Diary of Rev. Clay MacCauley
Source: Clay MacCauley, "From Chancellorsville to Libby Prison," Paper read before Minnesota Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (St. Paul: St. Paul Book and Stationery Co., 1887), reprinted in [126th Pennsylvania Regimental History], pp. 146-154.
[Reverend Clay MacCauley wrote his account of Chancellorsville and his capture there, twenty three years after the war. It was originally read before the Minnesota Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States in 1886. MacCauley was interned at Richmond's Libby Prison, a former tobacco warehouse reserved for Union officers. Next to Andersonville, it was perhaps the most notorious prison in the Confederacy. However, MacCauley was a lucky man for within two weeks he became part of a prisoner exchange. By the time the 126th was mustered out, he was back with Company D. This portion of his account begins on the morning of May 3, 1863.]
The next morning, Sunday, we were awakened at daybreak by a heavy, irregular trampling at our rear. Looking around, I saw trailing along among the trees a broken and most demoralized-looking line of soldiers. I instantly felt what it meant. Our time had come. We must go into action. We soon learned that this was the remnant of the Eleventh Corps, and that it had been sent to occupy our safe place. Then in our division all was bustle and preparation. Coffee and hard-tack were soon swallowed. With the risen sun we were off, going at a double-quick, towards the right, where desperate fighting had already been renewed. In a short time we were under shell fire. Near the Chancellorsville House we were halted. Our three miles' run had been a pretty severe beginning for the day. We lay there under fire for near an hour. Then in column we moved on past the famous house, past the forty guns which had been massed in the open space beyond the house, and towards the woods where, at the right, a sharp crashing whirr of musketry rose above all the other dreadful sounds which filled the air. There the horrors of war began to appear. In our way numbers from the regiments which had preceded us had met with wounds and death. We made a short halt where these dead and wounded were lying. This was a most trying experience. Had the stop continued long it might have been demoralizing. With nothing to do and with mutilation and death visible at our very feet, and with peril to ourselves increasing, rather large drafts were made on our moral forces. Fortunately, the halt was but for a moment. Then, by the right flank, we advanced in line of battle. What an advance! Leaving the open field we entered the wilderness. Our progress was, for the most part, a mere scramble over logs, through dense underbrush, briers, and in mud. We were scratched and bruised, and our clothing was torn. We pushed on, for perhaps a hundred yards, into the thicket. There in a somewhat thinner woods we halted, and, when in line, lay down and began to load and fire at will. It was an ugly give and take. We could not see the enemy, but the whizz and ting of bullets proved that they were not far away. How long this aimless firing continued I do not know. As the excitement grew several of the men rose to their feet, fired, and remained standing to load and fire. By a little experience just then I realized how much support numbers may be to each in a common danger. One of my men in his haste had fired off his ramrod; he held up the musket that I might see what he had done. Without thinking I started to the rear, where, a short distance away,lay a musket. No sooner had I left touching distance of my company when an irresistible sense of loneliness and dread seized me. Each step away made the sensation more acute. Soon I was practically panic-stricken. Somehow, however, I got the ramrod of the useless musket. I went back to the line on the run. With the return came assurance and courage. I never felt more alone or helpless then in those few moments of isolation from my comrades. The air seemed full of hissing, shrieking demons. I was sure that each next moment would bring death.
The fight went on. So continuous had been the firing, that the underbrush at our front was literally cut down at about waist height. Gradually I saw one after another of our men cease firing. Ammunition was exhausted. We called for supplies. None were to be had. Something had gone wrong. The men began to feel it. As our firing slackened I noticed a foreboding disorder on our right. Then a feeling of suspense and doubt seemed to thrill along the line. About that time I felt a blow on my right side, as if I had been struck by a heavy hammer. A spent ball had hit me, the effects of which I felt for a year thereafter. The disorder, changing into tumult, came nearer and nearer. At last it swept in upon the company next to mine. Then it struck my own companys' right. The companies, rising in successive ranks from the ground, the men with questioning looks at one another, started at first slowly and then rapidly backward. It was not a panic. It was a rather disorderly falling back of almost helpless men, from a coming danger they felt themselves powerless to resist. They were good soldiers. They had led in the boldest and fartherest charge made by the Union forces up Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, the preceding December. But what can men do when without ammunition they see the line of which they form part steadily backing away from some oncoming force? A wave rolling backward on a curving beach does not more steadily sweep broken on its way than did the retreat of our battle line from right to left that Sunday morning. The rebels, discovering that our ammunition was exhausted, had charged upon us, striking our extreme right.
