USA > Virginia > Campbell County > Campbell County > Annals of the Lynchburg Home Guard > Part 7
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During the night or early in the morning Pickett's
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division had come in and had joined its corps. This was a valued addition, for the men in it were fresh, and joined just in time to be inspirited by the news of the victory of the day.
To understand the movements of the next days' battles a clear conception should be had of the field. This can be had from the description in General Long's Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, (page 279) which we quote:
"The town of Gettysburg, nestling in a small valley, is surrounded by numerous low ridges making various angles with each other. The most important of them is the one situated about a mile southeast known as Cemetery Ridge. It is terminated by two conical mounds about four miles apart. The one to the South is designated the Round Top. The one to the North is called Culp's Hill.
Immediately after the defeat of the First and Eleventh Corps, Cemetery Ridge was selected as the Federal position. Nearer the town is a second ridge, nearly parallel to, and' about a thousand yards west of Cemetery Ridge. This ridge during the battle formed the Confederate center. From its Southern extemity springs obliquely a spnr extending almost on a line with the Round Top. This naturally formed the Con- federate right. East of the town the valley is traversed by a small stream beyond which rises abruptly a com- manding ridge which was occupied by the Confederate left."
The chief part of the second day was taken up with an attempt to take position in what was known as the "Peach Orchard," which was a position intended for Longstreet. This had been ccenpied by the Federals and a sharp attack was begun on them for it While
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this fight was in progress, the Confederates noticed that an elevation known as the Little Round Top, which was the key to the Federal position, had, by some oversight on their part not been occupied, and at once a dash was made for it. A brigade of Texans attempted to take it but the Federals occupied it first and all at- tempts to dislodge them were futile. MeLaw's divis- ion now attacked the Federals in the "Peach Orchard" and hurled them back in a disordered mass on Ceme- tary Ridge. This was too strongly fortified and armed for the exhausted Confederates to carry, and night fell on the second day's figlit with the advantage, if any, in the hands of the Southerners.
THE THIRD DAY'S FIGHT .- PICKETT'S CHARGE.
It had now become apparent that to win the day the Federals must be driven from Cemetery Ridge. Artil- lery was powerless to do this as the hostile lines were too strongly entrenched, and there was but one other way, to charge the hill with the bayonet. To do this would seem an impossibility. Between the Confeder- ate lines and the enemy was a stretch of about three quarters of a mile of uncovered ground, and rising from this plain were the slopes of the precipitous hill, crowned with artillery and the cream of the Northern Army. But Lee knew his men, and knew that what flesh and blood could do, those men would do. Pick- ett's Division was selected to make the charge, and orders were at once sent to that division to prepare for it. In preparation for the infantry attack, a furious cannonade was begun and in the course of an hour or
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so the Federal guns sank into silence, setting an exam- ple that was quickly followed by those of the Confed- erates.
A vague feeling that something unusual was to hap- pen had spread over both armies. The field was in silence and breathless expectation. Abont 2 o'clock a single gun fired a signal and at the sound the attacking column made its appearance. This consisted of Pick- ett's Division supported on the left by Pettigrew, com- manding Heth's Division, and on the right by Ander- son's Brigade. For a moment even the enemy seemed appalled by the courage of the movement, but soon re- covering opened a terrific fire on that devoted band. The veterans moved onward with a steadiness that was irresistible. Cannister, grape and shell made great gaps in their lines but still onward they pressed. The foot of the Ridge was gained and the upward climb commenced. The supporting columns had fallen back and Pickett's men were left alone and unsupported. Yet the gallant Virginians marched steadily onwards. Their lines were torn with a fire of musketry and artil- lery that has rarely been equalled but at last the crest of the hill was reached. and with a wild dash they broke over the entrenchments and planted their han- ners on the captured guns.
But the victory won could not be held. Some troops who had before been holding their ground, gave way, and this enabled the Federals to throw heavy reinforcements on Cemetery Ridge and as for some reason Pickett was not supported, his force was driven
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back leaving the greater part of its number dead on the field or in the hands of the enemy.
All the next day the armies lay in quiet. General Lee saw that it was necessary for him to retreat, but he did so in an orderly manner, and the retreat had none of the appearance of a rout. The dead were buried and the wounded cared for.
Pickett's charge may be called the climax of the war. It is the proudest boast of the Home Guard that it was a part of that band of heroes.
The losses sustained by the company in this charge were not so many as one would suppose. We have been able to get the following list of casualties:
Killed: W. H. Agnew, Thomas Jennings, William Jennings, James Moore, A. Overstreet, J. F. Payne, Edward Valentine.
Wounded: Joseph Valentine, S. H. Elliot, P. H. Franklin, DeWitt Clinton Guy, Octavius L. Ivey, R. A. Kent, J. H. Lydick, Kirkwood Otey, R. C. Pierce, John Holmes Smith, John Smith, J. R. Taylor, C. J. Winston, J. M. Williams.
Captured: W. H. H. Winston.
In the battle of Gettysburg the company was under the command of Captain John Holmes Smith, Captain Kirkwood Otey having been promoted to the rank of Major, was in command of the regiment.
NOTE .- The chronology adopted In the foregoing chapter is that given by General Longstreet In his report of the Gettysburg Campaign.
COLONEL. KIRKWOOD OTRY.
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CHAPTER VI.
FROM GETTYSBURG TO APPOMATTOX.
We may be pardoned if we take advantage of the re- spite granted the soldiers of Pickett's Division after the battle of Gettysburg, to record some of the incidents of home life that may show how terribly in earnest the pecple of Lynchburg were, for their earnestness is in- dicative of the spirit that animated the whole South during the war. As we have already recorded, the banks contributed the sum of five hundred dollars each at the beginning of hostilities for the good of the mili- tary, and we are glad to say that this example was not lost. The various churches in the city contributed their bells to be melted down and made into cannon, and in 1863 St. Paul's Episcopal Church sent the lead used in ornamenting an iron fence that surrounded it to be run into bullets. This lead amounted to some three hundred pounds and was a welcome addition to the ord- nance department, we have no doubt. A proposition having been made to organize a volunteer naval force, Lynchburg contributed $202,500 to the fund. A raid on the Virginia and Tennessee railroad having been made in July, 1863, a number of volunteers from Lynchburg went out to repel it, notwithstanding the number of Lynchburgers already in the field. This force was composed of the following companies:
H. G. Latham's Artillery, 71 men; Captain Stroth- er's Company, 71 men: Captain C. V. Winfree's Com- pany, 49 men; Captain C. D. Hamuer's Company, 28 men: Captain J. B. Winfree's Company. 22 men: Lien-
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tenant John Otey Taylor's Company, 15 men; Captain Jolın B. Shaner's Cavalry command, in part.
These troops were under the command of Captain G. Woodville Latham of the C. S. Army.
It is pleasant to read that the efforts of our towns- men in the common defence were not unappreciated. We find in the Lynchburg Virginian of July 25, 1863, the following letter:
HEADQUARTERS DEP'T OF WESTERN VA.,
DUBLIN, VA., July 20, 1863.
Colonel :- I am greatly indebted to you and the patriotic citizens of Lynchburg for the promptness and alacrity with which my request for troops to meet the Yankee raiders was responded to night before last.
It happened that their services were not needed. If they had been I am confident they would have done honor to their city and good service to their country. When the people throughout the country are as prompt to spring to arms on an emergency, as the citizens of Lynchburg showed themselves to be on this occasion, the enemy will find their raids exceedingly unpal- atable.
The damage done the Virginia and Tennessee Rail- road hy the party of a thousand cavalry who rode from Charlestown to Wytheville for the purpose, was, I am informed, repaired by the usual section hands on the road in less than an hour.
Very respectfully, etc.,
SAMUEL JONES, Major-General.
To Colonel Maurice S. Langhorne, Commandant at Lynchburg.
The Home Guard was sent into North Carolina to recruit and rest after its terrible losses at Get-
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tysburg. We have been able to find nothing of importance concerning its doings while there until nearly a year had passed when this battle-scarred company was engaged in the battle of Plymouth.
The town of Plymouth is situated near the month of the Roanoke river and commands the entrance to Pimlico Sound. The Federals had a fort here known as Fort Warfen which was stormed and captured on April 18th, 1864, by a command composed chiefly of North Carolinians under the command of General Hoke. As the Confederate forces had been for some time on very scanty rations the well stocked commis- sariat of the post was a welcomed fruit of the victory. We can get but very few particulars of this engage- ment, indeed the only thing we have been able to get is the list of losses. In the Lynchburg Virginian of April 22, 1864, we find the following list:
Killed: Corporals J. P. Sale, W. S. Averett, Private John Cross.
Wounded: W. H. Conley, W. S. Gregory, C. A. Gwatkin, S. H. Nowlin.
The condition of affairs in Virginia were now becom- ing desperate. A regiment of such veterans as the Eleventh could no longer be spared from the defence of Richmond, and orders were received for the regiment to proceed to Virginia as soon as possible. On the 15th of May the regiment reached James River at a point below Richmond known as Drury's Bluff, and was closely engaged the next day with the enemy's gun- boats. As was too common in the battles in which this company was engaged, its losses were heavy, but
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though many were wounded none, so far as we can learn, were killed. The following were wounded:
D. C. Guy, C. D. Hamner, W. H. Shaver, W. A. Toot, S. C. Boothe, P. H. Franklin, James Franklin, Jr., R. A. Kent, John H. Lewis, R. C. Murrell, W. S. Nelson, J. J. Old, Colonel Kirkwood Otey, Corporal R. T. Peters.
But a few days after this fight a terrible calamity be- fel the regiment from which the Home Guard was saved by an accident. The letter given below, which we take from the Virginian of May 26, 1864, ex- plains itself.
ON THE MARCH, MAY 22d, 1864.
The whole of the Army of Northern Virginia is in motion moving toward Hanover Junction. I suppose our line will be North Anna river. We left Richmond yesterday to join General Lee. A portion of our bri- gade left day before yesterday, and proceeded as far up the Fredericksburg road as Milford and got off there to await onr arrival. Yesterday morning before we ar- rived there they were engaged with a force of the enemy which turned out to be the Fifth army corps. They held them in check for about two hours, when such of them as were not captured had to fall back. They supposed the enemy's force was only about one regiment and were ordered to hold their position which they did until the Yankees were close enough to use the bayonet. They had driven back two lines. When they started to retreat the Yankees were on their flank and in their rear, consequently the following were wounded and captured. There were only seven companies of the regiment on the field. The other three companies, (G. D and K) could not get on the cars and were left behind, with the Twenty-fourth Reg-
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iment. The brigade lost ninety-three men. We have marched ten miles today and are within a mile of Han- over Junction.
This letter is followed by a long list of wounded and captured, but as Company G was not in this disas- trous engagement, we must omit it.
The battle of Drury's Bluff was the last battle in which the Home Guard participated. From the Ist to the 15th of June it was engaged in a continual skirmish in the neighborhood of Cold Harbor, and on the 16th and 17th of the same month it was in a skirm- ish at Clay House, but neither of these was of serious moment.
The war hastened to a close. General Grant's army extended far beyond the flanks of General Lee's force on each side, and any hope of escaping the toils was at best a desperate one. But one chance remained. That one was apparently impossible, but Lee's men had ceased to use the word impossible in connection with their commander. The chance was to cut through, make a dash to the right and seek Johnston in North Carolina. Grant's object was to mass as many of his troops as he could between the Confederate army and North Carolina, and with this in view, he hurled his forces on the lines of exhausted and starved Confeder- ates. The fighting was continuous and frightful. Gen- eral Gordon, with barely six thousand men, was hold- ing six miles of lines, that is about one man to two yards. Hill and Longstreet were in much the same trim, and portions of this thin line were being forced continually. When au attack was made, men were
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hurried up from all along the line to repel it, leaving great gaps through which the enemy poured. The attack having been repelled, the troops commenced driving out those who had broken through their lines, and another line of battle would be established, thinner even than before.
Thus the fight raged day after day. Our line bent and twisted like a snake, it was constantly broken and as often re-formed. The men performed prodigies of valor. "How they endured through those terrible, hopeless, bloody days, I do not know. They fought desparately and heroically, although they were so weakened through hunger and work that they could scarcely stand upon their feet and totter from one point of assault to another. But they never complained. They fought sternly, grimly, as men who had made up their minds to die. And we held our lines. Somehow or other-God only knows how-we managed day by day to wrest from the Federals the last inch of our lines. Then the men, dropping in the trenches, would eat their scanty rations and try to snatch an hour or two of sleep."
