Eyewitness to America’s Civil War: William W. Patteson

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In the 1890s many veterans of the Civil War became motivated to record their experiences. Some of the accounts were published, but many others remain undiscovered in archives. The reminiscences of William Warden Patteson, a resident of Culpeper County, Virginia, were recently found in the manuscript collection of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. They reflect his experiences between 1862 and 1865. During the summer of 1862, Patteson was a 15-year-old youth living with his family at his father’s farm outside the town of Culpeper Court House.

That summer, momentous changes came to the Culpeper region, brought about by Union Maj. Gen. John Pope and his Army of Virginia. Frustrated by the failure of the national forces to achieve victory over the Confederates on the Virginia Peninsula, Washington had established Pope’s army and directed it to move into Virginia and threaten Richmond fromthe west. Pope ushered in a change in Northern war policy by issuing a series of orders, approved by President Abraham Lincoln, that gave sanction for his forces to live off the land and to harshly treat Southern civilians. To crush secessionist attitudes, war was to be made not only on the Rebel armies but also on the local population.

Patteson recalled the ominous directives in his memoirs: ‘In the Summer of 1862, General John Pope of the Union Army was ordered to Culpeper and told to subsist off the people of that and the adjoining counties, his orders to his vandals were to take any and everything of value and what they could not carry away to destroy which these brutes did effectively.

After his army had robbed the citizens of everything of value they carried off many of its best citizens to prison because they were Southern.’ Indeed, Pope’s orders served to inflame the passions of Southern civilians as well as soldiers. Even Army of Northern Virginia commander General Robert E. Lee, normally restrained in his demeanor, referred to Pope as a ‘miscreant’ and his soldiers as ‘robbers and murderers.’

To counter the Union push into Culpeper County in mid-July, Lee sent Maj. Gen. Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s wingof his army westward, setting in motion events that would lead to the Battle of Cedar Mountain on August 9, in which Patteson participated.

In the following excerpts from Patteson’s reminiscences, which begin on August 7, he describes fleeing the family farm with his uncle, the Reverend William J. Warden, and joining up with Jackson to serve as a ‘free fighter’ for one week’s service:

‘We pressed on to Gordonsville getting there about 10 o’clock, we soon discovered that General Jackson had taken up his headquarters at another splendid Virginia lady’s home, Mrs. Phillip Barbour. She had sent for him and his staff to come to her home. She was a great Presbyterian like the General and we at once went there.

My uncle had been a school mate of the General and were great friends.

‘No boy could have been happier than I was when introduced to him. He asked me where I lived and I told him in Culpeper and that I had heard that our home with hundreds of others had been ransacked and everything on the place of value taken away or destroyed. We told him briefly of our loss of horses and escaped.

I said ‘dear General I want to get home.

I see no way but in helping you whip these Yankees. I am a good shot and want a good rifle and if you will give me one I will do my best.’ He at once wrote the order & in 30 minutes I had a new rifle and 50 rounds of ammunition. How proud I was when that matchless Christian soldier held my hand and said ‘I know you will do your duty.’ I had gotten tired of retreating.

‘I soon found the 21st Va. Regiment of Infantry, 2nd Brigade under then General [Charles S.] Winder of Baltimore who lost his life two days after this at [the Battle of Cedar Mountain]…on August 9th 1862. The Company I went with, E of the 21st, I knew nearly every member when they first went out over a year before. Then they had first gotten through the…days of fighting around Richmond and lost 57 men by sickness, death and wounds [and] had then only 28 men. Five of these were Pattesons. They gave me a hearty welcome and that evening of August the 7th, we marched to Orange, Virginia. 10 miles.

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Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, People

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