Winter in the Confederate Camps Around Centreville, Part II: Sickness, Leave, and Reenlistment

Weather was not the only enemy that the Confederate soldiers confronted during the first winter of the war in Centreville.  The cramped, unsanitary conditions in camp were the perfect breeding ground for disease.  The men suffered from measles, mumps, typhoid fever, pneumonia, and other illnesses.  As Tom Goree, an aide to Gen. James Longstreet, wrote to his relatives at the start of January 1862, "[a] great many of our troops are off on sick furlough, many are sick here and not in condition for a fight. . . ."  (in Cutrer 66).  Doctors struggled to treat the large numbers of sick, and disease claimed many lives as the winter progressed.

Because the soldiers usually hailed from rural areas where they were less exposed to germs than those who lived in cities, they had never developed immunity to diseases, and the infection rate was even higher than it might otherwise have been. (Glatthaar 50-51.)  As Gen. John B. Gordon recalled in his memoirs:

There was much sickness in camp. It was amazing to see the large number of country boys who had never had the measles. Indeed, it seemed to me that they ran through the whole catalogue of complaints to which boyhood and even babyhood are subjected. They had everything almost except teething, nettle-rash, and whooping-cough. I rather think some of them were afflicted with this latter disease.  (Gordon 49.)

Gen. John B. Gordon was a lieutenant colonel of the 6th Alabama at the start of 1862 (courtesy of Library of Congress).  Gordon himself dealt with a severe bout of diarrhea throughout February and March 1862.

While sickness diminished the army's effective strength, the Confederates dealt with other threats to their preparedness.  On January 14, 1862, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, the commander of the Department of Northern Virginia, wrote to Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin:

Since the supply in the neighborhood was exhausted the Quartermaster's Department has been unable to furnish full forage. Hay and fodder are rarely to be had, consequently our horses are in wretched condition. (OR, 1:5, 1028.)

Goree likewise worried that "many of our horses are very poor, and almost too weak to draw heavy artillery." (in Cutrer 66.)

Given the monotony of camp life, the cold and muddy weather, and the prevalence of disease, it is not surprising that some men decided to take leave without permission.  Soldiers from nearby towns were particularly susceptible to the lure of family and friends back home.  The 8th Virginia, for example, was comprised of men from Leesburg, Virginia, about 25 miles from Centreville.  Several soldiers of the 8th disappeared so that they could spend time in their home town, away from the misery of winter in camp.  The situation apparently became so bad that the regimental commander published an order in the Richmond, Leesburg, and Warrenton papers:

All officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers, belonging to the 8th Virginia Regiment, who have not been detailed, by special order emanating from General Headquarters, and who are not actually disabled by sickness for duty, will immediately join this Regiment.

It is an outrage now, become too apparent, that whilst the brave and faithful are suffering all the hardships incident to camp life, the trifling and self-indulgent, are to deselect to their duty, as to absent themselves from their companies, thus throwing all of the work upon the few good soldiers who maintain their posts, to the scandal and disgrace of the fair name of the 8th Virginia Regiment, won on the fields of Manassas and Leesburg.  (Richmond Daily Dispatch, Jan. 25, 1862.)

The Confederate government offered soldiers a legitimate alternative to taking unauthorized leave.  Most men had volunteered for twelve months terms, which would expire in the spring.  Gen. Johnston estimated that about two-thirds of his command was composed of "one year" regiments. (OR, 1:5, 1058.)  Facing a potential manpower crisis, the Confederate Congress passed the so-called Bounty and Furlough Act in December 1861.  The law offered soldiers a fifty dollar bounty and a maximum 60-day furlough, with transportation expenses covered to home and back, if they would reenlist for two additional years, or the duration of the war.  Soldiers could even switch branches of the service, or change companies.

