WINTER-QUARTERS
An impracticable country--Movements suspended--Experienced troops
ordered away--My orders from Washington--Rosecrans objects--A
disappointment--Winter organization of the Department--Sifting our
material--Courts-martial--Regimental schools--Drill and picket
duty--A military execution--Effect upon the army--Political
sentiments of the people--Rules of conduct toward them--Case of Mr.
Parks--Mr. Summers--Mr. Patrick--Mr. Lewis Ruffner--Mr.
Doddridge--Mr. B. F. Smith--A house divided against itself--Major
Smith's journal--The contrabands--A fugitive-slave
case--Embarrassments as to military jurisdiction.
Floyd's retreat was continued to the vicinity of Newberne and Dublin
Depot, where the Virginia and East Tennessee Railway crosses the
upper waters of New River. He reported the country absolutely
destitute of everything and the roads so broken up that he could not
supply his troops at any distance from the railroad. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. v. pp. 287,288.] Rosecrans was of a similar
opinion, and on the 19th of November signified to General McClellan
[Footnote: _id_., p. 657.] his purpose to hold Gauley Bridge, Cheat
Mountain, and Romney as the frontier of his department, and to
devote the winter to the instruction and discipline of his troops,
and the sifting out of incompetent officers. About the 1st of
December he fixed his headquarters at Wheeling, [Footnote: _Id_.,
pp. 669, 685. On January 21 I called attention to the anomaly of
bounding the department by the Kanawha River on the south, and
correction was at once made by General McClellan. _Id_., p. 706.]
assigning the District of the Kanawha to my command, with
headquarters at Charleston. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 670, 691.] This
gave me substantially the same territorial jurisdiction I had in the
summer, but with a larger body of troops.
Before we left Gauley Bridge, however, I received orders direct from
army headquarters at Washington to take my three oldest Ohio
regiments and report to General Buell in Kentucky. This was exactly
in accordance with my own strong desire to join a large army on one
of the principal lines of operation. I therefore went joyfully to
Rosecrans, supposing, of course, that he also had received orders to
send me away. To my intense chagrin I found that he not only was
without such orders, but that he was, naturally enough, disposed to
take umbrage at the sending of orders direct to me. He protested
against the irregularity, and insisted that if his forces were to be
reduced, he should himself indicate those which were to go. He
carried his point on the matter, and was directed to send eight
regiments to Buell. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 671.] He
insisted that I should stay, and whilst the reasons he gave were
sufficiently complimentary, it was none the less a great
disappointment to have to abandon the hope of service in a more
important field. [Footnote: _Id._ pp. 259, 657.] There was nothing
to be done but to summon philosophy to my aid, and to hope that all
would turn out for the best. Before Rosecrans left Gauley Bridge
four more regiments were added to the eight already ordered away,
together with four batteries of artillery. Some new regiments had
joined us, and the aggregate of troops remaining was perhaps not
much below the number present when Rosecrans reached Carnifex Ferry
in September; but most of them were freshly organized regiments,
with whom the work of drill and discipline had to begin at first
lessons. Three of the batteries taken away were regulars, and the
other was Loomis's Michigan battery, one of the oldest and best
instructed of our volunteer batteries. The places of these were not
supplied. The good policy of these reductions is not to be
questioned; for it was agreed that nothing aggressive could be done
in the mountains during the winter, and it was wise to use part of
the forces elsewhere.--Yet for those of us who had hoped to go with
the troops, and now found ourselves condemned to the apparently
insignificant duty of garrisoning West Virginia, the effect was, for
the time, a very depressing one.
General Schenck had left us on account of sickness, and did not
return. His brigade was again commanded by Colonel Scammon, as it
had been at Carnifex Ferry, and was stationed at Fayette C. H. One
regiment was at Tompkins farm, another at Gauley Bridge, two others
at intervals between that post and Charleston, where were three
regiments out of what had been my own brigade. Three partially
organized West Virginia regiments of infantry and one of cavalry
were placed at recruiting stations in the rear, and one Ohio
regiment was posted at Barboursville. The chain of posts which had
been established in the summer between Weston and Cross Lanes was
not kept up; but the Thirty-sixth Ohio, Colonel George Crook, was
stationed at Cross Lanes, reporting to me, as did all the other
troops enumerated above.
