Personal Reminiscences of the War of 1861-5 / In Camp—en Bivouac—on the March—on Picket—on the Skirmish Line—on the Battlefield—and in Prison

by W. H. Morgan

VIRGINIA DISMEMBERED

A most atrocious act of the Yankee Government during the war, high-handed and inexcusable and without any semblance of law, right or necessity, was the dismemberment of the State of Virginia, when the old Mother of States was despoiled of one-third of her territory. West Virginia, cleft as it was from the side of the old Mother State by the sword, when in the throes of war, left that mother bleeding, and robbed of her richest mineral territory. Not that it would make the United States Government any stronger or richer, but only to satiate the hatred, revenge and malice of the Yankee nation. Virginia! The proud Old Dominion, that in 1795 voluntarily gave to the young Republic that vast northwestern domain, 250,000 square miles in extent, which her sons, during the Revolutionary War, single-handed and alone, under the leadership of the indomitable George Rogers Clark, wrested from the British and their Indian allies, and which now comprises the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River; yet her original domains, as one of the thirteen States as fixed and adjusted after Kentucky was formed, and the ceding to the United States of this great western empire; the oldest, foremost, and proudest of the States, on whose shores the first English settlement on the continent was made, whose ter-centennial in this year of Grace, 1907, is being celebrated, and on whose sacred soil the fires of liberty were kindled and fanned into flame by the burning words, "Give me liberty or give me death," which fell from the lips of her own Patrick Henry; yet Virginia, the proud old Mother of States and statesmen, her borders extending from the sands on the ocean shore on the east to the Ohio River on the west, must be cut in twain, in hatred, in malice and in revenge.

These facts, the treatment of prisoners, and destruction of private property, are here recorded that the truth of history may be vindicated, and that the cold-blooded and cruel atrocities of the enemies of the South may not be forgotten. Multiplied instances of cruelty and vandalism might be here written down, but the subject is distasteful.

All this cruelty and these wanton acts of devastation and destruction were visited on the South and her people, not because they were criminals and outlaws, but to satiate Yankee hatred and revenge. That the South acted within her rights in withdrawing from the Union is now conceded by all unbiased and fair-minded men who have intelligence enough to investigate the rights of the states under the original compact—the Bill of Rights, the constitutions of several states, and the Constitution of the United States.

Impartial history will accord the South honor, genius, skill, bravery and endurance, under adverse conditions, unexampled; victories many, against great odds. Truthfully has it been said of the Confederacy:

"No nation rose so white and fair,

Or fell so pure of crime"—

While to the North will be accorded success through unlimited resources and vastly superior numbers, together with dishonor and shame for cruelty, revengefulness and wanton destruction of private property, unequaled in modern history.

CHAPTER XXII
Lee's Surrender—Lincoln's Assassination—Out
of Prison and at Home

Prison life at Fort Delaware had not improved any during the absence of the 600; the same bad, scanty rations were still served, with no surcease of the tedious, weary hours. When General Lee surrendered at Appomattox on the 9th of April, 1865, the prisoners were very much depressed, and almost the last hope of the establishment of the independence of the South vanished. A meeting of the Virginia officers was held to consult as to what was best to be done. Gen. Jos. E. Johnston was still in the field with an army in North Carolina, and Gen. Kirby Smith, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, was in Texas with a few thousand men. Whether we would abandon all hope and get out of prison as soon as possible by taking the oath of allegiance to the United States Government, which was offered, or await future events, were the questions discussed. Several speeches were made. Among the speakers I remember Capt. Jas. Bumgardner, of Staunton; Capt. H. Clay Dickerson, of Bedford, and Capt. Don P. Halsey, of Lynchburg. Captain Halsey closed his speech by submitting a motion: "That the meeting take no action at present," which motion I seconded, and it was carried unanimously. We were not yet ready to surrender to what seemed to be the inevitable. General Johnston was still standing before the enemy with his tattered, battered, and shattered battalions, and we considered our unqualified allegiance was still due to the Confederacy while he thus stood. The remaining days of April were anxious and exciting ones.