E. P. Roe: Reminiscences of his LifeRoe, Mary A. (Mary Abigail)
History
E. P. Roe: Reminiscences of his Life
Roe, Mary A. (Mary Abigail)
Roe, Edward Payson, 1838-1888
was nothing of a political nature in the outbreak. Whatever may be
the soldiers' vices, they have not yet sunk so far as to sympathize
with Northern 'copperheads.' The cause, as far as I could learn,
was the unpopularity of the sutlers, jealousy of our regiment
because the guard of honor for the evening was chosen from it, and
a desire for whisky, for which a certain class will do and dare
anything. After quiet was restored the dancing, music, and drinking
were resumed as though nothing had happened. Meanwhile, on one side
the poor fellows in the hospital tossed and moaned and raved in
their restlessness and delirium, and on the other lay the two
rioters stiff and stark upon the ground, their souls rudely thrust
out into the unknown amidst riot and intoxication, soon to be
sobered but too well by their abrupt plunge into the dusk waters of
death. Life presents to the close observer peculiar phases and
contrasts at all times, but it seems that in the events of this
evening there was a strange mingling of life and death, pleasure
and pain. Yet in the sick and repentant soldier God was at least
fashioning one soul from out this moral and social chaos for the
perfect symmetry of heaven. I had hoped that after the night's
uproar we should have a quiet Sabbath, but was disappointed in
this, for orders came in the morning to arm, mount, and equip every
available man and send them all to the front. And so throughout the
day the clangor of arms, the trampling of men and horses, and the
words of command, made the quiet peacefulness of a Northern Sabbath
a thing scarcely to be imagined."
Late in February, 1864, Edward joined General Kilpatrick in his famous
raid towards Richmond. He wrote a brief account of this, which was
published in _Lippincott's Magazine_.
"In the dusk of Sunday evening four thousand men were masked in the
woods on the banks of the Rapidan. Our scouts opened the way, by
wading the stream and pouncing upon the unsuspecting picket of
twenty Confederates opposite. Then away we went across a cold,
rapid river, marching all that night through the dim woods and
openings in a country that was emphatically the enemy's. Lee's
entire army was on our right, the main Confederate cavalry force on
our left. The strength of our column and its objective point could
not remain long unknown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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