USA > Virginia > Albemarle County > Albemarle County > Memorial history of the John Bowie Strange Camp, United Confederate Veterans, including some account of others who served in the Confederate Armies from Albemarle County > Part 21
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It so happens that, just as George Washington was elected President of eleven seceded states, Jefferson Davis, more than seventy years later, was also elected President of eleven seceded states. Was Davis a "traitor?" If, so, what was Washington ?
Moreover, when we reflect that Rhode Island and North Car- olina were not in the Union at all when Washington was inaugu- rated, that for some time afterwards they had no more legal connection with the United States than England or France, and that they later entered the Union only when they, of their own free and sovereign will, chose to do so, what shall we say of Lincoln's statement that the Union created the states?
The truth is that for many years after the adoption of the Constitution most Americans regarded it merely as an experi- ment. Many did not regard it as even a hopeful experiment. Alexander Hamilton, for example, spoke of it in 1802 as a "frail and worthless fabric," and in 1804 called democracy a "poison" and "our real disease." Could he have had his way, we should have gone to the "British form" of government, which in his day was oligarchic, the House of Commons being little more than a caudal appendage to the House of Lords. But there were others who, instead of desiring a centralized aristocracy, desired and even threatened or planned secession. In New England particularly, secession sentiment was strong, and was frequently outspoken. Such was the case, for example, from
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1807 to 1809, while the Embargo Act was on the statute books. Such also had been the case when the territory of Louisiana was purchased from Napoleon in 1803; and when the bill to ad- mit the state of Louisiana was being debated in 1812, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts said: "If this bill passes, it is my de- liberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the states from their moral obilgation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some defi- nitely to prepare for a separation, amicably if they can, forci- bly if they must." Again, during the war with Great Britain, to which New England was opposed, threats of secession were heard, and, if the war had not ended when it did, it is by no means impossible that the deliberations of the Hartford Con- vention would have been followed by actual · secession. So strong, indeed, was the New England conviction of the right of secession that as late as 1843 thirteen congressmen, headed by no less a man that former President John Quincy Adams, is- sued a statement declaring that the annexation of Texas would be equivalent to a dissolution of the Union.
If in none of these cases secession actually took place, it was not because the right was disputed, but simply because the ex- pediency of such action was not clear to a sufficient number of persons.
In December, 1860, however, South Carolina considered se- cession to be not only right but expedient, and her convention, accordingly, repealed the act by which she had entered the Union. As Virginia had declared herself independent on June 29th, 1776, without waiting to see what the other colonies would do, so South Carolina, without waiting for action by the Southern States, resumed all the governmental powers which she had temporarily granted to the Union she had helped to create. By February 1st, 1861, six other states had also se- ceded, and soon a new Confederation was born.
But the seven Confederate states desired no war. They wished only to be let alone and to dwell peacefully beside the Union to which they no longer cared to belong. They did not begin the war. Abraham Lincoln began it. If A and B have a quarrel, and A, seeing B draw his pistol, swiftly then draws
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his own and fires, who is the aggressor? The Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, it is true, but only after Seward's promises to evacuate the fort had been broken and the hostile fleet with reinforcements and supplies was well on its way.
The people of Virginia passionately loved the Union which they had done so much to create. On April 4th, her Con- vention had refused to secede by a vote of 89 to 45. Had Abraham Lincoln left her alone, she would not have seceded at all. Nor, in my opinion, would North Carolina, Tennessee or Arkansas have seceded. Indeed, I venture to express the opinion-which is of course merely an opinion- that, had Lincoln made no attempt to coerce the seven seceded states, they would ultimately have returned to the Union. Many Northern people had regarded Southern threats of secession as mere bluff, and some had declared that even South Carolina could not be kicked out of the Union. Many Southerners, therefore, had favored secession in order to open the eyes of the North to the fact that the South, in asserting her rights, was in deadly earnest. Such Southerners believed that, if the Southern States actually seceded, they could get better terms, than within the Union. Unquestionably many Northerners disbelieved in the right of the United States to coerce the South, and were eager to make such concessions as might bring the seceded States back into the Union. Had such con- cessions been offered, reunion might well have been the result -reunion without bloodshed.
But such was not to be. Those Northerners who agreed with Horace Greeley that they did not care to live in a Union in which some of the states were pinned to the others with bayonets and who were willing to let the "erring" Southern sisters "depart in peace," did not have their way. Lincoln chose to draw the sword, and not simply to draw the sword: he chose to force Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas to draw it also; for in calling upon their governors to furnish troops to conquer the Confederate States, he forced each state to decide whether she would participate in or re- sist his aggression. For Virginia, who had always upheld the principles of state sovereignty, the alternatives were craven
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submission and dishonor on the one hand, or stern resistance to Lincoln on the other. It did not take her long to decide. Her governor promptly refused to furnish troops for Lincoln's use in crushing the South, and her Convention with quick de- cision reversed its former attitude and declared for secession by 88 votes to 55. With quick decision, but with agony and grief at the thought, that Virginia, to escape dishonor, had been driven to separation from that Union which she had done more than any other state to create and mould, the ordi- nance of secession was referred to popular vote and carried by 128,884 yeas to 32,124 nays. But those voting nay, either in the Convention or at the popular election, almost unanimously acquiesced in the decision of the majority. Jubal Early, who. voted nay in the Convention, is said to have signed the ordi- nance with iron tears rolling down his cheeks; and the strong unionist, John B. Baldwin, when asked what the Union men in Virginia were going to do, replied: "We have no Union men in Virginia now. But those who were Union men will stand to their guns, and make a fight that will shine out on the page of history as an example of what a brave people can do after exhausting every means of pacification."
One of the best cartoons brought forth by the great war now raging in Europe depicts the Kaiser, pointing, with cyni- cal leer, to the ruined villages and cities of Belgium, and say- ing to King Albert: "See! You have resisted my will, and have lost all!" But the King replies : "Not my soul !"
Of material things Virginia lost almost all. Her soil was drenched with blood and tears. But, like heroic Belgium, she saved her soul.
And Lee? What was his attitude when his native state severed her legal ties with the old Union and cast her lot with the new Confederacy? Had he chosen to sell his soul for power and place, he could have been Commander-in-Chief of the United States army ; that army with which he had been as- sociated all his life, that army to whose glory he had contrib- uted so much by his valor and skill in the Mexican War. Gen- eral Winfield Scott, his old commander, implored him not to resign, and the temptation for him must have been tremendous.
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"My husband," wrote Mrs Lee to a friend, "has wept tears of blood over this terrible war; but he must, as a man and a Vir- ginian, share the destiny of his state, which has solemnly pro- nounced for independence." And so, with deep sorrow, but with firm resolution, he sent his resignation to General Scott and added the memorable words: "Save in defense of my na- tive state, I never desire again to draw my sword."
Was this man a "rebel?" Was this man a traitor?" Were the men who followed his banner rebels and traitors? In the historical facts which I have laid before you the answer to these questions may be found, and needs no further statement from me.
But before closing I wish to quote from two addresses de- livered shortly after Lee's death by two of his most distin- guished followers. These quotations will give you a vivid im- pression not only of Lee's courage and grandeur in battle, but also of his tenderness and his nobility of soul. I first invite your attention to the words of Colonel Charles Marshall, Lee's Chief of Staff, and-I may add-father of my friend and col- league, Dr. Harry Marshall, of the University Medical Fac- ulty.
"On the morning of May 3, 1863, as many of you will re- member, the final assault was made upon the Federal lines at Chancellorsville. General Lee accompanied the troops in per- son, and as they emerged from the fierce combat they had waged in the depths of that tangled wilderness, driving the su- perior forces of the enemy before them across the open ground, he rode into their midst. The scene is one that can never be effaced from the minds of those who witnessed it. The troops were pressing forward with all the ardor and enthusiasm of combat. The white smoke of musketry fringed the front of the line of battle, while the artillery on the hills in the rear of the infantry shook the earth with its thunder, and filled the air with the shrieks of the shells that plunged into the masses of the retreating foe. To add greater horror and sublimity to the scene, the Chancellorsville House and the woods sur- rounding it were wrapped in flames. In the midst of the aw- ful scene. General Lee mounted upon that horse which we all
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remember so well, rode to the front of his advancing battal- ions. His presence was the signal for one of those uncon- trollable outbursts of enthusiasm which none can appreciate who have not witnessed them. The fierce soldiers, with their faces blackened with the smoke of battle; the wounded, crawl- ing with feeble limbs from the fury of the devouring flames, all seemed possessed with a common impulse. One long, un- broken cheer, in which the feeble cry of those who lay helpless on the earth blended with the strong voices of those who still fought, rose high above the roar of battle and hailed the pres- ence of the victorious chief. He sat in the full realization of all that soldiers dream of triumph; and, as I looked upon him in complete fruition of the success which his genius, courage and confidence in his army had won, I thought it must have been from some such scene that men in ancient days ascended to the dignity of the gods. His first care was for the wounded of both armies, and he was among the foremost at the burning mansion where some of them lay. But at that moment, when the trans- ports of his victorious troops were drowning the roar of battle with acclamations, a note was brought to him from General Jackson. It was brought to General Lee as he sat on his horse near the Chancellorsville House, and unable to open it with his gauntleted hands, he passed it to me with directions to read it to him. The note made no mention of the wound that General Jackson had received, but congratulated General Lee upon the great victory. I shall never forget the look of pain and anguish that passed over his face as he listened. With a voice broken with emotion he bade me say to General Jackson that the vic- tory was his, and that the congratulations were due to him. I know not how others may regard this incident, but, for myself, as I gave expression to the thoughts of his exalted mind, I for- got the genius that won the day in my reverence for the gen- erosity that refused its glory.
"There is one other incident to which I beg permission to re- fer, that I may perfect the picture. On the 3rd day of July, 1863, the last assault of the Confederate troops upon the heights of Gettysburg failed, and again General Lee was among his baffled and shattered battalions as they sullenly retired from
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their brave attempt. The history of that battle is yet to be writ- ten, and the responsibility for the result is yet to be fixed. But there, with the painful consciousness that his plan had been frustrated by others, and that defeat and humiliation had over- taken his army, in the presence of his troops, he openly assumed the entire responsibility of the campaign and of the last battle. One word from him would have relieved him of this responsi- bility, but that word he refused to utter until it could be spoken without fear of doing the least injustice.
"Thus, my fellow-soldiers, I have presented to you our great commander in the supreme moments of triumph and defeat. I cannot more strongly illustrate his character. Has it been sur- passed in history? Is there another instance of such self-ab- negation among men? The man rose high above victory in one instance; and, harder still, the man rose superior to disaster in the other."
The address from which these words have been extracted was delivered at Baltimore on October 15th, 1870, three days after General Lee's death. On the same day, at Atlanta, Gen- eral John B. Gordon said, among other things, the following, in reference to the closing scene at Appomattox :
"I can never forget the deferential homage paid this great citizen by even the Federal soldiers, as with uncovered heads they contemplated in mute admiration this now captive hero as he rode through their ranks. Impressed forever, daguerreo- typed on my heart, is that last parting scene with that handful of- heroes still crowding around him. Few indeed were the words then spoken, but the quivering lips and the tearful eye told of the love they bore him, in symphonies more eloquent than any language can describe. Can I ever forget? No, never can I forget the words which fell from his lips as I rode beside him amid the defeated, dejected, and weeping soldiers, when, turn- ing to me, he said, 'I could wish that I was numbered among the fallen in the last battle.'"
And now, in conclusion, let me read you a tragically beautiful poeni by the English poet and historian, Percey Greg, a man who so loved and admired the South that he bitterly censured his own country for failing to aid the Confederate Cause. This is the poem :
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THE 9TH OF APRIL, 1865.
It is a nation's death cry; yes, the agony is past, The stoutest race that ever fought, today hath fought its last; Aye ! start and shudder well thou may'st; veil well thy weeping eyes; England, may God forgive thy part-man cannot but despise.
Aye, shudder at that cry that speaks the South's supreme despair- Thou that couldst save and savedst not-that would, yet did not dare; Thou that hadst might to aid the right and heart to brook the wrong; Weak words of comfort for the weak, strong hands to help the strong.
