USA > Mississippi > Pike County > Pike county. Mississippi, 1789-1876: pioneer families and Confederate soldiers, reconstruction and redemption > Part 19
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During this war and previous to the general surrender, the Con- federates captured Union prisoners to the number of 270,000 men ; killed over 350,000 of them and caused over a million of them to be placed on the pension rolls from being disabled.
The Unionists captured 220,000 Confederates and according to a report made by Surgeon Gen. Barnes, of the 270,000 Union soldiers captured by the Confederates, 22,000 died in Southern prisons; and of the 220,000 Confederates captured by the Unionists, 28,000 died in Northern prisons.
Ever since the close of that war there has been a persistent at- tempt on the part of Northern writers to misrepresent the truths of history in order to cover up and hide the cruelties and inhumanity of united soldiers and its authorities from the knowledge of coming generations, but in the language of Abraham Lincoln, "we cannot escape history," they have charged that the Confederates were cruel and barbarous in their treatment to Union prisoners, and claimed that the rigors of the climate where Confederates were held was the cause
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of a larger proportion dying, though the South held over 50,000 more prisoners than they, when the North was possessed of everything and every means necessary to prevent the wholesale mortality which prevailed in their prison and the South did not.
The false assertions and arguments and mutilations of history, in the efforts to justify their ruthless invasion and coercion of the South- ern States and to make Confederate authorities greater sinners than Northern authorities, has fallen stiffly to the ground, as dead and worthless literature, and repudiated by intelligent investigators in the face of official reports.
General Lee's army in Virginia was never beaten on a single battlefield, nor driven from one, from Bull Run, July 18 and 21, 1861, to the last days at Petersburg, and it never yielded to its foe until reduced by hard and constant fighting to a mere fragment as com- pared with its ever recruiting antagonist, surrounded by ten times its number. With the close of the career of this invincible body of men came the fall of the Southern Confederacy, as all the other armies agreed upon the terms arranged between General Grant and General Lee, approved by President Lincoln, who was shortly after assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, in Ford's Theater in Washington City.
President Jefferson Davis, of the Confederacy, was captured by. a troop of Wilson's cavalry in Georgia and placed in irons and chained in Fortress Monroe, by General Miles, and tortured there for two years, with inhuman cruelty. He was subsequently released from custody under bond signed by Horace Greely and others, as the government of the United States was unable to make out a case against him. Many cruel things were done after the close of this war in a spirit of vindictiveness and many innocent men and women made to suffer death; among them Mrs. Surratt, of Maryland, an innocent and help- less woman, charged with complicity in the assassination of Presi- dent Lincoln; and Captain Wirz, who was commander in charge of Union prisoners at Andersonville, Georgia. In the long years of hard fighting against great odds, the Southern armies, by the casu- alties of war, were reduced and overpowered. The Southern people
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had suffered much and might have quietly borne the disaster, but the end was not yet.
Capt. Henry A. Wirz, above mentioned, was a Switzer and was the commander of the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Ga. After the close of the war he was hanged at Washington, November 10, 1865, as the result of suborned testimony, or subordination of perjury, under pretense of conspiring to cause the death of Federal prisoners at Andersonville, but really for refusing to give evidence or perjure himself against Jefferson Davis. He was charged in con- spiracy with Jefferson Davis, James A. Seddon, Howell Cobb, W. H. Winder and others to kill Union prisoners at Andersonville, in his keeping.
There was a conspiracy, known as the Conover conspiracy, gotten up in Washington City, to connect Jefferson Davis with the assassi- nation of Abraham Lincoln, which failed; and the attempt to fix the other crime on him was made to secure his destruction; and Wirz was convicted on perjured testimony, and the effort was made to induce him to testify against Mr. Davis to save his own life, which he refused to do. His conviction was secured upon the perjured testimony of a Frenchman named Felix de la Baume, a grand nephew of Marquis Lafayette, who was given a position in the interior depart- ment as a reward for his perjury. He was shortly after recognized as a Saxon named Oeser, a deserter of a New York regiment, and was dismissed eleven days after the execution of the man whose life he ' had sworn away.
