss itself on its couch, slowly hurl its huge limbs out of bed, and finally yawn, and stretch, and shake its eyes wide open. You have seen civili zation wake up the peaceful, thriving scene. But again the peaceful picturesqueness is .the outward mask, nay the outward expression of interminable strife. Civilized man has not ceased to say to his brother, " My life or thine." Ever mortal is the listed space, unseen but not unrealized to-day, wherein one strength says to another, " With my body against yours, will I make good my challenge." Still is every coigne of vantage warred for and against with sleepless enmity. He who holds his own does so with a continual stroke. The inapt, the inert, the dissolute must serve the wary and active, or be slain and consumed. As the vinedresser says to the wood, whose strength he means to throw into his main clusters, "You dare to wear the purple, you shall not bear a leaf," so another scythe with as sharp a blade. Civilization changes the coarseness, but not the rancor of the strife. Our great civilizers are our great destroyers, prove their fitness to survive, by being fittest to destroy. The pyramid of skulls has undergone evolution, like other things, but the principle of it has proved no such function in excess as to be come extinct by natural selection. The strength of the nineteenth century is the strength of ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 225 science, trained method, logical forecast of events, more vivid combination of details, and more intrepid grasp of the future, powers to discern and powers of adjustment to far-off corre spondences of time and space. More and more strength reveals itself as certain calculation, clear, orderly arrangement, iron logic of deduction. The man of business is clearer, and because clearer more decided, resolute than others. Others take shelter under him, as formerly under the warrior s hand of mail. Lands and tenements, translated by his shrewd sagacity, as by the magician s wand, float to him from others who have not his gifts. Ransom of steeds and armor won in the encounter of arms, the encounter of wits, he bears off on the point of a sharper sense. When riches take to themselves wings, he is there to pursue. Swift, penetrating common sense sits on his strength, like falcon on the arm. Is some object of desire started, like lightning he flies his hawk at the game, to bring it clown. Is resistance made, stout fight, which requites scorn for scorn and beak for beak? With the falcon glare and grip, the stronger talon rips out the heart of a foe. Nineteenth-century victories are business vic tories, won less in the day of actual fight than in the day of training. The battle is the preparation for it, with all the sciences, economies, disciplined intensity and virtue of a people. The rank and file which rushes to the charge is the seal and measure of what has been done, as on commencement clay prizes are be stowed, not for the present, but the past. He who has trained, equipped himself the best, who has most purged himself from all weak or dark infirmity, untenable, unsound, ungoverned ways, all charlatanry and sham, then fronts his adversary, with know ledge, discretion, sound, uncorrupt manhood, the cool head, the stead} hand, he is fittest to survive. With quiet collected strength, he compels the agencies of land and sea to be his servants. Steamship and railway, all the enginery, all the deviltry of com merce bend obediently to him, grow pliant as soft wax under his pressure. Even the winds and the waves obey him. As we grasp one handle to hew another, he, the true Briareus, stands at the end of a long line of levers and thermo-electric multipliers, and, with clear common sense for fulcrum, hundred-handed moves a world. Of the form of this modern world and the fashion of its strength, science is the glass and the mould, holding the mirror up to the meridian lines, which Nature has drawn for a world. Nature s adjutant calls the roll of Nature s " Invincibles," with unsheathed sward, calls attention to that "Old Guard" of Nature which neither dies nor surrenders; about which society forms in hollow-square, or kicking against which by sheer persistence of 226 MEMORIAL VOLUME. force, society is impaled and eliminated. Pitiless, appalling, almost beautiful with that beauty which Milton says has terror in it as bright, deadly steel, flashing in the sun is beautiful this wide remorseless warfare, wherein difficult victory is the price of all existence. Brute animal life is compelled to discrimi nate, to find and keep the environment which is safe for it, wise for it, or else cease to exist. The wild animal cannot wear a Joseph s coat of many colors as the tame one does. Prudence, and the vigilance of adversaries seeking whom they may devour, forbid this. The partridge must be like the straw which hides the partridge, the brown and yellow autumn straw. Partridges of another color are quickly discovered and destroyed. At last this becomes the only color, the sole banner partridges can fight under. Or strength in the form of a lion falls on fleetness in the shape of the antelope. Starvation behincl, speed like that of a bird in front! Only the strongest lions, the swiftest antelopes live. Animal life clothes itself with the element it lives in, takes traits from that, becomes that. And must not man too find the banner he can fight under, which is the same as the banner he is ready to die under? For him too must not the greatest victories be gained by not exclusively safe paths; "amid the confused noise of warriors, and garments rolled in blood," not where the baggage trains are guarded? Onward sweeps force, stern, avenging, having mercy on whom it will have mercy, suffering only fitness to survive the multitu dinous, majestic, all-enveloping force of a universe, on-sweeping, divinely fair, divinely terrible! With Nature to be weak, is not to be miserable alone, it is to be criminal. The penal statutes go unrepealed on Nature s stat ute book. For the highest there is ceaseless tension and toil; no height of character attained without much difficult, much painful breathing. Look into the faces of the saints who have lived, of the martyrs who have bled for mankind, of the artists who have wrought to express, the heroes who have fought to maintain the truth, see how they are written over with the lofty silence and battle-pain of life! Ah, yes! they have broken their bitter fast on the bread and wine of sorrow, the food of the im mortals, the cup which Gods have given, and Godlike men have quaffed. The clouds which close around them are made their chariots of fire, and the portion of life, sworn foe to cant, is still the cross! What should fervent soundness be, but ratsbane to the sweet tooth of a trimmer? But that here, in this dark wood, such a storm of rifles, making the earth quake, should hang in the air, ready to be touched off by the first light of a May morning! As it were, "the erroneous ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 22/ wood of this life" and "the dark battle of them who see not beyond it"! To the hillsides and winding gullies, where the woodsman axe has rarely or never wrung, and only the hunts man s hounds waked the echoes, order has come at last the order of battle! Elsewhere, at this hour, the farmer is winding his horn from open window. The plow-boy is gearing up his team, and soon the slices will roll over from the mould-board, and new furrows be shining in the peaceful glebe! And the sower goes forth to sow, hoping (in such times, against hope) to reap in turn. The kine are lowing. It is the legendary hour, when the pretty milk-maid, hiding her blushes in her pail, with fresh sunlight in her eye, hears from her lover "the old, old story." Not often witnessed in our land, at this early hour, I believe, but at other hours very often witnessed the soft, rosy flush of daybreak and young wonder, life s rosy aurora, drawn about young life. And wherever in our land such life waked that morning, it breathed a prayer for some friend, or brother, or more than brother, in the Wilderness. There "busy hammers" have been "closing rivets up." The sergeants are now roused, and are shaking up their detachments. In an instant, a breath "like a stream of brimstone" will kindle "the fiery, flying serpent," and loud death-blast. Hut for the instant there is stillness "the torrent s smoothness, ere it dash below"! On the very brink scarce a ripple to be seen, and then the pit of Hell! Burnside is up, we have seen. Longstreet and Anderson are not up. Lee had gone into the fight having on the ground not more than twenty-eight thousand muskets, all told. With this small force (diminished by the losses of the day before), and with the view of diverting the blow about to descend, from the point where he was least prepared for it, he himself renews the fight on E well s front, striking Grant on his right flank (Seymour s brigade), and involving the whole of two divisions (Rickett s and Wright s). In vain, however. The anticipated blow descends according to orders ("attack along the whole line at five o clock") a few minutes later. On the 4th Longstreet was advised by the Commanding-Gene ral that the enemy appeared to be moving towards Stevensburg. In conformity with orders, Longstreet gets his men upon their legs about four o clock in the afternoon, and marches to Brock s bridge, on the border of Orange county, bringing Kershaw over some fourteen miles, from Gordonsville, and Field some sixteen, from Liberty Mills. On the morning of the 5th he resumes his march, and goes into camp that evening near Richards shop, on the Catharpin road, twelve miles from his point of starting, and 228 MEMORIAL VOLUME. six or seven miles, by a road through the woods, from Parker s, store. During the latter part of this day s march, Rosser was skirmishing in front with his brigade of cavalry. During the night Hancock was informed that his right would be relieved by General Wadsworth, of the Fifth corps, and two divisions of the Ninth corps, under Burnside, and cautioned to keep a sharp lookout on his left. Before five A. M. he received word that Longstreet was moving on the Catharpin road to fall upon his left, and Barlow s division was placed in position to re ceive him at the point it was supposed he would advance. But, whatever had been Lee s first intentions for Longstreet on the Catharpin, at 12:30 A. M. on the 6th, the latter General, by Lee s orders, started for Parker s store. Arriving there about dawn, he was directed to press on at once to relieve Heth and Wilcox. He had some two miles still to march. A Confederate line hope lessly outnumbered and outflanked desperately awaited him. A little before daybreak, fearing he would be attacked before he could be relieved, Wilcox ordered the pioneers to fell trees to make an abatis, but the pioneers were fired on and could not con tinue. He looked up; the tops of the trees had caught the morning red. Then he sat watching the east, as the veins of day throbbed across the morning. Heth, too, "agitated by an anxiety such as he never felt before or afterwards," finally determined to lay matters before Lee; searched for him two hours in vain; then walked up and down in rear of his troops until he fancied he saw day breaking, when, ordering his horse, he went at full speed down the road but no Longstreet! In despair he returned to his troops. Day had fairly broken. No one slept that night -at Hill s headquarters. Before day the horses were saddled. As day broke, and nothing was heard of Longstreet, the suspense was insupportable. All knew the two divisions would give way, if attacked, and all knew they would be attacked. Leaving his Chief of Staff beside the smoul dering sticks, where the night had been spent, Hill, with the rest of his staff, rode to the left beyond the guns. He was hardly out of view when Longstreet galloped on the field, but to the questions which were quickly put to him, he replied, " My troops are not yet up. I have ridden ahead to find out the situation." As he spoke his voice was drowned in the roar of musketry. Believing resistance to be futile in such formation as he had, Heth ordered his brigade commanders to take their men to the rear as fast as possible. In effect, the men were ordered to run, and the signs are they obeyed, with all the means which God and nature had put into their feet. If they did not severally show a clean pair of heels, it is partly to be ascribed to the fact ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 229 th^t the same were not there to be shown. For awhile it looked as if we were about to prevail over the enemy, as our ancestors beat the British at Bladensburg "in the long run." The circle of attack soon closed around \Yilcox. Beginning on his right, in a few minutes it was raging all along his front and on both flanks. " It was only a question of time," says \Yil- cox, "how long my men could hold their ground. At length the men were seen giving way, but not in disorder." VVilcox rode rapidly to Lee, not three hundred and fifty yards from the troops then engaged. Lee said to him, " Longstreet must be here; go bring him up." Dashing to the road to see if he was in sight, \Yilcox met the head of Kershaw s division. This he directed to file to the right of the road and form line as quickly as possible, for fear his own men might be forced back upon Kershaw before he could get into position; which is what did very speedily happen. Our whole line was coming back like a wave. There were at this time two batteries on the left of the road. General Hill rode along the line of these guns, directing them how to fire, which they were compelled to do, while some of our own men were in the path of their projectiles. It was said of the Turks, in the Crimean war, that a wise instinct taught them, that, if there was one thing which ought not to be left to fate or to the precepts of a deceased prophet, it was the artillery. With steadiness, opening their ranks to let the retreating troops through, Kershaw s division formed line of battle on the right, each brigade forming separate!} under fire, in a dense thicket, which rendered it impossible to see either the character or num bers of the foe the} were to resist. Hennegan was thrown on the right, and the Second South Carolina regiment deployed and pushed forward on the left of the road. Almost immediately the enemy was upon them. I lenne- gan having passed sufficiently to the right to admit of the deploy ment of General Humphreys to his left, this formation was made in good order under the fire of the enemy, who had so far pene trated between Hennegan and the road as to almost enfilade the Second South Carolina and the batteries holding the left. Hum phreys was pushed forward as soon as he got into position, and Bryan s brigade coming up, was ordered into position to Henne gan s right. The two batteries on the left of the road had opened at the critical instant of the day. Their fire had the desired effect of checking the enemy momentarily. That moment was decisive. Longstreet, arriving so late but so opportunel} , had time to form. General Lee now appeared on the left leading Hood s old bri gade. Longstreet had just filed two brigades in rear of the 23O MEMORIAL VOLUME. guns, and riding slowly along their front, as they came into line,, had cautioned them to keep cool, and gave them his own exam ple. As the Texas brigade moved through the guns, General Lee rode on their flank, and raising his hat, saluted them as old friends who had too long been parted, and said aloud he would lead them himself. The fine eye of Lee must often have glis tened with something better than a conqueror s pride, whenever he recalled the cry, with which that veteran rank and file sent him to the rear and themselves to the. front. The name of that warlike man, who stepped out from the ranks to seize the bridle of Traveler, and force him and his rider back from the battle shower, I cannot give you. A tall, gaunt figure, clad in rags, and the lightbeams of a beautiful, heroic splendor, rises before us for an instant, and then perishes out of view, as the truly great are wont to perish their very names forgotten, or known only to God; their deeds and the fruit of them imperishable. Lee was stopped; he and his horse reined in, while the men cried, "We will go forward, but you must go back." So said, so acted, these Texas men, loving a higher than themselves better than them selves, this their last feeling. It was a fine old gladiatorial, morituri te salutainns, only finer in that it was freer, for altars and for hearths, not for a Roman holiday. They flung their caps into the air, and, with a shout which was their stern farewell, swept onward. Their front was to the east as they took their last gaze of this earth. Sunrise was shining in their faces as their own sun set. The smile of that May morning kissed their faces as they fell. The rising sun was their winding-sheet. Savages, I am told, these Texans were. There was nothing savage in their chivalry. Longstreet s first order to Field was to form line of battle on the right, perpendicular to the road. Field thereupon threw Anderson s brigade, which \vas leading, in line to the right. But before it could be followed up by the others, a second order came to form in the quickest order possible, and charge with any front. Throwing Gregg s Texas brigade on the left of the road, as has been stated, and Benning behind Gregg, and Law behind Ben- ning, and Jenkins behind Law, Field slipped the leash. He had but to point to the enemy. The Texas brigade dashed forward as soon as it was formed, without waiting for the brigades in the rear. Ignorant of what was in front of them, the view being obstructed by a slight rise and some scattered pines, the enemy came on. At the instant there was nothing there to oppose him but Gregg s Texans, less than five hundred strong. Flanked on both sides, these struck him a staggering blow full in the face, these ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBIXSOX. 23! forced him back but with a loss of two-thirds of their own number killed and wounded in ten minutes. Later in the cam paign, and after some recruiting had taken place, Secretary Rea gan went out from Richmond to visit the brigade, and reported that it averaged two and two-fifths wounds to a man. Some com panies were entirely obliterated. One company for months had on duty but a single man, a lieutenant all the rest killed or wounded at the Wilderness! Onward sped the Texas whirlwind, till it whirled itself into a thincf of shreds and tatters; hanmn<i o o tr> together at the last, like the limbs of a body, adhering by the skin, after the bone has been crushed. They closed up their ranks over their comrades as they fell, till there was no longer a rank or a comrade to close. No laureled Six Hundred ever charged more nobly than these Five Hundred. Glorious is it, and glorified ever, when a \Yinkelried gathers the indomitable spears into his arms, and says to liberty at his back, "Forward over me" ransoms his army by his own immolation! Even so these Texans made their bosoms a sheath for the thunderbolt. They buried defeat on the field, under a mound of their own corpses. They stepped to the graves of martyrs with the grace of courtiers. They had but an instant to think and to act, and they made it one of imperishable beaut}*. The long track of light, which followed in the wake of their valor, they did not, could not see. Their Wilderness was then; their Promised Land eternity. Art will depict a scene which no art can exaggerate. Their greatest picture lives on a canvas of reality, woven in blood, and flame, and "battle splendor" immortal there, as hero ism only is. Band of Immortals! in your "iron sleep" take our proud and sad good-bye. The Texas brigade met and overcame the first shock at this point. Benning s Georgia brigade followed, and partaking of the same slaughter, partook of the same fame the brigade badly cut up, Benning wounded but the Georgia war banner, passing through the fire, and carried by no common hand, waved proudly on the other side, the side of victory. The brigade was literally begirt with fire. Victorious in front, its swift forward movement had exposed both flanks, and now from troops south of the road destruction poured on its right. Law s brigade of Alabamians (Colonel Perry in command), forming under the eye of Lee, sprang forward next, with the old hot hurrah. The two right regiments, the Fourth and Forty-seventh, keeping close to the road, advanced firing, and soon divided the attention of the troops on the south. On the extreme left, the Fifteenth Alabama changed direction in marching, and wheeling to the left, faced towards the north, so that the two wings of the Alabama brigade 232 MEMORIAL VOLUME. stood back to back, while both fought furiously. The Alabama centre (the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth regiments) had moved obliquely to the left, where the enemy appeared in greatest force; in doing so leaving a considerable gap between the former regi ment and the Forty-seventh on its right. The two regiments (Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth) had to cross a morass, and then, under heavy fire, press up hill. The Forty-fourth kept well closed, but the galling fire told on the Forty-eighth. Many of the men left the ranks to take shelter behind the trees. The Forty-eighth was faltering. Fortunately, the Fifteenth Alabama had been unexpectedly successful. It had disconcerted and put to flight the Fifteenth New York (heavy siege artillerymen during the greater part of the war), before they had time to in flict injury in turn, or realize by how few they weie attacked., Having now no enemy in their immediate front, the Fifteenth Alabama, in the nick of time, swung round to the right, sent a volley up the line which confronted the Forty-eighth, and the heights were won. The enemy was now so far checked that Jenkins could be formed, and for a time held in reserve; but Per- rin s brigade of Anderson s division (just arrived on the field) went in on the right of Law, and a Florida brigade, of the same division, coming up soon after, Perry received orders to drop to the rear of the two, and act as a support. Perrin s brigade (Ala- bamians also) crouched, in the thick woods, on the left of the road, to meet the attack, which soon rolled upon it, and deliver ing a fire which was as destructive as it was unexpected, followed rapidly the flying foe, drove the first line over the second, and pushed forward, perhaps half a mile, though afterwards falling back some distance towards (but not to) the initial point. The enemy s progress had been stopped, and he had been driven back on the left by the Texas, Georgia and Alabama bri gades. On the right, urged forward by Longstreet and unable to further extend his line with the brigade of Wofford, then marching as rear-guard to the wagon-train, Kershaw placed him self at the head of his three brigades, and led in person a charge which retired somewhat the confident North. A pause ensued, wherein Hancock, in great force, stood still. At 7 A. M. he sends fresh orders to push on; but it was not until two hours later (owing, he thinks, to the apprehended approach of Longstreet on his left) that with half of Grant s army well in hand, he attacked with all his power. The struggle for life or death which follows strains every sinew, yet is without permanent advantage to either side. The same ground is fought over in succession by both. About 9:15 A. M. Hancock received a dispatch telling him "to attack simultaneously with Burnside." Hancock being at that ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 233 instant simultaneously attacked himself, on the right and left of the Plank road, exhibits very unmistakably his view that the person most needed to be simultaneous was Burnside. Half an hour later, Hancock received a dispatch that Cutler s brigade of the Fifth corps had fallen back considerably disorganized. Han cock must take measures to check this movement of the enemy, as Meade has no troops to spare; and two brigades of Birney are sent, who connect with Warren s left. The firing again died away, and there was a lull all along the line until about noon. Hancock had advanced, met Longstreet, fought, accomplished nothing. Thrown suddenly, while still marching by the flank, into the presence of an advancing foe, Longstreet laid hold on two batte ries of artillery, as an athlete might seize a horizontal bar, and wheel his whole body to a level. Blucher might have been proud of the tenacious hand which was laid on the trunnions of those guns, and Macdonald s column never tore a bloodier wreath. Ileth and YVilcox had been moved to the left to fill up the in terval between Longstreet and Lwell, and protect Longstreet s left; with the exception of a part of Davis brigade of Heth s division, under Colonel Stone, of Mississippi, which fought all the rest of the day with Long-street s forces. Colonel Stone was complimented on the field by General Hill. General Lee sent two telegrams in respect to these divisions. The first on the 5th: " Heth and YVilcox have repulsed the repeated and desperate assaults on the Plank road." The second on the 6th: "lleth and YVilcox, in the act of being relieved, were attacked and thrown into some confusion." The statement in Hancock s re port, Appleton s Cyclopaedia and elsewhere, that " 1 1 ill was driven back one and a half miles," is inaccurate. The two batteries, whose fire at the critical moment had helped to check the enemy, were some three hundred yards (say four hundred) from where the fight began. The enemy never reached those guns. There is nothing which so touches me as the defeat or eclipse of the truly brave. Their sorrow, or their shame, is of a noble sort. From first to last these two divisions had the hardest task. It was theirs, in that lonely Wilderness, to hold at *bay an army, and an army under Hancock, until their own could come up; and then on the morrow, through no fault of their own, see another snatch the laurel from their brow. They had to do more than show courage in difficulty that they did on the 5th. They had to clo more than show courage in disaster that Long- street did on the 6th. They had to bring order out of their own confusion, recover the cubits of their stature out of their humili ation. They had to form though they had been broken, and ad- 16 234 MEMORIAL VOLUME. vancc where they had fled. From first to last, theirs was intrin sically the hardest task. The greatest thing need not be the most famous, nor that which is cheered or cheers itself the most. In war, as elsewhere, magnanimity does not consist in never being thrown. Its grand quality is the heart to rally under defeat. Anderson s brigades, arriving after Longstreet, and after the sharpest of the attack was over, were successively sent off by him, where they were most needed, until he had but one left, Ma- hone s. An examination of the enemy s position now led to a movement which came near to being glorious with complete suc cess. The brigades of Mahone, Anderson, and Wofford, of which Mahone, as senior brigadier, was in command, were moved beyond the enemy s left, with orders to attack him on his left and in rear. The enemy, who was now, at intervals only, bearing down upon our line, was at the same moment to be attacked in front. The long-expected flank movement came at last, and when it was least desired. The troops in front moved down on both sides of the road, and started the enemy back, at first slowly, until the effect of the flank movement was felt, when he broke in confusion, leaving his dead and wounded thick upon the field. "They came yelling like so many infuriated devils," writes the correspondent of the New York World. Could Lee have spared a larger force from his front, say from Heth and Wilcox; repeated the audacity of Chancellorsville! Again and again, by just such venture, he achieved his double gains. His greatest victories were won under a blade suspended by a hair. So it is with victory. To know how to dare everything at the right place and moment is one of its secrets. If once more it may be done! See what three brigades are doing, co-operating with others in front! They fall on Hancock s left, crushing Frank s brigade, sweeping away Mott s division. Hancock s left is forced back. He endeavors to retain the advanced position held by his right on the Plank road, but cannot do so. He rallies on the original line from which he advanced. We are rolling him up like a scroll. The Plank road is ours. We are victo rious. Wejpre marching to further victory. Wadsworth gives way in front, himself struck do\vn. The Alabama brigade sweeps over him. Grant s army totters. Already repulsed, it is now threatened with destruction. In such a moment, Longstreet "fell, bleeding like an ox." It was another such moment, when Joseph E. Johnston fell at Seven Pines; another such, when our star of chivalry, the Sidney of Shiloh (bright image of him of Zutphen), falling from his horse, threw the pallor of his death on his victory, as it rolled over him in the dust. In concert with the attack of the infantry on front and flank, ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 235 two guns of Mclntosh s battalion were pushed down the road, firing as they went. Longstreet had stopped for an instant, at the suggestion of General Lee, to direct the removal of some logs which impeded the guns, and then, accompanied by Brigadier- General Jenkins and staff, continued down the road. Hancock was now back on the Brock road, holding his last position. Dis positions were made for a further attack upon the position on the Brock road. Kersha\v was to break the line and push it to the right of the road towards Freclericksburg, while Jenkins should march by the flank down the road, beyond our main line of battle and of skirmishers, and then deploy and sweep the Brock road. Kershaw was riding with Jenkins, at the head of the brigade of the latter, when two or three shots were fired on the left of the road, and immediately afterwards a volley was poured into the head of the column from the woods on the right, occu pied by Mahone s brigade. By this fire Longstrcet \vas dange rously wounded, and Jenkins killed. Hancock could now reform his broken columns. Hancock s account of this transaction is very simple. The Confederates advancing upon I rank s brigade, which, "having been heavily engaged in the earlier part of the day, had exhausted its ammunition, and was compelled to retire before the enemy, whose attack was made with Ln~eat vehemence. This was Lon<>~- o J~> street s attack. Passing over Frank s brigade, the}- struck the left of Mott s division, which, in turn, was forced back. Some confusion ensuing among the troops of that division, I endeav ored to restore order, and to reform my line of battle along the Orange plank-road, from its extreme advance to its junction with the Brock road, by throwing back my left, in order to hold my advanced position on that road, and on its right; but was unable to effect this, owing to the partial disorganization of the troops, which was to be attributed to their having been engaged for many hours in a dense forest under a heavy and murderous musketry fire, when their organization was parti} lost. General Birney, who was in command of that portion of the line, thought it advisable to withdraw the troops from the woods, where it was almost impossible to adjust our lines, and to reform them in the breastworks along the Brock road, on our original line of battle." Making allowances for certain pardonable euphemisms, the true face of the matter is seen to be as heretofore stated. Mr. Swinton writes: "It seemed, indeed, that irretrievable disaster was upon us; but in the very torrent and tempest of the attack it suddenly ceased, and all was still." And again: "But in the very fury and tempest of the Confederate onset, the advance was of a sudden stayed by a cause at the moment unknown. This afterwards proved to have been the fall of the head of the attack." 236 MEMORIAL VOLUME. General Lee now came in person to the front, and ordered Kershaw to take position with his right resting on the road-bed of the Orange and Fredericksburg railroad, and told Field to straighten his line Field and Kershaw being perpendicular to the Plank road, and the turning force parallel with it, to which fact was due the casualty which had just happened. With the exception of Wofford s brigade, Kershaw was engaged no more that day. It was 4 o clock in the afternoon before the next ad vance was made. Hancock is now too strong behind his works to be successfully driven from them. He is greatly shaken in them, however, and greatly demoralized behind them, to an ex tent which shows how near we were to victory four hours earlier, when the blindest accident pulled down the head of the attack; nay, how narrowly we grazed it this second time, after the lapse of hours had given leave to fortify behind breastworks; which, but for the fall of the two generals, would not have been granted. There was nothing else but to drive from a strong line, by main force, an enemy prepared now against manoeuvre and surprise. A Russian proverb says, " Measure ten times, you can cut only once." Precious as his army was, Lee might well have hesitated to assault a position so defended and defensible, after his chief lieutenant had been borne from the field. It was a time to look about him well, to look before and after, with a provident, reflect ing eye, to see surely what might be expected of great daring. In the fourth year of the war, it was not lawful to dare too much. Lee looked before he would dare this leap for his adversary s wall. How, being in, he bore himself, the opposer is aware. Hancock s report being at hand, let that speak. "At 4.15 P. M.,the enemy advanced against my line in force." "After half an hour had passed, some of the troops began to waver, and finally a portion of Mott s division and Ward s brigade of Birney s division, in the first line, gave way, retiring in dis order towards Chancellorsville. My staff and other officers made great exertions to rally these men, and many of them were re turned to the line of battle, but a portion of them could not be collected until the action was over. As soon as the break oc curred the enemy pushed forward, and some of them reached the breastworks and planted their flags thereon. . . . The confusion and disorganization among a portion of the troops of Mott s and Birney s divisions, on this occasion, was greatly in creased, if not originated, by the front line of breastworks having taken fire a short time before the enemy made his attack; the flames having been communicated to it from the forest in front (the battle-ground of the morning), which had been burning for some hours. The breastworks on this portion of my line were ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 237 constructed entirely of logs, and at the critical moment of the enemy s attack were a mass of flames, which .it was impossible at that time to subdue, the fire extending for many hundred paces right and left. The intense heat and the smoke, which was driven by the wind directly into the faces of the men, prevented them, on portions of the line, from firing over the parapet, and at some points compelled them to abandon the line." Hancock s position was a trying one. Suddenly the gloom of the dense wood was pierced with the fierce glare of conflagration. The torch was added to the sword. But if it is hard to stand firm behind a breastwork of fire, is it nothing to charge up to it and plant a flag upon it? Jenkins South Carolina brigade, led by Bratton now, under a withering fire, rush up to the works and into them, but it seems are not supported as they should have been, and Carroll, hurrying up, is too strong for them. Blackened with the smoke of gunpowder and other smoke, they fall back discomfited save them who fall back dead they flame-girt, the breastworks of the enemy, their funeral pyre. The correspondent of the \Vorld wrote: " Mott s division fell back in confusion. Stevenson s division gave way confusedly, compelling the remainder of the left-centre to fall back some dis tance. Crawford s division suffered severely. One of its regi ments, the Seventh Pennsylvania reserve, was captured almost in a bod\ , and the enemy succeeded in reaching our breastworks. There was imminent danger of a general break." In the interval between the two attacks of our right, Grant had observed to Mr. Swinton, as they sat "under the trees on the hill side," "It has been my experience that though the Southerners fight desperately at first, yet, when we hang on for a day or two, we whip them awfully." Conformably with this hillside view of things, Grant sent word to Hancock to attack again at 6 o clock in the evening. It was while the latter was making his dispositions to this end, that the Confederates had resumed the offensive. After they had fallen back a dispatch was received countermanding the order to attack at six. The battle in this part of the field may be summed up by saying: Hancock broke our right in the morning. Longstreet drove him back, and broke his left in the evening over the same ground. They did not reach our guns, and we did not reach the Brock road. "The Rebels cannot endure another such day, and we can," was the word in "The Union Camp" as the sun went down on the 6th. "The Union Camp" was premature in this. "The Rebels" w r ere not worn out "by attrition" in one battle, or in two. They could endure many more such days. They could endure more that day. 238 MEMORIAL VOLUME. On our right, a very heavy attack had been made in the morn ing, on Early s front. Persistent attacks revealed to Warren and Sedgvvick that the sacrifice of life in the effort to carry this front was useless. From sunrise to sunset the critical moments and conflicts were on the right. But one most sad event on Ewell s line, it were a serious omission not to mention. Early on the 6th Colonel John Thompson Brown, with Lieu tenant Angel, of the Second howitzers, at the time detached as adjutant, had ridden to the front with the hope of being able to place some artillery in position, but had only succeeded in. find ing place for a single section. In his eagerness to bring more guns to bear at a point about one-fourth of a mile to the right of the turnpike, Colonel Brown, attended by no one but Lieutenant Angel, advanced some hundred and fifty yards in front of the Fifth Alabama regiment, and in doing so came close to the ene my s skirmishers, who were concealed by the brown brush. In the midst of such reconnoitring, the silence was broken by a volley of musketry fired by the enemy s pickets, and Brown fell. A bullet had penetrated his forehead, killing him instantly. The beat of one of the warmest hearts, making a man s breast like a woman s, had ceased, and the bright outlook of a life, all aflame with generous and manly hopes, had fallen quenched. The sword presented to him by those howitzers, who under his orders had fired the first and over his memory did afterwards fire the last shot in the war, clung to him as he fell. He died with har ness on his back, worthy his father s son. Before daylight Gordon had discovered that his left over lapped the enemy s right, and by scouts and personal examina tion, he found that the enemy did not suspect his presence. He was therefore J^d to believe that he could destroy that portion of the Union army by a flank movement, and almost from the rising until the going down of the sun he urged such a move ment. It was the same military eye, which on the 1 2th of May at Spotsylvania Courthouse, devised the means to relieve the salient of the crushing pressure of Grant s columns. But owing to the report of our cavalry, that a column was threatening our left, and to the belief that Burnside s corps was in rear of the flank on which the attack was suggested, Ewell and Early con curred in deeming it impolitic to do as Gordon proposed. But towards the close of the day these objections seemed no longer to exist, and the movement was ordered. About sundown Gordon moved out, and found the enemy, as he expected, totally unprepared. The first troops encountered were caught with their guns stacked, and fled precipitately. Bri gade after brigade was broken to pieces before any formation ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 239 could be made. The woods were strewed with the enemy s dead and wounded. A number of prisoners were captured, among them Generals Seymour and Shaler. The Sixth army corps was broken and smitten with panic. Johnston s brigade (which had arrived that morning from Hanover Junction) was thrown in the rear of Gordon s, and subsequently Pegram s was moved to his assistance. The plan originally proposed by Gordon had been to move out one or two brigades, place them immediately on the enemy s flank, move rapidly down his lines, and, as we cleared the front of each of our brigades or divisions, to have these move out and join in the attack, so that we would have a con stantly increasing force, attacking a constantly decreasing enemy, placed under the disadvantage of having constantly to change his front to meet the Hank movement. The following from the Xc\v York \Vorld suffices to show how far results realized expectations: "The enemy came down like a torrent, rolling and dashing in living waves, and flooding up o r> o ir> I against the whole Sixth corps. The main line stood like a rock; not so the extreme right. That flank was instantly and utterly turned. The Rebel line was the longer, and surged around Sey mour s brigade, tided over it and through it, beat against Shaler s, and bore away his right regiments. All this done in less than ten minutes. Perhaps, Seymour s men, seeing their pickets run ning back, and hearing the shouts of the Rebels, who had charged with all their chivalry, were smitten with a panic, and standing on no order of going, went at once, and, in an incredible short time, made their way through a mile and a half of woods to the Plank road in the rear. They reported, in the frantic manner usual to stampeded men, the entire corps broken." Gordon has ground for the assertion, "If the movement had been made in the morning, as I desired, it is not too much to say that we would have destroyed Grant s army." Not till daylight on the /th, when the whole of Early s division and a part of Johnson s were thrown forward on Sedgwick s abandoned line, so as to occupy a part of his abandoned works, on the right of the road diverging to the Germanna Ford road, and leaving in our rear his works on the left of that road not till then did we realize the full extent of our success. Twice that day another Chancellorsville was in our hands, and twice it dropped. The Tribune letter, dated Wilderness, May /th, says: "Sedg wick s affair last night has in nowise disconcerted the plans of our leaders, depressed their hope, or impaired the efficiency of their men. It was but a disastrous episode." Mcade s report has this : "Just before dark the enemy moved a considerable force .around the righj; flank of the Sixth corps, held by Rickett s di- 24O MEMORIAL VOLUME. vision, and in conjunction with a demonstration in front, succeeded in forcing the division back in some confusion, making prisoners of Generals Seymour and Shaler. This substantially ended the battle of the Wilderness." The London Times of May 25th, in allusion to the series of battles of which the Wilderness was the first, and before the de tails of the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse had been received, makes this assertion: "It would not be impossible to match the results of any one day s battle with stories from the Old World; but never, we should say, were five such battles compressed into six successive days." The Times is amused at the thought that the Americans are probably proud of their pre-eminence for slaughter. The loss of the Northern army on the 5th and 6th of May, in killed and wounded, and exclusive of prisoners, was thirty-seven thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven a list de rived from the Surgeon-General s office. Seeing that his cavalry and artillery are, with little exception, not included in the count, it is not too much to say that Lee killed or disabled one of the enemy for every man he had engaged. Had the policy of wear ing out by attrition been resorted to earlier, the South could have stood it longer than the North. The policy itself is not strictly original with our favored land. In their belligerent relations with the English, the Chinese announced themselves invincible, be cause they said it was simply impossible for Great Britain to kill them off as rapidly as they were born. The policy over here was very near receiving the coup de grace at the very first throw; very near also to achieving more memorable results at the first throw. Had Longstreet been a few minutes later, Lee s army would, or, at least should, have been defeated. Had he been a few minutes earlier, or not been wounded, Grant would have been driven across the river, in the ignominious defeat of his predecessors. You know Landseer s picture of defiance. The Monarch of the Glen brought to bay, with his forefoot on the first hound, is grind ing him in the sand the beautiful head, with the warrior-horn and the victor-glance, lifted in free, fearless fashion to the pack, which has paused to breathe, or, it may be, manoeuvre. So stood Lee, on the evening of the sixth, after Death had thrown his long shadow behind the trees. To borrow the word of a French general, he had made Grant "swallow his sword up to the hilt." Had not the dimensions of the throat been equal to three such swords, it had never breathed again. Grant had gained nothing and had lost heavily. When he turned to make for Spotsylvania Courthouse, though he had possession of the direct route, and had the start, he was again foiled, as he continued to be in every subsequent attempt to get between Lee s army and Richmond. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 24! After the bloody exercise of the I2th of May, Grant forthwith enlarged his edge to the back of " all the summer " which was im mediately perceived to be as clear an instance of the moral sub lime as the original project of "hanging on for a day or two. For a clay or two it seemed to him expedient to hang off. He says in his report: "The 1 3th, I4th, I5th, i6th, i/th and iSth of May were consumed in manoeuvring and awaiting reinforcements from Washington" the General who never manoeuvred! When, on the 1st of April, 1865, the Confederate line at Peters burg "stretched until it broke," and eight clays afterwards Lee surrendered his eight thousand muskets to the successful foe, the incessant jeopardy and vigil of eleven months, the marching and countermarching, days of clanger and nights of wasting, want, exposure, exhaustion, had done their work. Grant s bayonets, also, had done their work; yet not by simply "hanging on for a day or two," on this or any other line. Spring violets changed to summer roses; summer roses passed into the crimson-yellow forest light, which sets its bow in the cloud of Indian summer. The passion flower wept and passed. The violet breath came over a second spring, while Grant was hanging on his "day or two." VI. The situation at one time resembled that of one year earlier, when Hooker s right was turned two miles above Chancellorsville, and three divisions hurled upon a far stronger position, from which it might have been impossible to dislodge the enemy, had time been given him to recover from his first surprise, but when no time was given him. The bones of Jackson turned in their coffin, as the tramp of armed men reverberated on the field of his splendor. It needs some modification, that old proverb, "The dead lion is more than the living dog." This man cannot be left out in the enumeration of the forces fighting for us on the sixth. Dead he fought nay, triumphed. Hancock s apprehensions of a flank movement on his left, all through the morning of the sixth, apprehensions continually awakened and allayed, and "paralyzing a number of his best troops, who otherwise would have gone into action at a decisive point" these were Jackson s deeds on this very ground surviving him. The memory of Jack son a year before was the sleeping lion, the stroke of whose paw was momentarily expected. How all things are granted to the sincere and earnest nature has been ineffaceably stamped here. " He that runs may read." Here he whose life was the consecration of valor unto duty, hal lowed the spot on which he fell, and made it, most truly, sacred 242 MEMORIAL VOLUME. soil; made the Wilderness his lion breast. For a man to manifest so much in the flesh, the Genius of the time had said, "I will seek him among the conventionally obscure; I will find him among the constitutionally weak. On him will I lay the weight of my hand, and then will I demand of him the fullness of his stature a hand of hardship, which shall be like the weight above the arch, keeping it in place." And so he grew a firm, plain soldier, not to be twisted, and not to be thwarted. The world admires when the five talents make themselves ten, but the truly grand issue is the struggle of the solitary talent to repeat itself. In after days he became noted for his celerity, but it came of regularly accele rated motion originally slow. It was a swiftness born less of vivacity than of intensity. His wheel was a swoop as from an serie in the majestic depths a wing swimming upon depth, and a minatory beak like the eagle s. -It is more clear henceforth, what is meant by the "race to the swift" swiftness slowly gath ered, launched ^from a divine depth, like lightning. Here was a deep, silent growth, ripening in stillness. A Jackson, terribly in earnest, dwelt terribly alone very often. Let us well understand, and lay it to heart, that the visible uni verse frowns on such a man, that the world of appearance is in arms against him, till he end the conqueror of the world. " Find your advantage in a little latitude; only upon condition that you trim here, are derelict there, shall you succeed, with my permis sion," says the world. "Suppress this scruple," says one. " Do .my dirty work," says another. Of many phases in this man s life, could we see them, we would say "Ecce in Descrto ! " Face to face with the tough fact of existence, on the one hand, and the guile of the plausible on the other, whose arch snare for the straitened is illusive haste, he learns that which is the beginning of all wisdom, the immortal difference between truth and lies. The field of deception, including self-deception, greatly the worst, perceptibly narrows. The sense of reality deepens in him, espe cially of the great unseen realities, on which he must forever lean, when he joins the weak things of the world to do fearless battle with the seeming strong. In common speech, we say of one farther-reaching, acuter than his fellows, " He sees through a mill stone." Dim, material senses obstruct not his wider, pro- founder vision. What we call strength of mind portrays itself in this. The non-realizing sense of truth, of such truth as is avowed, and even believed to be believed, is the great source of disorder in this world. That "love of money is the root of all evil," in some cases, is not quite clear. There are so many evils, and so many roots. But that love of, or subjection to, appear ances, the captivity of the sense to the flash of the present, the ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 243 charmful or the minatory immediate, lies at the bottom of all, is apt to be very clear; and this, it may be, is what the original means money, visible value, visible power, "the guinea s stamp" to that effect, the "image and superscription" to that effect, the form of a fair instant, or of a frowning one. The glittering bait hangs full in sight. The reward of self-respect and self-sacrifice is invisible. With what firmness and decision Jackson made his choice, in the fullness of time, was thundered to the world. The shallow, mid-summer brook is thrown out of channel, by each recurring, trivial obstruction, and whichever way the wind blows, shivers into commotion and ululation. Jackson s life is borne forward, on the silent, strong life-currents, wherein, after sore struggle, he is destined to become one of the world s strong swimmers. Well for Jackson, well for mankind, so in need of great examples! This or that sweet wish of the bosom, or bril liant seeming " Northwest passage to Enjoyment," was but an appearance thrown before an eager-hearted man to give him self- mastery. Long since it had "consumed away, like as it were a moth fretting a garment," and his example remains, a possession forever. The Northwest business, with its midnight sun, and fires of gem-work and gold kindled therein, at last is anchored to an iceberg. Like the iceberg, it melts in the ray which causes it to glitter; a marigold, dying for the sun, and dying by it. A great man s course, on his way to greatness, is well known to be the greatest of all ocean charts. In this case, a great sailor, having little or nothing of the autobiographic turn, has left scant record of his soundings on the coast, as well as subsequent log- board. He is fairly launched on the great deep, as a flag-ship of mankind and master of the storm, before his sailing quality re ceives due notice. Were it not for the steep wave he put behind, \ve would have no measure of his buffetings. As a revelation of the conscience of the South, by which the poor man of the South was actuated and pervaded, and as a testimony due to a cause which begot such a man and his example, I hold up this man to you for this instant. I hold him up as an example, sorely needed at this time, of one whose strength was strengthened by misfor tune, whose life was one long wrestle with adversity, a choice of difficulties at every step, and the pursuit of high aims over them; a life, theiefore, which had to derive power from defeat, diligently note the cause of failure, and see that the same did not recur, often as it must recur before quite vanquished. I hold him up as one who learned, not with less hindrance than others, to curb his spirit within the iron links of the inexorable; who from the time of this first and greatest victory, after which other victories were easier, encountered life and life s imprisoning enchantments w r ith 244 MEMORIAL VOLUME. drawn sword, which he held to by the sign of the Cross; in- which sign he conquered; under which a world of sorcery cow ered; under which the world, Mephistopheles, and the Prince of Darkness cowered. I hold him up as one who appears upon the scene (seems to have been possible then) just as our Book of Judges, or, if you please, our age of the Scipios, was closing, and on the threshold of the present universal stew. In his time the forces were at work which were to shift the golden into the inflated paper age, and put upon the boards, the book, or better, the bladder, of Railroad Kings, and ballot-stuffed sovereignty of the people. Against these he was to fight, and die fighting, for the present, it would seem, unprevailingly. Above all, and as all in all, I hold him up as a soldier of the truth, to his best ability to see it. Man is what he has been defined to be, a re ligious animal, in proportion as he strives to know the truth, and, as a sequence, to perform it. By right conduct, founded on right views the healthy mind is satisfied, in no other way. Jackson s views of truth were circumscribed, as those of all men are, by limitations of time and circumstance; but he has this indubitable sympton of a healthy mind: that his use for beliefs was to trans late them into practice, verify them in act; that for him faith was an act, a thing not so much to talk by, as to walk by; that he lived by his belief as he did by his daily bread. The high idea of a spiritual universe, overarching and overruling the material frame of things, as the eternal substance of which the latter is but the shadow cast in time this veritable real presence in re ligion, without which all else is as dross, was for him a living, ever-present fact. The difference between men, the difference between minds, the difference between lives, is in this. "To be or not to be?" as Hamlet puts it, "that is the question," applica ble to much else than mere self-slaughter of the flesh, but against which voluntary "not to be," in every aspect of it, "the ever lasting hath fixed his canon." "To be" is to "take arms against a sea of troubles"; undaunted to oppose them, in a world whose wave forever falls as hammer, when not beaten into anvil; where not to be victor is to be vanquished. It is a question which, in all aspects, Jackson decides with great emphasis in the affimative. The iron brow of duty, which early fills him with deep awe and veneration, grows majestically beautiful in time, and he learns to look upon it with a self-consecrating love and faith. Never did man more decisively renounce for himself, in this life, the plea sures, avidities, and shows which could not follow him to the next. Looking on the firm, compressed lines of his face, and the gray, unyielding gaze which answers ours, almost with the fixed determination of a thing of steel a most unshaken eye, ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 245 but through which pathetically glances the touch of a kindly light, as of the light of the everlasting Gospel, breaking through a world of difficult turmoil, sorrow, and long-enduring hope de ferred looking on his still, solemn face, one feels as though the iron brow hid passed into this human one. Here was a man to give the few the confidence of many. Here was one to be a leader of that Confederate might, which, without music, without decorations, far removed from the glitter of " pomp and circumstance," in hunger and in rags, saw glory and duty, as the Puritan saw his God, through the bare walls of this meeting house. His men were partakers of his stuff. He orders a squad to resist a column. The men obey, nothing doubting. Jackson orders, Jackson knows. The cry "Jackson!" breaks from the enemy, as he rises out of the ground behind them and their works. His name doubles his ranks. A little one becomes a thousand. So it is with discernment of time and circumstances. At Samo- sierra, the Spaniards planted sixteen pieces of artillery in the neck of the pass, so as to sweep the whole of the steep ascent. But Napoleon rides into the mouth of the pass, and seizing the mist of the morning for a casque, orders the Polish cavalry of his guard to charge through the vapor to the battery. The first squadron is mo\ved down. Over them ride the remainder, sword in hand, up the mountain; Spanish infantry firing the while, on right and left, in lines one above another. When the Poles have sabred the gunners thev have routed an armv. The militarv o -> J J critic feels bound to say, that the charge, "viewed as a simple military operation, was extravagantly rash." Thus substance dis perses shadows, and stamps the difference between multitude and force. In the manifold field of life the royal eye, through the veil of circumstance, distinguishes the essential; seeing well the o o things around, is dazzled by none. To be daunted by none is next to, and consequent upon this. The knowledge of how to be strong, where the main issue lies, is the knowledge of all fields and all life. A man who makes realities his aim, and appearances his dis dain, is strange, and set apart, accordingly. Not under one Dis pensation only, but finder all Dispensations, God s people are "a peculiar people." To live in the sense of a higher accountability than any fulmi- nations of this earth, in the throng of plausibilities to be genuine, of hypocrisies to be devout, to be retiring among the Pharisees, faithful among the cravens, is eccentric necessarily. How should it be otherwise, with the carnal heart in its existing state of enmity? Is not the true man bound to say to specious sham, "Get thee behind me"? The resolute, genuine natures are the 246 MEMORIAL VOLUME. ones, at last, from which others borrow existence, around which others rally. The faithful few, obscure in the world, but great in their callings, are the shoulders which move the world. The heroes will always say to the trimmers, "We will bear the brunt, and leave you the plunder of the field" the pleasant race of trimmers, the plausible, the supple! Plausible decorum, equally amiable and equally indifferent to all persons and all opinions, is not the stuff of which Jacksons are made. The world says of the Jackson, "He is narrow." But better to cleave a path for others to follow in, the narrows which are deep, than the expanse which is broad, because it is shallow. How are you to seduce, how intimidate such a man, when for him your menace, or your bribe, is but one more appearance which he knows how to despise? Such a man was Stonewall Jackson a resolved, taciturn man, of decided, aquiline, rather uncomfortable ways; the more inex pugnable, that they were sternly encased, in a life of prayer, as in a shirt of mail. Not a man to be popular, it is plain; not one to swim pleasantly with the current; one rather to cling faith fully to the rock in the midst thereof, refusing to be swept away. He cannot wax himself to men and things. He is sincere, ad heres without mercenary glue, or parts company. Yet what in history so touching, as the almost childlike reverence of Jackson for the real majesty of Lee? It is one of the highest praises of the latter, that in proportion as his subordinates were great, he was great to them. For one, I never see that picture of Lee and Jackson, in their last ride together by the Aldrich house, without thinking that such a meeting is, in itself, one of the best and sweetest pictures of how greatness, of whatever rank, is the born brother of every other. At the two extremes of wealth and pov erty we produce these two. The extremes meet, not in hate but in love, and, the facts deserving it, mutual respect and admira tion. The two are blent together, by virtue of that which is in herent and independent in them, by virtue of being the men they were. Merit, whether it descended from the highest, or ascended from the lowest, was free and equal in that South be fore the war. The day was at hand which was to draw the recluse from his retreat, and witness his coronation before a gazing and a gaping world; when he who had sown to reality repeated realities. The shadows felt in him their substance, when they heard his word of commanc 1 , amid the thunders of the captains. The world within him was greater than the world without him. Did enemies encompass, and storm in upon him? With his right hand, he smote them to ruins. He does the utmost, who standing on him self, stands true to himself, and therefore not falsely but faith- ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 247 fully to others. lie is the greatest, who having most to over come, overcomes it. All honor to him, who from the lowly made himself the lofty, from the feeble made himself the mighty, made the one talent ten, and a world all hostile to his weakness, all vassal to his greatness. Here, in the Wilderness, it was, that he, who had put all other enemies under foot, over death also rose victorious; folded the banner of victory, for time and for eternity, inextricably about him as he fell. That ether of memory and imagination, which throws its purple on the past, floated from his shoulders as we gazed. The shadow of a cloud passed over him, behind which the sun was shining. It might have been said at his grave, as the Karl of Morton said at that of John Knox, " He lies there who never feared the face of man." He rests there, with a star, Valor s star, upon his breast; for him henceforth, a star of peace. He himself is now become a stir, on the great bosom of Kternity. His long warfare is over; "he has fought the good fight." The sore conflicts and bruises under the strait ened yoke of time, its whips and its scorns, will gall him never more, lie can survey them unmoved now, from that last bosom wherein he rests, and the revenges of time are furled. Beautiful effect of a true life ! beautiful event of our century! the story of Jackson crossing the Atlantic, and spreading among generous Knglish hearts, comes back to us, in the speaking im age of a hero. Knglish gentlemen, stamping, in imperishable art, the imperishable idea of a Jackson, place it on this Square, a monument to him and to them, and to an artist worth}" of his subject. "He has lost his left arm; I have lost my right," were the generous words of Lee when he heard of Jackson s wounds. The blood of all the heroes flowed in those words over those wounds. It was as if, for the moment, like the patriarch of old, Lee had reversed his hands, and made the dexterous lieutenant of his left his active right, and the less adroit Long-street the virtual left. But to sit on the right hand, or the left hand, of so much glory, were fame enough. And now it is given t:> Long- street, in a similar movement, not far from the same spot, by another fire from our own men, to be felled in the front of triumph. It was his last, as it was his greatest battle. I well remember the deep, respectful silence, with which the First how itzers pressed to the side of the road, as a white ambulance passed by, knowing well whom it bore. Had Longstrcet s wound proved also mortal, his niche of fame stood ready for him. Weeping Commonwealths would have acccompanied his bier. The chivalry and beauty of a mourning land would have been companions at his tomb. His cypress would have been a laurel. 248 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Longstreet survived for quite other destinies, and so left Jack son alone in his glory. I said in the beginning that our whole past had bpen cut into clear, firm character by the chisel of war. Equally true is it that the future, and our bearing therein, will be the most effectual commentary on our conduct in the war. The future will de termine whether the proportions of that day shall fall about our people like a decent robe, or whether posterity shall turn skeptic in applying the armor of a giant past to the body of a living dwarf. They who have exclusively the past to be proud of, in the accumulation of their vouchers, provide a measure for their defection and decadence. Such have been likened to potatoes, by far whose best part is under ground. An inordinate Irish man, tracing his genealogy, paused in the course of his memoirs to say, " Here the world was created." But a not wholly incom mensurable appetite can appease itself, as Chesterfield entertained himself, by placing, among the portraits of his ancestors, two old heads inscribed "Adam de Stanhope" and "Eve de Stanhope." " Every man," says Sancho Panza, "is the son of his own works." Perhaps the most sorrowful fate which can overtake a people is when a tradition of old greatness, in truth, the mockery, is ac cepted as the solace of downfall and humiliation. The proud past is a robe of scorn to the unequal present. There are some who dispose of the whole matter of the war, in a very off-hand manner. "What did we make by it?" they ask, conscious that the pecuniary returns are in a state of great backwardness. It is as if one were to ask of Milton s great poem, "How much did he get for it?" And yet heroic writing is a small thing by the side of heroic living and dying. William Attig, engineer upon the Philadelphia and Erie railroad, with the air-brakes on, and his hand upon the throttle, kept off death from every other, while it steamed down upon himself. Was the subscription for his widow what he made by it? Those three hundred Spartans who, on a summer morning, in the passes of Thermopylae, "sat combing their long nair for death" what did they make by it? What did Joan of Arc make by it, with the Inquisition cap upon her head, burned to death for a witch, her ashes thrown into the Seine? What did Wallace make by it, betrayed, beheaded, his body quartered and impaled on London Bridge, a green garland on his head to crown him outlaw king? She seated the descendant of Saint Louis for three centuries on his throne. She and her maiden sword, she and her consecrated banner, she and her beauty risen from her ashes, pure as the lilies of France and magnificent as the oriflamme, make the France of to-day beautiful to Frenchmen. And Wallace! He ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 249 and the Scots who- bled with him, made the independent mind of Scotland too strong for any subjugation; they made her inde pendence real, and her subjugation superficial, and left the name of Wallace "a wild flower all over his dear country." They sowed for the immortal gods. Defeat for duty is better than victory over it. My belief is that great things are never done for what can be made by them. Their returns are not contained in such sordid measure. Reputation wrung from the cannon s mouth is not a bubble. There have been latter-day patriots who have avowed their intention to " make treason odious"; no insignificant intent, on their part, considering how many of earth s greatest have con spired to make it glorious, when the "treason" in question has meant resistance to authority believed to be unlawful, and known to be injurious, which is the definition in the latter-day case. Our earlier Presidents called it "obedience to God." The Tory Allison can give lessons in liberalism to the latter-day variety. "The feelings of mankind," he writes, "have never stigmatized mere treason as a crime." And again, speaking of the Count Bathiany: " History must ever mourn the death upon the scaffold of any man of a noble cher.icter, combatting for what in sincerity he believed to be the cause of duty." The feelings of mankind and our earlier Presidents have a great deal in their favor. First, to take all pains to know aright what our duty is, and then to fight for it in all weather, is what we are here to do. Mere con querors who have taken no such pains are not our judges, but our visitation for not more warily and desperately fighting. The murderer has but his hour," said Lamartine of the fate of the Duke d Enghien; "his victim has all eternity." Truth, it may be well to state, has never been bastillecl nor carried by coup dV tat. With what a satire, does accusing and avenging time laugh to scorn the executions of the hour. In some English engravings, under the heads of Sir Thomas More, Sir Walter Raleigh, Russel, and Sidney, there is engraved an axe, to signify that in their day these were beheaded. But how fares it with their renown? Is that beheaded? Or is it consecrated by the nobility of a peculiar clearness? There is no face in the Corcoran Art Gallery before which more reverent footsteps pause than that of Charlotte Corday. The pen, mightier than the sword of the executioner, is in her hands, with which she has written, "The crime, not the scaffold, makes the shame." What a sure hand it is! "Mere treason" in this case is not the crime. The crime is to be a " savage wild beast " (to be Marat, rami du pcuplc], feeding on human heads, who, God be praised! has been slain by this Norman girl. She stands behind her grated window, through 25O MEMORIAL VOLUME. which she looks, with a still, deep pathos, piercing all hearts, from the blue heaven of eyes whose sun is setting fast, whose arthly sun, indeed, in seeming, still trembling on the horizon, in reality, already, is below it, leaving a setting sun s light upon the face. A look of eternity is gazing far over this restless earth into eternity. With her last hold upon earth clasped upon her prison grate, one almost fancies the thorn halo upon the brow leant thereon, which the iron seems to enter; a halo, whose radiance down-glancing bestows, by a two-fold but not divided light, tenderness and grandeur. The warmth of a sweetly-in trepid soul hovers, for the last time, upon a breast which her neckerchief not quite conceals. The bravest heart in France beats under the fairest bosom. She lives on canvas, an image of the soul, passionately, but invincibly, gazing through the bars of its prison-house in the flesh, as a bird imprints his breast-feathers against the imprisoning wires of his cage. We, in America, send for this warm, sweet soul of Normandy, and place it in the front of art. What is it makes the real odiousness of treason? Whether it be high treason, whether it be petit treason; whether it be against society, against marriage, or any other relation of contract or affection; is not the essence of it, that which makes it detestable, this : that it is perfidy, betrayal, a breach of faith that is owed and pretended; in a word, that is treacherous? The essence of it is falseness, an alliance or allegiance which is an an acted lie. The definition is as old as the Mirror, and older; treason happens only between allies; arises where there is a subsisting natural, civil, or spiritual relation. A public and authoritative announce ment, that a voluntary alliance, between free and equal contract ing commonwealths, shall subsist no longer, is not an act of treachery, especially, if the reason for revoking on one side be the practical and statutory abrogation on the other. It is the reverse of treachereous; it is putting another on his guard, say ing to him, "Take notice, we are no longer allies; we are aliens. The Roman word is proditio the giving forth of an appearance which has no backbone of reality. One living in the guise of friendly association and confidence, furtively stabs you under the fifth rib. Open war the brave man accepts as his discipline. Insidious, perfidious guile he is less apt to prepare for. Wash ington fighting at the head of the Rebels against George III is a true man. Arnold fighting in the ranks of the loyal for George III is a traitor. It may be admitted that deceit is a terrible evil. Closely considered, and including self-deceit, it is the sum and substance of all that is most pernicious. It is the Devil s own image. As we live, there is but one thing to do with it to beat ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 25 I It down under our feet, and not comfort it when fallen. Would you know whether a deed is vile or not? Ask yourself the ques tion, whether the traits of it are cowardice and lies, treachery or poltroonery to what is professed and believed; in either case hiding, under a false appearance, the fearfulness or the disguise of fact the last a subtler, sometimes a coarser form of fear. In proportion as these arc the traits it is vile. In proportion as these are not, not. Are you willing for the light to shine upon your deeds, or must they be shrouded in darkness? is the test. Man does walk by faith; hence the worst thing you can say of a man is that he is perfidious, diligently seems the thing he is not, and so betrays, by what he is, the confidence bestoweecl on what he seems. To be a man, with a man s sense of accountability, is one of the very greatest commandments. What, then, was the crime of the Southern States? Was it that after having reiterated in season, and out of season, shouting the same loudly from the house-tops, that they would resume the powers, conditionally granted by them to the General Gov ernment, whenever the same should be perverted to their injury, when the day of trial came they were recreant; was it this? Was it that after having affirmed that they had given their adhesion, not to a law higher than the constitution, nor lower than the con stitution, but to the constitution, the whole constitution, and noth ing but the constitution; and that whenever such "higher law" laid hold of the Government, they would let go; when the event happened, they swallowed their words; was it this? Xo, it was not this. Their offence was, that to the unspeakable abomina tion of their enemies, they made good their words, would not equivocate oath and conscience, did what they said they would do. And how? In silence, in darkness, with Masonic secrecy and rites? Xo; this thine: was not done in a corner. In broad o day, State after State went to the polls to vote upon the peril and the duty of the hour. In broad day, their representatives as sembled themselves in conventions, and their proceedings in the daily press, that no man might be ignorant. In broad day, Senator after Senator rose in the Capitol and said, " Your Morrill tariff construction, your lobby and jobbery construction, your States passing laws that the constitution is a dead letter, your higher law construction, is no law for us, and in the nature of things cannot be. We agreed to form this Union, you say. Grant that we agreed to form, at least, the Union. What then? Did we agree that it should be absolute, irrevocable, unappealable, not only for the generation agreeing, but for all generations? Do men calling themselves republicans hold that we did? Why, a king can give no more than his own ; may resign his own throne, 252 MEMORIAL VOLUME. if he like, but less certainly than that of his offspring. And you have the hardihood to say that we, equals contracting with equals we who being solicited, entreated, assured, guaranteed gave our consent to certain conditions of union upon the very construction on which we are now acting, that we thereby clasped a handcuff of steel upon our wrists forever? Why, the law is, that no contract shall last forever. Say that you found your right of action on a contract meant to be perpetual, and the Supreme Court will laugh in your face. Rightly, for what man, or what number of men, can so read the future as justly to bind the un born of all time? Least of all should they maintain such a doc trine who utterly refuse to be bound themselves. We use the language of your own Webster, in prospect of the very case which has arisen, that a bargain broken on one side is broken on all sides, and say you have broken the bargain on all sides. Fourteen of your States having passed laws saying that the bar gain shall be inoperative as to them, how can you expect it to be altogether sacred to us? We cannot bring you to our views, nor will we surrender the law to your discretion. If your consciences cannot bear the sin of suffering us to hold the slaves which you sold to us, we will relieve your consciences of all participation therein. You shall have no more concern in the matter than in the institutions of Brazil. Saying good-bye to you, we will re vive over ourselves the Union our ancestors ordained; the civil, the moral, the federal liberty, for which Washington fought, for which Jefferson, Henry and Mason insisted, and which Marshall and Hamilton conceded as a fact. For this we mean to stand with the hazard of our lives. All outnumbered and outclamored as we are, God help us, we can do no other." Make the worst of this "treason," you can never make it other than manly, and frank, and true. Southern secession came, not to destroy, but to fulfill. "Caught with arms in their hands" is what was said of us afterwards. And how else should brave men be "caught" than "with arms in their hands" when all that is dear to them, and all that should be dear to them, is assailed? It passes the power of any statute to make this "odious," save to the pusillanimous and corrupt. To fight manfully for your faith in right is intrinsically not "odious"; it is very nearly the whole duty of man. We were brought to the ring, and the world has seen how we could dance. Undoubtedly there is a treason which is odious; being so, no statute, no verdict, no failure to impeach can make it otherwise. Let no man doubt this. There is a treason which is deadly; being so, no physic of legislation, and standing by it "under ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 253 fire," can make it healthy; not the avowed, open treason to usurpation, not the treason of the glorious Rebels who are fol lowed by "the sweet remembrance of the just" the paradoxical treason which is true; not this. The deadly treason is cau<jht. . not "with arms in its hands," but with a smile on its lips. Patriots, who, with unheard of love of country, bend the bow of legislation, so as to make it shoot straight into their own pockets, these are the deadly traitors; they who place votes "where they will do most good." To their country? No; to bank accounts which they protest against having to account for. The treason which walks by your side and thrives on your spoliation, which from behind a marble desk of supremacy, or other " inside track," knocks down law to the highest bidder, do you not see how baleful this polished, plausible treason must be; how it changes the rod of empire into a serpent; how it makes of government a nest of serpents stinging the veins of the people on whom they fasten? The detestable treason is that which dips in the same dish with you, and salutes with a kiss; and now the treason which the builders rejected, the rebuilders have made the corner stone! They are not the most meet to make treason of any kind odious, who have made fraud of every kind glorious. "Clear and round dealing" in any department of life, even that of forci ble resistance, is not the great danger to society. It is "the lie that sinketh in, and scttleth in it, that doth the hurt." Yes, the evil men of this^world are not the ones who sincerely battle for their duty, but the insincere who do not. Xo, latter-day patriots should give over their purpose to " make treason odious." Somebody should remonstrate with them. To borrow the needed word, they will find it a most Herculean labor for very unherculean backs. The halo, which Washington and others have thrown around the name of Rebel (which did apply to Washington and not to us) will have to be revoked, if at all, by an instrument of equal dignity. But if a magnanimous power were seriously to bestir itself to make fraud odious, instead of releasing it from the four quarters, and from the hind quarters, to sit at the receipt of custom! John Bright said in 1861 : "When I state that, for many years past, the annual public expenditure of the Government of the United States has been between 10,- 000,000 and ,15,000,000, I need not, perhaps, say further, that there has always existed amongst all the population an amount of comfort, and prosperity, and abounding plenty, such as I be lieve no other country has enjoyed." So it was. So it is not now. We have received "moral ideas," been "educated up"; but comparatively honest dealing between man and man, and therewith "comfort, prosperity, abounding plenty" amongst all 254 MEMORIAL VOLUME. classes have been educated down. The laboring man of the North has been "planted on the side of freedom" of freedom, among other things, to be turned out of food and raiment, and have an increase of the army held over his head to shoot him down when restive. Of taxes, burdens, swift, central financiering over public spoil, there is plenty. Of freedom to steal like the devil, there is an abounding plenty. Never was it plainer that for man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow is cursed. But the negro in the South can still do, what the laboring man elsewhere finds it so hard to do get himself supported by a fair day s work. What if the future decide that the world, as usual, has judged by appearances? What if the future shall say, that what the world called slavery, railed against as such, rolling up the whites of quite worldly eyes, in horror that such a thing should exist, stands forth as a patriarchal, beneficent re lation, the kindest for the slave, as he came to us, not as French s "rights of man" fain would have him come; and what is now lauded to the skies, as "freedom," be exhibited, as a cruel, grasp ing sauve qui pent, and Devil take the hindmost, the most sordid, the most heartless of all tyranny, the one which most degrad- ingly, and least pitifully, shoves the weakest to the wall, arid keeps him there that which oscillates between mere numbers and mere dollars? Wolves, it is said, have greatly increased in Russia since the emancipation of the serfs, and now number some two hundred thousand, whose annual consumption of flesh, including that of human beings, is twenty-three hundred weight per head. In other ways, what is baptized with the fine names of freedom and philanthropy is only too apt to substitute, for one traffic in human flesh, another more bitter. Most plaintive was the speech of a Lowell factory girl, some years ago, at a wo man s rights convention, in Washington, that no condition of a Southern slave was ever so cruel as her s. A portion of the North begin to recognize, that the views of strict construction are not so pernicious after all; show signs of feeling their own need to interpose the shield of State sover eignty, against a roaring deluge of fallacy. The more thoughtful North stands aghast at the undesired results "coming home to roost," of the utter overthrow of all the stability of society, in order to wreak vengeance. The more thoughtful North is stretching out a hand for the character, and high, even if haughty, tone of sincere opinion, once common at the South, which, if not proof against passion, was against bribery, and helped to make the country a fortress of free hearts, whence rang the clear challenge of a republic. The old constitutional guarantees, the old ramparts have been carried. A constitution (not clearly ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 255 written) powerful for injury, powerless for redress; powerful to send troops and mercenary creatures to falsify the votes of States, powerless to correct, or even attempt to correct, the certain false hood, for the present, has "changed all that." The light of those tall forms, which stood in the breaches of the Constitution to hurl impetuous defiance on its foes, is buried quite. The for tress of free hearts lies clean behind us, dead, forgotten; the old defenders gone, the old invincibles. The thoughtful North stretches out its hands to-day for that spirit, which a thoughtless North has done its best (or its worst) to quench and silence. The long walls of Athens were rebuilt, with the aid of the Boeo tians and other volunteers, who eleven years earlier had danced to the sound of joyful music, when the former walls were demol ished. Thus sometimes the conqueror crowns the conquered, when the conquered are true to themselves. Thaunus mentions a minister, who having long been persecuted by his enemies, at length triumphed, qnia sc non dcscniit. Old grammarians were wont to say, that right was the past participle of the verb rcgcrc, to rule; and thus it is that virtue is strength, manhood. The force by which strength is equipped for its battle is virtue. The King of the State is the Rex of it, the very right of it champion and captain of the right. lie who collects in himself, embosoms and enforces that which is wisest and best, he is the king, in office or out of office, lie is the ex pression of the better nature of the State, the captain of it and the child, by virtue of which his right to rule is divine. Under him royalty and loyalty, or law-alty, become reciprocal. A brave v old word this loyalty, though sadly profaned of late, because it does not mean subservience to Kings, or Presidents, or Con gresses, or Unions; but faithfulness to law. Veracity, rectitude,, business method, intrepid justice, these are the strong indomi table things. These are the rulers of men, or else revolution comes, because they are not so. Falsehood, dishonesty, immethod, venal, cowardly indifference, these are the weak things, the shal low things, and abomination and anarchy are born of them. The laws of nature are "caught with arms in their hands," and sel dom or never lay them down, whatever the "inside track" men may object. The flaming sword of the universe is never "a dead issue." All this about arbitrament of w T ar, true enough, perhaps, in a comprehensive sense, is, in some applications of it, extremely shallow. The arbitraments arrived at, "when laws are silent," when all consideration and discussion of the right is told to hold its tongue, are always questionable, and liable to serious revision. A King of England conquered a discordant French nation, be cause it was discordant; which, thereupon, under compulsion 256 MEMORIAL VOLUME. crowned the conqueror. The thing settled was, that, at the time of the invasion, England was strong and France was weak, and that, as a nation s strength is, so shall her day be. In a subtle sense, "he that liveth by the sword" (by brute force, violation of right) "shall perish by the sword." "A right," says Coke, "can never die dormit aliquando,jus moritur nunquam. For of such an high estimation is right in the eye of the law, as the law pre- serveth it from death and destruction; trodden down it may be, but never trodden out." Yes, the right does not go down; does not stay down, at least. It does not truly sleep, but only seems to sleep. Whatever mean and base thing pollutes it goes down. The too haughty assertion of it goes down. Whatever abuses and excesses are covered by the flag of its adherents, their "neg ligences and ignorances," their fierce taunts and invectives, go down, but not the right, forever. We may prove that we are unworthy to be the champions of the right, but not that the right is unworthy of a champion. The mercy of the right is upon us, as our trust is in it. The service of it is freedom. Free dom, let me say once more, is the free dominion of the law. Unless we are to sink into hopeless Mexican anarchy and Ring ruin, out of panic bankruptcy will yet be lifted "the Federal Union." But should this happen, that our principles come again to the front, and we not behind them ; but opposing them, have the convictions, consecrated by our blood, thrown in our teeth by those who trod them down ! This much has not ceased to be credible: J^rodden down they may be, but never trodden out! We are few in the midst of many enemies. The black ocean of implacable hate swells all around us. At its own weapons we cannot foil it. The much-vaunted "fighting the Devil with fire" is a poor game, and a sadly unequal one. Give the Devil choice of pistols, and he will be apt to shoot you first. Fallacies and chicaneries fight only for the father of such. It becomes us, it becomes all men, but chiefest them who fight under an adverse star, to see and believe, that the moral victory over material ascendancy is never out of reach. No disparity of force can snatch that from us. Public opinion is the moral victory of the few over the many. Be the faithful few, and the faithless many will be your footstool. In the sophistry of mind and mannars, to be intellectually honest and brave; in the recrimination, and anarchic fratricide, of capital and labor elsewhere, to keep our own society first just, then, as a consequence, peaceful and strong; in the hanging garden of appearance to be real: herein is true strength. Had the Soullicrn Historical Society done nothing else than ex pose, what has been termed, "one of the boldest and baldest at- ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 25 / tempted outrages on the truth of history which has ever been essayed," that which relates to the treatment of prisoners at Andersonville, it would have deserved the gratitude of all lovers of truth. The boldest and baldest truly! 220,000 Southern prisoners are in the North; two hundred and seventy thousand Northern prisoners are in the South; the North abounds in re sources; the South laid waste, anything but abounding; for three weeks in the early part of 1864 unable to issue rations of meat to her soldiers in the field. Yet, with fifty thousand more pris oners in Southern stockades, the deaths are four thousand less; nine per cent, the death rate in the South, twelve per cent, in the North. The South, using ever}- humane argument, entreats the North to take back the prisoners at Andersonville. The ruling authority says, "No; my policy of wearing you out by attrition demands that these men be not taken back. The more of our men you have to feed, the fewer of your own you will be able to feed. Humanity to the men left in our ranks demands that our prisoners continue to prey upon your vitals." "We are unable to provide your prisoners with suitable clothing," we said to Secretary Seward; "will you provide them?" "The Federal Government does not supply clothing to prisoners of war," re plied the Secretary. Tried by their own standard, it is seen that our care of their prisoners was exceptionally kind. Nevertheless, after the war a victim is demanded. A group of citizens, "organ ized to convict," unknown to the law, prohibited by the law, hears what evidence it likes, refuses to hear what may operate against the end in view, renders the presence of counsel nugatory, and in due season proceeds to murder the victim, nn form or principle of law being at anytime consulted. " Military com missions never disappoint the expectations of those who employ them." It is the act of Macbeth, smearing the daggers of the guard with the blood his own hands have spilled. Defend your great days. A poem of human life our battle of the Wildernes easily be comes, fought as it was in the rough brake, and the deep shadow, and the fierce death glare. As you strike with intelligent unity and decision, determined to conquer or die, you do conquer even though you die. At all times the strongest is but as a reed shaken with the wind, quivering in the play of forces which threaten or entreat. Not alone of memory may it be said, " Thou, like the world, the oppressed, oppressing." The forces around human life are so. A world of forces, yielding, and taking the shape we give, harsh and heavy when we quail or sink, wraps itself around each, to bear or forbear as victory inclines. Does -supineness intervene? The load of a mountain is hung about 258 MEMORIAL VOLUME. the neck. Does a cheery heart stiffen the spinal column? The hard adversity melts away, or curves into an arch of triumph. "Two afflictions well put together," says the proverb, "shall be come a consolation." A poem of human life, I say. Under the warm touch, the stern fact of these two days moulds itself into a symbol of imagination for the mind s eye: as such is a reality; not for one place and time only, but for all places, from genera tion to generation. The life of to-day has not ceased to be faithful to the old sim iles of the Wilderness and warfare. Our life is a battle and a march. We fight once more in "continual, poisoned fields," where, it may be, are many greatly discontented with the Wil derness, and very greatly indeed preferring the flesh-pots of any other country. Solemnly as ever a mother State says to each: "With your shield or upon it." We have chiefly to see to it, that when we are borne from the field, it shall be with the banner of a honorable day, and a pious hope, flung over us, and a music of gentle deeds to commemorate us when we are gone. So fares it with our cause. It sleeps well now, as a dead man might, with a stone for his pillow. So fares it with a cause, henceforth all eno- bled for us, by honorable death on the field; guarded henceforth by the army of the dead, whose dead march the muffled drum of living hearts is beating. A hero cause borne on its shield to the grave of hero death, pierced with wounds, for us is lovely; covered with reproach, for us is pure; crowned with thorns, for us is holy. We will never weave a grander oriflamme to be our fair image of duty and the path to it. We are on duty still. Remember the Wilderness! how we struck in forlorn valor; fight ing for a world s cause, in the midst of a world s indifference, when we grappled in those lonely gleams and shadows, as, from age to age, the true heart flights. When was the hero s battle other than a lonely battle? Remember the whole war! Tenderly beautiful to-night, in its tears and for them, with the sweet, pathetic beauty of our last sad farewells, is that great memory, which draws us here, and gathers all hearts in one. The saddest, sternest of all faces the face of the irrevocable stares on us from those farewells farewells of hope, farewells of valor, farewells wrung out, not in speech, but in silence and closed lips, in battle and in night, when the very stars glittered icy cold on the field of the slain. The spring and summer of a people s manhood, the manly sweetness of the warrior boy, the beautiful simplicity we shall never see again on this earth, the unbought valor, which fronted a world in arms, and died front ingto all these our chivalrous farewell! Not till all noble grace departs will their memory depart! Last Sunday I stood again,. ADDRESS OF PRIVATE LEIGH ROBINSON. 259 where Gregg s Texans put on immortality; where Kershaw led in person three of his brigades, to compensate them for the ab sence of the fourth; where the three brigades under Mahone charged whooping through the woods. Out of the mist of years I almost seemed to see the faces, and out of the buried din to hear the voices, of the past, speaking those old languages, so frank, so brave, so unapproachably dear, just because they are gone, and return no more. They died that we might not live in vain. It is for us so to live, that they shall not have died in vain. And if, to-night, this voice from the ranks could reach the lead ers, who now marshal the way before us, I would say, "Look there! See what the noble in man can do! At your peril op pose to it the ignoble in man. Appeal once more to the watch words of the past, to our courage and our conscience, if you would renew for us, and for yourselves, the laurel of the past. Once more quit yourselves like men. The white plume of the ages, the flag of your duty summons you there. The martyred valor of the South fell, as it was charging right onward there. There, by the side now of his last captain, and of ours, is Jack son, standing like a stone wall !" Finely has it been said of him whose followers we all were, that in the quiet hall of the professor, he renewed the war, trans ferring it to the sphere of mind. In this high sphere, fight we ever, as in his eye. To walk firmly in duty, bravely in principle, honestly in conviction, at all times, is the first business of a man. We will have enough to do to prove that the plow-share of our peace is of the same metal, which went into the glorious sword of our war. With us, or without us, history will say, that in an age whose greatest fiction was "without a hero," there were two Virginians, worthy to be named by the side of Phocion and Epaminondas. It is in our power to cause it to be added, that the South was greater in defeat than her enemies in victory; that, indeed, the difference between the North and South was not so much a difference between victory and defeat, as it was a differ ence between successs and glory. It may be well not to be too certain which scale will kick the beam, with Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and success all on one side; but defeat and Robert Lee, death and Stonewall Jackson, all on the other. As plainly enough now stares us in the face, the insolent hope of sapping by corruption the principles, which could not be overcome by force, I am tempted to say to you, as our great captain said to us all, in the trenches of Hagerstown: "Soldiers! your old enemy is before you. Win from him honor, worthy your right causey worthy your comrades, dead on so many illustrious fields." 26O MEMORIAL VOLUME. On motion of General D. H. Maury, seconded by General J. A. Early, the Association spread on its record a feeling and ap propriate tribute to the memory of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had died on the 2Qth of October. Both General Maury and General Early pronounced fitting eulogies on the great "Wizard of the saddle." On motion of General Early, the same officers were, unani mously and by acclimation, elected for the ensuing year. THE BANQUET. A splendid banquet was spread to-night at the Saint Claire Hotel, and after disposing of the rich viands in a style worthy of the reputation of "hungry Rebels," the President announced the regular toasts, which were responded to in eloquent and telling speeches by Colonel James H. Skinner, Colonel Hilary P. Jones, Doctor J. S. D. Cullen, Judge Farrar, Colonel Berkley, General Early, General W. S. Walker, General Robert Ransom, General J. R. Cooke, Colonel H. E. Peyton, and others. EIGHTH ANNUAL REUNION. On the night of October 3<Dth, 1878, a brilliant audience crowded into the State capitol at Richmond, and was called to order by the President, General W. H. F. Lee. The meeting was opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. J. \Vm. Jones. General Lee then made an exceedingly felicitous address of welcome, and appropriately introduced as orator of the evening, Colonel William Allan, of McDonough School, Maryland, form erly of Jackson s staff, and Chief of Ordnance of the Second corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Colonel Allan was received with loud applause, and was fre quently applauded as he delivered the following address : ADDRKSS OF COLOXLL WILLIAM ALLAN. After the disastrous termination of Braddock s campaign against Fort Duquesne, in the summer of 1/56, Colonel George Washing ton, to whom was entrusted the duty of protecting the Alleghany frontier of Virginia from the French and Indians, established him self at Winchester, in the lower Shenandoah Valley, as the point from which he could best protect the district assigned to him. Here he subsequently built Fort Loudoun, and made it the base of his operations. A grass-ground mound, marking the site of one of the bastions of the old fort, and Loudoun street, the name of the principal thoroughfare of the town, remain to recall an im portant chapter in Colonial history. It was this old town that Major-General T. J. Jackson entered on the evening of November 4, 1861, as commander of the Valley district, and his headquarters were established within musket-shot of Fort Loudoun. He had been made Major-General on October 7 for his services at the first battle of Manassas, and was now as signed to this important command because of the expectations formed of his capacity, and because of his acquaintance with the country. His district embraced the territory bounded north by the Potomac, east by the Blue Ridge, and west by the Allegha- nies. Born and reared in Western Virginia, and filled with a pa triot s devotion to the land of his birth, he had manifested a strong desire to be employed in the operations in that region, and had cherished the ambition of freeing his former home from hostile 262 MEMORIAL VOLUME. domination. The Confederates, during the summer, had in that region been unsuccessful. General Robert Garnett had been forced to retreat by General McClellan, and had then met defeat and death at Corrick s ford on Cheat river, July I3th. This gave the Federals control of the greater part of Virginia west of the Alleghanies, and the subsequent efforts of Generals Floyd and Wise, and still later of General Lee, availed only to prevent further encroachments of the enemy not to regain the lost ter ritory. When, therefore, General Jackson assumed command of the Valley of Virginia, the enemy had possession of all the State north of the great Kanawha and west of the Alleghanies, and had pushed their outposts into that mountain region itself, and in some cases eastward of the main range. Thus, General Kelly had captured Romney, the county seat of Hampshire, forty miles west of Winchester, and now occupied it with a force of five thousand men.* This movement gave the Federals control of the fertile valley of the south branch of the Potomac. Another, though much smaller force, occupied Bath, the county seat of Morgan, forty miles due north of Winchester, while the north bank of the Potomac was everywhere guarded by Union troops. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad was open and available for the supply of the Federal troops from Baltimore to Harper s Ferry, and again from a point opposite Hancock westward. The section of this road of about forty miles from Harper s Ferry to Han cock, lying for the most part some distance within the Virginia border, had been interrupted and rendered useless by the Con federates, but this gap was now supplied by the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, which was open all the way from Cumberland, Mary land, to Georgetown in the District of Columbia. The plan of operations, that Jackson had conceived for regain ing West Virginia, was to move along the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and the turnpikes parrallel to it, and thus enter Western Virginia at the northeastern end. In this way he could turn the left flank of the enemy s forces, place himself on their commu nications, and force them to evacuate or fight under circumstances of his own selection. Having seen how his predecessors had been hampered in trying to operate from Staunton westward, by the difficult and inaccessible nature of the country, composed almost entirely of mountains destitute of supplies, and pene trated by nothing but indifferent wagon roads, he was anxious to try a mode of approach which, if more exposed to the enemy, had the advantage of being easier, of lying through a much more * Rosecrans testimony before " Committee on the Conduct of the War," volume III, 1865, page 14. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 263 populous and cultivated region, of affording to some extent the use of a railroad for supplies, and which would soon place him in the midst of some of the most fertile parts of West Virginia. In order to carry out this scheme, he asked for his old brigade, which had been left at Manassas, and that all the forces operating along the line of the Alleghanies southwest of Winchester, and lately commanded by General Lee, should be concentrated under his command. This would have given him fifteen thousand or sixteen thousand men the least force with which he thought it possible to undertake so bold an enterprise. His wishes were complied with in part. His own brigade was promptly sent to him, and one of the brigades of Loring s troops (upon the transfer of General Lee, General Loring had succeeded to the command of the troops west of Staunton) reached him early in December. Subsequently two more brigades, under General Loring himself, were added; but all these troops only increased the small force of three thousand State militia, which he had assembled in the district itself, to about eleven thousand men.* The greater part of General Loring s force did not arrive at Win chester until Christmas, thus preventing any important move ments during November and December. But meantime Jackson was not idle. He spent the time in organizing, drilling and equipping the militia and the scattered cavalry commands, which he consolidated into a regiment under Colonel Ashby; and in sending expeditions against the Chesa peake and Ohio canal, by breaking which he annoyed the enemy and interrupted an important line of communication. f By the last week in December all the troops that the War De- Department thought it judicious to spare him had arrived, and though the season was far advanced, he determined at once to assume the offensive. The winter had so far been mild, the roads were in excellent condition, and though his force was not large enough for the recovery of West Virginia, important advantages seemed within reach. The forces and positions of the enemy opposed to Jackson at the beginning of 1862 were as follows: General Banks, com manding the Fifth corps of McClellan s army, with headquarters at Frederick, Maryland, had sixteen thousand effective men,J the *Dahney s Life of Jackson, page 2.VT. t Jackson was employed from December IGth to December 21st in an expedition against Dam No. 5 on the Potomac. Here Captain (now Governor) Ilolliday, of the Thirty-third Vir ginia, and Captain Robinson, of the Twenty-seventh Virginia, volunteered, with their com panies, to go into the river and cut away the cribs. This was done in the cold water under an annoying tire from the enemy on the Maryland bank. i General Banks says that he hail seventeen thousand five hundred men in all. or "six teen thousand effective men." See his testimony before the Committee on Conduct of the War, 1S63, part II, page 414. 264 MEMORIAL VOLUME. greater part of whom were in winter quarters near that city, while the remainder guarded the Potomac from Harper s Ferry to Williamsport. General Rosecrans, still holding command of the Department of West Virginia, had twenty-two thousand men scattered over that region,* but was concentrating them on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. He says in his testimony (Report on Conduct of War, 1865, volume III): "On the 6th of Decem ber, satisfied that the condition of the roads over the Allegha- nies into Western Virginia, as well as the scarcity of subsistence and horse-feed, would preclude any serious operations of the enemy against us, until the opening of the spring, I began quietly and secretly to assemble all the spare troops of the Department in the neighborhood of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, under cover of about five thousand men I had posted at Romney, with the design of obtaining General McClellan s permission to. take nearly all these troops and suddenly seize, fortify and hold Win chester, whereby I should at once more effectually cover the northeastern and central parts of Western Virginia, and at the same time threaten the left of the enemy s position at Manassas, compel him to lengthen his line of defence in front of the Army of the Potomac, and throw it further south." This plan of Rosecrans was anticipated and foiled by Jackson s movements. On the first of January, 1862, the latter left Win chester at the head of between eight thousand and nine thousand men,f and moved towards Bath, in Morgan county. The fine weather of the preceding month changed on the very first night of the expedition, and a terrible storm of sleet and snow and cold set in, which for the next three weeks subjected the troops to the severest hardships, and finally forced their commander to suspend his forward movement. At first the troops marched cheerfully on in spite of cold and sleet. Bath was evacuated, but General Lander, who within a day or two had superseded Rose crans, hurried reinforcements to Hancock, in time to prevent Jackson from crossing the Potomac. J Jackson, having made a demonstration against Hancock, done what damage was possible to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and placed himself between Lander at Hancock and Kelly at Romney, moved toward the latter place as fast as the icy roads would permit. While Jack son was on the road, a part of Kelly s force made a reconnois- * Rosecrans testimony before Committee on Conduct of the War, 1863, part I, page 202. t O;i January Kith Jackson reported 111" rn iiv fovcc in his district to (; -neral J. E. John ston as tvn thousand one Imudr-d and eisnteen i f.iutr.v and six hundred and forty-eight cavalry, lie had at that date twenty-four guns, having lost two at Hanging Kock, January 7th. t One of Banks brigades was sent to aid Lander at Hancock. See Banks testimony, above cited. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 265 sancc towards Winchester, and at Hanging Rock, twelve miles from Romney, surprised and defeated a force of Confederate militia of some seven hundred men, taking two guns. But alarmed at Jackson s movements, Kelly did not attempt to follow up the advantage, and hastily retired from Romney on January loth. Jackson entered it on the I4th, and though the weather and roads grew worse, held to his intention of advancing further. He aimed at Cumberland. Preparations were at once begun for a movement on New Creek (now called Keyser), but when the orders to march were given, the murmuring and discontent among his troops, especially among those which had recently come under his command, reached such a pitch that he reluc tantly abandoned the enterprise and determined to go into winter quarters. Leaving Loring and his troops at Romney, he re turned with his own old brigade to Winchester, January 24th, and disposed his cavalry and militia commands so as to protect the whole border of the district. This expedition, though it had cleared his district of the foe and effectually broken up all plans of the enemy for a winter campaign against Winchester, was disappointing to Jackson, as well as to the public. Though" believing that results had been obtained which outweighed all the suffering and loss, he was con scious that the weather, and the lack of cordial support, had pre vented the accomplishment of far more important ends. But this did not abate his self-reliance, nor diminish his clear-sight edness. The discontent among his troops left at Romney re sulted on the 3 ist of January in an order from the Secretary of War, sent without consultation, to withdraw Loring from that place. Jackson obeyed the order, and at once resigned, on the ground that such interference by the Department at Richmond, with the details of military affairs in the field, could only lead to disaster. After explanations, and upon the urgent request of Governor Letchcr and General J. E. Johnston,* he withdrew the resignation. Subsequently, there was no desire on anybody s part to interfere with him. For the next month Jackson remained quietly at Winchester. General Loring and all his troops that were not Virginian were ordered elsewhere; and in order to induce re-enlistment, furloughs o were freely granted. The Confederate force was in this way re duced to about four or five thousand men, exclusive of militia. W 7 ith the ist of March opened the great campaign of 1862 in Virginia, in which Jackson was to bear so prominent a part. In other sections of the Confederacy fortune favored the Federal * See Johnston s Narrative, page 88; Dabney s Life, page 2T8, &c. IS 266 MEMORIAL VOLUME. cause, and the Union armies were on the full tide of success. On the 8th of February Roanoke Island fell, on the i6th Fort Don- elson, on the 26th Nashville, and on the 2/th the evacuation of Columbus, Kentucky, was begun. These successes made the Federal Administration impatient to push forward operations in Virginia. At the urgent repre sentation of General McClellan, President Lincoln had yielded his favorite plan of campaign an advance against the Confede rate lines at Manassas and had reluctantly consented to the transfer of the Army of the Potomac to Fortress Monroe, and its advance thence on Richmond. Before he would allow Mc Clellan, however, to begin the transfer, the Potomac river below Washington must be cleared of Confederate batteries, the Balti more and Ohio railroad must be recovered and protected, and all the approaches to Washington must be made secure.* To fulfill a part of these conditions, Banks and Lander s com mands were ordered forward, and on February 24th General Banks occupied Harper s Ferry. Soon after, McClellan began the movements on his other wing, that were preparatory to an attack on the Confederate batteries along the lower Potomac. These indications of activity announced to General Johnston that the time had come for carrying out his plan, already determined upon, of retreating behind the Rappahannock. On the /th of March Johnston began the withdrawal of his army, and by the nth all the infantry and artillery east of the Blue Ridge had reached the new position. Jackson meanwhile remained at Winchester, watching closely the advance of Banks, and doing what was possible to impede it. General Johnston thus describes the duty assigned to him: "Af ter it had become evident that the Valley was to be invaded by an army too strong to be encountered by Jackson s division, that officer was instructed to endeavor to employ the invaders in the Valley, but without exposing himself to the danger of defeat, by keeping so near the enemy as to keep him from making any con siderable detachment to reinforce McClellan, but not so near that he might be compelled to fight."f At this time Jackson s entire force did not amount to forty-six hundred men, exclusive of the remnants of the militia brigades, which were not employed any more in actual service. It con sisted of the five regiments of his old brigade, now under Gar- nett, of three regiments and one battalion under Burks, and of two regiments under Fulkerson. He had also five batteries and Ashby s regiment of cavalry. General Banks had his own divi- *See McClellan a report. t Johnston s Narrative, page 106. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN". 267 sion, under Williams, and Shields (late Lander s)* division, now incorporated in his corps. Two brigades of Sedgwick s were also with himt when he crossed the Potomac, and the other sub sequently joined him. On the ist of April the strength of Banks corps, embracing Shields , is given by General McClellan as twenty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine, including thirty-six hundred and fifty-two cavalry, and excluding twenty- one hundred railroad guards. J Sedgwick s brigades continued with him in his advance on Winchester, and increased his force to over thirty thousand.^ Jackson sent his stores, baggage and sick to the rear, but con tinued to hold his position at Winchester to the last moment. Banks occupied Charlestown on 26th February, but only reached Stephenson s, four miles north of Winchester, on March /th. Mere Jackson drew up his little force in line of battle to meet him, but the Federals withdrew without attacking. The activity of Ashby, and the boldness with which Jackson main tained his position, impressed his adversary with greatly exag gerated notions of his strength. Banks advanced in a cautious and war} manner, refusing to attack, but pushing forward his left wing, so as to threaten Jackson s Hank and rear. By the iith of March this movement had gone so far that it was no longer safe for the Confederates to hold Winchester. Jackson remained under arms all day } hoping for an attack in front, but none was made, and late in the afternoon he ordered trains and troops into camp, near the south end of the town. By some mistake the trains went on six miles further and the troops had to follow. Jackson, not aware of this, called a council of his chief officers the first and last time, it is believed, that he ever summoned a council of war to meet after dark in Winchester, and proposed to them a night attack upon Banks. His proposition was not approved, and he learned then for the first time that the troops were already six miles from Winchester and ten from the enemy. The plan was now evidently impracticable, and he withdrew from the town, which was occupied by the Federals on the next day, * General Lander died at his camp at Pawpaw, March 2d, and General Shields succeeded to his command. t McClellau s report. tMcClellan s report. Rebellion Record, companion volume I, page 546. McClellan s morning report, March 2d, 1S62, gives Banks strength as follows officers and men present for duty ": Banks division 15,398 Lander s (Shields ) division 11,869 Sedgwick s division 11/217 3S,4S4 This, no doubt, includes railroad guards and other detachments in the rear; but his movable column could hardly have been less than thirty thousand men and was probably more up to the 15th of March, when Sedgwick s division was ordered to the rear. 268 MEMORIAL VOLUME. March I2th. The Confederates continued to retreat slowly to Woodstock and Mount Jackson, forty miles in rear of Winches ter, and Shields division was thrown forward in pursuit to Stras burg on the I7th. The retirement of Jackson, and the unopposed occupation of the lower Valley by Banks, relieved General McClellan of all fears in that direction, and induced him, in pursuance of President Lin coln s requirement that Manassas Junction and the approaches to Washington from that direction be securely held, to send the following instructions to Banks on March i6th: "Sir You will post your command in the vicinity of Manas sas, entrench yourself strongly, and throw cavalry pickets out to the front. "Your first care will be the rebuilding of the railway from Washington to Manassas, and to Strasburg, in order to open your communications to the Valley of the Shenandoah. As soon as the Manassas Gap railway is in running order, entrench a brigade of infantry, say four regiments, with two batteries, at or near the point where the railway crosses the Shenandoah. Something like two regiments of cavalry should be left in that vicinity to occupy Winchester, and thoroughly scour the country south of the railway and up the Shenandoah Valley Occupy by grand guards Warrenton Junction and Warrenton itself, and some . . more advanced point on the Orange and Alexandria railroad."