WINTER OF 1864-'5--LETTER OF GOVERNOR VANCE--APPEAL FOR GENERAL LEE'S
ARMY--THE DESTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE--FALL OF FORT FISHER--ADVANCE OF
GENERAL SHERMAN--CONTRAST BETWEEN SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS--EXTRACTS
FROM LORD CORNWALLIS'S ORDER-BOOK--THE "BLOODY TARLETON."
The fall and winter of 1864-'5 were especially gloomy to our people.
The hopes that had so long delusively buoyed up the Southern States
in their desperate struggle against overwhelming odds were beginning
to flag very perceptibly in every part of the Confederacy where
people were capable of appreciating the facts of the situation. More
especially, then, in North-Carolina, situated so near to the seat of
war that false rumors, telegrams, and "reliable gentlemen" from the
front had never had more than a very limited circulation here, and
whose sober people never had been blinded or dazzled by the glare of
false lights; more especially here were there only gloomy outlooks for
the year 1865, as it dawned.
In September, 1864, our representative Governor had written thus
confidentially to his oldest and most warmly attached personal friend,
a gentleman of the highest consideration in the State--a letter that
needs neither introduction nor comment to secure it attention:
"RALEIGH, September 22, 1864.
"I would be glad if I could have a long talk with you. I never before
have been so gloomy about the condition of affairs. Early's defeat
in the valley I consider as the turning-point in this campaign;
and, confidentially, I fear it seals the fate of Richmond, though
not immediately. It will require our utmost exertions to retain
our footing in Virginia till '65 comes in. McClellan's defeat is
placed among the facts, and abolitionism is rampant for four years
more. The army in Georgia is utterly demoralized; and by the time
President Davis, who has gone there, displays again his obstinacy
in defying public sentiment, and his ignorance of men in the change
of commanders, its ruin will be complete. They are now deserting by
hundreds. In short, if the enemy pushes his luck till the close of the
year, we shall not be offered any terms at all.
"The signs which discourage me more than aught else are the utter
demoralization of the people. With a base of communication five
hundred miles in Sherman's rear, through our own country, not a bridge
has been burned, not a car thrown from its track, nor a man shot
by the people whose country he has desolated. They seem everywhere
to submit when our armies are withdrawn. What does this show, my
dear sir? It shows what I have always believed, that _the great
popular heart_ is not now, and never has been in this war. It was a
revolution of the _Politicians_, not the _People_; and was fought at
first by the natural enthusiasm of our young men, and has been kept
going by State and sectional pride, assisted by that bitterness of
feeling produced by the cruelties and brutalities of the enemy.
"Still, I am not out of heart, for, as you know, I am of a buoyant
and hopeful temperament. Things may come round yet. General Lee is _a
great man_, and has the remnant of the best army on earth, bleeding,
torn, and overpowered though it be. Saturday night may yet come to
all of our troubles, and be followed by the blessed hours of rest.
God grant it! 'Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief' in final
liberty and independence. I would fain be doing. How can I help to
win the victory? What can I do? How shall I guide this suffering and
much-oppressed Israel that looks to me through the tangled and bloody
pathway wherein our lines have fallen? Duty called me to resist to
the utmost the disruption of the Union. Duty calls me now to stand by
the new union, 'to the last gasp with truth and loyalty.' This is my
consolation. The beginning was bad: I had no hand in it. Should the
end be bad, I shall, with God's help, be equally blameless.
"I hope when you come down, you will give yourself time to be with me
a great deal.
"I am, dear sir, very truly yours,
"Z.B. Vance."
The saddest forebodings of this letter, which would have been echoed
by many a failing heart in the State, were soon to be realized. By
January, 1865, there was very little room left for "belief" of any sort
in the ultimate success of the Confederacy. All the necessaries of life
were scarce, and were held at fabulous and still increasing prices. The
great freshet of January 10th, which washed low grounds, carried off
fences, bridges, mills, and tore up railroads all through the central
part of the State, at once doubled the price of corn and flour. Two
destructive fires in the same month, which consumed great quantities
of government stores at Charlotte and at Salisbury, added materially
to the general gloom and depression. The very elements seemed to have
enlisted against us. And soon, with no great surplus of food from the
wants of her home population, North-Carolina found herself called upon
to furnish supplies for two armies.
