Richard Taylor

“ A gentleman, one of the most distinguished and dashing officers of the United States army, General Hancock recognizes both the great duties of a soldier of the Republic—to defend its flag and obey its laws, discharging the last with a fidelity equal to his devotion to the first in front of battle. ”

“ In the full vigor of mature manhood, erect, alert, quick, and decisive of speech, General Johnston was the beau ideal of a soldier. Without the least proneness to blandishments, he gained and held the affection and confidence of his men. Brave and impetuous in action, he had been often wounded, and no officer of the general staff of the old United States army had seen so much actual service with troops. During the Mexican war he was permitted to take command of a voltigeur regiment, and rendered brilliant service. ”

“ We took the route by which the troops had marched, the din of conflict increasing with every mile, the rattle of small arms mingling with the thud of guns. After weary hours of rough road, every jolt on which threatened to destroy my remaining vitality, we approached Cold Harbor and met numbers of wounded. Among these was General Elzey, with a dreadful wound in the head and face. His aide was taking him to the rear in an ambulance, and, recognizing Tom, stopped a moment to tell of the fight. Ewell's division, to which Elzey and I belonged, had just been engaged with heavy loss. ”

“ Before Maury left Mobile I had learned of Lee's surrender, rumors of which spreading among the troops, a number from the neighboring camps came to see me. I confirmed the rumor, and told them the astounding news, just received, of President Lincoln's assassination. For a time they were silent with amazement, then asked if it was possible that any Southern man had committed the act. There was a sense of relief expressed when they learned that the wretched assassin had no connection with the South, but was an actor, whose brains were addled by tragedies and Plutarch's fables. ”

“ Living on horseback, fearless and dashing, the men of the South afforded the best possible material for cavalry. They had every quality but discipline, and resembled Prince Charming, whose manifold gifts, bestowed by her sisters, were rendered useless by the malignant fairy. Scores of them wandered about the country like locusts, and were only less destructive to their own people than the enemy. The universal devotion of Southern women to their cause led them to give indiscriminately to all wearing the gray. ”

“ Instead of intrusting the important attack by my right to a subordinate, I should have conducted it myself and taken Polignac's division to sustain it. True, this would have removed my reserve from the center and line of retreat, and placed it on a flank; but I was confident that the enemy had no intention of resuming the offensive, and should have acted on that conviction. All this flashed upon me the instant I learned of the disorder of my right. Herein lies the vast difference between genius and commonplace: one anticipates errors, the other discovers them too late. ”

“ He once observed, in reply to an allusion to his severe marching, that it was better to lose one man in marching than five in fighting; and, acting on this, he invariably surprised the enemy—Milroy at McDowell, Banks and Fremont in the Valley, McClellan's right at Cold Harbor, Pope at second Manassas.
Fortunate in his death, he fell at the summit of glory, before the sun of the Confederacy had set, ere defeat, and suffering, and selfishness could turn their fangs upon him. As one man, the South wept for him; foreign nations shared the grief; even Federals praised him. ”

“ The clear, pure atmosphere brought the Blue Ridge and Alleghany and Massanutten almost overhead. Even the cloud of murderous smoke from the guns above made beautiful spirals in the air, and the broad fields of luxuriant wheat glistened with dew. It is remarkable how, in the midst of the most absorbing cares, one's attention may be fixed by some insignificant object, as mine was by the flight past the line of a bluebird, one of the brightest-plumaged of our feathered tribes, bearing a worm in his beak, breakfast for his callow brood. ”

“ Purified by fire and sword, the South has escaped many of these evils; but her enemies have sown the seeds of a pestilence more deadly than that rising from Pontine marshes. Now that Federal bayonets have been turned from her bosom, this poison, the influence of three fourths of a million of negro voters, will speedily ascend and sap her vigor and intelligence. Greed of office, curse of democracies, will impel demagogues to grovel deeper and deeper in the mire in pursuit of ignorant votes. ”

