'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
--PAYNE.
If one longs for home while roaming amidst pleasures and palaces, how
much more intense, suppose you, must be the nostalgia of the soldier
confined in a far distant prison?
March 14, 1865, was one of the happiest days of my life. After a
captivity of twenty months, I was led out of the prison with the three
hundred others, conducted to a steamboat, and homeward bound transported
to Sandusky. The thick ice that for three months had covered the bay was
floating in broken pieces on the surface, through which the boat
struggled with so much difficulty that I feared it would be necessary to
put back to the island; but the trip was made at the expense of some
broken paddles. Why we were selected rather than our less fortunate
compatriots I cannot guess, unless it was to save the annoyance and the
expense of burial, for some of our party had been wounded, others as
well as myself, had recently recovered from serious sickness, and all
were adjudged to be unfit for military service; or perhaps there was the
same number in Southern prisons that for special reasons the Federal War
Office desired to have exchanged.
The train that was to convey us southward was made up of box-cars, upon
the floors of which there was a thin covering of straw. We were so
crowded that we all could not lie down at the same time. The sleepers
lay with their heads at the sides of the cars, while their legs
interlaced in the middle. We took the situation in good humor, and slept
by turns, those who could not find room standing amidst entangled legs
and feet. Thus we traveled several days and nights, our train being
frequently switched for the passage of regular trains. Our route was by
Bellaire to Baltimore, or rather to Locust Point, where we took passage
on a steamboat for James river. Having landed the next day, we walked
across a neck of land formed by a bend of the river to the wharf where a
boat from Richmond was expected to meet us. A company of negroes made a
show of conducting us across the neck, though a company of children
armed with cornstalks would have been equally efficient.
We had not long to wait until the smokestack of the Confederate
steamboat could be seen winding along as she tracked the serpentine
course of the river. As she neared the wharf the band on board struck up
that sweetest of tunes,--"Home, Sweet Home." Some of my companions
laughed, some threw their caps into the air, others hurrahed, while my
own emotions were expressed only by tears of joy that coursed down my
cheeks. When, however, the music glided into the exhilarating notes of
"Dixie" I joined in the cheering that mingled with the strain.
We arrived in Richmond on the 22d of March, the eighth day after we had
started. I was pained to notice in the city so many signs of
delapidation and poverty, and to learn that Confederate money had
depreciated to the point of sixty for one. The captain's salary that the
government owed me for two years was worth only about fifty dollars in
specie, which a friend in the treasury department advised me to collect
at once, inasmuch as he thought that the capital would be soon
evacuated. I took him for a timorous prophet, and told him I would wait
until I rejoined the army, when I should need it. I did not know, as he
did, the impoverished and critical condition of the Confederacy.
I was not exchanged, but "paroled for thirty days unless sooner
exchanged." I set out for the Northern Neck in company with Lieutenant
Purcell, of Richmond county, and Captain Stakes, of Northumberland. We
rode on a train as far as Hanover and then struck out afoot across the
country. Notwithstanding the fact that one of my companions limped on a
leg that had been wounded at Gettysburg and the other was a little lame
from frosted toes, it taxed all my powers to keep up with them. If I had
rejoiced to see the James, I was happier still to set foot once more
upon the bank of the Rappahannock. When we had crossed over we went to
the home of Lieutenant Purcell, where we spent the night, and the next
day, Monday, March 27, I arrived at home. I supposed that I should take
them by surprise, but somehow they had received intelligence of my
coming; and as I approached the house I found them all lined up in the
yard, white and black. "And they began to be merry."
I found John in the stable, having been ridden home by my faithful man,
Charles Wesley, who supposed that he had left me dead at Falling Waters.
On the 14th of April, Good Friday, when I was thinking of returning to
Richmond to inquire whether I had been exchanged and was still hoping
for the independence of the Southern Confederacy, I attended religious
services at a church in the neighborhood. When these had been concluded
and the congregation were talking as usual in the yard a messenger
arrived with a newspaper, which the Yankees had sent ashore from one of
their gunboats, and which contained the details of General Lee's
surrender of his army five days previously at Appomattox. My heart sank
within me. My fondest hopes were crushed. The cause for which I had so
often exposed my life, and for which so many of my friends had died, had
sunk into the gloomy night of defeat.
I was thankful that out of the horrid conflict I had escaped with my
life, a gray coat, and a silver quarter of a dollar. Although I had
participated in all the battles that were fought by the Army of Northern
Virginia, I was never seriously hurt. At Manassas one bullet struck my
leg, and another forcibly wrenched my sword from my hand. At
Chancellorsville a bomb exploded just in front of me, making a hole in
the ground and covering me with dirt, the pieces flying away with
discordant noises. Countless balls whizzed by my ears, and men fell all
around me, some of them while touching my side. Am I not justified in
appropriating the words of David addressed to Jehovah, "Thou hast
covered my head in the day of battle?"
Withdrawal from the Union was the right of the Southern States, as
appears from the history of the making and adoption of the federal
constitution; and great was the provocation to use it. It is not,
however, always wise,--either for persons or communities,--to exercise
their rights. Secession in the year 1860 was a hot headed and stupendous
political blunder,--a blunder recognized by the majority of the people
of Virginia, who refused to follow the example of her southern sisters
until there was forced upon her the cruel alternative of waging war
either against them or against the States of the North.
Though secession was a grievous error, nevertheless the war that was
waged by the Federal Government was a crime against the constitution,
humanity, and God. But now, as we view the present and retrospect the
past, who may say that all has not turned out for the best? We find
consolation in the belief that the Lord's hand has shaped our destiny,
and we meekly submit to his overruling providence.
"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly."
But the war, like Duncan's murder, was not done after it was done. There
supervened the unnecessary, vindictive, and malignant reconstruction
acts of the Federal Congress.
On the 14th of April, only nine days after Lee had surrendered, a great
calamity befell the South in the foolish and infamous assassination of
President Lincoln, who was the only man who could have restrained the
rage of such men as Sumner in the Senate and Stephens in the House of
Representatives. The hatred of the Northern politicians was intensified
by the supposition that his death was instigated by Southern men, and it
did not abate even after they were convinced that the supposition was
unfounded.
It is a singular fact that while the war was in progress the acts of
secession were considered null and void, and the Southern States were
declared to be parts of an indissoluble union, but when the war had
ended they were dealt with as alien commonwealths and conquered
territories. For four years Virginia was not a co-equal State in the
Union but "Military District No. 1," governed by a Federal general, who
appointed the local officers in the several counties. The affairs of the
State were managed by carpetbaggers in close agreement with despicable
scalawags and ignorant negroes. The elective franchise was granted to
the emancipated slaves regardless of character or intelligence, while it
was denied to many white men. In Lancaster county the negroes had a
registered majority of a hundred voters; it was represented in a
constitutional convention by a carpetbagger, and after the adoption of
the constitution it was represented in the Legislature by a negro. To
injury were added hatred and insult. It was not enough that the South
was conquered, it must be humiliated by African domination!
The Southern people did not go to war--war came to them. Not to gain
military glory did they fight, although this meed must be awarded to
them. Nor was the perpetuation of African slavery the object for which
they took up arms, for in Virginia nineteen-twentieths of the citizens
owned no slaves, and there was perhaps the same proportion in the other
States of the Confederacy. Neither was it for conquest that they so long
waged the unequal contest; for though they twice crossed the Potomac it
was not to gain an acre of territory, but only to relieve their own
beleaguered capital. From first to last it was a purely defensive
struggle to maintain for themselves the freedom they cheerfully accorded
to other communities, and to make good the inherited belief that "all
just government derives its power from the consent of the governed."
They simply resisted subjugation by a hostile government whose right to
rule them they denied.
As we review the history of that gigantic struggle we are not surprised
that the South was subdued, the only wonder being that it was not sooner
done. It required two and a quarter millions of soldiers four years to
overcome one-third of that number. The South had no navy to open her
ports, no commerce for her products, no foundries for the manufacture of
arms. During the first year there were not muskets enough to supply her
volunteers, though later on sufficient numbers were taken on the fields
of battles, fifty-two cannon and thirty thousand small arms being
captured in the battles around Richmond, besides the many thousands that
were taken in subsequent engagements.
That the South for so long a time resisted the attempts of her powerful
enemy, and during that period gained so many remarkable victories, is
attributable to the skill of her generals and the valor of her soldiers.
In these respects only was the advantage on her side.
The fame of her generals has spread throughout the world, and their
campaigns enrich the text-books of the military students of Europe and
Asia. They rank with the most famous commanders that ever led armies to
victory. Their names are immortal, and their memory is enshrined not
only in poetry and history, in marble and bronze, but also in the
admiration of mankind and in the affections of the Southern people.
But what could strategy have achieved unless there had been soldiers to
make it effective? The men had confidence in their commanders and were
responsive to their genius. In attack they exhibited impulsive courage,
and in defense possessed unyielding firmness. They made days and places
forever historic, when their pay was money in little more than name,
their garments torn, their rations coarse and scant. Footsore they
charged against the dense Blue lines, or made those rapid marches that
bewildered opposing forces.
When the end had come both officers and men surrendered as they had
fought,--without mental reservation. Sadly they furled and yielded up
the bullet-riddled battleflags they had carried so proudly. Now while
they manfully accept the hard arbitrament of war, and yield unaffected
loyalty to the United States, they make no confession of criminality.
While the war continued they were asserting what they believed was a
God-given right, and now they recall with pride the valor and victories
of the Southern armies.
Those armies are rapidly disappearing from the land they loved so well.
Many of the men fell in battle, and many died in prisons and hospitals,
and since the close of the war more of them have fallen asleep in
peaceful homes. Those who have departed and those who survive will not
want a eulogist while one remains; and when the last of the men who wore
the gray shall have joined his comrades beyond the river of death,
coming generations will celebrate their heroism and scatter flowers upon
the mounds that mark the places where their ashes repose.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Reminiscences of a Rebel, by Wayland Fuller Dunaway