University of Virginia Library

105. CV.
RECOLLECTIONS OF “CAMP NO-CAMP.”

We spent the winter of 1862 at Moss Neck, an old mansion on
the crest of hills which stretches along the Rappahannock,
several miles below Fredericksburg.

Jackson's sojourn there will form a pleasant chapter in that
life of him which, sooner or later, will be written by a competent
person.

He occupied first a small outbuilding—a sort of office—hung
round with pictures of race-horses, game-cocks, and terriers
tearing rats. One day when Stuart came to see the General, he
said:

“I intend to have a drawing made of this room—game-cocks,
terriers, and all—and label it, “View of the head-quarters of the
famous Stonewall Jackson, showing the tastes and propensities of
the individual!”

At these jests of the great cavalier, Jackson always laughed
heartily. He had conceived a very great regard and affection for
Stuart—as a cavalry officer, he ranked him above all others in
that arm of the service.

Does the reader remember that fine cap worn at the battle
of Fredericksburg, with its band of gold lace? It was soon
denuded of its decoration. One day a little girl admired it, and,
drawing her to him, Jackson tore off the rich braid, placed it
like a coronet upon her curls, and enjoyed the delight which
his gift occasioned the child.

But these traits of the illustrious soldier will all, some day, be
delineated fully. I am not writing a life of General Jackson,
but the memoirs of Lieutenant-Colonel Surry.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Surry?” I think I hear the reader
exclaim: “Is there not a slight mistake?” Not at all,
may it please the worthy reader. About this time General
Jackson was made Lieutenant-General; his staff went up
one grade; and it seemed good to the War Department to
send Major Surry the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel and
A. A. G.—than which rank he never got any further during the
war.

So, after all that hard marching of the year 1862, we were
resting. It had been a memorable year, full of the thunder of
artillery, the crash of small arms, the clatter of sabres, the
cheers, yells, shouts, and groans of adversaries closing in the
breast-to-breast struggle—and I think that both sides were glad
to rest. It had been the first decisive trial of strength upon the
whole great arena of Virginia: and the opponents seemed to
have exhausted themselves. On the Federal side, scarcely a
single commander who had met Jackson remained. Generals
Banks, Shields, Fremont, Milroy, Pope, McClellan, and Burnside
had all disappeared. The baton had dropped from their
hands—their heads fallen—they had vanished from all eyes, amid

the smoke of disaster and defeat. Lee and Jackson still stood
immovable on the banks of the Rappahannock.

Had the country been as resolute as the army and the women,
the red battle-flag would float there still, instead of drooping
yonder, furled, with no hand to give it to the winds—furled and
dragged in the dust of defeat, but glorious forever!

During the winter I spent some days, on furlough, at Eagle's-Nest;
and whom should I meet there but a youth named
Charles Beverley—evidently intent on the capture of Miss Annie
Surry!

Charley's regiment was encamped not far from Port Royal,
and I strongly suspect that the youth was frequently absent
from roll-call, without the shadow of permission! He seemed
to think, however, that his hours at Eagle's-Nest more than
counterbalanced “extra duty” in the way of punishment—and I
soon saw that Annie had made up her youthful mind.

They are married now, reader, and Charley is a model husband.
So they vanish!

About the same time came the news of Will's marriage with
Jenny Clayton! That young lady had captured him—as Annie
had captured Charley—and a gilt-edged note, with a request for
the pleasure of our company, came by flag of truce, through the
lines! Will had written on it: “How are you, brother? I am
bagged at last!”—and he wrote the other day that Jenny was
the pearl of her sex.

But I am getting ahead too fast. Let me return to the old
days, and recall some of the faces and scenes which illustrated
them.

I was often at the jovial head-quarters of Stuart, on the Telegraph
road, a few miles from Fredericksburg. His flag had
been erected in a great field of broom-straw, sheltered by a
thicket of pines from the chill northwest winds; and against
the evergreens shone the white tents of the General and his
staff. In front of the head-quarters was a beautiful little
“Whitworth” gun of burnished steel—slender, delicate, and
graceful as a girl. Above stretched the arms of a great oak.
The horses were picketed beneath the pines, or in rude stables.

Couriers came and went. The red battle-flag fluttered in the
frosty breeze. From the large tent in the pines came the sonorous
voice or the ringing laughter of Stuart, that “flower
of cavaliers.”

In my visits I constantly saw something new in this man to
admire and love. He had the gayest humor, the warmest
heart, and the most generous temper. He possessed the rough
cavalry tendency to jests and practical jokes: would tease you, if
he could, upon any subject, and raise the laugh at your expense
without hesitation:—but you were welcome to “strike back,”
and as roughly as you could. It was give-and-take with the
trenchant swordsman, and you could not offend him. Writing
busily at his desk—then rising to walk up and down and hum a
song—lounging idly upon his bed spread on the ground, and
playing with his pets, two young setters he had brought in front
of him on his saddle, when he fell back from Culpepper—laughing,
jesting with his staff—so passed the hours of winter with
the brave cavalier at “Camp No-Camp.”

