of Lewisburg, in the direction of Staunton. At the same time, General Moor, who was at Beverly, was directed to march towards Staunton, and Colonel Wells, who was at Harper's Ferry, was sent up the Shenandoah Valley. These different bodies moving simultaneously with Averill, led the Confederates to think that Staunton was their common objective point. General Averill was well acquainted with the country, for he had been nearly to Salem in November. He knew that General Imboden, with one thousand five hundred troops, was near Harrisonburg, twenty miles north of Staunton; that General Echols was west of the town, with another large force; that General Jones was somewhere in the vicinity, with another brigade. The troops selected for the movement mustered one thousand five hundred, and had six cannon. They left New Creek the first week in December, and moved south to the little village of Petersburg. A young lady, Miss Sallie Cunningham, who was ardently devoted to the Confederate cause, lived at Moorfield, and was visiting friends at Petersburg. She galloped home as fast as her horse would carry her, wrote a note, and sent it by a messenger to General Imboden, informing him of the movement of the Union troops, and said that there were six thousand of them. Imboden concluded that Averill was intending to strike Staunton. The information was telegraphed to General Lee at Gordonsville, who sent General Early to Staunton to take command, and directed Fitz-Hugh Lee to hasten there with his division of cavalry. General Averill detached Thoburn's brigade and sent it towards Staunton, while he himself moved rapidly south with his selected troops, and was far on his way towards Salem before the Confederates comprehended his design. The weather became suddenly cold, the mercury sinking to zero, rain, sleet, and snow falling, the wind blowing a gale; but on, day and night, moved the cavalcade, with brief halts for rest. General Averill had taken few supplies, trusting that he could obtain hay and grain, but the horses had scant fare. They ascended steep mountains, over almost impassable roads. It was in the evening when they came to a house where there was a wedding. The building was surrounded, and several of the guests who were in Confederate uniforms were greatly surprised to find themselves prisoners. A bountiful supper had been prepared, which the Union soldiers ate, and not the wedding-guests. The bridegroom, being a Confederate soldier, was taken prisoner, whereupon the bride, with true allegiance and loyal love, determined to keep him company, and marched by his side to Salem, where General Averill released him, which made the bride very happy. On the 16th of December the division reached Salem, having marched two hundred miles. General Averill found two thousand barrels of flour, ten thousand bushels of wheat, one hundred thousand bushels of shelled corn and oats, with a great quantity of meat, salt, clothing, shoes, and other articles. The soldiers helped themselves to whatever they most needed; the negroes and poor people were allowed to help themselves to flour and bacon, and the rest was burned. All the buildings containing Confederate stores were destroyed, but General Averill prohibited all pillaging, and his discipline was very strict. Most of the people of Salem were heart and soul with the Confederacy and kept aloof from the troops, but a woman with a pale face came to Captain Ewing, commanding the artillery, and asked if she might take the flag of the battery a moment. The sergeant placed the Stars and Stripes in her hands. This Captain Ewing's account: "I can never forget her look, as she eagerly and passionately folded it to her bosom, as a mother would her long-lost child when restored to her arms. For several minutes she remained sobbing aloud, and at last when she gave it back, it was with bright smiles through tears of real joy and gladness.”(*) The railroad track was torn up and the telegraph destroyed, and the object of the movement had been accomplished. The return was one of terrible hardship and suffering, toiling over unfrequented roads, ascending mountains by zigzag routes, pulling the cannon up by ropes, fording rivers filled with floating ice, or wading through mountain torrents. Guerillas and small bodies of Confederate cavalry were hovering on his flank, assailing his rear, or gathering in front. The troops could not stop to build fires to dry their clothes, which turned to icy coats of mail. There could be only short halts. They reached Greenbrier River, which was filled with floating ice-huge cakes swiftly sweeping past. It seemed impossible to cross it, but the order was imperative, and then came the plunge of the horses, the struggle in the current. The whole command finally reached the western shore, and was in a position where, at last, they could rest, for two routes were open to them--one northward to Beverly, the other west down the Great Kanawha. The Confederates had been foiled in all their efforts to cut them off, and on Christmas-day, weary and worn, haggard for want of sleep and rest, the column entered Beverly, where a full supply of food awaited them. No Christmas feast of roast beef and plum-pudding, cake and wine, could compare with the bacon, hard-bread, and coffee which the soldiers of Averill's command ate and drank on that Christmas evening, sheltered at last in their tents from the howling storm and the bitter cold amid the Alleghanies. NOTES TO CHAPTER XXIV. (1) Walker, History of the Second Army Corps," p. 321. THE CHAPTER XXV. CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1863. HE Southern States had seceded from the Union to maintain the Rights of the States;" but if a State could sever its relations with the Union for any cause, why might not a county secede from a State? The people of Jones County, in Mississippi, began to discuss the question in the summer of 1862. The county is in the south-eastern part of the State, seventy-five miles from Mobile, and comprises nearly twenty townships. The land is not fertile, the entire region being made up of pinebarren and swamps, traversed by winding creeks bordered by almost impenetrable thickets. The streams trend southward, and find outlet in Pascagoula Bay. In 1860 the inhabitants numbered 3323-the white male population being 1492. They were lumbermen, who earned a living by cutting the tall pine-trees and rafting the lumber to tide-water, or gathered tar and turpentine. They were opposed to the war, and when the Confederate Congress passed the act of conscription, which would compel those liable to do military duty to serve in the army, they determined to secede from Mississippi and set up a government of their own. They assembled in convention at the county court - house, in Ellisville, and passed an ordinance of secession, which reads as follows: "Whereas, the State of Mississippi has seen fit to withdraw from the Federal Union for reasons which appear justifiable; "And whereas we, the citizens of Jones County, claim the same right, thinking our grievances are sufficient by reason of an unjust law passed by the Congress of the Confederate States of America, forcing us to go to distant parts, etc., etc. "Therefore, be it resolved, that we sever the union heretofore existing between Jones County and the State of Mississippi, and proclaim our independence of the said State, and of the Confederate States of America; and we solemnly call upon Almighty God to witness and bless this act." Nathan Knight was This occurred in Jefferson Davis's own State. elected President of the "Jones County Confederacy."() He had little education, but much common-sense. The people had confidence in him, for he was honest, brave, energetic, and resolute. Members of Congress and Senators were elected and laws passed, which were written out and posted on the trees along the roads, for there was not a printing-press in the county. The population increased very rapidly. Men who wanted to escape the conscription fled to Jones County, which had thus thrown off its allegiance to Mississippi and the Confederacy. Union men flocked thither to find refuge from persecution amid its swamps. Deserters from the army, who were tired of fighting, made their way to Ellisville with their muskets, to become citizens and soldiers of the "Jones County Confederacy," as the new government was styled. In a short time the population increased, it is said, to twenty thousand.() Some of the people of the county were Confederates. The Confederate Government had passed laws against aliens, and had confiscated the property of Northern people. President Jefferson Davis had issued a proclamation in regard to aliens, and President Knight accordingly issued his proclamation requiring all aliens to leave the county. Some who did not go were shot and their buildings burned. An army was organized, and all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five enrolled. No Confederate conscription officer dared to venture into President Knight's dominion. Provisions were needed, and the soldiers of the Jones County Confederacy made a raid upon the surrounding counties of the Southern Confederacy, and returned with a herd of cattle and pigs; and a train of wagons loaded with supplies for the Confederate army was captured. The State of Mississippi, with its authority thus set at defiance, sent General Lowery with a force to crush out the government of President Knight, which met with a stubborn resistance. The seceders retreated to the swamps, and maintained their defiant attitude to the end of the war. Secession for the maintenance of State rights had its legitimate and natural outcome in the action of the people of Jones County. No doubt this secession of a county from his own State was a great mortification to the President of the Southern Confederacy. The year 1863 was closing. Far different the outlook on the last day of December from what it was on the morning of January first, when the cannon were thundering in the undecided battle of Stone River. In the opening chapter of this volume we saw that to the people of the Union it was a day of uncertainty and gloom; but with the victories of the year the despondency and doubt had disappeared, and they looked forward to a radiant future, with deepening convictions of the ultimate restoration of the Union and the wiping out of slavery, which had brought about the war. |