A Guest of Mr. Lincoln

Chapter 4 – Gettysburg Campaign Abstract – After being wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill, VA, Sergeant Wheeless was placed on furlough at his home in NC for 100 days, learns that his younger brother James had died at the Battle of Gain’s Mill (1st Battle of Cold Harbor) on 27 June during the Seven Days Campaign. During his absence, Company L, 15th NC was redesignated Company K (Franklin Rifles), 32nd NC Infantry Regiment, and upon his return to the unit, Joseph was assigned to the Ambulance Corps on 1 January 1863. He would serve with the Corps (supporting the 32nd) during the regiment’s June 1863 advance into Pennsylvania as part of Daniel’s Brigade, Rhode’s Division, Ewell’s Corps, Lee’s Army of Northern VA (ANV) and participate in the Battle of Gettysburg. Thus, Sergeant Wheeless was witness to the last major ANV offensive operation of the war. Winter of ’62 – ‘63 Following the retreat of McClellan’s Army back down the James River, the focus of the war shifted back to northern Virginia with General Jackson’s victory at Cedar Mountain, Virginia on August 9, 1862 against the understrength forces of Federal General Nathan Banks and later by Lee’s army at the Second Battle of Manassas Junction on August 29-20, 1862, defeating the Army of the Potomac under Federal General John Pope. Within nine weeks, Lee had transferred the war from his own capital to the edge of his enemy’s approaches to Washington, D.C. A Confederate offensive across the Potomac was halted and turned back however, after the battles of South Mountain, and Sharpsburg (Antietam), Maryland, in mid-September 1862. The final action of the year ended in a Federal disaster on December 13, 1862, when McClellan’s successor, Major General Ambrose E. Burnsides, threw his army against Lee’s near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in a series of frontal assaults that were easily and bloodily repulsed. When night fall finally came, the Federals had suffered nearly 13,000 casualties – almost the same number lost at Sharpsburg. Following this battle, both armies sat out the winter of 1862-63 recovering, rebuilding, and planning new strategies for the coming summer of 1863. While the South was maintaining a strong military position in Northern Virginia, the rest of the Southern cause was less so. Politically, President Lincoln had out maneuvered the Jefferson Davis internationally, when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862 following the Battle of Sharpsburg. For two months southern armies were on the march northward in a bid to defeat Federal Armies in the east and west. But within the next few weeks the Confederate tide had receded southward without prevailing, thus ending the chance for European recognition and giving Lincoln the opportunity to issue the emancipation proclamation, thereby forcing France and Great Britain to choose between supporting the Confederacy economically or the United States morally. Public opinion among the French and British masses, in the nascent age of labor and suffragette movements, forced leaders in London and Paris to side with Lincoln’s abolitionist policies. Lincoln’s troubles however did not end with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the President also had to contend with what he called the “fire in the rear” in the form of “Peace” Democrats anti-war movement. Many of the anti-war eastern northerners saw the war as both unwinnable and not worth the cost in lives following the battles of Fredericksburg and Sharpsburg. In the midwestern part of the Union, economic grievances were also beginning to stir based on the cultural attitudes of many who descended from southern settlers. The sense of frustration between the aforementioned sides placed Lincoln in a challenging political conundrum. His position was made even more difficult, when in March 1863, the Federal government enacted a conscription act to fill the ranks of Federal forces depleted by the previous fall and winter campaigns. Involuntary military service, conscription, or the draft as it is still known, was not a new concept in the Americas. As far back as the early British-American colonies, Colonial laws dating back to the 1600’s required able-bodied men to enroll in their local militias, to undergo a minimum of military training, and to serve for limited periods of time in war or a crisis. During the American Revolutionary War, some colonies in rebellion drafted men for local militia duty or to fill state Continental Army units, but the Continental Congress did not have the authority to conscript except for purposes of naval impressment. This impressment, also known as “Press gangs” were well known for the physical force they used in recruiting men into the Royal Navy during the 17th and 18th centuries. In time of war impressment – as the practice was known – was also a tactic employed by the British Army to acquire extra men, usually when the non-violent methods of the recruiting sergeants failed to enlist sufficient numbers. Both the North and South would face the same a similar dilemma by 1862-63. By 1862, the Confederacy would reach an impasse recruiting enough volunteers to fill the ranks, similar to one the Federals would arrive at a year later. The men likely to enlist for patriotic reasons, adventure, or peer-pressure were already in the ranks. War weariness and the grim realities of army life had already deterred many from joining. Both the Federal and Confederate armies faced a serious manpower loss through the expiration of enlistments. In the Union army alone, 38 two-year regiments raised in 1861 and 92 nine-month militia regiments organized in 1862 were due to go home in the spring and summer of 1863. Sergeant Wheeless, like many in his community, initially enlisted for a period of 12 months. Both the Confederate and Federal governments authorized a draft, although it must be said for the Confederacy, the issue of states’ rights made this concept very problematic, with tone deaf comparisons to slavery being made by many a southern political leader. The Federal government authorized the War Departments Provost Marshal Bureau to enforce the conscription of all able-bodied male citizen and immigrants who had filed for citizenship between the ages of twenty and forty-five. The system was rife with opportunities to cheat on both sides. In the South, allowance was made for certain occupations critical to the war effort like Slave Overseers, in the North, no such allowance was made. Perhaps the biggest abuse of the draft system was the hiring of substitutes or payments of commutation fees up to $300 by wealthier members of northern and southern societies. This exemption process had a significant impact on who actually served, as in the Federal Army alone, of the 207,000 men who were drafted, 87,000 paid the commutation fee and 74,000 furnished substitutes, leaving only 46,000 who went personally into the army. This system of course was simply beyond the financial capabilities of many poor and immigrant families (though not always the case), and the resulting derision was both comical and violent. A parody of a popular recruiting songs made the rounds on both sides: “We Are Coming, Father Abraham, Three Hundred Dollars More” and “Come in Out of the Draft” reflected the mood of the time.