University of Virginia Library

III.
HAMPTON.

1. I.

THERE was a gentleman of South Carolina, of high position and
ample estate, who in 1861 came to take part in the war in
Virginia, at the head of a “Legion” of six hundred infantry.
This body of men, it was said, he had equipped from his own
purse; as he had sent to England and purchased the artillery
with which he was going to fight.

The “Legion” was composed of brave stuff, and officered by
hard-fighting gentlemen—the flower indeed of the great South
Carolina race; a good stock. It first took the field in earnest at
the first battle of Manassas—as an independent organization,
belonging neither to Beauregard's “Army of the Potomac” nor
to Johnston's “Army of the Shenandoah.” But there it was, as
though dropped from the clouds, on the morning of that fiery
twenty-first of July, 1861, amid the corn-fields of Manassas.
It made its mark without loss of time—stretching out to Virginia
that firm, brave hand of South Carolina. At ten o'clock
in the morning, on this eventful day, the battle seemed lost to
the Southerners. Evans was cut to pieces; Bee shattered and
driven back in utter defeat to the Henry-House hill; between
the victorious enemy and Beauregard's unprotected flank were
interposed only the six hundred men of the “Legion” already
up, and the two thousand six hundred and eleven muskets of
Jackson not yet in position. The Legion occupied the Warrenton
road near the Stone House, where it met and sustained
with stubborn front the torrent dashed against it. General

Keyes, with his division, attacked the six hundred from the
direction of Red-House ford, and his advance line was forced
back by them, and compelled to take refuge beneath the bluffs
near Stone bridge. The column of General Hunter, mean while,
closed in on the left of the little band, enveloped their flank,
and poured a destructive artillery fire along the line. To hold
their ground further was impossible, and they slowly fell back;
but those precious moments had been secured. Jackson was in
position; the Legion retreated, and formed upon his right; the
enemy's advance was checked; and when the Southern line
advanced in its turn, with wild cheers, piercing the Federal centre,
the South Carolinians fought shoulder to shoulder beside
the Stonewall Brigade, and saw the Federal forces break in disorder.
When the sun set on this bloody and victorious field,
the “Legion” had made a record among the most honourable in
history. They had done more than their part in the hard struggle,
and now saw the enemy in full retreat; but their leader did not
witness that spectacle. Wade Hampton had been shot down in
the final charge near the Henry House, and borne from the field,
cheering on his men to the last, with that stubborn hardihood
which he derived from his ancestral blood.

Such was the first appearance upon the great arena of a man
who was destined to act a prominent part in the tragic drama of
the war, and win for himself a distinguished name. At Manassas,
there in the beginning of the struggle, as always afterwards,
he was the cool and fearless soldier. It was easily seen by those
who watched Hampton “at work” that he fought from a sense
of duty, and not from passion, or to win renown. The war was
a gala-day full of attraction and excitement to some; with him
it was hard work—not sought, but accepted. I am certain that
he was not actuated by a thirst for military rank or renown.
From those early days when all was gay and brilliant, to the
latter years when the conflict had become so desperate and
bloody, oppressing every heart, Hampton remained the same
cool, unexcited soldier. He was foremost in every fight, and
everywhere did more than his duty; but evidently martial ambition
did not move him. Driven to take up arms by his principles,

he fought for those principles, not for fame. It followed
him—he did not follow it; and to contemplate the character and
career of such a man is wholesome.

His long and ardous career cannot here be narrated. A bare
reference to some prominent points is all that can be given.
Colonel Hampton, of the “Hampton Legion,” soon became
Brigadier-General Hampton, of the cavalry. The horsemen of
the Gulf States serving in Virginia were placed under him, and
the brigade became a portion of Stuart's command. It soon
made its mark. Here are some of the landmarks in the stirring
record.

