Hampton, with his matchless courage, felt that his full task had not been performed, and leaving the beasts to browse and later under lessened guards to pursue their journey leisurely towards General Lee’s fortified camp, he, himself, summoning such of his followers as were yet able to ride to still greater tasks, recrossed the stream and began, now tigerlike, to hunt his pursuers. He felt that these men, who had had the temerity to pursue him and his great commissary stores, should be punished for their audacity, and so, turning northward, he set out to search for the enemies who had attempted to take from him the rich prizes which his superb intrepidity and magnificent daring had won for the Confederate army.
The Federal cavalry, far from their infantry supports and with magnified ideas of the strength of the Confederate forces, were not impatient to try conclusions with the Confederate troopers who had so audaciously possessed themselves of their cattle, and so Hampton’s weary men, with more weary and tired horses, turned their faces in pursuit of the Federal cavalry. They found that those who had pursued were now ready to retreat, and the Federal cavalry was willing to leave them alone to enjoy the spoils of victory and the splendid meat supply which they had so courageously won.
General Hampton and his men had marched a hundred miles in three days, part of this time encumbered with twenty-five hundred beeves; he was far removed from the support or help of his friends, except so far as General Lee, by his movements in the face of the Federal lines, could intimidate the army which was opposing him and which was creeping hour by hour closer and closer to Petersburg and endeavoring day by day to find the vital and weakest points in the wasted Confederate lines. The infantry and artillery who were keeping at bay the besiegers who were pushing forward to throttle the Confederacy and wrest its Capital from its control and to drive Lee and his army from Virginia soil, upon which had flowed such torrents of the best blood of the South and on which had been won such laurels by the Army of Northern Virginia, heard strange rumors that day, as the first couriers brought the tidings of Hampton’s Raid.
Fatigued men and jaded beasts mutely appealed for rest and sleep, and so when General Hampton found that his foes, unwilling to hazard a battle, rode away northward as he appeared from the south, he gave the command to face about, and by easy stages he led his troopers across the river where they might, for a brief while, enjoy the rest they had so richly earned and receive the plaudits of their comrades, to whom they had brought such needed and healthful supplies in their extremity and hunger.
For a little while, it was impossible for the Confederate army to realize what General Hampton had done. The cavalry, always sufficiently boastful, were not slow to tell of the difficulties and dangers of the march, of the excitement and adventure which attended every hour from the advance until the retreat. They were real heroes, and there was no reason for them to be modest about their exploits, and to the amazed infantry they repeated, probably oftentimes with more or less exaggeration, the experiences and events of this strange, successful and wonderful expedition. Here and there the infantry had questioned the steadiness and courage of the trooper under fire, but as this famished army enjoyed, with gratitude and satisfaction, the delicious steaks which their cavalry friends had brought them from the Federal depot, they assigned this commissary achievement to a high place in war’s annals, and accorded to Hampton and his troopers in this raid unsparing and unmeasured praise. If General Hampton had done nothing else than inaugurate, organize and successfully promote this marvelous raid, he would be entitled to high rank among the cavalry leaders, not only of the Civil War, but of the ages.
Chapter III
KENTUCKY CAVALRY FIGHTING WITH
ROCKS, DUG CREEK GAP, MAY 8-9, 1864
General Joseph E. Johnston had one of the most varied and eventful careers of any general officer in the Confederate service. General Robert E. Lee was born January 19th, 1807; General Johnston was born February 3d, of the same year, making a difference in their ages of fifteen days. They were both Virginians, and graduated from West Point in the same class.
General Johnston held the highest rank of any officer in the United States army, who resigned to take service with the Confederate government. Of the really great leaders of the men who wore the gray, he was perhaps criticized more than any other. Whatever were the charges against General Johnston, he was always able to defend himself with forceful ability, and with extreme plausibility to present both his theories and the conduct of his campaigns in a strong and vigorous way. Oftentimes, a student of the history of military operations will question, in his own mind, whether General Johnston was really a great soldier, or an unfortunate victim of jealousy, or a brilliant leader, against whom fate had a bitter and lasting grudge. Whatever critics may say, he maintained to a wonderful degree the confidence and esteem of his men, and his Atlanta campaign will attract attention through all ages and demand admiration for the man who successfully planned and carried it out. It unquestionably takes high place among the great campaigns which were conducted from 1861 to 1865. The seventy-four days that Johnston passed in the immediate presence of the opposing army were days of incessant fighting, great mortality and immeasurable toil; and of such a character as to hold to the highest tension the nerves and hearts of his followers. Probably no officer who followed the stars and bars ever had a more difficult task assigned him than that which was given to General Johnston in northern Georgia, in the spring and summer of 1864. General Bragg’s failures, whether justly or unjustly, had called forth the sharpest criticism, and while a great soldier, he did not retain in defeat the love and faith of the men he led. In these matters, General Johnston never failed.
General Johnston was placed in command of the Army of the Tennessee, by the authorities at Richmond, with the distinct understanding and positive order that he must advance and stay the tide of invasion which was slowly but surely moving southward and sapping the sinews and the life of the Confederacy. All knew that if the Army of the Tennessee should be destroyed, and the Federals should take possession of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, with the Mississippi River as a base, it would not be very long until whatever may have been General Lee’s resources, he would be taken in flank and rear and his armies annihilated.
General Johnston, while confessedly a man of genius, was also extremely tenacious of his rights, and resented what he considered a slight; and he did not hesitate in the most emphatic way to criticize that which his knowledge as a general condemned.