USA > Virginia > Under the stars and bars ; a history of the Surry Light Artillery > Part 7
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blinded. How welcome, at such times, is a shower of rain, to lay the soil-demon low. Though it is seldom mentioned, and but little thought of, outside of army circles, one of the greatest discomforts of the soldier's life, and one of the severest tests of his physical en- durance, is, undoubtedly, the great dust-clouds that hang over and envelope a moving army on a dry, hot day. It has to be seen and experienced to be thor- oughly understood. We met with a good deal of this sort of misery on our march back here.
I had frequent opportunity, on the return, to see and note our commanding officer, Colonel Rhett. Once or twice he spoke to me, and seemed desirous of talking, though I was only a private, trudging along in the dust, and he on horseback. He asked some questions about the crops, and other things, and his manner was kind and affable. He is regarded by many in his command as a stern man and a severe officer, but I saw nothing like it. I think he has a kindly heart, though it may be concealed under a rough and somewhat re- pellant exterior. That he will fight the enemy, when he meets him, I have no doubt. He is from the Pal- metto State, and the Palmetto soldiers all fight. I have come to like him.
We reached Richmond yesterday, the 27th, and our camp is now in a fine oak grove near the western limits of the city, and near the Brook Turnpike, that leads out of the town into the old "mountain road" through
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Hanover, over which we lately marched. We are also quite near to the fair grounds usually occupied by the State Agricultural Fair during its annual exhibitions in times of peace, but now used as a conscript camp for the State conscripts. It is called Camp Lee. Our own camp has been named Camp Letcher, for the Governor of Virginia, and the grove is large enough for all the three Companies of the Battalion.
"The mellow eve is gliding Serenely down the west; So, every care subsiding, My soul would sink to rest."
Pray for our country, for the armies, and for me, and read the twenty-third Psalm.
Your friend, B.
[The reference in this letter to the clouds of dust that always attend a body of soldiers on the march during a dry time, while it will recall to the minds of the Veterans one of the most disagreeable attendants of their soldier life, will also serve to inform the chil- dren and grandchildren of the post-war times of a matter that, very likely, they would never think about in reading the history of what their fathers endured in the war between the States.
The long marches-and all armies have to make long marches at times-the long marches have four repellant features, namely, weariness, footsoreness,
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thirst and dust. Weariness and footsoreness are in- separable attendants on all marches, whether per- formed in summer or in winter. In addition to these, thirst and dust are unavoidable in summer time. A rain while an army is moving in summer, brings relief and is always welcome. But the rain, unfortunately, seldom cecurs just at the time needed.
The sufferings that armies experience at times from thirst and dust are often intolerable. An army on the march cannot escape the dust. It is a natural result of the movement of any body of troops over a dry and sandy road. The men cannot leave the ranks and get out of it. They have to keep in it all the time. And when to the dust are added thirst, footsoreness, and weariness, the soldier's lot is indeed severe and trying to the utmost-is truly and emphatically a hard and bitter experience. No one but an old Veteran who has gone through it all time and again, can form any adequate idea of the depressing nature of these things. I thought it proper to emphasize this fact, that the younger generations, whose ideas of war are mostly of the romantic cast, might be the better prepared to understand something of its true bitterness.]
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LETTER TWENTY-THIRD.
All quiet on the James-Drilling and guard duty-Church and theatre-Negro raiders-Note.
CAMP LETCHER, VA., June 15, 1863.
My Dear Friend :- All is quiet along the James and around the Capital of the Confederacy at this writing. We seem to be settling down to a tranquil summer here. But we hear that General Lee, with a recruited army, is moving forward into Northern Virginia. After the mighty struggle at Fredericksburg, "fighting Joe," who got the worst of the fight, has been falling back, and General Lee is assuming the offensive. Whether he will go beyond the Potomac again this summer, as he did last, has not yet reached the ear of the private in these parts. I hope, however, there will be no further movement that would have the appearance of an invasion of Northern soil. Southern soldiers are fighting for this very thing, more than anything else, namely, to resist invasion, invasion of their native land and soil, and if our own army should turn about and become the invader of the North, I believe it would tend to unite that people more firmly and lead them to fight us harder than ever. This is a private's view
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of the matter, and it may be all wrong. But I, for one, would prefer to fight at home. I think I could strike harder here.
Our drilling field is the old Fair Grounds, now Camp Lee, where our Battalion drills once or twice daily. This, and guard duty, are about all we have to occupy our time, except the usual routine of camp life. Sometimes the boys engage in athletic sports, and there is the usual "broom day" once weekly to occupy a part of our time, that often will hang heavy, for lack of regular and continued employment. Drill- ing and guard duty are commonly irksome employ- ments, but the men manage to get through them with- out feeling that they are martyrs on account of them.
Our camp is located very conveniently to the city for attending church, theatre, etc., and the men get "per- mits" almost daily for attending the one or the other. Many attend the different churches, especially the Clay Street Methodist Episcopal, where a revival has been in progress for sometime, and where several of the men have made a profession of religion. Others visit the Trinity Methodist Episcopal, where that able minister, Rev. John E. Edwards, is the pastor. I have heard him preach, and regard him as an earnest, zealous, devoted man of God, who is endeavoring to do all the good he can. I have been reading his "Life of the Rev. John Wesley Childs," of the Virginia Conference, and ad- mire the portrayal of Christian character therein ex- hibited.
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The new Richmond Theatre, finished since the war began, has also been drawing some of our men. I have attended on several occasions, and have witnessed Scott's "Lady of the Lake," also "Cleopatra," "Captain Kidd," and other pieces. But I take no special interest in the plays. I have some doubts as to the propriety of permitting the play-house to be open at times like these. When we reflect upon the great struggle that we are engaged in, and the frequent reverses that our arms have sustained, and also come to think of the hard lot of our soldiers, and the many deaths that are con- stantly taking place in the hospital and on the battle- field, it does seem to me that such diversion as the theatre offers us should be prohibited. It looks very much like Nero fiddling while Rome is burning. I wonder that the public sentiment of the city permits the theatre to run while the country is engaged in a bitter and terrible war.
And besides, there are a number of strong, able-look- ing men belonging to the troupe, who, it seems to me, might be doing better service if assigned to a wider stage, and made to do some acting pro bono publico, for the country at large. They have one man there, who, they say, ran the blockade from the North to join the company. If he would go and "join the cavalry," I think he would deserve and share a better opinion on the part of some. Who knows that he is not a spy, paid to report such things as may be of importance
.
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for the other side to know ? Some fine day before long, he may depart to "run the blockade" back again to whence he came.
How can we pray for and trust God's blessing to rest upon this country, when there are so many in- consistencies and sins lying at our door ? With our hospitals filled with the sick, wounded and dying- with the crepe displayed in so many homes-what room or place is there in our lives for the inane and silly amusements of an irreligious drama ?
It is a source of grief to the men of the S. L. A. that several bands of lawless freebooters, composed of run- away negroes and worthless white men, have recently begun to visit and pillage in the counties of Isle of Wight and Surry. It makes the blood almost to boil within us, to think that our kindred and friends at home have tamely to submit to and endure the insult, abuse, and wrong that come of such thieves, without any prospect of redress or retaliation. Perhaps it is but litle more than we might expect of a certain class of slaves, let loose from bondage, without any restrain- ing hand to control them. But that there are any white men, native to the soil, and living here among our people all their lives, and receiving favors from many of them on many an occasion, who could descend to an abyss so low and despicable, is more than I could believe. Great God! to what depths will not mortal man plunge, when the demon of unholiness and greed gets possession of
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his heart ! White men ?- white traitors! dogs! vam- pires ! with hearts blacker than the slaves with whom they associate, and souls more repulsive than the hideous daughters of Phorcus and Ceto! What infamy will rest upon their names, when this bitter tragedy is played !
Your friend, B.
[The intention has been strong with me from the beginning of this history, to devote a page somewhere in the work to an expose of the conduct of a few white fiends in our midst, who played the despicable role of traitors, informers, freebooters and thieves, during the closing years of the war, in the section where the men of the S. L. A. were born and raised. But, on reading over the letters that I had written during the war, I discovered that I had already spoken of them in terms as strong as respect for my readers would permit.
I have no desire to devote to them any further attention, except to say that I could give the names of several of them, were I called upon. It would be but simple jus- tice to every old Veteran to name them here, in order that posterity might know who among our own people were true, and who were false, to the STARS and BARS, and the Cause we espoused, but I forbear. I would not have these pages soiled with the titles of beings so vile and loathsome.]
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LETTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
The battle cloud moving northward-Advancing from the York -- On the Chickahominy-Scenery and conditions -- Note.
NEW BRIDGE, VA., July 5, 1863.
My Dear Friend :- General Lee has crossed the Po- tomac, and is reported to be advancing northward into Pennsylvania. And there are rumors and accounts of several great battles having been fought by different divisions of his army, but as I have seen none of the daily papers since we came here, I am uncertain whether a general battle has taken place or not. Of course, having made an advance movement into the enemy's country, some terrible fighting may be ex- pected. If our army should again prove victorious, as it has done in the past, it may lead to an early peace between the two sections. Let us hope that such will indeed be the result of this advance.
But the Federals, probably to prevent any re-en- forcements being sent to Lee from this section, or possibly because they supposed our Capital to be but weakly guarded now, have been making demonstrations of an advance by the way of the York river. Many transports have been seen lately on that river by our pickets and scouts, and a large force has been set ashore, and it appears to be moving this way.
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Accordingly, to meet the advance, nearly all the available troops about the city have been posted at the various crossings of the Chickahominy, from the Long Bridge, the lowest fordable place above tidewater, to the New Bridge, a few miles from the city. Light- foot's Battalion has, consequently, been broken up, for the time being, one company or section having been sent to one point, and another company to another point. Our Company was directed to hold a position at the New Bridge, on the road leading out to Cold Harbor, in Hanover. And at this place the S. L. A., with an infantry support, are now stationed, to dispute the further advance of any Blue Coats that may come this way. Our post is about ten miles east of Rich- mond, and our line of forces extend at least ten miles further down the river. Our guns are posted to rake the bridge, and the hills beyond, and we have a broad, open field before us, and a fine view of the country on the opposite, or Hanover, side of the little stream.
It being summer time, and, as was supposed, only for a temporary bivouac, we brought no tents with us, and have been finding shelter from the dews of night under the few forest trees that the armies of a year ago ehanced to leave untouched. I was so fortunate, as I supposed, as to find good shelter under a dense- foliaged apple tree, and I would have done nicely there, and slept well, I think, but for the millions of mosquitoes that swarmed about me and sang their ditties, and made sleep impossible. I think the flats
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of the Chickahominy must be the premium breeding- place for mosquitoes. After awhile, I enveloped myself as completely as possible in my only blanket, and told them to bite on.
The country adjacent the New Bridge is, to a smart extent, pleasing and picturesque to the view. The hills and ridges on the Hanover side of the stream are ele- vated and, were they under a good state of cultivation, would be called beautiful. The scenery and conditions here now are quite different from what they were a year ago. Then all this section, from Mechanicsville to Malvern Hill, was the theatre of a mighty struggle between two great and powerful armies, and fire and war swept along here like an angry sea. Nature has obliterated many of the signs of that terrible strife, but many evidences of battle and despoliation yet re- main-long lines of earthworks, blackened ruins of buildings, mills and property, lonely chimneys, the sole remains of former homes, forest trees torn and scarred by bullet and shell, and the shallow graves, where the dead were hastily interred.
There are no crops and no evidences of life. Few families remain, and the few that are here, move about in a listless sort of way. They have no property, and it is a wonder how they manage to live here at all. There are two places where one can realize something of the real horrors of war-the hospital, where the wounded lie, and the neighborhood where a battle has been
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fought. The whole Virginia Peninsula, from York- town to Richmond, is, to a greater or less extent, one continuous scene of desolation.
