reversing their engine, to prevent wreck, but the hindrance was for the
present insuperable. Leaving all their men behind, they started for a
second foot-race. Before they had gone far they met the train we had
passed at Adairsville and turned it back after us. At Adairsville they
dropped the cars, and with locomotive and tender loaded with armed men,
they drove forward at the highest speed possible. They knew that we were
not many minutes ahead, and trusted to overhaul us before the express
train could be safely passed.
But Andrews had told the powder story again with all his skill, and
added a direct request in peremptory form to have the way opened before
him, which the Confederate conductor did not see fit to resist; and just
before the pursuers arrived at Calhoun we were again under way. Stopping
once more to cut wires and tear up the track, we felt a thrill of
exhilaration to which we had long been strangers. The track was now
clear before us to Chattanooga; and even west of that city we had good
reason to believe that we should find no other train in the way till we
had reached Mitchel's lines. If one rail could now be lifted we would be
in a few minutes at the Oostenaula bridge; and that burned, the rest of
the task would be little more than simple manual labor, with the enemy
absolutely powerless. We worked with a will.
But in a moment the tables were turned. Not far behind we heard the
scream of a locomotive bearing down upon us at lightning speed. The men
on board were in plain sight and well armed. Two minutes--perhaps
one--would have removed the rail at which we were toiling; then the game
would have been in our own hands, for there was no other locomotive
beyond that could be turned back after us. But the most desperate
efforts were in vain. The rail was simply bent, and we hurried to our
engine and darted away, while remorselessly after us thundered the
enemy.
Now the contestants were in clear view, and a race followed unparalleled
in the annals of war. Wishing to gain a little time for the burning of
the Oostenaula bridge, we dropped one car, and, shortly after, another;
but they were "picked up" and pushed ahead to Resaca. We were obliged to
run over the high trestles and covered bridge at that point without a
pause. This was the first failure in the work assigned us.
The Confederates could not overtake and stop us on the road; but their
aim was to keep close behind, so that we might not be able to damage the
road or take in wood or water. In the former they succeeded, but not in
the latter. Both engines were put at the highest rate of speed. We were
obliged to cut the wire after every station passed, in order that an
alarm might not be sent ahead; and we constantly strove to throw our
pursuers off the track, or to obstruct the road permanently in some way,
so that we might be able to burn the Chickamauga bridges, still ahead.
The chances seemed good that Fuller and Murphy would be wrecked. We
broke out the end of our last box-car and dropped cross-ties on the
track as we ran, thus checking their progress and getting far enough
ahead to take in wood and water at two separate stations. Several times
we almost lifted a rail, but each time the coming of the Confederates
within rifle-range compelled us to desist and speed on. Our worst
hindrance was the rain. The previous day (Friday) had been clear, with a
high wind, and on such a day fire would have been easily and
tremendously effective. But to-day a bridge could be burned only with
abundance of fuel and careful nursing.
Thus we sped on, mile after mile, in this fearful chase, round curves
and past stations in seemingly endless perspective. Whenever we lost
sight of the enemy beyond a curve, we hoped that some of our
obstructions had been effective in throwing him from the track, and that
we should see him no more; but at each long reach backward the smoke was
again seen, and the shrill whistle was like the scream of a bird of
prey. The time could not have been so very long, for the terrible speed
was rapidly devouring the distance; but with our nerves strained to the
highest tension each minute seemed an hour. On several occasions the
escape of the enemy from wreck was little less than miraculous. At one
point a rail was placed across the track on a curve so skilfully that it
was not seen till the train ran upon it at full speed. Fuller says that
they were terribly jolted, and seemed to bounce altogether from the
track, but lighted on the rails in safety. Some of the Confederates
wished to leave a train which was driven at such a reckless rate, but
their wishes were not gratified.
