No officer or soldier under the rank of a general is allowed
into Chambersburg without a special order from General Lee, which he is very
chary of giving; and I hear of officers of rank being refused this pass.
Moses proceeded into town at 11 A.M., with an official
requisition for three days' rations for the whole army in this neighbourhood.
These rations he is to seize by force, if not voluntarily supplied.
I was introduced to General Hood this morning; he is a tall,
thin, wiry-looking man, with a grave face and a light-coloured beard,
thirty-three years old, and is accounted one of the best and most promising
officers in the army. By his Texan and Alabamian troops he is adored; he
formerly commanded the Texan Brigade, but has now been promoted to the command
of a division. His troops are accused of being a wild set, and difficult to
manage; and it is the great object of the chiefs to check their innate
plundering propensities by every means in their power.
I went into Chambersburg at noon, and found Lawley ensconced
in the Franklin Hotel. Both he and I had much difficulty in getting into that
establishment — the doors being locked, and only opened with the greatest
caution. Lawley had had a most painful journey in the ambulance yesterday, and
was much exhausted. No one in the hotel would take the slightest notice of him,
and all scowled at me in a most disagreeable manner. Half-a-dozen Pennsylvanian
viragos surrounded and assailed me with their united tongues to a deafening
degree. Nor would they believe me when I told them I was an English spectator
and a noncombatant: they said I must be either a Rebel or a Yankee — by which
expression I learned for the first time that the term Yankee is as much used as
a reproach in Pennsylvania as in the South. The sight of gold, which I
exchanged for their greenbacks, brought about a change, and by degrees they
became quite affable. They seemed very ignorant, and confused Texans with
Mexicans.
After leaving Lawley pretty comfortable, I walked about the
town and witnessed the pressing operations of Moses and his myrmidons. Neither
the Mayor nor the corporation were to be found anywhere, nor were the keys of
the principal stores forthcoming until Moses began to apply the axe. The
citizens were lolling about the streets in a listless manner, and showing no
great signs of discontent. They had left to their women the task of resisting
the commissaries — a duty which they were fully competent to perform. No
soldiers but those on duty were visible in the streets.
In the evening I called again to see Lawley, and found in
his room an Austrian officer, in the full uniform of the Hungarian hussars. He
had got a year's leave of absence, and has just succeeded in crossing the
Potomac, though not without much trouble and difficulty. When he stated his
intention of wearing his uniform, I explained to him the invariable custom of
the Confederate soldiers, of never allowing the smallest peculiarity of dress
or appearance to pass without a torrent of jokes, which, however good-humoured,
ended in becoming rather monotonous.
I returned to camp at 6 P.M. Major Moses did not get back
till very late, much depressed at the illsuccess of his mission. He had
searched all day most indefatigably, and had endured much contumely from the
Union ladies, who called him “a thievish little rebel scoundrel,” and other
opprobrious epithets. But this did not annoy him so much as the manner in which
everything he wanted had been sent away or hidden in private houses, which he
was not allowed by General Lee's order to search. He had only managed to secure
a quantity of molasses, sugar, and whisky. Poor Moses was thoroughly exhausted;
but he endured the chaff of his brother officers with much good-humour, and
they made him continually repeat the different names he had been called. He
said that at first the women refused his Confederate “trash” with great scorn,
but they ended in being very particular about the odd cents.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 247-50
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