Sam Davis, of Tennessee, a young Confederate soldier caught within the Union lines, was executed under similar circumstances. He was a scout and penetrated the enemy's lines and was captured. Certain information found on his person, procured from a personal friend in the Union lines, caused him to be tried as a spy, though un- disguised. His life was offered to be spared if he would turn traitor to his friends, which he refused to do, and he was hung in Tennessee.
The trial of Captain Wirz is of record and cannot be destroyed, neither can the records of the Secretary of war in reference to the test of the treatment and suffering of the prisoners of war North and
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South, and will always be available to the historian; and any attempt to fix criminality on Southern leaders or men for cruel treatment to union soldiers will be met by these records. The writer of this book: was for three months, while disabled for service in the field, detailed for service with an attending physician in the prisons at Danville, Va., and can testify from his own knowledge of kindness shown then by Confederate officers at that place in 1864. The necessities and conditions at the time compelled the crowding of them in smaller spaces than was conducive to their health, and the living was hard, but it was as good as that issued to Lee's veterans, confronting the powerful and preponderating forces under General Grant at Peters - burg. The government at Washington had all the resources of the world at its command, which the Confederacy was cut off from, and the North claimed a more healthful climate, and yet, the deaths ( f Confederate soldiers in Northern prisons was 25 per cent. greater than that of Union prisoners in Southern prisons. It stands any ex-union soldier or Northern man in bad plight to attempt to fix such crimes upon Southern men and try to exonerate themselves from inhumanity and barbarity. This writer, a prisoner himself, knew ( f Southern soldiers at the old capitol building in Washington City, brutally murdered by the guards for thoughtlessly looking out the bars at the windows; and there was no necessity for starving then , as was done, and which every Confederate prisoner can testify to, while upon the other hand the South's resources were exhausted; but they gave their prisoners what their own soldiers had who were termed "poor, feeble, ragged rebels"-requiring nearly three millions of men with the resources of the world at their command four years to subdue. There is no question of doubt that the barbarity practiced on Confederates was vindictive and intentional in order to accomplish the attrition necessary to overcome them, as their immense armies could not subdue them on the field of battle, and the suffering and mortality of both Confederate and Union soldiers is due to the refusal of Northern authorities to exchange prisoners, which would have saved thousands of lives on both sides.
The fields of Virginia were spread with the dead and the line on
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the frontier, where the armies had so often clashed, was a mark o. desolation. The hope of the country was centered on Lee and he knew the great responsibility. It was a heavy burden sustained a ; he was by his noble compatriots, but his master mind wavered no .. until the very climax of dissolution was forced upon him. When the opposing chief offered him the opportunity to surrender the little:
GEN. NATHANIEL H. HARRIS
guard that was left him, he replied that the time had not yet come. His army had never been driven from a single battlefield, though al- ways matched against superior numbers. The climax came when after eleven months incessant fighting his heroes had been taken from 1 him by the force of overpowering numbers, and the last lingerin ; hope died only, when in response to his order to "Hold the Fort at all hazards," it was entrusted to Harris' Mississippians, who went down at Fort Gregg.
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BUXTON R. CONERLY
HOW FORT GREGG WAS DEFENDED APRIL, 2, 1865.
BY BUXTON R. CONERLY, One of its Survivors-Quitman Guards, Company E, Sixteent'1 Mississippi Regiment, Harris' Brigade.
Fort Gregg was situated about two miles southwest of Peters- burg, Va., and was one of the many earthworks or redouts that Gen- eral Lee had constructed for artillery in the rear of his main line of defense covering the cities of Richmond and Petersburg
Its form was semi-circular-a space was left open in the rear for the entrance of wagons and artillery. The earth was thrown up
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from the outside forming a ditch 12 or 14 feet wide and from 4 to 6 feet deep-the walls were from 6 to 8 feet wide at the top and the ground on the inside next to the wall was raised for the cannon and for men to stand on. A considerable amount of artillery ammunition was in the fort, consisting of grape, canister, bomb shells and solid shot, stacked in pyramid form.
The disaster on the right wing of General Lee's army at Five Forks, causing the loss of the South Side railroad, forced the evacu- ation of Petersburg and Richmond The position at and near Fort Gregg evidently was and became of great importance at this time to that portion of our army in the trenches around Petersburg, as it covered the pontoon bridges that had been thrown across the Appo- mattox river, west of the town, over which the artillery wagon trains and troops were crossing in their retreat.
