School History of North Carolina Part 39

7. What supplies were brought in by the Ad-Vance? How was salt obtained?

8. How did the Confederate government propose to obtain funds for carrying on the war?

9. What was the cause of the great depreciation in the value of money?

CHAPTER LIX.

THE DEATH-WOUND AT GETTYSBURG.

A. D. 1863.

In spite of the great Federal success in acquiring territory in North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere, and notwithstanding the increasing hards.h.i.+ps everywhere felt, the government and people of the Confederate States were still undismayed and hopeful when the spring of 1863 permitted the vast armies of the United States to resume active military operations.

No thought of submission was entertained by the Confederate soldiers, and among the people at home only in rare instances were individuals to be found who expressed hopelessness as to the result of the war.

2. In North Carolina a period of inactivity succeeded the raid by General Foster, which was only broken by the unsuccessful attack on the town of Was.h.i.+ngton. General W. B. C. Whiting, who had made reputation as a division commander in the Army of Northern Virginia, was sent to a.s.sume charge of the Department of the Cape Fear, with his headquarters in Wilmington. This city had been fearfully ravaged by yellow fever in the fall of 1862, and had now become all important to the Confederacy as a port. Other Southern sea ports were almost totally closed by blockade, and only at the Cape Fear was there left a hope of access.

3. Generals Braxton Bragg, D. H. Hill, Leonidas Poll, and Benjamin McCulloh had all risen to prominent commands and conferred honor by their connections with the Old North State.

Among the younger officers, Generals Pender, Hoke, Pettigrew and Ramseur had all won distinguished notice and promotion for gallant and meritorious service.

4. Many thousands had been enrolled in the sixty-six regiments and ten battalions of North Carolina mustered in the Confederate service, and, though mourning was in many households, recruits were constantly going to fill the gaps occasioned by deaths on the field and in the hospitals. Dr. Charles E. Johnson had been succeeded as Surgeon General of the State by Dr. Edward Warren.

Drs. E. Burke Haywood, Peter E. Hines, W. C. Warren and others of the leading physicians were placed in charge of great hospitals at Raleigh and other cities in the State. North Carolina sustained a similar inst.i.tution at Petersburg, in Virginia. Of the latter the excellent lady, Miss Mary Pettigrew, a sister of the general of the same name, became matron; and, like another Florence Nightingale, cheered the sick and dying with her elegant presence.

5. General Burnside lost his place by his disaster at Fredericksburg, and was followed in command of the Army of the Potomac by General Joseph Hooker. This gallant commander was as signally beaten at Chancellorsville on May 2d and 3d. No battle of any age conferred greater honor upon the victors; but in the loss of Stonewall Jackson the South was deprived of a leader whose place could not be supplied. North Carolina was never more gloriously vindicated than on this famous field, and ex-Governor Graham, who was then in Richmond, said, a few days afterwards, in the Confederate States Senate, that half the men killed and wounded at Chancellorsville belonged to North Carolina regiments.

6. So astonis.h.i.+ng was the result of this battle, and so crus.h.i.+ng its effects upon the Federal authorities, that General Lee again resolved upon an invasion of the North. The invasion proved a failure, and after several severe battles General Lee was forced to return, with his defeated army, to Virginia. It was on that last dread day, the 3d of July, at Gettysburg, that he discovered that even his incomparable infantry could not accomplish everything he desired.

7. Thirty thousand of the bravest and best, who had so long made the Army of Northern Virginia unconquerable, were lost to our cause forever. Among the North Carolinians, Generals Pender and Pettigrew, Colonels Burgwin, Marshall and Isaac E. Avery were slain, and a host of subalterns likewise perished.

8. Another great disaster happened at this time in the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, with the army there under command of General Pemberton, involving as it did the occupation of so large a portion of the Confederacy. These great losses, occurring as they did on the same day, and so vitally affecting our strength, were never retrieved, and from that day Southern fortunes waned, with occasional flickerings of hope, until the close at Appomattox.

9. But many gallant struggles were yet to be made. On different fields the great forces of the Union were to be bravely repelled, but the ranks of General Lee's army were so much thinned that it became daily more impossible to confront the increasing horde that gathered against it from all civilized nations. But the policy of attrition and exhaustion was not to be seen in full force until the next year.

10. During the month of June, Colonel Spear's cavalry raid in Hertford and Northampton counties was driven back by General M.

W. Ransom, and, beyond this, there were no movements of a hostile character in the State limits during the year.

QUESTIONS.

1. In what condition was the South in 1863?

2. How was the port of Wilmington specially important to the Confederacy? Who was in command at this place?

3. What North Carolinians are mentioned as having risen to prominence?

4. How many regiments had the State furnished up to this time?

Who succeeded Dr. Charles E. Johnson as Surgeon General of the State? What doctors had charge of the hospitals? What n.o.ble woman is mentioned, and what is said of her?

5. What fierce battle was fought on May 2d and 3d? What did Governor Graham say of the North Carolina troops at Chancellorsville?

6. Upon what did General Lee resolve after the victory? What was the result of the invasion?

7. How many Southern soldiers were lost on this occasion? What North Carolinians are named among the slain?

8. What other great disaster happened at this time? How did it affect the Southern cause?

9. What is said of Lee's army?

10. What raid was driven back by General Ransom?

CHAPTER LX.

GENERAL GRANT AND HIS CAMPAIGN.

A. D. 1864.

1864.