The hard and stubborn stand made at the Catoctin Mountain,
when General Lee first invaded Maryland, and where Hampton
charged and captured the Federal artillery posted in the suburbs
of Frederick City; the rear-guard work as the Southern column
hastened on, pursued by McClellan, to Sharpsburg: the stout
fighting on the Confederate left there; the raid around McClellan's
army in October; the obstinate fighting in front of the
gaps of the Blue Ridge as Lee fell back in November to the line
of the Rappahannock; the expedition in dead of winter to the
Occoquan; the critical and desperate combat on the ninth of
June, 1863, at Fleetwood Hill, near Brandy, where Hampton
held the right, and Young, of Georgia, the brave of braves, went
at the flanking column of the enemy with the sabre, never firing
a shot, and swept them from the field; the speedy advance,
thereafter, from the Rapidan; the close and bitter struggle when
the enemy, with an overpowering force of infantry, cavalry, and
artillery, about the twentieth of June, attacked the Southern
cavalry near Middleburg, and forced them back step by step
beyond Upperville, where in the last wild charge, when the
Confederates were nearly broken, Hampton went in with the
sabre at the head of his men and saved the command from
destruction by his “do or die” fighting; the advance immediately
into Pennsylvania, when the long, hard march, like the
verses of Ariosto, was strewed all over with battles; the stubborn
attack at Hanovertown, where Hampton stood like a rock upon
the hills above the place, and the never-ceasing or receding roar

of his artillery told us that on the right flank all was well; the
march thereafter to Carlisle, and back to Gettysburg; the grand
charge there, sabre to sabre, where Hampton was shot through
the body, and nearly cut out of the saddle by a sabre blow upon
the head, which almost proved fatal; the hard conflicts of the
Wilderness, when General Grant came over in May, 1864; the
fighting on the north bank of the Po, and on the left of the
army at Spotsylvania Court-House; the various campaigns
against Sheridan, Kautz, Wilson, and the later cavalry leaders
on the Federal side, when, Stuart having fallen, Hampton commanded
the whole Virginia cavalry; the hot fights at Trevillian's,
at Reanis, at Bellfield, in a hundred places, when, in
those expiring hours of the great conflict, a species of fury
seemed to possess both combatants, and Dinwiddie was the arena
of a struggle, bitter, bloody, desperate beyond all expression;
then the fighting in the Carolinas on the old grounds of the
Edisto, the high hills of the Santee and Congaree, which in 1864
and 1865 sent bulletins of battle as before; then the last act of
the tragedy, when Sherman came and Hampton's sabre gleamed
in the glare of his own house at Columbia, and then was
sheathed—such were some of the scenes amid which the tall
form of this soldier moved, and his sword flashed. That stalwart
form had everywhere towered in the van. On the Rappahannock,
the Rapidan, the Susquehanna, the Shenandoah, the
Po, the North Anna, the James, the Rowanty, and Hatcher's
Run—in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania—Hampton had
fought with the stubborn courage inherited from his Revolution-ary
sires. Fighting lastly upon the soil of his native State, he
felt no doubt as Marion and Sumter did, when Rawdon and
Tarleton came and were met sabre to sabre. In the hot conflicts
of 1865, Hampton met the new enemy as those preux chevaliers
with their great Virginia comrade, “Light-House Harry” Lee,
had met the old in 1781.

But the record of those stubborn fights must be left to another
time and to abler hands. I pass to a few traits of the individual.

2. II.

Of this eminent soldier, I will say that, seeing him often in
many of those perilous straits which reveal hard fibre or its
absence, I always regarded him as a noble type of courage and
manhood—a gentleman and soldier “to the finger nails.” But
that is not enough; generalization and eulogy are unprofitable—
truth and minute characterization are better. One personal
anecdote of Cæsar would be far more valuable than a hundred
commonplaces—and that is true of others. It is not a “general
idea” I am to give; I would paint the portrait, if I can, of the
actual man. The individuality of the great South Carolinian
was very marked. You saw at a glance the race from which he
sprang, and the traits of heart and brain which he brought to
the hard contest. He was “whole in himself and due to none.”
Neither in physical nor mental conformation did he resemble
Stuart, the ideal cavalier—Forrest, the rough-rider—or the rest.
To compare him for an instant to the famous Stuart—the latter
laughed, sang, and revelled in youth and enjoyment. Hampton
smiled oftener than he laughed, never sang at all that I ever
heard, and had the composed demeanour of a man of middle age.
Stuart loved brilliant colours, gay scenes, and the sparkle of
bright eyes. Hampton gave little thought to these things; and
his plain gray coat, worn, dingy, and faded, beside the great
cavalier's gay “fighting jacket,” shining with gold braid, defined
the whole difference. I do not say that the dingy coat covered
a stouter heart than the brilliant jacket—there never lived a
more heroic soul than Stuart—but that in this was shown the
individuality of each. The one—Stuart—was young, gay, a
West Pointer, and splendid in his merriment, élan, and abandon.
The other, Hampton, a civilian approaching middle age, a
planter, not a soldier by profession—a man who embarked in
the arduous struggle with the coolness of the statesman, rather
than the ardor of the soldier. It was the planter, sword in hand,
not the United States officer, that one saw in Hampton—the
country gentleman who took up arms because his native soil was

invaded, as the race of which he came had done in the past.
That the plain planter, without military education, became the
eminent soldier, is an evidence that “the strain will show.”

Here is an outline of the South Carolinian as he appeared in
July, 1862, when the cavalry were resting after the battles of the
Chickahominy, and he often came to the old shady yard of
Hanover Court-House, to talk with General Stuart under the
trees there. What the eye saw in those days was a personage of
tall stature and “distinguished” appearance. The face was
browned by sun and wind, and half covered by dark side-whiskers
joining a long moustache of the same hue; the chin bold,
prominent, and bare. The eyes were brown, inclining to black,
and very mild and friendly; the voice low, sonorous, and with a
certain accent of dignity and composure. The frame of the soldier—straight,
vigorous, and stalwart, but not too broad for grace
—was encased in a plain gray sack coat of civilian cut, with the
collar turned down; cavalry boots, large and serviceable, with
brass spurs; a brown felt hat, without star or feather; the rest of
the dress plain gray. Imagine this stalwart figure with a heavy
sabre buckled around the waist, and mounted upon a large and
powerful animal of excellent blood and action, but wholly “unshowy,”
and a correct idea will be obtained of General Wade
Hampton. Passing from the clothes to the man—what impressed
all who saw him was the attractive union of dignity and simplicity
in his bearing—a certain grave and simple courtesy which
indicated the highest breeding. He was evidently an honest
gentleman who disdained all pretence or artifice. It was plain
that he thought nothing of personal decorations or military show,
and never dreamed of “producing an impression” upon any one.
This was revealed by that bearing full of a proud modesty; neither
stiff nor insinuating—simple.

After being in his presence for ten minutes, you saw that he
was a man for hard work, and not for display. That plain and
unassuming manner, without pretension, affectation, or “official”
coolness, was an index to the character of the individual. It is
easy to tell a gentleman; something betrays that character, as
something betrays the pretender. Refinement, good-breeding,

and fealty through all, to honour, were here embodied. The
General was as courteous to the humblest private soldier as to
the Commander-in-Chief, and you could discover in him no trace
whatever of that air of “condescension” and “patronage”
which small persons, aiming to be great, sometimes adopt. It
was the unforced courtesy of the gentleman, not the hollow
politeness of the pretender to that title, which all saw in
Hampton. He did not act at all, but lived his character.
In his voice, in his bearing, in all that he said and did, the
South Carolinian betrayed the man who is too proud not to be
simple, natural, and unassuming.

