CHAPTER X

SECOND MANASSAS AND MARYLAND CAMPAIGN—SHARPSBURG—BACK TO VIRGINIA—FROM WINCHESTER TO CULPEPER—TO FREDERICKSBURG

SECOND MANASSAS AND THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN

Some time after the battles around Richmond, the brigade set out on what is called the Maryland campaign. It took part in the second battle of Manassas, on the 30th of August, 1862, when my brother, Robert W., who was just eighteen years old, and had joined the company the day before, was badly wounded in the thigh. He was taken to Warrenton, where his father came to him. While there the latter had a severe spell of typhoid fever.

In the fight Company C lost four men killed, as follows: Harvey Martin, W. H. Hendricks, Chas. Murrell, and H. O. Elliott, and several wounded. In this battle the brigade charged and captured a Yankee battery.

SHARPSBURG

The brigade was also engaged in the battle of Sharpsburg, Md., on the 17th of September, 1862, when Major Clement was in command of the Eleventh Regiment and was desperately wounded. He never again returned to the army. He still lives in Campbell County, respected and honored by his people. Adam Clement was a true man, among the bravest of the brave.

I have heard some of Company C relate that on the evening of September 15th, when near Sharpsburg, they saw General Lee by the roadside. When the head of the column, which was falling back before the Yankee army from the direction of South Mountain, reached a certain point, General Lee remarked, as the troops by his order filed off the road to form line of battle, "We will make our stand on these hills," and here the Confederates did make a desperate stand before a largely superior force, 30,000 against 80,000, and held their ground to the end. This was a bloody fight, many thousand men being killed and wounded on both sides. General Jackson had a few days before captured Harper's Ferry, with 11,000 prisoners and large quantities of stores and munitions of war. Jackson and his men then set out to rejoin General Lee at Sharpsburg, arriving, some of them, late in the afternoon on the 17th inst., with ranks much depleted by the hasty march. But "old Jack" got there in time to save the day.

Company C lost two, and perhaps more, men killed, as follows: Joe Rice and John Rice, and several wounded.

BACK TO VIRGINIA

After the battle of Sharpsburg the brigade, with the Confederate troops, re-crossed the Potomac River and camped about Winchester until the latter part of October.

I rejoined the army near Winchester about the 25th of September, 1862, going by railroad to Staunton in company with several men of Company C, who had been home on sick and wounded furloughs, from whence we tramped down the pike and back road, a distance of ninety-odd miles to and beyond Winchester.

The second day, I think it was, we left the rock road, crossing over to the back road in order to procure rations more easily along the way, which we did without any trouble, buying our food from the farm-houses along the road, and sleeping in the woods at night. It took four or five days to make the trip.

With the main army, the brigade left Winchester about the 25th of October, marched up the rock road some distance, then struck across towards the Blue Ridge, wading the Shenandoah River, waist-deep or more. Along the farther side of the river, I remember there were some grand old sycamore trees growing with wide-spreading branches. Whenever I read of or hear Stonewall Jackson's dying words, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees," I think of those sycamores on the Shenandoah, under which I have no doubt Jackson and his men rested in the long ago.

We crossed the Blue Ridge at Thornton's Gap, not far from Sperryville, passing through Madison, Rappahannock, Orange, and Culpeper counties. Through Madison County the road ran for some distance along Robinson River, which has the rockiest bed I ever saw, literally covered with small boulders, not very small at that, some of them. We arrived at Culpeper Court House about the 3d of November. In the meantime, the enemy had crossed the Potomac and were then near Warrenton, Fauquier County, and about the middle of November moved towards Fredericksburg.

The army remained in Culpeper and Orange counties until about the 19th of November, 1862, when it moved on towards Fredericksburg, where the brigade arrived about the 25th of November, stopping by the way several times, going through the Wilderness country—large tracts of woodlands, miles and miles in extent, which afterwards became famous as the ground on which several bloody battles were fought—a part of the way along the old plank-road, going into, as was thought, winter quarters, building "dog houses," some two miles south of Fredericksburg.

The Yankee army, now commanded by General Burnside, was in camp on the opposite side of the Rappahannock River, on what was called Stafford Heights, which overlooked the town and country on the south side, their thousands of white tents being in plain view from the hills on the south side of the river.

The Yankees always camped in the open fields, where they pitched their tents. The Confederates camped in woods after the first year, when improvised shelters were used, for few were the tents they had.

The camps of both armies extended along the river, on either side, some twelve or fifteen miles. The picket lines were along the river banks, in sight of each other, but no firing was done; instead, the soldiers sometimes clandestinely crossed over, swapping tobacco and coffee—the "Johnnies," as the Yankees called the Confederates, having the tobacco, and the "Yanks" the coffee. Newspapers were also exchanged.

While here many of the men were without shoes, and beef hides were issued to make moccasins, but this was a poor shift for shoes, and did little or no good.