Early in January, an urgent and most pressing appeal was made for
Lee's army; and the people, most of whom knew not where they would
get bread for their children in three months' time, responded nobly,
as they had always done to any call for "the soldiers." Few were the
hearts in any part of the land that did not thrill at the thought that
those who were fighting; for us were in want of food. From the humble
cabin on the hill-side, where the old brown spinning-wheel and the
rude loom were the only breastworks against starvation, up through all
grades of life, there were none who did not feel a deep and tender,
almost heartbreaking solicitude for our noble soldiers. For them the
last barrel of flour was divided, the last luxury in homes that had
once abounded was cheerfully surrendered. Every available resource was
taxed, every expedient of domestic economy was put in practice--as
indeed had been done all along; but our people went to work even yet
with fresh zeal. I speak now of Central North-Carolina, where many
families of the highest respectability and refinement lived for months
on corn-bread, sorghum, and peas; where meat was seldom on the table,
tea and coffee never; where dried apples and peaches were a luxury;
where children went barefoot through the winter, and ladies made their
own shoes, and wove their own homespuns; where the carpets were cut up
into blankets, and window-curtains and sheets were torn up for hospital
uses; where soldiers' socks were knit day and night, while for home
service clothes were twice turned, and patches were patched again; and
all this continually, and with an energy and a cheerfulness that may
well be called _heroic_.
There were localities in the State where a few rich planters boasted
of having "never felt the war;" there were ladies whose wardrobes
encouraged the blockade-runners, and whose tables were still heaped
with all the luxuries they had ever known. There were such doubtless in
every State in the Confederacy. I speak not now of these, but of the
great body of our citizens--the _middle_ class as to fortune, generally
the _highest_ as to cultivation and intelligence--_these_ were the
people who denied themselves and their little ones, that they might be
able to send relief to the gallant men who lay in the trenches before
Petersburgh, and were even then living on crackers and parched corn.
The fall of Fort Fisher and the occupation of Wilmington, the failure
of the peace commission, and the unchecked advance of Sherman's army
northward from Savannah, were the all-absorbing topics of discussion
with our people during the first months of the year 1865. The tide
of war was rolling in upon us. Hitherto our privations, heavily as
they had borne upon domestic comfort, had been light in comparison
with those of the people in the States actually invaded by the
Federal armies; but now we were to be qualified to judge, by our
own experience, how far their trials and losses had exceeded ours.
What the fate of our pleasant towns and villages and of our isolated
farm-houses would be, we could easily read by the light of the blazing
roof-trees that lit up the path of the advancing army. General
Sherman's principles were well known, for they had been carefully
laid down by him in his letter to the Mayor of Atlanta, September,
1864, and had been thoroughly put in practice by him in his further
progress since. To shorten the war by increasing its severity: this
was his plan--simple, and no doubt to a certain extent effective. But
it is surely well worth serious inquiry and investigation on the part
of those who decide these questions, and settle the laws of nations,
how far the laws and usages of war demand and justify the entire ruin
of a country and its unresisting inhabitants by the invading army;
or if those laws, as they are interpreted by the common-sense of
civilized humanity, do indeed justify such a course, how far they are
susceptible of change and improvement.
That the regulations which usually obtain in armies invading an
enemy's country do at least permit every species of annoyance and
oppression, tending to assist the successful prosecution of the war,
to be exercised toward non-combatants, is unhappily testified by the
annals of even modern and so-called Christian warfare. Especially are
the evil passions of a brutal soldiery excited and inflamed where the
inhabitants betake themselves to guerrilla or partisan warfare; and
more especially and fatally in the case of long-protracted sieges,
or the taking of a town by storm. The excesses committed by both
the English and the French armies in the war of the Peninsula are
recorded (and execrated) by their own generals, and are characterized
by the historian as "all crimes which man in his worst excesses can
commit--horrors so atrocious that their very atrocity preserves them
from our full execration because it makes it impossible to describe
them." Havoc and ruin have always accompanied invading armies to
a greater or less degree, modified by the causes of the war, the
character of the commanding officers, and the amount of discipline
maintained.
A little more historical and political knowledge diffused among her
people might have saved the South the unnecessarily bitter lesson she
has received on this matter. Very, very few of the unthinking young
men and women who clamored so madly for war four years ago, knew
what fiend they were invoking. Few, very few of their leaders knew.
