Читать книгу Campfire and Battlefield - John Clark Ridpath - Страница 13

Like the governor of Kentucky, Gov. Thomas H. Hicks, of Maryland, had at first protested against the passage of troops, had dreamed of making the State neutral, and had even gone so far as to suggest to the Administration that the British Minister at Washington be asked to mediate between it and the Confederates. But, unlike Governor Magoffin, he ultimately came out in favor of the Union. The Legislature would not adopt an ordinance of secession, nor call a convention for that purpose; but it passed a bill establishing a board of public safety, giving it extraordinary authority over the military powers of the State, and appointed as such board six secessionists and the governor. A tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon the State. One of her poets, in a ringing rhyme to a popular air, told her that the despot's heel was on her shore, and predicted that she would speedily "spurn the Northern scum," while the Vice-President of the Confederacy felt so sure of her acquisition that in a speech (April 30) he triumphantly announced that she "had resolved, to a man, to stand by the South." But Reverdy Johnson and other prominent Marylanders were quite as bold and active for the national cause. A popular Union Convention was held in Baltimore; General Butler with his troops restored the broken communications and held the important centres; and under a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus some of the more violent secessionists were imprisoned. The release of the citizens was demanded by Chief-Justice Taney, of the United States Supreme Court, who declared that the President had no right to suspend the writ; but his demand was refused. In May the Governor called for four regiments of volunteers to fill the requisition of the National Government, but requested that they might be assigned to duty in the State. So Maryland remained in the Union, though a considerable number of her citizens entered the ranks of the Confederate army.

In the mountainous regions of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, where few slaves were held, there was a strong Union element. In other portions of those States there were many enthusiastic secessionists. But in each State there was a majority against disunion. North Carolina voted on the question of calling a convention to consider the subject, and by a small majority decided for "no convention." Tennessee, on a similar vote, showed a majority of fifty thousand against calling a convention. After the fall of Sumter Gov. John W. Ellis, of North Carolina, seized the branch mint at Charlotte and the arsenal at Fayetteville, and called an extra session of the Legislature. This Legislature authorized him to tender the military resources of the State to the Confederate Government, and called a convention to meet May 20th, which passed an ordinance of secession by a unanimous vote. The conservative or Union party of Tennessee issued an address on the 18th of April, in which they declared their approval of the Governor's refusal to furnish troops for the national defence, and condemned both secession and coercion, holding that Tennessee should take an independent attitude. This, with the excitement of the time, was enough for the Legislature. In secret session it authorized Gov. Isham G. Harris, who was a strong secessionist, to enter into a military league with the Confederate Government, which he immediately did. It also passed an ordinance of secession, to be submitted to a popular vote on the 8th of June. Before that day came, the State was in the possession of Confederate soldiers, and a majority of over fifty thousand was obtained for secession. East Tennessee had voted heavily against the ordinance; and a convention held at Greenville, June 17, wherein thirty-one of the eastern counties were represented, declared, for certain plainly specified reasons, that it "did not regard the result of the election as expressive of the will of a majority of the freemen of Tennessee." Later, the people of those counties asked to be separated peaceably from the rest of the State and allowed to remain in the Union; but the Confederate authorities did not recognize the principle of secession from secession, and the people of that region were subjected to a bloody and relentless persecution, before which many of them fled from their homes. The most prominent of the Unionists were Andrew Johnson and the Rev. William G. Brownlow.

COMMISSARY QUARTERS.

CULINARY DEPARTMENT.

