Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided

by W Hunter Lesser

  President Lincoln's April 15 decree gave Confederate forces twenty days “to disperse and return peaceably to their respective abodes.” The implied threat gave Lee less than two weeks to organize. His policy was strictly defensive—“to resist aggression and allow time to allay the passions and permit Reason to resume her sway.” He was fortunate to obtain Robert S. Garnett as adjutant general. Garnett had been commandant of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy during Lee's tenure as superintendent in the early 1850s. A fellow Virginian, Garnett was a trusted and talented soldier.

  Lieutenant Colonel John A. Washington, a Lee relative and great-grandnephew of the first president of the United States, served as the general's aide-de-camp. Lieutenant Colonel George A. Deas and Walter H. Taylor also joined Lee's staff. Taylor was a razorsharp twenty-two-year-old militia officer who quickly made himself indispensable at headquarters.78

  As Lee assembled a military staff, his mind drifted to family matters. His wife Mary, a descendent of Martha Washington, had inherited the Arlington homeplace. Lee recognized it as strategic ground, likely to become the scene of conflict. He wrote Mary and their four daughters soon after arrival in Richmond, “You have to move, & make arrangements to go to some point of safety which you must select.” Priceless Washington family heirlooms were to be safeguarded. Recalling the embarrassing legacy of his father, Lee redoubled efforts to secure his own debts.79

  Lee's sons enlisted in Virginia's army. The eldest, Custis—ranked first in the West Point class of 1854—signed up as a captain of engineers. William Henry Fitzhugh, or “Rooney” Lee joined as a cavalry officer. Only the general's teenage son Robert E. Lee Jr. was held back. “I could not consent to take boys from their school & young men from their colleges & put them in the ranks at the beginning of a war when they are not wanted & when there are men enough for the purpose,” Lee wrote. “The war may last 10 years. Where are our ranks to be filled from then?”80

  Lee's pessimism was not well received. Conventional wisdom suggested the conflict would be brief. Walter Taylor believed the general stood alone in “having expressed his most serious apprehensions of a prolonged and bloody war.” Lee emphasized “the magnitude of the impending contest” and the “inevitable suffering, sacrifice, and woe.”81

  Even impressionable youth did not escape Lee's gloom. One day an indulgent father brought his five-year-old son to headquarters. At Lee's insistence, the pair was admitted, and the little boy ended up sitting on the general's knee.

  “What is General Lee going to do with General Scott?” demanded the father.

  The youth, obviously coached in advance, replied, “He is going to whip him out of his breeches.”

  Lee's manner stiffened. He placed the youngster on his feet and eyed him intently. Then he began to speak, looking toward the father rather than the son. “My dear little boy,” he said, “you should not use such expressions. War is a serious matter and General Scott is a great and good soldier. None of us can tell what the result of the contest will be.”82

  Left alone until the Confederate government moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond in late May, Lee worked feverishly to mobilize Virginia forces. Governor Letcher issued a call for volunteers. Walter Taylor marveled at the energy of Lee and Garnett as they organized, armed, and equipped the troops. Their labors would eventually result in nearly forty thousand soldiers, one hundred fifteen pieces of field artillery, numerous fortified coastal defenses, and warships for Virginia.

  Lee faced troubling strategic questions: How could Northern sea power be neutralized? How could Virginia forces be distributed to meet an invasion that might come simultaneously from the north, east, and west? He sent a capable Mexican War veteran, William B.Taliaferro, to guard the important naval post at Norfolk and directed a well-regarded militia colonel named Thomas J. Jackson to do the same at Harpers Ferry. Jackson was also ordered to “make diligent inquiry as to the state of feeling in the northwestern portion of the State.”83

  Formerly a West Point classmate of George McClellan and a Virginia Military Institute professor, Jackson seemed a good choice for the job; Western Virginia was his boyhood home. He had grown up on the West Fork River in Lewis County. The industrious Jackson warned of “great disaffection” in Virginia's western counties. “Grafton should be occupied at once,” he entreated, recognizing the strategic importance of that railroad town.84

  Jackson's energy drew Lee's interest. The village of Grafton, a collection of railroad shops at the junction of the Baltimore and Ohio with its Parkersburg branch, the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, was key to the control of Western Virginia. The railroad was in a precarious position. B&O President John W. Garrett strived to maintain the appearance of neutrality; both the Virginia government and the Lincoln administration threatened retaliation if troops were carried by his railroad. General Lee hoped to exploit the standoff by collecting forces nearby.85

  Lee ordered Major Francis M. Boykin Jr., a VMI graduate, to muster volunteers at Grafton, and directed Major Alonzo Loring, a Wheeling iron-works official, to do likewise in the panhandle region. But neither had success in recruiting. “The feeling in nearly all of our counties is very bitter, and nothing is left undone by the adherents of the old Union to discourage those who are disposed to enlist in the services of the State,” Major Boykin reported on May 10. Expressing little hope of recruiting a sizeable force, he warned, “This section is verging on a state of actual rebellion.”86

  Perplexed by these developments, Lee ordered Colonel George A. Porterfield, a VMI-trained Mexican War veteran, to assume command at Grafton. Volunteers and wagons of ordnance and provisions were dispatched across the mountains to his aid. On May 14, Colonel Porterfield stepped from the train at Grafton to a rather cold reception. Not a single volunteer was at hand. The colonel was curtly directed to the nearby villages of Fetterman and Pruntytown, where Confederate recruits were said to be gathering. There he found a few hundred men, not the outpouring Lee had anticipated. Porterfield expressed “serious disappointment” in a letter to his commander: “I have found great diversity of opinion and much bitterness of feeling among the people of this region.”87

  The reports baffled General Lee. Raised in the tidewater as a blue-blooded Virginian, he could not fathom the mood of the west. To Colonel Porterfield he wrote, “I cannot believe that any citizen of the State will betray its interests.” Meanwhile, volunteers rallied to the blue and gray.88

  CHAPTER 4

  THE GIRL I

  LEFT BEHIND ME

  “Very often it was that father and sons of the same family differed in political opinions to the extent sometimes of making bitter enemies of those who were a little while ago of one family and one blood.”

  —John Henry Cammack, C.S.A.

  “I have volunteered in the Confederate Army,” James E. Hall wrote in the first entry of his war diary. Hall, a twenty-year-old farm boy from Barbour County, Virginia, proudly rushed to arms. Young men like him across the South were pulled into the vortex of secession.89

  The typical volunteer of 1861 “was a fearfully and wonderfully gotten up representative of the Sons of Mars in the first flush of his war fever,” recalled another Virginia Confederate. Marcus Toney of Tennessee believed the war would consist of a single battle “in which one Southern man would whip five Yankees with cornstalks, England would intervene, peace would be declared, and we should return home.” Sam Watkins, a Tennessee Confederate, recalled that nearly everyone “was eager for the war, and we were all afraid it would be over and we not be in the fight.”90

  Many enlisted out of duty to their native state. “I was a Virginian as were my people, and when my State went to war, I saw no other course open but to follow the fortunes of the old Dominion,” wrote John Cammack of Harrison County. War seemed inevitable after Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand troops to “coerce” the Southern states. A great number joined “in defense of our firesides, and the Confederate States of America.”91

  Few broug
ht up the issue of slavery. Of those who did, Marcus Toney's view was typical: “I do know that the abolitionists of the North had so outraged the feelings of the Southern people that we felt we did not want any further affiliation with them.” Toney offered another compelling reason to enlist during the heady days of 1861: “The young ladies were as enthusiastic as the young men; and if they found a fellow luke warm, he was threatened with a petticoat and was not allowed to hang up his hat in their father's hall.”92

  “No male, physically and mentally able to do service, would stay out,” recalled a Virginian. “Boys of tender years enlisted with the approval of fathers and mothers, and in some instances were even urged to do so. No critical or even cursory examination was applied.” The minimum age of enrollment was eighteen, but younger recruits like sixteen-year-old John Cammack stepped into line—along with drummers of remarkably tender age.93

  The term of service was usually one year. Volunteers enrolled in companies of seventy-five to one hundred men. The members of a company elected their officers and were led by a captain. Confederate companies often took patriotic, chivalrous, or fearsome names. Among those defending Western Virginia were the Pendleton Minutemen, Southern Right Guards, Pocahontas Rescues, Appomattox Invincibles, Upshur Grays, Kanawha Riflemen, Elk River Tigers, Buckingham Leeches, and Flat Top Copperheads.94

  New recruits were schooled on the drill field. Their instructors were not always experienced soldiers. A company of young students from Virginia's Hampden-Sydney College marched under the leadership of the college president, Reverend Dr. John Atkinson. One of his “Hampden-Sydney Boys” recalled drilling in the basement of the seminary building during a rainstorm: “Dr. Atkinson marched the front line straight into [a] wall, where the men were forced to press their faces into the bricks until he could figure what order to give next!”95

  Southern recruits donned a variety of uniforms. The Confederate Congress decreed that “volunteers shall furnish their own clothes and, if mounted men, their own horses and horse equipments.” Styles were dictated by popular fashion. “We went in heavy on fancy caps, wavelocks and other…stately head-gear,” recalled a Virginian who thought “big boots, the higher the better,” were essential. “ We wore all sorts of clothing,” wrote a Tennessee volunteer. The contrast was marked—from gaily decorated militia and cadet uniforms to bearded mountain men in hunting shirts and coonskin caps.96

  Wealthy Southerners often donated money to equip the troops. John Worsham's Virginia company had “a fine cadet gray uniform. It consisted first of a frock coat which had a row of Virginia firegilt buttons on its front. Around the cuff of the sleeve was a band of gold braid…. The pants had a black stripe about one and a quarter inches wide along the outer seams. The cap was made of the same cadet gray cloth, trimmed with black braid…. Our knapsacks were a specialty. They were imported from Paris…. We also imported our canteens.”97

  “The knapsack was a terror,” recalled another Virginian. It overflowed with myriad items, making the owner a veritable “beast of burden.” The haversack, or shoulder bag, “always had a good stock of provisions, as though a march across the Sahara might at any time be imminent.”

  Each member of John Worsham's company had “a fatigue jacket…white gloves, several pairs of drawers, several white shirts, undershirts, linen collars, neckties, white vest, socks, etc.—filling our knapsack to overflowing. Strapped on the outside were one or two blankets, an oil-cloth and extra shoes. Most of the knapsacks weighed between thirty and forty pounds, but some were so full that they weighed fifty pounds!”98

  The Confederacy faced a chronic shortage of firearms. Recruits were encouraged to bring “smooth bores, shot guns or rifles” from home. Virginia mountaineers sometimes brought hunting rifles far more accurate than the muskets issued by the Confederate states.99

  The members of Isaac Hermann's First Georgia Infantry received a typical weapon of 1861: “muskets converted into percussion cap…from old revolutionary flint and steel guns, possessing a kicking power that would put ‘Old Maude’ to shame.” Recruits often got muskets with the archaic flintlock mechanism. Some were loath to accept them. An officer protested the inferior arms given his company directly to General Lee. “Sir,” Lee was said to have replied, “your people had better write Mr. Lincoln and ask him to postpone this thing for a few months until you can get ready.”100

  Many Confederates sported a huge side knife. Hammered from old steel by local blacksmiths or imported from Europe, a “Bowie” knife or dagger seemed just the thing for hand-to-hand fighting. The boys all had “big knife fever,” recalled a Tennessee volunteer. “Our large bloody-looking knives were the only things possessing much similarity, and a failure to have one of these pieces of war cutlery dangling at your side was almost a certain sign of weakness in the knees.”101

  The few cavalry companies mustered at this early date toted handguns, old “pepper box” pistols, shotguns, and antique sabers. Confederates in every branch of service rounded up whatever could be had, and then departed for a camp of instruction.

