USA > Massachusetts > History of the Second Mass. Regiment of Infantry, third paper > Part 5
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it was no surprise to us, that, when the advance reached the place where the enemy's pickets had been posted, nothing but expiring camp-fires were found.
The negroes told our men that the rebels had moved off, but a short time before we came up. We followed after them, one mile in rear of Shields, until the hot sun beat down upon our troops, and the dust covered them, and their knap- sacks became a burden. When it became a certainty that Jackson would not meet us this side of Mount Jackson, we proceeded more leisurely. As usual, Ashby put his guns in position once or twice on a wooded hill, and sent his shells howling over us, but he did no harm. Our batteries replied, and Ashby moved on. Thus we proceeded until the bridge across the creek at Mount Jackson was reached, where there was some heavy skirmishing. Ashby with his white horse was conspicuous, in an attempt to burn the bridge, and we in an attempt to save it, and we succeeded; our cavalry dashed over, and extinguished the flames. The enemy now retired behind the hill at Mount Jackson, and our troops were drawn up in line of battle on the north side of the creek. Some of the enemy's forces were distinctly visible on the summit of the hill. We had come up with Jackson's main command. Would he fight here? It was thought he inight : so a flanking column was again organized, to pro- ceed along the north side of the creek to the mildle road, then turning. south to follow it to New Market; thus turning Mount Jackson, Rude's Hill, and all other strong positions on the road. The turning column comprised two brigades, one of Shields's Division, commandel by Col. Dauning, and my brigade. With orders to attack Jacksor in rear or join the main column if he had fled, I moved off at noon accompanied by signal officeis, to keep up a constant connnunication with the main column. The sun was then pouring down a blasting heat, the men were tired already from their early start, and the road was a succession of quagmires and stone ledges. The
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column kept pretty well up until we made our first halt, which was when we struck the middle road, about a mile and a half from the pike. Here we found a house, rather pretentious for the country, with a cupola, affording our signal officers an extensive view ; and across the road a store, which with the house was owned by one Rinker. As a Virginian, Rinker did not invite us to partake of his hospitality : both house and store were closed. While we rested, some of our men, becoming too inquisitive, broke the fastenings to the store, and began to levy upon straw hats for the summer cam- paign. I had observed the unhappy Rinker flitting uneasily around, and was not unaware of his mingled emotions of rage, fear, and cupidity. The man had objected to the signal offi- cers using his cupola, and had borne himself as one defiant before his enemy ; but this breaking into his store unmanned him in a moment, and he begged for my interposition. I pitied him, and restored some of his property ; although enough was retained to punish what I then thought was one of the most pestilent rebels that ever cursed the Yankees. What became of Rinker and his store, during the campaigns that followed in the valley. I leave to the imagination to conceive. At about forty minutes after two, I received a note from my assistant adjutant-general, whom. I had sent forward to communicate with Col. Danning, that that officer, with four regiments, two batteries, and one squadron, was about two and a half or three miles in advance ; that he was ordered to proceed to New Market that night, and would like to have me keep within one mile of him.
Although Danning's brigade went ahead, it was largely in the rear. His men began to drop out shortly after leaving Mount Jackson ; and from there to New Market they were scattered along the road singly and in twenties. They dropped down anywhere, and at once were fast asleep. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there were one thousand stragglers un that nuire! of eleven or twelve miles ; there was a complete
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chain of them. To be sure the road was of the worst descrip- tion ; it was a succession of clayey sloughs, with deep mud alternating with rocky hills. There were creeks to be forded, in which the water came up to the men's knees; so that shoes, originally bad, were rendered so useless by alternate drying and soaking, that many of our own men marched along on that weary day in an oppressive heat in their stocking feet. The prospect of a fight was exciting, and our brigade listened eagerly for sounds from the few left in Dunning's brigade. Still we plodded on until dark; every one com- pletely exhausted ; I had been in the saddle from 4 A. M. until 9 P. M. We were within two miles of New Market, and well in rear of Rude's Hill and all other threatening posi- tions, when the column halted, and the men fell asleep as soon as they touched the ground. In the morning we learned that Shields had, the night before, passed through the town, and gone four miles beyond it; that Jackson had made no stand at Rude's Hill, but that at ten o'clock, two hours at least before we began our grand flank movement, he had passed through New Market, which is four miles farther south than the point to be turned by our flanking march. There was then nothing for us to do but join the main col- uinn by a diverging dirt road, which, first crossing the Shen- andoah at a ford, led us into the main pike at the town. After a scanty breakfast, the river was reached, the passage effected, and afterwards described as follows : - *
"The passage of the Shenandoah was a ludicrous sight. The river was very swift, waist-deep, and very rocky; the Massachusetts men generally held up their coat-skirts, and went in as they were ; the Indiana boys went in in a uniform of boots, shirt and coat carefully tucked up to be out of the water. An individual is a funny-enough-looking spectacle in such a dress, or rather undress, but a whole regiment, officers
# Lieut. H. B. Scott, Second Massachiens Regiment, A. D. C.
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and men alike the same, makes a sight that is quite overpow- ering. Every one came over safely, but a few guns were lost. The current was so strong that it took the legs out from under several of the men, and gave them a good washing, an opera- tion that long abstinence rendered sadly necessary."
Having forded the Shenandoah safely, we marched through New Market, and went into camp just beyond the town. The resistance we had met was weak, weaker than we expected, and was a disappointment, both to our own men and the rebel inhabitants of the valley, who, as yet, had no cause to praise Jackson for the results of the battle of Kernstown, or for retaining our forces in the valley, if that was his motive.
From Harper's Ferry to New Market I have thus given a faithful narrative of the opposition we encountered from Gon- eral Jackson and his army. At Charlestown, at Winchester, and at Strasburg we had heard extravagant stories of the great resistance we were to meet. It was always at some point farther on. At New Market we heard that Jackson had left the valley. What this signified we found out afterwards ; but of what had transpired one may well imagine our feelings in reading that " Jackson then crept along in the days succeed- ing Kernstown, like a wounded wolf, but turning every moment to saap at lus pursuers, and offer battle if they pressed on him." #
Though the valley from Strasburg had at every step developed new beauties, the scene at New Market impressed me that this was one of the most lovely valleys I had seen. Such rich slopes and green fields, magnificent vales and grand mountains, ever in sight as we followel the North Fork of the Shenandoah -- they were not only entirely beyond my descrip- tive powers, but were enough to transport me with ecstasy.
At New Market ve found peach-trees that had been in bloom since the roth of April; and fields, too, green with a
* Cooke's Life of Stonewall Jackson, p. 126.
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magnificent growth of wheat. Just south of the village, on the banks of Smith's Creek, at the foot of the Massanutten range of mountains, and near where a road crosses through a gap to the valley through which runs the South Fork of the Shenan- doah, I encamped my brigade in the middle of an immense wheat-field, off our main road perhaps one third of a mile. On this road and in front of my encampment was a brick house, somewhat pretentious in size and finish. It surprised me that access to the house from the main road was effected only through an extensive cattle-yard, but upon further inves- tigation I found the front door at the back side of the house. The back was formerly the front side, I was told; but many years ago the road was relocated, so that it ran by the back side and through the cow-yard ; and, although the owner had been constantly intending to relocate the cow-yard, he had never accomplished it.
The house was owned by a man who was then away in the rebel service, with Jackson, as a quarter-master : but he had left to our protection his wife and three or four children ; an old gentleman, a relative, once a practising physician, about eighty years of age ; and a large family of negroes. Such was the human portion of the estate. Of cattle anl horses, two of the former aul one of the latter hal been left by the Confederate quarter-master. The estate, I was told, com- prised some fifteen hundred acres, much of it then covered with a rich growth of wheat, destined, alas! never to be gathered. The day after my arrival, I received rather a polite invitation from the wife of our rebel quarter-master to make her house my headquarters ; the request was pressing, if not imploring. With over three thousand armed men ---- enemies they were considered --- swarming around the prem- ises of this defenceless woman, I casBy understood this appeal for protection. I found the poor woman trembling in her bedroom, surrounded by her three boys, the eldest about fifteen and the youngest about five. It was in vain that she
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attempted to repress her tears, as she told me of harsh treat- ment by our troops as she sought in vain to prevent the old family horse from being taken away by a trooper of the cavalry arm. Her eldest boy, too, was choking down his grief, as if pride was battling with sorrow. Proud Virginians, never before humbled ; lords and masters of domain and slaves, their word the law; I sympathized with them in their sor- rows, ordered the old horse to be returned to the old uncle, and not only gave assurance that I would protect them from further insult, but also that every wish in relation to the house should be carried out. To the poor woman, I offered myself as a protector, in the absence of a husband who had fled, and left her at our mercy.