Upon this trait of manner, merely, I may seem to dwell too
long. But it is not a trifle. I am trying to delineate a man of
whom we Southerners are proud—and this rare grace was his.
It reflected clearly the character of the individual—the noble
pride, the true courtesy, and the high-bred honour of one who,
amid all the jarring strife of an excited epoch, would not suffer
his serene equanimity of gentleman to be disturbed; who aimed
to do his duty to his country, not rise above his associates; who
was no politer to the high than to the low, to the powerful than
to the weak; and who respected more the truth and courage
beneath the tattered jacket than the starts and wreath on the
braided coat. The result of this kindly feeling towards “men of
low estate” was marked. An officer long associated with him
said to me one day: “I do not believe there ever was a General
more beloved by his whole command; and he more than returns
it. General Hampton has a real tenderness, I do believe, for every
solider who has ever served under him.” He was always doing
the poorer members of his command some kindness. His hand
was open like his heart. Many a brave fellow's family was kept
from want by him; and a hundred instances of this liberality are
doubtless recorded in the grateful memories of the women and
children whom he fought for, and fed too, in those dark days.
This munificence was nowhere else recorded. The left hand
knew not what the right hand did.

A few words more upon his personal bearing. His composure
upon trying occasions, as in every-day life, indicated a self-poised

and independent character. He rarely yielded to hearty mirth,
but his smile was very friendly and attractive. You could see
that he was a person of earnest feelings, and had a good heart.
In camp he was a pleasant companion, and those who saw him
daily became most attached to him. His staff were devoted to
him. I remember the regret experienced by these brave gentlemen
when Hampton's assignment to the command of all the cavalry
separated them from him. The feeling which they then exhibited
left no doubt of the entente cordiale between the members of the
military family. General Hampton liked to laugh and talk with
them around the camp fire; to do them every kindness he could
—but that was his weakness towards everybody—and to play
chess, draughts, or other games, in the intervals of fighting or
work. One of his passions was hunting. This amusement he
pursued upon every occasion—over the fields of Spotsylvania,
amid the woods of Dinwiddle, and on the rivers of South Carolina.
His success was great. Ducks, partridges, squirrels, turkey, and
deer, fell before his double-barrel in whatever country he pitched
his tents. He knew all the old huntsmen of the regions in which
he tarried, delighted to talk with such upon the noble science of
venery, and was considered by these dangerous critics a thorough
sportsman. They regarded him, it is said, as a comrade not
undistinguished; and sent him, in friendly recognition of his
merit, presents of venison and other game, which was plentiful
along the shores of the Rowanty, or in the backwoods of
Dinwiddie. Hampton was holding the right of General Lee's
line there, in supreme command of all the Virginia cavalry; but
it was not as a hunter of “bluebirds”—so we used to call our
Northern friends—that they respected him most. It was as a
deer hunter; and I have heard that the hard-fighting cavalier
relished very highly their good opinion of him in that character.
It is singular that a love for hunting should so often characterize
men of elegant scholarship and literary taste. The soldier and
huntsman was also a poet, and General Stuart spoke in high
praise of his writings. His prose style was forcible and excellent
—in letters, reports, and all that he wrote. The admirably
written address to the people of South Carolina, which was
recently published, will display the justice of this statement.
That paper, like all that came from him, was compact, vigorous,
lucid, “written in English,” and everywhere betrayed the scholar
no less than the patriot. It will live when a thousand octavos
have disappeared.

3. III.

Such was Wade Hampton the man—a gentleman in every
fibre of his being. It was impossible to imagine anything coarse
or profane in the action or utterance of the man. An oath never
soiled his lips. “Do bring up that artillery!” or some equivalent
exclamation, was his nearest approach to irritation even.
Such was the supreme control which this man of character, full
of fire, force, and resolution, had over his passions. For, under
that simplicity and kindly courtesy, was the largely-moulded
nature of one ready to go to the death when honour called. In
a single word, it was a powerful organization under complete
control which the present writer seemed to recognise in Wade
Hampton. Under that sweetness and dignity which made him
conspicuous among the first gentlemen of his epoch, was the
stubborn spirit of the born soldier.

Little space is left to speak of him in his military character.
I preferred to dwell upon Hampton the man, as he appeared to
me; for Hampton the General will find many historians. Some
traits of the soldier, however, must not be omitted; this character
is too eminent to be drawn only in profile. On the field
Hampton was noted for his coolness. This never left him. It
might almost be called repose, so perfect was it. He was never
an excitable man; and as doubt and danger pressed heavier, his
equanimity seemed to increase. You could see that this was
truly a stubborn spirit. I do not think that anybody who knew
him could even imagine Wade Hampton “flurried.” His nerve
was made of invincible stuff, and his entire absence of all
excitability on the field was spoken of by his enemies as a fault.
It was said that his coolness amounted to a defect in a cavalry
leader; that he wanted the dash, rush, and impetus which this

branch of the service demands. If there was any general truth
in this criticism, there was none in particular instances. Hampton
was sufficiently headlong when I saw him—was one of the most
thoroughly successful commanders imaginable, and certainly
seemed to have a natural turn for going in front of his column
with a drawn sabre. What the French call élan is not, however,
the greatest merit in a soldier. Behind the strong arm was the
wary brain. Cool and collected resolution, a comprehensive
survey of the whole field, and the most excellent dispositions for
attack or defence—such were the merits of this soldier. I could
never divest myself of the idea that as a corps commander of
infantry he would have figured among the most eminent names
of history. With an unclouded brain; a coup d'œil as clear as a
ray of the sun; invincible before danger; never flurried, anxious,
or despondent; content to wait; too wary ever to be surprised;
looking to great trials of strength, and to general results—the
man possessing these traits of character was better fitted, I
always thought, for the command of troops of all arms—infantry,
cavalry, and artillery—than for one arm alone. But with that
arm which he commanded—cavalry—what splendid results did
he achieve. In how many perilous straits was his tall figure seen
in front of the Southern horsemen, bidding them “come on,”
not “go on.” He was not only the commander, but the sabreur
too. Thousands will remember how his gallant figure led the
charging column at Frederick City, at Upperville, at Gettysburg,
at Trevillian's, and in a hundred other fights. Nothing more
superb could be imagined than Hampton at such moments.
There was no flurry in the man—but determined resolution.
No doubt of the result apparently—no looking for an avenue of
retreat. “Sabre to sabre!” might have been taken as the motto
of his banner. In the “heady fight” he was everywhere seen,
amid the clouds of smoke, the crashing shell, and the whistling
balls, fighting like a private soldier, his long sword doing hard
work in the mélée, and carving its way as did the trenchant
weapons of the ancient knights. This spirit of the thorough
cavalier in Hampton is worth dwelling on. Under the braid of
the Major-General was the brave soul of the fearless soldier, the
“fighting man.” It was not a merit in him or in others that
they gave up wealth, business, elegance, all the comforts, conveniences,
and serene enjoyments of life, to live hard and fight
hard; to endure heat, cold, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and pain,
without a murmur; but it was a merit in this brave soldier and
gentleman that he did more than his duty, met breast to breast
in single combat the best swordsmen of the Federal army,
counted his life as no more than a private soldier's, and seemed
to ask nothing better than to pour out his heart's blood for the
cause in which he fought. This personal heroism—and Hampton
had it to a grand extent—attracts the admiration of troops. But
there is something better—the power of brain and force of
character which wins the confidence of the Commander-in-Chief.
When that Commander-in-Chief is called Robert E. Lee, it is
something to have secured his high regard and confidence.
Hampton had won the respect of Lee, and by that “noblest
Roman of them all” his great character and eminent services
were fully recognised. These men seemed to understand each
other, and to be inspired by the same sentiment—a love of their
native land which never failed, and a willingness to spend and
be spent to the last drop of their blood in the cause which they
had espoused. During General Stuart's life, Hampton was
second in command of the Virginia Cavalry; but when that
great cavalier fell, he took charge of the whole as ranking-officer.
His first blow was that resolute night-attack on Sheridan's force at
Mechanicsville, when the enemy were driven in the darkness
from their camps, and sprang to horse only in time to avoid the
sweeping sabres of the Southerners—giving up from that moment
all further attempt to enter Richmond. Then came the long,
hard, desperate fighting of the whole year 1864, and the spring of
1865. At Trevillian's, Sheridan was driven back and Charlottesville
saved; on the Weldon railroad the Federal cavalry, under
Kautz and Wilson, was nearly cut to pieces, and broke in disorder,
leaving on the roads their wagons, cannons, ambulances, their
dead men and horses; near Bellfield the Federal column sent to
destroy the railroad was encountered, stubbornly opposed, and
driven back before they could burn the bridge at Hicksford; at
Burgess' Mill, near Petersburg, where General Grant made his
first great blow with two corps of infantry, at the Southside
railroad, Hampton met them in front and flank, fought them all
an October day nearly, lost his brave son Preston, dead from a
bullet on the field, but in conjunction with Mahone, that hardy
fighter, sent the enemy in haste back to their works; thus saving
for the time the great war artery of the Southern army. Thenceforward,
until he was sent to South Carolina, Hampton held the
right of Lee in the woods of Dinwiddie, guarding with his cavalry
cordon the line of the Rowanty, and defying all comers. Stout,
hardy, composed, smiling, ready to meet any attack—in those
last days of the strange year 1864, he seemed to my eyes the
beau ideal of a soldier. The man appeared to be as firm as a
rock, as immovably rooted as one of the gigantic live-oaks of his
native country. When I asked him one day if he expected to
be attacked soon, he laughed and said: “No; the enemy's cavalry
are afraid to show their noses beyond their infantry.” Nor did
the Federal cavalry ever achieve any results in that region until
the ten or fifteen thousand crack cavalry of General Sheridan
came to ride over the two thousand men, on starved and broken-down
horses, of General Fitz Lee, in April, 1865.

From Virginia, in the dark winter of 1864, Hampton was
sent to oppose with his cavalry the advance of General Sherman,
and the world knows how desperately he fought there on his
natale solum. More than ever before it was sabre to sabre, and
Hampton was still in front. When the enemy pressed on to
Columbia he fell back, fighting from street to street, and so continued
fighting until the thunderbolt fell in South Carolina, as it
had fallen in Virginia at Appomattox, and the struggle ended.
The sword that Hampton sheathed that day was one which no
soil of bad faith, cruelty, or dishonour had ever tainted. It was
the blade of a brave and irreproachable chevalier, of a man who
throughout the most desperate and embittered conflict of all history
had kept his ancestral name from every blot, and had
proved himself upon a hundred battle-fields the worthy son of
the “mighty men of old.”

Such, in rough outline, was this brave and kindly soldier and

gentleman, as he passed before our eyes in Virginia, “working
his work.” Seeing him often, in camp, on the field, in bright
days, and when the sky was darkest, the present writer looked
upon him as a noble spirit, the truthful representative of a great
and vigorous race. Brave, just, kindly, courteous, with the tenderness
of a woman under that grave exterior; devoted to his
principles, for which he fought and would have died; loving his
native land with a love “passing the love of woman;” proud,
but never haughty; not so much condescending to men of low
estate, as giving them—if they were soldiers—the warm right
hand of fellowship; merciful, simple-minded; foremost in the
fight, but nowhere to be seen in the antechamber of living man;
with a hand shut tight upon the sword-hilt, but open as day to
“melting charity;” counting his life as nothing at the call of
honour; contending with stubborn resolution for the faith that
was in him; never cast down, never wavering, never giving
back until the torrent bore him away, but fighting to the last
with that heroic courage, born in his blood, for the independence
of his country. Such was Wade Hampton, of South Carolina.
There are those, perhaps, who will malign him in these dark
days, when no sun shines. But the light is yonder, behind the
cloud and storm; some day it will shine out, and a million rush-lights
will not be able to extinguish it. There are others who
will call him traitor, and look, perhaps, with pity and contempt
upon this page which claims for him a noble place among the
illustrious figures shining all along the coasts of history like
beacon lights above the storm. Traitor let it be; one hundred
years ago there were many in the South, and they fought over
the same ground. Had the old Revolution failed, those men
would have lived for ever, as Hampton and his associates in the
recent conflict will. “Surrender,” written at the end of this
great history, cannot mar its glory; failure cannot blot its splendour.
The name and fame of Hampton will endure as long as
loyalty and courage are respected by the human race.