Grace Under Fire

by Andrew Carroll

  But henceforth, Percival Drayton, believe the South like yourselves a unit—and thus we shall enter upon this conflict forced upon us—in our faith—and relying upon God to maintain the justness of our causes, fighting manfully for our houses & rights;—and understand my brother that when the olive branch of peace is next offered, it will be extended by other hands than ours.—

  Farewell Percy—and however much we may differ on the present issue—let no unkind word escape—to lacerate the heart of the other. Defend the soil of Pennsylvania if you will. Then, you and I will never meet as armed foes;—cross her Southern boundary—with hostile purpose—and we shall face each other—as brothers never should.

  Love to my poor, dear old Mother—may God bless & sustain her at this terrible moment.—

  Your affect brother

  Thos F Drayton

  Percival’s response to this letter has been lost, but Thomas alludes to it in what would be his last message to his brother for the duration of the war. “I have just recd yours of the 6th inst,” Thomas wrote on May 10, “and cannot but lament that our political views are so widely different, and that your arguments should afford so convincing a proof that prejudice had evidently usurped the seat of sound judgment.” Thomas then bid his brother adieu: “I will keep this remarkable epistolary effusion of yours—for I am sure in less than a year, you will candidly disavow the assertions & opinions therein expressed.” In less than a year, in fact, they would be exchanging not words, but gunfire; Thomas and Percival Drayton were the only two brothers in the war to command opposing forces in the same battle (Port Royal, November 1861). Percival would prevail, but in a letter written to a cousin, Heyward Drayton, on January 10, 1862, he was not in the mood to boast of the Union victory. Instead, he was saddened that members of their family—like the country itself—were at arms against each other, especially at a time when his mother was gravely ill. Percival, who was the captain of the USS Pochahontas, also wanted to address a question his cousin had raised about whether or not he was illegally protecting runaway slaves on his ship. “My dear Heyward,” Percival wrote,

  As you well say it is possible to go through the forms of Merry Christmas and happy new year but not these times at least to us they have no substance, as peculiarly to us this war has subverted the best formations of happiness and family union. And in addition death seems to be looming in the distance over those who are dear to us…. I hope that I may see my mother again although I am afraid it is without reason that I do so. She will at least when God shall call her away be always in my memory as the embodyment of unselfish love and Christian charity….

  As regard to this war its end looks to me everyday further and further off, and indeed with the evident desperation of the Southern people, and our luke-warmness, I can see nothing to terminate it…. If you will look at the report of the Secretary of the Navy, you will find that we are directed to take charge of and protect refugees from the insurgent districts without regard to colour, and this is all I have ever done. The fact is that when the poor creatures come into me, frightened to death from having been hunted down and shot at, and I know if I sent them away it will be merely to expose them to a continuation of the same treatment, I cannot enter cooly into a discussion of the legal points of the question, and am obliged when in sight of a mother wailing over the loss of her child to look upon them as persons not things….

  As regard my serving here, instead of elsewhere, in my letter applying for service, I made no terms and simply went where I was ordered if my relations persist in this unholy rebellion. I am only doing a duty to my country, which should be higher than that even to my family, in assisting to put it down. One is to affect all time, the other only my generation which will soon pass away….

  Love to Harriet, and all at home, and believe me

  Your Aff Bro

  P. Drayton

  At the end of the war, many Confederate troops, including Thomas Drayton, were financially and emotionally devastated by the South’s defeat. Union soldiers had burned Thomas’s house to the ground, and he had spiraled into bankruptcy. Upon hearing of his brother’s plight, Percival sent him money and attempted to repair the breach between them. Thomas was also ready to bury old wounds, and in a four-page letter dated July 31, 1865, he wrote with heartfelt emotion to Percival, “I am glad to see your hand writing once more, and I pray Almighty God that we may never be again so unfortunate as to be upon different sides…. I agree with you in thinking that we should ‘set the past in the past.’” It is not known, however, if Percival ever received the letter or knew his brother’s sentiments; Percival died of natural causes four days after it was written.

  Civil War Soldier Joseph Cotton Describes to His Daughter, Mary, the Aftermath of a Terrible Battle

  The war that most Northerners and Southerners thought would be decided after the first major clash proved to be the bloodiest in the nation’s history; with an estimated 500,000 fatalities, almost as many Americans died in the Civil War as in all other U.S. conflicts combined. Those who saw the fighting firsthand were stunned by its ferocity. Little is known about the soldier who wrote the following missive (the letter was found tucked inside a Bible in a Methodist church in Missouri), except for his name—Joseph Cotton—and the information provided in the letter itself. In a few short lines, however, the soldier vividly conveys the ghastly image of a battlefield after combat and emphasizes that, despite all he has seen, his faith remains. The letter is dated August 9, 1861.

