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SOUTHERN
Historical Society Papers.
VOLUME XXX.
EDITED BY
R. A. BROCK,
Secretary of the Southern Historical Society.
RICHMOND, VA.
Published by the Society.
1902.
WM. ELLIS JONES,
PRINTER,
RICHMOND, VA.
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1192362
Page. I. Shall Cromwell have a Statue ? Oration by Hon. Charles Francis Adams, before the Beta of Illinois Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Chicago, June 17, 1902. . 1
II. Graduates of West Point Military Academy, who served in the C. S. Army, with the highest commission and highest command attained. By Captain W. Gordon McCabe 34
III. Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners, Official Report
of the History Committee of the Grand Camp C. V., Department of Virginia, by Hon. George L. Christian, Chairman. Read at Wytheville, Va., October 23, 1902, 77
IV. Battle of Cedar Creek, Va., October 19, 1864, by Captain
Samuel D. Buck 104
V. The Fatal Wounding of General T. J (Stonewall) Jack- son, by Major M. N. Moorman no
VI. Last Forlorn Hope of the Confederacy, Trans-Mississippi
Department, by Wallace Putnam Reed 117
VII. Lee, Davis and Lincoln. Tributes to them by Charles Francis Adarhs and Henry Watterson. Lee's Statue in Washington urged 121
VIII. The Old System of Slavery, its compensations and con- trasts to the present labor conditions, by Dr. Chas. L. C. Minor 125
IX. The Last Tragedy of the War. Execution of Tom Martin, at Cincinnati, Ohio, by order of General Joseph Hooker. By Captain James Dinkins 129
X. War Times in Natchez, by Mrs S. Griffing Wilcox 135
XI. Carolina Cadets and their part in the War of i86i-'5, by
Lieutenant Iredell Jones 138
IV CONTENTS.
XII. Reminiscences of the Black Horse Troop 142
XIII. Personal Reminiscences of the Seven Days' Battles
Around Richmond, June 26 to July 1, 1862, by James Mercer Garnett, LL. D 147
XIV. Who was the First Federal to Enter Richmond? — Major
A. H. Stevens 152
XV. Roster of Company D, Fifth Virginia Infantry (" Bucking- ham Yancey Guard "), by Captain Camm Patteson 154
XVI. Elliott Grays of Manchester, Va., Roll of, with History of, 161
XVII. Work of Submarine Boats of the C. S Navy — Destruction
of the Housatonic, by VV. A. Alexander 164
XVIII. Johnston's Last Volley, at Durham, N. C, April 26, 1865, 174
XIX. The Battle of Chickamauga 178
XX. Lest We Forget— Ben Butler, by Captain James Dinkins. . 188
XXI. The First Ironclad — the Manassas, C. S. Navy... 196
XXII. The Confederate Ram Albemarle, by Captain James
Dinkins 205
XXIII. Ride Around Baltimore in 1864, by General Bradley T.
Johnson 215
XXIV. Reminiscences of General T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson and
his Medical Director, Hunter McGuire, M. D., at Win- chester, May, 1862, by Samuel E.' Lewis, M. D 226
XXV. Fatal Wounding of General J. E. B. Stuart, by Colonel
' ' Gus ' ' W. Dorsey 236
XXVI. The Battle of Perryville, Ky., October 8, 1862, by Colonel
Luke W. Finley 238
XXVII. Talks with General j. A. Early— Valley Campaign and the
Movement on Washington, by Dr. Wm. B. Conway. . . . 250
XXVIII. Johnson's Island— Conspiracy of Jacob Thompson— Dar- ing of Major C. H. Cole — Execution of John Yates Beall. List of the dead buried there 256
CONTENTS. V
XXIX. Colonel Wm. E. Peters, at Chambersburg, Pa., in July,
1864 266
XXX. The Battle of the First Manassas, July 21, 1 861— The Great
Federal Skedaddle 269
XXXI. The Bloody Struggle at Cold Harbor Salient, June 3, 1864,
by A. Du Bois 276
XXXII. The Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg, Va., June, 1864, an Address, by Captain C. M. Blackford, with Rosters of the Lynchburg Companies in the C. S. A., i86i-'65. . . . 279
XXXIII. The South and the Union— To Whom should the Southern
People Build Monuments, to Lee or to Grant, to Lincoln
or to Davis ? By Berkeley M inor 332
XXXIV. "The Gallant Peiham," "The Boy Artillerist," Major
John Pelham — Lines to, by J. R. Randall— and sketch
of his glorious career 338
XXXV. Recollections of Major James Breathed, by H. H. Mat- thews 346
XXXVI. Roster of Pelham's, afterward Breathed's, Battery, Stuart's
Horse Artillery * 348
XXXVII. The Last of the Slavers — the Voyage of the Wanderer,
by Hon. C. L. Bartlett 355
XXXVIII. The Southern Cause, an Address before Lee Camp, C. V.,
February 20, 1903, by Hon. Wm. E. Cameron 360
XXXIX. Why the Confederacy Failed to Win 368
XL. Recollections of Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill, October
19, 1864, by Major M. N. Moorman 371
Errata,
Page 227, 2nd line, for Bassy, read Passy.
Page 231, 1 6th line, for generally, read geherously.
Page 49, 1 2th line, for Word, read Ford.
Southern Historical Society Papers.
VOL. XXX. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1902.
SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?
ORATION BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS,
Before the Beta of Illinois Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the University of Chicago, Tuesday, June 17, 1902.
The editor has peculiar pleasure in preserving- in the Southern Historical Society Papers an address so chaste and noble as the fol- lowing, which is alike worthy of the subject and its distinguished author, who continues in honored fidelity an historic lineage, im- pressed on our nation's progress as patriots, statesmen and scholars. The oration challenges universal admiration.
"Whom doth the king delight to honour? that is the question of questions concerning the king's own honour. Show me the man you honour; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, with your whole soul, for being if you could.
" Who is to have a statue ? means, Whom shall we consecrate and set apart as one of our sacred men ? Sacred; that all men may see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Whom do you wish us to resemble ? Him you set on a high column, that all men, looking on it, may be continually apprised of the duty you expect from them." — Thomas Carlyle, "Latter- Day Pamphlets." 1830.
At about 3 o'clock of the afternoon of September 3, 1658, the day of Worcester and of Dunbar, and as a great tempest was wearing itself to rest, Oliver Cromwell died. He died in London, in the palace of Whitehall; the palace of the great banqueting hall through whose central window Charles I, a little less than ten years before, had walked forth to the scaffold. A few weeks later, "with a more than regal solemnity," the body of the great Lord Protector was
2 Southern Historical Society Papers.
carried to Westminster Abbey, and there buried " amongst kings." Two years then elapsed, and, on the twelfth anniversary of King- Charles's execution, the remains of the usurper, having been pre- viously disinterred by order of the newly restored king, were, by a unanimous vote of the Convention Parliament, hung at Tyburn. The trunk was then buried under the gallows, while Cromwell's head was set on a pole over the roof of Westminster Hall. Nearly two centuries of execration ensued, until, in the sixth generation, the earlier verdict was challenged, and the question at last asked: " Shall Cromwell have a statue ? " Cromwell, the traitor, the usurper, the execrable murderer of the martyred Charles! At first, and for long, the suggestion was looked upon almost as an impiety, and, as such, scornfully repelled. Not only did the old loyal king-worship of England recoil from the thought, but, indignantly appealing to the church, it declared that no such distinction could be granted so long as there remained in the prayer-book a form of supplication f©r 1 ' King Charles, the Martyr, ' ' and of ' ' praise and thanksgiving for the wonderful deliverance of these kingdoms from the great rebellion, and all the other miseries and oppressions consequent thereon, under which they had so long groaned." None the less, the demand was insistent, and at last, but only after two full centuries had elapsed and a third was well advanced, was the verdict of 1661 reversed. To-day the bronze effigy of Oliver Cromwell — massive in size, rug- ged in feature, characteristic in attitude — stands defiantly in the yard of that Westminster Hall, from a pole on top of which, twelve score years ago, the flesh crumbled from his skull.
In this dramatic reversal of an accepted verdict — this complete revision of opinions once deemed settled and immutable — there is, I submit, a lesson — an academic lesson. The present occasion is es- sentially educational. The Phi Beta Kappa oration, as it is called, is the last, the crowning utterance of the college year, and very properly is expected to deal with some fitting theme in a kindred spirit. I propose to do so to-day, but in a fashion somewhat excep- tional. The phases of moral and intellectual growth through which the English race has passed on the subject of Cromwell's statue afford, I submit, to the reflecting man an educational study of exceptional interest. In the first place, it was a growth of two centuries; in the second place, it marks the passage of a nation from an existence under the traditions of feudalism to one under the principles of self- government; finally, it illustrates the gradual development of that broad spirit of tolerance which, coming with time and study, meas-
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue t 3
ures the men and events of the past independently of the prejudices and passions which obscure and distort the immediate vision.
We, too, as well as the English, have had our " Great Rebellion." It came to a dramatic close thirty-seven years since; as theirs came to a close not less dramatic some seven time thirty-seven years since. We, also, as they in their time, formed our contemporaneous judg- ments and recorded our verdicts, assumed to be irreversible, of the men, the issues, and the events of the great conflict; and those ver- dicts and judgments, in our case as in theirs, will unquestionably be revised, modified, and in not a few cases wholly reversed. Better knowledge, calmer reflection, and a more judicial frame of mind come with the passage of the years; passions in time subside, preju- dices disappear, truth asserts itself. In England this process has been going on for close upon two centuries and a half; with what result; Cromwell's statue stand as proof. We live in another age and a different environment; and, as fifty years of Europe outmeasure in their growth a cycle of Cathay, so I hold one year of twentieth century America works far more progress in thought than seven years of Britain during the interval between its great rebellion and ours. We who took active part in the Civil War have not yet wholly vanished from the stage; the rear guard of the Grand Army, we linger. Today is separated from the death of Lincoln by the same number of years only which separated " The Glorious Revolution of 1688" from the execution of Charles Stuart; yet to us is already given to look back on the events of which we were a part with the same perspective effects with which the Victorian Englishman looks back on the men and events of the commonwealth.
I propose on this occasion to do so; and reverting to my text — " Shall Cromwell have a Statue " — and reading that text in the gloss of Carlyle's Latter- Day Pamphlet utterance, I quote you Horace's
familiar precept,
Mutato nomine, de te Fabula narratur,
and ask abruptly, "Shall Robert E. Lee have a statue?" I propose also to offer to your consideration some reasons why he should, and, assuredly, will have one, if not now, then presently.
Shortly after Lee's death, in October, 1870, leave was asked in the United States Senate, by Mr. McCreery, of Kentucky, to intro- duce a joint resolution providing for the return of the estate and mansion of Arlington to the family of the deceased Confederate Commander-in-chief. In view of the use which had then already
4 Southern Historical Society Papers.
been made of Arlington as a military cemetery, this proposal, in- volving, as it necessarily did, a removal of the dead, naturally led to warm debate. The proposition was one not to be considered. If a defect in the title of the government existed, it must in some way be cured, as subsequently it was cured. But I call attention to the debate because Charles Sumner, then a senator from Massachu- setts, participated in it, using the following language: "Eloquent senators have already characterized the proposition and the traitor it seeks to commemorate. I am not disposed to speak of General Lee. It is enough to say he stands high in the catalogue of those who have imbrued their hands in their country's blood. I hand him over to the avenging pen of History." This was when Lee had been just two months dead; but, three-quarters of a century after the protector's skull had been removed from over the roof of West- minster Hall, Pope wrote, in similar spirit —
" See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame; "
and, sixteen years later, — four-fifths of a century after Cromwell's disentombment at Westminster and reburial at Tyburn, — a period from the death of Lee equal to that which will have elapsed in 1950, Gray sang of the Stoke Pogis churchyard —
"Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."
And now, a century and a half later, Cromwell's statue looms de- fiantly up in front of the Parliament House. When, therefore, an appeal is in such cases made to the " avenging pen of History," it is well to bear this instance in mind, while recalling, perchance, that other line of a greater than Pope, or Gray, or Sumner —
"Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."
Was then Robert E. Lee a " traitor " — was he also guilty of his "country's blood?" These questions I propose now to discuss. I am one of those who, in other days, was arrayed in the ranks which confronted Lee; one of those whom Lee baffled and beat, but who, finally, baffled and beat Lee. As one thus formerly lined up against him, these questions I propose to discuss in the calmer and cooler, and altogether more reasonable light which comes to most men, when a whole generation of the human race lies buried between them and the issues and actors upon which they undertake to pass.
Was Robert E. Lee a traitor ? Technically, I think he was in- disputably a traitor to the United States; for a traitor, as I under-
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue t 5
stand it technically, is one guilty of the crime of treason; or, as the Century Dictionary puts it, violating his allegiance to the chief auth- ority of the State; while treason against the United States is specifi- cally defined in the Constitution as "levying war" against it, or "adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." That Robert E. Lee did levy war against the United States can, I sup- pose, no more be denied than that he gave "aid and comfort" to its enemies; and to the truth of this last proposition, I hold myself, among others, to be a very competent witness. This technically; but in history, there is treason and treason, as there are traitors and traitors. And, furthermore, if Robert E. Lee was a traitor, so also, and indisputably were George Washington, Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, and William of Orange. The list might be extended indefinitely; but these will suffice. There can be no question that every one of those named violated his allegiance, and gave aid and comfort to the enemies of his sovereign. Washington furnishes a precedent at every point. A Virginian like Lee, he was also a British subject; he had fought under the British flag, as Lee had fought under that of the United States; when, in 1776, Virginia seceded from the British Empire, he " went with his State," just as Lee went with it eighty-five years later; subsequently Washington commanded armies in the field designated by those opposed to them as " rebels," and whose descendants now glorify them as " the rebels of '76," much as Lee later commanded, and at last surrendered, much larger armies, also designated " rebels " by those they confronted. Except in their outcome, the cases were, therefore, precisely alike; and logic is logic. It consequently appears to follow, that, if Lee was a traitor, Washington was also. It is unnecessary to institute similar com- parisons with Cromwell, Hampden and William of Orange. No defense can in their cases be made. Technically, one and all, they undeniably were traitors.
But there are, as I have said, traitors and traitors — Catalines, Arnolds and Gorgeis, as well as Cromwells, Hampdens and Wash- ington. To reach any satisfactory conclusion concerning a candi- date for " everlasting fame," — whether to deify or damn — enroll him as savior, as martyr, or as criminal — it is, therefore, necessary still further to discriminate. The cause, the motive, the conduct must be passed in review. Did turpitude anywhere attach to the original taking of sides, or to subsequent act? Was the man a self-seeker? Did low or sordid motives impel him ? Did he seek to aggrandize himself at his country's cost ? Did he strike with a parricidal hand ?
Southern Historical Society Papers.
These are grave questions; and, in the case of Lee, their con- sideration brings us at the threshold face to face with issues which have perplexed and divided the country since the day the United States became a country. They perplex and divide historians now. Legally, technically — the moral and humanitarian aspects of the issue wholly apart — which side had the best of the argu- ment as to the rights and the wrongs of the case in the great debate which led up to the Civil War ? Before entering, how- ever, on this well-worn — I might say, this threadbare — theme, as I find myself compelled in briefest way to do, there is one prelim- inary very essential to be gone through with — a species of moral purgation. Bearing in mind Dr. Johnson's advice to Boswell, on a certain memorable occasion, we should at least try to clear our minds of cant. Many years ago, but only shortly before his death, Richard Cobden said in one of his truth-telling deliverances to his Rochdale constituents — "I really believe I might be Prime Minister. If I would get up and say you are the greatest, the wisest, the best, the happiest people in the world, and keep on repeating that, I don't doubt but what I might be Prime Minister. I have seen Prime Min- ister's made in my experience precisely by that process." The same great apostle of homely sense, on another occasion bluntly remarked in a similar spirit to the House of Commons — " We generally sym- pathise with everybody's rebels but our own. " In both these respects I submit we Americans are true descendants from the Anglo-Saxon stock; and nowhere is this more unpleasantly apparent than in any discussion which may arise of the motives which actuated those of our countrymen who did not at the time see the issues involved in our Civil War as we saw them. Like those whom Cobden addressed, we like to glorify our ancestors and ourselves, and we do not partic- ularly care to give ear to what we are pleased to term unpatriotic, and, at times, even treasonable talk. In other words, and in plain, unpalatable English, our minds are saturated with cant. Only in the case of others do we see things as they really are. Ceasing to be individually interested, we then at once become nothing unless critical. So, when it comes to rebellions, we, like Cobden's Eng- lishmen, are wont almost invariably to sympathize with everybody's rebels but our own.
Our souls spontaneously go forth to Celt, Pole, Hungarian, Boer, and Hindoo; but, when we are concerned, language quite fails us in which adequately to depict the moral turpitude which must actuate Confederate or Filipino who rises in resistance against what we are
Shall Cromwell Have, a Statue f 7
pleased really to consider, as well as call, the best and most benefi- cent government the world has yet been permitted to see — our gov- ernment! This, I submit, is cant, pure cant, and at the threshold of discussion we had best free our minds of it, wholly, if we can; if not wholly, then in so far as we can. Philip the Second of Spain, when he directed his crusade in the name of God, Church, and Gov- ernment, against William of Orange, indulged in it in quite as good faith as we, and as for Charles." the Martyr" and the "sainted" Laud, for two centuries after Cromwell's head was stuck on a pole, all England annually lamented in sackcloth and ashes the wrongs inflicted by sacrilegious hands on those most assuredly well-meaning rulers and men. All depends on the point of view, and, during our own Civil War, while we unceasingly denounced the wilful wicked- ness of those who bore parricidal arms against the one immaculate authority yet given the eye of man to look upon, the leading news- paper of the world was referring to us in perfect good faith " as an insensate and degenerate people." An English member of Parlia- ment, speaking at the same time in equally good faith, declared that throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain, public sentiment was almost unanimously on the side of "the southerners," as ours was on the side of the Boers, because our " rebels" were "fighting against one of the most grinding, one of the most galling, one of the most irritating attempts to establish tyrranical government that ever disgraced the history of the world."
Upon the correctness or otherwise of these judgments I do not care to pass. They certainly cannot be reconciled. The single point I make is that they were, when made, the expression of views honestly and sincerely entertained. We sympathize with Great Britain's rebels; Great Britain sympathized with our rebels. Our rebels in 1862, as theirs in 1900, thoroughly believed they were resisting an iniquitous attempt to deprive them of their rights, and to estab- lish over them a "grinding," a "galling," and an "irritating" "tyrannical government." We in 1861, as Great Britain in 1898, and Charles ' ' the Martyr ' ' and Philip of Spain some centuries earlier, were fully convinced that we were engaged in God's work while we trod under foot the "rebel" and the "traitor." Presently, as dis- tance lends a more correct perspective, and things are viewed in their true proportions, we will get perhaps to realize that our case furnishes no exception to the general rule, and that we, too, like the English " generally sympathize with everybody's rebels but our own." Jus- tice may then be done.
8 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Having entered this necessary, if somewhat hopeless caveat, let us address ourselves to the question at issue. I will state it again. Legally and technically, not morally, again let me say, and wholly irrespective of humanitarian considerations, to which side did the weight of argument incline during the great debate which culminated in our Civil War ? The answer necessarily turns on the abstract right of what we term a sovereign State to secede from the Union at such time and for such cause as may seem to that State proper and sufficient. The issue is settled now; irrevocably and for all time de- cided; it was not settled forty years ago, and the settlement since reached has been the result, not of reason based on historical evi- dence, but of events and of force. To pass a fair judgment on the line of conduct pursued by Lee in 1861, it is necessary to go back in thought and imagination, and see things, not as they now are, but as they then were. If we do so, and accept the judgment of some of the more mod- ern students and investigators of history, either wholly unprejudiced or with a distinct Union bias, it would seem as if the weight of argu- ment falls into what I will term the Confederate scale. For instance, Professor Goldwin Smith, an Englishman, a life-long student of his- tory, and friend and advocate of the Union during the Civil War, the author of one of the most compact and readable narratives of our national life, Goldwin Smith has recently said : ' ' Few who have looked into the history can doubt that the Union originally was, and was generally taken by the parties to it to be, a compact, dissoluble, per- haps most of them would have said, at. pleasure, dissoluble certainly on breach of the articles of Union." {Atlantic Monthly Magazine, March, 1902, Vol. 89, p. 305.) To a like effect, but in terms even stronger, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, now a senator from Massachu- setts, has declared, not in a political utterance, but in a work of his- torical character: " When the constitution was adopted by the votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton, on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason, on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised." ( Webster, "American Statesman" series, p. 172.)
Here are two explicit statements of the legal and technical side of the argument made by authority to which no exception can be taken, at least by those of the Union side. On them, and on them alone.
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue f 9
the case for the abstract right of secession might be rested, and we could go on to the next stage of the discussion.
I am unwilling, however, so to do. The issue involved is still one of interest, and I am not disposed to leave it on the mere dictum of two authorities, however eminent. In the first place I do altogether concur in their statements; in the next place, this discussion is a mere threshing of straw unless we get at the true inwardness of the situation. When it comes to subjects, political or moral, in which human beings are involved, metaphysics are scarcely less to be avoided than cant; alleged historical facts are apt to prove deceptive; and I confess to grave suspicions of logic. Old time theology, for instance, with its pitiless reasoning, led the world into very strange places and much bad company. In reaching a conclusion, there- fore, in which a verdict is entered on the motives and actions of men, acting either individually or in masses, the moral, the sentimental and the practical, must be quite as much taken into account as the legal, the logical and the material. This, in the present case, I pro- pose presently to do; but, as I have said, on the facts even I am unable wholly to concur with Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge.
Mr. Lodge, for instance, cites Washington. But it so chances Washington put himself on record upon the point at issue, and his testimony is directly at variance with the views attributed to him by Mr. Webster's biographer. What are known in history as the, Kentucky resolutions, drawn up by Thomas Jefferson, then Vice- President, were passed by the legislature of the State whose name they bear in November, 1798. In those resolutions the view of the framers of the Constitution as to the original scope of that instru- ment accepted by Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge was first set forth. The principles acted upon by South Carolina on the 20th of Decem- ber, i860, were enunciated by Kentucky November 16, 1798. The dragon's teeth were then sown. Washington was at that time living in retirement at Mt. Vernon. When, a few weeks later, the char- acter of those resolutions became known to him, he was deeply con- cerned, and wrote to Lafayette, — "The Constitution, according to their interpretation of it, would be a mere cipher; " and again a few days later, he expressed himself still more strongly in a letter to Patrick Henry, — "Measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued which must eventually dissolve the Union, or produce coer- cion." (Washington, Works Vol. XI, pp. 378, 389.) Coercion Washington thus looked to as the remedy to which recourse could properly be had in case of any overt attempt at secession. But, so
10 Southern Historical Society Papers.
far as the framers of the Constitution were concerned, it seems to me clear that, acting as wise men of conflicting views naturally would act in a formative period during which many conflicting views pre- vailed, they did not care to incur the danger of a shipwreck of their entire scheme by undertaking to settle, distinctly and in advance, abstract questions, the discussion of which was fraught with danger. In so far as they could, they, with great practical shrewdness, left those questions to be settled, should they ever present themselves in concrete form, under the conditions which might then exist. The truth thus seems to be that the mass of those composing the Con- vention of 1787, working under the guidance of a few very able and exceedingly practical men, of constructive mind, builded a great deal better than they knew. The delegates met to harmonize trade differences; they ended by perfecting a scheme of political union that had broad consequences of which they little dreamed. If they had dreamed of them, the chances are the fabric would never have been completed. That Madison, Hamilton and Jay were equally blind to consequences does not follow. They probably designed a nation. If they did, however, they were too wise to take the pub- lic fully into their confidence; and, today, "no impartial student of our constitutional history can doubt for a moment that each State ratified" the form of government submitted in " the firm belief that at any time it could withdraw therefrom." (Donn Piatt, George H. Thomas, p. 88.) Probably, however, the more far-seeing, — and, in the long run, they alone count, — shared with Washington in the belief that this withdrawal would not be unaccompanied by practical difficulty. And, after all is said and done, the legality of secession is somewhat of a metaphysical abstraction so long as the right of revolution is inalienable. As matter of fact it was to might and revolution the South appealed in 1861; and it was to coercion the government of Union had recourse. So with his supreme good sense and that political insight at once instinctive and unerring, in respect to which he stands almost alone, Washington foresaw this alternative in 1798.* He looked upon the doctrine of secession as a
* Washington seems, indeed, to have foreseen it from the commencement. Hardly was the independence of the country achieved before he began to direct his efforts toward the creation of a nation, with a central power ade- quate to a coercive policy if called for by the occasion.
Thus, in March, 1783, he wrote to Nathaniel Greene (Ford, Writings of Washington, Vol. X, p. 203, note): " It remains only for the States to be wise, and to establish their independence on the basis of an inviolable, efficacious
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue ? 11
heresy; but, none the less, it was a heresy indisputably then preached, and to which many, not in Virginia only but in New England also, pinned their political faith. Even the Devil is proverbially entitled to his due.
So far, however, as the abstract question is of consequence, as the utterances of Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge conclusively show, the secessionists of 1861 stand in history's court by no means without a case. In that case, moreover, they implicitly believed. From gene- ration to generation they had grown up indoctrinated with the gospel, or heresy, of State sovereignty, and it was as much part of their moral and intellectual being as was clanship of the Scotch high- union, and a firm confederation." The following month he wrote in the same spirit to Tench Tilghman {lb., Vol. X, p. 238): "In a word the Constitution of Congress must be competent to the general purposes of Government, and of such a nature as to bind us together. Otherwise we shall be like of sand', and as easily broken."
Finally, in the circular letter addressed to the governor of all the States on disbanding the army, June 8, 1783 (16. , Vol. X, p. 257): "There are four things which, I humbly conceive, are essential to the well-being, a way, even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an independent power. First, on indissoluble union of the States under one federal head." In language even stronger he, July 8, 1783 — only a month later — wrote to Dr. William Gordon, the historian (Id., Vol. X, p. 276): " We are known by no other character among other nations than as the United States. Massachu- setts or Virginia is no better defined, nor any more thought of, by Foreign Powers, than the county of Worcester in Massachusetts is by Virginia, or Gloucester county in Virginia is by Massachusetts (reputable as they are), and yet these counties with as much propriety might oppose themselves to the laws of the States in which they are, as an individual State can oppose itself to the Federal Government, by which it is, or ought to be bound." With the passage of time, Washington's feelings on this subject seem to have grown stronger, and, on March 10, 1787, he wrote to John Jay: " A thirst for power, and the bantling — I had liked to have said Monster — sovereignty, which have taken such fast hold of the States," etc. (William Jay, Life of John Jay, Vol. I, p. 259). A year earlier, August 1, 1786, he had written to Jay: "Experi- ence has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures the best calculated for their own good without the intervention of a coercive power. I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power, which will provide the whole Union in as ener- getic a manner as the authority on the State governments extends over the several States." (Ford, Writings of Washington, Vol. XI, p. 53.) This, it will be observed, was within a few days less than seven months only before the passage by the Confederation Congress of the resolution of February 21, 1787, calling for the Convention, which, during the ensuing summer, framed the present Constitution.
12 Southern Historical Society Papers.
landers. In so far they were right, as Governor John A. Andrew said of John Brown. Meanwhile, practically, as a common-sensed man, leading an everyday existence in a world of actualities, John Brown was not right; he was, on the contrary, altogether wrong, and richly merited the fate meted out to him. It was the same with the secessionists. That, in 1861, they could really have had faith in the practicability — the real working efficiency — of that peaceable secession which they professed to ask for, and of which they never wearied of talking, I cannot believe. I find in the record no real evidence thereof.
Of the high-type Southron, as we sometimes designate him, I would speak in terms of sincere respect. I know him chiefly by hearsay, having come in personal contact only with individual repre- sentatives of the class; but such means of observation as I have had confirm what I recently heard said by a friend of mine, once gover- nor of South Carolina, and, so far as I know, the only man who ever gave the impossible and indefensible plan of reconstruction attempted after our Civil War, a firm, fair and intelligent trial. He at least put forth an able and honest effort to make effective a policy which never should have been devised. Speaking from " much and varied experience," I recently heard Daniel H. Chamberlain say of the "typical southern gentleman" that he considered him "a dis- tinct and really noble growth of our American soil. For, if fortitude under good and under evil fortune, if endurance without complaint of what comes in the tide of human affairs, if a grim clinging to ideals once charming, if vigor and resiliency of character and spirit under defeat and poverty and distress, if a steady love of learning and letters when libraries were lost in flames and the wreckage of war, if self-restraint when the long-delayed relief at last came — if, I say, all these qualities are parts of real heroism, if these qualities can vivify and enoble a man or a people, then our own South may lay claim to an honored place among the differing types of our great common race." Such is the matured judgment of the Massachusetts governor of South Carolina during the congressional reconstruction period; and, listening to it, I asked myself if it was descriptive of a southern fellow-countryman, or a Jacobite Scotch chieftain anterior to " the '45."
The southern statesman of the old slavery days — the antediluvian period which preceded our mid-century cataclysm — were the outcome and representatives of what has thus been described. As such they presented a curious admixture of qualities. Masterful in temper,
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue f 13
clear of purpose, with a firm grasp on principle, a high sense of honor and a moral perception developed on its peculiar lines, as in the case of Calhoun, to a quality of distinct hardness, they were yet essentially abstractionists. Political metaphysicians, they were not practical men. They did not see things as they really were. They thus, while discussing their ''forty-bale theories" and the " patri- archal institution " in connection with State's rights and nullification, failed to realize that on the two essential features of their policy — slavery and secession— they were contending with the stars in their courses. The whole world was moving irresistibly in the direction of nationality and an ever-increased recognition of the rights of man; while they, on both of these vital issues, were proclaiming a crusade of reaction.
Moreover, what availed the views or intentions of the framers of the Constitution ? What mattered it in i860 whether they, in 1787, contemplated a nation or only a more compact federation of sovereign States ? In spite of logic and historical precedent, and in sublime unconciousness of metaphysics and abstractions, realities have un- pleasant way of asserting their existence. However it may have been in 1788, in i860 a nation had grown into existence. Its peace- ful dismemberment was impossible. The complex system of tissues and ligaments, the growth of seventy years, could not be gently taken apart, without wound or hurt; the separation, if separation there was to be, involved a tearing asunder, supplementing a liberal use of the knife. Their professions to the contrary notwithstanding, this the southern leaders failed not to realize. In point of fact, there- fore, believing fully in the abstract legality of secession, and the jus- tice and sufficiency of the grounds on which they acted, their appeal was to the inalienable right of revolution, and to that might by which alone the right could be upheld. Let us put casuistry, metaphysics, and sentiment aside, and come to actualities. The secessionist re- course in 1861 was to the sword, and to the sword it was meant to have recourse.
I have thus far spoken only of the South as a whole. Much has been said and written on the subject of an alleged conspiracy in those days of southern men and leaders against the Union; of the designs and ultimate objects of the alleged conspirators; of acts of treachery on their part, and the part of their accomplices, toward the government, of which they were the sworn officials. Into this phase of the subject I do not propose to enter. That the leaders in secession were men with large views, and that they had matured a
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comprehensive policy as the ultimate outcome of their movement, I entertain no doubt. They looked unquestionably to an easy military success, and the complete establishment of their Confederacy; more remotely, there can be no question they contemplated a policy of extension, and the establishment along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and in the Antilles of a great semi-tropical, slave-labor re- public; finally, all my investigations have tended to satisfy me that they confidently anticipated an early disintegration of the Union, and the accession of the bulk of the Northern States to the Con- federacy, New England only being sternly excluded therefrom, "sloughed off," as they expressed it. The capital of the new Confederacy was to be Washington; African servitude, under reason- able limitations, was to be recognized throughout its limits; agricul- ture was to be its ruling interest, with a tariff and foreign policy in strict accord therewith. " Secession is not intended to break up the present government, but to perpetuate it. We go out of the Union, not to destroy it, but for the purpose of getting further guarantees and security," this was said in January, 1861; and this in 1900: "And so we believe that with the success of the South, the ' Union of the Fathers,' which the South was the principal factor in forming, and to which she was far more attached than the North, would have been restored and re-established; that in this Union the South would have been again the dominant people, the controlling power. ' ' Con- ceding the necessary premises of fact and law — a somewhat con- siderable concession, but, perhaps, conceivable — conceding these, I see in this position, then or now, nothing illogical, nothing provo- cative of severe criticism, certainly nothing treasonable. Acting on sufficient grounds, of which those thus acting were the sole judge, proceeding in a way indisputably legal and regular, it was proposed to reconstruct the Union in the light of experience, and on a new, and, as they considered, an improved basis, without New England. This cannot properly be termed a conspiracy; it was a legitimate policy based on certain assumed data legal, moral and economical. But it was in reality never for a moment believed that this programme could be peaceably and quietly carried into effect; and the assent of New England to the arrrangement was neither asked for, assumed, nor expected. New England was distinctly relegated to an outer void — at once cold, dark, inhospitable.
As to participation of those who sympathized in these views and this policy in the councils of the government, so furthering schemes for its overthrow while sworn to its support, I hold it unnecessary to
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue? 15
speak. Such were traitors. As such, had they met their deserts, they should, at the proper time and on due process of law, have been arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and hanged. That in certain well-remembered instances this course was not pursued, is to my mind, even yet much to be deplored. In such cases clemency is only another form of cant.
Having" now discussed what have seemed to me the necessary pre- liminaries, I come to the particular cases of Virginia and Robert E. Lee. The two are closely interwoven — for Virginia was always Vir- ginia, and the Lees were, first, over and above all, Virginians. It was the Duke of Wellington who, on a certain memorable occasion, indignantly remarked, in his delightful French- English : ' ' Mais avant toutjesuis gentilhomme Anglais." So might have said the Lees of Virginia of themselves.
As respects Virginia, moreover, I am fain to say there was in the attitude of the State toward the Confederacy, and, indeed, in its bearing throughout the Civil War, something which appealed strongly — something unselfish and chivalric — worthy of Virginia's highest record. History will, I think, do justice to it. Virginia, it must be remembered, while a slave State, was not a cotton State. This was a distinction implying a difference. In Virginia the institution of slavery existed, and because of it she was in close sympathy with her sister slave States; but, while in the cotton States slavery had gradually assumed a purely material form, in Virginia it still retained much of its patriarchal character. The "Border" States, as they were called, and among them Virginia especially, had it is true, gained an evil name as " slave-breeding ground ; " but this was merely an incident to a system in which, taken by and large — viewed in the rule, and not in the exception —the being with African blood in his veins was not looked upon as mere transferable chattel, but practi- cally, and to a large extent, was attached to the house and the soil. This fact had a direct bearing on the moral issue; for slavery, one thing in Virginia, was quite another in Louisiana. The Virginian pride was, moreover, proverbial. Indeed, I doubt if local feeling and patriotism and devotion to the State ever anywhere attained a fuller development than in the community which dwelt in the region watered by the Potomac and the James, of which Richmond was the political center. We of the North, especially we of New Eng- land, were Yankees; but a Virginian was that, and nothing else. I have heard of a New Englander, of a Green Mountain boy, of a Rhode Islander, of a "Nutmeg," of a "Blue-nose" even, but
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never of a Massachusettensian. The word somehow does not lend itself to the mouth, any more than the thought to the mind.
But Virginia was strongly attached by sentiment as well as interest to the Union. The birthplace of Washington, the mother of States, as well as of presidents, "The Old Dominion," as she was called, and fondly loved to call herself, had never been affected by the nulli- fication heresies of South Carolina; and the long line of her eminent public men, though, in i860, showing marked signs of a deteriora- ting standard, still retained a prominence in the national councils. If John B. Floyd was secretary of war, Winfield Scott was at the head of the army. Torn by conflicting feelings, Virginia, still cling- ing to the nation, was unwilling to sever her connection with it be- cause of the lawful election of an anti-slavery president, even by a distinctly sectional vote. For a time she even stayed the fast flood- ing tide of secession, bringing about a brief but important reaction. •Those of us old enough to remember the drear and anxious winter which followed the election and preceded the inauguration of Lincoln, recall vividly the ray of bright hope which, in the midst of its deepest gloom, then came from Virginia. It was in early February. Up to that time the record was unbroken. Beginning with South Carolina on December 20, State after State, meeting in convention, had with significant unanimity passed ordinances of secession. Each succes- sive ordinance was felt to be equivalent to a renewed declaration of war. The outlook was dark indeed, and, amid the fast gathering gloom, all eyes, all thoughts, turned to Virginia. She represented the Border States; her action, it was felt, would largely influence, and might control theirs. John Letcher was then governor — a States Rights Democrat, of course; but a Union man. By him the legis- lature of the State was called together in special session, and that legislature, in January, passed what was known as a convention bill. Practically Virginia was to vote on the question at issue. Events moved rapidly. South Carolina had seceded on December 20; Mississippi on January 8; Florida on the 10th; Alabama on the nth; Georgia followed on the 19th; Louisiana on the 26th, with Texas on February 1. The procession seemed unending; the record un- broken. Not without cause might the now thoroughly frightened friends of the Union have exclaimed, with Macbeth —
" What ! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ? Another yet ? A seventh ? "
If at that juncture the Old Dominion by a decisive vote had fol- lowed in the steps of the cotton States, it implied consequences which
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue? 17
no man could fathom. It involved the possession of the national capital, and the continuance of the government. Maryland would inevitably follow the Virginian lead; the recently elected president had not yet been inaugurated; taken wholly by surprise, the North was divided in sentiment; the loyal spirit of the country was not aroused. It was thus an even question whether, on March 4, the whole machinery of the de facto government would not be in the hands of the revolutionists. All depended on Virginia. This is now forgotten; none the less, it is history.
The Virginia election was held on the 4th of February, the news of the secession of Texas — seventh in the line — having been received on the 2d. Evidently, the action of Texas was carefully timed for effect. Though over forty years ago, I well remember that day — gray, overcast, wintry — which succeeded the Virginia election. Then living in Boston, a young man of twenty-five, I shared — as who did not ? — in the common deep depression and intense anxiety. It was as if a verdict was to be that day announced in a case involving for- tune, honor, life even. Too harassed for work, I remember aband- oning my desk in the afternoon to seek relief in physical activity, for the ponds in the vicinity of Boston were ice-covered, and daily thronged with skaters. I was soon among the number, gloomily seeking unfrequented spots. Suddenly I became aware of an un- usual movement in the throng nearest the shore, where those fresh from the city arrived. The skaters seemed crowding to a common point; and a moment later they scattered again, with cheers and gestures of relief. An arrival fresh from Boston had brought the first bulletin of yesterday's election. Virginia, speaking against secession, had emitted no uncertain sound. It was as if a weight had been taken Ojff the mind of everyone. The tide seemed turned at last. For myself, I remember my feelings were too deep to find expression in words or sound. Something stuck in my throat. I wanted to be by myself.
Nor did we overestimate the importance of the event. If it did not in the end mean reaction, it did mean time gained; and time then, as the result showed, was vital. As William H. Seward, representing the president-elect in Washington, wrote during those days: "The people of the District are looking anxiously for the result of the Virginia election. They fear that if Virginia resolves on secession, Maryland will follow; and then Washington will be seized. . . The election tomorrow probably determines whether all the slave States will take the attitude of disunion. Everybody
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around me thinks that that will make the separation irretrievable, and involve us in flagrant civil war. Practically everybody will de- spair. ' ' A day or two later the news came ' ' like a gleam of sunshine in a storm." The disunion movement was checked, perhaps would be checkmated. Well might Seward, with a sigh of profound relief, write to his wife: "At least, the danger of conflict, here or elsewhere, before the 4th of March, has been averted. Time has been gained." (Seward at Washington, Vol. I, p. 502.) Time was gained; and the few weeks of precious time thus gained through the expiring effort of Union sentiment in Virginia involved the vital fact of the peaceful delivery four weeks later of the helm of State into the hands of Lincoln.
Thus, be it always remembered, Virginia did not take its place in the secession movement because of the election of an anti-slavery president. It did not raise its hand against the national government from mere love of any peculiar institution, or a wish to protect and to perpetuate it. It refused to be precipitated into a civil convulsion; and its refusal was of vital moment. The ground of Virginia's final action was of wholly another nature, and of a nature far more cred- itable. Virginia, as I have said, made State sovereignty an article — ■ a cardinal article — of its political creed. So, logically and consist- ently, it took the position that, though it might be unwise for a State to secede, a State which did secede could not, and should not be coerced.
To us now this position seems worse than illogical; it is impossible. So events proved it then. Yet, after all, it is based on the great fundamental principle of the consent of the governed; and, in the days immediately preceding the war, something very like it was ac- cepted as an article of correct political faith by men afterward as strenuous in support of a Union re-established by force, as Charles Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Horace Greeley. The difference was that, confronted by the overwhelming tide of events, Virginia adhered to it; they, in pres- ence of that tide, tacitly abandoned it. In my judgment, they were right. But Virginia, though mistaken more consistent, judged otherwise. As I have said, in shaping a practicable outcome of human affairs logic is often as irreconcilable with the dictates of worldly wisdom as are metaphysics with common sense. So now the issue shifted. It became a question, not of slavery or of the wisdom, or even the expediency, of secession, but of the right of the national government to coerce a sovereign State. This at the
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time was well understood. The extremists of the South, counting upon it, counted with absolute confidence; and openly proclaimed their reliance in debate. Florida, as the representatives of that State confessed on the floor of Congress, might in itself be of small ac- count; but Florida, panoplied with sovereignty, was hemmed in and buttressed against assault by protecting sister States. v So, in his history, James F. Rhodes asserts that — " The four men who in the last resort made the decision that began the war were ex- Senator Chestnut, Lieutenant-Colonel Chisolm, Captain Lee, all three South Carolinians, and Roger A. Pryor, a Virginia secessionist, who two days before in a speech at the Charleston Hotel had said, ' I will tell your governor what will put Virginia in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock. Strike a blow!'" (Rhodes, United States, Vol. Ill, p. 349.) The blow was to be in reply to what was accepted as the first overt effort at the national coercion of a sovereign State — the attempted relief of Sum- ter. That attempt — unavoidable even if long deferred, the necessary and logical outcome of a situation which had become impossible of continuance — that attempt, construed into an effort at coercion, swept Virginia from her Union moorings.
Thus, when the long-deferred hour of fateful decision came, the position of Virginia, be it in historical justice said, however impetuous, mistaken or ill-advised, was taken on no low or sor- did or selfish grounds. On the contrary, the logical assertion of a cardinal article of acccepted political faith, it was made generously, chivalrously, in a spirit almost altruistic; for, from the outset, it was manifest Virginia had nothing to gain in that conflict of which she must perforce be the battle-ground. True ! her lead- ing man doubtless believed that the struggle would soon be brought to a triumphant close — that southern chivalry and fighting qualities would win a quick and easy victory over a more materially minded, even if not craven, northern mob of fanatics and cobblers and ped- dlers, officered by preachers; but, however thus deceived and mis- led at the outset, Virginia entered on the struggle others had initiated, for their protection and in their behalf. She thrust herself between them and the tempest they had invoked. Technically it may have been treasonable; but her attitude was consistent, was bold, was chivalrous:
"An honorable murderer if you will; For naught did he in hate but all in honor."
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So much for Virginia; and now as to Robert E. Lee. More than once already, on occasions not unlike this, have I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes's remark in answer to the query of an anxious mother as to when a child's education ought to begin — "About 250 years before it is born;" and it is a fact — somewhat necessitarian, doubtless, but still a fact — that every man's life is largely molded for him far back in the ages. We philosophize freely over fate and free- will, and one of the excellent commonplaces of our educational sys- tem is to instil into the minds of the children in our common-schools the idea that every man is the architect of his own life. An admir- able theory to teach; but, happily for the race, true only to a very limited extent. Heredity is a tremendous limiting fact. Native force of character — individuality — doubtless has something to do with results; but circumstances, ancestry, environment have much more. One man possibly in a hundred has in him the inherent force to make his conditions largely for himself; but even he moves in- fluenced at every step from cradle to grave by ante-natal and birth con- ditions. Take any man you please — yourself, for instance; now and again the changes of life give opportunity, and the individual is equal to the occasion — the roads forking, consciously or instinctively he makes his choice. Under such circumstances, he usually supposes that he does so as a free agent. The world so assumes, holding him responsible. He is nothing of the sort; or at best such only in a very limited degree. The other day one of our humorists took occasion to philosophize on this topic, delivering what might not in- aptly be termed an occasional discourse appropriate to the 22d of February. It was not only worth reading, but in humor and senti- ment it was somewhat suggestive of the melancholy Jacques. ' ' We are made brick by brick of influences, patiently built up around the framework of our born dispositions. It is the sole process of con- struction; there is no other. Every man, woman and child is an influence. Washington's disposition was born in him, he did not create it. It was the architect of his character; his character was the architect of his achievements. It had a native affinity for all influences, fine and great, and gave them hospitable welcome and permanent shelter. It had a native aversion for all influences mean and gross, and passed them on. It chose its ideals for him; and out of its patiently gathered materiels, it built and shaped his golden character.
"And give him the credit."
Three names of Virginians are impressed on the military records of our Civil War, indelibly impressed — Winfield Scott, George Henry
Shall Cromwell J Live a Statue f 21
Thomas and Robert Edward Lee; the last, most deeply. Of the three, the first two stood by the flag; the third went with his State. Each, when the time came, acted conscientiously, impelled by the purest sense of loyalty, honor and obligation, taking that course which, under the circumstances and according to his lights, seemed to him right; and each doubtless thought he acted as a free agent. To a degree each was a free agent; to a much greater degree each was the child of anterior conditions, hereditary sequence, existing cir- cumstances— in a word of human environment, moral, material, in- tellectual. Scott or Thomas or Lee, being as he was, and things being as things were, could not decide otherwise than as he did de- cide. Consider them in order; Scott first:
A Virginian by birth, early associations and marriage, Scott, at the breaking-out of the Civil War, had not lived in his native State for forty years. Not a planter, he held no broad acres and owned no slaves. Essentially a soldier, he was a citizen of the United States; and, for twenty years, had been the general in command of its army. When, in April, 1861, Virginia passed its ordinance of secession, he was well advanced in his seventy-fifth year — an old man, he was no longer equal to active service. The course he would pursue was thus largely marked out for him in advance; a violent effort on his part could alone have forced him out of his trodden path. When subjected to the test, what he did was infinitely credit- able to him, and the obligation the cause of the Union lay under to him during the critical period between December, i860, and June, 1861, can scarcely be overstated; but, none the less, in doing as he did, it cannot be denied he followed what was for him the line of least resistance.
Ot George Henry Thomas, no American, North or South — above all, no American who served in the Civil War — whether wearer of the blue or the gray — can speak, save with infinite respect — always with admiration, often with love. Than his, no record is clearer from stain. Thomas also was a Virginian. At the time of the breaking-out of the Civil War, he held the rank of major in that regiment of cavalry of which Lee, nine years his senior in age, was colonel. He never hesitated in his course. True to the flag from start to finish, William T. Sherman, then general of the army, in the order announcing the death of his friend and classmate at the Academy, most properly said of him: "The very impersonation of honesty, integrity, and honor, he will stand to posterity as the beau ideal of the soldier and gentleman." More tersely, Thomas stands
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for character personified; Washington himself not more so. And now having said this, let us come again to the choice of Hercules — the parting of those terrible ways of 1861.
Like Scott and Lee, Thomas was a Virginian; but, again, there are Virginians and Virginians. Thomas was not a Lee. When, in 1855, the second United States cavalry was organized, Jefferson Davis being Secretary of War, Captain Thomas, as he then was and in his thirty-ninth year, was appointed its junior major. Between that time and April, 1861, fifty-one officers are said to have borne commissions in that regiment, thirty-one of whom were from the South; and of those thiry-one, no less than twenty-four entered the Confederate service, twelve of whom, among them Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston and John B. Hood, became general officers. The name of the Virginian, George H. Thomas, stands first of the faithful seven; but, Union or Confederate, it is a record of great names, and fortunate is the people, great of necessity their destiny, which in the hour of exigency, on the one side or the other, naturally develops from the roster of a single regiment men of the ability, the disinterestedness, the capacity and the character of Lee, Thomas, Johnston, and Hood. It is a record which inspires confi- dence as well as pride.
And now of the two men — Thomas and Lee. Though born in Vir- ginia, General Thomas was not of a peculiarly Virginian descent. By ancestry, he was, on the father's side, Welsh; French, on that of the mother. He was not of the old Virginia stock. Born in the southeastern portion of the State, near the North Carolina line, we are told that his family, dwelling ona" goodly home property," was " well to do " and eminently " respectable; " but, it is added, there ■ 'were no cavaliers in the Thomas family, and not the remotest trace of the Pocahontas blood." When the war broke out, in 1861, Thomas had been twenty-one years a commissioned officer; and during those years he seems to have lived almost everywhere, except in Virginia. It had been a life passed at military stations; his wife was from New York; his home was on the Hudson rather than on the Nottoway. In his native State he owned no property, land or chattels. Essen- tially a soldier, when the hour for choice came, the soldier domi- nated the Virginian. He stood by the flag.
Not so Lee; for to Lee I now come. Of him it might, and in justice must, be said, that he was more than of the essence, he was of the very quintessence of Virginia. In his case, the roots and fibers struck down and spread wide in the soil, making him of it a
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue f 23
part. A son of the revolutionary "Light-Horse Harry," he had married a Custis. His children represented all there was of descent, blood, and tradition of the Old Dominion, made up as the Old Dominion was of tradition, blood, and descent. The holder of broad patrimonial acres, by birth and marriage he was a slave-owner, and a slave-owner of the patriarchal type, holding "slavery as an insti- tution a moral and political evil." Every sentiment, every memory, every tie conceivable bound him to Virginia; and, when the choice was forced upon him — had to be made — sacrificing rank, career, the flag, he threw in his lot with Virginia. He did so with open eyes, and weighing the consequences. He at least indulged in no self- deception — wandered away from the path in no cloud of political metaphysics — nourished no delusion as to an early and easy triumph. "Secession," as he wrote to his son, " is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is idle to talk of secession." But he also believed that his permanent allegiance was due to Vir- ginia; that her secession, though revolutionary, bound all Virginians and ended their connection with and duties to the national govern- ment. Thereafter, to remain in the United States army would be treason to Virginia. So, three days after Virginia passed its ordi- nance, he, being then at Arlington, resigned his commission, at the same time writing to his sister, the wife of a Union officer, "We are now in a state of war which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn; and, though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native State. With all my devotion to the Union, and feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my chil- dren, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the army; and, save in defense of my native State, I hope I may never be called upon to draw my sword." Two days before he had been unreservedly tendered, on behalf of President Lincoln, the command of the Union army then immediately to be put in the field in front of Washington — the command shortly afterward held by General McDowell.
24 Southern Historical Society Papers.
So thought and spoke and wrote and acted Robert E. Lee, in April, 1 86 1. He has, for the decision thus reached, been termed by some a traitor, a deserter, almost an apostate, and consigned to the "avenging pen of History." I cannot so see it; I am confident posterity will not so see it. The name and conditions being changed, those who uttered the words of censure, invoking "the avenging pen," did not so see it — have not seen it so. Let us appeal to the record. What otherwise did George Washington do under circum- stances not dissimilar ? What would he have done under circum- stances wholly similar ? Like Lee, Washington was a soldier; like Lee, he was a Virginian before he was a soldier. He had served under King George's flag; he had sworn allegiance to King George; his ambition had been to hold the royal commission. Presently Virginia seceded from the British empire — renounced its allegiance. What did Washington do ? He threw in his lot with his native province. Do you hold him then to have been a traitor — to have been false to his colors? Such is not your verdict; such has not been the verdict of history. He acted conscientiously, loyally, as a son of Virginia and according to his lights. Will you say that Lee did otherwise ?
But men love to differentiate; and of drawing of distinctions there is no end. The cases were dissimilar, it will be argued; at the time Virginia renounced its allegiance Washington did not hold the king's commission, indeed he never held it. As a soldier he was a provin- cial always — he bore a Virginian commission. True! Let the dis- tinction be conceded; then assume that the darling wish of his younger heart had been granted to him, and that he had received the king's commission, and held it in 1775 — what course would he then have pursed ? What course would you wish him to have pur- sued ? Do you not wish — do you not know — that, circumstanced as then he would have been, he would have done exactly as Robert E. Lee did eighty-six years later. He would first have resigned his commission ; and then arrayed himself on the side of Virginia. Would you have had him do otherwise ? And so it goes in this world. In such cases the usual form of speech is: "Oh! that is different! Another case altogether!" Yes, it is different; it is another case. For it makes a world of difference with a man who argues thus, whether it is his ox that is gored or the ox of the other man!
And here, in preparing this address, I must fairly acknowledge having encountered an obstacle in my path also. When considering
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue ? 25
the course of another, it is always well to ask one's self the question: What would you yourself have done if similarly placed ? Warmed by my argument, and the great precedents of Lee and of Washing- ton, I did so here. I and mine were and are at least as much ident- ified with Massachusetts as was Lee and his with Virginia — traditionally, historically, by blood and memory and name, we with the Puritan Commonwealth as they with the Old Dominion. What, I asked myself, would I have done had Massachusetts at any time arrayed itself against the common country, though without my sympathy and assent, even as Virginia arrayed itself against the Union without the sympathy and assent of Lee in 1861 ? The ques- tion gave me pause. And then I must confess to a sense of the humor of the situation coming over me, as I found it answered to my hand. The case had already arisen; the answer had been given; nor had it been given in any uncertain tone. The dark and disloyal days of the earlier years of the century just ended rose in memory — the days of the embargo, the " Leopard" and the " Chesapeake," and of the Hartford Convention. The course then taken by those in political control in Massachusetts is recorded in history. It verged dangerously close on that pursued by Virginia and the South fifty years later: and the quarrel then was foreign; it was no domestic broil. One of my name, from whom I claim descent, was in those years prominent in public life. He accordingly was called upon to make the choice of Hercules, as later was Lee. He made his choice, and it was for the common country as against his section. The result is matter of history. Because he was a Union man, and held country higher than State or party, John Quincy Adams was in 1808 driven from office, a successor to him in the United States Senate was elected long before the expiration of his term, and he himself was forced into what at the time was regarded as an honorable exile. Nor was the line of conduct then by him pursued — that of unswerv- ing loyalty to the Union — ever forgotten or wholly forgiven. He had put country above party; and party leaders have long memories. Even so broad-minded and clear-thinking a man as Theodore Parker, when delivering a eulogy upon J. Q. Adams, forty years later, thus expressed himself of this act of supreme self-sacrifice and loyalty to Nation rather than to State: " To my mind, that is the worst act of his public life; I cannot justify it. I wish I could find some reason- able excuse for it. ... However, it must be confessed that this, though not the only instance of injustice, is the only case of servile compliance with the executive to be found in the whole life of the
26 Southern Historical Society Papers.
man. It was a grievous fault, but grievously did he answer it; and if a long life of unfaltering resistance to every attempt at the assump- tion of power is fit atonement, then the expiation was abundantly made." ( Works, London, 1863, Vol. IV, pp. 154, 156.)
What more, or worse, on the other side, could be said of Lee ?
Perhaps I should enter some plea in excuse of this diversion; but, for me, it may explain itself, or go unexplained. Confronted with the question what would I have done in 186-1 had positions been reversed, and Massachusetts taken the course then taken by Vir- ginia, I found the answer already recorded. I would have gone with the Union, and against Massachusetts. None the less, I hold Massachusetts estopped in the case of Lee. " Let the galled jade wince, our withers areunwrung;" but, I submit, however it might be with me or mine, it does not lie in the mouths of the descendants of the New England Federalists of the first two decennials of the nineteenth century to invoke "the avenging pen of History' ' to record an adverse verdict in the case of any son of Virginia who threw in his lot with his State in 1861.
Thus much for the choice of Hercules. Pass on to what followed. Of Robert E. Lee as the commander of the army of Northern Vir- ginia— at once the buckler and the sword of the Confederacy — I shall say a few words. I was in the ranks of those opposed to him. For years I was face to face with some fragment of the army of Northern Virginia, and intent to do it harm; and during those years there was not a day when I would not have drawn a deep breath of relief and satisfaction at hearing of the death of Lee, even as I did draw it at hearing of the death of Jackson. But now, looking back through a perspective of nearly forty years, I glory in it, and in them, as foes — they were worthy of the best of steel. I am proud now to say that I was their countryman. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the course of Lee when he made his choice, of Lee as a foe and the commander of an army, but one opinion can be entertained. Every inch a soldier, he was as an opponent not less generous and humane than formidable, a type of highest martial character; cautious, magnanimous, and bold, a very thunderbolt in war, he was self-contained in victory, but greatest in defeat. To that escutcheon attaches no stain.
I now come to what I have always regarded — shall ever regard — as the most creditable episode in all American history — an episode without a blemish — imposing, dignified, simple, heroic. I refer to Appomattox. Two men met that day, representative of American
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue f 27
civilization, the whole world looking on. The two were Grant and Lee — types each. Both rose, and rose unconsciously, to the full height of the occasion — and than that occasion there has been none greater. About it, and them, there was no theatrical display, no self-consciousness, no effort at effect. A great crisis was to be met; and they met that crisis as great countrymen should. Consider the possibilities; think for a moment of what that day might have been — you will then see cause to thank God for much.
That month of April saw the close of exactly four years of per- sistent strife— a strife which the whole civilized world had been watch- ing intently. Democracy — the capacity of man in his present stage •of development for self-government — was believed to be on trial. The wish the father to the thought, the prophets of evil had been liberal in prediction. It so chances that my attention has been specially drawn to the European utterances of that time; and, read in the clear light of subsequent history, I use words of moderation when I say that they are now both inconceivable and ludicrous. Staid journals, grave public men, seemed to take what was little less than pleasure in pronouncing that impossible of occurrence which was destined soon to occur, and in committing themselves to read- ings of the book of fate in exact opposition to what the muse of history was wetting the pen to record. Volumes of unmerited abuse and false vaticination — and volumes hardly less amusing now than instructive — could be garnered from the columns of the London Times — volumes in which the spirt of contemptuous and patronizing dislike sought expression in the profoundest ignorance of facts, set down in bitterest words. Not only were republican institutions and man's capacity for self-government on trial, but the severest of sen- tences was imposed in advance of the adverse verdict, assumed to be inevitable. Then, suddenly, came the dramatic climax at Appo- mattox— dramatic, I say, not theatrical — severe in its simple, sober, matter-of-fact majesty. The world, I again assert, has seen nothing like it; and the world, instinctively, was conscious of the fact. I iike to dwell on the familiar circumstances of the day; on its moment- ous outcome; on its far-reaching results. It affords one of the greatest educational object-lessons to be found in history; and the actors were worthy of the theater, the auditor and the play.
A mighty tragedy was drawing to a close. The breathless world was the audience. It was a bright balmy April Sunday in a quiet Virginia landscape, with two veteran armies confronting each other; one, game to the death, completely in the grasp of the other. The
28 Southern Historical Society Papers.
future was at stake. What might ensue ? What might not ensue ? Would the strife end then and there ? Would it die in a death grapple, only to reappear in that chronic form of a vanquished but indomitable people writhing and struggling in the grasp of an in- insatiate, but only nominal victor? Such a struggle as all European authorities united in confidently predicting ?
The answer depended on two men — the captains of the contend- ing forces. Grant that day had Lee at his mercy. He had but to close his hand, and his opponent was crushed. Think what then might have resulted had those two men been other than they were — had the one been stern and aggressive, the other sullen and unyield- ing. Most fortunately for us, they were what and who they were — Grant and Lee. More, I need not, could not say; this only let me add — a people has good right to be proud of the past and self-con- fident of its future when on so great an occasion it naturally develops at the front men who meet each other as those two met each other then. Of the two, I know not to which to award the palm. In- stinctively, unconsciously, they vied not unsuccessfully each with the other, in dignity, magnanimity, simplicity.
" Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae."
With a home no longer his, Lee then sheathed his sword. With the silent dignity of his subsequent life, after he thus accepted de- feat, all are familiar. He left behind him no querulous memoirs, no exculpatory vindication, no controversial utterances. For him, history might explain itself— posterity formulate its own verdict. Surviving Appomattox but a little more than five years, those years were not unmarked by incidents very gratifying to American recol- lection; for we Americans, do, I think, above all things love mag- nimity, and appreciate action at once fearless and generous. We all remember how by the grim mockery of fate — as if to test to the uttermost American capacity for self-government — Abraham Lincoln was snatched away at the moment of crisis from the helm of State, and Andrew Johnson substituted for him . I think it no doubtful antici- pation of historical judgment to say that a more unfortunate selection could not well have chanced. In no single respect, it is safe to say, was Andrew Johnson adapted for the peculiar duties which Booth's pistol imposed upon him. One of Johnson's most unhappy, most ill- considered convictions was that our Civil War was a conventional old- time rebellion — that rebellion was treason — that treason was a crime:
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue ? 29
and that a crime was something for which punishment should in due course of law be meted out. He, therefore, wanted, or thought he wanted, to have the scenes of England's Convention Parliament and the Restoration of 1660 re-enacted here, as a fitting sequel of our great conflict. Most fortunately, the American people then gave evidence to Europe of a capacity for self-restraint and self-govern- ment not traceable to English parentage, or precedents. No Crom- well's head grinned from our Westminster Hall; no convicted traitor swung in chains; no shambles dripped in blood. None the less An- drew Johnson called for " indictments," and one day demanded that of Lee. Then outspoke Grant — general of the army. Lee, he de- clared, was his prisoner. He had surrendered to him, and in reli- ance on his word. He had received assurance that so long as he quietly remained at his home, and did not offend against the law, he should not be molested. He had done so; and, so long as Grant held his commission, molested he should not be. Needless, as pleasant, to say what Grant then grimly intimated did not take place. Lee was not molested; nor did the general of the army indignantly fling his commission at an accidental president's feet. That, if necessary, he would have done so, I take to be quite indubitable.
Of Lee's subsequent life, as head of Washington College, I have but one anecdote to offer. I believe it to be typical. A few months ago I received a letter from a retired army officer of high character from which I extract the following: " Lee was essentially a Virginian. His sword was Virginia's, and I fancy the State had higher claims upon him than had the Confederacy, just as he supposed it had than the United States. But, after the surrender, he stood firmly and un- reservedly in favor of lo)^alty to the nation. A gentleman told me this anecdote. As a boy he ran away from his Kentucky home, and served the last two years in the rebel ranks. After the war he re- sumed his studies under Lee's presidency; and one occasion, deliv- ered as a college exercise an oration with eulogistic reference to the 'Lost Cause,' and what it meant. Later, General, then President, Lee sent for the student, and after praising his composition and de- livery, seriously warned him against holding or advancing such views, impressing strongly upon him the unity of the nation, and urging him to devote himself loyally to maintain the integrity and the honor of the United States. The kindly paternal advice thus given was, I imagine, typical of his whole post bellum life." Let this one anec- dote suffice. Here was magnanimity, philosophy, true patriotism, the pure American spirit. Accepting the situation loyally and in a
30 Southern Historical Society Papers.
manly, silent way — without self-consciousness or mental reservation — he sought by precept, and yet more by a great example, to build up the shattered community of which he was the most observed rep- resentative in accordance with the new conditions imposed by fate, and through constitutional action. Talk of tratiors and of treason I The man who pursued that course and instilled that spirit had not, could not have had, in his whole being one drop of traitor's blood or conceived a treacherous thought. His lights may have been wrong — according to our ideas then and now they were wrong — but they were his lights, and in acting in full accordance with them he was right.
But, to those thus speaking, it is since sometimes replied — " Even tolerance may be carried too far, and is apt then to verge danger- ously on what may be better described as moral indifference. It then, humanly speaking, assumes that there is no real right or real wrong in collective human action. But put yourself in his place, and, to those of this way of thinking, Philip II and William of Orange — Charles I and Cromwell — are much the same; — the one is as good as the other, provided only he acted according to his lights. This will not do. Some moral test must be applied — some standard of right and wrong.
" It is by the recognition and acceptance of these the men promi- nent in history must be measured, and approved or condemned. To call it our Civil War is but a mere euphemistic way of referring to what was in fact a slave-holders' rebellion, conceived and put in action for no end but to perpetuate and extend a system of human servitude, a system the relic of barbarism, an insult to advancing humanity. To the futherance of this rebellion, Lee lent himself. Right is right, and treason is treason — and, as that which is morally wrong cannot be right, so treason cannot be other than a crime. Why then because of sentiment or sympathy or moral indifference seek to confound the two ? Charles Stuart and Cromwell could not both have been right. If Thomas was right, Lee was wrong."
To this I would reply, that we, who take another view, neither confound, nor seek to confound, right with wrong, or treason with loyalty. We accept the verdict of time; but, in so doing, we insist that the verdict shall be in accordance with the facts, and that each individual shall be judged on his own merits, and not stand acquitted or condemned in block. In this respect time works wonders, leaving few conclusions wholly unchallenged. Take, for instance, one of the final contentions of Charles Sumner, that, following old world
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue f 31
precedents, founded, as he claimed, in reason and patriotism, the names of battles of the war of the rebellion should be removed from the regimental colors of the national army, and from the army register. He put it on the ground that, from the republics of an- tiquity down to our days, no civilized nation ever thought it wise or patriotic to preserve in conspicuous and durable form the mementoes of victories won over fellow-citizens in civil war. As the sympathiz- ing orator said at the time of Sumner's death — " Should the son of South Carolina, when at some future day defending the Republic against some foreign foe, be reminded by an inscription on the colors floating over him, that under this flag the gun was fired that killed his father at Gettysburg?" This assuredly has a plausible sound. " His father; " yes, perhaps. Though even in the immediately suc- ceeding generation something might well be said on the other side. Presumably, in such case, the father was a brave, an honest and a loyal man — contending for what he believed to be right — for it, lay- ing down his life. Gettysburg is a name and a memory of which none there need ever feel ashamed. As in most battles, there was a victor and a vanquished ; but on that day the vanquished, as well as the victor, fought a stout fight. If, in all recorded warfare there is a deed of arms the name and memory of which the descendants of those who participated therein should not wish to see obliterated from any record, be it historian's page or battle-flag, it was the ad- vance of Pickett's Virginian division across that wide valley of death in front of Cemetery Ridge. I know in all recorded warfare of no finer, no more sustained and deadly feat of arms. I have stood on either battlefield, and, in scope and detail, carefully compared the two; and, challenging denial, I affirm that the much vaunted charge of Napoleon's guard at Waterloo, in fortitude, discipline and deadly energy will not bear comparison with that other. It was boy's work beside it. There, brave men did all that the bravest men could do. Why then should the son of one of those who fell coming up the long ascent, or over our works and in among our guns, feel a sense of wrong because "Gettysburg" is inscribed on the flag of the bat- tery a gun of which he now may serve ? On the contrary, I should suppose he would there see that name only.
