“From the far-off conquered citiesComes the voice of a stifled wail,And the shrieks and moans of the houselessRing out, like a dirge, on the gale!“I’ve seen, from the smoking village,Our mothers and daughters fly!I’ve seen, where the little childrenSank down in the furrows, to die!“On the banks of the battle-stained riverI stood, as the moonlight shone,And it glared on the face of my brother,As the sad wave swept him on!“Where my home was glad, are ashes,And horror and shame had been there;For I found, on the fallen lintel,This tress of my wife’s torn hair!“With halter, and torch, and Bible,And hymns, to the sound of the drum,They preach the gospel of murder,And pray for lust’s kingdom to come!”
“From the far-off conquered citiesComes the voice of a stifled wail,And the shrieks and moans of the houselessRing out, like a dirge, on the gale!“I’ve seen, from the smoking village,Our mothers and daughters fly!I’ve seen, where the little childrenSank down in the furrows, to die!“On the banks of the battle-stained riverI stood, as the moonlight shone,And it glared on the face of my brother,As the sad wave swept him on!“Where my home was glad, are ashes,And horror and shame had been there;For I found, on the fallen lintel,This tress of my wife’s torn hair!“With halter, and torch, and Bible,And hymns, to the sound of the drum,They preach the gospel of murder,And pray for lust’s kingdom to come!”
“From the far-off conquered citiesComes the voice of a stifled wail,And the shrieks and moans of the houselessRing out, like a dirge, on the gale!
“From the far-off conquered cities
Comes the voice of a stifled wail,
And the shrieks and moans of the houseless
Ring out, like a dirge, on the gale!
“I’ve seen, from the smoking village,Our mothers and daughters fly!I’ve seen, where the little childrenSank down in the furrows, to die!
“I’ve seen, from the smoking village,
Our mothers and daughters fly!
I’ve seen, where the little children
Sank down in the furrows, to die!
“On the banks of the battle-stained riverI stood, as the moonlight shone,And it glared on the face of my brother,As the sad wave swept him on!
“On the banks of the battle-stained river
I stood, as the moonlight shone,
And it glared on the face of my brother,
As the sad wave swept him on!
“Where my home was glad, are ashes,And horror and shame had been there;For I found, on the fallen lintel,This tress of my wife’s torn hair!
“Where my home was glad, are ashes,
And horror and shame had been there;
For I found, on the fallen lintel,
This tress of my wife’s torn hair!
“With halter, and torch, and Bible,And hymns, to the sound of the drum,They preach the gospel of murder,And pray for lust’s kingdom to come!”
“With halter, and torch, and Bible,
And hymns, to the sound of the drum,
They preach the gospel of murder,
And pray for lust’s kingdom to come!”
The reports of the Confederate Committees were made long before the blackest hours of the Confederacy—long before the “march to the sea.” There is far more behind; more than can ever be told. Far be it from any of us to indict a whole people, or condemn every Northern soldier. There were, indeed, shining instances of kindness and even gentleness. But the incongruous character of the elements of which the Northern army was composed must be taken into account. It was not, perhaps, reasonable to expect that they would behave in the South as the Confederate army behaved in Pennsylvania. Doubtless the officers of the Northern army, and many of the men as well, are heartily ashamed of the conduct of their comrades. But this will not, and cannot, alter the fact. This fact it is indispensable to mention. Some hint of the atrocities of the blackguards and bullies in uniform must be given, or the record of “Our Women in the War” will be partial and incomplete.
But if there were any doubt as to the power and influence of the women of the Confederacy, that doubt would be set at rest by the full and honorable recognition they received at the hands of the victorious enemy. Long after Lee and Johnston and Kirby Smith had surrendered, officers in the uniform of the United States Army were engaged in seeking out and paroling the women in every city and town and hamlet in the South.
The Government did not feel safe until the mothers and daughters and wives of the Confederate soldiers had taken the oath ofallegiance, along with the rest of the devoted army that had fought the North for four years. How to reach them in their strongholds, their homes, was the first question, but it was soon solved. Communication with absent loved ones, by mail or express, was cut off, and a woman or girl, of military age, was not allowed to take a letter out of the post office until she had sworn to cease the struggle so far as she was individually concerned. In other cases, where the family supplies had been taken for the use of the Federal soldiers, or had been wantonly destroyed, the alternative was presented of seeing their little ones suffer from hunger or of themselves accepting the hated obligation as a condition precedent to obtaining food for them. It is not necessary to go far for the proof of this assertion. With incredible blindness of perception—in almost providential ignorance of the damning character of his work—a Northern artist, the sculptor Rodgers, seized upon this novel feature of the situation, when peace had been declared, and has perpetuated in one of his familiar household groups the fact of the administration of the oath by a Federal officer to a Southern woman—the barrel of Government provisions, the empty basket, and leering negro boy, enjoying the humiliation of his mistress, constituting the remaining elements of the picture.
