"The Dark Clouds of War" -- Part Six

 

“The Dark Clouds of War”

The Civil War Diary of John Zimmerman of Alexandria, Virginia (1861-1865) 

Transcribed, Edited and Narrated by Jack Sullivan

Foreword:  Beginning in 2012, I was tasked at the Historical Division of the Alexandria VA Library with transcribing into a computer the hand-written diary of John Zimmerman, a local confederate soldier who kept a diary throughout the five years of the Civil War.  While it was anticipated that the diary would be put on the library website, that did not occur and the sesquicentennial of the conflict has passed.  Believing that this fascinating document is worthy of more attention, I have prepared a summary in seven parts that will be posted here every four days  throughout April.

             Part Six:   Into Union Lines, Messages Home, Safe Return

While Zimmerman was at Fort Gilmer he embarked on what might have been the most perilous adventure of his Civil War experience.  Although he has been absent from his unit for long periods for illness and imprisonment, he had never had a furlough.  Much desired, it came on February 4, 1865.  With John Sutherland, a comrade from Fairfax County, Zimmerman had hatched a plot to sneak through Union lines to Alexandria to see his family.  The pair boarded a train to Fredericksburg where the Confederate provost marshal forbid them to go even to Fairfax County for fear of capture.  After promising they would not go inside Union lines, they promptly headed North on foot.  In order not to be taken for Southern spies, they wore their Confederate uniforms, covering them with captured Yankee blue regulation overcoats.  Knowing the homes of Southern sympathizers, they stopped for meals and overnight accommodations along the way, amid winter snows and strong winds.  On February 6, Zimmerman recorded:

We are now in Prince Wm County but after crossing the Occoquan we shall be in Fairfax County, and as we will then be, I think, about fifty miles outside our lines and the same within the enemy line, we shall have to be on the alert and exercise great caution to prevent being captured by the prowling bands of  “Home Guards,” U.S. Cavalry and their scouts.  

A friendly merchant in Stafford County agreed to take them in his wagon over the Davis Ford in the Occoquan and into Fairfax County.   By three o’clock the next day they had neared the Sutherland home near Burke.  HIs companion became disoriented and they began walking in circles.  Zimmerman took the lead, moving in a direction indicated by Sutherland, and soon they stood in front of his house.  Their appearance received a mixed reaction from the inhabitants:

And then followed such a scene I shall never forget when his mother and a lot of children rushed out and recognized him.  All of them became greatly excited and hysterical alternately, laughing and crying for excess of joy.  So for a time there “What did you come here for?  The house will be burned down and all of us will be carried off to Washington to the Old Capitol prison.”  And I doubt not it would be the certain fate of all, if not worse if we were caught in their house.  But soon they said, “Get in the house and hide up in the loft while we get you something to eat.” 

They soon determine that it is much too dangerous to stay at the Sutherlands.  The house lay close to a forested area where a number of black woodcutters were cutting timber for a Yankee army depot in Alexandria.  They were guarded by Union soldiers who plainly could be seen from the house.   Zimmerman and his companion soon were packed off to the home of Isaac Hall, an elderly man living with two spinster sisters, who lived off the road.  Although the Halls had Negro servants, the pair were able to stay there in relative safety.  Zimmerman still harbored thoughts of sneaking into Alexandria. The Halls quickly disabused him of his chances of seeing his family:

They thought the trip would be very hazardous to both myself & them, and would be most probably fruitless because of the location of our house and surrounded as it is by guards & picket posts. One in front of our house and another just above and a large hospital (“The Slough”) just in rear of Mother's home, and a line of pickets extending to Cameron Run.  They told me freely the location of each Camp, picket posts, etc.  I may possibly get in but it will be at a great risk of bringing serious trouble on Mother & Sisters & my young brother. 

Alexandria Virginia during the Civil War

 

They also told him that it would be virtually impossible to get a letter into Alexandria.  At the outer picket on Cameron Run, the Yankees had pitched a tent with a woman in charge where every Southern woman attempting to enter the city was disrobed and thoroughly examined to insure that no letters or writings were on her person.  Zimmerman recorded that he was in utter despair that “all my plans and risks had come to naught,” when one of the Hall sisters came into the room wearing a “slat” sun bonnet.  He had an inspiration:

Quickly taking it from her head and pulling out the slats of pasteboard, I folded my letters the length, width and thickness of the slats and put them in the place of the strips of pasteboard handed the bonnet to her, when she at once exclaimed, “Oh that is all right.  I never heard of that trick.”  And also said she would wear it into Alexandria to my Mother's house and let my sisters deliver the letters and in like manner bring others out to me.  

Zimmerman’s strategy worked.  Miss Jane Hall carried his letters to his family and friends to Alexandria in her  “well-filled” sunbonnet.  She returned the next day with many letters in response, similarly hidden, as well a variety of items that the soldier had requested.  Encouraged by this exchange, he wrote another round of correspondence and again the letters were successfully delivered.  By this time he and Sutherland had been hiding at Hall’s house for ten days and their presence was becoming known in the neighborhood.  People were dropping by to see the Rebs who were 65 miles inside Union lines.  The situation changed drastically on the night of Feb. 18, 1865, when word came that a detachment of U.S. cavalry had entered a house about two miles away, found two Southern soldiers believed to be spies, summarily executed them, stripped their bodies and sent the corpses to Alexandria.  Even more alarming, the Yankees were overheard to say that if they had had time they would have “gone for the other two.”  The inference pointed to Zimmerman and Sutherland.   Leaving the Hall house and sleeping that night in the snow in a nearby pine woods, the pair immediately set out the next morning to return south to their regiment.  

Their return would turn out to be even more perilous than their coming.  With detachments of Union cavalry all around, they found they were unable to ford the Occoquan River that was at flood stage from melting snow and were forced to hide with friends near the river while someone hunted up a boat.  Most craft had been destroyed or damaged by Union forces to discourage such crossings.  Zimmerman recounted what happened next:

 Mr. Davis had succeeded in finding a small and rickety old battered dugout with the bow stoved in, into which we all climbed.  Mr. Davis sat in the center and paddled the old boat while Sutherland & I sat in the stern to keep the bow well raised up out of the water and at the same time bailing the boat for dear life to keep it from sinking.  The river was very high & the current like a millrace & I was very doubtful of our getting safe across but the same kind Providence who has preserved us on our perilous journey continued with us & after a great struggle with the strong, swift current the battered old craft landed us safe on the Southern side of the stream.  And surely was right glad to be again on solid ground.  I think my comrade was equally glad for between the high boiling waters, the swift current & the rickety old boat with its bow stoved in, it was indeed a very close shave.  

Once again the pair set off on foot, being on constant alert for Union troops and remembering the fate of the two Southern spies.  Although the return trip was fatiguing they found people in Stafford County friendly and hospitable.  Arriving in Fredericksburg inside Confederate lines on February 24, the following day they boarded a train back to Richmond.  During their absence the 17th Virginia had been moved from Fort Gilmer back to its old location on the Howlett Line.  Their arrival in camp caused a stir: “All had given us up having heard we were captured by Yanks.”  Not everyone was so welcoming. When Zimmerman approached the division paymaster for his back pay, he was refused on the grounds he had overstayed his leave.  Indignant, the Alexandrian went directly to the commanding officer, General Pickett.  Finding him out, he made his case to the general’s aide and subsequently was paid.

Late February and early March 1865 on the Howlett Line proved to be a dismal experience.  Cold, raw weather persisted and the soldiers were inadequately clothed.  Rations had been cut back steadily and were now barely above starvation levels.  The news of Southern defeats regularly arrived.  Desertions were becoming more and more common.  Even the usually optimistic Zimmerman confessed to his diary, “I know things do look dark, very dark just now....”  [End of Part 6]