Part 1 (1/2)
The Burning of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
by B. S. (Benjamin Shroder) Schneck.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The first edition of this work having been exhausted in a single month, my worthy and enterprising publishers have encouraged the preparation of a second without delay.
It is hardly necessary to say, that the first edition was prepared under exceedingly unfavorable circ.u.mstances. Mind and body were in a state of exhaustion. For a month, and longer, the hours of each day were so much taken up with new and exciting cares and duties, as to unfit one in great measure for either mental or physical effort. Hence the unpretending little book was ushered into existence with a felt sense of its deficiencies.
An honest effort at improvement has been made in the present edition. No small portion of redundant matter has been left out, thus affording room for various statements which were not at hand before. I may here direct special attention to the masterly ”Vindication of the Border” by Mr.
Apple, the spirited contribution from the facile pen of Mr. Bausman, and the excellent article by Mr. Shryock. I have with forethought chosen to introduce other witnesses, besides myself, to testify in regard to the matter in hand, rather than to have the public rely upon my testimony only.
The list of names, with the amount of losses by those who owned houses, were to have been omitted in this edition; but so numerous were the protests from valued friends against such a course, that it has been allowed to remain. The s.p.a.ce occupied by these details has, however, been reduced nearly one half, partly by employing smaller type, and partly by condensing the matter.
The engraving prefixed to the present edition, representing the burnt portion of the town, will, it is hoped, be acceptable to the reader. A steel plate engraving of the ruins of the town would have been given, if any satisfactory representation in so small a compa.s.s could have been furnished. But the judgment of the artist decided against its feasibility, and in favor of that herewith presented.[1]
B. S. S.
CHAMBERSBURG, Oct. 31st, 1864.
THE BURNING OF CHAMBERSBURG.
LETTER I.
MY DEAR FRIEND:
Your request to give you a succinct and, as far as may be, detailed account of the terrible calamity with which our town was visited on the 30th day of July, is received. You are pleased to say, that not only my long residence in the place, but the fact that I had, as on former occasions, so also during the present one, remained at home, gives me a right to speak on the subject, without fear of cavil or sneer from those who are ready, either from ignorance or something worse, to misrepresent the facts in the case, or apply the ill-timed weapons of ridicule and sarcasm against statements which have appeared in print.[2] Pa.s.sing by your other remarks, which I may be permitted to set down as emanating from personal partiality, I shall proceed to give you, as perfectly as I can, and as briefly as the subject will allow, a somewhat detailed account of the terrible disaster, with an honest endeavor to avoid all special pleading and overdrawn statements, dealing only in simple matters of fact, as far as I have been able to gather them, either from personal knowledge or unquestionable authority.
The Military Situation on the Border.
Before proceeding directly to the narration of the terrible catastrophe, it may be well to glance at the military situation on our border. This seems the more necessary from the fact, that a very large portion of the public prints have been misled into the belief, and consequently have unwittingly led their readers to believe that, ”if the citizens of Chambersburg had turned out to resist the enemy, the burning and pillage of the town could have been averted,” inasmuch as the rebel force, according to some statements, was very trifling, ”scarcely numbering two hundred men.” You, my dear friend, are laboring under this erroneous belief yourself. Allow me, therefore, to turn your attention to the following facts, which are well established, and which can be corroborated by any amount of evidence.
General Couch, the commander of this military division, had under his control a company of about one hundred men at Mercersburg, sixteen miles southwest from here, and a section of a battery of artillery in this place. This was the entire military force in the c.u.mberland Valley, under the control of our military commander, at the time. Several Pennsylvania regiments which had previously been organized for the defence of the border, through the efforts of our vigilant Governor, had been summoned by the General Government to Was.h.i.+ngton and the Potomac Army. One hundred men and two small cannon--that was all.
But you ask: ”Was not General Averill near enough to have prevented the rebels from executing their nefarious design upon your town? and, if so, why did not General Couch inform him of the situation of affairs, and urge him forward?” The answer is at hand. General Couch _did_ attempt to inform General Averill in time of the fact that the enemy, with a force about three thousand strong, had crossed the Potomac west of Williamsport, and was moving by way of Mercersburg and St. Thomas directly on Chambersburg.
Averill was encamped one mile from Greencastle (ten from Chambersburg) on Friday night, July 29. The first two messengers with despatches from General Couch, could not find him. The third messenger succeeded accidentally in finding him after midnight in a field. Averill only now discovered that he had been flanked by the enemy, and expressed himself greatly surprised and chagrined to the messenger at this state of things.
Whether he was to blame, it is not for me to say. It is sufficient for my purpose just now to know that, beyond two small cannon and one hundred men, we were _without any military protection_. And could the few hundred citizens of the place, most of them without firearms, be expected to make a resistance against such a force, and with six cannon planted on the hills overlooking the town? To ask the question is to answer it.
In reading over the two preceding paragraphs it occurred to me that the impression might have been made on your mind, that I wished to find fault with the General Government for removing from us all military protection on our border. I have no wish to do so in this letter. I am no military man, and hence am not so positive in my opinions as many other men, who are doubtless far more capable of forming a judgment in such matters. I merely mention the simple facts as they are patent to all who had the best opportunities of knowing the true state of things. So, too, in regard to both the Generals named. There is, since the burning of our town, a very strong feeling of disapprobation in our community and elsewhere against both, especially against General Couch. I cannot as yet share this feeling. I know how apt we are, especially when smarting under severe personal losses or grievances, to look around for some object upon which, or some person on whom, to lay the blame. For my part, I would rather err on the side of charity than on the side of unjust fault-finding and denunciation. I prefer, until better advised, to endorse the views of my friend Colonel A. K. McClure, himself one of the sufferers, and well posted in such matters. He says:
”General Averill possibly might have saved Chambersburg, and I know that General Couch exhausted himself to get Averill to fall back from Greencastle to this point. I do not say that General Averill is to blame, for he was under orders from General Hunter, and not subject to General Couch. He had a large force of the enemy in his front, and until it is clearly proved to the contrary, I must believe that he did his whole duty.”
These two sentences are guardedly worded. ”General Averill _possibly_ might have saved Chambersburg.” The enemy, under McCausland, Bradley Johnson, and Gilmore, let it be recollected, had at least three thousand cavalry, with artillery at command, eight hundred of the latter being in town, the rest within supporting distance. Johnson's command occupied the high eminence one mile west of the town with a battery. No better position could have been desired. They were flushed at the prospect of plunder and pillage; their horses were fresh and sleek; their men resolute and defiant. On the other hand, Averill and his men had been worn out and jaded by long and heavy marches in Western Virginia for a number of consecutive weeks. Their horses were run down, and many of them ready to die, so that two hundred and fifty of these last could not be taken any farther, but were left here to recruit. It is therefore only _possible_, scarcely probable, that, even if Averill's force of less than two thousand five hundred men had been here, a successful resistance could have been made under these circ.u.mstances. But Averill and his men were not here until several hours after the work of destruction was accomplished, and the enemy, gloating over his vengeful deeds, was miles away on the Western Turnpike, towards McConnellsburg.
Judge then, dear sir, how keenly we must feel the unjust reproaches heaped upon us by professed friends, after our houses are in ruins, our goods despoiled, and our hearts saddened at every step we take in beholding continuous squares of desolation in our once beautiful town. And reproaches _for what_? Because a picket guard of one hundred soldiers and a small number of citizens did not successfully resist more than three thousand[3] veteran cavalrymen, with cannon eligibly planted to lay waste the town without even coming into it. That commanding position once gained by the enemy, and the town was at his mercy, no matter what force of cavalry or infantry might have been in Chambersburg.
Reproaches--and from _whom_ and _whence_? From certain newspaper editors of New York; that same New York, which, with its population of half a million, could not quell its rabble mob last year, without having a part of the Potomac Army brought thither to guard some of the very newspaper offices from which those reproaches upon a helpless town in a neighboring State are now so unjustly heaped; those identical newspapers which have ever and anon sent forth paragraphs of bitter invective against Pennsylvania in general, and Chambersburg in particular, for the ”ill treatment of the New York militia” at the hands of our citizens.[4] New York is a great State, and counts its n.o.ble and good men by hundreds of thousands; but like every large State with large towns and cities, she also counts her thousands of depraved creatures in human shape. And I speak from personal knowledge, for they were quartered for weeks near my late residence, when I say that of all the soldiers who were in this community since the commencement of this war, none have left behind them such a bad moral odor as have many of these men. Drunkenness, wanton destruction of property, thieving, fighting and stabbing each other, (in some cases to death outright,) were frequent occurrences. And yet such men are not only allowed to vilify and abuse the people whom their misconduct has outraged, but certain New York sheets take up their cause and pour forth wormwood and gall upon the town, the community, and the State. Let a virtuous public p.r.o.nounce its verdict.