The youths and men of Madison County needed small urging. They were heart and soul for the conflict that at last must be waged to preserve the homes of their fathers, the heritages that were to be theirs, and their right to independent government. These were the incentives of our soldiers, allied to each other, regiment by regiment, by blood and long association. There was no need for alien hirelings to swell our ranks. The questions at issue were vital, and every Southern man who could bear arms sprang eagerly to assume them.
Upon our arrival in Huntsville we found the city alive with preparations for defense, our mail heavy with reports from every quarter of the South, of friends and kinsmen who had entered the army, and many exhilarated by the battles already won. An idea may be gathered of the confluent interests that bound together our Southern army, by a mention, as an example, by no means unique, of the ramifications of the two families represented by Senator Clay and myself. My husband’s uncle, General Withers, was already in command at Mobile; his brother, Hugh Lawson Clay, was in Lynchburg, recruiting; his cousin, Eli S. Shorter, was enrolled as Colonel in the C. S. A., besides whom there were enlisted numerous cousins of the Withers, Comer, and Clayton families. Thirty-nine cousins of my own, bearing the name of Williams, were in the field at one time, and innumerable Arlingtons, Drakes and Boddies, Hilliards, Tunstalls and Battles served the beloved cause in various capacities in civil and military life.
L. Q. C. LAMAR
1862
These conditions knit neighbourhoods as well as regiments very closely together, and largely go to furnish an explanation of our long struggle against the numerically superior armies of our invaders. Our victories in those early days were great, though the blood spilled to gain them was precious; but the sound of mourning was stilled before the greater need for encouragement to the living. “Beauregard and Johnston have given the fanatics something to meditate upon,” wrote a cousin in July of ’1. “A despatch says that our loss was three thousand, theirs seven thousand. Steady Beauregard and brave Johnston! We owe them our gratitude!”
Yes! we owed them gratitude and we gave it to them and to every man in the ranks. The women at home knitted and sewed, sacrificed and prayed, and wept, too, especially the aged, as they packed away the socks and underwear and such comforts for the young men in the field as might be pressed into a soldier’s knapsack. “I met Mr. Lamar’s mother,” wrote my sister from Macon, late in May, “and spoke to her of her son’s having gone to Montgomery. She had not heard of it before and burst into tears! This is her fourth and last son gone to the war!”
From Huntsville had gone out the gallant E. D. Tracy, who, now at Harper’s Ferry, wrote back most thrilling accounts of military proceedings in that important section of our Confederate States:
“I continue entirely well,” began a letter dated from Camp, near Harper’s Ferry, June 8, 1861: “And, while I perfectly agree with, since conversing with, General Smith, in regard to our situation, am in good spirits. I trust I am ready to die when my hour comes, as becomes a Christian soldier and gentleman; until that hour, I am proof against shell and shot. If the enemy attacks us ‘we’ll memorise another Golgotha’ and achieve a victory, or martyrdom. Our men believe the post to be impregnable and are anxious for fight; if they were better informed, I have no idea that their courage would be in the least abated.
“From the arrival of troops during the last few days, I conclude that it is the purpose of Government to hold Harper’s Ferry. At one time I think that point was undecided, and am glad to believe that it is now settled as stated. The moral effect of an evacuation of a place believed to be a Gibraltar would be terribly disastrous to our cause; it would encourage our enemies, depress our troops, and disappoint the expectation of the world. Better that we perish in making a gallant defense than that such consequences should be risked.”
My sister, Mrs. Hugh Lawson Clay, who had joined her husband in Lynchburg, wrote buoyantly, yet gravely, from that troubled centre: “I wrote you a long, long letter last Saturday,” begins one epistle from her, “but Mr. Clay would not let me send it, because, he said, I told too much. He was afraid it might be read by other eyes than yours.... I look hourly to hear the result of an awful battle. I cannot but fear, for we cannot hope to gain such victories often as the one at Bethel Church.... Here we hear everything, for there are persons passing all the time to and from Winchester and Manassas Junction. So many men from this place are stationed there that mothers and sisters manage to hear every day. Mr. Tracy wrote in his last that he fully expected to be in a big battle. His men were eager for the fight, and he would be sure to write as to the result, if it did not result in a termination of his life’s candle!”