PART V. LATTER DAYS.
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So June wears on in this good or bad year 1864, and our friend
General Grant is leaving Cold Harbour for a “new base,” I
think.
He has had a hard time of it since he crossed the Rapidan,
and we also; fighting in the Wilderness, (I came near “going
under” there); fighting at Spotsylvania Court-House (our Po
is more famous now than the classic stream of Virgil); fighting
on the North Anna, a maiden who stretched her arms between
the fierce combatants and commanded the peace; fighting on
the slopes of Hanover, when that Indian girl, the Tottapotamoi,
did the same; and then fighting here, how fiercely! on the
famous ground of old Cold Harbour, where the thunder of the
guns has seemed to many like an echo of those guns of
McClellan, which made such a racket hereabouts in June, 1862,
just two years since!
A good many things have happened since that period, but we
remain more faithful to our first loves than the blue people.
Then the Federal commander-in-chief was called McClellan—
now he is called Grant. The leader of the South was then
called Lee, and Lee is his name to-day. But each seems to
have a constant, never-faltering attachment for the “good old
place,” Cold Harbour, just as they appear to have for the blooming
parterres of the beautiful and smiling Manassas! The little
affair near Stone Bridge, in July, 1861, was not sufficient; again
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in August, 1862, the blue and gray lovers of the historic locality
must hug each other in the dear old place! “Malbrook s'en
va-t en guerre,” to the old tune on the old ground!
The game is played here for the present, however. Every
assault upon the Confederate lines has been repulsed with heavy
loss, and Grant has evidently abandoned any further attempt
to storm them; he is moving toward James river. The fighting
has been heavy, incessant, deadly. Wind, rain, sunshine,
heat, cold, nothing has stopped it. But the Southern lines have
stood intact; so the war goes elsewhere. It is escorted on its
way, as usual, with a salute.
This morning a decided racket is going on. Boom! boom!
whiz-z-z-z! pow-w-w-w! there is a shell which has burst near
me. Won't our friends across the way permit an inoffensive
Confederate to smoke his pipe in peace, without disturbance
from these disgusting visitors? I have just dined on an infinitesimal
ration, and am smoking peaceably when my reverie
is thus invaded. That shell, which in bursting has raised a
little cloud of dust, might have hurt me; it has interrupted
me. Why do they fire so high, and why at me? I am not
a general. My flag is not up. I am not even fighting to-day.
I am smoking, and indulging no sort of spite against anybody.
I am thinking of some scenes and faces an enormous distance
from this spot, and am, in every sense of the words, “off duty.”
It is pleasure, not duty, which enthralls me. Recreation, not
work, is my programme for the nonce. Respect, my friends,
the rights of a neutral and non-combatant!
The cannonade continues. They are having a hot artillery
skirmish yonder, but I go on smoking without much excitement
thereat, being used to it. The time was when we fought
pitched battles once or twice a year, killed each other all day
long secundem artem, and then relapsed into gentlemanly repose
and amity, undisturbed save by the petite guerre of the
pickets. At that remote period, the present elderly, battered,
and unexcitable warrior, used to rush “to horse” at the first
roar of the cannon; for the roar in question preceded a general
and decisive engagement, in which every man ought to be “on
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hand.” Now we have changed all that, or rather the enemy
have. Once, under McClellan, they seemed only bent on fighting
big battles, and making a treaty of peace. Now they seem
determined to drive us to the last ditch, and into it, the mother
earth to be shovelled over us. Virginia is no longer a battle-field,
but a living, shuddering body, upon which is to be inflicted
the immedicabile vulnus of all-destroying war. So be
it; she counted the cost, and is not yet at the last ditch.
All that talk about immedicable wounds and last ditches has
diverted me from the contrast I was drawing between the past
and present. Then, I meant to say, I always started up at the
cannon's roar, expecting a decisive battle; now, so incessant
and so indecisive is the fighting, I lie under my tree and smoke,
and dream of other scenes, scarcely conscious that those guns
are thundering yonder, and that many a brave fellow is uttering
his last groan. Thus we harden. Do I think of “those
blue eyes?” Well, the comrade dying yonder thinks of the
pair he knows. Poor fellow! then I return to my reverie.
The war grows tedious; carnage bores one. “Bores!!!”
This is, I think, about the fortieth day of fighting. We had
the “seven days' battles around Richmond” in 1862. Is this
campaign to be the “seventy days' battles around Virginia?”
The game keeps up with wonderful animation; guns roaring,
shell bursting, and listen! that long, sustained, resolute crash
of the deadly small-arms! Suddenly it stops; but a good many
brave fellows have “gone under” in that five minutes' work.
This takes place at all hours of the day and night. Grant keeps
“pegging away.” To-day he seems to gain something, but
to-morrow Lee stands like a lion in his path, and all the advantage
is lost. We continue to repulse every attack along the
bristling lines, as in 1862. Grant ends where McClellan began;
upon the ground at least. We hold our own. “Lee's army
is an army of veterans,” writes the correspondent of a Northern
journal; “it is an instrument sharpened to a perfect edge.
You turn its flanks; well, its flanks are made to be turned.
This effects little or nothing. All that we can reckon as gained,
therefore, is the loss of life inflicted on the enemy, and of having
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reached a point thus near the objective, but no brilliant military
results.” Candid and true. They lose more heavily—the enemy—
than we do, but our precious blood flows daily. Poor Charley—!
A braver soul was never born into this world than
his; and, since something happened to him, he has been quite
reckless. He is dead yonder, on the slopes of Hanover, fighting
his guns to the last. And that greater figure of Stuart; he has
fallen, too! How he would have reigned, the King of Battle,
in this hot campaign, clashing against the hosts of Sheridan in
desperate conflict! What deathless laurels would he have won
for himself in this hurly-burly, when the war grows mad and
reckless! But those laurels are deathless now, and bloom in
perennial splendour! Stuart is dead at the Yellow Tavern
yonder, and sleeps at Hollywood; but as the dying Adams said
of Jefferson, he “still lives”—lives in every heart, the greatest
of the Southern cavaliers! His plume still floats before the
eyes of the gray horsemen, and “history shall never forget him!”
There was Gordon, too—alive but the other day, now dead
and gone whither so many comrades have preceded him. He
fell in that same fierce onslaught on the enemy's cavalry, when
they tried to enter Richmond by the Brook road, in that sudden
attack which saved the capital. “I blamed Stuart once
for his reckless attack with so small a force as he then had on
so large a one as the enemy's,” said a most intelligent gentleman
of the neighbourhood to me not long since; “but now I
know that he proved himself here, as everywhere, the great
soldier, and that he thereby saved Richmond.” And the gallant
Gordon! how well I knew him, and how we all loved him!
Tall, elegant in person, distinguished in address, with a charming
suavity and gaiety, he was a universal favourite. Of
humour how rich! of bearing how frank and cordial! of courage
how stern and obstinate! Under fire, Gordon was a perfect
rock; nothing could move him. In camp, off duty, he
was the soul of good-fellowship. His bow and smile were inimitable,
his voice delightful. He would present a bouquet to a
lady with a little speech which nobody else could approach;
and, at the head of the “Old First” North Carolina cavalry,
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he would have charged McClellan's massed artillery at Malvern
Hill. We used to tell him that his rapid rise to the rank of
General was the result of his “personal, political, and pecuniary
position;” but that alliterative accusation was only a jest.
He won his rank by hard fighting and hard work; he gave the
South all he had—his time, his toil, his brain; she demanded
his life, and he gave that, too, without a murmur. Peace to
that brave!
These memories seduce me. I am getting triste—blue. I
do not like blue, having so many disagreeable associations connected
with it; I prefer gray. Blue eyes and blue skies are
exceptions, however. I differ with General Henry A. Wise,
who said to me once, “I like a gray day.” Hurrah for the
sunshine, and up with the flag that has “Vive la joie!” for its
motto. We need all the sunshine and gaiety that is attainable,
for whatever may be thought of our friend General Ulysses
Grant's genius as a soldier, he allows the gray people very
little time for relaxation or amusement. I think McClellan is
the better general, but the present generalissimo does “keep
pegging away” with unusual regularity! There is another roar;
but the artillery fire has slackened. Now the sound is heard
only at intervals. The desultory “wood-chopping” of the sharpshooters
comes from the woods and gradually recedes. Grant
is moving.
We strike tents, shoulder arms—I do not, I only buckle on a
sabre—cross the Chickahominy, and take up the line of march
for the James river—hungry.
A tedious march down the right bank of the “Swamp,” into
the low grounds of Charles City, everywhere facing Grant;
line of battle; fighting on the long bridge road; men throwing
up earthworks with their bayonets in twenty minutes,
whenever they stop; sun rising and setting; wind blowing;
woods reverberating with shots; column still moving toward
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James river. Then the question is settled; General Grant is
going to try the Petersburg line of advance on Richmond, with
his base at City Point.
Judicious! General Lee said a year ago, I am told, that this
was the quarter from which Richmond was most exposed. That
terrible question of our “communications”—the Southern railroads!
After all, it is bread and meat which will decide this
war, or rather, I am afraid, the want of it. The granaries of
the Gulf States are full, and we are starving. Who is to blame?
History will answer that question. The time will come when
the survivors of this army, or their children, will know why
we are left to starve upon a microscopic ration—“so-called”—
of meat, which just enables a man to carry a musket and cartridge-box
without staggering and falling upon the march,
or in battle, from exhaustion! Some day we will know that;
meanwhile we go on starving, and try to do the work. Close
up!
Over James river above Drury's Bluff—not “Fort Darling,”
nobody ever heard of that place—on pontoons. The artillery
moves on all night; I and the most amiable of Inspector-Generals
bivouac with saddles for pillows in a clover-field. We
have just passed an ancient-looking house, but seeing no
light, forebore from arousing the lady of the establishment,
preferring to sleep al fresco, by the camp-fire. Yonder, through
the gloaming, as I lie on my red blanket—from Chancellorsville—
with feet to the rail fire, and my head on my English
saddle, as I smoke—not after supper—yonder I see the old
house. It is not a very imposing place. Set upon a handsome
hill, amid waving fields, above the James, nearly opposite the
Randolph house of “Wilton,” it would be attractive in “good
times.” But now it is pulled to pieces and dust-covered. For
the cannon of the Army of Northern Virginia have rolled by
the door hour after hour, and the trampling hoofs of the cavalry
have raised clouds of dust, hanging on the trees and walls.
House, out-buildings, fences (broken down), grass-plat, box-rows—
all disappear under the cloud. Dust is king there. We drop
asleep with rosy visions; for, in passing the house, an Ethiopian
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friend named Richard, who subsequently kindled our rail fire
for us, promised us breakfast. We rise at dawn, repair to the
establishment, make our toilets (I always carry soap, brush, and
towel in my haversack), and are shown into the drawing-room,
to which the ladies have not descended, though they have sent
polite messages touching breakfast.
It is with real historic interest that I gaze upon this old
mansion. For this is “Ampthill,” the former residence of the
famous Colonel Archibald Cary of the first Revolution—the
man of the low stature, the wide shoulders, the piercing eyes,
and the stern will. He was of noble descent, being the heir
apparent to the barony of Hunsdon when he died; sat in the
Virginia Convention of 1776; lived with the eyes of his great
contemporaries fixed on him—with the ears of George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason, listening to hear
him speak, and was the sort of man who will “stand no nonsense.”
When the question of appointing Patrick Henry
Dictator was agitated, Cary said to Henry's brother-in-law,
“Sir, tell your brother that if he is made Dictator, my dagger
shall be in his breast before the sunset of that day!” There
spoke “Cary of Ampthill,” as they used to call him—a man
who religiously kept his word, saying little and performing
much. Hardest of the hard-headed, in fact, was this Ampthill
Cary, and his contemporaries nicknamed him “Old Iron”
therefor. He played a great part in old times—he is dead in
this good year 1864, many a long day ago—but this is his
house. Looking around at the wainscoted walls, the ample
apartments, and with a view of the extensive out-buildings
through the window, I come to the conclusion that those old
Virginians had a tolerably good idea of “how to live.” Here
is a house in which a reasonable individual could be happy,
provided he had a pleasing young personage of the opposite
sex to assist him. Woodwork to the ceiling; wide windows;
trees waving without, and green fields stretching far away to
the horizon; pure airs from the river fanning the cheek, and
moving gently the bright plumage of the singing birds perched
amid the rustling foliage—Cary of Ampthill must surely have
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been a gentleman of taste. Is that him yonder, sitting on the
porch and reading his old blurred “Virginia Gazette,” containing
the announcement of the proposed passage of a Stamp
Act in the English Parliament? That must be “Old Iron.”
He wears ruffles at his breast, knee-breeches, a coat with barrel
sleeves covered with embroidery, a pigtail, and a cocked hat.
His shoulders are broad, his frame low, his eye piercing—and
I think he is swearing as he reads about the doings of parliament.
He has apparently just returned from inspecting the
blood-horses in his stables, and after taking his morning julep,
is reading the Gazette, and pondering on the probable results
of secession from England, with the sword exercise which is
sure to follow. But look! he raises his head. A gun sounds
from down the river, reverberating amid the bluffs, and echoing
back from the high banks around “Wilton,” where his friend
Mr. Randolph lives. It must be the signal of a ship just
arrived from London, in this month of June, 1764; the Fly-by-Night,
most probably, with all the list of articles which
Colonel Cary sent for—new suits for himself from the
London tailors (no good ones in this colony as yet), fine silks
for the ladies, wines from Madeira, and Bordeaux, and Oporto,
new editions of the “Tattler,” or “Spectator,” or “Tom
Jones,” all paid for by the tobacco crop raised here at Ampthill.
The Fly-by-Night probably brings also the London
Gazette, showing what view is taken in England of the “rising
spirit of rebellion” in the colonies, and what the ministers
think of the doctrine of coercion. Our present Governor,
Fauquier, is not wholly “sound,” it is thought, upon these
questions, and Lord Dunmore it is supposed will succeed him.
A second gun! The Captain of the Fly-by-Night seems to
have anchored at the wharf, and the swivel, announcing his
arrival to his patrons, is making a jolly racket. Again!—and
there again! Bomb! bomb! bomb! bomb! Can that be the
Fly-by-Night, and is that Mr. Randolph galloping up in hot
haste from the ferry opposite “Wilton?”
It is a courier who stops a moment to tell me that the Yankee
gunboats have opened below Drury's Bluff, and are trying to
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force a passage through the obstructions. So my dream is broken;
I wake in the every-day world of 1864; the year 1764 has
quite disappeared; and Cary of Ampthill—where is his figure?
That is only my friend, the amiable Inspector-General, on the
porch, reading a copy of the Richmond Examiner. I took his
looped-up felt for a cocked hat, and his officer's braid for the
ante-revolutionary embroidery! So the past disappears, but
the winds are blowing, and the cloud-shadows float just as they
did one hundred years ago. The fields are green again, the
river breeze comes to me with its low sweet murmur, and the
birds are singing in the trees as they sang for Cary of Ampthill.
“Gentlemen, will you walk in to breakfast?”
O most prosaic—but also most agreeable of announcements!
The past and its memories fade; we are again in the present,
as the most agreeable of odours indicates!
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AN INCIDENT OF WILSON'S RAID.
In war the bloody and the grotesque are strangely mingled;
comedy succeeds tragedy with startling abruptness; and laughter
issues from the lips when the tears upon the cheek are
scarcely dry.
I had never heard of a “family rifle-pit” before June,
1864. I am going to give the reader the benefit of the knowledge
I acquired on that occasion.
General Grant was then besieging Petersburg, or Richmond
rather, if we are to believe the military gentlemen who edited
the New York newspaper; and having failed to drive Lee
from his earthworks, where the Virginian persisted in remaining
despite every effort made to oust him, the Federal commander
organized an enormous “raid” against the Southside
and the Danville railroads, by which Lee was supplied. The
result of this cavalry movement is known. Generals Wilson,
Kautz, and others who commanded in the expedition, were
successful in their object, so far as the destruction of a large
part of the railroads went; but when they attempted to return
to their infantry lines, below Petersburg, they “came to grief.”
Hampton and the Lees assailed them, forced them to abandon
their artillery and ambulances on the old stage road near
Reams' Station, and it was only by a resolute effort that the
remnants of the Federal cavalry got home again.
It was a few days after the raid that the present writer rode, on
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duty, through the region which the opposing cavalry had fought
over, looking with interest upon the marks of the hard struggle,
on the dead horses, half-burnt vehicles, and remains of artillery
carriages, with the spokes hacked hastily in pieces, and
the guns dismounted. But these results of combat—of retreat
and pursuit—are familiar to the reader, doubtless, and not of
very great interest to the present writer.
The “Wilson and Kautz raid” would indeed have been forgotten
long ago by him, but for the “family rifle-pit” mentioned
above, and to this the attention of the worthy reader is
now requested.
I heard all about it from a very charming lady who resided
in a little house on the roadside, not very far from Reams';
and before me, as the bright eyes flashed and the red lips told
the story, was the scene of the events narrated. In front,
across the road, was a field of oats; beyond was a belt of woods;
the country all around was a dead and dusty level, scorching
in the sun. The house had a yard, and in this yard was a well
with a “sweep,” as they call it, I believe, in Dinwiddie, which
is pronounced by the inhabitants Dunwoody, which “sweep”
is a great beam balanced in the crotch of a tree, a bucket being
suspended to one end of the beam by a pole, and hanging
above the well, into which it is made to descend by working
the pole downwards with the hands.
In the small house lived Mr.—, from Gloucester, with his
wife and family of small children—all refugees. For a long
time it seemed that the amiable household would remain quite
undisturbed; they had scarcely seen a single blue-coat. But
suddenly, one bright June morning, the road, the fields, the
woods, the yard, the porch, and the mansion, swarmed with
Federal cavalry, coming from the direction of Prince George.
It was soon ascertained that General Wilson was “riding a
raid,” without the fear of Confederates before his eyes; and
had thus come to Reams' Station, on the Weldon Railroad,
where a force of Rebel cavalry was expected to be encountered.
Sconting parties had accordingly been thrown forward,
a reconnoissance made, sharpshooters were advanced, the
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cavalry moved behind in column of squadrons, and the house and
family of Mr. — were captured, not to mention some old
negroes, and very young ones—the latter clad, for the most
part, in a single garment, adapted rather to the heat of the
weather than to the production of an imposing effect.
The cavalry-men crowded to the well, swarmed through the
grounds, and then commenced a scene well known to many a
family in the South. The lives of venerable ducks were sacrificed,
in spite of their piteous quacking; frightened chickens
were chased and knocked over with sticks; calves were shot,
and the hen-roost and dairy cleared with a rapidity and skill
which indicated thorough practice. In ten minutes the yard
was duckless and chickenless; the dairy was crockless, the
hen-roost innocent of eggs. The besom of destruction seemed
to have passed over the whole, and the hungry bluebirds were
cooking and devouring their spoil.
Unfortunately for Mr. —, they were not satisfied with
poultry, butter, and eggs. They wanted hams—and an officer,
Mrs. — assured me, demanded her keys. When she assured
him that her children required this food, the officer's reply was
an insult, and the young lady was forced to deliver to him the
key of her smoke-house, which was speedily rifled. Mrs. —
was looking on with bitter distress; but all at once her pride
was aroused—the Southern woman- flamed out!
“Take it if you choose,” she said, with sarcasm; “I can
easily send word to General Lee at Petersburg, and meat will
be supplied me! There are twelve months' rations for the
whole army in Richmond” (I hope the recording angel blotted
out that statement!); “and if you do cut the railroad, General
Lee's army will not suffer, but be just as strong and brave
as ever!”
“That's foolish—it will ruin him!” said one of the men.
“You will see,” was the reply. “Do you think General
Lee could not prevent your coming here if he wished to?
He wants you to come, for he expects to catch you all—every
man—before you get away!”
This new and striking view of the subject seemed to produce
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a deep effect upon the listeners. They paused in their depredations,
looked doubtfully around them, and one of them, putting
his hand before his mouth, said aside to a comrade:
“I believe what she says! Mr. Lee can get us all away
from here quick enough, and I'm sorry that we ever come!”
Thirty minutes after the appearance of the enemy, the house
and grounds were stripped. Then they disappeared on their
way toward the Danville road.
Two or three days thereafter, it was known that General Wilson's
column had cut the road, but were falling back rapidly
before Lee and Hampton; that they had abandoned sixteen
pieces of artillery, and were now striving, with exhausted men
and horses, to cross the Weldon road and get back to their
lines.
There was a very brave gentleman, of the Fifth Virginia
Cavalry—Captain Thaddeus Fitzhugh—the same who had
crossed the Chesapeake in an open boat, with a few men, and
captured a detachment of the enemy, and a steamboat which
he brought off and destroyed, in the fall of 1863. Captain
Fitzhugh was sitting in the porch of Mrs.—'s house, conversing
with the lady, when looking up, he saw a large body
of the enemy's cavalry just across the wood. The odds were
great, but the Captain did not retreat. He threw himself on
horseback, leaped the fence toward the enemy, and firing his
pistol at them, shouted:
“Come on, boys! Charge! Butler's brigade is coming!”
Having made this appeal to an imaginary squadron, the Captain
rode across their front; but suddenly came the clatter of
hoofs, the rattle of sabres, and some shots. Butler's brigade had
arrived, and the Federal cavalry melted away into the woods
so rapidly, that an old negro, hiding with his mule in the covert,
said they “nuver see mule, nor nothin', hi! hi!”
General Butler—that brave soldier and most courteous of
gentlemen—drew up his brigade; all was ready for the coming
combat; and then it was that the question arose of the “family
rifle-pit.”
Nervous, unstrung, trembling at the thought that her
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children were about to be exposed to the enemy's fire, Mrs.—
ran out to the Confederate cavalry in front of her house, and
seeing one of the officers, asked him what she should do. His
reply was:
“Madam, I would advise you to shelter your family at once,
as we expect to begin fighting at any moment.”
“But I have no place, sir!” exclaimed the lady, in despair.
“There is probably a cellar—”
“No; the house has none!”
“Can't you get behind a hill, madam?”
The lady gazed around; the country was as flat as a table.
“There is not the least knoll, even, sir!”
“Then, madam,” said the practical and matter-of-fact officer,
“I can only suggest a rifle-pit; your husband and servants
might dig it; and that will certainly protect you.”
