From Bull Run to Appomattox Part 14

Thus ended my career as a soldier. As I look back over those four eventful years, after a lapse of over 40 years, it all seems a dream. In time of peace it is a struggle for 75 per cent. of us to get a fair living out of the earth, but the people down South managed to live, and were in a degree comfortable and contented, and managed to get food enough to preserve their bodies and keep them strong and healthy. Flour was $500 a barrel. I paid $125 in Richmond for a hat that I could now buy for $1. This common red-striped candy, $25 per pound. Samuel Rector had gone from Loudoun county to Richmond in 1864 on some business. When ready to go home he thought it would be nice and the proper thing to do to take the family some little remembrances. He went into a confectionery store and asked to see some candies. The jars were taken down and he tasted first one then another. Selecting one and asking the price, he was told that it was $25 per pound. It was of the long, red-striped variety just mentioned, worth in times of peace about 10 cents per pound. He had a pound of it wrapped up, and handed the proprietor a $50 Confederate note. Twenty dollars was handed back in change. Mr. Rector said, "I understood you to say the price was $25."

"That is true," said the affable confectioner, "but you ate $5 worth."

The joke was well worth $5 to Mr. Rector, and he got more pleasure out of it than he did out of the pound of candy.

There were four commodities with which the South was plentifully supplied, viz., tobacco, cotton, money and horses. We raised the two former in the territory not hara.s.sed by marching armies. The third was supplied by printing presses, and the horses were captured from our enemy. Of course, bridles, saddles, harness and wagons came with the horses.

I have omitted a great many little entertaining incidents partly for the sake of brevity and partly because they escaped my memory at the time they should have been narrated. One that I just now recall, and one which the children always used to make me tell whenever war stories were called for, regardless of how often it had been repeated, I will insert here:

One cold, windy night in the winter of '62 I was on picket on the turnpike between Upperville and Middleburg. Pickets in the Confederate army always stood alone, as two or more would likely be absorbed in conversation and forget their duty. We were also admonished not to dismount. I was a little reckless that night, and dismounting stood leaning against my horse to break the bleak wind and absorb as much heat from his body as possible. He became restless, and I noticed that he was looking intently down the pike and throwing his head up and down as horses will do when excited. I listened, but could hear no sound, and told my steed to keep still, but his keen eyes or ears saw or heard something that worried him, and he kept his ears pointed down in the direction from which the enemy would probably come if they came at all.

I said to myself, "You had better mount your horse." But I delayed. I then recalled the fact that news had reached the camp that day that a body of cavalry had left the vicinity of Was.h.i.+ngton and was moving northeast, and we were admonished to keep a sharp lookout. Then I concluded to mount, but before I could do so I realized that it was too late.

I was standing close by one of those old Virginia stone fences, about five feet high, and in the darkness I saw an object creeping up on the other side of the fence, close to it, and only a few feet from where I stood. I immediately concluded that the object was a man, and that he was from the enemy and was bent on capturing or killing the picket, so as to surprise our camp. The most accessible weapon I had was my sabre.

I drew it and made a cut at what I conceived to be the man's head. As I did so, the object disappeared behind the fence, and in its place appeared what proved to be a black cat's tail, which in a flash followed the cat. Although it was quite dark, the little black object appearing between me and the sky was plainly visible. This incident taught me a lesson that I never forgot. I mounted my horse, and never was known afterward to dismount when on the picket line. I believe this was the greatest fright I encountered during my whole four years' war experience.

One more little incident, and a short tribute to the remarkable fidelity of the colored people of the South to the Southern cause and the families of their owners, and I shall have finished.

There was in my company a soldier by the name of Owens--Mason Owens. He was a splendid fellow, quiet in his demeanor, brave in battle, always in his place, whether that place was in the front or rear rank, but never liked to do anything that called for disguise or deception, such as acting as a spy or disguised as a Union soldier, in order to get into the enemy's camp, although he recognized that it was necessary to have men for work of this kind. Owens was very fond of me; in fact, I had no more faithful friend in the army. He was continually with me, doing me favors, sharing with me any delicacy that came into his possession, keeping close by me in battle. Sometimes when the regiment would be ordered to dismount for the purpose of engaging the foe on foot (and he was No. 4, making it his duty to remain mounted and take care of Nos. 1, 2, and 3 horses), he would quickly dismount and take my place in the ranks and leave me the care of the horses (a place few objected to having), and many like favors. One afternoon, near night, our captain said that he had a requisition for six picked men to do some hazardous nightwork within the enemy's lines, just the kind of duty that Owens detested. But fate was against him, and he and five others were selected. He sullenly complied, and as he rode out of the ranks with his face flushed and his head bowed, I heard him say, "I don't like this."

