THE WINTER OF 1861
The privilege of nursing in the hospital had been bought at a dear
price, for it was decided positively that I was to surrender, for
the present, my dream of following the army. I was remanded to the
mountains, and at Charlottesville I had news of the events that rapidly
followed the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond.
McClellan had been relieved of his command, and the defenceless women
and children of Northern Virginia were handed over to the tender mercies
of General Pope. McClellan wrote, August 8: "I will strike square in
the teeth of all the infamous orders of Mr. John Pope, and forbid all
pillaging and stealing, and take the highest Christian ground for the
conduct of the war. I will not permit this army to degenerate into a mob
of thieves, nor will I return these men of mine to their families as a
set of wicked and demoralized robbers."
General Pope had announced his purpose (which he carried out) to subsist
his army on our country, and to hang or shoot any non-combating citizens
who might fall into his hands, in retaliation for the killing of his
soldiers. This was one of "the infamous orders of Mr. John Pope" to
which General McClellan alluded; but infamy to some eyes is fame to
others. Pope superseded McClellan; but he was himself superseded after
his defeat at the hands of Lee, and McClellan reinstated.
My husband's brigade followed General Lee, fought the battle of
Manassas, where he captured and paroled the hospital corps, went with
him throughout the campaign, into Maryland and back, fought the battle
of South Mountain and the bloody battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg).
The histories of these battles have been given again and again by
the military commanders who conducted them. At the close of the
campaign General Lee reported that his men were in the finest possible
condition—only there were too few of them. As the Federal armies were
depleted, they could be reënforced by foreigners. As our men were lost,
we had no fresh troops to take their places.
My husband commanded Anderson's division at Antietam, General Anderson
having been wounded. This battle is quoted, along with the battle of
Seven Pines, as one of the most hotly contested of the war. Sorely
pressed at one time, General Pryor despatched an orderly to General
Longstreet with a request for artillery. The latter tore the margin from
a newspaper and wrote: "I am sending you the guns, dear General. This is
a hard fight and we had better all die than lose it." At one time during
the battle the combatants agreed upon a brief cessation, that the dead
and wounded of both sides might be removed. While General Pryor waited,
a Federal officer approached him.
"General," said he, "I have just detected one of my men in robbing the
body of one of your soldiers. I have taken his booty from him, and now
consign it to you."
Without examining the small bundle,—tied in a handkerchief,—my husband
ordered it to be properly enclosed and sent to me. The handkerchief
contained a gold watch, a pair of gold sleeve-links, a few pieces of
silver, and a strip of paper on which was written, "Strike till the last
armed foe expires," and signed "A Florida patriot." There seemed to be
no clew by which I might hope to find an inheritor for these treasures.
I could only take care of them.
I brought them forth one day to interest an aged relative, whose chair
was placed in a sunny window. "I think, my dear," she said, "there
are pin-scratched letters on the inside of these sleeve-buttons." Sure
enough, there were three initials, rudely made, but perfectly plain.
Long afterward I met a Confederate officer from Florida who had fought
at Antietam.
"Did you know any one from your state, Captain, who was killed at
Sharpsburg?"
"Alas! yes," he replied, and mentioned a name corresponding exactly with
the scratched initials.
The parcel, with a letter from me, was sent to an address he gave me,
and in due time I received a most touching letter of thanks from the
mother of the dead soldier.
General Lee went into winter quarters at Culpeper, and thither I
repaired to visit a kind and hospitable family, who were good enough to
invite me. In their home I spent two weeks. I had not imagined there
were so many soldiers in the world as I saw then. "You cannot take a
step anywhere," said a lady, "without treading on a soldier!" They were
in the finest spirits, notwithstanding their long marches and short
rations. Thousands on thousands of Federal troops were in Virginia.
The highways of our chief rivers were closed, our railroads menaced.
Everything we needed was already scarce and held at high prices. Nobody
had comforts or luxuries; nobody murmured because of such privations.
We made our host's drawing-room a camping ground, his fire our
camp-fire. Around it gathered a nightly crowd of gay young soldiers.
They wished no serious talk, these young warriors! They had a brief
respite from fatigue and sorrow, and they intended to enjoy it. They
sentimentalized, however, over the tender and mournful song, "Lorena,"
which even then touched a chord in every heart, and which meant so much
of devotion and heartbreak two years later. For four years the daughters
of the South waited for their lovers, and some, alas! waited forever.