Odd as the suggestion may seem, it was immediately adopted,
as the most commonplace and reasonable thing in the world.
The lady thanked the officer, hastened back to the house—
and now behold the grand family hegira toward the field beyond
the house!
First came Mr.—and an old servant, carrying spades
to dig the rifle-pit; next came the little family, who had hastily
taken up whatever they saw first, and especially noticeable
was the young heir of the house. Dimly realizing, apparently,
that their absence might be eternal, he had secured a small tin
cup and two dilapidated old hats, wherewith to comfort himself
in exile; last of all, and in rear, that is, between her off-spring
and the bullets, came the beautiful young mother, full
of anxious solicitude; trembling, but proud and defiant.
I should like to possess your portrait, could it have been
taken at that moment, madam!—to look again to-day, in the
hours of a dull epoch, upon the kind, good face which smiled
so sweetly yonder, making sunshine in the pine-woods of Dinwiddie.
And the family rifle-pit was dug by rapid hands; the lady
and the children looking on with deep interest. Foremost
among the spectators was the brave little urchin grasping his
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battered tin cup and tattered old hats, to the possession of
which he seemed to attach a romantic value. Soon a pile of
earth arose; a long trench had been dug; and the lady and
her children took refuge therein at the moment when the crack
of carbines resounded, and bullets began to hiss above the impromptu
earthworks. It was not doomed to be tested by round-shot
or shell from the enemy's cannon. They had abandoned
their artillery from the impossibility of getting through with
it; and only their carbine-balls whistled above the cowering
inmates of the rifle-pit.
Then even these no longer came to make the mother's heart
tremble for her children. Butler's men had charged; the
enemy had given way; when the charming person who related
to me this grotesque incident emerged from her place of refuge,
not a single Federal cavalry-man was in sight. Only the dismantled
grounds and the family rifle-pit remained to show
that the whole was not some nightmare of darkness, which had
flown with the coming of sunshine.
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AN INCIDENT OF 1864.
The incident about to be narrated occurred in November, 1864,
when Early with his 8,000 or 9,000 men had been compelled to
retire up the Valley before Sheridan, with his 30,000 or 40,000;
and when, in the excess of their satisfaction at this triumph of
the Federal arms, the Federal authorities conceived the design
of ferreting out and crushing in the same manner the band of
the celebrated bandit Mosby—which result once achieved by the
commander of the “Middle Department,” the whole of Northern
Virginia would be reduced under the sway of the Stars and Stripes.
To ferret out Colonel Mosby was a difficult task, however;
and to crush him had, up to this time, proved an undertaking
beyond the ability of the best partisans of the Federal army.
Not that they had not made numerous and determined attempts
to accomplish this cherished object. In fact, no pains had been
spared. Mosby had proved himself so dangerous a foe to wagon
trains, lines of communication, and foraging parties, that the
generals whose trains were destroyed, whose communications
were interrupted, and whose detached parties were captured, had
on many occasions sworn huge oaths to arrest his “depredations;”
and more than once the most skilful partisan officers, in
command of considerable bodies of picked men, had been sent
into the wilds of the Blue Ridge, or to “Mosby's Confederacy”—
that is to say, the county of Fauquier—to waylay and destroy
or capture this wily foe who had so long eluded them.
All had failed. Mosby refused to be captured or destroyed.
If a large force came against him, he retreated to his mountain
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fastnesses—not a trace of his existence could be found. If the
force was small, he attacked and nearly always cut to pieces or
captured it. With his headquarters near Piedmont Station, on
the Manassas railroad, east of the Ridge, he knew by his scouts
of any movement; then couriers were seen going at full gallop
to summon the men, scattered among the mountain spurs, or
waiting at remote houses in the woods, to the previously specified
rendezvous—at Markham's, Upperville, Paris, Oak Grove,
or elsewhere; then Mosby set out; and he nearly always came
back with spoils—that is to say, arms, horses, and prisoners.
In November, 1864, this state of things had become intolerable.
Early had been forced to retire—that wolf with the sharp
claws; but Mosby, the veritable wildcat, still lingered in the
country as dangerous as ever. Immense indignation was experienced
by the enemy at this persistent defiance; and an additional
circumstance at this time came to add fuel to the flame
of the Federal displeasure. Hitherto, the Confederate partisan
had operated generally east of the Blue Ridge, between the
mountains and Manassas, guarding that whole country. With
the transfer of active hostilities, however, to the Valley, in the
summer and fall of 1864, he had turned his attention more especially
to that region. There were to be found the trains of
Hunter and Sheridan, the wandering parties of “Jesse Scouts,”
clad in gray, whom he delighted to encounter: in the Valley not
east of the Ridge was his most favourable field of operations—
and, above all, it was there that his services were chiefly needed
to protect the inhabitants from the depredations of these
detached parties which spread such terror amid the population.
To the Valley Mosby accordingly directed his attention, and
this region thenceforth became his main field of operations.
Scarce a day passed without an attack upon some wandering
party, upon some string of wagons, or upon the railroad by
which the Federal army was supplied. These stirring adventures
are the subject of a volume which will soon appear from
the accomplished Major Scott, of Fauquier. The object of
this chapter is to record the particulars of one of the fights
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referred to, in which a small band of Confederates under Captain
Mountjoy, that accomplished partisan of Mosby's command,
suffered a reverse.
Were it within the scope of the present article to draw an
outline of the person and character of this brave gentleman—
Captain. Mountjoy—many readers, we are sure, would derive
pleasure from the perusal of our sketch. Never was a braver
heart than his—never a more refined and admirable breeding.
Gallant-looking, cool, courteous, with his calm sad face over-shadowed
by the drooping hat with its golden cord; wearing
sword and pistol like a trained cavalryman; not cast down by
reverses, not elated by success—a splendid type of the great
Mississippi race from which he sprung, and a gentleman “every
inch of him.” Mountjoy's was a face, a figure, and a bearing
which attracted the eyes of all who admire in men the evidences
of culture, resolution, and honour. But this is not the place to
record the virtues of that brave true heart, gone now with many
others to a land where war never comes. We proceed to record
the incident which we have referred to.
It occurred, as we have said, in November, 1864, and the
scene was a mansion perched upon a hill, with a background of
woods, between the little village of Millwood and the Shenandoah.
This house was well known to Mosby, well known to
Mountjoy, well known to many hundreds of Confederate soldiers,
who—God be thanked!—never left its door without food, without
receiving all that it was in the power of the family to give
them, and that without money and without price.
A day or two before the incident about to be related, Mountjoy
had gone with a considerable party of men, towards Charlestown;
had made an attack; secured numerous horses and prisoners;
and on this afternoon was returning towards Millwood—
only by the river road—to cross the Shenandoah at Berry's
ferry, and secure his captures. Mountjoy had but one fault as
an officer—rashness. On this occasion he was rash. As he
returned from his scout, and arrived opposite the different fords,
he permitted, first one, then another, then whole squads of his
men to cross to their homes east of the Ridge, so that on
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reaching a point nearly opposite Millwood, he had with him only
fifteen men guarding the numerous horses and prisoners.
Then came the hostile fate—close on his heels. The attack
made by him upon the enemy down the river had greatly
enraged them. They had hastily mustered a considerable force
to pursue him and recapture the prisoners, and as he reached
Morgan's Lane, near the Tilthammer Mill, this party, about one
hundred in number, made a sudden and unexpected attack upon
him.
The force was too great to meet front to front, and the ground
so unfavourable for receiving their assault, that Mountjoy gave
the order for his men to save themselves, and they abandoned
the prisoners and horses, put spurs to their animals, and retreated
at fall gallop past the mill, across a little stream, and up the long
hill upon which was situated the mansion above referred to.
Behind them the one hundred Federal cavalrymen came on at
full gallop, calling upon them to halt, and firing volleys into
them as they retreated.
We beg now to introduce upon the scene the female dramatis
personœ of the incident—two young ladies who had hastened out
to the fence as soon as the firing began, and now witnessed the
whole. As they reached the fence, the fifteen men of Captain
Mountjoy appeared, mounting the steep road like lightning,
closely pursued by the Federal cavalry, whose dense masses
completely filled the narrow road. The scene at the moment
was sufficient to try the nerves of the young ladies. The clash
of hoofs, the crack of carbines, the loud cries of “halt! halt!!
halt!!!”—this tramping, shouting, banging, to say nothing of
the quick hiss of bullets filling the air, rendered the “place and
time” more stirring than agreeable to one consulting the dictates
of a prudent regard to his or her safety.
Nevertheless, the young ladies did not stir. They had half
mounted the board fence, and in this elevated position were
exposed to a close and dangerous fire; more than one bullet
burying itself in the wood close to their persons. But they did
not move—and this for a reason more creditable than mere
curiosity to witness the engagement, which may, however, have
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counted for something. This attracted them, but they were
engaged in “doing good” too! It was of the last importance
that the men should know where they could cross the river.
“Where is the nearest ford?” they shouted.
“In the woods there!” was the reply of one of the young
ladies, pointing with her hand, and not moving.
“How can we reach it?”
“Through that gate.”
And waving her hand, the speaker directed the rest, amid a
storm of bullets burying themselves in the fence close beside
her.
The men went at full gallop towards the ford. Last of all
came Mountjoy—but Mountjoy, furious, foaming almost at the
mouth, on fire with indignation, and uttering oaths so frightful
that they terrified the young ladies much more than the balls, or
the Federal cavalry darting up the hill.
Let us here, in parenthesis, as it were, offer a proof of that
high-breeding we have claimed for Captain Mountjoy. A young
lady expressed afterwards her regret that so brave a gentleman
should have uttered an oath, and this came to his ears. He at
once called to see her and said gravely, in his calm, sad voice.
“I am sorry that I swore. I will try not to do so again, but I
was very angry that day, as the men might have whipped the
enemy in spite of their numbers, if I could only have gotten
them to make a stand, and this was before you.”
But that was when his blood was cool. At the moment when
he brought up the rear of the men, Mountjoy was raging.
Nevertheless he stopped in the very face of the enemy, besought
the young ladies to leave the fence where they were exposing
themselves to imminent danger, and then, still furious, he disappeared,
most of all enraged, as he afterwards explained, that this
stampede of his men and himself should have taken place in the
presence of the young ladies.
The partisan had scarcely disappeared in the woods, when the
enemy rushed up, and demanded which way the Confederates
had taken.
“I will not tell you!” was the reply of the youngest girl.
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The trooper drew a pistol, and cocking it, levelled it at her
head.
“Which way?” he thundered.
The young lady shrunk from the muzzle, and said:
“How do I know?”
“Move on!” resounded from the lips of the officer in command,
and the column rushed by, nearly trampling upon the
ladies, who ran to the house.
Here a new incident greeted them, and one sufficiently tragic.
Before the door, sitting his horse, was a trooper, clad in blue—
and at sight of him the ladies shrunk back. A second glance
showed them that he was bleeding to death from a mortal
wound. The bullet had entered his side, traversed the body,
issued from the opposite side, inflicting a wound which rendered
death almost certain.
“Take me from my horse!” murmured the wounded man,
stretching out his arms and tottering.
The young girls ran to him.
“Who are you—one of the Yankees?” they exclaimed.
