If you are a regular reader you know I like history as seen through the eyes of the men who lived it.

David Johnston was 15 when Virginia’s debate on secession began. But he was 16 and a Confederate soldier when the first shots were fired on Virginia soil. You can see him in the photo below. He fought to the bitter end.

David tells us that Virginia sentiment strongly leaned in favor of remaining in the Union, even after Fort Sumter:

“Virginia was still for peace and the Union, endeavoring by every means within her power to avert the awful calamity of civil war.”

Then word spread “that the Federal Administration was anxious to see her shorn of her power… by the formation of West Virginia out of her territory, and this by the aid of the Federal power.”

David explains that Virginians did not take kindly to the notion of being split asunder.

“Virginia’s son was foremost in fanning the flames of revolution, leading to the overthrow of British tyranny and the establishment of American independence.

“Her son had written the Declaration of Independence.

“Her son had led the Continental armies during the Revolution, and her son was active in the framing and ratification of the Federal Constitution.”

David was speaking of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and James Madison.

Here was a state with a long tradition of great contribution to the nation, including seven Presidents of the United States. Virginia had already given up territory stretching northwest to Canada, from which six more states had been formed. And now there was talk of taking more of its land away.

Still, the Virginia Secession Convention voted 89 to 45 to remain in the Union.

Then on the 15^th of April, 1861, the newly installed president called for states to raise troops to put down the rebellion. Virginia was to contribute 2,400 men.

In David’s words:

“Virginia was a Southern state, in sympathy with her sister states of the South, and could not be induced to make war on them, nor on the Northern states of the Union.

“The conduct of the Federal Administration had not only forced her out of the Union, but to take sides in the impending crisis. It was not a Southern Confederacy that Virginia sought or her people fought for, but to uphold and maintain the integrity and sovereignty of the state, and this necessarily meant separate government.

“I am sure at no time did the people of Virginia think of becoming the aggressors upon the rights of the other states of the Federal Union.

“….The die was cast. There could be no further hesitation. On April 17th the Ordinance of Secession, amid anguish and tears, was adopted by a vote of 81 to 51.”

Five weeks later the people of Virginia ratified the Ordinance of Secession by a yes vote of 96,750 out of a total vote of 161,1018, sixty percent.

Eight days later, David’s company of volunteers was formed.

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Major John Harman (above) was described as a “man of strong convictions and uncompromising in his beliefs, caring little for the opinion of others.”

A good summary, but I would add he was short-tempered and his language turned the air blue.

Harman had been many things before the Civil War: butcher, farmer, and stage line operator among them. Unafraid of adventure, he had joined the Texas Rangers and served in the Mexican War.

In 1861, Harman became Stonewall Jackson’s Chief Quartermaster.

Religion had a strong influence on the Army of Northern Virginia, and General Jackson was one of the fiercest faces of religious conviction. Stern and disciplined, he didn’t tolerate impiety around him. Cursing in his presence did not go unrebuked, repeated only at one’s personal risk.

Harman was a man of strong opinions and force of will. He had raw manners and liked to get things done with unrestrained enthusiasm, intimidation and profanity fit for a sailor.

Managing a 14-mile-long wagon train during a military campaign was not a job for the weak of will. A fellow officer said Harmon was a “big-voiced, untiring, fearless man who would have ordered Jackson himself out of the way if necessary to obey Jackson’s orders.”

On a hot day in 1862, Lee’s army was crossing the Potomac to invade Maryland during the Antietam campaign. When Jackson rode up he found the fording of the river completely blocked by Major General D. H. Hill’s wagon train.

Jackson rebuked Hill for the mess. Apparently Hill explained something to Jackson that implied “it was no part of his business to get tangled wagons out of the river.”

Jackson instantly had Hill placed under arrest and summoned Major Harman.

Harman splashed into the water and the tangled mass of wagons. Brigadier General Imboden tells us that the Major “poured out a volume of oaths that would have excited the admiration of the most scientific mule-driver.

“The effect was electrical. The drivers were frightened and swore as best they could, but far below the Major’s standard. The mules caught the inspiration from a chorus of familiar words, and all at once made a break for the Maryland shore, and in five minutes the ford was cleared.