"It matters little now, Lorena,
The past is the eternal past,
Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena,
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast;
But there's a future—oh! thank God—
Of life this is so small a part;
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod,
But _there_, up _there_,—'tis _heart_ to _heart_."
With pretty Nelly at the piano, her blue eyes raised to heaven, and Jack
Fleming accompanying her on her guitar, his dark eyes raised to Nelly,
the effect was overwhelming; and lest somebody should quite finish us
by singing, "Flee as a bird to the mountain," we would hasten to demand
the "Bonnie Blue Flag," or "Dixie," or the polite invitation to "Joe
Hooker" to "come out the Wilderness," or, better still, a good story.
The latter call would bring many we had heard before—there are so few
good stories in the world—but we would welcome each one with applause,
even if it were no better than the story of Captain —— (I can't remember
the captain's name) and his black boy "Cæsar." I can only vouch for the
story, which ran thus:—
The captain, going into a skirmish one day, left his tent and its
contents in the care of the boy. "Mayn't I go he'p de cook?" said Cæsar,
much desiring to place himself farther in the rear.
"Stay here, sir, and protect my property!" sternly commanded his master.
Cæsar, when left alone, grew unhappy, and when straggling shot fell like
hail around the tent, he incontinently fled and hid in the bushes. When
he returned, he found an angry captain indeed.
"You rascal! Didn't I leave you here to protect my property? It might
have been all stolen."
"I knows it, sah, I knows it! An' I did purtect yo' property, sah! I
sholy did! Dem ole cloes ain' wuth nothin'! I'se feared to bresh 'em
less'n I git a hole in 'em; but _dis_ property," laying his hand proudly
on his breast, "_dis_ property is wuth fifteen hundred dollars!"
Of course so good a story was soon capped by another. One of the boys
who had been with my General at Williamsburg could tell it. A shell had
entered the domain of pots and kettles and created what Domingo the cook
termed a "clatteration." He at once started for the rear.
"What's de matter, Mingo?" asked a fellow-servant, "whar you gwine wid
such a hurrification?"
"I gwine to git out o' trouble—dar whar I gwine. Dar's too much powder
in dem big things. Dis chile ain't gwine bu'n hisself! An' dar's dem
Minnie bullets, too, comin' frew de a'r, singin': '_Whar_—is—you?
_Whar_—is—you?' I ain't gwine stop an' tell 'em whar I is! I'se a
twenty-two-hundurd-dollar nigger, an' I'se gwine tek keer o' what
b'longs to marster, I is."
Of course we heard again the story of Stonewall Jackson's body-servant,
who always knew before anybody when a battle was imminent.
"The General tells you, I suppose," said one of the soldiers.
"Lawd, no, sir! De Gin'ral nuvver tell _me_ nothin'! I observates
de 'tention of de Gin'ral dis way: co'se he prays, jest like we all,
mornin' an' night; but when he gits up two, three times in a night to
pray, den I rubs my eye and gits up too, an' packs de haversack,—ca'se
I done fine out dere's gwine to be de ole boy to pay right away."
Amusing as were the negro stories, there were plenty of others,
revealing the peculiar characteristics of the common soldier. The
soldier from rural districts was a trial to his officers in the early
days of the war. Nothing could make him hurry. "If he came to a stream,
he would deliberately look around for two fence-rails and put them
across, and the time consumed by a company in crossing in this way can
be imagined. If his feet hurt him, he would sit down on the roadside
to tie rags around them." He never could be made to understand that
freedom of speech with an officer, who had been perhaps a neighbor, was
denied him; nor yet that he could not indulge in good-natured chaff or
criticism.
"Are you sentinel here?" asked an officer, who found a sentry sitting
down and cleaning his gun, having taken it entirely to pieces.
"Well, I am a sort of sentinel, I reckon."
"Well, _I_ am a sort of officer of the day."
"Is _that_ so? Just hold on till I get my gun together, and I will give
you a sort of a salute."[16]
When a picket guard at Harper's Ferry was being detailed for duty, one
of these verdant volunteers loudly protested against that manner of
carrying on war.
"What's the use of gwine out thar to keep everybody off?" he shouted.
"We've all kem here to hev a fight with them Yankees, an' ef you sen'
fellers out thar to skeer 'em off, how in thunder are we gwine to hev
a scrimmage?"
In the hardest times of starvation and weariness, according to our
soldier boys, the situation would be relieved by the drollery of some
good-natured, great-hearted countryman. Officers who had an easy place,
and musicians, for a similar reason, were their special targets. Rather
than be tormented, musicians would often leave the line of march and go
through fields to avoid the running fire. "Ah, now! give us a toot on
yer old funnel," or, "Brace up thar with yer blowpipe!"
These fellows who didn't fight were all classed under the general term
of "bomb-proofs." One of these officers—a little man—having appeared
in an enormous pair of cavalry boots, ran the gantlet of a neighboring
brigade and heard a frank opinion of himself:—
"I say, Mister, better git out'r them smokestacks! We know you're in
thar 'cause we all kin see yer head stickin' out. You needn' say yer
_ain't_ in thar,—'cause yer ears is workin' powerful."
The allusion to the celebrated long-eared animal was awful!
If a "bomb-proof" officer—a fellow who had a position in the rear—should
happen to be smartly dressed when cantering along near a regiment, he
would be apt to change his canter to a gallop as the men would shout
and whoop:—
"Oh, _my_! Ain't he pooty? Say, Mister! whar'd ye git that biled shut?
Was ye ra-a-ly born so, or was ye put together by corntrack? Sich a
nice-lookin' rooster oughter git down an' scratch for a wurrum!"
Even when a brigade would pass at double-quick, going into a battle in
which the waiting soldier expected any moment to take part, the latter
would call out:—
"What's your hurry, boys? Gwine to ketch a train?"
They made great fun, too, of their own fears, never considering them
worthy of being treated seriously, or as in any way detrimental.
Under fire at Manassas, a raw recruit was doing pretty well, when a
rabbit loped across the field. Dropping his gun as he was about to
shoot, he yelled, with honest pathos:—
"Go it, little cotton-tail, go it! I'm jest as skeered as you be, an'
ef I dar'd, I'd run too."
A number of militia having given way under fire, their commanding
officer called out to one of the fugitives:—
"What are you running away for, you —— —— coward? You ought to be
ashamed of yourself."
"I ain't runnin' away, Gin'ral! I'm just skeered! Them fellers over
thar are shootin' bullets as big as watermillions! One of 'em went right
peerst my head—right peerst;—an'—an' I wants to go home."
"Well, why didn't you shoot back, sir? You are crying like a baby."
"I knows it, Gin'ral—I knows it. I wish I _was_ a baby, and a gal-baby,
too, and then I wouldn't hev been cornscripted."
The regiments of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia could never pass
each other without some chaffing challenge.
"Hello, North Car'lina," said an officer to a lanky specimen in a shabby
uniform.
"Hello, Virginia."
"Blockade on turpentine making? You all hard up? No sale for tar now?"
"Well—yes!" was the slow rejoinder. "We sell all our tar to Jeff Davis
now."
"The thunder you do! What does the President want with your tar?"
"He puts it on the heels of Virginians to make 'em stick to the
battle-field."
The staff officer rode on.
A good story had found its way into our lines from a Federal officer.
He was commenting upon the fact that all Southern women were intense
rebels—with one exception. He had been with others marching down a
wooded lane which ended in a sharp curve. As they rounded it, they
suddenly came upon a house, before which was a woman picking up chips.
As she had evidently not seen them, the officer tiptoed up to her, put
his arm around her waist, and kissed her—and stepped back to avoid the
box on the ear he knew he deserved. The woman, however, straightened
herself, looked at him seriously for a moment, and said slowly, "You'll
find me right here every mornin' a-pickin' up chips."
It would seem that the telling of stories of a mildly humorous nature,
with the characteristic of dialect, was a feature of the war-time,—the
President of the United States affording a notable example. When the
gravest matters were under consideration, all things were held in
abeyance until the illustrative anecdote was duly presented. How Mr.
Seward chafed under them we all know. The poor little stories that went
the rounds among the rank and file at the camp-fires in Virginia had
their uses. Whatever the weariness, the discouragement, the failure
of the wagons to come up with provisions, by such simple means did the
brave boys lighten their own and each others' hearts. Whenever they had
cards they played; but before going into battle the camp-ground would
be strewn with them, the soldier of the rank and file always emptying
his pockets of his cards! His Testament was pocketed in their stead.