“ The leaders of the radical masses of the North have inflicted such countless and cruel wrongs on the Southern people as to forbid any hope of disposition or ability to forgive their victims; and the land will have no rest until the last of these persecutors has passed into oblivion.
During all these years the conduct of the Southern people has been admirable. Submitting to the inevitable, they have shown fortitude and dignity, and rarely has one been found base enough to take wages of shame from the oppressor and maligner of his brethren. ”

“ The war was for principles and rights, and it was in defense of these, as well as of their property, that the people had taken up arms. They could always be relied on when a battle was imminent; but, when no fighting was to be done, they had best be at home attending to their families and interests. As their intelligence was equal to their patriotism, they were as capable of judging of the necessity of their presence with the colors as the commanders of armies, who were but professional soldiers fighting for rank and pay, and most of them without property in the South. ”

“ Johnston was forced back to Atlanta and relieved from command, and Atlanta fell. Not even an effective demonstration was made toward Arkansas and Missouri to prevent troops from being sent to reënforce Thomas at Nashville, and Hood was overthrown. Sherman marched unopposed through Georgia and South Carolina, while Lee's gallant army wasted away from cold and hunger in the trenches at Petersburg. Like Augustus in the agony of his spirit, the sorely pressed Confederates on the east of the Mississippi asked, and asked in vain: "Varus! Varus! Where are our legions?" ”

“ Jackson, a Valley man by reason of his residence at Lexington, south of Staunton, was their hero and idol. The women sent husbands, sons, lovers, to battle as cheerfully as to marriage feasts. No oppression, no destitution could abate their zeal. Upon a march I was accosted by two elderly sisters, who told me they had secreted a large quantity of bacon in a well on their estate, hard by. Federals had been in possession of the country, and, fearing the indiscretion of their slaves, they had done the work at night with their own hands, and now desired to give the meat to their people. ”

“ In movement each person finds his liberty of action merged in a crowd, ignorant and incapable of direction. Every obstacle creates confusion, speedily converted into panic by opposition. The heroic defenders of Saragossa could not for a moment have faced a battalion of French infantry in the open field. Osman's solitary attempt to operate outside of Plevna met with no success; and the recent defeat of Moukhtar may be ascribed to incaution in taking position too far from his line of defense, where, when attacked, manœuvres of which his people were incapable became necessary. ”

“ During my service west of the Mississippi River, I sent for the colonel of a mounted regiment from western Texas, a land of herdsmen, and asked him if he could furnish men to hunt and drive in cattle. "Why! bless you, sir, I have men who can find cattle where there aint any," was his reply. Whatever were poor Davis's abilities as to non-existent supplies, he could find all the country afforded, and had a wonderful way of cajoling old women out of potatoes, cabbages, onions, and other garden stuff, giving variety to camp rations, and of no small importance in preserving the health of troops. ”

“ Applying the theory of the detective police, that among the beneficiaries of crime must be sought the perpetrators, one would conclude that the radical leaders prompted the assassination of Lincoln and the murder of negroes; for they alone derived profit from these acts.
From this time forth the entire white race of the South devoted itself to the killing of negroes. It appeared to be an inherent tendency in a slave-driver to murder a negro. It was a law of his being, as of the monkey's to steal nuts, and could not be resisted. Thousands upon thousands were slain. ”

“ Couriers and staff officers were sent to implore him to return and reap the fruits of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, whose price had been paid in blood. Not a man was sent me; even the four-gun battery with Liddell on the north of the river was, without my knowledge, withdrawn toward Arkansas. From first to last, General Kirby Smith seemed determined to throw a protecting shield around the Federal army and fleet.
In all the ages since the establishment of the Assyrian monarchy no commander has possessed equal power to destroy a cause. ”

“ Recent events on the Mississippi made it necessary to concentrate my small force in the immediate valley of Red River. Indeed, when we lost Vicksburg and Port Hudson, we lost not only control of the river but of the valley from the Washita and Atchafalaya on the west to Pearl River on the east. An army of forty odd thousand men, with all its material, was surrendered in the two places, and the fatal consequences were felt to the end of the struggle. The policy of shutting up large bodies of troops in fortifications, without a relieving army near at hand, can not be too strongly reprobated. ”

