Four Years in Rebel Capitals / An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death

by T. C. De Leon

The arriving regiments were inspected, mustered into the Confederate service and drilled by competent officers; vacancies were filled; and such wanting equipments, as could be supplied, bestowed upon them. They were then brigaded, and after time enough to become accustomed to their commanders and to each other, were forwarded to points where, at the moment, troops appeared most needed.

The three points in Virginia, considered as vital, were the Peninsula, formed by the James and York rivers, Norfolk, and the open country around and about Orange Courthouse to the Potomac. Fortress Monroe impregnable to assault, by the land side, and so easily provisioned and garrisoned by sea, was looked upon as the most dangerous neighbor. From its walls, the legions of the North might, at any moment, swoop down upon the unprotected country around it and establish a foothold, from which it would be hard to dislodge them, as at Newport's News. Its propinquity to Norfolk, together with the vast preponderance of the United States in naval power, made an attack upon that place the most reasonable supposition. The State of Virginia had already put it in as good defense as the time permitted. General Huger, a distinguished officer of Ordnance from the U.S. service, had at once been sent there; and his preparations had been such that an unfinished earth work, at Sewell's Point, stood for four hours, on the 19th of May, the bombardment of the U.S. ships "Minnesota" and "Monticello."

The Confederate War Department felt such confidence in the engineering and administrative ability of General Huger, that it endorsed the action of Virginia by giving him a brigadier's commission and instructions to put Norfolk and the avenues of its approach in complete state of defense. A sufficient garrison of picked troops—among them the Third Alabama and some of the best Richmond companies—was given him; and Norfolk was soon declared securely fortified.

The Peninsula was even more exposed to land attack from Fortress Monroe; and General John B. Magruder had been sent there with a part of the Virginia army, with headquarters at Yorktown. General Magruder had long been a well-known officer of the U.S. Army, where his personal popularity and a certain magnificence of manner had gained him the sobriquet of "Prince John." He possessed energy and dash in no mean degree; and on arriving at his sphere of duty, strained every nerve to put the Peninsula in a state of defense. His work, too, was approved by the Confederate War Department; the commission of brigadier conferred upon him, and re-enforcements—sufficient in its judgment, though not in his—were sent at once to his command.

While Fortress Monroe threatened the safety of Norfolk, and, by the Peninsula of the lower approaches to Richmond, Alexandria could hold a formidable army, ready at any moment to swoop down by the upper and more accessible approaches around Orange Courthouse. The occupation of Alexandria by the Union forces on the 24th of May was looked upon by Confederate leaders as the most decided act of war yet ventured upon by their wary adversary. Whatever may have been done within the non-seceded states, the South deluded herself that it was simply an exposition of the power of the government—a sort of Chinese warfare of gongs and tom-toms. The passage of the Potomac and seizure of a city under the ægis of the Confederate Government was actually crossing the Rubicon and carrying the war directly into the southern territory. Fortress Monroe and other fortified points still held by the United States, in the South, were conceded to be in a measure hers, at least by the right of possession; but Alexandria was considered part and parcel of the Confederacy, and as such sacred from invasion. Hence no means were taken to prevent its occupation. On Virginia soil—many of its' citizens already in the rebel ranks, and its houses a rendezvous for the cavalry of the Virginia army, its seizure was construed to mean real invasion.

The possession of this key to the land approaches of Richmond; its great facilities of re-enforcement and supply by propinquity to the depots at Washington and elsewhere; and the determined intention of the Federals to hold and use it, could not be misunderstood.

And while the Southern Government felt the advantages its possession gave the Union troops for concentrating and advancing, the people were aroused to a pitch of high indignation by the choice of the troops sent to first invade their soil.

The war, too, was yet young enough to leave all the romance about it; scenes of violence were as yet rare; and the death of Jackson, with the circumstances attending it, caused a deep and general feeling of bitterness. While the southern public opened its arms and took to its sympathy and protection the widow and orphans of the first Virginian whose blood was shed in her cause, many and bitter were the vows made around the bivouac to avenge his untimely end. The men who made the grim vow were of the stuff to keep it; the name of "Jackson, the Martyr," became a war-cry, and the bloody tracks of Manassas

"How that oath was kept can tell!"

On the 23d of May, Joseph E. Johnston received his commission as General in the Regular Army, and went to Harper's Ferry in command of all troops in that region—known as the Army of the Shenandoah. Beauregard, with the same grade, was recalled on his way to the West, and sent to command at Manassas.