The Cheat Mountain district continued in command of General Milroy,
his principal posts being at Beverly and Huttonsville, with small
garrisons holding the mountain passes. General Kelley remained also
in command of the railroad district covering the communication with
Washington by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. General J. J.
Reynolds was assigned to command a new division organizing at
Romney, but was soon transferred to another department.
Such was the general organization of the department for the winter,
and we soon settled down to regular work in fitting the troops for
the next campaign. Courtsmartial were organized to try offenders of
all grades, and under charges of conduct prejudicial to good order
and military discipline, worthless officers were driven from the
service and negligent ones disciplined. Regimental schools were
opened, and strenuous efforts were made to increase the military
knowledge and skill of the whole command. Careful drill was
enforced, and picket and outpost duty systematically taught. Each
post became a busy camp of instruction, and the regiments repeated
under more favorable circumstances the work of the original camp in
Ohio.
The work of the military courts gave me one very unpleasant duty to
perform, which, happily, was of rare occurrence and never again fell
to my lot except on a single occasion in North Carolina near the
close of the war. A soldier of the First Kentucky Volunteers was
condemned to death for desertion, mutiny, and a murderous assault
upon another soldier. The circumstances were a little peculiar, and
gave rise to fears that his regiment might resist the execution. I
have already mentioned the affair of Captain Gibbs [Footnote:
Appointed Captain and Assistant Commissary of Subsistence, U. S.
Vols., October 1.] who had shot down a mutinous man of the Second
Kentucky at Gauley Bridge in the summer, and who had been acquitted
by a court-martial. The camp is very like a city in which popular
impressions and rumors have quick circulation and large influence.
The two Kentucky regiments were so closely related as to be almost
one, and were subject to the same influences. A bitter feeling
toward Captain Gibbs prevailed in them both, and camp demagogues
busied themselves in trying to make mischief by commenting on the
fact that the officer was acquitted whilst the private was
condemned. There was not a particle of justice in this, for the one
had simply suppressed a mutiny, whereas the other was inciting one.
But it is not necessary for complaints to be just among those who
are very imperfectly informed in regard to the facts, and very
unpleasant reports were received as to the condition of things in
the regiment to which the condemned man belonged.
It is the military custom, in executions by shooting, to select the
firing party from the regiment to which the condemned man belongs.
To have changed the rule would have looked like timidity, and I
determined that it must not be done, but resolved upon an order of
procedure which would provide, as far as possible, against the
chances of interference. On such occasions the troops are usually
paraded upon three sides of a hollow square, without arms, the place
of execution being in the middle of the open side, where the
prisoner kneels upon his coffin. The place chosen was in the meadows
on the lower side of the Elk River, opposite Charleston, a short
distance from the regimental camp. The camps of two other regiments
at the post were half a mile from the place of execution. These
regiments were, therefore, marched to the field with their arms.
That to which the prisoner belonged was marched without arms to its
position as the centre of the parade, and the others were formed on
their right and left at right angles, thus forming the three sides
of the enclosure. The arms of these last regiments were stacked
immediately behind them where they could be seized in a moment, but
the parade was formed without muskets. Captain Gibbs was on duty as
commissary at my headquarters, and his appearance with the staff
would have been unpleasant to himself as well as a possible cause of
excitement in the Kentucky regiment. To solve the difficulty without
making a significant exception, I ordered only the personal staff
and the adjutant-general with the chief surgeon to accompany me,
leaving out the administrative officers of both quartermaster's and
commissary's departments.
When the parade was formed, I took my place with my staff at the
right of the line, and, as upon a review, rode slowly down the whole
line, on the inside of the square. In going along the front of the
First Kentucky, I took especial pains to meet the eyes of the men as
they were turned to me in passing, desirous of impressing them with
my own feeling that it was a solemn but inevitable duty. Immediately
after we returned to our places, the music of the dead-march was
heard, and an ambulance was seen approaching from the camp, escorted
by the provost-marshal and the execution party with the music. The
solemn strains, the slow funereal step of the soldiers, the closed
ambulance, the statue-like stillness of the paraded troops made an
impression deeper and more awful than a battle scene, because the
excitement was hushed and repressed. The ambulance stopped, the man
was helped out at the back, and led by the provost-marshal to his
place upon the coffin, where he was blindfolded. The firing party
silently took its place. The muskets were cocked and aimed, while
the noise of the retiring ambulance covered the sound. The
provost-marshal, with a merciful deception, told the prisoner he
must wait a moment and he would return to him before the final
order, but stepping quickly out of the range of the muskets, he gave
the signal with his handkerchief, and the man fell dead at the
volley, which sounded like a single discharge. The detail of
soldiers for the firing had been carefully instructed that
steadiness and accuracy made the most merciful way of doing their
unwelcome duty. The surgeon made his official inspection of the
body, which was placed in the coffin and removed in the ambulance.
The drums and fifes broke the spell with quick marching music, the
regiments took their arms, sharp words of command rattled along the
lines, which broke by platoons into column and moved rapidly off the
field.
I confess it was a relief to have the painful task ended, and
especially to have it ended in the most perfect order and
discipline. The moral effect was very great, for our men were so
intelligent that they fully appreciated the judicial character of
the act, and the imposing solemnity of the parade and execution made
the impression all the more profound. As it was accompanied and
followed by a searching test of the capacity and character of their
officers, of which they daily saw the effects in the retirement of
some from the service and in the increased industry and studious
devotion to duty of all, it gave a new tone to the whole command. I
spared no effort to make the feeling pervade every regiment and
company, that the cause of the country, their own success and honor,
and even their own personal safety depended upon their entering the
next campaign with such improved discipline and instruction as
should make them always superior to an equal number of the enemy.
Leaves of absence and furloughs were limited as closely as possible,
and I set the example of remaining without interruption on duty,
though there were many reasons why a visit home was very desirable.
My wife made me a visit at Charleston in mid-winter, and this
naturally brought me into more frequent social relations to the
people, and led me to observe more closely their attitude to the
government and its cause.
Before the secession of Virginia a very large majority of the
inhabitants of the Kanawha valley were Unionists; but the attachment
to the state organization had become so exaggerated in all
slave-holding communities, that most of the well-to-do people
yielded to the plea that they must "go with their State." The same
state pride led this class of people to oppose the division of
Virginia and the forming of the new State on the west of the
mountains. The better class of society in Charleston, therefore, as
in other towns, was found to be disloyal, and in sympathy with the
rebellion. The young men were very generally in the Confederate
army; the young women were full of the most romantic devotion to
their absent brothers and friends, and made it a point of honor to
avow their sentiments. The older people were less demonstrative, and
the men who had a stake in the country generally professed
acquiescence in the position of West Virginia within the Union, and
a desire to bring back their sons from the Confederate service. The
necessity of strict watch upon the communications sent through the
lines brought to my notice a great deal of family history full of
suffering and anxiety, and showed that that was indeed a fearful
situation for a family when its young men were not only separated
from them by military service in the field, but could only be heard
from by the infrequent chances of communication under flags of
truce, and with all the restrictions and reserves necessary to the
method. The rule I adopted in dealing personally with non-combatants
of either sex was to avoid all controversy or discussion, to state
with perfect frankness but courteously my own attitude and sense of
duty, and to apply all such stringent rules as a state of war
compels with an evenness of temper and tone of dispassionate
government which should make as little chafing as possible. Most
intelligent people, when they are not excited, are disposed to
recognize the obligations imposed upon a military officer in such
circumstances, and it was rarely the case that any unpleasant
collisions occurred.
