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Chapter 8: spring of 1862.
The military movements of this season alternately elevated and depressed the public mind.
The memorable naval victory in
Hampton Roads, the evacuation of
Manassas, the great
battle of Shiloh, and the fall of New Orleans-all occurred within two months. But the people and the soldiers kept up their courage, and while they lamented over reverses, rejoiced humbly in our successes.
The march from
Manassas to the
Peninsula was attended with great suffering on the part of the soldiers.
“You would pity our hungry patriots,” wrote a chaplain, “if you could see them toasting the middling bacon on long sticks, and consigning their dough to the ashes for want of an oven.
We have had no tents either, and a great many drenching showers.
How would you enjoy sleeping, if it had to be effected out in the woods, in a driving rain, with a soggy, spongy soil for a bed, and no covering but a blanket?
I have waked up at midnight under such circumstances, and found half the regiment standing silently and gloomily around the camp-fires, while now and then the barking, hectic cough of some afflicted soldier preached a sermon on death.”
Another, who moved from a different part of the line, says, in a rather more cheerful strain:
We experienced mingled emotions of joy and sadness on the morning of our departure from our old camp at Evansport.
Our men had grown tired of the winds, rains, mud, sleet, and snow, on the border, and were ready to rejoice at the prospect of any change of position.
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Some things pained us. I shall never forget the parting glance at our regimental graveyard.
Some were leaving brothers on that lonely hill; some, near and dear relations; all, gallant comrades.
Our second day's march was on the Sabbath.
About noon I ascertained that by getting permission to leave ranks I could attend Methodist Circuit preaching in the afternoon.
A walk of three miles brought me up, about 3 o'clock, to a little schoolhouse, where I was affectingly reminded of my dear old Circuits in Georgia.
We had a good meeting.
It was Bro. McSparran's first appointment at that place, and when he announced his next appointment for them, an old brother spoke up somewhat amusingly and not very encouragingly to the preacher: “ The Yankees will have us all before then.”
Feeling very much fatigued, I spent that night with the young itinerant in the rear of our regiment, and had he called upon me to select for him a text to correspond with what I conceived his feelings to be, I would have fixed upon “A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself.”
We have had some happy times on this side of the Rappahannock since.
i Let me tell you something about that Methodist woman whose hospitalities we so abundantly shared that Sabbath evening.
Her husband was a poor man, but a brave Virginian. He spoke of enlisting for the defence of the soil with which mingled the dust of a noble ancestry.
“Go,” said that Christian woman; and looking around upon a large group of little bright-eyed boys, she added, “You can defend us best in the ranks.
I will remain and defend our home and these children.
Oh, for an army of such heroines!
I felt like giving three cheers for her patriotism, and did not object in the least to that sort of Methodism.”
The desolation that follows war is well depicted by another writer:
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“Whole square miles of woods have been shaved off close to the ground.
The whole country is, I might say, one great road; at least, it is impossible to travel one mile from our old camp without crossing from ten to twenty highways.
We never saw a child or lady, hardly ever a citizen.
One could hardly move about for the dead horses that lay in multitudes around.
Every old field is marked with tent-drains, rotten beef and other provisions, with a wilderness of rude chimneys, and all manner of camp trash.
The mud and filth are so great that it is a feat to walk a hundred yards, and every mile of road has its wreck of a wagon.
These are the Elysian fields which
General Johnston has deserted.”
About the same time
General Jackson was compelled to move his forces up the
Valley of Virginia, and leave
Winchester and other places exposed to the incursions of the
Federals.
When asked by a citizen of the
Valley whether he would really fall back and desert them, he replied, “By the help of God, I will be with you again soon.”
These movements.
while they interrupted the pious labors of chaplains and colporteurs, did not divert the minds of the soldiers from the great truths of religion.
No sooner was the main army in position near
Williamsburg, on the
Peninsula, than the work was resumed, and the fruits of righteousness began to appear.
The following interesting reports were sent to
Rev. A. E. Dickinson,
Superintendent of Colportage for the Baptist Church: “I have known twelve men in my regiment,” wrote a chaplain from
Williamsburg, “who have professed conversion from reading your tracts.
