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 THE OAMPAiaN from the WHDEENESS to PETERSBUEG. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 OP 
 
 Col. C. S. Venable, 
 
 (FOKMERLT OF GEN. R, E. LEE'3 STAFF,) 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 VIRGINIA DIVISION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, 
 
 At their Annual Meeting, held in the Virginia State Capitol, 
 at Richmond, Thursday Evening, Oct. 30th, 1873. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 GEO. W. GARY, PRINTER. 
 
 1879. 
 
ARMYIIORTH[RIIYIi)GiNIAM[MORIiLYOLOME 
 
 m 
 
 At the last meeting of the Virginia Division Army Northern Virginia As- 
 sociation, I was requested, by a unanimous vote of the large number of old 
 comrades present, to compile a volume which shall contain — 
 
 1. A carefully prepared Roster of Army of Northern Virginia. 
 
 2. The report of the great Lee Memorial Meeting in Richmond in Novem- 
 ber, 1870, with the addresses of General J. A. Early ; President Jeflferson 
 Davis, Colonel C. S. Venable, of the University of Virginia ; General John 
 S. Preston, of South Carolina ; General John B. Gordon, of Georgia ; Colonel 
 Charles Marshall, of Baltimore; General Henry A. Wise, of Richmond ; 
 Colonel William Preston Johnston, of Lexington, Virginia, and Colonel R. 
 E. Withers, of Wyrhevillp, Virghiia. Also the report of the organization of 
 the Army of Northern Virginia Association. 
 
 3. Reports of the annual reunions of the Virginia Division. Army of Nor- 
 thern Virginia, together with the addresses of Colonel C. S. Venable in 1873 ; 
 Colonel Charles Marshall in 1874 ; Major John W. Daniel in 1875 ; Captain 
 W. Gordon McCabe in 1876 ; Leigh Robinson, Esq , in 1877, and Colonel 
 William Allan in 1878. 
 
 The volume will be ready in November. 
 
 Those who heard these addresses or have seen them in print will be glad 
 to have them collected in a neat volume ; and comrades of our grand old 
 army who have been denied the privilege of mingling with us in our reunions 
 will rejoice to have in permanent form the eulogies pronounced by our gifted 
 President and his accomplished subalterns on the life and character of our 
 grand old chieftain ; the thrilling story of the campaign from the Rapidan to 
 Petersburg, as graphically told by Colonel Venable, of Lee's staff; the 
 strategic iiifluence of Richmond on the campaigns of the Army Northern 
 Virginia, as ably discussed by Colonel Charles Marshall, Lee's Military Secre- 
 tary ; the able and eloquent discussion of Gettysburg, by Major John W. 
 Daniel, of General Early's staff; the story of the siege of Petersburg, as told 
 in the scholarly, eloquent and valnable address of Captain W. Gordon Mc- 
 Cabe ; the vivid pictures of " the South before and at the battle of the Wil- 
 derness," by Private Leigh Robinson ; and the able, exhaustive and valuable 
 historic paper on " Jackson's Valley campaign," by Colonel William Allan, 
 Chief of Ordnance of the Second corps. 
 
 The book will be handsomely gotten up, and will be sold for $2, $2.25 
 or $2.50, according to binding. 
 
 As it will be published only for subscribers, it will be necessary to kno«\ 
 how many copies to print. 
 
 Please send us at once, then, your name, how maiiy copies you will take, 
 and what bindings, and do me the kindness to secure some subscribers among 
 your friends. 
 
 Address J. WM. JONES, Box 61, Richmond. Va., 
 
 Or J. TV. RANDOLPH & ENGLISH, Publishers, Richmond, Va. 
 
 rtf 
 
 ■'■Vi 
 
"o 
 
 Published by order of the Virginia Division of the Army of Northern 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 Gen. W. H. F. LEE, President. 
 
 Geo. L. Christian, 
 
 .Secretaries. 
 Leroy S. Edwards, 
 
 :} 
 
THE CAMPAIGN from the WILDERNESS to PETEESBDRG. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 Col. C. S. Venable, 
 
 (FORMERLY OP GEN. R. E. LEE'S STAFF,) 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 VIRGINIA DIVISION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, 
 
 At their Annual Meeting, held in the Virginia State Capitol, 
 at Richmond, Thursday Evening, Oct. 30th, 1873. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 GEO. W. GARY, PRINTER. 
 
 1879. 
 
L-4 lio 
 
 S^r 
 
ADDRESS, 
 
 Comrades and Friends — Warmly appreciating the kindness and 
 good-will of the Executive Committee in extending to me the 
 honor of an invitation to address you on this occasion, and recog- 
 nizing the duty of every Confederate soldier in Virginia to do 
 his part in the promotion of the objects of this Association, I am 
 here in obedience to your call. P'ellow soldiers, we are not here 
 to mourn over that which we failed to accomplish; to indulge in 
 vain regrets of the past; to repine because, in accepting the stern 
 arbitrament of arms, we have lost; nor merely to make vain-glo- 
 rious boast of victories achieved and deeds of valor done. But 
 we are met together as citizens of Virginia, as American freemen 
 (a title won for us by the valor and wisdom of our forefathers), 
 with a full sense of our responsibilities in the present and in the 
 future which lies before us, to renew the friendships formed in 
 that time of trial and of danger, when at the call of our grand 
 old Mother we stood shoulder to shoulder in her defence. More 
 than this: we are met to preserve to Virginia — to the South and 
 to America — the true records of the valor, the constancy and 
 heroic fortitude of the men who fought on field and flood under 
 the banner of the Southern Cross. With this view, I have 
 thought it not inappropriate on this occasion to give a brief out- 
 line of some facts and incidents of the campaign of the Army 
 of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Petersburg, which 
 may be of some little use as a memoir to some future seeker after 
 historic truth. I am aware that in this I am in danger of repeat- 
 ing much that has been told by different biographers and histo- 
 rians; but my desire is to give correctly some incidents of which 
 I was an eye-witness in that wonderful campaign, and to state in 
 brief outline some facts — accurate contemporary knowledge of 
 which I had the opportunity of obtaining — and to present these in 
 their proper connection with the statements of high Federal autho- 
 rities. These incidents will enable us, in some measure, to appre- 
 ciate that self-sacrificing devotion to duty which characterized 
 our great leader, and will serve to show how worthy the men of 
 that army, which he loved so well, were of his confidence and 
 
leadership. And here let me say that no man but a craven, 
 unworthy of the name of American freeman, whether he fought 
 with us or against us — whether his birthplace be in the States of the 
 South or in the States of the North — would desire t<s obliterate a 
 single page or erase a single line of the fair record of their glo- 
 rious deeds. 
 
 When General Lee set out from Orange Courthouse on the 
 morning of the fourth of May to meet the Army of the Potomac, 
 which moved at midnight of the third of May from Cul- 
 peper, he took with him Ewell's corps (diminished by General 
 Robert Johnston's North Carolina brigade, then at Hanover Court- 
 house, and Hoke's North Carolina brigade of Early's division, 
 which was in North Carolina) and Heth's and Wilcox's divisions 
 of A. P. Hill's corps, leaving Anderson's division of Hill's corps 
 on the Rapidan heights, with orders to follow the next day, and 
 ordering Longstreet to follow on with his two divisions (Kershaw's 
 and Field's) from Gordonsville. So, on May 5th, General Lee- 
 had less than twenty-six thou.sand infantry in hand. He resolved 
 to throw his heads of columns on the Old turnpike road and the 
 Plank road, and his cavalry on the Catharpin road on his right, 
 against General Grant's troops, then marching through the Wil- 
 derness to turn our position at Orange Courthouse. This was 
 a movement of startling boldness when we consider the tremen- 
 dous odds. General Grant's forces at the beginning of the cam- 
 paign have been given as more than one hundred and forty thous- 
 and of all arms, or about one hundred and twenty thousand in- 
 fantry, and all of these, except Burnside's corps of twenty thous- 
 and, were across the river with him on the 5th. General Lee 
 had less than fifty-two thousand men of all arms, or forty-two 
 thousand infantry — fifteen thousand of which, under Longstreet 
 and Anderson, a day's march from him, and the two North Caro- 
 lina brigades, under Johnston and Hoke, which reached him, the 
 one on the 6th of May, and the other on the 21st of May — at 
 Spotsylvania Courthouse. And here in the beginning was re- 
 vealed one great point in General Lee's bold strategy, and that 
 was his profound confidence in the steady valor of his troops, 
 and in their ability to maintain themselves successfully against 
 very heavy odds — a confidence justified by his past experience 
 and by the results of this campaign. He himself rode with Gen- 
 eral A. P. Hill at the head of his column. The advance of the 
 enemy was met at Parker's store and soon brushed away, and the 
 march continued to the Wilderness. Here Hill's troops came 
 in contact with the enemy's infantry and the fight began. This 
 battle on the Plank road was fought immediately under the eye 
 
of the Commanding-General. The troops, inspired by his presence, 
 maintained the unequal fight with great courage and steadiness. 
 Once only there was some wavering, which was immediately 
 checked. The odds were very heavy against these two divisions 
 (Heth's and Wilcox's), which were together about ten thousand 
 strong. The battle first began with Getty's Federal division, 
 which was soon reinforced by the Second corps, under General Han- 
 cock. Hancock had orders, with his corps and Getty's division 
 of the Sixth corps, to drive Hill back to Parker's store. This he 
 tried to accomplish, but his repeated and desperate assaults were 
 repulsed. Before night Wadsworth's division and a brigade from 
 Warren's corps were sent to help Hancock, thus making a force 
 of more than forty thousand men, which was hurled at these 
 devoted ten thousand until 8 o'clock P. M. in unavailing efforts to 
 drive them from their position. 
 
 Ewell's corps, less than sixteen thousand strong, had repulsed 
 Warren's corps on the Old turnpike, inflicting a loss of three 
 thousand men or more, and two pieces of artillery. Rosscr, on our 
 right, with his cavalry brigade, had driven back largely superior 
 numbers of Wilson's cavalry division on the Catharpin road. 
 These initial operations turned Grant's forces from the wide 
 sweeping march which they had begun, to immediate and ur- 
 gent business in the Wilderness. The army which he had set 
 out to destroy had come up in the most daring manner and 
 presented itself in his pathway. That General Lee's bold strategy 
 was very unexpected to the enemy, is well illustrated by the fact 
 recorded by Swinton, the Federal historian, that when the ad- 
 vance of Warren's corps struck the head of Ewell's column, on 
 the morning of the 5th, General Meade said to those around 
 him, "They have left a division to fool us here, while they con- 
 centrate and prepare a position on the North Anna; and what I 
 want IS to prevent these fellows from getting back to Mine Run." 
 Mine Run was to that General doubtless a source of unpleasant 
 reminiscences of the previous campaign. General Lee soon sent 
 a message to Longstreet to make a night march and bring up 
 his two divisions at daybreak on the 6th. He himself slept on 
 the field, taking his headquarters a few hundred yards from the 
 line of battle of the day. It was his intention to relieve Hill's 
 two divisions with Longstreet's, and throw them farther to the 
 left, to fill up a part of the great unoccupied interval between the 
 Plank road and Ewell's right, near the Old turnpike, or use them 
 on his right, as the occasion might demand. It was unfortunate 
 that any of these troops should have become aware they were to 
 be relieved by Longstreet. It is certain that owing to this im- 
 
pfession, Wilcox's division, on the right, was not in condition to 
 receive Hancock's attack at early dawn on the morning of the 
 6th, by which they were driven back in considerable confusion. 
 In fact some of the brigades of Wilcox's division came back 
 in disorder, but sullenly and without panic, entirely across 
 the Plank road, where General Lee and the gallant Hill in person 
 helped to rally them. The assertion, made by several writers, 
 that Hill's troops were driven back a mile and a half, is a most 
 serious mistake. The right of his line was thrown back several 
 hundred yards, but a portion of the troops still maintained their 
 position. The danger, however, was great, and General Lee sent 
 his trusted Adjutant, Colonel W. H. Taylor, back to Parker's 
 store, to get the trains ready for a movement to the rear. He 
 sent an aid also to hasten the march of Longstreet's divisions. 
 These came the last mile and a half at a double quick, in parallel 
 columns, along the Plank road. General Longstrcet rode forward 
 with that impcrturable coolness which always characterized him 
 in times of perilous action, and began to put them in position on 
 the right and left of the road. His men came to the front of 
 disordered battle with a steadiness unexampled even among vete- 
 rans, and with an ^lan which presaged restoration of our battle 
 and certain victory. When they arrived, the bullets of the enemy 
 on our right flank had begun to sweep the field in the rear of the 
 artillery pits on the left of the road, where General Lee was giving 
 directions and assisting General Hill in rallying and reforming 
 his troops. It was here that the incident of Lee's charge with 
 Gregg's Texas brigade occurred. The Texans cheered lustily as 
 their line of battle, coming up in splendid style, passed by Wil- 
 cox's disordered columns, and swept across our artillery pit and 
 its adjacent breastwork. Much moved by the greeting of these 
 brave men and their magnificent behavior. General Lee spurred 
 his horse through an opening in the trenches and followed close 
 on their line as it moved rapidly forward. The men did not 
 perceive that he was going with them until they had advanced 
 some distance in the charge; when they did, there came from 
 the entire line, as it rushed on, the cry, "Go back, General Lee! 
 Go back ! " Some historians like to put this in less homely 
 words; but the brave Texans did not pick their phrases. "We 
 won't go on unless you go back!" A sergeant seized his bridle 
 rein. The gallant General Gregg (who laid down his life on the 
 9th October, almost in General Lee's presence, in a desperate 
 charge of his brigade on the enemy's lines in the rear of Lort Har- 
 rison), turning his horse towards General Lee, remonstrated with 
 him. Just then I called his attention to General Longstrcet, whom 
 
he had been seeking, and who sat on his horse on a knoll to the 
 right of the Texans, directing the attack of his divisions. He 
 yielded with evident reluctance to the entreaties of his men, and 
 rode up to Longstreet's position. With the first opportunity I 
 informed General Longstreet of what had just happened, and he, 
 with affectionate bluntness, urged General Lee to go farther 
 back. I need not say the Texans went forward in their charge 
 and did well their duty. They were eight hundred strong, and 
 lost half their number killed and wounded on that bloody day. 
 The battle was soon restored, and the enemy driven back to their 
 position of the night before. Wilcox's and Heth's divisions 
 were placed in line, a short distance to the left of the Plank road. 
 General Lee's immediate presence had done much to restore 
 confidence to these brave men and to inspire the troops who 
 came up with the determination to win at all hazards. A short 
 time afterwards General Anderson's division arrived from Orange 
 Courthouse. The w-ell-known flank attack was then planned and 
 put into execution, by which Longstreet put in, from his own and 
 Anderson's divisions, three brigades on the right flank of the 
 enemy, rolled it up in the usual manner, uncovering his own 
 front, thus completely defeating Hancock's force and sending it 
 reeling back on the Brock road. The story of this and of 
 Longstreet's unfortunate wounding is familiar to all. His glori- 
 ous success and splendid action on the field had challenged the 
 admiration of all. As an evidence of the spirit of the men on 
 this occasion, the Mississippi brigade of Heth's division, com- 
 manded by the gallant Colonel Stone, though the division was 
 placed further to the left, out of the heat of battle, preferred 
 to remain on the right, under heavy fire, and fought gallantly 
 throughout the day under Longstreet. 
 
 When General Grant commenced his change of base and turn- 
 ing operation on the evening of the 7th, General Lee, with firm 
 reliance on the ability of a small body of his troops to hold heavy 
 odds in check until he could bring assistance, sent Anderson, wdio 
 had been promoted to the command of Longstreet's two divisions, 
 to confront his columns at Spotsylvania Courthouse. Stuart, too, 
 threw his cavalry across Grant's line of march on the Brock road. 
 The enemy's cavalry (div^ision) failing to dislodge Stuart, gave up 
 the accomplishment of that work to the Fifth corps (Warren's). 
 When Anderson arrived at Spotsylvania Courthouse, he found 
 the cavalry (Fitz. Lee's division), at the Courthouse, maintaining 
 gallantly an unequal fight with the Fifth corps and Torbert's cav- 
 alry division. Torbert was checked on his right, and Stuart, with 
 with the assistance of several brigades of infantry sent to him by 
 
e 
 
 Anderson, soon created in the enemy what Swinton describes as 
 "an excited and nervous condition of mind and a tendency to 
 stampede" — ascribed by him, however, to want of rest and Wil- 
 derness experience. Stuart stopped their advance, and they fell 
 to entrenching of their own accord. The conduct and skill of 
 Stuart in this fight on the 8th, on which so much depended, 
 always met the warm approval of the Commanding-General, and 
 he spoke of it, with grateful remembrance, in the days of March, 
 '65, when disasters began to crowd upon us. Let us lay this laurel 
 on the tomb of him who so soon afterwards rendered up his life 
 leading, with heroic courage, his mere handful of wearied men 
 against Sheridan's overwhelming numbers. That General Grant 
 did not push up other troop^ to Warren's assistance to enable 
 him to drive these two divisions (now perhaps not more than 
 eight thousand strong) from his front, is attributable to the fact 
 that he detained Hancock (the nearest supporting corps) to meet 
 an anticipated attack from General Lee on his rear. That Gene- 
 ral Lee with his small force, reduced by two days' heavy fighting, 
 should check this great body of one hundred and twenty thous- 
 and infantry (reduced by Wilderness experience), and at the same 
 time threaten its rear and cause the Federal commander to send 
 to Washington for reinforcements, is a thing almost unparalleled 
 in the history of war. On General Lee's arrival with Ewell's 
 corps in the afternoon, after a second repulse of the enemy, the line 
 of Spotsylvania was taken up. That a part of the line was Avcak 
 on Rodes' right and General Edward Johnson's salient, has often 
 been asserted. The reason for taking it was that the road in the 
 rear might be left free from missiles for the convenient use of the 
 trains. 
 
 The repulse of Hancock's corps in its attempt to threaten our 
 left and rear by General Early with Heth's division, and the 
 terrible repulses given by Anderson's corps (Field's and Ker- 
 shaw's divisions) to the repeated assaults of heavy columns, 
 thrown against them from the Second and Fifth corps, and to the 
 grand assault by both of these corps simultaneously at five o'clock 
 in the afternoon, are matters of record. The odds here were 
 seven or eight thousand men against one-half the 'Federal in- 
 fantry. Nothing but the absolute steadiness and coolness of our 
 men could have met and repelled these onslaughts. Our men 
 would often call out, " Yonder they come, boys, with five lines of 
 battle!" and after driving them back, would creep out cautiously 
 and gather up the muskets and cartridges of the dead braves who 
 had fallen nearest our line; so that to meet subsequent attacks, 
 many of the men were provided each with several loaded mus- 
 
kets. This extemporaneous substitute for breech-loaders was not 
 to be despised when we consider the thinness of our troops in 
 the defences, the absence of reserves, the tremendous odds of the 
 Federal forces, and the remorseless manner with which their 
 corps commanders sent them into these repeated assaults. 
 
 Indeed, it became pitiful to see the slaughter of these brave 
 men in their unavailing attacks and to hear their groans as they 
 lay dying near the Confederate line. One brave youth, a ser- 
 geant of a New York regiment, who fell shot through both knees 
 not far from our breastworks, was for many hours an especial 
 object of sympathy to his foes. He was seen making in his 
 misery vain efforts at self-destruction. Repeated attempts were 
 made by our men to bring him in, but the Federal sharpshooters 
 were very active and rendered it impossible to get to him, and on 
 the nth May, when the Federal forces had withdrawn from that 
 part of our line, there, amidst the blackened, swollen corpses of 
 the assailants, whose sufferings had been more brief, lay this boy 
 with the fresh, fair face of one just dead. 
 
 On the afternoon of the loth a portion of the Sixth corps 
 (General Sedgwick's) succeeded in piercing Rodes' line on the 
 front, occupied by Dole'.s Georgia brigade. General Lee had his 
 quarters for the day on a knoll about a hundred and fifty yards 
 in the rear of this part of the lines and in full view of it. He at 
 once sent an aid-de-camp to General Edward Johnson, on Rodes' 
 riglit, and mounting his horse, assisted in rallying the troops and 
 forming them for the recapture of the lines. Under his eye, 
 Rodes' troops and Gordon's brigade, which had been brought up 
 from the left, went forward in handsome style, recovering the 
 lines and the battery, which, after doing much execution at short 
 range, had fallen into the hands of the attacking force. 
 
 Swinton, blindly followed by several other writers, .speaks here 
 of the capture of nine hundred prisoners from Rodes. . This is 
 an entire mistake — the captured were very few. On the nth 
 General Grant withdrew from our left, and General Lee became 
 convinced that he was going to swing round to turn our right; 
 he, therefore, ordered the artillery on a portion of our left to be 
 withdrawn from the immediate front so as to be ready to move 
 at a moment's notice. On that night General Johnson, hearing 
 the enemy massing on his front, sent a message to his corps com- 
 mander (General Ewell) asking the return of his artillery. He 
 also sent to General Gordon, commanding Early's division, asking 
 a reinforcement of two brigades (Hays' and Pegram's), which he 
 placed in a second line on the rear of what he considered- the 
 weakest of his defences. 
 
8 
 
 The delay of the artillery and consequent disaster to Johnson's 
 division are matters of record. The actual loss in captures was 
 about three thousand men (his division was four thousand strong 
 at the beginning of the campaign) and eighteen pieces of artillery, 
 which the enemy did not get, however, for twenty hours. Johnson's 
 message to his corps commander about the massing of the enemy 
 in his front did not reach General Lee. He usually, in these 
 days at Spotsylvania, left the battlefield at nine or ten o'clock in 
 the evening for his tent, a short distance in the rear. Rising at 
 3 A. M. and breakfasting by candle light, he returned to the front. 
 On the morning of the I2th, hearing the firing, he rode rapidly 
 forward, but did not know of the disaster to Johnson's division 
 until he reached the front. Before he arrived, Brigadier-General 
 Gordon, commanding Early's division, in obedience to orders 
 previously given by General Lee to support any portion of the 
 line about the salient which might be attacked, hearing the firing 
 about daylight, had moved forward towards the salient with his 
 division. Moving in column in the dim light, with General 
 Robert Johnston's North Carolina brigade in front, he came in 
 contact with Hancock's line advancing through the woods, it having 
 overrun General Edward Johnson's division, capturing his lines 
 and a large number of his men. The enemy's line thus moving 
 on stretched across our works on both their flanks, thus taking 
 our men in the trenches on both sides the captured angle com- 
 pletely in flank. They fired on Gordon's advancing column, 
 severely wounding General Robert Johnston and causing some 
 confusion among the men. It was still not light — the • woods 
 dense, and the morning rainy. A line of troops could not be 
 seen a hundred yards off. It was a critical moment. Gordon 
 halted his column, and with that splendid audacity which charac- 
 terized him, deployed a brigade as skirmishers — extending, as he 
 supposed, across the whole Federal front — and ordered a charge 
 by this line of skirmishers. This charge caused that part of the 
 Federal troops whose front they covered to hesitate long enough 
 to enable him to get his troops into line; but the Federal line on 
 Gordon's right still pressed on, threatening his right-rear and the 
 right flank of Hill's corps (commanded by General Early) in the 
 trenches. They were here checked by General Lane's North 
 Carolina brigade, who, throwing his left flank back from the 
 trenches, confronted their advance. 
 
 Gordon soon arranged the left of his division to make an effort 
 to recapture the lines by driving the enemy back with his right. 
 As he was about to move forward with his Georgia and Virginia 
 brigades in the charge. General Lee, who had reached the front 
 
•a few minutes before, rode up and joined him. Seeing that Lee 
 was about to ride with him in the charge, the scene of the 6th of 
 May was repeated. Gordon pointed to his Georgians and Vir- 
 ginians, who had never failed him, and urged him to go to the 
 rear. This incident has passed into history, and I will not repeat 
 the details here. Suffice it to say Lee yielded to his brave 
 men, accepting their promise to drive the enemy back. Gordon, 
 carrying the colors, led them forward in a headlong, resistless 
 charge, which carried every thing before it, recapturing the 
 trenches on the right of the salient, and a portion of those on the 
 left, recovering some of the lost guns and leaving the rest of 
 them on disputed ground between our troops and the portion of 
 the line still held by the enemy. As Hancock's left and centre 
 were thus checked by Gordon's audacious line of skirmishers 
 and Lane's disposition of his brigade on Hill's left, and finally 
 hurled back by this splended charge of Gordon's brigades, so his 
 right was met by Ramseur's North Carolina brigade, of General 
 Rodes' division, who attacked and pressed it steadily back towards 
 the angle. Rodes bringing up the rest of his division to Ram- 
 seur's assistance, Hancock was thrown completely back on that 
 portion of the captured line to the left of the salient, and here, in 
 this narrow space, was waged the tremendous combat throughout 
 tlie entire day. In the space between the contending lines lay 
 fourteen of the eighteen pieces of artillery, swept over by the Fed- 
 erals as they leaped into the salient in the early morning, before they 
 were even unlimbercd — neither party being able to take posession 
 of them. What was left of Johnson's division had been im- 
 mediately attached to Gordon's command, and at an early hour 
 a portion of Gordon's men were set to work to make a strong 
 entrenched line, about three hundred yards in rear of the cap- 
 tured salient, in order thus to render its occupation of no advan- 
 tage to the foe. 
 
 The Sixth corps was sent by General Grant about 6 A. M. to 
 reinforce Hancock, and somewhat later he sent two divisions of 
 Warren's corps. General Lee sent to the assistance of General 
 Rodes, on whose front the confined battle raged, three brigades 
 during the day — McGowan's South Carolina brigade, Perrin's 
 Alabama brigade and Harris' brigade of Mississippians. Now, 
 Rodes' division at the beginning of the campaign was about six 
 thousand five hundred muskets, and it had already done some 
 heavy fighting in the Wilderness and on the Spotsylvania lines. 
 The brigades sent to his assistance did not number twenty-five 
 hundred men. So that Rodes, with less than teji thousand men, 
 kept back for eighteen hours more than one-half of General 
 2 
 
10 
 
 Grant's infantry, supported by a heavy fire of Federal artillery. 
 There was one continuous roll of musketry from dawn till mid- 
 night. The Spotsylvania tree cut down by bullets was a proof, 
 not only of the closeness of the contestants, but of the narrow 
 space to which the battle was confined. During the day there 
 was a second repetition of the occurrence of the 6th May. Gene- 
 ral Lee had his position nearly all day near a point on Heth's 
 line to the left of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Rodes sent to him 
 asking for reinforcements. He sent me to the right of the line 
 to guide Harris' brigade of Mississippians from the right of our 
 line down to Rodes. The brigade, in coming across from the 
 right, passed near General Lee's position. He rode out from a 
 little copse alone and placed himself by General Harris' side at 
 the head of his column. Soon the troops came under the artillery 
 fire of the enemy. General Lee's horse reared under the fire, 
 and a round shot passed under him very near the rider's stirrup. 
 The men halted and shouted to him to go back, and, in fact, 
 refused to move if he marched with them. He told them he 
 would go back if they would only promise him to retake 
 the lines. The men shouted, in response, " We will ! We 
 will, General Lee!" He then repeated the order to me to 
 guide them down to General Rodes, and rode slowly away 
 towards Heth's lines. The Mississippians marched on with 
 steady step to the front — " Into the mouth of hell, marched the 
 eight hundred;" theirs but to do and die, for they had promised 
 Lee. They cheered lustily the gallant Rodes, as they passed 
 into the deadly fray. Coming in at a time when Ramseur was 
 heavily pressed, the day was saved. This was the last reinforce- 
 ment sent in. The lines were not retaken, but the enemy was 
 pressed back into the narrow angle and held there on the defen- 
 sive until midnight. The homely simplicity of General Lee in 
 these scenes of the 6th and I2th of May, is in striking contrast 
 with the theatrical tone of the famous order of Napoleon at 
 Austerlitz, in which he said: "Soldiers, I will keep myself at a 
 distance from the fire, if with your accustomed valor you carry 
 di-sorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks; but if victory 
 appear uncertain, you will see your Emperor expose himself in 
 the front of battle." It is the contrast of the simple devotion to 
 duty of the Christian patriot, thoughtless of self, fighting 
 for all that men held dear, with the selfish spirit of the soldier of 
 fortune, " himself the only god of his idolatry." 
 
 I have been thus particular in giving this incident, because it 
 has been by various writers of the life of Lee confounded with 
 the other two incidents of a like character which I have before 
 given. In fact, to our great Commander, "so low in his opinion 
 
11 
 
 of himself and so sublime in all his actions," these were matters 
 of small moment; and when written to by a friend in Maryland 
 (Judge Mason), after the war, as to whether such an incident 
 ever occurred, replied, briefly, "Yes; General Gordon was the 
 General" — alluding thus concisely to the incident of the early 
 morning of the 1 2th, when General Gordon led the charge, pass- 
 ing over the similar occurrences entirely, in his characteristic 
 manner of never speaking of himself when he could help it. 
 But that which was a small matter to him was a great one to the 
 men whom he thus led. 
 
 At nightfall our line of battle still covered four of the eighteen 
 contested guns. The interior line was finished later, and our 
 wearied heroes were withdrawn to it about midnight. Unfortu- 
 nately, the four recaptured pieces, through the darkness of the 
 night and difficulty of the ground, became bogged in a swamp 
 while being brought off, and so were left outside of the new lines 
 and fell again into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 During the day, the enemy, under the impression that General 
 Lee had weakened his lines to reinforce our troops in Hancock's 
 front, made an attack, which was repulsed with heavy loss to the 
 attacking column. The repulse of this attack of Burnside on 
 Wilcox's front, the splendid execution done by the artillery of 
 Heth's line on the flank of the attacking party, and the counter 
 attacks by brigades of Hill's corps, sent out in front of our lines 
 during the day, have been recorded by the graphic pen of Gene- 
 ral Early, who had been assigned to the command on account of 
 General Hill's sickness on the 7th of May.* The restoration of 
 the battle on the 12th, thus rendering utterly futile the success 
 achieved by Hancock's corps at daybreak, was a wonderful feat 
 of arms, in which all the troops engaged deserve the greatest 
 credit for endurance, constancy and unflinching courage; but 
 without unjust discrimination, we may say that Gordon, Rodes 
 and Ramseur were the heroes of this bloody day. General Lee 
 recommended Gordon to be made Major-General of date 12th 
 May. Rodes and Ramseur were destined alas ! in a few short 
 months, to lay down their noble lives in the Valley of Virginia. 
 There was no victor's chaplet more highly prized by the Roman 
 soldier than that woven of the grass of early spring. Then let 
 the earliest flowers of May always be intertwined in the garlands 
 which the pious hands of our fair women shall lay on the tombs 
 of Rodes and Ramseur and of the gallant dead of the battle of 
 twenty hours at Spotsylvania.f 
 
 * General Hill, though unable to sit up, in these days of Spotsylvania, 'WOuUl have himself 
 drawn up in tns ambulance immediately in rear of the lines. Such was his anxiety to be 
 near h's troops. 
 
 tThe question has been asked since the war why General Lee sent no telegram to Rich- 
 mond concerning this battle of Mav 12th. He did send such a telegram to the War Depart- 
 ment. Of its further history I know nothing. 
 
 \ 
 
12 
 
 The captured angle, now useless to the enemy, \\as abandoned 
 by them on the 14th. The attacks made on our lines by General 
 Grant on the 14th and iSth were v^ery easily repulsed. On the 
 afternoon of the 19th, General Lee sent Ewell with his corps to 
 the north side of the narrow Ni river to attack the Federal trains 
 and threaten Grant's line of communication with Fredericksburg. 
 After Ewell crossed and was already engaged with Tyler's divi- 
 sion of the enemy, guarding the trains, General Lee became 
 aware for the first time that on account of the difficulties of the 
 way through the flats on the river, he had not taken his artillery 
 with him. He Avas rendered uneasy by this, and sent orders to 
 General Early to extend his left so as to close up, as far as prac- 
 ticable, the gap between his corps and General Ewell's. Fortu- 
 nately, General Hampton, who accompanied Ewell with his cav- 
 alry brigade, carried with him a battery of horse artillery, and 
 did good service in relieving the difficulties of General Ewell's 
 situation. Li this movement some execution was done on some 
 of Grant's newly arrived reinforcements before they were rein- 
 forced by troops from the Second and Fifth corps. General 
 Ewell withdrew to the south side of the Ni without much loss. 
 This affair delayed the contemplated turning movement of the 
 Federal army for twenty-four hours. 
 
 On the night of the 20th of May, having discovered,. after 
 twelve days of hopeless effort, that Lee's position could not be 
 carried, General Grant began his movement to the North Anna. 
 
 General Lee had received no reinforcements since the begin- 
 ning of the campaign, except the two absent brigades of Ewell's 
 corps, mentioned before. He telegraphed to General Breckin- 
 ridge, after the victory of the latter over Siegel at New Market 
 on May i6th, to come to him with his division, and Pickett's 
 division was moving to him from North Carolina and Petersburg. 
 
 Gr^nt left his dead unburicd in large numbers both at the Wilder- 
 ness and Spotsylvania Courthouse, and many thousand muskets 
 scattered through the woods. The Confederates being in pos- 
 session of these battlefields, the Ordnance officers were instructed 
 to collect the materials of war left thereon. Among other things, 
 they obtained more than one hundred and twenty-two thousand 
 pounds of lead in bullets, which were recast in Richmond and 
 fired again at the enemy before the close of the campaign. 
 
 The head of Pickett's division reached the army as we began 
 the march to the Northanna, and Breckinridge's division from 
 the Valle)', about two thousand seven hundred strong, was added 
 to the Army of Northern Virginia at Hanover junction on the 
 24th of May. 
 
 When General Grant's troops, on the morning of May 23d, 
 
13 
 
 reached the north bank of the North Anna, he found the Army 
 of Northern Virginia in position on the south side. Not much 
 force was wasted in preventing the crossing of the Federal forces. 
 Warren's corps crossed on our left at Jericho ford, without oppo- 
 sition, and Hancock soon overcame the few men left in the old 
 earthworks at the bridge. Once on the south side it was another 
 matter. General Grant found General Lee's centre near the 
 river; his right reposed on the swamps and his left thrown back 
 obliquely towards the Little river behind him. He discovered, 
 at a heavy cost of life, that in this position he could make no pro- 
 gress in attempting to force it. In fact one onslaught on our 
 right was repulsed by merely doubling the line of skirmishers in 
 front of the division (Rodes') attacked. The Federal com- 
 mander says, in his report: "Finding the enemy's position on 
 the North Anna stronger than either of his previous ones, I with- 
 drew on the night of the 26th to the north bank of the North 
 Anna." Says the chronicler of the Army of the Potomac: "The 
 annals of war seldom present a more effective checkmate than 
 was thus given by Lee." 
 
 But it would be a mistake, in estimating General Lee as a 
 soldier, to assume that it was his role to permit General "Grant to 
 move around his flank at will, and then to content himself by 
 our interior and shorter lines, to throw himself across his path 
 once more. He was constantly seeking an opportunity to attack 
 the Federal army, now dispirited by the bloody repulses of the 
 repeated attacks on our lines, so obstinately persisted in by 
 General Grant. He hoped to strike the blow at the North Anna 
 or between the Annas and the Chickahominy. He hoped much 
 from an attack on Warren's corps, which, having crossed at Jeri- 
 cho ford, several miles higher up the North Anna, lay in a haz- 
 ardous position, separated from the rest of the Federal army. 
 General Hill, who was now sufficiently recovered to be in the 
 saddle, at the head of his corps, was also sanguine of success in 
 this attack; but the main plan miscarried through some mishap, 
 though one or two minor successes on this our left flank — nota- 
 bly one by General Mahone's division — were effected. 
 
 But, alas! in the midst of these operations on the North Anna, 
 General Lee was taken sick and confined to his tent. As he lay 
 prostrated by his sickness, he would often repeat: "We must 
 strike them a blow; we must never let them pass us again — 
 we must strike them a blow." But though he still had reports of 
 the operations in the field constantly brought to him, and gave 
 orders to his officers, Lee confined to his tent" was not Lee on the 
 battlefield. 
 
 I knov/ it is unprofitable now to consider Avhat might have 
 
14 
 
 happened, but I cannot refrain from venturing to express 
 the opinion, that had not General Lee been physically disabled, 
 he would have inflicted a heavy blow on the enemy in his march 
 from the Pamunkey to the Chickahominy. An officer, whose 
 opinions are entitled to much consideration, has often expressed 
 the opinion that the opportunity was offered for this blow near 
 Havy's shop, where the Confederate cavalry, under Hampton and 
 Fitz. Lee, met General Sheridan, sustained heavily by the Fede- 
 ral infantry. However that may be. Grant found Lee always in 
 his front whenever and wherever he turned. After some desul- 
 tory but sharjD fighting on the Totopotomoy, he found his old 
 adversary in position at Cold Harbor* — a place, the reminiscen- 
 ces of which were more inspiring to the Confederate than to the 
 Federal troops. 
 
 General Grant, as soon as he crossed the Pamunkey, made ar- 
 rangements to draw troops to him from Butler, who was lying in 
 compulsory leisure in his "Bermuda bottle." His reinforcements 
 received before the arrival of those can be fairly estimated at 
 more than fifty thousand men. These came to him by Acquia 
 creek, Port Royal and the White House on York river, and in- 
 cluding these four divisions drawn from the Tenth and Eigh- 
 teenth corps, Northern authorities put Grant's effectives from 
 the begining of the campaign up to the days of the Chicka- 
 hominy conflict, at more than two hunderd and twenty thousand 
 men of all arms. In addition to the troops already mentioned, 
 General Lee drew to himself Hoke's division of Beauregard's 
 army at Petersburg, and was reinforced by Finnegan's P^lorida 
 brigade and Keitt's South Carolina regiment. These bodies, 
 amounting to between seven and eight thousand men, came to 
 him on the Chickahmoiny. Our cavalry was also reinforced 
 during the latter days in May by two regiments from South 
 Carolina and a battalion from Georgia. 
 
 The victory of the third of June, at Cold Harbor was per- 
 haps the easiest ever granted to Confederate arms by the folly of 
 Federal commanders. It was a general assault along, a front of 
 six miles and a bloody repulse at all points, and a partial success 
 at one weak salient, speedily crushed by Finnegan's Floridians 
 and the Maryland battalion. The loss on the Federal side was 
 conceded to be about thirteen thousand; on our side it was about 
 twelve hundred. When a renewal of the attack was ordered by 
 General Grant in the forenoon, most of his troops refused to 
 move, and says Swinton: " His immobile lines pronounced a silent 
 
 *It m;iy l)p worth noting that th's Cold Harbc, now made famous by two {rnat bat- 
 Ucs, is the old English name for an ordinary or laveru, where the tnivelur could g -t lodzing 
 without foud. One of the sets of apartments in the town of Loudon is called •' Cold Harbor." 
 
15 
 
 yet emphatic verdict against further slaughter." On the 4th of 
 June we had a renewal of the painful scenes of Spotsylvania, 
 with the dead and the dying assailants lying in front of our lines. 
 On the 5th of June, General Grant asked permission to bury his 
 dead. By that time his wounded, who had lain so long under 
 the summer's sun, were now counted with the dying, and the 
 dying with the dead. General Grant lay in his lines until the 
 night of the 12th of June. The notice here of his "resolution 
 to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer" seeming "now 
 "to be sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought." On that day 
 Sheridan was defeated by Hampton, whose force consisted of 
 his own and Fitz. Lee's divisions, at Trevyllian's depot. The 
 main object of Sheridan's march towards Gordonsville was to 
 make a junction with Hunter's and Crook's united corps, and 
 bring it down to Grant's army. This operation being rendered 
 impossible by Sheridan's defeat, on the night of the 12th of June, 
 the Federal army began its march to the south side of the James. 
 General Grant had at first been of the opinion that, the south 
 side of the James was the best position for attack, and doubtless 
 his north side experience had made this opinion a positive con- 
 viction. Says his chronicler: "The march of fifty-five miles 
 across the peninsula Was made in two days, and with perfect suc- 
 cess." Surely after so much unsuccessful fighting, the Federal 
 commander is entitled to all praise for this successful marching. 
 
 The overland campaign was at an end. To the Federal army 
 it had been a campaign of bloody repulses, and even when a 
 gleam of success seemed to dawn upon it for a moment (as at the 
 Plank road on May 6th and at Spotsylvania on the morning of 
 the 1 2th), it was speedily extinguished in blood, and immediate 
 disaster covered over the face of their rising star of victory. 
 Says the historian of the Army of the Potomac: "So gloomy 
 was the military outlook after the action of the Chickahominy, 
 that there was at this time great danger of the collapse of the 
 war. The history of this conflict, truthfully written, will show 
 this. Had not success elsewhere come to brighten the horizon, 
 it would have been difficult to have raised new forces to'recruit 
 the Army of the Potomac, which, shaken in its structure, its 
 valor quenched in blood and thousands of its ablest officers 
 killed and wounded, was the Army of the Potomac no more." 
 In a foot note to this he adds : "The archives of the State Depart- 
 ment, when one day made public, will show how deeply the Gov- 
 ernment was affected by the want of military success, and to 
 what resolutions the Executive had in consequence come." 
 
 That the morale of General Lee's army was high at this time 
 there can be no doubt. The strain of continuous bloody fight- 
 
. 16 
 
 ing at Spotsylvania had been great; but the campaigns of the 
 North Anna and Chickahominy had given them much more re- 
 pose. They were conscious of the success of the campaign, and 
 were on better rations than they had been for a long time. The 
 fat bacon and (Weathersfield?) onions brought in at that time 
 from Nassau were very cheering to the flesh, and the almost 
 prodigal charity with which several brigades contributed their 
 rations to the suffering poor of Richmond was a striking incident 
 in the story of these days on the Chickahominy. But cheerful 
 and in high spirits though they were, there was a sombre tinge 
 to the soldier wit in our thinned ranks which expressed itself in 
 the homely phrase, "What is the used of killing these Yankees? 
 it is like killing musquitoes — two come for every one you kill."^ 
 
 As General Lee had sent Breckinridge back towards the Valley 
 on June 8th and General Early, with the Second corps (now 
 numbering about eight thousand muskets — it having suffered 
 more than either of the other corps), on the 12th to meet Hunter 
 at Lynchburg, and restored Hoke's division to General Beaure- 
 gard at Petersburg, the odds against him were much increased, 
 as he had now with him only from twenty-five to twenty-seven 
 thousand infantry. 
 
 These bold movements show what he thought of the condition 
 of the Federal army and his undiminished confidence in the 
 morale of his own troops. 
 
 When Grant reached the James in safety, after his successful 
 march, he did not repose under the shadow of his gunboats, as 
 did the sorely bruised McClellan in 1862. Being essentially a 
 man of action and obstinate persistency — and, more than all, 
 having the advanta«-e of McClellan in the consciousness that his 
 -Government had staked all on him and would support hmi with 
 all its resources — he crossed the James and pushed on to Peters- 
 burg. He attacked Beauregard on the Petersburg lines on the 
 15th with Smith's corps, sent in transports from the White House. 
 Reinforcing Smith heavily, he attacked him again on the i6th, 
 and pushed corps after corps to the front. On the 17th Beaure- 
 gard had all Grant's army to deal with. Fighting against 
 overwhelming numbers, he had exacted a bloody tribute for 
 every foot gained by the enemy. Though Grant met with 
 partial success in carrying the outer lines, held by a mere 
 handful of troops, yet Beauregard's small force, strengthened by 
 his brigades withdrawn from the Bermuda Hundred lines and by 
 the return of Hoke's division from Cold Harbor, held him in 
 check at the interior lines until General Lee's arrival, with rein- 
 forcements, on the 1 8th of June. 
 
 General Lee remained on the north side of the James until 
 
17 
 
 June 15th. On the night of that day he camped near Drewiy's 
 Bluff. On the i6th and 17th of June, he superintended person- 
 ally the recapture of the Bermuda Hundred lines by Field's and 
 Pickett's divisions. These lines had been occupied by Butler 
 after the withdrawal of Beauregard's troops for the defence of 
 Petersbm'g on the day before. The incident of the volunteer 
 attack of our men on these lines, various incorrect versions of 
 which have been given, happened thus : By the afternoon of the 
 17th all of the line had been retaken except a portion in front of 
 the Clay house. The order had been given to Generals Field 
 and Pickett to move against them from the lines which they held. 
 But meantime the engineers reported that the line already taken 
 up by our troops was of sufficient strength, and that it would be 
 an unnecessary waste of life to attack the part still held by the 
 enemy. The orders to make the attack were countermanded by 
 General Lee. This countermanding order reached General Field 
 in time, but did not reach General Pickett until his troops were 
 already involved in the attack under his orders. General Pickett 
 sent a message to General Gregg, of the Texas brigade, of Field's 
 division, which was next to his right, urging him to go in and 
 protect his flank. Gregg consented at once, but could not wisely 
 move until he had sent a like message to the troops on his right, 
 as the interval between the line held by our troops and that held 
 by the enemy widened much from left to right in front of Field's 
 division. At this moment, however, Pickett's advancing lines 
 opened fire, and in an instant the men of the brigades of Field's 
 division, on General Gregg's right (first squads of men and offi- 
 cers, then the standards, ^and then whole regiments), leaped over 
 our entrenchments and started in the charge without orders, and 
 General Gregg and his Texans rushed forward with them, and in 
 a few moments the line was ours. It was a gallant sight to see; 
 and a striking evidence of the high spirit and splendid elan of 
 troops who had now been fighting more than forty days, in one 
 continuous strain of bloody battles. It was a hazardous move- 
 ment, as the position attacked was a very strong one; but it was 
 found to be held by a mere handful of the enemy, and our loss 
 was very slight. I have been thus particular in the details of 
 this incident, of which I was an eye-witness, as General Lee, who 
 was at the Clay house, was not acquainted with all the facts when 
 he sent the well-known message to General Anderson, mention- 
 ing only Pickett's men. 
 
