Front matter (continued 4)

The assailants returned to assist in the destruction of the public stores at Salisbury, which I have before stated were immense. They had been accumulating there for weeks from Columbia, Charlotte, Richmond, Danville, and Raleigh. The clothing, provisions, medical stores, etc., were collected in the main street and fired. The length of four entire squares was occupied by the burning mass, valued at at least a million in specie. Much was given away to negroes and the lower class of the white population—much was quietly appropriated, and by some who should have known better. The distresses and privations of war make times of strong temptation, and the general demoralization that prevailed all over our country was no greater at Salisbury than elsewhere. To people who had been half starved for months, and many of them half clothed, it was hard to see such quantities of sugar, coffee, spice, flour, bacon, luxuries to which they had long been strangers, burning in their streets like so much rubbish. The stores were all emptied besides of private property—and many people were to be seen passing along the streets loaded with what they chose. Many soldiers had dozens of coats, shirts, etc., piled up before them on their horses.

The value of the medical stores alone was estimated at $100,000 in gold. It is a little curious that, while such an amount was being thrown into the flames, one of the surgeons of the Federal army entered the office of one of the principal physicians in the place—Dr. J.J. Summerell—and was about to carry off all his scanty store of medicine; but upon remonstrance, he agreed to divide, saying, he could not bear to rob a brother practitioner.

On the night of the 12-13th the ordnance stores, arsenal, foundry, with much valuable machinery, the Government steam distillery, the depots and other buildings belonging to both the Central and Western roads, and other public buildings were fired. The night being perfectly still, the sheets of flame rose steadily into the air, and the great conflagration was plainly visible at the distance of fifteen miles; and for several hours the incessant and distinct explosions of shells and fixed ammunition conveyed the impression to the anxious watchers, miles away, in the adjoining counties, that a fierce battle was raging. There was no hallooing by the soldiers—no shouts—only the crackling of the flames and the bursting of the shells. Now and then a mounted troop swept through the streets, the horsemen in profound silence, the lurid flames from the burning distillery making their rough faces look ghastly enough, while the buttons and other mountings of their equipments sparkled in the firelight. No one thought of sleep that night, not even the children.

A large building, three stories high, originally built for a cotton factory, but for some time past occupied by Federal prisoners—all of whom a few weeks previously had been sent to Richmond and Wilmington for exchange—together with the barracks and all other buildings connected with it, were burned; and it may be well imagined that the Federal soldiers felt a peculiar satisfaction in the destruction of a spot so memorable to them—the scene of so much wretchedness and want and despair. Many of the men with Stoneman had been among the prisoners there, and many had had brothers and other relatives there. I have heard that General Gillam himself had been one of the number before his promotion. No one who knows what the condition of these prisoners was, can wonder at any amount of rage expressed by the survivors and avengers. The way in which both sides, during the war, treated their prisoners, is an exceedingly curious commentary on the boasted Christian civilization of the whole country, from Maine to Texas. For the Northern side there is no excuse. For the Southern side there is one—and but one. Our prisoners were starved, as I have said before, because we were starving ourselves; our children were crying for bread, and our soldiers were fighting on half-rations of parched corn and peas. We could not tell our enemies this! We were not to confess to them this fatal weakness in our cause! But what we could do to induce their Government to take these poor wretches home and give us our own in exchange, we did do. Every inducement was offered to them again and again in vain. So far, then, our skirts are clear. But brutality of speech and behavior, cruel indifference to their situation, unnecessary harshness and violence to helpless unarmed men, diseased and dying—of this there may have been much among certain of our officials, and for this we will yet have to repent before Him who hears the sighing of the prisoner.

It has been estimated that the loss in buildings alone, which were mostly of brick, would reach to half a million in specie, and the total loss of all property to several millions. Had the war continued, the capture of Salisbury would have been a stunning blow to General Johnston, and would have severely crippled his movements. As it was, it is a matter of great regret that such a vast amount of most valuable property should have been destroyed just at a time when its destruction was no longer necessary to the overthrow of a cause already dead. General Stoneman might safely have held Salisbury from the hour he entered it, and preserved every dollar's worth of its stores for the advantage of his own government. He might have prevented the further flight of the Confederate Government, and President Davis and all his cabinet might have been forced to surrender with General Johnston. And it would have been better if they had. But General Stoneman did not know what a brilliant part he was playing in the last act of the great tragedy, and he hurried to get through with it and leave Salisbury as rapidly as he had entered it. On the 13th a terrific explosion of the magazine finished the work, and that evening the Federals moved off toward Statesville, riding most of the night as if under apprehension of pursuit.

General Stoneman must certainly be allowed to have accomplished his ends with a skill, celerity, and daring, which entitle him to high praise as a military leader. Add to this the higher praise of humanity, and the ability to control his troops, and he well deserves a higher niche than some who led grand armies on great marches. Salisbury, comparing her lot with that of Columbia and Fayetteville, may well afford to hold General Stoneman's name in grateful remembrance.

I have taken no pleasure in this recital of injuries, insults, inhumanity, and breach of faith. The truth of history demands that the facts shall be told on both sides calmly and with impartiality. The world, which has heard so much of one side, should hear the other too; and posterity, at whose bar we shall all stand for this four years' work, should have every opportunity afforded for a righteous verdict. And there are other ways in which the truth plainly told may do good. People will be enabled, looking at these details, to arrive at a just estimate of what war may become, even among Christian people, and shudder to invoke its horrors lightly, and may teach their children so. How many of us knew in the spring of 1861 what was about to break out among us—what wide-spread ruin, what raging passions, what furies of hell, which once evoked will not down at our bidding? Quiet men, who were familiar with the pages of European history and knew what Christian armies had done again and again in the fairest and most civilized portion of her empires, these came gravely from their studies with words of warning to the gay throngs of young people who were cheering each other on to the impending strife. But these were the old fogies of that day—cold-blooded—unpatriotic—who did not love the South. What a short and brilliant programme was laid down! The girls made their silken banners, and the boys marched proudly off to glorious victory; England and France would see fair play; and this dear and sunny South was to spring at once upward and onward in a career of glory. One of the most influential journals in the South—one of the soberest—dealing lightly and easily with the great issues of the war; settling at a word the boundary lines of the new Southern republic, and dotting what were to be our frontier States with a chain of forts; establishing the new war office, and the standing army, henceforth to be a necessary feature, grew enthusiastic over the splendid resource thus to be afforded to our "aristocratic young men of family and fortune." The army was to be especially for the gentlemen of the South. Alas! and alas! Now, torn and bleeding and broken-hearted, humiliated, stripped, crushed, disfranchised, and helpless, we may look back and learn a lesson.

It may be well, too, if public attention can be directed by such narratives to an investigation of the laws of war, and some inquiry be suggested as to the necessity of their being revised and mitigated. And it can not but a have a beneficial effect that even victorious military heroes shall be made amenable to public opinion for the manner in which they have wielded the great powers intrusted to them, and find, in some cases, their fresh-plucked laurels withering in their grasp.

The actual loss and injury inflicted by the enemy, in the progress of the war, on personal and public property, was very far from being the greatest evil which its continuance entailed upon us. I speak not now of losses by death. Inter arma leges silent is an old saying; and though framed in a dead language, its drift is well understood and acted upon by people who can not even read it. The longer the war lasted the more evident became the demoralization of our people, and their disregard for laws and principles of action by which they had been guided all their lives. At the break-up respectable citizens, who would once have shrunk from even the imputation of such conduct, helped themselves unblushingly to Government stores and public property, even when it had been intrusted to them for safe keeping. When their betters set such an example, the common people of course threw off all restraint; and we could then plainly see how petty, compared with the advantages gained, are the taxes which we pay for the support of law and government. There seemed to be a general feeling, during the last ninety days, that there was no government outside of the military pressure for conscripts, deserters, and tithes. I am reminded of a poor neighbor as I write, who, during the winter of '64-'65, like many others, provided his family with wood to which he had no right. Being remonstrated with, he said with energy, "There is no law in the land in these days," and continued his depredations openly. And I do believe the general feeling was, "What else can he do, with wood at forty dollars a cord?"

Nor are such fruits of war confined to the Southern side of the Potomac. The fires that have lit up so many Northern cities; the tales of murder, robbery, and riot, which have crowded the columns of their journals for the past year; and the general lawlessness and contempt of authority which prevail there, point unmistakably to the dangers which accompany a triumphant and utterly undisciplined army, whether in the enemy's land or returning home flushed with victory and demoralized with licensed rapine and riot. Did Northern people soberly believe that it was zeal for the Union and hatred of secession that prompted such wholesale plunder in the South? Let their own experience since, and the records of their criminal courts within the last year, show, that when plunder is to be had, lawless and unrestrained men care little whether it belongs to friend or foe; and that lust, once aroused and let loose, can not distinguish, and is amenable to no laws. Herein, as in thousands of other instances, is that saying true, "The measure we mete is measured to us again."

Human nature is indeed a wild beast that has need to be chained and continually surrounded with restraints, or we should prey upon each other as savages do, and so lapse into barbarism. Let the experience of the last five years teach the people of this great Republic henceforth to preserve indissolubly the bonds of Peace, that so, as a nation, they may do their appointed part toward hastening on the coming of that Prince of whose kingdom there shall be no end.

"Te duce, qui maneant sceleris vestigia nostri Irrita perpetuâ solvent formidine terras."[17]

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XV.

IREDELL COUNTY—GENERAL PALMER'S COURTESY TO MRS. VANCE—SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT OF THIS LADY BY FEDERAL SOLDIERS—MAJOR HAMBRIGHT'S CRUELTY IN LENOIR—CASE OF DR. BALLEW AND OTHERS—GENERAL GILLAM—HIS OUTRAGES AT MRS. HAGLER'S—DR. BOONE CLARK—TERRIBLE TREATMENT OF HIS FAMILY—LIEUTENANTS RICE AND MALLOBRY—MRS. GENERAL VAUGHN—MORGANTON.

Statesville was entered on the night of the 13th, and occupied for a few hours only. Long enough, however, to insure the destruction of the Government stores and railroad depot, and of the Iredell Express office, a paper which was obnoxious from the warmth with which it had advocated the cause of the Confederacy. No county in the State had suffered more severely than Iredell in the loss of her best and bravest sons in the army. The famous Fourth North-Carolina regiment was composed of Iredell boys, and the colors of no regiment in the service were borne more daringly or more nobly. I remember to have heard it said, after one of the great battles around Richmond, that half the families of Iredell were in mourning. When it became known that the Express office was to be burned, the ladies and citizens plead earnestly that it might be spared for the sake of the town, which was in great danger of being involved in the conflagration. The citizens offered to tear it down and remove the materials to a vacant square to be burned, but this was not allowed by the officer who had charge of the business. The office was fired where it stood, and in consequence a large private dwelling, belonging to Dr. Dean, standing near it, was also consumed, and a large family turned out houseless and utterly prostrated otherwise—Gen. Sherman's army having just previously destroyed certain other resources of theirs. The wind providentially blowing in the right direction, saved the town from general ruin. One of the citizens, Mr. Frank Bell, was cruelly beaten and tortured to make him disclose the hiding-place of gold which they suspected he possessed. He, however, had none.

The raiders moved, on the 14th, to Taylorsville, Alexander county, and from thence to Lenoir, Caldwell county, which they reached on Saturday, 15th, and occupied till Monday, 17th. On the road from Statesville a part of the command was dispatched in the direction of Lincolnton, under General Palmer. Of this officer the same general account is given as of General Stoneman, that he exhibited a courtesy and forbearance which reflected honor on his uniform, and have given him a just claim to the respect and gratitude of our western people. The following pleasant story is a sample of his way of carrying on war with ladies: Mrs. Vance, the wife of the Governor, had taken refuge, from Raleigh, in Statesville with her children. On the approach of General Stoneman's army, she sent off to Lincolnton, for safety, a large trunk filled with valuable clothing, silver, etc., and among other things two thousand dollars in gold, which had been intrusted to her care by one of the banks. This trunk was captured on the road by Palmer's men, who of course rejoiced exceedingly over this finding of spoil more especially as belonging to the rebel Governor Vance. Its contents were speedily appropriated and scattered. But the circumstance coming to General Palmer's knowledge, within an hour's time he had every article and every cent collected and replaced in the trunk, which he then immediately sent back under guard to Mrs. Vance with his compliments. General Palmer was aiming for Charlotte when he was met by couriers announcing news of the armistice.

There was no plundering allowed in Statesville. Mrs. Vance was treated with respect and entirely unmolested. But several weeks afterward, when Governor Vance was a prisoner in Washington, a squad of Federal soldiers came to her residence and carried away every article of furniture in the house. Some of this belonged to the Mansion House in Raleigh, and had been removed to Statesville for safety at the same time when other Government property was sent off. The officer who was in command had the grace to appear ashamed of his business, and apologized to Mrs. Vance repeatedly, stating that he was acting under orders, and that it was done at the suggestion of North-Carolinians in Raleigh, who desired that the articles belonging to the executive mansion should be restored. Every thing in the house was taken away, private property and all, and not one article ever reached the executive mansion. Two queries occur: First, Who were the North-Carolinians who instigated this insult to Mrs. Vance? And second, Whatever did become of the furniture? Every thing in the way of furniture was carried off, and Mrs. Vance, who was then ill, and her children were left without even a bed. In less than twelve hours after this raid extraordinary became known to the people in the town and neighborhood, the house was entirely refurnished with more than it had contained previously. I can well imagine that there was no one who did not esteem it a privilege thus to testify their love and respect for the Governor and his family.

General Stoneman pressed on toward Tennessee through Watauga county, with the prisoners, leaving General Gillam, with three hundred men, to proceed to Asheville via Morganton.

Of the prisoners it was estimated there were about nine hundred. Many of them were old men past the conscript age, some were boys, others were discharged Confederate soldiers in feeble health or maimed, who had been captured at their homes. In regard to them no settled course or plan of action seems to have been adopted. In some instances they easily escaped, or were allowed to do so tacitly, and regained their homes in a short time. Most of them, however, were dragged on with every circumstance of barbarity and cruelty. A few instances may be given illustrative of their treatment.

In Lenoir they were confined in and about the Episcopal church, under a strong guard, with peremptory orders from General Gillam to shoot every man who attempted to escape. The gallant General added, that he "would rather have ten men shot than one escape." It must be remembered that a number of them were over sixty years of age; some were permanently diseased; some were men who had not walked continuously five miles for years, or perhaps hardly in their whole lives; and that, when they reached Lenoir, they had all of them marched twenty-five and thirty miles in eight or ten hours. They had been double-quicked a good part of the way from Taylorsville to Lenoir, and arrived there on Saturday afternoon nearly exhausted with fatigue and hunger. Notwithstanding their deplorable condition, they had nothing to eat after that march till Sunday at ten A.M., and then they were only partially supplied from the scanty stores of the plundered villagers; for Lenoir, having been pronounced a "rebellious little hole," was sentenced to receive its full share of punishment at the hands of General Gillam. It was not till the afternoon of Sunday that rations were issued. Whenever any of the towns-people carried any thing to the prison, the scene was said to have been most piteous, so many men begging for just one morsel of dry bread. There seemed to be an especial spirit of bitterness toward the prisoners among the Federal soldiers generally, and in some instances among the officers. S. Hambright, Major and Provost-Marshal, with headquarters at the same place with General Gillam, was especially insulting to citizens, and cruel to the prisoners. Dr. Ballew, a citizen of Lenoir, enfeebled and emaciated with consumption, was arrested and carried to headquarters. Feeling exhausted with the effort to walk there, he sat down on the steps of the piazza, to await the Major's pleasure. It was determined to send him to prison, and he was ordered to get up and march, but, from his feebleness, not being able to move quickly enough to suit the chivalrous soldier, the Major, to help him rise, stepped behind and gave him "a rousing kick." The citizens were heartily cursed for taking food to them. From Lenoir they were marched rapidly up to the top of the Blue Ridge; several gave out, several who started from Salisbury died. They were all urged forward with threats of death. A Lieutenant Shotwell attempted to escape, but being overtaken, surrendered. He was then shot down and left on the roadside unburied. A Mr. Wilfong, who had captured a straggler of Kirk's command, brought him into Lenoir, not knowing the Federals were there. The tables were of course turned, and he in his turn became a prisoner, and was given in charge to his former captive, who wreaked such cruel vengeance on him that he died before reaching Greenville, Tenn. All who reached Knoxville were sent to Camp Chase, Ohio.

General Gillam deserves especial notice at the hands of the historian. All concurrent testimony represents him as most supercilious, insulting, and unfeeling. His headquarters in Lenoir, were at Mr. Albert Hagler's. The family were all crowded off into one room, while the gallant General and his staff appropriated all the rest of the premises, including kitchen and stables. To Miss Sarah Hagler, an accomplished young lady, he was especially impertinent, though she parried his attacks with the civility of a lady. On one occasion he said to her rudely, "I know you are a rebel from the way you move—an't you a rebel?" She replied, "General Gillam, did you ever hear the story of the tailor's wife and the scissors?" "Yes." "Then I am a rebel as high as I can reach." Coarseness, however, can not always be met playfully, and Mrs. Hagler incurred his anger to its fullest extent when, in reply to his violent denunciation of the Confederates for starving their prisoners, she ventured to suggest that the Federal authorities might have saved all this suffering had they agreed to exchange and take them North, where provisions were plenty. The General's reply to this was the giving his men tacit license to plunder and destroy the houses of Mrs. H.'s married daughter and niece, who lived very near her, and who, she had supposed, were to be protected, from his headquarters being at her house. No houses in the place suffered more severely than theirs. The house of her daughter, Mrs. Hartley, was pillaged from top to bottom. Barrels of sorghum were broken and poured over the wheat in the granary, and over the floors of the house. Furniture and crockery were smashed, and what was not broken up was defiled in a manner so disgusting as to be unfit for use. Mrs. Clark, the niece, was driven out of her house by the brutality of her plunderers. Her husband, Dr. Boone Clark, was a captain in the Confederate service, had been wounded in the battle of Leesburg, early in the war—an admirable and most graphic account of which engagement he wrote for the Raleigh Standard soon after. In several subsequent battles he had received severe wounds, and though partially disabled by one of them at this time, he was endeavoring to raise a company of cavalry for home defense, as marauders, under the notorious Keith and Blalock, were constantly threatening to pillage Lenoir. These facts were known to some of Gillam's men, and they evidently enjoyed the opportunity to plunder his house and insult his defenseless wife. He himself was at home, sitting at table, when the raiders dashed in town. Seizing his gun, he ran out and secreted himself behind some adjoining buildings, and though a colonel did him the honor to enter his house almost immediately, and with a squad made a thorough search for him, his retreat remained undiscovered, and at night he left for more secure quarters. The raiders swarmed through the house that evening and night, breaking open trunks, wardrobes, drawers; searching for arms and carrying off all the valuables, and destroying what they did not want. Finding a coat of the Captain's, they cut it to pieces. They destroyed all the provisions, all the furniture, crockery, and wearing apparel. They tore up fine silk dresses into ribbons for their hats, or cut large squares out and carefully wrapped up quids of tobacco in them and deposited them on the mantel-piece. The little daughter's hat and garments were placed on the floor, and loathsomely polluted. They even took the lady's thimble from her work-box, and carried off the likeness of her deceased mother, paying no regard to her entreaties. They constantly addressed her, as she sat weeping and motionless amid the wreck they were making, in the most profane and obscene and insulting language, repeatedly calling her a liar and other degrading names. They compelled her and her little daughter to remain and witness the destruction; and, finally, when there was nothing more to break and steal, one of them approached her and thrust his fist in her face. As she raised her head to avoid it, he struck her forehead, seized her by the throat, cursing her furiously. She begged him not to kill her; he let her throat loose then; seizing the neck of her dress, tore it open, snatched her gold watch, which hung by a ribbon, tore it off and left her. Half dead with fright, she rushed to the door with the child, and amid curses and cries of "Stop her!" "Don't let her go!" got out of the house, ran down to her aunt's, and fell fainting on the threshold. After she was recovered, the ladies begged General Gillam to interfere, but he refused, saying, "There were bad men in all crowds." In the case of Mrs. Hartley he turned his back to the ladies without a word. Mrs. Clark then appealed to Lieutenant Jerome B. Rice of the Signal Corps, and also to Lieutenant Theodore Mallobry in the same command. These were gentlemen, and manifested a determination to protect her. One of them returned to her house with her and viewed the utter destruction of her household property with every appearance of shame and indignation. As they entered the house a soldier—the last of the gang—ran out. The Lieutenant had him arrested and carried to headquarters. When Mrs. Clark was called on to identify him as one of the robbers, he denied having been near her house. "Why," said she, "that is a piece of a silk dress of mine round your hat now." "Is it?" said he, coolly taking it off and handing it to her; "well, then, you may have it back." This was in the presence of General Gillam, for whom, by the way, it was generally observed, the men seemed to have no respect. General Brown sent a strong guard to Mrs. Clark's house; but it was too late to save any thing, and she had no redress.

I have been thus particular to give an account which is, after all, a condensed one, of the treatment of one Southern lady by certain soldiers of the army of the Union. There are thousands of such cases unreported. This I present as a sample. So much is said of the "unharmonized" attitude of Southern women at present that I think it is as well to let the world see upon what ground it is they feel as if some time must elapse before they can honestly profess to love their enemies.

While plundering one house in the village, the marauders forced themselves into the chamber of a lady while she was in child-birth. With great difficulty the attending physician prevented them from plundering that room.

Mrs. General Vaughn was residing in Lenoir at this time. It is said that Generals Gillam and Vaughn had been friends before the war, and had agreed together that if the family of one should fall into the hands of the other, they should be protected. General Gillam placed a guard at Mrs. Vaughn's house; but as soon as he left the town, two of his men went in and demanded her watch. On her refusal they attempted to search her. She drew a pistol, but they took it from her before she could fire. She resisted their search with all her might, and at last they left her without the watch, having nearly torn her dress off. Shortly after, the same two returned with five others, and with threats of violence compelled her to give the watch up. That night squads of half-intoxicated men came back and committed further depredations in the village and neighborhood. The house of Dr. Felix Dula, with all its furniture, was burned. This, however, it is conjectured, might have been done by deserters. They left Lenoir for Morganton on the 17th, and on the way burned the house of a Mr. Johnston, one of the home guards. On reaching Rocky Ford, on the Catawba river, a mile or two from Morganton, they found a party of about fifty Confederates, strongly posted on the opposite side, well armed, and with one brass howitzer. This party was under the command of Captain George West, Lieutenant-Colonel S. M'Dowell Tate volunteering with them. They were well posted and sheltered on their side, while the enemy approached without cover to attempt a very difficult ford. A sharp engagement ensued, which resulted in General Gillam's withdrawal toward Fleming's Ford, a little higher up. He lost about twenty-five, killed and wounded. Few were wounded. An eye-witness says he counted eight dead bodies of Federal soldiers floating down the stream. The Confederates lost none, their position being so advantageous. At Fleming's Ford General Gillam easily forced his way, the fifty Confederates taking to the mountains on finding themselves overpowered here.

The raiders remained at Morganton a day or two. There was very little plundering done in the houses here. They exercised their ingenuity in searching for hidden treasure out of doors. It seemed to have been understood that the Morganton people, warned of their approach, had cached most of their valuables. These caches were hunted up with unremitting vigor, and most of them were discovered and rifled. Many amusing stories are current now all through the South, of valuable deposits, scarcely hidden at all, which escaped, and some, not so amusing, of others hidden in inscrutable places which were pounced upon at once. Of a quantity of old family silver buried out of town, by a clump of rocks shaded with a persimmon-tree or two and a grape-vine, and on the departure of the enemy the owner going out and finding that a camp had been made just there, and the camp-fire built just over the cache, which was untouched. Of a valuable cache made by several families united, in a secluded spot in the woods, and found afterward undisturbed save by the hoof of a raider's horse having sunk in upon it, having evidently caused a stumble, but no suspicion of the cause. Of valuable papers and jewels so well hidden that it was months before the owners themselves could find where they had put them.

CHAPTER XVI.

PLUNDERING OF COLONEL CARSON—OF REV. MR. PAXTON—GENERAL MARTIN REPULSES KIRBY—GILLAM PLUNDERS DURING THE ARMISTICE—OCCUPATION OF ASHEVILLE—WHOLESALE PLUNDER—DISPATCH FROM GENERAL PALMER.

On the road from Morganton to Asheville General Gillam's men went through their usual programme, wherever a house was to be plundered and ladies were to be insulted and robbed! At Pleasant Garden one of them, feeling that some clean linen was necessary to his comfort, demanded a shirt of Colonel Carson. The Colonel assured him that the house had been thoroughly plundered, and the only shirt remaining to him was the one he then had on. Having satisfied himself of this fact, the soldier compelled the Colonel (an old gentleman) to strip, and carried off his sole remaining shirt. I believe no officers were present at the plundering of Colonel Carson's; but at the house of the Rev. Mr. Paxton, an aged and amiable man, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, officers were present, and countenanced, if they did not directly aid, the pillage. They carried off all that was portable, even to knives and forks, and destroyed the rest of the furniture. Having found some marmalade and molasses, they made a mixture and smeared it over the bedroom furniture, etc. Some of them locked Mrs. Paxton in her room, and attempted to torture her into the disclosure of hidden treasure, if she had such. Her cries brought others to the door, and they desisted. Mr. Paxton's horse, watch, and all his clothing were taken of course. Such were the rudeness and brutality which accompanied these robberies, that people were thankful to escape with their lives.

About the time that General Stoneman's return was expected in the West, a brigade of infantry, under command of a Colonel Kirby, was moved by the Federals from Greenville, Tenn., on Asheville, N.C. It was supposed they would meet Stoneman there; but they arrived a little too soon, during the second week of April, and were met by the Confederates near Camp Woodfire, and so successfully repulsed that they turned about at once and returned to Greenville.

The troops by whom Kirby was repulsed were a part of the command of General J.G. Martin, referred to in our first chapter as the originator of the plan to furnish our soldiers through the blockade-runners. He was, as Governor Vance writes of him, a most gallant and efficient officer, especially valuable for the prompt energy which he infused into every department of business under his control. When it was found that General Gillam intended to take Asheville, General Martin ordered his whole command, consisting of Palmer's brigade (composed of the Sixty-second, Sixty-fourth, and Sixty-ninth North-Carolina, and a South-Carolina battery) and Love's regiment of Thomas's Legion, to the vicinity of Swannanoa Gap, on the road from Morganton to Asheville. Love's regiment was ordered to the Gap. They reached it before Gillam did, and after cutting down some trees, and making a few other arrangements to receive the raiders, waited their approach, and on their advance repulsed them without difficulty. General Gillam spent two days at this Gap, vainly endeavoring to effect a passage, and finally moved off in the direction of Hickory-nut Gap. Palmer's brigade was ordered to meet them there; but General Martin, giving an account of this affair, adds, "I regret to say the men refused to go." Rumors of General Lee's surrender and of Johnston's armistice were floating through the country, and men who fought bravely as long as there was hope were only too willing to lay down their arms at the first news of peace.

General Martin ordered the South-Carolina battery to Greenville, S.C., their horses being in too bad condition for active service. On its way it fell in with General Gillam, and was captured. On Saturday, twenty-second of April, General Martin received notice of General Johnston's armistice with Sherman, and immediately sent out two flags of truce, on different roads, to meet General Gillam. On Sunday afternoon he was met on the Hendersonville road, about six miles from Asheville. He agreed to abide by the truce, and requested an interview with General Martin, who accordingly, on Monday morning, twenty-fourth, went out to his camp. The interview resulted in an agreement that General Gillam should go through Asheville to Tennessee, and that he should be furnished with three days' rations for his men, and that they would observe the truce. General Gillam, it should be remarked, upon the testimony of his own officers, had had official information of the armistice while at Rutherfordton, on his way from Swannanoa. But, nevertheless, he had continued the same system of depredation all along his route from Rutherfordton, sweeping the country of horses, mules, carriages, and property of every description, and destroying what they could not take along. On the twenty-fifth, General Gillam arrived in Asheville. Perfect order was observed. The nine thousand rations required were duly issued to him. General Gillam and his staff dined with General Martin; and as he was about to mount his horse to join his command, in the evening, General Martin asked him if he would give him the forty-eight hours' notice provided for in the truce, before renewing hostilities. General Gillam replied, "Certainly—that the notice should be given."

That night General Gillam left his command encamped not far from Asheville, and went on to Tennessee. During the day, while the Federals were coming in, a party of officers dashed into town from the French Broad road, in a state of very apparent excitement. This was the notorious Colonel Kirke and his staff, who had approached at the head of two regiments for the openly avowed purpose of plundering Asheville, having heard of the dispersion of the Confederates from Swannanoa, and feeling sure of their prize at last. But finding the town quietly occupied by General Gillam, under the terms of the armistice, they expressed deep disappointment, and swore roundly they would yet return and lay it in ashes. Now they were compelled to leave in advance of General Gillam.[18] The Federal army led in its rear an immense train of plunder—animals of all sorts, and carriages and wagons piled with property—household goods and treasures. One load, however, was of questionable value, being no less than fifteen negro babies, the mothers marching in the crowd. The Asheville people had the mortification of seeing the guns of the South-Carolina battery, just captured, driven through by negroes. Not a citizen was visible in the streets; doors and windows were all closed; but I have the best authority—that of a lady—for saying that from behind curtains and blinds many a glance was shot from bright eyes, of contempt and hatred, on the blue jackets. Such lightning, however, is unfortunately innocuous, and not known to produce fatal effects outside of romances; and so the raiders lounged carelessly about, or sat down on the street-corners and played cards, while waiting for their rations, in perfect immunity from such electrical batteries.

Tuesday night passed quietly, and Asheville was beginning to hope that hostilities suspended would prove to be hostilities ended. Our troops had almost ceased to exist in an organized form. The town was guarded by only one company—Captain Teague's scouts—besides General Martin and his staff, including in all about thirty officers. A small party of Federals passed through during the twenty-sixth, under flag of truce, carrying dispatches to General Palmer, who was then approaching from Lincolnton by the Hickory-Nut Gap. At sunset on the twenty-sixth, General Brown, in command of a portion of the same troops that had just passed through with Gillam, suddenly reëntered the place, capturing all the officers and soldiers, and giving up the town to plunder. The men were paroled to go home, the officers to report to General Stoneman at Knoxville.

This, be it remembered, was within twenty-four hours after the above agreement with General Gillam, on official news of General Sherman's armistice.

General Martin being arrested, was taken to General Brown, and after less than an hour's absence, was permitted to return home in charge of a United States officer. On arriving at his house, he found the ladies of his family, with lighted candles, going over the house at the bidding of the marauders, lighting them while they broke open doors, trunks, drawers, and boxes, and helped themselves to what they chose. And this was the experience of every house in the place that night. Many were entered by three or four different gangs at once. They swarmed in at every avenue of entrance, generally by the back-door, having taken counsel with the negroes first. Mrs. Martin recovered some of her stolen goods by the assistance of a guard who was detailed after the house had been plundered. Not even the town of Fayetteville suffered more severely from pillage. Mrs. James W. Patton and her sister were both sick in bed. Their house was entered from front and back at the same time. The ladies' rooms were entered, they were dragged from their beds, their persons and the rooms searched, and their valuables taken. This was supposed to have been done upon the information of a servant, who had told that there were four watches in the house. Of these four watches, three were afterward recovered, through the agency of a Captain Patterson, Assistant Adjutant-General to General Gillam, who had been quartered at Mrs. Patton's, and who proved to be one of the few gentlemen in that division of the United States army.

Judge Bailey's family suffered as severely as any others, every thing portable of value being carried off, even to the boots from the Judge's feet. The wedding-rings of his wife and daughter were forced from their hands. Other ladies were stopped in the street and their jewelry forced from them. Those who applied to General Brown, who had the honor to command this extraordinary expedition, received no redress whatever. Dr. Chapman, a well-known and widely respected minister of the Presbyterian Church, was so entirely robbed of all his goods and valuables, that he had not a change of clothes left beside what he wore. The Tenth and Eleventh Michigan regiments certainly won for themselves in Asheville that night a reputation that should damn them to everlasting fame. No excuse was given for this violation of the armistice, except a lame story of their having been attacked by General Vaughn and returning to Asheville to revenge themselves. General Vaughn was at that time in Virginia. On Thursday, parties scoured the country in all directions, carrying on the work of plunder and destruction. On Friday, they left, having destroyed all the arms and ammunition they could find and burned the armory. On Friday afternoon, they sent off the officers they had captured under a guard. The town being left thus without arms or protectors, the citizens, remembering Kirke's threats, begged General Brown to leave a small force as guard; but he refused, saying, "They might take care of themselves."

On the twenty-eighth, the following dispatch from General Palmer—who was Brown's senior officer—to General Martin, released our officers and men from their parole, and set the disgraceful circumstance of their surprise and capture in its proper light, though not stigmatizing it as it deserved:

Headquarters of East Tenn. Cav. Div., } Hickory-Nut Gap Road,} April 28, 1865. }

General: I could not learn any of the particulars of your capture and that of Colonel Palmer and other officers and men, at Asheville, on the twenty-sixth, and as our troops at that point were obliged to leave immediately, there was no time for me to make the necessary investigation.

I therefore ordered your release on a parole of honor, to report to General Stoneman.

On further reflection, I have come to the conclusion that our men should have given you, under all the circumstances, notice of the termination of the armistice, and that in honor we can not profit by any failure to give this notice. You will therefore please inform all the officers and soldiers paroled by General Brown under the circumstances referred to, that the parole they have given (which was by my order) is not binding, and that they may consider that it was never given.

Regretting that your brother officers and yourself should have been placed in this delicate position, I am, General, respectfully your obedient servant,

William J. Palmer, Brevet Brigadier-General Commanding. General J.G. Martin, Asheville.

The citizens of Asheville also owed it to General Palmer's interference that two regiments of negroes, which had been sent over into Yancey county, and which were bearing down upon Asheville, (it was said, at the suggestion and with the concurrence of Kirke and Gillam,) for the purpose of plunder and arson, were countermanded and sent over into Tennessee.

The Asheville pillage concludes such accounts of General Stoneman's remarkable raid through Western Carolina as I have been able to collect. A rich harvest of incident yet remains for the future historian. I have done little more than indicate his route. Much of the above is taken verbatim from a ms. narrative furnished me, at my request, by Dr. R.L. Beall, of Lenoir, so admirably and accurately prepared that I hope it will be given to the public entire at no distant day. It gives me pleasure to acknowledge here my indebtedness to this gentleman, and my thanks for the generous public spirit he has displayed in his invaluable contribution to these pages.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XVII.

SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE—WHY NORTH-CAROLINA COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN MEASURES TO SEND COMMISSIONERS—REVIEW—THE COAL-FIELDS RAILWAY—DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSPORTATION—PROVISIONS—THE LAST CALL—RECREANTS—PRIVATIONS—THE CONDITION OF THE PRESS.

Not till we had seen General Lee's farewell to his army, printed on a slip from the Danville Register office, and read in household circles with tears and sobs—not till then did we finally and fairly give up the Southern cause, and feel that it was indeed lost. That (for us) dismal fact once established, the large majority—I may say, the great body of Southern people—surrendered with their beloved and trusted leader. Here and there were doubtless some resolved still to blind themselves, to hope against hope, who talked wildly of collecting the scattered fragments of our armies, and prolonging the war beyond the Mississippi—or somewhere; but they were the exceptions, few and far between—rari nantes—who took counsel of their desperation rather than of their reason. For all men knew now, what had long been feared and suspected, that the ground on which we stood was hollow, and had given way hopelessly and forever, and that now we were to pay the reckoning of our four years' madness.

If North-Carolina had, through her Executive, anticipated the final crash, and after the failure of the peace mission to Fortress Monroe, had endeavored to treat separately with the United States Government, and be the first to tender her submission, (as there were some who would fain have had her try the experiment,) if our State had taken this step, four generations would not have heard the last of it. The whole failure of the cause would in time have been attributed to the treachery and faint-heartedness of Old Rip, as there are even now those who say it was the croakers who ruined us, and that Generals Lee and Johnston should not have surrendered so lightly. Besides the infamy, we should have gained absolutely nothing, as is plainly indicated by the course pursuing and pursued of the United States Government.

Governor Graham, as our representative in the Confederate Senate, and from his position, high prestige, and extended reputation, commanding the entire confidence of our people, might very well recommend that some steps should be taken, if possible, to avert the approaching crash, and spare the State the horrors of military subjugation. This it was his duty to do; for to him more than any other man in the State, our people looked for guidance, and for some indication of the policy proper to be pursued in circumstances so critical and so desperate. But if Governor Vance had moved in the matter of sending commissioners to General Sherman one week sooner than he did, or had taken one step looking toward reconciliation, or submission, or negotiation, at any time previous to the second week of April, 1865, he would in all probability have been arrested by our military authorities as a traitor. There was positively nothing that with honor or credit could have been done to meet the United States army sooner than it was done. Our affairs were at a dead-lock from the time of the adjournment of the Confederate Congress. Let those, therefore, who may yet be inclined to deplore that certain steps were not taken by our Executive, be satisfied that the course pursued was the only one possible. There is no room for misconstruction or misrepresentation in the future. Inaction in certain great and supreme moments is the highest wisdom, the truest dignity, as the Indian who finds his bark within the sweep of the rapids, and on the verge of the abyss, folds his arms and awaits the inevitable plunge with self-possession and calmness.

North-Carolina had nothing to retract, nothing to unsay, no pardon to beg. She had acted deliberately in joining the Southern cause. She had given her whole strength to it, with no lukewarm adherence; and now, in the hour of acknowledged defeat and failure, she did not attempt to desert, or abjectly bespeak any favors for herself on the ground of her anti-secession record or proclivities. And when the negotiations were completed and peace was finally announced, it would not be difficult to say what feelings most predominated amongst us. We had desired peace—an end to the bloodshed and to the impending starvation of women and children. Peace we had longed and prayed for; but not this peace. The reünion was not this reünion. With all her former attachment to the old Union—with all her incredulity as to the stability or possibility of a separate independent Confederacy of the Southern States, even in case of its triumphant establishment—with all her sober conservative principles—I will venture to say, that there were not five hundred decent men within the limits of North-Carolina who could be found to rejoice in her military subjugation, or who, under such circumstances, welcomed the reäppearance of the Stars and Stripes as our national emblem. I have never yet seen one who did, or who was, at any rate, willing to avow it. At the same time, I must say, I have never seen one who evinced any intention of other than an honest acceptance of the situation, and a determination to do their whole duty and make the best of the inevitable.

Looking back at our delusions, errors, and miscalculations for the four years of the war, the wonder is, that the Confederacy lasted as long as it did. The last six mouths of its existence were indeed but mere outside show of seeming. That Richmond was doomed, was patent to all shrewd observers in the fall of 1864; and there was probably not a member of the Confederate Congress who did not know it when he took his seat at the beginning of its last session. It certainly reflects very little credit on the wisdom or the patriotism of that body that they did not, before adjourning, take some steps in concert to notify their respective constituents of their opinion as to the situation, and give some indication of the course they judged their States should pursue. Respect for President Davis, who was well known to be extremely averse to any movement looking toward reconstruction, and who refused to contemplate the event of our subjugation as possible—due respect for him may have influenced the extraordinary reticence of our Congress; but it is more probable that an undue regard for their own political reputation and influence was the prime object with most of them. Whatever it was, history will point with a dubious expression to our representatives, each nudging his neighbor and desiring him to go forward—all convinced of the hopelessness of the cause, yet almost no man bold enough to say so publicly.

The Confederacy did not fail for want of genius to direct our military operations, nor for lack of the best qualities that go to make good soldiers in our armies, nor for lack of devotion and self-sacrifice among our people; for they who most doubted the wisdom of our policy or of our success gave as freely as the most sanguine. The history of the rise and fall of the Confederate currency will be a singularly interesting and instructive lesson if it should ever be honestly written. Its steady, unchecked decline but too surely marshaled us the way we were going, and in the successive stages of its destruction we may read as in a mirror the story of our own facile descent.

After General Grant had succeeded in cutting the Petersburg Railroad, the authorities at Richmond looked with anxiety to the Deep River coal-fields in our State as the point where workshops could be located. Before that time there was but little interest felt or expressed in the struggle North-Carolina was making to get a road opened to them; but when the Richmond coal-fields were almost surrounded by the enemy, Chatham county, in our State, became an object of great interest to the Government. All the heads of departments were at once willing to lend a helping hand to the Raleigh and Chatham Coal-fields road. The iron from the Danville road, which had been taken up on account of the necessity of relaying that road with a more heavy rail, (taken from the Charlotte and Statesville road,) was granted to it, and a part of it was already on the way when Sherman arrived in Raleigh.

It is an interesting and suggestive fact connected with the want of transportation facilities in our last days, and showing the dire extremity to which we were reduced, that coal was carried from Deep River by rail and river past Fayetteville to Wilmington, thence by rail via Goldsboro, Raleigh, and Greensboro, to supply the government workshops in Salisbury and Charlotte. South-Carolina also sent trains for it to Wilmington. This coal was pronounced to be of the first quality, equal to the Cumberland coal, and one hundred per cent superior to the Richmond for blacksmith purposes. This want of transportation was one of the many stumbling-blocks in the way of the fainting Confederacy, and connected with the scarcity of provisions, and the strict military surveillance established in every district, brought many of us to the verge of starvation. Provisions were confined by military order to particular districts, each general taking care of his own. I have been told by Kemp P. Battle, Esq., our present State Treasurer, at that time President of the Raleigh, and Chatham road, that on one occasion he was compelled—though he could have bought an abundance of provisions in Eastern Carolina—to send for bacon to South-western Georgia. He had to go to Richmond to see Secretary Seddon himself, and send an agent to General Beauregard at Charleston, in order to get permission to move it to North-Carolina. He was endeavoring; on one occasion to get some corn for his own family up to Raleigh from his plantation in Edgecombe county, when the general in command of that department seized it, and in reply to application for it said, "If the owner is in the field, he may have his corn; if otherwise, not." In this connection what were called "the bonded plantations" were a curious institution in those latter days, which greatly added to the distress of our non-producers. For instance, the owner of a large estate with slaves, in order to keep an overseer out of the army to attend to it, gave bond with good security to deliver to the Government, or to soldiers' families, all his surplus produce at Government prices. By this arrangement of course our large planters could only sell their produce at much below the market price, and in fact for almost nothing, considering the value of our currency. And even this the Government did not pay. It died in debt to many: to Mr. Battle for nearly his whole crop of 1864. With great difficulty he got from a quartermaster, in March, 1865, six thousand dollars, which he immediately exchanged for fifty-seven dollars in gold. Besides this the Government impressed half the working mules, a source alone of no little vexation and distress among our small farmers. Our quartermasters were not always fair in their assessment, nor competent to decide.

The difficulties in the way of procuring provision can hardly be imagined by any but those who lived through that time. One of the last resorts was to smuggle cotton to the Chowan country in exchange for bacon, pound for pound. The greatest irregularities, of course, prevailed in different parts of the South. In some of the central counties of the Gulf States provisions were almost a drug in the market, (there being no transportation,) while here and in the army we were starving.

One of the last desperate expedients of our Government, and which bore as hardly on our people as any other, was the calling out of men between the ages of forty-five and fifty, and the Junior Reserves, mere children who should have been at home with their mothers. When the heads of families were taken away, often leaving a houseful of girls only to assist the mother to make bread, the distress and trouble were most piteous. At first the Government was inclined to be liberal in exemptions, but in the last ninety days all were taken.

On some counties of our State there was a disposition to resist or evade this wholesale conscription, and there were in consequence many deserters, many of whom lived by plundering their neighbors, and thus added to the general confusion and anxiety and peril of the times. Many acts of violence were committed in certain localities. Their expedients to escape capture, the modes of living they resorted to, the singular hiding-places they improvised or elaborated, would make an amusing and curious chapter in the history of the war—only these are the points which historians who desire to represent a people as unanimous in a great national struggle for rights and liberty do not generally care to present. If any of the immortal three hundred faltered on the way to Thermopylæ we have never been told of it. I know that we were greatly mortified to hear the stories that were told by those who were sent in search of our recreants. It was a severe shock to our high-strung theories of Southern chivalry and patriotism, to think of Southerners hiding in dens and caves of the earth, resolved with great constancy NOT to be martyrs, having to be unearthed in these burrows and dragged out to the fight. One warrior lived for weeks in a hollow tree, fed by his wife; another was conscripted from beneath his own hen-house, where he had dug out a sort of grave, into which, well supplied with blankets, he descended in peace every morning. One took possession of an old, deserted, and forgotten mine in his neighborhood, and by a skillful disposal of brush and rubbish at the entrance, kept house quite comfortably for months, plying his trade of shoemaker meanwhile, and supplied with food from home. The women, in such cases, were the instigators of the skulking. One soldier returning to his regiment, after a furlough at home in a certain county, said "He'd be d—d if Jeff Davis wouldn't desert too if he were to stay at —— awhile."

The history of our personal privations, our household expenses, our public donations, and our taxes, will be a curious study of domestic and political economy combined. People who before the war had lived up fully to incomes of two thousand dollars a year, were reduced to less than one tenth of that sum, and are fully qualified now to give an answer to the question of how little one can live on. Fifty dollars in gold would have been gladly taken in exchange for many a whole year's salary in Confederate currency for the last year or two. Even now it is an inexplicable mystery to me how people with moderate salaries lived who had families to feed and clothe. It was done only by confining themselves strictly to the most common and coarsest articles, and by an entire renunciation of all the luxuries and most of the comforts of life. When tallow was thirty dollars per pound, people necessarily sat in darkness. I have walked from end to end of our town at night and not observed half a dozen lights. If we did not realize Charles Lamb's notion of society, as it must have existed before the invention of lights, when people had to feel about for a smile, and handle a neighbor's cheek to be sure that he understood a joke, it was because lightwood-knots were plentiful, and turpentine easy of access.

The condition of the press was a striking commentary on the state of things among us. Some pains have been taken to secure an accurate list of our State papers from an entirely reliable source. At the commencement of the war there were but two daily papers in the State; at the close, there were four in the city of Raleigh alone. Of fifty-seven papers in existence in May, 1861, twenty-six ceased during the war. There are thirty-three now in the State, of which ten are dailies. People who had never taken more than their own county weekly in all their lives, found the Richmond dailies a necessity during the war, so great was the general anxiety to have the latest news, and above all from the army. The post-offices were besieged for the dingy half-sheets that came freighted with momentous intelligence for us. The Fayetteville Observer and the North-Carolina Presbyterian were the only two papers in the State whose dimensions were not reduced to a half-sheet. The Fayetteville Observer had been for forty years one of the most ably edited, most sterling, and most influential journals in the State, and I may add, in the whole Southern country.[19] Its influence for good all through that long period can hardly be overrated. The editor, E.J. Hale, was an old-line whig in politics—a conservative of the strictest sort. His paper ranged side by side with the National Intelligencer, the Richmond Whig, and the other noble old journals of that school which had stood as breakwaters for more than a generation against the incoming tide of radicalism North and South, but were swept away at last in the great flood. Mr. Hale opposed the doctrine of secession, and resisted its movement as long as it was possible to do so. Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men to coerce the South first aroused his opposition to the United States Government; and after this State had gone over he supported her Act, and supported the war with all his power, giving his sons, giving most liberally of all his substance, and devoting his paper enthusiastically to the benefit of the army, and the upholding of the State and general government. For though no admirer in past times of Mr. Davis's record as a Democrat politician, yet when he was elevated to the post of President of the Confederacy, and became the representative of the Southern people, no man gave him a more generous support. His paper was published weekly and semi-weekly without intermission, and with a constantly increasing circulation and influence, until the appearance in Fayetteville of General Sherman's army, on the twelfth of April, 1865, when the office was entirely destroyed, and the fruits of a lifetime of labor scattered to the winds. The office of the North-Carolina Presbyterian was also destroyed at the same time.

The Raleigh Standard, edited by W.W. Holden, was for many years the leading organ of the Democratic party in the State; indeed it may be said to have been the creator and preserver of that party, and was perhaps the most widely-circulated and influential of all our journals, for its reputation was not confined to the State. It was edited with marked ability by a man, unsurpassed as a party tactician, who thoroughly understood his business, and who always kept his powder dry. During the first two years of the war all parties seemed melted down and fused into one by the general ardor and excitement of the times; and our heretofore antagonist papers presented a most edifying spectacle of concord and agreement. In 1863, Mr. Holden seeing no prospect of a favorable end to the war by fighting, began to advocate a resort to negotiation upon the basis of possible reconstruction. This speedily rendered him obnoxious to those of us who desired the war to go on, preferring even military subjugation to peaceful reconstruction; while it drew more closely to his support those who desired peace on any terms. The state of feeling between these two parties came to be such that an internecine war among ourselves might have broken out at any time. It was excessively difficult and dangerous for our public men to move either way. A party of soldiers passing through Raleigh, in September, 1863, mobbed the Standard office, and the compliment was returned, by the friends of Mr. Holden mobbing the office of the war paper, conducted at that time by John Spelman, under the title of the State Journal. Mr. Holden deemed it prudent to suspend the issue of his paper for two months in the spring of 1864 in consequence of the passage of the act suspending the writ of habeas corpus—suspended also for a day or two on the arrival of General Sherman's army.

The State Journal changed hands and name in 1864. Under the title of The Confederate, and edited by Colonel D.K. McRae, it became the daily organ of the Confederate Government in this State, and continued to advocate the policy of our chief and the indefinite continuance of the war till within three days of General Sherman's entrance into Raleigh, when the office was entirely destroyed. It was edited with much spirit and ability, but with singular audacity and bitterness.

The organ of Governor Vance's administration was The Conservative, established in 1864 as a daily, and continuing till General Sherman's arrival, when it shared the fate of the Confederate, being utterly destroyed, except one small press, which General Slocum carried away with him. The Progress, daily, followed the lead of the Standard in politics, and like the Standard, was suspended for only a day or two on the occupation of Raleigh. It had the reputation of being the earliest and sprightliest retailer of news—generally ahead of its competitors in that department. All these, as well as all others in the Confederacy, with a few exceptions, were printed on half-sheets of exceedingly dingy paper, and their price ranged from twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars for six months. No subscriptions were taken for a longer period, in consequence of the steady decline in value of our currency. The typography and general appearance, to say nothing of their matter, would have rendered them objects of curiosity in any part of the civilized world, and afford a close resemblance to the journals published in the days of the Revolution of 1776. Such was the scarcity of paper among us, that they disappeared as fast as they were received; and a complete file of one of our Confederate papers, which would be an invaluable possession for an historical society fifty years hence, is probably even now an impossibility.

All literary influences were of course greatly checked and straitened, while our people held their breath in suspense as to the issue of the war. Colleges were closed, schools went on lamely for want of teachers, who were in the army, and for want of text-books. An effort was made here and there to supply the increasing demand for grammars, arithmetics, readers, and primers; but the paper was coarse and dark, and the type was old and worn—the general getting up of these home-made books affording the clearest evidence of the insurmountable difficulties under which our people labored in endeavoring to make books while struggling for bread. Some of them ran the blockade, being sent abroad to be stereotyped. Some of them need only a new dress to take their place as standards in any school in the country now; but the majority of them may be set down as failures. The common-schools, kept going at first, shared at last in the general decline and relaxation of order, and were hardly in existence at all at the close. As to books from abroad—magazines, papers, etc.—it may well be imagined that in the interior of the Confederacy at least, we were at a standstill in regard to all such means of improvement or information. Occasionally a copy of the London Times, or one or two of the leading New-York journals found its way from Richmond, or Wilmington, or Charleston, and was sent from house to house until utterly worn out. Occasionally some enterprising publishing house, getting hold of a copy of the latest English novel, would issue a reprint of it, solitary copies of which circulated through a county, and soon shared the fate of the papers. Northern magazines or books were but little in request, and little read if obtained.[20] I am by no means certain that the loss of the current "light literature" of the day was a loss much to be deplored. Such privations may rather be classed among the benefits of the war.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE UNIVERSITY—ITS EARLY HISTORY—ITS CONTINUED GROWTH—THE ARDOR OF THE YOUNG MEN—APPLICATION FOR RELIEF FROM CONSCRIPTION—GOVERNOR SWAIN TO PRESIDENT DAVIS—ANOTHER DRAFT ON THE BOYS—A DOZEN BOYS IN COLLEGE WHEN SHERMAN COMES; AND THE BELLS RING ON—"COMMENCEMENT" IN 1865—ONE GRADUATE—HE PRONOUNCES THE VALEDICTORY—CONCLUSION.

As to the State University, perhaps more than a mere reference to its condition at the close of the war may not unjustly form part of a contribution to our State history, since its influence and reputation have been second to those of no similar institution in the country, and its benefits have been widely diffused through every State of the Confederacy. Its Revolutionary history is not uninteresting in this connection. At the very time when all our State interests lay prostrate and exhausted from the Revolutionary struggle, the very time when a superficial observer would have thought it enough for the people to get bread to eat and clothes to wear, our far-seeing patriots, who knew well that without education no state can become great, and that the weaker we were physically the more need there was for intellectual force and power to enable us to maintain our stand among the nations—these wise men projected and laid the foundations of a State literary institution, which, uncontrolled and uncontaminated by party politics or religious bigotries, should be an honor and a benefit to the commonwealth through all future generations. General Davie may be said to have been the father of the University, though every man of distinction in the State at that time manifested a deep and cordial interest in its establishment.

Most of my readers are sufficiently familiar with the history of the State to be aware that, before the Revolution, the mother country would permit no college or university or school to be established but upon certain conditions utterly repugnant to principles of civil and religious liberty. The charter of Queen's College, at Charlotte, Mecklenburg county, (the college, town, and county, all three being named in loyal compliment to his queen,) was disallowed by George III., because other than members of the Established Church of England were appointed among the trustees. This act of tyranny did more to arouse the revolutionary spirit than the Stamp Act and all other causes combined. The money that belonged to the common-school fund was squandered by the mother country in the erection of a palace for the royal governor—the most splendid edifice of the time on the continent. And at the close of the war for independence, so impoverished was the country that the General Assembly could contribute nothing toward the establishment of the University, beyond endowing it with doubtful debts, escheats, and derelict property. So that if aid had not been given from private sources, it would never have struggled into existence. At the first meeting of the trustees, Colonel Benjamin Smith, the aide-de-camp of General Washington and subsequent Governor of the State, made a donation of twenty thousand acres of Chickasaw lands. Major Charles Girard, who had served throughout the perils of the war, childless in the providence of God, adopted the newly-born University, and bestowed on it property supposed to be equal in value to forty thousand dollars. General Thomas Person, the old chief of the Regulators, gave in cash ten hundred and twenty-five dollars[21] to the completion of one of the buildings; and Girard Hall, Person Hall, and Smith Hall, preserve in their names the grateful remembrance of the earliest and most munificent patrons of the institution. It is a striking evidence of the poverty of the times that the ladies of the chief city of North-Carolina were able to present only a quadrant in token of their interest in the new undertaking, and the ladies of Raleigh a small pair of globes.

In 1795, the first student arrived, and from that day to this the whole course of the University has been one of great and steadily increasing reputation and usefulness. Dr. Joseph Caldwell was president from 1796 to 1835, (with the exception of four years, when Rev. Dr. Chapman presided,) when the Hon. David L. Swain was appointed his successor, and he still remains at the head, the oldest college president in the United States, and one of the most successful. It is a remarkable fact, and one strongly illustrative of the conservative tone of our society, and of our North-Carolina people in general, that for the long period of seventy years there have been virtually but two presidents—that two of the senior professors have remained for forty years each, one of them occupying the same chair for that whole period. Another professor has held his chair for twenty-eight years, another for twenty-four, another for seventeen years. I doubt if any other college in the country can show a similar record. During the five years immediately preceding the war, the average number of students was about four hundred and twenty-five—a larger number than was registered at any similar institution in the Union except Yale. The average receipts for tuition exceeded twenty thousand dollars per annum; and it is another circumstance which probably has no parallel in American colleges, that with a meagre endowment, the munificent patronage of the public enabled the authorities of the institution to make permanent improvements in the edifices and grounds, and additions to the library and apparatus, amounting in value, as exhibited by the reports of the trustees, to the sum of more than a hundred thousand dollars! This was effected by skillful financiering, and by giving the faculty very moderate salaries, and is a striking illustration at least of North-Carolina thrift and careful management. Since 1837, moreover, the faculty have been authorized to receive without charge for tuition or room-rent, any native of the State possessed of the requisite endowments, natural and acquired, whose circumstances may make such assistance necessary. About ten young men annually have availed themselves of this privilege, and these have in numerous instances won the highest honors of the University, and attained like distinction in the various walks of life. Two remarkable cases of this character, presented during the discussion of the proposition to extend temporary relief to the University, in the last General Assembly, must be fresh in the remembrance of many of my readers. In addition to the beneficence of this general ordinance, the two Literary Societies of the institution have each annually defrayed the entire expenses of one or more beneficiaries, during the time referred to, and these recipients of their bounty have rendered service and occupy positions of eminence and usefulness which offer the highest encouragement to perseverance in such benefactions. An account current between the State and the University for the past quarter of a century, will show the amount of the tuition and room-rent of those young men, added to the benefactions of the Societies, is greatly in excess of all the direct contributions for its support derived from the public authorities. Nay, more, that these sums, added to the hundred thousand dollars resulting from the net earnings of the institution, were quite equal in amount to the entire endowment now annihilated by the repudiation of the war-debt, and the consequent insolvency of the Bank of North-Carolina, in the stock of which more than the entire endowment was invested.

Can any other College in the United States say as much?

At the opening of the war, the ardor with which the young men rushed into the military service may be inferred from the fact that of the eighty members of the Freshman class, but one remained to continue his education, and he was incapacitated by feeble health from joining his comrades in the field. Five members of the faculty volunteered for the war; and those who remained in their chairs, being incapacitated by age or by their sacred profession from serving their country otherwise than as teachers, resolved to keep the doors of the University open as long as a dozen boys could be found amid the din of arms who might be able to profit by it. When conscription was resorted to, to fill up the depleted armies of the South, the trustees resolved to appeal to President Davis in behalf of the University, lest it should be entirely broken up by too rigid an enforcement of the law. The results were an important part of our State history during the war, and embodied facts which had a significant influence at the close.

"Raleigh, October 8, 1863.

"At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the University this day, present: His Excellency Governor Vance, President; W.A. Graham, Jonathan Worth, D.M. Barringer, P.H. Winston, Thomas Ruffin, J.H. Bryan, K.P. Battle, Charles Manly.

"Resolved, That the President of the University be authorized to correspond with the President of the Confederate States, asking a suspension of any order or regulation which may have been issued for the conscription of students of the University, until the end of the present session, and also with a view to a general exemption of young men advanced in liberal studies, until they shall complete their college course.

"That the President of the University open correspondence with the heads of other literary institutions of the Confederacy, proposing the adoption of a general regulation, exempting for a limited time from military service the members of the two higher classes of our colleges, to enable them to attain the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

"Charles Manly, Secretary."

In accordance with this resolution, Governor Swain addressed the following letter to President Davis, which will be read with interest, as presenting some very remarkable statements in regard to the University and the village of Chapel Hill:

"University of North-Carolina, } Chapel Hill, Oct. 15, 1863. } "To His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States:

"Sir: The accompanying resolutions, adopted by the trustees of this institution at their meeting in Raleigh, on the eighth instant, make it my duty to open a correspondence with you on the subject to which they relate.

"A simple statement of the facts, which seem to me to be pertinent, without any attempt to illustrate and enforce them by argument, will, I suppose, sufficiently accomplish the purposes of the trustees.

"At the close of the collegiate year 1859-60, (June seventh, 1860,) the whole number of students on our catalogue was four hundred and thirty. Of these, two hundred and forty-five were from North-Carolina, twenty-nine from Tennessee, twenty-eight from Louisiana, twenty-eight from Mississippi, twenty-six from Alabama, twenty-four from South-Carolina, seventeen from Texas, fourteen from Georgia, five from Virginia, four from Florida, two from Arkansas, two from Kentucky, two from Missouri, two from California, one from Iowa, one from New-Mexico, one from Ohio. They were distributed in the four classes as follows: Seniors eighty-four, Juniors one hundred and two, Sophomores one hundred and twenty-five, Freshmen eighty.

"Of the eight young men who received the first distinction in the Senior class, four are in their graves, (soldiers' graves,) and a fifth a wounded prisoner. More than a seventh of these graduates are known to have fallen in battle.

"The Freshmen class of eighty members pressed into the service with such impetuosity that but a single individual remained to graduate at the last commencement; and he in the intervening time had entered the army, been discharged on account of impaired health, and was permitted by special favor to rejoin his class.

"The Faculty at that time was composed of fourteen members, no one of whom was liable to conscription. Five of the fourteen were permitted by the trustees to volunteer. One of these has recently returned from long imprisonment in Ohio, with a ruined constitution. A second is a wounded prisoner, now at Baltimore. A third fell at Gettysburgh. The remaining two are in active field-service at present.

"The nine gentlemen who now constitute the corps of instructors are, with a single exception, clergymen, or laymen beyond the age of conscription. No one of them has a son of the requisite age who has not entered the service as a volunteer. Five of the eight sons of members of the faculty are now in active service; one fell mortally wounded at Gettysburgh, another at South-Mountain.

"The village of Chapel Hill owes its existence to the University, and is of course materially affected by the prosperity or decline of the institution. The young men of the village responded to the call of the country with the same alacrity which characterized the college classes; and fifteen of them—a larger proportion than is exhibited in any other town or village in the State—have already fallen in battle. The departed are more numerous than the survivors; and the melancholy fact is prominent with respect to both the village and the University, that the most promising young men have been the earliest victims.

"Without entering into further details, permit me to assure you, as the result of extensive and careful observation and inquiry, that I know of no similar institution or community in the Confederacy that has rendered greater services or endured greater losses and privations than the University of North-Carolina, and the village of Chapel Hill.

"The number of students at present here is sixty-three; of whom fifty-five are from North-Carolina, four from Virginia, two from South-Carolina, and one from Alabama; nine Seniors, thirteen Juniors, fourteen Sophomores, and twenty-seven Freshmen.

"A rigid enforcement of the Conscription Act may take from us nine or ten young men with physical constitutions in general better suited to the quiet pursuits of literature and science than to military service. They can make no appreciable addition to the strength of the army; but their withdrawal may very seriously affect our organization, and in its ultimate effects compel us to close the doors of the oldest University at present accessible to the students of the Confederacy.

"It can scarcely be necessary to intimate that with a slender endowment and a diminution of more than twenty thousand dollars in the annual receipts for tuition, it is at present very difficult and may soon be impossible to sustain the institution. The exemption of professors from the operation of the Conscript Act is a sufficient indication that the annihilation of the best established colleges in the country was not the purpose of Our Congress; and I can but hope with the eminent gentlemen who have made me their organ on this occasion, that it will never be permitted to produce effects which I am satisfied no one would more deeply deplore than yourself.

"I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, your obedient servant,

D.L. Swain."

The result of this application was that orders were issued from the Conscript Office to grant the exemption requested. President Davis is reported to have said in the beginning of the war in reference to the drafting of college boys, that it should not be done; "that the seed-corn must not be ground up."

But as the exigencies of the country became more and more pressing, the wisdom of this precept was lost sight of. In the spring of 1864, in reply to a second application in behalf of the two lower classes, Mr. Seddon returned the following opinion to the Conscript Bureau:

"I can not see in the grounds presented such peculiar or exceptional circumstances as will justify departure from the rules acted on in many similar instances. Youths under eighteen will be allowed to continue their studies. Those over, capable of military service, will best discharge their duty and find their highest training in defending the country in the field.

"March 10, 1864."

In compliance with this opinion, the Conscript Act was finally enforced at the University; the classes were still further reduced by the withdrawal of such as came within the requirements of the act, or who were determined to share at all hazards the fate of their comrades in the army. The University, however, still struggled on; and when General Sherman's forces entered the place, there were some ten or twelve boys still keeping up the name of a college. The bell was rung by one of the professors, and morning and evening prayers attended to during the stay of the United States forces. The students present, with two or three exceptions, were those whose homes were in the village. The two or three who were from a distance, left on the advent of the Federals, walking to their homes in neighboring counties, there being no other means of locomotion in those days. But one Senior, Mr. W.C. Prout, graduated at the ensuing commencement, having taken the whole course. There were three others who received diplomas at the same time. For the first time in thirty years, the President was absent from these exercises, having been summoned by President Johnson to Washington City, to confer with him and with other North-Carolina gentlemen on the condition of affairs in the State. Not a single visitor from abroad attended the commencement, with the exception of some thirty gentlemen dressed in blue, who had been delegated to remain here and keep order. The residents of the village were the only audience to hear the valedictory pronounced by the sole remaining representative of his class. Where were the hundreds who had thronged these halls four years before? Virginia, and Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, and Georgia were heaving with their graves! In every State that had felt the tread of armies, and wherever the rough edge of the battle had joined, there had been found the foster-children of North-Carolina's University;[22] and now, sitting discrowned and childless, she might well have taken up the old lamentations which come to us in these later days more and more audibly across the centuries, "Oh! that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!"

There is not a prettier village in the South than that which lies around the University, and has grown up with it and has been sustained and elevated by it. And not a village in the South gave more freely of its best blood in the war, not one suffered more severely in proportion to its population. Thirty-five of our young men died in the service. Some of them left wives and little ones; some were the only support and blessing of aged parents; all were, with very few exceptions, the very flower of our families, and were representatives of every walk and condition of life. The first company that left the place in May, 1861, commanded by Captain R.J. Ashe, was attached to the famous First North-Carolina regiment, which so distinguished itself at the memorable battle of Bethel, June tenth of that year. Upon the disbanding of this regiment, the members of the Orange Light Infantry attached themselves to other companies—for no fewer than four were raised here and in the vicinity—and many of them were among those who dragged themselves home on foot from Lee's last field.

The decline of the University threw many of our citizens out of employment, and the privations endured here tell as sad a story as can be met with anywhere. There was some alleviation of the general distress for those who had houses or furniture to rent; for every vacant room was crowded at one time by refugee families from the eastern part of the State, from Norfolk, and latterly from Petersburg. And this was the case with every town in the interior of the State. Some of these settled here permanently during the war, attracted by the beauty and secluded quiet of the place, and by the libraries—best society of all! Some of them merely alighted here in the first hurry of their flight, and afterward sought other homes, as birds flit uneasily from bough to bough when driven from their nests. These families were generally representatives of the best and most highly cultivated of our Southern aristocracy. They fled hither stripped of all their earthly possessions, except a few of their negroes. Many came not only having left their beautiful homes in the hands of invaders, but with heads bowed down with mourning; for gallant sons who had fallen in vain defense of those homes. Some of them, the elders among them, closed their wearied eyes here, and were laid to rest among strangers, glad to die and exchange their uncertain citizenship in a torn and distracted country for that city which hath foundations.

The benefits of the war in our State should not be overlooked in summing up even a slight record concerning it. It brought all classes nearer to each other. The rich and the poor met together. A common cause became a common bond of sympathy and kind feeling. Charity was more freely dispensed, pride of station was forgotten. The Supreme Court judges and the ex-governors, whose sons had marched away in the ranks side by side with those of the day-laborer, felt a closer tie henceforth to their neighbor. When a whole village poured in and around one church building to hear the ministers of every denomination pray the parting prayers and invoke the farewell blessings in unison on the village boys, there was little room for sectarian feeling. Christians of every name drew nearer to each other. People who wept, and prayed, and rejoiced together as we did for four years, learned to love each other more. The higher and nobler and more generous impulses of our nature were brought constantly into action, stimulated by the heroic endurance and splendid gallantry of our soldiers, and the general enthusiasm which prevailed among us. Heaven forbid we should forget the good which the war brought us, amid such incalculable evils; and Heaven forbid we should ever forget its lessons—industry, economy, ingenuity, patience, faith, charity, and above all, and finally, humility, and a firm resolve henceforth to let well alone.

That North-Carolina has within herself all the elements of a larger life and hope, and a more diffused prosperity than she has ever known, is not to be doubted by those who are acquainted with the wealth of her internal resources and the consummate honesty, industry, and resolution of her people. Time will heal these wounds yet raw and bleeding; the tide of a new and nobler life will yet fill her veins and throb in all her pulses; and taught in the school of adversity the noblest of all lessons, our people will rise from their present dejection when their civil rights have been restored them, and with renewed hope in God will go on to do their whole duty as heretofore. Silently they will help to clear the wreck and right the ship; silently they will do their duty to the dead and to the living, and to those who shall come after them; silently and with the modesty of all true heroism they will do great things, and leave it to others to publish them. Remarkable as North-Carolinians have ever been for reticence and sobriety of speech and action, it is reserved for such epochs as those of May twentieth, 1776, and May twentieth, 1861, and for such great conflicts as succeeded them, to show what a fire can leap forth from this grave, impassive people—what a flame is kindled in generous sympathy, what ardor burns in defense of right and liberty. They are now to show the world what true and ennobling dignity may accompany defeat, surrender, and submission.

I close these slight and inadequate sketches of a memorable time with the words of my first sentence. The history of the great war is yet to be written, and can scarcely be fairly and impartially written by this generation. But it is our imperative duty to ourselves and to our dead to begin at once to lay up the costly material for the great work. Every man should contribute freely according to his ability, gold and silver, precious stones, iron and wood; and with this motive, I have ventured to present such an outline of events in the last ninety days as circumstances would permit me to gather.

FOOTNOTES:

APPENDIX.

I.

"More than a seventh of the aggregate number of graduates are known to have fallen in battle."

This was written in October, 1863. When the war was closed, the proportion was much greater.

It is hardly consistent with the slight character of these sketches to enter deeply into questions of constitutional law, involving the rights of belligerents and insurgents in time of civil war. I had no intention of attempting more than a plain, unvarnished statement of facts; with some hope, I confess, that a faithful narrative of the losses and the sufferings of the vanquished might do something at least toward arousing a generous remorse and regret in the breasts of the victors. This volume will produce an effect altogether contrary to what is intended if it serves only to prolong the remembrances which excite sectional animosity.

The records of our literary institutions all over the South will be found especially valuable in making up the estimate of our losses on the battle-field; for they will show unerringly that it was the best blood of the South that was poured out like water; that her educated young men were the first to offer themselves in what they deemed a glorious cause, and were among the first to fall. And North-Carolina, in particular, may point with pride to her University for an example of patriotic devotion unsurpassed by any other institution in the South.

I had hoped to be able to exhibit in this Appendix a collection of statistical details in connection with our University, of a deep and melancholy interest; and have taken much pains and made numerous inquiries to ascertain what proportion of the living Alumni had participated in the contest, and what number had fallen in battle. It is, however, impossible to accomplish this design at present, and a complete record, if it can ever be obtained, must be reserved for future publication. I must content myself with a general view in relation to the actors of one particular era; judging by which we may form some estimate of the whole number of those, who, having enjoyed the best advantages of education, and representing the best classes of society, counted not their lives dear in the service of their country.