To comply with the wishes of the family, since no military requirement would suffer thereby, seemed my best course ; so I installed myself and staff in the house, and enjoyed, dur- ing the few cheerless days we remained, the warmth of a huge fire of logs.
The sky, which had looked so tenderly upon us on the day of our arrival, was now covered with angry clouds, the sun was obscured, and we remained inactive under the chill of a snow-storm. Enjoyment out-of-doors was impossible; while entertainment within was confined to the study of a coarse print of George Washington, in which, upon such an occasion, the Father of his Country looked uncommonly placid. An old piano, some ancient novels, a few books of old operas, prints of French republican heroes in childhood, - all were tried in vain : we fell back upon the old doctor. This old gentleman of cighty insisted upon it we had brought Northern storms with us ; all of which he lamented as he saw the white snow-flakes nestling so gently within and around the blossoms of his peach-trees. Such a good-natured old gentleman as he was, it was impossible to get angry with him, as he insisted upon it, with a good-natured smile, that Mcclellan would be whipped on the peninsula ; that he hoped for it, and did not
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for a moment doubt it. But, though under my protection, I was sorry sometimes to see the " grim-visaged front of war" overspread the face of our otherwise kind hostess ; for she was very rebellious, as one might well imagine. I think it quite possible she objected to a little entertainment I gave the negroes. It was this. Never doubting from the outset that it was the right, as well as duty, of our armies to declare to all the Southern slaves we found around us that they were forever frec, I sent word to all the negroes that had called my hostess mistress to come, at a certain hour, into my office, the best parlor of my rebel quarter-master. I think a few outsiders joined them, for the line extended across the room, and there were more than I remembered to have seen around the place. What a sight! what an hour! Steadfastly, though in apathy, this motley gang of dark and ragged creatures gazed at me in wonder. The gray-haired uncle, the wrinkled auntie, the young, the middle-aged, there they were, to hear from my lips the word their too-long-enslaved faculties could hardly appreciate. " I have sent for you," I said, "to tell you that from to-day, for all your lives, you are free. You belong to no one, you need work for no one, unless you wish." I paused, and waited ; but there was no movement, not a word in reply. "Wherever," I continued, " our armies go, we shall set all the slaves free ; and, now that we are here, you are forever hereafter your own masters." Still, not a word was uttered ; but, instead thereof, there was an anxious, carnest, painful look of inquiry, as if the mind could not grasp the subject. " Can you say nothing," I asked, " can you do nothing, to show that you are glad ? Can't you even turn a summersault in reply ?" For a moment there was hesitation ; and then, from the gray-haired old darky at the end to one younger and more agile, " Go ober, George." In the most solemn and matter-of-fact rendering of obedience to an order, down went " George's" head on the carpet, and over he flopped with an awkward thud. This was all ; and thus, with senses dull to all it meant, the line filed out, each
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heart beating with some undefined sensation, as if a great joy were coming.
Truly, the hour of the negro's triumph had come at last. They had seen their master's glance of scorn at the threatened invasion ; they had trembled before his imperious will, and, in their ignorance, they had come to feel that none could with- stand him. No wonder they could not take it in. Here, in the very home of their toils, they had seen the lordly slave- owner fleeing before the strong arm of a Northern force ; they had seen those of whom they had heard nought but scoffs and jeers moving with their solid columns in terrible retribution over the blue ridges of their mountain confines, across the green fields in the valleys of the Shenandoah, into the homes of their masters, sitting as masters at their firesides, eating as masters at their tables, protecting their wives and their children. Truly might the slave see the hour of his deliverance, and know that the hand of God was moving manifestly upon the waters. Since that day, the light treal of our column gave place to a heavier tramp. Year after year, the iron hoof of war ploughed up that beautiful valley, until desolation marked it for its own. If the poor woman who was then sitting at the head of a table which was surrounded by myself and my staff still lives, she will remember that, in those early days of 1862, I said to her, " Your people are mad ; they are raising a storm that will not subside. To-day weare taking your food and your cattle ; but to-morrow, so far does the living force of powerful armies outrun our realizations, to-morrow it may be your homes." Let the blackened walls of the houses of the Shenandoah valley be my witness. But what had become of Jackson ? We had rumors that he had turned off from the valley of the North Fork, and was somewhere in the ridges of the Blue Mountains, to the eastward, and in communication with Lee around Richmond. The whole of the valley gave evidence of his ruthless flight. Bridges burnt to impede our pursuit, was a greater injury to the industry of the inhabitants than to us :
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it might retard, but it did not bar, our progress. I was aston- ished at the evidence of forced service. required by the enemy from the citizens of this valley ; the mountains were filled with Virginians escaping from forced levies. Wandering sadly along by the side of the creek, near my encampment at New Market, I saw a poor white woman, followed by her children, - five little girls and a boy. In her arms she carried a baby ; and, behind her children, followed the faithful dog. To my question, she answered that she was going to her sick brother. Her home was in the mountains ; but, her husband having been driven from his home by some of Jackson's men, who were forcing recruits into his service, she could not live there without his help. "As soon as you come here to protect him," said the woman, " he has promised to return home. What would I not give to see him !"
