[514]
The Fable of Barbara Fritchie.
The march of the army of Northern Virginia through the streets of Frederick on the 10th of September, was the occasion of a scandalous invention in derogation of its honor, which has gone to the world as the ‘ballad of Barbara Fritchie.’ The point and the pathos of this creation of the imagination, is in the description of a scene, in which an aged and decrepit woman, fired by patriotism and nerved by a courage, in which the men were lacking, flaunted the flag of the United States, defiantly in the face of the Confederate column as it swept through Frederick. That, by order of Stonewall Jackson, a volley was fired at her and her flag, and then, seized by sudden remorse, the ideal Confederate hero, passed on with heart wrung by shame, and head bowed by grief, at the unnatural crime of which he had been guilty. It transmits in smooth and melodious verse, the explicit statement that one of the chief historical characters of the Confederacy, he, whom the love of his contemporaries, and the veneration of the good in the whole world, have singled out and apotheosized as the hero, the genius, the martyr of the cause of honor, chivalry and patriotism—that Stonewall Jackson ordered Confederate soldiers to fire on an old woman, feebly flaunting a flag out of a garret window, and then overwhelmed with remorse and grief, hung his head and fled from the scene of his shame. The function of the singer has in all time been akin to that of the prophet. While the latter gave expression to the will and the purposes of the gods, the former moulds into words, the hopes, the memories, and the aspirations of races, of people, and of nations. The real poet is under obligations to truth, for truth lives and stirs the heart, and perpetuates heroic deeds, and the desire to do them. Therefore there is no excuse for this slander and libel on the Confederate cause, the Confederate soldier and the Confederate hero. Not only is every allegation in the story of Barbara Fritchie false, but there never existed foundation for it. I was born in Frederick and lived there until May, 1861, when I joined the Confederate army. I had known Barbara Fritchie all my life. I knew where she lived, as well as I knew the town clock. At that time she was eighty-four years old, and had been bed-ridden for some time. She never saw a Confederate soldier, and probably no one of any kind. Her house was at the corner of Patrick street and the Town Creek bridge. The troops marched by there during a portion of the 10th of September. On that morning General Jackson [515] and his staff rode into the town to the house of the Rev. Dr. Ross, the Presbyterian clergyman there, and paid a visit to Mrs. Ross, who was the daughter of Governor McDowell, of Lexington, Virginia, where Jackson lived, and whom he knew well. After the visit to Mrs. Ross, at the parsonage, which was next to the Presbyterian church, and not on the same street, nor near Mrs. Fritchie's house, he rode at the head of his staff by the Courthouse, down through the Mill alley, up to Patrick street some distance beyond the Fritchie house. He never passed it, and in all probability never saw it. It is needless to say that no such incident as that described by Whittier, could have occurred in the Confederate army, which was composed of men in all stations of life, fired by enthusiasm for the cause of honor, liberty and patriotism. The highest admiration and the warmest love of principle were the forces which directed and controlled it. It is quite possible that the future historian may designate the passion that moved it, for four years of privation, of starvation, of battle, wounds and death, as fanatical. But it was devotion to the highest ideal which men or nations have ever created for themselves. Therefore, it was impossible for such men, so led, to perpetrate the puerile act laid to their charge, and no such thing occurred anywhere, in Frederick or elsewhere. I doubt not that women and children waved Union flags in the faces of Confederates; such incidents were natural, and doubtless did occur. But the soldiers never resented it, on the contrary, it amused them, and the only punishment I ever heard of being administered to them, the fair patriots, was witticism, more or less rough, from the ready tongues of the privates in the ranks. Jackson moved rapidly in advance to Boonsboroa, then turned to the left, crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, passed through Martinsburg and closed in on Harper's Ferry by noon of the 13th, a march of sixty-two miles in three days and a half, McLaws turned off the National road at Middletown and passed over the South Mountain range by Crampton's Gap into Pleasant Valley. After some sharp fighting he got possession of Maryland Heights on the afternoon of the 13th. Walker got to his place on Loudoun Heights during the evening of the 13th. At night of the 13th, therefore, the investment of Harper's Ferry was complete. Escape was impossible. Rescue by McClellan was the only salvation. General Lee, with Longstreet and the reserve artillery, had in the meantime gone into camp at Hagerstown and D. H. Hill at Boonsboro. [516] We left McClellan on the 9th occupying the ridges along the line of the Seneca. On the 10th he moved his centre some five miles further to Damascus and Clarksburgh, and his left to Poolesville and Barnesville where he came in contact with Stuart's lines. The duty of the cavalry was only to cover the movements of Lee which had begun that morning, and Stuart merely held his position until pressed back by McClellan's infantry. On the 11th he withdrew, still spreading a cordon of cavalry, covering about twenty miles between the Federal and Confederate armies. Munford, with the Second and Twelfth Virginia cavalry (the rest of Robertson's brigade being on detached service), was moved back to Jefferson and thence to Crampton's Gap; Fitz Lee was directed to move from New Market around Frederick to the north and cross the Catoctin range six miles above Frederick, while Hampton retired leisurely to Frederick, six miles distant. Familiarity with the topography, since boyhood, refreshed by personal inspection this summer, has only increased my admiration for Stuart's genius for war. In a strange country, with ordinary maps as his guides, his dispositions could not have been excelled, if he were operating over territory carefully described and accurately portrayed by the most skilful engineers. From the moment Lee crossed the Potomac, Stuart covered his positions and his movements with impenetrable secrecy, so far as McClellan was concerned, and he concealed Lee's movements so perfectly that McClellan reported that, on September 10th, ‘he received from his scouts information which rendered it quite probable that General Lee's army was in the vicinity of Frederick, but whether his intention was to move toward Baltimore or Pennsylvania was not then known.’ Lee's whole army had, infact, been for five days encamped around Frederick, and was then in full march up the National road. If it had not been for a piece of extraordinary negligence, McClellan never would have divined Lee's purposes until after Harpers Ferry had been taken, and with his army well in hand, reinforced, refreshed and rested, Lee would have delivered battle on his own conditions, with time and place of his own selection. No one, Union or Confederate, doubts what the issue of such a struggle would have been. The army of McClellan would have been routed, Baltimore and Washington opened to the Confederates, and then—what? Th's misfortune to the cause of the Confederacy will be described hereafter. On September 11th, Lee having his army well-disposed beyond the South Mountain, and the two ranges of Catoctin and South [517] Mountain having been interposed between his infantry and the Federal advance, McClellan threw forward his right, the Ninth and First corps, under Burnside, to New Market, taking the place of Fitz Lee's cavalry. He then began what was described as a grand left wheel, his right turning gradually so as to be advanced. Fitz Lee kept his rear guard close to Burnside, and well advised of his movements. Hampton, with Stuart and the general staff, moved through Frederick. Stuart desired to defend the passes in the Catoctin, and ordered Munford to hold the gap at Jefferson for that purpose. But, Burnside pressed up the National road on the 12th, and Pleasonton's cavalry being unable to make an impression on Stuart, forced his infantry on him and Hampton in the streets of Frederick. One gun was placed in position in Patrick street, in front of the foundry, supported by a regiment and a half of infantry and a body of cavalry. Hampton was sitting on his horse, with his staff, in front of the City Hotel, some eight hundred yards off, in nearly a direct line. He sent the Second South Carolina cavalry, Colonel, now Senator, M. C. Butler, rattling down the street with a yell and a vim that might have started the stones out of the sidewalk. Lieutenant Meighan led the advance squadron. The South Carolinians rode over guns, horses, infantry and artillery. Colonel Moore, Twenty-third Ohio, was captured. Five horses attached to the piece were killed, so that it could not be taken off. It was overset in the fray. Ten prisoners were carried off. This lesson taught Burnside caution, and Stuart held the pass at Hagans, where the National road crosses the Catoctin, five miles from Frederick; all the rest of the Twelfth, with the Jeff Davis Legion, and two guns. On the Twelfth, then, Stuart's Cavalry held the Catoctin range, and McClellan had advanced his right under Burnside to Frederick, his centre under Sumner to Urbana and Ijamsville, while his left, under Franklin, still dragged behind close to the Potomac. Burnside was in contact with Stuart's cavalry at Hagans; but Sumner and Franklin were at least twelve miles from an enemy while they camped at Urbana and Barnesville. The next day, September 13th, Walker, McLaws and Jackson, completed the investment of Harpers Ferry. Halleck and Stanton were telegraphing McClellan with hot wires to save the army and material there. Frederick is twenty miles from Harpers Ferry. Stuart, on leaving Frederick, sent instructions to Fitz Lee to gain the enemy's rear and ascertain his force. [518] For the purpose of delaying his advance and giving all time possible for the capture of Harpers Ferry, and subsequent concentration of Lee's army, he called back Hampton's brigade on the morning of the 13th to assist the Jeff Davis Legion in holding the gap at Hagans. They did so until midday of the 13th, when absolutely forced out of it by the irresistible pressure of Burnside's two corps; and during the 13th the cavalry made two separate stands against the Federal infantry in Middletown Valley, for the purpose of saving time and retarding the advance. By noon of the 13th, however, Burnside had obtained possesssion of the top of the mountain at Hagans. From that point is a most extensive and lovely view. Middletown Valley, rich in orchards, farm houses, barns, and flocks and herds spread before you, down to the Potomac and Virginia on the left, and up to Mason and Dixon's line and Pennsylvania on the right. The South Mountain, or Blue Ridge, stretches out, a wall of green on the western side of this Elysian scene, while Catoctin forms its eastern bounds. From Hagans the gap at Harpers Ferry is plainly visible. With a good glass you can see through it to the line and hills beyond. On the Maryland Heights was a high tower, erected for a signal station, and flags on it, and at Hagans it could have been readily distinguished. They were not eighteen miles apart. Rockets from the Maryland Heights and from Hagans would have been easily visible at either point. Notwithstanding this, although Burnside obtained possession of Hagans by noon on the 13th, before Walker had occupied Loudoun Heights, or McLaws had taken Maryland Heights, no attemp is recorded to have been made by either force to communicate by signal with the other during the half of the day so pregnant with fate for the garrison at Harpers Ferry. McClellan fired signal guns incessantly from the head of his relieving columns. They produced the impression upon Miles and White at Harpers Ferry of heavy cannonading, and a great battle somewhere, and scared them so badly that when the attack was really made upon them, they surrendered a strong position without striking a blow in its defence. Stuart held tenaciously to his ground until driven from position to position by infantry, and after midday of the 13th, he drew back to the pass in the South Mountain, where the National road passes over it. He found the pass occupied by D. H. Hill, and turned Hampton off to the left and South, to move down Middletown valley by the foot of the mountain, to Crampton's Gap, which he considered the weakest part of Lee's lines. Hampton, on arriving at Burkettsville, joined Munford with his two fragments of regiments. [519] At night, then of the 13th, this was the position of affairs. Jackson on Bolivar Heights, McLaws on Maryland Heights, and Walker on Loudoun Heights, had completely invested Harpers Ferry. Lee, with Longstreet, was near Hagerstown, D. H. Hill at Boonsboroa, with the brigades of Colquitt and Garland in the pass through the South Mountain, known to history and the reports as Turner's Gap, Hampton and Munford guarded Crampton's Gap. Reno's corps, of Burnside's right wing, at Middletown, four miles from the top of Turner's Gap. The corps of Hooker, Sumner, Mansfield and Sykes's division, around Frederick, eight miles from Middletown, and twelve from the top of Turner's Gap. Franklin was at Buckeyestown, twelve miles from Crampton's Gap, with Couch's division three miles to his left, at Licksville. The roads were in capital condition. On the National road, three columns could move abreast, with numerous roads over Catoctin, across Middletown Valley. Over the road from Buckeyestown, Franklin could have marched his troops in a double column to Crampton's. McClellan held his troops everywhere within six hours march of the passes of the South Mountain, which were defended at Crampton's by cavalry, and at Turner's by two weak brigades of infantry. Lee's army was divided in part by the narrow Pleasant Valley. If a march had been made by Reno, at sun-down, on Turner's Gap, and by Franklin on Crampton's, they would have been in possession of both passes by daylight of the 14th. With Franklin in possession of Crampton's Gap, he would have been five miles from Maryland Heights and Harpers Ferry. With Reno in Turner's Gap, the head of Mc-Clellan's columns would have been driven between D. H. Hill and Longstreet on the one side, and Jackson, McLaws and Walkeron the other, and McClellan could have isolated and fought either before the other could come to its assistance. The caution with which General McClellan had moved forty-five miles in nine days might well be explained by his lack of knowledge of the position or the intentions of Lee, and the demoralized condition of his own beaten troops. But on the 13th, by the most extrarodinary fortune of war, Mc-Clellan received precise and official information of the exact position of each of the Confederate divisions on that very day. He was put in possession of Lee's orders to his corps Commanders, directing the details of the movement on Harpers Ferry. General McClellan says this order fell into his hands. The Count of Paris states that it was picked up from the corner of a table in the house, which had served [520] as headquarters to the Confederate General, D. H. Hill. A story current in Frederick is, that General Hill sat for sometime at the corner of Market and Patrick streets inspecting the march of his column as it moved by, and was observed to drop a paper from his pocket, which was picked up as soon as he left, and delivered to McClellan on his arrival on the 13th. It was a copy of Special Order No. 191, which had been sent by Jackson to D. H. Hill, and was as follows:At what time on the 13th General McClellan obtained possession of this order is unknown. His order to Franklin to move at daybreak of the 14th on Burketsville is dated Sept. 13th, 6.20 P. M. At that hour all of his army was in camp. Most of his corps had marched about six miles that day. Only two or three divisions had marched as far as eight miles. A vigorous march of six hours would have put Burnside through Turner's Gap, and Franklin through Crampton's by daylight of the 14th. Longstreet and Hill would have been cut off from the rest of the army, and McLaws cooped up in Pleasant Valley with 6,500 men, by Franklin with 12,300 at the one end of the Valley and Miles with 11,000 at the other. But such prompt action was not taken by the Federal Commander-in-Chief He put his troops in motion on the morning of the 14th, after a comfortable breakfast, and they proceeded leisurely enough to Burketsville and Middletown. On that morning Stuart, finding nothing in front of Crampton's, sent Hampton down to Sandy Hook, the point between the South Mountain and the Potomac, and left Munford with his handful of cavalry to guard Crampton. He had the Second Virginia cavalry, 125 men, Twelfth Virginia cavalry, 75 and two fragments of infantry regiments of Mahone's brigade. About noon Franklin arrived, Munford dismounted his cavalry and deployed them behind a stone wall on each side of the road at the foot of the mountain on the flank of the infantry. His artillery, consisting of Chew's battery and a section of Navy Howitzers belonging to the Portsmouth battery, was posted on the slope of the mountain. Colonel Parham, commanding Mahone's brigade soon came up with two more regiments numbering 300 men and were similarly posted by Munford. Franklin promptly formed Slocum's division on the right of the road leading through the gap and Smith's division on the left and moved them forward. Munford clung to his position with tenacity, [522] and it was only after three hours struggle that the two divisions were enabled to drive the dismounted cavalry and Mahone's small brigade, and then only because they were out of ammunition. Munford's entire force did not exceed a thousand men. Stuart reports that General Semmes, who held a gap next below (probably a mile off), rendered no assistance of any kind. General Howell Cobb, who had been loitering for hours on the other side of the pass, at last arrived with two regiments, and requested Munford to post them. While he was doing so, in a second line in rear of his first, the infantry of the first, whose ammunition had given out, fell back. At this, Cobb's regiments broke in panic and went pell-mell over the mountain, carrying back with them the rest of Cobb's brigade, which was moving to their assistance. Slocum's advance, Cobb's fugitives and the dismounted cavalry all arrived at about the same time, in the dark, at the forks of the Rohrersville road. Stuart came up and assisted in rallying and reforming the infantry. A line was formed across Pleasant Valley, and Franklin's further progress stopped. Turner's Gap is six miles north of Crampton's. It is passed by the National road in a series of easy grades. The mountains on either side command the approaches to the pass. A mile west of Middletown at Koogle's bridge, a country road leaves the broad turnpike on the left or south side of the pike, and passes over South Mountain, a mile south of Turner's. It is the road which had been cut by Braddock, in his campaign, and is now known as the old Sharpsburg road. It is steep on the eastern approach; on the north of Turner's, the mountain ridge subsides to an opening or recess between two spurs. A country road runs up this ravine, or recess, and turning up the mountain ascends, and passing along the side near the summit, joins the National road in Turner's Gap, a hundred yards or so from the top. McClellan is in error in calling this the old Hagerstown road, and has caused the error to be perpetuated by all subsequent writers. The old Stage road and trail from Frederick to Hagerstown passes the South Mountain six miles north of Turner's Gap. It was D. H. Hill's business to hold the gap until the reduction of Harpers Ferry should be effected. Stuart had led him to believe on the night of the 13th, that only two Federal brigades were advancing on the National road, so he ordered Colquitt and Garland back from Boonsboroa, three miles off, and put them in the pass. Early next morning he ordered up Anderson's brigade. It only got there in [523] time to take the place of Garland's command, which was driven back demoralized by his death. The Ninth corps, General Reno, marched from Middletown at daylight of the 14th, Cox's division in advance, turned into the old Sharpsburg road at Kugle's Mills and followed by the rest of the corps pressed for the top of the mountain. Hill sent Garland to repel this attack, but Garland was killed, his command driven back and it was rallied by Anderson's brigade, together with which, it held the Federal left back during the remainder of the day. It killed Reno however. Colquitt was placed in the centre astride of the turnpike. Later, Ripley was sent to the right to support Anderson, and Rodes to the left to seize a commanding peak of the mountain there. Thus were Hill's five brigades posted. The whole of the Ninth corps was pushed up to the position secured by Cox when he drove back Garland on Hill's right. Hooker's First corps turned from the National road at Bolivar, leaving Gibbon on the pike, and pressed up