Volume Ii Part 16 (1/2)
Gordon's company was among the earliest of these volunteers. Reluctantly leaving their horses, and not waiting for orders, they bade a quick adieu to all they had held dear and set off cheerily for Milledgeville, then the capital of Georgia. They were destined to a sad disappointment.
On reaching Atlanta they were met by a telegram from the governor, who had been advised of their coming, telling them to go back home and wait until advised that they were wanted.
This was like a shower of cold water poured on the ardor of the volunteers. Go home? After they had cut loose from their homes and started for the war? They would do nothing of the kind; they were on foot to fight and would not consent to be turned back by Governor Brown or any one else. The captain felt very much like his men. He too was an eager Confederate patriot, but his position was one demanding obedience to the const.i.tuted authorities, and by dint of much persuasion and a cautious exercise of his new authority he induced his men to board the train heading back for their homes.
But the repressed anger of the rebellious mountaineers broke forth again when the engine-bell rang and the whistle gave its shrill starting signal. Some of the men rushed forward and tore out the coupling of the foremost car, and the engine was left in condition to make its journey alone. While the trainmen looked on in astonishment the mountaineers sprang from the train, gathered round their captain, and told him that they had made up their minds on the matter and were not going back. They had enlisted for the war and intended to go to it; if Governor Brown would not take them, some other governor would.
There was nothing left for the young captain but to lead his undisciplined and rebellious company through Atlanta in search of a suitable camping-place. Their disregard of discipline did not trouble him greatly, for in his heart he sympathized with them, and he knew well that in their rude earnestness was the stuff of which good soldiers are made.
Gordon gives an interesting and amusing description of the appearance his men made and the interest they excited in Atlanta's streets. These were filled with citizens, who looked upon the motley crew with a feeling in which approval was tempered by mirth. The spectacle of the march--or rather the straggle--of the mountaineers was one not soon to be forgotten. Utterly untrained in marching, they walked at will, no two keeping step, while no two were dressed alike. There were almost as many different hues and cuts in their raiment as there were men in their ranks. The nearest approach to a uniform was in their rough fur caps made of racc.o.o.n skins, and with the streaked and bushy tail of the racc.o.o.n hanging down behind.
The amus.e.m.e.nt of the people was mingled with curiosity. ”Are you the captain of this company?” some of them asked Gordon, who was rather proud of his men and saw nothing of the grotesque in their appearance.
”I am, sir,” he replied, in a satisfied tone.
”What company is it, captain?”
As yet the company had no name other than one which he had chosen as fine sounding and suitable, but had not yet mentioned to the men.
”This company is the Mountain Rifles,” said the captain, proudly.
His pride was destined to a fall. From a tall mountaineer in the ranks came, in words not intended for his ears, but plainly audible, the disconcerting words,--
”Mountain h.e.l.l! We are no Mountain Rifles. We are the Racc.o.o.n Roughs.”
And Racc.o.o.n Roughs they continued through all the war, Gordon's fine-spun name being never heard of again. The feeble remnant of the war-scarred company which was mustered out at Appomattox was still known as Racc.o.o.n Roughs.
Who would have them, since Governor Brown would not, was now the question. Telegrams sped out right and left to governors of other States, begging a chance for the upland patriots. An answer came at length from Governor Moore, of Alabama, who consented to incorporate the Racc.o.o.n Roughs and their captain in one of the new regiments he was organizing. Gordon gladly read the telegram to his eager company, and from their hundred throats came the first example of the ”rebel yell” he had ever heard,--a wild and thrilling roar that was to form the inspiration to many a mad charge in later years.
No time was lost by the gallant fellows in setting out on their journey to Montgomery. As they went on they found the whole country in a blaze of enthusiasm. No one who saw the scene would have doubted for a moment that the South was an ardent unit in support of its cause. By day the troop trains were wildly cheered as they pa.s.sed; at night bonfires blazed on the hills and torchlight processions paraded the streets of the towns. As no cannon were at hand to salute the incoming volunteers, blacksmith anvils took their place, ringing with the blows of hammers swung by muscular arms. Every station was a throng of welcoming people, filling the air with shouts and the lively sound of fife and drum, and bearing banners of all sizes and shapes, on which Southern independence was proclaimed and the last dollar and man pledged to the cause. The women were out as enthusiastically as the men; staid matrons and ardent maids springing upon the cars, pinning blue c.o.c.kades on the lapels of the new soldiers' coats, and singing the war-songs already in vogue, the favorite ”Dixie” and the ”Bonnie Blue Flag,” in whose chorus the harsh voices of the Racc.o.o.n Boughs mingled with the musical tones of their fair admirers.