That land, the garden of thy wealth, one haggard waste appears- The ashes of her sunny homes are slaked in patriot tears- Tears for the slain who died in vain for freedom on the field- Tears, tears of bitter. anguish still for those who live to yield.
The cannon of his country pealed Stuart's funeral knell; His soldiers' cheers rang in his ears as Stonewall Jackson fell; Onward o'er gallant Ashby's grave swept war's successful tide; And Southern hopes were living yet when Polk and Morgan died.
But he, the leader, on whose words those captains loved to wait, The noblest, bravest, best of all, hath found a harder fate; Unscathed by shot and steel he passed o'er many a desperate field; Oh, God! that he hath lived so long, and only lived to yield !
Along the war-worn, wasted ranks that loved him to the last, With saddened face and weary pace the vanquished chieftain passed; Their own hard lot the men forgot, they felt what his must be: What thoughts in that dark hour must wring the heart of General Lee.
The manly cheek with tears was wet-the stately head was bowed, As breaking from their shatter'd ranks, around his steed they crowd; "I did my best for you"-'twas all those trembling lips could say- Ah! happy those whom death hath spared the anguish of today.
Weep on Virginia! Weep those lives given to thy cause in vain- The sons who live to wear once more the Union's galling chain- The homes whose light is quenched for aye-the graves without a stone, The folded flag-the broken sword-the hope forever flown.
Yet raise thy head, fair land, thy dead died bravely for the right; The folded flag is stainless still-the broken sword is bright; No blot is on thy record found-no treason soils thy fame; Weep thou thy dead-with covered head we mourn our England's shame.
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POST-BELLUM MEMORIES AND THE BATTLE FLAG OF THE CONFEDERACY.
An address to the Veterans on General Lee's Birthday Jan. 19, 1918.
BY PROFESSOR THOMAS FITZHUGH OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
As often as I look into the faces of our dear old veterans of the Confederancy and recall that I did not enjoy the privilege of being introduced to this strange old world until October of 1862, I am pointedly reminded that all my memories of the great event in which they bore a leading part only begin where their experiences ended.
And yet we of the generation that followed your heroic day have our little memories too, and they all cluster proudly about the things through which you lived and fought and suffered. The earliest recollection of my childhood was of an oval gold- rimmed photograph of my uncle, my mother's youngest brother, Major Carter Henry Harrison, of the Eleventh Virginia Regi- ment, who fell mortally wounded in the battle at Manassas on the 18th of July, 1861, and died on the following morning at the age of thirty years. I remember that throughout my earliest childhood that was the proudest recollection I had, and one which every child in the house was keen to tell the stranger and visitor about.
I shall never forget one day, so far back in my life that I can no longer tell when it was or how old I was, that I was walking along Main Street in Fredericksburg, led by the hand by my father, when suddenly he stopped still, and pointing quickly to a noble, martial figure in grey with dark slouch hat just turning the corner ahead of us, he said: "My son, yon- der goes General Lee." That was the first and the last time that I ever saw the Great Commander.
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I remember too very distinctly the Federal garrison that was left in Fredericksburg after the war, and I have the im- pression, as I try to think back into those early days, that they were a very quiet, unobtrusive. set of men, who acted as
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though they had received orders to make themselves as. little conspicuous as possible. I cannot remember ever seeing one of them in uniform beyond the immediate precincts of the bar- racks where they were quartered and where their daily drilling and evolutions were performed.
But the most realistic impressions of the war came to me when my father carried the family to Chancellorsville to spend the hot summer months in the country. Here I began to get into the very thick of its thrilling memories. I learned to know the very place in the woods where Stonewall Jackson .
fell, mortally wounded by the cross-fire of his own out-posts. In one of my relic-hunting excursions in the neighborhood one day, I descried at the root of a tree where I was resting, what appeared to be the weatherworn end of a small leather strap sticking suspiciously out of the ground. It pulled loose when I caught hold of it, and upon digging through the mold I un- earthed what seemed to me then a fabulous treasure-a crum- bling cartridge-box with a considerable number of minnie- balls and several coins. I thought myself the richest kid in the wilderness at that time. I guess since then small boys have gotten better off. I know that at that time we were mighty hard up, and such a find was a big thing. Our two main ways of earning a little money in the summer time were cutting sumac and hunting for bullets, fragments of shells, copper, and old iron in the rain-washed gullies, and especi- ally in the cornfields after a rain. Many a pound of minnie- balls did I send or carry to town to sell to Thomas Knox & Sons, who always gave us the best market price, or its equiva- lent in dried prunes and cake chocolate.
I remember one summer as we returned from Chancellors- ville for the winter sojourn in Fredericksburg, I saw standing in the corner of my father's law-office a tree trunk some eight or ten feet high and as large around as a man's body, which looked as if it had been shattered from top to bottom by some strange inner explosion. It had come from Bloody Angle, at Spottsylvania Court House, and was on its way to the War Department at Washington. It was said to have been literally cut down at the knee by the blasting fire of bullets and canister
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there where it stood at the corner of the woods. It was torn into thongs and shreds, and the deeply buried and smashed minnie-balls had burrowed and torn every square inch of its length and circumference.
On the battlefield of Fredericksburg itself we never suc- ceeded in finding much lead or other relics of the strife-the ground had been hunted over too often before we came on the scene. But we found a world of interest in the breastworks and clear topography of the battlefield with its sharp-cut lines of opposing ridges and the long intervening open plain be- tween. They pointed out to us from the high ground a gap in the railroad where a whole company of Federal troops huddled together had been destroyed by a well-directed cannon-shot from Marye's Heights. There too was the famous cut in the county road opening out in the plain below Marye's Heights, where General Cobb and his Georgians poured murderous fire into the flanks of successive waves of Federal infantry as they attempted to cross the field between Marye's Heights and Fed- eral Hill and storm General Lee's position. The tradition is that the very shell that killed General Cobb was fired from Federal Hill, the place of his birth .- One summer when I had returned to Fredericksburg after a long absence, I found that the exact spot where General Cobb fell mortally wounded had been marked by a great granite block with an inscription re- cording the heroic event. The only minnie-ball I ever succeeded in finding on the battlefield of Fredericksburg, I picked up amid a host of pebbles at the foot of the low stone wall that runs along the base of Marye's Heights, and only a few yards from the Cobb monument. It had evidently been shot from close quarters, and, hot from the muzzle, the leaden apex was flattened into the rim of the base.
My first and only personal contact with one of the great leaders of the war was at the Bingham School in North Car- olina, where I taught for Colonel Robert Bingham during the session of 1881-2. In May of 1882 our barracks were de- stroyed by fire, and General Joseph E. Johnston, who was then connected with some fire insurance company in the South, came to Mebaneville to investigate the fire and assess losses for tlie
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company. Sitting out in the moonlight one night in May of 1882, he told us a story of the latter months of the war, when his men were hard pressed for food, clothing, and ammunition. It was a cold winter morning with deep snow on the ground, and he had gone out at day-break to inspect his camp. Every- thing was wrapped in stillness in the early dawn of morning. The smoldering campfires were surrounded by prostrate forms radiating like spokes of a wheel from the beds of coals and ashes in the center, while the poorly clad, often half naked, feet were protruding perilously near the glowing embers. After riding along for some moments without observing any signs of life, he came to the outskirts of the encampment where some sharpshooters had their little batch of tents. Here his attention was attracted by low voices in earnest conversation behind one of the tents, and riding up unobserved he stopped his horse within hearing distance. A tall, raw-boned sharp- shooter, while busily cleaning his rifle, was giving some good advice to a young recruit, who had recently come in from the mountains to join the service, and was himself planning to make something of a sharpshooter. The older veteran was telling him earnestly but cheerfully of the desperate plight of the army, how the men were miserably shod and even ammu- nition was low, so that great care had to be observed and no bullets wasted that would not tell in the very best way. "For example," said he, "I was on the lookout the other day, when I seen a nice-looking Yank sauntering over the hill. I took aim and was just about to pull the trigger when I said to myself, 'his boots will be too small for me, I better wait a while.' I had'n more'n said it to myself, when here comes a great big fine-looking fellow 'bout my size, and I drew a bead on him, and them's the boots!"
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