The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home (45 page)

Yet this afternoon there was one, and only one, member of the Confederate Government still functioning, and when he rode into Washington, Georgia, the war came full circle for Jackman and the other Kentuckians there to greet him. Here was the Confederate Secretary of War, the man who oversaw the evacuation of Richmond, who guided the flight of the Cabinet, who strove constantly to persuade Davis to accept an honorable surrender rather than ignoble dissolution into guerrilla warfare, and who advised Johnston in his surrender negotiations with Sherman: Major General John C. Breckinridge.

It had been a full war for Breckinridge after he left the Orphan Brigade at Dalton more than a year before. The department he commanded in southwestern Virginia was no plum. Understrength and overextended, his forces had to contend with one federal raid after another, yet did so successfully on every occasion but one. When a federal army threatened the Shenandoah Valley and the vulnerable left flank of Lee, then facing Grant at Spotsylvania, Breckinridge marched his scratch force to New Market and defeated a numerically stronger foe in a set-piece battle that captured the hearts and imagination of the South. It would remain for years the best-known engagement of its size in the war. Then he joined Lee in his operations for a time, repulsing his old foe Grant’s terrible attacks at Cold Harbor in June, and being himself injured when his horse was killed under him. Yet, when another enemy threat appeared in the Shenandoah, he went on his sick litter to organize the defense of Lynchburg, then took command of a corps in General Jubal Early’s Army in its raid on Washington, D.C. There, in July, Breckinridge came within sight of the capitol dome where once he sat as Vice President.

There followed the engagements in the Shenandoah where Early tried to stop the ravages of Philip Sheridan to no avail, and then Breckinridge returned to his old department. In February 1865, in response to widespread dissatisfaction with war policy, President Davis made two important changes: He appointed Lee general-in-chief of all Confederate armies, and he offered Breckinridge the portfolio as
Secretary of War. Despite the calumnies of Bragg, the Kentuckian was one of the most popular generals in the South, and he had political and executive qualifications exceeding even those of Davis himself. The move met with universal approval, and some in the Confederacy took heart. “Breckenridge has been made Sec of War,” wrote a North Carolinian. “He has always been successful &
‘prestige’
is a great element in military affairs. Napoleon believed in
Luck
& Breckenridge is not only able but
lucky.”

But Breckinridge knew that luck would not be enough in his new post. Indeed, what he saw when he assessed War Department affairs in his first week in office only confirmed what he predicted nearly four years before. The Confederacy was doomed. Consequently, almost from the date of taking office, he made his goal a peaceful and honorable end for the dying nation. It was a great task, for Davis no longer thought with reason in the matter, wishing to fight to the last extremity. Slowly and diplomatically the secretary persuaded the President, but it was only the day before Davis reached Washington that he finally gave in to Breckinridge’s arguments. And while he worked to see the Confederacy to a fitting end, the secretary also kept his beloved Kentuckians at the front of his mind. Shortly before the evacuation of Richmond, he called together congressmen from Missouri and Kentucky to discuss the welfare of soldiers from those states when the South fell. If the armies simply disbanded without formal surrender, soldiers from the cotton states would be able to go to their homes and remain probably unmolested. But Missourians and Kentuckians, whose home states were well within federal lines, would be denied that opportunity. They would be orphaned yet again, and if they did manage to get home without a surrender and formal parole, the reception awaiting them in their states might be hostile.

“Our first duty, gentlemen, is to the soldiers who have been influenced by our arguments and example,” he concluded. “What I propose … is this: That the Confederacy should not be captured in fragments, that we should not disband like banditti, but that we should surrender as a government, and we will thus maintain the dignity of our cause, and secure the respect of our enemies.” He concluded by exclaiming, “This has been a magnificent epic. In God’s name let it not terminate in a farce.”

That it did not end in farce is largely due to Breckinridge’s efforts, and with Johnston formally surrendering and paroling his men, the
Orphans included, the Kentuckians would be able to return to their homes without fear of prosecution or proscription. Now Breckenridge, too, hoped to reach the Trans-Mississippi, not, like Davis, wishing to continue the struggle there, but rather to guide Kirby Smith in obtaining for his forces an honorable surrender. Some of the Orphans here in Washington took heart when they saw their old father. They believed he would lead them to the west to continue the fight. But Breckinridge came only to oversee their surrender, and try to aid in Davis’ escape from the enemy.

Here, on May 4, 1865, Breckinridge formally disbanded the War Department. Fittingly, the majority of the troops here to witness the demise of the Confederacy were his old Kentuckians, men never formally citizens of that dying nation, who yet gave their all for it. The Confederate States of America never really adopted the Orphan Brigade. They adopted it. And in that irony so dearly beloved of history, Breckinridge’s last act—the last formal act of the Confederate Government—was to accept the resignation of Second Lieutenant James B. Clay, Jr., a Kentuckian, an unofficial Orphan, and the grandson of that great Kentuckian who strove so long and hard to avert the calamity now entering its last act, Henry Clay.

Breckinridge, too, had to flee, and here is where his old comrade and subordinate Joseph H. Lewis nearly betrayed him. Having been Vice President of the United States before the war, Breckinridge was regarded as the most heinous traitor of all in the North. He and Davis and a handful of others stood under indictment in the Union, and could expect imprisonment at least if captured, and perhaps even execution. This is why he wanted to see Davis safely out of the country and why, after assisting Kirby Smith, he expected to go into foreign exile himself. Yet the Federals followed closely at the fleeing government’s heels, and now Lewis’ dispatch to Wilson asking for someone to parole him at Washington on May 6 coincidentally brought Breckinridge’s would-be captors right to him. He escaped by only a few hours, leaving on the morning of May 5, with an escort of Kentuckians including old Orphans James Wilson and “Cub” Howard, and his own son Cabell. That same afternoon a squadron of federal cavalry rode into Washington. The next day, as Lewis led the rest of the brigade into town, Breckinridge and his escort were only seven miles south, having just encountered another federal patrol. While Colonel Breckinridge and his cavalry faced the enemy and parleyed, the general
and a few followers melted into the forest to begin their bid for escape. But out of the woods the Kentuckian sent a last message to his cousin, to Duke, and to all the others it might reach. It was folly to risk the lives of the men any longer, he said. Go home. Go home to Kentucky, to their homes and families. They could do no more for the Confederacy and, much as they wished to, they could do no more for him. “I will not have one of these young men to encounter one hazard more for my sake,” he said, then rode off toward oblivion.

It was quite a sight for Jackman and the others when Lewis led the 1st Kentucky Brigade into Washington, Georgia. The Orphans marched down the streets in closed column, flags flying in their tatters, arms at the parade position. The townspeople came to the boardwalks to watch them as if on review. “Steadily they marched,” wrote Jackman, “the very horses seeming to vie with the riders in keeping up the military to the last. The Spring breezes gently waved the banners—banners that bore the marks of the contest, and that had the names of many fields written upon their folds—and the evening’s sunlight, on the eve of fading from the hills, danced and quivered upon the long trusty Enfields, thus smiling pleasantly upon one of the last scenes of Southern pageantry.”

As the Orphans marched through town to their bivouac, the federal 13th Tennessee Cavalry entered from the opposite direction. “It looked strange not to see them commence shooting at each other,” said Jackman. Instead, Lewis camped the brigade for the night in a pleasant grove of beech and oak trees. As on any day before in the past four years, the bugles called out for details and duty, and at dark the campfires licked with their flames into the night, the light climbing the tree trunks to glisten among the leaves. The horses munched at their fodder while the men themselves spread out on the ground to talk in low murmurs, smoke their pipes, and walk among the campfires saying farewells to the friends of four years and a hundred fields. Lewis had spoken to the men a few days before, advising them to submit to the Union, though he said that in laying aside the gray uniform, he never expected that he would wear the blue. That was more reconciliation than he could handle. By now the irrepressible spirit of the Orphans had returned, and Phil Lee wandered the camp declaring, “The General speaks of not wearing the
Yankee
uniform. Now, as for Phil Lee,
my
opinion is that henceforth he’ll wear
no
uniforms of
any
sort!”

That evening details carried the brigade’s arms to Lewis’ headquarters,
piling them in a heap. Jackman prepared the papers for paroling the 9th Kentucky, and it was done the next morning at 2
A.M.
The remainder of the brigade took parole later that morning, May 7. “We ‘broke up housekeeping,’ ” said Jackman, “every fellow being free to wander off, as his inclinations led him, with his horse, saddle, and bridle.” Their inclinations led them first to Lewis’ tent. There the Orphans bid “Old Joe,” their final adopted father, the long farewell. They shook his hand and said their good-byes, tears streaking every bronzed face. They would see each other again in happier times, to be sure, but never again as they had known each other for four years, never again as comrades of the “Old Brigade,” the “Cheerful Brigade,” the 1st Kentucky Brigade. They were going back to their homes, and the Orphan Brigade would be no more.
¹⁷

F
OR MANY
the journey home seemed as long as their wanderings of the war, and for some it proved longer than they might ever have imagined. The Federals gave them their horses, and before Breckinridge left Washington he disbursed the remainder of the Confederate Treasury to the men there, about $2.50 per man. It was not much for the journey, but their former enemies did make things easier by offering free rail transportation to Kentucky for those who took the oath of allegiance. Lewis himself went immediately to Nashville and gave his oath, yet encountered over a month’s delay before his pleas to be allowed to go home to Kentucky and his family met reward.

Johnny Jackman went to Augusta two days after parole, and there the bulk of the old 9th Kentucky gathered a few days later. At first they thought of going down the Savannah River to Savannah, and there taking a steamer to New Orleans and up the Mississippi and Ohio to Louisville. But that proved too ambitious. Instead they boarded a train for Atlanta. Jackman fell ill again and had to separate from his friends to spend several days recuperating with a friend near Greensburg. He fished and walked and rested until able to join three other passing Orphans late in May. They went on to Atlanta, found the railroad from there to Chattanooga out of operation, and bargained with a federal wagonmaster to take them to Chattanooga. They left the wagon when they reached Dalton, and there, where the old brigade passed that long winter of 1864, Jackman camped out on
the ground for the last time. The next morning they boarded a train and reached Chattanooga. They stayed the night at a boardinghouse where “Yank” and “Confed” ate from the same platter and cracked jokes at each other, “as though they had never met in many a mortal combat.” Two days later, May 29, found them in Nashville, and that evening the federal provost notified them that they could not proceed farther without taking the oath. “We were ‘galvanized,’ ” as Jackman put it, and then boarded a train for Louisville. At 7
P.M.
that night he got off at Bardstown Junction and, rather than wait for a train home the next morning, immediately started walking toward Bardstown. At 10
A.M.
the next morning, May 30, 1865, John S. Jackman walked up the steps of his home for the first time in three years, eight months, and four days. Another Orphan was home.

And slowly they all came home. Johnny Green, momentarily bitter that the war ended before he could become a commissioned officer, threw away his sergeant major’s sword and then rode toward Alabama with a couple of friends. All along the way he met with kindness and hospitality from the people of the defunct Confederacy. What little they had they shared with the brave men who so long had battled for their independence. Whenever he offered to pay for food or lodging, his benefactors declined. “This is all we can do for them & they certainly are welcome to it.” Finally Green reached friends in Florence, Alabama, just in time to help them defend their property against the bands of renegade Federals and Confederates who preyed upon the rural South for months after the surrender, looting and robbing.

After some weeks, Green finally took himself to Nashville, too, and there learned that he would be denied passage to Kentucky unless he gave his oath. That he would not do. He found a steamboat captain who would hide him aboard his vessel. “Pay your passage & keep your mouth shut & you can travel on my boat without taking the oath,” said he. This Johnny Green did, and the next day he left the boat at Henderson, Kentucky, and rejoined his father, an Orphan no more.
¹

By midsummer 1865 most of the Kentuckians were home again, or at least those who wished to be. What they found in their beloved old Kentucky seemed fully to justify the anguish they had felt for the state during all those years in exile, for the Bluegrass suffered as few other places in the country during its occupation by federal forces. Trade and industry were much retarded. Agriculture suffered terribly. The Emancipation Proclamation enraged slaveholding Kentuckians, and
the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment that coming December would free over 200,000 slaves, wiping out a capital investment of at least $115,000,000. Kentuckians, though never formally in rebellion, were treated by occupying authorities with a rigid military rule. As always, they felt different from other Americans and entitled to different treatment. Instead the Lincoln administration dealt with them as felons. Add to this the unhappy fact that the Union command frequently assigned its most brutal and incompetent officers to serve in the commonwealth, and a high degree of civil unrest became inevitable. Guerrillas and irregulars roamed the mountains preying upon people of both Union and southern sentiment. Free elections were inhibited, and group and individual violence plagued the state for years. It would be said later that Kentucky waited until after the war to secede, and there is some truth in the statement. The bitterness engendered by the war in this state, where friends and families divided against each other, did not dim until long after many of the actual Confederate states had returned to relative tranquillity.