Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/163

Rh Vice-President were both religious men. The great military leaders, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, R. E. Lee, Bragg, Pendleton, Hood, Kirby Smith, Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, Polk, Stewart, Hardee, S. D. Lee, together with hundreds of others constituting a very large majority of Confederate officials, were devout communicants of some church. The same interesting fact becomes apparent as we look into the character of the army in general. Officers of regiments and companies and private soldiers all reared under the religious faith prevailing at the South, which was singularly free from skepticism, carried their moral convictions with them to keep company with their ardent patriotism.

The eagerness with which the men attended religious meetings and listened to the preaching of the Gospel was simply marvelous. Go to one of the brigades at almost any hour of the day and any day of the week and intimate that you are willing to preach, and a few taps of the drum, a call of the bugle, or better still, the singing of some good hymn, serves as a church call well understood, and from every part of the camp there will gather round the preacher a crowd of earnest listeners, ready to drink in with delight the simple truths of the Gospel. Let me recall a few of the many scenes of those days, asking the reader to go with me to some of these services: We enter the battered old town of Fredericksburg one evening in the early days of 1863, just as the regiments of Barksdale's Mississippi brigade are coming in from dress parade. We pause for a moment to admire those brave fellows, who, on a memorable morning in December, held the old town with such heroic obstinacy until "Marse Robert," as Lee was affectionately called, could form on the hills his "lines of gray tipped with steel," against which the blue waves were to beat in vain. Soon is heard the familiar order, "Break ranks," and at once the whole town is alive with men eagerly running in the same direction. Ask one of those eager runners,