During the latter part of March, 1865, our brigade, composed of the 12th, 16th, 19th and 48th Mississippi regiments, commanded by Gen. N. H. Harris, occupied a position between the Appomattox and James rivers, watching and guarding the line from Dutch Gap on the James, southward in a deployed line.
About 2 o'clock on Sunday morning, the 2nd of April, 1865, we received orders to move, leaving about one-third of our men on the picket line in front of this position. We marched rapidly in the direction of Petersburg, following the Richmond and Petersburg Turnpike road until within about two miles of Petersburg we left . the main road, turned to the right and crossed the Appomattox river on a pontoon bridge about two miles west of the town. We then crossed the South Side railroad and marched by the Forts Gregg and Alexander (or Whitworth, as it is called by some).
We moved to a position about four hundred yards in front of these Forts, and formed in line of battle with skirmishers well thrown out to the front. Every foot of ground was familiar to us, for here we had spent the greater part of the preceding winter and had guarded this part of our line for several months-our old uncovered winter quarters were just behind us. Long lines of Federal infantry were advancing on our front; batteries of artillery were coming into
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position, and as far as we could see to the right and left the enemy's guns and bayonets glistened in the rays of the morning sun now well up over the hills in the east. Our skirmishers soon became hotly engaged in our front, and the leaden hail was striking our ranks.
"Stand like iron, my brave boys,"
Said General Harris, as he walked along the line.
"Stand like iron."
Our skirmishers were soon driven in and our brigade opened fire on the advancing Federal line with deadly aim and effect. They gained the shelter of a sunken road about 150 yards in front of us. Continuous firing was kept up from this position for about one hour. On the right and left of this position the Federal troops continued to advance, threatening to enfilade us on both flanks. Quite a number of our men fell killed and wounded in this position. General Harris, seeing that our position was untenable, ordered us to fall back to the shelter of the Forts Gregg and Alexander. Leaving a skirmish line to hold the enemy in check, our brigade began the backward move in a storm of shot from the enemy's sheltered position in the sunken road and the crest of hills on the right and left flanks, behind which they were rapidly increasing in strength. General Harris led the greater part of the brigade into Fort Alexander and Lieut. Col. Duncan, of the 19th Mississippi regiment, led the remainder, about 250 men, principally from the 12th and 16th Mississippi regi- ments, into Fort Gregg. The enemy, discovering this movement, rushed . forward with loud huzzas, and our skirmishers were pressed back over the open field by overwhelming numbers, but taking the ad- vantage of every protection the ground afforded to rest a moment and load-they never failed to give them a parting salute as they retired from one position to another. During this time the men in the fort had gathered all the loose grass they could find scattered over the field around and near the fort. The Federal forces had advanced to this place early in the morning (before we arrived), but had been driven away by Gen. A. P. Hill, leaving quite a number of rifles scattered over the field. The men quickly gathered them to- gether-not forgetting their experience in the "Bloody Angle" at
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Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864, when they used the enemy's guns against them that they had captured, practically giving them the advantage of repeating rifles, as they had from two to four guns each, all loaded. In addition to the artillery ammunition in Fort Gregg, there were also several boxes of rifle ammunition, about 1,000 rounds to the box.
About the time that we were as well prepared as we could be under the circumstances, the enemy appeared in such overwhelming numbers that Colonel Duncan decided to evacuate the fort. We marched out of the fort to the rear about one hundred yards, where we met a carrier who handed Colonel Duncan a paper which he read aloud:
"Hold the fort at all hazards."
(Signed) R. E. LEE.
The men immediately returned to the fort, as no other order was necessary, and resumed their positions around the walls.