“Oh, no!” was the faint reply. “I am one of Mountjoy's
men. Tell him, when you see him, that I said, `Captain, this
is the first time I have gone out with you, and the last!' ”
As they assisted him from the saddle, he murmured:
“My name is William Armistead Braxton. I have a wife
and three little children living in Hanover—you must let them
know—”
Then the poor fellow fainted; and the young ladies were
compelled to carry him in their arms into the house, where he
was laid upon a couch, writhing in great agony.
They had then time to look at him, and saw before them a
young man of gallant countenance, elegant figure—in every outline
of his person betraying the gentleman born and bred. They
afterwards discovered that he had just joined Mosby, and that,
as he had stated, this was his first scout. Poor fellow! it was
also his last.
The scene which followed has more than once been described
to the present writer, and it made a dolorous impression on his
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heart. The wounded man lay upon the couch, struggling against
death, writhing with his great agony, and bleeding so profusely
that the couch was saturated with his blood. Even in that
moment, however, the instincts of gentle breeding betrayed
themselves in the murmured words:
“My spurs will—tear the cover—lay me—on the floor.”
This, of course, was not complied with, and the young ladies
busied themselves attempting to bind up his wound.
While one was thus engaged, another hastened to unbuckle
his belt, in order to secure his pistol. This was necessary, as
the Federal cavalry was already trampling in front of the house,
and shouting to the inmates.
Unable to undo the belt, the young lady quickly drew the
pistol from its holster, secreted it in a closet, and turning round,
saw that in this moment the dying man had rolled from the
couch upon the floor, where he was exclaiming: “Lord Jesus,
have pity upon me!”
She hastened back to him, and at the same instant the house
was literally crowded suddenly with Federal soldiers, who burst
open the doors, tore the ornaments from the mantelpiece, broke
everything which they could lay their hands upon, and exhibited
violent rage at the escape of the Confederates.
Those men were in gray. We neglected to state that fact.
Mountjoy's men were in blue. Thus the opponents had swapped
uniforms—the blue being gray, and the gray blue. This fact
caused the capture of the wounded man's pistol. The young
lady who had secreted it was kneeling by him, holding his hand—
or rather he had caught her own, as wounded men will, and
tightly held it—when a tall and very brutal-looking-trooper,
bending over the prostrate figure, saw the empty holster.
“Where is his pistol?” he thundered in a ferocious tone.
“What pistol?” said the young lady, firmly, and returning
the brutal gaze without flinching.
“His pistol!—you have hidden it! Where is it? — give it
up.”
And he pushed the wounded man with his foot, nearly turning
him over.
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“You'll not get it from me!” exclaimed the young lady, looking
boldly at him, every drop of her woman's blood aroused
inflamed, and defiant at this cruel act.
“Give me the pistol!—or—”
And he drew his own, pointing it at her.
“I've not got it!”
Here the voice of a diminutive negro girl, who had seen the
weapon secreted, and who took the Federal trooper in his gray
coat for a Confederate, was heard exclaiming—
“La! Miss—, 'tis in the closet, where you put it!”
And in an instant the man had rushed thither and secured it.
The house was now filled with men, rushing from top to bottom
of it, and breaking to pieces every object upon which they
could lay their hands. In the house at the time was Captain—,
a wounded officer of artillery, and Lieutenant—, a staff
officer, who had been surprised, and was now secreted in a
closet. Captain—'s room was visited, but he was not molested;
Lieutenant—was so skilfully concealed in his closet,
against which a bed was thrust, that he was not discovered.
Smashed crockery, shattered parlour ornaments, followed
spoons, knives, forks, shawls, blankets, books, daguerreotypes—
these and many other movables speedily appeared in dwindling
perspective; then they vanished.
Thus theft, insult, and outrage had their veritable carnival—
but the young ladies did not heed it. They were absorbed by
the painful spectacle of the wounded gentleman, who, stretched
upon the floor of the dining-room below, seemed about to draw
his last breath. He still held the hand of the young lady who
had removed his pistol; to this he clung with an unrelaxing
clutch; and the sight of her tearful face, as she knelt beside him,
seemed to afford him the only satisfaction of which he was capable.
“Pray for me!” he murmured, clinging to her hand and
groaning; “pray for me, but pray to yourself!”
“Oh, yes!” was the reply, and the wounded man sank back,
moaning, amid the crowd of jeering troopers trampling around
his “fallen head!”
To these an honourable exception speedily revealed himself.
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This was a young Federal officer, who came to the side of the
wounded man, gazed first at him, then at the young lady, and
then knelt down beside them.
The glazing eyes of the wounded man looked out from his
haggard face.
“Who are you?” he muttered.
“I am Lieutenant Cole,” was the reply, in a sad and pitying
voice; “I am sorry to see you so dangerously wounded.”
“Yes—I am—dying.”
“If you have any affairs to arrange, my poor friend, you had
better do so,” said Lieutenant Cole; “and I will try and attend
to them for you.”
“No—the ladies here—will—”
There he paused with a hoarse groan.
“You are about to die,” said the Lieutenant; “there is no
hope. I am a Christian, and I will pray for you.”
As he spoke he closed his eyes, and remaining on his knees,
silent and motionless, was evidently offering up a prayer for the
dying man, who continued to writhe and toss, in his great
agony.
There are men whom we regret, but are proud to have for
our enemies; this man was one of them.
When he rose his expression was grave; he threw a last glance
at the sufferer, and then disappeared. His fate was sad, and
seemed an injustice to so brave a gentleman. On the very next
day he was captured by a party of Confederates, and while
being conducted across the Blue Ridge thought that he discovered
an opportunity to escape. Drawing his pistol, which by some
negligence had been left upon his person, he fired upon his
guard. The bullet missed its aim—and the guard firing in turn,
blew out Lieutenant Cole's brains.*
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At nightfall the Federal troopers had torn the house to pieces,
taken all which they could not destroy, and had vanished.
Mountjoy had succeeded in getting off with his men. At six
o'clock on the next morning poor Braxton breathed his last, still
holding the hand of the young lady, which seemed to be all by
which he had clung to life.
Then a strange and unexpected difficulty arose. It is safe to
say that the young ladies of New York or Philadelphia, at that
moment buried in slumbers in their happy homes, surrounded
by every comfort—it is safe to say that they would have found
it difficult then—will find it difficult now—to conceive even the
great dilemma which their young rebel “sisters” were called upon
to face. The death of a friend would have been sad to the
young New Yorker or Philadelphian, but at least they would have
seen his body deposited in a rosewood coffin; the head would
have rested on its satin cushion; lace handkerchiefs raised to
streaming eyes, in the long procession of brilliant equipages, would
have been soothing to his friends, as indicating the general grief.
Here, in that good or bad year 1864, on the border, things
were different. There were no equipages—no lace handkerchiefs—
no satin, and rosewood, and silver—not even a coffin.
In the midst of their grief for the loss of that brave soldier of
one of the old Virginia families, their connexions, the young
Confederate girls were met by this sudden obstacle—by this
gross, material question, this brutal difficulty—where shall a
coffin for the dead be procured? There lay the dead body
pale, cold, terrible—how bury it as Christians bury their dead?
They did not cry or complain, but courageously set to work.
Beside themselves, there were in the house two young cousins
now, who had hastened to the place, Phil—and George—,
at that time mere boys. These went to the mill, past which
Mountjoy had retreated, and painfully raising upon their shoulders
some broad and heavy planks lying there, bore them up the
hill to the house. Then, accompanied by the youngest of the
girls, they went to an old saw-mill near the river, gathered
together a number of rails from old timber there, returned, and
began their lugubrious work.
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The details of their employment were as sombre as the employment
itself. The dead body was first to be measured; and this
was courageously undertaken by the youngest girl, who, placing
one end of a cord upon the dead man's forehead, measured to
his feet. The length was thus determined, and the boys set to
work, assisted by the girl, sawing, hammering, and nailing
together the rude box which was to contain all that remained of
the poor youth.
The work absorbed them throughout the short November day,
and only at nightfall was it finished. Then the fear seized upon
them that they had made the coffin too long; that the corpse
would not lie securely in it, and move when carried. A singular
means of testing the length of the coffin was suddenly hit upon.
The eldest of the young ladies, who had been watching the corpse
during the work, now approached, and without shrinking, lay
at full length in the coffin, which was then found to be amply
large. Then the body was deposited in it—the pious toil had
been accomplished.
Was not that painfully in contrast with the decent city
`arrangements,” which take from the mourner all the gross
details—permitting his grief to hover serenely in the region of
sentiment? This rude pine coffin differed from the rosewood;
the funeral cortège which ere long appeared, differed, too, from
the long line of shining carriages.
It consisted of three hundred horsemen, silent, muffled, and
armed to the teeth, for the enemy were close by in heavy force.
They appeared, without notice, about three hours past midnight,
and at the head of them, we believe, was Mountjoy.
The body, still in its rude coffin, was lifted into a vehicle;
some hasty words were exchanged with the young ladies, for a
large force of the enemy was near Millwood within sight, a
mile or two across the fields; then the shadowy procession of
horsemen moved; their measured hoof-strokes resounded, gradually
dying away; the corpse was borne through the river.
ascended the mountain—and at sunrise the dead man was sleeping
in the soil of Fauquier.
eaf521n6* A singular coincidence comes to the writer's memory here. The mother of
the young ladies whose adventures are here related, had on this day gone to attend
the funeral of young Carlisle Whiting at the “Old Chapel” some miles distant.
Young Whiting had been killed by a Federal prisoner, whom he was conducting
south, near Front Royal. The prisoner's pistol had been overlooked; he drew it
suddenly, and fired upon his guard, the bullet inflicting a mortal wound.
-- -- p521-580
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The writer's object in the present paper is to chronicle the
events of a day in the pine-woods of Dinwiddie in 1865, and
to mention a circumstance which impressed him forcibly at the
time; nearly convincing him of the truth of “presentiments,”
and warnings of approaching death.
It was early in February of the year 1865, and General
Grant had for some time been straining every nerve to force
his way to the Southside railroad—when General Lee would
be cut off from his base of supplies, and compelled to retreat
or surrender his army. Grant had exhibited a persistence
which amounted to genius; and the Federal lines had been
pushed from the Jerusalem to the Weldon road, from the
Weldon to the Vaughan and Squirrel Level roads, and thence
still westward beyond Hatcher's Run, toward the White Oak
road, running through the now well-known locality of Five
Forks. On the western bank of the run, near Burgess's Mill,
General Lee's extreme right confronted the enemy, barring his
further advance.
The Confederate right was almost unprotected by cavalry.
This unfortunate circumstance arose from the fact that after
the destruction of the Weldon Railroad as far south as Hicksford,
fifty miles from Petersburg, the cavalry was obliged to
repair to that distant point for forage. Never was anything
more unfortunate; but it was one of those misfortunes which
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no generalship could prevent. By sheer force of numbers,
General Grant had effected the destruction of the road; the
Southside road could not supply forage; the cavalry horses
must go to Hicksford or starve. Such was the explanation of
the fact that General Lee's right was guarded only by a small
regiment or two of horse, on picket.
Such was the “situation.” Grant on the banks of Hatcher's
Run; the Rowanty almost unguarded; the path open for cavalry
to the Southside road; Five Forks, and the retreat of
the Confederate army, looming in the distance. The passionate
struggle which had for four years drawn to the great arena the
eyes of all the world was about to be decided amid the sombre
pines of Dinwiddie.
