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[Illustration: LUTHER W. HOPKINS.
Taken from an old daguerreotype in 1861, before entering the army.]
FROM BULL RUN
TO APPOMATTOX
A BOY'S VIEW
BY
L.W. HOPKINS
OF GENL. J.E.B. STUART'S CAVALRY
6TH VIRGINIA REGIMENT, C.S.A.
PRESS OF
FLEET-MCGINLEY CO.
BALTIMORE
Copyright, 1908
By L.W. HOPKINS
Baltimore
PREFACE
"Life is the mirror of the king and slave,
'Tis just what you are and do.
Then give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you."
I never thought that I should be guilty of writing a book. I did not,
however, do this with malice aforethought. My son is responsible for
whatever sin I may have committed in presenting this to the public. He
and I have been good friends ever since we became acquainted, and he has
always insisted upon my telling him all that I know. When he was about
three years old he discovered that I had been a soldier in Lee's army
from 1861 to 1865, and, although he is of Quaker descent and a loyal
member of the Society of Friends, and I am half Quaker, yet he loved war
stories and I loved to tell them. This accounts for the production of
the book. After I had told him these stories over and over, again and
again, when he was grown he insisted upon my starting at the beginning
and giving him the whole of my experience in the Confederate army. Then
he wanted it published. I yielded to his request, and here is the book.
This is not, however, an exact copy of the typewritten manuscript which
he has. The original manuscript is more personal. I thought the change
would make it more acceptable to the general reader.
We all believe in peace; universal peace, but when war does come, and
such a costly war as the one from which this story is taken, we ought
to get all the good out of it we can. The long marches along dusty
roads, under hot suns, the long marches through sleet and snows, the
long dreary nights without shelter, the march of the picket to and fro
on his beat, the constant drilling and training, the struggle on the
battlefields, all these are part of the material that the world has
always used in constructing a nation. While there are some things about
war that we should forget, there are many things that ought never to be
forgotten, but should be handed down from sire to son all through the
ages that are to come.
Historians have told us much about our Civil War, but they have left out
the part that appeals most to the boy, and it is this part that I have
tried to bring before the public. Men may read the book if they will,
but it is written more particularly for the youth. The boy of today and
the boy that is yet to be ought to know of the bloody sweat through
which this nation passed in reaching its present position among the
great nations of the earth, and the part the boy played in it. It is
said that one boy is a boy; two boys a half boy and three boys no boy at
all. That may be true of the boy running loose, unbridled like a colt,
but gather up these boys and train them, harness and hitch them and they
will move the world or break a trace. It is the boy who decides the fate
of nations. I don't know the average age of our soldiers in times of
peace, but when wars come and there is a call for soldiers, it is mainly
the boy in his teens who responds; yet, strange to say, the historian
has never thought it worth while to put much emphasis upon what the boy
does in the upbuilding of a nation.
Another thing that has been neglected by the historian is the brave and
noble part the horse took in our war. The grays, the bays, the sorrels,
the roans, the chestnuts, have not been forgotten in this story. Indeed,
as I have already said, I have tried to bring to light that part of the
story of our Civil War that has not been told.
Now, young men and boys, girls too, old men, if there are any, read this
book, all of you, regardless of geographical lines, for I have tried to
be fair to those who wore the blue. As the years go by, I have learned
to respect and love those who fought for the Union. I visited Boston and
its environments two summers ago for the first time. During the visit, I
never met a person whom I had ever seen before, yet all the time that I
was away I felt at home. I said to myself, are these the people we of
the South used to hate? Are these the people that we once mobbed as they
marched through our streets? Yes, they are the same people or their
descendants, but then we did not know them and they did not know us. I
came back feeling proud of my country, and I only wish I could give here
a detailed account of that visit. If, early in the spring of 1861, the
North and South had swapped visits, each party would have gone home
singing, "there ain't goin' to be no war," but we had a war; a great
war, a costly war; let us forget what ought to be forgotten and remember
what ought to be remembered. I want to pay this tribute to the Northern
soldiers. I have discovered this: When two armies of equal numbers met
face to face in the open, it was nearly always a toss up as to who would
win. Numbers don't always count in battle. General Hooker, with his army
of 130,000, retreating before Lee's 60,000, doesn't mean that one rebel
could whip two yankees. It only meant that "Fighting Joe" had more than
he could manage. His numbers were an encumbrance. There were other
differences which, for the sake of brevity, I will not mention, but will
add this one word: One bluecoat was all I cared to face, and I believe
every other Johnny Reb will say the same.