 On the next day, June i8th. General Lee marched to Peters- 
 burg with the van of his army, Kershaw's division, with which 
 he at once reinforced Beauregard's troops in the line of defence. 
 Both Generals were on the field that day, when the assault along 
 
18 
 
 the whole line was made by the Federal corps, which met with 
 such a complete and bloody repulse. During the action a young 
 artillery officer fell by General Lee's side, shot through the body. 
 The attack made no impression whatever on our lines. The easy 
 repulse of the Federal corps on this occasion, and the result of 
 the attack made by Hill with a part of Wilcox's and Mahone's 
 divisions on the Second and Sixth corps, near the Jerusalem 
 plank-road, on the 21st, when sixteen hundred prisoners and four 
 pieces of artillery were captured by Mahone, made it plain that 
 the opportunity had arrived for a decisive blow. So on the night 
 of the 22d, General Lee sent for General Alexander, the accom- 
 plished Chief of Artillery of Longstreet's corps, and made arrange- 
 ments for the disposition of the artillery for an attack on the 
 morning of the 24th. The attack was to begin at daylight, with 
 a heavy fire of artillery from Archer's hill, on the north bank of 
 the Appomattox, enfilading the enemy's line near the river; 
 then the infantry of Hoke's division, sustained by Field's division, 
 was to begin with the capture of the line next the river, and then 
 sweep along the line uncovering our front, thus rolling up the 
 Federal right, and compelling General Grant to battle in the 
 open field at a disadvantage. At daybreak on the 24th the ar- 
 tillery opened fire and did its work well. The skirmishers of 
 Hagood's brigade of Hoke's division went forward very hand- 
 somely and captured the lines next the river. But through some 
 mistake this success was not followed up — the gallant skirmish- 
 ers were not sustained, and were soon made prisoners by the 
 forces of the enemy turned against them. And thus the whole 
 plan, so well conceived and so successful in its beginning, was 
 given up much to the sorrow of the Commanding-General. 
 
 In the preliminary operations about Petersburg up to July ist, 
 Grant's losses footed up fifteen thousand men. On the 6th of 
 July, his engineers pronounced the Confederate works impreg- 
 nable to assault. From this date the operations partook of the' 
 nature of a siege. 
 
 As it is not my intention to give any record of events after the 
 siege of Petersburg, I will close my address at this point in the 
 campaign of '64 — a campaign, the full history of which would 
 leave the world in doubt, whether most to admire the genius of 
 our great leader or the discipline, devotion, courage and con- 
 stancy of his soldiers. 
 
 On the 4th of May four converging invading columns set out 
 
 simultaneously for the conquest of Virginia. The old State, 
 
 which had for three years known little else save the tramp of 
 
 armed legions, was now to be closed in by a circle of fire, from 
 
 lountrins to the seaboard. 
 
19 
 
 Through the Soutlnvestern mountain passes, through the gates 
 of the lower valley, from the battle-scarred vales of the Rappa- 
 hannock, from the Atlantic seaboard, by the waters of the James, 
 came the serried hosts on field and flood, numbering more than 
 two hundred and seventy-five thousand men (including in this 
 number also reinforcements sent during the campaign). No troops 
 were ever more thoroughly equipped or supplied with a more 
 abundant commissariat. For the heaviest column, transports 
 were ready to bring supplies and reinforcements to any one of 
 three convenient deep-water bases — Acquia creek, Port Royal 
 and the White House. 
 
 The column next in importance had its deep-water base Avithin 
 nine miles of a vital point in our defences. In the cavalry arm 
 (so important in a campaign in a country like ours) they boasted 
 overwhelming strength. 
 
 The Confederate forces in Virginia, and those which could be 
 drawn to its defence from other points, numbered not more than 
 seventy-five thousand men. Yet our great Commander, with 
 steadfast heart, committing our cause to the God of battles, calmly 
 made his dispositions to meet tlje shock of the invading hosts. In 
 sixty days the great invasion had dwindled to a siege of Peters- 
 burg (nine miles from deep-water) by the main column, which, 
 "shaken in its structure, its valor quenched in blood, and thous- 
 ands of its ablest officers killed or wounded, was the army of 
 the Potomac no more." 
 
 Mingled with it in the lines of Petersburg lay the men of the 
 second column, which, for the last forty days of the campaign, 
 had been held in inglorious inaction at Bermuda Hundreds by 
 Beauregard, except when a portion of it was sent to share the 
 defeat of June 3d on the Chickahominy; while the third and 
 fourth columns, foiled at Lynchburg, were wandering in disor- 
 derly retreat through the mountains of West Virginia, entirely 
 out of the area of military operations. Lee had made his works 
 at Petersburg impregnable to assault, and had a movable column 
 of his army within two days' march of the Federal capital. He 
 had made a campaign unexampled in the history of defensive 
 warfare. 
 
 My comrades, I feel that I have given but a feeble picture of 
 this grand period in the history of the time of trial of our 
 beloved South — a history which is a great gift of God, and which 
 we must hand down as a holy heritage to our children, not to 
 teach them to cherish a spirit of bitterness or a love for war, but 
 to show them that their fathers bore themselves worthily in the 
 strife when to do battle became a sacred duty. Heroic history 
 is the livinsf soul of a nation's renown. When the traveler in 
 
wt 
 
 20 
 
 Switzerland reads on the monument near Basle the epitaph of 
 the thirteen hundred brave mountaineers who met the over- 
 whelming hosts of their proud invaders, and "fell, not conquered, 
 but wearied with victory, giving their souls to God and their 
 bodies to the enemy"; or when he visits the places sacred to the 
 myth of William Tell, transplanted by pious, patriotic fraud 
 from the legends of another people to inspire the youth of that 
 mountain-land with the hatred of tyrants and the love of heroic 
 deeds ; or A\;lien he contemplates that wonderful monument by 
 Thorwaldsen, on the shores of Lake Lucerne, in commemoration 
 of the fidelity in death of the Swiss Guard of Louis XVI — a 
 colossal lion, cut out of the living rock, pierced by a javelin, and 
 yet in death protecting the lily of France with his paw, — he asks 
 himself, how many men of the nations of the world have been 
 inspired with a love of freedom by the monuments and heroic 
 stories of little Switzerland? 
 
 Comrades, we need not weave any fable borrowed from Scan- 
 dinavian lore into the woof of our history to inspire our youth 
 with admiration of glorious deeds in freedom's battles done. In 
 the true history of this Army of Northern Virginia, which laid 
 down its arms " not conquered, but wearied with victory," you 
 have a record of deeds of valor, of unselfish consecration to 
 duty, and faithfulness in death, which will teach our sons and 
 our son's sons how to die for liberty. Let us see to it that it 
 shall be transmitted to them. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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