the mountain road to Hill's left. Neither the Ninth corps on the Federal left, nor the First corps on the right, made much progress. By four in the afternoon Longstreet came up with the brigades of Evans, Pickett, Kemper, and Jenkins which he placed on the left, and Hood, Whiting, Drayton, and D. R. Jones which he posted on the right. But the men were exhausted by a forced march of twelve or fourteen miles over a hot and dusty road, and General Longstreet himself was not acquainted with the topography of the position nor the situation of the Federals. Hill says, that if the reinforcements had reported to him he would have held all the positions right and left of the gap. As it was the Ninth corps made no further advance but was held firmly in the position taken in the morning from Garland, but Hooker worked and fought his way to the possession of a commanding spur on his right, which dominated the gap itself and the position on the Confederate left. At 9 o'clock at night fighting ceased along the whole line, with Hill in possession of the gap and of the left, and Hooker firmly seated on the mountain on the right, where in the morning he could control the whole line. Fitz Lee having failed to gain McClelan's rear from Frederick, had crossed the Catoctin range five miles north of Middletown, and the South Mountain, some miles above Turner's, and joined Hill at Boonsboroa late the afternoon of the 14th. He relieved the infantry before dawn on the morning of the 15th, and Hill and Longstreet withdrew noiselessly and rapidly through [524] Boonsboroa, to Sharpsburg, eight miles off, where they took position before noon of the 15th. We will now return to Harpers Ferry. McLaws having constructed a road up the Maryland Heights and placed his artillery in position during the 14th, while this fighting was going on at Crampton's Gap and at Turner's Gap, signalled to Jackson that he was ready; whereupon Jackson signalled the order to both Walker and McLaws: ‘Fire at such positions of the enemy as will be most effective.’ His Infantry was moved up the road from Charlestown towards Harpers Ferry. At day-light the circle of fire blazed out around Miles, the Federal commander at Harpers Ferry, and by 8 A. M. he surrendered 11,000 men, 73 guns, and immense supplies of food and ammunition. The position on the morning of the 15th, therefore, was this: McClellan's right, two corps under Burnside, was through Turner's Gap, eight miles from Sharpsburg. The centre, two corps under Sumner, was well closed upon Burnside. Franklin, who had been joined by Couch during the night, held eighteen thousand men in Pleasant Valley, behind McLaws, and also eight miles from Sharpsburg. Lee, with Longstreet and D. H. Hill, occupied a position on the west side of Antietam Creek, utterly isolated from his nearest reinforcements, which were at Harpers Ferry, seventeen and a half miles off. McLaws cut off in Pleasant Valley, with no escape except first to capture Harpers Ferry, and then cross the Potomac, and passing through that place rejoin Jackson and A. P. Hill. Walker was on Loudoun Heights, Jackson near Bolivar Heights. A march of three hours would have brought the heads of Franklin's and Burnside's columns together in front of Lee, and no earthly power could have prevented the whole of McClellan's 93,000 men being precipitated on Longstreet and D. H. Hill with 9,262, and all the reserve artillery, ammunition, and ordnance of the Confederate army. When General McClellan, at Frederick, on the 13th, received official and exact information of Lee's dispositions and purposes, his delay in not pushing a vigorous pursuit is utterly incomprehensible. But this delay on the morning of the 15th, is even still more extraordinary. He had heard the firing at Harpers Ferry and was advised of the surrender that morning. He knew that he had D. H. Hill and Longstreet just in front, and that all the rest of Lee's army was in Virginia or in Pleasant Valley. Notwithstanding this it took him from the morning of the 15th to the afternoon of the 16th to move eight miles and get into position to attack Lee. General McClellan believed at that time that General Lee had over 97,000 men. He [525] knew that he himself did not have so many. And I am bound to believe, and cannot help believing, that the slowness of his movements from Fredrick to find his enemy, and from South Mountain to fight him, was caused by apprehensions of the consequences of the meeting. He is entitled to great credit for having infused any spirit at all into the mob of routed fugitives, which he met outside of Alexandria on September 2d, just a fortnight before, and he and his subordinates achieved wonders when they got this mob organized and to fight, as they did fight, on the 17th. But it is clear that McClellan distrusted his ability to stand before Lee. There was neither distrust nor uncertainty in the conduct of Lee and his Lieutenants. Miles hoisted the white flag at Harpers Ferry at 8 o'clock A. M. on the 15th. Jackson turned over the details of the surrender to A. P. Hill, and started at once to join Lee. The divisions of Jackson and Ewell delayed only long enough to supply themselves with provisions from the captured stores, and by an all-night march, by Shepherdstown and Boteler's Ford, reached Sharpsburg, and reported to Lee on the morning of the 16th. McClellan's golden opportunity had gone forever.