May we never have another war, but boys, remember this: "Peace hath her
victories, no less renowned than war," and the boy that wishes to count
in this world must _train_. But there are other training schools quite
as helpful as the camp and the battlefield.
L.W. HOPKINS.
Baltimore, November, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO BULL RUN.
Loudoun County on the Potomac--John Brown's Raid--War Talk Among the
Schoolboys--The Slave and His Master--Election of Lincoln--Secession
--Schoolboys Preparing for the Coming Conflict--Firing on Fort
Sumter--Union Army Crossing the Potomac.
CHAPTER II.
FROM BULL RUN TO SEVEN PINES.
Confederates Concentrating at Manassas--First Battle--The Wounded
Horse--Rout of the Union Army--The Losses.
CHAPTER III.
FROM BULL RUN TO SEVEN PINES. (CONTINUED.)
Long Rest--Each Side Recruiting Their Armies--McClellan in Command--His
March on Richmond by the Way of the James River--Jackson's Brilliant
Valley Campaign--The Battles Around Richmond--Seven Pines--Mechanicsville
--Beaver Dam--Gaines' Mill--Fair Oaks--The Wounding of Gen. Jos.
E. Johnston--McClellan's Defeat--The Spoils of the Battle.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM SEVEN PINES TO ANTIETAM.
The Battle of Cedar Run--Jackson's Flank Movement--McClellan Moves
His Army Back to Washington--Second Battle of Manassas--The Defeat
of Pope--His Retreat to the Defenses of Washington--The Captured
Stores and Losses on Both Sides--Lee Crosses the Potomac Into Maryland--The
Stragglers of Lee's Army--A Dinner Party--The Capture of
Harper's Ferry--Battle of Antietam--Result of the Battle--Lee Recrosses
the Potomac--Lee in a Trap.
CHAPTER V.
FROM ANTIETAM TO CHANCELLORSVILLE.
McClellan Relieved of His Command--Burnside Commands the Union Army--The
Two Armies at Fredericksburg--The Blue Ridge Mountain--The
Author a Prisoner--Battle of Fredericksburg--Burnside's Defeat--Losses
on Both Sides--The Armies in Winter Quarters--How They Spent the
Winter--Company Q's Escapade--Raid Into West Virginia--Burnside
Relieved--Hooker in Command--Hooker Crossing the Rappahannock--Jackson's
Successful Flank Movement--His Mortal Wound--Hooker's Defeat--He
Recrosses the River--Losses on Both Sides--Stonewall Jackson's
Death--The South in Tears--Ode to Stonewall Jackson by a Union
Officer.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM CHANCELLORSVILLE TO GETTYSBURG.
Ninth of June at Brandy Station--Lee's Army En Route for Gettysburg--See
Map--Stuart's March Around the Union Army--Lee Crosses the
Potomac--The Union Army in a Parallel Line With Lee's--Crosses the
Potomac Below Harper's Ferry--Hooker Relieved--Meade in Command of
the Union Army--The Battle of Gettysburg--Lee's First Defeat--His
Retreat--The Midnight's Thunder Storm--His Five Days' Rest on the
North Bank of the Potomac--He Recrosses the River.
CHAPTER VII.
FROM GETTYSBURG TO THE WILDERNESS.
Both Armies Marching Back to the Rappahannock--Short Rest--Meade's
Advance--Lee Retires to the Rapidan--Meade's Withdrawal From Lee's
Front--Lee's Advance--Fighting Around Brandy Station--The Battle at
Bristoe Station--The Union Army Retires Towards Washington--Lee
Discontinues the Pursuit and Returns to the Rapidan River--In Winter
Quarters--How the Winter Was Spent--Many of Lee's Soldiers Are Permitted
to Return to Their Homes Under Care of Their Commanding
Officers for a Vacation--Mosby Appears Upon the Scene.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO JAMES RIVER.
Grant in Command of the Union Army--Preparation for the Coming
Struggle--Battle of The Wilderness--Strength of the Armies--Losses
--Wounding of General Longstreet--Battle at Spotsylvania Court
House--The Awful Slaughter--Sheridan's Raid on Richmond--Stuart's
Cavalry in Pursuit--General Stuart's Death--Yellow Tavern--The Author
Again a Prisoner.
CHAPTER IX.
FROM THE JAMES RIVER TO PETERSBURG.
Battle of Cold Harbor--Grant Again Repulsed--Death of Flournoy--Grant
Crossing the James--Prison Life at Point Lookout--Parole of the Sick
From the Hospitals--The Dreary Winter--Its Bright Side--How the
Soldiers and the Citizens Spent It--Mosby's Men--The Long Siege--Battle
of the Crater.
CHAPTER X.
FROM PETERSBURG TO APPOMATTOX.
Evacuation of Richmond--Retreat of Lee's Army Towards Appomattox--Lee's
Surrender--After the Surrender--Some War Stories--The Faithful
Slave.
CHAPTER XI.
THE HORSES OF LEE'S ARMY.
Their Number--Losses--Rover's Tricks--A Mighty Jaw--Her Capture--Horses
in Battle--Friendship Between Horse and Rider--Wagon Horses--Artillery
Horses--Cavalry Horses--Men Sleep on Their Horses--Horses for
Breastwork--Seventy-five Thousand Black Beauties--Monument for Lee's
Horses--A Pathetic Poem.
[Illustration: GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON,
Who preceded Gen. Robert E. Lee in command of the Army of Northern
Virginia.]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
LUTHER W. HOPKINS, Frontispiece
GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, 8
JEFFERSON C. DAVIS, 16
GEN. THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON (called "Stonewall Jackson"), 32
ROBERT HOWARD HOPKINS, 48
THE LAST MEETING OF LEE AND JACKSON AT CHANCELLORSVILLE, 80
GEN. ROBERT E. LEE, 112
MRS. R.E. LEE, 128
GEN. FITZHUGH LEE, 144
A BATTLE-SCARRED CONFEDERATE BANNER, 161
GEN. A.P. HILL, 176
ONE OF STONEWALL JACKSON'S MILEPOSTS, 192
BISHOP ALPHEUS W. WILSON, 208
From Bull Run to Appomattox
A BOY'S VIEW
CHAPTER I.
_From Harper's Ferry to Bull Run._
"O war, thou hast thy fierce delight,
Thy gleams of joy intensely bright;
Such gleams as from thy polished shield
Fly dazzling o'er the battle-field."
Is there a boy in all this wide land, North or South, who would not like
to hear what a boy has to say of his experience as a private soldier in
the Confederate Army from 1861 to 1865, serving for the most part in
Stuart's Cavalry of Lee's army? Men have told their story, and
graphically told it from a man's standpoint. But who has spoken for the
boy? Who has told of the part the boy played in that great drama that
was on the stage for four years without intermission? That bloody drama
in which there were 3,000,000 players--a play that cost the country
eight billions in money and half a million human lives?
I do not know how it was in the Northern armies, but the bulk of Lee's
soldiers in the ranks were boys in their teens. It was these boys who
made Thomas Jonathan Jackson, "Stonewall Jackson;" who put Robert E.
Lee's name in the hall of fame and who lifted J.E.B. Stuart up to the
rank of lieutenant-general of cavalry. One of these boys has written the
story as he remembers it in plain, simple language; not a history, but
simply an account of what he saw and did while this eventful history was
being made. If his experience is different from others, or does not
accord in all respects with what the historian has written, it is
because we do not all see alike. The writer has not consulted the
histories for material for this story; he did not have to do this. If
all the boys who served in the Confederate Army were to write their
experience, they would all be different, yet all approximately correct,
and perhaps, taken together, would be the most perfect history that
could be written of the Confederate side of the Civil War.
