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FOUR YEARS UNDER MARSE ROBERT:
Electronic Edition.

Stiles, Robert, 1836-1905

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition
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First edition, 1999
ca. 800 KB
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1999.

        © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

Call number 973.78 S856f 1904 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)


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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

LC Subject Headings:

Portrait

Title Page

FOUR YEARS UNDER
MARSE ROBERT

BY

ROBERT STILES
Major of Artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia

THIRD EDITION
EIGHTH THOUSAND

NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904

Page verso

Copyright, 1903, by Robert Stiles
Copyright, 1904, by Robert Stiles

Page vii

        TO
THAT GREAT CAPTAIN
TO WHOM THE WORLD TO-DAY ATTRIBUTES MORE OF THE
LOFTIEST VIRTUES AND POWERS OF HUMANITY, WITH
LESS OF ITS GROSSNESS AND LITTLENESS, THAN TO
ANY OTHER MILITARY HERO IN HISTORY; AND
TO
MY COMRADES
LIVING AND DEAD--WHO COMPOSED
THAT IMMORTAL ARMY WHICH FOUGHT OUT FOR HIM
HIS MAGNIFICENT CAMPAIGNS

Page ix

CONTENTS

Page 17

FOUR YEARS UNDER
MARSE ROBERT

CHAPTER I

EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE--SCHEME OF THE WORK

        "Four years under Marse Robert."

        At the first blush this title may strike one as inaccurate, lacking in dignity, and bordering on the sensational. Yet the author prefers it to any other and is ready to defend it; while admitting, though this may seem inconsistent, that explanations are in order.

        Not one of his men was an actual follower of Robert Lee for four full years. In fact, he was not himself in the military service of Virginia and of the Confederate States together for that length of time, and he did not assume personal command of what was then the Confederate "Army of the Potomac" and later, under his leadership, became the "Army of Northern Virginia," until June 1, 1862.

        But more than a year before, indeed just after the secession of the State, Governor Letcher had appointed Lee to the chief command of the Virginia troops, which, under his plastic hand, in spite of vast obstacles, were turned over in a few weeks in fair soldierly condition to the Confederate Government, and became the nucleus of the historic Army of Northern Virginia; and their commander was created one of the five full generals provided for by law in the military service of the Confederate States.

        As full general in the Confederate service, Lee was not at first assigned to particular command, but remained at Richmond as "Military Adviser to the President." In that

Page 18

position, as also in his assignment, somewhat later, to the conduct, under the advice of the President, of the operations of all the armies of the Confederate States, he of course had more or less supervision and control of the armies in Virginia. Such continued to be Lee's position and duties, and his relations to the troops in Virginia, until General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the army defending Richmond, was struck down at Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, June 1st, 1862, when President Davis appointed Lee to succeed him in command of that army.

        From this brief review it appears clearly that the men who, after June 1st, 1862, followed Lee's banner and were under his immediate command were, even before that time and from the very outset, in a large and true sense his soldiers and under his control; so that, while strictly speaking no soldier followed Lee for four years, yet we who served in Virginia from the beginning to the end of the war are entitled, in the customary and popular sense, to speak of our term of service as "Four years under Lee."

        But our claim is, "Four years under MARSE ROBERT." Why "Marse Robert?"

        So, in Innes Randolph's inimitable song, "A Good Old Rebel," the hero thus vaunts his brief but glorious annals:


                        "I followed old Mars' Robert
                        For four year, near about;
                        Got wounded in three places
                        And starved at Pint Lookout."

        Again, why "Mars' Robert?"

        The passion of soldiers for nicknaming their favorite leaders, re-christening them according to their unfettered fancy and their own sweet will, is well known. "The Little Corporal," "The Iron Duke," "Marshall Forwards," "Bobs," "Bobs Bahadur," "Little Mac," "Little Phil," "Fighting Joe," "Stonewall," "Old Jack," "Old Pete," "Old Jube," "Jubilee," "Rooney," "Fitz," "Marse Robert"--all these and many more are familiar. There is something grotesque about most of them and in many, seemingly, rank disrespect. Yet the habit has never been regarded as a violation

Page 19

of military law, and the commanding general of an army, if a staunch fighter, and particularly if victory often perches on his banner, is very apt to win the noways doubtful compliment of this rough and ready knighthood from his devoted troops. But however this may be, "Marse Robert" is far away above the rest of these soldier nicknames in pathos and in power.

        In the first place, it is essentially military.

        Though in form and style as far as possible removed from that model, this quaint title yet rings true upon the elemental basis of military life--unquestioning and unlimited obedience. It embodies the strongest possible expression of the short creed of the soldier:


                        "Theirs not to reason why,
                        Theirs but to do and die."

        I do not believe an army ever existed which surpassed Lee's ragged veterans in hearty acceptance and daily practice of this soldier creed, and there is no telling to what extent their peculiar nickname for their leader was responsible for this characteristic trait of his followers. Men who spoke habitually of their commanding general as "Master" could not but feel the reflex influence of this habit upon their own character as soldiers. This much may certainly be said of this graphic title of the great captain; but this is not all.

        "Marse Robert!" It goes without saying that the title is distinctively Southern.

        The homely phrase was an embodiment of the earliest and strongest associations of the men applied in reverent affection, but also in defiant yet pathetic protest. It was, in some sense, an outcry of the social system of the South assailed and imperilled by the war and doomed to perish in the great convulsion. The title "Marse Robert" fitted at once the life of the soldier and the life of the slave, because both were based upon the principle of absolute obedience to absolute authority.

        In this connection it may not be uninteresting to note--what is perhaps not generally known--that during the

Page 20

last months of the war the Confederate authorities canvassed seriously the policy of arming the Southern slaves and putting them in the field as soldiers. I was told by a leading member of the Senate of Virginia that, by special invitation, General Lee came over from Petersburg and appeared before, as I remember, a joint committee of the two Houses, to which this matter had been referred, and gave his opinion in favor of the experiment upon the ground, mainly, that unhesitating and unlimited obedience--the first great lesson of the soldier-- was ingrained, if not inborn, in the Southern slave.

        Yet once more--to christen Lee "Master" was an act of homage peculiarly appropriate to his lofty and masterful personality.

        There never could have been a second "Marse Robert;" as, but for the unparalleled elevation and majesty of his character and bearing, there would never have been the first. He was of all men most attractive to us, yet by no means most approachable. We loved him much, but we revered him more. We never criticised, never doubted him; never attributed to him either moral error or mental weakness; no, not even in our secret hearts or most audacious thoughts. I really believe it would have strained and blurred our strongest and clearest conceptions of the distinction between right and wrong to have entertained, even for a moment, the thought that he had ever acted from any other than the purest and loftiest motive. I never but once heard of such a suggestion, and then it so transported the hearers that military subordination was forgotten and the colonel who heard it rushed with drawn sword against the major-general who made it.

        The proviso with which a ragged rebel accepted the doctrine of evolution, that "the rest of us may have descended or ascended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse Robert," had more than mere humor in it.

        I am not informed whether the figure of speech to which I am about to refer ever obtained outside the South, or whether its use among us was generally known beyond our borders. It undoubtedly originated with our negroes, being

Page 21

an expression of their affectionate reverence for their masters, by metaphor, transferred to the one great "Lord and Master" of us all; but it is certainly also true that Southern white men, and especially Southern soldiers, were in the habit--and that without the least consciousness of irreverence--of referring to the Divine Being as "Old Marster," in connection especially with our inability to comprehend His inscrutable providences and our duty to bow to His irreversible decrees. There is no way in which I can illustrate more vividly the almost worship with which Lee's soldiers regarded him than by saying that I once overheard a conversation beside a camp fire between two Calvinists in Confederate rags and tatters, shreds and patches, in which one simply and sincerely inquired of his fellow, who had just spoken of "Old Marster," whether he referred to "the one up at headquarters or the One up yonder."

        We never compared him with other men, either friend or foe. He was in a superlative and absolute class by himself. Beyond a vague suggestion, after the death of Jackson, as to what might have been if he had lived, I cannot recall even an approach to a comparative estimate of Lee.

        As to his opponents, we recked not at all of them, but only of the immense material force behind them; and as to that, we trusted our commanding general like a providence. There was at first a mild amusement in the rapid succession of the Federal commanders, but even this grew a little trite and tame. There was, however, one point of great interest in it, and that was our amazement that an army could maintain even so much as its organization under the depressing strain of these successive appointments and removals of its commanding generals. And to-day I, for one, regard the fact that it did preserve its cohesion and its fighting power under and in spite of such experiences, as furnishing impressive demonstration of the high character and intense loyalty of our historic foe, the Federal Army of the Potomac.

        As to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, so far as I know or have reason to believe, but one man in the Confederate States ever dared to suggest a change, and that

Page 22

one was Lee himself, who--after the battle of Gettysburg, and again, I think, though I cannot verify it, when his health gave way for a time under the awful strain of the campaign of '64--suggested that it might be well he should give way to a younger and stronger man. But the fact is, that Lee's preeminent fitness for supreme command was so universally recognized that, in spite of the obligation of a soldier to undertake the duties of any position to which he may be assigned by competent authority, I doubt whether there was an officer in all the armies of the Confederacy who would have consented to accept appointment as Lee's successor in command of the Army of Northern Virginia--possibly there was one--and I am yet more disposed to question whether that army would have permitted Lee to resign his place or any other to take it. Looking back over its record, from Seven Pines to Appomattox, I am satisfied that the unquestioned and unquestionable preeminence, predominance, and permanence of Lee, as its commander-in-chief, was one of the main elements which made the Army of Northern Virginia what it was.

        I have said we never criticised him. I ought, perhaps, to make one qualification of this statement. It has been suggested by others and I have myself once or twice felt that Lee was too lenient, too full of sweet charity and allowance. He did not, as Jackson did, instantly and relentlessly remove incompetent officers.

        The picture is before you, and yet it is not intended as a full picture, but only as such a presentation of him, from the point of view of his soldiers, as will explain and justify the quaint title which they habitually applied to their great commander. I have not attempted and shall not attempt a complete portrait. Why should I, when the most eloquent tongues and pens of two continents have labored to present, with fitting eulogy, the character and career of our great Cavalier. It is our patent of nobility that he is to-day regarded--the world over--as the representative of the soldiery of the South.

Page 23

        Not only is it true of him, as already intimated, that he uniformly acted from the highest motive presented to his soul-- but so impressive and all-compelling was the majesty of his virtue that it is doubtful whether any one ever questioned aught of this. It is perhaps not too much to say that the common consensus of Christendom--friend and foe and neutral-- ranks him as one of the greatest captains of the ages and attributes to him more of the noblest virtues and powers, with less of the ordinary selfishness and littleness of humanity, than to any other great soldier. This is what is meant by our dedication--that the world has come to view him very much as his ragged followers did in the grand days when they were helping him to make history.

        Can you point to another representative man upon whom the light of modern day has been focussed with such intensity, of whom these supreme things may be said with so little strain; or rather, with acquiescence practically universal? For our part, we say emphatically--we know not where to look for the man.

        The scheme of this book is a modest one. The author makes no pretense that he is qualified to write history or to discuss learnedly, from a professional standpoint, the battles and campaigns of armies; while of course an old veteran cannot be expected always and absolutely to refrain from saying how the thing looked to him. All that is really proposed--and the writer will be more than content if he acquit but rather to select and record such incidents, arranged of course in a general orderly sequence, as are deemed to be of himself fairly well of this limited design--is to state clearly and truthfully what he saw and experienced as a private soldier and subordinate officer in the military service of the Confederate States in Virginia from '61 to '65.

        It is not proposed, however, to give a consecutive recital of all that occurred during these four years, even within the narrow range of the writer's observation and experience; inherent interest, or to shed light upon the portrait of the Confederate soldier, the personality of prominent actors in the war drama upon the Southern side, the salient points

Page 24

of the great conflict, or the general conditions of life in and behind the Confederate lines.

        Again, such are the imperfections of human observation and such the irregularities and errors of human memory, especially in the record of events long past, that many may be disposed to question the value of such a book as this, written to-day, relating to our civil war. I can only reply that not a few of the incidents recorded were reduced to writing years ago, indeed soon after they occurred; while perhaps as much has been gained in perspective as has been lost in detail, by waiting. Certainly it can be better determined to-day what is worthy of preservation and publication than it could have been immediately after the war.

        The slips and vagaries of memory, however, cannot be denied or excluded. It can only be said, "forewarned is forearmed." I shall endeavor to exercise that conscientious care which the character of the work requires, but cannot hope to attain uniform and unerring accuracy in every detail. In the record of conversations, interviews, and speeches I shall sometimes adopt the form of direct quotation, even where not able to recall the precise words employed by the speakers and interlocutors--if I am satisfied this form of narrative will best convey the real spirit of the occasion.

        And as the writer is, in the main, to relate what he saw and heard and did, he craves in advance charitable toleration of the first personal pronoun in the singular number.

Page 25

CHAPTER II

INTRODUCTORY SKETCHES

Ante-war History of the Author--The Fight for the "Speakership" in 1860-- Vallandigham, of Ohio--Richmond After the John Brown Raid--Whig and Democratic Conventions of Virginia in 1860.

        There are features of my antecedent personal history calculated, perhaps, to impart a somewhat special interest to my experiences as a Confederate soldier. I was the eldest son of the Rev. Joseph C. Stiles, a Presbyterian minister, born in Georgia, where his ancestors had lived and died for generations, but who moved to the North and, from my boyhood, had lived in New York City and in New Haven, Conn. I was prepared for college in the schools of these two cities and was graduated at Yale in 1859. It so happened that I had never visited the South since the original removal of the family, which occurred when I was some twelve years of age; so that practically all my education, associations and friendships were Northern. True, I took position as a Southerner in all our college discussions and debates, but never as a "fire-eater" or secessionist. Indeed, I was a strong "Union man" and voted for Bell and Everett in 1860.

        After my graduation in 1859 I passed the late summer and autumn in the Adirondack woods fishing and hunting with several classmates, and devoted the rest of the year to general reading and some little teaching, in New Haven; until, becoming deeply interested in the fierce struggle over the Speakership of the House of Representatives, I went to Washington, and from the galleries of the House and Senate eagerly overhung the great final debates. I had paid close attention to oratory during my college course and I doubt whether there was an onlooker in the Capitol more deeply absorbed than I. On more than one occasion

Page 26

the excitement and pressure of the crowd in the galleries of the House was fearful, and once at least persons were dragged out, more dead than alive, over the heads of others so densely packed that they could not move; but I never failed to secure a front seat.

        I grew well acquainted--that is, by sight--with the party leaders, and recall, among others, Seward and Douglas and Breckenridge, Davis and Toombs and Benjamin, in the Senate; Sherman and Stevens, Logan and Vallandigham, Pryor and Keitt, Bocock and Barksdale, and Smith, of Virginia, in the House. It became intensely interesting to me to observe the part some of these men played later in the great drama: Seward as the leading figure of Lincoln's Cabinet; Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy; Benjamin, Toombs, and Breckenridge as members of his Cabinet, the two latter also as generals whom I have more than once seen commanding troops in battle; "Black Jack" Logan,--hottest of all the hotspurs of the extreme Southern wing of the Democratic party in the House in 1860,--we all know where he was from '61 to '65; and glorious old "Extra Billy" Smith, soldier and governor by turns; Barksdale, who fell at Gettysburg, was my general, commanding the infantry brigade I knew and loved best of all in Lee's army and which often supported our guns; and poor Keitt! I saw him fall at Cold Harbor in '64 and helped to rally his shattered command.

        The Republican party had nominated John Sherman for Speaker, and he was resisted largely upon the ground of his endorsement of Hinton Rowan Helper's book, which was understood as inciting the negro slaves of the South to insurrection, fire, and blood. The John Brown raid had occurred recently, and Col. Robert E. Lee had led the party of United States Marines which captured the raiders and their leader. They had just been convicted and executed as murderers. The excitement was frightful and ominous, and scenes of the wildest disorder occurred in the House. One of these was in every way so remarkable that I ask leave to describe it somewhat fully.

        The Republican leaders had become convinced they could not elect Sherman, and about the same time the Democrats,

Page 27

seeing there was no possibility of electing their original candidate, Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia, had put up William N. H. Smith, of North Carolina, an old line Whig, or Southern American, and it seemed certain they would elect him. Indeed, he was elected and his election telegraphed all over the land; but before the result of the ballot could be announced, Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and E. Joy Morris, of Pennsylvania, as I recollect, Northern Americans or Republicans, who had voted for Smith, changed their votes and everything was again at sea. It was then openly proposed to withdraw Sherman; and John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, who had been elected as an anti-Lecompton Democrat, but had gone over to the Republicans, took the floor to resist what he characterized as cowardice and treachery. Hickman had not voted for Sherman until the crisis was reached, but had been openly charged, on the floor of the House, with secretly desiring and plotting to elect him. Pryor and Keitt and other hotheaded Southerners had attacked Hickman fiercely, and leading Northern Democrats had upbraided him for his desertion. Under these taunts and thrusts he had become the bitterest man upon the floor.

        In the gloom which seemed to overshadow the House, Hickman, as he rose, looked pale, repellent, ghastly, almost ghostly. Repeatedly during his harangue, which was really one of great power, he walked from his seat in the back part of the House, down the narrow aisle toward the Clerk's desk, his right arm lifted high above his head, his fist clinched and his whole frame trembling with passion, and as he reached the open space in front of the desk he would shriek out the climax of a paragraph, simultaneously smashing his fist wildly down upon a table that stood there.

        The speech produced a profound, almost awful, impression. I remember the peroration as if it were yesterday, as he shouted, on his last stride down the aisle, glaring around upon his Republican associates: "I know not and I care not what others may do, but as for me and my house, we intend to vote for John Sherman--until Gabriel's last trump, the crack of doom, and the day of judgment."

Page 28

        In spite of this powerful protest, as soon as the dilatory tactics of the opposition were exhausted and the ballot was called, it became evident that Sherman had been withdrawn; indeed he withdrew his own name, and Pennington, of New Jersey, a moderate Republican, and personally an unobjectionable man, was put up in his place. There was nothing that could now be done; this call of the roll would end it all.

        The Democrats went wild and every moment wilder, as the Republicans--even John Sherman's most devoted friends as their names were called--one after another fell into line and voted, full-voiced, for "Pennington." That is, all the Democrats went wild except Vallandigham, of Ohio. He sat coolly in his seat, while Barksdale, Keitt, Houston, Logan, and the rest surged around him. When they appealed to him, with excited gesticulations, he simply brushed them aside and kept his eyes fixed on a particular spot on the Republican side. As Hickman's name was called and he rose and voted for Pennington, Vallandigham sprang to his feet and, stretching out his right arm toward the Clerk's desk, in a long, resonant drawl that would not be drowned, he shouted: "Mr. Clerk, I move that this House do now adjourn!"

        Cries from the Republican side: "Sit down! Sit down! Order! Order! You can't interrupt the ballot! Sit down!"

        But Vallandigham went right on. He would not sit down, and he would interrupt the ballot--and he did.

        "Mr. Clerk, I move that this House do now adjourn; especially, sir"--both arms now extended, mouth wide open, eyes wide staring--"especially, sir, since we have just had Gabriel's last trump, the crack of doom and the day of judgment!"

        I question if anything like it ever occurred in the history of legislative bodies; or if any speech or stroke of daring leadership ever produced such an effect. A yell went up from the entire House--Democrats and Republicans joining in it. There was a wild burst and bolt, of perhaps half the delegates, out of the chamber, and then a rush of the rest for Vallandigham.

Page 29

        I remember that old Houston, of Alabama, who weighed about a ton, ran up, puffing like a porpoise, and threw his immense bulk into Vallandigham's arms, rolling him upon the floor. Poor Barksdale lost his wig in the scrimmage. In a twinkling the hero of the moment was lifted high upon the shoulders of his party friends, who marched triumphantly all over the House, bearing him aloft and almost waving him like a banner.

        By this flash of lightning out of the heavens, as it were, the Democrats gained another day, though they did not win the fight.*

        I cannot forbear another anecdote of this remarkable man; for while not an eye and ear witness to it as to that just related, the utterance attributed to him bears so unmistakably the impress of his vigorous, incisive intellect and his power of crushing sarcasm, that I am almost willing to vouch for the truth of the recital.

        As the story goes, some time during the first half of the war Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, or some other equally single-hearted patriot, alarmed at the rapid depreciation of the currency, offered in the House a measure providing in substance that gold should not be sold at a premium; when from
*It is proper to say that the Congressional Globe makes no mention of this remarkable episode--that is, of the startling culmination of it--though the facts and circumstances leading up to this culmination are there set out substantially as above related. The proceedings of the House, as recorded in the Globe at and about the date, are orderly and consecutive and the adjournments regular. The record, however, does show an adjournment over a day, and it may well be that the unparalleled occurrence above described took place upon that day. Those familiar with Congressional proceedings are aware of the usage or rule preventing any trace upon the record of an irregular or illegal session or adjournment of the House; e. g. the House has occasionally met for business on Sunday and even remained in session all that day, but the entire Sunday session --with everything transacted thereat--is entered as of the preceding day. Therefore, while not assured precisely how the thing was done in this instance, it is not unlikely that the irregular, illegal and abortive proceedings above described took place upon the day covered by the adjournment, and that the entry of the adjournment over that day was an after-thought.

Page 30

the back benches, where the little Democratic contingent was then wont to abide, Vallandigham arose and drawled out: "Mr. Speaker! I move you, sir, the following amendment to the bill: 'Provided that, during the pendency of this act, the laws of nature and of finance and of common sense be, and they are, hereby suspended.' "

        I do not know whether any biography of Vallandigham has been published, but one should be. We realize, of course, that his attitude, actions, and utterances during the war must have been as offensive and irritating to the bulk of the people of the Northern States as they were refreshing and delightful to us of the South; but we believe the time has come when men of all parties would be able to appreciate his tremendous vitality, his unconquerable courage, his unquenchable brilliance.

        And, by the way, his death, as the circumstances were narrated at the time in the public press, was even more marvelous and startling than any incident of his checkered life. As I recall the facts, some years after the close of the war he was senior counsel for the defense in a murder trial which excited great popular interest. There had been a collision between the supposed murderer and his victim, at the close of which the latter had fallen mortally wounded by a pistol shot.

        Vallandigham's theory was that he had been killed by the accidental discharge of his own weapon, and during an intermission in the trial, taking up a pistol, he proceeded to illustrate to his associate counsel just how the thing might have occurred, when, shocking to relate, it did so occur again--the pistol was accidentally discharged into his own person and Vallandigham fell dead.

        At the close of the prolonged fight over the Speakership I left Washington and ran down to Richmond, with a view of "spying out the land" as a place in which to try my fortune when I should have acquired my profession. My father had been pastor of a church in that city for four years during, my childhood, and had been much beloved by his people, who received me with more than old Virginia hospitality. I was charmed with everything I saw and every one I met,

Page 31

except that I was shocked and saddened by meeting everywhere young men of my own age in military uniform. They had not long since returned from the camp at Charlestown and the execution of John Brown, and it chilled me to see that they regarded themselves, as they proved indeed to be, the advance guard of the great army which would soon be embattled in defence of the South. I loved the Union passionately, and while I had seen a great deal at Washington that made me tremble for it, yet I had not there seen men armed and uniformed as actual soldiers in the war of disunion.

        It was not a little singular that most of these young men --that is to say, those whom for the most part I met in a social way--belonged to the Richmond Howitzers, the very corps which, without choice on my part, I joined in 1861, and with which I served during the greater part of the war.

        State conventions, both of the Whig and Democratic parties, sat in Richmond during my visit and discussed, of course, mainly the one absorbing issue. I was an eager observer of the proceedings and much impressed with the high average of intelligence and speaking power in both bodies. This seemed especially true of the Whig Convention--perhaps because I was so much in sympathy with that party in deprecating the disruption of the Union. I confess, however, the question has since been often pressed home upon me whether, after all, the Democrats of Virginia did not, in this great crisis, exhibit a higher degree of prescient statesmanship.

        Among the Whig leaders I distinctly recall William Ballard Preston, A. H. H. Stuart, Thomas Stanhope Flournoy, and John Minor Botts. I do not remember whether John B. Baldwin was a member of this convention of 1860. If so, I did not happen to hear him speak. Mr. Preston, Mr. Stuart, and Mr. Flournoy, as well as Mr. Baldwin, were, later, members of the Secession Convention of Virginia, but all were Union men up to President Lincoln's call for troops. Mr. Preston and Mr. Stuart were not only finished orators, but statesmen of ability and experience. Both had graced the Legislature of their State and the Congress of the United

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States, and both had been members of the Federal Cabinet --Mr. Preston during General Taylor's and Mr. Stuart during Mr. Fillmore's administration. Mr. Preston was afterwards a member of the Confederate Senate and Mr. Stuart one of the commissioners appointed by Virginia to confer with Mr. Lincoln as to his attitude and action toward the seceded States.

        Mr. Botts made a very powerful address before the convention, but the spirit of it did not please me. He belittled the John Brown raid, at the same time accusing Governor Wise of having done everything in his power to magnify it. He ridiculed the Governor's military establishment and his "men in buckram," while dubbing him "The un-epauletted hero of the Ossawattomie war." He said that old John Brown certainly did a good deal against the peace and prosperity of the commonwealth and the country, but added, "Whatever he left undone in this direction has been most effectually carried out by his executor, the late Governor of Virginia."

Page 33

CHAPTER III

FROM NEW YORK TO RICHMOND

Quieting Down to the Study of Law in New York--Progress of the Revolution --Virginia's Attempted Mediation--Firing on Sumter--Back to New Haven--a Remarkable Man and a Strange, Sad Story--Off for Dixie--In Richmond Again.

        At the close of this, my first visit South, I turned Northward, filled with admiration and affection for the Southern people and feeling that I had found my future home. Notwithstanding the dark shadow that impended, I little fancied that I would so soon again see the fair city of my choice and under circumstances changed so sadly. I was young, and as I turned my back upon Virginia and the John Brown raid, which were then the points of greatest tension, my strained nerves relaxed, and what I had seen and heard of evil portent faded away like a disturbing dream when one awakes.

        I found my dear ones well and the practical New Englanders, at least most of them, deeply immersed in business and finance. Like many wiser men, I felt reassured by the comforting conviction that the material interests of this rapidly developing country were too vast, too solid and priceless to be shattered and sacrificed in these superficial popular excitements.

        In the quiet of the family circle we discussed my plans and determined that I should enter the Law School of Columbia College in the approaching fall. I do not remember where I went or what I did during the summer vacation, but in the early autumn I came back thoroughly quieted, rested and refreshed, went promptly to New York City and entered with enthusiasm upon the study of my chosen profession under that admirable teacher, Professor Theodore W. Dwight, of Columbia.

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        For a time all went well. True, the ground swell of a mighty revolution was gradually rising at the South, but no one about me believed it would ever break in the angry waves of actual war, and I was not wiser than my fellows. Indeed I purposely turned my thoughts away, which for the time was not difficult to do, enamored as I was of the law.

        Three or four of us, Yale graduates and classmates, were in the same boarding-house on Washington Square. Ed Carrington, a youth of uncommon power and promise, who lost his life during the war in an obscure skirmish in Florida, like myself, was studying law, but he roomed with Joe Twichell, who was then studying theology; dear Joe, who preached the bi-centennial sermon at Yale, and is to-day, as he has always been, the most admired and best beloved man of the class of '59. My room-mate was Tom Lounsbury, then employed in literary work on one of the great encyclopedias, to-day the distinguished incumbent of the Chair of English in Yale University.

        But this peace was not to last long. The election of Lincoln, the rapid secession of the Southern States, the formation of the Southern Confederacy, the inauguration of the Presidents, first of the new and then of the old federation; the adoption by the seceded States of a different and a permanent Constitution--all this tended strongly to convince thoughtful men that the two sections, or the two countries, were deeply in earnest and differed radically and irreconcilably as to the construction of the United States Constitution. Then came the strained situation in Charleston harbor, and the futile efforts of the Peace Congress called by Virginia, and later, of her commissioners and those appointed by the Confederate Government to wait upon President Lincoln.

        It is unnecessary to say that, though striving hard to maintain my hold upon the law, I was yet far from an indifferent spectator of this majestic march of events. I went repeatedly to talk with two or three of the leading business men of New York, who had been friends and parishioners of my father while pastor of a church in that

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city, and was delighted to find them hopeful; relying not only upon the weight and influence of material and business interests to avert actual war, but also, and especially, upon the noble intervention and mediation of Virginia.

        It made my heart glow to hear how these great financiers and merchant princes spoke of my adopted State. They said in effect, that it had always been so; that Virginia was undoubtedly the greatest and most influential of all the States; that she had been the nursing mother of the Union and of the country and would prove their preserver; that Virginians had really made the United States in the olden days,--Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,--and Virginians would save the United States to-day. They declared that they had always worshiped the Old Dominion, and now, more than ever, for the noble position she had assumed in this crisis.

        How could I help glowing with pride and brightening with hope! Alas! the shriek of the first shell that burst over Sumter shattered these fair hopes--and pandemonium reigned in New York.

        It is not within the province of this book to discuss the responsibility for that shell. I will, however, be candid enough to say that I never entertained a doubt as to the South having the best of the Constitutional argument; and yet, so strong was my love for the Union and my affection for my friends, at least nine-tenths of whom were on the Northern side, that I often felt, and more than once said, I could never strike a blow or fire a shot in the conflict, if it should come. Nevertheless, I was inexorably led in the sequel to give myself unreservedly and whole-heartedly to the defense of the South.

        One link in the chain that led to this decision was the conviction that forced itself upon me that I could not remain in New York. After the firing upon Sumter the whole city was in an uproar. A wild enthusiasm for "the flag" seized and swept the entire population, which surged through streets hung with banners and bunting, their own persons bedecked with small United States flags and other patriotic devices. It is not worth while to go further into these details.

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Enough to say that it was manifestly as uncomfortable and impracticable, at that time, for me to remain in New York as for an able-bodied young man, of strong convictions on the Northern side of the controversy, to remain in Richmond.

        Therefore I returned to New Haven, where, with the entire family assembled, we conferred over the situation and decided that father and his three boys must go South as soon as possible, leaving mother and the girls to follow when the way should be clear and we ready to receive them. As there was no assurance of reaching our destination in safety without passports, father, who knew General Scott well, applied to him for passes South for himself and his three boys. The General replied, sending my father a pass, but refusing to furnish passports for his sons, and it then became necessary for us boys to devise some route, other than the railroads, for reaching our Southern friends.

        My next younger brother was an expert sailor, having followed the sea for years, and was recognized as perhaps the most daring and skilful manager of a small sailing craft to be found about New Haven harbor, or indeed anywhere in that part of Long Island Sound. As there seemed to be no other way to Virginia open to us, we bought a staunch, swift sail-boat, had her carefully caulked and overhauled, and set to work to make her some extra sails which my brother thought we might need during our voyage. We procured a copy of a detailed survey of the coast along that part of the Eastern Shore of Virginia where we proposed to land, and also letters to gentlemen living along that coast. The preparation of the boat and the working up of our expedition was a great relief, not only in giving us something to do, but also in holding out the prospect of interesting adventure accompanied by a reasonable spice of peril.

        About this time I discovered, in taking a sort of spiritual inventory of myself, that I had passed to another and distinct stage of feeling and of purpose. I believed firmly my people in the South were right; I knew well they were weak; I saw clearly they were about to be invaded; and I was striving to get to them. To what end? With what purpose? To

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give them another mouth to feed, or to give them another man to fight? Right, weakness, invasion!--how could there be any save one inference from such a trinity of propositions? I did not fully realize this process as it was wrought out in me; but when I came to find my scruples and my shrinking gone-- though not my sorrow--I looked back and plainly saw the path along which I had been led. From that hour, throughout the four years of my service as a Confederate soldier, never did I entertain a doubt as to my being where I should be and doing what I should do.

        While our boat was making ready for the trip, some one called at the house and asked for me, but sent no card, so I went to the reception-room, having no idea who my visitor was.

        "Why, Beers!" I cried, "what are you doing here?" He was very pale, and had evidently been subjected to severe mental and moral tension--nevertheless, Yankee-like, he answered my question by asking another, "What are you going to do?" "Oh," said I, "we are going South by sail-boat; General Scott won't let us go by railroad." Instantly he replied, "I am going with you."

        Who was the man who thus, without hesitation, reservation or condition, cast in his lot with us?

        The story is in every way so remarkable that I cannot forbear a full recital of it. It should not be forgotten, however, that while the peace of death has, years agone, passed upon the chief actor in this strange, sad drama, and probably also upon most of his relatives living when he died--there may yet be others now living to whom the record of his life and death must needs be somewhat painful; therefore I shall endeavor to tell the story simply and quietly.

        When I first knew James H. Beers he was an intelligent young mechanic--originally, I think, from Bridgeport, Conn., but at the time living in New Haven, where I was a college student. We were both members of a Bible-class connected with a church of which my father was then pastor, and Mr. Gerard Hallock, of the New York Journal of Commerce, the most prominent member.

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        Soon after my first acquaintance with Beers, Mr. Hallock became interested in him, attracted by his regular attendance at church and Bible-class, and his modest yet self-respectful and intelligent bearing, and he took him to New York in some subordinate capacity connected with his paper. This was a few years before the war, but Beers continued to visit New Haven often, perhaps regularly. We heard from time to time that he had exhibited unusual facility for journalism and had been rapidly advanced, until he had come to be an assistant to the night editor of Mr. Hallock's great paper. It was probably through his connection with the leading Democratic daily that he imbibed the views he held as to the construction of the Federal Constitution and the relations between the Federal Government and the States; views which he followed to their logical conclusion and in defense of which he ultimately laid down his life.

         As the sectional excitement increased and civil war became more and more imminent, Beers grew more and more restless and unhappy, until actual hostilities began with the bombardment of Sumter, when he informed Mr. Hallock that it would be impossible for him to continue to discharge his duties upon the paper. Thereupon he left New York and appeared in New Haven, as above described.

        When he announced his determination of going with us I discouraged it, reminding him that he was a Northern man and had, besides, a wife and two little girls to provide for; mentioning also his fine position and prospects, all of which would necessarily be sacrificed. He replied that he had some money which he would leave with my mother, trusting her to use it for his wife and children and to bring them South when she came; adding that God never gave a man a wife and children to stand in the way of the discharge of his plain duty, and that it was plainly his duty to go with us and aid the South in defense of her clear and clearly-violated rights.

        I cut the matter short by referring him to my father, and he at once went to his room and saw him. Father afterwards told me it was obvious that Mr. Beers' mind was irrevocably made up and that it would be worse than useless to

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resist him further; so it was settled that he was to go with us. I do not remember whether his wife and children were then in New Haven, but they were committed by him to the care of our mother and sisters, and later followed Beers to Virginia, as I now recollect, in company with the ladies of our family.

        Everything was arranged and we were to embark and sail on a certain night, but during the preceding day a telegram was received from a friend who was standing guard for us in Washington, which by a sort of prearranged cipher we understood to mean that we could slip through safely if we left New York by a certain train the next day. My recollection is that it was deemed best to divide the party--Beers, my next younger brother and I getting off so as to catch the train indicated; father and my youngest brother, then below fighting age, following later.

        We reached Washington and got safely across the river and to our destination, but, by some untoward accident, Beers was left behind and experienced some difficulty in dodging the provost guard and completing the last stage of his "on to Richmond." We were very uneasy, met every train from the North, and were unspeakably relieved when he arrived. We had told his story to our friends and he was welcomed into the same hospitable family circle which was entertaining us. The city was crowded with people, but the sons of Virginia were flocking home to her defense and every heart and every door was open to receive them.

        A day of two after his arrival a most unpleasant experience befell poor Beers. Walking by himself in the street, he was arrested as a spy and locked up in the negro jail. For hours we were unable to ascertain what had become of him, and when we did find out it was too late to procure his release on habeas corpus; so with profound mortification and profuse apologies we had to content ourselves with doing what we could to make him comfortable where he was, he protesting that he needed nothing and could suffer no real inconvenience that one night. Indeed, noble fellow that he was, he met me with a manly smile at the door of his cell, expressing mingled amusement and approbation; saying that

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while the charge of his being a spy was a little wide of the mark, yet the mistake was a very natural one, that there were doubtless numbers of such characters about, and he was glad to see that we were on the alert for them.

        Next morning, when his case was called in the Mayor's Court, something of the truth with regard to him had gotten abroad and the court-room was crowded with the first gentlemen of Richmond. I was the main witness, and it goes without saying that the dramatic points of Beers' strange story, especially those that would most commend him to the Southern people, lost nothing in the telling. He was not only honorably discharged, but he was vociferously cheered by the entire audience, and he walked out of the court-room the idol of the hour--the rest of the last rebel reinforcement from the North shining somewhat in his reflected light. Thus, to our great relief, the awkward contretemps of his arrest contributed rather to the reputation and advantage of our friend.

        I recall this additional incident: Mr. John Randolph Tucker--"Ran. Tucker"--then Attorney-General of Virginia, was an intimate friend of my father, who had now arrived in Richmond, and suggested to him that Mr. Beers and I, as we were citizens of the State of Connecticut--where I had recently cast my first vote--were in rather an exceptional position, as bearing upon a possible charge of treason, in case we should enlist in the military service. The suggestion was deemed of sufficient importance to refer to Mr. Benjamin, then Attorney-General of the Confederate States, and Mr. Tucker and I interviewed him about it. These two great lawyers concurred in the view that the principles which protected citizens of the Southern and seceded States were, to say the least, of doubtful application to us, and that it would probably go rather hard with us if we should be captured. Notwithstanding, I enlisted, and Beers would probably have done so with equal promptness had he not been an expert mechanic--men so qualified being then very scarce in Richmond and very much needed. He was asked to assist in changing some old flintlocks belonging to the State of Virginia into percussion muskets, and all of us insisting that he

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could thus render far more valuable service than by enlisting in the ranks, he reluctantly yielded and went to work.

        How long he was thus employed I do not know. My youngest brother went on to our relatives in Georgia, but soon after his arrival there insisted upon enlisting in one of the battalions for coast defense. My sailor brother and I enlisted in Richmond and joined the army at Manassas. I saw but little of Beers after this. Just when he entered the army I cannot say, but it must have been some time before the battles around Richmond in the early summer of 1862; for on the battle field of Malvern Hill I met some of the men of the "Letcher Artillery," to which he belonged, who told me that my "Yankee" was the finest gunner in the battery and fought like a Turk. Between Malvern Hill and Chancellorsville I saw Beers perhaps two or three times--I think once in Richmond, after his wife and children and my mother and sisters arrived from the North.

        I have seldom seen a better-looking soldier. He was about five feet eleven inches in height, had fine shoulders, chest and limbs, carried his head high, had clustering brown hair, a steel-gray eye and a splendid sweeping moustache. Every now and then I heard from some man or officer of his battery, or of Pegram's Battalion, some special praise of his gallantry in action, but as he was in A. P. Hill's command and I then in Longstreet's, we seldom met. I am confident there is no battle-scarred veteran of Pegram's Battalion living to-day but stands ready to vouch for Beers as the equal of any soldier in the command, and some of them tenderly recall him as a good and true soldier of Jesus Christ as well as of Robert Lee. He was in the habit of holding religious services with the men of his battalion on every fitting occasion--services which they highly appreciated.

        Just after the battle of Chancellorsville I was in Richmond, having recently received an appointment in "engineer troops." I am unable to recall the details, but I was notified to meet poor Beers' body at the train. Colonel, afterwards General, R. L. Walker (Lindsay Walker), commanding A. P. Hill's artillery, hearing that Beers had been killed on the 3d of May and buried upon the field, had the body exhumed and sent to me at Richmond.

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        It is strange how everything connected with the burial, except the sad scene at the grave, seems to have faded out of my recollection. I know he was buried in our family lot in Hollywood, and as no one of us was buried there for long years after this, we must have bought the lot for the purpose. I remember, too, that we laid him to rest with military honors, Captain Gay's company, the "Virginia State Guard," acting as escort; and I must have ridden in the carriage with the stricken widow and his two little girls, for I distinctly recall standing between the children at the side of the open grave and holding a hand of each as the body of their hero-father was lowered to its last resting place. I remember, too, that not a muscle of their pale, sweet faces quivered as the three volleys were fired over the low mound that covered him. They were the daughters of a soldier.

        There stands to-day over the grave a simple granite marker bearing this inscription:

JAMES H. BEERS,
of Connecticut,
Who Fell at Chancellorsville,
Fighting for Virginia and the South,
May 3, 1863.

        My story is done, and I feel that it is worthy of recital and remembrance. Indeed it embodies the most impressive instance I have ever known of trenchant, independent thought and uncalculating, unflinching obedience to the resulting conviction of duty--"obedience unto death."

        Observe, Beers had never been South and had no idea of ever going there until the Southern States were invaded. Observe again, he was not a man without ties, a homeless and heartless adventurer; but a complete man--a man blessed with wife and children and home, and withal a faithful and affectionate husband and father. Observe once more, he was not an unsuccessful or disappointed man. On the contrary, I have seldom known a man who had a position more perfectly congenial and satisfactory to him or whose prospects were brighter or more assured. It was simply and purely his conviction of right and of duty which led him to us and to his brave death.

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        One feature of the poor fellow's story, of intense color, has been purposely omitted. I refer to his parting with his parents. It is my strong desire that this sketch shall not contain one word calculated to bring unnecessary pain to the heart of any relative of my dear friend under whose eye it may chance to fall. If being a Southerner you would pass just and charitable judgment upon his family, try for a moment to conceive what would have been the feelings of a Southern father and mother and family circle toward a son and brother who, in 1861 had proposed to go North for the purpose of fighting against his people and his State.

        My recollection is that Mrs. Beers did not long survive her husband. It gives me pleasure to say that, so far as I know, the family of Mr. Beers did their duty by his children. I tried to have the little girls adopted in the South, and came very near succeeding, yet perhaps it was, after all, well that their friends sent for them and that they finally returned to the North.

        It is well, too, that there are not more men like Beers in the world. The bands of organized society are not strong enough to endure many such. They are too trenchant, too independent, to be normal or safe. It is well that most of us believe and think and feel and act with the mass of our fellow-beings about us. If it were not so, quiet and harmonious society would be impossible; it would dissolve and perish in fierce internecine strife. And yet, when every now and then God turns out a man of different mould, a man brave enough and strong enough not to be dominated in opinion, in conscience, or in action by his associates--we ordinary men, of average human stature and strength, realize how almost pitifully small and weak we are.

        The mound that covers James H. Beers is indeed low and humble, yet where will you dig in earth's surface to find richer dust? I rejoice that he lies where he does, hard by my dear ones and where my own body will soon rest, so that when the resurrection trump shall call us all forth, after running over the roll of my beloved and finding them "all present or accounted for," I can turn my eyes to the right and greet the hero whose sacred dust I have guarded all these years.

