But you ask: “Was not General Averill near enough to have prevented the rebels from executing their nefarious design upon your town? and, if so, why did not General Couch inform him of the situation of affairs, and urge him forward?” The answer is at hand. General Couch did attempt to inform General Averill in time of the fact that the enemy, with a force about three thousand strong, had crossed the Potomac west of Williamsport, and was moving by way of Mercersburg and St. Thomas directly on Chambersburg. Averill was encamped one mile from Greencastle (ten from Chambersburg) on Friday night, July 29. The first two messengers with despatches from General Couch, could not find him. The third messenger succeeded accidentally in finding him after midnight in a field. Averill only now discovered that he had been flanked by the enemy, and expressed himself greatly surprised and chagrined to the messenger at this state of things. Whether he was to blame, it is not for me to say. It is sufficient for my purpose just now to know that, beyond two small cannon and one hundred men, we were without any military protection. And could the few hundred citizens of the place, most of them without firearms, be expected to make a resistance against such a force, and with six cannon planted on the hills overlooking the town? To ask the question is to answer it.
In reading over the two preceding paragraphs it occurred to me that the impression might have been made on your mind, that I wished to find fault with the General Government for removing from us all military protection on our border. I have no wish to do so in this letter. I am no military man, and hence am not so positive in my opinions as many other men, who are doubtless far more capable of forming a judgment in such matters. I merely mention the simple facts as they are patent to all who had the best opportunities of knowing the true state of things. So, too, in regard to both the Generals named. There is, since the burning of our town, a very strong feeling of disapprobation in our community and elsewhere against both, especially against General Couch. I cannot as yet share this feeling. I know how apt we are, especially when smarting under severe personal losses or grievances, to look around for some object upon which, or some person on whom, to lay the blame. For my part, I would rather err on the side of charity than on the side of unjust fault-finding and denunciation. I prefer, until better advised, to endorse the views of my friend Colonel A. K. McClure, himself one of the sufferers, and well posted in such matters. He says:
“General Averill possibly might have saved Chambersburg, and I know that General Couch exhausted himself to get Averill to fall back from Greencastle to this point. I do not say that General Averill is to blame, for he was under orders from General Hunter, and not subject to General Couch. He had a large force of the enemy in his front, and until it is clearly proved to the contrary, I must believe that he did his whole duty.”
These two sentences are guardedly worded. “General Averill possibly might have saved Chambersburg.” The enemy, under McCausland, Bradley Johnson, and Gilmore, let it be recollected, had at least three thousand cavalry, with artillery at command, eight hundred of the latter being in town, the rest within supporting distance. Johnson’s command occupied the high eminence one mile west of the town with a battery. No better position could have been desired. They were flushed at the prospect of plunder and pillage; their horses were fresh and sleek; their men resolute and defiant. On the other hand, Averill and his men had been worn out and jaded by long and heavy marches in Western Virginia for a number of consecutive weeks. Their horses were run down, and many of them ready to die, so that two hundred and fifty of these last could not be taken any farther, but were left here to recruit. It is therefore only possible, scarcely probable, that, even if Averill’s force of less than two thousand five hundred men had been here, a successful resistance could have been made under these circumstances. But Averill and his men were not here until several hours after the work of destruction was accomplished, and the enemy, gloating over his vengeful deeds, was miles away on the Western Turnpike, towards McConnellsburg.
Judge then, dear sir, how keenly we must feel the unjust reproaches heaped upon us by professed friends, after our houses are in ruins, our goods despoiled, and our hearts saddened at every step we take in beholding continuous squares of desolation in our once beautiful town. And reproaches for what? Because a picket guard of one hundred soldiers and a small number of citizens did not successfully resist more than three thousand[3] veteran cavalrymen, with cannon eligibly planted to lay waste the town without even coming into it. That commanding position once gained by the enemy, and the town was at his mercy, no matter what force of cavalry or infantry might have been in Chambersburg.
Reproaches—and from whom and whence? From certain newspaper editors of New York; that same New York, which, with its population of half a million, could not quell its rabble mob last year, without having a part of the Potomac Army brought thither to guard some of the very newspaper offices from which those reproaches upon a helpless town in a neighboring State are now so unjustly heaped; those identical newspapers which have ever and anon sent forth paragraphs of bitter invective against Pennsylvania in general, and Chambersburg in particular, for the “ill treatment of the New York militia” at the hands of our citizens.[4] New York is a great State, and counts its noble and good men by hundreds of thousands; but like every large State with large towns and cities, she also counts her thousands of depraved creatures in human shape. And I speak from personal knowledge, for they were quartered for weeks near my late residence, when I say that of all the soldiers who were in this community since the commencement of this war, none have left behind them such a bad moral odor as have many of these men. Drunkenness, wanton destruction of property, thieving, fighting and stabbing each other, (in some cases to death outright,) were frequent occurrences. And yet such men are not only allowed to vilify and abuse the people whom their misconduct has outraged, but certain New York sheets take up their cause and pour forth wormwood and gall upon the town, the community, and the State. Let a virtuous public pronounce its verdict.
Let me illustrate what kind of “defenders” these two regiments of New York militia were. On their arrival in the town, and whilst marching through it on their way to camp, about one mile south from here, some of the men received the hearty cheers of our citizens with sneering remarks about the necessity of coming “all the way from New York to protect Pennsylvania!” Just as if the protection of the border was not at the same time a protection of other States—perhaps, in certain contingencies, even of New York. But mark the sequel. They went to camp the same day of their arrival, with liberal supplies of everything. The border was known to be imperiled a second time, and a large portion of our citizens were armed and marched out with these regiments. During the night our scouts brought information to camp that the rebels were moving from the Potomac this way. And now a scene of confusion ensued which beggars description. In the greatest conceivable consternation, these “defenders” made for Chambersburg in “double-quick,” and took seats in the cars, “homeward bound.” Two interesting little circumstances, in connection with this allegro movement, must be added, of which hundreds of our citizens were eye-witnesses. The first is, that these “defenders,” in their hasty retreat, did not forget to provide for themselves as safe a retreat as possible. To this end they ordered our citizen soldiers to keep in the rear—in military phrase, “to cover their retreat” until the militia-men had reached the cars in safety! The other little circumstance is, that in their hasty retreat, they left the whole of their camp equipage behind. At daylight the following morning you might have seen a score of wagons from the town returning with loads of tents, boxes, trunks, packages, and all sorts of military fixtures, and conveying them to the cars, in which they were sent as far as Shippensburg, by military orders. As the militia thought proper to hasten on farther to the north instead of protecting their own property, the wary rebels took unmolested possession of the whole of it on the same day!
I think you will agree with me in the remark that these men had not much capital to boast of in the way of bravery, although Pennsylvanians should not perhaps complain, when these “defenders” did no worse for us than they did for themselves, namely, beat a hasty retreat, and leave all their valuables to the enemy, even before they had a sight of him.
I would not have troubled you with this unpleasant chapter, if it were not necessary, in order to understand the animus of the splenetic course of the papers referred to. These editors, under the pretext of “defending the citizens of New York,” have most unaccountably, unjustly, and without the shadow of provocation, except it be the desolation and ruin of hundreds of homes and hearths, assailed and sneered at a deeply afflicted community, which has poured out of its former means to the soldiers of our armies at home and abroad without stint and with cheerful alacrity, and by night and by day watched and ministered at the sick and dying beds of our soldiers without distinction of nation or State.
Yours, &c.