Montgomery was at length reached to find it thronged with shouting volunteers, every man of them burning with enthusiasm. Mingled with them were visiting statesmen and patriotic citizens, for that city was the cradle of the new-born Confederacy and the centre of Southern enthusiasm. Every heart was full of hope, every face marked with energy, a prayer for the success of the cause on every lip. Never had more fervent and universal enthusiasm been seen. On the hills and around the capital cannon boomed welcome to the inflowing volunteers, wagons rumbled by carrying arms and ammunition to the camps, on every street marched untrained but courageous recruits. As for the Racc.o.o.n Roughs, Governor Moore kept his word, a.s.signing them to a place in the Sixth Alabama Regiment, of which Captain Gordon, unexpectedly and against his wishes, was unanimously elected major.
Such were the scenes which the coming war excited in the far South, such the fervid enthusiasm with which the coming conflict for Southern independence was hailed. So vast was the number of volunteers, in companies and in regiments, each eager to be accepted, that the Hon.
Leroy P. Walker, the first Secretary of War of the Confederacy, was fairly overwhelmed by the flood of applicants that poured in on him day and night. Their captains and colonels waylaid him on the streets to urge the immediate acceptance of their services, and he was obliged to seek his office by roundabout ways to avoid the flood of importunities.
It is said that before the Confederate government left Montgomery for Richmond, about three hundred and sixty thousand volunteers, very many of them from the best element of the Southern population, had offered to devote their lives and fortunes to their country's cause.
Many striking examples of this outburst of enthusiasm and patriotic devotion might be adduced, but we must content ourselves with one, cited as an instance in point by General Gordon. This was the case of Mr. W.
C. Heyward, of South Carolina, a West Point graduate and a man of fortune and position. The Confederate government was no sooner organized than Mr. Heyward sought Montgomery, tendering his services and those of a full regiment enlisted by him for the war. Such was the pressure upon the authorities, and so far beyond the power of absorption at that time the offers of volunteers, that Mr. Heyward sought long in vain for an interview with the Secretary of War. When this was at last obtained he found the ranks so filled that it was impossible to accept his regiment. Returning home in deep disappointment, but with his patriotism unquenched, this wealthy and trained soldier joined the Home Guards and died in the war as a private in the ranks.
Such was the unanimity with which the sons of the South, hosts of them armed with no better weapons than old-fas.h.i.+oned flint and steel muskets, double-barrelled shot-guns, and long-barrelled squirrel rifles, rushed to the defence of their States, with a spontaneous and burning enthusiasm that has never been surpa.s.sed. The impulse of self-defence was uppermost in their hearts. It was not the question of the preservation of slavery that sustained them in the terrible conflict for four years of desolating war. It was far more that of the sovereignty of the States. The South maintained that the Union formed under the Const.i.tution was one of consent and not of force; that each State retained the right to resume its independence on sufficient cause, and that the Const.i.tution gave no warrant for the attempt to invade and coerce a sovereign State. It was for this, not to preserve slavery, that the people sprang as one man to arms and fought as men had rarely fought before.
_STUART'S FAMOUS CHAMBERSBURG RAID._
Of all the minor operations of the Civil War, the one most marked at once by daring and success was the pioneer invasion of the Northern States, the notable Chambersburg raid of the most famous cavalry leader of the Confederacy, General J. E. B. Stuart. This story of bold venture and phenomenal good fortune, though often told, is worth giving again in its interesting details.
The interim after the battle of Sharpsburg or Antietam was one of rest and recuperation in both the armies engaged. During this period the cavalry of Lee's army was encamped in the vicinity of Charlestown, some ten miles to the southward of Harper's Ferry. Stuart's head-quarters were located under the splendid oaks which graced the lawn of ”The Bower,” whose proprietor, Mr. A. S. Dandridge, entertained the officers with an open-hearted and genial hospitality which made their stay one of great pleasure and enjoyment.
There were warriors in plenty who would not have been hasty to break up that agreeable period of rest and social intercourse, but Stuart was not of that cla.s.s. He felt that he must be up and doing, demonstrating that the Army of Northern Virginia had not gone to sleep; and the early days of October, 1862, saw a stir about head-quarters which indicated that something out of the ordinary was afoot. During the evening of the 8th the officers were engaged in a lively social intercourse with the ladies of ”The Bower,” the entertainment ending in a serenade in which the banjo and fiddle took chief part. Warlike affairs seemed absent from the thoughts of all, with the exception that the general devoted more time than usual to his papers.