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The Confederate retreat from Gettysburg.
by John D. Imboden, Brigadier-General, C. S. A.
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“Carry me back to Ole Virginny.”
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During the
Gettysburg campaign, my command — an independent brigade of cavalry — was engaged, by
General Lee's confidential orders, in raids on the left flank of his advancing army, destroying railroad bridges and cutting the canal below
Cumberland wherever I could so that I did not reach the field till noon of the last day's battle.
I reported direct to
General Lee for orders, and was assigned a position to aid in repelling any cavalry demonstration on his rear.
None of a serious character being made, my little force took no part in the battle, but were merely spectators of the scene, which transcended in grandeur any that I beheld in any other battle of the war. When night closed the struggle,
Lee's army was repulsed.
We all knew that the day had gone against us, but the full extent of the disaster was only known in high quarters.
The carnage of the day was generally understood to have been frightful, yet our army was not in retreat, and it was surmised in camp that with to-morrow's dawn would come a renewal of the struggle.
All felt and appreciated the momentous consequences to the cause of Southern independence of final defeat or victory on that great field.
It was a warm summer's night; there were few camp-fires, and the weary soldiers were lying in groups on the luxuriant grass of the beautiful meadows, discussing the events of the day, speculating on the morrow, or watching that our horses did not straggle off while browsing.
About 11 o'clock a horseman came to summon me to
General Lee.
I promptly mounted and,. accompanied by
Lieutenant George W. McPhail, an aide on my staff, and guided by the courier who brought the message, rode about two miles toward
Gettysburg to where half a dozen small tents were pointed out, a little way from the roadside to our left, as
General Lee's headquarters for the night.
On inquiry I found that he was not there, but had gone to the headquarters of
General A. P. Hill, about half a mile nearer to
Gettysburg.
When we reached the place indicated, a single flickering candle, visible from the road through the open front of a common wall-tent, exposed to view
Generals Lee and
Hill seated on camp-stools with a map spread upon their knees.
Dismounting, I approached on foot.
After exchanging the ordinary salutations
General Lee directed me to go back to his headquarters and wait for him. I did so, but he did not make his appearance until about 1 o'clock, when he came riding alone, at a slow walk, and evidently wrapped in profound thought.
When he arrived there was not even a sentinel on duty at his tent, and no one of his staff was awake.
The moon was high in the clear sky and the silent scene was unusually vivid.
As he approached and saw us lying on the
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grass under a tree, he spoke, reined in his jaded horse, and essayed to dismount.
The effort to do so betrayed so much physical exhaustion that I hurriedly rose and stepped forward to assist him, but before I reached his side he had succeeded in alighting, and threw his arm across the saddle to rest, and fixing his eyes upon the ground leaned in silence and almost motionless upon his equally weary horse,--the two forming a striking and never-to-be-forgotten group.
The moon shone full upon his massive features and revealed an expression of sadness that I had never before seen upon his face.
Awed by his appearance I waited for him to speak until the silence became embarrassing, when, to break it and change the silent current of his thoughts, I ventured to remark, in a sympathetic tone, and in allusion to his great fatigue:
General, this has been a hard day on you.
He looked up, and replied mournfully:
“Yes, it has been a sad, sad day to us,” and immediately relapsed into his thoughtful mood and attitude.
Being unwilling again to intrude upon his reflections, I said no more.
After perhaps a minute or two, he suddenly straightened up to his full height, and turning to me with more animation and excitement of manner than I had ever seen in him before, for he was a man of wonderful equanimity, he said in a voice tremulous with emotion:
I never saw troops behave more magnificently than Pickett's division of Virginians did to-day in that grand charge upon the enemy.
And if they had been supported as they were to have been,--but, for some reason not yet fully explained to me, were not,--we would have held the position and the day would have been ours.
After a moment's pause he added in a loud voice, in a tone almost of agony, “Too bad!
Too bad! oh!
Too bad!”
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I shall never forget his language, his manner, and his appearance of mental suffering.
In a few moments all emotion was suppressed, and he spoke feelingly of several of his fallen and trusted officers; among others of
Brigadier-Generals Armistead,
Garnett, and
Kemper of
Pickett's division.
He invited me into his tent, and as soon as we were seated he remarked:
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“We must now return to
Virginia.
As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home.
I have sent for you, because your men and horses are fresh and in good condition, to guard and conduct our train back to
Virginia.
The duty will be arduous, responsible, and dangerous, for I am afraid you will be harassed by the enemy's cavalry.
How many men have you?”
“ About 2100 effective present, and all well mounted, including
McClanahan's six-gun battery of horse artillery.”
“I can spare you as much artillery as you require,” he said, “but no other troops, as I shall need all I have to return safely by a different and shorter route than yours.
The batteries are generally short of ammunition, but you will probably meet a supply I have ordered from
Winchester to
Williamsport.
Nearly all the transportation and the care of all the wounded will be intrusted to you. You will recross the mountain by the
Chambersburg road, and then proceed to
Williamsport by any route you deem best, and without a halt till you reach the river.
Rest there long enough to feed your animals; then ford the river, and do not halt again till you reach
Winchester, where I will again communicate with you.”
After a good deal of conversation about roads, and the best disposition of my forces to cover and protect the vast train, he directed that the chiefs of his staff departments should be waked up to receive, in my presence, his orders to collect as early next day as possible all the wagons and ambulances which I was to convoy, and have them in readiness for me to take command of them.
His
medical director [
Dr. Lafayette Guild] was charged to see that all the wounded who could bear the rough journey should be placed in the empty wagons and ambulances.
He then remarked to me that his general instructions would be sent to me in writing the following morning.
As I was about leaving to return to my camp, as late, I think, as 2 A. M., he came out of his tent to where I was about to mount, and said in an undertone: “I will place in your hands by a staff-officer, to-morrow morning, a sealed package for
President Davis, which you will retain in your possession till you are across the
Potomac, when you will detail a reliable commissioned officer to take it to
Richmond with all possible dispatch and deliver it into the
President's own hands.
And I impress it on you that, whatever happens, this package must not fall into the hands of the enemy.
If unfortunately you should be captured, destroy it at the first opportunity.”
On the morning of July 4th my written instructions, and a large official envelope addressed to
President Davis, were handed to me by a staff-officer.
It was apparent by 9 o'clock that the wagons, ambulances, and wounded could not be collected and made ready to move till late in the afternoon.
General Lee sent to me eight
Napoleon guns of the famous Washington Artillery of New Orleans, under the immediate command of
Major Eshleman, one of the best artillery officers in the army, a four-gun battery under
Captain Tanner, and a Whitworth under
Lieutenant Pegram.
Hampton's cavalry brigade, then under command of
Colonel P. M. B. Young, with
Captain James F. Hart's four-gun battery of horse artillery, was ordered to cover the rear of all trains
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Good-bye I |
moving under my convoy on the
Chambersburg road.
These 17 guns and
Mclanahan's 6 guns gave us 23 pieces in all for the defense of the trains.
Shortly after noon of the 4th the very windows of heaven seemed to have opened.
The rain fell in blinding sheets; the meadows were soon overflowed, and fences gave way before the raging streams.
During the storm, wagons, ambulances, and artillery carriages by hundreds — nay, by thousands--were assembling in the fields along the road from
Gettysburg to
Cashtown, in one confused and apparently inextricable mass.
As the afternoon wore on there was no abatement in the storm.
Canvas was no protection against its fury, and the wounded men lying upon the naked boards of the wagon-bodies were drenched.
Horses and mules were blinded and maddened by the wind and water, and became almost unmanageable.
The deafening roar of the mingled sounds of heaven and earth all around us made it almost impossible to communicate orders, and equally difficult to execute them.
About 4 P. M. the head of the column was put in motion near
Cashtown, and began the ascent of the mountain in the direction of
Chambersburg.
I remained at
Cashtown giving directions and putting in detachments of guns and troops at what I estimated to be intervals of a quarter or a third of a mile.
It was found from the position of the head of the column west of the mountain at dawn of the 5th--the hour at which
Young's cavalry and
Hart's battery began the ascent of the mountain near
Cashtown — that the entire column was seventeen miles long when drawn out on the road and put in motion.
As an advance-guard I had placed the 18th Virginia Cavalry,
Colonel George W. Imboden, in front with a section of
McClanahan's battery.
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Next to them, by request, was placed an ambulance carrying, stretched side by side, two of
North Carolina's most distinguished soldiers,
Generals Pender and
Scales, both badly wounded, but resolved to bear the tortures of the journey rather than become prisoners.
I shared a little bread and meat with them at noon, and they waited patiently for hours for the head of the column to move.
