Early Championed the Union.
John Goode was the fire-eater of the
Convention, and he and rugged
Jubal Early, the devoted champion of the
Union, frequently
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locked horns in debate.
One day
Goode insulted
Early.
The latter quietly took his seat, but every one knew that the matter would not stop there.
That evening, or the next, after some correspondence,
Goode apologized.
‘Old Jube,’ as he is best known to his soldiers, was a true type of the
Virginia Unionist.
These men opposed secession, and loved the
Union for the sake of the fathers and for its own sake, but they loved
Virginia and their own people above all else.
So, when
Lincoln called for troops and
Virginia seceded, they hesitated not a moment as to which side they would take in the now inevitable conflict.
Nothing in all history is grander than the conduct of
Early and his fellow
Unionists.
The shock of battle could not shake their dauntless courage, and neither defeat, nor time, nor poverty, nor temptation has cooled the ardor of their devotion to their State and its people.
By all means let a shaft go up in honor of ‘Old Jubal,’ and inscribe on its base the simple words: ‘He loved
Virginia with all his heart and soul and mind.’
Whilst in
Richmond, I saw two companies from Danville pass along the streets with drum and fife, and the sight thrilled me so I could hardly wait to get home.
I hurried back, and joined the first company made up in the neighborhood.
How the boys rushed into the army as if to a frolic in those stirring days of 1861!
We were ‘mustered in’ at
Charlottesville, and one poor fellow who was rejected because he had a crooked little finger (just think of that!) went home crying as if his heart would break.
For the first year of the war, I was in the infantry (the Nineteenth Virginia regiment); after that I was in the cavalry till the end. At
Manassas Junction, we camped for a long time and struggled with measles, hooping cough, mumps, pneumonia, and typhoid fever, whilst
General Scott was grooming another antagonist, with whom he was soon to further test our mettle.
It was there I first saw
General Lee.
General Beauregard held a review for him. Tall and straight, with iron-gray hair, and moustache as black as the raven's wing, he was the very embodiment of warrior grace and symmetry as he sat on his horse, and viewed our undisciplined lines with a serious face and grave and dignified mien.
I never looked upon his like before, and know I never shall again.
I saw him last at
Farmville on our way to the doom of
Appomattox.
I never saw him after the war, and am glad I never did. He will live in my poor memory, one of the least of his boys, as a soldier, and as such I want ever to think of him.
The Nineteenth regiment soon left
Manassas and pitched its tents
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at
Centreville, next to the enemy.
Near there I met again some of my old
Lexington friends,
McLaughlin,
Poague, and others of the Rockbridge Artillery, those splendid cannoneers, who afterwards became so famous in the Army of Northern Virginia.
