CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ROCKBRIDGE ARTILLERY.
The Rockbridge Artillery—the immediate cause of Dr. Pendleton's
entering into active service—was so intimately associated
with him during the first months of that service, and retained the
influence of that association in so marked a manner throughout
its after-career, that a special mention of it is a necessary part of
the story of his military life.
The original roster of the company, as mustered into service
on the 12th of May at Staunton, is still preserved. There were
four commissioned officers,—Captain Pendleton and Lieutenants
John B. Brockenborough, William McLaughlin, and William T.
Poague,—nine non-commissioned officers, and sixty-three privates.
A total of seventy-six. A large proportion of them
were men of good social position, of education and high moral
tone; and the tradesmen, artisans, and farmers among them were
the best of their class. Most of them were young, but here and
there was seen a head tinged with gray, like that of their reverend
captain.
As soon as it was known that Dr. Pendleton had taken charge
of a company numbers of young men from other parts of the
State came to join his command. Anxious parents sent their
sons to be under his care and training, and students from the
colleges and theological seminaries were attracted to it as containing
congenial spirits. It soon became conspicuous for discipline,
skilful gunnery, and thorough trustworthiness, and maintained
these characteristics throughout the war. Its excellence
as a training-school was so well appreciated that forty of its
members received commissions. Most of these were assigned
to duty with other commands, and were everywhere recognized
as reliable and efficient officers. Not a few of the best and bravest
fell in battle. The important and responsible positions now filled
by many of the survivors, in civil life, as lawyers, physicians,
clergymen, professors, and merchants, serving their State on the
bench and in the Legislature, still attest the admirable material
which went to the forming of this distinguished band of soldiers.
Their history while under Captain Pendleton can best be gathered
from his letters and reports.
The first letter, narrating their arrival at Harper's Ferry and
warm welcome by Colonel Jackson, is missing. It told of their
being temporarily quartered in a church. The building was
already occupied by the "Grayson Dare-devils," who, wishing to
show their hospitality, assigned the pulpit to Captain Pendleton
as the lodging most suitable for him.
May 21 he wrote to his wife,—
"We are all well and tolerably comfortable. Things are
threatening, but we are pretty well prepared, and will no doubt
acquit ourselves well."
Three days later, May 25, to his brother-in-law, Mr. Meade,
he says,—
"I can readily make room for your boys in my company, because
it may be increased to one hundred, and thus allow us two
more guns,—six instead of four. I do not know of any company
where the associations and influences are as good as in mine. I
have prayers at
reveille roll-call every morning, and in my quarters
every night for such officers and men as may choose to
attend, and on Sunday I shall regularly preach. We have a
number of pious men in the company, and this, added to my care
for the morals of the whole, furnishes a salutary influence more
or less felt by all. Perhaps this artillery service is the most
dangerous, as it is, in case of need, the most useful. . . . My
battery is ready for duty, except for want of horses. We need
some eighty of these to make four guns fully efficient.
[1]
They
are ordered, and will be here in a few days."
To his wife, the same day, he says,—
"General Joseph E. Johnston has arrived from Montgomery
and taken command. Jackson may be ordered elsewhere.
Sandie wrote me he had accepted his commission as second
lieutenant, Provisional Army of Virginia. If that army can't be
raised he must serve in some other capacity. He says he has
asked for three weeks to try for his degree, and is hopeful,
though not quite sure of it. Edwin Lee is also commissioned
first lieutenant".
The next letters are from "Camp Johnston," Berkeley County,
where a small infantry force and two guns of the battery had
been sent to watch the movements of the enemy and guard an
important road. To a Northern clergyman he writes,—
"Thus to take part in the dreadful work of death is to me
much the severest trial of my life. Loving peace, praying for
peace, preaching peace from the bottom of my heart, I find myself,
in the very name of the Prince of Peace, obliged to see my
own dear country subdued, disgraced, and ruined, and my wife
and daughters exposed to brutal outrage worse than death, or to
fight side by side with my only son, my son-in-law, my brothers,
and dearest friends of every grade, in defence of our hearthstones.
Do you blame me? Bishop Meade does not, I am
happy to know. Indeed, I have the best reason to say that,
were he twenty years younger, he too would feel constrained to
place himself in the van of the noble Christian heroes over whose
bodies your friends must pass in their conquest of Virginia."
"Camp Johnston, May 31, 1861.
"My Beloved Wife,—I write you again a hurried line.
You see we have changed our camp to a better place. I am
perfectly well, never in better health, and in all respects comfortable.
We have to be very vigilant, surrounded as we are by enemies,
—traitors in Virginia and others across the Potomac. . . .
My great motive is to do my duty, honor God, and do what good
service I can in the double capacity of soldier and minister of
Christ. I have arranged for general prayer in camp every evening
under the open sky in good weather. Edwin Lee has his
commission to-day, and is summoned to Harper's Ferry. The
other half of my company, with Bowyer Brockenborough, is, I
hear, sent to Shepherdstown."
"Near Winchester, June 18, 1861.
". . . Early in the morning, after a delightful rest on the grass
under some trees in a grove by the road-side, with Sandie lying
next me, I write you a hasty line. On Saturday morning, 15th,
we evacuated Harper's Ferry, everything valuable having been
removed and those articles destroyed that might serve the enemy.
That night we encamped two miles west of Charlestown. Next
morning we marched towards Martinsburg. My own prayers
and those with the company the only notice of the Sabbath, so
far as I know. This army is divided into brigades: Jackson has
command of the Virginia brigade, and my battery belongs to it.
Of course we have the post of danger, of defence, and of honorable
duty in general. The college company is in Winchester.
They will join our brigade. Sandie and Edwin Lee are both
well; the former drills at the guns with the privates. Edwin, as
Jackson's aide, has much to do."
". . . It is now just six, and I have had reveille roll-call and
prayers, have shaved, dressed, etc., and had breakfast! Pretty
good, is it not? Sandie is asked for by Jackson to attend to the
ammunition of this brigade, so that he will not remain with the
battery."
From a report of the battery the latter part of June we take
the following:
"This company has been in active service since its arrival at
Harper's Ferry,—on the 15th of May,—partly at that post, partly
near Williamsport, in Berkeley County, partly at Shepherdstown,
and partly with the entire command, under General Johnston,
after its removal from Harper's Ferry, and with the brigade, under
Colonel Jackson. It has thus had a large share of marching
and other laborious duty. Meantime, however, it has been drilled
with all the care and constancy practicable. It has suffered unusually
little from sickness or any casualties, has received a
number of additions to its ranks, and is in an excellent state of
discipline and efficiency."
To his daughter Mary on July 21:
". . . You will wonder how we get along in the rain without
tents. Most of the company have the tent-knapsack,—four or
more of which make quite a snug tent for as many persons. We
who have no provision of the kind have to scuffle as best we can.
I got a squad of men to put me up a frame for a shed, and then
covered it with the old table-cloth you had some of you put up in
my trunk, with a couple of sheets, and with my own and Bowyer's
blanket-shawls. By dint of all this we slept in safety and comfort;
have kept dry this rainy day, and hope, wet as is the night,
to keep snug through it.
"The enemy is making some movement on the other side of
the Potomac, and we hear rumors that he intends to cross the
river. . . . The boys stand it pretty well. They showed me a
letter to-day from your Aunt Fanny. Bishop Polk had been there,
and described the Great Bethel battle, which he witnessed. Your
aunt seems to think the Yankee soldiers a poor institution. But
all are not so. We must not despise them. More than a few
of them are determined men, however deluded. Did any of you
see the splendid comet last night? I saw it when returning from
head-quarters,—the brightest I ever saw, with a tail extending
perhaps forty or fifty degrees."
The "movement" of the enemy mentioned proved to be the
advance of Patterson's army across the Potomac. This was
checked by Jackson in what General Johnston calls "the affair
of Falling Waters," on the 2d of July. An account of this rencontre
is given in Captain Pendleton's letter to his wife, published
in the Lexington Gazette of the 18th:
". . . I had hardly given my letter of Tuesday into the hands of
the messenger when Colonel Jackson rode up to my quasi shelter
and desired me to have the battery immediately ready to advance.
Within fifteen minutes one regiment, Colonel Harper's, and our
battery were marching forward. Information had reached Colonel
Jackson that the enemy had forded the Potomac within the neck,
two miles below Williamsport, and were advancing on us in great
force. We proceeded some three miles to meet them; Colonel
Jackson wishing, however, rather to feel how strong they were and
to give them a little check than to give them battle in full. For
the latter we were much too far from the main body under General
Johnston. To prevent our risking too much, three of the guns
were halted on the road two miles below our encampment and
only one taken on a mile farther. There the enemy were seen.
Colonel Harper's regiment immediately deployed in the field on
the right of the turnpike, to engage the skirmishers spread out
there by the enemy. Colonel Jackson, with his staff, rode back
to the point in the road occupied by my gun, and directed me to
withdraw it farther to the rear, to a point better situated. Meantime
the enemy began to ply their artillery with great vigor, firing
around our little force a number of balls and shells. We, however,
quietly took our position and awaited the best moment for
opening fire with our single gun. That moment arrived when I
saw a body of horse, which seemed to be a squadron of cavalry
about to charge, on the turnpike about a half-mile in front of our
position. At that body I instantly had the gun directed, with
careful instructions how it should be aimed. In another instant
the messenger of death was speeding on its way. The effect was
obvious and decided. Not a man or a horse remained standing
in the road, nor did we see them again. . . . Our next shot was
aimed with equal care at one of their cannon in a field on the left
of the road. The effect was scarcely less. The gunners scattered,
and I am sure
that gun fired no more. Meanwhile the balls
whizzed by us with tremendous force and startling music. . . .
In the fight of the day we were all graciously preserved. Two
men only were killed and some eight or ten wounded. On the
other side we hear of a good many killed, besides fifty-five prisoners
taken by Colonel Stuart with his cavalry.
"Colonel Jackson's aides—Thomas Marshall, E. G. Lee, and
A. S. Pendleton—were much exposed carrying orders. David
Moore fired our gun, and J. L. Massie loaded it. . . . The order
from Richmond promoting Colonel Jackson to a brigadiership
has just arrived. He richly deserves it. His part the day of the
fight, as heretofore, was admirably performed. The enemy speak
admiringly of our artillery-firing of that morning: they ascribe
it all to four rifled cannon, although we fired only eight shot from
a common six-pounder."
The "instructions" for aiming the gun on this occasion were:
"Steady, now; aim at the horses' knees." Nor was this first
lesson on the importance of firing low lost upon the men who
afterwards proved themselves such efficient artillerists.
