THE
ffad  Sait                     of th e 
BY
EDWARD A. POLLARD,.ATIiOR) 0F 6" BLACK TDIAMONDS," Ii.TC.
"' j)urate! eet voosnet rebus s.esuCdt. as er:' et~e.'l —~.ID
RICHMOND:
WEST & JOHNSTON, 145 MAIN STREET
18~&6 3




Eiteredl accotrdll.g to Act of Congress, in the year 1868,
B - WVEST:& )JO-NS TON,
in tie Clerk'   Off(.ice iof tile  District Coii't of the Co(nfederate States for the
Etastern Districtt of Virginia.
C....... WYN..E, PP  1Th.1Sr












PREFACE.
In presenting a second volume of a popular History of the
Southern War for Independence, the author gratefully acknowledges the kind reception by the Southern public of his first
volume, the generous notices of the independent Press of the
Confederacy, and the encouragement of friends.  He has no
disposition to entreat criticism or importune its charities.
But he would be incapable of gratitude, if he was not sensible
of the marks of public generosity which have been given
to a work which made no pretensions to severe or legitimate history and ventured upon no solicitations of literary
success.
He can afford no better vindication of the character and
objects of his work than by quoting here what was prefixed
to one of the editions.of his first volume:
"Every candid mind must be sensible of the futility of
attempting a high order of historical composition in the treatment of recent and incomplete events; but it does not follow
that the cotemporary annal, the popular narrative and other
inferiour degrees of history can have no value and interest,
because they cannot compete in accuracy with the future
retrospect of events.  The vulgar notion of history is that it
is a record intended for posterity. The author contends that
history has an office to perform in the present, and that one
of the greatest values of cotemporary annals is to vindi1




~~~iv  ~PREFACE.
cate in good time to the world the fame and reputation of
nations."
"With this object constantly in view, the author has composed this work.  He will accomplish his object, and be
rewarded with a complete satisfaction, if his unpretending
book shall have the effect of promoting more extensive inquiries; enlightening the present; vindicating the principles of a
great contest to the cotemporary world; and putting before
the living generation in a convenient form of literature, and
at an early and opportune time, the name and deeds of our
people."
Richmond, July, 1863.




CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The New Orleans Disaster...Its Consequences and Effects...Dispatches of
the European Commissioners...Butler "the Beast"...Public Opinion in Europe...The Atrocities of the Massachusetts Tyrant...Execution of Mumford...
Lesson of New Orlenns...Spirit of Resistance in the South...Change in the
Fortunes of the Confederacy...Two Leading Causes for it...The Richmond
"Examiner"...The Conscription Law...Governor Brown of Georgia...Re-organization of the Army... Abandonment of our Frontier Defences...The Policy
of Concentration...Governor Rector's Appeal...First Movements of the Summer Campaign in Virginia...The Retreat from Yorktown...Evacuation of Norfolk...Destruction of the "Virginia"...Commodore Tatnall's Report...Secretary Mallory's Visit to Norfolk...The Engagement of Williamsburg...The
Affair of Barhamsville...McClellan's Investment of the Lines of the Chickahominy...Alarm  in Richmond...The Water Avenue of the James...The Panic
in Official Circles... Consternation in the President's House...Correspondence
between President Davis and the Legislature of Virginia... Noble Resolutions
of the Legislature...Response of the Citizens of Richmond...The Bombardment of Drewry's Bluff...The Mass Meeting at the City Hall...Renewal of
Public Confidence...The Occasions of This...JACKSoN's CAMPAIGN IN THU:
VALLEY...The Engagement of McDowell...The Surprise at Front Royal...
Banks' Retreat Down the Valley...The Engagements of Port Republic...Resuits of the Campaign...Death of Turner Ashby...Sufferings of the People of
the Valley of the Shenandoah...MEaMox  OF TURNER ASHBY.
PAGE 17
CHAPTER II.
The Situation of Richmond...Its Strategic Importance...What the Yankees
Had Done to Secure Richmond...THE BATTLE OF SEVEN PINEs...Miscarriage
of Gen. Johnston's Plans...THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMINY...Storming
of the Enemy's Entrenchments...McClellan Driven from his Northern Line of
Defences...The Situation on the Other Side of the Chickahominy...Magruder's
Comment...The Affair of Savage Station....The Battle of Frazier's Farm...A
Terrible Crisis...Battle of Malvern Hill...The Enemy in Communicatiof with
his Gunboats....The Failure to Cut him off....Glory and Fruits of Our Victory....
Misrepresentations of the Yankees...Safety of Richmond...The War in Other
Parts of the Confederacy...The Engagement of Secessionville...The Campaign




vi                            CONTENTS.
of the West...The Evacuation of Corinth...More Yankee Falsehoods...Capture
of Memphis...The Prize of the Mississippi...Statistics of its Navigation...Siege
of Vicksburg...Heroism of "the Queen City "...Morgan's Raid into Kentucky...The Tennessee and Virginia Frontier...Prospects in the West...Plan
of Campaign there.                                               PAGE 57
CHAPTER III.
Effect of McClellan's Defeat in the North....Call for more Troops...Why the
North was not Easily Dispirited...The War as a Money Job...YNote: General
Washington's Opinion of New England...The Yankee Finances...Exasperation
of Hostilities...The Yankee Idea of a "Vigourous Prosecution of the War"...
Ascendancy of the Radicals....War Measures at Washington...Anti-Slavery
Aspects of the War...Brutality of the Yankees...The Insensibility of Europe...
Yankee Chaplains in Virginia...Seizures of Private Property...Pope's Orders'
in Virginia...Steinwehr's Order Respecting Hostages...The Character and Services of General John Pope...The "Army of Virginia"...Irruption of the
Northern Spoilsmen...The Yankee Trade in Counterfeit Confederate Notes...
Pope's "Chasing the Rebel Hordes"...Movement Against Pope by "Stonewall" Jackson...BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN...McClellan Recalled from the
Peninsula...The Third Grand Army of the North...Jackson's Surprise of the
Enemy at Manassas...A Rapid and Masterly Movement...Change of the Situation...Attack by the Enemy upon Bristow Station and at Manassas Junction...Marshalling of the Hosts...Longstreet's Passage of Thoroughfare Gap...
The Plans of General Lee...Spirit of our Troops...Their Painful Marches...
THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS...A Terrible Bayonet Charge-Rout of the
Enemy...A Hideous Battle-Feld...General Lee and the Summer Campaign of
Virginia...Jackson's Share in it...Extent of the Great Victory of Manassas...
Excitement in Washington...The Yankee Army Falls Back Upon Alexandria
and Washington...Review of the Situation...Rapid Change in our Military
Bortunes...What the South had Accomplished...Comparison of Material
Strength Between North and South...Humiliating Result to the Warlike Reputation of the North..........  PAGE 83
CHAPTER IV.
Rescue of Virginia from  the Invader...Gen. Loring's Campaign in the
Kanawha Valley...A Novel Theatre of the War...Gen. Lee's Passage of the
Potomac... His Plans...Disposition of our Forces...McClellan again at the
Mead of the Yankee Army...THE BATTLE OF BOONSBORO'...THE CAPTURE OF
HARPER'S FERRY-Its Fruits...THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG...Great Superiority of the Enemy's Numbers...Fury of the Battle...The Bridge of Antietam... A Drawn Battle...Spectacles of Carnage...The Unburied Dead...General
Lee Retires into Virginia...McClellan's Pretence of Victory...The Affair of
Shepherdstown...Charges against McClellan...His Disgrace...Review of the
Maryland Campaign-Misrepresentations of Gen. Lee's Objects...His Retreat...Comment of the New York "Tribune"...The Cold Reception of the
Confederates in Maryland...Excuses for the Timidity of the Marylanders...
What was Accomplished by the Summer Campaign of 1862...The Outburst




CONTENTS.                              vii
of Applause in Europe...Tribute from the London "Times"-Public Opinion
in England...Distinction between the People and the Government-The Mask
of England...OuR FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE WAR...A Historical Parallel of
Secession...Two Remarks on the "Neutrality" of Europe...The Yankee
Blockade and the Treaty of Paris-The Confederate Privateers-Temper of
the South...Fruits of the Blockade..PAGE 128
CHAPTER V.
Movements in the West...The Splendid Programme of the Yankees...Kentucky the Critical Point...Gen. Kirby Smith's Advance into Kentucky...THE
BATTLE OF RICHnMOND...Reception of the Confederates in Lexington...Expectation of an Attack on Cincinnati...Gen. Bragg's Plans...Smith's Movement
to Bragg's Lines...Escape of the Yankee Forces from Cumberland Gap...Affair of Munfordsville...Gen. Bragg between the Enemy and the Ohio...An
Opportunity for a Decisive Blow...Buell's Escape to Louisville...The InauguratioiKof Governor at Frankfort....An Idle Ceremony...Probable Surprise of
Gen. Bragg...THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE...Its Immediate Results in our
Favour...Bragg's Failure to Concentrate his Forces...His Resolution of Retreat...Scenes of the Retreat from Kentucky...Errours of the Campaign...A
Lame Excuse...Public Sentiment in Kentucky-The Demoralization of that
State...The Lessons of Submission....   PAGE 149
CHAPTER VI.
Our Lines in the Southwest... General Breckenridge's Attack on Baton
Rouge...Destruction of the Ram Arkansas...Gen. Price's Reverse at Iuka...
Desperate Fighting...TrE BATTLE OF CORINTH...Van Dorn's Hasty Exultations...The Massacre of College Hill...Wild and Terrible Courage of the Confederates...Our Forces Beaten Back...Our Lines of Retreat Secured...The
Military Prospects of the South Overshadowed...THE DEPARTMENT OF THE
TRANs-MISSIssIPPI... Romance of the War in Missouri...Schofield's Order
Calling Out the Militia...Atrocities of the Yankee Rule in Missouri...Robbery
Without "Red Tape "...The Guerilla Campaign...The Affair of Kirksville...
Execution of Col. McCullough...The Affair of Lone Jack...Timely Reinforcement of Lexington by the Yankees...The Palmyra Massacre...The Question
of Retaliation with the South...THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION...
Survey of the Military Situation...Capture of Galveston by the Yankees...The
Enemy's Naval Power...His Iron Clads...Importance of Founderies in the
South...Prospect in the Southwest...Prospect in Tennessee...Prospect in Virginia...Stuart's Raid into Pennsylvania...Souvenirs of Southern Chivalry...
The "Soft-mannered  Rebels "...Political Complexion of the War in the
North...Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation "...Jistory of Yankee Legislation in the War...Political Errour of the Emancipation Proclamation-Its
Effect on the South...The Decay of European Sympathy with the Abolitionists...What the War Accomplished for Negro Slavery in the South...Yankee
Falsehoods and Bravados in Europe...Delusion of Conquering the South by
Starvation.. Caricatures in the New York Pictorials...The Noble Eloquence
of Hunger and Rags... Manners in the South...Yankee Warfare...The Desola



VinL                          COENEXTS.
tion of Virginia...The Lessons of Harsh Necessity...Improvement of the Civil
Administration of the Confederacy...Ordnance, Manufacturing Resources,
Quartermasters' Supplies, &o.....                         PAGE 167
CHAPTER VII.
The Heroism  of Virginia...Her Battle-Fields...Burnside's Plan of Campaign...Calculations of his Movement upon Fredericksburg...Failure to Surprise Gen. Lee...THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG...The Enemy Crossing the
PRiver...Their Bombardment of the Town...Scenes of Distress...The Battle on
the Right Wing...The Story of Marye's Heights...Repulse of the Enemy...
The Old Lesson of Barren Victory...Death of Gen. Cobb...Death of General
Gregg...Romance of the Story of Fredericksburg...Her Noble Women...Yankee Sacking of the Town...A Specimen of Yankee Warfare in North Carolina...Designs of the Enemy in this State...The Engagements of Kinston...
Glance at other Theatres of the War...Gen. Hindman's Victory at Prairie
Grove...Achievements of our Cavalry in the West...The Affair of Hartsville...
Col. Clarkson's Expedition...Condition of Events at the Close of the Year
1862...........   PAGE 192
CHAPTER VIII.
The Eastern Portion of Tennessee...Its Military Importance...Composition
of Bragg's Army-THE BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO'...The Right Wing of the
Enemy Routed-Bragg's:Exultations...The Assault of the 2d January..." The
Bloody Crossing of Stone River "...The Confederates Fall Back to Tullahoma...Review of the Battle Field of Murfreesboro'...Repulse of the Enemy
at Vicksburg....THE RE-CAPTURE OF GALVESTON....The Midnight March...
Capture of "the Harriet Lane "...Arkansas Post Taken by the Yankees...Its
Advantages...The Affair of the Rams in Charleston Harbour...Naval Structure
of the Confederacy...Capture of the Yankee Gunboat " Queen of the West "...
Heroism of George Wood...Capture of "the Indianola"...The War on the
Water...The Confederate Cruisers...Prowess of "the Alabama."
PAGE 211
CHAPTER IX.
An Extraordinary Lull in the War...An Affair with the Enemy on the
Blackwater...Raids in the West...Van Dorn's Captures...TnE MEETING OF
CoNGREss...Character of This Body...Its Dullness and Servility...Mr. Foote
and the Cabinet...Two Popular Themes of Confidence...Party Contention in
the North...Successes of Mhe Democrats There...Analysis of the Party Politics
of the North...The Interest of New England in the War...How  the War
Affected the Northwestern Portions of the United States...Mr. Foote's Resolutions Respecting the Northwestern States...How They Were Received by
the Southern Public...New War Measures at Washington...Lincoln a Dictator...Prospect of Foreign Interference...Action of the Emperor Napoleon...
Suffering of the Working Classes in England.:.The Delusions of an Early
Peace...The Tasks Before Congress...Prostrate Condition of the Confederate




CONTENTS.                               iX
Finances...President Davis' Blunder...The Errours of Our Financial System...
The Wealth of the South...The Impressment Law of Congress...Scarcity of
Supplies...Inflated Prices...Speculation and Extortion in the Confederacy...
Three Remarks About These...The Verdict of History...   PAGE 235
CHAPTER X.
Character of Military Events of the Spring of 1863...Repulse of the Enemy
at Fort McAllister...THE SIEGE OF VICKSBUnG...The Yazoo Pass Expedition...
Confederate Success at Fort Pemberton...The Enemy's Canals or " Cut Offs"...
Their Failure...BOMBARDMENT OF PORT HUDSoN...Destruction of "The Mississippi"...A Funeral Pyre...Happy Effects of our Victory...A Review of the
Line of Inland Hostilities...Hooker's Hesitation on the Rappahannock...The
Assignment of Confederate Commands West of the Mississippi...The Affair of
Kelly's Ford...Death of Major Pelham...NAvAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON...
Destruction of "The Keokuk"...Scenery of the Bombardment...Extent of the
Confederate Success...Events in Tennessee and Kentucky...Pegram's Reverse...The Situation of Hostilities at the close of April 1862.
PAGE 250
CHAPTER XI.
Close of the Second Year of the War...Propriety of an Outline of Some
Succeeding Events...Cavalry Enterprises of the Enemy...The Raids in Mississippi and Virginia...SKETCH OF THE BATTLES OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK...The
Enemy's Plan of Attack...The Fight at Chancellorsville...The Splendid Charge
of "Stonewall" Jackson...The Fight at Fredericksburg...The Fight at Salem
Church...Summary of our ViCtory...DEATH OF "STONEWALL" JACKSON...His
Character and Services.                                         PAGE 268
CHAPTER XII.
A Period of Disasters...DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI...Grant's March
Upon Vicksburg...Its Steps and. Incidents...The Engagement of Port Gibson...
The Evacuation of Jackson...The Battle of Baker's Creek...Pemberton's
Declarations as to the Defence of Vicksburg...A Grand Assault upon "the
Heroic City "...Its Repulse... The Final Surrender of Vicksburg...How the Public Mind of the South was Shocked...Consequences of the Disaster...How it
Involved Affairs on the Lower Mississippi...Other Theatres of the War...THE
CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND... Hooker Manoeuvred out of Virginia...The Recapture of Winchester...The Second Invasion of the Northern
Territory...The Alarm of the North...General Lee's Object in the Invasion of
Maryland and Pennsylvania...His Essays at Conciliation... The Errour of Such
Policy...The Advance of his Lines into Pennsylvania...The Battle of Gettysburg...The Three Days' Engagements...Death of Barksdale...Pickett's Splendid Charge on the Batteries...Repulse of the Confederates...Anxiety aid
Alarm  in Richmond...Lee's Safe Retreat into Virginia... Mystery of his
Movement...Recovery of the Confidence of the South  * * * *  Review
of the Present Aspects of the War...Comparison Between the Disasters of




X                              CONTENTS.
1862 and those of 1863...The Vitals of the Confederacy yet Untouched...
Review of the Civil Administration...President Davis, his Cabinet and his
Favourites...His Private Quarrels...His Deference to European Opinion...
Decline of the Finances of the Confederacy...Reasons of this Decline-The
Confederate Brokers...The Blockade-Runners...The Disaffections of PropertyHolders...The Spirit of the Army...The Moral Resolution of the Confederacy...How the Enemy has Strengthened it...The Prospects of the Future.
PAGE 283
CHAPTER XIII.
REVIEW-POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE NORTH, &c.
The Dogma of Numerical Majorities...Its Date in the Yankee Mind...
Demoralization of the Idea of the Sovereignty of Numbers...Experience of
Minorities in American Politics...Source of the Doctrine of "CONSOLIDATION"'...The Slavery Question the Logical Result of Consolidation...Another
Aspect of Consolidation in the Tariff...Summary of the Legislation Oi tihe
Tariff...A Yankee Picture of the Poverty of the South...John C. Calhoun...
President Davis' Opinion of his School of Politics..." Nullification," as a
Union Measure...Mr. Webster's "Four Exhaustive Propositions "...The True
Interpretation of the Present Struggle of the South...The Northern Idea of
the Sovereignty of Numbers...Its Results in this War...President Lincoln's
Office...The Revenge of the Yankee Congress Upon the People...The Easy
Surrender of their Liberties by the Yankees...Lincoln and Cromwell...Explanation of the Political Subserviency in the North...Superficial Political Education of the Yankee... His "Civilization"...The Moral Nature of the Yankee
Unmasked by the War...His New  Political System...Burnside's "'Death
Order"...A Bid for tonfederate Scalps...A New Interpretation of the War...
The North as a Parasite...The Foundations of the National Independence of
the South...Present Aspects of the War...Its External Condition and Morals...
The Spirit of the South and the Promises of the Future...PAGE 309




TIE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER I.
The New Orleans Disaster...Its Consequences and Effects...Dispatches of
the European Commissioners...Butler "the Beast"...Public Opinion in AUt
tope...The Atrocities of the Massachusetts Tyrant...Execution of Mumford..,
Lesson of New Orleans...Spirit of Resistance in the South...Change'in the
Fortunes of the Confederacy...Two Leading Causes for it...The Richmond
"tExaminer"...The Conscription Law...Governor Brown of Georgia...Re-organization of the Army.... Abandonment of our Frontier Defences...The Policy
of Concentration...Governor Rector's Appeal...First Movements of the Summer Campaign in Virginia...The Retreat from Yorktown...Evacuation of Norfolk...Destruction of the'Virgiina"...Commodore Tatnall's Report...Secretary Mallory's Visit to Norfoll...The Engagement of Williamsburg...The
Affair of Barhamsville...McClellan's Investment of the Lines of the Chickahominy...Alarm in Richmond...The Water Avenue of the James...The Panic
in Official Circles...Consternation in the President's House*...Correspondence
between President Davis and the Legislature of Virginia...Noble Resolutions
of the Legislature...Response of the Citizens of Richmond...The Bombardment of Drewry's Bluff...The Mass Meeting at the City Hall...Renewal of
Public- Confidence...The Occasions of This...JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN IN THZ
VALLEY... The Engagement of McDowell...The Surprise at Front Royal...
Banks' Retreat Down the Valley...The Engagements of Port Republic...Re.
sults of the Campaign...Death of Turner Ashby...Sufferings of the People of
the Valley of the Shenandoah... MEMzotR OF TURNER ASHBY.
The fall of New Orleans was one of the most extraordinary
triumphs which  the enemy  had oltained.  It was the crowning stroke of that extraordinary campaign  of the winter and
spring of the year 1862, inwhich, by the improvidence of the
Southern  authorities and a false military policy which divided
their armies and  weakened  them  by  undue dispersion, they
had lost much of their territory, most of the prestige of their
arms, and had fallen upon  a train of disasters well calculated
2




18            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
to affect the general public, both at home and abroad. The
close of this campaign, so ill-starred to the Confederacy, found
it with scarcely more than three entire States-Texas, Alabama and Georgia. - Large portions of the territories of Virginia, the Carolinas and Florida were occupied by the enemy;
he had broken our line of defences in Tennessee, and held important positions on the Upper Mississippi; and now, by the
capture of New Orleans, he had secured the great Southern
depot of the trade of the immense central valley of the continent, obtained command of an extent of territory accessible
by his gunboats greater than the entire country before lost to
the Confederacy, and had good reason to hope, by the junction
of his fleets on the Mississippi, to open its navigation, and
giye to the West an outlet to the ocean..The conquests of the Federal arms made'in the winter and
spring of 1862, were not without their effect in Europe, and
presented to the nations in that part of the world a sombre
picture of the Confederacy.  The dispatches of our ministers
at the courts of England and France declared that the prospect of recognition, of which they had formerly given such
warm and sanguine assurances, had been overclouded by the
disaster at New Orleans.  Mr. Slidell wrote from Paris that
the French government declared that "if New Orleans had
not fallen, our recognition could not have been much longer
delayed."  He added, however, that he had been assured that
"even after that disaster, if we obtained decided successes in
Virginia and Tennessee, or could hold the enemy at bay a
month or two, tire same, result would follow"-a promise, to
the breach of which and to the unhappy expectations which it
excited, we shall hereafter lave occasion to refer.  Mr. Mason,
our minister at London, also referred to the opinion that at
the time of the enemy's capture of New Orleans, our recognition was on the eve of accomplishment.
The immediate sufferers of the disaster at New Orleans were
the people' of that city. It was aptly rewarded for its easy
submission by the scourge of a tyrant.  The corrupt and mer



THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                        19
ciless master of this great emporium, General Butler of Massachusetts, was a man who found no merit in submission, unless
such as grovelled in the dust and paid personal court and pecuniary tribute. to himself. The rule of this vulgar and drunken
man excited the horrour and disgust of the civilized world, and
secured for'him  in the South  the popular soubriquet of "the'
Beast."   His order which stigmatized as prostitutes the ladies
of New Orleans, who betrayed in the streets or fromt  the balconies their indignation  against the  invaders of their city,
while it made him  the hero of the hour in  the North  with a
peeple who admired  the coarse spirit of the bully, drew upon
him  the execrations of all humane and honourable people.  In
theBritish Parliament, Lord Palmerston declared  the proclamation'to be "infamous," and the condemnation of the- indecent and dirty edict was echoed by the press of Europe.*
The acts of the tyrant of New Orleans surpassed all former
*The "Qrder 28," which has stigmatized its brutal author throughout
Christendom, was at first refused publication by all the newspapers in New
Orleans. It was then copied on sheets of paper and surreptitiously posted
on many of the'principal corners of the streets in the immediate neighbourhood of the St. Charles Hotel. The next day all of the newspaper offices
Were ordered to be closed for disobedience of orders. On this becoming
known, the True Delta paper published the order, and the other, newspapers
timidly submitted to the force of circumstances, and published it also. The
natural excitement and indignation that followed throughout the community
is indescribable. Several lady subscribers sent to the newspaper offices and
indignantly and positively forbade that such papers should longer be left at
their dwellings. Mayor Monroe, with a party of influential citizens, at once
called on the Beast and endeavored to obtain some qualification of the order;
but tly could get no satisfaction and were rudely dismissed.  Mayor Monroe
then wrote an indignant and reproachful communication to Butler, and again
pressed him for a modification of the hateful order. Butler then sent for the
Mayor.  Mayor Monroe replied, "Tell General Butler my office is at the
City Hotel, where he can see me, if desirable."  Butler retorted, that unless
the Mayor came at once to his headquarters, he would send an armed force
to arrest and bring him there.  Further opposition being useless, the Mayor,
chief bf police, and several friends, then-went to the St. Charles Hotel, where
they found the Beast in q towering rage.  Butler claimed to be much insulted
at the conduct of the Mayor, and without ceremony or delay, sentMr. Monroe and those who accompanied him to prison. In a few days they were all
shipped down to Fort Jackson.




S20          THE SECOND YEAR. OF THE WAR.
atrocities and outrages of the war. In frequent instances,
citizens, accused by Butler of contumacious disloyalty, were
confined at hard labour, with balls and chains attached to their
limbs; and sometimes this degrading punishment was inficted
"upon men whose only offence was that of selling medicines to
the sick soldiers of the Confederacy.  Helpless women were
torn from their homes and confined in prison.  One of thesea Mrs. Phillips-was accused of laughing as the funeral train
of a Yankee officer passed her doors; she was seized, and,
with an ingenious and devilish cruelty, her sentence was pronounced by Butler-imprisonment on an island of barren sand
under a tropical sun.  Various pretexts were invented for
plundering the inhabitants of the conquered city: men ~ere
forced to elect between starvation by the confiscation of all
their property and takiing an oath of allegiance to the invaders
of their country; fines were levied at pleasure, and recisants
threatened with ball and chain.
The conduct of the negroes in New Orleans became intolerable to their owners.  They were fed, clothed and quartered
by the Yankees, who fraternized with them  generally in a
shameful way.  The planters in the neighbourhood of the city
were required to share their crops with the commanding General, his brother, Andrew  J.'Buter, and other officers; and,when this partnership was refused, the plantations were robbed
of everything susceptible of removal, and the slaves taken
from their owners and compelled to work under the bayonets
of Yankee guards.
It would occupy many pages to detail what the people of
New Orleans suffered at the hands of the invaders whom they
had so easily admitted into their city, in insult, wrongs, confiscation of property, seizure of private dwellings and brazen
robbery.  The Yankee officers from  colonel to lieutenant, as
the caprice of each might dictate, seized and took possession
of gentlemen's houses, broke into their wine rooms, forced
open the wardrobes of ladies and gentlemen, and either used
or sent away from  the city the clothing of whole families.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                  21
Soime of the private residences of respectable,citizens were
appropriated to the vilest uses, the officials who had engaged
them  making them  the private shops of the most infamous~
female characters.
But while Butler was thus apparently occupied with the oppression of "rebels," he was too much of a Yankee to be lost
to the opportunity of making his pecuniary fortunes out of the
exigencies which he had created. The banker and broker of
the corrupt operations in which he was engaged was his ow,.
brother, who bought confiscated property, shipped large consignments from  New Orleans, to be paid for, in cotton,'andspeculated largely in powder, saltpetre, L:uskets and, other war
material sold to the Confederacy, surreptitiously sent out fronh
the city and covered by permits for provisions.  Of the trade
in provisions for cotton, Butler received his share of the gains,
while the robbery was covered up by the pretence of consumption in New Orleans "to prevent starvation," or by reported
actual issue to troops.  The Yankee General did not hesitate
to deal in the very life-blood of his own soldiers.
The rule of Butler in New Orleans is especially memorable
for the deliberate murder of William B. Mumford, a citizen of~
the Confederate States, against whom the tyrant had invented&
the extraordinary charge that he had insulted the flag of the
United States.  The fact was that before the city had surrendered, Munford had taken down from  the mint the enemy's
flag.  The ensign was wrongfully there; the city had not surrendered; and even in its worst aspects, the act of Mumford&
was simply one of war, not deserving death, still less the death
of a felon.  The horrible crime of murdering in cold blood am
unresisting and non-cornbatant.captive, was completed by Butler on the 7th of June.  On that day Mumford, the martyr,
was publicly executed on the gallows.  The Massachusetts
coward and tyrant had no ear or heart. for the pitiful pleadings
made to save the life of his captive, especially by his unhappy
wife, who in her supplications for mercy was rudely repulsed,
and at times answered with drunken jokes and taunts.  The!




22            TLTHE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
execution took place in the sight of thousands of panic-stricken
citizens. None spoke but the martyr himself.  His voice was
loud and clear.  Looking up at the stars and stripes which
floated high over the scene efore- him, he remarked that he
had fought under that flag twice, but it had become hateful to.
him, and he had torn it and trailed it in the dust.  "I consider," said tte brave young man, "that the manner of my
death will be no disgrace to my wife and child; my country
will honour them."
The experience of New Orleans gave a valuable lesson to
the South.  It exhibited the consequences of submission to the
enemy in confiscation, brutality, military dpmjnation, insult,
universal poverty, the beggary of thousands, the triumph of
the vilest individuals in the community, the abasement of the
honest and industrious, and the outlawry of the slaves. The
spirit of resistance in the South was fortified by the enemy's
exhibitions of triumph, and the resolution gained ground that
it was much better to consign the cities of the Confederacy to
the flames than to surrender them to the enemy.  A time was
approaching when Yankee gunboats was to lose their. prestige
of terror; when cities were no longer to be abandoned or surrendered on the approach of a foe; and when the freemen of
the South were to be taught how, by a spirit above fear and
ready for 11 sacrifice, they might defy the most potent agencies of modern warfare.
With the bright month of May a new era was dawning. 6n
the fortunes of the Confederacy.  This happy change of fortune was due not only to the improved resolution of the South.
It is in a great degree to be.attrluted to two leading causes
in the military administration.  These were, first, the conscription law, with the consequent re-organization of the army;
and, secondly, the abandonment of our plan of frontier defence, which made way for the superiour and more fortunate
policy of the concentratron of our forces in the interiour.
The first suggestion of a conscription law was made by the
Richmond Examiner —a bold and vigilant leader of the news



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                  28
paper press of the Confederacy.  It was met with violent opposition from the administration, with the clamor of demagogical presses that the suggestion conveyed a reflection, upon thb
patriotism of the country, and with the fashionable nonsense
that it was a confession calculated to give aid and comfort to
the enemy.  But the early advocates of conscription enjoyed
the singular triumph of converting public opinion completely
to their side, and-forcing the government at a future period to
the confession that the system which it had at first frowned
upon had'proved the salvation of the country.
At the beginning of the war we hal nothing that deserved
the title of a military system.  There was no lack of zeal or
determination in the South; but the organization of the army
was defective., its discipline.was retarded by bad laws, and at a
time that the forces of the enemy in Virginia had reached thehighest state of efficiency, our own army wag passing through
successive stages of disorganization to dissolution.  The army
of the enemy was superiour to our own in every respect, except
courage and good cause; they had every guaranty of success
that numbers, discipline, complete organization and perfect
equipments could effect.
The military system of the South dates from the passage of
the conscription law.  To this measure mUst be attributed'that
solidity iri'the organization of our army -and that efficiency
which challenged the admiration of the world.  The beneficial
effects of this enactment were soon manifest as well to ourselves as to'the world.  It distributed over the Confederacy
the levies in proportion to the inhabitants of each State and:
county.. It centralized the organization'of the army.  And it
introduced a regular system  of recruiting, which guarantied:
thAt the efficiency of the army would not be impaired by the
lapse of time and the loss of health and life incident to -watfare.
The conscription law came not a moment too soon. The acts
of Congress providing for re-enlistments had failed to effect
the desired object.  Without decadence of the real valour of




24            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
our people or their invincible determination to achieve their
independence, the spirit of volunteering had died out, and the
resolution of our soldiers already in the field was not sufficient
to resist the prospects, cherished for months amid the sufferings and monotony of the camps, of returning to their homes.
The exigency was critical, and even vital.  In a period of
thirty days the terms of service of one hundred and fortyeight regiments expired.  There was good reason to believe
that a large majority of the men had not -re-enlisted, and of
those who had re-enlisted, a very large majority had entered
companies which could never be assembled, or if assembled,
could( not be prepared for the field in time to meet the invasion
actually commenced.
The first act of conscription was passed on the 16th of
April, 1862.  It was afterwards enlarged by another act,
(27th September), giving the Executive the power to call into
service persons between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five.
Although the rush of volunteers had comparatively ceased,
and the ardour of the individual did not suffice for the proffer
of self-devotion, yet the sentiments and convictions of the mass
recognized as the most sacred obligation the stern duty of defending, if needs be, with their entire numbers, their imperilled
liberty, fortune and -honour.  The conscription law was, generally, cheerfully acquiesced in.  In every State one or more
camps of instruction, for the reception and training of conesripts7 was established; and to each State an officer, styled a
commandant of conscripts, was appointed, charged with the
aupervision of the enrollment and instruction of the new levies.
The execution of the conscription law was unfortunately resisted for a time by Governor Brown of Georgia.  The correspondence between him  and the President on the subjets
which was printed and hawked in pamphlet form  through the
country, was a curiosity.  It was illustrated copiously by Mr.
Brpwn with citatibns from  the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and exhumed opinions of members of the old
Federal Convention of 1787.   n -the most vital periods of the




TIE SECOND. YEAR' O  THII  WAR.            25
country's destiny, and in the fierce tumults of a revolution,
the people of the South were refreshed with exhumations from
the politicians of 1787, and the usual amount of clap-trap
about our "forefathers," and the old political system that had
rotted over our heads.
The beneficial effect of the conscription law in the re-opganization of our army was assisted by some other acts of legislation.  That re-organization was advanced by the appointment
of Lieutenart Generals, some commanding separate departments, and others heading army corps under a General in the
field. The policy of organizing the brigades with troops and
Generals from the several States was pursued, as opportunities
offered, without detriment to the public service.  The greater
satisfaction of the men from each state, when collected together, the generous emulation for glory to their State,-and the
fair apportionment of officers assured to each State according
to its contribution of defenders to the country, overbalanced
the inconvenience of separating regiments or companies previously associated, and the liability to State jealousies.  Military courts were organized to secure the prompt administration
of the military law, to check desertion and straggling, to restrain license of all kinds, and to advance temperance, discipline and subordination.
But it was not only the re-organization and improved morale
of the army that came to the aid of the declining fortunes of
the South in the war.
The disasters on the Mississippi frontier and in other directions had constrained the government to adopt the policy of
concentrating its forces in the interidur of Virginia. The object of all war is to reach a decisive point of the campaign,
and this object was realized ty a policy which it is true the
government had not adopted at the instafce of reason, lut
which had been imposed upon it by the force of'disaster.
There were childish complaints that certain districts and'points,on the frontier had been abandoned by the Confederates for
the purpose of a concenttration of troops in Virginia. An in



26           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
flammatory appeal was made by Governor Rector of Arkansas
to the States of the Trans-Mississippi, representing that the
government had deserted them  in transferring its troops to
other portions.of the Confederacy, and suggesting that they
should form a new association for their safety. But the appeal, was severely rebuked-by public sentiment.  The complaint
of Governor' Rector cost him his election, and the display of
the demagogiue consigned him to the reproaches of the public.
Such complaints were alike selfish and senseless, and in
most cases nothing more than the utterances of a demagogical,
short-sighted and selfish spirit, which would have preferred the
apparent security of its own particular State or section to the
fortunes of the whole Confederacy.  The fact was, that there
was cause of intelligent cobigratulation, even in those districts
from  which the Confederate troops had been withdrawn to
make a decisive battle, that we had at last reached a crisis, the
decision of which might reverse all our past misfortunes and
achieve results in which every State of the Confederacy would
have a share.
But the first movements of the famous summer campaign in
Virginia that was to change the fortunes of the war and adorn
our arms, were not auspicious. The designs of some of these
movements were not properly appreciated at the time, and
some of the incidents that attended them were real disasters.
We have seen that by the happy boldness of General Magruder in keeping the enemy in check on the line between
Yorktown, on York riVer, and Mulberry Island, on James
river, the advance of the grand Federal army, destined for the
capture of Richmond, was stayed until our forces were rescued
by the consummate strategy of Gen. Johnston from the pressure of enveloping armies, who arrived in time to reinforce our
lines on the Peninsula.  It became necessary, however, in the
judgment of that commander, to fall back in the direction of
Richmond.  It.was easily seen by General Johnston that at
Yorktown there was no prospect of a general action, as the
attack on either side would have to be made under disadvan



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 27
tages which neither army was willing to risk.  The Yankees
were in superiour force, besides their additional strength in
their gunboats, and in falling back so as to invest the line of
the Chickahominy, General Johnston expected to force the
enemy to more equal terms.  The difficulty-was to match the
strength of the enemy on the water; and the best. practical
equivalent for this was considered to be the open field, where
gunboats being out of the question, the ppsition of our troops
would be the same as if at Yorktown they had had a force of
gunboats exactly equal to that of the enemy, thus neutralizing
his advantage in respect of naval armament.
The retreat from Yorktown produced uneasiness in the public mind, and naturally shook the confidence of the many whoi
were in ignorance of the plans of the cautious and taciturn
strategist at the head of. our forces in Virginia.  It involved
our surrender of Norfolk, with all the advantages,of its contiguous navy-yard and dock.  And it was accompanied by a
disaster which, in so far as it was supposed to be unnecessary
and wanton, occasioned an amount.of grief and rage in the
Confederacy such as had not yet'b.een ixhibited in the war.
This memorable disaster was the destruction of the famous
mailed steamer Virginia.-"the iron diadem  of the South."
This vessel, which had obtained for us our first triumph on the
water, was an object of pride, and almost of affection, to the
people of the South.  She was popularly said to be worth fifty
thousand troops in the field.  Nor was this estimate excessive,
when it is recollected that she protected Norfolk, the navyyard and James river; that no fleet of transports could
safely land its troops, designed to attack those places at any
point from Cape Henry to the upper James, as far as she could
ascend; that her presence at Norfolk had annihilated the land
and water blockade at Newport News, passed the control bf
the James river into our hands, and protected the right flank
of our army on the Peninsula.
The Virginia was destroyed under the immediate orders of
her commander, Commodore Tatnall, oh the morning of the




28            THE SECOND: YEAR OF THE WAR.
11th of May, in the vicinity of Craney Island. According to
his statement, he had been betrayed into the necessity of destroying'his vessel by firing her magazine, by the deceitful
representations of his pilots, who at first assured him that they
could take the -ship, with a draft of eighteen feet of water,
within forty miles of Richmond, and after having lifted her so
as to unfit her for action, then declared that they could not get
her above the Jamestown flats, up to which point the shore on,
each side was occupied by the enemy.  It is proper to add,
ihat this statement of facts was contested by the pilots, who
resented the. reflections made upon their loyalty or courage.
Whatever may have been the merits of this controversy, it is
certain that the vessel was destroyed in great haste by Commodore Tatnall,, who, in the dead hour of night, aroused from
his slumbers and acquainted with the decision of his pilots,
or.dered the ship to be put ashore, landed his crew in the
vicinity of Craney Island, and blew to the four winds of heaven the only naval structure that guarded the water approach
to Richmond.
The destruction of the Virginia was a sharp and unexpected
blow to the confidence of the people of the South in their government.  How far the government was implicated in this
foolish and desperate act, was never openly acknowledged or
exactly ascertained; but, despite the pains of official concealment, there are certain well-attested facts which indicate that
in the destruction of this great war-ship, the authoritiesat
Richmond were not guiltless.  These facts properly belong to
the history of one of the most unhappy events that had occurred since the commencement of the war.
The Virginia was destroyed at 5 A. M. of the 11th of May.
During the morning of the same day a prominent politician in
the streets of Richmond was observed to be very much dejected; he remarked that it was an evil' day for the Confederacy.  On being questioned by his intimate friends' he declared
to them that the Government had determined upon, or assented
to, the destruction of the Virginia, and that he had learned'




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                  29
this from the highest sources of authority in the capital. At
this time the news of the explosion of the Virginia could not
have possibly reached Richmond; there was no telegraphic
communication between the scene of her destruction and the
city, and the evidence appears to be complete, that the Government had at least a. prevision of the destruction of this
vessel, or had assented to the general policy of the act, trusting, perhaps, to acquit itself of the responsibility for it on the
unworthy plea that it had given no express orders in the matter.
Again, it is well known that for at least a week prior to the
destruction of the Virginia, the evacuation of N9-rfolk had
been determined upon; that during this time the removal of
stores was daily progressing; and that Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, had.within this period, himself, visited
Norfolk to look after the public interests.  The evacuation of
this port clearly involved the question, what disposition was t6
be made of the Virginia.  If the Government made no decision of a question, which for a week stared it in the face, it
certainly was very strangely neglectful of the public interest.
If Mr. Mallory visited Norfolk when the evacuation was going
on, and never thought of the Virginia, or thinking ofher,
kept dumb, never even giving so much as an official nod as t~
what disposition should be made of her, he must have been
more stupid than the people who laughed at him in Richmond,
~or the members of Congress who nicknamed without mercy,
thought him to be.
It is also not a little singular that when a court of inquiry.had found that the destruction of tha Virginia was unnecessary and improper, Mr. Mallory should have waived the calling of a court martial, forgotten what was due to the public
interest on such a finding as that made by the preliminary
court, and expressed himself satisfied to let the matter rest.
The fact is indisputable, that the court martial, which afterwards sat inthe case, was called at the demand of Commodore
Tatnhll himself.' It resulted in his acquittal.
The evacuation of Norfolk was the occasion of great distress




30           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
to its population. But it was the part of a wise policy, that
our military lines should be contracted and that the troops of
Gen. Huger should be consolidated with the army before Richmond.
The retreat from Yorktown to the Chickahominy was marked
by spirited incidents and  by one important engagement.
McClellan becoming, through an accident, aware of the movement of Gen. Johnston, immediately pursued our columns,
which recoiled on him at Williamsburg, on the 5th of May,
and drove back his army. During the whole of that day,
Gen. Longstreet's division, which brought up the rear, was
engaged with the enemy from sunrise to sunset.  The day was
marked by signal successes, for we captured three hundred and
fifty prisoners, took nine pieces of artillery, and left on the
field, in killed and wounded, at least three thousand of the'enemy. During the night, our army resumed its movement
towards Richmond, and half an hour after sunrise it had
evacuated the town, under the necessity of leaving our killed
and wounded in the hands of the enenmy.
The following day, the insolence of the enemy was again
chexcked on the route of our retreat. On the 7th of May he
attempted a landing, under cover of his gunboats, at Barhamsville, near. West Point.  The attempt was ineffectual.  The
Yankees were driven back, after they had assaulted our position three different times-the, last time being forced to the
cover of their gunboats by the brave Texans of Gen. Whiting's
division who, in the face of' an artillery fire, pressed the
fugitives so closely that many were driven into the river'and
drowned.
The investment of the lines of the Chickahominy brought
the two opposing armies within sight of Riphmond.  After a
desultory military experience, a useless and inglorious march
to Manassas, a long delay on the banks of the Potomac and
Chesapeake, and a vague abandonment of these lines for
operations on the Peninsula, McClellan, who was the " Npoleon" of the Democratic party of the North, but a slow and




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 31
contemptible blunderer ih the estimation of the Republicans,
found himself, by the fortune of circumstances, within sight of
the steeples and spires of the long-sought Capital of th'e Canfederacy.
The proximity of the enemy was an occasion of great anxiety
to the people of Richmond, and the visible tremour of the
Confederate authorities in that city was not a spectacle calculated either to nerve the army or assure the citizens. The fact
is, that the Confederate authorities had shamefully neglected
the defences of'Richmond, and were now making preparations
to leave it, which were called.prudential, but which naturally
inspired a panic such as had never before been witnessed in
the history of the war.  The destruction of the Virginia had
left the water avenue to Richmond almost undefended.  The
City Council had for months been urging upon the Confederate
Government the necessity of obstructing the river, and'failing
fo induce them to hurry on the work, had, with patriotic zeal,
undertaken it themselves.  A newspaper in Richmond-the
Examiner-had in good time pointed out the necessity of
obstructing the river with stone, but the counsel was treated
with such conceit and harshness by the government, that it
was only at the risk of its existence that that paper-continued
for weeks to point out the insecurity of Richmond and the
omissions of its authorities.  The government was at last
aroused to a sense of danger only to fall to work in ridiculous
haste, and with the blindness of alarm.  The appearance of
the Yankee gunboats in James River was the signal for Mr.
S'ecretary Mallory to show  his alacrity in meeting the enemy
by an advertisement for "timber" to construct new  naval
defences.  The only obstruction between the city and the
dread Monitor and the gunboats was a half-finished fort at
Drewry's Bluff, which mounted four guns.  Some of. the Confederate officers had taken a "gunboat panic," for the line of
stone obstructions in the river was not yet complete.  They
seized upon schooners at the wharves loaded with plaster of
paris, guano, andt other valuable cargoes, carried them to points




82             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
where they supposed the passage of the river was to be contested, and in sone. instances sunk them in the wrong places.
There is no doubt that about this time the authorities of the
Confederate States had nigh despaired of the safety of Richmond.  The most urgent appeals had been made to Congress
by the press and the people to continue its session in Richmond while the crisis impended.  But its members refused to
give this mark of confidence to the governmentt or to make
any  sacrifice  of their selfish  considerations for the moral
encouragement of their constituents,  They had adjourned in
haste and left Richmond, regarding only the safety of their
persons or the convenience of their homes.
Nor was the Executive more determined. In the President's
mansion about this time all was consternation and dismay.  A
letter written. by one of his family at a time when Richmond
was thought to be imminently threatened, and intercepted by
the enemy, afforded, excessive merriment to the Yankees, and
made a painful exhibition to the South of the weakness and
fears of those entrusted with its fortunes.  This letter, written
with refreshing  simplicity of heart, overflowed  with pitiful
sympathy for the President, and amused the enemy with references to the sore anxieties of " Uncle Jeff." and to the prospect of his sinking under the misfortunes of his administration.  The authenticity of this letter was never called into
question: it is a painful and delicate historical evidence, but.
one to which, in the interests of truth, allusion should not be
spared.*
* The following is a portion of the letter referred to. The reflections
which it makes upon the courage of our noble, suffering soldiers were
probably. hasty, and may be spared here:
*  *  *  *  " When I think of the dark gloom that now hovers over our
"country, I am ready to sink with despair. There is a probability of Gen'l
"Jackson's army falling back on ^Richmond, and in view of this, no lady is
"allowed to go up on the railroad to Gordonsville for fear, if allowed to one,
"that many others would wish'to do it, which would incommode the army."
"General Johnston is falling back from the Peninsula, or Yorktown, and
"Uncle Jeff. thinks we had better go to a safer place than Richmond.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                           V.,t is true that President Davis, when invited by the Legislatare of Virginia to express his intentions towards Richtmond,
"We have not decided yet where we shall go, but I'think to North Carolina,.
"to some far-off country town, or, perhaps, to South Carolina.  If Johnstot
"falls back as far as Richmond, all our troops from Gordonsville and "Swift
"Run Gap" will also fall back to this place, and make one desperate stand.
"against McClellan.  If you will look at.the map, you will see that the
", Yankees are approaching Richmond from three different directions-from
"Fredericksburg, Iarrisonburg, and Yorktown.  Oh! God, defend this pee.
" pie with thy powerful arm, is my constant prayer.  Oh,'mother, Uncle Jeff.
"is miserable.  He triesto be cheerful, and bear up against such a continua" tion of troubles, but, oh, I fear he cannot live long, if he does oot get some
"rest and quiet. 
"Our reverses distressed him  so much, and he is so weak and feeble, it
"'makes my heart ache to look at him. He knows that he ought to send his
" wife and children away, and yet he cannot bear to part with'them, and *e
"all dread to leave him too.  Varina and I had a hard cry about it to-day.
"Oh! what a blow the fall of New Orleans was. It liked to have'set us all.
"crazy here.- Everybody looks depressed, and the cause of the Confederacy
"looks drooping and sinking; but if God is with us, who can be against us?
"Our troops are not doing as well as'we eipected *- * * *  * * *  The:
"regiments that are most apt to run are from North Carolina and Tennse —
" see. I am thankful to say that the Mississippi and Louisiana troops behave
"gloriously whenever called on to fight.
"Uncle Jeff. thinks you are safe at home, as there will be no resistance a''Vicksburg, and the Yankees will hardly occupy it; and, even if they did,.
"the army would gain nothing by marching pto  the country, and a few
"soldiers would be afraid to go so far into the interior.
"P. S.  We all leave here to-morrow morning for Raleigh.  Three gun" boats are in James River, on their way to the city, and may probably reach
"here in a few hours; so we have no longer any time to delay.  I only hope
"that we have not delayed too long already.  I shall then be cut off from all
"communication with   -, and I expect to have no longer any'peace."
"I will write again from Raleigh, and Fanny must write me a letter and.
"direct it to Raleigh; perhaps I may get ft. I am afraid that Richmond
"will fall into the hands of the enemy, as there is no Way to keep back the
"gunboats.  James River is so high that all obstructions are in danger of"'
"being washed away; so that there is no help for the city. She will either.
"submit or else be shelled, and I think the latter alternative will be
"resorted to.
"Uncle Jeff. was confirmed last Tuesday in St. Paul's Church by Bishop
" Johns.  He was baptized at home in the morning before church."Do try to get a letter to me some way.  Direct sbme to Raleigh and some
"to Richmond.                          Yours, ever devotedly,
3




84             THE SECOND  VEAR OF THE WAR.
had:declared that he entertained the prospect of ho!ling it.
But his reply was full of emlbarrassennt.. \hile lie decl;a  d
his intention not to surrender the city, le at the  same tirne
suggested the fanciful possib)ility, that even \ithi the' loss of
RichminOd our struggle for in ependence might he protral ted
for many years in tie mountains of Virgir ia.  In the tiieantime, the  acts of the.Confeoderate officials galve visible land
uniristakable  slns of their sense of the insecurity of the
capital.  They added to the public alarm  by'preparntions to
remove tie archives.  They ran off their wives arnd chillren
into  tile country.  They gam -the  public  every  reason  to
believe tlhat Richmond was to become the prey of the enemy,
and tihe catastrophe was awaited with liv:ely alarm, or dull aind
melancholy expectation.
In tlle early weeki of May the capital of the Confederacy
presented many strange and hiumiliating spectacles.  The air
was filled  with those rumours of treason and( disloyalty which
seem  invariably to grow out bf a sense of insecurity.  Men.who t;had been loudest in their professions of resistance and
felf-devotion when the Yankees were at a distance, were now
engagedl it secreting their pro'perty, Ian  a few openly flattered
themselves that they had not contmitted themselves in the war
in a way to incur the erncmy's resentment.  Some of therm had
their celli:rs packed witlh manufactured tobacco.  The railroad
trains  were crowded  with refugees.  At every extortioner's
shop 4.n Main Street, even including the book-stores,  a r ray
of packing trunks invited attention, and suggested the necessity
of flight from  Richmond.  At the railroad depots'were to be
-seen piles of baggage, awaiting transportation.  But the most
abundant and humiliating signs of the panic were to be seen
in the number of pine boxes about the departmnents ticketed
GColumibia, South  Carolina," and which contained the most
valuable of the public archives.
In t}is-conditioinof the public mind, a new appeal was made
to it.  When it was ascertained that the Monitor, Galela, and
Aristook, were about to head for Richmond, the Legislature (f




THE SECOND YEAR O  TlE WAR.                    35
Virginia  passed  resolutions calling  upon  the  Confederate
authorities to defend it to the last extremity, and  to make
choice of its destruction rather than that of surrender to the
enemy.  This resolution wvas worthy of the noble State of Virginlia, and of a people "who were the descendants of Washington's cotemporaries, of IIampden's friends, and of King
John's Barons.  Its terms were too explicit to admit of any
doubt in their construction, or any wavering on the part of the
Confederate authorities.  They expressed the desire that Richmrond should be defended  to the last extremity, and declareld
that.' the President be assured, that whatever destruction or.
lcss of property of the State or individuals shall thereby result,
will be cheerfully submitted to."
Thei resolutions of the Legislature were responded, to'ini
meetings of citizens.  The magical effects of the spirit which
they created  will long  be renmeimbered in  Richmond.  Thle
Confederate a.uthorities were stimulated  by the brave lesson;
ilnert and speculative  patriotism  was aroused  to exertion;
mutual inspiration of courage and devotion passed from hea;t
to heart throllgh the community, and wiith the restoration of
public confidence, came at last vigorous preparations.  The
James was rapidly filled up, the works at l)rewry's Bluff were
strengthened, and a steady defiance offered to theYalnkee gunboats, which had appeared within a few ml-es of the city at ^
moment when the last gap.in our river obstructions was filled
up by a scuttled schooner.
On the 15th of May, the fleet of Yankee gunboats in the
James ope.ed an attack on our batteries at Drewry's Bluff.
The sound of the guns was heard in the streets of Richmond,
and various and.uncertain reports of the fortulles of the contest
agitated the public.  In the midst of the excitement, an extra-'
ordinary scene occurred in the city.  A meeting of citizeins
had been called at the City Hall on an accidental occasion,
and at the entlusiastic call of the crowd, impromptu addresses
were made by the Governor of Virginia and the Mayor of the'
city.  Each of these officials pledged his faith that Rilhmonud




06           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.,
aho.uld never be surrendered.  Gov. Letcher declared, with a
peculiar warmth of expression, that if the demand was made
upon him, with the alternative to surrender or be shelled, he
should reply, "bombard and ibe d.d."  Mayor Mayo was
not less determined in the language which he addressed to the
citizens.  He told them that even if they were to require him
to surrender the Capital of Virginia and of the Confederacy,
he would, sooner than comply, resign the mayoralty; and
that, despite his age, he still had the, nerve and strength to
shoulder a musket in defence of the city founded by one of his
ancestors.  These fervid declarations were responded to by
the citizens with wild and ringing shouts. Nor were these the
demonstrations of a mob.  Among those who so enthusiastjeally approved'the resolution of consigning Richmond to the
flames rather than to the possession of the enemy, were some
of the most wealthy and respectable citizens of the place,
whose stakes of property in the city were rarge, and whosebeautiful homes were exposed to the shot and shell of the
malignant foe.
-The night brought the news of a signal victory.  Our batteries, under the skillful command of Capt. Farrand, had, after a
contest of four.hours and a half, given a decisive repulse to-the
gunboats, with the inconsiderable loss of five killed and seven
wounded.  The accuracy of our fire had astonished the enemy
and. carried diaiay through his'fleet. Eighteen shots went
through the sides of the Galena, according to the enemy's own
account; and this river, monster lost thirty of her crew in
killed and wounded.  Seventeen men were killed on another
of the boats by the explosion of a gun.  The boats had been'
unable to advance in the face of the accurate and deadly fire
of our artillerists, and the next day they had dropped down
the stream, quite satisfied of the impracticability of the water
approach to Richmond.
Regarding all the circumstances in-which this action had
taken place, there is no extravagance in saying, that the scale
of the war was turned in our favour by even so small an affair




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR. 
as that of Drewry's Bluff. It exploded the fanciful theories
of the enemy's invincibility on the water, and went far:t
assure the safety of the now closely threatened Capital of the
Confederacy.
But there were other causes about this time which conspired
to renew the popular confidence in our arms, and to swell with
gratitude and hope the hearts which had' so long throbbeA'
with anxiety in our besieged capitaL  We shall see how, fo'
some time, at least, the safety of. Richmond was trusted, noc
so much to the fortunes of the forces that immediately protected it, as to the splendid diversion of the heroic Jackson ia
the Valley of Virginia.  To this famous expedition public
attention'was now turned, in the North as well as in the
South, and its altnost marvellous results, with marked una4
nimity, were' ascribed to the zeal, heroism  and genius of, it
commander alone.
JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN IN THE VALLEY.,On the change of our military lines in Virginia, and the
rapid shifting of the scene of active hostilities from the Potomac, Gen. Jackson had been assigned with a sni;all force to
guard the Valley of Virginia, and the approaches in that
direction, to the armies of the enemy which enveloped Rich,
rnond.
Our first success was obtained in the upper portion of the
Valley.  On the morning of the 8th of May, our forces hal
approached the position of Milroy, the Yankee commander at
McDowell.  The brigade of General Johnson had secured an
advantageous'position on a hill, and the enemy, fearful of
being surrounded, decided at last, after some signs of hesitation, to deliver battle. The action was not joined until about
two hours of sunset. The fact was, that we engaged Me enemy
with not more than one third of his own numbers, which were
about twelve thousand.  But the contest was easily decided
by the brave troops of Johnson's brigade, composed of Virginia
volunteers, with the 12th Georgia regiment. They had stool




48. TTHE SECOND YEAR OF TRE WAR.
for nearly two  hours receiving with  composed  courage  the
cross fire of the enemyl     artillery; ant  tlien, as the suln w'as
einking, tlhey made't;ie charge decisive of the day, and drove.he enemy in consternation and utter rout frori the field.
Our loss in this action was considerable.  Of three hundred
andl fifty killed and( wound(ld, nearly'two thirds were Georgians.
Tho troops of this State on other occasions than this had left
monuments df their courage in'the mountains of Virginia.
Tlie loss of the enemy:at McDowell exceeded that of the Confederates, and was conjectured to be double our own.
It was probably at the suggestion of his own judgment, and
at the instance of his own military instincts, that Gen. Jackson
determined to act on the aggressive, anrl to essay tlhe extraordinary task  of (ldivlng  the. Yankees from  tlie Valley.  In
pursuance  of this determnination, his resoiution  was quickly
taken to make a da(sh at Fremont's a:lvance,' west of Sta unton,
and thlen to turn uptn B:anks with'the adventurous purpose of
drivinrg himn into Maryland.
Gen. Banks, one of the military pets of thle more truculent
party of the abolitionists, hald entered Virginia with the airs of
a conqueror.  As early as the'2 1th of April lie llhad telegralphed
to  his government the story (of uninterrupted and triumin  hant
progress  lie announced tlhat ie!hadl "advanced near Illarrisonburg;" ant(d, with a char'acteristic flourish, lle a;llell: Tli'e
rebel Jackson  lias abandloned(  tile Valley cf Virginia permatnliTtly, and is en route for Gordonsville by the way of the
inouultain?.."
The first intimation  the obtuse Yankee General had of his
mistake was the aistouniling news that reacle'dl! iln m  on the
exening of Miy 2'd, that tlie " rebel Jack,,n " hadl (lescendred'on tle guard;.at Front Royal, Colonel Kenly, 1st Maryland
regimerlntco lmandirng, burne(l tle bridg es, driven tlie Federal
troops' towards Strasb1irg withl great loss, caurilrl  a section of
artillery, and taken about fourlteen huudred prisoners.
It was now  Banks'i turn to  betnake himnself to flighlt, or, in
tlhe official' circumlocutiolp of that commander, "-to entter the




TIIE  SECOND YEAR OF TiEB WAR. 
lits witl the enemy in a. race or a ba.ttle, as lie slioull clhosoe,
for the possession of Winclhester, tie key of the Valley."  But
lie was not destined to reach his promised  have-n of sccurity
withlout (tisaster.
On the  dlay following the sudden apparition of Jackson at
Front Roya;l, tlhe untiringr conm ander had  by a rapid luoveinerit succeeded  in piercing Banks' main column wlhile retreating from'Strasburg, to Winlchester; the rear, includilng a body
of tlie celebrated Zouaves d'At'rique, retreating towards Straabarg.'The Yankee General reached Winchester only to find fresh
causes of alarm.  The  people of th;ilt acient   towni, alrealdy
surle o  their deliverance, received the Yankees with slhouts of
derision  andl dl(fi:lnt cheers for Jackson.  Soriie Confedlerate
officers came into  tile eniemy's camp  with  enltire unconcern,
Supposing tliat their own troops occupied( tlie town as a mn itter
of colrsr, alndl wlhen captured, gave tlhe Yankees tlie dcl':llhtful
assurance tliat an attack would be made by the terrible Jackson
at daybbreak.
01O  the 25th of May, Gen. Jackson gave the crowning stroke
to  tle rapid  movements of tile  past two days by att;icking
Witnchiter andl drivilig out the cowardl         y e   alney.lmost witlhout
resistance.  Gen. BaInts -peaks of his mtreteat with a sha;melesaness tliat is at once simple and refreshing.   lie says " pursuit
by tile enemy was prompt and.vigorous; but our movements
were rapid;" a;nd  he writes to tle autllorities at Was.liitlgton
of llis c'o.siig  of tlie. Potolmac:   "There never were more
grateful hearts in tfle same rnumber of men -than wlhen at midday on thle 30th of May we stood on thle opposite slhore.."   He
had1 escaped wi i tlhe loss of all tle nmaterial and parap llrnalia
thlat constitute an  armny.  IIe had abandoned at Winchllester
all lis commissary a.nd  ordnance stores.  Ile lih(d  resigned
that Town and( Front Royal to the undisputed possession of the
Confederates.   I-e  had  left in  their  handls four thousand
prisolners, and  staores imounting to millions of do!lirs.   And
411 those prizes had  been obtained by the Confederates in tho




-40           THEB SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
brief period of a few days, and with a loss pot exceeding one
hundred in killed and wounded.
When General Jackson fell back from  Winchester, after
routing Banks, he managed, with great address, boldness and
energy, to carry off his, prisoners and spoils, and to bring oft
his army between the converging columns of Fremont, who
approached his rear from the west, with eight brigades, and
Shields, who approached from the east, with four brigades.
If these brigades averaged twenty-five hundred men, the force
of Fremont was twenty thousand and that of Shields ten
thousand men.  At Harrisonburg, Jackson left the main turnpike road of the Valley and marched towards Port Republic,
the distance between these two places being about twelve miles.
Port Republic is situated at the junction of South river, flowing north, and North rivar, flowing east.  Jackson could retire
no further without crossing North river, which was swollen,
and there was then no bridge over it except at Port Republic.
The two rivers uniting at that village form theShenandoah,
which flows north, and which could not then be crossed by an'army. On the east side of that stream was the army of Shields,.and on the west side were the armies of Fremont and Jackson.
The latter halted near North river without crossing it, and,
while in that position,'his rear was approached and attacked
by Fremont's whole army, orn the morning of Sunday, the 8th
of June, and, at the same time, Shields' force approached on
the east side of the Shenandoah near Port Republic.
That part Qf Jackson's army which engaged Fromont on
Sunday was commanded by General Ewell, while the rest of
the army under General Jackson held Shields in check with
artillery firing across the Shenandoah near Port Republic.'The battle of Sunday took place' about five miles from  that
village in the direction of Harrisonburg.
It began early in the morning and lasted all day, with occasional intervals.  It was mainly an artillery fight, but now and
then, here and there, the infantry became hotly engaged.
The'force under Fremont was much larger than that under




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 41
Ewell, but the latter was strongly posted on, eminences which
favored the effectiveness of artillery and sheltered the infantry,.while the enemy could only approach through open fields.
EEwell's command was handled with remarkable skill, while
Fremont's generalship was indifferent. Ewell's artillery was
served with admirable precision and effect, and his infantry,
whenever engaged, displayed great steadiness and gallantry.
The result was, that when night put an end to the contest,
Fremont had been driven back between one and two miles,
with a loss, in killed and wounded, not less than' two thousand,
and probably much larger, while our loss did not exceed three
hundred, and probably not two hundred. The judicious selection of a position in which to receive the enemy favored this
result, but it was largely due to the superiour fighting qualities of our men.
Soon after nightfall, General' Jackson'began to withdraw
his men from this battle-field, and pass them over North river
by the bridge at Port Republic, with a view to attack Shields
the next mornihg.  He left in front of Fremont a small force
to amuse and detain him, and, after retiring before him to'Port
Republic, to burn the bridge behind them, and thus to prevent
Fremont from rendering any aid to Shields.  All this was accomplished.
On Monday morning, Jackson passed the greater part of
his army across the' South river (the smallest of the streams)
by means of a bridge made of planks laid on wagons placed
in the river.  Early in the morning a sufficient number had
crossed to commence the battle, and they were led to the field
betwec  one and two miles distant, on the east bank of the
Shenandoah.  The enemy's force was found drawn up awaiting the attack.
The enemy's line extended'from the river about half a mile
across' a flat bottom, free from timber, and covered with wheat,
grass, &c. His left rested on the point of a low ridge coming
out from the woods which skirt the bottom.  On a slight elevation there and in some small knolls in the bottom, he had his




42               TIIE  SECOND  YEAR OF THE WAR.
artillery comm:lnling the road and  tlhe wide uncovered level
pliin, over wilich  Jackson's  army  was- obliged  to  advanice.
The levcl anld exposed groundl offered scarcely any suitable position for planiing our artillery.  The a(lvantage of position
belonged altogether to  tlhe enemy.  The capital fault of Ilis
dispcsition for battle was that the battery on  his extreme  tft
was poste 1 near the woods without any illfalltry in~ tie woods
to  defend it.   By  availing  himhself of tLis circulnstanc(e, and
by a brilliant manoeuvre andl charge, Jacksoh  tuined  the fortune of the day at a critical moment.
For some two hlolrs tlhe battle raged with great fury.  Our
infiantry, at first but few, adliniced with marvelous intrepidity
in the face of a withering  fire of artillery antd mlusketry.  At
one motnment thie enemy advanced a section of a. battery several
11hundred vards so as to enfilade ouir left wing, whllicll already
suffered terribly froin tlhe fire'in front.  It sectne(a tlia t nothing
couldl  witlstland tlhe fury of tlheenemy's fire of a;ll arims.  His
artillery, was very fine, anl was served  witlh  great effect by
regulars.  Blut otlher troops coming;at double quick  fl'or  Port
Republic, -camn  onr the fiel.l, and, at the sane time, tlie Louisiaria brigatle, under'Taylor, emerred  fromrl tlhe wo,,,ls ont the
enemr y's lcft.'hley  1ad been  serl  by a. considlcrable circuit
throllugh  tle wood l, whicl extend all  along tlhe battle-field between the clea1red ground and the neiglhbouring mountail.  By
a sliglht error of lirection tlhey ca.m e out of tiie woo(ls a little
too soon. al td f(oundt themnselves almost -ii frornt of the!battery,
wlhich instantly began; to shower gra;pe u)pot  themr.  Bit, immediailtly rectifying their direction, they chlargedl tlhe battery
withi irresistible impetuosity, anll carried it.'The colltest then
was speedily ended.  The enemy's whole line gave way and
was presently  retreating in disorder, pursued  bly our cavalry.
The purstit was.kept up about ten or twelve miles, but tlie
flight contiiuedl all tlhat day and tile next.  About five liundeled pris)oners were taken that (day, andl others aIfter that were
broughlt in daily.  Th;e loss of the enemny in killed andl woutinlted
was heavy, a'nd -so was our own.  Six  splendid  canilol were




THN    SECOND  YEAR  OF TIIE  WAR.                       43
captured  on  the field, another was taken  in  tile  puri.uit, and'
still nnother had been captured on  Sunday.'l'le fo:ce of the
eCie!ty elrgaged(  was about six  or seven  t}housanil, andl ours a
little  larger.  Shields was  not present, but his troops were
colnMn   illed by Gener'al Tyler.
After tle rout of the enieny had commenced, the;lst of our
trooips crossed over. tle bridge  at Port Republic and  bullrnt it.
Frenoll:t, cautiously following, appeared sorle'timne afterwards,
and  d(lrew up  his army in  lile of battle on  the lieigll's along
the west bank of the  Shlenaldoah, from  wlhich   le overlooked
tile fiel(d of battlj.   While lie stood tlhere in imlpotent idleness,
Ja.cl*on's army, Ihvii  finally' disposed of Shitdls, tro'v'ed off
at leislure  to Brownvll'  (.Gap,:lnd  there encampl1d, to  rest for a
few d(ays from  the fatigles of a m,,onth's ceanpaligl Imore tar(lUous a:;   Inore succes.sful tlan  any  montl's opera'tions of the
W:ll'.  TIie exhlaustioni of our. men  andl  the illterposition of a
river, no longer bridged, securedl Fremont firom  a seeon(d  battle or a haIsty flilght.   Thle' next day lie commenced lhis retreat
down tlie Vallev.
T'iis f mous campaign  must, inleed, take a rank in the histoly of tile;war. u:,rivalled  by any otlelr in tlie rapidity of its.
incveT:.ents and-in  tile  brilii;ncy of the results accoilplis;ed,
colpinareI with  the   leans at its cotnrlan;r(.   Its hei'oic deeds
revivedl  thle  hopes of thle  Soutl, and1   tllrew  tile  spllendour of
snAligliit over tlie long  liiies of tile  Conl(ele:ate  host.  By a
series of rapidl movelments, wh'iclh  occupied  but a  fe                e weeks,
GenTeral Jackson had, with iiiferictur numbers, lefeatedl successively four Genelral,   witl as many, arlmies, swept tlie V;lley of
Vi ri i a, (o,  liostile forces, m al.e tlie Fede:al;1it liriti -s tremble in tlicir capital, andl  frustralted  the comrnina;tiols Iy which
tlie e:,emvy hatl   purposed to'l i(l General MIcClellan anrld environ
Rich)I.iidi  bv lar'ge colnverging armliies.
Our1 lossi of life il tills c.-lmpaign was inconsideralile in numbers; but on the bl'ack list of killed, there; as one:nanle cons)ieplioAs throughout tlie CG.nfe felera.ey, an(l  espelcially diear to
Vigii;ians.   Colonel Turner Ashby, whose  name was linked




44            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.'with so much of the romance of the war; and whose gentle and
enthtsiastic courage and knightly beariqg had called to mind
the recolle6tions of chivalry and adorned Virginia with a new
chaplet of fame, had, on the 5th of'June, fallen in a skirmish
near Harrisburg.
"The last time I saw Ashby," writes a noble comrade in
arms, Colonel Bradley T. Johnson of the Maryland Line, "he
was riding at the head of the column with General Ewell-his
black face in a blaze of enthusiasm.  Every feature beamed
with the joy of the soldier.  He was gesticulating and pointing out the country and positions to General Ewell.  I could
imagine what he was saying by the motions of his rightarm.
I pointed him out to my Adjutant.'Look at Ashby; see how
he is enjoying himself.'"
A few hours later and the brave Virginian, so full of life,
was a corpse.  Our men had fallen upon a body of the enemy
concealed in a piece of woods and under the cover of a fence.
Ashby was on the right of the 58th Virginia.  He implored
the men to stop their fire, which was ineffectual, and to charge
the enemy.  They were too much excited to heed him, and
turning towards the enemy he waved his hand-" virginians,
charge!"  In a second his horse fell.  He was on his feet in
an instant.  "Men," he cried, "cease firing-charge, for God's
sake, charge!"  The next instan,he fell dead-not twenty
yards from the concealed marksman who had killed him.
To the sketch we have briefly given of this campaign, it is
just to add one word of reflection.  It had been frequently and
very unwarrantably asserted that the people of what was once
the garden spot of the South, the Shenandoah Valley, were
favourably inclined to the Union cause, and that many of them
had shown a very decided spirit of disloyalty to the Confederate authority.  The best refutation of this slander is to be
found in the enemy's own accounts of his experiences in that
region.
The fact is, that the people of this' Volley had'suffered to A
most extraordinary.degree the fiery trials and ravages of war.




THE SECOND YEAR  OF THE WAR.                          45
Their country had been  bandied about from  the possession of
the Confederates to that of the Yankees, and then back again,
until it had been stripped of everything  by needy friends on
the one side, and unscrupulous invaders on the other.  -Some
portions of the country were actually overrun -by three armies
in two weeks.  In  such  circumstances there were, no doubt,
expressions  of discontent, which  had  been  hastily  misinterpreted as disloyal demonstrations; but, despite these, there is
just reason to believe that a spirit of patriotism  and integrity
abidedd4n the Valley of Virginia, and that it had been mraintained under trials and chastisements much greater than those
which had befallen other parts of the Confederacy.
MEMOIR OF TURNER ASH'BY.
The writer had proposed a record in another and more extensive form of
the principal events of the life of Turner Ashby; but the disappointment of
assistance to sources of information from persons who had represented themselves as the friends of the deceased, and from whom the writer had reason to.
expect willing and warm co-operation, has compelled him to defer the execution of his original and cherished purpose of giving to the public a worthy
biography of one whose name is a source of immortal pride to the South,
and an enduring ornament to the chivalry of Virginia. But the few incidents
roughly thrown together here may hhve a certain interest.  They give the
key to the character of one'of the most remarkable men of the war; they.
afford an example to be emulated by our soldiers; they represent a type of
courage peculiarly Southern in its aspects; and they add an unfading leaf to
the chaplet of glory which Virginia has-gathered on the blood-stained fields
of the war.
It is not improper here to state the weight and significance given to the
present revolution by the secession of Virginia.  It takes time for revolutions
to acquire their mea'ning and proper significance.  That which was commenced by the Cotton States of tie South, attained its growth, developed its
purpose, and became instantly and thoroughly in earnest at the period when
the second secessionary movement, inaugurated by Virginia, confronted the
powers at Washington with its sublime spectacles.
Virginia did not secede in either the circumstance or sense in which the
Cotton States had separated themselves from  the Union. She did not leave
the Union with delusive prospects of peace to comfort or sustain her. She.
did not secede in the sense in which separation from the Union was the primary object of secession.  Her act of secession was subordinate; she was
called upon to oppose a practical and overt usurpation on the part of the.




46                  THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Government at Washington in drawilng its sword against the sovereignty of
States a:111  ilsisting on the right of coerciin; to contest this her sep'iration
from  thie Union was necessary, and became a painful formality which could
not be dispensed with.
A jiu.t aind pllilo.-)ohical  observation of events must find that in this second
sPces.iotii: yv tiuveient, of the Southern States, the revolution was put- ona'I
bai.is iifi:iitely higher and tirmer in all its moral and constitutional aspects:.that at this period it developed itself: acquired its proper signiticanc", a, d
wasw bi.t)aly translhlted into a w-vr Of liberty.  Tlie rmoivenient of Virgiia 11iall
more th:in anytlling tlse addid to the moral iifluenc-s of the revv.,lutii and
perfectid its justification in the eyes of tile world   It was plain th:lt. hle liad
not s cedted oi anl issue of plicy, but one of distinct rand practical con-titutionll  riglit, a:nl  th;at, too, in tlhe face of a war wl ich frotlwned upon hier own.
bolders, andt  whicll necessarily was to lmake her soil the principal theatre of
its ravY;es and woes.  lHer atachment to the Union had btein proved bIy the
most untirinig and ntble eff-rts to save it; her Legislature origil!edl the
Peace Coift'rence, which  asstiimled  at Washlilgtoni in February, 1861; her
repreyenta tives il Congress sought in that body every mode of hlosiouralde
pacific;tion:l her Convention Fent delegates to Washington to perlaude Mr.
Lincoln to a pacifi ppiicy-; and in every forni of public as-semnily, every etxpedient of negotiation was essayed to save tile Union.  When these tffirts at
pacification, whlich Virginia lhad made with an unselfishne s withlont parallel,
and witli a tiobility of sj irit that scorned an:y misrepresentaition of her loffice,
prove!l aIbrtive, shie did not hesitate to draw her swor.lin front of the elnemy,
and to devote all sit! possessed and loved anid hoped for to the fortunes of the
war.  It is tlnt neceessary to recount at lengtlh the services of this Iancient
Cormnlonwealth  in tile war for Southern independence.  She furnished nearily
all of tle arnms, amnmunition and accoutrements tna.t won tie early battles;
she gave the Conf-derate service, fromnl her owil artlories and stores, sevenityfive tholusa1uf rifles arid fiuskets, nearly three hundred pieces of artillery,
auida mnagnificent armory, cuntaining all tile machinery necessary for mianiufacturig larms on a largetscale; and o)n every occasion sile replied to the call
for troops, trntil she ldrained hler arms-bearing population lo the dregs. 
It is a circumstance ot most honourable remarr, thlat such hlas been the
conduct of Virginia in this war, tha.t even.from tile base and  inidictive enenmy
tributes liave been forced to the devoted courage and heroi, qualities of her
eons.  The following extraordinary tribute fromj  tie Washiugton Rej u'Iican,
the organ: of ab litioni at the Yankee capital, is a compliment more expre-sive
thlanl  nything a Virginian could say for his own State and its present generation of heroes:
" If there has been any decadence of the manly virtues in the Old Doinin-';ion, it is not because the present generation has proved itself either wetak'^or cowardly or unequal to the greatest energencies.  No people,'with so
"few numbers, ever put into the field, and kept there so long, troops miiore
" nutlerous, brave, or more efficient, or produced Generals of murl mnierit, ib
"all tle kinds and grades of military talent.  It is not a worn-out, effete race'"which has produced Lee, Johnston, Jackson, Ashby and Stuwrt.  It is not a
"'wonl-out and effete race which, for two years, hka  d4efended its capital




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                                   47
4"anainst tihe nproach of an enemy close upon/ their borders,  nd' outnumbering tlem thirty to one.  It is not a worn cut,nd effete race wlhich has'preserved.i-bhstaliti:l popular unity ulnder all the straits anil p!ressure annd' ancrifice of this uinpretcedented war.' Let history,' as was said  tf tanother
irace,'whicll records their unlh:ppy fate as n people. do justice to their
"ruile virtues as men.'  They are fighting madly in a bad cause, hut- they'*are fi htinghravely.  They have'few cowards and no traitors.  Tte hard-' ships of war are endured without a murmur by all classes, antl the d.lIigers
4 of war witlout fliriching, by the newest conscripts: wliile their gentry, the
"offshoot of their popular social system. have thrown themselves into tle' camip:and field With'all the dash and high spirit of the Eulrop an.ioblesse of
" the niddle ages.  riskiing, witlhut apparent concern, upon a desleralte aa" venturec   ill that m!en value; and after a generation of peace and reipose
":aid stecittity, which had not emasculated them, presenting to their enemies
"a trailned:an, intrepid fronit, as of men born and bred to warl."
What has blen said here of Virginia aLd her chalacteristics in the preseht
revolution, is the natural and jost prefiace to what we Itave to,>ay of the man
wito, morte-than any one else in this war, illustritted the chiva.lry of the Comrnonweailth and the virtues of her gentry.  Turner Ashhy was a thorough
Virginian.  lie was  ll ardent lover of the old Union.  He was brought up
inl tlh-t conservative and respectable school of politids which hesitated long to
bacrifice a Unlio  which h1ad been, in part, constructed by thle most illustrious
of the soens (it Vi'-gillia.; which had conllfered matiy -honours upon her; and
which was tile subject of maIny hopes in the future.  But when it bectime
evidet nt tlmat the lile of the Union was gone, andt the sword was drawn  flr conFttitittonal libetity, the spirit of Virginia was hgain illustratedl by Asthby, who
showed a devotion in the field even more admirable than the virtue of political principles. 
Turner Ashh y was the second son of the late Colbnel Turner Ashby, of
R se Batlk," Fauquier county, and Dorothea F. Green, the daughter of the
late Jaimes Green, Sr.. of Rappaliannock county.  Colonel Ashby, at his death,
left three s,,is and three diaughlters  the eldest of whon   dio Itot exceed twelve
years of age at the time of his death-to  the sole care of their devo,ted mother.'To her excellent sense, generous disposition and noble character, the
Conttederacy is indebted for two as noble and gallant nien as have won soldiers'
griaves during this war.
The  atitler of'Turner Ashby was the sixth son, that reached manhollod, of
Captain Jack  Ashby, a man of- mark in the day in whichl  lie liveil, and of
whltom miany anecdotes are still extant, illustrative of his remtarkatlle character.  One of these belongs to the colonial timies, and is interesting:'4lWen the news of the disastrous defeat anu  death of Getneral Braddock
"reached Fort Loudoun, (now Winchester, Virgitlia,) John Ahti-y was there,
"anid his celebrity as a horseman  induced the  British Coltiiundaltit of the
"poUt to secure his services as bearer of dispatches to the Vice-l.Ryal Gov"*ernor at % illia;Lisburg.  Ashby at once proceeded ont his mission, lnd in an
"incrtdibly short tine presented himself belore the conmantder lt Fort Lou"*doun.'-his uficial,  uf choleric disposition, upou the appearantce of Ashbly,'" brote out in severe reproach -for his delay in proceeding on his nmission,,l



48               THE  SECOND  YEAR.OF THE WAR.
"was finally struck' dumb with astonishment, at the presentation of the Gov"ernor's reply to'the dispatch! The ride is said to have been accomplished
"in the shortest possible time, and the fact is certified in the records of Fred"erick county court." 
Upon the breaking out of the Revolution of 1776, Captain Jack Ashby
raised a company in. hib neighbourhood in the upper part of Fauquier: It
was attached to the third Virginia regiment, under command of General Marshall.  He was in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and several other
of the most desperately contested fields of the Revolution. From exposure
and hardships endured upon the frontiers of Canada, he contracted disease,
from which he was never entirely relieved to the day of his death.  lHe contitued in the service during the whole period of the Revolution, and after the
proclamation of peace, quietly settled upon his beautiful farm  not far from
Markham Station, upon the Manassas Gap railroad.  Four of his sons, John,
Samuel, Nimrod and Thomson, served in'the war of 1812.
The father of our hero died, as we have stated, leaving a family of children
of tender age. Young Turner was put to school, where it does not appear
that he showed any peculiar trait in his studies; but he was rqemarkable
among his young associates for his sedate manners, his grave regard for
truth, and his appreciation of points of honour.
Turner Ashby never had the advantages of a college education, but he had
a good, healthy mind; he was an attentive student of human nature, and a
convenient listener where information was to be gained; and he possessed
those ordinary stores of knowledge which may be acquired by a moderate use
of books and an.attentive intercourse with men. He was engaged for some
time in merchandise at Marktam's Depot.  The old homestead of his father
still stands near there, and not far from the homestead of the Marshalls.
The tastes of Ashby were too domestic for politics.  He was at one time
Whig candidate for the Virginia Legislature from Fauquier, but was defeated
by a small majority. This was his only public' appearance in any political
strife, and but little else is known of him as a politician beyond his ardent
admiration of and personal attachment to Robert E. Scott.
Ashby's attachment to domestic life was enlivened by an extreme fondness
for manly-pastimes. He was a horseman from verychildhood, and had the
greatest passion for equestrian exercises. His delight in physical excitements
was singularly pure and virtuous; he shu'ned the dissipations fashionable
among young men; and while so sober and steady in his habits as sometimes
to be a joke among his companions, yet he was the foremost in all innocent
sports, the first to get up tournaments and fox chases,'an4 almost always the
successful competitor in all manly games.. His favorite horse was trained for
tournaments and fox-hunting, and it is said to have been a common pastime
of Ashby to take him  into the meadow and jump him over hay cocks and
stone fences. Some of his feats of horsemanship. are memorable, and are
constantly related in his neighbourhood.  While at the Fauquier Springs,
which he frequently visited, and where he got ip tournaments after the fashion of the ancient chivalry, he once displayed his horsemanship by riding into
the ball-room, up and down steep flights of steps, to the mingled terrour and
admiration of the guests.  No cavalier was more graceful. The reserve of




THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF' THE WAR.                        4his manner was thrown aside in such sports, and his black eyes a,,l dark fIae
were lighted up with the zeal of competition or the excitement of danger.
The gravity so perceptible at times in Ashby's manner wa's not the ign
either of a melancholy or blank mind.  He was too practical for reveries; lie
was rather a man of deep feelings. - While he scorned the vulgar and dhallo'r
ambition that seeks fpr notoriety, he probably had that ideal and aspiratid
which silent men often have, and which,.if called "ambition" at all, is to -b
characterized as the noble -and spiritual ambition that wins the honours of
history, while others contend for the baubles of the popIlace.
"'He was,,"'writes a lady of his neighbourhood, "a person of very deep
"feelings,'which would not have been apparent to strangers, from -his natu-' ral reserve of manner; but there was no act of friendship or kindness he
"would have shrunk to perform, if called on.  While he wag not a professor
"of religion, there was always a.peculiar regard for the precepts of the Bible
" which showed itself in his irreproachable walk in life.  Often have I kino*
*' him to open the Sabbath school at the request of his lady friends, in a:little
"church near his home, by reading a prayer and chapter in the Bible. - Turneo
"Ashby seldom left his native neighbourhood, so strong were his local attach'"ments, and would not have done so, save at his country's,call."
That call was sounded sooner than Ashby expected.  At the first prelude
to the'bloody drama of the war-the John Brown raid-he had been conspicupus, and his company of horse, then called "The Mountain Rangers,"
did service on that occasion.  He appeared to have felt and known the con-,
sequences which were to ensue from this frightful crusade'. Thenceforward
his physical and intellectual powers we' directed to the coming struggle.
On the occasion of -the irruption of John Brown and his felon band at Har-,;er's Ferry, he remarked to Mr. Boteler, (he member of Congress from that
district, that a crisis was approaching, and that the South would be continually subject to such inroads and insults, unless some prevention was quickly
effected. He continued, however, a strong Union man until the election-ef
Lincoln; he was anxious.that' harmony should be effected between the States,
and the legacies of the past should -be preserved in a constitutional and fraternal Union; but this hope.vas instantly dispelled by the result of the election; and as soon as it was announced, he went quietly and energetically to
work, drilling his men, promoting their efficiency, and preparing for that
great trial of arms which he saw rapidly approaching.
The next time that Mr. Boteler met Ashby at Harper's Ferry, was on the
night of the 17th of April, 1861.  Mr. Boteler took him  aside, and said to
him, "What flag are we going to-fight under-the Palmetto or whatP'
Ashby lifted his hat, and within it was laid a Virginia flag.  He had had it
painted at midnight, before he left Richmond.  "Here," said he, "is'the
flag I intend to fight under." That night the flag was run up by the light of
the burning buildings fired by the Yankees, and the next morning the glorious emblem of the Old Dominion was seen floating from the Federal flagstaff-the first ensign of liberty raised by Virginia in this war.
It was not long after the arrival of Captain Ashby at Harper's Ferry with
his cavalry, that' he was placed in command at Point of Rocks by General
4




b50              THE  SECON-D  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
Johnston, supported by Captain IR  Welby Carters company of cavalry and
Captain John Q. Winfield's infantry corps of 4"3rock's Gap Riflemen."
About the same time Colonel Angus W. McDonald, senior, of Winchester,
Virginia, was commissioned to raise a Legion of mounted men for border service, the Lieutenant Colonelcy of.which was at once tendered to Captaift
Ashby. Without final acceptance of this position, he, with his comm  ad, entered the Legion, the organization of which was soon accomplished.
The original Captains were Ashby, Winfield, S. W. Myers, Mason, Shands,
Jordan, Miller, llarer and Sheetz.
This force was assembled at Romney, Hampshire county, very soon after
the evacuation of Harper's Ferry by General Johnston.
The difficulty which existed as to Captain Ashby's acceptance of the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the Legion, consisted in the fact that he felt under espeial obligations to his company, who were unwilling to dispense with his
personal command.  The arrival of his brother Richard Ashby, from Texas,
who joined the company as independent volunteer, appeared to open the wqy'of relieving this difficylty, as the company was prepared to accept in him a
Captain, in order to secure the promotion of their beloved leader.' But a melancholy providence was to occur at this time, which was to colour
the life of Turner Ashby, and affect it more deeply than anything he had yet
experienced.  The county of Hampshire had already been invaded by the
enemy, and Colonel, now Major General, A. P. Hill had already visited the
county with several regiments of infantry, in order to repel the invader.
This county was also chosen for the labour of the Mounted Legion.
It was shortly after the organiziion of the command, and its active.duty.entered upon, that Captain Ashby led a detachment to Green Spring Station,
on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, for the purpose of observation.  He-hax
with him'eleven men, and his brother Richard led another small band of six.
The latter was proceeding along the railroad westward, in the direction of
Cumberland-some ten miles away-when he was ambuscaded at the mouth
of a ravine just beside the railroad there, running just between the river
bank and the*steep mountain side.  The enemy's force consisted of about
eighteen men, commanded by Corporal Hfays, of the Indiana Zouave regiment, which was stationed at Cumberland.  His men, at length compelled to
fall back before superior numbers, hastened down the railroad to rejoin Richard Ashby.  Covering their retreat himself, he hastened to the rescue of one
of his men severely wounded in the face by a sabre stroke, and in a hand to
hand fight with Corporal Iays, severely wounded him in the head with his
tabre.  Following jnmediately his retreating companions, the horse which he
rode proved false, and fell into a cattle-stop of the railroad with his unfortunate rider. He was overtaken, beaten, bruised, wounded and left for dead.
He was removed many hours afterwards, and lived for several days, enjoying
every kind attention, but his wounds proved mortal. He was buried in the
beautiful Indian Mound Cemetery at Romngy on the 4th of July, 1861.
During the engagement of his brother, Turner Ashby started up the railroad to his rescue; but in passing along the river's brink, his,force was fired
upon from Kelly's Island, on the north branch of the Potomac, about twelve




THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                         51
miles east of Cumberland. The island lies'some sixty feet from the Virginia
bank, which is precipitous, and directly laid with the railroad track. On the
other side of the island, which was reached through water to the saddle girth,
there is a gently rising beach.some thirty yards to the interiour, which is
thickly wooded, and contains a dense undergrowth.  Here in ambush lay, as
was afterwards reported, about forty of the Indiana troops, and nearly sixty
of Merley's branch riflemen-Maryland Union men of the vicinity —oodmen skilled with the rifle, and many of them  desperate characters. After
receiving the enemy's fire, Turner Ashby and his eleven at once charged, and
after a sharp engagement, routed and dispersed their forces.  It has been declared that not less than forty shots were fired at Ashby on that occasion, but
not he nor his horse were harmed, and at least five of the enemy were probably slain by his hand.
From the date of his brother's death, a change passed over the life of Turner
Ashby.  He always wore a sad smile after that unhappy day, and his life
became more solemn and earnest to the efid of his own evatescerit and splendid career.  " Ashby," said a lady friend, speaking cf him after thisperiod,
"is now a devoted man."  His behaviour at his brother's grave, as it is described by one of the mourners at the same spot, was most touching.  He
stood.over the grave, took his brother's sword, broke it and threw it into the
opening; clasped his hands and looked upward as if in resignation; and then
pressing his lips; as if in the bitterness of grief, while a tear rolled ddwn his
cheek, he turned without a word, mounted his horse and rode away. ThenQeforth his name was a terrour to the enemy.
Shortly after the death of his brother, his company consented to yield him
up in order that he might accept the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the Legion, and
elected First Lieutenant William  Turner (his cousin) captain in his stead.
The Legion, numbering at that time nearly nine hundred effective men toler.ly equipped and mounted, continued on duty in Hampshire until the 1'6th
of July, 1861, when it started for Manassas, but did not arrive until after the
battle.  The corimand was immeliately afterwards ordered to Staunton to
join General Lee's forces-subsequently to Hollingsworth, one mile south of
Winchester.  In the meantime, Colonel Ashby, with several companies, was
sent on detached duty to Jefferson, into which county the enemy was making
freqiient incursions from Harper's Ferry and. Maryland.
In Jefferson, Ashby had command of four companies of cavalry and about
eight hundred militia,. Yankee raids were kept from the doors of the inhabitants, and the enemy made but little appearance in this portion of Virginia;
until Banks crossed the Potomac in February, 1862.
It was about this time that Ashby's cavalry acquired its great renown.
The Lincoln soldiers dreaded nothing so much as they did these hated troop.
ers. Go where they would, out of sight of their encampments, they were
almost sure to meet some of Ashby's cavalry, who seemed to possess the
power of ubiquity.  And, in truth, they had good cause both to hate and to
fear Ashby's cavalry; for many a Federal horseman dropped from his saddle,
and many a Federal soldier on foot dropped in his tracks, at the crack of
Confederate rifles in the hands of Ashby's fearless sharpshootersa




5g2              THE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
Duringt he time of the encampment at Flowing Springs, Colonel Ashby
rarely ever came into town, which was about a mile and a half distant. Nothing could seduce him from his duties; no admiration, no dinner parties or
collations, could move him to leave his camp. He always slept with his
men.',No matter what hour of the night he was aroqsed, he was always
wakeful, self-possessed and ready to do battle.  He was idolized by his men,
whom he treated as companions and indulged without reference to rules of
military discipline.  He had great contempt for the military arts, was'probably incapable of drilling a regiment, and preserved among his men scarcely
anything more than the rude discipline of camp hunters.  But though not a
atickler for military rules, he would have no coward or eye-soldier in his command. If a man was dissatisfied, he at once started him off home.  He
allowed his men many liberties.  A gentleman asked him one day where his
men were.  "Well," said he, "the boys fought very well yesterday, and
there are not more than thirty of them-here to-day."
Ashby's influence ever his men was, principally due to the brilliant and
amazing examples of personal courage which he always gave them in front of
the battle. His men could never find him idle. In battle his eye kindled up
most gloriously. He wore a grey coat and. pants, with boots and sash; he
always looked like work,-was frequently covered with mud, and appeared to
be never fatigued or dejected.  He would come and go like a dream.  He
would be heard of at one time in one part of the country, and then, when
least expected, would come dashing by on the famous white horse, which was
his pride.
When the fight occurred at Boteler's Mill, the militia were for the first time
under fire.' The enemy had encamped on the other side of the Potomac, opposite the mill.  (ur troops quietly crept upon them, and planted two pieces
of cannon within range, and let drive at them with terrible effect, whereupon
they fled. They afterwards returned in force, and ranged themselves Qn the
other side with long rangedguns. Ashby, to encourage the militia, who were
raw, advanced to the bank of the river, and rode his white horse up and-down
within point blank range of the enemy's fire.  When the balls were hurtling
thickest, he would rein in lis horse and stand perfectly still, the very picture
of daring and chivalry.
At Bolivar heights, when the enemy were firing upon our men and had shot
down the gunners at the cannon, he sprang from  his horse' and seized therammer himself.  He was conspicuous in action at every point.  His friends
used to implore him not to ride his white horse-for he had also a black onebut he was deaf to every caution that respected the safety of his person.
The key to Ashby's character was his passion for danger.  He craved the
excitement of battle, and was never happier than when riding his noble
cteed in the thickest of the storm of battle. There are some minds which
ind a sweet intoxication in danger, and Macaulay has named a remarkable
4nstance in William  III., the sileat and ascetic King of England, who was
transformed into gaiety by the excitement of personal peril.' "Danger,"
aay9 the historian, "acted upon him like wine;" it made him full of animation and speech. Ashby's delight in danger was a royal one. It came from




T;HE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                         53
no tirutal hardihood or animal spirits; and the Virginia cavalier is this far
superiour to other famous partisans in this war, that he united with the adventures of courage the courtesies of a gentleman and Christian,'and the refinernents of a pure and gentle soul.  Hewwas never iude; he was insensible
to the humours of the vulgar; and he never even threw into the face of his
enemy a coarse taunt or a specimen of that wit common in the army.
Turner Ashby was doubtless as perfect a specimen of modern chivalry as
the South even has ever produced.  His brilliant daring, his extreme courtesy towoman, his devotion to the horse, his open-heartedJ manner and his
scorn of mean actioris,'are qualities as admirable now as in. the days of Froissart's Chronicles. After the battle of Winchester, the Yankee women pnd
families of officers sometimes came to Ashby to get passes.  They were surprised to find with what readiness permits were granted.  They would say,
"Colonel Ashby, you may search our baggage.  We assure you we are carrying awtay nothing which we are not at liberty to do."  His reply was, "I
have no right to look into ladies' baggage, or to examine their trunks. Southern gentlemen do no such thing."  They said, "Colonel, you may search our
persons, and see if we carry away anything contraband."  The reply was,'
dVirginia gentlemen do not search the persons of ladies." 
Few  young men of Ashby's age could have resisted the intoxication of
of praise heaped upon him from every quarter. The fact was, no aged andt
stern devotee to duty was ever more insensible, in the performance of his
task, to the currents of popular favour than the young Paladin of the South.
The following copy of a letter, written at the height of his reputation to an
elderly gentlemen of Stafford cbunty, illustrates the modesty which adorned
the life of Turner Ashby, and the sense of duty which insured its aest brilliant successes:
"MY DEAR SIR: I have just received your exceedingly kind and most flat.
" tering letter.  Let me assure you that it gives me no little pleasure to know
"that my course, while doing my duty to my country, meets your approval,
"whose ^ge and experience make it more to be estimated.  That I have not
sought self-aggrandizement, or regarded anything save what I belieted to
" be my duty. to my country in this war, I hope it is needless to assure you.
" When my course meets with the approval of the old patriots, I feel doubly
" satisfied that I have not mistaken what I believe to be my duty. What you
"are pleased to say of my brother (who fell as I1 too, expect to fall,. if my
"country needs it) is but too true,  Had he been spared longer, he would
"' doubtless have been of great value to our country. His fall, however, has
"not been without its lesson to the enemy, teaching them  that Virginians
"'know how to die as well as fight for their liberty.  He died without a re" gret, feeling that his life was due to his country's cause.  Please present
" me.most kindly to all Ipy friends in Stafford, and accept my highest respects
4 for yourself.
"Your obedient servant,
" TURNER ASHBY."




54               THE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
We have already referred in the pages of this history to Ashby's share in
the several glorious campaigns of Jackson in the Valley; to his participation
in the battle of Kernstown; to his famous adventure with the Yankee pickets
at the bridge, and to sonje other of his daring exploits on the front and flanks
of the enemy.  It was on the occasion of the battle of Kernstown' that his
energy was exercised to an extraordinary degree in protecting the refreat and
annoying the skirts of the enemy.  In thirty-eight out of forty-two days after
this battle he was fighting the enemy, keeping him in check, or cutting off his
communications. iThe terrible fatigues he incurred never seemed to depress
him, or to tax his endurance.  An acquaintance testifies that it was not an
infrequent feat for him to ride daily over a line of pickets sixty or seventy
miles in extent.
At a later period of the Valley campaign, when Banks returned from
Strasburg and our troops were chasing him, Ashby would follow and charge
the Yankees as the Rockbridge Artillery poured in their fire.  At one time he
was riding abreast of three hundred infantry, who were passing along the
turnpike.  All at once he wheeled his horse, and leaping the fence with drawn
sword, cut his way right through them, then wheeling, he did the same thing
a second time.  Riding up to the standard bearer, he.seized it from him and
dashed him to the earth.  The terrified wretches nevt raised a weapon
against him.  Seventy-five of them, whom  he cut off, laid down their arms,
anld st down at his order in the corner of the fence, where they remained
until his men came up to take care of them.  The flag was that of a Vermont
regiment. A few days after, Mr. Boteler asked Ashby of the exploit.  lie
drew the flag from.his bosom and gave it to lial. It was presented by Mr.
3oteler to the Library of the State, at Richmond, where it may now be seena'testimony to one of the most brilliant deeds of Virginia's youtlrful hero.
A.week after this adventure, Ashby was dead.  But a few days before'the
termination of his brilliant career, he received the promotion which had been
long due him from the Government.  Just before leaving Richmond after the
adjournment of the first session of the permanent Congress, Mr. Boteler, who
was a member of that body and Ashby's constant friend, went to the President, told him  that he was going home, and asked that one act of justice
should be done to the people of the Valley, which they had long expected.
He wished to be able to carry back to -his people the assurance that Ashby_
should be commissioned a Brigadier General.  The order for the commission
was at once made out.  When the announcement was made to Ashby, he exhibited no emotion, except that his face was lighted up by one of those sad
smiles which had occasionally brightened it since the death of his brother.
The m^mnner of Ashby's death has already bee4 mentioned in the preceding
pages of the brief historical narrative of the Valley campaign.  The writer
is indebted for the particulars of that sad event to Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, the brave Maryland officer whose command was Gonspicuous in the affair
that cost Ashby his life, and earned an'immortal honour in revenging his
death.  11T takes the liberty. of extracting fr:om a letter of this officer an account of the engagement:
"On the morning of Friday, the 6th of June," writes Colonel Johnson,




THIE  SECOND  YEAR  OF  THE  WAR.                         5'' we left Harrisonburg, not having seen the enemy for two days.  To our
"surprise ip the afternoon, his cavalry made a dash into our rear guard, and,"wap whipped most effectually, their Colonel, Sir Percy Wyndham, being
taken prisoner.  My regiment was supporting a battery a short dis'tanoo
" behind this cavalry fight.  In half an hourwe were ordered forward-that'"s, toward the enemy retracingtbhe march just made.  Our infantry con"sisted only of Brigadier General Geore H. Stewart's brigade, the 58th
"Virginia, 44th Virginia, two other Virginia regiments, and the:Maryland
"' Line-of the latter, only the Ist Maryland was taken back; theartillery
"and all the cavalry was left behind us.  The 58th Virginia was first, my ro*' giment (the 1st Maryland) next, then came the 44th andthe rest.
" A couple of miles east of IHarrisonburg,'we left the road and filed to the
"right, through the fields, soon changing direction again so as to move par* allel to the road.  General Ewell soon sent for tvo of my companies as skir"mishers.  Moving cautiously through the darkening shades of the tangled
"wood just as the evening twilight was brightening the trees in front of us
"in an opening, spot, spot, spot, began a dropping fire from the skirmish"ers, and instantly the 58th Virginia poured in a volley. Another volley
"was fired.  The leaves-began to fall, and the bullets hit the trees around.
" General Ewell came up in a gallop.' Charge, Colonel, charge to the lefti'
"And I charged, got to the edge of the wood, and found a heavy body of in" fantry and cavalry supporting a battery on a hill six hundred yards in front
"of me.  But the Yankee balls came fast and thick on my flank.'The
P' 58th are firing into us,' the leading Captain said.  General Ewell and my"self, the only mounted officers, plunged after them, and found it was not
" their fije.  I got back.' Up, men, and take that hill,' pointing to my right.
a' They went in with a cheer. In less than five seconds the front rank of the
"second company went down.  The colour sergeant, Doyle, fell.  The cor" pral who caught them from him fell.  The next who took them fell, when
"Corporal Shanks, a six-footer, seized them, raising them  over his head at
"arm's length.  Captain Robertson lay dead; Lieutenant Snowden shot to
" death; myself on tlheground, my horse shot in three places.  But still we
" went forward, and drove the Bucktails from the fenc where they had been
"concealed.  *  *  *'"
It was as the brave Marylanders were pressing on in this charge that
Ashby, who was on the right of the 58th Virginia exhorting them, fell by an
intelligent bullet of the enemy.  His death was quickly avenged.  As our
troops reached tlhe fence from which the shot had been fired, the line of Yankees melted away like mist before a hurricane.
"The account I have given you," writes Colonel Johnson, "of the manner
"tof Ashby's death, is collated from  the statements of many eye-witnesses of
"my skirmishing companies, who were all around him when he fell.  I did
" not see it, though not thirty yards from  him, but was busy with my own
" men; and I am specific in stating the source of his death, as there is a loose'4 impression that he was killed by a shot from  the 58th Virginia.  I am per" suaded this is not so, from the statements of. two very cool officers; Captain,' Nicholas and Lieutenant Booth, who were'talking to him the minute before
" hbefell. *  *  *  *  *  *




56               THE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
"Ashby was mty first revolutionary acquaintance in Virginia. I was with
" him when the first blow was struck for the cause we both'had $o much at
" heart, and vas with him in his last fight, always knowing him to be beyond'f all modern men in chivalry, as he was equal to any one in courage. He'*combined the virtues of Sir Philip Sidne with the dash of Murat.  I con"tribute my mite to his fame, which will llvein the Valley of Virginia, out"side of books, as long as its hills Aind mountains shall endure."
No wod escaped from Ashby's lips as he fell.  It was not necessary. No
dying legend. spoken in death's embrace, could have added to that noble life.
Itself was a beautiful poem; a sounding oration; a sufficient legacy to the
virtue of his countrymen.




THE SECOND YEARI OF THE WAR.                         57
CHAPTER II.
The Situation of Richmond...Its Strategic Iniportance...What the Yankees
Had Done to Secure Richmond...THE BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES...Miscarriage
of Gen. Johnston's Plans...THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMNINY...Storming
of the Enemy's Entrenchments...McClellan Driven from his Northern Line of
Defences...The Situation on the Other Side of the Chickahomiriy...Magruder's
Comment...The Affair of Savage Station....The Battle of Frazier's Farm...A
Terrible Crisis...Battle of Malvern Hill...The Enemy in Communication with
his Gunboats....The Failure to Cut him off....Glory and Fruits of Our Victory....
Misrepresentations of the Yankees...Safety of Richmond...The War in Other
Parts of the Confederacy... The Engagement of Secessionville...The Campaign
of the West...The'Evacuation of Corinth...More Yankee Falsehoods...Capture
of Memphis...The Prize of the Mississippi...Statistics of its Navigation...Siege
of Vicksburg...Heroism of "the Queen City"...Morgan's Raid into Kentucky...The Tennessee ahd Virginia Frontier...Prospects in the West...Plan
of Campaign there.
Richmond is the heart of the State of Virginia.  It is hundreds of miles from the sea, yet with water communication to
Old  Point, to  Washington, and  to  New  York.  It is the
strategic point of the  greatest importance in the whole Confederacy.  If Richmond  had fallen before McClellan's forces,
the North expected that there woVld follow all of North Carelina except the mountains, part of South  Carolina, and all of
Tennessee that was left to us.
On  the  Richmond  lhnes, two  of the  greatest and  most
splendid armies that had  ever been arrayed-on a single field
confronted each'other; every accession that could be procured
from  the most distant quarters to their numbers, and everything that could be drawn from  the resources of the respective
countries of each, had been made to contribute to the strength
and splendour of the opposing hosts.
Since the commencement of the war, the North  had taxed
its resources for the capture of Richmond; nothing was omitted for the accomplishment of this event; the way had to  be




58           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
opened to the capital by tedious and elaborate operations on
the frontier of Virginia'; this accomplished, the city of Richmond was'surrounded by an army whose numbers was all that
could berdesired; composed of picked forces; haling every
advantage that science and art could bestow in fortifications
and every appliance of war; assisted by gun-boat flotillas in
two rivers, and endowed with everything that coilld assure
success.
The Northern journals were unreserved in the statement
that the commands of Fremont, Banks and McDowell had
been consolidated into one army, under Major-General'Pope,
with a view of bringing all the Federal forces in Virginia to
co-operate with McClellan on the Richmond lines.  A portion
of this army must have reached McClellan, probably at an
early stage of the engagements in the vicinity of Richmond.
Indeed, it^was stated at a subsequent period by Mr. Chandler,
a member of the Federal Congress, that the records of the
War Department at Washington showed that more than one
hundred and fifty thousand men had been sent to the lines
about Richmond.  There is little doubt but that, in the memo-.
rable contest for the safety of the Confederate capital,, we
engaged an army whose superiority in numbers to us, was
largely increased by timely reinforcements, and with regard to
the operations of which the Northern Government had omitted
no conditions of success.
TIIE BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES.
Having reached the Chickahominy, McClellan threw a portion of his army across the' river, and, having thus established
his left, proceeded to pivot upon it, and to extend his right by
the right bank.of the Pamunkey, so as to get to the North of
Richmond..Before the 30th of May, General Johnston had ascertained.
that Keyes' corps was encamped on this side of the Chickahominy, near the Williamsburg road, and the same day a strong
body of the enemy was reported in front of D. H. Hill. The




TIE SECOND YEAR OF. TIIE W'A.                 59
following'disposition of forces was made for the attack the next
day, the troops being ordered to mofe at daybreak;   General
Hill, supported' by the division of General Longstreet, (who
had the direction of operations on ite right,) was to advance
by the Williamsburg road to attack the enemy in front; General HIuger, with his division, was t1  move down the Charles
City road, in order to attack in flank the troops who might be
engaged with H1ll and Longstreet, unless he found in his front
force enough to occupy his division; General Smith was to
march to the junction of the Ncw Bridge road and the Nine
Mile road, to be in readiness either' to fall on Keys' right
flank, or to cover Longstreet's left.
The next day hour after hour passed, wjile Gen. Longstreet
in vain waited for Huger's division.  At two o'clock in the
afternoon he resolved to make the attack without these troops,
and moved upon the enemy with his own and D. H. Hill's
division, the latter in advance.
Hill's brave troops, admirably commanded and most.gallantly led, forced their way through the abattis which formed
the enelpy's external defences, and stormed their entrenchments by a determined and irresistible rush.  Such was the
manner in which* the enemy's first line was carried.  The
operation was repeated with the same gallantry and success as
our troops pursued their victorious career through the' enemy's
successive camps and entrenchments.  At each new position
they encountered fresh troops belonging to it, and. reinforcements brought on from the rear.  Thus they had to repel
repeated efforts to-retake works which they had carried.  But
their advance was never successfully resisted. Their onward'
movement was only stayed by the coming of night.  By nightfall they had forced their way to the "Seven Pines,"'having
driven the enemy back more than two miles, through their
own camps, and from a series of entrenchments, and repelled
every attempt to recapture them with great slaughter.
The attack on the enemy's right was not so fortunate.  The
strength of his position enabled him to hold it until dark, and




60            TPE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
the intervention of night alone saved him from rout.  On this
part of the field Gen. Johnston was severely wounded by the
fragment of a shell.
In his official report of the operations of the day, General
Johnston says:  "Had Major-General Huger's division been
in position and ready for'action when those of Smith, Longstreet and Hill moved, I am satisfied that Keyes' corps would,have been destroyed instead of being merely defeated."  The
slow and impotent movements of Gen. Huger were excused by
himself on account of the necessity of building a bridge to.
cross te swollen stream  in his front, and other-accidental
causes of delay.
But nothwithstanfng the serious diminution of the fortunes
of the day by-Huger's mishaps, they were yet conspicuous.
We had taken ten pieces of artillery and six thousand muskets,
besides other spoils.  Our total loss was more. than four thousand.  That of the enemy is stated in their own newspapers
to have exceeded ten thousand-an estimate which is no doubt
short of the truth.
On the morning of the first of June, the enemy made a weak
demonstration of attack on our lines.  The 9th and 14th
Virginia regiments were ordered to' feel for the enemy, and
while thusengaged, suddenly'came upon a body of fifteen
thousand  Yankees entrenched  in the woods.  Under the
murderous fire poured into their ranks, otr troops were forced
to fall back, but were rallied by the self-devoted gallantry of
their officers.  Colonel' Godwin, the dashing and intrepid commander of the 9th, received a Minie ball in the leg, and a
moment later had his hip crushed by the fall of his horse,
which was shot under him.  He was thirty paces in advance
of his regiment when the attack was made, encouraging his
men.  At last, reinforcements coming up, the attack of the
enemy was vigourously repulsed.  This was the last demonstration of the enemy, who proceeded to strengthen those lines
of entrenchments from which he had not yet been driven.




TIE SECOND YBAR OF THE WAR.                61
THE BATTLES OF THE CHICKAHOMINY.
Upon taking command of the Confederate army in the field,
after General Johnstoni had been. wounded in the battle of
Seven Pines, Gen. Lee did not hesitate to adopt tho spirit of
that commander, which had already been displayed in attacking the enemy, and which indicated the determination on his
part that the operations before Richmond should not degenerate into a seige.
The course of the Chickahominy around Richmond affords
an idea of the enemy's position at the commencement of the
action.  This streatn meanders through the Tide-water district
of Virginia-its coarse approaching that of the arc of a circle
in the neighborhood of Richmond-until it reaches the lower
end of Charles City county, where it abruptly turns to the
sbuth and empties into the James.  A portion of the enemy's
forces had crossed to the south side of the Chickahominy, and
were fortified on the Williamsburg road.  On the north bank
of the stream the enemy was strongly posted for many miles;
the heights on that side of the stream having been fortified
with great energy aTid skill from Meadow Bridge, on a line
nearly due north from the. city to a point below Bottom's'Bridge,- which is due east. This line of the enemy extended
for about twenty miles.
Reviewing the situa.tion of the two armies at the commencement of the action, the advantage was entirely our own.
McClellan had divided his army on the two sides of the Chjckahominy, and operating apparently with the design of half
circumvallating Richmond, had spread out his forces to an extent that impaired the faculty of concentration, and had made
a weak and dangerous extension of his lines.
On Thursday, the 26th of June, at three o'clock, MajorGeneral Jackson-fresh from' the exploits of his magnificent
campaign in the Valley-took up his line of march from Ashland, and proceeded down the country between the Chickahominy and Pamunkey rivers.'The enemy collected on the




62            TItt SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
north bank of the Chickahominy, at the point where it is
crossed by the Brooke turnpike, were driven off, and Brigadier-G.eneral Branch, crossing the stream, directed his movements for a junction with the column of General A. P. Hill,
which had crossed at Meadow Bridge.  General Jackson having borne away from  the Chickahominy, so as to gain ground
towards the Pamunkey, marched to the left of Mechanicsville,
while General Hill, keeping well to the Ohickahominy, approached that village and engaged the enemy there.
With about fourteen thousand men (Gereral Branch did not
arrive till nightfall), General Hill engaged the forces of the,
enemy until night put an end to the contest.  While he did
not succeed, in that limited time, in routing the enemy, his
forces stubbornly maintained the possession. of Mechanicsville
and the ground taken by'them on the other side of the Chickahominy.  Driven from  the immediate locality of Mechanicsville, the enemy retreated during the night down the river to
Powhite swamp, and night closed the operations of Thursday.
STORMING OF THE ENEMY'S ENTRENCHMENTS.
The road having been cleared at Mechanicsville, Gen. Longstreet's corps d'armee, consisting of his veteran division of' the
Old Guard of the Army of the Potomac, and Gen. D. H. Hill's
division, debouched from  the woods on the south side of the
Chickahoniny, and crossed that river. Friday morning the
general advance upon the enemy began; Gen. A. P. Hill in
the centre, and'bearing towards Cold Harbour, while Gen.
Longstreet and Gen. D. H. Hill came down the Chickahominy
to New Bridge.  Gen. Jackson still maintained his position
in advance, far to the left, and gradually converging to the
Chickahominy again.
The position of the enemy was now a singular one.  One
portion of his army was on the south side of the Chicka-hominy, fronting  Richmond, and confronted by Gen. Magruder.  The other portion; on the north side, had fallen




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR..63
back to a new line of defences, where McClellan proposed.to
make a decisive battle.
As'soon as Jackson's arrival at Cold Harbour was'announced, Gen. Lee and Gen. Longstreet, accompanied, by.
their respective staffs, rode by Gaines' Mill and halted at
New Cold Harbour, where they joined Gen. A. P. IIll.  Soon
the welcome sound of Jackson's guns announced that he. was
at work.
Tie action was' now to become general for the first time on
the Richmond lines; and a collision of numbers was about to
take place equal to any that had yet occurred in the history of 
the war.
From four o'clock until eight the battle raged with a display
of the utmost daring and intrepidity on the part of the Confederate army.'The enemy's lines were finally broken and his
strong positions all carried, and night covered the retreat of
McClellan's broken and routed columns to the south side of
the Chickahominy.
The assault of the enemy's works near Gaines' Mill is a
memorable part of the engagement of Friday, and the display
of fortitude, as well as quick and dashing gallantry of our
troops on that occasion, takes its place by the side of the most
glorious exploits of the war.  Gen. A. P. Hill had made the
first assault upon the lines of the enemy's.entrepchments near
Gaines' Mill.  A  fierce struggle had ensued between his
division and the garrison of the line of defence.  Repeated
charges were made by Hill's troops, but.the formidable character of the works, and murderous volleys from the artillery
covering them, kept our troops in check. Twenty-six pieces
of artillery were thunderipg at them, and a perfect hail-storm
of lead fell thick and fast around them.  In front stood Federal camps, stretching to the northeast for mild.  Drawn up in
line of battle were more than three full divisions, commanded
by McCall, Porter and Sedgwick.  Banners darkened thehir;.artillery vomited forth incessant volleys of grape, canister and




64            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
shell; and the wing of deatl waved everywhere in the sulphurous atmosphere of thebattle.
It was past four o'clock when lPickett's brigade from Longstreet's division came to Hill's support. -Pickett's regiments
fought with the most determined valour.  At last, Whiting's
division, composed of the "Old Third" and Texan brigades,.
advanced at a double-quick, charged the batteries, and drove
the enemy from  his strong line of defence.  The 4th Texas
regiment was led by a gallant Virginian, Colonel Braffute
Warwick.  As the'regiment was marching on with an irresistible impetuosity to the charge, he seized a battle-flag which had
been abandoned by one of our regiments, and, bearing it aloft,
he passed both of the enemy's breast-works in a most gallant
style, and as he was about to plant the colours on a battery
that the regiment captured, his right breast was pierced, by a
Minie ball, and he fell mortally wounded.
The works carried by our noble troops would have been invincible to the bayonet, had they been garrisoned by men less
dastardly than the Yan ees.  All had been done on our side
with the bullet and the iayonet. For four hours had our inferiour force, unaided I  a single piece-of artillery, withstood
over thirty thousand, assisted by twenty-six pieces of artillery.
To keep the track of the battle, which had swept around
Richmond, we must have reference to some of the principal
points of locality in the enemy's lines.  It will be recollected
that it was on Thursday evening when the attack was commenced upon the enemy near Meadow' Bridge.  This locality
is about six miles distant from the city, on a line almost due
north.  This position was the enemy's extreme right.  His
lines extended from  here across the Chickahominy, near the
Powhite Creek, two or three miles above the crossing of the
York River railroad.  From -Meadow Bridge to this railroad,
the distance along the Chickahominy on the north side is about
ten' miles.  The different stages between the points indicated,
along which the enemy were driven, are Mechanicsville, about
a mile north of the Chickghominy; further on, Beaver'Dam




THE SECOND YEAIR OF THIE WAR.                 6
Creek, emptying into the Chickahominy; then the New Bridge
road, on which Cold Harbour is located; and then Powhite
Creek, where the enemy had made his last stand, and been
repulsed from the field.
The York Riv~r railroad runs in an easterly direction, intersecting the Chickahomihy about ten miles from  the city.
South of the railroad is the Williamsburg road, connecting
with the Nine Mile road at Seven Pines.  The former road
connects with the New Bridge road, which turns of and crosses
the Chickahominy.  From  Seven Pines, wherethe Nine Mile
road joins the upper one, the road is known as the old Williamsburg road, and crosses the Chickahominy at Bottorn'
Bridge.
With the bearing of these localities in his mind, the reader
will readily understand how it was That the enemy was driven
from his original strongholds on the north side' of the Chickahominy, and how, at the time of Fridayv's'battle, he' had been
compelled to surrender the possession of the Fredericksburg
and Central *railroads, and had been pressed to a position
where he was cut off from the principal avenues of supply and
escape.  The disposition of our forces was such as to cut off
all communication between McClellan's army and the White
House, on the Panmunkey river; he had. been driven completely from  his northern line of defences; and it was sup.
posed that lhe would be unable to extricate himself'from  his
position without a victory or capitulation.
On Sunday morning, it appears that our pickets, on the
Nine-Mile road, halving engaged some small detachments of
the enemy and driven them  beyond their fortifications, found
them  deserted.  In a short while, it became known to our
generals that McClellan, having massed his entire, force oa
this side of the Chickahotminy, was retreating towards James
river.
T. he entrenchments, which the enemy had deserted, were
found to be farmidable and elaborate.   That immediately
across'the'railroad, at the six mile post, which had been sup5




-f;Q           THE SECOND YEAR OF- THE WAR.
posed to be light earthwork, designed to sweep the railroad,
turned out to be an immense embrasured fortification, extending for hundreds of yards on either side of the track.  Within
this work were found great quantities of fixed ammunition,
which had apparently been prepared for ~moval stnd then
deserted.  All the,cannon, as at' other entrenchments, had
been carried off.  A  dense cloud of smoke was.seen issuing
fromn the woods two miles in advance of the battery and half
i mile tothq right of the railroad.  The smoke was found to
proceed froma perfect mountain of the enemy's commissary
stores, consisting of sugar, coffee and bacon, prepared lmeats,:egetables, &c., which he had fired.  The fields and woods
around this spot were covered with every description of clothing and ciamp equipage.  No indication was wanting that the
enerny hadl left this encampmIent in haste and disorder.
The enemy had been imperfectly watched at a conjumncture
the most critical ih the contest, arid through an omlission of
fur guardL —the facts of which are yet the subject of some controversy-McClellan had succeeded in massing lt  entire force,
and taking up alihe of retreat, by which he hoped to reach
the cover of his gunboats on the James.  But the most unfortuiate circumstance to us was, th't since the enemy had
ecaped from us in-his fortified camp, his  retreat was favoured
by a country, the charatcteristics of which are unbroken foriests
anld wide swamps, where it was impossible to pursue him with
rapidity, and extremely difficult to reconnoitre his position so
as to bring him to decisive battle.
In  an official report of the situation  of forces on -the
Richmond  side of  the Chickahominy, General Magruuder
describes it as one of the gravest peril. He states thfat the
larger portion of the enemy was on that side of the Chickahoeminy; that the bridges had all been destroyed, and but one
rebuilt-the New Bridge-which was commanded fully by the,emry's guns; and that there were but twenty five'thousand
Ian between McClellan's amhy of one hundred thousand and
lfjibmond.  Refrring to a situation so extremely'critical, he




THE  SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                        0
says: " Had McClellan massed his whole force iri colurn, and
advanced it against any  point of our line of battle, as wal
done at Austerlitz under similar circumstances, by the greatest captain of any age, though  the head of his column wouldi
have suffered greatly, its momentum  would have insured hil
success, and  the occupation tf our works about Richmond
and, consequently, of the city, might lhave been his reward.'
Taking  this view  of tie situation, General Magruder stater
that his relief was great when it was discovered the next day'
that the enemy had left our fiont and was continuing  to re
treat.
The facts, however, are contrary to the theory of Genera
Magrruder and to the self-conlgratulations which he derives -fror
it.  Our troops oU the two sides of the liver were only sed arated uloil we succeeded in occupying the position  near wha;
is known as New Bridge, which occurred before 12 o'clock M.,
on Friidly, Jule _7, iiand before the attack oi the enemy  at
Gaines' Mill.' From  tlie timee li    rea chted the position referred
to, our. cotliu.liccations betweenC tile iwo wilngs of our arlmy
Imay  be regartded as re.es.tablished.' The bridge referred t9.
and anll thel' a biit thi'ee-quaites uF a niile  b ve were ordered
to be reptaired beforie Inoun on F'iidil aidtl the new  bridge waa,
sutficietilly rebuilt to be patsse(.i.,, arliively o(i Friday night,
atlri the one above it \\as us ed  or tohe ipas;ge of wag,9ts, atlrbul;aicles aild troops early i.)n Satun (ly.Loitlilig.  Besides ths,
all ot[her bridges above Ntvew, iiig,;,i all the lords ab')v
ttiat point were oipen to us.
TII E AtJA,A R AT i.'AV,'e( T'ArtOX.
Lo.uingl  Sunday, a por)tioII of ti  enC'it'llywas enc1'    ui t terea
up.Jn tlte Yoik liver ra;ilrovl, ieI i:a t.':c called  Savage Stu'-,
tiol, tlie troops telgagel  oUntl Vll id. i  gt;ig thle tlivisl Oof General Mc1AL s, coikistiSilg o  Gct cirais oKefi    aw (and Sc uslwe unA
brigades, supported by Gkeneral Gvi ih'  brigade ft rtm Mag tr
der's divisiol.  Tnl   ielederals wrt citulald totbe.tiolngly dJtrenchedt, ai id as soon as. ur Uskliaisi; ers ca4le in viewv,'they




~68       THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
were opened upon with a furious cannonade from  a park of
field pieces.  Iemper's battery now went to the front, and for
three hours the battle raged hotly, when the discomfited Yankees again resumed their retreat.  Early in the day, on reach-.
ing the redoubts, General Griffith, of Mississippi, one of the
heroes of Leesburg, was killed by the fragment of a shell.
I-e was the only general officer killed on our side during. the
whole of. the bloody week.
In this encounter with the enemy, the gallant 10th Georgia
regiment suffered-severely, engaging the enemy hand-to-hand,
and leaving upon the field memorable evidences of their cour-'age.  The enemy, to use an expression of his prisoners, was'mowed down" by the close fire of our adventurois troops;
and the failure of the attempt of McClellan to break through
our lines at this point, left him to continue a hopeless retreat.
THE BATTLE OF FRAYSER'S FARM.
By daybreak on Monday morning, the pursuit of the enemy
was actively resumed.  D. II. Hill, Whiting and Ewell, under
-command of Jackson, crossed the Chickahominy by the Grapevine Bridge, and followed the enemy on their track by the
Williamsburg road and Savage's Station.  Longstreet, A. P.
Hill, Huger and Magruder pursued the enemy by the Charles
City road, with the intention of cutting them off.
The divisions of Generals Hill and Longstreet were, during
the whole of the day, moving in the hunt for the enemy.  The
disposition which was made of our forces brought Gen. Longstreet on the enemy's front, imnfediately supported by General
Hill's division, consisting of six brigades.  The forces com- anded by General Longstreet were his old division, consisting
of six brigades.
The position of the enemy was about five miles northeast of
)Darbytown, on the New Market road.  The imm'eiate scene
of the battle was a plain of sedge pines, in the cover of which
the enemy's forces were skilfully disposel- the local ity being
known as Frayser's farm.  In advancing upon the enemy, bat



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                     6
teries of sixteen heavy guns were opened upon the advance
columns of General Hill.  Our troops, pressing heroically forward, had no sooner got within musket range, than the enemy,
forming several lines of battle, poured upon them  fronm  his
heavy masses a (devouring fire of musketry.  The conflict be-,came tel'rible, the air being filled with missiles of death, every
moment having its peculiar sound of terrour, and every spot
its sight of ghastly destruction and horrour.  It is impossible
that in any of the series of ergagemenlts which had taken place.
within the past few days, an(d had tracked the lines of Richmond with fire and destruction, there could have been more
desperate fighting on The part of our troops.  Never was a
more glorious victory plucked from more desperate aid threatenitn^ circumstances.  While exposed to the double fire of the
enemy's batteries and his musketry, we were unable tQ contend
with hitm  with artillery.  But although thus u.nmatched, oui
brave troops pressed on^'ith unquailing vlgour and( a: rt:sistless
courage,  driving the enemy before them.  Thib was accomC
plished without artillery, there being but one battery in Genm
Hill's command on the spot, and that belonged to Longstreet'i
division, and could not te got into position.' Thus the'fight
continued with an artdour and  tevotion that few battle-fields
have ever illustrated.  Step by step the enemy were driven
back, his guns taken, and the ground he abandoned strewn
with his dead.  By half-past eight o'clock we had taken ili
his cannon, and, continuing to advance, had driven him a mile
and a half from his ground of battle.
Our forces were still advancing upon the retfeating lines or
thie enemy.  It was now about half-past nine o'clock, and very
dark.  Suddenly, asi i t had burst from the heavens, a sheet
ot fire enveloped the front of our advance.  The enemy had.
made another stand to receive us, andl from  the black masses
of his forces, it was evident that the hadt been heavily reinforced, and that another whole corps d'a,  mee had been brought
up to contest the.fortunes of the night.  Line after line of
battle.was formed.  It was evident that his heaviest.columnRs




~t~o       THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
were now being thrown against our small cormmand, and it
thight have been supposed that he would only be satisfied with
its annihilation.  The loss here.on our side was terrible.
The situation being evidently hopeless for any further purSuit of the fugitive enemy, who had now brought up such overwhelming forces, our troops retired slowly.
At this moment, seeing their adversary retire, the most vociferous cheers axrose along the whole Yankee line. They were taken
sp in the distance by the masses which for miles an(l miles beyond
were supporting McClellan's front.  It was a moment when the
heart of the stoutest commander might have been appa.;ll.d
The situation of our forces was now as desperate as it well
could be,and required a courageand presence of mind to refrieve it, which the circumstances which surrounded them were
rot well calculated to inspire. They had fought for five or six
hours without r.einforcenments. All our reserves had been brought,p in the action. Wilcox's brigade, which had been almost antihilated, was re forming in the rear.
Riding rapidly to the position of this brigade, General Ilill
brought them by great exertions, up to the front, to check the
advance of the now confident, cheering enemy.  Catching the
spirit of their commander, the brave, but jaded men, mnve(l up
to the front, replying to the enemy's cheers with shouts and
yells..At this demonstration, which the enemy, no doubt, sllpposed signified heavy reinforcements, he stopped Mhis advanice.
It was now about half-past ten o'clock in the night.  The
enemny had been arrested; and the fight —one of the most reiarkable, long-contested and gallant ones that had yet occurred
6n our lines-was concluded with the achievement of a field
tinder the most trying circumstances, which the enemy, with the
Itost overpowering numbers brought up to reinforce him, had
ltot succeeded in reclaiming.
General M'agruder's division did not come up until eleven
o'clock at night, after the fight had been concluded. By orders
from Gen. Lee, Magruder moved upon and occupied the battleground; General Hill's-command being in such a condition of




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                  71
prostration from their lonr and toilsome fight,'and suffering in
killed and wounded, that it, was proper they should be relieved
by the occupation of the.battle-ground by a fresh corps d'arrmed
TIlE BATTLE OF MALVER N HILL.
Early on Tuesday morning, the enemy, from  the position:
which he had been driven the night before, continued his retreat. in a: southeasterly direction towards his gunboats it
James river.
General Magruder was directed to proceed by the Quaker
road, and to form on the' righlt of Jackson.  On account of a
misunderstanding as to'which was the Quaker road, the wrong
route was taken by General Magruder; and the direction.of
his movement was subsequently changer, so as t.o place his
troops on the.right of Huger, who, in the meantime, had formed
on the right of Jackson.
The enemy had now placed himself in communication with
his gunbotits in the river.  He was strongly posted on the
crest of a hill, commanding an undulating field, rhich fell to
our right into a plain or meadow.  His batteries of artillery
were numerous, and were collected into two. large bodies
strongly supported by infantry, and commanded perfectly the
meadow on our right and the field in our front, except the
open ravines formed by the undulations of the ground.
An order was dispatched by Gene'ral Magruder to bring up
from all the batteries thirty rifle pieces, if possible, with which
he hoped to shatter the enemy's- infantry.' While delay was
thus occasioned, he was ordered to make the attack.  Returp-.
ing rapidly to the position occupied by the main body of his
troops, he gave Brigadier General Jones the necessary orders
for the advance of his division.  While this was being done, &
heavy and crushing fire was opened from the enemy's guns, of
great range and metal.
General Armistead having repulsed, driven ba'ck and followed up a heavy body of the enemy's skirmishers, an, order
was received from  General Lee by Magruder, directing him




72             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
"to advance rapidly, press forward his whole line, and follow
up Armistead's successes, as'the enemy were reported to be
getting off."  In the meantime Mahone's and Ransow's brigades of-Huger's division having'been ordered up, General Magruder gave the order that Wright's brigade, supported by
Mahone's, should advance and attack the enemy's batteries on
ihe right,.and that Jones' division, e;pected momentarily,
should advance on the front, and Ransom's brigade should attack on the left.  The plan of httack was to hurl about fifteen
thousand men against the enemy's batteries and supporting infantry-to  follow up any successes they might obtain; and if
unable to drive the enemy from his stropg position, to contin'ue
the fight in front by pouring in fresh troops; and in case they
were repulsed, to hold strongly the line of battle where we
~tood.
At about 5 o'clock P. AI., the order was given to.our men
to charge across the field and drive the enemy from their position.. Gallantly they sprang to the encounter, rushing into
the field at a full run.  Instantly, trom the lin'e of the enemy's
breastworks, a murderous storm  of grape and canister was
hurled into their ranks;. with the most terrible effect.  Officers
-and men went down by-hundreds; b.ut yet, undaunted and unwavering, our line dashed on, until two-thirds of the distance
across the field was accomplished.  Here the carnage from the'withering fire of the enermy's combined artillery and musketry
yas dreadlful.  Our line wavered a moment, and fell back to
the cover of the Wtoods.  Twice again the effort to carry the
position wvas renewed, but each'time with- the same result.
The hill was-bathed wit'h flames.  Towards sunset the earth
quivered with the terrific concussion of artillery and huge explosions.  Shells raced athwart the horizon, exploding into
deadly iron hail.  The forms of smoke-masked'men; the gleam
of muskets on the plains, where soldiers were disengaged; the
artistic order of battle; the wild career of wilder horsemen
plunging to and fr6 across the field, formed a scene of exciting
grandeur.  In the forest, where eyes did not penetrate, there




THE SECOND YEAR OF TIIE WAR.                      73
was nothing  but the txhilarating  and exhausting spasm  of
battle.
As the night fell, the battle slackened.  We had- nbt carried the enemy's position, but we occupied the field, and during
the night' posted (ur pickets within one hundred yards of his
guns.  The brigades of Malone and Wright slept on the battle-field in tlae advanced positions they had won, and Armistead's brigade and a portion of Ransom's also occupied the
battle-field.
The battle of Tuesday, properly known as that of Malvern
IIill, was perhaps- the.most sanguinary of the series of bloody
conflicts whicl had; taken place on the lines about Richmond:
Althougl not a defeat, it broke the chain of our victories,  It
was madle memorable by its amelancholy monument of carrnage,
which wa.s probhly.greater than General Magruder's estirnate,
which states tlat cur loss fell short of three thousand.  But it
had given'the enemny no adlvantage, except ifi the.ulf'ruitful
sacrifice of the lives of our troops; and the line of his retreat
wa as  ainr taken up, his forces toiling towards the.river through:
mul, Sw.imp and forest.
The skill and spirit with which McClellan had managed to
retreat was, indeed, remarkable, and afforlded no mean.proofs
of his geIeralshlp.  At every stage of his retreat he ha;t confronte(l our forces with a str)mg rear guard,-and had1 encountered us with well organized lines of battle, and regular dlispisitions of infLanttry, cavalry and artillery.  His hea;vy,rifled
calnnon had been usAd against us constantly on his retrear.  A
portion of hIs fqrces halI now effectel communication with the
river. at points below City Point.  The plan of cutting off his
coinmmurieation with the river, wlich was to have been executed
by a movement of Holmes' diyision between him and the river,
was frustrated, by the severe fire of the gun-boats, and sintce
then the situation of the enemy appeared to be that of a division or dispersion of his forces, one portion resting on the river,
and the other, to some extent, involved by our lines.
It had been stated to the public of'Richmond, with great.pre



74               THE SECOND  YEAR OF TIIE WAR.
cision: of detail, that on  the evening of Saturday, the 28th of
June, we had brought the enemy to bay on thle south sije of the
Chickahominy, and that it only reoairTed to finish him in a single battle.   Such, in fact, appeared to have been the situation
then.   The next morning, however, it was perceived tthat our
supposed resources of generalship had given us too mucll coifidence; that the enemy had rnrmalged to extricate himself from
tlhe  critical position, and, having  massed  his forces, had succeeded, under coverof the'night, in  opening  a way  to. the
James river.*
Upon  this untoward  event, the operations of our army on
the Richmond side of the Chickahominy were to follow  the fugitive er(emy through a country where he had iadmirable opportunities of concealment, and  through  the swamps and foirests
of which he had retreated with the most remarkable judgment,
dexterity, and spirit of fortitude.
The glory and fruits of our victory may have been seriously
diminished  by the grave  mishap or fault by which the enemy
was permitted to leave his camp on the south side of the Chickahotniny, in  an  open  country,' and  to  plunge  into  the dense
cover of wood and swamp, where the best portion of a whoJe'week was constlfed in  hunting  him, and  finding out his new
position only in time to attack  him  under the uncertainty and
disadvantage of the darkness of night..
But tle'successes achieved  in  the series of engagements
* With reference to McClellan's escape front White Oak Swatmp to the river,
letters of Yankee officers, published in- the Northern journals, stated that
when McClellan on Saturday evening sent his scouts down the-road to Turkey
Island Bridge, he was astonished anld delighted to find that our forces had not
occupied that road, and immediately started his wagon and artillery trains,
which were quietly passing down that road ail night to'the James river, whilst
our forces were quietly sleeping within four.miles of the very road they should
have occupied, and should have captured every one of the enemy's one thousand wagons and four hundred cannon.  It is'further stated in these'letters,
that if we had blocked up that only passage of escape, their entire army must
have surrendered or been starved out in tvtenty-four hours.  These are the
Yankees' owh accounts of how much they were indebted to blunders on our
part for the success of McClellan's retreat-a kind of admission not popular
with a vain and self-adulatory enemy.




THE  SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                        75
which hal(  alrea(dy occurred were hot to he lightly este'etred,
or to be dlepreci;ted, because of errours which, if they ha1;:  iiot
occurred, woull hlave made our victory mnore glorious arnd.lioro
conrplete.  The siege of Richmonil hlad been raiseld  arl. a.rly
of one hundred and fifty thousand, men had been. puisl:ed frlim
their strongholds and fortifications, andl  put to fllght; we Iad
enjoyed the  eclat of an almost daily  sclecessiont  of victt'lries.;
we had gathered an  immense spoil in stores, p'novisios:and
artillery;'andl  we had d(emoralized Hnd' dispersedl if we Ilad
niot succeeded in annihilating, an army  which  had evvery resource that could be summtoned to its assistance, every lossille
addition of numinbers within the retchl of the' Y*trikdo gto\ernmnert, arnd' every material condition of success to ensure for it
the great prize of thle capital of the Confederacy, whicll was
now, as far as humann jildgment couldl  determine, irretriev:,lily
lost to them, and secure in the protection of a vicrOl'I,;1s;''llly.
The Northern al pers claimeed that the  nmovehilnts,f McClellan from  the Chickahominy river were purely  -:ti;ategic,
aijd that he had ob.ltained!    a position, where he woulldl esttallish
a new' base of.operations against Richmond.  Up'to tlth first
decisive stage in the series of engagetmienrts-Coldl I:rlbl,,ur~there' tere certainly  plain strategic designs in hlis h) ckwarrd
-movement.  IHis retirement from  Mechanicsville w;is Ir,,tily
volunta.ry, and intendel to concentrate his troops lowxer Idown,
where he mirglt fight with the advantages of nuinmtes a tdl Iiis
own selection of position.  Continuing his retre*, he fixed the
decisive fiel,1 at Cold. Harbour.  Again  having been puished
from  his strongholds north of the'Chickahominy, tihe (clt-my
made a striong attempt to retrieve his disasters hy relnewingl  a
concentration' of his troops at Frayse"'s fiarm.
From  the time of these two principal battles, all pretensi on~
of-the enemy's retreat to strategy  must cease.  Ilis retreat
was now  unmistakeable; it was no longer a flllinTg hack  to
concentrate troops for action; it is, in fact, impossible to  lisguise that it was the retreat of an enemy, who was distcomfited
atd whipped,' although  not iouted.'  He had  abandoned the




76              THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAU.
railroads; he had given up'the strngholds which le h1ad provide(ld o secure him in case of a (lieck: he had destroyed from
eight to ten millions dollars' worth of stores.; lie had deserted
his hospitals, his sick  and woundfed, and lie hlad lcft in our
hallids thousands of prisoners and innumerable str;aggleis.
Regla.'ing all that had been accomplished in these battles;
the displays of the valour and devotion of our tr-oops; the expendit ure of blood; and tlie helpless:an  ftugitive conidtion to
whicli tlie-eerny lhal at List been reduced, there was cause for
the keenrest regrets that an enemy in this conditi(on was permitte(d to secure his retreat.  -It is undclubtedly true, tlhat in
faililg to cut off McClellan's retreat to the river, we failed to
accolu},i.sh the most important condition for the comillletion of
our victory.  But although the resultof the.conflict had fallen
below,public -expectation, it was sufficiently fortunate t) excite
popular joy, and grave enough to  erfgage the most serious
speedl tion as to the future.
T'le lnouth of the lYankee Government was shut from  any
more prlmises of a speedy termination of the war; the po,,e!s
of EI',urope  saw  tha.t the  Southern  Confedeicy.was rnot yet
crusl:ed, or likely to be crushed, by its insolent foe; aind the
people of the South had again challenged the col.fidence(-of the
world  in the elasticity of their foitunes and the invincible
destiny of their independence.
The ftortune of events in other parts of the Confederacy,
taki.g  pl;lce iabout'the time  of the relief of Riclhlondt, or
close ly following it, although less striking and drallinti, was
not lunpr)opitious.  These events, a rapid ssurvey of which takes
us frol. the seacoast to thle Mlississippi frontier, added to tthe
exult;,tions which the victories of tile Chickahoiiuy 1had occasioled. and, although qualified by some disasters, enlarged and
enlighltened the prospects of the future.
A few days before the great battles had hbeen joined around
Ricllllcrmd, a'brilliant success over the Yankees hlad  Ibeen
obtailn(l in an engagement on James Island in the neighlborhood of Charleston.  The battle of Secessionville, as it was




THE SECOND YEAR OF TILE WAR.                   77
called, occurred on the 16ih of June.  About four o'clock in
the morfiir!g of that day, the enemy, taking advantage of the
negligence of oir pickets, drove them  in, or captured them,
some ei:,lt hundred yards In front of the battery at Secessionville, a lsnd, aldvancing rapidly upon this work in line of battle,
arrived i\il'in a few hundred yards of it before we co'!ld open
upon himi.  The men, however, were at their guns, which wero
at once well and rapidly served, white the infantry was moved
promptly into position und.er the orders of. Col. J. G. Lamar,
the' heroic commander of the post.  It was not long after
getting the intfantry into position that the enemy were idriven
back  in tc.tnfusion.  They  were soon, however, reinforced,
arid made another desperate' charge,' when they were again
driven Iac!:; a third time they came, but only to' meet with
the most determined repulse.  They then made a flank ~movement on our right, on the west of Seceesionville, where they
were gallantly met by the Charleston battalion, which was Soon
reinforcedl by the Louisiana battalion.  Three times had the
heroic band of Confederates repulsed (often at the point of the
bayonet) a f6rce thrice their strength, under the fire of three
gunboats andl'four land batteries.  About ten  o'clock  the
enemy retieated in great confusion, leaving their dead and
wounded on the field, a number lying in our trenches.  The
loss of the'nemy was at least four hundred in killed, wounded
and, prisoners.. Their dead in front of the Secessionville works
numbered one hundred ard sixty-eight.  Our loss was forty
killed'and about twice that number wounded.
