JUDGE RUFFIN--HIS HISTORY--HIS CHARACTER--HIS SERVICES--GENERAL
COUCH'S OUTRAGES AFTER PEACE HAD BEEN DECLARED--GENERAL
SHERMAN'S OUTRAGES--HIS UNBLUSHING OFFICIAL REPORT.--"ARMY
CORRESPONDENTS"--SHERMAN IN FAYETTEVILLE--CORNWALLIS IN
FAYETTEVILLE--COINCIDENCES OF PLANS--CONTRASTS IN MODES--THE NEGRO
SUFFERS--TROOPS CONCENTRATING UNDER GENERAL JOHNSTON.
In the first week of May, 1865, _after_ the final surrender of General
Johnston's army, and _after_ General Grant's proclamation of protection
to private property, Major-General Couch, with a detachment of some
twelve or fourteen thousand infantry, passing up the main road from
Raleigh to Greensboro, encamped on a noble plantation, beautifully
situated on both sides of the Haw river, in Alamance county. Of
the venerable owner of this plantation I might be pardoned if I
were to give more than a cursory notice; for, as a representative
North-Carolinian, and identified for nearly fifty years with all
that is best in her annals and brightest in her reputation at home
and abroad, no citizen in the State is regarded with more pride and
veneration than Judge RUFFIN. His claims to such distinction, however,
are not to be fairly exhibited within the limits of such a sketch as
this, though a reference to his public services will have a significant
value in my present connection.
Judge Ruffin was born in 1786, graduated at Princeton in 1806, was
admitted to the bar in 1808, and from the year 1813, when he first
represented Hillsboro in the House of Commons, to the present time,
he has been prominently before the people of our State, holding the
highest offices within her gift with a reputation for learning,
ability, and integrity unsurpassed in our judicial annals. In the
year 1852, after forty-five years of brilliant professional life, he
resigned the Chief-Justiceship, and, amid the applause and regret of
all classes of his fellow-citizens, retired to the quiet enjoyment of
an ample estate acquired by his own eminent labors, and to the society
of a numerous and interesting family.
The judicial ermine which Judge Ruffin had worn for so many years
not only shielded him from, but absolutely forbade, all active
participation in party politics. He was, however, no uninterested
observer of the current of events. He had been warmly opposed to
nullification in 1832, and was no believer in the rights of peaceable
secession in 1860. In private circles, he combated both heresies
with all that "inexorable logic" which the London _Times_ declared
to be characteristic of his judicial opinions on the law of master
and slave. He regarded the "sacred right of revolution" as the remedy
for the redress of insupportable grievances only. His opinions on
these subjects were well known, when, in 1861, he was unexpectedly
summoned by the Legislature to the head of the able delegation sent by
the State to the Peace Convention at Washington. The reference to his
course there, in the first of these sketches, renders it unnecessary
to say more at present. Eminent statesmen, now in high position in the
national councils, can testify to his zealous and unremitting labors in
that Convention to preserve and perpetuate the union of the States; and
none, doubtless, will do so more cordially than the venerable military
chieftain[3] who, sixty years ago, was his friend and fellow-student in
the office of an eminent lawyer in Petersburgh.
Judge Ruffin returned home, dispirited and discouraged by the temper
displayed in the Convention, and still more by the proceedings of
Congress. He still cherished hopes of reconciliation, however, when,
without any canvass by or for him, he was elected to the Convention
which, on the twentieth of May, 1861, adopted, by a unanimous vote, the
Ordinance of Secession.
Having given that vote, he was not the man to shrink from the
responsibilities it involved. In common with every other respectable
citizen in the State, he felt it his duty to encourage and animate our
soldiers, and to contribute liberally to their support and that of
their families at home. His sons who were able to bear arms were in the
battle-field, and his family endured all the privations, and practiced
all the self-denial common to our people; cheerfully dispensing with
the luxuries of life, and laboring assiduously for the relief of the
army and the needy around them.
