Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 28

The cotton that the alchemy of genius, or even of business tact--might have trans.m.u.ted into gold, rotted useless; or worse, as a bait for the raider. The notes, that might have been a worthy pledge of governmental faith, bore no meaning now upon their face; and the soldier in the trench and the family at the desolate fireside--who might have been comfortably fed and clad--were gnawed with very hunger! And when the people murmured too loudly, a change was made in men, if not in policy.

Even if Mr. Trenholm had the ability, he had no opportunity to prove it. The evil seed had been sown and the bitter fruit had grown apace.

Confederate credit was dead!

Even its own people had no more faith in the issues of their government; and they hesitated not--even while they groped on, ever on to the darkness coming faster and faster down upon them--to declare that the cause of their trouble was Mr. Memminger; with the President behind him.

But, though the people saw the mismanagement and felt its cause--though they suffered from it as never nation suffered before--though they spoke always bitterly and often hotly of it; still, in their greatest straits and in their darkest hours, no southern man ever deemed it but mismanagement.

The wildest and most reckless slanderer could never hint that one shred of all the flood of paper was ever diverted from its proper channel by the Secretary; or that he had not worked brain and body to the utmost, in the unequal struggle to subdue the monster he had created.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ACROSS THE POTOMAC AND BACK.

Of such vast import to the southern cause was Lee's first aggressive campaign in Maryland; so vital was its need believed to be, by the people of the South; so varied and warm was their discussion of it that it may seem proper to give that advance more detailed consideration.

Imperfect and inadequate as such a sketch must be, to the soldier, it may still convey in some sort, the ideas of the southern people upon a momentous question.

Coincident with the evacuation of the Peninsula by the Federals was General Lee's movement, to throw beyond the Rapidan a force sufficient to prevent Pope's pa.s.sage of that river. After Cedar Mountain, Jackson had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up. It was believed in the North that the advance of Pope's ma.s.ses had cut him off from the main army and locked him up in the Shenandoah Valley; while the South--equally ignorant of his designs and confident of their success--rested on the rumor that he had said:

"Send me more men and no orders!"

Suddenly a beacon flashed into the sky, telling in the flames from the depots at Mana.s.sas and Bristow Stations that the famous pa.s.sage of Thoroughfare Gap had been made--millions of property, stores and rolling-stock given to feed the flames. Jackson was in Pope's rear!

This Confederate corps now fronted toward the main army of Lee, and the bragging Federal found himself between the upper and nether millstones.

Still he had little doubt that he could turn upon the small force of Jackson and crush it before Lee could advance to his rescue. Following this plan, and depending also upon the heavy ma.s.ses Burnside was bringing down to him from Fredericksburg, Pope attacked Jackson in detail at Bristow and at Mana.s.sas, with no other effect than to be repulsed heavily in both instances.

The attack, however, warned Jackson of the enemy's purpose and of his own critical position; and, on the night of August 28th, he made a masterly flank movement that put him in possession of the old battle-field of Mana.s.sas plains; at the same time opening his communications with Lee's advance.

In all this, General Stuart gave most efficient aid both in beating back heavy attacks of the enemy's cavalry, and in keeping Jackson advised of the course of Pope's retreat--or advance, as it might be called--from Warrenton to Mana.s.sas.

By the 29th of August, Longstreet's corps had effected the pa.s.sage of Thoroughfare Gap and united with Jackson; and on that day these corps engaged with Pope's advance in a terrific fight, lasting from midday till dark--the prelude to the great drama that was next day to deluge the field of Mana.s.sas a second time with the blood of friend and foe.

Before daylight next morning, the cannon again woke the wearied and battle-worn ranks, sleeping on their arms on the field they had won; and sent a fresh impulse to the hearts of their brothers, toiling steadily on to join them in the great fight to come. Heavy firing and sharp skirmis.h.i.+ng for position filled the forenoon; but then the ma.s.ses of hostile infantry joined in the shock of battle, more terrible than the one of the year before. The men were more disciplined and hardened on both sides; and the Federal leaders, feeling that their only hope lay in victory now, hurled brigade after brigade against the now vindictive and battle-thirsty Confederates.

Line after line emerges from enveloping clouds of smoke, charging the fronts that Longstreet and Jackson steadily oppose to them. Line after line melts before that inevitable hail, rolling back scattered and impotent as the spume the angry ocean throws against a granite headland!

Broken again and again, the Federals, with desperate gallantry, hurl against the unflinching crescent that pours its ceaseless rain of fire through them; while the great guns behind its center thunder and roll

"In the very glee of war,"

sending death-winged bolts tearing and crus.h.i.+ng through them.

Through the carnival of death Hood has sent his Texans and Georgians at a run--their wild yells rending the dull roar of the fight; their bayonets flas.h.i.+ng in a jagged line of light like hungry teeth! Jackson has swung gradually round the enemy's right; and Stephen Lee's artillery has advanced from the center--ever tearing and cras.h.i.+ng through the Federal ranks, scattering terror and death in its unswerving path!

The slaughter has been terrific. Federal and Southron have fought well and long. Piles of mangled and gory dead lie so mingled that gray and blue are undistinguished. But the wild impetuosity of the "ragged rebels"--nerved by the memories of this field's old glories--toned up by the Seven Days, and delirious with the glow of present victory--sweeps the Federal back and doubles his line. It breaks--fresh regiments pour in with deadly shot and fearful yell; the Federal line melts into confusion--rout! and the Second Mana.s.sas is won.

The victory was as complete as that of the year before; an absolute rout was only saved the Federals by falling back to the reserve under Franklin, when the retreat became more orderly, as there was no pursuit.

The solid fruits of the victory were the annihilation of all the plans of the gong-sounder, and the complete destruction of the new "On-to-Richmond;" the capture of over 7,000 prisoners--paroled on the field--and his admitted total loss of 28,000 men.

New glories, too, shone around the names of Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Hood, Kemper and Jenkins; and the efficient aid and splendid fighting of the cavalry of Stuart, Hampton and Bev Robinson, here proved that arm to have reached its point of highest efficiency.

The heart of the South, still throbbing with triumph after the Seven Days and their bright corollary of Cedar Mountain, went up in one wild throb of joyous thanksgiving. So satisfied were the people of the sagacity of their leaders and the invincible valor of their troops; so carried away were they by the splendid reflection from the glory over Mana.s.sas plain--that this time they never even stopped to question why there had been no pursuit; why the broken enemy had not been completely crushed. All they felt was that Virginia was free from the invader. For General Loring, in the Kanawha, had driven the enemy before him and entirely cleared that portion of the state; while on this line he was hastening rapidly back to Was.h.i.+ngton to meet the expected advance of Lee toward the Capital.

Without resting his army, the latter divided it into three corps, under command of Jackson, Longstreet and A. P. Hill; and moved rapidly toward the accomplishment of that cherished hope of the southern people--an offensive campaign on the enemy's soil.

Jackson pa.s.sed with his accustomed swiftness to the occupation of the heights commanding Harper's Ferry and to the investment of that position; while the other corps moved to the river at different points, to cut off the re-enforcements the alarmed Federals might send to its rescue. Great was the alarm and intense the excitement at Was.h.i.+ngton.

The sudden turn of the tables--the cold dash to hopes that the bragging of their new hero had raised to fever heat, and the transformation of the crushed rebel into an avenging invader, created equal surprise as panic. Pope summarily dropped from the pinnacle of public favor into disgrace; and McClellan was the only mainstay the Federal Government could fall back on, to check the victorious Lee.

Meanwhile, equal excitement reigned in the Rebel Capital, but it was joyous and triumphant. The people had long panted to see the theater of blood and strife transferred to the prosperous and peaceful fields of their enemy. They had a secure feeling that when these were torn with sh.e.l.l and drenched with carnage; when barns were rifled and crops trampled by hostile feet, the northern people would begin to appreciate the realities of a war they had so far only seen by the roseate light of a partial press. Secure and confident in the army that was to work their oracle, the hope of the South already drew triumphant pictures of defeated armies, hara.s.sed states, and a peace dictated from the Federal Capital.

On the 14th of September, D. H. Hill, of Longstreet's corps--stationed at Boonesboro to protect Jackson's flank--was attacked by a heavy force. Heavily outnumbered, Hill fought a dogged and obstinate battle--giving and taking terrific blows, only ceasing when night stopped the fight. It was hard to tell which side had the best of the actual fighting; but the great object was gained and the next day Harper's Ferry, with its heavy garrison and immense supply of arms, stores and munitions, was surrendered to Jackson.

Great was the joy in Richmond when the news of the brilliant fight at Boonesboro--the first pa.s.sage of arms on Maryland soil--and of the capture of the great a.r.s.enal of the North reached her anxious people.

It was, they felt, but the presage of the great and substantial triumphs that Lee and his veterans _must_ win. Higher rose their confidence and more secure became their calculations; and the vivid contrast between the ragged, shoeless and incongruous army of the South with the sleek, spruce garrison surrendered to them, only heightened the zest of the victory and the antic.i.p.ation of those to follow.

But a sudden check was to come to this mid-career of antic.i.p.ation, and a pall of doubt and dismay was to drape the fair form of Hope, even in her infancy.

Two days after the fall of Harper's Ferry--on the 17th of September--Lee had ma.s.sed some 35,000 men on the banks of the Antietam, near Sharpsburg--a village ten miles north-east of Harper's Ferry.

McClellan, pressing him hard with an army four times his own numbers--composed in part of raw levies and hastily-ma.s.sed militia, and in part of the veterans of the armies of the Potomac--seemed determined on battle. Trusting in the valor and reliability of his troops, and feeling the weakness of being pressed by an enemy he might chastise, the southern chief calmly awaited the attack--sending couriers to hasten the advance of A. P. Hill, Walker and McLaws, whose divisions had not yet come up.

Ushered in by a heavy attack the evening before--which was heavily repulsed--the morning of the 17th saw one of the bloodiest and most desperate fights in all the horrid records of that war. Hurling his immense ma.s.ses against the rapidly dwindling Confederate line; only to see them reel back shattered and broken--McClellan strove to crush his adversary by sheer strength. No sooner would one attacking column waver, break, retreat--leaving a writhing and ghastly wake behind it--than a fresh host would hurl against the adamantine line that sunk and shriveled under the resistless fire, but never wavered. In all the fearful carnage of the war--whether resulting in gloom, like that of Corinth, or purchasing brilliant victory with precious blood--men never fought better than did that battle-torn, service-worn handful that had just saved Richmond--broken the glittering, brazen vessel of destruction; and now sent its defiant yell through hostile mountains.

All that valor and endurance could do had been done; and at mid-afternoon the battle seemed well-nigh lost. Just then the missing divisions--some 12,000 men--reached the field. Wearied, unfed and footsore, they were; but the scent of battle rested and refreshed them as they went into the thickest of the fight. But even they could not save the day. Outnumbered and shattered, but unconquered still, the Confederates could not advance from the field they had held at such bitter cost. And when night stopped the aimless carnage, each army, too crippled to renew the fight, withdrew toward its base. McClellan could not pursue; and the Confederates fell back doggedly, sullenly, and recrossed into Virginia.

As usual in the North, a wild howl went up against McClellan. In response to this _brutum fulmen_, he was promptly removed by Halleck, for not conquering an army that had proved itself invincible!

Bitter indeed was the hour that brought to Richmond the story of Sharpsburg. Flushed with hope, undoubting of triumph, her citizens only listened for the wild cheer that would echo back from conquered Was.h.i.+ngton. But the sound that reached their ears was the menacing roar from retreating ranks that left near one-third their number stark and ghastly on that grim field, where the Death Angel has so darkly flapped his wings.

Thus ended the first Maryland campaign.

It had given the people their wish; it had carried the gray jackets over the border and stricken the enemy sorely on his own soil. But it had left that soil drenched with the blood of some of the bravest and best; the n.o.ble Branch and chivalric Starke had both fallen where their men lay thickest--torn and ghastly on that terrible field.

The details of that field which the Richmond people gathered from the northern papers, deepened their gloom. And through it rose a hoa.r.s.e whisper, swelling at last into angry query, why had the campaign miscarried? If the army was inadequate in numbers, why had General Lee carried it over that river he had never crossed before, when his own army was better and the enemy less prepared? And if, as stated, the men were ill-provided in munitions and transportation--as they were known to be with clothes and rations--why had Government forced its only bulwark well-nigh to annihilation?

It mattered little, the people said, that the results had been far more disastrous to the North than to the South--both in prestige and loss.

The North could far better afford it. What was the killing of a few thousand raw troops, or the destruction of a few thousand stand of arms, compared to the precious cost of holding the field at Sharpsburg?

And gradually these complaints, as in all such cases, answered themselves; and then the vials of southern wrath began to empty over the unfortunate Marylanders, who had not risen to aid their brothers in their sore need. How unjust were these charges will soon be shown.

And so the people murmured to relieve their overfull hearts, until the calm and steady course of the general they had never doubted, quieted them once more.

The outcry in the North resulted in the choice of General A. E.

Burnside to command the new invasion; and he was of course hailed as the augur, who was surely this time to read the oracle. Watchful, calm, and steadfast, the Confederate waited, through the months of preparation, to meet the new advance--so disposing part of his force about Winchester as to prevent the favorite Valley-road On-to-Richmond.