In the situation in. the West some important changes had
transpired in the early months of the summer.
The evacuation of Corinth was. determined upon by General
Beauregard, after having twice offered the enemy battle outside
of his entrenched lines, and was accomplished on the WOth of
May.  The transparent object of the Yankee commander was
to cut off our resources by destroying the Mobile and Ohio and
Memphis and( Charleston Railroads.  This was substantially
foiled by the evacuation and withdrawal of our forces along




T8                  THE SECOND YEAR OF'THE WAR.
the  lnre of the former  road.   Renaining in rear of  the  Tuscumihia  and' its  affluents, some  six  miles from   Corinth, long
ellough to) collect stragglers, General Beauregart(  resumed  his
m;rchl, conlcelntrating his main  forces at B.aldwin.   On' the 7th
of June lie left Baldwil, it offering no advantages of a defensive
cha:ractG, an(r asseml led the main body of his forcestt Tupelo.
On  tlie morning, of the  evacuation  of (Corinth, our effective
force dlid  not exceel  forty  seven  thousand  mein  of  all arms,;
that of' the enermy, obtained  fiomr  the best sources of infortmation, coull not have lbeen less thin niniety tlousar;d mein of all.
arms.   Tlhe  story  of  the  evacuation  was flourished   by  the
Ya;nkeos as a grealt*success on their  side, and  CouIpled  with an
audacious t'alsehlood reported by (GeII. Pope to Gen. Halleck, thtn
in co:tirnal1ld ot the enemly's forces in the West, to the effect tha.t
he hlad takeni ten tliousadiltl   prisoners and fifteenll thou.sand standl
of arns.   Tle ft'cts,,are, ttbat the retreat wa,             s con(iucted  with
greo.t orlder antd  pre.cisii,; and that, (ldspite the boasts,f tlhe
Nortll to  tle  conttrary, we  lost ito  moite  prisote'rs  th:an  the
etlelty  dlidl   hiuiself, land  abantdoo dcl   to -himi  in stores not  1)ile'
th!ran would amount to one' lay's expense of our army.
T'lhe c;pture of AMemalphis was allother  step-towardsithe realiz!itioti of  the  enemy's  great object of openitnl   tle  navigation
of  the  Alississippi, whlich  was  persisteltly  dletrl0 det1   byy  tlte
Nortthwestern  States as the price of  their cottribtutions to tlie
war.tadi  their sui.polt    t of tle adminiitration  at Waslhigton.*
This city  hadt  beh     i fortn;ally slirenderedt to thle.Yankees a fter
* The 43!11' ot Trlde; of St. I ous, publislield a paper on this sulject,
wiichil nsulled tie. ground that tLat  e,hject cif te Cit'fdleracy was to hi,,ld tlhe
ent ir: antid eX(lu-ive c,,ntrodl if tie MA. sissippi.   t welt. in111   detail to hlio(
how gV'eat. tihe lois of the pri'eiit obti-tlt.totl,it  it-lat lhigw;ay was to tie
"lV:IIl" We stern State8.  It was tlie litiural outlet to tlte pioduce of the
tU,'er Valley.  Durini  g thtie year 1861 the sltipiiilit s tromr  Ca'iro;tlid points
abtvrf tile Mi.ssisippi and its tribtlalies, by ay w     fy,t tli   lower Mis.i —ippi,
lanltulnted  to a t Iillipit  toni, if wili ih 400.:, 0 went floint  St  Louis:   It
ave  ted tlhat tne diftfeirele iti co.t of tfieigit b)y  Ie'r lvfer ltt1'thie ra. iltolot was
tel dollars a ttll; also, tilat tlhi%, with the rettrn tlreight, woultd atntIII It to a
totlal of $l-',OJOU, 00 tax tti the \ esternu pt-ople 1i rta:1ion of the closing of the
river.




T'HE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                      79
a naval engagemept in front of it on the 6th of June, in which
our loss was eighty killed and wounded and seventy-five taken
prisoriers, and four gunboats stink.' The occnpation of Memphis by the enemy was a serious
disaster to the South, although it did inot open the Mississippi;
for it-gave him  extraordinary facilities fo'r almost daily reinforcements of men anil supplies, and for the preparation of
expeditions to penetrate to ttle heart of the Confederacy.
Bit the enemy received a check oh the  Mississippi wliere
he had llast expected it.  On the 24th of June, his combined
fleet retired, tndli abarnoned  the siege of Vicksburg, without
accormplishing anything, after a siere of six weeks.  No injury
was sustained, by tiny of the batteries at Vicksburg.  The
number.of shells thrown  irkto-the city aind  at the batteries
amounted  to  25,000.  The  casualties in the city were onze
womtan and one negro man  killed, and1 among the'oldiers on
guard and at the batteries there were twenty-two killed and
woun.ded.'The  lower bombrarding fleet, under command of
Cbms. Farragut and'Porter, consisted of 18' gun and -mortal
boats, 5 sloo3is of war and 70 transports; the upper filet &onsisted of I1  gunboats and  rams, and  13 transports, under
command of Corn. Davis.
The people of tile South found in the defence of Vicksburg
a splendid lesson of magtanimity anld disinterested patriotism.
For severral weeks this city h;ad resisted successfully the attack
of the eeniey's guiboats, mortar flets and heavy'siege guns.
She was threatened by powerful fleets al)ove and below, and
yet, with unexampled spirit, tile Queen City of the Bluffs sustained the iron storm  that'was rained upon her for weeks with
continued fury.
New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Naitchez and  AMemphis were in
the hands of the Yatrikees, an I their possession by the enerty
might. have furnisled' to Vicksburg, in its exposed anrd desperate situation, the usual excuses of timidity and selfishness
for its surrender.'But the brave city resisted  these vile and
unmanly excuses, and. gave to the world one of the proudest




80             TIE SECOND YEAR OF TIE WAR.
and most brilliant illustrations of the earnestness an( devotion
of the people of the South that ha.d yet adorned the war.
The fact that but little hopes could be entertained of the
eventual success of the  defence  of  ricksburg  a::inst the
powerful concentration of the enemy's navy, heightened the
nobility of the resistance she madle. The resistance of twhe enemy
in circumstances. which afford but a feeble anld uncertain prospect of victory requires a great spirit; but it is more invaluable to us than a hundred easy victories; it teaches the enemy
that we are invincible and overcomes him  with despair; it
exhibits to the world the inspirations and  ntoral grandeur
of our cause; and  it educates our people in  chivalry and
warlike virtues by the force of illustrious examples of selfdevotion.
But the people of the South had the satisfaction of witnessing
an unexpected issue of viceory in the siege of Vi.ksbui'g, and
had occasion to learn another lesson that the history of all
wars indicates, that the practical test of resistance affords
the only sure determination, whether a. place is defensiible or
not.  With  a feeling  of inexpressible pride  (dd  Vicksburg
behold two immense fleets, each of which had been heretofore
invincible, brought to bay, and, unable to cope with her, kept
at a respectful distance, and compelled to essay the extraordinary task of digging a new chann6l for tle Mississippi.
In the month of July occurred the remarkable expedition of
the celebrated John Moirgan into Kentucky.  The expedition
of this cavalier was one of the most brilliant, rapid and successful raids recorded in history.  Composed of a force less
than one.thousand, consisting of Morgan's own regiment, with
some partisan rangers-from  Georgia, and a Texas squadron,
to which was attached two companies of Tennessee cavalry, it
penetrated as far as Cynthianna.  It was Morgan's intention
to make a stand at Richmond, Kentucky, to await reinforcements, as he was persuaded  that nearly the whole people of
that State were ready to rise and join  him; but finding.that
the enemy was endeavoring to envelope him with large bodies




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                81
of cavalry, he was compelled to fall back.  On reaching
Somerset, he took possession of the telegraph, and very coolly
countermanded all the previous orders that had been given by
Gen. Boyle at Louisville to pursue him.
He had left Knoxville on the fourth day of July with nine
hundred men, and returned to Lexington on the 28th with
nearly twelve hundred.  In twenty-four days he had penetrated two hundred and fifty miles into a country in full possession of the Yankees; captured seventeen towns; met, fought
and captured a Yankee force superiour to his own in numbers;
captured three thousand stand of arms at Lebanon; and, from
first to last, destroyed- during his raid military stores, railroad
bridges and other property to the value of eight or ten millions
of dollars.  He accomplished all this, besides putting the
people of Cincinnati into a condition, described by one of their
newspapers, as "bordering on frenzy," and returned to Tennessee with a loss in all his engagements of not more than
ninety men in killed, wounded and missing.
While some activity was shown in extreme portions of the
West, we shall see that our military operations from Greenbrier county, Virginia, all the way down to Chattanooga,
Tennessee, were conducted with but little vigour.  On the
boundaries of East Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia and
Kentucky, we had a force in the aggregate of thirty thousand
men confronted by probably not half their number of Yankee
troops; yet the Southwestern counties of Virginia and the
Valley of the Clinch, in Tennessee, were entered and mercilessly plundered by the enemy in the face of our troops.
But we shall have occasion to notice the campaign in the
West on a broader arena.  We shall see how movements in
this direction pressed back the discouraged and retreating foe.
We shall see how these movements of the Confederates were
intended to repossess the country previously occupied by them
and to go forward to the redemption of the State of Kentucky,
and the attack of one or more of the leading cities of the West;
how, in the prosecution of this plan, lNorth Alabama and Mis6




82           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
sissippi were speedily cleared of the footsteps of the foe; how
all of Tennessee, save the strongholds of Memphis and Nashville, and the narrow  districts commanded by them, were
retrieved, and by converging armies, nearly the whole of Kentucky was occupied and held-and how, at last, all these
achievements were reversed in a night's time, and the most
valuable and critical points abandoned by our troops, or rather
by the will of the unfortunate general who led them.
But our narrative does not yet open on the chequered page
of the West. That important part of our history is prefaced
by the brilliant story of the summer campaign of the upper
Potomac, and is relieved by dazzling lights of glory on the old
battle-grounds of Virginia.




THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                      83
CHAPTER III.
Effect of McClellan's Defeat in the North...Call for more Troops...Why the
North was not Easily Dispirited...The War as a Money Job...Note: General
Washington's Opinion of New England...The Yankee Finances...Exasperation
of Hostilities...The Yankee Idea of a "Vigourous Prosecution of the War"...
Ascendancy of the Radicals...War Measures at Washington...Anti-Slavery
Aspects of the War...Brutality of the Yankees...The Insensibility of Europe...
Yankee Chaplains in Virginia...Seizures of Private Property...Pope's Orders
in Virginia...Steinwehr's Order Respecting Hostages...The Character and Services of General John Pope...The "Army of Virginia"...Irruption of the
Northern Spoilsmen...The Yankee Trade in Counterfeit Confederate Notes...
Pope's "Chasing the Rebel Hordes"...Movement Against Pope by "Stonewall" Jackson...BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN...McClellan Recalled from the
Peninsula...The Third Grand Army of the North...Jackson's Surprise of the
Enemy at Manassas...A Rapid and Masterly Movement...Change of the Situation...Attack by the Enemy upon Bristow Station and at Manassas Junction...Marshalling of the Hosts...Longstreet's Passage of Thoroughfare Gap...
The Plans of General Lee...Spirit of our Troops...Their Painful Marches...
THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS...A Terrible Bayonet Charge-Rout of the
Enemy...A Hideous Battle-Feld...General Lee and the Summer Campaign of
Virginia...Jackson's Share in it...Extent of the Great Victory of Manassas...
Excitement in Washington...The Yankee Army Falls Back Upon Alexandria
and Washington...Review of the Situation...Rapid Change in our Military
Fortunes...What the South had Accomplished... Comparison of Material
Strength Between North and South...Humiliating Result to the Warlike Reputation of the North.
The effect of the defeat of McClellan before Richmond was
received  at the  North  with  ill-concealed  mortification  and
anxiety.  Beneath the bluster of the newspapers, and the affectations of public confidence, disappointment, embarrassment
and alarm  were perceptible.  The people of the North  had
been so assured of the capture of Richmond, that it was difficult to re-animate them on the heels of McClellan's retreat.
The prospects held out to them so long, of ending the war in
"sixty days," "crushing out the rebellion," and eating victorious dinners in Richmond, had been bitterly disappointed and




84              THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
were not to be easily renewed. The government at Washington showed its appreciation of the disaster its arms had sustained by making a call for three hundred thousand additional
troops; and the people of the North were urged by every variety of appeal, including large bounties of money, to respond
to the stirring call of President Lincoln.*
There is no doubt but that the North  was seriously discouraged by the events that had taken place before Richmond.
But it was a remarkable circumstance, uniformly illustrated in
the war, that the North, though easily intoxicated by triumph,
was not in the same proportion depressed by defeat.  There is
an obvious explanation for this peculiarity of temper.  As long
as the North was conducting the war upon the soil of the So-uth,
a defeat there involved more money expenditure  and more
calls for troops; it involved scarcely anything else; it had no
other horrours, it did not imperil their homes; it might easily
be repaired by time. Indeed, there was some sense in the exhortation of some of the Northern orators, to the effect that
defeat made their people stronger than ever, because, while it
required.them to put forth their energies anew, it enabled them
* The Army Register, published at Washington, in its statement of the
organization of the regular army, enumerates as its force six regiments of
cavalry, five of artillery, ten of infantry, (old army), and nine of infantry,
(new army.)
The strength of this branch of the service in men, may be thus stated:
Total commissioned officers,..    2,388
Total enlisted,....   40,626
Aggregate,   43,014
The figures which are collected below to show the organization of the volunteer army of the North, refer to the date of the Register, August 1, 1862.
It appears that at this date there were in the volunteer army of the North
seventy regiments of cavalry, seventy of artillery, and eight hundred and
sixty regiments of infantry.
These startling official figures give the following result:
Total commissioned officers,..    39,922
Total rank and file,...  1,052,480
Aggregate,  1,092,40



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                  85
to take advantage of experience, to multiply their means of
success, and to essay new plans of campaign.  No one can
doubt but that the celebrated Manassas defeat really strengthened the North; and doubtless the South would have realized
the same consequence of the second repulse of the enemy's
movements on Richmond, if it had been attended by the same
conditions on our part of inaction and repose.
It is curious to observe how completely the ordinary aspects
of war were changed and its horrours diminished, with reference to the North, by the false, policy of the South, in keeping
the theatre of active hostilities within her own borders.  Defeat
did not dispirit the North, because it was not brought to her
doors.  Where it did not immediately imperil the safety of
the country and homes of the Yankees, where it gave time for
the recovery and re-organization of the attacking party, and
where it required for the prosecution of the war nothing but
more money jobs in Congress and a new raking up of the scum
of the cities, the effects of defeat upon the North might well
be calculated to be the exasperation of its passions, the inflammation of its cupidity, and the multiplication of its exertions
to break and overcome the misapplied power of our armies.
Indeed, the realization of the war in the North was, in many
respects, nothing more than that of an immense money job.
The large money expenditure at Washington supplied a vast
fund of corruption; it enriched the commercial centres of the
North, and by artificial stimulation preserved such cities as
New York from  decay; it interested vast numbers of politicians, contractors and dissolute public men in continuing the
war and enlarging the scale of its operations; and, indeed, the
disposition to make money out of the war accounts for much
of that zeal in the North, which was mistaken for political ardour or the temper of patriotic devotion.*
* The following is an extract from an unpublished letter from Gen. Washington to Richard Henry Lee, and, as an exposition of the character of the
Northern people from a pen sacred to posterity, is deeply interesting. There
can be no doubt of the authenticity of the letter. It has been preserved in




86               THE  SECOND YEAR  OF THE WAR.
But while politicians plundered the government at Washington and contractors grew rich in a single day and a fictitious
the Lee family, who, though applied to by Bancroft, Irving and others for a
copy for publication, have hitherto refused it, on the ground that it would be
improper to give to the world a private letter from the Father of his Country
reflecting upon any portion of it while the Union endured. But now, that
"these people" have trampled the Constitution under foot, destroyed the
government of our fathers, and invaded and desolated Washington's own
county in Virginia, there can be no impropriety in showing his private opinion of the Massachusetts Yankees:
[Copy.]
CAMP AT CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 29, 1775.
Dear Sir:  *  *  *
As we have now nearly completed our lines of defence, we have nothing
more, in my opinion, to fear from the enemy, provided we can keep our men
to their duty, and make them watchful and vigilant; but it is among the most
difficult tasks I ever undertook in my live, to induce these people to believe
that there is or can be danger, till the bayonet is pushed at their breasts; not
that it proceeds from any uncommon prowess, but rather from an unaccountable kind of stupidity in the lower class of these people, which, believe me,
prevails but too generally among the officers of the Massachusetts part of the
army, who are nearly of the same kidney with the private, and adds not a
little to my difficulties, as there is no such thing as getting officers of this
stamp to exert themselves in carrying orders into execution. To curry favour
with the men (by whom they were chosen and on whose smiles possibly they
may think they may again rely) seems to be one of the principal objects of
their attention. I submit it, therefore, to your consideration, whether there
is, or is not, a propriety in that resolution of the Congress which leaves the'
ultimate appointment of all officers below the rank of general to the governments where the regiments originated, now the army is become Continental?
To me, it appears improper in two points of view-first, it is giving that
power and weight to an individual Colony which ought of right to belong to
the whole. Then it damps the spirit and ardour of volunteers from all but
the four New England Governments, as none but their people have the least
chance of getting into office. *Would it not be better, therefore, to have the
warrants, which the Commander-in-Chief is authorized to give pro tempore,
approved or disapproved by the Continental Congress, or a committee of their
body, which I should suppose in any long recess must always sit? In this
case, every gentleman will stand an equal chance of being promoted, according to his merit: in the other, all offices will be confined to the inhabitants of
the four New England Governments, which, in my opinion, is impolitic to a
degree. I have made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the
Massachusetts Government abounds in since I came to this camp, having
broken one colonel and two captains for cowardly behaviour in the action on
Bunker's Hill, two captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                        87
prosperity dazzled the eyes of the observer in the cities of the
North, the public finances of the Yankee government had long
ago become desperate. It is interesting at this point to make
a brief summary of the financial condition of the North by a
comparison of its public debt with the assets of the government.
The debt of the present United States, audited and floating, calculated from data up to June 30, 1862, was at least
$1,300,000,000.   The daily  expenses, as admitted  by  the
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, was between
three and four millions of dollars; the debt, in one year from
this time, could not be less than two thousand five hundred
millions of dollars.
Under the census of 1860, all the property of every kind in
all the States was estimated at less than $12,500,000,000.
Since theawar commenced, the depreciation has been at least
one-fourth —  3,175,000,000.  From  $9,375,000,000  deduct
the  property  in  the  seceded  States, at least one-third$3,125,000,000;-leaving,  in  the  present United  States,
$ 6,250,000,000.
It will thus be seen, that the present debt of the North was
one-fifth of all the property of every kind it possesses; and in
had men in their company, and one for being absent from his post when the
enemy appeared there and burnt a house just by it. Besides these, I have at
this time one colonel, one major, one captain and two subalterns under arrest
for trial. In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these people seem to be too inattentive to everything but their interest.
*      *       *      *       *      *       *       *      *
There have been so many great and capital errours and abuses to rectify —
so many examples to make, and so little inclination in the officers of inferiour
rank to contribute their aid to accomplish this work, that my life has been
nothing else (since I came here) but one continual round of vexation and
fatigue. In short, no pecuniary recompense could induce me to undergo what
I have; especially, as I expect, by showing so little countenance to irregularities and public abuses as to render myself very obnoxious to a great part
of these people. But as I have already greatly exceeded the bounds of a
letter, I will not trouble you with matters relative to my own feelings.
Your affectionate friend and obedient servant,
(Signed)                   GEO. WASHINGTON.
Richard Henry Lee, Esq.




88           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
one year more it would probably be more than one-third. No
people on earth had ever been plunged in so large a debt in
so short a time. No government in existence had so large a
debt in proportion to the amount of property held by its
people.
In continuing the narrative of the campaign in Virginia, we
shall have to observe the remarkable exasperation with which
the North re-entered upon this campaign and to notice many
deeds of blackness which illustrated the temper in which she
determined.to prosecute the desperate fortunes of the war..The military authorities of the North seemed to suppose that
better success would attend a savage war, in which no quarter
was to be given and no age or sex spared, than had hitherto
been secured to such hostilities as are alone recognized to be
lawful by civilized men in modern times.  It is not necessary
to comment at length upon this fallacy. Brutality in war was
mistaken for vigour. War is not emasculated by the observances of civilization; its vigour and success consist in the
resources of generalship, the courage of troops, the moral
ardours of its cause.  To attempt to make up for deficiency
in these great and noble elements of strength by mere brutal
severities-such as pillage, assassination, &c.-is absurd; it
reduces the idea of war to the standard of the brigand; it
offends the moral sentiment of the world, and it excites its
enemy to the last stretch of determined and desperate exertion.
There had long been a party in the North who mistook brutality in war for vigour, and clamoured for a policy which was
to increase the horrours of hostilities by arming the slaves, and
making the invaded country of the South the prey of white
brigands and "loyal" negroes.  This party was now in the
ascendancy.  It had already obtained important concessions
from the Washington government.  Nine-tenths of the legislation of the Yankee Congress had been occupied in some form
or other with the question of slavery. Universal emancipation
in the South, and the utter overthrow of all property, was now
the declared policy of the desperate and demented leaders of




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                     89
the war.  The Confiscation Bill, enacted at the close of the
session of Congress, confiscated all the slaves belonging to those
who were loyal to the South, constituting nine-tenths at least of
the slaves in the Confederate States. In the Border States occupied by the North, slavery was plainly doomed under a plan
of emancipation proposed by Mr. Lincoln with the flimsy and
ridiculous pretence of compensation to slaveholders.*
These concessions to the radical party in the North excited
new demands.  The rule which was urged upon the government, and which the government hastened to accept, was to
spare no means, however brutal, to contest the fortunes of the
war, and to adopt every invention of torture for its enemy.
The slaves were to be armed and carried in battalions against
their masters.  The invaded country of the South was to be
pillaged, wasted and burnt; the Northern troops, like hungry
locusts, were to destroy everything green; the people in the
invaded districts were to be laid under contributions, compelled
to do -the work of slaves, kept in constant terrour of their
lives, and fire, famine and slaughter were to be the portion of
the conquered.
Before the eyes of Europe the mask of civilization had been
taken from  the Yankee war; it degenerated into unbridled
* According to the census of 1860Kentucky had.                        225,490 slaves.
Maryland,....   87,188"
Virginia,....     490,887 
Delaware,..             1,798  "
Missouri,.                        114,965  "
Tennessee,...    275,784  "
Making in the whole,  1,196,112 
At the proposed rate of valuation, these would amount to $ 358,833,600
Add for deportation and colonization $100 each,     119,244,533
And we have the enormous sum of                    $478,078,133
It is scarcely to be supposed that a proposition could be made in good faith,
or that in any event the proposition could be otherwise than worthless, to add
this vast amount to the public debt of the North at a moment when the treasury was reeling under the enormous expenditures of the war.




90           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
butchery and robbery. But the nations of Europe, which
boasted themselves as humane and civilized, had yet no interference to offer in a war which shocked the senses and appealed
to the common offices of humanity. It is to be observed, that
during the entire continuance of the war up to this time, the
British government had acted with reference to it in a spirit
of selfish and inhuman calculation; and there is, indeed, but
little doubt that an early recognition of the Confederacy by
France was thwarted by the interference of that cold and
sinister government, that ever pursues its ends by indirection
and perfects its hypocrisy under the specious cloak of extreme
conscientiousness. No greater delusion could have possessed
the people of the South than that the government of England
was friendly to them.  That government, which prided itself
on its cold and ingenious selfishness, seemed to have discovered
a much larger source of profit in the continuation of the American war than it could possibly derive from a pacification of
the contest.  It was willing to see its operatives starving and
to endure the distress of a "cotton famine," that it might
have the ultimate satisfaction, which it anticipated, of seeing
both parties in the American war brought to the point of exhaustion, and its own greatness enlarged on the ruins of a
hated commercial rival.  The'calculation was far-reaching; it
was characteristic of a government that secretly laughed at
all sentiment, made an exact science of selfishness, and scorned
the weakness that would sacrifice for any present good the
larger fruits of the future.
This malevolent and venomous spirit of anti-slavery in the
war pervaded the whole of Northern society. It was not only
the utterance of such mobs as, in New York city, adopted as
their war cry against the South, "kill all the inhabitants;"
it found expression in the political measures, military orders
and laws of the government; it invaded polite society, and
was taught not only as an element of patriotism, but as a virtue of religion. The characteristic religion of New England,
composed of about equal quantities of blasphemy and balder



THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                        91
dash, went hand in hand with the war. Some of these pious
demonstrations were curious, and bring to remembrance the
fanaticism and rhapsodies of the old Puritans.*
The  Yankee  army chaplains  in Virginia  alternately'disgusted  and  amused  the country with  the ferocious rai  With
which  they sought to inspire the crusade against taes-olth.
One of these pious missionaries in Winchester, after li:              -gular Sunday service, announced to the assembled Yan.
an imaginary victory in front of Richmond, anc*
for "three  cheers and  a tiger and Yankee Do"
sermon  preached  near the  enemy's camp of o.
chaplain proclaimed the mission of freeing the
told  them  they were free, and  that, as the pro
by their masters was the fruit of the labours of 1,ll
these had the best title to it and should help thems:^e&.i~'t
another place near the scene of the execution of John Brown for
violation of law, sedition and murder, a sermon was preached
by an army chaplain  on some text enjoining  "the mission of
proclaiming liberty;" and the hymn given out and sung wasJohn Brown's body hangs dangling in the air,
Sing glory, glory, hallelujah!"
* No one affected the peculiarity of the Puritans more than Gov. Andrews,
of Massachusetts.  The following pious rant is quoted from  one of his
speeches at Worcester; in blasphemy and bombast it equals any of the fulminations of the "Pilgrim Fathers""I know that the angel of the Lord, one foot on the earth and one on the
sea, will proclaim in unanswereble language, that four millions of bondmen
shall ere long be slaves no longer. We live in a war, not a riot; as we thought
last year, with a half million in the field against an atrocious and rebellious
foe. Our government now recognizes it as a war, and the President of the
United States, fulminating his war orders, has blown a blast before which the
enemy must fly. Rebellion must fall, and they who have stood upon the
necks of so many bondsmen shall be swept away and four million souls rise
to immortality.
"Ah, foul tyrants! do you hear him where he comes?
Ah, black traitors! do you know him as he comes?
In the thunder of the cannon and the roll of the drums,
As we go marching on.
" Men may die and moulder in the dustMen may die and arise again from the dust,
Shoulder to shoulder, in the ranks of the just,
When God is marching on.




92            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
These, however, were but indications displayed of a spirit
in the North, which, with reference to the practical conduct of
the war, were serious enough.
By a general order of the Washington Government, the
military commanders of that government, within the States of
Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, were directed to seize
and use any property, real or personal, belonging to the inhaaitants of this Confederacy which might be necessary or convenient for their several commands, and no provision was made
for any compensation to the owners of private property thus
seized and appropriated by the military commanders of the
enemy.
But it was reserved for the enemy's army in Northern Virginia to exceed all that had hitherto been known of the savage
cruelty of the Yankees, and to convert the hostilities hitherto
waged against armed forces into a campaign of robbery and
murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the
soil.
On the 23d of July, 1862, General Pope, commanding the
forces of the enemy in Northern Virginia, published an order
requiring that "all commanders of any army corps, divisions,
brigades, and detached commands, will proceed immediately to
arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines, or within
their reach, in rear of their respective commands.  Such as
are willing to take. the oath of allegiance to the United States,
and will furnish sufficient security for its observance, shall be
permitted to remain at their homes and pursue in good faith
their accustomed avocations.  Those who refuse shall be conducted South, beyond the extreme pickets of this army, and be
notified that, if found again anywhere within our lines, or at
any point in rear, they shall be considered spies and subjected
to the extreme rigour of military law. If any person, having
taken the oath of allegiance as above specified, be found to
have violated it, he shall be shot, and his property seized and
applied to the public use."




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               93
By another order of Brigadier-General Steinwehr, in. Pope's
command, it was proposed to hold under arrest the most prominent citizens in the districts occupied by the enemy, as hostages, to suffer death in case of any of the Yankee soldiers
beihg shot by "bushwhackers," by which term was meant the
citizens of the South who had taken up arms to defend their
homes and families.
The Washington Government had found a convenient instrul
ment for the work of villainy and brutality with which it proposed to resume the active campaign in Virginia.
With a view to renewed operations against Richmond, large
forces of Yankee troops were massed at Warrenton, Little
Washington and Fredericksburg. Of these forces, entitled the
"Army of Virginia," the command was given to Major-General
John Pope, who boasted that he had come from the West
where "he had only seen the backs of the enemy."
This notorious Yankee commander was a man nearly forty
years of age, a native of Kentucky, but a citizen of Illinois.
He was born of respectable parents.  He was graduated at
West Point in 1842, and served in the Mexican War, where he
was breveted Captain.
In 1849 he conducted the Minnesota exploring expedition,
and afterwards acted as topographical engineer in New Mexico,
until 1853; when he was assigned to the command of one of
the expeditions to survey the route of the Pacific railroad. He
distinguished himself on the overland route to the Pacific by
"sinking " artesian wells and government money to the amount
of a million of dollars. One well was finally abandoned incomplete, and afterwards a perennial spring was found by other
parties in the immediate vicinity.  In a letter to Jefferson
Davis, then Secretary of War, urging this route to the Pacific,
and the boring these wells, Pope made himself the especial
champion of the South.
In the breaking out of the war, Pope was made a BrigadierGeneral of Volunteers.  He held a command in Missouri for
some time before he became particularly noted. When Gen.




94           TTIE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Halleck took charge of the disorganized department, Pope was
placed in command of the District of Central Missouri.  He
was afterwards sent to Southeastern Missouri. The cruel disl
position of the man, of which his rude manners, and a vulgar
bearded face, with coarse skin, gave indications, found an
abundant field for gratification in this unhappy State. His
proceedings in Missouri will challenge a comparison with the
most infernal record ever bequeathed by the licensed murderer
to the abhorrence of mankind. And yet, it was his first step
in blood —the first opportunity he had ever had to feast his
eyes upon slaughter and regale his ears with the cries of human
agony.
Having been promoted to the rank of Major-General, Pope
was next appointed to act at the head of a corps to co-operate
with Halleck in the reduction of Corinth. After the evacuation of Corinth by Gen. Beauregard, Pope was sent by Halleck
to annoy the rear of the Confederate army, but Beauregard
turned upon, and repulsed his pursuit. The report of Pope to
Halleck, that he had captured 10,000 of Beauregard's army,
and 15,000 stand of arms, when he had not taken a man or a
musket, stands alone in the history of lying.  It left him without a rival in that respectable art.
Such was the man who took command of the enemy's forces
in Northern Virginia.  His bluster was as excessive as his
accomplishments in falsehood. He was described in a Southern
newspaper as " a Yankee compound of Bobadil and Munchausen."  His proclamation, that he had seen nothing of his
enemies " but their backs," revived an ugly story in his private
life, and gave occasion to. the witty interrogatory, if the gentleman who cowhided him for offering an indignity to a lady
was standing with his back to him when he inflicted the chastisement. The fact was that Pope had won his baton of marshal by bragging to the Yankee fill. He was another instance,
besides that of Butler, how easily a military reputation might
be made in the North by bluster, lying, and acts of coarse
cruelty to the defenceless. On what monstrous principles he




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              95
commenced his career in Virginia, and what orders he issued,
are still fresh in the public memory.
"I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases,
(said Pope to his army,) which I am sorry to find much in vogue
among you. I hear constantly of taking strong positions and
holding them; of lines of retreat and bases of supplies. Let
us discard such ideas.  The strongest position a soldier should
desire to occupy is the one from which he can most easily
advance upon the enemy. Let us study the probable line of
retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of
itself.  Let us look before and not behind. Disaster and
shame lurk in the rear."
On establishing his headquarters at Little Washington, the
county seat of Rappahannock, Pope became a source of
mingled curiosity and dread to the feeble villagers. They were
in a condition of alarm and anguish from the publication of his
order, to banish from their homes all males who should refuse
to take the Yankee oath of allegiance.  Dr. Bisphaw of the
village was deputed to wait upon the Yankee tyrant, and ask
that the barbarous order be relaxed.
He painted, at the same time, the agony of the women and
children, and stated that the effect would be to place six new
regiments in the rebel service.  "We can't take the oath of
allegiance," said the Doctor, "and we won't-man, woman or
child-but we will give a parole to attend to our own business,
afford no communication with the South, and quietly stay upon
our premises."
" I shall enforce the order to the letter," said General Pope.
"I did not make it without deliberation, and if you don't take
the oath you shall go out of my lines."
In the short period in which Pope's army was uninterrupted
in its career of robbery and villainy in Northern Virginia,
every district of country invaded by him or entered by his
marauders was ravaged as by a horde of barbarians.  This
portion of Virginia will long bear the record and tradition of
the irruption of the Northern spoilsmen. The new usage




96              THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
which had been instituted in regard to protection of Confederate property, and the purpose of the Washington government
to subsist its troops upon the invaded country, converted the
"Army of Virginia" into licensed brigands and let loose upon
the country a torrent of unbridled and unscrupulous robbers.
The Yankee troops appropriated remorselessly whatever came
within their reach.  They rushed in crowds upon the smokehouses of the farmers.  On the march -through  a section of
country, every spring-house was broken  open; butter, milk,
eggs and cream  were engulphed; calves and sheep, and, in
fact, anything and everything serviceable for meat, or drink,
or apparel, were not safe a moment after the approach of the
Yankee plunderers.  Wherever they camped at night, it would
be found the next morning that scarcely an article, for which the
fertility of a soldier could suggest the slightest use, remained
to the owner. Pans, kettles, dishcloths, pork, poultry, provisions and everything desirable had disappeared. The place was
stript, and without any process of commissary or quartermaster.
Whenever the Yankee soldiers advanced into a new section
the floodgates were immediately opened and fac simile Confederate notes (this spurious currency being manufactured in
Philadelphia and sold by public advertisement for a few cents
to Yankee soldiers) were poured out upon the land.*   They
* The Northern trade in this counterfeit money was open and undisguised;
enticing advertisements of its profit were freely made in the Northern journals, and circulars were distributed through the Federal army proposing to
supply the troops with "rebel" currency almost at the price of the paper on
which the counterfeit was executed. We copy below one of these circulars
found on the person of a Yankee prisoner; the curiosity being a court paper
in the possession of Mr. Commissioner Watson, of Richmond:
"$20 Confederate Bond!! I have this day issued a Fac-simile $20 Confederate Bond-making, in all, fifteen different Fac-simile Rebel Bonds, Notes,
Shinplasters and Postage Stamps issued by me the past three months.
Trade supplied at 50 cents per 100, or $4 per 1000. All orders by mail or
express promptly executed.
All orders to be sent by mail must be accompanied with 18 cents in
postage stamps, in addition to the above price to prepay the postage on each
100 ordered.               Address,               S. C. UPHAM.
403 Chesnut Street, Philadelphia.
N. B. I shall have a $100 Rebel Note out this week."




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 97
were passed indiscriminately upon the unsuspecting inhabitants,
poor as well as rich, old and young, male and female. In frequent instances, this outrage was perpetrated in return for kind
nursing by poor, aged women.
These spurious notes passed readily, and seemed to be taken
gladly for whatever was held for sale.  Bank notes and shinplasters were given for change.  Horses and other valuable
property were often purchased with this bogus currency.  A
party of Yankee soldiers entered a country store, fortified
with exhaustless quantities of Philadelphia Confederate notes,
and commenced trade.  Forty pounds of sugar was first ordered, and the storekeeper, pleased with the sudden increase
of business, called in his wife to assist in putting up the order
in small parcels.  Seventy-five cents a pound was the cost.
That was a small matter.  Matches were purchased.  Twentyfive cents per box was the charge. Tobacco also found a ready
market.  Each man provided himself with a straw hat; but
the crowning act of all was the abstraction from the till of money already paid to the dealer for his goods, and the purchase
of more goods with the same spurious medium.
Such acts of villainy and the daily robberies committed by
Pope's soldiers were very amusing to the Northern people, and
gave them  a stock of capital jokes.  "I not long ago saw,"
-wrote a correspondent of a Yankee newspaper, " a dozen soldiers rushing headlong through a field, each anxious to get the
first choice of three horses shading themselves quietly under a
tree.  The animals made their best time into the farthest corner of the field with the men close upon them, and the foremost men caught their prizes and bridled them as if they had
a perfect immunity in such sort of things. A scene followed.
A young lady came out and besought the soldiers not to take
her favourite pony.  The soldiers were remorseless and unyielding, and the pony is now in the army."
It is not within the design of these pages to pursue the stories of outrage, villainy and barbarism of the enemy's armies
in Virginia; but with what we have said intended only to show
7




98           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
the spirit of that army and the character of its leader, we shall
hasten to describe the series of events which, at last, confronted
it with an army of avengers on the historic Plains of Manassas, and culminated there in a victory, which liberated Virginia
from its invaders, broke the "line of the Potomac" from Leesburg to Harper's Ferry, and opened an avenue for the first
time into the territory of the North.
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN.
The Northern newspapers declared that Pope was right
when he said that he was accustomed to see the backs of his
enemy, and were busy in assuring their readers that his only
occupation was to chase "the rebel hordes." It was said that
he had penetrated as far as Madison Coutrt-house without seeing any enemy.  The Southern troops, it was prophesied,
would keep on their retreat beyond the Virginia Central railroad. Pope's army was now as far in the interiour, by overland marches, as any of the Yankee troops had ever been.
The position of his advance was described as about ten miles
east of Port Republic, with an eye on the Shenandoah Valley;
and it was boasted that the second Napoleon of the Yankees
had already complete possession of the country north of the
Rapidan river, and only awaited his leisure to march upon
Richmond.
These exultations were destined to a sharp and early disappointment.  The Confederate authorities in Richmond knew
that it was necessary to strike somewhere before the three
hundred thousand recruits called for by the Washington government should be brought to the field to overwhelm them.
It was necessary to retain in the strong works around Richmond a sufficient force to repulse any attack of McClellan's
army; but at the same time the necessity was clear to hold
Pope's forces in cheek and to make an active movement against
him.  The execution of this latter purpose was entrusted to




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                       99
Jackson, the brave, eccentric and beloved commander,* who
had achieved so many victories against so many extraordinary
odds and obstacles; all the movements of the campaign being
directed by the self-possessed, controlling and earnest mind of
General Lee.
The insolent enemy received his first lesson at the hands of
the heroic Jackson on the wooded sides and cleared slopes of
the mountainous country in Culpeper.  In consequence of the
advance of the Confederates beyond the Rapidain, Major-General Pope had sent forward two army corps, commanded by
General Banks, to hold them in check.
On the evening of the 8th of August, a portion of General
Jackson's division, consisting of the 1st, 2d and 3d brigades,
under the command of Gen. Charles S. Winder, crossed the
Rapidan river, a few  miles above the railroad, and, having
advanced a mile into Culpeper county, encamped for the night.
The next morning, the enemy being reported as advancing,
our forces, Ewell's division being in advance, moved forward
on the main road from Orange Court-house to Culpeper. Courthouse, about three miles, and took position-our left flank
resting on the Southwest Mountain and our artillery occupying several commanding positions.  At 12 M., our forces commenced cannonading, which was freely responded to by the
* There have been a great many pen and ink portraits of the famous
"Stonewall" Jackson; the singular features and eccentric manners of this
popular hero affording a fruitful subject of description and anecdote. A gentleman, who was known to be a rare and quick judge of character, was asked
by the writer for a description of Jackson, whom he had met but for a few
moments on the battle-field.  " He is a fighting man," was the reply; " rough
mouth, iron jaw, and nostrils -big as a horse's."  This description has doubtless much force in it, although blunt and homely in its expression. The impression given by Jackson is that of a man perhaps forty years old, six feet
high, medium size, and somewhat angular in person. He has yellowish-grey
eyes, a Roman nose, sharp; a thin, forward chin, angular brow, a close
mouth, and light brown hair. The expression of his face is to some extent
unhappy, but not sullen or unsocial. He is impulsive, silent and emphatic.
His dress is official, but very plain, his cap-front resting nearly on his nose.
His Jall horse diminished the effect of his size, so that when mounted he appears les in person than he really is.




100           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
enemy, who did not seem  ready for the engagement, which
they had affected to challenge. Indeed, some strategy seemed
necessary to bring them to fight. About 3 P. M., Gen. Early's
brigade (Ewell's division) made a circuit through the woods,
attacking the enemy on their right flank, the 13th Virginia
regiment being in the advance as skirmishers.  At 4 o'clock
the firing began, and soon the fight became general. As Gen.
Jackson's division, then commanded by Gen. Winder, were
rapidly proceeding to the scene of action, the enemy, guided
by the dust made by the artillery, shelled the road witi great
precision.  It was by this shell that the brave Winder was
killed. His left arm shattered and his side also wounded, he
survived but an hour.  At a still later period, a portion of
Gen. A. P. Hill's division were engaged.  Tl4  battle was
mainly fought in a large field near Mrs. Crittenden's house, a
portion being open, and the side occupied by the Yankees
being covered with luxuriant corn.  Through this corn, when
our forces were considerably scattered, two Yankee cavalry
regiments made a desperate charge, evidently expecting utterly
to disorganize our lines. The result was precisely the reverse.
Our men rallied, ceased to fire on the infantry, and, concentrating their attention on the cavalry, poured into their ranks'
a fire which emptied many a saddle, and caused the foe to
wheel and retire, which, however, they effected without breaking their columns.  For some time the tide of victory ebbed
and flowed, but about dark the foe finally broke and retreated
in confusion to the woods, leaving their dead and many of
their wounded, with a large quantity of arms and ammunition upon the field. Daylight faded and the moon in her full
glory appeared, just as the terrours of the raging battle gave
way to the sickening scenes of a field where a victory had been
won.
The battle of Cedar Mountain, as it was entitled, may be
characterized as one of the most rapid and severe engagements
of the war.  In every particular it was a sanguinary and desperate struggle, and resulted in a complete and decisive victory




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                101
for our arms.  Our forces engaged amounted to about eight
thousand' whilst those of the enemy could not have been less
than fifteen thousand.  Our loss was near six hundred killed,
wounded and missing; that of the enemy little, if any, less
thin two thousand.  We captured nearly five hundred prisoners, over fifteen hundred stand of arms, two splendid Napoleon guns, twelve wagon loads of ammunition, several wagon
loads of new and excellent clothing, and drove the enemy two
miles beyond the field of battle, which we held for two days
and nights.
The battle was remarkable for an extraordinary and terrific
"artillery duel."  In fact, the fire was conducted with artillery alone for more than three hours..The opposing batteries
unlimbered so close to each other that, during the greater part
of the firing, they used grape and canister. Those working
our battery could distinctly hear the hum of voices of the infantry support of the Federal battery. The Louisiana Guard
artillery and the Purcell battery were ordered to take position
and open on the enemy from  the crest of a hill.  Here they
found themselves opposed by five batteries of the enemy within
short range. The battle raged fiercely, the enemy firing with
great precision.   The accuracy of our fire was proved by the
fact, that the enemy, though their guns were more than twice
as numerous, were compelled to shift the position of their batteries five different times. Once during the fight, the enemy's
sharpshooters, under cover of a piece of woods, crept up within
a short distance of our batteries and opened on them, but were
instantly scattered by a discharge of canister from one of the
howitzers.. The battle of Cedar Mountain was the natural preface to
that larger and severer contest of arms which was ro baptize,
for a second time, the field of Manassas with the blood of
Southern patriots, and illuminate it with the splendid scenes
of a decisive victory.  It convinced the North of the necessity
of a larger scale of exertion and a concentration of its forces
in Virginia to effect its twice-foiled advance upon the capital




102          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
of the Confederacy.  It was decided by the Washington government to recall McClellan's army from the Peninsula, to
unite his columns with those of Pope, to include also the forces
at Fredericksburg, and, banding these in a third Grand Army
more splendid than its predecessors, to make one concentrated
endeavour to retrieve its unfortunate summer campaign in Virginia, and plant its banners in the city of Richmond.
Not many days elapsed before the evacuation of Berkeley
and Westover, on the James river, was signalled to the authorities of Richmond by the large fleet of transports collected
on the James and the Rappahannock.  It became necessary to
meet the rapid movements of the enemy by new dispositions of
our forces; not a day was to be lost; and by the 17th of August, General Lee had assembled in front of Pope a force sufficient to contest his further advance, and to balk his threatened
passage of the Rapidan.
After thp battle of Cedar Mountain, the forces under Stonewall Jackson withdrew from the vicinity of the Rapidan, and
were for some days unheard of, except that a strong force was
in the vicinity of Madison Court-house, some twelve miles to
the westward,.in the direction of Luray and the Shenandoah
valley; but it was supposed by the enemy that this was only a
wing of the army under Ewell, intended to act as reserves to
Jackson's army, and to cover his retreat back to Gordonsville.
Not so, however.  These forces of Ewell, as afterwards discovered by the Yankees to their great surprise, were the main
body of Jackson's army, en route for the Shenandoah valley.
It was probably the design of Gen. Lee, with the bulk of
the Confederate army, to take the front, left and right, and
engage CQn. Pope at or near the Rapidan, while Jackson and
Ewell were to cross the Shenandoah river and mountains, cut
off his supplies by way of the railroad, and menace his rear.
The adventure, on the part of Jackson, was difficult and desperate; it took the risk of any new movements of Pope, by
which he (Jackson) himself might be cutoff. It was obvious,
indeed, that if Pope could reach Gordonsville, he would cut off




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                103
Jackson's supplies, but in this direction he was to be confronted
by Gen. Lee with the forces withdrawn from Richmond. With
the movement of Jackson the object was to keep Pope between
the Rapidan and the Rappahannock rivers until Jackson had
attained his position at Manassas, or perhaps at Rappahannock
bridge; but Pope's retreat to the Rappahannock's north bank
frustrated that design, and rendered it necessary for General
Lee to follow up his advantage, and, by a system of feints, to
take Pope's attention from his rear and divert it to his front.
On Monday, the 28th of August, at daybreak, Gen. Jackson's corps, consisting of General Ewell's division, General
Hill's division, and General Jackson's old division, under command of General Taliaferro, and a force of cavalry under
General Stuart, marched from Jeffersonton, in Oulpeper county,
and crossed the Rappahannock eight miles above that place,
and marched by Orleans to Salem, in Fauquier.  The next
day they passed through Thoroughfare Gap, of Bull Run mountains, to Bristow and Manassas Stations, on the Orange and
Alexandria railroad, effecting a complete surprise of the enemy,
capturing a large number of prisoners, several trains of cars,
and immense commissary and quartermaster stores, and several
pieces of artillery. The distance marched in these two days
was over fifty miles.  On Wednesday, Manassas Station was
occupied by Jackson's old division, whilst Ewell occupied Bristow, and Hill and Stuart dispersed the force sent from Alexandria to attack what the enemy supposed to be only a cavalry
force.
The amount of property which fell into our hands at Manassas was immense-several trains heavily laden with stores, ten
first class locomotives, fifty thousand pounds of bacon, one
thousand barrels of beef, two thousand barrels of pork, several
thousand barrels of flour, and a large quantity of oats and corn.
A bakery, which was daily turning out fifteen thousand loaves
of bread, was also destroyed. Next to Alexandria, Manassas
was probably the largest depot established for the Northern
army in Virginia.




104           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
The movement of Jackson, which we have briefly sketched,
is the chief element of the situation in which the decisive engagements of Manassas were fought.  In this connection it
must be studied; it was the brilliant strategic preface to the
most decisive, victory yet achieved on the theatre of,.the war.
The corps of Jackson, having headed off the Federal army
under Pope, had now possession of Manassas Plains.  It had
accomplished its design, which was to force Pope back-deprive him completely of direct communication with Washington
or Alexandria, and eventually induce his surrender or annihilation.
The principal and anxious topic in the North was, by what
eccentric courses the famous Confederate commander had managed to get around the right wing of Pope's army, when it was
supposed-and in fact the hasty exultation had already been
caught up in the Yankee newspapers-that it was the " rebel"
general who was cut off, and that he would probably make a
desperate retreat into the mountains to escape the terrours of
Pope.  Indeed, it was some time before the full and critical
meaning of the situation dawned upon the prejudiced mind of
the Northern public. The idea was indulged that the capture
of Manassas was only a successful raid by a body of rebel
guerillas; and so it was dismissed by the newspapers with a
levity, characteristic of their insolence and ignorance.
Weak and credulous a's General Pope was, it is probable that
the moment he heard that Jackson was in his rear, he was
satisfied that it was no raid.  The situation had been changed
almost in a moment.  Pope had evacuated Warrenton Junction
and was moving along the railroad upon Manassas, anxious to
secure his "line of retreat," and expecting, doubtless, with no
little confidence, by rapid marches of a portion of his forces
by the turnpike upon Gainesville, to intercept any reinforcements by the way of Thoroughfare Gap to Jackson, and to fall
upon and crush him by the weight of numbers.  A portion of
the Confederate army now fronted to the South, and the Federal army towards Washington.  The latter had been swollen




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               105
by reinforcements, and the advance corps from  Burnside was
marching on rapidly from  Fredericksburg to complete the
amassment on the Federal side.
Although the situation of Gen. Pope was one unexpected by
himself, and surrounded by many embarrassments, he yet had
many circumstances of advantage in which to risk a great and
decisive battle.  The New York journals peisisted in declaring
that it was not the infallible Pope, but the "rebel" army that
was "in a tight place."  At any rate, Pope was not in the
situation in which McClellan found himself when his right wing
was turned by the Confederates in front of Richmond-that
is, without supports or reinforcements.  On the contrary, on
his right, and on the way up from Fredericksburg, was the
new army of the Potomac under Burnside; while advancing
forward from Alexandria was the newly organized army of
Virginia under McClellan.  Such was the array of force that
threatened the army we had withdrawn from  Richmond, and
in which the Northern populace indulged the prospect of a
certain and splendid victory.
An encounter of arms of vital consequence was now to ensue on the already historic and famous Plains of Manassasthe beautiful stretch of hill and dale reaching as far as Centreville, varied by amphitheatres, an admirable battle ground;
with the scenery of which the Southern troops associated the
exciting thoughts of a former victory and a former shedding
of the blood of their beloved' and best on the memorable and
consecrated spots that marked the field of battle.
THE ENGAGEMENT OF WEDNESDAY, THE 2TTH OF AUGUST.
On Wednesday, the 27th, an attack was made by the enemy
upon Bristow Station, and also at Manassas Junction.
On the morning of that day, at about eleven o'clock, Gen.
Taylor's brigade, of Major-General Slocum's division of the
army of the Potomac, consisting of the first, second, third
and fourth New Jersey regiments, were ordered to proceed to




106           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Manassas by rail from  their camp near Fort Ellsworth, Alexandria.
The brigade arrived at Bull Run bridge about seven o'clock
in the morning.  The troops landed and crossed the bridge
with as little delay as possible, and marched towards Manassas.
After ascending the hill emerging from the valley of Bull Run,
they encountered a line of skirmishers, of the Confederates,
which fell back before them.  The brigade marched on in the
direction of Manassas, not seeing any of the enemy until
within range of the circular series of fortifications around the
Junction,.when heavy artillery was opened upon them from all
directions. General Taylor retired beyond the range of our
guns to the rear of a sheltering crest of ground, from which
he was driven by our infantry. Crossing at Blackburn's ford,
he was pursued by our horse artillery, which fired into him,
creating the utmost havoc. The brigade retreated in a disorganized mass of flying men towards Fairfax; it was pursued
by our eager troops beyond Centreville, and the track of the
flying and cowardly enemy was marked with his dead.
The flight of the enemy was attended-by the most wild and
terrible scenes, as he was pursued by our horse artillery, pouring canister into his ranks.  The brigade was almost annihilated.  General Taylor himself, his son on his staff, and his
nephew, were wounded; also one-half of his officers.
At 3 o'clock, P. M., of th'e same day, the enemy attacked
General Ewell, at Bristow, and that General, after a handsome
little fight, in which he punished the enemy severely, retired
across Muddy Run, as had previously been agreed upon, to
Manassas Junction.  This attack was. made by the division of
the enemy commanded b' Gen. Hooker, which was dispatched
to that point and detached from the advancing forces of Pope,
who, of course, claimed the result of the affair as a signal
Federal success.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              107
MOVEMENTS OF THURSDAY, THE 228TH OF AUGUST.
After sunset on Thursday General Jackson accomplished one
of the most beautiful and masterly strategic movements of the
war.  He found himself many miles in advance of the rest of
our army.  The enemy might throw his immense columns between him and Longstreet-Alexandria and Washington was
to his rear when he turned to attack the enemy.  He determined to throw himself upon the enemy's flank, to preserte
the same nearness to Alexandria, to place himself within support of the remainder of our army, and to occupy a position
from which he could not be driven, even if support did not arrive in time.  All this he accomplished that night, after destroying the stores, buildings, cars, &c., and burning the railroad bridges over Muddy Run and Bull Run.  He marched at
night with his entire force from Manassas Station to Manassas
battle-field, crossing the Warrenton turnpike, and placing his
troops in such position that he could confront the enemy should
they attempt to advance by the Warrenton pike or by the Sudley road and ford, and have the advantage of communicating
by the Aldie road with Longstreet, should he not have passed
the Thoroughfare Gap, and at all events gain for himself a
safe position for attack or defence. At seven o'clock, A. M.,
on Friday, General Stuart encountered the enemy's cavalry
near Gainesville, on the Warrenton pike, and drove them back;
and during the morning the 2d brigade of Gen. Taliaferro's
division, under Colonel Bradley Johnson, again repulsed them.
It was now ascertained that the enemy's column was advancing
(or retreating) from Warrenton, along the line of the railroad
and by way of the Warrenton turnpike, and that they intended
to pass a part of their force over the Stone Bridge and Sudley
ferd.  Gen. Jackson immediately ordered Gen. Taliaferro to
advance with his division to attack their left flank, which was
advancing towards Sudley Mill. Gen. Ewell's division marched
considerably in the rear of the 1st division.  After marching




108          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
some three miles, it was discovered that the enemy had abandoned the idea of crossing at Sudley, and had left the Warrenton pike to the left, beyond Groveton, and were apparently
cutting across to the railroad through the fields and woods.
In a few minutes, however, he advanced across the turnpike to
attack us, and Jackson's army was thrown forward to meet
him.
From this sketch of the movemerits of the corps commanded
by Gen. Jackson, it will be seen that though a portion of our
forces, under Gens. Ewell and Jackson, were on Tuesday and
a part of Wednesday, the 26th and 27th of August, on the
Orange and Alexandria railroad, between Pope and Alexandria,
on the approach of Pope from Warrenton they withdrew to the
west and halted in the vicinityof the Warrenton turnpike, expecting to be rejoined by Longstreet, where they awaited the
approach of the enemy and delivered him battle.
THE BATTLE OF FRIDAY, THE 29TH OF AUGUST..
The conflict of Friday occurred near the village of Groveton,
our right resting just above and near the village, and the left
upon the old battle-field of Manassas.  The division of General
Anderson had not yet arrived, and the corps of Longstreet had
not been fully placed in position. The enemy, probably aware
of our movements, selected this opportunity to make an attack
upon Jackson, hoping thereby to turn our left, destroy our
combinations, and disconcert the plans which had already become apparent to the Federal commanders.
Gen. Longstreet's passage of the Thoroughfare Gap in the
face of a force of two thousand of the enemy, is one of the
most remarkable incidents of the late operations in Northern
Virginia.  The Gap is a wild, rude opening through the Bull
Run Mountains, varying in width from  one hundred to two
hundred yards.  A rapid stream of water murmurs over the
rocks of the rugged defile, along which runs a stony winding
road.  On either side arise the mountains, those on the left
presenting their flat, precipitous faces to the beholder, with




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              109
here and there a shrub jutting out and relieving the monotonous grey of the rocky mass; and those on the right covered
thickly with timber, impassable to any but the most active men.
The strong position afforded by this pass, which might have
been held against almost any force by a thousand determined
troops and a battery of artillery, had been possessed by the
enemy, who had planted his batteries at various points and
lined the sides of the mountains with his skirmishers.  As it
was, the passage was effected by Longstreet's division with the
loss of only three men wounded. This result was accomplished
by a decisive piece of strategy, by which a small column of
three brigades-Pryor's, Wilcox's and Featherstone's, and two
batteries of rife pieces-weregthrown through Hopewell Gap
some three miles to the left of Thoroughfare Gap, as we approached Manassas.
Under Jackson and Longstreet, the details of the plan of
Gen. Lee had been so far carried cut in every respect. For
ten days or more the troops of both of these Generals in the
advance were constantly under fire.  The former had been
engaged in no less than four serious fights. Many of the men
were barefooted, in rags; provided with only a single blanket
as a protection against the heavy dews and severe cold at
night; frequently they would get nothing from daylight to
daylight; rations at best consisted of bread and water, with a
rare and economical intermingling of bacon; and the troops
were in what at any other time they would have characterized
as a suffering condition. Notwithstanding there adverse circumstances, not a murmur of complaint had been heard;
marches of twenty, and in one instance of thirty, miles a day
had been patiently endured, and the spirit of the army, so far
from being broken, was elevated to a degree of enthusiasm
which foreboded nothing but the victory it won.
On the morning of the 29th, the Washington Artillery of
New Orleans and several other batteries were planted upon a
high hill that commanded the extensive ground over which the
enemy were advancing, and just in front of this, perhaps a




110          TIE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
little to the left, the fight began. The Federals threw forward
a heavy column, supported by field batteries, and under cover
of their fire made a bold stroke to divide our line. The blow
fell upon a portion of Ewell's troops, who were concealed behind the embankment of a railroad, but no sooner had the enemy appeared within close range, than they received a terribly
galling fire, which drove them panic-stricken from that portion
of the field. -As they ran, our artillery opened upon the flying
mass with shell and round shot. Every ball could be seen taking effect.  The enemy fell by scores,. until finally the once
beautiful line melted confusedly into the woods. Again they
renewed the attack, and gradually the fight became general
along nearly the entire column of Jackson.
As the afternoon progressed, however, Gen. Lee discovered
that strong Yankee reinforcements were coming up, and he
accordingly ordered the division of General Hood, belonging
to Longstreet's corps, to make a demonstration on the enemy's
left. This was done, perhaps an hour before dark, and the
moment they became engaged the difference became perceptible at a glance. Jackson, thus strengthened, fought with renewed vigour, and the enemy not knowing the nature of the
reinforcements, and diverted by our onset, which compelled
him to change his lines, was proportionately weakened. The
result was, that at dark Hood's division had driven the forces
in front of them three-quarters of a mile from our starting
point, and had it not been for the lateness of the hour, might
have turned the defeat into an utter rout.
The conflict had been terrific. Our troops were advanced
several times during the fight, but the enemy fought with desperation, and did not retire until nine o'clock at night, when
they sullenly left the field to the Confederates. During the
night orders came from head-quarters for our troops to fall
back to their original positions, preparatory to our renewal of
the action in the morning. It might have been this simple
retrograde movement which led to the mendacious despatch
sent by Pope to Washington, stating that he had whipped our




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 111
army and driven us from the field,* but confessing that the
Federal loss was eight thousand in killed and wouled.
THE BATTLE OF SATURDAY, THE 30TH OF'AUGUST.
The grand day of the prolonged contest was yet to dawn.
For two days each wing of our army under Generals Longstreet and Jackson had repulsed with vigour attacks made on
them separately.  General Pope had concentrated the greater
portion of the army under his command for a desperate renewal of the attack on our lines.  Friday night foun&those of
our men who were not engaged in burying the dead and bringing away the wounded, sleeping upon their arms.  All the
troops of Longstreet's corps, with the exception of Gen. R. H.
Anderson's, which was only three or four miles in the rear, had
taken their places in the line of battle, and every one looked
forward to the events of the coming day, the anticipations of
which had sustained our soldiers under the terrible fatigue,
discomforts and deprivations of the ten days' tedious march,
by which reinforcements had at last reached the heroic and
unyielding Jackson.
VWith the first streak of daylight visible through the light
mist that ascended from the woods, our men were under arms.
The pickets of the two armies were within a few hundred yards
of each other. Every circumstance indicated that the battle
would commence at an early hour in the morning.  The waking of a portion of our batteries into life soon after daylight,
and the frequent cannonading thereafter, the almost incessant
skirmishing in front, with its exciting volleys of musketry, all
conspired to produce this.impression.
Our line of battle was an obtuse crescent in shape, and at
* It appears that Gen. R. H. Anderson's division, which came down the
turnpike on their way to Sudley Church, where they had been ordered the
day before, were stopped by our pickets and told that the enemy were in
strong force immediately in front. The General countermarched his division,
wagons and artillery, and fell back in rear of Longstreet for the night. It is
probable that the enemy, seeing this, supposed it to be the falling back of our
whole army.




112           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
least five milos long.  Jackson's line, which formed our left,
stretched *im  Sudley, on Bull Run, along the partly excavated track of the Manassas Independent line of railroad, for
a portion of the way, and thence towards a point on the Warrenton turnpike, about a mile and a half in rear or west of
Groveton.  His extreme right came within about six hundred
yards of the turnpike.
Longstreet's command, which formed our right wing, extended from the point near the turnpike on which Jackson's
right fiahk rested, and prolonged the line of battle far to the
right, stretching beyond the line of the Manassas Gap railroad.
It is thus seen that a point on the Warrenton turnpike, a
mile and a half west of Groveton, was the centre of our position, and the apex of our crescent, whose convexity was towards the west. It was here, in an interval between Jackson's right and Longstreet's left that our artillery was placed.
Eight batteries were planted on a commanding elevation.
The enemy's line of battle conformed itself to ours, and
took, therefore, a crescent form, of which the centre or more
advanced portion was at Groveton, whence the wings declined
obliquely to the right and left. Their batteries were in rear
of their infantry, and occupied the hills which they had held
in the fight of July, 1861, but pointed differently.
The disposition of the enemy's forces was, General Heintzelman on the extreme right and Gen. McDowell on the extreme left, while the army corps of Generals Fitz John Porter
and Seigel, and Reno's division of General Burnside's army,
were placed in the centre.
The elevation occupied by our artillery, under command of
Colonel Stephen D. Lee, of South Carolina, was the most commanding ground that could have been selected for the purpose.
It was about the centre of the entire army. To the front, the
land breaks beautifully into hill and dale, forming a sort of
amphitheatre.  Around the field, and occasionally shooting
into it in narrow bands, are heavy woods.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              113
Early in the morning the immense masses of the enemy's
infantry were seen in line of battle, and far in the distance
immense clouds of dust filled the heavens.  During this time
our batteries were pitching their shot and shell into the Federal ranks, and returning the fire of their artillery on the brow
of an opposite hill. Sometimes it was fierce, but generally it
was a deliberate interchange of fire.
About 1 A. M. a regiment advanced rapidly on the enemy's
left, determined to drive out our pickets from an orchard,
where all the morning they had been keeping up a brisk fire.
This effort succeeded, and our brave sharp-shooters retired
through the orchard in good order. As soon as they got well
out of the way, our batteries opened upon the enemy, and in
ten minutes they were retreating, sheltering themselves in the
ravines and behind a barn. At 2 o'clock the forces that had
been moving almost the whole day towards our left, began to
move in the opposite direction, and it appeared that they were
retiring towards Manassas, two or three miles distant. Several attempts were now made to advance upon our left like those
to drive in our pickets on our right, but a few shells served to
scatter the skirmishers and drive them into the woods that
skirted this beautiful valley on either hand. When it appeared
more than probable that the enemy, foiled in his attempt to
make us bring on the fight by these little advances on our.
right and left, was about to retire, and merely kept up the cannonading in order to conceal his retreat, suddenly, at 4 P. M.,
there belched forth from every brazen throat in our batteries a
volley that seemed to shake the very earth.
It was at this instant that the battle was joined.  As the
sporting whirls of smoke drifted away the cause of the tumult
was at once discerned.  A  dense column of infantry, several
thousand strong, which had been massed behind and near a
strip of woods, had moved out to attack Jackson, whose men
were concealed behind an excavation on the railroad. As soon
as they were discovered our batteries opened with tremendous
power, but the Federals moved boldly forward, until they came
8




114           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
within the range of our small arms, where for fully fifteen
minutes, they remained desperately engaged with our infantry.
As the fight progressed, a second line emerged from the cover
and went to the support of those in front, and finally a third
line marched out into the open field below us and there halted,
hesitated, and soon commenced firing over the heads of their
comrades beyond.
Jackson's infantry raked these three columns terribly. Repeatedly did they break and run, and rally again under the
energetic appeals of their officers, for it was a crack corps of
the Federal army-that of Generals Sykes and Morrell; but
it was not in human nature to stand unflinchingly before that
hurricane of fire. As the fight progressed, Lee moved his batteries to the left, until reaching a position only four hundred
yards distant from the enemy's lines, he opened again. The
spectacle was now magnificent. As shell after shell burst in
the wavering ranks, and round shot ploughed broad gaps among
them, one could distinctly see through the rifts of smoke the
Federal soldiers falling and flying on every side.  With the
explosion of every bomb, it seemed as if scores dropped dead,
or -writhed in agony upon the field. Some were crawling on
their hands and knees; some were piled up together; and some
were lying scattered around in every attitude that imagination
can conceive.
Presently the Yankee columns began to break and men to
fall out to the rear.  The retreating numbers gradually increase, and the great mass, without line or form, now move
back like a great multitude without guide or leader. From a
slow, steady walk, the great mass, or many parts of it, move
at a run.  Jackson's men, yelling like devils, now charge upon
the scattered crowd; but it is easily seen that they themselves
had severely suffered, and were but a handful compared with
the overwhelming forces of the enemy.  The flags of two or
three regiments do not appear to be more than fifty yards
apart.  The brilliant affair has not occupied more than half
an hour, but in that brief time more than a thousand Yankees




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                115
have been launched into eternity, or left mangled on the
ground.
The whole scene of battle now changes. It will be seen in
referring tb the disposition of our forces, that Jackson's line,
which formed our left, stretched from Bull Run towards a point
on the Warrenton turnpike.  In his severe action with the enemy, his left, advancing more rapidly than his right, had swept
around by the Pittsylvania House, and was pressing the Federals back towards the turnpike. It was now the golden opportunity for Longstreet to attack the exposed left flank of the
enemy in front of it.
Hood's Brigade charged next the turnpike.  In its track it
met Sickles' Excelsior Brigade, and almost annihilated it.
The ground was piled with the slain.  Pickett's Brigade was
on the right of Hood's, next came Jenkins' Brigade, and next
waS Kemper's, which charged near the Conrad House.  Evans'
and Anderson's were the reserve, and subsequently cdme into
action.
Not many minutes elapsed after the order to attack passed
along our entire line before the volleys of platoons, and finally
the rolling reports of long lines of musketry, indicated that
the battle was in full progress. The whole army was now in
motion.  The woods were full of troops, and the order for the
supports to forward at a quick step was received with enthusiastic cheers by the elated men. The din was almost deafening, the heavy notes of the artillery, at first deliberate, but
gradually increasing in their rapidity, mingled with the sharp
treble of the small arms, gave one an idea of some diabolical
concert in which all the furies of hell were at work. Through
the woods, over gently rolling hills, now and then through an
open field we travel on towards the front. From an elevation
we obtain a view of a considerable portion of the field. Hood
and Kemper are now hard at it, and as they press forward,
never yielding an inch, sometimes at a double quick, you hear
those unmistakable yells, which tell of a Southern charge or a
Southern success.




116           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Reaching the vicinity of the Chinn House, the eye at once
embraces the entire vista of battle-at least that portion of it
which is going on in front of Longstreet. Some of our men
are in the woods in the rear, and some in the open field where
stretches the undulating surface far away towards Bull Run.
The old battle ground is plainly discernible less than two miles
distant, and to the right and left, as well as in front, the country is comparatively unobstructed by heavy woods.  Just before you, only three or four hundred yards away, are the infantry of the enemy, and at various points in the rear are
their reserves and batteries.  Between the armies, the ground
is already covered with the dead and wounded, for a distance
lengthwise of nearly a mile.
Our own artillery are likewise upon commanding positions,
and you hear the heavy rush of shot, the terrible dumps into
the ground, and the crash of trees through which they tear
with resistless force on every side.
Nothing can withstand the impetuosity of our troops. Every
line of the enemy has been broken and dispersed, but rallies
again upon some other position behind.  Hood has already
advanced his division nearly half a mile at a double-quick, the
Texans, Georgians and Hampton Legion loading and firing as
they run, yelling all the while like madmen. They have captured one or two batteries and various stands of colors, and are
still pushing the enemy before them.  Evans, at the head of
his brigade, is following on the right, as their support, and
pouring in' his effective volleys. Jenkins has come in on the
right of the Chinn House, and, like an avalanche, sweeps
down upon the legions before him with resistless force. Still
further to the right is Longstreet's old brigade, composed of
Virginians-veterans of every battle-field-all of whom  are
fighting like furies. The First Virginia, which opened the
fight at Bull Run on the 17th of July, 1861, with over six
hundred men, now reduced to less than eighty members, is
winning new laurels; but out of the little handful, more than
a third have already bit the dust.  Toombs and Anderson,




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                117
with the Georgians, together with Kemper and Jenkins, are
swooping around on the right, flanking the Federals, and driving them towards their centre and rear. Eschelman, with his
company of the Washington Artillery; Major Garnett, with
his battalion of Virginia batteries, and others of our big guns,
are likewise working around upon the enemy's left, and pouring an enfilading fire into both their infantry and artillery.