A few scenes in these pine woods at the crisis referred to
may interest the reader. The narrative will probably convey
a better idea of the “times as they were” than a more ambitious
record—the familiar view being generally the best.
While the infantry lines were closing in the death-grapple in
front of Petersburg, the blue and gray horsemen were hunting
each other in the Dinwiddie forests, and the game was not unexciting.
The “events of a day” are here rapidly traced, just
as they appeared to the writer. No tremendous exploits will
be narrated or “thrilling adventures” recorded; but perhaps
some of the actual colouring of the great war-canvas will be
caught in the hasty memoir.
Returning from a tour of inspection at Hicksford, night surprised
me not far from Nottoway river; and having crossed
that turbulent stream at risk of drowning my horse, I spent the
night at the hospitable mansion of Mr. D—, not far from
Halifax bridge, on the Rowanty. The Federal forces were just
beyond the stream, and no Confederate picket between; but
the night passed undisturbed even by the prowling of a single
Federal scout; and on the next morning the line of march was
resumed for Petersburg by way of Malone's.
Two hundred yards to the left of Halifax bridge there suddenly
appeared a number of “scattered” cavalry-men—gray—
approaching at full gallop, evidently stampeded.
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“What is the matter?”
“The Yankees have crossed with two regiments at Malone's!”
from the hurrying horseman.
“Did you see them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is your regiment?”
“Back to Kirby's, and everything is ordered to Dinwiddie
Court-House!”
This report was soon confirmed by the rest, and “full particulars,”
as the journals say, were given. A strong force of Federal
cavalry had suddenly attacked the small regiment on picket
at Malone's, and dispersed it, nearly capturing Gen. William
H. F. Lee, who chanced to be there inspecting his lines. This
force had steadily pressed on, the Confederates retiring; was
now at Kirby's, and soon would be at Dinwiddie Court-House.
This was not eminently agreeable to myself personally.
“Kirby's” was on the only road to Petersburg, except by way
of Malone's—for the time rendered impracticable—and to
reach my journey's end it seemed necessary to make the circuit
by Dinwiddie Court-House. To attempt the road by Kirby's
was certain capture; and in an undoubted bad humour the
“solitary horseman,” as Mr. James would say, turned to the
left, crossed Stony Creek, struck into the “Flat Foot Road,”
and in due time drew near Roney's bridge, on the upper waters
of the stream, near Dinwiddie. Within a quarter of a mile of
the stream a soldier made his appearance, coming to meet me,
and this individual informed me with the politest possible salute
that I had better “look out, as the Yankees were at the bridge.”
“At the bridge! Where?”
“At Roney's bridge, just in front, sir.”
This was the “unkindest cut of all.” I had made a wearisome
circuit, reached a supposed place of crossing—and here
were my blue friends again like a lion in the path, rendering
it necessary to strike still higher up the stream. At this rate
it seemed probable that I would be forced to return to Petersburg
by way of Lynchburg and Richmond! Malone's—Kirby's—
Dinwiddie—the enemy were everywhere.
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A good military rule, however, is to “believe nothing you
hear, and only half you see.” The report that Federal cavalry
was at the bridge in front was probable, but not certain. They
might be Confederates; and taking the soldier with me, I proceeded
to reconnoitre. As we reached the vicinity, the woods
were seen to be full of dismounted cavalry, but whether these
were Federal or Confederate, it was impossible to say. Drawing
nearer, the men seemed to be the latter; nearer still, and
the surmise was confirmed. Regulation gray had long disappeared—
our cavalry were nondescript in costume—but the
sharpshooters in front were not in blue.
One came out to meet me, carbine ready—a quite useless
precaution it seemed—and the following dialogue ensued:
“What command?” I asked.
“General Lee's.”
“Where are the Yankees?”
“Just over the bridge.”
Then the road by Dinwiddie Court-House was blockaded!
Meditating with melancholy resignation on this fact, I unconsciously
turned my horse's head from the bridge, when my
friend with the carbine made a quick step toward me, and catching
his eye, I found the expression of that member doubtful,
puzzled, but not friendly. In fact the carbineer had his weapon
cocked, and was evidently ready to bestow its contents on me
if I moved a step.
Then, for the first time, the truth flashed on me. I was wearing
a blue “Yankee overcoat” concealing my Confederate uniform;
my hat was noudescript; there was absolutely nothing
to show that I was not some adventurous Federal officer who
had crossed the stream below, come up the Flat Foot road in
rear of the Confederates to reconnoitre, and was about to return
with the information acquired. To prevent this, my friend
with the carbine evidently intended to send a bullet after me
as soon as I moved.
This comic situation was a safety valve for all ill-humour,
and one of the men having run for his Lientenant, I gave that
officer my name and rank—which announcement was greeted,
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however, with a similar glance of doubt. A few words dissipated
this.
“Where is General Lee, Lieutenant?”
“Just over the hill.”
“I will go there.”
And accompanied by the young officer, I found General W.
H. F. Lee, who had been compelled with his one or two hundred
men—the whole force of the regiment—to retire behind
the stream. His sharpshooters were now posted to rake the
bridge if the enemy appeared, and a mounted party had been
sent toward Dinwiddie Court-House.
After a few moments' conversation with General Lee—that
brave and courteous gentleman, whom I am glad to call my
friend—I found that the reports of the cavalry-men were correct.
The enemy's horse, in strong force, had driven him back
to Dinwiddie, and were then at the Court-House. General Lee
informed me, laughing, that in the charge he had been very
nearly stampeded for the first time in his life, his horse, “Fitz
Lee,” an unruly animal of great power, having whirled round
at the first volley from the enemy, and nearly carried his rider
off the field! In great disgust at this unmilitary conduct, the
General had mounted a more manageable courser.
Whilst the General was narrating these particulars, two young
officers of his staff, Captains Lee and Dandridge, came in, after
a hot chase. The former had been entirely surrounded, but
kept the woods, taking advantage of every opening; and finally
perceiving an interval between the rear of one Federal cavalry
regiment and the head of column of another, he had put spurs
to his horse, charged the opening, and jumped through. The
latter officer was also “cut off,” and manœnvred in a similar
manner, when, as he turned a bend in the bridle-path which
he was following, he came suddenly upon a body of foot-soldiers
clad in dark blue, with burnished guns at the right shoulder
shift, steadily advancing southward. This was enormously
puzzling! Why should a Federal infantry battalion be going
south at that moment? And then there was something singular
in the uniform and equipments of the men—very unlike
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Federals. Their coats were of navy blue, of unfamiliar cut; and
they had cutlasses apparently in their belts.
Captain Dandridge had gazed at this party with astonishment
for some moments, when all at once he was perceived,
and an officer, apparently, beckoned to him. To go or not to
go—that was the question; but he finally decided to approach,
and did so. Then the mystery was quickly solved. The men
in blue were a battalion of Confederate marines, and they
were proceeding toward the Nottoway river to make a circuit,
approach James river far below City Point, board and seize
upon a Federal “ram,” and then steam up the James, and
destroy Grant's fleet of transports at City Point. This excellent
scheme was thoroughly arranged; the torpedoes to be
used were hidden in the woods of Nottoway ready for the
party, when a deserter went over and informed the enemy, in
consequence of which the expedition was abandoned.
We have seen how, by a singular chance, the battalion set
out on its march, armed and prepared, the very day that the
enemy's cavalry crossed the Rowanty. More singular still,
they passed along in rear of the Federal cavalry without discovering
them or being discovered. This, all things considered,
was one of the most curious events of the war; as the scheme
proposed for the destruction of the Federal transports was one
of the boldest.
General W. H. F. Lee waited at Roney's bridge for some
time, expecting an advance of the enemy's cavalry; but none
coming, he sounded to horse, placed himself at the head of his
small column of about eight or a hundred men, and pushed
out toward Dinwiddie Court-House to attack the raiders. Before
he had advanced far, intelligence came that the enemy had
evacnated the Court-House, and were falling back toward Cattail
Creek, in the vicinity of which their infantry was stationed.
General Lee immediately followed, came up with their rear
at Cattail, and here a brief skirmish took place, just as night
descended. The lines of Federal infantry which had advanced
that day were discovered; and no further advance in that direction
was attempted, the cavalry returning toward Dinwiddie.
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An odd incident marked this rapid ride after the retiring
Federal cavalry. In the middle of the road we found two
Confederate cavalry-men with a prisoner whom they had
caught, and the worthy in question attracted our attention. He
was clad in semi-military costume; a blue-gray overcoat of
fine cloth, with a long cavalry cape to it, decorated with a
dazzling row of buttons; an excellent new hat; and rode a
superb horse, which would have brought five or six thousand
dollars in Confederate money.
As we came up—Captains Robert Lee, Philip Dandridge,
and myself—this gentleman complained in animated terms of
the immorality involved in capturing “a non-combatant;” he
was not a soldier, only the “correspondent of the New York
Herald,” and he hoped that he would immediately be released.
This train of reasoning, impressed upon his listeners in a most
voluble and eloquent voice, accompanied by animated gestures,
did not seem to convince anybody; and the men were directed
to take the prisoner back to Dinwiddie Court-House, and as he
was evidently a man of decision and resources, “shoot him if
he tried to escape, making no attempt to recapture him.”
He was accordingly started back, under convoy of the two
cavalry-men, and had proceeded about three or four hundred
yards, when our attention was attracted to him again by an
outcry in that direction. Turning round, we saw that something
curious was going on, and hastily spurred to the scene.
Lo! as we approached, there was the prisoner scudding across
the field, his cape floating in the wind, his horse at a full run,
pursued by carbine-balls! None struck him, however; and in
a moment he had disappeared in the belt of woods near at
hand, in which lay perdus the line of Federal infantry.
A few words from the chop-fallen cavalry-men and an old
negro, at a small house near by, explained everything. Three
or four Federal cavalry-men had been left behind by their comrades
on the retreat, and had stopped at the house to ask the
way to their lines. While thus employed, the prisoner and his
escort came by; the Federal cavalry men rushed forth to the
rescue, “put their pistols” on the unsuspecting escort, and
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now both rescuers and rescued were safe within their own
lines!
The whole affair was truly laughable, and the gallant “correspondent”
deserved his good fortune, since he made a true
John Gilpin run for liberty. I did not grudge him the enjoyment
thereof at all, but must confess to a keen feeling of regret
at the loss of his horse. He appeared to be an excellent
animal; and to “covet your neighbour's horse,” if he chanced
to be desirable, was in those days the besetting sin of every
true cavalry-man!
At nightfall General Lee retired from Cattail Creek toward
Dinwiddie Court-House, the enemy having returned within
their lines; and I determined to continue my way to Petersburg,
where duty called me.
There was reason to doubt, however, the practicability of
this journey—at least over the regular “Boydton road.”
Simultaneous with the advance of the Federal cavalry, their
infantry had moved toward the Southside road; a severe
engagement had taken place on the Quaker road; and the
Federal infantry was known to have remained in its position,
its left probably across, or resting upon the Boydton road.
Now, as above intimated, it was necessary to follow this Boydton
road to reach Petersburg that night. I determined to try, and
so informed General Lee, who thereupon requested me to carry
a dispatch which he had just written, to General Gordon, commanding
the right of the army near Burgess', with an oral
message, information, etc., in reference to the cavalry movement.