In repeating these stories around our blazing log fire, and in
describing their marches and hard times, the brave fellows made sport
of all their discomforts and of their shifts to supplement deficiencies.
They told with merriment of the times they had proudly drawn over their
bruised feet boots found on the march, and had suffered such agony from
the swelling of the compressed members that they were fain to implore a
comrade to cut off the instrument of torture; of the time Mr. Giddings
and his pretty daughters entertained them in Maryland, and of their
dreadful embarrassment at finding they had ravenously swept the table
of every biscuit, every bit of ham, every raw tomato—and had wanted, oh,
so much more! And how some of them had been captured and soon released;
but while prisoners and waiting for a train, how a Federal officer had
talked most kindly to them, inquiring for old West Point comrades of
his who were on our side; and how they on their part had asked after
the welfare of Captain John Lea of Petersburg, who had been captured at
Williamsburg,—to be told by this Federal officer that Captain Lea had
been dreadfully wounded, and while in the hospital had been nursed by
a young lady with whom he fell in love, and that the officer had been
present at their marriage in Williamsburg, and through his intercession
and that of other old West Point comrades Captain Lea had been released.
When the time came for parting with the courteous officer our boys had
respectfully requested his name. "My name is Custer," he said. "I do
not belong to any regiment, but am on the staff of General McClellan."
He was none other than the famous George A. Custer of the United States
cavalry, destined to win for himself immortal renown, and to meet
gallantly an early death in the fight with the Indians on the Little
Big Horn River.
Many of these soldier boys—"boys" now no longer, but "veterans"—were
from Petersburg, and had stood in line on the day when Alice and Tabb
and Marian and Molly and all the other girls had waited with me to
see them off. It was delightful to meet them and to hear news of the
others. Where was Will Johnson? Where was Berry Stainback? Will had
been captured "for no reason whatever except that he and Berry had but
one blanket between them, and Will had to get himself captured when he
found Berry had been, in order to continue to share the blanket, which
was in Berry's possession," a story which Will's friends could safely
invent for their amusement, as his known courage was beyond all doubt.
General "Jeb" Stuart was a great hero with these soldier boys, dashing
as he did all over the country with his eight thousand mounted men. He
was our plumed knight—with his gold star and long feather. They never
wearied of stories of his promptness, his celerity, his meteorlike
dashes.
"They'll never catch him!" said one proudly. "They'll always reach the
place where he recently was."
"He reminds me of the knights of the olden time," said a young lady.
"The mediæval knight, my dear young lady," said General Johnson, "would
be of little use in this war. He would have stood no chance with one of
Stuart's men."
"Fancy him," said another, "with his two hundred weight of iron on him,
and as much on his big cart-horse. Imagine him, armed with a maul or a
lance, a battle-axe, and six-foot pole, going into a fight at Manassas
or Antietam."
"He would never get there," said the General. "A light cavalryman of
the First Virginia would have ridden around King Arthur or Sir Launcelot
half a dozen times while the knight was bracing himself up for action;
and the Chicopee sabre would have searched out the joints under his
chin, or his arm, or his sword-belt, and would have shucked him like an
oyster before he could get his lance in rest."
And Jackson was another of their idols. Stories of his strategy, his
courage, his faith in God, his successes, filled many an hour around
the camp-fire in the hospitable Culpeper mansion.
But the chief idol of their hearts—of all our hearts—was our beloved
commander, our Bayard _sans peur et sans reproche_, General Lee.
The hand instinctively sought the cap at the mention of his name.
Indignant comments were made upon the newspaper criticisms of his early
misfortunes in the western part of Virginia in the autumn of 1861,
and one occasion was remembered when, his own attention having been
directed to a fierce newspaper attack, as unjust in its conclusions as
it was untrue in its statements, he was asked why he silently suffered
such unwarranted aspersions; and he had calmly replied that, while it
was very hard to bear, it was perhaps quite natural that such hasty
conclusions should be announced, and that it was better not to attempt
a justification or defence, but to go steadily on in the discharge of
duty to the best of our ability, leaving all else to the calmer judgment
of the future and to a kind Providence.