Could the curtain that vailed the future have been lifted but for
a moment before them, how would they have recoiled horror-stricken!
But while admitting that in cases of very bitter national hatreds,
ill-disciplined soldiery, and raw generals, excesses are allowed and
defended, it is also the province of history to point with pride to
those instances where veteran commanders, knowing well the horrors of
war, seek to alleviate its miseries, and "seize the opportunities of
nobleness," and, believing with Napier, that "discipline has its root
in patriotism," do effectually control the armies they lead. Of such
as these there are happily not a few great names whose humanity and
generosity exhibited to the unfortunate inhabitants of the country they
were traversing lend additional lustre to their fame as consummate
soldiers. I shall, however, recall but one example to confirm this
position--an example likely to be particularly interesting to
Southerners as a parallel, and most striking as a contrast, to General
Sherman's course in the South.
In the month of January, 1781, exactly eighty-four years before General
Sherman's artillery trains woke the echoes through the heart of the
Carolinas, it pleased God to direct the course of another invading
army along much the same track; an army that had come three thousand
miles to put down what was in truth "a rebellion;" an army stanch
in enthusiastic loyalty to the government for whose rights it was
contending; an army also in pursuit of retreating "rebels," and panting
to put the finishing blow to a hateful secession, and whose commander
endeavored to arrive at his ends by strategical operations very much
resembling those which in this later day were crowned with success.
Here the parallel ends. The country traversed then and now by invading
armies was, eighty-four years ago, poor and wild and thinly settled.
Instead of a single grand, deliberate, and triumphant march through
a highly cultivated and undefended country, there had been many of
the undulations of war in the fortunes of that army--now pursuing,
now retreating--and finally, in the last hot chase of the flying (and
yet triumphant) rebels from the southern to the northern border of
North-Carolina, that invading army, to add celerity to its movements,
voluntarily and deliberately destroyed all its baggage and stores, the
noble and accomplished Commander-in-Chief himself setting the example.
The inhabitants of the country, thinly scattered and unincumbered with
wealth, exhibited the most determined hostility to the invaders, so
that if ever an invading army had good reason and excuse for ravaging
and pillaging as it passed along, that army may surely be allowed it.
What was the policy of its commander under such circumstances toward
the people of Carolina?
I have before me now Lord Cornwallis's own order-book--truly venerable
and interesting--bound in leather, with a brass clasp, the paper coarse
and the ink faded, but the handwriting uncommonly good, and the whole
in excellent preservation. A valuable relic in these days, when it is
well to know what are the traits which go to make a true soldier, and
how he may at least endeavor to divest war of its brutality. A few
extracts will show what Cornwallis's principles were.
"CAMP NEAR BEATTIE'S FORD, }
January 28, 1781. }
"Lord Cornwallis has so often experienced the zeal and good-will of
the army, that he has not the smallest doubt that the officers and
soldiers will most cheerfully submit to the ill conveniences that
must naturally attend war so remote from water carriage and the
magazines of the army. The supply of rum for a time will be absolutely
impossible, and that of meal very uncertain. It is needless to
point out to the officers the necessity of preserving the strictest
discipline, and of preventing the oppressed people from suffering
violence by the hands from whom they are taught to look for protection.
"To prevent the total destruction of the country and the ruin of his
Majesty's service, it is necessary that the regulation in regard to
the number of horses taken should be strictly observed. Major-General
Leslie will be pleased to require the most exact obedience to
this order from the officers commanding brigades and corps. The
supernumerary horses that may from time to time be discovered will be
sent to headquarters."
"HEADQUARTERS, CANSLER'S PLANTATION, }
February 2, 1781. }
"Lord Cornwallis is highly displeased that several houses have been
set on fire to-day during the march--a disgrace to the army--and he
will punish with the utmost severity any person or persons who shall
be found guilty of committing so disgraceful an outrage. His Lordship
requests the commanding officers of the corps will endeavor to find
the persons who set fire to the houses this day."
"HEADQUARTERS, DOBBIN'S HOUSE, }
February 17, 1781. }
"Lord Cornwallis is very sorry to be obliged to call the attention of
the officers of the army to the repeated orders against plundering,
and he assures the officers that if their duty to their king and
country, and their feeling for humanity, are not sufficient to enforce
their obedience to them, he must, however reluctantly, make use of
such power as the military laws have placed in his hands.
