Books: With Lee in Virginia; A Story Of The American Civil War

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It was on Monday the 25th of August that Jackson started on his
march, ascending the banks of the Rappahannock, and crossed the
river at a ford, dragging his artillery with difficulty up the narrow
and rocky road beyond. There was not a moment to be lost, for if
the news reached the enemy the gorge known as Thoroughfare Gap
would be occupied, and the whole object of the movement be
defeated. Onward the force pushed, pressing on through fields and
lanes without a single halt, until at night, hungry and weary but full
of spirit, they marched into the little town of Salem, twenty miles
from their starting-place. They had neither wagons nor provisions
with them, and had nothing to eat but some ears of corn and green
apples plucked on the road.

It was midnight when they reached Salem, and the inhabitants
turned out in blank amazement at the sight of Confederate troops
in that region, and welcomed the weary soldiers with the warmest
manifestations. At daylight they were again upon the march, with
Stuart's cavalry, as before, out upon each flank. Thoroughfare Gap
was reached, and found undefended, and after thirty miles'
marching the exhausted troops reached the neighborhood of
Manassas. The men were faint from want of food, and many of
them limped along barefooted; but they were full of enthusiasm.

Just at sunset, Stuart, riding on ahead, captured Bristoe, a station
on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad four miles from Manassas.
As they reached it a train came along at full speed. It was fired at,
but did not stop, and got safely through to Manassas. Two trains
that followed were captured; but by this time the alarm bad spread,
and no more trains arrived. Jackson had gained his point. He had
placed himself on the line of communication of the enemy, but his
position was a dangerous one indeed. Lee, who was following
him, was still far away. An army was marching from
Fredericksburg against him, another would be despatched from
Washington as soon as the news of his presence was known, and
Pope might turn and crush him before Lee could arrive to his
assistance.

Worn out as the troops were, it was necessary at once to gain
possession of Manassas, and the 21st North Carolina and 21st
Georgia volunteered for the service, and, joined by Stuart with a
portion of his cavalry, marched against it. After a brief contest the
place was taken, the enemy stationed there being all taken
prisoners. The amount of arms and stores captured was
prodigious. Eight pieces of artillery, 250 horses, 3 locomotives,
and tens of thousands of barrels of beef, pork, and flour, with an
enormous quantity of public stores and the contents of
innumerable sutlers' shops.

The sight of this vast abundance to starving men was tantalizing in
the extreme. It was impossible to carry any of it away and all that
could be done was to have at least one good meal. The troops
therefore were marched in and each helped himself to as much as
he could consume, and the ragged and barefooted men feasted
upon tinned salmon and lobsters, champagne and dainties of every
description forwarded for the use of officers. Then they set to
work to pile the enormous mass of stores together and to set it on
fire. While they were engaged at this a brigade of New Jersey
troops which had come out from Washington to save Manassas
was attacked and utterly routed. Ewell's division had remained at
Bristoe, while those of Hill and Jackson moved to Manassas, and
in the course of the afternoon Ewell saw the whole of Pope's army
marching against him.

He held them in check for some hours, and thus gave the troops at
Manassas time to destroy completely the vast accumulation of
stores, and when Stuart's cavalry, covering the retreat, fell back at
nightfall through Manassas, nothing but blackened cinders
remained where the Federal depots had been situated. The blow to
the Northerners was as heavy as it was unexpected. Pope had no
longer either provisions for his men or forage for his cattle, and
there was nothing left for him but to force his way past Jackson
and retire upon Washington.

Jackson had now the option of falling back and allowing the
enemy to pass, or of withstanding the whole Federal army with his
own little force until Lee came up to the rescue. He chose the
latter course, and took up a strong position. The sound of firing at
Thoroughfare Gap was audible, and he knew that Longstreet's
division of Lee's army was hotly engaged with a force which, now
that it was too late, bad been sent to hold the gorge. It was nearly
sunset before Pope brought up his men to the attack. Jackson did
not stand on the defensive, but rushed down and attacked the
enemy-whose object had been to pass the position and press
on-with such vigor that at nine o'clock they fell back.

