BEHIND THE ENEMY'S GUNS; LEE AND LONGSTREET.
Up at earliest dawn.
Feeling quite well. The sound of battle was in our ears. The ground is very foul
here; a winter camp and a fresh battle ground. Dead cavalrymen, killed
yesterday are in our midst, our men bury them. At daylight Longstreet's corps
came up on a forced march, moving close to us; it was two hours passing.
General Longstreet and staff call at General Lee's headquarters, a hundred
yards distant. The fore part of last night several batteries were hurried past,
sent, I think, to Lee's right. I think this early fighting is to facilitate a
movement by our left wing around Lee's right. Hard to get water. They let a few
men out with canteens under guard. When Longstreet returned to his column he was
accompanied by General Lee. A short time they stood together dismounted, with
bared heads, opposite us on the other side of Longstreet's cheering columns
hastening to battle. Grave concern was on their faces. Magnificent men;
but I felt oppressed with the fact of their attitude toward their country,
fighting to disrupt it, to maintain a claim of right to perpetuate slavery by unlimited
extension; to curse the whole country as it curses the South. Educated to serve
the Nation, sworn to do it, they break their oaths by acts most treasonable,
justifying their course by the flimsy pretext of the acts of their states in
seceding because a president, not their choice is elected. It is apalling how
men of large ability and boasted dignity, stultify themselves! the greater the
men the greater their responsibility for wrongful acts. The roar of deadly
battle this good morning witnesseth their and their associates sin. What
wretched perversion of the sentiment of patriotism! Their cause fails, God
rules! General Lee and staff passed close to me at 7 o'clock, galloping to the
front. He has a pleasant face, peculiarly impressive but stern; an imperative
temperament that inspires confidence, admiration and fear, the austere features
lighted by geniality and persistent characteristics signifying strength of
nature, but liable to act from illogical and dangerous influence that appeals
to prejudice, narrow pride, warped by false traditions; a bent of character
when once it espouses illegitimate conclusions, devotes his best ability to
accomplish ends his better judgment had condemned.
The battle had
opened at 5 o'clock, our sixth corp[s] attacking. Firing terrific, nearer this
point than last night but farther west, came nearer steadily, our forces
driving till Longstreet's corp[s] reached the field, overlapping our line and
regained the position from which our forces had driven them. Had our attack
occurred an hour earlier, decisive defeat of the Rebel forces engaged must have
resulted before Longstreet could have arrived. Our lines are reported in
confusion and falling back.
The rest of our
party who avoided capture last night, are brought in after trying all night to
escape. Officers are as humble as privates, look full as serious over
prospects. Talk of exchange as soon as the campaign is over, July at the
farthest. But the duration of this campaign is uncertain. A great disaster on
either side would need it. If there are no decisive results, and a prospect of
transferring the struggle to the vicinity of Richmond—Butler is already near
there—it will be longer than any other Virginia campaign. Lee will get no peace
as long as Grant maintains a position between Fredericksburg and Richmond,
until he is in his stronghold; then Lee's fate will be settled. Fortunate we
shall be if we see our lines by September. By 8 a. m. fighting ceased; wounded
coming in fast. Confederates taken to field hospitals, our wounded put with us.
Some have lain all night, are chilled badly. It is hard to see so many bleeding
men shot through faces, arms, legs, bodies, broken limbs, distorted mouths, one
with eye-ball dangling on his cheek, blood clotted on his face, neck and
breast. They let us help them from ambulances. They cry for water, some stupid,
some shaking with chills and crying for blankets. Rebels claim they whipped us
yesterday; but they have no advantage except in position; in that they are
losing. They admit two generals killed and Longstreet wounded. Fog clears away;
gets pleasant.
LEAVE BATTLE LINE FOR PRISON—INTERVIEW REBEL
OFFICER.
At 10 a. m. about
700 prisoners started for Orange Court House. Day hot, road dusty. We meet
supply trains, ambulances, troops and a few conveyances with civilians pushing
to the front, and for twenty miles groups of stragglers limping on, some lying
down, the hardest looking lot of men ever seen trying to get to their commands.
As we met the troops they cried, "What brigade's that?" "Are you
on to Richmond?" "Where's Grant?" We were told that already a
large portion of his army was north of the Rappahannock. Sneers, jeers and
words of contempt we did not notice; but when they told us we were whipped we
replied bitterly, "You fool yourselves." Till noon we march fast, the
guard keeping ranks closed up, threatening if one lagged. We suffered with thirst,
wallowed in a constant cloud of dust, panted with heat and chafed over our
terrible luck.
Our guard claims to
be General Lee's bodyguard; better men than the general run of Rebel soldiers.
They grew sociable and easy with us. We halted at noon near a creek in woods by
the roadside, until lately an army camp, and rested an hour. Bathing my head
and neck freely in the stream, I felt better. A man about forty years old, a
Captain, was eager to talk politics. I saw him talking to one of our soldiers
who was irritated by his secesh notions, which he put forward in a good natured
but overbearing way. The boy could not stand it and "blew on him" and
took another seat. Anxious for a little Copperhead philosophy from a
Southerner, I took a position nearly in front of him, my friend Thompson on my
right, and called him out. The group that listened were convinced that Northern
sympathizers are of the Virginia stripe, the same bird that can see only in the
night of slavery and Southern rights and the art of secession; and while he
believed in secession he was not of the "fire-eater" temperament but
would have preferred the further way round to the same point. That is, he
preferred that the slavery question be settled in favor of slaveholders in the
Union. But "Black Republicans" and "Nigger Stealers" had
seized the bridge, and the South had gone all one way by the Secession
route." "We conservatives fell in at last feeling elated and
sure," said he, "that when we get secession, friends at the North
will help us to pin to the wall the radicals, hang abolishionists, suppress
every newspaper like old Greeley's and stop the incendiary preaching against
slavery, and reestablish the Union on Southern ideas proclaimed by Alexander
H. Stephens in his inauguration speech, making slavery the chief
cornerstone of a new government."
We accepted his
declaration as very frank and representative of so-called Virginia
conservatives. Consequently they rejoiced to see a party crying down the
administration, praying that that party shall rise to power, in Northern
States, hurl every man from positions of trust that does not believe in the
policy of the extreme Southern leaders on the slavery doctrine, with the
fiercenes of vigilance committees. I had read much of this many times in stanch
newspapers, ratification speeches and in platforms. While in his mind lurked a
love for Union, he said: "First and always the independence of the South
must be the end of this war." If Northern "doe-faces" would
still whine for a Union on "time-honored principles" namely, on any
terms dictated by Calhoun disciples, their manhood and patriotism is a nullity.
A thousand times have I wept and raved that Northerners should palaver over
this deliberate treason of the South, failing to see the issue so plain that he
who runs may read. There never was a more direct conflict of principles than
this in which America is engaged.
To detail all was
said is impossible. I give some points to show his logic. I open by saying it
was foolish to "flare up," that we ought to be able to talk even if
we were prisoners, but if we could not express our views we had nothing to say;
that if free discussion had been allowed by the South for the last thirty years
instead of hanging Northerners for expressing opinions we would thought better of
each other, the problem would have been solved without war.
Tis home is at
Leesburg, Va., in Union lines. His wife resides there. He had known General Lee
many years and from the first was ready to follow him either way in this
contest; so was all northern Virginia. He confirmed my assertion that if Lee
had stood for the Union and offered his services, that the majority of
Virginians would have been on the side of the Union, and there would have been
no State of West Virginia; also that Lee deprecated secession, regarded it
revolutionary and contrary to the intention of the founders of the government,
and if successfully it would multiply the very evils slaveholders complain of.
But he justified his ultimate course by the fact that his State had seceded, that
it had a right to secede, and that his duty to Virginia was paramount to his
allegiance to the national government.
"A majority of Southern men are States
rights," said he, "and when it appeared that the South would secede,
State after State, it was plain to Southerners that the Union had gone to
pieces,—nothing left to hang to, even if every Northern State should legalize
nigger slavery and embellish all Northern political platforms with Southern
notions about that 'peculiar institution.' Southern rights, secession, and
slavery is the prevailing trend, out and out slave confederacy the aim. No man
of character can live in the South and attain success without slaves, or an
heirdom, pecuniarily or socially. A slave holder has standing; it is a
certificate of character, a credential that takes him everywhere, to be master
and owner of labor. He holds the church in his hand, and in his grip the
politicians and the state. The press must be his tool. He is master of society
as well as his slaves; commands respect from centers of fashion and trade, even
in England and France regardless of professed aversion to slavery. You had not
a merchant in New York, of wealth and influence, who did not cater to the hated
slave-power; always will out of the Union the same as in."
He owned slaves when
the war began; he had thirty-three. He said: "You nigger stealers got all
but one, and he is a cook in Lee's army." Then to my surprise he said:
"I never did
believe slavery right; it began by stealing and piracy, and you fellows mean it
shall end the same way. It is practically the curse, of the South, degrading to
the master morally; degrading to the mass who never did and never can hold
slaves; yet the mass are the bone and sinew of its strength. Slavery is to be
the cornerstone of the Confederacy; but that stone rests upon the bare backs of
the non-slave holding rank and file. They must be our military strength. They
are not and cannot be our industrial strength; that belongs to the slaves under
the whip. The wealth, social and political power, lie with slave owners; they
are the land owners; they rule the white mass as effectually and at less cost
than they control the blacks. The future of the South is a military empire and
necessarily a wealthy power."
I endorsed his
prophesy, if the South should succeed, and asked: "If slavery is not
right, why are you fighting to maintain it? Why will it not be abolished? He
said:
"The South has
made it a permanent system not only of domestic importance, but a state policy,
a source of social, economical and political strength. The abolishionists are
not strong enough
to abolish it;
secession has placed it beyond their reach. It is an accomplished fact. If the
Confederacy is not recognized this summer it will be be [sic] after the fall election. The wealth power of the North, then,
through commercial and financial interests, will be weighed against you."
"You are
deluded, Sir, in assuming that secession, if successful, will put slavery
beyond the growing power of abolishionism. Freedom is progressive; your boast
arrays civilization and progress against you. Again you are wrong in assuming
that the Confederacy will be recognized this year or next. The rabid spirit of
the slave power has called into greater force the love of liberty, the
principle written in the
Declaration of Independence, than has been known for ages. The very fact
that your great men of Virginia today repudiate Washington, Jefferson, Henry
and Madison, convicts you of treason to the spirit of '76. Your apparent chance
of success as it seemed to exist has gone. You stole States, forts, arms, men
trained at government cost, until we had nothing left in the South and but
little in the North. We then proposed to coax you to old fashioned loyalty
patched with a new slavery grant. But you thought you had it all. We now
propose to restore the Union and purge it of slavery. Instead of recognition
you will see that secession will go to pieces and your Confederacy will
collapse. We were unprepared for this fight, you boasted you were ready. We are
now ready and your power must wane. It will cost less to save the Union without
slavery than with it. Should you now offer to accept our first purpose, to save
the Union, with slavery, the North would scorn it. The trend is against your
scheme of a black Utopia, a slave owning, slave breeding, slave selling, slave
working empire.
"Had the
Democrats of the North done as they might have done you would not have been
here, boys. Abe Lincoln could not have carried on the war. The abolishionists
will have a sweet time up North this fall if they run McClellan for
president." "What did you expect they would do?"
"Do what they
said they would, oppose the draft and war by force, not let the abolishionists
rule."
"Is it possible
you expected what you call the Democrats would assist you?"
"We cal'lated
their opposition to Lincoln would prevent war, but they kept still and let him
control the people and gave him power in Congress and had not nerve to oppose
him."