In the early spring of 1861 I was seventeen years old and going to
school about half a mile from my home in Loudoun county, Virginia.
Twelve miles distant was Harper's Ferry, where four years previous John
Brown had made an attempt to raise an insurrection among the slaves in
that district. He seized the United States arsenal, located there, for
the purpose of arming the negroes, who were expected to flock to his
standard and have their freedom declared. The negroes did not respond;
John Brown and a few of his followers were captured and hanged. This
atrocious act of Brown and his abettors kindled a flame in the hearts of
the Southern people that led to the Civil War. But none felt it so
keenly as did the Virginians, because it was their sacred soil that had
been traduced. Three years previous to this, when I was ten years of
age, I remember to have heard a political discussion among a body of
men, and the following words have lingered in my memory ever since, and
they are all that I can recall of their talk: "If there is a war between
the North and South, Virginia will be the battlefield." I thought it
would be grand, and waited anxiously for the fulfillment of this
prophecy. Then when John Brown swooped down on Harper's Ferry with his
cohorts, it looked as if the day had really come and that the prediction
was about to be fulfilled. From that time war talk was general,
especially among the small boys. But the intense excitement caused by
the Brown episode gradually abated. It broke out afresh, however, when
later it was announced that Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the
United States. It seemed to be the concensus of opinion that the result
would be war, and that Virginia in truth would be the battleground, and
that the counties along the Potomac would receive the first shock of
battle. We boys of Loudoun county, right on the Potomac, felt that we
were "it," and we had a kind of pity for those poor fellows a little
farther back. We were in the front row, and when the curtain went up we
could see and hear everything. There were about thirty boys attending
our school between the ages of fifteen and twenty. They all entered the
Confederate Army, but few survived the war.
Before going on with the story, perhaps I ought to explain why these
boys were so eager for war, when they knew that the enemy would be their
own countrymen. There was a peculiar relationship existing between the
slave owner's family and the slaves that the North never did and never
will understand. On the part of the white children it was love, pure and
simple, for the slave, while on the part of the adult it was more than
friendship, and, I might add, the feeling was reciprocated by the
slaves. The children addressed the adult blacks as Uncle and Aunt, and
treated them with as much respect as they did their blood relatives. It
was Uncle Reuben and Aunt Dinah. The adult white also addressed the
older colored people in the same way. With but few exceptions, the two
races lived together in perfect harmony. If a slave-owner was cruel to
his slaves, it was because he was a cruel man, and all who came in
contact with him, both man and beast, suffered at his hands. Even his
children did not escape. These men are found everywhere. The old black
mammy, with her head tied up in a white cloth, was loved, respected and
honored by every inmate of the home, regardless of color.
The following incident will be of interest: Hon. John Randolph Tucker,
one of Virginia's most gifted and learned sons, who represented his
State in the U.S. Senate, always celebrated his birthday. I remember to
have attended one of these celebrations. It was shortly after the close
of the war. Mr. Tucker was then between fifty-five and sixty years of
age. He had grown children. Fun making was one of his characteristics.
On these annual occasions, it was his custom to dress himself in a long
white gown and bring into the parlor his old black nurse, whom he called
"mammy." She sat in her rocking-chair with her head tied up in the
conventional snow-white cloth. Mr. Tucker, dressed up as a child in his
nightgown, would toddle in and climb up into her lap, and she would lull
him to sleep with an old-time nursery song, no doubt one of her own
compositions. This could not possibly have occurred had the skin of his
nurse been white.
When a daughter married and set up her own home, fortunate was she if
she took with her the mammy. In many homes the slaves were present at
family prayers. The kitchen and the cabin furnished the white children
places of resort that were full of pleasure.
This was the relation between white and colored as I remember it from a
child in my part of Virginia. And tonight, as I write these lines, while
the clock tolls off the hour of eleven, I cannot keep out of my mind the
words of that little poem by Elizabeth Akers:
"Backward, turn backward, oh time in thy flight,
And make me a child again, just for tonight."
[Illustration: JEFFERSON C. DAVIS.
President of the Confederate States of America. Taken just before his
inauguration.]
How anyone could have desired to break up this happy relationship was
beyond the conception of the child, and more or less incomprehensible to
the adult.
Somewhere between childhood and youth we children all learned that there
was a race of people up North called Abolitionists, who were so mean
that they sent secret agents through the country to persuade the colored
people to leave their homes and go North, where they could be free. That
these agents were disguised as peddlers or otherwise, and that they
visited the cabins of the slaves during the late hours of the night, and
went so far as to urge them to rise up in a body and declare their
freedom, and if necessary to murder those who held them as slaves. This
delusion, if it were a delusion, might have been dispelled had not John
Brown and his men appeared upon the scene to give an ocular
demonstration of their real intent. The few men with him may have been
the only following that he had, but the damage had been done. Virginia
was fighting mad. What had been whispered about the abolitionists in
secret was now proclaimed from the housetops. John Brown was an
abolitionist, and all abolitionists were John Browns, so the youths at
least reasoned. The words abolitionist and Yankee were for the most part
synonymous terms; the former being hard to pronounce, the child usually
employed the latter. Some of the young children did not know that a
Yankee was a human being, as the following incident will illustrate:
When the first Federal soldiers entered the village of Middleburg,
Loudoun county, Virginia, the cry went up and down the streets, "The
Yankees have come!" The streets were soon deserted by every living thing
except the dogs and the ubiquitous, irrepressible small boy, who was or
pretended to be "skeered o' nothin'." This war was gotten up for his
special benefit, and he was determined to see all that was to be seen,
and was always to be found well up in front. The women and children
within their homes crowded to the windows to see the cavalry as it
marched by. A little three-year old nephew of mine, with the expression
of alarm disappearing from his face, said: "Mamma, them ain't Yankees,
them's soldiers." He expected to see some kind of hideous animal.
This is the education the Virginia boys got, who afterward became Lee's
soldiers. They were brought up in this school, and when they became
soldiers, wearing the gray, they felt that they had something to fight
for. They believed that they were real patriots, notwithstanding they
were called rebels and traitors.
This brings us to the beginning of the Civil War, or at least to the
secession movement. Lincoln had not yet taken his seat as President,
when several of the Southern States seceded and formed a Southern
Confederacy, with Montgomery, Ala., as the capital, and Jefferson C.
Davis as President. This was recognized by the United States Government
as open rebellion, and as soon as Mr. Lincoln took the reins of
government, he called for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion.
Virginia must either furnish her quota of troops or withdraw from the
Union. She promptly chose the latter, and shortly afterward became a
part of the Southern Confederacy. As soon as the ordinance of secession
had passed the Virginia Legislature, there were a thousand Paul Reveres
in the saddle, carrying the news to every point not reached by telegraph
lines. The young men and boys did not wait for the call from the
Governor. Military companies, infantry, cavalry and artillery sprang up
everywhere. Anyone who chose and could get a sufficient following might
raise a company. These companies were offered to the Governor and
promptly accepted. The ordinance of secession was passed at night. The
next morning Virginia troops were on their way to seize Harper's Ferry.
On the approach of these troops the small guard of United States
soldiers stationed there set fire to the buildings and fled. The fire
was extinguished by the citizens, I think, and much of the valuable
machinery and military stores was saved. The machinery was sent to
Richmond, and the arms were used in equipping the soldiers. Harper's
Ferry became one of the outposts of the Confederacy, and a place of
rendezvous for the rapidly-growing Confederate battalions. Thomas
Jonathan Jackson, afterward known as Stonewall Jackson, was sent to
Harper's Ferry to drill and organize the forces gathering there, into an
army. He was later superseded by Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, but Jackson
remained as a subordinate commander. In the meantime, the Confederate
Government had demanded that Gen. Anderson evacuate Fort Sumter, at the
entrance of Charleston harbor, and also had said, if not in words, in
action, to the Government at Washington as it saw United States armies
gathering near its northern frontier, So far shalt thou come, and no
further.
But to go back to the thirty boys. What were they doing all this time?
Just prior to the date of Virginia's secession they were gathering in
groups at noon and recess, on the way to and from school, and talking
war. How big and important we seemed as we prospectively saw ourselves
dressed as soldiers, armed and keeping step to the beat of the drum.
There was but little studying, for our preceptor was not hard on us. He
had once been a boy himself, and appreciating the conditions that
surrounded us, he chiefly employed himself in keeping the school
together until hostilities began, if it should really come to that. I
don't know how long the school continued, but I do know that these
particular boys were early on the drill ground, and were being trained
into soldiers. It was difficult for the parents to keep the fourteen and
fifteen-year-old boys at home or in school. I had a brother sixteen
years old who was first of the family to enlist, and then all followed,
one after another, until four of us were in the ranks. There were mature
men and old men, men of heavy responsibilities, who saw farther into
the future than the younger generation. These went about with bowed
heads and talked seriously of what the future might bring. They wisely
discussed constitutional law, State rights, what foreign nations would
have to say about it, the nations that had to have our cotton. "Cotton
was king," they said, and the South owned the king, soul and body.
Questions like these were discussed among the men, but like one of old,
the boy cared for none of these things. In the language of a famous
Union general, his place was to meet the enemy and defeat him. I
remember about this time hearing this toast being offered to the South:
"May her old men make her laws, her young men fight her battles, and her
maidens spin her cotton."
The boy well understood the part he was to play, and he was in his
element, and as happy as a boy could be. I cannot remember just when the
first call was made for troops by the Governor, but I do know, as I have
already stated, that the boys heard the call from a higher source, and
they were coming from mountain and plain, from hillside and valley, from
the shop, and office and school. Well do I recall the joy that welled up
in every boy's breast as one after another of the actors took their
places on the stage. Again I find myself quoting Elizabeth Akers, this
time substituting a word:
"Backward, turn backward, oh time in thy flight,
And make me a BOY again, just for tonight."
Now let us take a peep into the Virginia homes. What were the women
doing? Ah, they were as busy as bees. These boys must be equipped not
only with munitions of war, but each boy must take with him as many home
comforts as could possibly be compressed into a bundle small enough to
be carried. When he was at home it took a good-sized room to hold these
things; now he must put them into his pocket or on his back, and it took
all of a mother's skill to gather these things up into the least
possible space, that her boy might have in the camp life all that a
mother's love could give him. The Government would furnish the guns, the
powder, the lead, the canteen and knapsack and haversack; the tinshop,
the tincup; the shoemaker, the boots; the bookstore, the Bible (every
boy must carry a Bible), but all the clothing, all the little necessary
articles for comfort and health, must be manufactured in the home. Did
you ever open the outside casing of one of these large patent beehives
and see the bees at work inside? What rushing and pushing and confusion!
Every bee, so far as human eye can see, seems busy. This beehive was but
a replica of a Virginia home in the spring of 1861.
While these things were going on in the home the boys were drilling in
the field, for they were now out of school. All were anxious to get
their equipment, and to be the first to offer their services to the
Governor.
Had these boys any conception of what they were rushing into? Suppose
just at this time the curtain had been lifted, and they could have seen
Bull Run and Seven Pines, Manassas and Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and The Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold
Harbor and Appomattox? And if they could have seen a picture of their
homes and fields as they appeared in 1865, would they have rushed on?
Perhaps I can answer that question by pointing to the battlefield of New
Market. In the fall of 1864, after nearly all the great battles had been
fought, the young cadets from Lexington, Va., who had not yet been under
fire, but with a full knowledge of what war meant, rushed into this
battle like veterans and were mowed down as grain, their little bodies
lying scattered over the field like sheaves of wheat.
"O war, thou hast thy fierce delight,
Thy gleams of joy intensely bright;
Such gleams as from thy polished shield
Fly dazzling o'er the battle-field."