What then happened to me a letter written not long afterwards describes in these words: 'Soon I found myself alone. I saw that I must run or be killed. I started to run, but after a few steps my scabbard caught between my legs and threw me down upon my face. Up again, I tried to break through the bushes, but the bullets were whizzing around at a terrible rate. I fell again, and was so exhausted I could go no farther. I crawled alongside one of the wounded. In a moment the rebels were on me.' I remember well, now, that poor mangled fellow, at whose side I was. Seeing me he had begged for water. I was about to give him my canteen, when, looking up, I discovered the rebels rapidly coming through the brush. Those moments are now more like the memory of some dreadful dream. Instinctively I started to rise. But, as I rose, I saw a rebel skirmisher take a sudden and not very agreeable interest in me. With a jerk he brought his musket to a direct aim. I was his mark. Probably you understand just what it is to look into a loaded gun, whose hammer is up and whose trigger is under the finger of a man who would just as soon pull as not. Under the circumstances, naturally, I remained just where I was, in a half-risen posture. For several seconds I looked into the muzzle of that advancing musket. I saw, as in a mist, many moving men, and heard the noise of their rush. But my brain was concentrated on that one advancing figure. He came upon me swifter than I can write of him. When within a few paces, down came the gun to a charge, and with the bayonet at my breast he yelled out, 'You G D S of a B, give me that sword.' While he spoke the rebel line came up. It passed with a rush. Two regiments deep they were. I afterwards learned that the Sixth and Fifth Alabamas were at our immediate front. My captor, a big, tawny-bearded fellow, noticing that I was but a boy, changed his manner at once as I gave him my sword. Seeing that I did not rise, he asked me if I was hurt. 'I do not know,' I replied. I added, 'get me out of this as quick as you can.' I suddenly remembered that just beyond where we had entered the tangle, in the open space, were batteries, about forty guns, planted in a crescent and bearing on the woods. I thought that our line would fall back to those batteries and rally there. I was sure, too, that, as soon as the rebels should appear at the edge of the woods, something would happen. I had no desire to be killed by grape, canister, shell, or anything else from our own guns. I therefore urged our retreat into the rebel lines as quickly as possible. My new acquaintance from Alabama agreed with me. He put a strong arm under my shoulders and, half carrying me, started for the rear. I cannot tell how far we had gone--perhaps it was a hundred yards--when the expected something happened. It seemed as if a tornado out of a clear sky had, all at once, burst upon that forest. We had just reached a breastwork and where there was quite a deep hole. With the first crash, into that hole we fell. For about ten minutes a roaring torrent of iron plunged through the air above us. We were almost covered by fallen tree-limbs and branches. The noise was horrible. Gradually the devastating stream ceased, but as it slackened back came the rebel crown all in disorder. Back with the retreating rebels we two scrambled towards the farther rear. Soon the rebels halted under the shouts of their officer. I was carried on to where I at length met General Rhodes, to whom I surrendered and by whom I was sent still farther back. Our way lay over one of the plank roads so much spoken of in connection with the fight. On this the struggle of the day and night before had been severest. Our own and the rebel dead by the score lay side by side there. Twice batteries plunged by us, the hoofs of the horses and the carriage-wheels crushing and mutilating the dead bodies of friend and foe. Along the roadside were gathered hundreds of wounded of both armies. Their only shelter from the blazing sun was blankets stretched over them and held in place by the closed hammers of four muskets, the muskets reversed and stuck upright by their bayonets into the ground. It was a sickening march. Rebel reserves passed us, hurrying to the front on double-quick. Supplies of ammunition were being carried forward. Farther on, we reached what I was told had been the front line of the 'Yankee' breastworks. At that point was a house filled with and surrounded by wounded and dying from the hapless Eleventh Corps. Many evidences of a fearful struggle were visible there. Leaving these, we soon were inside the original rebel position. I was delivered over to an officer and made one more of a large crowd of our own men already gathered there. At last, then, the morning's horror was past. I threw myself upon the ground, physically exhausted, a discouraged, miserable prisoner of war. From the moment of surrender neither abuse nor injury was offered. And so far as I could see much had been done by the rebels for our wounded. A number of our own surgeons had been left within the rebel lines, while rebel surgeons were dividing their time between the injured of both armies.
After a short rest I began to take observations of my new situation and surroundings. One of the things most to attract attention was the generally miserable appearance of the soldiers of Jackson's corps. Dirt and tatters seemed to be the rule in their clothing, and a used-up, emaciated look in their physique. They were what one would call a hard-looking crowd. Nor could one style them wearers of the gray. Dusty brown, rather, were they, from their rusty slouch hats, sandy beards,sallow skins, butternut coats, and pantaloons down to their mud-stained shoes. I thought them emaciated I said, but perhaps I would better say that they were lank and lean. Certainly they had shown remarkable endurance, and they were yet able to do exhausting and desperate work. I suppose the facts were that already the Confederacy was beginning to suffer from poverty in its quartermaster's department, and that,accustomed to the round, well-fed look of the soldiers of the North, I could not judge correctly of men who had become chiefly sinew and bone by such work as Stonewall Jackson demanded of them. Nevertheless, as we soon found out, the rebel commissariate was neither well filled nor luxurious. One of our guards gave me a small piece of his hard-tack for luncheon. He said that they were all on short rations. We officers, as it proved, were unfortunate in having put our haversacks on pack-mules that morning before going into action. Consequently we had become in every sense of the word dependents on our captors' bounty. How generous that was the sequel will show.
Towards noon the prisoners were formed into a sort of column, the members of numerous Union regiments ranked side by side as chance ordered, and were started off southward on a road towards Spotsylvania Court House. We were guarded by a South Carolina regiment. As we marched, it was about fifteen miles to the court-house, which, at nightfall, we reached. The officers were driven into the court-house yard, where we spent the night on the grass under the shelter of the overspreading trees. As I lay there, looking up at the quiet stars and sky, I realized fully for the first time what the events of the day meant. I was a prisoner and doomed to--I could not tell what. I dreaded the fate of the unknown future, but, worse than all, I suffered from thinking of the suspense of the father and mother at home, who would not know what had become of the boy they had expected so soon to see. At last I went to sleep under a miserable depression of brain and heart.
We were on the road early the next morning. We had not coffee or food to start the day with. Already some of us had begun to suffer from our unusual fast. Spotsylvania Court-House was a beautiful place. It was not a town. It was composed of just the county building, the tavern, a house or two, and one or two country churches. But there were open and green fields there and beautiful trees. That Monday's march was silent and dreary. We saw but few people and passed but few houses. No signs of war were apparent. Our column must have seemed more like a doleful gang of condemned criminals than a body of honorably defeated soldiers. Most of us were in a sorry condition from bruises and scratches inflicted in that scramble in the wilderness. The clothing of some was so torn that arms, legs, and even breasts were laid bare. Only the following incidents of that day are fresh in memory. During one of our halts near a good-looking house, a woman gave to the major commanding our guard a small rebel flag, which, to please her, he flaunted over us as he rode along, with the declaration that now we would have 'to march under that flag for a while.' This was the first real insult offered us. At another place a pretty little woman came down a path, running from her house to the roadside, fairly wild with revengeful rage. She clasped her little fists and shook them at us, her black eyes sparkling. With a sort of scream she cried out, 'Kill 'em all, colonel! Kill 'em all right here for me!' Colored people at times came out from their cabins to look at us, but never a word said they. This gloomy march lasted for about thirteen miles. Late in the afternoon we crossed the Ny River, reached Guiney's Station on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railway, and were halted in a low meadow, which, as I have learned, was but a continuation of what is called Stannard's Marsh. We were near a mile northwest of the depot. Guiney's was at that time the base of supplies for Lee's army. Monday night we slept miserably, those who slept at all. The ground was soft and wet. We had been without food all the day. We did not have even the comfort of fires. The strain began to tell. But we had reached a railroad. That fact had some cheer in it, and we were only about forty-five miles from Richmond. Tuesday morning dawned. A noticeable stir at the station aroused our interest. The rumor spread among us that the rebels had, after all, been whipped. Trains of baggage-wagons came in from Fredericksburg, their horses on the gallop. We heard a report that the rebels were making preparations for a wholesale removal of their supplies towards Richmond. Hope of recapture by our own men sprang up, but it soon fell. Then we made a demand for food. We were answered that there was none. We asked for wood. 'None to be had,' was the reply. The day dragged along. In the afternoon a wagon was driven into to our camp with 'rations,' as we were told. It brought a half-barrel of salt beef and a barrel of flour. These rations were distributed, but this was the style of the distribution: the barrel of flour was tumbled from the wagon onto the ground; it burst open where it fell. At the side of the flour the beef was dropped. Now, hungry as we were, what could we do with wither flour or beef, having neither kettle nor fire? So there lay the two generous gifts of food, and continued to lie. Gradually the flour absorbed moisture from the ground and became a dirty brown paste. The beef took on a ironical red, white and blue tint from exposure to the air, sun, and water. Some of us tried to eat of the pastry flour; we soon had to give over the effort. Then we began to long for transportation to Richmond. We felt sure that there we should get both shelter and something to eat. Tuesday night came, and again we lay down for a night in the marshy meadow.
Wednesday morning arose a chilling northeast wind with clouding skies. We did not seem to have anything to wake up for. That camp of Union soldiers was almost as unhappy a looking set of men as you could bear to see. Our clothing was wet through and through and our stomachs still empty. A few of us determined that if possible something would be done. What others did I do no~ know. This story, as I said at the outset, centres around myself. Therefore what three others did with me to solve the problem I can recount. We begged permission to go to a house about a quarter of a mile away to try to find food. Our request was granted, and a kind-hearted fellow happened to be detailed as our guard. With some renewed hope we began our foraging. At that house lay General Stonewall Jackson, dying. From our guard we learned that he was in a critical condition. We did not get quite to the house, but at a cabin near by we found an old colored woman. She had but little. We returned to the camp, however, with an old hen, for which we paid five dollars in greenbacks, and with about a quart of cornmeal, which cost us one dollar. On the way back our soft-hearted guard led us by a tent near the railroad and allowed us to pick up an old iron tea-kettle lying there. Then came the question of how to cook our dinner. Our good rebel helped us to gather a quantity of small sticks on the banks of the Ny. In the little river there was water, more than we needed. The fire problem, however, was difficult to solve. A knife had taken off the hen's head and anatomized her, and hen, cornmeal and water had been well mixed together in the kettle. But the wood was damp and the ground was wet. After all our efforts we could not get quite as much fire as smoke, and it was hard work holding the kettle over the smoke. Not a stone to rest the kettle upon could be found.
Suddenly in the midst of our proceedings came a crisis and catastrophe. The novel soup was not even quite lukewarm, when all at once the officers were ordered to 'fall in.' We obeyed the order of course, but each of us four took place in the ranks with a handful of dripping chicken and warm cornmeal to carry with him. One of our number still held on to the precious kettle. 'To Richmond' was the cry. With this prospect to stimulate us, we started for the station. On the way we disposed of our chicken. It was almost nightfall when we reached the railroad. By that time the sky was densely clouded. Already a thick mist was driving by on the chill wind. 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,' it is written. So as night closed in it was with increasing heaviness of heart that in vain we strained our eyes to find the cars which were to take us away from that place of torture. All was in confusion about the station. Trains and cars were shunting from place to place; wagons coming and going; men hurrying to and fro. The hours passed, but nothing came for us. Eight, nine o'clock were gone. Rain began to fall and a fierce, colder wind to blow. Still no cars for us. Instead, when it was near ten o'clock, we were, to our dismay, dragged back to the meadow. Reaching that, we found it changing into a veritable swamp. Water seemed to ooze up out of the ground a~ well as to pour down from the clouds. No one bettered himself in trying to get out of it. Water covered everything. However, we cared but little for what happened then. My brain was giving way to a sort of a torpor. I now can remember only that with a kind of instinct at self-preservation I groped about in the blackness of darkness, and found a small hummock; on that I laid my canteen, my elbow on the canteen, my head on my elbow, and that there, with hundreds of comrades, just twenty-three years ago to-night I lay down in water to pass the doleful hours.
