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Chapter 11: summer of 1862.
The Army of Northern Virginia had scarcely a breathing spell after the terrible battles around
Richmond.
The concentration of a powerful Federal army under
General Pope on the upper
Rappahannock, and its reinforcement by the shattered columns of
McClellan, indicated a purpose to try again the original
Manassas route to the coveted city.
General Lee, who seemed to have an intuitive perception of the plans of his adversaries, at once disposed his forces to meet this new emergency.
No sooner had
McClellan shipped his heavy war material on board a fleet of transports, and commenced his stealthy retreat down the
Peninsula with a broken and dispirited army, than
Jackson was moving with his veterans to watch the braggart,
Pope.
It was a memorable lay when his “foot cavalry” filed through the streets of
Richmond in the highest spirits, chanting their songs and cracking their rude war jokes.
“If the
Yankees trouble you again, just send for us to wipe them out,” exclaimed a sun-browned, stalwart Georgian in faded butternut clothes, and a slouch hat with the brim half torn off. “
We can flank 'em, but
they can outrun us,” cries another; “You'll hear from old
Jack again soon,” breaks out a third; “Marse Robert knows what he's about,” exclaims a fourth; and thus the brave fellows trudged on gay and happy, following their great leader.
Having reached a convenient point for observation,
Jackson soon divined the purposes of
General Pope.
This vain man, who had pompously announced to his troops that his headquarters would be in the saddle, felt
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the power of our great warrior first at the
battle of Cedar Mountain.
The fight took place on one of the hottest days of summer.
The Federal troops were terribly worsted and driven in confusion from the field, leaving their dead and wounded and many prisoners in our hands.
The South was called to deplore the loss of many brave men.
General Winder, who commanded the “Stonewall brigade,” was killed on the field, and a number of other gallant officers and men here gave their lives to the holy cause.
This blow from
Jackson was an earnest of what was soon to follow.
Withdrawing from the vicinity of
Cedar Mountain, he completely deceived the enemy, and began that famous flank movement which brought him so unexpectedly to the rear of
Pope's army.
The Federals in great force had spent weeks in and around the town of
Warrenton, Fauquier county, Va., and between that place and Culpeper Courthouse.
They had plundered the people without mercy, taking food, clothing, servants, horses, cattle, and, in fact, whatever they fancied was freely appropriated.
Implements of agriculture were burned or broken to pieces, on the principle of subduing the rebellion by cutting off the means of living from citizens and soldiers.
The conduct of many of the
Federal soldiers was worthy of the most ferocious savages.
They would ride over the graves of Confederates in the burying-ground near the town of
Warrenton, and stick bayonets and fire guns into the graves.
The church edifices were abused, and the walls defiled with vulgar and licentious scribblings, and in one instance, if not more, the communion table and chairs were stolen from the altar and possibly shipped to the
North.
A negro brought in from the country a fine piano, which was bought for a trifle by some soldier or sutler, boxed up and sent off as a present to some fair lady in a loyal State.
But the triumph of the wicked is short.
In the midst of these outrages the appalling news came that
Jackson
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was in their rear.
The mighty host was thrown into confusion; and in vain it labored to check that series of brilliant movements on the part of the
Confederates which culminated in the terrific battles of the 28th, 29th, and 30th of August.
Jackson's column was followed by that of
Longstreet, and
General Lee came after his two great
Lieutenants with the remainder of the Confederate army.
The troops were ordered to relieve themselves of everything except what was actually necessary.
“After marching with the army on foot from
Gordonsville to
Leesburg,” says
Rev. J. W. Mills, “sleeping on a single blanket, with heaven's blue vault for a covering, suffering hunger and weariness in common with officers and men, I am convinced that the soldier's life in
Virginia is one of fighting and toil, and the chaplaincy is no sinecure.
By order of those in command, we carry nothing with us but one blanket, a small haversack, and the clothes we wear.
