Volume 15 , Issue 4

History of Rockbridge County, Virginia - War of 1861 (cont.)

We continue where we left off last week with Rockbridge county, Virginia History and it's part in the War of 1861, as compiled by Oren F. Morton around 1910 (1912).

Early in November Averill was again at Callaghan. Imboden took position a mile east of Covington, where he was joined on the morning of the 9th by Colonel Shipp with 225 cadets and one rifled gun and by Colonel Massie with 575 of the home guards. Eight companies of these were mounted. Averill retired toward Huntersville, but thinking a flank movement was the real purpose, Imboden took a diagonal course and marched to Goshen. He thus saved the six or right very necessary blast furnaces. At Armentrout's, Imboden dismissed the cadets and the guards.

It was only one month later there was a third and more serious raid. With both cavalry and artillery, Averill was once more at Callaghan, December 14th. Defeated in the battle of Droop Mountain, November 6th, General John Echols had fallen back to Union, where on the night of the 14th he was joined by McCausland from the Narrows of New River. A Federal force under Colonel Scammon had occupied Lewisburg. But Averill found Jackson's River unfordable. General Fitzhugh Lee with two of his bridges advanced from Charlottesville to cover Staunton, and was joined by Imboden on Shenandoah Mountain. General Early came also to Staunton and took command. Averill was at Sweet Springs on the 15th. By marching eighty miles in thirty hours, he struck the Virginia and tennessee Railroad at Salem and did great damage.

Meanwhile, Lee was ordered in pursuit. Colonel Jackson was directed to take position at Clifton Forge, and Echols on Sweet Springs Mountain. Again Shipp and Massie marched with the cadets and the home guards. The latter reached Goshen on the 17th, but was ordered to counter-march in haste and guard the bridges over the Buffalo. By noon on the next day he was joined at Lexington by Lee with 2700 men, and by Imboden. The combined force advance to Collierstown and camped. aver ill circulated the report that he would return by way of Buchanan and Lee was ordered to that town. But Averill moved to Newcastle, which he reached on sunset of the 18th. He was told that Lee was at Fincastle and Jones between him and Sweet Springs. By great nimbleness of movement, and with the help of a doctor whose knowledge of the mountain roads proved exceedingly inconvenient to the pursuers, Averill slipped between the Confederate commands and escaped by way of Covington. These operations covered one week, which was a tie of cold rains and swollen rivers, and consequently of great hardship to all the soldiers concerned. During the winter of 1863-64, the Laurel Brigade of General Rosser was quartered at Buffalo Forge. it broke camp April 11th.

Early in May, 1864, General Crook was join by Averill at Union. General Jenkins was defeated by him at Cloyd Mountain and at New River Bridge, where the railroad to Tennessee was again damaged. Crook then marched to Staunton by way of Greenbrier. General Sigel, who commanded the Federals at New Market, was of German birth, and his record as a military leader was indifferent. He was superseded by General David Hunter, who won a victory at Piedmont, June 5th, where General W. E. Jones, the Confederate leader, was killed. Two days later Hunter occupied Staunton without opposition, the Confederates falling back to Rockfish Gap to protect Charlottesville. The railroad for three miles on each side of Staunton was destroyed. The next day he was joined by Crook and Averill, who struck the Virginia Central at Goshen and wrecked its s they came along. June 10th Hunter began his advance to Lexington in four parallel columns, and reached the Rockbridge line by nightfall. Soon after noon the next day he had come to North River, the 1400 cavalry under McCausland being too light a force to hinder his progress in any marked degree.

The Confederates fell back through Lexington, leaving the bridge over North River in flames. The blackened timbers were falling into the current as the Federals came up. Their passage was disputed by some artillery and by sharpshooters on the bluff at the Institute and in storehouses near the river. In his report Hunter calls McCausland unsoldierly in risking the destruction of the town by a superior force. He had thirty guns, some of which unlimbered on high ground and dropped a few shells around the Institute and into the lower course of Main Street. But the skirmish at the river was a small incident, the Federals losing only four men.

A pontoon was thrown across below the road, and before the close of day the town was in their possession. Two of their officers, Colonel Hayes and Major McKInley, were subsequently presidents of the United States. The retreat of McCausland was hastened by Averill, who crossed the river eight miles above the town.

The next morning witnessed the most regrettable incidents of the raid. General Hunter was a stern soldier, harsh toward a foe, and had an almost irresistible propensity to burn private as well as public buildings. Soldiers were quick to take their cue from their commander-in-chief, and the rudeness shown by many of Hunter's men was largely a reflection of the vindictiveness for which the general was well known.

On this day, and not so soon as Hunter had intended it, the Virginia Military Institute and the house of Governor Letcher were burned. The cadets and been sent against the Federal forces whenever opportunity presented itself. Under the generally accepted usages of the civilize nations of 1864, it was permissible to render the buildings unserviceable to them in a military sense. But this school was and always had been fundamentally scientific, the military feature being as incidental as it was in many of the colleges and academies of the present day. That the burning of the recitation rooms, the library, and the scientific apparatus was unwarrantable was officially admitted by the National government subsequently paying the Institute $100,000, which was less than one half the estimated damages. Hunter made an almost clean sweep, sparing only the house of the superintendent, where two sick girls were lying. Hunter intended to burn Washington College also, but finally yielded to the representations of one of the oldest of the alumni. Nevertheless the buildings were plundered and damaged, especially with respect tot he library and the laboratory equipment, but restitution was made in 1887 to the extent of $17,000.

The burning of the fine residence of John Letcher was a wanton act. Hunter alleges that it was done by way of reprisal, and because of an "inflammatory proclamation" urging the people of Rockbridge to turn themselves into bushwhackers. But Letcher was no longer governor of Virginia. His appeal was that of a private citizen. We have not seen the document, but we feel assured that it did not sanction any form of resistance not generally recognized as legitimate. Mr. Letcher could not have been so unwise and shortsighted as to advise a course of action that would cause needless suffering to his people.

General Hunter made the most of some very poor excuses, and his incendiarism was against the express instructions of President Lincoln. It was discountenanced by many of his own officers, so far they could do so without exposing themselves to a charge of insubordination.

Hunter's army remained in Lexington until about daybreak on the morning of June 145h. It made beefsteak of the cows in and around the town, and developed an extraordinary appetite for the acres of onions planted for the Confederate soldiery. The cadets, about 250 strong, had marched to Balcony Falls to assist in holding that pass. The Federal army pushed o to Buchanan, on its way to Lynchburg, in an attempt to capture that important place. In it march through the rural districts it caused much uneasiness, but we are told that the behavior of the soldiers was better than in Lexington. Hunter burned about a half dozen each of furnaces and canal barges, and carried away a few prisoners, five guns, some ammunition, and the statue of Washington that was on the college tower. Whether the bell of the Institute was carried away or was buried in the debris of the ruins is unknown. By the standards of 1861-64, the treatment of Lexington by Hunter was severe. yet it was not a circumstance to what would had been its fate had it been entered by a German army of World War I. The town would have been burned to the ground after the residences and been looted; scores of the inhabitants, without distinction of age or sex, would have been maimed or massacred; the able-bodied males would have been carried away into virtual slavery, and many of the females would have been carried away for a purpose not necessary to particularize.

In the brief interval between the firing on Sumter and the first passage at arms in Virginia, the Gazette took occasion to deprecate "the tarring, etc., of those voters who were against the ordinance of secession, as subversive of law and order. If a free citizen was not to be allowed to exercise his free will in casting his vote, then the submission of the question was mere mockery. Many of the best citizens still believe the border states had not adopted the best method of redressing their grievances. Whilst they cannot conscientiously change their opinion, toss up their caps and huzza for secession, they are ready to defend Virginia with the last drop of their blood. We are personally acquainted wight e sentiments of some sterling men, whom we have heard assailed as abolitionists by flippant coxcombs and silly missed."