The trip cost poor
Pender his life.
General Scales appeared to be worse hurt, but stopped at
Winchester, recovered, and fought through the war.
After dark I set out from
Cashtown to gain the head of the column during the night.
My orders had been peremptory that there should be no halt for any cause whatever.
If an accident should happen to any vehicle, it was immediately to be put out of the road and abandoned.
The column moved rapidly, considering the rough roads and the darkness, and from almost every wagon for many miles issued heart-rending wails of agony.
For four hours I hurried forward on my way to the front, and in all that time I was never out of hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying.
Scarcely one in a hundred had received adequate surgical aid, owing to the demands on the hard-working surgeons from still worse cases that had to be left behind.
Many of the wounded in the wagons had been without food for thirty-six hours. Their torn and bloody clothing, matted and hardened, was rasping the tender, inflamed, and still oozing wounds.
Very few of the wagons had even a layer of straw in them, and all were without springs.
The road was rough and rocky from the heavy washings of the preceding day. The jolting was enough to have killed strong men, if long exposed to it. From nearly every wagon as the teams trotted on, urged by whip and shout, came such cries and shrieks as these:
O God!
why can't I die?
“My God!
Will no one have mercy and kill me?”
“Stop! Oh! for God's sake, stop just for one minute; take me out and leave me to die on the roadside.”
“I am dying!
I am dying!
My poor wife, my dear children, what will become of you?”
Some were simply moaning; some were praying, and others uttering the most fearful oaths and execrations that despair and agony could wring from them; while a majority, with a stoicism sustained by sublime devotion to the cause they fought for, endured without complaint unspeakable tortures, and even spoke words of cheer and comfort to their unhappy comrades of less will or more acute nerves.
Occasionally a wagon would be passed from which only low, deep moans could be heard.
No help could be rendered to any of the sufferers.
No heed could be given to any of their appeals.
Mercy and duty to the many forbade the loss of a moment in the vain effort then and there to comply with the prayers of the few. On!
On! we
must move on. The storm continued, and the darkness was appalling.
There was no time even to fill a canteen with water for a dying man; for, except the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in that vast procession of misery.
During this one night I realized more of the horrors of war than I had in all the two preceding years.
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And yet in the darkness was our safety, for no enemy would dare attack where he could not distinguish friend from foe. We knew that when day broke upon us we should be harassed by bands of cavalry hanging on our flanks.
Therefore our aim was to go as far as possible under cover of the night.
Instead of going through
Chambersburg, I decided to leave the main road near
Fairfield after crossing the mountains, and take “a near cut” across the country to
Greencastle, where daybreak on the morning of the 5th of July found the head of our column.
We were now twelve or fifteen miles from the
Potomac at
Williamsport, our point of crossing into
Virginia.
Here our apprehended troubles began.
After the advance — the 18th Virginia Cavalry--had passed perhaps a mile beyond the town, the citizens to the number of thirty or forty attacked the train with axes, cutting the spokes out of ten or a dozen wheels and dropping the wagons in the streets.
The moment I heard of it I sent back a detachment of cavalry to capture every citizen who had been engaged in this work, and treat them as prisoners of war. This stopped the trouble there, but the
Union cavalry began to swarm down upon us from the fields and cross-roads, making their attacks in small bodies, and striking the column where there were few or no guards, and thus creating great confusion.
I had a narrow escape from capture by one of these parties — of perhaps fifty men that I tried to drive off with canister from two of
McClanahan's guns that were close at hand.
They would perhaps have been too much for me, had not
Colonel Imboden, hearing the firing turned back with his regiment at a gallop, and by the suddenness of his movement surrounded and caught the entire party.
To add to our perplexities still further, a report reached me a little after sunrise, that the
Federals in large force held
Williamsport.
I did not fully credit this, and decided to push on. Fortunately the report was untrue.
After a great deal of desultory fighting and harassments along the road during the day, nearly the whole of the immense train reached
Williamsport on the afternoon of the 5th.
A part of it, with
Hart's battery, came in next day,
General Young having halted and turned his attention to guarding the road from the west with his cavalry.
We took possession of the town to convert it into a great hospital for the thousands of wounded we had brought from
Gettysburg.
I required all the families in the place to go to cooking for the sick and wounded, on pain of having their kitchens occupied for that purpose by my men. They readily complied.
A large number of surgeons had accompanied the train, and these at once pulled off their coats and went to work, and soon a vast amount of suffering was mitigated.
The bodies of a few who had died on the march were buried.
All this became necessary because the tremendous rains had raised the river more than ten feet above the fording stage of water, and we could not possibly cross then.
There were two small ferry-boats or “flats” there, which I immediately put into requisition to carry across those of the wounded, who, after being fed and having their wounds dressed, thought they could walk to
Winchester.
Quite a large number were able to do this, so that the “flats” were kept running all the time.
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Our situation was frightful.
We had probably ten thousand animals and nearly all the wagons of
General Lee's army under our charge, and all the wounded, to the number of several thousand, that could be brought from
Gettysburg.
Our supply of provisions consisted of a few wagon-loads of flour in my own brigade train, a small lot of fine fat cattle which I had collected in
Pennsylvania on my way to
Gettysburg, and some sugar and coffee procured in the same way at
Mercersburg.
The town of
Williamsport is located in the lower angle formed by the
Potomac with
Conococheague Creek.
These streams inclose the town on two sides, and back of it about one mile there is a low range of hills that is crossed by four roads converging at the town.
The first is the
Greencastle road leading down the creek valley; next the
Hagerstown road; then the Boonsboro' road; and lastly the
River road.
[See map, p. 246.]
Early on the morning of the 6th I received intelligence of the approach from
Frederick of a large body of cavalry with three full batteries of six rifled guns.
These were the divisions of
Generals Buford and
Kilpatrick, and
Huey's brigade of
Gregg's division, consisting, as I afterward learned, of 23 regiments of cavalry, and 18 guns, a total force of about 7000 men.
I immediately posted my guns on the hills that concealed the town, and dismounted my own command to support them — and ordered as many of the wagoners to be formed as could be armed with the guns of the wounded that we had brought from
Gettysburg.
In this I was greatly aided by
Colonel J. L. Black of
South Carolina,
Captain J. F. Hart commanding a battery from
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the same State,
Colonel William R. Aylett of
Virginia, and other wounded officers.
By noon about 700 wagoners were organized into companies of 100 each and officered by wounded line-officers and commissaries and quartermasters,--about 250 of these were given to
Colonel Aylett on the right next the river,--about as many under
Colonel Black on the left, and the residue were used as skirmishers.
My own command proper was held well in hand in the center.
The enemy appeared in our front about half-past 1 o'clock on both the
Hagerstown and Boonsboro' roads, and the fight began.
Every man under my command understood that if we did not repulse the enemy we should all be captured and
General Lee's army be ruined by the loss of its transportation, which at that period could not have been replaced in the
Confederacy.
The fight began with artillery on both sides.
The firing from our side was very rapid, and seemed to make the enemy hesitate about advancing.
In a half hour
J. D. Moore's battery ran out of ammunition, but as an ordnance train had arrived from
Winchester, two wagon-loads of ammunition were ferried across the river and run upon the field behind the guns, and the boxes tumbled out, to be broken open with axes.
With this fresh supply our guns were all soon in full play again.
As the enemy could not see the supports of our batteries from the hill-tops, I moved the whole line forward to his full view, in single ranks, to show a long front on the
Hagerstown approach.
My line passed our guns fifty or one hundred yards, where they were halted awhile, and then were withdrawn behind the hill-top again, slowly and steadily.
Leaving Black's wagoners and the Marylanders on the left to support
Hart's and
Moore's batteries,
Captain Hart having been put in command by
Colonel Black when he was obliged to be elsewhere, I moved the 18th Virginia Cavalry and 62d Virginia Mounted Infantry rapidly to the right, to meet and repel five advancing regiments (dismounted) of the enemy.
My three regiments, with
Captain John H. McNeill's Partisan Rangers and
Aylett's wagoners, had to sustain a very severe contest.
Hart, seeing how hard we were pressed on the right, charged the enemy's right with his little command, and at the same time
Eshleman with his eight Napoleons advanced four hundred yards to the front, and got an enfilading position, from which, with the aid of
McClanahan's battery, he poured a furious fire into the enemy's line.
The 62d and
Aylett, supported by the 18th Cavalry, and
McNeill, charged the enemy who fell back sullenly to their horses.
Night was now rapidly approaching, when a messenger from
Fitzhugh Lee arrived to urge me to “hold my own,” as he would be up in a half hour with three thousand fresh men. The news was sent along our whole line, and was received with a wild and exultant yell.
We knew then that the field was won, and slowly pressed forward.
Almost at the same moment we heard distant guns on the enemy's rear and right on the
Hagerstown road.
They were
Stuart's, who was approaching on that road, while
Fitzhugh Lee was coming on the
Greencastle road.
That settled the contest.
The enemy broke to the left and fled by the Boonsboro' road.
It was too dark to follow.
When
General Fitzhugh Lee joined me with his staff on the field, one of
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the enemy's shells came near striking him.
General Lee thought it came from
Eshleman's battery, till, a moment later, he saw a blaze from its gun streaming away from us.
We captured about 125 of the enemy who failed to reach their horses.
I could never ascertain the loss on either side.
I estimated ours at about 125.
The wagoners fought so well that this came to be known as “the wagoners' fight.”
Quite a number of them were killed in storming a farm from which sharp-shooters were rapidly picking off
Eshleman's men and horses.
My whole force engaged, wagoners included, did not exceed three thousand men. The ruse practiced by showing a formidable line on the left, then withdrawing it to fight on the right, together with our numerous artillery, 23 guns, led to the belief that our force was much greater.
By extraordinary good fortune we had thus saved all of
General Lee's trains.
A bold charge at any time before sunset would have broken our feeble lines, and then we should all have fallen an easy prey to the
Federals.
The next day our army arrived from
Gettysburg, and the country is familiar with the way it escaped across the
Potomac on the night of the 13th of July.
It may be interesting to repeat one or two facts to show the peril in which the army was till the river could be bridged.
Over four thousand prisoners taken at
Gettysburg were ferried across the river by the morning of the 9th, and I was ordered with a single regiment, the 62d Virginia, to guard them to
Staunton and send them on to
Richmond.
When the general assigned me to this duty he expressed an apprehension that before I could reach
Winchester the
Federal cavalry would cross at
Harper's Ferry, intercept and capture my guard and release the prisoners.
Before we had left the river I had an interview with him at his headquarters near
Hagerstown, in which he expressed great impatience at the tardiness in building rude pontoons at the river, and calling in
Colonel James L. Corley, his chief quartermaster, told him to put
Major John A. Harman in charge of the work; remarking that without
Harman's extraordinary energy to conduct the work, the pontoons would not be done for several days.
Harman took charge that day, and by tearing down warehouses on the canal got joists to build boats with, and in twenty-four hours had enough of them ready to float down to
Falling Waters and construct a bridge.
As we were talking
General Longstreet came into the tent, wet and muddy, and was cordially greeted by
General Lee in this wise: “Well, my old warhorse, what news do you bring us from the front?”
That cordial greeting between chief and lieutenant is a sufficient answer, in my mind, to the statements of alleged ill feeling between the two men growing out of affairs at
Gettysburg.
It has been said that if “
Stonewall”
Jackson had been in command at
Gettysburg,
Longstreet would have been shot.
This is a monstrous imputation upon
General Lee, no less than upon
Longstreet, and utterly without foundation, in my opinion.
They were surely cordial on the 9th of July, 1863.
Before I had gone two miles on my anxious march toward
Winchester a courier overtook me with a note from
General Lee directing me to return immediately to his headquarters.
I halted my column, hurried back, was ferried over the river, and galloped out on the
Hagerstown road to where I had
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parted from the general that morning.
He had left with his staff to ride toward
Hagerstown, where a heavy artillery fire indicated an attack by the enemy in considerable force.
When I overtook him he said that he understood I was familiar with the fords of the
Potomac from
Williamsport to
Cumberland, and with the roads to them.
I replied that I was. He then called up one of his staff, either
General Long or
General Alexander, I think, and directed him to write down my answers to his questions, and required me to name and describe ford after ford all the way up to
Cumberland, and to describe minutely their character, and the roads and surrounding country on both sides of the river, and directed me, after I had given him all the information I could, to send to him my brother and his regiment, the 18th Virginia Cavalry, to act as an advance and guide if he should require it. He did not say so, but I felt that his situation was precarious in the extreme.
When about to dismiss me, referring to
the freshet in the river he laughingly said: “You know this country well enough to tell me whether it ever quits raining about here?
If so, I should like to see a clear day soon.”
I did not see him again till he left the Shenandoah Valley for the east side of the
Blue Ridge.