One came to me with a tract in his hand, and the tears flowing down his cheeks, and said, ‘I would not take thousands for this tract.
My parents have prayed for me, and wept over me; but it was left for this tract to bring me, a poor convicted sinner, to the feet of Jesus.
Oh, sir, I feel to-day that I am a new man, and have set out for
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heaven.’
” Another wrote from
Yorktown: “For three months I have not preached a sermon.
We have no preaching place, and I do not know when we shall have one.
The most that can be done is by colportage work, from camp to camp, distributing the pages of divine truth.
The soldiers are anxious for Testaments and tracts, and read them most eagerly.”
The scenes in the hospitals were very touching.
“As I would go from cot to cot,” says a colporteur writing from
Winchester, Va., “leaving a tract or a Testament, and speaking of Jesus, it was not uncommon for some sufferer in another part of the room to call out, ‘Bring me one.’
I shall never forget my first visit to one of the hospitals.
There, stretched out before me, on coarse, hard beds, lay perhaps a hundred sick soldiers, most of them young men, some of them the flower of the land.
They were far from happy homes, lonely, despairing, sick — some of them sick unto death.
How cheering the sight of any friend!
What an opportunity for the child of God!”
General Jackson gave every encouragement to religion among his soldiers; he was the model Christian officer in our armies, “active, humble, consistent-restraining profanity and Sabbath-breaking-welcoming colporteurs, distributing tracts, and anxious to have every regiment in his army supplied with a chaplain.”
Indeed, even the most irreligious officers gladly welcomed these tract distributors to their camps.
“Sir,” said a notoriously cross and profane General to a colporteur, “you have come, I hope, to do all the good you can;” and he showed his sincerity by inviting him to mess at his table and share his blankets.
It is sadly pleasing to follow these good men in their walks through the hospitals, and listen to their talks with the sick men. “I was once tempted to be ashamed of the work,” says one of them, “and was about to pass by a group of soldiers without giving them any tracts,
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but it appeared to me that this might be a temptation of the evil one, and I determined to overlook no one.
Going up to a soldier, I asked if he was a Christian.
He was deeply moved, and said, ‘I wish to have some conversation with you; can you sit down with me awhile?’
He then told me that he had been a professor of religion; had enjoyed the smile of God on his soul; but that temptation and vice had led him astray, until now he was almost ready to despair.
Weeping and sobbing, he confessed his sin. I urged him again to seek the favor of God.
A very sick man said to me, ‘Oh, sir, I would give worlds for an interest in the blood of Jesus and the pardon of sin.’
He has since passed away.”
Another writes: “The saddest, the happiest deaths I have ever known have been in the army.
Soldiers jolting along in the wagons, which bore them to the hospitals, have died in the triumphs of faith.
And in the hospitals, without a pallet or a pillow, without an acquaintance to cheer or comfort or alleviate, what scenes have I witnessed!
It has been my privilege to read, sing, and pray with these pallid, dying men, and to see in their moist eyes the evidence of feeling hearts-to hear from whispering lips the most exultant expressions of trust in the Saviour.
Called up some cold night to stand by a death bed, I've had the soldier to clasp my hand in his, and, with heavenly joy, point up to the shining home of a dear brother gone before.
The blessings often invoked on my head by these devoted men have filled me with humble joy, and urged me to redouble my feeble efforts for the defenders of our once happy land.
I would not part with these pleasing recollections of my work for all the honor a soldier can gain from a grateful country.”
“A few days ago,” wrote another, “a soldier said to me, ‘On going into my tent, I found lying on my table the tract,
Why will ye die? I read it and became alarmed in regard to my spiritual state, and re-read it
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until I became perfectly miserable.
In this state of mind, I went off into the woods to pray that I might be delivered from this awful condition.
While wrestling in prayer before God, I was enabled to lay hold of Jesus as one mighty to save, and since have had peace and joy in believing, and now I wish to make this contribution to aid in sending the same tract to my comrades, that they too may be warned to flee from the wrath to come;’ so saying, he handed me five dollars.”
“I found a young soldier,” says another, “sinking in death.
On asking him how he was, he said, ‘I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.’
At my next visit he was unable to speak save in a whisper.
I put my lips to his ear and asked how it was with him?
He replied, ‘I had rather depart and be with
Christ, which is far better.’
In this frame of mind he passed away to his heavenly home.”
“ Some of the cases,” said
Rev. James B. Taylor, Sr., writing of his visits to the hospitals at
Staunton, Va., “were peculiarly touching.
One man from
Southwestern Georgia told me, with deep feeling, that out of 98 composing his company 24 were buried in
Western Virginia.
I pressed upon him the claims of the gospel, and he seemed thankful and penitent.
Another, far from home, seemed near the grave.
The tears flowed from his languid eyes when I asked him about his spiritual condition, and with trembling lips he replied, ‘No hope.’
He gazed at me wistfully, as I pointed him to the ‘Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.’
I was specially affected by the remarks of a soldier who said, ‘O, sir, you know not how difficult it is to stem the tide of corruption in the army.
Many of our officers drink and swear, and discourage all manifestations of religious feeling.’
”
Such scenes were witnessed every day and night, and every hour of every day and night, from the first battle
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of the war to its disastrous close.
The battle-fields, as well as the hospitals, have their records of unselfish devotion and Christian heroism; and the deeper the struggle the brighter shone those elements of character that truly ennoble our nature.
The
battle of Shiloh, fought this spring, was made illustrious, both by the prowess of our arms.
and by the costly sacrifices there laid upon the altar of the
South.
On this bloody field, that accomplished soldier and noble gentleman,
Albert Sidney Johnston, offered up his life.
“While leading a successful charge, turning the enemy's right, and gaining a brilliant victory, a minnie ball cut the artery of his leg, but he rode on till from loss of blood he fell exhausted, and died without pain in a few moments.”
Such were the brief words in which his fellow-warriors told of his death.
The President, in communicating this sad intelligence to Congress, after announcing the victory, said:
But an all-wise Creator has been pleased, while vouchsafing to us his countenance in battle, to afflict us with a severe dispensation, to which we must bow in humble submission.
The last lingering hope has disappeared, and it is but too true that Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston is no more.
My long and close friendship with this departed chieftain and patriot forbids me to trust myself in giving vent to the feelings which this sad intelligence has evoked.
Without doing injustice to the living, it may be safely asserted that our loss is irreparable, and that among the shining hosts of the great and the good who now cluster around the banner of our country, there exists no purer spirit, no more heroic soul, than that of the illustrious man whose death I join you in lamenting.
In his death he has illustrated the character for which through life he was conspicuous — that of singleness of purpose and devotion to duty.
With his whole energies bent on attaining the victory which he deemed
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essential to his country's cause, he rode on to the accomplishment of his object, forgetful of self, while his very life-blood was fast ebbing away.
His last breath cheered his comrades to victory.
The last sound which he heard was their shout of triumph.
His last thought was his country's, and long and deeply will his country mourn his loss.
The case of
General Johnston was particularly sad. After the disasters in the
West, and the retreat of his army to
Corinth, he was under a cloud, censures were heaped upon him, and there were loud clamors for his removal.
It was said, at the time, that men high in position urged the
President to displace him, but he was inflexible, and only replied, “If
Albert Sidney Johnston is not a General, then I have no General.”
His military movements in
Kentucky, and his march Southward, were freely and severely criticised in the Confederate Congress by men who “never set a squadron in the field,” but the noble General bore it all in silence.
After his lamented death, and while the glory of his great victory was still shining on the country, a letter was read in this same Congress which he wrote to the
President explaining all his movements, and giving the reasons for them.
The writer was present in the hall of Congress when this letter was read, and never can he forget the profound impression it made on the entire audience.
Abundant tears, and a silence more eloquent than the words of the greatest orator, were the tribute paid to the memory of the departed patriot.
Our space will not permit us to lay the whole of this noble letter before the reader, but we cannot deny him the gratification of seeing its closing sentences.
After alluding to the fall of
Fort Donelson, he says:
The blow was most disastrous, and almost without a remedy.
I, therefore, in my first report remained silent.
This silence you were kind enough to attribute to my
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generosity.
I will not lay claim to the motive to excuse my course.
I observed silence, as it seemed to be the best way to serve the cause and the country.
The facts were not fully known-discontent prevailed, and criticism or condemnation were more likely to augment than to cure the evil.
I refrained, well knowing that heavy censures would fall upon me, but convinced that it was better to endure then for the present, and defer to a more propitious time an investigation of the conduct of the Generals, for in the meantime their services were required and their influence useful — for these reasons, Generals Floyd and Pillow were assigned to duty, as I still felt confidence in their gallantry, their energy, and their devotion to the Confederacy.
Thus I have recurred to the motives by which I have been governed, from a deep personal sense of the friendship and confidence you have always shown me, and from the conviction that they have not been withdrawn from me in adversity.
The test of merit in my profession, with the people, is success. It is a hard rule, but I think it right.
At the reading of the last sentence, the recollection of the injustice done to the hero rushed upon the minds of the hearers, and the scene was morally sublime.
Albert Sidney Johnston was dead, but he was enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen.
The instances of heroic valor in the
battle of Shiloh are abundant.
A chaplain,
Rev. I. T. Tichnor, of the 17th Alabama regiment, in a letter to
Governor Watts, of that State, who at one time commanded the regiment, says:
During this engagement we were under a cross fire on the left wing from three directions.
Under it the boys wavered.
I had been wearied, and was sitting down, but seeing them waver, I sprang to my feet, took off my hat, waved it over my head, walked up and down the line, and, as they say, ‘preached them a sermon.’
I
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reminded them that it was Sunday.
That at that hour (1 1 o'clock) all their home folks were praying for them, that Tom Watts (excuse the familiar way in which I employed so distinguished a name) had told us he would listen with an eager ear to hear from the 17th; and shouting your name loud over the roar of battle, I called upon them to stand there and die, if need be, for their country.
The effect was evident.
Every man stood to his post, every eye flashed, and every heart beat high with desperate resolve to conquer or die. The regiment lost one-third of the number carried into the field.
Among the
Christian soldiers that fell was
Lieutenant-Colonel Holbrook, of a Kentucky regiment.
He was mortally wounded, and fell at the head of his regiment in a victorious charge.
After the battle, several of his officers came to see him in the hospital.
He was dying fast, but desired to be propped up in bed, and then he talked with them like a Christian soldier: “Gentlemen, in the course of my official duties with you I have had little or no occasion to speak to you upon the subject of religion, but this is a time when, as fellow-men, we may commune frankly together.
And I desire to bear witness to the fact that I am at the present moment deriving all my strength and consolation from the firm reliance which I have upon the blessings of religion.
I know I am not prepared for death, as I ought to have been, and as I hope you may be, but I feel safe in reposing upon the strong arm of God, and trusting to him for my future happiness.
Before this war is closed, some of you may be brought upon the threshold of the eternal world, as I have been, and my earnest prayer is that the messenger of death may find you waiting.
Throughout my existence, I have found nothing in my experience that has afforded me more substantial happiness than Christianity, and I now, as I lie here conscious that life is waning, desire to bear testimony of a peaceful mind, of a firm faith in the grand scheme of salvation.
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Farewell, my comrades, may we all meet in a better world.”
One of the rarest instances of youthful heroism that ever occurred is recorded in connection with this battle.
Charlie Jackson, whose brief career as a soldier, and whose happy death we place here upon permanent record, was worthy of the great name he bore:
Some months ago,
says a writer,
Charlie's father raised a company of soldiers, in which he was permitted to drill with the privates, and finally became so expert in the manual of arms that, young as he was, he was chosen the drill-master, In due time, marching orders were received, Then the father, consulting the age of his boy, and probably his own paternal feelings, gave him to understand that it was his wish he should remain at home.
To this Charlie strenuously demurred, and plainly told his parent that if he could not go with him he would join another company.
Yielding to his obstinacy, a sort of silent consent was given, and the lad left Memphis with his comrades.
The regiment to which they belonged was detached to Burnsville, several miles distant from Corinth, and here it remained until the Friday or Saturday preceding the battle.
Orders were then received that it should repair at once to the field and take its position, Charlie was asleep at the time of the departure, and the father, unwilling that one so young should undergo the fatigue of the long march of twenty miles and the dangers of the coming fight, gave orders that he should not be disturbed.
Several hours after, the boy awoke of his own accord.
At a glance, his eye took in the condition of affairs, and his knowledge of coming events satisfied him of the cause.
With him, to think was to act. He seized his little gun, a miniature musket which his father had made for him, and alone started on the trail of his absent regiment.
Hour after hour he trudged along, and finally, just as they were about halting preparatory to
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going into battle, he succeeded in joining his company.
He had travelled more than fifteen miles. His father chided him, but how could hie do otherwise than admire the indomitable spirit of his boy?
The battle commenced.
Charlie took his place by his father's side, and was soon in the thickest of the fight.
A bullet struck him in the body and tore an ugly wound.
Still he pressed on, firing, cheering, and charging with the remainder of his regiment.
He seemed not to know the sensation of fear, and his youthful example on more than one occasion was the rallying point from which the men took fresh spirit.
Suddenly, at a late hour in the day, the little fellow fell shot through the leg a few inches below the hip. He gave a cheer and told his father to go on. “Don't mind me,” said he, “but keep on; I'll lay here till you come back.”
This of course the feelings of the parent would not permit him to do, and picking him up in his arms, he carried him to the nearest hospital.
Within a day or two Charlie has brought to his home in Memphis, feeble, yet full of hope and courage.
Dr. Keller was called upon to examine the wound and, if necessary, to perform amputation; but at a glance his experienced eye saw that the poor boy was beyond the hope of recovery.
Mortification had set in, and an operation would only increase his sufferings without prolonging life.
The lad noticed the sober countenance of the physician as he turned away and went to an adjoining room to break the mournful intelligence to the weeping father and mother.
Nothing could be done but to relieve him of pain by means of opiates.
A few moments afterwards he returned to the bedside of the sufferer, when the young hero abruptly met him with the question-
“Doctor, will you answer me a straightforward question, and tell me the truth?”
The physician paused a moment, and then said:
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“Yes, Charlie, I will; but you must prepare for bad news.”
“Can I live?”
was the response.
“No! Nothing can save you now but a miracle from Heaven.”
“Well, I have thought so myself.
I have felt as if I was going to die. Do father and mother know this?”
“Yes,” replied the surgeon.
“I have just told them.”
“Please ask them to come in here.”
When the parents had done so, and taken their places on either side of the bed, Charlie reached out, grasped their hands in his, and said:
“ Dear father and mother, Dr. Kellar says that I can't live.
And now I want to ask your forgiveness for all wrong I have done.
I have tried to be a good boy in every way but one, and that was when I disobeyed you both and joined the army.
I couldn't help that, for I felt as if I ought to be right where you were, father, and to fight as long as I was able.
I'm only sorry that I can't fight through the war. If I have said anything wrong or done anything wrong, won't you forgive me?”
The afflicted parents could only weep their assent.
“Now, father,” continued the boy, “one thing more.
Don't stay here with me, but go back to camp.
Mother will take care of me. and your services are more necessary in your company than they are at home.
I am not afraid to die, and I wish I had a thousand lives to lose in the same way. And, father, tell the boys when you get back how I died-just as a soldier ought to. Tell them to fight the Yankees as long as there is one left in the country, and never give up! Whenever you fill up the company with new men, let them know that besides their country there's a little boy in heaven who will watch them and pray for them as they go into battle.”
And so is dying one of the bravest spirits that was ever breathed into the human body by its Divine Master.
The scene I have described is one of which we sometimes
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read, but rarely behold, and the surgeon told me that, inured as he was to spectacles of suffering and woe, as he stood by this, a silent spectator, his heart overflowed in tears and he knelt down and sobbed like a child.
How true are the lines of the poet-
The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as Summer's dust,
Burn to the socket.
From this, and other battles, the hospitals were filled with thousands of sick and wounded men, among whom there were the most cheering evidences of true religious feeling.
Rev. B. B. Ross, of
Alabama, who gladly gave himself to the work of colportage, says of his labors:
I visited Corinth, the hospitals, and some of the camps, and am glad to report that the soldiers are very greedy for all kinds of religious reading-take the tracts from the agent with delight, and read them with avidity; and, whenever he sees proper to drop a word of admonition or warning, listen to it with patience and respect.