When weary of work or talk, he would mount one of his
horses, “Lady Margaret” or “Star of the East,” and set off
to serenade some lady—taking Sweeny along, with his banjo.

For Sweeny was there!—Sweeny in all his glory—with a new
“Yankee banjo,” the spoil of some captured camp, which he
forced to give forth now the gay songs of Dixie! It was
“The bonnie blue flag,” and “We are the boys that rode around
McClellian,” and “I wish I was in Dixie,” which Sweeny
played and sang, with his sad and courteous face unmoved by
the mirth; and these were always succeeded by “Sweet Evelina,”
“Faded Flowers,” “I lay ten dollars down,” and the
“Old Gray Hoss”—perennial favorites with the denizens of
“Camp No-Camp.”

You can see the worthy Sweeny—can you not, my dear
reader?—sitting there at the corner of the fireplace in the large
tent, his banjo on his knee, his fingers flying over the strings,
his foot keeping time, and only the ghost of a smile upon his
face as he advises you, “if you want to have a good time,” to
“jine the cavalry!”

And look! at the door yonder! Is not that gigantic figure,
with the flowing black beard, our old friend Hagan—Corporal
Hagan no longer, as his braid of a lieutenant shows? It is
Hagan, now lieutenant of the escort, and behind him are the
keen faces of Moonshine and Snakebug, couriers—with the
hawk look, keener even than Captain Bogy's for wagons,
spoils, and plunder generally. Hagan advances, salutes the
general and company with rigid military respect, and is soon
engaged in parrying the thrusts of the general's wit. He
relates as a pleasing incident—with lurking humor in his eye
and a voice like low thunder—how Moonshine, in an absent
moment, appropriated Snakebug's blanket; how Snakebug recovered
his property in his friend's absence, and accidentally
bore off Moonshine's boots, thereby “getting the dead-wood
on Moonshine;”—and then Hagan shakes all over with merriment,
the general laughs, Sweeny's banjo roars, a negro dances
a breakdown, amid shouts of applause, and the cavalry head-quarters
are in a state of perfect enjoyment.

There too was Pelham, now Stuart's chief of artillery; and
Farley, the celebrated partisan of South Carolina, one of his aides.

Stuart! Pelham! Farley! How many memories do these
words recall! As I murmur them I seem to hear again the accents
of the noble voices; to press the friendly hands—to greet
the dear dead comrades sleeping their last sleep!

Pelham, the brave, the true, the kindly, gentle spirit—I never
knew a human being of more stubborn nerve, or shrinking modesty.
His blue eye never fell before the stare of peril, but often
when you spoke to him. His color never faded in the hottest
hours of the most desperate fighting; but a word would often
confuse him, and make him blush like a girl. A native of the
great State of Alabama, he had the warm blood of the South in
his young veins; but I think he had come to love Virginia and
the faces here with a love as warm as that of her own children.
Virginia certainly loved him, her boy defender; but it was impossible
to know him and not love him. In that light blue eye
was the soul of truth and chivalry. The smooth, boyish face
was the veritable mirror of high breeding, delicacy, and honor.

I never knew a comrade more attractive—with a more delightful
gayety, naturalness, and abandon. Quick to resent an insult,
or to meet defiance with defiance, he was never irritable, and
had the sweetness and good-humor of a child—suspecting nothing,
and fearing no offence. His modesty did not change after
Fredericksburg, and when the whole army rang with that magnificent
compliment paid to the boy by the commander-in-chief,
in calling him “the gallant Pelham.” His spirit was too proud
and noble to be touched by arrogance. He was still the modest,
simple, laughing boy—with his charming gayety, his caressing
voice, and his sunny smile. On the slightest provocation, the
smooth cheeks were covered with the blush of diffidence. He
never spoke of his own achievements; and you would not have
known, had you been with him for a whole month, that he had
ever taken part in a single action. In Maryland, an old farmer
looked at his beardless face, his girlish smile, his slender figure,
and said to General Stuart, “Can these boys fight?”

And yet this “boy,” so young in years, was old in toils, in
marches, in hard combats, and desperate encounters. That light,
blue eye had looked unmoved upon the bloody scenes of the
first Manassas, Williamsburg, Cold Harbor, the second Manassas,
Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and those stubborn fights in which
Stuart's cavalry—unknown almost to the infantry—were constantly
engaged. This boy had fought his guns, at both battles
of Manassas, till the enemy were at their very muzzles; had held
his ground with one Napoleon, at Cold Harbor, against the hurricane
of shot and shell poured on him from the batteries near
McGee's house; had commanded all the artillery on the left at
Sharpsburg; held the ford at Shepherdstown, driving back,
hour after hour, the heavy masses of the enemy; and at Fredericksburg
had fought with that stubborn persistence, that unconquerable
nerve, which made the silent and unexcitable commander-in-chief
exclaim:

“It is glorious to see such courage in one so young!”

Such was his record—such the career of this shrinking
youth, who blushed when you spoke to him. Stuart loved him
like a brother, and after his death, when I was speaking one day

of him, the tears came to the eyes of the great cavalier, and he
turned away, unable to utter a word. He is dead now; his voice
will never more be heard—his laugh never sound again. He was
nothing to you, it may be, good reader—you never heard of him,
perhaps; or his name was only that of a brave boy who fought
his guns with dauntless courage upon many bloody battle-fields.
To me he was more. It was a friend of my heart that passed
away when Pelham fell—a comrade whom I loved, and who
loved me. When he passed from earth, amid that thunder of
artillery which he loved, the world somehow seemed drearier,
and the sunshine not so bright. The song of the birds was musical
no more; the glory of existence seemed to fade; Pelham
was dead, and there was no one left to take his place!

Observe how my memory leads me back to those old days, and
makes me linger in the haunted domain of the past—reviving the
gallant figures, listening again to the brave voices, and living
once more in the bright hours that are dead!

But what is left to us poor “paroled prisoners,” except memory?
Leave us that, at least, as we look upon the red battle-flag,
drooping from its staff, after so many splendid victories;
leave us this poor consolation of recalling the grand figures and
bright hours of the past!

Stuart, Pelham—both are dead now; and Farley, too, has
passed away, the bravest of the brave. I never saw his face before
the war, nor until the spring of 1862; but often I had heard
of a young man in the Army of the Potomac who had made himself
famous by his fearless scouting, his cool self-possession in
the hottest hours of battle, and his long, solitary expeditions into
the enemy's lines. I figured to myself, as I heard of his strange
adventures, his desperate combats, a rough, unpolished partisan,
with the instincts of a tiger and the manners of a bear; but
when I came to know him upon General Stuart's staff—here is
what I saw:

A young man of twenty-five or six, of medium height; athletic,
but graceful figure; soft dark eyes, low musical voice, and girlish
gentleness—there was Farley. He wore a sort of surtout of
dark cloth, around which was buckled constantly a belt containing

his pistol; handsome cavalry boots, and a brown hat with
a black feather. Sometimes he donned a splendid suit of Federal
blue—shoulder-straps and all—captured in the head-quarters of
General Casey at “Seven Pines;” but this was only by way of
amusement. His horse, his arms, his boots, his saddle, his belt,
his gauntlets, his hat—all were captured. He lived on the
enemy—despoiled them of all he needed: he had no commission,
drew no pay, and was poor, like all of us; but he wanted
nothing. The enemy supplied him.

When he needed any thing—a horse, a pistol, an “officer's
McClellan saddle”—or when the repose of head-quarters had
become tedious—he set out by himself, or with a small detail of
men, upon a private raid. Somewhere beyond the Rappahannock
he was sure to find the enemy; and he was as certain to
attack them. The bang of revolvers, the clash of sabres, the
cheer of defiance—then Farley retired, laughing in his silent
way, with his horses, arms, and saddles. He came back looking
better satisfied; and waited for the next occasion.

But I am lingering too long. The memory of this brave and
gentle cavalier leads me back to those old days when I knew
him. At “Camp No-Camp” I first became his friend. It was
impossible to imagine any one with a sweeter temper or a more
winning address. The soft dark eyes were full of gentleness and
candor; the smile upon the lips, shaded with a black mustache,
was charming; and the low, measured voice like music to the
ear. Often we wandered over the great fields of broom-straw
sighing in the winds of winter; and in these walks Farley told
me all his life. It was a brave, true heart which thus unfolded
itself before me; and under this modest exterior were the finest
traits of the gentleman. As the old chivalric poetry came sometimes
from his lips, and he repeated—

he was himself the ideal of that gallant cavalier. Modest,
kindly, brave as steel, and devoted to the South, his death was
another gap in the lives of those who loved him—a loss which
nothing can supply.

Do I weary you, kind reader, with my memories of Stuart,
Pelham, Farley, and those days long gone into the dust? I have
done. It was the recollection of the hours I spent at “Camp
No-Camp,” with Stuart, which beguiled me. When these men
passed away, with all their smiles, their laughter, their gay
voices and brave faces, something like a shadow seemed to fall
upon the landscape. I mourn them yet; and sometimes think a
portion of my heart is buried with them yonder, where they
sleep in peace—dead on the field of honor.