The following incident will illustrate some of the embarrassments
likely to occur. When I reached Charleston in July previous, I was
visited by the wife of a gentleman named Parks, who told me that her
husband had left the valley with General Wise, but not in any
military capacity, being fearful that he might suffer arrest at our
hands on account of his sympathy with the Confederates. I told her,
what I had told to a formal deputation of citizens, that I did not
propose to meddle with non-combatants if they in good faith remained
at home, minding their own business, and carefully abstaining from
giving aid or information to the enemy. I had, on general
principles, a dislike for test oaths, and preferred to make conduct
the test, and to base my treatment of people on that, rather than on
oaths which the most unscrupulous would be first to take. Had her
husband known this, she said, he would not have left home, and
begged that she might be allowed to send an open letter through the
lines to him to bring him back. I allowed her to do so at the first
proper opportunity, and Mr. Parks at once returned. In the latter
part of September, however, Governor Peirpoint of West Virginia
thought it necessary to arrest some prominent citizens, known as
Secessionists, and hold them as hostages for Union men that the
Confederate troops had seized and sent to Richmond. It happened that
Mr. Parks was arrested as one of these hostages, without any
knowledge on the part of the civil authorities of the circumstances
under which he had returned home. I was ignorant of his arrest till
I received a letter from the lady, complaining bitterly of what
seemed to her a breach of faith. I was at Sewell Mountain at the
time, but lost no time in writing her a careful explanation of the
complete disconnection between his arrest by the civil authorities
as a hostage, and a promise of non-interference with him on my part
as an officer of the United States army. I also showed her that the
arrest of non-combatant Union men by the Confederate forces was the
real cause of her husband's unpleasant predicament. In view of the
circumstances, however, I thought it right to request the Governor
to substitute some other hostage for Mr. Parks, so that there might
not be the least question whether the letter or the spirit of my
military safeguard had been broken, and the result was that the
gentleman was very soon at home again.
The most prominent citizen of the valley was the Hon. George
Summers, who had represented it in the Congress of the United
States, and had opposed secession in the Virginia Convention with a
vigor that had brought him into personal peril. When, however,
secession was an accomplished fact, his ideas of allegiance to his
State so far influenced him that he was unwilling to take active
part in public affairs, and sought absolute retirement at his
pleasant home a little below Charleston on the Kanawha. His house
was on a hill overlooking the beautiful valley, broad enough at this
point to give room for ample fields in the rich bottom lands. I had
called upon him, as I passed with my troops when I went up the
valley. He was a dignified and able man, just past middle life, but
in full physical and mental force, and capable of exerting a very
great influence if he could have thrown himself heartily into public
activity. But he was utterly saddened and depressed by the outbreak
of civil war, and deliberately chose the part of suffering in
seclusion whatever it might bring, unable to rouse himself to a
combative part. As a slave-holder, he was bitter against the
anti-slavery movement, and as a Unionist he condemned the
Secessionists. He was very glad to have the Kanawha valley in the
possession of the National troops, now that Wise had made the effort
to occupy it for the Confederacy; though he had tried to procure the
adoption of a policy which should leave it neutral ground,--a policy
as impossible here as in Kentucky. The result was that he was
distrusted by both sides, for in civil war each acts upon the maxim
that "he that is not for us is against us." I renewed my
acquaintance with him in the winter, making his house the limit of
an occasional ride for exercise. I appreciated his feelings, and
respected his desire to set an example of obedient private
citizenship with renunciation of all other or more active influence.
There were other men of social prominence who had less hesitation in
throwing themselves actively upon the National side. Mr. Patrick was
an elderly man, of considerable wealth, whose home was a very
similar one to Mr. Summers', a little nearer to Charleston upon the
same road. His wife was of old Virginia stock, a relative of Chief
Justice Marshall, and a pronounced Southern woman, though too good a
wife to make her sympathies give annoyance to her husband or his
guests. Lewis Ruffner was also a prominent Union man, and among the
leaders of the movement to make West Virginia a separate State. Mr.
Doddridge, long the cashier and manager of the Bank at Charleston,
whose family was an old and well-known one, was an outspoken
Unionist, and in the next year, when the war put an end for the time
to banking in the valley, he became a paymaster in the National
army. Colonel Benjamin F. Smith was a noteworthy character also. He
was a leading lawyer, a man of vigorous and aggressive character,
and of tough fibre both physically and mentally. He shared the wish
of Summers to keep West Virginia out of the conflict if possible,
but when we had driven Wise out of the valley, he took a pronounced
position in favor of the new state movement. A little afterward he
was appointed District Attorney for the United States. Although the
loyal people had such competent leaders, the majority of the men of
wealth and of the families recognized as socially eminent were
avowed Secessionists. They were a small minority of the whole
people, but in all slave-holding communities social rank is so
powerful that their influence was out of proportion to their
numbers. Even the leaders of the Unionists found their own "house
divided against itself," for scarce one of them but had a son in
Wise's legion, and the Twenty-second Virginia Regiment was largely
composed of the young men of Charleston and the vicinity. I have
already referred to the journal of Major Smith which fell into my
hands as "captured rebel mail," and its pages are full of pathetic
evidence of the conflicting emotions which such a situation excited.
He was the son of B. F. Smith, whom I have just mentioned, and
whilst in Floyd's camp in front of us at Sewell Mountain he wrote:
"My source of constant trouble is that my father will be in danger.
Wicked and unscrupulous men, with whom he has lived in friendship
for years, absolutely thirst for his blood, as I truly believe. He
and Summers, as one of their friends remarked to me to-day, are
especial objects of hatred and aversion to men here. I am actually
leading a set of men one of whose avowed objects is the arrest and
the judicial or lynch murder of my father!" In the next month he
heard "the startling news" that his father had fully identified
himself with the new state movement, and writes: "Those with whom I
was connected, call and curse him as a traitor,--and he knew it
would be so! Why my dear father has chosen to place me in this
terrible situation is beyond my comprehension. I have been shocked
beyond description in contemplating the awful consequences to the
peace, safety, and happiness of both of us!" The family distress and
grief revealed by accident in this case is only an example of what
was common in all the families of prominent Union men. In some
cases, as in that of Major Smith, the young men resigned their
commissions and made their way home, finding the mental and moral
strain too great to bear; but in many more, pride and the influence
of comrades kept them in the Confederate service with the enlisted
men who could not resign, and with hearts sorely torn by conflicting
duties, they fought it out to the end.
The slavery question was the vexed one which troubled the relations
of the army and the people in all the border States. My own position
was that of the party which had elected Mr. Lincoln. We disclaimed
any purpose of meddling with the institution in the States which
remained loyal to the Union, whilst we held it to be within the war
powers of the government to abolish it in the rebellious States. We
also took satisfaction in enforcing the law which freed the
"contrabands" who were employed by their masters in any service
within the Confederate armies. These principles were generally
understood and acquiesced in by the West Virginians; but it was
impossible to come to any agreement in regard to fugitive slaves who
took refuge in our camps. The soldiers and many of the officers
would encourage the negroes to assert their freedom, and would
resist attempts to recapture them. The owners, if Union men, would
insist that the fugitives should be apprehended and restored to them
by military authority. This was simply impossible, for the public
sentiment of the army as a whole was so completely with the slaves
that any such order would have been evaded and made a farcical dead
letter. The commanders who made such orders uniformly suffered from
doing it; for the temper of the volunteer army was such that the
orders were looked upon as evidence of sympathy with the rebellion,
and destroyed the usefulness of the general by creating an incurable
distrust of him among his own men. Yet nearly all the department
commanders felt obliged at first, by what they regarded as the
letter of the law, to order that fugitive slaves claimed by loyal
citizens should be arrested, if within the camps, and delivered up.
Within the district of the Kanawha I tried to avoid the difficulty
by stringent orders that slaves should be kept out of the camps; but
I declined to order the troops to arrest and return them. I had two
little controversies on the subject, and in both of them I had to
come in collision with Colonel Benjamin Smith. After they were over
we became good friends, but the facts are too important an
illustration of the war-time and its troubles to be omitted.
The first raised the question of "contraband." A negro man was
brought into my camp by my advance-guard as we were following Floyd
to Sewell Mountain in September. He was the body-servant of Major
Smith, and had deserted the major, with the intention of getting
back to his family at Charleston. In our camp he soon learned that
he was free, under the Act of Congress, and he remained with us, the
servants about headquarters giving him food. When I returned to
Gauley Bridge, Mr. Smith appeared and demanded the return of the man
to him, claiming him as his slave. He, however, admitted that he had
been servant to Major Smith in the rebel army with his consent. The
man refused to go with him, and I refused to use compulsion,
informing Mr. Smith that the Act of Congress made him free. The
claimant then went to General Rosecrans, and I was surprised by the
receipt, shortly after, of a note from headquarters directing the
giving up of the man. [Footnote: Letter of Major Darr, acting A. A.
G., November 18.] On my stating the facts the matter was dropped,
and I heard no more of it for a month, the man meanwhile
disappearing. Soon after my headquarters were moved to Charleston,
in December, I received another note from headquarters, again
directing the delivery of the fugitive. [Footnote: Letter of Captain
Hartsuff, A. A. G., December 13.] Again I gave a temperate and clear
statement of the facts, adding that I had reason to believe the man
had now taken advantage of his liberty to go to Ohio. Mr. Smith's
case thus ended, but it left him with a good deal of irritation at
what he thought a wrong done to him as well as insubordination on my
part.
In March following, another case arose, and I received a paper from
headquarters containing an alleged statement of the facts, and
referred to me in usual course for report. I had been absent from
Charleston when the incidents occurred, but made careful inquiry
satisfying myself of the truth, and perhaps cannot give an
intelligent explanation better than by quoting the report itself,
for its tone shows the sort of annoyance I felt, and it exhibits
some of the conditions of an army command involving administrative
duties that were far from pleasant.
I said: "The document is in the handwriting of B. F. Smith, Esq., U.
S. District Attorney, residing here, though signed only by John
Slack, Jr., and William Kelly; the former an acting deputy U. S.
marshal, the latter the jailer at the county jail. Its composition
is so peculiar that it is difficult to tell what part of the
statement is Slack's or Kelly's and what is Colonel Smith's, and
therefore I do not know whom to hold responsible for the
misstatements contained in it.
"Mr. Slack is a respectable young man, who I believe would do his
duty as far as he understands it, but who has not energy enough to
keep him from being the tool of others. Mr. Kelly, the jailer, is
sufficiently described when I state the fact that he has attempted
to add to his profits as turnkey by selling bad whisky to soldiers
put in his calaboose, at the rate of five dollars per pint bottle.
Mr. Smith, the District Attorney, has lost no opportunity of being
annoying to the military officers here, since the controversy about
the negro man captured from his son, Major Isaac Smith of the rebel
army. This reference to the parties concerned is necessary to enable
the commanding general to understand the _animus_ of their
complaints.
"The facts are substantially as follows: Henry H. Hopkins is a
notorious Secessionist living near Coal River, and a man of
considerable property. Some time before his arrest he sent the negro
man mentioned in the complaint _South_, in charge of some Logan
County 'bushwhackers.' On his way and in McDowell County the man
managed to escape and returned into Hopkins's neighborhood, near
Boone C. H., where he took his wife and three children alleged to
have been the property of a woman named Smoot, and brought them to
this post. Upon his representation that he had escaped from armed
rebels in McDowell County, and without further knowledge of the
facts, the Post Quartermaster set him at work. About the 19th of
February Hopkins came to town with Mrs. Smoot, and without notice to
the quartermaster or any color of authority by any civil process,
procured the aid of Kelly, the jailer, seized the negro and took him
to Wright's hotel. The provost-marshal, knowing that Hopkins was an
active Secessionist and that he had been personally engaged in the
combat at Boone C. H. last fall, ordered his arrest. Shortly after,
he was waited upon by B. F. Smith, Esq., U. S. District Attorney,
who stated that he had known Mr. Hopkins for a good many years and
was confident he was a good Union man, although in fact the
deputy-marshal at the very time held a warrant for the arrest of
Hopkins for treason and conspiracy, under an indictment found in the
U. S. Court, of which, to say the least of it, it is very strange
Mr. Smith should have been ignorant. At the request of the
provost-marshal, the warrant was served on Hopkins, who was admitted
to bail in the sum of $2000, which is most inadequate security for
the appearance of a man of Hopkins's wealth and influence, accused
of such a crime. After the arrest of Hopkins, the negro being left
to himself returned to his quarters, but sometime during the night
stole a skiff and attempted to escape with his family down the
Kanawha River. The circumstances of his accident in the river, the
drowning of his family and his subsequent capture, I have not been
able to investigate fully.
"The only matter of controversy now is in regard to the horse. The
bar-keeper at the tavern denies that he has said it was taken by
Wagon-master West (a man who has since been discharged by the Post
Quartermaster), and I have been unable to trace it, although every
effort has been made in perfect good faith to do so. The man West
was put under arrest, to see if that would make him admit anything
with regard to it, but without effect. I advised Slack to procure
some one who knew the horse to pass through the government stables
and teams, and if he recognized the animal to let me know at once,
and I would give an order to him to obtain it. The statement that
'Slack says he told Cox he could not find him, that a soldier or
employee in his command got him, and if proper measures were taken
he could be had,' is both impudent and false, and I respectfully
submit that it is not, in matter or manner, such a complaint as the
Commanding General should call upon me to reply to.
"The statement of these civil officials at once gives me the
opportunity and makes it my duty to state to the Commanding General
that the only occasions on which these gentlemen show any vitality,
is when some Secessionist's runaway negroes are to be caught. For
any purpose of ordinary municipal magistracy they seem utterly
incompetent. I have urged the organization of the county and of the
town, but to no effect. Every street that is mended, every bridge
that is repaired, or wharf that is put in order, must be done by the
army at the expense of the U. S. government. They will not elect
officers to look after the poor, but leave us to feed the starving
near our camps. They will establish no police, and by force of
public opinion keep suitors out of the courts ordered to be held by
Governor Peirpoint. Yet a U. S. Commissioner, without any warrant or
even pretended jurisdiction, will stop any vagrant negro, drive him
through the streets in person, and say that he does it as a U. S.
officer! Of course we simply look on and have had no controversy
with them, unless driven to it by direct efforts on their part to
interfere with our necessary regulations.
"The simple fact is that a few men of property who are avowed
Secessionists control the town and make its public sentiment. By
this means they practically control these officers also. Many of the
negroes employed at the salt-works, and under hire in other
capacities in the vicinity, are the slaves of rebels who are either
in the rebel army or fled with it from the valley. The great problem
upon which the Secessionists remaining here are exercising their
ingenuity is to find the means of using the U. S. Commissioner and
Marshal to secure to them the services of these persons without cost
or legitimate contract of hiring, for the present profit of these
gentlemen here, and the future advantage of their compatriots across
the lines.
"Colonel Smith and Mr. Slack say that they made the statement at the
express request of Major Darr of the Commanding General's staff. A
simple inquiry by the Major would have saved me the necessity of
writing this long letter."
It is due to General Rosecrans to say that although he had been
anything but an anti-slavery man before the war, he made no pressure
upon me to violate my own sense of right in these or similar cases,
and they ended with my reports of the facts and of my reasons for
the course I pursued. The side lights thrown upon the situation by
the letter last quoted will be more instructive than any analysis I
could now give, and the spice of flavor which my evident annoyance
gave it only helps to revive more perfectly the local color of the
time. In the case of Mr. Smith's "negro boy Mike," I had the
satisfaction of finding in the intercepted correspondence of his son
the major, the express recognition of the man's right to liberty by
reason of his use in the enemy's service, and could not deny myself
the pleasure of calling attention to it in my letters to
headquarters.
My experience during the winter begot in me a rooted dislike for the
military administration of the border districts, and strengthened my
wish to be in the most active work at the front, where the problems
were the strictly military ones of attack and defence in the
presence of the armed enemy. [Footnote: I did not lack evidence that
a steady rule, based on principles frankly avowed and easily
understood, was rapidly bringing the people to be content to be in
the Union, even those most inclined to secession. This result I am
gratified to find attested by General Lee and General Floyd, who in
dispatches very lately printed confessed the effect my
administration had in quieting the valley during the first months of
my occupation. Official Records, vol. li. pt. ii. pp. 220, 225.] Not
that the winter was without compensating pleasures, for we were
recipients of much social attention of a very kindly and agreeable
sort, and carried away cherished memories of refined family circles
in which the collision of opinions and the chafing of official
relations were forgotten in hearty efforts to please. With the
unconditionally loyal people our sympathies were very deep, for we
found them greatly torn and disturbed in the conflict of duties and
divided affections, where scarce a single household stood as a unit
in devotion to the cause, and where the triumph of either side must
necessarily bring affliction to some of them.