Chambersburg: Anatomy of a Confederate Reprisal

Chambersburg: Anatomy of a Confederate Reprisal EVERARD H. SMITH about its nature. Hostilities opened amid a festive atmosphere of flags, martial music, colorful uniforms, and patriotic speeches. The young men who flocked to the Union and Confederate armies viewed combat as a chivalrous, even knightly, adventure. Professional soldiers also envisioned a brief, limited contest in the eighteenth-century manner. The genteel traditions of a bygone era taught that social concerns had little impact on strategy, that campaigns should be conducted with minimal bloodshed, and that noncombatants should be carefully spared the exigencies of military operations. Four years of bitter fighting shattered these comfortable illusions and transformed the conflict in ways no one had anticipated. By 1864, the imperatives of total warfare inextricably mingled social, political, and strategic objectives. The resulting dynamic brought to a climax the civil-military relationship established at the beginning of the struggle. As the war expanded beyond the battlefield, idealistic enthusiasm gave way to the determination to conquer a peace at any cost. The cycle of ferocity spiraled ever upward, while civilians suffered under a ruthless new ethic that countenanced retaliation, destruction of private property, even occasional atrocities, all justified in the name of great democratic principles. Following Federal army efforts to stamp out guerrilla activity in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Confederate raiders burned Chambersburg, a small town in Pennsylvania. Major General Philip H. Sheridan then unleashed a policy of devastation that left much of the valley a desolate ruin. Meanwhile, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman waged a campaign in Georgia and the Carolinas that made his name a legendary byword for cruelty. "The war became base and desperate," Emory M. Thomas has written, "and the baseness and desperation produced a kind of counterpoint, a sad, minor theme to accompany the major chords."1 In recent years, the relationship between Civil War soldiers and American society has attracted renewed interest from historians such as Gerald F. Linderman, Reid Mitchell, and Joseph T. Glatthaar. Linderman has argued forcefully that the trend toward escalation derived from frustrated ideals of courage, manhood, and personal valor. The young men who entered service at the start of the war inherited these strong moral values from civilian society. But the stark reality of combat alienated their convictions by demonstrating the futility of bravery on the battlefield. Disillusioned, soldiers turned instead to a value system based on vengeance David Herbert Donald, Liberty and Union (Lexington, Mass., 1978), 97-99, 110, 122-24; Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 1861-1865 (New York, 1979), 274. 432 WHEN THE CIVIL WAR BEGAN IN 1861, Americans shared romantic assumptions Chambersburg 433 and annihilation. Mitchell's work has emphasized, among other themes, the contempt veterans feit for enemy society and their growing desire to remake it through violence, a finding echoed in Glatthaar's careful study of Sherman's army during the March to the Sea and the Carolinas campaign. All three scholars have examined the ways in which changing military ethics brutalized participants on both sides. Their research has added to contemporary understanding of the total war mentality and the savage forces that emerged with it. 2 2 Gerald F. Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York, 1987), esp. 1-3, 180-215; Reid Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers (New York, 1988), 90-180; Joseph T. Glatthaar, The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaign (New York, 1985), 66-80,134-55. Glatthaar compared and contrasted Linderman's and Mitchell's work in his review of Civil War Soldiers, in Civil War History, 35 (June 1989): 187-88. The ruins of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in the wake of John McCausland's Confederate raid on July 30,1864. The scene is at the corner of Main and King Streets near the center of town. These images, originally released as stereoscopic views, were taken shortly after the raid by Charles E. Meyer, a Philadelphia photographer. (Library of Congress) 434 Everard H. Smith The burning of Chambersburg in July 1864 by troops detached from the Army of Northern Virginia provides a rare glimpse into the sources of Confederate behavior under wartime pressure. Because most of the fighting took place on Southern soil, Northern attitudes toward such subjects as enemy civilians and retaliation are easier to determine and have been investigated more thoroughly. However, the questions that must be asked of a Confederate reprisal are basically the same. What are the forces that motivated Southern soldiers and shaped their reaction to new modes of warfare? To what degree do they resemble the forces that characterized Northern conduct? Why were these passions focused on Chambersburg? How did Confederate soldiers rationalize their actions within the context of a self-image that asserted moral superiority over the North? Finally, in what ways do the events at Chambersburg contribute to the continuing effort to comprehend the complex interrelationship of war and society? Evidence suggests that the answers to these questions lie in attitudes that soldiers in Robert E. Lee's army formed toward the Northern population during their invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, a year before the town was destroyed. Prior to the Gettysburg campaign, Confederates serving in the eastern theater had little direct knowledge of the North. Consequently, their brief experience as invaders conditioned their opinions. Between June 15 and July 2, 1863, Chambersburg served as the concentration point for nearly the entire Confederate army. General Lee liimself established his headquarters there; thousands of troops passed through its streets, and at one point almost two-thirds of the infantry were encamped in the woods and fields nearby. What these soldiers encountered was the typical Pennsylvania German culture of the Cumberland Valley. It appears that to many of Lee's troops this culture epitomized enemy civilization. To a greater extent than has been generally realized, Chambersburg became to the curious occupiers the virtual embodiment of Yankee society and Yankee institutions. Throughout the Gettysburg campaign, the Confederates behaved with commendable restraint, carefully protecting private property and treating civilians with considerable respect. But their attitudes toward the local residents were characterized by arrogance, nativist and chauvinist prejudices, and anger at what seemed to be an insufficiently submissive reception. Depiction of the enemy as an inferior being, a process known as depersonalization, is a psychological technique commonly practiced by warriors to lessen their sense of guilt. It often presages an increase (...truncated)