TO CHANCELLORSVILLE.
In conversation with my Rebel acquaintance at the Marye House, I had
learned that his friend “’Lijah” sometimes conveyed travellers over the
more distant battle-fields. Him, therefore, I sent to engage with his
horse and buggy for the following day.
Breakfast was scarcely over the next morning, when, as I chanced to look
from my hotel-window, I saw a thin-faced countryman drive up to the door
in an old one-horse wagon with two seats, and a box half filled with
corn-stalks. I was admiring the anatomy of the horse, every prominent
bone of which could be counted through his skin, when I heard the man
inquiring for me. It was “’Lijah,” with his “horse and buggy.”
I was inclined to criticise the establishment, which was not altogether
what I had been led to expect.
“I allow he a’n’t a fust-class hoss,” said Elijah. “Only give three
dollars for him. Feed is skurce and high. But let him rest this winter,
and git some meal in him, and he’ll make a plough crack next spring.”
“What are you going to do with those corn-stalks?”
“Fodder for the hoss. They’re all the fodder he’ll git till night; for
we’re go’n’ into a country whar thar’s noth’n’ mo’e for an animal to eat
than thar is on the palm of my hand.”
I took a seat beside him, and made use of the stalks by placing a couple
of bundles between my back and the sharp board which travellers were
expected to lean against. Elijah cracked his whip, the horse frisked his
tail, and struck into a cow-trot which pleased him.
“You see, he’ll snake us over the ground right peart!”
He proceeded to tantalize me by telling what a mule he had, and what a
little mare he had, at home.
“She certainly goes over the ground! I believe she can run ekal to
anything in this country for about a mile. But she’s got a set of legs
under her jest like a sheep’s legs.”
He could not say enough in praise of the mule.
“Paid eight hundred dollars for him in Confederate money. He earned a
living for the whole family last winter. I used to go reg’lar up to
Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, buy up a box of clothing, and go
down in Essex and trade it off for corn.”
“What sort of clothing?”
“Soldiers’ clothes from the battle-fields. Some was flung away, and
some, I suppose, was stripped off the dead. Any number of families jest
lived on what they got from the Union armies in that way. They’d pick up
what garments they could lay hands on, wash ’em up and sell ’em. I’d
take a blanket, and git half a bushel of meal for it down in Essex. Then
I’d bring the meal back, and git maybe two blankets, or a blanket and a
coat, for it. All with that little mule. He’ll haul a load for ye! He’ll
stick to the ground go’n’ up hill jest like a dry-land tarrapin! But I
take the mare when I’m in a hurry; she makes them feet rattle ag’in the
ground!”
We took the plank-road to Chancellorsville, passing through a waste
country of weeds or undergrowth, like every other part of Virginia which
I had yet seen.
“All this region through yer,” said Elijah, “used to be grow’d up to
corn and as beautiful clover as ever you see. But since the wa’, it’s
all turned out to bushes and briers and hog-weeds. It’s gitt’n’ a start
ag’in now. I’ll show ’em how to do it. If we git in a crap o’ wheat this
fall, which I don’t know if we sha’n’t, we kin start three big teams,
and whirl up twenty acres of land directly. That mule,” etc.
Elijah praised the small farmers.
“People in ordinary sarcumstances along yer are a mighty industrious
people. It’s the rich that keep this country down. The way it generally
is, a few own too much, and the rest own noth’n’. I know hundreds of
thousands of acres of land put to no uset, which, if it was cut up into
little farms, would make the country look thrifty. This is mighty good
land; clay bottom; holds manure jest like a chany bowl does water. But
the rich ones jest scratched over a little on’t with their slave labor,
and let the rest go. They wouldn’t sell; let a young man go to ’em to
buy, and they’d say they didn’t want no poo’ whites around ’em; they
wouldn’t have one, if they could keep shet of ’em. And what was the
result? Young men would go off to the West, if they was enterpris’n’,
and leave them that wa’n’t enterpris’n’ hyer to home. Then as the old
heads died off, the farms would run down. The young women would marry
the lazy young men, and raise up families of lazy children.”
The country all about Fredericksburg was very unhealthy. Elijah, on
making inquiries, could hear of scarcely a family on the road exempt
from sickness.
“It was never so till sence the wa’. Now we have chills and fever, jest
like they do in a new country. It’s owin’ to the land all comin’ up to
weeds; the dew settles in ’em and they rot, and that fills the air with
the ager. I’ve had the ager myself till about a fortnight ago; then soon
as I got shet of that, the colic took me. Eat too much on a big
appetite, I suppose. I like to live well; like to see plenty of
everything on the table, and then I like to see every man eat a heap.”
I commended Elijah’s practical sense; upon which he replied,—
“The old man is right ignorant; can’t read the fust letter; never went
to school a day; but the old man is right sharp!”
He was fond of speaking of himself in this way. He thought education a
good thing, but allowed that all the education in the world could not
give a man sense. He was fifty years old, and had got along thus far in
life very well.
“I reckon thar’s go’n’ to be a better chance for the poo’ man after
this. The Union bein’ held together was the greatest thing that could
have happened for us.”
“And yet you fought against it.”
“I was in the Confederate army two year and a half. I was opposed to
secession; but I got my head a little turned after the State went out,
and I enlisted. Then, when I had time to reconsider it all over, I
diskivered we was wrong. I told the boys so.
“’Boys,’ says I, ‘when my time’s up, I’m go’n’ out of the army, and you
won’t see me in ag’in.’
“’You can’t help that, old man,’ says they; ‘fo’ by that time the
conscript law’ll be changed so’s to go over the heads of older men than
you.’
“’Then,’ says I, ‘the fust chance presents itself, I fling down my
musket and go spang No’th.’
“They had me put under arrest for that, and kep’ me in the guard-house
seven months. I liked that well enough. I was saved a deal of hard
march’n’ and lay’n’ out in the cold, that winter.
“’Why don’t ye come in boys,’ says I, ‘and have a warm?’
“I knowed what I was about! The old man was right ignorant, but the old
man was right sharp!”
We passed the line of Sedgwick’s retreat a few miles from
Fredericksburg.
“Shedrick’s men was in line acrost the road hyer, extendin’ into the
woods on both sides; they had jest butchered their meat, and was ishyin’
rations and beginnin’ to cook their suppers, when Magruder struck ’em on
the left flank.” (Elijah was wrong; it was not Magruder, but McLaws.
These local guides make many such mistakes, and it is necessary to be on
one’s guard against them.) “They jest got right up and skedaddled! The
whole line jest faced to the right, and put for Banks’s Ford. Thar’s the
road they went. They left it piled so full of wagons, Magruder couldn’t
follah, but his artillery jest run around by another road I’ll show ye,
hard as ever they could lay their feet to the ground, wheeled their guns
in position on the bluffs by the time Shedrick got cleverly to crossin’,
and played away. The way they heaped up Shedrick’s men was awful!”
Every mile or two we came to a small farm-house, commonly of logs, near
which there was usually a small crop of corn growing.
“Every man after he got home, after the fall of Richmond, put in to
raise a little somethin’ to eat. Some o’ the corn looks poo’ly, but it
beats no corn at all, all to pieces.”
We came to one field which Elijah pronounced a “monstrous fine crap.”
But he added,—
“I’ve got thirty acres to home not a bit sorrier ’n that. Ye see, that
mule of mine,” etc.
I noticed—what I never saw in the latitude of New England—that the
fodder had been pulled below the ears and tied in little bundles on the
stalks to cure. Ingenious shifts for fences had been resorted to by the
farmers. In some places the planks of the worn-out plank-road had been
staked and lashed together to form a temporary enclosure. But the most
common fence was what Elijah called “bresh wattlin’.” Stakes were first
driven into the ground, then pine or cedar brush bent in between them
and beaten down with a maul.
“Ye kin build a wattlin’ fence that way so tight a rabbit can’t git
through.”
On making inquiries, I found that farms of fine land could be had all
through this region for ten dollars an acre.
Elijah hoped that men from the North would come in and settle.
“But,” said he, “’t would be dangerous for any one to take possession of
a confiscated farm. He wouldn’t live a month.”
The larger land-owners are now more willing to sell.
“Right smart o’ their property was in niggers; they’re pore now, and
have to raise money.
“The emancipation of slavery,” added Elijah, “is wo’kin’ right for the
country mo’e ways ’an one. The’ a’n’t two men in twenty, in middlin’
sarcumstances, but that’s beginnin’ to see it. I’m no friend to the
niggers, though. They ought all to be druv out of the country. They
won’t wo’k as long as they can steal. I have my little crap o’ corn, and
wheat, and po’k. When night comes, I must sleep; then the niggers come
and steal all I’ve got.”
I pressed him to give an instance of the negroes’ stealing his property.
He could not say that they had taken anything from him lately, but they
“used to” rob his cornfields and hen-roosts, and “they would again.” Had
he ever caught them at it? No, he could not say that he ever had. Then
how did he know that the thieves were negroes? He knew it, because
“niggers would steal.”
“Won’t white folks steal too, sometimes?”
“Yes,” said Elijah, “some o’ the poo’ whites are a durned sight wus’n
the niggers!”
“Then why not drive them out of the country too? You see,” said I, “your
charges against the negroes are vague, and amount to nothing.”
“I own,” he replied, “thar’s now and then one that’s ekal to any white
man. Thar’s one a-comin’ thar.”
A load of wood was approaching, drawn by two horses abreast and a mule
for leader. A white-haired old negro was riding the mule.
“He is the greatest man!” said Elijah, after we had passed. “He’s been
the support of his master’s family for twenty year and over. He kin
manage a heap better’n his master kin. The’ a’n’t a farmer in the
country kin beat him. He keeps right on jest the same now he’s free;
though I suppose he gits wages.”
“You acknowledge, then, that some of the negroes are superior men?”
“Yes, thar’s about ten in a hundred, honest and smart as anybody.”
“That,” said I, “is a good many. Do you suppose you could say more of
the white race, if it had just come out of slavery?”
“I don’t believe,” said Elijah, “that ye could say as much!”
We passed the remains of the house “whar Harrow was shot.” It had been
burned to the ground.
“You’ve heerd about Harrow; he was Confederate commissary; he stole mo’e
hosses f’om the people, and po’ed the money down his own throat, than
would have paid fo’ fo’ty men like him, if he was black.”
A mile or two farther on, we came to another house.
“Hyer’s whar the man lives that killed Harrow. He was in the army, and
because he objected to some of Harrow’s doin’s, Harrow had him arrested,
and treated him very much amiss. That ground into his conscience and
feelin’s, and he deserted fo’ no other puppose than to shoot him. He’s a
mighty smart fellah! He’ll strike a man side the head, and soon ’s his
fist leaves it, his foot’s thar. He shot Harrow in that house you see
burnt to the ground, and then went spang to Washington. O, he was
sharp!”
On our return we met the slayer of Harrow riding home from
Fredericksburg on a mule,—a fine-looking young fellow, of blonde
complexion, a pleasant countenance, finely chiselled nose and lips, and
an eye full of sunshine. “Jest the best-hearted, nicest young fellah in
the we’ld, till ye git him mad; then look out!” I think it is often the
most attractive persons, of fine temperaments, who are capable of the
most terrible wrath when roused.
The plank-road was in such a ruined condition that nobody thought of
driving on it, although the dirt road beside it was in places scarcely
better. The back of the seat was cruel, notwithstanding the corn-stalks.
But by means of much persuasion, enforced by a good whip, Elijah kept
the old horse jogging on. Oak-trees, loaded with acorns, grew beside the
road. Black-walnuts, already beginning to lose their leaves, hung their
delicate balls in the clear light over our heads. Poke-weeds, dark with
ripening berries, wild grapes festooning bush and tree, sumachs
thrusting up through the foliage their sanguinary spears,
persimmon-trees, gum-trees, red cedars, with their bluish-green
clusters, chestnut-oaks, and chincapins, adorned the wild wayside.
So we approached Chancellorsville, twelve miles from Fredericksburg.
Elijah was raised in that region, and knew everybody.
“Many a frolic have I had runnin’ the deer through these woods! Soon as
the dogs started one, he’d put fo’ the river, cross, take a turn on
t’other side, and it wouldn’t be an hour ’fo’e he’d be back ag’in. Man I
lived with used to have a mare that was trained to hunt; if she was in
the field and heard the dogs, she’d whirl her tail up on her back, lope
the fences, and go spang to the United States Ford, git thar ’fo’e the
dogs would, and hunt as well without a rider as with one.”
But since then a far different kind of hunting, a richer blood than the
deer’s, and other sounds than the exciting yelp of the dogs, had
rendered that region famous.
“Hyer we come to the Chancellorsville farm. Many a poo’ soldier’s
knapsack was emptied of his clothes, after the battle, along this road!”
said Elijah, remembering last winter’s business with his mule.
The road runs through a large open field bounded by woods. The marks of
hard fighting were visible from afar off. A growth of saplings edging
the woods on the south had been killed by volleys of musketry: they
looked like thickets of bean-poles. The ground everywhere, in the field
and in the woods, was strewed with mementos of the battle,—rotting
knapsacks and haversacks, battered canteens and tin cups, and fragments
of clothing which Elijah’s customers had not deemed it worth the while
to pick up. On each side of the road were breastworks and rifle-pits
extending into the woods. The clearing, once a well-fenced farm of
grain-fields and clover-lots, was now a dreary and deserted common. Of
the Chancellorsville House, formerly a large brick tavern, only the
half-fallen walls and chimney-stacks remained. Here General Hooker had
his head-quarters until the wave of battle on Sunday morning rolled so
hot and so near that he was compelled to withdraw. The house was soon
after fired by a Rebel shell, when full of wounded men, and burned.
“Every place ye see these big bunches of weeds, that’s whar tha’ was
hosses or men buried,” said Elijah. “These holes are whar the bones have
been dug up for the bone-factory at Fredericksburg.”
It was easy for the bone-seekers to determine where to dig. The common
was comparatively barren, except where grew those gigantic clumps of
weeds. I asked Elijah if he thought many human bones went to the
factory.
“Not unless by mistake. But people a’n’t always very partic’lar about
mistakes thar’s money to be made by.”
Seeing a small enclosure midway between the road and the woods on the
south, we walked to it, and found it a burying-ground ridged with
unknown graves. Not a head-board, not an inscription, indicated who were
the tenants of that little lonely field. And Elijah knew nothing of its
history; it had been set apart, and the scattered dead had been gathered
together and buried there, since he passed that way.
We found breastworks thrown up all along by the plank-road west of the
farm,—the old worn planks having been put to good service in their
construction. The tree-trunks pierced by balls, the boughs lopped off by
shells, the strips of timber cut to pieces by artillery and musketry
fire, showed how desperate the struggle on that side had been. The
endeavors of the Confederates to follow up with an overwhelming victory
Jackson’s swift and telling blows on our right, and the equally
determined efforts of our men to retrieve that disaster, rendered this
the scene of a furious encounter.
Elijah thought that if Jackson had not been killed by his own men after
delivering that thunderstroke, Hooker would have been annihilated.
“Stonewall” was undoubtedly the enemy’s best fighting General. His death
was to them equal to the loss of many brigades. With regard to the
manner of his death there can be no longer any doubt. I have conversed
with Confederate officers who were in the battle, all of whom agree as
to the main fact. General Jackson, after shattering our right wing,
posted his pickets at night with directions to fire upon any man or body
of men that might approach. He afterwards rode forward to reconnoitre,
returned inadvertently by the same road, and was shot by his own orders.