“ The two senior Confederate generals, politicians rather than warriors, retired from command on the approach of the enemy. One can imagine the effect of such conduct, unique in war, on the raw troops left behind. General Buckner, an educated soldier, was too heavily handicapped by his worthy superiors to make a successful defense, and General Grant secured an easy victory. "Among the blind, the one-eyed are kings." ”

“ His fall was inevitable; the affection of the army but hastened it; even victory could not save him. He adopted the habit of saying, "My army," "My soldiers." Such phraseology may be employed by a Frederick or Napoleon, sovereigns as well as generals; but officers command the armies of their governments. General McClellan is an upright, patriotic man, incapable of wrong-doing, and has a high standard of morality, to which he lives more closely than most men do to a lower one; but it is to be remembered that the examples of the good are temptations and opportunities to the unscrupulous. ”

“ The second was to imagine while on the march an enemy before me to be attacked, or to be received in my position, and make the necessary dispositions for either contingency. My imaginary manœuvres were sad blunders, but I corrected them by experience drawn from actual battles, and can safely affirm that such slight success as I had in command was due to these customs. Assuredly, a knowledge of details will not make a great general; but there can be no greatness in war without [Pg 41] such knowledge, for genius is but a capacity to grasp and apply details. ”

“ We speedily came in sight of Front Royal, but the enemy had taken the alarm, and his men were scurrying over the bridge to their camp, where troops could be seen forming. The situation of the village is surpassingly beautiful. It lies near the east bank of the Shenandoah, which just below unites all its waters, and looks directly on the northern peaks of Massanutten. The Blue Ridge, with Manassas Gap, through which passes the railway, overhangs it on the east; distant Alleghany bounds the horizon to the west; and down the Shenandoah, the eye ranges over a fertile, well-farmed country. ”

“ The Louisiana brigade marched from its camp near Conrad's [Pg 78] store, to join Jackson at Newmarket, on the 21st of May. In twenty days it marched over two hundred miles, fought in five actions, of which three were severe, and several skirmishes, and, though it had suffered heavy loss in officers and men, was yet strong, hard as nails, and full of confidence. I have felt it a duty to set forth the achievements of the brigade, than which no man ever led braver into action, in their proper light, because such reputation as I gained in this campaign is to be ascribed to its excellence. ”

“ I was informed that all the Confederate authorities in the east were urgent for some effort on our part in behalf of Vicksburg, and that public opinion would condemn us if we did not try to do something. To go two hundred miles and more away from the proper theatre of action in search of an indefinite something was hard; but orders are orders. Time was so important that I determined to run the risk of moving Walker by river, though the enemy could bring gunboats into the lower Red and Washita, as well as into the Tensas, and had some troops in the region between this last and the Mississippi. ”

“ Radical wrath uprose and swept these Northern men out of political existence, and they were again taught the lesson that is ever forgotten, namely, that it is an easy task to inflame the passions of the multitude, an impossible one to arrest them. From selfish ambition, from thoughtless zeal, from reckless partisanship, from the low motives governing demagogues in a country of universal suffrage, men are ever sowing the wind, thinking they can control the whirlwind ”

“ With our limited resources of transportation, it was a slow business to forward troops to Johnston in North Carolina; but at length it was accomplished, and the month of March came round to raise the curtain for the last act of the bloody drama. Two clouds appeared on the horizon of my department. General Canby, a steady soldier, whom I had long known, had assumed command of all the Federal forces in the southwest, and was concentrating fifty thousand men at Fort Morgan and Pensacola against Mobile. In northern Alabama General Wilson had ten thousand picked mounted men ready for an expedition. ”

“ Thus, much in its own despite, the North obtained armies and the foundation of success. The correctness of the system adopted by McClellan proved equal to all emergencies, and remained unchanged until the close of the war. Disappointed in his hands, and suffering painful defeats in those of his immediate successors, the "Army of the Potomac" always recovered, showed itself a vital organism, and finally triumphed. McClellan organized victory for his section, and those who deem the preservation of the "Union" the first of earthly duties should not cease to do him reverence. ”