* In compliance with these instructions, Shields division was recalled from Strasburg, and Williams division began its move ment toward Manassas on the 2Oth of March. On the evening of the 2ist Ashby reported that the enemy had evacuated Strasburg. Jackson, divining that this meant a withdrawal toward Washington, at once ordered pursuit with all Iris available force. The whole of his little army reached Stras burg on the afternoon of the 22d the greater part after a march of twenty-two miles. Meantime Ashby was following close be hind the retreating enemy, and late in the afternoon of the 22d, as Jackson was entering Strasburg, Ashby was attacking the Federal pickets one mile south of Winchester. After the skir mish, Ashby camped for the night at Kernstown, three miles south of Winchester. General Shields, who commanded the troops Ashby had attacked, and who wa"s himself wounded in the skirmish, had displayed but a small part of his force, and this * McClellan s report. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 269 fact, combined with information gotten within the Federal lines, misled the Confederates. The last of Williams division (Banks old division) of Banks corps had left on the morning of the 22d for Manassas, but Shields division, of three brigades, still re mained. The reports brought out led Ashby to believe that all but one brigade had gone, and that it expected to leave for Harper s Ferry the next day.* This information, transmitted to Jackson, caused the latter to push on with . all haste the next morning. At daylight* he sent three companies of infantry to reinforce Ashby and followed with his whole force. He reached Kernstown at 2 P. M., after a march of fourteen miles. f General Shields had made his dispositions to meet attack, by advancing Kimball s brigade of four regiments and Damn s artil lery to the vicinity of Kernstown. Sullivan s brigade of four regiments was posted in rear of Kimball, and Tyler s brigade of five regiments, with Broadhead s cavalry, was held in reserve. Ashby kept up an active skirmish with the advance of Shields force during the forenoon. o But though thus making ready, the Federal Generals did not expect an attack in earnest. Shields says he had the country in front and flank carefully reconnoitred during the forenoon of the 23d of March, and the officer in charge reported "no indications of any hostile force except that of Ashby." Shields continues: "I communicated this information to Major-General Banks, who was then with me, and after consulting together, we both con cluded that Jackson could not be tempted to hazard himself so- far away from his main support. Having both come to this con clusion, General Banks took his departure for Washington, being" already under orders to that effect. The officers of his staff, however, remained behind, intending to leave for Centreville in the afternoon."^ When Jackson reached Kernstown his troops were very weary. Three-fourths of them had marched thirty-six miles since the preceding morning. He therefore gave directions for bivouack ing, and says in his report: "Though it was very desirable to prevent the enemy from leaving the Valley, yet I deemed it best not to attack until morning. But subsequently ascertaining.that the Federals had a position from which our forces could- be seen, I concluded that it would be dangerous to postpone the attack until the next day, as reinforcements might be brought up during the night." Jackson therefore led his men to the attack. His plan was to * Shields report. Rebellion Record, volume IV; Ashby s reports, t Jackson s report; Confederate official reports. i Shields report. 27O MEMORIAL VOLUME. gain the ridge upon which the Federal right flank rested, turn that flank, and get command of the road from Kernstovvn to Winchester in the enemy s rear. He gained the top of the ridge, but Shields was able to hold him in check until Tyler s brigade and other troops could be hurried to that flank, when Jackson in turn became the attacked party. For three hours of this Sun day afternoon the sanguinary and stubborn contest continued. The left half of the Confederate line was perpendicular to the ridge ; the right half, which was mainly composed of artillery, ran along the ridge to the rear, and was thus at right angles to the other part. The brunt of the Federal attack was borne by the centre, near the angle presented by that part of the line. Fulkerson s brigade, holding the extreme Confederate left, firmly maintained its position, but the centre was thinned and worn out by the per sistent Federal attacks, until General Garnett, whose brigade was there, deeming it impossible to hold his position longer, ordered a retreat. This of course caused a retreat of the whole, which was effected with a loss of two disabled guns, and from two hun dred to three hundred prisoners. Jackson s whole force at this time consisted of three thousand and eighty-seven infantry, of which two thousand seven hundred and forty-two were engaged in the battle of Kernstown; of twenty-seven guns, of which eighteen were engaged, and of two hundred and ninety cavalry. General Shields states his force at seven thousand of all arms. The total Confederate loss was nearly seven hundred the Federal is put by General Shields at less than six hundred.* Weary and dispirited was the little army which had marched fourteen miles in the morning to attack a force more than double its own, and which had for three hours wrestled for victory in so vigorous a fashion as to astonish and deceive the enemy. Baffled and overpowered, it slowly retraced its path for six miles more, and sank to rest. In the fence corners, under the trees, and around the wagons, the soldiers threw themselve down, many too tired to eat, and forgot in profound slumbers the toils, dangers and disappointments of the day. Jackson shared the open-air bivouac with his men, and found the rest that nature demanded on some- fence rails in a corner of the road. Next morning he crossed to the south side of Cedar creek, and gradually retired before the advancing enemy once more to Mount Jackson. The bold attack of Jackson at Kernstown, though unsuccessful, led to many important results. Its first effect was the recall of the Federal troops then marching from the Valley towards Ma- * Jacksou s and Shields reports. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 2/1 nassas. General Shields says: Though the battle had been won, still I could not have believed that Jackson would have hazarded a decisive engagement so far from the main body with out expecting reinforcements; so to be prepared for such a con tingency, I set to work during the night (after the battle) to bring together all the troops within my reach. I sent an express after Williams division, requesting the rear brigade, about twenty miles distant, to march all night and join me in the morning. I swept the posts and routes in my rear of almost all their guards, hurrying them forward by forced marches to be with me by day light. . . . General Banks, hearing of our engagement on his way to Washington, halted at Harper s Ferry, and with remark able prompitude and sagacity, ordered back Williams whole division, so that my express found the rear brigade already en route to join us. The General himself returned forthwith, and after making me a hasty visit, assumed command of the forces in pursuit of the enemy. This pursuit was kept up . . . until they reached Woodstock." Thus the design of McClellan to post Banks corps at Centre- ville (see letter of March i6th) became impracticable, and that body of over twenty thousand troops was thought necessary to guard against the further movements of Jackson s three thou sand and the imaginary reinforcements with which they supplied him. This battle, too, no doubt, decided the question of the de tachment of Blenker s division of ten thousand men from Mc Clellan, and its transfer to Fremont, recently placed in command of the Mountain Department, which embraced West Virginia. While en route from Alexandria to join Fremont, Blenker s divi sion was to report to Banks, and remain with him as long as he thought any attack from Jackson impending.* A few days later, the sensitiveness of the Federal Government to the danger of Washington, excited anew by Jackson s movements, led to the detachment of McDowell s corps. McClellan had left over seventy thousand menf for the defence of Washington and its approaches, and yet, after Kernstown, Presi dent Lincoln felt so insecure that on April 3d he countermanded the order for the embarkation of McDowell s corps, and detained it to replace Banks in front of Washington, and so deprived Mc Clellan of the finest body of troops in his army. Thus Jackson s bold dash had effected the object of General Johnston in leaving him in the Valley, in a way far more thorough than either of them could have expected. The next month was to Jackson one of comparative inaction. * McClellan s report. t McClellan s report. 272 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Having slowly retreated to the south bank of the Shenandoah near Mount Jackson, he spent the next few weeks in resting and recruiting his forces. The militia of the adjoining counties had already been called to the field, but this resource was superseded on the 1 6th of April by the conscription act. The time for re organizing the regiments was near at hand. New officers were to be elected. The ranks were filling up under the impetus given to volunteering by the conscription bill. The weather during the first half of April was very raw and cold, and during the whole month was exceedingly rainy. All these causes rendered quiet very acceptable to the Confederates. Nor was the enemy in haste to disturb them. Banks was on April 4th placed in independent command of the Department of the Shenandoah, and McDowell of the country between the Blue Ridge and the Rappahannock, while Fremont was in command from the Alleghanies westward to the Ohio. These were all made independent of McClellan and of each other. General Banks followed Jackson but slowly. He reached Woodstock on April 1st, and having pushed back Ashby s cavalry to Edinburg, five miles beyond, he attempted no further serious advance until the I /th. He then moved forward in force, and Jackson retired to Harrisonburg, where he turned at right angles to the left, and crossing the main fork of the Shenandoah at Conrad s store, took up his position at the western base of the Blue Ridge mountains, in Swift Run gap. This camp the Confederates reached on the 2Oth of April, and here they remained through ten days more of rain and mud. Meantime, the advance of McClellan up the Peninsula had be gun in earnest. General J. E. Johnston had transferred the mass of his army to the front of Richmond, and had taken command there in person. Ewell s division alone remained on the Rappa hannock, to watch the enemy there, and to aid Jackson in case of need. This division was now near Gordonsville, and a good road from that point through Swift Run gap placed it within easy reach of Jackson. The latter, conscious of his inability with five or six thousand men (his force had nearly doubled since Kernstown by the re turn of furloughed men and by new enlistments) to resist in the open country the advance of Banks, had availed himself of the nature of the country to take a position where he could be attacked only at great disadvantage, and yet might threaten the flank and rear of the advancing column, if it attempted to pass him. The main Shenandoah river covered his front a stream not easily fordable at any time, and now swollen by the spring rains. The spurs of the mountains, as they run out towards ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 2/3 this river afford almost impregnable positions for defence; his flank could only be turned by toilsome and exposed marches, while good roads led from his rear to General Ewell. Thus se cure in his position, Jackson at the same time more effectually prevented the further advance of the Federal column than if he had remained in its front; for he held the bridge over the Shen- andoah, and was but a day s march from Harrisonburg, and should Banks threaten to move forward towards Staunton, he was ready to hurl the Confederate forces against his enemy s flank and rear. General Banks at Harrisonburg was in the midst of a hostile country, and already one hundred miles from the Potomac at Harper s Ferry, with which a long line of wagon communication had to be maintained. To push on to Staunton, with Jackson on his flank and rear, was virtually to sacrifice his present line of communication, with no practicable substitute in view; to attack the Confederates on the slopes of the mountains, with even a greatly superior force, was to risk defeat. On the 28th of April Jackson applied to General Lee, then acting as Commander-in-Chief under President Davis, for a re inforcement of five thousand men, which addition to his force he deemed necessary to justify him in marching out and attacking Banks. Next clay he was informed that no troops could be spared to him beyond the commands of Kwell and of Edward Johnson, the latter of whom was seven miles west of Staunton, at \Yest View, with a brigade. Jackson at once decided upon his plan of campaign,* and the very next day began to put it in execution. This campaign, so successful and brilliant in its results, and now so renowned, shows in its conception the strong points of Jackson s military genius his clear, vigorous grasp of the situation his decision, his energy, his grand audacity. It recalls the Italian campaign of 1796, when Napoleon astonished, baffled, defeated the armies of Beau- lieu, Wurmser and Alvinzy in succession. Jackson was now with about six thousand men at the base of the Blue Ridge, some thirty miles northeast of Staunton. Ewell with eight thou sand men was in the vicinity of Stanardsville, twenty-five miles in his rear, and east of the mountains. Edward Johnson was seven miles west of Staunton, with thirty-five hundred men. Such the Confederate position. On the other hand, Banks, with the main body of his force, of about nineteen thousand men, occupied Harrisonburg, twelve or fifteen miles in Jackson s front. Schenck and Milroy, commanding Fremont s advance of six thousand * Jackson submitted three plans of campaign, and was directed by General Lee to use his discretion. See General Lee s letter of May 1st to Jackson, Confederate archives. 2/4 MEMORIAL VOLUME. men, were in front of Edward Johnson, their pickets already east of the Shenandoah mountain and on the Harrisonburg and Warm Springs turnpike. Fremont was preparing to join them from the Baltimore and Ohio railroad with near ten thousand men, making the total of Fremont s movable column some fifteen thousand.* McDowell, with thirty thousand men, had drawn away from the upper Rappahannock, and was concentrating at Fredericksburg. This movement of McDowell had released Ewell, and left him free to aid Jackson, who, with a force of about sixteen thousand men (including Ewell and Edward Johnson), had on his hands the thirty-four thousand under Banks and Fre mont. The Warm Springs turnpike afforded Banks a ready mode of uniting with Milroy and Schenck, in which case Staun- ton would be an easy capture. Fremont was already preparing to move in that direction. Jackson determined to anticipate such a movement if possible, by uniting his own force to that of John son, and falling upon Milroy while Ewell kept Banks in check. Then he would join Ewell, and with all his strength attack Banks. To accomplish this, Ewell was ordered to cross the mountain and occupy the position Jackson had held for ten days at Swift Run gap, thus keeping up the menace of Banks flank. As Ewell approached, Jackson left camp on the 3Oth of April, and marched up the east bank of the Shenandoah to Port Republic. No participant in that march can ever forget the incessant rain, the fearful mud, the frequent quicksands, which made progress so slow and toilsome. More than two days were consumed in going fifteen miles. Meantime Ashby was demonstrating against the enemy, and keeping Jackson s line close to prevent informa tion from getting through. At Port Republic the army turned short to the left, and leaving the Shenandoah Valley altogether, crossed Brown s gap in the Blue Ridge, and marched to Mechum s River station on the Virginia Central railroad. Thence by road and rail it was rapidly moved to Staunton, and by the evening of May 5th it had all reached that point. The movement by this devious route mystified friends as welt as foes. One day is given to rest, and on the next Jackson hurries forward, unites Johnson s troops with his own, drives in the Federal pickets and foraging parties, and camps twenty-five miles west of Staunton. On the morrow (May 8th) he pushes on to McDowell, seizes Sitlington s hill, which commands the town and the enemy s camp, and makes his dispositions to seize the road in rear of the enemy during the night. But Milroy and Schenck have united, and seeing their * See Fremont s report. ADDRESS QF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 2/5 position untenable, make a fierce attack in the afternoon to retake the hill or cover their retreat. For three or four hours a bloody struggle takes place on the brow of Sitlington s hill. The Fede rals, though inflicting severe loss, are repulsed at every point, and at nightfall quietly withdraw.* They light their camp fires, and in the darkness evacuate the town. They retreat twenty-four miles to Franklin, in Pendleton county, where they meet Fre mont advancing with the main body of his forces. Jackson fol lows to this point; has found it impossible to attack the retreat ing foe to advantage, and now deems it inadvisable to attempt anything further in this difficult country, with his nine thousand men against Fremont s fourteen thousand or fifteen thousand. Screening completely his movements from Fremont with cavalry, he turns back (May I3th), marches rapidly to within seventeen miles of Staunton, then turns towards Harrisonburg, and dis patches General Kwell that he is on his way to attack Hanks with their united forces. Meantime, important changes have taken place in the disposi tion of the Federal troops in the Valley. McClellan is calling for more troops, and complaining that McDowell is withheld. The latter, having gathered Abercrombie s and other scattered commands from the country in front of Washington into a new division to replace one sent to McClellan, now lies at Fredericks- burg, impatient to take part in the movement on Richmond. Banks, hearing of Fwell s arrival in the Valley, fears an attack from him and Jackson combined, and retires from Harrisonburg to New Market. Jackson s inaction for some weeks, and now his movement to West Virginia, reassures the Federal Administration, and Shields, with more than half of Banks force, is detached at New Market, and ordered to Fredericksburg to swell McDowell s corps to over forty thousand men.f Banks is left with only some seven thousand or eight thousand, and falls back to Strasburg, which he fortifies. J He assumes a defensive attitude, to hold the lower Valley, and to cover the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. These movements of the enemy, which had taken place while Jackson was after Milroy, had nearly disarranged Jackson s plans. Upon the march of Shields towards Fredericksburg, the Con federate authorities thought it time to recall Fwell to meet the *Schenck s report. Rebellion Record, volume V. He puts his total loss at two hundred and fifty-six. Jackson s loss was four hundred and sixty-one; see his report. t McDowell says his corps at this time "consisted of the divisions of McCall, King and Ord. . . . There were about thirty thousand men altogether. Then (General Shields came with about eleven thousand men, making my force about forty-one thousand men." He had also one hundred pieces of artillery. See McDowell s testimony" before the Committee on Conduct of the War, part I, 1S63, page 267. + Shields left New.Market May 12th. 2/6 MEMORIAL VOLUME. new danger thus threatened, and conditional orders reached Ewell while Jackson was yet short of Harrisonburg. After con ference with Ewell (May i8th), Jackson took the responsibility of detaining him until the condition of affairs could be repre sented to General Johnston, and meantime they united in a vigo rous pursuit of Banks.* Ashby has followed close on Banks heels, and now occupies his outposts with constant skirmishing, while he completely screens Jackson. The latter, having marched rapidly to New Market, as if about to follow the foe to Strasburg to attack him there, suddenly changes his route, crosses the Massanuttin moun tain to Luray, where Ewell joins him, and pours down the nar row Page Valley by forced marches towards Front Royal. This place is about one hundred and twenty miles (by Jackson s route) from Franklin, and the Confederates reached it on May 23d ten days after leaving Franklin. Front Royal is held by about one thousand men under Colonel Kenly, of the First Maryland Fede ral regiment, who has in charge the large stores there gathered, and the important railroad bridges on the Shenandoah. This force also covers the flank and rear of Banks position at Stras burg. Kenly is taken by surprise, makes what resistance he can, is forced across the bridges he vainly attempts to destroy, and flies towards Winchester. Jackson, too impatient to wait for his tired infantry, places himself at the head of a few companies of cavalry, and pushes after the foe. He overtakes, attacks and dis perses Kenly s force, and in a few moments four-fifths of it are killed, wounded or prisoners. f Exhausted nature can do no more. Weary and footsore, the army lies down to rest. General Banks, amazed at this irruption by which his flank is. turned and his communications threatened, begins next day a precipitate retreat from Strasburg to Winchester. Jackson antici pates this, and presses on the next morning to Middletown a village between Strasburg and Winchester to find the road still filled with Federal trains and troops. Capturing or scattering these in every direction, he follows on after the main body, which has already passed him towards Winchester. He overhauls them in the afternoon, pushes Banks rear guard before him all night, and having given but one hour to rest, at daylight on the 25th of May reaches Winchester, to find the Federal forces drawn up * Dabney s Life of Jackson, page 359. General Lee says, May 16th, to Jackson!: " Whatever may be Bank.s intention, it is very desirable to prevent him from going either to Fredericks- burg or the Peninsula. . . A successful blow struck at him would delay, if it did not pre vent, his moving to either place. . . . But you will not . . lose sight of the fact that it may become necessary for you to come to the support of General Johnston. t See Confederate official reports ; also Camper & Kirkley s History of the First Maryland Regiment (Federal). ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 2// across the approaches to the town from the south and southeast.* The main part of Banks army occupies the ridge on which Kernstown had been fought, but at a point two miles further north, while another part holds the Front Royal road, on which Ewell with a part of his division is advancing. A vigorous attack is at once made by the Confederates, which for a short time is bravely resisted, but the Federal lines begin to yield, and seeing himself about to be overwhelmed, Banks retreats through Winchester. Jackson presses closely, and the Federals emerge from the town a mass of disordered fugitives, making their way with all speed towards the Potomac. The Confederate infantry follows for several miles, capturing a large number of prisoners, and had the cavalry been as efficient, but few of Banks troops would have escaped. f Banks halts on the north side of the Potomac, and Jackson allows his exhausted men to rest at Win chester. Thorough and glorious was Jackson s victory. In forty-eight hours the enemy had been driven between fifty and sixty miles, from Front Royal and Strasburg .to the Potomac, with the loss of nearly one-half of his strength. His army had crossed that river a disorganized mass. Hundreds of wagons had been aban doned or burnt. Two pieces of artillery and an immense quan tity of quartermaster, commissary, medical and ordnance stores had fallen into the hands of the victor. " Some twenty-three hundred prisoners" were taken to the rear when Jackson fell back, besides seven hundred and fifty wounded and sick paroled and left in the hospitals at Winchester and Strasburg, making a total of about three thousand and fifty, t A day is given, according to Jackson s custom, to religious services and thanksgiving, and another to rest, and on the third he is again moving towards Harper s Ferry, in order, by the most energetic diversion possible, to draw away troops from Rich mond. How well he effected this, a glance at the Federal move ments will show. As above stated, the quiet that succeeded Kernstown, the advance of Banks far into the Valley and the movement of Jack son to West Virginia, had calmed the apprehensions of the Fede ral Administration for the time in regard to Washington, and the urgent requests of McClellan and McDowell, that the latter s corps should be sent forward from Fredericksburg towards Rich mond, were listened to. Shields was detached from Banks and sent to McDowell, and on May i^th the latter was ordered to * See Banks and other Federal reports. Rebellion Record, volume V, page 52. t See Jackson s and Ewell s reports, t Jackson s report. 2/8 MEMORIAL VOLUME. prepare to move down the Fredericksburg railroad to unite with McClellan before Richmond. On Friday, May 23d, the very day of Jackson s attack at Front Royal, President Lincoln and Sec retary Stanton went to Fredericksburg to confer with General McDowell, found that Shields had already reached that point, and determined, after consultation, that the advance should begin on the following Monday (May 26th).* McClellan was informed of the contemplated movement and instructed to assume com mand of McDowell s corps when it joined him.f This fine body of troops moving from the north against the Confederate capital, would have seized all the roads entering the city from that direction, and would have increased McClellan s available force by from forty to fifty per cent. There was strong reason to except that this combined movement would effect the down fall of Richmond. The Federal President returned to Washington on the night of the 23d to await the result. He there received the first news of Jackson s operations at Front Royal the preceding afternoon. The first dispatches indicated, only an unimportant raid, and Mc Dowell was directed by telegraph to leave his "least effective" brigade at Fredericksburg,^ in addition to the forces agreed upon for the occupation of that town. Later, on the 24th, the news from Banks became more alarming, and General McDowell was dispatched that "General Fremont had been ordered by tele graph to move from Franklin on Harrisonburg to relieve General Banks and capture or destroy Jackson s and Ewell s forces. You are instructed, laying aside for the present the movement on Richmond, to put twenty thousand men in motion for the Shen- andoah, moving on the line or in advance of the line of the Manassas Gap railroad. Your object will be to capture the forces of Jackson and Ewell, either in co-operation with General Fre mont, or in case want of supplies or of transportation interferes with his movement, it is believed that the force with which you move will be sufficient to accomplish the object alone." . . The following was sent to McClellan at 4 P. M. on May 24th: "In consequence of General Banks critical position, I have been com pelled to suspend General McDowell s movements to join you. The enemy are making a desperate push on Harper s Ferry, and we are trying to throw Fremont s force and part of McDowell s in their rear." Signed, A. Lincoln. Next day the news from Banks seems to have greatly increased the excitement in Washington. The following telegrams were sent to General McClellan, May 25th, by President Lincoln: *See McDowell s testimony, before referred to. t See McClellau s report. See iIcDowell 3 testimony. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 2/9 "The enemy is moving north in sufficient force to drive Banks before him, in precisely what force we cannot tell. He is also threatening Leesburg, and Geary on the Manassas Gap railroad, from both north and south, in precisely what force we cannot tell. I think the movement is a general and concerted one, such as could not be if he was acting upon the purpose of a very des perate defence of Richmond. I think the time is near when you must either attack Richmond or give up the job and come to the defence of Washington. Let me hear from you instantly." A later one reads: "Your dispatch received. Banks was at Stras- burg with about six thousand men Shields having been taken from him to swell a column for McDowell to aid you at Rich mond and the rest of his force scattered at various places. On the 23d a Rebel force of seven to ten thousand men fell upon one regiment and two companies guarding the bridge at Front Royal, destroying it entirely, crossed the Shenandoah, and on the 24th (yesterday) pushed to get north of Banks on the road to Winchester. Banks ran a race with them, beating them into Winchester yesterday evening. This morning a battle ensued between the two forces, in which Banks was beaten back into full retreat towards Martinsburg, and probably is broken up into a total rout. Geary, on the Manassas Gap railroad, just now re ports that Jackson is now near Front Royal with ten thousand, following up and supporting, as I understand, the force now pur suing Banks; also that another force of ten thousand is near Or leans, following on in the same direction. Stripped bare as we are here, it will be all we can do to prevent them crossing the Poto mac at Harper s Ferry or above. We have about twenty thousand men of McDowell s force moving back to the vicinity of Front Royal, and Fremont, who was at Franklin, is moving to Har- risonburg. Both of these movements are intended to get in the enemy s rear. One more of McDowell s brigades j$ ordered through here to Harper s Ferry. The rest of his forces remain for the present at Fredericksburg. \Ve are sending such regi ments and dribs from here and Baltimore as we can spare to Harper s Ferry, supplying their places in some sort by calling on the militia from the adjacent States. We also have eighteen cannon on the road to Harper s Ferry, of which arm there is not a single one yet at that point. This is now our situation. If McDowell s force was now beyond our reach, we should be utterly helpless. Apprehensions of something like this, and no unwillingness to sustain you, has always been my reason for withholding McDowell s forces from you. Please understand this, and do the best you can with the forces you have."* * For foregoing dispatches see McDowell s testimony and McClellan s report. 2O MEMORIAL VOLUME. The exaggerations of this dispatch show the panic produced. Jackson had no troops at Orleans, or anywhere east of the Blue Ridge (except a little cavalry), and his entire force, which was all with him, was about sixteen thousand men.* This dispatch shows, however, that Jackson was for the time not only occupying all the troops in and around Washington, together with Fremont s forces, but was completely neutralizing the forty thousand under McDowell, and thus disconcerting McClellan s plans. But if the skill, celerity and daring of Jackson are illustrated in his movement against Banks, these qualities shine out far more brilliantly in his retreat from the Potomac and in his battles at Port Republic. He moved to Harper s Ferry on the 28th of May, and spent the 2g\h in making demonstrations against the force that had been rapidly gathered there, but which was too strongly posted to be attacked in front. Time did not allow a crossing of the river and an investment of the place. The large bodies of troops which the Federal Administration was hastening from every direction to overwhelm him were already closing in. McDowell, with twenty thousand men, followed by another division of ten thousand more, was hurrying towards Front Royal and Strasburg, and Fremont, now awake to the fact that his enemy- had pushed him back into the mountains, and then slipped away to destroy his colleague, was moving with his fourteen thousand or fifteen thousand men towards Strasburg. General Saxton had seven thousand Federal troopsf at Harper s Ferry, and Banks was taking breath with the remnant of his command (some seven thousand men by his return of May 3ist) at Williamsport, Mary land. Thus over fifty-five thousand men were gathering to crush Jackson, w r hose strength was now not over fifteen thousand. On the morning of May 3Oth he began his retreat, by ordering all his troops except Winder s brigade, Bradley Johnson s Maryland regiment and the cavalry, to fall back to Winchester. Nor was he an hour too soon, for before he reached that town McDowell s advance had poured over the Blue Ridge, driven out the small guard left at Front Royal and captured the village. The condition of affairs when Jackson reached Winchester on the evening of May 3<Dth, was as follows: the Federals were in possession of Front Royal, which is but twelve miles from Stras burg, while Winchester is eighteen. J Fremont was at Wardens- ville, distant twenty miles from Strasburg, and had telegraphed President Lincoln that he would enter the latter place by 5 P. M. * Dabney s Life, page 364. Major Dabney was at this time Chief-of-Staff to General Jack son. t Saxton s report. Rebellion Record, volume V. I McDowell s testimony. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 28 1 on the next day.* The mass of Jackson s forces had marched twenty-five miles to reach Winchester, and his rear guard, under Winder (after skirmishing with the enemy at Harper s Ferry for part of the day) had camped at Halltown,t which is over forty miles distant from Strasburg! The next day, Saturday, May 3ist, witnessed a race for Stras burg, which was in Jackson s direct line of retreat, but it was very different in character from the race of the preceding Saturday. Orders were issued for everything in the Confederate camp to move early in the morning. The twenty-three hundred Federal prisoners were first sent forward, guarded by the Twenty-first Virginia regiment; next the long trains, including many captured wagons loaded with stores; then followed the whole of the army, except the rear guard under Winder. Jackson reached Strasburg on Saturday afternoon without mo lestation and encamped, thus placing himself directly between the two armies that were hastening to attack him. Here he re mained for twenty-four hours, holding his two opponents apart until Winder could close up, and the last of the long trains could be sent to the rear. Winder, with the Stonewall brigade, had marched thirty-five miles on Saturday, and by Sunday noon had rejoined the main body. Meantime Shields and McDowell had been bewildered at Front Royal by the celerity of Jackson s movements, and had spent Saturday in moving out first towards Winchester, and then on other roads, and finally in doing nothing.! Fremont had stopped five miles short of Strasburg on Saturday night, and on Sunday was held in checks by Ashby, supported by part of Fwell s division. On Sunday McDowell, despairing of "heading off" Jackson, sent his cavalry to unite with Fremont at Strasburg in pursuing the Confederates, and dispatched Shields division up the Luray Valley, || with the sanguine hope that the latter might, by moving on the longer and worse road, get in the rear of Jackson, who with a day s start was movincr on the shorter J * o and better! On Friday morning Jackson was in front of Harper s Ferry, fifty miles in advance of Strasburg; Fremont was at Moorefield, thirty-eight miles from Strasburg, with his advance ten miles on the way to that place; Shields was not more than twenty miles from Strasburg (for his advance entered Front Royal, which is but twelve miles distant, before midday on Friday), while Mc Dowell was following with another division within supporting distance. Yet by Sunday night Jackson had marched a distance * Fremont s report. t Jackson s and Winder s reports. i McDowell s testimony. Fremont s report. i McDowell s testimony. 19 282 MEMORIAL VOLUME. of between fifty and sixty miles, though encumbered with pris oners and captured stores, had reached Strasburg before either of his adversaries, and had passed safely between their armies, while he held Fremont at bay by a show of force, and blinded and bewildered McDowell by the rapidity of his movements. Then followed five days of masterly retreat. The failure of McDowell to attack him at Strasburg caused Jackson to suspect the movement of his forces up the Page or Luray Valley.* Mc Dowell himself did not go beyond Front Royal, but sent Shields division to follow Jackson. The road up the Page Valley runs along the east side of the main Shenandoah river, which was then impassable, except at the bridges. Of these there were but three in the whole length of the Page Valley two opposite New Market, but a few miles apart, and a third at Conrad s store, op posite Harrisonburg. Jackson promptly burned the first two, and thus left Shields with an impassable river between them, entirely unable to harass his flank or impede his march. Hav ing thus disposed of one of the pursuing armies, he fell back before Fremont by moderate stages, entrusting the protection of the rear to the indefatigable Ashby. As Fremont approached Harrisonburg on the 6th of June, Jackson left it. Instead of taking the road via Conrad s store to Swift Run gap, as he had done when retreating before Banks in April, he now took the road to Port Republic, where the branches of the main Shenan doah unite. He next sent a party to burn the bridge at Con rad s store, which afforded the last chance of a union of his adversaries north of Port Republic. The bridge at the latter place, together with a ford on the South river the smaller of the tributaries which there form the Shenandoah gave him the means of crossing from one side to the other of which by the destruction of the other bridges he had deprived his enemies. And now came the crowning act of his campaign. When his enemies were already closing in on his rear with overwhelming force, he had with wonderful celerity passed in safety between them. He had continued his retreat until they were now drawn one hundred miles from the Potomac. A large fraction of his pursuers had given up the chase, and were off his hands. Banks had only come as far as Winchester. Saxton from Harper s Ferry had only followed the rear guard under Winder for part of one day, and had then gone into camp, "exhausted," as he states. McDowell, with two divisions, had remained at Front Royal when Shields moved towards Luray the latter officer undertaking with his one division to "clean out the Valley." Hence Jackson * Jackson s report. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 283 had now but Fremont s forces, about equal to his own in number, pressing on his rear, while Shields was making his toilsome way up the Page Valley, and was a day or two behind. By laying hold of the bridges he had placed an impassible barrier between his two pursuers, and now he occupied the point where their two routes converged. No further to the rear would the Shenandoah serve as a barrier to their junction, for south of Port Republic its head waters are easily fordable. Here, too, was Brown s gap near at hand, an easily defended pass in the Blue Ridge, and affording a good route out of the Valley in case of need. In this position Jackson determined to stand and fight his ad versaries in detail. On Friday, June 6th, the foot-sore Confederates went into camp at different points along the five miles of road that intervened between Port Republic and Cross Keys, the latter a point half way between the former village and Harrisonburg. The skirmish on that day, in which Fremont s cavalry was severely punished, is memorable, because in it fell Turner Ashby the generous, the chivalric, the high-soulcd knight, who, as commander of his horse, had so faithfully and gloriously contributed to Jackson s achievements. The next day was given to rest; and sorrow for the loss of Ashby replaced all other feelings for the time. But brief the time for sorrow. War gives much space to the grand emotions that lead to heroic doing or heroic bearing, but is nig gardly in its allowance to the softer feelings of sadness and grief. As Ashby is borne away to his burial, all thoughts turn once more to the impending strife. Fremont was advancing. He had been emboldened by the retreat of the Confederates, and failing to comprehend the object of Jackson s movements, pushed on to seize the prey, which he deemed now within his grasp. His troops were all up by Saturday night, and his dispositions were made for attack on Sunday morning, June 8th. But though Fremont was thus close at hand, while Shields, detained by bad roads, with his main body, was yet fifteen or twenty miles off, on the east side of the river, yet the opening of the battle on Sunday was made by a dash of Shields cavalry under Colonel Carroll into Port Republic. They had been sent* on, a day s march in advance, and meeting but a small force of Confederate cavalry, had driven them pell-mell into Port Republic, dashed across South river after them, seized and for a few minutes held the bridge over the larger stream. Jackson had just passed through the village as they entered it. Riding rapidly to the nearest troops north of the bridge, he directed one of Poague s guns and one of Taliaferro s regiments (Thirty-seventh Virginia) 284 MEMORIAL VOLUME. on the bridge, quickly retook it, captured two cannon, and drove these adventurous horsemen back.* They retired two or three miles with their infantry supports, and as the bluffs on the west side of the river command the roads on the east side, a battery or two kept them inactive for the remainder of the day. It was at this time that Shields, from Luray, was dispatching Fremont as follows :f June Sth 9 A. M. I write by your scout. I think by this time there will be twelve pieces of artillery opposite Jackson s train at Port Republic, if he has taken that route. Some cavalry and artillery pushed on to Waynesboro to burn the bridge. I hope to have two bri gades at Port Republic to-day. I follow myself with two other brigades from this place. If the enemy changes direction, you will please keep me advised. If he attempts to force a passage, as my force is not large there yet, I hope you will thunder down on his rear. Please send back information from time to time. I think Jackson is caught this time. Yours, sincerely, JAMES SHIELDS. Meanwhile, Fremont had marshaled his brigades and was pressing on in brilliant array to " thunder down " on his adver sary s rear. To the gallant Fwell and his division had Jackson assigned the duty of meeting the foe. His other troops were in the rear, and nearer to Port Republic, to watch movements there, and to assist General Ewell if necessary. Ewell was drawn up on a wooded ridge near Cross Keys, with an open meadow and rivulet in front. On a parallel ridge beyond the rivulet Fre mont took position. The Federal General first moved forward his left, composed of Blenker s Germans, to the attack. They were met by General Trimble, one of Ewell s brigadiers, with three regiments of his brigade. Trimble coolly withheld his fire until the Germans were close upon him. Then a few deadly volleys and the attack is broken, and the Federal left wing bloodily and decisively repulsed. J That sturdy old soldier General Trimble, having been reinforced, presses forward, dislodges the batteries in position in his front, and threatens the overthrow of Fremont s left wing. While this last is not accomplished, the handling Blenker has received is so rough as completely to paralyze the remainder of Fremont s operations. The attack on centre and right become little more than artillery combats, and by the mid- * See Jackson .-;, Winder s, Taliaferro s and Poague s reports, t Fremont s report, i Trimble s report. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 285 die of the afternoon Fremont withdraws his whole line.* Ewell s force was about six thousand, and his loss two hundred and eighty- seven, f Fremont s force twice as great, and his loss over six hundred and fifty. J About the time of Fremont s repulse, General Tyler, with one of Shields infantry brigades, reached the position, near Lewiston, to which Colonel Carroll had retired in the morning; but so strong was the position held by the Confederate batteries on the west bank of the river, that Tyler felt it impossible to make any diver sion in favor of Fremont, and with his force of three thousand men remained idle. Jackson, emboldened by the inactivity of Shields advance, and the easy repulse of Fremont, conceived the audacious design of attacking his two opponents in succession the next day, with the hope of overwhelming them separately. || For this purpose he directed that during the night a temporary bridge, composed simply of planks laid upon the running gear of wagons, should be constructed over the South river at Port Republic, and ordered Winder to move his brigade, at dawn, across both rivers and against Shields. E\vell was directed to leave Trimble s brigade and part of Patton s to hold Fremont in check, and to move at an early hour to Port Republic, to follow Winder. Taliaferro s brigade was left in charge of the batteries along the river, and to protect Trimble s retreat, if necessary. The force left in Fre mont s front was directed to make all the show possible, and to delay the Federal advance to the extent of its power. The Con federate commander proposed, in case of an easy victory over Shields in the morning, to return to the Harrisonburg side of the river and attack Fremont in the afternoon. In case, however, of delay, and a vigorous advance on Fremont s part, Trimble was to retire by the bridge into Port Republic and burn it, in order to prevent his antagonist from following. Jackson urged forward in person the construction of the foot bridge and the slow passage of his troops over the imperfect structure. When Winder s and Taylor s brigades had crossed, he would wait no longer, but moved forward towards the enemy; and when he found him ordered Winder to attack. The Federal General Tyler had posted his force strongly on a line perpen dicular to the river his left especially in a commanding position, and protected by dense woods. Winder attacked with vigor, but soon found the Federal position too strong to be carried by his * Fremont s report. t Ewell s report. t Fremont s report. 5 Tyler s report. I Dabney s Life. 286 MEMORIAL VOLUME. brigade of twelve hundred men. Taylor went to his assistance, but met with a stubborn resistance and varying success. Winder was forced back until other troops came up, and enabled him once more to go forward. Jackson, having failed in his first attack, and finding the resistance of Shields force so much more stub born than he had expected, with a quickness of decision worthy of Napoleon, gave up his audacious plan of recrossing the river and determined to concentrate his whole force against Shields. He therefore sent orders to Trimble and Taliaferro to leave Fre mont s front, move over the bridge, burn it, and join the main body of the army as speedily as possible. This was done. Be fore his rear guard had arrived, however, a renewed attack in overwhelming force on Tyler had carried his position, captured his battery, and compelled him to retreat in more or less dis order. The pursuit continued for eight miles. Four hundred and fifty prisoners and six guns were captured, and two hundred and seventy-five wounded paroled in the hospitals near the field. The Federal loss by the official reports in the Adjutant-General s office was eight hundred and thirty. The Medical and Surgical History of the War puts it at one thousand and two. Jackson s total loss was eight hundred and seventy-six.* Fremont had advanced cautiously against Trimble in the after noon, and had followed, as the latter withdrew and burnt the bridge. By this last act Fremont was compelled to remain an inactive spectator of the defeat of Tyler. General Fremont thus describes the scene when he reached the river: "The battle which had taken place upon the further bank of the river was wholly at an end. A single brigade" (in fact two) "sent forward by General Shields had been simply cut to pieces. Colonel Carroll . . had . . failed to burn the bridge. Jackson, hastening across, had fallen upon the inferior force, and the result was before us. Of the bridge nothing re mained but the charred and smoking timbers. Beyond, at the edge of the woods, a body of the enemy s troops was in position, and a baggage train was disappearing in a pass among the hills. Parties gathering the dead and wounded, together with a line of prisoners awaiting the movement of the Rebel force near by, was all in respect to troops of either side now to be seen." Thus the day ended with the complete defeat of the two bri gades under Tyler. Gallant and determined had been their re sistance, and Jackson s impetuosity had made his victory more difficult than it otherwise would have been. In sending in Winder s brigade before its supports arrived, he had hurled this * See reports of Jackson ana his subordinates ; also of General Tyler, Rebellion Record volume V, page 110. ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 28/ body of troops against more than twice their number. Taylor next attacked, but the repulse of Winder enabled the Federal commander to concentrate his forces against Taylor, and drive him from the battery he had taken. It was then that Jackson renewed the attack with the combined forces of three brigades, and speedily forced the enemy from the field. The Confederate trains had been moved in the course of the clay across South river towards Brown s gap, and during the afternoon and night the Confederates returned from the battlefield and pursuit to camp at the foot of this mountain pass. It was midnight before some of them lay down in the rain to rest. This double victory ended the pursuit of Jackson*. Fremont on the next morning began to retreat, and retired sixty miles to Strasburg. Shields, so soon as his broken brigades rejoined him, retreated to Front Royal, and was thence transferred to Manassas. The battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic closed this cele brated campaign. Just three months had passed since Jackson, with about forty-six hundred troops, badly armed and equipped, had fallen back from Winchester before the advance of Banks with over thirty thousand men. So feeble seemed his force, and so powerless for offence, that when it had been pushed forty miles to the rear, Banks began to send his force towards Manassas, to execute his part of " covering the Federal capital " in McClellan s great campaign. While a large part of the Federal troops is on the march out of the Valley, and their commander is himself en route from Winchester to Washington, Jackson, hastening from his resting place by a forced march, appears most unexpectedly at Kernstown, and hurls his little army with incredible force and fury against the part of Banks army which is yet behind. He is mistaken as to the numbers of the enemy. Three thousand men, worn by a forced march, are not able to defeat the seven thousand of Shields . After a fierce struggle, he suffers a severe repulse, but he makes such an impression as to cause the recall of a strong force from McClellan to protect Washington. The Federal Administration cannot believe that he has attacked Shields with a handful of men. Falling back before his pursuers, he leaves the main road at Harrisonburg, and crossing over to Swift Run gap he takes a position in which he cannot be readily attacked, and which yet enables him so to threaten the flank of his oponent, as to effect ually check his further progress. Here he gains ten days time for the reorganization of his regiments (the time of service of most of which expired in April), and here, too, the return of furloughed men and the accession of volunteers nearly doubled his numbers. 288 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Finding that no more troops could be obtained beside those of Evvell and Edward Johnson, he leaves the former to hold Banks in check, while he makes a rapid and circuitous march to General Edward Johnson s position, near Staunton. Uniting Johnson s force with his own, he appears suddenly in front of Milroy, at McDowell, only eight days after having left Swift Run gap. He has marched one hundred miles and crossed the Blue Ridge twice in this time, and now repulses Milroy and Schenck, and follows them up to Franklin. Then finding Fremont within supporting distance, he begins on May 13 to retra ce his steps, marching through Harrisonburg, New Market, Luray Ewell joining him on the road and swelling his force to sixteen thousand men and on May 23 suddenly appears at Front Royal (distant, by his route, nearly one hundred and twenty miles from Franklin), and surprises and completely overwhelms the force Banks has stationed there. Next day he strikes with damaging effect at Banks retreating column, between Strasburg and Win chester, and follows him up all night. At dawn he attacks him on the heights of Winchester, forces him from his position and drives him in confusion and dismay to the Potomac, with the loss of immense stores and a large number of prisoners. Resting but two days, he marches to Harper s Ferry, threatens an invasion of Maryland and spreads such alarm as to paralyze the move ments of McDowell s forty thousand men at Fredericksburg, and to cause the concentration of three-fourths of this force, together with Fremont s command, on his rear. The militia of the adjoin ing States is called out; troops are hurried to Harper s Ferry in his front; more than fifty-five thousand troops are hastening under the most urgent telegrams to close in around him. Keeping up his demonstrations until the last moment until, indeed, the head of McDowell s column was but twelve or fourteen miles from his line of retreat, at a point nearly fifty miles in his rear he, by a forced march of a day and a half, traverses this distance of fifty miles and places himself at Strasburg. Here he keeps Fremont at bay until his long line of prisoners and captured stores has passed through in safety and his rear guard closed up. Then he falls back before Fremont, while, by burning successively the bridges over the main fork of the Shenandoah, he destroys all co-operation between his pursuers. Having retreated as far as necessary, he turns off from Harrisonburg to Port Republic, seizes the only bridge left south of Front Royal over the Shen andoah, and takes a position which enables him to fight his adversaries in succession, while they cannot succor each other. Fremont first attacks and is severely repulsed, and next morning Jackson, withdrawing suddenly from his front and destroying the ADDRESS OF COLONEL WILLIAM ALLAN. 289 bridge to prevent his following, attacks the advance brigades of Shields and completely defeats them, driving them eight or ten miles from the battlefield. A week of rest, and Jackson, having disposed of his various ene mies, and effected the permanent withdrawal of McDowell s corps from the forces opperating against Richmond, is again on the march, and while Banks, Fremont and McDowell are disposing their broken or baffled forces to cover Washington, is hastening to aid in the great series of battles which during the last days of June and the early ones of July resulted in the defeat of McClel- lan s army and the relief of the Confederate capital. I have thus tried to give you, fellow soldiers of the Army of Northern Vitginia, an outline of one of the most brilliant pages of our history. Time has not permitted me to dwell on the great deeds which crowded these few months, nor to characterize in fitting terms of panegyric the mighty actors in them. I have attempted nothing beyond a simple and carefully accurate state ment of facts. This may help to clear away from one campaign the dust and mould which already gather over the memories of our great struggle. It may do more. It may, by touching the electric chord of association, transport us for the time into the presence of the majestic dead; and of the mighty drama, the acting of which was like another and a higher life, and the con templation of which should tend to strengthen, elevate, ennoble. It is wise in our day it is wise always to recur to a time when patriotism was a passion; when devotion to great principles dwarfed all considerations other than those of truth and right; when DUTY was jdt to be the sublimest word in our language; when sacrifice outweighed selfishness; when "human virtue was equal to human calamity." Among the heroes of that time Jack son holds a splendid place an illustrious member of a worthy band aye, a band than which no land in any age can point to a worthier! At the conclusion of the address, General J. A. Early made a few remarks warmly commending it and endorsing its historical value; and on his motion, the Association unanimously requested Colonel Allan to furnish a copy for publication. On motion of General B. T. Johnson, seconded by General W. B. Taliaferro, and warmly endorsed by others, the Association unanimously requested Dr. J. William Jones to compile a vol- ijme containing the addresses delivered at its organization and at its reunions, together with a roster of the Army of Northern Virginia. On motion of Colonel C. S. Venable, seconded by General J. 290 MEMORIAL VOLVME. A. Early, the officers of last year were re-elected unanimously and by acclimation. The Treasurer s report showed that the Virginia Division had recently contributed to the relief of their comrades of the Lou isiana Division, Army of Northern Virginia, who were suffering from the yellow fever scourge in New Orleans the sum of 354,817.91. THE BANQUET at the Saint Claire Hotel, which followed the public meeting, was one of the most elegant affairs of the kind ever gotten up. The room and the tables were beautifully decorated the bill of fare, admirably served, embraced all of the substantiate and deli cacies of the season, and formed a contrast to the "rations" we used to "draw" both amusing and refreshing to contemplate. General Lee presided with his accustomed dignity, ease and ready wit, and while all went "merry as a marriage bell" there was not a single case of intoxication and no disorder of any kind to mar the pleasure of the occasion. Indeed, these banquets have all been marked by sobriety and good order. In response to toasts, admirable speeches were made by Cap tain E. A. Goggin, Judge William I. Clopton, Hon. A. M. Keiley, General Marcus J. Wright, Governor F. W. M. Holliday, Private R. B. Berkley, Colonel James Lingan, Doctor Carrington, Colonel F. R. Farrar, General Fitzhugh Lee, Rev. H. Melville Jackson, Major R. W. Hunter and General J. A. Early. We regret that we are not able to publish many of the speeches made at these annual banquets, for they are well worthy of pres ervation; but our readers will thank us for giving Mr. Keiley s masterly sketch of the Model Infantryman. SPEECH OF HON. A. M. KEILEY. After a facetious hit at the cavalry, and bringing down the house by saying that he had never been able to determine exactly which was the more pleasant duty, to charge tlie artillery of the enemy y or support your own, and that he had rather support a wife and twelve children than to do either, Mr. Keiley said : But I do not propose to make response to this sentiment by any attempt to contrast the achievements of this branch of the Army of Northern Virginia with those of the cavalry or artillery. That immortal army won fame enough for all. Let me rather acknowledge the compliment by drawing a picture most inade quate as it must be of a great comrade, who, whatever may BANQUET. 29! have been the arm in which he was trained, won the laurels, for ever unfading, by which his name will be handed down the ages, in a career which entitles me to claim him as the Model Infantry man of the Confederacy. It was on the morning of Friday, May 1st, 1863, that I saw him last in life: a rugged face, stained and seamed like some buried bronze, marked by the corroding sweep of centuries a face with none of the advertisements of genius about it, as though nature had scorned to mar its crag-like grandeur with one facti tious grace a gnarled face, rough as mountain oaks must look to puling willows silent, as the pulsing sea is silent, not with the rest of feebleness, but with the God-like balance of powers, infinite and resistless thoughtful, with that concentrated thought in whose consuming heat things vain and frivolous shrivel and evaporate like autumn leaves in forest fires ambitious, with an ambition passing vulgar thirsts, as pride passes vanity; as love, friendliness; an ambition which even some friends have denied him, because it was a sort for which the measure and standard were to them all unknown brave, with that superb courage which dares without knowing that it dares wise, with a wisdom that defied surprise, and never encountered the unexpected fer tile, inventive, exhaustless; of resource prodigious, and patient endurance more prodigious of such faculty and such achieve ment that in a public life scantily reaching two and twenty months in all, the dull earth was bursting with his fame, borne by the winds, the ships of the air, which no blockade could chain. A shadow darkened his grave face that bright May morn not of doubt or disappointment, for by some strange power of soul he laid upon heaven in absolute content all the issues of his life. Perchance it was the shade of the wing of the death angel be tween him and the sun that sun before whose second return he was to be smitten; smitten to the death by those who would have rather thrust their hands, like Cains Mucius, into fiercest flames than willingly have wounded a button on his faded coat. It was our immortal infantryman who emulated with his foot soldiers the swift surprises of the trooper; who deployed artillery like skirmishers. When next I saw him, not many days thereafter, our hero lay in yonder capitol, cold, coffined and dead. About his bier bronzed and maimed men, who had faced a hundred deaths with out a quickening pulse, stood weeping weeping with passionate tempest of grief, as women weep over their first born, when the sweet eyes, brighter to them than evening stars, arc glazing, and the loved prattle to which the songs of the Seraphs were in their ears discord, is only a faint, fading, far-off echo. MEMORIAL VOLUME. He had passed over the river. He had met "the last enemy." He was dead! "Dead, with his harness on him, Rigid and cold and white ; Marking the place of the vanguard Still in the ancient fight. "Dead, but the end was fitting, First in the ranks he led " Ah, what sad prophecy in the lines which follow, as we re member how our fortunes waned after Chancellorsville ! Dead, but the end was fitting, First in the ranks he led, And he marked the height of his nation s gain, As he lay in his harness dead ! " NINTH ANNUAL REUNION. The Hall of the House of Delegates was packed to its utmost capacity on Wednesday evening, October the 29th, 18/9, as com rades gathered to rekindle the "camp fires of the boys in gray." In the absence of both the President and the Vice-Presidents, General Early presided. Rev. Dr. McKim, of New York (formerly of the staff of Gen eral George H. Stcuart), led in a most appropriate prayer. General Early presented a feeling and appropriate tribute to the memory of General John B. Hood, which was unanimously adopted, and ordered to be spread on the record. General Fitz. Eec was then introduced, and was greeted with loud applause, frequently repeated, as he delivered the following address : ADDRESS OE GEXERAE EITZIIUGH LEE. J/A*. President, Comrades, and Ladies and Gentlemen The musical echoes of the horn of the Alpine Chief, winding from highest mountain top to lowermost valley, were as sacred in the ears of his followers as the mystic fire which burned in the tem ple of the Virgins of Vesta, and its blast drew every man from his wife, his sweetheart and his fireside. So an invitation to speak to this Association of the historic Army of Northern Vir ginia, should sound upon the ear of the Confederate soldier as a mandate from a band of brothers, chained to him by the loving links of a mighty past, and whose future is indissolubly wrapped up with his in one common destiny for all time, for sunshine and for storms; irresistibly drawing him from all other obliga tions, it brings him, however unworthy, before you to-night, to discharge the duty assigned him by your partiality. At your bidding, fellow soldiers, I strike the strings of the harp of Auld Lang Syne, whose notes now are chords of peace, while picturing, with poor brush, the camp fires of war. The ruddy glow will light up familiar scenes to you, because once again in imagination you will see the fiery hoof of battle plunged into the red earth of Virginia s soil. I approach it, as was said by the sage of Mohticello, in his famous inaugural, "with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the 294 MEMORIAL VOLUME. charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire, and I humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking." Soldiers, your Committee requested that I should present to your consideration a field of conflict which brings before the military student as high a type of an offensive battle as ever adorned the pages of history. The military wisdom of those directing the tactical and strategical manoeuvres upon the Con federate side, was equaled only by the valor of the troops entrusted with the execution. Aye, the heart of the Southron of to-day will beat with lofty pride, his cheek will mantle with crimson consciousness, and the eyes of his children s children, yet unborn, will flash with inherited fire, as is seen the splendid laurel wreath which fame hangs upon the Confederate colors, fluttering so victoriously to the breeze in those early days of May, 1863, when the "stem of the willow shoots out a green feather, and buttercups burn in the grass." For giants were wrestling there, for victory upon the gory ground of Chancellorsville. To understand clearly the combi nation which resulted in this success to the Confederate arms, go over w r ith me, as briefly as possible, the immediate preceding events. When the sun of September i^th, 1862, with the mellow splen dor of autumn, had gone down beneath the horizon, thirty-five thousand Southern soldiers, living and dead, slept upon the field of Sharpsburg some waiting for to-morrow s conflict, others resting where they wearied, and lying where they fell. They had successfully withstood the assaults of the Federal army, num bering in action, according to McClellan s report, eigthy-seven thousand one hundred and sixty-four. On the iQth the Army of Northern Virginia recrossed the Potomac, and for weeks its encampments whitened the charming region of the lower Valley. Nineteen days after the battle, Mr. Lincoln, President of the United States, ordered McClellan to cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive them south. On the loth October, four days after the date of that order, the dashing commander of the Confederate horse, J. E. B. Stuart, led his cavalry back into Maryland, and riding around both flanks and rear, made a complete circuit of McClellan s army possibly to inquire why Lincoln s orders were not obeyed. McClellan reported^Stuart s march. Halleck, then Commander- in-Chief at Washington, replies to him: "The President has read your telegram, and directs me to suggest that if the enemy had more occupation south of the river, his cavalry would not be likely to make raids north of it." On the 25th October, McClel lan telegraphs that his "horses are broken down from fatigue and ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 295 want of flesh." Lincoln rejoins : "Will you pardon me for ask ing what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything? Stuart s cavalry outmarched ours, having certainly done more marked service in the Peninsula and everywhere since." On the 3d of November, twenty days after he had been ordered, McClellan finished crossing his army over the Potomac not in General Lee s front, but in Loudoun county carefully interposing the burly Blue Ridge between it and the Army of Northern Virginia, and securely holding the passes. Leaving Jackson in the lower Valley, General Lee quietly moved Longstreet and the cavalry up the Valley, and crossing them at passes south of those held by McClellan, moved into Culpeper county, so that when the Federal commander reached Fauquier county the Rappahannock rolled once more peacefully between them. On the 7th of November, McClellan telegraphs: "I am now concentrating my troops in the direction of Warrenton." An order prepared two days before relieved him from the command of his army. The storm of official dis pleasure which had been growing deeper and blacker, had burst at last above the head of the young Napoleon, and the fury of the gale was destined to sweep him, who was once the idol of the army and the people, from further participation in the strug gle. To-day the tempest tossed winds are quiet beneath the rays of the sun of peace, and as its Governor, . McClellan s command is the State of New Jersey. Burnside was his successor. He decided to make a rapid march of his whole force upon Frecle- ricksburg, making that the base of his operations, with Richmond as the objective point. On the i/th of November his advance, Sumner s column, thirty-three thousand strong, arrived in front of Fredericksburg. Had his pontoons arrived, Burnside says, "Sumner would have crossed at once over a bridge in front of a city filled with families of Rebel officers and sympathizers of the Rebel cause, and garrisoned by a small squadron of cavalry and a battery of artillery." On the 1 5th General Lee learned that transports and gunboats had arrived at Acquia creek. On the i8th Stuart, forcing his way across the Rappahannock at the Fauquier While Sulphur Springs, in the face of cavalry and artillery, made a reconnois- sance as far as Warrenton, reaching there just after the rear of the Federal column had left. His report satisfied General Lee that the whole Federal army had gone to Fredericksburg. He had previously been informed as to Sumner s march. McLaws and Ransom s divisions, accompanied by Lane s battery of artil lery and W. H. F. Lee s brigade of cavalry, were at once put in motion for that place, and the whole of Longstreet s corps fol- 296 MEMORIAL VOLUME. lowed on the iQth. On the 2ist Sumner summoned the town to surrender under a threat of cannonading it the next day. To this General Lee replied that the " Confederate forces would not use the place for military purposes, but its occupation by the enemy would be resisted," and directions were given for the re moval of the women and children as rapidly as possible. The threatened bombardment did not take place; but in view of the imminence of a collision between the two armies, the inhabitants were advised to leave the city, and almost the entire population, without a murmur, abandoned their houses. " History presents no instance of a people exhibiting a purer and more unselfish patriotism, or a higher spirit of fortitude and courage, than was evinced by the citizens of Fredericksburg. They cheerfully in curred great hardships and privations, and surrendered their homes and property to destruction rather than yield them into the hands of the enemy of their country." While the poisoned cup was not passed around as at Capua before its inhabitants surrendered to Fulvius, they pledged their fortunes, their families and their household goods to the cause with the faith which characterized the Romans when they put up for sale the ground occupied by Hannibal s camps during his siege of the city, and it was bought at a price not at all beldw its value. The law passed at the instance of the Tribune Oppius forbade, in the dark days of Rome, any woman from wearing a gay colored dress, and that none should approach nearer than a mile of any city or town in a car drawn by horses, because the public need was so urgent that private expenses must be restrained by law so as to give more for defence. The women of Frede ricksburg, equally as patriotic, obeyed "without a murmur," and bore their proportion of the burdens of the hour, for the con firmation of which they have the recorded words of Robert E. Lee. On the 22d of November, one day after the demand for the surrender of Fredericksburg, Stonewall Jackson began his march from Winchester, and in eight days transferred his corps, with an interval of two days rest, to the vicinity of Fredericks burg (Dabney, page 594). The first of December found the Confederate army united. It was Burnside s intention to cross the Rappahannock at once upon the arrival of his army, but the delay in receiving his pontoons prevented the movement they did not reach him until the 22d or 23d of November. Could he have done so, Longstreet s corps only would have been in his front, as Jackson did not arrive until the 3Oth. It is certain, however, he would have encountered the united Confederate army somewhere, for General Lee was the commander of its detached parts. While the two armies are ADDRESS OF GENERAL F1TZHUGH LEE. putting on the war paint, go with me to the spot where once stood the Philips house. This elevated site was on the second and highest elevation from the river on the Stafford side, and was selected by Burnside for his headquarters during the battle of Fredericksburg. A magnificient view of all the surrounding country might here be seen through the field-glasses of the Federal commander. Decending the hill from the Philips house en route to the river we reach the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac rail road, which, crossing the river by bridge, first curves westward o J o before taking its northeasterly. course to Acquia creek; then we come to a bottom through which flows a small stream; then we ascend the elevated table-land comprising the Lacy farm, and cross ing it reach the Lacy house, Simmer s headquarters, and which is directly opposite Fredericksburg and on the hill above the river. The Rappahannock, drawing its source from the Blue Ridge mountains, drains the counties of Fauquier, Rappahannock and Culpeper, while the Rapidan, its twin sister, flowing through Madison, Greene and Orange, unites with it some twelve miles above Fredericksburg. From that point the river tranquilly meanders through a beautiful country until, passing between the counties of Lancaster and Middlesex, it is lost in the waters of the Chesapeake bay. It is navigable for steamboats and small sailing vessels ninety-two miles from its mouth to Frede ricksburg, the head of navigation. There are two fords between the city and the junction of the Rapidan. Three miles above by the Spotsylvania side, or six by the Stafford side, is Banks ford, and above that is the United States, or Mine, or Bark Mill ford. On the Rappahannock, above the union of the two streams, comes first Richards ford, then Kelly s, which is some thirty miles from a point in Stafford op posite Fredericksburg. This well-known ford unites Morrisvillc and adjacent country in Fauquier to Culpeper. On the Rapidan above the junction, we have first Fly s ford, then the Germanna, then Mitchell s, Morton s, Raccoon, Summerville, Rapidan station or railroad bridge, where the Midland road crosses the Rapidan; all of which put the people of Culpeper and Orange in commu nication with each other. Above Fredericksburg the hills close in abruptly on the river, and continue more or less so all along the left or Stafford bank. On the right bank, beginning at Tay lor s, above Fredericksburg, the hills, at first curving off from the river gradually, return in that direction, until, at the distance of some four and a half miles from Fredericksburg, they gently decline into a series of soft waves of land, which terminate at the valley of Massaponnax. The rim of highland thus described, 20 298 MEMORIAL VOLUME. which begins at Taylor s and ends near Hamilton s crossing, is the shape of a half of a vast ellipse. At a point opposite to the town it detaches from its front, as it were, an elevated plain. On the edge of this plain, nearest to Fredericksburg, is the famous Marye house and hill, and at its base runs the stone wall, apparently built to hold the parapet of made earth and prevent its being washed away. The convex side of this encircling rim of highland and the river inclose the plains of Fredericksburg an extensive piece of table-land two and one-half miles across its greatest diameter. Hazel run, breaking between Marye s hill and Lee s hill (the latter so called because occupied by General Lee during the battle of Frede ricksburg as headquarters), crosses the plains in its northerly course to the river. The Narrow Gauge railroad to Orange Courthouse and the Telegraph road to Spotsylvania Courthouse, twelve miles away to the south, take advantage of this opening to get through the hills. Lower down, Deep run crosses the flats at its widest part, having drawn its source from the high lands ; and still lower, beyond Hamilton s, flows into the river a bolder stream than the other two, called the Massaponnax. On the eastern or lower side of the town bebouches the River or Port Royal road, running parallel to the river. This road runs between earthen banks some three feet high, on which had been planted hedge rows of trees, principally cedar, whose roots held the ground firmly, making a low double rank of natural fortifi cations, some four and a half miles long, and affording an excel lent place to align troops. The railroad from Fredericksburg to Richmond, sixty-one miles distant, crosses this plain transversely, running easterly until it reaches the hills at Hamilton s, around whose base it curves upon its southerly course. From the side of the town next to Marye s hill proceeds the Old turnpike and the Plank road. At the limits of the town they are merged into one, which crosses Marye s hill some fifty yards north of the house, runs south to Salem church, six miles, where they separate the Old turnpike being the right hand or more northern road. At Chan- cellorsville, twelve miles from Fredericksburg, they unite and continue the same road until Wilderness church is reached be yond, when they again separate, the Plank road running as before to the south. The Wilderness tavern is some miles further on towards Orange Courthouse on the Old turnpike, and some miles further on this road is crossed by Wilderness run, and here comes in the road from Germanna ford, on the Rapidan. The direct road from Kelly s ford on the Rappahannock to Chan- cellorsville crosses the Rapidan at Ely s ford. ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 299 By keeping this imperfect topographical description in view, it will facilitate a better understanding of the strategical and tactical operations of the opposing armies; for participation in battles, unless as a commander of rank, will give but little know ledge of localities, such knowledge being in inverse ratio to the closcnes of your discharge of military duties. Before dawn on the nth of December the Confederate signal gun announced that Burnside s army was in motion. Two days and two nights were consumed in getting the Federal soldiers over a river three hundred yards wide, spanned by four pontoon bridges, the laying down of which was resisted by the Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Twenty-first Mississippi regiments, comprising Barksdale s splendid brigade of McLaws division, and the Third Georgia and Eighth Elorida of R. H. Anderson s division. With these six small regiments, Barksdale held the Federal army at the river bank for sixteen hours, giving the Con federate commander ample time to prepare for battle (Eongstreet s report). The Federal army was divided into three grand divisions, the right under Sunnier, the centre under Hooker, the left under Franklin. Sixty thousand troops and one hundred and sixteen cannon were under Franklin, opposing our right near Hamilton s crossing; he having Burns division from the Ninth corps, of Simmer s command, and two divisions of Stoneman s corps, of Hooker s. Sumner had about twenty-seven thousand of his own and about twenty-six thousand of Hooker s troops, with one hundred and four cannon (Hunt s report), attacking our right at Marye s hill making a grand total that Burnside had of one hundred and thirteen thousand (his report); he had also one hundred and fifty-seven heavy guns in reserve. Burnside lost in killed, wounded and missing twelve thousand three hundred and fifty-three (his report), and failing to dislodge the Confederate army, recrossed the river. The Army of Northern Virginia was divided into two corps, under Longstreet and Jackson. The official returns on the loth of December, 1862, one day before Burnside s advance, showed present for duty seventy-eight thou sand two hundred and twenty-eight (Walter Taylor s Four Years with Lee). Jackson s corps lost in killed, wounded and missing three thousand four hundred and fifteen (his report). Long- street s loss was one thousand eight hundred and ninty-four (his report) making a total of five thousand three hundred and nine. The battle of Fredericksburg was a grand sight as Lee wit nessed it from the centre of his lines on that memorable 1 3th of December, and Burnside through his field-glasses, from a more secure position two miles in rear of the battlefield, at the Philips* 3OO MEMORIAL VOLUME. house, with the river flowing between himself and his troops. As the fog lifted, it was like some grand drama disclosed by the curtain rolling up. The plain of Fredericksburg resembled the "field of the cloth of gold," where "The gilded parapets wore crowned with faces, And the great tower tilled with eyes up to the summit, To rain influence and to judge the prize." The roar of three hundred cannon (the Federals alone had three hundred and seventy-five in their army) formed the orchestra, the city of Fredericksburg their audience. " [lark ! as those smouldering piles with thunder fall, A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call. Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky, And conscious nature shuddered at the cry." As I stood at one time during the day on Hood s lines and saw this gorgeous military pageant beneath me over one hun dred thousand men in line of battle, a line of blue with bristling bayonets, both of whose flanks were visible it was the grandest sight my eyes ever rested upon; and in history I cannot recall its parallel. The Federal plan of battle was defective, so far as trying to force General Lee s left, for that was impregnable. Were it possible to have carried Marye s hill, no Federal force could have lived there, for a concentrated converging fire from the heights in rear which commanded it, and of which Marye s was simply an outpost, would have swept them from its face. Holding fast with a small force in Fredericksburg, protected by reserve artillery in Stafford, and reinforcing Franklin with the bulk of Sumner, and Hooker swinging around by his left, to have threatened the Confederate line of communication, would have drawn General Lee away from Marye s and forced a battle on more equal terms as to position. The popular notion that General Jackson wanted to move down on the Federals after their repulse and drive them into the Rappahannock, is disposed of by his own report, in which he says: "The enemy making no forward movement, I determined, if prudent, to do so myself; but the first gun had hardly moved from the wood a hundred yards when the enemy s artillery re opened, and so completely swept our front as to satisfy me that the projected movement should be abandoned." With the Fede ral defeat all was quiet along the Rappahannock, both armies "seeking the seclusion that a cabin grants" in winter quarters. Two more attempts were made to cross the army over the river by General Burnside, one at a point opposite Seddon s house, ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 30 1 some six or seven miles below Fredericksburg, which President Lincoln stopped, because, as he said, no prominent officer in the command had any faith in it; and later a second attempt was made to cross above Falmouth. This movement was intended to flank Marye s hill by reaching the Plank road towards Salem church and beyond it. A glance at the topography of the country and the position of the Confederate army will show that such strategy possessed none of the elements of success. On the 25th of January, an order from the War Department relieved Generals Burnside, Sumner and Franklin, his right and left grand division commanders, from duty, and placed Major-General H.ooker in command of the army. They were removed, the order states, at their own request; but Burnside (Report of Com mittee on Conduct of War, page 721) says the order did not ex press the facts in the case as far as he was concerned. The day after Hooker was placed in command, he read the following letter from Mr. Lincoln: EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., January 2G, 1SG3. Major-General Hooker : General I have placed you at the head of the arm}- of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons. And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, docs good rather than harm. But I think that during General Burnside s command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong both to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard in such way as to believe it of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictator ship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear the spirit you have aided to infuse into the army of criticising their commander and with holding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 3O2 MEMORIAL VOLUME. assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napo leon, 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 ! beware of rashness ! but with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories. Yours, very truly, A. LINCOLN. The same day, in General Order No. I, Hooker assumed com mand, saying, among other things, "in equipment, intelligence and valor, the enemy is our inferior. Let us never hesitate to give him battle wherever we can find him." Considering his enemy was in full view and there was no difficulty in finding him, his not attacking for over three months \vas a slight hesitation. Was it owing to their being inferior in equipment, in intelligence and valor? An interval of quiet now intervened, which was devoted to placing both armies in the best possible condition. Officers and privates amused themselves as best they could in passing the winter away. In the Second Federal corps, for instance, we are told by its commander that the "higher officers spend their time in reading newspapers or books, play ing cards, or the politician, drinking whiskey and grumbling. Of course" (he says) "this charge does not include all by a long way, for it (viz: the corps) contains some of the finest officers that ever drew sword, from Major-General down"; and then signs it D. N. Couch,* Major-General commanding. The monotony was occasionally relieved by cavalry reconnoissances, skirmishes and encounters. One of these I shall mention briefly, because it was the hardest contested purely cavalry fight I participated in during the war, and because in it a young, rising and already celebrated artille rist closed a short but brilliant career. In a dispatch to Halleck, Commander-in-Chief, dated March i6th, 6.30 P. M., Hooker says: "This morning I dispatched three thousand cavalry to attack and break up the cavalry camp of Fitzhugh Lee and Hampton in the vicinity of Culpeper" (page 799, Military Reports of Rebellion). Next, Butterfield, Chief of Staff to Hooker, ir! a dispatch to General Reynolds, of the First corps, gives the result: "I send you the following synopsis of Averell s affair. Captain Moore, of General Hooker s staff, who accompanied him, reports it as a brilliant and splendid fight the best cavalry fight of the war lasting five hours; charging and recharging on both sides; our men using their sabres hand somely, and with effect, driving the enemy three miles into cover "Letter to Seth Williams. Page 776, Military Record of Rebellion. ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 303 of earthworks and heavy guns. Forces about equal." Stanton, Secretary of War, then telegraphs to Hooker: "I congratulate you upon the success of General Averell s expedition. It is good for the first lick. You have drawn the first blood, and I hope now soon to see the boys up and at them." It was Sir Walter Raleigh who said "that human testimony was so unreli able that no two men could see the same occurrence and give the same report of it." The official reports of Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee, written at the same time, tell us that the fighting at Kelleys- ville, was done alone by a portion of Fitzhugh Lee s brigade, without any other support being nearer to them than the main army at Fredericksburg, and that Averell was driven back across the river defeated. The absence of four squadrons on detached duty, and the detail of a large part of the command to go to their homes for fresh horses for the spring campaign, reduced the five regiments engaged to a total of less than eight hundred men in the saddle. The aggregate loss in men being one hundred and thirty-three, in horses one hundred and seventy- three; the latter is mentioned, because the ratio of horses killed to those wounded exceeded that of any cavalry engage ment known to me. There were seventy-one horses killed, and eighty-seven wounded, which, with twelve captured on picket, would make the one hundred and seventy-three. This fact shows the closeness of the contending forces. Stuart and Pelham, his Chief of Artillery, were accidentally at Culpeper Courthouse in attendance on a courtmartial as witnesses, their quarters being in rear of Fredericksburg. Pelham was in the act of getting on the cars to return to his camp, when, hearing there was a pros pect of a fight, he borrowed a horse, and Stuart and himself joined me on the field, though the former did not assume command. Yes ! Pelham fell at Kelleysville a blue-eyed, light-haired boy, a graduate of West Point of the class of 1861, and an officer of superb courage and dash. A noble young Alabamian, immor talized by Jackson saying, in substance, of his behavior in com mand of the guns on the left at Sharpsburg, that an army should have a Pelham on each flank. At Fredericksburg, General Lee calls him, in his official report, "the gallant Pelham," for with two guns, away out on the plain in front of Hamilton s crossing, he enfiladed the advancing Federal lines of battle, halted and held for a time Doubleday s division of the attacking column, sustaining, as General Lee says (in his official report), the fire of four batteries "with that unflinching courage that ever distin guished him." An old farmer in Maryland, looking at Pelham s beardless face, girlish smile and slender figure, said to General Stuart, "Can these boys fight?" Aye! let Lee and Jackson tell. 3O4 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Let Stuart s general orders, March 3Oth, 1863, speak: "The Major-General Commanding approaches with reluctance the painful duty of announcing to the division its irreparable loss in the death of Major John Pelham, commanding the horse artil lery. He fell mortally wounded in the battle of Kelleysville, March 1 7th, with the battle-cry on his lips and the light of vic tory beaming from his eye. His eye glanced on every battlefield of this army from the first Manassas to the moment of his death, and he was, with a single exception, a brilliant actor in them all. The memory of the gallant Pelham, his many virtues, his noble nature, his purity of character, is enshrined as a sacred legacy in the hearts of all who knew him." Young as he was, "his mourners were two hosts his friends and his foes." He was worthy to have his sword buried along side of him, that no less worthy hand might ever wield it; an honor paid to chevalier Bayard by the Spanish General in Francis the First s fatal Italian campaign against Charles the Fifth. Sleep on, gallant Pelham, and may your spirit "look through the vista to the everlasting hills, bathed in eternal sunlight." Spring had now arrived. "A thousand pearly drops, thrown by dewy morning into the valley s lap," could everywhere be seen. "And pushing the soil from her bonny pink shoulders, the clover glides forth to the world. Fresh mosses gleam in the gray, rugged boulders, with delicate May dew impcarled. In the aisles of the orchard fair blossoms are drifting. The tulip s pale stalk from the garden is lifting a goblet of gems to the sun." Hooker must move now. On the I ith of April he tells Lincoln that he "will have more chance of inflicting a heavier blow upon the enemy by turning his position to my right, and, if practicable, to sever his connection with Richmond with my dragoon force and such light batteries as maybe deemed advisable to send with them." On the I3th he orders his cavalry forward to cross the upper fords of the Rappahannock, and swing from there around to Lee s rear. On the 1 4th they appeared and made a dash at Kelly s ford; but, in the words of W. H. F. Lee s report, "dashed back again from the fire of the picket of one hundred and fifty men, under Captain Boiling, Company G, Ninth Virginia cavalry." On the same day they succeeded in crossing at Rappahannock station, but on the appearance of reinforcements, recrossed. On the 1 5th they crossed at Beverley s and Welford s fords, but were driven back by W. H. F. Lee with Chambliss Thirteenth Vir ginia cavalry. At 10.15 P. M. that night, Mr. Lincoln tele graphed to Hooker: ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 305 "The rain and mud of course were to be calculated upon. General Stoneman is not moving rapidly enough to make the expedition come to anything. He has now been out three days, two of which were unusually fair weather, and all free from hin drance from the enemy, and yet he is not twenty-five miles from where he started. To reach his point, he has still sixty to go. By arithmetic, how many days will it take him to do it? Write me often. I am very anxious. "A. LINCOLN." Heavy rains stopped Stoneman, the Federal account tells us, and he was directed to remain on Hooker s right, threatening the upper fords. This cavalry force, according to the consolidated morning report of the Army of the Potomac for April 3Oth, 1863, had an a<i<rre<iate of officers and men of thirteen thousand three o o o hundred and ninety-eight present for duty. His Chief Quarter master, from Stoneman s new position, sent a return to army headquarters for rations for twelve thousand men and seventeen thousand horses. This did not include a brigade of Pleasanton s o division of three regiments and a battery under that officer left behind with Hooker. The Federal army at this time consisted of seven corps, exclu sive of the cavalry corps, viz: First, Reynolds; Second, Couch; Third, Sickles; Fifth, Meade; Sixth, Sedgwick; Eleventh, Howard; and Twelfth, Slocum with three divisions to the corps, except Slocum, who only had two, making twenty divisions. Stone man s cavalry corps consisted of three divisions, under Pleas- anton, Buford and Averell. General Hunt, as Chief of Artillery, had about three hundred and seventy-five cannon. The Federal returns of April 3Oth, before mentioned, gives, under the head of present for duty, one hundred and thirty thousand two hun dred and sixty enlisted men; an aggregate of officers and men of one hundred and thirty eight thousand three hundred and seventy-eight present for duty, and a grand aggregate of one hundred and fifty-seven thousand nine hundred and ninety present; and under the head of present for duty equipped, there "is given only those who are actually available for the line of battle at the date of the report." We find a total of officers and men of one hundred and thirty-three thousand seven hundred and eight. On the Confederate side the force operating at Chancellorsville consisted of AIcLaws and Anderson s divisions of Longstreet s corps (Hood s and Pickett s divisions of that corps, under Long- street, were in the vicinty of Suffolk, on the south side of James river) and Jackson s corps, of A. P. Hill s, Early s, D. H. Hill s under Rodes, and Trimble s under Colston, and two brigades of 306 MEMORIAL VOLUME. cavalry under W. H. F. Lee and Fitzhugh Lee. Hampton s brigade was absent, having been sent to the interior to recruit,, and W. E. Jones was in the Valley. Present, then, we find six infantry divisions or twenty-eight brigades, and the cavalry bri gades of nine regiments. The official return of the Army of Northern Virginia nearest to the battle extant viz: 3ist March, 1863 shows in Anderson s and McLaws divisions, fifteen thou sand six hundred and forty-nine; in Jackson s corps, thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty -three; in reserve artillery, six teen hundred and twenty-one. That return puts the cavalry at six thousand five hundred and nine. My brigade numbered about fifteen hundred (it will be remembered at Kelleysville, two weeks before, it numbered eight hundred) and W. H. F. Lee s about twelve hundred, making twenty-seven hundred cavalry; and the discrepancy is accounted for by the fact that Hampton s and Jones brigades were included in the return, because, though absent, they were included in the Army of Northern Virginia > and their returns sent to the Assistant Adjutant General at army headquarters. Add fifteen thousand six hundred and fourty-nine, and thirty- three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, and sixteen hun dred and twenty-one, and twenty-seven hundred together, and you have present at Ghancellorsville a Confederate total of fifty- three thousand three hundred and three, with some one hundred and seventy pieces of artillery. My numbers differ from Walter Taylor s (fifty-seven thousand one hundred and twelve) by three thousand eight hundred and nine, which is the difference between, six thousand five hundred and nine cavalry he gives and twenty- seven hundred, about the actual number present. Allan makes our force out fifty-eight thousand two hundred. Now let us see what one hundred and thirty-three thousand seven hundred and eight fighting men in blue did with fifty-three thousand three hundred and three "boys in gray." It will be demonstrated that "the finest army on the planet," as Hooker termed it, "was like the waves of the ocean driven upon the beach by some unseen force, and whose white crests were so soon broken into glittering jewels on the sand." On the 2 ist April, Hooker telegraphs to General Peck, who at Suf folk was growing impatient, hoping to be relieved from the pres sure against him by Hooker s movements: "You must be patient with me; I must play with these devils before I can spring." On the 26th April orders were issued for the Eleventh and Twelfth corps to march at sunrise on the 27th for Kelly s ford, and to be encamped there on the 28th by 4 P. M. Stoneman s headquarters were then at Warrenton Junction. On the 2/th April, Lincoln,. ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 3O/ who knows something is going on, telegraphs at 3.30 P. M., "How does it look now?" Hooker replies: "I am not suffi ciently advanced to give an opinion." On the 2/th an order was sent to Couch, of the Second corps, to move two of his divisions to take post at United States ford, "the movement to be made quietly, and the officers and men to be restrained from exhibit ing themselves." Troops to have eight days rations. Bridge not to be laid at Banks ford until the night of the 29th. On the 2/th the Fifth corps (Meade s) was moved to Hartwood church, and on the 28th to Kelly s ford. So much for the four corps and one division (Gibbon s) that were moving up the river to cross and s\vin<r around on the Confederate left and rear. The t> remaining three corps viz : First, Third and Sixth were ordered to cross the river below Fredericksburg at the mouth of Deep run, "Franklin s old crossing," and at Pollock s mill creek the First and Sixth to be in position to cross on or before 3.30 A. M. of the 29th, and the Third on or before 4.30 A. M. of same day. These three corps were to constitute the left wing of the army were to hold and amuse General Lee and prevent him from observing the great flank movement of the right wing, and to pursue him when manujuvred out of his entrenchments by the approaching hosts on his left-rear. The aggregate present for duty on 3Oth April, 1863, in the First corps was seventeen thousand one hundred and thirty; in Third, seventeen thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine; in Sixth, twenty-two thousand four hundred and twenty-five; total, fifty- seven thousand four hundred and fourteen, or taking those actu ally in line of battle, the present for duty equipped, and we have First corps, fourteen thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight; Third, sixteen thousand four hundred and ninety-one; Sixth, twenty-one thousand one hundred and eighty-two; total, fifty- two thousand four hundred and one. Hooker s original left wing was about equal in numbers, then, to General Lee s whole army, and his right wing, or marching column, of four infantry corps and one cavalry corps, would represent his numerical advantage in strength. On the 3Oth the Third corps was ordered to move by the shortest road on Stafford side to United States ford and Chan- cellorsville; and at 8 A. M. on that day, Sedgwick was ordered to make a demonstration on Hamilton s crossing, to see whether the Confederates still hugged their defences. On same day, Couch, of Second corps, was ordered to cross United States ford with two of his dvisions the third (Gibbon s) being left at Fal- mouth. On the night of the 28th, Howard s Eleventh corps crossed Kelly s ford, a force being put over below the ford in 3O8 MEMORIAL VOLUME. boats, which moved up and took possession of it. On the morn ing of the 29th the Twelfth and Fifth corps crossed. The force then over the river moved in two columns for the Rapidan the Eleventh and Twefth, under Slocum, for Germanna ford, the Fifth for Ely s. Pleasanton, with one brigade of cavalry, accom panied the infantry. On the 28th Hooker s headquarters were at Moirisville; on the night of the 3Oth they were established at Chancellorsville, while Butterfield, his Chief of Staff, was left at Falmouth as a sort of connecting link between the two wings, and for the purpose of sending dispatches around generally. While these movements were in progress, what was General Lee doing? His army rested from the Rappahannock above Fredericksburg to Jackson s position at Moss Neck, fourteen miles below it. Anderson s division was on the extreme left Mahone s and Posey s brigades being near United States ford, and Wilcox s brigade was at Banks ford. Next to Anderson came McLaws dvision; then Jackson s corps. The country be tween the Rappahannock and Rapidan was occupied by Fitzhugh Lee s brigade of cavalry and two regiments of W. H. F. Lee s the whole under Stuart, watching the fords of the upper Rappa hannock. That stream protected Hooker s march up the river from view. Our pickets were not encountered until the night of 28th, when his advance crossed Kelly s ford. The Confederate commander knew a movement was in pro gress. With the serenity of almost superhuman intelligence, he waited for it to be developed before his plans were laid to counteract it, for he remembered the maxim of the great Napo leon, that when your enemy is making a mistake, he must not be interrupted. His attention was first attracted by the enemy crossing in boats before light on the 29th, driving off the pickets and proceeding to lay down the pontoons at two points one, as we have seen, below ,the mouth of Deep run, the other a mile below. A considerable force, he saw, was crossed during the day and massed out of sight under the high banks of the river. Early s division of Jackson s corps, which was near Hamilton s crossing, was at once moved by its alert commander into line on the railroad, the right at Hamilton s, the left on Deep run, occu pying at the same time the River road in his front by three regi ments, keeping the enemy from advancing to i,t (Early s report). The remainder of Jackson s corps was that day moved from its camps near Grace church and Moss Neck to Hamilton s Rodes, in command of D. H. Hill s division, going into line on Early s right, perpendicular to the railroad, and extending to Massapon- nax creek. Ramseur s brigade occupieS the south side of the creek, guarding the ford near its mouth. Rodes line, under the super- ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 309 intendence of Colonels Thompson Brown and Tom Carter, was rapidly and strongly fortified. A. P. Hill s and Trimble s divi sions, the latter under Colston, were formed in rear. And so General Lee waited. Every country boasts its beautiful river. In France, the Seine with its hills and valleys, forests and meadows, villages, towns and populous cities. In England, the Thames, with its green fields and quiet hamlets. In Austria, the beautiful blue Danube. In Russia, the frozen Neva. In Germany, the castle-lined Rhine. In America, the Hudson, the Potomac and the Father of Waters; and yet their beauty and sublimity did not equal the Rappahan- nock when spanned by pontoons, over which thousands of armed men were crossing, and whose clear surface was soon to be crim soned by the blood of heroes wrestling for supremacy along its banks. Hooker s advance, it will be remembered, crossed Kelly s ford, away up beyond General Lee s left, on the night of the 28th (Tuesday). Stuart received the information at 9 P. M. that night at Culpeper, and \V. II. F. Lee, near Brandy, at once sent the Thirteenth Virginia cavalry to reinforce the pickets, and they checked the advance one mile from the ford. Orders were issued by Stuart that the enemy be enveloped with pickets ; that his route from Kelly s might at once be ascertained, and that his whole cavalry force of seven regiments be thrown in his front to dispute his advance on daylight of the 29th. On the 29th, the enemy not advancing towards the position of the cavalry between Brandy and Kelly s, Stuart knew he must be going elsewhere; so leaving one regiment, the Thirteenth Virignia, in position, he moved around with the remainder to get on the road from Kelly s to Germanna, and at Maclden s, the intersection of the Stephensburg and Richards Ford with the Kelly s and Germanna road, he saw long columns of infantry marching 1 for Germanna. His advance, Fitz. Lee s brigade, o o charged into the column, scattered it at the point struck, and the road they were marching on was temporarily seized and held. From prisoners taken it was ascertained that two corps were on that road and one on the Ely s ford road, all marching on Chan- cellorsville. He at once informed General Lee by telegraph from Culpeper Courthouse of the fact. He had previous!} transmitted intelligence that a large body of the enemy were passing up the river; on the forenoon of the 29th that they had crossed at Kelly s, and later, on same day, that they were marching on Chancellors- ville. After reaching that point he knew, too, the two wings of the Federal army were fourteen miles apart the distance from Chancellorsville to Deep run, below Fredericksburg and that 3IO MEMORIAL VOLUME. his army was between them. "Beware of rashness," General Hooker. Some fifty thousand "rebellious Rebels" have, by your own act, been placed between your two wings, and, what is worse for you, they are commanded by Lee and Jackson. Oh! "be ware of rashness." General Lee perfectly understood the mili tary problem thus presented to him. Drive the wedge in and keep the two parts asunder. If possible, hold one part still by a feint, or, if necessary, retard its march by a fight. Concentrate upon and overwhelm the other. Sedgwick, in command of the troops in the Confederate front, lay quiet while Hooker was massing at Chancellorsville. In a conversation with a Confederate officer at Lexington, on February i6th, 1868, General Lee said, in regard to Chancellors ville, that "Jackson at first preferred to attack Sedgwick s force in the plain at Fredericksburg, but he told him he feared it was as impracticable as it was at the first battle of Fredericksburg. It was hard to get at the enemy and harder to get away if we drove him into the river." "But," said he to Jackson, "if you think it can be done, I will give orders for it." Jackson then asked to be allowed to examine the ground, and did so during the afternoon, and at night came to Lee and said he thought he (Lee) was right; "it would be inexpedient to attack there." " Move then," said Lee, "at dawn to-morrow (the 1st May) up to Anderson," who had been previously ordered to proceed towards Chancellorsville; "and the next time I saw Jackson," said Gene ral Lee, "was upon the next day, when he was on our skirmish line, driving in the enemy s skirmishers around Chancellorsville." Let us follow the movements there first. Hooker, at Morris- ville on the 28th, ordered his cavalry corps to cross the river that night or before 8 A. M. on the 2Qth, above Kelly s ford. A portion to move via Raccoon ford on the Rapidan to Louisa Courthouse, thence to the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Poto mac railroad, to operate upon Lee s communications. Another portion was to follow the Orange and Alexandria railroad up through Culpeper, to occupy the Confederate cavalry and to mask the movement. Stuart received orders to get in front, if possible, of the enemy moving towards Chancellorsville, delay him and protect the left of the army. He left W. H. F. Lee with two regiments, the Ninth and Tenth Virginia cavalry, about eight hundred troopers (the remaining two regiments of that brigade viz: the Second North Carolina and the Tenth Virginia being on detached duty), to contend, as best he could, with Stoneman s cavalry, numbering, by the return of April 30, 1863, an aggre gate present for duty of thirteen thousand three hundred and ninety-eight, or "actually available for the line of battle," eleven ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 311 thousand and seventy-nine and which force all crossed the river with Stoneman, except three regiments under Pleasanton, which were retained by Hooker for service \vith his army. Fitz. Lee s brigade alone accompanied Stuart. It crossed the Rapidan at Raccoon ford on the night of the 2Qth April, and moved down the Plank road towards Chancellorsville. Couriers were sent to Germanna and Ely s fords to notify the Confederate pickets of the enemy s approach. These couriers were captured, and hence the notice was not received by them. By the good management of Captain Collins, of the cavalry, the enemy s advance was checked for some time at Germanna, and his wagons and imple ments saved for he was fortifying it though some of his men were captured. At Wilderness tavern, the intersection of Stuart s route with the road from Germanna, the marching infantry col umn was again met, attacked and delayed. The Third Virginia cavalry was then in its front to check its march; but hearing that Meade, via Ely s ford, had already reached Chancellorsville, the march of the cavalry was directed to Todd s tavern, which was reached on the night of the 3Oth. Stuart, with his staff, then proceeded towards Eredericksburg, to report in person to Gene ral Eee, but had not gone a mile before he was confronted by the enemy s cavalry. He sent back for a regiment. The Fifth Virginia was sent, which attacked and routed the force in his front. Another body of the Federal cavalry then came up in rear of the Fifth, to whose assistance the remainder of Fitz. Ece s brigade marched; when, by a series of charges in the bright moonlight of that night, the enemy were defeated and scattered. This force proved to be the Sixth New York cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Me Vicar, who was returning from a recon- noissance made from Chancellorsville towards Spotsylvania Courthouse, and whose gallant commander was killed, for I know well he rode at the head of his men. The Third and Fourth cavalry were placed on General Lee s right flank, as he was moving on Chancellorsville; the First, Second and Fifth Virginia on his left, and these five regiments, with a portion of the Fifteenth Virginia, did duty for the Army of Northern Virginia. Military critics, in charging that Stuart was not in Hooker s front as he marched towards Chancellorsville, should recollect that Stoneman s cavalry corps, five times as great in numbers as Stuart s command, crossed on Hooker s right, and had to be watched and met. At midnight on the 2Qth April, Anderson s division, moving under orders, reached Chancellorsville. Posey and Mahone of that command were already there, having been withdrawn from 312 MEMORIAL VOLUME. United States or Bark Mill ford. Early on the morning of the 3Oth, Anderson retired to the intersection of the Mine and Plank roads, near Tabernacle church, and began to entrench the Eighth Pennsylvania cavalry, Hooker s advance, shirmishing with his rear guard as he left Chancellorsville. General Lee, having now decided to hold Sedgvvick at arm s length while he hammered Hooker, entrusted the former duty to Early, giving him, in addition to his own division, Barksdale s brigade of McLaws division and the reserve artillery under Pen- dleton. At midnight on the 3Oth, McLaws marched for Ander son, reaching him before sunrise on the ist of May. At dawn, on May ist, Jackson, too, marched for Anderson s position, reach ing it at 8 A. M. At that hour he found Anderson entrenching along his line. Assuming command, Jackson ordered the work to be discontinued and the troops to be put in readiness to advance. At 1 1 A. M. Anderson moved out on the Plank road towards Chancellorsville, with the brigades of Wright and Posey leading, while McLaws marched on the Old turnpike, his advance being preceded by Mahone s brigade of Anderson s division,, with Wilcox and Perry of the same division co-operating; while Jackson s corps, less Early s division, like the "Old Guard of Napoleon," followed Anderson. Alexander s battalion of artil lery accompanied the advance. Hooker concentrated on the 3Oth his right wing at Chancel lorsville, and was in high spirits, for he issued then his General Order No. 47, which curiously reads thus : " It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the Commanding-General announces to the army that the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defences and give us battle on our own ground, where cer tain destruction awaits him. The operations of the Fifth, Elev enth and Twelfth corps have been a succession of splendid achievements." " Beware of rashness !" General Hooker; your troops have only done some marching without opposition, and while you write your enemy is closing in upon you. On May ist, Hooker, having been joined by Sickles corps and the two divisions of Couch s corps, which had crossed at United States ford, determined to advance towards Fredericks- burg with the purpose of driving his enemy away from Banks ford, six miles below, in order to open a shorter and more direct communication with his left wing in ignorance of the objections General Lee had to such a movement, because it interfered with his plan to keep the wings apart. The Fifth corps was ordered down the River road, the Twelfth down the Plank road, with the Eleventh in its rear. A division and battery of the Second ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 313 corps was sent to Todd s tavern, on the Spotsylvania Courthouse road from Chancellorsville. The other divisions and batteries to be massed near Chancellorsville; the Third corps to be massed on United States Ford road, about one mile from Chancellors ville, except one brigade and one battery at Dowdall s, on Plank road, west of Chancellorsville; Pleasanton s cavalry to be at Chancellorsville, and Hooker s headquarters were ordered to be established at Tabernacle church the movement to be completed by 2 o clock. // was not completed. Indeed, as the head of the Twelfth corps, marching on the Plank road, emerged from the forest, they saw the Army of Northern Virginia advancing in line of battle. Then dropped, a little, Hooker s self-confidence. He says, fearing that he could not throw his troops through the forest fast enough, and apprehensive of being whipped in detail, he ordered his army to retire to their lines around Chan cellorsville. Changing at this point his "offensive strategy " to "defensive tactics" was fatal to him. When Anderson met the enemy, Wright was ordered to turn his right with his brigade, and at Catharine furnace he had a sharp encounter with a portion of the Twelfth corps. Night stopped it, and at 10 P. M. Jackson ordered him back to the Plank road, along which Posey had, in the meantime, advanced to within a short distance of the enemy s entrenchments around Chancellorsville. McLaws had moved up the Old turnpike, Semmcs brigade on his left, and Mahone s, Wofford s and Perry s brigades of Anderson s division on his right, in the order named. Syke s regulars were first met. They attacked Semmes, but were repulsed. Kershaw s brigade went to Semmes support, but was not engaged. Wilcox, with his brigade, was ordered to the right, on Mine (or River) road, the cavalry having reported an advance there. Meade, it will be remembered, was on that road. McLaws continued to go forward, and halting at dark, bivouacked along the heights just beyond the point where the Mine road crosses the turnpike. General Lee s line of battle was now within a mile of Chancellorsville, and close up to the enemy s entrenchments. Here, as he says, the enemy had "assumed a position of great natural strength, surrounded on all sides by a dense forest, filled with tangled undergrowth, in the midst of which breastworks of logs had been constructed with trees felled in front, so as to form an almost impenetrable abatis. His artillery swept the few narrow roads by which his position could be approached from the front, and commanded the adjacent works." The left of Hooker s lines, extending from Chancellorsville to the Rappahannock, covered the United States ford, where, using a pontoon, he communicated with Sedgwick. From Chancel- 21 314 MEMORIAL VOLUME. lorsville, the right of his line ran at first in front of the Plank road, but was then retired