War and its Heroes
THE
WAR AND ITS HEROES.
ILLUSTRATED
RICHMOND:
AYRES & WADE
1864.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1864 by
AYRES & WADE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Confederate States for the Eastern District of Virginia.
PREFACE.
The Publishers, with much diffidence, present to the public the first volume of "The War and its Heroes." They would not, however, appear to magnify the imperfections of the work by begging the indulgence of its readers. The circumstances under which it is issued at this time are patent to all who have lived in our midst through even the last six months of the great struggle of which it is in part commemorative. That the work is incomplete is a fact which requires no apology, the struggle itself being incomplete. That it does not appear in the flashing garb of enameled paper, and blue and gold, is an incident which anticipates excuse. The Publishers base their confidence of its kind reception on the merit of accuracy, and they give it to the country as a record in which the reader may find pleasure, and from which the historian may gather information with assurance of its truth. The series will consist of four or more volumes, each of which will be issued in rapid succession as circumstances will permit. The engravings been executed with care and skill, and are taken from special photographs obtained by the Publishers themselves. The biographical sketches, which accompany them, are made up from official reports and private information from the most reliable sources. The enterprise is one which has long been contemplation, and at an early period of last year a revision of data was commenced, with a view to the speedy publication of the work. The interruptions and disappointments consequent upon the state of affairs delayed it however, and it appearance was postponed. Were we to wait the consummation of all the arrangements which had been made, the publication would still be delayed for several months, but we prefer to commence with the opening of Spring, and take a fair start with the early birds of the proverbial season of new books, even though it be at the expense of having to appear in a garb less inviting than our own taste would desire. The succeeding volumes will excel the present on in this respect. With this brief explanation we commit the First volume to the Reader.
INTRODUCTION.
"The living and the dead are here!" We ask ourselves in vain how many of those whose immortality await fruition in the touch of death will have taken their places in the halls of the Eternal ere the concluding volumes of our work are given to the world. Hope, with its golden veil, hides from as all save the smiles of the Future. But we have seen the Past, and are familiar with its characteristics. Our soldiers are brave. That courage which defends, that heroism which dares, that fire of soul which burns a path of fury through a sea of terrors, stand recorded over their unnumbered graves and glisten in the memorial light of their tattered flags. In this Revolution all are heroes. Each leader is not only a representative, but an impersonation. His heart is the heart of the Army. The sympathy is sublime—it than love—it is almost adoration! That vast and terrible aggregation of armed men which suddenly leaped from the bosom of the South, early in the Spring of 1861, was no pulseless, cold and mere obedient machine. Its firm and regular tread, as it massed on the bristling borders of the North, or moved in stately columns along the shadowless wastes "down by the sounding sea," was not the step of a "standing army." That monstrous accumulation of human puppets fell to the fortune of the enemy. The animus of independence gathered its propelling force in every breast of the great uprising mass of Southern patriots, and sent them, with resistless momentum, forward, everywhere, to the field of danger. There was no impediment in space—no quiver in the speeding nerve. They shot from point to point like comets, sweeping along the surface of the earth.
This will be known in the future as the spirit of '61.
Then came Sumter, and Bethel, and Manassas. The tufted green of patriarchal pines that had peacefully nodded in the winds of eighty summers; the slopes of verdure on whose cushioned surface had shone for many a year the starry tracks of angels, over which the bee and fairy butterfly swam, in the fragrant, sunny air; the weird and perfumed thicket, and the dell, mossy and shadowy and secluded; and the innumerable fields of laughing grain; and the haunted solitudes and romance-breathing streams—threw off their sweet immaculate illusions, and breathed the sulphurous atmosphere of War. Peace, that hung in haloes around the flashing, umencrimsoned bayonets of our hero-legions; Peace, that whispered in the music of the sea and stayed the crash of the yet impending conflict; Peace, that stole its silvery way along the eve of battle, and smiled, transfigured, in the dawn of victory, fled. A star had fallen, and it was the star of Peace. It fell among the visions of the past. The summer and the winter rolled away, grim with death, but bright with triumph to Southern arms. Then a year of disaster came and red fires lit up the horizon. The lurid gleam shone horrible with visions of dismay, distress and shame, and the pain went home to myriads of Southern hearts. Another year, grand with victories, terrible in carnage, swept in full-orbed glory by. We turn from the threshold of the fourth to look back through the vista of fire, and view, amidst its sacred scenery, the features of the dead!
Animate in death, in battle front, gory on breast and cheek and arm, and palled in the smoke of the first Manassas, Bee and Bartow lie. Upon the blooming prairies of Kentucky another battle "rides upon the storm," and the noble Zollicoffer falls expiring under the very gaze of the exultant foe. Still deeper on the distance of the West, under a storm of lead, brave men, mingling with their allied brothers of the forest, mourn over McCulloch and McIntosh, whose priceless blood the thirsty sod drinks in beneath their feet. At Shiloh a martyr falls. In the mountainous wilds of Northern Virginia, the Ashbys, sublime in deeds, almost invulnerable, pour out their life. The young and chivalrous Wise accepts, on the treacherous shores of Roanoke Island, that "other choice" of heroes—death—and dies in triumph, though a captive; and the brave and brilliant Latane falls in the deadly fray that illuminates the arms of Stuart's men in the charge at Hanover.
But wept by the very stars of Heaven, that trembled as they looked upon those midnight flashes in the Wilderness, the bleeding form of the Achilles of the South, Stonewall Jackson, meets, with its drapery of sadness, the wandering gaze—on which a country calls in vain and will not realize her loss—for
"she remembers thee as one
Long loved, but for a season gone;
For thee her Poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee her babe's first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears."
The scene ends not here; but the review becomes burthensome with sorrow. The living still must add, alas! to the endless roll of death. As in the past, a fiery and uncalculating courage has marked both the men and leaders of the Southern Army, we must anticipate for the future many and costly sacrifices. We have many, as the record of these pages will attest, yet to adorn the field and inspire the charge; but none, none to spare. As the war drags its slow length along, all will be needed, and though it seems not in their nature, we yet trust that it will be in their power, to husband their courage and succeed.
CONTENTS.
| 17 |
| 21 |
| 27 |
| 35 |
| 43 |
| 47 |
| 50 |
| 54 |
| 56 |
| 60 |
| 67 |
| 74 |
| 76 |
| 78 |
| 81 |
| 84 |
| 86 |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1864, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse