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REMINISCENCES OF A REBEL
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
BY
THE REV. WAYLAND FULLER DUNAWAY, D.D.
Formerly Captain of Co. I, 40th Va. Regt.,
Army of Northern Virginia
"_Omnibus hostes
Reddite nos populis--civile avertite bellum._"
--_Lucan._
[Illustration: logo]
NEW YORK
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1913
Copyright, 1913, by
WAYLAND FULLER DUNAWAY
PREFACE
Notwithstanding the title of this volume, I do not admit that I was ever
in any true sense a rebel, neither do I intend any disrespect when I
call the Northern soldiers Yankees. The use of these terms is only a
concession to the appellations that were customary during the war.
It is my purpose to record some recollections of the Civil War, and
incidentally to furnish some historical notices of the brigade to which
I was attached. Here and there I have expressed, also, some opinions
concerning the great events of that dreadful period, some criticisms of
the conduct of battles and retreats, and some estimates of the abilities
of prominent generals.
The incentive to write is of a complex nature. There is a pleasure,
especially to the aged, in reviving the memories of the past and
narrating them to attentive hearers. Moreover, I hope that this book
will furnish instruction to those who have grown up since the war, and
entertainment to older persons who participated in its struggles,
privations, and sorrows. And besides, the future historian of that
gigantic conflict may perhaps find here some original contribution to
the accumulating material upon which he must draw. He will need the
humble narratives of inconspicuous participants as well as the
pretentious attempts of the partial historians who have preceded him.
The river flows into the sea, but the river itself is supplied by creeks
and rivulets and springs.
W. F. D.
REMINISCENCES OF A REBEL
CHAPTER I
"Lay down the axe; fling by the spade;
Leave in its track the toiling plow;
The rifle and the bayonet-blade
For arms like yours were fitter now;
And let the hands that ply the pen
Quit the light task, and learn to wield
The horseman's crooked brand, and rein
The charger on the battle field."
--BRYANT.
In the fall of the year 1860, when I was in my nineteenth year, I
boarded the steamboat _Virginia_,--the only one then running on the
Rappahannock river,--and went to Fredericksburg on my way to the
University of Virginia. It was my expectation to spend two sessions in
the classes of the professors of law, John B. Minor and James P.
Holcombe, and then, having been graduated, to follow that profession in
Lancaster, my native county.
The political sky had assumed a threatening aspect. The minds of the
Southern people had been inflamed by the insurrectionary raid of John
Brown upon Harper's Ferry, especially because it had been approved by
some Northern officials, and because the surrender of some fugitives
from justice, who had taken part in that murderous adventure, had been
refused by Ohio and Iowa. The election of Abraham Lincoln added fuel to
the flame. Having been nominated by the Republican party, he was
constitutionally chosen President of the United States, although he had
not received a majority of the popular vote. The election was ominous,
because it was sectional, Mr. Lincoln having carried all the Northern
states but not one of the Southern. The intensest excitement prevailed,
while passion blew the gale and held the rudder too.
While I believed in the right of secession I deprecated the exercise of
that right, because I loved the Union and the flag under which my
ancestors had enjoyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty. I
did not think that Lincoln's election was a sufficient cause for
dissolving the Union, for he had announced no evil designs concerning
Southern institutions; and, even if he had, he was powerless to put them
into execution. He could have done nothing without the consent of
Congress, and his party was in a minority both in the Senate and in the
House of Representatives.
Before Christmas South Carolina, not caring for consequences and blind
to the horrible future, passed an ordinance of secession; and her
example was followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states organized the
Southern Confederacy, of which Jefferson Davis was inaugurated
President, February 18, 1861. In April Fort Sumter was captured, and on
the 15th of that month President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling
on the remaining states to furnish their quotas of an army of
seventy-five thousand soldiers for the purpose of destroying the
Confederate government. Two days later the Virginia convention passed an
ordinance of secession. Being compelled to take sides, the Old Dominion
naturally cast her lot with her Southern sisters. War had
begun,--intestine war, of whose magnitude and duration no living man had
any adequate conception.
These events conspired with other causes to infuse in me a martial
spirit. The conviction was growing in me that, as my native state was
about to be invaded, I must have a place in the ranks of her defenders.
I was influenced by speeches delivered by Governor Floyd, Professor
Holcombe, and Dr. Bledsoe, and still more by the contagious example of
my roommate, William H. Chapman, who had gone with a company of students
to Harper's Ferry, and had returned. What brought the conviction to a
head was a flag. One morning in the latter part of April, as I was
walking from my boarding-house to the University I saw a Confederate
banner floating above the rotunda. Some of the students during the
night, surmounting difficulty and braving danger, had clambered to the
summit and erected there the symbol of a new nation. I was thrilled by
the sight of it as if by an electric shock. There it was, outstretched
by a bracing northwest wind, flapping defiantly, arousing patriotic
emotion. Unable longer to refrain, I went as soon as the lecture was
concluded to Professor Minor's residence and told him I was going to
enter the military service of Virginia. He sought to dissuade me, but,
perceiving that he could not alter my rash decision, he gave at my
request a written permission to leave his classes.
But how to get home?--that had become a perplexing question. I could not
go the way I had come, because the _Virginia_ fearful of capture had
ceased to make trips from Fredericksburg to Lancaster, and there was no
railroad to that part of the state. Knowing that my uncle, Addison Hall,
was a member of the Convention, I determined to take a train to
Richmond and seek his advice. I felt relieved when he informed me that
he was going the next morning, and that I could go along with him. We
took an early train to West Point, and being ferried across the
Mattaponi river, obtained from one of his friends a conveyance to
Urbanna. We hired a sloop to take us to Carter's creek, and thence we
proceeded in a farm wagon to his home in the village of Kilmarnock. The
next morning he sent me to the home of the Rev. Dr. Thomas S. Dunaway,
my brother, and my guardian.
In a few days I enlisted in a company that was being raised by Captain
Samuel P. Gresham, who had been a student at the Virginia Military
Institute. And thus the student's gown was exchanged for the soldier's
uniform.
Before we were regularly mustered into service an expedition was
undertaken that indicated at once the forwardness of our people to
engage the enemy and their ignorance of military affairs. The report
having been circulated that a Federal gunboat was lying in Mill Creek
in Northumberland county, its capture, or destruction, was resolved upon
by about a hundred men, who had assembled at the county seat of
Lancaster. With no weapons except an old smooth-bore six-pound cannon,
and that loaded with scrap iron gathered from a blacksmith's shop, we
proceeded to Mill Creek and unlimbered on the bank in plain view of the
boat, and distant from it some two or three hundred yards. I have always
been glad that we had sense enough to refrain from shooting, for
otherwise most of us would have been killed then and there. Seeing the
hopelessness of an unequal combat, we retired from the scene somewhat
wiser than when we went. In that instance was not "discretion the better
part of valor"?