September 24, 1864---"The Burning"

SEPTEMBER 24, 1864:    

 “The Burning”:

Philip Sheridan decides that if Jubal Early’s men will not come out, his men will go in. Sheridan orders the burning of every crossroads, town, farmstead, homestead, millhouse, barn, rick, cottage, tree and crop in the Shenandoah Valley, hoping in this way, to cut the legs from under Early’s forces.

The residents’ horses are impressed into the Union army, as are their chickens, pigs and cows. The harvest is seized. “The Burning” is methodical; Sheridan’s men advance slowly up the Valley, spreading ruin as they go. The Burning lasts two weeks, long weeks for the denizens of the Shenandoah Valley.

Sheridan encounters some resistance: Mosby’s Rangers and groups of Early’s men skirmish with Sheridan’s forces at New Market and Woodstock and along the Valley Pike. The Southerners establish a redoubt in the Luray Valley (a part of the Shenandoah Valley surrounded by uplands), and forbid Sheridan’s forces entry.    

The Burning has largely been excised from published accounts of the Civil War and is remembered mostly in the folk histories of the old families that live in the Valley today.

Warfare in the Valley reduced everything to its lowest common denominator, that of  sheer brutality. General Grant's orders to Sheridan to "make all the Valley a desert" and a "barren waste" and to follow the enemy "to the death," echo the sentiments of Mosby's men, who rode into battle yelling, "Wipe them from the face of the earth!" and "Take no prisoners!"  Even a Union chaplain spoke of the need to "peel this land" like a piece of fruit.  Dead soldiers, tortured, hanged, and mutilated, of both sides were found with one-word notes pinned to their clothes, staked through their bodies, or worst, carved in their flesh:  “Retaliation!”

While the Valley burns, General Sterling Price C.S.A. raids Union-held Missouri, likewise scorching the earth.

Angered at the loss of Athens, Alabama and the defeat of Confederate men by United States Colored Troops, General Nathan Bedford Forrest C.S.A. takes the city of Athens, Georgia by convincing the Union garrison commander that he is leading at least 15,000 men. In truth, Forrest has only 4,500. It is a trick The Wizard has used before, more than once, and it works again. The Union men are marched off to P.O.W. camps, all but the U.S.C.T., who are enslaved on Forrest’s orders.

September 23. 1864---The Yellow Fever Overcoat

SEPTEMBER 23, 1864:     

United States Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.) of the 106^th, 110^th and 111^th Cavalry are met in battle with the 2^nd and 3^rd Tennessee Cavalry.  A bitter fight erupts as the Tennesseeans attempt to retake the town of Athens, Alabama. The Union garrison expends “70,000 rounds of cap and ball” as the action report reads. The Confederate force, driven off, suffers upward of 300 casualties in this minor, forgotten action.

A Yellow Fever epidemic rages in Union-held New Bern, North Carolina. Although “Yellow Jack” is not unknown in the South most outbreaks of this mosquito-borne disease occur in the summer months. A late season outbreak of such virulence (2,000 people die) is highly unusual. It is not until after the war ends that a former Confederate admits that he was tasked to kill President Lincoln by sending him a “yellow fever overcoat.”

Jefferson Davis, who is becoming unhinged at the progress of the war and ever angrier about the Dahlgren Orders of last year which obliquely ordered his assassination (most likely issued by Edwin M. Stanton without Lincoln’s knowledge), earmarked $200,000 to purchase clothing worn by Yellow Fever victims in Bermuda. The clothing was meant to be sent on to the Northern White House. The plot went awry when the agent (who was promised $60,000 for his complicity but only received $100) decided the whole thing was too risky, and left the crate of clothing at a Union warehouse in New Bern. Although the clothes themselves are not infectious (mosquitoes carry the disease, not the dead or their garb), perhaps a few errant insects survived the trip in the crate, unlikely as it seems. In any event, it is a strange coincidence that the outbreak occurred just around the time that the Yellow Fever overcoat plot fell apart.  

  

Jefferson Davis, on a morale-building tour of his ailing nation, gives a speech at Macon, Georgia, which is by turns defensive, plaintive, accusatory and inspiring. It reads in part:

It would have gladdened my heart to have met you in prosperity instead of adversity - But friends are drawn together in adversity . . .  What, though misfortune has befallen our arms from Decatur to Jonesboro', our cause is not lost.  Sherman cannot keep up his long line of communication, and retreat sooner or later, he must.  And when that day comes . . . our cavalry and our people will harass and destroy his army . . .

How can this be the most speedily effected?  By the absentees of Hood's army returning to their posts . . .  If there is one who will stay away at this hour, he is unworthy of the name of a Georgian . . . To the women no appeal is necessary.  They are like the Spartan mothers of old.  I know of one who had lost all her sons, except one of eight years.  She wrote me that she wanted me to reserve a place for him in the ranks . . . 

It does not become us to revert to disaster.  "Let the dead bury the dead."  Let us with one arm and one effort endeavor to crush Sherman.  I am going to the army to confer with our Generals.  The end must be the defeat of our enemy. It has been said that I abandoned Georgia to her fate.  Shame upon such a falsehood . . .

  

When the war is over and our independence won, (and we will establish our independence,) who will be our aristocracy?  I hope the limping soldier.  To the young ladies I would say when choosing between an empty sleeve and the man who had remained at home . . . always take the empty sleeve . . .  Macon . . . must not be abandoned . . .

Two-thirds of our men are absent - some sick, some wounded, but most of them absent without leave . . .

I have been asked to send reinforcements from Virginia to Georgia.  In Virginia the disparity in numbers is just as great as it is in Georgia.  Then I have been asked why the army sent to the Shenandoah Valley was not sent here?  It was because an army of the enemy had penetrated that Valley to the very gates of Lynchburg . . .

With this we can succeed.  If one-half the men now absent without leave will return to duty, we can defeat the enemy . . . Let no one despond.  Let no one distrust, and remember that if genius is the beau ideal, hope is the reality.

Rebecca Wootters, a slaveowner, places the following classified ad in the Richmond Daily Dispatch:

[On] the night of the 21st of the present month my negro woman Isabella, who is of a light gingerbread color, about nineteen years old, and a scar on her breast. Also, carrying off her child, a very bright mulatto, about seven months old [went missing]. Said woman has a very pleasant countenance, and speaks very quickly when spoken to. I will give a reward . . . The said woman was purchased last August [in] Hanover county, to which place she is supposed to have gone, or otherwise trying to make her escape to the Yankee lines.

September 22, 1864---The Ole Swimmin' Hole

SEPTEMBER 22, 1864:    

In Florida, Asboth’s Raid reaches Lake DeFuniak (the site today of the town of Defuniak Springs). The Union troopers take a brief break from pillaging and many go swimming in the lake. 

September 21, 1864---An epidemic in Galveston

SEPTEMBER 21, 1864:     

The Galveston (TX) Weekly News (actually published in Houston for much of the war) reports on conditions in the coastal city:

Sickness has continued to spread quite rapidly within the last two days, and it is now admitted, by even "the respectable physicians," that it is an epidemic. The mortality thus far, has been greater than usual at the first introduction of yellow fever.

There is great dissatisfaction among the troops stationed here on account of the scarcity of supplies in the Commissary Department. This should be remedied. There can be no necessity for a lack of food in a State producing such a vast surplusage of all commissary supplies, if agents were efficient in their business. Farmers have generally exhibited great liberality in furnishing our troops the necessaries of life, and will not be wanting now, if properly appealed to.