Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/212

 206 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Winchester. Strasburg, Cross Keys and Port Republic (constituting the Valley campaign), Williamsburg, Barhamsville, Hanover Court- house, Seven Pines, Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Malvern Hill (constituting the Richmond cam- paign), Cedar Run, Manassas Junction, Manassas Plains, August 29th, Manassas Plains, August 30th (constituting the campaign of Northern Virginia), Harper's Ferry, Boonesboro' and Sharpsburg (constituting in part the campaign in Maryland). History does not record a series of battles like these, fought by one army in so short a space of time. To fight these battles the army had' marched and counter-marched hundreds and hundreds of miles in these six months. In the item of shoes alone it would have required the most ample supplies and the most efficient quartermaster's department to have kept us sufficiently shod to stand this work. While, on the contrary, those of us who took part in the campaign in Northern Virginia well know that the plains of Manassas were strewed with dead men whose bare feet were cut up with the rocks on the road over which they had struggled there to die. How was it possible, then, for those who survived and escaped wounds, but whose feet were in like condition, to keep up with the forced marches in Maryland? The hospital steward of the First South Carolina volunteers, after- wards an assistant surgeon, killed at Fredericksburg, marched bare- footed from Manassas to Sharpsburg.

I would call attention, too, to the fact that this charge of straggling from want of discipline is always traced back to the straggling which took place in the Maryland campaign, which, including the march to Manassas, was the first great march the army had made, when the army was, as I have described, barefooted and physically exhausted.

There certainly was no straggling on the next great march — ^Jack- son's march from Winchester to Fredericksburg — in which he trans- ferred his corps one hundred and eighty miles in ten days, two of which were rest. It happened that on that march I was detailed to the command of the rear guard of our division, which was also the rear guard of the corps the day we crossed the Blue Ridge at Milan Gap. My orders were to allow no one to remain behind, but to gather up all stragglers and to force them on, whether sick or well, lame or sound. It was a bitter cold day, and the ground was cov- ered with snow. I did not move from our bi\'ouac with the guard until the morning had well advanced and until the rear of the column was some distance up the mountain. I shall never forget the scene, I could see from the valley below, the whole corps, like a huge snake,