But this is especially so in the hospitals.
From
Okolona, Miss.,
Rev. J. T. C. Collins wrote to
Mr. Ross:
The soldiers received the books with great eagerness.
I never in all my life saw such a desire to get Bibles.
Every ward I went into they would beg me for Bibles and Testaments. While they gladly received the other books, they wanted Bibles. I have been to every man's cot and left either a book or a tract.
And when I re-visited them, and asked how they liked the books, my heart was greatly cheered by the accounts they gave me. One said he had been improving ever since he had gotten something to interest his mind.
Another said, while a friend was reading for him the 14th chapter of John (a chapter to which I had called his attention), he was blessed and made very happy.
He is now dead-went safely home.
This eager desire for religious reading was as manifest
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in the camp as in the hospital.
A chaplain gave this pleasing testimony:
Religious reading is highly appreciated by the soldiers; and what few tracts we can get are carefully read, and many tears have been seen to run down the soldier's face while reading these friendly visitors.
They do not wait for me to go out to distribute them, but come to my tent inquiring, ‘Have you any more tracts to spare?’
There have been two conversions in the regiment.
The soldiers were sick at the time, and one of them ‘has since ’ gone to his long home, ‘ but felt before he died it was much the best for him to go, that he would be in a better world,’ where wars and rumors of wars would no more mar his peace.
The evacuation of the
Peninsula, and the falling back of our army from
Yorktown to the vicinity of
Richmond, crowded the hospitals with thousands of sick and wounded men. No person who was in
Richmond in the spring of 1862 can forget the painful scenes as the long trains of sick and wounded moved into the city day and night, and emptied out their loads of human wretchedness.
The hospitals were poorly supplied with beds, medicines, provisions, physicians, and nurses, and but for the supplies of all kinds carried to them by the citizens, who also gladly volunteered to nurse the helpless sufferers, the mortality would have been a hundred fold greater than it was. This state of things, however, was but temporary; as soon as the hospital accommodations were enlarged, and the corps of surgeons and nurses increased, the condition of the wounded and sick was much improved.
But still, with all that the government could do, assisted by the people, who cheerfully opened their houses to their suffering countrymen, the amount of misery was appalling.
The writer almost shudders now at the bare recollection of what he witnessed in the hospitals, and especially in the sick camps in the open country.
Within and without the
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scanty tents were hundreds of wretched, woe-begone, sick soldiers, from the tender boy of sixteen to the man of fifty; some lay on the outside of the tents muttering in the delirium of fever, of friends and home; others within, lay shaking with ague, under filthy rags and blankets; some with pale faces, and sunken eyes and cheeks, sat against trees or stumps, the very pictures of despair; others lay perfectly still on the bare ground, too weak to move, wasted literally to skeletons by dysentery.
Thus on every side the eye fell upon the forms of human beings bruised, broken, slain by cruel war; and when we remember that in most of these sick camps garbage and filth of all kinds lay reeking in every direction, we have a picture of horrors that can find no counterpart except in the midst of such a war.
These unfortunate creatures claimed and received the careful attention of the noble men and women who gave their days and nights to hospital work, and their best earthly reward was the word or, perhaps, look of gratitude from the sick and dying soldier.
Rev. Dr. Ryland, speaking of his labors this Spring in the
Richmond camps and hospitals, says:
I have conversed with, addressed, and prayed for, many hundreds of invalid soldiers during the month, and given to each a tract, or a religious newspaper, or a New Testament, and have received from all great respect, and from many the most tender expressions of gratitude.
I have found about forty-five men who could not read; to these I have given such books as McGuffey's First Reader, after demanding and obtaining promises that they would try to learn.
The work is full of encouragement and delight, and worthy of far more piety, learning and talents than I possess.
Many of the hospital scenes touchingly illustrated the value of religion to the poor sufferers.
A dying soldier said to the kind physician who had administered medicine to body and soul:
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“
Doctor, I bless God that you ever taught me the way of life and salvation.