Before reaching Dalton we urged Andrews to turn and attack the enemy,
laying an ambush so as to get into close quarters, that our revolvers
might be on equal terms with their guns. I have little doubt that if
this had been carried out it would have succeeded. But either because he
thought the chance of wrecking or obstructing the enemy still good, or
feared that the country ahead had been alarmed by a telegram around the
Confederacy by the way of Richmond, Andrews merely gave the plan his
sanction without making any attempt to carry it into execution.
Dalton was passed without difficulty, and beyond we stopped again to cut
wires and to obstruct the track. It happened that a regiment was
encamped not a hundred yards away, but they did not molest us. Fuller
had written a despatch to Chattanooga, and dropped a man with orders to
have it forwarded instantly, while he pushed on to save the bridges.
Part of the message got through and created a wild panic in Chattanooga,
although it did not materially influence our fortunes. Our supply of
fuel was now very short, and without getting rid of our pursuers long
enough to take in more, it was evident that we could not run as far as
Chattanooga.
While cutting the wire we made an attempt to get up another rail; but
the enemy, as usual, were too quick for us. We had no tool for this
purpose except a wedge-pointed iron bar. Two or three bent iron claws
for pulling out spikes would have given us such incontestable
superiority that, down to almost the last of our run, we should have
been able to escape and even to burn all the Chickamauga bridges. But it
had not been our intention to rely on this mode of obstruction--an
emergency only rendered necessary by our unexpected delay and the
pouring rain.
We made no attempt to damage the long tunnel north of Dalton, as our
enemies had greatly dreaded. The last hope of the raid was now staked
upon an effort of a kind different from any that we had yet made, but
which, if successful, would still enable us to destroy the bridges
nearest Chattanooga. But, on the other hand, its failure would terminate
the chase. Life and success were put upon one throw.
A few more obstructions were dropped on the track, and our own speed
increased so that we soon forged a considerable distance ahead. The side
and end boards of the last car were torn into shreds, all available fuel
was piled upon it, and blazing brands were brought back from the engine.
By the time we approached a long, covered bridge a fire in the car was
fairly started. We uncoupled it in the middle of the bridge, and with
painful suspense waited the issue. Oh for a few minutes till the work of
conflagration was fairly begun! There was still steam pressure enough in
our boiler to carry us to the next wood-yard, where we could have
replenished our fuel by force, if necessary, so as to run as near to
Chattanooga as was deemed prudent. We did not know of the telegraph
message which the pursuers had sent ahead. But, alas! the minutes were
not given. Before the bridge was extensively fired the enemy was upon
us, and we moved slowly onward, looking back to see what they would do
next. We had not long to conjecture. The Confederates pushed right into
the smoke, and drove the burning car before them to the next side-track.
With no car left, and no fuel, the last scrap having thrown into the
engine or upon the burning car, and with no obstruction to drop on the
track, our situation was indeed desperate. A few minutes only remained
until our steed of iron which had so well served us would be powerless.
But it might still be possible to save ourselves. If we left the train
in a body, and, taking a direct course toward the Union lines, hurried
over the mountains at right angles with their course, we could not, from
the nature of the country, be followed by cavalry, and could easily
travel--athletic young men as we were, and fleeing for life--as rapidly
as any pursuers. There was no telegraph in the mountainous districts
west and northwest of us, and the prospect of reaching the Union lines
seemed to me then, and has always since seemed, very fair. Confederate
pursuers with whom I have since conversed freely have agreed on two
points--that we could have escaped in the manner here pointed out, and
that an attack on the pursuing train would likely have been successful.
But Andrews thought otherwise, at least in relation to the former plan,
and ordered us to jump from the locomotive one by one, and, dispersing
in the woods, each endeavor to save himself. Thus ended the Andrews
railroad raid.
It is easy now to understand why Mitchel paused thirty miles west of
Chattanooga. The Andrews raiders had been forced to stop eighteen miles
south of the same town, and no flying train met him with the expected
tidings that all railroad communications of Chattanooga were destroyed,
and that the town was in a panic and undefended. He dared advance no
farther without heavy reinforcements from Pittsburg Landing or the
north; and he probably believed to the day of his death, six months
later, that the whole Andrews party had perished without accomplishing
anything.
A few words will give the sequel to this remarkable enterprise. There
was great excitement in Chattanooga and in the whole of the surrounding
Confederate territory for scores of miles. The hunt for the fugitive
raiders was prompt, energetic, and completely successful. Ignorant of
the country, disorganized, and far from the Union lines, they strove in
vain to escape. Several were captured the same day on which they left
the cars, and all but two within a week. Even these two were overtaken
and brought back when they supposed that they were virtually out of
danger. Two of those who had failed to be on the train were identified
and added to the band of prisoners.
Now follows the saddest part of the story. Being in citizens' dress
within an enemy's lines, the whole party were held as spies, and closely
and vigorously guarded. A court-martial was convened, and the leader and
seven others out of the twenty-two were condemned and executed. The
remainder were never brought to trial, probably because of the advance
of Union forces, and the consequent confusion into which the affairs of
the departments of east Tennessee and Georgia were thrown. Of the
remaining fourteen, eight succeeded by a bold effort--attacking their
guard in broad daylight--in making their escape from Atlanta, Georgia,
and ultimately in reaching the North. The other six who shared in this
effort, but were recaptured, remained prisoners until the latter part of
March, 1863, when they were exchanged through a special arrangement made
with Secretary Stanton. All the survivors of this expedition received
medals and promotion.[4] The pursuers also received expressions of
gratitude from their fellow-Confederates, notably from the governor and
the legislature of Georgia.
[Footnote 4: Below is a list of the participants in the raid:
James J. Andrews,[A] leader;
William Campbell,[A] a civilian who volunteered to accompany the raiders;
George D. Wilson,[A] Company B, 2d Ohio Volunteers;
Marion A. Ross,[A] Company A, 2d Ohio Volunteers;
Perry G. Shadrack,[A] Company K, 2d Ohio Volunteers;
Samuel Slavens,[A] 33d Ohio Volunteers;
Samuel Robinson,[A] Company G, 33d Ohio Volunteers;
John Scott,[A] Company K, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
Wilson W. Brown,[B] Company F, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
William Knight,[B] Company E, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
Mark Wood,[B] Company C, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
James A. Wilson,[B] Company C, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
John Wollam,[B] Company C, 33d Ohio Volunteers;
D.A. Dorsey,[B] Company H, 33d Ohio Volunteers;
Jacob Parrott,[C] Company K, 33d Ohio Volunteers;
Robert Buffum,[C] Company H, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
William Benzinger,[C] Company G, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
William Reddick,[C] Company B, 33d Ohio Volunteers;
E.H. Mason,[C] Company K, 21st Ohio Volunteers;
William Pittenger,[C] Company G, 2d Ohio Volunteers.
J.R. Porter, Company C, 21st Ohio, and Martin J. Hawkins, Company A, 33d
Ohio, reached Marietta, but did not get on board of the train. They were
captured and imprisoned with their comrades.
[A] Executed. [B] Escaped. [C] Exchanged.]
MOSBY'S "PARTIZAN RANGERS"
BY A.E. RICHARDS
During the early stages of the war between the States, the Confederate
Congress enacted a statute known as the Partizan Ranger Act, which
provided for independent bodies of cavalry to be organized as other
government troops. The officers were to be regularly commissioned and
the men to be paid like other soldiers. The distinctive features were,
that the rangers should operate independently of the regular army and be
entitled to the legitimate spoil captured from the enemy.
While John S. Mosby was employed as a scout by General J.E.B. Stuart, he
had concluded that a command organized and operated as contemplated by
this act could do great damage to the enemy guarding that portion of
Northern Virginia abandoned by the Confederate armies. But the partizan
branch of the service having been brought into disrepute by the worse
than futile efforts of others, his superior officers at first refused
him permission to engage in so questionable an enterprise. Finally,
however, General Stuart gave Mosby a detail of nine men from the regular
cavalry with which to experiment.
At that time the two main armies operating in Virginia were confronting
each other near Fredericksburg. To protect their lines of communication
with Washington, the Federals had stationed a considerable force across
the Potomac, with headquarters at Fairfax Court-house. They also
established a complete cordon of pickets from a point on the river above
Washington to a point below, thus encompassing many square miles of
Virginia territory. Upon these outposts Mosby commenced his operations.
The size of his command compelled him to confine his attacks to the
small details made nightly for picket duty. But he was so uniformly
successful that when the time came for him to report back to General
Stuart, that officer was so pleased with the experiment that he allowed
Mosby to select fifteen men from his old regiment and return, for an
indefinite period, to his chosen field of operations.
His first exploits had been so noised abroad that the young men from the
neighboring counties and the soldiers at home on furloughs would request
permission to join in his raids. He could easily muster fifty of these,
known as "Mosby's Conglomerates," for any expedition. The opportunity
for developing his ideas of border warfare was thus presented. With
great vigor he renewed his attacks upon the Federal outposts. As a
recognition of one of his successful exploits, the Confederate
government sent him a captain's commission with authority to raise a
company of partizan rangers. The material for this was already at hand,
and on June 10, 1862, he organized his first company. This was the
nucleus around which he subsequently shaped his ideal command. The fame
of his achievements had already spread throughout Virginia and Maryland,
and attracted to his standard many kindred spirits from both States. No
conscripting was necessary. Those for whom this mode of warfare
possessed a charm would brave hardship and danger for the privilege of
enlisting under his banner. His recruits from Maryland, and many of
those from Virginia, were compelled to pass through the Federal pickets
in order to join his command. Yet great care had to be exercised in the
selection of his men, and not every applicant was received. If an
unworthy soldier procured admission, so soon as the mistake was
discovered he was sent under guard as a conscript to the regular
service.
Mosby reserved the right to select all of his officers, who were
invariably chosen from those who had already demonstrated their fitness
for this particular service. It has been said of a great military hero
that the surest proof of his genius was his skill in finding out genius
in others, and his promptness in calling it into action. Mosby, in his
limited sphere, displayed a similar talent, and to this faculty, almost
as much as any one thing, may be attributed his success with his
enlarged command. When a sufficient number of men had enlisted to form a
new company, he would have them drawn up in line and his adjutant would
read to them the names of those selected for officers, with the
announcement that all who were not in favor of their election could step
out of the ranks and go to the regular service. Of course no one ever
left. In order to comply with the law, the form of an election was then
gone through with, and their commander's choice ratified. In no other
body of troops were all the officers thus _unanimously_ elected.
Mosby's command, as finally organized, consisted of eight companies of
cavalry and one of mounted artillery, officered by a colonel, a
lieutenant-colonel, and a major, with the usual complement of company
officers. But the entire force was seldom combined. Instead of this,
they would be divided into two or more detachments operating in
different places. So it was not at all unusual for an attack to be made
the same night upon Sheridan's line of transportation in the valley,
upon the pickets guarding the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, upon the
outposts in Fairfax County, and upon the rear of the army manoeuvering
against Lee. This explains--what at the time seemed to many of the
readers of the Northern newspapers a mystery--how Mosby's men could be
in so many different places at the same time. The safety and success of
the Rangers were enhanced by these subdivisions, the Federals having
become so alert as to make it extremely difficult for a large command
either to evade their pickets or manoeuver within their lines. From
fifty to one hundred men were all that were usually marched together,
and many of their most brilliant successes were achieved with even a
smaller force. Mosby had only twenty men with him when he captured
Brigadier-General Edwin H. Stoughton. With these he penetrated the heart
of the Federal camp, and carried off its commander. General Stoughton
was in charge of an army of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, with
headquarters at Fairfax Court-house. One dark night in March, 1863,
Mosby, with this small detachment, evaded the Federal pickets, passed
through the sleeping army, and with their camp-fires gleaming all
around him, and their sentinels on duty, aroused their general from his
slumbers, and took him captive with thirty-seven of his comrades.
But the novelty of Mosby's mode of warfare consisted chiefly in the
manner of subsisting, quartering and protecting his men. The upper
portion of Loudon and Fauquier counties, embracing a circuit of about
thirty miles in diameter, was then known as "Mosby's Confederacy." By a
glance at the map it will be observed that it bordered upon the Blue
Ridge Mountains on the west, and the Bull Run Mountains on the east. The
valley between is one of the richest, most beautiful, and highly
cultivated in the State of Virginia. It was thickly inhabited with old
Virginia families, who were loyal and true to the Southern cause. These
people received Mosby's men into their houses as their guests, and
neither danger nor want could tempt their betrayal. Robin Hood's band
sought safety in the solitudes of Sherwood Forest, Marion's men secreted
themselves "in the pleasant wilds of Snow's Island" and other South
Carolina swamps, but the Partizan Rangers of Virginia protected
themselves by dispersing in an open country among a sympathizing people.
They never established a camp; to have done so would have invited
capture. Each soldier had his boarding-house, where he lived when off
duty, as a member of the family. From these they would come, singly or
in groups, bringing their rations with them to some designated
rendezvous, march rapidly to and from the point of attack, send their
prisoners under guard to the nearest Confederate post, divide the spoil,
and disperse. If they were pursued by an overwhelming force as was
frequently the case, the evening found them scattered to the four winds,
where each man, mounted upon his own fleet steed, could protect himself
from capture. If the Federals attempted to follow the chase in small
parties, the Rangers, from behind every hill and grove, would
concentrate and dash upon them. If they marched in solid column, the
Rangers would hang upon their flanks, firing upon them from behind
trees, fences, and hilltops. In this way, General Julius Stahel, who had
invaded Mosby's Confederacy with two brigades of cavalry and four pieces
of artillery for the avowed purpose of utterly demolishing the Rangers,
was so annoyed that he retired, thoroughly disgusted with an enemy "who
only fought when they got their foe at a disadvantage."
As there were no civil officers commissioned by either party in all that
section of Virginia, the people naturally turned to Mosby as their only
representative of law and order. It was not unusual for them to submit
their property controversies to him for decision. In this way he
acquired a civil jurisdiction in connection with his military
dictatorship. Being a lawyer by profession, educated at the University
of Virginia, his civil administration became as remarkable for its
prudence and justice as his military leadership was for magnanimity and
dash. I heard an old citizen remark, "For two years Mosby was our ruler,
and the country never was better governed." He protected the people from
stragglers and deserters, who pillaged friend and foe alike. Every
captured horse-thief was promptly executed. He required his own men to
treat the citizens with fairness and courtesy, and any violation of
this rule was punished by sending the offender to the regular service.
Its observance was more easily enforced than would appear possible at
first glance. The men were scarcely ever off duty, except for necessary
rest. The officers were then distributed among them, and by their
example and authority controlled, when necessary, the deportment of
their men. The citizens with whom they lived also exercised a healthy
influence over them. These relations engendered many attachments that
ran like golden threads through the soldier's life and outlived the
rough usages of war.
It thus became no easy matter to drive the Rangers from a territory so
dear to them, and in which they were befriended by all. On two occasions
the entire Federal army operating against General Lee passed through
Mosby's Confederacy, and yet his men did not abandon it. They hid
themselves in the mountains during the day, and descended upon the enemy
at night. They thus observed every movement of the Federal army, and all
valuable information was promptly sent to the Confederate general. On
one of these occasions, June 17, 1863, Mosby found himself at ten
o'clock at night between the infantry and cavalry commands of General
Hooker's army. Observing three horses hitched near a house, with an
orderly standing by, he left his command with the prisoners already
captured, and taking with him three men, rode up to the orderly and was
informed by him that the horses belonged to Major William E. Sterling
and another officer. In a whisper he said to the orderly:
"My name is Mosby. Keep quiet!"
The man understood him to say that he (the orderly) was "Mosby," and
very indignantly replied:
"No sir, I am as good a Union man as ever walked the earth."
"Those are just the sort I am after," said Mosby.