Memoir of John Yates Beall : his life; trial; correspondence; diary; and private manuscript found among his papers, including his own account of the raid on Lake Erie

Front matter

LIBRARIES

ITHACA, N. Y. 14853

JOHN M. OLIN LIBRARY

Contents

I. LIFE l_9a

Chap. I. — Birth in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. — Family, and descent from Sir William Howard, or "Belted Will." — Education at the TJniTersity of Virginia. — Participates in the war. — Is a private in the Stonewall Brigade ; and is wounded under Tvirner Ashby.

Chap. H. — Operations as a Prirateer on the Chesapeake Bay. — Bennett G. Burley and Jofin Maxwell. — Roy McDonald. — They cut the telegraphic cable between Cherrystone and Old Point Comfort. — Beall destroys Cape Charles Light-house. — The Swan and the Raven. — Captures the Alliance and the Samuel Pearsall. — Is captured in Tangier Bay. — Chained in Fort Lafayette, and refuses to have his manacles stricken off. — General B. P. Butler has him released and returned as an exchanged officer. — He re-visits Canada.

Chapter I

His birth — descent &om Sir William Howard, or " Belted Will "—Education at the University of Virginia — Participates in the ReTOlution — A private under Stonewall Jackson — Is wounded under Turner Ashb)' — Escapes through the Federal lines to Canada.

The Valley of Virginia, before its invasion by a Federal army, was one of the most beautiful regions on the continent, or perhaps in the world. From the romantic union of the waters of the Potomac and Shenandoah at Harper's Ferry, on the north and east, to Fisher's Gap, the top of the Blue Ridge, on the south and west, the traveller or tourist passes through a stretch of country which, in times of tranquillity, teems with the richest productions of our temperate latitudes. Jefferson, the extreme northern and eastern county of the Valley of the Shenandoah, has been named the " Garden Spot " of Virginia. For magnificence of scenery, fertiUty of soil, wealth, cultivation, and refinement of its inhabitants, no rural district of the United States excelled it. Harper's Ferry stood in relation to the Valley as the pass of Morgarten to Switzerland, or that of Thermopylae to Greece, — it was the door or gate, while Jefferson was the threshold, through and over which an entrance was effected from the east.

It was in the heart of this beautiful country that John Yates Beall was bom on the first day of January, 1835. Walnut Grove, the farm of his father, George Beall, large in extent, fruitful in soil, and most highly improved by cultivation, took the premium at one of the State agricultural fairs of Virginia, as the " model farm " in her limits. This was not surprising, looking at the character of George Beall, and the natural advantages of his farm. Few men excelled him in energy, industry, and systematic attention to business. He was the son of Hezekiah Beall, and either his father or grandfather is set down by Kercheval, in his " History of the Valley of Virginia," as one of the earliest settlers. The family is believed to be the same as that of Georgetown, District of Columbia, after one of whom that town was named.

Upon the father's side, John Y. Beall was in some way related to the McGruders, which is the English or American corruption of McGregor, the patronymic of the celebrated Rob Roy. Jean McGregor, the granddaughter of Rob Roy, married one Alexander McGregor, doubtless a kinsman, who, upon her death, early in this century, removed to America, and from whom are descended the McGruders of Maryland and Virginia.

But if upon the father's side John Y. Beall had in his veins the blood of the McGregors, upon his mother's he was descended in the direct line from " Belted WUl," whose

" Bilboa blade, by Marchmen felt, Hung in a broad and studded belt."

