Soldier's Stories

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McCutchan describes the gathering of troops in the Valley, near Winchester, the "darkest hour of the Confederacy," and the need for patriotic spirit and determination to fight.

Camp near Mt. Jackson

March 13, 1862


Dear Sister;

I would have answered yours & Kates letter some time ago, but have been on the trot for most a month & you know perhaps that marching & baking minnie biscuits, & boiling b--l beef & writing letters don't (suit) so well together. We had to leave Winchester but we didn't practice the "double quick retrograde movement" that the Yankees did when they left Bull Run -- Old Banks thought to distinguish himself by begging "Old Jack" but he finds an affinity between Gen. Jackson & the Irishman's Flea - "When he goes to put his finger on him he aint thar". & I'll bet my head "agin" a rotten rail that if old Banks comes up the Valley very far he will get into a bag himself.
It looks pretty hard though to leave the finest portion of the Valley to be overun by the Enemy & of course hundreds of good loyal seccionists must be trample upon & insulted by a cruel and relentless foe.

But there will be a time & I don't think it far distant when the Hessians will be glad to stay on the North side of the Potomac.

They are in large force now in Winchester not less than twenty thousand I suppose I don't know how many Gen. Jackson has & I suppose no one knows but Jackson himself. Though we haven't half as many as the enemy. I heard this evening that there were 15,000 on the march to reenforce us. I don't know where they are, where they are coming from, from Eastern Virginia I suppose. I think we will go to Staunton now, I hop so for I will be in town then as saucy as a boy with a (bucket?) full of rocks.

This is a grand encampment where we are now, as pretty as any we have ever been at yet. Most all of our company have reenlisted I haven't & I don't intend to do it, but I mean to stay & fight for my country & her rights ( ) to my friends and to this World that my service can't be bought for fifty dollars. This is the darkest hour the Confederacy has ever seen. Now is the time for every (son or one?) & patriot's spirit to rally 'round the Bonnie Blue Flag & fight & never cease to fight while there is an enemy South of Mason's & Dixon's line.

I am well. Write soon. Direct to Mt. Jackson whether we are gone from there or not.



I remain as ever your Affect Brother


J.R. McCutchan

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Petersburg Front, June 15-18, 1864
The Yankees attacked Petersburg on June 15, 1864. Gen. Beauregard held them off and gave the army time to bring in help, General Gracie's brigade, Three hard days of fighting were about to begin.

Gracie's Fifty-Ninth Alabama Regiment arrived by train as ordered as they were needed immediately. Yankee assaults were getting furious and around dusk, a rash attack by a division of the Union's Ninth Corps breached another section of the line. They took Battery 14, which had been held bravely by Gen. Henry A. Wise's command. Gracie's brigade arrived and was ordered straight to the front of the battle. The Yankees were shooting grapeshot and canister fire into their lines. Gracie's brigade occupied a part of the line that had no protection for it.
Yankee sharpshooters were very good at hitting their targets. Then, all at once, the Yankees yelled and charged the Confederates' entire line with the Eighteenth and the Ninth Corps. These Yankees would lose greatly during this effort.

Wise's brigade was giving in to the pressure, but then the Fifty-Ninth came in at about the time Brig. Gen. Steven Elliot's brigade gave way. They charged in on the double-quick, moving to the left where the line quickly succumbed. They advanced some distance across the Yankee breastworks. The soldiers of the Fifty-Ninth fought alone and were compelled to retreat. They fought until the Yankees were in their rear and had captured the Confederate works on the left side of the South's position. The regiment suffered: 62 men killed and 53 wounded--only one month after the Battle of Drewry's Bluff. Sgt. John Hall remarked, "Many more fights like this one will wipe us all out."

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General Beauregard's reports of Gracie's Brigade: "Its presence before outlines swelled the enemy's aggregate to about 90,000, against which stood a barrier of not even 10,000 exhausted, half-starved men, who had gone through two days of constant hard fighting and many sleepless nights in the trenches."

"Then along the whole front occurred a series of assaults and counter charges creditable to the courage and enterprise of both sides, yet so confused that an attempted narrative would be [necessarily] share that confusion. Suffice it say, that at dusk the Confederate lines were pierced, and the troops crowding together in disorder, irreparable disaster seemed imminent, when suddenly in the dim twilight a dark column was described mounting swiftly from the ravines in rear, and Gracie's gallant Alabamians, springing along the crest with fierce cries, leaped over the works, captured over fifteen hundred prisoners, and drove the enemy pall-mell from the disputed point. Then the combat broke out afresh, from the enemy, with reason, felt that chance alone had foiled them of decisive success, and despite the darkness, the fight raged with unabated fury until past midnight. The number of Yankees killed and captured numbered more than the 59th had fighting" (U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion).

General Beauregard would move to a different location. On June 18, General Lee arrived where the Northern army was moving into position. There, they threw back the Yankees' assaults with heavy losses.--(From Gracie's Alabama Volunteers, John Michael Burton, Pelican Publishing, pp. 73-74)

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An assistant surgeon from Coosa County, Alabama, John Dixon, wrote to his sister in June 1864:

"Last night I was up until midnight tending to the wounded. The next day which was the Sabbath after roll call and when all had been accounted for a Division Chaplain ask me if he could have services in our tent hospital. There was a large congregation on hand to listen. The men were not dressed in fine clothes and they looked dirty and ragged with at least a hundred or more with bleeding wounds which told of their dutires. Their faces were not pleasant to look at, but compassionate to their preachers voice. As he preached to the men their humble hearts would melt and he was giving them hope in this awful place we call the trenches. While the gospel was coming forth while cannon shot was exploding all around us and the sound of the min[n]nie balls were flying about our ears. The men just went right on listening as if they were in the finest churches back home"
(Auburn University Archives). (Dixon would be one of the fortunate to return home in one piece in 1865.)

[Alabaman]

Dear Thea,

I've enjoyed your posts very much. Are you finding these soldier's letters online (can they be read online?) or at the Auburn University Archives? I would like to read them online if possible. I've accessed 'Aubie' in past years but only rec'd info on what Auburn has to offer. I'm interested to find at Auburn any letters, memoirs &etc., on the 45th, 33rd, 16th Infantry Regt's or any regiment of Lowrey's Brigade of Cleburne's Division; or of the 34th Ala. Infantry. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Alabaman

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No, Rob, some of these letters came from a Christmas gift I received called Gracie's Alabama Volunteers, The History of the Fifty-Ninth Alabama Volunteer Regiment, John Michael Burton, Pelican Publishing 2003.

The author's great-great-grandfather, William Tate Burton volunteered at age 29 and was with Gracie's regiment for the entire war. When injuries kept him from active combat, he served the regiment in the demanding and dangerous role of teamster, or mule skinner, driving the heavy wagons filled with crucial artillery and other supplies.

This book also includes vintage photographs, excerpts from soldiers' letters and complete muster rolls for the regiment.

But for some of my soldiers stories I do find them online.
You can try: http://docsouth.unc.edu/true/browse/...g.html#letters for starters.
Also for Dawna's thread on the Christmas letters, I went to this site:
http://etext.virginia.edu/civilwar/hius403/browse/ CHRISTMAS LETTERS


Hope this helps and I hope that you and your family have a wonderful New Year and that your health will improve. -T-

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John Pelham of Alabama served with great skill and courage as an artillery officer under Confederate Major Gen. James Ewel Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart. Gen. Lee praised praised him as "the gallant Pelham" in his report on the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. But Pelham's promising military career was cut short, when , on March 17, 1863, he was killed at the age of 24 while participating in a cavalry charge at Kelly's Ford, Va. At Lee's request, the young major was promoted posthumously to lieutenant colonel. Thousands of Southerners came to pay their final respects to the blond, blue-eyed officer as his body lay in state in the capitol at Richmond before being interred in Jacksonville, Alabama.

Like many other Southerners, Pelham and his fervently Confederate family had close relatives in the North who were ardent abolitionists. In Pelham's case it was an aunt, Martha Coffin Pelham Wright, and her daughter, Marianna Pelham Mott. In April 1861, Pelham visited them in Philadelphia as he traveled home from West Point, where he was a cadet, to take up arms against the Union.

Pelham and his eldest brother, Charles, a lawyer, had kept up a faithful and sometimes heated correspondence with their Northern kin in the months leading up to secession and war--Charles writing from Alabama and John from West Point. The selection of letters that follows offers a glimpse at the hostility that developed in the Pelham family as a result of Abraham Lincoln's election as president and the Southern states' move toward secession. The letters have been lightly edited for clarity. (My War Diaries, Letters and Memoirs, The Gallant Pelhams and their Abolitionist Kin by Charles and John Pelham--as seen in CIVIL WAR TIMES, Vol. XLII, No. 4, pp. 20,21.)

Dec. 6th, 1860
Aunt Martha,
From some cause you fail'd to ans. my last letter, but as you are now probably rejoicing over yr. late victory [Lincoln's election], you will pardon me for writing to you. We don't feel mortified at our defeat. I for one rejoice that we have an oppy. for "precipitating the cotton states into a revolution."

I have tho't for a long time that we wd. get along more amicably as two independt nations--and your party think so too. The conflict [irrepressible] has indeed begun; if we of the S. [South] are crushed out, we will never complain. It is now settled beyond a doubt, that Alabama will secede alone, if she must--but we hope to carry out ten states. Our citizens were very indignt, 20 days ago, but since there is no opposition to secession, every thing is quiet--and we all feel confident that we will soon have a glorious "Southn Confederacy, with our own gallant & brave William L. Yancy for our Prest. Some of us regret to leave the Union of our fathers (I am not one of that number, however) but no alternative presents itself; and hereafter we will regard & hold the No. [North] as we do the balance of mankind--"friends in peace, enemies in war."

If the S. had submitted to Lincoln's election, I intended to have sold what few negroes I now have, & have gone to the North West. But I am proud to say that our people have enough of the spirit of our forefathers, to resist oppression, & to throw off the chains wh. wd. make them the slaves of a tyrannizing majority.

I remember that you were an adherent of Freemont [John Charles Fre'mont, the first presidential candidate of the new Republican Party in 1856], four years ago. I have not heard from you in a long time, & hope you have seen fit to change yr. opinions in regard to the institution of Slavery, & that in the last race you were opposed to Lincoln; I scarcely hope it either, but wish it were true.

If any of my former letters offended you, I now ask yr. forgiveness. I had hoped to see you again, before this, & make an apology, but now, it is too late. If I ever go North now, it will not be on an errand of love.

Our frds. have secured bro. John a high position in the 1st Battalion of the Ala. Corps of Volunteers, & if I can get a good office, I shall join the Army. I guess there will not be much lawing down here for several years to come. I regret very much that you, or anyone who is related to a Pelham, lives N., of 36degrees30', [roughly the North Carolina/Virginia border], for I shall rejoice to hear of the bread mobs, the wails & groans of starving operatives in the N. as much as I will to see Alabama take a high position among the Nations of the Earth. Nothing wd. give me more pleasure than to see you & my cousin Marianna settled [in] the South--till then I must bid you a long farewell, for on the 3rd day of March next, the copartnership existing between the Sovereignty of Alabama & the Union, will be dissolved.

Your nephew
Chas. Pelham

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(My War Diaries, Letters and Memoirs, The Gallant Pelhams and their Abolitionist Kin by Charles and John Pelham--as seen in CIVIL WAR TIMES, Vol. XLII, No. 4, pp. 21,59.)

West Point, N.Y.
March 18th/'61

Dear Cousin,
I suppose you will think it quite strange that I am still here--it appears strange even to me, yet it is nevertheless so.

But how much longer I will remain is quite impossible for me to say--future events will decide what course I will pursue. I am very anxious to graduate, the family exceedingly so. Almost all the Cadets from the Seceding States have resigned.

It has been so long since I heard from you, I am afraid your old address will not do. I would like very much to visit you again before I return to my home, both on my account, and on my father's. He says whenever I leave I must be sure to stop a while with you. If he had not expressed such a wish I would have been certain to do so. When can I see you if I leave here before June? And where about the 15th of June? I will graduate in June if I remain till then.

Give my best love to my little Cousins. I love them more than any of my other cousins--far better.

Give my respects to Mr. Mott.

Affectionatley
Your Cousin
Jno.Pelham

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West Point, N.Y.

March 26th / '61


Dear Cousin,

I am just in receipt of your kind letter of the 23rd inst. I would like above all things to meet your Mother and Sister in Phila--it may be the only opportunity I will ever have of seeing them. I am most anxious to see them but can not say when I will leave. If I remain to get my diploma I will have to wait till 15th June. But whether I will stay till then is the question. I am not master of my own acts at present I have been appointed a 1st Lieutenant in the Army of the "Confederate States of America". My appointment has been confirmed by the Congress. The appointment was made without my consent or knowledge. I cannot accept an appointment from them as long as I am a member of this Institution, but if I am recalled by the Authorities, I will obey it. I have thus far resisted every overture, on the part of my friends, to resign, disregarded part of my friends, to resign, disregarded their advice and braced their anger. My father and brothers alone wished me to graduate. I had no idea I was so well supplied with friends. All seemed to vie with each other in attempting to force me to resign. I have worked almost five years for my diploma, and it pains me to give up the undertaking now--besides all this, it chagrins me to be forced to leave an undertaking unfinished. I believe there are only two cadets here at present from the seceded States, Myself and a classmate from Texas. We will leave together in June--or before, as the fates will it. We have been living together for three or four years , and I feel like were are inseparable--like his presence is necessary to my happiness. If we leave before June, it will be in about two weeks. You must allow me to introduce him,


I suppose you have heard of Bro. Charles' Marriage, through Aunt Ann or some of our Kentucky Kin. I believe Aunt Martha knew Bro. Chas--if so, tell her, he married one of the nicest ladies in Ky. So they all write--I have never seen her.


I had a letter from Henry Pelham a few days since, he says all are well in Ky. Sister is almost crazy about her Sister [Charles' wife, her sister-in-law]--it is the first she has ever had. I think it would be doing her a kind and brotherly act to present her with another, but none of the girls will have me. It is the most unacountable thing I ever heard of--don't you agree?


I can let you know definitely in a week or two whether I will have the pleasure of visiting you before you leave Phila.

If anything could compensate me for giving up my dearest object--graduating--it is the pleasure I would have in visiting your family, your Mother & Sister.

Tell Cousins Belle and Emily [Marianna's teenage daughters] we may get another ride together--and then I will teach them to ride like Cavalry officers. Give them my best love. Remember me kindly to Mr. Mott.

Affectionately
Jno. Pelham
__________________________________________________ _______________
Pelham resigned from West Point on April 22, 1861. After meeting with his aunt and cousin in Philadelphia, he took up his position in the Confederate forces as an artillerist and participated in many bloody battles before his life was cut short by a piece of exploding shell.

His five brothers, including Charles, all served in the 61st Alabama Partisan Rangers. Martha's son, William Pelham Wright (Marianna's half brother) , served as a Union artillery officer and faced his cousin John across numerous battlefields. Af the passions of the war had subsided, Martha resumed correspondence with Charles. In the letter below, he confirms that the nephew she met in Philadelphia in 1861 was indeed the famous "Gallant Pelham."

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Talladega, Ala.
12th July 1869

My Dear Aunt,
Your kind note of the 7th was received yesterday. I had never heard one word directly or indirectly from you or cousin Marianna since bro. John was in Philada. in '61. You are correct in supposeding that the "gallant Pelham" was the young Cadet who called on you at Mr. Mott's. He was killed at the head of the 4th Va. Cavalry at Kelly's Ford, 17 Mch. '63 and if you would like to know some thing of the record he made I will order (from New York)some of the histories and incidents of the war which will give you an idea of what he did. Marianna comes back I should like for her to see them. Now that the Government is safe & slavery is abolished it would seem that one could read of the courage and daring of a relative though (he was) engaged in a cause that did not meet one's approval. Some day the world will recognize the difference between men "who precipitate a rebellion" and those who "go with their state".

My father & Mother are still living--both in fine health. They have two of the boys at home with them and with a few hired hands and the improved labor saving machines and farming implements cultivate all the land they formerly cultivated with 30 negroes. When I was elected, five of Pa's former slaves voted for me. [Charles was a judge at this time, and may have been referring to his election as such.] Pa and the boys at home were inclined to joke me about it for a long time, but I believe every body is getting accustomed to the changed conditions.

I would write you sheet after sheet of news if I thought it would interest you or if I could write as plainly as you do, but will only add a few lines about myself. I am what you would call a "reconstructed reb." I voted for the adoption of the State Constitution under the reconstruction measures of Congress & for Genl. Grant as the best means of restoring the country to peace & quiet. The paper I send you is the only Republican Paper in this portion of the state. I own one fourth of the Stock in "the Sun publishing association" and was elected its Editor but am not generally known as such--and rarely ever write anything for it & only direct its political course. My official duties only require nine weeks of my time in the spring & ten in the fall. I know a good many ex Federal officers in Florida & have promised one of them to take a hunt with him in Escumbra (Fla.) before a great while and I shall certainly hunt up your son [William Wright, wounded at Gettysburg and now living in Florida] when I go. I can & will offer him my sympathy and shall ask his, for I languished on a bed of excruciating pain for 8 months from a gunshot wound received in the engagement at Kennesaw Mountain in June '64. I haven't fullly recovered yet. It has been so long since I wrote you that I have forgotten if I ever wrote you that I was married. We have two children, a little girl born in March '62 and a boy in August '65. They are the prettiest & smartest children that were efer seen--perfect prodigies. It is worth a trip all the way here to see them. Do come out to Ala. & see us all.

When you write to cousin Marianna remember me kindly and affectionately to her & Mr. M & their children. I will send her letters to Pa & he will send to Uncle. Wm.

Mrs. Pelham (Lulu) sends her loving regards to you & all your family. She desires me to ask you to send her your Photograph. She has read your letters to me many times and has unbounded admiration for you & cousin M.

Very affectionately
C. Pelham
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Charles Pelham was later elected to the U.S. Congress, and his aunt continued to correspond with him until her death in 1875. Although their letters on the eve of war reflected strong differences over the issues of slavery and secession, family ties finally triumphed over sectional differences, and their postwar letters were once again warm and friendly.
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James D. Livingston of Braintree, Massachusetts, great-great-grandson of Martha Wright, submitted the Pelham letters. The first two letters are from the Osborne Family Papers, Syracuse University Library, Special Collections. The others are from the Garrison Family Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. These and other Pelham letters are presented and discussed in A Very Dangerous Woman, a forthcoming biography of Martha Wright.