Your search returned 6,032 results in 1,987 document sections:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ...
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 2: Introductory Sketches. (search)
ginia, in the House. It became intensely interesting to me to observe the part some of these men played later in the great drama: Seward as the leading figure of Lincoln's Cabinet; Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy; Benjamin, Toombs, and Breckenridge as members of his Cabinet, the two latter also as generals whom I haMr. Preston, Mr. Stuart, and Mr. Flournoy, as well as Mr. Baldwin, were, later, members of the Secession Convention of Virginia, but all were Union men up to President Lincoln's call for troops. Mr. Preston and Mr. Stuart were not only finished orators, but statesmen of ability and experience. Both had graced the Legislature of tre's administration. Mr. Preston was afterwards a member of the Confederate Senate and Mr. Stuart one of the commissioners appointed by Virginia to confer with Mr. Lincoln as to his attitude and action toward the seceded States. Mr. Botts made a very powerful address before the convention, but the spirit of it did not please m
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 3: from New York to Richmond (search)
of 1859. My room-mate was Tom Lounsbury, then employed in literary work on one of the great encyclopedias, to-day the distinguished incumbent of the Chair of English in Yale University. But this peace was not to last long. The election of Lincoln, the rapid secession of the Southern States, the formation of the Southern Confederacy, the inauguration of the Presidents, first of the new and then of the old federation; the adoption by the Southern States of a different and a permanent Constted States Constitution. Then came the strained situation in Charleston harbor, and the futile efforts of the Peace Congress called by Virginia, and later, of her commissioners and those appointed by the Confederate Government to wait upon President Lincoln. It is unnecessary to say that, though striving hard to maintain my hold upon the law, I was yet far from an indifferent spectator of this majestic march of events. I went repeatedly to talk with two or three of the leading business me
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 4: from civil to military life (search)
n interpretation of the Constitution. Virginia did not favor this interpretation; at least, she did not favor the exercise of the right of secession. Up to President Lincoln's call for troops she refused to secede. She changed her position under the distinct threat of invasion. This was the turning point. The Whig party, the ancession party of Virginia, became the war party of Virginia upon this issue. As John B. Baldwin, the great Whig and Union leader, said, speaking of the effect of Lincoln's call for troops, We have no Union men in Virginia now. The change of front was instantaneous, it was intuitive. Jubal Early was the type of his party — up to bold and aggressive was he in advocacy of them, that he became very unpopular, and his friends feared serious trouble and even bloody collision. The morning President Lincoln's proclamation appeared he had gone down town on personal business before breakfast, and while there happened to glance at a paper. He returned at once to t
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 11: religious life of Lee's Army (search)
y were led into the higher life, I will have done more than I could do in any other way to put before you the every-day religious life of the army. Both my friends were younger than I, both were high, moral men, but neither was a christian; Allan and I were law students when the war interrupted our studies-he at the University of Virginia, I at Columbia College, New York. It was he who, having been previously a pronounced Union man, left the University before breakfast the morning President Lincoln's call for troops was published and joined a military company in Richmond before going to his father's house. Billy was the guide who met us at the train the day we joined the battery, and conducted us to the Howitzer camp. We were all in the same detachment, that is, attached to the same gun, so I readily could and actually did pass much of my waking life first with one and then with the other, and I generally laid down by one or the-other at night. Our religious conferences were s
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 12: between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville (search)
illery battalion and its commander Commerce across the Rappahannock snow-ball battles a commission in engineer troops an appointment on Jackson's staff characteristic interview between General Jackson and my father the Army telegraph President Lincoln's letter Hooker's plan really great, but Lee's audacity and his Army equal to any crisis head of column, to the left or to the right. In the four or five months between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, that is to say, between the mim. From this order, as well as from his military history, with which we were familiar, we knew our man. We knew also the atmosphere that surrounded his appointment, but I for one never saw, until long after the war, the remarkable letter of Mr. Lincoln to his appointee, which not only revives and bears out my recollection of the spirit of the times, but fills me with amazement that a self-respectful officer could have accepted an appointment confirmed or accompanied by such a letter: execut