While the grand chorus of battle is thundering along our
front, Jackson has closed in upon the enemy on their right, and
Longstreet has similarly circumscribed them on their left. In
other words, the V shaped lines with which we commenced the
engagement have opened at the angle, while the two opposite
ends of the figure are coming together. Lee has advanced his
battalion of artillery from the centre, and from hill-top to hilltop, wherever he can effect a lodgement, lets loose the racing
masses of iron that chase each other through the Federal ranks.
Pryor, Featherstone and Wilcox being on the extreme left of
Longstreet's line, are co-operating with the army of Jackson.
It was at this point of the battle, when our infantry pouring
down from  the right and left, made one of the most terrible
and sublime bayonet charges in the records of war. There was
seen emerging from the dust a long, solid mass ot men, coming
down upon the worn and disheartened Federals, at a bayonet
charge, on the double-quick. This line of bayonets, in the distance, presented a spectacle at once awful, sublime, terrible and
overwhelming.  "They came on," said a Northern account referring to the Confederates, "like demons emerging from the
earth."  With grim  and terrible energy, our men came up
wvithin good range of the enemy's columns; they take his fire
without a halt; a momentary confusion ensues as the leaden
showers are poured into our ranks; but the next moment the
bugles sound the order to our phalanxes, and instantly the huge
mass of Confederates is hurled against the enemy's left wing.
The divisions of Reno and Schenck-the choicest veterans of
the Federal army are swept away.  Setting up a yell of triumph, our men push over the piles of their own dead and the




118           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
corpses of many a Federal, using the bayonet at close quarters
with the enemy.
The rout of the enemy was complete.  It had been a task
of almost superhuman labour to drive the enemy from  his
strong points, defended as they were by the best artillery and
infantry in the Federal army, but in less than four hours from
the commencement of the battle our indomitable energy had
accomplished every thing.  The arrival of R. H. Anderson
with his reserves soon after the engagement was fairly opened,
proved a timely acquisition, and the handsome manner in which
he brought his troops into position showed the cool and skillful
General.  Our Generals, Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Hood,
Kemper, Evans, Jones, Jenkins, and others, all shared the
dangers to which they exposed their men.  How well their
Colonels and the subordinate officers performed their duty is
best testifiedby the list of killed and wounded.
In determining the fortunes of the battle our cavalry had in
more than one instance played a conspicuous part.
As the columns of the enemy began to give way, General
Beverly Robinson was ordered by Gen. Longstreet to charge
the flying masses with his brigade of cavalry.  The brigade
numbering a thousand men, composed of Munford's, Myers',
Harman's and Flournoy's regiments, was immediately put in
motion, but before reaching the infantry General Robinson discovered a brigade of the enemy fifteen hundred strong drawn
up on the crest of a hill directly in his front. Leaving one of
his regiments in reserve, he charged with the other three full
at the enemy's ranks. As our men drew near, the whole of the
Yankee line fired at them a volley from their carbines, most og
the bullets, however, whistling harmlessly over their heads.  In
another instant the enemy received the terrific shock of our
squadrons.   There was a pause, a hand-to-hand fight for a
moment, and the enemy broke and fled in total rout.  All
organization was destroyed, and every man trusted for his
safety only in the heels of his horse.'Night closed upon the battle.  When it was impossible to




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                119
use fire-arms the heavens were lit up by the still continued
flashes of the artillery, and the meteor flight of shells scattering their iron spray. By this time the enemy had been forced
across Bull Run, and their dead covered every acre from the
starting point of the fight to the Stone Bridge.  In its first
stages the retreat of the enemy was a wild, frenzied rout; the
great mass of the enemy moving at a full run, scattering over
the fields and trampling upon the dead and living in the mad
agony of their flight.  The whole army was converted into a
mob; regiments and companies were no longer distinguishable;
and the panic stricken fugitives were slaughtered at every step
of their retreat-our cavalry cutting them down, or our infantry driving their bayonets into their backs.
In crossing Bull Run many of the enemy were drowned,
berig literally dragged and crushed under the water, which was
not more than waist deep, by the crowds of frenzied men pressing and trampling upon each other in the stream.  On reaching Centreville the flight of the enemy was arrested by the
appearance of about thirty thousand fresh Yankee troopsGeneral Franklin's corps.  The mass of fugitives was here
rallied, to the extent of forming it again into columns, and
with this appearance of organization, it was resolved by General Pope to continue his retreat to the  entrenchments of
Washington.
Thus ended the second great battle of Manassas.  We had
driven the enemy up hill and down, a distance of two and a
half miles, strewing this great space with his dead, captured
thirty pieces of artillery, and some six or eight thousand stand
of arms.  Seven thousand prisoners were paroled on the field
of battle.  For want of transportation valuable stores had to
be destroyed as captured, while the enemy, at their various
depots, are reported to have burned many millions of property
in their retreat.
The appearance of the field of battle attested in the most
terrible and hideous manner the carnage in the ranks of the
enemy.  Over the gullies, ravines and valleys, which divided




120           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
the opposite hills the dead and wounded lay by thousands, as
far as the eye could reach. The woods were full of them. In
front of the Chinn House, which had been converted into a
hospital, the havoc was terrible.  The ground was strewn not
only with men, but arms, ammunition, provisions, haversacks,
canteens,.ad whatever else the affrighted Federals could
throw away, to facilitate their flight.  In front of the positions
occupied by Jackson's men, the killed were more plentiful. In
many instances as many as eighty or ninety dead marked the
place where had fought a single Yankee regiment.  Around
the Henry and Robinson houses the dead were more scattered,
as if they were picked off, or killed while running. The body
of a dead Yankee was found lying at full length upon the
grave of the aged Mrs. Henry, who was killed by the enemy's
balls in the old battle that had raged upon this spot. Three
others were upon the very spot where Bartow fell, and within
a few feet of the death place of Gen. Bee was still another
group.  A little further on a wounded Federal had lain for the
last two days and nights, where by extending his hand on either
side he could touch the dead bodies of his companions. His
head was pillowed on one of these.  Confederate soldiers were
also to be found in the midst of these putrifying masses of
death; but these were comparatively rare. The scenes of the
battle-field were rendered ghastly by an extraordinary circumstance. There was not a dead Yankee in all that broad field
who had not been stripped of his shoes' or stockings-and in
numerous cases been left as naked as the hour he was born.
Our bare-footed and ragged men had not hesitated to supply
their necessities even from the garments and equipments of the
dead.
The enemy admitted a loss down to Friday night of 17,000
men, Pope officially stating his loss on that day to have been
8,000.  In one of the Baltimore papers it was said that the
entire Yankee loss, including that of Saturday, was 32,000
men-killed, wounded and prisoners.  This statement allows
15,000 for the loss on Saturday.  That the loss of that par



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               121
ticular day was vastly greater than the enemy admit, we take
to be certain.  They are not the persons to over-estimate their
own losses, and, in the meantime, Gen. Lee tells us that over
7,000 of them were taken and paroled on the field. If they
fought the battle with anything like the desperation they pretend, considering that it lasted five hours, they certainly had
more than 8,000 killed and wounded.  Four days after the
battle there were still three thousand wounded Yankees uncared for within the lines of Gen. Lee. It is very certain, if
they were not cared for, it was because the number of wounded
was so great that their turn had not come. Our own wounded,
not exceeding, it is said, 3,000, could very well be attended to
in a day, and then the turn of the Yankees would come.  Yet
so numerous were they, that at the end of four days three
thousand of them had not received surgical assistance. This
indicates an enormous list of wounded, and confirms the report
of one officer, who puts down their killed at 5,000, and their
wounded at three times that figure, making 20,000 killed and
wounded, and of others who say that their killed and wounded
were to us in the proportion of five, six, and even seven to. one.
As many prisoners were taken, who were not included in the
7,000 paroled men mentioned by Gen. Lee, we do not think we
make an over-estimate when'we set down the whole Yankee loss
at 30,000 in round numbers. Their loss on Friday, estimated
by Pope himself at 8,000, added to their loss on Saturday,
makes 38,000. Previous operations, including the battle of
Cedar Run, the several expeditions of Stuart, and the various
skirmishes in which we were almost uniformly victorious, we
should think would fairly bring the total loss of the enemy to
50,000 men, since our forces first crossed the Rapidan. This
is a result almost unequalled in the history of modern campaigns.
The results of Gen. Lee's strategy were indicative of the
resources of military genius. Day after day the enemy were
beaten, until his disasters culminated on the plains of Manassas. Day after day our officers and men manifested their




122           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
superiority to the enemy.  The summer campaign in Virginia
had been conducted by a single army.  The same toil-worn
troops who had relieved from siege the city of Richmond, had
advanced to meet another invading army, reinforced not only
by the defeated army of McClellan, but by the fresh corps of
Generals Burnside and Hunter.  The trials and marches of
these troops are extraordinary in history.  Transportation was
inadequate; the streams which they had to cross were swollen
to unusual height; it was only by forced marches and repeated
combats they could turn the position of the enemy, and, at
last succeeding in  this, and forming a junction of their
columns, in the face of greatly superior forces, they fought the
decisive battle of the 30th of August, the crowning triumph of
their toil and valour.
The route of the extraordinary marches of our troops presented, for long and weary miles, the touching pictures of the
trials of war.  Broken down soldiers (not all "stragglers")
lined the road. At night time they might be found asleep in
every conceivable attitude of discomfort-on fence rails and in
fence corners-some half bent, others almost erect, in ditches
and on steep hill-sides, some without blanket or overcoat.  Daybreak found them drenched with dew, but strong in purpose;
with half rations of bread and meat, ragged and barefooted,
they go cheerfully forward.  No nobler spectacle was ever presented in history.  These beardless youths and gray-haired
men, who thus spent their nights like the beasts of the field,
were the best men of the land-of all classes, trades and professions. The spectacle was such as to inspire the prayer that
ascended from the sanctuaries of the South-that God might
reward the devotion of these men to principle and justice by
crowning their labours and sacrifices with that blessing which
always bringeth peace.
The victory which had crowned the campaign of our armies
in Virginia, illuminates the names of all associated with it.
But in the achievement of that victory, and in the history of
that campaign, there is one name which, in a few months, had




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              123
mounted to the zenith of fame  which in dramatic associations,
in rapid incidents, and in swift and sudden renown, challenged
comparison with the most extraordinary phenomena in the
annals of military genius. This remark is not invidious in its
spirit, nor is it forced into the context of this sketch.  A personal allusion may be spared in the narrative, when that
allusion is to the most remarkable man in the history of this
war.
We refer to General Stonewall Jackson and that wonderful
chapter of military achievements which commenced in the
Valley of Virginia and concluded at Manassas.  It was difficult
to say what this man had not accomplished that had ever
before been accomplished in history with equal means and in
an equal period of time.
In the spring Gen. Jackson had been placed in command of
the small army of observation which held the upper valley of
the Shenandoah and the country about Staunton.  It was
intended that he should remain quasi inactive, to watch the
enemy and to wait for him; but he soon commenced manoeuvering on his own responsibility, and ventured upon a scale of
operations that threw the higher military authorities at Richmond into a fever of anxiety and alarm.
In less than thirty days he dashed at the Yankee advance,
and driving it back, wheeled his army, swept down the Valley
and drove Banks across the Potomac.  Returning to the upper
Valley, he mancouvered around for three weeks-in the meantime dealing Fremont a heavy blow at Cross Keys and defeating Shields in the Luray valley-and, then suddenly swept
down the Virginia Central Railroad, via Gordonsville, on
McClellan's right, before Richmond.  The part he played in
winding up the campaign on the Peninsula is well known.
Almost before the smoke had lifted from the bloody field of
the Chickahominy, we hear of him  again on his old stamping ground above Gordonsville.  Cedar Mountain was fought
and won from Pope-before he knew his campaign was opened.
Jackson fell back, but only to flank him on the right.  Pope




124          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
retired from the Rapidan to the Rappahannock, but Jackson
swung still further round to the NortAh and outflanked him
again.  Yet again he gave up the Rappahannock and fell
back south of Warrenton, and, for the third time, Jackson outflanked him through Thoroughfare Gap, and at last got in his
rear.  Pope now had to fight; and the victory which perched
upon our banners was the most brilliant of the war.
It.is curious to observe with what insolent confidence the
North had anticipated a crowning triumph of its arms on the
field of Manassas, even when the air around Washington was
burdened with the signals of its defeat. The North did not
tolerate the idea of defeat.  On the very day of the battle,
Washington was gay with exultation and triumph over an imagined victory. At thirty minutes past twelve o'clock, the
Washington Star published a dispatch declaring, that it had
learned from parties just from Fairfax county, that the firing
had stopped; and added, "we trust the fact means a surrender
of the rebels, and do not see how it can mean aught else." At
a later hour of the afternoon, a dispatch was received at the
War Department, from  Major-General Pope, announcing a
brilliant victory in a decisive battle with the Confederate forces
on the old Bull Run battle-field.  It was stated that he had
defeated the Confederate army, and was driving it in discomfiture before him. This dispatch had a magical effect. The War
Department, contrary to its usual custom, not only permitted,
but officially authorized the publication of the dispatch.  Citizens of every grade, of both sexes and of all ages, were seen
in groups around the corners and in the places of public resort
speculating uponthe particulars and the consequences of the
decisive victory reported.  The triumph of the Federal arms
was apparently shown to be more complete by reason of the
announcement that General Stonewall Jackson, with sixteen
thousand of his troops, had been cut off and captured.
It was at this point of exultation that another dispatch was
received from General Pope, stating that the uncertain tide of
battle had unfortunately turned against the Federal army, and




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              125
that he had been compelled to abandon the battle-field during
the evening.  The revulsion was great; the untimely hallelujahs were interrupted, and the population of Washington, from
its hasty and indecent exultations of the morning, was sbon to
be converted into a panic-stricken community, trembling for
its own safety.
Indeed, the victory achieved by the Confederates was far
more serious than the most lively alarm in Washington could
at first imagine.  The next morning after the battle, the last
feeble resistance of the Federals at Centreville was broken.
The finishing stroke was given by the Confederates under Gen.
A. P. Hill, who, on the 1st of September, (Monday,) encountered a large body of the enemy at Germantown, a small village in Fairfax county, near the main road leading from Centreville to Fairfax Court House. The enemy, it appears, had
succeeded in rallying a sufficient number of their routed troops
at the point named, to make another show of opposition to the
advance of the victorious Confederates on their territory.  On
Sunday, the pursuit of Pope's army was commenced and pressed
with vigour on the Fairfax Court House road, and on Monday
morning at daylight the enemy were discovered drawn up in
line of battle across the road, their right extending to the village of Germantown.  General Hill immediately ordered the
attack, and after a brief but hotly contested fight, the enemy
withdrew.  During the night, the enemy fell back to Fairfax
Court Iouse and abandoned his position at Centreville.  The
next day, about noon, he evacuated Fairfax Court House, taking the road to Alexandria and Washington.
Thus were realized the full and glorious results of the second
victory of Manassas; thus were completed the great objects of
the brilliant summer campaign of 1862 in Virginia; and thus,
for a second time, on the famous borders of the Potomac, the
gates were thrown wide open to the invasion of the North, and
to new fields of enterprise for the victorious armies of the
South.
The rapid change in the fortunes of the Confederacy, and




126           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
the sharp contrast between its late forlorn situation and what
were now the brilliant promises of the future, were animating
and suggestive topics.
Little more than three months had elapsed since the columns
of a hostile army were debouching on the plains near Richmond, when an evacuation of the city and a further retreat of
the Confederate army were believed by nearly all official persons the most prudent and politic steps that the government
could take under the circumstances. Little more than three
months had elapsed since our armies were retreating weak and
disorganized before the overwhelming force of the enemy,
yielding to them the sea-coast, the mines, the manufacturing
power, the grain fields, and even entire States of the Confederacy.  Now we were advancing with increased numbers, improved organization, renewed courage, and the prestige of
victory upon an enemy defeated and disheartened.
As the opposing armies of the war now stood, the South
had causes for congratulation and pride such, perhaps, as no
other people ever had in similar circumstances. The North
had a population of twenty-three millions against eight millions serving the South, and of these eight millions nearly
three millions were African slaves.  The white population of
New York and Pennsylvania was greater than that of the
Confederate States.  Manufacturing establishments of all descriptions rendered the North a self-sustaining people for all
the requirements of peace or war, and, with these advantages,
they retained those of an unrestricted commerce with foreign
nations. The North had all the ports of the world open to its
ships; it had furnaces, foundries and workshops; its manufacturing resources, compared with those of the South, were as
five hundred to one; the great marts of Europe were open to
it for supplies of arms and stores; there was nothing of material resource, nothing of the apparatus of conquest that was
not within its reach.
The South, on the other hand, with only a few insignificant
manufactories of arms and materials of war, textile fabrics,




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                127
leather, &c., had been cut off by an encircling blockade for
fifteen months from all those supplies upon which she had depended from the North and from Europe, in the way of arms,
munitions of war, clothing, medicines, and many of the essentials of subsistence.  The South was without the vestige of a
navy, except a straggling ship or two, while that of the iorth
in this war was equal to a land force of three or four hundred
thousand men.  The South was nearly exhausted of the commonest articles of food, while the Northern States had a superabundance of all the essentials and luxuries of life. The
Northern troops, en masse, were better armed, equipped and
subsisted than those of any other nation, while those of the
South were armed with all sorts of weapons-good, bad and
indifferent-clothed in rags and fed upon half rations.
The result of all this immense and boasted superiority on
the part of the North, coupled with the most immense exertions, was that the South remained unconquered.  The result
was humiliating enough to the warlike reputation of the North.
It had not been separated from its feeble adversary by seas or
mountains, but only by a geographical line; nature had not
interfered to protect the weak from the strong.  Three "grand
armies" had advanced against Richmond; and yet not only
was the South more invincible in spirit than ever, but her armies of brave and ragged men were already advancing upon
the Northern borders, and threatening, at least so far as to
alarm their enemy, the invasion of Ohio and Pennsylvania and
the occupation of the Nqrthern capital.




128              THE  SECOND  YEAR OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER IV.
Rescue of Virginia from  the Invader...Gen. Loring's Campaign in the
Kanawha Valley...A Novel Theatre of the War...Gen. Lee's Passage of the
Potomac...His Plans...Disposition of our Forces...McClellan again at the
Head of the Yankee Army...THE BATTLE OF BOONSBORO'...THE' CAPTURE OF
HARPER'S FERRY-Its Fruits...THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG...Great Superiority of the Enemy's Numbers...Fury of the Battle...The Bridge of Antietam...A Drawn Battle...Spectacles of Carnage...The Unburied Dead...General
Lee Retires into Virginia... McClellan's Pretence of Victory...The Affair of
Shepherdstown...Charges against McClellan...His Disgrace...Review of the
Maryland Campaign-Misrepresentations of Gen. Lee's Objects...His Retreat...Comment of the New York "Tribune"...The Cold Reception of the
Confederates in Maryland...Excuses for the Timidity of the Marylanders...
What was Accomplished by the Summer Campaign of 1862...The Outburst
of Applause in Europe...Tribute from the' London "Times"-Public Opinion
in England... Distinction between the People and the Government-The Mask
of England...OuR FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE WAR...A Historical Parallel of
Secession...Two Remarks on the "Neutrality" of Europe...The Yankee
Blockade and the Treaty of Paris-The Confederate Privateers-Temper of
the South...Fruits of the Blockade.
THE  close of the summer found  the long-harassed soil of
Virginia cleared of the footsteps of the invader.' The glorious
victory of Manassas was followed by other propitious events in
this State of lesser importance, but which went to complete
the  general result of her freedom  from  the thraldom  of the
Yankee.
In the early part of September the campaign of General
Loring in the Valley of the Kanawha was consummated by a
vigorous attack  on the enemy at Fayette  Court House, and
the occupation of Charleston by our troops.  On the 10th of
that month we advanced  upon  the enemy's front at Fayette
Court House, while a portion of our forces made a detour over
the mountain so as to attack him in the rear. The fighting
continued from noon until night, our artillery attacking despe



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                   129
rately in front; and the enemy took advantage of the darkness
to effect his escape, not, however, without leaving his trains in
our hands.
The Yankees made a stand at Cotton Hill, seven miles further on. A few hours' fighting dislodged them, and we pursued on to Kanawha Falls, where they again made a stand;
but a few hours' contest made us again masters of the field,
with more than a million dollars' worth of stores and some
prisoners.
The advance of our troops to Charlestown was the signal to
the enemy for an inhuman attempt to burn the town, the women being driven from their homes on fifteen minutes' notice.
As our troops approached the town, dense clouds of black
smoke were seen to hang over it, mingled with the lurid glare
of burning buildings, while the shrieks of frightened women
and children filled the air. The sight stung to madness our
troops.  Two regiments of Kanawha Valley men, beholding
in plain view the homes of their childhood blazing, and catching the cries of distress of their mothers, wives and sisters,
rushed, furious and headlong, to the rescue. Happily they
were not too late to arrest the conflagration, and a few public
buildings and some private residences were all that fell under
the enemy's torch.
The campaign of the Kanawha was accomplished by us with
a loss of not more than a hundred men. The results were apparently of great importance, as we had secured the great
salines of Yirginia,* driven the enemy from the Valley of the
* But few persons, even in the South, have adequate ideas of the resources
and facilities for the production of salt in the Kanawha Valley, and of the
value of that smll strip of Confederate territory. In Kanawha county
alone forty furnaces were in operation; some operated by gas and some by
coal. Salt by the million of bushels had been sold here from year to year at
twelve cents and twenty cents per bushel, filling the markets of the West and
South. Ships for Liverpool had formerly taken out salt as ballast; and yet,
at one time in the war, owing to the practical cutting off of the saline supplies in Virginia, this article, formerly of such cheap bulk, had been sold in
Richmond at a dollar and a half a pound.
9




130          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.,
Kanawha, and put our forces in position to threaten his towns
on the bank of the Ohio. But unhappily we shall have occasion hereafter to see that these results were ephemeral, and
that this unfortunate part of Virginia was destined to other
experiences of the rigour of the enemy.
For the present the progress of events takes us from the old
battle-fields of the South and introduces us to a novel theatre
of the war-that theatre being located for the first time on
the soil and within the recognized dominions of the enemy.
On the fourth day of September Gen. Lee, leaving to his
right Arlington Heights, to which had retreated the shattered
army of Pope, crossed the Potomac into Maryland.
The immediate designs of this movement of the Confederate
commander were to seize Harper's Ferry and to test the spirit
of the Marylanders; but in order to be unmolested in his plans,
he threatened Pennsylvania from Hagerstown, throwing Gov.
Curtain almost into hysterics, and animating Baltimore with
the hope that he would emancipate her from the iron tyranny
of Gen. Wool.
After the advance of our army to Frederick, the Northern
journals were filled with anxious reports of a movement of our
troops in the direction of Pennsylvania. While the people of
the North were agitated by these reports, the important movement undertaken for the present by Gen. Lee was in the direction of Virginia. It appears that for this purpose our forces
in Maryland were divided into three corps, commanded by
Generals Jackson, Longstreet and Hill.  The forces under
Jackson having re-crossed the Potomac at Williamsport and
taken possession of Martinsburg, had then passed rapidly behind Harper's Ferry, that a capture might be effected of the
garrison and stores known to be there. In the meantime, the
corps of Longstreet and Hill were put in position to cover the
operations of Jackson -and to hold back McClellan's forces,
which were advancing to the relief of Harper's Ferry.
Gen. McClellan had resumed the chief command of the
Federal armies on the second day of September.  On the




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.             131
fourteenth of that month, he fought his first battle in Maryland, called the battle of Boonsboro' or of South Mountain.
THE BATTLE OF BOONSBORO.
When Jackson had diverged to the left from the line of
march pursued by the main body of the Confederates re-crossing the Potomac and moving rapidly upon Harper's Ferry,
Gen. Longstreet had meanwhile continued his march to Hagerstown, and there awaited the result. To frustrate this
design, and relieve Gen. Miles and the ten or twelve thousand
men who occupied Harper's Ferry, the enemy moved their entire force upon the Gap in the mountains, to whic4 we have
alluded, and there sought to break through the barrier we were
so jealously guarding, divide our lines, and defeat our armies
in detail. Foreseeing this intention on the part of the Federals', Gen. Lee had posted the division of Gen. D. H. Hill in
and around the Gap, on the opposite side and summit, with instructions to hold the position at every hazard, until he was
notified of the success of the movement of Jackson and his
co-operates. It was certainly no part of the original plan to
fight a pitched battle here, except to secure this one desirable
result.
The pass is known as Boonsboro' Gap, being a continuation
over the broad back of the mountain of the national turnpike.
The road is winding, narrow, rocky and rugged, with either a
deep ravine on one side and the steep sides of the mountain on
the other, or like a huge channel cut through a solid rock.
Near the crest are two or three houses, which, to some extent,
overlook the adjacent valleys, but elsewhere the face of the
mountain is unbroken by a solitary vestige of the handiwork
of man.
The battle commenced soon after daylight, by a vigorous
cannonade, under cover of which, two or three hours later,
first the skirmishers and then the main bodies became engaged.
A regular line of battle on our part, either as regards numbers




132          TIE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
or regularity, was impossible, and the theatre of the fight was
therefore limited. The fortunes of the day, which were desperate enough in the face of the most overwhelming numbers,
were stubbornly contested by the Confederates. The brigade
of Gen. Garland of Virginia, the first engaged, lost its brave
commander.  While endeavoring to rally his men, he fell,
pierced in the breast by a musket ball, and died upon the field.
While our lines were givng way under the pressure of the
enemy's numbers, the welcome sounds of reinforcements were
borne on the air. The corps of Gen. Longstreet was at Hagerstown, fourteen miles distant, and at daylight commenced
its march towards the scene of action. Hurrying forward
with all speed, stopping neither to rest nor eat, the advance
arrived at the pass about four o'clock, and were at once sent
into the mountain. Brigade after brigade, as rapidly as it
came up, followed, until by five o'clock nearly the entire command, with the exception of the brigade of General Toombs,
which had been left at Hagerstown, was in position, and a portion of it already engaged. Evans was assigned to the extreme
left, Drayton to the right, and Hood, with his "ragged Texans," occupied the centre.
The accession of fresh numbers at once changed the tone
and temper of the combat. The ominous volleys of musketry
rolled down the mountain in almost deafening succession. But
advance we could not. The enemy in numbers were like a
solid wall. Their bayonets gleamed from behind every rock
and bush. Retreat, we would not, and thus we fought, doggedly giving and taking the fearful blows of battle, until long
after nightfall.
The cessation of firing left the respective forces, with some
exceptions, in nearly the same relative situation as at the commencement of the battle.  The enemy gained nothing and we
lost nothing.  On the contrary, our object had been obtained.
We had encountered a force of the enemy near five-fold our
own, and after a bloody day, in which our killed and wounded
were quite twenty-five hundred and those of the enemy pro



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               133
bably more, we had held him in check until Gen. Jackson was
heard from and the success of his enterprise rendered certain.
THE CAPTURE OF HARPER'S FERRY.
While the action of Boonsboro' was in progress, and the
enemy attempting to force his way through the main pass on
the Frederick and Hagerstown road, the capture of Harper's
Ferry was accomplished by the army corps of Gen. Jackson.
During the night of the;:14th September, General Jackson
planted his guns, and in the morning opened in all directions
on the Federal forces drawn up in line of battle on Bolivar
Heights.  The white flag was raised at twenty minutes past
seven.  At the moment of surrender, Col. Miles, the Federal
commander, was struck by a piece of shell, which carried away
his left thigh.  "My God, I am hit," he exclaimed, and fell
into the arms of his aid-de-camp.
The extent of the conquest indetermined by the fact that
we took eleven thousand troops, an equIt  number of small
arms, seventy-three pieces of artillery, and about two hundred
wagons.  The force of the enemy which surrendered consisted
of twelve regiments of infantry, three companies of cavalry
and six companies of artillery. The scene of the surrender
was one of deep humiliation to the North.  It was indeed a
repetition of the revolutionary glories of Yorktown to see here
the proud, gaily-dressed soldiers of the oppressor drawn up in
line, stacking their arms, and surrendering to the ragged,
barefoot, half-starved soldiers of liberty.
THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG.
On the 17th of September Gen. Lee had retired to unite
his forces, as far as possible, to confront the still advancing
forces of McClellan, which, having obtained possession of
Crampton's Gap on the direct road from  Frederick City to
Sharpsburg, were pressing our forces, and seemed determined




134          THE SECOND FEAR OF THE WAR.
on a decisive battle. Sharpsburg is about ten miles north of
Harper's Ferry and about eight miles west of Boonsboro'.
This town lies in a deep valley. The country around it is
broken. Ascending a hill just on the outer edge of the town,
and looking towards the Blue Ridge, the eye ranges over the
greater portion of the eventful field. To the right and left is
a succession of hills which were occupied by the Confederates,
In front is the beautiful valley of the Antietam, divided longitudinally by the river which empties into the Potomac on your
right, and behind, forming a background to the picture, only
two miles distant, are the steep, umbrageous sides of the Blue
Ridge.
The morning of the 17th found Gen. Lee strongly posted,
but with no more than forty-five thousand men when the battle commenced.  The force of the enemy could not have been
much short of one hundred and fifty thousand men; of whom
one hundred thousand were trained soldiers, disciplined in
camp and field sinc the commencement of the war.
The forces of ti enemy were commanded by McClellan in
person, and numbered the whole command of Gen. Burnside,
recently augmented by the addition of several new regiments;
the army corps lately under Gen. McDowell, now under command of Gen. Hooker; Gen. Sumner's corps; Gen. Fraflklin's
corps; Gen. Banks' corps, commanded by Gen. Williams; and
Sykes' division of Fitz John Porter's corps. Their line of
battle was between four and five miles long, with their left
stretching across the Sharpsburg road. Burnside was on the
extreme left; Porter held a commanding eminence to the right
of Burnside, though Warren's brigade of Porter's corps was
subsequently posted in the woods on the left in support of
Burnside's men; Sumner's corps was on an eminence next to
the right or north from Porter, and General Hooker had the
extreme right.
On the afternoon of Tuesday, the 16th, the enemy opened
a light artillery fire on our lines. At three next morning
every man was at his post, and awaited in solemn silence the




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              185
day dawn. No sooner did the light break in the east than the
picket firing began, and increased in fury until about sunrise,
when artillery and infantry together grappled in the terrible
fight.
Large masses of the Federals, who had crossed the Antietam above our position, assembled on our left. They advanced
in three compact lines. The divisions of Generals McLaws,
R. H. Anderson, A. P. Hill and Walker, who were expected
to have joined Gen. Lee on the previous night, had not come
up. Generals Jackson's and Ewell's divisions were thrown to
the left of Generals Hill and Longstreet.  The enemy advanced between the Antietam  and the Sharpsburg and Hagerstown turnpike, and was met by Gen. D. H. Hill's and the
left of Gen. Longstreet's divisions, where the conflict raged,
extending to our entire left. 
When the troops of D. H. Hill were engaged, the battle
raged with uncommon fury.  Backwards, forwards, surging
and swaying like a ship in storm, the various columns are seen
in motion. It is a hot place for the enemy. They are directly
under our guns, and we mow them down like grass. The raw
levies, sustained by the veterans behind, come up to the work
well, and fight for a short time with an excitement incident to
their novel experiences of a battle; but soon a portion of their
line gives way in confusion. Their reserves come up, and endeavor to retrieve the fortunes of the day. Our centre, however, stands firm as adamant, and they fall back.
Prior to the arrival of the divisions of McLaws, Anderson
and Walker, who had been advanced to support the left wing
and centre, as soon as they had crossed the Potomac on the
morning of the 17th, that portion of our line was forced back
by superior numbers. As soon, however, as these forces could
be brought into action, the enemy was driven back, our line
was restored, and our position maintained during the rest of
the day.
Time and again did the Federals perseveringly press close
up to our ranks, so near indeed that their supporting batteries




136             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
were obliged to cease firing, lest they should kill their own
men, but just as often were they driven back by the combined
elements of destruction which we brought to bear upon them.
It was an.hour when every man was wanted.  And nobly did
our brave soldiers do their duty. "It is beyond all wonder,"
writes a Federal officer, "how men such as the rebel troops
are can fight as they do. That those ragged wretches, sick,
hungry, and in all ways miserable, should prove such heroes
in fight, is past explanation. Men never fought better. There
was one regiment that stood  up  before  the fire of two or
three of our long range batteries and of two regiments of infantry, and though the air around them was vocal with the
whistle of bullets and the scream of shells, there they stood
and delivered their fire in perfect order." *
In the afternoon the enemy-advanced on our right, where
General Jones's division was posted, and he handsomely maintained his position. The bridge over the Antietam creek was
guarded  by General Toombs's brigade, which  gallantly resisted the approach of the enemy; but their superior numbers
enabling them to extend their left, they crossed below the
bridge, and forced our line back in some confusion.
Our troops fought until they were nearly cut to pieces, and
then retreated only because they had fired their last round.
It was at this juncture that the immense Yankee force crossed
the river, and made the dash against our line, which well nigh
* There are some characteristic anecdotes of the close quarters in which
the battle of Sharpsburg was fought and the desperate valour shown in such
straits. At one passage of the battle, Colonel Geary of the famous Hampton Legion, one of the most celebrated corps of the army, found himself
confronted by an overwhelming force of the enemy. An officer came forward and demanded his surrender. "Surrender! Hell!" exclaimed the
intrepid South Carolinian, as with the spring of a tiger he seized the officer
and clapped a pistol to his head, "if you don't surrender your own command to me this instant, you infernal scoundrel, I'll blow your brains out."
The astonished and affrighted Yankee called out that he surrendered. But
his men were not as cowardly as himself, and the flag of the regiment he
commanded was only taken after the colour-bearer had been cut down by
our swords.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               137
proved a success.  But it was at this moment also that welcome and long-expected reinforcements reached us. At four
o'clock in the afternoon General A. P. Hill's division came up
and joined the Confederate right.  It was well that General
Burnside's advance on the Federal left was so long delayed,
and was eventually le  with overwhelming numbers.  The
day closed with Gen.~Srnside clinging closely to the bridge,
beyond which he could not advance, with General Jackson on
the same ground as the Confederates held in the morning, upon
as level and drawn a battle as history exhibits. But it was
fought for half the day with 45,000 men on the Confederate
side, and for the remaining half with not more than an aggregate of 70,000 men, against a host which is admitted to have
consisted of 130,000 men, and may have been more.
It is certain that if we had had fresh troops to hurl against
Burnside'at the bridge of Antietam, the day would have been
ours.  The anxious messages of this officer to McClellan for
reinforcements were again and again repeated as the evening
wore on, and the replies of that commander showed that he
understood where was the critical point of the battle. As the
sun was sinking in the west, he dispatched orders to General
Burnside, urging him to hold his position, and as the messenger was riding away he called him  back —"Tell him if he
cannot hold his ground, then the bridge, to the last man!always the bridge! If the bridge is lost, all is lost."
The enemy held the bridge, but of other portions of the
field we retained possession. Varying as may have been the
successes of the day, they left us equal masters of the field
with our antagonist. But our loss had been considerable; it
was variously estimated from five to nine thousand; and we
had to deplore the fall of Generals Branch and Starke, with
other brave and valuable officers. The loss of the enemy was
not less than our own.* They had fought well and been ably
* The New York Tribune said: " The dead lie in heaps, and the wounded
are comipg in by thousands. Around and in a large barn about half a mile
from the spot where General Hooker engaged the enemy's left, there were




138           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
commanded.  But they had the advantage not only of numbers, but of a position from which they could assume an offensive or defensive attitude at will, besides which their signal
stations on the Blue Ridge commanded a view of our every
movement.
The battle-field of Sharpsburg will 1a be remembered from
the terrible and hideous circumstance    t so many of the dead
were left unburied upon it. Some of them laid with their faces
to the ground, whither they had turned in the agony of death,
and in which position they had died; others were heaped in
piles of three and four together, with their arms interlocked,
and their faces turned upwards towards the sky.  Scores of
them were laid out in rows, as though the death-shot had penetrated their breasts as they were advancing to the attack.
Covered with mud and dust, with their faces and clothes
smeared with blood and gore, there they rotted in the sun!
The close of this great battle left neither army in a condition to renew the conflict, although our own brave troops were
desperately ready to do so. But the next morning McClellan
had disappeared from our front, and, knowing the superiority
of the enemy's numbers, and not willing to risk the combinations he was attempting, Gen. Lee crossed the Potomac without molestation, and took position at or near Shepherdstown.
The enemy claimed a victory, but the best evidence, if any
were wanting, to prove that he was really defeated and his
army crippled, is found in the fact that he did not renew
the fight on the succeeding day, and on the next permitted
Gen. Lee to re-cross the Potomac without an attempt to obcounted 1,250 wounded. In Sumner's corps alone, our loss in killed, wounded
and missing amounts to five thousand two hundred and eight. The 15th
Massachusetts regiment went into the battle with five hundred and fifty men,
and came out with one hundred and fifty-six. The 19th Massachusetts, of
four hundred and six, lost all but one hundred and forty-seven. The 5th
New Hampshire, about three hundred strong, lost one hundred and ten enlisted men and fourteen officers. Massachusetts, out of eight regiments engaged, loses upwards of fifteen hundred, and Pennsylvania has suffered more
than any other State."




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              189
struct him. The pretence of victory on this occasion cost
McClellan his command.  On the 20Ah of September he made
a feint or a weak and hesitating attempt to cross the Potomac
at Shepherdstown, when the column which had crossed was
fallen upon by A. P. Hill and pushed into the river, which was
filled with the dead and wounded attempting to escape.
The charges against McClellan consequent upon his pretended victory, were sustained by the official testimdhy of the
Yankee commander-in-chief. The report of Gen. Halleck
accused McClellan of disobedience of orders, in refusing to
advance against the enemy after the battle of Sharpsburg,
upon the plea that the army lacked shoes, tents, stores, and
other necessaries, which General Halleck held to be entirely
unfounded, asserting that all the wants of the army were duly
cared for, and that any causes of delay that might have occurred were trivial and speedily remedied. He furthermore
charged McClellan with willful neglect of a peremptory order
of the 6th of October to cross the Potomac immediately, to
give battle to the Confederates or to drive them South.
A  fatal consequence to the Yankees of the campaign in
Maryland was the sacrifice to popular clamour and official
envy of him whom they had formerly made their military pet
and "Napoleon," and who, although the extent of his pretensions was ridiculous, was,really esteemed in the South as the
ablest General in the North. The man who succeeded him in
the command of the army of the Potomac was Gen. Ambrose
Burnside, of Rhode Island. He had served during the Mexican
war as a second lieutenant; and at the time he was raised to
his important command, the captain of the company with
which he had served in Mexico, Edmund Barry, was a recruiting agent in Richmond for the "Maryland Line."
We have perhaps imperfectly sketched the movements of
the Maryland campaign.*  But we have sought to determine its
* It would be difficult to find a more just summary of the campaign in
Northern Virginia and on the Upper Potomac, or one the statements of which




140             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
historical features without any large enumeration of details.
It was mixed with much of triumph to us; it added lustre to
our arms; it inflicted no loss upon us for which we did not exact full retribution; it left the enemy nothing but barren remay be more safely appropriated by history than the following address of
Gen. Lee to his army:
"HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA, l
October 2d, 1862.        j
General Orders, No. 116.
In reviewing the achievements of the army during the present campaign,
the Commanding General cannot withhold the expression of his admiration of
the indomitable courage it has displayed in battle, and its cheerful endurance
of privation and hardship on the march.
Since your great victories around Richmond you have defeated the enemy
at Cedar Mountain, expelled him from the Rappahannock, and, after a conflict of three days, utterly repulsed him on the Plains of Manassas, and forced
him to take shelter within the fortifications around his capital.
Without halting for repose you crossed the Potomac, stormed the heights
of Harper's Ferry, made prisoners of more than eleven thousand men, and
captured upwards of seventy pieces of artillery, all their small arms and
other munitions of war.
While one corps of the army was thus engaged, the other insured its success by arresting at Boonsboro' the combined armies of the enemy, advancing
under their favourite General to the relief of their beleaguered comrades.
On the field of Sharpsburg, with less than one-third his numbers, you resisted, from daylight until dark, the whole army of the enemy, and repulsed
every attack along his entire front, of more than four miles in extent.
The whole of the following day you stood prepared to resume the conflict
on the same ground, and retired next morning, without molestation, across
the Potomac.
Two attempts, subsequently made by the enemy, to follow you across the
river, have resulted in his complete discomfiture, and being driven back with
loss.
Achievements such as these demanded much valour and patriotism. History records few examples of greater fortitude and endurance than this army
has exhibited; and I am commissioned by the President to thank you, in the
name of the Confederate States, for the undying fame you have won for their
arms.
Much as you have done, much more remains to be accomplished.  The
enemy again threatens us with invasion, and to your tried valour and -patriotism the country looks with confidence for deliverance and safety. Your past
exploits give assurance that this confidence is not misplaced.
R. E. LEE,
General Commanding."




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               141
suits; and it gave us a valuable lesson of the state of public
opinion in Maryland.
There is one point to which the mind naturally refers for a
just historical interpretation of the Maryland campaign. The
busy attempts of newspapers to pervert the truth of history
were renewed in an effort to misrepresent the designs of Gen.
Lee in crossing the Potomac, as limited to a mere incursion,
the object of which was to take Harper's Ferry, and that accomplished, to return into Virginia and await the movements
of McClellan.  It is not possible that our commanding General can be a party to this pitiful deceit, to cover up any failure
of his, or that he has viewed with any thing but disgust the
offer of falsehood and misrepresentation made to him by flatterers.
Let it be freely confessed, that the object of General Lee
in crossing the Potomac was to hgrd and occupy Maryland;
that his proclamation issued at Frederick, offering protection
to the Marylanders, is incontrovertible evidence of this fact;
that he was forced to return to Virginia, not by stress of any
single battle, but by the force of many circumstances, some of
which history should blush to record; that, in these respects,
the Maryland campaign was a failure.  But it was a failure
relieved by brilliant episodes, mixed with at least one extraordinary triumph of our arms, and to a great extent compensated by many solid results.
In the brief campaign in Maryland, our army had given the
most brilliant illustrations of valour; it had given the enemy at
Harper's Ferry a reverse without parallel in the history of the
war; it had inflicted upon him  a loss in men and material
greater than our own; and, in retreating into Virginia, it left
him neither spoils nor prisoners, as evidence of the successes
he claimed. The indignant comment of the New York'Tribune
on Lee's retirement into Virginia is the enemy's own record of
the barren results that were left them.  "He leaves us," said
this paper, "the debris of his late camps, two disabled pieces
of artillery, a few hundred of his stragglers, perhaps two thou



142          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
sand of his wounded, and as many more of his unburied dead.
Not a sound field-piece, caisson, ambulance or wagon, not a
tent, a box of stores or a pound of ammunition.  He takes
with him the supplies gathered in Maryland, and the rich spoils
of Harper's Ferry."  The same paper declared, that the failure of Maryland to rise or to contribute recruits, (all the accessions to our force, obtained in this State, did not exceed eight
hundred men,) was the defeat of Lee, and about the only defeat
he did sustain; that the Confederate losses proceeded mainly
from the failure of their own exaggerated expectations; that
Lee's retreat over the Potomac was a master-piece; and that
the manner in which he combined Hill and Jackson for the envelopment of Harper's Ferry, while he checked the Federal
columns at Hagerstown Heights and Crampton Gap, was probably the best achievement of the war.
The failure of the people of Maryland to respond to the
proclamation of Gen. Lee issued at Frederick, inviting them
to his standard, and generously assuring protection to all
classes of political opinion, admits of some excuse; but the
explanations commonly made on this subject do not amount to
their vindication. It is true that when Gen. Lee was in Frederick, he was forty-five miles from the city of Baltimore-a
city surrounded by Federal bayonets, zealously guarded by
an armed Federal police, and lying in the shadow of Fort
McHenry and of two powerful fortifications located within the
limits of the corporation. It is true that our army passed
only through two of the remote counties of the State, namely:
Frederick and Washington, which with Carroll and Alleghany,
are well known to contain the most violent "Union" population in Maryland.  It is true that the South could not have
expected a welcome in these counties or a desperate mutiny
for the Confederacy in Baltimore. But it was expected that
Southern sympathizers in other parts of the State, who so
glibly ran the blockade on adventures of trade, might as readily work their way to the Confederate army as to the Confederate markets; and it was not expected that the few recruits




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.             143
who timidly advanced to our lines would have been so easily
dismayed by the rags of our soldiers and by the prospects of
a service that promised equal measures of hardship and glory.
The army which rested again in Virginia had made a history
that will flash down the tide of time a lustre of glory. It had
done an amount of marching and fighting that appears almost
incredible even to those -minds familiar with the records of
great military exertions. Leaving the banks of James River,
it proceeded directly to the line of the Rappahannock, and
moving out from that river, it fought its way to the Potomac,
crossed that stream and moved on to Fredericktown and Hagerstown, had a heavy engagement at the mountain gaps
below, fought the greatest pitched battle of the war at Sharpsburg; and then recrossed the Potomac back into Virginia.
During all this time, covering the full space of a month, the
troops rested but four days. Of the men who performed these
wonders, one-fifth of them were barefoot, one-half of them in
rags and the whole of them half famished.
The remarkable campaign which we have briefly sketched,
extending from the banks of the James River to those of the
Potomac, impressed the world with wonder and admiration,
excited an outburst of applause among living nations, which
anticipated the verdict of posterity, and set the whole of
Europe ringing with praises of the heroism and fighting qualities of the Southern armies. The South was already obtaining some portion of the moral rewards of this war, in the estimation in which she was held by the great martial nations of
the world. She had purchased the rank with a bloody price.
She had extorted homage from the most intelligent and influential organs of public opinion in the Old World, from men
well versed in the history of ancient and modern times, and
from  those great critics of cotemporary history, which are
least accustomed to the language of extravagant compliment.
The following tribute from the London Times-the great
organ of historic precedent and educated opinion in the Old
World-was echoed by the other journals of Europe:




144          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.."The people of the Confederate States have made themC selves famous.  If the renown of brilliant courage, stern de" votion to a cause, and military achievements almost without
"a parallel, can compensate men for the toil and privations of
"the hour, then the countrymen of Lee and Jackson may be
"consoled amid their sufferings. From all parts of Europe,
"from their enemies as well as their friends, from those who
" condemn their acts as well as those who sympathize with
"them, comes the tribute of admiration.  When the history
"of this war is written, the admiration will doubtless become
"deeper and stronger, for the veil which has covered the
" South will be drawn away and disclose a picture of patriot" ism, of unanimous self-sacrifice, of wise and firm administra" tion, which we can now only see indistinctly.  The details of
" extraordinary national effort which has led to the repulse and
" almost to the destruction of an invading force of more than
"half a million men, will then become known to the world,
"and, whatever may be the fate of the new nationality, or its
" subsequent claims to the respect of mankind, it will assuredly
"begin its career with a reputation for genius and valour which
" the most famous nations may envy."
It is at first appearance strange, that while such was the
public opinion in England of our virtues and abilities, that that
government should have continued so unjust and obstinate with
respect to our claims for recognition. But the explanation is
easy.  The demonstrations of the conflict which awakened
such generous admiration of us in the breasts of a majority of
the English people were to the government the subjects only of
jealous and interested views. We had trusted too much to
manifestations of public opinion in England; we had lost
sight of the distinction between the people and government of
that country, and had forgotten that the latter had, since the
beginning of this war, been cold and reserved, had never given
us anything to hope from its sympathies or its principles, and
had limited its action on the American question to the unfeeling and exacting measures of selfishness.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               145
The bloody and unhappy revelation which the war has made
of enormous military resources has naturally given to Europe,
and especially to England, an extraordinary interest in its
continuation. It is probable that she would not have hesitated
to recognize the South, unless firmly pursuaded of our'ability
and resolution to carry on the war, and unless she had another
object to gain besides that of a permanent division in the nationality and power of her old rival. That object was the exhaustion of both North and South.  England proposed to
effect the continuation of the war, as far as possible, to the
mutual ruin of the two nations engaged in it, by standing aside
and trusting that after vast expenditures of blood and waste of
resources the separation of the Union would be quite as surely
accomplished by the self-devotion of the South, as by the less
profitable mode of foreign intervention.
In this unchristian and inhuman calculation, England had
rightly estimated the resolution and spirit of the South.  We
were prepared to win our independence with the great prices
of blood and suffering that she had named.  But we understood what lurked behind the mask of British conscience, and
we treasured the lesson for the future.
OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS IN THE WAR.
It is not amiss in this connection to make a summary in reference to the relations between the Confederacy and the neutral powers of Europe during the progress of the war to the
present period of our narrative.
The confederation of the Southern States in 1861 was the
third political union that-had been formed between the States
of North America.  The first act of secession dates as far
back as 1789, when eleven of the States, becoming dissatisfied
with the old articles of confederation made in 1778, seceded
and formed a second union.  When in 1861 eleven of the
States again seceded and united themselves under the style of
the Confederate States of North America, they exercised a
9




146          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
right which required no justification, and which in a former
instance had not been contested by any party at home, or made
the subject of discussion with any third power.
On every attempt for the opening of formal diplomatic intercourse with the European powers, the commissioners of the
Confederate States had met with the objection that these powers could not assume to judge between the conflicting representations of the two parties as to the true nature of their previous mutual relations; and that they were constrained by
international usage and the considerations of propriety to
recognize the self-evident fact of the existence of a war, and
to maintain a strict neutrality during its progress.
Of this neutrality, two remarks are to be made:
First. It was founded upon the grave errour that the separate sovereignty and independence of the States had been
merged into one common sovereignty; an errour easily induced by the delegation of power granted by these States to
the Federal government to represent them  in foreign intercourse, but one that should have been as easily dispelled by
appeals to reason and historical fact.
Secondly. The practical operation of this falsely assumed
and falsely named "neutrality" was an actual decision against
the rights of the South, and had been but little short of active
hostilities against her.
By the governments of England and France, the doctrines
announced in the treaty of Paris were ignored, and the monstrous Yankee blockade, by some forty or fifty vessels, of a
coast line nearly three thousand miles in. extent, came to be
acknowledged and respected.  When this recognition of the
blockade was made, it is very certain that the whole Yankee
navy, if employed on that service and nothing else, could not
furnish vessels enough to pass signals from point to point along
the coast. At the time this paper blockade was declared and
acknowledged, the Navy Register shows that the Federal Government had in commission but forty vessels all told. These
were scattered over the world: some of them  were in the




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              147
China seas, some in the Pacific, some in the Mediterranean,
some in our own part of the world, and some in another. The
actual force employed in the blockading service did not give
one vessel for every fifty miles of coast.  In addition to these
considerations, it had been shown by unquestionable evidence,
furnished in part by the officials of the European powers themselves, that the few Southern ports really guarded by naval
forces of the Yankees had been invested so inefficiently that
hundreds of entries had been effected into them since the declaration of the blockade.
During nearly two years of struggle had this boasted "neutrality" of the European powers operated as active hostility
against us, for they had helped the enemy to prevent us, with
a force which was altogether inadequate, from obtaining supplies of prime necessity.
Nor was this all. We had no commerce; but in that the
enemy was rich.  We had no navy; in that he was strong.
Therefore, when England and her allies declared that neither
the armed cruisers nor the prizes of either of the belligerents
should have hospitality and protection in neutral ports, the
prohibition, directed against both belligerents, was in reality
effective against the Confederate States alone, for they alone
could find a hostile commerce on the ocean.
Thus it was that, in the progress of the war, the neutral
nations of Europe had pursued a policy which, nominally impartial, had been practically most favourable to our enemies
and most detrimental to us.
The temper which this injustice produced in the South was
fortunate.  The South was conscious of powers of resistance
of which the world was incredulous; and the first feverish expectations of recognition by the European powers were replaced by a proud self-reliance and a calm confidence, which
were forming our national character, while contributing at the
same time to the immediate successes of our arms.
The recognition by France and England of Lincoln's paper
blockade, had by no means proved an unmitigated evil to us.




148          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
It had forced us into many branches of industry, into which,
but for that blockade, we should have never entered. We
had excellent powder mills of our own, and fine armories
which turned out muskets, rifles, sabres, &c. The war found
no more than half a dozen furnaces in blast in the whole Confederacy, and most of those had been destroyed by the enemy.
But the government had given such encouragement to the iron
men that new mines had been opened in other parts of the
Confederacy, and furnaces enough were already. up or in the
course of erection, to supply the wants of the government.
In the last spring we had planted not more than one-fourth of
the usual breadth of land in cotton, and our surplus labour
was directed to breadstuffs and provisions. All these were the
fruits to us of a blockade which threatened England especially
with a terrible reaction of her own injustice, and was laying
up a store of retribution for Europe.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                     149
CHAPTER V.
Movements in the West...The Splendid Programme of the Yankees...Kentucky the Critical Point...Gen. Kirby Smith's Advance into Kentucky...THE
BATTLE OF RICHMOND...Reception of the Confederates in Lexington...Expectation of an Attack on Cincinnati...Gen. Bragg's Plans...Smith's Movement
to Bragg's Lines...Escape of the Yankee Forces from Cumberland Gap...Affair of Munfordsville...Gen. Bragg between the Enemy and the Ohio...An
Opportunity for a Decisive Blow....Buell's Escape to Louisville...The Inauguration of Governor at Frankfort...An Idle Ceremony...Probable Surprise of
Gen. Bragg...THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE...Its Immediate Results in our
Favour...Bragg's Failure to Concentrate his Forces...His Resolution of Retreat...Scenes of the Retreat from Kentucky...Errours of the Campaign...A
Lame Excuse...Public Sentiment in Kentucky-The Demoralization of that
State...The Lessons of Submission.
On the same day that victory perched on our banners on
the plains of Manassas, an important success was achieved by
our brave troops in another part of the Confederacy. Avictory gained at Richmond in Kentucky gave a companion to
Manassas, and opened in the West a prospect of the advance
of our troops simultaneous with the dawn of new hopes and
aspirations in the East.
A  few  paragraphs are sufficient for the rapid summary of
events necessary to the contemplation of the situation in the
West, in which the battle of Richmond was won.
The North had prepared a splendid programme of operations in the country west of the Alleghany. But few persons
on the Southern seaboard had adequate ideas of the grandeur
of the enemy's preparations or of the strength of the forces
concentrating on the march in the Western country. These
preparations exceeded in magnitude all military movements
designed or attempted since the commencement of the war;
for they contemplated not only the expulsion of our forces
from Kentucky and Tennessee and the States west of the Mis



150          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
sissippi, but the penetration through the Gulf States of the heart
of the South. The army, now well on its way into Middle Tennessee, had Northern Alabama and Georgia for its ultimate destination; that of Grant was already advanced into Mississippi;
that of McClernand, organizing at Columbus and Memphis,
was intended to operate on the Mississippi; another army was
already operating in Missouri and Arkansas; and a gunboat
fleet had been placed on the waters of the Mississippi, which
was said to be terrible in destructiveness and impregnable in
strength.  Such was the extent of the enemy's plans of campaign in the West.
The situation left the South but little choice than that of
making an aggressive movement by which North Alabama and
Middle and East Tennessee might be cleared of the forces of
the enemy and they compelled to fall back to assist General
Buell in Kentucky-this State being fixed as the critical point
in the West and the field of the active campaign. The brief
retirement of Gen. Beauregard from active command on account of ill health, which was made shortly after his evacuation.of Corinth, left the way open to the promotion of Gen.
Bragg, a favourite of the administration, who had a certain
military reputation, but as an active commander in the field
had the confidence neither of the army nor of the public.
The first steps of the campaign were easily decided by this
commander. It was to use the forces of Gen. Kirby Smith to
threaten Cincinnati, and thus distract the attention and divide
the -forces of the enemy; while Gen. Bragg himself, co-operating with Smith, was to fulfill the great purpose of the campaign, which was the expulsion of the enemy from Kentucky
andothe capture of Louisville, thus subjecting the whole of
that great grain-growing and meat-producing commonwealth,
with all its rich stores, to our control.
Early in the month of August, Gen. McCown, under the
orders of Gen. Smith, moved his division from  London to
Knoxville in East Tennessee.  Thence our troops moved to
the gaps in the Cumberland mountains, being joined by Clai



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              151
borne's division at the lower gap, when the whole force was
ordered through with the trains ahd artillery. From this time
our tiops made forced marches until they reached Barboursville, which is on the main thoroughfare by which the Yankees
received their supplies at the gap by way of Lexington. Halting there long enough only to get water, our wearied army
was pushed on to the Cumberland Ford.  Here a few days'
rest was allowed to the troops, who had performed their hard
march over stony roads, with their almost bare feet, and with
green corn garnished with a small supply of poor beef for
their food.
THE BATTLE OF RICHMOND.
On the 29th of August our troops were in striking distance
of the enemy at Richmond.  Until our advance descended the
Big Hill, it met with no opposition from the enemy. Here,
on the morning of the 29th, the enemy was discovered to be
in force in our front, and a bold teconnoissance of the cavalry
under Colonel Scott, in the afternoon, indicated a determination to give us battle. Although Churchill's division did not
get up until quite late in the afternoon, and then in an apparently exhausted state, Gen. Smith determined to march to
Richmond the next day, even at the cost of a battle with the
whole force of the enemy.  The leading division, under Gen.
Claiborne, was moved early the next morning, and, after advancing two or three miles, they found the enemy drawn up in
line of battle in a fine position, near Mount Zion Church, six
miles from  Richmond.  Without waiting for Churchill's division, Claiborne at once commenced the action, and by halfpast seven o'clock in the morning, the fire of artillery was
brisk on both sides.  As our force was almost too small to
storm the position in front, without a disastrous loss, General
Churchill was sent with one of his brigades to turn the enemy's
right. While this movement was being executed, a bold and
well-conducted attempt, on the part of the enemy, to turn




152          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Claiborne's right, was admirably foiled by the firmness of Col.
Preston Smith's brigade, who repulsed the enemy with great
slaughter.  In the meantime Gen. Churchill had beer completely successful in his movement upon the enemy's right
flank, where, by a bold charge, his men completed a victory
already partially gained by the gallantry of our troops on the
left.
The Yankees having been repulsed and driven in confusion
from this part of the field, might have retreated without risking another passage at arms, had they not misapprehended our
movements.
Gen. Smith having ordered the cavalry to go around to the
north of Richmond and attempt to cut off the retreat of.the
enemy, our artillery ceased firing, and the enemy, thinking
our army was preparing for a retreat, had the foolhardiness to
rally on their own retreat and attempt a charge upon the
Texas and Arkansas troops under McCray, who, to the great
astonishment of the enemy, instead of running away, met
them on the half-way ground.' This gallant brigade of Texans
and Arkansians had to fight the battle alone. Although the
odds opposed to them were fearful, yet, by reserving their own
fire, under the deafening roar of the enemy's guns; and by a
well-timed and dashing charge upon the advancing lines, they
completely routed and put to flight the hosts of the enemy.
They fled in the wildest confusion and disorder. Their knapsacks, swords, pistols, hats and canteens, scattered along the
road, would have marked the route they travelled, even if
their dead and dying had not too plainly showed the way.
In passing a deserted camp of the enemy, Gen. Smith found
from some of the wounded that Gen. Nelson, the Yankee commander, with reinforcements, had arrived after the second
battle.  A march of two miles brought us within sight of the
town, in front of which, and on a commanding ridge, with both
flanks resting upon woods, Nelson had determined to make a
final stand. Churchill, with a brigade, was sent off to the left,
when a deafening roar of musketry soon announced the raging




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              158
of a furious combat. In the meanwhile, Preston Smith, bringing up his division at a double-quick, formed in front of the
enemy's centre and left. Almost without waiting the command of the officers, this division coolly advanced under the
murderous fire of a force twice their number, ana drove them
from the field in the greatest confusion, and with immense
slaughter. The exhausted condition of our men, together with
the closing in of night, prevented the pursuit of the enemy
more than a mile beyond Richmond.
The results of the day were gratifying enough. With less
than half his force, Gen. Smith had attacked and carried a
very strong position at Mount Zion Church, after a hard fight
of two hours. Again, a still better position at White's farm,
in half an hour; and finally, in the town of Richmond, just
before sunset, our indomitable troops deliberately walked (they
were too tired to run) up to a magnificent position, manned by
ten thousand of the enemy, many of them perfectly fresh, and
carried it in fifteen minutes. In the last engagement, we took
prisoners from thirteen regiments. Our loss in killed and
wounded was about four hundred; that of the enemy was
about one thousand, and his prisoners five thousand. The immediate fruits of the victory were nine pieces of artillery and
ten thousand small arms, and a large quantity of supplies.
These latter were greatly increased by the capture of Richmond and Frankfort the whole number of cannon taken being
about twenty.
On the first day of September Gen. Smith took up the line
of March for Lexington; and on the morning of the fourth
day of that month, our forces, consisting of a Texas brigade
and an Arkansas, brigade under the command of General
Churchill, and General Claiborne's division and Gen. Heath's
division, all under the command of Gen. Kirby Smith, marched
through the city amidst the hearty and generous welc6me of
thousands of men, women and children.
The entrance of our troops into Lexington was the occasion
of the most inspiriting and touching scenes. Streets, windows




154           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
and gardens were filled with ladies and little girls with streamers of red and blue ribbons and flags with stars. Beautiful
women seized the hard brown hands of our rough and ragged
soldiers, and with tears and smiles thanked them  again and
again for coming into Kentucky and freeing them from the
presence and insults of the hated and insolent Yankees. For
hours the enthusiasm of the people was unbounded. At every
corner of the streets, baskets of provisions and buckets of
water were placed for the refreshment of our weary soldiers,
and hundreds of our men were presented with shoes and hats
and coats and tobacco from the grateful people. Private residences were turned for the time into public houses of entertainment, free to all who could be persuaded to go and eat.
But if the reception of the infantry was enthusiastic, the
tears, the smiles, and shouts and cheers of wild delight which
greeted General John Morgan's cavalry as they came dashing
through the streets amidst clouds of dust, was without a parallel. The wildest joy ruled the hours. The bells of the city
pealed forth their joyous welcome, whilst the waving of thousands of white handkerchiefs and tiny Confederate flags attested the gladness and delight of every heart.
It would have been well if the enthusiasm which welcomed
Gen. Smith in this town could have been confirmed as a true
token of the public sentiment of Kentucky.  But while this
sentiment was developing itself, the exultation which greeted
our troops at Lexington was reflected in other parts of the
Confederacy; and from  the results already achieved in the
Western campaign, the Southern public was raised to the pinnacle of hopeful expectation.  When it was known at the seat
of government in Virginia that Gen. Smith, after crushing the
force opposed to him at Richmond, had gone on and captured
Lexington, Paris and Cynthiana, and established his lines almost in sight of Cincinnati, the public indulged the prospect
of the speedy capture of this great city of the West, with its
valuabl] stores and yards for building gunboats.  What might
have been the result of a sudden attack on this city (for one




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              155
of our brigades was in striking distance of it) is left to conjecture.  The order was to menace, not to attack; and the
purposes of the campaign projected by Gen. Bragg required
that Smith's command, after making its demonstration on the
Ohio, should fall back into the interiour to co-operate with the
splendid army he had already brought into Kentucky.
Gen.. Bragg had entered the State by the eastern route from
Knoxville andChattanooga.  The direct route by the way of
Nashville would have brought him on Buell's front; but he
chose to make the crossing of the Cumberland river several
miles above Nashville, apparently with the design of making
a flank movement on Buell.  The immediate effect of this
movement was to cause the Yankees to evacuate East Tennessee, and to relieve North Alabama from Federal occupation;
but the enemy, learning that Cincinnati was not in immediate
danger, had abundant time to remove the forces collected for
the defence of that city, to be united with Buell's army in
Kentucky.
The sudden disappearance of Smith from in front of Cincinnati, and the rapidity of his movement, intimated clearly
enough that he was making a forced march to reach Bragg
and strengthen him before a decisive trial of his strength with
Buell. But the movement deprived us of a victory that might
have been cheaply won; for it gave opportunity of escape to
the Yankee Gen. Morgan, w'ho had been completely hemmed
in at Cumberland Gap, with an army of ten or twelve thousand men and abundance of arms and equipments.
The distance to the Ohio River is about two hundred and
fifty miles, and includes the most mountainous portions of Kentucky.  There are scarcely fifty miles of the entire route in
which there are not defiles and passes where a small force
could have kept the enemy at bay.  The famous cavalry commander, John H. Morgan, had been sent with a portion of his
command to harrass the retreating enemy; and this intrepid
officer, with seven hundred and fifty men, arrested the Yankee
army for five days, and might have captured them  with the




156          -THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
half of Marshall's infantry, who were within little more than
a day's march.  But reinforcements were not sent forward,
and no alternative was left to Morgan but-after inflicting
such damage as he could upon the enemy-to rejoin Smith's
march, which had now taken the direction of Frankfort.
On the 17th of September, Gen. Bragg captured about five
thousand of the enemy at Munfordsville, with the inconsiderable loss on our side of about fifty men in killed and wounded.
He had thrown his lines between Buell's force at Bowling
Green and Louisville, and it was confidently expected that he
would engage him, drive him across the Ohio or the Mississippi, or at least disconcert his hopes of preparations and
increase of forces at Louisville. Buell's entire force at this
time was not computed at over thirty five thousand, for which
our army, in the best possible spirits and confidence, was an
overmatch.
It is probable that at this juncture the struggle in Kentucky
might have been decided by a fight on a fair field with an army
our inferiour in all respects. Viewed in the light of subsequent events, it is difficult to determine what good object
Gen. Bragg could have had in declining a contest with the
enemy but a few miles distant.  It is still more inexplicable
that after the success of Munfordsville he should have stood
idly by and suffered Buell and his wagon trains to pass
between him and the Ohio River; almost in sight of his lines.
He had passed Buell to enter Kentucky, and having accomplished it, his reasons for allowing his enemy to repass him
and enter- Louisville are inadmissible to any justification that
car be offered by practical good sense.  Whatever explanations
have been made of them, it is certain that at this time the
public has not abandoned its opinion, that General Bragg's
failure to deliver battle at the important conjuncture which
placed him between the enemy and the Ohio, was the fatal
errour of the Kentucky campaign.
On the 4th of October, Gen. Bragg joined Smith's army at
Frankfort, where was conducted the inauguration of the Pro



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                157
visional Governor of Kentucky, Mr. Hawes.  This ceremony,
however, was scarcely anything more than a pretentious farce.
Scarcely was it complete1, when the Yankees threatened the
State capital, and the newly-installed Governor had to flee
from  their approach.  The delusion, that Buell's army was
quietly resting in Louisville, was dispelled by the news received
at Frankfort on the inauguration day, to the effect that the
Yankees were in large force within twelve miles of the place.
But the apparent movement on Frankfort was a mere feint,
while the enemy was concentrating to force our left wing near
Perryville.
THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE.
Having arrived at Harrodsburg from Frankfort, Gen. Bragg,
finding the enemy pressing heavily in his rear near Perryville,
determined to give him battle there, and ordered Gen. Polk to
make the attack next day.  But he had made an unfortunate
disposition of his forces, for 6n the day before the division of
Withers had been sent to Salvisa to reinforce General Kirby
Smith and cut off Sill's division. Hardee's and Buckner's
divisions were marched to Perryville, leaving Gen. Cheatham's
at Harrodsburg, which, however, came up to Perryville ( the
night of the 7th of October, before the engagement. Withers'
failed to intercept Gen. Sill's division, but captured the rearguard, consisting of seven hundred and fifty men, with an
ammunition train; and on the morning of the 9th, General
Withers' and Gen. Kirby Smith's forces reached Harrodsburg,
having been too late to participate in the decisive events of
the preceding day.
The morning of the 8th October found not more than fifteen
thousand Confederate troops confronting an enemy three times
their numbers. fThe forces opposed to us at Perryville consisted of the right wingof the "Army of the Ohio," composed
of Buell's veteran army, with Major-General Geo. W. Thomas
as Commander-in-Chief of the field, and Gen. Alex. McCook
commanding the first corps.  We fought nine divisions of the




158          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Abolition army, composed at least of five thousand each,
making forty-five thousand men.
Gen. Buckner's division, which was posted on our extreme
right, with Anderson's division, formed the left wing of the
army of the Mississippi, under Major-General Hardee. Cheatham's and Withers' divisions formed the right wing, under
Major-Gen. Polk.  Thus we had but three divisions in the field.
The action opened a little past noon. It was only skirmishing; for a considerable time, Colonel Powell's brigade holding the extreme left of our lines, and gallantly driving the
enemy back for about a mile against superior forces. It was
about this time, towards 4 P. M., when General Smith's brigade, belonging to Cheatham's division, was ordered back to
our assistance, that General Adams, with his brave Louisianians, was holding the enemy in check against fearful odds,
when he was forced to fall back from  his position.  General
Hardee, seeing the importance of holding the point, ordered
General Adams to retake it, telling him he would be supported
by reinforcements.  It was while advancing again, and anxiously looking for the reinforcements, that General Adams,
seeing some soldiers firing at what he supposed to be our own
men ordered them to cease firing.  " I tell you, sir, they are
Yantees," cried one of the officers. "I think not, and you
had better go forward first and ascertain," replied Adams.
" I'll go, sir, but I don't think it necessary, for I know they
are Yankees," insisted the officer.  "Well," said Adams,
"I'll go myself," and dashing forward on his charger, he
had not proceeded one hundred yards when a furious storm of
Minie balls whizzed by his ears from the enemy.  The General turned immediately, and riding up, shouted to our troops
to pour in their fire. Towards six o'clock the firing became
incessant on both sides. There stood Adams, with his little
brigade, holding back a division of the enemy, left, as it
were, alone to his fate, until, seeing no chance of being reinforced, he gradually fell back, in most excellent order, but not
without considerable loss.




THE SECOND, YEAR OF THE WAR.                 159
Towards night the engagement subsided.  Fearfully outnumbered, our troops had not hesitated to engage at any odds,
and despite the checks they had encountered at times, the
enemy was driven two miles from his first line of battle. As
darkness fell the conflict was over. A few shots from long
range guns were exchanged. The full round moon rose in the
east and lighted the dismal scene.  In half an hour the picket
fires of the opposing armies were visible five hundred yards
distant, and our wearied men laid down on their arms.
The immediate results of the battle of Perryville were in
our favour. We had captured fifteen pieces of artillery by the
most daring charges, had inflicted the loss of four thousand
men on the enemy, and held several hundred of his prisoners.