  Camp at Cheat Mountain Pass

  Miss Mary E. Cotton

  My dear sweet little daughter I received both of your nice good letters and never was more delighted over any letters I ever received. Pa thought just this way, now aint it a happy thought to have a little daughter to love him as my dear little Mary loves me & aint it nice to have so little a girl as she is write her Pa so good a letter Pa has them both put away & will keep them if he can as long as he livs You must write to Pa often.

  You said I must tell you all about the war. Well Pa has seen a great deal of the war since he left home he saw the battlefield just after the fight he saw 250 dead men at once he saw 200 just thrown into some deep holes all piled in on top of one another without any coffins he saw men’s arms, and hands cut off & scattered around on the ground—he has seen hundreds of poor sick men lying about on the ground in tents don’t you feel sorry for these poor soldiers?

  Pa goes all around among the soldiers and talks to them about the Saviour & prays with them & gives them good tracts and papers to read We are now encamped right in the midst of tall mountains which would look very strange to you they look like they reach clear up into the sky These days the mountains are now covered with ripe whortleberrys which are very nice the people bring them to our camp & we buy them & our Irishman that cooks for us makes pies for us

  You must be a good girl mind Ma & pray for Pa Good by dear Mary

  Pa

  Samuel Roosevelt Johnson Offers Words of Solace to Mrs. James Lynch After Hearing That Her Husband Has Been Killed

  There is no official record of how many foreign-born troops fought in the Civil War, but some estimates put the number at one out of every ten soldiers. Immigrants from Scotland, Italy, France, Holland, Canada, Switzerland, and even Cuba all served (mostly for the North), and the largest percentage were German and Irish. Born in Donegal, Ireland, James Lynch was almost fifty years old when the Civil War began, but he still wanted to fight for the preservation of the United States. During the siege of Atlanta in the summer of 1864 by General Sherman’s forces, Lynch gave his life for the country he considered his new home. Upon hearing the news of his death, a family friend named Samuel Roosevelt Johnson reflected on Lynch’s faith and devotion in a letter to Mrs. Lynch, whom he knew was overcome with grief.

  Bainbridge, Chenango County, N.Y.

  Aug. 10, 1864

  My Dear Mrs Lynch,

  I read in the paper the death of Mr. James Lynch, in the Army of the Southwest and in Gen
. Hooker’s Division; who fell nobly daring, at the front of the Great Conflict at Atlanta, pierced by nine balls, five of which went through his heart.

  I fear, nay I feel almost sure, it must be your dear husband—and that God in his mysterious Providence called you to bear this great bereavement. My dear friend—it is God’s Sovereign will—and we must bow in submission when our own time comes, or the time of those we love, and must still hold fast our faith in Him. “Though he slay me yet will I trust in Him!”

  It must ever be a comfort to you to recall your husband’s words, how he said that we were in the hands of the Lord, and that no one of us knew where danger lay—that he had been safe in the midst of desperate battles, while his near friend, and connection had died by an accident at home.

  And when we kneeled in your parlor in prayer and committed him and all our interests to the Lord, both as to body and soul, hoping in our Redeemer who came to save us poor feeble and sinful creatures, it must be a comfort to remember these Christian exercises, and his sincere and Christian interest in them. God grant His Blessing and Salvation to us all. And I pray that His Consolations may abound; and that you and your dear children in Your affliction may find your Saviour to be indeed a very present Helper, strengthener and Comforter, and very near to you.

  Believe me most truly

  Your sympathizing friend

  Samuel Roosevelt Johnson.

  Private John Ross Wallar, Dying from Wounds Sustained in Combat, Pens a Final Letter to His Loved Ones

  While many troops prayed to God to see them through the war unharmed, they were well aware that His will is sometimes unknowable. Private John R. Wallar was shot in the leg and languished in a military hospital for weeks in the early fall of 1864 before succumbing to his injuries. (Civil War hospitals were so unsanitary that a soldier could arrive with a minor flesh wound and die from infections soon after being admitted.) Wallar had volunteered for the army at the age of fifteen, and he began his service as a drummer boy. He was still a teenager when he dictated a short letter home from his hospital bed in Nashville, Tennessee.

  Dear Sister father Mother and friends

  I recievd your letter But I don’t think I Ever shall see another that you write this is Friday night But I don’t think I will Live to See Morning But My Kind friends I am a Soldier of Christ I will Meet you all in Heven My Leg Has Bin taking of above My nee I am Dying at this time so don’t Morn after Me fore I Have Bleed and died fore My Country May God Help you all to pray fore Me I want you all to Meet Me in Heven above Dear Sister you wanted to Know if My Leg would be Stiff God Bless Your Soul Sister I will be Stiff all over be four twenty four ours My wound Dresser is writing this Letter fore Me when you get this Letter write to Alexander Nelan fore I wont Live till Moring so good By My friends May God be with you all good by God Bless My poor Soul

  John Ross Wallar, and his last letter to his family

  Mary Custis, Wife of the General Robert E.Lee, Expresses to a Cousin Her Sorrow That “Almighty God [Has Not Crowned] Our Exertions with Success”