"Great complaints having been made of negroes straggling from the line
of march, plundering and using violence to the inhabitants, it is Lord
Cornwallis's positive orders that no negro shall be suffered to carry
arms on any pretense, and all officers and other persons who employ
negroes are desired to acquaint them that the provost-marshal has
received orders to seize and shoot on the spot any negro following the
army who may offend against these regulations.
"It is expected that captains will exert themselves to keep good order
and prevent plundering. Should any complaint be made of the wagoners
or followers of the army, it will be necessarily imputed to neglect on
the part of the captains. Any officer who looks on with indifference,
and does not do his utmost to prevent shameful marauding, will be
considered in a more criminal light than the persons who commit these
scandalous crimes, which must bring disgrace and ruin on his Majesty's
service.
"All foraging parties will give receipts for the supplies taken by
them."
"HEADQUARTERS, FREELANDS, }
February 28, 1781. }
MEMORANDUM.
"A watch found by the regiment of Bose. The owner may have it from the
adjutant of that regiment on proving his property."
"CAMP SMITH'S PLANTATION, }
March 1, 1781. }
"BRIGADE ORDERS.
"It is Brigadier-General O'Hara's orders that the officers commanding
companies cause an immediate inspection of the articles of clothing,
etc., in the possession of the women in their companies, and an
exact account taken thereof by the pay-sergeants; after which, their
necessaries are to be regularly examined at proper intervals, and
every article found in addition thereto burnt at the head of the
company--except such as have been fairly purchased on application
to the commanding officers and added to their former list by the
sergeants as above. The officers are likewise ordered to make these
examinations at such times, and in such manner as to prevent the women
(supposed to be the source of infamous plundering[2]) from evading the
purport of this order.
"A woman having been robbed of a watch, a black silk handkerchief,
a gallon of peach brandy, and a shirt, and, as by the description,
by a soldier of the Guards, the camp and every man's kit is to be
immediately searched for the same by the officers of the brigade.
"Notwithstanding every order, every entreaty that Lord Cornwallis has
given to the army, to prevent the shameful practice of plundering
and distressing the country, and these orders backed by every effort
that can have been made by Brigadier-General O'Hara, he is shocked to
find that this evil still prevails, and ashamed to observe that the
frequent complaints he receives from headquarters of the irregularity
of the Guards particularly affect the credit of that corps. He
therefore calls upon the officers, non-commissioned officers, and
those men who are yet possessed of the feelings of humanity, and
actuated by the principles of true soldiers, _the love of their
country, the good of the service, and the honor of their own corps_,
to assist with the same indefatigable diligence the General himself is
determined to persevere in, in order to detect and punish all men and
women so offending with the utmost severity of example."
Such was Lord Cornwallis's policy. What was the disposition toward
him of the country through which he was passing? "So inveterate
was the rancor of the inhabitants, that the expresses for the
Commander-in-Chief were frequently murdered; and the people, instead
of remaining quietly at home to receive pay for the produce of their
plantations, made it a practice to waylay the British foraging parties,
fire their rifles from concealed places, and then fly to the woods."
(Stedman's History.)
In all cases where the country people practice such warfare,
retaliation by the army so annoyed is justified. But even in Colonel
Tarleton's ("bloody Tarleton's") command, Lord Cornwallis took care
that justice should be done. In Tarleton's own narrative we read:
"On the arrival of some country people, Lord Cornwallis directed
Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton to dismount his dragoons and mounted
infantry, and to form them into a rank entire, for the convenient
inspection of the inhabitants, and to facilitate the discovery of the
villains who had committed atrocious outrages the preceding evening.
A sergeant and one private were pointed out, and accused of rape and
robbery. They were condemned to death by martial law. The immediate
infliction of this sentence exhibited to the army and manifested to the
country the discipline and justice of the British General."
In Lee's Memoirs, we learn that on one occasion he captured on the
banks of the Haw, in Alamance, two of Tarleton's staff, "who had been
detained in _settling for the subsistence of the detachment_." What was
the course of General Sherman's officers, eighty-four years afterward,
in the very same neighborhood, on the very same ground, let us now see.
"Look on this picture, then on that."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: 'Tis a thousand pities that a certain gallant
major-general, late of the cavalry service in General S.'s army, (now
Minister to Chili,) could not have his attention drawn to this.]