Our own loss was estimated at twenty-five hundred, in killed,
wounded and missing.  The enemy had lost one of their best
generals on the field-Jackson.  Seeing his men wavering, he
had advanced to the front line, and, waving his sword, cheered
and urged them on.  While thus displaying an extraordinary
courage he was struck in the right breast by a piece of an
exploded shell, and fell from his horse. It is said by those
near him  that he said only, " Oh God! " and died without a
struggle.
But the success of Perryville was of no importance to us;
it was merely a favourable incident and decided nothing. It
is probable General Bragg had it in his power here, by concentrating his troops, to crush the enemy's force in Kentucky;
but he allowed himself to be deceived as to the dispositipn of
the enemy's forces, scattered his own, and engaged and defeated the head of the Yankee column with less than fifteen
thousand men.*  Had he fallen with his whole available force,
* It is proper to state, that an apology for General Bragg, in this matter,
was offered in the public prints, to the effect that before the battle of Perryville General Kirby Smith had communicated to General Bragg his positive 
belief that the real attack was threatened upon him, whilst the feint was
upon Perryville, and urged reinforcements; and that this was the reason
why General Withers' division was sent to General Kirby Smith and was not
sent to Generals Polk and Hardee.




160          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
forty thousand men, on the enemy at Perryville, it is not improbable that he might have dispersed the Yankee army and
given it such a blow that it would not have made a stand this
side the Ohio river.
Unfortunately the battle of Perryville was another experience of Shiloh, without any decisive results. Had we have
had five thousand more men, or had Withers been there, we
might have completely routed the enemy, leaving us the way
clear to Louisville. No troops in the world ever fought with
more desperate courage than ours.  Whole regiments of our
men went into that fight barefooted, fought barefooted, and
had marched barefooted from Chattanooga.  The brunt of the
battle was borne by General Cheatham's gallant Tennesseeans,
No soldiers of the Confederacy ever fought with greater
bravery.
Ascertaining that the enemy was heavily reinforced during
the night, General Bragg withdrew his force early the next
morning to Harrodsburg, where he was joined by Smith and
Withers.  On the 10th, all our forces fell back to Camp.
Breckinridge (Dick Robinson), the cavalry holding the enemy
in check at Danville. It was supposed that General Bragg
would have made a stand here, as,the place was very defensible and gave him the opportunity of sweeping the country
and driving off by private enterprise or cavalry force vast
herds of cattle,. so much needed by our army. The camp is
in an acute angle formed by the junction of Kentucky and
Dick's rivers, with high and impassable and perpendicular
cliffs for long distances up these rivers, except at a few crossings; and the upper line of the angle has high and commanding hills, suited for artillery defences. It was said that it was
impregnable to any other attack than that of famine.
But moved by various considerations, and excited by the superiority of Buell's numbers, it was determined by General
Bragg that the whole army should make its exodus from Kentucky; and in order to secure the immense quantity of captured stores, goods, clothing, &c., much of which had also




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              161
been purchased, with some five thousand head of cattle, hoIses,
mules, &c., that the retreat should commence on the night of
the 12th.  On that day, Sunday, orders were received to cook
four days' rations for the march.  Major-General McCown,
with General Hilliard's Legion, and a cavalry force and artillery, was ordered to defend Fishing Ford, across Dick's river,
and commanding the road to Camp Breckinridge, in our rear,
to the last extremity.
The distress of those people of Kentucky who were friendly
to the South, on learning that they were to be abandoned by
our troops, was the most affecting circumstance of the sad retreat.  When our troops abandoned Lexington, the terrour,
dismay and anguish of the inhabitants were extreme.  The
women ran through the streets crying and wringing their
hands, while families hastily gathered their clothing, packed
their trunks, and obtained wagons to depart, the greatest distress prevailing.
The retreat commenced on Sunday night, the 12th October,
Major Adrain's cavalry conducting the advance train of Gen.
Kirby Smith.  That night piles of goods, clothes, &c., were
burned that could not be carried off frOn the warehouse.
Long before day on the morning of the 13th, the whole camp
was astir. If any one doubted that we were actually retreating, the burning piles of abandoned stores, gun-carriages, &c.,
were sufficient to convince him of the deplorable fact.
At gray dawn the troops reached Bryantsville, about two
miles from the camp, where the whole command of conducting
the retreat was turned over to Gen. Polk. Already train after
train of wagons had passed, and others were still forming and
joining in the immense cavalcade. Ammunition trains and
batteries of captured artillery had preceded.  Then followed
trains of goods, wares and merchandise, provision trains of
army stores, trains of captured muskets, escorts of cavalry,
artillery drawn by oxen. Then came private trains of refugee
Families, flying with their negroes for safety-ladies and chilIren in carriages, stage coaches, express wagons, omnibuses,
11




162          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
buggies, ambulances, jersey wagons, and every conceivable
vehicle imaginable, and following, came the wagons of the different brigades of General Smith's army, with infantry, cavalry and artillery in the rear. Intermixed with the throng
were thousands of head of cattle, horses and mules.
The effect of our retreat along the road everywhere was
sinking and depressing in the extreme. No miniature banners
waved, no white'kerchiefs greeted our troops with approving
smiles from lovely women, and no wild cheer was heard responsive to the greetings which had attended their march to
Kentucky.  Trembling women stole to the doors to look upon
the strange, mystified scene before them, and as the truth
gradually forced itself upon them, their eyes filled with tears,
and they shrank back, fearing even to make the slightest demonstration of friendliness-all was sullen, downcast and
gloomy.
The enemy was in pursuit, and making a strong effort to
flank us, so as to cut off our trains; and it was necessary to
urge on the teams night and day for fear of capture.  For
some portion of the way the road lay along the bed of Dick's
river, a miserable &ocky branch, which our troops had to cross
and recross for six miles in a dark and hazy night.  Scenes of
terrible confusion and delay occurred along this road. Wagons broke down, were overturned, and frequently stalled, and
in the former case were often abandoned. The bawling of the
teamsters to their mules, the cracking of their whips, and volleys of oaths in the most outlandish gibberish, which none but
the mules could understand, were kept up all night. In the
day time more cheerful scenes relieved the retreat.  The foliage of the forest trees and brushwood enlivened the wayside
with their rich hues of dark maroon splendor to brilliant
crimson.
The retreat was admirably covered by Gen. Wheeler. From
the battle-field at Perryville to Cumberland Gap this General
conducted his movements in the same masterly manner thal
had characterized him in the previous part of the campaign




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              168
He retarded the enemy by various means. When he reached
the hilly country he obstructed the road by felled trees.  By
all such ingenious devices, he, with a small force, enabled the
baggage trains and straggling infantry to escape capture.
From Altamont to Cumberland Gap he encountered the enemy
twenty-nine times, seriously damaged him, and saved much of
our infantry from capture.  At Rock Castle the enemy abandoned the pursuit; our whole train of stores being up, and
not even a wagon lost, except those abandoned on account of
breaking down.
We must leave here an account of the movements of Gen.
Bragg until the time shall come for us to see how his retreat
from Ke.ntucky through Cumberland Gap transferred the most
important scenes of the war in the West to the memorable
lines of Nashville.  Deplorable as was this retreat, it was not
without some circumstances that palliated it, or relieved the
grief of the public mind. It is certain that it was a disappointment to the enemy, who had expected to crush our forces
in Kentucky, and were not prepared for the news of their liberatiofrom  the toils which they flattered themselves had been
so industriously and elaborately woven around them.
It is probable, too, that under the circumstances, after our
own army had blundered so badly in the first stept of the campaign, its retreat from Kentucky, without the burden of defeat
and without material losses, was preferable to alternatives
which otherwise would have probably befallen it. It had entered into Gen. Beauregard's plan of campaign in the West,
before he had been superseded, to regain the control of the
Tennessee and Cumberlapd rivers, and thus prepare for future
operations.  The construction of works on the Cumberland
and Tennessee rivers so as to command them, was plainly an
important concern; and, according to General Beauregard's
idea, should have been preliminary to the active campaign in
the West.  With these works, it appears probable that an advance might have been made with safety into Kentucky; and
even had we failed in the taking of Louisville and Cincinnati,




164          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
which was a part of Gen. Beauregard's plan, and been compelled to fall back, it is thought not improbable that we could
have made a successful stand on the Cumberland. But Gen.
Bragg had failed to adopt these suggestions.  Had he succeeded, after our victory at Perryville, in driving the enemy
back to Louisville, unless he had been able to take that place,
he would have been compelled to retreat so soon as the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers should have risen sufficiently to
have admitted the entrance of the enemy's gunboats and transports. Taking this view, it may be said that as we did not
have command of these rivers, it was fortunate that our army
left Kentucky when it did, otherwise it might have found great
difficulty after the winter rains commenced in getting away
at all.
\For the failure of Gen. Bragg's campaign in Kentucky, the
excuse was offered that the people of that State had been unfriendly, that they had not joined his standard in considerable
numbers, and that they had disappointed his own and the common expectation of the Southern public with respect to their
political sentiments.  It is scarcely necessary to remark how
little applicable such an excuse is to positive blunders in the
conduct of an army, and to those imperfections of judgment
and faults of strategy which, whatever may be their remote
connection, are the immediate occasions and responsible causes
of disaster.
But it is to be admitted that the. South was bitterly disappointed in the manifestations of public sentiment in Kentucky;
that the exhibitions of sympathy in this State were meagre and
sentimental, and amounted to but!Ittle practical aid of our
cause. Indeed, no subject was at once more dispiriting and
perplexing to the South than the cautious and unmanly reception given to our armies, both in Kentucky and Maryland.
The references we have made to the sentiment of each of these
States, leaves but little room to doubt the general conclusion,
-that the dread of Yankee vengeance, and love of property,
were too powerful to make them take risks against these in




THE SECOND YEAR OF. THE WAR.             165
favour of a cause for which their people had a mere preference,
without any attachments to it higher than those of selfish
calculation.
There must, indeed, be some explanation for the extraordinary quiet of the people of Maryland and Kentucky under the
tyranny that ruled them, and for that submission, the painful
signs of which we had unwillingly seen. This explanation was
not to be found in the conduct of the United States. It is a
remarkable fact that the Lincoln government had not takenr
any pains to change the opinions and prejudices of the people
in these two States.  It had made no attempt to conciliate
them; it had performed no act calculated to awaken their
affection; it had done nothing to convert their hearts to the
support of an administration to which they were originally
hostile.
It would be a foolish and brutal explanation to attribute the
submission of these States to cowardice. The people of these
States were brave; they were descended from noble ancestries,
and they had the same blood and types of race that were common to the South.  The sons of Kentucky and Maryland who
had fought under the Confederate flag were as noble specimens
of the Southern soldier as any to be found in our armies. But
the people of these States, who had stayed at home and been
schooled in the lessons of submission, appeared to have lost
the spirit and stature of their ancestors, and dragged the
names of Maryland and Kentucky in the dust.
The only just explanation that can be furnished of the abject
attitude of these States is, that having taken the first steps of
submission to a pitiless despotism, they had been easily corrupted into its subjects. The lessons of history furnish many
exhibitions of how easily the spirit of a community is crushed
by submission to tyranny; how the practice of non-resistance
makes of men crawling creatures.  The mistake is in making
the ficst step of submission; when that is accomplished,
demoralization becomes rapid, and the bravest community
sinks into emasculation. Under the experience of non-resist



166           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
ance to the rule of a despot, men become timid, artful and
miserly; they spend their lives in consulting the little ends of
personal selfishness. This corruption in Kentucky, as well as
in Maryland, had gone on with visible steps.  Their history
was a lesson which the South might well remember, of the
fatal consequences of any submission to despotic will, for however specious its plea, all records of man's experience have
shown that it undermines the virtues of a people, and degenerates at last into servile acquiescence in its fate.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                        167
CHAPTER VI.
Our Lines in the Southwest...General Breckenridge's Attack on Baton
Rouge...Destruction of the Ram Arkansas...Gen. Price's Reverse at Iuka...
Desperate Fighting...THE BATTLE OF CORINTH...Van Dorn's Hasty Exultations...The Massacre of College Hill...Wild and Terrible Courage of the Confederates...Our Forces Beaten Back...Our Lines of Retreat Secured...The
Military Prospects of the South Overshadowed...THE DEPARTMENT OF THE
TRANS-MISSISSIPPI...Romance of the War in Missouri... Schofield's Order
Calling Out the Militia...Atrocities of the Yankee Rule in Missouri...Robbery
Without "Red Tape "...The Guerilla Campaign...The Affair of Kirksville...
Execution of Col. McCullough...The Affair of Lone Jack...Timely Reinforcement of Lexington by the Yankees...The Palmyra Massacre...The Question
of Retaliation with the South...THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION...
Survey of the Military Situation...Capture of Galveston by the Yankees...The
Enemy's Naval Power...His Iron Clads.. Importance of Founderies in the
South...Prospect in the Southwest...Prospect in Tennessee...Prospect in Virginia...Stuart's Raid into Pennsylvania...Souvenirs of Southern Chivalry...
The "Soft-mannered  Rebels "...Political Complexion of the War in the
North...Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation "...History of Yankee Legislation in the War...Political Errour of the Emancipation Proclamation-Its
Effect on the South...The Decay of European Sympathy with the Abolitionists...What the War Accomplished for Negro Slavery in the South...Yankee
Falsehoods and Bravados in Europe...Delusion of Conquering the South by
Starvation.. Caricatures in the'New York Pictorials...The Noble Eloquence
of Hunger and Rags... Manners in the'South...Yankee Warfare...The Desolation of Virginia...The Lessons of Harsh Necessity...Improvement of the Civil
Administration of the Confederacy...Ordnance, Manufacturing Resources,
Quartermasters' Supplies, &c.
The crisis in Kentucky was probably hastened by certain
disastrous events which had taken place on our lines in the
Southwest.  A  large Confederate force had been left in North
Mississippi when Gen. Bragg moved into  Kentucky, and the
speculation  was not remote  that, with  the  Memphis  and
Charleston railroad open from Chattanooga to a point near the
position of our army in Mississippi, that portion of our forces
in the West might render important assistance to, or, in some




168          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
emergency, effect a co-operation with the armies that had been
marched into Kentucky.
But the story of the Southwest was one of almost unbroken
disaster, owing less, perhaps, to inadequate numbers than to
the blind and romantic generalship which carried them into
the jaws of destruction.  There was one golden link in the
chain of events here, and that was the heroic defence of Vicksburg.  But while this famous town so nobly disputed the palm
of the Mississippi, her example of -victorious resistance was
obscured, though not overshadowed, by other events in the
Southwest.
On the 5th of August, an attack make by General Breckenridge with less than three thousand men on Baton Rouge, was
severely repulsed by an enemy nearly twice his numbers, fighting behind fortifications'which were almost impregnable, and
assisted by a fleet of gunboats in the river.  The unequal
attack was made by our troops with devoted courage; they
succeeded in driving the enemy to the arsenal and tower, and to
the cover of his gunboats; but they wene compelled to withdraw with diminished and exhausted numbers before a fire
which it was impossible to penetrate.
This check (for it deserves no more important or decisive
title) was in a measure occasioned, or, at least, was accompanied, by a disaster of real importance.  This was the destruction of the great Confederate ram Arkansas, already famous
for having run the gauntlet of the hostile fleet atVicksburg,
and the promises of whose future services had given, to the
South many brilliant but illusory hopes.  The Arkansas left
Vicksburg to co-operate in the attack upon Baton Rouge.
After passing Bayou Sara her machinery became deranged or
disabled. But two alternatives were left-to blow her up or
suffer her to be captured by the Yankee gunboats. The former was resorted to, and this proud achievement of naval
architecture floated a wreck on the Mississippi River.
The failure of another enterprise of attack on the enemy,
made by Gen. Price at Iuka on the 20th of September, was




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              169
much more disastrous than the affair of Baton Rouge. Overmatched by numbers, Gen. Price was, after some partial and
temporary success, forced back, with a loss greater than that
of the enemy. In this engagement our loss was probably eight
hundred in killed and wounded. But never had troops fought
with more terrible resolution or wilder energy than the soldiers
of Price. The fighting was almost hand to hand; and as an
instance of the close and deadly combat, it may be mentioned
that an Ohio battery was taken by our men four different
times, and as often retaken by greatly superiour numbers of
the enemy.  The desperation of our soldiers astonished those
who, by the weight of numbers alone, were able to resist them.
Several of our men endeavored to tear the colours from the
hands of the Yankees by main force, and either perished in the
attempt or were made prisoners.  In one spot next morning,
there were counted seventeen Confederate soldiers lying dead
around one of their officers. Sixteen feet square would cover
the whole space where they died.
But there was yet to ensue the great disaster which was to
re-act on other theatres of the war and cast the long shadow
of misfortune upon the country of the West. It was destined
to take place at Corinth, where Major-General Rosecranz,
commanding the Yankee army of the Mississippi and Tennessee, was stationed with at least forty thousand men.
THE BATTLE OF CftRINTH.
The armies of Gens. Van Dorn and Price-under Gen. Van
Dorn as the ranking officer-having formed a junction at
Ripley, marched thence for the purpose of engaging the enemy
in battle, though it was well known that the battle must be
waged under the serious disadvantages of great disparity in
numbers and strength of position.
On the 2d of October our forces marched from Pocahontas
to Chewalla, points on the Memphis and Charleston railroad,
thus moving from the west on Corinth, the stronghold of the
enemy.  That night the soldiers rested on their arms, in eager




170           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
and confident expectation of meeting the foe in battle array on
the ensuing morning.
On Friday, October 3d, the order of battle was formed-the
right being held by Gen. Van Dorn's troops, composing only
one division, under Gen. Lovell; while the left was occupied
by Gen. Price's troops, composed of two divisions-the extreme
left under Gen. Herbert, and the right under Gen. Maury,
whose division, as thus placed, formed the centre of the whole
force. Advancing in this order, at 71 o'clock in the morning
Gen. Lovell's division arrived within long range of the enemy,
who had marched out some miles in fiont of the extreme outer
lines of his fortifications. Immediately the artillery of Gen.
Villipigue, whose brigade was in the advance, opened fire upon
the enemy, who, in a short time, began to give way and fall
back, and continued to do so for two hours, under a heavy and
effective fire from the advancing batteries of General Lovell's
division.
At 91 o'clock, the enemy having made a stand one-half mile
in front of his fortifications, Gen. Lovell advanced his infantry
and poured a destructive musketry fire into the ranks of the
Yankees, who replied with spirit; and now, Gen. Price having
ordered up his divisions under Generals Maury and Herbert,
the battle raged all along the line-the enemy suffering terribly.  At length a charge was ordered, Gen. Lovell's division
leading. In double-quick time our soldiers, pressing forward
with loud cheers, drove the enemy behind his entrenchments.
Simultaneously almost, the divisions of Generals Maury and
Herbert, the one after the other, charged the enemy in front of
them with equal success.
There was now a strange lull in the battle.  The Yankees
had withdrawn entirely behind their fortifications, their fire
had dropped off, and the tumult of the fierce strife died away.
The unexpected quiet lasted for a whole hour. By that time,
the Yankees having brought several field batteries in front,
opened from these, and at the same time from his heavy artillery, a most tremendous cannonade.  This fire was directed




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              171
chiefly, if not wholly, against the right wing under General
Lovell, and, though so tremendous in sound, produced but
little effect.  Our soldiers remained silent and stood firm.
They were waiting for orders. Presently the second charge
was ordered. Gallantly was it made by Gen. Lovell's division,
and as gallantly was it supported by charges all along the centre and right wing by the divisions of Generals Maury and
Herbert.  On, on our glorious columns swept through the
leaden rain and iron hail; the first line of fortifications is
reached and passed; and the Yankees do not stop until they
have reached the next line of entrenchments.
On Friday night the news of a great victory was dispatched
by Gen. Van Dorn to Richmond.  This announcement was
made with an exultation so hasty and extreme, that it is to be
supposed that this commander was entirely unaware of the
strength of the enemy's works at Corinth, and, consequently,
of the supreme trial which yet remained for the courage and
devotion of his troops.
The next morning the general relation of our troops to each
other and to the enemy remained as it was on the previous
day-Gen. Van Dorn, in supreme command, occupying the
centre, Gen. Price the left wing, and Gen. Lovell the right
wing. Gen. Lovell's division held ground west of Corinth and
just south of the Memphis and Charleston railroad.  General
Maury's division was posted  north of the Memphis and
Charleston railroad, and between it and the Memphis and
Ohio railroad. Gen. Herbert's division was on the left, east of
the Memphis and Ohio railroad-thus advancing from  the
north upon Corinth.
The battle was commenced by Gen. Price early in the morning, one-half hour before daylight. The artillery having been
moved forward, opened upon the enemy in his entrenchments
at a distance of four hundred yards. The enemy replied, and
a heavy cannonading, by both sides, ensued for one hour.
Our troops suffered but little damage from this fire, and the
artillery was withdrawn with the view of advancing the infan



172          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
try. Now heavy skirmishing followed all along the line, which
was kept up until about 10 o'clock.  Then beginning with
Gen. Lovell's division, who were immediately seconded by
Gen. Price's army-Gen. Herbert's division first, and then
Gen. Maury's-our whole line advanced upon the entrenchments of the enemy.
Here occurred one of the most terrible struggles of the war.
The shock of the tremendous onset was terrible. One portion
of our lines rushed pell mell into Corinth, losing in their confidence of victory almost every semblance of order, infantry
and cavalry being crowded together in a dense mass, wild with
excitement, and rending the air with fierce and exulting yells.
But the batteries of the enemy were situated to command the
village as well as the approaches to it.
The serried ranks of the enemy, now prepared to receive
us, afforded convincing proof that victory was yet distant from
our grasp, and that a hard and bloody fight was at hand. A
portion of Maury's division was ordered to charge the formidable fort on College Hill. This was the forlorn hope. Disappointed in gaining a lodgment in the village, we must confess
to a defeat, if that battery be not taken.  Once in our possession the town is ours. The men, massed in single column
eight deep, moved forward in silence, regardless of the shower
of bullets which whistled about their ears and decimated their
ranks.  The decisive moment-the turning point of the engagement-had arrived.  Every battery of the enemy bearing
on the column was double charged with grape and canister,
which burst over the heads of our troops.  Scores were killed
at every discharge, but they moved steadily on, maintaining
the silence of the grave. As fast as one soldier fell, his comrade behind stepped  forward and took  his place.  They
charged up to the battery, reserving their fire until they
reached the parapets. Twice repulsed, the third time they
reached the outer works, and planted their flag upon the escarpment.  It was shot down and again planted, but shot
down again.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                173
These devoted troops now held partial possession of the
works. But the triumph was of short duration.  According
to previous instructions, the enemy's gunners.fell back behind
the works, and the next instant from  their batteries -threw a
murderous fire into our ranks at the shortest possible range.
Nothing human could withstand such a fire; the confusion it
produced was irretrievable; our men were driven back and the
day lost.
But the attack was not abandoned without instances of wild
and terrible courage that were almost appalling.  In their
madness and desperation, our men would rush up to the very
mouths of the cannon, and many were blown to pieces by the
rapid and constant discharges.  Such spectacles of courage
were curious and terrible to behold.  An officer, standing a
little way out from his men, was shouting, "Give it to the
scoundrels."  The words had but passed from his lips, when
the first shell from a Parrott gun struck his left shoulder, tearing off his whole side. Ile turned his head a little to one side,
his mouth opened, his eyes glared, and he fell dead.
The attack on the enemy's batteries was rash and magnificent. The intensity of the fight may be judged from the fact
that two hundred and sixty dead bodies were found in and about
the trenches within a distance of fifty feet of the works. It
is impossible to enumerate the examples of daring which adorn
the story of this attack. The second Texas infantry, under
Col. Rogers, led the charge, and the Colonel himself fell on
the enemy's breastworks with the colours of his regiment in
his hand.  A piece of paper was found under his clothing giving his name and rank and the address of his friends.  As
Gen. Cabell mounted the enemy's parapet, the first man he
encountered was a Yankee colonel, who cried out, "Kill that
d    d rebel officer."  The next instant a blow  from  the
General's sabre placed his antagonist at his feet. In the
brigade of this brave officer, J. H. Bullock, Adjutant of the
13th Arkansas regiment-a noble specimen of the Southern
soldier; for, though blessed in estate and family, a son-in-law




174          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
of Chief Justice Parsons, of North Carolina, and the master
of a beautiful and prosperous home, he had volunteered as a
private and been advanced for merit-made a display of courage to animate his men that was a splendid picture of heroism,
as he stood out and exposed himself to the enemy's fire until
his clothing was pierced by balls, his life being saved only by
that unseen shield with which Providence protects its agents.
The gallant commander of this ever-glorious regiment, Col.
Daly, had fallen, while himself engaged in the animation of
his men-cheering and leading them on to the attack.
Under the necessities of the case, our troops had fallen
back; and, though in doing so they were exposed to a terrible
and destructive fire, there was no panic, no rout-the wounded,
except those who fell right at the entrenchments, having been
nearly all brought away. Our army retired to the woods at a
distance of only six hundred yards; and there, while our artillery resumed fire and kept it up for a short time, formed
again in order of battle. But the enemy appearing indisposed
to renew the conflict, Gen. Van Dorn, at three o'clock, drew
off his whole force, being most ably supported in doing so by
Gen. Price and the other general officers.
The next morning, at half-past eight o'clock, our advance,
consisting of Gen. Phifer's brigade, and Col. Whitfield's Legion, with one battery-not exceeding one thousand five hundred in all-crossed the Davis bridge at Hatchie river, to
engage the enemy, a large body of whom, from  Bolivar, had
the day before reached that point; and had there been held in
check by Col. Slemmon's and Adams' cavalry, with one battery. Our advance having crossed the bridge and gone a little
distance, received a heavy fire at short range from a concealed
battery, which was followed directly by a charge from a largely
superior force.  Our troops retreated in a good deal of confusion tcross the bridge-having suffered a loss, perhaps, of three
hundred killed, wounded and missing. The reinforcements arriving, our troops formed in line, and a fight with musketry
ensued and was kept up for some time across the river, but




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              175
with very little loss on our side. Meanwhile, our field pieces
opened upon the enemy, and, they replying, cannonading was
continued during the greater part of the day. During this
time, our advance was gradually withdrawn, and following the
other troops, with the long wagon train of supplies, wounded,
&c.-the artillery having also been brought off-made a successful crossing of Hatchie river some miles higher up the
stream.  The retreat was eventually halted at a point little
north of Ripley.
Our loss in all the three days' engagements was piobably
quite double that of the enemy. In killed and wounded it exceeded three thousand; and it was estimated, besides, that we
had left more than fifteen hundred prisoners in the hands of
the enemy.
The defeat of Corinth was followed by swift news of disaster fnd discouragement. The military prospect was not dark,
but it had lost much of the brightness it had had only a few
weeks before.' Kentucky had been gloomily abandoned. In
Virginia the hopes of conquering a peace on the Potomac had
for the time been given up; the Kanawha Valley had again
been mostly surrendered to the enemy; and Marshall's forces,
back again in Southwestern Virginia, were consuming the substance of the country with but little return of other service.
In other parts of the Confederacy, the prospect was not much
relieved.
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI.
The events in the department of the Trans-Mississippi were
too distant to affect the general fortunes of the war; they were
but episodes to the great drama of arms that passed over the
broad and imposing theatres of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee; but they were replete with romance, and if their
interest is at present partial, it is so, perhaps, for the reason
that they are imperfectly known.
Missouri had the better of other seats of hostility for the
real romance of war.  The remote geography of the country,




176          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
the rough character of the people, the intensity and ferocity
of the passions excited, and the reduction of military operations to a warfare essentially partisan and frontier, gave to the
progress of the war in this quarter a wild aspect, and illustrated it with rare and thrilling scenes.
Gen. Schofield, the Yankee commander, who had been left
by Halleck with the brief and comprehensive instructions "to
take care of Missouri," found the power of the Confederates
broken in nearly three fourths of that State, but the Southwestern portion threatened by the active movements of Gen.
IHindman, in command of State forces raised in Arkansas and
Texas. But in no part of Missouri was the spirit of the people broken. Guerrilla bands made their appearance in all parts
of the State; and their numbers rapidly augmented under the
despotic edict of Schofield, calling out the militia of the State
to murder their own countrymen.
The dark atrocities of the Yankee rule in Missouri, enacted
as they were in a remote country, and to a great extent
removed from observation, surpassed all that was known in
other parts of the Confederacy of the cruelty and fury of the
enemy.  The developments on this subject are yet imperfect;
but some general facts are known of the inordinate license of
the enemy in Missouri, while others of equal horrour have
escaped the notice of the public.
In other parts of the Confederacy many of the excesses of
the enemy were performed under certain formalities, and to
some extent regulated by them. But in Missouri there was
no "red tape," no qualification of forms; the order of the day
was open robbery, downright murder, and freedom to all crimes
of which "rebels " were the victims,  Citizens were plundered
with bare-faced audacity. Those citizens of St. Louis county
alone, who were suspected by Gen. Schofield to sympathize
with the South, were taxed five hundred thousand dollars to
arm, clothe and subsist those who were spilling the blood of
their biothers, and threatening their own homes with the torch
and with outrages to which death is preferable.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                177
The sanguinary guerrilla warfare in Missouri may be said to
have commenced in the month of July by the assembling of
bands under Porter, Poindexter, Cobb and others. The priticipal theatre of guerrilla operations was at this time the Northeastern division of Missouri, where the almost devilish cruelties
of the Yankee commander, the notorious Colonel McNeil, had
lashed the people into incontrollable fury.
On the 6th of August, Porter's band was attacked at Kirksville by McNeil with a large force of cavalry and six pieces of
artillery.  This gallant partizan made a resistance of four
hours against overwhelming numbers, and retired only after
such a demonstration of valour; leaving the Yankees to claim
as a victory an affair.in which they had sustained a loss of
more than five hundred in killed and wounded, probably double
our own.
The day after the action, a party of Yankee scouts succeeded in capturing near Edlina Col. F. McCullough, who was
attached to Porter's command, and at the time of his capture
was quite alone.  The next morning a train with an armed
escort proceeded from Edina to Kirksville. McCullough was
sent along. On arriving at Kirksville, the news of the capture
of this famous partisan excited the most devilish feeling among
the Yankee troops.  He was confined a brief time with the
other prisoners. Meantime a court-martial was held and he
was sentenced to be shot that very afternoon.  He received
the information of his fate with perfect composure, but protested against it.  Leaning against the fence, he Wvote a few
lines to his wife. These, with his watch, he delivered to the
officer, to be given to her.  Upon the way to his execution, he
requested the privilege to give the command to fire, which was
granted.  All being ready, he said: " What I have done, I
have done as a principle of right. Aim at the heart. Fire!"
The command taking the soldiers by surprise, one fired
sooner than the rest.  The ball entering his breast, he fell,
while the other shots passed over him.  Falling with one leg
doubled under the bddy, he requested to have it straightened
12




178          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
out. While this was being done he said: "I forgive you for
this barbarous act." The squad having reloaded their pieces,
another volley was fired-this time into his body, and he died.
On the 15th of August occurred the more important action
of Lone Jack.  Large  Yankee forces were moved  from
Lexington, with orders to effect a junction near Lone Jack and
attack the forces under Hughes and Quantrell, supposed to be
somewhere in Jackson county.  The disaster which met the
Yankees here was the most serious of the guerrilla campaign.
Their command was defeated, with a loss of three hundred
killed and wounded, two pieces of their artillery captured on
the field, their routed forces turned back upon Lexington and
that place put in imminent peril. The timely reinforcement
of Lexington by all the available forces of the enemy in Northeastern Missouri alone saved the place from.capture by the
Confederates, and disconcerted their plans of relieving their
comrades north of the river.
The guerrilla campaign of Missouri is made memorable by
the fearful story of the "Palmyra massacre."  The important
incidents of this tragedy are gathered from the enemy's own
publications, and it was from Yankee newspapers that the people of the South first learned the barbarous and exultant
news that McNeil had executed ten Confederate prisoners
because a tory and spy had been carried off a captive by our
forces.
From the enemy's own accounts, it appears that the missing
man, Andrew Allsman, was a legitimate prisoner of war; that
on the descent of the Confederate forces upon Palmyra he
was captured by them; that he belonged' to the Federal
cavalry, but that being too old to endure all the hardships of
active duty, he was detailed as a spy, being "frequently," as
one of the Yankee papers states, " called upon for information
touching the loyalty of men, which he always gave to the
extent of his ability."
When McNeil returned to Palmyra in October, he caused a
notice to be issued that unless Allsman. was returned in ten




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              179
days he would shoot ten Confederate prisoners as "a meet
reward for their crimes, among which was the illegal restraining of said Allsman of his liberty."  The ten days elapsed,
and the prisoner was not returned. The following account of
what ensued, is condensed from  the Palmyra Courier, a
"Union " journal, without any variation from the language in
which it describes the deed of the demons with whom it was in
sympathy:
" The tenth day expired with last Friday.  On that day ten
"rebel prisoners, already in custody, were selected to pay
"with their lives the penalty demanded.  A  little after 11
"o'clock, A. M., the next day, three government wagons drove
" to the jail. One contained four, and each of the others three
"rough board coffins.  The condemned men were conducted
"from  the prison and seated in the wagons, one upon each
" coffin. A sufficient guard of soldiers accompanied them, and
"the cavalcade started for the fatal grounds.  The ten coffins
were removed from the wagons and placed in a -row, six or' eight feet apart, forming a line north and south. Each coffin
" was placed upon the ground with its foot west and head east.
"Thirty soldiers of the 2d M. S. M. were drawn up in a single
"line, extending north and south, facing the row of coffins.' The arrangements completed, the men knelt upon the grass
"between their coffins and the soldiers.  At the conclusion of
"a prayer by the army chaplain, each prisoner took'his seat
"upon the foot of his coffin, facing the muskets which in a
"few moments were to launch them into eternity.  They were
" nearly all firm and undaunted.  The most noted of the ten
"was Captain Thomas A. Sidner of Monroe county, whose
"capture at Shelbyville, in the disguise of a woman, we related
"several weeks since. He was now elegantly attired in a suit
"of black broadcloth, with a white vest. A luxurious growth
"of beautiful hair rolled down upon his shoulders, which, with
"his fine personal appearance, could not but bring to mind the
"handsome but vicious Absalom.  There was nothing espe"cially worthy of note in the appearance of the others. A




180           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
" few moments after 1 o'clock the chaplain in attendance shook
"hands with the prisoners. Two of them accepted bandages
"for the eyes, the rest refused. A hundred spectators had
"gathered around the amphitheatre to witness the impressive
"scene.  The stillness of death pervaded the place.  The
"officer in command now stepped forward, and gave the wzrd
"of command-' Ready! aim! fire!'  The discharges, how"ever, were not made simultaneously-probably through want
" of a perfect understanding of the orders to fire. Two of the
"rebels fell backwards upon their coffins and died instantly.
"     Capt. Sidner sprang forward and fell with his head towards
"the soldiers, his face upwards, his hands clasped upon his
"breast, and the left leg drawn half way up.  He did not
"move again, but died immediately.  He had requested the
"soldiers to aim  at his heart, and they obeyed but too
" implicitly.  The other sevep were not killed outright; so the
"reserves were called in, who dispatched them  with their
"C revolvers."
The " Palmyra massacre " was destined to a long and painful remembrance by the people of the South, not only because
of its tragic interest, but because it was a comment scrawled
in blood on that weak and remiss policy of our government,
which had so long submitted to the barbarous warfare of the
enemy and hesitated at the rule of retaliation.
THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION.
A slight survey of the military situation at this time adds
something to the list of our disasters, and is necessary to understand the proportions of the crisis at which the fortunes of
the South had arrived.
The capture of Galveston on the coast of Texas, on the
9th of October, was another repetition of the almost invariable
story of disaster at the hands of the enemy's naval power. It
was made almost without resistance. In the early part of the
war, the defenceless condition of Galveston had been represented to the government, as in fact there was no ordnance




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              181
available there but a lot of old cannon captured from  the
United States.  These representations in the letters and petitions of thb  people of Galveston were made without effect,
until at last, some time in the summer of 1861, a deputation
of citizens waited upon the authorities at Richmond, begging
piteously a few cannon to defend them from the enemy. The
whole extent of the response of the government to this and
other appeals was to send to Galveston eleven or thirteen guns,
two of which were rifled; and transportation for these was
only given to New Orleans, whence they had to be dragged
over piney hills and through swamps to their destination.
The consequence was, that the enemy had made an easy prize
of one of our principal seaports; when, after threatening it
for eighteen months, he at last found it practically defenceless.
The fall of Galveston again turned the perplexed attention
of the people of the South to the enormous and rapid increase
of the enemy's naval power in this war as one of its most painful subjects of interest. This arm had grown to such size as
to.threaten us in many respects more seriously than the enemy's land forces. It was calculated, that with the completion
of their vast number of naval structures already on the stocks,
the Yankees would have 388 vessels, mounting 3,072 gunsnearly nine guns to the vessel. Of these, thirty were ironclad, mounting ninety of the heaviest guns in the world, each
weighing 42,240 pounds, and throwing a solid shot, fifteen
inches in diameter, weighing 480 pounds.
It is not wonderful that in view of these vast preparations
in the North, the people of the South should have watched
with intense interest the long lines of their sea-coast, and been
on the tiptoe of expectation for the fleets of the Yankees,
which were to sweep upon them in numbers and power yet unequalled by any naval demonstration of the enemy in this war.
It was easy to see that the South would have to look to its
foundries to set off the naval power of the enemy. When we
could match their naval armaments with our batteries on shore,
we might expect to hold our sea-coast against their fleets.  The




182          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
authorities at Richmond were instructed that there was but one
way of replying to the Yankee iron-clads on equal terms;
and that was by iron-clad batteries, with powerful guns in
them, and with the use of steel-pointed or wrought-iron projectiles.
In the Southwest, the strong tenure which we maintained
of Vicksburg was a stumbling-block to the Yankee schemes for
the conquest of Mississippi. The fate of that State was also
confidently entrusted to the brave troops under the command
of General Pemberton, who was assisted by Van Dorn and
Price and an increasing army.
But it was to Tennessee that the minds of the intelligent
were turned to look for the earliest and severest conflict of the
campaign in the West.  The enemy already held the western
portion of the State and a part of the middle, and evidently
desired to obtain possession of the eastern portion.  He was
reported to be coming down from Kentucky for the purpose,
in heavy columns, under Gen. Rosecranz, by way of Nashville; and there was reason to suppose that he would endeavour to make a flank movement on Knoxville, and, at the same
time, capture Chattanooga, as the key of North Alabama and
Georgia.
In Virginia a lull had followed the famous summer campaign,
and our army in the northern part of the State quietly recruited, and was daily improving in organization and numbers.
The only incident that had broken the monotony of our camps
was -the renewal in the North of the phantom of "invasion by
the rebels" by a raid into Pennsylvania, accomplished by the
rapid and brilliant commander of our cavalry, Gen. J. E. B.
Stuart, with about two thousand men. The expedition penetrated to Chambersburg, which was occupied for a short time
by our troops on the 10th of October. It met with no resistance, accumulated no stores, and accomplished nothing beyond
the results of a reconnoissance, and the wonder of one of the
most rapid marches on record.
This expedition left to the Yankees a remarkable souvenir




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               183
of Southern chivalry. Private property was uniformly respected by our troops; Yankee civilians were treated with
scrupulous regard; and many kindnesses were shown the
alarmed people in a knightly style, which would have been
creditable to us had it not been made ridiculous by excess of
courtesy and a tender and ceremonious politeness which was
in very absurd contrl  to the manners of our enemy.  On entering Chambersburg, "the soft-mannered rebels," as Colonel
McClure, the Yankee commander of the post, described them,
treated him with the most tender politeness.  Indeed, the narrative of this officer's experience furnishes a curious leaf in
the history of the war.  To the great amusement of the people of the North, Col. McClure gave a long account in the
newspapers of the strained chivalry of our troops.  He related how they had "thanked him for being candid," when he
told them that he was a Republican; how he was politely asked
for food by the officers; and how a private in Stuart's terrible
command had, "with a profound bow, asked for a few coals to
light a fire."
The story of these courtesies and salaams to our enemy is
not one for our amusement.  It affords an instructive illustration that is valuable in history, of the over-amiable disposition
and simple mind of the South; and it places in stark and horrible contrast an agreeable picture with that of the devilish
atrocities and wanton and mocking destruction of the Yankee
armies on the soil of the Confederacy.
While the war lagged, we are called upon to notice new
sources of resolution and power in the South, which were perhaps mole valuable than victories in the field. In this department of interest, which is quite equal to that of battles and
sieges, it will be necessary to pass in review some political acts
of the rival governments, and some events of moral importance.
At last the Abolitionists of the North had had their wild
and wicked will.  On the 22d day of September, President
Lincoln issued his celebrated proclamation of " emancipa



184              THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
tion"* of the slaves of the South, to  take effect after the first
of next January,  thus unmasking  the  objects  of  the  war,
and  exhibiting  to  the  world  the  sublime  of administrative
madness.
* The following is a copy of this remarkable document:
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES-A PROCLAMATION.
Washington, Sept. 22, 1862.
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare, that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object
of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States
and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended
or disturbed; that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to
again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary
aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all the slave States, so called, the
people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and
which States may then have voluntarily adopted or thereafter may voluntarily adopt the immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the efforts to colonize persons of African descent,
with their consent, upon the continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the governments eiisting there, will be continued; that on
the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State. the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against
the United States, shall be thenceforward and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the naval and military authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons,
and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any
efforts they may make for their actual freedom; that the Executive will, on
the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and
parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then
be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the
people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress
of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated; shall, in
the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof have not been in rebellion
against the United States.
And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military
and naval service of the United States to observe, obey and enforce within
their respective spheres of service the act aid sections above recited.
And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the
United States, who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                  185
Since the commencement of the war, the Abolitionists had
gradually compassed their ends at Washington, or rather the
real objects and inherent spirit of the war had been gradually
developed.  They had legislated slavery forever out of the
territories; they had abolished it in the District of Columbia;
they had passed laws confiscating the property of "rebels"
and emancipating their slaves, and declaring all fugitive slaves
free within their military lines; they had made it a crime on
the part of their military officers to restore or aid in restoring
any fugitive slave to his master; and finally, they had procured from President Lincoln a. proclamation declaring all the
slaves in the Confederate States beyond the lines of their land
and naval forces "henceforward and forever free."
This infamous proclamation, while regarded by the South as
a fulmination of exasperated passion, was in the North a source
of weakness and division. It divided the North and strengthened the enemies of Mr. Lincoln's administration  without
creating any enthusiasm  amongits friends.  The few in the
North who still had some regard for the written constitution
under which they lived, contended that the President could
not proclaim emancipation except under the pressure of military necessity, and what sort of a military necessity, it was
asked, was that which admitted of a delay of a hundred days.
The fulmen brutum  issued to appease the anti-slavery party
proved a fire-brand at home.  Many even of this party were
dissatisfied and decried the proclamation because of its tardiness.  "There was a time," said the New  York Tribune,
"when even this bit of paper could have brought the negro to
our side; but now slavery, the real rebel capital, has been surrounded by a Chickahominy swamp of blunders and outrages
against that race which no paper spade can dig through."
United States and their respective States and people, if the relation shall
have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of
the United States, including the loss of slaves.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.




186              THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
To  the  South  the fulmination  of Lincoln  was a crowning
proof of the true principles of the party that had elevated him
to the Presidency, and that on its accession to power had made
perfidious use of the most solemn pledges.* It was a public
confession of the fact that conquest, extermination and emancipation were  the real objects of the war-a fact which  the
enemy  for a while  had  affected  to  deny.  It attempted  to
accomplish by the horrours of servile insurrection what our
enemy had  failed  to  accomplish  by  military  operations.  It
* One of the most singular juxtapositions between the professions of the
North at the commencement of hostilities and its present ideas, is afforded
in Mr. Seward's famous letter, written to the French Government on the 22d
April, 1861, and his subsequent circular to the Yankee ministers in Europe.
It is one of the most singular of all the juggleries and summersaults of
Yankee diplomacy.
In the first pronunciamento of Secretary Seward, written "by the direction
of the President," occurs the following passage:
" The condition of slavery in the seeral States will remain just the same,
"whether it succeeds or faiJ.  The rlits of the States, and the condition of
" every human being in them, will remain subject to exactly the same laws
" and form of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether' it shall fail.  Their constitutions and laws and customs, habits and institu"tions in either case will remain the same. It is hardly necessary to add to
"this incontestable statement the further fact that the new President, as well
"as the citizens through whose suffrages he has come into the administration,
"has always repudiated all designs whatever, and wherever imputed to him
"and them, of disturbing the system of slavery as it is existing under the Consltitution and laws.  The case, however, would not be fully presented were
"I to omit to say that any such effort on his part would be unconstitutional,
"and  all his acts in that direction would be prevented by the judicial
"authority, even though they were assented to by Congress and the people."
Within eighteen months after Seward declares officially to one of the ministers of the government that the President has no wish and no right to interfere with the institutions of the "rebellious " States, he writes another letter,
also directed to the ministers abroad, announcing the adoption of a policy
which, if it could be carried out, would make a complete revolution in the
social organization of the South. Utterly regardless of his former position
and declaration, he undertqles to justify the "emancipation" proclamation of
the Yankee President.  But this is not all.  What shall we say of the
effrontery of the lie, when Seward asserts that the abolition proclamation is
not only a just and proper act, but avows his belief that the world will recognize "the moderation and magnanimity with which the government proceeds in a
matter so solemn and important!"




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                187
confessed to the world his inability and failure to accomplish
his purposes by regular and honorable hostilities. It was, in
short, the diabolical attempt of an infatuated ruler, unworthy
of authority, in a fit of disappointed malice, to inflict the worst
horrours known to human nature upon eight millions of people
who had wisely rejected his authority.
The "emancipation" proclamation not only strengthened
the South and nerved her to greater exertions in the war, but
it fortunately gave occasion to the world for a more interested
observation and closer study of the peculiar institution of the
Confederacy.  The sympathies of Europe with the anti-slavery
party in America were depressed by the conduct of that party,
its exhibitions of ferocity and by the new manifestations which
the war had made of the nature and moral condition of negro
slavery in the South.
Indeed, the war had shown the system  of slavery in the
South to the world in some new and striking aspects, and had
removed much of that cloud of prejudice, defamation, falsehood, romance and perverse sentimentalism through which our
peculiar institution had been formerly known to Europe.  It
had given a better vindication of our system of slavery than
all the books that could be written in a generation.  It had
shown that slavery was an element of strength with us; that
it had assisted us in our struggle; that no servile insurrections
had taken place in the South in spite of the allurements of our
enemy; that the slave had tilled the soil while his master had
fought; that in large districts unprotected by our troops, and
with a white population consisting almost exclusively of women
and children, the slave had continued at his work quiet, cheerful and faithful; and that, as a conservative element in our
social system, the institution of slavery had withstood the
shocks of war and been a faithful ally of our arms, although
instigated to revolution by every art of the enemy, and
prompted to the work of assassination and pillage by the most
brutal examples of the Yankee toldiery.*
* The missionary settlements of th/Tankees on the coast of South Caro



188              THE SECOND YEAR  OF THE WAR.
Since the commencement of the  war the  North  had  had
almost exclusive  access  to  the  ear  of the  world, and  had
poured into it whatever of slander or of misrepresentation
human  ingenuity  could  suggest.  This  circumstance, which
was at first thought to be a great disadvantage to us, had not
only proved a harmless annoyance, but had resulted in invaluable benefit. It had secured sympathy far us; it had excited
the inquiries of the intelligent, who, after all, give the law to
public opinion; and it had naturally tempted the North to
such lying and bravado as to disgust the world.
At the beginning  of the war the  North  had assured  the
world  that the people of the  South  were a sensual and  barbarous people, demoralized by their institution of slavery, and
depraved by self will and licentiousness below the capacity for
lina were an acknowledged failure, so far as the proposed education and exaltation of the blacks were concerned. The appearance of the ancient town
of Beaufort, since it had fallen into the enemy's possession, indicated the
peculiarities of Yankee rule, and afforded an interesting exhibition of their
relations with the negro.  The inhabitants had taken nothing away with
them but their personal property and their valuable domestic slave servants.
The furniture was left untouched in the houses. These houses were owned
by the Barnwells, the Rhetts, the Cuthberts, the' Phillipses, and other distinguished families of North Carolina.  The elegant furniture, the libraries, the
works of art, had nearly all disappeared. They had been sent North from
time to time by Yankee officers, and many of these officers of high rank.
The elegant dwelling-houses had been converted into barracks, negro quarters, hospitals and store-houses.  The beat houses had been put in complete
order, and were occupied by the officers of the department and the abolitionist missionaries from  Boston and elsewhere.  The efforts of these missioparies to teach the negroes their letters and habits of cleanliness met with no
success. Beaufort was full of negroes, well clothed, at government expense,
fat, saucy and lazy. The town looked dirty and disorderly, and had the appearance of a second class Mexican village. Some of the'missionaries had
been elevated to the position of planters, and occupied the estates of the old
Carolinians. The labor on these estates was performed by contraband negroes. These abolition lords assumed all the hauteur and dignity of the
Southern planter. The only difference to the black labourer was that he
had the name of freeman; his labour was as unrelenting as ever. Massachusetts missionaries and Massachusetts speculators enjoyed the larger share
of government patronage here.  The department of Hunter appeared to be
experimenting in attempts to elevate.aegro to equality with the white man.
Military operations were secondary considerations.




THE SECOND YEAR OF TIE WAR.                189
administrative government. The best reply to these slanders,
was our conduct in this war.  Even the litte that was known
in Europe of the patriotic devotion, the dignity and cultivated
humanity of the people of the South, as shown in the war, had
been sufficient to win unbounded encomiums for them.  We
had not only withstood for nearly two years a power which had
put thirteen hundred thousand men in the field; but we had
shown that we were a people able in public affairs, resolute,
brave and prudent.
Another characteristic Yankee misrepresentation, made to
the world about this time on the subject of the war, was, that
it was to be concluded at an early day by the force of destitution and suffering in the South. The delusion of conquering
the "rebels" by famine easily caught the vulgar ear. The
North made it a point to exaggerate and garble everything it
could find in Southern newspapers, of the ragged condition of
our armies, the high prices of the necessaries of life, and the
hardships of the'war.  The Yankees were pleasantly entertained with stories of our suffering.  Their pictorials were
adorned with caricatures of "secesh" in skeleton soldiers and
gaunt cavalrymen with spurs strapped to their naked heels.
Their perfumed fops and dainty ladies had the fashion of tittering at the rags of our prisoners. They had an overwhelming sense of the ludicrous in the idea of Southern women
cutting up.the carpets in their houses to serve for blankets and
garments for.the soldiers.
The fact was that our sufferings were great; but their mute
eloquence which the enemy misinterpreted as a prospect of
craven submission, was truly the sign of self-devotion. Whatever was suffered in physical destitution was not to be regretted.  It practiced our people in self-denial; it purified their
spirit; it brought out troops of virtues; it ennobled our women with offices of charity; it gave us new bonds of sympathy
and love, and it trained us in those qualities which make a
nation great and truly independent.
In the whirl of passing events, many strange things were




190          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
daily happening around us that at a remoter period of history
will read like rontance. The directions of our industry were
changed.  Planters raised corn and potatoes, fattened hogs
and cultivated garden vegetables, while cotton was by universal consent neglected. Our newspapers were of all sizes and
colours, sometimes containing four pages, sometimes two, and
not a few were printed on common brown wrapping paper.
Politics were dead.  A  political eiemy was a curiosity only
read of in the records of the past.  Our amusements had been
revolutionized. Outside of Richmond, a theatre was remembered only as an institution of bye-gone times.  Most of our
people did their own playing and their own singing; and the
ladies spent the mornings in sewing coarse shirts or pantaloons
for the soldiers to wear, and sung in public at night to gain
money for the soldiers' equipments.
The footprints of the enemy, in Virginia especially, had
marked lines of desolation such as history seldom  records.
Starting from Fortress Monroe and running westward to Winchester, scarcely a house within fifty miles of the Potomac but
bore evidence of Yankee greed and spoliation.  In nearly
every county the court-house in which the assizes for each
county used to be held, was rudely demolished, doors and windows torn down, while within, upon the white walls in every
phase of handwriting, were recorded the autographs of the
vandals, whose handiwork surrounded the beholder..
While the people of the South suffered, the resources of the
country were developed by harsh necessity; and about the period where our narrative reaches, we are called upon to notice
that happy change in the administration of our government, in
which short-sighted expectations of peace were replaced by
the policy of provision and an amassment of stores for a war
of indefinite duration. Measures were adopted to afford adequate supplies of ordnance, arms and munitions for the army.
Of small arms the supply was more adequate to the regiments
of the army than at any other time. They had increased from
importation and capture not less than eighty thousand. Es



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                191
tablishments for making ordnance were founded in different
parts of the South; a nitre corps was organized for service;
and former dread of deficiency of the munition! of war no
longer existed. The manufacturing resources of the country,
especially in iron, were liberally patronized by the government,
by large advances and liberal contracts; but in this the public
service met great embarrassment from the temptations constantly offered to contractors to prefer the superiour profits
which they could command by supplying the general market.
The quartermaster's department was under the direction of
Gen. Myers, of South Carolina, whose contributions to the cause
of the South, in the zeal ana ability which he brought into his
important office, must take a high rank in all the histories of
the war.  He contended against the great obstacles of the
blockade, the difficulties of railroad transportation and the
constant losses in the enemy's ravages of the country, and
performed wonders under the most unfavorable circumstances.
Woolens and leather were imported from  Europe through
trains of difficulties; the most devoted exertions were made to
replenish the scant supplies of blankets and shoes in the army;
and by usitg to the utmost our internal resources, by the establishment of factories and the organization of workshops;
and by greater economy in the use of our supplies, the sufferings of our soldiers were alleviated and their zeal refreshed
for the campaign.




192             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER VII.
The Heroism  of Virginia...Her Battle-Fields...Bnrnside's Plan of Campaign...Calculations of his Movement upon Fredericksburg...Failure to Surprise Gen. Lee...THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG...The Enemy Crossing the
River...Their Bombardment of the Town...Scenes of Distress...The Battle on
the Right Wing...The Story of Marye's Heights...Repulse of the Enemy...
The Old Lesson of Barren Victory...Death of Gen. Cobb...Death of General
Gregg...Romance of the Story of Fredericksburg...Her Noble Women...Yankee Sacking of the Town...A Specimen of Yankee Warfare in North Carolina...Designs of the Enemy in this State...The Engagements of Kinston...
Glance at other Theatres of the War...Gen. Hindman's Victory at Prairie
Grove...Achievements of our Cavalry in the West...The Affair of Hartsville...
Col. Clarkson's Expedition...Condition of Events at the Close of the Year
1862.
Virginia had  born'e the  brunt of the  war,  Nearly  twothirds of her territory had been  overrun by the enemy, and
her richest fields had been drenched with blood or marked by
the scars of the invader.  The patriotic spirit and the chivalrous endurance of this ancient and admirable commonwealth
had not only supported these losses and afflictions without a
murmur, but these experiences of the war were the sources of
new inspiration, and the occasions of renewed resolution and
the reinforcement of courage by'the sentiment of devotion.
When we add to the consideration of the grand spirit of this
State the circumstances that the flower of the Confederate
army was naturally collected on this the most critical theatre
of the war, and that the operations in Virginia were assisted
by the immediate presence of the government, we shall naturally look here for the most brilliant and decisive successes of
the war.
When  the Confederate army fell back into Virginia, after
its short but eventful campaign in Maryland, Gen. Lee, by the
skillful disposition of his forces in front'of Winchester, ren



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 193
dered it impracticable for McClellan to invade the Valley of
the Shenandoah, and forced him to adopt the route on the east
side of the Blue Ridge.  The Federal commander accepted
this alternative the more readily, since he hoped, by an ostentatious display of a part of his forces near Shepherdstown, to
deceive Gen. Lee and gain his flank and rear at Warrenton.
On his arrival at this latter- place, however, much to his
surprise and dismay, he found the forces of Lee quietly awaiting him on the south bank of the Rappahannock.
McClellan having been superseded by Burnside, that officer
undertook a plan of campaign entirely on his own responsibility, in opposition to the suggestions of IIalleck and to what
were known to be the predilections of the military authorities
at Washington.  The plan of Gen. Burnside was to concentrate
the army in the neighbourhood of Warrenton, to make a small
movement across the Rappahannock as a feint, with a view to
divert the attention of the Confederates and lead them  to
believe he was going to move in the direction of Gordonsville,
and then to make a rapid movement of the whole army to
Fredericksburg, on the North side of the Rappahannock.
In moving upon Fredericksburg, Gen. Burnside calculated
that his army would all the time be as near Washington as
would the Confederates, and that after arriving at Fredericksburg it would be at a point nearer to Richmond than it would
be even if it should take Gordonsville.
This novel enterprise against the Confederate Capital was
hailed by the Northern newspapers with renewed acclamations
of "on to Richmond;" and the brazen and familiar prophecy
of the fall of the city " within ten days" was repeated with
new emphasis and bravado.  In the meantime the plans of
Burnside, so far as they contemplated a surprise of the Confederates, had failed, and at Fredericksburg, as at Warrenton,
his army found itself, by the active movements of Gen. Lee,
confronted'by a force sufficient to dispute its advance and to
deliver battle on a scale commensurate with the stake.
13




19-           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.
Gen. Burnside having concentrated his army at Fredericksburg, employed himself for several days in the latter part of
November in bringing up from Aquia Creek all the pontoons
he could for building the bridges which were necessary to throw
his forces across the river.  Several councils of war were called
to decide about crossing the Rappahannock.  It was finally
determined to cross at Fredericksburg, under the impression
that Gen. Lee had thrown a large portion of his force down
the river and elsewhere, thus weakening his defences in front.
On the night of the 10th December the enemy commenced
to throw  three  bridges  over the  Rappahannock-two at
Fredericksburg, and the third  about a'mile and a quarter
below, near the mouth  of Deep Run.  In the prosecution of
this work, the enemy was defended by his artillery on the hills
of Stafford, which completely commanded the plain on which
Fredericksburg stands.  The narrowness of the Rappahannock,
its winding course, and deep bed, afforded opportunity for the
construction of bridges at points beyond the reach of our
artillery, and thb  banks had to be watched by skirmishers.
The houses of Fredericksburg afforded a cover for the skirmishers at the bridges opposite the town, but at the lowest
point of crossing no shelter could be had.
The 17th Mississippi regiment, Barksdale's brigade, being
on picket within the town, were ordered to the bluff overlooking the site of the old railroad bridge.  The moon was brilliant, and by its light our men could distinguish the enemy's
forces working on a pontoon bridge stretching from  the Stafford bank towards the foot of the bluff.  In the course of an
hour the bridge had been stretched within sixty yards of the
southern shore.  The work was going bravely on, when the
two companies of the 17th, who were lying on the extreme
verge of the bluff, were ordered to fire.  The order was deliberately given and executed.  At the crack of our rifles, the
bridge-builders scampered for the shore; but the next moment




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 195
there was opened upon the bluff a terrific fire of shell, grape
and musketry, which was kept up until our troops retired.
Twice again, at intervals of half an hour, the enemy renewetd
the attempt to complete the bridge, but was in each instance
repulsed. After the third repulse of the enemy, the whole of
Barksdale's brigade was ordered to the support of the 17th
regiment, and were put into position, some in the rear of the
bluff and others higher upland lower down the stream.  At
this juncture the enemy's fire from cannon and small arms became so tremendous and overwhelming that our troops were
only preserved from  destruction by lying flat on their faces.
In every instance in which a man ventured to raise his head
from the earth, he was instantly riddled by bullets or torn to
pieces by grapeshot. The emergency may be understood when
it is borne in mind that the position occupied by our men was
swept by the enemy's batteries and sharpshooters not two hundred yards distant on the opposite heights.
Towards five o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th December,
three rousing cheers from the river bank beneath the bluff announced that the enemy had completed the bridge, and that
his troops had effected a landing on the southern bank. About
this time the order for a retreat was received by our men.
The regiments of the brigade fell back by different streets,
firing as they retreated upon the enemy, who closely followed
them.  The brigade rendezvoused at the nmarket-house and
faced the enemy.  A  sharp skirmish ensued, but our troops,
acting under orders, again fell back and left the town in possession of the enemy.
It having become evident to Gen. Lee that no effectual opposition could be offered to the construction of the bridges or
passage of the river, it only remained that positions should be
selected to oppose the enemy's advance after crossing.  Under
cover of the darkness of the night of the 12th and of a dense
fog, a large force passed the river, and took position on the
right bank, protected by their heavy guns on the left.
The effects of the enemy's bombardment upon the unfortu



196           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
nate town were deplorable.  The majority of the population
had long ago fled the city at the prospect of its destruction;
and the touching spectacles of their misery and suffering were
seen for miles around the city, where houseless women and
children were camped out or roaming shelterless and hungry
through the fields.  A number of citizens who had returned to
the town under the delusion that it would not be attacked, left
it during the day the enemy crossed the river, single or in
families, and sought for refuge and safety in the country.
They were scattered about-some in cabins, some in the open
air, and others wandering vacantly along the railroads.  Little
children with blue feet trod painfully the frozen ground, and
those whom  they followed knew as little as themselves where
to seek food and shelter.  Hundreds of ladies wandered homeless over the frozen highway, with bare feet and thin clothing,
knowing not where to find a place of refuge.  Delicately nurtured girls, with slender forms, upon which no rain had ever
beat, which no wind had ever visited too roughly, walked hurriedly, with unsteady feet, upon the road, seeking only some
place where they could shelter themselves.  Whole families
sought sheds by the wayside, or made roofs of fence-rails and
straw, knowing not whither to fly, or to what friend to have
recourse.  This was the result of the enemy's bombardment.
Night had settled down, and though the roar of the batteries
had hushed, the flames of burning houses still lit up the landscape.
The sun of the 13th of December rose clear, but a dim fog
shrouded the town of Fredericksburg and the circumjacent
valleys, and delayed the opening of the antagonistic batteries.
At two o'clock in the morning our troops were all under arms,
and batteries in position to receive the expected attack of the
enemy.
The Rappahannock, in its course from west to east, is skirted,
just at the point where Fredericksburg stands on its southern
bank, by low crests of hills, which on the northern bank run
parallel and close to the river, and on the southern bank trend




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 197
backward from the stream, and leave a semi-circular plain six
miles in length and two or three in depth, enclosed within their
circumference before they again approach the river in the
neighborhood of Massaponax creek.  Immediately above the
town, and on the left of the Confederate position, the bluffs
are bold and bare of trees; but south of the railroad,'beginning near the town and running to a point at Hamilton's Crossing, and also parallel with the river, is a range of hills covered
with dense oak forest fringed on its northern border by pine
thickets.  Our forces occupied the whole length of this forest.
Longstrect's corps occupied the highlands above, opposite and
for a mile below the town.  Jackson's corps rested on Longstreet's right, and extended away to the eastward, the extreme
right under A. P.. Hill crossing the railroad at Iamilton's
crossing, and stretching  into the valley towards the river.
Our front was about six miles in length.  Most of the batteries of both corps were posted in the skirts of the forest, along
the line of the railroad, the seven batteries in Colonel Lindsey
Walker's regiment and Stuart's horse artillery being stationed
in the valley, between the railroad at Hamilton's Crossing and
the river.  The enemy's forces occupied the valley north of
the railroad from Fredericksburg to within half a mile of our
extreme right.  His light batteries were posted over the southern extremity of the valley, at from  a quarter of a mile to a
mile from  the railroad, while the hills on the northern banks
of the river from Falmouth to Fitzhugh's farm, five miles below Fredericksburg, were studded at intervals of half a mile
with his batteries of heavy guns.
At noon the fog had cleared away, but there was a thick
haze in the atmosphere.  About this time the enemy's infantry
moved forward from  the river towards our batteries on the
hills. As they pressed forward.across the valley, Stuart's
horse artillery from our extreme right opened upon them a destructive enfilading fire of round shot.  This fire, which annoyed them sorely, was kept up in spite of six batteries which
were directed against the horse artillery as soon as it was un



198            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
masked.  By one o'clock the Yankee columns had crossed the
valley and entered the woods south of the railroad.  The batteries on both sides slackened their fire, and musketry, at first
scattering, but quickly increasing to a crash and roar, sounded
through the woods.  Dense volumes of smoke rose above the
trees, and volley succeeded volley, sometimes so rapidly as to
blend into a prolonged and continuous roar. A..  ill's division sustained the first shock of battle.  The rest of Jackson's corps were in different lines of reserves.  D. II. Iill's
division was drawn up in J. L. Marye's field, under a long hill,
in rear of our line of battle.  Here they remained (luring the
most of the day, being moved from time to time to the right
or left, as the exigencies of battle dictated.  Shortly after the
infantry fight began, a brigade of this division was moved at a
double-quick a mile and a half to the right, and posted in a
dense clump of pines in supporting distance of Stuart's horse
artillery.  In ten minutes they were brought back to their
original position.  The celerity of this movement made a singular and exciting spectacle..A  long black line shoots from
the position of the reserves, crosses the railroad at Hamilton's
station, skims across the valley, and in a few moments is lost
in the pines nearly two miles away.  After scarcely a breathing spell, the same line emerges from  the pines and retraces
its steps to its original position.  As this brigade resumed its
position in reserve, the fire of musketry directly in its front
slackened.  A  few  crackling shots were heard to our left,
along Longstreet's division, and then a succession of volleys,
which were kept up at intervals during the remainder of the
evening.  The musketry fire on our right was soon renewed,
and the battle raged with increased fury.  Our batteries along
our whole front again re-opened, and Col. Walker's artillery
regiment, composed of Latham's, Letcher's, Braxton's, Pegram's, Crenshaw's, Johnson's and McIntosh's batteries, statiodned in the open low grounds to the east of the railroad at
Hamilton's station, moved forward several hundred yards in
the -direction of Fredericksburg.  Hill's and Early's troops




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                   199
had driven the enemy from  the woods and across the railroad
in the direction of their pontoon bridges near Deep Itun.  Our
men pursued them a milo and a half across the bottom  land,
and fell back only when they had gotten under the shelter of
their batteries.  Again the enemy rallied and returned to renew the contest, but were again driven bacik.  All the batteries
of Jackson's corps were at this time in full play, and in the
approaching twilight the blaze of the guns and the quick
flashes of the shells more distinctly visible, constituted a scene
at once splendid and terrific.
On the right wing the enemy hadi been driven back witl
great loss.  General Stuart had well redeemed  his grim
despatch-that he was "going to crowd'ern with artillery."
The enormous strength  of this military arm  had been used
with desperation on one side and devoted courage on the other.
The enemy had twenty thousan(li  men engiged on this wing;
while, altogether, from first to last, we,had not more than ten
thousand in the line of fire.
But while the battle was dashing furiously against the lines
of Jackson, the enemy was crossing troops over his bridges at
Fredericksburg and massing tltem  in front of Longstreet, in
the immediate neighbourhood cf the town.
On reference to the positions of the battle-field, it will be
apparent that the left of the Confederate army-a portion of
it stationed not more than four hundred yards from Fredericksburg-occupied a much streonger position than the centre and
right.  There was not sufficient room for the Yankee troops
destined for the attack of the nearest ConFederate batteries to
deploy and form, except under a deadly Confederate fire,
whereas, the Yankee troops who  attacked the Confederate
centre and right ha.d a large plain on which to deploy, and had
much fewer disad(vantagfes of ground to contend with, inasmuch
as they advanced against lower hills and had the long spurs of
copse to assist them as points of attack, calculated to protect
and serve as points d'appui to the Yankees if they could once
have succeeded in carrying and holding them.




200           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
In this part of the field the enemy displayed a devotion that
is remarkable in history.  This display does not adorn the
Yankees: it was made by a race that has left testimonies of
its courage in such stories as Waterloo and Fonteroy.  To the
Irish division, commanded by Gen. Meagher, was principally
committed the desperate task of bursting out of the town of
Fredericksburg, and forming under the withering fire of the
Confederate batteries, to attack  Marye's Heights, towering
immediately in their front.  The troops were harangued in
impassioned language by their commander, who pointed to the
heights as the contested prize of victory.
The heights were occupied by the Washington Artillery and
a portion of McLaws' division.  As the enemy advanced, the
artillery reserved their fire until he arrived within two hundred
and fifty yards, when they opened on the heavy masses with
grape and canister.  At the first broadside of the sixteen guns
of the battalion, hundreds of the enemy went down, and at every
successive discharge great furrows were plowed through their
ranks.  They staggerec  repeatedly, but were as often rallied
and brought forward.  Again and again they made frantic
dashes upon our steady line of fire, and as often were the hillsides strewn for acres with their corpses.  At last, no longer
able to withstand the withering fire, they broke and fled in
confusion. They were pressed into town by our infantry. Our
victory was complete all along the line.  When the voices of
our officers in the darkness ordered the last advance, the combat had terminated in the silence of the foe.
The enemy left behind him a ghastly field.  Some portions
of it were literally packed with his dead.  At the foot of
Marye's Heights was a frightful spectacle of carnage.  The
bodies which had fallen in dense masses within forty yards of
the muzzles of Col. ]Talton's guns, testified to the gallantry of
the Irish division, and showed what manner of men they were
who pressed on to death with the dauntlessness of a race whose
courage history has made indisputable.  The loss of the enemy
was out of all comparison in numbers with our own; the




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                201
evidences of its extent do not permit us to doubt that it was
at least ten thousand; while our own killed and wounded,
during the operations since the movements of the enemy began
at Fredericksburg, amounted to about eighteen hundred.
At the thrilling tidings of Fredericksburg the hopes of
the South rose high that we were at last to realize some
important and practical consequences from the prowess of our
arms.  We had obtained a victory in which the best troops of
the  North-including  Sumner's grand division-had been
beaten; in which. defeat had left the shattered foe cowering
beneath the houses of Fredericksburg; and in which he had
been forced into a position which left him no reasonable hope
of escape, with a river in his rear, which, though threaded by
pontoon  bridges, would  have  been impassable under the
pressure of attack.'It is remarkable that, so far as the war
had progressed, although fought on an almost unparalleled
scale in numbers, it was yet not illustrated by the event so
common in the military history of Europe, of the decisive
annihilation of any single army.  But it was thought that
Fredericksburg, at least, would give an illustration  of a
decisive victory in this war.  The Southern public waited with
impatience for the completion of the success that had already
been announced, and the newspapers were eagerly scanned for
the hoped-for intelligence that Gen. Lee had, by the vigour of
a fresh assault, dispatched his crippled enemy on the banks of
the river.  But no such assault was made.  While the public
watched with keen impatience for the blow, the announcement
came that the enemy, after having remained entirely at his
leisure one day in Fredericksburg, had the next night crossed
the Rappahannock without accident or a single effort at interruption on our part, and that the army of Burnside, which
was a short while ago thought to be in the jaws of destruction,
was quietly re-organizing in perfect security on the north bank
of the river.  It was the old lesson to the South of a barren
victory.  The story of Fredericksburg was incomplete and
unsatisfactory; and there appeared no prospect but that a war




202            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
waged at awful sacrifices was yet indefinitely to linger in the
trail of bloody skirmishes.
The victory, which  had  only tle negative advantage of
having checked the enemy without destroying him, and the
vulgar glory of our having killed and wounded several thousand
men more than we had lost, had been purchased by us with
lives, though compatratively small in numbers, yet infinitely
more precious than those of mercenary hordes arrayed against
us.  Two of our Brigladier-Generals~-General Thomas R. R.
Cobb of Georgia and Gen. Maxcy Gregg of South Carolinahad fallen on the field.  The loss of each was more conspicuous
from extraordinary personal worth than from mere distinctions
of rank.  Gen. Cobb was the brother of Gen. tIowell Cobb,
and was an able and eloquent member of the Provisional Congress, in which body he had served in the important capacity
of chairman of the committee on military affairs.
Of the virtues and services of Gen. Maxcy Gregg it is not
necessary to remind any portion of the people of the South
by a detailed review of incidents in his career.  His name was
familiarly coupled with the first movements of the war, he
having been appointed to the command of the First South
Carolina regiment, the first force from the State which arrived
in Virginia, and whose advent at Richmond had been hailed
with extraordinary demonstrations of honour and welcome.
The term of the service of this regiment having expired, it
returned to South Carolina, but its commander, Colonel Gregg,
remained in Virginia, and subsequently re-organized the regiment, which had since been constan ly and conspicuously in
service.  Its commander was subsequently inade a Brigadier
General.
Gen. Gregg, although the occupations of his life were principally professional, had a large and brilliant political reputation in his State.  He was a leading member of the bar, and
practiced his profession with  distinction  and success for a
period of more than twenty years in Columbia.  In politics
he was an extreme State Rights man, and stood, with others,




THE SECOND YEAR OF TIlE WAR.                203
at the head of that party in South Carolina.  Ile took a prominent part in favour of the policy of're opening the Slave Trade,
which had been the subject of some excited and untimely discussion in the South some years ago; he arid ex-Governor
Adams, of South Carolina, being associated as the leading
representatives of that idea in the Cotton States.
Gen. Gregg was remarkable for his firm and unflinching
temper.  In the army he had an extraordinary reputation for
self-possession and sang froid in battle.  He was never disconcerted, and had the happy faculty of inspiring the courage of
his troops, not so much by words as by his cool determination
and even behaviour.
The romance of the story of Fredericksburg, is written no
less in the quiet heroism of her women than in deeds of arms.
The verses of the poet rather than the cold language of a mere
chronicle of events are most fitting to describe the beautiful
courage and noble sacrifices of those brave daughters of Virginia, who preferred to see their homes reduced to ashes,
rather than polluted by the Yankee, and who in the blasts of
winter, and in the fiercer storms of blood and fire, went forth
undismayed, encouraging our soldiers, and proclaiming their
desire to suffer privation, poverty and death, rather than the
shame of a surrender or the misfortune of a defeat.  In all
the terrible scenes of Fredericksburg; there were no weakness
and tears of women.  Mothers, exiles from  their homes, met
their sons in the ranks, embraced them, told them  their duty,
and with a self-negation most touching to witness, concealed
their want, sometimes their hunger, telling their brave boys
they were comfortable and happy, that they might not be
troubled with domestic anxieties.  At Hamilton  Crossing,
many of the women had the opportunity of meeting their relatives-in the army.  In the haste of flight, mothers had brought
a few garments, or perhaps the last loaf of bread for the soldier boy, and the lesson of duty whispered in the ear gave to
the young heart the pure and brave inspiration to sustain it in
battle.  No more touching and noble evidence could be offered




204           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
of the heroism of the women of Fredericksburg than the gratitude of our army; for, afterwards, when subscriptions for
their relief came to be added up, it was found that thousands
of dollars had been contributed by ragged soldiers out of their
pittance of pay to the fund of the refugees.  There could be
no more eloquent tribute than this offered to the women of
Fredericksburg-a beautiful and immortal souvenir of their
sufferings and virtues.
What was endured in the Yankee sacking of the town, finds
scarcely anywhere a parallel in the history of civilized races.
It is impossible to detail here the murderous ants of the
enemy, the arsons, the robberies, the torture of women, and
the innumerable and indescribable villanies committed upon
helpless people.  The following extract from the New York
Tribune, written by one of its army correspondents in a tone
of devilish amusement, affords a glimpse of Burnside's brigands in Fredericksburg, and of.the accustomed barbarities of
the enemy.
" The old mansion of Douglas Gordon-perhaps the wealth" iest citizen in the vicinity-is now used as the headquarters
" of General Howard, but before he occupied it, every room
" had been torn with shot, and then all the elegant furniture
"and works of art broken and smashed by the soldiers, who
"burst into the house after having driven the rebel sharp" shooters from behind it.  When I entered it early this morn"ing, before its occupation by Gen. Howard, I found the sol" diers of his fine division diverting themselves with the rich
" dresses found in the wardrobes; some had on bonnets of the
"fashion of last year, and were surveying themselves before
"mirrors, which, an hour or two afterwards, were pitched out
"of the window and smashed to pieces upon the'pavement;
"others had elegant scarfs bound round their heads in the
"form of turbans, and shawls around their waists.
"We destroyed by fire nearly two whole squares of build"ings, chiefly used for business purposes, together with the
"fine residences of 0. AMcDowell, Dr. Smith, J. H. Kelly, A.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 205
" S. Cott, William Slaughter, and many other smaller dwell"ings.  Every store, I think, without exception, was pillaged
" of every valuable article. A fine drug store, which would
"not have looked badly on Broadway, was literally one mass
"of broken glass and jars."
The records of the Spanish and Moorish struggles, the wars
of the Roses and the thirty years war in Germany, may be
safely challenged for comparisons with the acts of barbarity
of the Yankees.  Their worst acts of atrocity were not committed in the mad intoxication of combat, but in cold and
cowardly blood on the helpless and defenceless.  While the
lawless and savage scenes in Fredericksburg, to which we have
referred, were still fiesh in the public mind, the enemy in
another department of the war, was displaying the same fiendish temper, stung by defeat and emboldened with the prospect
of revenging her fortunes on the women and children of the
South.  The Yankee incursions and raids in North Carolina
in the month of December are companion pieces to the sack of
Fredericksburg.' On entering Williamstown, North Carolina," says an eyewitness, " the Yankees respected not a single house-it mat"tered not whether the owner was in or absent.  Doors were
"broken open and houses entered by the soldiers, who took
" everything they saw, and what they were unable to carry
"away they broke and destroyed.  Furniture of every des" cription was committed to the flames, and the citizens who
" dared to remonstrate with them were threatened, cursed and
" buffeted about.   *                      The enemy stopped
"for the night at Mr. Ward's mill.  Mr. Ward was completely
"stripped of everything, they not even leaving him enough
"for breakfast.  While on a sick bed his wife was, in his pre"sence, searched and robbed of five hundred dollars.  The
"Yankees went about fifteen miles above Hamilton, when, for
"some cause, they suddenly turned and marched back, taking,
"with some slight deviations in quest of plunder, the same
"route they had come.. The town of Hamilton was set on




206           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
" fire and as many as fifteen houses laid in ashes.  During the
"time the Yankees erncamped at Williamstown  everything
" which they left unharmed when last there, was demolished.
"Every house in town was occupied and defaced.  Several
"fine residences were actually used as horse stables.  Iron
" safes were broken open, and in the presence of their owners
"rifled of their contents.  Several citizens were seized and
"robbed of the money on their persons.  *    *         *    *
" On Sunday morning Williamstown was fired and no effort
" made to arrest the flames until several houses were burnt.
" No attempt was made by the Yankee officers, from  General
" Foster down, to prevent the destruction of property.  On
"the contrary, they connived at it, and some of the privates
" did not hesitate to say that they were instructed to do as
" they had done.  Two ladies at Williamstown went to Gen.
"'Foster to beseech protection from  his soldiers, and were
"rudely and arrogantly ordered from his presence."
Referring to the same scenes, a correspondent writes: "Fa" milies who fled in dismay at the approach of the invader, re-' turned and found, as well as the few wiho remained at home,
"clothes, beds, bedding, spoons and books abstracted; costly
" furniture, crockery, doors, harness and vehicles demolished;
"locks, windows and mirrors broken; fences burned; corn,
" potatoes and peas gathered frcm the barns and fields con" sumed; iron safes dug to pieces and thrown out of doors,
" and their contents stolen."
The object of the enemy's movements in North Carolina,
long a subject of anxious speculation, was at last developed,
in time for a severe check to be given it.  At the time that
the enemy assaulted our lines in front of Fredericksburg, following his favorite policy of simultaneous attack in different
departments, he had planned a movement upon the Wilmington and Weldon railroad; and on the same day that the battle
of Fredericksburg was fought, occurred an important passage
of arms in North Carolina.
On the thirteenth of December, Brigadier General Evans




TIE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 207
encountered, with two thousand men, the advancing enemy,
and with this small force held him in check at Southwest creek,
beyond Kinston.  The Yankee force, commanded by Foster,
consisted of fifteen thousand men and nine gunboats.  Having delayed their advance for some time, General Evans succeeded in withdrawing his force, with small loss, to the left
bank of the Neuse river at Kinston.  Ite held the Yankees at
bay until the 16th, when they advanced on the opposite side of
the river, and made an attack at Whitehall bridge, about
eighteen miles below Goldsboro'; in which they were driven
back by General Robertson, with severe loss.
The important object on our side was to protect the railroad
bridge over the Neuse and the county bridge about half a mile
above; and to effect this, reinforcements having reached us, a
rapid disposition of our forces was made.  During the 17tb,
the enemy appeared in force before General Clingman's three
regiments, and he withdrew across the county bridge to this
side of the river.  The artillery of the enemy was playing
upon the railroad bridge; and Evans' brigade had at last to
move forward by the county road, and cross, if at all, the
bridge a half mile above the railroad.  About two o'clock in
the afternoon one bold and daring incendiary succeeded in
reaching the bridge, and covered by the wing wall of the abutment, lighted a flame which soon destroyed the superstructure,
leaving the masonry, abutments and pier intact.
It was very important for us now to save the county bridge,
the only means remaining of crossing the river in the vicinity.
Evans' and Clingman's brigades were ordered to cross, supported by Pettigrew's brigade; and the Mississippi brigade,
just coming in, was ordered to move forward at once. The
enemy were driven back from their position on the line of the
railroad, but on account of the lateness of the hour, the nature
of the ground, and the fact that our artillery, cavalry and a large
portion of the reinforcements had not yet arrived, it was not
deemed advisable to attack their strong second position that
evening.  During the night the enemy made a hurried retreat




208           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
to their fortifications and gunboats, moving with such celerity
that it was useless to attempt pursuit with any other arms than
cavalry, of which at that time, unfortunately, we had none.
Our loss in these engagements was inconsiderable-seventyone killed and two hundred and sixty-eight wounded.  The
enemy's occupation of Kinston and the bridge there prevented
a body of our men, about five hundred in number, from escaping.  The greater part were taken prisoners and paroled, and
some few succeeded in escaping higher up on the river.
The substantial achievements of the grand army of invasion
were, that they burned the superstructure of two bridges,
which cost originally less than ten thousand dollars.  They
had utterly failed to attempt to take advantage of the temporary and partial interruption of our railroad line, for the purpose of striking a decisive blow at any important point before
we could thoroughly re-establish our communication without it.
In other quarters of the war less important than Virginia
or North Carolina, the early months of the winter were distinguished by some combats of various importance.  The feeble
campaign in the country west of the Mississippi was marked
by one engagement, the dimensions of which were large for
that campaign, but the situation of which was too distant to
affect th.e general condition of the Confederacy.
On the 27th of November Gen. IIindman came up with the
enemy at Prairie Grove, near Fayetteville, Arkansas, with a
force of about nine thousand ien.  The enemy, under the
command of Gen. Blount, was already largely superiour in
numbers; and it was the object of Hindman to cut off reinforcements of seven or eight thousand, which were on the
march.  In this he failed; but, nothing daunted, brought on
the attack at daylight, capturing, in the first charge of Gen.
Marmaduke's cavalry, a whole regiment, and twenty-three
wagons heavily laden with quartermaster and medical stores.
Soon after sunrise the fight commenced in good earnest, and
with no cessation the artillery continued until night-fall.  Our
whole line of infantry were in close conflict nearly the whole




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                209
day with the enemy, who were attempting with their force of
eighteen thousand men to drive us from our position. In every
instance they were repulsed, and finally driven back from the
field; Gen. Hindman driving them  to within eight miles of
Fayetteville, when our forces fell back to their supply depot,
between Cane Hill and Van Buren.  We captured three.hundred prisoners and vast quantities of stores.  The enemy's
loss in killed and wounded was about one thousand; the Confederate loss in killed, wounded and missing, about three hundred. In one of the charges of the engagement, Gen. Stein,
of the Missouri State Guard, was killed, a ball passing directly
through his brain.
The close of the year 1862 leaves little to record of events
of importance sufficient to affect the fortunes of the war, beyond what has been related in these pages with more or less
particularity of detail. In that large expanse of country between the Mississippi and the tributaries of the Atlantic,
events, since our last reference to these theatres of the war,
were of little apparent importance, although they were preparing for a grand tragedy of arms upon which we shall find that
the first page of the new year opens.  There were daring
forays, brilliant skirmishes and enterprises of our cavalry, to
which a brief reference is only possible in these pages.  Such
were the exploits of Gens. Forrest and Morgan, our distinguished cavalry commanders in West Tennessee, in which they
annoyed the enemy, destroyed railroad bridges awd Federal
property, and captured several towns in successful Faids.  On
the 7th of December a single expedition, sent out under Morgan from Gen. Bragg's lines, attacked an outpost of the enemy
at Hartsville on the Cumberland, killed and wounded two hundred, captured eighteen hundred prisoners, two pieces of artillery and two thousand small arms, and all other stores at the
position.  Nor in our slight record of indecisive but gallant
incidents of the war, must we neglect to mention the brave
enterprise of Col. Clarkson, another choice spirit of Southern
chivalry, who, with a detachment of the Virginia State line,
14




210          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
penetrated into Kentucky, captured the town of Piketon on
the 8th of December, secured a large amount of stores, and
nipped an important enterprise of the enemy in the bud.
In the meantime some important new assignments of military command had been made in preparation for the winter
campaign, and happily inspired the country with renewed confidence in the fortunes of the war. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith,
whose patriotism was as enthusiastic as his military genius was
admirable, (for he had broken ties as well as restraints in escaping from  the North to join the standard of his native
South,) had taken command in North Carolina.  Gen. Beauregard had been assigned to the important care of the defences
of Charleston and Savannah, threatened by the most formidable armadas that the warlike ingenuity and lavish expenditure
of the enemy had yet produced. Gen. Pemberton had relieved
Van Dorn of the army of the Southwest at Holly Springs,
which had been taken by surprise on the 20th of December,
and was now in our possession; and that latter officer, illstarred by fortune, but whose gallantry and enterprise were
freely acknowledged, was appropriately appointed to take command of the cavalry forces in the West.  The command of all
the forces between the Alleghany and the Mississippi was entrusted to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, whose matchless strategy
had more than once enlightened the records of the war, and
whose appointment to this large and important command was
hailed wiA an outburst of joy and enthusiastic confidence in
all partrof the South.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                   211
CHAPTER VIII.
The Eastern Portion of Tennessee...Its Military Importance...Composition
of Bragg's Army-THE BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO'...The Right Wing of the
Enemy Routed-Bragg's Exultations...The Assault of the 2d January...' The
Bloody Crossing of Stone River"...The Confederates Fall Back to Tullahoma....Review of the Battle Field of Murfreesboro'...Repulse of the Enemy
at Vicksburg....THE RE-CAPTURE OF GALVESTON....The Midnight March...
Capture of " the Harriet Lane ",..Arkansas Post Taken by the Yankees...Its
Advantages...The Affair of the#Rams in Charleston Harbour...Naval Structure
of the Confederacy...Capture of the Yankee Gunboat " Queen of the West "...
Heroism of George Wood...Capture of "the Indianola"...The War on the
Water...The Confederate Cruisers...Prowess of "the Alabama."
The eastern portion of Tennessee abounds in hills, rocks,
poverty and ignorance. But its military situation was one of
great importance to the Confederacy.  The enemy already
held West and Middle Tennessee.  It required but to occupy
East Tennessee to have entire possession of one of the most
valuable States of the Confederacy. They also felt bound in
honour and duty to render the long promised assistance to the
Unionists of East  Tennessee.  Tennessee would  be more
thoroughly theirs than Kentucky, when once they filled this
eastern portion of it with their armies. The essential geographical importance of this country to the Confederacy was
too obvious to be dwelt upon.  It covered Georgia and involved
the defences of the cotton region of the South.  Through it
ran a great continental line of railroad, of which the South
could not be deprived without unspeakable detriment.  The
importance of this road to the supply of our armies was no less
considerable than to the supply of our general population.
The gallant and heroic army of the Confederacy, commanded
by General Braxton Bragg, composed of Floridians, Louisianians, South Carolinians, Georgians and Kentuckians, number



212           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
ing between thirty and forty thousand men, had occupied
Murfreesboro' for over a month, in confidence and security,
never dreaming of the advance of the enemy. President Davis
had visited and reviewed the brave veterans of Fishing Creek,
Pensacola, Donelson, Shiloh, Perryville and Hartsville, and,
satisfied of their ability to resist any foe who should have the
temerity to attack them, he withdrew from our forces Stevenson's division, of Kirby Smith's corps, numbering about eight
thousand men, leaving scarcely thirty thousand men to defend
what was left to us of Tennessee.
Balls, parties and brilliant festivities relieved the ennui of
the camp of the Confederates.  On Christmas eve scenes of
revelry enlivened Murfreesboro', and officers and men alike
gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the hour, with an
abandonment of all military cares, indulging in fancied security.
The enemy's force at Nashville, under command of Rosecranz, was not believed to have been over forty thousand, and
the opinion was confidently entertained that he would not
attempt to advance until the Cumberland should rise, to afford
him the aid of his gunboats. Indeed, Morgan had been sent
to Kentucky to destroy the Nashville road and cut off his
supplies, so that he might force the enemy to come out and.
meet us.  Yet, that very night, when festivity prevailed, the
enemy was marching upon us!
THE BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO'.
The grounds in front of Murfreesboro' had been surveyed
and examined a month before, in order to select a position for
battle in case of surprise, and our troops were thrown forward
to prevent such a misfortune. Polk's corps, with Cheatham's
division, occupied our centre, Maney's brigade being thrown
forward towards Lavergne, where Wheeler's cavalry was annoying the enemy.  A portion of Kirby Smith's corps, McCown's
division, occupied Readyville, on our right, and Hardee's corps
occupied Triune, on our left, with Wharton's cavalry thrown
out in the vicinity of Franklin.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                213
Festival and mirth continued on Christmas day, but the day
following, Friday, the 26th, was a most gloomy one. The rain
fell in torrents.  That same evening couriers arrived and
reported a general advance of the enemy. All was excitement
and commotion, and the greatest activity prevailed.  The
enemy had already driven in our advance front.  Hardee's
corps fell back from  Triune.  Major-Gen. McCown's division
was ordered to march to Murfreesboro' at oince, having received
the order at midnight.  Heavy skirmishing by Wheeler and
Wharton's cavalry had continued since the 25th.  On the 27th
the ground for our line of battle was selected in front of the
town, about a mile and a half distant on Stone's River.  The
enemy had now  advanced beyond Triune, his main body
occupying Stuart's Creek, ten miles from town.  On the 28th
our troops took up their position in line of battle.  Polk's
corps, consisting of Withers' and Cheatham's divisions, formed
our left wing, and was posted about a mile and a half on the
west side of Stone's River, its right resting on the Nashville
road, and its left extending as far as the Salem pike, a distance.
of nearly six miles.  Hardee's corps, consisting of Breckinridge's and Cleburne's divisions, was formed on the east bank
of the river, its left resting near the Nashville road, and its
right extending towards the Lebanon pike, about three miles
in length, making our line of battle about nine miles in length,
in the shape of an obtuse angle.  McCown's division formed
the reserve, opposite our centre, and Jackson's brigade was
held in reserve on the right flank of Hardee.  Stone's River
crosses the Salem pike about a mile and a half on the south
side of the town, making a curve below the pike about a mile
further south, and then runs nearly north and south in front
of Murfieesboro', crossing the Nashville pike and extending
towards the Labanon pike, some half a mile, when it makes
another turn or bend and runs nearly east and west, emptying
into the Cumberland River.  The river, at the shoals, where
it crosses the Nashville pike, was fordable and not over ankle
deep.  The banks above and below were rather steep, being




214          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
some five to eight feet high, with rocky protusions. The
nature of the country was undulating, but mostly level in our
front, with large, open fields. To the right or the west side
the ground was more rolling, with rocky upheaval and croppings of limestone and thick cedar groves. On the side of the
river towards the Lebanon pike were thin patches of woods
and rocky projections.
On the 29th there was continued skirmishing by our cavalry
forces, the enemy gradually advancing.  On the 30th the
enemy had advanced by three columns and took up his position about a: mile in our front. At noon he shelled our
right and centre in order to feel our reserves. At 3 P. M.
the enemy made an advance on our left, and attempted to
drive us back in order to occupy the ground for his right wing.
A spirited engagement immediately commenced, General Polk
having ordered forward a portion of Withers' division. Robinson's battery held the enemy in check, keeping up a most
deadly and destructive fire. Three times the enemy charged
~this battery, but were repulsed by the gallant one hundred and
fifty-fourth Tennessee. Colonel Loomis, commanding Gardner's brigade, and the brigade formerly Duncan's, with the
South Carolinians, Alabamians and Louisianians, were most
hotly engaged, and though suffering considerably, succeeded in
driving back the enemy with great slaughter. It was now
clear that the enemy intended to mass his forces on our left,
in order to make a flank movement the next day, and obtain,
if possible, the Salem pike, which, if successful, would give him
possession of the Chattanooga railroad. Cleburne's division, of
Hardee's corps, and Major-General McCown's division, were
immediately ordered over towards the Salem pike to reinforce
our extreme left wing. Wheeler's cavalry had already gained
the enemy's rear, and had captured a train of wagons and a
number of prisoners. A cold, drizzling rain had set in, and
our troops were greatly exposed, being without shelter and
bivouacking by their camp fires.
On the morning of the 31st, the grand battle was opened.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              215
At the break of day on the cold and cloudy morning, General
Hardee gave the order to advance, and the fight was opened
by McCown's division, with Cleburne, advancing upon the
enemy's right wing under Gen. McCook.  The charge was of
the most rapid character.  The alarm  given by the enemy's
pickets scarcely reached his camp before the Confederates
were upon it. The sight of our advance was a most magnificent one.  Two columns deep, with a front of nearly threefourths of a mile, the line well preserved and advancing with
great rapidity, on came the Confederate left wing, the bayonets glistening in a bright sun, which had broken through the
thick fog.
The enemy was taken completely by surprise, their artillery
horses not even being hitched up. Such was the impetuosity
of the charge, that the enemy fell back in dismay, our troops
pouring in a most murderous fire. With such rapidity did our
men cross the broken ploughed fields, that our artillery could
not follow them. Wharton's cavalry had charged a battery,
the horses not being harnessed, and driving back the infantry
supporting it, succeeded in capturing it. The enemy having
gradually recovered, now disputed our further advance, and
the battle raged with terrific violence.  They continued to fall
back, however, under our fire, until we had swung round nearly
our whole left on their right, as if on a pivot, driving the enemy some six miles towards his centre, when Withers and
Cheatham also hurled their divisions on the foe with such terrible effect, that battery after battery was taken, and their
dead lay in heaps upon the field. The enemy was now driven
towards the Nashville road, about a mile in front of our centre, and took a commanding position on an eminence overlooking the plain, and which was protected by rocks and a dense
cedar wood.
The battle had been terrific; crash upon crash of musketry
stunned the ear; the ground trembled with the thunder of artillery; the cedars rocked and quivered in the fiery blast, and
the air was rent with the explosion of shells. The enemy at




216           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
several points offered a most gallant resistance, but -nothing
human could withstand the impetuosity of that charge.  A
spirit of fury seemed to possess our men, from the commanders down to the common soldiers, and on they swept, shot and
shell, canister, grape and bullets tearing through their ranks,
until the way could be traced by the dead and dying. Still on
they went, overturning infantry and artillery alike, driving the
enemy like the hurricane scatters the leaves upon its course,
capturing hundreds of prisoners, and literally blackening the
ground with the dead.  Such a charge was never before witnessed.  For miles, through fields and forests, over ditches,
fences and ravines, they swept. Brigade after brigade, battery after battery, were thrown forward to stay their onward
march; but another volley of musketry, another gleaming of
the bayonet, and like their predecessors they were crushed into
one common ruin.
It was now about noon. Our charge had been one of splendid results.  We had already captured some five thousand
prisoners, nearly thirty pieces of cannon, some five thousand
stand of arms,.and ammunition wagons.  We had broken the
enemy's right, having driven him for nearly five hours on a
curve, a distance of over five miles from our extreme left to
the enemy's centre, and backwards about three miles from our
centre.  The Yankees had made a stand only where the natural advantages of the ground sheltered them.
Rosecranz had not been dismayed by the events of the morning, and had watched them with an air of confidence which his
subordinate officers found it difficult to understand.  Referring
to his adversary, he said: "I'll show him a trick worth two of
his."  Gen. Rosecranz was well aware of the danger of advancing reinforcements from his left or centre.  The Confederates lay in his front within sight and almost within hearing.
He knew that they were anxiously watching his movements,
and waiting to see which part of his line would be weakened.
But though he declined to send McCook reinforcements, Rosecranz employed himself in so preparing his line as to aid




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 217
McCook to get safely on his right.  His preparations were to
halt the Confederates on his defeated right without exposing
his left and centre to imminent danger. For this purpose he
quickly determined to mass his artillery on the'position occupied by the centre.  These movements were masked by immense cedar forests.  Thus prepared, at the proper moment
the centre of the enemy was advanced a few hundred yards,
and soon after the Confederates appeared in force pursuing his
right wing.
The position of the enemy was on an oval-shaped hill not
very high, but furnishing an excellent position for his artillery.
It was determined to carry this stronghold at all hazards, and
the brigades of Chalmer and Donelson, supported by Manley's
and Stewart's brigades, with Cobb's, Byrne's, Chas. Smith's
and Slocomb's batteries, were ordered to prepare for the
charge. It was a forlorn hope, but our men faced the mighty
whirlwind of shot and shell with heroic firmness, and did not
fall back until they had captured two batteries.  The brigades
of Generals Adams and Jackson, of Breckinridge's division,
who held our right, were now ordered across the river to relieve our broken columns, and advanced towards the enemy's
grand battery with a like coolness and heroism, but they were
also repulsed and fell back under the enemy's terrible fire.
A  portion of Gen. II;ardee's command bivouacked for the
night irk the cedars, within five hundred yards of the enemy's
lines.  That night it was cold to freezing.  Upon the battlefield lay thousands of tke enemy's dead and wounded, who
froze stiff, presenting a ghastly scene by moonlight.
The scene in the cedars was fearful and picturesque.  A
brilliant winter moon'shed its lustre amid the foliage of the
forest of evergreens, and lighted up with silver sheen the
ghastly battle field.  Dismounted cannon, scattered caissons,
glittering and abandoned arms strewed the forest and field.
The dead lay stark and stiff at every step, with clenched hands
and contracted limbs in the wild attitudes in which they fell,
congealed by the bitter cold. It was the eve of the new year.




218          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Moans of the neglected dying, mingled with the lot peculiar
shriek of the wounded artillery horses, chanted a miserere for
the dying year.
Amid the dim camp fires, feebly lighted to avoid attracting
the artillery of the enemy, groups of mutilated and shuddering wounded were huddled, and the kneeling forms of surgeons
bending in the firelight over the mangled bodies of the dying,
added to the solemnity of the night.
The appearance of the dead on the field was remarkable, for
the large proportion was evidently slain by artillery. The
bodies of many of the confederates who had advanced to the
assault on the enemy's masked batteries were literally torn to
pieces.  The cross-fire of the artillery had had this terrible
effect.  "I saw," says a spectator of this terrible scene, "an
officer, whose two legs, one arm and body lay in separate parts
of the field. I saw another whose dislocated right arm lay
across his neck, and more than half his head was gone."
On the day succeeding the fight, Gen. Bragg telegraphed to
Richmond the news of a great victory, presented his compliments to the authorities, and wrote, "God has granted'us a
happy new year."  His exultations were over hasty, for though
we had routed on the morning of the preceding day the right
wing of the enemy, the final contest was yet to be decided.
In the meantime, Rosecranz fearing that his position might
be flanked, or from  some suspicion that it was not secure,
abandoned it that night, only to take up a still stronger one
in the bed of the river, towards the Jabanon pike, on a couple
of hillocks, which he again crowned with his strongest batteries.
Many of his generals felt despondent; some favoured retreat; but the constancy of Rosecranz remained untouched.
One of his staff officers remarked, "Your tenacity of purpose,
General, is a theme of universal comment."  "I guess," he
replied, " that the troops have discovered that Bragg is a good
dog, but hold-fast is better."
The first of the year found the enemy strongly entrenched,




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                219
with his right drawn up a little on the south side of the Nashville pike, while his left remained fortified in the bend of the
river, already described. Our position was greatly advanced
on the left and centre, but otherwise remained the same. Oa
that day General Bragg issued the following address to his
army:
"The General commanding is happy to announce to the
troops the continued success of our arms yesterday. Generals
Wheeler and Wharton, with the cavalry, again assaulted the
enemy's line of communication, capturing over two hundred
wagons and other stores.  Twice have we now made the circuit of the enemy's forces, and destroyed his trains, and not
less than six hundred wagons, and three thousand mules have
fallen into our hands.    *    *    *    *    Our success
continues uninterrupted.  One more struggle, and the glorious
victory already achieved will be crowned by the rout of the
enemy, who are now greatly demoralized.  The General commanding has every confidence that his gallant troops will fully
meet his expectations."
It was confidently believed that the enemy would have retreated on the night of the 31st, but as he did not, it was concluded to wait and see if he would make any attack.  The
day consequently passed off quietly, excepting some slight
skirmishing.
On the second of January, the ill-omened Friday, the attitude of the two armies remained the same during the morning,
and without incident, except some shelling on our right.
By three o'clock it was determined to assault the enemy's
stronghold on the bend of the river. It was a desperate determination. Unfortunately, Gen. Bragg had given the enemy nearly two days to re-organize and concentrate his baffled
army, so that he might the more effectually make a stubborn
resistance.
The enemy had taken up a position at a point near the bend
of the river where it takes a westerly course.  Here rises a
high ridge covered by a skirt of woods, on which the enemy




220           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
had planted their artillery, supported by a line of infantry.
Behind this ridge, and in the woods and rocky ravines, lay
concealed also a large force of the enemy. -Further to the
enemy's left was another skirt of woods, which the enemy also
occupied, outflanking our front nearly one thousand yards.
Near the first skirt of woods mentioned, is a ford of the river,
the opposite banks of which, from its elevated position, overlooks and commands the ridge above described on this side, or
the south and east bank of the river, while one mile further
down the river is another ford. It was at this commanding
position in the river bend where the enemy had made his citadel, having massed his batteries of artillery and infantry in
such a skillful manner as to protect his centre on the Nashville
pike, and his extreme left, which now extended on our side of
the river.  Such was the position of the enemy on our extreme right on the morning of that memorable day of slaughter, the 2d of January.
Gen. Breckenridge was ordered to carry by assault, the position of the enemy on the ridge already described.  He
formed his division in two lines, changing front from  his former position to nearly a right angle, and facing in the direction
of the river.  General Hanson's brigade, with Palmer's, now
commanded by Gen. Pillow, formed the first line, with Pillow
on the right; the second line being formed by Preston's and
Gibson's, two hundred  yards in the rear.  Colonel Hunt's
regiment, of Hanson's brigade, was left to support Cobb's
battery on the hill.  From  the enemy's commanding position
across the river, he was enabled to see all of our movements,
and, consequently, prepared to resist us. Between General
Breckenridge's division and the enemy's batteries on the ridge
was an intervening space of eight hundred yards, extending
over an open field skirted by woods, along which the enemy's
skirmishers were in such force as almost amounted to a line of
battle.
The attack was to be made at 4 o'clock, and a signal gun'was to announce the hour.  In those battalions stood the noble




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                221
soldiers of Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee
and North Carolina in battle array, firm and inflexible, awaiting the signal for combat. The report of a cannon had not
died upon the ear before the bugle from  Hanson's brigade
sounded  a charge.  The  brigades moved rapidly forward
through the thinned woods until gaining the open fields, the
men having been instructed not to deliver their fire until close
upon the enemy, and then to charge with the bayonet.  On
came Pillow, followed by Preston.; forward hurried Hanson,'followed by Gibson.  From  the moment of gaining the field
the enemy's artillery from  the ridge opened a sweeping fire,
and a whirlwind of Minnie balls from their infantry, with shot
and shell, filled the air. Our men were ordered to lie down
for a few minutes to let the fury of the storm pass.  Then the
cry from Breckenridge-" Up, my men, and charge!"-rang
out.  With the impetuosity of a torrent they rushed forward
to the woods sloping the ridge.  On dashed Wright's battery
of Preston's brigade at a furious gallop, and soon opened fire
upon one of the enemy's batteries about three hundred yards
to our right.  The enemy, awed by the mad bravery of our
men, recoiled; their ranks thinned rapidly, notwithstanding
they received reinforcement after reinforcement.  Their left
wing, which already outflanked us on our right, was driven
back towards the river bank, the 20th Tennessee capturing
some two hundred prisoners.  The contest now raged fierce
and bloody.  It was one continuous roar of musketry and
artillery. Facing the storm of death, our heroes charged with
fury, and so effective was the firing of our lines, that we carried
the ridge with a wild demoniac yell, driving the enemy from
it, with his artillery, down the hill side and across the river.
Captain Wright soon reached the top of the ridge with his
battery, and opened on the enemy with spherical case.  At
this time the concentrated fire of the enemy became terrible
and appalling.  A sheet of flame was poured forth from their
artillery on the hills on the opposite side of the river overlooking our left and front and from their batteries on the river




222          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
bank, while the opposite side also swarmed with their infantry,
who poured in on us a most murderous fire. Still our men
never quailed, but pressed forward and crossed the river, the
enemy making frightful gaps in our ranks, but which were
immediately closed up. Here it was that in less than half an
hour over two thousand of our brave soldiers went down! The
utter hopelessness of carrying the opposite heights, and of contending against the overwhelmingly superior numbers of the
enemy without artillery or reinforcements to support us,
having been fully tested, General Breckenridge ordered his
division to fall back. It was nearly' dark when the conflict
closed, and during the night he occupied a portion of the field
in advance of that he occupied during the day.
It was after the capture of the enemy's position on the
ridge, when our men drove him across the river with terrible
slaughter of his forces, that the noble Hanson fell mortally
wounded, exclaiming: " Forward-forward, my brave boys, to
the charge;" and afterwards, when brought from the field, he
said with his flickering breath: "I am willing to die with such
a wound received in so glorious a cause." We had held the
-enemy's position on the ridge for about half an hour, Captain
E. E. Wright's battery doing admirable execution, when that
gallant officer fell at his guns mortally wounded, the. enemy
having charged within seventy-five yards of his pieces.
The final repulse of Breckenridge was a sad blow to our
hopes. The prudence of this terrible attack upon the impregnable position of the enemy has been seriously questioned, and
military critics of the battle of Murfreesboro' have also found
room for censuring the neglect of Gen. Bragg in not previously
securing the hillocks in the bend of Stone's River, which he
permitted the enemy to occupy.  As it happened, it was a bad
repulse, and the vivid recollections of the "bloody crossing of
Stone's River," in which in less than one hour two thousand
of our men were killed and wounded, long survived in our
army. It lost us the vantage ground we had gained over the
enemy on the 31st and greatly depressed our troops. But for




THE SECOND YEAR  OF THE WAR.                         228
this, we would still have held Murfreesboro'. On the 3d the
rain fell in torrents, and as our troops were worn out and
nearly exhausted, it was determined  to fall back that night,
and not run the risk of meeting the enemy's reinforcements,
which, it was reported, he was receiving. Everything had
previously been provided for the retreat. It was conducted
with order and composure.*
Sunday morning  Rosecranz moved into Murfreesboro', and
Gen. Bragg retired to the position of Tullahoma. This place
is in Coffee county, Tennessee, situated on Rock creek, and
offers admirable means of defence. It is seventy-one miles
* In his official report of the battle, Gen. Bragg makes the following statement on the subject of the first day's operations, relative to their check and
the failure to break the enemy's centre:
"To meet our successful advance, and retrieve his losses in the front of
his left, the enemy early transferred a portion of his reserve from his left to
that flank, and by two o'clock had succeeded in concentrating such a force in
Lieutenant-General Hardee's front as to check his further progress.  Our tw9
lines had by this time become almost blended, so weakened were they by
losses, exhaustion and extension to cover the enemy's whole front. As early
as 10 o'clock, A. M., Major-General Breckenridge was called on for one brigade, and soon after for a second, to reinforce or act as a reserve to Lieut.
Gen. Hardee.  His reply to the first call represented the enemy crossing
Stone's river in heavy force, in his immediate front, and on receiving the
second order, he informed me that they had already crossed in heavy force,
and were advancing to attack his lines.  He was immediately ordered not to
await attack, but to adXance and meet him. About this same time a report
reached me that a heavy force of the enemy's infantry was advancing on the
Lebanon road, about five miles in Breckenridge's front.  BrigadieriGeneral
Pegram, who had been sent to that road to cover the flank of the infantry
with his cavalry brigade, save two regiments detached with Wheeler and
Wharton, was ordered forward immediately to develop any such movement.
The orders for the two brigades from  Breckinridge were countermanded,
whilst dispositions were made, at his request, to reinforce him. Before they
could-be carried out, the movements ordered disclosed the fact that no force
had crossed Stone's river; that the only enemy in our immediate front then
was a small body of sharpshooters; and that there was no advance on the
Lebanon road.  These unfortunate misapprehensions on that part of the
ield, which with proper precaution could not have existed, withheld from
active operations three fine brigades until the enemy had succeeded in checking our progress, had re-established his lines, and had collected many of his
broken battalions.




224           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
from  Nashville and thirty-two from  Murfreesboro!, and lies
immediately on the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, where
it is intersected by the McMinnville and Manchester road.
As a base of operations and as a position of defence, the place
offered great advantages.
So far as the relative amount of carnage affects the question
of victory, no doubt can be entertained to which side in the
battle of Murfreesboro' is to be ascribed the superiority.  In
the first day's fight, the number of the enemy's killed and
wounded was probably six or seven thousand; in the engagement which succeeded, our loss was disproportionate to the
enemy's; but at the close of the whole affair, the Yankees
were doubtless greater losers in life than ourselves.  In point
of captures and with respect to the number of prisoners taken,
the battle of Murfreesboro' may be accounted a Confederate
success.  The ground which the North has for claiming a victory is, that our forces fell back and that their positions were
occupied.  But the occupation of Murfreesboro' was no important consideration; the works were neither extensive nor
strong; and the new line of defence reorganized by General
Bragg was, as we shall see, quite sufficient to hold the enemy
in check.  The truth is, that the Yankees, although their
claims to the victory of Murfreesboro' are questionable, had
great reasons to congratulate themselves that an army which,
in the first day's battle, had its right wing broken and onethird lf its artillery lost, should have escaped destruction and
extricated itself in a manner to assure its further safety.
But however the issue of Murfreesboro' is to be decided, the
South had reason to expect considerable material advantages
from events in other parts of the West. The siege of Vicksburg by land was for the time virtually abandoned.  Some
engagements had taken place before this town, which were exaggerated by the telegraph; but they were mere skirmishes,
intended to feel the strength of the defences.  Being satisfied
that they were too strong to be attacked with safety, and probably learning that Grant's army would never effect a junction




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               225'
with it, the Yankee force before Vicksburg re-embarked, with:
a great loss of material employed in the entrenchments preparatory to'the siege.
THE RECAPTURE OF GALVESTON.
While the new year had doubtfully opened in Tennessee, a
brilliant success marked the same period in the distant State
of Texas.  An expedition was skillfully planned and gallantly
executed by the brave and energetic Magruder, the results of
which were the capture of the city and harbour of Galveston,
a large quantity of arms, ammunition, stores, &c., the famous
Yankee steamer Harriet Lane, and some other craft of less,
importance.
On the night of the 31st of December, General Magruder
silently marched along the road to Galveston city. Our forces
consisted of several regiments of infantry and about twentytwo pieces of artillery, though the principal attack was to be
made by the artillery, as there were only about three hundred
of the enemy in the city, and they were behind a barricade at
the outer end of the wharf.
Our troops reached the suburbs of the city about three
o'clock. The.streets were completely deserted; the few inhabitants who had remained in the city were sleeping soundly,
and had our men not awaked and warned them of their danger, they would have slept on until the cannon's roar had
startled them. The march of our troops through the city was
a quiet procession.
The scene, the dead hour of night, and the fact that this
was to be the first battle of many of them, all conspired to
make them serious.  Then, too, the great heavy waves came
tumbling and roaring in from the Gulf, chanting out upon the
still night air, as they dashed along, something that sounded
like a funeral dirge. But onward our men' stole, through long,
lonely streets, now around this corner and now turning that
until at length they reached Strand street, which runs parallel
with the water, and is the next one to the wharves. The moon
15




226          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
was npw.down, and every thing was enveloped in darkness;
the guns were noiselessly placed in position and loaded, the
men looking like so many shadows as they took their places in
the gloom. There, within three hundred yards, lay the Harriet Lane, the Owasso, the Clifton, and two other boats, with
their broadsides turned towards our troops, and ready to open
upon them the moment they fired.  This they knew, for the
Yankees had been ashore the day before and told the people
that they knew all about the plans of the "rebels," and were
waiting for them. In fact, they were so certain of victory
that they allowed our men to place their guns in position without firing upon them.
Gen. Magruder opened the attack by firing the first gun.
In a few moments the bright flashes, the booming reports and
whizzing shells told plainer than words that the action had begun in earnest; for the next hour the roar of cannon was incessant. The clear, keen crack of our little rifled guns, the
dull sound of our sea-coast howitzers, and the mighty thundering bass of the columbiads and 100-pound Parrott guns on the
gunboats, combined to form a piece of music fitted for Pandemonium.
The fight raged furiously on both sides, but it was fast becoming evident that our land forces alone were no match for
the Yankee boats, with their great guns and mortars, which
vomited a half bushel of grape and canister at every discharge.
Early in the engagement a charge was made by three hundred
of our infantry on three companies of the forty-second Massachusetts regiment, stationed behind a barricade at the end of
Kuhn's wharf. The enemy had torn up the planks from the
wharf, and made a breastwork of them. Our men rushed out
into the waters with their scaling ladders and dashed up to
them, but the position was too strong and they had to retire,
leaving our artillery to shell them out. We lost some ten or
ffteen in this charge, and would have lost more, but it was,pitch dark and the Yankees fired very wildly.
Daylight at length arrived, and every one was anxiously




THE SECOND YEAR OF THII  WAR.           227
looking for our boats, which ought to have been up two hours
before. They had come down within sight at about 12 o'clock,
and, hearing nothing of our troops, retired five or six miles,
under the impression that the land attack had been postponed.
There they waited until about three o'clock, when the land
attack began. As soon as Major Smith, who commanded the
expedition, saw that the work had begun, he ordered all steam
to be put on and started back. He was then a considerable
distance from the city, and was unable to reach it until daylight. At that time the Bayou City and Neptune, followed in
the distance by the John F. Can and Lucy Gwin, hospital
boats, bore steadily down upon the Harriet Lane, then lying at
the end of the wharf, opposite the Cotton Press.
The Harriet Lane had for some time directed her fire at
them, but fortunately without effect; but when within aboti
fifty yards, the Neptune received several balls, damaging her
considerably.  She kept steadily on her way, however, and in
a few moments more ran into the Lane amidship. The enemy's
decks were soon cleared with the buck-shot from the doublebarrel guns of the Neptune's crew, who would haye boarded
her, but it was discovered that the Neptune was rapidly sinking in consequence of the damages she had received. She was
accordingly run into shoal water, about fifty yards from the
Lane, where she sunk immediately.  In the mean time the
Yankee crew, seeing the predicament of the Neptune, came
up on deck again, and were preparing to give her a broadside,
when the Bayou City fortunately interfered with their prepations by running into the Lane's wheel-house. Another volley
of buck-shot again cleared her decks. The next instant the
crew of the Bayou City were aboard of her, Major Smith gallantly leading the way, and shooting the Lane's commanding
officer (Capt. Wainwright) as he leaped upon the deck. The
vessel was' immediately surrendered, and down came the stars
and stripes and up went our flag. It was found that the captain and first lieutenant of the boat were both killed, and




228          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
about thirty of her crew killed or wounded. Our loss on the
boats was about sixteen killed and thirty wounded.
The Yankee boats, the Clifton and Owasso, saved themselves
by beating out of the harbour, while the Bayou City was in
some way entangled with her prize. The Westfield was burnt,
as she was fast aground.  Our prize was one of which we
might well be proud.  The  Iarriet Lane was a vessel of six
hundred tons burden, was originally built for the revenue service, but at the beginning of the war with the South she was
turned over to the navy, and at once underwent such alterations as were thought necessary to adapt her to her new service. At the time of her capture, she mounted eight guns of
heavy calibre, her bow gun beitg a fifteen inch rifle.
The re-capture of Galveston and the advantages which ensued, were perhaps outbalanced by a disaster which shortly
followed and overshadowed much of the prospect in the remote
regions west of the Mississippi.  This was the forcible occupation by the Yankees of Arkansas Post and the surrender of
its entire garrison.
The troops garrisoning Arkansas Post at the time of attack,
consisted of three brigades, mostly Texans, and commanded
respectively by Colonels Garland, Deshler and Dunnington,
the whole forming a division under the command of Brigadier
General T. J. Churchill, and numbering on the day of the
fight not more than thirty-three hundred effective men. On
the 9th day of January a scout from below brought intelligence
to General Churchill of a Yankee gun.boat having made its
appearance in the Arkansas river, some thirty miles below the
Post; some hours later on the same day another scout brought
news of other gun-boats, followed by transports, making their
way up the river. Upon the receipt of this intelligence, Gen.
Churchill ordered every thing in readiness for an attack, and
ore night closed in all the troops were distributed'along the
line of entrenchments, where they remained all night in a
Ielting storm  of rain.  The enemy, in the mean time, had




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                 22^
landed a force about two miles below the fort, but they made
no demonstration until about nine or ten o'clock the next
morning, when they commenced shelling the fort from  their
advance gun-boats that were cautiously and slowly feeling
their way up the river.
Our troops held the position first taken by them until about
four o'clock, P. M., when the General, fearing a flank movement on our left, ordered the men to fall back to a line of
entrenchments near the yet unfinished fort, which line was
speedily completed and all the troops properly distributed before night set in.  Just as darkness was drawing near, four
gun-boats approached the fort and commenced their bombardment, our guns from  the fort answering gallantly, and after
two hours' terrific shelling, the gun-boats retired, one of them,
the Eastport, badly disabled.  Our loss up to this time consisted of only three killed and some three or four wounded.
The next morning at ten o'clock the enemy renewed the attack with gun-boats and land forces combined.  They had also
erected a battery on the opposite side of the river, by means
of which they kept up a terrible cross-fire that swept the
whole area of ground occupied by our men.  The firing continued until about four o'clock in the evening, when Gener:al
Churchill, seeing his defences exposed to a raking fire and
storming parties closing upon his rear, surrendered, General
McClernand taking the whole force, mating more than three
thousand men prisoners.  Our loss in killed and wounded was
not two hundred men.
The results of this success of the Yankees were many thou,
sand prisoners of war, and a fortified point guarding the navigation of the Arkansas river, and shutting out its commerce
from the Mississippi.  But the prospect which they indulged
of ascending without interruption to Little Rock and taking
full possession of the Arkansas capital, was rather premature.
There is nothing yet important to record of the operations
of the immense fleets of the enemy collected on our coast in




230          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
the winter of 1862.  The armadas were as yet silent.  For
months a large fleet of the enemy had been at the mouth of
Charleston harbour or picketed off the coast.
On the 30th of January the Confederate rams in the harbour of Charleston, under command of Capt. Ingraham, had
made a sally towards the enemy's fleet.  The success of this
sally was ignorantly exaggerated by the Confederates, and a
claim made that the blockade had been raised, which pretension was afterwards abandoned.  The fact was that one of the
Yankee vessels-the Mercedita-was seriously injured, and
another-the Keystone State-got a shot through her steam
drum, causing the death of twenty-one persons. The Mercedita was saved by the treachery of the Yankees, who represented the ship to be in a sinking condition, thus deceiving the
Confederates as to the extent of the damage they had inflicted. She steamed down to Port Royal, after our rams had
left her, under the supposition that she was sinking in shoal
water.  Her commander had called out, "We are in a sinking
condition," and the reply of Capt. Ingraham was that she
could only sink as far as her rails, and we could not take her
crew aboard.  A mean and cowardly falsehood saved the vessel; but in Yankee estimation the triumphs of such villainy
Were quite equal to the congratulations of a victory.
Our victory at Galveston, of which we have given some aceount, was the precursor of other captures of the enemy's
vessels, which were important accessions to our little navy.
That arm of service, in which we were so deficient, and had
shown such aptitude for self-destruction, was not entirely powerless; for we not only had rams for harbour defences and
three fleet privateers at sea, but our power on the water was
enlarged even beyond our expectations, as we shall see, by
captures from the enemy.
The Yankee gun-boat Queen of the West, having succeeded
in running our batteries at Vicksburg, had for some weeks
been committing ravages, penetrating the country of the Red




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                231
river. On the 14th of February she encountered in this river
and captured a small Confederate steamer, the Era.  The
crew and passengers of the Era were taken prisoners, and all
were guarded on board the Era by a band of soldiers, save
Mr. George Wood, the pilot, who was ordered aboard the
Queen of the West, and, with threats, directed to her pilot
wheel to assist her pilot in directing her onwara to the capture
of our fort on the river.  On they glided, but not distrustful,
and much elated at their success, till they came in reach of
our battery at five P. M., when the vessel commenced firing,
still advancing. She had come within a quarter of a mile of
our battery and on the opposite shore in full range for our guns;
when the gallant Wood, who directed her wheel, had her
rounded, ran her aground, breaking her rudder and thus crippling her and turning her broadside to give our guns a fair
chance.  This gallant man, in the confusion, made good hits
escape.  Thus crippled and disabled by the hand that drove
her on to her destiny, she lay like a wounded falcon, at the
mercy of her adversaries.
The night was dark and stormy, the heavens overhung with,
clouds, which now and then pealed forth their muttering thunder, and drenched the earth with rain.  Thus in the raia
storm  this crippled Queen lay beaten by the tempest.  She
was well barricaded with cotton bales. On seeing all hope of
success gone, the commanding officer, Colonel Ellett, made his.
escape, with nearly all his crew,*by getting on cotton balea
and floating down the river.  She raised the white signal, as
the storm abated, as it was seen by the light of a burning
warehouse, but it was not answered till next morning.  Thirteen of the crew remained in silence till day-light, then her
white banner was still afloat, and then, and not till then, our
soldiers crossed the river and took possession of her.
The fog which had enabled the Queen of the West to get
by Vicksburg had also availed for the passage of another gunboat, the Indianola. This vessel had also continued for weeks




232           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
to go at large, preying on the boats that were transporting our
supplies, and harassing our forces in every way.  Seeing the
great injury and havoc that she might do, a council was held,
and the capture of the Indianola at every sacrifice was determined upon.
Accordingly an expedition was fitted out, consisting of two
gun-boats-the Queen of the West and the Webb-and two
steamers-the Era and Dr. Batey.  The expedition was comrmanded by Major Walker, with Captain Hutton as executive
officer of the fleet.  All being ready, the expedition started
out from the mouth of the Red river in pursuit of the Indianola.  Coming up the Mississippi to Grand Gulf, it was learned
that the Indianola was not far off, and a halt was ordered that
all the vessels might come up. All being in line, the expedition put up the river and on the 24th of February came upon
the Indianola, overhapling her about five miles below New
Carthage, and some thirty below Vicksburg.  It was about
nine o'clock at night.  The enemy had received no information of the movement, and was not aware of our approach
until we were within a half mile of her.  Seeing the rapid
approach of the vessels, the Indianola at once knew that it
was an attempt to capture her, and she immediately rounded
her broadside to, lashing a coal barge alongside her to parry
the blows that might be made- to run in and sink her. On the
vessels nearing, fire was opened, and a most terrific and desperate engagement ensued, listing over an hour. Putting on
all her steam, the Queen of the West made a blow at the Indianola, cleaving the barge in two and striking her with such
tremendous force that the Indianola's machinery was badly
injured.  Here the action on both sides became desperate.
The blow of the Queen of the West was quickly followed up
by the Webb with a terrific "butt" at full speed.  This finished
the work.  The Indianola was discovered to be in a sinking
condition, and was put for the shore on the Louisiana side.
Seeing this, the Dr. Batey was ordered to board her.  On




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                238
bearing alongside her, the Indianola surrendered, and all her
officers and crew-numbering in all about one hundred ana
twenty men-were made prisoners.
These additions to our naval structures on the Mississippi
were important.  We now possessed some power in the interiour waters-of the Confederacy; to our harbour defences we
had already added some rams; and our deficiency in a navy
was not a laughing stock to the North as long as our few privateers were able to cruise in the Atlantic and carry dismay
to the exposed commerce of the Gulf.
The few ships the North possessed that were the equals in
point of speed of the Confederate privateers, the Alabama and
Florida, were, with a single exception, purchased vessels, built
for the merchant service, and exceedingly liable to be disabled
in their machinery on account of its being nearly all above the
water line.  Taking, as samples of vessels of this class, the
Vanderbilt, Connecticut and Rhode Islind, the North had
three ships which, for the purpose they were intended, were
without superiours; but the chances were that, if coming under the fire of the Alabama or Florida, they would be, by a
well directed shot or shell at close quarters, crippled and become an easy prize.
The exploits of our cruisers were sufficient to show the
value and efficiency of the weapon of privateering, and to
excite many regrets that our means in this department of warfare were so limited.  One national steamer alone-the Alabama-commanded by officers and manned by a crew who were
debarred by the closure of neutral ports from the opportunity
of causing captured vessels to be condemned in their favour
as prizes, had sufficed to double the rates of marine insurance
in Yankee ports, and consigned to forced inaction numbers of
Yankee vessels, in addition to the direct damage inflicted. by
captures at sea.  The Northern papers paid a high tribute to
the activity and daring of our few privateers in the statement
that, during one month of winter, British steamers had carried




234          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
from  San Francisco to Europe six and a quarter millions of
gold, whilst during the same time from the same port there
had arrived in New York only two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars of the precious metal. In view of such results, it
would be difficult to over-estimate the effects, if we had had a'hundred of private armed vessels, and especially if we could
have secured from neutral Europe the means of disposing of
such prizes as we might make of the commerce of the enemy.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                       235
CHAPTER IX.
An Extraordinary Lull in the War...An Affair with the Enemy on the
Blackwater...Raids in the West...Van Dorn's Captures...TIIE MEETING OF
CoNGRESS...Character of This Body...lts Dullness and Servility...Mr. Foote
and the Cabinet...Two Popular Themes of Confidence... Party Contention in
the North...Successes of the Democrats There...Analysis of the Party Politics
tof the North...The Interest of New England in the War...How  the War
Affected the Northwestern Portions of the United States...Mr. Foote's Resolutions Respecting the Northwestern States...How They Were Received by
the Southern Public...New War Measures at Washington...Lincoln a Dictator...Prospect of Foreign Interference...Action of the Emperor Napoleon...
Suffering of the Working Classes in England...The Delusions of an Early
Peace...The Tasks Bef)re Congress...Prostrate Condition of the Confederate
Finances...President Davis' Blunder...The Errours of Our Financial System...
The Wealth of the South...The Impressment Law of Congress...Scarcity of
Supplies...Inflated Prices...Speculation and Extortion in the Confederacy...
Three Remarks About These...The Verdict of History.
The battle of Murfreesboro' was followed by an extraordinary
lull of the movements of the war.  For months  the  great
armies in Tennessee and Virginia were to stand agaze of each
other.  The  events  of  this  period  are  slight  and  easily
recounted.
While the lines of the Rappahannock remained undisturbed,
our forces on the Blackwater had an engagement of outposts
on the 31st of January, which was unduly magnified into  a
battle.  The success of the affair was not wholly unimportant,
as a loss of some hundreds was inflicted upon the enemy before
our forces fell back to Carrsville, which they were compelled
to do in the face of superiour numbers.
In Tennessee there was a series of exploits of our cavalry,
the details of which it is impossible now to recount.  The most
remarkable of these successes was probably that of Van Dorn,
who, on the first day of March, at Thompson's Station, between




236           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Columbia and Franklin, captured five regiments of the enemy's
infantry, comprising twenty-two hundred officers and men.
THE MEETING OF CONGRESS.
The reader will be interested in turning from the unimportant military events of this period to notice the re-assembling
of the Confederate Congress and its proceedings in the early
months of 1863.  It is not to be disguised that this body fell
below the spirit and virtue of the people, and was remarkable
for its destitution of talents and ability. Not a single speech
that has yet been made in it will live.  It is true that the
regular Congress elected by the people was an improvement,
upon the ignorant and unsavory body known as the Provisional
Congress, which was the creature of conventions, and which
was disgraced in the character of some of its members; among
whom  were conspicuous corrupt and senile politicians from
Virginia, who had done all they could to sacrifice and degrade
their State, who had "toadied" in society, as well as in politics, to notabilities of New England, and who had taken a
prominent part in emasculating, and, in fact, annulling, the
Sequestration Law, in order to save the property of relatives
who had sided with the North against the land that had borne
them and honoured their fathers.
But the regular Congress, although it had no taint of disloyalty or Yankee toadyism in it, was a weak body. It had
made no mark in the history of the government; it was destitute of originality; its measures were, generally, those which
were recommended by the Executive or suggested by the newspapers; it had produced no great financial measure; it made
not one stroke of statesmanship; it uttered not a single fiery
appeal to the popular heart such as is customary in revolutions.
It afforded, perhaps, a proof of the frequent assertion that our
democratic system did not produce great men.  The most of
the little ability it had was occupied with servility to the
Executive and demagogical displays.
It is difficult, indeed, for a legislative body to preserve its




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                237
independence, and to resist the tendency of the Executive to
absorb power in time of war, and this fact was well illustrated
by the Confederate Congress.  One of the greatest political
scholars of America, Mr. Madison, noticed this danger in the
political constitution of the country.  He said:-" War is in
fact the true nurse of Executive aggrandizement.  In war a
physical force is to be created, and it is the Executive will
which is to direct it.  In war the public treasures are to be
unlocked, and it is the Executive hand which is to dispense
them.  In war the honours and emoluments of office are to be
multiplied, and it is the Executive patronage under which they
are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be
gathered, and it is the Executive brow they are to encircle."
There was but little opposition in Congress to President
Davis; but there was some which took a direction to his cabinet, and this opposition was represented by Mr. Foote of Tennessee-a man of acknowledged ability and many virtues of
character, who had re-entered upon the political stage after a
public life, which, however it lacked in the cheap merit of
partisan consistency, had been adorned by displays of wonderful intellect and great political genius. Mr. Foote was not a
man to be deterred from speaking the truth; his quickness to
resentment and his chivalry, which, though somewhat Quixotic,
was founded in the most noble and delicate sense of honour,
made those who would have bullied or silenced a weaker
person, stand in awe of him.  A man of such temper was not
likely to stint words in assailing an opponent; and his sharp
declamations in Congress, his searching comments, and his
great powers of sarcasm, used upon such men as Mallory,
Benjamin and Northrop were the only relief of the dulness of
the Congress, and the only historical features of its debates.
Mr. Foote was of a temperament that easily indulged the
prospects of peace which so generally existed when Congress
resumed its session in the opening of the new year.  At an
early period of the session resolutions were introduced by him
inviting the Northwestern States to abstention from the war,




238          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
and expressing a lively and friendly confidence in the negotiation which the Emperor of the French had just undertaken
for a qualified mediation in the war in America. Of these two
popular themes of confidence some explanation is due.
Since the commencement of the war, there had been some
few people in the North who had opposed its prosecution, and
many more who were averse to its policy and measures. The
removal of McClellan added a bitter feud to animosities already existing, and the enunciation at Washington of the
policy of emancipation contributed to the party divisions in
the North.  The result of the Northern elections in the fall of
1862 was apparently an emphatic and impressive popular verdict against the Abolition party which had ruled the government at Washington.  In the face of a majority of 107,000
against them in 1860, the Democrats had carried the State of
New York.  The metropolis of New York was carried by a
Democratic majority of 31,000-a change of 48,000 votes in
twelve months. Within the great States of New Jersey, New
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the results of
the popular elections were a more or less emphatic avowal of
opposition to the schemes of those who were using the power
of the government to advance and fasten upon the country
their political vagaries, regardless of right and written constitutions. These six States contained a majority of the free
State population.  They furnished the majority of the troops
in the field against us. They had two-thirds of the wealth of
the North.  It was clear that the Washington government
needed men and money to carry on the war, and to have a
united North the Democratic States must furnish more than
half of either.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the
people of the South should have convinced themselves that an
important rewtion was taking place in public sentiment in the
North, and that it naturally tended to a negotiation for peace.
But in one-half of this opinion they were mistaken. There
was a reaction in the North; but it had scarcely any thing




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                    239
more than a partisan significance. It was a struggle between
those in power and those out of power; the issues of which
were feigned and exaggerated; in which much that was said
against the war was not really meant; and at the close of
which the passions it had excited suddenly evaporated. Mr.
Van Buren, who, in the Democratic campaign in New York,
had made speeches quite warm enough for Southern latitudes,
was after the elections an advocate of the war and a mocker
of "the rebellion."  Many more followed the distinguished
lead of the demagogue in raising a clamour about the administration merely for party purposes, and having served those
purposes, in returning to the advocacy of a war, in which, by
giving false encouragement to the North, and holding out
hopes of "reconstruction," they were enemies more fatal to
the South than the blind and revengeful radicals who sought
her destruction.
It is probable that the movements in the Northwestern
States against the administration were better founded in principle than those that had taken  place in other parts of the
North, and that they denoted a sincere aversion to the war.
The opposition of Mr. Vallandigham, who assumed to represent this sentiment of the Northwest in Congress, was apparently superiour to the demagogical clamour of such men as
Van Buren and Seymour of New York.  The sentiment was
undoubtedly sincere, whatever the merits or demerits of its
officious representative.*
*There is unavoidable reason for doubting the virtue of Mr. Vallandigham. It is difficult to discover the motives of the Yankee. The people of
the South have reason to know, from former political association with this
faithless race, how indirect are their courses and how affected their zeal.
What appears to be the inspiration of virtue, may be the deep design of a selfish ambition; singularity of opinion may prove nothing but an itch for a
cheap reputation; and an extraordinary display of one's self before the public may, at best, be but the ingenious trick of a charlatan.
When Mr. Vallandigham was exiled for obstructing enlistments in the
North, he had an opportunity in his travels in the Confederacy of learning
the sentiments of the people, and of these he gave the following report in an
address to the people of Ohio:
" Travelling a thousand miles and more through nearly one-half of the




240            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
The pecuniary interest of New England in the war~was plain
enough.  The demand for the products of her industry for
objects of this war was greater than at any former period in
the history of this continent.  Her workshops were in full
blast. Ships and locomotives were to be built, the weapons of
war were to be created, and the ironmongers of New England
found a vast and profitable employment in answering these
demands.  The spinners and weavers and blanket-makers and
artisans were kept busy at their avocations, and everywhere
in these avaricious districts of the North arose the hum of
profitable industry.
But while New  England rioted  in the gains of the war, it
was stark ruin to the agricultural States of the Northwest.
The people there were growing poorer every day in the midst
of plenty.  The great Southern market which their resources
supplied had been closed, and there was no new demand for
their agricultural products.  The corn, wheat and bacon of
Indiana and Illinois was scarely worth the cost of transportation to the Atlantic coast.  The railroads connecting the West
with the seaboads were principally in the hands of the Eastern
capitalists, and the rates of freight were so enormous, that the
surplus agricultural product of the Northwestern farmers was
in many instances left to rot on their lands or be used as fuel.
This violent contrast between New  England and the West
in the effects on each of the war, was developed in a formidable
opposition of opinion. Indications of this opposition had
already been given in the press of St. Louis and Chicago.
" Confederate States, and sojourning for a time at widely different points,
" I met not one man, woman or child, who were not resolved to perish rather
"than yield to the pressure of arms, even in the most desperate extremity.
*    *    *k. Neither, however, let me add, did I meet any one, what" ever his opinion or station, political or private, who did not declare his readi-' ness, when the war shall have ceased, and invading armies be withdrawn, to'" consider and discuss the question of reunion. And who shall doubt the issue
" of the argument?"
A man who can be guilty of such a deliberate falsehood, and one evidently
planned to catch votes for his political hobby, can certainly make no pretension to heroism, and may even have his claims to honesty justly doubted.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              241
The jealousy of the agricultural States of the North was being
inflamed by the unequal profits of the war, and the selfish
policy of the Abolitionists; and the opinion plainly grew in
the press and public discussion that the West had not a single
interest in the war beyond securing the free navigation of the
Mississippi.
How far statesmanship in the South might have profited by
this disaffection in the Northwestern States is left a matter of
conjecture and controversy.  The efforts made in the Confederate Congress by Mr. Foote in this direction, tendering to
these States a complete assurance of the free navigation of the
Mississippi, and proposing an alliance with the Confederacy,
without political complications, met with feeble encouragement
in that body, a doubtful response from the army and divided
comments of the press.  Whatever may have been the merits
of Mr. Foote's proposition, it admitted of no delay. While
our government treated it with hesitation, the authorities at
Washington were making anxious and immense preparations
to overcome the disaffection of the people and to carry on the
war; and the means to do this were supplied by an act
suspending the habeas corpus and making Lincoln absolute
dictator; by new measures of finance, and by a conscription
law which called into the field three million of men.
The prospect of a termination of the war by any action of
foreign governments was more distant than that afforded by
party elections and movements in the North.  This action was
limited to the French Emperor alone; it had not progressed
further at this time than an invitation to England and Russia,
made in November 1862, to unite in proposing an armistice to
the Washington Government, which should merely give an
opportunity for discussion, without affecting in any way the
present military interests and positions of the belligerents.
Mild as the French proposition was, it was rejected by Russia
and England.  Lord Russell replied for his government that
the time was not ripe for such mediation as was proposed, and
that it would be better to watch carefully the progress of
16




242             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
opinion in America and  wait for some change in which the
three Courts could offer their friendly counsel with a prospect
of success. The British statesman had nothing to plead for
the mass of suffering humanity in his own land which the war
he was implored to stop or to ameliorate had occasioned; for
humanity was easily outweighed by political reasons, which are
as often worked out through. the blood and tears of its own
people as through the misfortunes of others.*
* In a letter of Mr. Cobden, published during the early winter in an
English journal, he declares that in travelling from Manchester to Blackburn
over a country covered with snow, he found hundreds of wasted victims of
cold and want.  He says: " Hitherto the distressed population have felt little
more than the want of food. Now and from  henceforth blankets, fuel and
clothing are as essential to health as bread and soup." iHe argues that it is
useless to save people from dying by hunger, only that they may perish by
fever, or by the exhaustion consequent on cold and insufficient food.
The early advent of winter enhanced the misery of the suffering. In many
districts there was no fuel, no means of warmth except the scanty allowance
of coals distributed in some places by the Relief Committees. Everywhere
the people had too little to eat, and that little was not sufficiently nutricious;
everywhere they suffered from cold yet more cruelly than from hunger; and
nowhere was there a fund sufficient to provide for their necessities.
The humane shuddered with horrour as they read the frightful accounts of
the suffering of the poor published day after day in the London Times. A
letter from Stockport described the people there as " suffering all the horrours of a protracted famine." The same writer says: " One poor man upon
whom  I called this morning, having stripped the walls of every little ornament to purchase bread for his wife and three little children, took the fender
and sold it for a shilling." The cases of distress reported in the newspapers
merely represented the average condition of the unemployed. An aged
couple, we are told, had saved thirty-six pounds; this is gone, their furniture
is pawned, the husband is in the infirmary, and the old woman living on a
charitable dole of half a crown per week, with some soup and bread. In
another case five persons, among them a sick woman, are living on seven
shillings a week. One family of six-considered to be particularly well offhave seven shillings, an allowance of coals and some soup and bread from
their former employer. Another family of six or seven had lived for twelve
months on six shillings a week.
The University of Oxford had subscribed about ~4000 towards the relief
of the suffering people. A meeting was held to promote further action, at
which the following facts were stated by the Hon. E. L. Stanley of Balliol
College:
"They received from America before the blockade five-sixths of their




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                      243
But while the prospect of an early peace dissolved before
the eyes of Congress, a subject of instant and practical importance was sorely pressing upon its attention.  The vast volume
of Treasury notes issued by the government had' occasioned a
rapid depreciation of our currency, inflated prices and produced serious financial difficulties.  So crude and short-sighted
had been our notions of public finance, that at the meeting of
Congress in August 1862, we find  President Davis recommending to it that the public creditors should not be paid in
bonds, but that unlimited issues of currency should be made.
He then said in his written message to Congress: " The legislation of the last session provided for the purchase of supplies
with the bonds of the government, but the preference of the
people for Treasury notes has been so marked that legislation
is recommended to authorize an increase in the issue of Treasury notes, which the public service seems to require. No
grave inconvenience need be apprehended from this increased
issue, as the provision of law by which these notes are convertible into eight per cent. bonds, forms an efficient and permanent safeguard against any serious depreciation of the currency."
