LUTHER W. HOPKINS.
Taken from an old daguerreotype in 1861, before entering the army.

FROM BULL RUN
TO APPOMATTOX

A BOY'S VIEW

BY

L.W. HOPKINS

OF GENL. J.E.B. STUART'S CAVALRY

6th Virginia Regiment, C.S.A.

PRESS OF
Fleet-McGinley Co.
BALTIMORE

PREFACE

"Life is the mirror of the king and slave,
'Tis just what you are and do.
Then give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you."

I never thought that I should be guilty of writing a book. I did not, however, do this with malice aforethought. My son is responsible for whatever sin I may have committed in presenting this to the public. He and I have been good friends ever since we became acquainted, and he has always insisted upon my telling him all that I know. When he was about three years old he discovered that I had been a soldier in Lee's army from 1861 to 1865, and, although he is of Quaker descent and a loyal member of the Society of Friends, and I am half Quaker, yet he loved war stories and I loved to tell them. This accounts for the production of the book. After I had told him these stories over and over, again and again, when he was grown he insisted upon my starting at the beginning and giving him the whole of my experience in the Confederate army. Then he wanted it published. I yielded to his request, and here is the book. This is not, however, an exact copy of the typewritten manuscript which he has. The original manuscript is more personal. I thought the change would make it more acceptable to the general reader.

We all believe in peace; universal peace, but when war does come, and such a costly war as the one from which this story is taken, we ought to get all the good out of it we can. The long marches along dusty roads, under hot suns, the long marches through sleet and snows, the long dreary nights without shelter, the march of the picket to and fro on his beat, the constant drilling and training, the struggle on the battlefields, all these are part of the material that the world has always used in constructing a nation. While there are some things about war that we should forget, there are many things that ought never to be forgotten, but should be handed down from sire to son all through the ages that are to come.

Historians have told us much about our Civil War, but they have left out the part that appeals most to the boy, and it is this part that I have tried to bring before the public. Men may read the book if they will, but it is written more particularly for the youth. The boy of today and the boy that is yet to be ought to know of the bloody sweat through which this nation passed in reaching its present position among the great nations of the earth, and the part the boy played in it. It is said that one boy is a boy; two boys a half boy and three boys no boy at all. That may be true of the boy running loose, unbridled like a colt, but gather up these boys and train them, harness and hitch them and they will move the world or break a trace. It is the boy who decides the fate of nations. I don't know the average age of our soldiers in times of peace, but when wars come and there is a call for soldiers, it is mainly the boy in his teens who responds; yet, strange to say, the historian has never thought it worth while to put much emphasis upon what the boy does in the upbuilding of a nation.

Another thing that has been neglected by the historian is the brave and noble part the horse took in our war. The grays, the bays, the sorrels, the roans, the chestnuts, have not been forgotten in this story. Indeed, as I have already said, I have tried to bring to light that part of the story of our Civil War that has not been told.

Now, young men and boys, girls too, old men, if there are any, read this book, all of you, regardless of geographical lines, for I have tried to be fair to those who wore the blue. As the years go by, I have learned to respect and love those who fought for the Union. I visited Boston and its environments two summers ago for the first time. During the visit, I never met a person whom I had ever seen before, yet all the time that I was away I felt at home. I said to myself, are these the people we of the South used to hate? Are these the people that we once mobbed as they marched through our streets? Yes, they are the same people or their descendants, but then we did not know them and they did not know us. I came back feeling proud of my country, and I only wish I could give here a detailed account of that visit. If, early in the spring of 1861, the North and South had swapped visits, each party would have gone home singing, "there ain't goin' to be no war," but we had a war; a great war, a costly war; let us forget what ought to be forgotten and remember what ought to be remembered. I want to pay this tribute to the Northern soldiers. I have discovered this: When two armies of equal numbers met face to face in the open, it was nearly always a toss up as to who would win. Numbers don't always count in battle. General Hooker, with his army of 130,000, retreating before Lee's 60,000, doesn't mean that one rebel could whip two yankees. It only meant that "Fighting Joe" had more than he could manage. His numbers were an encumbrance. There were other differences which, for the sake of brevity, I will not mention, but will add this one word: One bluecoat was all I cared to face, and I believe every other Johnny Reb will say the same.

May we never have another war, but boys, remember this: "Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war," and the boy that wishes to count in this world must train. But there are other training schools quite as helpful as the camp and the battlefield.

L.W. HOPKINS.

Baltimore, November, 1908.

[ CHAPTER I.]

From Harper's Ferry to Bull Run.

Loudoun County on the Potomac—John Brown's Raid—War Talk Among the Schoolboys—The Slave and His Master—Election of Lincoln—Secession —Schoolboys Preparing for the Coming Conflict—Firing on Fort Sumter—Union Army Crossing the Potomac.

[CHAPTER II.]

From Bull Run to Seven Pines.

Confederates Concentrating at Manassas—First Battle—The Wounded Horse—Rout of the Union Army—The Losses.

[ CHAPTER III.]

From Bull Run to Seven Pines. (Continued.)

Long Rest—Each Side Recruiting Their Armies—McClellan in Command—His March on Richmond by the Way of the James River—Jackson's Brilliant Valley Campaign—The Battles Around Richmond—Seven Pines—Mechanicsville —Beaver Dam—Gaines' Mill—Fair Oaks—The Wounding of Gen. Jos. E. Johnston—McClellan's Defeat—The Spoils of the Battle.

[CHAPTER IV.]

From Seven Pines to Antietam.

The Battle of Cedar Run—Jackson's Flank Movement—McClellan Moves His Army Back to Washington—Second Battle of Manassas—The Defeat of Pope—His Retreat to the Defenses of Washington—The Captured Stores and Losses on Both Sides—Lee Crosses the Potomac Into Maryland—The Stragglers of Lee's Army—A Dinner Party—The Capture of Harper's Ferry—Battle of Antietam—Result of the Battle—Lee Recrosses the Potomac—Lee in a Trap.

[ CHAPTER V.]

From Antietam to Chancellorsville.

McClellan Relieved of His Command—Burnside Commands the Union Army—The Two Armies at Fredericksburg—The Blue Ridge Mountain—The Author a Prisoner—Battle of Fredericksburg—Burnside's Defeat—Losses on Both Sides—The Armies in Winter Quarters—How They Spent the Winter—Company Q's Escapade—Raid Into West Virginia—Burnside Relieved—Hooker in Command—Hooker Crossing the Rappahannock—Jackson's Successful Flank Movement—His Mortal Wound—Hooker's Defeat—He Recrosses the River—Losses on Both Sides—Stonewall Jackson's Death—The South in Tears—Ode to Stonewall Jackson by a Union Officer.

[ CHAPTER VI.]

From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg.

Ninth of June at Brandy Station—Lee's Army En Route for Gettysburg—See Map—Stuart's March Around the Union Army—Lee Crosses the Potomac—The Union Army in a Parallel Line With Lee's—Crosses the Potomac Below Harper's Ferry—Hooker Relieved—Meade in Command of the Union Army—The Battle of Gettysburg—Lee's First Defeat—His Retreat—The Midnight's Thunder Storm—His Five Days' Rest on the North Bank of the Potomac—He Recrosses the River.

[ CHAPTER VII.]

From Gettysburg to the Wilderness.

Both Armies Marching Back to the Rappahannock—Short Rest—Meade's Advance—Lee Retires to the Rapidan—Meade's Withdrawal From Lee's Front—Lee's Advance—Fighting Around Brandy Station—The Battle at Bristoe Station—The Union Army Retires Towards Washington—Lee Discontinues the Pursuit and Returns to the Rapidan River—In Winter Quarters—How the Winter Was Spent—Many of Lee's Soldiers Are Permitted to Return to Their Homes Under Care of Their Commanding Officers for a Vacation—Mosby Appears Upon the Scene.

[ CHAPTER VIII.]

From the Wilderness to James River.

Grant in Command of the Union Army—Preparation for the Coming Struggle—Battle of The Wilderness—Strength of the Armies—Losses —Wounding of General Longstreet—Battle at Spotsylvania Court House—The Awful Slaughter—Sheridan's Raid on Richmond—Stuart's Cavalry in Pursuit—General Stuart's Death—Yellow Tavern—The Author Again a Prisoner.

[ CHAPTER IX.]

From the James River to Petersburg.

Battle of Cold Harbor—Grant Again Repulsed—Death of Flournoy—Grant Crossing the James—Prison Life at Point Lookout—Parole of the Sick From the Hospitals—The Dreary Winter—Its Bright Side—How the Soldiers and the Citizens Spent It—Mosby's Men—The Long Siege—Battle of the Crater.

[ CHAPTER X.]

From Petersburg to Appomattox.

Evacuation of Richmond—Retreat of Lee's Army Towards Appomattox—Lee's Surrender—After the Surrender—Some War Stories—The Faithful Slave.

[ CHAPTER XI.]

The Horses of Lee's Army.

Their Number—Losses—Rover's Tricks—A Mighty Jaw—Her Capture—Horses in Battle—Friendship Between Horse and Rider—Wagon Horses—Artillery Horses—Cavalry Horses—Men Sleep on Their Horses—Horses for Breastwork—Seventy-five Thousand Black Beauties—Monument for Lee's Horses—A Pathetic Poem.

GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON,
Who preceded Gen. Robert E. Lee in command of the Army of Northern Virginia

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Luther W. Hopkins],
[Gen. Joseph E. Johnston],
[Jefferson C. Davis],
[Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson (called "Stonewall Jackson")],
[Robert Howard Hopkins],
[The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville],
[Gen. Robert E. Lee],
[Mrs. R.E. Lee],
[Gen. Fitzhugh Lee],
[A Battle-Scarred Confederate Banner],
[Gen. A.P. Hill],
[One of Stonewall Jackson's Mileposts],
[Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson],

From Bull Run to Appomattox

A BOY'S VIEW

Chapter I.

From Harper's Ferry to Bull Run.

"O war, thou hast thy fierce delight,
Thy gleams of joy intensely bright;
Such gleams as from thy polished shield
Fly dazzling o'er the battle-field."

Is there a boy in all this wide land, North or South, who would not like to hear what a boy has to say of his experience as a private soldier in the Confederate Army from 1861 to 1865, serving for the most part in Stuart's Cavalry of Lee's army? Men have told their story, and graphically told it from a man's standpoint. But who has spoken for the boy? Who has told of the part the boy played in that great drama that was on the stage for four years without intermission? That bloody drama in which there were 3,000,000 players—a play that cost the country eight billions in money and half a million human lives?

I do not know how it was in the Northern armies, but the bulk of Lee's soldiers in the ranks were boys in their teens. It was these boys who made Thomas Jonathan Jackson, "Stonewall Jackson;" who put Robert E. Lee's name in the hall of fame and who lifted J.E.B. Stuart up to the rank of lieutenant-general of cavalry. One of these boys has written the story as he remembers it in plain, simple language; not a history, but simply an account of what he saw and did while this eventful history was being made. If his experience is different from others, or does not accord in all respects with what the historian has written, it is because we do not all see alike. The writer has not consulted the histories for material for this story; he did not have to do this. If all the boys who served in the Confederate Army were to write their experience, they would all be different, yet all approximately correct, and perhaps, taken together, would be the most perfect history that could be written of the Confederate side of the Civil War.

In the early spring of 1861 I was seventeen years old and going to school about half a mile from my home in Loudoun county, Virginia. Twelve miles distant was Harper's Ferry, where four years previous John Brown had made an attempt to raise an insurrection among the slaves in that district. He seized the United States arsenal, located there, for the purpose of arming the negroes, who were expected to flock to his standard and have their freedom declared. The negroes did not respond; John Brown and a few of his followers were captured and hanged. This atrocious act of Brown and his abettors kindled a flame in the hearts of the Southern people that led to the Civil War. But none felt it so keenly as did the Virginians, because it was their sacred soil that had been traduced. Three years previous to this, when I was ten years of age, I remember to have heard a political discussion among a body of men, and the following words have lingered in my memory ever since, and they are all that I can recall of their talk: "If there is a war between the North and South, Virginia will be the battlefield." I thought it would be grand, and waited anxiously for the fulfillment of this prophecy. Then when John Brown swooped down on Harper's Ferry with his cohorts, it looked as if the day had really come and that the prediction was about to be fulfilled. From that time war talk was general, especially among the small boys. But the intense excitement caused by the Brown episode gradually abated. It broke out afresh, however, when later it was announced that Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. It seemed to be the concensus of opinion that the result would be war, and that Virginia in truth would be the battleground, and that the counties along the Potomac would receive the first shock of battle. We boys of Loudoun county, right on the Potomac, felt that we were "it," and we had a kind of pity for those poor fellows a little farther back. We were in the front row, and when the curtain went up we could see and hear everything. There were about thirty boys attending our school between the ages of fifteen and twenty. They all entered the Confederate Army, but few survived the war.

Before going on with the story, perhaps I ought to explain why these boys were so eager for war, when they knew that the enemy would be their own countrymen. There was a peculiar relationship existing between the slave owner's family and the slaves that the North never did and never will understand. On the part of the white children it was love, pure and simple, for the slave, while on the part of the adult it was more than friendship, and, I might add, the feeling was reciprocated by the slaves. The children addressed the adult blacks as Uncle and Aunt, and treated them with as much respect as they did their blood relatives. It was Uncle Reuben and Aunt Dinah. The adult white also addressed the older colored people in the same way. With but few exceptions, the two races lived together in perfect harmony. If a slave-owner was cruel to his slaves, it was because he was a cruel man, and all who came in contact with him, both man and beast, suffered at his hands. Even his children did not escape. These men are found everywhere. The old black mammy, with her head tied up in a white cloth, was loved, respected and honored by every inmate of the home, regardless of color.

The following incident will be of interest: Hon. John Randolph Tucker, one of Virginia's most gifted and learned sons, who represented his State in the U.S. Senate, always celebrated his birthday. I remember to have attended one of these celebrations. It was shortly after the close of the war. Mr. Tucker was then between fifty-five and sixty years of age. He had grown children. Fun making was one of his characteristics. On these annual occasions, it was his custom to dress himself in a long white gown and bring into the parlor his old black nurse, whom he called "mammy." She sat in her rocking-chair with her head tied up in the conventional snow-white cloth. Mr. Tucker, dressed up as a child in his nightgown, would toddle in and climb up into her lap, and she would lull him to sleep with an old-time nursery song, no doubt one of her own compositions. This could not possibly have occurred had the skin of his nurse been white.

When a daughter married and set up her own home, fortunate was she if she took with her the mammy. In many homes the slaves were present at family prayers. The kitchen and the cabin furnished the white children places of resort that were full of pleasure.

This was the relation between white and colored as I remember it from a child in my part of Virginia. And tonight, as I write these lines, while the clock tolls off the hour of eleven, I cannot keep out of my mind the words of that little poem by Elizabeth Akers:

"Backward, turn backward, oh time in thy flight,
And make me a child again, just for tonight."

JEFFERSON C. DAVIS.
President of the Confederate States of America. Taken just before his inauguration.

How anyone could have desired to break up this happy relationship was beyond the conception of the child, and more or less incomprehensible to the adult.

Somewhere between childhood and youth we children all learned that there was a race of people up North called Abolitionists, who were so mean that they sent secret agents through the country to persuade the colored people to leave their homes and go North, where they could be free. That these agents were disguised as peddlers or otherwise, and that they visited the cabins of the slaves during the late hours of the night, and went so far as to urge them to rise up in a body and declare their freedom, and if necessary to murder those who held them as slaves. This delusion, if it were a delusion, might have been dispelled had not John Brown and his men appeared upon the scene to give an ocular demonstration of their real intent. The few men with him may have been the only following that he had, but the damage had been done. Virginia was fighting mad. What had been whispered about the abolitionists in secret was now proclaimed from the housetops. John Brown was an abolitionist, and all abolitionists were John Browns, so the youths at least reasoned. The words abolitionist and Yankee were for the most part synonymous terms; the former being hard to pronounce, the child usually employed the latter. Some of the young children did not know that a Yankee was a human being, as the following incident will illustrate:

When the first Federal soldiers entered the village of Middleburg, Loudoun county, Virginia, the cry went up and down the streets, "The Yankees have come!" The streets were soon deserted by every living thing except the dogs and the ubiquitous, irrepressible small boy, who was or pretended to be "skeered o' nothin'." This war was gotten up for his special benefit, and he was determined to see all that was to be seen, and was always to be found well up in front. The women and children within their homes crowded to the windows to see the cavalry as it marched by. A little three-year old nephew of mine, with the expression of alarm disappearing from his face, said: "Mamma, them ain't Yankees, them's soldiers." He expected to see some kind of hideous animal.

This is the education the Virginia boys got, who afterward became Lee's soldiers. They were brought up in this school, and when they became soldiers, wearing the gray, they felt that they had something to fight for. They believed that they were real patriots, notwithstanding they were called rebels and traitors.

This brings us to the beginning of the Civil War, or at least to the secession movement. Lincoln had not yet taken his seat as President, when several of the Southern States seceded and formed a Southern Confederacy, with Montgomery, Ala., as the capital, and Jefferson C. Davis as President. This was recognized by the United States Government as open rebellion, and as soon as Mr. Lincoln took the reins of government, he called for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion.

Virginia must either furnish her quota of troops or withdraw from the Union. She promptly chose the latter, and shortly afterward became a part of the Southern Confederacy. As soon as the ordinance of secession had passed the Virginia Legislature, there were a thousand Paul Reveres in the saddle, carrying the news to every point not reached by telegraph lines. The young men and boys did not wait for the call from the Governor. Military companies, infantry, cavalry and artillery sprang up everywhere. Anyone who chose and could get a sufficient following might raise a company. These companies were offered to the Governor and promptly accepted. The ordinance of secession was passed at night. The next morning Virginia troops were on their way to seize Harper's Ferry. On the approach of these troops the small guard of United States soldiers stationed there set fire to the buildings and fled. The fire was extinguished by the citizens, I think, and much of the valuable machinery and military stores was saved. The machinery was sent to Richmond, and the arms were used in equipping the soldiers. Harper's Ferry became one of the outposts of the Confederacy, and a place of rendezvous for the rapidly-growing Confederate battalions. Thomas Jonathan Jackson, afterward known as Stonewall Jackson, was sent to Harper's Ferry to drill and organize the forces gathering there, into an army. He was later superseded by Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, but Jackson remained as a subordinate commander. In the meantime, the Confederate Government had demanded that Gen. Anderson evacuate Fort Sumter, at the entrance of Charleston harbor, and also had said, if not in words, in action, to the Government at Washington as it saw United States armies gathering near its northern frontier, So far shalt thou come, and no further.

But to go back to the thirty boys. What were they doing all this time? Just prior to the date of Virginia's secession they were gathering in groups at noon and recess, on the way to and from school, and talking war. How big and important we seemed as we prospectively saw ourselves dressed as soldiers, armed and keeping step to the beat of the drum. There was but little studying, for our preceptor was not hard on us. He had once been a boy himself, and appreciating the conditions that surrounded us, he chiefly employed himself in keeping the school together until hostilities began, if it should really come to that. I don't know how long the school continued, but I do know that these particular boys were early on the drill ground, and were being trained into soldiers. It was difficult for the parents to keep the fourteen and fifteen-year-old boys at home or in school. I had a brother sixteen years old who was first of the family to enlist, and then all followed, one after another, until four of us were in the ranks. There were mature men and old men, men of heavy responsibilities, who saw farther into the future than the younger generation. These went about with bowed heads and talked seriously of what the future might bring. They wisely discussed constitutional law, State rights, what foreign nations would have to say about it, the nations that had to have our cotton. "Cotton was king," they said, and the South owned the king, soul and body. Questions like these were discussed among the men, but like one of old, the boy cared for none of these things. In the language of a famous Union general, his place was to meet the enemy and defeat him. I remember about this time hearing this toast being offered to the South:

"May her old men make her laws, her young men fight her battles, and her maidens spin her cotton."

The boy well understood the part he was to play, and he was in his element, and as happy as a boy could be. I cannot remember just when the first call was made for troops by the Governor, but I do know, as I have already stated, that the boys heard the call from a higher source, and they were coming from mountain and plain, from hillside and valley, from the shop, and office and school. Well do I recall the joy that welled up in every boy's breast as one after another of the actors took their places on the stage. Again I find myself quoting Elizabeth Akers, this time substituting a word:

"Backward, turn backward, oh time in thy flight,
And make me a BOY again, just for tonight."

Now let us take a peep into the Virginia homes. What were the women doing? Ah, they were as busy as bees. These boys must be equipped not only with munitions of war, but each boy must take with him as many home comforts as could possibly be compressed into a bundle small enough to be carried. When he was at home it took a good-sized room to hold these things; now he must put them into his pocket or on his back, and it took all of a mother's skill to gather these things up into the least possible space, that her boy might have in the camp life all that a mother's love could give him. The Government would furnish the guns, the powder, the lead, the canteen and knapsack and haversack; the tinshop, the tincup; the shoemaker, the boots; the bookstore, the Bible (every boy must carry a Bible), but all the clothing, all the little necessary articles for comfort and health, must be manufactured in the home. Did you ever open the outside casing of one of these large patent beehives and see the bees at work inside? What rushing and pushing and confusion! Every bee, so far as human eye can see, seems busy. This beehive was but a replica of a Virginia home in the spring of 1861.

While these things were going on in the home the boys were drilling in the field, for they were now out of school. All were anxious to get their equipment, and to be the first to offer their services to the Governor.

Had these boys any conception of what they were rushing into? Suppose just at this time the curtain had been lifted, and they could have seen Bull Run and Seven Pines, Manassas and Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and The Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox? And if they could have seen a picture of their homes and fields as they appeared in 1865, would they have rushed on? Perhaps I can answer that question by pointing to the battlefield of New Market. In the fall of 1864, after nearly all the great battles had been fought, the young cadets from Lexington, Va., who had not yet been under fire, but with a full knowledge of what war meant, rushed into this battle like veterans and were mowed down as grain, their little bodies lying scattered over the field like sheaves of wheat.

"O war, thou hast thy fierce delight,
Thy gleams of joy intensely bright;
Such gleams as from thy polished shield
Fly dazzling o'er the battle-field."

Yes, war has its bright, attractive side, and those boys, as I knew them, would have looked at these moving-pictures as they came one after another into view, and then perhaps have turned pale; perhaps they would have shuddered and then cried out, "On with the dance; let joy be unconfined;" and it was literally on with the dance. School, as I have just said, was out, and every laddie had his lassie, and you may be sure they improved the time. It was drill through the day and dance through the night.

"No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."

The boys were happy, and "all went merry as a marriage bell," and well that it was so. When we looked into the hive we saw that the bees were busy, but as far as human eye could discover, there was no head; all was confusion; it was pushing and shoving and coming and going, and one might have asked the question, What are they doing? What does it all mean? If we could have seen farther into the hive we would have discovered that back of this busy throng sat the queen, and that these were her subjects, doing her bidding. She was sending out her little rogues to rob the flowers, and they were coming back richly laden with spoils. This was the raw material, and it was being worked up. When the season was over and the flowers were dead, and we drew from the hive the finished product, so perfect in all its parts and richly stored with sweetened treasures, we began to realize that there was a master mind behind it all. Do you suppose for a moment that when these young men and boys of Virginia, in fact from all over the South, who were rushing with such intense enthusiasm in the Confederate ranks, these fathers and mothers and sisters, who were equipping these youths with comforts without which they could not have endured the hardships of the camp, do you suppose they were but following the dictates of a few maddened, fire-eating fanatics, and that the whole would end in debt, death and desolation? If you had lived in 1861 you might have been excused for thinking so. But what do you think of it today, as the finished product begins to unfold itself to our view? Do you not believe there was a master mind behind it all, a King, and that these boys were but part of His royal subjects, doing His will? Suppose there had been no rush and no adequate army at Bull Run to meet McDowell and his forces as they came marching out from Washington with flying colors? Suppose the Confederates had been beaten at Bull Run and Richmond had fallen, and the war had ended then? What miserable creatures we poor devils of the South would have been! The world would have laughed at us. We would have lost all of our self-respect. A cycle of time could not have wiped out our self-contempt, and God might have said, "I cannot build up a great nation with material like this." The North would have had no Grand Army Veterans, and no deeds of heroism with which to keep alive the fire of patriotism in the hearts of their children. Spain in 1898 might have successfully defied us, and China and Japan have roamed at will over our land. No; the war was a necessity. It was costly, but was worth all that it cost. It has made of us a very great nation.

Now I shall go back and tell how it was done. I will do so by narrating my own experience, and as my experience, with but slight variation, was the experience of every boy who served in the Confederate army, the reader will have a fair idea of what the boy's life was during those four years.

The firing upon Fort Sumter was like throwing a stone into a hornet's nest. All the North was aroused. Troops came pouring into Washington by every train. A Massachusetts regiment, in passing through the streets of Baltimore, was mobbed, and the song "Maryland, My Maryland" was wafted out on the air.

Maryland boys, under cover of night, were crossing the Potomac to help drive the invaders back. They came singing "The Despot's Heel Is on Thy Shore." Rumors flew thick and fast. Now and then shots were exchanged between opposing pickets as they walked to and fro on the banks of the Potomac river that separated them. In fact, the curtain was up and the play had begun. Harper's Ferry, Leesburg and Manassas (see map)[1] became strategical points, and at each of these the Confederates were concentrating their forces.

By June 1, 1861, Jos. E. Johnston at Harper's Ferry had an army of 10,000. Gen. A.P. Hill at Leesburg, 3000. Gen P.T. Beauregard at Manassas, 12,000. These were Confederates. On the Union side, Gen. Patterson had an army of about 15,000 confronting Johnston, and McDowell at the head of 35,000 was crossing the Potomac at Washington en route for Bull Run.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In reading the book, spread out the map before you and follow the movements of the armies. There is a detached map with each book. The main battlefields are marked with a flag, but there are over 50 more; in fact, eliminating the rough mountain ranges, nearly every foot of Virginia soil covered by this map felt the tramp of the soldier and heard the hiss of the bullet.

Chapter II.

From Bull Run to Seven Pines.

"Only a boy! and his father had said
He never could let his youngest go;
Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe."

As the advance guard of the Federal army entered Alexandria, Va., on the south side of the Potomac, a Confederate flag was seen floating from the roof of a hotel kept by one Jackson. Col. Elsworth, commanding the advance force, hauled it down. Jackson shot him dead, and was in turn killed by Elsworth's soldiers. This, I believe, was the first blood shed on Virginia soil.

As McDowell moved his army toward Manassas, Johnston fell back toward Winchester, so as to be in a position to reinforce Beauregard if it became necessary.

Before McDowell had reached Fairfax Courthouse the greater portion of Johnston's army was en route for Manassas. So closely did Johnston conceal his movements that Patterson was not aware that Johnston had left his front until it was too late to follow him. The little army at Leesburg also marched rapidly to Manassas.

These united Confederate armies numbered about 27,000 men. McDowell's army, as I have stated, numbered 35,000.