That portion of the Old Dominion which lay west of the Alleghany Mountains held in 1860 but one-twelfth as many slaves in proportion to its white population as the remainder of the State. And when Virginia passed her ordinance of secession, all but nine of the fifty-five votes against it were cast by delegates from the mountainous western counties. The people of these counties, having little interest in slavery and its products, and great interests in iron, coal and lumber, the market for which was in the free States, while their streams flowed into the Ohio, naturally objected to being dragged into the Confederacy. Like the people of East Tennessee, they wanted to secede from secession, and one of their delegates actually proposed it in the convention. In less than a month (May 13) after the passage of the ordinance, a Union convention was held at Wheeling, in which twenty-five of the western counties were represented; and ten days later, when the election was held, these people voted against seceding. The State authorities sent recruiting officers over the mountains, but they had little success. Some forces were gathered, under the direction of Gen. Robert E. Lee and under the immediate command of Colonel Porterfield, who began burning the bridges on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Meanwhile Capt. George B. McClellan had been made a general and placed in command of Ohio troops. With four regiments he crossed the Ohio on the 26th and went in pursuit of the enemy. His movement at first was retarded by the burned bridges; but these were repaired, large reinforcements were brought over, and in small but brilliant engagements—at Philippi and at Rich Mountain—he completely routed the Confederates.

At Philippi the Confederates were completely surprised by Colonels Kelley and Dumont, and beat so hasty a retreat that the affair received the local name of the "Philippi races." The victory at Rich Mountain was the first instance of the capture by either side of a military position regularly approached and defended. A pass over this mountain was regarded as so important that all the Confederate troops that could be spared were sent to defend it, under command of Gen. Robert S. Garnett with Colonel Pegram to assist him. The position was so strong that a front attack was avoided, and its speedy capture resulted from a flank attack skilfully planned and successfully executed by Gen. W. S. Rosecrans. On the retreat up the Cheat River Valley General Garnett was killed, and Pegram, with a considerable number of his men, surrendered to McClellan.

The importance of this affair at Rich Mountain was really slight, notwithstanding it was successful in securing to the Union army a footing on this frontier that was not afterward seriously disturbed. But the significance of the action of July 11, and the campaign which it terminated, lies in the instant popularity and prominence it gave to General McClellan. He reported the victory in a Napoleonic despatch, announcing the annihilation of "two armies, commanded by educated and experienced soldiers, intrenched in mountain fastnesses fortified at their leisure;" and concluding, "Our success is complete, and secession is killed in this country." McClellan's failure to accomplish more in this campaign has been indicated by military critics, but at the time nothing obscured the brilliancy of the victory. The people took his own estimate of it, and "Little Mac," the young Napoleon, became a popular hero. The Government also took his view of it; and after the defeat at Bull Run, a few days later, he was given the command of the Army of the Potomac, and in the autumn succeeded to the command of the Armies of the United States.

Delegates from the counties west of the Alleghanies met at Wheeling (June 11), pronounced the acts of the Richmond convention null and void, declared all the State offices vacant, and reorganized the Government, with Francis H. Pierpont as governor. A legislature, consisting of members that had been chosen on the 23d of May, met at Wheeling on the 1st of July, and on the 9th it elected two United States senators. The new State of Kanawha was formally declared created in August. Its constitution was ratified by the people in May, 1862, and in December of that year it was admitted into the Union. But, meanwhile, its original and appropriate name had been exchanged for that of West Virginia.

The victory at Rich Mountain, announced in McClellan's triumphant and resounding words, came in good time to arrest the depression caused by an unfortunate affair of a few weeks before, at Big Bethel, on June 10th; though the popular clamor for aggressive warfare did not cease, but was even now driving the army into a premature advance on Manassas and the battle of Bull Run, for which the preparations were inadequate.

GENERAL BEN McCULLOCH, C. S. A.	GENERAL J. B. MAGRUDER, C. S. A.	GENERAL STERLING PRICE, C. S. A.

BATTLE OF BIG BETHEL, VIRGINIA, JUNE 10, 1861.

Big Bethel has been called the first battle of the war, though it was subsequent to the affair of the "Philippi races," and at a later day would not have been called a battle at all. But among its few casualties there were numbered the deaths of Major Theodore Winthrop and the youthful Lieut. John T. Greble, and the painful impression caused by these losses converted the affair into a tragic national calamity. The movement was a conception of Gen. B. F. Butler's, who commanded at Fortress Monroe. Annoyed by the aggressions of a body of Confederates, under General Magruder, encamped at Little Bethel, eight miles north of Newport News, he sent an expedition to capture them. It consisted of Col. Abram Duryea's Fifth New York Zouaves, with Lieut.-Col. (afterward General) Gouverneur K. Warren second in command (the Confederates greatly feared these "red-legged devils," as they dubbed them), Col. Frederick Townsend's Third New York, Colonel Bendix's Seventh New York Volunteers, the First and Second New York, and detachments from other regiments, with two field-pieces worked by regulars under Lieutenant Greble; Gen. E. W. Pierce in command. Duryea's Zouaves were sent forward to attack from the rear; but a dreadful mistake of identity led Bendix's men to fire into Townsend's regiment, as these commands approached each other, which brought Duryea back to participate in the supposed engagement in his rear, and destroyed the chance of surprising the rebel camp. The Confederates abandoned Little Bethel, and took a strong position at Big Bethel, where they easily repulsed the attack that was made, and pursued the retreating Unionists until checked by the Second New York Regiment.

An important preliminary to the battle of Bull Run was the operations about Harper's Ferry in June and July, resulting, as they did, in the release from that point of a strong Confederate reinforcement, which joined Beauregard at Bull Run at a critical time, and turned the fortunes of the day against the Union army.

Harper's Ferry, as we have seen, had been occupied by a Confederate force under Stonewall Jackson, who became subordinate to the superior rank of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston when that officer arrived on the scene. On both sides a sentimental importance was given to the occupation of Harper's Ferry, which was not warranted by its significance as a military stronghold. It did, indeed, afford a control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, so long as the position could be maintained. But it derived its importance in the public mind from the fact that it had been chosen by John Brown as the scene of his projected negro uprising in 1859, and was presumed from that to be a natural fortress, a sort of Gibraltar, which, once gained, could be held forever by a small though determined body of men. The Confederate Government and military staff at Richmond so regarded it, and they warned General Johnston that he must realize, in defending it, that its abandonment would be depressing to the cause of the South. General Patterson, whose army gathered in Pennsylvania was to attack it, impressed on the War Department the paramount importance of a victory, and predicted that the first great battle of the war, the results of which would be decisive in the contest, would be fought at Harper's Ferry. He begged for the means of success, and offered his life as the price of a failure on his part. The Washington authorities, though they did not exact the penalty, took him at his word as to the men and means required, and furnished him with between eighteen and twenty-two thousand men (variously estimated), sending him such commanders as Major-General Sandford, of New York (who generously waived his superior rank, and accepted a subordinate position), Fitz John Porter, George Cadwalader, Charles P. Stone, and others. Both sides, then, prepared for action at Harper's Ferry, as for a mighty struggle over an important strategic position.

The Confederates were the first to realize that this was an error. However desirable it might be to hold Harper's Ferry as the key to the Baltimore and Ohio, and to Maryland, General Johnston quickly discovered that, while it was secure enough against an attack in front, across the Potomac, it was an easy capture for a superior force that should cross the river above or below it, and attack it from the Virginia side. For its defence, his force of six thousand five hundred men would not suffice against Patterson's twenty thousand, and he requested permission to withdraw to Winchester, twenty miles to the southwest. This suggestion was most unpalatable to the Confederate authorities, who understood well that the popular interpretation of the movement would be detrimental to the cause. But the fear that McClellan would join Patterson from West Virginia, and that the loss of an army of six thousand five hundred would be even more depressing than a retreat, they reluctantly consented to Johnston's plan. He destroyed everything at Harper's Ferry that could be destroyed, on June 13th and 14th; and when Patterson, after repeated promptings from Washington, arrived there on the 15th, he found no determined enemy and no mighty battle awaiting him, but only the barren victory of an unopposed occupation of a ruined and deserted camp.

A RAILROAD BATTERY.