"But it was
your party that gave him power in Congress by seceding; they boasted North that
Lincoln could not choose his Cabinet except by sanction of a Democratic
Senate."
"Yes, but we
had seceded, and there would have been less bloodshed had they shed some."
"You deceived
yourselves."
"Should not
have been deceived had Seymour led the New York riot. When he was elected
Governor the South rejoiced; New York would send no more men and when that riot
came up we expected great things; but instead of running it he let it run
itself; he might have helped us there."
"What, you
don't suppose Horatio Seymour is in sympathy with secession! He will stand for
the Union till the last." My aim was to make them believe that the North
is a unit. So I added: "The people of the South have, and will rely in
vain upon this element; the mere difference of opinion never will injure our
strength. The North is as one man on the question of Union and never will give
it up; they can whip you and will do it."
"See what they
will do if they elect McClellan, he is your best man; you never ought to have
removed him."
"Will you come
back into the Union if he should be elected?"
"Never; we'd be
d----d fools to come into the Union then. Never; until all States shall have
adopted policies favorable to slavery!"
He said the administration
would have interfered with slavery if they had not gone to war. I quoted from
the Chicago resolutions, speeches and the resolutions of Congress after they
had seceded and left the power in the hands of the Republicans, showing they
were anxious to give them every guarantee not to interfere with the local
establishment of slavery by legislation; that they persisted in revolt and
measures were adopted accordingly. "You invited war," I said,
"and that invites the use of the war power against slavery. After it is
over you may resume rightful relations in other matters but slavery will be
ended."
"Well, niggers
run into Pennsylvania and they would not let them come back."
"Recognize your
Confederacy; will not the nigger go over? Will it not be an inducement to run
away? Will your fugitive slave law apply?"
"Yes, they may
run away."
"Will we as a
nation give them up?"
"I don't know;
reckon not."
"What will you
do if we don't?"
"We'll fight
for them."
"What have you
gained there?"
"It's a state
right to secede; you deny it, we establish it."
"Could you
maintain a Confederacy three years?"
"I presume not;
South Carolina'd kick up a muss in six months and raise h--l."
"Then the other
States would have to assume the obligations of the Confederacy; this would
produce discontent; what would you do?"
"Well, I s'pose
we'd whip her back."
Taking him by the
buttonhole, I said: "Where are your state rights, man?"
Amid the shouts of
the boys he laughed, frowned, colored, and was much agitated, and said:
"Damn her; she
and Massachusetts ought to've been shoved into the ocean years ago."
"That can't be
done; you'd whip her back and that is precisely what we are doing only on a
larger scale. Can you blame us for whipping you back?"
"Never can do
it. We will have our independence; without that there will not be a slave in
the South; a man is a fool that thinks we are fighting for compromise, or will
give up till we are whipped, or force you to concede our rights."
"So we might as
well have it out and end the matter, slavery question and all."
"Yes, sir; we
agree on that."
"We are going
to do it," shouted the boys.
Giving him a Union
hardtack and receiving one of his, feeling heartily thankful that we had over
an hour's talk with an officer of Lee's bodyguard, we pursued our dreary
journey, considerably rested.
TALKS AND INCIDENTS AT GORDONSVILLE.
Passing Mine Run we
got a view of that formidable position which we invested in December last and
realized the wisdom of General Meade's caution in retiring. The most important
place on the route is Old Verdersville where we raided her public wells. Many
of our men were overcome with thirst, heat and cramps. Griffith and I had some
dried currants and Jamaica ginger which we distributed much to their relief. It
was eight in the evening, and very dark when we arrived at Orange Court House.
They put us in the court house yard which is paved with cobble stones and
surrounded by an iron fence, so crowded that there was not room for all to lie
down. We had come 25 miles, was faint, tired, dejected; had eaten but little
all day, piecing out the remnant of rations drawn May 3 and 4, not knowing when
the Rebels would issue any.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 30-8