  “My concern is not whether God is on our side,” President Abraham Lincoln famously stated. “My greatest concern is to be on God’s side, as God is always right.” For the Confederate troops who thought that they had, indeed, been on the side of God during the Civil War, the capitulation of Robert E. Lee’s forces to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9 (Palm Sunday), 1865, was traumatic beyond words. After the official surrender was signed, Lee told his hungry, fatigued, and brokenhearted troops to “go home now” and become “good citizens” to their country, which was soon to be reunited again. But the idea of reconciliation came harder to Robert E. Lee’s wife, Mary Custis, who blamed the Union for “starving out” the South in order to achieve its war aims. She understood, however, that the outcome was final and that only God could know the reasons why the conflict ended as it had. In a short letter to her cousin Mary, Mrs. Lee articulated her thoughts in more detail and reported how her husband and their sons Fitzhugh and Robert—who had both served in the war—were faring. (There is no salutation to the letter, and her mention of “our President” is a reference to Jefferson Davis and not, needless to say, Abraham Lincoln.)

  I have just heard my dear cousin Mary of an opportunity to write to tell you that we are all well as usual and thru’ the mercy of God all spared thru’ the terrible ordeal thru’ which we have passed—I feel that I could have blessed God if those who were prepared had filled a soldiers grave. I blessed Him that they are spared I trust for a future usefulness to their poor unhappy country. My little Rob has not yet come in but we have reason to think he is safe.

  Tho’ it has not pleased Almighty God to crown our exertions with success in the way & manner we expected yet we must still trust & pray not that our will but His may be done in Heaven & in earth….

  For my part it will always be a source of pride & consolation to me to know that all mine have risked their lives fortune & even fame for so holy a cause—We can hear nothing certain from our President—may God bless & protect them—we can only pray for them—our plans are all unsettled.

  Gen’l Lee is very busy getting up his army matters & then we shall probably go to some of those empty places in the vicinity of the White House. Fitzhugh has gone down there to see what he can do but that place is an utter scene of desolation—so is our whole country & the cruel policy of the enemy has accomplished its work to well. They have achieved by starvation what they could never win by their valor & nor have they taken a single town in the South except Vicksburg that we have not evacuated. Dear Cousin write me about you all & how you manage to exist would that I were able to help you. I do not think we shall be here very long therefore unless you can write at once you had better wait till you hear from me again.

  The girls & the General write in love. He is wonderfully well considering all he has endured. Nanny South’s wife is fine & several of her boys who have come in—Love to all friends.

  Ever affectionately yours,

  M C Lee

  World War I

  John M.Allen, Stationed at an Army Camp in El Paso, Texas, Tells His Fiancée, Margaret, of the Town’s Wickedness and Affirms His Devotion for Her

  When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917 and millions of U.S. troops were mobilized to fight overseas, the loved ones of these servicemen were understandably concerned for the physical well-being of their boys. But they worried about their spiritual welfare as well; they knew that even the most moral young man could find himself seduced by certain vices when far from home. Born in Michigan in 1896, John M. Allen dropped out of college to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1916. Before heading to France in 1918, Allen was stationed in El Paso, Texas, a place he deemed considerably more licentious than his hometown of Grand Rapids. Allen wrote the following letter to his sweetheart, Margaret Belknap, to assure her that despite the temptations around him, he would not yield to sin. (The ellipses are in the original.)

  My guardian angel:

  Of all the royal letters that come to me out of the North…I do not know what would come of me without those rays of light from my home country, those fragile bonds that hold me safe. I have come to call this region bad and black and all the rest white…for many weeks I have seen nothing but vice and striving after vice. Soldiers were always the same, for there is that in their very position that makes them “eat, drink, and be merry” for tomorrow we may get a slug in the heart. You cannot imagine the internal wickedness of the camp, and this abetting city of the desert; and I have no reason to tell you of it except to remind you better of my love for my own girl.

  Sat. night I scoured with a gang the dens and dives of the river bank. I kidded the painted ladies in the doorways. I leaned on the sloppy bars of the toughest saloons in Texas, my identity lost in the uniform of a million men. But for a reason I did not lose my identity. I did not touch a hand of the honey voiced girls of the brilliant doorways, or the handle of the mugs of the mahogany bars. I had not completely forgotte
n. I do not know how it was exactly, but I guess I could not lose my way in the full light of day. I may sometime be eternally grateful to you merely for the legacy of your memory. You ask what of the wives and sweethearts. A thing to conjure by for some: a dark lantern for others. It is bad.

  I stood on the mt. this Sunday morning, and saw the shining Rio Grande winding thru the prairie between green banks and rows of majestic cottonwoods. On one side of the little river, Juarez, and the Mexican barracks; on the other, the big American camp and El Paso—at sword’s points awaiting the issue of events in the brains of 3 or 4 men in Washington. God grant that the decisions of these brains shall be guided only by the honor they profess, and we shall follow their bidding thru hell.