The fourth year of the great war opened on North Carolina with grief in almost every family; still, with diminished hopes and increased exertions for the general defence, they looked forward to a campaign which they well understood was to be decisive of their fortunes. Perhaps not even General Was.h.i.+ngton was so trusted and beloved by the American people in the Revolution as was General Robert E. Lee by those of the South in the closing years of the struggle.

2. In his genius and capacity they felt sure they had the very highest human leaders.h.i.+p, and in his splendid career and spotless renown they all took pride, as conferring reflected credit upon themselves. So n.o.ble, unselfish and wise, he had become the idol of his own people and the admiration of his foes. At the outbreak of the war he had declined the command of the Federal armies, because he believed it was his duty to take part with his own people.

3. Ex-Governor Thomas Bragg had been for some time in the Cabinet of President Davis, as Attorney-General. He resigned the position and was no more in public life. Since 1854, when he had left the Bar to become the Governor of North Carolina, he had been continually growing in public favor, and now returned to the leaders.h.i.+p of his profession. No lawyer in our annals has been more respected or successful. In the Confederate States Senate the polished and eloquent George Davis, of Wilmington, and W. W. Avery, of Burke, had served until the latter was succeeded, in 1862, by W. T. Dortch, of Wayne; and, a year later, Mr. Davis was succeeded by ex-Governor Graham; and later still, Mr. Dortch was succeeded by Thomas S. Ashe, of Anson, who did not take his seat by reason of the dissolution of the Confederate government.

4. In the midst of the great struggle there was, of course, a great diminution of attention to matters of education. Governor Swain, with a remnant of the faculty, remained at Chapel Hill, and, with a few boys too young for service, yet retained the name and semblance of the University. Professors Hubbard, James and Charles Phillips, Hepburn, Smith, Fetter and Judge Battle were still on duty at their old posts, but Professor Martin was Colonel of the Eleventh Regiment, and almost all the students were enrolled as soldiers of the Confederate army. The sectarian colleges, male and female, were nearly all closed, and even in the common schools there was small interest manifested amid the blood and excitement of the time.

5. Many of the ablest ministers of the gospel left their churches and were faithful chaplains in the army. Great religious interest was awakened by them among the men who were so bravely battling in Virginia, and many thousands were converted and added to the churches during the revivals in the camps.

6. The recapture of Plymouth, in Was.h.i.+ngton county, on April 20th, 1864, was one of the most brilliant and successful affairs of the war. The youthful and gallant Brigadier General R. F.

Hoke was sent by General Lee, in command of a division, with which he surrounded the strong fortifications and took them by a.s.sault, capturing more than three thousand prisoners. The help of the iron-clad Albemarle was very efficacious on this occasion, and her combat at the mouth of Roanoke River, a few days later, was one of the most stubborn naval engagements on record. Single-handed, Captain Cook fought and defeated a strong fleet of double-enders, and drove them, routed, from the scene. This expedition of General Hoke secured his promotion, and was in marked contrast with that of General Pickett against New Bern a few weeks before; the only incident of which, creditable to the Confederates, was General Martin's well-fought battle at Shepardsville.

7. When the spring opened, tidings came from the Wilderness of fresh battles in that region, which had been made famous the year before. General U. S. Grant had been made Commander-in- Chief of all the Federal armies, to a.s.sume the direction of affairs in Virginia. With the vast numbers at his command, he resolved upon such strategy as fell with fearful results upon his army, but it weakened the reduced ranks of the Confederates at the same time. General Grant lost more men in his march from the Rapidan to the James River than General Lee had confronting him, but it mattered not, for still fresh Federal thousands poured in to fill the places of those who fell at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and the minor combats.

On our side, however, there were none to take the places of those who were killed.

8. In this terrible campaign, which was not ended even when General Grant began the siege of Petersburg, the North Carolina regiments were fearfully reduced. Generals Ramseur, Daniel and G.o.dwin, together with Colonels Andrews, Garrett, Brabble, Wood, Spear, Blacknall, C. M. Avery, Jones, Barbour and Moore were among those who sealed their faith with their blood.

9. No battle of the war was more brilliant in its particulars and results than that of Reams' Station, fought on August 24th, 1864. General W. S. Hanc.o.c.k, of the Federal army, had seized and fortified a position, from which General Lee ordered Lieutenant-General A. P. Hill to dislodge him. So stern was Hanc.o.c.k's resistance that two b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.saults had been repelled, when the privates of Cooke's, MacRae's and Lane's North Carolina brigades demanded to be led to the attack in which their comrades had failed. Their officers complied; and, with seventeen hundred and fifty muskets in the charge, they took the works and captured twenty-one hundred prisoners and thirteen pieces of artillery. *

*The North Carolina cavalry regiments were also greatly applauded by General Hampton for service on the same occasion.

10. In the steady depreciation of Confederate and State money was the greatest calamity of all. The cry of distress from famis.h.i.+ng women and children was increasing in volume, and the State and county authorities were finding it more and more impossible to meet, by public charity, the pressing wants of their people.

11. The pay of Confederate soldiers in the ranks was $15 and $17 per month, in "Confederate money." During the latter days of the war flour sold for $800 per barrel; meat $3 per pound; chickens $15 each; shoes (brogans) $300 per pair; coffee $50 per pound; tallow candles $15 per pound. It may be easily imagined how great was the suffering in the South when it is remembered that numbers of soldiers' wives were almost entirely dependent upon the pay of their husbands for support. There were relief committees throughout the State, but the great scarcity of provisions made them almost helpless.