Toward this most eminent and venerable citizen, whose name added weight
to the dignity and influence of the whole country, what was the policy
of Major-General Couch, encamped on his grounds, in the pleasant month
of May? The plantation had already suffered from the depredations of
Major-General Wheeler's cavalry of the Confederate army in its hurried
transit; but it was reserved for General Couch to give it the finishing
touch. In a few words, ten miles of fencing were burned up, from one
end of it to the other; not an ear of corn, not a sheaf of wheat,
not a bundle of fodder was left; the army wagons were driven into
the cultivated fields and orchards and meadows, and fires were made
under the fruit-trees; the sheep and hogs were shot down and left to
rot on the ground, and several thousand horses and cattle were turned
in on the wheat crops, then just heading. All the horses, seventeen
in number, were carried off, and all the stock. An application for
protection, and remonstrance against wanton damage, were met with
indifference and contempt.
Such being the course of one of General Sherman's subaltern officers
in time of peace, it is natural to turn to General Sherman himself,
and inquire what was the example set by him in the progress of "the
great march." He speaks for himself, and history will yet deliver an
impartial verdict on such a summing up:
"We consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country thirty miles
on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah; also the sweet
potatoes, hogs, sheep, and poultry, and carried off more than ten
thousand horses and mules. I estimate the damage done to the State of
Georgia at one hundred million dollars; at least twenty million dollars
of which inured to our advantage, and the remainder was simple waste
and destruction." (Official Report.)
Simple people, who understand nothing of military necessities, must
be permitted to stand aghast at such a recital, and ask why was this?
To what end? What far-sighted policy dictated such wholesale havoc?
Lord Cornwallis--a foreigner--acting as a representative of the
_mother_ country, seeking to reclaim her alienated children, we have
seen everywhere anxious to conciliate, generously active to spare the
country as much as possible, to preserve it for the interests of the
mother country, and enforcing strict discipline in his army for the
benefit of the service. What changes have been effected in the _morale_
of war by nearly a century of Christian progress and civilization
since Lord Cornwallis's day? An army, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, acting as the representative of _sister States_, seeking to
reclaim "wayward sisters"--an army enlisted with the most extraordinary
and emphatic avowals of purely philanthropic motives that the world has
ever heard--an army marching through what it professes to consider AS
ITS OWN COUNTRY--this army leaves a waste and burning track behind it
of sixty miles' width!
"O bloodiest picture in the book of Time!
Sarmatia fell unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career."
The gay and airy pen-and-ink sketches, furnished to the Northern
press by "our own army correspondents," of the exploits of bummers,
the jocular descriptions of treasure-seekers, the triumphant
records of fire, famine, and slaughter, served up with elegant
illustrations--wood-cuts in Harper's best style--and, if likely to
be a trifle too glaring for even radical sensibilities, toned down
and made to assume an air of retributive justice by a timely allusion
to the "wretched slaves"--these interesting reports, piquant and
gayly-colored and suggestive though they were, were yet dull and tame
and faded in comparison with the dismal reality. And all this "waste
and destruction," it will be the verdict of posterity, even the calmed
sense of the present generation will agree, was wholly uncalled for,
wholly unnecessary, contributed in no way to the prosperous and speedy
termination of the war, but added materially to the losses by the
war of the General Government, lit up the fires of hatred in many a
hitherto loyal Southern breast, brutalized and demoralized the whole
Federal army, and was in short inexcusable in every aspect except
upon the determination to exterminate the Southern people. We knew
that there were men in the Church and in the State who openly avowed
such aspirations; but as to the great body of the sober, intelligent,
and conscientious Northern people, we do them the justice to believe
that when the history of the war _at the South_ comes to be truthfully
written, they will receive its records with incredulity; and when
belief is compelled, will turn from them shuddering.
The smoke of burning Columbia, and of the fair villages and countless
plantations that lay in the route, where, for hundreds of miles, many a
house was left blazing, and not a panel of fence was to be seen, rolled
slowly up our sky; and panic-stricken refugees, homeless and penniless,
brought every day fresh tales of havoc and ruin. By the eleventh of
March, General Sherman was in possession of Fayetteville, in our own
State.
The coïncidences in the plan, and the contrasts in the mode of
conducting the campaigns of Lord Cornwallis and General Sherman,
are striking, and suggestive to the student of history. Cornwallis
hesitated whether to strike North-Carolina in the heart of the whig
settlements--between the Yadkin and the Catawba--or enter among his
friends between the Pedee and Cape Fear, and ultimately decided to
accomplish both purposes. In January, 1781, Sir James Henry Craig
captured Wilmington, and on the nineteenth of February, Lord Cornwallis
forced the passage of the Catawba at Beattie's Ford. General Schofield
had possession of Wilmington when General Sherman, making _a feint_ at
Charlotte, captured Fayetteville.
In Lord Cornwallis's progress through Carolina he met with every thing
to exasperate him in the conduct of the people. On his first entrance
into Charlotte, September, 1780, the whole British army was actually
held at bay for half an hour by a body of about one hundred and fifty
militia, and a few volunteers, commanded by Major Joseph Graham, posted
behind the court-house and houses, and commanded by Colonel Davie,
who was "determined to give his lordship an earnest of what he might
expect in the State." Three separate charges of the British Legion were
repulsed by this handful of devoted men, who retired at last on being
flanked by the infantry, in perfect order, with but a loss of eleven
killed and wounded, while the British admitted a loss of forty-three
killed and wounded. "When the Legion was afterward reproached for
cowardice in suffering such a check from so small a detail of militia,
they excused themselves by saying that the confidence with which the
Americans behaved made them apprehend an ambuscade, for surely nothing
of that sort was to be expected in an open village at mid-day." I have
by me as I write, in Colonel Davie's own handwriting, his account of
"the affair at Charlotte," as he modestly styles it, and it is well
worth comparing with Tarleton's and Stedman's report of the same. A
more brilliant and audacious exploit was not performed during the whole
Revolutionary war. A series of such annoyances, heading and dogging
the British army at every step all through that country, gained for
Charlotte the well-earned and enviable _sobriquet_ of "The Hornets'
Nest," and the commander-in-chief paid the whole region the compliment
of declaring that "Mecklenburg and Rowan were the two most rebellious
counties in America."
Yet Cornwallis burned no houses here--plundered no plantations. His
aim was very apparently to conciliate if possible, to teach the people
to look to him for protection and a good government. To be sure, he
had not enjoyed the benefit of a West-Point military training--he was
evidently in profound ignorance of the advantages to be derived from
the principle of "smashing things generally," as he passed along; but
he was, nevertheless, (perhaps in consequence,) a _gentleman_, and an
accomplished statesman, as well as a consummate soldier. He well knew--
"----who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe."
As to Fayetteville, and her lot in these later days, no such slight
sketch as this will suffice for the story. Perhaps no town in the
South had surpassed her in the ardor and liberality with which (after
secession had become the law of the State) she supported the war. She
gave her bravest sons; her best blood was poured out like water in the
cause of the South, and then she gave of her substance. The grace of
giving had surely been bestowed upon the people of Cumberland without
measure, for there seemed literally no end to their liberality. For
four years the columns of their papers had exhibited an almost weekly
list of donations, that in number and value would have done infinite
credit to a much wealthier community. The ladies, as usual, were
especially active and indefatigable. Where, indeed, in all the sunny
South were they not? And why should they not have been? They were
working for their fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and lovers, and
for principles which these beloved ones had instructed them to cherish.
Would it not have been culpable in the last degree for the women of the
country to have remained even indifferent to a cause (good or bad) for
which the men were laying down their lives? Why should they not take
joyfully all privations and all hardships, for the sake of these, and
soothe the agony of bereavement with the belief that they who needed
their cares no longer, lying rolled in their bloody blankets in the
bosom of Virginia, or on the fatal hills of Pennsylvania, had died in a
good cause and were resting in honored graves? Who shall question the
course of the women of the South in this war, or dare to undervalue
their lofty heroism and fortitude, unsurpassed in story or in song?
When I forget you, O ye daughters of my country! your labors of love,
your charity, faith, and patience, all through the dark and bloody
day, lighting up the gloom of war with the tender graces of woman's
devotion and self-denial, and now, in even darker hours, your energy
and cheerful submission in toil and poverty and humiliation--when I
cease to do homage to your virtues, and to your excellences, may my
right hand forget its cunning and my voice be silent in the dust!
