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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
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Seitenzahl: 681
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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FOUR YEARS ON THE FIRING LINE
James Cooper Nisbet
LACONIA PUBLISHERS
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Copyright © 2017 by James Cooper Nisbet
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD
I THE SCOTCHMAN IN AMERICA.
II PREMONITIONS OF WAR.
III. A Protest from Tessessee.
IV. A Protest from Massachusetts.
V. A SOUND CHESTNUT.
VI THE CALL TO ARMS
VII. “THE TWENTY-FIRST GA.”
VIII THE PRIVATE SOLDIER
IX OUR SUBMERGED TENTH
X. THE VALLEY CAMPAIGN.
XI. “ON TO RICHMOND.”
XII. McCLELLAN’S RETREAT.
XIII. SECOND MANASSAS CAMPAIGN.
XIV. CHANTILLY.
XV. THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN.
XVI. RESTING.
XVII. FREDERICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.
XVIII. PROMOTION.
XIX. CHICKAMAUGA.
BOYNTON’S REPORT ON BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
LONGSTREET’S REPORT ON BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
XX. TURCHIN’S ILIAD.
GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER’S REPORT ON BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL N. B. FORREST’S REPORT—BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
GENERAL WILDER’S REPORT—BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
XXI. “SCAPEGOATS.”
XXII. LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND MISSIONARY RIDGE.
XXIII. RINGGOLD AND DALTON.
XXIV. ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.
XXV. BATTLES OF PEACHTREE CREEK AND ATLANTA.
XXVI. A UNITED STATES MILITARY PRISON. JOHNSTON’S ISLAND.
XXVII. CHAMBERSBURG.
ATLANTA.
XXVIII. THE PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN.
XXIX. SURRENDER.
XXX. HOMEWARD BOUND.
XXXI. MACON.
XXXII. “CARTHAGENA DELENDA EST.”
XXXIII. LOOKOUT VALLEY.
XXXIV. RECONSTRUCTION.
XXXV. “THE KU-KLUX-KLAN.”
XXXVI. PHILANTHROPY’S CLOVEN FOOT.
XXXVII. LAW AND ORDER.
XXXVIII. THE NEGRO.
XXXIX. A RESUME.
XXXX. AFTERWORD.
FOUR YEARS ON THE FIRING LINE
BY
COL. JAMES COOPER NISBET
COL. JAMES COOPER NISBET
Captain Company H, 21st Georgia Regiment, Trimble’s Brigade, Ewell’s Division, Jackson’s Corps, 1861-63 Colonel 66th Georgia Regiment, Wilson’s Brigade, Walker’s Division, Army of Tennessee, 1863-1865.
FOREWORD
IT IS CONCEDED THAT THE Southerner put up his fight for his principles. Inherited experiences of the price of a principle were in him. His Hugenot, Covenanter, and Cavalier ancestry had waded hip-deep in blood for “what they then believed to be right!” “Dieu et mon droit.” It had the pull of a planet with the Southerner.
This book is a tribute to the Confederate Soldier.
Its pages are written in the interest of historic truth.
They record personal impressions and observations of the stirring times prior to and during the Civil War: and of the stormy Reconstruction Era: following the cessation of hostilities in the field.
These stories of courage, fortitude, sacrifice, deal with the human side of the struggle: the pathos—the laughter—the tragedy—and even the comedy of four frantic years.
The campaigns and battles through which the writer passed are herein set down. All important facts mentioned are verified from the statements and records of “our friends, the enemy.” Brief accounts are given of soldiers under whom and with whom I served: and of certain leaders of the opposing forces: with a full and free criticism of everybody and everything concerned.
“The fear of offending established views, destroys the powers of investigation.” I write without fear or favor: with the unhindered pen of limpid candor: moved by “the fighting soul of a fighting man, proved in the long ago.”
When the passions engendered by the Civil War are an extinct volcano, may some new Macaulay arise!—to give the world an unbiased history of the War Between the States: compiled from data furnished by the men who fought its battles.
I THE SCOTCHMAN IN AMERICA.
SAID EDMUND BURKE: “THOSE WILL not look forward to their posterity, who never look back at their ancestry,” The posterity of the Southern colonist had to be reckoned with in the Southern Soldier. What was behind him? Emigrants driven to America by oppression, who taught their children to resist tyranny.
The Scotch people, imbued with the doctrine of “final perseverance” carry the idea into every undertaking: and Scotch persistance, bred in the bone, has created history “wherever they have made their mortal fight. Under great difficulties, against overwhelming odds, the Scotch succeeded in establishing Presbyterianism as the religion of Scotland. And for centuries, the Covenanter’s immovable moral principle—moral dominance—made him a target for every shaft.
Execrable Jeffreys, “link’d to one virtue and a thousand crimes,” vociferated in the assizes: “I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles!” which was possible, since the vulture does scent its prey for that distance! Taine cast this saying in the teeth of the prolific De Foe: “When he approaches fiction, it is with low ideals and moral aims:—like a Presbyterian and a plebian.”
Old Hudibras was hardly unfair to the Covenanter:
“For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant-saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant:
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun!”
In this our day, corosive Ingersall is moved to say: “Of all the ‘isms’ that over afflicted mankind Presbyterianism is the worst.”
And a sharp-toothed critic whose bark is not worse than his bite, attacks James Lane Allen’s poetic style with the old gibe: “But behind the poet lurks the Presbyterian!”
Nevertheless, the faith of the Covenanter has withstood for centuries—always and everywhere—the onset of infidelity and oppression.
In America these people are spoken of as Scotch-Irish: a misnomer, if Scotch-Irish implies a graft of Scotch blood on Irish stock. Apart from, the thousands of Scotchmen who came direct to America, what of the Ulstermen?—the Scotchmen who made a stepping-stone of the north of Ireland on their way to independence?
In the year 1609 was inaugurated a settlement of the plantations in Ulster by Scotch gentry from the “lowlands” around and between Glasgow and Edinburg. They were selected by his Majesty James I for “their probity, intelligence, and industry.” The lands in Ulster—a million acres, or more—had been forfeited to the Crown. The earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel having carried on internecine wars—we call ’em feuds in Kentucky!—for many years, found their possessions in ruins, taxes unpaid, and lands desolate. The English government put a stop to further fighting. Presto, the plucky Irishmen—branded as outlaws—took ship with some of their retainers, and sailed away to the Continent: taking with them the glorious memory of “illegant fight-thin” and leaving their paternal acres to King James.
To the Scotch settlers these lands were sold on favorable terms and conditions, as Indian lands are sold here. History sets forth that the new comers and their descendants were thrifty: improving the soil, building churches, schools, cities. A London colony had a grant of 210,000 acres near Derry. They settled there, and the town became in time Londonderry. About this time came the Hugenots; skilled artisans who escaped to these shores from France, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Later a large body of Hollanders were sent out by William of Orange: settling about Belfast. With these immigrants the Scotch intermarried: retaining, however, their racial characteristics and form of faith. With the native Irish Catholics it does not appear that the Scotch did intermarry. Between these two peoples existed a deadly hostility: irreconcilable differences in belief. Except in isolated instances, social contact was avoided. So the Scotch-Irishman was a Scotchman born in Ireland: not a man of Scotch and Irish parentage. One old historian, who was out of this stock, observes: “They formed a distinct race from the native Celts: and were distinguished for enterprise, intellectual capacity and love of liberty.”
It was the non-conformist laws begun under Elizabeth in 1558, and continued under the Stuarts, and even under William of Orange, which drove so many people of Scotch descent to America in the two hundred years prior to the Revolution. Notwithstanding the heroic defense of Londonderry, and the successful battle of the Boyne, the English ecclesiastical laws continued to burden the Scotchmen. So, in the century and a half from 1620 to 1775, there occurred a still greater tide of emigration from the Lowlands of Scotland, and from the “stepping-stone” in Ireland, Ulster, to America. They came hating the English government. Opposition was bred in the bone of their children. Landing, for the most part, at Philadelphia, they pushed inland: western Pennsylvania receiving the first great accession from this invasion. On, through the Cumberland Valley to the Potomac rolled the tidal wave of Covenanters. When the Virginia House of Burgesses granted them an Act of Religious Toleration, they overspread the Valley of Virginia from Harper’s Ferry to Staunton: excepting that portion of Rockingham county settled by German protestants: and they also occupied the Piedmont country from Leesburg to Charlottesville.
This tide, turning south at length, was met by a similar invasion of Scotch Presbyterians coming from the ports of Wilmington and Charleston: to people the counties of middle North Carolina and northern South Carolina. Here was “The Foreloper:”—come to gouge a home out of the wilderness.
“The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind wave break in fire,
He shall fulfil God’s utmost will unknowing His desire:
And he shall see old planets pass and alien stars arise:
And give the gale his reckless sail in the shadow of new skies.
Strong lust of gear shall drive him out, and hunger arm his hand
To wring his food from a desert nude, his foothold from the sand.
His neighbor’s smoke shall vex his eyes, their voices break his rest.
He shall go forth till south is north, sullen and dispossessed;
And he shall desire loneliness, and his desire shall bring
Hard on his heels a thousand wheels, a people and a king:
And he shall come back in his own track, and by his scarce cool camp
There he shall meet the roaring street, the derrick and the stamp:
For he must blaze a nation’s ways with hatchet and with brand,
Till on his last-won wilderness an empire’s bulwarks stand.”
In the day of the musket and frying-pan—and conscience!—outfit, the preacher was not without authority. How did he use it in these Southern colonies? Bending across the little pine table which held The Word of God in the log meeting-house, the Covenanter delivered to his spell-bound congregation this message: “We must fight!”
“Sorely have our countrymen been dealt with; until forced to the declaration of their independence. Our forefathers in Scotland made a similar declaration and maintained it with their lives. It is now our turn to maintain this.”
This was the sermon the old Covenanter, Martin, thundered into the ears of his flock at the Rocky Creek meeting-house on the Catawba river, in the rumble of the tempest—the American Revolution.
His listeners were “the descendants of the most vigorous and worthy Irish, Scotch, English and Welsh.” Every mother’s son of them believed “No man’s authority is greater than any man’s right.”
Lo, the breed of the Southern Soldier! From these armies of Covenanters turned loose in America sprung up, in the fullness of years, the bigger part of the army of the Confederacy. From these undismayed souls—law-abiding, God-fearing, hard-fighting fellows—came forth The Man in Gray:—he whose doings shook the world.
The mass of Scotch Presbyterians was always aglow with “that very fiery particle” the Irish Presbyterian. After the Revolution he became the hornet of Education. He stood for attainments and “the hickory.” He thrashed an education into the young Southerners.
Governor Gilmer, in his history of the settlement of Georgia, remarks: “The schools, in almost every instance, were taught by educated Irishmen: and the highest ambition of an Irish Presbyterian was to have his eldest son become a preacher.”
The severance of the colonies from Great Britain, in numberless cases, meant the severance of the individual from the ties and claims of consanguinity: from rights, titles and inheritances more or less considerable. When the President of the United States wore leather shoe-strings as an item of “straight Democracy,” he set the pace for other people. To be American a man must disdain lineage and noble forbears. If he were a younger son out of titled family,—there were then, as now, plenty of them in America—few persons were the wiser for it. Who cared? The aristocrat had become the poor pioneer. As a result of this state of things. The Man in Gray was, in thousands and thousands of instances, a scion of historic and noble families. Many a time he knew it. Many a time he didn’t even know it. The wilderness smudges away distinctions. Howbeit, into the “melting-pot” of the Southern colonies went not only the “simple faith,” but the “Norman blood.” Specifically, the rank and file of the Southern armies boasted some of the best blood on earth. And plenty of it! As for the private—God bless him!—there were privates in our ranks whose pedigrees, as a matter of fact, are pointed out in Burke’s Peerage. So, we are reminded of the Irish witticism: “Faith, every man is as good as every other one,—an’ bet-ther too!”
In the Scotch output via Philadelphia in the year year 1730 was one antecedent of the Southern Soldier that I know most about. His name was John Nisbet. He was a descendent of that historic religious turbulent, Murdoch Nisbet, of Hardhill, Loudon parish, Scotland. Murdoch Nisbet—born in the year 1500—was one of those religious precursors of the Reformation who suffered exile for his principles. He left behind him, at his death, his translation of the Scriptures from the original, and a great-grandson who became—at the conjunction of the Man and the Hour—a martyr to his faith. This was John Nisbet I. He was Captain John Nisbet of the Army of the Covenant. He, too, was born at Hardhill, Scotland: in 1627. He saw military service abroad, before he became an officer in the Army of the Covenant. After the battle of Bothwell’s bridge, he was captured by Claverhouse’s cavalry. He was tried by the infamous Jeffreys at “the bloody assizes” in Edinburg: “with the Duke of Argyle and other prominent Scotch leaders, he was convicted of treason against the English government, and executed December 4th, 1685. Hume mentions his as “gallant John Nisbet.” Lord Torfoot, in his memoirs—Edinburg Library—refers to him in the same manner. And “honest old John Nisbet” was the tender name given him by Sir Robert Hamilton, his commander-in-chief.
Afterward, when the cause of the Covenanters had prevailed, John Nisbet’s son, James Nisbet, became Governor of Edinburg Castle; and wrote and published (1719) the life of his father: (Edinburg Public Library) from which volume these facts are derived. James’s son, John Nisbet II, was born 1705, and came to America in 1730. Landing at Philadelphia, as already mentioned, he finally settled in Bladen County N. C.—afterwards Rowan County—about 1735. There, in “Thyatira Cemetery” he is buried, with “Sarah, his faithful wife; who departed this life in ye month of October 1764.” The son of these two people,—John Nisbet III—was born 1738. He married Mary, the daughter of Colonel Alexander Osborne, and “was a man of distinction in his day: prominent in the Revolutionary struggle.” Of him, one of the histories of North Carolina says: “He was a man whose brains, wealth, and activities were employed in the service of his country. His death was lamented.” (Statesville, North Carolina, 1813.)
“His son. James Nisbet, after graduation, took his diploma in medicine from Jefferson College, Philadelphia. He moved to Georgia, with his negroes and settled a plantation near Union Point in Greene County. He married Penelope Cooper; daughter of Captain Thomas Cooper, who had come to Georgia from Virginia in 1793; settling a plantation in the newly acquired Creek-Indian Lands, known as Hancock County. Captain Cooper had been a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses; an office then scarcely inferior in dignity, and superior in influence, to that of delegate to the Continental Congress. During the Revolution Thomas Cooper held a captaincy in “George Washington’s Own.” He died in 1779. James Nisbet and his wife, Penelope Cooper Nisbet, reared a large family; five sons and four daughters: several of whom became distinguished Georgians: notably, Eugenius A. Nisbet; whose decisions as judge of supreme court are still quoted OS high authority. Judge Nisbet was an active trustee of the State University, member of the U. S. Congress, afterwards of the Confederate Congress, and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church. Another son was Franklin A. Nisbet: cotton-planter, legislator, and man of letters. He married Miss Arabella Alexander of Alabama. Their children and grand-children do honor to the name they bear. A third son was James A. Nisbet. He married Frances Rebecca, daughter of Dr. John Wingfield: of Madison, Georgia; a distinguished and highly cultivated gentleman. James A. Nisbet practiced law successfully in Macon, Georgia. He was a leading citizen in building up that section of the state. James Alexander Nisbet and Francis Wingfield Nisbet were my parents.
In May 1775 we find these people—Scotch-Americans—assembled in Charlotte, North Carolina, promulgating “The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence:” more than a year before others in the Colonies were ready to take such a step.
The “Declaration” was written by Dr. Ephraim Brevard, a relative of the Nisbet family; and the document read to the crowd assembled at the Charlotte Court House, by Dr. Brevard’s brother, a lawyer of that place. The meeting at the Court House was called together by Col. Thomas Polk: a great-uncle of President Jas. K. Polk. President Polk’s grandfather, Ezekiel Polk, was one of the signers of this momentous instrument:—an instrument in the most literal sense of the word; since it was meant “to instruct” and “to build up”.
The authenticity of “The Mecklenburg Declaration has been questioned. Thomas Jefferson wrote a jocular letter to John Adams in which he expresses a doubt of its authenticity; saying: “I never heard of it until twenty years after.” However, the legislature of North Carolina took the matter up; and appointed a committee of investigation The British archives, and the Colonial archives of North Carolina were searched. It was ascertained that the Loyalist governor of North Carolina, Governor Martin, had obtained a copy of The Cape Fear News, in which The Mecklenburg Declaration was published, and had forwarded the inflammatory sheet to the British officials with a letter denouncing the “Declaration” as “infamous;” and recommending that the men who had signed it be seized for treason.
There were about thirty “signers”.
And every man of ’em was a Presbyterian!
Governor Gilmer, a man of the highest character and cultivation, contributes his testimony regarding the Mecklenburg Declaration, in his History. It is new light—and lime-light—on old doubts. Those who would impugn the precedence of the movement for Independence, should read Gilmer’s statement, here quoted for the first time.
“The rumors about the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, so excited the Scotch-Irish of Mecklenburg that on the 10th of May 1775, they assembled in the little village of Charlotte to agree upon what they would do. They made the following Declarations of their opinions and purposes.” (Then follows a copy of the instrument.) “There are still living some whose parents were in that assemblage,” the old historian continues “and heard and read the resolutions; and from whose lips they learned the circumstances and sentiments of this remarkable Declaration. When the chairman of the meeting put the question: “Who will carry our resolves to the Congress of the Confederation?” James Jack, a bold, enthusiastic man, answered: “I will.”
Immediately after a lone horseman might have been seen pressing his horse on through the country toward the north. When James Jack arrived in Philadelphia,, he attended the Congress and delivered his message to some of its members. That body took no notice of it in its proceedings. The majority were not then prepared to jeopardize their lives and property by doing what was treasonable.
While the Declaration of Independence made by the Congress of the Confederation, on the 4th of July. 1776, has been upon the lips of every American upon every return of its anniversary, the Declaration of Independence made more than a year before, by the Mecklenburg people, remained for a long time unknown to fame. The fact that such a “Declaration” had been made, was unnoticed in history; unknown to the public: and denied when asserted:—until placed beyond dispute by the production of two copies which had continued in the possession of persons present when it was made: and by the finding of a copy which was sent to his Government by some British officer in the Southern Colonies, and deposited in the Colonial Office of London”.
It is unfortunate that Gilmer’s transcription of The Mecklenburg “Declaration of Independence” is undated. He testified that the date was May 10th, 1775.
At that pregnant period there were few Methodists. Before the Revolution, Wesley sent out two ministers to America. (1769) In 1773 there were in the Thirteen States a membership of 1,160 Methodists, This number was reported at their first American Conference: Baltimore, 1773. This consisted of ten Methodist preachers; all born in England or Ireland. Being unable to take the oath of allegiance to the Colonies, or to sympathize with things American, these men all returned to England, except one: Asbury. By May 1776 there were 24 Methodist preachers and 4,921 members. Of these, seven preachers and one thousand members returned to England at the outbreak or hostilities.
In Rhode Island Roger Williams had a big backing of Baptists: and there were a few scattered throughout the Colonies. In 1727 a church was organized in North Carolina, with a small congregation. In Virginia, about the same time, the Baptist Church was increased considerably by accessions from England. In 1770 Brown University, of Providence, was founded. The Baptists in the States though weak in numbers, were for Independence and religious freedom: and took an active part in the Revolution. Just before, and just after the war with Great Britain, there were Baptist revivals; and a phenomenal increase in the numbers of this church. After the Revolution both denominations—Baptists and Methodists—grew in numbers, rapidly. Our forefathers were embracing forms of church government better suited to pioneer life. Hence, during the Civil War the Presbyterians were in the minority, albeit the majority of the population was of Scotch stock.
It appears that the Episcopalians about Charlotte—that North Carolina village was the Oracle of American Independence:—at the inception of the Revolution were English; and loyal to the crown. English Episcopalians held inviolate the doctrine of Church and State: believing in prelacy. They had no quarrel with Great Britain; but loved the Mother-Country. At the outbreak of war, the Churchmen in the Northern States generally held with the British Government. Southern Churchmen, when the fight was on, were, for the most part, enlisted in the cause of the Great Rebellion,
There were a vast number of Loyalists. John Adams estimated that at the close of the struggle with Great Britain, “one third of the total population of three millions, were opposed to the measures of the Revolution.” During the conflict many Loyalists fled to England, or to some of the British Possessions. A large number enlisted for active service, against their fellow-colonists: in regularly organized British regiments. Thousands took refuge in Canada; where, between forty and fifty thousand are said to have gone prior to 1786,
The reminiscences of these people record vicissitudes and disruption. History, as they made it, was a fierce experience. Their prolonged wanderings are an Odyssey of stirring interest. The fidelity of these people to the English Crown was unfaltering. It was by these emigrants that the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were settled. The British Government made liberal provision to cover their losses.
The very spirit of the initiative, we find the Scotch-American on the Wautauga and Holston: always bound for the frontier; always,—where new land could be had—entering in to possess it: always the Prologue to Civilization. On, to middle Tennessee he pressed; making that state the stronghold of the Scotch-American breed in the United States. The richest lands became theirs by right of discovery and occupation. The settler of a later and safer period might take what his bold predecessor had no use for. After the Revolution, emigrants from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, settled the “middle West.” Still pushing westward with Sam Houston, Crockett and Fannin, the “Lone Star State” was added to our Republic. This was the breed of men that under the leadership of “the Lewises of Augusta County, Virginia,” broke the backbone of Indian power at Point Pleasant, and opened up the Ohio River. Under the same leaders they saved Braddock’s army at Fort Du Quesne: and it was Daniel Morgan’s regiment from the Valley of Virginia that secured victory at Saratoga. When Morgan was presented to General Burgoyne, the latter exclaimed: “My dear Sir, you command the finest regiment in the world;” Morgan was made Brigadier-General and sent to Greene’s assistance in South Carolina, and was the hero of the “Cowpens.” He died at his beautiful home “Saratoga” and is buried near Winchester, Virginia.
At Brandywine; Cowpens; King’s Mountain; Guilford Court House; Yorktown, The Scotch-American was the chief factor of success to the American arms. And still later, in the person of General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans and in the make-up of his army. The Scot in Scotland, in Ireland, in America, never loses his racial identity. “Semper Eadem” is the motto that fits the man. That which he was at Derry and the Boyne, and in the battles of the Civil War, that will he be whenever his country calls. Wheresoever he makes his “mortal fight” he is always the first to start, and the last to stop.
Ex-Governor Joseph Johnston of Alabama, says: “In the war between the States, the two most largely populated by the “Scotch-Irish” race, led all the rest in the splendor of their achievements: and the greatest loss occurred when the Iron Soldiers of North Carolina, and Western Pennsylvania, descendants of the same race and stock, met on the field of battle, and locked arms in the embrace of death.”
The greatest loss sustained by any regiment during the Civil War, was that of the 26th. North Carolina at Gettysburg. It went into the fight 800 strong; its loss in killed and wounded was 580:—over seventy per cent. This loss was sustained in fighting the 151st Pennsylvania, and Cooper’s Battery.”
The Light Brigade at Balaklava, immortalized by historians and poets, lost, in that “wild charge they made,” only thirty-three and a third per cent.
In 1861 the voting population of North Carolina was only 115,000, yet the state furnished the Confederate army 125,000 soldiers.
14,552 North Carolina troops fell in the field. The number of those who died from wounds, was 20,602. Total loss 35,124.
North Carolina resisted secession, but was first at Bethel—Col. D. H. Hill’s North Carolina Brigade firing first shot—and last at Appomattox—Coxe’s North Carolina Brigade firing the last shot.
When this Scotch blood gave its impulse to the Union Armies after 1862,—it poured in from Western Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and the other middle-western states—it did more to turn the tide of battle, which had at first set in favor of the South, than the Puritan, German, or any other strain.
This stock has given eight Presidents to the United States. Of the Secretarys of the Treasury, one half the number are of this blood: as are one third of the Secretarys of State. Among them we find the names of Louis McClean, Thomas Ewing, John C. Calhoun, Thomas Corwin, Henry Clay, James Guthrie, Jefferson Davis, Salmon P. Chase, John C. Breckinridge, Hugh McCulloch, Jas. G. Blaine. The Puritan in America has received generous recognition, and so has the Cavalier. It is high time that justice be done the Scot, who has played the most prominent part in American Civilization.
Among Revolutionary statesmen and orators, Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Patrick Henry led the van. Of Washington’s 22 Brigadiers, nine were of Scotch descent. Andrew Jackson and his men gave us peace with the Indians and Great Britain, and wrested Florida from the Spaniards. Sara Houston, Crocket and Fannin gave us Texas. In the Civil War the names of such Unionists as Grant, McPherson, McDowell, McClellan, Gilmore and Frank Blair became salient. Among the Confederates of imperishable fame, were Jos. E. Johnston, James Longstreet, J. E. B. Stuart, and how many others?—all of the self-same breed. And there is yet another name which in itself is enough to shed an undying lustre over the ranks of the Lost Cause:—over the whole race of Scotch-Americans;—Stonewall Jackson.
In the field of invention, the American Scot bulks large. Henry and Morse, evolvers of the telegraph; Edison, the Avatar of Electricity; and Alexander Graham Bell, come first. Bell was born m Edinburg.
In manufactures, Cyrus McCormick is the genius of the harvest. The wheat-fields of the West are brought to our doors with his reapers. As for the iron-masters of Ohio and Pennsylvania, Scotch-Americans,—all. From Grant and Campbell—the first to use the Hot-Blast—to Andrew Carnegie: in whose colossal operations the iron and steel manufactures seem to culminate.
In transportation, the great Penn. R. R. system has been continuously in the hands of men of Scotch extraction: Edgar Thompson; McCulloch; Scott; McRee; Pitcairn; Andrew Carnegie, A. J .Cassatt.
The fast printing-presses were developed by Gordon and Campbell.
The most notable editors in the United States were Bennett and Greely: one a Scotchmen; the other an Ulsterman. Bennett is credited with the conception of the modern newspaper: a universal newsmonger.
Greely, “our later Franklin,” as he was termed by Whittier, made the newspaper the most efficient force ever used in the propagation of political conceptions.
In literature, the Scotch-American is eloquent. That patriarch of American Letters, Washington Irving, was the son of Scotch parents who had been but two years in America when the coming author—came.
Against the background of the world the Scotch-American stands in bas-relief:
II PREMONITIONS OF WAR.
IN 1856 I WAS PREPARING for college at a high-school in Rome, Georgia. There, I first met Algernon Sydney Hamilton, a son of Dr. Thomas Hamilton of Bartow,—then Cass County—Georgia. We were related through our common ancestor Captain Thomas Cooper.
Hamilton had just returned from “Bloody Kansas,” and had many stirring tales to tell of his adventures. He and his brothers, Charles and Peter, had taken their negroes there,—as authorized by the Kansas-Nebraska Act—and entered land. When the agitation over slavery had culminated in bloodshed, the Hamiltons had joined and fought with the “Missouri Ruffians,” under United States Senator Atchison, against the “Kansas Jay-Hawkers”. The pro-slavery men were at first successful, and organized the territory under the Le Compton Constitution: which authorizes slavery. This Constitution was rejected by Congress. Another election was ordered.
In the meantime, the crusade begun in the North by Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Geritt Smith and others, was equal to that begun by Peter the Hermit, when his proclamations aroused Europe to rescue the Holy Sepulchre.
The Eastern States were in a ferment. Much money was raised, and thousands of desperate men were sent into Kansas, armed with Sharpe’s rifles. The Southern men were overpowered by numbers, and many left the territory. Consequently, the Free-Soil party carried the next election. This party adopted a Constitution forbidding slavery.
With others, the Hamiltons left for Texas, with their negroes and teams; passing through the Indian Territory.
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise measure, adopted by Congress in 1822 through the efforts of Senator Clay, which had fixed the status of slavery in the Territories, now opened up anew the agitation which had been allayed for thirty-one years.
The admission of Missouri into the Union of States had been effected through compromise. This compromise-law admitted the state into the Union with a pro-slavery constitution, but provided that slavery should never be lawful north of latitude 36 deg. 30 min.—the Southern boundary of Missouri.
The Hon. Ben. H. Hill, of Georgia, regarded Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Bill as “ill advised and in bad faith toward the North.” In a prophetic speech, he said: “Take care, my fellow citizens, that in endeavoring to carry slavery where nature’s laws prohibit its entrance, and where your solemn faith is pledged it shall not go, you do not lose the right to hold slaves at all.”
Rhodes, the historian says: “It is safe to say that in its scope and consequences, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was the most momentous measure from the organization of the Union of States to the outbreak of the Civil War. It sealed the doom of the two old parties. It aroused Lincoln, and gave a bent to his ambition. It made his election possible.
Hamilton, when twitted about having retreated from Kansas, answered that he and his brothers had “welcomed a fight in the open,” but “when the desperadoes commenced to do secret murder,—slaying sleeping households in their beds;—then we threw up the sponge.”
He mentioned one John Brown, and his sons, as very desperate characters; on the Free-Soil side. Little did we then know that this man, Brown, would thereafter acquire by his monstrous deeds, a world-wide infamy. To him, it will be necessary to refer again.
In the summer of 1859 I finished my college course; and that autumn I settled Cloverdale Stock Farm, in Lookout Valley, Dade County Georgia. The anti-slavery agitation had grown fiercer from year to year; fanned by the intemperate utterances of ultramen on both sides. At the North, Sumner Seward, Beecher, Wendell Phillips, Garrison, etc. were loud-mouthed. At the South, Toombs, Yancey, Brooks, Ruffin, etc. gave tongue.
After the Dred Scot decision, Seward—or Garrison—announced that “The United States Constitution was a league with Hell and a covenant with Satan.” And he proceeded to proclaim a “Higher Law,”
Most of the Northern states passed “Personal Liberty Laws” as to escaped slaves: thus nullifying the Supreme Court decision. In the halls of Congress Toombs cast this saying in the teeth that were on edge. “I will yet call the roll of my slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument.”
October 17th, 1859, the whole country was startled by the news that the United States Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry had been seized by one Capt. John Brown and sixteen others from Kansas, five of whom were colored men; that they had killed a negro porter, and held sixty prominent citizens prisoners: Brown giving out that his object was, to free the slaves.” This affair created intense excitement throughout the country, especially in Virginia. The old citizens remembered that it was near the scene of “Nat Turner’s Insurrection,” twenty-eight (28) years before, in which the negroes, led by Turner, killed fifty-eight (58) white persons in forty-eight hours. (See Bryant and Gays’ History of the United States Vol. 4) “Surreptitiously without loss to the insurgents.” John Brown and his party were captured by Col. Robt E. Lee and his United States Regulars, and one of Brown’s four sons was killed in taking the arsenal. John Brown was tried under the laws of Virginia for murder, and inciting slaves to insurrection, found guilty and executed. Of this F. B. Sanborn author of the “Life and Letters of John Brown,” says “From the Crucifixion at Jerusalem a light sprang forth that was reflected back without obstruction from the ugly gallows of Virginia. John Brown took up his cross and followed the Lord, and it was enough for this servant, that he was as his master” (Life and Letters of John Brown page 118) Now that he has been canonized, and by many almost deified, it is well to enquire into his life and deeds: especially as an Ex-President of the United States “who has undoubtedly read the thirteenth and fifteenth verses of the twentieth chapter of Exodus,” with all the facts before him, essays to hold John Brown up, “As representing the men and generation who rendered the greatest service ever rendered this country: A man of heroic valor, grim energy, and fierce fidelity to big ideals. “What were Brown’s “big ideals”? How got he his halo? What is the essence of evidence concerning this man? What are the statements of his own friends? One of his admirers, Oswald Garrison Villard in his biography of John Brown styled “Fifty years After”—speaking of some of Brown’s business transactions says, “June 15, 1839, Jno. Brown received for the New England Woolen Co., the sum of $2,800 through its agent Geo Kellogg for the purchase of Wool, which money he used for his own benefit and was unable to redeem it. At his death in 1859 his debt was still unpaid and John Brown bequeathed $50 toward its payment by his last will and testament. A late letter of the eminent physician and surgeon John A. Wyeth L. L. D. of New York to the New York Sun says: F. B. Sanborn, author of the “Life and Letters of John Brown,” declares, “One of the men killed at Ossawottomie, Kansas, was Mr. William Sherman, a member of the Territorial Legislature. He was surprised in his bed about two o’clock in the morning, May 20th, 1856. Those who accomplished it were under John Brown’s orders and were directed in all their movements by John Brown.” Sanborn also says, “the men who composed this party were John Brown, his four sons, and his son-in-law Henry Thompson, a Mr. Weiman and James Townsley.” James Harris in his testimony before a committee of Congress, swore: “I took Mr. William Sherman out of the creek and examined him, Sherman’s skull was split in two places. A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off.” Sanborn says “when the bodies of the dead were found there went up a cry that they had been mutilated.” Dr. Wyeth says, “ordinarilly two gashes through the skull would suffice, without lopping off a hand, however the director was a man of ‘high ideals.’ and mutilation seemed to be necessary.” Another of the victims WPS a Mr. Wilkerson who was the postmaster at Shermanville, also a member of the Legislature. Mrs. Wilkerson, in her testimony before the Congressional Committee said that she was sick in bed with the measles, that she begged them to let her husband stay with her, as she was helpless,” “The old man, (Brown) who seemed to be in command looked at me and then around at the children, and replied, ‘you have neighbors.’ Then they took my husband away. One of them came back and took two saddles. The next morning Mr. Wilkerson was found. I believe that one of Capt. Brown’s sons was in the party that murdered my husband. My husband was a quiet man, and was not engaged fired in arresting or disturbing anybody.” Three Doyles father and two sons, both of the lads under age, were also murdered. This done the horses and saddles of the dead mean were “taken along” (according to Sanborn) to Northern Kansas and traded off. This author styles the killing of these persons “executions” those killed in retaliation by pro-slavery men “murders.”
As to the Doyle family, the following letter taken from the original now in the Archives at Richmond, Virginia, where it was deposited with other of the John Brown documents, will be of interest:
“Chattanooga, Tenn., Nov. 25th, 1859.
“John Brown, Sir:
“Although vengeance is not mine, I confess that I am gratified to hear that you were stopped in your fiendish career at Harper’s Ferry. With the loss of your two sons, you can now appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you entered my home at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys, took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them dead. This was in my hearing. You can’t say you did it to free the slaves: we had none and never expected to own one. You made me a disconsolate widow with helpless children. While I feel for your folly, I trust you will meet your just reward. O, how it pained my heart to hear the dying groans of my husband and children! N. B. My son, John Doyle, whose life I begged of you, is now grown up, and very desirous to be at Charlestown on the day of your execution; that he might adjust the rope around your neck if Governor Wise will permit it.
(Signed)“Mrs. M. Doyle.”
John Doyle, mentioned in the above letter, is now a good citizen of Chattanooga, and a Confederate Veteran. He says, “I obtained permission from Governor Wise, of Virginia, to “adjust the rope,” however a “Washout” on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad prevented my reaching the scene of ‘execution’ in time.”
III. A PROTEST FROM TESSESSEE.
MRS. MAY DOYLE SAUNDERS, DAUGHTER of John Doyle, says: “In the year 1855 the Doyle family left East Tennessee to settle in Kansas. They travelled across the country in wagons. They arrived in Franklin County, Kansas, in November. My grandfather, Jas. P. Doyle, staked his claim for one hundred and sixty acres. They built a house and settled down to live.
My grandfather did not own any slaves, his idea of moving to Kansas was not for any political purposes, but he had a large family of boys and thought they could do better there than in this section of country. After my grandfather and two uncles were murdered, my grandmother gathered up the remnant of her family and came back to East Tennessee to live. My father, John Doyle, (the boy who was spared in Kansas), is the last one of the Doyle family; seventy-two years old. He is well and hearty, and does not look his age by ten years. He served through the Civil War under General Joe Wheeler; Second Tennessee Cavalry, Ashby’s Brigade. I was reading an article in “Life” signed “Constant Reader” entering a protest against John Brown’s statue being placed in the “Hall of Fame.” I entered my protest, which “Life” published under the head of “A Protest from Tennessee.”
(Signed)Mrs. May Doyle Saunders,
Chattanooga, Tenn., Sept. 26th, 1910.
John Brown led an expedition into Missouri, and forcibly took from their owners, slaves, horses, and other property; and killed one man who resisted the taking of his effects; and as a result of these and other unlawful acts, he (according to Sanborn) left Kansas pursued by United States troops, and to escape arrest and punishment lived in various places under different aliases. In a letter to Eli Thaver, dated April 16th, 1857, this man of “High Ideals, Heroic Valor, and Grim Energy,” says, “I am advised that one of Uncle Sam’s hounds is on my track.” Of the “high idealism” which was rampant at this period, this letter from Theodore Parker, a great divine of Boston, may be an indication: “My Dear Judge Russell: If John Brown falls into the hands of United States Marshall from Kansas, he is sure of the gallows, or of something worse. If I were in his position, I would shoot dead any man who attempted to arrest me for those alleged crimes. I would be tried by Massachusetts jury and acquitted.” The next we hear of John Brown was at Harper’s Ferry, September, 1857. He captured the Government arsenal, which was treason: he killed a negro porter who was running away. This was murder. He had one thousand pikes to arm the negroes of the neighborhood when they should rise and murder all the whites: including women and children: as Nat Turner did. The pikes were paid for out of $4,000 contributed for this expedition, by George L. Stearns, Dr. Howe, Theodore Parker, Col. Higginson. F. B. Sanborn, (author), Gerritt Smith and others. Sanborn says, “out of a little more than $4,000 in money which passed through the hands of the secret committee in aid of his Virginia enterprise, at least $3,000 was given with a clear knowledge of the use to which it would be Dut.” Brown, himself, according to Sanborn said, after he was a prisoner, “If I had only got the thing fairly started, you Virginians would have seen sights that would have opened your eyes.” Prof. John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, Rooseveltian professor at Berlin, in his work on John Brown, refers to his career in Kansas, and concludes by saying: “Some men have professed to find virtue in this noxious compound; but such minds have lost their moorings, and are roaming without star or compass over the borderland between reason and insanity.
IV. A PROTEST FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
IN THE SUNDAY TELEGRAM OF Worcester, Massachusetts, September 18th, 1910, we find another protest, as follows: “Miss Eva Alden Thayer, of 10 Hawthorne street, has removed the picture of former President Theodore Roosevelt from the reception room of her home, and placed it in the cellar, as a mark of her disapprobation of some of his recent utterances as to ante-bellum conditions in Kansas. Miss Thayer is the daughter of Eli Thayer, former member of Congress from the Worcester district, who was associated with Dr. Charles Robinson in a successful endeavor to make Kansas a free state. Roosevelt, in his speech at Ossawottamie, Kansas, totally ignores the work of both of these men, and yielded the palm to John Brown. Miss Thayer contends that Brown, instead of working to secure the admission of the state into the Union as a free state, was murdering the inhabitants thereof, and his presence in the state was greatly deplored; as his object was to promote clashes with the lawless people of Missouri, and those who were trying through peaceful measures to make Kansas a free state. Miss Thayer points out that President William Taft, at Topeka, May 30th, 1904, (then Secretary of War), speaking to fill an appointment of his chief (President Roosevelt), declared, that ‘the credit for the admission of Kansas as a free state is due to Eli Thayer and Dr. Charles Robinson.” Taft spoke at Topeka to fill an appointment for Mr. Roosevelt, and it is reasonable to suppose that the War-Secretary voiced the sentiments of his chief. It is an historical fact that it was Eh Thayer and Dr. Charles Robinson who are responsible for the admission of the state, January 29th, 1861, as a free state: and it is certainly the height of impertinence and audacity for the man who says he believes in the “Square Deal” to give this credit to John Brown, the Harper’s Ferry insurrectionist, Eli Thayer, before he died, 1899, wrote a book which he called the “Kansas Crusade” and former President Roosevelt, in numerous letters, bestowed upon this work “lavish praises.” Miss Thayer offers the speech of Mr. Taft at Topeka, May 30th, 1904, when Mr. Taft said, among other things: “When the enactment of the Kansas bill, 1854, presented the issue, ‘Shall Kansas be free or slave?’ a few men, hardly a dozen, determined to make her free by peopling the state with citizens who would forever exclude slavery. It is a noteworthy fact that the professed and prominent abolitionist scouted the idea that this could be a successful movement; they refused to engage as allies, because it did not appear with sufficient clearness that they were casting themselves upon the altar in declared and open sacrifice for the cause of the negro. The theorists seemed not content with the bringing in of the state of Kansas as a free state. They demanded that it must be brought in on the avowed principle of love for the negro and in his interest. Eli Thayer travelled from time to time in the North soliciting aid for his Emigration Society, and recruiting the ranks of the small bands of settlers already in Kansas. When it became necessary to have guns Thayer obtained and sent them.
There are no greater heroes in the history of this country than Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, and Dr. Charles Robinson, of Kansas.” Says Miss Thayer, “In 1860 my father was a member of the convention that nominated Lincoln, he being sent as a delegate from Oregon.
The convention adopted resolutions in effect, that ‘John Brown’ was one of the greatest criminals the world ever saw.”
In the summer of 1860 I attended my sister’s graduation from Abbott’s College, Spingler Institute, Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth street, New York. Afterward, we visited Washington, the Northern and Eastern States, and Canada. The Presidential canvass between Lincoln Douglass, Breckinridge and Bell, was on. I heard much political discussion and hot utterances. Party spirit ran high.
When I returned home in the Fall I told my Southern friends the political uproar would end in Lincoln’s election, on account of the split in the Democratic party.
Some of them retorted: “Well, we won’t stand that. We will leave the Union!” “Then,” I said, “there will be war: For that is evidently what the Abolitionists want. Don’t you remember the prophesy made by Cobb, of Georgia, years ago, in the United States House of Representatives in regard to this same slavery agitation? ‘This day a fire has been kindled which seas of blood will not serve to extinguish!’”
The agitation which had been going on for sixty years culminated in the election of Lincoln: November 6th, 1860.
The Abolitionists looked upon their victory as a “casus belli.” They had thrown down the gauntlet. Now let the South pick it up,—by committing some overt act which could be construed as treason. This pretext was soon found in the Acts of Secession of the Southern States.
V. A SOUND CHESTNUT.
THE CONSTITUTION SETS FORTH THAT “all men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government; laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Thirteen years after this Declaration was penned the Thirteen States met to form a Union. In adopting a Constitution, several of the States insisted on a clause allowing them to withdraw from the Union should the Union of States prove to be opposed to their interests.
To further this provision, the ninth and tenth amendments were adopted; with the adoption of the original Constitution; which expressly recognized slaves as property that should be surrendered to the owner, in case of the escape of such property into a free State.
That the Constitution recognized the right of a State to secede from the Union, was strongly asserted and insisted upon by all the New England States when they met in convention at Hartford, in 1814, to protest against a continuance of the war with England. Their ablest lawyers and business men were delegates to that convention; and they declared “that said States would exercise their Constitutional Rights to secede from the Union, if the war with England did not cease.”
When the war of 1812 was declared, the South went into that contest in the protection of Northern interests and to vindicate the commercial rights of New England: for he South “had neither ships to search nor seamen to be impressed.”
Under a pretended opposition to the “Embargo Acts,” the New England States ignobly backed out of the conflict, and left the South and West to bear the brunt of it. Soon after, our arms on land and sea were victorious; England sued for peace; and this outcome kept the New England States in the Union.
As a logical sequence to these facts, when the question of secession came up in Georgia, in the winter of 1860-61, the Constitutional Right of a State to secede from the Union, was admitted by such able Union men as Alexander H. Stephens; Ben Hill; and Herschell V. Johnston. They plead against secession on the ground of expediency. Revolutionary and Mexican War memories. Mutual interests. It was impolitic to dismember the Government for the sake of slavery. The south should wait for some “Overt Act” on Lincoln’s part. Thus the oracles.
Inestimable importance attaches to the clarity of one fact: viz. The Constitutional Right of any State or States to secede.
By this basic right, is the South’s place in history determined.
Without that right, we were insurgents and rebels. With it, we were a great people in revolution for our rights.
This truth is now being conceded by fair minds at the North.
VI THE CALL TO ARMS
IN JANUARY 1861, GEORGIA, “CARRIED away by the emotion of the hour,” followed South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in seceding from the Union. Other slave-states followed Georgia, in quick succession.
President Lincoln was inaugurated March 4th, 1861. His inaugural address was very conciliatory. He promised that the “statu quo” should be preserved at Fort Sumpter. The Citizens of Charleston pledged themselves to furnish the small garrison there, with such provisions as they required. Beef sent by the city to the garrison, was returned by Major Anderson.
In violation of his promise, President Lincoln proceeded to send provisions and re-enforcements to Fort Sumter. South Carolina’s very existence was at stake. The State offered resistance; and reduced the Fort. Lincoln at once issued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops for ninety days, to put down a rebellion declared to exist in certain states.
The Northern States, in hypocritical frenzy over the usurpation of New England’s prerogative rights to Secession, responded to Lincoln’s call.
The States of North Carolina; Virginia; Arkansas; Missouri; and Tennessee joined the other States in refusing to furnish troops for coercion. Delegates were appointed from all the seceding States to meet in Montgomery, Alabama. They met: and a Constitution was adopted, modelled after the Constitution of the United States.
By this body Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected President of the Confederate States of America. The Confederate Congress called on the seceding States for certain quotas of troops to repel invasion.
It was thought at the time, that the South was peculiarly fortunate in having as President a man who was at once a Statesman and trained soldier. Mr. Davis was a graduate of West Point; had seen service on the Plains as an officer in the United States Army, and had distinguished himself in the Mexican War. He made a record at Buena Vista, as Colonel of the 1st Mississippi Rifles: afterwards as Secretary of War during Pierce’s Administration. He had always been conservative. As a debater and parliamentarian he had stood in the United States Senate in significant prominence.
Certain border-states, especially Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina, were trying to prevent the disruption of the Union: and to secure peace.
The Virginia Legislature refused to call a state Convention, but called a “Peace Convention,” to meet in Washington in December; inviting delegates from every state in the Union.
The Peace Convention met. Twenty-one States were represented. The effort failed. Why? Because of the opposition of the abolitionists;—led principally by Horace Greely, editor of the New York Tribune, and Abraham Lincoln, President-elect of the United States.
In the meantime, the Union men of the South were doing all they could to stem the tide, and stay disruption. The above-mentioned States with Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, were still standing fast for the Union.
The efforts and procedures of the different States were much the same. The action of North Carolina may be mentioned as showing how rapidly events advanced and policies changed.
On a vote for delegates to meet in Convention, North Carolina elected eighty-two Union men and thirty-eight Secessionists; and the popular vote was against secession. On the 12th of April, hostilities commenced at Charleston. On the 15th of April, Lincoln issued his proclamation for coercion; calling on each state for her quota of the required seventy-five thousand troops. On the 17th of April, Governor Ellis of North Carolina, who had been struggling for the Union cause, issued his patriotic rejoinder; and called the Legislature to meet in special session the 1st of May. On the 18th of April, the leading union paper of the state contained the following editorial:
“It is needless to remind our readers how honestly and earnestly we have labored to preserve our once great, glorious and beneficent Union. But with all these opinions unchanged, there is a change in the condition of affairs: a change with which neither we, nor the people of North Carolina, have or had, aught to do: and over which we have no control. President Lincoln’s Proclamation is “the last feather that breaks the camel’s back.” It proves that the professions of peace were a delusion and a cheat. A Civil war, whose end no man can see, is upon us. We can see nothing for our country but woe, woe, woe; Thank God, we can say that we have labored for peace; with no wish but to avert dire calamities in a way honorable to both sections.”
North Carolina declared for the Union on February 28th, but was an armed camp for resistance to invasion in less than fifty days later:—April 18th. On May 23rd, this state without waiting for the form of a legal secession, hurried her regiments to Virginia.
General Scott had planned to invade Virginia by four lines of approach; from Washington from Fortress Monroe; from Harper’s Ferry; and from Ohio by the Kanawa river into West Virginia. Fortress Monroe was the obvious one. There, Gen. Ben Butler was sent with a brigade which included the crack Seventh Regiment of New York City.
The first North Carolina Regiment (Colonel D. H. Hill)—pronounced by military critics, as it marched through Richmond, “the best regiment ever seen,” was sent to Yorktown. Colonel Hill occupied a point between Yorktown and Fortress Monaroe, known as Big Bethel Church.
On the 6th of June, Butler with his brigade and a regular battery, attacked Hill; and was defeated. Hill had with him Randolph’s Virginia Battery; which, on the approach of the Federals, opened on them. A shell from one of the howitzers struck the head of the advancing column—7th New York—killing a man. The regiment was thrown into confusion, and disappeared in the swamp. Hill had only one man killed: Wyatt, of the Edgecomb Company. He was the first Confederate killed in the Civil War.
In the hour of disruption the Old North State had clung to the Union. Driven into war by the acts of the United States Government, North Carolina’s troops were destined to open the conflict. This State furnished one-fifth of the South’s army in the Civil War. Official history shows that at Appomattox North Carolina mustered more men bearing arms than any other Confederate State.
When Joseph E. Brown called for volunteers to fill Georgia’s quota of twelve months troops for Confederate service, companies responded promptly: were ordered into camps of instruction; and formed into regiments.
John B. Gordon was then operating a coal mine on Raccoon Mountain in Dade County, Georgia. At the first summons he raised a company, the “Raccoon Roughs,” composed largely of miners and mountaineers.
The Gordons were our neighbors and intimates. My cousin, Dr. Jas. Le Conte had married Miss Mary Gordon, and had a summer home near the brow of the Raccoon Mountains, overlooking the Tennessee river.
I offered to enlist with Gordon: but he advised me to raise a company. In that way I could be of more service to the Confederacy.
