CHAPTER XXXV.

GRANT IN VIRGINIA.

THE CONFEDERACY IN 1863.-POVERTY AND PAPER MONEY.-CHRISTMAS IN RICHMOND.-TREATMENT OF UNION PRISONERS.-EXCHANGES.-NEGRO SOLDIERS.-PRISON CAMPS.-LIBBY PRISON.-BELLE ISLE.-EFFORTS TO FREE PRISONERS.-ULRIC DAHLGREN.-A MINE UNDER LIBBY.-GRANT MADE LIEUTENANT-GENERAL.-HIS COMMISSION.-GRANT WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.-HIS PLAN.-THE RAPIDAN CROSSED.-BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS.-LEE IN DANGER.-LONGSTREET WOUNDED.-FIRE IN THE WOODS.-THE MARCH TO SPOTSYLVANIA. SHARPSHOOTERS.-Death of SEDGWICK.-BATTLE OF SPOTTSYLVANIA.—I PROPOSE TO FIGHT IT OUT ON THIS LINE.-HANCOCK AND STEWART.-Danger oF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.-TERRIBLE MUSKETRY FIRE.-GRANT AGAIN MARCHES SOUTHWARD.

WE left the Army of the Potomac, under General Meade,

and the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Lee, in winter quarters on the Rapidan at the close of 1863, the former on the northern, the latter on the southern bank of the river (page 371). The year had been a most unfortunate one for the Confederates. The previous winter had been somewhat cheered by the victory of Fredericksburg and the hope that foreign powers would interfere in their behalf and put an end to the war; but the winter of 1863 came almost without hope and without resources. It is true a few advantages had been gained, but they had been more than balanced by losses. Chancellorsville had been won at the cost of Jackson's life, and had been followed by Gettysburg and Vicksburg; and the gain of Chickamauga had been wiped out by the disgrace of Chattanooga. The Confederacy had been cut in twain on the line of the Mississippi, and little could be done to prevent the division of the eastern half.

There was a cry of scarcity everywhere. Most of the ablebodied men were in the army, but few being left to manufacture the necessaries of life. The strict blockade of the ports had nearly stopped all trade with foreign lands, so that the stores had little to sell; and many shopkeepers who had goods kept them back in hope of getting yet higher prices. Paper money was plenty, but it took twenty-eight Confederate dollars to buy one gold dollar's worth. The rich had become poor, and the poor had become paupers. Society was completely overturned,

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so that the man who labored with his hands was better off than the most scholarly professional man; for the former could earn enough to buy bread and clothes, while the latter often went hungry and ragged. The only really happy ones were the colored people, who seldom let anything worry them.

Christmas in Richmond that year came cold and raw, with cutting winds and skies as threatening as the fortunes of the Confederacy. There was little to make people joyful, for want showed itself at every board, and many a chair was empty. Even an ordinary Christmas dinner for a dozen persons cost $200 to $300. Flour was worth $125 to $150 a barrel, and sugar $5 to $10 a pound, according to its quality. Turkeys, which the year before had been worth $10 to $12 apiece, were very scarce, and cost $40 to $50 apiece. Apples were $80 a barrel; beans, $28 a bushel; cheese, $7 a pound; butter, $5.50 a pound; and coffee, $11.50 a pound. A boiled ham was a luxury, and roast beef was only for the rich. Many were grateful for a little bacon and corn-bread, and delicate women went to church that day faint with hunger who had never known the feeling before.

During the early part of 1864 there were no military movements in Virginia excepting some cavalry raids undertaken for the purpose of releasing the Union prisoners in Richmond, whose condition had excited much pity in the North. In the beginning of the war, the United States, not recognizing the Confederate States as a government, with the right to make war, had treated prisoners as felons. The shooting of a Union soldier was called a murder, and the capture of a United States vessel was called piracy. It will be remembered that the crew of the Savannah were thrown into prison as pirates, and it was even proposed to hang them as such (page 141). But the battle of Bull Run threw many prisoners into the hands of the Confederates, and their threats of hanging some of them in retaliation forced the United States to treat them as prisoners of war. For a long time the government, determined not to do anything which would seem to recognize the right of the Confederates to carry on war, refused to exchange any prisoners; but in the summer of 1862 an arrangement was made by which Confederate prisoners were exchanged for Union prisoners of equal rank, man for man. Under this agreement many thou

sand captives on both sides were released and returned to their homes.