The General witnessed and heard it all. Stonewall Jackson was not known to ever let cursing go without a rebuke.

Harman rode back to the Stonewall, steeled for dressing down. Touching his hat, Major Harman said:

“The ford is clear, General! There’s only one language that will make mules understand on a hot day that they must get out of the water.”

The General smiled, said, “Thank you, Major,” and dashed into the water at the head of his staff.

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It happened just south of Nashville, right in the middle of Tennessee. The Rebels called it the Second Battle of Murfreesboro. The Federals called it the Battle of Stones River.

(The Union Army frequently named battles after rivers and creeks that played a role in the fighting. Confederates generally used the names of nearby towns or farms.)

Private Sam Watkins, Company H of the First Tennessee Infantry tells us his “line of battle was formed on the north bank of Stone’s River—on the Yankee side. Bad generalship, I thought.

It was Christmas. John Barleycorn was general-in-chief. Our generals, and colonels, and captains, had kissed John a little too often. They couldn’t see straight. They couldn’t tell our own men from Yankees. The private could, but he was no general, you see.

But here they were—the Yankees—a battle had to be fought. We were ordered forward. I was on the skirmish line. We marched plumb into the Yankee lines, with their flags flying.

It seems there was some confusion about who was who.

“I called Lieutenant-Colonel Frierson’s attention to the Yankees, and he remarked, ‘Well, I don’t know whether they are Yankees or not, but if they are, they will come out of there mighty quick.’ “

But at this point the Yankees marched back over the hill, out of sight. Sam’s regiment moved forward, and suddenly they right on the Federal lines.

“The Yankees were shooting our men down by scores.”

Of course, the Rebels shot back.

It seems, however, that the Confederate officers, experiencing the aftereffects of whiskey, had not figured out that they were in them midst of the Federal lines, and called out for the Yankees to cease firing “on your own men.”

Sam knew better:

“I hallooed; in fact, the whole skirmish line hallooed, and kept on telling them that they were Yankees, and to shoot; but the order was to cease firing, you are firing on your own men.

“We were not twenty yards off from the Yankees, and they were pouring the hot shot and shells right into our ranks.”

The confusion continued. Orders were still going out to cease firing.

“Oakley, color-bearer of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment, ran right up in the midst of the Yankee line with his colors, begging his men to follow.

I hallooed till I was hoarse, ‘They are Yankees, they are Yankees; shoot, they are Yankees.’ “

Finally everyone got on the same page.

General Cheatham came up and advanced. I did not fall back, but continued to load and shoot, until a fragment of a shell struck me on the arm, and then a minnie ball passed through the same paralyzing my arm, and wounded and disabled me.

“General Cheatham, all the time, was calling on the men to go forward, saying, “Come on, boys, and follow me.”

Despite his wounds, Sam was inspired by the sight.

“The impression that General Frank Cheatham made upon my mind, leading the charge, I will never forget. I saw either victory or death written on his face.

“When I saw him leading our brigade, although I was wounded at the time, I felt sorry for him, he seemed so earnest and concerned, and as he was passing me I said, ‘Well, General, if you are determined to die, I’ll die with you.’

“We were at that time at least a hundred yards in advance of the brigade, Cheatham all the time calling upon the men to come on. He was leading the charge in person.”

Then it was that I saw the power of one man, born to command, over a multitude of men then almost routed and demoralized. I saw and felt that he was not fighting for glory, but that he was fighting for his country because he loved that country, and he was willing to give his life for his country and the success of our cause.”

It was not just Sam that caught the excitement of the general. The rest of the Rebels “raised a whoop and yell, and swooped down on those Yankees like a whirl-a-gust of woodpeckers in a hail storm, paying the blue coated rascals back with compound interest.”

The Southern boys charged, overwhelming the Federals

“The victory was complete. The whole left wing of the Federal army was driven back five miles from their original position.”

Sam was patched up to fight another day.

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Late Spring 1864: Grant wanted to take the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.  He had been trying to slip around the Rebels, but the wily Lee kept blocking him.

Now Grant made a wide swing to flank the Rebels and seize Cold Harbor.

Not a real town, Cold Harbor was just an intersection of roads, ten miles northeast of Richmond. It got its name because of a tavern where guests could “harbor,” but no hot food was offered. You can see the inn in the photo below, taken on the 4th of June, 1864.

Grant arrived, but again Lee had beat him to the punch.

No one was better at building fortifications than Uncle Billy and his battle-hardened Rebels. In just days, they had built six miles of artillery emplacements, trenches and fortifications.

Now Grant made a crucial mistake: he thought Lee’s army was on the ropes, “really whipped.”  Nothing could be further from the truth, as he was about to discover.

An all-out attack was ordered for the next day. That night Union Lieutenant Colonel Porter watched men writing their names on paper and pinning them inside their uniforms. The privates knew better than their commander what was in store.

The Federals advanced at 4:30 AM, through thick fog. Confederate cannon and rifle fire soon had most of them pinned down.

One of Yankees described the assaults as “a wild chain of doomed charges, most of which were smashed in five or ten minutes.”

Another later wrote, “We felt it was murder, not war…”

One man saw all of the men around him suddenly drop to the ground. Assuming orders had been given, he dropped too. It was only then he realized the other men were dead.

In the span of one hour, 7,000 Union men were killed or wounded. No other hour of the war saw such a loss. By 7 AM, it was obvious to the Federals on the field that the attack was hopeless. When Union Major General Smith received orders for his 16,000 men to advance further, he refused, calling it a “wanton waste of life.”

When the assault was called off, many of the Union men could not retreat for fear of being killed. They had to somehow dig in where they were, creating what protection they could.

The difference in casualties was staggering. A Union army of 108,000 had been stopped in their tracks: 1,844 dead, 9,077 wounded, 1,816 captured or missing.

The 62,000 men of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia suffered 83 dead, 3,380 wounded, 1,132 captured or missing.

The Union army remained for nine more days, the front lines sometimes only yards apart.

It was a mistake Grant remembered for the rest of his life: “I regret this assault more than any one I have ever ordered.”

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Lieutenant Alexander Douglas could it no longer. The cries stirred him to action.

Douglas had been born on Christmas Day of 1833 in South Carolina, a land that was first settled by the English in 1670.  Early Americans battled Redcoats there in the Revolutionary War, and later, in 1865, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burned two thirds of the beautiful city of Charleston. But I digress

Before the war, Douglas had been an attorney and had served as editor of the Spartanburg Express. But today he was a far cry from that world.

It was a hot day in July, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Douglas was in command of an ambulance corps.

Peering out from behind the fortification where he lay, Douglas spotted the source of the pleas: a Union soldier lying in the open field between the Confederate and Federal lines.

Douglas rallied four of his men. Together they dashed out into the open where the wounded enemy soldier pleaded for help.

Shots rang out, but somehow none of them found their mark. The five brave men reached the wounded man, lifting him onto a stretcher.  The firing stopped as the Yankees realized what the Rebels were doing. Douglas and his men carried the wounded man back to the Confederate lines where he could get water and treatment.

Douglas was on the fields of battle for two more years, and was there with Lee’s Army at Appomattox in April of 1865. And this despite his own battlefield wound sustained a year a year after Gettysburg.

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Union General McClellan had just come into some key intelligence. Now he thought he had Robert E. Lee right where he wanted him, in enemy territory with his forces divided:

“Here is a piece of paper with which if I cannot whip Bobbie Lee, I will be willing to go home.”

What was that piece of paper?

On 13 September 1862, McClellan’s Union army was at Frederick, Maryland, camped in the same fields that had just been abandoned by Lee’s men. Private Mitchell was stacking rifles when he spotted three cigars on the ground, wrapped in a piece of paper.

The cigars were a good prize, but when Mitchell looked at the paper he saw, “Army of Northern Virginia, Special Orders No. 191.”

Within hours that paper was in the hands of General McClellan, who said, “Now I know what to do.”

Just the day before McClellan had wired his superior, “My columns are pushing on rapidly to Frederick. From all I gather, secesh is skedalleling, and I don’t think I can catch him unless he is really moving into Pennsylvania.”

That piece of paper changed everything. McClellan now knew that Lee had sent Stonewall Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry, and that other brigades had been sent to execute other actions. The paper showed that Lee’s forces had been split into five parts and scattered over a 30-mile stretch. At least eight miles separated each piece of Lee’s army, and McClellan was just a dozen miles from the nearest Confederate unit.

But McClellan had a problem: the orders were a few days old. He could not be sure whether Stonewall had returned or whether the other Confederate forces had rejoined the Confederates 12 miles away.

Still, McClellan knew where the enemy was, if not how strong he was. So he was cautious and advanced his 30 brigades so they were all available to attack the Confederates. Lee’s total force was only 14 brigades, so his caution should ensure victory.

But in fact, there were only five brigades 12 miles away. General D. H. Hill was in command of those brigades and later wrote:

“McClellan could have crushed my little squad in ten minutes but for the caution inspired in him by the belief that Lee’s main body was there.” 

Lee found out what the Federals were doing. He sent a division to reinforce his rear guard and delay McClellan. The resultant battle on 14 September slowed the Union advance enough for Stonewall Jackson to complete taking Harpers Ferry and race to join Lee along Antietam Creek on the 16th.

You can see a bridge over the creek in the photo above, where 450 Georgians under General Toombs held back several assaults by 14,000 men of  General Burnside’s Corps.

September 17th would be the bloodiest day of fighting in American history, as 75,000 Union troops attacked 38,000 Confederate troops. The Federals would call it the Battle of Antietam. Confederates called it the Battle of Sharpsburg.

No single day of battle in American history brought more casualties. The Union suffered 12,410 casualties, 25% of the Yankee force. The Rebels had 10,316, 31% of its men. But Lee’s army was able to cross the Potomac the next day.

The captured document could have given McClellan the opportunity to destroy Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but it didn’t happen.

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A lot of folks tell us what the Civil War was all about. Professors and reporters and “very important” people tell us.

And with what conviction they tell us!

But I rarely hear from the scholars about why the man in uniform was fighting. Seems the soldier is simply forgotten. Sure, we hear “what the war was about,” and we hear the bad intentions of some assigned to the Confederate soldier.

As a historian, I most enjoy writing about individuals – people, men who were there and experienced what we call history.

Sure, I write about events, but when I do I like to brush in real people. I like to include what they said about what happened.

Private David Johnston (left) was 16 when he put on a Rebel uniform. Through hardship and serious wounds he fought, all four years of the war. He then went on to become a Congressman and a respected judge.

David wrote a book after the war, telling of his experiences. Towards the end of it he wrote this:

“In praise of the Confederate soldier, I do not for one moment mean or intend to detract from the laurels won by the heroic Union soldier, who stood in the firing line, faithfully discharging his duty; for he, as well as we, was contending for principles regarded sacred and for which we had risked our lives….

“All were American soldiers, and the glory and honor won by each is the common heritage of the American people, not to be obscured or clouded by the questions about which we differed. Each struggled to maintain the right as God gave him to see the right.

“We often talked along the skirmish lines with Union soldiers…. In opposition to our claim that we were fighting for independence—separate government—they insisted that they were fighting for the Union, a common, undivided country; did not want to see the country broken up by division; and I feel fairly safe in stating that this feeling and sentiment largely dominated the great majority of the Union soldiers.”

David’s words ring true, whatever the interests of the politicians and economic concerns of the times. Men fought for what they believed in, and hundreds of thousands sacrificed their lives “for principles regarded sacred.”

There were virtues on both sides, and people today remember them.

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 The 1^st Kentucky Brigade is also known as the Orphan Brigade. Six different Kentucky Regiments were in this brigade. (Confederate Brigades were composed of two to six regiments.)

Some Kentucky regiments used flags with a upright Latin/Christian cross on them. The most prominent are the blue flags with large red Latin crosses adorned by 13 white stars. You can see an surviving example to the left.

The 5th Kentucky used a different flag, as you see to the right.  

We know that some Alabama regiments did the same with Latin crosses, and of course there is the famous 1^st Missouri Cavalry Flag. (All still reproduced today, as is the 19^th Alabama and others). 

Latin cross flags met with objections in the South during the American Civil War. Some of the conservative Christian groups felt the upright cross misused their religious symbol. Some Jewish communities, loyal to their state, felt the upright cross was inappropriate on a battle flag.*

One letter, from an Arkansas soldier, ranted against what he felt was a “catholic” symbol. To make sure his wife knew what was meant, he drew the flag in color on the letter. 

This was not a minor issue.  In fact, it was a key point in the design of the Southern Cross Battle Flag, first used in Virginia after the Battle of First Manassas.  The earliest design of the flag that later became the Battle Flag had an upright cross, not a diagonal one.  (I cover this more thoroughly in my articles on the Confederate Battle Flag of the Southern Cross, available on request.)

The 5^th Kentucky saw significant action at Chickamauga, the second bloodiest battle of the war (only Gettysburg had more casualties).  They acquitted themselves well.  One of the after-action reports contains the following:

On September 18, our forces advanced in several columns to cross the Chickamauga and give battle to the Federal army under General Rosecrans….

It was now moonlight, and Kelly returning to his command after a few minutes’ absence from it, the fire reopened, and continuing for a short time, ceased. It was the last fire of the day, and closed the battle. In the last attack made by Trigg and Kelly, Colonel Hawkins, of the Fifth Kentucky, a brave and skillful officer of Kelly’s brigade, captured 2 colonels, 1 lieutenant-colonel, a number of company officers, and 249 prisoners. The Twenty-second Michigan, Eighty-ninth Ohio, and part of the Twenty-first Ohio Regiments were captured by Trigg’s and Kelly’s brigades, and five stand of colors were taken by Sergeant Timmons, of the Seventh Florida Regiment, and by Privates Honaker, Harris, Hylton, and Carter, of the Fifty-fourth Virginia. Colonels Carlton, Le Favour, and Lieutenant-Colonel Glenn were among the prisoners.

*Jewish Southerners rallied to their states.  The first Jewish residents of Charleston, SC, arrived 1695 and, by 1800, the largest Jewish community in America lived in Charleston (the oldest synagogue in America, K. K. Beth Elohim, was founded in Charleston). By 1861, a third of all Jews in America lived in Louisiana. A prominent Jewish figure, Judah P. Benjamin served as Confederate Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State.  Jewish officers served as the Quartermaster of the Confederate Army and the Surgeon General of the Army, and many gallant Jewish Southerners sacrificed their lives in battle. Anti-semitism existed in the South, but it was even worse in the North. General Grant issued his infamous General Order Number 11, expelling Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Lincoln had to order Grant to revoke his order.

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The Civil War produced many fine shooters, and some made their way into sharpshooter units.

Champion marksman Hiram Berdan of New York raised a Union sharpshooter unit. To qualify, volunteers had to put ten shots in a circle of 10 inches from 200 yards.

Berdan’s Sharpshooters wore green uniforms, like the reenactor above.

Sharp’s rifles, used by the Federals, were deadly at 600–800 yards. Custom-made rifles used by both sides could reach to 1000 yards.

The British Whitworth was smuggled in by Confederates (see image below). It was slower to load but accurate to twice the distance.

Whitworth bullets were hexagonal, not round, and made a distinctive whistle as they sliced through the air. A soldier who heard it was smart to take cover.

Union General Sedgwick was correcting placement of his troops near an artillery unit. Artillery was a favored target of sharpshooters.

Sedgwick’s aide wrote:

“A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the general, and at the same moment a sharp-shooter’s bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close, and the soldier, who was then just in front of the general, dodged to the ground.

“The general touched him gently with his foot, and said, ‘Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way…They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.’

“The man rose and saluted and said good-naturedly, ‘General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn’t, it would have taken my head off. I believe in dodging.’

McMahon explained that as the man went off, another “shrill whistle, closing with a dull, heavy stroke, interrupted our talk.”

Sedgwick fell, mortally wounded.

President Lincoln got a taste of this. When he was inspecting fortifications near Washington DC, he came under fire from Confederate sharpshooters. He made a rapid retreat to the White House.