The wagons carry only a half or one-third of a load; every weight thus laid aside, men and teams are put up to their best speed, marching by day and by night-sometimes forty hours together-with now and then short halts for rest and sleep.
Thus you may account for our celerity of movement.
Our troops are notwithstanding always in fine spirits, having much pleasurable amusement along the way, calling themselves
General Lee's foot cavalry, etc.”
The same writer, attached to
Longstreet's corps, gives a lively account of the march and its incidents:
Soon after leaving Gordonsville, we commenced shelling the Yankees.
First, on Mountain Run creek, we had a pretty sharp artillery duel with them, but with little loss to us, hung a spy, and moved forward.
Then, on the Rapidan river, we shelled them again.
Next they appeared on the Rappahannock river, and we skirmished again.
Here we saw some Yankees two days dead on the battle-field, and buried them.
They were horrible to behold.
Gen. Jackson had been there before us. We
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pushed forward, passing through Orleans and Salem; at the latter place we learned the Yankees were only a few hours ahead of us. The young ladies waved their handkerchiefs at us, saying, ‘Whip the Yankees; don't let them come here.’
One sweet little girl said, in her own winning way, ‘Oh, they run, they run.’
Our boys declared they felt perfectly rested, and moved forward with eager haste.
At Thoroughfare Gap they made a stand, and part of our forces had a sharp battle with them, completely routing them with great slaughter.
This took place among the mountains to the right of the Gap.
We were not delayed more than three hours by this battle.
Night came on, but we pressed forward through the Gap, over the rocks, through the water and mud-one of the darkest nights I ever saw. Early the next morning we passed through Haymarket.
The Yankees were two hours ahead of us, double-quicking.
At their camp was a hog half consumed in the fire.
Near the road was a beef skinned and abandoned.
All along the way we found small arms thrown away, wagon-wheels with half the spokes cut out, one wagon on fire, and other evidences of hasty skedaddling. Our troops pushed forward, ‘faint but pursuing.’
Soon we came up with them, and fighting commenced.
This was on Tuesday, the beginning of the battle which ended on Saturday so gloriously for our cause.
Thursday and Friday were spent in skirmishing.
Early Saturday cannonading commenced in earnest, both sides manifesting great spirit; about noon the musketry fighting commenced; at four o'clock P. M., the battle was general and most terrific.
For about one hour the Yankees stood and fought heroically.
Those who stood and fought thus were nearly annihilated.
They were compelled to give way. I could hear the well-known whoop of our troops, as they charged and took battery after battery from the enemy.
About sundown the last battery was charged and taken; then followed an ominous silence.
The Yankees were fleeing
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in wild confusion; our artillery moved forward rapidly, and from the higher ground poured shot and shell into their broken and fugitive columns.
Nothing could be heard on their side but the roar and rush of getting away over the rocky turnpike.
Night closed the scene.
It is well known that at the
second battle of Manassas the position of the two armies was exactly reversed.
The contest raged over the same ground already made sacred by the memorable victory of the preceding year.
Many a brave man marched back to die on the spot where he had first met the storm of battle.
The Confederates were stimulated to deeds of true heroism by the memories that clustered around the field of strife — the
Federals fought under the depressing recollection of former defeat and disaster.
The three days struggle ended on Saturday evening in the total route of
Pope's army.
We again quote from
Mr. Mills' graphic letter:
On Sunday morning, I rode along the road by which they fled across Bull Run.
That must have been a terrific race for dear life, if broken wagons, capsized ambulances, dismounted cannon, the road for miles paved with scores of boxes and barrels of hard bread, abandoned haversacks and blankets, dead horses and dead men, is any evidence of such a race.
The battle-field!
what a scene!
Here death is feasting on his thousands at a meal.
The field was red with wounded and dead Zouaves.
They were literally cut to pieces by the Texans.
In one part of the field I saw an intelligent looking Yankee with his thigh broken.
He had lain all night in the rain in that condition.
I said to him: “My dear fellow, you are in great pain; can I do anything for you?”
Said he: “Oh, sir, if I could get some one to amputate my leg, I think I would not suffer so much.”
“Our surgeons are all busy now with our own wounded; when they are through with them, I presume they will attend to you.”
I. replied.
Close by was another, shot through the lungs, breathing his last.
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In his mouth was a mass of froth, tinged with blood, almost half as large as his head.
Another was shot through the head, his brains scattered upon the ground; yet he had lived all night, and was now groaning in the agonies of death.
These are only a few cases out of thousands.
I stood there in my place and counted in a small space twenty dead Yankees-five of them shot through the head, blood and brains running out together in a stream of several feet.
From all that I could see in the part of the field I visited, there were ten dead Yankees to one of ours.
This was the position occupied by Gen. Longstreet's division.
The field was literally filled with small arms of the best quality.
When they broke to run, every one must have thrown away his gun. Some were broken-others were loaded and in good condition.
Our men swapped guns, as they found those which suited their fancy better than their own. Having eaten but little for two days and nights, many of them fared sumptuously that night from the well-filled haversacks of their vanquished foe. They also supplied themselves with splendid oil-cloths and blankets.
Love-letters and letters from wives, mothers, and sisters, with many likenesses, were picked up from among the slain.
I heard from the battle-field on Tuesday after the battle, and the dead of the enemy were unburied.
The enemy made no halt — were pushing forward to get advantage of us. Our hands were full.
Some of their braves, who would have a farm at the South, and wantonly destroyed the property of private citizens under the infamous order of their leader, were there on the field half-eaten up by the hogs.
In the quiet, rural districts in the vicinity of these battle-fields, the same scenes were repeated that had so recently been witnessed in and around
Richmond.
Gen. Lee, moving rapidly after the retreating foe, was compelled to leave his broken-down, sick, and wounded men
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behind.
Every village, and almost every farm-house, for many miles around, was crowded with sick and wounded Confederates.
The condition of our own men was pitiable enough, but the
Federal wounded suffered to the last degree of horror.
For five or six days hundreds of them lay about in the ravines, and under clumps of shrubbery, and in the open fields, exposed to the pelting rains, without covering, suffering the intolerable pangs of hunger and thirst, superadded to the torture of fly-blown, festering wounds.
The victorious legions of
Lee swept on toward
Maryland, leaving the discomfited army of
Pope huddled around
Washington city.
As the army approached
Leesburg, Va., the
Federals who occupied that place precipitately fled across the
Potomac.
“They had come over from the point of Rock,” says
Mr. Mills in his narrative,
to arrest some offensive citizens, among them some soldiers.
They had gone so far in their cowardly work as to leave some of their victims under guard, when our cavalry came to their rescue.
An old citizen of Leesburg described the scene to me thus: “ We were like Israel of old — the mountains flanking us, the Red Sea before us, and the Egyptians in our rear.
We could see no means of escape, and were trembling with alarm, with a haughty foe dictating to us. I was sitting in the piazza, and saw a little dirty fellow dash into the street on a little gray pony with a double-barrel shot-gun in his hand.
Said I to myself, ” That must be one of our boys.
“ The Yankees were rushing past in wild dismay.
I saw him present his gun and fire, and down tumbled a Yankee.
He wheeled and fired the other barrel, and another fell.
I heard somebody say, ” Two of tie rascals are down.
“ The Yankees retreated a short distance from town and made a stand.
Our boys charged them with their swords, and they broke for the Potomac, screaming as they approached, ” Bring over the boat!
bring over the boat!
“ But a ferry-boat
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was too slow business for them, and they plunged in and swam across.”
The ladies of Leesburg, regardless of the deadly missiles, rushed into the streets, clapping their hands and shouting, “Victory!
Victory!”
There is nothing they fear so much now as a return of the Yankees.
Thank God!
this part of Virginia is now free from their polluting tread.
