150-years-ago -- THE SITUATION OF THE CONFEDERACY AT THE BEGINNING OF 1864

The Richmond Daily Dispatch

Jan. 16, 1864.

          

A well equipped and determined
looking Confederate soldier.
(Liljenquist Collection, Library
of Congress)

        That the Yankees are making desperate efforts to bring the war to a speedy termination cannot be doubted, and we, at least, are not at all disposed to deny it. But the very prices which they offer for the re-enlistment of their veterans, proves that this effort will be their last. Nevertheless, they will make this effort, and it will be gigantic. And how do we propose to meet it? Not, we presume, by a tame surrender; not by turning over all our goods and chattels to be confiscated for the benefit of the Yankees; not by sitting with our arms folded, or wringing our hands and blubbering over our misfortunes. These are the inevitable consequences of submission, and we do not suppose even the most gloomy of the substitute purchasers contemplate such a surrender as that. If they do not, there is but one alternative. It is to obey the laws of Congress cheerfully and with alacrity — to fight the enemy, since better may not be done. While our Congressmen are talking, they are preparing for their formidable onset. We must be prepared to meet them, and we can be prepared if the proper steps be taken. We must meet them, and we must beat them. What is more, we can meet them, and we can beat them. What is most of all, we will meet them, and we will beat them. Away, then, with all this childish despondency. There is no occasion for it, and if there were, this is not the time to indulge in it. The Confederacy has not yet put forth one-half its strength. It has risen always with the occasion, and thus it will continue to rise, as fast as fresh occasions present themselves. For our own part, we never have doubted of the issue, even when McClellan was around this city, and that, we take it, was the darkest hour of the Confederacy.

150-years-ago -- APPEAL FOR 1st LOUISIANA BRIGADE

The Richmond Daily Dispatch

Jan. 12, 1864

Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays

Hays's Louisiana brigade.

           Upon information received that the brave Louisiana brigade  of Gen. [Harry T.] Hays [5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th regiments] are suffering for the want of blankets, overcoats, socks, and shoes, and appeal is made for contributions of such articles, or for money with which to purchase them. These brave soldiers have been in almost every battle in Virginia for the last two years; their ranks have been sadly thinned; numbering now only about six hundred men; they are cut off from their homes and families, and deserve that special provision shall be made for their comfort.
          The members of the original committee for the relief of the Louisiana exiles, together with a few other gentlemen have kindly consented to serve and receive subscriptions. The names and address of the committee are given as follows: Hon. C. M. Conrad, Hon. T. J. Semmes; Major Bayne, Ord. Dep't; John Freeland; Col. Palpey, A. and L. Gen.'s Office; Samuel J. Hanesen; Ellett, Bell & Fox; Samuel M. Price, D. T. Williams, H. E. C. Baskerville.
Persons may subscribe by calling at the Va. Life Insurance office.

150-years-ago -- GEN. PATRICK CLEBURNE'S PROPOSAL TO ENLIST BLACK CONFEDERATES

The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. ; Series 1 - Volume 52 (Part II), Pages 582-592.

[Jan. 2, 1864]

Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne
(Library of Congress)

Commanding General,
The Corps, Division, Brigade, and Regimental Commanders of the Army of Tennessee

General: Moved by the exigency in which our country is now placed we take the liberty of laying before you, unofficially, our views on the present state of affairs.  The subject is so grave, and our views so new, we feel it a duty both to you and the cause that before going further we should submit them for your judgment and receive your suggestions in regard to them.  We therefore respectfully ask you to give us an expression of your views in the premises.  We have now been fighting for nearly three years, have spilled much of our best blood, and lost, consumed, or thrown to the flames an amount of property equal in value to the specie currency of the world.  Through some lack in our system the fruits of our struggles and sacrifices have invariably slipped away from us and left us nothing but long lists of dead and mangled.  Instead of standing defiantly on the borders of our territory or harassing those of the enemy, we are hemmed in to-day into less than two-thirds of it, and still the enemy menacingly confronts us at every point with superior forces.  Our soldiers can see no end to this state of affairs except in our own exhaustion; hence, instead of rising to the occasion, they are sinking into a fatal apathy, growing weary of hardships and slaughters which promise no results. In this state of things it is easy to understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far ahead of us, and that unless some extraordinary change is soon made in our condition we must overtake it.  The consequences of this condition are showing themselves more plainly every day; restlessness of morals spreading everywhere, manifesting itself in the army in a growing disregard for private rights; desertion spreading to a class of soldiers it never dared to tamper with before; military commissions sinking in the estimation of the soldier; our supplies failing; our firesides in ruins.  If this state continues much longer we must be subjugated.  Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late.  We can give but a faint idea when we say it means the loss of all we now hold most sacred — slaves and all other personal property, lands, homesteads, liberty, justice, safety, pride, manhood.  It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision.  It means the crushing of Southern manhood, the hatred of our former slaves, who will, on a spy system, be our secret police.  The conqueror's policy is to divide the conquered into factions and stir up animosity among them, and in training an army of negroes the North no doubt holds this thought in perspective.  We can see three great causes operating to destroy us:  First, the inferiority of our armies to those of the enemy in point of numbers; second, the poverty of our single source of supply in comparison with his several sources; third, the fact that slavery, from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness.

The enemy already opposes us at every point with superior numbers, and is endeavoring to make the preponderance irresistible.  President Davis, in his recent message, says the enemy "has recently ordered a large conscription and made a subsequent call for volunteers, to be followed, if ineffectual by a still further draft."  In addition, the President of the United States announces that "he has already in training an army of 100,000 negroes as good as any troops," and every fresh raid he makes and new slice of territory he wrests from us will add to this force.Every soldier in our army already knows and feels our numerical inferiority to the enemy. Want of men in the field has prevented him from reaping the fruits of his victories, and has prevented him from having the furlough he expected after the last reorganization, and when he turns from the wasting armies in the field to look at the source of supply, he finds nothing in the prospect to encourage him.  Our single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty and not now in the ranks.  The enemy has three sources of supply:  First, his own motley population; secondly, our slaves; and thirdly, Europeans whose hearts are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of slavery, and who meet no hindrance from their Governments in such enterprise, because these Governments are equally antagonistic to the institution.  In touching the third cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weakness, we may rouse prejudice and passion, but the time has come when it would be madness not to look at our danger from every point of view, and to probe it to the bottom.  Apart from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against slavery has given to the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continued embarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness.  Wherever slavery is once seriously disturbed, whether by the actual presence or the approach of the enemy, or even by a cavalry raid, the whites can no longer with safety to their property openly sympathize with our cause.  The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them, and from silence and apprehension many of these soon learn to wish the war stopped on any terms.  The next stage is to take the oath to save property, and they become dead to us, if not open enemies.  To prevent raids we are forced to scatter our forces, and are not free to move and strike like the enemy; his vulnerable points are carefully selected and fortified depots.  Ours are found in every point where there is a slave to set free.  All along the lines slavery  is comparatively valueless to us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to the  enemy for information.  It is an omnipresent spy system, pointing out our valuable men to the enemy, revealing our positions, purposes, and resources, and yet acting so safely and  secretly that there is no means to guard against it.  Even in the heart of our country, where our hold upon this secret espionage is firmest, it waits but the opening fire of the enemy's battle line to wake it, like a torpid serpent, into venomous activity.

In view of the state of affairs what does our country propose to do?  In the words of President Davis "no effort must be spared to add largely to our effective force as promptly as possible.  The sources of supply are to be found in restoring to the army all who are improperly absent, putting an end to substitution, modifying the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ranks such of the able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employe[e]s, as are doing service for which the negroes may be found competent."  Most of the men improperly absent, together with many of the exempts and men having substitutes, are now without the Confederate lines and cannot be calculated on.  If all the exempts capable of bearing arms were enrolled, it will give us the boys below eighteen, the men above forty-five, and those persons who are left at home to meet the wants of the country and the army, but this modification of the exemption law will remove from the fields and manufactories most of the skill that directed agricultural and mechanical labor, and, as stated by the President, "details will have to be made to meet the wants of the country," thus sending many of the men to be derived from this source back to their homes again.  Independently of this, experience proves that striplings and men above conscript age break down and swell the sick lists more than they do the ranks.  The portion now in our lines of the class who have substitutes is not on the whole a hopeful element, for the motives that created it must have been stronger than patriotism, and these motives added to what many of them will call breach of faith, will cause some to be not forthcoming, and others to be unwilling and discontented soldiers.  The remaining sources mentioned by the President have been so closely pruned in the Army of Tennessee that they will be found not to yield largely.  The supply from all these sources, together with what we now have in the field, will exhaust the white race, and though it should greatly exceed expectations and put us on an equality with the enemy, or even give us temporary advantages, still we have no reserve to meet unexpected disaster or to supply a protracted struggle.  Like past years, 1864 will diminish our ranks by the casualties of war, and what source of repair is there left us?  We therefore see in the recommendations of the President only a temporary expedient, which at the best will leave us twelve months hence in the same predicament we are in now.  The President attempts to meet only one of the depressing causes mentioned; for the other two he has proposed no remedy.  They remain to generate lack of confidence in our final success, and to keep us moving down hill as heretofore.  Adequately to meet the- causes which are now threatening ruin to our country, we propose, in addition to a modification of the President's plans, that we retain in service for the war all troops now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war.  As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter — give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself.  If we are correct in this assumption it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all human probabilities, to change the current of success and sweep the invader from our country.