In order to be prepared for an emergency, the Governor of Virginia had called the militia from the counties adjacent to Manassas to assemble at that place. That included my county. I joined the militia and marched to Manassas, arriving there a few days before the battle.

There was skirmishing for some days between the advanced forces of the two armies, but the real battle was fought on Sunday, July 21, 1861.

My command took no part in this battle, but it was in line of battle in the rear of the fighting forces, ready to take part if its services were needed.

Soldiers, like sailors, are superstitious. As the hour for the battle drew near, those of a mystical turn of mind saw, or thought they saw, a strange combination of stars in the heavens. Some said, "I never saw the moon look that way before." Clouds assumed mysterious shapes. Some saw in them marching armies, and other fearful phenomena. A strange dog was seen one night passing in and out the various camps into the officers' tents and out again as if he were numbering the men. This created no little comment. The dog was all unconscious of the excitement he was creating. He had simply lost his master, but his manner appeared ominous to those who were looking for the mystical. These are the kind of soldiers that run at the first fire. They are found in all armies.

I have always claimed that I am not superstitious, but I must admit that there is an atmosphere that hangs around the camp on the eve of an approaching battle that is well calculated to give one's imagination full play. The doctors examining their medical chests, packages of white bandages and lint arriving, the movement of the ambulances, the unusual number of litters that come into view, the chaplains a little more fervent in their prayers, officers, from the commanding general down to the lowest rank, more reserved and less approachable. Even the horses seem to be restive, or we imagine them to be so. In fact, everything takes on a different attitude. The very air appears to be laden with an indescribable something that makes every individual soldier feel himself lifted up into a position of responsibility quite different from the place he occupied when loitering around the camp with the enemy far away from the front.

GEN. THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON,
Christened "Stonewall Jackson" by General Bee at the first battle of Manassas.

This was the state of things as I saw them in and around Manassas on the eve of the first battle of Bull Run. Before the rising of the sun on that beautiful Sabbath day, July 21, 1861, the cannon could be heard in the distance, which told us that the two combatants had locked horns. All day long we could hear the booming of the guns and see the smoke of the battle over the tops of the low pines in our front, and I was ever so anxious to get closer and see the real thing, but soldiers cannot go just where they may desire, especially when a great battle is in progress.

Early in the day I saw what thrilled me no little. It was the first blood I had ever seen shed on a battlefield. I saw coming across the field, moving quite slowly, a man leading a horse. As they approached I saw that the horse was limping, and the man was a soldier. The horse was badly wounded and bleeding, and seemed to be in great pain. Whenever the man would stop the horse would attempt to lie down. I wanted to go to him and put my arms around his neck and tell him he was a hero. The man and the horse passed by, for there was too much going on to allow a single wounded horse to absorb all of one's attention.

Toward the afternoon news came in from the front that our army was beaten and was in full retreat.

Every available man was called from the camp, and a second line of defense was formed, behind which the retreating army could rally and make another stand. It was then that I began to realize what war was.

About five o'clock a soldier came across the field from the front with a gun on his shoulder. As he came up to our line someone asked him how the battle was going. He replied, "We've got them on the trot." Then there was wild cheering; the soldier was right. McDowell's army was beaten and in full retreat toward Washington. It proved to be the worst rout that any army suffered during the Civil War.

At one stage of the battle it looked very doubtful for our side. Beauregard believed that he was beaten, and had ordered his forces to fall back, calling on Johnston to cover his retreat. But the arrival of Elzey's brigade of Johnston's army upon the field just at this psychological moment turned the battle in our favor. A member of the First Maryland Regiment, forming a part of this brigade, has given me a graphic description of how the brigade was hurried from the railroad station at Manassas, across the fields for five miles under the hot July sun, the men almost famished for water and covered with dust, most of the distance at double-quick, toward the firing line, from which the panic-stricken Confederates were fleeing in great disorder. But I shall only narrate what I saw myself, and will not quote farther, however interesting it may be. A train came down from Richmond about three o'clock, bringing the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson C. Davis, and fresh troops, but they arrived too late to be of any special service. I saw the President as he mounted a gray horse, with a number of other prominent Confederates from Richmond, and move off toward the battlefield.

A short time after this they began to bring in the wounded from the front. I stood by and saw the pale face and glassy eyes of Gen. Bee as they took him dying from the ambulance and carried him into a house near the Junction. It was he who an hour or so before had said to his retreating troops, "Look at Jackson; he stands like a stone wall." That night Gen. Bee died, and Jackson was ever known afterward as "Stonewall Jackson."

Yes, the Union army was beaten, and their retreat developed into a disastrous rout, although they were not pursued by the Confederates.

"While there was great rejoicing all over the South on account of this splendid victory gained by our raw recruits, there was no noisy demonstrations. Crowds thronged the streets, but no bonfires lit up the darkness of the night. No cannon thundered out salutes. The church steeples were silent, except when in solemn tone they called the people to prayer."

The next day the Confederate Congress met and passed the following resolutions:

"We recognize the hand of the most high God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in the glorious victory with which he has crowned our armies at Manassas, and that the people of these Confederate States are invited by appropriate services on the ensuing Sabbath to offer up their united thanksgiving and prayers for this mighty deliverance."

The losses in men were as follows: Union army, 3000; Confederates, 2000. The latter captured 27 cannon, 1500 prisoners, an immense quantity of small arms, ammunition, stores, etc.

I promptly laid aside my flint-lock musket and took a Springfield rifle.

I am often amused as I remember some of the thoughts that passed through my mind, and some of the things I did on this momentous occasion. For instance, we were ordered to "sleep on our arms" the night whose dawn was to usher in the battle. I had heard a good deal about soldiers obeying orders. I thought of "the boy who stood on the burning deck," so when I laid down that night with old Mother Earth for a bed, I found myself stretched out at full length on top of my musket. It was a little rough, but the mere thought of being a soldier and "sleeping on my arms" on the eve of battle made my bed feel as soft as a bed of roses. And then the gun! It was an old flint-lock musket, minus the flint, and no powder or ball. But I was at least a soldier and had a gun, and would surely see the battle and could write home all about it. A soldier seldom ever thinks that he will be among the slain; he may be wounded, or taken prisoner, but it is always the other fellow that is going to be killed.

Chapter III.

From Bull Run to Seven Pines (Continued).

"You have called us and we're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide
To lay us down, for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside."

The several battles around Richmond in the spring of 1862, viz., Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Beaver Dam, Malvern Hill, Gaines' Mill, I have grouped under the head of Seven Pines.

The fall and winter months following the battle of Bull Run were spent for the most part by both sides in recruiting their armies and getting ready for a desperate struggle, which would inevitably come when spring arrived the following year.

There were occasional raids and skirmishes, but no decisive battles were fought until the following spring, except the battle of Ball's Bluff, near Leesburg, in which battle the Eighth Virginia played a conspicuous part. One of my brothers was in this battle, and several of my schoolmates were killed and wounded.

Johnston's army a few days after the battle had increased to 40,000. He moved forward and occupied a position near Centerville, and there he wintered. Jackson, however, was detached and sent back to Winchester to guard the valley, and became commander-in-chief of that section. The forces that came down from Leesburg returned to their old position.

During the winter the soldiers were granted frequent furloughs, the militia was disbanded, and I went back home.

But when the birds began heralding the coming of spring there was a call from the Confederate Government not only for the return of all enlisted men to their commands, but for every able-bodied white male citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five to enlist.

I started out from Middleburg with Edwin Bailey and several Marylanders, the latter having crossed the Potomac for the purpose of joining the Confederate army. Bailey was already a member of the Eighth Virginia Infantry, and was at home on furlough.

My destination was the Sixth Virginia Cavalry, which was then with Stonewall Jackson in the valley of Virginia. This regiment was in Robinson's brigade, Fitzhugh Lee's division, the whole cavalry force of the army of Northern Virginia being commanded by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. I was on horseback; the others on foot.

It reminded me of the resurrection morn, except the trooping thousands were coming from the top of the ground and not from under it. From hamlet and villa, from the lordly mansion and mountain shack, from across the Potomac, the boys and young men of the South were coming in answer to the call. The Government at Washington had called for half a million; the Government at Richmond had called for every able-bodied son from eighteen to forty-five, and they were coming.

The nearest point at which I could reach the Confederate line was Harrisonburg, Va. All the district between my home and Harrisonburg, and on the line stretching from there south to the James river, and north into West Virginia, had been abandoned to the enemy. Hence, it was necessary for us to move with great caution, to avoid being intercepted by the bluecoats. The little caravan moved up the pike that runs from Alexandria across the Blue Ridge into the valley by the way of Upperville and Paris. When we reached the mountain at Paris we moved along its foot, traveling mostly by night and resting by day, hiding ourselves in the heavy timber that stretched along the slopes of the mountain. We had no trouble procuring food from the little farm houses that we passed. Occasionally we employed a guide, whom we paid. These guides took great pains to magnify the danger that surrounded us, and told us of the narrow escapes of other caravans that had preceded us. This was done in order to draw as large a fee from us as possible. The distance to Harrisonburg was about 100 miles. We finally reached our destination.

During the winter and early spring the North had raised a very large army, splendidly equipped, and placed under the command of Gen. George B. McClellan. This army was taken mostly by boat to a point on the James river, from which point it took up a line of march toward Richmond. McClellan's army was the largest and best equipped that had ever trod American soil.

