August 4, 1864. |
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deserted village of Chambersburg,1 in Pennsylvania, and demanded of the inhabitants two hundred thousand dollars in gold, or five hundred thousand dollars in “greenbacks” 2 or currency, as a tribute to insure the town from destruction.
The tribute was not offered, and two-thirds of the town was laid in ruins by fire.3 No time was given for the removal of the infirm or sick, or the women and children; but in ten minutes after McCausland ordered Gilmor, his torchbearer on the occasion, to apply fire, the village was in flames.4 The Confederate leader offered as an excuse for the act, the fact that Hunter a few weeks before had burned the house of Governor Letcher, at Lexington, in Virginia.5
The incendiaries did not remain long, for General Averill, who, with twenty-six hundred cavalry, was at Greencastle, ten miles distant, when Chambersburg was fired, charged by General Couch to watch the raiders, was moving against them.
He pursued them to Hancock, on the Potomac (where they crossed), smiting them on the way with sufficient effect to save McConnellstown from the fate of Chambersburg.
All Western Pennsylvania and Upper Maryland were filled with a panic.
It was the general belief that Early was again north of the Potomac in full force.
The alarm was intensified by a dash across the river by Moseby the marauder,6 who carried back with his plunder a few horsemen as prisoners.
The order of Grant for the two corps to hasten to Petersburg was countermanded.
They had been halted at Georgetown when news of the defeat of Crook at Winchester was received, and were turned back.
They had reached Harper's Ferry on the day when Chambersburg was burnt, and were there joined by some of Hunter's long-expected troops, coming from West Virginia; and then the entire force, with an immense train, went on a fruitless search for Early, who was supposed to be laying waste Western Pennsylvania.
But the Confederate troopers were getting back to Virginia as fast as possible.
General Kelley,7 in command at Cumberland, struck Johnson when he was passing; and Johnson, in turn, had routed five hundred Nationals in that region, and captured their leader and ninety of his men. As the invaders retreated up the south branch of the Potomac, Averill closely pursued them, and at Moorfield he attacked
and vanquished them,
1 Capital of Franklin County, and then containing about 5,000 inhabitants.
2 The National currency had devices and lettering printed on the back of each bill, in green ink, as a protection against counterfeiting. Hence, these bills were called “greenbacks.”
3 This act was in accordance with the instructions of General Early, if the Marylander who was commissioned to fire the town tells the truth. Gilmor says, in his Four Years in the Saddle, page 210: “He (McCausland) ordered me to fire the town, and showed me General Early's order to that effect.”
4 Letters of Rev. B. S. Schenck, D. D., an eye-witness. “They would beat in the door of each house with iron bars or heavy plank,” says Dr. Schenck, “smash up furniture with an ax, throw fluid or oil upon it, and apply the match. They almost invariably entered every room of each house, rifled the drawers of every bureau, appropriated money, jewelry, watches, and any other valuables, and often would present pistols to the heads of inmates, men and women, and demand money or their lives.” Twenty-five hundred persons were rendered houseless in the space of two hours, and the value of property destroyed was estimated at $1,000,000.
5 This act had already been twice avenged, by the burning of the houses of Governor Bradford and Montgomery Blair, in Maryland, as we have observed. “Circumstances alter cases.” The destruction of Letcher's house was held, by publicists, to have been justified by the ethics of war. Letcher was a traitor to his Government and a public enemy, and the destruction of his house was incited wholly by the finding, in a newspaper office at Lexington, a handbill, issued and signed by him, calling on the people of that region to “bushwack” Hunter's men, that is to say, murder them by bullets from concealed places. The citizens of Chambersburg were non-combatants, and innocent of all crime in relation to the Confederates.
6 See page 22.
7 See page 496, volume I.
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