An hour later a horseman rode up with the news that Longstreet
had passed the Gap and was pressing on at full speed, and in the
morning his forces were seen approaching, the line they were
taking bringing them up at an angle to Jackson's position. Thus
their formation as they arrived was that of an open V, and it was
through the angle of this V that Pope had to force his way. Before
Longstreet could arrive, however, the enemy hurled themselves
upon Jackson, and for hours the Confederates held their own
against the vast Federal army, Longstreet's force being too far away
to lend them a hand. Ammunition failed, and the soldiers fought
with piles of stones, but night fell without any impression being
made upon these veterans. General Lee now came up with
General Hood's division, and hurled this against the Federals and
drove them back. In the evening Longstreet's force took up the
position General Lee had assigned to it, and in the morning all the
Confederate army had arrived, and the battle recommenced.

The stuggle was long and terrible; but by nightfall every attack had
been repulsed, and the Confederates, advancing on all sides, drove
the Northerners, a broken and confused crowd, before them, the
darkness alone saving them from utter destruction. Had there been
but one hour more of daylght the defeat would have been as
complete as was that in the battle of Bull Run, which had been
fought on precisely the same ground. However, under cover of the
darkness the Federals retreated to Centreville, whence they were
driven on the following day.

In the tremendous fighting in which Jackson's command had for
three long days been engaged, the cavalry bore a comparatively
small part. The Federal artillery was too powerful to permit the
employment of large bodies of cavalry and although from time to
time charges were made when an opportunity seemed to offer
itself, the battle was fought out by the infantry and artillery. When
the end came Jackson's command was for a time hors de combat.
During the long two days' march they had at least gathered corn
and apples to sustain ]ife; but during these three days' fighting they
had had no food whatever, and many were so weak that they could
no longer march.

They had done all that was possible for men to do; had for two
days withstood the attack of an enemy of five times their numbers,
and had on the final day borne their full share in the great struggle,
but now the greater part cou]d do no more, thousands of men were
unable to drag themselves a step further, and Lee's army was
reduced in strength for the time by nearly 20,000 men. All these
afterward rejoined it; some as soon as they recovered limped away
to take their places in the ranks again, others made their way to the
depot at Warrenton, where Lee had ordered that all unable to
accompany his force should rendezvous until he returned and they
were able to rejoin their regiments.

Jackson marched away and laid siege to Harper's Ferry, an
important depot garrisoned by 11,000 men, who were forced to
surrender just as McClellan with a fresh army, 100,000 strong,
which was pressing forward to its succor, arrived within a day's
march. As soon as Jackson had taken the place be hurried away
with his troops to join Lee, who was facing the enemy at the
Antictam river. Here upon the fellowing day another terrible battle
was fought; the Confederates, though but 39,000 strong, repulsing
every attack by the Federals, and driving them with terrible
slaughter back across the river.

Their own loss, however, had been very heavy, and Lee, knowing
that he could expect no assistance, while the enemy were
constantly receiving reinforcements, waited for a day to collect his
wounded, bury his dead, and send his stores and artillery to the
rear, and then retired unpursued across the Rappahannock. Thus
the hard-fought campaign came to an end.

Vincent Wingfield was not with the army that retired across the
Rappahannock. A portion of the cavalry had followed the broken
Federals to the very edge of the stream, and just as they reined in
their horses a round shot from one of the Federal batteries carried
away his cap, and he fell as if dead from his horse. During the
night some of the Northerners crossed the stream to collect and
bring back their own wounded who had fallen near it, and coming
across Vincent, and finding that he still breathed, and was
apparently without a wound, they carried him back with them
across the river as a prisoner.

Vincent had indeed escaped without a wound, having been only
stunned by the passage of the shot that had carried away his cap,
and missed him but by the fraction of an inch. He had begun to
recover consciousness just as his captors caine up, and the action
of carrying him completely restored him. That he had fallen into
the hands of the Northerners he was well aware; but he was unable
to imagine how this, had happened. He remembered that the
Confederates had been, up to the moment when he fell, completely
successful, and he could only imagine that in a subsequent attack
the Federals had turned the tables upon them.

How he himself had fallen, or what had happened to him, he had
no idea. Beyond a strange feeling of numbness in the head he was
conscious of no injury, and he could only imagine that his horse
had been shot under him, and that he must have fallen upon his
head. The thought that his favorite horse was killed afflicted him
almost as much as his own capture. As soon as his captors
perceived that their prisoner's consciousness had returned they at
once reported that an officer of Stuart's cavalry had been taken,
and at daybreak next morning General McClellan on rising was
acquainted with the fact, and Vincent was conducted to his tent.

"You are unwounded, sir?" the general said in some surprise.

"I am, general," Vincent replied. "I do not know how it happened,
but I believe that my horse must have been shot under me, and that
I must have been thrown and stunned; however, I remember
nothing from the moment when I heard the word halt, just as we
reached the side of the stream, to that when I found myself being
carried here."

"You belong to the cavalry?"

Yes, sir."

Was Lee's force all engaged yesterday?"

"I do not know," Vincent said. "I only came up with Jackson's
division from Harper's Ferry the evening before."

"I need not have questioned you," McClellan said. "I know that
Lee's whole army, 100,000 strong, opposed me yesterday."

Vincent was silent. He was glad to see that the Federal general, as
usual, enormously overrated the strength of the force opposed to
him.

"I hear that the whole of the garrison of Harper's Ferry were
released on parole not to serve again during the war. If you are
ready to give me your promise to the same effect I will allow you
to return to your friends; if not, you must remain a prisoner until
you are regularly exchanged."

"I must do so, then, general," Vincent said quietly. "I could not
return home and remain inactive while every man in the South is
fighting for the defense of his country, so I will take my chance of
being exchanged."

"I am sorry you choose that alternative," McClellan said. "I hate to
see brave men imprisoned if only for a day; and braver men than
those across yonder stream are not to be found. My officers and
men are astonished. They seem so thin and worn as to be scarce
able to lift a musket, their clothes are fit only for a scarecrow, they
are indeed pitiful objects to look at; but the way in which they
fight is wonderful. I could not have believed had I not seen it, that
men could have charged as they did again and again across ground
swept by a tremendous artillery and musketry fire; it was
wonderful! I can tell you, young sir, that even though you beat us
we are proud of you as our countrymen; and I believe that if your
General Jackson were to ride through our camp he would be
cheered as lustily and heartily by our men as he is by his own."

Some fifty or sixty other prisoners had been taken; they had been
captured in the hand-to-hand struggle that had taken place on some
parts of the field, having got separated from their corps and mixed
up with the enemy, and carried off the field with them as they
retired. These for the most part accepted the offered parole; but
some fifteen, like Vincent, preferred a Northern prison to
promising to abstain from fighting in defense of their country, and
in the middle of the day they were placed together in a tent under a
guard at the rear of the camp.

The next morning came the news that Lee had fallen back. There
was exultation among the Federals, not unmingled with a strong
sense of relief; for the heavy losses inflicted in the previous
fighting had taken all the ardor of attack out of McClellan's army,
and they were glad indeed that they were not to be called upon to
make another attempt to drive the Confederates from their
position. Vincent was no less pleased at the news. He knew how
thin were the ranks of the Confederate fighting men, and how
greatly they were worn and exhausted by fatigue and want of food,
and that, although they had the day before repulsed the attacks of
the masses of well-fed Northerners, such tremendous exertions
could not often be repeated, and a defeat, with the river in their
rear, approachable only by one rough and narrow road, would have
meant a total destruction of the army.

The next morning Vincent and his companions were put into the
train and sent to Alexandria. They had no reason to complain of
their treatment upon the way. They were well fed, and after their
starvation diet for the last six weeks their rations seemed to them
actually luxurious. The Federal troops in Alexandria, who were for
the most part young recruits who had just arrived from the north
and west, looked with astonishment upon these thin and ragged
men, several of whom were barefooted. Was it possible that such
scarecrows as these could in every battle have driven back the
well-fed and cared-for Northern soldiers!

"Are they all like this?" one burly young soldier from a western
state asked their guard.

