Gird Yourselves for This Great Effort: Tales of Poignance from the Late, Great War Between the States

By George Tomezsko

Gird Yourselves For This Great Effort is intended to be read as a story of resistance that happens to be true. The heroes of the story are the people of the Shenandoah Valley who hoped for and dared all in their struggle for independence. In 1864, as powerful Union armies laid waste to the Valley, Confederate forces, with the support of many Valley residents, battled valiantly against overwhelming odds. Their story should offer inspiration to all who, in the present era, oppose the rampant internationalism that is the hallmark of elite opinion. This book should, therefore, capture the attention of not only historians but of anyone with an interest in the War Between the States. Five fictional short stories at the end add a note of poignancy to the book and nicely complement the history detailed on earlier pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781469100647

George Tomezsko

George Tomezsko is a writer, essayist and historian with several previous books to his credit. His major interest in history is the War Between the States. The war in the Shenandoah attracted his attention when he wrote an earlier book, An Afternoon in May, that told the story of the Corps of Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute at the Battle of New Market in 1864. He wrote the present book to ensure the real significance of the military drama then being played out in the Shenandoah Valley is not forgotten.

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Gird Yourselves

For This Great Effort

Tales of Poignance from the Late,

Great War Between the States

George Tomezsko

Copyright © 2009 by George Tomezsko.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Xlibris Corporation

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Contents

I

INTRODUCTION

BLACK DAVE

THE BESOM OF DESTRUCTION

SHELLS WERE FLYING

LYNCHBURG

INCENDIARISM

II

INTRODUCTION

A VOLCANO

AN ORNAMENT OF GLORY

AN AFFECTIONATE FAREWELL

III

HIGHLY IRREGULAR TIMES

HARD GROUND AT DONELSON

THE SHILOH STRAIGHT FLUSH

BLANK

THE LITTLE, SMALL ACTION

AT APPOMATTOX

AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to all those, North and South, who love the truth more than fashionable opinion.

In this book I have attempted to capture, via the telling of just a portion of the history of that great effort called the War Between the States, a spirit as old as humanity and reflective of the best qualities inherent in fallible and flawed human nature: that is the spirit of resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. In such struggles we witness something profound at work; the race of man raises himself above the mortal. We glimpse the immortality of the human soul, and something lasting is added to the dignity of our fallen race.

The title of this book is taken from an announcement prepared by the Central Committee at Richmond, formed to procure supplies for the Confederate Army. The full announcement was printed in the Republican Vindicator on March 31, 1865.

The photograph on the front cover shows a team of telegraph operators posing during the siege of Richmond, June 1864-April 1865.

I

RUINED ENTIRELY — CONSEQUENCES OF WAR IN THE SHENANDOAH

INTRODUCTION

During the evening hours of 15 May 1864, Union General Franz Sigel’s demoralized army fled down the Valley Turnpike after their rout at New Market with the Confederates in pursuit. Upon reaching the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, his forces had to cross the bridge at that location. The narrow span was a bottleneck and a big tangle of men, horses, wagons, and guns quickly built up as Union officers struggled to affect an orderly crossing. Watching this jam from a high point called Rude’s Hill, Confederate Gen. Breckinridge ordered Lieutenant Carter Berkeley to open fire with artillery.

We put in our deadliest shots as they were packing like frightened cattle across the bridge, the artilleryman later wrote.

Nevertheless, later that evening, Sigel telegraphed Union headquarters that his retrograde movement from New Market had been carried out in good order. Disgusted with Sigel’s performance that day, Major General Henry W. Halleck notified Union General Grant, Sigel’s commanding officer, via telegraph that Sigel was in full retreat to Strasburg.

If you expect anything from him you will be mistaken, Halleck told Grant. He will do nothing but run. He never did anything else.

Sigel was promptly relieved of command, and the grand drama of the next few months of war in the Valley was set in motion. Hunter was coming, and after him, Sheridan, and both carried out campaigns that would include the destruction by fire of numerous dwelling places, barns and crops along the length of the Valley. Those blazes would kindle a bitterness in Southern hearts that endured for years afterward. It can be argued that the people of the Valley drew upon themselves that fury by engaging in acts of rebellion, but the North freely chose to respond as it did. It could have followed the advice of a prominent New York editor, and let the erring seven sisters go.

The North did not.

Guided by an ideology that brooks no compromise, the leadership of the North unleashed a total war upon the people of the South, who sought only their own independence. Though softened now by time, the passions and beliefs that gave rise to these events still have a power that yet resonates.

It was this love of home, with its thronging recollections of the past both near and far… that nerved many a Southern soldier… Love of the South was inextricably mixed up with this love of the family hearth… Love of one particular spot, of one neighborhood, of one State, was the foundation stone of the love of the entire region which entered so deeply into the spirit of the Confederate soldier (Philip Alexander Bruce).

BLACK DAVE

In 1864 Major General David Hunter was grim, energetic, and well-known throughout the Confederacy. No other Union general, except perhaps Benjamin Butler, was so detested by the South. Hunter had previously commanded the Department of the South and as such, he issued a proclamation freeing the slaves within his lines, then went a step further. He announced the formation of the War’s first all-black regiment, the First South Carolina Volunteers. The Confederate government, horrified by the prospect of armed former slaves, declared Hunter an outlaw who, if captured, shall not be regarded as a prisoner of war, but held in close confinement for execution as a felon.

President Lincoln countermanded Hunter’s emancipation order and recalled the general to Washington, where he spent a year serving on various government commissions and boards before being sent to the Shenandoah.

Hunter was also a man of advancing years in 1864 (he turned 62 two months to the day after taking command of the Federal Department of West Virginia on 21 May), but he was still capable of erupting into violent outbursts. He was said to have killed two fellow officers in duels, and once challenged his commanding officer as well. For that offense he was tried by court martial and sentenced to be dismissed from the service, and only the intervention of President John Quincy Adams saved his career. Physically, he was a big man, an imposing specimen, and his hair was so black that many of his men were convinced he dyed it.

Straight, coarse, and of midnight hue, was how one visitor to his headquarters described the general’s hair, and his lineaments somewhat suggestive of an Indian.

Hunter became a bitter opponent of slavery and, although he was a member of a prominent Virginia family, he declared that the participation of Virginians in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry warranted the destruction of the entire state. After recovering from a wound he received at Bull Run in 1861, Hunter was promoted to major general and sent to the Department of the West. When the department commander was relieved, Hunter was put in charge. But within days, the department was split up and Hunter was relegated to a lesser command in Kansas. He complained bitterly to President Lincoln in a letter that he had been humiliated, insulted, and disgraced.

It is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in a good temper, Lincoln replied. I am, as your intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you.

The posting to Kansas would stand, the president also wrote, and Hunter was advised to do his duty without any further complaint. But undaunted by this reprimand, Hunter pressed Washington in 1863 for permission to organize a general destruction of all the property of the slaveholders in the South. Artillery Captain Henry DuPont, a member of the famous Delaware family, wrote that Hunter was dominated by prejudices and antipathies so intense and so violent as to render him at times quite incapable of taking a fair and unbiased view of many military and political situations.

But despite his weaknesses, Hunter was an experienced, well-trained officer who looked good in comparison with his predecessor, Franz Sigel.

We can afford to lose such a battle as New Market, said Colonel David Strother, to get rid of such a mistake as Major General Sigel.

Acting quickly, Hunter took firm command of a force he found utterly demoralized and stampeded. From his headquarters on an estate north of Strasburg, he sent Sigel north to command the reserves guarding the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and ordered Brigadier General George Crook and his 12,000 men to move immediately on Staunton. Hunter also removed most of Sigel’s junior officers from his staff, and on 26 May, just five days after taking command, he marched the rejuvenated Army of the Shenandoah, numbering 8,500, southward once again. Grant wanted Hunter to join Crook and move against the rail hubs in Charlottesville and Lynchburg. Hunter was instructed to destroy the railroads at these locales beyond the possibility of repair for weeks. Hunter had actually begun his campaign of destruction long before he reached a railroad, and, in fact, before he even marched south.

On 24 May a federal wagon train was fired upon near Newtown; Hunter promptly sent a cavalry detachment to burn the house from which the shots had come. He also ordered the troopers to announce a new policy to civilians: if the incident was repeated, the commanding general will cause to be burned every rebel house within five miles of the place at which the firing occurs. But Hunter’s order was unusual in the Eastern Theatre, where the armies of both sides were under orders to safeguard civilians and private property.

Indiscriminate marauding should be avoided, Grant had told Sigel. Nothing should be taken not absolutely necessary for the troops, except when captured from an armed enemy.

But Hunter felt justified in ignoring these orders because he regarded Confederate cavalry leaders as outlaws and not as military officers, a conclusion that DuPont, among others, called absolutely untenable. Hunter wreaked his vengeance upon pro-Confederate civilians with an enthusiasm that disturbed some of his own men. But the march was hard and he was soon short on rations; during the first month, only one wagon train carrying supplies made it through to his forces. All the other trains had been attacked and plundered by Confederate guerillas. Possibly because of this harassment, many of his troopers would often ransack private homes looking for silver, jewelry, and other family valuables, and whatever other supplies