Exchanges went on, with some interruptions, until the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the enrolling of negro soldiers in the Union army. The Confederate authorities then refused to exchange colored soldiers, and ordered that every white officer captured in command of black soldiers should be put to death, and that every black soldier taken in arms should be given up to the authorities of the State where captured to be dealt with according to law-that is, to be enslaved again. On this President Lincoln issued another proclamation declaring that "for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the

public works." This action of the United States government prevented the threatened execution of prisoners, but the Confederates still refused to exchange the black soldiers taken by them. This put an end to the exchange of all prisoners, for the United States would not permit any difference to be made in the treatment of its soldiers, whether black or white. After this all prisoners were kept by each side, and so it happened that tens of thousands of poor captives pined in prison-camps, and that great numbers died from disease, bad food, and illtreatment.

Prison-camps were built by both parties for the detention of prisoners. There was a very large one near Chicago, called Camp Douglas, to which most of the Confederates captured at Fort Donelson and Shiloh were sent. Another one at Columbus, Ohio, was named Camp Chase. It was surrounded by a strong fence sixteen feet high, the outside of which with the

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guard-houses is shown in the picture. On the inside were provided barracks for the prisoners, so that none of them were without shelter.

The first Union prisoners taken by the Confederates were confined in Richmond in a large storehouse belonging to a Mr. Libby, and which was named from him Libby Prison. When this building was full prisoners were confined on a small island in the James River, called Belle Isle, where a kind of camp was made, surrounded by a wall of earth and by ditches. It is said that the prisoners were penned up there like sheep, without any shelter even in winter, and that many were frozen to death. It is also said that all the prisoners were given poor and insufficient food, and that they were systematically starved by the Confederate authorities so as to make them unfit for further service. Southern writers say, on the contrary, that these stories are untrue: that the prisoners on Belle Isle were furnished with tents like those of the soldiers that guarded them, and that the food furnished to them and to those in Libby Prison was the same as the rations of their soldiers in the field. They also say that the healthfulness of the place and the good care taken of the prisoners is proved by the fact that out of more than twenty thousand prisoners confined on Belle Isle, only one hundred and sixty-four died between June, 1862, and February, 1865, or about five each month.

But whether the stories of the cruel treatment of Union captives in Richmond are true or not, they were generally believed at the time throughout the North, and in the early part of 1864 it was determined to make an attempt to rescue them. The first effort was made in the early part of February by about fifteen hundred cavalry and infantry under General Wistar, who moved rapidly up the Peninsula to the Chickahominy River, intending to cross it and go into Richmond; but the Confederates heard of it and were prepared for them at the river, and the expedition returned. On Sunday, February 28, General Kilpatrick crossed the Rapidan with five thousand cavalry, and passing Lee's army, marched rapidly toward Richmond. After several sharp fights, he entered the outer line of the Richmond fortifications early on the morning of the 1st of March. Here he halted in hope of hearing from Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, son of Admiral Dahlgren, who had left him at Spottsylvania Court-House with the

intention of passing through the country above Richmond and of crossing the river and attacking Richmond from the south while Kilpatrick attacked from the north side. Not hearing the sound of Dahlgren's guns and finding the inner fortifications too strong to carry, Kilpatrick rode away toward Mechanicsville and bivouacked for the night about six miles from Richmond. But the Confederates attacked him and drove him from there, and he crossed the Chickahominy and retreated down the Peninsula, where he finally met a force sent to his aid from Fortress Monroe.

Colonel Dahlgren was not so fortunate. He found the river too deen to ford, and so, after entering the outer fortifications of Richmond, and being stopped, as Kilpatrick had been, by the stronger inner works, turned and went down the north side. But Kilpatrick's appearance had roused the country, and he was beset by home-guards in every direction. After crossing the Mattapony River he was attacked by a body of militia, and was shot dead at their first fire. His men scattered and some reached Kilpatrick, but about one hundred of them were taken prisoners.

Southern writers say that papers were found on Dahlgren's body showing a plot to free the Union captives in Richmond, and by their aid to burn the city and murder President Davis and other chief men. They also say that the plot was proved by the evidence of prisoners taken, and by the fact that a large number of knives and slung-shots were found among the prisoners in the city, who had thus made ready to give their aid. "A mine was prepared under the Libby Prison; a sufficient quantity of gunpowder was put into it, and pains were taken to inform the prisoners that any attempt at escape made by them would be effectually defeated. The plan succeeded perfectly. The prisoners were awed and kept quiet. Dahlgren and his party were defeated and scattered. The danger passed away, and in a few weeks the gunpowder was removed."

This is the story as told by the Confederate writers. Union writers say, on the contrary, that the papers said to have been found on Colonel Dahlgren's body were forgeries and that they were made up by the Confederates themselves to excuse the barbarous treatment of his dead body, which was insulted and buried where it could not be found by his friends. They also