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 13: Chancellorsville (search)
y, or come out from behind his defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits him. The rash enemy chose the latter alternative, but objected strongly to the predicted result of certain destruction. And lastly, on the 6th day of May, after he had abandoned his famous and almost impregnable position, and retired across the river in the dark, as Sedgwick had already done, he published his General Order No. 49, of which he asked, but apparently never got, President Lincoln's opinion — in which The Major-General Commanding tenders to the army his congratulations on its achievements of the last seven days , and adds: The events of the last week may swell with pride the heart of every officer and soldier in this army. All these, however, are but the blasts of the war trumpet, and are calculated to blind us to the admirable character of Hooker's general plan and his creditable maneuvers in the attempted execution of it. In parting with him I cannot refrai
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 14: from the Rappahannock to the Potomac (search)
eral Lee's presence. The general used to reprove him gently, yet at the same time to express his special affection for him, by calling him My bad old man. Old Jube struck the popular fancy in two respects onlyhis intense unionism before President Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops and his intense Southernism afterwards, and his caustic, biting tongue. He was a sort of privileged character in the army and was saucy to everybody, but many of his brightest utterances will not bear publrouted and captured a large part of the force which, under Milroy, was holding the Lower Valley. Hill followed Ewell, Longstreet's corps hovering yet a while east of the mountains, to cover their operations. It was about this time that President Lincoln and General Hooker had their famous serpentine telegraphic correspondence: Where is the Rebel army? The advance is at the fords of the Potomac and the rear at Culpeper Court House. If the head of the animal is at the fords of
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 15: in Pennsylvania (search)
I'll attend it myself if I am here. 0, thank you, General! we hoped you wouldn't object. Object? What do you mean, anyway? What's the matter? What do you want? Out with it. I'll do anything I can for you, but I've got nothing to do with your mills or your churches. I'm not going to interfere with them, but I haven't time to stay here all the evening talking nonsense like this. But, General, we hope you won't be mad with us. We are Lutherans and we have a church service. Can we use it next Sunday? Look here, I'm tired of this thing! What have I got to do with your mill, your church, or your service? Speak quick and speak plain, or leave at once! Well, then, General, we hope you won't get mad. In our service we pray-we pray for-we pray for the President of the United States. May we use our service? Can we pray for him? Who do you mean, Lincoln? Certainly, pray for him; pray as much as ever you can — I don't know anybody that stands more in need of prayer!
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Chapter 21: Cold Harbor of 1864. (search)
hich the enemy had charged was literally covered with their dead and wounded; and that up to that time he had not had a single man killed. So much for the amount, the disproportion, and the cause of the slaughter. A word now as to the effect of it upon others than the immediate contestants. Is it too much to say that even Grant's iron nerve was for the time shattered? Not that he would not have fought again if his men would, but they would not. Is it not true that he so informed President Lincoln; that he asked for another army; that, not getting it, or not getting it at once, he changed his plan of campaign from a fighting to a digging one? Is it reasonable to suppose that when he attacked at the Bloody Angle or at Cold Harbor, he really contemplated the siege of Petersburg and regarded those operations as merely preparatory? Is it not true that, years later, Grant said-looking back over his long career of bloody fights — that Cold Harbor was the only battle he ever fought
Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert, Index. (search)
77, 99, 340; in Northern army, 316-17; proposals for employment of as Confederate infantry, 19-20. Nesbit, Col., 221 New Haven, Conn., 25, 36-39, 44, 152, 174-75, 200, 355 New Kent Court House, Va., 87-88. New Orleans, La., 185, 248 New York, N. Y., 25, 33-36, 44, 49, 92, 354 New York Journal of Commerce, 37-38. Newton, Hubert Anson, 351 Nicknames for generals, 18 Night blindness, 348-49. North Anna Campaign, 266-69. North Carolina Infantry: 5th Regiment, 80 Lincoln, Abraham: his April 1861 call --for troops, 31, 145, 189; mentioned, 163-64, 180, 192, 206, 287 Logan, John Alexander, 26, 28 Longstreet, James: mentioned, 106- 107, 122-24, 188, 231, 272, 274, 340; troops of, 41, 59, 127, 192, 219; wounded at Wilderness, 246-48. Louisa Court House, Va., 90 Louisiana Guard Artillery, 197 Louisiana Infantry: 9th Regiment, 212-13. Louisiana Tigers, 80-81, 172, 201 Lounsbury, Thomas Raynesford, 34 Lutherans, 206 McCarthy, Daniel Steph
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ...