Henry Ward Beecher and other abolitionists went to England, faced and spoke to these howling mobs, appealing to them in behalf of the Union cause and the Southern slaves. Not so much, I opine, for the good of the slaves as for the success of the Union cause. They all knew if the Southern ports were opened the South would be victorious.
These are the true facts and the reasons for Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, as I verily believe, and well known at the time. New England was always jealous of the South, opposed everything that would extend the influence and power of the Southern States: fought bitterly the acquisition of the Louisiana territory and also the annexation of Texas, because it would tend to destroy the "balance of power," as they called it; and one of these states, Massachusetts, threatened to withdraw from the Union, boldly claiming the right so to do. As all know, New England was the manufacturing section of the country—the South, the agricultural section. New England wanted to control the policy of the government as to the tariff, and thereby protect their industries, and could not brook the extension of Southern influence and power against their protection policy. They still to this day maintain this policy, but now we are beginning to hear the rumblings of discontent in the West, and I am curious to know what will be the result. I know one thing—that the Yankees of New England will hold on to their pet policies, "like grim death to a dead nigger." What the great West will do, future events only can develop. The North has held the West in political slavery, by abusing and vilifying the South, and by waving the "bloody shirt"; but that old rag is about worn out. I repeat, I am curious to know the result, and want to live to see the end of it.
We remained in Lynchburg until about the 1st of June, 1861, doing camp duty and drilling. Several of the company, including my brother and myself, had negro cooks the first year, after which, few, if any, remained, except ours, who stayed until the last. Rations became too scarce to divide with cooks, so the men did their own cooking, forming messes of from four to six and eight men to a mess, cooking by turns when in camp. We also had two or three company cooks detailed from the company, who did much of the cooking when not in permanent camp, one of whom, Isaac Walthall, acted as company commissary, drawing the rations from the regimental commissary and distributed them to the messes, when in camp, or cooking them and distributing to men when in line of battle or near the enemy.
Our camp equipments, as far as cooking facilities were concerned, were very poor, and never much better.
At first, we had only sheet-iron pans and boilers, called camp kettles, which did very well for boiling beef, but the sheet-iron pans were very poor for baking bread and frying meat. No wonder the biscuits were called "sinkers," being burned on the outside, tough and clammy through and through. We afterwards got ovens and skillets, "spiders," as the Tar Heels called them, and had better bread. We were in camp in a grove west of College Hill, which was afterwards the fair grounds, and is now Miller Park.
CHAPTER III
On to Manassas—The Eleventh Regiment—The
First Brigade
About the 1st of June, 1861, the regiment was ordered to Manassas, which name afterwards became historic as a great battle-ground. The first battle of Bull Run, on the 18th of July, 1861, and the ground on which the first battle of Manassas was fought on the 21st of July, 1861, and the second battle of Manassas on the 30th of August, 1862, are all in close proximity, and General Jackson, a few days before the last-named fight, by a bold movement captured the place, which was then Pope's dépôt of supplies, burning what his soldiers could not eat and carry off, which no doubt was a plenty.
The place was occupied by one side or the other during nearly the whole war, being, in the beginning, considered a strategic point in the defence of Richmond by the Confederates, and for the defence of Washington and for the advance on Richmond by the Yankees.
At Lynchburg we had no equipments except the old muskets, no belts, cartridge or cap boxes, only some little cotton-cloth bags such as mothers make children to gather chinquapins in, little tin shop-made canteens, home-made haversacks of cotton cloth or cheap oilcloth, home-made knapsacks of poor material and very cumbersome, the latter packed full of clothes, hair-brushes and shoe-brushes, needle cases, and many other little tricks which mothers, wives, and sweethearts made for their soldier boys. Many of these things were superfluous and were not carried after the first year of the war; for the next three years about all a Confederate soldier carried was his gun, cartridge and cap box, a blanket, an oilcloth captured from the Yankees, and an extra shirt—very often not the latter.
Many a Confederate soldier has taken off his shirt, washed it, hung it on a bush, lying in the shade until it was dry. He also carried a haversack which was often empty.