Four years under Marse Robert

Front matter

luwiimrauii

00022229296

BY

CHAPTER III. ----- From New York to Richmond

Quieting Down to the Study of Law in New York — Progress of the Revolution — Virginia's Attempted Mediation — Firing on Sumter — Back to New Haven — A Remarkable Man and a Strange, Sad Story — Off for Dixie — In Richmond Again 33

CHAPTER VIII. - Seven Pines and the Seven Days' Battles

Joseph E. Johnston — The Change of Commanders — Lee's Plan of the Seven Days' Battles — Rainsford — The Pursuit — Playing at Lost Ball— "Little Mac's Lost the Thrigger"— Early Dawn on a Battle-field — Lee and Jackson. 87

CHAPTER IX. Malvern Hill and the Effect of the Seven Days' Battles

Not a Confederate Victory — The Federal Artillery Fire — Demoralization of Lee's Army — "McClellan Will Be Gone by Daylight"— The Weight of Lee's Sword — Stuart — Pelham — Pegram —"Extra Billy"— To Battle in a Trotting Sulky— The Standard of Courage 101

CONTENTS XI

CHAPTER X. - Second Manassas — Sharpsburg — Fredericksburg

Not at Second Manassas or Sharpsburg — A Glimpse of Richmond in the Summer of '62 — Col. Willis, of the Twelfth Georgia— Jackson in the Railroad Cut at Manassas — Sharpsburg the Hardest Fought of Lee's Battles, Fredericksburg the Easiest Won — The Mississippi Brigade Entertains a Baby — A Conscript's First Fight — Magnificent Spectacle When Fog Curtain Rose — Aurora Borealis at Close of the Drama 118

CHAPTER XL ----- Religious Life of Lee's Army.

Revival in Barksdale's Brigade at Fredericksburg — A Model Chaplain — Personal Conferences with Comrades — A Prayer Between the Lines — A Percussion Shell at Gettysburg 138

CHAPTER XII. Between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville

Our Mother and Sisters Arrive From the North — A Horse's Instinct of Locality and Direction — Our Artillery Battalion and Its Commander — Commerce Across the Rappahannock — Snow-ball Battles — A Commission in Engineer Troops — An Appointment on Jackson's Staff — Characteristic Interview Between General Jackson and My Father — The Army Telegraph — President Lincoln's Letter — Hooker's Plan Really Great, But Lee's Audacity and His Army Equal to Any Crisis — Head of Column, to the Left or to the Right 152

CHAPTER XIII. -------- Chancellorsville

On the March — The Light Division Passes Our Guns — Marse Robert Passes the Light Division — The Two Little Dogs of the Battalion — Two of Our Guns Take Chancellorsville in Reverse — Interview with General McLaws — Entire Regiment from New Haven, Conn., Captured — Brother William and Marse Robert —

Xll CONTENTS

Sedgwick — Hooker — His Battle Orders — His Compliment to Lee's Army — Lee's Order Announcing Jackson's Death 168

CHAPTER XIV. - From the Rappahannock to the Potomac

The Engineer Troops — Jubal Early — His Ability and Devotion— His Caustic Tongue — Lee a Master of the "Offensive Defensive"— His Army Organized into Three Corps — He Turns Northward and Maneuvers Hooker Out of His Position on the Rappahannock — The Battle of Winchester — Fine Work — Large Captures — Scenes and Incidents of the Battle 183

CHAPTER XV. -------- In Pennsylvania

Impressing Horses the Only Plundering Lee's Army Did — A Remarkable Interview with An Old Lady in a Pennsylvania Town — She Expects to Meet Stonewall Jackson in Heaven — Two Pennsylvania Boys Make Friends with the Rebels — "Extra Billy" Leads the Confederate Column into York, His Brigade Band Playing "Yankee Doodle," and Makes a Speech on the Public Green — "Old Jube" Breaks Up the Meeting — "Dick" Ewell and the Burghers of Carlisle 199

CHAPTER XVI. --------- Gettysburg

Lee Without His Cavalry — The Battle, When and Where Fought, An Accident — The Army of Northern Virginia in Splendid Condition — Gordon on Black Auster — A Fistic Encounter at the Crisis of the Great Battle — "Limber to the Rear" — A Great Disappointment — A Desperate Ride — Dead Enemies More to Be Dreaded Than Living Ones — The Dutch Woman's Ankles 207