Our soldiers understood the conditions and every one knew that he must delay the advance of the enemy to gain time for his comrades. The Federal troops at this time had reached a point about 300 yards in front of Fort Gregg, and were moving on Fort Alexander at the same time behind or under cover of our old winter quarters, huts which had been set on fire, and the smoke obscured their movements. Fort Alexander (or Whitworth) was about 300 yards to the right of Fort Gregg, and was at this time under the command of General Harris. The fighting on other parts of the line to our right and left stops for a while as if the men were watching the results of the move- ments about Fort Gregg. Colonel Duncan watches the men and tells them not to fire until the word is given. With his sword flashing in the sunlight of that beautiful Sunday morning, he insists (with his appeals to the state pride of Mississippi) that we should obey his orders. All around the walls of Fort Gregg was the cry of the officers, "Keep down men, keep down,"-officers who had never quailed on any field from first Manassas to that hour-to name their record would be to write the history of the army of Northern Vir-
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ginia soldiers that knew them, with their suspension drawn to a tension indescribable, yielded to the order, and waited with apparent patience until that magnificent line of Federal soldiers was within less than one hundred yards of us, and not the flash of a single rifle had yet defied them. The last order of our officers, "steady boys," was interrupted by the cracking of the rifles sending their death dealing missiles with telling effect. Gibbon's men fall fast and thick-his line staggers and finally breaks- in confusion, seeking shelter behind the crest of a ridge. A great cheer went up from our lines on the right and left and our boys responded with their cus- tomary yell of triumph from Fort Gregg. Reinforcements were hurried forward by the enemy from their sheltered position behind the hill, and their second line came forward at a double quick, in broken and scattered ranks. We opened on them at a distance of three hundred yards, firing as fast as we could. They staggered up within one hundred yards of us, when the greater part of their line broke and ran back under cover. The balance, perhaps three or four hundred, reached the ditch in our front-they were not strong enough to take us and could not retreat without running the gauntlet of death. Before we could turn our attention to the enemy in the ditch, reinforcements were hurried to their assistance and a third line came rushing on us with loud huzzas, from their covered position behind the hill, but in broken and scattered ranks. The greater part of them succeeded in getting in the ditch and completely sur- rounding us. During this time the men in Fort Alexander assisted Fort Gregg to some extent with an enfilading fire from that fort. It seems that General Harris at this moment, seeing and believing that we were captured, evacuated Fort Alexander to save his men. Our men deployed so as to cover every part of the walls of the fort and detailed twenty-five men to hold the gate in the rear. Now the solid shot, cannon balls and bomb shells found in the fort came into use. Our men hurled them on the heads of the enemy in the ditch. The fuses of the bomb shells were fired and rolled on them. This work did not stop until all or nearly all of the solid cannon balls and shells were gone. Brick chimneys built to tents for artillery men
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were thrown down and the bricks thrown at the enemy. Numbers of efforts to scale the walls were made, but the Federal soldiers would not act together and consequently the most daring ones were shot down on the walls and fell on their comrades below. A color-bearer fell on the fort with his flag, falling over on our side. During all this time the men at the gate were engaged in a death struggle and the last one fell at his post. The Federal troops having no further resistance there began pouring in from the rear and firing as they came. So many of our men had now fallen that the resistance was weak all around, and the Federal troops began pouring over the walls where a hand to hand encounter ensued on the crest, and our brave men went down in death. Quiet soon followed and about thirty sur- vivors were marched to the rear as prisoners of war and sent to Point Lookout prison.
General Harris evacuated Fort Alexander about the time we were surrounded and made his way to the balance of the army in the retreat to Appomattox C. H. The men of our brigade left on the lines between the Appomattox and the James also were in the re- treat and the final surrender at Appomattox.
Our brave Lieut. Col. Duncan was left in Fort Gregg, wounded in the head in an unconscious condition, rolling in the blood of his fallen comrades, when we were marched out.
Our bullet-ridden flag that had been borne proudly on so many victorious fields had been planted upon its last rampart, waived its last defiance and gone down on the bodies and laved in the blood of , its brave followers and defenders, who here made a chapter for the stories of the Army of Northern Virginia and left a gem for their mother State to place in the crown of her soldiers who had responded to her call to arms and faithfully performed their last duty.
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HOW FORT GREGG WAS DEFENDED.
LIEUT .- COL. JAMES HENDERSON DUNCAN.
Lieut .- Col. James Henderson Duncan, who commanded at Fort Gregg in the last bloody struggle near Petersburg, was a son of Dr. Isaac A. and Isabella Lucinda Craig Duncan, and was born at Mount Pleasant, in Maury County, Tennessee, on the 15th of March, 1839, and was thirty-five years of age when
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LIEUTENANT COLONEL JAMES HENDERSON DUNCAN Who commanded the Mississippians at Fort Gregg
this battle was fought. In 1840 his father moved to Sarepta, Miss., in that portion of the State now Calhoun County. Col. Duncan was engaged in the mercantile business at Oxford when the war began, and at the first call of arms he enlisted as third lieutenant in Company A, Nineteenth Mississippi, under Capt. Dr. John Smith. Later he was promoted to captain and rose to lieutenant-colonel, by gradation. Dr. Isaac Alexander Duncan, Lieutenant- Colonel Duncan's father, was born in Smith County, Tennessee, in 1810, came to Mississippi in 1840, was member of convention in 1850, and served in the lower
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House of the Mississippi Legislature from Calhoun County in 1858, 1859 and 1860. His father was from Maryland, and was a soldier of the revolution.
David Craig, the father of Colonel Duncan's mother, was born at Chapel Hill, N. C., and his father was a revolutionary soldier.
Colonel Duncan recovered from the wound received at Fort Gregg and re- turned, after the close of the war, to his home in Mississippi, where he died some ten or twelve years after the war.
The seeds of grief had been scattered all over the land and every- where the mantle of sorrow was to be seen. Here where noble aspi- rations had been cultivated, where love lived, where beauty crowned the thresholds of the homes of Pike County, deach had cast its sombre shadows. Men who had gone to the war flushed with majestic man- hood, were shattered in health or driven to the ultimate fate which awaits those who offer themselves as a sacrifice upon their country's altar. Ages ago the heralds of destiny brought the messages that gave hope to a brave people, but here in the ruins which blackened the once beautiful South, a veil of gloom fell over the vision of those crushed by the hand of a powerful and unfeeling foe.
When the news came of Lee's surrender, mothers went down on their knees and prayed that their loved ones might be spared to crown their happiness in the years to come, but with many the Angel of Death had stalked and bowed them down in grief. Many waited and prayed in vain. The crucible of war had consumed the objects of their love and hopes. When the end came it was an end indeed.
The Southern cross that fluttered proudly and defiantly for four years, went down in a halo of imperishable glory; sanctified with the blood of the chivalrous and brave, and was furled forever at Appomattox April 9, 1865, and its tablet of memory, inscribed with the following lines written by the South's poet priest, Father Ryan.
THE CONQUERED BANNER.
Furl that banner, for 'tis weary; Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary; Furl it, fold it, it is best, For there's not a man to wave it, And there's not a sword to save it, And there's not one left to lave it In the blood which heroes gave it. Furl it, hide it-let it rest.
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Furl that banner! True, 'tis gory,
Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory And 'twill live in song and story, Though its folds are in the dust, For its fame on brightest pages, Penned by poets and by sages, Shall go sounding down the ages- Furl its folds though now we must.
Furl that banner softly, slowly, Treat it gently, it is holy, For it droops above the dead! Touch it not, unfold it never, Let it droop there furled forever, For its peoples' hopes are dead.
When the leaders of the Southern armies accepted the terms of surrender to the United States forces they bound their people to an observance of its authority and when the shattered remnants of those armies, yielding only to overpowering numbers, came back to their homes they meant to be true to the terms imposed upon them, but when the government itself disregarded the objects contemplated in the terms of surrender, the situation changed.
After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Northern presi- dent, with which the South had nothing whatever to do, all the venom of a furious enemy was forced to the front to take revenge, the mag- nitude of which will scarcely be conceived by those living after the enactment of these horrible scenes. It was related to the writer by a gentleman who was closely connected with the Confederacy, and who was a prisoner at the time in Washington, (a bit of suppressed history) that at a meeting of nine Northern governors, headed by Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania, and members of the cabinet, that a resolution was passed to arrest and execute all Southern leaders from Jefferson Davis down. It was referred to General Grant, who refused to countenance it, but asserted he would use the entire army of the government to protect them and the men who had accepted his terms of surrender. R. S. McCollough, the renowned Confederate chemist, whose invented explosives sent so many Yankee vessels
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