The people of Fayetteville supported the Confederate Government warmly
to the last gasp, upon the principle that _united_, the South might
stand--_divided_, she certainly would fall. After the failure of the
Peace Commission, the citizens met and passed vigorous war resolutions,
calling on all classes to rally once more in self-defense--a
proceeding which did more credit to their zeal than to their ability to
read the signs of the times; for, rally or no rally, the fate of the
Confederacy was already written on the wall.
All these antecedents doubtless conspired to give Fayetteville a bad
character in the opinion of our Northern brethren, who, for their
part, were bent on peace-making; and accordingly, when the hour and
the man arrived, on the eleventh of March, 1865, she found she must
pay the penalty. A skirmish took place in the streets between General
Sherman's advanced-guard and a part of General Hampton's cavalry, which
covered the retreat of Hardee's division across the Cape Fear. This,
no doubt, increased the exasperation of feeling toward this "nest of
rebels," and the determination to put a check to all future operations
there in behalf of the cause. In less than two hours after the entrance
of the Federal forces, so adroitly had every house in the town and
its suburbs been ransacked and plundered, that it may be doubted if
all Fayetteville, the next day, could have contributed two whole
shirts or a bushel of meal to the relief of the Confederate army. The
incidents of that most memorable day, and for several days succeeding,
would fill (and _will_ fill) a volume; and as for the nights, they
were illuminated by the glare of blazing houses all through the pine
groves for several miles around Fayetteville. One of the first of
the "soldiers in blue" who entered the town, accosted in the street
a most distinguished and venerable clergyman, Rev. William Hooper,
D.D., LL.D., more than seventy years of age--the grandson of one of
the signers of the Declaration of Independence--and who had suffered
reproach for his adherence to the Union, and whose very appearance
should have challenged respect and deference--accosted him as a
"d----d rebel," and putting a pistol to his head, demanded and
carried off his watch and purse.
Southerners can not write calmly of such scenes yet. Their houses
were turned into seraglios, every portable article of value, plate,
china and glass-ware, provisions and books were carried off, and the
remainder destroyed; hundreds of carriages and vehicles of all kinds
were burned in piles; where houses were isolated they were burned;
women were grossly insulted, and robbed of clothing and jewelry; nor
were darker and nameless tragedies wanting in lonely situations. No;
they hardly dare trust themselves to think of these things. "That way
lies madness." But the true story of "THE GREAT MARCH" will yet be
written.
Not the least remarkable of all these noble strategical operations was
the fact that black and white suffered alike. Nothing more strikingly
evinces the entire demoralization and want of honor that prevailed.
The negro whom they came to liberate they afterward plundered; his
cabin was stripped of his little valuables, as well as his master's
house of its luxuries; his humble silver watch was seized, as well as
the gentleman's gold repeater. This policy is also modern, and due to
the enlightenment of the nineteenth century. A good many years ago, a
grand liberation of slaves took place, where the leaders and deliverer
sanctioned the "spoiling of the Egyptians," but they hardly picked the
pockets of the freedmen afterward.
During the month of March our central counties were traversed by
straggling bodies of Confederate soldiers, fragments of the once
powerful army of Tennessee, hurrying down toward Raleigh to concentrate
under General Johnston once more, in the vain hope of being able yet
to effect something. Tennesseeans, Texans, Georgians, Alabamians, men
who had been in every fight in the West, from Corinth to Perrysville,
from Perrysville to Atlanta--men who had left pleasant homes, wives and
children, many of whom they knew were without a house to shelter them;
"For the blackness of ashes marked where it stood,
And a wild mother's scream o'er her famishing brood!"
The whole population of our town poured out to see these war-worn men;
to cheer them; to feed and shelter them. The little children gathered
handfuls of the early daffodils "that take the winds of March with
beauty," and flung to them. What we had to eat we gave them, day after
day. Repeatedly the whole of a family dinner was taken from the table
and carried out to the street, the children joyfully assisting. They
were our soldiers--our own brave boys. The cause was desperate, we
knew--the war was nearly over--our delusions were at an end; but while
we had it, our last loaf to our soldiers--a cheer, and a blessing, with
dim eyes, as they rode away.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: General Winfield Scott.]