Our country has already some friends in England and France, and there are strong motives to induce these nations to recognize and assist us, but they cannot assist us without helping slavery, and to do this would be in conflict with their policy for the last quarter of a century.  England has paid hundreds of millions to emancipate her West India slaves and break up the slave-trade.  Could she now consistently spend her treasure to reinstate slavery in this country?  But this barrier once removed, the sympathy and the interests of these and other nations will accord with our own, and we may expect from them both moral support and material aid. One thing is certain, as soon as the great sacrifice to independence is made and known in foreign countries there will be a complete change of front in our favor of the sympathies of the world.  This measure will deprive the North of the moral and material aid which it now derives from the bitter prejudices with which foreigners view the institution, and its war, if continued, will henceforth be so despicable in their eyes that the source of recruiting will be dried up.  It will leave the enemy's negro army no motive to fight for, and will exhaust the source from which it has been recruited.  The idea that it is their special mission to war against slavery has held growing sway over the Northern people for many years, and has at length ripened into an armed and bloody crusade against it.  This baleful superstition has so far supplied them with a courage and constancy not their own.  It is the most powerful and honestly entertained plank in their war platform.  Knock this away and what is left?  A bloody ambition for more territory, a pretended veneration for the Union, which one of their own most distinguished orators (Doctor Beecher in his Liverpool speech) openly avowed was only used as a stimulus to stir up the anti-slavery crusade, and lastly the poisonous and selfish interests which are the fungus growth of the war itself.  Mankind may fancy it a great duty to destroy slavery, but what interest can mankind have in upholding this remainder of the Northern war platform?  Their interests and feelings will be diametrically opposed to it.  The measure we propose will strike dead all John Brown fanaticism, and will compel the enemy to draw off altogether or in the eyes of the world to swallow the Declaration of Independence without the sauce and disguise of philanthropy.  This delusion of fanaticism at an end, thousands of Northern people will have leisure to look at home and to see the gulf of despotism into which they themselves are rushing.

The measure will at one blow strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance, and transfer them to the South; it will dry up two of his three sources of recruiting; it will take from his negro army the only motive it could have to fight against the South, and will probably cause much of it to desert over to us; it will deprive his cause of the powerful stimulus of fanaticism, and will enable him to see the rock on which his so-called friends are now piloting him.  The immediate effect of the emancipation and enrollment of negroes on the military strength of the South would be:  To enable us to have armies numerically superior to those of the North, and a reserve of any size we might think necessary; to enable us to take the offensive, move forward, and forage on the enemy.  It would open to us in prospective another and almost untouched source of supply, and furnish us with the means of preventing temporary disaster, and carrying on a protracted struggle.  It would instantly remove all the vulnerability, embarrassment, and inherent weakness which result from slavery.  The approach of the enemy would no longer find every household surrounded by spies; the fear that sealed the master's lips and the avarice that has, in so many cases, tempted him practically to desert us would alike be removed.  There would be no recruits awaiting the enemy with open arms, no complete history of every neighborhood with ready guides, no fear of insurrection in the rear, or anxieties for the fate of loved ones when our armies moved forward.  The chronic irritation of hope deferred would be joyfully ended with the negro, and the sympathies of his whole race would be due to his native South.  It would restore confidence in an early termination of the war with all its inspiring consequences, and even if contrary to all expectations the enemy should succeed in over-running the South, instead of finding a cheap, ready-made means of holding it down, he would find a common hatred and thirst for vengeance, which would break into acts at every favorable opportunity, would prevent him from settling on our lands, and render the South a very unprofitable conquest.  It would remove forever all selfish taint from our cause and place independence above every question of property.  The very magnitude of the sacrifice itself, such as no nation has ever voluntarily made before, would appal [sic] our enemies, destroy his spirit and his finances, and fill our hearts with a pride and singleness of purpose which would clothe us with new strength in battle.  Apart from all other aspects of the question, the necessity for more fighting men is upon us.  We can only get a sufficiency by making the negro share the danger and hardships of the war.  If we arm and train him and make him fight for the country in her hour of dire distress, every consideration of principle and policy demand that we should set him and his whole race who side with us free.  It is a first principle with mankind that he who offers his life in defense of the State should receive from her in return his freedom and his happiness, and we believe in acknowledgment of this principle.  The Constitution of the Southern States has reserved to their respective governments the power to free slaves for meritorious services to the State.  It is politic besides.  For many years, ever since the agitation of the subject of slavery commenced, the negro has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid imagination has surrounded that condition with so many gratifications that it has become the paradise of his hopes.  To attain it he will tempt dangers and difficulties not exceeded by the bravest soldier in the field.  The hope of freedom is perhaps the only moral incentive that can be applied to him in his present condition.  It would be preposterous then to expect him to fight against it with any degree of enthusiasm, therefore we must bind him to our cause by no doubtful bonds; we must leave no possible loop-hole for treachery to creep in.  The slaves are dangerous now, but armed, trained, and collected in an army they would be a thousand fold more dangerous; therefore when we make soldiers of them we must make free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist their sympathies also.  We can do this more effectually than the North can now do, for we can give the negro not only his own freedom, but that of his wife and child, and can secure it to him in his old home.  To do this, we must immediately make his marriage and parental relations sacred in the eyes of the law and forbid their sale.  The past legislation of the South concedes that a large free middle class of negro blood, between the master and slave, must sooner or later destroy the institution.  If, then, we touch the institution at all, we would do best to make the most of it, and by emancipating the whole race upon reasonable terms, and within such reasonable time as will prepare both races for the change, secure to ourselves all the advantages, and to our enemies all the disadvantages that can arise, both at home and abroad, from such a sacrifice.  Satisfy the negro that if he faithfully adheres to our standard during the war he shall receive his freedom and that of his race.  Give him as an earnest of our intentions such immediate immunities as will impress him with our sincerity and be in keeping with his new condition, enroll a portion of his class as soldiers of the Confederacy, and we change the race from a dreaded weakness to a position of strength.

 Will the slaves fight?  The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle.  In the great sea fight of Lepanto where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle.  They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves.  The negro slaves of Saint Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white masters and the French troops sent against them.  The negro slaves of Jamaica revolted, and under the name of Maroons held the mountains against their masters for 150 years; and the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees.  If, contrary to the training of a lifetime, they can be made to face and fight bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers.

We will briefly notice a few arguments against this course.  It is said Republicanism cannot exist without the institution.  Even were this true, we prefer any form of government of which the Southern people may have the molding, to one forced upon us by a conqueror.  It is said the white man cannot perform agricultural labor in the South.  The experience of this army during the heat of summer from Bowling Green, Ky., to Tupelo, Miss., is that the white man is healthier when doing reasonable work in the open field than at any other time.  It is said an army of negroes cannot be spared from the fields.  A sufficient number of slaves is now administering to luxury alone to supply the place of all we need, and we believe it would be better to take half the able-bodied men off a plantation than to take the one master mind that economically regulated its operations.  Leave some of the skill at home and take some of the muscle to fight with.  It is said slaves will not work after they are freed.  We think necessity and a wise legislation will compel them to labor for a living.  It is said it will cause terrible excitement and some disaffection from our cause.  Excitement is far preferable to the apathy which now exists, and disaffection will not be among the fighting men.  It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all.  Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for.  It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.  We have now briefly proposed a plan which we believe will save our country.  It may be imperfect, but in all human probability it would give us our independence.  No objection ought to outweigh it which is not weightier than independence.  If it is worthy of being put in practice it ought to be mooted quickly before the people, and urged earnestly by every man who believes in its efficacy.  Negroes will require much training; training will require much time, and there is danger that this concession to common sense may come too late.

[signed]

P. R. Cleburne, major-general, commanding division
D. C. Govan, brigadier-general
John E. Murray, colonel, Fifth Arkansas
G. F. Baucum, colonel, Eighth Arkansas
Peter Snyder, lieutenant-colonel, commanding Sixth and Seventh Arkansas
E. Warfield, lieutenant-colonel, Second Arkansas
M. P. Lowrey, brigadier-general
A. B. Hardcastle, colonel, Thirty-second and Forty-fifth Mississippi 
F. A. Ashford, major, Sixteenth Alabama
John W. Colquitt, colonel, First Arkansas
Rich. J. Person, major, Third and Fifth Confederate
G. S. Deakins, major, Thirty-fifth and Eighth Tennessee
J. H. Collett, captain, commanding Seventh Texas
J. H. Kelly, brigadier-general, commanding Cavalry Division 

150-years-ago GENERAL MORGAN'S ESCAPE

The Richmond Daily Dispatch

Jan. 5, 1864

Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan
(Library o0 Congress)

        The Atlanta Appeal announces the arrival there of two Kentuckian, of Morgan's command, who escaped from Camp Douglas in the latter part of November. They proceeded to Louisville — their homes. The Appeal says:

           On their way out from Louisville, they accidentally fell in with Gen. Morgan in Nelson county, near Bardstown, with whom they remained until they reached this side of the Tennessee river. --They found Gen. Morgan with an or whip in his possession, passing himself off with those to whom he did not care to reveal himself as a Government agent, engaged in buying up mules. They traveled altogether at night by the assistance of faithful guides, and lay by in day time, making at one time as many as sixty-five miles in one night. As a general thing, they found the people of Kentucky true and loyal, always ready and willing to aid them in any way in their power. Oftener than otherwise, Gen. Morgan made himself known to the people, who seemed to be in raptures at his escape, and offering him every assistance in their power. During his progress through the State he was presented with very fine horses. We should have stated that Capt. T. H. Hines, who planned the escape of Morgan from the Ohio penitentiary, came through with the party. Captains Shelton and Taylor were recaptured in Kentucky.

The party crossed Cumberland river at Turkey Neck Bend, three miles below Burkesville. In Overton county, Tenn.; they met up with some thirty five others of Morgan's men, who came out with them, crossing the Tennessee river at Ferchee's Island on rafts hastily constructed from logs.--Here all but four or five lost their horses, a party of Federal soldiers falling upon them before they had perfected the crossing. One of their party was also captured here, all the others making their escape. Here Gen. Morgan and Capt. Hines, having saved their horses, separated from the main party and pursued their way into South Carolina.

The remainder, under the command of Capt. Dan. Ray, made the best of their way on foot, traveling over the rough and mountainous country all that night and were at one time two days without food. They very soon, however, succeeded in pressing a sufficient number of horses for their use, when they moved on more rapidly, crossing the East Tennessee and Georgia railroad near Athens, Tenn. They thence proceeded across the Hiawassee river, and came into our lines at Dalton.

The entire trip of these gentlemen, from Chicago to Dalton, was marked with almost uninterrupted success, though they mention many hairbreadth escapes, which only served to give zest to the adventure. They are of opinion that at least half of Morgan's men have escaped from Camp Douglas, as hardly a day passed that a greater or less number did not make their escape. When the news of Morgan's escape reached the camp, a body of forty of his men broke over the guards, most of whom made their escape.

150-years-ago -- REVIEW OF YEAR 1863 IN GEN. LEE'S ARMY

The Richmond Daily Dispatch
Jan. 1, 1864

Gen. R.E. Lee

Army of Northern Virginia, December30, 1863.

           I may be permitted, I trust, to speak a few words in reference to the doings of this army for the past twelve months. My connection with it began when Burnside's forces appeared in front of Fredericksburg on the Stafford heights. And well do I remember how Col. Ball, of the 15th cavalry, kept the whole of that immense army at bay with one regiment of cavalry, one battalion of infantry, and one battery of artillery. Then came the first battle of Fredericksburg, with the sad scenes attendant upon the evacuation of the town by our people in mid-winter, and its sacking by a brutal and infuriate soldiery, under the eye of that ingrate of a General, Burnside.

          Of the battle of Fredericksburg I will speak briefly. The enemy felt fully assured in their vain glorious sufficiency of their ability to disperse Lee's army and march unopposed to Richmond. They crossed the Rappahannock — ah, fatal crossing to them — and essayed to carry the heights.--But Jackson was on the right, Longstreet protected the left, and Lee was in the centre. The result was as might have been readily foreseen by every man of common sense. The Federal army suffered a signal repulse. The corpses of their dead and the bodies of their mangled and groaning dying ones covered the area in front of our lines at the Stonewall and on the lower end of the battle-field near Hamilton's Crossing, whilst the good old town of Fredericksburg became for the nonce a dead hospital and a charnel house. The Federal cause, for the first time in the war, suffered a most humiliating defeat. Their hopes of conquest were crushed, and their vaunted boastings were turned into wittings over their great calamity. Many have criticised Gen. Lee very freely for not pushing the enemy on Saturday night. I was present at that battle, and I myself know full well that the engagement of Saturday was regarded on all hands as a mere prelude to the general engagement which was expected to occur on Sunday. No one in our lines had any conception of the immense injuries which the Federal cause had sustained. It has never, I think, been mentioned in print, but it is nevertheless a fact, that a council of war was held on Saturday night. Jackson urged a midnight attack, But was overruled in council by Longstreet and Gen. Lee, and I must say I think it well for our cause and for Jackson's fame that it was overruled; for unless we could have had some unerring badge or mark upon our men, all the horrors of a night attack might; and as for a day attack up in the enemy's lines, it were an impossibility, or rather it would have been certain destruction to our troops to have advanced over the plateau in front of the river, which was readily and thoroughly swept by the enemy's batteries on the Stafford heights. My conclusion is, that the best interests of the country were served by not pressing the enemy in the first Fredericksburg fight.

            Passing over Burnside's sticking in the mud at Banks's ford, and the long, dreary winter when our men stood picket on the Rappahannock, we will take glance en passast at the battle of Chancellorsville. Hooker superceded Burnside on the 27th of January, and after three months of laborious diligence found himself ready to advance on Gen. Lee's lines about the last of April. A short reference to the series of battles which then occurred may not be out of place just here. On the 28th of April, Hooker threw one corps of his army across the Rappahannock, at Bernard's, just below Fredericksburg, whilst with the rest, having broken up camp, he marched rapidly to Kelly's Ford, a point twenty-two miles above Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock. At this point the crossed the Rappahannock, and thence marched his forces to Germanna and Elley's fords, on the Rapidan river, across which he succeeded in crossing almost unobstructed (for we had only cavalry videttes at these fords) by Thursday, the last day of April. Hooker then turned the head of his column down the river towards Fredericksburg. In front of the Chancellorsville, Anderson's division, then of Longstreet' corps, which had been guarding the United States Ford, first took up a line of battle on Thursday evening; but finding themselves confronting a very largely superior force, were compelled to fall back some four miles, to a point where the old Mine road intersects the turnpike, six miles above Fredericksburg. The character of Hooker's moves became fully unveiled to the commanding General during the day of Thursday. Accordingly, a force of observation, under command of General Early, was left guarding the line from Fredericksburg to Hamilton's Crossing, and confronting the corps which Hooker had thrown across below Fredericksburg on the preceding Tuesday. The rest of our army, with the commanding General, moved up to meet Hooker, at the head of the great bulk of the Yankee Army of the Potomac. Gen. Jackson reached Anderson's line of battle, at the intersection of the Mine and Pink made about daylight of Friday morning. He at once assumed command and ordered an advance, himself leading it and moving along. The enemy, who had come upon us during the night of Thursday, began to give back gradually during the day of Friday before the determined advance of our men. At night of Friday, May 1st, McLaws's and Auderson's divisions, of Longstreet's corps, were confronting the enemy in front of Chancellorsville, (Pickett's and Hood's divisions, of Longstreet's corps, had not then returned from Suffolk.) On Friday night, after a consultation, it was determined to attack the enemy on his right flank and endeavor to turn it. For this purpose Gen. Jackson took with him three divisions of his corps, consisting of A. P. Hill's right division, now embraced in Wilcox's division and a part of Heth's division; Trimbles'  [Raleigh Colston], old division, now commanded by Gen. Edward Johnson and D. H. Hill's old division, now as then commanded by Rodes, having received his promotion from Jackson on the field for his gallant and skillful bearing on Saturday evening, May 2d. Just after day of Saturday morning Jackson started on his frank movement, having first secured a trusty guide. He moved all day long with as much rapidity as the nature of the country through which he was passing would allow. Anderson and McLaws in front meantime carrying on heavy skirmishing with the enemy, who were busily fortifying, expecting us to assault their men in front. About five o'clock in the evening the roar of Jackson's guns announced that the flank movement was accomplished, and that Stonewall was again thundering in the enemy's rear. Jackson fell upon the enemy a rear, going upon them with their backs turned to his flanking movement. The story of the "Flying Dutchman" and the defeat of Hooker is soon told. In an hour we had driven the enemy at all points and forced them back fully two and a half miles, carrying two of their earthworks of a most formidable character. Night closed with our men masters of the field, and prepared on the coming morning to turn the flight of the preceding evening into a rout. After night fall Jackson rode out in front of his (our) lines in order to make a reconnaissance, with the view of discovering, if possible, a road leading around to United StatesFord, to the end that he might cut the enemy off from retreat by the fords. The sad catastrophe that ensued is known to the country. Jackson fell whilst returning to our lines, the enemy having attempted, in their desperation, to surprise as with a midnight attack. The next morning General J E. B. Stuart assumed command of Jackson's corps, and fought the battle to a successful termination, driving the enemy back at all points, but falling to secure the fords, as Jackson had intended, for the reason that before he took command the enemy had a sufficiency of time to render a move of this sort impossible.

          Let us return for a moment to the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and not the operations there transpiring. On Saturday evening the force of the enemy which crossed to the south bank of the river, recrossed to the north bank and took up the line of march, apparently to reinforce Hooker at Chancellorsville. At the same time a balloon ascended near the Lacey house, on the Stafford side, to observe our movements. Gen. Early seeing the Yankees abandon their lines on his front, and supposing they meet to reach Chancellorsville to aid Hooker, at once ordered his men to move, and started to join Gen. Lee. The Yankees were then enabled, by means of their balling, to discover the force with which we were defending the line at Fredericksburg. As soon as they observed our move from the heights of Stafford, with their balloon, they began to counter march, again threw down their pontoons, and reoccupied their old position about dark of Saturday evening, at the Bernard house, just below Fredericksburg. During Saturday night they also crossed opposite to the town, and, for the first time during this move, occupied it.

          The "dawn's early light" of Sunday, May 3d, found Hooker half whipped and his army considerably demoralized at Chancellorsville. Whilst at Fredericksburg, Early was lying int he trenches confronting Sedgwick's corps, and awaiting his onward move. Soon after day the enemy opened with their artillery from their positions both at Fredericksburg and at the Bernard House. This they kept up until about nine o'clock, when, having massed their troops in front of Marye's Heights, they buried their columns against the stone-wall — the first time unsuccessfully; for Barksdale, the gallant Mississippian, with his band of heroes, met the shock of battle and nobly buried it back. The enemy pause and resort to artifice. A flag of truce is exhibited, and in an evil moment the gallant Colonel (Griffin, of the 18th Miss,) received it. The enemy thus discover that instead of holding the Stonewall with a line of battle, Barksdale's men are so stretched out that they are barely guarding it with a line of skirmishers. A few moments more and another desperate onset of the enemy's forces is made. The stone wall is carried, and the "star spangled banner" waves in triumph over the enemy's much coveted achievement, and our forces retire. Meantime a bloody dream has been enacted at Chancellorsville. The result of which is that Hooker has "forced the rebels" to faith, and "he has retired. " Just as Gen, Lee was about to follow up his victory, and to press the enemy at Chancellorsville, he is informed that the enemy have carried the heights. Sending his courier to Gen. Early, he tells him to do the best he can until three o'clock, and then " I will be with you." The enemy meantime begin to press forward on the plank road, expecting to form a junction with Hooker.Delusive hope! At three o'clock Wilcox's division, having fallen back from Banks's Ford, and being sustained by the rest of Anderson's and McLaws's divisions, engage the enemy at Salem Church and drive them back fully a mile.

           Sunday night closes upon the fields of carnage, with Sedgwick confronting Anderson, McLaws, and Early, at Fredericksburg, whilst Hooker stood opposed by the three divisions of Jackson's corps at Chancellorsville. Early on Monday morning Gordon's brigade, of Early's corps, by a bold charge repossessed themselves of the heights at Fredericksburg. On Monday evening at two o'clock Gen. Lee had intended to have attacked Sedgwick; but by some fatality the attack was not made until five o'clock, and, by the failure of Gen. McLaws (it is said to swing his column around in time and seize Banks's Ford, the enemy, though most gallantly charged and well whipped, succeeded in escaping under cover of night by way of Banks's Ford back to the Stafford heights. On Tuesday General Lee returned with the three division which had been engaged at Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville. A rain storm, however , set in on Tuesday evening, and on Tuesday night Hooker succeeded in recrossing to Stafford by way of U. S.Ford. Thus ended the Chancellorsville fights, in which the "finest army on the planet" was driven back with a loss of nearly ten thousand prisoners and fifteen thousand more in killed and wounded to the enemy. The great faux pas. of these battle was the failure to capture Sedgwick's corps, resulting from our not seizing Banks's Ford. The capture of his whole corps would then have been inevitable, for we held the access to Fredericksburg guarded — Our greatest loss was Stonewall Jackson, of whole death I shall have something to say in my next, as well s a few criticisms on that battle.

150-years-ago -- JOHNSTON ASSUMES COMMAND OF AOT

The Richmond Daily Dispatch

Dec. 28, 1863

Dalton, Ga. Dec.27.

GEN. J.E. Johnston
(CDV, M.D. Jones collection)

          Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and staff arrived here last evening. To day he issued an order assuming command of the Army of Tennessee.

Eleven Yankees captured a short distance from Tunnel Hill yesterday, by a detachment of Kelley's cavalry, were brought here to day.

CONDITIONS IN THE AOT

Thomaston, Ga.

           I resume the pen for the purpose of the public mind of an impression in regard to the future movements of the Army of Tennessee. I allude to the belief, said to be mined very generally in Georgia, that the army was engaged in repairing the route and constructing bridges in the rear with a view to falling back upon Atlanta. Having heard that same was felt upon this subject, I called upon Gen. Hardee before leaving Dalton, and I have his authority for saying that he has not the least thought of retiring from his present position; but on the contrary, if the enemy should advance this winter, which he does not believe they will do, he will dispute every spot of ground from Tunnel Hill to Atlanta. He believes, moreover, that if the will return to duty and the people at home will continue to supply the army with the means of the Federal army will never succeed in reaching Atlanta any move then it has succeeded in reaching Richmond. It is now reported that Gen. Johnston has been assigned to the command of the army, but there is no reason to believe that he will withdraw in the direction of Atlanta of a time when there is no prospect of an advance by the enemy.

          But will Gen Grant make a forward movements this winter? To do so, he must first accumulates large stores of subsistence at or Chattanooga, and procure a fresh supply of horses and wagons to be used in conjunction with the railroad in the transportation of them. To complete these preparations will require, not days nor weeks merely, but months. An army is an immense machine, which can be moved only with much difficulty and expense. In the present instance, Grant would first have to repair the railway bridges at Bridgeport and bring up supplies, increase his terms and wagons, repair the Western and Atlanta railroad as he advanced, and bring with him cars and locomotives to do his transportation. It is known that thousands of his horses perished or were disabled at Chattanooga, and that Wheeler destroyed and captured over a thousand of his teams, and four or five times as many mules and horses, a few days after the battle of Chickamauga. It is known, too, that the Federal army encamped around Chattanooga was reduced to greater extremity for food than the Confederates have ever been, not because they did not have the supplies in the rear, but because they could not get them up. And the recent intelligence that a portion of the army have gone towards Stevenson and Nashville, is all explained, it is believed, by the suggestion that they have been of attributed along the railroad to the rear with a view of lessening the pressure upon Chattanooga, and to greater convenience to supplies. If any troops have been sent to Virginia, they are probably the two Potomac corps which Hooker took to the assistance of Rosecrans, and which he is now returning to the Rappahannock.

          For these reasons, taken in connection with the fact that the enemy has destroyed the Western and Atlantic railroad from Ringgold back to Chickamauga, and the Georgia and East Tennessee road from Cleveland for the distance of several miles towards Dalton, one may safely conclude there will be no forward movement undertaken by the Federal army this winter.

           At last advices, Sherman was at Charleston, Tenn., rebuilding the bridge over the Hiwasse, having abandoned all hope of being able to overtake Longstreet. At Chattanooga, the enemy's forces covered Missionary Ridge and Lookent Mountain, which they had fortified, whilst their videttes were thrown forward along the Chickamauga at all the fords and bridges. The cavalry force which appeared at Lafayette in Walker county, and at Blairsville in Union county, are believed to have been sent out, the one to reconnoitre and the other to procure forage. A raid of any magnitude will hardly be undertaken at this period of the year, when the roads are nearly impassable and the water courses much swollen by the frequent and heavy rains.

            The Confederates have all gone into winter quarters.

Sallust.

150-years-ago -- INVADING YANKEES ON THE RIO GRANDE

Richmond Daily Dispatch

Dec. 21, 1863

 

Northern troops invaded south Texas in Nov.-Dec. 1863.
(Library of Congress)

          Houston,Texas, Nov. 23, (via Summit, Dec. 19)--The following is the latest reliable intelligence received here from the West. It is taken from the Houston Telegraph, of this morning:

          The expedition under Gen. Banks is believed to be about 6,000 strong, composed of the divisions of Gen. Dana and Vandevere. They lost three steamers and four schooners, as well as a considerable amount of stores, munitions of war, and horses, while on the way, and in landing. About half the command are black troops. Davis, with his regiment, about 150 strong, and Haynes, with a Federal commission as Colonel of the 2d Texas cavalry, but with no troops, are along with the expedition. They have a large supply of arms and horse equipments, and design to enlist Mexicans on the Rio Grande, and negroes in the interior as they progress. As soon as information of Banks having landed successfully can be conveyed to Franklin, he and Ord are to enter Texas from Berwick's Bay. The forces are to meet and sweep the country with devastation, as far as they can, sparing neither Unionists nor Secessionists. From Brownsville we learn that Mayor Dye, Bigelow, Palmer, and others, who had claimed to be good citizens, have taken the oath.

Pvt. Simeon J. Crews, Co. F, 7th Tex. Cav.
(Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of
Congress)

             Gen. Cohes assumed command of Brownsville after we left, and claimed to give protection to the people against lawlessness.--He accompanied the Mayor to meet Banks. After giving in their submission to the Federal conqueror, Cones crossed the river, and pronounced against Cortinaz, overthrew his Government, and held the reins of power for twenty-four hours, at the end of which time Cortinaz shot him in the Plaza.

            Saluria,Nov. 18.--The Yankees are advancing in this direction, and gained a foot hold at Aranas Pass on the night of the 16th. They landed a force, supposed to be 3,000 strong, on the lower end of Mustang Island, and marched on foot to the Pass. These troops were conveyed in five sailing vessels, (transports.) On the morning of the 17th they made an attack with their force, five steamers from the sea cooperating. The fort was defended by three small guns and about one hundred men, most of whom were State troops. The engagement lasted two hours and twenty-five minutes, when our troops surrendered, being overwhelmed with numbers. Their loss is not known. The attack began about daylight. The plan of the enemy appears to be to take such points as he can along the coast, with a view of getting a base near his proposed field of operations.--There can be no doubt that he meditates the conquest of the State.