A small detachment of cavalry, belonging to Colonel Phillips'
command, then on the right of the army, was placed at
my orders; and setting out about night, we soon debonched
upon the Boydton road, where at every step traces of the
Federal forces were met with—the raiders having harried the
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whole region—and some prisoners captured. The vicinity of
the bridge over Gravelly Run was thus reached, and beyond
the bridge glimmered the fires of a picket.
The question of greatest interest was whether the picket was
Federal or Confederate. The enemy's left was certainly near
this point, but so was our right. The plain method of deciding
was to try, and this was done—the cavalry detachment halting
a hundred yards off. Riding on the bridge, I found the planking
torn up, and in the centre a “yawning gulf;” at the same
moment a voice came from beyond, ordering “halt!” The
following dialogue then took place:
“Well, I have halted.”
“Who are you?”
“Friends.”
“Advance one.”
“Impossible—the bridge is torn up.”
“What command do you belong to?”
“What do you belong to?”
“I ask who you are!”
“Do you belong to Colonel Phillips' regiment?”
“No!”
This reply was discouraging. Colonel Phillips held the
extreme right; this should be his picket; as it was not, the
probabilities appeared to be in favour of the Federal picket
view. Under the circumstances, the next course seemed to be
a rapid “about face,” the use of the spur, and a quick retreat,
taking the chances of a bullet. The sudden click of a trigger
interrupted these reflections, and my friend in the dark said
briefly:
“I asked what command you belonged to!”
Something in the tone of the voice struck me as Southern,
and I replied:
“Well, I don't believe you are a Yankee; I belong to General
Lee's army.”
“All right; so do we,” was the answer. “You can come
over at the ford yonder.”
“What brigade is yours?”
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“General Pegram's.”
This reply ended all doubt. Pegram I knew was on Gordon's
extreme right. Not finding General Gordon, I had been
requested by General Lee to communicate with Pegram.
His headquarters were near the junction of the Boydton and
Quaker roads; and having turned over the cavalry detachment
to Colonel Phillips, I entered the old wooden building and
found General John Pegram.
This gallant young officer had been my school-fellow and
intimate friend in boyhood; and I had seen him every day
almost until his departure for West Point. After graduating
there he had entered the cavalry, served on the prairies, and
in 1861 returned to offer his sword to Virginia, where he was
received in a manner highly flattering, and placed in command
of the forces near Rich Mountain. The unfortunate result of
that campaign is known, and the proud and sensitive spirit of
the young soldier was deeply wounded. In spite of the assurances
of brave and skilful soldiers that the issue there was
unavoidable, considering the great force brought against him,
he persisted in brooding over it. “It would always be known
as `Pegram's surrender,' ” he said. It was soon forgotten, however;
greater events and greater disasters threw it in the background,
and the young soldier fought his way to high repute in
the Southern army. On the night when I met him, in February,
1865, he was commanding the advance brigade of General
Lee's right wing, and had held his ground all day against the
severest assaults of the enemy.
The cordial greeting of two friends, after long separation,
over, General Pegram mounted his horse to ride with me to
General Gordon's, beyond Burgess' mill, and on the way we
dropped military affairs entirely, to revert to scenes which had
taken place twenty years before, and speak of the “old familiar
faces” and things long previous to the war. If it were
necessary I could recall the entire conversation—the very
words uttered by my companion—for the sad event of the
next day engraved the whole upon my memory. In the voice
of the speaker there was a peculiar sadness, a species of
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melancholy depression, which it was impossible not to observe.
Something seemed to weight upon his mind, and the handsome
features of the young soldier (he was only about thirty), with
the clear dark eye, the gallant moustache, and the broad, fine
brow, were overshadowed by a heavy cloud. This obvious
depression, however, did not render him cold or distrait—
rather the contrary. He spoke of old friends and comrades
with the greatest affection and kindness; referred with something
very like womanly tenderness to a dear younger brother
of his listener, dead many years before; and the pleasure
which he derived from this return to the careless past was
unmistakable. But throughout all was that undertone of sadness
which I remembered afterwards, and could not forbear
regarding as the evidence of some mysterious presentiment.
This did not change at all when, after a ride of two or three
miles we reached General Gordon's, and were shown to the
General's chamber. General G.'s cheery voice, as he smoked his
cigar and discussed the events of the day, did not make my
companion smile.
“Do you expect a renewal of the attack to-morrow, General?”
I asked.
“Not on this side of the run, but I think it probable they
will make a heavy attack on General Pegram in the morning.”
The person thus alluded to was carefully examining a topographical
map at the moment; and his countenance and attitude
exhibited unmistakable depression and languor. When
we rose to go, the expression had not changed. As we shook
hands, he addressed me by the name which he had used when
we were school-fellows together, and said: “Come and see me
whenever you can.” And that pressure of the kind, brave
hand, that utterance of the good friendly voice, was the last
for me. On the next day the attack anticipated by General
Gordon took place, and General Pegram was killed while gallantly
leading his men.
Such was the soldierly ending of this brave young Virginian.
He had been married only a few weeks to a young lady
of rare beauty, and life seemed to open for him all flowers and
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sunshine; but the thunderbolt had struck him; his brave
blood went to swell that great torrent poured out by the gallantest
souls of the South.
This hasty sketch—beginning with jests, and ending in something
like tears—has aimed, in part, to record that presentiment
which the young soldier seemed to have of his approaching
fate. Wholly incredulous as the writer is of such warnings,
it is impossible for him to banish from his mind the fancy that
something conveyed to the young soldier a premonition of the
coming event. But he did his duty all the same, dying in
harness like a good soldier of the South.*
eaf521n7* The lapse of twenty pages after 564 is accounted for by omitting to number
the illustrations in their order. See list of illustrations.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
GEN. LEE'S RETREATE FROM PETERSBURG.—Page 579.
[figure description] Illustration page, which depicts Lee sitting proudly on his horse in the center foreground of the image. He is flanked by his soldiers, who are fighting Union soldiers who can be seen in the distant background. They are firing cannons into the Confederate soldiers, with one blast exploding over the head of Lee.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Page 585.[end figure description]
General Lee's retreat from Petersburg will rank among the
most remarkable events of history. As every circumstance
connected with it will prove interesting hereafter, when the
full history of this period comes to be written, I propose to
record some particulars which came under my observation;
and especially to describe the bearing of the illustrious Commander-in-Chief
of the Confederate forces while passing through
this tremendous ordeal.
An adequate record of this brief and fiery drama—played
from the first to the last scene in a few April days—would
involve the question of General Lee's soldiership. This question
I have neither time nor space to discuss; but I am much
mistaken if a simple statement will not set at rest for ever
those imputations which have been cast, since the surrender,
upon Lee's military judgment, by ignorant or stupid persons
throughout the country. The facts ought to be placed on
record. If General Lee continued, of his own choice, to occupy
a position at Petersburg from which, as events soon showed,
he could not extricate his army, it will go far to rob him of
that renown which he had previously won; and if General
Grant out-manœuvred and caught his great adversary by simple
superiority of soldiership, he is the greater general of the two.
The truth of the whole matter is that Lee was not surprised;
that he foresaw clearly what was coming; and acted from
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[figure description] Page 586.[end figure description]
first to last under orders against which his military judgment
revolted.
Orders were given by General Lee for the evacuation of
Petersburg, and, consequently, of the State of Virginia, at
least six weeks before General Grant broke through the Confederate
lines. The military necessity for this movement was
perfectly plain to all well-informed and intelligent persons, in
the army and out of it. It was only the ignorant or the hopelessly
stupid who cherished the hallucination that Lee could
continue to hold his works around Petersburg against Grant's
enormous force. Nevertheless there were a plenty who did
think so, and who looked upon things there as a sort of
“permanent arrangement.” Lee, in the estimation of these
persons, was the spoiled child of good fortune, greater than
fate, and the Army of Northern Virginia could not be whipped.
The Southern lines were to be held en permanence, and Grant
was to “keep pegging away” until the crack of doom. Such
was the fond delusion of all the “outside” class; those who
were accurately informed, and took the “inside” view, knew
better; and especially did General Lee know that unless he
was speedily reinforced, he could not continue to hold his
lines against the large and steady reinforcements sent to
General Grant. “More men; give me more men!” was the
burden of his despatches to the government. He had nearly
fifty miles of earthworks to defend against three or four times
his own numbers; and a child might have understood that if
Grant continued to receive heavy reinforcements, and Lee
none, while his army continued to diminish from casualties,
the time would soon come when retreat or surrender would be
the only alternatives. The reinforcements did not come,
however. The Army of Northern Virginia went on dwindling,
and Grant continued to increase his strength, until at the end
of winter the result of the coming campaign no longer admitted
of a doubt. The crisis had evidently come, and it was
perfectly plain that Lee must evacuate Virginia. All his
prominent Generals shared his views. One of them said: “If
Grant once breaks through our lines, we might as well go
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[figure description] Page 587.[end figure description]
back to Father Abraham, and say, `Father, we have sinned.' ”
If anything was plain it was this: that if the immense line of
Lee's works was broken anywhere, he was lost.
It is certainly nothing very remarkable that under these circumstances
General Lee should make an attempt to save his
army—the only hope of the Confederacy. There was only one
way to do it, and the opportunity of embracing that sole means
was rapidly slipping away. General Lee must move, if he
moved at all, on the line of the Southside Railroad toward
Danville, and he must move at once; for General Grant, who
knew perfectly well the necessities of his adversary, was pouring
heavy columns toward Hatcher's Run, to intercept him if he
made the attempt. The Federal army was kept ready day
and night, with rations cooked and in haversacks, for instant
pursuit; and each of the great opponents understood completely
his adversary's design. General Grant knew that General Lee
ought to retreat, and he had learned the important maxim that
it is always best to give your enemy credit for intending to do
what he ought to do. If Lee moved promptly toward Danville,
every effort would be made to come up with and destroy him;
if he did not retreat, time would be allowed the Federal army
to gradually fight its way to the Southside road. Once lodged
upon that great artery of the Southern army, Grant had checkmated
his opponent.
Upon this obvious view of the situation, General Lee, in
February, issued orders for the removal of all the stores of the
army to Amelia Court-House, on the road to Danville. A
movement of this sort is, of course, impossible of concealment,
and the whole army soon knew that something was “in the
wind.” Government cotton and tobacco was hauled away from
Petersburg; hundreds of the inhabitants left the place; all the
surplus artillery was sent to Amelia Court-House, and even the
reserve ordnance train of the army was ordered to the same
point. Then suddenly, in the midst of all, the movement
stopped. The authorities at Richmond had said, “Hold your
position.” Lee countermanded his orders and awaited his fate.
I say awaited his fate, because I am perfectly well convinced
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that from that moment he regarded the event as a mere question
of time. No reinforcements reached him, while Grant grew
stronger every day by reinforcements from Washington and
Sherman's army—two corps from the latter—and soon he had
at his command Sheridan's excellent force of 12,000 or 15,000
cavalry. He was pushing heavy columns, one after another,
toward the Southside road, and at any moment a general attack
might be expected all along the lines, while the élite of the
Federal force was thrown against Lee's right. Such an assault,
in his enfeebled condition, was more than General Lee could
sustain, unless he stripped his works elsewhere of all their
defenders; but a brave effort was made to prepare for the coming
storm, and Lee evidently determined to stand at bay and
fight to the last. The expected attack soon came. Grant
rapidly concentrated his army (amounting, General Meade
stated at Appomattox Court-House, to about 140,000 men) on
Lee's right, near Burgess' Mill; his most efficient corps of infantry
and cavalry were thrown forward, and a desperate attack
was made upon the Confederate works on the White-oak road.
A bloody repulse awaited the first assault, but the second was
successful. At the same time the lines near Petersburg were
broken by a great force, and the affair was decided. The Confederate
army was cut in two; the enemy held the Southside
Railroad, intercepting the line of retreat; and what Lee's clear
military judgment had foreseen had come to pass. Between
his 40,000 men and Danville were the 140,000 men of Grant.
I should think it impossible even for his worst enemy to
regard the situation of this truly great man at the moment in
question without a certain sympathy and respect. He was not
Commander-in-Chief only, but the whole Southern Confederacy
himself—carrying upon his shoulders the heavy weight of the
public care. Every confidence was felt in the patriotism and
sincere devotion of President Davis to the Southern cause—but
-- 589 --
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there was a very general distrust of his judgment, and his
administration had not made him popular. Lee, on the contrary,
was the idol almost of the people; and it was to him that the
South looked in this dark hour, calling on him for deliverance.
Up to this moment he had been in a condition to meet his
great responsibility. In a campaign of unexampled fury, dragging
its bloody steps from the Rappahannock to the Appomattox,
he had held his lines against almost overwhelming
assaults, foiling an adversary of acknowledged genius, commanding
a superb army. Against this army, constantly reinforced,
he had continued to hold the works around Petersburg,
and protect the capital; and to him, amid the gloom and depression,
all had looked as to their sole hope. There was no possibility
of General Lee himself escaping a knowledge of this
fact. It was in the faces and the words of men; in the columns
of the newspapers; in the very air that was breathed. Good
men wrote to him not to expose himself, for if he fell all was
over. In brief words, the whole country agreed that in this man
and his army lay the only hope of the Southern Confederacy.
If the reader realizes what I have thus tried to express, he
may form some idea of the crushing ordeal through which
General Lee was, on the 2d of April, called upon to pass.
The brief particulars about to be set down may furnish the
candid historian of the future with material to form an unbiassed
judgment of General Lee and his retreat. I am mistaken if
the narrative, however brief and incomplete, does not show the
great proportions and noble character of the individual—his
constancy under heavy trials, and his majestic equanimity in
face of a misfortune the most cruel, perhaps, which a soldier
can be called on to bear.
Soon after sunrise on the 2d of April the Federal columns,
in heavy mass, advanced from the outer line of works, which
they had carried at daybreak, to attack General Lee in his
inner intrenchments near Petersburg. When the present writer
reached the vicinity of army headquarters, on the Cox road,
west of the city, a Federal column was rapidly advancing to
charge a battery posted in the open field to the right of the
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house, and at that time firing rapidly. General Lee was in
the lawn in front of his Headquarters, looking through his
glasses at the column as it moved at a double quick across the
fields; and knowing the terrible significance of the advantage
which the Federal troops had gained, I looked at the General
to ascertain, if possible, what he thought of it. He never appeared
more calm; and if the affair had been a review, he
could not have exhibited less emotion of any description. In
full uniform, with his gold-hilted sword, and perfectly quiet
look, he appeared to be witnessing, with simple curiosity, some
military parade. But this “dress” costume was assumed, it is
said, with another view. He had dressed himself that morning,
I afterwards heard, with scrupulous care, and buckled on
his finest sword, declaring that if he was captured he would be
taken in full harness.
The movement of the Federal column became more rapid,
and the battery was soon charged; but it succeeded in galloping
off under a heavy fire of musketry. The column then
pressed on, and the Federal artillery opened a heavy fire on
the hill, before which the Southern guns—there was no infantry—
withdrew, General Lee retired slowly with his artillery, riding
his well-known iron gray; and one person, at least, in the
company forgot the shell and sharpshooters, looking at the superb
old cavalier, erect as an arrow, and as calm as a May
morning. When he said to an officer near, “This is a bad business,
Colonel,” there was no excitement in his voice, or indeed
any change whatsoever in its grave and courteous tones. A
slight flush came to his face, however, a moment afterwards.
A shell from the Federal batteries, fired at the group, burst
almost upon him, killing a horse near by, and cutting bridle-reins.
This brought a decided expression of “fight” to the
old soldier's face, and he probably felt as he did in Culpeper
when the disaster of Rappahannock bridge occurred—when he
muttered, General Stuart told me, “I should now like to go into
a charge!”
These details may appear trivial. But the demeanour of
public men on great occasions is legitimate, and not
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uninteresting matter for history. General Lee's personal bearing
upon this critical occasion, when he saw himself about to be
subjected to the greatest humiliation to the pride of a soldier—
capture—was admirably noble and serene. It was impossible
not to be struck with the grandeur of his appearance—no other
phrase describes it: or to refrain from admiring the princely
air with which the old cavalry officer sat his horse. With his
calm and thoughtful eye, and perfect repose of manner visible
in spite of the restive movements of his horse, frightened by
the firing, it was hard to believe that he saw there was no hope,—
and for himself, would have cared little if one of the bullets
singing around had found its mark in his breast.
In ten minutes the Federal troops had formed line of battle
in front of the Headquarters, and a thin line of Confederate
infantry manned the badly-constructed works on the Cox road.
If the Federal line of battle—now visible in huge mass—had
advanced at once, they would have found opposed to them only
two small brigades, which would not have been a good mouthful.
The amusing thing was to hear the “ragged rebels”—
and they were very ragged—laughing as they looked at the
heavy line apparently about to charge them, and crying: “Let'
em come on! we'll give 'em—!” Gordon was mean while
thundering on the left of Petersburg, and holding his lines with
difficulty, and at night one point at least was gained. The
surrender would not take place there. Where it would be was
not yet decided.
Before morning the army had been moved to the northern
bank of the Appomattox; the glare and roar of the blown-up
magazines succeeded; and accompanied by the unwieldy trains,
loaded with the miserable rubbish of winter quarters, the
troops commenced their march up the Appomattox, toward the
upper bridges.
General Lee was on his gray horse, leading his army in
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[figure description] Page 592.[end figure description]
person; there were no longer any lines to defend, any earthworks
to hold; the army was afloat, and instead of being depressed,
they seemed in excellent spirits. But the drama had only commenced.
The great game of chess between Grant and Lee commenced
on the morning of the 3d of April; the one aiming if possible
to extricate his army, the other to cut off and capture, or destroy
it.
The relative numbers of the opposing forces can only be
stated in round numbers. I understood afterwards that General
Meade stated the Federal force to amount to about one hundred
and forty thousand men. That of General Lee did not exceed,
if it reached, forty thousand. So great had been the drain
upon this historic army from the casualties of the past year,
from absence with and without leave, and other causes, that—
deprived of all reinforcements—it was now weaker than it
had probably ever been before. General Meade, it is said, expressed
extreme astonishment to General Lee when informed
of his small numbers, declaring that if General Grant had suspected
this weakness, he would have long before broken through
the Confederate lines. The statement was natural, and General
Meade doubtless believed in the ability of the Federal army
to have done so; but it is certain that General Grant made persistent
and desperate attempts to accomplish this very object,
in which his adversary, by rapid movements of his small force
from point to point, and obstinate fighting, had invariably
foiled him.
To return to the retreat. The Southern army had been so
long cooped up in its hovels and casemates—moving only by
stealth along “covered-ways”—that any movement anywhere
was a relief. In addition to this, the troops had not yet had
time to reflect. The sensation of being driven from their earthworks—
now like home to them—was stunning: and the men
did not at once realize the tremendous change which had all at
once taken place in the aspect of affairs. No man seemed yet
to have persuaded himself of the fact that “General Lee's
Army,” which only yesterday had held the long lines, in
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defiance of all comers, was to-day in full retreat, and bent first of
all upon escaping from the enemy they had so often defeated.
Gradually, however, the unhappy condition of affairs began
to dawn upon the troops; and all at once they looked the terrible
fact in the face. General Lee was retreating from Virginia—
most depressing of events!—and it was even a matter
of very extreme doubt whether he could accomplish even that
much. No troops were ever better informed upon military
affairs than those of the South; and the private soldier discussed
the chances with a topographical knowledge which could
not have been surpassed by a general officer with a map before
him. I heard one brave tatterdemalion, evidently from the
backwoods, say, “Grant is trying to cut off old Uncle Robert
at Burkesville Junction;” and another replied, “Grant can
get there first.” There, in a few words, was the essence of the
“situation.”
General Grant held the Southside Railroad, and was pouring
forward troops under Sheridan toward the Danville Railroad,
to which he had a straight cut without a particle of obstruction,
except a small force of cavalry—less than two thousand effective
men—under General Fitz Lee. General Lee, on the contrary,
was moving by a circuitous route on the north bank of the Appomattox,
encumbered by a huge wagon-train, and having in
front of him a swollen river, which proved a terrible delay to
him at the moment when every instant counted. So great were
the obstacles, that General Grant could have intercepted the
Southern column, had he made extraordinary exertions, even at
Amelia Court-House. General Lee did not succeed in reaching
that point until Wednesday, the 5th—the bridges over the
Appomattox being swept away or rendered useless by the
freshet which had covered the low grounds and prevented
access to them. The troops finally crossed on pontoons at
two or three places; and, although suffering seriously from
want of rations, pushed forward in good spirits to Amelia Court-House.
Up to this time there had been very few stragglers, the Virginia
troops turning their backs upon their homes without
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complaint, and satisfied to follow “Old Uncle Robert”
wherever he led them. The statement that desertions of Virginians
had taken place is untrue. They marched with their
brethren from the Gulf States cheerfully; and it was only
afterward, when broken down by starvation, that they dropped
out of the ranks. That some, seeing the sure fate before them—
surrender, and, as they supposed, long incarceration in a
Northern prison—left their ranks during the last hours of the
retreat, is also true; but, a few hours after they thus left their
colours, it was the general officers who looked out for avenues
of exit through the Federal cordon closing around, to avoid
the inevitable surrender; and who said to their men, “Save
yourselves in any way you can.”
The scene at Amelia Court-House on Wednesday was a
curious one. The huge army trains were encamped in the
suburbs of the pretty little village, and the travel-worn troops
bivouacked in the fields. They were still in good spirits, and
plainly had an abiding confidence in their great commander.
The brigades, though thinned by their heavy losses at Petersburg,
still presented a defiant front; and the long lines of veterans
with bristling bayonets, led by Longstreet, Gordon, and
Mahone, advanced as proudly as they had done in the hard
conflicts of the past. The troops were still in excellent morale,
and had never been readier for desperate fighting than at that
moment. Men and officers were tired and hungry, but laughing;
and nowhere could be seen a particle of gloom, or shrinking,
or ill-humour—sure symptoms in the human animal of a
want of “heart of hope.” I will add that I saw little of it to
the end.