CONTENTS Xlll

CHAPTER XVII. - Between Gettysburg and the Wilderness

Lee Orders His Generals of Division to Report the Condition of Their Troops — McLaws Makes the Rounds of His Division — Back in the Old Dominion — Tuck and Marse Robert, Dragon and Logan — Meade an Able and Wary Opponent — The Homes of the People Within the Lines of the Army — A Preacher-Captain Metes Out Stern and Speedy Justice — Lee Smarting Under the Tete-de-pont Disaster — Pegram Meets Two of His Old Troopers — Mine Run — Mickey Free and the Persimmons — Horses Under Artillery Fire — Two Important Movements of the Federal Forces 222

CHAPTER XVIII. - Campaign of '64 — the Wilderness

Grant — His Rough Chivalry — His Imperturbable Grit — His Theory of Attrition — Its Effect Upon the Spirit of Lee's Army — An Artilleryman of that Army in Campaign Trim — Sundown Prayer-meetings — The Wilderness an Infantry Fight — A Cup of Coffee With Gen. Ewell in the Forest — Ewell and Jackson — Longstreet Struck Down 238

CHAPTER XIX. --------- Spottsylvania

Death of a Gallant Boy— Mickey Free Hard to Kill— The 10th and 12th of May — Handsome Conduct of the "Napoleon Section" of the Howitzers — Frying Pan as Sword and Banner — Prayer with a Dying Federal Soldier — "Trot Out Your Deaf Man and Your Old Doctor" — The Base of the Bloody Angle — The Musketry Fire — Majestic Equipose of Marse Robert 249

CHAPTER XX. - - - From Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor

Another Slide to the East, and Another, and Another — The Armies Straining Like Two Coursers, Side by Side, for the Next

XIV CONTENTS

Goal — Grant Waiting for Reinforcements — Lee Seriously Indisposed— One of His Three Corps Commanders Disabled by Wounds, Another by Sickness — Mickey and the Children — "It Beats a Furlough Hollow" — A Baby in Battle — Death of Lawrence M. Keitt and Demoralization of His Command — Splendid Services of Lieut. Robt. Falligant, of Georgia, with a Single Gun — Hot Fighting the Evening of June 1st — Building Roads and Bridges and Getting Ready June 2d — Removal of Falligant's Lone Gun at Night 266

CHAPTER XXI. ".-■"- Cold Harbor of '64

The Great Fight of June 3d — Unparalleled in Brevity, in Slaughter, and in Disproportion of Loss — Grant Assaults in Column, or in Mass — His Troops Refuse to Renew the Attack — Effect at the North — Confederate "Works" in the Campaign of '64 — The Lines — Sharpshooting — The Covered Way — The Spring — Death of Captain McCarthy, of the Howitzers — How It Occurred on the Lines — How It Was Received in the City — My Brother Loses An Eye — "Alone in the World" — A last Look at the Enemy — Buildings Felled and Scattered by Artillery — Gun Wheels Cut Down by Musketry — Bronze Guns Splotched and Pitted Like Smallpox — Epitome of the Campaign of '64 — Maneuvering of No Avail Against Lee's Army — Did That Army Make Lee, or Lee That Army ? 285

CHAPTER XXII. From Cold Harbor to Evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg

Grant's Change of Base — Petersburg Proves to Be His Immediate Objective — Lee Just in Time to Prevent the Capture of the City — Our Battalion Stationed First in the Petersburg Lines, Then Between the James and the Appomattox — The Writer Commissioned Major of Artillery and Ordered to Chaffin's Bluff — The Battalion There Greatly Demoralized — Measures

CONTENTS XV Adopted to Tone It Up — Rapid Downward Trend of the Confederacy— "A Kid of the Goats" Gives a Lesson in Pluck 307

CHAPTER XXIII. The Retreat from Chaffin's Bluff to Sailor's Creek

On the Works, Sunday Evening, April 2d, '65, Listening to the Receding Fire at Petersburg — Evening Service with the Men Interrupted by the Order to Evacuate the Lines — Explosions of the Magazines of the Land Batteries and Iron-Clads — A Soldier's Wife Sends Her Husband Word to Desert, But Recalls the Message — Marching, Halting, Marching, Day after Day, Night After Night — Lack of Food, Lack of Rest, Lack of Sleep — Many Drop by the Wayside, Others Lose Self-control and Fire into Each Other — In the Bloody Fight of the 6th at Sailor's Creek, the Battalion Redeems Itself, Goes Down with Flying Colors, and Is Complimented on the Field by General Ewell, After He and All Who Are Left of Us Are Prisoners of War 320

CHAPTER XXIV. Fatal Mistake of the Confederate Military Authorities

The Love of Glory the Inspiration of the Soldier — Prompt Promotion the Life of an Army — How Napoleon Applied These Principles — How the Controlling Military Authorities of the Confederacy Ignored Them — The Material of the Confederate Armies Superb, Their Development as Soldiers Neglected — Decoration for Gallantry, and Promotion on the Field Unknown m the Confederate Service — Lee Himself Without Authority to Confer Such Promotion or Distinction — Contrasted Spirit and Practice of the Federal Authorities and Armies — Grotesque Absurdity of an Elective Roll of Military Honor 336

XVI CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXV. - - - - ----- Potpourri

Startling Figures as to the Numbers and Losses of the Federal Armies During the War — Demoralizing Influence of Earthworks— Attrition and Starvation — Lack of Sleep vs. Lack of Food — Night Blindness in the Army of Northern Virginia — Desertions from the Confederate Armies — Prison Life — De- Forest Medal — Gen. Lee's Hat 346

Chapter I Explanation Of The Title Scheme Of The Work

"Four years under Marse Robert."

At the first blush this title may strike one as inaccurate, lacking in dignity, and bordering on the sensational. Yet the author prefers it to any other and is ready to defend it ; while admitting, though this may seem inconsistent, that explanations are in order.

Not one of his men was an actual follower of Robert Lee for four full years. In fact, he was not himself in the military service of Virginia and of the Confederate States together for that length of time, and he did not assume personal command of what was then the Confederate "Army of the Potomac" and later, under his leadership, became the "Army of Northern Virginia," until June I, 1862.

But more than a year before, indeed just after the secession of the State, Governor Letcher had appointed Lee to the chief command of the Virginia troops, which, under his plastic hand, in spite of vast obstacles, were turned over in a few weeks in fair soldierly condition to the Confederate Government, and became the nucleus of the historic Army of Northern Virginia ; and their commander was created one of the five full generals provided for by law in the military service of the Confederate States.

As full general in the Confederate service, Lee was not at first assigned to particular command, but remained at Richmond as "Military Adviser to the President." In that position, as also in his assignment, somewhat later, to the conduct, under the advice of the President, of the operations of all the armies of the Confederate States, he of course had more or less supervision and control of the armies in Virginia. Such continued to be Lee's position and duties, and his relations to the troops in Virginia, until General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the army defending Richmond, was struck down at Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, June ist, 1862, when President Davis appointed Lee to succeed him in command of that army.

From this brief review it appears clearly that the men who, after June ist, 1862, followed Lee's banner and were under his immediate command were, even before that time and from the very outset, in a large and true sense his soldiers and under his control; so that, while strictly speaking no soldier followed Lee for four years, yet we who served in Virginia from the beginning to the end of the war are entitled, in the customary and popular sense, to speak of our term of service as "Four years under Lee."

But our claim is, "Four years under Marse Robert/'' Why "Marse Robert ?"

So, in Innes Randolph's inimitable song, "A Good Old Rebel," the hero thus vaunts his brief but glorious annals :

"I followed old Mars' Robert For four year, near about; Got wounded in three places And starved at Pint Lookout."

Again, why "Marse Robert?"

The passion of soldiers for nicknaming their favorite leaders, re-christening them according to their unfettered fancy and their own sweet will, is well known. "The Little Corporal," "The Iron Duke," "Marshall Forwards," "Bobs," "Bobs Bahadur," "Little Mac," "Little Phil," "Fighting Joe," "Stonewall," "Old Jack," "Old Pete," "Old Jube," "Jubilee," "Rooney," "Fitz," "Marse Robert" — all these and many more are familiar. There is something grotesque about most of them and in many, seemingly, rank disrespect. Yet the habit has never been regarded as a vio-

EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE 19

lation of military law, and the commanding general of an army, if a staunch fighter, and particularly if victory often perches on his banner, is very apt to win the noways doubtful compliment of this rough and ready knighthood from his devoted troops. But however this may be, "Marse Robert" is far away above the rest of these soldier nicknames in pathos and in power.

In the first place, it is essentially military.

Though in form and style as far as possible removed from that model, this quaint title yet rings true upon the elemental basis of military life — unquestioning and unlimited obedience. It embodies the strongest possible expression of the short creed of the soldier :

"Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die."

I do not believe an army ever existed which surpassed Lee's ragged veterans in hearty acceptance and daily practice of this soldier creed, and there is no telling to what extent their peculiar nickname for their leader was responsible for this characteristic trait of his followers. Men who spoke habitually of their commanding general as "Master" could not but feel the reflex influence of this habit upon their own character as soldiers. This much may certainly be said of this graphic title of the great captain ; but this is not all.

"Marse Robert !" It goes without saying that the title is distinctively Southern.

The homely phrase was an embodiment of the earliest and strongest associations of the men applied in reverent affection, but also in defiant yet pathetic protest. It was, in some sense, an outcry of the social system of the South assailed and imperilled by the war and doomed to perish in the great convulsion. The title "Marse Robert" fitted at once the life of the soldier and the life of the slave, because both were based upon the principle of absolute obedience to absolute authority.

In this connection it may not be uninteresting to note — what is perhaps not generally known — that during the last months of the war the Confederate authorities canvassed seriously the policy of arming the Southern slaves and putting them in the field as soldiers. I was told by a leading member of the Senate of Virginia that, by special invitation, General Lee came over from Petersburg and appeared before, as I remember, a joint committee of the two Houses, to which this matter had been referred, and gave his opinion in favor of the experiment upon the ground, mainly, that unhesitating and unlimited obedience — the first great lesson of the soldier — was ingrained, if not inborn, in the Southern slave.

Yet once more — to christen Lee "Master" was an act of homage peculiarly appropriate to his lofty and masterful personality.

There never could have been a second "Marse Robert;" as, but for the unparalleled elevation and majesty of his character and bearing, there would never have been the first. He was of all men most attractive to us, yet by no means most approachable. We loved him much, but we revered him more. We never criticised, never doubted him ; never attributed to him either moral error or mental weakness; no, not even in our secret hearts or most audacious thoughts. I really believe it would have strained and blurred our strongest and clearest conceptions of the distinction between right and wrong to have entertained, even for a moment, the thought that he had ever acted from any other than the purest and loftiest motive. I never but once heard of such a suggestion, and then it so transported the hearers that military subordination was forgotten and the colonel who heard it rushed with drawn sword against the major-general who made it.

The proviso with which a ragged rebel accepted the doctrine of evolution, that "the rest of us may have descended or ascended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse Robert," had more than mere humor in it.

I am not informed whether the figure of speech to which I am about to refer ever obtained outside the South, or whether its use among us was generally known beyond our borders. It undoubtedly originated with our negroes, being

EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE 21

an expression of their affectionate reverence for their masters, by metaphor, transferred to the one great "Lord and Master" of us all ; but it is certainly also true that Southern white men, and especially Southern soldiers, were in the habit — and that without the least consciousness of irreverence— of referring to the Divine Being as "Old Marster," in connection especially with our inability to comprehend His inscrutable providences and our duty to bow to His irreversible decrees. There is no way in which I can illustrate more vividly the almost worship with which Lee's soldiers regarded him than by saying that I once overheard a conversation beside a camp fire between two Calvinists in Confederate rags and tatters, shreds and patches, in which one simply and sincerely inquired of his fellow, who had just spoken of "Old Marster," whether he referred to "the one up at headquarters or the One up yonder."

We never compared him with other men, either friend or foe. He was in a superlative and absolute class by himself. Beyond a vague suggestion, after the death of Jackson, as to what might have been if he had lived, I cannot recall even an approach to a comparative estimate of Lee.

As to his opponents, we recked not at all of them, but only of the immense material force behind them; and as to that, we trusted our commanding general like a providence. There was at first a mild amusement in the rapid succession of the Federal commanders, but even this grew a little trite and tame. There was, however, one point of great interest in it, and that was our amazement that an army could maintain even so much as its organization under the depressing strain of these successive appointments and removals of its commanding generals. And to-day I, for one, regard the fact that it did preserve its cohesion and its fighting power under and in spite of such experiences, as furnishing impressive demonstration of the high character and intense loyalty of our historic foe, the Federal Army of the Potomac.

As to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, so far as I know or have reason to believe, but one man in the Confederate States ever dared to suggest a change, and that one was Lee himself, who — after the battle of Gettysburg, and again, I think, though I cannot verify it, when his health gave way for a time under the awful strain of the campaign of '64 — suggested that it might be well he should give way to a younger and stronger man. But the fact is, that Lee's preeminent fitness for supreme command was so universally recognized that, in spite of the obligation of a soldier to undertake the duties of any position to which he may be assigned by competent authority, I doubt whether there was an officer in all the armies of the Confederacy who would have consented to accept appointment as Lee's successor in command of the Army of Northern Virginia — possibly there was one — and I am yet more disposed to question whether that army would have permitted Lee to resign his place or any other to take it. Looking back over its record, from Seven Pines to Appomattox, I am satisfied that the unquestioned and unquestionable preeminence, predominance, and permanence of Lee, as its commander-in-chief, was one of the main elements which made the Army of Northern Virginia what it was.

I have said we never criticised him. I ought, perhaps, to make one qualification of this statement. It has been suggested by others and I have myself once or twice felt that Lee was too lenient, too full of sweet charity and allowance. He did not, as Jackson did, instantly and relentlessly remove incompetent officers.

The picture is before you, and yet it is not intended as a full picture, but only as such a presentation of him, from the point of view of his soldiers, as will explain and justify the quaint title which they habitually applied to their great commander. I have not attempted and shall not attempt a complete portrait. Why should I, when the most eloquent tongues and pens of two continents have labored to present, with fitting eulogy, the character and career of our great Cavalier. It is our patent of nobilty that he is to-day regarded— the world over — as the representative of the soldiery of the South.

EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE 23

Not only is it true of him, as already intimated, that he uniformly acted from the highest motive presented to his soul — but so impressive and all-compelling was the majesty of his virtue that it is doubtful whether any one ever questioned aught of this. It is perhaps not too much to say that the common consensus of Christendom — friend and foe and neutral — ranks him as one of the greatest captains of the ages and attributes to him more of the noblest virtues and powers, with less of the ordinary selfishness and littleness of humanity, than to any other great soldier. This is what is meant by our dedication — that the world has come to view him very much as his ragged followers did in the grand days when they were helping him to make history.

Can you point to another representative man upon whom the light of modern day has been focussed with such intensity, of whom these supreme things may be said with so little strain ; or rather, with acquiescence practically universal? For our part, we say emphatically — we know not where to look for the man.

The scheme of this book is a modest one. The author makes no pretense that he is qualified to write history or to discuss learnedly, from a professional standpoint, the battles and campaigns of armies ; while of course an old veteran cannot be expected always and absolutely to refrain from saying how the thing looked to him. All that is really proposed— and the writer will be more than content if he acquit himself fairly well of this limited design — is to state clearly and truthfully what he saw and experienced as a private soldier and subordinate officer in the military service of the Confederate States in Virginia from '61 to '65.

It is not proposed, however, to give a consecutive recital of all that occurred during these four years, even within the narrow range of the writer's observation and experience ; but rather to select and record such incidents, arranged of course in a general orderly sequence, as are deemed to be of inherent interest, or to shed light upon the portrait of the Confederate soldier, the personality of prominent actors in the war drama upon the Southern side, the salient points of the great conflict, or the general conditions of life in and behind the Confederate lines.

Again, such are the imperfections of human observation and such the irregularities and errors of human memory, especially in the record of events long past, that many may be disposed to question the value of such a book as this, written to-day, relating to our civil war. I can only reply that not a few of the incidents recorded were reduced to writing years ago, indeed soon after they occurred ; while perhaps as much has been gained in perspective as has been lost in detail, by waiting. Certainly it can be better determined to-day what is worthy of preservation and publication than it could have been immediately after the war.

The slips and vagaries of memory, however, cannot be denied or excluded. It can only be said, "forewarned is forearmed." I shall endeavor to exercise that conscientious care which the character of the work requires, but cannot hope to attain uniform and unerring accuracy in every detail. In the record of conversations, interviews, and speeches I shall sometimes adopt the form of direct quotation, even where not able to recall the precise words employed by the speakers and interlocutors — if I am satisfied this form of narrative will best convey the real spirit of the occasion.

And as the writer is2 in the main, to relate what he saw and heard and did, he craves in advance charitable toleration of the first personal pronoun in the singular number.

Chapter II Introductory Sketches

Ante-war History of the Author — The Fight for the "Speakership" in i860 — Vallandigham, of Ohio — Richmond After the John Brown Raid — Whig and Democratic Conventions of Virginia in i36o.

There are features of my antecedent personal history calculated, perhaps, to impart a somewhat special interest to my experiences as a Confederate soldier. I was the eldest son of the Rev. Joseph C. Stiles, a Presbyterian minister, born in Georgia, where his ancestors had lived and died for generations, but who moved to the North and, from my boyhood, had lived in New York City and in New Haven, Conn. I was prepared for college in the schools of these two cities and was graduated at Yale in 1859. It so happened that I had never visited the South since the original removal of the family, which occurred when I was some twelve years of age ; so that practically all my education, associations and friendships were Northern. True, I took position as a Southerner in all our college discussions and debates, but never as a "fire-eater" or secessionist. Indeed, I was a strong "Union man" and voted for Bell and Everett in i860.

After my graduation in 1859 I passed the late summer and autumn in the Adirondack woods fishing and hunting with several classmates, and devoted the rest of the year to general reading and some little teaching, in New Haven; until, becoming deeply interested in the fierce struggle over the Speakership of the House of Representatives, I went to Washington, and from the galleries of the House and Senate eagerly overhung the great final debates. I had paid close attention to oratory during my college course and I doubt whether there was another onlooker in the Capitol more deeply absorbed than I. On more than one occasion the excitement and pressure of the crowd in the galleries of the House was fearful, and once at least persons were dragged out, more dead than alive, over the heads of others sc densely packed that they could not move; but I never failed to secure a front seat.

I grew well acquainted — that is, by sight — with the party leaders, and recall, among others, Seward and Douglas and Breckenridge, Davis and Toombs and Benjamin, in the Senate ; Sherman and Stevens, Logan and Vallandigham, Pryor and Keitt, Bocock and Barksdale, and Smith, of Virginia, in the House. It became intensely interesting to me to observe the part some of these men played later in the great drama: Seward as the leading figure of Lincoln's Cabinet; Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy; Benjamin, Toombs, and Breckenridge as members of his Cabinet, the two latter also as generals whom I have more than once seen commanding troops in battle; "Black Jack" Logan, — hottest of all the hotspurs of the extreme Southern wing of the Democratic party in the House in i860, — we all know where he was from '61 to '65 ; and glorious old "Extra Billy" Smith, soldier and governor by turns ; Barksdale, who fell at Gettysburg, was my general, commanding the infantry brigade I knew and loved best of all in Lee's army and which often supported our guns ; and poor Keitt ! I saw him fall at Cold Harbor in '64 and helped to rally his shattered command.

The Republican party had nominated John Sherman for Speaker, and he was resisted largely upon the ground of his endorsement of Hinton Rowan Helper's book, which was understood as inciting the negro slaves of the South to insurrection, fire, and blood. The John Brown raid had occurred recently, and Col. Robert E. Lee had led the party of United States Marines which captured the raiders and their leader. They had just been convicted and executed as murderers. The excitement was frightful and ominous, and scenes of the wildest disorder occurred in the House. One of these was in every way so remarkable that I ask leave to describe it somewhat fully.

The Republican leaders had become convinced they could not elect Sherman, and about the same time the Demo

INTRODUCTORY SKETCHES 27

crats, seeing there was no possibility of electing their original candidate, Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia, had put up William N. H. Smith, of North Carolina, an old line Whig, or Southern American, and it seemed certain they would elect him. Indeed, he was elected and his election telegraphed all over the land; but before the result of the ballot could be announced, Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and E. Joy Morris, of Pennsylvania, as I recollect, Northern Americans or Republicans, who had voted for Smith, changed their votes and everything was again at sea. It was then openly proposed to withdraw Sherman; and John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, who had been elected as an anti-Lecompton Democrat, but had gone over to the Republicans, took the floor to resist what he characterized as cowardice and treachery. Hickman had not voted for Sherman until the crisis was reached, but had been openly charged, on the floor of the House, with secretly desiring and plotting to elect him. Pryor and Keitt and other hotheaded Southerners had attacked Hickman fiercely, and leading Northern Democrats had upbraided him for his desertion. Under these taunts and thrusts he had become the bitterest man upon the floor.