Chapter 13

"The amount of responsibility which rests upon this body can not be exaggerated. When my constituents asked me if I would consent to serve them here if elected, I answered in the affirmative, but I did so with fear and trembling. The people of Virginia have, it is true, reserved to themselves, in a certain contingency, the right to review our action, but still the measures which we adopt may be fraught with good or evil to the whole country.

"Is it too much to hope that we, and others who are engaged in the work of peace and conciliation, may so solve the problems which now perplex us, as to win back our sisters of the South, who, for what they deem sufficient cause, have wandered from their old orbits? May we not expect that our old sister, Massachusetts, will retrace her steps? Will she not follow the noble example of Rhode Island, the little State with a heart large enough for a whole continent? Will she not, when she remembers who it was who first drew his sword from the scabbard on her own soil at Cambridge, and never finally returned it, until her liberty and independence were achieved, and whence he came, repeal her obnoxious laws, which many of her wisest and best citizens regard as a stain upon her legislative records?

"Gentlemen, this is no party convention. It is our duty on an occasion like this to elevate ourselves into an atmosphere, in which party passion and prejudice can not exist--to conduct all our deliberations with calmness and wisdom, and to maintain, with inflexible firmness, whatever position we may find it necessary to assume."

The proceedings were dignified, solemn, and, at times, even sad. During the entire session good feelings prevailed to a remarkable degree. For these harmonious relations credit is principally due the secessionists. Very often their actions were regarded with suspicion by their opponents who, at such times, pursued a policy of obstruction when nothing was to be gained thereby. But they were given every privilege and shown every consideration.

On April 17, 1861, the convention, in secret session, passed the ordinance of secession by a vote of 88 to 55 on condition that it should be submitted to the people for their approval or rejection at an election to be held the 23d of May for that purpose. Loudoun's delegates voted solidly against the measure.

In the convention opinions varied as to whether peace or war would follow secession. The great majority of the members, as of the people, believed that peaceful relations would continue. All truly wished for peace. A number expressed themselves as fearing war, but this was when opposing secession. Yet in nearly all the speeches made in the convention there seemed to be distinguishable a feeling of fear and dread lest war should follow. However, had war been a certainty secession would not have been delayed or defeated.

There was warm discussion on the question of submitting the ordinance to the people for ratification or rejection. Many, both before and after the passage of the ordinance, favored its reference to the people in the vain hope that the measure would in this way be frustrated. They declared that, in a matter of such vital importance, involving the lives and liberties of a whole people, the ordinance should be submitted to them for their discussion, and that secession should be attempted only after ratification by a direct vote of the people on that single issue.

Affecting and exciting scenes followed the passage of the ordinance. One by one the strong members of the minority arose and, for the sake of unity at home, surrendered the opinions of a lifetime and forgot the prejudices of years. This was done with no feeling of humiliation. To the last they were treated with distinguished consideration by their opponents.

Shortly after the convention began its deliberations a mass meeting was held in Leesburg, where the secession sentiment was practically unanimous, for the purpose of adopting resolutions to be sent to that important body recommending the immediate passage of the ordinance of secession. The citizens were addressed by Col. J.M. Kilgore and others.

The vote in Loudoun for the ratification or rejection of the ordinance of secession, while not close, was somewhat spirited and marked by slight disturbances at the polls. In practically every precinct outside the German and Quaker settlements a majority vote was cast in favor of secession.

No county in the State eclipsed Loudoun in devotion to the principles on which Virginia's withdrawal from the Union was based, and the courage displayed by her in maintaining these principles made her the acknowledged equal of any community in the Southland.

_Loudoun's Participation in the War._

A discussion in this volume of the great Civil War and its causes has at no time been contemplated, and vain appeals addressed to surviving Confederate soldiers and Government record keepers long ago demonstrated the impracticability of a thorough account of the part borne by Loudoun soldiers in that grand, uneven struggle of 1861-'65. Their exact numbers even can not be ascertained as the original enlistment records were either lost or destroyed and duplicates never completed.

It may with truth be said that the extent of the service rendered by Loudoun in this, as well as preceding wars, will never be fully known or adequately appreciated. However, certain it is that thousands of her sons espoused the cause of the Confederacy, hundreds died in its defense, and not a few, by their valor and devotion, won enduring fame and meritorious mention in the annals of their government.

At home or in the ranks, throughout this trying period of civil strife, her people, with no notable exceptions, remained liberal and brave and constant, albeit they probably suffered more real hardships and deprivations than any other community of like size in the Southland. There were few Confederate troops for its defense, and the Federals held each neighborhood responsible for all attacks made in its vicinity, often destroying private property as a punishment.

Both armies, prompted either by fancied military necessity or malice, burned or confiscated valuable forage crops and other stores, and nearly every locality, at one time or another, witnessed depredation, robbery, murder, arson, and rapine. Several towns were shelled, sacked, and burned, but the worst damage was done the country districts by raiding parties of Federals. Much of the destruction is now seen to have been unnecessary from a military point of view.

Whole armies were subsisted on the products of Loudoun's fruitful acres. Opposing forces, sometimes only detachments and roving bands, but quite as often battalions, regiments, brigades, and even whole divisions were never absent from the County and the clash of swords and fire of musketry were an ever-present clamor and one to which Loudoun ears early became accustomed.

Also, there were times when the main bodies of one or the other of both armies were encamped wholly or in part within her limits, as in September, 1862, when the triumphant army of Lee, on the eve of the first Maryland campaign, was halted at Leesburg and stripped of all superfluous transportation, broken-down horses, and wagons and batteries not supplied with good horses being left behind;[30] again, in June, 1863, when Hooker was being held in bounds with his great army stretched from Manassas, near Bull Run, to Leesburg, near the Potomac; and yet again, in July, 1863, when Lee's army, falling back from Maryland after the battle of Gettysburg, was followed by the Federal forces under General Meade, who crossed the Potomac and advanced through Loudoun.

[Footnote 30: On the 5th day of September, to the martial strains of "Maryland, My Maryland" from every band in the army, and with his men cheering and shouting with delight, Jackson forded the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry (Loudoun County), where the river was broad but shallow, near the scene of Evan's victory over the Federals in the previous October, and where Wayne had crossed his Pennsylvania brigade in marching to the field of Yorktown, in 1781.]

General Early, after the short and bloody battle of Monocacy, and following his invasion of Maryland and demonstration against Washington, recrossed the Potomac at White's Ford, July 14, 1864, and, resting near Leesburg, on the 16th marched to the Shenandoah valley by way of Leesburg and Purcellville, through Snicker's Gap of the Blue Ridge, with Jackson's Cavalry in advance.

Pitched battles and lesser engagements were fought at Edwards' Ferry, Balls Bluff, Snickersville (now Bluemont), Leesburg, Middleburg, Aldie, Hamilton, Waterford, Union, Ashby's Gap, and other points in the County.

During Stonewall Jackson's investment of Harper's Ferry in September, 1862, guns were put in position on Loudoun Heights, supported by two regiments of infantry, and a portion of Jackson's own immediate command was placed with artillery on a bluffy shoulder of that mountain.

The following military organizations were recruited wholly or in part in Loudoun County and mustered into the Confederate service: 8th Virginia Regiment (a part of Pickett's famous fighting division), Loudoun Guard (Company C, 17th Virginia Regiment), Loudoun Cavalry ("Laurel Brigade"), and White's Battalion of Cavalry (the "Comanches," 25th Virginia Battalion). Mosby's command, the "Partisan Rangers," also attracted several score of her patriotic citizenry.

The sons of Loudoun, serving in these and other organizations, bore a distinguished part on every crimsoned field from Pennsylvania to the coast of Florida.

Garnett's Brigade, to which the 8th Virginia regiment was attached, was led into action during the memorable charge on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg. The brigade moved forward in the front line, and gained the enemy's strongest position, where the fighting became hand to hand and of the most desperate character. It went into action with 1,287 men and 140 officers, and after the struggle, of this number, only about 300 came back slowly and sadly from the scene of carnage. General Garnett, himself, was shot from his horse while near the center of the advancing brigade, within about twenty-five paces of the "stone fence," from behind which the Federals poured forth their murderous fire.

_The Loudoun Rangers_ (_Federal_).

This volunteer organization consisted of two companies of disaffected Virginians, all of whom were recruited in the German settlements northwest of Leesburg. Company A, at the outset, was commanded by Captain Daniel M. Keyes, of Lovettsville, who later resigned on account of wounds received in action. He was succeeded by Captain Samuel C. Means, of Waterford. Company B's commander was Captain James W. Grubb. The total enlistment of each company was 120 and 67, respectively. All the officers and privates were of either German, Quaker, or Scotch-Irish lineage, the first-named class predominating.

The command was mustered into the Federal service at Lovettsville, the 20th day of June, 1862. Its historian, Briscoe Goodhart, a member of Company A, in his _History of the Loudoun_ (Virginia) _Rangers_, has said that it "was an independent command, organized in obedience to a special order of the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and was at first subject to his orders only, but subsequently merged into the Eighth Corps, commanded at that time by the venerable Major General John Ellis Wool...."

The "Rangers," as the name implies, were scouts and, in this highly useful capacity, served the enemies of their State with shameless ardor. But, as a body, they fought few engagements and none of a decisive nature. Their first and, perhaps, sharpest encounter happened in and around the old Baptist Church at Waterford.

The following absolution or justification is offered in the preface to the above-quoted work:

"As the name of their organization indicates, they came from a State which was arrayed in arms against the authority of the National Government. No Governor, or Senator, or Member of Congress guarded their interests; nor was any State or local bounty held forth to them as an allurement. Their enlistment in the Union Army--their country's army--was the spontaneous outgrowth of a spirit of lofty patriotism.

"As they saw their duty they were not lacking in moral courage to perform that duty; and with no lapse of years shall we ever fail to insist that the principles for which the Rangers contended were eternally right, and that their opponents were eternally wrong."

Far from being a well-ordered command with a clearly defined _modus operandi_, the two companies were poorly drilled, imperfectly accoutred, only aimlessly and periodically active, and, moreover, were on the point of dissolution at the outset.

Operating, for the most part, independently and in detached parties the command offered no serious menace to citizens or soldiery, though the latter were sometimes harassed and annoyed by them.

Mosby, who had greatly desired and often essayed their capture, was finally given the opportunity for which he had eagerly waited. Learning that the Rangers were encamped near Millville, W. Va. (Keyes' Switch, as it was then called), he dispatched Captain Baylor with a detachment of horse to that point.

Major Scott who, in 1867, wrote _Partisan Life With Mosby_, has this to say of the fight which followed: "He (Baylor) took the precaution to pass in between Halltown (where there was a brigade of infantry) and the camp. When within fifty yards of the Loudoun Rangers the order to charge was given. Two of them were killed, four wounded, and 65 taken prisoners, together with 81 horses with their equipments. The rest of the command sought refuge in the bushes. The only loss which Baylor sustained was Frank Helm, of Warrenton, who was wounded as he charged among the foremost into the camp."

The day of the capture General Stevenson, commanding at Harper's Ferry, and under whose orders the Rangers had been acting, sent the following message to General Hancock at Winchester:

Harper's Ferry, _April 6, 1865._

Mosby surprised the camp of the Loudoun Rangers near Keyes' Ford and cleaned them out. He made the attack about 10 a.m....

John D. Stevenson, _Brigadier-General._

When Major-General Hancock, so distinguished in the Federal Army, heard of Baylor's exploit he laughed heartily and exclaimed: "Well, that is the last of the Loudoun Rangers."

As indeed it proved to be!

_Mosby's Command in its Relationship to Loudoun County._

From January, 1863, until the close of the war Colonel Mosby's partisan operations were mostly confined to the counties of Loudoun and Fauquier, this rich, pastoral country affording subsistence for his command and the Blue Ridge a haven to which to retreat when hard pressed by the superior numbers that, from time to time, were sent against him. Here he planned and executed most of the daring coups that were to win for him international fame.[31] Here also his men were dispersed and reassembled with marvelous facility--one of countless manifestations of his great original genius. "They would scatter for safety, and gather at my call like the Children of the Mist," was what he wrote in after years. Of all his methods this has been the least clearly understood. The explanation that he has offered in his _War Reminiscences_ can be only partially complete; for he could not, with propriety, point to his personal magnetism and daring as the dominant influences, though he must have known that to an extraordinary extent they were responsible for this almost unparalleled devotion. "The true secret," he says, "was that it was a fascinating life, and its attractions far more than counterbalanced its hardships and dangers. They had no camp duty to do, which, however necessary, is disgusting to soldiers of high spirit. To put them to such routine work is pretty much like hitching a race horse to a plow."

[Footnote 31: In alluding to the famous "greenback raid" (October 14, 1864), in which a party of Rangers entered a train of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, near Kearneysville, capturing, among other officers, Majors Moore and Ruggles, Federal paymasters, with their funds, Lieutenant Grogan, of the Rangers, has said that the command, the next day, "met at Bloomfield, in Loudoun County, and examined into the condition of our sub-U.S. Treasury, and finding there a net surplus of $168,000, the same was divided among our stockholders ($2,000 each) and circulated so freely in Loudoun that never afterwards was there a pie or blooded horse sold in that section for Confederate money."]

Many of his followers were recruited in Loudoun County. A few before the advent of Mosby had pursued peaceable vocations; but the command consisted in the main of men who had seen active service in the cavalry and infantry regiments, but tiring of the routine and discipline of the camp had returned to their homes in Loudoun and adjoining counties. At times he had with him dauntless spirits who had been incapacitated for infantry duty by reason of wounds received in action, some of these carrying crutches along with them tied to their saddle bows. At another time he enrolled several experienced fighters who had been absent from their regiments without leave ever since the first battle of Bull Run--a period of nearly two years.

With this promiscuous following, which at no time exceeded one hundred men, he instituted a long unbroken series of successful strategems, surprises, and night attacks, harassing the communications of the Federal armies, confusing their plans by capturing dispatches, destroying supply trains, subjecting their outposts to the wear and tear of a perpetual skirmish, in short, inflicting all the mischief possible for a small body of cavalry moving rapidly from point to point on the communications of an army.

He believed that by incessant attacks he could compel the enemy either greatly to contract his lines or to reinforce them, both of which would have been of great advantage to the Southern cause. By assuming the aggressive, a rule from which he not once departed, he could force the enemy to guard a hundred points, leaving himself free to select any one of them for attack.

But the theories, purposes, and methods of this peer of partisan leaders is best explained by himself. Simply and unostentatiously, but withal convincingly, expressed, they give to the man and his deeds the unmistakable semblance of fairness and legitimacy. These, together with his masterly defense of partisan warfare, follow in modified and disconnected form:

"The military value of a partisan's work is not measured by the amount of property destroyed, or the number of men killed or captured, but by the number he keeps watching. Every soldier withdrawn from the front to guard the rear of an army is so much taken from its fighting strength.

"I endeavored, as far as I was able, to diminish this aggressive power of the army of the Potomac, by compelling it to keep a large force on the defensive. I assailed its rear, for there was its most vulnerable point. My men had no camps. If they had gone into camp, they would soon have all been captured.... A blow would be struck at a weak or unguarded point, and then a quick retreat. The alarm would spread through the sleeping camp, the long roll would be beaten or the bugles would sound to horse, there would be mounting in hot haste and a rapid pursuit. But the partisans generally got off with their prey. Their pursuers were striking at an invisible foe. I often sent small squads at night to attack and run in the pickets along a line of several miles. Of course, these alarms were very annoying, for no human being knows how sweet sleep is but a soldier. I wanted to use and consume the Northern cavalry in hard work. I have often thought that their fierce hostility to me was more on account of the sleep I made them lose than the number we killed and captured."

* * * * *

"My purpose was to weaken the armies invading Virginia, by harassing their rear. As a line is only as strong as its weakest point, it was necessary for it to be stronger than I was at every point, in order to resist my attacks.... It is just as legitimate to fight an enemy in the rear as in front. The only difference is in the danger. Now, to prevent all these things from being done, heavy detachments must be made to guard against them."

* * * * *

"The line that connects an army with its base of supplies is the heel of Achilles--its most vital and vulnerable point. It is a great achievement in war to compel an enemy to make heavy detachments to guard it...."

* * * * *

"Having no fixed lines to guard or defined territory to hold, it was always my policy to elude the enemy when they came in search of me, and carry the war into their own camps."

* * * * *

"These operations were erratic simply in not being in accordance with the fixed rules taught by the academies; but in all that I did there was a unity of purpose, and a plan which my commanding general understood and approved."

* * * * *

" ... while I conducted war on the theory that the end of it is to secure peace by the destruction of the resources of the enemy, with as small a loss as possible to my own side, there is no authenticated act of mine which is not perfectly in accordance with approved military usage. Grant, Sherman, and Stonewall Jackson had about the same ideas that I had on the subject of war."

Though all his engagements were reported to Stuart till the death of that great cavalry leader, in May, 1864, and afterward to General Robert E. Lee, Mosby was allowed the freedom of untrammeled action in the sense that the operations of his command were left to his individual discretion.

The following militant verses were published in a Southern magazine, soon after the war, and won immediate popularity:

_Mosby at Hamilton._

BY MADISON CAWEIN.

Down Loudoun lanes, with swinging reins And clash of spur and sabre, And bugling of battle horn, Six score and eight we rode at morn Six score and eight of Southern born, All tried in love and labor.

Full in the sun at Hamilton, We met the South's invaders; Who, over fifteen hundred strong, 'Mid blazing homes had marched along All night, with Northern shout and song, To crush the rebel raiders.

Down Loudoun lanes with streaming manes We spurred in wild March weather; And all along our war-scarred way The graves of Southern heroes lay, Our guide posts to revenge that day, As we rode grim together.

Old tales still tell some miracle Of saints in holy writing-- But who shall say why hundreds fled Before the few that Mosby led, Unless the noblest of our dead Charged with us then when fighting.

While Yankee cheers still stunned our ears, Of troops at Harper's Ferry, While Sheridan led on his Huns, And Richmond rocked to roaring guns, We felt the South still had some sons, She would not scorn to bury.

_Battle of Leesburg_[32] ("_Ball's Bluff_"[33]).