  For many Virginians, the destination was Richmond (population: 37,000), the South's third-largest city. Chaos reigned as volunteers spilled in. Rustic backwoodsmen gawked at huge crowds in front of the state capitol while dignitaries such as Governor Letcher and President Jefferson Davis spoke.102

  Two miles west of the city, at Camp Lee, many got their first lesson in soldiering. Drillmasters from the Virginia Military Institute guided recruits through their paces, a scene that played out in camps of instruction throughout the South. Young women often came out to witness the drilling. John Worsham thought “they seemed to enjoy it as much as we did their presence.”

  “The men formed messes,” Worsham recalled, “each consisting of about ten men and each employing a Negro man as cook. We got on nicely, as we thought. The regular rations were issued to us; but in order to become accustomed by degrees to eating them, we sent the cook or some other member of the mess into town to get such articles as the market afforded.” Marcus Toney recalled, “[W]e were novices as to cooking and washing. We knew that water and flour mixed made batter, and we knew that meat when fried made gravy; so with this much of the art acquired, we had fried dough, or what the boys called flapjacks. As to the washing—well, let that pass.”103

  A Virginian described the schedule at Camp Lee: “We have drills of one hour each day and also a dress parade at 6 in the evening, between times we have to cook, wash, go after provisions, sweep and clean up in front of our bunks and (last but not least) we have to stand guard, having often to shoulder our muskets and march at least 5 miles to stand guard, way below Richmond. So you see we are kept pretty busy.”104

  The novel discipline sparked rebellion. Cosmopolitan Richmond was most alluring to the recruits at Camp Lee. The fancy uniforms of John Worsham's company gave them the appearance of officers, a trait sometimes used to slip out of camp. “[W]e would march boldly by a sentinel on duty at one of the many openings around the grounds, give him the salute, and he would present arms as we passed out,” the fun-loving Worsham recalled.105

  The specter of death also appeared. Recruits were accidentally shot, drowned, hit by trains, or bitten by rattlesnakes. Measles, normally a harmless childhood disease, had serious complications for the rural men never before exposed. “Many cases of measles, and many fatal, took place,” wrote Marcus Toney from Camp Cheatham, Tennessee, “and the doleful dirge of the dead march often touched our hearts.” But a sense of duty kept most Confederates in line. “A soldier's life is a hard one,” admitted a young Virginian, “yet I would be cheerful and contented were it fifty times as bad for I believe we are engaged in one of the noblest causes on earth, namely the defense of our country, our liberty and the protection of our parents, wives and children, and all that is dear to a man.”106

  Regiments were formed, consisting of ten companies led by a colonel. John Worsham recalled the formation of his regiment, the Twenty-first Virginia Infantry, at Cam
p Lee: “ We were mustered into service for one year…on the capitol square…. Each boy under twenty-one, and there were many, brought a written permit from parent or guardian…. The regiment numbered about 850, rank and file.”107

  They came from a variety of backgrounds. “The pulpit, the bench, the bar, the farm, the anvil, the shop and every other calling was represented,” noted one recruit. The Forty-fourth Virginia Infantry, a typical regiment at Camp Lee, boasted a makeup of 36 percent farmers, 19 percent laborers, 16 percent carpenters and tradesmen, 12 percent students, 8 percent clerks and merchants, 4 percent doctors, lawyers, and ministers with a balance of apprentices and county officials.108

  “Soldiers were coming into Richmond from all directions,” marveled John Worsham. “The streets were filled with marching men and the sound of the drum was heard every hour of the day and night.” Raw recruits mustered in as new regiments marched out for the seat of war—all to the frantic “waving of handkerchiefs by the dames and maidens and the huzzas of the men and boys.”109