At the close of 1864 the War Department of the Confederacy estimated that there were 50,000 deserters from its armies in the mountain districts of the south. Some of these were in Rockbridge county. In August, 1863, Lieutenant Wise was sent out with fifty of the cadets to scour the hills, but returned the next day without meeting any success whatever. The mountain paths were far more unfamiliar to them than to the refugees.

More than one-seventh of the white population of Rockbridge was absent in the Confederate army, and as the greater portion of the farmers were not slaveholders, there was a distressing shortage of labor. The hardships which the people at home were called upon to undergo were very great. Fencing was burned for campfires, and fields thus became commons. There was a progressive deterioration of the roads. Man of the people became very poorly clad, even after bedding had been made into wearing apparel. Maple sirup and sorghum sirup took the place of sugar. Many a meal consisted only of corn bread, roasted potatoes, and rye coffee, and even then there was a scarcity of corn. Foodstuffs were hidden to escape the thief as well as the impressing agent, and it was very unsafe to tell where such articles were concealed. The informant was sometimes put out of the way. Deserters and slackers were tolerated because of the fear that they would burn the home of the one who would tell about them. As for the hungry soldier, he was much the same, whether Federal or Confederate.

As early as August, 1862, the depreciation in the paper currency was causing prices to soar. But in the summer of 1864, a yard of linsey sold at $25, and other articles in proportion. Postage was five cents for a less distance than 500 miles, and ten cents for a greater distance. Depreciation was not the only trouble with the prices. Governor Letcher's message of September 26, 1862, contains this vigorous denunciation of the profiteer:

"A reckless spirit for money-making appears to have taken entire possession of the public mind. Patriotism is second to a love of the Almighty Dollar. The price of everything is put to the highest point. What must be the feelings of a man who is fighting the battles of the country, when he is receiving but $11Even before Appomattox, one of the men representing Virginia in the confederate Senate had expressed himself in favor of a reunion of the states. per mont, is informed that a pair of ladies' shoes costs $16, with everything else in proportion? With what heart can he fight our battles under such circumstances?"

There were other complaints of extortion. A local paper said Rockbridge was overrun with speculators and hucksters, who were stripping the country of almost everything necessary to human existence. Provisions of any kind could hardly be had for love or money. Thousands of barrels of flour, purchased at $15, were stored at Lynchburg and Richmond for sale at $30.

After four years of progressive privation, the return of peace was a relief. A meeting held at Staunton, May 8, 1865, declared the people of Augusta county ready to conform to the laws of the United States. Even before Appomattox, one of the men representing Virginia in the confederate Senate had expressed himself in favor of a reunion of the states. Wreck and ruin were visible in every direction, and it was a large task to remove the signs. Yet such was the energy and the recuperative power of the Rockbridge people that the process of restoration was rapid, and in five years it was fairly complete. In Commerce the recovery was faster than in farming. But during the twelve months following the surrender of General Lee, little money was to be seen except specie, and there was a tendency to hold coin in reserve.

In the first years of the war the rich could purchase exemption for their own sons, and it was due to this discrimination that even yet the war is sometimes referred to as "the rich man's war and the poor man's fight." But substitution was at length abolished. The outcome of the great conflict put the aristocrat on his mettle and he went to work.

If 1870 found economic recovery measurably complete in Rockbridge, it also marked the end for Virginia of that unsavory episode in American history known as the Reconstruction Period. In 1868 Virginia was military District Number One, and it was not able to take part in the general election of that year. A few months later the carpetbag regime was overthrown, and in January, 1870, the state was again a member of the Federal Union.

Next week we shall include and give some insight into the events of the four years of war extracts from the county order books and newspaper files.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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