McClellan was the idol of the North, and there was very little doubt in the minds of the Northern people that when he met the Confederate forces defending Richmond the Capital of the Confederacy would be captured, and the army defending it destroyed or captured.

The Confederate forces gradually fell back before McClellan's army as it advanced along the James river, until the invaders could see the spires of the Confederate Capitol.

Of course, this move of McClellan's having made Johnston's position at Centerville untenable, he withdrew his army and marched to Richmond, so as to confront McClellan on his arrival.

The day finally arrived when McClellan was to make the attack that was to result in the overthrow of the Confederacy.

While this was going on, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (who commanded the Confederate forces) was busy strengthening his position and preparing his army for the coming struggle.

Jackson had in the meantime distinguished himself in the valley by routing three armies, each larger than his own, that had been sent out to capture him. Having defeated these armies, he fell back beyond Harrisonburg, and then quietly slipped out of the valley, crossed the Blue Ridge mountains, and made a rapid march toward Richmond.

Instead of uniting his forces with those of Johnston, he moved his army to a point toward McClellan's rear, and at once began an attack which, combined with Johnston's attack in the front, resulted in a disastrous retreat of the Northern army.

Johnston was severely wounded during the first days of the battle, which lasted seven days, and Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed command of the army now known as the army of Northern Virginia, and held the position to the end of the war. Lee also became commander-in-chief of all the Confederate armies.

When McClellan fully realized that it was Jackson's army from the valley that "was goring his side like the horns of an angry bull," it is said that the scene at his headquarters was intensely dramatic. From information received from Washington, McClellan had every reason to believe that Jackson and his entire army were either prisoners or cooped up somewhere in the valley north of Harrisonburg, but as the sound of Jackson's guns grew louder and nearer, and couriers with panting steeds came dashing in confirming the truth, he was forced to believe that the noise was Jackson's "cannon's opening roar." "Then there was hurrying to and fro and mounting in hot haste." Never did human brain work quicker than did McClellan's when he realized his position. Who but a Napoleon could provide so quickly for such an emergency? The masterly manner in which McClellan changed his base and saved his army, with three such strategists as Jackson, Lee and Johnston to reckon with, showed military skill of the highest order.

Someone in conversation with Gen. Lee after the war asked who was the greatest soldier on the side of the North. Lee replied, "McClellan, by all odds." The fact is, the Government at Washington never gave McClellan a fair chance. Gen. Lee came to Richmond from West Virginia, where his campaign had been a failure, and was elevated at once to the most important post in the Confederate army, while McClellan was humiliated by being relieved of his command just at a time when he was prepared by experience to put into use his great talent. History is bound to record him a place among the famous generals.

The battle lasted seven full days. The Confederate victory was complete. Millions of dollars' worth of supplies were captured or destroyed, and McClellan was compelled to beat a hasty retreat to Washington to defend the city.

The spoils of this battle that fell into the hands of the Confederates were 10,000 prisoners, 35,000 rifles, 55 cannon, ammunition, provision stores of every kind, almost beyond computation. The losses of the two armies in killed and wounded were nearly equal—about 10,000 each.

Some idea can be formed of the captured stores when it is remembered that to provide for an army such as McClellan's, 600 tons of ammunition, food, forage and medical supplies had to be forwarded from Washington every day. If he kept a thirty days' supply on hand, we have the enormous sum of 18,000 tons that either fell into the hands of the Confederates or was destroyed.

When I reached Harrisonburg I found the Sixth Virginia Cavalry had left the valley with Jackson's army. I followed as rapidly as possible, and met the regiment at Gordonsville, with Jackson's army, coming back from the battle and hurrying on toward Manassas to attack Pope, who had gathered an army there to protect Washington while McClellan was besieging Richmond. I joined Company A of the Sixth Virginia Cavalry and felt that I was a full-fledged cavalryman and was ready to take part in anything that the regiment was called upon to do.

Chapter IV.

From Seven Pines to Antietam.

"On that pleasant morn of early fall,
When Lee marched over the mountain wall."
"Over the mountains, winding down,
Horse and foot into Frederick town."

A part of Pope's army, under Banks, had been pushed forward as far as Cedar Run, about half way between Manassas and Gordonsville. Jackson met this force and scattered it like chaff, and then moved rapidly toward Manassas. He did not move in a straight line, but made a detour to the left, and by rapid marches placed his army in the rear of Pope at Manassas.

One day the army covered forty miles. Riding along the dusty highway, Jackson noticed a sore-foot, barefoot infantryman, limping along, trying to keep up with his command. Coming up to him, he dismounted and told the soldier to mount his horse, while he trudged along by his side. The next day the same soldier was found among the dead, with his face turned up to the sun, having given his life for the man who gave him a lift. It was this lift that had cost him his life; but for it, he would have been among the stragglers, too late for the battle.

My command, during the march, got in frequent touch with the enemy, and at one point, namely, Catletts Station, on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, came very near capturing Gen. Pope himself. We got into his camp at night and into his tent, and took his boots and spurs, and papers that gave Jackson some valuable information.

As soon as Gen. Lee was satisfied that McClellan was well on his way toward Washington, he put his whole army in motion and moved rapidly to join Jackson, who would sorely need him in his attack upon Pope at Manassas; in fact, Jackson had halted after the battle of Cedar Run for a day or two to allow Gen. Lee to come up.

An event occurred during this battle around Richmond that brought sorrow to my home. My brother Howard was slightly wounded in the arm, taken to the hospital at Richmond, and died in a few days of a malignant fever, and was buried somewhere among the unknown dead around Richmond. The family made several attempts to locate his grave, but were unsuccessful.

"On fame's eternal camping ground,
His silent tent is spread;
While glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead."

His picture on the opposite page is from an old daguerreotype, taken just before entering the Confederate service.

This move of Jackson's to the rear of Pope at Manassas enabled him to capture many carloads of supplies and munitions of war, greatly assisting the armies of Lee and Jackson in their undertaking. A goodly portion of McClellan's army had embarked at Occoquan and marched across to the assistance of Pope. Notwithstanding this fact, the combined armies of Lee and Jackson were more than a match for Pope, and he was defeated and his army routed, leaving over 9000 of his dead and wounded on the field. His entire loss, as given by the "New Standard Encyclopedia," which included prisoners, was 20,000, while the Confederates', by the same authority, is placed at 12,000.

ROBERT HOWARD HOPKINS.

There fell into the hands of the Confederates 7000 prisoners, 30 cannon, 20,000 rifles. The captured stores, including two miles of loaded cars on the track, was enormous, much of which the Confederates had to burn.

This is called the Second Battle of Manassas to distinguish it from the first battle fought on the same ground, and called by the North the Battle of Bull Run, but by the South as the First Battle of Manassas.

Pope lost no time in getting behind his intrenchments at Washington. My command took part in the battle, and made a charge just as the sun was dropping behind the horizon. Lee did not follow Pope toward Washington, but moved in a straight line toward the Upper Potomac, leaving Washington to his right.

At this time my company was detached from the Sixth Regiment and made a bodyguard to Gen. Lee. We kept close to his person both night and day.

Part of the time Gen. Lee rode in an ambulance with both hands bandaged, his horse, "Traveler," having fallen over a log and crippled Lee's hands. This gave me a good opportunity of seeing the great soldier at close range.

I remember one afternoon, when toward sunset the army having gone into camp for the night, Gen. Lee's headquarters being established in a little farmhouse near Chantilla, I think in Loudoun county, the General went out with one of his staff officers for a walk into an apple orchard. They were gone perhaps an hour. While they were gone a guard had been set around the cottage with instructions to let none pass without an order from Gen. Lee.

When Gen. Lee returned with his aid by his side, he was halted by Frank Peak (a member of my company, now living in Alexandria, Va.). They both halted, and Peak said to them, "My instructions are to let none pass without an order from Gen. Lee." Gen. Lee turned to his aid and said, "Stop, the sentinel has halted us." The officer (I think it was Col. Marshall, who afterward lived in Baltimore, and died there not long ago) stepped forward and said, "This is Gen. Lee himself, who gives all orders." Peak saluted them, and they passed on.

Before day the next morning the army was in motion toward Maryland, Gen. Lee still riding in the ambulance, very much, no doubt, to the chagrin of "Traveler," who was led by a soldier, just behind the ambulance.

Owing to the hard-fought battles around Richmond, Cedar Run and Manassas (which followed each other in rapid succession), and the long, weary marches through the hot July days, often far into the night, many of Lee's soldiers, who were foot-sore and broken down, straggled from the ranks, being unable to keep up with the stronger men. So great was the number that it was said that half his army were straggling along the roads and through the fields, subsisting as they could on fruits and berries, and whatever food they could get from farmhouses.

As the army crossed the Potomac (four miles east of Leesburg) Gen. Lee had to make some provision for the stragglers. It would not do to let them follow the army into the enemy's country, because they would all be captured. He concluded to abandon his bodyguard and leave it at the river, with instructions to turn the stragglers and tell them to move toward Winchester, beyond the Shenandoah. This was the point, no doubt, that Gen. Lee had fixed as the place to which he would bring his army when his Maryland campaign was over.

It was with much regret that we had to give up our post of honor as guard to the head of the army to take charge of sore-footed stragglers. But a soldier's duty is to obey orders.

The army crossed the river into Maryland, and we were kept busy for a week sending the stragglers toward Winchester.

Some bore wounds received in the battles mentioned, and their bandages in many cases still showed the dried blood as evidence that they had not always been stragglers. Some were sick, and some too lame to walk, and it became necessary for us to go out among the farmers and procure wagons to haul the disabled. In doing so, it was my duty to call on an old Quaker family by the name of Janney, near Goose Creek meeting-house, Loudoun county, and get his four-horse wagon and order it to Leesburg. This I did in good soldier style, not appreciating the old adage that "Chickens come home to roost."

After seeing the wagon on the road, accompanied by friend Janney, who rode on horseback (the wagon being driven by his hired man), I went to other farms, doing the same thing. And thus the lame, sick and sore-footed and the rag-and-tag were pushed on, shoved on and hauled on toward Winchester.

Some years after this I had occasion to visit the same spot, in company with a young lady.

It was the Friends' quarterly meeting time at Goose Creek. We attended the services, and, of course, were invited out to dinner. It fell to our lot to dine at the home of friend Janney, from whom I had taken the wagon. I did not recognize the house or the family until I was painfully reminded of it in the following manner:

We were seated at a long table in the dining-room (I think there were at least twenty at the table), and several young ladies were acting as waitresses. I was quite bashful in those days, but was getting along very nicely, until one of the young waitresses, perhaps with no intention of embarrassing me, focusing her mild blue eyes upon mine, said, "I think I recognize thee as one of the soldiers who took our wagon and team for the use of Lee's army, en route for Maryland." I did not look up, but felt that twice twenty eyes were centered on me. I cannot recall what I said, but I am sure I pleaded guilty; besides, I felt that all the blood in my body had gone to my face, and that every drop was crying out, "Yes, he's the very fellow." It spoiled my dinner, but they all seemed to think it was a good joke on me.

Quakers, it must be remembered, were not as a rule in sympathy with the secession movement, which greatly intensified the discomfort of my position. My young friend, however, although a member of that society, never deserted me, and sometime afterward became more to me than a friend; she has been faithful ever since, and is now sitting by me as I write these lines.

Now I must go back to war scenes.

I cannot remember, of course, just the day, but while we were busy gathering up these stragglers we could distinctly hear the booming of the guns that told us the two armies had met and that there was heavy fighting on Maryland soil.

The first sounds came from toward Harper's Ferry, and we soon afterward learned the result.

Jackson had been detached from the main army, had surrounded and captured Harper's Ferry, taking 13,000 prisoners and many army supplies. Among the prisoners was A.W. Green of New York, who afterward became pastor of my church, St. John's, corner Madison avenue and Laurens street, Baltimore, Md.

Mr. Green says that when the prisoners were all lined up, Jackson rode along their front and tried to comfort them as best he could. He said, "Men, this is the fate of war; it is you today, it may be us tomorrow." After paroling his prisoners, Jackson hurried to rejoin Lee, who was being hotly pressed by McClellan at Antietam. Lee's united forces at this time could not have numbered over 40,000 men, while McClellan, who was still in command of the Union army, had a force of over 100,000.

McClellan made the attack, was repulsed with terrible loss, but the North claimed the victory, because Lee retired during the second night after the battle and re-crossed the Potomac, falling back to Winchester, where he was reinforced by the stragglers who had been gathering there for two weeks or more.

This series of battles, beginning with Richmond in the spring and ending at Antietam in the early fall, had so exhausted the armies that both sides were glad to take a rest. They had been marching and fighting from early spring all through the summer, and were thoroughly exhausted.

LEE'S ARMY IN A TRAP.

We have all heard of the famous lost dispatch that was picked up in the streets of Frederick, Md., after the place had been evacuated by the Confederates. It was called "Special Order No. 191." A copy of this order was sent by Gen. Lee to each of his generals. The one intended for Gen. A.P. Hill never reached him. It was dropped by a courier and fell into the hands of Gen. McClellan. This telltale slip of paper that might have ended the war was found wrapped around two cigars. It read as follows:

"Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, near Frederick, Md. "September 9, 1862. "Special Orders, No. 191.

"The army will resume its march tomorrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General Jackson's command will form the advance, and, after passing Middletown, with such portion as he may select, take the route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and, by Friday night, take possession of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, capture such of the enemy as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harper's Ferry.

"General Longstreet's command will pursue the same road as far as Boonsborough, where it will halt with the reserve, supply and baggage trains of the army.

"General McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown he will take the route to Harper's Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harper's Ferry and vicinity.

"General Walker, with his division, after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend its right bank to Lovettsville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable, by Friday morning. Key's Ford on his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his right. He will, as far as practicable, co-operate with General McLaws and General Jackson in intercepting the retreat of the enemy.

"General D.H. Hill's division will form the rear guard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery, ordnance, supply-trains, etc., will precede General Hill.

"General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the commands of Generals Longstreet, Jackson and McLaws, and with the main body of the cavalry will cover the route of the army and bring up all stragglers that may have been left behind.

"The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown.

"Each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in the regimental ordnance wagons for use of the men at their encampments to procure wood, etc.

"By command of General R.E. Lee."

With this document in his hands and with Lee's army divided as it was McClellan felt that his hour had come. He sent the following dispatch to President Lincoln:

* * * "I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap. * * * General Lee's order to his army accidentally came into my hands this evening, and discloses his plan of campaign."

The destruction of Lee's army at this time would certainly have ended hostilities. Gen. Longstreet was opposed to the movement against Harper's Ferry. He said it was fraught with too much danger. It was rendered much more so when McClellan came into possession of Lee's plans. The exact number of prisoners captured at Harper's Ferry and in its environments were 12,520, together with 73 cannon, 13,000 rifles, several hundred wagons and large quantities of provisions and other army stores.

Chapter V.

From Antietam to Chancellorsville.

"Two armies covered hill and plain,
Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle's recent slaughters."

After resting a while at Winchester Lee's army began its march leisurely back toward Richmond, and took up a position near Fredericksburg, a point about half way between Washington and Richmond.

McClellan was relieved of his command, and Gen. Burnside took his place and gathered a large army in front of Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock river.

About the middle of December Burnside crossed the river at Fredericksburg by means of pontoon bridges and attacked Lee and Jackson just outside of the town of Fredericksburg.

A severe battle was fought, and Burnside was defeated with terrible loss. He re-crossed the river and wept when he contemplated the awful slaughter that had been made in his army. This ended the campaign of 1862. It is said that more soldiers fell in this battle in four hours than were killed in the entire Boer War. The historian has placed Burnside's losses at 12,311; Lee's at 5409.

Both armies went into winter quarters, and there was no general battle until the next spring, but frequent skirmishes between bodies of cavalry on both sides as they marched to and fro protecting their respective encampments.

From Harper's Ferry to Staunton, Va., stretches a part of the Blue Ridge mountains that played a conspicuous part in the war.

The mountain is impassable for armies except through the gaps that occur every twenty to thirty miles. These gaps were always closely guarded by the Confederates, and through them the armies frequently marched and counter-marched as occasion required.

If Jackson needed reinforcements in the valley, they were sent to him through one of these gaps; and on the other hand, if the armies defending Richmond needed reinforcements, it was Jackson's custom to give the enemy a stinging blow and send him in full retreat down the valley toward Washington, then cross through one of these gaps with a portion of his army and reinforce the armies defending Richmond.

When the armies fell back from Winchester my company of cavalry was left to guard the Bluemount gap, then called Snickersville. A little later the gap was abandoned, and we were ordered to Ashby's gap, farther up the valley, where we encamped near the little town of Paris, at the foot of the mountain, and put out our pickets on the east side of the mountain below Upperville on the pike that leads through Middleburg and on to Alexandria, Va., just under the shadow of the capital of the Northern nation, I will call it.

One day our pickets reported "the enemy's cavalry advancing up the pike toward Upperville." Our captain (Bruce Gibson) ordered the bugle sounded, and 90 to 100 men were soon in the saddle and on the march to meet the enemy.

It was four miles to Upperville, and as we approached the town we could distinctly see the enemy's cavalry filling the streets.

We halted at a point just opposite the home of our captain (where the family were on the porch watching the movements of both sides). Many of the men of the company lived in that neighborhood. It was eight miles from my home, hence this was no place to show the "white feather."

I was riding a fiery young mare. She was never satisfied unless she was a little ahead. She had a mouth that no bit could hold.

The captain ordered us to move forward, and as we approached the town, four abreast, our speed was increased to a trot, then to a gallop.

To the best of my recollection my position was about the middle of the command, but in spite of my tugging at the bit, my young steed carried me up to the front, and when we got close enough to the enemy to see the whites of their eyes, I was a little closer to them than I wanted to be, and I'll frankly confess it wasn't bravery that put me there. We were close enough to discover that we were running into a whole regiment of Union cavalry, and if we had continued, it would have meant annihilation.