Someone said, "Owens, I'll take your place." He turned and gave him a look that must have chilled the fellow's blood, and said, "_Didn't you hear Capt. Gibson call me?_"

I saw the six ride off; Owens didn't even say good-bye to me. That night one of Lee's noted scouts led these men, with others taken from other commands, into the enemy's camp, and Owens never returned. He was shot, and fell from his horse, dying either from cold or the wound. At intervals during the night a citizen living near where he fell heard someone calling, but was afraid to go out. The next morning he found his dead body and buried it. I grieved very much over his death, occuring as it did.

Now I want to say that I shall ever have a tender spot in my breast for the colored people, owing to what I know of the race, judged from my a.s.sociation with them from early childhood up to and including the years of the Civil War, and, indeed, some years after.

My home in Loudoun county, on the border line between the North and South, gave me an unusual opportunity of judging how far the negro could be trusted in caring for and protecting the homes of the men who were in the Southern armies. Scattered all through the South, and especially in the border States, there were white men who were not in sympathy with the South, and some of them acted as spies and guides for the Northern troops as they marched and counter-marched through the land. But I never knew of a negro being guilty of like conduct. They not only watched over and protected the women and children in their homes, but were equally as faithful and careful to protect the Southern soldier from capture when he returned home to see his loved ones.

No soldier in Loudoun or Fauquier counties ever feared that his or his neighbor's servants would betray him to the enemy. The negro always said, in speaking of the Southern soldiers, "our soldiers," although he well knew that the success of the North meant his freedom, while the success of the South meant the continuation of slavery.

Another remarkable thing. No one ever heard of a negro slave, or, so far as I know, a free negro of the South, offering an insult or an indignity to a white woman. They were frequently commissioned to escort the daughters of the family to church or to school, or on any expedition taking them from home. Sometimes the distance was long and across fields and through lonely woods, but the kinky-headed, pigeon-heeled colored man always delivered his charge safely, and would have died in his footsteps to do it if the occasion required. Freedom, education, or both, or something else, has developed in the negro a trait that no one ever dreamed he possessed until after the close of the Civil War. Hence, I have a great respect for the race. Not, however, on account of this lately-developed trait, but for those other traits that were so much in evidence during the time that tried men's souls.

The following is the name of the several divisions of the army in which I served, and the names of the chief of each division from the captain of my company to the commander-in-chief of the army:

Company.--I was in Company A, first commanded by Col. Richard H.

Dulaney, who served a few months and was promoted. He was succeeded by Bruce Gibson of Fauquier county, Virginia, who served during the entire war, and was once knocked from his horse by the concussion of a sh.e.l.l, but sustained no other injuries. Was a prisoner from June, 1864, to the end of the war.

Regiment.--Sixth Virginia Cavalry, commanded first by ex-Governor Flournoy, who served one year, retired on account of age, was succeeded by his son, who was killed at Cold Harbor in June, 1864, and was succeeded by Richards from Clark county, Virginia. The regiment was composed of ten companies, and came from the following counties: Loudoun, Fauquier, Clark and Prince William.

Brigade.--First; Robinson, and then Gen. Wm. E. Jones, who was killed; then Gen. Lomax, who, I believe, is still living near Warrenton, Fauquier county, Virginia.

Division.--Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Gen. Robert E. Lee. He survived the war, and died a few months ago.

Corps.--Commanded by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who was killed at Yellow Tavern in 1864. He was succeeded by Gen. Wade Hampton of South Carolina, who survived the war and died a few years ago.

Army.--Northern Virginia; commanded first by Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, who was succeeded by Joseph E. Johnston, who was succeeded by Gen. Robert E.

Lee, who held the position until the close of the war. Lee was also made commander-in-chief of all the Confederate armies.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: General Longstreet says the total number surrendered to Grant was 28,356. Many of these came in voluntarily and surrendered. Lee had with him 1500 prisoners, taken since leaving Petersburg. These were the first to be delivered to the Union army. The first generous act Grant did after the surrender was to furnish Lee's hungry soldiers and horses with food. Grant's army must have numbered not far from 150,000.]

CHAPTER XI.

AN AFTER-THOUGHT.

_The Horses._

"Here lies the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolls not the breath of his pride.

The foam of his gasping lies white on the turf, And as cold as the spray of the rock-beaten surf."

I do not mean to intimate by the headline of this chapter that I forgot the horses of Lee's army. They were on my mind all through the story, but it was not until the ma.n.u.script was in the hands of the printer that the thought came to me that they should have a chapter in this book. Ah!

the horses--the blacks and bays, the roans and grays, the sorrels and chestnuts that pulled Lee's army from the Rappahannock to Gettysburg and back, and all the other horses that pulled and tugged at the wagons, at the batteries of artillery; the horses that carried the men, the unstabled horses and the half-fed horses. Let my right hand forget its cunning if I forget to pay proper tribute to those n.o.ble animals that suffered so much for their masters. How often my mind goes back to that horse that I saw coming across the field from the front at Bull Run with his sides all dripping with blood. He was a hero, for he had been out "where the fields were shot, sown and bladed thick with steel," and was coming back to die. Nearly all the bodies of the men were buried, and some horses, for sanitary purposes, were covered with earth, and a few may now be lying in comfortable graves, marked by marble shafts. Lee's gray horse, "Traveler," and Jackson's little sorrel, though dead, may yet be seen, not unlike they were when they bore their riders along the battle front. But the bones of all the other horses that perished whitened for a while the hills and valleys and the roadsides that stretched from Gettysburg to Appomattox, and then when the war was over, men gathered them up and ground them into merchandise to enrich their coffers. The horses that were alive at the close of the war were, for the most part, tenderly cared for, and have long ago joined their comrades on the other side. I hope they are all grazing together on red-headed clover in the green fields of Eden.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BISHOP ALPHEUS W. WILSON,

Who trained Rover.]

How many horses were in Lee's army from beginning to end and how many perished has never been told. Some idea can be formed from the following statement:

Such an army as Lee's, of 100,000 men, required 15,000 draft horses, 10,000 for cavalry, and perhaps 1500 to 2000 for the officers, their staffs and couriers, making a total of 27,000 horses. Perhaps a fair estimate of the number of horses employed in the army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Gen. Lee in person, from 1861 to 1865, would be 75,000. Of these, 30,000 may have survived the war, the remaining 45,000 perished. Add to these, say, 120,000 for the Union army, and we have the sum total of 195,000 horses that took part in that great drama, where the soil of Virginia was the stage.

My first horse was named Rover. She and I were colts together on the farm, I nine years her senior. I loved her, but there are doubts about her love for me. When young, she could run faster, jump higher and cut more "monkey s.h.i.+nes" than any colt in the neighborhood. More than once she landed me on my back in the middle of the road. This was before she entered the military service of the Confederacy.

Once my father was on her back crossing a stream. He loosened the rein to let her drink. A leaf came floating down the stream as peacefully as a summer zephyr. This gave Rover an opportunity for playing one of her pet tricks. When the leaf came in view she pretended to be terribly frightened, made a leap forward, and landed my father on his back in the middle of the stream. The water furnished so soft a bed that he was unhurt. There was a carriage just behind in which Bishop Alpheus W.

Wilson of the M.E. Church South, now living in Baltimore, was riding. I heard him tell the story a short time ago, and from the pleasure with which he related it, I am satisfied that he greatly enjoyed the episode at the time, and the remembrance still affords him amus.e.m.e.nt. The good bishop was then a circuit rider on Loudoun Circuit, and Rover carried him on her back around the circuit. He tried hard to make her a good saddle-horse, and succeeded. He also tried to improve her manners, and while she may have behaved herself when under his eye, it is doubtful whether she ever experienced a change of heart.

I was always suspicious of her, and I had a right to be. Sometimes I thought she was opposed to secession and worked in the interest of the Union. Once she delivered me into the hands of the Yankees, and tried to do it again and again. She seemed to have an affinity for United States horses, and always wanted to carry me directly in among them. It has already been stated that she had a jaw that no bit could hold. If she had been a woman we might have thought that it was the result of talking too much. My, what a weapon of destruction Samson could have made of her jawbone! I don't know when and where she joined the great majority, for we parted company in the spring of 1863 on the banks of the Shenandoah river. I deserted her to avoid capture. We never met again, unless it was on the opposite sides of the battle line, and if so, she took very good care to keep on her own side; at least on the side that was opposed to my side. It grieved me very much to part with her, for, with all her faults, I loved her still.