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CHAPTER IV

FROM CIVIL TO MILITARY LIFE

Off for Manassas--First Glimpse of an Army and a Battle-field--The Richmond Howitzers--Intellectual Atmosphere of the Camp--Essential Spirit of the Southern Volunteer.

        The exact dates of the personal movements and experiences thus far narrated cannot be determined. This is largely due to a habit of destroying family letters, and this to a weak dread of opening them, or even of looking upon them, after the lapse of years.

        Up to this point the lack of such letters has signified little. It can make little difference just when I left New York for New Haven, or when we left New Haven for Richmond, or Richmond for Manassas. This book is not intended to be a rigid record of the daily succession and the precise dates of camp and march and battle; and yet there is no gainsaying the almost inestimable value of letters to a book of reminiscence, furnishing contemporaneous record and comment so much more vivid and accurate than memory. In the absence of these I shall have to rest largely, for the elements of time and date, upon the relation of what I may record to the general movement of the campaigns, which will, for the most part, prove sufficient for my purpose. For example, I know that Beers' funeral was just after the battle of Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863; that we arrived in Richmond a short time before the battle of Bethel, June 10, 1861; that we left Richmond almost immediately after the battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861.

        It was not our fault that we did not leave earlier. My brother and I had volunteered in an infantry company called, after a favorite corps which had left the city for the front, "Junior Company F," which was being drilled in awkward

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squads in a large basement room under the Spotswood Hotel. We felt that the Juniors were hanging fire too long. The city was crowded with troops from all over Virginia and the South, pressing to the front, and with swarms of gaily-dressed staff officers and military attachés and hangers-on, and we longed to be away, out of this martial show, and off to the real front. We grew daily more restless, especially after the affair at Bethel--sometimes spoken of as "Big Bethel," "Great Bethel," or "Bethel Church." The main armies were facing each other in central Virginia, and as day after day and week after week passed, we began to feel that it would be a personal reflection upon us if another fight should occur without our being in it.

        Suddenly the great battles of Manassas shocked the city and shook the continent, and we could stand it no longer. As I remember, it was but a day or two after the main fight of July 21 that my brother and I met two soldiers of the First Company, Richmond Howitzers, who were in the city on business for the company, and were to return next day. So without saying "by your leave" to any one, we boarded the cars next morning with these men. They undertook to conceal us on the train till it started and to secure our enrollment in the company when we arrived--undertakings skilfully and faithfully performed.

        The ride to Manassas was certainly not a reassuring experience. The train was crowded almost to suffocation with troops from a far Southern State. They had been long on the way and were worn with travel in the heat of summer. Some of the men were sleepy and sprawling, others restless and noisy, and both men and cars were very dirty. It was a tedious trip, but it ended at last, and we were glad to make our escape. As we stepped from the train we were met by two or three more of the Howitzers, to one of whom was committed the duty of piloting us to the camp of the battery.

        We were very much struck with our guide. Scarcely more than a half-formed country lad, he was yet a fellow of genuine, transparent nature, healthy and hearty and strong in body and mind; one of the sturdiest, manliest figures and

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faces I ever looked upon. He seemed to be exceptionally right-minded, broad-minded, and intelligent, was evidently glad to see us and "to tell us all about it"--the army and the battle and the service, as he saw them--and we heard much from him during our brief walk of just what we wanted to know.

        Such he was then. For the next four years he was the equal of any soldier in that incomparable army. To-day, thank God! he still lives, is perhaps the best beloved and most trusted friend I have on earth, one of the best citizens and farmers in Virginia--a man whom everybody knows and trusts and looks up to and leans upon.

        At last we were in "the army ;" and what was it after all? We walked perhaps a mile or more through the camps, and the prominent ideas borne in upon me were--multitude, overloading, lack of cohesion and of organization, absence of women and children, and a general sense of roughness and untidiness, of discomfort and confusion. Of course these impressions were soon to give way to others; but it was not alone my impressions that changed, it was the army itself. During the few months next ensuing it dispensed with useless baggage and equipment, acquired cohesion, organization, power and endurance, and men learned to do fairly well for themselves what women had theretofore invariably done for them. Under the discipline of the next twelve months, imperfect as it was, we trained down and trained up, just as the fighting men do, to a condition of bare, hard flesh; compact yet supple muscles; clean, clear lungs; sound, strong hearts; and perfect possession and control of all our fighting powers.

        In connection with this process of training down to fighting weight, it occurs to me that the wagon train of the First Company, Richmond Howitzers, during the first nine months of the war was, I verily believe, quite as large as that of any infantry brigade in the army during the grand campaign of '64. Many of the private soldiers of the company had their trunks with them, and I remember part of the contents of one of them consisted of a dozen face and a smaller number of foot or bath towels; and when the order came

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for trunks to be sent back to Richmond or abandoned, the owner of this elaborate outfit, although but a "high private in the rear rank," actually wrote and sent in to the captain an elegant note resigning his "position." Yet this curled and scented gentleman became a superb soldier and used to laugh as heartily as any of us when, in after years, at some point of unusual want and stringency and discomfort, some impudent rascal would shout out, "Jim, old fellow, don't you think it's about time for you to resign again?"

        As to the battle-field, if it showed marked traces of the conflict that had taken place I do not recall them. One scene and incident, however, I do recall, which made a very tender impression upon me. Not long after our arrival the battery was about to change its position, indeed I think the head of the column was already in motion, when some one said to me, "Captain ------ is lying in that house over yonder seriously, or it may be mortally, wounded; don't you want to go and see him a moment?" I did not want to go, but I knew the poor fellow's sisters and felt as if I ought to go, and I went. Few interviews have ever made deeper impression upon me. The heroic Christian man had been a prominent member of the Richmond bar and the mainstay and support of his sisters. He was now lying seriously wounded, in a deserted house, from which, as I remember, even the doors and windows had been carried off, and in which there seemed to be little or no furniture save the bed he occupied. The attendant who took care of him was not at the moment in the building. My comrade and I entered and I walked to the bedside, made myself known to the Captain and told him that I had seen his sisters within a day or two and that they were well, but very anxious about him. He did not seem to be suffering greatly at the time, but was evidently death-struck and I think fully aware of it. Yet there was no shrinking and no tremor. His voice was firm and clear and he was entirely self-possessed. I took his hand, or he took mine, and my recollection is that my comrade and I knelt by the bedside and we all prayed together for a few moments, and then we left him there in that desolate place to meet the last enemy; but I felt, and I am sure he did, that he would not meet him alone.

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        I had helped to take wounded men from the trains in Richmond, but they were surrounded by relatives and friends, or by admiring, almost worshiping crowds, and the entire city, with all it contained of sympathy and help, was at their feet. Here, however, was an entirely different picture, and for a long time my mind every now and then reverted to it with a sadness I could not dispel.

        The intellectual atmosphere of the Confederate camps was far above what is generally supposed by the people of this generation, even in the Southern States, and this intellectual aspiration and vigor of the men were exhibited perhaps equally in their religious meetings and services and in their dramatic representations and other exhibitions gotten up to relieve the tedium of camp. But however this may be in general it cannot be denied that the case of the Richmond Howitzers was exceptional in this regard. The corps was organized at the time of the John Brown raid by George W. Randolph, afterwards Secretary of War, and has never been disbanded. In 1861 it was recruited up to three companies and formed into a battalion, but unfortunately the first company was never associated with the other two in the field. The composition of the three companies was very similar; that is, all of them were made up largely of young business men and clerks of the highest grade and best character from the city of Richmond, but included also a number of country boys, for the most part of excellent families, with a very considerable infusion of college-bred men, for it was strikingly true that in 1861 the flower of our educated youth gravitated toward the artillery. The outcome was something quite unparalleled, so far as I know. It is safe to say that not less than one hundred men were commissioned from the corps during the war, and these of every rank from a Secretary of War down to a second lieutenant.

        Few things have ever impressed me as did the intellectual and moral character of the men who composed the circle I entered the day our guide led my brother and myself to the Howitzer camp. I had lived for years at the North, had graduated recently at Yale, and had but just entered

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upon the study of law in the city of New York when the war began. Thus torn away by the inexorable demands of conscience and of loyalty to the South, from a focal point of intense intellectual life and purpose, one of my keenest regrets was that I was bidding a long good-by to congenial surroundings and companionships. To my surprise and delight, around the camp fires of the First Company, Richmond Howitzers, I found throbbing an intellectual life as high and brilliant and intense as any I had ever known.

        The Howitzer Glee Club, trained and led by Frederick Nicholls Crouch, author of "Kathleen Mavoureen," was the very best I ever heard, and rendered music at once scientific and enjoyable. No law school in the land ever had more brilliant or powerful moot court discussions than graced the mock trials of the Howitzer Law Club. I have known the burial of a tame crow to be witnessed not only by the entire command, but by scores, perhaps hundreds, of intelligent people from a neighboring town, and to be dignified not only by salvos of artillery, but also by an English speech, a Latin oration, and a Greek ode, which would have done honor to any literary or memorial occasion at old Yale.

        There was a private soldier in the battery--not the poet of the crow's death either--a Grecian of such finished skill that I have known him keep, for months together, a diary of the movements of the battery, in modern Greek; and have watched him--wondering if there was anywhere to be found another man of scholarship and scholarly enthusiasm so great--as he dodged the persistently pursuing smoke of a camp fire and by its wretched, flickering light, with painstaking care, jotted down his exquisite, clear Greek lettering that looked like the most perfect output of the most perfect Greek press in Germany. So much for the intellectual life of our camp and march.

        What now of the essential spirit of these young volunteers? Why did they volunteer? For what did they give their lives? We can never appreciate the story of their deeds as soldiers until we answer this question correctly.

        Surely it was not for slavery they fought. The great majority of them had never owned a slave and had little or

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no interest in the institution. My own father, for example, had freed his slaves long years before; that is, all save one, who would not be "emancipated," our dear "Mammy," who clung to us when we moved to the North and never recognized any change in her condition or her relations to us. The great conflict will never be properly comprehended by the man who looks upon it as a war for the preservation of slavery.

        Nor was it, so far as Virginia was concerned, a war in support of the right of secession or the Southern interpretation of the Constitution. Virginia did not favor this interpretation; at least, she did not favor the exercise of the right of secession. Up to President Lincoln's call for troops she refused to secede. She changed her position under the distinct threat of invasion--the demand that she help coerce her sister States. This was the turning point. The Whig party, the anti-secession party of Virginia, became the war party of Virginia upon this issue. As John B. Baldwin, the great Whig and Union leader, said, speaking of the effect of Lincoln's call for troops, "We have no Union men in Virginia now." The change of front was instantaneous, it was intuitive. Jubal Early was the type of his party--up to the proclamation, the most extreme anti-secessionist and anti-war man in the Virginia Convention; after the proclamation, the most enthusiastic man in the Commonwealth in advocacy of the war and personal service in it.

        But, coming closer down, let us see how the logic of these events wrought itself out among my comrades of the Howitzer Company. We will take as a type in this instance the case of a brilliantly endowed youth of excellent family in Richmond, who, like the guide who piloted us to the battery upon the field of Manassas, became one of my closest and dearest friends, but unlike him and most unhappily for his family and his comrades, sealed his fate and his devotion with his life at Gettysburg.

        He was a student at the University of Virginia in the spring of '61, and perhaps the most extreme and uncompromising "Union man" among all the young men gathered

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there. Indeed, so exaggerated were his anti-secession views and so bold and aggressive was he in advocacy of them, that he became very unpopular, and his friends feared serious trouble and even bloody collision. The morning President Lincoln's proclamation appeared he had gone down town on personal business before breakfast, and while there happened to glance at a paper. He returned at once to the University, but not to breakfast; spoke not a word to any human being, packed his trunk with his belongings, left a note for the chairman of the faculty explaining his conduct, boarded the first train for Richmond and joined a military company, before going to his father's house or taking so much as a morsel of food.

        What was the overwhelming force which thus in a moment transformed this splendid youth? Was it not the God-implanted instinct which impels a man to defend his own hearth-stone?

        There were 896 students at Harvard in 1861, there were 604 at the University of Virginia. Why was it that but 73 out of the 896 joined the first army that invaded the South, while largely over half of the 604 volunteered to meet the invaders? It was manifestly this instinct of defense of home which gave to the Confederate service, from '61 to '65, more than 2,000 men of our University, of whom it buried in soldiers' graves more than 400; while but 1,040 Harvard men served in the armies and navies of the United States during the four years of the war, and of these only 155 lost their lives in the service.*

        Here, then, we have the essential, the distinctive spirit of the Southern volunteer. As he hastened to the front in the spring of '61, he felt: "With me is Right, before me is Duty, behind me is Home."
*Figures taken from catalogues of the two institutions, for 1860-61. Prof. Schele's Historical Catalogue of Students of the University of Virginia, a careful statement by Prof. (Col.) Charles S. Venable of the same institution; and Francis H. Brown's "Roll of Students of Harvard University Who Served in the Army or Navy of the United States During the War of the Rebellion," prepared by order of the Corporation.

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CHAPTER V

FIELD ARTILLERY IN THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

Inadequacy of General Equipment--Formation During First Two Years-- High Character of Men Accounted For--An Extraordinary Story.

        The writer having served almost exclusively with the artillery, what he has to tell must necessarily refer largely to that arm. Some general observations upon field artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia will therefore not be out of place.

        With the exception of a couple of long-range Whitworth guns, run in from England through the blockade and which I never saw, the artillery of General Lee's army consisted of old-fashioned muzzle-loading pieces, for the most part 12-pounder brass Napoleons and 3-inch rifles. Batteries were usually composed of four guns. For the equipment and operation of such a battery about seventy-five officers and men were required and say fifty horses. Every old artilleryman will recall the difficulty we experienced in keeping up the supply of horses. After Gettysburg it was our habit, when a piece became engaged, to send the horses to the rear, to some place of safety, preferring to run the risk of losing a gun occasionally rather than the team that pulled it.

        During the earlier stages of the war our artillery corps was very inadequately provided with clumsy ordnance and defective ammunition, manufactured for the most part within the Confederate lines; but, as the struggle went on, this branch of our service, as well as our infantry, was, to a constantly increasing degree, supplied with improved guns and ammunition captured from the armies opposed to us. We also learned to make better ammunition and more reliable fuses, but never approached the Federal artillery either in these respects or in general equipment.

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        For the first two years the armies of the Confederacy adhered to that very defective organization in which single batteries of artillery are attached to infantry brigades. Two evils resulted: the guns were under the command of brigadier-generals of infantry, who generally had very little regard for artillery and still less knowledge as to the proper handling of it; and the scattering of the batteries prevented that concentration of fire in which, upon proper occasion, consists the great effectiveness of the arm. At and after Chancellorsville, however, the artillery of the Confederate armies, certainly that of the Army of Northern Virginia, began to be massed into battalions composed of, say, four or five batteries and fifteen to twenty-five guns, and these placed under the command of trained and experienced artillery officers. From that time the artillery began to be really reckoned and relied upon in estimating the effective strength of the army.

        So much for the physical aspect of the artillery of General Lee's army. A word now as to the character of the men who composed that corps. It will of course be admitted by every man of intelligence and candor who served under Lee, that his infantry was essentially his army; not alone because it constituted the bulk and body of its fighting strength, but also because it did the bulk and body of the fighting; and yet I think even the infantry itself would admit that the artillery, though appearing to afford least opportunity for personal distinction, yet furnished, in proportion to its numbers, perhaps more officers below the rank of general who were conspicuous for gallantry and high soldiership than either of the other two arms. Their names rise unbidden to my lips--Pegram and Pelham, and Breathed and Carter, and Haskell, and many, many more. Every veteran of the Army of Northern Virginia is familiar with the splendid roll.

        If this claim be challenged, it may perhaps best be tested by asking this question: admitting that the fact be so, can any satisfactory explanation of it be suggested?

        For one, I answer unhesitatingly--yes, I think so; explanation amounting to demonstration. I believe that any man

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who looks into the matter without prejudice will be ready to admit that it is to be expected that artillery soldiers should excel in four great soldierly qualities--intelligence, self-possession, comradeship, loyalty to the gun.

        I will not stay now to prove that these qualities characterized our artillery in an eminent degree. The remaining chapters of this book will furnish abundant demonstration. As to intelligence, the chapter last preceding would seem to be all-sufficient; but apart from these positive exhibitions of intelligence and even culture of a high order, it is obvious that the very nature of the arm and its operation, its comparative mechanical elaboration and complexity, and the blending of scientific knowledge and manual and bodily dexterity required for its most effective use, must in large degree influence the original selection and the after development of the men of the artillery branch of the service.

        Again, an artilleryman, officer or private soldier, should be a broader-gauged man, especially as to his view and comprehension of battle and campaign, than an infantryman of corresponding grade. An infantry company in the Army of Northern Virginia, during the latter part of the war, averaged certainly not over fifteen or twenty men, and covered but a small space on the line. A captain of infantry saw and touched little outside these narrow limits. Two or three strides, so to speak, would cover all of the line he was familiar with and responsible for, and he came in contact with no officer of wider domain and control, save his colonel, under whose eye and immediate direction he was always, save when on picket duty.

        A captain of artillery, on the contrary, was often separated from his colonel by the stretch of several brigade fronts; for a battalion, as usually placed, would cover about the front of a division, and as he received no orders--after the organization of the artillery into battalions--from any infantry officer of less rank than a major-general, he was necessarily thrown in great measure upon his own resources in the management of a command which, including all its departments, was really of greater complexity and difficulty than an infantry brigade.

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        I trust I may not be misunderstood, or regarded as attempting to magnify over-much myself or my office, when I say that all this applies with special force to the adjutant of an artillery battalion. This officer,--if he does his full duty,--as adjutant of the command, as personal staff and aide to the commanding officer, and often as battalion chief of the line of caissons--familiarizing himself with the positions of all the guns in battle, seeing that all are fully supplied with ammunition and anything and everything else that may be required, and passing from one to another as the exigencies of the fight may demand--covers as wide a stretch of the line, sees as much of the campaign, and comes as much in contact with officers of high grade as any officer of his rank in the service. To-day, more than a generation after that heroic Olympiad, it is a deep satisfaction to be able to say that I endeavored to do my full duty as adjutant of Cabell's Battalion--to attend to all my duties in this broader and fuller construction of them, and in battle, as far as possible, to be with that one of our batteries which was most heavily engaged. The campaign of 1864 was the only one in which I acted as adjutant of an artillery battalion from the outset to the end, and in consequence my knowledge of that campaign is at once more comprehensive and more detailed than of any other, and what I have to tell of it is of greater value.

        The training of the artillery service in the development of imperturbable self-possession, in emergency and crisis, is self-evident and requires no comment. To appreciate it to the full, it to was only necessary to look at one of our guns, already overmatched, at the moment when a fresh gun of the enemy rushing up at a wild gallop, and seizing a nearer and enfilading position, hurled a percussion shell, crashing with fearful uproar against our piece, and sweeping almost the entire gun detachment to the earth. At such a moment I have marked the sergeant or gunner of such a piece coolly disengage himself from the wreck and, stepping to one side, stoop to take his observations and make his calculations, of distance and of time, free from the dust and smoke of the explosion; then, with ringing voice, call out to No. 6

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at the limber,--whose duty it was to cut the fuse,--"three seconds!" then, stepping back and bending over the trail handspike, doggedly aim his strained and half-disabled piece, as the undisabled remnant of the detachment step over the dead and dying bodies of their comrades, each in the discharge of the doubled and trebled duties now devolving upon him. The story I have to tell is full of kindred scenes.

        Another of the most marked and developing features of the artillery service is comradeship.

        I do not mean that lighter sense of happy and kindly association which certainly did characterize the artillery, of General Lee's army at least, in very high degree. I refer now to an element far deeper and more powerful--the interdependence, the reliance upon each other, which inheres in the very nature of artillery service, and is indispensable to the effective working of the gun.

        The unit of the infantry is the man; of the cavalry, the man and horse; of the artillery, the detachment. While co-operation is a duty and in some degree a necessity in infantry service, yet a single infantry soldier operates his arm perfectly, indeed each one is complete in himself--more than one cannot operate the same arm at the same time. If one runs away he only renders himself useless, he deprives his country of his services alone.

        Not so with the artillery. It takes ten cannoneers (exclusive of drivers) to make a gun detachment. Each man has his special part to perform, but all indispensable to the perfect working of the piece, so that each man is dependent upon all the rest. If one fails, all the rest are affected, and even the piece itself is rendered so far inefficient. Upon each man rests the responsibility for the effective service of the detachment and the gun.

        It is impossible not to perceive this distinction, and equally impossible not to admit the importance of it, in the development of a soldierly character. Again, I say, my story will not fail to furnish apt and impressive illustration.

        But the strongest sentiment, aye, passion, of the true artilleryman is loyalty to the gun.

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        The gun is the rallying point of the detachment, its point of honor, its flag, its banner. It is that to which the men look, by which they stand, with and for which they fight, by and for which they fall. As long as the gun is theirs, they are unconquered, victorious; when the gun is lost, all is lost. It is their religion to fight it until the enemy is out of range, or until the gun itself is withdrawn, or until both it and the detachment are in the hands of the foe. An infantryman in flight often flings away his musket. I do not recall ever having heard of a Confederate artillery detachment abandoning its gun without orders.

        Nor were the Federal artillerymen one whit behind in this loyal devotion to their pieces. One of the Haskells, who, as I remember, served on General McGowan's staff, told me this vivid story. It seems almost incredible, yet I have no reason to question its truth; at all events, it is too good not to be told.

        In one of the late combats of the war, far away down on the right of our line, Pegram, passing ahead of his infantry support, had advanced his entire battalion against the enemy strongly entrenched--showering double-shotted canister into their infantry line and belching solid shot across the narrow ditch, in the very faces of their gunners and into the very muzzles of their guns. The Federal artillerymen, as was their wont, fought him fiercely, muzzle to muzzle--until McGowan's infantry coming up, Pegram passed around the work, to the right and front, after the retiring Federal infantry, while the artillerymen and their pieces fell into McGowan's hands.

        Most of the horses of the staff had been killed or disabled, and they had mounted Federal artillery horses from which in some cases the harness had not been removed, so that, as the staff officers rode to and fro delivering orders, the trace chains rattled and jingled merrily.

        The Federal gunners had done what they could on the instant to disable their pieces for the time, throwing away the lanyards and running the screws down low, so that the muzzles pointed high in the air. Having rooted out a few friction primers from a gunner's haversack and fished a

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string or a handkerchief out of some one's pocket, for a lanyard, McGowan's infantry managed to load one of the captured pieces and, turning it in the direction of the retreating Federals, sent two or three shots whizzing over their heads, to seek the quartermasters and wagon camps in the rear.

        Meanwhile, the gunner of this particular piece, a tall, splendid-looking fellow, stood hard by, with his lip curled in scorn and his arms twitching convulsively; until at last, unable to stand it longer, he sprang into the midst of the blundering infantry and hurled them right and left, shouting:

        "Stand aside, you infernal, awkward boobies! Let me at that screw!" meanwhile whirling it rapidly up, until the gun came down into proper range. Then, seizing the trail handspike and aiming the piece, he sprang back, yelling out: "Now, try that! Let 'em have it! Fire!"

        Away flew the shell on its flight of death, until it tore through the line of his own friends. And he continued thus to direct the movement of the awkward squad of rebel cannoneers, and to sight and fire the piece, until the Federal infantry were out of range. Then, stamping his great foot upon the ground and gesturing wildly with his great clenched fist, he exclaimed:

        "Damned if I can stand by and see my gun do such shooting as that!"

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CHAPTER VI

FROM MANASSAS TO LEESBURG.

March and Counter-march--Longstreet and Prince Napoleon--Leesburg --The Battle--The Mississippians--D. H. Hill--Fort Johnston.

        During the first few days of wild hurrah, uncertainty, and drift which followed our victory at Manassas, the guns of our battery were marched and counter-marched on scouting expeditions, first with one brigade and then with another. Our most noteworthy experience was with Longstreet's, then known as the "Fourth Brigade," in connection with which we were reviewed by Prince Napoleon at Centreville. The Prince did not strike me as an impressive man, but I recall the ease and confidence with which Longstreet handled both his artillery and infantry commands in the various maneuvers, and the riding of one of the young officers of his staff, who sat his beautiful thoroughbred superbly, dashing at full speed from point to point, leaping ditches and obstructions without being once jarred in his seat, though using a flat English saddle and that without stirrups. I remember, too, that it was so hot on the sun-scorched plain that the metal-covered tops of the ammunition chests actually burned us cannoneers, as we mounted and dismounted at command, in the battery drill.

        The generals in the ranks, of whom there was, even at this early stage, an abundant supply, being still of the opinion that we ought to be and soon would be ordered to occupy Washington, regarded these several movements as in execution of or preparation for that grand objective--an objective which our commanding generals, for reasons doubtless satisfactory to themselves, seem to have soon given up--if indeed they ever seriously contemplated it. Within a short time all idea of a general offensive seeming to have been

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abandoned, even by the staff contingent in the ranks, we were, on the 11th of August, '61, ordered to Leesburg, under Brigadier-General N. G. Evans, of South Carolina, whose force consisted of the Thirteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Mississippi Regiments, the Eighth Virginia Infantry, our battery, and two companies of cavalry.

        Leesburg, the county seat of Loudoun, was at this time, perhaps, the most desirable post in our lines, on account of the character both of the country and its people--the former beautiful and rich, full of everything needed by man and beast, and the latter whole-hearted and hospitable, ready to share with us all they had. If ever soldiers had a more ideal time than we enjoyed at Leesburg, then I cannot conceive when or where it was. During the war, in hunger and thirst, in want and weariness and blood, our thoughts would often turn fondly back to our bucolic Loudoun paradise. "When this cruel war was over" more than one of our boys went back there to get "the girl he left behind him" from '61 to '65, but would never leave again; and to-day many a grizzled, wrinkled, burdened man feels his heart grow young again and breaks into sunny smiles when a comrade of the long ago slaps him on the back and reminds him of the good times we had at Leesburg. It was here we buried the crow, with honors literary and military; nor was this by any means the only camp entertainment with which we returned the many civilities extended to us by our fair friends in the good little burg.

        Of course, where there were so many brave knights all could not always succeed with the fair ladies. One of the defeated took this startling and original revenge upon his successful rival. "The captain with his whiskers" had repeatedly run him off from a new-found Dulcinea, and this same result happening once more, our hero returned to camp weary and disgusted and threw himself down to sleep. Owing to some abnormal condition of mind or body, he was at the time much given to talking in his sleep and, dreaming himself on guard and inquiry made as to the commanding officer of the force, he electrified his half-slumbering companions by shouting out:

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        "Halt! You want to know who commands this battery, do you? Well, sir, General Susceptibility commands this battery, with a numerous staff of volunteer aides!"

        Poor fellow; but he was soon promoted to a captaincy and commanded a battery of his own, and doubtless avenged his grievous wrongs by perpetrating the like on his own boys upon occasion. Very recently he received his last promotion, having fought a good fight for many years as a faithful Christian minister.

        We saw no really hard service at Leesburg, though the activity of the force gradually increased. Our horses being in fine condition with the abundant forage, and the great, open fields affording a fine arena for it, we devoted ourselves assiduously to battery drill. There was also considerable scouting up and down the river and some little firing across. One of our own men was wounded in one of these affairs and one or two cavalrymen killed.

        About the middle of October, however, General Evans withdrew his force and made a feint of retreat, which drew the enemy across to our side of the river. Their plan of attack seems to have been well conceived and came very near being successfully executed. They landed in two columns, one at Edwards' Ferry and another at Ball's Bluff, considerably nearer to the town, the latter point, especially, being concealed by thick woods. Our little army returned in the very nick of time, but were misled as to the disposition and designs of the enemy, regarding the Edwards' Ferry force as the main and dangerous body, and were either entirely ignorant of the crossing at Ball's Bluff, or at least did not regard that as of any magnitude or moment. Indeed, as I recollect, the presence of these latter troops was discovered as it were by accident, just as they emerged from the forest, and were practically between us and Leesburg. But General Evans acted with vigor after the true condition of things was developed, rapidly concentrating his force to meet the advance from Ball's Bluff; first checking and then staggering it, and finally driving the entire body back in bloody repulse upon and into the river, where many were drowned.

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        To us it seemed a mistake not then to have attacked the Edwards' Ferry force, but there may have been good reason for not doing so. The gallant Eighth Virginia, under its staunch Colonel, afterwards General, Eppa Hunton--since the war both a Congressman and a Senator of the United States from Virginia--took a prominent and honorable part in the fight, which was hotly contested and one of the most remarkable of the minor battles of the war in the disproportion of the enemy's loss to the number engaged on our side. No part of the honor, however, belongs to our battery, as the fighting took place in heavy woods, where it was impracticable to carry our guns.

        To me the battle of Leesburg, or Ball's Bluff, as the Federals called it, presented several points of rather special interest. First, the gallant and almost marvelous escape of a young Federal officer, named Crowninshield, who had been the strongest man on the Harvard boat crew about the time I held the like prominent position among the boating men of Yale. In the account of the battle, given by one of the Northern papers, I noticed, with great interest and pleasure, that Crowninshield, rather than surrender, swam the river and made good his escape, after his right arm had been shattered by a Minie ball. It was really a plucky and splendid feat.

        Then, too, I very much enjoyed a newspaper report of a speech of Roscoe Conkling, delivered in the House of Representatives at Washington, upon this battle, in the course of which, extolling the valor of the Federal troops, he quoted from Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" the lines:


                        "Cannon to right of them,
                        Cannon to left of them,
                        Cannon in front of them,
                        Volleyed and thundered."

        This was at once amusing and aggravating, as we had felt peculiarly chagrined at not being able to fire even so much as one shot while the battle roared in the thicket in front of us. The enemy, on the contrary, did have and use at least one gun, a brass three-inch rifle, which was captured and turned over to our battery.

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        A third incident was of a more personal nature. I had broken my knee-cap by a heavy fall during our feigned retreat, and the limb had become as rigid as a bar of steel. My gun detachment was very anxious I should take part in the fight, and, of course, I was eager for it, as I had seen no service, and it had been agreed I should act as gunner and sight the piece. We changed position several times during the action, in the vain hope of finding a point from which we might fire upon the enemy without imperilling our own men, and I was carried from one to another of these positions, or as near as might be, in an ambulance, driven by a half-witted youth named Grover, employed for that purpose.

        As I was getting out of the vehicle, for the third or fourth time, and preparing to hobble painfully up the hill to take my place at the gun, I said to him: "Grover, why don't you go up yonder with me to fight? You are better able to do it than I am."

        "Yes," said he, "but there's a differ."

        "Well, what is it?" I asked; "what is the differ?"

        "Why," said he, "you see, you 'listed ter git killed and I 'listed ter drive a avalanche."

        It is of course familiar to students of the financial history of the Confederacy, yet it may not be devoid of interest to the general public, to note that, in the South during the war, banks, municipalities, companies, and, even in some cases, individuals issued fractional notes or shin plasters which passed as currency supplementary to the Treasury notes issued by the Confederate Government. I am confident every surviving member of our battery, who was with us at Leesburg, will recall the little "dog money" notes issued by the town, ornamented by a picture of a majestic Newfoundland dog lying down before a massive iron safe supposed to be full of currency. No one, so far as I know, ever questioned the validity of Leesburg's fiat money; certainly we Howitzers experienced no difficulty whatever in getting rid of all we could get our hands upon.

        About the middle of November, pursuant to a policy of brigading together, so far as possible, troops from the same State, the Eighth Virginia Regiment was ordered back to

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Manassas, and the Twenty-first Mississippi, commanded by Col. B. G. Humphreys, was sent to fill its place--the entire Mississippi brigade, consisting of the Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Twenty-first Regiments, being then, or shortly after, put under the command of General Griffith, of that State, who was killed at Savage Station in June, '62, when Barksdale, theretofore colonel of the Thirteenth, was made brigadier-general and took command of the brigade, which bore his name up to Gettysburg, where he met his gallant death. Thereupon Colonel Humphreys, of the Twenty-first, was promoted to the rank of brigadier, and in turn commanded and christened this fine body of soldiers. It may be well to mention that Colonel Featherstone, of the Seventeenth, was made brigadier in the spring of '62, so that three out of the four original colonels of this brigade became generals, the fourth, Colonel Burt, of the Eighteenth, having been killed at Ball's Bluff. I may also add that General Humphreys was elected Governor of Mississippi shortly after the close of the war.

        For more than a year after the battle of Leesburg, we were closely associated with these sturdy fellows and became strongly attached to them; indeed, up to the very end, the two commands never crossed each other's path without hearty cheers and handshakes.

        This Mississippi brigade was, in many respects, the finest body of men I ever saw. They were almost giants in size and power. In the color company of the Seventeenth Regiment, when we first met them, there were thirty-five men more than six feet one inch high, and in the Twenty-first there was one man six feet seven inches in height, and superbly formed, except that his shoulders were a trifle too square and too broad in proportion. They were healthy and hardy, even ruddy, which was surprising, coming as they did from a region generally regarded as full of malarial poison. They were bear hunters from the swamps and cane brakes and, naturally enough, almost without exception, fine shots.

        As a body, they were very young men and brimful of irrepressible enthusiasm, equally for play and for fight. The laugh, the song, the shout, the yell of the rebel charge burst

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indifferently from their lips; but in any and every case the volume of sound was tremendous. It was a common saying that the "sick men" left in Barksdale's camp, when the brigade was away on duty, made more noise than any other full brigade in the army. The only comment I have to make upon this statement is that I cannot recall ever having seen one of them sick or "ailing" in any way, except when suffering from hunger or from wounds. At times they seemed about as rough as the bears they had hunted, yet they were withal simple-minded and tender-hearted boys, and at Fredericksburg hundreds of them became Christians.

        I knew almost every man in the brigade and often attended their religious meetings. Many a time, after I became adjutant of our battalion of artillery, Col. H. C. Cabell's, as I galloped past their lines awaiting the order to charge, my heart has been cheered and strengthened by a chorus of manly voices calling after me, "God bless you, Brother Stiles, and cover your head in the day of battle!" How could I help loving these simple, brave, great-hearted fellows.

        Early in December, '61, General Evans was relieved of the command at Leesburg and sent, I think, to South Carolina, his native State, to take charge of some troops there, and Gen. D. H. Hill, of North Carolina, was put in his place. He was a brother-in-law of Stonewall Jackson and, like him a thorough Christian and thorough Calvinist. That he was likewise a thorough soldier may be inferred, as the logicians would say, "a-priori and a-posteriori," from the two facts, that he was a graduate of West Point, and that he attained the rank of lieutenant-general in the Confederate service. He was, moreover, a man of intellect and culture, with a decided taste for scholarship and letters, and was, both before and since the war, connected with educational institutions of high grade and a writer of books, both scientific and religious.

        Like Jackson he was, too, a born fighter--as aggressive, pugnacious and tenacious as a bull-dog, or as any soldier in the service, and he had a sort of monomania on the subject of personal courage.

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        It is certainly worthy of note that this fighting zeal is so frequently combined with a high degree of spiritual religion.

        Almost countless stories are told of the grim courage and grit of General Hill. In the first Maryland campaign he held the pass at Boonsboro for many hours with a mere handful of troops against McClellan's overwhelming numbers, thus giving time for Jackson to complete his capture of Harper's Ferry and join Lee at Sharpsburg. It is said that, toward the close of the Boonsboro fight, as he rode down his short line, his men reported that they were out of ammunition, and the stern old North Carolina Puritan replied: "Well, what of it? Here are plenty of rocks!"

        His habit was, when his skirmishers were firing wildly, to ride out among them, and if he noticed a man lying down or behind protection and firing carelessly, he would make him get right up and come and stand out in the open, by his horse, and load his musket and hand it to him. Then he would crane his neck until he saw a Federal skirmisher, when he would point him out to his man, but would fire at him himself, not only taking long, portentous aim before pulling trigger, but making equally long examination afterwards to determine whether he had hit him; and he would continue and distribute these blood-curdling object-lessons until his men settled down to a style of firing that suited him.

        Very amusing accounts passed around the army about "old D. H." every now and then "treating" the non-combatant officers of his staff--the quartermasters, commissaries, and doctors--to what he called "a little airing in a fight," when he thought they stood in need of it, or heard that they had been "airing," a little freely, their own martial experience and prowess.

        Occasionally, in his official reports, he gave the tartest and most amusing expressions to his strenuous views and standards of soldierly courage and devotion. I recall one in which, in commenting upon the flight of a body of cavalry before overwhelming numbers, he remarks incidentally, that it takes a good man to stand and fight against heavy odds,

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when he has only two legs under him; but that, if you put six legs under him to run away with, it requires the best kind of a man to stand and fight.

        In another report, in describing a stampede and the crush and jam of fugitives in the highway, he says, "Not a dog; no, not even a sneaking exempt, could have made his way through."

        As early in the drama as the Leesburg campaign he had begun to indulge and exhibit these rather peculiar notions and habits. Soon after taking command, desiring to know the number, calibre, and character of the Federal guns across the river, he gathered a large escort and rode up and down the river bank in a manner calculated to attract the fire of artillery, and when the enemy accepted his invitation and the shell came singing over and buried itself in the earth hard by, he called for a pick and shovel, dismounted and dug it up with his own hands, apparently unconscious that other shells were shrieking and bursting about him and is improvised and somewhat nervous staff. Of course this impressed us no little; exactly how, it would be difficult to say. One thing, however, was clear--that this apparent unconsciousness of personal peril was in no degree "put on," that our general was undoubtedly "to the manner born."

        Our company had special reason for desiring to make a good impression upon General Hill. At the battle of Bethel, or "Big Bethel," where he commanded a regiment and won the spurs and stars of a general, he had with him the other two companies of our "Howitzer Battalion," which unfortunately never materialized in the field. We did not wish him to draw unfavorable comparisons and gave him no reason for doing so, though we had no opportunity, while under him, of distinguishing ourselves.

        He was a man of strong likes and dislikes, and in some way was led to notice and to conceive a decided liking for me. Not long after he assumed command he ordered Captain Shields to send, I think, a sergeant and some fifteen or twenty men, of whom I was one, to take charge of Fort Johnston, a considerable, closed earth-work, on a commanding eminence about a mile out of town, which mounted two

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or three siege pieces of rather clumsy construction, fired by friction-primer like field pieces. In addition to this, we generally had one and, much of the time two, of our field pieces also with us at the fort. About the same time, the general ordered about the same number of Mississippians--that is to say, enough for two gun detachments--to report at the fort and to be under my special charge. I have an indistinct recollection that I selected these men. The idea was that we light artillerymen should adapt our drill to the heavy guns and then teach the Mississippians the manual and use of both field and siege pieces, so that all of us could work effectually all the pieces in the fort.

        The Mississippians were glad to come. They liked the noise and smoke and uproar of the guns. There never were two such field artillery detachments as they made after a brief period of drill. They would shove the pieces up almost any hillside, however steep, and would even hold them against the recoil when inclined to roll too far back. We passed a good deal of time running up and down the river with the field pieces, the captain sometimes with us and sometimes not, appearing first on one commanding hilltop and then on another, and firing across at the railroad trains and canal boats on the other side. On two or three occasions we stirred up a hornet's nest in the shape of Federal batteries which happened to be drilling in the neighborhood, and once were compelled to withdraw with more speed than dignity; but my irrepressible Mississippi artillerymen made fun of it all, actually playing leap frog down the steep Loudoun hillside, under a galling fire, from perhaps eight or ten guns. I was quite an athlete at the time, having been considered the strongest man at Yale while there, and had reason to deem myself an expert in matters involving physical achievement and endurance. I have no hesitation in saying that I never witnessed an exhibition of bounding, buoyant power and unshakable bodily soundness and stamina that compared with this performance of the Mississippians. The men were all, or most of them, over six feet in height and averaged, I shoud say, over 200 pounds in weight, and yet they ran down the steep slope, keeping abreast of galloping

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horses, and leaping over each other's shoulders, the head of course inclined, but the column of the body almost upright; and as the leaper would strike far below, with a jar calculated to jolt a man's vital organs out of gear forever, he would instantly assume position again, with a shout, while two hundred pounds of yelling, human trap-ball would in turn execute the perilous flying leap over his head.

        The situation at Fort Johnston, from the view-point of rank, command, and subordination, was mixed and delicate enough already, though I had no real difficulty, with my own company officers, in keeping up my little imperium in imperio. But just about the time matters had settled into working order with the existing elements, a militia regiment from a neighboring county was ordered into the fort, for the purpose of improving and strengthening as well as more fully manning it. This regiment, as I remember, was afterwards broken up and the men entered as individual recruits in veteran regiments, as was the almost unvarying mode of recruiting in the Confederate service; but at this time late winter of '61-'2, or early spring of '62--this regiment seems to have retained its original organization under its original officers. I have spoken of it as a militia regiment, as we all did at the time, but I do not know what its real status was. The regimental officers were of course jealous of us--private artillery soldiers seeming to be set over even infantry officers, and the general being in the habit of communicating with us directly in matters concerning the fort and everything in it. To add to the uneasiness and discontent, the idea got abroad that this small force was thus isolated with the view of sacrificing it in case the enemy should cross over, to enable the other troops to withdraw in safety.

        At one of the evening dress parades of the regiment, at which of course the colonel was in charge, I attempted, with his permission, to show the absurdity of this rumor, and at the same time to pour oil generally on the troubled waters; but a little before midnight one of my Mississippians, "Buck Denman," a man marked even among those heroes for courage and power, who was corporal of the guard that night, came and woke me up with the startling intelligence that the

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"melish" were formed and about to leave the fort. I rose instantly and ordered Denman to call out his entire squad and have them rendezvous at once at the outlet of the fort with loaded muskets.

        He yelled like a Comanche as he sprang to execute the order, and, by the time I reached the centre of the parade, passing by the head of the regiment on the way, the bear hunters were at their posts "loaded for b'ar" or "melish," as the case might be, and shouting for the battle. The "colonel commanding" hesitated what command to give, and I at once assumed his place and did not hesitate. The men were in column and ready to march out, but they frontfaced readily at my command, and I briefly laid the situation before them, emphasizing--but never mind what I emphasized, the moon gave light enough to shed a gleam on the musket barrels of the Mississippians formed right across the only outlet, and these added the emphasis; but I did appeal also to the better judgment and better feeling of the men and closed with an invitation to their colonel to call on General Hill with me in the morning.

        While I was speaking I noticed immediately in front of me, standing on a sort of irregular front line of officers, a remarkable and grotesque figure. He was a tall, gaunt man, dressed in an old Continental uniform or something very like it. I recall the cocked hat, blue, buff-faced coat, of that cut, fa'-top boots, and a drawn sword in his hand of about the length and model of a scythe blade. It was not a very bright night, but his whole attitude showed absorbed and sympathetic attention. I had hardly ceased when he stepped briskly toward me, saluted, wheeled and faced the regiment and his, the leading company, and uttered, in quite a soldierly tone, just these words: "Snickersville Blues, fall out! Mr. Stiles is right, and I am going to stand by him!" The example was contagious, and in a few moments the strained situation was entirely relieved.

        In the morning General Hill decided that I was right, commended the course I had pursued, and said he would send for a commission for me (which I presume he forgot); but suggested that it might interest and conciliate the regiment

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if we would pick out two or three detachments and drill them in the manual of the heavy pieces. We did so with admirable result, of course offering to the gallant captain of the "Snickersville Blues" the place of gunner of the first detachment. The old fellow, whose name I think was Moore, took the greatest interest and delight in the drill and showed some proficiency at it; so that in a few days he asked me to allow him to drill his detachment before General Hill, who rode out almost every evening to see how we were getting on. I never saw anything quite so irresistibly funny as Moore's dress and bearing as he formed his detachment, marched them to the gun and put them in position about it. He got on fairly well until a primer failed and he could not recall the appropriate command--"Don't advance, the primer has failed!"

        As No. 2 first hesitated and then started to advance, Moore, gasping with excitement and stretching out his right arm deprecatingly toward the cannoneer, blurted out, "Don't go up, the thing's busted!" Of course there was an explosion, though not of the primer, but as Moore seemed so genuinely mortified, it was soon hushed. General Hill seemed to appreciate the situation, and assured the gunner that his improvised command answered every purpose and was far preferable, in such an emergency, to not saying anything because unable to recall exactly what to say.

        Soon after this, in the early spring of '62, the General directed us to have a large number of flannel powder bags made up, a few for the heavy guns, but most of them of a size suited to our field pieces, and gave such additional orders as satisfied me that the army was about to abandon its present lines and take position somewhere in the low country near Richmond. The young ladies of Leesburg had offered repeatedly to do anything they could for us, and so we held, for several successive nights, a regular sewing bee over these powder bags, which, as fast as made, were taken up to Fort Johnston and filled in the magazine there. We had a lively, lovely time, making the bags, but I felt all the while as if I were guilty of the vilest deception; for of course these sweet girls were led to believe these powder

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bags were to be used in their defense, while I well knew we would abandon them to their fate about as soon as the bags were finished, filled, and packed for transport. At last the time for our departure actually came, and a sad leave-taking it was, for some of these dear people had treated us as no strangers were ever treated before; and besides, we all felt not only the pain of parting but also something akin to the disgrace of desertion.

        With D. H. Hill, worship of Stonewall Jackson held a place next after and close alongside his religion. He had the greatest admiration for Jackson's genius and the greatest confidence in his future. He honored me with frequent and sometimes very extended interviews; and as there was nothing else he so much delighted to talk about or I to hear, I absorbed much that prepared me for his brother-in-law's marvelous career. Even at that early day, Hill predicted that if the war should last six years and Jackson live so long, he would be in supreme command.

        It is fair to add that the pure white star of Robert Lee had not yet fairly appeared above the Southern horizon.

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CHAPTER VII

THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN.

Reenlistment and Reorganization in the Spring of '62--Gen. McClellan The Peninsula Lines--The Texans--The Battle of Williamsburg--The Mud.

        We left Leesburg about the 7th of March, '62, for Culpeper C. H., which was the place of rendezvous of the army before taking up the line of march for the Peninsula, whither we were ordered to repair to meet McClellan. Only two things of interest occurred on the way--the reenlistment and reorganization of the battery and a hurried glimpse at our friends in Richmond. The former, as I remember, took place at or near Culpeper C. H., about the 15th of March, and deserves more than casual mention.

        In the spring of 1862, throughout our service, the men reenlisting were allowed to elect their own officers; so that for weeks about this time the army, and that in the face of the enemy, was resolved--it is the highest proof of its patriotism and character that it was not also dissolved--into nominating caucuses and electioneering meetings. This compliment, by the way, is as well deserved by the men voluntarily reenlisting and electing their own officers, on the Federal side as the Confederate, if, as I presume, the same system was adopted by the Federals.

        I do not say this is not the usual mode of organizing a volunteer army, at least in this country; nor do I deny that the result was better, on the average, than might have been anticipated, but it was bad enough. Our friend, Gen. D. H. Hill, in a report of a little later date, says, "The reorganization of the army, at Yorktown under the elective system, had thrown out of service many of our best officers and had much demoralized our army."

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        In short, the selection of military officers by the elective method is a monstrosity, an utter reversal of the essential spirit of military appointment and promotion. It ought to be enough to immortalize it as such that, about the time of or soon after the original enlistments, the men of one of the Virginia regiments, in the exercise of their volunteer right to choose their officers, protested successfully against the assignment of General, then Colonel, Jackson to command them.

        It is fair also to add that the result, in the case of our own company,--as I have abundantly shown an exceptionally intelligent corps,--so far as the newly-elected captain was concerned, could not have been more satisfactory, as he was a man of the noblest nature and every inch a soldier. But this was not by any means the case with all the officers elected by us. Our two preceding captains were promoted, the one to be colonel commanding "Camp Lee"--the camp of instruction at Richmond--and the other, at a later date, to be surgeon of that post, with rank of major.

        We seemed to be in no sort of hurry to get at McClellan; that is, we took our time on the road, feeling sure, from past experience, that he would take his. Our army and people invariably regarded that general as "an officer and a gentleman" and a fine soldier, too, except that he was a little slow and prone to see double as to the number of his foes. The Richmond Examiner, by far the most vigorous journal published in the South during the war, epitomized "little Mac" in the following graphic sentence, "Accustomed in peace to the indecent haste of railroad travel, McClellan adopted in war the sedate tactics of the mud turtle." He certainly did seem to have a penchant for mud, Peninsula mud, Chickahominy mud, James River mud--any sort of mud; but he was too much of a gentleman to "sling" any of it, even at us "rebels."

        The only point of the march down at which we were made to hurry, was the only one at which we would have demurred to doing so, if it would have done any good, and that was Richmond, where, as I remember, we arrived about the 10th of April, and left by steamer down James River a day

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or two later. I remember, too, that as the boat left the shouting thousands on the shore and swept out into the stream, our glee club burst into the rollicking stanzas of "Mynheer von Dunck"--a song as good in verse and in music as it is bad in morals:


                        "Mynheer van Dunck,
                        Though he never got drunk,
                        Sipped brandy and water gaily;
                        And he quenched his thirst
                        With two quarts of the first
                        To a pint of the latter, daily.
                        Water well mingled with spirit, good store,
                        No Hollander dreams of scorning;
                        But of water alone he drinks no more
                        Than the rose supplies
                        When the dew drop lies
                        On its bloom of a summer morning--
                        For a Dutchman's draft should potent be,
                        Though deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee."

        And as we steamed out of hearing of the pier the stout voices of the singers were publishing, with metrical and musical elaboration, the somewhat shady proposition that--


                        "A pretty girl who gets a kiss and runs and tells her mother,
                        Does what she should not do and don't deserve another."

        These revelling, rollicking songs came later to be prime favorites with sundry brigadier, major and even lieutenant-generals in the Army of Northern Virginia, and they cheered too, many a comfortless camp and relieved many a weary march of the old battery.

        In due time we made our landing and found our place in the peninsular lines of Yorktown and Warwick River, which were admirably adapted to the purpose for which General Magruder designed and located them; namely, to enable a small body of troops to hold the position--but for occupation by a large army they were simply execrable. There was scarcely solid ground enough accessible to afford standing, sleeping, or living room for the men.

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        Our boys had their first taste of actual war in these abominable lines. Soon after our arrival the enemy attempted a crossing in force. Our guns being called for, we made an inspiring rush for the point of attack and were loudly cheered by the long lines of waiting infantry as we thundered by with our horses at a wild gallop. We got in only at the end of the fight, but our pieces were soon placed in the works and in situations about as trying as any we ever occupied. Our positions were commanded by those on the other side, our earth-works were utterly insufficient, we were heavily outnumbered in guns, and the Federal sharpshooters were as audacious and deadly as I ever saw them. For the most part they were concealed in the tops of tall pine trees and had down shots upon us, against which it was almost impossible to protect ourselves. When we attempted to do so by digging holes back of and beneath our works, the water rose in them and drove us out. Then, too, the enemy had opposite to us several rapid-firing guns of the earlier models, which we dubbed "the hopper mine," "the putty machine," etc., and which ground out a stream of bullets almost equal to the fire of a line of battle. The guns were not, however, really effective, and I do not recall ever encountering them again. But our boys showed excellent pluck and did some fine shooting, dismounting one of the guns of a Rhode Island battery which we had the luck of meeting several times during the war.

        The only relief we had from the sharpshooters was when the marvelous Texan scouts got to work upon them, which was as often as their "impudence" got to be unbearable. This was the first time we had met those greatest of all soldiers, the Texas brigade. I question whether any body of troops ever received such a compliment as General Lee paid them in his letter to Senator Wigfall, written later in the war, in which he asked him, if possible, to go to Texas and raise another such brigade for his army. He said that the efficiency of the Army of Northern Virginia would be thereby increased to an incalculable extent, and that he would be relieved of the unpleasant necessity of calling on this one brigade so often in critical junctures. I have not the letter

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before me, but I have read it several times and feel substantially sure of its contents.

        In the present instance the work of these worthies appeared little less than miraculous. They were apparently unconscious of danger and seemed to bear charmed lives. When the pressure of the Federal sharpshooters became intolerable. the Texans would pass the word that it was time to go out "squirrel shooting." Then they would get up, yawn and stretch a little, load their rifles and take to the water, disappearing from view in the brush. Then everything would be still a few minutes; then two or three shots, and the sputter of the sharpshooters would cease. After a while the Texans would straggle back, and report how many "squirrels" they had got.

        Notwithstanding this relief, or it may have been for the lack of it,--for our guns were separated by considerable distances,--one of our detachments broke down utterly from nervous tension and lack of rest. I went in as one of the relief party to bring them out and take their places. It was, of course, after nightfall, and some of these poor lads were sobbing in their broken sleep, like a crying child just before it sinks to rest. It was really pathetic. The men actually had to be supported to the ambulances sent down to bring them away.

        Amongst the unpleasant experiences of these lines were the night attacks, or perhaps, to speak more accurately, I should say, the night alarms. Down in these swamps at night it was incredibly dark and musketry never roared and reverberated as terribly anywhere else. These exhibitions reached the dignity at least of fully developed "alarms." Especially was this the case when, one black night, a sudden outburst of fire-- infantry, artillery, machine guns and all--stampeded a working party of some two hundred negroes who had just begun the much-needed strengthening of our very inadequate fortifications. The working party not only fled themselves, but the frantic fugitives actually swept away with them a part of our infantry support.

        I was sent back to the drivers' camp to see that the horses were harnessed and ready in case it should be necessary to

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withdraw our pieces, and I met a line or mass of troops advancing to our support. Hearing some one call "Stiles!" I asked, "Who said 'Stiles' and who are you speaking to?" A voice answered, "I called Stiles," and another, close beside me, said, "He's speaking to me. Stiles is my name. I'm Capt. Edward Stiles, of Savannah, Georgia." I grasped his hand, unable to see him, and having only time to say, "Then I'm your cousin, Robert Stiles, of Richmond, Virginia. Look you up to-morrow." Until that moment I did not know I had a relative in the Virginia army, knowing that some and supposing that all of my cousins were in the armies of the coast defense.

        It was, of course, well understood by all of us that the Federal commander, having complete control of the navigable rivers, by virtue of his overwhelming naval power, could at any time turn either of our flanks or land a heavy force between us and Richmond, and that therefore our present line could not be a permanent one. We were not surprised, then, at receiving orders, about the 2d of May, to withdraw and march toward Richmond, which we did.

        The enemy followed, but not vigorously. My recollection is that our company was the rear battery during the next day and that we several times unlimbered our pieces, but never fired a shot; so the evening of the 4th of May found us on the Richmond side of Williamsburg, hitched up and ready to fall in behind our brigade. We heard firing in the rear, but thought little of it until a mounted officer rode up with orders from competent authority to bring up as rapidly as possible the first battery he could find ready hitched up, and so we passed rapidly back through Williamsburg, and became at once hotly engaged, doing good service, as we also did the next day. Indeed our action the first evening might, without much strain, be termed "distinguished." The enemy, under a heavy fire from our battery and another, abandoned a three-inch rifled gun and a caisson of ammunition, and the general at whose orders we had entered the fight calling for volunteers to bring them into our lines, our boys volunteered and brought them off the field, using the captured gun with fine effect the following day.

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        Williamsburg was not in any sense a decisive battle, perhaps not designed to be so on either side. Upon our side certainly, perhaps upon both sides, it accomplished its limited purpose, which upon our part was to let General McClellan see that it would not be well for him to seriously interfere with or molest us in our "change of base,"--or "retreat" if one prefers this latter term,--though, as above remarked, it cannot be contended that the line we were leaving could ever have been designed for permanent occupation.

        It is obvious, I say, that McClellan did learn the lesson we intended; for after Williamsburg our army was allowed to pursue its march very leisurely up the Peninsula--a considerable part of it stopping to finish the reenlistment and reorganization by the election of new officers.

        But it is not a satisfactory battle to contemplate, because the administering of this lesson cost too much in blood, and this because, as so often happens, some one blundered. Col. Richard L. Maury, son of Commodore M. F. Maury, and an exceptionally intelligent officer, who at the close of the fight commanded the Twenty-fourth Virginia, Early's old regiment, the colonel and lieutenant-colonel having been shot down--has written a brief but strong memoir on this battle, from which it would seem well-nigh impossible to draw any other conclusions.

        He makes substantially the following points:

        General Magruder had built, and was commended for building, a chain of redoubts across the Peninsula from the York to the James, as a second dine; Fort Magruder, a strong closed work, about a mile from Williamsburg, on the main road running down the Peninsula, being the key of the entire line. The battle was fought in and from these fortifications, we occupying Fort Magruder, but, incredible as it may seem, not occupying the other works, and not even those within a short distance of the main road along which lay our route to Richmond. Indeed, General Hancock was allowed, without firing a shot, to possess himself of one or more of these works, and yet the heaviest loss in the action was entailed in the attempt to dislodge Hancock, which failed. Several of the general officers, by whose apparent neglect all this happened,

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have publicly defended themselves by stating that they did not know and were not informed as to the location of these works. It seems to go without saying that they ought to have been informed. Furthermore, it is evident that if a single general officer upon our side was fully informed as to the entire line, it was General Magruder, who built it, and who, it seems, took no part in this battle. Indeed, as I remember, he had been sent on toward Richmond. As above intimated, it would seem impossible that all these facts should co-exist with prudence and generalship upon the part of all our leading officers.

        There is, however, one relief to the rather sombre picture. Our troops, whether prudently and wisely led or not, certainly fought well. "Hancock the Superb" was generous enough to say that the Twenty-fourth Virginia and the Fifth North Carolina, the two regiments which attacked his strong force in its fortified position, deserved to have the word "immortal" inscribed upon their banners.

        Two of the most vivid pictures in the gallery of my memory are set in the framing of this battle--the one the most shocking instance of the inhuman demoralization of war, the other the most inspiring illustration of the noblest traits developed by it.

        During a lull in the fighting our guns were withdrawn and were in column parallel to the road, in a common on the outskirts of the town, resting and awaiting orders, when a number of wounded Federal prisoners were brought up in ambulances and laid temporarily on the grass, while a field hospital was being established hard by. Among them was a poor wretch, shot through the bowels, who was rolling on the ground in excruciating agony and beseeching the bystanders to put him out of his misery. There did not appear to be anything that could be done for him, at least not in advance of the coming of the surgeons, so I was in the act of turning away from the painful spectacle when a couple of Turcos, or Louisiana tigers, the most rakish and devilish-looking beings I ever saw, came up and peered over the shoulders of the circle of onlookers.

        Suddenly one of them pushed through the ring, saying: "Put you out of your misery? Certainly, sir!" and before

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any one had time to interfere, or even the faintest idea of his intention, brained the man with the butt of his musket; and the bloody club still in his hands, looking around upon the other wounded men, added glibly, "Any other gentleman here'd like to be accommodated?"

        It is impossible to express my feelings. I fear that if I had had a loaded musket in my hands I should have illustrated the demoralization of war a little further by shooting down in his tracks the demon, who suddenly disappeared, as a gasp of horror escaped the spectators.

        For the honor of human nature, let me quickly give you the other picture.

        At the crisis of the battle we were stationed in Fort Magruder, as above explained, the key of our position. I was standing, sponge-staff in hand, awaiting the firing of my gun, the next piece to the left being a gun of the Fayette Artillery. As my eye fell upon it, No. 1 was sponging out, No. 3, of course, having his thumbstall pressed upon the vent. Suddenly I saw No. 3 stoop, clapping his right hand upon his leg below the knee, and then I saw him topple slowly forward, never, however, lifting his thumb from the vent, but pressing it down close and hard--his elbow strained upward as his body sank forward and downward. The heroic fellow had been first shot in the calf of the right leg, and as he bent to feel that wound a bullet crashed through his skull; but his last effort was to save No. 1 from the loss of his hands by premature explosion as he rammed home the next charge I have never witnessed more sublime faithfulness unto death than was exhibited by the downward pressure of that thumb, as it was literally dragged from the hole of the piece by the weight of the sinking body of the noble cannoneer.

        This incident reminds me of another which well illustrates how receptive and retentive of pictorial impression are the minds of men--especially men of a certain type--at moments of intense excitement. It is this faculty, in great measure, which imparts special interest and value to the personal reminiscences of men of this character.

        Nearly three years after the battle of Williamsburg, I think in March, '65, entering the office of the provost-marshall

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of the city of Richmond for the first and only time during the war, I found an officer, in a new uniform of a colonel of cavalry, in an unpleasant altercation with one of the employees of the office. As I approached he turned to me, saying:

        "It's a hard case, Major, that a veteran colonel of the Army of Northern Virginia is bearded in this way by a beardless boy of a provost-marshal's clerk, and that he cannot have even the poor satisfaction of slapping his jaws as he is entrenched behind this partition."

        While pouring out this complaint the Colonel gazed at me with increasing interest and, as he ceased--starting a little-- said abruptly:

        "I have seen you before, sir!"

        "Yes, Colonel," I replied, "or at least, I have seen you, and I recall just when and where it was; but as you are the ranking officer won't you be good enough to say first, if you can, when and where you saw me?"

        "Certainly, sir," said he; "it was at the battle of Williamsburg, in May, '62. You were then a private soldier in an artillery company and were standing, bare-headed, at the angle of Fort Magruder with a sponge-staff in your hand as I led a charge of cavalry past the fort."

        My recollection exactly coincided with his. The officer, I think, was Col. J. Lucius Davis, who commanded a body of Virginia troops at Charlestown or Harper's Ferry during the John Brown raid; but, whoever he was, he was not a colonel at Williamsburg, but I think a captain; and, as I remember, then wore a brown-gray tunic belted around his waist, and his hair, which was then quite long, swept back from his forehead as he gallantly led his men, sabre in hand, at full speed against the enemy.

        We never met save on the two occasions mentioned and could not possibly have seen each other at Williamsburg more than a moment. The rank, dress, bearing--everything, indeed, save the essential personality of the two men--was entirely different at the two meetings, and yet neither of us felt the slightest hesitation as to mutual identification or the time, place, and circumstances of the first meeting.

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        The one feature of the march up the Peninsula was mud. Even the great "Mud turtle" himself must have been satiated with it. As for me, I had never imagined anything approximating to it. The ground had been saturated by recent heavy rains, which seemed to have brought down with them myriads of diminutive green frogs, the only living organisms, except of course the mud turtle, which could enjoy the big lob-lolly puddles into which the road-bed had been churned by the multitude of troughs and wheels and the feet of the trampling thousands. Our company wagon, containing a present supply of commissary and quartermaster stores and all our extra clothing, sank to the hubs and had to be abandoned. We feared for the guns and could not think of wasting teams on wagons. The danger was really imminent that the guns themselves would have to be abandoned, and the captain instructed me to have at hand a haversack with hammer and spikes and to keep near the rear of the battery, and if a gun could not be dragged through the mud, then to "spike it" as thoroughly as I could, slip the trunnions from the sockets and let the piece drop into the deepest mud I could find, and mark the spot. By dint, however, of fine driving, and heavy lifting and shoving at the wheels, we managed to save our brazen war dogs, for which we were beginning to feel a strong attachment.

        The poor horses often sank to their bellies, and we were several times compelled to unhitch a stalled horse, tie a prolonge around him, hitch the rest of the team to the rope and drag him out. I mean just what I say when I aver that I saw a team of mules disappear, every hair, under the mud, in the middle of the road. Of course they had first fallen, in their impotent efforts to extricate themselves, and they afterwards arose and emerged from their baptism of mud, at once the most melancholy and the most ludicrous-looking objects that could be imagined. It was wretched, and yet it had its funny side.

        We mounted upon the gun and caisson horses, for the emergency, the very best men, regard being had to the single requisite of skill and experience in handling draft horses and heavy loads, and no regard whatever as to whether or

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not they had theretofore been battery drivers. In this way it happened that two of the finest soldiers in the command were driving at my gun, the one the wheel team and the other the lead, there being at the time six horses to the piece. It was stalled, and two or three unsuccessful efforts having been made to start it, the wheel driver declared it was the fault of the leader. The latter retorted, and the war of words waxed hot, until suddenly the wheel charioteer dismounted in the thigh-deep mud and, struggling up abreast of the lead team, dared the driver of it to get down and fight it out then and there. It is possible the other would have accepted the challenge if a glance down at his friend and foe had not brought the absurdity of the entire thing so vividly before him that he simply threw his head back in a burst of laughter, saying, "Why, Billy, you must take me for an infernal fool, to expect me to get down in that infernal mud to fight you!" Whereupon the gentleman in the mud laughed, too, as did everybody within sight and hearing, and Billy struggled back to his wheelers, remounted, and with "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether"--out she came.

        Another gentleman--he who had "resigned" when all trunks were sent to the rear from Manassas--having gotten at the company wagon this day, just before it was abandoned, had on a beautiful new suit of "Crenshaw gray," and, thus arrayed, was making a perilous passage out in the woods parallel to the road, dodging behind the big pine trees and springing from tussock to tussock of swamp grass and bushes. The boys had been watching him for some time, but he begged so hard, by cabalistic signs, that they had not "told on him." But finally the lieutenant saw him and called to him to come and get in the mud and help start a stalled gun. Of course he had to come, but he came very slowly, meanwhile beseeching the boys to "put on a little more steam and get the gun out!"

        But the fellows had now come to appreciate the fun of the thing, as had also the lieutenant, and he ordered them to do nothing until Jim should get down in the mud with them. He wriggled and squirmed, his comrades standing in

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the mud about the gun jeering and jibing at him, as he mounted and walked upon a big pine log which projected out to the slough of despond in which the gun was stuck, till, getting about squarely over it, he stopped and begged once more; but the boys shouted derisively, and the lieutenant called out, "Get down to it, sir; nobody's going to shove a pound until you get in and shove with the rest!" Poor Jim! He lifted his foot and stamped it down in vexation on the wet bark, which parted and slipped from the smooth, slick bole of the tree, and down came Jim, with a great splash like the mules, hide and hair and Crenshaw gray, all into and under the mud. I don't think I ever heard such a shout as greeted this "knight of the sorrowful figure" as he emerged, from his thighs up, the liquid mud dripping from every part of the upper half of his person. But it cured him and his suit as well, the beautiful Crenshaw gray thenceforward exhibiting a sickly, jaundiced, butter-nut hue, like the clothes some backwoods cracker regiments wore when they first came to Virginia.

        Only one other feature of our march up the Peninsula merits notice, and that was our almost actual starvation on the way. The cause of this was separation from our brigade, which was probably ten miles from Williamsburg before we were ordered to follow. In the condition of the roads already described, catching up with any particular body of troops was of course out of the question. We really had nothing to eat for two days and nights, except, that, as we were compelled to impress corn for the horses-of course old, hard corn--we roasted a little of it for ourselves.

        On the third day we overhauled a commissary train, in a by-road we were traveling to escape the jam and the mud, and Captain McCarthy, making known the extreme need of his men, begged rations enough to give them just one meal; but the officer in charge answered:

        "I cannot issue you anything, Captain, except upon the order of General Griffith, your brigadier, or my commanding officer."

        To which our captain replied:

        "General Griffith is somewhere between here and Richmond, I don't know where your commanding officer is; but

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if you can't give me anything, except upon the order of one of these two officers, then I can take what my men need, on my own order, and I'll do it. Here, boys, drive a gun up here in the road ahead of this train, unlimber it and load it. Now, sir, you shan't pass here without issuing three days' rations for my men; but I'll give you a written statement of what has occurred, signed by me!"

        We sprang with a shout to execute the Captain's order, and in a few moments had our three days' rations, cooking them in the few utensils we always kept with us, and soon made a good square meal. I suppose Captain McCarthy's conduct was deemed justifiable, as no notice of a court-martial or a court of inquiry was ever served upon him.

        It was, however, some days before the supply departments were thoroughly organized, after the disorganization and paralysis of the fearful mud deluge, and meanwhile not only did we artillerymen once more come down to hard pan and hard corn, but one evening General Griffith, who was a charming gentleman, rode over to where our battery was parked, saying to our captain that he came to beg three favors--a couple of ears of corn for himself, a feed for his horse, and a song from our Glee Club--to all of which he was made royally welcome, and he sat right down about our camp fire and roasted and ate his corn with us.

        The boys used to say, "ten ears to a horse, two to a man-- which shows that a horse is equal to five men." Later in the war this ratio was practically vindicated, for the supply of horses got to be in every sense a prime necessity with the field artillery of the Confederate armies. Many a time, during the campaign of '64, have I heard artillery officers of the Army of Northern Virginia--belonging to different corps meeting for the first time after heavy fighting, in which the commands of both had been engaged, exchange some such greeting as this:

        "Well, old fellow, how did you come out? How many horses did you lose? Lose any men?"

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CHAPTER VIII

SEVEN PINES AND THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES

Joseph E. Johnston--The Change of Commanders--Lee's Plan of the Seven Days' Battles--Rainsford--the Pursuit--Playing at Lost Ball --"Little Mac's Lost the Thrigger"--Early Dawn on a Battle-field-- Lee and Jackson.

        I turn back a moment to the mud and the march up the Peninsula, in order to relate a reminiscence illustrative of several matters of interest, aside from the mud, such as the state of the currency, the semi-quizzical character and bearing of the Confederate soldier and his marked respect for private property, as well as the practical limitations to that respect.

        The column had halted at New Kent Court House, a little hamlet in the great pine forest, then and now boasting not over a half dozen houses, in addition to the tavern and the temple of justice. The infantry had broken ranks and most of them were resting and chatting, seated or reclined upon the banks of the somewhat sunken road. On one side had been a large cabbage patch from which the heads had been cut the preceding fall, leaving the stalks in the ground, which under the genial spring suns and rains,--it was the middle of May,--had greened out into what I think are termed "collards" or "sprouts." They were just what the soldiers longed for and required, and an enterprising fellow sauntered up to the fence and offered an old woman, who stood near by, "a dollar for one of them green things."

        The price was fixed not by the seller but by the purchaser and clearly under the combined influence of three considerations he thought so much of the sprout, and so little of the dollar, and then that dollar was probably the smallest money he had.

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        No sooner said than done, and by the time the fellow paid his dollar and began browsing upon his sprout, the fence which was about breast high and a very flimsy affair, was lined with soldiers, each with his right arm extended toward the old woman, a one-dollar Confederate Treasury note fluttering in his fingers. I can see and hear them now:

        "Here, miss, please let me have one; I'm a heap hungrier'n these other men."

        "But, mother, I'm a sick man and such a good boy; you ought to 'tend to me first."

        And so it went; and so went the old woman, backward and forward, jerking the sprouts out of the ground with wondrous speed, and as fast as she gathered an armful, striding along the fence, distributing them and raking in the dollars. I never witnessed a brisker trade in cabbage; but the buyers were so eager and the pressure of the leaning men became so great, that the fence, the frail barrier between "tuum and meum," suddenly gave way, and quicker than I can tell it there wasn't a sprout left in the patch.

        The men had no intention of breaking into the enclosure, but Providence having removed the fence, they followed up the Providential indications by removing the sprouts. It is not easy to say just what the purchasing power of these dollars was, but at that comparatively early date it is easy to see that the old woman, counting only the money she actually got, made an astounding sale of her entire crop of sprouts.

        At last we arrived and took our places in the outer line of defenses of Richmond, McClellan at first establishing his lines behind the Chickahominy--his base of supplies being White House, on York River;--but he soon threw across, that is to our side, the Richmond side, of the Chickahominy River and swamp, a considerable force, strongly fortifying its position. Still it was manifest, or seemed to be, that this force on the Richmond side was not strong enough, without drawing aid from the other side, to repel an attack by the entire army of Johnston. The water in the swamp suddenly rose and apparently cut off communication with the other side. Seven Pines was an attack upon the Federal force oil the Richmond side of the stream and swamp, with the view

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of destroying it while it could not be reinforced from the main body beyond the stream, and, as is well known, General Johnston was struck down and totally disabled just at the crisis of the action.

        When the commanding general of an army, especially upon the attacking side, is struck down while his plans are developing, it is ordinarily not possible to say with confidence what would have been the result of the engagement if no such calamity had befallen the attacking force. Seven Pines is therefore what may properly be termed an indecisive, if not an abortive, battle. While the determined fighting on the Confederate side probably contributed to delay a general advance by McClellan, thus giving time for Lee to get thorough hold upon his army, to acquire their confidence, to mature his plans generally, and in particular to arrange for the withdrawal of Jackson from the Valley, yet it must be admitted that, as to the main design of the Confederates, the battle was a failure.

        Doubtless, to the Southern people and soldiers generally, after the Seven Days' battles, Seven Pines seemed to measure up to its chief significance as the fight which resulted in removing Joseph E. Johnston from the command of the main army of the Confederacy and putting Robert E. Lee in his place; and I think likely it did so present itself to me at the time--indeed such is my recollection. But after the war it was my good fortune to be honored with the close and intimate friendship of General Johnston,--closer and more intimate than I ever enjoyed with any other of the great Southern leaders,--and the knowledge thus acquired of the man himself has imparted to the strange fatality of his being stricken down at Seven Pines, with the tenth honorable wound received in battle, and to other unfortunate features of his career, a new and almost pathetic interest.

        I found him, both as a man and a soldier, to be very different from my previous estimate of him and in every way above that estimate; so that, in looking upon the glorious career of Lee, I have sometimes felt inclined to say in behalf of my friend what he never said for himself: "Who can tell? It might have been!" And I do here say of him, in a

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single sentence, that as a trained, professional soldier, I do not believe he ever had his superior, if indeed his equal, on this continent; while as a man, he was one of the purest and strongest I ever knew, and perhaps the most affectionate.

        When he ran for Congress in 1878 against the candidate of the combined Greenback and Republican parties, in a district including Richmond City and several counties, I was chairman of his campaign committee, and heartily wish it were appropriate to relate many of the incidents of the campaign so graphically illustrating how world-wide apart are the soldier and the politician. I must, however, be pardoned for telling one.

        He came to his headquarters one morning much outraged at what I had not heard of and, of course, had not authorized--the erection of a banner, the night before, in the strongest manufacturing ward in the city, with his name upon it and some popular catchword or phrase squinting obscurely at "protection." Upon military principles he held me responsible, but I soon ascertained that it had been done with the approval of a shrewd and experienced practical politician, who was also an influential member of the committee, and I deemed it proper to call that body together. Upon their assembling the General took the matter entirely out of my hands, saying substantially and with very hot emphasis: "Gentlemen, this is a matter about which I do not propose to ask your advice, because it involves my conscience and my personal honor. I spoke yesterday, at Louisa Court House, under a 'free-trade' flag. I have never ridden 'both sides of the sapling,' and I don't propose to learn how at this late day. That banner in Clay Ward comes down to-day or I retire from this canvass by published card to-morrow."

        I have said he was the most affectionate of men. It will surprise many, who saw only the iron bearing of the soldier, to hear that we never met, or parted for any length of time, that he did not, if we were alone, throw his arms about me and kiss me, and that such was his habit in parting from or greeting his male relatives and most cherished friends. I will only add that he and General Lee entertained the most exalted estimate and opinion of each other, and when--very

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late in the war, I think in February, 1865--Lee was made practical dictator and commander-in-chief of all the armies of the Confederacy, his very first act as such was the restoration of Joseph E. Johnston to the command of the army from which he had been removed when Hood was put in his place.

        As to the actual fighting at Seven Pines, we took part in it, yet not a very prominent part. Among the heroes of the day were our old Leesburg acquaintance, now Major-General D. H. Hill, whose division covered itself and its commander with blood and glory, by one of the most dogged and deadly fights on record; and Captain, afterwards Colonel, Tom Carter, of the King William Artillery--yesterday the ideal artillerist, the idol of the artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, to-day an ideal Southern gentleman and the efficient Proctor of our State University. He is a cousin of Robert E. Lee, and combines more of the modesty, simplicity, purity, and valor of his great kinsman than any other living man of my acquaintance.

        At Seven Pines his battery made a phenomenal fight against an overwhelming weight of metal, and while Carter was sitting on his horse, with one foot in the stirrup and the other thrown across the pommel of his saddle, directing the undismayed fight of the undestroyed fragment of his battery, up rode our old friend "D. H.," and in the midst of the awful carnage and destruction, once more gave expression to his monomania on the subject of fighting pluck by rising in his stirrups, saluting Carter and his men and declaring he had rather be captain of the King William Artillery than President of the Confederate States. But, as before said, this battle lives and will live in history, mainly as that which brought together for the first time the great Captain and the tattered soldiery, which ere long made the world ring with their fame.

        Lee's grand plan of the Seven Days' battles has been so often expatiated upon by able soldiers and writers that I could scarcely hope to add anything of intrinsic value to the discussion, so I propose to give what I have to say on the topic by way of post-bellum reminiscence.

        It has been noted with surprise how many distinguished and devout clergymen of the Church of England have admitted

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an irrepressible lifelong yearning for the army. My recollection is that this feeling crops out more or less in Kingsley; I am sure it runs like a refrain through Frederick William Robertson's life and letters and appears perhaps in his sermons. Years ago, when he who is now Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of St. George's, New York, was a glorious youth, he conducted a most successful mission in St. Paul's Church, Richmond, Va., and drew some of us very close to him. Toward the close of his work he asked Col. Archer Anderson and myself to walk with him over the field of the Seven Days' battles, or as much of it as we could "do" on foot in a day. We started early one crisp February morning, the Colonel and I full of interest, but fearful that we could not keep up with the giant stride of our comrade, who was a trained athlete and one of the most heroic-looking specimens of young manhood I ever beheld. We could not help thinking what a soldier he would have made. He was not then a Reverend Doctor and will, I am sure, pardon me for speaking of him on this occasion as "Rainsford."

        We explained to him the positions of the two armies just before the opening of the battle; that Lee's was on this, the Richmond, side of the Chickahominy, which was generally impassable, except where the various roads, running out of Richmond like the spokes of a wheel, crossed it; that McClellan's army was on both sides of the stream or swamp, the bulk of it perhaps at this time on the Richmond side, but he had established and fortified free communication between his two wings; also that Jackson had been secretly drawn down from the Valley, and was now hovering, hawk fashion, somewhere over beyond and back of McClellan's right flank.

        We next showed him the disparity in numbers, McClellan, by his own report, dated June 20, 1862, six days before the fighting began, having "Present for duty one hundred and five thousand eight hundred and twenty-five (105,825) men;" and as he was anticipating battle and calling lustily for reinforcements, his force was probably substantially increased during these six days; while Lee, as demonstrated by Col. Walter H. Taylor, adjutant-general of his army, and Gen. Jubal A. Early, both better informed on the subject

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than any other man ever was, had a little under or a little over eighty thousand (80,000) men present for duty when the fight opened, including Jackson's forces. Moreover, our inferiority in artillery, both as to number and character of guns, and as to ammunition also, was shocking.

        Meanwhile, we were walking out, to and across the Chickahominy, by the Mechanicsville turnpike or the Meadow Bridge road, the last of which debouched on the other side of the stream, a little to our left of the end of the Federal lines, this being the road by which Lee's first attacking column filed out on the 26th of June, '62, swung around McClellan's right flank and burst like an electric bolt upon the besieging army; the next and supporting column marching out by the Mechanicsville pike as soon as the first had cleared that road.

        We explained Jackson's part in the plan, entering the fight the next day, on the left of the troops from Richmond and further in rear of McClellan's right flank; our combined forces driving his right wing--which was most ably handled and gallantly fought--back upon his centre, from which troops had been already drawn to support his right.

        We pointed out to him the audacious boldness of Lee's plan in withdrawing approximately two-thirds of his army from the lines about Richmond for this attack, so that barely 28,000 men were left between the Federal army and the Confederate capital.

        And when at last McClellan succeeded in getting all of his hard-pressed troops across to the Richmond side, this 28,000 men, who had not yet been engaged, uniting with their victorious comrades, fell like an avalanche (or rather had orders to fall-nearly one-third of them did not fire a shot) upon his worn-out, beaten, and dispirited troops, drove them pell-mell under the guns of their James River fleet, and but for failure of subordinates to carry out instructions Lee would undoubtedly have dictated terms of surrender to his gallant foe.

        We went out on the Meadow Bridge or Mechanicsville road, made the entire sweep, and returned, I think, by the Williamsburg road, the York River Railroad, and the New

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Bridge road--at all events, we could scarcely have walked much, if any, less than twenty-eight to thirty miles. It was one of the most enjoyable days of my life. Rainsford caught the plan instantly. Going over it in detail with him, upon the very spots, and climbing the very slopes up which Lee's legions had rushed to the charge, he was thrilled to almost savage excitement, yelling like a rebel infantryman, his giant frame and his grand face absolutely inspired. In his martial ecstasy he threw his great arms about us, hugging us, to our imminent peril; declaring he had loved us both at first sight, but could never forget us now, and that to have lived in and been a part of those days and those battles was enough to lift men forever to heroic stature and character.

        Our battery was among the 28,000 men left on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy, to defend the capital, to occupy the attention of McClellan's troops on this side, and to prevent their recrossing to the aid of their hard-pressed comrades on the other; but the real defenders of the city were the men who stormed the bloody heights at Gaines' Mill and the positions at Mechanicsville and Cold Harbor. We were in General Magruder's command and were kept most of the time hitched up and ready to move at a moment's warning. We were subjected now and then to fire from Federal batteries, suffered some loss of horses and equipment, and several of our men were wounded, but there were no serious casualties.

        On the 29th of June--Sunday, I think it was--General Magruder advanced his troops along the Nine-Mile road to feel the enemy, when the main thing that struck us was the immense quantity of abandoned stores and equipment, indicating how abundant had been the supply of the Federal forces and how great the demoralization of their retreat. Near Savage Station there must have been acres covered by stacks of burning boxes of bacon, crackers, and desiccated vegetables--"desecrated vegetables," our boys called them. To us poorly-equipped and half-starved rebels it was a revelation. Here and elsewhere we picked up a few rations and a few choice equipments of various kinds, but had really

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neither time nor taste for plunder. There were other mementoes of their stay and of their hasty departure left by "our friends the enemy," not quite so attractive or appetizing--the ghastly leavings of numerous field hospitals; pale, naked corpses and grotesque piles of arms and legs.

        At one of these hospital stations we found an Irishman, whom we at first thought dying, as perhaps he was; but a swallow or two of the "crathur" revived him, and when, under such inspiration, did Pat ever fail to be communicative and witty? He seemed to grasp the situation perfectly, and upon some one asking if the apparent flight might not after all be a trap--"Be dad," said he, "an' ef it's a thrap, thin shure an' little Mac's lost the thrigger!"

        At or near Savage Station, I think on this 29th of June, our brigade commander, General Griffith, was killed. In a shower of projectiles turned loose upon us by an unseen foe, at least half a shell from a three-inch rifled gun lodged in his body. The marvel is he did not die instantly, but I noted the desperate clinch of his fingers and the pallor of his face as he clasped his hands back of his head after he had fallen from his horse. He was a genial and cultured gentleman and regarded as a very promising officer. Colonel Barksdale, of the Thirteenth, at once took command of the brigade, and was soon commissioned brigadier.

        We then crossed over to the York River Railroad, upon which we had what our men called our "railroad gun," a siege piece, mounted on a flat-car with an engine back of it, the front of the car being protected by rails of track iron fastened upon an incline, the mouth of the gun projecting a little as from an embrasure. As it puffed up, a number of Federal batteries, invisible to us, opened upon it and upon the troops, and General Magruder sent an order for our guns to cross the railroad by the bridge hard by and come into battery in the smooth, hard field beyond.

        We executed this dashing feat in gallant style, our captain riding ahead, the pieces in a wild gallop and the men on a wild run following. Again we seemed to be in full sight of an unseen enemy, for the bridge was raked and swept by a fearful storm of shot and shell. I distinctly remember the

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shells bursting in my very face, and the bridge must have been struck repeatedly, the great splinters hurtling past and cutting the air like flashes of lightning, yet no one was hurt. Once across, we were ordered, "Forward into battery, left oblique, march!" which elaborate movement was executed by the men as if on drill. I could not refrain from glancing around, and was amazed to see every piece, limber, caisson and man in the exact mathematical position in which each belonged, and every man seemed to have struck the very attitude required by the drill-book. And there we all stood, raked by a terrific fire, to which we could not reply, being really a second line, the first--consisting of infantry alone--having passed into the dense, forbidding forest in front, feeling for the enemy. And so it was most of the way to Malvern Hill. The country not admitting of the use of cavalry to any extent, we were constantly playing at "lost-ball," and exposed to galling fire from a foe we could not see, and to whom we generally could not reply because our infantry was in the woods in front of us.

        But two things delighted us greatly: Our old brigade had been in our rear when we dashed across the bridge, taking the fire from them--and not only did they witness this, but they were lying down behind us when we executed the beautiful movement and made the staunch, soldierly stand in the open field beyond; so they cheered us enthusiastically the next time we moved by them.

        The second morning after,--just as we came into battery on the field of Frazier's (or Frayser's) farm, where the fighting had closed after dark the preceding day, and which on that morning presented perhaps the most ideal view of a battle-field I ever saw,--captured cannon, exploded limbers and caissons, dead horses and dead men scattered over it in most picturesque fashion,--Col. Stephen D. Lee, of the artillery, afterwards lieutenant-general, rode out in front of our guns, took off his hat to us and said that he had witnessed and remarked upon our performance of two days ago, at the railroad bridge and in the field, as General Magruder had also; that nothing could have been more soldierly, and having thus shown ourselves equal to the most trying duty of the

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soldier, the duty of standing and receiving fire without replying to it, he had determined we should certainly have the opportunity of seeing how well we could perform the easier part of returning fire, blow for blow--an opportunity we certainly did have at Malvern Hill, ad satietatem, or ad nauseam, as the case might be, according to the degree and intensity of a man's hankering and hungering for fight. As for our own feelings upon this subject, just at this time, we had but that moment turned our backs upon a scene no ways calculated to impart hot stomach for battle.