The unavoidable delay in crossing the Appomattox had given
General Grant time to mass a heavy force—as General Meade's
report shows—at Burkesville Junction; and if it was General
Lee's intention to advance on the east side of the Danville road,
he gave it up. I believe, however, that such was never his
design. His trains were directed to move through Cumberland,
Prince Edward, and Campbell, toward Pittsylvania; and
the army would naturally keep near enough to protect them,
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moving southward between the Junction and Framville. While
the troops were resting at Amelia Court-House, and waiting
for the rear to come up, the Federal commander must have
pushed forward with great rapidity. His cavalry was already
scouring the country far in advance of the Confederate column,
and the numbers and excellence of this branch of their service
gave them a fatal advantage. The reserve train, containing
nearly all the ammunition of the Southern army, was attacked
and burned near Paynesville, and the fate awaiting other portions
of the army train was foreseen. Its unwieldy size and
slow movement made it an easy prey; and it was incessantly
attacked, and large sections carried off or destroyed. So numerous
were these captures, that nearly the whole subsistence
of the army was lost; and from this time commenced the really
distressing scenes of the march. The men were without rations,
and had marched almost day and night since leaving Petersburg;
their strength was slowly drained from them; and despondency,
like a black and poisonous mist, began to invade
the hearts before so tough and buoyant.
The tendency of military life is to make man an animal, and
to subject his mind in a great measure to his body. Feed a
soldier well, and let him sleep sufficiently, and he will fight
gaily. Starve him, and break him down with want of sleep
and fatigue, and he will despond. He will fight still, but not
gaily; and unless thorough discipline is preserved, he will
“straggle” off to houses by the road for food and sleep. Desertion
is not in his mind, but the result is the same. The man
who lags or sleeps while his column is retreating, close pressed
by the enemy, never rejoins it. Such is the explanation of the
phenomena exhibited on this retreat; and now why were the
troops thus left without rations, and compelled to scatter over
the country in search of enough food to preserve them from
starvation?
The reply to that question is, that rations for his army were
ordered to be sent to Amelia Court-House by General Lee;
that trains containing the supplies were dispatched from Danville;
and that these trains were ordered, by telegraph from
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Richmond,
to come on to Richmond, and did so, when the
bread and meat was thrown in the gutter, to make way for the
rubbish of the Departments. The rubbish was preserved for
subsequent capture, and the Army of Northern Virginia staggered
on, and starved, and surrendered.
If any one demands the proof of this assertion, I will give it.
General Lee left Amelia Court-House on the evening of the
5th, and from this time the army was incessantly engaged, particularly
with the Federal cavalry. On the 6th the enemy was
encountered in force; and line of battle was formed to repulse
them, if they advanced upon the trains then moving towards
High Bridge. It was on this evening that Generals Ewell and
Anderson were suddenly attacked and their commands thrown
into great confusion, in the rear of the wagon-trains. These
officers and others—including General Custis Lee, son of the
General—were captured, and the drama seemed about to end
here; but it did not.
To the hostile fate which seemed to be pressing him to his
destruction, General Lee opposed a will as unconquerable as the
Greek Necessity with her iron wedge. The terrible results of
this disorganization of Ewell and Anderson were averted by a
movement of infantry as rapid and unexpected as that of the
Federal cavalry. From the flanking column of Confederate
infantry a brigade was pushed across at a double-quick; and
between the disorganized troops of Ewell and the victorious
enemy rose a wall of bayonets, flanked by cannon. From this
human rock the wave went back; and though the lurid glare
of the signals along the Federal lines in the gathering darkness
seemed the prelude to another attack, none was made.
I have spoken briefly of this scene. It was one of gloomy
picturesqueness and tragic interest. On a plateau, raised above
the forest from which they had emerged, were the disorganized
troops of Ewell and Anderson, gathered in groups, unofficered,
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and uttering tumultuous exclamations of rage or defiance.
Rising above the weary groups which had thrown themselves
upon the ground, were the grim barrels of cannon, in battery,
to fire as soon as the enemy appeared. In front of all was the
still line of battle just placed by Lee, and waiting calmly.
General Lee had rushed his infantry over just at sunset, leading
it in person, his face animated, and his eye brilliant with
the soldier's spirit of “fight,” but his bearing unflurried as
before. An artist desiring to paint his picture ought to have
seen the old cavalier at this moment, sweeping on upon his
large iron gray, whose mane and tail floated in the wind; carryling
his field-glass half raised in his right hand; with head
erect, gestures animated, and in the whole face and form the
expression of the hunter close upon his game. The line once
interposed, he rode in the twilight among the disordered
groups above mentioned, and the sight of him raised a
tumult. Fierce cries resounded on all sides; and with hands
clenched violently and raised aloft, the men called on him to
lead them against the enemy. “It's General Lee!” “Uncle
Robert!” “Where's the man who won't follow Uncle Robert?”
I heard on all sides; the swarthy faces, full of dirt and
courage, lit up every instant by the glare of the burning wagons.
Altogether, the scene was indescribable.
This took place on the evening of the 6th of April. The
main body of the Federal army was now closing round Lee,
and it was only by obstinate and persistent fighting that he
was able to continue his retreat. Everywhere the Federal
forces were confronted by his excellently served artillery; and
the thin lines of infantry, marching on the flanks of the trains,
met and repulsed every attack with the old spirit of the Army
of Northern Virginia. In hunger, and thirst, and weariness,
and retreat, these veteran troops stood by their colours without
a murmur, and fought as admirably as when carrying all before
them, and flushed with victory. Others, however, were less
constant; rather, let us say, less physically competent. They
fell out of the ranks by hundreds, overcome by hunger and
exhaustion; or, what was equally bad, they dropped their heavy
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guns and cartridge-boxes, and straggled along, a useless, cumbrous
mob. On the morning of the 7th, beyond Farmville, the
Federal cavalry made continuous and desperate onslaughts on
the train, throwing everything into confusion. The teamsters,
always the least soldierly portion of an army, became panicstricken,
and the terrible roads increased a thousand-fold the
difficulties of the march. Wagons were captured or abandoned
all along, in spite of hard fighting, and from this time
the retreat became a scene of disorder which no longer left any
ground for hope. I intended to describe it, but the subject is
too disagreeable. Let some other eye-witness place upon record
these last scenes of a great tragedy.
On the 7th, General Grant opened his correspondence with
General Lee, stating that the result of the march, so far, must
have convinced him of “the hopelessness of further resistance;”
and this correspondence continued until the morning of the
9th, General Lee refusing to surrender the army. But his condition
was hopeless. The Confederate forces were reduced to
7,800 muskets, and Grant had in General Lee's front 80,000
men, with a reserve of 40,000 or 50,000, which would arrive
in twenty-four hours. These odds were too great; and although
General Gordon drove them a mile with his thin line half an
hour before the surrender, the Federal forces continued to close
in and extend their cordon of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
until the Southern army was almost completely surrounded.
Lee's line slowly fell back before this overwhelming force, and
the moment seemed to have come when the “Old Guard” of
the Army of Northern Virginia would be called upon to crown
its historic fame by a last charge and a glorious death. These
men would have died with Lee without a murmur, fighting to
the last; but any such wanton sacrifice of human life, without
any imaginable use, was far from the thoughts of the great
soldier. He had fought as long as he could, and done all in his
power to extricate his army from a position in which it had been
placed by no fault of his. Now he did not hesitate in his
course. At first he had recoiled from the idea of surrender
when it was suggested to him by, I think, General Pendleton.
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This officer had informed him that his corps commanders were
unanimously of opinion that surrender was inevitable; but he
had exclaimed, greatly shocked, “Surrender! I have too many
good fighting men for that!” Now the current had set too
strongly against him, and he was forced to yield. The army,
with less than eight thousand muskets, a very short supply of
ammunition, and almost nothing to eat, was at Appomattox
Court-House, in the bend of the James—wholly impassable
without pontoons—and on every side the great force of General
Grant was contracting and closing in. A Federal force had
seized considerable supplies of rations, sent down by railroad
from Lynchburg; and this force now took its position in front
of the Confederate army, slowly moving by the left flank toward
James river. General Custer, who seemed to be greatly elated
on this occasion, and to enjoy the result keenly, stated to Confederate
officers that Grant's force amounted to eighty thousand
men, and that a heavy reserve was coming up.
Under these circumstances General Lee determined to surrender
his army, and did so, on condition that the officers and
men should be paroled, to go to their homes and remain undisturbed
by “United States authorities” as long as they remained
quiet and peaceable citizens. Officers and men were to retain
their private property, and the former their side-arms.
Such was the Convention between Lee and Grant.
The Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered! Strange,
incredible announcement!
The effect which it produced upon the troops is hard to
describe. They seemed to be stupefied and wholly unable to
realize the idea. For Lee, the invincible, to yield up his sword
was an incredible thing; and when the troops could no longer
have any doubt, men who had fought in twenty battles, and faced
death with unshrinking nerve, cried like children. To yield is
a terrible thing—a bitter humiliation; and if the private
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soldiers felt it so keenly, we may imagine the feelings of the
leader who was thus called upon to write that word “Surrender”
at the end of so great a career. He had said once
that he “intended for himself to die sword in hand;” but now
not even this was permitted him. He must sacrifice his men
or surrender, and he decided without difficulty or hesitation.
If there are any poor creatures so mean as to chuckle at this
spectacle of a great man letting fall the sword which has never
been stained by bad faith or dishonour, they can indulge their
merriment. The men who had fought the illustrious leader
upon many battle-fields—who had given and taken hard blows
in the struggle—did not laugh that day.
The scenes which took place between General Lee and his
men were indescribably pathetic. I shall not speak of them,
except to say that the great heart of the soldier seemed moved
to its depths. He who had so long looked unmoved upon
good fortune and bad, and kept, in the midst of disaster and
impending ruin, the equanimity of a great and powerful soul,
now shed tears like a child.
“I have done what I thought was best for you,” he said to
the men. “My heart is too full to speak; but I wish you all
health and happiness.”
It may be asked why I have omitted from my sketch the
scene of surrender. There was no such scene, except afterwards
when the troops stacked arms and marched off. The
real surrender was an event which was felt, not seen. It was
nothing apparently; the mere appearance of a Federal column
waving a white flag, and halting on a distant hill. But the
tragic event was read in the faces of all. No guns in position
with that column so near; no line of battle; no preparations
for action! A dreamy, memorial sadness seemed to descend
through the April air and change the scene. Silence so deep
that the rustle of the leaves could be heard—and Longstreet's
veterans, who had steadily advanced to attack, moved back
like mourners. There was nothing visible in front but that
distant column, stationary behind its white flag. No band
played, no cheer was heard; the feelings of the Soutern
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troops were spared; but there were many who wanted to die
then.
This retreat was a terrible episode of military life, unlike any
which the present writer ever before saw; but he does not
regret having borne his part in its hardships, its sufferings, and
its humiliations. He is glad to have seen the struggle out
under Lee, and to have shared his fate. The greatness and
nobility of soul which characterize this soldier were all shown
conspicuously in that short week succeeding the evacuation of
Petersburg. He had done his best, and accepted his fate with
manly courage, and that erect brow which dares destiny to do
her worst; or rather, let us say, he had bowed submissively to
the decree of that God in whom he had ever placed his reliance.
Lee, the victor upon many hard-fought fields, was a great
figure; but he is no less grand in defeat, poverty, and adversity.
Misfortune crowns a man in the eyes of his contemporaries and
in history; and the South is prouder of Lee to-day, and loves
him more, than in his most splendid hours of victory.
John esten cooke.
Virginia, June, 1865.
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