MEMORIAL
OF THE LIFE OF
4. dobnston qettiqrero,
BRIG. GEN. OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES ARMY
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BY
wM. BEeNnry TRESCoOT.
CHARLESTON :
JOHN RUSSELL.
1870.
MEMORIAL.
The great civil war in this country has ended by the
total defeat of one of the parties to the issue. Its
“auses 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-
WALKER, EVANS & COGSWELL, PRINTERS, |
No. 8 Broad street, Charleston, 8, C, : 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 isa 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
re
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has upon intellect, and its worth is derived not from
what it teaches, but from what it forms. Men may dif-
fer about the conflicting theories of the Constitution
which created the parties to the contest; men may 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
degrees 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 fecl, as some men on both sides sec
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 Ralph Hopton,
the Royalist commander: “My affections to you are so
y J
;
:
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J. Johnston Pettigrew,
o
unchangeable that hostility itself cannot violate my
friendship to your person; but I must be true to the
cause wherein I serve. The great God, who is the
Searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I
$9 upon this service, and with what perfect hatred J
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 them-
selves countrymen; how complete and unforeseen was
the result. “
The royalist who, to borrow Macaulay’s picturesque
description, saw his eldest son fall at Naseby or Mars-
ton Moor, who stole by night to revisit his old manor
house which had been converted into barracks and
desecrated by a Roundhead garrison, whose silver had
been melted to raise a regiment among his tenants, and
a ee
—
J. Johnston Pettigrew. 7
7 |
j f , as lives and glows to-day in the history of England.
; who, even alter the war, was thankful to recover his Mf 3
| : 2 " Cromwell and Falkland, Hampden and Clarendon stand
wasted property by paying a large fine to Mr. Speaker telex. ‘ :
| “y 1m monumental marble, in the great Palace of
Na | Lenthall, thought and spoke very much as a South Westm}
estminster, to teach coming
generations what have
Carolina planter would of Mr. Linccln’s Emancipation |
, | been the courage, the patriotism, the wisdom of
Proclamation, of General Saxton’s administration of | ee :
English men.
iW the Sea Islands, or General Sherman’s march through
2p ee
a ‘ While, therefore, we who are the vanquished in this
ie the State. The women of’ that day mourned their
battle must of necessity leave to a calmer and wiser
posterity to judge of the intrinsie worth of that strug.
Hl dead, and shrunk with shuddering from those whose
| : : , :
/ garments smelt of the blood of their kindred. Rey-
; gle, as it bears upon the principles of constitutional
1 erend priests, who had prayed fervently and prophesied ; : :
; ; liberty, and as it must affect the future history of the
boldly, put their hands upon their mouths and bowed _ | ; - ;
; ; American people, there is one duty not only possible
in perplexed humility when they learned that the ways | ‘ . 4 ;
E i j but impe ative; a duty which we Owe alike to the
i : i | of God were indeed past finding out. Bad men rose Aap :
; ; ; i eras living and to the dead; and that is the pre
and ruled; impatient spirits sought relief in exile, and i :
if | ‘ : ‘ ns | im perpetual and tender remembrance of the lives of
: desponding ones sat sad and silent in the midst of ;
servation
those who, to use a phrase scarcely too sacred for so
darkness which could be felt. But how does the history | ; :
i unselfish a sacrifice, died in the hope that we micht
HH of that cruel strife read now? The blood that was Live i
| :
| poured out like water has sunk into the ground; the i y : f
| Especially is this our duty, because in the South a
a tears that were shed have dried up like dew; the :
; choice between the parties and principles at issue was
personal hatreds and jealousies are at rest in ancient ; ;
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IE | 24 Memorial of
country, also gave to his study of the history of other pensated by the fact that he was at once associated in
times and people that breadth of view and varied inter- business with his distinguished relative who had for
aeons. ae
est which he hoped would one day bear no unworthy
fruit. And he had acquired an earnestness of purpose,
which, if it could not entirely 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 nearly 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.
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 been 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 inhéritor, in another
generation, of that splendid reputation which his own
virtues and labors had established.
It is, perhaps, impossible to say how far Johnston
Pettigrew would have fulfilled that hope. That he an-
26 Memorial of
ticipated such achievement I do not think. His eul-
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
which 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 Jife, and he was never tested in that de-
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. While, 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,
pe a ea
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
who 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 that
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
ssh panatinsscil
rn
J. Johnston Pettigrew.
was elected one of the representatives to the Legisla-
ture from the City of Charleston. As a legislator his
career was brief and brilliant, and not only 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 very
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-
5
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tume of the presiding officers of both branches of the
General Assembly, 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 Representatives. 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
property, ,
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
tation 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 er
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 different conditions, various degrees
of culture, of very diverse habits of thought, keen
itici *y str f sxontrary ambitions.
politicians, and very strong and co y
poses eee ct ae
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32 Memorial of
But above all they were gentlemen. And by that I
mean men who, by the universal consent of the society
in which they liyed, had the right to respect and did
respect 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 [ 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 superiority, and
took a generous pride in the individual reputation of
their colleagues. They 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 and 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 sympathy he might be assured, and of whose de-
liberate approval he would have every 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
————
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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.
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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. General Pettigrew was him-
self painfully wounded, the majority of his staff killed
or disabled, while of the other officers, Burgwyon 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 beenwequired of them than they were able to per- |
c 7 irati f their noble qualities and
form, but my admiration of the jue
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tt | 60 Memorial of J. Johnston Pettigrew. 61
WW ite eee Ne mon eee a
|| my confidence in their ability to cope successfully with they had just been seen. The arms of the soldiers
the enemy, has suffered no abatement from this issue of | | in the immediate vicinity were stacked, the men
) protracted and sanguinary conflict.” | surprised, there was a brief alarm, an obscure and
1 The Confederate army fell back upon Hagerstown | confused skirmish, a few scattered shots, and, within
fi and the Potomac without interference from the enemy, | sight of a whole division, General Pettigrew was mor-
|| crossing that river partly at Williamsport and partly | | tally wounded by one of these reckless troopers, who
at Falling Waters. General Longstreet’s corps, of which | | made their escape as rapidly and safely as they had
| .
Heth’s division formed a part, crossed at the latter | | made their attack. He was removed in the track of
place. On the morning of the 14th July this division, | : | the army, which effected its crossing about one o’clock
tI | |
| i after a weary and exhausting ‘night’s march, stopped | J of the same day, and carried to the house of Mr. Boyd,
| | | for rest and breakfast-about a mile and a quarter from | half-way between Martinsburg and Winchester, And
i the bridge at Falling Waters. For some inexplicable | | there, on 17th July, upon the soil of the Old Dominion,
| . reason General Heth had not thrown out pickets, and | | in the arms of that noble State whose pious and gentle
:
1 | about nine o'clock while he, General Pettigrew and | care had soothed and sustained the dying moments of
1} | several other officers were walking towards the left | . the eldest-born of the whole South, in the early still-
of the division, their attention was attracted by a small | : ness of the summer morning, he peacefully folded his
) squad of cavalry riding out of a wooded valley about a 4 hands from battle and rested with God !
li mile off. Their number (about twenty-five) and their | i Into the sacred privacy of his last hours I dare not
i neighborhood misled General Heth into the belief intrude. To those only who were born of the same
| | het they were Confederate troops, and before the | mother, does such communion belong. But for the sake
TPES discovered, they had reached the group of 3 | of those who loved him so well in this life that they
i officers who had remained at the spot from which | long for an assurance of their future hope, I will re-
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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 be in a few brief sentences—
fail to explain the strength and breadth of the impres-
sion he made upon those among whom that life was
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 learning, 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 strong men will desire,
he desired the vantage-ground of place and power—the
standpoint wherefrom 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, agree
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 effort of his intellect growing
64 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 IJ find that the
zreat principles of
0
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
nena
—
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
prosperity we shall not see—This is holy ground; it is
( re |
good for you to be here!
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