The law worried Johnston, who thought that the promise of a furlough would drain his ranks to dangerous levels.  He argued to Benjamin in January that it would "be unsafe to allow any large number of men to leave here; and without sustaining such a loss I do not see how the object of the law can be accomplished."  (OR, 1:5, 1037.)  Benjamin urged Johnston to understand that "the eager desire for a furlough during the inclement season will form the strongest inducement for your men, and thus afford the best guarantee of you having under your orders a large force of veteran troops when active operations recommence." (OR, 1:5, 1045.)  Johnston was told to "go to the extreme verge of prudence in tempting your twelve-month's men by liberal furloughs, and thus secure for yourself a fine body of men for the spring operations." (OR, 1:5, 1045.) 

Excerpt of the Bounty and Furlough Act from The Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America (1864) (courtesy of Google Books).

The camps around Centreville were predictably abuzz with talk of reenlistment and the associated inducements.  Some men rushed to reenlist, while others struggled with the decision and decided to wait things out.  In the 1st Maryland, Randolph McKim was apparently the first to sign up again, even though "not many followed his example."  (Howard 65.)  According to messmate McHenry Howard, McKim reenlisted "not for the sake of the furlough, but animated by high patriotic motives."  (Howard 65.)  To hear McKim tell the story, however, the furlough might have had a little something to do with it.  He wrote:

Words cannot express the delight a soldier felt at the prospect of a return to "civilization" for the space of thirty days. To have the opportunity of a daily bath, or at least a daily "wash up"; to change one's clothes; to sleep in a bed; to hear no "reveille" at four in the morning; not to be disturbed in the evening by the inevitable "taps"; to sit down at a table covered with a white cloth; . . . . — yes, to feast on the "fat of the land " before the land had grown lean and hungry, as it did in another twelvemonth; to bask in the smiles of the noble women of the Confederacy; to enjoy once more their delightful society; to be welcomed and feted like a hero wherever you went by the men as well as the women. . . .(McKim 62-63.)

In mid-February, Goree told to his uncle that "[t]he men are re-enlisting much more readily than I supposed they would.  Before spring, I think that the majority of the 12-mo's men will re-enlist."  (in Cutrer 74.)  Johnston, trying to preserve some semblance of military strength, limited the furloughs to the "rate of 20 per cent. of the men present for duty."  (OR, 1:5, 1065.)  Johnston, however, remained concerned that the army was "much weakened by loss of officers from sickness and soldiers on furlough. . . ."  (OR, 1:5, 1075.)  Soon the Confederacy would take another approach to raising and maintaining an army.  Virginia enacted a state draft law in February 1862, followed by the new Confederate Congress' Conscription Act in April.

The Confederates would remain in Centreville until March 1862.  The men endured many hardships, including weather and sickness, although they managed to find some comfort in little things like reading, writing letters, or playing cards.  Whiskey made life a little more tolerable, even if it led to trouble.  More than a few men got to visit home under the new bounty and furlough law, while others decided to take a leave of absence without asking.  The upcoming spring campaign would try the soldiers in battle as many of them had never been tried before.  Perhaps camp life wouldn't seem so bad after all when matched up against the horrors of warfare on the Peninsula and beyond.

For Part I of this series, see here.

Sources

Aside from the OR the following sources were useful in compiling this post:

"Civil Liberties in Virginia during the Civil War," Encyclopedia Virginia; Thomas W. Cutrer, Longstreet's Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J. Goree (1995); "Desertion (Confederate) During the Civil War," Encyclopedia Virginia; Charles L. Dufour, The Gallant Life of Roberdeau Wheat (1985); Ralph Lowell Eckert, John Brown Gordon: Soldier, Southerner, American (1989); Joseph T. Glatthaar, "Confederate Soldiers in Virginia, 1861," in William C. Davis & James I. Robertson, Jr., Virginia at War 1861 (2005); John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War (1904); McHenry Howard; Recollections of a Maryland Confederate Soldier and Staff Office Under Johnston, Jackson, and Lee (1914); Robert Howison, "A History of the War," Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. 38, No. 3 (March 1864); John J. Kundahl, Confederate Engineer: Training and Campaigning with John Morris Wampler (2000); Lawrence R. Laboda, From Selma to Appomattox: The History of the Jeff Davis Artillery (1994); James M. Matthews (ed.), The Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America (1864); Randolph H. McKim, A Soldier's Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate (1921); Richmond Daily Dispatch, Jan. 25, 1862; Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States, 64th Cong., 2nd Session, Senate Doc. No. 329 (1916); Lee A. Wallace, Jr., 17th Virginia Infantry (1990).

Winter in the Confederate Camps Around Centreville, Part I: Weather, Shelter, and Daily Life

As readers may have noticed, I've spent a considerable amount of time on the Union camps around Langley and Lewinsville during the first winter of the war.  This week I've decided to shift my focus to take a closer look at the Confederate side of the story.  As I have written in previous posts, the bulk of the Confederate Army in Northern Virginia, around 40,000 men, withdrew to the Centreville area in mid-October 1861.  Here the men settled down for what was to become a very long and quiet winter. 

By all accounts, the Confederate soldiers around Centreville faced harsh winter conditions as 1862 got underway.  The men surely needed the woolen socks that they received from home over Christmas!  As a correspondent for the Richmond Daily Dispatch dramatically described his trip to the Confederate camps:

The weather, oh the weather! Cold stormy weather, chilly winds moving through leafless tress, sweeping in boreal blasts along barren mountain and meadow; fitful showers drizzling destruction on the fair snow; thick fog stealthily looming up from the semi thawing earth; gurgling troubled streams swelling o'er dessicate fields; sad and timid stars lured by "the momentary blue sky;" struggling frowning clouds giving dismal glimpses of the pale sky moon; dying campfires emitting spasmodic sparks and a great gloomy silence prevailing all around are the chief features that marked my journey from our out-posts line to [Centreville]. . . .  (Daily Dispatch, Jan. 24, 1862.)

The men were seemingly obsessed with the fury that Mother Nature had sent their way.  Another correspondent for the Daily Dispatch remarked how "[r]ain, snow, sleet, mist, fog, mud, and the state of the weather generally, have for the time being, monopolized conversation to the exclusion of that everlasting topic 'the advance and the expected battle.'"  (Daily Dispatch, Jan 27, 1862.)  John B. Gordon, at the time a Lt. Col. of the 6th Alabama, recalled that "[t]he winter was a severe one and the men suffered greatly—not only for want of sufficient preparation, but because those from farther South were unaccustomed to so cold a climate."  (Gordon 49.)

"Centreville, Va.  Confederate winter quarters, south view" (courtesy Library of Congress). This picture was taken when the Union Army occupied the area in March 1862.

The future general was a little off the mark when it came to the soldiers' preparedness.  As cold weather descended on Northern Virginia, the men constructed log huts to provide at least some shelter from the elements.  These crude structures were the subject of a well-known period photograph.  (See above.)  By the end of 1861, the Confederates had built about 1,500 huts.  Not everyone was equally gifted when it came to the use of a saw.  McHenry Howard of the 1st Maryland described his messmate's efforts to erect a hut at their camp near Fairfax Station:

Each company constructed a row of cabins, fronting on a wide street between two companies, the officers' houses at the end of each street and facing down it. In my mess of about eleven there was not one who had done any manual work before the war and we felt rather helpless in our inexperience. But by watching others, at least half of whom were countrymen, and getting some help, we managed to get out the trimmed logs, notch them at the ends and set up the four walls of our residence. . . . (Howard 61.)

Howard was not ashamed to admit that completing the roof "was too much for us and we hired comrades to do it." (Howard 61.)

"Rebel Winter-Quarters at Centreville, Virginia. With Bull Run in the Distance," Harper's Weekly, March 29, 1862 (courtesy of sonofthesouth.net).  Like the photograph above, this sketch depicts the camp as it looked after the Confederate evacuation.