Thankful indeed should you be, my friend, that the country south of the James has escaped the despoiling hand of the war-fiend.
Your friend, B.
[It was indeed a most fortunate circumstance for the people in the counties south of the James river, that, from the beginning to the close of the war, that whole section of the State escaped, almost entirely, the burn- ing and destruction of private property, and the inter- ruptions, losses, and inconveniences arising from the presence of large armies. The people were not forced to leave their homes, the avocations of industry were not entirely interrupted, and, except in a few minor instances, property was not destroyed, as it was where the great army of invaders swept along. Especially did the counties of Surry, Isle of Wight and Southampton, from whence the Light Artillery was chiefly made up, pass through the period of the war almost untouched by fire and invasion. It was the source of great thankful- ness to the men of the S. L. A. that it fell not to their lot to look upon burned and desolated homes, fields en- trenched and ditched, and timber destroyed, on their return to their homes.
In their marches over the State, the soldiers from the Southside counties had witnessed the ruin and de-
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vastation that invariably followed wherever a Federal army had been. They had seen and heard how some of the leaders of invasion had boasted that they had left nothing behind them but misery. They had seen how old men, women and children had been robbed of the comforts and common needs of life, solely to gratify the malice or fiendishness of a heartless foe. And while they beheld these things, they had felt a pang of fear for their own homes, a painful apprehension that the like despoliation and misery would meet their gaze when they returned to the scenes of their own child- hood. Truly, we of these counties have much to be thankful for, that the hand of war fell so lightly upon us, comparatively with other sections-that the besom of ruin swept so tenderly here-that homes and hearth- stones escaped desecration. Let us thank God for it all, and eling to these homes all the more lovingly.]
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LETTER TWENTY-FIFTH.
Return into camp-Confederate reverses-Hope for us yet-Our cause just-Why we sometimes fail-Conscripts and skulk- ers-Note.
CAMP LETCHER, VA., July 14, 1863.
My Dear Friend :- After spending a week in our bivouac at New Bridge, and no enemy appearing to claim our attention, we left the sad scenes of the Chicka- hominy, and the pestilent mosquitoes, and returned to our pleasant camp at this place. All is serene again about the Capital, and along the York and the James, and generally so all over the State.
But I learn that it is far from being so in other parts of the country, particularly in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. General Lee's army, after fighting several hard battles, in which they were uniformly successful, met with a severe repulse on July 3d, and is now slowly retiring, and, by this time, has re-crossed the Potomac. In the reverse of the 3d, it was General Pickett's Di- vision that sustained the burden of the repulse, meeting with very heavy loss in killed and wounded. The 3d Virginia Infantry, to which, you know, the S. L. A. was attached in 1861, is in that Division, and was in the charge made by General Pickett's command. I hear their loss was very great. Colonel A. D. Calcott, who
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led the Regiment in the charge, was killed. It turned out to be a severe disaster, the heaviest, it is said, that General Lee's army has yet met with. But it was only a repulse. There was no confusion, no panic, in any other part of the army, on account of it. General Lee stood and offered battle the next day, but the challenge was not accepted. He then retired leisurely toward Virginia.
But it was at Vicksburg, Miss., that the worst dis- aster, perhaps, of the whole war has befallen our arms. After days and weeks of battle and siege, that strong- hold has been given up to the enemy, the Mississippi is open to the Federal fleet from end to end, and the territory of the Confederacy has been rent in twain. The States west of the Mississippi are now isolated from the remainder of the Confederacy.
These two great reverses, happening at the same time, have naturally cast a gloom over all the country. The loss at Vicksburg was particularly heavy in material and men, to say nothing of the place as a stronghold and connecting link between the two parts of the Confed- vracy. Some think it was a fatal blow.
But, though our losses have been great, there is yet hope for us. The spirit and courage of the army have not been broken. Let us figlit them hereafter on our own soil. Our cause is just, and so long as a single invader remains to disturb us, we ought to, we must, tight them. Though the private soldier feels and knows
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that some one in authority has been guilty of blundering, there remains a determined feeling "to fight them to the last ditch."