I wish I had memory clear enough or pen powerful enough to describe the appearance of the Union prisoners' camp at Guiney's Station that next morning. How those rebel officers ever allowed it to become a possibility, even under the stress of the events following the battle, which had been as severe to them as it had been to their enemy I have never been able to explain. To their everlasting shame they did permit it. Having practically had no food for days, with no shelter in prospect, without even fires to protect us, lying in water inches deep and exposed to a terrible northeast storm, we saw Thursday morning come. Possibly the officers in command could have bettered our condition but little, if any. Possibly with prospect of removal to Richmond at any time they saw no necessity for making a change of our camp. Possibly, probably, they did not care. Yet our guard seemed almost as forlorn and famished as we were. How that Thursday went I do not remember. There was no pause in the storm, I know. Only as evening approached came renewal of hope. We were again ordered over to the railroad. That walk was but a cheerless struggle through deep, soft mud. I fell from exhaustion two or three times on the way. At the station some sank down at the halt. They swore they would not move again. This time, however, we had not been brought to the railroad on a fool's errand. At about nine o'clock, with seventy-three other officers of our army, I took a train for a trip to Richmond. I do not remember just how many of us were in the one car, but the car, I shall always recollect, was a rickety freight-box, seatless and windowless. its roof gave no real protection from the beating rain. The floor was covered with near an inch of filth, mud and corn mixed. To say we were crowded is not to tell the truth. We could not all have sat down al once had we tried. We disposed of ourselves in many sorts of postures as best we could. Some of us would then have given up wholly, had we not been supported by the confidence that before morning we should have release, and should reach shelter and food in Richmond. In truth, companions, hardly as much consideration was shown us there as we see everyday given here to carloads of cattle. Well, within an hour after we had been jammed into that freight-car the train started and we nerved ourselves for the night. But a tired horse could have gone as fast as we went. Of course much must be considered as accounting for this. The track was single. I suppose many obstacles were in the way. We were stopped often, and, to our great discomfort, jerked backwards and forwards in that loosely-coupled car. Yet we felt that the agony could not last much longer; at least so felt those of us who were not too benumbed to feel. So slow was our progress, however, that towards night we had not gone farther on our way than six miles. At that point we came to a long stop. Again we began to move. I did not know what was being done. Doubled up in as small a space as I could take at the side of the car, I knew only that we were moved and stopped. Finally came another stop. A long silence. Dawn came slowly through the continuing storm. Soon I heard some one say, '----- it, boys, we are still at Guiney's!' Of a truth we were. We were side-tracked just at the place we had started from at ten o'clock the night before. There is no use in my trying to give you here any notion of how we felt. I can state merely that fact.
Well, Friday morning had come. As all things else, that, too, at length passed. Not a mouthful of food was given us. Some of the men were allowed to get out of the car. They lay beside it in the mud for hours. The others of us stretched our benumbed bodies out where we were. Gradually the rain ceased and the skies brightened. About noon a second time we were packed into our box. What proved to be the real start for Richmond was then made. Of course I cannot tell what justification the rebel authorities might plead for this brutal manner in transporting us southward. I know that everything inside General Lee's lines was badly demoralized by the battle of Chancellorsville. Probably, too, the rebels had hardly enough food at command then to supply their own troops. All their means of railway carriage at Guiney's were in bad shape. But we felt by far the worst effect of their troubles. Moreover, I often think that the authorities at Guiney's were willing to see us as badly crippled, even by our misfortunes as captives in their hands, as by the damage they might inflict upon us in a fair fight. About five o'clock that Friday evening, May 8, 1863, threescore and more of thoroughly used-up Union officers were actually tumbled out of a freight car into one of the streets of the Confederate capital. The once dreaded city had by force of events become to them in imagination a welcome place of refuge. Famished, filthy, and many of us ragged, we slowly moved down a main street, followed by many men and women and a crowd of jeering, hooting boys.
How is it within human possibility for those who endured those six days ever to forget or ever to forgive the men whose acts had brought about the suffering and humiliation? Our experience at Guiney's and the manner in which we had been transported to Richmond had been as cruel as cruel could be, under this nineteenth century civilization, were there any possibility of preventing it. I noticed but little in our walk. Only two things impressed themselves distinctly upon my memory, excepting the taunting of the crowd. We passed the Capitol building. There stood the handsome equestrian statue of Washington in the Capitol grounds, the great commander of lifeless and consequently impassive spectator of the degradation of children of men who had fought and died under his leadership, that this country might become the home of a free and independent nation. And there too, stood, on the Capitol steps, the arch-traitor to the Union, the rebel President,--not a statue but the living man, he also an impassive spectator of our degradation, the degradation of many fellow-Americans, whose only crime had been that they had done what they could to save from traitors' hands the Union which Washington and our patriot fathers had bequeathed to posterity as a sacred trust for the service of mankind. Who of us, in his wildest imagining, could have thought that within but twenty-three years from that day the man who then so coldly looked at that miserable crowd of captive Union officers, on their way to prison, could start on a tour through any part of this land to vent, in the presence of the 'Stars and Stripes,' his cherished treason, and to receive for it, unforbidden, the applauding cheers of thousands? Can human history anywhere reproduce a spectacle like it? I have no feeling of revenge in saying this. But there is an instinct in man for what we call justice, and to Jefferson Davis I believe justice has not been done.
Our little band kept on its way followed by the hooting crowd. Then came the last moment in the tale of the war I have been trying to tell you, companions in the great struggle. We were halted in front of a large three-storied brick building. Looking up, we saw a great white sign extended across the sidewalk, from the west wall to a column. On it were painted these memorable words, 'Libby & Son, Ship Chandlers and Grocers.' By 'file right' we then passed by that and entered a broad, low-ceiled hall-way. We halted. Our journey was ended. We had come from 'Chancellorsville to Libby Prison.