Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early, C. S. A., AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND NARRATIVE OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES With Notes by R. H. Early

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EDITOR'S NOTE
IT becomes my duty and privilege to undertake the publication of General Early's narrative of the war left in manuscript form at the time of his death, March 2, 1894. Its preparation covered the term of years beginning immediately after the close of the war and continuing to the end of his life. Impressed with the belief that "truth crushed to earth will rise again," he labored conscientiously at his task, the motive of his writing being the wish that a detailed history, accurate as far as lay within his compassing, might be handed down to posterity. He was well equipped for the work undertaken and his efforts met with the encouragement of his former comrades. In submitting to the public the result of his long labor, I feel confident of its being accorded the just consideration for which he strove.

R. H. EARLY
LYNCHBURG, VA.
June, 1912
PREFACE
WHEN the question of practical secession from the United States arose, as a citizen of the State of Virginia, and a member of the Convention called by the authority of the Legislature of that State, I opposed secession with all the ability I possessed, with the hope that the horrors of civil war might be averted and that a returning sense of justice on the part of the masses of the Northern States would induce them to respect the rights of the people of the South.
While some Northern politicians and editors were openly and sedulously justifying and encouraging secession, I was laboring honestly and earnestly to preserve the Union.
As a member of the Virginia Convention, I voted against the ordinance of secession on its passage by that body, with the hope that even then, the collision of arms might be avoided and some satisfactory adjustment arrived at. The adoption of that ordinance wrung from me bitter tears of grief; but I at once recognized my duty to abide the decision of my native State, and to defend her soil against invasion. Any scruples which I may have entertained as to the right of secession were soon dispelled by the unconstitutional measures of the authorities at Washington and the frenzied clamor of the people of the North for war upon their former brethren of the South. I recognized the right of resistance and revolution as exercised by our fathers in 1776 and without cavil as to the name by which it was called, I entered the military service of my State, willingly, cheerfully, and zealously.
When the State of Virginia became one of the Confederate States and her troops were turned over to the Confederate Government, I embraced the cause of the whole Confederacy with equal ardor, and continued in the service, with the determination to devote all the energy and talent I possessed to the common defence. I fought through the entire war, without once regretting the course I pursued, with an abiding faith in the justice of our cause.
It was my fortune to participate in most of the great military operations in which the army in Virginia was engaged both before and after General Lee assumed the command. In the last year of this momentous struggle, I commanded, at different times, a division and two corps of General Lee's Army in the campaign from the Rapidan to James River, and subsequently, a separate force which marched into Maryland, threatened Washington City and then went through an eventful campaign in the valley of Virginia. No detailed reports of the operations of these different commands were made before the close of the war and the campaign in Maryland and the Valley of Virginia has been the subject of much comment and misapprehension. I have now written a narrative of all my commands before and during the closing year of the war and lay it before the world as a contribution to the history of our great struggle for independence. In giving that narrative, I have made such statements of the positions and strengths of the opposing forces in Virginia and such reference to their general operations as were necessary to enable the reader to understand it, but I do not pretend to detail the operations of other commanders.
My operations and my campaign stand on their own merits. And in what I have found it necessary to say in regard to the conduct of my troops, I do not wish to be understood as, in any way, decrying the soldiers who constituted the rank and file of my commands. I believe that the world has never produced a body of men superior, in courage, patriotism, and endurance, to the private soldiers of the Confederate armies. I have repeatedly seen those soldiers submit, with cheerfulness, to privations and hardships which would appear to be almost incredible; and the wild cheers of our brave men, when their thin lines were sent back opposing hosts of Federal troops, staggering, reeling and flying, have often thrilled every fibre in my heart. I have seen, with my own eyes, ragged, barefooted, and hungry Confederate soldiers perform deeds which, if performed in days of yore by mailed warriors in glittering armor, would have inspired the harp of the minstrel and the pen of the poet.
Having been a witness of and participant in great events, I have given a statement of what I saw and did, for the use of the future historian. I have not undertaken to speculate as to the causes of our failures, as I have seen abundant reason for it in the tremendous odds brought against us. Having had some means of judging, I will say that, in my opinion, both Mr. Davis and General Lee, in their respective spheres, did all for the success of our cause which it was possible for mortal men to do and it is a great privilege and comfort for me so to believe. In regard to my own services, I have the consciousness of having done my duty to my country, to the very best of my ability.
During the war, slavery was used as a catch-word to arouse the passions of a fanatical mob, and to some extent the prejudices of the civilized world were excited against us; but the war was not made on our part for slavery. High dignitaries in both church and state in Old England, and puritans in New England, had participated in the profits of a trade by which the ignorant and barbarous natives of Africa were brought from that country and sold into slavery in the American Colonies. The generation in the Southern States which defended their country in the late war, found amongst them, in a civilized and Christianized condition, 4,000,000 of the descendants of those degraded Africans. The Creator of the Universe had stamped them, indelibly, with a different color and an inferior physical and mental organization. He had not done this from mere caprice or whim, but for wise purposes. An amalgamation of the races was in contravention of His designs or He would not have made them so different. This immense number of people could not have been transported back to the wilds from which their ancestors were taken, or, if they could have been, it would have resulted in their relapse into barbarism. Reason, common sense, true humanity to the black, as well as the safety of the white race, required that the inferior race should be kept in a state of subordination. The conditions of domestic slavery, as it existed in the South, had not only resulted in a great improvement in the moral and physical condition of the negro race, but had furnished a class of laborers as happy and contented as any in the world, if not more so. Their labor had not only developed the immense resources of the immediate country in which they were located, but was the main source of the great prosperity of the United States, and furnished the means for the employment of millions of the working classes in other countries. Nevertheless, the struggle made by the people of the South was not for the institution of slavery, but for the inestimable right of self-government, against the domination of a fanatical faction at the North; and slavery was the mere occasion of the development of the antagonism between the two sections. That right of self-government has been lost, and slavery violently abolished.
When the passions and infatuations of the day shall have been dissipated by time, and all the results of the late war shall have passed into irrevocable history, the future chronicler of that history will have a most important duty to perform, and posterity, while poring over its pages, will be lost in wonder at the follies and crimes committed in this generation.
Each generation of men owes the debt to posterity to hand down to it a correct history of the more important events that have transpired in its day. The history of every people is the common inheritance of mankind, because of the lessons it teaches.
For the purposes of history, the people of the late Confederate States were a separate people from the people of the North during the four years of conflict which they maintained against them.
No people loving the truth of history can have any object or motive in suppressing or mutilating any fact which may be material to its proper elucidation.
The sole merit I claim for the narrative now given to the public is its truthfulness. In writing it, I have received material aid from an accurate diary kept by Lieutenant William W. Old, aide to Major General Edward Johnson, who was with me during the campaign in Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley until August 12th, 1864; and the copious notes of Captain Jed. Hotchkiss, who acted as Topographical Engineer for the Second corps and the Army of the Valley District, and recorded the events of each day from the opening of the campaign on the Rapidan in May, 1864, until the affair at Waynesboro, in March, 1865.

J. A. EARLY

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
ACCORDING to the record in the family Bible, I was born on the third day of November, 1816, in the County of Franklin, in the State of Virginia. My father, Joab Early , who is still living, is a native of the same county, and while resident there, he enjoyed the esteem of his fellow-citizens and held several prominent public positions, but in the year 1847, he removed to the Kanawha Valley in Western Virginia. My mother's maiden name was Ruth Hairston, and she was likewise a native of the County of Franklin, her family being among the most respected citizens. She died in the year 1832, leaving ten children surviving her, I being the third child and second son. She was a most estimable lady, and her death was not only the source of the deepest grief to her immediate family, but caused universal regret in the whole circle of her acquaintances.
Until I was sixteen I enjoyed the benefit of the best schools in my region of country and received the usual instruction in the dead languages and elementary mathematics. In the spring of 1833, while General Jackson was President, I received, through the agency of our member of Congress, the Hon. N. H. Claiborne, an appointment as cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point.
I repaired to the Academy at the end of May and was admitted about the first of June in the same year. I went through the usual course and graduated in the usual time, in June, 1837. There was nothing worthy of particular note in my career at West Point. I was never a very good student, and was sometimes quite remiss, but I managed to attain a respectable stand in all my studies. My highest stand in any branch was in military and civil engineering and that was sixth. In the general standing on graduation my position was eighteenth in a class of fifty.
I was not a very exemplary soldier and went through the Academy without receiving any appointment as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer in the corps of cadets. I had very little taste for scrubbing brass, and cared very little for the advancement to be obtained by the exercise of that most useful art.
Among those graduating in my class were General Braxton Bragg, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, Major Generals Arnold Elzey and Wm. H. T. Walker, and a few others of the Confederate Army; and Major Generals John Sedgwick, Joseph Hooker, and Wm. H. French and several Brigadier Generals of minor note in the Federal Army. Among my contemporaries at West Point were General Beauregard, Lieutenant General Ewell, Major General Edward Johnson and some others of distinction in the Confederate Army; Major Generals McDowell and Meade and several others in the Federal Army.
The whole of my class received appointments in the United States Army shortly after graduation. By reason of the Indian War in Florida, there had been a number of resignations and deaths in the army and very few of the class had to go through the probation of brevet lieutenants. I was appointed Second Lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Artillery, and was assigned to Company "E," which afterward became celebrated as Sherman's battery. We did not enjoy the usual leave of absence, but in August, 1837, a number of my class, myself included, were ordered to Fortress Monroe to drill a considerable body of recruits which were in rendezvous at that place, preparatory to being sent to Florida, where the Seminole War was still in progress. From Fortress Monroe, with several other officers, I accompanied a body of recruits which sailed for Florida, and we landed at Tampa Bay in October, 1837. From Tampa Bay I went to Gary's Ferry, on Black Creek, and there joined my company, which was comprised almost entirely of recruits recently joined. My Captain (Lyon) was an invalid from age and infirmity, and both the First Lieutenants were absent on special duty, so that being the senior Second Lieutenant, I was assigned to the command of the company. In that capacity I went through the campaign of 1837-8 under General Jessup, from the St. John's River south into the Everglades, and was present at a skirmish with the Indians on the Lockee Hatchee, near Jupiter Inlet, in January, 1838. This was my first "battle," and though I heard some bullets whistling among the trees, none came near me, and I did not see an Indian.
The party of Seminoles with which we had the skirmish was subsequently pursued into the Everglades and induced to come in and camp near us at Fort Jupiter, under some stipulations between General Jessup and the chiefs, about which there was afterwards some misunderstanding which resulted in the whole party being surrounded and captured; and my company was employed with the rest of the troops in this work. This was my last "warlike exploit" for many years. After this we remained near the sea-coast, inactive for the most of the time, until late in the spring, when, as all active hostilities had ceased, we were marched across to Tampa Bay, from whence my company, with some other troops, was shipped to New Orleans, and then sent up the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee Rivers to Ross' Landing (now Chattanooga) to report to General Scott, who had charge of the removal of the Cherokees, with whom some difficulty was apprehended. My company was stationed near Ross' Landing, and it was soon discovered that there would be no trouble with the Indians.
It had not been my purpose to remain permanently in the army, and, as there was to be no difficulty with the Cherokees, and the Seminole War was thought to be at an end, I determined to resign for the purpose of going into civil life. I tendered my resignation and received a leave of absence until it could be acted on. Under this leave I started from Ross' Landing, on July 4, 1838, for my home, by the way of Nashville and Louisville. Upon arriving at Louisville, I found from the papers that the army had been increased, and that I was made a first lieutenant in my regiment. Had this news reached me before the tendering of my resignation, that resignation might have been withheld, but it was now too late to alter my plans.
In the fall of 1838, I commenced the study of law in the office of N. M. Taliaferro, Esq., an eminent lawyer residing at the county seat of my native county, who some years afterward became a judge of the General Court of Virginia. I obtained license to practise law in the early part of the year 1840, and at once entered the profession. In the spring of the year 1841, I was elected by a small majority, as one of the delegates from the County of Franklin, to the Virginia Legislature, and served in the session of 1841 and 1842, being the youngest member of the body.
In the following spring, I was badly beaten by my former preceptor in the law, who was a member of the Democratic Party, while I was a supporter of the principles of the Whig Party, of which Mr. Clay was the principal leader.
My political opponent, though a personal friend, Mr. Taliaferro, held the position of prosecuting attorney in the circuit courts of several counties, and as these offices were rendered vacant by his election to the Legislature, I received the appointments for the Counties of Franklin and Floyd, having previously been appointed prosecuting attorney in the county court of Franklin. These appointments I held until the reorganization of the State government under the new constitution of 1851.
In the meantime, I continued the practice of law in my own and the adjoining counties, with very fair success until the breaking out of the war between the United States and Mexico, consequent upon the annexation of Texas. Though I had voted, in the presidential election of 1844, for Mr. Clay, who opposed the annexation of Texas, yet, when war ensued, I felt it to be my duty to sustain the government in that war and to enter the military service if a fitting opportunity offered. When the regiment of volunteers from Virginia was called for by the President, I received from the Governor and Council of State the appointment as Major in that regiment, and was mustered into service on the 7th of January, 1847. Colonel John F. Hamtramck, of the County of Jefferson, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas B. Randolph, of the County of Warren, were the other field officers. The regiment was ordered to rendezvous at Fortress Monroe and the superintendence of the drilling there and the embarkation for Mexico were entrusted to me. Two extra companies were allowed to the regiment, and, on account of some delay in the organization of them, I did not sail from Fortress Monroe with the last detachment of these companies until March 1st, arriving at Brazos Santiago on the 17th, to learn, for the first time, the news of General Taylor's victory at Buena Vista. We proceeded up the Rio Grande at once and the whole regiment was assembled at Camargo, under the command of the Colonel, the day after my arrival there.
About the first of April the regiment moved from Camargo for Monterey, by the way of a little town called China, as an escort for a provision train. One-half of the regiment was left temporarily at China under Lieutenant Colonel Randolph, and the other half moved to Monterey under my command--Colonel Hamtramck having become too sick to remain on duty. We were encamped at the Walnut Spring near General Taylor's headquarters, and there I met, for the first time, Colonel Jefferson Davis, of the First Mississippi Regiment, who has become illustrious as the President of the Confederrate States. I was struck with his soldierly bearing, and he did me the honor of complimenting the order and regularity of my camp. After being here a short time, the battalion under my command relieved an Ohio regiment, which had been garrisoning Monterey, but was going home, and for two months I acted as miltary governor of the city. It was generally conceded by officers of the army and Mexicans that better order reigned in the city during the time I commanded there, than had ever before existed, and the good conduct of my men won for them universal praise. Some time in the month of June, the whole regiment, under the command of the Colonel, moved to Buena Vista, a few miles from Saltillo, and joined the forces of General Wool, at that point. It remained near that locality for the balance of the war, for the most part inactive, as all fighting on that line, except an occasional affair with guerillas, ceased after the battle of Buena Vista. I had, therefore, no opportunity of seeing active service. For a short time I was attached, as acting Inspector General, to the staff of Brigadier General Caleb Cushing, who commanded the brigade to which my regiment was attached, until he was ordered to the other line. During this period I contracted, in the early part of the fall of 1847, a cold and fever, which eventuated in chronic rheumatism, with which I have ever since been afflicted. My condition became such that I received a leave of absence in the month of November, and returned to the States, on a visit to my friends in the Kanawha Valley.
After improving a little I started back to Mexico, and on my way I had the luck to meet with that fate, which is very common to Americans who travel much, that is, I was on a steamboat which was blown up, the 8th of January, 1848, on the Ohio River, a few miles below the mouth of the Kanawha. I had a very narrow escape, as half of my state-room was carried off and some pieces of the boiler protruded through the floor, cutting and burning my feet when I jumped out of the berth. The explosion took place about 1.00 o'clock at night, when it was very dark and extremely cold, and before the passengers, who were not killed, could get ashore and obtain shelter, they were very much exposed; but, after getting over the first effects of the slight injury received, I experienced a decided improvement in my rheumatism, though I would not advise blowing up in a western steamboat as an infallible remedy.
I rejoined the regiment about the first of February, and commanded the greater part of it during the rest of the war-- three or four companies having been detached to the town of Parras--as Colonel Hamtramck had returned to Virginia on recruiting service. At the close of the war, I carried the regiment to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and had it embarked at Brazos for Fortress Monroe, going on one of the vessels myself. I was mustered out of the service with the rest of the regiment in the first part of April, 1848, being the only field officer on duty with it. It had no opportunity of reaping laurels during the war, but I can say that it had not sullied the flag of the State, which constituted the regimental colors, by disorderly conduct or acts of depredation on private property, and non-combatants. It had been my fortune to have the disagreeable duty of breaking in the regiment at the beginning and I had commanded it for a much longer time than any other field officer. Being rather a strict disciplinarian and, in consequence thereof, naturally regarded by inexperienced troops as harsh in my treatment of them, I was by no means popular with the mass of the regiment prior to the commencement of the return march from Saltillo, but I can safely say that, on the day they were mustered out of service at Fortress Monroe, I was the most popular officer in the regiment, and I had the satisfaction of receiving from a great many of the men the assurance that they had misjudged me in the beginning and were now convinced that I had been their best friend all the time.
I returned to the practice of law and continued it until the commencement of the late struggle between the Southern and Northern States.
After my return from Mexico, I was the only one of my name left in my county, as all the rest of my father's family had removed to the Kanawha Valley.
In the year 1850 I was a candidate for the convention called to revise the constitution of Virginia, but I was defeated by an overwhelming majority, receiving only about two hundred votes in a district polling several thousand. I opposed firmly and unflinchingly all the radical changes, miscalled reforms, which were proposed, and as the people seemed to run wild in favor of them, not only was I beaten, but so were all other candidates professing similar sentiments.
In the year 1853, I was again a candidate for the Legislature, but was badly beaten, as the county had become strongly wedded to the opposite party.
My practice had become very considerable, and at the close of my professional career, I believe I was regarded as among the best lawyers in my section of the State. My most important contest at the bar and my greatest triumph was in a contested will case in Lowndes County, Mississippi, in the autumn of 1852, in which a very large amount of property was involved. I went to Mississippi to attend to this case specially, and I contended single-handed and successfully with three of the ablest lawyers of that State.
I had in a very limited degree the capacity for popular speaking as generally practised in the States, and it was regarded that my forte at the law was not before a jury as an advocate, but on questions of law before the court, especially in cases of appeal.
I was never blessed with popular or captivating manners, and the consequence was that I was often misjudged and thought to be haughty and disdainful in my temperament. When earnestly engaged about my business, in passing through a crowd I would frequently pass an acquaintance without noticing him, because of the preoccupation of my mind, and this often gave offence. From all of which it resulted that I was never what is called a popular man. I can say, however, that those who knew me best, liked me best, and the prejudices against me were gradually wearing off as the people became better acquainted with me.
My labors in my profession were rather spasmodic, and by procrastination, I would often have to compass a vast deal of work in a very short time, on the eve of or during the session of a court. I was careless in securing and collecting my fees, very often relying on memory as the only evidence of them, and the consequence was that my practice was never very lucrative.
I have now given a sketch of my life up to the time of the beginning of the great struggle in the South for independence, and like most men, I had done many things which I ought not to have done, and left undone many things which I ought to have done, but I had done some good, and had not committed any very serious wrong, considering it in a mere worldly point of view. I would, however, by no means, commend my life as a pattern for the young, unless it be in the sincerity and integrity of purpose by which I claim to have ever been actuated.
As there have been some descriptions of my person attempted, in which I have failed to recognize the slightest resemblance, I will state that, up to the time of my service in Mexico, I was quite erect and trim in stature. My average weight for many years was from 154 to 164 pounds--during the war it was about 170 pounds. The stoop with which I am now afflicted is the result of rheumatism contracted in Mexico, and when casual observers have seen me bent up, it has been very often the result of actual pain to which I have been very much subjected for the last nineteen years. One writer, who was actuated by the most friendly motives and ought to have known better, has described me as having a rough, curly head and shaggy eye-brows, whereas the fact is that my hair always has been, and what is left still is, as straight as an Indian's, and my eyebrows are very moderate and smooth. Some writer, who certainly never put himself in a position to see me during the war, has described my dress as being habitually like that of a stage-driver. All tailors who have ever worked for me up to the present time will testify to the fact that I have always been one of the most particular men about the cut and fit of my clothes among their customers.
During the war I was almost constantly in the camp or field, except when wounded, and I had no time to get new clothes if I had been able. My tastes would always have induced me to dress neatly and genteelly if I could have indulged them.
So much for my life previous to the war. Henceforth it will be developed in my narrative.