May it not be that these reverses are chastisements, sent upon our country as a rebuke for the sins of the mation ? I have thought all along that God would, in some way, punish us for the flagrant and causeless dis- regard of the sanctity of the Sabbath day. May the afflictions already sent suffice to recall all in authority to a sense of our sins, and produce a speedy reformation and return to duty. But I have no heart to speak further of the deplorable state of things that confronts us.
The buildings on the Fair Grounds (Camp Lee), where we drill, are being used as a camp of instruction for the State conscripts, or drafted men, who have been forced into service. There they are drilled and trained until assigned to some command. It is whispered around that the experiences of a conscript at Camp Lee are not altogether pleasant. Doubtless many a man will retain a vivid recollection of the place to his dying day. Well, they should have gone out earlier, and thus escaped the den. But there are men who would rather suffer martyrdom at Camp Lee than fill an honorable place in the line of battle. Poor fellows! They are to be pitied.
Since the late reverses, the enrolling officers will be- come busier and more energetic than ever, and large additions to the conscript camp may be expected. The
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skulkers and hiders at home may not have altogether an easy time of it, making baskets and mending shoes. They had better come out of the woods, like honorable inen, and give themselves up. Yet no one thinks much of the bush-hiders, as material for making good and efficient soldiers. And, perhaps, after all, they had as well be let alone, and allowed to remain in hiding. They count for little anywhere.
Hoping these dark clouds will soon roll away and victory be ours again --
Your friend, B.
[Lest the sons and daughters should entertain wrong impressions concerning the terms "conscript" and "skulkers," let me offer here an explanation. The words do not apply to one and the same class of men, but to different sets. Conscripts were those who, not having gone into the service voluntarily, were drafted and sent on to some place of instruction and training, like that at Camp Lee, in Richmond. No disgrace or reproach should attach to any one who was conscripted, unless otherwise he attempted to evade the call and es- cape from duty. All could not volunteer at first, and there were some men to whom military service was never a fit and useful place. They would have been of more benefit to the State if they had been permitted to remain at home as farmers, laborers or mechanics. Let no one, then, attach any discreditable meaning to the term "conscript." The word itself is one of respect.
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The Latin, conscriptus, from conscribo, to enroll, means "written, enrolled," and was applied to the body of senators of Rome, who were termed conscript fathers because their names were written in the register of the senate.
The other term, "skulkers," is meant to apply to those men-there were a few such-who declined to go into military service at all, and to escape arrest, went into some place of concealment, and remained hid from public observation until it became safe for them to appear openly. The skulker is one who will not fight. The deserter is one, who, having been in the service, deserts his command, and either skulks at home or goes to the enemy. enemy. The traitor is one who deserts his post, violates his allegiance to his command or country, and betrays it to the enemy. The last deserves the deepest contempt. The skulker is to be despised. A traitor ought to be scorned and ostracized. The skulker de- serves to lose caste among all honorable men. But he cannot be regarded as an enemy. He is simply a shirk. He does not perform a public trust, or duty, but he betrays no one, and does not aid the enemy.]
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LETTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
Hanging of Kellogg, the spy-Revivals-Furloughs-Health of the Company-Books-Note.
CAMP LETCHER, VA., Aug. 3, 1863.
My Dear Friend :- I was present, on Friday after- noon, at the hanging of Kellogg, the spy, who was cap- tured a year ago at Island No. 10, in the Mississippi river. He was executed at Camp Lee, on the grounds where we drill daily. He manifested intrepid resolu- tion, was perfectly calm, conversed freely and pleas- antly with his gnard, and met death with great firmness. At the given signal the trap fell, and the body swung in mid-air. A few convulsive movements passed over his frame, and then the body relaxed, and all was over.
Such was the fate of Kellogg, But what is the death of one man, when thousands fall in a single battle ? Truly, war has many repellant phases, many horrors, many tragedies, and there are many secret foes and many betrayals. And when or what the end, no man knoweth.
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