SECOND MANASSAS AND MARYLAND CAMPAIGN—SHARPSBURG—BACK
TO VIRGINIA—FROM
WINCHESTER TO CULPEPER—TO
FREDERICKSBURG
SECOND MANASSAS AND THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN
Some time after the battles around Richmond, the brigade set out on what
is called the Maryland campaign. It took part in the second battle of
Manassas, on the 30th of August, 1862, when my brother, Robert W., who
was just eighteen years old, and had joined the company the day before,
was badly wounded in the thigh. He was taken to Warrenton, where his
father came to him. While there the latter had a severe spell of typhoid
fever.
In the fight Company C lost four men killed, as follows: Harvey Martin,
W. H. Hendricks, Chas. Murrell, and H. O. Elliott, and several wounded.
In this battle the brigade charged and captured a Yankee battery.
SHARPSBURG
The brigade was also engaged in the battle of Sharpsburg, Md., on the
17th of September, 1862, when Major Clement was in command of the
Eleventh Regiment and was desperately wounded. He never again returned
to the army. He still lives in Campbell County, respected and honored by
his people. Adam Clement was a true man, among the bravest of the brave.
I have heard some of Company C relate that on the evening of September
15th, when near Sharpsburg, they saw General Lee by the roadside. When
the head of the column, which was falling back before the Yankee army
from the direction of South Mountain, reached a certain point, General
Lee remarked, as the troops by his order filed off the road to form line
of battle, "We will make our stand on these hills," and here the
Confederates did make a desperate stand before a largely superior force,
30,000 against 80,000, and held their ground to the end. This was a
bloody fight, many thousand men being killed and wounded on both sides.
General Jackson had a few days before captured Harper's Ferry, with
11,000 prisoners and large quantities of stores and munitions of war.
Jackson and his men then set out to rejoin General Lee at Sharpsburg,
arriving, some of them, late in the afternoon on the 17th inst., with
ranks much depleted by the hasty march. But "old Jack" got there in time
to save the day.
Company C lost two, and perhaps more, men killed, as follows: Joe Rice
and John Rice, and several wounded.
BACK TO VIRGINIA
After the battle of Sharpsburg the brigade, with the Confederate troops,
re-crossed the Potomac River and camped about Winchester until the
latter part of October.
I rejoined the army near Winchester about the 25th of September, 1862,
going by railroad to Staunton in company with several men of Company C,
who had been home on sick and wounded furloughs, from whence we tramped
down the pike and back road, a distance of ninety-odd miles to and
beyond Winchester.
The second day, I think it was, we left the rock road, crossing over to
the back road in order to procure rations more easily along the way,
which we did without any trouble, buying our food from the farm-houses
along the road, and sleeping in the woods at night. It took four or five
days to make the trip.
With the main army, the brigade left Winchester about the 25th of
October, marched up the rock road some distance, then struck across
towards the Blue Ridge, wading the Shenandoah River, waist-deep or more.
Along the farther side of the river, I remember there were some grand
old sycamore trees growing with wide-spreading branches. Whenever I read
of or hear Stonewall Jackson's dying words, "Let us cross over the river
and rest under the shade of the trees," I think of those sycamores on
the Shenandoah, under which I have no doubt Jackson and his men rested
in the long ago.
We crossed the Blue Ridge at Thornton's Gap, not far from Sperryville,
passing through Madison, Rappahannock, Orange, and Culpeper counties.
Through Madison County the road ran for some distance along Robinson
River, which has the rockiest bed I ever saw, literally covered with
small boulders, not very small at that, some of them. We arrived at
Culpeper Court House about the 3d of November. In the meantime, the
enemy had crossed the Potomac and were then near Warrenton, Fauquier
County, and about the middle of November moved towards Fredericksburg.
The army remained in Culpeper and Orange counties until about the 19th
of November, 1862, when it moved on towards Fredericksburg, where the
brigade arrived about the 25th of November, stopping by the way several
times, going through the Wilderness country—large tracts of woodlands,
miles and miles in extent, which afterwards became famous as the ground
on which several bloody battles were fought—a part of the way along the
old plank-road, going into, as was thought, winter quarters, building
"dog houses," some two miles south of Fredericksburg.
The Yankee army, now commanded by General Burnside, was in camp on the
opposite side of the Rappahannock River, on what was called Stafford
Heights, which overlooked the town and country on the south side, their
thousands of white tents being in plain view from the hills on the south
side of the river.
The Yankees always camped in the open fields, where they pitched their
tents. The Confederates camped in woods after the first year, when
improvised shelters were used, for few were the tents they had.
The camps of both armies extended along the river, on either side, some
twelve or fifteen miles. The picket lines were along the river banks, in
sight of each other, but no firing was done; instead, the soldiers
sometimes clandestinely crossed over, swapping tobacco and coffee—the
"Johnnies," as the Yankees called the Confederates, having the tobacco,
and the "Yanks" the coffee. Newspapers were also exchanged.
While here many of the men were without shoes, and beef hides were
issued to make moccasins, but this was a poor shift for shoes, and did
little or no good.