"cotton; five days of the week they worked on what came from America;
"only one day on what came from  other countries. That supply was now
"practically at an end. The few ships that ran the blockade made no notice"able difference, and even if other countries should double their production,
"we should be only supplied with material for one-third of our usual work.
"The country, then, was losing two-thirds of the industry engaged in this
"trade, and two-thirds of the capital were making no return. And this
"trade was such a main part of the industry of the nation that what affected
"it must affect all. A Parliamentary return gave the persons actually
"engaged in the mills at near 500,000. If they reckoned their families, the
"traders who supplied them, the colliers, machinists, builders, and shipping
"interest engaged in supplying cotton, they would probably not overstate the
"number of dependents on cotton only at 3,000,000. These people were now
"deprived of fully two-thirds of their subsistence."
Such is a picture of the " Cotton Famine " in England. The most remarkable circumstance in connection with it was the profound indifference of the
English Ministry to the distress of near a million of those for whose lives and
happiness they were responsible.




244           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
The consequences of this ignorant and wild financial policy
were that, by the next meeting of Congress, the volume of
currency was at least four times what were the wants of the
community for a circulating medium; that prices were inflated
more than an equal degree, for want of confidence in the paper
of the government had kindled the fever of speculation; that
the public credit, abused by culpable ignorance and obstinate
empiricism, had fallen to an ebb that alarmed the country
more than any reverse in the military fortunes of the war;
and that the government was forced to the doubtful and not
very honourable expedient of attempting to restore its currency by a system of demonetizing its own issues.
The redundancy of the currency was the chief cause of its
depreciation.  The amount of money in circulation in the
South in time of peace, was   80,009,000.  In January 1863,
it was $300,000,000.  In September 1861, Confederate notes
were about equal to specie; before December, specie was at
10 per cent. premium; before April 1862, it was at 50 per
cent.; before last September, at 100; before December, at
225; before February, at 280, and in the spring of 1883, at
the frightful premium of four hundred per cent., while bank
bills were worth one hundred and ninety cents on the dollar.
Since the foundation of the Confederate Government, its
finances had been grossly mismanaged.  The Treasury note
vas a naked promise to pay  there was no fund pledged for
its redemption; and the prospect of the rigid liquidation of the
enormous debt that this class of paper represented six months
after the-restoration of peace, depended solely on the speculative prospect of a foreign loan to the amount of many hundred millions-of dollars. At the commencement of the war
the South had the elements for the structure of one of the
most successful and elastic schemes of finance that the world
had seen.  The planters were anxious to effect the sales of
their cotton and tobacco to the Confederate States: these would
have supplied the government with a basis of credit which
would have been extended as the prices of these staples




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                245
advanced, and therefore kept progress with the war; but this
scheme was opposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.
Memminger, and defeated by his influence.  He was unfortunately sustained by an Executive grossly incompetent on sutl
jects of finance; which was ignorant of the principle of political economy, that there are no royal ways of making money
out of nothing, that governments must raise money in the
legitimate way of taxation, loans, &c.; which relied upon the
manufacture of a revenue out of naked paper obligations; and
which actually went to the foolish extremity of recommending
that the creditors of the government should take their payment
in currency rather than in the public stocks.  It appears,
indeed, that our government was ignorant of the most primitive
truths of finance, and that it had not read in history or in
reason the lesson of the fatal connection between currency and
revenue.
It is true that some appreciation of this lesson was at last
shown by Congress in its new tax bill; for the theory of that
bill was, by an enormous weight of taxation, to pay, at least
measurably, the expenses of the war as.it progressed, and to
risk no further connection between the two distinct financial
concerns of revenue and currency. But on the other hand its
system of forcing the funding of treasury notes by arbitrary
reductions of interest, betrayed the ignorance of Congress; left
incomplete and embarrassed a system of finance which might
have otherwise been carried to a point of extraordinary success; and aimed a direct blow at the integrity of the public
credit.
It was easy to see that slight differences in rates of interest
would afford but feeble inducements for the conversion of the
treasury note into the bond, when money was easily doubled
or quadrupled in the active commercial speculations peculiar
to the condition of the South in the war, unless the bond could
be readily used as a medium of exchanges; and in that event
there would only be a change in the form of the paper, the
volume of the currency would be undiminished, and its depre



246             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
ciation therefore remain the same. But while the ahalysis of
this system of funding shows it to be a transparent juggle, it
was by no means certain that it did not contain the germ of
many positive evils. The right of a government to make arbitrary changes in any of the terms of its obligations which
affect their value, is questionable, and the commercial honour
of such an expedient is more than doubtful. While it introduced the shadow of repudiation only to weak and suspicious
minds, it is yet to be regretted that even whispers on that subject were ever heard in the South. But.as far as our foreign
credit was concerned, there is no doubt that the empirical action of Congress, which involved, even to the smallest extent,
the integrity of our obligations, was of serious prejudice. It
might indeed have been logically and certainly expected that
the general confidence in Europe in the military fortunes of
the  Confederacy -would  have  been  productive  of unlimited
credit to us abroad, had the faith of Europe in the manageInent of our finances equalled that in the success of our arms.*
On  the  subject of the financial management of the new
Confederacy, one general reflection  at least admits  of no
doubt.  The attentive reader will recognize as the most remarkatle circumstance of this war, that within two years the
public finances of the Confederacy should have been brought
* It is true that a small foreign loan has been negotiated in Europe; but
it affords no test of our credit in present circumstances, as it was made on a
pledge of cotton. It shows, however, what might have been done, if the
cotton had been purchased by the government and mobilized, for the whole
crop might have been secured in 1861 at seven cents a pound. But against
this scheme the government had set its face as flint, and when it did become
distrustful of its former conclusion, it had only the nerve to make a very
limited experiment in the application of this staple to support a credit almost
hopelessly abused by paper issues.
It was estimated that there remained in the States of the ConfeJeracy at
this time 3,500,000 bales of cotton, which could be exported in the event of
the ports being opened to trade.  This estimate is made after deducting from
the crops of 1861 and 1862 the quantity of cotton which had run the blockade, the amount destroyed to prevent capture by the Yankees, and the quantity used for home consumption, which, since the commencement of the wa?,
had enormously increased, being now fully 500,000 bales per annum.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              247
to the brink of ruin.  The sympathy of the people with the
revolution was unbounded.  The disposition of all classes towards the government was one of extreme generosity.  The
property of the States of the Confederacy was greater per
capita than that of any community on the globe. i No country
in the world had export values comparable in magnitude to
those of the South, and the exports of all other countries
were produced at a cost in labour four times that of ours. In
such circumstances it is highly improbable that the government
of the Confederacy could, within two years, have wrecked its
credit with its own people, unless by the most ignorant trifling
with great questions and the childish management of its treasury.
At an early period of the war it had been our boast that we
had spent only fifteen millions, while the Yankees had spent
ten or fifteen times that amount. But we find that the debt
of the general government of the Confederate States in January last was $556,000,000, with the prospect, at the curreni
rate of expenditure, that it would reach nine hundred millions
by the close of the fiscal year on the first of July; and it is
curious to observe what miscalculations were made of public
debt both in the North and in the South. The newspapers of
the two nations flourished the estimates of their debt in enumerations only of the obligations of the general government of
each, and made complacent comparisons of these sums with
the debts of European governments.  But according to the
estimates of Europe and the calculations of plain reason, the
true volume of the debt of each of these nations was represented not only by what was owed by the Richmond and
Washington governments, but by the aggregate amount of the
indebtedness of the several States composing each confederation. Here could be the only true and just measure of the
national debt of either the South or the North in comparison
with the debts of other governments, to which the system of
the division of powers between a central authority and States
was unknown.  The debt of each member of the Southern




248           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Confederacy, as well as that of a central authority, Was a burden on the nation, for the problem of its payment was at last
to resolve itself into a tax upon the people. It is only by a
calculation of these aggregates that just comparisons could be
made between our financial condition and that of the North or
European nations; and although such comparisons on our side
were to the disadvantage of our enemies, yet they exhibited
facts which were unpleasant enough to ourselves.
The law of impressment enacted by Congress affords the
evidence of the scarcity of supplies in the South.  The question of food with that of finance divided the attention of the
government.  The grain-growing and provision-raising country, which stretches from  the Potomac at Harper's Ferry to
Memphis on the Tennessee, was now exhausted of its provisions.  Much of the productive portions of North Carolina
and the Gulf States had been also exhausted. The great and
true source of meat supply, the State of Kentucky, which
contained more hogs and cattle, two or three to one, than were
left in all the South besides, had fallen into the undivided possession of the Yankees. The general scarcity of all sorts of
supplies was attested by the high prices of everything eatable.
The advance in prices induced by the scarcity of supplies, was
still further enormously enhanced by the greedy commercial
speculation which distressed the South, and threw a shadow of
dishonour upon the moral aspects of our struggle.
It is a subject of extraordinary remark, that the struggle
for our independence should have been attended by the ignoble
circumstances of a commercial speculation in the South unparalleled in its heartlessness and selfish greed.  War invariably
excites avarice and speculation; it is the active promoter of
rapid fortunes and corrupt commercial practices. But it is a
matter of surprise that more than an ordinary share of this
bad, avaricious spirit should have been developed in the South
during a war which involved the national existence, which presented so many contrasts of heroic self-sacrifice, and which




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               249
was adorned with exhibitions of moral courage and dyotion
such as the world had seldom seen.
But of this social and moral contradiction in our war for
independence, some explanation may be offered. It may, in
some measure, be found in three facts: first, that a distrust of
the national currency prevailed in the country; secondly, that
the initiative (for it is the first steps in speculation which are
more responsible) was made by Jews and foreign adventurers
who everywhere infested the Confederacy; and, thirdly, that
the fever of gain was greatly inflamed by the corruptions of
the government, the abuse of its pecuniary patronage, and a
system of secret contract, in which officials who were dishonest shared the profits, and those who were incompetent were
easily overreached in the negotiation. The only serious blot
which defaced our struggle for independence was, at least to
some extent, the creature of circumstances; and that is lost
to the eye of humane and enlightened history in the lustre of
arms and virtues shed on the South in the most sublime trials
of the war.




250             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER X.
Character of Military Events of the Spring of 1863...Repulse of the Enemy
at Fort McAllister...THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG...The Yazoo Pass Expedition...
Confederate Success at Fort Pemberton...The Enemy's Canals or "Cut Offs"...
Their Failure...BOMBARDMENT OF PORT HUDSON...Destruction of "The Mississippi"...A Funeral Pyre...Happy Effects of our Victory...A Review of the
Line of Inland Hostilities...Hooker's Hesitation on the Rappahannock...The
Assignment of Confederate Commands West of the Mississippi...The Affair of
Kelly's Ford...Death of Major Pelham...NAvAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON...
Destruction of "The Keokuk"...Scenery of the Bombardment...Extent of the
Confederate Success...Events in Tennessee and Kentucky...Pegram's Reverse...The Situation of Hostilities at the close of April 1862.
Although but little is to be found of a decisive character in
the military events of the Spring of 1862, there was yet a
series of interesting occurrences which went far to prove the
inefficiency of the most boasted naval structures of the enemy
and the progress we had made in defensive works on the lines
of our harbours and the banks of our rivers.
The first of these may be mentioned as the repulse of the
enemy at Fort McAllister on the third of March.  This fort
is on the outer line of the defences of Savannah.  Off the
Georgia coast, and eighteen miles to the southward of the
Savannah river, is Ossabaw Sound.  Into this sound flows the
Ogeechee river, a stream navigable some distance up-some
thirty miles-to vessels of a larger class. On the Ogeechee
river, four miles above the sound, is situate Fort McAllister.
The fort stands on the main land, directly on the river bank,
and commands the river for a mile and a half or two miles.
The attack of the enemy on this fort was made with three
iron-clads and two mortar-boats.  The result of a whole day's
bombardment was, that one gun was dismounted, but the fort
remained uninjured, and no loss of life was sustained on our




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                251
side.  The iron-clad Montauk was struck with solid shot
seventy-one times, and was lifted clear out of the water by
the explosion of a torpedo under her bow, but the Yankees
stated that she was not seriously injured.  Indeed, they declared that the whole affair was nothing more than an experimentum crucis, to ascertain the power of their new iron-clads
to resist cannon-shot, and that the result of the encounter was
all that they had hoped. If the enemy was pleased with the
result, the Confederates had certainly no reason to dispute his
satisfaction, as long as they had the solid gratification of having resisted a bombardment of eight hours, without injury to
their works or the loss of a single life.
While the enemy menaced the seaboard, he had found another theatre for his naval power on the waters of the Mississippi river.  His operations there were even more important
than those on our sea lines, for they were an essential part of
the campaign in the West.  In fact, Vicksburg was for a long
time the point on which depended the movements in Tennessee and the resolution of the great crisis in the West.
THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG.
The siege of Vicksburg furnishes a most remarkable instance
of the industry and physical perseverance of the Yankees.
Ever since December 1862, they had been busily engaged in
the attempt to circumvent our defences, even to the extremity
of forcing our internal navigation of swampy lagoons and obstructed creeks for a distance of four hundred and fifty miles.
The enemy's operations in other directions kept him quiet
directly in front of Vicksburg, but his purpose was. all the
same-the capture and occupation of the place.  The enemy
had three distinct projects for compassing the capture of
Vicksburg: First, the canal across the isthmus opposite the
city; secondly, the project of getting through the Yazoo
Pass; third, the Lake Providence canal project. It had been
all the time the principal aim of the Yankees to get in the
rear or below  Vicksburg.  Their present plan; and one on




252           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR,
which they were now at work, was to get through the Yazoo
Pass in the hope of getting in our rear and cutting off our
supplies. Their idea was to flank Vicksburg, capture Jackson,
cut off Grenada, and destroy all possibility of our obtaining,supplies throughout that rich country, by this one bold stroke.
The route mapped out by the Yankees commences near
Helena, Arkansas, where the'Yazoo Pass connects the Mississippi with the Coldwater river, through Moon lake. The
distance from the Mississippi to the Coldwater by this pass is
about twenty miles-a very narrow and tortuous channel, only
navigable when the Mississippi is quite high and its waters
overflow the low lands of this region.  The Coldwater river
empties into the Tallahatchie, and the Tallahatchie into the
Yazoo. The wh8le distance by this route from the Mississippi
to the mouth of the Yazoo, in the neighbourhood of Vicksburg, is some five hundred miles, and over one-half of it, or
to the mouth of the Tallahatchie, it is easily obstructed.  The
Yankees met with no obstruction on their ascent of the Tallahatchie, except the overgrowth and tortuousness of the stream
-which prevented the gunboats, in some instances, from making more than Three and four miles a day-until reaching the
mouth of the Tallahatchie, or its neighbourhood, where they
encountered the batteries known as Fort Pemberton, which
stood as the barrier against the entrance of their fleet into the
Yazoo river, formed by the confluence of the Tallahatchie and
Yallobusha rivers.
This fort was nothing more than an indented line of earthworks, composed of cotton bales and mud, thrown up on the
neck of a bend of the Tallahatchie river, where the river was
only two hundred and fifty, yards wide.  The site was selected
by Major Geneial Loring as the best position on the Yazoo or
Tallahatchie river.
It was here on the 13th of March, that the Yazoo expedition was intercepted and driven back by our batteries, which
achieved a splendid victory over the Yankee gunboats. The
Yallabusha river unites with the Tallahatchie in the bend,




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                253
forming the Yazoo, so that the right flank of our works rested
upon the Tallahatchie, and the left upon the Yazoo, both, however, being really the same- stream. The left flank was opposite Greenwood, which is situated on the east side of the Yazoo.  The Tallahatchie, under the guns of the fort, was obstructed by an immense raft, behind which the Star of the
West was sunk in the channel. The intervention of the point
above the bend masked the whole of our line except the left,
upon'which, consequently, the fire of the enemy's boats was
directed. lihe fire was terrific, uninterrupted for four hours,
from ten to sixteen heavy calibre guns on gunboats, two heavy
guns on land, and one mortar. Yet the line of our batteries
was maintained. The loss of the enemy in this unsuccessful
attack is not known; but his gunboats and batteries were constantly hit and large quantities of burning cotton were struck
from them.
The defeat of the enemy at Fort Pemberton prevented his
fleet from passing by to the lower Yazoo.  But this was not
the only canal project of the Yankees. One at Lake Providence, was intended to afford a passage from the Mississippi
to the headwaters of the Red river, by which they might command a vast scope of country and immense resources.  This
canal, which it was said was to change the bed of the Missississippi and turn its mighty current in the Atchafalaya river on
its way to the Gulf of Mexico, was also a failure.  The canal
had been opened and an enormous extent of country submerged and ruined, but it was found that no gunboats or
transports could ever reach the Mississippi below  Vicksburg
by that route.  Snags and drift choked up the tortuous
streams formed by the flood from the cut levees, and even if
navigation had been possible, the channel might have been
rendered impassable in a hundred places by a score of active
guerrillas.
In the meantime, there was every reason to believe that the
Yankees were content to abandon the project of cutting a
ditch through the main land opposite Vicksburg, by which it




251           WHE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
was hoped to force the current of the Mississippi into an unaccustomed course through which to pass their vessels without
going within range of our batteries.
It was thus that the enemy was apparently brought to the
point of necessity of either attacking our fortifications at Snyder's Bluff on the Yazoo, or our batteries in front of the city.
These were the only two points left against which he could
operate, and they were the same which he had been trying to
avoid for the last three months.  When he first arrived these
were the only points susceptible of assault, but wishing to
flank them he had wasted three months' time, lost a number of
gunboats and transports, and many thousands of his troops.
An attack directly in front of the city plainly threatened
the most serious disaster to the enemy. From a point of the
river above, where high land begins, there is a high and precipitous bluff, which would not afford any landing place for the
troops-only about two acres of ground are to be found where
a landing could be effected, and upon this a formidable battery
was ready to receive them, and in the rear there were numberless other batteries to protect it.  The whole bluff, extending
a distance of two miles, was also frowning with guns, all of
which would bear upon an enemy in the river.
The expedition of the enemy on the Tallahatchie, which
met such unexpected and disgraceful defeat from  the guns of
a hastily made fort, is memorable as another of those Yankee
raids which, unable to accomplish military results, was left to
gratify itself with the plunder of citizens and the cowardly
atrocities of marauders. From the barbarity of the Yankee,
Mississippi was a distinguished sufferer as well as Virginia.
Two-thirds of Sherman's army was composed of new troops
from  Indiana, Illinois and, Wisconsin, and they had come
down the Mississippi with the intention of burning and destroying everything they could lay their hands on. The whole
line of their march was one continued scene of destruction.
Private dwellings were burned, women and children driven out
of their houses, and even the clothes stripped from their backs,




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                      255
to say nothing of acts committed by the soldiery which might
make the blackest hearted libertine blush for shame.*
Another attempt of the enemy to force our strongholds on
the Mississippi, which we have to relate at this time, was made
on Port Hudson on the 15th of March.  We have seen how
fatal, so far, had been the enemy's attempts to run our batteries and  to get to the south of Vicksburg.  His first attempt
was with the Queen of the West, his second with the Indianola;
but though successful in these two cases in running our batteries, the boats were soon captured by our men, and the enemy
completely foiled in his design. It was now proposed that the
enemy's fleet should attack Port Hudson and attempt to force
a passage up the river.
THE BOMBARDMENT OF PORT HUDSON.
Port Hudson  is a strongly fortified position  on tbw  lower
Mississippi —about sixteen  miles above  Baton  Rouge and
three hundred  b.elow Vicksburg.  It is situated on a bend in
the river, and its great strength as a place of defence against
a fleet consists in the height of its cliffs and the peculiar formation of the river at that place.  The cliffs are very high
* The following is a private confession taken from the letter of a Yankee
officer, attached to Sherman's command: "I have always blamed Union
Generals for guarding rebel property, but I now see the necessity of it.
Three weeks of such unbridled license would ruin our army. I tell you the
truth when I say we are about as mean a mob as ever walked the face of the
earth. It is perfectly frightful. If I lived in this country, I never would lay
down my arms while a'Yankee' remained on the soil. I do not blame Southerners for being secessionists now. I could relate many things that would be
laughable if they were not so horribly disgraceful. For instance, imagine
two privates in an elegant carriage, belonging to some wealthy Southern
nabob, with a splendid span of horses riding in state along the road we are
marching over, with a negro coachman holding the reins in all the style of an
English nobleman, and then two small drummer boys going it at a two-forty
pace, in an elegant buggy, with a fast horse, and the buggy loaded with a
strange medley of household furniture and kitchen utensils, from an elegant
parlor mirror to a pair of fire-dogs, all of which they have'cramped' from
some fine house, which, from sheer wantonness, they have rifled and destroyed."




256           THE SECON]D YEAR OF THE WAR.
and also very steep-in fact, almost perpendicular..The river
just at the bend opposite the town, suddenly narrows, so that
the rapid current strikes against the west bank, and then
sweeps through a narrow channel just at the base of the cliff.
Our batteries were located on a bluff at the elbow of the river,
and commanded a range of three miles above and below, compelling any vessel which might attempt the passage to run the
gauntlet of a plunging fire.
Six vessels were to comprise the enemy's expedition, divided
into two divisions. The vanguard was to consist of the flag
ship Hartford, a first class steam sloop-of-war, carrying twentysix eight and nine inch Paixhan guns, leading, followed by the
Monongahela, a second class steam  sloop, mounting sixteen
heavy guns, and the Richmond, a first class steam  sloop of
twenty-six guns, principally eight and nine inch columbiads.
The rear guard was composed of the first class steam  sloop
Mississippi, twenty-two guns, eight and nine inch, and the
gunboats Kinnes and Gennessee, each carrying three columbiads and two rifled thirty-two pounders.  The Mississippi was
a side-wheel steamer. All the others were screw propellers.
The vanguard was commanded by Admiral Farragut in person, on board the Hartford.  The rear was under command of
Capt. Melancthon Smith, flying his pennant from the Mississippi. They were to proceed up the stream in single file, the
stern of one following close upon the stern of another, and
keeping their fires and lights well concealed until they should
be discovered by our batteries, when they were to get by the
best they could, fighting their passage, and once above they
believed they would have the stronghold on both sides, their
guns covering every part of the encampment.
Shortly before midnight, the boats, having formed the line
of battle as described, their decks cleared for action, and the
men at their quarters, the Hartford led the way and the others
promptly followed her direction.  At the moment of their discovery, a rocket was to be sent up from the admiral's flagship, as the signal for the Essex and her accompanying mortar-boats to commence work.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                257
Although there had been no indications of such a determined
night attack by Farragut, the usual vigilant precautions were
in force at our batteries. Every gun was ready for action,
and around each piece slept a detachment of gunners.  So
dark was the night, however, and so slightly had the armed
craft nosed their way up, that the flag-ship had passed some of
our guns and all the fleet were within easy range before their
approach was known.  Almost at the same time a rocket from
our signal corps, and the discharge of muskets by an infantry
picket, aroused our line.  Quick as a flash, while the falling
fire of our alarm rocket was yet unextinguished, there shot up
into the sky, from the Hartford's deck, another.  Then came
one grand, long, deafening roar, that rent the atmosphere with
its mighty thunder, shaking both land and water, and causing
the high battery-crowned cliffs to tremble, as if with fear and
wonder.
The darkness of the night gave extraordinary sublimity to
the scene of bombardment.  The sheets of flame that poured
from the sides of the sloops. at each discharge lit up nearly the
whole stretch of river, placing each craft in strong relief
against the black sky.  On the long line of bluff, the batteries
but a moment before silent as the church-yard, now resounded
to the hurrying tread of men, while the quick, stern tones of
command were heard above the awful din, and the furtively
glancing rays of light from the battle lanterns revealed the
huge instruments of death and destruction, and showed the
halfcovered way to magazines.
Minute after minute passed away, and the fleet kept its unchecked course up the stream. The feeling of its officers was
one of amazement at the silence of the batteries.  The question was seriously propounded, had not the Confederates deserted them.?  But only too soon did the enemy discover that
we were but waiting to bring their whole fleet irretrievably
under our guns before we went to work.
For fifteen minutes had they plied at their monster cannon,
and now they were commencing to relax, from sheer vexation,
17




258          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
when a flash of light from  the crest of a cliff lights the way
for a shell to go plunging through the Hartford's deck. This
was the monitor, and at once the enemy saw a cordon of vivid
light as long as their own.
Now commenced the battle in all its terrible earnestness.
Outnumbered in guns and outweighed in metal, our volleys
were as quickly repeated and the majority of them unerring
in their aim. As soon as the enemy thus discovered our batteries, they opened on them with grape and canister, which
was more accurately thrown than their shells, and threw clouds
of dirt upon the guns and gunners; the shells went over them
in every conceivable direction, except the right one.
The Hartford, a very fast ship, now made straight up the
river, making her best time, and trying to divert the aim of
our gunners by her incessant and deafening broadsides.  She
soon outstripped the balance of the fleet.  Shot after shot
struck her, riddling her through and through, but still she kept
on her way.
Every craft now looking out for itself and bound to make
its very best time to get by, the fleet lost its orderly line of
battle, and got so mixed up, it was difficult, and sometimes impossible, to distinguish one from another. It was speedily apparent to the enemy, that the fire was a great deal hotter and
more destructive than had been expected, and the captains of
the two gunboats and of the Monongahela, doubtless resolved
quickly that it would be madness to attempt to run such a terrific gauntlet of iron hail.  Whether the commanders of the
Richmond and Mississippi had already arrived at the same determination, or came to it soon after, is not known; but they
all, except the Hartford, undertook to put about and return
the way they came.
For this purpose the Richmond came close in to the left
bank, under the batteries, and then circled round, her course
reaching nearly up to the opposite point. In executing this
manoeuvre, she gave our batteries successively a raking posi



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              259'
tion, and they took excellent advantage of it, seriously damaging her, as the crashing of her timbers plainly told.
The Mississippi undertook to execute the same manoeuvre of
turning round and making her escape back to the point she
started from.  She had rounded and just turned down stream,
when one of our shots tore off her rudder, and another went
crushing through her machinery. Immediately after came the
rushing sound of steam escaping from some broken pipe, and
the now unmanageable vessel drifted aground directly opposite
our crescent line of batteries. Her range was quickly gained,
and she was being rapidly torn to pieces by our missiles, when
her commander gave the order for all hands to save themselves
the best way they could. At the same time fire broke out in
two places. At this time her decks were strewn with dead
and wounded.  Some fifty-five or sixty persons saved themselves byjumping overboard and swimming to the shore.
The dead and wounded were left upon the Mississippi, which
soon floated off and started down with the current.  All the
other vessels were now out of range, and the spectacle of the
burning ship was a grand and solemn one, yet mingled with
painful thoughts of the horrible fate of those mangled unfortunates who were being burned to death upon this floating
funeral pyre. As the flames would reach the shells lying
among her guns, they exploded one by one, adding to the
novel grandeur of the sight.  The light of the burning wreck
could be seen, steadily increasing its distance, for two hours
and a half. At five minutes past five o'clock, when the Mississippi was probably within five miles of Baton Rouge, a sudden glare lit up the whole sky. The cause was well known to
be the explosion of the magazine. After a considerable interval of time, a long rumbling sound brought final proof that
the Mississippi, one of the finest vessels of the Uriited States
navy, which had earned an historical fame before the commencement of the present war for her usefulness in the Gulf
during the Mexican war, and as the flag-ship of the Japan expedition, was a thing of the past.




260           THE SECOND YEAR O.F THE WAR.
The victory of Port Hudson forms one of the most satisfactory and brilliant pages in the history of the war.  The fleet,
with the exception of the Hartford, had been driven back by
our batteries, and a grateful surprise had been given to many
of our people who had acquired the disheartening conviction
that gunboats could treat shore batteries with contempt.  So
far our strongholds on the Mississippi had bid defiance to the
foe, and months of costly preparation for their reduction had
been spent in vain.
While these events were transpiring on the Mississippi, the
long line of inland hostilities remained unvaried and almost
silent.  In Virginia and in Tennessee, the powerful armies of
Lee and Hooker, Bragg and Rosecranz, had camped for months
in close proximity without a cannonade, and almost without a
skirmish.  To some extent the elements had proclaimed a
truce, while the hesitating temper of the enemy betrayed a
policystrangely at variance with the former vigorous campaign
in the same season of the last year. Especially was the hesitation remarkable in Virginia, where the new commander-inchief of the enemy-Hooker-was a violent member of the
Abolitionist party.  IHe was the chief of that clique among
the Yankee officers who made the war not to realize the dream
of a restored Union, but for the subjugation and destruction
of the Southern social system, the massacre or exile of the inhabitants of the Southern country, and the confiscation of
their entire real and personal property.
Beyond the Mississippi there was scarcely any thing to remark but a new assignment of military commands.  We had
now west of the Mississippi Lieutenant-General Kirby Smith,
General Price, General Magruder and General Sibley. Gen.
Smith had been placed at the head of the department, and
had already issued an order announcing that fact; General
Price was assigned to lead the field movements for the redemption of Arkansas and his own State, Missouri; Gen. Sibley
was moving to other important points; and Gen. Magruder's
field of operations was Texas.




THE SECOND YEAR OF TEE WAR.                261
We have to record but a single incident in the spring of
1863, to break the long silence of the lines of the Rappahannock.  On the morning of the 17th of March the enemy
crossed the river at Kelly's Ford, with both a cavalry and artillery force, numbering probably three thousand men.  They
advanced within six miles of Culpeper -(ourt-House, where
they were engaged by.the brigade of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee.  The
fight was severe and lasted several hours. The Yankeeq were
finally repulsed, and fell back routed and panic-stricken, after
having inflicted a loss upon us of about one hundred in killed
and wounded.  They had fought with some advantages at first,
bravely contesting their ground, and it is not improbable that
a report of reinforcements coming up to us was the occasion
of their retreat.  When the retreat was ordered, they fled in
dismay and confusion.
This affair-if it was worth any thing-cost us the life of
one of the most brilliant artillery officers in the army.  Major
Pelham, of Alabama,.who had acquired the title of "the gallant Pelham" from the hands of Gen. Lee in the official report
of the battle of Fredericksburg, was killed by the fragment of
a shell.  At Fredericksburg he had distinguishes himself by
sustaining the concentrated fire of a number of the enemy's
batteries.  In that terrible trial he had stood as a rock. In
the affair which cost him his life, he had just risen in his saddle to cheer a troop of cavalry rushing to the charge, when
the fatal blow was given. He was only twenty-two years of
age, and had been through all the battles in Virginia. Unusual honours were paid his remains, for they were laid in the
capitol, and tributes of rare flowers strewn upon the bier of
"the young Marcellus of the South."
NAVAL ATTACK ON CHARLESTON.
The city of Charleston had long. been the object of the
enemy's lust; it was considered a prize scarcely less important
than the long-contested one of Richmond; and with more than
their customary assurance, the Yankees anticipated the glory




262           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
and counted the triumphs of the capture of the cradle of the
revolution.  It was thought to be an easy matter for Admiral
Dupont's iron-clad fleet to take the city, and the Yankee newspapers for months had indulged the prospect of the capture of
Charleston as a thing of the future that only awaited, their
pleasure.
On Sunday morning, the 5th of April, four "monitors,"
the Ironsides (an armour-plated frigate with an armament of
twenty-two 10, 11 and 15-inch guns) and thirty vessels of various sizes were seen off the bar.  Four monitors and thirtyfive wooden vessels were added to the fleet on the following
day; thirty-five vessels, for the most part transports, appeared
in the Stono, and the enemy landed a force of about six thousand men on Coles' and Battery Islands.  These facts, with
other indications, led Gen. Beauregard to count upon an attack
on Tuesday, and the expectations of that sagacious and vigilant commander were not disappointed.
The atmosphere early on Tuesday morning, 7th of April,
was misty, but as the day advanced the haze lightened, and
the monitors and the Ironsides were seen lying off Morris Island.  Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, a dispatch from  Colonel Rhett, commandant of Fort Sumter,
informed Gen. Beauregard that five monitors and the Ironsides
were approaching the fort.  The fleet were seen rounding the
point of Morris Island, the Keokuk in the advance.  It was a
happy moment for the defenders of Charleston.  So long had
suspense reigned in that city, that the booming of the signal
gun and the announcement that at last the battle had begun
was a positive relief. A thrill of joy came to every heart,
and the countenances of all declared plainly that a signal victory over the mailed vessels was reckoned upon without doubt
or misgiving.  The long roll beat in Fort Sumter; the artillerists in that work rushed to their guns. The regimental flag
of the 1st South Carolina Artillery and "the stars and bars"
of the Confederate States flaunted out from their flagstaffs on
the fort, and were saluted as the enemy advanced with an out



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                263
burst of "Dixie" from  the band, and the deep-mouthed roar
of thirteen pieces of heavy artillery.
On came the mailed monitors.  Their ports were closed,
and they appeared deserted of all living things. They moved
northwardly towards Sullivan's Island, and at a distance from
its batteries about 1200 yards they began to curve around towards Sumter.  A flash, a cloud of smoke, a clap of thunder
herald a storm of heavy shot which bursts from the island upon
the side of the frigate.  The ships move on silently.  The
deep-mouthed explosions of Sumter in the next instant burst
upon the advancing ships, and hurl tremendous bolts of
wrought iron against the armour of the Ironsides.  The frigate
halts. At a distance of about twelve hundred yards from that
work she delivers from seven guns a broadside of 15-inch shot
that dashes against the sea-face of Sumter with a heavy crash.
Bricks fly from the parapet and whirl from the traverse. A
shell smashes a marble lintel in the officers' quarters, hustles
through a window on the other side, and, striking the parapet,
hurls a tornado of bricks far to the rear. The works on Morris Island burst into the deafening chorus.  On land and on
sea, from all the batteries of the outer circle, from all the turrets of the inner circle.
It was manifest that the Ironsides was appointed to test the
strength of the fort. Fort Sumter acknowledged the compliment by! pouring the contents of her biggest guns into that
pride of the Yankee navy. Advancing on her circling course,
the Ironsides made way for her attendant, warriors; and one
by one, as their turrets moved in the solemn waltz, they received the fire, sometimes diffused, sometimes concentrated, of
the surrounding circle of batteries.  The first division of the
ships curved on its path under an iron storm  that rended the
air with its roar and bursted upon their mail in a quick succession of reports; sometimes with the heavy groan of crushing, sometimes with the sharp cry of tearing. Delivering a
fire of shot and shell as they passed the works on Morris Island, the Ironsides and her monitors moved slowly out of range.




264           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
As the Ironsides withdrew from  the action, taking position to
the south of Fort Sumter, steam was seen issuing from her in
dense volumes, and it was believed that she was seriously
damaged.
The Keokuk, a double-turreted iron-clad, led into the fight
four monitors.  More. bold than even the Ironsides, she advanced-under a tornado of shot to a position within about nine
hundred yards of Fort Sumter.  Halting at that distance, she
discharged her 15-inch balls from her turrets against the seaface of that fort.  Crushing and scattering the bricks on the
line of her tremendous fire, she failed, however, to make any
serious impression on the walls. A circle of angry flashes radiated towards her from all sides, while a tempest of iron bolts
and round shot crashed against her sides.  For about twenty
minutes she stood still in apparent helplessness.  At the expiration of that time she moved slowly on, and after receiving
the fire of the works on Morris Island. passed out of range.
She was fairly riddled, for she had been the target of the most
powerful guns the Confederates could command.  Great holes
were visible in her sides, her prow, her after-turret and her
smoke-stack.  Her plates were bent and bolts protruded here
and there all over her. She was making water rapidly, and it
was plain to see that she was a doomed ship.
After the Keokuk and her companions had passed out of
range, the circular movement was not renewed.  The ships retired outside the harbour to their anchorage; and after about
two hours and a half of a most terrible storm of shot and thunder of artillery, Fort Sumter and its supporting batteries settled
down under sluggish clouds of smoke into triumphs of quiet.
Our victory was one of unexpected brilliancy, and had cost
us scarcely more than the ammunition for our guns.  A drummer-boy was killed at Fort Sumter and five men wounded.
Our artillery practice was excellent, as is proved by the fact
that the nine Yankee vessels were struck five hundred and
twenty times.  The Keokuk received no less than ninety shots.
She did not outlive the attack on Fort Sumter twelve hours.




TEE  SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                      265
The next day  her smoke-stack  and one of her turrets were
visible  during  low  water off Morris Island, where she had
sunk.
The battle  had  been  fought on  the extreme outer line of
fire, and the enemy had been defeated at the very threshold of
our defences.  Whether his attack was intended only as a reconnoissance, or whether what was supposed to be the preliminary skirmish, was in  fact the whole affair, it is certain that
our success gave great assurances of the safety of Charleston;
that it had the proportions of a considerable victory; and that
it went far to impeach the once dreaded power of the ironclads of the enemy.*
The month of April has but few events of military note beyond what has been referred to in the foregoing pages.  The
check of Van Dorn at Franklin, Tennessee, and the reverse of
Pegram  in Kentucky, were unimportant incidents; they did
not affect the campaign, and their immediate disasters were inconsiderable.  The raid of the latter commander into  Kentucky  again revived  reports of the reaction of public sentiment in that unhappy State in favour of the Confederacy. It
was on his retreat that he was set upon by a superiour force of
the enemy near Somerset, from  which  he effected an escape
across the Cumberland, after the loss of about one hundred
and fifty men in killed, wounded and prisoners.
* It is a question of scientific interest whether, in the construction of ironclads, the Confederate plan of slanted sides is not superiour to the Yankee
plan of thick-walled turrets-the Virginia-Merrimac, and not the Monitor,
the true model. The Yankee monitor is an upright, cylindrical turret.  If a
shot strikes the centre line of this cylinder, it will not glance, but deliver its
full force. On the contrary, the peculiarity of the Virginia-Merrimac was its
roof shaped sides, on which the shot glances.  The inventor of that noble naval structure, Commander Brooke, claimed the slanted or roof-shaped sides
as constituting the original feature and most important merit of his invention. We may add now that to the genius of this accomplished officer the
Confederacy was variously indebted; for it was a gun of his invention-"the
Brooke gun"-that fired the bolt which pierced the turret of the Keokuk and
gave the first proof in the war that no thickness of iron, that is practical in
tbe construction of such a machine, is sufficient to secure it.




266          THE SECOND YEAR OF'THE WAR.
This period, properly the close of the second ye'ar of hostilities, presents a striking contrast with the corresponding
month of the former year with respect to the paramount aspects of the war. In April, 1862, the Confederates had fallen
back in Virginia from the Potomac beyond the Rappahannock,
and were on the point of receding from  the vicinity of the
lower Chesapeake before the advancing army of McClellan.
Now they confronted the enemy from the Rappahannock and
hovered upon his flank within striking distance to the Potomac,
while another portion of our forces manoeuvred almost in the
rear.and quite upon the flank of Norfolk.  Twelve months
ago the enemy threatened the important Southern artery which
links the coast of the Carolinas with Virginia; he was master
of Florida, both on the Atlantic and the Gulf; and Mobile
trembled at every blast from the Federal bugles of Pensacola.
Now his North Carolina lines were held exclusively as lines of
occupation; he was repulsed on the seaboard; his operations
in Florida were limited to skirmishing parties of negroes; and
Mobile had become the nursery of cruisers in the very face of
his blockading squadron. A year ago the grasp of the enemy
was closing on the Mississippi from  Cairo to the Gulf; but
while Butler was enjoying his despotic amusements and building up his private fortunes in the Crescent City, the strongholds of Vicksburg and Port Hudson were created, and held at
bay the most splendid expeditions which the extravagance of
the North had yet prepared.  A year ago the enemy, by his
successes in Kentucky and Tennessee, held the way almost
into the very heart of the Confederacy, through Eastern Tennessee and Western Virginia.  Now the fortunes of the war
in that whole region were staked upon the issues of impending
battle.
For three months the "grand hesitation" of the North had
continued. With some seven or eight hundred thousand soldiers in the field and countless cruisers swarming on our coasts,
the enemy had yet granted us a virtual suspension of arms
since the great battles of Fredericksburg and Murfreesboro',




THE SECOND, YEAR OF THE WAR.               267
interrupted only by petty engagements and irresolute and
fruitless bombardments.  He had shown that he possessed no
real confidence in the success of his arms; he had so far failed
to reduce any one of "the three great strongholds of the rebellion," Richmond, Charleston and Vicksburg; and he had
ceased to map out those plans of conquest of which he was
formerly so prolific.




268            THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
CHAPTER XI.
Close of the Second Year of the War...Propriety of an Outline of Some
Succeeding Events...Cavalry Enterprises of the Enemy...The Raids in Mississippi and Virginia...SKETCH OF THE BATTLES OF TIIE RAPPAHANNOCK...The
Enemy's Plan of Attack...The Fight at Chancellorsville...The Splendid Charge
of "Stonewall" Jackson...The Fight at Fredericksburg...The Fight at Salem
Church...Sumnary of our Victory...DEATH OF "STONEWALL" JACKSON...HiS
Character and Services.
The second year of the war, having commenced with the
fall of New  Orleans, 1st of May, 1862, properly closes with
the events recorded in the preceding chapter.  Of succeeding
events, which have occurred between this period and that of
publication, we do not propose to attempt at this time a full
narrative; their detail belongs to another volume.  It is proposed at present only to make an outline of them, so as to
give to the reader a stand-point of intelligent observation,
from which he may survey the general situation at the time
these pages are given to the public.
The next volume of our history will open on that series of
remarkable raids and enterprises on the part of the enemy's
cavalry which, in the months of April and May, disturbed
many parts of the Confederacy.  We shall find that the extent of these raids of Yankee horsemen, their simultaneous
occurrence in widely removed parts of the Confederacy, and
the circumstances of each, betrayed a deliberate and extensive
purpose on the part of the enemy and a.consistency of design
deserving the most serious consideration.
We shall relate how the people of Richmond were alarmed
by the apparition of Yankee cavalry near their homes.  But
we shall find causes of congratulation that the unduly famous
expedition of Stoneman was not more destructive.  The dam



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               269
age which it inflicted upon our railroads was slight, its hurried
pillage did not amount to much, and the only considerable
capture it effected was of a train of commissary wagons in
King William county.
Other parts of the Confederacy, visited about the same time
by Yankee cavalry, were not so fortunate. The State of Mississippi was ransacked almost through its entire length by. the
Grierson raid.  Starting from  Corinth, near the northern
boundary of Mississippi, a body of Yankee horsemen, certainly not exceeding two thousand, rode down the valley of
the Tombigbec, penetrated to a point below the centre of the
State, and then making a detour, reached the Mississippi Gulf
coast in safety. This force, so insignificant in numbers, made
the entire passage of the State of Mississippi from  the northeast to the southwest corner; and the important town of Enterprise was barely saved by reinforcements of infantry which
arrived from Meridian just fifteen minutes before the Yankees
demanded the surrender of the place.
We shall have to add here cotemporary accounts of another
Yankee raid in Georgia.  That adventure, however, was happily nipped in the bud by Forrest, who captured the Yankee
commander, Stuart, and his entire party, at Rome, Georgia,
after one of the most vigorous pursuits ever made of an enemy.
The interest of these raids was something more than that of
the excursions of brigands.  That of Stoneman was an important part of the great battle which signalized the opening
of the month of May on the banks of the Rappahannock, and
broke at last the "grand hesitation" of the enemy, which had
been the subject of so much impatience in the South.
SKETCH OF THE BATTLES OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK.
The plan of attack adopted by Gen. Hooker may be briefly
characterized as a feint on our right, and a flank movement in
force on our left.  It was determined to thr6w a heavy force
across the river just below the mouth of Deep Run, and three
miles below Fredericksburg, and pretend to renew the attempt




270           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
in which Burnside had previously been unsuccessful  The object of this movement was two-fold-first, to hold the Confederate forces at that point; and second, to protect Hooker's
communications and supplies, while the other half of the army
should make a crossing above the fortifications, and sweeping
down rapidly to the rear of Fredericksburg, take a strong position and hold it until they could be reinforced by the portion
of the army engaged in making the feint, which was to withdraw from its position, take the bridges to the point of the
river which had been uncovered by the flank movement, and
the whole army was thus to be concentrated in the rear.of
Fredericksburg.
The execution of this plan was commenced on Monday, the
26th of April.  Three corps d'armee-the Fifth, Eleventh
and Twelfth-were ordered to march up the river with eight
days' rations to Kelly's Ford, on the north bank of the Rappahannock, near the Orange and Alexandria railroad. This
force, under the command of Gen. Slocum, of the Twelfth
corps, reached the point at which it was to cross the Rappahannock on Tuesday night.  On the same night three other
corps-the First, Third and Sixth-were sent to the mouth of
Deep Run, three miles below Fredericksburg, to be ready to
undertake the crossing simultaneously with the other corps at
Kelly's Ford on Wednesday morning before day.  The movement was successfully conducted at both points, and without
serious opposition from the Confederates.
The second corps, under Couch, which had remained at
Banks' Ford, four miles above the town, was moved up to the
United States Ford, just below the point of confluence of the
Rappahannock and Rapidan, and crossed to join Gen. Slocum,
who had crossed the Rappahannock several miles higher up at
Kelly's Ford, and the Rapidan at Germanna Mills and Ely's
Ford, and marched down to Chancellorsville.  These movements occupied Wednesday and Thursday.  Hooker now assumed command of the right wing of his army.  He took his
position across the plank road and turnpike at Chancellors



THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                271
ville, eleven miles from Fredericksburg, in order to cut off
our anticipated retreat in the direction of Gordonsville, and
strengthened his naturally formidable position by a series of
elaborate abattis and field works.
The North eagerly seized upon the different circumstances
of the existing situation as indicative of victory.  General
Hooker had made himself conspicuous in the eyes of the Yankees.  He was confident, when examined before the Congressional Committee on the conduct of the war, that he could
have marched into Richmond at any time at his ease had he
been at the head of the Army of the Potomac instead of Gen.
McClellan; and if he had had command instead of Burnside,
he would have achieved wonders.  He had recently stated that
the army he led was " the finest on the planet," " an army of
veterans" as the Tribune remarked, "superior to that of the
Peninsula;" and so large was it that Northern journals asserted that Hooker had more troops than he knew what to do
with. Nor was this all. He was allowed by Lee to cross the
Rappahannock without opposition and without loss, and to secure a position deemed impregnable-one which, according to
the order he issued on Thursday, the 30th of April, had rendered it necessary that "the enemy must either ingloriously
fly or come out from behind his defences and give us (the Yankee army) battle on our own ground, where certain destruction waits him."
In the meantime, Gen. Lee was not slow to meet the dispositions of his adversary.  The enemy continued to pour across
the river at Deep Run, until three entire corps, numbering between fifty and sixty thousand men under Gen. Sedgwick, had
crossed to the South side.  Lee calmly watched this movement,
as well as the one higher up the river under Hooker, until he
had penetrated the enemy's design, and seen the necessity of
making a rapid division of his own forces, to confront him on
two different fields, and risking the result of fighting him in
detail.
About noon on Wednesday, the 29th, information was re



272          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
ceived that the enemy had crossed the Rappahannock in force
at Kelly's and Ellis Fords above, and were passing forward
towards Germania Mills and Ely's Ford on the Rapidan.  Two
brigades of Anderson's division, Posey's Mississippians and
Mahone's Virginians, numbering about 8,000 men, and one
battery of four guns, were, and had been for several weeks,
stationed in the neighborhood of Ely's Ford on the Rapidan,
and United States Ford on the Rappahannock, guarding the
approaches to Fredericksburg in that direction. It was apparent that this small force would be entirely inadequate to arrest
the approach of Hooker's heavy column, and Wright's brigade
was ordered up to their support. At daylight on Thursday
morning, the head of Wright's brigade reached Chancellorsville, at which point Posey and Mahone had concentrated their
forces with a view of making a stand.  Major General Anderson having also arrived in the latter part of the night, and
having obtained further information of the number of the
Yankee forces, upon consultation with his brigade commanders,
determined to fall back from Chancellorsville, in the direction
of Fredericksburg, five miles, to a point where the Old Mine
road leading from the United States Ford crosses the Orange
and Fredericksburg turnpike and plank road.  The turnpike
and plank road were parallel to each other from Chancellorsville to the point where the Old Mine road crosses them, and
from there to Fredericksburg they make one road.
Chancellorsville is eleven miles above Fredericksburg, and
about four miles south of the point of confluence of the Rapidan with the Rappahannock, and consists of a large two story
brick house, formerly kept as a tavern, and a few out-houses.
It is situated on the plank road leading from Fredericksburg
to Orange Court House, and is easily approached by roads
leading from  Germania Mills and Ely's, United States and
Banks' Fords.  Between Chancellorsville and the river and
above lies the Wilderness, a district of country formerly covered
with a scrubby black jack, oaks, and a thick, tangled undergrowth, but now somewhat cleared up.  The ground around




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              273
Chancellorsville is heavily timbered, and favorable for defence.
Seven miles from Chancellorsville, on the road to Fredericksburg, and four miles from the latter place, is Salem Church.
During the night of Thursday, General Lee ordered Jackson to march from his camp below Fredericksburg, with A. P.
Hill's and Rhodes' (formerly D. H. Hill's division,) to the relief of Anderson. Gen. Lee brought up the divisions of Anderson and McLaws.  He occupied the attention of the enemy
in front, while Gen. Jackson with the divisions of Hill, Rhodes
and Trimble moved by the road that leads from the Mine Road,
behind the line-of-battle, to the road that leads to Germana
Ford.  This movement of General Jackson occupied nearly
the whole of Saturday, May 2d, so that he did not get into
position at the Wilderness Church until near sunset of that
day.
While Jackson was gaining the enemy's rear, McLaws and
Anderson had successfully maintained their position in front.
Hooker had been felicitating himself upon his supposed good
fortune in gaining our rear.  What must have been his surprise, then, to find Stonewall Jackson on his extreme right and
rear.  Jackson's assault was sudden and furious. In a short
time he threw Seigel's corps (the 11th) of Dutchmen into a perfect panic, and was driving the whole right wing of the Yankee army fiercely down upon Anderson's and McLaw's sturdy
veterans, who, in turn, hurled them back, and rendered futile
their efforts to break through our lower lines, and made it
necessary for them to give back towards the river.
There was an intermission of about one hour in the firing
from three until nine o'clock. It was at this time that Jackson received his death wound from his own men, who mistook
him for the enemy.  General Hill, upon whom the command
now devolved, was soon afterwards wounded also; when General Rhodes assumed command until General Stuart could arrive
upon that part of the field.  Stuart renewed the fight at nine
o'clock, night as it was, in accordance with General Jackson's
original plan, and did not withhold his blows until the enemy's
18




274          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
right had been doubled in on his centre in and around Chancellorsville.
At daylight Sunday morning, our army, which now surrounded the enemy on all sides except towards the river, commenced advancing and closing in upon him from  all points.
The enemy had dug rifle pits and cut abattis in front and along
his whole line, while his artillery, well protected by earthworks,
covered every eminence and swell of rising ground, so as to
get a direct and enfilading fire upon our advancing.columns.
But on our gallant men moved, their ranks played upon by an
incessant fire of shell, grape and canister, from the front, the
right and left. On they pressed through the wood, over the
fields, up the hills, into the very mouths of the enemy's guns,
and the long line of rifle pits.  With a terrible shout they
sprang forward, and rushing through the tangled abattis, they
gained the bank in front of the rifle-pits, when the foe gave
way in great confusion and fled.
An extraordinary victory appeared to be in our grasp. The
capture or destruction of Hooker's army now appeared certain.
General Lee, finding the enemy still in force towards the
river, ordered the army to form on the plank road above Chancellorsville, extending his line in a south-easterly direction
down the turnpike below Chancellorsville, with his centre resting about the latter point. Just there news was received that
Sedgwick, taking advantage of our weakness, had crossed the
river at Fredericksburg, driven Barksdale from the town, and
occupied Marye's Hill, after capturing several pieces of the
Washington Artillery.  It was also stated that Sedgwick was
advancing up the plank road upon Lee's rear. This movement
of the enemy was all that saved Hooker from destruction.
The story of the reverse at Fredericksburg is easily told.
Our forces in defence of the line, commencing at Marye's hill,
and terminating at Hamilton's Crossing, consisted of General
Barksdale's brigade and General Early's division. General
Barksdale held the extreme left. His line had its beginning
at a point two hundred yards north of Marye's heights, and,




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                275
extended a mile and a half to a point opposite the pontoon
bridge on the left of Mansfield. This brigade, on the morning of.the battle, did not exceed two thousand in numbers,
rank and file, and throughout the entire length of its line, had
no other support than six pieces of the Washington Artillery,
which were posted on Marye's heights, and Read's Battery,
which was placed in position on the hill to the left of Howison's house.
Against this position the enemy brought to bear the command of Gibbins on the left flank, and about twenty thousand
of Sedgwick's corps. The first assault was made in front of
the stone wall, as in the case of last December, and was signally repulsed.   This was repeated three times, and on each
occasion the handful of men behind the wall, with shouts of
enthusiasm and deadly volleys, drove back the assailants.  The
first charge was made before sunrise, and the others in as rapid
succession as was possible after rallying and reinforcement.
About nine o'clock in the morning, the enemy adopted the ruse
of requesting a flag of truce for the alleged purpose of carrying off the wounded, but for the real object of ascertaining our
force.  The flag was granted, and thereby our insufficient defence was exposed, the bearer coming up on the left flank from
a direction whence our whole line was visible. Immediately
after the conclusion of the truce, the enemy reinforced their
front, and threw the whole of Gibbins' division on our left, defended by the 21st Mississippi regiment alone, commanded by
Colonel B. J. Humphreys.  This regiment faced the advancing
host without quailing, and, after firing until but a few feet intervened between them and the foe, they clubbed muskets and
successfully dashed back the front line of their assailants.  The
enemy, by the force of overwhelming numbers, however, broke
through our line, and Marye's hill was flanked about eleven
o'clock Sunday morning.
The turn which events had taken in front of Fredericksburg
made it necessary for General Lee to arrest the pursuit of
Hooker, and caused him  to send back to Fredericksburgthe




276          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
divisions of Anderson and McLaws to check the advance of
Sedgwick.  Gen. McLaws moved down the plank road to reinforce Barksdale and Wilcox, the latter of whom had been observing Banks' Ford, and who had been driven back to Salem
Church. McLaws reaching Salem Church in time to relieve
Wilcox from the pressure of overwhelming numbers, checked
the advance of Sedgwick, and drove him back, with great loss
to both parties, until night closed the conflict.
The enemy, however, was not yet defeated.  One more
struggle remained, and to make that the enemy during the
night massed a heavy force against McLaws' left, in order to
establish communication with Hooker along the river road.
Anderson moved rapidly to the support of McLaws, and
reached the church about 12 M., having marched fifteen miles.
Gen. Lee, having arrived on the field, ordered Anderson to
move round the church and establish his right on Early's left,
(Early having come up from Hamilton's Crossing in rear of
the enemy.)  The enemy having weakened his left in order to
force McLaws and gain the river road, Gen. Lee massed a
heavy force upon this weakened part of the enemy, and at a
concerted signal, Anderson and Early rushed upon the enemy's
left.
The signal for the general attack was not given until just
before sunset, when our men rushed upon the enemy like a
hurricane.  But little resistance was made, the beaten foe
having fled in wild confusion in the direction of Banks' Ford.
At dark a short pause ensued; but as soon as the moon rose,
the enemy was speedily driven to Banks' Ford, and on that
night of the 4th May ended this remarkable series of battles
on the lines of the Rappahannock.
The enemy being driven from every point around Fredericksburg, Gen. Lee determined to make short work of Hooker
at United States Ford. Therefore, Tuesday noon Anderson
was ordered to proceed immediately back to Chancellorsville,
while McLaws was instructed to take up his position in front
of United States Ford, at or near the junction of the Old




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                      277
Mine and River roads.  But a drenching storm  of wind and
rain set in and continued without cessation until Wednesday
forenoon, when it was discovered that Hooker, taking advantage of the darkness and the storm, had also retreated across
the river the preceding night.
Our forces engaged in the fight did not exceed fifty thousand
men.  The enemy's is variously estimated at from  one hundred
thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. Yet the greater
gallantry of our troops, even despite the emergency into which
their commander had brought them, enabled him not only to
beat this immense army, but to capture several thousand prisoners, thirty or forty thousand small arms, several stands of
colours, and an immense amount of personal property, and to
kill and wound some twenty-five thousand men. It was a glorious week's work.*
We have not at present those lights before us necessary for
a just criticism of the military aspects of these battles of the
Rappahannock.  They were undoubtedly a great victory for
the Confederacy. But there were two remarkable misfortunes
which diminished it. The breaking of our lines at Fredericksburg withdrew  pursuit from  Hooker.  When thereupon  our
forces were turned upon Sedgwick, a second misfortune robbed
* The army which accomplished this work was, according to the Yankee
description of it, a curiosity. Some of the military correspondence of the
Yankee journals was more candid than usual, and admitted a shameful defeat by the "ragged rebels." One of these correspondents wrote:
"'We had men enough, well enough equipped and well enough posted, to
have devoured the ragged, imperfectly armed and equipped host of otr enemies from off the face of the earth. Their artillery horses are poor, starved
frames of beasts, tied on to their carriages and caissons with odds and ends
of rope and strips of raw hide. Their supply and ammunition trains look
like a congregation of all the crippled California emigrant trains that ever
escaped off the desert out of the clutches of the rampaging Camanche Indians. The men are ill-dressed, ill-equipped and ill-provided-a set of ragmuffins that a man is ashamed to be seen among, even when he is a prisoner
and can't help it. And yet they have beaten us fairly, beaten us all to
pieces, beaten us so easily that we are objects of contempt even to their commonest private soldiers, with no shirts to bang out of the holes in their pantaloons, and cartridge-boxes tied round their waists with strands of rope."




278              THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
us of a complete success; for he managed to secure his retreat
by Banks' Ford, which exit might possibly have been cut off,
and the exclusion of which would have secured his surrender.
Of these events there is yet no official detail.
But a shadow greater than that of any partial misfortunes
on the field rested on the Confederate victory of Chancellorsville. It was the death of Gen. Jackson. This event is important enough to require, even in the contracted limits of
these supplementary pages, a separate title and a notice apart
from our general narrative.
THE DEATH OF "STONEWALL" JACKSON.
It was about eight o'clock on Saturday evening,. 2d May, when Gen. Jackson and his staff, who were returning on the front of our line of skirmishers,
were fired upon by a regiment of his own corps, who mistook the party for
the enemy. At the time the General was only about fifty yards in advance
of the enemy.  He had given orders to fire at any thing coming up the road
before he left the lines.  The enemy's skirmishers appeared ahead of him
and he turned to ride back.  Just then some one cried out, "Cavalry!"
"charge!" and immediately the regiment fired.  The whole party broke forward to ride through our line to escape the fire. Capt. Boswell was killed
and carried through the line by his horse, and fell amid our own men. The
General himself was struck by three balls: one through the left arm, two
inches below the shoulder joint, shattering the bone and severing the chief
artery; another ball passed through same arm, between elbow and wrist,
making its exit through the palm of the hand; a third ball entered the palm
of the right hand about its middle, and passing through, broke two of the
bones. As General Jackson was being borne from the field, one of the litterbearers was shot down, and the General fell from the shoulders of the men,
receiving a severe contusion, adding to the injury of the arm  and injuring
the side severely. The enemy's fire of artillery on the point was terrible.
Gen. J'ackson was left for five minutes until the fire slackened, then placed in
an ambulance and carried to the field hospital at Wilderness Run. IHe lost a
large amount of blood, and at one time told Dr. McGuire he thought he was
dying, and would have bled to death, but a tourniquet was immediately applied. For two hours he was nearly pulseless from the shock.
Amputation of the arm was decided upon, and the operation was borne so
well that hopes of a speedy recovery were confidently entertained. A few
days had elapsed, and his physicians had decided to remove the distinguished
sufferer to Richmond, when symptoms of pneumonia were unfortunately developed.  The complication of this severe disease with his wounds left but
little hope of his life, and on Sunday, the eighth day of his suffering, it was




THE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                      279
apparent that he was rapidly sinking, and he was informed that he was dying. The intelligence was received with no expression of disappointment or
anxiety on the part of the dying hero; his only response was, "It is all
right," which was repeated. IIe had previously said that he considered his
wounds "a blessing," as Providence had always a good design in whatever it
ordained, and to that Providence in which he had always trusted he committed himself with uninterrupted confidence.  But once he regretted his early
fall, and that was with reference to the immediate fortunes of the field. Hq
said, "If I had not been wounded, or had had an hour more of daylight, I
would have cut off the enemy from the road to the United States Ford, and
we would have had them  entirely surrounded, and they would have been
obliged to surrender or cut their way out; they had no other alternative.
My troops sometimes may fail in driving the enemy from a position, but the
enemy always fail to drive my men from a position."  This was said with a
sort of smiling playfulness.
The following account of the dying moments of the hero is taken from the
authentic testimony of a religious friend and companion:
" He endeavoured to cheer those who were around him. Noticing the sadness of his beloved wife, he said to her tenderly,'I know you would gladly
give your life for me, but I am perfectly resigned. Do not be sad-I hope I
shall recover. Pray for me, but always remember in your prayer to use the
petition, Thy will be done.' Those who were around him noticed a remarkable development of tenderness in his manner and feelings during his illness,
that was a beautiful mellowing of that iron sternness and imperturbable
calm that characterized him in his military operations. Advising his wife,
in the event of his death, to return to her father's house, he remarked,'You
have a kind and good father. But there is no one so kind and good as your
Heavenly Father.' When she told him that the doctors did not think he
could live two hours, although he did not himself expect to die, he replied,' It will be infinite gain to be translated to Heaven and be with Jesus.' He
then said he had much to say to her, but was too weak.
"He had always desired to die,'if it were God's will, on the Sabbath, and
seemed to greet its light that day with peculiar pleasure, saying, with evident delight,'It is the Lord's day;' and inquired anxiously what provision
had been made for preaching to the army; and having ascertained that arrangements were made, he was contented.  Delirium, which occasionally
manifested itself during the last two days, prevented some of the utterances
of his faith, which would otherwise have doubtless been made. His thoughts
vibrated between religious subjects and the battle-field; now asking some
questions about the Bible or church history, and then giving an order-'Pass
the infantry to the front.''Tell Major Hawks to send forward provisions to
the men.''Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the
trees'-until at last his gallant spirit gently passed over the dark river and
entered on its rest."
It is not proposed here, nor could space be found within the limits of a
supplementary chapter to make a record of the life and services of General
Jackson. A very brief sketch is all that is possible; and indeed it is scarcely




280              THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
necessary to do more, as so much of his military life is already spread on the
pages of this volume and intermixed with the general narrative of the war.
General Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born in Harrison county, Virginia,
in 182., and graduated at West Point in 1846. His first military services
were in the Mexican war, and he behaved so well that he was brevetted major
for his services. The Army Register and the actual history and facts of the
Mexican war do not furnish the name of another person entering the war
without position or office who attained the high rank of major in the brief
campaign and series of battles from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico.
At the close of the Mexican war, Jackson resigned his position in the army
and obtained a professorship in the Virginia Military Institute. His services
were not conspicuous here; Colonel Gilham was considered as the military
genius of the school, and Thomas Jackson was but little thought of by the
small hero-worshippers of Lexington. The cadets had but little partiality
for the taciturn, praying professor.
Perhaps none of the acquaintances of Jackson were more surprised at his
brilliant exhibitions of genius in this war, than those who knew his blank life
at the Institute, and were familiar with the stiff and uninteresting figure that
was to be seen every Sunday in a pew of the Presbyterian Church at Lexington. But true genius awaits occasion commensurate with its power and aspiration. The spirit of Jackson was trained in another school than that of
West Point or Lexington, and had it been confined there, it never would have
illuminated the page of history.
In the early periods of the war, Jackson, commissioned Colonel by the
Governor of Virginia, was attached to General Johnston's command on the
Upper Potomac.  At Falling Waters, on the 2d of July, 1861, he engaged the
advance of Patterson, and gave the Yankees one of the first exemplifications
of his ready-witted strategy; as Patterson never knew that, for several hours,
he was fighting an insignificant force, skillfully disposed to conceal their
weakness, while Johnston was making his dispositions in the rear.
The first conspicuous services of Jackson in this war were rendered at Manassas in 1861; although the marks of active determination he had shown on
the Upper Potomac, and the affair of Falling Waters, had already secured
for him promotion to a Brigadier-Generalship. The author recollects some
paragraphs in a Southern newspaper expressing great merriment at the first
apparition of the future hero on the battle-field. His queer figure on horseback, and the habit of settling his chin in his stock, were very amusing to
some correspondents, who made a flippant jest in some of the Southern newspapers of the military specimen of the Old Dominion. The jest is forgiven
and forgotten in the tributes of admiration and love which were to ensue to
the popular hero of the war.
We have already given in another part of this work (the first volume) an
account of the remarkable expedition of Jackson in the depth of the winter
of 1861-2 to Winchester, where he had been sent from Gen. Johnston's lines.
The expedition was successful, and the march was made through an almost
blinding storm of snow and sleet, our troops bivouacking at night in the forest, where many died from cold and exhaustion.




THE SECOND YEAR  OF THE WAR.                       281
Without doubt, thq most brilliant and extraordinary passage in the military
life of General Jackson was the ever famous campaign of the summer of
1862 in the Valley of Virginia. From the Valley he reached by rapid marches
the lines of the Chickahominy in time to play a conspicuous part in the splendid conclusion of the campaign of the Peninsula.
Since the battles of the Chickahominy, the military services of General
Jackson are comparatively fresh in the recollections of the public. We have
already seen in these pages that the most substantial achievements and brilliant successes of last summer's campaign in Virginia are to be attributed
to him.
The participation of Jackson in the campaign of Maryland, and that of
the Rappahannock, shared their glory, but without occasion for observation
on those distinct and independent movements which were his forte, and for
the display of which he had room in the Valley campaign, and that against
Pope.
The most noble testimony of the services of the departed hero in the battle
of Chancellorsville is to be found in the note of Gen. Lee, which is characteristic of his own generosity and worth. Gen. Lee wrote him:
"General: I have just received your note informing me that you were
wounded.  I cannot express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have dictated events, I should have chosen for the good of the country to have been
disabled in your stead.
"I congratulate you upon the victory which is due to your skill and energy."
Jackson's response to his attendants on hearing the note read is said to
have been, "Gen. Lee should give the glory to God."  It was an expression
of his modesty and reverence.
A friend relates that a few nights before this battle, an equally characteristic incident occurred that is worthy of record. He was discussing with one
of his aids the probability and issue of a battle, when he became unusually
excited. After talking it over fully, he paused, and with deep humility and
reverence said, "My trust is in God;" then, as if the sound of battle was in
his ear, he raised himself to his tallest stature, and with flashing eyes and a
face all blazoned with the fire of the conflict, he exclaimed, "I wish they
would come."
A strong religious sentiment combined with practical energy, and an apparent dash of purpose qualified by the silent calculations of genius, were the
remarkable traits of the character of Jackson. It was his humble Christian
faith combined with the spirit of the warrior that made that rare and lofty
type of martial prowess that has shrined Jackson among the great heroes of
the age.
From all parts of the living world have come tributes to his fame. " He
was," says the London Times, "one of the most consummate Generals that
"this century has produced. *  *  *  That mixture of daring and judg"ment which is the mark of'Heaven-born' Generals, distinguished him be"yond any man of his time. Although the young Confederacy has been
"illustrated by a number of eminent soldiers, yet the applause and devotion




282              THE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.
"of his countrymen, confirmed by the judgment of European itations, have
" given the first place to Gen. Jackson. The military feats he accomplished
" moved the minds of the people with astonishment, which it is only given to
"the highest genius to produce. The blows he struck at the enemy were as
" terrible and decisive as those of Bonaparte himself."
It is proposed already that the State of Virginia shall build for him a
stately tomb, and strike a medal to secure the memory of his name. These
expressions of a nation's gratitude may serve its own pleasure. But otherwise they are unnecessary.' Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name!"




THE SECOND YEAR  OF THE WAR.                        283
CHAPTER XII.
A Period of Disasters...DEPARTMENT OF THE MiSSIssIPPI...Grant's March
Upon Vicksburg...Its Steps and Incidents...The Engagement of Port Gibson...
The Evacuation of Jackson...The Battle of Baker's Creek...Pemberton's
Declarations as to the Defence of Vicksburg...A Grand Assault upon "the
Heroic City "...Its Repulse...The Final Surrender of Vicksburg...How the Public Mind of the South was Shocked...Consequences of the Disaster... How it
Involved Affairs on the Lower Mississippi...Other Theatres of the War...THE
CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND... Hooker Manouvred Out of Virginia...The Recapture of Winchester...The Second Invasion of the Northern
Territory...The Alarm of the North...General Lee's Object in the Invasion of
Maryland and Pennsylvania...IIis Essays at Conciliation... The Errour of Such
Policy...The Advance of his Lines into Pennsylvania...The Battle of Gettysburg... The Three Days' Engagements...Death of Barksdale...Pickett's Splendid Charge on the Batteries...Repulse of the Confederates...Anxiety and
Alarm  in Richmond...Lee's Safe Retreat into Virginia...Mystery of his
Movement...Recovery of the Confidence of the South * * * * * Review
of the Present Aspects of the War...Comparison Between the Disasters of
1862 and those of 1863...The Vitals of the Confederacy yet Untouched...
Review of the Civil Administration...President Davis, his Cabinet and his
Favourites...His Private Quarrels...His Deference to European Opinion...
Decline of the Finances of the Confederacy...Reasons of this Decline-The
Confederate Brokers... The Blockade-Runners... The Disaffections of PropertyHolders...The Spirit of the Army...The Moral Resolution of the Confederacy...I ow the Enemy has Strengthened it...The Prospects of the Future.
We find it necessary to give another chapter to the extension of our narrative beyond its appropriate limit.  We shall
proceed rapidly with a general reference to such events as may
exhibit the condition of the Confederacy at the time of this
writing, reserving details for another volume that will properly
cover the period  of the third  year of the War.  That year
has opened with disasters, at which we can now glance only
imperfectly, for upon them the lights of time have scarcely yet
developed.




284          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
As the attention of the reader returns to the busy scenes of
the war, it is taken by one of those sudden translations, so
common in this history, from Virginia to the distant theatres
of the West. The smoke of battle yet lingered on the Rappahannock, when the attention of the public was suddenly drawn
to the Valley of the Mississippi by the startling announcement that an army of the enemy was on the overland march
against Vicksburg, that had so long defied an attack from the
water.
