Chapter XXIX

The Conclusion.

War Ends.

The Return to Civil Pursuits.

The Confederate Soldier.

The war was now ended, the issues involved settled and closed, so far as they could be by the sword. The Federal government had stood the test, proved itself too strong for the allied seceded states, overthrown their separate government, maintained by a separate people for four years, and established the fact that no state could secede or leave the Union unless by revolution and force of arms strong enough to defy and successfully resist the power of the general government. Slavery was abolished and could not exist among the American people. To accomplish these two things had cost thousands of lives, anguish, blood and billions of treasure.

With the close of the war the survivors of Company D who were either at home or in hospital when the war ended, or who had gotten home from the surrender at Appomattox, or had been released from military prisons, accepted the result of the conflict in good faith and again entered the pursuits of civil life. As they had been gallant soldiers, they became law-abiding, upright and worthy citizens. Numbers of the company had perished on the battlefield, in hospitals and in prison. Some were buried on the field where they fell, with no monument or slab to mark their last resting place, yet they died for a cause the justness of which they never for a moment doubted. The survivors lived to see their efforts for separate government defeated, the principles and the righteousness of the cause not lost, but the struggle to establish and maintain the same had failed. This failure is, however, no argument against the justness and right of the cause. No braver, nobler company of men had part in the contest than the company of which I write. Theirs was a sacrifice for liberty not to be gained and a struggle in which all was lost save honor and manhood.

Now (1914), nearly fifty years have passed since the close of the mighty conflict, and there remain alive of those brave men who stood on the firing line, baring their bosoms to the storm, but few, eighteen, so far as I know or can ascertain, and whose names are as follows: A. L. Fry, J. T. Frazier, John A. Hale, B. L. Hoge, James J. Hurt, David E. Johnston, —— Lewy, N. J. Morris, Thomas N. Mustain, A. C. Pack, William D. Peters, John W. Sarver, Alexander Skeens, Joseph Skeens, W. H. H. Snidow, Thomas J. Stafford, Gordon L. Wilburn and Jesse B. Young.

In what is said herein in praise of the honor and glory won in war and peace by the Confederate soldier, particularly of those of the Army of Northern Virginia, with which I served throughout the four years' struggle, I do not for one moment mean or intend to detract from the laurels won by the heroic Union soldier, who stood in the firing line, faithfully discharging his duty; for he, as well as we, was contending for principles regarded sacred and for which we had risked our lives, and in which struggle one or the other of the combatants must yield. All were American soldiers, and the glory and honor won by each is the common heritage of the American people, not to be obscured or clouded by the questions about which we differed. Each struggled to maintain the right as God gave him to see the right.

We often talked along the skirmish lines with Union soldiers and they invariably and vehemently denied that they were fighting to abolish or destroy slavery. Particularly was this true of those from the Northwestern states. In opposition to our claim or contention that we were fighting for independence—separate government—they insisted that they were fighting for the Union, a common, undivided country; did not want to see the country broken up by division; and I feel fairly safe in stating that this feeling and sentiment largely dominated the great majority of the Union soldiers. I recall one or more conversations with Union soldiers along the lines on the above subject, in which they told me that if they believed they were fighting to free the slaves they would quit the army and go home.

The Confederate soldier, as I have already said, accepted in good faith the result of the war, bore no malice toward those whom he had fought face to face, knowing:

And again remembering the thought expressed in the lines:

No such army ever trod this earth as the Army of Northern Virginia, composed of the best body of fighting men that ever shouldered a musket. President Roosevelt said of them: "The world has never seen better soldiers than those who followed Lee."

The Federal General Hooker—"Fighting Joe," as he was aptly called by his soldiers, in his testimony before the committee of Congress on the conduct of the war, in speaking of the Army of Northern Virginia, among other things said: "That army had by discipline alone a character for steadiness and efficiency unsurpassed, in my judgment, in ancient or modern times. We have not been able to rival it."

Colonel David F. Pugh, a gallant Federal soldier, and a late commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in an address delivered by him at the unveiling of the Confederate monument at Camp Chase, Ohio, June 7, 1902, said: "All the bitterness has gone out of my heart, and in spite of a Confederate bullet in my body, I do not hesitate to acknowledge that their valor is part of the common heritage of the whole country. We can never challenge the fame of those men whose skill and valor made them the idols of the Confederate army. The fame of Lee, Jackson, the Johnstons, Gordon, Longstreet, the Hills, Hood and Stuart and many thousands of non-commissioned officers and private soldiers of the Confederate armies, whose names are not mentioned on historic pages, can never be tarnished by the carping criticisms of the narrow and shallow minded."

If this be the estimate of a Northern president and of a leading general of our adversaries, who at one time commanded the gallant Army of the Potomac, and of the other brave Federal soldier whom I have quoted, what shall we in truth say for ourselves?

Lieutenant-General Early, among the bravest and best soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia, and who fought nearly a hundred battles and skirmishes, hence competent to speak on the subject, in his Memoirs says: "I believe the world has never produced a body of men superior in courage, patriotism and endurance to the private soldiers of the Confederate armies. I have repeatedly, seen these soldiers submit with cheerfulness to privations and hardships which would appear to be almost incredible; and the wild cheers of our brave men, when their lines sent back opposing hosts of Federal troops, staggering, reeling and flying, have often thrilled every fiber in my heart. I have seen with my own eyes ragged, barefooted and hungry Confederate soldiers perform deeds which, if performed in days of yore by mailed warriors in glittering armor, would have inspired the harp of the minstrel and the pen of the poet."

But arguing the nobility of the Confederate soldier is like arguing the brightness of the sun at noonday. The Confederate soldier was truly an American, for his people in the South were the truest type of Americans in the land, having very little foreign population among them. Again, this Confederate soldier was born and reared a gentleman, was so by instinct. He was not a mercenary; he was neither for conquest nor aggression, but stood purely for self-defense. He believed in his inmost soul that no people had juster cause, higher aspirations, or made braver or nobler resolves for cause, country, families, homes and firesides. I turn to ask, who were these Confederate soldiers? They were principally country folks, farmers, mechanics, school boys, as stated; native born Americans, descendants of Revolutionary patriots, by no means all slave owners; thousands never owned slaves, and many were opposed to the institution. The Confederate soldier was always impatient of military restraint, feeling himself the equal of and as good as any man, and not inferior to his superior in rank; in battle, as a rule, his own general; his individuality and self-reliance, among his noted characteristics, were the crowning glory of his actions, and this self-reliance taught him when it was wise and prudent to fight, and when it was the better part of valor to decline. On the battlefield he was at his best; "his clothes might be ragged, but his musket and saber were bright. His haversack empty, but he kept his cartridge box filled. Often his feet were bare, blistered and bleeding; occasionally he might straggle on the march, but was up when the battle was on."

Barefoot, ragged, without food, no pay and nothing to buy if he had money, he marched further, laughed louder, making the welkin ring with his rebel yell; endured more genuine suffering, hardship and fatigue, fought more bravely, complained and fretted less, than any soldier who marched beneath the banners of Napoleon. His nerve was steady and his aim was sure, and his powers of endurance and resistance unmeasured. This same Confederate soldier fought and hoped and hoped and fought:

Though his ears were often greeted with the cries of woe and distress of those at home (enough to break his heart), his ardor chilled not; he had a never faltering courage; his spirit remained unbroken, his convictions never yielded. In the darkest hour of our peril, in the midst of dark and lowering clouds, with scarcely the glimmer of a star of apparent hope, he still stood firm and grasped his musket with a tighter grip. Following is the description given of this soldier by another:

"Look at the picture of this soldier as he stood in the iron and leaden hail, with his old, worn out slouch hat, his bright eyes glistening with excitement, powder-begrimed face, rent and ragged clothing, with the prints of his bare feet in the dust of the battle, a genuine tatterdemalion, fighting bravely, with no hope of reward, promotion or pay, with little to eat and that often cornbread and sorghum molasses. If he stopped a Yankee bullet and was thereby killed, he was buried on the field and forgotten, except by comrades or a loving old mother at home."

In modern times there has never been such valor and heroism displayed as in our Civil War, never such soldiers as the Union and Confederate, and certainly never such as the Confederate soldiers, and it would be nothing to their credit to have achieved victories over less valorous foes than the Union soldiers, and no credit to the Union soldiers that they overwhelmed men of less bravery. The individuality of the Confederate soldier was never lost, and this with his self-possession and intelligent thought made him well nigh invincible. The Army of Northern Virginia as a whole was never driven from a battlefield, although confronted by as good soldiers as were on the continent. No danger could appall these men of Lee, no peril awe, no hardships dismay, no numbers intimidate. To them duty was an inspiration. They had devastated no fields, desecrated no temples and plundered no people, always respecting woman, and feared no man. The record of these soldiers since the war is clean, their names a stranger to criminal records; few, if any, who followed Lee have been behind the bars of a jail. He was their great exemplar. Thousands of these non-commissioned officers and private soldiers, after the first year of the war, were fitted not only to command regiments, but could well have filled much higher military positions.

Great soldiers were Lee, Johnston, Jackson, Longstreet, Hills, Pickett, Stuart and others, but who made them great? No generals ever had such soldiers. It was these Confederates in the ranks that made the names of their generals immortal. Who would have ever heard of them, or of General Grant, but for the Confederate soldier?

What this Confederate soldier has been to the South since the war cannot be measured or stated. Shortly after the close of the conflict and he had reached his home, if he had one left, his troubles were not over. He was confronted with the aftermath—the carpet-bagger and the scallawag, as well as by military-enforced reconstruction, the blackest spot on the page of American history. Well we might and did forgive the wrongs of war, but how were we to overlook and forget the outrageous and shameful things done in the name of restoration of civil government, by the carpetbagger, Northern political pest and pirate—the Southern scallawag, the low, mean, unworthy Southern white man, thrown to the surface by the revolution, but, like all dirt and filth, to go to the bottom and sink in the mud when the flood had subsided.

Serious and grave as these questions were, which sorely tried the Confederate soldier's courage, patience and forbearance, as they had been tested in war, he met them bravely, firmly and by his indomitable spirit directed and controlled them. His broad, keen, intelligent knowledge of men and things finally carried him through the trying ordeal, and crowned his labors with stable governments for the states of his Southland, the most American conservative portion of the republic, made so largely by the brain, brawn, energy and industry of the Confederate soldier, who has been the leader, promoter and architect of her industrial and political fortunes, the idol of her people, her representative in the every fiber and thought of her existence and governments. He has raised her from her ashes and poverty into a veritable garden and to industrial and political power. The last roll call will shortly be sounded, his sun will soon set—what a hero! What an object of interest, will be the last surviving soldier of the Confederacy (I crave to be the one!), the only and last representative of that government of which the great English scholar and poet, Professor Worsely, has written: