Day 83. May 22, 1862.
83
there had not been a rebellion or revolution….
May Thursday 22
Quite cool this morning and the sun came up quite bright. This morning we got up and had some coffee and eat some hard crackers. We came on. We was ahead of the Wagon Train. We came the day was very warm and we came on. Got into our present camping ground. We came through the Town of Falmouth and camped on the hill in sight of the town of Fredericksburg. I meet some of the boys out of the 5 Regt P.V. Reserve John Patterson* Wm Stains Wm. Stewart Wm Gillian Major Dare Col Patterson.* I was all night with the 5 Regt. Quite cool this evening. Had a talk about our fight at Winchester and the Past
Note: Ephraim refers to talk of the Winchester fight, which would be 3/23, Battle of Kernstown. Time moves different in mass events, or situations that are far out of the norm of everyday human experience or functioning. An hour ordinarily experienced– 60 minutes– stretched into 10, 20, 100, depending. So much can happen compressed into a given hour that it makes it seem as if time itself has stretched beyond any capacity it should have been capable of. Here he says “the Past,” which in regular calendar time was a scant 30 days back. Ephraim has only *been* there since March 1. It is now only May 22. So 2 months and 21/22 days. Usually “the past” would refer to the quantity equating to years back. This verbiage just goes to show the intensity the soldiers have in & around them both physically & psychologically. And for Ephraim, spiritually as well.
*Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era: A Publication of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute Volume IV 2021 Jonathan Noyalas Footnote 27 in piece by Cheyenne Nimes titled “May Peace Soon be Restored: The 1862 Diary of Ephraim Burket, 110th Pennsylvania” P. 51
“A reference to Sergeant John J. Patterson who mustered into the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves on June 21, 1861. Patterson transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps in 1863.”
A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 37-38
“MAY 22, THURSDAY.—Bright and warm. The report is that Jackson is at New Market. If true we are liable to attack at any moment…. Six prisoners were sent here and I was commissioned to examine them. The first was a boy of eighteen years old (looked fifteen) with a bad black eye and leg hurt. His horse had been shot and fell with him, severely bruising him and he was thus taken. He seemed frightened and when called in commenced crying. The other prisoners were twenty-two and twenty years of age, one twenty-nine, all of Shenandoah County, simple country fellows who had entered the service through delusion or impressment and seemed glad to be safe out of it, as soon as they were assured there was no harm intended them. One had been an infantry soldier in the Battle of Winchester (33rd Virginia) and was shot through the chin. He was living at home and asked in great trepidation whether he was to be killed or not. Being assured that he was to be permitted to live, he was overjoyed and wished to take the Oath of Allegiance.”
Note: Below is an example of an Amnesty Oath, & all the rest else of what the State says right before the State rests. Signed the 2nd of October, 1865, by Robert E. Lee (see June 13 for the pardon nearly 100 years later):
“Office of Notary Public,
Rockbridge County, Va., October 2nd, 1865.
AMNESTY OATH
I Robert E. Lee of Lexington Virginia do solemnly swear, in the presence of the Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God.
(then a line where Lee signed)
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 2nd day of October 1865.”
Note: Then a line where the notary public signed (Chas. A. Davidson), & a 5¢ stamp with Washington’s likeness right below “Swallow the dog” was the Rebel term for taking the Oath of Allegiance, Johnson’s 1865 proclamation, saying the words: “I, ___, of Lexington Virginia do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God.”
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause Ty Seidule P. 240
“Lee sent the oath forward to Washington, where President Johnson personally approved each request. In Lee’s case, the president refused to grant him a pardon. Johnson still wanted to try him for treason. While he wasn’t pardoned, Lee did fall under the general amnesty issued on Christmas Day in 1868. Taking the oath was Lee at his best, and he persuaded many other former Confederates to take it as well.”
Note: All that took place over Lincoln’s dead body. While we’re at it, here’s Lee, dead:
Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877 Walter A. McDougall P. 502-503
“The Radical Republicans, hypnotized by their faith that a great civil war must work a great revolution, applauded when Johnson said on the day Lincoln died that he meant to make treason infamous. It did not occur to them Johnson wanted to lead the nation thirty years backward, not forward to a Yankee millenium. Nor was he a fool. The president made by John Wilkes Booth would give the Radicals as good as he got. Nor was he a drunk, his slurred speech at his inauguration as vice president notwithstanding. He was suffering the effects of typhoid fever and wine from the night before, and thought a stiff whiskey might see him through. What the incident really revealed was Johnson’s poor judgment: something the nation could hardly afford after a war and presidential assassination.
Still, it is hard to imagine even Lincoln persuading northern Americans to bear the burden of rebuilding the South after the suffering its rebellion had caused. The summer of 1865 found all southerners stone broke except for a few war profiteers. Many cities and rural counties were simply laid waste. Planters and farmers who managed to get seed into the ground wondered if labor would be available or whether they would still own their land come harvesttime. Real estate and commodities markets collapsed. Slave owners lost over $2 billion in capital to emancipation. The former slaves wandered dusty roads hunting for their families and for food. The tons of clothing, machinery, and building supplies that northern merchants shipped into southern cities gave the appearance of rapid recovery, but the South could buy little, since agricultural recovery was frustrated by a severe drought, the refusal of blacks to work for their former masters, the inability of impoverished whites to pay them, and the attraction of cities. Negroes seeking work or expecting a biblical jubilee clustered in wretched “dark towns” where malnutrition, smallpox, tuberculosis, and diseases thriving on filth carried off as much as one-third of the population.”
Note: 12/25/68, President Andrew Johnson unconditionally & without reservation bestowed upon all and every person “who directly or indirectly participated in the late resurrection or rebellion, a full pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the constitution….” Of course the pardon jeopardized every last aspect of Reconstruction, even ensuring slavery continued by whatever name they then termed Black labor for White profit, & continues in a variety of guises like convict labor down to the present day. See June 28, etc.
Shelby Foote:
“Another important thing historically is that when they entered into that federation they certainly would never have entered into it if they hadn’t believed it would be possible to get out. And when the time came when they wanted to get out, they thought they had every right. Of course, they say wars never settle anything– but that business about secession was settled by that war.”
Note: I would say so.
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, Editors (2000) P. 118 “The Anatomy of the Myth.” Alan T. Nolan
“The Lost Cause doctrine endlessly asserted that secession was a constitutional right. Moreover, because it was lawful, those supporting it were not rebels or traitors; there had not been a rebellion or revolution. The premise of this contention was that because the Constitution was silent on the issue, withdrawal from the Union was permitted. It was argued that the states had entered into a compact from which they had the right to withdraw.”
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation David Goldfield P. 71
“With the Fugitive Slave Law, the Northern and southern extremes switched sides: the former now strong defenders of states’ rights, particularly the right of a state to nullify federal laws, and the latter insisting on federal intervention. The reversed roles indicated that the debate centered on slavery, not on differing interpretations of the Constitution. “
The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat Gary W. Gallagher P. 196
“In his footnotes, Gallagher notes James McPherson’s view that “the antebellum southern vision of America departed less from the revolutionary model than did that of the North. “Thus when secessionists protested in 1861 that they were acting to preserve traditional rights and values,” stated McPherson, “they were correct. They fought to protect their constitutional liberties against the perceived Northern threat to overthrow them. The South’s concept of republicanism had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North’s had. With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the founding fathers– a government of limited powers that protected the rights of property and whose constituency comprised an independent gentry and yeomanry of the white race undisturbed by large cities, heartless factories, restless free workers, and class conflict.’”
The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War Daniel Aaron P. 335-336
“Our classical writers simply did not know the land and people they spoke to and spoke for. Emerson, who observed and interpreted the trans-Concordian world, seldom dropped his portmanteau of New England assumptions. Whitman, with a more intimate knowledge of the average foot soldier than any of his writer-contemporaries possessed, constantly searched for quintessential democratic types; his Americans at times seem almost as emblematic as Hawthorne’s. Melville buttressed his fictions on concrete experience, but by 1861 he had insulated himself from his countrymen. These and other writers mentioned heretofore pondered the fate of democracy and the Union. Not many of them besides Whitman made any effort to immerse themselves in the democratic tub. Rather, they distinguished from the People. The People were “They”– the Farmer, the Mechanic– Brave Fellows in their noble incarnations, Scum and Rifraff in their depraved ones. The Country or Nation evoked by literary patriots was still an abstraction. By the time American writers had shrugged off genteel restraints and learned to write uninhibitedly about the lower orders, the War was virtually uncapturable.”
Conversations with Shelby Foote Edited by William C. Carter P. 211
“I don’t know any reason why a historian should not be as good a writer as a novelist. It doesn’t often happen, because in my experience many historians have a profound mistrust of good writing. And I’m not just talking about fine writing. I mean good writing. They feel that it’s somehow beneath their close attention. It distracts them from research, so that when you finish your research and you have your magnificent facts assembled, you shouldn’t have wasted your time about how you’re going to write about it. Just get those facts out in front of the people and you’ve told the truth. So they say, but I know that it’s not true. Francis Butler Simkins used to remark that anyone who equates facts with truth doesn’t know what the nature of truth is. It is the way those facts are presented, what they are embedded in, and the way the story is told that makes them true. If any historian in any single page of his voluminous life work would turn out one of those pages with the clarity and the truthfulness of a single page of the best of Hemingway, that page would live forever. And yet there seems to be contempt for the thing that would make him live forever. He is content rather to find out facts and, having done that, think that he has finished his job, or nearly finished his job.”
Terrible Swift Sword Bruce Catton P. 300
“On the night of May 22, Jackson had his entire force, thus increased to 17,000 men, in camp ten miles from Front Royal, with the massive bulk of the Massanutten ridge between himself and Banks. He was now on a direct road to the big Federal base at Winchester, with no one in his path but Colonel Kenly, who had no reason to suppose that Jackson was anywhere in the neighborhood. And over at Strasburg, Banks continued to gaze attentively to the southwest, waiting for Jackson’s advance to take solid form behind the shifting Confederate cavalry patrols on the Valley Pike.
Then Jackson struck, and the blow disrupted the entire Federal strategic plan in Virginia.”
How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat Bevin Alexander P. 61
“The deception had worked. In Washington and at Banks’s headquarters at Strasburg, complete calm and confidence reigned. On the night of May 22, neither Secretary of War Stanton nor Banks had the faintest suspicion that Jackson had passed beyond Harrisonburg. The Union leaders, including Lincoln, were confident that things were going well. The Confederates had not followed up on the attack on Frémont. McClellan was boasting of imminent success. Lincoln, reassured by Jackson’s apparent retreat, had followed Shields to march his division to join Irvin McDowell. And McDowell, with a portion of his troops, had already crossed the Rappahannock River and was beginning to move beyond Fredericksburg. Lincoln and Stanton, expecting the imminent fall of Richmond, were to leave for Fredericksburg the next day.”
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era James McPherson P. 364
Note: Toward the end of 1861, McClellan writes his wife, “I can’t tell you how disgusted I am becoming with these wretched politicians– they are a most despicable set of men…. I am becoming daily more disgusted with this imbecile administration.” The cabinet contained “some of the greatest geese I have ever seen…. Seward is the meanest of them all– a meddlesome, officious, incompetent little puppy…. Welles is a garrulous old woman…. Bates an old fool…. The presdt. is nothing more than a well meaning baboon…. ‘the original gorilla.’… It is sickening in the extreme… [to] see the weakness and unfitness of the poor beings who control the destinies of this great country.”
“It was not the man’s brain that was speaking; it was his larnyx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense; it was noise uttered in unconsciousness.” 1984, George Orwell
Note: On this day, 1860, the Williams Station Massacre, Nevada:
https://archive.ph/2025.05.23-025350/https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=168508
https://archive.ph/2025.05.23-025350/https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=168508
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18600522.2.5
had a talk about our fight at Winchester and the Past….
8 weeks ago is already “the past.” Time: it comes into existence moment by moment and at the same time drops away behind him. Meanwhile, they belong to the ruin held together by spit & a prayer & nothing can pull them forth. This was the in-between world, where the ghosts float still, now & then, & in the future, before the Lost Cause gestures like there is no conclusion about it. We are still in the middle of the crossing.
And 1866, before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Lee makes himself sit stock still like a 1940s film noir star, & gives not a thing away. He’s playing a person playing a person. He is in his own cosmos. He’s Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo as the storm bears down tonight, is just about here while mobsters sit at the bar already debating pulling weapons. “A cause isn’t lost as long as someone is willing to go on fighting,” Bacall tells him. He knows this. Asks him if he has anything to add. To his testimony. Anything at all. Floor’s yours. But it’s way too late for that.
Something’s happened just now. You know what this is, right? It’s how you act after a crime that says what it was. Say nothing, say everything, it doesn’t matter much now when the deed’s done. Men like that, they’ve run the game longer than anyone’s played it. Look. And then look again at the light burning empty turning on its axis toward us left with nothing but the equator at 0°00’00, a perfectly even hemisphere membrane but it’s made-up, the imaginary circle passing through the poles like a bulbous bait worm, there for no reason but to divide the northern hemisphere from the southern in the light that predates the human species, the imaginary lines around the world exculpating the creatures whose shapes the stars still outline. For now. Burning burning burning. Time ticks off. He stays silent. He’s surrounded by lesser gods. This is what it seemed. This is what it seems. He has already inhabited his death mask.
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