Through the strong arm of Omnipotence we have shelled them out, and wives, mothers, and daughters, breathe freely once more in their dear homes.
The devotion and self-sacrifice which our people manifested in their attentions to the sick and wounded men, who were left along the track of the army, can never be surpassed.
Warrenton, a small town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, was crowded with more than two thousand wounded soldiers from the battle-fields, hungry, bleeding, and with no clothes but what they had on, and these cut, and torn, and bloody; and in many instances their gaping wounds were alive with crawling maggots.
Rev. J. W. Talley, of
Georgia, who labored in the place as a nurse of the poor, suffering men, and there consigned to the grave his first-born son, pays a feeling tribute to the citizens who opened their hearts and houses to their countrymen:
The ladies, aided by their husbands, are seen everywhere.
They are angels of mercy, not idle lookers-on, but busy, carrying food and helping in every way they can to alleviate and soothe the sufferer.
They divided their beds and bed-clothing and fed these hundreds as long as they had wherewith to do it, and until the Government sent aid — for nearly a week-all were supported by the inhabitants.
When aid did come from Government, it was inadequate.
Every house in the town was appropriated to the wounded and sick, as each family took in as many as it could.
Some sixty tents were pitched, and these were filled.
Our soldiers, after all the
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people could do, were to be seen lying on a handful of straw, or on the floor or ground, without a blanket to cover their lacerated and bleeding bodies.
In the midst of these scenes of horror there was many a bright and joyous departure to the world of peace and rest.
Speaking of the death of his son,
Mr. Talley says:
My son, after he had lain in a storehouse from Monday to Tuesday evening on a blanket and a handful of straw, was furnished by a kind lady with a straw mattress, on which he is now dying.
May God remember her in mercy “ in that day.”
The night of the 29th was a night of pain, anxiety, deep, unutterable emotion.
We sat or kneeled by his couch, and poured out our souls in prayer for the sufferer.
He wanted me to pray for him, and almost suffocated with emotion, silent prayer yielded to sobs and prayers.
At the close, I asked him if he loved Jesus.
He answered “Yes.”
I asked him if he was going to heaven; he said: “I hope so;” and wanted us all to meet him in heaven.
He then threw his arms around his mother's neck, and returned her fond embrace and kisses, sent by her a kiss to each of his sisters, and one by me to his brother Willie, now in Gen. Bragg's army.
The struggle lasted until Tuesday, September 30th, at 2 o'clock P. M., when the tranquil, happy spirit was released from its clay prison.
The casket was broken and the jewel was gone.
The same triumphant death scenes were witnessed on the battle-field of the
Second Manassas that had cast such a radiance over Southern patriotism in the previous battles of the war. “Give my love to parents and friends,” said a young soldier, dying of his wounds; “tell them all is well; I am not afraid to die, for I know they are praying for me.”
Another, the son of a faithful clergyman, fell mortally wounded by a shell.
A friend near by gave him water, for which he thanked
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him, saying, “I am a dying patriot,” and then added, “Tell my father I died like a man and a hero.”
A brave young
Christian, when told by the surgeon that he could not live, sent home his last message: “Tell my relations, father and mother, sisters and brothers, that I trust I am prepared to meet my God.
Farewell, one and all, I bid you a long farewell, I hope to meet you all in heaven.”
Another gallant soldier, who was killed as the line of battle was being formed, left a pleasing testimony; just before leaving to join the army, he wrote: “I wish only to know my duty; it then remains for me to perform it. It was a great trial to part with my family; I seemed to realize that the parting was final; but my country calls, and I cheerfully go forward to death.”
It was soon after that he went from the carnage of battle to the peaceful home of the blessed.
But it is needless to multiply these instances of heroic devotion and pious resignation.
In every hospital, and on every field, they appeared, giving sanctity to the cause of the
South, and forever enshrining those who laid down their lives for it in the warm affections of a grateful people.