Francis Yates, who was the first of his name who settled in Cumberland, England, was descended from an honorable family in Shropshire. He became Rector of Moresby, near Whitehaven, and Incumbent of St. James's in that

town. He married Elizabeth, daughter of ■ Wilson,

Esq., and niece of Right Rev. Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, a prelate of piety and distinction in the reign of Queen Anne. They had one son, also Francis, Rector of Gargreve in Yorkshire, England. He married! Anne, eldest daughter of William Orfeur, Esq., of Highclove, by Jane, daughter of Micliard Lamplugh of Ribton, and representative of Sir Christopher Lowther of Whitehaven. William Orfeur of Highclove, -vva? descended in the direct line, and but four generations removed from Sir William Howard, called by the Borderers " Belted Will," the hero of the " Lay of the Last Minstrel." Francis Yates, and Anne his vrife, had one daughter Jane, who married John Matthews of Wizton Hall, and three sons, the eldest of whom, Charles, became an American merchant, and, amassing a considerable fortune, settled in Virginia ; Lowther, the second son, entered the Church, in which profession he attained considerable distinction, being a Doctor of Divinity, Master of St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge, Vice-Chancellor of that University, a King's Preacher, Canon of Norwich Cathedral,

and Rector of in the county of Cork, to which living

he was presented by his cousin Grace, Countess of Middlesex.

John Orfeur, the third son, married Mary, daughter of Henry Aglionby* of Nunnery, by Anne, daughter of Sir Christopher Musgrave of Edvilwell. They had two daughters and three sons, the second of whom, John Yates, the grandfather of John Yates Beall, was adopted by his uncle Charles Yates, and at the age of thirteen was sent out to Virginia, and eventually succeeded to the large landed estates of his uncle in this state.

John Yates was a man of strongly marked character, and left his impress on the community in which he resided. He had a strong, clearly-cut English face, which, in early life, must have been very handsome. The tightly compressed

* The Aglionbys of Nunnery, in the county of Cumberland, are a very ancient family, being descended from Walter D'Aguillon, (whose name was in process of time corrupted into Aglionby), who came to England with William the Conqueror &om Normandy. The following account of them is found in Reference Book of Heraldry: "Aglionby, originally of Aglionby, county of Cumberland, seated there shortly after tbe Conq^uest, subsequently of Carlisle and Nunnery, now represented in 'the female line by Henrj^ Aglionby Aglionby of Newbiggin Hall, M.F. for Cockermouth ; and by bis cousins, the daughters and co-heirs of the late tlajox Francis Aglionby of Nunnery. Arg. two bar^ and in cliief three martlets, Sa.— Crest a demi-cagle, displ. or.'

4 MBMOIE OF JOHN TATES BEALL.

lips indicated great firmBess, wHle the expression of the eye gave earnest of the benignity and moral purity which were leading traits in his character. John Beall's face strongly resembled his grandfather's ; at the same time there was not wanting to his features something of the peculiar inteUigence, energy, and shrewdness of his father, George Beall. There was always, however, in his face a slight shade of sadness ; of late years, since the war, this expression had deepened, until it became more palpable, more fixed and habitual. This he explains himself in a letter published on a succeeding page of this volume, in which he says, with feeling ! " I am old, prematurely old — exposure, hardship, suffering, the drain of an unhealed wound, anxiety, hope deferred, have done the work of time on the body : they have not quenched my spirit, nor impaired the tenacity of my will."

This was said in November, 1862. Two years of further, and greater trial, hardship, exposure, danger, imprisonment, indignity, and the approach face to face of death, never availed to quench his spirit, nor impair the tenacity of his will, even to the last.

Up to the time of the breaking out of the war between the sections of the United States, there had been nothing remarkable in the career of young Beall, who was then twenty-six years of age. He had finished his education at the University of Virginia, where he remained three years, commencing with the session of 1852-53 : his collegiate course was distinguished by nothing except a quiet, studious attention to all its duties. The author of this memoir was for a considerable portion of this period his room-mate, and during the whole of it his " most intimate friend."

He was entirely unambitious of college distinctions, as he was equally indifferent to fame, when he came to play his part on the wider theatre of life. The modesty and reserve of his character combined to render the circle of his acquaintance at college very limited. With professors he had no intercourse out of the lecture-room, where he enjoyed that consideration and respect, to which a studious, retiring gentleman was entitled, and which at this institution he ever commanded. Within the narrow circle of his intimate friends he was much beloved, and recognised as a character as generous and fearless as he was modest, reticent, and retiring.

During his last session at the university he took the' classes of junior law, and political economy. In both of these he was profqundly interested, and was persuaded by his friends to take such distinctions upon one or both as the college course allows : these were the only diplomashe ever received or stood for.