until it met again at Dowdall s or Melzei Chancellor s, the line forming the arc the road the chord. From Dowdall s the line ran west to Wilderness church. At that point separates the Plank road and Old turnpike, which from Chancellorsville had been the same road, the former being the most southerly one. Hooker s line ran west from this point along the Old turnpike. His right was held by O. O. Howard s Eleventh corps two regi ments and two companies of Colonel Van Gilsa s brigade of Devens division occupying the extreme right, at right angles to the Old turnpike and to the west of the line running, in part, along it to the north of it, and facing west. Howard s report, which I quote partly to show the different nations the Southern people were fighting, says: "Schurz prolonged Devens line east ward. He had three regiments of General Schimmelfennig s deployed and two in reserve; also two regiments of Colonel Krzyzanowski s brigade. General Steinwehr had two regiments of Colonel Bushbeck s and four guns of General Wiederich s were posted on Steinwehr s right." Hooker s line of battle was in the shape of a V, well spread open at the ends, the apex being at Chancellorsville. The problem presented to General Lee s mind on Friday night, May 1st, was to decide how best to attack Hooker s army on the morning of May 2d. Time was an important element; for near Fredericksburg, in his rear, was Sedgwick, largely outnumbering the Confederate force in his front under Early. During the afternoon, General Lee wished to attack from his right and cut Hooker off from United States ford, severing his communications with Sedgwick, and rode down himself and examined the lines all the way to the river, but found no place where he could do so. Returning at night, he found Jackson, and asked him if he knew of any place to attack. Jackson said, " No." Lee said, "Then we must get around on the Fede ral right." Jackson said he had been inquiring about roads by the furnace. Stuart came up then, and said he would go down to the furnace and see what he could learn about roads. He soon returned with Rev. Dr. B. T. Lacy, who said "a circuit could be made around by Wilderness tavern"; and a young man living in the county, and then in the cavalry, was sent for to act as guide. Ah ! what an earnest talk Lee and Jackson had on the night of May the 1st. At sunset they took their seats on a log on the right or north side of the Plank road, and a little distance in the woods. Colonel Marshall, the well-known aid-de-camp of Gene ral Lee, was the only other person present, having been ordered ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHU3H LEE. 315 to come to the spot for the purpose of writing a letter to Mr. Davis, dictated by General Lee. Marshall sat on the end of a fallen tree, within three feet of the two Generals, and heard every word that passed between them, and this is what he tells me Lee and Jackson talked about on that eventful night: "Jackson spoke to General Lee about what he had seen and heard during the advance, and commented upon the promptness with which the enemy had appeared to abandon his movements towards Frede- ricksburg when opposed, and the ease with which he had been driven back to Chancellorsville, and concluded by expressing the opinion very decidedly, and repeating it more than once, that the enemy would recross the Rappahannock before morning. He said, in substance, by to-morrow morning there will not be any of them this side of the river. General Lee expressed the hope that General Jackson s expectations might be realized, but said he did not look for such a result; that he did not believe the enemy would abandon his attempt so easily, and expressed his conviction that the main body of General Hooker s army was in his front, and that the real move was to be made from this direc tion, and not from Fredericksburg. On this point there was a great difference of opinion among our higher officers, and Gene ral Lee was the only one who seemed to have the absolute con viction that the real movement of the Federal army was the one he was then meeting. In this belief he never wavered from the first. After telling General Jackson that he hoped his opinion might be proved to be correct, General Lee added: But, Gene ral, we must get ready to attack the enemy if we should find him here to-morrow, and you must make all arrangements to move around his right flank. General Lee then took up the map, and pointed out to Jackson the general direction of his route by the Furnace and Brock roads. Some conversation took place as to the importance of endeavoring to conceal the movement from the enemy, and as to the existence of roads further to the ene my s right, by which General Jackson might pass so as not to be exposed to observation or attack. The general line of Jack son s route was pointed out, and the necessity of celerity and secrecy was enjoined upon him. The conversation was a lengthy one, and at the conclusion of it, General Lee said to Jackson that before he moved in the morning, if he should have any doubt as to whether the enemy was still in position, he could send a couple of guns to a spot close by, and open fire on the enemy s position, which would speedily settle the question/ From the spot referred to, two of our guns had to be withdrawn that afternoon, as the infantry were suffering from the fire they were drawing from the enemy. General Jackson then withdrew, MEMORIAL VOLUME. and General Lee dictated to Colonel Marshall a long letter to President Davis,- giving him fully the situation. In it he re- greted he would not have the assistance of Pickett s and Hood s divisions, but expressed his confidence in the good judgment that had withdrawn and kept them from him, and closed with the hope that, notwithstanding all our dangers and disadvantages, Providence would bless the efforts which he was sure his brave army would make to deserve success." I give all this in detail to show the errors writers upon Chan- cellorsville have fallen into in reference to the ORIGIN of Jackson s famous flank movement. And as settling the question as to who originated this move ment, I give the following extract from a letter written by Gene ral Lee to Rev. Dr. A. T. Bledsoe, in reply to one from Dr. Bledsoe, in which he asked the direct question as to whether Jackson s move originated with himself or was suggested by General Lee: LEXINGTON, VA., October 28th, 1867. Dr. A. T. BLEDSOE, Office " Southern Review," Baltimore, Md.: My Dear Sir . . . . In reply to your inquiry, I must acknowledge that I have not read the article on Chancellorsville in the last number of the Southern Review, nor have I read any of the books published on either side since the termination of hostilities. I have as yet felt no desire to revive my recollections of those events, and have been satisfied with the knowledge I possessed of what transpired. I have, however, learned from others that the various authors of the life of Jackson award to him the credit of the success gained by the Army of Northern Virginia where he was present, and describe the movements of his corps or v command as independent of the general plan of operations, and undertaken at his own sug gestion and upon his own responsibility. I have the greatest reluctance to do anything that might be considered as detracting from his well-deserved fame, for I believe that no one was more convinced of his worth, or appreciated him more highly, than myself; yet your knowledge of military affairs, if you have none of the events themselves, will teach you that this could not have been so. Every movement of an army must be well considered and properly ordered, and every one who knows General Jackson must know that he was too good a soldier to violate this funda mental military principle. In the operations around Chancellors ville, I overtook General Jackson, who had been placed in com mand of the advance as the skirmishers of the approaching armies met, advanced with the troops to the Federal line of ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 317 defences, and was cm the field until their whole army recrossed the Rappahannock. There is no question as to who was respon sible for the operations of the Confederates, or to whom any failure would have been charged. What I have said is for your own information. With my best wishes for the success of the Southern Review and for your own welfare, in both of which I take a lively interest, I am, with great respect, your friend and servant, R. E. LEE. In a little pine thicket close by the scene of this conference, General Lee and staff bivouacked that night. During the evening reports reached him from Early that all was quiet along the Rap pahannock. Wilcox was ordered back to Banks ford, in conse quence of other rumors. Lee s orders had been issued, his plans digested his trusty Lieutenants were to carry them out; the Chieftain slept. Hooker at Chancellorsville, one and a half miles away, was, however, awake, for at 1.55, on the morning of the 2d of May, he dispatched to Butterfield, to order the pontoon bridges taken up below Fredericksburg and Reynolds corps to march at once to his headquarters. The morning of May the 2d, 1863, broke clear. General Lee emerged from the little thicket and stood on its edge at sunrise, erect and soldierly, to see Jackson s troops file by. They had bivouacked on his right, and were now commencing the flank movement. About half an hour after sunrise Jackson himself came riding along. When opposite to General Lee he drew rein, and the two conversed for a few minutes. Jackson then started forward, pointing in the direction his troops were moving. His face was a little flushed, Colonel Marshall says, as it was turned back towards General Lee, who nodded approval to what he had said. The sun rose unclouded and brilliant, gilding the hilltops and "penetrating the vapors of the Valley. Rising as gorgeous as did the "sun of Austerlitz," which produced such an impression upon the imagination of Napoleon; it should be remembered by the people of the South, for its rays fell upon the last meeting, in this world, of Lee and Jackson. The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said "a man of refined Christian sensibilities is totally unfit for the profession of a soldier," but here were two devoted Christians, who faithfully performed all their duties; and so they parted. General Lee was to keep fourteen thousand men in front of Hooker s seventy-three thousand one hundred and twenty-four while Jackson moved around his right flank with twenty-six 318 MEMORIAL VOLUME. thousand. I say seventy-three thousand one hundred and twenty- four, because the Fifth, Eleventh and Twelfth corps numbered, according to the return of April the 3Oth, an aggregate present for duty of forty-two thousand nine hundred and fourteen; the Third, eighteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-six, and two divisions of the Second corps, eleven thousand two hundred and twenty-four. The total, then, would be seventy-three thousand one hundred and twenty-four not including the three cavalry regiments under Pleasanton. The Second corps numbered sixteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-six; but Gibbon s division of that corps was with Sedgwick. Putting one-third of the whole as Gibbon s strength, we would have five thousand six hundred and twelve men, leaving eleven thousand two hundred and twenty- four for the other two divisions. The First corps, Reynolds, was not then present, and is, therefore, not included. On the 2d of May, it was marching from Sedgwick to Hooker, but it did not get to him until daylight on the 3d. This corps numbered an aggregate present for duty on the 3Oth of April, nineteen thousand five hundred and ninety-five. After its arrival, that portion of the Federal army in General Lee s front amounted to ninety-two thousand seven hundred and nineteen. The strategy of General Lee was bold but dangerous. At the battle of Austerlitz, when the Russians made a flank movement upon Napoleon s right, he moved at once upon the weakened lines of the Allies in his front and pierced them; cut ting the Russian army in two parts, leaving some battalions to hold the right wing, he wheeled the remainder upon the left wing, or flanking force, and destroyed it; then, turning towards the right wing, he directed upon it a terrible onset, and it too was no more. I am told that the men of Anderson, which was one of the two divisions left in Hooker s front, after Jackson s departure, and who formed a thin gray line tipped with steel, were about six feet apart. How long would it have taken seventy-three thousand one hundred and twenty-four men to have pierced General Lee s centre? While the Commanding-General is thus situated a con dition which has Early s sincere sympathy, being in a similar situation in Sedgwick s front at Fredericksburg let us follow Jackson. Turning to the left upon the Plank road, near Aldrich s, he moved rapidly diagonally across Hooker s line of battle, screened from view by the forest and by Fitzhugh Lee s cavalry, which had been ordered to mask the movement, as well as to precede it. Birney of Sickles corps, who with his division was wedged in between Howard s left and Slocum s right, on the crest of Scott s run as early as 8 A. M., reported to Sickles that a con tinuous column of infantry, trains and ambulances was passing ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 319 his front towards the right. He ordered Clark s battery to go forward to a commanding eminence and fire into the column. At 12 M. Sickles ordered him to move forward, supported by Whipple s division and Barlow s brigade from Howard, pierce the column and gain the road they were moving over. This movement was reported to Hooker; he thought the Confederate army was in full retreat, and this is the explanation of his dispatch to Sedgwick on that day, ordering him to pursue the enemy on the Bowling Green road. It is dated at 4. 10 P. M., and said : " We know the enemy is flying, trying to save his trains; two of Sickles divisions are amongst them." Jackson, upon passing Catharine furnace, where a road came in from Sickles line, a mile distant, directed Rodes to leave Colonel Best s Twenty-third Georgia regiment there to guard it. It was these troops Sickles reports as having attacked and captured four hundred of them. Pleasanton was with Sickles, in command of the Sixth New York, Eighth and Seventeenth Pennsylvania cavalry. Colonel J. Thompson Brown, who had just passed this point with his battalion of artillery, halted, and at once put his guns in position. The two nearest brigades of Jackson s column Archer s and Thomas of Hill s division supported him, and Sickles advance was checked, They then renewed their march Anderson having replaced them by Posey s brigade, supported by Wright s. Sickles, however, gained the road Jackson was marching upon, and was promised the co-operation of Howard and Slocum in pursuing the flying Confederates. Jackson was marching on. My cavalry was well in his front. Upon reaching the Plank road, some five miles west of Chancel- lorsville, my command was halted, and while waiting for Jackson to come up, I made a personal reconnoissance to locate the Fed eral right for Jackson s attack. With one staff officer, I rode across and beyond the Plank road, in the direction of the Old turnpike, pursuing a path through the woods, momentarily ex pecting to find evidence of the enemy s presence. Seeing a wooded hill in the distance, I determined, if possible, to get upon its top, as it promised a view of the adjacent country. Cautiously I ascended its side, reaching the open spot upon its summit without molestation. What a sight presented itself before me! Below, and but a few hundred yards distant, ran the Federal line of battle. I was in rear of Howard s right. There were the lines of defence, with abatis in front, and long lines of stacked arms in rear. Two cannon were visible in the part of the line seen. The soldiers were in groups in the rear, laughing, chat ting, smoking, probably engaged, here and there, in games of cards and other amusements indulged in while feeling safe and 32O MEMORIAL VOLUME. comfortable, awaiting orders. In rear of them were other parties driving up ancj, butchering beeves. The remembrance of the scene is as clear as it was sixteen years ago. So impressed was I with my discovery, that I rode rapidly back to the point on the Plank road where I had left my cavalry, and back down the road Jackson was moving on, until I met "Stonewall" himself. "General," said I, " if you will ride with me, halting your column here, out of sight, I will show you the enemy s right, and you will perceive the great advantage of attacking down the Old turnpike instead of the Plank road, the enemy s lines being taken in reverse. Bring only one courier, as you will be in view from the top of the hill." Jackson assented, and I rapidly conducted him to the point of observation. There had been no change in the picture. I only knew Jackson slightly. I watched him closely as he gazed upon Howard s troops. It was then about 2 P. M. His eyes burned with a brilliant glow, lighting up a sad face. His expression was one of intense interest; his face was colored slightly with the paint of approaching battle, and radiant at the success of his flank movement. Was he happy at the prospect of the "delightful excitement terms, Dick Taylor says, he used to express his pleasure at being under fire? To the remarks made to him while the unconscious line of blue was pointed out, he did not reply once during the five minutes he was on the hill, and yet his lips were moving. From what I have read and heard of Jackson since that day, I know now what he was doing then. Oh! "beware of rashness," General Hooker. Stonewall Jackson is praying in full view and in rear of your right flank ! While talking to- the great God of Battles, how could he hear what a poor cavalryman was saying? "Tell General Rodes," said he, suddenly whirling his horse towards the courier, "to move across the Old plank-road ; halt when he gets to the Old turnpike, and I will join him there." One more look upon the Federal lines, and then he rode rapidly down the hill, his arms flapping to the motion of his horse, over whose head he seemed, good rider as he was, he would certainly go. I expected to be told I had made a valuable personal reconnoissance saving the lives of many soldiers, and that Jackson was indebted to me to that amount at least. Perhaps I might have been a little chagrined at Jackson s silence, and hence commented inwardly and adversely upon his horsemanship. Alas! I had looked upon him for the last time. While Jackson s column was moving to the Old turnpike, my cavalry, supported by the Stonewall brigade under Paxton, moved a short distance down the Plank road to mask the movement. ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 321 Rodes division Jackson s advance reached the Old turnpike about three miles in rear of Chancellorsville, at 4 P. M. (Gene ral Lee s report). "As the different divisions arrived, they were formed at right angles to the road" Rodes in front; Trimble s division, under Colston, in the second line, two hundred yards in rear of Rodes, and A. P. Hill s division in the third line. At 6 P. M., all being ready, Jackson ordered the advance. Howard, commanding Hooker s right, was at that moment at Dowdall s or Melzei Chancellor s, his headquarters. Carl Schurz was with him. Howard s right division was commanded by General Charles Devens. He reported the enemy s cavalry, with horse artillery, deployed in his front at 4 P. M. Jackson s men burst with a cheer upon the startled enemy, and swept down in rear of Howard s line, capturing cannon be fore they could be turned upon them. Howard reports as the only fighting that parts of Schimmelfennig s and Krzyzanowski s brigades moved gradually back, keeping up a fire, and that "at the centre and near the Plank road, there was a blind panic and a great confusion." Devens, the present Attorney-General, fell back rapidly, very rapidly, upon Schurz, the present Secretary of the Interior, commanding the next division, and Hooker s right flank was yielded up by Howard. Sickles, while trying to cut off Jackson, came near being cut off himself. Pleasanton, who was with him, says he sent back the Eighth Pennsylvania cavalry, and hurled it at Jackson s corps, with heavy loss to them, but he gained fifteen minutes, which enabled him to put twenty-two guns double shotted with canister in position before the Rebels came in sight, supporting them by two small squadrons of cavalry. "In rear of the Eleventh corps the Rebels came on," says Pleasanton, "rapidly, but now in silence, with that skill and adroitness they often display to .gain their object. The only color visible was the American flag with the centre battalion. To clear up this doubt, my aid-de-camp, Lieutenant Thompson, First New York cavalry, rode to within one hundred yards of them, when they called out to him, We are friends! come on, and he was induced to go fifty yards closer, when the whole line, in a most dastardly manner, opened on him with musketry, and dropped the American colors and displayed eight or ten Rebel battle flags. He escaped unhurt!" One of the most wonderful things of this most wonderful battle, is this statement that a mounted officer fifty yards from Rodes line should be fired at by the whole line and live to tell it! In his official report, Rodes says "the enemy, being taken in flank and rear, did not wait for an attack." Colston s division followed so rapidly, that they went over the works at Melzei 322 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Chancellor s with Rodes men. Both divisions entered together a second piece of woods, filled with abatis. It was then dark, and the whole line was halted to reform. There was then no line of battle between our troops and Chancellorsville, says Rodes, and so the gallant Crutchfield opened his batteries upon that point. "The enemy instantly responded," Rodes continues, "with a terrific fire, which silenced our guns, but did little execu tion on the infantry." The fire was probably from the twenty- two guns before mentioned. Hill then came up and his men were deployed in Rodes front. At 9 P. M. Jackson ordered him to take charge of the pursuit (Hill s report). As soon as the fire from the enemy s artillery had ceased, Lane s brigade, Hill s advance, formed its line of battle the Thirty-third North Caro lina deployed in its front as skirmishers; the Seventh and Thirty- seventh North Carolina on the right of the road; the Eighteenth and Twenty-eighth North Carolina on the left. Jackson was eager to push forward to cut Hooker off from the fords of the Rappahannock. Hill came up, stopping a few feet in front of his line. Jackson was then in sight and both some paces in front of Hill. Sending the only staff officer to Hill to tell him to move for ward as soon as possible, Jackson rode slowly along the pike towards the enemy. Captain Wilbourn, of his Signal corps, was on his left side, two of the Signal corps just behind them, followed by couriers. Jackson was desirous of getting information useful to Hill s advance, thinking perhaps a skirmish line was still in his front. Jackson and his little party had ridden but a few rods, reaching a point near an old dismantled house to the right of the pike, when he was fired on by our troops to the right of the pike, the balls passing diagonally across one musket firing first, per haps accidentally. Many of his escort and their horses were shot down by this fire. Jackson, Captain Wilbourn and the few who were not dismounted wheeled their horses to the left and galloped in the woods to get out of range, but were then fired on by the troops to the left of the road, when within thirty yards of the line, having been taken for a body of the enemy s cavalry. By this fire General Jackson was wounded. The troops near the road did not fire, because they knew Jackson had passed out. For the minute particulars of this sad calamity, I must refer you to Captain Wilbourn s account, quoted in an article by General Early in the December, 1878, number of the Southern Historical Papers, for now I adopt the words of General Lee, as in bed that night, resting on his elbow, he listened to Captain Wilbourn s report, he said: "Ah! Captain, don t let us say anything more about it; it is too painful to talk about." The enemy then opened ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 323 a furious fire of shot, shell and canister, sweeping down the road and the woods upon each side. A. P. Hill and Colonel Crutch- field were disabled by this fire, and among others General Nicholls, of the Louisiana brigade, the present Governor of his State, had his left leg torn off by a shell. Rodes, next in rank, assumed com mand of the corps, but relinquished it to General Stuart, who had been sent for, because, in his own modest words, he was "satisfied the good of the service demanded it." "And shall Trelawney die ! and shall Trelawney die ! Then thirty thousand Cornish boys shall know the reason why." Stuart was near Ely s ford with the cavalry and the Sixteenth North Carolina infantry, having gone there after dark to hold Averell still, who, having returned from his raid, was reported to be at that point. At 10.30 P. M. Captain Adams, of Hill s staff, summoned him to the command of Jackson s corps. Upon his arrival upon the battlefield, Jackson had been taken to the icar, but A. P. Hill, who was still there, turned over the command to him. With the assistance of Colonel E. P. Alexander, of the artillery, he was engaged all night in preparations for the morrow. At early dawn on the 3d, Stuart pressed the corps forward Hill s division in the first line, Trimble s in second and Rodes in rear. As the sun lifted the mist, the ridge to his right was found to be a commanding position for artillery. Quickly thirty pieces, tinder Colonels T. H. Carter and Hilary P. Jones, were firing from it. Their fire knocked a piece of the door or pillar of the apart ment Hooker was occupying at Chancellorsville against him, and struck him down senseless. Pleasanton says when he saw him about 10 A. M. that day, "he was lying on the ground, usually in a doze, except when I woke him up to attend to some im portant dispatch." Couch was then temporarily called to the command. Stuart pressed onward. At one time his left was so strongly pressed that his three lines were merged into one while holding his position. He replied to a notice sent him that the men were out of ammunition, that they must hold their ground with the bayonet. About this time Stuart s right connected with Anderson s left, uniting thus the two wings of General Lee s army. He then massed infantry on his left, and at 8 A. M. stormed the enemy s works. Twice he was repulsed, but the third time Stuart placed himself on horseback at the head of the troops, and ordering the charge, carried and held them singing, with a ringing voice, "Old Joe Hooker, won t you come out of the Wilderness?" An eye-witness says of him that he could not get rid of the impression that "Harry of Navarre" led the 3^4 MEMORIAL VOLUME. charge, except that Stuart s plume was black, for everywhere the men " followed his feather." Anderson gallantly moved direct upon Chancellorsville, while McLaws made a strong demonstration in his front. At 10 A. M. the position at Chancellorsville was won, and the enemy had withdrawn to a strong position near the Rappahannock. Preparations were at once made to attack him again, when further operations were arrested by the intelligence received from Fredericksburg. It will be remembered that Sedgwick was originally left in front of Fredericksburg with the First, Third and Sixth corps and one division of the Second corps. On the 3<Dth of April at 12.30 P. M., Sickles left him. On the 2d of May the First corps was ordered away from him. Sedgwick was then left, Hooker says, with thirty-two thousand four hundred and twenty men. By the returns of April 3Oth the Sixth corps num bered an aggregate present for duty of twenty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty. Giving Gibbon s division one-third of the Second corps strength (being three divisions to the corps), he would have five thousand six hundred and twelve present for duty. Add that strength to that of the Sixth corps and you will have twenty-nine thousand three hundred and forty-two for Sedgwick s total, exclusive of the reserve artillery. On May 2d, 9.55 A. M., Hooker telegraphs him: "You are all right. You have but Early s division in your front; balance all up here." Opposing Sedgwick, Early had his division, numbering by the returns of April 2Oth the nearest one to the battle an aggre gate of officers and men of seven thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine. Deducting losses since the date of the returns, this division carried into action about seven thousand five hun dred officers and men (Early s narrative). Barksdale s brigade numbered fifteen hundred in the aggregate (Early s narrative). It was under Early s command. The total infantry, officers and men, would be then nine thousand, or a little over eight thou sand muskets. In addition, Early had Andrews battalion of artillery, of twelve guns; Graham s, four guns; a Whitworth gun posted below the Massaponnax, and portions of Walton s, Cabell s and Cutt s battalions of artillery, under General Pendle- ton making in all some forty-five or fifty guns (Early s narra tive); a less number than Sedgwick, and far inferior in weight of metal. At 9 P. M. on the 2d, after Jackson s success, Hooker tele graphs Sedgwick to cross the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, and to move up the road to Chancellorsville until he connects with him, destroying Early in his front. He tells him then that he will probably fall upon the rear of the troops commanded by ADDRESS -OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 325 General Lee, and between Hooker and himself Lee must be used up. This order was issued under the impression that Sedgwick was on the north side of the river, but it found him below Frede- ricksburg on the south side. The night was so bright Hooker says that staff officers could see to write their dispatches by moonlight. Gibbon, near Falmouth, was also ordered to cross the river on the night of 2d. Sedgwick, Hooker tells us, did not obey the spirit of the order, and delayed too long. Warren told him that if he (Warren) had not been there, Sedgwick would not have moved at all. At 1 1 P. M. Sedgwick received this order to cross (Sedgwick s report). Being already over, he began to move by the flank up the Bowling Green road towards Frede- ricksburg, leaving one division in front of Farly s right. About daylight he occupied the town. Gibbon crossed early on the 3d, and at 7 A. M. was formed on Sedgwick s right. In moving forward to turn our left he was stopped by the canal. Sedgwick then determined to assault Marye s and the contiguous hills, and did so. His right column, under Colonel Spear, consisted of four regiments; his left of two regiments, under Colonel Johns. Both columns, supported by four other regiments under Colonel Burnham, moved upon Marye s hill, while Howe s division ad vanced rapidly in three columns of assault on the left of Hazel run, upon Lee s hill. But what was Early doing? With his nine thousand infantry he occupied a line six miles long, from Hamilton s crossing to a point on the river above Fredericks- burg. Sedgwick had, as stated before, twenty-nine thousand three hundred and forty-two men. Add to that four officers and an hundred men of cavalry, and thirty-three officers and eleven hundred and three men of artillery, and his whole force amounted to thirty thousand five hundred and eighty-two. Barksdale held the left of Farly s lines from Taylor s hill to the hill in rear of Howison s house. Farly s division was on the right from Hamilton s to Deep run, while between Deep run and the right of Lee s hill only pickets were placed, protected by a cross fire of artillery. Farly s general instructions were to retard the enemy s advance in any direction if he moved, or to keep him still if he would remain so, or to join the main army of General Lee in the event of the enemy withdrawing from his front. These instructions were repeated on the 2d instant, but by a mis apprehension of the officer conveying them, Early was directed to move unconditionally to General Lee. Leaving Hays brigade and one regiment of Barksdale s at Fredericksburg, and directing a part of Pendleton s reserve artillery to be sent to the rear, he began his march. The mistake being corrected, Early returned io his position. Hays brigade had been sent to reinforce Barks- 326 MEMORIAL VOLUME. dale, when Sedgwick occupied Fredericksburg, at dawn on the 3^ When Early began to withdraw, Professor Lowe went up high in a balloon, but discovered nothing. To quote General Early, " Professor Lowe s balloon reconnoissance so signally failed on this occasion, and in the operations around Chancellorsville, that they were abandoned for the rest of the war, and our men were deprived of the benefit of these, to us, cheap and harmless ex hibitions." Soon after daylight Sedgwick moved against Marye s hill, but was repulsed by Barksdale s infantry and Pendleton s artillery. His force also endeavored to turn the left of Early s division, commanded by Hoke, up Deep run; but the demonstration was checked. An attempt was also made to turn our extreme left near Taylor s house; it was prevented by General Hays and the arrival of General Wilcox from Banks ford. The enemy then advanced against Marye s hill and the hills to the right and left of it. Marye s hill was defended by one small regiment, three companies of another and four pieces of artillery (Barksdale s report). Sedgwick said he lost one thousand men in ten min utes there. Two assaults on Marye s hill were repulsed. A flag of truce was then sent by the enemy to obtain permission to provide for the wounded. The weakness of our lines was seen. A third assault was ordered, and was successful. We lost eight pieces of artillery upon that and the adjacent heights. Barks- dale and Hays retired down the Telegraph road, and the enemy s advance was checked by Early, who sent three regiments of Gordon s brigade to reinforce them. Wilcox threw himself in front of Sedgwick s advance up the Plank road, having with him about fifty cavalry, under Collins, and most gallantly disputed it falling back slowly until he reached Salem church, five miles from Fredericksburg. Lieutenant Pitzer, of Early s staff, who was on Lee s hill when it was carried, galloped at once to General Lee, and so informed him. McLaws, with his three brigades and one of Anderson s, was ordered to reinforce Wilcox, that Sedgwick might be kept off Lee s rear. Wilcox was found in line at Salem. Kershaw and Wofford were placed on his right; Semmes and Mahone on his left. The enemy then advanced in three lines, principally upon Wilcox. After a fierce struggle, they were repulsed and fled in confusion, pursued for nearly a mile by Wilcox and Semmes, until met by the enemy s reserve. They then retired to their former posi tion. McLaws communicated with Early that night, asking his plans. Early replied that he proposed to attack in the morning and ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. drive the enemy from Marye s and Lee s hills, extending his left so as to connect with McLaws right, and asking his co-opera tion. That night he received a note from General McLaws assenting to the plan and containing General Lee s approval of it too. Early on the morning of the 4th, Early advanced along the Telegraph road, regaining Marye s and the adjacent hills, but he could not hear McLaws guns. McLaws says in his report that he agreed to advance, provided Early would attack first, and did advance his right (Kershaw and Wofford to co-operate with him); but finding his force insufficient for a front attack, he withdrew to his lines of the previous evening. In the meantime, Early was informed that Anderson was coming and not to attack until he was in position, connecting with Early s left, when, at a signal to be given by firing three guns rapidly, Sedgwick was to be assaulted by Anderson, McLaws and Early, under the imme diate command of General Lee. Anderson reached Salem church about noon, but the attack did not begin until 6 P. M. owing, General Lee says, to the difficulty of getting the troops in posi tion. Stuart, with Jackson s corps, was then left alone in Hooker s front. At 6 P. M. the signal was given. Anderson and Early moved forward at once in gallant style, driving Sedgwick across the Plank road in the direction of the Rappahannock. The approaching darkness, we are told by General Lee, prevented McLaws from perceiving the success of the attack, until the enemy began to cross the river below Banks ford. When the morning of the 5th dawned, Sedgwick "had made good his escape" and removed his bridges. Fredericksburg was also evacuated. Early, with Barksdale, was left to hold our lines as before, while Anderson and McLaws returned to Chancellors- ville, which place they reached on the afternoon of the 5th in a violent thunder-storm. At daylight on the 6th these two divi sions were ordered to assail the enemy s works in conjunction with Jackson s corps; but during the storm of the night before, Hooker retreated over the river. The Confederate cavalry operations, from smallness of num bers, were much circumscribed. Hampton s brigade was south of the James river recruiting. Jones brigade was in the Valley. Fitz. Lee s five regiments were divided two operating on Gene ral Lee s right, next to the Rappahannock, while the remaining three marched with Jackson, and afterwards were on the extreme left, near Ely s ford. Two regiments, under W. H. F. Lee, was all the cavalry Stoneman had to contend against. The horse artillery kept pace with the infantry. Stuart s report says they led the attack on the 3d. The cavalry corps of the enemy, according to the returns of 32S MEMORIAL VOLUME. April 3Oth, had an aggregate present for duty of thirteen thou sand three hundred and ninety-eight. Hooker says (Conduct of the War, volume I, page 136): "My cavalry force numbered upwards of thirteen thousand rrien for duty at the time the cav alry left camp at Falmouth, and of this force but one brigade was retained for duty with the infantry." They were to cross the Rappahannock on the 29th, the same day as the infantry; one column was to move round through Culpeper and Louisa, to operate on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac rail road on General Lee s line of communication. This column was under Stoneman and Buford. Another column was to threaten Culpeper and Gordonsville, then to follow and join Stoneman. Stoneman marched to Thompson s cross-roads, and calling his regimental commanders together, tells them that " I have dropped in this region like a shell, and that I intended to burst it, expecting each piece or fragment to do as much harm and create as much terror as would result from sending the whole shell, and thus magnify our small force into overwhelming num bers " ; and he further says : " The results of this plan satisfied my most sanguine expections." But what does Hooker say? " On the 4th the cavalry column, under General Stoneman, re- Burned. It is hardly necessary to say it accomplished nothing. One part of it, under Kilpatrick, crossed the Acquia and Rich mond railroad, and the fact that on the 5th the cars carried the Rebel wounded and our prisoners over the road to Richmond, will show to what extent the enemy s communications had been interrupted; and an examination of the instructions General Stoneman received, in connection with the official report of his operations, fully sustains me in saying that no officer ever made a greater mistake in construing his orders, and no one ever accom plished less in so doing." Averell, when starting with his column, was told by Hooker that "in the vicinity of Culpeper, you will be likely to come against Fitzhugh Lee s brigade of cavalry, consisting of about two thousand men, which it is expected you will be able to disperse and destroy without delay to your advance." Averell marched to Culpeper Courthouse on the 3Oth, then to the Rap- idan, and says, " from prisoners taken and from contrabands, it was learned that at least two brigades of the enemy s cavalry were fleeing before us." All day May the 1st, W. H. F. Lee, with his two regiments and one piece of artillery, gallantly disputed his advance, and in compliance with the orders from General Lee, burnt the bridge over the Rapidan and withdrew towards Gordonsville. He reached that place at 1 1 A. M. on the 2d. At 6.30 A. M. on the same day, Averell, who never advanced ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE. 329 closer than three miles of Orange Courthouse, countermarched and went back to the army. He arrived at 10.30 P. M. on the night of the 2d, on the north side of Ely s ford. Averell s losses, by his official report, were two officers and two men wounded and one man killed. He numbered, according to the same report, thirty-four hundred sabres and six guns. W. H. F. Lee then turned his attention to Stoneman, who was about Trevylian s depot in Louisa county. On May the 3d and 4th, he pursued Wynclham s force, who represented the fragment of shell which was flying towards Columbia, and says he heard by telegrams from Richmond that the enemy were everywhere. On the 5th and 6th he harassed Stoneman s rear as he was return ing to his army; on May the 8th he returned to Orange Court house, having accomplished as much as could possibly be ex pected with his small force. I leave my hearers to infer what Stuart would have done in the enemy s rear with ten or twelve thousand cavalry, only opposed by two regiments. And so ended the last of the Federal operations at Chancel- lorsvillc. The total losses on the Federal side was seventeen thousand one hundred and ninety-seven (Hooker, Conduct of War, volume I, page 143). Total loss on Confederate side was ten thousand two hundred and eighty-one. Colonel Baldwin, Chief of Ordnance, reported, as captured from the enemy, thir teen cannon, fifteen hundred rounds of f artillery ammunition, large lot of harness, wheels, &c., and nineteen thousand five hundred muskets and rifles and three hundred thousand rounds of infantry ammunition. In an address of this sort it is impossible to do justice to the many splendid feats of valor performed by the troops. I must refer all to the official reports. They will show the difficulties and dangers which, under God s blessing, were surmounted by the valor and fortitude of our army. The prominent points of this contest were: Jackson s fight of the 2d, Stuart s of the 3d, and the operations of Early and Barksdale, of Anderson, Me Laws and Wilcox. In his official report, General Lee says that "the conduct of the troops cannot be too highly praised. Attacking largely superior numbers in strongly entrenched positions, their heroic courage overcame every obstacle of nature and of art, and achieved a triumph most honorable to our arms. I commend to the Department the brave officers and men mentioned by their superiors for extraordinary daring and merit, whose names I am unable to enumerate here; among them will be found some who have passed by a glorious death beyond the reach of praise, but the memory of whose 33O MEMORIAL VOLUME. virtues and devoted patriotism will ever be cherished by their grateful countrymen." On 6th May, General Hooker published his General Order No. 49. Listen to portions of it: "The Major- General Commanding tenders to this army his congratulations on its achievements of the last seven days. ... In withdrawing from the south bank of the Rappahannock before delivering a general battle to our adversaries, the army has given renewed evidence of its con fidence in itself and its fidelity to the principles it represents. Profoundly loyal and conscious of its strength, the Army of the Potomac, will give or decline battle whenever its interests or honor may demand. . . . . The events of the last week may swell with pride the heart of every officer and soldier of this army." And then in a letter to Lincoln, dated May 1 3th, 1863, Hooker says, near its close, "Is it asking too much to inquire your opinion of my Order No. 49? If so, do not answer me. Jackson is dead and Lee beats McClellan in his untruthful bulletins." I cannot find that Lincoln ever answered this question. Aye, my comrades, the battle of Chancellorsville is over. "When written history shall truly record the struggle which ended thus, every leaf may be dripping with the tears of grief and woe, but not a page will be stained with the stigma of shame." It will show nowhere such an example of the steady handling of a small force against a great one, upon plans based upon a pro found and accurate judgment of the facts. Risks were assumed apparently desperate, with cool self-reliance and confidence in the army, that never faltered under all dangers and discourage ments until all had been accomplished which, under the circum stances, could reasonably be expected. The laurel at Chancel lorsville is entwined with the cypress. Brigadier-General Paxton fell while leading his brigade with conspicuous courage in the assault of the 3d. Generals A. P. Hill, Nicholls, McGowan, Heth, Hoke and Pender were wounded, to which must be added many gallant officers and privates, while many more are now "but a handful of dust in the land of their choice. A name in song and story, and Fame to shout with her trumpet voice Dead dead on the field of glory." Chancellorsville is inseparably connected in its glory and gloom with Stonewall Jackson. General Lee officially writes : "I do not propose to speak here of the character of this illustrious man, since removed from the scene of his eminent usefulness by the hand of an inscrutable but all-wise Providence. I neverthe less desire to pay the tribute of my admiration to the matchless energy and skill that marked this last act of his life, forming, as ADDRESS OF GENERAL FITZHL GH LEE. 33! it did, a worthy conclusion of that long series of splendid achieve ments which won for him the lasting gratitude and love of his country." In my reading of history, Jackson s purely military genius resembled more closely Cresar s and Napoleon s. Like the latter, his success must be attributed to the rapid audacity of his movements, and to his masterly control of the confidence and will of his men. He had the daring, temper and fiery spirit of Cajsar in battle. Gesar fell at the base of Pompey s statue, which had been restored by his magnanimity, pierced by twenty-three wounds at the hands of those he had done most for. Jackson fell at the hands of those who would have cheerfully joined their comrades upon many a valley, plain and mountain slope in the dismal, silent bivouacs, if his life could have been spared. Like the little child at the Chandler house where Jackson breathed his last, who "wished that God would let her die in his stead, for then only her mother would cry; but if Jackson died, all the people of the country would cry." Sixteen years have passed. God grant that the little speaker then, the woman now, if alive, who wanted to die for Jackson, is beloved and happy! The char acter of Jackson, while being likened to the unswerving justice of an Aristides, had yet the grand virtues of a Cato. Like the aurora borealis at an autumn s evening close, it will brightly ^hine in the sky of the future. For he was like Knoch, "a type of perfected humanity a man raised to heaven by pleasing God, while angels fell to earth by transgression." Immortal Jackson! though like leaves of autumn thy dead have lain, the * Southern heart Is their funeral urn. The Southern slogan their requiem >tern." Sacred Chancellorsville! The sun had gone down behind the hills and the wind behind the clouds. It was * ; A ni^ht of storms but not like those That sweep the mountain s breast ; Xot like the hurricane that blows To break the ocean s rest. It lightened, twas the sheeted flash From serried ranks that lle\v ; It thundered, twas the cannon s crash, That tore the forest through. Oh ! night of horrors, tliou didst see With all thy starry eyes, The holocaust of victory, A nation s sacrifice . 332 MEMORIAL VOLUME. 41 Lo, prostrate on the field of strife, The noble warrior fell, Enriching with a martyr s life The land he loved so well. But round the martyred hero s form A living rampart rose To shield him from the hail and storm Of his retreating foes. And angels from the King of kings, On holiest mission sped To weave a canopy of wings Around his sainted head." Upon the occasion of Robert E. Lee s confirmation as a mem ber of the church, Bishop Johns said to him: "If you will be as faithful a soldier of the cross as you have been of your country, when your warfare is over I shall covet your crown." Rest on Stonewall faithful to cross and country, your warfare is over, your crown is won. Let us weep in darkness, but not weep for him 44 Not for him who ascended Fame s ladder so high, From the round at the top, he stepped off to the sky." Deep in the affections of the Army of Northern Virginia, Jack son is buried. The mountains of old Rockbridge are the senti nels upon the watchtower. Then striking the harp of his country, his soldier angels being the choir, may this Society join me as I sing 44 Go sleep, with the sunshine of fame on thy slumbers, Till waked by some hand less unworthy than mine." The following officers were unanimously elected: President General W. H. F. LEE. Vice-Presidents Generals Robert Ransom, Harry Heth, A. L. Long, William Terry, Captain D. B. McCorkle, General Bradley T. Johnson. Treasurer Major Robert Stiles. Secretaries Sergeants George L. Christian and Leroy S. Ed wards. Executive Committee Colonel Thomas H. Carter, Majors T. A. Brander and Walter K. Martin, Private Carlton McCarthy, General T. M. Logan. BANQUET. 333 THE BANQUET was spread in Levy s hall in elegant style. After the delicacies of the season had been heartily enjoyed, Judge George L. Chris tian announced the regular toasts, which were responded to as follows : 1. The Army of Northern Virginia Colonel C. S. Venable. 2. The Infantry Colonel John M. Patton. 3. The Artillery D. Gardner Tyler. 4. The Cavalry James N. Dunlop, of the Fourth Virginia cavalry. 5. The Women of the South Judge Theo. S. Garnett. 6. The Dead Rev. Dr. J. E. Edwards. The speeches generally were good, but some of them were rare gems. Then followed a number of volunteer toasts and responses, and a good time generally? The whole occasion was a grand success. ROSTER OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. A full and complete roster of the Army of Northern Virginia would involve an amount of work which the compiler has not had time to bestow, and occupy more pages than the design of this volume would allow. Instead, therefore, of attempting at this time a full roster from the beginning to the dissolution of our grand old army, I shall reserve that as a task upon which I shall patiently work until it is brought as near perfection as it is now possible to make it, and shall for the present content myself with the following carefully prepared roster of the army at several of the most important periods of its history : SEVEN DAYS BATTLES. R. E. LEE, General Commanding. June 26th to July 2d, 1862. 2. LONGSTKEET S DIVISION General JAMES LONGSTREET. First Brigade General J. L. Kemper. . 17th Virginia regiment, Colonel M. D. Corse. 24th Lt. Col. Hairston. 1st " Captain Norton. 11th " Captain Otey. lo 7th Colonel W. T. Patton. Second Brigade General R. H. AnddVsor.. Palmetto sharpshooters, Colonel Jenkins. 2d South Carolina Rifles, Colonel Moore. 5th South Carolina regiment, Colonel Giles. 6th " Col. Bratton. Third Brigade General George E. Pickett. 8th Virginia regiment, Colonel Eppa Hunt on. 18th " Col. R. E. Withers. 19th " Colonel J. B. Strange. 28th " Colonel R. C. Allen. 56th " Colonel W. D. Stuart. Fourth Brigade General C. M. Wilcox. 10th Alabama regiment, Col. 1. 1. Woodward, llth " Lt. Col. S. T. Hale. 8th " Lt. Col. Royston. 9th " Major Williams. Fifth Brigade General R. A. Pryor. P.d Virginia regiment, Col. Joseph Mayo, Jr. 2d Florida regiment, Colonel E. A. Perry. 14th Alabama regiment, Colonel Bayne. 14th Louisiana regiment, Colonel Z. York. Louisiana Zouave battalion, Lt. Col. Coppens. Brigade General W. S. Featherston. 2il Mississippi battalion, Lt. Col. Taylor. 12th Mississippi regiment, Major Lilly. 19th " MajorMulllns. . HILL S LIGHT DIVISION General A. P. HILL. r General J. R. Anderson. 35th Georgia regiment, Colonel E. L. Thomas. 14th " Lt. Col. Fnlsoin. 3d Louisiana regiment, Lt. Col. Pendleton. 49th Georgia regiment, Colonel A. J. Lane. 45th " Colonel F. Hardeman. Second Brigade General Maxey Gregg. 14th South Carolina reg t, Col. S. McGowan. 1st South Carolina rifles, Colonel Marshall. 1st South Carolina reg t, Col.D. II. Hiimiltou. 12th " Col. Dixon Barnes. 13th " Col. O. E. Edwards. Third Brigade -General C. W. Field. 55th Virginia regiment, Col. Francis Mallorv. 60th " Colonel W. E. Starke. 40th Virginia reg t, Col. J. M. Brockenborough. 47th Virginia regiment, Col. Robert M. Mayo. 2d Virginia battalion, Lt. Col. Johnston. Vourili lirifjade General W. D. Pender. ir.th N. C. regiment, Lt. Col. John S. McKlroy. 38th " Col. William J. Hoke. ::itli Col.Ridiard II. liiddick. 22(1 Colonel James Connor. 10th " Col. J. A. J. Bradford. 2d Arkansas battalion, Major Bronaugh. ROSTER. A. P. HILL S DIVISION-CONTINUED. 335 Fifth Brigade General J. J. Archer. Sixth Brigade General L. O B. Branch. 19th Georgia regiment, Lt. Col. Johnston. 2Sth N. C. regiment, Colonel J. H. Lane. 1st Tennesseeregiment. Lt. Col. Shackleford. 7th Lt. Col. R. P. Campbell. 5th Alabama battalion. Captain VandergratT. 37th Col. Charles C. Lee. 7th Tennessee regiment, Colonel Goodlier. 33d ; Lt. Col. R. L. Hoke. 14th " Col. W. A. Forbes. ; ISth " Col. Robert II. Cowan. 3. IIILT/S DIVISION General D. II. HILT,. F-irxt Brigade Gener&\ R. E. Rodes. > 3d Alabama regiment. Major Sands. j 5th Colonel C. Pegnea. , <;th " ColonelJ. B. Gordon. li th " Colonel S. b. Piokens. 2(5tli " Colonel K. A. O Neal. Third Bri ind, General G. B. Anderson. 2d N. C. regiment, Colonel C. c. Tew. 4th Colonel Jong A. Young. 14th " Lt. Col. Johnston. 3uth " Col. Francis M. Parker. Second Brigade General Samuel Garland. 5th N. C. regiment, Colonel 1). K. McCrao. v_>Mi " Colonel Wade. 13th " Colonel A. M. Scales. 211111 " Colonel Alfred Iverson. 23d " Colonel Daniel Christie. Fourth Brigade General A. II. Colquitt. r.th Georgia regiment. Lt. Col. Newton. Colonel D. F. Best. Colonel L. B. Smith. C"ionei li. I). Fry. -. Till 13th Alabama reg t, Fifth Brigade Gener&l R. S. Ripley. 1st N. C. regiment, Colonel siokes. 3d " Colond Gaston Meares. 44th Georgia regiment, Colonel Smith. 4sth Colonel (iilison. 4. AIAGRUDEirs DIVISIOX General J. 15. MAORUDER. Firxt Brigade General Paul J. Scmmes. 10th Georgia regiment, Colonel dimming. 32d Virginia regiment, Lt. Col. WillK 5th Louisiana regiment, Colonel Hunt. 15th Virginia regiment, Colonel T. P. August. Kith Louisiana regiment, Lt. Col. Wagaman. 5: id Georgia regiment. Third Brigade General I!. Griilith. 13th Mississippi regiment, Colonel Barksdalc. 17th Colonel Holder. ISth " Colonel Griilin. 21st ; Col. Humi)hries. Second Brigade General J. 15. Kershaw. 2d South Carolina reg t, Colonel Kennedy. ;:d " colonel Nance. Mh Colonel Ilenagan. 7th Colonel Aiken. Fourth Brigade General Ilowell Cobb. Kith (-r.-orgia regiment, Col. (J >ode P.nan. C obb s Georgia legion, Col. T. K. K. Cobb. 24th Georgia regiment. Col. Hobt. McMillen. 2d Louisiana regiment, Colonel Norwood. 15th N. C. regiment, Colonel Daw. Fifth Brif/adcGenera.1 Robert Toombs. 15th 17th 20th Colonel Mclutosh. Colonel Benning. Colonel Camming. fh Georgia regiment, Major E. W. lloyle. s;h " llth " .tth " 8<1 " 1st Georgia regulars Colonel Lamnr. Lt. Col. Liiirman. Colonel Turnlpseed. Lt. Col. White. Colonel MagUI. o. HUGER S DIVISIOX General BENJAMIN First Brigade General William Mahone. 41st Virginia regiment, Lt. Col. Parham. 49th " Colonel Wm. Smith. Cth " Col. Geo. T. Rodgers. 12th " Col. D. A. Weis:gei. IGth Lt. Col. Ham. Sernnd Brigade General L. A. Armistead. 9th Virginia regiment, Colonel J. C. Owens. 53d Col. H. B. Tomlln. 5th Virginia battalion. Major W. li. Foster. 14th Virginia reg t, Colonel Hodg *. 3>th " Colonel Edmonds. 57th " Lt. Col. J. B. Magruder. Third Brigade General A. R. Wright. i 4th Georgia regiment. Colonel George Doles.! 1st Louisiana regiment, Lt. Col. Shivers. 1st Georgia regiment, Col. Ch H. II. Olmstead 2-2d " Colonel R. K. Jones. 3d " Major J. R. Sturges. ; 336 MEMORIAL VOLUME. 6. WHITING S DIVISION General W. H. C. WHITING. first Brigade General J. B. Hood. 5th Texas regiment, Colonel J. B. Robertson. 4th " Colonel John Marshall. 1st " Colonel A. T. Rainey. 18th " Lt. Col. S. L. Ruff. Hampton s legion, Lt. Col. M. W. Gary. Second Brigade Colonel E. M. Law. 6th N. C. regiment, Colonel R. F. Webb. 4th Alabama regiment, Lt. Col. P. Bowles, llth Mississippi regiment, Col. P. F. Liddell, ** r^lnntil <t.iit.i 2d Colonel Stone. 7. JACKSON S DIVISION. First Brigade Gener&l C. S. Winder. 2d Virginia regiment, Colonel J. W. Allen. 5th " Col. W. H. S. Baylor. SSth " Colonel Neff. 27th " Colonel Grigsby. 4th " Colonel Ronald. Irish battalion, Captain Lee. Second Brigade Lieutenant-Colonel R. H. Cunningham. 21st Virginia regiment, Captain Moseley. 42d " Lt. Col. Martin. 48th " Lt. Col. (Jarnett. Third Brigade Colonel L. W. Fulkerson. 10th Virginia regiment, Col. E. T. H. Warren. 37th " Major Williams. 23d " Captain A. V. Scott. 1st Maryland regiment, Col. B. T. Johnson. Fourth Brigade General A. R. Lawton. 13th Georgia regiment. Colonel Douglas. 26th " Col. W. H. Atkinson. 60th " Col. Wm, H. Stiles. 61st " Col. John H. Lamar. SSth " Lt, Col. Pair. 31st " Colonel C. A. Evans. .E WELL S DIVISION General R. S. EWELL. First Brigade General A. Elzey. 13th Virginia regiment, Col. J. A. Walker. 25th " Lt. Col. Higinbotham. 31st " Col. J. S. Hoffman. 44th " Lt. Col. Norvell Cobb. 52d " Lt. Col. J. H. Skinner. SSth " Colonel Board. 12th Georgia regiment, Lt. Col. Willis. Second Brigade Colonel J. E. Seymour. 6th Louisiana regiment. Qolonel Seymour. 7th " Lt. Col. D. B. Penn. 8th " Col. H. B. Kelley. 9th " Col. L. A. Stafford. 13th Special battalion. Third Brigade General Trimble. 15th Alabama regiment, Colonel Canty. 16th Mississippi regiment, Colonel C. Posey. 21st Georgia regiment, Major T. Hooper. 21st N. C. regiment, Lt. Col. W. W. Kirkland. 1st N. C. battalion, Lt. Col. Williams. 9. HOLMES DIVISION General HOLMES. rirst Brigade General J G. Walker. 3d Arkansas regiment, Col. Van II. Manning. 30th Virginia regiment, Col. A. T. Harrison. 27th N. C. regiment, Colonel John R. Cooke. 46th N. C. regiment, Colonel E. D. Hall. 2d Georgia battalion, Major Hardeman. 48th N. C. regiment, Colonel R. C. Hill. Second Brigade General R. Ransom, Jr. 25th N. C. regiment, Colonel Rutledge. 24i h Colonel Clarke. 35th " Colonel Ransom. 49th Colonel S. D. Ramseur. 26th " Colonel Vance. Third Brigade Colonel Junius Daniel. 45th N. C. regiment, Lt. Col. Morehead. 43d " Colonel Keenan. 60th " Colonel Craton. Fourth Brigade General H. A. Wise. 26th Virginia regiment, Colonel P. R. Page. 46th " Col. R. T. W. Duke. 34th " Colonel J. H. Ware. JO. CAVALRY DIVISION Brigadier-General J. E. B. STUART. 1st Virginia, Colonel Fitzhugh Lee. 3d "" Colonel T. F. Goode. 4th " Captain Chamberlayne. 5th " Colonel T. L. Rosser. 9th " Colonel W. H. F. Lee. 10th Virginia, Colonel J. Lucius Davis. Cobb legion, Colonel T. R. R. Cobb. Jeff. Davis legion, Lt. Col. W. F. Martin. 1st North Carolina, Colonel L. S. Baker. ROSTER. 337 11. ARTILLERY CORPS. RESERVE ARTILLERY- Brigadier-General W. S. Pendleton. Richardson s battalion Maj. Chas. Richard- 1 Cutts battalion Lieutenant-Colonel Cutts. son. 1st Virginia regiment of artillery Colonel J. Jones battalion Maj. Hilary P. Jones. ] Thompson Brown. ARTILLERY ATTACHED TO THE BRIGADES OP EACH DIVISION. Longstreet s division Major J. Walton, chief of artillery. A. P. Hill s division Lt. Col. L. M. Coleman, acting chief of artillery. D. H. Hill s division Major Plerson, chief of artillery. Magruder s division Lt. Col. S. D. Lee, chief of artillery. Huger s division. Whiting s division. Jackson s division Col. S. Crutchfleld, chief of artillery. Ewell s division Maj. Alfred Courtney, chief of artillery. Holmes division Col. James Deshler, chief of artillery. 333 MEMORIAL VOLUME. JUNE ist, 1863. It. E. LEE, General Commanding. FIRST CORPS Licutenant-Gencral JAMES LOXGSTREET. McLAWS DIVISION Major-General L. McLAWS. KerxJiat 1 * brigade Brig. Gen. J. B. Kershaw. 15th S. C. regiment, Col. W. D. De Saussmv. 8th " Col. J. W. MeimningL-r. 2cl " Col. John D. Kennedy. 3d " Col. James D. Nance. 7th " Col. D. Wyatt Aiken. 3d (James ) battalion S. C. infantry, Lt. Col, R. C. Rice. fie lining * brigade Brig. Gen. H. L. Benning. 50th Georgia regiment, Col. W. R. Manning. 5lst " Col. W. Ml Slaughter. 5;U1 " . Col. James P. Sims. 10th Lt. Col. J. B. Weems. Barfadale s brigade Brigadier-General Wm. Barksdale. 13th Mississippi regiment, Col. J. W. Carter. 17th " Col. W. D. Holder. 18th " Col. T. M. Griffin. 21st Mississippi reg t, Col. B. G. Humphreys. Wo/ord s brigade Brig. Gen. W. T. Wofford. 18th Georgia regiment, Major E. Griffis. Phillip s Georgia legion, Col. W. M. Phillips. 24th Georgia regiment, Col. Rob t McMillan. 16th " Col. Goode Bryan. Cobb s Georgia legion, Lt. Col. L. D. Glewn. PICKETT S DIVISION Major-General GEORGE E. PICKETT. Garnctt x brigade Brig. Gen. R. B. Garnett. 8th Virginia regiment, Colonel F,ppa Hnnton. 18th 19th 28th 56th Colonel R. E. Withers. Colonel Henry Gantt. Colonel R. C. Allen. Colonel W. D. Stuart. Armistead s brigade Brigadier-General L. A. Armistead. 9th Virginia regiment, Lt. Col. J. S. Gilliam. 14th " Colonel J. G. Hodges. 3Sth Col. E. C. Edmonds. 53(1 " Col. John Grammer. 57th " Col. J. B. Magruder. Kemper s brigade Brig. Gen. J. L. Kemper. 1st Virginia regiment, Col. L. B. Williams, Jr. 3d " Col. Joseph Mayo, Jr. 7th " Colonel W. T. Patton. llth " Col. David Funstin. 24th " Colonel W. R. Terry. ToomW brigade Brig. Gen. R. Toombs. 2d Georgia regiment, Colonel E. M. Butt. 15th " Col. E. M. DuBose. 17th " Col. W. C. Hodges. 20th " Cul. J. B. Cumniings. Cnrxf f< brigade Brig. Gen. M. D. Corse. 15th Virginia regiment Col. T. P. August. 17th Col. Morton Marye. 30th " Col. A. T. Harrison. 32d " Col. E. B. Montague. HOOD S DIVISION" Maj or-General J. B. HOOD. Robertson s brigade Brigadier-General J. B. Robertson. 1st Texas regiment, Colonel A. T. RaTney. 4th T ColonH .1. < .<:. Key. 5th " Colonel R. M. Powell. 3d Arkansas reg t, Col. Van H. Manning. Anderson s brigade Brigadier-General G. T. Anderson. 10th Georgia battalion, Major J. E. Rylander. 7th Georgia regiment, Colonel W. M. White. 8th " Lt. Col. J. R. Towers. 9th " Colonel B. F. Beck. llth " Colonel F. H. Little. Law s brigade Brig. Gen. E. M. Law. 4th Alabama regiment, Col. P. A. Bowles. 44th " Col. W. H. Perry. 15th " Col. James Canty. 47th " Col. J. W. Jackson. 48tb " Col. J. F. Shepherd. Jenkins brigade Brig. Gen. M. Jenkins. Jd s. C. rifle s, Colonel Thomas Thompson. 1st S. C. regiment, Lt. Col. David Livingston. 5th " Colonel A. Coward. 6th " Colonel John Bratton. Hampton s legien, Colonel M. W. Gary. ROSTER. 339 SECOND CORPS Lieutenant-Gencral R. S. EWELL. EARLY S DIVISION Major-General J. A. EARLY. Hays brigade Brig. Geu. H. T. Hays. 5th Louisiana regiment, Col. Henry Forno. 6th " Col. Wm. Monaghan. 7th " Col. D. B. Penn. 8th " Col. Henry B. Kelley. 9th " , Col. A. L. Stafford. Gordon s briga 18th Georgia r 26th Hist 3Sth 60th 61st de Brig. Gen. J. B. Gordon, gimeiit, Col. J. M. Smith. Col. E. N. Atkinson. Col. C. A. Evans. Major J. I). Mathews. Colonel W. H. Stiles. Colonel J. II. Lamar. Smith s brigade Brig. Gen. William Smith. 13th Virginia regiment, Col. J. E. B. Terrill. 31st Col. John S. Hoffman. 49th " Colonel Gibson. 52d " Colonel skinner. 5Sth " Colonel F. II. Board. Hokc s brigade Col. J. E. A very commanding ((-Jen. H. F. Hoke being absent, wounded). 6th N. C. regiment, Colonel J. E. A very. 21st " Colonel W. W. Kirkl and. 54th Col. J. C. T. McDowell. 57th " Colonel A. C. Godwin. 1st X. C. battalion, "Major R. II. Wharton. JOHNSON S DIVISIOX Major-General ED. JOHNSON. Kteuart s brigade Brig. Gen. Geo. II. Steuart. 10th Virginia regiment, Col. E. T. II. Warren. 23d " Col. A. (J. Taliaferro. 37th C ol. T. V. Williams. 1st N. C. regiment, Colonel J. A. McDowell. 3d " Lt. Col. Thurston. " fitoncu-all brigade "Brigadier-General James A. Walker. 4th Virginia regiment, Col. Chas. A. Konald. 5th " Col. J. II. S. Funk. >7th " Col. J. K. Edmondson d Virginia reg t, Col. F. \V. M. Holliday. 2d Virginia regiment, Col. J. (,. A. Nadens- John M. Jones brigade Brigadier-General John M. Jones. 21st Virginia regiment, Captain Moselv. 42d " Lt. Col. Withers. 44th " Captain Buckner. 4Sth " Colonel T. S. Garnett. 50th " Colonel Vaudeventer. Mdiollx brigade Col. J. .M. Williams com manding (Gen. F. T.Nicholls being absent, wounded). 1st Louisiana regiment, C ol. W. R. Shivers. 2d Col. J. M. Williams, loth " Col. E. Waggamau. 14th " Colonel /. York. 15th Col. Ed. Pcudleton. RODES DIVISION Major-General R. E. RODES. Daniel s brigade Brig. Gen. Junius Daniel. ! 32d N. C. regiment, Colonel E. C. Brabble. 43d " C ol. Thomas H. Keonan. 45th " Lt. Col. Samuel II. Boyd. 53d " Colonel \V. A. Owens. 2d N. C. battalion, Lt. Col. H. S. Andrews. J ZW^.s brigade Brig. Gon. George Doles. 4th Georgia regiment, Lt. C ol. I). K. E. Winn. 12th " Col. Edward Willis. 21st Col. John T. Mercer. 44th Col. S. P. Lumpkiu. Jverson s brigade Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson. iRamsenr * brigade Brig. Gen. S. I). Ramseur 5th N. C. regiment, Captain S. B. West. 12th " Lt. Col. W. S. Davis. 20th " Lt. Col. N. Slough. 23d " Colonel D. II. Christie. -M N. C. regiment, Major E. W. Hurt. 4th Colonel Bryan Grimes. 14th " Colonel R. T. Bennett. 30th " Colonel F. M. Parker. Rodcs brigade Colonel E. A. O Neal. 3d Alabama regiment, Colonel C. A. Battle. 5th " Colonel J. M. Hall. Gth " Col. J. N. Lightfoot. 12th " Colonel S. B. Pickens. 2Gth Alabama reg f, Lt. Col. J. C. Goodgame. 340 MEMORIAL VOLUME. THIRD CORPS Lieutenant-General A. P. HILL. ANDERSON S DIVISION Major-General R. H. ANDERSON. rig. Gen. C. M. Wilcox. 8th Alabama regiment, Col. T. L. Royster. 9th Colonel S. Henry. 10th llth 14th Colonel W. H. Forney 16th Col. J. C. C. Saundersi 41st Col. L. P. Pinkhard. j 61st M<(}t<>iH x brigade Brig. Gen. Wm. Mahone. 6th Virginia regiment, Col. G. T. Rogers. 12th " Col. D. A. W<-isigr. Lt. Col. Jos. H. Ham. Col. W. A. Parham. Col. V. D. Groner. Posey s brigade Brig. Gen. Canot Posey. 46th Mississippi regiment, Col. Joseph Jayne. 16th " Col. Sam 1 E. Baker 19th " Col. John Mullius. 12th " Col. W. H. Taylor. Wright s brigade Brig. Gen. A. R. Wright. 2d Georgia battalion, Major G. W. Ross. 3d Georgia regiment, Colonel E. J. Walker. 22d " Colonel R. H. Jones. 48th " Col. William Gibson. Perry s brigade Brig. Gen. E. A. Perry. 2d Florida regiment, Lt. Col. S. G. Pyles. 5th " Colonel J. C. Hately. 8th Colonel David Long. HETH S DIVISION Major-General H. HETH. Pettigrew s brigade Brig. Gen. Pettigrew. 42d N. C. regiment, Colonel George C. Gibbs. llth Col. Collett Leventhorpe. 26th Colonel John R. Lane. 44th Col. Thomas Singletary. 47th Col. George H. Faribault. 52d Colonel J. K. Marshall. 17th " Col. William F. Martin. Field s brigade Brigadier-General Field. 55th" Virginia regiment, Colonel Christian. 47th " Col. Robert M. Mayo. 2d Virginia battalion, Lt. Col. Johnson. 40th Virginia regiment, Col. J. M. Brocken- borough. Davis brigade Brig. Gen. J. R. Davis. 2d Mississippi regiment, Col. J. M. Stone, llth " Col. F. M. Green. 26th " Col. A. E. Reynolds. 42d " Col. Hugh R. Miller. 55th N. C. regiment, Col. John K. Connally. 1st Confederate battalion. Archer s brigade Brig. Gen. J. J. Archer. 1st Tennessee regiment, Lt. Col. George. 7th " Lt. Col. Fite. 14th " Col. Wm. McComb 13th Alabama regiment, Col. B. D. Fry. 5th Alabama battalion, Captain Stewart. Cooke s brigade Brig. Gen. J. R. Cooke. 15th N. C. regiment, Colonel William McRae. 27th " Col. John A. Gilmer, Jr. 46th " Colonel E. D. Hall. 48th " Colonel Robert C. Hall. FENDER S DIVISION Major-General W. D. FENDER. McGoican s brigade Brig. Gen. S. McGowan. 1st S. C. regiment, Col. D. II. Hamilton. 12th " Colonel C. Jones. 13th " Colonel O. E. Edwards. 14th " Colonel Abner Perrin. 1st South Carolina rifles, Col. F. E. Harrison. Lane s brigade Brig. Gen. J. H. Lane. 7th N. C. regiment, Col. E. G. Haywood. 18th " Colonel T. J. Perdie. 28th " Colonel S. D. Lowe. 33d " Colonel C. M. Avery. 37th " Colonel W. M. Barbour. Thomas brigade Brig. Gen. E. L. Thomas. 14th Georgia regiment, Col. R. W. Folsom. 35th " Captain John Duke. 45th " Lieut, W. L. Grice. 49th " Major S. T. Player. Scales brigade Brig. Gen. A. M. Scales. 13th N. C. regiment, Col. Joseph II. Hyman. 16th " Col. J. S. McElroy. 22d " Colonel James Conner. 34th " Col. W. L. J. Lawrence. 38th " Colonel W. J. Hoke. ROSTER. 341 ARTILLERY CORPS Brigadier-General W. N. PEXDLETON. FIRST CORE S Colonel J. B. WALTON. BATTALIONS. Col II C Cahell ) BATTERIES. McCarty BATTALIONS. Col K P Alexander ) BATTERIES. Manly Major Hu^er . f Rhett 9 rifles ; 5 Naps.; 2 Hows. Major Dearin <r ) Carlton. Fraser. Mac on 11 rilles; 6 Naps.; 4 Hows. Moody. Parker. Taylor. MajorReed ....( Blount. Major Eshlenian . Squiers. 6 rifles ; 12 Napoleons. Stribling. Caskie. Bacliman 8 Napoleons ; 2 Hows. Miller. Richardson. Norcora. 5 rifles; 11 Naps.; 2 Hows. Rielly. Latham. Gordon. SECOND CORPS Colonel S. CRUTCHFIELD. BATTALIONS. Lt. Col. Thos. II. Carter ) Maj. Carter M. Braxton j" 7 rifles; G Naps.; 2 Hows. Lt. Col. II. P. Jones ) Major Brockenborougb \ 4 rifles ; S Naps.; 2 Hows. Lt. Col. S. Andrews ) BATTERIES. Pajre. Fry. Carter. Reese. Carrlngton. Garbrr. Thompson. Tanner. Brown. Dement. Carpenter. Rains. BATTALIONS. Lt. Col. Nelson ) Major Pa (r e .... / BATTERIES. Kirkpatrick. Massie. MilleUge. Dance. Watson, smith. Huff. Graham. G rifles ; 8 Naps.; 4 Hows. Colonel J. T. Brown ) Major Hardaway ) 11 rifles ; 4 Naps.; 4 Hows. Major Latiiuer j" 10 rifles ; 6 Napoleons. THIRD CORPS Colonel R. LINDSAY WALKER. BATTALIONS. Major D. G. Mclntosh ) Major \V. F Poa"ue . . / BATTERIES. Hurt. Rice. Luck. Johnson. Lewis. Maurin. Moore. Grandy. Wyatt. Wo.. if oik. Brookes. BATTALIONS. Major Willie J. Pegram 8 rifles ; 9 Naps.; 2 Hows. Lt Col Cutts ) BATTKRIES. Branson. Davidson. Crenshaw. MoGraw. Marye. Wingfleld. Ross. Patterson. 10 rifles ; 6 Napoleons. Lt Col Garnett ) Major Richardson . j" 11 rifles ; 4 Naps.; 2 Hows. Maj or Cutshaw Major Lane / 10 rifles ; 3 Naps.; 4 Hows. 2 rifles ; 5 Naps.; 7 Hows. 342 MEMORIAL VOLUME. Summary of Artillery (exclusive of Horse Artillery). . X S 3 . 2 o> S og o a N It p o S 03 fe W 1 Artillery of First corps 5 21 31 42 10 83 Artillery of Second corps . 5 20 38 32 12 82 Artillery of Third corps 5 19 41 27 15 83 Total 15 60 110 101 37 248 CAVALRY DIVISION Major-General J. E. B. STUART. Fitz. Lee s brigade Brig. Gen. Fitz. Lee. 1st Virginia, Colonel James H. Drake. 2d " Colonel T. T. Munford. 3d " Colonel Owen. 4th " Colonel W. C. Wickham. 5th " Colonel T. L. Rosser. W. H. F. Lea s brigade Brigadier-General W. H. F. Lee. tth Virginia, Colonel R. L. T. Beale. 13th " Colonel J. R. Chambliss. loth " Colonel J. Lucius Davis. 2cl North Carolina, Colonel Sol. Williams. Robertson s riflcifle Brigadicr- B. Robertson. General J. 3d North Carolina, Colonel Evans. 59th " Lt. Col. Cantwell. 14th Virginia, Colonel James Cochrau. 15th " Major Collins. Jones brigade Brig. Gen. W. E. Jones, llth Virginia, Colonel L. L. Lomax. 7th Lt. Col. Thomas Marshall. 12th " Colonel A. W. Harman. White s battalion, Lt. Col. E. V. White. Brown s battalion, Major Brown. 6th Virginia, Major C. E. Flournoy. Hampton s brigade Brigadier-General Wade Hampton. 5th North Carolina, Colonel James B. Gordon. 1st " Colonel L. S. Baker. Cobb legion, Colonel P. B. M. Young. Phillips legion, Lt. Col. J. C. Phillips. 2d South Carolina, Colonel M. C. Butler. Jeff Davis legion, Lt. Col. J. F. Warring, nt South Carolina, Colonel John S. Black. IIOKSE ARTILLERY Major R. F. BECKHAM. Hart s battery. Chew s battery. McGregor s battery. Moorman s battery. Breathed s battery. RELATIVE NUMBERS OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, AT THEIR PRINCIPAL BATTLES. The following figures are very carefully compiled from "field returns," official reports, etc., and are believed to be as nearly accurate as it is now possible to make them. General Lee said, in a letter to General Early written after the war: " It will be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought," and it is not surprising that Northern writers have either ignored or attempted to explain away these unpalatable figures. I>ut the stubborn facts remain that the Federal Government had a white population of more than 20,000,000 from which to draw its soldiers; that the whole world was its recruiting ground, and that it drew very largely on the negro population of the South; that the Confederacy had only a nominal population of 7,000,000 of whites, while the actual white population upon which it depended to recruit its armies was under 5,000,000; and that from the beginning we fought against fearful odds, which gradually increased until the close. I have space for only the aggregates of the numbers of the: opposing armies, but hold myself prepared to give the details by which I arrive at my results and to verify and prove the accuracy of the figures given. SEVEN" DAYS BATTLES. General Lee had effectives present- Infantry 75,054 Cavalry 2,500 Artillery 2,500 Total 80,054 General McClellan had present at the beginning of these battles a total effective force of all arms of at least 105,000 men. 344 MEMORIAL VOLUME. SECOND MANAiSSAS, AUGUST 27-30, 18G2. ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. Jackson s three divisions , 17,309 Longstreet s three divisions 16,051 Anderson s division 6,111 Drayton s and Evans brigades 4,600 Total infantry 44,077 Cavalry 2,500 Artillery 2,500 Total of all arms 49,077 GENERAL POPE S COMMAND. Colonel W. H. Taylor (pp. 62-65, "Four Years With Lee") has shown conclusively from the official figures that General Pope had "near fifty thousand men" before receiving any rein forcements from General McClellan, and that from first to last there were in front of Washington, to resist General Lee s ad vance, not less than one hundred and twenty thousand men. "General Pope puts his strength on the 1st of September, at Centreville, after the fighting was over, at sixty thousand men. His losses in killed and wounded were very heavy, but his miss ing must have been enormous to account for this difference." SHARPSBURG, OR "ANTIETAM." General Lee told the writer not long before his death that he fought this battle "with less than forty thousand men." The official reports, as cited by Colonel Taylor, show his strength to have been as follows: Longstreet s command 6,262 Jackson s command 5,000 D. H. Hill s division 3,000 R. H. Anderson s division.. 3,500 A. P. Hill s division 3,400 McLaws division 2,893 J. G. Walker s division 3,200 Total effective infantry 27,255 Cavalry and artillery 8,000 Total of all arms 35,255 General Lee had with him when the battle began on the after noon of the 1 6th of September, 1862, less than eighteen thousand men; and on the left the tnree corps of Hooker, Mansfield and RELATIVE NUMBERS. 345 Sumncr (making an aggregate of 40,000 men, not counting two divisions of Franklin s corps sent to the rescue late in the day) were completely shattered as they beat in vain against Jackson, who, with a force of less than fourteen thousand in all, "stood like a stone wall" against every assault. M CLELLAN S STRENGTH . According to his own report, General McClellan had in action on the same field eighty-seven thousand one hundred and sixty-four of all amis. BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG, DECEMBER 13, 1802. The "field returns" show that General Lee had, on the loth of December, present for duty, of all arms, 78,228, and on the 2Oth of December, 75,524. But less than twenty thousand of these were actually engaged; this being unquestionably the easiest victory which the Army of Northern Virginia ever won. BURNSIDE S STRENGTH. General Burnside states (Report on the Conduct of the War, Part I, page 656) that he had on the south side of the river and in action one hundred thousand men; but this does not include his reserves or the men who manned his powerful artillery on Stafford heights north of the river, which swelled his force to at least 1 13,000. CHANCELLORSYILLE AND FREDERICKSBURG, MAY 1-G, 1SG3. When these battles opened (and he received no reinforcements until they were over) General Lee s strength of effectives was, according to the field returns, as follows : Anderson s and McLaws divisions 15,040 Jackson s command 83,333 Cavalry 6.509 Reserve artillery (parked in rear) 1,021 Total of all arms 57,112 But there should be deducted from this number Hampton s and Jones brigades of cavalry, aggregating 3,809 (which were borne on the "field return," although really absent and not partic- 23 346 MEMORIAL VOLUME. ipating in any of these operations, because they belonged to the cavalry division), and this would give General Lee s actual force at the beginning of the campaign as 53,303. HOOKER S STRENGTH. . The compiler has before him, as he writes, the "field return" of General Hooker s army for April 3Oth, 1863, and the aggre gate " present for duty" is 130,260 enlisted men, and 138,378 officers and men, with a grand aggregate of 157,990 "present" But the " present for duty and equipped" (which is explained to mean " only those who are actually available for the line of battle at the date of the report") is given as 133,708. BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. General Early and Colonel W. H. Taylor have shown con clusively by citation of official figures in discussions in the Southern Historical Society Papers that General Lee had at Gettysburg Infantry 48,900 Cavalry 6,000 Artillery 4,000 Total of all arms 59,900 MEADE S STRENGTH. The "consolidated morning report" of the Army of the Po tomac shows beyond all dispute that, after deducting all non- combatants of every description, General Meade had "present for duty equipped " (actual fighting mat) at Gettysburg at least Infantry 82.208 Artillery.... 7,192 Cavalry 12,000 Total 101,400 CAMPAIGN OF 1864. The returns show that when Lee moved to attack Grant in the Wilderness, he had less than 64,000 men of all arms, while General Grant had with him 141,160 men of all arms. General Lee received a total of 14,400 reinforcements from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, making the aggregate force which he led 78,400; while General Grant received reinforcements which swelled his aggregate from the Rapidan to the James to 192,160 men. RELATIVE NUMBERS. 347 1865. Just before the evacuation of Petersburg, General Lee had (according to his own statement) but 33,000 muskets with which to defend a line over thirty miles in length. The losses at Five Forks and in the trenches were heavy, so that when he withdrew his army from the lines on the night of the 2cl of April, he had not over twenty thousand muskets available. lie surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse to the mighty hosts by which he was surrounded 7,800 men with muskets in their hands. The figures given above make the most eloquent eulogy that can be pronounced on our heroic army and its matchless leader. THE END. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. MAR 51959 SENT ON ILL ^ iWM-rlKr 14Apr 5TnP U. C. BERKELEY \/ A . t Ci ~ ^ DEPT JU Wo RECCIR JUN^O-83 LD 21-100m-7, 40 (6936s) VP 1 ^ THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES