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LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY Of NORTH (AROTINA,
Endowed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
Call No. C'B - 'P 'S W
/ '^
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL
ill
00032690963
FOR USE ONLY IN
THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTIO
IHIS TITLE HAS BEEN MICROFILMEI
Form No. A 365
MEMORIAL
or THE LIFE OF
. |ol]uston lettigreto,
BPJG. m. OF THE COPEDERATE STATES ARM,
^sArnvc. H:DE!:cTI^■3^ TI^:ESGOT
CHARLESTON :
JOHN RUSSELL,
1870.
EVANS & COGSWELL, PRINTERS,
No. 3 Broad street, Charleston, S. C.
MEMORIAL
The great civil war in this country has ended by the
total defeat of one of the parties to the issue. Its
causes and its consequences stand for judgment before
impartial history ; and it is not in this generation of
victors and vanquished that we can reasonably expect
to find an unexaggerated statement of its fortunes — a
temperate appreciation of the influences which produced
it — or a dispassionate estimate of the results it has ac-
complished. Time alone — time made up oftenest, both
for nations and for men, of
" Those slow, sad hours which bring us all things ill,
And all good things from evil,"
can explain not only men to each other, but men and their
actions to themselves. We are always working either
better or worse than we can know ; and whether by
victory or defeat, we are always achieving or sacrificing
ends that we never purposed. But there is a value in
such a conflict beside if not beyond the value of the prin-
ciples at stake. The training of life has upon character
the same influence which the training of mathematics
Memorial of
has upon intellect, and its worth is derived not from
what it teaches, but from Avhat it forms. Men may dif-
fer about the conflicting theories of the Constitution
which created the parties to the contest; men ma}^ dis-
agree about those great national interests, which, partly
concealed and partly evident, lay at the foundation of
the bitter difference ; men may rate, with very varying
degree^ of praise or censure, the technical merits of Lee
or Grant, of Sherman or Johnston. But men never will
mistake purity of purpose, nobleness of deed, self-sacri-
ficing lives, or heroic deaths, be they spent on one side
or the other. And the time will surely come when all
men will see and feel, as some men on both sides see
and feel now, that upon such an issue it was the duty
of true men to differ; when the spirit in which the
events of this war will be reviewed will be the same
manly and generous spirit which, in a conflict between
those of our own blood, and from whom we learned the
contending principles for which we fought, dictated this
noble language from Sir William Waller, the Parlia-
mentary general, to his old friend Sir Ealph Hopton,
the lloyalist commander: "My affections to you are so
J. Johnston Pettigrew.
unchangeable that hostility itself cannot violate my
friendship to yoiii- person ; but 1 must be true to the
cause wherein I serve. The great Goil, who is the
searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I
go upon this service, and with what perfect hatred I
look upon a war without an enemy. The God of Peace,
in his good time, send us peace, and in the meantime fit
us to receive it. We are both on the stage, and we
must act the parts that are assigned us in this tragedy.
Let us do it in a way of honor, and without personal ani-
mosities."
After these words .were written how long and fierce
was the contest ; how hot, and wild, and wicked were
the passions and ambitions of men who called tliem-
selves countrymen ; how complete and unforeseen was
the result.
The royalist who, to borrow Macaulay's picturesque
description, saw his eldest son fiiU at Naseby or Mars-
ton Moor, who stole by night to revisit liis old manor
house which had been converted into barracks and
desecrated by a Eoundhead garrison, whose silver had
been melted to raise a regiment among his tenants, and
Memorial of
who, even after the war, was thankful to recover his
wasted property by paying a large iine to Mr. Speaker
Lenthall, thought and spoke very much as a South
Carolina planter would of Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation, of General Saxton's administration of
the Sea Islands, or General Sherman's march through
the State. The women of that day mourned their
dead, and shrunk with shuddering from those whose
garments smelt of the blood of their kindred. Eev-
erend priests, who had prayed fervently and prophesied
boldly, put their hands upon their mouths and bowed
in perplexed humility when they learned that the ways
of God were indeed past finding out. Bad men rose
and ruled; impatient spirits sought relief in exile, and
desponding ones sat sad and silent in the midst of
darkness which could be felt. But how does the history
of that cruel strife read now? The blood that was
poured out like water has sunk into the ground; the
tears that were shed have dried up like dew; the
personal hatreds and jealousies are at rest in ancient
graves, and all that was brave and pure, and true in
the words and deeds of either of the great factions
J. Johnston Pettigreiv.
lives and glows to-day in the history of England.
Cromwell and Falkland, Hampden and Clarendon stand
to-day in monumental marble, in the great Palace of
Westminster, to teach coming generations what have
been the courage, the patriotism, the wisdom of
English men.
While, therefore, we who are the vanquished in this
battle must of necessity leave to a calmer and wiser
posterity to judge of the intrinsic worth of that strug-
gle, as it bears upon the principles of constitutional
liberty, and as it must aifect the future history of the
American people, there is one duty not only possible
but imperative; a duty which we owe alike to the
Uving and to the dead; and that is the preservation
in perpetual and tender remembrance of the lives of
those who, to use a phrase scarcely too sacred for so
unselfish a sacrifice, died in the hope that we might
live.
Especially is this our duty, because in the South a
choice between the parties and principles at issue was
scarcely possible. From causes which it is exceedingly
interesting to trace, but w^hich I cannot now develop,
the feeling of State loyalty had acquired throughout
the South an almost ftmatie intensity — particularly in
the old Colonial States did this devotion to the State
assume that blended character of affection and duty
which gives in the old world such a chivalrous coloring
to loyalty to the Crown. The existence of large hered-
itary estates, the transmission from generation to gene-
ration of social and political consideration, the institu-
tion of slavery, creating of the whole white race a
privileged class, through whom the pride and power of
its highest representatives were naturally diffused, ail
contributed to give a peculiarly personal and family
feeling to the ordinary relation of citizen to the Com-
monwealth. Federal honors were undervalued and even
Federal power was underrated, except as they were
reflected back from the interests and prejudices of the
State. When, therefore, by the formal and constitu-
tional act of the States, secession from the Federal
Government was declared in 1860 and 1861, it is almost
impossible for any one, not familiar with the habits and
thoughts of the South, to understand how completely
the question of duty was settled for Southern men.
Shrewd, practical men who had no faith in the result,
old and eminent men who had grown gray in service
under the national flag, liad their doubts and their mis-
givings; but there was no hesitation as to what they
were to do. Especially to that great body of men just
coming into manhood, who were preparing to take
their places as the thinkers and actors of the next gen-
eration, was this call of the State an imperative sum-
mons. The fathers and mothers who had reared them,
the society whose traditions gave both refinement and
assurance to their young ambition, the colleges in which
the creed of Mr. Calhoun w^as the text-book of their
political studies, the friends w^ith whom they planned
their future, the very land they loved, dear to them as
thoughtless boys, dearer to them as thoughtful men,
were all impersonate living, speaking, commanding in
the State of which they were children. ^N'ever in the
history of the world has there been a nobler response
to a more thoroughly recognized duty; nowhere any-
thing more truly glorious than this outburst of the
5'outh and manhood of the South. And now that the
end has come, and we have seen it, it seems to me, that
10
Memorial of
to a man of humanity, I care not in what section hi8
sympathies may have been nurtured, there never has
been a sadder or sublimer spectacle than these earnest
and devoted men, their young and vigorous cohimns
marching through Eichmond to the Potomac, like the
combatants of ancient Eome, beneath the imperial
throne in the amphitheatre, and exclaiming with ui^lift-
ed arms, " moraturi te salutaHif^ '
And thus it happened that the veiy flower of our youth
were mowed down by the reaper, whose name is Death,
in the rich harvest fields which human passion and civil
strife hfid M last ripened under the peaceful skies and on
the unstained soil of the new Republic. For there was
not a community in the South from which the younger
men of mark, the men whom their people expected
to take the places and sustain the characters of the
fathers, did not hasten to take up the heavy burden
of their responsibility. And if in ordinary times it is
one of the saddest of human experiences to see the
sudden destruction of great gifts, the extinction of fair
promises, the uncompleted and fragmentary achieve-
ment of useful and honorable lives, with what bitter
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 11
regret must we not review that long list of the dead,
whose virtues, whose genius and whose youth we sacri-
ficed in vain. To the memory of these men I think we
owe a peculiarly tender care. They went to death at
our bidding, and the simple and heroic language of one,
not the least among them, spoke the spirit of them all.
"Tell the Governor," said he, as he was dying, "that if
1 am to die now, I g^ive my life cheerfully for the inde-
pendence of South Carolina."
"Their leaf has perished in the green,
And while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world, which credits what is done,
Is cold to all that might have been,"
Of the great men of this civil war history will take
care. The issues were too high, the struggle too
famous, the consequences too vast for them to be for-
gotten. But as for these of whom I speak, if the State
is indeed the mother whom they so fondly loved, she
will never forget them. She will speak of them in a
whisper, if it must be, but in tones of love that will
live through all these dreary days. From among the
children who survive to her, her heart will yearn for-
ever towards the early lost. The noble enthusiasm of
their youth, the vigorous promise of their manhood,
their imperfect and unrecorded achievement, the pity
of their deaths will so consecrate their memories that,
be the revolutions of laws and institutions, be the
changes of customs and fortunes what they maj', the
South will, living, cherish with a holier and stronger
love, and dying, if die she must, will murmur with her
latest breath the names of "The Confederate Dead."
Of the class of men to whom I have specially referred,
I do not think there can be found a worthier represen-
tative than the subject of this memoir. And I can best
justify my opinion by telling the tale of his life dimply,
briefly, I wish I could add nobly, as it really was.
James Johnston Pettigrew was born at Lake Scup-
pernong, Tyrrell County, North Carolina, on the 4th
July, 1828, and was the son of Hon.Ebenezer Pettigrew
and Ann Shepherd, his Avife. The fiimily from which
he sprang, was remotely of French origin, but at a very
early period, branches Avhich recognized their connec-
tion, settled both in Scotland and Ireland. James Pet-
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 13
tigrevv, a descendant of the Irish branch, and who was
an officer in King William's army, at the battle of the
Boyne, having received a grant of lands from the Crown
established a family- at Crilly House, near Aughnarcloy,
in Tj'rone Count}^, which enjoj^ed local consideration,
and the younger members of which seem chiefly to have
entered the inilitar}- and naval service, and in some in-
stances, to have achieved both rank and reputation. One
of his younger sons, James, who was being prepared for
Trinity College, Dublin, married early, and having had
apparently some unpleasant differences with his family
emigrated to America about 1740. He settled origi-
nally in Pennsylvania, then moved to Yirginia, thence
to North Carolina, and finally after these many removes,
made his home in Abbeville, South Carolina, about
1768, where he lived to a good old age, and founded
the family of which the late Hon. James L. Petigru was
the well known and distinguished representative. When
he removed from North Carolina, he left behind him his
third son, Charles Pettigrew, who had been born in
Pennsylvania, in 1743. This gentleman was educated
in part, by the Eev. ]\Ir. Waddle, Wirt's famous " Blind
14 Memorial of
Preacher;" and ia 1773, was made Master of the Public
School at Edenton, by Governor Martin. In 1775, he
went to England to be admitted to holy orders, and was
ordained by his Diocesan, the Bishop of London. Ee-
tiirning immediately to Xorth Carolina, his labors w^ere
devoted to his work in that portion of the State lying
north and south of Albemarle Sound, and he was for
many years the Eector of the church in Edenton. His
ability and virtues seem to have exerted a most bene-
ficial influence upon his times. The Episcopal Church
had at that period scarcely an existence in IS'orth Caro-
lina, and consisted of only a few parishes, almost too
remote from each other for Christian communion or
ecclesiastical organization. Mr. Pettigrew appears from
all the accounts, to have been a man of sincere and
gentle piety, which sought rather for those points of
sympathy which unite all Christians, than those differ-
ences of opinion which divide so many churches. While
his labors, his attainments and his character attracted
the regard and won the confidence of his brethren in
the ministry, the sweetness of his disposition and the
spirit of charity which in him believed no evil and hoped
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 15
all things, rendered him dear to many devout people
who did not worship at the same altar ; and he was not
more the counsellor of his own church than the friend
and adviser of denominations not included within the
limits of his ecclesiastical authority. That there was
also as much firmness as gentleness in the discharge
of his duty, and that his sympathy with his fellow
countrj^men in their trials, was not confined to his
priestly relations, may be inferred from the fact that in
1780, he felt it his duty to accompany the militia of the
State who were called into service for a Southern cam-
paign.
He married Mary Blount, the daughter of Col. John
Blount, the representative of one of the oldest, most
influential and most respected families of the colony,
and his own influence was naturally extended by the
large and powerful connection into which he was thus
introduced. Soon after the Eevolution, strenuous efl"ort
was made to organize more eflSciently the Church in
North Carolina, and in 1704 he was unanimously
elected b}^ the convention Bishop of the new diocese.
The history of the Church in the United States fur-
16 JJemorial of
nishes the official correspondence between himself and
Bishop Wliite, but it is onlj^ necessary to state here
that before his consecration, which was delayed by his
inability to reach J^ew York in time, he died, leaving
behind him a gentle and blessed memory.
He left surviving him one son, Hon. Ebenezer Pet-
tigrew, who married Ann Shepherd, the daughter of a
very distinguished family of Xewbern, and seems to
have inherited much of his father's attractive character
and useful influence. With the exception of a short
time, during which he represented his State in Con-
gress, his life was passed in the cultivated and quiet
retirement of his paternal estate of Bonarva, in Tyrrell
County.
Johnston Pettigrew was the third son of this marriage.
The earlier portion of his life was passed with his
maternal grandmother, but from his seventh to his
fifteenth year his time was spent in summer at the
school of AY. T. Bingham, in Hillsboro', and his winters
at home or with his mother's relatives in Paleigh. In
May, 1843, ho entered college at Chapel Hill, the State
University, then under the presidency of that eminent
J. Johnston Fettigrew. 17
and venerable man, Governor Swain. His scholastic
career was so brilliant as to have become a colle2;e
tradition ; his preeminence not only in the usual course
of study, but in general force and scope of intellect,
was universallj^ admitted, and when he graduated, in
1847, not only were those who had superintended his
education lavish and exultant in their predictions of
his future eminence, but the Press of the State vary
generally signalized his graduation as an event in the
history of the college. That there was more in this
universal recognition of his merit than the partiality
of friendship, may be concluded from the fact that Mr.
Polk, then President of the United States, and himself
a graduate of Chapel Hill, who was the guest of the
University at this commencement, and accompanied by
Commodore Maury, tendered to Pettigrew, at the sug-
gestion of the latter, one of the Assistant Professor-
ships in the National Observatory at Washington ; and
from his journals and papers relating to this period of
his life, it is not difficult to understand this brilliant
success. Of course such documents Avould have no
interest for the world, which looks only at results, but
18 Memorial of
they show how great was the superiority of his general
preparation, how keen, persistent and vigorous was the
ambition which stimulated his labors, and what per-
haps best explains his influence with his fellow-students,
and what every collegian will understand, his intense
interest in what I may call college politics, his eager
and animated contest for society honors — in short, his
complete absorption in that mimic public life which,
especially in a State institution, goes so far not only to
form the character but to shape the fortunes of the
rising generations. Knowing him as I did, familiar
with many of the hopes and some of the plans of his
after-life, I. have found a peculiar but sad interest in the
traits scattered through these records, written with all
the inconsequence, the frankness, the generosity, the
vanity of his age, and showing how truly the boy was
father of the man.
In 1847, having thus graduated with the highest dis-
tinction, and having accepted from the President the
position which he had so honorably won, his life had
fairly opened, and with prospects for the future brighter,
clearer, broader than fall to the lot of most men ; a
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 19
home warm with paternal affection, refined by the cul-
ture and elevated by the character of its inmates; a
large and influential connection who were proud of his
promise and powerful to sustain him in the career of
honorable ambition; the prestige of an enviable and
singular success among those with whom he had com-
menced and with whom he was to go through life;
great gifts and large talents, carefully cherished and
highly cultivated ; the influences of the past and the
hopes of the future to elevate and encourage him.
Only nineteen years of age, his place in the Observ-
atory gave him the opportunity for reflection and left
him free to pursue the even tenor of a life devoted to
scientific achievement, or to make his preparation de-
liberately for a more exciting theatre. He was not
long choosing, for in the vigor of genius he was not
exempt from that restlessness which is its almost certain
accompaniment until it has found a congenial field for
its work. The character of his success at college, and
the atmosphere of Washington were additional stimu-
lants to that ambition which finds its natural sphere of
activitv rather in the conflict with men than in the
20 Memorial of
more quiet but more strenuous struggle with thought.
After a stay of only a few months at the Observatory,
he decided upon adopting the profession of the law,
and communicated his decision to his family in a let-
ter which shows that his choice was made after very
deliberate reflection. He accordingly removed to Bal-
timore, and entered upon bis legal studies in the office
of James Mason Campbell, Esq., where, however, he re-
mained but a short time, as he accepted an invitation
from his distinguished relative, Jas. L. Petigru, of
Charleston, to complete his preparation for the bar in
his office. He removed to Charleston in 1848, and after
his admission to the bar, at the earnest instance of very
near and dear friends, who wished him to receive all
the advantages of a perfect culture, he left for Europe.
On the 9th January, 1850, he commenced his voyage,
and proceeding directly from Liverpool to Berlin, there
devoted two years to conscientious and profound study.
At the close of his term of study he travelled through
Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, England
and Ireland, and returned in 1852 to Charleston, and his
profession. During his visit to Spain, Mr. Barrenger,
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 21
then United States Minister at Madrid, offered him the
position of Secretary to the Legation, a selection that
there can be no reason to doubt, would have been con-
firmed by the authorities at home. It was a post of
duty peculiarly adapted to his tastes and qualifications.
But learning that the gentleman then in oflice was, for
special reasons, very anxious to retain it, and that he
would be retained if he himself refused the appoint-
ment, he declined it with a delicate generositj^, as rare
as it was honorable.
Before our late civil war, which, notwithstanding its
present apparently ruinous result, has matured this
country more rapidly than fifty years of ordinary life,
I do not think that any young American of large intel-
lect could have been properlj^ educated without some
experience of the old world. I do not refer to such
education as one picks up on the Boulevards of Paris,
in the Thiergarten of Berlin, in the carnival at Eome,
or even in that much shrewder and higher school, the
clubs of London, or that one has seen the old masters
at Dresden, or witnessed a genuine furore at Milan, or
a bull fight at Seville, or drank pure hock or unquestion-
Memorial of
able Burgundy. I do not think even these things with-
out their value, for no one can have failed to remark
the refining effect of even superficial foreign travel
upon very ordinary people. Xor do I mean something
higher than this, hard study at Heidelburg, gradu-
ation at Oxford, courses of science at Paris. But I mean
this, which many I am sure have felt, although it is
difficult to express, that the American who has studied
history in books, never understands until he has lived in
Europe what history really is. He never comprehends
where in the point of human progress he stands in
America, until he looks back upon it from Europe. It
is not that he is among strange institutions and peculiar
habits, different costumes and unfamiliar languages, that
he sees cathedrals like Westminster, or palaces like the
Tuileries. It is the atmosphere, the moral atmosphere,
saturated with the crimes and with the virtues, the
hopes and the failures of thousands of years of human
civilization. There is a vitality, a reality in the past
entirely new to his experience. He feels that the fu-
ture, which to the genuine American looks so free, is, in
fact, bound irrevocably to that humanity which has
J. Johnston Pettigrew, 23
suffered and struggled and failed and achieved through
so many centuries, and that under conditions, which
apparently new, are but variations of those essential
conditions under which the social and political life of
the world has grown for ages, we are acting our part in
that one solemn and continuous drama the plot of which
is above the comprehension, as it is beyond the alte-
ration of the greatest actor in its varied scenes. And 1
have never known one upon whom this impression was
made, who did not come home a wiser and better man.
Johnston Pettigrew had the intellect, the training, the
moral nature to learn this lesson, and he grew in sta-
ture visibly during his residence abroad. His journal
and letters which are not finished enough for publica-
tion, exhibit in a comparatively immature form the
same powers of observation and reflection to which I
shall have occasion to refer hereafter, in noticing his
second voyage to Europe.
It is sufficient for me to say here that he came home
with that intense consciousness of the sacred unity of
the whole history of humanity, which, while it gave
larger worth and dignity to the history of his own
24 Memorial of
country, also gave to his study of the history of other
times and people that breadth of view and varied inter-
est Avhich he hoped would one day bear no unw^orthy
fruit. And he had acquired an earnestness of purpose,
which, if it could not entn-ely suppress that craving for
cotemporary appreciation which is perhaps an instinct
rather than a weakness, had at least taught him to sub-
stitute, for the desire of great distinction, the honorable
effort for great achievment.
In his return to the bar, in 1852, he enjoyed, as
he had done through life, many signal advantages. It
is true that he was a stranger in a society, which,
although governed by very generous impulses and
ready sympathies, was still not unnaturally leavened by
the spirit of family connection and local prejudice ;
one in which nearlj^ all the leading interest of its social
and industrial life were represented at the bar by young
men of character and ability, in whose fortunes the
community were personally concerned; and the city
was scarcely large enough for that sort of professional
success which is entirely independent of personal con-
nection. But this disadvantage was more than com-
J. Johnston Fettlgrew.
25
pensated by the fact that he was at once associated in
business Avith his distinguished relative who had for
many years stood without competition at the head of
the profession in Carolina. Not only was he thus
spared the difficult and wearisome labor of making a
practice, but the character and extent of the engage-
ments of the legal firm of which he was a member gave
him at once that opportunity, on important and inter-
esting cases, of exhibiting his ability, for which, in the
ordinary course of events, he must have waited a long
time. And to his honor be it said, that the great lawyer
who had thus adopted him never ceased to manifest the
most affectionate interest in his success; for it is well
known to his friends that that large-hearted man, whose
life had not ^QQnw without its sorrows and disappoint-
ments, had found in the young kinsman, who shared
his blood and name, the fulfilment of one of his proudest
hopes, and looked upon him as the inheritor, in another
generation, of that splendid reputation which his own
virtues and labors had established.
It is, perhaps, impossible to say how far Johnston
Pettio-rew would have fulfilled that hope. That he an-
26 Memorial of
ticipated such achievement I do not think. Ilis cul-
ture was too varied, his appreciation of other sorts of
distinction too high, he was too free from the pecuniary
necessity of professional success to have given to the
law that patient and exclusive devotion, the absence of
Avhich no genius can supply. He practiced law because
he found in it the most congenial sphere for a mental
activity that could not rest satisfied with merely ac-
quiring, and because in this country its training and its
influence were the almost necessary preparations for
political life. His wonderful, almost unrivalled, quick-
ness of perception and acquisition, his habits of severe
and concentrated study, and above all his faculty, so to
speak, of putting himself in sympathy with the subject
of his studies, with the power of impressing clearly and
strongly what he knew, enabled him to sustain the
reputation which had been given him, and I think the
profession recognized in him, during their short expe-
rience, the capacity of a very high intellect. His con-
nection with the bar lasted only four or five years. His
position scarcely placed upon him the full responsibility
of professional life, and he was never tested in that de-
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 27
partment of practice which is the basis of professional
reputation and consists not so much in brilliant argu-
ments and recondite learning as in the practical sense
which in the quiet of the office and the privacy of con-
sultation directs and controls the business interests of
the community. \Yhile, therefore, practicing at the
bar he was preparing for that public life which was the
real object of his aspirations. At that time there can
be hardly said to have been any real political life in
South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun had died in 1850. For
many years before his death his will had been the law
in the State and his opinions were received as decisions
which governed her action. His isolation from either
of the great living parties of the country, the State
faithfully represented, while his long and undisputed
autocracy, by diminishing all other men, had left the
State absolutely without leaders in whom they confided.
The State was Democratic, of course, but it had no active
association with the Democratic party. It took no
share in the party counsels, and supported its nomina-
tions steadily and consistently, but without sympathy.
The political divisions in the State were, therefore.
28 Memorial of
almost entirely personal, and as such differences never
arouse the popular feeling, active political life was left
very much to the friends of a few distinguished men
Avho were supposed to hold the true faith and were
allowed to distribute the political honors among them,
selves. But in the Presidential campaign of 1856, a
party in the State headed by Colonel Orr, who at thai
time represented the mountain district in Congress,
demanded that the State should manifest a more active
sympathy with the Democratic party, and. abandoning
the policy of isolation which they believed due to the
accidents of Mr. Calhoun's position and unwise in itself,
should participate in the convention which made the
presidential nominations. It would be useless, and now
perhaps not even interesting, to review this old contro-
versy. It is enough for my present purpose to say that
Johnston Pettigrew agreed with their opinions and
took an active part in the political movement in Charles-
ton which resulted in a convention of the State to nomi-
nate delegates to the Cincinnati Convention; that his
course was acceptable to the constituency among whom
he lived; and that at the October elections of 1856 he
J. Johnston Fettigrew. 29
was elected one of the representatives to the Legisla-
ture from the City of Cliarleston. As a legislator his
career was brief and brilliant, and not onlj' brilliant
but useful in a very high sense.
I am not, I think, given to exaggeration, and I have
had sufficient experience of life on a wider scale to be
cured of that extravagance of admiration for local habits
and local reputations which is the weakness of all small
and isolated communities. South Carolina is a Yery
small and not a very important part of the civilized
world, and it would be very ridiculous to compare its
Legislature to that most august of deliberative assem-
blies the British House of Commons. But it is never-
theless true that in the Legislature of this State have
been preserved with singular fidelity some of the most
striking features of the Parliament of our ancestors.
The reverence for the forms of parliamentary law, the
influence belonging to that silent body of country gen-
tlemen, the long continuance of individual representa-
tives, the weight given to the precedents of former gen-
erations, the peculiar respect and dignity attached to
the office of speaker, the antiquated and stately cos-
30 Memorial of
tnme of the presiding officers of both branches of the
General Assemblj^, the unwritten and unbroken law
of adjournment so that the parish representatives
should be on their estates at Christmas, all were
traditions of the habits and thoughts of our Eng-
lish blood. In every other State, even at the South,
there was a general legislative uniformity and con-
formity to that worst of models, the United States
House of Eepresentatives. But here an unbroken line
of speakers from the colonial days of Jonathan Amory
to the Ordinance of Secession, presided over a political
assembly which preserved more of the conservatism of
the old world than any other institution on this conti-
nent, except, I ought to add, the common law as ad-
ministered by the judiciary of the same State. Estab-
lished in colonial times, when the parishes really
represented all the wealth and all the population of the
State, the parish system, with its intense respect for
landed property, its deference to personal connection,
its genuine love of culture and its sensitive obedience to
the rules of good breeding, gave a character to the
Legislature which it never entirly lost. The represen-
J. Johnston Pettigrew, 31
tatioii sprang from it. Session after session the same
men, the natural leaders of the State, the men who rep-
resented broad acres and thousands of slaves, the men
who had won power and honor by professional labor^
the men who, in less conspicuous walks of life, had made
for themselves names for industry, honesty and ability,
met to make the laws of the State; and as years went
on the boys from the college (as much a part of the
State as the Legislature) who filled the galleries, and to
whom the debates were as much a part of their educa-
tion as their recitations, came down from the galleries
to fill the seats in the House, and to renew and perpet-
uate hereditary friendships. A member's name was an
indication of the district he represented, and the public
life of the State was developed in full and fitting sym-
pathy with the personal affections, the traditional
associations, the local attachments that made its private
life. The tone and temper of such an association of
men could not but be elevated. There were among
them men of difterent conditions, various degrees
of culture, of very diverse habits of thought, keen
politicians, and very strong and contrary ambitions.
But above all they were gentlemen. And by that I
mean men who, by the universal consent of the society
in which they lived, had the right to respect and did
re?«pect themselves and each other. And they were
bound together by that unity of the spirit which sprang
from a simple but deep and unaffected devotion to the
State whose honor and whose interests were entrusted
to their keeping. Their sense of personal responsibility
not only gave courtesy and dignity to their manners,
but it secured that spirit of manliness and fair play
which is the surest guarantee against the injustice of
party; and I think I can say with truth that anything
approaching fraud or falsehood, however it might serve
the exigencies of party, anything like meanness or
cowardice would, with them, have destroyed, beyond
hope of redemption, the most brilliant reputation.
Intellectually they were not above the average of
sensible men, but they represented too absolutely the
property and sentiment of the State to make any grave
mistake as to its interests. They possessed an un-
bounded admiration for intellectual supcriorit3\ and
took a generous pride in the individual reputation of
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 33
their colleagues. Thej were familiar with the discus-
sion of many grave questions by very distinguished men ;
and although in the main, as all sensible men are, very
tolerant of mediocrity, they were shrewd and cultivated
critics when their admiration was challenged. They
had trained a'nd disciplined many men whose fame as
orators and statesmen had become national, and with
the exception of Mr. Calhoun, I do not know a great
reputation in the State, the foundation of which was
not laid broadly and solidly in the Legislature. It was
in brief a body of whose judgment a young member
might well feel apprehensive, of whose kind and gen-
erous sympath}^ he might be assured, and of whose de-
liberate approval he would have everj^ reason to be
proud.
In this body Johnston Pettigrew took his seat as one
of the representatives from Charleston, at the extra
session for the election of Presidential electors in 1856,
and at the regular session a few week after made his
maiden speech. A very strong effort had been made at
the preceding Legislature, and had been renewed at
this, to modify the judiciary system of the State. No
34 Memorial of
subject could have excited a more earnest and intelligent
interest, for the character of the judiciary, both for in-
tegrity and ability, had always been the pride of the
State. A bill was introduced by Nelson Mitchell, the
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, another of those
whose sun has gone down at midday, which provided
for the creation of a separate court of appeals. There
was a very warm difference of opinion between very
able men. The old circuit court system had strong
advocates. It was familiar to the people, w^as more
economical, had in the course of its existence fur-
nished some very eminent judges, and was much more
agreeable to the country bar than the proposed change.
The metropolitan bar, whose standard of judicial at-
tainment was higher, and who were seriously incon-
venienced by the delay incident to the existing sys-
tem, warmly advocated both as a matter of efficiency
and convenience, the creation of an independent and su-
preme court of appeals. The discussion was sustained
by the most distinguished members of the Ilouse, aud
at its close Mr. Pettigrew addressed the speaker in sup-
port of the bill. The speech was clear, strong, admi-
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 35
rable in tone and temper, and above all, fresh. While
it was practical, it avoided common place. The
argument rested on large principles, but the appli-
cation was direct and business-like, and it was col-
ored by those scholarly illustrations in which the
taste of the House took special pleasure. When
he sat down his introduction to the public life
of the State had been accomplished with signal
success.
At the ensuing session he took a long step forwards,
a step not of promise, but of positive progress in the
achievement of recognized and influential public posi-
tion. The discussion of the slavery question had
been during the last few years assuming in the poli-
tics of the United States a graver and angrier char-
acter. The Abolition party had ceased to be a small
school of speculative reformers, and had become a
strong party of political agitators. The Mexican war
and the admission of Kansas had furnished the oppor-
tunity of making the constitutional recognition of
slavery a question of direct practical importance, and
it was fast becoming, as it did become, a very few years
36 Memorial of
later, the essential issue of the great political contest of
the Presidential election.
As the dispute became more envenomed, the extreme
men on either side became more violent, and the theo-
ries of both parties were pushed more resolutely to
their logical consequences, regardless of the great his-
torical fact that the Constitution had been adopted and
could only be preserved by a wise compromise of these
very extremes. At the South, the extreme advocates
of slavery abandoning or rather going beyond the old,
and I think, impregnable position that domestic slavery
was a political and social relation between the two
races, recognized by the Constitution and guaranteed
by that instrument so long as any one of the States
maintained its existence, undertook to prove the intrin-
sic righteousness and excellence of the institution, and
demanded as a perfectly logical consequence from their
premises that the constitutional prohibition of the slave
trade should be abrogated. The men who held these
views represented a very small minority even in South
Carolina, and were distinguished rather for their eccen-
tric and bold speculativeness of opinion than for any
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 37
real influence upon public affairs. But in 1856, Gover-
nor Adams gave a sudden and factitious importance to
these opinions by advocating them in his annual mes-
sage to the Legislature of South Cai'olina. The subject
was referred in both branches of the General Assembly
to special committees, with leave to sit during the
adjournment and report at the next session. In the
committee of the House, Mr. Pettigrew, although the
youngest member, was selected by the minority to rep-
resent their opinions. At the session of 1857, the re-
port was made. In its condemnation of the views and
recommendations of the governor it was a clear, com-
plete, eloquent and forcible exposition of the convictions
of three-fourths of the slaveholders of the South. The
report is too well known and attracted too much atten-
tion to render an analysis necessary. The complete-
ness of the argument, the breadth of the principles
upon which it rested, its full and exhausting history of
all the legislation of other nations on the same subject,
the curious picture of the social consequences of the
slave trade drawn with infinite labor and ability from a
study of the old statute law of the State, made this re-
38 Memorial of
port a document of permanent interest and value. The
subject is one which it is scarcely pleasant or profitable
to review. I will venture but one opinion, and that is
that if time had been allowed for the principles which
^vere the basis of that report, to have been enforced
and illustrated, to have been applied to the larger con-
sideration of the whole question in controversy, by such
men as Mitchell and Pettigrew and others, who being
still living I do not think it proper to mention, and
who were young and strong enough to have waited for
the result of their labor, I think a school of public
opinion would have been formed at the South which
^vould have steadily widened the sphere of its influence
and manifested its ability to deal wisely and success-
full}^ with those issues which have just reached their
bloody solution. But be that as it may — at the close
of the session of 1857, Johnston Pettigrew had fairly
reached a position from which he could look forw^ard
with confidence to an open career of honorable and dis-
tinguished usefulness. But I must add with sorrow
and not without mortification that w^ith this session his
legislative career closed. B}^ one of those miserable
J. Johnston Fettigrew. 39
chances which results from the unworthy personal
scramble for honors and office which the legislative
election in Charleston has more than once become,
he was defeated in the October elections of 1858, and
thus his services were lost to the State at the very
time ihey were most needed and would have been
most valuable. He was disappointed, naturally enough,
but more so I think than the occasion warranted or
what was due to his own character ought to have
permitted. For that popular confidence which secures
stability of power, requires time and long and per-
sistent achievement. Ko gifts however brilliant, no
purpose however pure, will obtain it without patience
of spirit and tenacity of temper. This disappoint-
ment, however, gave him the opportunity to carry
out a purpose which he had long cherished. He
had felt, early in life, a desire for military service,
and when a student at Berlin had made an ineffec-
tual effort to procure admission into the Prussian
army. The Italian war, which excited his warmest
sympathies, was now in progress, and he determined
to apply for a staff appointment in the Sardinian
40 Memorial of
army. The motive of his conduct I can best describe
in his own words :
"It was on the night of the -Ith of July, 1859, that
I crossed Mount Cenis on the wh}^ to Turin. Though
the precise date was a matter of accident, its associa-
tions were in happy unison with the object of the jour-
ney and the sentiments which prompted me. It was
my birthday, but far more it was the day that ushered
into life my native land — a day ever memorable in the
history of the world — ^^not so much because it had added
another to the family of nations as because it had an-
nounced amid the crack of rifles and the groans of ex-
piring patriots, the great principle that every people
has an inalienable right of self-government without re-
sponsibility to aught on earth, save such as may be im-
posed by a due respect for the opinions of mankind.
Once more this great battle wias to be fought, no longer
in the wilds of the American forest, but on land re-
nowned through all ages, and rendered sacred by recol-
lections of intellect, art and religion. Xow, as then, a
tyrant empire had with vain boastings poured her
legions upon a devoted land ; now, as then, the op-
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 41
pressed few forgetting their dissensions, hiid risen to
burst their chains asunder; and now, too, as then, a
great nation, the generous French, were rushing with
disciplined battalions to aid struggling, expiring hu-
manity. It was certainly humiliating that so large a
portion of Europe should have remained unsympathiz-
ing spectators of the contest. On the part of an Amer-
ican, acquiescence in such neutrality would have been
treason against nature. Inspired by these sentiments,
I was hurrying with Avhat speed I might, to offer
my services to the Sardinian Government, and to ask
the privilege of serving as a volunteer in her armies —
perhaps a foolish errand if measured by the ideas of
this unromantic century. No emotion of my life was
ever so pure, so free from every shade of conscientious
doubt or selfish consideration. At the distance of four
thousand miles, we were happily ignorant of the under-
hand intrigues, if any there were, which so frequently
disgust one in the turmoil of politics. I saw but the
spectacle of an injured people, struggling as America
had done, to throw off the yoke of a foreign and com-
paratively barbarous oppressor, and as we passed bat-
talion after battalion of brave Freoch slowly ascending
the mountain, I felt toward them all the fervor of
youth, fired by the grateful traditions of eighty years
ago." — Spain and the Spaniards.
His application was successful, but on his way to join
the army he was met by the news of the peace of Villa
Franca, w^hich of course put an end to the purpose of
his journey. Thus disappointed he devoted a few
months to revisiting Spain, and returned to South
Carolina towards the close of 1859. But his voyage
was not without fruit, and in 1860 he printed for pri-
vate circulation among his friends, "Spain and the
Spaniards," a volume which forms the only memorial
he has left us of his severe studies, his varied accom-
plishments, his high aspirations. This book is admira-
bly written. The country and the people whom be
described had for him a romantic charm, and his enthu-
siastic sympathy with their history and character gives
to his descriptions a warmth and truthfulness which
a colder observation could never have imparted. His
thorough knowledge of Spanish history and his famil-
iarity with the language taught him both what to ob-
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 43
serve and how to observe, while his reflections have the
breadth and vigor and freshness which in the study of
the old world can be given only by the consciousness of
the ever-living connection between the past and the
present. While the spirit of the book is genuinely
American, especially so in some of its outspoken preju-
dices, and very liberal in its political coloring, its tone
of refined and accomplished culture, its quick, bright
sketches of character, its love of nature, its picturesque
description of national habits and institutions give both
variety and refinement to its pages, and although it
scarcely afforded scope for the exhibition of his general
ability, it will I am confident, if ever published, be
placed in the front rank of that department of litera-
ture.
Pettigrew returned from Europe with the same con-
viction he had carried away, from home, that every
hour was bringing nearer the unavoidable conflict, and
he had not been slightly influenced in his desire to see
large and active service abroad by the persuasion that
all he could learn there would find its early and fitting
use here. Thus impressed, he had not only before his
44 Memorial of
journey devoted himself to the study of military science,
so far as the best books in the various modern languages
could teach, but while in Paris had used all such oppor-
tunities as his favorable introductions and his avowed
purpose afforded him. Upon his return he devoted
himself with his usual enthusiasm to the improvement
of the militia of the city. Elected captain of a rifle
company, he endeavored to fashion it upon the Zouave
model, the drill eflSeiency of which he had admired in
France. The novelty as well as the success of his ex-
periment attracted great attention and he was soon
elected Colonel of the First Eifle Eegiment, the best
organization of volunteer troops in the State. In a
very little while his own energy and the sj^irit which
he infused into his command made it a model of volun-
teer organization. But he did more than this. He
not only perfected their discipline and organization, but
he fostered and developed in his command the convic-
tion tbat their discipline and organization had a pur-
pose beyond parade display, and that all its dignity
sprang from the great duty for which it was a prepara-
tion, and the hour of that duty was fast approaching.
J. Johnston Peftigrew. 45
That event occurred which for more than one genera-
tion had been the subject of household talk and public
discussion, which old men had died hoping, and young
men had grown up expecting to see, which was the ex-
pression of the prejudices and the passions, the conflict-
ing interests and the contrary convictions of a half
century of political strife. South Carolina seceded from
the Union, and called upon her children to rally to the
support of the only government they had ever been
taught to love or to obey. Before the negotiations
which the State initiated with the United States Gov-
ernment immediately upon her assumption of sovereign
power could reach their formal but inevitable conclu-
sion, one of those occurrences which the history of the
world proves always Avill happen in times of revolution
to baflae the intentions and plans of those who would
control them, placed the issue before the country sharp
and sudden. Major Anderson, in command of the
United States forces in Charleston harbor, without
orders from Washington suddenly evacuated Fort
Moultrie, secured Fort Sumter under cover of night,
and in the morning had occupied a position which
46 Memorial of
involved the whole question in controversy and required
for its peaceable solution the abandonment either by
the United States or the State of the rights they re-
spectively claimed.
It would be idle now to inquire how far the action of
Major Anderson hastened hostilities. It is sufficient to
say here that the State of South Carolina felt bound to
meet the consequences, and to secure possession of the
other forts commanding the harbor. Colonel Pettigrew,
whose command had immediately tendered their ser-
vices to the Executive, was ordered to occupy Castle
Pinckney, and shortly after was transferred to Morris
Island, and charged with the preparation necessary at
that point to prevent the reinforcement of Fort Sumter
by the United States Government. This duty, which
required not only the engineering knowledge requisite
for the erection of batteries, but the combination of en-
ergy and tact indispensable to the discipline and train-
ing of troops unaccustomed to the discomfort and re-
straint of camp life and real service was discharged by
Colonel Pettigrew to the entire satisfaction of the Ex-
ecutive, and during his command, a council of war was
J. Johnston Pettigrew, 47
seldom held of which he was not a member. The es-
tablishment of the Confederacy transferred the control
of military operations from the State authorities, and
upon the arrival of General Beauregard, Colonel Petti-
grew was removed to Sullivan's Island, where he re-
mained until the surrender of Fort Sumter, the charac-
ter of that bombardment excluding the infantry arm of
the service from any active participation in its opera-
tions.
With the fall of Fort Sumter, all hopes of peace
ended, and both sections addressed themselves earnestly
to the work before them, and the spirit of serious, I
might say, sorrowful resolution with which the South
entered upon the struggle, was well expressed by Col-
onel Pettigrew, who, in July, 1861, received a stand of
colors for his regiment with the following words:
" The flag of the old republic is ours no more. That
noble standard which has so often waved over victorious
fields ; which has so often carried hope to the afflicted
and struggling hearts of Europe; which has so often
protected us in distant lands, afar from home and
kindred, now threatens us with destruction. In all its
48 Memorial of
former renown we participated. Southern valor bore it
to its proudest triumphs, and oceans of Southern blood
have watered the ground beneath it. Let us lower it
with honor, and lay it reverently upon the earth."
Of General Pettigrew's military career from this
point I scarcely feel competent to speak. At the time
of his death he had not risen to that rank in which inde-
pendent command and the responsibilty of important
operations, give historical interest to the conduct of the
soldier, and therefore in what I say I will refer to the
events of his military life rather as illustrations of his
character than in their connection with the history of
the war. And even here I consider myself fortunate
that I am able to use the language of one who was his
friend and his companion ; one who, when he speaks of
battles, tells what he has seen — -when he describes a sol-
dier, tells what he has been. General James Conner, in
a letter written to a friend, soon after General Petti-
grew's death, says ;
'• Immediately after the fall of Fort Sumter prepara-
tions for war were vigorously made by both of the con-
tending parties. The troops which had been embodied
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 49
for the defence of Charleston, and who had been in the
field for three months, were, with few exceptions, the
only military organizations of the State. For the pro-
secution of the war beyond the limits of the State,
special organizations were needed. The reputation for
military ability, whicli General Pettigrew had acquired,
and the confidence he had inspired in all who had served
with or under him, pointed him out as an appropriate
leader under whom to organize. The same qualities,
however, had already attracted the notice of the Legis-
lature, and the position of Adjutant-General of the
State was tendered to him, and his acceptance of it
urged under the belief that his administrative ability
could accomplish more good in organizing the forces of the
State than by restricting himself to the duties of a single
regiment. The position, however, was not acceptable
to him, and he declined it. He preferred the active
duties of the field, and at the request of General Beau-
regard, and with the approval of the Executive of the
State, he proceeded to organize a rifle regiment for the
war, of which he was to be colonel. Companies far ex-
ceeding the number permitted were rapidly raised and
50 Memorial of
tendered to him; his selections made, his field and staff
officers agreed upon, and Major Barker, the Junior Field
Officer, dispatched to Montgomery, the then seat of the
Confederate Government, to tender the regiment to the
Secretary of \Yar, and receive authority to muster it
into service. The views of the War Department at this
time were, not to receive organized regiments, but to
receive only companies, reserving to itself the organi-
zation into regiments, and the selection and appointment
of field officers. This mode of organization was not in
accordance with the wishes or expectations of those who
constituted the regiment. The companies had been
formed and organized with a view to the rifle regiment,
and to those whom they had understood were to be its
field officers; and the projiosition to lay aside those
under whom they were anxious to serve, and for whom
they had raised and organized these companies, was in
the highest degree distasteful to the officers of the regi-
ment. Several attempts w^ere made to change the
decision of the Secretary of War, but without effect,
and the several companies composing the regiment
being unwilling to accept officers named b}^ the War
J. Johnston Pettigreio. 51
Department and unknown to them, sought and obtained
admission into other organizations then in process of
being raised in the State, under authority direct from
the War Department. The company which I had
raised for the rifle regiment — the Washington Light
Infantry Volunteers — was received into the Hatnpton
Legion.
" Colonel Pettigrew was thus without command, but
his ardent spirit would not permit him to remain a
mere spectator of the strife, and soon after my com-
mand was moved to Richmond, he wrote me requesting
leave to join my company, and shortly after came on.
He was only a few days in Richmond when he received
a letter from the Governor of North Carolina, inform-
ing him that he had been commissioned as Colonel of
the Twelfth North Carolina. The next day he started
for Raleigh to assume command. A few days after, the
Legion was ordered to Manassas, and participated in
the battle of the 21st Julj', and well do I remember the
earnestness with which Pettigrew, when next we met,
listened to our narrative of the battle, and the great
reo;ret he felt at having so narrowly missed participa-
52 Memorial of
tion in the glory and excitement of that day's triumph.
During the winter of 1861-62, he was camped at Evans-
port, on the Potomac, and there, as at Charleston, his
high military attainments, his quick perception, and
unflinching, untiring devotion to duty, rapidly won for
him the confidence and esteem of all who surrounded
him. He was assigned to important duties requiring
high skill both as engineer and artillery officer. These
he discharged so completely to the satisfaction of those
in authority, that without his knowledge, he Avas rec-
ommended to promotion to the rank of brigadier. The
appointment was tendered to him. To the surprise of
the president he refused it, and being in Richmond at
the time, he waited upon the president to state to him
the reasons of his refusal. The principal ground upon
which he based his non-acceptance was that he had
never been under fire, never handled troops in action,
and his conviction was firm that no man who had not
been actually tried in battle should be appointed to the
rank of brigadier. The president replied with a smile
that the responsibility for the appointment was his, that
he was thoroughly satisfied with Colonel Pettigrew's
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 53
qualifications for the position and had no hesitation in
tendering the appointment, and urging its acceptance.
The presi(ient was, however, met b}^ a firmness of pur-
pose equal to his own, and Colonel Pettigrew persist-
ently refused the appointment to the admiration and
somewhat the amusement of the president, who re-
marked that he wished the whole country could have
heard the conversation which had taken place between
them, as he had been besieged with applications for
brigadierships upon every conceivable ground, but that
this was the first instance of an officer refusing promo-
tion because he had not demonstrated his ability to
discharge the duties. Colonel Pettigrew returned to
Fredericksburg and remained there for a few days. At
the expiration of that time, General French, his brigade
commander, was ordered to report to Wilmington for
duty, and Major-General Holmes commanding the
troops in and around Fredericksburg, sent for Colonel
Pettigrew and insisted on his writing to the War De-
partment, and revoking his refusal of the tendered
commission. For a long while Pettigrew combated
the reasons of the general and declined to accede to his
54 Memorial of
request. It was only when the general seriously and
earnestly said — ' Colonel Pettigrew, it is important to
the command and the country that you take the office,
and I regard it as your duty to do so ' — that Pettigrew
yielded his own convictions and wrote the desired let-
ter. I saw him a day or two afterwards and he was
even then chafing at having given up his own ideas of
what was proper, and referring to some experiences we
had shared, remarked : ' You and I ought to know by
this time that a man's own convictions are the surest
guides for his own action. He ought not to listen to
anything else.' I laughed at his earnestness and replied
that on this occasion I belonged to the Holmes faction,
and was delighted that the major-general had over-ruled
him into accepting. A few days after, the army was
moved to Yorktown, and I did not see Pettigrew again
until on the retreat from that place, when we met for a
few moments at Williamsburg. We met subsequently
for a moment as his brigade and that to which I be-
longed were moving together into the battle of Seven
Pines. At the close of the fight I learned that he was
known to be captured and supposed to be killed. The
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 55
next time I saw him I was wounded in Eicbmond, and
he had just returned from Fort Deh\ware, and was still
unfit for duty owing to the wound received at Seven
Pines, but eager to be in the field again. He shortly
after returned to the field in command of a brigade
near Petersburg, and I was invalided to South Caro-
lina. We never met again.
" Of his military abilities I need hardly speak. They
were known and respected by the whole army. Dis-
tinguished as he was in the pursuits and employments
of civil life, he was by nature essentially a soldier. The
life military and everj'thing connected with it, even to
the slightest details of the profession, had for him a
charm which no other profession yielded. Possessing
many qualities, eminently fitting him for command, he
possessed that rare faculty of inspiring confidence in
those whom he commanded. From the company up to
the division, there was no body of troops whom he ever
commanded, even for a short time, who were not de-
voted to him, and ready to follow him regardless of all
dangers. He infused his own spirit into those whom
he commanded, he shared their perils and privations,
58 Memorial of
and systematically disregarding bis own comfort, he
labored for theirs. Firm and strict as a discipHnarian,
he was eminently just. His impartiality was a proverb.
Doing his own duty fully and thoroughly, he exacted
from all under him the full performance of theirs; and
the knowledge that duty had to be performed, and that
neglect of it was sure ahke of detection and punish-
ment, rendered punishment almost unnecessary, and
made everything in his command move with tbe regu-
larity and precision of a well regulated machine. He
watched over his troops most anxiously. He regarded
them as a trust, and labored for them faithfully, and
they repaid his care with a devotion w4iich I have never
seen equalled. It was impossible by any words to give
a faithful description of the confidence he inspired, or
the enthusiasm he awakened in his troops. To realize
it, one must have lived among his troops and heard the
recital from their own lijDS. Throui^h his friendly in-
fluence 1 was selected to command his regiment shortly
after he became a brigadier, and although he had then
been separated from it for some time, his influence re-
mained as strong as ever. They loved to talk of him^
J. Johnston Pettigrew.
they were proud of having served under him, and I am
sure that no stronger appeal could have been made to
these men, in their hour of battle, than to bid them
remember that Pettigrew still looked to them to do
their duty.
"Skilful, fertile in experience, full of resource, bold,
yet with quick and sound judgment, reckless only where
he was personally concerned, and inspiring confidence
and enthusiasm w^ierever he w^ent. he only needed time
to have won his way to the highest military distinc-
tion."
The report of his death, to which General Conner re-
fers, excited the universal lamentation of the country,
and he enjoyed the unusual privilege of hearing w^hile
he lived what would be said of him when he died. As
soon as he was sufficiently recovered from the effects of
his w^ound and imprisonment, he resumed the command
of his brigade, although the exigencies of the service
had transferred his old regiment to another command.
His efficiency and the enthusiasm which his reputation
incited in his native State, however, soon perfected the
discipline of the new organization and filled its ranks
58 Memorial of
with the best manhood of North Caroliiui. With this
command he joined the army of the Potomac, and en-
tered with Lee upon the Pennsylvania campaign. At
the battle of G-ettysburg, the first great engagement in
which he took a prominent part, he was in command of
Heth's division, which, under General Longstreet, and
in conjunction with Pickett's, attempted the fatal and
famous advance upon Cemetery Hill, on the morning
of the 3d July, 18(J3.
"Thedistance," says General Petligrew's aide-de-camp,
Captain Young, " over which we had to advance may
be estimated when I state that the fuses for the shell
used by the artiller}^ stationed immediately in our front
Avere cut for one and a quarter milc^. The ground over
which we had to pass was perfectly open, and numerous
fences, some parallel and others oblique to our line of
battle, were formidable impediments in our way. The
position of the enemy was all he could desire. From
the crest on which he was entrenched, the hill sloped
gradually, forming a natural glacis, and the configura-
tion of the ground was such that when the left of our
line approached his works, it must come within the arc
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 59
of a circle from which a direct, oblique and enfilade fire
could be and was concentrated upon it." All that hu-
man courage could do was done. The heroic battalions
reached the enemies lines, but only to be hurled back
in final and bloody defeat. G-eneral Pettigrew was him-
self painfully wounded, the majority of his staff killed
or disabled, while of the other officers, Burgwy(|p and
Marshall, McCreay and Iredell, all North Carolinians,
wrote in blood their testimony that with unweaned de-
votion and unbroken spirit, their State had followed the
Confederate banners to the extremest point where Lee
had planted them. The noble brigade which, on the
morning of the 1st July, mustered three thousand men,
numbered on the morning of the 4th, eight hundred
and thirty-five. Well might General Lee say in those
simple and weighty words, which will make history for
another generation :
" The conduct of the troops was all that I could de-
sire or expect, and they deserved success so far as it can
be deserved by heroic valor and fortitude. More may
have been required of them than they were able to per-
form, but my admiration of their noble qualities and
60 Memorial of
my confidence in their ability to cope successfully with
the enemy, has suffered no abatement from this issue of
protracted and sansjuinary conflict."
The Confederate army fell back upon Hagerstown
and the Potomac without interference from the enemy,
crossing that river partly at Williamsport and partly
at Falling Waters. Greneral Longstreet's corps, of Avbieh
Heth's division formed a part, crossed at the latter
place. On the morning of the 14th July this division,
after a weary and exhausting night's march, stopped
for rest and breakfast about a mile and a quarter from
the bridge at Falling Waters. For some inexplicable
reason General Heth had not thrown out pickets, and
about nine o'clock while he. General Pettigrew and
several other officers were walking towards the left
of the division, their attention was attracted by a small
squad of cavalry riding out of a wooded valley about a
mile off. Their number (about twenty-five) and their
neighborhood misled General Heth into the belief
that they were Confederate troops, and before the
error was discovered, they had reached the group of
officers Avho bad remained at the sj^ot from which
' Vj
3 ■■ "u /
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 61
they had just been seen. The arms of the soldiers
in the immediate vicinity were stacked, the men
surprised, there was a brief alarm, an obscure and
confused skirmish, a few scattered shots, and, within
sight of a whole division, General Pettigrew was mor-
tally wounded by one of these reckless troopers, who
made their escape as raj^idly and safely as they had
made their attack. He was removed in the track of
the army, which effected its crossing about one o'clock
of the same day, and carried to the house of Mr. Boyd,
half-way between Martinsburg and Winchester. And
there, on 17th July, upon the soil of the Old Dominion,
in the arms of that noble State whose pious and gentle
care had soothed and sustained the dying moments of
the eldest-born of the whole South, in the early still-
ness of the summer morning, he peacefully folded his
hands from battle and rested with God !
Into the sacred privacy of his last hours I dare not
intrude. To those only who were born of the same
mother, does such communion belong. But for the sake
of those who loved him so well in this life that they
long for an assurance of their future hope, I will re-
62 Memorial of
peat the words of the Bishop of Louisiana, who was
with him : " In a ministry of near thirty years, I have
never witnessed a more sublime example of Christian
resignation and hope in death."
Such was his life. And now that it is told, it is mani-
fest that its results — its actual achievements, when
summed up, as they can bo in a few brief sentences —
fail to explain the strength and breadth of the impres-
sion he made upon those among whom that life w'as
passed. The influence was in himself, and the oppor-
tunity of public action which he enjoyed, only widened
the circle in which that influence was felt. He had
that in his nature which made men love him. Although
eager in the pursuit of objects which he desired, and
which other men desired, too ; bold and out-spoken in
the vindication of his opinions, and placed by his early
success where it was difficult not to excite jealous
prejudices, yet it is worthy of note that amongst his
cotemporaries, those whose characters and abilities
would have made them his natural and most formidable
rivals, he found his truest and warmest friends.
He had that in his nature which made men respect
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 63
him. His learnings his accomplishments, his talents,
were all under the control of his moral sense. He was
a man who desired to be, and not to seem. His am-
bition was large, but it was an ambition to do what was
worthy to be done. " What he would highly, that he
would holily ;" and, although as sti-ong men will desire,
he desired the vantage-ground of place and power — the
standpoint wherefrora to use the lever of his intellect,
yet his life was instinct with the consciousness that. a
great end can never be compassed by low means, that
nothing is worthy the ambition of a true man which
requires the sacrifice of personal honor, of fidelity to
his friends, or of loyalty to his convictions.
He was essentially an earnest man. From his early
youth whatever he did was done with an intense pur-
pose. As his experience widened and his mind matured,
the purpose was changed, but the intensity was con-
stant. Those who knew him best will, I think, ao-ree
with me that this earnestness was every year concen-
trating upon a higher purpose and proposing to itself a
loftier aim, that the restlessness of his early ambi-
tion was subsiding, the effbrt of his intellect growin^^
84 Memorial of
steadier, and that it needed only this final consecration
to an unselfish cause to perfect the nobleness of his
character.
When I think of him, and men not unlike him, and
think that even they could not save us ; when I see
that the cause which called out all their virtues and
employed all their ability has been permitted to sink in
utter ruin ; when I find that the great principles of
constitutional liberty, the pure and well-ordered society,
the venerable institutions in which they lived and for
which they died, have been allowed to perish out of the
land, I feel as if, in that Southern Cause, there must
have been some terrible mistake. But when I look
back again upon such lives and deaths; when I see the
virtue and the intellect and the courage which were
piled high in exulting sacrifice for this very cause, I
feel sure that, unless God has altered the principles and
motives of human conduct, we were not wholly wrong.
I feel sure that whatever may be the future, even if our
children are wiser than we, and our children's children
live under new laws and amid strange institutions,
History will vindicate our purpose, while she explains
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 65
our errors, and, from generation to generation, she will
bring back our sons to the graves of these soldiers of
the South, and tell them— aye, even in the fulness of a
i prosperity we shall not see— This is holy ground ; it is
good for you to be here !
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