His father, George Beall, belonged to the " Virginia School '" of politics — the States-Right-Democratic party; his grand-father, John Yates, on the other hand, retained all his Engli«h conservatism, and was a warm adherent of the Federal or Whig party. It has been stated that, on one occasion, he refused to aid in the election of his son-in-law, George Beall, to the Virginia Legislature on the ground of their difiference in political opinions. This was characteristic of the inflexible devotion of John Yates to principle. This preference of English conservatism over Anglo-American radicalism, his neighbours called " prejudice." He had left England an orphan boy, but thirteen years old ; he had been nurtured in the school of her chivalry, which taught that an insult unresented became a stain ; and, ere he had been in Virginia long, he was forced to the field of honour, where he received a painful but not a dangerous wound. This was before his removal to Jefferson County to reside. To the end of his life, John Yates was an Englishman in spirit ; he was never denationalized upon the one hand, nor naturalized upon the other. It was not strange, therefore, that at an advanced age, his end, as it were, in hailing distance, he should desire to return to the "old country" to die. He did so, and took with him a fair-haired, blue-eyed grandson,, and namesake of fifteen or sixteen years— John Yates Beall. Througli his last illness, and up to his death at the Nunnery, joung Beall watched by the bed-side of his grandfather, and then returned to the United States. His recollections of this visit were always of the most agreeable character, and, up to the time of his capture, he kept up a correspondence with his cousins across the water.

John Beall had thus inherited, and cherished by association, a strong love of order, peace, and stable government ; the teaching of his father, on the other hand, indoctrinated him into the Virginia School ; and the ardour of his devotion to States rights, as understood by Jefferson, embodied in the famous Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, or taught by Madison and set forth in the stiU more celebrated Virginia Resolutions of 1798-1799, was not likely to be cooled under the shades of Monticello, and beneath the dome of the University of Virginia. The position of Beall, therefore, during the excitement antecedent to the commencement of actual hostilities between the sections, was both natural and logical. Loving order, he would have remained in the Union ; devoted to honour he could not submit to the degradation of assisting in the subjugation of the Cotton States, because, in the exercise of their undoubted right, they had decided to sever the connection between themselves and the other States of the Federal Union ; yet to this terrible alternative was Virginia driven by the tyrannical faction, then, for the first time, installed into the administration of the Government, and destined, in the end, to break down every guarantee of the Constitution, violate the most sacred principles of public liberty, and finally, to bring upon the country infinitely greater evils than disunion could ever have entailed. Virginia, who had taught her sisters of the Union that the right of secession not only existed, but was sanctioned by the spirit of the Constitution, and sustained by principles of international law older and more universal than that instrument itself, could not be expected to unteach these doctrines at the point of the bayonet, or to aid in any such unholy design ; and John Beall, nurtured, reared, and educated under the teachings of the Vii'ginia School, saw in the contest in -which he offered up his life, a high and sacred political principle worthy of the sacrifice. From beneath the paternal roof to the dome of the university, and thence into the open sky of his own native and revered State herself, the " steps of his faith " led to no other conclusion than this — if wrong, it was Virginia's error, not his ; it was a heresy which had been sanctioned in turn by the popular vote of every State in the Union except Massachussetts ; and, with the knowledge of this fact, the text of the Declaration of Independence, the language of the Constitution, and the plain principles of international law before them, the world and posterity must judge between Virginia and her enemies.

Having finished his collegiate career in June, 1855, John Beall returned to his father's house in Jefferson. He had chosen law as a profession, rather in deference to his father's desire, than in accordance with his own incUnation. He never obtained a license to practice, nor is it certain that he ever valued his legal attainments in any other light than (in the language of Sir WiUiam Blackstone) as " the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar — an essential part of hberal and polite education."

It was about the 15th August, 1855, that, in company ■with his oldest sister, he started for Dubuque, Iowa. His oldest brother had been for some years a resident of that State, and was extensively engaged in business there. This was the early harvest, the " flush time " of North-Western land speculation. The empire of unsold public lands, donated chiefly by Virginia, to the Federal Government, as a trustfund for revenue for its support, to diminish taxation, had; been converted, under the influence of unbridled democracy and unrestrained demagoguism, into a corruption-fund for controlling the politics, and securing the balance of power in the administration of the country. The pauper of yesterday borrowed a few dollars, invested in a town-lot, and to-day awakes, like Abou Hassan in the Arabian tNights, to find himself a millionaire ! Railroad companies, school's, collegfes, churches, eleemosynary institutions — all have land given them to .ipeculate upon, and all speculate : — papeii money, the child- (or parent ?) of speculation, floods the country ; the path from "the rags to the purple, the hovel to the palace, is paved with shinplasters :" — " Wildcat" banks spring up; Nature is dethroned to the extent that preachers, lawyers, merchants, corporations, everybody is saying, '■'here there shall be a town, or there a watpr-power," where Nature hath said, " there, there shall not."

It was in this financial harvest that John Beall had determined to dip his scythe ; and had started, as above stated, for Iowa to reside for years at least, if not permanently. He and his sister, however, had got no further than New York city when a dispatch overtook them informing them of the dangerous illness of their father. They returned only to see him die. George Beall died on the 21st of August, 1855. The impression made on John's mind by this event was permanent, and the effect upon his future career decided. He loved his father dearly, and, seven years after, thus feelingly speaks of his death :

" Yesterday was the anniversary of father's death. Seven years have only shown our loss ; they have not blotted out his memory ! The loss of a father is one of the greatest that a family is called on to endure. It seems impossible to estimate it ! In our family, his strong hand would have ruled the children, and made all of us more subject — he would have restrained, and restraint was needed."

The lesson of, his father's death was not lost upon young Beall. His mind upon religious subjects had oscillated between absolute faith and absolute scepticism. The author

MEMOIR OF JOHN YATES EEALL. 9

had sat with him beneath the sound, healthy, but not severely analytical lectures of the best teacher perhaps in America — Dr. McGufFey. Beall, at this period, evidently vacillated between a cynical dislike, almost amounting to contempt, for those plain, strong, mediocre minds who deemed it equal sacrilege to give or demand " a reason for the faith that was in them," on the one hand ; and a horror and dread of those who took refuge in Deism or absolute scepticism, upon the other. Upon the subject of religion he was unhappy ; his father's death resolved the riddle for him. His father was not a church-communicant, but his mother and sister were among the most devoutly pious of Christians. John had watched by the death-bed of both father and grandfather, and there was about each scene undoubtedly something of the moral sublimity of a strictly honest man's death. This lesson it was which aided in sustaining the son and grandson, when in a solitary cell, he revealed both his temptation and his triumph over it:

" I saw father and grandfather die, and they both took great comfort from the thought that no one could say that they had, of malice aforethought, injured them."

At the death of her husband, the family of Mrs. Beall consisted of herself and seven children, four daughters and three sons. The eldest son, Hezekiah, was, as I have stated, residing in or near Dubuque, Iowa. A widowed mother, four fatherless sisters, all younger than himself but one, and a younger brother scarcely in his teens — all appealed to John for protection and guardianship. The plan of his life was changed at the call of duty ; his dream of action and a wide scope for financial acumen and energy, the golden harvest in the West were all at once abandoned, and he took charge of his father's farm, as agent of, and manager for the executrix, &c., his mother. It is to this act of self-sacrifice on his own part that he alludes with satisfaction in his prison diary, published with his trial. " I never left my mother and sisters

10 MEMOIK OF JOHN YATES BBALL.

voluntarily," &c. He never left them until his country called him to the field of battle in her defence. Yet this sentence, upon his trial, was used by the Judge Advocate to prove that John Beall was a eonseript ! The imperativ e force of patriotic duty, stronger than the call of a thousand conscript officers, could not project itself into the Judge Advocate's mind ! This was to have been expected from a member of a community who, according to one of their own countrymen,* reject truth itself unless it can be shown to " pay tender centT'

But the death of George Beall was dfestined under God to produce a change upon his son's convictions greater than it necessitated in his business career ; and more important, in the proportion that things spiritual and eternal outweigh things material and temporal. His religious convictions, widened and deepened by his grief, wrought out a channel in his nature, and ever after controlled the current of his life. He united himself to the Episcopal church in Charlestown, the county seat of Jefferson, and very soOn ranked as a most active and energetic member in its administration. He represented the parish afterwards as a lay-delegate to the

diocesan convention held at Charlottesville, Virginia The

beautiful village church which he attended in Charlestown, the county-seat of Jefferson, formed no exception to the destruction, spoliation, and desecration which, during the progress of the war, the Federal soldiery universally visited upon the temples of the Episcopal church. Being converted into a barracks, the walls soon became the receptacle of obscene texts, and pictures, while the platform on which the pulpit was erected served, with the excavation beneath it, for a " sink ;" the grave-yard attached, like the more imposing Presbyterian cemetery not far distant, was used as a common for the horses and cattle of the garrison. In order that the latter may not be suspected of sectarianism in their anger against God, and his " dwelling-houses" (as the common

* WendeU PhiUips. I

MEMOm OF JOHN YATES BEALL. 11

■law and our ancestry styled churches), it may be stated that they used the Baptist chapel, in the same village, for a stable.

About the time of John Brown's " Raid" upon Harper's Ferry and the contiguous farms of Jefferson, when that fanatic had been arrested in his career, and was undergoing trial in the Circuit Court of Jefferson, nuiiierous military organizations sprang up in Virginia to resist the further aggression of New England Conservatism. Among these was organized a company in Jefferson, under the command of Capt. Lawson Botts (a nephew of Hon. John Minor Botts of Virginia), who subsequently fought under Jackson from the first Manassas to the second and more fearful struggle on the same plains, where he received a mortal wo\md, having ia the meantime risen to the rank of Colonel in command of the 2nd Va. Regt. The " Botts Greys," as they were at first called, in the organization of the Volunteer force of Virginia previous to the breaking out of the war, were named Company " G," in the 2nd Va. Regt. ; afterwards when these volunteers were turned over to the Confederate States, the 2nd Virginia, with four other regiments, all from the section of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge, composed the 1st Brigade of the army of Northern Virginia ; that Brigade which a warrior, not unknown to fame, as he stood in his stirrups with the late glory of Falling Waters and first Manassas on his sword, and the promise of Kernstown, Richmond, Cross-Keys, Port Republic, Cedar Run, Second Manassas, Harper's Ferry, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellors ville in his eyes — declared to have been the " first at Harper's Ferry — first at Manassas — first in the Division, and first in the heart of its commander ! " And surely priority in the heart of Jackson was something worthy of inscription on the banner of the immortal Stonewall Brigade !

It was as a private in this corps that John Beall commenced his military career. It was to the enrollment of such privates as John Beall, — each a hero in himself,— each an individual patriot,— each fired with enthusiasm in the cause to whose espousal honour, duty, patriotism, every longcherished political principle, every home-nurtured instinct, every hope in time or aspiration for eternity, impelled him, — to such enrolments as these the Stonewall Brigade owed its adamantine texture, and its fame solidified for all time.

John Beall's career as a soldier was distinguished only by that unfaltering response to every demand of duty which had hitherto characterized him. He was one of those men who ever strove, and seldom failed to "'do his duty in that station of life in which it pleased God to call him ;" and, after all, it must be this definition of an " honest man," which alone can constitute him " the noblest work of God."

The skirmish at Falling Waters was conducted by Jackson only with a detachment ; the eagle turned on his pursuers and struck with a single wing. The 2nd Virginia Regiment was not engaged, nor did it come into action until the 21st July, the ever memorable day on which the first grand battle of the war was fought. The 2nd Virginia was stationed with the Stonewall Brigade on the brow of the hill opposite the " Henry House," in support of the famous Washington Artillery : a detachment of it, under the gallant Lt. Col. Lackland, charged, and claimed to have captured a portion of the famous Sherman's Battery.

Beall, however, did not participate in this fight, having been absent on a short leave, and not being able to get up until the fight was concluded.

It was on the 15th of the ensuing October that he again visited the home of his mother in Jefferson, in company with a member of his company who was sick. The next day was the second anniversary of John Brown's raid into the county — the ever memorable 16th of October. A hero who, with long, flowing, black beard, erect figure, and keen death-daring black eye, mounted on a snow-white charger, had escorted

John Brown to his gallows, was now to he the principal figure in another later act of the same drama. To Lt. Col. Turner Ashby, with a few companies of raw militia, and a detachment of the cavalry regiment of which he was the second in command, had been assigned the duty of defending Jefferson, and the. Valley from an advance through Harper's Ferry Gap. The task was not an easy nor encouraging one, but Ashby knew nothing but to obey orders. On the day in question the rumbling of waggons, beating of drums, and the rapid falling back of his pickets announced to him that the enemy were in motion from Harper's Ferry to\yards his camp near Flowing Spring. He summoned his small, irregular force, and went down to meet them. His cavalry were not remarkably well drilled, but were gallant and devoted to their, commander ; the mUitia were like all raw, untrained troops, inefficient ; to these were still to be added a motley crowd of farmers, mechanics, cow-boys and other civilians— incumbrances to military operations. The news of an impending battle soon spread through the county, and among others reached young Beall. He forthwith proceeded to the field of action, threw himself at the head of a militia company, and volunteered to lead them in a charge upon the enemy. The latter had been driven back ; they had no artillery ; while the Confederates had brought into play an old piece of ordnance, one of the old Fourth of July orators, whose brazen lungs had never injured any one but those who fired it, and was not likely to do much more execution on this occasion. The Federals, however, had retreated before it. A party of them were lodged behind a large dismantled, deserted brick house, — one of the many sigrirboards which everywhere marked the advance of the Federal army. To dislodge this pariy was John Beall's aim, and, seizing a musket, he encouraged the militia to fellow him, which they did right manfully until he fell. In squads of three and four the Federals were leaving the shelter of Mrs. Wager's brick house, spoken of above, and firing as they retreated. Beall had emptied Ha musket twice, and had it raised to his shoulder in the act of aiming to fire again when a shot from the retreating party passed under his gun, and; striking him obliquely in the right breast, broke three ribs and passed around the body. He discharged his own gun and fell. When consciousness returned, his musket lay by his side, but the enemy were gone — so were the militia! He rose, tottered back to Ashby's line, and again sank, exhausted. Among the citizens assembled to witness, or take part in the fight, was the Hon. Andrew Hunter of Charlestown. But not to play the part of an idle spectator, he had brought down his own spring waggon, with his carriage horses, as an ambulance to carrry off the wounded. Recognizing Beall, he promptly took charge of him, and carried him to the house of his mother.

The dread of his mother, and the universal apprehension of his friends were not realized, although the right lung was penetrated. Tender nursing, aided by a strong will, enabled him to survive the injury, and a few months found him sufficiently recovered to travel South, — a course which his physicians advised, owing to the implication, of the lung, rendered the more dangerous by an hereditary predisposition to" phthisis. In the later part of November he proceeded to Richmond, and thence to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. Remaining here a short time, he fell in with a wealthy gentleman. Gen. R. W. WilHams, who with his wife resided on' Pascagoula Island in Louisiana. A strong attachment sprang up between the young soldier-in vahd, and Mrs. and General ' Williams, and upon their urgent invitation he accompanied them to thejr plantation in Lotiisiana, where he remained forseveral months a welcome recipient of their hospitality.

Two young ladies, refugees from Nashville, were at the' same time guests of Gen. Williams, and between the youngest' of these, and the young wounded soldier, whose condition still '' appealed loudly for sympathy, there sprang up a degree of interest which ripened into the highest and holiest bond which the unmarried can know- they were betrothed. John Beall was by nature silent, reserved, and the most undemonstrative of- men; he confided little in human nature, and was oft wont to quote with a smile, more sad than cynical, the lines of Burns, one of his favourite poets :