        The six brigades of General Magruder's command--Barksdale's, to which we were attached, being one--had arrived at Frazier's farm the preceding night after dark and too late to take part in the engagement. We were overpowered with fatigue, intent only on sleep, and sank to rest amid the wreck and death of the hard-fought field. In the shadowy dawn, as our guns, moving into position to reopen the fight, threaded their way through the confused bivouac of the slumbering, the dying and the dead--the mysterious hush of the battle-field resting over all--we saw, side by side, upturned together to the bleaching dew, the pale faces of the breathing and the breathless sleepers, not distinguishable in the dim morning twilight. Suddenly the drums beat to arms and the living rose,--and then the stolidest veteran in that vast multitude shuddered as he left the side of his ghastly bedfellow who had rested with him so quietly all that summer night, and by whose side the frame that now shrank away with horror might rest to-night as ghastly as he.

        All of us had been longing for a sight of Jackson. It is impossible to exaggerate or even to convey an adequate idea of the excitement and furor concerning him about this time, both in the army and among the people.

        On Sunday evening, not far from Savage Station, I had been struck directly over the heart by a spent ball, which glanced from a buckle, but blackened my breast and nauseated me somewhat. Next morning, still feeling badly and the battery remaining stationary for a time, I had retired a little from the line and was half reclining at the foot of a huge pine that stood on the edge of the Williamsburg road. Hearing

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the jingle of cavalry accoutrements toward the Chickahominy, I looked up and saw a half-dozen mounted men, and riding considerably in advance a solitary horseman, whom I instantly recognized as the great wizard of the marvelous Valley Campaign which had so thrilled the army and the country.

        Jackson and the little sorrel stopped in the middle of the road, probably not fifty feet off, while his staff halted perhaps a hundred and fifty yards in his rear. He sat stark and stiff in the saddle. Horse and rider appeared worn down to the lowest point of flesh consistent with effective service. His hair, skin, eyes, and clothes were all one neutral dust tint, and his badges of rank so dulled and tarnished as to be scarcely perceptible. The "mangy little cadet cap" was pulled so low in front that the visor cut the glint of his eyeballs.

         A ghastly scene was spread across the road hard by. The Seventeenth and Twenty-first Mississippi, of our brigade, had been ordered into the woods about dusk the evening before and told not to fire into the first line they met; but the poor fellows ran into a Federal brigade and were shocked and staggered by a deadly volley. Splendid soldiers that they were, they obeyed orders, held their own fire, laid down and took the enemy's. Almost every man struck was killed, and every man killed shot through the brain. Their comrades had gone into the woods as soon as it was light, brought out the bodies and laid them in rows, with hands crossed upon the breast, but eyes wide-staring. A sickly summer rain had fallen in the night and the faces of the dead were bleached with more than death's pallor. Every eyeball was strained upward toward the spot where the bullet had crashed through the skull, and every forehead stained with ooze and trickle of blood. Men were passing through the silent lilies, bending low, seeking in the distorted faces to identify their friends.

        Jackson glanced a moment toward this scene. Not a muscle quivered as he resumed his steady gaze down the road toward Richmond. He was the ideal of concentration--imperturbable, resistless. I remember feeling that if he were not a very good man he would be a very bad one. By

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a ludicrous turn of the association of ideas, the old darky minister's illustration of faith flashed through my brain: "Bredren, ef de Lord tell me to jump through a stone wall, I's gwine to jump at it; jumpin' at it 'longs to me, goin' through it 'longs to God." The man before me would have jumped at anything the Lord told him to jump through.

        A moment later and his gaze was rewarded. A magnificent staff approached from the direction of Richmond, and riding at its head, superbly mounted, a born king among men. At that time General Lee was one of the handsomest of men, especially on horseback, and that morning every detail of the dress and equipment of himself and horse was absolute perfection. When he recognized Jackson he rode forward with a courier, his staff halting. As he gracefully dismounted, handing his bridle rein to his attendant, and advanced, drawing the gauntlet from his right hand, Jackson flung himself off his horse and advanced to meet Lee, the little sorrel trotting back to the staff, where a courier secured him.

        The two generals greeted each other warmly, but wasted no time upon the greeting. They stood facing each other, some thirty feet from where I lay, Lee's left side and back toward me, Jackson's right and front. Jackson began talking in a jerky, impetuous way, meanwhile drawing a diagram on the ground with the toe of his right boot. He traced two sides of a triangle with promptness and decision; then starting at the end of the second line, began to draw a third projected toward the first. This third line he traced slowly and with hesitation, alternately looking up at Lee's face and down at his diagram, meanwhile talking earnestly; and when at last the third line crossed the first and the triangle was complete, he raised his foot and stamped it down with emphasis, saying, "We've got him;" then signalled for his horse, and when he came, vaulted awkwardly into the saddle and was off. Lee watched him a moment, the courier brought his horse, he mounted, and he and his staff rode away.

        The third line was never drawn--so we never "got" McClellan.

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        I question if any other man witnessed this interview--certainly no other was as near the two generals. At times I could hear their words, though they were uttered, for the most part, in the low tones of close and earnest conference. As the two faced each other, except that the difference in height was not great, the contrast between them could not have been more striking--in feature, figure, dress, voice, style, bearing, manner, everything, in short, that expressed the essential individuality of the two men. It was the Cavalier and the Puritan in intensest embodiment. These two great roots and stocks of British manhood had borne each its consummate flower in the rank soil of the New World.

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CHAPTER IX

MALVERN HILL AND THE EFFECT OF THE SEVEN DAYS' BATTLES

Not a Confederate Victory--The Federal Artillery Fire--Demoralization of Lee's Army--"McClellan Will Be Gone by Daylight"--The Weight of Lee's Sword--Stuart--Pelham--Pegram--"Extra Billy"--To Battle in a Trotting Sulky--The Standard of Courage.

        I have said nothing as yet about Malvern Hill. No Confederate cares to say anything about it. If McClellan had done nothing else in the seven days to stamp him as a general, and his army nothing else to stamp them as soldiers, beyond the selection of this position, the disposition and handling of his artillery, and the stubborn and successful stand there made, after and in spite of the experiences of the six days preceding--the reputation, both of general and of soldiers, might well be rested on this basis alone. If it had been a single, isolated battle, it would have gone down into history simply and squarely as a defeat for the Confederates, and even when viewed in its historic connection, it must yet be admitted that all our assaults were repulsed and our pursuit so staggered that the Federal general was allowed to withdraw his army without being closely pressed.

         Upon our side there was not a single relieving feature in the picture. In the first place, the battle ought never to have been fought where it was. If the orders of Lee had been carried out, it would not have been, for McClellan would never have reached this position. The "third line," of which Lee and Jackson spoke in the interview described in the preceding chapter, was never drawn. The understanding in the army at the time was that Huger and Holmes were to have drawn it, but that their commands lost their way in

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the almost trackless forest. In an address on "The Campaigns of Gen. Robert E. Lee," delivered at Washington and Lee University in 1872, on January 19th, Lee's birthday, Gen. Jubal A. Early says: "* * * Holmes' command, over six thousand strong, did not actually engage in any of the battles." But Col. Walter H. Taylor, in his "Four Years with General Lee," published in 1877, already referred to, repeats three times--on pages 51, 53, and 54--that Holmes' command numbered ten thousand or more; and it is obvious, upon a comparison of the two statements, that Early's figures, "over six thousand," did not include Ransom's brigade, which numbered thirty-six hundred.

        It seems incredible, yet it appears to be true, that General Holmes was very deaf; so deaf that, when heaven and earth were shuddering with the thunder of artillery and the faces of his own men were blanched with the strain, he placed his hand behind his car, and turning to a member of his staff, said, "I think I hear guns." The story was told by one of his own brigadiers, and if anything approximating to it was true, then a great responsibility rests upon some one for putting an officer so far disabled in charge of troops,--especially at such a crisis and for such a service,--whatever his other qualifications may have been.

        As before stated, General Lee left but twenty-eight thousand men on the Richmond side of the Chickahominy when he crossed to the other side to attack McClellan, and of course looked to these fresh troops, when his victorious but decimated and worn-out soldiers had driven the enemy into their arms, to fall upon the Federal general and gather the fruits of victory. But here are more than one-third of these fresh troops, and the very ones Lee had arranged should cut off the retreat of his gallant foe, that never got into action at all, and McClellan was permitted to reach and occupy the strong position which saved his army and cost the lives of thousands of ours. And even this was not all. Magruder, a most vigorous officer, to whose command we were attached, lost his way and thus delayed the attack and gave McClellan further time for his dispositions. And when at last we did attack, it was in a disconnected and desultory

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fashion, which even to a private soldier seemed to promise no good result. But I cannot give a fairer or better idea of our view of the battle than by quoting from pages 48, 49 of Colonel Taylor's admirable book:

        From these extracts I think it will be clear to the candid reader that the retreat to the James River was a compulsory one, and due to a defeat then acknowledged by General McClellan himself.

         The fighting, however, was not invariably attended with success to the Confederates; notably, the defense of Malvern Hill by the Federals was in favor of the latter, which result was as much due to the mismanagement of the Confederate troops as to the naturally strong position occupied by the Federals and their gallantry in its defense.

         Considerable delay was occasioned in the pursuit from the fact that the ground was unknown to the Confederate commanders. On this occasion General Magruder took the wrong route and had to be recalled, thereby losing much precious time; and when after serious and provoking delay the lines were formed for attack, there was some misunderstanding of the orders of the commanding general, and instead of a spirited, united advance by the entire line, as contemplated, the divisions were moved forward at different times, each attacking independently, and each in turn repulsed. Moreover, owing to the peculiar character of the ground, artillery could not be advantageously placed to aid the assaulting columns; whereas the Federal batteries, strongly posted and most handsomely served, contributed in a very great degree to the successful stand made by McClellan's retreating army at Malvern Hill.

        I have characterized the foregoing as a fair statement, as it certainly is, and yet even this fails to convey an adequate impression of the stunning and temporarily depressing effect of this battle upon our army. As to my own experience and feelings, the revelation I am about to make may be a damaging one, yet I have no desire to sail under false colors, and then, too, my own case may serve to confirm and in part to explain the remarkable statements below made as to the sudden and fearful deterioration in the condition of our army which this battle, for the time, effected.

        Three of the guns of the old battery were put in action against McClellan's majestic aggregation of batteries, by way of at least making a diversion in favor of our assaulting

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infantry, a diversion which I presume we to some extent accomplished; for I never conceived anything approximating the shower and storm of projectiles and the overwhelming cataclysm of destruction which were at once turned upon our pitiful little popguns. In the short time they existed as effective pieces they were several times fired by fragments of Federal shell striking them after the lanyard was stretched and before it was pulled; and in almost less time than it takes to tell it the carriages were completely crushed, smashed, and splintered and the guns themselves so injured and defaced that we were compelled to send them to Richmond, after the battle, to be remoulded.

        We were put in action, too, after a long, hot run. I was as sound and strong as human flesh could well be, and yet my lungs seemed to be pumped out, my brain reeled and my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, which was burnt so dry that I experienced great difficulty in swallowing. Nevertheless, I managed to do my part in serving my gun, until, in a few moments, it was completely disabled, when I fell to the earth, a horror of great darkness came upon me, and the only distinct impression I can recall is that I felt I would be glad to compromise on annihilation.

        When I roused myself from this semi-stupor or swoon the detachment seemed to have disappeared, but in a few moments I found most of the men. I remember catching by the collar one who had dropped down, "all in a heap," in an unnecessarily exposed position on the projecting root of a large tree, and jerking him up; when on the instant a shell tore to pieces the root upon which he had been seated, and yet he sank down again but a step or two from the spot. It was the first battle in which members of the company had been killed outright. The wonder is that any survived who were working these three pieces; but I suppose it is to be accounted for by the fact that the guns were quickly disabled and put out of action.

        According to his own report of June 20, 1862, McClellan had three hundred and forty pieces of field artillery. I see no reason for doubting that a very large proportion of these were massed upon Malvern Hill. Nothing human can long

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withstand the fire of such a mass of artillery concentrated, as the Federal guns at Malvern Hill were, upon very short attacking lines of infantry. Colonel Taylor says divisions were marched forward at different times, each attacking independently and each in turn repulsed. I think it was even worse than this, and that in some cases single brigades advanced to the attack and were almost literally swept backward by what seemed to be the fire of a continuous line of battle of artillery.

        The effect of these repeated bloody repulses can hardly be conceived. One fearful feature was the sudden and awful revulsion of feeling among our soldiers, inspired by six days of constant victory and relentless pursuit of a retreating foe. The demoralization was great and the evidences of it palpable everywhere. The roads and forests were full of stragglers; commands were inextricably confused, some, for the time, having actually disappeared. Those who retained sufficient self-respect and sense of responsibility to think of the future were filled with the deepest apprehension. I know that this was the state of mind of some of our strongest and best officers; in fact, I do not know of any general officer in the army, save one, who did not entertain the gloomiest forebodings, and I recall hearing at the time, or rather a day or so afterwards, substantially the same story of that one which within the last few years and a short time before his own death was related by Dr. Hunter McGuire, Jackson's medical director, a man whom of all men he loved and trusted next after his great chief, Robert Lee. I quote from an address first delivered by Doctor McGuire at Lexington, but repeated several times afterwards by special request:

        At Malvern Hill, when a portion of our army was beaten and to some extent demoralized, Hill and Ewell and Early came to tell him that they could make no resistance if McClellan attacked them in the morning. It was difficult to wake General Jackson, as he was exhausted and very sound asleep. I tried it myself, and after many efforts, partly succeeded. When he was made to understand what was wanted he said: "McClellan and his army will be gone by daylight," and went to sleep again. The generals thought him mad, but the prediction was true.

        The Hill here referred to is probably not our old friend "D. H.," but A. P. Hill, a more brilliant soldier, yet, perhaps,

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not so peculiarly distinguished for imperturbable grit. The story illustrates two of the greatest and most distinguishing traits and powers of Jackson as a general: he did not know what demoralization meant, and he never failed to know just what his adversary thought and felt and proposed to do. In the present instance, not only did all that Jackson said and implied turn out to be true, that McClellan was thinking only of escape, and never dreamed of viewing the battle of Malvern Hill in any other aspect, but in an incredibly short time our army had recovered its tone and had come to take the same view of the matter. Indeed, as I believe, nothing but another untoward accident prevented McClellan's surrendering his entire army to Lee, notwithstanding his successful defense at Malvern Hill. The matter will be found circumstantially set out in Colonel Taylor's book, pages 41-44, substantiated and confirmed by a full extract from General Stuart's manuscript of "Reports and Notes on the War," and also by extracts from the report of the "Committee on the Conduct of the War," and is in outline as follows:

        Stuart, Lee's chief of cavalry, following up McClellan's movements after Malvern Hill, from the heights above West over, overlooked the entire Federal army huddled together in the river bottoms of and adjacent to Westover plantation, apparently in a state of utter disorganization and unpreparedness, and he could not resist the temptation of dropping a few shells among them, which produced a perfect stampede among the troops and wagons, but at the same time had the effect of calling the attention of the Federal commanders to the fact that the position of their army was utterly untenable without command of the heights from which these shells had been fired, and they immediately sent a heavy force to take possession of them. Stuart at once informed General Lee and received word that Jackson and Longstreet were en route to support him; but again the guides proved incompetent, and Longstreet was led six or seven miles out of the way, and Stuart, after resisting as long as he could, was compelled to yield possession of the heights, which were promptly occupied and fortified by an

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adequate Federal force, and McClellan's army was, for the first time, safe from successful attack.

        After having for the third time traced the failure of the plans of the Confederates to the incompetence or to the delinquency of guides,-- in the misleading of Holmes and Huger, of Magruder, and now of Longstreet,--it seems proper to remark that the entire region which was the theatre of the Seven Days' battles is, for the most part, covered by heavy pine forests and cypress swamps, and these traversed by many wood roads, or paths rather, undistinguishable the one from the other. The confusing character of the country is well illustrated by the fact that the last time I went there, with a party of survivors of our old battery, with the view, if possible, of identifying certain positions occupied by our guns in the campaign of '64, we had two guides born and reared in the neighborhood and who professed to be perfectly familiar with the country and with the positions we desired to find; and yet these men insisted upon leading us astray, and would have done so, but that my recollection and my instinct of locality were so opposed to their views that I simply refused to be misled. Unassisted and unaccompanied I found the first position sought, the rest of the party, with the guides, wandering around for hours and finally working around to me. But it should be remembered that the generals who were misled by guides, to the disarrangement and defeat of General Lee's perfectly-arranged plans, so far at least as I have reason to believe, had never been in the region before.

        Yet, once more. "Stuart, glorious Stuart," as Colonel Taylor justly calls him, while his boyish indiscretion in firing into the huddled masses of the enemy from Evelington heights, before informing General Lee of the situation, was apparently the cause of the loss of another great opportunity--yet it should not be forgotten, in this connection, that the great plan of the Seven Days battles owed its inspiration, or at least its completion and perfection, to the information derived from Stuart's marvelous ride around McClellan's entire army just in advance of Lee's attack, more than to any other source outside the imperial intellect of the Commander-in-Chief

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himself. Stuart was a splendidly endowed cavalry leader, his only fault being a tendency to indulge too far his fondness for achievements that savored of the startling, the marvelous, and the romantic.

        One more general reflection: Whatever effect the Seven Days' battles may have had upon other reputations, Federal or Confederate-- and there were upon our side generals whose names stood high upon the roster of our main army when these operations began, but never again appeared upon it after they closed--yet there is one name and fame which these seven days gave to history and to glory, as to which the entire world stands agreed, and all the after chances and changes of the war but expanded the world's verdict. When we contemplate Lee's great plan and the qualities of leadership which these operations revealed in him, we know not which most to admire-- the brilliance, the comprehensiveness, or the almost reckless audacity of the scheme and of the man. It is a singular fact, and one which seems to demand explanation, that the prominent impression which Lee invariably seems to make is that of roundness, balance, perfection; and yet unquestionably his leading characteristic as a general is aggressive audacity. Take for example his leaving but 28,000 of 80,000 men between McClellan and Richmond, and with the other 52,000 crossing a generally impassable stream and attacking McClellan's 105,000 in entrenched positions. Mayhap old Jubal Early, who knew Lee and knew war as well as any other man on either side, has the right of it and suggests the true explanation when he says, speaking of this very operation: "Timid minds might regard this as rashness, but it was the very perfection of a profound and daring strategy."

        And when we attempt to measure the effect of these Seven Days' battles--when we note that within less than one month from the day he took command of an army with which he had had no previous personal connection, Lee had completely secured its confidence and correctly estimated its capabilities, had conceived and perfected his great plan and every detail essential to its successful execution, had begun to put it into operation and actually delivered his first great

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blow; when we note further that within a week after that blow was struck Richmond was entirely relieved and within a few weeks more Washington was in serious peril, and the United States Government had called for three hundred thousand more men; when, we say, all this is considered, we may well ask when did the weight of one great Captain's sword, only this and nothing more, cause the scales of war to dip with such a determined, downward sag?

        One of the most important features of these seven days of battle was that it was the first prolonged wrestle of the Army of Northern Virginia, the struggle that really gave birth to that army; that gave it experience of its own powers, cohesion, character, confidence in itself and in its great commander--proper estimate of its great opponent, the Army of the Potomac, and its commander. Then, too, these days of continuous battle tested the individual men, and especially the officers of the army, winnowing the chaff from the wheat and getting rid of some high in command who did not catch the essential spirit of the army or assimilate well with it, or bid fair to add anything of value to it; at the same time this week of continuous battle brought to the front men who had in them stuff out of which heroes are made and who were destined to make names and niches for themselves in the pantheon of this immortal army.

        Among those in my own branch of the service who came prominently to the front, besides Tom Carter, who never lost the place he made for himself at Seven Pines in the affectionate admiration of the artillery and of the army, were the boy artillerists Pegram and Pelham, both yielding their glorious young lives in the struggle--Pegram at the very end, Pelham but eight months after Malvern Hill. The latter, an Alabamian, was commander of Stuart's horse artillery, devotedly loved and admired by his commanding general, the pride of the cavalry corps, one of the most dashing and brilliant soldiers in the service, though but twenty-two years of age when he fell. He was knighted by Lee himself in official report as "the gallant Pelham."

        The other, Pegram, was a more serious and a more powerful man, who came of a family of soldiers who had rendered

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distinguished service, both in the army and navy, prior to the war; an elder brother, a graduate of West Point and a singularly attractive man, rising to the rank of major-general in the Confederate service, and also losing his life in battle. The younger brother, the artillerist, a student when the war began, enlisted as a private soldier in a battery raised in the City of Richmond, which he commanded when the Seven Days' battles opened, rendering with it signal and distinguished service. Eventually he rose to the rank and command of colonel of artillery, and was recommended for appointment as brigadier-general of infantry, General Lee saying he would find a brigade for him just as soon as he could be spared from the artillery; but meanwhile he fell in battle at Five Forks in the spring of '65, even then hardly more than a stripling in years.

        He had always been such a modest, self-contained and almost shrinking youth that his most intimate friends were astonished at his rapid development and promotion; but it was one of those strongly-marked cases where war seemed to be the needed and almost the native air of a young man. He was, in some respects, of the type of Stonewall Jackson, and like him combined the strongest Christian faith and the deepest spirituality with the most intense spirit of fight.

        As commander of an artillery battalion he built up a reputation second to none for effective handling of his guns, his favorite method, where practicable, being to rush to close quarters with the enemy and open at the shortest possible range. He admitted that it seemed deadly, but insisted that it saved life in the end. When stricken down he lived enough to express his views and feelings, briefly but clearly, with regard to both worlds, and there never was a death more soldierly or more Christian.

        Another, a very different and very racy character, who was a good deal talked about after and in connection with the fighting around Richmond in '62, was old "Extra Billy," ex-Governor William Smith, of Virginia, whom I mentioned as a prominent among the Southern members in the Congress of '59-'60. He was one of the best specimens of the political

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general, rising ultimately to the rank of major-general; a born politician, twice Governor of the Commonwealth,--once before and once after this date,--already beyond the military age, yet one of the most devoted and enthusiastic soldiers in the service. As a soldier he was equally distinguished for personal intrepidity and contempt for what he called "tactics" and for educated and trained soldiers, whom he was wont to speak of as "those West P'int fellows."

        It is said he used to drill his regiment at Manassas, sitting cross-legged on the top of an old Virginia snake fence, with a blue cotton umbrella over his head and reading the orders from a book. On one occasion he was roused by the laughing outcry, "Colonel, you've run us bang up against the fence!" "Well, then, boys," said the old Governor, looking up and nothing daunted; "well, then, of course you'll have to turn around or climb the fence."

        In '62 this story was current about him,--though I do not vouch for the truth either of this or of that just related,-- that he was ordered to carry a work and to take his command through the abattis in front of it, reserving their fire. The regiment started in, the old Governor intrepidly riding in advance. The abattis swarmed with sharpshooters and his men were falling all about him, but they followed on heroically. At last they appealed to him, "Colonel, we can't stand this, these Yankees will kill us all before we get in a shot." It was all the old hero wanted and he blazed forth: "Of course you can't stand it, boys; it's all this infernal tactics and West P'int tomfoolery. Damn it, fire! and flush the game!" And they did, and drove out the sharpshooters and carried the work.

        My own dear father is one of the prominent figures in my recollections of that summer about Richmond. He was fond of horses, an excellent judge of them, and used to ride or drive the very best that could be found. I say "ride or drive." He was then between sixty-five and seventy years of age and, though vigorous and enthusiastic, found it very comfortable to drive sometimes; but his selected vehicle was at once the most unclerical and unmilitary that could well be imagined--a regulation skeleton "trotting sulky." He

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kept his saddle at our battery and his habit was, when we were not actually fighting or on the move, to return to Richmond at night, coming down in the morning with a big market basket strapped under his sulky full of bread and good things. His approach was generally heralded by the shouts of the soldiers who followed; when, looking up the road, we would see him, often standing on the shafts, scattering biscuit and reading aloud the latest telegrams. Hundreds of men would sometimes follow him to our camp, and then he would have prayers with them and make a brief religious address.

        Coming in this way one morning he did not find us; the battle was on and we had gone to the front. As he could not get his saddle, he kept right on in his sulky, hoping to overtake us. In some way he managed to pass through and get ahead of the second line and went on, actually between the first and second lines of battle, until his further progress was obstructed by a line of works which had been captured by the first line, when he was forced to turn back, amidst a storm of ridicule from the second line:

        "That's right, old man; this ain't no place for you, nor for me neither, if I could only git my colonel to think so!"

        "Say, mister, won't your buggy carry double?"

        "Haven't you got a place for me?"

        "Oh, please, sir, take me with you! I ain't feeling so mighty well this morning. I'm powerful weak, right now."

        Father always followed the Scripture rule of "answering a fool according to his folly," and so he jeered back at them, telling them "good-by," but saying he'd be back in a minute--as he actually was, riding, bareback and blind bridle, and passing right ahead with the troops. I have heard of following a fox hunt in one of these sulkies, but I venture to say this is the very first time a man ever entered battle in one.

        It will at once occur to the reader as remarkable that father was not arrested. He was, a few days later, at Malvern Hill, by order of Gen. Rans. Wright, of Georgia, and a staff officer, as I recollect, of General Armistead, told me that he was directed to arrest him on one of the earlier battle-fields of the Seven Days, and made the attempt; that up to that

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time he had regarded himself as a pretty daring rider and scout, but that father, whom he did not then know, led him such a chase as he had never before had, and that he returned to his general and reported that he didn't believe there was any harm in that old fellow, though he was certainly a crank, and if he got killed it would be his own fault; but that, unless positively so ordered, he didn't propose to get a bullet through his brain following that old fool right tip to the Yankee skirmish line.

        It must be remembered that my father was a Christian minister, devoted to the soldiers, and a sort of chaplain-general among them. He was ready to whisper the consolations of religion in the ear of a dying man, to help the litter bearers, or to carry a wounded man off on his horse. Then, too, he was well known to many of our generals, to whom, by the way, he carried a vast amount of information gathered on his daring scouts ahead even of our skirmishers. I myself heard two or three of the most prominent generals say that it was their belief my father had seen more of the fighting of the Seven Days, from start to finish, than any other one man in or out of the army. I was of course deeply anxious about him, but he could not be controlled, and my belief was then, and is now, that the Federal skirmishers often refrained from firing upon him simply because they did not care at the time to expose their position.

        Many of our soldiers knew him, especially the Georgians, Virginians and Mississippians. Georgia was his native State. In his early days he had done a great deal of evangelistic work in all parts of it, and many young men and boys in the army had heard their parents speak of him. I remember one evening, after a most impressive sermon to Cobb's or Cummings' brigade, overhearing a lot of soldiers talking at a spring, when one of them, anxious to appear a little more familiarly acquainted with the preacher than the rest, said, "I've heard my mother talk of the old Doctor many a time. I reckon the old fellow's given me many a dose of physic for croup."

        An incident occurred, on or near the Nine-Mile road, some time before the week of battle opened, which is strongly

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illustrative at once of my father's faith and of the childlike simplicity of the great bulk of our soldiery. Two companies, I think from South Carolina, were supporting a section of our battery in an advanced and somewhat isolated position. About the middle of the afternoon father drove down from Richmond, and after he had distributed his provisions and talked with us a while, proposed to have prayers, which was readily acceded to. Quite a number of men from the neighboring commands gathered, and just as we knelt and my father began his petitions the batteries across the way sent two or three shells entirely too close to our heads to be comfortable-- I presume just by way of determining the object of this concourse.

        I confess my faith and devotion were not strong enough to prevent my opening my eyes and glancing around. The scene that met them was almost too much for my reverence and came near being fatal to my decorum. Our Carolina supports, like the rest of us, had knelt and closed their eyes at my father's invocation and, simple-hearted fellows that they were, felt that it would be little less than sacrilege to rise or to open them until the prayer should be completed; and yet their faith was not quite equal to assuring them of God's protection, or at least they felt it would be wise and well to supplement the protection of heaven by the trees and stumps of earth, if they could find them, and so they were actually groping for them with arms wide extended but eyes tight closed, and still on their knees.

        I hardly know what might have been the effect upon me of this almost impossibly ludicrous scene had I not glanced toward my father. As was his habit in public prayer, he was standing; his tall, majestic figure erect and his worshipful, reverent face upturned to Heaven. Not a nerve trembled, not a note quavered. In a single sentence he committed us all to God's special keeping while we worshipped; and then, evidently, he did worship and supplicate the Divine Being without the slightest further consciousness of the bursting shells, which in a few moments ceased shrieking above or about us, and our little service closed without further interruption. And then it was beautiful to observe how these simple-hearted boys gazed at my father, as if indeed

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he had been one of the ancient prophets; but I heard some of them say they liked that old preacher mighty well, but they didn't just feel certain whether they wanted him around having prayers so close under the Yankee guns; that he "didn't seem to pay hardly enough attention to them things."

        Colonel Brandon, father of my Yale classmate of that name, who was a captain in the regiment, was lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-first Mississippi. He was a dignified, majestic-looking officer and a rigid disciplinarian, but an old man and very stout and heavy. I do not recollect whether Colonel Humphreys was present at Malvern Hill, but Brandon certainly went in with his regiment when the brigade, as I remember unsupported, made repeated quixotic efforts to capture the Federal guns massed on the hill. They were exposed to the fire I have already described, and of course suffered bloody repulse. Colonel Brandon had his ankle shattered while the regiment was advancing in the first charge. On the way back his men proposed to carry him with them to the rear, but he refused. He was sitting up and pluckily applying his handkerchief as a tourniquet above the wound, and he simply said: "Tell the Twenty-first they can't get me till they take those guns!"

        When the line passed him on the second charge, Brandon put his hat on his sword, held it up and waved it, cheering the regiment on, but in a few moments the bleeding remnant staggered to the rear again, and again they came for their colonel, insisting that they must carry him with them. The old soldier actually drew his revolver, declaring that he would shoot down any man who laid hands upon him, and he repeated his former message: "Tell the Twenty-first they can't get their colonel till they take those guns!"

        Again the charge swept by the prostrate old man, who waved his sword and his hat, urging his men up the awful slope; but when again they returned to the rear utterly broken and shattered, the old hero had fainted and the litter bearers bore him off the field.

        I saw him in Richmond a few days later. His leg had been amputated below the knee. He was doing wondrous well physically, but was full of deep dissatisfaction, mortification

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and rage about the battle. I admitted the gross mismanagement and was saying something in extenuation, when the old fellow broke in:

        "Oh! it is not mismanagement that hurts me, sir; it is cowardice-- the disgraceful cowardice of our officers and men."

        I was astounded, and protested that I saw nothing of this, when he broke out again:

        "Saw nothing of this, sir? Why, I saw nothing else! There is General ---," mentioning a man I never heard mentioned on any other occasion save with admiration for his courage and devotion. "Why, sir, with my own eyes I saw him perceptibly quicken his pace under fire and that right before the men. And I saw him visibly incline his head, sir, and that right in the presence of the men. He ought to be shot to death for cowardice."

        I confess I was utterly confounded. I had myself seen General --- repeatedly passing and repassing a knoll more fearfully torn by artillery fire perhaps than any other spot of earth I ever looked upon. His men were behind it-- he passed over it and in front of them. My recollection is that officers were not mounted. Of course he quickened his pace, partly because his presence was required first at one end of the line and then at the other; but the marvel to me was that he lived at all. As to the inclination of his head, all I saw was that instinctive inclination, equally natural under a heavy fire and a heavy rain. When I recalled the scene and the heroic conduct of General ---, I remember saying to myself,

        "What is the true standard of courage?"

        There were a number of Yale men in the Twenty-first Mississippi, among others two brothers, Jud. and Carey Smith. We used to call Jud. "Indian Smith" at Yale. I think it was at Savage Station, when the Seventeenth and Twenty-first Mississippi were put into the woods at nightfall and directed to lie down, that Carey Smith, the younger brother, putting his hand in his bosom, found it covered with blood, when he withdrew it, and saying: "What does this mean?" instantly died. He had been mortally wounded without knowing when.

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        Judson Smith went almost deranged; yes, I think altogether deranged. He bore his dead brother out of the woods. His company and regimental officers proposed to send the body to Richmond in an ambulance and urged Judson to go with it. He refused both propositions. He kept the body folded to his bosom, and all through the night his comrades heard Judson kissing Carey and talking to him and petting him, and then sobbing as if his heart would break. Next morning he consented to have his brother's body sent to Richmond, but refused to go himself. When the regiment moved he kissed Carey again and again, and then left him, following the column all day alone, allowing no one to comfort him or even to speak to him. So that night he lay down alone, not accepting the proffered sympathy and ministrations of his friends, and resumed his solitary march in the morning.

        That was Malvern Hill day, and when the regiment, on its first charge, stopped ascending that fearful slope of death and turned back, Jud. Smith did not stop. He went right on, never returned and was never seen or heard of again.

        The family was one of wealth and position in Mississippi, the father an old man, and having only these two boys. When he heard of the loss of both almost in one day he left home, joined Price's army as a private soldier, and at Iuka did just as his eldest son had done at Malvern Hill, which was the last ever seen or heard of him, and the family became extinct.

        Walking over the field of Malvern Hill the morning after the battle, I saw two young Federal soldiers lying dead, side by side, their heads upon the same knapsack and their arms about each other. They were evidently brothers and enough alike to be twins. The whole pathetic story was plainly evident. One had first been wounded, perhaps killed, and when the other was struck he managed to get to his dead or dying brother, placed the knapsack under his head, and then lying down by him and resting his head on the same rude pillow, slipped his dying arms around his brother's body and slept in this embrace.

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CHAPTER X

SECOND MANASSAS--SHARPSBURG--FREDERICKSBURG

Not at Second Manassas or Sharpsburg--A Glimpse of Richmond in the Summer of '62--Col. Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia--Jackson in the Railroad Cut at Manassas--Sharpsburg the Hardest Fought of Lee's Battles, Fredericksburg the Easiest Won--The Mississippi Brigade Entertains a Baby--A Conscript's First Fight--Magnificent Spectacle When Fog Curtain Rose--Aurora Borealis at Close of the Drama.

        I was not with the Army of Northern Virginia from the time it left Richmond moving north after the Seven Days' battles until it returned to Virginia after the invasion of Maryland; thus I missed the campaign against Pope and the first Maryland campaign, the great battles of second Manassas and Sharpsburg, or Antietam. No soldier can expect to be present for duty in all the battles of a protracted war--sickness, wounds, and capture will naturally prevent. But the fact is, I was that exceptionally fortunate soldier who never experienced either disabling sickness or wounds or captivity until the very end of the struggle, and my absence from the active front is to be accounted for on other grounds.

        It will be remembered that at Malvern Hill several of the guns of our battery, my gun among them, were so roughly handled by the concentrated fire of the Federal artillery that we were compelled to send them to Richmond to be recast and remounted. This could not be done in time to enable the battery to move with the army when it marched against Pope. One section was equipped a little later and caught up in time to take part in the battle of Sharpsburg. But this was not my section, and the captain would not permit me to leave with the section first ready. Therefore I saw nothing of the campaigns against Pope in Virginia and McClellan in Maryland, and if I am to keep to the general line of reminiscence

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I must simply omit the late summer and early autumn of '62, for of course nothing of general interest occurred while we were hanging about Richmond waiting for a new equipment. We had not yet, to any great extent, equipped our artillery, as we did later, especially in the Manassas and Maryland campaigns, by captures from the armies opposed to us.

        I have said nothing worth recording occurred during our stay around Richmond. The statement should be modified so far as to say that one of the noticeable features of the general condition was the heartrending affliction of my friends, almost every family having lost a relative, or some intimate associate, during the week of bloody battle. It had not, however, yet come to pass, as it did later, that black became the recognized dress for woman in Richmond, and that she actually appeared flippant and worldly and unfeeling if she wore any color. In the second Punic war, when Hannibal was investing Rome, the tribune Oppius had a law enacted forbidding women to wear colors during the public distress. But in our great conflict no such enactment was necessary for the devoted women of our seven-hilled city; dark death had entered every home and his sombre garb was everywhere.

        Of course, too, the hospitals were crowded just at this time, and in the homes of citizens many wounded soldiers were cared for; so that it seemed the one fitting province of women, young and old, to serve as nurses and attendants upon the wounded and the dying. I think, too, though I am not sure, that the churches had already begun to give their bells to be moulded into cannon. Certainly, long before the end of the war, the people of Richmond went to church through silent streets, and ceased to hear that heavenliest of all earthly sounds, which runs like a holy refrain through the sweetest poetry and the tenderest memories of English-speaking peoples.

        To me these weeks around Richmond meant more than I can express in welding the links that bound me to these dear people. I had dedicated my life to them--I was theirs and they were mine. I felt it; they felt it. Yes, these people

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were my friends, this city was my home. Our mother and sisters had not yet been able to get South, but the faithful people of my father's former pastoral charge assured me that they stood ready to receive and care for them with open hearts in open homes, and, until they arrived, noble women stood ready, in case my brother or I should need such ministrations, to do, as far as possible, a mother's and a sister's part by us.

        While I have of course no personal reminiscence to relate either of the Manassas or the Maryland campaign of '62, yet an account was given me of the very crisis and climax of the former, in its essential character and all its surroundings so striking, that I feel called upon to make record of it. I actually did so, indeed, while a prisoner at Johnson's Island in 1865, and now use the memorandum then made.

        One of the most promising of the younger officers of the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of '64 was Col. Edward Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia Regiment. I saw him but once and under the following circumstances: Our battery passed the winter of '63-'64, not in the great artillery camp on the Central Railroad, but with the advanced line of infantry guarding the middle fords of the Rapidan River. Battalion headquarters were in a pine thicket between Raccoon and Morton's fords. One beautiful day in the early spring I was seated in our headquarters' tent at work on one of the battalion reports, which it was my duty, as adjutant, to make to Artillery Headquarters, when a very striking-looking head intruded itself in the tent door and, in a very nonchalant, familiar tone, the owner of the head asked, "Is Gibbes about?"

        We were not very punctilious about such matters in the Confederate service, perhaps not enough so; but the intruder and interlocutor was obviously, I thought, a private soldier and a specially untidy looking one at that--his hat unquestionably "a slouch," his hair long and unkempt, his long overcoat, of whatever original ground color, now by long usage the color of the ground, and ending in a fringe of tatter, around the skirt; under it no sign of a coat or of anything save a gray flannel shirt, no badge or insignia of rank anywhere

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visible, nor even an appropriate place for any, and his badly-worn pants turned up around his very small feet shod in very rough shoes. I say it did stir me a little unpleasantly that just this man should ask, in just these words and just this tone, for Major Wade Hampton Gibbes, of South Carolina, a young West Pointer, who had recently been assigned to duty with us. I might have answered differently had not a second glance revealed a face of such commanding intellect and personal force that I said, "If you will wait a moment, I'll see," and a moment later the very effusive meeting between Gibbes and himself, and Gibbes' introduction, to Colonel Cabell and myself, of "Col. Edward Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia," made me very glad I had answered as I had. They had been at West Point together, I think, when the war broke out. Gibbes seated himself, tailor fashion, at one end of a large box of clothing for one of the batteries, which had not yet been opened, and Willis stretched out on the box and put his head in Gibbes' lap, who began running his fingers through the long, tangled, tawny hair which hung almost to Willis' shoulders. It would have been greatly to the advantage of the hair if Gibbes had used a comb instead of his fingers.

        They began talking of their West Point classmates and comrades. I was going on with my work and not listening closely, yet I could not help being struck with the vigor and the trenchant quality of Willis' characterization of the men. But in a few moments he began telling of Jackson, and then I dropped my pen and hung eagerly on his words. I knew he had been on Jackson's staff and hoped he would tell, as he did, how he came to leave it.

        He said that after Second Manassas, perhaps after Sharpsburg, Jackson sent for him and said: "Captain Willis, you have earned your promotion, sir. You may take your choice between continued service on my staff, with the rank of major, and a majority in an infantry regiment."

        To which Willis, without hesitation, replied: "I'll take the infantry regiment, General."

        A reply which revealed the mettle of the man, as Jackson indicated by saying: "Sorry to lose you, sir; but you've

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made a soldier's choice; you'll be assigned to duty with the Twelfth Georgia."

        Ere long he became colonel of the regiment, and at the time of which I write it was well understood throughout the army that no one commanded a better regiment and no regiment had a better commanding officer than the Twelfth Georgia.

        Soon Willis began to talk of the campaign against Pope, which he regarded as Jackson's masterpiece, and as he had been closely with Jackson through it all, I considered what he said of value, as it certainly was of surpassing interest. He first expatiated at some length upon the masterly--I had almost said dastardly--way in which Jackson managed to find out all Pope's plans and purposes, and yet to elude and delude and deceive and defraud him in the most heartless and malignant fashion as to his own movements and designs. Part of the time, while waiting for Lee and Longstreet, Jackson was in extreme peril, dodging between and against the huge Federal Army corps, rushing blindly like avalanches to crush him. On one or two occasions, I think Willis said, he even went so far as to sacrifice his skirmish line, that is, arrange to have them captured by Pope's troops in a particular position, from which even the skirmishers themselves, as well as their captors, would naturally infer that "Old Jack" was marching in a certain direction and about a certain time would be about a certain place, when quite the reverse was the actual truth. In short, it must be admitted that all of Jackson's dealings with Pope, about this time, were disingenuous in the extreme. Some one, not Willis, has said substantially that they embodied a continuous, tortuous, twisted, aggravated, protracted lie--over fifty miles long.

        But at last, as Willis said, all these tactics of deception were exhausted! Jackson was straight in front, in the famous position in the railroad cut, and Pope's whole army moved upon him. They advanced in imposing array, with several lines of battle--bands playing, flags flying, and their artillery, following the second line, slowly firing as they approached. Just as his dispositions--the best he could make

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for resisting such an onslaught--were complete, Jackson heard from Longstreet, who promised him aid in two hours. The shock could be delayed, however, only a few moments, and Jackson, feeling the imminence of the crisis, started down his lines to communicate to his troops, worn with fatigue and suspense, his own heaven-born faith and fire and Longstreet's assurance of help. I understood from Willis that he rode along the line with him, and that all he said was:

        "Two hours, men, only two hours; in two hours you will have help. You must stand it two hours."

        It was the crisis of the campaign, and both sides fully appreciated it. The enemy came right on until within two hundred yards, and then broke into the rush of the charge. The officer commanding the leading centre brigade, and who was riding a powerful coal-black charger, carried the colors in his hand and rested the staff on the toe of his boot. Striking his spurs deep into the flanks of his horse, at the same time reining him in, Willis said he came on, with great plunges, the standard flapping about him and the standard bearer, cap in hand, yelling at his side. The whole line thus gallantly led, rushed upon Jackson's men with the enthusiasm of assured victory.

        A hundred yards nearer and the full fire from Jackson's line burst upon them, but from the inclination of the musket barrels it looked as if the gallant fellow on the black horse would be the only man to fall. On the contrary, while many fell and the line wavered, he was miraculously unhurt, and his men rallied and pressed on after him. For a moment it looked as if he would actually leap into the cut upon his foes, but the next moment the great horse reared wildly and fell backward, but his heroic rider jammed the color staff into the earth as he went down, only ten yards from the muzzles of Jackson's muskets. The spell that held them together was broken, the advancing lines halted and wavered throughout their length--a moment more and the whole magnificent array had melted into a mass of fugitives.

        Again Jackson rode down his lines: "Half an hour men, only half an hour; can you stand it half an hour?"

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        And now, as Willis said, it seemed as if some of his men exhaled their very souls to him in shouts, while others, too much exhausted to cheer, took off their hats and gazed at him in adoration as he passed. The enemy, reformed, began again to advance, and Jackson quickened his horse's gait. "They are coming once more, men; you must stand it once more; you must stand it half an hour."

        Could they have stood it? We shall never know--for before the mighty wave broke again into the crest and foam of the actual charge, the Texas brigade was in on Jackson's right and Old Pete and Old Jack together swept them in the counter-charge like chaff before the whirlwind.

        I have not pretended to give Colonel Willis' exact words, and yet in my memorandum account of his visit to our camp above referred to I incorporated his words as nearly as I could recall them, and I have now conformed very closely to that memorandum. I never listened to more vivid delineation of strategy or of battle. He was thoroughly stirred while uttering it, and its impression upon us may be gathered from Colonel Cabell's words as he and Gibbes and I stood watching Willis as his figure disappeared in the thick pines: "Stiles, there goes the only man I ever saw who, I think, by possibility might make another Jackson!"

        In less than a month from that time he was made a brigadier-general, for brilliant service on the field, and the very next day yielded up his glorious young life in battle.

        Willis' name is not to be found on the roster of Confederate general officers, but there is no doubt about the facts of his promotion and death. The circumstances are entirely familiar to me and are full of touching and tragic interest. These lists of Confederate officers are very imperfect. My uncle William and my cousin Edward, mentioned in these reminiscences, are both entered on the list of field officers, but my name is not mentioned.

        While I do not regard discussions as to the purposes and success or failure of campaigns, or the comparative numbers engaged on the two sides, as properly within the general scope of this book, yet I shall occasionally, when the matter is of special interest, or I hope to be able to add something of special

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value do violence to these declared views--so I here take the liberty of saying that it is by no means admitted among intelligent Confederate soldiers that the only or the main design of the first Maryland campaign was to stir up revolt in Maryland or to recruit our army by enlistments there. It is not disputed that these may have been among the objects sought to be accomplished, nor that, so far as this is true, the campaign was a failure. The Confederate view of the matter, from a military standpoint, is in brief this:

        By our invasion of Maryland we cleared Virginia of enemies, sending them home to defend their own capital and their own borders. We subsisted our army for a time outside our own worn-out territory. We gathered large quantities of badly-needed supplies, to a great extent fitting out our troops with improved firearms, in place of the old smoothbore muskets, and replacing much of our inferior field artillery with improved guns. At Harper's Ferry alone we captured eleven thousand prisoners, seventy-three pieces of artillery, thirteen thousand stand of excellent small arms and immense stores; besides all which, we delayed further immediate invasion of Virginia; indeed, as has been strongly said:

        Such had been the moral effect upon the enemy that the Confederate capital was never again seriously endangered until the power of the Confederacy had been so broken in other quarters, and its available territory so reduced in dimensions, that the enemy could concentrate his immense resources against the capital.

        One word now as to the numbers engaged at Sharpsburg. This battle has been much misunderstood. It was really the most superb fight the Army of Northern Virginia ever made. This will readily appear when we recall the fact that General McClellan in his official report says that he had actually present for duty on the field that day eighty-seven thousand one hundred and sixty-four (87,164) men of all arms. General Early thinks he had ninety-three thousand one hundred and forty-nine (93,149), while Colonel Taylor says and shows that General Lee had less than thirty-five thousand two hundred and fifty-five (35,255); Early says less

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than thirty thousand (30,000). Take it even at thirty-five thousand (35,000) and eighty-seven thousand (87,000), and remember that General Lee remained on the field all the day following the battle; that McClellan did not attack him, and states in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War (Reports, Vol. 2, Part 1, 1862-3, p. 441 ) as the reason therefor, that:

        The next morning (the 18th) I found that our loss had been so great and that there was so much disorganization in some of the commands that I did not consider it proper to renew the attack that day, especially as I was sure of the arrival that day of two fresh divisions amounting to about 15,000 men.

        Two further remarks, and we leave this part of the story of the Army of Northern Virginia, of which I am not able to say quorum pars fui. And, first, that General McClellan's part in all this campaign appears to have been greatly to his credit and honor. Summoned by the President and begged to see if he could not, by his personal influence, do something to heal the discords and want of union and cohesion in the Army of the Potomac; then asked to take charge of it again himself; then, with wondrous vigor gathering a composite army and unifying and enheartening it; and lastly, so handling it, on the march and in the field, as to save the Federal capital and to clear Northern soil of invasion.

        But one incident must not be forgotten: McClellan was inspired and enabled to march with such unwonted speed, to move with such unerring judgment and to fight with such tremendous vigor and pertinacity by the contents of a little paper which was picked up by a Federal soldier in one of our deserted camps, and which turned out to be a copy sent to one of our division commanders of General Lee's order of battle and of campaign, showing in detail the position and duty assigned to each important command in the army, and of course just how our force was divided. There is no doubt as to the facts. McClellan recites them in his testimony above referred to, p. 440, and speaks of the effect of this order upon his movements. It was well understood among us. As Colonel Taylor says:

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        The God of battles alone knows what would have occurred but for the singular incident mentioned; it is useless to speculate on this point, but certainly the loss of this battle order constitutes one of the pivots on which turned the event of the war.

        Again Culpeper Court House is the appointed trysting place of the army, while waiting fuller development of the plan of General Burnside, the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, and we, the right section, having at last gotten our new equipment of guns, had a delightful march thither through a country full of good things and kind people, in the season of harvest and of fruit. Here, too, we met, with great rejoicing, our comrades of the left section, from whom we had been separated during the Manassas and Maryland campaigns; and from this point were ordered, about the 19th of November, to Fredericksburg, in connection with Longstreet's corps, arriving there on the afternoon of the 21st, marching the last day through one of the steadiest, heaviest, and coldest downpours of autumnal rain I ever experienced. As the Federal batteries of heavy guns on Falmouth and Stafford Heights commanded almost the entire southern bank of the river and particularly the road by which we would naturally enter the town, and as it was specially desired that they should not be apprised of our arrival, we were halted just outside the town and back of the point of a hill, until after nightfall, and then marched to a dark and desolate bivouac, without fire and without food, and frozen to the very soul--the more so as we had of course steamed up while walking. I recall this as one of the most comfortless and trying nights of my life, and yet so sound and tough were we that I do not recall that a single man of us wheezed, or even sneezed, from the exposure.

        In a few days, everything appearing to be quiet at the front, we were sent down into Caroline County, along and near the R. F. & P. Railroad, to go into camp for the winter. We selected an ideal position, went vigorously to work and built the very best shelters for our horses and cabins for ourselves that we ever put up anywhere; but hardly had they been completed, tried, pronounced eminently satisfactory

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and christened "Sleepy Hollow," when orders came for us to return at once to Fredericksburg, and that through a blizzard of most inclement weather. Of course we went and without delay--I cannot say absolutely without grumbling. Indeed the right to grumble is the only civil, political, or social right left to the soldier, and he stands much in his own light if he does not exercise it to the full. We found rather an uncomfortable and forbidding location selected for us outside of Fredericksburg, and we were in a temper too bad to do much for its improvement, so that, as to external conditions, we had rather a hard, comfortless winter; though, even as to these, we perhaps did better than the commands who were ordered to the front later.

        The next incident of interest was the bombardment of the old town, but I do not care to enlarge upon this. Really I saw then and see now no justification for it. True the town was occupied by armed men,--Barksdale and his men, our old brigade,--but then the fire did not drive them out; in the nature of things, and especially of the Mississippi brigade, of course it would not, and it did drive out the women and children, many of them. I never saw a more pitiful procession than they made trudging through the deep snow, after the warning was given and as the hour drew near. I saw little children tugging along with their doll babies,--some bigger than they were,--but holding their feet up carefully above the snow, and women so old and feeble that they could carry nothing and could barely hobble themselves. There were women carrying a baby in one arm and its bottle, its clothes, and its covering in the other. Some had a Bible and a tooth brush in one hand, a picked chicken and a bag of flour in the other. Most of them had to cross a creek swollen with winter rains, and deadly cold with winter ice and snow. We took the battery horses down and ferried them over, taking one child in front and two behind and sometimes a woman or a girl on either side with her feet in the stirrups, holding on by our shoulders. Where they were going we could not tell, and I doubt if they could.

        I was about to say that the armed men had orders to come out, and would have done so at the proper time. But I am

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not so sure about this, and certainly can't blame the Federals for not knowing it, when we really couldn't get the plaguey Mississippians to understand it themselves. They were ready to fight anything, from his Satanic Majesty down; but they were a very poor set indeed as to judging when not to fight, or when to stop fighting. Why, there was Colonel Fizer, of the Seventeenth. He was down on the river bank below the town. Of course he must have had retiring orders and ought to have seen that the Federal batteries absolutely dominated our shore; and yet he sent word to General Barksdale that if he would just let the Howitzers come down, with a couple of their guns, he could "drive these people back anyhow." And "Old Barksdale," who was every bit as bad as Fizer, and a little worse, actually sent the order, and our boys actually started. It would have been a practical impossibility to get these two poor little guns anywhere near the river. No two fragments of guns or men would have held together five minutes after they appeared on the plain that stretched out from the foot of the hills to the river and their intentions became known to the batteries on Stafford Heights. Fortunately, our division general, McLaws, and his staff met the guns just before they emerged on the plain, and the general demanded of the officer in charge where we were going and by whose order, and, on being told, instantly countermanded the order and sent us back. It is fair to say for General Barksdale that when our captain galloped rapidly into town and explained the matter to him, he himself withdrew his own order; but General McLaws had already acted. The incident strongly accentuated the necessity for the battalion organization of the artillery, and in our case it was put into immediate effect I think, just after the battle.

        But Fizer was not the only officer of the Mississippi brigade that could not get it into his head, even a little later, that the troops were to abandon the town and retire before the enemy, who had now gotten their pontoons down, and the head of their column landed in the town. The brigade had been hospitably received by the citizens and its blood was up in their defense.

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        The Twenty-first Mississippi was the last regiment to leave the city. The last detachment was under the command of Lane Brandon, already mentioned as my quondam classmate at Yale, and son of old Colonel Brandon, of the Twenty-first, who behaved so heroically at Malvern Hill. In skirmishing with the head of the Federal column--led, I think, by the Twentieth Massachusetts--Brandon captured a few prisoners and learned that the advance company was commanded by Abbott, who had been his chum at Harvard Law School when the war began.

        He lost his head completely. He refused to retire before Abbott. He fought him fiercely and was actually driving him back. In this he was violating orders and breaking our plan of battle. He was put under arrest and his subaltern brought the command out of town.

        Buck Denman,--our old friend Buck, of Leesburg and Fort Johnston fame,--a Mississippi bear hunter and a superb specimen of manhood, was color sergeant of the Twenty-first and a member of Brandon's company. He was tall and straight, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, had an eye like an eagle and a voice like a bull of Bashan, and was full of pluck and power as a panther. He was rough as a bear in manner, but withal a noble, tenderhearted fellow, and a splendid soldier.

        The enemy, finding the way now clear, were coming up the street, full company front, with flags flying and bands playing, while the great shells from the siege guns were bursting over their heads and dashing their hurtling fragments after our retreating skirmishers.

        Buck was behind the corner of a house taking sight for a last shot. Just as his fingers trembled on the trigger, a little three-year-old, fair-haired, baby girl toddled out of an alley, accompanied by a Newfoundland dog, and gave chase to a big shell that was rolling lazily along the pavement, she clapping her little hands and the dog snapping and barking furiously at the shell.

        Buck's hand dropped from the trigger. He dashed it across his eyes to dispel the mist and make sure he hadn't passed over the river and wasn't seeing his own baby girl

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in a vision. No, there is the baby, amid the hell of shot and shell, and here come the enemy. A moment and he has grounded his gun, dashed out into the storm, swept his great right arm around the baby, gained cover again, and, baby clasped to his breast and musket trailed in his left hand, is trotting after the boys up to Marye's Heights.

        And there behind that historic stone wall, and in the lines hard by, all those hours and days of terror was that baby kept, her fierce nurses taking turns patting her, while the storm of battle raged and shrieked, and at night wrestling with each other for the boon and benediction of her quiet breathing under their blankets. Never was baby so cared for. They scoured the country side for milk, and conjured up their best skill to prepare dainty viands for her little ladyship.

        When the struggle was over and the enemy had withdrawn to his strongholds across the river, and Barksdale was ordered to reoccupy the town, the Twenty-first Mississippi, having held the post of danger in the rear, was given the place of honor in the van and led the column. There was a long halt, the brigade and regimental staff hurrying to and fro. The regimental colors could not be found.

        Denman stood about the middle of the regiment, baby in arms. Suddenly he sprang to the front. Swinging her aloft above his head, her little garments fluttering like the folds of a banner, he shouted, "Forward, Twenty-first, here are your colors!" and without further order, off started the brigade toward the town, yelling as only Barksdale's men could yell. They were passing through a street fearfully shattered by the enemy's fire, and were shouting their very souls out--but let Buck himself describe the last scene in the drama:

        "I was holding the baby high, Adjutant, with both arms, when above all the racket I heard a woman's scream. The next thing I knew I was covered with calico and she fainted on my breast. I caught her before she fell, and laying her down gently, put her baby on her bosom. She was most the prettiest thing I ever looked at, and her eyes were shut; and--and--I hope God'll forgive me, but I kissed her just once."

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        Fredericksburg was the simplest and easiest won battle of the war. The Federal batteries on Falmouth and Stafford Heights across the river absolutely dominated the town and our bank of the river and the flats on our side; but our troops were back on the hills, which we had fortified somewhat, and which we could have held against the world. It is believed that less than twenty thousand of our men, about one-fourth of these present for duty, were actually engaged. Our loss was comparatively light, the Federal loss very heavy, especially in the attack upon Marye's Heights and the famous stone wall, in front of which dead men were lying thicker than I ever saw them on any other field. I attempted to count them, but found it impossible. I could have walked considerable distances in front of this wall, stepping only on dead men, and it was with difficulty that I so guided my horse as to avoid trampling upon them. Burnside saw, or his corps commanders showed him, his mistake, and he refused to renew the attack, as we were hoping that he would. There is, or perhaps I should say there was, a feeling, that we should have ourselves made attack upon him, and that General Jackson favored it. Colonel Taylor, General Early, and other authorities scout any such idea. I do not feel that anything would be gained by reopening the discussion.

        Tennyson is in error when he says, in "Locksley Hall," that "Woman is the lesser man." She is the greater man. A good woman is better than a good man, a bad woman is worse; a brave woman is braver than any man ever was. During the bombardment I was sent into Fredericksburg with a message for General Barksdale. As I was riding down the street that led to his headquarters it appeared to be so fearfully swept by artillery fire that I started to ride across it, with a view of finding some safer way of getting to my destination, when, happening to glance, beyond that point, I saw walking quietly and unconcernedly along the same street I was on, and approaching General Barksdale's headquarters from the opposite direction, a lone woman. She apparently found the projectiles which were screaming and exploding in the air, and striking and crashing through the

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houses, and tearing up the streets, very interesting-- stepping a little aside to inspect a great, gaping hole one had just gouged out in the sidewalk, then turning her head to note a fearful explosion in the air. I felt as if it really would not do to avoid a fire which was merely interesting, and not at all appalling, to a woman; so I stiffened my spinal column as well as I could and rode straight down the street toward headquarters and the self-possessed lady; and having reached the house I rode around back of it to put my horse where he would at least be safer than in front. As I returned on foot to the front the lady had gone up on the porch and was knocking at the door. One of the staff came to hearken, and on seeing a lady, held up his hands, exclaiming in amazement: "What on earth, madam, are you doing here? Do go to some safe place if you can find one." She smiled and said, with some little tartness: "Young gentleman, you seem to be a little excited. Won't you please say to General Barksdale that a lady at the door wishes to see him." The young man assured her General Barksdale could not possibly see her just now; but she persisted. "General Barksdale is a Southern gentleman, sir, and will not refuse to see a lady who has called upon him." Seeing that he could not otherwise get rid of her, the General did come to the door, but actually wringing his hands in excitement and annoyance. "For God's sake, madam, go and seek some place of safety. I'll send a member of my staff to help you find one." She again smiled gently,--while old Barksdale fumed and almost swore,--and then she said quietly: "General Barksdale, my cow has just been killed in my stable by a shell. She is very fat and I don't want the Yankees to get her. If you will send some one down to butcher her, you are welcome to the meat."

        Years afterwards I delivered a Confederate memorial address at Fredericksburg and, when I told this incident, noticed increasing interest and something very like amusement among the audience, who had ceased to look at me, but all eyes were turned in one direction, and just as I finished the story and my eyes followed theirs--there before me sat this very lady, apparently not a day older, and the entire audience rose and gave her three deafening cheers.

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        One of the marked features of the battle was that when we lay down in our blankets on the night of the 12th we could see nothing, but could plainly hear Burnside's immense force getting into position, and when we rose on the morning of the 13th a dense fog overhung the entire flat in our front, shutting out all vision. Once or twice we did see men, our own skirmishers, moving about, as the blind man in the Scriptures saw when partially healed--"Men as trees walking." I remember that when a Federal cavalry officer lost his bearings in the fog and came too near our lines we heard every command and every movement, till suddenly two or three of the horsemen loomed up in the mist in dim outline, magnified to the size of haystacks. A moment more and they ran into the Texas brigade at the foot of the hill in our front, and a volley emptied many a saddle, their gallant leader's among them.

        A little later a light breeze sprang up. There was a swaying movement of the thick vapor and then, all at once, it rolled up like the stage curtain of a theatre, and there, spread out in the wide plain beneath, was the most magnificent martial spectacle that can be imagined--a splendidly-equipped army of at least one hundred thousand men, in battle array. General Burnside testified that he had that number on our side of the river. For a moment we forgot the terrible business ahead of us in the majesty and glory of the sight.

        We were stationed on what was afterwards known as "Lee's Hill," an elevation centrally located between the right and left flanks of our line, and jutting out at quite a commanding height into and above the plain. For these reasons General Lee made it, for the most part, his field headquarters during the fight. Portions of the city and of Marye's Heights were not visible, at least not thoroughly so; but every other part of the field was, clear away down, or nearly down, to Hamilton's Crossing. From it we witnessed the break in our lines on the right, where the Federals came in over a piece of marshy ground, supposed to be impassable, between Lane's North Carolina and Archer's Tennessee brigade. The entire attack, from its inception to its unexpected

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success, was as clearly defined as a movement on a chessboard, and I confess that tears started to and even from my eyes; but a moment later a great outburst of fire a little back of the line of battle indicated that the intruders had been gallantly met by our second line, or our reserves, and in a few moments out they rushed, the victors yelling at their heels. My uncle, William Henry Stiles, colonel of the Sixtieth Georgia, and who, in the absence of the general, was in command of Lawton's brigade in the battle, told me an amusing story of this particular fight.

        When his brigade, with others, was ordered to stem this irruption, drive out the intruders and reestablish--or rather, for the first time properly extend and connect--our lines, his men were double-quicking to the point of peril and he running from one end to the other of his brigade line to see that all parts were kept properly "dressed up," when he observed one of the conscripts who had lately been sent to his regiment--a large, fine-looking fellow--drop out and crouch behind a tree. My uncle, a tall, wiry, muscular man, was accustomed to carry a long, heavy sword, and having it at the time in his hand, as he passed he struck the fellow a sound whack across his shoulders with the flat of the weapon, simultaneously saying, "Up there, you coward!" To his astonishment the man dropped his musket, clasped his hands and keeled over backwards, devoutly ejaculating, "Lord, receive my spirit!"

        Uncle William said the entire dénouement was so unexpected and grotesque and his haste so imperative, that he scarcely knew how he managed to do it, but he did turn and deliver a violent kick upon the fellow's ribs, at the same time shouting, "Get up, sir! the Lord wouldn't receive the spirit of such an infernal coward;" whereupon, to his further amazement, the man sprang up in the most joyful fashion, fairly shouting, "Ain't I killed? The Lord be praised!" and grabbing his musket he sailed in like a hero, as he ever afterwards was. The narrator added that he firmly believed that, but for the kick, his conscript would have completed the thing and died in good order.

        On our part of the line I witnessed a scene not quite so humorous as this, but strongly characteristic. I saw a tall

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Texan bring up the hill, as prisoners, some fifteen or twenty low, stolid Germans,--Bavarians I think they were,--no one of whom could speak a word of English. He must have been a foot taller than any of them, as he stood leaning on his long rifle and looking down upon them with a very peculiar expression. I asked him where he got them and he replied in the most matter-of-fact way, "Well, me and my comrade surrounded 'em; but he got killed, poor fellow!" He really looked as if he could have surrounded the entire lot alone.

        Not often have I come in contact with relations more beautiful than existed in some cases between young Southern masters in the service and their slave attendants. These latter belonged for the most part to one of two classes: either they were mature and faithful men, to whose care the lad's parents had committed him, or else they were the special chums and playmates of their young master's boyhood days, who had perhaps already attended and waited upon him in college.

        My first cousin, eldest son of the uncle above mentioned, and who was a captain in his regiment, was seriously wounded late in the evening of the battle, but the casualty was not generally known, probably because the surgeons finding him on the field, after a hurried examination, pronounced his wound necessarily and speedily mortal, and added: "We are sorry to leave you, Captain, but we and the litter bearers have all we can attend to." To which he replied: "Certainly, gentlemen, go on and attend to the men; but you are mistaken about me. I haven't the least idea of dying."

        They left him; the litter bearers of course did not report his case, and probably neither his father nor any member of his company was aware of his having been wounded. But there was one faithful soul to whom he was more than all the rest of the regiment. If he continued "missing" the world was empty to him, and so, in cold and darkness and sadness, he searched every foot of ground the regiment had fought over, till at last he found him. Then he wandered about until he got from the bodies of dead men blankets enough to make a soft, warm bed, and carefully

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lifted him on to it, and covered him snugly. He then managed to start a fire and get water for him, and finally, most important of all, got from the body of a dead Federal officer a small flask of brandy and stimulated him carefully.

        About daylight the doctors came by again and, surprised to find him alive, made a more careful examination and found that the ball had passed entirely through his body from right to left, just between the upper and lower vital regions; but they added that he would have died of cold and exposure had it not been for the faithful love that refused to be satisfied until it had found and provided for him. That was the night of the 13th of December. On the 25th, I think it was, he walked up to the third story of a house in Richmond to see my mother, who had meantime gotten through from the North.

        The battle closed, as it began, with a marked, and this time a beautiful, natural phenomenon. It was very cold and very clear, and the aurora borealis of the night of December 13th, 1862, surpassed in splendor any like exhibition I ever saw. Of course we enthusiastic young fellows felt that the heavens were hanging out banners and streamers and setting off fireworks in honor of our victory.

        Our friends, the enemy, seemed in no hurry to leave our neighborhood, though they did not seem to long for another close grapple, and as we appeared equally indifferent to any closer acquaintance with them, General Burnside and his army, on the night of December 15th, apparently insulted, retired to their own side of the river and began to get ready for Christmas.

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CHAPTER XI

RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LEE'S ARMY

Revival in Barksdale's Brigade at Fredericksburg--A Model Chaplain-- Personal Conferences with Comrades--A Prayer Between the Lines--A Percussion Shell at Gettysburg.

        No account of my experience as a Confederate soldier would be complete if it failed to refer to the religious life of the army. This was an element of importance in all our armies, from the outset to the end, and was recognized and fostered as such by our leading generals, many of whom attended the religious services held among the men of their commands, some of them taking loving direction of these services.

        I remember on one occasion, when my father was preaching to Tom Cobb's brigade, on the lines about Richmond in '62, that the service was interrupted by sharp firing in front and the command marched off into the woods. It proved a false alarm, however; the troops soon returned and the service was resumed. But the men were preoccupied, nervous, and widely scattered, and everything dragged, until the general, rising, begged my father to wait a moment, and called out: "Men, get up close together here in front, till your shoulders meet. You can't make a fire if the sticks don't touch." They "closed up" and the meeting proceeded with great power.

        Volumes have been written on this general theme by chaplains and others, and I have already made brief incidental reference to it; but more than this is required. Not that I propose to condense into this chapter every fact or incident within my knowledge illustrative of this phase of life in the Confederate armies. On the contrary, I shall, in the main, throughout this book, allow the religious element to

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mingle with others that gave character to our soldier life, and to crop out here and there, as it actually did in our every-day experiences; for, with a Confederate soldier especially, religion was not a mere Sunday matter, to be put on and off with his Sunday clothes, even if he had any such.

        But as the revival at Fredericksburg in the winter of '62-'63 concerned especially the infantry brigade with which I was longest and most closely associated, I may be pardoned for giving a brief sketch of what was probably the most marked religious movement in our war and, as I believe, rarely paralleled anywhere or at any time.

        The religious interest among Barksdale's men began about the time of, or soon after, the battle of Fredericksburg, which was about the middle of December, '62, and continued with unabated fervor up to and through the battle of Chancellorsville and even to Gettysburg. In addition to the labors of the regimental chaplains, the ablest and most distinguished ministers in Virginia, of all denominations, delighted to come up and speak to the men. My father, who was nearly seventy years old, came over from Jackson's corps late in February and remained for many weeks. The fraternal spirit of the Christian workers is thus portrayed in a letter by Rev. William J. Hoge, D. D., of the Presbyterian Church, written from Fredericksburg in the spring of 1863. Says Dr. Hoge:

        A rich blessing had been poured upon the zealous labors of the Rev. Mr. Owen, Methodist chaplain in Barksdale's Brigade. The Rev. Dr. Burrows, of the Baptist church, Richmond, had just arrived, expecting to labor with him for some days. As I was to stay but one night, Dr. Burrows courteously insisted on my preaching. So we had a Presbyterian sermon, introduced by Baptist services, under the direction of a Methodist chaplain, in an Episcopal church! Was not that a beautiful solution of the vexed problem of Christian union?

        The Baptist church had been so injured during the bombardment that it could not be used. The meetings were first held in the Presbyterian church and then in the Methodist, and finally were transferred to the Episcopal church, St.

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George's, which was the largest in the city, and accommodated, I should say, packed as it invariably was, from a thousand to twelve hundred men. I have never seen such eagerness to hear the Word of God, nor greater simplicity, directness and earnestness in religious services. Long before the hour appointed the men would begin to gather, intent on getting into the church and securing a seat. Thereafter every moment was occupied with some act of worship of uncommon intensity and power. The singing, in which every one joined, was hearty and impressive; the prayers, offered generally by the men themselves, were soul-moving "cries unto God;" the preacher was sometimes a distinguished divine from Richmond, sometimes one of the army chaplains, sometimes a private soldier from the ranks, but whoever he might be, he preached the gospel and the gospel only. The following is an extract from a letter written by my father just after he reached Fredericksburg:

        After my arrival we held three meetings a day--a morning and afternoon prayer-meeting and a preaching service at night. We could scarcely ask of delightful religious interest more than we received. Our sanctuary has been crowded, lower floor and gallery. Loud, animated singing always hailed our approach to the house of God; and a closely-packed audience of men, amongst whom you might have searched in vain for one white hair, were leaning upon the voice of the preacher as if God himself had called them together to hear of life and death eternal. At every call for the anxious, the entire altar, the front six seats of the five blocks of pews surrounding the pulpit, and all the spaces thereabouts ever so closely packed, could scarcely accommodate the supplicants.

        To this graphic picture may I add a few touches. There was a soldier in a red blanket overcoat who had a voice like the sound of many waters, and who almost invariably sat or stood on the pulpit steps and led the singing. I remember, too, the many marks of cannon balls upon and in and through the building, and that it added to the thrill of the services to realize that we were gathered under the frowning batteries upon Stafford Heights. And while I greatly enjoyed the many powerful sermons we heard from distinguished

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ministers, yet I was still more impressed by the simple song and prayer and experience meetings of the men, which were generally held for at least an hour before the regular service began.

        Many of the "talks" delivered by the private soldiers in these preparatory services were thrilling beyond expression. Let me attempt to reproduce two or three of these, promising that if I cannot be sure of the precise words employed by the speakers, I at least will not fail to reproduce the substance and the spirit of their addresses:

        I remember that one of these private soldiers, in illustrating and enforcing the folly of living in this world as if we were to live in it forever, asked his comrades what they would think of the good sense or even the sanity of one of their number who should to-morrow morning send to Richmond for an elegant wrapper, velvet smoking cap and slippers, and when they came, throwing away his blanket and stout shoes and clothes, should insist upon arraying himself in "these butterfly things" in the face of the fact that the next moment the long roll might turn him out into the deep snow or the guns of the enemy batter down his cantonment over his head.

        Another, speaking of the trivial things to which a man gives his heart and for which he may lose his soul, speculated with the finest fancy as to what it was, and how very a trifle it may have been, that turned the heart and the gaze of Lot's wife back toward Sodom and turned her breathing body into a dead pillar of salt.

        And still another--a great, broad-shouldered, double-jointed son of Anak, with a head like the Farnese Jove and a face and frame indicative of tremendous power, alike of character and of muscle--delivered himself of his "experience" in one of the most graphic and moving talks I ever listened to. He said in substance:

        "Brethren, I want you to know what a merciful, forgiving being the Lord is, and to do that I've got to tell you what a mean-spirited liar I am. You remember that tight place the brigade got into, down yonder at - - -, and you know the life I lived up to that day. Well, as soon as ever

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the Minies began a-singing and the shell a-bursting around me, I up and told the Lord that I was sorry and ashamed of myself, and if He'd cover my head this time we'd settle the thing as soon as I got out. Then I got to fighting and forgot all about it, and never thought of my promise no more at all till we got into that other place, up yonder at - - -; you remember it, tighter than the first one. Then, when the bullets begun a-hissing like rain and the shell was fairly tearing the woods to pieces, my broken promise come back to me. Brethren, my coward heart stopped beating and I pretty nigh fainted. I tried to pray and at first I couldn't; but I just said, 'Look here, Lord, if you will look: I feel I have lied to you and that you won't believe me again, and may be you oughtn't to; but I don't want to go to hell, and I'm serious and honest this time, and if you do hear me now, we'll meet just as soon as I get out safe, and we certainly will settle things.'

        "Well, brethren, He did all I asked of Him, the Lord did; and what did I do? Brethren, I'm ashamed to say it, but I lied again, and never thought one thing about it at all till one day we was shoved into the very worst place any of us ever was in. Hell gaped for me, and here come the two lies I had told and sat right down upon my heart and my tongue. Of course I couldn't pray, but at last I managed to say, 'Lord! Lord! I deserve it all if I do go there, right now, and I can't pray and I won't lie any more. You can do as you please, Lord; but if you do--. But, no, I won't lie any more, and I won't promise, for fear I should lie. It's all in your hands, Lord--hell or mercy. I've got no time to talk any more about it. I've got to go to killing Yankees. But, O Lord! O Lord!--no, I daresn't, I daresn't; for I won't lie any more; I won't go down there with a fresh lie on my lips; but, O Lord! Lord!'

        "And so it was, brethren, all through that dreadful day; fighting, fighting, and not daring to pray.

        "But, brethren, He did it, He did it; and the moment the thing was over I wouldn't give myself time to lie again, so I just took out and ran as hard as ever I could into the deep, dark woods, where God and me was alone together, and I

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threw my musket down on the ground and I went right down myself, too, on my knees, and cried out, 'Thank you, Lord; thank you, Lord! but I'm not going to get up off my knees until everything's settled between us;' and neither I didn't, brethren. The Lord never held it over me at all, and we settled it right there."

        It is said that more than five hundred men professed conversion in these Fredericksburg meetings, and this statement is based upon careful figures made by the regimental chaplains, and particularly by Rev. William Owen, who really began these meetings, and was practically in charge of them. Some of the chaplains were very uncommon men. My father, who was in the ministry more than fifty years and had a very wide experience with men, expressed the highest estimate of them.

        Easily the most marked man among them, however, was the Rev. William Benton Owen, chaplain of the Seventeenth Mississippi Regiment. My recollection is that he had been a private soldier and was commissioned chaplain, because he was already doing the work of one--yes, of half a dozen--without the commission. Of all the men I ever knew, I think he was the most consecrated, the most unselfish, and the most energetic, and that he accomplished more that was really worthy of grateful recognition and commendation than any other man I ever knew, of his ability. By this I do not mean to imply that his ability was small, but simply that I do not include in this statement a few men I have known, of extraordinary abilities and opportunities.

        "Brother William," as we used to call him, was also a man of the sweetest, loveliest spirit, but of the most unflinching courage as well. After he became chaplain he never felt it right or fitting that he should attempt to kill or wound a man, so he never fired another shot, yet he was seldom back of the actual line of battle. It may give some faint idea of his exalted Christian heroism to say that his regular habit was to take charge of the litter-bearers in battle, and first to see to the removal of the wounded, Federal as well as Confederate, when the former fell into our hands; and then to attend to the burial of the dead of both sides, when we held

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the field and the enemy did not ask leave to bury their own dead.

        It will be remembered by Federal soldiers that the American Tract or Bible Society published Testaments with the United States flag on the fly leaf, and, on the folds of the banner, the printed words, "If I should fall, send this to - - -," space being left for his home address, which each soldier was supposed to write in the appropriate place. Dear Brother William could not always burden himself with all these Testaments taken from the dead soldiers' pockets; but because that was not possible, he used to carry a little blank book in which he would copy the home addresses of the dead soldiers and would afterwards write to their friends, telling them where they were buried, and, if possible, how their bodies might be identified.

        After one of the bloody repulses of the enemy at Spottsylvania in 1864, Brother William was, as usual, out in front of our works, utterly unconscious of his own heroism or his own peril. He had removed the wounded of both sides and taken note of our dead, and was making his memoranda of the home addresses of the Federal dead, when a Minie ball struck his left elbow, shattering it dreadfully. He was at once carried to the field hospital, and some of Barksdale's (now Humphreys') men sent word down the line to me. As soon as our guns were disengaged I galloped to the hospital to see him; but when I arrived he was under the knife, his elbow being in process of resection, and, of course, was unconscious. My recollection is that I saw him but for a moment only. Much as I would have given for even so little as one word from him, I could not possibly wait, but was obliged to return to my post.

        I never saw him again. As usual, after one of these death grapples of '64, Grant slipped off to his left and we to our right, this time too far for me to get back. In a few days we heard that Mr. Owen was in Richmond and then that he had been sent home, and our hopes grew bright that he would ultimately recover. But no; he was never really a strong man; indeed he was one of the few small and slight men I remember in the entire brigade, and, besides, he was

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worn and wasted with his ceaseless labors. He never really rallied, but in a short time sank and passed away. Few servants of God and man as noble and consecrated, as useful and beloved, as William Owen have lived in this world or left it for Heaven.

        I have referred incidentally to two special friends of mine in the company,--whom we will now identify as Allan and Billy,-- and in a later chapter will refer again to the sincerity and candor of the intercourse, especially the religious intercourse, of soldiers with each other. If now I can, by a touch here and there, reveal something of what passed between me and each of these noble boys as they were led into the higher life, I will have done more than I could do in any other way to put before you the every-day religious life of the army.

        Both my friends were younger than I, both were high, moral men, but neither was a Christian; Allan and I were law students when the war interrupted our studies--he at the University of Virginia, I at Columbia College, New York. It was he who, having been previously a pronounced Union man, left the University before breakfast the morning President Lincoln's call for troops was published and joined a military company in Richmond before going to his father's house. Billy was the guide who met us at the train the day we joined the battery, and conducted us to the Howitzer camp. We were all in the same detachment, that is, attached to the same gun, so I readily could and actually did pass much of my waking life first with one and then with the other, and I generally laid down by one or the other at night. Our religious conferences were seldom all three together, for the other two differed in nature and did not have the same temptations or difficulties to overcome. I began earnest effort with both of them as far back as Leesburg, and when I was promoted and left the battery, just after Chancellorsville, both had become Christians.

        It may seem almost grotesque in such a connection to remark that one of the most difficult things for a soldier to do is to keep his person and his scant clothing reasonably clean, and that one of the large memories of my soldier life

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is a record of "divers washings." I cannot recall ever having bathed or washed, while with the company, with any one other than my two dear friends, and it is singular how vividly I do recall standing waist deep in a pool or stream of water with Billy or with Allan, each of us scrubbing away at his only shirt, or at one of his two shirts, as the case might be, meanwhile earnestly discussing some aspect of the one great matter.

        Both my dear friends were exceptionally strong men intellectually, but Billy had the simpler nature, with less tendency to self-analysis and introspection, stronger physical life and higher animal spirits; so that with him it was a clear and a clearly-confessed case of light-hearted content and happiness as he was, and consequent light-hearted indifference to any great change. But he was growing more thoughtful, more tender, more perfect in his moral life.

        He was wounded seriously at Malvern Hill and threatened with the loss of an eye, and was at home in the country with his mothers and sisters for some months. Meanwhile his father died, and he began to realize that if he lived through the war he would have a great burden to carry with his "seven women," as he afterwards called them when nobly bearing them on his great shoulders. "Seven women taking hold of the skirt of one man, and that the skirt of a round-about jacket," as Billy used to say. He returned to us just before Chancellorsville to find the great revival at Fredericksburg in progress and a general condition of thoughtfulness throughout the army, including our battery. He attended some of these wonderful services and we were together as much as possible. I felt the greatest yearning and the strongest hope for him.

        Suddenly Chancellorsville burst upon us, and as Hooker's really great plan was disclosed we all felt that the next few days were indeed big with fate. Hooker had crossed an immense force at the upper fords of the Rappahannock and Sedgwick was crossing in front of Fredericksburg. All of us were deeply stirred; and when night fell and our lines began to grow still, I proposed to Billy that we should walk out to the point of the hill overlooking the wide river

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bottom and hear, if we could not see, the Federal army getting into position. We did so, and no previous hour of our lives had ever proved as impressive as that which followed. We passed beyond our pickets and continued to walk until we got where the murmur of our lines could no longer be heard, while every movement of Sedgwick's great host was plainly audible. We heard the commands of the officers, the tramp of the men, the nimble of the artillery carriages, the shouts and curses of the drivers. We thought of the great meetings in Fredericksburg violently brought to a close, and of the great audience of worshipers to-night manning the lines with us. We thought of the morrow and then of our dear ones praying for us, while I found my arms gradually embracing my friend and drawing him closer to my bosom; and then, taking off our hats, we prayed,--oh, so quietly, yet so earnestly!--committing us and ours to God's merciful keeping, for the night, for the morrow, forever. I do not remember that we spoke after the prayer ceased, but I felt a new answering pressure in Billy's arms which now closely enfolded me, and the sense of a new brotherhood between us. We walked silently back to the guns, but with a new strength, a deep trust and peace in our souls, and we lay down with our arms about each other and slept as quietly as little children--as indeed we were, God's dear soldier children, who had felt His gentle assurance that all was and would be well.

        The facts relating to Allan's conversion and death are so remarkable that I would scarcely dare record them were it not that I have before me a written memorandum of them prepared while I was a prisoner at Johnson's Island in the spring of 1865. Allan was, as before intimated, rather prone to introspection, but his mental processes were so definite and his verbal expression of them so clear that one experienced no difficulty in understanding him and always felt assured that he thoroughly understood himself.

        A few days before Billy's return, Allan and I were washing our clothes, and I, as usual, talking, when he abruptly and almost impatiently interrupted me, saying substantially that, while I evidently thought I was speaking sensibly and

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appositely, yet what I was saying had in fact no sort of application to his case.

        "No doubt," said he, "it is enough if a man believe on the Lord Christ; but this direction is given to one who has, in all sincerity and earnestness, asked, 'What must I do to be saved?' Now I feel that I have never sincerely and seriously asked that question, and I am not asking it now. The fact is, the whole current of my being sets toward the fulfilment of my earthly purpose; though just now the immediate pursuit of it is kept in abeyance by the war. It is not worth while to attempt to deceive myself or you; what I really desire and am absorbed in, my dear Bob, is not eternal life, but the life which now is. Now then, what should, what can a man do, who is in my condition? Tell me what you really think; and speak quietly and practically, so there will be no mistaking your meaning."

        I knew he was honest and hoped he was more earnest than he realized at the moment, so I begged for light and guidance before answering, and then I said:

        "Allan, do you intellectually and firmly believe the New Testament records and the main outline of the Christian system; and if you do, have you any feeling at all connected with them and their bearing upon your life?"

        "Yes," he said, "my intellectual belief is definite and decided, and I probably, yes, certainly, have some desire to accept the truth in the fuller, Christian sense."

        "Then," said I, "your present duty is clear and it is to pray to God to help you to accept in this fuller sense. Tell Him of your full intellectual faith and your feeble heart faith. Utter sincerely that prayer of prayers for a man in such a world and such a life as this, 'Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!' Do this sincerely, and I feel satisfied the heart or soul part of your faith will grow."

        He protested that the best prayer he could offer would be but half-hearted and an insult to God. I combatted this idea, contending that it would be a greater neglect and insult not to attempt to pray at all, and he finally promised he would try. When I next saw him alone I think we were on the march for Chancellorsville. He was evidently unhappy,

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and when I asked him if he had prayed, he said he had not, that he had been upon his knees, but could not pray, and added that his nature must be more paralyzed and things even worse with him than he had supposed. I saw that another Teacher and Physician had taken the case out of my hands. He rather clung to me, but I thought best to leave him with his new Teacher, and I did.

        Two of our comrades were killed and horribly mangled by solid shot or whole shell in our Chancellorsville fights, and we buried one of them at night in a thicket. Returning there after the burying party had withdrawn, I saw a man on his knees at the graveside. It was Allan, and at my approach he rose and advanced to meet me, saying:

        "Bob, I am a mystery to myself. I don't see how I am to go up to the gun in to-morrow's fight and face temporal and eternal death; and yet I presume I shall be able to do my duty."

        I said decidedly:

        "You have no business, Allan, and no need, to face eternal death. That is not before you, unless you will have it so."

        We said a few words to each other, a few more to God, went back and joined the sad circle around the camp fire a short while, and then lay down together. I think I told him about Billy, and then we slept.

        The next day, after evening roll call, we each put an arm around the other's waist and walked off into the woods, and as soon as we got out of earshot of others I began:

        "Well, Allan, to go back where we left off--"

        He put his other hand in mine, and I felt a thrill as he did so, while, with the sweetest smile, he said:

        "No, Bob, I don't think we will go back there. I've gotten beyond that point, and I don't like going back. I have found the Lord Jesus Christ, or, rather, He has found me and taken hold of me."

        It was the largest, the most thrilling moment of my life. Never before had I been conscious of such overpowering spiritual joy. We were for the moment two disembodied

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human souls alone with God. The earth with its trappings had disappeared.

        It was my last word with him. It must have been the next day that I received my first promotion and left for Richmond, for Beers was killed at Chancellorsville and I buried him at Richmond. When I returned to the army it was to Early's division of the Second Corps. True, we did not begin the advance into Pennsylvania for almost a full month after Chancellorsville, and what became of this month to me I cannot say, except that I went where I was ordered, and do not recall meeting the Howitzers again until after Gettysburg.

        On his way to his last battle this splendid youth wrote to his family a brief note, in which he said:

        "In the hurry of the march I have little time for thought, but whenever my eternal interests do occur to me, I feel entire assurance of full and free pardon through Jesus Christ, and if called upon to die this moment I think I could do so cheerfully."

        These were the last words he ever wrote.

        After Gettysburg I rode over to the old battery and they told me this story. On the last day, worn with that tremendous fight, two of our guns had taken up their last position. All thought the struggle over. Allan had just seen a friend on the staff who promised to, and did, send word home of his safety at the close of the battle. Suddenly a terrific fire burst thundering, flashing, crashing upon them and No. 1, while ramming home the shot, had the sponge-staff shattered in his hands. No. 1 was Billy; Allan was gunner, and stooped to unkey the other sponge. A frightful explosion, the piece is dismounted and most of the detachment hurled violently to the earth!

        The sergeant, a quiet, phlegmatic man, looked about him in horror. The lieutenant, running up, demanded:

        "Why don't you change that wheel?"

        "I haven't men enough left, sir; we've used up the super-numeraries."

        "Where's Allan?"

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        "There he is, sir!"--pointing to a mangled mass which no one had the nerve to approach.

        There lay our noble comrade, each several limb thrice broken, the body gashed with wounds, the top of the skull blown off and the brain actually fallen out upon the ground in two bloody, palpitating lobes. A percussion shell had struck the rim of the wheel while he bent behind it unkeying the rammer.

        His chariot and horses of fire had caught him up into Heaven.

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CHAPTER XII

BETWEEN FREDERICKSBURG AND CHANCELLORSVILLE

Our Mother and Sisters Arrive From the North--A Horse's Instinct of Locality and Direction--Our Artillery Battalion and Its Commander-- Commerce Across the Rappahannock--Snow-ball Battles--A Commission in Engineer Troops--An Appointment on Jackson's Staff-- Characteristic Interview Between General Jackson and My Father--The Army Telegraph--President Lincoln's Letter--Hooker's Plan Really Great, But Lee's Audacity and His Army Equal to Any Crisis--Head of Column, to the Left or to the Right.

        In the four or five months between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, that is to say, between the middle of December, '62, and the first of May, '63, several things occurred of special interest to me personally, as well as several others of more general and public significance. It is not possible now to relate these events in their exact sequence, nor even to be confident that every incident referred to as belonging to this period actually happened between the dates mentioned; but neither of these considerations is important.

        To my next younger brother, Randolph, and myself the one event of transcendent interest about this time was the long-deferred arrival in Richmond of our mother and sisters, whom we had left behind in New Haven in the spring of '61. Neither of us had heretofore asked anything in the nature of a furlough, or leave of absence, feeling that our comrades who, by such leave, would be enabled to see father and mother, sisters and home, should be entitled to the preference; and now, when it became known that our dear people were in Richmond, every one stood back for us and urged our claims. Not only did the captain approve our application, but the first lieutenant offered me his thoroughbred horse, "Rebel," by the aid of whose fleet limbs it was

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thought I might be able to get around to the necessary headquarters in a day, and also, perhaps, have a chance to say a word in behalf of my brother and myself, instead of waiting the slow process and the somewhat uncertain result of the papers working their own way through "the regular channels." My recollection is that all this happened about Christmas time, so that the goodness of our comrades in standing back for us was the more praiseworthy.

        I did succeed in making "the grand rounds" in a day, but might not have done so but for the combined intelligence and stubbornest of little Rebel. It was almost dark when I left the last headquarters I had to visit, and started for camp, which was a long distance off, and the latter part of the way almost a labyrinth of undistinguishable army tracks. The road was yet, however, distinct, and my horse not at all fatigued and making good speed; but just as I was felicitating myself that all was working well, the road turned sharply to the left, to avoid an apparently impassable swamp, but the little horse absolutely refused to turn with it, insisting upon going directly forward into the swamp.

        I fought him for ten or fifteen minutes to no purpose. He only balked and wheeled and reared and plunged, until finally, utterly worn out, I gave him his head and he took and kept his course, as the crow flies, into and through the swamp, over and past fence and ditch, on through brush and brake and briar and thicket, I making no effort to guide or control him; indeed, after a short time, utterly unable even to see where he was going and only attempting to lie as close as possible to his back and as far as possible to protect my face and eyes. I never took another such ride, before or since, and had no idea when or where it would end, until at last--yet in an incredibly short time--the little fellow pushed his determined front through the fringe of low pines that protected our battery horse shelters and--we were at home. I was bruised and scratched, tired and cold, wet and hungry, but I made the plucky little horse comfortable before doing anything for myself, and next morning satisfied myself that he had never before been over the tract of country we had traversed together, and that it was a clear case of unerring

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instinct for locality and direction. I had all the required endorsements, and that very day "Randy" and I took the train for Richmond, the two happiest boys among all Marse Robert's ragged thousands.

        When it is recalled that it had been nearly two years since we left our mother and sisters in the North; that during all this time we had only irregular, illegal, and very infrequent communication with them, and consequently had now all the vivid experiences of two such years to interchange, the intense interest and bliss of those furlough days in Richmond may be faintly imagined. My memory is not absolutely clear, but I am almost positive that Mrs. Beers and her little girls had come on with our mother and sisters and that Beers had also gotten a furlough to meet them and was in Richmond with us. If so, it was the last time I ever saw the noble fellow alive. It will be remembered he fell at Chancellorsville.

        One matter of very great importance which took shape between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville was the organization of our (Cabell's) battalion of artillery. It was made up of four batteries--ours, the First Company, Richmond Howitzers, of Virginia; Manly's Battery, of North Carolina; the Troupe Artillery and Frazier's Battery, of Georgia; and it included, at different times, from sixteen to eighteen guns, mostly brass Napoleons. Its commanding officer was Col. H. C. Cabell, a member of the historic and illustrious Virginia family of that name and a man every way worthy of his lineage.

        For eighteen months of the hottest part of the war I was the adjutant of Colonel Cabell, fighting by his side by day and sleeping by his side by night, eating and drinking often out of the same tin cup, lying upon the same oil cloth and covered with the same blanket--side by side, heart to heart soul to soul. If ever I knew a man through and through, I knew him; and a cleaner, sweeter, more loyal soul I never knew. His essential characteristics were pure and unselfish nature, tender and affectionate heart, gentle and unfailing courtesy, single-hearted and devoted patriotism, quiet but indomitable courage. I never knew him to fail to be at the

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point of peril along the front of his battalion, nor there nor anywhere to fail to measure up to the full standard of a battalion commander's duty and responsibility. I never knew him to shrink from any hardship or any duty or any sacrifice for the cause to which we had devoted our lives. I never knew him to fail to treat a private soldier with a consideration which was grateful to him, and yet never knew this courtesy to interfere with the maintenance of discipline. I never knew him to wound intentionally the feelings of a human being, or fail to repair the wrong if committed inadvertently. He was a man of intellect and culture, as well as character; as a friend ever faithful, as a companion always agreeable, as an officer enjoying the unqualified confidence and approval of his superiors, and the universal respect and affection of his subordinates.

        I am well aware that all this should have resulted in even more, but he who never did injustice to others never did full justice to himself. He lacked self-assertion and aggression; to some extent, too, he lacked the manner and bearing of a soldier, and he never maneuvered for position for himself or his battalion.

        He was not, however, lacking in proper soldierly ambition. He already enjoyed distinguished position; for the officer who attains and reputably maintains the rank of full colonel of artillery fills a position of great honor and responsibility. But he was much pleased to learn late in the war that certain of his friends, as they announced themselves, were planning to secure for him the exceptional rank of brigadier-general of artillery. He was interested and gratified until he accidentally discovered that it was involved in the plan that he should be retired to the permanent defenses of Richmond, and another officer should take his battalion in the field. When this feature was developed, for once he flamed into ungovernable rage. It was the only time I ever heard him swear. "Stiles," said he, "what do these people take me for? Have I given men any reason to consider me a damned sneak and coward and fool?"

        I cannot forbear a trifling incident, revealing in a flash the simplicity and beauty of his nature and of our relations and

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intercourse. It occurred at the left base of the Bloody Angle at Spottsylvania in 1864, where one or two of his batteries had been ordered to take the place of some of our artillery which had been captured, and to stay the rout. The guns were in column back of the lines, awaiting our return, we having ridden into that gloomy pit of defeat and demoralization to determine exactly where they should be placed. As we came out, before riding back to bring up the guns, we dismounted in a place of comparative security, just to stretch our limbs and unbend a moment from the awful tension. Leaving his horse, Colonel Cabell walked up to me, color mounting his face and tears filling his eyes, and threw his arms about me, saying, in a voice husky with feeling, exactly these words: "Stiles, if you should dare to get killed, I'd never forgive you."

        Such was the commanding officer of our battalion. Either at the organization or soon after, Major S. P. Hamilton, of South Carolina, was assigned to duty with the command, and at a later period Major W. H. Gibbes, of the same State, was with us for a few weeks or months. I am not certain as to the date of my first service with the battalion as adjutant. Some of my comrades insist that it was from the inception; but I am sure this is not true, unless, as is possible, I may have been detailed by Colonel Cabell to aid temporarily in arranging matters and getting the new organization in working order. I could not have been regularly even "acting adjutant," for I held no commission until after Chancellorsville, a battle in which we were fought as a battalion, though in two divisions, while I distinctly remember I fought as a private soldier, in the old battery, in my usual position at my own gun.

        Soon after the battle of Gettysburg, whether on the Virginia or Maryland side of the river I do not now remember, Colonel Cabell met me and asked what I was doing, and learning that I was at the time a sort of free lance, with one of the artillery battalions of the Second Corps, urged me to get the informal permission of General Early, with whose headquarters I kept up some sort of connection, and go back with him to the First Corps and act as adjutant of his

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battalion, which I did; he promising to get a regular order assigning me to this duty. Upon reflection, I think the first order of detail for duty at his headquarters, by Colonel Cabell himself, prior to Chancellorsville, as above suggested, is very probable, as I do not otherwise see how the Colonel would have known me or had reason to suppose I would be satisfactory to him in the position.

        Among matters worthy of note occurring prior to Chancellorsville, it may not be out of place to mention the very active commerce or interchange of commodities, carried on by tiny sailing vessels, between the north and south banks of the Rappahannock River, at and below Fredericksburg, both before and after that battle. The communication was almost constant and the vessels many of them really beautiful little craft, with shapely hulls nicely painted, elaborate rigging, trim sails, closed decks, and perfect steering apparatus. The cargoes, besides the newspapers of the two sides, usually consisted on our side of tobacco and on the Federal side of coffee and sugar, yet the trade was by no means confined to these articles, and on a sunny, pleasant day the waters were fairly dotted with the fairy fleet. Many a weary hour of picket duty was thus relieved and lightened, and most of the officers seemed to wink at the infraction of military law, if such it was. A few rigidly interdicted it, but it never really ceased.

        Another institutional amusement of the army in the winter of '62-3, which tended greatly to relieve the almost unendurable tedium of camp life, was the snow-ball battle. These contests were unique in many respects. In the first place here was sport, or friendly combat, on the grandest scale, perhaps, known in modern times. Entire Brigades lined up against each other for the fight. And not the masses of men only, but the organized military bodies--the line and field officers, the bands and the banners, the generals and their staffs, mounted as for genuine battle. There was the formal demand for the surrender of the camp, and the refusal, the charge, and the repulse; the front, the flank, the rear attack. And there was intense earnestness in the struggle-- sometimes limbs were broken and eyes, at least

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temporarily, put out, and the camp equipment of the vanquished was regarded as fair booty to the victors.

        I recall a visit paid in company with my father, not long after the battle of Fredericksburg, to the camp of my uncle mentioned in a former chapter as having been in command of Lawton's brigade in that fight. He was still in command of it. My father asked the cause of several very heavy bruises on his face. I never saw my uncle more deeply embarrassed, as he related, blushing like a girl, what he called his "preposterous experience" in leading his brigade the day before in a snow battle with Hoke's, which lasted several hours--and as the really laughable picture was developed, its strong coloring heightened by my uncle's embarrassed blushes, I never saw my father more heartily amused. It seemed that my uncle at one point in the conflict had been dragged from his horse and captured by Hoke's men, but later had been recaptured by his own command, and on both occasions had been pretty roughly handled. One would have supposed these veteran troops had seen too much of the real thing to seek amusement in playing at battle.

        I had now been in the army for nearly two years and was still a private soldier, yet quite content as such. My mental attitude in this regard was perhaps rather unusual. I had originally volunteered exclusively from sense of duty, regarding the war, so far as it affected me personally, as an interruption to my purposes and ambitions in connection with the law; but I was never one of those who considered the conflict to be a matter of sixty or ninety days or a year, and soon came to look upon it as of indefinite duration and likely to prove an absorbing business to me for a long time to come. Gradually I became interested in military life and began to contemplate it as perhaps my life work, and from this time my interest in it grew apace. Still, I had thought little of promotion except in the aspect of making myself deserving of it. True, General Hill had, at quite an early period, said something of a commission, but none had come, and I had continued to look upon the position, even of a corporal, as requiring a certain amount of military aptitude, not to say talent and training, which I was not confident I had.

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        But this morbid and unpractical view of things was giving way before the stubborn fact, established by observation and experience, that numbers of men in positions above me, were obviously my inferiors in every qualification and requisite for rank and command; nor could I be blind to the further fact that my commanding officers regarded me with rather special confidence and approval. Gradually I came to entertain the idea that I might some day be offered promotion and perhaps should not feel called upon to reject it, though I could never contemplate any effort on my part to secure it.

        While I was in this state of mind, some little time before the opening of the Chancellorsville campaign, I received a communication from the Engineer Bureau in Richmond containing an appointment to a second lieutenancy in "Engineer Troops," a new corps about to be organized in the Army of Northern Virginia. There was no explanation accompanying the paper, and I did not recognize as familiar any name connected with it, and after due reflection concluded that the communication had been sent me by mistake and was intended for my cousin, Robert Mackay Stiles, who was an engineer, as I understood then serving in the far South in some appropriate capacity. I supposed his services were desired in organizing the new corps, and I actually returned the paper, with the above suggestion, and therewith dismissed the matter from my mind. Meanwhile there occurred one of the most noteworthy experiences of my life.

        The very day, I think it was, of what might be termed "our spring opening" of '63, and probably before we made the first move looking toward Chancellorsville, I was busy about some duty in the battery, when I heard the captain's voice calling me sharply, and as I approached his quarters noticed a courier just leaving. The captain informed me that General Jackson had sent an order for me to report immediately at his headquarters. When my first surprise subtitled I told Captain McCarthy, what I was then confident was the case, that the message was doubtless from my father, who loved to work in the Second Corps, and spent much time at the General's quarters; but the captain protested that

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the order was from "Old Jack" himself, that he could not imagine what he wanted with me; he hoped not to have me shot for some violation of military law. "However," said he, "you had better take one of the sergeant's horses and go and find out for yourself"-- which I proceeded at once to do; but had not gotten beyond the confines of camp before I heard the captain calling again, the utterance of my name this time alternating with shouts and peals of laughter. On riding up I found him reading, for the second time, an autograph note from General Jackson, addressed to Captain McCarthy, and to the following effect: that if we had not already received orders to move we would receive them in a few moments; that Robert Stiles must not report to him until further orders; that he didn't want any "untried man" about him when about to move.

        The relations of our captain to the better soldiers in the battery were peculiar and enjoyable. On duty he was our commanding officer, off duty our intimate friend. I used to call him "the intelligent young Irishman," and to tell the following story in explanation: just before the Howitzers left Richmond, in the spring of '61, General Magruder called upon Major Randolph to send him a suitable man for a courier, adding, "intelligent young Irishman preferred"--and McCarthy was sent as "filling the bill." The captain had long been "laying for me," as the saying is, and now he had his revenge--"Old Jack" had conferred upon me orthodox Presbyterian baptism as "the untried man," and so far as the captain was concerned, certainly the name "stuck."

        What would he and I have given, two or three days later, to recall the action of the next few moments. I distinctly remember the general appearance of General Jackson's note. It was written in pencil on a small half sheet of bluish paper, evidently torn from a letter, and I remember, too, how Captain McCarthy--laughing still--tore it up, when he had read it out three or four times, and how the fragments floated adown the air. I told Mrs. Jackson of the circumstance not long after the war, and she pronounced the contents of the note, and particularly the last clause, to be strongly illustrative of the directness and concentration which rendered

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her husband oblivious of everything but the one idea at any one time having possession of him.

        A few days later, but after Jackson's death, my father gave me what I may term the obverse, or face side, of this incident. He was at Jackson's headquarters when the General, as it were in a tone of inquiry, said:

        "Doctor, I understand you have a son in the army?"

        "Yes, General," my father answered, "I have three of them."

        "One is like you, isn't he?"

        "No, sir; I don't know that either of them is specially like me."

        Then, somewhat impatiently:

        "Well, your oldest son is named Robert, isn't he?"

        "Yes, Bob is my eldest son."

        "From what I have heard of him, I think I should like to have him with me."

        "Well, sir, I would be delighted to have him come."

        "But it isn't for you to say, Doctor; he ought to be allowed to decide for himself. Besides, both of you should consider that the probability of his being killed will be greatly increased. I am liable to make mistakes in my orders and to send a man into danger that might be avoided by going around some longer and less perilous route. But he must not stop to consider this. He must take his life in his hand and carry my orders as I send them."

        "Yes, sir; I think I understand, and I am sure Bob will carry your orders as you send them. His life is in God's hands. Longer or shorter, I would like to have him spend it with you, and I am sure that would be his choice, too."

        "But, Doctor, you have no right to decide for him. Tell him all I have told you, and let him decide for himself."

        "But, General, I do decide and have decided, for Bob and for myself. He will be delighted to come to you."

        "Very well sir. In my opinion you have no right to make this decision, but if you insist upon taking the responsibility, I'll send for your son."

        And he did, with the result already given.

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        He was not as sure of me as my dear father was; to Jackson, certainly, I was "the untried man." I have often thought what might have been if I had gone to him that day. Of course my blood would have been up, and the chances are very great that I would have fallen that fateful night in the Chancellorsville Wilderness, when the wondrous captain did make one of those mistakes to which he said he was "liable," and which then cost, not a little life like mine, but that great life of his, upon which destiny and history hung.

        Among the pet names with which our constant lover, the Army of the Potomac, was wont to soften and sweeten its early spring wooings of us was "Damned sassafras-tea-drinking rebels." If a trifle vigorous and not even a trifle euphonious, it was yet certainly appropriate and suggestive, for the first steady spring sunshine, that dried out the roads and caused the sassafras buds to swell, sent the first tremors of returning life darting through the coils of the great serpentine armies which had lain torpid in the winter's cold, until suddenly the one or the other monster glided, hissing from its den, and delivered its stroke. To our friends, the enemy, the only relation between the swelling of the sassafras buds and the spring-burst of battle was chronological; but with us the sassafras amounted almost to a sub-commissariat--we chewed it, we drank it, we smelled it, and it was ever at hand without the trouble or expense of transport.

        All through the latter part of April, '63, even more than the normal premonitory spring shudderings were noted throughout the great winter camps and quarters of the Federal army corps across the river, and very soon the marvelous army telegraph was in full operation. Every surviving veteran of either side will understand what I mean. It was really little less than miraculous the way in which information--often astonishingly correct--as to what had happened or was about to happen, was transmitted along the lines of the army. Partial explanations readily occur, but I have yet to meet the first intelligent and observant soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia who is not ready to admit that, in some instances, the rapid transmission of news and the detailed accuracy of forecast that sifted through the army were at the time, and remain to-day, inexplicable.

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        Of course we knew of the resignation or removal of Burnside and the appointment of Hooker as his successor, late in January, and we had seen, too, the remarkable order of the latter, issued upon assuming command, in which he declared that: "In equipment, intelligence, and valor, the enemy is our inferior. Let us never hesitate to give him battle whenever we can find him." From this order, as well as from his military history, with which we were familiar, we "knew our man." We knew also the atmosphere that surrounded his appointment, but I for one never saw, until long after the war, the remarkable letter of Mr. Lincoln to his appointee, which not only revives and bears out my recollection of the spirit of the times, but fills me with amazement that a self-respecting officer could have accepted an appointment confirmed or accompanied by such a letter:

EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON, D. C.,

January 26, 1863.

MAJOR-GENERAL HOOKER:

        General:--I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons. And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm. But I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong both to the country and to a meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard in such a way as to believe it of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you, is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear the spirit you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon

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you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness! beware of rashness! but with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories.

         Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

        One of the ablest discussions of Chancellorsville from the Confederate side is to be found in an address delivered by Gen. Fitzhugh Lee before the Virginia Division of the Army of Northern Virginia, on the 24th of October, 1879. In that address the author says of this battle that, "It brings before the military student as high a type of an offensive battle as ever adorned the pages of history." Col. Walter Taylor says: "Of all the battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia, that of Chancellorsville stands first as illustrating the consummate audacity and military skill of commanders and the valor and determination of the men." It is probable that the general consensus of opinion among the surviving officers and soldiers of the Confederacy concurs in these estimates. My own conception of the matter was at the time, and has ever since been, that the brilliant genius and audacious courage of Lee and Jackson shone so conspicuously throughout these operations, partly because the plan of their adversary was truly great--far superior to anything that had theretofore been projected against Lee and his staunch soldiers.

        The battle is of such exceptional interest, and at the same time savors so much of the marvelous, that I ask pardon for making a lengthy quotation from Colonel Taylor's book, premising that it was twelve miles or more from Deep Run, below Fredericksburg, where Sedgwick and Early opposed each other, to Chancellorsville, the position selected by Hooker as the base of his main operations and where he had concentrated the bulk of his army. On pages 83-5 of his "Four Years with General Lee," Colonel Taylor says:

         General Lee, with fifty-seven thousand troops of all arms, intrenched along the line of hills south of the Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, was confronted by General Hooker, with the Army of the Potomac, one hundred and thirty-two thousand strong, occupying the bluffs on the opposite side of the river.

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        On the 29th of April the Federal commander essayed to put into execution an admirably conceived plan of operations, from which he doubtless concluded that he could compel either the evacuation by General Lee of his strongly fortified position, or else his utter discomfiture, when unexpectedly and vigorously assailed upon his left flank and rear by the "finest army on the planet"--really more than twice the size of his own.

        A formidable force, under General Sedgwick, was thrown across the river below Fredericksburg, and made demonstrations of an intention to assail the Confederate front. Meanwhile, with great celerity and secrecy, General Hooker, with the bulk of his army, crossed at the upper fords, and in an able manner and wonderfully short time had concentrated four of his seven army corps, numbering fifty-six thousand men, at Chancellorsville, about ten miles west of Fredericksburg. His purpose was now fully developed to General Lee, who, instead of waiting its further prosecution, immediately determined on the movement the least expected by his opponent. He neither proceeded to make strong his left against attack from the direction of Chancellorsville, nor did he move southward so as to put his army between that of General Hooker and the Confederate capital; but leaving General Early with about nine thousand men to take care of General Sedgwick, he moved with the remainder of his army, numbering forty-eight thousand men, toward Chancellorsville. As soon as the advance of the enemy was encountered, it was attacked with vigor, and very soon the Federal army was on the defensive in its apparently impregnable position. It was not the part of wisdom to attempt to storm the stronghold; but Sedgwick would certainly soon be at work in the rear, and Early, with his inadequate force, could not do more than delay and hamper him. It was, therefore, imperatively necessary to strike--to strike boldly, effectively and at once. There could be no delay. Meanwhile two more army corps had joined General Hooker, who had now about Chancellorsville ninety-one thousand--six corps, except one division of the second corps (Couch's) which had been left with Sedgwick at Fredericksburg. It was a critical position for the Confederate commander, but his confidence in his trusted lieutenant and brave men was such that he did not long hesitate. Encouraged by the counsel and confidence of General Jackson, he determined still further to divide his army; and while he, with the divisions of Anderson and McLaws, less than fourteen thousand men, should hold the enemy in his front, he would hurl Jackson upon his flank and rear and crush and crumble him as between the upper and nether millstone. The very boldness of the movement contributed much to insure its success.

        This battle illustrates most admirably the peculiar talent and individual excellence of Lee and Jackson. For quickness of perception, boldness in planning and skill in directing, Lee had no superior; for celerity

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in his movements, audacity in the execution of bold designs and impetuosity in attacking, Jackson had not his peer.

        About the 28th of April dispatches by the army or grapevine telegraph began to come in very rapidly, and that, too, minutely and correctly revealing the situation. We were at the time in camp a little back of the main fortified line. That evening, I think it was, we received orders to be ready to move at a moment's notice. Very early next morning we heard firing in the direction of Fredericksburg. It was very foggy, and we could see nothing, but understood that a heavy force of the enemy was crossing to our side. They remained all day concealed under the river bank, but at night--I think the night of the 29th--deployed out into position in the great plain. Meanwhile our battery had been ordered to the same position it had occupied in the battle of Fredericksburg, and all during that day Hooker's plan of operations was becoming more and more clearly developed, and with Sedgwick in our front and Hooker in overwhelming force in the rear of our left flank, we deeply felt its power.

        The discussion waxed hot as to what Marse Robert would do. Until he decided, none of us knew what was best, yet the counter plot was intensely absorbing, and when at last--I think it was the night of the 30th--orders came for us to limber up and move out by the little road by which we had come in, and which ran at right angles between the lines and the main road running parallel to the river, the interest was intense, and the dry betting ran high as to whether, when we struck the main road, it would be "head of column to the right" or to "the left." If the latter, then we would know Marse Robert had concluded that it was the part of wisdom to put his army between Sedgwick and Richmond and to maneuver all the attacking columns of his enemies to his front. In that case we might exhale a deep, full breath; for a little while, at least, the extreme tension would be off. But if the horses' heads turned to the right, then we knew well that it was to be the closest and deadliest grapple we had ever experienced. I cannot remember which I thought the wiser alternative or what part I took in the discussion;

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but I do distinctly recall that when the first gun struck the main road and the heads of the leaders swung around to the right, I drew in my breath and set my teeth, calling upon what was best and strongest in my entire being to brace me for the struggle.

        I think it was a day or so before we finally left the Fredericksburg lines that there occurred one of the most remarkable minor incidents I witnessed from the beginning to the end of the war. We had lifted the ammunition chest out of the hole, back of and beneath the little work we had been occupying, and had replaced it upon the gun carriage and limbered up the piece. A group of about a dozen men, not all belonging to our battery, were standing upon the earth-work gazing across the river bottom to the Stafford side, when a little puff of white smoke indicated that the gentlemen on the other side had determined to try their long-range guns. The shell flew a little too high, but directly above us and too close to be comfortable. Before quite reaching us, however, it began to wobble and turn over, indicating that the projectile or propulsive force was well nigh exhausted. My recollection is that we could see the shell distinctly. An infantryman jumped from the work into the hole just vacated by the limber chest. The shell exploded just after it passed us, and the base came hurtling back and actually dashed out the brains of that man, the only man who had not stood his ground. Several other shots were fired, but not a man flinched and not another man was injured.

        I was reminded of a story of the Emperor Napoleon, who in visiting his picket line with the corporal of the guard came to a position which commanded just the view he wanted of the enemy's lines, but was exposed to a galling and dangerous fire from their sharpshooters. The little corporal was standing, absorbed as was his wont when analyzing a battle-field, head sunk between his shoulders, hands behind his back and limbs far apart. He turned to speak to the corporal of the guard, and just as he did so a ball passed between the Emperor's legs and killed the corporal, crouching behind him for protection. Two soldiers stooped to pick up the body, but the Emperor hissed out, "Behold the just fate of the coward! Let the carrion rot."

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CHAPTER XIII

CHANCELLORSVILLE

On the March--The Light Division Passes Our Guns--Marse Robert Passes the Light Division--The Two Little Dogs of the Battalion--Two of Our Guns Take Chancellorsville in Reverse--Interview with General McLaws --Entire Regiment from New Haven, Conn., Captured--Brother William and Marse Robert--Sedgwick--Hooker--His Battle Orders--His Compliment to Lee's Army--Lee's Order Announcing Jackson's Death.

        I recall but one or two features of the march to Chancellorsville. We were with McLaws' division, and of the 14,000 (Anderson's and McLaws' commands) with which General Lee undertook to hold, and did hold, the front of Hooker's 92,000, while Jackson, with the balance of our forces, swung around his right flank and rear.

        Two of our batteries, the Howitzers and Manly's, left Fredericksburg at midnight, April 30th, 1863, and early on the morning of May 1st were drawn up in column on the side of the Old Turnpike, head toward Chancellorsville, to allow the "Light Division," as Gen. A. P. Hill's command was called, to pass. Jackson, as we understood, was somewhere ahead, and Hill's superb troops seemed to be resolved that he should not be compelled to wait even a moment for them. They were in light marching order, and I thought I had never seen anything equal to the swinging, silent stride with which they fairly devoured the ground. The men were magnified in the morning mist which overhung the low flat-lands they were traversing, and at the same time imparted a ghostly indistinctness of outline, which added to the impressiveness of the scene. All was silent as the grave, save the muffled and almost synchronous tread of the thousands of feet in the soft road, and the low clatter or jingle of accoutrements.

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        There was a sudden outburst in the rear of tumultuous shoutings, which rapidly swept toward us, and very soon General Lee, with a full staff, galloped to the front, passing between us and the Light Division, which, however, had now halted and stacked arms across the road from our guns. I cannot recall a moment of higher enthusiasm during the four years of the war. The troops were transported with the wildest excitement and the General also appeared to be unusually impressed. I cannot say that it was his habit, but I distinctly remember that on this occasion he lifted his hat, taking it by the crown with his right hand and holding it suspended above his majestic head as far as we could see him. I remember, too, how the men greeted him, shouting, "What a head, what a head! See that glorious head! God bless it, God bless it!"

        In a short time the Light Division got under way again, resuming its swaying, swinging, panther-like step, others of Jackson's command following them. When the last of his troops had passed, we resumed our march and continued it until we finally reached the position assigned us, with McLaws' division, which formed a part of the thin Confederate line covering Hooker's front, and a most peculiar position it was. It was an old house site in a small clearing, but the main building had been burned or destroyed, apparently years ago, while one or two outbuildings were standing. Our guns came into battery in an old pansy bed, which before we left was spattered with splotches of intenser color. We could see absolutely nothing of the enemy, nor of any other part of our own lines; indeed the entire region was a gloomy thicket and our infantry line so stretched and attenuated that the men were scarcely in sight even of each other. It was currently, and I have every reason to believe correctly, reported, that in inspecting the line of his division, General McLaws found one of his brigades actually faced to the rear.

        Although the enemy was not in sight from our position, nor we from theirs, yet we interchanged occasionally a considerable fire, which resulted on our side in a few sad and ghastly casualties; but we have already spoken of these and

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may speak of them again in another connection. For the present, let us turn to something of a less painful nature.

        There were two little dogs in the battalion which afforded not only a good deal of amusement, but also a field for some interesting observation and discrimination. Both were small, the Troupe Artillery dog, the larger of the two, about the size of a small coon without a tail, which he in general resembled. He was dark, stone gray on his back, inclining (somewhat more than a coon) to tan or fawn color underneath. He had also rough, coarse hair; short, stout legs, and, as implied, little or no tail. He had entered the service early, joining the battery during the unfortunate campaign in Western Virginia, and was named after the commanding general, "Robert Lee." He was very plucky in a personal difficulty, but I blush to say, an abject coward in battle. The Howitzer dog, whom we christened "Stonewall Jackson," came to us a mere puppy in the summer of 1862, after the battles around Richmond, and while we were waiting the re-equipment of the battery. He was a Welsh fice, very small, but beautifully formed, gleaming white in color, with a few spots of jet black, his hair fine and short, and lying close and smooth. He did not carry guns enough, metaphorically speaking, to amount to much in a canine encounter, but he was a born warrior, a perfect hero in battle. When our guns were in action he was always careering wildly about them, and in any pause of their hoarse thunders the shrill treble of his tiny bark was always to be heard.

        In the battle of Chancellorsville, while we were occupying the position above described, I had occasion to go down the little declivity in rear of the guns to the caissons. I had just left the battery firing actively and Stonewall even more than usually excited, when my eye chanced to light upon poor little Bob Lee sneaking to the rear, in fright absolutely pitiable. It may serve as an excuse for him that he had gotten separated from his company, which had been left behind at Fredericksburg with Early. To my astonishment, he made for a large tree, back of which and as close in and under as possible he crept, and crouched and squatted, very much as a demoralized man might have done. The action and the

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purpose were unmistakable. I do not know that I could have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes, but there was no room for doubt. One might not feel generously and sympathetically inclined toward a man under such circumstances, but it is pleasant to be able to say that little Bob's prudent precautions accomplished their object. As I have always understood, he passed safely through the war and followed the men of his battery to Georgia.

        Stonewall was a remarkable little animal. It was surprising that he was not lost or killed in action, especially when we had to change our position rapidly under fire, which was very often. Under such circumstances, whoever happened to be nearest the little fellow, if by a frantic dive he could manage to get him in time, would lift the lid of a limber chest, drop him in an empty compartment, and clap the lid down again before the gun dashed off with the rest; but as soon as it came into battery in the new position, No. 6, before getting at his fuses, would first lift the little warrior from his dark, close quarters and drop him on the ground, where, in a twinkling, he would recover his balance, resume his part in the fight and keep it up until, in another move, he was again imprisoned in transitu, either in an ammunition chest or under some one's arm.

        He was an intelligent, companionable little chap, and the boys taught him some uncommon tricks. His special master, teacher, patron and friend was dear old "Van,"--chief of the second detachment,--who could do anything from shoeing a horse to making a clock out of pine bark, and must of necessity be always doing something, even if it were but training a puppy. Van taught Stonewall to attend roll-call, and to sit up on his haunches, next to him, on the advanced rank of non-commissioned officers, and he made a little pipe for him, which Stonewall would hold firmly in his mouth when Van had once inserted it between his teeth. Then when the orderly sergeant, before beginning the roll, called "Pipes out!" Van would stoop and slip Stonewall's pipe from his month to his left paw, which would then instantly drop to his side with the other, and the little corporal would stand, or sit, stiffly and staunchly in the position of a soldier, eyes front, until the company was dismissed.

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        Stonewall was stolen from us several times by Harry Hayes' brigade, his Louisiana Creoles having the ungovernable passion of the French soldier for pets. At last the cunning thieves succeeded in hiding him, and we lost him finally, to the deep regret, not to say grief, of every man in the battery.

        After fighting for some hours in a very indecisive and unsatisfactory fashion, in the unsatisfactory position above described, two of our pieces, my gun one of them, were advanced by a neighborhood road, several hundred yards to the right and front and to the top of a hill from which we could see the entire formation of the Federal lines about Chancellorsville. Who discovered this position I never knew, but it was one of the most remarkable, perhaps the most remarkable, I ever saw. It was on the left flank and rear of the Federal lines about Chancellorsville house, which was not more than a thousand or twelve hundred yards distant from our guns. The Federal artillery was as regularly and accurately stationed as if on parade or at drill--guns in front and in action, the motions of the cannoneers at the manual of the piece being distinctly recognizable, except when the smoke of the successive discharges momentarily shut them off; limbers the required distance in rear of guns, caissons in rear of limbers, drivers sitting bolt upright on their horses, and three heavy, black lines of infantry lying down back of the artillery.

        I never before felt such a rising of my heart into my throat as I did while lying just behind the crest of the ridge, gazing intently upon this scene and aiding the gunners of the two pieces in making careful estimate of the distance. We were unwilling to waste a shot, knowing that, in the very nature of things, such an opportunity would not be long vouchsafed us. In the pauses or subsidences of the cannonade we could hear the clear, high-pitched, thrilling, dauntless yell of our charging infantry, and we felt what our fire, if well directed, might mean to those gallant fellows. We had already unlimbered and moved the guns forward by hand, so that their muzzles just failed to project over the brow of the hill. We went back to the limbers,

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took out two shells and cut the fuses accurately in accordance with our estimate of the distance, loaded and ran both pieces forward again until they just cleared the crest of the ridge; then, running down the screws and elevating the muzzles appropriately to the distance, every man in the detachment fell into place, the primers were inserted in the vents and both lanyards pulled simultaneously. The car detected but one discharge, and the two shells flew screaming and bursting together in the very midst of the mass of Federal artillery, exploding certainly one, and, as it seemed, two, ammunition chests or caissons.

        The blow was utterly unexpected, the effect overwhelming, and we gave them no time to recover, but kept throwing in shell as rapidly as the guns could be loaded and discharged, until the entire hillside seemed to be cleared for the time of both artillery and infantry. Suddenly we heard the regular huzzas of Federal infantry very close to us, apparently at the foot of the hill on which we stood, but concealed by the scrub forest. No pickets had been thrown out in our front so far as we knew; there was no infantry support with us; Minie balls began to drop in very briskly; the hillside we had cleared filled up again, and it was deemed prudent to retire.

        Strange it is, but I have not the slightest recollection as to what artillery officer was in charge of us, but I do remember that in retiring to our former position we passed very close to Gen. Lafayette McLaws, commanding the division to which generally, as on this occasion, we were attached. I was more deeply stirred than I had ever before been, and have some indistinct recollection of urging one or two of our artillery officers that the eight guns we had with us should be advanced to the position our two guns had just left, accompanied by infantry support.

        The suggestion was not approved by them, and I went to General McLaws with it. He received me without the slightest reproof for my impertinence, but said we had done our work with two rifles, and that from what he knew of the ground the distance must be too great for smooth-bore guns. I assured him that he was misinformed, and that I

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knew what I was talking about, as I had helped to estimate the distance and cut the fuses. I do not now exactly recall what the distance was, but I am positive now, as I was then, that it was within range of our shortest-ranged guns, and I insisted that with our eight guns in action on that hill (the other eight had been left at Fredericksburg with Early) we could fairly blow up Chancellorsville. While I was saying this Major Goggin, adjutant-general of the division, and a fine soldier, rode up and confirmed all I had said. I have an indistinct recollection that we boosted the general, who was short and stout, to the top of an old tobacco barn, but his view was very little extended even from that vantage ground. Nevertheless, he came to our opinion and sent the order for all our eight guns to advance to the position indicated, supported by Semmes' brigade.

        I was almost delirious with joy, and ran back to the guns, anticipating a scene of destruction and of triumph such as no one of us had ever before witnessed. But just as the two batteries were drawn out in column on the road we learned that our troops had carried the enemy's works, that he had abandoned the position we were to have shelled, and our opportunity was gone. Semmes, however, went right on, and by a skilful movement and a short, sharp fight, cut off and captured a Federal force which seemed to have been sent forward with the view of capturing our two rifled guns. A little later he marched his prisoners into the clearing we had occupied, and it turned out that he had an entire regiment, I think of "hundred-day men," from New Haven, Conn.

        General Lee, convinced that there was, for the present at least, no more dangerous fight in Hooker, had ridden through to General McLaws' position to talk with him about turning back to help Early take care of Sedgwick. He and McLaws were conferring, I think, at the moment on horseback. My enthusiasm had spent itself, or rather had oozed out with our disappointment, and I was walking down the front of the captured regiment, kept, however, at proper distance by the guard which had been placed over them. I had heard where the prisoners hailed from and was carefully scanning their faces, recognizing many of them. At last a

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little fellow who had been in my Sunday-school class in New Haven recognized me. How he happened to do this is a mystery, as there was not a trace of my former self visible, except my height and my muscular figure. I had lost my hat, my hair was close-shingled, skin tanned red brown; I had on only flannel shirt, pants, belt and shoes; shirt front wide open, sleeves rolled up, clothes and skin spattered black with powder water from the sponge--indeed I was, all in all, about as desperate-looking a ruffian as could well be found or imagined. But when this little chap, through all this disguise and transformation, recognized me and called out my name, there was a simultaneous shout of "Bob Stiles" from many throats. General Lee called me to him and asked whether I really knew "those people,"--the peculiar phrase which he employed habitually in speaking of the Northern people or the Federal soldiery,--and upon my telling him that I did, he ordered the guard to pass me in the lines, telling me to find out what I could and let him know. He also offered to do anything in his power for any prisoner whose circumstances I might think required his intervention, and in this way I arranged a special exchange for a young man named Sheldon, whom I had known at Yale or at a preparatory school in New Haven. I also gathered considerable information, which I gave to the commanding general.

        A short time after this, I cannot say exactly how long, but that same evening and before we started back after Sedgwick, General McLaws called me to him and said I ought not to be in the ranks; that I was right about that movement of all our guns to that advanced position, and this showed I had a gift for handling artillery; that he would send for a commission as captain and have me assigned to the command of a certain Georgia battery which he mentioned; that it was true this battery had a way of getting its captains killed and wounded, but that bad luck like that didn't last forever, and that it was time the luck was turning with this battery. I thanked him heartily, but told him that I had not discovered the commanding position he referred to and didn't know who was entitled to the credit

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of pointing it out; that I had simply reported what we had seen and done--other men no less than I; that as to the battery he had mentioned, while I thought I could sincerely say that the fate of its former captains would not deter me, yet I presumed there were officers in this battery who deserved and would expect promotion, and if so I would not be willing to cut them out of their proper dues; and besides, I much questioned whether I was really competent to be put at once in command of a battery in the field. He seemed to be a little disappointed at what he evidently thought my lack of proper ambition, but said he would talk with me further about it, and I left him, making a great effort not to show how profoundly moved I was. Here, for the third time within a week, was promotion offered and a door opened before me; for while I had returned the commission in the engineer troops, yet I could not be sure it was not intended for me, especially as it began to appear as if there was a general consensus that I should be promoted.

        Shortly after I left General McLaws, he and General Lee resumed their conference, and, just as they did so, there occurred an incident which beautifully revealed the equipoise of General Lee's character and the charm of his manner.

        If any of the minor characters mentioned in these reminiscences has a distinct personality every way worthy of approval and of remembrance, it is "Brother William," the consecrated, courageous chaplain of the Seventeenth Mississippi, or rather of Barksdale's brigade--the real hero of the great revival at Fredericksburg. He, of course, had remained behind there, with his brigade, under the general command of Early, to watch Sedgwick.

        I was standing in the shade of a tree, near our guns, which had been ordered to draw out on the road, head of column to the rear, that is, toward Fredericksburg,--an order and movement which we all well understood,--when my attention was called to a horseman coming at full speed from the direction in which we were heading, and as he drew near I saw it was "Brother William," and that he was greatly excited. My recollection is that he did not have a saddle, but was riding upon a blanket or cloth of some

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kind, and that his horse was reeking with sweat and panting from exertion. When his eye fell upon General Lee he made directly for him, and I followed as fast as I could. He dashed to the very feet of the commanding general, indeed, almost upon him, and gasping for breath, his eyes starting from their sockets, began to tell of dire disaster at Fredericksburg--Sedgwick had smashed Early and was rapidly coming on in our rear.

        I have never seen anything more majestically calm than General Lee was; I felt painfully the contrast between him and dear little Brother William. Something very like a grave, sweet smile began to express itself on the General's face, but he checked it, and raising his left hand gently, as if to protect himself, he interrupted the excited speaker, checking and controlling him instantly, at the same time saying very quietly:

        "I thank you very much, but both you and your horse are fatigued and overheated. Take him to that shady tree yonder and you and he blow and rest a little. I'm talking to General McLaws just now. I'll call you as soon as we are through."

        I said Brother William was at once dominated and controlled, and he was--but not quite satisfied. He began a mild protest: "But, General!" but he did not persist in it--he simply could not. He had already dismounted, and he started back with me to the tree, leading his horse.

        Unfortunately, I had none of General Lee's power over him, and he began to pour out to me his recital of disaster and prediction of ruin. All was lost below, Sedgwick had stormed the heights and seized the town, the brigade had been cut off, and, he feared, captured; Early had been beaten and pushed roughly aside, and at least 30,000 victorious troops were rapidly pressing on in our rear. Substantially, he alone was left to tell the tale, and had fortunately been able to secure this horse on which to come to tell it. If not already too late, it very soon would be, to do anything even to moderate the calamity.

        In vain I suggested that General Lee could not be ignorant of all this; that his scouts had, doubtless, given him information;

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that General Early certainly would have found means to communicate with him; that Lee had beaten Hooker and his calm and self-reliant bearing clearly indicated that he felt himself to be master of the entire situation. But Brother William would not be comforted or reassured. General Lee had not been upon the spot and could not know; he had been and did know. The very calmness of the General showed he did not appreciate the gravity of the situation. While we were thus debating the matter, General Lee finished with McLaws, who at once started his division on the back track to reinforce Early and help him take care of Sedgwick--and, true to his promise, Marse Robert now called for Brother William, and, as he approached, greeted him with a smile, saying:

        "Now what were you telling us about Major Sedgwick?"

        Brother William again told his tale of woe--this time with somewhat diminished intensity and less lurid coloring. When he had finished the General thanked him, saying again:

        "I am very much obliged to you; the Major is a nice gentleman; I don't think he would hurt us very badly, but, we are going to see about him at once. I have just sent General McLaws to make a special call upon him."

        I did not, at the time, quite appreciate the marked peculiarity of General Lee's allusion to Sedgwick, but, as I now understand, the latter had been a major in the old service, of the regiment of which Lee was colonel, and they had been somewhat intimate friends.

        There is a decided difference of opinion, and that among both Federal and Confederate authorities, as to whether or not Sedgwick heartily and vigorously supported and cooperated with Hooker's plans in this campaign. Both Hooker and Warren reflect seriously upon him for failure to do so, and Early and Fitzhugh Lee, on the Confederate side, take a like view. The two latter estimate Sedgwick's force at thirty thousand troops, while Early had only some ten thousand to oppose him. Fitz says in substance that Sedgwick's attacks were desultory, nerveless, and easily repulsed, even by our very inferior force, until the extreme weakness of our lines was discovered under flag of truce

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granted him to take care of his wounded. Then he attacked with more determination and captured Marye's Heights and several pieces of artillery, but even then did not push his advantage with vigor. Barksdale seems to have been for the time separated from Early, and it was at this juncture that Mr. Owen procured the horse and galloped to Chancellorsville with his blood-curdling tale of disaster. A staff officer of General Early had, however, preceded him, as we afterwards learned.

        It was currently reported at the time that the whole of the Mississippi brigade would have been captured, as part of it was, had not the giant musketeer of the Twenty-first Regiment clubbed his gun and rushed bare-headed down the hill upon the Federal troops who were climbing it. At this fearful apparition they broke and ran, and in the gap and confusion thus occasioned a large part of the brigade made its escape.

        After McLaws joined forces with Early, Sedgwick, though still outnumbering his foes, became the hunted rather than the hunter, and seems to have counted himself happy, under cover of the friendly darkness, to make his escape across the river.

        It is fair to say that some military critics take a different view of Sedgwick's operations, and it may well be, after all, that Hooker's lieutenant has suffered in general estimation mainly by reason of his being brought into comparison with Lee's matchless second and his absolutely perfect appreciation, support, and execution of the plans of his great chief in this the most brilliant of his battles.

        Hooker's own part in these operations would seem to have been more creditable, but his great weakness was a tendency to boasting. There was a striking contrast between the records he made for himself in his order book and in the field. When, on the 26th of January, 1863, he took command of the Army of the Potomac, his first act was to christen it in the memorable, high-sounding phrase-- "The Finest Army on the Planet." On the same day, in General Order No. 1, he emphasized the inferiority of its enemy, and

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added: "Let us never hesitate to give him battle whenever we can find him." After just three months of waiting he did find him, right across the river where he had all the time been, and moved upon him. Then, after three days of really skilful maneuvering, on the 30th of April, as he took up his position at Chancellorsville, he issued his General Order No. 47, congratulating his army that now "Our enemy must ingloriously fly, or come out from behind his defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him." The rash enemy chose the latter alternative, but objected strongly to the predicted result of "certain destruction." And lastly, on the 6th day of May, after he had abandoned his famous and almost impregnable position, and retired across the river in the dark, as Sedgwick had already done, he published his General Order No. 49, of which he asked, but apparently never got, President Lincoln's opinion--in which "The Major-General Commanding tenders to the army his congratulations on its achievements of the last seven days * * *," and adds: "The events of the last week may swell with pride the heart of every officer and soldier in this army."

        All these, however, are but the blasts of the war trumpet, and are calculated to blind us to the admirable character of Hooker's general plan and his creditable maneuvers in the attempted execution of it. In parting with him I cannot refrain from saying that no soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia can fail to kindle toward him, at least a little, upon reading his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, in which he gives the following curious and tortuous, yet, upon the whole, manly explanation of the defeat and failure of "The Finest Army on the Planet:"

        Our artillery had always been superior to that of the rebels, as was also our infantry, except in discipline; and that, for reasons not necessary to mention, never did equal Lee's army. With a rank and file vastly inferior to our own, intellectually and physically, that army has, by discipline alone, acquired a character for steadiness and efficiency unsurpassed, in my judgment, in ancient or modern times. We have not been able to rival it, nor has there been any near approximation to it in the other rebel armies.

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        It is strange that I cannot recall when I first heard of Jackson's being wounded, nor even of the overwhelming calamity of his death. There is an impression on my mind that I saw his body lying in state in the Capitol at Richmond; but upon reflection I am inclined to think this an error and that I am confounding impressions derived from reading the detailed accounts in the daily press with the actual sight of the eye. The only reliable data I have, bearing upon the time of this visit to Richmond, is Beers' burial there, at which I certainly was present. He fell on the 3rd of May and was buried on the field. It was warm weather and his re-interment at Richmond could not have been many days later. Jackson did not die until the 10th of May, and I could not have witnessed the funeral obsequies in Richmond unless I remained there longer than I now think I did.

        Under these circumstances, there being nothing of value I can add in the way of personal reminiscence, nothing would be gained by my repeating the familiar story of that week of fearful suspense or the heroic recital of the last interchange of confidence, admiration, and affection between the great leader and his peerless lieutenant. Suffice it to say, there are few passages in human story as lofty, as tender, or in every way as creditable to human nature. The following is the order which General Lee issued to his army announcing the death of Jackson:

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.

        General Order No. 61.

        With deep regret the commanding general announces the death of Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson, who expired on the 10th instant, at quarter past three P. M.

        The daring, skill, and energy of this great and good soldier, by the decree of an All-wise Providence, are now lost to us. But while we mourn his death, we feel that his spirit still lives, and will inspire the whole army with his indomitable courage and unshaken confidence in God as our hope and strength. Let his name be a watch-word to his corps who have followed him to victory on so many fields. Let his officers and soldiers emulate his invincible determination to do everything in the defense of our loved Country,

R. E. LEE, General.

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        Meanwhile the commission in engineer troops had been returned to me, accompanied by directions to report at Richmond for orders. This seemed to settle the question. Evidently I could not wait for the chance of the reopening of the appointment on Jackson's staff, or for the captaincy in artillery of which General McLaws had spoken, either of which I should have greatly preferred to the engineer appointment. I had informed the Bureau when I returned the commission that I was not an engineer and, with this knowledge, the appointment had been confirmed. Besides, either before or when I reported in Richmond, I found that I owed my appointment to a lady; that Mrs. Gilmer, the wife of General Gilmer, the head of the Engineer Bureau of our service, had told her husband that she wished to nominate one officer when he made his appointments in engineer troops, and had nominated me, without any previous personal acquaintance, basing her action upon what she had heard of me from others and particularly from my father, and out of regard for him.

        Under these circumstances, to decline the appointment was out of the question. So I tore myself away from my dear comrades, my own brother among them, and reported at Richmond for my orders, as directed.

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CHAPTER XIV

FROM THE RAPPAHANNOCK TO THE POTOMAC

        The Engineer Troops--Jubal Early--His Ability and Devotion--His Caustic Tongue--Lee a Master of the "Offensive Defensive"--His Army Organized into Three Corps--He Turns Northward and Maneuvers Hooker Out of His Position on the Rappahannock--The Battle of Winchester--Fine Work--Large Captures--Scenes and Incidents of the Battle.

        It is singular that I cannot recall with distinctness anything that occurred during this visit to Richmond, save the burial of poor Beers; and as to that I remember only what I have related. I do not recall much enthusiasm or elation of spirit about my promotion; indeed I felt little, for it severed the strong ties that bound me to my old comrades; it removed me from a branch of the service which I loved and in which I felt competent to do efficient work, and transferred me to another for which I possessed neither taste nor training.

        My orders were to report to Major-General Early, in the field, and in connection with the other officers of my company to organize a company of engineer troops from men to be furnished us from his division. I do not remember where General Early was, but somewhere in the northern or central portion of the State, and I reported promptly at his headquarters, meeting there for the first time Captain Williamson, the commanding officer of our prospective company, who proved to be a gentleman of character, a competent engineer and thorough soldier, though, unfortunately, somewhat deaf. I do not think he heard all that was said by the General during our conference, or that he observed him quite as closely as I did.

        After the conference was over I saw Captain Williamson privately and asked him how much aid and co-operation he

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expected from the General in getting up his company. He said he hardly knew, and asked my views, which were quite decided and decidedly expressed--to the effect that General Early had no idea of losing a musket from his division if he could avoid it; that he would aid us just so far as he was compelled to do so and no further; that our orders were somewhat defective, or at least not framed to meet such a case; that I did not mean to imply that the General was not right in the position he had taken, but that right or wrong he had clearly taken it; and as he was evidently a man of uncommon intelligence and determination, I felt satisfied he would carry his point.

        In the course of two or three days the situation became clearly defined, the General taking little or no pains to conceal it, and I had another talk with Captain Williamson, who felt that nothing more could be done just now in the way of organizing the company, adding that General Early had asked him, for the present, to act as engineer officer on his staff. He had made no such suggestion or request in my case, and Captain Williamson seemed to feel badly on my account; but I begged him to think no more about it, assuring him that I had sense enough to see that any such action in my case was out of the question, as I was not an engineer. I omitted to say that my orders entitled me to a horse to be furnished and fed, as I remember, by the quartermaster of the division, and the General was very kind and prompt in seeing that these requirements were complied with; but I saw clearly that I was neither needed nor desired on the division staff and that, if I remained, the best I could expect would be the position and duty of a sort of upper courier, which I was not willing to assume.

        I therefore went directly to General Early and had a full talk with him. I did most of the talking, but he heartily acquiesced, and when I was through I felt sure we thoroughly understood each other, and I thought he liked me. I told him I saw clearly that, for the present, no company of engineer troops was to be organized from his division; that indeed I rather thought the division pioneer corps, under command of Lieutenant, or Sergeant, Flood, was all

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the engineer company he cared to have. Flood was a New Orleans stevedore, a rough but very efficient man, who, among his many admirable qualifications, possessed this highly acceptable one, that he had no sort of objection to Old Jube's airing his choice vocabulary of profane rhetoric about him, or his work, or his men whenever he might happen to need relief in that direction.

        I said further to the General that I thought the pioneer corps might perhaps be regarded as the nucleus of the future company of engineer troops, and while I had no idea of meddling with Flood's work, which he was vastly better qualified to manage than I was, yet I could help him about his requisitions, reports, etc.; but that as we were evidently going into an active and aggressive campaign I thought I would, in action, fight in some battery of Col. Hilary Jones' Battalion, if he thought he could make use of me--standing ready, however, at all times, to report back to Division Headquarters for staff duty or for anything I could at any time do for the General.

        This arrangement seemed to be entirely satisfactory to General Early, as it was also to Colonel Jones, in one or other of whose batteries--usually with the Charlottesville Artillery, a corps that reminded me somewhat of our old battery--I fought, whenever they were engaged, throughout the campaign, notably at Winchester and Gettysburg; sometimes in charge of one or more pieces, and again fighting as a private soldier at a gun, or in any position where they were weakest and most needed help. I said the arrangement seemed to be entirely satisfactory to General Early, and yet in connection with it there occurred a series of awkward and amusing incidents which admirably illustrate some of the General's strongly-marked traits.

        Soon after Gettysburg my brother and I passed and missed each other, I riding over to the First Corps to learn what had befallen my friends of the old battery, while he came over to Early's division of the Second to inquire for me. His description of the old General was so characteristic and vivid that to this day I am prone to imagine that I saw and heard instead of my brother. He said the sun was shining

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after the rain, and at Early's headquarters he saw a man rather above middle age, heavily built, with stooping shoulders, a splendid head and a full gray-brown beard, sitting in his shirt sleeves on a camp stool, with one leg thrown over the other, his hands and apparently his every thought employed in combing out and smoothing a somewhat bedraggled black ostrich feather. My brother had no idea who this figure was, but he passed beyond him to inquire of some less absorbed person as to my welfare and whereabouts. The person addressed, probably some courier, did not happen to know anything of me, and the feather dresser piped in a whining, querulous voice:

        "Who are you looking for--Stiles? I can't tell you where he is, but I can tell you where he ain't. He ain't with the division pioneer corps, where he belongs; I reckon your best chance to find him would be lying around with some battery."

        When my brother told me this, as he did when we next met, I was at once irritated and amused. It was after I had, with General Early's approval, gone back to the old battalion to serve as its adjutant, under Colonel Cabell. I did not happen to meet the General for some time, and meanwhile fortune had smiled upon me in many ways. I was located to my entire satisfaction, had a fine horse, was better dressed and equipped every way, and was feeling generally satisfied, independent, and happy. We had gotten back to the sacred soil of Old Virginia, and, under Clark's Mountain, riding alone, I overtook and passed the General accompanied by only a single courier. My horse had the better action and movement, and I merely saluted as I rode rapidly by. I had gotten perhaps a hundred yards or more ahead, when the General called after me:

        "Hold on, Stiles;" and as he drew near, "you're a little offish this morning."

        "No, General, I think not."

        "Well, what the devil's the matter?"

        "Nothing in the world, sir, except that I didn't suppose you'd care for the company of a man of whom the best you could say was that you felt sure he wasn't where he ought to be."

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        Old Jube cocked his head and cut his eyes around at me with an expression of the intensest enjoyment, and in that illimitable voice drawled out:

        "Stiles, you are an infernal fool. Why, man, I meant what I said of you as a compliment. The main use I had for a pioneer corps was to bury dead Yankees and horses, and you never seemed to fancy that kind of business. You preferred to take a hand at the guns and prepare 'em to be buried, and I thought a damned sight more of you for it."

        It is useless to say that this sledge-hammer stroke broke the ice; indeed the ice disappeared and I was thawed out completely. From that day the grand old fellow was one of the best friends I had in the army, and our friendship continued to the day of his death. I don't know that I was ever more touched than when--long years afterwards, at one of the meetings of the "Virginia Division of the Army of Northern Virginia," in introducing me as one of the speakers--he told this story, making use of the identical phraseology above recorded, as nearly as I can recall it.

        It may be well to say that a full regiment of engineer troops was ultimately organized, though the men were not drawn from the troops in the field, as at first provided--General Lee agreeing with his division generals that this should not be done. The corps rendered very efficient service. It was under the command of Col. T. M. R. Talcott, a member of General Lee's staff, and a thoroughly educated, experienced, and able engineer, in whom the General felt as much confidence as in any officer of his rank in the army. Strange to say, I never served a day with the regiment, though holding a commission in it, and I had the honor of being, for a year or more, a bone of contention between the engineer troops and the artillery. Colonel Talcott would every now and then report my absence from duty and ask that I be ordered back to my post with his regiment, and this application being referred to Colonel Cabell, he would answer that it would be highly detrimental to the service to remove me, just at this time, from my position as acting adjutant of his battalion. As these papers had to pass through army headquarters, and in some instances even to

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and from the Adjutant-General's Office in Richmond, months would sometimes elapse before the grand rounds were completed. One feature of the case very aggravating to the officers of the engineer troops was that on one occasion, I presume through inadvertence, I was actually advanced one grade in engineer troops for meritorious service in artillery. At last, however, I was again promoted, this time in artillery, which terminated the irritating, yet amusing, paper war.

        Some time after the close of the struggle, at a social gathering in Richmond, I observed a gentleman staring and pointing at me in a very peculiar manner, who, on being introduced, grasped my hand and burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Upon recovering his composure he said that if our meeting had occurred a few years earlier his feeling, and possibly his action, might have been different; that he was one of the officers of the engineer regiment over whose heads I had unceremoniously and irregularly vaulted, they having served faithfully with the regiment and I having never even reported to it. He further said that my name had been repeatedly read out at dress parade of the regiment as "absent from duty," when the officers would speculate as to how soon I would be lassooed and dragged in; but as the capture was constantly delayed and I ultimately made good my escape, my fellow-officers in engineer troops had changed their minds about me and concluded I was a strategist of a high order and deserving of high position and command. I may add that my personal relations with Colonel Talcott since the war have been of a close and intimate character, and that he is to-day one of my best friends.

        After the death of Jackson, Early was undoubtedly one of the strongest and ablest of Lee's lieutenants. He was not perhaps the brilliant and dashing soldier that A. P. Hill was, nor a superb, magnetic leader like Gordon, and possibly he could not deliver quite as majestic a blow in actual battle as Longstreet; but his loyal devotion, his hardy courage, his native intellect, his mental training, his sagacity, his resource, his self-reliant, self-directing strength, were all very

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great, and the commanding general reposed the utmost confidence in him. This he indicated by selecting him so frequently for independent command, and to fill the most critical, difficult, and I had almost said hopeless, positions, in the execution of his own great plans; as for example, when he left him at Fredericksburg with nine thousand men to neutralize Sedgwick with thirty thousand. Later, he sent him to the Valley, with a very inadequate force, to occupy and embarrass the enemy and to prevent overwhelming concentration against the Confederate capital, where his operations indicated the highest ability.

        Early was in some respects a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions; of religion and irreligion, of reverence and profanity. I have heard my father speak of the General's deep interest in religious work among the men of his division, and his readiness to do everything in his power to facilitate it. I do not think I ever knew one human soul to look up to another with a feeling nearer akin to worship than that with which Early regarded Lee and Jackson, not alone as great soldiers, but as great Christians also; and yet he was the only man who was ever known to swear in General Lee's presence. The General used to reprove him gently, yet at the same time to express his special affection for him, by calling him "My bad old man."

        Old Jube struck the popular fancy in two respects only--his passing at a single bound from intense Unionism to intense Southernism, upon the issue of President Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops, and his caustic, biting tongue. He was a sort of privileged character in the army and was saucy to everybody, but many of his brightest utterances will not bear publication because of the sting in them. One of this general character, which, however, had no real bitterness in it, is too good not to be told.

        The Hon. Jere Morton was in the Secession Convention with Early, as extreme a Secessionist as Early was Unionist, and very fond of talking about "our rights in the territories." Morton was not in the army, and was probably above fighting age. His handsome estate, "Morton Hall," was upon the outskirts of the great battle-fields of Central Virginia,

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and on one occasion Mr. Morton narrowly escaped capture there, and was obliged to mount a horse and fly. It so happened that Early commanded the vanguard of the Confederate forces advancing to meet the enemy. Riding at the head of his column, and seeing Morton coming in hot haste, digging his spurs into his horse's flanks, Early playfully threw a line of troops across the road to intercept his progress, at the same time calling out to him, "Hold on Morton! Are you going for our rights in the Territories?"

        One evening, during General Jackson's life-time, after a hard day's march, General Early received, soon after coming to camp, substantially the following note:

HEADQUARTERS 2d CORPS, A. NO.--VA.

To GEN. JUBAL A. EARLY, Commanding Division:

        GENERAL--Gen. Jackson's compliments to Gen. Early, and he would like to be informed why he saw so many stragglers in rear of your division to-day.

        Respectfully,

A. S. PENDLETON, A. A. G. 2d Corps.

        To which Old Jube promptly dictated and sent the following reply:

HEADQUARTERS EARLY'S DIVISION, A. NO.--VA.

To COL. A. S. PENDLETON, A. A. G. 2d Corps:

        COLONEL--General Early's compliments to General Jackson, and he takes pleasure in informing him that he saw so many stragglers in rear of my division to-day, probably because he rode in rear of my division.

        Respectfully,

JUBAL A. EARLY, Commanding Division.

        There was not another officer in the Army of Northern Virginia who would have dared to send such an impertinent note to Jackson, nor another, save Stuart, whose impertinence in sending it would have been met with a laugh.

        After the war, its memories were Early's religion; his mission, to vindicate the truth of history with regard to it. So long as the old hero was alive in his hill city of Virginia, no man ever took up his pen to write a line about the great conflict without the fear of Jubal Early before his eyes.

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        I am not now proposing to discuss the causes or the objects of the war, nor who was responsible for it, but rather, its general strategic character; therefore when, in this connection, I say that upon the side of the Confederates it was a war of defense I am enunciating a military and not a moral proposition. I mean simply that the Confederacy had not the requisite resources, that its leaders had no purpose or expectation of carrying on a war of aggression or conquest, and that our invasions of Northern soil were intended merely as subsidiary parts of our general scheme of defense; that is, as diversions, as derangements of the general scheme of Federal invasion.

        General Lee was a soldier who thoroughly appreciated the value of an offensive defensive. He never allowed his adversary quietly to mature and uninterruptedly to adhere to and carry out his own plan of campaign. Although conducting a defensive struggle, he was yet generally the attacking party. It was so in the Seven Days' battles with McClellan, so in the Manassas campaign with Pope and the Maryland campaign that followed. It was so at Chancellorsville. And even in 1864, after the resources and fighting strength of the Confederacy had been so fearfully reduced, when Grant entered the Wilderness, Lee immediately pressed in after him and closed with him in a death grapple in the very heart of the jungle.

        But perhaps the most perfect instance and illustration of this characteristic feature of Lee's strategy and tactics, and of the real significance of his two invasions of Northern territory, is what occurred after Chancellorsville. When Hooker retired across the Rappahannock and reoccupied his former position it would manifestly have been little short of madness for Lee to attack him there, especially deprived as he was of Jackson, his offensive right arm; yet he did not sit down, as a less courageous and resourceful leader would have done, gloating over his victory, conceding the initiative to Hooker, and awaiting developments. On the contrary, he proceeded to maneuver his adversary out of a position from which he could not drive him, and to force him to

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abandon all idea of further aggressive campaign in Virginia for that year.

        Early in June, with his army reorganized into three corps, the First under Longstreet, embracing the divisions of McLaws, Pickett, and Hood; the Second under Ewell, embracing Early, Rodes, and Johnson; and the Third under A. P. Hill, Anderson, Heth, and Pender,--all the corps commanders being lieutenant-generals,-- Lee drew away from the line of the Rappahannock, leaving Hill, however, for a short time, to watch Hooker, proceeded northward, by way of Culpeper and the Valley of Virginia,--the Second Corps in advance,--crossed the Shenandoah near Front Royal about June 12th, and, near Winchester, routed and captured a large part of the force which, under Milroy, was holding the Lower Valley. Hill followed Ewell, Longstreet's corps hovering yet a while east of the mountains, to cover their operations.

        It was about this time that President Lincoln and General Hooker had their famous serpentine telegraphic correspondence:

        "Where is the Rebel army?"

        "The advance is at the fords of the Potomac and the rear at Culpeper Court House."

        "If the head of the animal is at the fords of the Potomac and the tail at Culpeper Court House, it must be very thin somewhere. Why don't you strike it?"

        This battle of Winchester--there were many conflicts in and around that devoted old town--was one of the most perfect pieces of work the Army of Northern Virginia ever did. Possibly the plan seemed so admirably clear and definite and to move with the precision and decision of a problem in mathematics, because, for the first time, as a mounted officer and in an unusually free and independent position, I personally watched every movement. I may add that the execution of the plan was committed largely to Old Jube, who certainly wrought it out and fought it out beautifully.

        The town of Winchester and the surrounding country were dominated by a strong closed earthwork, heavily armed and manned, which it would have been madness to assault,

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yet folly to neglect; and this work, on the only side which seemed to offer anything like a practicable approach, was protected and itself dominated by an outwork which it was absolutely necessary to carry before the inner and more powerful work could be reduced. Our scouts and engineers had done their work thoroughly and our column was conducted by a long detour, in every foot of which we were concealed from observation from either work by forests and the configuration of the ground; until at last we found ourselves in a position which had been attained with difficulty, but which perfectly commanded the outwork. The infantry now lay down to rest and recover breath, while the men of Hilary Jones' battalion of artillery shoved their guns forward by hand up to and just back of a rock fence which ran along the crest of a ridge, under cover of which we had approached, and then loaded them. They next removed a few of the stones in front of the muzzle of each gun, taking great care to remain concealed while doing this; and when everything was ready and every one warned to do his part on the instant, the guns were discharged simultaneously upon the outwork and a rapid fire kept up upon it, while the infantry rose, and, with the wild rebel yell bursting from their lips, rushed forward in the charge. The surprise was complete, the distance not great, and the effect overwhelming. The outwork was abandoned almost without a struggle, its defenders retiring to the main fortification, and our infantry again lying down for rest and protection and to wait for us, while our guns galloped forward to the captured work, some occupying and firing from it, and others passing to the right and front to a level field hard by, from which we had the main work beautifully in range.

        But this work had us in range not less beautifully, indeed even more perfectly, and played havoc with us for a short time. My recollection is that I was acting as No. 6 at one of the limbers, and that I several times instinctively clapped down the lid of the ammunition chest as the shell seemed to burst immediately over it. We were at a loss to account for the preternaturally accurate aim of the guns and cutting of the fuses, until some one chanced to observe the practice

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target of the fort standing between the gun at which I was serving and the one next to it, when, of course, we shifted our position in a twinkling, dashing up still closer to the fort and finding, to our relief, that here the shells passed for the most part over our heads.

        On one of the two occasions in which our guns passed to the right and front of the recumbent infantry I observed our old friend Extra Billy Smith, on the front line of his brigade, standing erect, with his arms folded, his horse's bridle rein over one shoulder and his blue cotton umbrella under the other, he and his horse the only two figures I saw standing in all the long line. The heroic old man was as cool as a cucumber and as smiling as a basket of chips, and he was actually bowing to the artillerymen--as with hair flying and eyes flashing they passed on a run--with that same manly, hearty greeting which had, for more than a generation, proved irresistible on the hustings in the Old Dominion. It was an unparalleled scene-- unparalleled as an exhibition of courage, of personal force, and of the force of habit. I noted the expression on the face of each artilleryman as he recognized and responded to the old Governor's salute, and felt--there's one vote sure for Extra Billy as long as that gallant cannoneer lives. The old hero was at this time Governor-elect of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

        I cannot determine exactly when, but I received a very singular, and what threatened to be a very serious, injury during one of the moves our guns made after becoming engaged--I rather incline to think it must have been the first time we shifted position. At all events, I had, for some reason, given up my horse to some one and was fighting on foot in some position with one of the guns of the Charlottesville battery, when the orders were given, "Cease firing, limber to the front, cannoneers mount!" I sprang upon a limber chest upon which there was already the full complement of three men, all faced, of course, to the front. I faced to the rear, and bracing my back against the back of the middle man, attempted to hold my position with my feet resting on the "lunette plate"--a flat piece of iron fitted over the end of the trail of the gun, ending in a heavy ring, which,

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when slipped over the "pintle hook" on the front axle, coupled the gun to the limber. We started at a run and were galloping under fire through a grove, by a wood road the track of which was full of limestone rocks projecting more or less above the ground. It was very difficult to keep my footing, as I had on a pair of stiff and slick-soled English shoes, the nails in which had worn perfectly smooth.

        Suddenly, at full run, we struck a large rock. The jar was terrific, and all the men were thrown off, but the others, having firm footing, described arcs which landed them on the turf at the side of the road. My feet, however, slipped, and I went down between the front and rear wheels and directly under the gun. The concussion was so tremendous that I supposed the limber chest had exploded, and distinctly remember thinking to myself, "Then this is the way it feels to be blown up, is it? Well, I'll try anyhow to save my arms and legs in case I shouldn't be killed," and with a violent effort I did manage to get them out of the track of the hind wheels, one of which, however, ran directly, or rather, diagonally, across the small of my back on a flat limestone rock.

        My comrades picked themselves up, all right though slightly shocked. They thought me dead, but dragged me out of the track of the other guns, and left me lying on the grass under a tree. In a short time I came to myself, and, on taking a hurried inventory, found that though very badly jarred and bruised, yet no bones seemed to be broken, and concluded I would try to hobble on into the fight, which I did, lying down that night in a pouring rain and sleeping in a puddle--I presume about as good treatment as could have been prescribed. Next day I was carried into Winchester, and after two or three days' rest rode on after the army. The mark of the gun wheel remained on my back for a year or more, but I never experienced any serious pain or inconvenience from the injury. I attribute my escape, in part at least, to my unusually full muscular development at the time.

        Upon one of our shiftings of position in the battle I was on foot, abreast of one of the guns of the Charlottesville battery, and following close after John Hunter, sergeant of

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that piece, who was riding his little chestnut mare, "Madge," when a thirty-pounder Parrott shell passed through her body, just back of the legs of the rider, exploding as it emerged, and spattering me profusely with the blood of the poor animal. Little Madge was not even jarred--any experienced artillerist will understand this. She "never knew what hit her," but sank gently down; while Hunter did not get even so much as a decent "shaking up," not a very easy thing to administer to him, I frankly admit. When his feet touched the ground--they were not far from it even while Madge stood up on all fours--he simply disengaged them from the stirrups, turned around, glanced a moment at the bloody horror, and said: "Well, poor little Madge!"

        True, there was nothing more to be said, but all the same there was not another man of my acquaintance who would not have said more.

        The sergeant still lives. His yea is still yea and his nay, nay. He is a shining example of that admirable class of men and philosophers who never say anything superfluous or give strained or exaggerated expression to anything; yet his heart, as every one knows, is not only in the right place, but the very rightest kind of a heart. He is one of my best friends and the husband of one of Billy's "seven women."

        During our next change of position, or it may have been during the same move, I witnessed a scene of horror and of agony so extreme that I would not describe it, were it not that a knowledge of the widest swings of the pendulum of war, through the entire orbit of human experiences and emotions, is needed for adequate appreciation of the life of the soldier.

        The entire battalion, Hilary Jones', was moving in column, the Charlottesville battery, in which I was serving, following immediately after Garber's. The farm road we were using led between two heavy old-fashioned crate posts. My recollection is that they were of stone and that there was no gate and no fence on either side of the posts, but the ground outside of and near the posts was somewhat rough and steep. One of Garber's men, belonging to his rear gun, attempted to run abreast of the piece between the

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gate posts, presumably to avoid the rough ground outside. There was not room enough for him to pass, and the wheel crowding him against the post, the washer hook caught and tore open his abdomen, dragging the poor wretch along by his intestines, which were literally pulled from his body in a long, gory ribbon.

        At one of the last positions we took in the fight--it may have been the very last--there passed before me one of those scenes which give a flash-light revelation of the incomparable greatness of war and the sublime self-abnegation of the true soldier. The fire of the Federal guns was very deadly and demoralizing, and the captain of the battery next on our right, I think the Louisiana Guard Artillery, came up the hill between his battery and ours to steady his men. He was a fine horseman, finely mounted, and might well have served as a model for an equestrian statue as he rode out between the smoking muzzles, and, rising in his stirrups, cheered on his gunners. At that moment a shell tore away his bridle arm high up near the shoulder. Instantly he caught the reins with his right hand and swung his horse's head sharply to the left, thus concealing his wounded side from his men, saying as he did so, "Keep it up, boys; I'll be back in a moment!" As he started down the hill I saw him reel in the saddle, and even before he reached the limbers the noble fellow fell from his horse--dead.

        We were actively engaged, as I remember, until almost or quite dark; but as soon as the fire slackened I lay down, very sore from the severe bruising and crushing I had received, and of course in no condition for close or accurate observation, so I do not know when it was discovered that the garrison were abandoning the fort and preparing to retreat, or what steps were taken to intercept them. They were intercepted, however; our operations resulting, as General Lee reported, "in the expulsion of the enemy from the Valley, the capture of four thousand prisoners, with a corresponding number of small arms; twenty-eight pieces of superior artillery, including those taken by General Rodes and General Hayes; about three hundred wagons and as many horses, together with a quantity of ordnance, commissary, and quartermaster's stores."

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        The remnant of Milroy's forces took refuge behind the fortifications of Harper's Ferry; but as the reduction of that place had proved a very disturbing element in General Lee's plans for the Maryland campaign of the preceding year, we gave it the go-by this time; Lieutenant-General Ewell with his three divisions, still in the van, crossing the Potomac in the latter part of June, rapidly traversing Maryland and advancing into Pennsylvania.

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CHAPTER XV

IN PENNSYLVANIA

Impressing Horses the Only Plundering Lee's Army Did--A Remarkable Interview with An Old Lady in a Pennsylvania Town--She Expects to Meet Stonewall Jackson in Heaven--Two Pennsylvania Boys Make Friends with the Rebels--"Extra Billy" Leads the Confederate Column into York, His Brigade Band Playing "Yankee Doodle," and Makes a Speech on the Public Green--"Old Jube" Breaks Up the Meeting--"Dick" Ewell and the Burghers of Carlisle.

        I do not remember where I overtook Ewell's corps, but think I entered Pennsylvania with them. General Lee had issued stringent orders against plundering and, certainly in the main, the men carefully observed these orders. I was constantly told by the inhabitants that they suffered less from our troops than from their own, and that if compelled to have either, they preferred having "the rebels" camped upon their lands. I saw no plundering whatever, except that once or twice I did see branches laden with fruit broken from cherry trees.

        Of course, it goes without saying, that the quartermasters, especially of artillery battalions, were, confessedly and of malice aforethought, horse thieves. It was, perhaps, adding insult to injury to offer to pay for the horses, as we did, in Confederate money; yet occasionally the owners took it, as "better than nothing"--how better it would be difficult to say. I felt sorry for the farmers, some of whom actually concealed their horses in their dwelling houses, or, rather, attempted to conceal them, for we became veritable sleuth-hounds in running down a horse, and were up to all the tricks and dodges devised to throw us off the track.

        After all, we gained very little by our horse stealing. The impressed animals were, for the most part, great,

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clumsy, flabby Percherons or Conestogas, which required more than twice the feed our compact, hard-muscled little Virginia horses required, and yet could not do half the work they did, nor stand half the hardship and exposure. It was pitiable, later, to, see these great brutes suffer when, compelled to dash off at full gallop with a gun, after pasturing on dry broom sedge and eating a quarter of a feed of weevil-eaten corn. They seemed to pine for the slow draft and full feed of their Pennsylvania homes.

        To me this campaign of invasion was of somewhat peculiar interest. Not only did I have a wide general acquaintance with the North, but two or three of my Yale classmates were from the very section of country we were traversing, and I therefore felt somewhat acquainted and connected with the people and the region. I was struck, too, with the resemblance, both of the country and its inhabitants, to the Valley of Virginia. I noted the same two great stocks and races as making up the population,--the Dutch and the Scotch-Irish,--and to a great extent they had laid out their smaller towns and arranged their buildings, orchards, wells, --everything, in short,--upon their farms, very much after the familiar Valley pattern.

        One bright day toward the end of June, our column was passing through the main street of such a town, when, being very thirsty, I rode up to the front fence of a house which, with its yard and surroundings, might have been set down in the main street of any one of a half-dozen Valley of Virginia towns without being in any respect out of place, and asked an elderly lady sitting in the porch if I might get a drink of water from the well. She courteously gave permission and I entered the yard, got a delicious drink of water, thanked her, and was in the act of leaving, when the old lady--who looked like the typical Valley gran'ma--very pleasantly asked if I wouldn't take a seat and rest a little. I thanked her, stepped up on the porch and sat down, and we soon got into a friendly and pleasant conversation, in the course of which she asked me of myself, family, and surroundings, and seemed much interested to know that I had a sister in New Haven, Conn. She gladly consented to mail a letter for

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me, and had a table, pen, ink, paper and stamps brought that I might write it. This letter was faithfully mailed by the old lady, and was the only communication my sister received from me for a year or more.

        As I finished writing a young married woman, evidently the daughter of my kindly hostess, came to the door, saying that her little son, naming him, was missing. In a few moments they brought the child, a boy of five or six years, to the front porch, pale and trembling violently. They had found him between the mattress and feather bed in an upstairs room, where he had hidden for fear of the rebels, of whose ferocious cruelty, blood-curdling tales had been told him. In a few moments he was in my lap, and we were the best of friends.

        Just as he was beginning to warm into his nest his mother announced that she had not seen anything of her elder son for some time, when, on the instant, a bright boy of ten or twelve summers burst into the gate, breathless with excitement, and gasped out, "Mother, mother! may I go to camp with the rebels? They are the nicest men I ever saw in my life. They are going to camp right out here in the woods, and they are going to have a dance, too!"

        Harry Hayes' Louisiana brigade was passing at the moment, and in the open gate stood the lad's companion, waiting for him --a bowing, smiling, grimacing, shoulder-shrugging Frenchman, who promised, in rather broken English, that he would take the best possible care of him. The mother hesitated, but a glance at her youngest, whose arm had now stolen around my neck, decided her, and off went her eldest with his Creole comrade; and if the brigade did have the dance, then the lad saw what was really worth seeing, for if there was anything Hayes' Creoles did and loved to do better than to fight, it was to dance; and their camp stag dances, sandwiched in between a big march and a big battle, were said to be the most "utterly utter" performances in the way of faun-like pranks, that grown and sane men ever indulged in.

        Before I left the old lady asked me if I had ever seen Stonewall Jackson, and upon my responding that I had, she

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said quietly, but with the deepest feeling, that she expected to see him soon, for if any one had ever left this earth who had gone straight to Heaven it was he.

        This was almost too much, and I said to her, "Madam, who on earth are you and where did you come from?" She said she was born in the Valley of Virginia and had been brought to this country when a girl. I could not forbear kissing her hand as I departed, and told her I felt sure she would get There, and I hoped we would meet in that blessed country where there would be no more wars nor separations between God's dear children.

        By this time the reader has doubtless learned that things were not likely to be dull when our old friend "Extra Billy" was about; that in fact there was apt to be "music in the air" whenever he was in charge. On the occasion below described, the old Governor seemed to be rather specially concerned about the musical part of the performance.

        We were about entering the beautiful Pennsylvania town of York, General Smith's brigade in the lead. Under these conditions, feeling sure there was likely to be a breeze stirring about the head of the column, I rode forward so as to be near the General and not to miss the fun. As we approached, the population seemed to be very generally in the streets, and I saw at a glance that the old Governor had blood in his eye. Turning to Fred, his aide,--who was also his son, and about the strongest marked case of second edition I ever saw,--he told him to "Go back and look up those tooting fellows," as he called the brigade band, "and tell them first to be sure their drums and horns are all right, and then to come up here to the front and march into town tooting 'Yankee Doodle' in their very best style."

        Fred was off in a jiffy, and soon here came the band, their instruments looking bright and smart and glistening, in the June sunlight--playing, however, not "Yankee Doodle," but "Dixie," the musicians appearing to think it important to be entirely impartial in rendering these national airs, and therefore giving us "Dixie" by way of prelude to "Yankee Doodle."

        When they got to the head of the column, and struck up "Yankee Doodle," and the Governor, riding alone and bare-headed

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in front of his staff, began bowing and saluting first one side and then the other, and especially every pretty girl he saw, with that manly, hearty smile which no man or woman ever doubted or resisted--the Yorkers seemed at first astounded, then pleased, and finally, by the time we reached the public square, they had reached the point of ebullition, and broke into enthusiastic cheers as they crowded about the head of the column, actually embarrassing its progress, till the old Governor,--the "Governor-General," we might call him,--nothing loth, acceded to the half suggestion and called a halt, his brigade stacking arms, and constituting, if not formally organizing, themselves and the people of York into a political meeting.

        It was a rare scene--the vanguard of an invading army and the invaded and hostile population hobnobbing on the public green in an enthusiastic public gathering. The General did not dismount, but from the saddle he made a rattling, humorous speech, which both the Pennsylvanians and his own brigade applauded to the echo. He said substantially:

        "My friends, how do you like this way of coming back into the Union? I hope you like it; I have been in favor of it for a good while. But don't misunderstand us. We are not here with any hostile intent-- unless the conduct of your side shall render hostilities unavoidable. You can see for yourselves we are not conducting ourselves like enemies today. We are not burning your houses or butchering your children. On the contrary, we are behaving ourselves like Christian gentlemen, as we are.

        "You see, it was getting a little warm down our way. We needed a summer outing and thought we would take it at the North, instead of patronizing the Virginia springs, as we generally do. We are sorry, and apologize that we are not in better guise for a visit of courtesy, but we regret to say our trunks haven't gotten up yet; we were in such a hurry to see you that we could not wait for them. You must really excuse us.

        "What we all need, on both sides, is to mingle more with each other, so that we shall learn to know and appreciate

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each other. Now here's my brigade--I wish you knew them as I do. They are such a hospitable, whole-hearted, fascinating lot of gentlemen. Why, just think of it--of course this part of Pennsylvania is ours to-day; we've got it, we hold it, we can destroy it, or do what we please with it. Yet we sincerely and heartily invite you to stay. You are quite welcome to remain here and to make yourselves entirely at home--so long as you behave yourselves pleasantly and agreeably as you are doing now. Are we not a fine set of fellows? You must admit that we are."

        At this point my attention was called to a volley of very heated profanity poured forth in a piping, querulous treble, coming up from the rear, and being mounted and located where I commanded a view of the road, I saw that the second brigade in column, which had been some distance in the rear, had caught up, and was now held up by our public meeting, which filled and obstructed the entire street, and that Old Jube, who had ridden forward to ascertain the cause of the dead-lock, was fairly blistering the air about him and making furious but for the time futile efforts to get at Extra Billy, who in plain sight, and not far off, yet blissfully unconscious of the presence of the major-general and of his agreeable observations and comments, was still holding forth with great fluency and acceptability.

        The jam was solid and impervious. As D. H. Hill's report phrased it, "Not a dog, no, not even a sneaking exempt, could have made his way through"--and at first and for some time, Old Jube couldn't do it, and no one would help him. But at last officers and men were compelled to recognize the division commander, and he made his way so far that, by leaning forward, a long stretch, and a frantic grab he managed to catch General Smith by the back of his coat collar. Even Jube did not dare curse the old General in an offensive way, but he did jerk him back and around pretty vigorously and half screamed:

        "General Smith, what the devil are you about! stopping the head of this column in this cursed town?"

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        With unruffled composure the old fellow replied:

        "Having a little fun, General, which is good for all of us, and at the same time teaching these people something that will be good for them and won't do us any harm."

        Suffice it to say the matter was amicably arranged and the brigade and its unique commander moved on, leaving the honest burghers of York wondering what manner of men we were. I should add that General Early had the greatest regard and admiration for General Smith, which indeed he could not well avoid, in view of his intense patriotic devotion and his other sterling and heroic qualities. I have seldom heard him speak of any other officer or soldier in the service, save of course Lee and Jackson, in such exalted terms as of the old "Governor-General."

        May I be pardoned for relating one more incident of our Pennsylvania trip, and that not strictly a reminiscence; that is, I was not present and did not myself hear the conversation I propose to relate. During the latter part of the war I enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of intimate personal acquaintance with Lieutenant-General Ewell, but at this time I knew him only as every soldier in the army knew him. Some of his salient peculiarities, as well as the peculiar character of some of our intercourse with the people of Pennsylvania, are well brought out in the following story, which I have every reason to regard as authentic.

        The General was, I think, at Carlisle, though I am not quite certain of the place, when the burghers of the town, or rather a deputed committee of solid citizens, called at headquarters to interview him with reference to several matters. Amongst other things they said there was a certain mill, the product of which was used largely by the poorer people of the place, who were suffering and likely to suffer more, because of the mill's not running, and they asked whether he had any objection to its being run.

        "Why, no," said Old Dick; "certainly not. It isn't my mill; what have I got to do with it anyhow? But stop, maybe this is what you want--if any of my people should interfere with your use of your mill, you come and tell me. Will that do, and is that all?"

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        They thanked him profusely and the spokesman said:

        "No, General, that isn't quite all. We are Lutherans and we've got a church."

        "Glad to hear it."

        "Well, can we open it next Sunday?"

        "What? What do you mean? It isn't my church. Certainly, open it, if you want to. I'll attend it myself if I am here."

        "Oh, thank you, General! we hoped you wouldn't object."

        "Object? What do you mean, anyway? What's the matter? What do you want? Out with it. I'll do anything I can for you, but I've got nothing to do with your mills or your churches. I'm not going to interfere with them, but I haven't time to stay here all the evening talking nonsense like this."

        "But, General, we hope you won't be mad with us. We are Lutherans and we have a church service. Can we use it next Sunday?"

        "Look here, I'm tired of this thing! What have I got to do with your mill, your church, or your service? Speak quick and speak plain, or leave at once!"

        "Well, then, General, we hope you won't get mad. In our service we pray--we pray for--we pray for the President of the United States. May we use our service? Can we pray for him?"

        "Who do you mean, Lincoln? Certainly, pray for him; pray as much as ever you can--I don't know anybody that stands more in need of prayer!"

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CHAPTER XVI

GETTYSBURG

Lee Without His Cavalry--The Battle, When and Where Fought, An Accident-- The Army of Northern Virginia in Splendid Condition--Gordon on Black Auster--A Fistic Encounter at the Crisis of the Great Battle--"Limber to the Rear"--A Great Disappointment--A Desperate Ride--Dead Enemies More to Be Dreaded Than Living Ones--The Dutch Woman's Ankles.

        Gettysburg, generally regarded as the pivotal battle of our great civil war, has been more studied and discussed than any other, and much unpleasant feeling between prominent actors in the drama on the Confederate side and their adherents and partisans has been brought out in the discussion. The writer has his own opinions upon most or all of the disputed points; but, while resting upon grounds satisfactory to himself, these opinions are not based upon such a thorough study of the battle as would alone justify the effort to influence the views of others, if indeed such an effort could be regarded as properly within the scope of such a work as this.

        As usual with great battles, it was not the plan or purpose of either side to fight this one when and where it was fought. Meade, who had succeeded Hooker, had selected a position on Pipe Clay Creek, where he would have concentrated his army--but for the capture of President Davis' message to General Lee, revealing the fact that he feared to uncover Richmond by detaching Beauregard to threaten Washington as Lee had advised--and Lee had ordered the concentration of his army at Cashtown; but there was this great difference between the circumstances of the two armies. The battle was brought on by the advance of the Federal cavalry, in the discharge of its legitimate work of developing our forces and

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positions and gathering information for the Federal commander. The Confederate leader, on the other hand, was, in great measure, without his cavalry; no information whatever had been received by him, since crossing the Potomac, of or from General Stuart or his troopers. His army was, therefore, in the condition of a blind man surrounded by enemies endowed with vision and making full use of it.

        It is fair to Stuart to say that it had been left to his discretion when and where he should cross the river--whether east of the mountains, or in the track of the infantry at the mouth of the Valley; but Colonel Taylor says: "He was expected to maintain communication with the main column, and especially directed to keep the commanding general informed of the movements of the Federal army." Did his one besetting weakness betray him again? Was he too much absorbed and infatuated with the fun of seeing how near his eastern sweep could approach the fortifications of Washington, or how far his bursting shell could terrorize the Federal capital?

        On the eve of Gettysburg the Army of Northern Virginia, with the exception of the cavalry, was well in hand and in the finest possible plight. Of course its equipment was not perfect, though better, I think, than I remember to have seen it at any other time, while the physical condition and the spirit of the men could not have been finer. The way in which the army took the death of Jackson was a striking test of its high mettle. I do not recall having talked with a man who seemed to be depressed by it, while the common soldiers spoke of it in wondrous fashion. They seemed to have imbibed, to a great extent, the spirit of Lee's order announcing Jackson's death. They said they felt that his spirit was with us and would be throughout the campaign. It seemed to be their idea that God would let his warrior soul leave for a time the tamer bliss of Heaven that it might revel once more in the fierce joy of battle.

        The Third Corps, A. P. Hill's, the last to leave the line of the Rappahannock, was the first to become engaged in the great fight.

        On the 29th of June, Hill, who was at Fayetteville, between Chambersburg and Gettysburg, under general orders

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to co-operate with Ewell in menacing the communications of Harrisburg with Philadelphia, sent Heth's division to Cashtown, following it on the 30th with Pender's, and on the 1st of July with Anderson's division. On the 1st, Heth sent forward Pettygrew's brigade toward Gettysburg, where it encountered a considerable Federal force, how considerable Pettygrew could not determine; but it consisted in part at least of cavalry, and this information was at once sent, through Heth and Hill, to the commanding general, who directed Heth to ascertain if possible what force was at Gettysburg, and if he found infantry to report at once, but not to force an engagement. He did find infantry, a large body of it, and finding himself unable to draw away from it, soon became hotly engaged. The sound of artillery hurried Hill to the front and he put in Pender's division in support of Heth. Anderson did not get up in time to take part in this fight.

        But the Second Corps, Ewell's, to which I was attached, or rather two divisions of it, Early's and Rodes', which were already en route for Cashtown, hearing at Middletown that Hill was concentrating at Gettysburg, turned toward that point, and Rodes, who was in the advance, gathering from the cannonading that a sharp engagement was in progress, hurried forward and made his dispositions for battle. But before he could form his lines so as to most effectively aid Hill's two divisions, he found fresh Federal troops deploying in his own front and soon became engaged with these. Meanwhile, our division (Early's) was subjected to one of the most straining of the experiences of the soldier--approaching a field of battle, invisible as yet, and played upon by the cadence and the swell of the fire. I well recall the scene as, about three o'clock in the afternoon, our column left the road and deployed out into line upon an elevated plateau, from which we had a full view of the field and of the drawn battle trembling in the balance in our front.

        Every experienced soldier, particularly if he is a man of sensitive nature and pictorial memory, will appreciate my saying that two strongly contrasted figures are almost

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equally prominent in my recollections of this scene. One is Old Jube, as with consuming earnestness he connected his right with Rodes' left and gave the order to advance--his glossy black ostrich feather, in beautiful condition, seeming to glisten and gleam and tremble upon the wide brim of his gray-brown felt hat, like a thing of life; and the other, a dwarfish, dumpy little fellow, of the division pioneer corps, who at this moment came running up to his command, just as I was leaving it to take my place with the artillery, carrying under each arm a great, round Dutch loaf of bread about the size of a cart wheel, giving him, upon a side view, such as I had of him, the appearance of rolling in on wheels.

        Early's attack was one of great impetuosity, especially that of Gordon's brigade, and while, even after his two brigades --Hayes' and Gordon's--entered the fight, the preponderance in numbers was still with the Federal side, yet they broke almost immediately, in front of Early; whereupon our entire line--the two divisions of our corps and the two of Hill's--made a simultaneous advance, and the whole Federal force, consisting of the First and Eleventh Corps, of three divisions each, and Buford's cavalry, gave way in utter rout. The Charlottesville battery followed immediately in rear of Gordon, and I was in charge of one of their pieces. We drove the enemy pell-mell over rolling wheat fields, through a grove across a creek, up a little slope and into the town itself. The pursuit was so close and hot that, though my gun came into battery several times, yet I could not get in a shot.

        Gordon was the most glorious and inspiring thing I ever looked upon. He was riding a beautiful coal-black stallion, captured at Winchester, that had belonged to one of the Federal generals in Milroy's army--a majestic animal, * whose "neck was clothed with thunder." From his grand joy in

        *In Scribner's for June, 1903, General Gordon mentions this horse, describing him very much as I have done. He adds that he only rode him in one battle; that he behaved well at first under artillery fire, but later, encountering a fierce fire of musketry, he turned tail and bolted to the rear a hundred yards or more.

        I am glad I did not witness this disgraceful fall. Nothing could have been more superb than his bearing so long as he was under my eye.

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battle, he must have been a direct descendant of Job's horse, or Bucephalus, or Black Auster. I never saw a horse's neck so arched, his eye so fierce, his nostril so dilated. He followed in a trot, close upon the heels of the battle line, his head right in among the slanting barrels and bayonets, the reins loose upon his neck, his rider standing in his stirrups, bareheaded, hat in hand, arms extended, and, in a voice like a trumpet, exhorting his men. It was superb; absolutely thrilling. I recall feeling that I would not give so much as a dime to insure the independence of the Confederacy.

        The loss of the enemy was terrific. General Butterfield, chief of staff of the Federal army, testifying before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, puts the total Federal force engaged in this fight at twenty-two to twenty-four thousand, and Swinton estimates their loss at "near ten thousand men." Our loss, at least in Gordon's brigade, was slight. I distinctly remember, in a momentary pause, calling out to Gordon, "General, where are your dead men?" and his reply: "I haven't got any, sir; the Almighty has covered my men with His shield and buckler!" Later in the war General Ewell said to me that he believed Gordon's brigade that evening put hors de combat a greater number of the enemy in proportion to its own numbers than any other command on either side ever did, from the beginning to the end of the war; but he added that he would not be misunderstood as awarding this gallant brigade credit in like proportion, because it simply turned the scale of a theretofore evenly-balanced battle.

        I cannot forbear telling how, a few months later, this heroic scene was brought again vividly to my mind.

        Happening to be in Richmond for a few hours, I went down to a train to aid in getting off some wounded men, and was helping to ease down from a box-car a Georgia soldier very badly shot. With some difficulty we managed to get him on a litter and then to lower him to the platform, without a jar; when, as he was resting a moment, I asked the universal soldier question, "What command do you belong

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to?" His pained and pallid face lit up with a glow of pride as he answered: "I belong to Gordon's old brigade, Cap'n. Did you ever see the Gin'ral in battle? He's most the prettiest thing you ever did see on a field of fight. It'ud put fight into a whipped chicken just to look at him."

        My gun had come again into battery in the outskirts of the town. No enemy was in sight in our front; but in anticipation of a sudden rush I had the piece loaded and several rounds of canister taken from the ammunition chest and put down hard by the gaping muzzle, ready to sweep the street in case they should turn upon us. At this moment little George Greer, a chubby boy of sixteen, rode on by further into the town. George was General Early's clerk and a favorite with Old Jube, just because more fond of riding courier for him and of driving spurs into the flanks of a horse than of driving pen across paper. I shouted a caution to him as he passed, but on he went, disappearing in the smoke and dust ahead. In a few moments a cloud of blue coats appeared in the street in front of us, coming on, too, at a run. I was about to order the detachment to open fire, when beyond and back of the men in blue I noticed little Greer, leaning forward over the neck of his horse, towering above the Federals, who were on foot; and with violent gesticulations and in tones not the gentlest, ordering the "blue devils" to "double quick to the rear of that piece," which they did in the shortest time imaginable. There must have been over fifty of them.

        I am aware this statement sounds incredible, but the men had thrown away their arms and were cowering in abject terror in the streets and alleys. Upon no other occasion did I see any large body of troops, on either side, so completely routed and demoralized as were the two Federal corps who were beaten at Gettysburg the evening of July 1st.

        And this one reminds me of other incidents of those tremendous moments when our fate hung in the balance.

        There was an Irishman named Burgoyne in the Ninth Louisiana,-- Harry Hayes' brigades--a typical son of the Emerald Isle, over six feet high in his stockings (when he had any) broad-shouldered and muscular, slightly bow-legged

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and springy as a cat; as full of fire and fight and fun as he could hold; indeed, often a little fuller than he could hold, and never having been known to get his fill of noise and scrimmage. Whenever the Ninth supported Hilary Jones, if the musketry fire slackened while the artillery was in action, Burgoyne would slip over to the nearest gun and take some one's place at the piece.

        Seeing us unlimber in the street, as above related, he had come over now for this purpose, seized the sponge-staff and rammed home the charge, and was giving vent to his enthusiasm in screams and bounds that would have done credit to a catamount.

        Standing on the other side of the gun, with his arms folded, was a Federal Irishman, a prisoner just captured--a man even taller than Burgoyne and somewhat heavier in frame, altogether a magnificent fellow. Catching Burgoyne's brogue, he broke out--

        "Hey, ye spalpane! say, what are yez doing in the Ribil army?"

        Quick as a flash, Burgoyne retorted:

        "Be-dad, ain't an Irishman a freeman? Haven't I as good right to fight for the Ribs as ye have to fight for the - - - Yanks?"

        "Oh, yes!" sang out the Federal Irishman, "I know ye, now you've turned your ougly mug to me. I had the plizure of kicking yez out from behind Marye's wall, that time Sedgwick lammed yer brigade out o' there!"

        "Yer a - - - liar," shouted our Pat, "and I'll jist knock yer teeth down yer ougly throat for that same lie," and suiting the action to the word, he vaulted lightly over the gun, and before we had time to realize the extreme absurdity of the thing, the two had squared off against each other in the most approved style and the first blow had passed, for the Federal Irishman was as good grit as ours.

        Just as the two giants were about to rush to close quarters, but before any blood had been drawn in the round, I noticed that the right fist of the Federal gladiator was gory, and the next movement revealed the stumps of two shattered fingers, which he was about to drive full into Burgoyne's face.

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        "Hold!" I cried; "your man's wounded!" On the instant Burgoyne's fists fell.

        "You're a trump, Pat; give me your well hand," said he. "We'll fight this out some other time. I didn't see ye were hurt."

        Just as this intensest climax of the great battle was happily avoided, a member of General Early's staff--I thought it was Major Daniel, but he says not--galloped by, and shouted, "Lieutenant, limber to the rear!"

        "To the front, you mean, Major!"

        "No," came the answer, "to the rear!"

        "All right, boys," said I, "I reckon the town's barricaded, and we'll just pass round it to the front."

        But, no. Back, back, we went, for perhaps a mile or more, and took position on a hill from which, next morning, we gazed upon the earthworks which had sprung up in the night on Cemetery Ridge, and the tide, which taken at the flood might have led on to overwhelming victory and even to independence, had ebbed away forever. So it looked to me then, and nothing I have read or heard since has altered the impressions of that moment.

        It is my nature to be reverential toward rightful authority and not to question the wisdom of its decisions; but on this occasion I chafed and rebelled until it almost made me ill. I was well nigh frenzied by what appeared to me to be the folly, the absolute fatuity of delay. One point must be cleared up. It has been suggested that General Lee himself was responsible; that, coming late upon the field, he forbade the advance which his lieutenant would have made. Mr. Swinton goes so far as to say unqualifiedly that "Ewell was even advancing a line against Culp's Hill when Lee reached the field and stayed the movement." Nothing could be less like Lee and nothing further from the truth. Colonel Taylor makes this full and explicit statement:

        General Lee witnessed the flight of the Federals through Gettysburg and up the hills beyond. He then directed me to go to General Ewell and say to him that, from the position which he occupied, he could see the enemy retreating over those hills, without organization and in great confusion; that it was only necessary to press "those people" in order to

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secure possession of the heights, and that, if possible, he wished him to do this. In obedience to these instructions I proceeded immediately to General Ewell and delivered the order of General Lee; and after receiving from him some message for the commanding general in regard to the prisoners captured, returned to the latter and reported that his order had been delivered.

        At this time I admired General Ewell as a soldier; later I loved him as a man, and he treated me with more informal and affectionate kindness than any other of our leading generals ever did during the war. But the truth must be told, and Ewell was the last man on earth to object to this. Colonel Taylor speaks of the discretion General Lee always accorded to his lieutenants. In the exercise of this discretion, Ewell probably decided it best not to press his advantage on the evening of July 1st. Why, we do not know; at least I do not recall any statement from him on the subject, and his lips are now sealed. I ask no judgment against him, but only that General Lee's skirts should be cleared of responsibility for the failure to go right on that evening and occupy the heights.

        It is also undeniably true, that Lee desired and purposed to renew the attack, in full force, at daylight the next morning, the morning of July 2d, but was again thwarted by lack of prompt and vigorous co-operation among his generals. This book being in the main a record of personal reminiscence, I do not care to go into details of these various and desultory movements and failures to move, until some time, I think early in the afternoon of the second, when I was brought again in personal touch with the matter and ultimately into one of the most tremendous experiences of my life.

        As I remember, about the time mentioned, two of Early's brigades, Gordon's being one, were sent off to watch the York road and a suspicious-looking body of troops which had appeared and disappeared in that direction, say two miles to the left, and which threatened the left flank and rear of Edward Johnson's division, which was our extreme left and under orders to take part in a general advance against the enemy. Gordon was in command of this little

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army of observation, and as I was mounted and relished the idea of a scout and the prospect of adventure, I joined the expedition.

        When we reached our objective we readily satisfied ourselves that no danger boded from this direction, and that the troops we had regarded with suspicion were not hostile. We did not come into absolute contact with them,--we could not wait for that,--but my recollection is that they proved to be the advance of Stuart's cavalry, which had just come up, and were really doing just what we had come to do, that is, guarding our left flank and rear.

        After making this discovery, the point was to get word to Johnson, at the earliest possible moment, that he could press on, feeling no uneasiness about his flanks. Not a member of Gordon's staff was with him--all were off on various errands. Captain Mitchell came up at the moment, but both he and his horse were exhausted, utterly unfit for such a ride as this. The General called for volunteers, mounted officers, to take the message--two, I think; one to go around a longer and safer way, but one to cut right across, or rather, as his course would be after the first quarter of a mile, directly in the teeth of the artillery fire, which was sweeping the approaches to the Federal position from our left.

        I offered to take this latter ride and do my best to get word to General Johnson promptly. The General thanked me, and off I dashed, braced, as I thought, for anything, yet little dreaming what the ride would really be.

        For the first few hundred yards, as above suggested, the configuration of the ground was such that the fire was entirely cut off--not so much as even one stray shell whistled above my head. But in a few moments, as I rose a hill and my course veered to the left, I struck a well-defined aerial current, a meteoric stream, of projectiles and explosions, and I felt my little horse shudder and squat under me, and then he made one frantic effort to turn and fly. I pulled him fiercely back against the iron torrent until he breasted it squarely and then, seeming to realize the requirements of the position, he elongated and flattened himself as much as possible, while I lay as close to him as I could, and we fairly devoured the way.

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        One of the horrors of the thing, during a large part of the ride, was that I could see almost every shell that passed, as they were coming straight toward me, and their propulsive force was pretty well exhausted. As I approached the points at which the fire was directed, while I could not see so large a proportion of the shells, and this strain was of course diminished, yet the number of projectiles and explosions increased--until at last there was absolutely no separation between the reports, but the air was rent by one continuous shriek of shell and roar of explosion, and torn with countless myriads of hurtling fragments.

        When a man is undergoing an experience like this he does not think--his entire conscious being is concentrated upon the one point of endurance. But unconsciously, inadvertently, he may receive powerful impressions and bear away with him vivid and unfading mental photographs.

        I have borne with me ever since, in my recollections of this ride, three pictures. The first is a silhouette of my little horse and me as we sped on our perilous way. I put him first because he did it, I only endured. After his first shy he never shrank or swerved again, but held to his course straight and swift as a greyhound; nay, as an arrow flies. He seemed to be possessed, whether intelligently or instinctively, of the double purpose of making himself small and getting there. His figure was that of a running hare--low to the ground, with ears laid flat and every limb stretched--while I was nothing but the smallest possible projection above his back and along his flanks.

        I am not satisfied whether this is purely a mental and inferential picture, or whether, as I incline to think, my eye, in an involuntary sidelong glance, caught our shadow as we flew. But of this I am satisfied--that, in all the years since, the battle of Gettysburg has never obtruded itself upon my mental vision that this strange figure, of horse and man blent together into one by the terrible tension, has not been the frontispiece.

        The next picture is of Latimer's battalion, which, with splendid pluck but little judgment, had engaged in a most unequal artillery duel with the Federal batteries massed upon Cemetery Ridge and Culp's Hill. Never, before or after,

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did I see fifteen or twenty guns in such a condition of wreck and destruction as this battalion was. It had been hurled backward, as it were, by the very weight and impact of metal, from the position it had occupied on the crest of a little ridge, into a saucer-shaped depression behind it; and such a scene as it presented--guns dismounted and disabled, carriages splintered and crushed, ammunition chests exploded, limbers upset, wounded horses plunging and kicking, dashing out the brains of men tangled in the harness; while cannoneers with pistols were crawling around through the wreck shooting the struggling horses to save the lives of the wounded men.

        I said the little horse did not again swerve from his course. He was compelled to do so at this point, as it was impracticable to ride through the battalion, which lay directly in our track; but we had a full view of it as we followed the higher ground from which it had been driven.

        The third and last picture connected with my desperate ride is of the finish and of the doughty division commander in whose behalf I had taken it. He was sometimes called "Alleghany Johnson" and "Fence-Rail Johnson," because of his having been wounded at the battle of Alleghany, and, in consequence, walking with a very perceptible limp and aiding the process with a staff about as long as a rail and almost as thick as the club of Giant Despair. He was a heavy, thick-set man, and when I saw him was on foot and hobbling along with the help of this gigantic walking-cane. It was toward the gloaming and I did not see him very distinctly, but remember that when I gasped out the message I bore from Gordon, he simply growled back, "Very well, sir"--and, my responsibility discharged, I dropped from the saddle to the ground, the last thing I remember being my little horse standing over me, his sides heaving and panting and his head drooping and sinking until his muzzle almost touched my body. How long I lay and he stood there, or where we went after we recovered breath and motion, I have not the faintest recollection.

        Johnson's attack was made not long before dark, but it was not vigorously supported, except by two of Early's brigades, and it failed to accomplish any important result.

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        I was not in any way personally connected with the main operations of the next day, July 3d, the last day of the great battle. That was a matter primarily of Longstreet's corps, a part of Hill's acting as support to his attack. I shall, therefore, not enter into the hotly-debated question of responsibility for the failure of the Confederate assault, nor indulge in any heroics over its gallantry.

        Nor shall I discuss the question which side is entitled to claim the victory. It is clear that the Confederates retired first from the field, but they did not do so until the 5th of July, the rear guard leaving late on that day, and even then they were not pursued. General Sickles, before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, testified that the reason the Confederates were not followed up was a difference of opinion among the Federal generals whether their army should not retreat; that "it was by no means clear, in the judgment of the corps commanders, or of the general in command, whether they had won or not."

        It is a suggestive, even a solemnizing reflection, to one who is a believer in a superintending Providence, that the event of this campaign, like that of the preceding year upon Northern soil turned upon the capture by the enemy of an important dispatch--this time the dispatch of President Davis positively declining to act upon General Lee's suggestion to gather an army under Beauregard to threaten Washington.

        There is but one other scene of the battle-field which I care to mention, and that only for a reason already touched upon in a like connection, namely, to give to those who have had no actual experience of war some approximate conception of the variety and extravagance of horrors which the soldier is called upon, from time to time, to undergo.

        On the 4th of July, in readjusting and straightening our lines, the guns of Hilary Jones' battalion were put in position, on a part of the field which Hill's corps had fought over on the 1st and upon which the pioneer corps and burying parties had not been able to complete their work; so that the dead bodies of men and horses had lain there putrefying under the summer sun for three days. The sights and smells

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that assailed us were simply indescribable--corpses swollen to twice their original size, some of them actually burst asunder with the pressure of foul gases and vapors. I recall one feature never before noted, the shocking distension and protrusion of the eyeballs of dead men and dead horses. Several human or unhuman corpses sat upright against a fence, with arms extended in the air and faces hideous with something very like a fixed leer, as if taking a fiendish pleasure in showing us what we essentially were and might at any moment become. The odors were nauseating, and so deadly that in a short time we all sickened and were lying with our mouths close to the ground, most of us vomiting profusely. We protested against the cruelty and folly of keeping men in such a position. Of course to fight in it was utterly out of the question, and we were soon moved away; but, for the rest of that day and late into the night, the fearful odors I had inhaled remained with me and made me loathe myself as if an already rotting corpse.

        While a prisoner at Johnson's Island, in the spring of '65, I became much interested in one of my fellow-prisoners, a Major McDaniel, of Georgia. He did not at first strike one as an impressive man. Indeed, if I recollect rightly, he had somewhat of an impediment in his speech and was not inclined to talk much; but there was a peculiar pith and point and weight in what he did say, and those who knew him best seemed to regard him as a man of mark and to treat him with the greatest respect. The impression he made upon me was of simplicity and directness, good sense and good character, dignity, gravity, decorum. They told me this surprising story of him:

        He was seriously wounded at Gettysburg, and, of course, in the hospital. His friends who had been captured and were about to be marched off to prison, came in to bid him good-by; but he declared he would not be left behind, that he could and would go with them. Both his comrades and the Federal surgeons and nurses, who were kind and attentive, protested that this was absolutely out of the question--that he would die on the road.

        "Very good," said McDaniel, "I'll die then. I am certainly going, and if you don't bring a litter and put me on it

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and carry me, then I will simply get up and walk till I drop."

        Finally the surgeons yielded, saying that, in his condition, it would be as fatal to confine him forcibly in bed as to lift him out and attempt to transport him; that either course was certain death. So the litter was brought, he was placed upon it, his friends sadly took hold of the bearing poles and started, feeling that the marching column of prisoners was really McDaniel's funeral procession.

        The journey would have been trying enough, even for a sound, strong man, but for one in McDaniel's condition it was simply fearful. Why he did not die they could not see, yet he did seem to grow weaker and weaker, until at last, as the column halted in a little Pennsylvania town and his bearers put the litter gently down in the shade, his eyes were closed, his face deadly pale, and the majority of those about him thought he was gone. The whole population was in the streets to see the Rebel prisoners go by, and some stared, with gaping curiosity, at the dead man on the stretcher.

        His most intimate friend, Colonel Nesbit, stood nearest, keeping a sort of guard over him, and just as he made up his mind to examine and see if it was indeed all over, McDaniel opened his eyes, and beckoned feebly for Nesbit to come close to him. As he reached his side and bent over him, McDaniel took hold upon the lapel of Nesbit's coat and drew him yet closer down, until their faces well nigh touched, and then, with a great effort and in a voice scarcely audible, McDaniel whispered his name--"Nesbit!"

        Nesbit says he confidently expected some last message for his family, or some tender farewell to his friends, when, with extreme difficulty, his supposed-to-be-dying friend, pointing with trembling finger, uttered just these words:

        "Nesbit, old fellow! Did you ever see such an ungodly pair of ankles as that Dutch woman standing over there on that porch has got?"

        Of course such a man could not be killed and would not die; and it was not a matter of surprise to me when, a few years later, he was elected Governor of Georgia by a hundred thousand majority.

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CHAPTER XVII

BETWEEN GETTYSBURG AND THE WILDERNESS

Lee Orders His Generals of Division to Report the Condition of Their Troops-- McLaws Makes the Rounds of His Division--Back in the Old Dominion-- Tuck and Marse Robert, Dragon and Logan--Meade an Able and Wary Opponent--The Homes of the People Within the Lines of the Army--A Preacher-Captain Metes Out Stern and Speedy Justice--Lee Smarting Under the Tete-de-pont Disaster--Pegram Meets Two of His Old Troopers--Mine Run--Mickey Free and the Persimmons--Horses Under Artillery Fire--Two Important Movements of the Federal Forces.

        I confess I have not read current war literature very closely, but certainly I have never seen, in any publication, any allusion to what is related below; indeed I cannot recall any mention of it even in conversation with comrades--and yet my recollection of what transpired is clear and vivid.

        Much has been said, and justly, of the unshaken condition of the Army of Northern Virginia when it retired from the Federal front at Gettysburg; and yet it is equally true that army had been through a most trying experience, and as it was still in hostile territory and a swollen and at the time impassable river flowed between it and the friendly soil of Old Virginia, Lee had great cause for anxiety, and it behooved him to be thoroughly informed and certified as to the real condition and spirit of his troops. With this view he directed his generals, particularly his generals of division, to make prompt and thorough investigation in this regard, and to report results to him. McLaws, our division general, made a special tour around the camp fires of his men one evening, while we were in line of battle at Hagerstown, Md., waiting for Meade to attack, or for the Potomac to

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fall, so that we might in safety cross it, and I was at special pains to follow, and to see and hear what I could.

        McLaws was rather a peculiar personality. He certainly could not be called an intellectual man, nor was he a brilliant and aggressive soldier; but he was regarded as one of the most dogged defensive fighters in the army. His entire make-up, physical, mental and moral, was solid, even stolid. In figure he was short, stout, square-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed; in complexion, dark and swarthy, with coal-black eyes and black, thick, close-curling hair and beard. Of his type, he was a handsome man, but the type was that of the Roman centurion; say that centurion who stood at his post in Herculaneum until the lava ran over him. It should be mentioned in his honor that when General Lee, with scant 14,000 muskets, held the front of Hooker's 92,000 at Chancellorsville, McLaws commanded one of the two divisions he had with him.

        He was a Georgian, and his division, consisting of two Georgia brigades, one from South Carolina and one from Mississippi, was as stalwart and reliable as any in the service. Nothing of course could repress our Mississippians, but the general effect and influence of the man upon his command was clearly manifest in the general tenor of the responses he elicited. His men were respectful, but not enthusiastic on this occasion. For the most part they kept right on with what they happened to be doing when the General arrived--cooking, cleaning their arms and accoutrements, or whatever else it might be. He was on horseback, riding, as I remember, a small, white, pony-built horse, and as he rode up into the circle of flickering light of camp fire after camp fire to talk with the men, he made quite a marked and notable figure. The conversation ran somewhat in this line:

        "Well, boys, how are you?"

        "We are all right, General!"

        "They say there are lots of those fellows over the way there."

        "Well, they can stay there; we ain't offerin' to disturb 'em. We've had all the fighting we want just now; but if

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they ain't satisfied and want any more, all they've got to do is to come over and get their bellies full."

        "Suppose they do come, sure enough, boys. What are you going to do with them?"

        "Why, just make the ground blue with 'em, that's all; just manure this here man's land with 'em. We ain't asking anything of them, but if they want anything of us, why, just let 'em come after it, and they can get all they want; but they'll wish they hadn't come."

        "Well, now, I can rely upon that, can I?"

        "You just bet your life you can, General. If we're asleep when they come, you just have us waked up, and we'll receive 'em in good style."

        "Well, good-night, boys. I'm satisfied."

        McLaws' "boys" had no occasion upon that field to vindicate their own account of themselves. The enemy did not attack, the river did fall, and we returned to our own side of the Potomac, but not until the 13th of July. The day we got there, or perhaps the day following, "Tuck," the redoubtable wagon driver of the old battery, had a memorable experience which he never tired of telling.

        Tuck was a unique character. Up to the date of his enlistment his horizon had been perhaps more contracted and his opportunities fewer and lower than those of any other man among us. Naturally he gravitated to the wagon; but the man made the position. He was so quiet and steady and perfect in the discharge of its humble duties, that I question whether there was another private soldier in the battery as useful, or one more universally liked and respected, and he was as loyal and devoted to the company and his comrades as they were to him. He had a fine pair of mules, and his affection for them amounted almost to a passion. Indeed, his entire outfit--mules, harness and wagon--was always in better condition than any other I ever saw in the army, and if there was forage or food, for man or beast, to be had anywhere, Tuck was sure to get at least our share for us.

        As above said, it was the very day we reached the soil of old Virginia, or the day after, that Tuck, or Tucker,--I

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believe the latter was really his name,--was dragging along with his wagon, through the mud and mist, considerably in rear of the battery, grieving that his two faithful mules had gone supperless to bed the last night and taken breakfastless to the road that morning, when, glancing to the left, his eye lit upon a luxuriant field of grass he was just passing, and there, right abreast of the wagon, was an enticing set of draw-bars.

        On the instant he turned out to the side of the road, unhitched the mules, and taking them by their long, strong halter reins--the best I ever saw upon the harness of an army team--let down the bars and led them into the field, and was enjoying their breakfast as much perhaps as the mules were, when a fine-looking officer, with a rubber cape over his shoulders, rode up to the fence and said in a kindly, pleasant voice:

        "My man, I like that. I am glad to see you taking such good care of your mules, and they like it, too. What a fine breakfast they are making! They are fine mules, too!"

        Tuck's eyes and thoughts were on his mules. He did not look up at his interlocutor, but answered sharply:

        "What, my mules? You bet they are fine! Marse Robert ain't got no better mules in his army than these two."

        "What are their names?"

        "This here gray one, he's named Dragon, and that 'ere black one, his name's Logan. Dragon, he's a leetle the best of the two, but either one of 'em's good enough."

        "Yes, indeed, I can well believe that and I am glad to see you taking such good care of this man's property, too; keeping your mules in hand with the lines. I wish all the drivers in the army were as careful of their teams and of other people's property as you are. Now this is all right, but I wouldn't stay here too long. There are some gentlemen in blue, back here on the road a little way; and--"

        "What's that! the damn Yankees coming? Come, Dragon, come, Logan, we must git out o' this!"

        "Oh, I wouldn't be in quite such a hurry. There is no danger yet awhile. Let them finish their breakfast. I only meant--"

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        "No, sir; I ain't taking no chances. The infernal Yankees sha'n't never git my mules! Come on here, Dragon and Logan,"--leading them toward the bars,--"we must git out o' this, and mighty quick, too!"

        As he got his pets out in the road and was hitching them up again, Colonel Taylor and Colonel Marshall and the rest of General Lee's staff rode up and reported to Tuck's friend and took orders from him, and Tuck waked up to the fact that he had been talking with Marse Robert himself for the last five minutes.

        "Great Scott!" said he, in relating his adventure, "I felt that I had been more impudent than the devil himself, and I wanted to get out o' sight as fast as ever I could; but I didn't feel like letting no common man speak to me for two or three days after that."

        There is a delicious sequel to this story, which seems too good to be true, and yet I have every reason to believe it is as true as it is good.

        When the final collapse came, Tuck, Dragon and Logan were down in North Carolina, where they had been many a time before, foraging for themselves and the rest of us--horses and men. The returning train of heavily-loaded wagons, inadequately protected, was attacked by Federal raiders. The shooting, plundering, and burning was going on front and rear and rapidly approaching from both directions. So Tuck halted his wagon, got out all the provisions he could carry for himself and them, unhitched Dragon and Logan, and took to the woods, and he kept going until he got so far away that the braying of his companions could not be heard from the road. Then he made himself comfortable by the side of a little stream and awaited developments.

        The next day it rained and he kept close, but the day following was bright and clear, and he took an early morning scout to "the big road." There was the blackened debris of burnt wagons, but there had not been a track upon the road since the rain, and Tuck concluded that the coast was clear. So he went back to his bivouac, mounted Dragon and, leading Logan, returned to the road and took the direction of Richmond.

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        At last he emerged from the dank, sombre pine forest into a clearing, where was a comfortable farm house, and not far from the woods he ran upon an old fellow seated on the top rail of an old Virginia snake fence, with his spinal column comfortably supported by one of the cross stakes, a short-stemmed, blackened corncob pipe in his mouth, his neglected, stubby beard bristling all over his face, and his entire figure and bearing expressive of ill-temper and despair.

        "Good morning," said Tuck.

        "Mornin'," responded the old chap.

        "Seen anything of the Yankees?"

        "Yes, the infernal thieves cleaned me out day before yestiddy."

        "What's that plow doin' standing in that 'ere furrow?"

        "Why, the damn Yankees stole the mules right out of it. Didn't leave me a hide or hoof on the place."

        "I've got a good pair of mules here," said Tuck.

        "Well, go there to the gate, come right in and hitch up, and we'll go snacks on the crap."

        The bargain was closed as promptly as proposed. Tuck plowed until the dinner horn blew. Then he and Dragon and Logan went to the sound of it, as if they had been "bred and born" on the place. Tuck watered and fed his mules at the stable and himself at the house, touching his hat to the old man's pretty daughter as he entered.

        In due course of time he married her, and he owns that farm today.

        Thus the house of Tucker rode into home and fortune upon "my mules," which its illustrious founder swore "the infernal Yankees sha'n't never git!"

        Some little time since, in a conversation with Mr. George Cary Eggleston, he remarked that, years ago, perhaps during the war, I mentioned to him an estimate of General Meade which I had heard General Lee express, about the time of Meade's appointment to succeed Hooker in command of the Army of the Potomac. I do not now quite see how I could have overheard the remark precisely at the time indicated, but I have no doubt the story, as far as Lee's estimate of Meade is concerned, is essentially true. As the

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story goes, some one was congratulating Lee upon having "a mediocre man like Meade" as his opponent, suggesting that he would have an easy time with him. But Lee interrupted the speaker, saying with emphasis that General Meade was the most dangerous man who had as yet been opposed to him; that he was not only a soldier of intelligence and ability, but that he was also a conscientious, careful, thorough and painstaking man; that he would make no such mistake in his (Lee's) front as some of his predecessors had made, and that if he made any mistake in Meade's front he would be certain to take advantage of it.

        It is noteworthy how exactly this estimate was fulfilled and confirmed, not only at Gettysburg, but in the campaign of the succeeding autumn upon Virginia soil, in which Meade showed himself to be able and cautious, wary and lithe; incomparably superior to Pope or Burnside, or even Hooker. In October, at Bristoe Station, when we were attempting to outflank him, as we had done Pope, he not only escaped by giving such attention to his "lines of retreat" as the latter had boasted he would not give, but he actually inflicted upon us a decided defeat, accentuated by the almost unparalleled capture of five pieces of artillery; and that, when his force engaged was inferior to ours. In November, at the tête-de-pont at Rappahannock Bridge, he wrote for us what Colonel Taylor calls "the saddest chapter in the history of this army," by snapping up two brigades, of twelve or fifteen hundred men, and four pieces of artillery, which had been exposed, by an arrangement of his lines more nearly questionable perhaps than any other General Lee was ever known to make. In December, at Mine Run, while he failed in his main design of turning our flank and forcing us to abandon our fortified line on the Rapidan, and so pushing us back on Hanover junction, and while he got decidedly the worst of the fighting, yet he succeeded in getting away without the overwhelming defeat we hoped to have inflicted upon him; and, upon the whole, no preceding Federal commander of the Army of the Potomac had made anything like as good a showing in an equal number of moves against their great Confederate opponent.

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        Apropos of the time and the region in which the operations just commented upon occurred--being the great battlefield of central Virginia, threshed over for three years by the iron flail of war--Billy sends me what he very justly terms "the most pathetic and harrowing incident of my service in the Army of Northern Virginia." I give it substantially in his own words:

        "One day while we were encamped in the Poison Fields of Spottsylvania County, Tom Armistead and I were summoned to Captain McCarthy's quarters. We found him talking to a woman very poorly but cleanly dressed, who seemed in bitter distress. The captain ordered us to go with the woman and bury her child. We went with her to her home, a small house with but two rooms. There we found her mother, an aged woman, and the child, a boy of ten, who had just died of a most virulent cas