That's them, sir," the sergeant in charge of the party replied. "Not
much to look at, are they? But, by gosh, you should see them
fight! You wouldn't think of their looks then."

"If that's soldiering," the young farmer said solemnly, "the sooner I
am back home again the better. But it don't seem to me altogether
strange as they should fight so hard, because I should say they
must look upon it as a comfort to be killed rather than to live like
that."

A shout of laughter from the prisoners showed the young rustic
that the objects of his pity did not consider life to be altogether
intolerable even under such circumstances, and he moved away
meditating on the discomforts of war, and upon the remarks that
would be made were he to return home in so sorrowful a plight as
that of these Confederate prisoners.

"I bargained to fight," be said, "and though I don't expect I shall
]ike it, I sha'n't draw back when the time comes; but as to being
starved till you are nigh a skeleton, and going about barefooted and
in such rags as a tramp wouldn't look at, it ain't reasonable." And
yet, had he known it, among those fifteen prisoners more than half
were possessors of wide estates, and had been brought up from
their childhood in the midst of luxuries such as the young farmer
never dreamed of.

Among many of the soldiers sympathy took a more active form,
and men pressed forward and gave packets of tobacco, cigars, and
other little presents to them, while two or three pressed rolls of
dollar notes into their hands, with words of rough kindness.

"There ain't no ill feeling in us, Rebs. You have done your work
like men and no doubt you thinks your cause is right, just as we
does; but it's all over now, and maybe our turn will come next to
see the inside of one of your prisons down south. So we are just
soldiers together, and can feel for each other."

Discipline in small matters was never strictly enforced in the
American armies, and the sergeant in charge offered no opposition
to the soldiers mingling with the prisoners as they walked along.

Two days later they were sent by railway to the great prison at
Elmira, a town in the southwest of the State of New York. When
they reached the jail the prisoners were separated, Vincent, who
was the only officer, being assigned quarters with some twenty
others of the same rank. The prisoners crowded round him as he
entered, eager to hear the last news from the front, for they heard
from their guards only news of constant victories won by the
Northerners; for every defeat was transformed by the Northern
papers into a brilliant victory, and it was only when the shattered
remains of the various armies returned to Alexandria to be
re-formed that the truth gradually leaked out. Thus Antietam had
been claimed as a great Northern victory, for although McClellan's
troops had in the battle been hurled back shattered and broken
across the river, two days afterward Lee had retired.

One of the prisoners, who was also dressed in cavalry uniform,
hung back from the rest, and going to the window looked out while
Vincent was chatting with the others. Presently he turned round,
and Vincent recognized with surprise his old opponent Jackson.
After a moment's hesitation he walked across the room to him.

"Jackson," he said, "we have not been friends lately, but I don't see
why we should keep up our quarrel any longer; we got on all right
at school together; and now we are prisoners together here it
would be foolish to continue our quarrel. Perhaps we were both
somewhat to blame in that affair. I am quite willing to allow I
was, for one, but I think we might well put it all aside now."

Jackson hesitated, and then took the hand Vincent held out to him.

"That's right, young fellows," one of the other officers said. "Now
that every Southern gentleman is fighting and giving his life, if
need be, for his country, no one has a right to have private quarrels
of his own. Life is short enough as it is, certainly too short to
indulge in private animosities. A few weeks ago we were fighting
side by side, and facing death together; to-day we are prisoners; a
week hence we may he exchanged, and soon take our places in the
ranks again. It's the duty of all Southerners to stand shoulder to
shoulder, and there ought to be no such thing as ill-feeling among
ourselves."

Vincent was not previously aware that Jackson had obtained a
commission. He now learned that he had been chosen by his
comrades to fill a vacancy caused by the death of an officer in a
skirmish just before Pope fell back from the Rappahannock, and
that he had been made prisoner a few days afterward in a charge
against a greatly superior body of Federal cava]ry.

The great majority of the officers on both sides were at the
commencement of the war chosen by their comrades, the elections
at first taking place once a year. This, how-ever, was found to act
very badly. In some cases the best men in the regiment were
chosen; but too often men who had the command of money, and
could afford to stand treat and get in supplies of food and spirits,
were elected. The evils of the system were found so great, indeed,
that it was gradually abandoned; but in cases of vacancies
occurring in the field, and there being a necessity for at once
filling them up, the colonels of the regiments had power to make
appointments, and if the choice of the men was considered to be
satisfactory their nominee would be generally chosen.

In the case of Jackson, the colonel had hesitated in confirming the
choice of the men. He did not for a moment suspect him to be
wanting in courage; but he regarded him as one who shirked his
work, and who won the votes of the men rather by a fluent tongue
and by the violence of his expressions of hatred against the North
than by any soldierly qualities.

Some of the officers had been months in prison, and they were
highly indignant at the delays that had occurred in effecting their
exchange. The South, indeed, would have been only too glad to
get rid of some of their numerous prisoners, who were simply an
expense and trouble to them, and to get their own men back into
their ranks. They could ill spare the soldiers required to guard so
large a number of prisoners, and a supply of food was in itself a
serious matter.

Thus it was that at Harper's Ferry and upon a good many other
occasions they released vast numbers of prisoners on their simple
paroles not to serve again. The North, however, were in no hurry
to make exchange; and moreover, their hands were so full with
their enormous preparations that they put aside all matters which
had not the claim of urgency.

CHAPTER X. THE ESCAPE.

THE DISCIPLINE in the prison at Elmira was not rigorous. The
prisoners had to clean up the cells, halls, and yard, but the rest of
their time they could spend as they liked. Some of those whose
friends had money were able to live in comparative luxury, and to
assist those who had no such resources; for throughout the war
there was never any great difficulty in passing letters to and from
the South. The line of frontier was enormous, and it was only at
certain points that hostilities, were actively carried on,
consequently letters and newspapers were freely passed, and
money could be sent in the same way from one part of the country
to another.

At certain hours of the day hawkers and vendors of such articles as
were in most demand by the prisoners were allowed to enter the
yard and to sell their wares to the Confederates. Spirits were not
allowed to be carried in, but tobacco and all kinds of food were
permitted to pass. Vincent had at Alexandria written a letter to his
mother, and had given it to a man who represented that he made it
his business to forward letters to an agent at Richmond, being paid
for each letter the sum of a dollar on its delivery. Vincent therefore
felt confident that the anxiety that would be felt at home when
they learned that he was among the missing at the battle of
Antietam would be relieved.

He was fairly supplied with money. He had, indeed, had several
hundred dollars with him at the time he was captured; but these
were entirely in Confederate notes, for which he got but half their
value in Northern paper at Alexandria. He himself found the
rations supplied in the prison ample, and was able to aid any of his
fellow-prisoners in purchasing clothes to replace the rags they
wore when captured.

One day Vincent strolled down as usual toward the gate, where,
under the eye of the guard, a row of men and women, principally
negroes and negresses, were sitting on the ground with their
baskets in front of them containing tobacco, pipes, fruit, cakes,
needles and thread, buttons, and a variety of other articles in
demand, while a number of prisoners were bargaining and joking
with them. Presently his eye fell upon a negro before whom was a
great pile of watermelons. He started as he did so, for he at once
recognized the well-known face of Dan. As soon as the negro saw
that his master's eye had fallen upon him he began loudly praising
the quality of his fruit.

"Here, massa officer, here berry fine melyons, ripe and sweet; no
green trash; dis un good right through. Five cents each, sah. Berry
cheap dese."

"I expect they cost you nothing, Sambo," one of the Confederate
soldiers said as he bought a melon. "Got a neighbor's patch handy,
eh?"

Dan grinned at the joke, and then selecting another from the
bottom of his pile in the basket, offered it to Vincent.

"Dis fine fruit, sah. Me sure you please with him!"

Vincent took the melon and banded Dan five cents. A momentary
glance was exchanged, and then he walked away and sat down in a
quiet corner of the yard and cut open the melon. As he expected,
he found a note rolled up in the center. A small piece of the rind
had been cut out and the pulp removed for its reception. The bit of
rind had then been carefully replaced so that the out would not be
noticed without close inspection. It was from one of his
fellow-officers, and was dated the day after his capture. He read
as follows:

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