The cavalryman and his horse got very close to each other, not only physically, but heart to heart. They ate together, slept together, marched, fought and often died together. Frequently a wounded horse would be seen bearing his wounded rider back from the front. During Lee's march to Gettysburg and back the cavalryman was in touch with his horse 18 hours out of 24, and the other six hours he was usually close enough to mount at a moment's warning. Much of the time, while in Pennsylvania, the men slept with their horses tied to the wrist. While the rider slept, the horse cropped the gra.s.s around him as far out as his tether would allow him, and as close up to his rider's body as he could get. Sometimes he would push the man's head aside with his nose to get the gra.s.s beneath it. I have seen men by the thousands lying in this manner in the fields with their horses grazing about them, yet I never knew a horse to tread on one, or in any way injure him.

On one occasion, near Chambersburg, Pa., the men were sleeping with their horses grazing about them, when the bugle called us to mount. Some time after forming in line I missed one of my messmates, and called the captain's attention to it. He sent me out over the fields in search of him. I found him just over the crest of a little hill fast asleep, with his horse tied to his wrist. He was lying at full length on his back.

His horse had closely cropped the gra.s.s all around him, and as far out as he could reach, and so completely had he taken every spear of gra.s.s about the soldier that when he got up he left a perfect outline of his body on the field.

On another occasion, when en route for Gettysburg, we had halted for a rest at Delaplane, Va. Having no food for our horses we were ordered to turn them loose in the fields to graze. It was 10 o'clock at night. We unbridled and unsaddled our steeds and let them go free. This was in June, and the clover was fine. The hungry animals went briskly to work satisfying their hunger. The grinding of their many jaws sounded like the m.u.f.fled roar of a distant cataract, and this was the music that lulled the weary men to sleep as they lay scattered over the fields, without any fear of being hurt or trodden upon. But suppose Kilpatrick had suddenly appeared upon the scene and had thrown a few sh.e.l.ls into those fields? What would have been the result? You can trust a horse so far and no farther. A field full of unbridled and frightened horses might have brought death and destruction, and swept Stuart's cavalrymen from the face of the earth. But no such fatality occurred. About 2 o'clock in the morning the bugle sounded "saddle up," and although it was quite dark, in an incredibly short time every man was mounted on his own horse and on the march.

There were times when the cavalry would march all night. The men soon learned to sleep on horseback, or you might call it nodding, but some went sound asleep sitting upright on their horses. Occasionally, when a soldier was caught fast asleep, his comrade would slip the rein out of his hand and lead his horse to a fence corner and hitch it. The sudden stopping would awaken him, for he would at once begin to fall. Catching himself, he would look around in amazement, and if the night were dark, he had no little difficulty finding his place in the ranks.

Little episodes similar to this would help to while away the weary hours of the night. Then there was always some wit or wag, who, at intervals of an hour or so, would arouse the whole line with some ridiculous outburst. A dark and stormy night always called for something extraordinary in this line in order to keep the men in good cheer.

After, say an hour of silence, during which time not a sound could be heard save the clatter of the horses' feet, the rattle of the soldiers'

armor and the splatter of the rain, when suddenly someone with the voice of a foghorn would rouse up and yell out, "I want to go h-o-m-e, and I am sick, that's what I want." Then some other fellow far up or down the line would answer back, "I want to see my m-o-t-h-e-r, and I am hungry, too, that's what I want." This was said in a sobbing tone, as if the speaker were about to burst into tears. It would set the whole column off, and for half an hour or so there would be a lively time.

If we were pa.s.sing a residence, either humble or stately, someone would halt in front of it and "h.e.l.lo" until he saw a window-sash go up and a head poked out, with the usual question "What is it you want?" The reply would be, "Say, Mister, you had better take your chimney in, it's going to rain." Then before the angry countryman could get his gun the funmaker would gallop off to his place in the ranks. And thus the night was pa.s.sed.

No amount of hards.h.i.+p or deprivation seemed to dampen the ardor of the cavalier. He always had resources, and when in need, they were drawn upon; but the horse, like Felix, cared for none of these things. They seemed to say, "Have all the fun you want, boys, it doesn't disturb us, but don't forget that when we have crossed the river there will be something more serious for you to do; we are following the feather of Stuart tonight." And thus they would trudge on; it mattered not whether storm or calm, they moved in silence, each horse following the one in front of him, or yielding to the gentle pressure of the rein if the rider had occasion to leave the ranks.

Of course, this condition applied only when they were not in proximity to the enemy. When the bluecoats were about things were different. Every man had his horse well in hand; the spur and the rein told the horse where he must go; the men were silent; only the officers spoke.

The horses were fairly well supplied with food until after Gettysburg.