Part 39 (1/2)

7. What supplies were brought in by the Ad-Vance? How was salt obtained?

8. How did the Confederate government propose to obtain funds for carrying on the war?

9. What was the cause of the great depreciation in the value of money?

CHAPTER LIX.

THE DEATH-WOUND AT GETTYSBURG.

A. D. 1863.

In spite of the great Federal success in acquiring territory in North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere, and notwithstanding the increasing hards.h.i.+ps everywhere felt, the government and people of the Confederate States were still undismayed and hopeful when the spring of 1863 permitted the vast armies of the United States to resume active military operations.

No thought of submission was entertained by the Confederate soldiers, and among the people at home only in rare instances were individuals to be found who expressed hopelessness as to the result of the war.

2. In North Carolina a period of inactivity succeeded the raid by General Foster, which was only broken by the unsuccessful attack on the town of Was.h.i.+ngton. General W. B. C. Whiting, who had made reputation as a division commander in the Army of Northern Virginia, was sent to a.s.sume charge of the Department of the Cape Fear, with his headquarters in Wilmington. This city had been fearfully ravaged by yellow fever in the fall of 1862, and had now become all important to the Confederacy as a port. Other Southern sea ports were almost totally closed by blockade, and only at the Cape Fear was there left a hope of access.

3. Generals Braxton Bragg, D. H. Hill, Leonidas Poll, and Benjamin McCulloh had all risen to prominent commands and conferred honor by their connections with the Old North State.

Among the younger officers, Generals Pender, Hoke, Pettigrew and Ramseur had all won distinguished notice and promotion for gallant and meritorious service.

4. Many thousands had been enrolled in the sixty-six regiments and ten battalions of North Carolina mustered in the Confederate service, and, though mourning was in many households, recruits were constantly going to fill the gaps occasioned by deaths on the field and in the hospitals. Dr. Charles E. Johnson had been succeeded as Surgeon General of the State by Dr. Edward Warren.

Drs. E. Burke Haywood, Peter E. Hines, W. C. Warren and others of the leading physicians were placed in charge of great hospitals at Raleigh and other cities in the State. North Carolina sustained a similar inst.i.tution at Petersburg, in Virginia. Of the latter the excellent lady, Miss Mary Pettigrew, a sister of the general of the same name, became matron; and, like another Florence Nightingale, cheered the sick and dying with her elegant presence.

5. General Burnside lost his place by his disaster at Fredericksburg, and was followed in command of the Army of the Potomac by General Joseph Hooker. This gallant commander was as signally beaten at Chancellorsville on May 2d and 3d. No battle of any age conferred greater honor upon the victors; but in the loss of Stonewall Jackson the South was deprived of a leader whose place could not be supplied. North Carolina was never more gloriously vindicated than on this famous field, and ex-Governor Graham, who was then in Richmond, said, a few days afterwards, in the Confederate States Senate, that half the men killed and wounded at Chancellorsville belonged to North Carolina regiments.

6. So astonis.h.i.+ng was the result of this battle, and so crus.h.i.+ng its effects upon the Federal authorities, that General Lee again resolved upon an invasion of the North. The invasion proved a failure, and after several severe battles General Lee was forced to return, with his defeated army, to Virginia. It was on that last dread day, the 3d of July, at Gettysburg, that he discovered that even his incomparable infantry could not accomplish everything he desired.

7. Thirty thousand of the bravest and best, who had so long made the Army of Northern Virginia unconquerable, were lost to our cause forever. Among the North Carolinians, Generals Pender and Pettigrew, Colonels Burgwin, Marshall and Isaac E. Avery were slain, and a host of subalterns likewise perished.

8. Another great disaster happened at this time in the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, with the army there under command of General Pemberton, involving as it did the occupation of so large a portion of the Confederacy. These great losses, occurring as they did on the same day, and so vitally affecting our strength, were never retrieved, and from that day Southern fortunes waned, with occasional flickerings of hope, until the close at Appomattox.

9. But many gallant struggles were yet to be made. On different fields the great forces of the Union were to be bravely repelled, but the ranks of General Lee's army were so much thinned that it became daily more impossible to confront the increasing horde that gathered against it from all civilized nations. But the policy of attrition and exhaustion was not to be seen in full force until the next year.

10. During the month of June, Colonel Spear's cavalry raid in Hertford and Northampton counties was driven back by General M.

W. Ransom, and, beyond this, there were no movements of a hostile character in the State limits during the year.

QUESTIONS.

1. In what condition was the South in 1863?

2. How was the port of Wilmington specially important to the Confederacy? Who was in command at this place?

3. What North Carolinians are mentioned as having risen to prominence?

4. How many regiments had the State furnished up to this time?

Who succeeded Dr. Charles E. Johnson as Surgeon General of the State? What doctors had charge of the hospitals? What n.o.ble woman is mentioned, and what is said of her?