The longest shot we know of during the war occurred in the same place it all started, at Ft. Sumter. In 1864 Union soldiers manning artillery were firing on the fort from nearby islands. One of them showed himself at the wrong moment, and was shot by a Rebel sharpshooter from 1390 yards, 14^th longest confirmed hit in history.

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When the battle wasn’t raging, Yankee and Rebel soldiers were known to get along with each other.

Confederate Private Sam Watkins tells a story about a Sunday after the Battle of Chickamauga. He came and his buddies came to relieve some sentries on the Tennessee River. There was a Union outpost on the opposite riverbank.

“When we were approaching we heard the old guard and the Yankee picket talking back and forth across the river. The new guard immediately resumed the conversation. A Yankee hallooed out, “O, Johnny, Johnny, meet me half way in the river on the island.”

Sergeant John Tucker swam out to meet the Yankee, taking some Southern newspapers with him. Sam explains, “They got very friendly, and John invited him to come clear across to our side, which invitation he accepted…. Well, they came across and we swapped a few lies, canteens and tobacco, and then the Yankee went back.”

Sergeant Gibson of the 78^th Pennsylvania Infantry described similar things, saying the picket lines often stood less than 100 feet apart and “were on the best of terms and conversed frequently on various subjects.”

Union and Confederate troops would regularly trade what they had, like Southern tobacco for Federal coffee. This was frowned on by the brass, but even they were known to raise a flag of truce for something really important, like negotiating for whiskey.

For a while in Vicksburg, Mississippi, there was a daily exchange under a flag of truce. A Union boat would go into Vicksburg to discuss the “exchange of prisoners,” but the real business at hand was the exchange of newspapers and other items. The Federals always brought some bourbon to be “freely dispensed to the gray-coated deputation that meets us.”

Soldiers were pretty honorable about these things. Sam Watkins tells another story about standing picket on a small stream:

“We heard a Yankee call, ‘O, Johnny, Johnny Reb!’

“I started out to meet him when he hallooed out, “Go back, Johnny, go back; we are ordered to fire on you.”

“What is the matter? Is your army going to advance on us?”

“I don’t know; we are ordered to fire.”

I jumped back into the picket post, and a minnie ball ruined the only hat I had.”

But fair warning had been given, and Sam lived to tell the tale!

It was July 31st, 1861. Federal troops were just north of Manassas, Virginia. There were many who thought they would send the Rebels reeling, putting an end to the rebellion.

The day was Sunday, and a throng of civilian sightseers had come down from the U.S. capitol, just 25 miles away. Lieutenant Tibdall commanded a section of artillery at the battle, and described what he s

“They came in all manner of ways, some in stylish carriages, others in buggies, on horseback and even on foot…. All manner of people were represented in this crowd, from the most grave and noble senators to hotel waiters.”

Many had packed picnic baskets, and some enterprising folks brought carts of food to sell.

William Russel of the London Times was present. He tells us there was “an unusually heavy discharge of artillery. A lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself, exclaiming, ‘Oh my! Is not that first rate? I guess we will be in Richmond to-morrow.’ ”

A Federal officer rode up and hollered, “We have whipped them on all points.”

Some of the Sunday tourists wanted to get a closer look, and moved toward the battle. The group included four Senators and two Congressmen.

As they neared the battle lines, the road became filled with soldiers, horses, and wagons.

But they were going in the wrong direction!

Union soldiers hollered at the spectators, “Turn back, turn back, we’re whipped.”

Not all of the civilians were bright. Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler tried to barrier the road in an effort to stop the retreat. Senator Ben Wade of Ohio picked up a rifle, threatening to fire on the fleeing soldiers.

It was useless. The retreat could not be stopped.

A Confederate shell destroyed the buggy of Senator Henry Wilson, and he had to escape on a mule. Iowa Senator James Grimes barely avoided capture (and swore he would never to go near another battlefield).

New York Congressman Alfred Ely got too close to the fighting and was captured by the 8th South Carolina Infantry. He succeeded in reaching the Confederate Capitol of Richmond, where he spent the next five months in prison.

The reality of war had begun to sink in.

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