I have been a poor blind sinner all my life; but now I feel an assurance of happiness in heaven through
Christ my Redeemer.
Oh, I hope to meet you in heaven, and bless you there for the interest you have taken in my soul's salvation.”
This physician said that he accepted the appointment of army surgeon that he might enjoy the privilege of preaching
Christ to the soldiers; a rare exception-he found his reward in the success of his pious labors.
From the hospital, the fire of holy love was often carried by some happy soldier to the camp, and gloriously re-kindled there among his comrades.
One who was converted while in the hospital, on returning to his regiment made known the blessed change in his life.
He invited such as desired a similar one to join him in a prayer-meeting.
Five met with him; they prayed together, and the interest extended until scores became anxious on the subject of salvation.
They had no minister with them, but one came from another regiment and preached to them;--as the result of this effort, no bigger than a man's hand at first, more than one hundred professed faith in
Christ.
As the revival progressed, there was scarcely any situation in which our soldiers could be placed where they did not find God ready and willing to pour out his Spirit in answer to earnest prayer.
An awakened soldier was converted on a march,--when a minister inquired whether he had yet given himself to
Christ, he said, “Yes, I have found him!
Why, sir, when we set off on that march I felt such a weight on my soul that I could scarcely drag myself along, but after a while God heard my prayers, and then the burden was gone, and I felt as if marching was no trouble at all.”
In the midst of the
battle of Williamsburg, while the conflict was raging, and a chaplain was encouraging the men of his regiment to do their duty, a soldier passed,
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and, taking the hand of the chaplain, he said, “It is a glorious thing to be a Christian.”
His face was radiant with divine peace in the midst of a storm of bullets.
How clearly this incident illustrates the power of grace as expressed in that comforting passage, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.”
Among the noble men who fell during this period were two faithful chaplains,
Rev. J. W. Timberlake of
Florida, attached to the 2d Florida regiment, and
Rev. W. H. C. Cone of
Georgia, chaplain of the 19th Georgia regiment.
Mr. Timberlake came to
Virginia in feeble health, but was indefatigable in his exertions to promote the temporal and spiritual welfare of his regiment.
One who knew him as an intimate friend says:
Mr. Timberlake was certainly a model man, and one whose untiring zeal and energy in the cause of his country is worthy of emulation, and whose self-sacrificing observance of duty has placed him in a premature grave.
His devotion to our sick soldiers while in the city of Richmond left a remembrance which time will not soon efface from the hearts of his many friends there.
He died of consumption at
West Point, on
York river, and quietly sleeps beneath the soil which he gladly came to defend.
Rev. Mr. Cone was exhausted and broken down by long marches and exposure in the
Peninsula. “Becoming very warm after a march, he imprudently bathed in a stream near the roadside, which produced a check of perspiration, terminating in typhoid fever.
The regiment being on the retreat, and doing picket duty, there was but little accommodation for the sick.
He fell behind, and a Presbyterian clergyman said he saw him lying by the road on the wet ground, where the mud was splashed on him by the passing army.
He was taken up and sent to
Richmond in a delirious state.
Not being
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able to express his desires, he was not sent to the
Georgia hospital.”
“He was calm, patient, and resigned,” says
Rev. Mr. Crumley, who was with him in his last hours,
and expressed himself as having given all up into the hands of God, and could say, “Thy will be done.”
When a little dreamy, he would say, “My dear Jane, don't grieve after me-all is for the best.”
Then he would call, “Jessie, come Jessie, and let me kiss you-be a good child.”
On Sabbath morning, having lain some time quiet, facing my window that commands a beautiful landscape on the James river full of fishing smacks, and beyond, the green wheat fields, with the darker shades of clover fields further on, and the distant woods all lit up with a bright May morning's sun, he asked me to turn him over and straighten him on the bed. Fixing his eyes, as though he saw heaven opened, he, with a smile, said, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly;” and folding his arms on his bosom, he fell asleep in Jesus, calm as an infant slumbers.
We buried him at the head of the still increasing host of our noble soldiers who have fallen.
There are officers, surgeons, and soldiers.
He is the only chaplain among the fifteen hundred that forms that pale and quiet congregation.