The captain ordered right about, retreat! At this point to get those 100 horses turned around in that street and get out of the reach of 1000 guns in the hands of 1000 Bluecoats, was a knotty problem. If the enemy had charged us just at this time, our destruction would have been just as complete as it would have been if we had gone ahead; but they hesitated. Perhaps they were afraid of running into a trap.

I ran my horse up against a pump, and finally got turned around, and was soon leaving my comrades behind me, for she was fleet of foot. But all at once I felt my steed going down under me. I thought that she was shot, but did not have much time to think about it, for I was soon for a few minutes unconscious. My horse had tripped and fallen, and, of course, I could not keep the saddle, going at a speed like that. The horse just behind leaped over me, horse and all (so the rider afterward told me). When I came to myself I was standing in the middle of the road with a crowd of Yankees around me, among them the colonel of the regiment. I was holding in my hand the handle of my pistol, the barrel of which had been broken off by the fall. When called upon to surrender my arms I meekly handed up this handle, scarcely knowing what I was doing. One of the Yankees said, "I don't want that, I want your arms." My arms consisted of a sabre, a short cavalry gun and another pistol, that remained in its holder.

With some assistance I unbuckled my belt and gave up my arms. The colonel asked me if I was hurt, and some other questions which I cannot now recall.

His own horse had been down on its knees, which were badly skinned. He dismounted and mounted another horse that had been brought to him, and told me I could have the use of his horse. I mounted with some difficulty, and was taken to the rear. There was very little firing; only one man was killed and one horse on our side.

My horse, they afterward told me, passed through the command and did not stop until she got to Paris, four miles beyond.

The Yankees remained only a short time, when they began their retreat down the pike with one lone prisoner, myself. On the way they picked up three or four citizens, which gave me some company.

It was quite dark when we reached Middleburg, and the command halted in the town for an hour, during which time I sat on my horse just in front of the house now occupied by Edwin LeRoy Broun.

I could see the lights in the windows and see the family moving about, among them my sister. I made no effort to make myself known. After an hour's wait the command moved down the pike toward Washington, arriving at Fairfax Courthouse about midnight, where they went into camp. The next morning some 15 or 20 prisoners were brought in and put in an old log schoolhouse. We remained there all that day, and the next day the citizens were released, and the soldier prisoners (about a dozen) were started for Washington under a guard of four cavalrymen. We were taken to the old capitol at Washington and put in one of the rooms. I suppose there were several hundred prisoners there at the time. We remained about a month, when we were exchanged. We were taken to Richmond by boat and turned over to the authorities there, and our Government released a similar number of Union prisoners who returned on the same boat that brought us to Richmond. I took the train at Richmond, rode to Gordonsville, and footed it from there home, a distance of about 150 miles.

I found my horse awaiting me, and after a few days rest, I mounted and rejoined my command at the little town of Paris, Fauquier county, where I had left them for a visit to Washington as a guest of the United States Government.

As the winter came on the Confederates drew in their outposts, and likewise the enemy. This left the whole eastern part of Virginia free from the depredations of either army, except now and then a raid from one side on the other.

My regiment was at camp in the woods near Harrisonburg, while Jackson's main army was with Lee, south of Fredericksburg. Jackson spent much time during the winter in religious work among his soldiers. "My ambition," he said, "is to command a converted army." He himself was one of the most devout men in the army, and seemed to be always in communion with his God.

The winter was a hard one, and both armies kept pretty well within their winter quarters.

We had no tents, but took fence rails, and putting one end on a pole fastened to two trees, and the other on the ground, and covering the rails with leaves and fastening up each end, leaving the front open, then building a big fire just in front, we had a very comfortable place to sleep. We sat on logs around the fire during the day and far into the night telling stories and entertaining ourselves in various ways. At night we crept under the roof of our shed, which was about a foot deep in leaves, and slept as comfortably as any farmer's hogs would do under similar circumstances.

About the first of January my company was again detached from the regiment and sent to Orkney Springs, just at the foot of North mountain, west of Strasburg.

Our duty was to keep a dozen men on the opposite side of the mountain scouting and doing picket duty. It was our custom to relieve the men once a week by sending over another detachment and relieving those on duty.

While at Orkney Springs we occupied cottages that were intended for the summer guests prior to the breaking out of hostilities. But after remaining in the cottages some time, the health of the command was so poor that we were compelled to go back to the woods. In a short time the sickness disappeared from the camp, showing that the best place for a soldier is out in the open.

Shortly after this word came that the enemy was advancing up the valley turnpike, and the whole regiment was ordered down to meet them, our company in advance.

It was March. The day was a stormy one. It snowed and rained alternately all day long, far into the night.

When we left camp I was suffering with rheumatism in my hip, so that I had to use a stump to mount my horse, for I was determined to go with the regiment. Soldiers lying in camp idle soon get restless, and even cowards will hail with delight a chance to have a brush with the enemy.

So notwithstanding the weather and physical ailments of some of the men, all went out of camp that morning bright and happy.

We marched all day until long after dark, and then discovered it was a false alarm. The Yankees were snug in their tents, many miles away.

We went into camp in the woods. I remember that I was wet to the skin, and I can see myself now sitting on a log pulling off first one long-legged boot, then the other, and pouring the water out.

But before this, fires had sprung up all over the woods. In spite of the fact that everything was drenched and water was dripping from every twig, in an incredibly short time the whole woods were brilliantly illuminated by burning camp-fires.

We got out our bacon and crackers and enjoyed a supper that no habitue of a Delmonico could have relished more. The bacon (not sugar-cured) was stuck on a stick and roasted before the fire, while the grease was allowed to fall on the cracker on a chip below.

The Delmonico man might boast of a higher grade of food and better cooking, but the soldier wins on the appetite.

After supper we stood around the camp-fires drying the outside of our clothes, telling stories and smoking. Then we prepared for bed.

The men in the companies are always divided into messes; the average number of men in each was usually about six. The messes were like so many families that lived together, slept together and ate together, and stood by each other in all emergencies. There was no rule regulating the messes. The men simply came together by common consent. "Birds of a feather flock together."

In winter one bed was made for the whole mess. It consisted of laying down rubber cloths on the ground and covering them with a blanket, and another and another, as occasion required, and if the weather was foul, on top of that other rubber cloths. Our saddles covered with our coats were our pillows. The two end men had logs of wood to protect them. Only our coats and boots were removed.

On a cold winter night, no millionaire on his bed of down ever slept sweeter than a soldier on a bed like this.

In the summer each soldier had a separate bed. If it was raining, he made his bed on top of two fence rails, if he could not find a better place. If the weather was good, old Mother Earth was all the soldier wanted.

As this was a cold, stormy night, of course we all bunked together. My, what a nice, soft, sweaty time we had! The next morning all traces of my rheumatism had disappeared, and I felt as spry as a young kitten.

As the day advanced the clouds rolled by, the sun came out bright and smiling, and the command marched back to the old camp-ground, near Harrisonburg.

With every regiment there is a Company Q. Company Q is composed of lame ducks, cowards, shirkers, dead-beats, generally, and also a large sprinkling of good soldiers, who, for some reason or other, are not fit for duty. Sometimes this company is quite large. It depends upon the weather, the closeness of the enemy, and the duties that are being exacted. Bad weather will drive in all rheumatics; the coming battle will drive in the cowards; hard marching and picket duty will bring in the lazy. But then, as I have just said, there were some good soldiers among them—the slightly wounded or those suffering from any disability. Taking them altogether, Company Q resembled Mother Goose's beggars that came to town; "some in rags, some in tags, and some in velvet gowns." Company Q was always the butt of the joker.

A short time after the regiment had returned from its fruitless march down the pike, the four regiments composing the brigade under Gen. William E. Jones were ordered to break camp and move across the mountains into the enemy's country in West Virginia.

At that time I was almost blind with inflamed eyes. They looked like two clots of blood. Of course, I did not go with the command, but was forced to join Company Q. As well as I remember, the company numbered at that time over 100 men, among them two or three officers.

As the regiment expected to be absent for over a month and to return crowned with laurels, Company Q conceived the idea of doing something that would put them on an equal footing with their comrades when they returned from this expedition.

A company was formed of about 100 men, which were soon on the march down the valley pike. My eyes had so improved that I could join the company.

The enemy was encamped near Winchester, perhaps 75 miles away. Our destination was this camp. We were to march down the valley, make a night attack and come back with all the plunder we could carry off or drive off. Every fellow expected to bring back at least one extra horse.

We reached the west branch of the Shenandoah, near Strasburg, and went into camp for the night, having first put out pickets at the various fords up and down the river.

The enemy's camp was supposed to be ten miles beyond. We intended to remain at this camp until the next evening about dusk, and then start for the enemy, timing ourselves to reach their camp about midnight.

The next morning about 9 o'clock we came down from our camp into the open field to graze our horses. We had taken the bits out of their mouths and were lying around loose, while the horses cropped the grass, when all at once someone shouted "Yankees." Sure enough, there they were, a whole regiment of Union cavalrymen. They had crossed the river some distance below our pickets and had placed themselves directly in our rear, cutting off our retreat. We soon had our horses bridled, and mounting, made for the river. The commander sent me down the river to call in the pickets, but I did not go far until I met them coming in. They had heard the firing. We had a desperate race to join the fleeing company, but did so, narrowly escaping capture.

There was a small body of woods on the banks of the river, where we found shelter for the moment. We were entirely cut off from the fords, and there was no way of crossing the river but to swim. The banks were steep on each side, so it looked as if that would be the last of poor Company Q. We dismounted, got behind the trees, and were ready to give our tormentors a warm reception, but Providence seemed to smile on us. Someone discovered a little stream running into the river. We followed that down into the river, and the whole command swam across and climbed the banks on the other side, except one man (Milton Robinson) and myself. Our horses refused to swim. They behaved so ugly that we had to abandon them. Mine was the same "jade" that had dumped me on the Yankees a few months before. Now I had a chance to reciprocate. I tied her to a little sapling at the edge of the river, and Robinson and I hid in the bushes close by the banks. The Yankees came down and took our horses, and after searching around for some time, vacated the premises, much to our gratification.

The loss of our horses grieved us very much, but such is the life of a soldier.

The company in crossing the river were in the enemy's country, and were liable to be surrounded and captured at any time, but they made their escape in some way, and lost no time in getting back to camp, many miles away.

Robinson and I, of course, had to foot it, but in course of time we also landed in camp, much to the surprise of our comrades, who thought the enemy had us. Thus terminated ingloriously the well-planned expedition of Company Q.

In about ten days the brigade came back from the West Virginia expedition, and Company Q received the Sixth Regiment with open arms. Just what the expedition accomplished I am not able to say, but there is one little incident connected with it that has lingered lovingly in my memory to this day.

Every mess had in it a forager; that is, one skilled in the art of picking up delicacies. At least we called them such, as this term was applied to anything edible above hardtack and salt pork. We had such a one in our mess, and he was hard to beat. His name was Fauntleroy Neal. He was a close friend of mine. We called him Faunt.

Whenever he went on an expedition he always came back loaded. As he was with the brigade in West Virginia, we knew that when he returned (if he did return) he would bring back something good, and he did. I cannot remember all the things he had strapped to his saddle, but one thing looms up before my mind now as big as a Baltimore skyscraper. It was about half a bushel of genuine grain coffee, unroasted. There was also sugar to sweeten it. Grains of coffee in the South during the Civil War were as scarce as grains of gold, and when toasting time came and the lid was lifted to stir the coffee, it is said that the aroma from it spread through the trees and over the fields for many miles around. I forgot the long, weary march on foot back up the valley, forgot the loss of my horse, and really felt as if I had been fully compensated for any inconvenience that had come to me from the ill-starred tramp of Company Q.

But spring had fully come, the roads were dry, and the time for action was here.

Hooker, at the head of 120,000 Northern soldiers, was again crossing the Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, to lock horns with Lee and Jackson.

Hooker had superseded Burnside in command of the Union army. They called him "fighting Joe."

Hooker handled his army the first two or three days with consummate skill, and at one stage of his maneuvers he felt confident that he had out-generaled Lee and Jackson. He believed they were in full retreat, and so informed the Washington Government. But he was doomed to a terrible disappointment. What Hooker took to be a retreat of the Confederates was simply a change of front, which was followed up by Jackson executing another one of his bold flank movements, the most brilliant of his brief career, the result of which was Hooker's defeat. The entire Union army was thrown into such confusion that it was compelled to retreat across the river, after sustaining heavy losses in killed and wounded.

The New Standard Encyclopedia gives Hooker's army as 130,000; Lee's, 60,000. Hooker's losses, 18,000; Lee's, 13,000.

Perhaps no general on either side during the entire war felt more keenly his defeat than did Hooker on this occasion. For awhile everything seemed to be going his way, when suddenly the tide turned, and he saw his vast army in a most critical situation, and apparently at the mercy of his opponent.

History tells the whole story in better language than I can. It calls it the "Battle of Chancellorsville."

Carl Schurz, one of the generals in Hooker's army, says that never did Gen. Lee's qualities as a soldier shine as brilliantly as they did in this battle. To quote his own language, "We had 120,000 men, Lee 60,000. Yet Lee handled his forces so skillfully that whenever he attacked he did it with a superior force, and in this way he overwhelmed our army and compelled its retreat, after suffering terrible losses not only in dead and wounded, but in prisoners."

But the Confederates also suffered a tremendous loss at Chancellorsville. Just at the moment when he was about to gather the fruit of his victory, which might have resulted in the surrender of Hooker's army, or the greater portion of it, Stonewall Jackson was fired on by his own men, mortally wounded, and died a few days afterwards.

The following account of the wounding of Jackson, as related by an eye-witness, will be of interest to the reader:

It was 9 o'clock at night. There was a lull in the battle, and Jackson's line had become somewhat disorganized by the men gathering in groups and discussing their brilliant victory. Jackson, noticing the confusion, rode up and down the line, saying, "Men, get into line, get into line; I need your help for a time. This disorder must be corrected."

He had just received information that a large body of fresh troops from the Union army was advancing to retake an important position that it had lost. Jackson had gone 100 yards in front of his own line to get a better view of the enemy's position. The only light that he had to guide him was that furnished by the moon. He was attended by half a dozen orderlies and several of his staff officers, when he was suddenly surprised by a volley of musketry in his front. The bullets began whistling about them, and struck several horses. This was the advance guard of the Federal lines. Jackson, seeing the danger, turned and rode rapidly back toward his own line. As he approached, the Confederate troops, mistaking them for the enemy's cavalry, stooped and delivered a deadly fire. So sudden was this volley, and so near at hand, that every horse which was not shot down recoiled from it in panic and turned to rush back, bearing his rider toward the approaching enemy. Several fell dead on the spot, and more were wounded, among them Gen. Jackson. His right hand was penetrated by a ball, his left was lacerated by another, and the same arm was broken a little below the shoulder by a third ball, which not only crushed the bone, but severed the main artery. His horse dashed, panic-stricken, toward the enemy, carrying him beneath the boughs of the trees, which inflicted several blows, lacerated his face, and almost dragged him from the saddle. His bridle hand was now powerless, but seizing the rein with his right hand, notwithstanding its wound, he arrested his horse and brought the animal back toward his own line.

He was followed by his faithful attendants. The firing of the Confederates had now been arrested by some of the officers, who realized their mistake, but the wounded and frantic horses were rushing without riders through the woods, where the ground was strewn with the dead and dying. Here Gen. Jackson drew up his horse and sat for an instant, gazing toward his own line, as if in astonishment at their cruel mistake, and in doubt whether he should again venture to approach them. He said to one of his staff, "I believe my arm is broken," and requested him to assist him from his horse and examine whether the wounds were bleeding dangerously. Before he could dismount he sank fainting into their arms, so completely prostrated that they were compelled to disengage his feet from the stirrups. They carried him a few yards into the woods north of the turnpike to shield him from the expected advance of the Federalists. One was sent for an ambulance and a surgeon, while another stripped his mangled arm in order to bind up the wound. The warm blood was flowing in a stream down his wrist. His clothes impeded all access to its source, and nothing was at hand more efficient than a penknife to remove the obstruction.

Just at this moment Gen. Hill appeared upon the scene with a part of his staff. They called upon him for assistance. One of his staff, Maj. Leigh, succeeded in reaching the wound and staunching the blood with a handkerchief. It was at this moment that two Federal skirmishers approached within a few feet of the spot where he lay, with their muskets cocked. They little knew what a prize was in their grasp. When, at the command of Gen. Hill, two orderlies arose from the kneeling group and demanded their surrender, they seemed amazed at their nearness to their enemy, and yielded their arms without resistance.

Lieut. Morrison, suspecting from their approach that the Federalists must be near at hand, stepped out into the road to examine, and by the light of the moon he saw a cannon pointing toward them, apparently not more than 100 yards distant. Indeed, it was so near that the orders given by the officers to the cannoneers could be distinctly heard. Returning hurriedly, he announced that the enemy were planting artillery in the road and that the general must be immediately removed. Gen. Hill now remounted and hurried back to make arrangements to meet this attack. In the combat which ensued, he himself was wounded a few moments after, and compelled to leave the field. No ambulance or litter was yet at hand, and the necessity for immediate removal suggested that they should bear the general away in their arms. To this he replied that if they would assist him to rise, he would walk to the rear. He was accordingly raised to his feet, and leaning upon the shoulders of two of his staff, he went slowly out of the highway, and toward his own troops.

FROM BULL RUNTO APPOMATTOX

A BOY'S VIEW

BY

L.W. HOPKINS

OF GENL. J.E.B. STUART'S CAVALRY

6th Virginia Regiment, C.S.A.

PREFACE

CONTENTS

From Harper's Ferry to Bull Run.

From Bull Run to Seven Pines.

From Bull Run to Seven Pines. (Continued.)

From Seven Pines to Antietam.

From Antietam to Chancellorsville.

From Chancellorsville to Gettysburg.

From Gettysburg to the Wilderness.

From the Wilderness to James River.

From the James River to Petersburg.

From Petersburg to Appomattox.

The Horses of Lee's Army.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

From Bull Run to Appomattox

A BOY'S VIEW

Chapter I.

FOOTNOTES:

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

FROM BULL RUN
TO APPOMATTOX