The other excuse made by General Hunter that his army was out of ammunition, is equally untenable. It cannot be believed that a corps was short of ammunition which had been organized but a few weeks, a part only of which had been engaged at Piedmont, and which had fought no serious pitched battle, and the sheep, chickens, hogs and cattle they wantonly shot on their march could not have exhausted their supply. The corps would not have started had the ammunition been so scarce. It would have been against all precedent, and any thinking man must know that the Ordnance Department of the United States army, always full-handed, had well supplied ammunition to an army about to start on so important an undertaking. No brigade or division commander in his correspondence or in his report made any such complaint. It would have given them pleasure to have had some excuse for retreating. They undertook to give no excuse, and their silence is so logical that it points out with great effect the fact that they had no belief in Hunter's excuses, and laid the real blame of the ignominious failure upon the incompetence of Hunter himself.
The obvious cause of Hunter's failure was that he did not reach Lynchburg on the 16th, the day upon which, according to Averell's plan, he was due. Had he reached his destination on the 16th he could have occupied the town without opposition. General Breckinridge was there, an invalid, and his troops were there in small numbers, much wearied, and they, with a few Silver Gray home guards, and the boys from the Institute, constituted the sole garrison opposing his army of twenty-five thousand men. Why he did not come up is accounted for upon two grounds. The first of which was the unnecessary delay at Lexington.
He says in his report, after giving the detail of his performance there, "I delayed one day in Lexington" (70 W. of R. 97). Colonel Hayes says two days. (Id. 122.) Had he marched without delay he would have been in Lynchburg before Early or any part of his troops left Charlottesville, and the town would have surrendered without firing a gun. He delayed at Lexington that he might vent his personal ill-will upon the State of Virginia. He says in his report that he ordered the Virginia Military Institute, a college for the education of youth, to be burned, and that he also ordered the burning of the residence of Hon. John Letcher, formerly Governor of Virginia, alleging as his reason for this latter act of barbarity that the governor had urged the people to rise in arms to repel the invasion. In burning both places he gave no time for anything to be saved. The family of Governor Letcher barely escaped with the clothes upon their persons, and the torch was applied to the Institute without the opportunity to save its library, its philosophical apparatus, its furniture or its archives. All alike were consumed to appease his vindictive spite. The statue of the Father of his Country, belonging to the Institute, was stolen and sent to be erected upon the grounds at West Point. (Id. 640.) It was returned after the war.
General Early in his memoirs says:
"The scenes on Hunter's route to Lynchburg were truly heart-rending; houses had been burned, and helpless women and children left without shelter. The country had been stripped of provisions and many families left without a morsel to eat. Furniture and bedding had been cut to pieces, and old men and women and children robbed of all the clothing they had except that on their backs. Ladies' trunks had been rifled and their dresses torn to pieces in mere wantonness; even the negro girls had lost their little finery.
"Hunter's deeds were those of a malignant and cowardly fanatic, who was better qualified to make war upon helpless women and children than upon armed soldiers. The time consumed in the perpetration of these deeds was the salvation of Lynchburg, with its stores, foundries and factories, which were so necessary to our army at Richmond."
There was, however, another more potent influence which stayed Hunter's advance. General John McCausland had been operating against the enemy in Southwest Virginia with a body of cavalry. When Hunter reached Staunton he was ordered across the country to meet him. When near Staunton, McCausland was joined by a small brigade under the command of Colonel William E. Peters, now professor of Latin at the University of Virginia, who was then Colonel of the Twenty-first Virginia Cavalry. These two brigades, aggregating some sixteen hundred men, under McCausland's leadership, ably seconded by Peters, at once commenced to worry Hunter and to keep his whole force in a constant state of alarm. This force was so ubiquitous that it was estimated by the enemy as being five times its real size. Amongst the officers in the force under Colonel Peters was his nephew, and our fellow-citizen, Major Stephen P. Halsey, who did good service and distinguished himself for his active gallantry.
As Hunter moved from Staunton to Lynchburg these brigades were ever in his front, one hour fighting and the next falling back as the main column would appear, but ever causing delay and apprehension. The tireless little band performed deeds of gallantry as they hung upon Hunter's front which entitled every officer and man to a cross of honor.
When Hunter's army reached Buchanan, McCausland had been hovering in front of his vanguard for many miles. There was a bridge at this point across James River, over which Hunter expected to cross. McCausland sent his men over the bridge, and from the south side of the river they opened fire on the head of Hunter's column as it appeared in sight, and thus checked their advance. McCausland had caused hay to be piled on the bridge, much of which was wet with coal oil. He, with Captain St. Clair, of his command, had remained on the north side for the purpose of setting fire to the bridge. The Federal cavalry charged up very close to him before McCausland applied the match, as he was desirous that every man of his command should get safely over. As fire was opened on him he applied the torch to the hay, and the coal oil at once flashed up in a furious blaze.