We have at this time only very uncertain materials for the
history of the campaign in Mississippi.  We must at present
trust ourselves to a very general outline that will exclude any
considerable extent of comment; satisfied that what we can
do at present to interest the reader is simply to put certain
leading occurrences of the campaign in their natural succession,
and make a compact resume of events which, up to this
time, have been related in a very confused and scattering
style.
By running the gauntlet of our batteries at Vicksburg with
his transports, Grant avoided the necessity of the completion
of the canal, and secured a passage of the river, after leading
his troops over the narrow peninsula below Vicksburg, at any
point above Port Hudson which he might select.  It appears
that the defences at Grand Gulf, twenty-two miles south of
Warrenton, at the mouth of Black River, were only constructed
after the enemy had succeeded in getting some of his vessels
between  Port Hudson and Vicksburg.  The Black  River
being navigable for some distance, they were intended to
obstruct the passage of a force to the rear of Vicksburg by
this route.
The abandonment of our works there after a severe bombardment, opened the door to the enemy, and the battle of Port
Gibson, fought on the first day of May, put them still further
on their way to Vicksburg. The evacuation of Port Gibson




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               285
by General Bowen was followed by that of Bayou Pierre,
and his forces were withdrawn across the Big Black, within
twenty miles of Vicksburg.
So far in the campaign the enemy had a remarkable advantage.  Our generals were wholly unable to penetrate his
designs, and were compelled to wait the progressive steps of
their development.
It was impossible to foresee the precise point at which the
blow would be struck, or to form any probable conjecture of
the immediate objects of the enemy's enterprise. When
Grant's transports had succeeded in passing the batteries at
Vicksburg, he had a river front of more than a hundred miles
where he could land. The point of his landing having been
determined at Grand Gulf, it was still uncertain whether he
meant to approach Vicksburg by the river, under cover of his
gunboats, or whether he would attempt to circumscribe the
place and  cut our communications east.  It subsequently
appeared that the latter enterprise was selected by the enemy,
and that Jackson was the immediate point of attack.
On the 14th of May the enemy took possession of Jackson.
Gen. Johnston was entrusted with the active command of the
Confederate forces in the Southwest too late to save those
disastrous results which had already occurred; and the very
first step to which he was forced by existing circumstances,
was the evacuation of Jackson.  But the enemy's occupation
of the capital of Mississippi seems to have been but an unimportant incident, and it is probable that, even with inferiour
forces on our side, a battle would have been risked there if
Jackson had been of greater importance than as a point of
railroad in possession of the enemy.
Although Gen. Bowen, in the engagement of Port Gibson,
failed to check the rapid advance of the enemy, it was understood that he had been able to evacuate in good order his
position south of the Big Black, and establish a line of defence,
extending along that stream east from the Mississippi, so as to
secure Yicksburg against assault from the south. This, the




286          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
main line of our defence, was occupied by General Pemberton
with heavy reinforcements from Vicksburg.
On the 16th of May occurred the bloody battle of Baker's
Creek, (on the Jackson and Vicksburg road,) in which the
force under Pemberton was defeated with considerable loss
of artillery. On the following day the Confederates again
sustained a disaster at Big Black Bridge; and on the 18th
Vicksburg was closely invested by the enemy, and the right of
his army rested on the river above the town.
It is probable that it was to give time for reinforcements to
arrive in the enemy's rear, who, flushed with victory at Grand
Gulf, Port Gibson and Jackson, had turned back from the
latter on the rear defences of Vicksburg, that Gen. Pemberton,
perhaps, unwisely, advanced from  his works to meet Grant in
the open field and hold him in check, and thus, from greatly
inadequate forces, suffered the disheartening disasters of
Baker's Creek and Big Black Bridge.  As a last resort he
retired behind his works with a weakened and somewhat
dispirited but still glorious little army.  The unfortunate commander appeased the clamour against himself by an apparently
noble candour and memorable words of heroism.  I-e said
that it had been declared that he would sell Vicksburg, and
exhorted his soldiers to follow him to see the price at which he
would sell it, for it would not be less than his own life and that
of every man in his command. Those words were not idle utterances; they deserve to be commemorated; they were heroic only
in proportion as they were fulfilled and translated into action.
The events of the 19th, 20th and 21st of May wearied the
Yankees, who imagined that they saw in their grasp the palm
of the Mississippi.  So fully assured were they of victory,
that they posponed it from day to day.  To storm the works
was to take Vicksburg, in their opinion, and when it was known
on the morning of the 21st that at ten o'clock next morning
the whole line of Confederate works would be assaulted, the
credulous and vain enemy accounted success so certain that it
was already given to the wings of the telegraph.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              287
Indeed, there is no doubt that at one hour of this famous
day, McClernand, the Yankee General who made the assault
on the left, sent a dispatch to Grant that he had taken three
forts and would soon be in possession of the city. But the
success was a deceitful one.  The redoubts carried by the
enemy brought him within the pale of a devouring fire.  At
every point he was repulsed; and with reference to 6ompleteness of victory, exhibitions of a devoted courage, and the
carnage accomplished in the ranks of the enemy, these battles
of Vicksburg must be accounted among the most famous in the
annals of the war.
But despite the discouragements of the repulse, there still
remained to the enemy the prospects of a siege under circumstances of peculiar and extraordinary advantage. Although
Grant's attack was made from Grand Gulf, that place was not
long his base; and when he gained Haines' Bluff and the
Yazoo, all communication with it was abandoned.  tie was
enabled to rely on Memphis and the river above Vicksburg for
food and reinforcements; his communications were open with
the entire West; and the Northern newspapers' urgently
demanded that the utmost support should be given to a
favourite general, and that the Trans-Mississippi should be
Stripped of troops to supply him with reinforcements.
But the South still entertained hopes of the safety of Vicksburg.  It was stated in Richmond by those who should have
been well informed, that the garrison numbered considerably
more than twenty thousand men, and was provisioned for a
siege of six months. Nearly every day the telegraph had
some extravagance to tell concerning the supreme safety of
Vicksburg and the confidence of the garrison.  The heroic
promise of Pemberton that the city should not fall until the
last man had fallen in the last ditch was called to the popular
remembrance.  The confidence of the South was swollen even
to insolence by these causes; and although a few of the intelligent doubted the extravagant assurances of the safety of




288          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
Vicksburg, the people at large received them with,an unhesitating and exultant faith.
Under these circumstances the surprise and consternation of
the people of the South may be imagined, when, without the
least premonition, the announcement came that the select anniversary of the Fourth of July had been signalized by the
capitulation of Vicksburg, without a fight; the surrender of
twenty odd thousand troops as prisoners; and the abandonment to the Yankees of one of the greatest prizes of artillery
that had yet been made in the war. The news fell upon Richmond like a thunder-clap from  clear skies.  The day of our
humiliation at Vicksburg had been ill-selected. But it was
said that Gen. Pemberton was advised that the enemy intended
to make a formidable assault on the next day, and that he was
unwilling to await it with an enfeebled garrison, many of whom
were too weak to bear arms in their hands. The condition of
the garrison, although certainly not as extreme as that which
Pemberton had heroically prefigured as the alternative of surrender, and although holding no honourable comparison with
the amount of privation and suffering borne in other sieges recorded in history, was yet deplorable. Our troops had suffered
more from  exhausting labours than from  hunger; and their
spirit had been distressed by the melancholy isolation of a siege
in which they were cut off from  communication with their
homes,, and perhaps by other causes which are not now certainly known. Patience is not a virtue of Southern soldiers;
and for it at least the garrison of Vicksburg will not be conspicuous in history.
It is not possible at this time to determine the consquences
of the fall of Vicksburg. That it was the ostensible key to a
vast amount of disputed territory in the West, and that it involved a network of important positions, were universally admitted in the South.  But this estimate of its importance is
intricate and uncertain, and awaits the development of events.
The army of Johnston was saved, instead of being risked in
an attack on Grant's rear at Vicksburg, and is still disputing




THE SECOND  YEAR  OF THE  WAR.                       289
the enemy's encroachments in the Southwest.  We must leave
its movements to more convenient and future narration.
But we must recognize the fact of various disasters which
have immediately ensued from  the-fall of Vicksburg.   It compelled the surrender of Port Hudson as its necessary consequence.*   It neutralized  in  a  great measure  a  remarkable
* The fall of Port Iudson did not take place until after a prolonged and
gallant resistance, the facts of which may be briefly commemorated here.
On the morning of the 22d May, the enemy, under command of Gen. Banks,
pushed his infantry forward within a mile of our breastworks.  Having taken
his position for the investment of our works, he advanced with his whole
force against the breastworks, directing his main attack against the left,
commanded by Col. Steadman. Vigourous assaults were also made against
the extreme left of Col. Miles and Gen. Beale, the former of whom commanded on the centre, the latter on the right.  On the left the attack was
made by a brigade of negroes, composing about three regiments, together
with the same force of white Yankees across a bridge which had been built
over Sandy creek. About five hundred negroes in front advanced at doublequick within one hundred and fifty yards of the works, when the artillery on
the river bluff, and two light pieces on our left, opened upon them, and at
the same time they were received with volleys of musketry.  The negroes
fled every way in perfect confusion, and, according to the enemy's report, six
hundred of them perished. The repulse on Miles' left was decisive.
On the 13th of June a communication was received from  Gen. Banks, demanding the unconditional surrender of the post. He complimented the garrison in high terms for their endurance.  le stated that his artillery was
equal to any in extent and efficiency; that his men outnumbered ours five to
one; and that he demanded the surrender in the name of humanity, to prevent a useless sacrifice of life.  Gen. Gardner replied that his duty required
him to defend the post, and he must refuse to entertain any such proposition.
On the morning of the 14th,.just before day, the fleet and all the land batteries, which the enemy had succeeded in erecting at one hundred to three
hundred yards from our breastworks, opened fire at the same time.  About
daylight, under cover of the smoke, the enemy advanced along the whole
line, and in many places approached within ten feet of our works. Our
brave soldiers were wide awake, and, opening upon them, drove them  back
in confusion, a great number of them  being left dead in the ditches.  One
entire division and a brigade were ordered to charge the position of the 1st
Mississippi and the 9th Alabama, and by the mere physical pressure of numbers some of them got within the works, but all these were immediately
killed. After a sharp contest of two hours, the enemy were every where repulsed, and withdrew to their old lines.
During the remainder of the month of June, there was heavy skirmishing
daily, with constant firing night and day from the gun and mortar boats.  Du19




290             THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
series of successes on the Lower Mississippi, including the victory of Gen. Taylor at Ashland, Louisiana, which broke one
of the points of investment around Vicksburg, and his still
more glorious achievement'in the capture of Brashear City.
The  defence of the cherished  citadel of the  Mississippi had
involved exposure and weakness in other quarters.  It had almost stripped  Charleston of troops; it had taken many thousand men from  Bragg's army; and it had made such requisitions on his force for the newly organized lines in Mississippi,
that that General was compelled or induced, wisely  or unwisely, to fall back from Tullahoma, to give up the country on
the Memphis and Charleston railroad, and practically to abandon the defence of Middle Tennessee.
While people in  Richmond  were  discussing  the  story  of
Vicksburg, the grief and anxiety of that disaster were suddenly swallowed up by what was thought to be even more painful news from  the army of Gen. Lee.  For once it appeared
to the popular imagination that a great disaster in the West
had a companion in the East.  The fall of Vicksburg was preceded but one day by the battle of Gettysburg.  To that batring the siege of six weeks, from May 27th to July 7th, inclusive, the enemy
must have fired from fifty to seventy-five thousand shot and shell, yet not
more than twenty-five men were killed by these projectiles. They had worse
dangers than these to contend against.
About the 29th or 30th of June, the garrison's supply of meat gave out,
when Gen. Gardner ordered the mules to be butchered, after ascertaining
that the men were willing to eat them. At thie same time the supply of ammunition was becoming exhausted, and at the time of the surrender there
were only twenty rounds of cartridges left, with a small supply for artillery.
On Tuesday, July 7th, salutes were fired from the enemy's batteries and
gunboats, and loud cheering was heard along the entire line, and Yankees
who were in conversing distance of our men told them that Vicksburg had
fallen. That night about ten o'clock Gen. Gardner summoned a council of
war, who, without exception, decided that it was impossible to hold out
longer, considering that the provisions of the garrison were exhausted, the
ammunition almost expended, and a large proportion of the men sick or so
exhausted as to be unfit for duty. The surrender was accomplished on the
morning of the 9th. The number of the garrison which surrendered was between five and six thousand, of whom not more than half were effective men
for duty.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               291
tie-field we must translate the reader by a very rapid summary
of the operations which led to it.
THE CAMPAIGN IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND.
By a series of rapid movements, Gen. Lee had succeeded
in manceuvreing Hooker out of Virginia.  On the extreme
left, Jenkins, with his cavalry, began the movement by threatening Milroy at Winchester, while under the dust of Stuart's
noisy cavalry reviews, designed to engage the attention of the
enemy, Ewell's infantry marched into the valley by the way of
Front Royal.  Advancing by rapid marches across the Blue
Ridge, Gen. Ewell, the successor to Jackson's command, fell
like a thunder-bolt upon Milroy at Winchester and Martinsburg, capturing the greater part of his forces, many guns, and
heavy supplies of grain, ammunition and other military stores.
The Yankees' own account of their disaster indicated the magnitude of our success.  The New York Herald declared, "not
" a thing was saved except that which was worn or carried
" upon the persons of the troops.  Three entire batteries of
"field artillery and one battery of siege guns-all the artillery
"of the command in fact-about two hundred and eighty wag"ons, over twelve hundred horses and mules, all the commis"sary and quartermaster's stores, and ammunition of all
"kinds, over six thousand muskets, and small arms without
"stint, the private baggage of the officers and men, all fell
"into the hands of the enemy.  Of the seven thousand men
"of the command, but from sixteen hundred to two thousand
"have as yet arrived here, leaving to be accounted for five
" thousand men."
After accomplishing his victory at Winchester, Gen. Ewell
moved promptly up to the Potomac, and occupied such fords
as we might desire to use, in the event it should be deemed
proper to advance into the enemy's country.  The sudden appearance of Ewell in the Valley of the Shenandoah, coupled
with the demonstration at Culpeper, made it necessary for
Hooker to abandon Fredericksburg entirely, and to occupy the




292           THE SECOND YEAR OF THIE WAR.
strong positions at Centreville and Manassas, so as to interpose his army between us and Washington, and thus prevent a
sudden descent from  the Blue Ridge by Gen. Lee upon the
Yankee capital.  Meanwhile, Longstreet and Hill were following fast upon Ewell's track, the former reaching Ashby's and
Snicker's Gaps in time to prevent any movement upon Ewell's
rear, and the latter (Hill) getting to Culpeper in good season
to protect Longstreet's rear, or to co-operate with him in the
event of an attack upon his flank, or to guard against any demonstration in the direction of Richmond.
Having gained over the Yankee commander the important
advantage of the military initiative, and firmly established his
communications in the rear of his base of operations on the
other side of the Potomac, Gen. Lee was in a position to hurl his
forces wherever he might desire; and it was sooa announced
in the North that Hooker had declined a battle in Virginia,
and that the second invasion of the Northern territory had
been commenced by the Confederates under auspices that had
not attended the first.  It was soon known that the light-horsemen of Lee had appeared upon his war path in the southern
region of Pennsylvania. For weeks the dashing and adventurous cavalry of Jenkins and Imboden were persistently busy in
scouring the country between the Susquehannah and the Alleghanies, the Monocacy and the Potomac, and from  the lines
before -Harrisburg to the very gates of Washington and Baltimore their trumpets had sounded.
The North was thrown into paroxysms of terrour. At the
first news of the invasion, Lincoln had called for a hundred
thousand men to defend Washington.  Governor Andrews offered the whole military strength of Massachusetts in the terrible crisis.  Governor Seymour, of New York, summoned
McClellan to grave consultations respecting the defences of
Pennsylvania. The bells were set to ringing in Brooklyn.
Regiment after regiment was sent off from New York to Philadelphia.  The famous Seventh regiment took the field and
proceeded to Harrisburg.  The Dutch farmers in the valley




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               293
drove their cattle to the mountains, and the archives were removed from Harrisburg.
Nor did the alarm exceed the occasion for it. It was obvious to the intelligent in the North that their army of the Potomac was the only real obstacle which could impede the
triumphant march of the army of Lee into the very heart of
the Yankee States, and in whatever direction he might choose
to push his campaign.  The press attempted some ridiculous
comfort by writing vaguely of thousands of militia springing
to arms.  But the history of modern warfare afforded better
instruction, for it taught clearly enough that an invading army
of regular and victorious troops could only be effectively
checked by the resistance of a similar army in the field, or of
fortified places strong enough to compel a regular siege.  In
certain circumstances, a single battle had often decided the
fate of a long war; and the South easily indulging the prospect of the defeat of Hooker's forces, was elated with renewed
anticipations of an early peace.
While the destruction of Hooker's army was the paramount
object of Gen. Lee's campaign, he had unfortunately fallen
into the errour of attempting to conciliate the people of the
North and to court the opinions of Europe by forswearing
all acts of retaliation and omitting even the devastation of the
enemy's country.  The fertile acres of the Pennsylvania Valley were untouched by violent hands; all requisitions for supplies were paid for in Confederate money; and a protection
was given to the private property of the enemy, which had
never been afforded even to that of our own citizens.  So far
as the orders of Gen. Lee on these subjects restrained pillage
and private outrage, they were sustained by public sentiment
in the South, which, in fact, never desired that we should retaliate upon the Yankees by a precise imitation of their enormities and crimes.  But retaliation is not only the work of
pillagers and marauders.  Its ends might have been accomplished, as far as the people of the South desired, by inflicting
upon the enemy some injury commensurate with what they had




294              THE SECOND  YEAR  OF  THE WAR.
suffered at his hands; the smallest measure of which  would
have been  the devastation of the country, which, done by our
army in line of battle, would neither have risked demoralization nor detracted from  discipline.   Such a return for the outrages which the South had suffered from invading hordes of
the Yankees, would in fact have been short of justice, and so
far have possessed  the merit of magnanimity.  But Gen. Lee
Ivas resolved on more excessive magnanimity; and at the time
the Yankee armies, particularly in the Southwestern portion of
the  Confederacy, were  enacting  outrages which recalled  the
darkest days of mediaeval warfare, our forces in the Pennsylvania Valley were protecting the private property of Yankees,
composing their alarm, and making a display of stilted chivalry to the amusement of the Dutch farmers and to the intense
disgust of our own people.*
* A letter from cur lines in Mississippi thus describes the outrages of the
enemy there, which were cotemporary with Lee's civilities in Pennsylvania:
"I thought the condition of Northern Mississippi, and the country around
my own home in Memphis, deplorable.  There robberies were committed,
houses were burned, and occasionally a helpless man or woman was murtered; but here, around Jackson and Vicksburg, there are no terms used in
tll the calendar of crimes which could convey any adequate conception of
the revolting enormities perpetrated by our foes.  Women have been robbed
Of their jewelry and wearing apparel-stripped almost to nakedness in the?presence of jeering Dutch; ear-rings have been torn from their ears, and
rings from bleeding fingers.  Every house has been pillaged, and thousands
turned. The whole country between the Big Black and the Mississippi, and
all that district through which Grant's army passed, is one endless scene of
desolation.  This is not the worst; robbery and murder are surely bad enough,
but worse than all this, women have been subjected to enormities worse than
death.
"Negroes, men and women, who can leave their homes, are forced or enticed away. The children alone are left. Barns and all descriptions of farmlhouses have been burned. All supplies, bacon and flour, are seized for the
use of the invading army, and the wretched inhabitants left to starve.  The
roads along which Grant's army has moved, are strewn with all descriptions
of furniture, wearing apparel and private property.  In many instances husbands have been arrested and threatened with instant death by the hangman's
rope, in order to make their wives reveal the places of concealment of their
valuable effects. The poor women are made to ransom their sons, daughters,nd husbands. The worst slaves are selected to insult, taunt and revile their
toasters, and the wives and daughters of their masters."




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               295
If Gen. Lee had supposed that his moderate warfare would
conciliate the Yankees, he was greatly mistaken; for it is precisely this warfare which irritates a people without intimidating
them.  The simple object of his campaign appears to have
been the defeat of Hooker, which would uncover Washington
and Baltimore.  The critical conjuncture which had been so
long sought was the battle of Gettysburg.
We must spare here many of the details of those movements
which brought the two armies in contact, and trust ourselves
to a brief and general account of this great engagement in
Pennsylvania, followed, as it is, by a rapid current of events
there and elsewhere.
Having crossed the Potomac at or near Williamsport, the
Confederates marched to HIagerstown, to Greencastle and
thence to Chambersburg.  Ewell, who held the advance, went
as far as Carlisle, some twelve miles from Harrisburg.  Meanwhile, Hooker, having withdrawn his forces from  Stafford,
moved to and across the Potomac, and took up a line extending
from Washington to Baltimore, expecting General Lee to offer
him battle in Maryland.  Finding himself disappointed in this,
and compelled by pride or by his superiours, he relinquished
his command to Meade, who, finding out that Lee had deflected
in his march through Pennsylvania, and was moving down the
Baltimore turnpike from Chambersburg, moved from Baltimore
on the same road to meet nhim.  The two armies which had
ceased to confront each other since the breaking up of the
Fredericksburg lines, found themselves again face to face near
Gettysburg on Wednesday, July 1st.
The action of the 1st July was brought on by General Reynolds, who held the enemy's advance, and who thought himself
in superiour force to the Confederates.  Hie paid the penalty
of his temerity by a defeat; he was overpowered and outflanked, and fell mortally wounded on the field.
In this fight the corps of A. P. Hill was generally engaged;
but, about one hour after its opening, General Ewell, who was
moving from the direction of Carlisle, came up and took a




296          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
position on our extreme left. Two divisions of this corps,
Rhodes' and Early's, advanced upon and engaged the enemy
in front.  Longstreet, who was not engaged in the fight of the
first day, swung around his column to A. P. Hill's right, but
did not take position for action until Thursday morning. The
result of the first day was that the enemy was repulsed. at all
points of the line engaged, and driven over the range of hills
to the south of Gettysburg, through the town and about half a
mile beyond.  At this point is a mountain which commands the
ground in front for a mile on all sides.  This the enemy
retreated to after their repulse, and immediately fortified, their
line occupying the mountain, and extending on the right and
left of it.
The early part of Thursday, the 22d of July, wore away
without any positive demonstration of attack on either side.
Late in the afternoon an artillery attack was made by our
forces on the left and centre of the enemy, which was rapidly
followed by the advance of our infantry, Longstreet's corps on
our side being principally engaged. A fearful but indecisive
conflict ensued, and for four hours the sound of musketry was
incessant. In the fight we lost a number of officers, among
them Gen. Barksdale of Mississippi, whose brave and generous
spirit expired, where he preferred to die, on the ensanguined
field of battle. Of this " haughty rebel," who had fallen within
their lines, the Yankees told with'devilish satisfaction the
story that his end was that of extreme agony, and his last
words were to crave as a dying boon a cup of water and a
stretcher from  an ambulance boy.  The letter of a Yankee
officer testifies that the brave and suffering hero declared with
his last breath that he was proud of the cause he died fighting
for; proud of the manner in which he received his death; and
confident that his countrymen were invincible.
The third day's battle was commenced by the Confederates.
The enemy's position on the mountain was apparently impregnable, for there was no conceivable advance or approach that
could not be raked and crossed with the artillery. The reserve




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              297
artillery and all the essentials to insure victory to the Yankees
were in position at the right time. All the heights and every
advantageous position along the entire line where artillery
could be massed or a battery planted, frowned down on the
Confederates through brows of brass and iron. On the slopes
of this mountain occurred one of the most terrific combats of
modern times, in which three hundred cannon were belching
forth their thunders at one time, and nearly two hundred thousand muskets were being discharged as rapidly as men hurried
with excitement and passion could load them.
The battle of Friday had commenced early in the morning.
With the exception from ten o'clock in the morning to one in
in the afternoon, it lasted all day.  The Confederates did not
succeed in holding any of the crests, although one or two
were reached; and night again closed on the smoke-wrapped
field.
The most glorious incident of Gettysburg, and the one upon
which the eye of history will beam, was the charge of our
devoted men upon the deadly heights where turned the tide of
battle. The principal stronghold of the enemy was known as
McPherson's Heights, where his centre rested. In Thursday's
fight this important position had for a short time been in possession of a single one of our brigades-Wright's noble Georgians-who had charged it with the bayonet and captured the
heavy batteries on the crest, but were unable to hold it for
want of timely support.
In Friday's contest, a more formidable and elaborate attempt
was to be made to wrest from the enemy the crest which was
the key of his position. Pickett's division being in the advance, was supported on the right by Wilson's brigade, and on
the left by Heth's division, commanded by Pettigrew. The
steady movement of Pickett's men into the tempest of fire and
steel, against a mountain bristling with guns, had nothing to
exceed it in sublimity on any of the battle-fields of the revolution. Into the sheets of artillery fire advanced the unbroken
lines of our men.  The devoted Confederates are struggling




298           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
not only against the enemy's artillery, but against asevere fire
from heavy masses of his infantry, posted behind a stone fence.
But nothing checks their advance; they storm the fence, they
shoot the gunners, and Kemper's and Armistead's banners are
already planted on the enemy's-works.
There is no doubt but that at this auspicious moment a
proper amount of support to Pickett would have secured his
position, and carried the fortunes of the day. But that support was not at hand. Pettigrew's division had faltered, and
that gallant commander in vain strove to rally the raw troops.
In the meantime, the enemy had moved around strong flanking bodies of infantry, and was rapidly gaining Pickett's rear.
With overwhelming numbers in our font, almost hemmed in by
the enemy, the order is given to fall back.  The retreating line
is pressed- heavily.  It does not give way.  But many noble
spirits who had passed safely through the fiery ordeal of the
advance and charge, now fall on the right and on the left.
In this great battle, though unfavorable to us, the enemy's
loss probably exceeded our own, as the Yankees were closely
crowded on the hills, and devoured by our artillery fire.  The
information of the enemy's loss is perhaps most accurately
obtained from the bulletin furnished by his Surgeon General,
which stated that he had something over 12,000 Yankee
wounded under his control.  Counting one killed for four
wounded, and making some allowance for a large class of
wounded men who had not come under the control of the official referred to, we are justified in stating the enemy's loss in
casualties at Gettysburg, as somewhere between fifteen and
eighteen thousand.  Our loss, slighter bymany thousands in
comparison, was yet frightful enough.  On our side, Pickett's
division had been engaged in the hottest work of the day, and
the havoc in its ranks was appalling.  Its losses on this day
are famous, and should be commemorated in detail.  Every
Brigadier in the division was killed or wounded. Out of twenty-four regimental officers, only two escaped unhurt. The Colonels of five Virginia regiments were killed. The 9th Virginia




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                299
went in two hundred and fifty strong, and came out with only
thirty-eight men;, while the equally gallant 19th rivaled the
terrible glory of such devoted courage.
The recoil at Gettysburg was fatal, not necessarily, but by
the course of events, to Gen. Lee's campaign; and the return
of his army to its defensive lines in Virginia, was justly regarded in the South as a reverse in the general fortunes of the
contest.  Yet the immediate results of the battle of Gettysburg must be declared to have been to a great extent negative.
The Confederates did not gain a victory, neither did the enemy.
The general story of the contest is simple.  Lee had been
inable to prevent the enemy from taking the highlands, many
of them with very steep declivities, and nearly a mile in slope.
The battle was an effort of the Confederates to take those
heights.  The right flank, the left flank, the centre were successively the aim  of determined and concentrated assaults.
The Yankee lines were broken and driven repeatedly.  But inexhaustible reserves and a preponderant artillery, advantageously placed, saved them from rout.
The first news received in Richmond of Gen. Lee's retreat,
was from Yankee sources, which represented his army as a disorganized mass of fugitives unable to cross the Potomac on
account of recent floods, and at the mercy of an enemy immensely superiour in numbers ad flushed with victory.  This
news and that of the fall of Vicksburg reached the Confederate Capital the same day.  Twenty-four hours served to dash
the hope of an early peace, and to overcloud the horizon of
the war.  The temptation of despair was again whispered to
weak minds.  It was the second period of great disaster to the
South, and renewed a grief similar to what had been expended
a year ago upon the sorrowful stories of Donelson and New
Orleans.
But happily in this instance the public despondency was of
short duration.  A few days brought news from our lines, which
exploded the falsehoods of the Yankees, and assured the people
of the South that the engagements of Gettysburg had resulted




300          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
in worsting the enemy, in killing and wounding a number exceeding our own, and in the capture of a large number of
prisoners. The public was yet further satisfied that the falling back of our army, at least as far as Hagerstown, was a
movement dictated by general considerations of strategy and
prudence.  It consoled itself that the subsequent retirement of
our forces into Virginia was the excess of safety; and it found
reason for congratulation that the retreat of Lee to his old
lines was accomplished with a dexterity and success that foiled
the enemy, and disappointed the greater portion of his triumph.
But notwithstanding these causes of moderate thankfulness,
it must be confessed that the retreat from Hagerstown across
the Potomac was an inconsequence and a mystery to the intelligent public.  Lee's position there was strong; his force was
certainly adequate for another battle; preparations were made
for aggressive movements; and in the midst of all came a
sudden renouncement of the campaign, and the retreat into
Virginia. The history of this untimely retreat has not been
developed; but there is one fact to assist the explanation of it,
and that is that the authorities at Richmond were much more
alarmed than Gcn. Lee, and much less capable than the commander himself of judging the military situation from which
his army was recalled.  The troops availed themselves of
no other refuge than that ~f their own soil; they had not
been defeated or seriously worsted; and so far the public had
its secondary wish for the safety of the army. But this did
not exclude mortification on the part of those who believed that
Gen. Lee had abandoned the enemy's territory, not as a consequence of defeat, but from the undue timidity or the arrogant
disposition of the authorities who controlled him. The grounds
of such a belief are not certainly stated; but its existence in
the public mind is a fact to be recognized by the historian, and
to be determined by evidence when time and occasion shall
produce it.
The check at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, which




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                301
we have seized upon as the prominent events of the summer of
1863, and of which we hope hereafter, in another volume, to
give a more minute and faithful account, in connection with
many cotemporary or closely consequent events, which are here
omitted, afford a natural pause in which we may well review
the events of the revolution, and speculate on its distant or ultimate future.
The disasters to which we have briefly referred, although
considerable, were far from being desperate, and were scarcely
occasions of any serious alarm in the South, as to the ultimate
issue of the struggle. The military condition of the country
was certainly far better than at the former unhappy period of
the spring of 1862.  Then our armies were feeble, and, in a,great measure, disorganized; the conscription law had not gone
into operation, and our reduced forces were scattered along an
extended frontier. Now well disciplined and seasoned armies
hold with compact forces the critical positions in the Confederacy.  The loss of territory, which in a European campaign,
where inland fortresses and great cities give convenient footholds to an invading army, would have been estimated as a
fatal disadvantage, had a very different signification in a war
between the two great American powers.  Indeed it may be
said that the armies of our enemy scarcely did more than hold
the ground they stood upon, and that in a war now  passing
into its third year, they had failed to touch the vitals of the
Confederacy.  The temporary cession of large bodies of territory to them, was really to their disadvantage in military respects; for it occasioned the necessity of extending their lines
of communication, exposing their rear, and subjecting themselves, on every side, to the dangers of a hostile country, where
there were no great fortresses or citadels to protect them.
But it must be confessed that there were to be found at
this time but few subjects of congratulation in the internal
condition of the Confederacy.  The civil administration, in
many of the departments, was ignorant, defective and, in some
instances, oppressive.  The appendage of Congress might well




302           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
have been dispensed with in our revolution, for it accomplished
nothing; all its legislation was patch-work, and its measures but
the weak echoes of the newspapers.  The extraordinary cabinet of Mr. Davis still survived as a ridiculous cypher; for its
members never dared to raise their voices on any public measure, or to assert their existence beyond signing their names to
certify the laws and orders of the government or the will of
the President.
The military pragmatism of the President was his worst failing.  He had treated Price, among the earliest heroes of the
war, with cold and insolent neglect.  He had constrained Gustavus Smith to resign, and deprived the country of one of its
most brilliant Generals.  He had taken the unfair opportunity
of a sick furlough on the part of Beauregard to deprive him
of his command in the West and give it to a favourite.  He
had even attempted to put Jackson in leading strings; for it
was the Presidential order that set bounds to his famous Winchester expedition, and that would have timidly recalled him
from his splendid campaign in the Valley. Nor was this all.
There was reason to suppose that Lee's return from the territory of the North was constrained by the views of the Executive, and that the President, who had once defeated the capture of Washington by his interference at the first field of
Manassas, had again repeated his intermeddling, removed a
decisive victory from the grasp of our army, and turned back
the war for years.
While such was the envious or ignorant interference of the
President with our most meritorious Generals, he was not without favourites.  While he quarreled with such men as Price,
Beauregard, Gustavus Smith and Johnston, he maintained such
favourites as Holmes, Heth, Lovell and Pemberton.  No man
was ever more sovereign in his likes and dislikes.  Favourites
were elevated to power and the noblest spirits consigned to obscurity by the fiat of a single man in the Confederacy, and
that man one of the strongest prejudices, the harshest obstinacy, and the most ungovernable fondness for parasites.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                303
In this war Mr. Davis has evidently been anxious to appear
in the eyes of Europe as the military genius of the Confederacy, as well as the head of its civil administration.  He has
been careless of public opinion at home. But this has been no
proof of stoicism or of greatness; it has merely shown his
conceit to be in a different direction.  This conceit has been
that of "provincialism"-the courting of that second-hand
public opinion which is obtained from the politicians and journalists of Europe; the bane of political and civil society in
the South.  No man of equal public station on this continent
has ever courted the opinions of Europe more assiduously than
the President of this Cohfederacy.  The proclamations of the
Executive, the general orders of the army, the prqunciainentoes of chivalry which have denied the rights of retaliation,
bilked the national conscience, and nursed a viperous enemy
with the milk of kindness, have all been composed with an eye
to European effect.  Compromises of'dignity and self-respect
have been made to conciliate foreign nations.  Consuls drawing their exequaturs from  the Washington government-a
standing derogation to the Confederacy which has received
them-have been sheltered and endured here; and Europe,
which denies our rights over our territory, has received at our
hands the safety of her citizens.
We have referred in other pages to the low condition of the
finances of the Confederacy in the opening months of this
year.  It had since declined mich further.  In February,
1862, President Davis had made the most extravagant congratulations to the country on our financial condition, and
pointed with an air of triumph to the failing fortunes of the
enemy's treasury.  In less than eighteen months thereafter,
when gold was quoted in lNew York at twenty-five per cent.
premium, it was selling in Richmond at nine hundred per cent.
premium! Such have been the results of the financial wisdom
of the Confederacy, dictated by the President, who advised
Congress to authorize illimitable issues of treasury notes, and
aggravated no doubt by the ignorance of his Secretary, who




304           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
invented a legerdemain of funding which succeeded not only
in depreciating the currency, but also in dishonouring the government.
The experiments of Mr. Memminger on the currency was
the signal of multiplied and rapid depreciation.  While the
eccentric and pious Secretary was figuring out impossible
schemes of making money, or ransacking the book-stores for
works on religious controversy, unprincipled brokers in the
Confederacy were undermining the currency with a zeal for
the destruction of their country not less than that of the Yankees. The assertion admits of some qualification. Sweeping
remarks in history are generally unjust.  Among those engaged in the business of banking and exchange in the South,
there were undoubtedly some enlightened and public-spirited
men who had been seduced by the example or constrained by
the competition of meaner and more avaricious men of the
same profession, to array themselves against thecurrency, and
to commit offences from which they would have shrunk in horrour, had they not been disguised by the casuistry of commerce and gain.
It was generally thought in the South reprehensible to
refuse the national currency in the payment of debts.  Yet
the broker, who demanded ten dollars in this currency for one
in gold, really was guilty of nine times refusing the Confederate
money.  It was accounted shocking for citizens in the South
to speculate in soldiers' clothing and bread.  Yet the broker,
who demanded nine or ten prices for gold, the representative
of all values, speculated alike in every necessary in the
country.  Nor was this the greatest of their offences.  With
unsurpassed shamelessness brokers in the Confederacy exposed
the currency of the North for sale and demanded for it four
hundred per cent. premium  over that of the Confederacy!
This act of benefit to the Yankees was openly allowed by the
government.  A bill had been introduced in Congress to prohibit this traffic and to extirpate this infamous anomaly in our
history; but it failed of enactment, and its failure can only be




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              305
attributed to the grossest stupidity, or to sinister influences of
the most dishonourable kind.  The traffic was immensely
profitable.  State bonds and bank bills to the amount of many
millions were sent North by the brokers, and the rates of discount were readily submitted to when the returns were made
in Yankee paper money, which, in the Richmond shops, was
worth in Confederate notes five dollars for one.
One-but only one-cause of the depreciation of'the Confederate currency was illicit trade.  It had done more to
demoralize the Confederacy than anything else. The inception
of this trade was easily winked at by the Confederate authorities;
it commenced with paltry importations across the Potomac; it
was said that the country wanted medicines, surgical instruments and a number of trifles, and that trade with the Yankees
in these could result in no serious harm. But by the enlarged
license of the government it soon became an infamy and a
curse to the Confederacy.  What was a petty traffic in its
commencement soon expanded into a shameless trade, which
corrupted the patriotism of the country, constituted an anomaly
in the history of belligerents, and reflected lasting disgrace
upon the honesty and good sense of our government.  The
country had taken a solemn resolution to burn the cotton in
advance of the enemy; but the conflagration of this staple soon
came to be a rare event; instead of being committed to the
flames it was spirited to Yankee markets.  Nor were these
operations always disguised.  Some commercial houses in the
Confederacy counted their gains by millions of dollars since
the war, through the favour of the government in allowing
them to export cotton at pleasure.  The beneficiaries of this
trade contributed freely to public charities and did certain
favours to the government; but their gifts were but the
parings of immense gains; and often those who were named
by weak and credulous people or by interested flatterers as
public-spirited citizens and patriotic donors, were, in fact, the
most unmitigated extortioners and the vilest leeches. on the body
politic.
20




306          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
In this war we owe to the cause of truth some humiliating
confessions. Whatever diminution of spirit there may have
been in the South since the commencement of her struggle, it
has been on the part of those pretentious classes of the
wealthy, who, in peace, were at once the most zealous "secessionists" and the best customers of the Yankees, and who,
now, in war, are naturally the sneaks and tools of the enemy.
The cotton and sugar planters of the extreme South who prior
to the war were loudest for secession, were at the same time
known to buy every article of their consumption in Yankee
markets, and to cherish an ambition of shining in the society
of Northern hotels. It is not surprising that many of these
affected patriots have found congenial occupation in this war
in planting in copartnership with the enemy, or in smuggling
cotton.into his lines. The North is said to have obtained in
the progress of this war, from the Southwest and Charleston,
enough cotton at present prices to uphold its whole system of
currency-a damning testimony of the avarice of the planter.
Yet it is nothing more than a convincing proof, in general, that
property, though very pretentious of patriotism, when identified with selfishness, is one of the most weak and cowardly
things in revolutions and the first to succumb under the horrours of war.
It is pleasing to turn from the exhibition of ignorance and
weakness in the government, and the vile passions of its
favourites, to the contemplation of that patriotic spirit which
yet survives in the masses of the people and keeps alive the
sacred animosities of the war. We rejoice to believe that the
masses are not only yet true, but that a haughtier and fiercer
spirit than ever animates the demand of our people for independence, and insures their efforts to obtain it.  The noble
people and army who have sustained and fought this war will
have cause to rejoice.  Society in the South is being upheaved
by this war, and with our independence will be re-established
on new orders of merit.  The insolent and pampered slaveholding interest of the South; the planters' aristocracy blown




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.              307
with conceit and vulgar airs of patronage; the boast of lands
and kin give way before new aspirants to honour. The republic gives new titles to greatness. Many of those who were
esteemed great politicians before the war are now well-nigh
forgotten.  The honours of State, the worship of society, the
rewards of affection are for the patriots of the revolution that
will date our existence.  Such are the great prizes, intertwined
with that of indepe'ndence, which stir our people and army
with noble desires and beckon them to victory.
It is not only in the present external situation of the war
that encouragement is to be found for the South.  With considerable additions to her material elements of success, the
South has in the second year of the war abated none of that
moral resolution which is the vital and essential principle of
victory, whatever co-operation and assistance it may derive
from external conditions.  That resolution has been strengthened by recent developments; for as the war has progressed,
the enemy has made a full exposure of his cruel and savage
purposes, and has indicated consequences of subjugation more
terrible than death.
He has, by the hideous array of the instruments of torture
which he has prepared for a new inauguration of his authority
among those who have disputed it, not only excited the zeal of
a devoted patriotism to war with him, but has summoned even
the mean but strong passions of selfishness to oppose him.
The surrender to an enemy as base as the Yankee, might well
attract the scorn of the world and consign the South to despair.  The portions of such a fate for the South are gibbets,
confiscation, foreign rule, the tutelage of. New England, the
outlawry of the negro, the pangs of universal poverty, and the
contempt of mankind.
War is a thing of death, of mutilation and fire; but it has
its law of order; and when that law is not observed, it fails in
effecting the purpose for which it is waged, and the curse it
would inflict recoils upon itself.  It is remarkable in the present war, that the policy of the Washington government has




308          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
been an increase in every feature of the first cause'of the revolt. But this has been fortunate for the South.  The consequences of such despotic and savage violences, as the emancipation proclamation, the arming of slaves and the legalization
of plunder, have been the'growth of new hostility to the
Union, and an important and obvious vindication to the world
of the motives of the South and the virtues of her cause.
Regarding the condition of events i'n which this record
closes; the broad lustre of victories covering the space of so
many months; the numbers of our forces in the field, unequalled at any otlier period of the war; and the spirit animated by the recollections of victorious arms and stung by the
fresh cruelties of an atrocious enemy, we may well persuade
ourselves that there is no such word as "fail" in this struggle.
Even beneath the pall of disaster, there is no place for such a
word.  The banners of the Confederacy do not bear the mottoes and devices of a doubtful contest.  That brave phrase we
may apply to ourselves, which is the law of progress and success; which summons the energies of mankind and works out
the problems of human existence; which is at once an expression of the will of the Creator and the power of the creature;
and which beautifully harmonizes the dispensations of Providence with the agency of men-" FORTUNA FORTIBUS."




THE  SECOND  YEAR  OF THE WAR.                       309
CHAPTER XIII.
REVIEW-POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE NORTH, &c.
The Dogma of Numerical Majorities...Its Date in the Yankee Mind...
Demoralization of the Idea of the Sovereignty of Numbers...Experience of
Minorities in American Politics...Source of the Doctrine of "CONSOLIDATION "...The Slavery Question the Logical Result of Consolidation...Another
Aspect of Consolidation in the Tariff...Summary of the Legislation on the
Tariff...A Yankee Picture of the Poverty of the South...John C. Calhoun...
President Davis' Opinion of his School of Politics..."Nullification," as a
Union Measure,..Mr. Webster's "Four Exhaustive Propositions"...The True
Interpretation of the Present Struggle of the South...The Northern Idea of
the Sovereignty of Numbers...Its Results in this War...President Lincoln's
Office...The Revenge of the Yankee Congress Upon the People...The Easy
Surrender of their Liberties by the Yankees...Lincoln and Cromwell...Explanation of the Political Subserviency in the North...Superfieial Political Education of the Yankee...His " Civilization "...The Moral Nature of the Yankee
Unmasked by the War...His New  Political SysteiB...Burnside's  "Death
Order"...A  Bid for Confederate Scalps...A New Interpretation of the War...
The North as a Parasite...The Foundations of the National Independence of
the South...Present Aspects of the War...Its External Condition and Morals...
The Spirit of the South and the Promises of the Future.
The chief value of history is the moral discoveries it makes.
What is discovered in'the records of the old Union and the
events of the present war, of that portion of the American
people  commonly known  as the Yankees, furnishes not only
food for curiosity, but a valuable fund of philosophy.
In exploring the character and political experience of the
people of the North, much of what is generally thought to be
a confusion of vices may be traced to the peculiar idea that
people have of the  nature and  offices of government.   Their
idea of government may be briefly stated as the sovereignty of
numbers.  This conception of political authority is of no late
date with the people of the North; it came in their blood and
in their traditions for centuries; it was part of the Puritanical




810           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
idea; it was manifest in the Revolution of 1776 (the issues of
which were saved by the conservatism of the South); and it is
to-day exhibited in the passionate and despotic populace that
wages war upon the Confederacy.
The peculiarities of this idea of government are very
interesting, and its consequences are visible in every part and
fibre of the society of the North.  It excludes all the elements
of virtue and wisdom in the regulation of political authority;
it regards numbers as the great element of free government;
it represents a numerical majority as infallible and omnipotent;
and it gives opportunity to the flattery of demagogues to proclaim  the divine rights and sagacity of numbers, and to
denounce all constitutions which  restrict liberty as most
unrighteous inventions.
It is unnecessary to comment at length upon the errour and
coarseness of this idea of government. According to the interpretation of the Yankees, the body politic ought simply to
have a political organization to bring out and enforce the will
of the majority; tad such an organization was supposed to be
the general government made by our forefathers.  But while
it is unnecessary to discuss the fallacy of this view, it is entertaining and instructive to observe the train of demoralization
it introduced into the society of the North and the consequences
it involved.
The Northern idea of government was materialistic; ib
degraded political authority because it despoiled it of its moral
offices and represented it as an accident determined by a comparison of numbers.  It destroyed the virtue of minorities;
compelled them to servile acquiescence; and explains that constant and curious phenomenon in much of American politicsthe rapid absorption of minorities after the elections.  It laid
the foundations of a despotism more terrible than that of any
single tyrant; destroyed moral courage in the people; broke
down all the barriers of conservatism; and substituted the
phrase, "the majority must govern," for the conscience and
justice of society.




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               311
This idea, carried out in the early political government of
America, soon  attained  a remarkable  development.  This
development was the absurd doctrine of CONSOLIDATION. It
denied the rights of the States; refused to interpret the Union
from the authority of cotemporaries or from the nature of the
circumstances in which it was formed, or from  the objects
which it contemplated; and represented it as a central political
organization to enforce the divine pleasure of a numerical
majority.  The Union was thus converted, though with difficulty, into a remorseless despotism, and the various and conflicting interests and pursuits of one of the vastest political
bodies in the world were entrusted to the arrogant and reckless
majority of numbers.
The slavery question was the logical and inevitable result of
Consolidation. It is remarkable how many minds in America
have proceeded on the supposition that this agitation was accidental and have distracted themselves with the foolish inquiry
why the Yankees assailed the domestic institutions of the
South while they neglected to attack the similar institutions of
Cuba and Brazil.  These minds do not appreciate the fact that
the slavery agitation was a necessity of the Northern theory of
government.  Duty is the correlative of power; and if the
government at Washington in Yankee estimation was a consolidated organization, with power to promote the general
welfare by any means it might deem expedient, it was proper
that it should overthrow the hated institution of slavery in the
South.  The  central government is  responsible for its
continuance or existence in proportion to its power over it.
Under these circumstances  the duty of acting upon  the
subject of slavery was imperious and amounted to a moral
necessity.
But the slavery agitation was not the only remarkable consequence of the Northern idea of the divine rights of majorities.  It may be said that every political maxim of the North
has its practical and selfish application as well as its moral
and sentimental aspect.  The same idea of the power of




312           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
numerical majorities that kindled the slavery disputes gave
birth to the tariff and other schemes of legislation to make the
Southern minority subservient and profitable to those who
were their masters by the virtue of numbers.
The slavery and tariff issues are singularly associated in
American politics; for one at least was an important auxiliary
to the other. It was necessary for the Northern people to
make their numerical power available to rule the Union; and
as slavery was strictly a sectional interest, it only had to be
made the criterion of the parties at the North to unite this
section and make it master of the Union. When the power
of the North could thus be united, it was easy to carry out its
measures of sectional ambition, encroachment and aggrandizement.  The history of the enormous despotism  of Yankee
tariffs is easily summed up.
The war of 1812 left the United States with a debt of one
hundred and thirty millions. To provide for the payment of
this debt, heavy duties were laid on foreign goods; and as in
the exigencies of the war some home manufactures had sprung
up, which were useful and deserving, and which were in danger
of sinking under foreign competition, on the return of peace
it was proposed to regulate the tariff so as to afford them some
assistance. Protection was an incidental feature in the tariff
of 1816, and as such was zealously recommended even by John
C. Calhoun, who was a conspicuous advocate of the bill. But
the principle of protection once admitted, maintained its hold
and enlarged its demalns.  In the tariffs of 1820,'24 and'28, it was successively carried further; the demand of the
North for premiums to its manufacturing interests becoming
more exacting and insolent.
In 1831 the public debt had been so far diminished as to
render it certain that, at the existing rate of revenue, in three
years the last dollar would be paid.  The government had
been collecting about twice as much revenue as its usual expenditures required, and it was calculated that if the existing
tariff continued in operation, there would  be after three




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                313
years an annual surplus in the treasury of twelve or thirteen
millions. Under these circumstances, the reduction of the
tariff was a plain matter of justice and prudence; but it was
resisted by the North with brazen defiance. Unfortunately,
Mr. Clay was weak enough to court popularity in the North
by legislative bribes, and it was mainly through his exertions
that enough was saved of the protection principle to satisfy
the rapacity of the Yankee; for which the statesman of Kentucky enjoyed a brief and indecent triumph in the North.
As an engine of oppression of the South, the tariff did its
work well; for it not only impoverished her, but fixed on her
a badge of inferiority which was an unfailing mark for Yankee
derision. The South had no great cities. Their growth was
paralyzed, and they were scarcely more than the suburbs of
Northern cities.  The agricultural productions of the South
were the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States;
yet Southern cities did not carry it on.  The resources of this
unhappy part of the country were taxed for the benefit of the
Northern people, and for forty years every tax imposed by
Congress was laid with a view of subserving the interests of
the North.
The blight of such legislation on the South was a source of
varied gratification to the Yankee; especially that it gave him
the conceit that the South was an inferiour.  The contrast between the slow and limited prosperity of the South and the
swift and noisy progress of the North, was never more remarkable than at the period of the gret tariff controversy of
1831-2.  The condition of the country at this time is described by Parton, the Yankee biographer of Andrew Jackson, with flippant self-complacency.  He says:
" The North was rushing on like a Western high-pressure
" steamboat, with rosin in the furnace and a man on the safety
"valve.  All through Western New York, Ohio, Indiana and
"Illinois, the primeval wilderness was vanishing like a mist,
"and towns were springing into existence with a rapidity that
"rendered necessary a new map every month, and spoiled the




314          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
"gazetteers as fast as they were printed. The city of New
"York began already to feel itself the London of the New
World, and to calculate how many years must elapse before
"it would be the London of the World.
" The South meanwhile was depressed and anxious.  Cotton
"was down, tobacco was down.  Corn, wheat and pork <were'"down.  For several years the chief products of the South
"had either been inclining downward, or else had risen in
"price too slowly to make up for the (alleged) increased price
"of the commodities which the South was compelled to buy.
"Few new towns changed the Southern map.  Charleston
"languished, or seemed to languish, certainly did not keep
"pace with New York, Boston and Philadelphia. No Cincin" nati of the South became the world's talk by the startling
" rapidity of its growth.  No Southern river- exhibited at
" every bend and coyne of vantage a rising village.  No
" Southern mind, distracted with the impossibility of devising
"suitable names for a thousand new places per annum, fell
"back in despair upon the map of the old world, and selected
" at random any convenient name that presented itself, bestow" ing upon clusters of log huts such titles as Utica, Rome, Pa-' lermo, Naples, Russia, Egypt, Madrid, Paris, Elba and
" Berlin.  No Southern commissioner, compelled to find names' for a hundred streets at once, had seized upon the letters of
the alphabet and the figures of arithmetic, and called the
"avenues A, B, C and D, and, instead of naming his cross
streets, numbered them."
For forty years the North reaped the fruits of partial legislation, while the South tasted the bitterness of oppression.
The shoemakers, the iron men, the sailmakers, and the cotton
and woolen spinners in the North clamoured for protection
against their English, Swedish and Russian competitors, and
easily obtained it.  The Scuth paid duties upon all articles
that the tariff kept out of the country; but these duties, instead of going into the treasury as revenue, went into the
purses of manufacturers as bounty. After paying this tribute




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                815
money to the North, tW  South had then to pay her quota for
the support of the government.  The North, for there was
perfect free trade between the States, had a preference over
all the world for its wares in the markets of the South. This
preference amounted to 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 per cent., and
even more, according to the article and the existing tariff.  It
extended over a country having twelve millions of customers.
The sum of the Yankee profits out of the tariff was thus enormous.  Had the South submitted to the "Morrill tariff;" it
would have exacted from her something like one hundred million dollars as an annual tribute to the North.  But submission
has some final period, and the South has no longer a lot in the
legislation at Washington.
In the tariff controversy of 1831-2, we find the premonitions of the present revolution.  It is a curious circumstance
that in the excitement of that period some medals were secretly struck, bearing the inscription, "John C. Calhoun,
First President of the Southern Confederacy."  The name
of the new power was correctly told. But the times were not
ripe for a declaration of Southern independence, and even the
public opinions of Mr. Calhoun resisted the suggestion of a
dissolution of the Union.
The "nullification" doctrine of the statesman of North
Carolina is one of the most interesting political studies of
America; for it illustrates the long and severe contest in the
hearts of the Southern people between devotion to the Union
and the sense of wrong and injustice. Mr. Calhoun either did
not dare to offend the popular idolatry, or was sincerely attached to the Union; but at the same time he was deeply sensible of the oppression it devolved upon the South. Nullification was simply an attempt to accommodate these two facts.
It professed to find a remedy for the grievances of States without disturbing the Union; and the nullification of an unconstitutional law within the local jurisdiction of a State was proposed
as the process for referring the matter to some constitutional
tribunal other than the Supreme court, whose judgments should




816          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
be above all influences of political party. It was a crude
scheme, and only remarkable as a sacrifice to that peculiar
idolatry in American politics which worshipped the name of
the Union.
The present President of the Southern- Confederacy-Mr.
Jefferson Davis-has referred to the political principles of Mr.
Calhoun in some acute remarks made on the interesting occasion of his farewell to the old Senate at Washington.  He
says:
"A great man, who now reposes with his fathers, and who
has often been arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union,
advocated the doctrine of nullification because it preserved the
Union.  It was because of his deep-seated attachment to the
Union; his determination to find some remedy for existing ills
short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina
to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the doctrine
of Nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful; to be
within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but
only to be a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal
of the States for their judgment."
In defending in the speech referred to the action of the
State of Mississippi in separating herself from the Union, Mr.
Davis remarks with justice, that Secession belongs to another
class of remedies than that proposed by the great South Carolinian.  The Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, long
the political text of the South, bore the seeds of the present
revolution, for they laid the foundation for the right of secession in the sovereignty of the States; and Mr. Calhoun's deduction from them of his doctrine of nullification was narrow
and incomplete.
But we shall not renew here vexed political questions. We
have referred at some length to the details of the old United
States tariffs and the incidental controversies of parties, because we shall find here a peculiar development of the political
ideas of the North. To all the ingenious philosophy of State
rights; to the disquisitions of Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Tyler; to




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                317
the discussions of the moral duties of the government, the
North had but one invariable reply, and that was the sovereignty of the will of the majority.  It recognized no sovereign
but numbers, and it was thought to be a sufficient defence of
the tariff and other legislation unequal to the South that it
was the work and will of the majority.
It was during the agitation of the tariff that the consolidation school became firmly established.  Mr. Webster, the
mouth-piece of the manufacturing interest in the North, attempted by expositions of the Constitution to represent the
government as a'central organization of numbers, without any
feature of originality to distinguish it from other rude democracies of the world. In his attempt to simplify it, he degraded
it to the common-place of simple democracy, and insulted the
wisdom of those who had made it.  The political opinions of
Mr. Webster were summed up in what he arrogantly called
"Four Exhaustive Propositions."  These propositions were
famous in the newspapers of his day, and may be reproduced
here as a very just summary of the political ideas of the
North:
MR. WEBSTER'S FOUR EXHAUSTIVE PROPOSITIONS.
1. " That the Constitution of the United States is not a
" league, confederacy or compact between the people of the
"several States in their sovereign capacity; but a government
"founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct
" relations between itself and individuals."
2. "That no State authority has power to dissolve these re"lations; that nothing can dissolve them  but revolution; and
"that, consequently, there can be no such thing as secession
"without revolution."
3. " That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Consti" tution of the United States, acts of Congress passed in pur"suance of it, and treaties; and that in cases not capable of
assuming the character of a suit in law or equity, Congress
"must judge of and finally interpret this supreme law, as




318          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
" often as it has occasion to pass acts of legislatiort; and in
"cases capable of assuming the character of a suit, the Su"preme Court of the United States is the first interpreter."
4. "That the attempt by a State to abrogate, annul or nul"lify an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her
"limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the
" general government, and on the equal rights of other States;
a plain violation of the Constitution; and a proceeding es"sentially revolutionary in its character and tendency."'
It is in the light of these propositions that the present
assertion of the independence of the South is denounced by
the North as rebellion.  And it is with reference to them and
their savage doctrine of the power of numbers in a union of
sovereign States, that we may in turn challenge tha world to
declare if the South in this struggle is not enlisted in the vause
of free government, which is more important to the world than
"the Union" which has disappeared beneath the wave of
history.
In the present war the North has given faithful and constant
indications of its dominant idea of the political sovereignty, as
well as the military omnipotence, of numbers. It is absurd to
refer to the person of Abraham Lincoln as the political master
of the North; he is the puppet of the vile despotism that rules
by brute numbers.  We have already referred to some of the
characteristics of such despotism.  We shall see others in this
war in the timidity and subservient hesitation to which such a
government reduces party minorities and in that destitution of
honour which invariably characterizes the many-headed despotism of the people.
Mr. Lincoln was elected on a principle of deadly antagonism
to the social order. His party found him subservient to their
passions, and with the President in the hollow of their hand,
for two years they have reigned triumphantly in the Congress
at Washington.  Such has been the stupendous lunacy and




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                819
knavery of this body, that it will be regarded in all coming
time as a blotch on civilization and a disgrace to the common
humanity of the age.
There are some minds in the South which are prejudiced by
the impression that the power of the Lincoln party was broken
by the fall elections of 1862; that it has lost the majority of
numbers in the North; and that thereby the despotism which
we have described as characteristic of the North is rapidly
approaching the period of its dissolution or an era of reaction.
But this reply to our theory does'not take into account all the
facts.  The Republican party in the  North still has the
majority of force-a majority more dangerous and appalling
than that of numbers, as it finds more numerous objects of
revenge among its own people.
The Yankee Congress rejected at the polls has taken fearful
revenge on the people who ventured an opinion hostile to
the ruling dynasty. They have passed the bank, conscription
and habeas corpus suspension bills, thus placing every life and
every dollar, and, indeed, every, right of twenty millions of
freeborn people at the absolute mercy of Abraham  Lincoln.
They have abated none' of their legislation against the interests
of humanity and the written and unwritten law of civilization
in this war.  They have added to it.  They are organizing
insurrections in South Carolina; they have sent a negro army
into Florida: they are organizing black regiments in Tennessee.
But a few months ago the infamous law was passed at Washington known as "the Plunder'Act," in which the Secretary
of the Treasury was authorized to appoint agents to go South,
collect all property, send it North and have it sold.  In
different parts of the Confederacy the Yankee troops are now
destroying all farming implements, seizing all provisions, and
preventing the planting of crops, with the avowed determination of starving the Southern people into submission. Such a
warfare contemplates the extermination of women and children
as well as men, and proposes to inflict a revenge more terrible




320           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
to or tolerate the assaults of the Washington government on
than the tortures of savages and the modern atrocities of the
Sepoys.
It is, perhaps, not greatly to be wondered at that a people
like the Yankees should show a brutal rage in warfare upon
an enemy who has chastised their insolence and exasperated
their pride, and that they should therefore be generally ready
to give their adhesion to any train of measures calculated for
revenge upon the South.  But it is a matter of grave and
solicitous inquiry that this people should so easily tolerate
measures in the government which have been plainly directed
against their own liberties and which; while they have been
applauding a "vigorous prosecution of the war," have established a savage despotism at home. It is yet more remarkable
that the erection of this despotism should be hailed with a certain applause by its own victims. History has some instances
of the servile and unnatural joys of a people in the surrender
of their liberties; but none grosser than that in which has
been inaugurated the throne of Abraham  Lincoln at Washington.
There are numerous examples in history where great abilities
or some scattered virtues in the character of a despot have won
the flattery of minds not ignoble and unconscious of their
humiliation. Milton in his Latin superlatives spoke of Cromwell very much after the same manner in which Mr. Lincoln
is spoken of in Yankee vernacular.  Eum te agnoscunt omnes,
Cromuelle, ea tu civis maxinius et gloriosissimus, dux publici
Eonsilii, exercitum, fortissimorum  imperator, pater patrie.gessisti. But the Western lawyer and tavern-jester is not a
Cromwell.  No attractions of genius are to be found in the,personal composition of Abraham Lincoln. His person in fact
is utterly unimportant. He holas the reins for a higher power;
and that power is the many-headed monster of Fanaticism,
which by numbers or by force constrains the popular will and
-rules with the rod of iron.
The disposition generally of the Northern people to submit




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                821
their own liberties and the destruction of their civil rights,
must proceed from permanent and well-defined causes.  We
have already hinted in these pages an explanation of this servile acquiescence in the acts of the government. It is doubtless the fruit of theJfalse. political education in tie North that
gives none other but materialistic ideas of government and
inculcates the virtue of time-serving with all political majorities.  It is to be attributed to the demoralization of the Yankee; to the servile habit of his mind; to his long practice of
submission to the wild democracy of numbers-all proceeding
from that false idea of government which recognizes it only as
the organ of an accidental party, and not as a self-existent
principle of right and virtue. It is a melancholy fact that the
people of the North have long ceased to love or to value liberty. They have ceased to esteem  the political virtues; to
take any account of the moral elements of government; or to
look upon it else than as a physical power, to be exercised at
the pleasure of a party, and to be endured until reversed by
the accident of numbers.
The superficial political education of the people of the North
explains much that is curious in their society. Time-serving
of power gave them  wealth, while it degraded their national
character.  In the old government they easily surrendered
their political virtue for tariffs, bounties, &c.; and the little
left of it is readily sacrificed on the devilish altars of this war.
Their habit of material computation made them  boastful of a
"civilization" untouched by the spirits of virtue and humanity,
consisting only of the rotten, material things which make up
the externals and conveniences of life, and the outer garments
of society.  Their wealth was blazed out in arts and railroads;
common schools, the nurseries of an insolent ignorance; and
gilded churches, the temples of an impure religion. No people
has ever established more decisively the fact of the worthlessl
ness of what remains of "civilization," when the principle of
liberty is subtracted, or more forcibly illustrated how much of
phosphorescent rottenness there is in such a condition.
21




322           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
" Their much-loved wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
Even liberty itself is bartered here,
At gold's superiour charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it and the rich man buys;
A land of tyrants and a den Qf slaves."
The present war has sfficiently demonstrated the mistake of
the North in the measure of its civilization, and convinced the
world that much of what it esteemed its former strength was
"but plethoric ill."  It has done more than this, for it has
unmasked the moral nature of the Yankee. It has exposed to
the detestation of the world a character which is the product
of. materialism in politics and materialism in religion-the
spawn of the worship of power and the lust of gain.  The
Yankee who has followed up an extravagance of bluster by
the vilest exhibitions of cowardice; who has falsified his prate
of humanity by the deeds of a savage; who, in the South, has
been in this war a robber, an assassin, a thief in the night and
at home a slave fawning on the hand that manacles him, has
secured for himself the everlasting contempt of the world.
The characteristics of a people who boasted themselves the
most enlightened of Christian nations, are seen in a castrated
civilization; while the most remarkable qualities they have displayed in the war are illustrated by the coarse swagger and
drunken fumes of such men as Butler, and the rouged lies of
such "military authorities" as Halleck and Hooker.
All vestiges of constitutional liberty have long ago been lost
in the North.  The very term of "State rights" is mentioned
with derision, and the States of the North have ceased to be
more than geographical designations.  No trace is left of the
old political system but in the outward routine of the government.  The Constitution of the United States is but "the skin
of the immolated victim," and the forms and ceremonies of a
republic are the disguises of a cruel and reckless despotism.
During the two miserable and disastrous years that Mr.
Lincoln has held the presidency of the United States, he has




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.               323
made the institutions of his country but a name.  The office
of President is no longer recognized in its republican simplicity; it is overlaid with despotic powers and exceeds in reality
the most famous imperial titles. Not a right secured by the
Constitution but has been invaded; not a principle of freedom
but has been overthrown; not a franchise but has been trampled underfoot. The infamous "death order" published by
Burnside, more bloody than the Draconian penalty and more
cruel than the rude decrees of the savage, is without a parallel
in the domestic rule or in the warfare of any people making
the feeblest pretence to civilization. It assigns the penalty of
death to "writers of letters sent by secret mails," and to all
persons who "feed, clothe or in any manner aid" the soldiers
of the Confederacy.  This infamous decree will live in history;
it is already associated with a memorable martyrdom-that of
Clement Vallandigham.
It is remarkable that the North finds great difficulty in assigning to the world the objects of the present mad and inhuman war.  The old pretences made by the Yankees of fighting
for a constitutional Union, and contesting the cause of free
government for the world, are too absurd and disgusting to be
repeated. They are unwilling to admit that they are fighting
for revenge, and prosecuting a war, otherwise hopeless, for the
gratification of a blind and fanatical hate. They have recently changed the political phrases of the war, and the latest
exposition of its object is that the North contends for "the life
of the nation." If this means that a parasite is struggling
for existence, and that the North desires the selfish aggrandizements of the Union, and its former tributes to its wealth,
we shall not dispute the theory. But the plain question oocurs, what right has the North to constrain the association of
a people who have no benefit to derive from the partnership,
and who, by the laws of nature and society, are free to consult
their own happiness?  The North has territory and numbers
and physical resources enough for a separate existence, and if
she has not virtue enough to sustain a national organization,




824           THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
she has no right to seek it in a compulsory union with a people
who, sensible of their superiour endowments, have resolved to
take their destinies in their own hands.
There is one sense, indeed, in which association with the
South does imply the national welfare of the North.  The
South gave to the old government all its ideas of statesmanship; it leavened the political mass with its characteristic conservatism; and it combatted and, to some extent, controlled
the brutal theory that represented numbers as the element of
free government.  The revolutionary and infidel society of the
North was moderated by the piety and virtues of the South,
and the old national life was in some degree purified by the
political ideas and romantic character of that portion of the
country now known as the Confederacy.  It is in this sense
that the Southern element is desirable to the North, and that
the Union involves "the life of the nation;" and it is precisely
in the same sense that an eternal dissociation and an independent national existence are objects to the South not only of desire, but of vital necessity.
We can never go back to the embraces of the North. There
is blood and leprosy in the touch of our former associate. We
can never again live with a people who have made of this war
a huge assassination; who have persecuted us with savage and
cowardly hate; who gloat over the fancies of starving women
and children; who have appealed to the worst passions of the
black heart of the negro to take revenge upon us; and who,
not satisfied with the emancipation proclamation and its scheme
of servile insurrection, have actually debated in their State
Legislatures the policy of paying negroes premiums for the
murder of white families in the South.*
* The following is taken from an Abolition pamphlet (1863), entitled " Interesting Debate," &c., in the Senate of Pennsylvania. It is characteristic
of the blasphemous fanaticism of the Yankee and his hideous lust for blood:
"Mr. LOWRY-I believed then and now that He who watches over the sparrow will chastise us until we will be just towards ourselves and towards four
millions of God's poor, down-cast prisoners of war. I said that I would arm




THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.                      825
While we congratulate ourselves on the superiority of our
political ideas over those of the North, and the purer life of
our society, we do not forget that, although we have carried
away much less of the territory and numbers of the old Union
than have been left to our enemy, we still have a sufficiency of
the material elements of a national existence.
The South has attempted to lay the foundations of national
independence, with a territory as great as the whole of Europe,
with the exception of Russia and Turkey; with a population
four times that of the continental colonies; and with a capacity for commerce equivalent to nearly four-fifths of the exports of the old Union.
It is only necessary to glance at the cotemporary aspects
of the war to re-assure our confidence in its destiny, and to
renew our vows upon its altars.  The hope of reconstruction
is a vanity of the enemy.  To mobocratic Yankees; to New
England "majorities;" to the base crews of Infidelity and
Abolitionism; to the savages who have taken upon their souls
the curse of fratricidal blood and darkened an age of civilization with unutterable crime and outrage, the South can never
surrender, giving up to such a people their name, their lands,
their wealth, their traditions, their glories, their heroes newly
dead, their victories, their hopes of the future.  Such a fate
is morally impossible. We have not paid a great price of life
the negro-that I would place him in the front of battle-and that I would
invite his rebel master with his stolen arms to shoot his stolen ammunition
into his stolen property at the rate of a thousand dollars a shot. I said further, that were I commander-in-chief, by virtue of the war power and in
obedience to the customs of civilized nations and in accordance with the laws
of civilized nations, I would confiscate every rebel's property, whether upon
two legs or four, aid that I would give to the slave who would bring me his
master's disloyal scalp one hundred and sixty acres of his master's plantation; nor would I be at all exacting as to where the scalp was taken off, so
that it was at some point between the bottom of the ears and the top of the
loins. This, sir, was my language long before Fremont had issued his immortal proclamation. The logic of events is sanctifying daily these anointed
truths. Father, forgive thou those who deride and vilify me, because I enunciated them: they know not what they do."




326          THE SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR.
for nothing.  We have not forgotten our dead.  The" flower of
our youth and the strength of our manhood have not gone
down to the grave in vain. We are not willing for the poor
boon of a life dishonoured and joyless to barter our liberties,
surrender our homes to the spoiler, exist as the vassals of Massachusetts or become exiles, whose title to pity will not exceed
the penalty of contempt.  Any contact, friendly or indifferent, with the Yankee, since the display of his vices, would be
painful to a free and enlightened people. It would be vile and
unnatural to the people of the South if extended across the
bloody gulf of a cruel war, and unspeakably infamous if made
in the attitude of submission.