On . the 25th of April, on Friday, we again moved with our whole force onward up the valley. Along by the base of the Massanutten range of mountains on our left, leaving our old friend the Shenandoah to the west, in which direction it runs to its sources in the North Mountains, we followed Smith's Creek until we reached Harrisonburg ; and there we encamped. We were eighteen miles from New Market, and about eighty from Winchester. At Harrisonburg we found that Jackson had changed his course. Having left the valley of the North Fork he had turned southeasterly, taking the main pike which runs in that direction to Gordonsville, distant about forty miles. At Gordonsville there was rail communication with Staunton, Richmond, and Alexandria. But Jackson had as usual encamped al uit twenty miles from us, and was now in the valley of the North Fork of the Shenandoah to the east of our mountain range, and on the east side of the Shenandoah, where the Gordonsville pike crosses that stream by a long cov- ered bridge. While holding Harrisonburg with our cavalry and an advanced guard of infantry, we turned to follow him. For a few days our operations were confined to the usual
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skirmish with Jackson's rear-guard : we advanced, they re- treated ; and we followel them through the classic shades of Keezle and Magaughey towns to the east, around the base of the peaked mountain where the two valleys of the Shenandoah flow into one, along the pike to the bridge over the North Fork of the Shenandoah at Penn's Ferry, a distance of twenty miles from our main encampment at Harrisonburg. At this point Jackson, determined to burn the bridge if we attempted to cross, had lined it with light kindling-wood, to ignite at the touch. As along the valley, so here, there was constant picket-firing. During my only visit to the extreme out- post, where the Twenty-Eighth Regiment under Col. Donelly was stationed, I saw one of his men, who had been shot at his post by some expert and remorseless rebel hunter, lying dead at the station. Once, however, the enemy, failing to make the bridge in time, were overtaken by our cavalry, and prisoners were brought into Harrisonburg. With General Hatch commanding the cavalry, I rode in; the prisoners following in our rear. One of the rebel officers, being greatly annoyed at the triumphant tones of our men, turned to rebuke them, at which the storm began to rage with such violence that I was compelled to order the prisoner to maintain silence.