The extract given above is from the pen of General J. B. Gordon. It is but a picture of the condition of the entire Confederate forces, but this heroic warfare was kept up week after week, mouth after month, with the thin lines constantly drawing thinner, the famished soldiers growing fewer and weaker. But no idea of surrender occurred to them. They dreaded death not half so much as surrender, and through toil and hunger, wounds. and discouragement, they were ever. willing
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and ready to do their duty. Was ever such devotion before?
From the battle of Drury's Bluff the Home Gaurd was in the trenches until the following spring, and even then, it was but to resume the same life of con- stant fighting. On the ist of April, 1865, the com- pany was in a fight at Five Forks which was but a rep- etition of any one of the many that had preceeded it. The company lost heavily. We have obtained the fol- lowing list of the losses of the Home Guard at Five Forks, Va., April 1, 1865:
Killed: William Early, J. B. Edwards, W. H. H. Woods.
Wounded: J. M. Armstead, W. A. Blythe, J. M. Carver.
Captured: M. Chambers, Sergeant, D. C. Guy, C. D. Hammer, W. J. H. Hawkins, R. C. Hawkins, N. H. Lavinder, R. C. Murrell, S. T. Nowlin, S. G. Okey, J. J. Old, W. Poindexter, W. W. Poindexter, John A. Reed, C. II. Spencer, W. A. Withers, Jehu Will- iams, J. W. Wheeler, wounded and captured.
Five days later, at Sailer's Creek, the company was again engaged, and again its thin ranks were depleted by death and capture. In this fight we find the losses to have been made up as follows:
Killed: H. V. Harris.
Captured: Captain J. Holmes Smith, Sam Kinnier, W. S. Gregory, John II. Lewis, W. S. Nelson.
By this time the struggle had ceased to be war and had become butchery, and General Grant sent his now historic letter to lee, to which Lee replied, asking the
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terms upon which the capitulation of his army would be received, and on the 9th of April, 1865, the grand Army of Northern Virginia ceased to exist.
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*
PART III.
.
War has not wholly wrecked us: still Strong hands, brave hearts, high souls are ours -- Proud consciousness of quenchless powers- A past whose memory makes us thrill- Futures uncharactercd, to All With heroisms-If we will.
MAROARET J. PRESTON.
THE REORGANIZATION OF THE COMPANY AND ITS HISTORY SINCE THE WAR.
HIE YEARS from 1865 to 1871 were the saddest in the history of the lovely Southern land. Humiliated by defeat, crushed into silence, the Southern people could but suffer and be still. The general Government disfranchised almost every man who had taken part in the war just ended, and as all the men in the Confederate States, with but very few ex- ceptions, had taken part in it, the control of the coun- try passed into the hands of the negroes, a few whites who came from the North for the purpose, and those who were willing to forswear themselves and their country for the emoluments of office.
Among the first acts done by the Government after the resumption of Federal sway over the conquered States, was to declare the debt of the Confederacy void. This, as was intended, struck a fatal blow to all wealth that had survived the war. The people of the South, imposing implicit confidence in their Government, and for the purpose of aiding it, had invested largely in its bonds, and many without the limits of the seceding States had shown their sympathy in this mode. This one act rendered their money worthless and destroyed their credit everywhere. The proclamation of emanci- pation, by taking from the people what under the laws and customs of the United States was property, was another and a crushing blow. Says Percy Greg in his "History of the United States:"
"The emancipation proclamation was not law, as
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Mr. Lincoln himself well knew, but conquest had given it practical validity; and emancipation alone was the most crushing fine ever levied by a conqueror upon a wasted country and a ruined people. Europe stood aghast in 1871 at a war indemnity of two hundred mil- lion sterling, levied on the richest country of the Con- tinent. Wealth for wealth, the forfeit exacted from the South was equivalent at least to an indemnity of fifteen hundred million sterling extorted from conquered France. True, the confiscated property was not des- troyed; but confusion and uncertainty rendered it almost worthless, and its pecuniary value was actually deducted from the available wealth of a single class. Three hundred thousand families had lost chattles worth four hundred million pounds sterling; in most cases all, or more than all, they possessed.
"In a word, the whole agricultural aristocracy and middle class of the South were utterly ruined. The situation of her merchants and traders was hardly bet- ter. * * The devastation of the Palatinate hardly exceeded the desolation and misery wrought by the Northern invasion and conquest of the South. No conquered nation of modern days, not Poland under the heel of Nicholas, not Spain or Prussia under that of Napoleon, suffered such individual and collective ruin, or saw before them so frightful a pros- pect, as the State dragged back by force in 1865, under the 'best government in the world."'
We cannot go fully into the horrors of that terrible period known as the period of reconstruction. Every affront that unbridled malice could devise, every calumny that designing lips could utter or cowardly . pen inscribe, was brought to bear on the people of the South. We will let the founder of the New York Tribune describe the men who were put in charge
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of the vanquished States. Says Mr. Horace Greely, himself one of the bitterest of the Abolitionists:
"Well, gentlemen, the thieving carpet baggers are a mournful fact: they do exist there and I have seen them. They are fellows who crawled down South in the track of our armies, generally a very safe distance in the rear, some of them on suttlers' wagons, some of thein bearing cotton permits, some of them looking sharply to see what might turn up, and they remain there. They at once ingratiated themselves with the blacks, simple, credulous, ignorant men very glad to welcome and follow any whites who professed to be the champions of their rights. Some of these got elected senators, some sheriffs, some judges, and so on. And there they stand right in the public eye, stealing and plundering, many of them with both arms around ne- groes and their hands in their rear pockets, seeing if they cannot pick a paltry dollar out of them. And the public looks at them, does not regard the honest North- ern man, but calls every carpet bagger a thief, which is not the case by a good deal. But these fellows, many of them long faced and eyes rolled up, are greatly con- cerned for the education of the blacks, and for the sal- vation of their souls. "Let us pray," they say. But they spell the pray with an e, and so spelt they obey the apostolic injunction to prey without ceasing."- Horace Greely, June 12, 1871, at the Lincoln Club. (From his Life by L. D. Ingersoll, p. 525.)
With such government, with financial ruin on every hand, without power to remedy their ills, one would think that the very life would have been crushed out of the people. But he who thinks so little knows the sterling qualities of the Southern people. Hardly had the armies of occupation quitted the soil, when busi- ness began to revive and today the South is as prosper-
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ous as any section of the country. France was simi- larly prostrated in 1871, and the world has marveled at her recuperation, but not only, as has been shown above, was the prostration of the South greater than that of France, but she had an alien race to educate, not merely to freedom, but to the ballot, and she is willing to leave to any fair minded man if she has not nobly acquitted herself of the task.
As soon as the Southern people were allowed to bear arms, their military instinct, always one of the most marked characteristics of their race, revived, and with this revival came the reorganization of many of the volunteer companies that had existed before the war, and had seen service during it. Among these was the old Home Guard. A number of its former members, with many men who had been too young to bear arms in the great Civil War, united, and revived the com- pany whose name had been so widely and favorably known throughout the Confederate army. The first meeting of the new company minst have been a scene of sadness, for it contrasted so strongly with the origi- nal organization. Then all was bright and joyous, the prospect of war was tempered by the hope of victory, and by the ardor of those who were willing to die, if need be, for their homes and firesides. Now all was changed, the cause for which they had done and suf- fered so much, was lost, and in its fall was involve.1 that of many of that little band. Garland had been killed a Brigadier-General, Meem had fallen, an Adju- tant-General at the age of twenty-six, thirty-eight of their unniber had been killed on the Geld of battle, six
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had died of disease in the service, twenty-seven had been severely wounded and thirty-three bore on their bodies marks of lesser injuries. In all one hundred and seventeen casualties had befallen that single de- voted company.
On the 22nd of April, 1871, a number of old mein- bers of the company met, and after electing new mein- bers adjourned to meet on the 26th of April to elect officers. Those present at the first meeting were as follows:
John Holmes Smith,
Henry C. Victor,
William D. Nowlin,
James Franklin, Jr.,
Jolın P. Goggin,
Johnı A. Lee,
Robert I .. Waldron,
John L. Oglesby,
George Woodville Sinitlı,
Win. J. H Hawkins,
James H. Jennings,
Green T. Lavinder,
Dr. Benjamin Blackford,
Nathan H. Lavinder,
Wm. D. Poindexter,
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