But, supposing it otherwise in the case of the son — the wound being in such case yet fresh and green — how would it be when a sufficient time has elapsed to afford the needed perspective ? Let us suppose a grandson six generations removed. What Englishman, be he Cavalier or Roundhead by descent — did his ancestor charge
32 Southern Historical Society Papers.
with Rupert or Cromwell — did he fall while riding with leveled point in the glim wall of advancing Ironsides, or go hopelessly down in death beneath their thundering hoofs — what descendant of any Eng- lishman who there met his end, but with pride would read the name of Naseby on his regimental flag? What Frenchman would consent to the erasure of Ivry or Moncontour ? Thus, in all these matters, time is the great magician. It both mellows and transforms. The Englishman of to-day does not apply to Cromwell the standard of loyalty or treason, of right and wrong, applied after the Restoration; nor again, does the twentieth century confirm the nineteenth's ver- dicts. Even slavery we may come to regard as a phase, pardonable as passing, in the evolution of a race.
I hold it will certainly be so with our Civil War. The year 1965 will look upon its causes, its incidents, and its men with different eyes from those with which we see them now — eyes wholly different from those with which we saw forty years ago. They — for we by that time will have rejoined the generation to which we belonged — will recognize the somewhat essential fact, indubitably true, that all the honest conviction, all the loyalty, all the patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice were not then, any more than all the courage, on the victor's side. True! the moral right, the spirit of nationality, the sacred cause of humanity even, were on our side, but among those opposed, and who in the end went down, were men not less sincere, not less devoted, not less truly patriotic according to their lights, than he who among us was first in all those qualities. Men of whom it was and is a cause of pride and confidence to say: " They, too, were countrymen!"
Typical of those men — most typical — was Lee. He represented, individualized, all that was highest and best in the southern mind and the Confederate cause — the loyalty to State, the keen sense of honor and personal obligation, the slightly archaic, the almost patri- archal, love of dependent, family and home. As I have more than once said, he was a Virginian of the Virginians. He represents a type which is gone — hardly less extinct than that of the great Eng- lish nobleman of the feudal times, or the ideal head of the Scotch clan of a later period; but, just so long as men admire courage, de- votion, patriotism, the high sense of duty and personal honor — all, in a word, which go to make up what we know as character — just so long will that type of man be held in affectionate, reverential mem- ory. They have in them all the elements of the heroic. As Carlyle wrote more than half a century ago, so now: "Whom do you wish
Shall Cromwell Have a Statue ? 33
to resemble ? Him you set on a high column. Who is to have a statue? means, whom shall we consecrate and set apart as one of our sacred men? Sacred; that all men may see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Show me the man you honor; I know by that sympton, uetter than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, with your whole soul, for being if you could."
It is all a question of time; and the time is, probably, not quite yet. The wounds of the great war are not altogether healed, its personal memories are still fresh, its passions not wholly allayed. It would, indeed, be cause for special wonder if they were. But, I am as convinced as an unillumined man can be of anything future, that when such time does come, a justice, not done now, will be done to those descendants of Washington, of Jefferson, of Rutledge, and of Lee, who stood opposed to us in a succeeding generation. That the national spirit is now supreme and the nation cemented, I hold to be unquestionable. That property in man has vanished from the civilized world is due to our Civil War. The two are worth the great price then paid for them. But, wrong as he may have been, and as he was proved by events, in these respects the Confederate had many great and generous qualities; he also was brave, chival- rous, self-sacrificing, sincere, and patriotic. So I look forward with confidence to the time when they too will be represented in our national Pantheon. Then the query will be answered here, as the query in regard to Cromwell's statue put sixty years ago has recently been answered in England. The bronze effigy of Robert E. Lee, mounted on his charger, and with the insignia of his Confederate rank, will from its pedestal in the nation's capital gaze across the Potomac at his old home at Arlington, even as that of Cromwell dominates the yard of Westminster upon which his skull once looked down. When that time comes, Lee's monument will be educational — it will typify the historical appreciation of all that goes to make up the loftiest type of character, military and civic, exemplified in an opponent, once dreaded, but ever respected; and, above all, it will symbolize and commemorate that loyal acceptance of the conse- quences of defeat, and the patient upbuilding of a people under new conditions by constitutional means, which I hold to be the greatest educational lesson America has yet taught to a once skeptical, but now silenced world.
34 Southern Historical Society Papers.
[From the Richmond, Va., Dispatch, March 30, April 6, 27, and May 12, 1902.]
GRADUATES OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT, N. Y.,
Who Served in the Confederate States Army, with the Highest Commission and Highest Command Attained.
COMPILED BY CAPTAIN W. GORDON McCABE, LATE ADJUTANT
PEGRAM'S BATTALION, A. P. HILL'S CORPS, ARMY
NORTHERN VIRGINIA, FOR THE ASSOCIATION
OF THE GRADUATES.
Reprinted With Additions and Corrections.
Captain McCabe, in sending this list, says: "Although greatest vigilance has been exercised in compiling this roster of the graduates of the Military Academy, who entered the Confederate army, to- gether with statement of highest rank obtained by them, and dates of their commission, it is well nigh impossible that some errors should not occur, owing to the confused condition of existing records.
" The list of those who attained rank of Brigadier-General, Major- General, Lieutenant-General and of full General, is believed to be complete and exact.
" Injustice to many brave and able young officers, who did not reach higher rank than that of regimental field officers, it must be remembered that many of these were killed or permanently disabled for further active service by severe wounds in 1861, and especially in 1862. Thus death or grievous wounds cut short many careers of brilliant promise.
1 ' The great majority of officers named in this roster were wounded, some of them severely, three, four and five times, during the four years of the war, but this fact has not been noted in the roster.
"The simple record, as it stands, constitutes, together with that of the officers who served on the Union side, a brilliant vindication of the Military Academy, and of the methods, aims, and scientific training that have characterized this great nursery of able and accom- plished soldiers since its foundation."
The record of General Alexander P. Stewart has been filled out in the list below to show the general form in which all should be com- pleted, though this record of General Stewart's service is too brief.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 35
"Confederate States army" after an officer's rank signifies that such was his rank in the regular Confederate army. Otherwise, the rank given is that in the provisional army of the Confederate States.
The figures on the left of the names are the numbers of the grad- uates in the whole list of graduates; those on the right the class rank. Those without a * are deceased. v
i832 1192362
Benjamin S. Ewell.
664. Born D. C. Appointed Virginia. 3.
Colonel, April 24, 1861. Commanding (in 1861) Thirty-second Virginia Regiment, Army of the Peninsula, afterwards (1862) A. A. G. Department of East Tennessee, and in 1863 A. A. G. Western Department.
Philip St. George Cocke.
667. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 6
Brigadier-General, October 21, 1861. Commanding in 1861 Fifth Brigade, First Corps, Army of Potomac. Died December 26, 1861.
Richard G. Fain. 681. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 20.
Colonel, July 31, 1862. Commanding Sixty-third Tennessee In- fantry, B. R. Johnson's Division. In 1863 was in Preston's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Tennessee; in 1864 in Brigadier-Gen- eral Johnson's Brigade, B. R. Johnson's Division, in Beauregard's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
George B. Crittenden.
687. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 26.
Major-General, August 15, 1861. Commanding District of East Tennessee, December, 1861 ; commanding Confederate forces at battle of Mill Springs, Ky., January 19, 1862. Resigned October 23, 1862. In 1864 commanding Reserve (as Colonel, Confederate States Army) in Department of East Tennessee.
Robert H. Archer. 694. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 33.
Lieutenant-Colonel, October 1, 1861. Commanding Fifty-fifth Virginia Infantry; in 1862 Captain and A. A. G. to Brigadier-Gen- eral J. J. Archer.
36 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Richard C. Gatlin.
696. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 35.
Brigadier-General, July 8, 1861. Commanding Southern Depart- ment coast defences of North Carolina. Resigned September 8, 1862, but subsequently served as A. and I. General of State of North Carolina, with rank of Major-General.
Humphrey Marshall.
703. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 42.
Brigadier-General, October 30. 1861. Detached command at Princeton, 1861-62; commanding district, Abingdon, Va., May, 1862. Resigned June 17, 1863. Member of Confederate States Congress.
Francis H. Smith.
711. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 5.
Breveted Major-General, April 24, 1861. Breveted Major-General of State forces; member of Governor's Advisory Council; Superin- tendent Virginia Military Institute.
David B. Harris.
713. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 7.
Brigadier-General, 1864. Chief-engineer (1st) of Army of Nor- thern Virginia, (2d) of Department of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
J. Lucius Davis.
722. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 16.
Colonel, (1st) commanding Forty-sixth Virginia Infantry; (2d) Colonel, commanding Tenth Virginia Cavalry, Army of Northern Virginia.
Abraham C. Myers.
738. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 32.
Colonel, June 24, 1861. First .Quartermaster-General, Confederate States Army, Richmond, 1861-62.
Daniel Ruggles. 740. Born Massachusetts. Appointed Massachusetts. 34.
Brigadier-General, April 9, 1861. Commanding Brigade in Army of Potomac, afterwards Brigade in Army of the West.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 37
Benjamin E. Dubose.
745. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 39.
No trace. (Cullum says he was in Confederate States Army.)
1834.
William T. Stockton.
757. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Pensylvania. 8.
Lieutenant-Colonel, First Florida Cavalry.
Charles A. Fuller.
759. Born Massachusetts. Appointed Massachusetts. 10.
Colonel, August 14, 1861. Commanding First Louisiana Regi- ment of Artillery.
James F. Cooper.
766. Born New York. Appointed Pennsylvania. 17.
Lieutenant-Colonel, Seventh Georgia Infantry. Thomas O. Barnwell. 772. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 23.
No trace. (There were several Barnwells in Confederate States Army, but no trace of Thomas O.)
Goode Bryan.
774. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 25.
Brigadier-General, August 31, 1863. Commanding Brigade Mc- Laws' Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
1835. William H. Griffin. 812. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 27.
Colonel, commanding Twenty-first Texas Infantry.
Peter C. Gaillard.
814. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 29.
Colonel, commanding Twenty-seventh South Carolina Infantry.
James M. Wells. 824. Born Maryland. Appointed District of Columbia. 39.
Colonel, commanding Twenty-third Mississippi Infantry.
38 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Jones M. Withers.
829. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 44.
Major-General, April 6, 1862, commanding Reserve Corps, Army of Mississippi; later commanding division in Army of Tennessee.
Larkin Smith. 832. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 47.
Colonel, September 24, 1861. Assistant Quartermaster-General Confederate States Army, Richmond, Va.
Hugh M'Leod. 841. Born New York. Appointed Georgia. 56.
Colonel, 1861, commanding First Texas Infantry, Hood's Brigade, Longstreet's Division (1862), Army of Northern Virginia.
1836.
Danville Leadbetter.
844. Born Maine. Appointed Maine. 3.
Brigadier-General, February 27, 1862. (1st) Commanding bri- gade, Army of Kentucky; (2d) Chief-engineer (1863) to Bragg; (3d) Chief-engineer to Joseph E. Johnston (1864), Army of Tennessee.
Joseph R. Anderson.
845. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 4.
Brigadier-General, September 3, 1861. Commanding brigade in Army of the Potomac and Army of Northern Virginia up to July 19, 1862; then superintendent of Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond, Va. , after July 19, 1862, manufacturing cannon and projectiles for Confederate States Army.
Christopher Q. Tompkins.
868. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 27.
Colonel, Twenty-second Virginia Volunteers, April 30, 1861. Commanding brigade in Southwest Virginia under (1) Wise, (2) Floyd. Resigned in 1862, and served in Ordnance Bureau.
Lloyd Tilghman. 867. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 46.
Brigadier-General, October 18, 1861. Commanding division of First Corps, Army Tennessee. Killed May 16, 1863, at Barker's Creek, Miss.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 39
1837- Braxton Bragg. 895. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 5
General, April 12, 1862. Commanding Corps. Army of Mis- sissippi; then commanding Army of the West; then Army of Ten- nessee; on February 24, 1864, assigned to duty at seat of government, to direct military operations of all the armies of the Confederacy.
William W. Mackall. 898. Born District of Columbia. Appointed Maryland. 8.
Brigadier-General, March 6, 1862. Chief of staff, Department of West (General A. S. Johnston); in 1863 commanding Western Division, Department of the Gulf; in 1864 Chief of staff, Army of Tennessee.
Robert T. Jones. 903. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 13.
Colonel, 1 861. Commanding Twelfth Alabama Infantry; killed at Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), May 31, 1862.
Jubal A. Early.
908. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 18.
Lieutenant-General, May 31, 1864. Commanding Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, May, 1864; then from June, 1864, to March, 1865, commanding Department of the Valley.
Edmund Bradford.
909. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Pennsylvania. 19. No trace. (Cullum says he was in Confederate States Army.)
John C. Pemberton. 917. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Pennsylvania. 27
Lieutenant-General. October 10, 1862. Commanding Depart ment of Mississippi and East Louisiana. Resigned May 18, 1864 On resigning May, 1864, Pemberton went back to his rank (lieuten ant-colonel of artillery) in the regular Confederate States army and was put in charge of heavy artillery around Richmond.
Arthur M. Rutledge.
922. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 32.
Major, August 27, 1862. Chief of ordnance, Polk's Corps, Army of Mississippi.
40 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Arnold Elzey. 923. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 33,
Major- General, December 4, 1862. Commanding First Brigade E well's Division, Army of Northern Virginia, desperately wounded; later commanded the Department of Richmond.
William H. T. Walker.
936. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 46,
Major-General, May 27, 1863. Commanded division in Long- street's Corps, Army of Tennessee, i863~'64; killed July 22, 1864,. in front of Atlanta, Ga.
Robert H. Chilton.
938. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 48.
Brigadier-General, December 21, 1863. Chief of staff, Army of Northern Virginia. Resigned on account of ill-health, April ir
1864.
1814.
Lewis G. DeRussy. 96. Born New York. Appointed New York. 6,
Colonel Second Louisiana Infantry, Army Peninsula, 1861; col- onel of engineers, December 1, 1861. Major-General Polk's Army of Mississippi; chief engineer, 1862, District of West Louisiana. On engineer duty Trans-Mississippi Department, 1863-' 64.
1815.
William H. Chase.
150. Born Massachusetts. Appointed Massachusetts. 30.
Colonel, commanding forces of Florida, Pensacola District, Janu- ary, 1861; afterwards Major-General of Florida State forces.
Samuel Cooper. 156. Born New York. Appointed New York. 9.
General, May 16, 1861. Adjutant and Inspector-General Confed- erate States Army.
1817.
Richard B. Lee. 169. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 9.
Colonel, chief commissary of subsistence to General Beauregard in 1861-62.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 41
Angus W. M' Donald. 173. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 13.
Colonel, Seventh Virginia Cavalry. Commanding cavalry Valley of Virginia District in 1862. Died in service.
1820. Edward G. W. Butler. 240. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 9.
(His son, E. G. W. Butler, Major Eleventh Louisiana Infantry, was killed at Belmont, Mo., November 7, 1861, but no trace of his father being in C. S. A. Cullum says he was in C. S. A.)
John H. Winder. 242. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 11.
Brigadier-General, June 21, 1861. Provost Marshal-General of Richmond, 1861-62; afterwords commanding And*ersonville Prison, Georgia.
1821.
Charles Dimmock. 242. Born Massachusetts. Appointed Massachusetts. 5.
Brigadier-General and chief of ordnance of Virginia 1861. Mem- ber of Governor's Council. Commanding State Guard of Virginia (regulars), 1861-62. Died in 1863.
1822. Walter Gwynn. 293. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 8.
Brigadier-General, April 21, 1861. Commanding Virginia forces at Norfolk, Va., April-May, 1861; afterwards colonel (temporary rank) of engineers in charge of defences of Eastern North Carolina, 1862.
Isaac R. Trimble.
302. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Kentucky. 17.
Major-General, April 23, 1863. Commanding division in Ewell's
Corps (2d) A. N. V.
1825.
Daniel S. Donelson.
396. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 5.
Major-General, January 17, 1863; (1st) adjutant-general of State
42 Southern Historical Society Papers.
of Tennessee in 1861; (2d) commanding division in Army of Mis- sissippi, 1863.
Benjamin Huger.
399. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 8.
Major- General, October 7, 1861; (1st) commanding Department of Southern Virginia and North Carolina; headquarters at Norfolk, Va., in 1 861; (2d) commanding division in Army of Northern Vir- ginia in 1862; (3d) appointed, August 26, 1862, inspector of ord- nance and artillery for Confederate States army; served as chief of Bureau of Ordnance, Trans-Mississippi, in 1864.
Nathaniel H. Street.
414. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 23.
1826.
Albert S. Johnston.
436. Born Kentucky. Appointed Louisiana. 8.
General, May 30, 1861. Commanding Department of the West. Killed April 6, 1862, at Shiloh.
Edward B. White.
437. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 9. Colonel, commanding Third Battalion, South Carolina Artillery.
Francis L. Dancy.
438. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 10.
Adjutant-General of State of Florida, October 25, 1861. (Brig- adier-general.)
John Archer.
453. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 25.
Brigadier-General, June 9, 1862. Commanding brigade Heth's Division, A. P. Hill's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
1827.
James A. J. Bradford.
473. Born Tennessee. Appointed Kentucky. 4.
Colonel of artillery, August 20, 1861. Commanding Tenth North Carolina Artillery.
Leonidas Polk.
477. Born Nortn Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 8.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 43
Lieutenant-General, October io, 1862. Commanding- Army of Mississippi; then corps (Army of Mississippi) in Army of Tennessee. " Polk's Army Mississippi," was commonly known as Polk's Corps when it joined army of Tennessee; sometimes officially called "Polk's Corps d'Armee." Killed June 14, 1864, on Pine Moun- tain, Georgia.
Gabriel J. Rains.
482. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 13.
Brigadier-General, September 23, 1861. (1st) In charge Bureau of Conscription ('62); (2d) chief of torpedo service ('64).
1828.
Hugh W. Mercer.
510. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 3.
Brigadier-General, October 29, 1861. (1st) Commanding at Sa- vannah, Ga. ; (2d) commanding brigade in W. H. T. Walker's Division, Army of Tennessee.
Joseph L. Locke.
515. Born Maine. Appointed Maine. 8.
No trace of his having been in the Confederate army. Died in Savannah, Ga., September, 1863. (Cullum says he was in Confed- erate States Army.)
Jefferson Davis.
530. Born in Kentucky. Appointed Mississippi. 23.
President of the Confederate States.
Thomas F. Drayton. 535. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 28.
Brigadier-General, September 25, 1861. Commanding Coast District of South Carolina; then brigade in Trans-Mississippi De- partment.
1829.
Robert E. Lee. 542. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 2.
General June 14, 1861. Commanding Army of Northern Vir- ginia; made general-in-chief of the Confederate States armies, Jan- uary 21, 1865.
44 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Joseph E. Johnston. 553. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 13.
General, July 4, 1861. First commanding Department of North- ern Virginia, and then Army of the West and Army of Tennessee.
Albert G. Blanchard.
566. Born Massachusetts. Appointed Massachusetts. 26.
Brigadier-General, September 21, 1861. Commanding brigade in Huger's Division, Army of Northern Virginia, 1862.
Theophilus H. Holmes.
584. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 44.
Lieutenant-General, October 10, 1862. First commanding (1861) Division in Army of Potomac; in 1862 commanding Division in Army of Northern Virginia; then commanding Trans-Mississsppi Department; in 1864-65 commanding Reserve, Department of North Carolina.
1830.
William N. Pendleton.
591. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 5..
Brigadier-General, March 26, 1862. Chief of artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia.
John B. Magruder.
601. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 15.
Major-General, October 7, '61. In 1861 commanding Army of Peninsula; in 1862 commanding division in Army of Northern Vir- ginia; later commanding Department of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Albert T. Bledsoe.
502. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 16.
Assistant Secretary of War and Chief of the Bureau of War, col- onel, June 23, 1861.
Meriwether L. Clark. 609. Born Missouri. Appointed Missouri. 23.
Colonel and A. D. C, July 17, 1862. A. D. C. to General Brax- ton Bragg, Army of the Mississippi.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 45
Lloyd J. Beall.
s6ii. Born Rhode Island. Appointed Maryland. 25.
Colonel, May 23, 1861. Commanding Confederate States Marine Corps.
William C. Heyward.
612. Born New York. Appointed New York. 26.
Colonel, commanding Twelfth South Carolina Volunteers and Fort Walker, Port Royal, S. C. Died September, 1863.
1831.
Albert M. Lea.
633. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 5.
Lieutenant-Colonel, January, 1863. Engineer officer to Brigadier- General H. P. Bee.
Lucius B. Northrop.
650. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 22.
Colonel, 1861. Commissary-General of Confederate States Army, 1861-64.
James S. Williams.
656. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 28.
Major, 1864. Assistant Inspector-General to Brigadier-General H. W. Mercer, Army of Tennessee.
1838. P. G. T. Beauregard.
942. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 2.
General, August 31, 1861. Commanded at Charleston, 1861; later Department Potomac, 1861; then Army of Mississippi, 1863; commanding Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, 1864. Beauregard brought his army to Virginia in 1864, where he served under Lee at Petersburg.
James H. Trapier.
943. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 3.
Brigadier- General, October 21, 1861. Commanding district, first at Georgetown, S. C, then at Sullivan's Island, S. C, 1863.
William B. Blair. -951. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 11.
46 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Colonel (Virginia army) and Commissary-General of Virginia, April and May, 1861; Major, P. A. C. S., and Chief Commissary Trans-Mississippi Department, 1864.
Henry C. Wayne.
954. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 14.
Brigadier-General, December 18,. 1861. Declined appointment, and became Adjutant-General of State of Georgia.
Milton A. Haynes.
958. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 18.
Lieutenant-Colonel. Commanding First Tennessee Light Artil- lery.
William J. Hardee.
966. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 26.
Lieutenant-General, October n, 1862. Commanding Corps, Army of Tennessee, and for a time (December, 1863) commanded Army of Tennessee.
Henry H. Sibley.
971. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 31.
Brigadier-General, June 17, 1861. Commanding district in Texas, headquarters, San Antonio.
Edward Johnson.
972. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 32.
Major-General, April 22, 1863. Commanding division in Ewell's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
Alexander W. Reynolds.
975. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 35.
Brigadier-General, September 14, 1862. Commanding Brigade, Stevenson's Division, Army of Tennessee.
Carter L. Stevenson.
982. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 42.
Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General, 1861; Brigadier-General, 1862; Major-General, October 10, 1862. Commanding division, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
1839.
Jeremy F. Gilmer.
989. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 4.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 47
Major- General, August 16, 1863. Chief of Engineer Bureau. In 1863 second in command Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.
Alexander R. Lawton.
998. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 13.
Brigadier-General, April 13, 1861. Commanded division in Jack- son's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, second Quartermaster- General, Confederate States Army. Was desperately wounded at Sharpsburg (Antietam), and on recovery was made Quartermaster- General against his protest, as he wished to go back to the Army of Northern Virginia.
Charles Wickliffe.
ioii. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 26.
Colonel, November 1, 1861. Commanding Seventh Kentucky Mounted Infantry. Mortally wounded at Shiloh; died of wounds April 27, 1862.
1840.
Paul O. Hebert.
1017. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 1.
Brigadier-General, August 17, 1861. Commanded Department of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
John P. M'Cown. 1026. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 10.
Major-General, March 10, 1862. Commanded Division in Har- dee's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
Richard S. Ewell.
1029. Born District of Columbia. Appointed Virginia. 13. Lieutenant-General, May 23, 1863. Commanded Second (Jack- son's old) Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
James G. Martin.
1030. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 14. Brigadier-General, May 17, 1862. Adjutant-General of North
Carolina in 1861; afterward commanding brigade, Hoke's Division, Army of Northern Virginia.
Bushrod R. Johnson. 1039. Born Ohio. Appointed Ohio. 23.
48 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Major- General, May 24, 1864. In 1862 and 1863 commanded brigade in Army of West; in 1864 commanded division Beauregard's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
Reuben P. Campbell.
1043. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 27.
Colonel, i86r. Commanded Seventh Regiment, North Carolina
State Troops, New Berne, N. C. Killed June 27, 1862, at Gaine's
Mill, Va.
William Steele.
1047. Born New York. Appointed New York. 31. Brigadier-General, September 12, 1862. Commanding (1863)
Indian Territory; in 1864 commanding division of cavalry, Trans- Mississippi Department.
Robert P. Maclay.*
1048. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Pennsylvania. 32. Brigadier-General, 1865.
Thomas Jordan. 1057. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 41.
Brigadier-General, September 26, 1862. Chief- of- staff to General P. G. T. Beauregard.
1 841.
Smith Stansbury. 1062. Born Louisiana. Appointed Maryland. 4.
Major, October 1, 1862, Ordnance Bureau, Richmond, Va.
JOSIAH GORGAS.
1064. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed New York. 6.
Brigadier-General, November 10, 1864. Chief of Ordnance, Con- federate States Army.
Sewall L. Fremont.
1075. Born Vermont. Appointed New Hampshire. 17. No trace. (Cullum says he was in Confederate States Army.)
Samuel S. Anderson.
1076. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 18.
Colonel, May 30, 1863. A. A. G.to Major-General Huger, 1861- '62; to General Holmes, 1862; to Lieutenant-General E. Kirby
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 49
Smith, Trans-Mississippi Department, from May 30, 1863, to end
of war.
Samuel Jones.
1077. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 19.
Major-General, March 14, 1862. Commanded division in Army of Mississippi (Polk's Corp); then commanded Department of Southwest Virginia; last commanded Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.
Robert S. Garnett.
1085. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 27.
Brigadier-General, June 6, i86r. Commanding forces in North- west Virginia. Killed July 13, 1861, at Carrick's Word, W. Va.
Richard B. Garnett.
1087. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 29.
Brigadier-General, November 14, i86r. Commanding "Stone- wall Brigade" in 1862; in 1863 commanded brigade, Pickett's Di- vision, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Killed July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg.
Claudius W. Sears.
1089. Born Massachusetts. Appointed New York. 31.
Brigadier-General, March 1, 1864. Commanding brigade, French's Division, Polk's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
John M. Jones. 1097. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 39.
Brigadier-General, May 15, 1863. Commanding brigade, John- son's Division, Ewell's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Killed May 10, 1864, at Spotsylvania, Virginia.
Edward Murray. 1099. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 41.
Lieutenant-Colonel, Forty-ninth Virginia Infantry, Early's Divi- sion, Jackson's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
Abraham Buford.
1 109. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 51.
Brigadier-General, September 2, 1862. Commanding Second Division of Cavalry, N. B. Forrest's Cavalry Corps, Army of Ten- nessee.
50 Southern Historical Society Papers.
1842.
George W. Rains.
1 1 13. Born North Carolina. Appointed Alabama. 3.
Brigadier- General, 1865. Commanding First Regiment Local
Defence Troops, Augusta, Ga. Superintendent Powder- Works,
Augusta, Ga.
Gustavus W. Smith.
1 1 18. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 8. Major- General, September 19, 1861. In 1861 commanded Second
Corps, Army of the Potomac; early in 1862 commanded First Di- vision under Joseph E. Johnston, Army of Virginia. When John- ston was severely wounded the command of the Army of Northern Virginia devolved upon Smith for a day. Lee was then ordered to assume chief command, as Smith was stricken down by severe ill- ness; Smith was Acting Secretary of War in 1862 in the interregnum between Randolph and Seddon; he was then assigned Chief Engi- neer to Beauregard at Charleston, and later put in charge of the Etowah Iron-Works. Held various high commands. Resigned February 17, 1863, from Confederate States Army, but commanded Georgia State militia as major-general, and saw much active service in the Atlanta campaign of 1864 (and to the end), and was repeat- edly commended in dispatches of General Joseph E. Johnston. Mansfield Lovell.
1 1 19. Born District Columbia. Appointed District Columbia. 9.
Major-General, October 7, 1861. Commanding District No. 1, headquarters, New Orleans; afterward First Division, Army of Dis- trict of Mississippi. In 1865 commanded district in Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.
Alexander P. Stewart.* 1 122. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 12.
In 1861 appointed Major of the Artillery Corps in the army organ- ized by the State of Tennessee. Transferred with that rank to the Army of the Confederate States. Engaged in battle of Belmont, November 7, 1861; commissioned Brigadier-General, Confederate States Army, November, 1861. In Shiloh campaign and battle of Shiloh, 1862; in campaign into Kentucky and battle of Perry ville, and in battle of Murfreesboro', 1862. Major-General, June 2, 1863. In the Tullahoma campaign in Middle Tennessee, in the Chicka-
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 51
mauga-Chattanooga campaign, battles of Chickamauga and Mission- ary Ridge, 1863. In the Dalton-Atlanta Campaign of 1864; fought the battle of New Hope Church, May 25, 1864.
Lieutenant-General, June, 1864, in command of the Army of the Mississippi, afterwards reorganized and known as Stewart's Corps. In battle of Peach Tree Creek, July 20th, and battle of Mt. Ezra Church, July 28th. In Hood's campaign into Tennessee, and in battles of Franklin and Nashville, November and December, 1864. After Hood's retirement, was in command of the Army of Tennes- see to the close of the war. United with General Joseph E. John- ston's Army in North Carolina in February, 1865, and battle of Cole's Farm.
Martin L. Smith.
1126. Born New York. Appointed New York. 16.
Major-General, November 4, 1863. Commanding division at
Vicksburg (1863); after exchange, Chief of Engineers, Department
of Gulf. In January, 1865, assigned Chief Engineer, Department
of the West.
Daniel H. Hill.
1 138. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 28.
Lieutenant-General, July 11, 1863. Commanded as Major-General in 1862, division in Army of Northern Virginia; in 1863 as Lieutenant- General, commanded corps in Army of Tennessee.
Armistead T. M. Rust. 1 141. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 31.
Colonel, 1861. Commanding in 1861, Nineteenth Virginia In- fantry, Fifth Brigade, First Corps, Army of Potomac.
Richard H. Anderson.
1 1 50. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 40. Lieutenant-General, June 1, 1864. Commanded division in Sec- ond Corps. Army of Northern Virginia, 1862 and 1863; corps in Army of Northern Virginia in 1864. (Pickett's and R. B. Johnson's Division.)
George W. Lay.
1 151. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 41. Colonel, 1861. Assistant Adjutant-General on staff of J. E. John- ston, 1 861, Lee, 1862, and then made Chief of Bureau of Con- scription.
52 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Eugene E. M'Lean.* i 157. Born District Columbia. Appointed Maryland. 47.
Major, 1861. Chief Quartermaster to Jos. E. Johnston, 1861, A. S. Johnston, 1862, Beauregard, 1862.
Lafayette M'Laws. 1 158. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 48.
Major-General, May 23, 1862. Commanded division in Long- street's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, and in same Corps when attached to Army of Tennessee.
Earl Van Dorn.
1 162. Born Mississippi. Appointed Mississippi. 52.
Major-General, September 19, 1861. Commanded Army of the West (Corps of Army of Mississippi) in 1862; in 1863 commanding First Cavalry Corps, Army of Tennessee. Assassinated in 1863.
James Longstreet. 1 164. Born South Carolina. Appointed Alabama. 54.
Lieutenant-General, October 9, 1862. Commanded First Corps in Army of Northern Virginia. Also, in 1863, a corps in Army of Tennessee, and from December 5, 1863, to April 12, 1864, com- manded the Department of East Tennessee. In April, 1864, he re- turned with his corps to the Army of Northern Virginia.
i843-
Roswell S. Ripley.
1 173. Born Ohio. Appointed New York. 7.
Brigadier-General, August 15, 1861. Commanded (first) in 1861 Second Military District in South Carolina; (second) in 1862, brigade, D. H. Hill's Division, Army of Northern Virginia; (th:rd) in 1863-64 commanding First Military District, Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida; (fourth) in 1865 commanded division in Cheatham's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
Samuel G. French*
1 180. Born New Jersey. Appointed New Jersey. 14.
Major of artillery, 1861; Brigadier-General, Oct. 23, 1861; Major-
General, August 31, 1862. Commanding Department of Southern
Virginia and North Carolina in 1862; in 1 863-' 64 commanding
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 5-3
division in Polk's Corps, Army of Tennessee^ in 1864 and 1865 commanding Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana.
Franklin Gardner. 1 183. Born New York. Appointed Iowa. 17.
Major-General, December 13, 1862. Commanded brigade, Withers' Division, Army of Mississippi, in 1862; in 1863 commanded Port Hudson; later commanded division under General Dick Taylor, in Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and Western Tennessee.
Edmunds B. Holloway.
1 185. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 19.
Colonel, May, 1861. Commanding First Missouri Infantry, Missouri State Guard. Killed May 6, 1861, in a skirmish at Inde- pendence,' Mo.
1844.
Danieli'M. Frost. 1209. Born New York. Appointed New York. 4.
Brigadier- General, March 3, 1862. Commanding brigade Mis- souri State Guard [862; then a brigade in Hindman's Division in 1863. (Deserted and dropped.)
Francis J. Thomas.
121 1. Born Virginia. Appointed Maryland. 6.
Colonel, May 17, 1861. Commanding Maryland Volunteers (May and June, 1861); July, 1861, acting chief of ordnance on General J. E. Johnston's staff. Killed July 21, 1861, at Bull Run,
Virginia.
Simon B. Buckner.
1216. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky, n.
Lieutenant-General, September 20, 1864. Third in command at Fort Donelson in 1862; in 1863 commanded division and corps in Army of Tennessee; in 1864-65 commanded Department of West Louisiana and Arkansas.
1845.
William H. C. Whiting.
1231. Born Mississippi. Appointed at Large. 1.
Major, engineers, March 29, 1861. Brigadier-General, July 21, 1 86 1. Major-General, February 28, 1863. On General Beaure- gard's staff in North Carolina and General Joseph E. Johnston's
54 Southern Historical Society Papers.
staff in Virginia, 1861. Commanded Bee's Brigade; in 1862 com- manded Division in the Army of Northern Virginia; in 1863 de- fences of Wilmington, N. C. ; in June, 1864, commanded division in Virginia under Beauregard; in June, 1864, returned to command District of Cape Fear (headquarters Wilmington, N. C.) Died March 10, 1865, at Governor's Island, of wounds received at Fort Fisher, N. C.
Louis Hebert.
1233. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 3.
Brigadier-General, May 26, 1862. Commanded Second Brigade, Little's Division, Army of West; in 1864, Chief Engineer, Depart- ment of North Carolina.
Thomas G. Rhett. 1236. Born South Carolina. Appointed at Large. 6.
Colonel, P. A. C. S., 1861. Chief of staff to General J. E. John- ston to May 1, 1862; Major Confederate States Army, Chief of ordnance, Trans-Mississippi Department.
Edmund Kirby Smith.
1255. Born Florida. Appointed Florida. 25.
General, Provisional Army, February 19, 1864. In 1861 com- manded brigade, Army of Shenandoah; in 1862 Major-General, commanding Army of Kentucky; in 1863 Lieutenant-General, com- manding Department of Trans-Mississippi, commanded same depart- ment as General to May 26, 1865.
James M. Hawes.
1259. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 29.
Brigadier-General, March 5, 1862. Commanded cavalry, Western Department, 1861-62; commanded brigade, J. G. Walker's Divis- ion, in 1863; commanded at Galveston in 1864.
Richard C. W. Radford. 1261. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 31.
Colonel, 1 86 1. (1st) Commanded First Virginia Infantry, " State Line;" (2nd) commanded Second Virginia Cavalry, Army of Nor- thern Virginia.
Barnard E. Bee.
1263. Born South Carolina. Appointed at Large. 33.
Brigadier-General, June 17, 1861. Commanded Third Brigade,
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 55
Army of Shenandoah. Killed July 21, 186 r, at Bull Run, Va. (He was the man who gave T. J. Jackson his sobriquet of " Stonewall." " Look, men; there is Jackson standing like a stonewall! ")
1846. John A. Brown.
1287. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 16. Lieutenant-Colonel, Confederate States Army. Chief of ordnance
and artillery, staff of General E. Kirby Smith, Army Kentucky and Trans-Mississippi Department.
Thomas J. Jackson.
1288. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 17.
Lieutenant-General, October 10, 1862. Commanded Second Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Mortally wounded at Chancel- lorsville; died May 10, 1863, Richmond, Va. " Stonewall " Jackson.
John Adams. 1296. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 25.
Brigadier-General, December 29, 1862. Commanding brigade Loring's Division, Stewart's Corps, Army of Tennessee. Killed November 30, 1864, at Franklin, Tenn.
William D. Smith.
1306. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 35.
Brigadier-General, March 7, 1862. Commanding District of South Carolina in Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. Died October 4, 1862, at Charleston.
Dabney H. Maury.
1308. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 37.
Major-General, November 4, 1862. Commanded division in Army of the West in 1862; June 27, 1862, commanded the Army of the West; in 1863 commanded District of the Gulf (headquarters Mo- bile, Ala). In 1 864-' 65 commanded Department of Alabama, Mis- sissippi, and East Tennessee.
David R. Jones.
1312. Born South Carolina. Appointed Georgia. 41.
Major-General, October 11, 1862. Commanded division, Long- street's Corps, A. N. V. Died in service January 19, 1863.
56 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Cadmus M. Wilcox.
1325. Born North Carolina. Appointed Tennessee. 54.
Major- General, August 3, 1863. Commanded light division in A. P. Hill's Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
William M. Gardner.
1326. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 55.
Brigadier-General, November 14, 1864. Desperately wounded as lieutenant-colonel, Eighth Georgia, at Manassas, July 2, 1861; No- vember 14, 1861, assigned to command District of Middle Florida; July 26, 1864, put in command of Military Prisons east of Mississippi (except Georgia and Alabama); 1865 commanded post at Richmond.
Samuel B. Maxey.
1329. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 58.
Brigadier-General, March 4, 1862. Major-General, April 18, 1864. In 1862 commanded brigade, Cheatham's Division, Army of Mississippi; in 1863 commanding Indian Territory; in 1865 com- manding cavalry division, Trans-Mississippi Department.
George E. Pickett.
1330. Born Virginia. Appointed Illinois. 59. Major- General, October 11, 1862. Commanding division, Long- street's Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
1847.
Daniel L. Beltzhoover.
1342. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed at Large. 12.
Lieutenant-Colonel (in 1864 acting brigadier), March 13, 1862.
In 1862 chief of artillery, Western Department; in 1864 commanding
brigade in J. H. Forney's Division, Trans- Mississippi Department.
Ambrose P. Hill.
1345. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 15.
Lieutenant-General, March 24, 1863. Commanding Third Corps,
Army of Northern Virginia. Killed April 2, 1865, near Petersburg,
Virginia.
Edward D. Blake.
1367. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 37.
Lieutenant-Colonel (Captain Confederate States Army), August,.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 57
1861. In 1861 Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General staff of Major-General Polk; in 1862 Inspector-General (Lieutenant-Colonel) staff General Hardee; in 1863 Commandant and Chief of Conscript Bureau, East Tennessee.
Henry Heth.
1368. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 38.
Major-General, May 24, 1863. Commanding division, A. P. Hill's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
1848.
Walter H. Stevens.
1372. Born New York. Appointed New York. 4.
Brigadier-General, August 28, 1864. Chief Engineer Richmond defences, 1 862-' 63; in 1 863-' 64 commanding Richmond defences; 1864 Chief Engineer, Army of Northern Virginia.
William E. Jones. 1378. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 10.
Brigadier-General, September 19, 1862. Commanded Cavalry Brigade in Army of Northern Virginia; 1862 commanding "Valley District; " commanding cavalry in 1863 in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee. Killed June 5, 1864, at Mt. Crawford, Va.
Thomas S. Rhett. 1382. Born South Carolina. Appointed at Large. 14.
Colonel, 1861. Commanding Richmond defences; Inspector of Ordnance, Ordnance Bureau.
Charles H. Tyler.
1391. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 23.
Colonel. Commanding brigade, Shelby's Division, Price's Army, Trans-Mississippi Department. (Cullum confounds C. H. Tyler with Brigadier-General R. C. Tyler, killed near West Point, Ga., April 16, 1865.)
John C. Booth.
1392. Born Georgia. Appointed Alabama. 24. Captain Artillery (Confederate States Army), February, 1861.
Commanding arsenal at Baton Rouge, La.
Thomas K. Jackson.
1393. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 25.
58 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Major, November 10, 1861. Chief Commissary-General, A. S. Johnston's staff, Western Department, i86i-'62.
William N. R. Beall. 1398. Born Kentucky. Appointed Arkansas. 30.
Brigadier-General, April 11, 1862. Commanding brigade, Army of West; captured at Port Hudson, July 9, 1863. In 1864 and 1865 commanding brigade in Department of Mississippi and East Louis- iana.
William T. Mechling.
1401. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Louisiana. 33.
Major, in 1864, Assistant Adjutant-General to Van Dorn; in 1862-64 Assistant Adjutant-General, First Cavalry Division, Army of Texas.
N. George Evans.
1404. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 35.
Brigadier-General, October 21, 1861. Commanded brigade, First Corps, Army of Potomac, in 1862; commanded brigade, Long- street's Corps, Army Northern Virginia; in 1863-64 commanded district in Department of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.
George H. Steuart.
1405. Born Maryland. Appointed at Large. 37.
Brigadier-General, March 6, 1862. Commanded brigade in Sec- ond Corps, Army Northern Virginia, in 1862 and 1863; in 1864 commanded brigade in Pickett's Division, Army Northern Virginia.
1849.
Johnson K. Duncan.
141 1. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Ohio. 5.
Brigadier-General, January 7, 1862. Commanding coast defences of Louisiana, including Forts Jackson and St. Philip. Died in service December 18, 1862.
John C. Moore.
1423. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 17.
Brigadier-General, May 26, 1862. Commanding brigade, Maury's Division, Army of West in 1862; captured at Vicksburg in 1863. Commanded brigade in 1863-64 in Cheatham's Division. Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee. Resigned February 3, 1864.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 59
John Withers.
3429. Born Tennessee. Appointed Mississippi. 23.
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1863; Major, 1861-62. Adjutant-General's Department, C. S. A., Richmond, Va.
Beverley H. Robertson. 11431. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 25.
Brigadier-General, June 9, 1862. Commanding cavalry brigade, Stuart's Corps, Army Northern Virginia, in 1862-63; in 1864-65 commanded Second District, S. C.
Charles W. Field.
1433. Born Kentucky. Appointed at Large. 27.
Major-General, February 12, 1864. Commanding brigade in 1862 in A. P. Hill's Division, Army Northern Virginia. (Severely wounded at the second Manassas. ) Commanded in i864~'65 division in Longstreet's Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
Seth M. Barton. .1434. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 28.
Brigadier-General, March 11, 1862. Commanding brigade (1862), Department of East Tennessee; commanding brigade, Stevenson's Division (1863) at Vicksburg; later in 1863 commanding brigade," Pickett's Division, in attack on New Berne, N. C. ; early in 1864 commanded brigade in Army Northern Virginia; in 1864-65 com- manding troops (mixed) consisting of heavy artillery and infantry reserves, Richmond defences.
Duff C. Green. 3435. Born District Columbia. Appointed at Large. 29.
Brigadier-General of Alabama State troops, 1861. Quartermaster- ■General of State of Alabama.
Thomas G. Williams. 31438. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 32.
Colonel. Assistant to Commissary-General, Confederate States Army, Richmond, Va.
Thornton A. Washington. £439. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 33.
Major in 1861, Assistant Adjutant-General to General Van Dorn;
60 Southern Historical Society Papers.
in 1862 Assistant Adjutant-General in Adjutant-General's Depart- ment, Richmond, Va.
John W. Frazier.
1440. Born Tennessee. Appointed Mississippi. 34..
Brigadier-General, May 3, 1863. Commanding Fifth Brigade,. Army of East Tennessee. Taken Prisoner September 9, 1863, at Cumberland Gap, where he surrendered to Burnside.