Happy was the private soldier who had seen General Lee, thrice happy the
one who had spoken to him. Of the latter, a plain countryman, having
listened to the personal incidents of his fellows, as they related
various occasions when they had been noticed by General Lee, was fired
by a desire to emulate them, and confided that he, too, had once enjoyed
a very interesting and gratifying interview with General Lee. Importuned
to tell it, the soldier modestly hesitated, but urged by an evident
incredulity on the part of his hearers, he took heart of grace and
related as follows:—
"I was jest out of the horspittle an' was natchelly strollin' round
when the scrimmage was goin' on, and I saw Gen'ral Lee on a little rise
not fur off. I santered closer an' closer to him, and when I saw him
look at me I says, 'Pretty warm work over thar, Gen'ral.' He give me
a keen look, an' says he, quiet-like: 'Where do you belong? Where's
your regiment?' An' I says, 'I'm lookin' for my regiment now—Twelfth
Virginia.' 'I can help you,' says he; 'there is your regiment just going
into the fight. Hurry up an' join it.' An' I run off proud as a pigeon."
"Didn't you think you might get shot?" asked his comrade.
"I suttenly did! I always thinks that. But then, thinks I, Gen'ral Lee
will be mighty sorry 'cause he knowed he sent me into danger when I was
feelin' mighty weak an' poly."
The incidents were many which the officers and soldiers could remember,
illustrating the dear commander's peculiar traits. His aide, Colonel
Taylor, has written me of one most touching incident:—
"Tidings reached General Lee, soon after his return to Virginia, of the
serious illness of one of his daughters—the darling of his flock. For
several days apprehensions were entertained that the next intelligence
would be of her death. One morning the mail was received, and the
private letters were distributed as was the custom; but no one knew
whether any home news had been received by the General. At the usual
hour he summoned me to his presence, to know if there were any matters
of army routine upon which his judgment and action were desired. The
papers containing a few such cases were presented to him; he reviewed,
and gave his orders in regard to them. I then left him, but for some
cause returned in a few moments, and with my accustomed freedom entered
his tent without announcement or ceremony, when I was startled and
shocked to see him overcome with grief, an open letter in his hand. That
letter contained the sad intelligence of his daughter's death.
"Scarcely less to be admired than his sublime devotion to duty,"
continued Colonel Taylor, "was his remarkable self-control. General
Lee was naturally of a positive temperament, and of strong passions;
and it is a mistake to suppose him otherwise; but he held these in
complete subjection to his will and conscience. He was not one of
those invariably amiable men, whose temper is never ruffled; but
when we consider the immense burden which rested upon him, and the
numberless causes for annoyance with which he had to contend, the
occasional cropping out of temper which we, who were constantly near
him, witnessed, only showed how great was his habitual self-command.
"He had a great dislike to reviewing army communications; this was so
thoroughly appreciated by me that I would never present a paper for his
action unless it was of decided importance, and of a nature to demand
his judgment and decision. On one occasion, when an audience had not
been asked of him for several days, it became necessary to have one.
The few papers requiring his action were submitted. He was not in a very
pleasant mood; something irritated him, and he manifested his ill humor
by a little nervous twist or jerk of the neck and head, peculiar to
himself, accompanied by some harshness of manner. This was perceived by
me, and I hastily concluded that my efforts to save him annoyance were
not appreciated. In disposing of some case of a vexatious character,
matters reached a climax; he became really worried, and, forgetting what
was due to my superior, I petulantly threw the paper down at my side
and gave evident signs of anger. Then, in a perfectly calm and measured
tone of voice, he said, 'Colonel Taylor, when I lose my temper, don't
you let it make you angry.'
"Was there ever a more gentle and considerate, and yet so positive,
reproof? How magnanimous in the great soldier, and yet how crushing to
the subordinate! The rash and disrespectful conduct of the latter would
have justified, if it did not demand, summary treatment at the hands of
the former. Instead of this, the first man of his day and generation,
great and glorious in his humility, condescended to occupy the same
plane with his youthful subaltern, and to reason with him as an equal,
frankly acknowledging his own imperfections, but kindly reminding the
inferior at the same time of his duty and his position." Great indeed
must be the man whom we can love all the better for his human weakness.