There is high satisfaction in the knowledge that the soldiers and statesmen of the South were not unmindful of the services of the Southern women, and freely gave expression to their appreciation of their myriad acts of devotion. In the breast of every Confederate soldier there was a feeling of gratitude which grew more intense from campaign to campaign, and that can never be effaced. Nor was official recognition ever wanting.
The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States placed on record the thanks of the country to the women of the South for their works of patriotism and public charity, and declared that the Government owed them “a public acknowledgment of their faithfulness in the glorious work of effecting our independence.”
President Davis in his message to Congress in January, 1863, spoke of “our noble and devoted women, without whose sublime sacrifices our success would have been impossible.”
Stonewall Jackson, the right arm of Lee, in a letter written in 1862 to Mrs. Mary Tucker Magill, said: “Be assured that I feel a deep and abiding interest inour female soldiers. They are patriots in the truest sense of the word, and I more than admire them.”
Indeed, the narrative of the behavior of the Southern women is an integral part of the history of the war itself, and, whenever it shall be worthily written, will form its most touching and inspiring chapter.
George Cary Eggleston, in “A Rebel’s Recollections,” which was published some years ago, gives an admirable exposition of the constancy of our women. “They could hardly,” he says, “have been more desperately in earnest than their husbands and brothers and sons were in the prosecution of the war, but with their woman-natures they gave themselves wholly to the cause, and, having loved it heartily when it gave promise of a sturdy life, they almost worship it now that they have strewn its bier with funeral flowers. To doubt its righteousness, or to falter in their loyalty to it while it lived, would have been treason and infidelity; to do the like now that it is dead would be to them little less than sacrilege. * * * When they lost a husband, or son, or a brother, they held the loss as only an additional reason for faithful adherence to the cause. Having made such a sacrifice to that which was almost a religion to them, they had, if possible, less thought than ever of proving unfaithful to it. * * But if the cheerfulness of the women during the war was remarkable, what shall we say of the way in which they met its final failure, and the poverty that came with it? The end of the war completed the ruin which its progress had wrought. * * * * * Everybody was poor except the speculators who had fattened upon the necessities of the women and children; and so poverty was essential to anything like good repute. The want of means became a jest, and nobody mourned over it, while all were laboring to repair their wasted fortunes as they best could. And all this was due to the unconquerable cheerfulness of the Southern women. The men came home moody, worn out, discouraged, and but for the influence of woman’s cheerfulness the Southern States might have fallen into a lethargy from which they could not have recovered for generations. Such prosperity as they have since achieved is largely due to the courage and spirit of their noble women.”
Permit me now to say a few words concerning the part played by Marylanders, and particularly by Baltimoreans, in the war between the States. It is a subject on which every “Old Rebel” delights to dwell. It makes your fair city inconceivably dear to the peoples of what were the Confederate States.
Of the gallant soldiers you gave to the Southern Confederacy—who, as their historian tells us, “struck the first blow in Baltimore and the last in Virginia”—it is sufficient to say, in the words of Mr. Davis, that “the world will accord to them peculiar credit, as it has always done to those who leave their hearthstones to fight for principle in the land of others.” Assuredly the names of Elzey, of Ridgeley Brown, of Gilmore, of Dorsey, of Winder, of Archer, of Herbert, of Johnson, are gladly kept in glorious remembrance, as is the name of every Marylander, officer or private, who, under the Stars and Bars, helped to give us victory and shared with us defeat.
To them, and of them, can well be spoken such words as Shakespeare’s Harry said on the eve of the battle of Agincourt:
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,Will stand on tip-toe when this day is nam’d.He that shall live this day, and see old age,Will yearly, on the vigil, feast his neighbors:Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,And say, These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.Then shall our names,Familiar in his mouth as household words,Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,Be, in their flowing cups, freshly remember’d.This story shall the good man teach his son;And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,From this day to the ending of the world,But we, in it, shall be remembered;We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;And gentlemen in England now abedShall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,Will stand on tip-toe when this day is nam’d.He that shall live this day, and see old age,Will yearly, on the vigil, feast his neighbors:Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,And say, These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.Then shall our names,Familiar in his mouth as household words,Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,Be, in their flowing cups, freshly remember’d.This story shall the good man teach his son;And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,From this day to the ending of the world,But we, in it, shall be remembered;We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;And gentlemen in England now abedShall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,Will stand on tip-toe when this day is nam’d.He that shall live this day, and see old age,Will yearly, on the vigil, feast his neighbors:Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,And say, These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.Then shall our names,Familiar in his mouth as household words,Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,Be, in their flowing cups, freshly remember’d.This story shall the good man teach his son;And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,From this day to the ending of the world,But we, in it, shall be remembered;We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;And gentlemen in England now abedShall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand on tip-toe when this day is nam’d.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly, on the vigil, feast his neighbors:
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.
Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be, in their flowing cups, freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we, in it, shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Here to-night is a Marylander whom I may mention for the reason that, while in command of the Maryland Line, in 1864, he led a small squadron of men in pursuit of a brigade of Kilpatrick’s cavalry, and, when attacked in the rear by a column outnumbering his force by seven to one, turned upon the enemy and brought off twice as many prisoners as the number of men in his own command, besides inflicting a severe loss in killed and wounded. Well may it be written that “no exploit of the war, on either side, exceeds this for skill, daring and cold courage.” In token of admiration of his services, Gen. Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, presented to Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, the hero of the day, a sabre, which was the fellow of that which he had worn and used himself, on many a hard-fought field. Later still, Gen. Lee fitly described Gen. Johnson as “bold and intelligent, ardent and true.”
There was another—the beau-ideal of gentleness and bravery. Though almost a stranger, he cared for me day after day with exquisite patience and gentleness, during the disability caused by a wound I received at Mechanicsville. It was easy, indeed, to love him, for he had the simplicity of the child, the faithfulness of the woman, the chivalrous valor of the knight of old. On the field at Gettysburg he poured out for us his blood. He is in my thought of thoughts to-night—William H. Murray, of Company A, 2d Maryland regiment, who is well described as “the most gallant spirit that fought and died for the South.”
Far harder would have been the lot of the Maryland soldiers, far more difficult would it have been for them to enter into the service, if they had not the active assistance of our Southern women. TheMaryland Line, as you know, was organized in May, 1861, for the special purpose of representing our State in the Confederate army. It had, therefore, no State to look to for arms or clothing. Virginia had not arms enough for her own necessities, and there was danger that the Maryland battalion would be disbanded, because of the impossibility of procuring arms. In this exigency Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson volunteered to go to North Carolina, her native State, and there appeal to her countrymen for assistance. The journey was difficult, but she made her way to Raleigh, N. C., and obtained from Governor Ellis 500 Mississippi rifles, with ten thousand cartridges and necessary equipment. In Richmond Mrs. Johnson procured a supply of blankets and camp equipage, and ordered that a number of tents be made at once. On June 3, 1861, ten days after she left camp on her difficult mission, she delivered to her gallant husband the results of her enterprise. The historian justly says that the following receipt of the Chief of Ordnance of Stonewall Jackson’s command has probably no parallel in the history of war:
“Received, Ordnance Department, Harper’s Ferry, June 3, 1861, of Mrs. B. T. Johnson, five hundred Mississippi rifles, (cal. 54,) ten thousand cartridges and thirty-five hundred caps.”
The Maryland Line adopted resolutions thanking Mrs. Johnson “for her earnest, patriotic and successful efforts in arming and equipping the command,” and pledging themselves, “that the arms she has obtained shall, at the close of the war, be returned to the State of North Carolina without stain or dishonor.” The arms were not so returned, unless some Federal officer has generously undertaken to fulfil the pledge. In this “era of good feeling” it would not be out of place. But certain it is that these arms, wherever they now may be, were borne in honor and surrendered without discredit.
The astonishing facility with which Mrs. Johnson effected what had appeared to be almost an impossibility can be accounted for. The daughter of the Hon. R. M. Sanders, of North Carolina, she enjoyed the benefit of the respect in which her distinguished father was held. The graces of person and qualities of mind which were her just inheritance, gave the power to accomplish an enterprise which required the “daring gallantry of a man, with the persuasive power and perseverance of a woman.” There is revolutionary blood in her veins. It is no new thing for those of her line to be classed with patriots who are stigmatized as Rebels. The grandfather of Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson was William Johnson, of South Carolina, who was Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1801 to 1836, and her great grandmother, Sarah Johnson, was the wife of William Johnson, a conspicuous patriot in Charleston in the Revolutionary war. When the city was occupied by the British in 1781, Sarah Johnson concealed cartridges,and other ammunition, in her petticoats, and so carried to the patriots beyond the lines the means of continuing the fight. So Mrs. Johnson emulated, in our civil war, the deeds of those of her lineage in the conflict which gave independence to what were then the “free, sovereign and independent States.”
Whilst Mrs. Johnson was in Raleigh, N. C., in quest of arms, an address was delivered by the hon. Kenneth Raynor, who aptly said:
“If great events produce great men, so in the scene before us we have proof that great events produce great women. It was one that partook more of the romance than of the realities of life. One of our own daughters, raised in the lap of luxury, blessed with the enjoyment of all the elements of luxury and ease, had quit her peaceful home, followed her husband to the camp, and leaving him in that camp, has come to the home of her childhood to seek aid for him and his comrades—not because he is her husband, but because he is fighting the battles of his country against a tyrant”
So was it, it may be added, of all Southern women. Their love for those who were near to them was intensified and multiplied by the knowledge that they were fighting, as their ancestors had fought, to preserve and maintain such freedom as had been won some eighty years before.
It was moreover a Baltimore woman who gave to the South the one great lyric of the war. Written by James R. Randall, of Maryland, it was, in a moment of inspiration, set to the air of an old college song, and thus was the undying music “married to immortal verse.” Mrs. Hetty Cary Martin kindly consents to tell the story:
“After our bridges were burnt by Baltimore militia to prevent the passage of Northern troops, one of the regiments, formed mainly of young men of social prominence here, was disbanded. The men went South in dead of night with only the clothes they wore.
“It soon became known among our friends that boxes of clothing were to be sent to them from our house. Daily and nightly meetings were held there in defiance of the vigilance of the authorities, whose frequent searchings of the house made it known in the papers as ‘Headquarters of Rebeldom.’ Fingers and machines were ceaselessly at work; subscriptions came freely in. On stormy nights boxes were packed and shipped from the stable in our rear. These were sent directly to Gen. Lee, who told me that he had himself seen to forwarding them to our boys. Danger and daring kept every heart on fire. The girls who worked and the boys who watched for a chance to slip through the lines to Dixie formed a glee club, and their enthusiasm found vent in such patriotic songs as could be written or adapted to suit their needs.
“One evening early in June my sister, Miss Jennie Cary, had charge of the programme, the club ‘meeting at our house. With a young girl’s eagerness to score a success, she resolved to secure some new and ardent expression of feelings, by this time wrought up to the point of explosion. In vain she searched through her stock of words and airs; nothing seemed intense enough to suit the occasion.Aroused by her tone of despair I came to the rescue, with the suggestion that she should adapt the words of ‘Maryland, my Maryland,’ which had been constantly on my lips since the appearance of the lyric a few days before in the BaltimoreSouth. I produced the paper and began declaiming the verses. ‘Lauriger Horatius!’ she exclaimed, and in a flash the immortal song found voice in the stirring air so perfectly adapted to it.
“That night, when her voice rang out the stanzas, the refrain rolled forth from every throat present without pause or preparation, and the enthusiasm communicated itself with such effect to the crowd assembled beneath our open windows as to endanger seriously the liberties of the party.
“A few weeks later it had become impossible to forward the supplies, of which we had still on hand several large trunksful.
“My brother was about to leave for the army and I concluded to risk running the blockade with him, taking my sister also, to furnish more plausible excuse for leaving Baltimore with a very undue amount of luggage.
“With some difficulty and not a little danger, our party was finally landed in dead of night on Virginia shores. My sister and I kept guard over the trunks while my brother scoured the vicinity in search of a conveyance to Stratford, a few miles distant from our point of landing, and the birthplace of our friend and kinsman, Gen. R. E. Lee.
“An old hay wagon, drawn by a very large ox and a very small mule (guided by ropes and goaded with a hickory pole) was finally secured, and in this striking conveyance we made our triumphal entry into the Confederate States.
“Up to this time I had worn on my person a flag bearing the Maryland coat of arms, and presented by Baltimore women to the Maryland troops in the Southern army. In addition to the discomfort of this unwonted article of apparel, I had suffered no small amount of anxiety lest the paint, which was quite fresh, should sustain some injury, therefore gladly shook its folds to the breeze the moment we were safe in Dixie.
“My brother cut a pole, we raised the banner aloft, and, perched upon our trunks, jolted up and down hill to Stratford in the early dawn of that fair 4th of July, making the Virginia woods ring with ‘Maryland, my Maryland!’
“The story of our adventures soon reached home; the ‘aid and comfort’ given to the enemy were greatly magnified, and my family received notification from Washington that we should not be permitted to return.
“We were living in Virginia in exile, when, soon after Manassas, Gen. Beauregard, hearing of our work and sufferings for the Marylanders, who had already done such gallant service in his command, invited us to visit them at his headquarters, near Fairfax Courthouse. The fortifications there were in charge of my cousin, Capt. Sterrett, (U. S. N.,) who received and entertained our party during the visit.
“The night of our arrival we were serenaded by the band of the famous Washington Artillery of New Orleans and all the fine voiceswithin reach. Capt. Sterrett expressed our thanks, and asked if there were any service we might render in return. ‘Let us hear a woman’s voice!’ was the cry which arose in response—and standing in a tent door, under cover of the darkness, my sister sang, ‘Maryland, my Maryland.’
“This was, I believe, the birth of the song in the army. The refrain was speedily caught up and tossed back to us from hundreds of rebel throats. As the last notes died away there surged forth from the gathering throng a wild shout: ‘We will break her chains! We will set her free! She shall be free! Three cheers and a tiger for Maryland!’ And they were given with a will.
“There was not a dry eye in our tent, and they told us next day not a cap with a rim on it in camp.
“Nothing could have kept Mr. Randall’s verses from living and growing into a power. To us fell the happy chance of first giving them voice. In a few weeks ‘My Maryland’ had found its way to the heart of the whole people and become a great National song.”
The flag which is mentioned by Mrs. Martin is the regimental flag of the Maryland Line, and was afterwards decorated with a buck-tail captured from the Pennsylvania regiment of that name. Gen. Ewell issued an order complimenting the command, and granting it that badge of honor, which was borne to the end. The flag which went into “Dixie” with the war-song, it was never captured, never surrendered. It waves here to-night, tattered and battle-stained, the inspiring emblem and memorial of heroic deeds without number.
The history of the Maryland regiments is familiar to you, as well as the history of other commands composed of Marylanders who served in the Army of Northern Virginia. It has, however, come to my knowledge within the last week or two that a company of Marylanders served in South Carolina as early as March, 1861, taking part in the bombardment of Fort Sumter. They composed Company C of Lucas’s battalion of artillery, and were in the thick of the fighting until the surrender of Johnson’s army in 1865. In the defence of Battery Wagner, on Morris Island, the command lost heavily. Among the Marylanders who fell were Baker, Tucker, Flanigan, Brass and Marty. Fifteen or twenty of the old members of the company are still in Baltimore, it is said. Mayhap, some of them honor this association with their presence to-night. The subjoined letter from the commanding officer of the battalion to which they belonged will tell you what is thought of them in South Carolina and by South Carolinians:
Society Hill, S. C., Jan. 22, 1887.
Capt. F. W. Dawson, Charleston, S. C.:
Capt. F. W. Dawson, Charleston, S. C.:
Capt. F. W. Dawson, Charleston, S. C.:
Capt. F. W. Dawson, Charleston, S. C.:
My Dear Sir—It gives me very great pleasure to testify that Company “C” was composed of as brave and fearless soldiers as fought for constitutional government under the “Stars and Bars”—in my opinion. The following is its brief military history:
Early in 1861 recruiting officers were sent to Baltimore to enlistrecruits for three years to serve in the regular army of the Confederate States. Two companies were enlisted and placed under the command of Capts. Lee and Childs. Capt. Lee (Stephen D.) rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and Capt. Childs to that of colonel. Col. Childs is now an officer at the Customhouse in your city. I found Capt. Lee’s company on Cole’s Island when I took command of the Stono fortifications on 10th July, 1861.
On the 10th November, 1862, these two companies were consolidated and attached to Lucas’s battalion heavy artillery, C.S.A., under Capt. Theodore B. Hayne, and known thereafter as Company “C.” The company participated in the capture of the gunboatIsaac P. Smithon the 30th January, 1863, in the defence of Battery Wagner and Fort Sumter, and of Battery Pringle on the Stono. The attack on the last named fortification lasted ten days and nights, viz: from July 2 to 12, 1864. The attack was made by the monitorsLehighandMontauk, assisted by the gunboatsPawnee,McDonoughandRacer, and a mortar boat. In all these engagements Company “C” did its whole duty. Should the defence of Charleston ever be written, Company “C” will be entitled to a prominent place in the narrative of that heroic struggle.
Charleston was evacuated on the 17th of February, 1865, and my battalion, armed with Springfield muskets, participated in the battles of Averysboro’ and Bentonville, N.C., on the 16th and 19th of March. I was wounded at Bentonville and sent to the hospital at Raleigh, so saw no more of Company “C” or my command. Before my wound healed the contest was over, and the right of might established.
The members of Company “C” enjoy the distinction of beingthe only Confederate regulars, so far as I am informed.
Charles E. Rodman, who died at the Roper Hospital in 1883, was a member of this company. A shell passed near his spine at Battery Wagner, and he lived for twenty years in a paralyzed condition. He acquired, I am told, a good classical education. I saw him whenever I visited Charleston and witnessed his fortitude. He never betrayed any impatience with his condition, and was a hero to the end.
Edward Terry, of this company, was a son of the Chevalier de Terri, of the French army. He enlisted in Baltimore and served bravely with his company until killed.
At the close of the war the officers were Capt. Theodore B. Hayne and Lieuts. W. W. Revely, of Virginia, Frank C. Lucas and Langdon Bowie, Jr.
I would like to be present on the 22d prox. and hear your address, even though it might stir up the old Rebel feeling! Wishing for you that success, in all your undertakings, which you so well merit, believe me to be
Yours most truly,J. J. LUCAS,Late Major com’g Lucas’s Battalion, Heavy Art’y, C. S. A.
Yours most truly,J. J. LUCAS,Late Major com’g Lucas’s Battalion, Heavy Art’y, C. S. A.
Yours most truly,J. J. LUCAS,Late Major com’g Lucas’s Battalion, Heavy Art’y, C. S. A.
Yours most truly,
J. J. LUCAS,
Late Major com’g Lucas’s Battalion, Heavy Art’y, C. S. A.
There were two regiments of South Carolina regulars, and other States may have had similar commands, as distinguished from the volunteers and others who afterwards constituted the Provisional army of the Confederate States. But the only body of Confederate States regulars of which I have the record is that which was raised in Baltimore, and which covered itself with distinction in some of the toughest fights of the war.
But it was not only in giving soldiers to the Confederacy that Baltimore was distinguished. Beyond all else it is memorable for the persecution to which those who sympathized with the South were subjected. In a letter written from Baltimore, and published in Quebec, there is a scathing account of the conduct of the Federal officers in your dear city. It was reproduced afterwards inMarginalia, which was published in Columbia in 1864. The writer of the letter says:
“The horrors practiced by the Lincoln Government upon the people of that beautiful and refined city, Baltimore, have earned for it the name of the Warsaw of America.
“Men alone are not the only victims of the accursed tyranny, but even ladies of rank are similarly situated, their crimes being receiving letters from absent husbands and fathers, or wearing red and white ribbons on dresses, or having given charity to the widow or orphan of some one who died in the Southern army. Against the men no charges are made, and the only warrant on which they are held is that their names are inscribed by Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Seward, upon a list in the hands of a convicted murderer and burglar.”
“The prime executioner and minister to the vengeance of Lincoln and Seward is of the most abhorrent stamp, and has inaugurated their reign of terror in Baltimore only as such a wretch could conceive it. This man is a pardoned convict, who, after receiving sentence of death for murder and burglary, and having been known to have committed six assassinations, was released from prison and made a jailer, but was dismissed for misconduct. The ruffian has daily interviews with the President, and returns from Washington with a fresh list of proscribed victims. Berret takes with him several escaped thieves, his former pals, and, accompanied by a file of soldiers, goes forth after midnight to do the bidding of the best and freest Government in the world, by breaking into the houses of their victims, dragging them from their beds, and thrusting them, handcuffed, into the cells of Fortress McHenry. Gen. Howard, an old gentleman, the candidate for Governor, and his son, Mr. F. Howard, were taken from their beds, and from the sides of their wives, between 1 and 2 o’clock in the morning, by Berret and a file of soldiers, who wounded with their bayonets Mr. F. Howard’s little son, six years old, and so ill-treated Mrs. Howard that she died on the Sunday following. Mr. Lincoln thought she was served too well, and declared that,the wives and brats of traitors deserved to be threaded upon red-hot jack chains. To the suffering children and wives of his victims he replies to their request to be permitted to see their parents with a refusal couched in obscene and brutal language, or with some filthy jest that could not be put upon paper. Berret, upon Seward’s order, broke into the mansion of a lady of rank, whose husband is in Europe, and, with his file of soldiers, pulled her from her bed, without permitting her to dress, or even putting on her shoes; the fellow forced her to go with him from the attic to the cellar in her night-gown, whilst he tore up the carpet, forced the doors and cut to pieces the beds, mattresses, brocaded chairs, sofas, &c., and turned out every trunk and drawer, leaving the beautiful residence a total wreck. No reason has been assigned for this outrage, except that his patron, the President, willed it. On the following night the house of a venerable gentleman was forcibly entered and every bed cut to pieces; his three daughters were pulled out of their beds and subjected to brutal indelicacies the heart sickensat. The following morning the colonel of these honorable and gallant defenders of their country, named Wilson, was taken into custody for various robberies, the property having been found in his shop in Brooklyn, New York.
“Mr. Faulkner, the late minister from the United States to France, has been imprisoned in a common felon’s cell, without even straw to lie upon, leaving his three motherless and unprotected daughters in a hotel, Mr. Lincoln refusing him permission to send a message to them, and [his guards] robbing him of all the money he had with him. Lincoln, when told of the grief of the young ladies, and that their dresses were wet with tears, ridiculed it and made filthy and obscene jokes at their expense. Mr. Wallis, president of the Senate, a man of refined mind, elegantly educated, who held his large fortune as a trust for every good and benevolent purpose, whose eloquence and high talent vied with his goodness and his virtues, has been consigned to a narrow cell with six other gentlemen, without the commonest convenience that the poorest beggar can command—torn from his wife and family while suffering from severe sickness, without a change of linen, and robbed of all his money.
“Mr. Ross Winans, nearly eighty years of age, was taken from his splendid mansion in the middle of the night, and for a second time consigned to a cell. This time his crime was giving food daily to twenty-five hundred poor people. His last release from prison cost him fifty thousand dollars in bribes. Mrs. Davis, a lady of large fortune, had fed nearly one thousand poor daily. Mr. Seward commanded her to desist from doing so; she refused, and published his command and her letter of refusal. The paper that published it has been suppressed, the materials of the office carried off and the editor imprisoned.”
Is not this enough? Well may your historian declare that the remembrance of “the insults, wrongs and outrages that were daily and hourly committed upon the people of this State,” still “rouses indignation too hot for the calmness of impartial history.” Without any bidding of mine you still remember the petty tyranny and devilish outrages of Schenck and Fish and Wallace. You remember, too, the cells of Fort McHenry. You remember the dungeons of Fort Lafayette and Fort Warren. You remember the insults to your wives and daughters. You remember the arrests, the midnight searches of your homes. Why should you forget it! There is nowhere in the obligations of present citizenship any obligation to consign to charitable oblivion the deeds which stain ineffaceably the reputation of those who committed them, and which stain still more darkly the reputation of those, in high authority, by whom the shame and sin were conceived and directed!
But the women of Baltimore had their revenge, and sweet, indeed, it was. The more they were harassed and harried by spies and informers, by sneaks in plain attire, and bullies with sash and sabre, the more ardent and indomitable were they in ministering to the needs of the Southern soldiers.
There was no break or pause. The women of Baltimore were untiring in relieving the wants of the Confederates who fell into the enemy’s hands, as they were indefatigable in sending through thelines the clothing and medicines of which our boys in the field were painfully in need. The Sultan of romance caused the tale or jest that refreshed his jaded sense to be written in letters of gold and placed in the archives of his kingdom. How shall be recorded fitly—save in the undying love and gratitude of generations of those who bless you, and hold you in honor ineffable—the deeds of those gentle shrinking women who, in our behoof, were indomitable, invincible. They were mother and sister to the sick soldier who was weary of breath. They were angels of benediction to those who were on the brink of the dark-flowing river. Fragile as flowers, and as beautiful in their holiness, they were so inspired, so exalted, that it appeared a bagatelle to them to risk fortune, health and life itself in solace of the bruised and bleeding Confederates.
You should have—the South should have—the country should have, a day of commemoration of these women and their work. A waiting that, we can sanctify, with gratitude and devotion, the names of Mrs. B. C. Howard, Mrs. J. Hanson Thomas, Mrs. Peyton Harrison, Mrs. J. Harman Brown, Mrs. John S. Gittings, Mrs. Dora Hoffman, Mrs. Robert H. Carr, Mrs. D. Preston, Mrs. Lurman, Mrs. A. DuBois Egerton, and their associates in compassionate endeavor and merciful achievement.
It was my lot to be taken prisoner in 1862, the night after the battle of South Mountain. After a brief stay at Camp Curtin, near Harrisburg, I was lodged at Fort Delaware. The first persons to be seen in the Fort, excepting always the garrison, were citizens of Baltimore, who were confined there because they ventured to avow their convictions—because they dared to act and speak as freemen should. Among them was Mr. Carpenter, the editor of one of your newspapers, which had been suppressed with Muscovitish promptitude, because it had criticised and condemned some of the minor deities of the Northern Government. What grace and help it gave us to meet those men of yours. There was but the exchange of a glance and hasty word in passing from one barrack-room to another. But we felt that we were not alone, though captives we were. Only a day or two afterwards bales of blankets and clothing came from your city, from your women, to us in Delaware. They gave comfort and even health to many a dilapidated Confederate, for we had not dreamed of capture, and our supplies were meagre indeed. This was not all. Again and again, your superb women, in the pride of their conscience and the beauty of their budding years, came to the Fort and waited there hour after hour, in the trust that there might be some opportunity to bestow a word or a look on our poor boys in gray.
But time presses. Though I could speak of you for hours, you might not care to listen. It must, however, be recorded, that whenall else was gone, when life was paralyzed, when hope was dead, you enlarged your sphere of nobility. Because the cause was lost there was new scope and verge for you. When all else failed—when the banner of the South was furled forever—you came forward to alleviate our grief in showing us that you were as true in defeat as in triumph, and that, for you, failure abated not a jot the merit, or the justice of the freedom for which we fought, nor lessened by a particle your interest in us, or your care for us. It seemed, indeed, that in our poverty, in the ashes of our homes and confronting a problem which was then insoluble and is not solved yet, we were dearer to you than in the pomp and pride of a struggle, which—if right were might—must have had the consummation we wished.
Immediately after the surrender at Appomattox, the Baltimore Agricultural Aid Society was formed by a number of your citizens, irrespective of party, to supply a portion of the Southern States, more particularly Virginia, with stock, farming-tools and seed. For this purpose over $80,000 were subscribed and judiciously distributed by local agents who understood the wants of their immediate neighborhoods. This noble charity was for the assistance of the people of the South “in their sorest need, without wounding their pride or insulting their poverty.”
In the spring of 1866 the ladies of Maryland organized the “Southern Relief Association,” with Mrs. B. C. Howard as president, and a strong array of vice-presidents and managers. To facilitate the objects of the association it was determined to hold a fair, which was opened on the 2d of April, 1866, in the Maryland Institute. It was continued until the 13th of the month, and at its close the net receipts were found to be $164,569.97, which was distributed through committees to the various Southern States.
In 1867 the Legislature also appropriated $100,000 “for the relief of the destitute people in the States wasted by civil war,” and appointed commissioners for its distribution. To this sum was added over $21,000 in money and goods, contributed by private individuals. As in many places the people were suffering for the want of food, the commissioners shipped large stores of provisions to various points in North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, to be distributed by agents appointed by the Governor of those States. The Secretary of the Navy of the United States, the Hon. G. Welles, placed at their disposal the United States storeshipRelief, by which a full cargo of corn and bacon was shipped to Mobile, Ala. The total amount distributed by the commissioners in supplies and money reached $106,623.65.
The Ladies’ Depository, No. 56, North Charles Street, Baltimore, was formed in 1867, for the purpose of uniting in organized effortthose who were endeavoring to obtain needle and fancy work for the destitute ladies in the South, impoverished by the war. The first officers and managers were: President, Mrs. Peyton Harrison; vice-president, Mrs. J. H. B. Latrobe.
In addition to all this, there was a large number of contributions, of which not even an approximate estimate can be formed, made by individuals privately and sent through private channels. Nearly all hearts were touched and purses opened, and it has been estimated that the relief thus afforded fell but little short of that which was publicly given. All the railroads of Baltimore and the Bay steamers carried the contributions free of charge; no commission was charged for purchase or storage, and liberal deductions were made by the merchants from whom the supplies were obtained.
This is taken, in the main, from Scharf’s History of Baltimore City and County, and the record is approximately correct, no doubt, but how faint an idea it gives of the worth of your work in the cheer it gave, in the incentive to the struggling Confederates to begin life anew, and from the nettle defeat pluck the flower of safety.
Half a million dollars—cribbed and confined as you had been—was given to the South, after the war, by your Monumental City!
It is no affectation to say that words fail me as I strive to tell you what you were to us then, and what you will always be to every Confederate who is true as you were true, and is faithful as you are faithful. There is no page in the story of the war more brilliant, more inspiring, than that on which is blazoned the undying record of your incessant sacrifice, your patient endurance, your unselfish devotion.
Gen. Lee’s appreciation of the work of the women of Baltimore is well expressed in a letter dated May 3, 1866, and published in the “Personal Reminiscences of Gen. Robert E. Lee,” by Dr. J. W. Jones. After acknowledging the receipt of a gown presented to him by the ladies of the Northeastern branch, tables 40 and 42, at the late fair held in Baltimore, he says:
“I beg that you will express to them my grateful thanks for this mark of kindness, which I shall value most highly in remembrance of their munificent bounty bestowed on thousands of destitute women and children by the ‘Association for the Relief of Southern Sufferers,’ the fruits of which shall live long after those who have received it have mouldered into dust.”
In an earlier letter, dated December 15, 1865, he says:
“I am fully aware of the many and repeated acts of sympathy and relief bestowed by the generous citizens of Baltimore upon the people of the South, acts which will always be remembered,but which can never be repaid, and which will forever stand as monuments of their Christian charity and kindness. I know, too, that by their munificence they have brought loss and suffering on themselves, for which I trust God will reward them.”
Bear with me yet a moment. The subject on which your association desired I should speak to-night is beyond the measure of mortal tongue or pen. Who will undertake to describe adequately the exploits of our men in the war, and what was their mighty accomplishment in comparison with the infinite emprise of our women! The men, the soldiers, were the strong right arm, the mighty body of the Southern Confederacy, as with spirit undaunted they trod, with bleeding feet, the way of the Southern Cross. But as the men were the body, so the women were the soul. The men may forget the uniform they wore—it is faded and moth-eaten to-day. But the soul, the spirit in our women incarnate, cannot die. It is unchangeable, indestructible and, under God’s providence, for our vindication and justification, shall live always—forever!
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESSilently corrected typographical errors.Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES