BANDS OF GUERILLAS IN VIRGINIA AND THE EAST—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO CAPTURE MOSBY—IMPORTANT ACTION AT WAPPING HEIGHTS—NUMEROUS ENGAGEMENTS IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND ON THE SLOPES OF THE BLUE RIDGE—MINOR ENGAGEMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE PURSUIT OF LEE'S ARMY AFTER GETTYSBURG—MINOR ENGAGEMENTS IN WEST VIRGINIA—INVASION OF KENTUCKY BY CONFEDERATES UNDER GENERAL PEGRAM—THE CONFEDERATES' ATTEMPT TO RECAPTURE FORT DONELSON—NUMEROUS SMALL BATTLES IN TENNESSEE—LOYALTY OF THE PEOPLE OF EASTERN TENNESSEE AND WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA—BATTLES AT FAYETTEVILLE, BATESVILLE, AND HELENA, ARK.—OPERATIONS UNDER THE CONFEDERATE GENERAL MARMADUKE IN MISSOURI—SACKING AND BURNING OF LAWRENCE, KAN.—CRUELTIES PRACTISED BY CONFEDERATE GUERILLAS UNDER QUANTRELL AND OTHERS—CAPTURE OF GALVESTON, TEXAS, BY THE CONFEDERATES—MILITARY OPERATIONS AGAINST THE INDIANS.
Some of the smaller engagements of the year 1863 were so closely connected with the great movements that they have been described in the chapters devoted to those campaigns. Others were isolated from any such connection, and the more notable of them are here grouped in a chapter by themselves.
| UNION SCOUTS. |
| A GROCERY STORE IN SOUTHERN VIRGINIA. |
| BATTLE OF VERMILION BAYOU, LA. |
Suffolk, Va., on Nansemont River, southwest of Portsmouth, was held by a National force that included the Eighty-ninth and One Hundred and Twelfth New York Regiments, and the Eighth and Sixteenth Connecticut. An amusing story is told in the "History of the Sixteenth Connecticut," of its adventures when it first reached Suffolk. It arrived in a dark night, the men not knowing which way to go, or what they would find when they stepped out of the train, and most of their officers having been left behind by accident. Setting out through the darkness, they first tumbled down a steep embankment, then into a deep brook, and finally brought up against a rail fence. Tearing this down, they found themselves in a field, and set about hunting fuel for a fire. Some of them, groping in the darkness, came upon a house which they supposed to be uninhabited, and, beginning at the bottom, pulled off all the clapboards as high as they could reach. When daylight came they discovered that it was a handsome white house inhabited by the owner and his family, who presently appeared on the scene and produced a tableau. In the darkness one of the men had bored a hole into a barrel of coffee, which he supposed was whiskey, and was found shaking it violently and wondering why it did not run. Sunlight showed them that they were on the outskirts of the town, and immediately the One Hundred and Twelfth New York came to their relief with hot coffee, etc. Suffolk really had very little military importance, and yet it was the subject of considerable fighting. Gen. John J. Peck commanded the National forces, and was subjected to much elaborate ridicule for the extent to which he fortified the place. In January the Confederates made an attack, and after some fighting were driven off, and, with the assistance of the gunboats, six guns and two hundred of their men were captured. In April a siege was begun by General Longstreet, who failed in an attempt to carry the place by surprise, and then constructed earthworks, intending to bombard it; but, as soon as he opened fire from them, his guns were silenced by the gunboats on the river and the heavy artillery in the National works. Early in May he was needed to assist General Lee in the impending conflict of Chancellorsville, and slowly drew off his men from Suffolk, when Generals Getty and Harland sallied out from that place with a column of seven thousand men and attacked his powerful rear guard. A sharp action ensued, which resulted in no immediate advantage to either side, but in the night the Confederates left the field. Some stragglers were captured, but otherwise there was no definite result except that the siege was raised.
Guerilla bands, so numerous at the West, were few at the East, the most noted being one led by John S. Mosby. In March he made a daring midnight raid with a few of his men on Fairfax Court House, Va., and captured and carried off Brigadier-General Stoughton, two captains, and thirty men, with about sixty horses. In May he approached Warrenton Junction with about three hundred men and attacked a small cavalry force there. The National soldiers were feeding their horses and did not have time to mount, but made a gallant resistance on foot, until they were overcome by numbers. The Fifth New York cavalry then came up, and, sabre in hand, charging upon the guerillas, killed and scattered many, and wounded the rest, except a few whom they captured. Among the killed was a Confederate spy who had just come from Washington and had in his possession many important documents. Again, at Kettle Run, Mosby attacked a railway train that was loaded with forage. When the firing was heard, the Fifth and First Vermont cavalry set out from Fairfax Court House and soon came up with the enemy. His one howitzer was captured in a gallant charge, and a considerable number of his men were killed. It was said that as fast as the band was depleted by the casualties of battle it was filled up with picked men sent from the Confederate army.
Several attempts were made to capture Mosby, but although there was an occasional fight with his band, and a considerable number of his followers fell, he himself eluded captivity till the end of the war, when he issued an order announcing to his men that he was no longer their commander, and they dispersed. The difficulty of capturing a small mounted force, which is irresponsible and has no mission but to roam in a lawless way over a country like that of Virginia, must be always exceedingly great; but there was one opportunity to capture Mosby and his band which would have been successful had the affair not been disgracefully mismanaged. In April, 1863, one hundred and fifty men of the First Vermont cavalry, under Captain Flint, set out to capture them, and found them at a farm-house unprepared to fight. Flint took his men through the gate, fired a volley at Mosby's men, and then charged with the sabre, which would have been correct enough if Flint had kept his command together; but he made the mistake of dividing it and sending a portion around to the rear, in fear that the guerillas would escape. Mosby quickly took advantage of this, ordered a charge upon the detachment headed by Captain Flint, and succeeded in cutting his way through, Flint and some of his men being killed. Of the affair near Warrenton, in May, Mosby, in his somewhat boastful "Reminiscences," gives this highly colored account:
"On May 2, seventy or eighty men assembled at my call. I had information that Stoneman's cavalry had left Warrenton and gone south, which indicated that the campaign had opened. My plan now was to strike Hooker.