Yes, war has its bright, attractive side, and those boys, as I knew
them, would have looked at these moving-pictures as they came one after
another into view, and then perhaps have turned pale; perhaps they would
have shuddered and then cried out, "On with the dance; let joy be
unconfined;" and it was literally on with the dance. School, as I have
just said, was out, and every laddie had his lassie, and you may be sure
they improved the time. It was drill through the day and dance through
the night.
"No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."
The boys were happy, and "all went merry as a marriage bell," and well
that it was so. When we looked into the hive we saw that the bees were
busy, but as far as human eye could discover, there was no head; all was
confusion; it was pushing and shoving and coming and going, and one
might have asked the question, What are they doing? What does it all
mean? If we could have seen farther into the hive we would have
discovered that back of this busy throng sat the queen, and that these
were her subjects, doing her bidding. She was sending out her little
rogues to rob the flowers, and they were coming back richly laden with
spoils. This was the raw material, and it was being worked up. When the
season was over and the flowers were dead, and we drew from the hive the
finished product, so perfect in all its parts and richly stored with
sweetened treasures, we began to realize that there was a master mind
behind it all. Do you suppose for a moment that when these young men and
boys of Virginia, in fact from all over the South, who were rushing with
such intense enthusiasm in the Confederate ranks, these fathers and
mothers and sisters, who were equipping these youths with comforts
without which they could not have endured the hardships of the camp, do
you suppose they were but following the dictates of a few maddened,
fire-eating fanatics, and that the whole would end in debt, death and
desolation? If you had lived in 1861 you might have been excused for
thinking so. But what do you think of it today, as the finished product
begins to unfold itself to our view? Do you not believe there was a
master mind behind it all, a King, and that these boys were but part of
His royal subjects, doing His will? Suppose there had been no rush and
no adequate army at Bull Run to meet McDowell and his forces as they
came marching out from Washington with flying colors? Suppose the
Confederates had been beaten at Bull Run and Richmond had fallen, and
the war had ended then? What miserable creatures we poor devils of the
South would have been! The world would have laughed at us. We would have
lost all of our self-respect. A cycle of time could not have wiped out
our self-contempt, and God might have said, "I cannot build up a great
nation with material like this." The North would have had no Grand Army
Veterans, and no deeds of heroism with which to keep alive the fire of
patriotism in the hearts of their children. Spain in 1898 might have
successfully defied us, and China and Japan have roamed at will over our
land. No; the war was a necessity. It was costly, but was worth all that
it cost. It has made of us a very great nation.
Now I shall go back and tell how it was done. I will do so by narrating
my own experience, and as my experience, with but slight variation, was
the experience of every boy who served in the Confederate army, the
reader will have a fair idea of what the boy's life was during those
four years.
The firing upon Fort Sumter was like throwing a stone into a hornet's
nest. All the North was aroused. Troops came pouring into Washington by
every train. A Massachusetts regiment, in passing through the streets of
Baltimore, was mobbed, and the song "Maryland, My Maryland" was wafted
out on the air.
Maryland boys, under cover of night, were crossing the Potomac to help
drive the invaders back. They came singing "The Despot's Heel Is on Thy
Shore." Rumors flew thick and fast. Now and then shots were exchanged
between opposing pickets as they walked to and fro on the banks of the
Potomac river that separated them. In fact, the curtain was up and the
play had begun. Harper's Ferry, Leesburg and Manassas (see map)[1]
became strategical points, and at each of these the Confederates were
concentrating their forces.
By June 1, 1861, Jos. E. Johnston at Harper's Ferry had an army of
10,000. Gen. A.P. Hill at Leesburg, 3000. Gen P.T. Beauregard at
Manassas, 12,000. These were Confederates. On the Union side, Gen.
Patterson had an army of about 15,000 confronting Johnston, and McDowell
at the head of 35,000 was crossing the Potomac at Washington en route
for Bull Run.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In reading the book, spread out the map before you and
follow the movements of the armies. There is a detached map with each
book. The main battlefields are marked with a flag, but there are over
50 more; in fact, eliminating the rough mountain ranges, nearly every
foot of Virginia soil covered by this map felt the tramp of the soldier
and heard the hiss of the bullet.]