Alfred Cumming.
1 44 1. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 35.
Brigadier-General, October 29, 1862. Commanding brigade* Stevenson's Division, Army of the West.
Samuel H. Reynolds.
1448. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 42.
Colonel, October, 1861. Commanding Thirty-first Virginia In- fantry, Army of Northwestern Virginia; resigned December, i86i.
James M'Intosh.
1449. Born Florida. Appointed at Large. 43- Rank not known. Killed March 7, 1862, at Pea Ridge, Ark.
1850.
Jacob Culberson.
1456. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 7..
Captain, Confederate States Army. Commanding battery of Mis- sissippi Artillery, Loring's Division, 1861, Department of Mississippi: and East Louisiana. In 1862 chief artillery (captain Confederate States Army.) First Brigade, First Division, Department of Mis- sissippi and East Louisiana.
Achilles Bowen.
1459. Born Kentucky. Appointed Tennessee. 10.
William T. Magruder.
1460. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 1 i-
Captain, August, 1862. Assistant Adjutant-General Davis's Brigade, Heth's Division, A. P. Hill's Corps, Army Northern Vir- ginia. Killed July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 61
James P. Flewellen.
1463. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 14. (There was a James T. Flewellen, Lieutenant-Colonel Alabama
Infantry, Dea's Brigade, Withers's Division, Army of Tennessee.)
Lucius M. Walker.
1464. Born Tennessee. Appointed at Large. 15. Brigadier-General, March 11, 1862. Commanding Cavalry Brig- ade in Sterling Price's Army. Killed in duel September 19, 1863, by Major-General J. S. Marmaduke.
Armistead L. Long.
1466. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 17.
Brigadier-General, September 21, 1863. Chief of Artillery, Sec- ond Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
Robert Ransom.
1467. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 18.
Major-General, May 26, 1863. Commanding Division, Army Northern Virginia, at battle of Fredericksburg; in 1864 commanded Department of Richmond.
Charles S. Winder.
1471. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 22.
Brigadier-General, March 1, 1862. Commanding brigade, Jack- son's Division, Army of Northern Virginia. Killed August 9, 1862, at Cedar Run, Va.
N. Bartlett Pearce.
1475. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 26.
Brigadier-General, May 1, 1861. Commanding brigade in Trans- Mississippi Department.
William R. Calhoun.
1476. Born South Carolina. Appointed at Large. 27.
Colonel, 1861, commanding First South Carolina (Regular) Ar- tillery, Fort Sumter. Killed in duel, 1862, by Major Alfred Rhett,
of same regiment.
Robert Johnston.
1477. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia 28. Colonel, commanding Third Virginia Cavalry, Fitzhugh Lee's
Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, 1862.
62 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Thomas Bingham.*
1478. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Pennsylvania. 29-
William L. Cabell.*
1482. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 33-
Brigadier-General, January 20, 1S63. Commanding First Brigade^ Second Division, Army of the West.
James H. Wilson.
1483. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 34^ Lieutenant-Colonel Eighth Arkansas Infantry.
Robert G. Cole.
i486. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 37.
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1862, Chief Commissary of subsistence of Army of Northern Virginia.
John J. A. A. Mouton.
1487. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 38.
Brigadier-General, April 16, 1862. Commanding brigade, Trans- Mississippi Department. Killed April 8, 1864, at Mansfield, La.
James L. Corley.
1489. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 40.
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1862. Chief Quartermaster of Army of Northern Virginia.
Donald C. Stith.
1493. Born Turkey. Appointed Maryland. 44.
Colonel, 1863. Staff of General Stephen D. Lee, Army of Ten- nessee.
1851.
William T. Welcker. 1497. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 4,
Major, 1862. Staff of Major-General Van Dorn, 1862.
Caleb Huse.*
1500. Born Massachusetts. Appointed Massachusetts 7.
Major, 1861. Confederate States agent for purchasing ordnance supplies in Europe.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 63
Ben Hardin Helm.
1502. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 9.
Colonel, First Confederate Kentucky Cavalry, September, 186 1. Brigadier-General, March 14, 1862. Commanding Kentucky ("Orphan") Brigade, Breckenridge's Division, Army of Tennessee. Died September 21, 1863, of wounds received September 19, 1863, at Chickamauga.
Junius Daniel.
1526. Born North Carolina. Appointed at Large. 33.
Brigadier-General, September 1, 1862. Commanding brigade, Rodes's Division, Army Northern Virginia. Killed May 13, 1864, at Spotsylvania.
Melancthon Smith.
1529. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 36. Colonel, Chief of Artillery, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
Edward A. Palfrey.
1530. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 37.
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1862. Assistant Adjutant-General in Adju- tant-General's Department, War Office, Richmond, Va.
John T. Shaaff.
1 53 1. Born District Columbia. Appointed District Columbia. 38. Captain, A. C. subsistence General Villepigue's staff, District of
Mississippi.
Lawrence S. Baker.
1535. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 42.
Brigadier-General, July 23, 1863. Commanding Second Military District, Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia.
1862. Joseph C. Ives. 1540. Born New York. Appointed Connecticut. 5.
Colonel, Aide-de-Camp to President of Confederate States, Rich- mond, Va.
George B. Anderson.
1545. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 10.
Brigadier-General, June 9, 1862. Commanding brigade, D. H.
64 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Hill's Division, Second Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Mortally wounded September 17, 1862, at Sharpsburg; died October 16, 1862, at Raleigh, N. C.
Henry Deveuve. 1547. Born Louisiana. Appointed New Jersey. 12.
Captain, Engineer officer to Major-General Loring, First Corps, Army of Mississippi.
George B. Cosby.*
1552. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 17.
Brigadier-General, January 20, 1863. Commanding brigade of cavalry, Stephen D. Lee's Division, Department of Alabama, Mis- sissippi, and Eastern Louisiana.
Robert B. Thomas.
1553. Born Kentucky. Appointed Mississippi. 18.
Major, February, 1862, Assistant Adjutant-General to Brigadier- General Finnegan, commanding District of Florida.
Matthew L. Davis.
1556. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 21.
John H. Forney.
1557. Born North Carolina. Appointed Alabama. 22.
Major-General, October 27, 1862. (1st) Commanding brigade in Army Northern Virginia; (2d) commanding District of Gulf in 1862; (3d) commanding District in Trans-Mississippi Department,
i863-'65
Marshall T. Polk.
1558. Born North Carolina Appointed at Large. 23.
Lieutenant-Colonel, February, 1863. Chief of artillery, Polk's Corps (Army of Mississippi), Army of Tennessee.
Philip Stockton.
1568. Born New Jersey. Appointed New Jersey. 33.
Colonel, June, 1862. Chief of ordnance, Army of Mississippi, in 1862. Afterwards commanding arsenal at San Antonio, Texas.
Arthur P. Bagby.* 1574. Born Alabama. Appointed at Large. 39.
Brigadier-General, March 1, 1864. Commanding brigade of cav-
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 65
airy (1863) in Texas; in 1864 commanding division, Army of West- ern Louisiana.
Richard V. Vonneau.
1577. Born South Carolina. Appointed Alabama. 42.
Captain Confederate States; afterward Major and Chief Confed- erate States.
1853- William R. Boggs.* 1582. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 4.
Brigadier-General, November 4, 1862. Chief of staff to Lieutenant- General E. Kirby Smith (1864), Trans-Mississippi Department.
John S. Bowen. 1591. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 13.
Major-General, May 25, 1863. Commanding in 1863 Third Brigade, First Division, Army of Mississippi; in 1863 commanding Fourth Division, Western Department. Died July 16, 1863.
James L. White.
1603. Born Florida. Appointed Florida. 25. Major, Nineteenth South Carolina Infantry.
Benjamin Allston.
1604. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 26. Colonel Fourth Alabama Infantry. Adjutant-General to Lieut-
enant-General E. Kirby Smith, Trans-Mississippi Department.
John R. Chambliss. 1609. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 31.
Brigadier-General, December 19, 1863. Commanding cavalry brigade, W. H. Lee's Division, Army Northern Virginia. Killed August 16, 1864, at Deep Bottom, Va.
Henry B. Davidson.
161 1. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 33.
Brigadier-General, August 18, 1863. Commanding cavalry brig- ade, Wheeler's Corps, Army of West.
Henry H. Walker.
1619. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 41.
5
66 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Brigadier-General, July i, 1863. Commanding brigade (1863), A. P. Hill's Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Wounded; in 1864 commanding Depot of Supplies, Southern Virginia.
John B. Hood.
1622. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 44. General (temporary rank), July 18, 1864. (1st) Commanding
division, Longstreet's Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Command- ing corps in Army of Tennessee, in 1864. Commanding Army of Tennessee July 18, 1864; August 15, 1864, commanding Department of Tennessee and Georgia. January 23, 1865, relieved, at his own request, of command Army of Tennessee.
James A. Smith.
1623. Born Tennessee. Appointed at Large. 45.
Brigadier-General, September 30, 1863. Commanding brigade, Cleburne's Division, Hardee's Corps, Army cf Tennessee.
Thomas M. Jones.*
1625. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 47.
Brigadier- General, 1862. Commanded brigade in Army of West;
later commanded brigade in Department of Alabama and Western
Florida.
Lucius L. Rich.
1628. Born Missouri. Appointed Missouri. 50. Died August, 1862, at Mobile, Ala., of wounds received in the
battle of Shiloh.
Reuben R. Ross.
1629. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 51.
Brigadier-General (temporary rank), 1864. Commanding cav- alry brigade, Wheeler's Corps, Army of Tennessee. Killed De cember 16, 1864, at Hopkinsville, Va.
1854.
G. W. Custis Lee.*
1631. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 1.
Major-General, October 20, 1864. In 1861, 1862, and 1863 Aide- de-Camp to the President of Confederate States; in 1864 and 1865 commanding troops for local defence of Richmond.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 67
James Deshler.
1637. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 7.
Brigadier-General, July 28, 1863. Commanding Texas Brigade, Cleburne's Division, D. H. Hill's Corps, Army of Tennessee. Killed September 20, 1863, at Chickamauga.
John Pegram.
1640. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 10. Brigadier-General, November 7, 1862. Various commands. In
1864 commanded Early's old division, Second Corps, Army North- ern Virginia. Had been recommended by Lee for major-general, and it was understood his commission had been made out when he was killed. Died February 6, 1865, at Petersburg, Va. , of wounds received at Hatcher's Run.
Charles G. Rogers.
1641. Born North Carolina. Appointed Virginia. 11.
James E. B. Stuart.
1643. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 13. Major- General, July 25, 1862. Commanded Jackson's Corps at
Chancellorsville in April, 1863, after Jackson was wounded. Com- manding cavalry corps, Army Northern Virginia. Died May 12, 1864, Richmond, Va., of wounds received at Yellow Tavern, Va.
Archibald Gracie.
1644. Born New York. Appointed New Jersey. 14. Brigadier-General, November 4, 1862. Commanding brigade,
Longstreet's Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Killed December 2, 1864, at Petersburg, Va.
Stephen D. Lee.* 1647. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 17.
Lieutenant-General, June 23, 1864. Various commands. Assigned July 27, 1864, to command of Hood's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
William D. Pender. 1649. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 19.
Major-General, May 27, 1863. Commanding division, A. P. Hill's Corp's, Army of Northern Virginia. Killed July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg.
68 Southern Historical Society Papers.
John B. Villepigue. 1652. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 23.
Brigadier-General, March 13, 1862. Commanding Second Bri- gade, First Division, Army of Mississippi. Died November 9, 1862.
Abner Smead.* 1655. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 25.
Colonel, September 1, 1862. Assistant Inspector-General, Jack- son's Corp's, Army of Northern Virginia.
John O. Long. 1661. Born Illinois. Appointed at Large. 31.
John T. Mercer.
1670. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 40.
Colonel, September 27, 1861. Commanding Twenty-first Georgia
Infantry. Doles' Brigade, Rhode's Division, Second Corps, Army
of Northern Virginia. Killed April 19, 1864, at Plymouth, N. C.
John Mullins. 1673. Born Tennessee. Appointed Mississippi, 43.
Horace Randal. 1675. Born Tennessee. Appointed Texas. 45.
Brigadier-General, April 8, 1864. Commanding brigade of cavalry in McCulloch's Division in 1862; in 1863 and 1864 commanded bri- gade in Trans-Mississippi Department. Killed April 30, 1864, at Jenkin's Ferry, Ark.
1855. Frederick L. Childs. 1685. Born Missouri. Appointed at Large. 9.
Captain of artillery, March 16. 1861. Served under Whiting pre- paring defences North Carolina coast. Commandant of arsenal at Charleston, July, 1861. Major artillery, November, 1862; arsenal at Augusta, February, 1863; in charge of armory Fayetteville, N. C. Lieutenant-Colonel, November 19, 1863.
Francis R. T. Nicholls.*
1688. Born Louisiana. Appointed Louisiana. 12.
Brigadier-General, October 14, 1862. Commanding brigade, Trimble's Division, Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 69
Francis A. Shoup.
1691. Born Indiana. Appointed Indiana. 15. Brigadier-General, September 12, 1862. Chief artillery, Army of
Tennessee. Assigned July 25, 1864, as Chief of staff, Army of Ten- nessee.
John R. Church.
1692. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 16.
James H. Hill. 1699. Born Maine. Appointed New York. 23.
Robert C. Hill.
1709. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 33.
Colonel, commanding Forty-eighth North Carolina Infantry, Cooke's Brigade, A. P. Hill's Division, Jackson's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
1.856.
Charles C. Lee.
17 14. Born South Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 4.
Colonel, January, 1863. Commanding' Thirty-seventh North Carolina Infantry, Lane's Brigade, Pender's Division, Third Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Killed June 27, 1862, at Gaines' Mill, Va.
Hylan B. Lyon.*
1729. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 19.
Brigadier-General, June 14, 1864. Commanding cavalry brigade, Forrest's Division, Army of Tennessee; then Commanding Depart- ment of Kentucky.
Lunsford L. Lomax.*
1 73 1. Born Rhode Island. Appointed at Large. 21.
Major-General, August 10, 1.864. Commanding division in cav- alry corps, Army Northern Virginia.
James P. Major. I733- Born Missouri. Appointed Missouri. 23.
Brigadier-General, July 21, 1863. Commanding cavalry brigade in District of Western Louisiana.
George Jackson. 1740. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 30.
70 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Major, Fourteenth Virginia Cavalry, cavalry corps, Army Northern
Virginia.
Frank S. Armistead.
1744. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 3.
Colonel, commanding First North Carolina Junior Reserves.
William H. Jackson.*
1748. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 38.
Brigadier-General, December 29, 1862. Various commands; in 1862 chief of cavalry to Van Dorn, and in 1863 to Price; in 1864 commanding cavalry corps, Army of the Mississippi; in February, 1865, commanded division in Forrest's Cavalry Corps.
Owen K. M'Lemore.
1749. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 39.
Lieutenant- Colonel, Fourth Alabama Infantry, Whiting's Brigade Hood's Division, Army Northern Virginia. Killed September 14, 1862, at South Mountain, Va.
Fitzhugh Lee.*
1755. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 45.
Major-General, September 3, 1863. Commanding division in cavalry corps, Army Northern Virginia. In 1865 commanding cav- alry corps, Army Northern Virginia.
Arthur S. Cunningham. 1759. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 49.
Lieutenant-Colonel. Commanding Tenth Alabama Infantry, Wilcox's Brigade, Anderson's Division, Third Corps, Army North- ern Virginia.
1857- Richard K. Meade.
1761. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 2.
Major of engineers, June, 1862. Longstreet's staff, Army North- ern Virginia. Died in 1862.
E. Porter Alexander.
1762. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 3.
Brigadier- General, February 26, 1864. Chief of artillery, First (Longstreet's) Corps, Army Northern Virginia. 1
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 71
William P. Smith.
1768. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 9.
Lieutenant-Colonel, acting- chief engineer, Army Northern Vir- ginia, during 1863.
Thomas J. Berry.
1770. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 11.
Lieutenant-Colonel of Sixtieth Georgia Infantry, John B. Gordon's
Brigade, Early's Division, Second Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
Oliver H. Fish.
1772. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 19.
Samuel W. Ferguson.
1778. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 19.
Brigadier-General, July 23, 1863. Commanding brigade, cavalry corps, Army of the Mississippi.
Manning M. Kimmel.*
1781. Born Missouri. Appointed Missouri. 22.
Major, Assistant Adjutant-General, staff of Major-General Van Dorn, First Corps, Department of Mississippi and Eastern Lou- isiana.
George A. Cunningham.*
1784. Born Georgia. Appointed Alabama. 25.
Lieutenant-Colonel First Virginia Infantry; then colonel heavy artillery, Cape Fear District, N. C.
Henry C. M'Neill.
1785. Born Mississippi. Appointed Texas. 26. Colonel, commanding Fifth Texas Cavalry, Thomas Green's
Brigade, Trans-Mississippi Department.
Aurelius F. Cone.
1787. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 28.
Lieutenant-Colonel, December 10, 1863. Acting Assistant Quar- termaster-General of Confederate States, Richmond, Va.
Paul J. Quattlebaum.
1788. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 29.
Major, in 1862, Fifth Texas Infantry, Hood's Brigade, Long- street's Division, Army Northern Virginia.
72 Southern Historical Society Papers.
John S. Marmaduke.
1789. Born Missouri. Appointed Missouri. 30. Major-General, March 17, 1865. Commanded cavalry division,
Sterling Price's Army, Trans-Mississippi Department.
George W. Holt.
1790. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 31. Lieutenant-Colonel, Assistant Adjutant-General to Lieutenant-
General S. D. Lee, commanding corps Army of Tennessee.
Robert H. Anderson.
1794. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 35.
Brigadier-General, July 26, 1864. Commanding brigade, Kelly's Cavalry Division, Army of Tennessee.
Lafayette Peck. 1797. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 38.
1858. Moses J. White.
1799. Born Mississippi. Appointed Mississippi. 2.
Colonel, commanding Thirty-seventh Tennessee Infantry, Marma- duke' s Brigade, Third Corps, Army of the Mississippi.
Joseph Dixon.
1800. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 3.
Captain, Confederate States Army, November 20, 1861. Captain engineers, Fort Donelson. Killed February 13, 1862, at Fort Donelson, Tennessee.
William H. Echols.*
1801. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 4.
Colonel and Chief Engineer, Department of Georgia, South Caro- lina, and Florida.
John S. Saunders.*
1802. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 5.
Lieutenant-Colonel, ordnance, December 5, 1862. Ordnance Bureau, Richmond, Va.
James H. Hallonquist.
1803. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 6.
Gh*aduates of Military Academy at West Point. 73
Lieutenant- Colonel Artillery, July 17, 1862. Staff of General Braxton Bragg, commanding Army of Tennessee; then command- ing Reserve Artillery, Army of Tennessee, June 10, 1864.
Leroy Napier.
1807. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 10.
Lieutenant-Colonel, Eighth Georgia Battalion, Gist's Brigade, Walker's Division, Army of Tennessee.
Solomon Williams.
1808. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina, n.
Colonel, commanding Twelfth North Carolina Infantry. Killed June 9, 1863, at Culpeper Courthouse, Virginia.
Richard H. Brewer.
1809. Born Maryland. Appointed Maryland. 12.
Major, Assistant Adjutant-General, staff of Lieutenant-General Polk (Army of Mississippi), Army of Tennessee. Died June 25, 1864, of wounds received June 5, at Piedmont, Va.
Andrew Jackson.* 181 2. Born Tennessee. Appointed at Large. 15.
Colonel, commanding First Tennessee, heavy artillery.
Bryan M. Thomas.* 1819. Born Georgia. Appointed Georgia. 22.
Brigadier- General, August 4, 1864. Commanding brigade of Alabama troops, Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and Eastern Louisiana.
William G. Robinson.
1821. Born Canada. Appointed North Carolina. 25.
Colonel, September 1, 1861, commanding Second Regiment, North Carolina Cavalry (formerly Nineteenth North Carolina Vol- unteers) Army of Northern Virginia.
1859- Samuel H. Lockett. 1826. Born Virginia. Appointed Alabama. 2.
Colonel of engineers.
74 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Charles R. Collins.
1827. Born Pennsylvania. Appointed Pennsylvania. 3.
Colonel, commanding Fifteenth Virginia Cavalry, Army of North- ern Virginia. Killed May 12, 1864, at Spotsylvania.
Robert F. Beckham.
1830. Born Virginia. Appointed Virginia. 6.
Colonel, July 25, 1864. Chief of artillery, staff of General J. B. Hood, commanding Army of Tennessee. Killed November 30, 1864, Franklin, Tenn.
Moses H. Wright.
1831. Born Tennessee. Appointed Tennessee. 7.
Brigadier-General (acting), December 30, 1864. Commanding P. M. B. Young's old Brigade, Hampton's Division, Cavalry Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
Joseph Wheeler.*
1843. Born Georgia. Appointed New York. 19.
Major-General, January 20, 1863. Lieutenant-General, February 28, 1865. Commanding cavalry corps, Army of Tennessee.
i860.
Benjamin Sloan.*
1853. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 7.
Major, Assistant Adjutant-General, Huger's Division Army of Northern Virginia, in 1862.
William W. M'Creery.
1857. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 11.
Lieutenant, Confederate States Army, 1861. Assistant to Chief of Artillery, Pemberton's staff, Department of Mississippi. Killed July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg.
Stephen D. Ramseur. i860. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 14.
Major-General, June 1, 1864. Commanding division, Second Corps, Army Northern Virginia. Died October 21, 1864, of wounds received October 19th at Cedar Creek.
Graduates of Military Academy at West Point. 75
John M. Kerr. 1865. Born North Carolina. Appointed North Carolina. 19.
Died in 1861 in North Carolina.
John R. B. Burtwell. 1870. Born Alabama. Appointed Alabama. 24.
Colonel, commanding Eleventh Alabama Cavalry, Roddey's Brigade, District of Northern Alabama.
Wade H. Gibbes.* 1874. Born South Carolina. Appointed South Carolina. 28.
Major, 1864, commanding Gibbes's Battalion, Artillery Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
Frank Huger.
1877. Born Virginia. Appointed at Large. 31.
Colonel, 1865, commanding Huger's Battalion of Artillery, Ar- tillery First Corps, Army Northern Virginia.
Edward B. D. Riley. 1880. Born Indian Territory. Appointed at Large. 34.
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1864. Chief of Ordnance, Hindman's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
Harold Borland. 1887. Born North Carolina. Appointed Arkansas. 41.
Captain, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General to Brigadier-General Chalmers, 1861, Army of the Mississippi.
1861 (May).
Llewellyn G. Hoxton.
1893. Born District of Columbia. Appointed at Large. 6.
Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding Hoxton' s Battalion Artillery, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee.
Nathaniel R. Chambliss.
1896. Born Virginia. Appointed Tennessee. 9.
Major, June 9, 1862. Chief of ordnance, Hardee's Division, 1862; in 1 863-' 64 commanding arsenal, Charleston, S. C.
76 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Charles E. Patterson. 1903. Born Indiana. Appointed Arkansas. 16.
Killed April 6, 1862, at Shiloh.
Charles C. Campbell.* 191 1. Born Missouri. Appointed Missouri. 24.
* Captain of artillery and Major First Missouri Infantry,
Mathias W. Henry. 1931. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 44.
1861 (June.)
Clarence Derrick.*
1936. Born District Columbia. Appointed at Large. 4.
Lieutenant-Colonel Twenty-third Virginia Battalion of Infantry.
George O. Watts.*
1964. Born Kentucky. Appointed Kentucky. 32.
Lieutenant, Confederate States Army. Engineer officer to Gen- eral Villepigue, Fourth Sub. District, District of Mississippi.
Frank A. Reynolds.
1965. Born Virginia. Appointed New Mexico. 33. Lieutenant-Colonel Thirty-ninth North Carolina Infantry, Mc-
Nair's Brigade, Army of Tennessee.
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 77
TREATMENT AND EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS,
Official Report of the History Committee of the Grand Camp, C. V., Department of Virginia.
By Hon. GEO. L. CHRISTIAN, Chairman.
Read at Wytheville, Va., October 23rd, 1902.
The previous reports of the History Committee have been pub- lished in the Papers. They should be separately presented together in a special publication, as a logical defence of the South, in motive and that which ensued. The actuating principle is made clear and fully justified in morality by luminous presentation, which is impreg- nably honorable to the action of the Southern States and their people and soldiers throughout a momentous and necessitous struggle. A parallel in history, if ever approached in exemplification, cannot in all time, be more convincingly supported by facts in which the Southern people of both sexes offered and sacrificed in the cause of right and humanity.
To the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia :
Your History Committee again returns its thanks to you, and the public, for the very cordial way in which you have shown your appreciation of its labors, as contained in its last three reports. It may interest you to know, that whilst these reports have been pub- lished and scattered broadcast over this land, no attempt has been made to controvert or deny any principles contended for, or fact asserted, in any of them, so far as we have heard. We think we can, therefore, justly claim that these things have been established:
ist. That the South did not go to war to ?naintain, or to perpetuate , the institution of slavery.
2nd. The right of secession {the real issue of the war), and that this right was first asserted at the North, and as clearly recognized there as at the South.
jrd. That the North, and not the South, was the aggressor in bringing on the war.
78 Southern Historical Society Papers.
4th. That on the part of the South the war was conducted accord- ing to the principles of civilized warfare, whilst on the part of the North it was conducted in the most inhuman and barbarous manner.
The last of the above named was the subject of our last report, in which we drew a contrast between the way the war was conducted on our part, and the way it was conducted by our quondam enemies, which, we think, was greatly to the credit of the South. The sub- ject of this report, the
"Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners,"
is really a continuation and further discussion of the contrast begun in that report and a necessary sequel to that discussion. The further treatment of this subject becomes most important too, from the fact that our people know very little about the true state of the case, whilst both during and since the war, the people of the North, with the superior means at their command, have denounced and maligned the South and its leaders as murderers and assassins, and illustrated these charges by the alleged inhuman and barbarous way in which they treated their prisoners during the late war: e. g., the late James G. Blaine, of Maine, said on the floor of the United States Congress in 1876:
' ' Mr. Davis was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily and wilfully of the gigantic murder and crime at Andersonville, and I here before God, measuring my words, knowing their full extent and import, declare, that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, nor the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, nor the thumb-screws and engines of torture of the Spanish Inquisition, be- gin to compare in atrocity with the hideous crimes of Andersonville;'*
and he quoted and endorsed a report of a committee of the Federal Congress made during the war, in which they say:
" No pen can describe, no painter sketch, no imagination compre- hend, its fearful and unutterable iniquity. It would seem that the concentrated madness of earth and hell had found its final lodgment in the breasts of those who had inaugurated the rebellion, and con- trolled the policy of the Confederate Government, and that the prison at Andersonville had been selected for the most terrible human sac- rifice which the world had ever seen."
It is true that the statement made by Mr. Blaine was denied, and its falsity fully shown by both Mr. Davis and Senator Hill, of Georgia; and
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 79
the report of the Committee of the Federal Congress, and an equally slanderous and partisan publication entitled Narration of Sufferings in Rebel Military Prisons (with hideous looking skeleton illustrations of alleged victims), issued by the United States Sanitary Commission in 1864, were fully answered by a counter report of a committee of the Confederate Congress. And it is also true that in 1876, the Rev. John Wm. Jones, D. D., who was then editing the Southern His- torical Society Papers, made a full and masterly investigation and report on this subject, vindicating the South and its leaders from these aspersions (for which work, as said in our last report, the Southern people owe Dr. Jones a lasting debt of gratitude.) (The letter of Mr. Davis, the report of the Committee of the Confederate Congress, with other valuable material collected by Dr. Jones, are all published in the first volume of the Southern Historical Papers, and also in a separate volume. ) But whilst these publications were most satisfactory to us at the time, they, necessarily, did not contain the contemporaneous correspondence in reference to the exchange and treatment of prisoners, contained in the publication known as "Rebellion Offiicial Records," published by the Federal Govern- ment since that time — a correspondence invaluable, as it makes the representatives of the two Governments, at the time, tell, in their own way, the true story of these events. It is from these letters and other contemporaneous orders and papers, that we propose to show which side was responsible for Andersonville, Salisbury, ' 'The Libby, ' ' and "Belle Isle," in the South, and for Camp Douglas, Gratiot Street, Fort Deleware, Johnson's Island, Elmira, Point Lookout, and other like places in the North. In doing this we do not think it either necessary or proper to revive the tales of horror and misery contained in many of the personal recitals of the captives on either side, such as are collected in the works of Dr. Jones, the "Sanitary Commission," and others. Many of these are simply heart-sickening and disgusting; and, making allowances for all ex- aggerations necessarily incident to the surroundings of the writers, there is enough in them to convince any candid reader that there were cruelties and abuses inflicted on helpless prisoners, by petty officers and guards, that should never have been inflicted, and which we hope the higher officers of neither Government would have per- mitted or tolerated for a moment.
But what we are concerned about is, to show by these "official records ' ' that neither Mr. Davis, nor any Department or represeyit- ative of the Confederate Government, was resp07isible for the estab-
80 Southern Historical Society Papers.
lishment of these prisons, and the sufferings therein, as heretofore charged by our enemies, and that the Federal Goverment, through Edwin M. Stanton, H W. Halleck and U. S. Grant as its repre- sentative actors, was directly and solely responsible for the establish- ment of these places, a?id cotisequently for all the sufferings and death ivhich occured therein.
The reports and correspondence relative to the exchange and treatment of prisoners fill four of the large volumes of the " Rebel- lion Records," and whilst we have striven to tell the full story, ,or rather to omit nothing essential to the truth, it is simply impossible, within the limits of this report, to do more than call attention to some of the most important and salient features of the correspond- ence, etc., and only to an extent necessary to disclose the real con- ditions at the several dates referred to. This is all that we have attempted to do, but we have tried to do this faithfully.
The Policy of the Confederate Government as shown by Acts of Congress, etc.
To show the declared purpose and policy of the Confederate Gov- ernment towards the prisoners of war from the beginning: As early as May 21st, 1861, two months before the first battle of Manassas, the Confederate Congress passed an act providing that —
"All prisoners of war taken, whether on land or at sea, during the pending hostilities with the United States, shall be transferred by the captors from time to time, and as often as convenient, to the Department of War; and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of War, with the approval of the President, to issue such instructions to the Quartermaster-General, and his subordinates, as shall provide for the safe custody and sustenance of prisoners of war; and that rations furnished prisoners of war shall be the same in quantity and quality as those furnished to enlisted men i?z the Army of the Confed- eracy."
By an Act of February, 1864, the Quartermaster-General was relieved of this duty, and the Commissary-General of Subsistence was ordered to provide for the sustenance of prisoners of war, and according to General Orders No. 159, Adjutant Inspector General's Office, it was provided that "Hospitals for prisoners of war are placed on the same footing as other Confederate States Hospitals in all re- spects, and will be managed accordingly."
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 81
General Lee's Orders.
General Lee, in his testimony before the Reconstruction Committee of Congress, says of the treatment of prisoners on the field :
" The orders always were, that the whole field should be treated alike. Parties were sent out to take the Federal wounded, as well as the Confederates, and the surgeons were told to treat the one as they did the other. These orders given by me were respected on every fields
And there is nothing in all the records, so far as we can find, which indicates that any Department of the Confederate Government, or any representative of any such Department, failed to carry out these provisions of the law, and these orders, as far as they were able to do so. Of course, there were times when, by reason of insuf- ficient transportation, and insufficient supplies of food and clothing of all kinds, it was simply impossible to get proper supplies and in sufficient quantities to prevent great suffering among the prisoners in Southern prisons. But this was equally true of the Confederate soldiers in the field, and the assertion on page 68 of the before- referred-to publication by the Northern Sanitary Commission, headed by Dr. Valentine Mott, shows its partisanry and worthlessness as history, when it charges the Confederate authorities with "delibe- rately withholding necessary food from their prisoners of war, and furnishing them with what was indigestible and loathsome, when their own army was abundantly supplied with good and wholesome food;" * * * " of depriving their prisoners of their own cloth- ing, and also of withholding the issue of sufficient to keep them warm when the soldiers of their own army were well equipped and well protected from exposure to the wet and cold. ' ' The world now knows, that at the very time when these false charges were being formulated, the Confederate soldiers in the field were almost naked and starving, and that nearly ninety per cent, of the rest of their equipment had been captured from their enemy in battle.
Exchange of Prisoners.
From the very beginning, the Confederate authorities were anxious to make an arrangement for the exchange of prisoners, and indeed that the war should be conducted in all of its features on the highest and most humane plane known to civilized nations. To that end Mr. Davis wrote Mr. Lincoln on July 6th, 1861, as follows:
6
82 Southern Historical Society Papers.
" It is the desire of this Government so to conduct the war now- existing as to mitigate its horrors as far as may be possible; and with this intent, its treatment of the prisoners captured by its forces has been marked by the greatest humanity and leniency consistent with public obligation. Some have been permitted to return home on parole, others to remain at large under similar conditions, within this Confederacy, and all have been furnished with rations for their subsistence, such as are allowed to our own troops."
This letter was sent to Washington by special messenger (Colonel Taylor); but he was refused an audience with Mr. Lincoln, and was forced to content himself with a verbal reply from General Scott to the effect that the letter had been delivered to Mr. Lincoln, and that he would reply to it in writing as soon as possible. But no an- swer ever came.
For nearly a year after the war began, although many prisoners were captured and released on parole, on both sides, the Federal authorities refused to enter into any arrangement for the exchange of prisoners, taking the absurd position that they would not treat with " rebels " in any way which would recognize them as " bellige- rents." The English government had already recognized us as "belligerents" as early as May, 1861. As the Earl of Derby tersely said in the House of Lords:
" The Northern States could not claim the rights of belligerents for themselves, and, on the other hand, deal with other parties, not as belligerents, but as rebels."
After awhile the pressure on the Federal authorities by friends of the prisoners was so great that they were induced to agree to a cartel for the exchange of prisoners on the very basis offered by the Confederates in the beginning. These negotiations were com- menced on the 14th of February, 1862, General John E. Wool repre- senting the Federal and General Howell Cobb the Confederates, the only unsettled point at that time being that General Wool was unwil- ling that each party should agree to pay the expense of transporting their prisoners to the frontier; and this he promised to refer to his Government. At a second interview on March 1st, 1862, General Wool informed General Cobb that his Government would not con- sent to pay these expenses, and thereupon General Cobb promptly receded from this demand and agreed to accept the terms offered by General Wool. General Wool had stated in the beginning that he alone was clothed with full power to effect this arrangement, but he
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 88
now stated that his Government "had changed his instructions." And so these negotiations were broken off, and matters left as before they were begun.
The real reason for this change was that in the meantime the cap- ture of Forts Henry and Donelson had given the Federals a pre- ponderance in the number of prisoners. Soon, however, Jackson's valley campaign, the battles around Richmond, and other Confed- erate successes, gave the Confederates the preponderance, and this change of conditions induced the Federals to consent to terms, to which the Confederates had always been ready to accede.
And so on July 22nd, 1862, General John A. Dix, representing the Federals, and General D. H. Hill, the Confederates, at HaxalPs Landing, on James river, in Charles City county, entered into the cartel which thereafter formed the basis for the exchange of prisoners during the rest of the war whenever it was allowed by the Federals to be in operation. Article four of this cartel provided as follows:
"All prisoners of war, to be discharged on parole, in ten days after the capture, and the prisoners now held and those hereafter taken, to be transferred to the points mutually agreed upon, at the expense of the capturing party."
Article six provided that —
"The stipulations and provisions above mentioned are to be of binding obligation during the continuance of the war, it matters not which party may have the surplus of prisoners." * * * "That all prisoners, of whatever arm of the service, are to be exchanged or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, if it be prac- ticable to transfer them to their own lines in that time; if not, as soon thereafter as practicable."
Article nine provided that —
" In case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard to any clause or stipulation in the foregoing articles, it is mutually agreed, that such misunderstanding shall not interrupt the release of prisoners on parole, as herein provided; but shall be made the subject of friendly explanation, in order that the object of this agreement may neither be defeated nor postponed."
It is readily seen that both General Dix and General Hill acted with the utmost good faith in the formation of this cartel, with a common purpose in view, to the carrying out of which each pledged the good faith of his Government; and in Article 9 they made ample
84 Southern Historical Society Papers.
provision to prevent any cessation in the work of exchanging promptly all prisoners captured during the war. And we now pro- pose to show that this would have been the case but for the bad faith and bad conduct of the representatives of the Federal Government.
As was contemplated by the cartel, each of the two Governments appointed its Commissioners of Exchange to carry it into execution. On the part of the Federals, Major General E. A. Hitchcock was appointed, with two assistants, Colonel Win. H. Ludlow, and Cap- tain (afterward Brigadier-General) John E. Mulford, as assistants. On the part of the Confederates, the late Judge Robert Ould, of the Richmond (Va.) Bar, was the sole representative. The writer had the privilege of knowing both General Mulford and Judge Ould well, and, in his opinion, no better selections could have been made by their respective Governments. Judge Ould was a man of splen- did judicial bearing, singular honesty of purpose and kindness of heart, with capacity both in speaking and in writing, to represent his Government with unsurpassed ability. General Mulford was a man of fair abilities, and of great kindness of heart. Of General Hitchcock and Colonel Ludlow, he can only speak from what they disclose of their characteristics in their letters. General Hitchcock exhibits a profound distrust of what he terms the "rebel " authori- ties in all of his letters, and frequently displays a temper and impa- tience, seemingly, not warranted by the surrounding circumstances. Colonel Ludlow, at times, exhibits great fairness; at other times, manifest unfairness, but always displays shrewdness and ability.
There is abundant evidence in these records to show that the true reason why Mr. Lincoln did not reply to Mr. Davis' letter of July 6th, 1861, hereinbefore quoted, was that he and the other authorities at Washington did not intend from the beginning to conduct the war, in any of its features, according to the recognized principles of civilized warfare, although they had adopted the rules of Dr. Leiber apparently for this purpose, as the law to govern the conduct of their armies in the field. As conclusive evidence of this, it was shown in our last report that on the very day of the date of the cartel, the Federal Secretary of War, by order of Mr. Lincoln, issued an order to the military commanders in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Ar- kansas, directing them to seize and use any property belonging to citizens of the Confederacy which might be ' ' necessary or convenient for their several commands," without making any provision for compensation therefor. About the same time, and, doubtless, by
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 85
the same authority, Generals Pope and Steinwehr issued their in- famous orders, also referred to in our last report. All of these orders were so contrary to all the rules of civilized warfare, and especially to those adopted by the Federal authorities themselves, that on August ist, 1862 (just ten days from the date of the cartel), the Confederate authorities were driven to the necessity of issuing an order declaring, among other things, that Pope and Steinwehr and the commissioned officers of their commands, " had chosen for themselves (to use General Lee's words) the position of robbers and murderers, and not that of public enemies entitled, if captured, to be treated as prisoners of war." Later on, in the fall of that year, came the barbarous orders and conduct of Generals Milroy, Butler and Hunter, which led to the proclamations of outlawry against these officers, and directing that they and their commissioned officers should not be treated, if captured, as prisoners of war, and, there- fore, should not be exchanged, but kept in confinement.
In September, 1862, Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation was issued, to.take effect January ist following, which caused Mr. Davis to issue another proclamation on December 23rd, 1862, di- recting that any Federal officer who should be arrested whilst either enrolling, or in command of negroes, who were slaves, should be turned over to the authorities of the several States in which the offenses were committed, and punished for the crime of inciting servile insurrection. These several proclamations of Mr. Davis created considerable uneasiness among the Federal authorities, and furnished the very pretext for which they were doubtless longing, for either violating, or suspending, the terms of the cartel. And so, on January i6th, 1863, we find Colonel Ludlow writing to his superior, General Hitchcock, as follows:
"I have the honor to enclose to you a copy of the Richmond Enquirer, containing Jeff. Davis' message. His determination, avowed in most insolent terms, to deliver to the several State author- ities all commissioned officers of the United States that may here- after be captured, will, I think, be persevered in. You will remem- ber that after the proclamation of Jeff. Davis, of December 23d, 1862, I urgently advised another interview (the last one I had with Mr. Ould, and in which very important exchanges were declared). I then did so anticipating that the cartel might be broken, and wishing to make sure of the discharge from their parole of 10,000 of our men. This was effected, and in a manner so advantageous
86 Southern Historical Society Papers.
to our Government that we gained in the count of 20,000 exchanged, about 7,000 men. I had almost equally good success in the ex- change declared on November nth, 1862. If an open rupture should now occur, in the execution of the cartel, we are well pre- pared for it. I am endeavoring to get away from the Confederate prisons all our officers captured previously to the date of the message of Jeff, Davis (the 12th instant), with what success I shall know early next week."
(See Series II, Vol. V., Reb. Rec, Serial 118, p. 181.)
This transaction, of which we find Colonel Ludlow thus boasting to his superior, will surely be sufficient to establish his reputation for s/irewdness as a trader, or exchanger. So flagrant had been the violations of the cartel and the abuses committed by the Federals in pretending to carry it out (some of which are confessed, as we have just seen, by Colonel Ludlow), that on January 17th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote Colonel Ludlow, complaining in the strongest terms, and stating that if he (Colonel Ludlow) had any Confederate officer in his possession, or on parole, he would be exchanged for his equivalent. But that beyond that, he would not, and could not, parole commissioned officers then in his possession, but would con- tinue to parole non-commissioned officers and privates. He said:
" This course has been forced on the Confederate Government, not only by the refusal of the authorities of the United States to respond to the repeated applications of this Government in relation to the execution of Munford, but by their persistence in retaining Confed- erate officers who were entitled to parole and exchange."
He said:
"You have now, of captures that are by no means recent, many officers of the Confederate service, who are retained in your military prisons East and West. Applications have been made for the release of same without success, and others have been kept in confinement so long as to justify the conclusion that you refuse both to parole and exchange." Id. , pp. 186-7.
Judge Ould then called Colonel Ludlow's attention to several in- stances of these abuses and mistakes, and asked that they be corrected. In his letter of January 25th, 1863, he says:
" If any injustice has been done to you by our agreement, about reducing officers to privates, or in any other subject matter, I will promptly redress it." * * " There must be many officers in your
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 87
and our possession who, by our agreement, made at the last inter- view, were declared exchanged. Such certainly ought to be mutually delivered up. The excess is on our side, but I will stand it because I have agreed to it. I must, however, insist upon the immediate delivery of such of our officers as are included in the agreement." P. 213.
On December 30th, 1862, the following order was issued by General H. W. Halleck, signing himself as " Gen'1-in-Chief : "
" No officers, prisoners of war, will be released on parole till fur- ther orders." Id., p. 248.
This, he said, was done in consequence of the course then being pursued by the Confederate authorities. But notwithstanding this order, and this action of the Confederate authorities here complained of, exchanges seemed to have gone on, the Commissioner on either side constantly complaining that his adversary had broken the cartel. And on April nth, 1863, we find Judge Ould again writing Colonel Ludlow, saying:
" I am very much surprised at your refusal to deliver officers for those of your own, who have been captured, paroled and released by us since the date of the proclamation and message of President Davis. The refusal is not only a flagrant breach of the cartel, but can be supported on no rule of reciprocity or equity. " * * ' You have charged us with breaking the cartel. With what sort of justice can that allegation be supported, when you delivered only a few days ago over ninety officers, most of whom had been forced to languish and surfer in prison for months before we were compelled, by that and other reasons, to issue the retaliatory order of which you com- plain ? Those ninety-odd are not half of those whom you unjustly held in prison. On the other hand, I defy you to name the case of one who is confined by us, whom our Government has declared ex- changed. Is it your idea that we are to be bound by every strictness of the cartel, while you are at liberty to violate it for months, and that, too, not only in a few cases, but hundreds?" * * * "If captivity, privation and misery are to be the fate of officers on both sides hereafter, let God judge between us. I have struggled in this matter as if it had been a matter of life and death to me. I am heart-sick at the termination, but I have no self reproaches." Id. , p. 469.
In Ludlow's reply to this letter, he simply says Judge Ould was mistaken in his charges and complaints, but he did not succeed in
88 Southern Historical Society Papers.
pointing- out one single instance in which Judge Ould was in error. Notwithstanding all these charges and counter charges, exchanges still went on, and so we find Colonel Ludlow reporting to Secretary Stanton on May 5th, 1863, as follows:
" I have just returned from City Point, and have brought with me all my officers who have been held by the Confederates, and whom I send to City Point to-night. I have made the following declara- tions of exchanges:
(1) "All officers and enlisted men, and all persons, whatever may have been their classification or 'character, who have been delivered at City Point up to the 6th of May, 1863.
(2) "All officers who have been captured and released on parole up to April 1st, 1863, wherever they may have been captured." * * * Id. , p. 559. See also p. 564.
It seems that the Confederate Congress had refused to sustain Mr. Davis, in his suggested retaliatory measures about the treatment of offi- cers to the extent he had recommended, and so exchanges went on with the result as just above reported, up to May 6th, 1863, and with but few, if any, complaints against the Confederates of ill treatment to pris- oners to that time. But how does the case stand, in this respect, at this time, with the Federals ? We have only space here for two quotations to show this, and both of these are from their own wit- nesses, and it would seem that these would offset "Andersonville," "The Libby," or any other place this side of the infernal regions.
On February 9th, 1862, Judge Ould wrote Colonel Ludlow:
' ' I see from your own papers, that some dozen of our men cap- tured at Arkansas Pass were allowed to freeze to death in one night at Camp Douglas. I appeal to our common instincts, against such atrocious inhumanity." Id. , p. 257.
We find no denial of this charge. On May 10th, 1863, Dr. Wm. H. Van Buren, of New York, on behalf of the United States " San- itary Commission," reported to the Secretary of War the condition of the hospitals of the prisoners at Camp Douglas, near Chicago, and Gratiot street, St. Louis. In this report he incorporates the statements of Drs. Hun and Cogswell, of Albany, N. Y. , who had been employed by the Sanitary Commission to inspect hospitals, and Dr. Van Buren commends these gentlemen as men of high character and eminent fitness for the work to which they had been assigned. It is from the statement of these Northern gentlemen
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 89
that we quote. They caption their report from Albany, April 5th, 1863, and say, among other things, as follows:
" In our experience, we have never witnessed so painful a spec- tacle as that presented by these wretched inmates; without change of clothing, covered with vermin, they lie in cots, without mattresses, or with mattresses furnished by private chanty, without sheets or bedding of any kind, except blankets, often in rags; in wards reek- ing with filth and foul air. The stench is most offensive. We care- fully avoid all exaggeration of statement, but we give some facts which speak for themselves. From January 27th, 1863, when the prisoners (in number about 3,800) arrived at Camp Douglas, to February 18th, the day of our visit, 385 patients have been admitted to the hospitals, of whom 130 have died. This mortality of 33 per cent, does not express the whole truth, for of the 148 patients then remaining in the hospital a large number must have since died. Besides this, 130 prisoners have died in barracks, not having been able to gain admission even to the miserable accommodations of the hospital, and at the time of our visit 150 persons were sick in bar- racks waiting for room in hospital. Thus it will be seen that 260 out of the 3,800 prisoners had died in twenty-one days, a rate of mortality which, if continued, would secure their total extermination in about 320 days."
Then they go on to describe the conditions at St. Louis, showing them to be even worse than at Chicago, and after stating that the conditions of these prisons are "discreditable to a Christian people,'' they add:
" It surely is not the intention of our Government to place these prisoners in a position which will secure their extermination by pes- tilence in less than a year."
See also report of U. S. Surgeon A. M. Clark, Series II., Vol. VI., p. 371. See also Id. , p. 113.
Is it not a little surprising, that when the representatives of this same "Sanitary Commission " published their savage and partisan report in September, 1864, as to the way their prisoners were being treated in Southern prisons, which report they had adorned with pictures of skeletons alleged to have come from our prison hospitals, they did not make some allusion to the condition of things as found by them in their own hospitals ?
But as further evidence of violations of the cartel, it will be seen that on May 13th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote to Colonel Ludlow again
90 Southern Historical Society Papers.
calling his attention to the " large number of our officers captured long since and still held by them "; threatenened retaliation if the unjust and harsh course then pursued by the Federals towards our officers was persevered in, and concluded as follows :
"Nothing is now left as to those whom our protests have failed to release, but to resort to retaliation. The Confederate Govern- ment is anxious to avoid a resort to that harsh measure. In its name I make a final appeal for that justice to our imprisoned officers and men which your own agreements have declared to be their due" Id., p. 607.
Again, on the next day, he wrote, naming several of Mosby'smen who had been carried to the Old Capitol prison. He then said:
"They are retained under the allegation that they are bush- whackers and guerillas. Mosby's command is in the Confederate service, in every sense of the term. He is regularly commissioned, and his force is as strictly Confederate as any in our army. Why is this done ? This day I have cleaned every prison in my control as far as I know. If there is any detention anywhere, let me know and I will rectify it. I am compelled to complain of this thing in almost every communication. You will not deem me passionate when I assure you it will not be endured any longer. If these men are not delivered, a stern retaliation will be made immediately." Id. , p. 632.
And again on the 22nd, of May, 1863, he wrote, saying:
' ' You are well aware that for the last six months I have been presenting to you lists of Confederate officers and soldiers and Con- federate citizens, who have been detained by your authorities in their prisons. Some of these, on my remonstrance, have been re- leased and sent to us, but by far the greater number remain in captivity."
He then tells Colonel Ludlow that he is satisfied that he (Ludlow) has tried to have these prisoners released, but without avail, and then tells him again that the Confederates were compelled to notify him that they must resort to retaliation; but telling him further that he will be notified of each case in which this course is pursued.
On the same day he wrote another letter calling Ludlow's atten- tion to the report that Captains McGraw and Corbin had been tried and sentenced to be shot for recruiting for the Confederates in Ken- tucky, and saying that if these men were executed the Confederate
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 91
authorities had selected two captains for execution in retaliation; and he concludes this letter with this significant language:
"In view of the awful vortex into which things are plunging, I give you notice, that in the event of the execution of these persons, retaliation to an equal extent at least will be visited upon your own officers, and if that is found ineffectual the number will be increased. The Great Ruler of Nations must judge who is responsible for the Initiation of this chapter of horrors." Id., page 690-1.
In a letter of January 5th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote:
"Nothing is nearer my heart than to prevent on either side a resort to retaliation. Even if made necessary by course of events, it is much to be deplored. These are not only my own personal views, but those of my Governme?it."
It is almost unnecessary to say that, of course, these complaints and threats and appeals, would not have been made, at the time, and in the manner they were made, had not just cause existed there- for, and that the Federal authorities were solely respo?isible for the conditio?i of affairs then existing. (See another letter of the same date on the same page as to political prisoners.)
This being the condition of things, on May 25th, 1863, the follow- ing order was issued by the Federals:
"War Department, Washington, D. C, May 25, 1863. '" Ge?ieral Schofield :
" No Confederate officer will be paroled or exchanged till fur- ther orders. They will be kept in close confinement, and be strongly guarded. Those already paroled will be confined.
" H. W. Halleck,
' ' General-in- Chief. ' '
And similar orders were sent to all commanders of Federal forces throughout the country. lb. , p. 696. See also pp. 706-7, 722.
It is surely unnecessary, then, after reading these letters, and this •order, to say which side was responsible for violations of the cartel while it remained in operation, and for the suspension of its opera- tions, as well as for the first maltreatment of prisoners.
With the exception of exchanges in individual cases, this suspen- sion of the cartel continued. So that, on July 2nd, 1863, Mr. Davis addressed a letter to Mr. Lincoln (which we have never seen before), in which he said, among other things, after referring to the differ-
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ences that had arisen between the Commissioners in carrying out the cartel, and the hardships incurred by reason of its suspension — as follows:
" I believe I have just ground of complaint against the officers and forces under your command for breach of trust of the cartel, and being myself ready to execute it at all times and in good faith, I am not justified in doubting the existence of the same disposition on your part. In addition to this matter I have to complain of the conduct of your officers and troops in many parts of the country, who violate all the rules of war by carrying on hostilities, not only against armed foes, but against non-combatants, aged men, women and children, while others not only seize such property as is required for the use of your troops, but destroy all private property within their reach, even agricultural implements, and openly avow the pur- pose of seeking to subdue the population of the districts where they are operating by starvation that must result from the destruction of standing crops and agricultural tools. Still again others of your officers in different districts have recently taken the lives of prisoners who fell into their power, and justify their act by asserting a right to treat as spies the military officers and enlisted men under my com- mand who may penetrate into States recognized by us as our allies in the warfare now waged against the United States, but claimed by the latter as having refused to engage in such warfare. I have there- fore on different occasions been forced to make complaints of these outrages, and to ask from you that you either avow or disclaim hav- ing authorized them, and have failed to obtain such answer as the usages of civilized warfare require to be given in such cases. These usages justify and indeed require redress by retaliation as the proper means of repressing such cruelties as are not permitted in warfare between Christian peoples. I have notwithstanding refrained from the exercise of such retaliation because of its obvious tendency to lead to war of indiscriminate massacre on both sides, which would be a spectacle so shocking to humanity, and so disgraceful to the age in which we live, and the religion we profess, that I can- not contemplate it without a feeling of horror that I am disinclined to doubt you would share. With the view then of making our last solemn attempt to avert such calamities, and to attest my earnest desire to prevent them, if possible, I have selected the bearer of this letter, the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, as a Military Com- missioner, to proceed to your headquarters, under flag of truce,, there to confer and agree on the subjects above mentioned; and I
Treatment caul Exchange of Prisoners. 93
do hereby authorize the said Alexander H. Stephens to arrange and settle all differences and disputes, which have arisen, or may arise in the execution of the cartel for exchange of prisoners of war, hereto- fore agreed on between our respective land and naval forces; also to prevent further misunderstandings, as to terms of said cartel, and finally to enter into such arrangement and understanding about the mode of carrying on hostilities between the belligerents as shall con- fine the severities of the war within such limits as are rightfully imposed, not only by modern civilization, but by our common Christianity." Red. Rec, Series II, Vol. VI, p. 75-6.
On the 4th of July, 1863, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by Judge Ould, took the foregoing and proceeded down the James river under flag of truce, for the purpose of delivering the letter and. of confer- ring with Mr. Lincoln. They were stopped by the blockading squadron, under the command of Acting Rear Admiral S. P. Lee, near Newport News, and Mr. Stephens then communicated to Ad- miral Lee the nature of his mission. This communication to Admiral Lee was reported to the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Gideon Wells, and by the latter to the Secretary of War, Mr. Edwin M. Stanton. After Mr. Stephens had been kept for two days awaiting a reply, he was informed that the Secretary of War refused to permit him to proceed further on the ground, that "the customary agents and channels are considered adequate for all needful communications and conferences." See Mr. Stephens' report, Id., p. 94.
Between the date of Mr. Davis' letter and the 6th of July, when the refusal came to allow Mr. Stephens to proceed further on his attempted mission of mercy and justice, Gettysburg had been fought, and Vicksburg had fallen, and these disasters to the Confederates had not only made the Federals arrogant, but had also given them for the first time since the cartel a preponderance of prisoners, and hence from that time forward, their interest and their policy was to throw every obstacle possible in the way of the further exchanges of prisoners.
The foregoing letter of Mr. Davis exhibits the loftiest statesman- ship and Christian character, and should inspire us with a new desire to do honor to his memory, as well as fill us with pride that we had as our civil leader, one so noble, so humane, so just, and so true.
It is interesting to us to know that Mr. Davis and General Lee were in full accord in their views on the question of retaliating on pris- oners for offences committed by others. On the 13th of July, 1864,
94 Southern Historical Society Papers.
Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secretary of War, wrote to General Lee calling his attention to the murder of two citizens, in the Valley of Vir- ginia, by General Hunter's orders, or by his command, suggesting that some course of retaliation should be put in operation to prevent further atrocities of the kind, and asking General Lee " what mea- sure of punishment or retaliation should be adopted?" (Id. , p. 464.) To this inquiry General Lee replied as follows:
"I have on several occasions expressed to the Department my views as to the system of retaliation, and revolting as are the cir- cumstances attending the murder of the citizens above mentioned, I can see nothing to distinguish them from other outrages of a like character that have from time to time been brought to the attention of the Government. As I have said before, if the guilty parties could be taken, either the officer who commands, or the soldier who executes such atrocities, I should not hesitate to advise the infliction of the extreme punishment they deserve, but I cannot think it right or politic, to make the innocent, after they have surrendered as pris- oners of war, suffer for the guilty. " * * *
On this letter, Mr. Davis makes this endorsement:
" The views of General Lee I regard as just and appropriate."
Contrast this letter and this endorsement with the treatment ac- corded by General Sherman to prisoners, as detailed by him on page 194, Vol. 2 of his Memoirs, and you will see the difference between the conduct of a Christian and a savage. •
But we must proceed with the subject of the exchange of pris- oners: Some time in the summer of 1863, General S. A.. Meredith was appointed a Federal Commissioner of Exchange, and in Sep- tember Judge Ould attempted to open negotiations with him for a resumption of the cartel. To this attempt by letter no reply was received. He renewed these efforts on October 20th, 1863, saying:
" I now propose that all officers and men on both sides be released in conformity with the provisions of the cartel, the excess on one side or the other, to be on parole. Will you accept this ? I have no expectation of an answer, but perhaps you may give one. If it does come, I hope it will be soon." Id. , p. 401.
But nothing was accomplished by both of these efforts. Some time in November or December, 1863, General B. F. Butler was appointed the Federal Commissioner of Exchange. It will be remembered that this man had been outlawed by the Confederate
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. * 95
authorities prior to this time, and it was openly charged, and gene- rally believed, that this appointment was made solely to make com- munication between the belligerents the more difficult by embarrass- ing the Confederates, and consequently to throw this additional obstacle in the way of further exchange of prisoners.
Immediately on taking charge, General Butler says he saw Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War, and suggested that the Confederate prisoners in their hands should be sheltered, fed, clad and otherwise treated as Federal prisoners were being treated by us; and this sug- gestion, he says, Mr. Stanton at once assented to. (See Butler's Book, p. 585.) In other words, he says, in effect, that because the Confederates, in their exhaustion and poverty, could ?iot adequately supply the needs of their men in our prisons, therefore, he and the Federal Secretary of War thought it right as an act of revenge and retaliation to withhold these comforts and supplies from our men in their prisons when they had adequate means of all kinds to supply the needs of these men. Surely comment on this statement is un- necessary.
After Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation went into effect, as we have said, on January 1st, 1863, the Federals enrolled a large number of slaves in their armies. This greatly'embarrassed, as well as exasperated, the Confederates. We have heretofore stated the stand proposed by Mr. Davis, and recommended by him to the Confederate Congress, to turn over the officers of these colored troops to the State authorities in which any of them might be cap- tured, to be tried in the courts of such State for the crime of inciting servile insurrection, and that Congress refused to sustain him fully in that recommendation. The question then arose as to exchanging Negro prisoners. The Federal authorities contended that where slaves were captured by them, or when they deserted and came to them and enlisted in their armies, they thereby became free, and should be placed on the same footing with their white soldiers, in respect to exchanges, as well as in all other respects. The Con- federates, on the contrary, contended that whatever might be the effect on the status of the slave by going to the Federals and enlisting in their armies, yet should they be recaptured by the Confederates, that restored them to their former status as slaves, and they should then be returned to their masters or put to work by the Confederates, and their masters compensated for their labor. In those cases where the masters did not reside in the Confederacy,
96 * Southern Historical Society Papers.
or could not be ascertained, such Negroes were to be exchanged as other prisoners.
The letter from General Lee to General Grant, stating the Con- federate position on this subject, is a masterpiece, whether considered from a legal, historical or statesmanlike point of view. See Series II, Vol. VII, Serial No. 120, p. 1010. General Grant in his reply, seeing that he could not answer the arguments of General Lee, con- tents himself with saying on this point; —
" I have nothing to do with the discussion of the slavery question; therefore decline answering the arguments adduced to show the right to return to former owners, such Negroes as are captured from our army." Id. , p. 10 18.
But to return to General Butler. He says he soon learned that the Confederates were anxious to exchange the prisoners held by them, and so he proposed to the Secretary of War " the plan of so exchanging until we had exhausted all our prisoners held by the Rebels, and as we should then have a surplus of some ten thousand to hold them as hostages for our colored troops, of which the Rebels held only hundreds, and to retaliate on this surplus, such wrongs as the Rebels might perpetrate on our soldiers." (See Butler' s Book, p. 585.)
At first Judge Ould refused to treat with General Butler at all, but in order to resume the cartel, which he was anxious to do, this posi- tion was soon abandoned, and so on the 30th of March, 1864, he, by appointment, conferred with General Butler on the subject of re- suming the exchange. As the result of this interview, General Butler wrote the Secretary of War, that with the exception of the question about the exchange of Negroes, '■ all other points of differ- ence were substantially agreed upon, so that the exchange might go on readily and smoothly, man for man and officer for officer of equal rank, and officers for their equivalents in privates, as settled by the cartel." (Butler' s Book, p. 590.) Judge Ould left General Butler on the 31st of March, with the understanding that Butler would confer with his Government about the points discussed, and then confer further with him.
" In the meantime the exchanges of sick and wounded and special exchanges were to go on."
On the first day of April, 1864, General U. S. Grant appeared on the scene, and General Butler says:
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 97
" To him the state of the negotiations as to exchange was com- municated, and most emphatic verbal directions were received from the Lieutenant- General not to take any steps by which another able bodied ma?i should be exchanged until further orders from him." Butler' s Book, p. 592.
And the reason assigned by General Grant for this course was that, the exchange of prisoners zvould so strengthen General Lee' s army as to greatly prolong the war, and therefore it was better that the p7'isoners then in confinement should remain so, no matter what suf- ferings would be entailed thereby. "I said," says General Butler, " I doubted whether, if we stopped exchanging man for man, simply on the ground that our soldiers were more useful to us in Rebel prisons than they would be in our lines, however true that might be, or speciously stated to the country, the proposition could not be sustained against the clamor that would at once arise against the administration." * * * Id., p. 594. And he adds:
' ' These instructions in the then state of negotiations, rendered any further exchanges impossible and retaliation useless. ' '
This condition of affairs, for which, as we have seen, General Grant was solely responsible, continued, with little change, till the latter part of January, 1865. It was during this interval of nearly a year that the greatest sufferings and mortality occurred. Finally the clamor was so great for a renewal of the cartel that General Grant consented, and from that date exchanges continued to the end of the war, although when a large number of prisoners were sent to Gen- eral Schofield, at Wilmington, on February 21st, 1865, he refused to receive them. Vol. VIII, p. 286.
On the 10th of January, 1864, in view of the large numbers of prisoners then held on both sides, and the sufferings consequently engendered thereby, Judge Ould addressed a letter to Major (after- wards General Mulford), proposing to deliver all prisoners held by us for an equivalent held by the Federals. But to this letter no reply was ever made. On the 22nd of August he wrote making the same offer to General Hitchcock, but received no reply to this letter either. And so on the 31st of August, 1864, Judge Ould published a statement setting forth in detail the efforts made by the Confed- erate authorities to carry out the cartel in good faith, stating how it had been violated from time to time, and finally suspended, solely by the bad faith and bad conduct of the Federals.
98 Southern Historical Society Papers.
On the ist of October, 1864, General Lee proposed to General Grant to renew the cartel, but no agreement could be reached on the subject, and so on the 6th of October, 1864, Judge Ould ad- dressed a letter to General Mulford and proposed, in view of the probabilities of the long confinement of prisoners on both sides, "that some measures be adopted for the relief of such as are held by either party. To that end I propose," says he, " that each Gov- ernment shall have the privilege of forwarding for the use and com- fort of such of its prisoners as are held by the other, necessary articles of food and clothing. " * * * P. 930.
Whilst this proposition was finally accepted by the Federals, it took a whole month to get their consent to it. General Mulford' s reply is dated November 6th, 1864. As early in that year as Jan- uary 24th, Judge Ould had written General Hitchcock, proposing- • that the prisoners on each side be attended by their own surgeons, and that these surgeons should "act as Commissaries, with power to receive and distribute such contributions of money, food, cloth- ing, and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of prisoners. I further propose," says he, " that these surgeons be detailed by their own Governments, and that they shall have full liberty at any and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports, not only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of prisoners."
To this very important and humane letter, Judge Ould says, " no reply was ever made." I Southern Historical Society Papers, 128. If its terms had been accepted by the Federals (and nothing could have been fairer), what sufferings would have been prevented and how many lives would have been saved ? But, as we now know, General Grant did not wish to keep these men from dying in our prisons. On the con- trary, he preferred that the Confederates should be burdened with caring for them when living and charged with their death should they die, and in this way he would continue to "fire the Northern heart" against us. On the same principle, and for the same reason, he not only refused to agree to let us purchase medicine and other necessary supplies for these sick prisoners, but refused for months to receive from ten to fifteen thousand, which we offered to deliver up without receiving any equivalent in return. But above all these, he did not wish them exchanged, because of the recruits which would thereby come to General Lee's army.
Notwithstanding the fact, as shown by our last report, it was by General Grant's orders that General Sheridan devastated the Valley
Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners. 99
of Virginia as he did, yet his considerate treatment of General Lee and his men at Appomattox and his fidelity to General Lee's parole there given, after the war, have caused us to think kindly of him and to place him in a different class from that in which we have placed Stanton, Halleck, Sherman, Sheridan, Pope, Butler, Hunter, Milroy, and other Federal officers, who took such delight in treating us with such wicked and wanton brutality during the war. But as has been recently said of him by a distinguished Northern writer, who was an officer in his army, and therefore knew him better than we did, General Grant was "of coarse moral as well as physical fibre;" and nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the cruel and heartless way in which he treated hisjown as well as our pris- oners. He was so vindictive and cruel that on February 7th, 1865, he refused to make any arrangements with Judge Ould whereby our prisoners could receive contributions of assistance from friends at the North. (Vol. VIII., p. 140.) And, as we have just seen, he preferred that his own men should die in our prisons, rather than to relieve them, when we offered to deliver them to him without any equivalent in return, because of the great mortality at Anderson- ville, which we were unable to avert, and of which he was fully ap- prised.
At the expense of being tedious then, we have thought it right to give in much detail the facts in relation to the formation and opera- tion of the cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and to show clearly from the records why this cartel was suspended, and who was responsible therefor. And we have done so, because this conduct was the true cause of substantially all the sufferings and deaths which came to the prisoners on both sides durmg the war. That we have shozvn that the Federal Government,