While my brigade was encamped in the field, I made my own headquarters within the house, where dwelt the owner of the domain. She was an elderly matron of very strong seces- sion proclivities, and given to lamentation over the destruc- tion which three thousand soldiers brought to . her fields. There were no fences left to divide tillage from pasture, or grain-fields from roads. When her complaints were loudest, I informed her of the capture of New Orleans, of which we had just heard through the war department ; then enlightened her as to the condition of slave property, and that no restraint could be used if her slaves chose to leave her and follow us. Sometimes her replies were acrimonious,
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sometimes pitiful. Indeed, who could help feeling something akin to pity for these poor people, bending under the power of their conquerers. But with pity came also exultation, for scarcely a day passed that some stronghold was not wrested from trai- tors. All along our sea-coast, all along our inland rivers, at New Orleans, and in many places along the course of that mighty river the Mississippi, floated the old flag. The reduction of Yorktown we looked upon as an assured fact, so of Corinth. The army and the country gave thanks to God that the end seemed so near ; and a mightier feeling of exultation came over us, that questions which had troubled the country beyond endur- ance, questions which the wisest and best in our land could not solve, were now at rest forever -- slavery dead beyond restitution, and the insufferable arrogance and conceit of the Southern people being whipped out of them. Here was a strong Northern army holding forcible possession of their lands and of their mansions, replying to their complaints that they would have it so, would have us come from the North to free their slaves, take their cattle, and reply to their com- plaints by the question, " Do you like it?" and offer the conso- lation that the morrow might bring forth a greater sorrow, even a forfeiture of their lives and lands. " Oh, anything to end this war!" was again and again the wailing reply. " Will you advise the laying down of arms, and submission, to end it ? " Then the Alush of anger came, and the graceless temper cried, " No ! rather war to the bitter end than that.". "Then the question becomes not one of secession, but subjugation," I answered. "We are determined to whip, yes, subjugate you, if we must ! and perhaps the strength we put forth, the courage we display, will make the South more willing to live with a people you once affected to despise, but whom now you will find as brave as yourselves. The end may not be yet. may not be until your towns and cities are deserted save by women and old men, not until all your property is destroyed by the passage of armies, not until your communications are broken up, your
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bridges and roads obliterated, not until your country is flooded with a worthless currency, not until your children, even, are pressed into service, until every mother has an aching heart, and every household an absent son. We can now make peace with you upon such terms that both North and South can mutually rejoice, and there will then come a celebration, the like of which our country has never seen; but, as it is, we must press on. Let your achievements be never so heroic, ours shall adorn the page of history with as proud successes, while the inspiration of our mothers, sisters, and homes shall equally with yours swell our hearts and nerve our arms with courage."
While the main body of the Fifth Army Corps was at Harri- sonburg. Gen. Banks made his headquarters at New Market Crossing the Massanutten range of mountains at a gap of that name, a wide road leads from the North Fork valley of the Shenandoah eastwardly over the mountain into the valley of the South Fork, affording Jackson a splendid opportunity, if we were unguarded, of taking us in rear. This gap-road, just before leaving the mountain on the eastern side, diverges into two branches, one of which crosses the South Fork of the Shen- andoah at Columbia Bridge, the other at Massanutten town and thence to Luray. To guard this important road, Col. Sullivan, of Shields's Division, had been loft at Columbia Bridge. About the ist of May. Sullivan informed Banks that a deserter at Columbia Bridge reported that on the 30th of April Jackson moved with his whole force towards Harrison- burg ; and then, he believed, he returned and marched towards Port Republic. The deserter estimated his whole force to be about fifteen thousand men, composed of twelve or fifteen regiments, commanded by Jackson, Taliaferro, Winder, and Ewell, and added that Jackson expected additional reinforce- ments. That Col. Sullivan was in the same state of excite- ment as when at Strasburg, was apparent from a despatch received from him, dated at Columbia Bridge at 2.25 P. M., addressed by signal to Gen. Banks, announcing that "rebels
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drove in my pickets at Burnt Bridge and on Gordonsville road, started out reinforcements and am now driving them, will report fully." Burnt Bridge lies south of Columbia Bridge, over which the road to Gordonsville and Richmond crosses the Shenandoah. Fearing that we would not fail into the little trap of moving to Staunton, against which Mcclellan warned Banks, it might be that Jackson was trying all approaches to our rear, believing he would not have the opportunity to crush us with reinforcements in his own good time. With the pass across the mountain well guarded, with our advance at least sixteen and a half miles southeast of Har- risonburg, up to the Shenandoah at Conrad's Store, we were holding Jackson at arm's-length. What now was to be done ? How would higher powers move in the concentration that would force the yet lingering life of rebeldom out of its ugly body ? It seemed as if the gloom and uncertainty, that had so recently covered everything as with a pall, was being dispelled. Every day deserters came to us in their gray uniforms to say that not more than half of Jackson's army would fight ; that they Were worn out with service, and had no idea of the cause nor the object of the war; also that the privates of Jackson's army had heard of but a single victory gained by us, that of Fort Donelson ; and this " one of their boys accidentally saw in a newspaper." At this time, too, the administration in divers ways gave out that the end was nigh ; that the services of our troops would be required but for two or three months longer. An Indiana regiment, offered. and enlisted but for 'one year, the government were unwilling to accept, and wished to muster it out at once ; but finally declared that they were willing to keep it for sixty or ninety days longer, for that was as long, it was said, as the government would want any troops ; and this from Secretary Stanton. " When Yorktown falls, the end has come," was the cry. I think the feeling that he had better strike now, while he was here, sug- gested to one of the officers of the Second Massachusetts to
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