active 19th century William Hewitt

“ A little to the left stood the guns like so many sentinels with their yawning black mouths—we intended to pass them but they looked so devilish that we were afraid and took the longest route to avoid them. We passed the fort and descended the hill, often looking back to see if the guns were following. The moon neared the shore of the sky; the shadows deepened and Celia declared the trees were walking, she being a good elocutionist declaimed—"Night showeth knowledge unto night. There is no speech nor language, their voice is not heard; yet their sound goeth forth to all generations." ”

“ And we at Winchester were at that time ignorant of the changed condition of things at the front; so we lay down to sleep the night before we were to start for Cedar Creek, little dreaming of what was in store for our army there, or of the pregnant events of the coming day. But the dawn of another day has come, and hark! what thunderous sound from the south is that? "'Tis the cannons opening roar." The fair Valley is to be the scene of another day of blood and carnage; the last battle for its possession. ”

“ Previous to our great war it had been supposed that modern times had only one man surely—possibly others—capable of efficiently handling a hundred thousand men—Napoleon Bonaparte. But this mighty conflict was developing more than one man fully able to command that number of men in action; and at least one man capable of having a general supervision over fully a million of men in the field. We were exhibiting to the world new methods of warfare both on land and sea, and showing it that we had the most effective and intelligent soldiers in the world. ”

“ If the war had never come these soldiers many of them, would doubtless never have been convinced of the justifiableness of emancipation in that contingency. But being brought into battle, and thus required to do as best they might, what they could do to settle the issues involved by the knock down argument in its last and dire extremity—the employment of the bludgeon of war; and seeing their comrades falling around them, light quickly struck in on their minds with a telling force. ”

“ Our batteries open their fiercest fire, from hill to hill leap the ponderous black messengers of destruction, the reverberations of half a hundred guns on both sides, brought into action by the endeavor our batteries make to attract the attention of the enemy's ordnance, make earth tremble, and the air roar while we run the fiery gauntlet to reinforce our right. With unbroken lines we march over with steady tread.
(419) The Rebels occupy a woods in whose edge they have as on their right, an admirably impromptu fence barricaded. ”

“ Men saw things differently now; and while the men of the old Twelfth, like many others, gave a sort of superficial disapproval of the conduct of John Brown, deep down in their hearts, in these perilous times which were anew trying men's souls, they felt an admiration for the old hero who died bravely, in an insane attempt to free from bondage a despised race; and hence, they sang with gusto the John Brown war song, as they marched through that town in the Valley which will suggest his name for generations to come. ”

“ In that Wheeling convention every man had to face the same situation. Each one who cast his lot and his vote there on the Union side risked his life, his fortune and his sacred honor on what was then a doubtful result, and against the vast majority of the people of his State, against the seductions of State sovereignty, and often against the strongest influence of family ties. General Curtis had a brother who was colonel of the Twenty-third Virginia Confederate Regiment and was killed at the battle of Slaughter Mountain. ”

“ Thoburn's division across the narrow valley and its charge up the hill upon the enemy's right flank decided the contest in our favor. But for the coming on of night and the broken heavily timbered nature of the country, the famous feat of "bagging" that army—so popular with congressional orators and enthusiastic editors—might have been easily accomplished; for a worse whipped or more utterly demoralized crowd of beaten men never fled from any field." ”

“ Caldwell might have spent all his days, if the times had been peaceful, without ever having changed his views in regard to the matter of making soldiers of negroes, although he is a man of quick perception. But just as it is said of men in a drowning condition that all the events of their past lives come quickly before them; so in time of war and the peril of battle, men's minds are quickened, common-sense asserts itself and men perceive quickly the wisdom or unwisdom of that which in the piping times of peace, they would not see at all. ”

“ Every soldier who served any considerable time in the late war will bear out the assertion that in no kind of civil life during the same length of time could a man hear a tithe of the rumors, startling in purport, that he could hear during the war. So the boys had heard too many rumors to be frightened by this story of the black flag. In a few minutes our regiment was halted, the ranks closed up and formed into line upon the road. This road, it is believed, led north, so as to intersect the road the Rebels were on, a short distance west of Appomattox Court-house. ”

“ The haze subsided and one constellation after another appeared—that bright luminary, the moon, waded her way through now and then gliding behind a cloud, leaving the stars on duty, there appearing with new lustre, covered the battle field with a silver sheet. All nature seemed to be opened to our eyes, and in harmony with the surroundings. ”

“ The trees were full of buds, and their liquid notes filled the air; spotted lizards and little squirrels ran along the fence rails; brown rabbits scurried across the meadows; the partridge called "Bob White;" and the perfume of the honey-suckle scented the air. The fields were covered with wild flowers, tall red poke-berry stalks ornamented the fence corners, and berry bushes were white with blossom. The ravines were covered with dark velvety moss, and silver streams of murmuring water ran zig-zag through clumps of willows. ”

“ Soldiers hardly ever have knowledge before hand of any great military movement in which they are to engage. Sometimes they are precipitated into a hazardous undertaking without a minute's notice. They are even sometimes engaged in important movements without knowing definitely what they are doing. A soldier, who was in McClellan's army in its retreat from the Chickahominy to the James, once related that he thought that all the time they were fighting and marching they were going toward Richmond instead of retreating. ”

“ It is not probable that any other commander in the Union army could have inspired so telling moral effect. When Sheridan reached the line of battle along which he rode swinging his hat, he was hailed by the men with throwing their hats and tempestuous cheering. While his arrival had an encouraging effect on our men, it would tend no doubt to have a discouraging effect on the enemy, causing them to think that our army was getting reinforcements it may be.
(534) Just before Sheridan came upon the field, the Rebels had been repulsed in an attack upon our left made to seize the pike. ”

“ Big as this country is it ought to be too little to give room for any display of honor to the Rebel flag, the Lost Cause, or their champions, dead or alive. Therefore, no soldier who would be faithful to his country and the cause for which he fought should join in any ceremony of decorating Rebel graves, of holding reunions with Rebels, or of putting up monuments to them. ”

“ In fact, there are few if any pursuits in civil life calculated to keep up the tension of excitement like life in a camp of a great army in time of war. On the 9th a soldier who was a deserter and bounty jumper was taken outside the works and shot in the presence of a whole division. The night following three of the Tenth Connecticut Infantry substitutes deserted to the enemy, passing through our lines, where some of the Twelfth were on picket. One of them shot at the deserters, but missed them. ”

“ Sherman, at a Soldiers' reunion, said that it was commendable to decorate Union soldiers' graves, to encourage reunions and to put up soldiers' monuments, as to do these things was to create and nurture a patriotic sentiment. Granting the truth of this, it follows then as the night follows the day that to take part in these or similar ceremonies, when done in honor of or with Rebels distinctively as such, in contradistinction to being Union soldiers or citizens, is to engender and to nurture disloyalty. No Union soldier should do it. ”

“ At Staunton large quantities of the enemy's tobacco had been by authority thrown into the streets. Nearly every man had picked up more than he could conveniently carry and for a day the army might have been tracked by the tobacco plugs strewn along the road. When seven miles on the road toward Lexington a courier came to us bearing the news that a large wagon train was coming with coffee and sugar for us, and that Grant had driven Lee inside of his intrenchments around Richmond. ”

“ Ely of the Eighteenth Connecticut, commanding the brigade, noticing the men commanded them: "Keep in ranks, men, it is no time to be gathering black berries." In truth it was not the most propitious time imaginable for that purpose. It seems that anything said or done at all noticeable in a critical and perilous time is apt to make a strong impression and be remembered, and the boys for some days afterward were in the habit of repeating the Colonel's command, "Keep in ranks men, it is no-o-o time to be gathering blackberries." ”

“ Here is an incident which it may be thought should have a place here: On our return down the Valley, perhaps at New Market, a woman stuck her head out of a house and shouted, "You're running again are you?" It appears that the boys received this taunt good-naturedly no doubt thinking that it was a pretty good joke. The average American is proverbially good-natured; and can often enjoy a sarcasm or joke at his own expense. ”

“ Before any of our boys had ever been prisoners, some of them used sometimes to threaten, when it was difficult to get furloughs, that they would, when a chance offered allow themselves to be taken prisoners, expecting in that case to be soon paroled and then sent home from the camp, as paroled prisoners on furlough. But after the prisoners returned to the regiment, having had a taste of prison life among the Rebels, and related its hardships to their comrades there was no longer any talk among the boys of allowing themselves to be captured in order that they might in that way get a furlough. ”

“ The failure of the government to fully measure the task of the suppression of the Rebellion prolonged the war through four years, seriously jeopardized the result, and caused the sacrifice of a million of men, and the expenditure of many millions of money to finally suppress it, which otherwise might have been accomplished with one-tenth of the cost of men and money. Twenty thousand more men on the Union side at Bull Run, for instance, which additional number could easily have been had, would probably have gained the day there, and put an end to the war. ”

“ Now when a stranger appeared in camp in citizens' dress, that fact was sufficient to excite in the minds of the soldiers a suggestion of a possible spy in the person of the stranger; and Mosby being an ever present bugbear in the minds of the soldiers, his name would naturally be associated with that of the stranger. So when the Wheeling man appeared on the streets of the camp wearing his plug hat, the boys raised a general yell of Mosby! Mosby! Mosby mingled with some remarks about the plug hat. Men can stand almost anything better than derision, especially when it comes from a great crowd ”

“ G. B. Caldwell, who was adjutant of the Twelfth till the winter of 1864-5, in his eulogium upon Col. Curtis at the reunion of the Society of the Army of West Virginia in 1891, says in regard to the order to Col. Curtis to halt his brigade: "But American soldiers are men of intelligence. With one mind they thought they were more certain to be shot down if they turned their backs than if they went on. ”

“ I talked to him and asked him if he had not been lost, and he said he had and impressed his delight in getting back to camp, for he wanted to go the next night on that expedition to blow up Back Creek bridge "and send a lot of Yankees to hell," expecting by blowing up the bridge to cause the Baltimore and Ohio railroad train to pitch headlong into the creek, as it thundered along, with all on board unconscious of their danger, and thus cause great loss of life. ”

“ Curtis was put in command of a brigade, McCord was appointed adjutant general on the colonel's staff. The lieutenant had relations living all during the war within the Rebel lines, and he would hear, through letters from them occasionally. He came to believe and so expressed himself during the last year of the war, that the Rebels would never be conquered. Doubtless the die-in-the-last-ditch spirit breathed in those letters was responsible for that belief. He never gave up that idea until the morning of Lee's surrender. ”

“ Enterprising soldiers would trade bread for meal and get more meal than made the bread. Sometimes a soldier would be heard asking "Who will trade a bone for meat?" Those who wanted bones claimed that by breaking, boiling and making soup of them they got more nourishment from them than they could get from the meat. Some of our men would even make bargains with a sentry, although, of course, it was not allowed. They would give him money to buy something which he would perhaps do and give it to the prisoner furnishing the money, the next time he, the guard was on duty. ”

“ Sigel rode up to the eight companies of the Twelfth and ordered it into column by division to resist the charge; but when the charge was repulsed, we were put into line again, and ordered to lie down. The Twelfth had a bad position. We were placed where we could do no good and yet where we suffered seriously, a more trying position on a soldier than where he has a chance to return the fire. There are no data at hand showing the loss of the regiment, but the compiler's own company lost in killed and wounded seven men in this engagement. ”

“ Arriving at the headquarters of Gen. Mulligan on New Creek, Va., we were assigned quarters in a big building, which we subsequently discovered was occupied as a barracks by the soldiers, and we awoke during the night to find the room filled with men. Celia was greatly excited, but I calmed her fears and tucking our heads under the quilt we weathered the storm until the soldiers filed out in the morning. Mulligan furnished us with a pass into the rebel lines, and assured us he had personal friends among the Confederates, who would see that we were properly treated. ”

“ Curtis says that when Sheridan passing to the front came to where our brigade was noticed the demoralized stragglers, he rode up to them, and standing straight in his stirrups and gritting his teeth as he looked at them, shouted at the top of his voice: "Boys if you don't want to fight yourselves, come back and look at others fighting. We will whip them out of their boots before 4 o'clock." He then ordered Col. Curtis to organize the stragglers into a battalion put officers in command of them and move immediately to the front with his entire force. ”

“ They were a hardy, robust, vigorous, self-reliant class of men, mainly from the farming districts, of more than average size, many of them mountaineers. They enlisted under trying and embarrassing circumstances, and in great measure from patriotic impulses, their surroundings and circumstances in many cases tending to lead them to join their fortunes with the Rebel cause. It was a common thing for a West Virginia Union soldier to have friends and relatives in the Rebel army, and in some cases for brother to fight against brother. ”

“ The regiment proceeded to the point designated and went into camp along the line of fence. One of the young men of the family came to us while arrangements were making for camping. He looked as though he had just left Mosby's gang of guerrillas. The Colonel approached him and inquired if he could procure some straw for the men to sleep on, stating that the ground was damp and cold, and he would like to make them as comfortable as possible since they had no tents or shelter of any kind. He replied: "No, we have nothing of the kind on the farm. ”

“ Hunter was a large dark visaged stern man of severe aspect; a man not at all of a sympathetic genial disposition, who was calculated to win the personal attachment of men generally. He was not only severe in appearance but he was really so. On one occasion on the march to Lynchburg, a man was noticed as the army passed by, tied up to a tree by order of Gen. Hunter it was said. It is not remembered that any other general under whom the Twelfth served ever punished a soldier in like manner, by direct personal order. ”

“ It was so cold that New Year's night that, it was so reported, six of the First New York cavalry's teamsters were frozen to death. This same night a part of the Sixth corps passed by Harpers Ferry on the railroad on its way from the Army of the Potomac to Martinsburg, and through the day (the second) a brigade of the same corps got off the cars here and went out to Halltown, some four miles distant. No doubt, Early's movement down the Valley had caused these troops to be sent to his department. ”

“ All evening could you see Union soldiers feeding wounded Rebels, and food was scarce with us then, having to come all in the shape of forage. In every regiment a number of instances can be given of such treachery as above. Could any contrast be greater?
(425) The day after the fight we came to this place. I wish that some of our copperheads, who have "nigger on the brain" could come here. You have heard that southern people are darkened by their sun. One can hardly tell which are the whites—not that the whites are so black, but that the blacks are so white. Miscegenation is played out. ”