The Richmond Daily Dispatch reporter felt that the cabins "have quite an air of neatness and home comfort, with their stick and plaster chimneys, and their one window of six and four lights, and their new plank door."  (Daily Dispatch, Jan. 27, 1862.)  He informed readers that "[t]o supply the windows, of course every deserted house between Centreville and the outside of the lines had to furnish its quota."  (Daily Dispatch, Jan. 27, 1862.)  In one instance, an "old lady" had spent the afternoon with a friend, only to return and find no windows in her house.  (Daily Dispatch, Jan. 27, 1862.)  The soldiers believed that because "no smoke was coming from the chimney" it was a "deserted property" and they simply helped themselves to the windows.  (Daily Dispatch, Jan. 27, 1862.)     

The men in the camps around Centreville passed the days in a variety of ways when not drilling or on picket duty.  Howard's messmate, Randolph H. McKim, sent his mother a letter on January 27, 1862 which provides an intimate glimpse into the soldiers' daily life in the camps:

Wouldn't you like to peep in on us some evening as we sit around our stove amusing ourselves until it is time to retire? We are a happy but a boisterous family, as the neighbors next door will tell you. Our amusements are various — reading, singing, quarreling, and writing. We employ the twilight in conversation, the subject of which is the "latest grape-vine" (i.e., rumor), or a joke on the Colonel, or when we are alone, our domestic concerns. We amuse ourselves with the many-tongued rumors which float about on the popular breeze, that England or France has recognized the Confederacy, or that the Confederates have gained a new victory, etc., etc. Then there are frequent domestic quarrels, free fights, passes with the bayonet, and hand to hand encounters, to vary the monotony of our peaceful life here. As soon as night sets in the candles are lit and we draw round the stove and take down our books, or else someone reads aloud till the newspaper arrives, when other occupations are suspended, and we listen to the news of the day. Then someone proposes a song and "Maryland, my Maryland" is generally the first.  (McKim 52-53.)

McKim, who later became an army chaplain, also began to hold prayer meetings with faithful soldiers in his regiment.  He even managed to procure a tent for the express purpose of hosting the religious services and installed "rude benches" for 25 to 30 men, although this "would hardly give seats to as many as would come."  (McKim 60.)

Many Confederate soldiers turned to the bottle rather than the Lord.  Alcohol could relieve the boredom of life in camp, but also led to trouble.  In one episode that occurred towards the end of 1861, the rough-and-tumble Louisiana Tigers brawled with members of the 21st Georgia who had stolen their bottle of whiskey.  All of the drinking worried men of the cloth.  As the chaplain of the 23rd North Carolina wrote in February 1862:

If we ever meet with a defeat in this army, it will be in consequence of drunkenness. Young men that never drank at home are using spirits freely in camp. I fear that while Lincoln may slay his thousands, the liquor-maker at home will slay his tens of thousands. (in Jones 268.)

The editor of a Southern paper blamed the drunkenness during this period of inactivity on the officers, who were both "profane and hard drinkers."  (in Jones 268.)  He believed that if the next battle was lost, it would be because "whisky whipped our men."  (in Jones 269.)   Gambling became another common distraction in the camps and was as equally condemned by those of religious persuasion.  The author of Christ in Camp observed that even officers would "win from the private soldier his scant pay, which he ought to have sent home to his suffering family."  (Jones 270.)  Luckily for the men's spiritual health, the idleness of camp life would end by March, when the Confederates moved out of Centreville.

In the next installment on life in the Confederate camps, I take a look at sickness and desertion.

Sources
Biblical Recorder, Feb. 19, 1862; Charles L. Dufour, Gentle Tiger: The Gallant Life of Roberdeau Wheat (1985); John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War (1904); McHenry Howard, Recollections of a Maryland Confederate Solider and Staff Officer Under Johnston, Jackson, and Lee (1914); John William Jones, Christ in Camp (1904); Terry L. Jones, "A Tiger Execution," New York Times: Disunion, Dec. 13, 2011; Charles Mauro, The Civil War in Fairfax County: Civilians and Soldiers (2006);  Randolph H. McKim, A Soldier's Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate (1921); Richmond Daily Dispatch, Jan. 22, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, Jan. 24, 1862; Richmond Daily Dispatch, Jan. 27, 1862.