Battle of Big Bethel by J. Michael Cobb

Author:J. Michael Cobb
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611211177
Publisher: Savas Beatie

Robert Knox Sneden’s view of St. John’s Church with its steeple and cemetery.

Virginia Historical Society

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Although recently ransacked by marauding Union men, the village at the water’s edge became a surrogate for the hamlets many of them had been reared in. Bright summertime flower beds and vegetable gardens accentuated the large brick and frame dwellings. Slave cabins situated around the houses reminded some Northerners of the side-yard shoe shops in their towns back home.

Animated enslaved folk, contraband, and free blacks turned out to commiserate, to hand out refreshing cups of water, and to bemoan their own fate. All morning they had “crowded together in little squads,” nervously listening to the sounds of the cannon and hanging on every word of the spotty reports various emissaries brought in. Almost insane with anxiety, scores imagined that a Union victory would set them free, but also knew that a Confederate triumph would make it “worser for us than ever.” When Federals began tramping through the town, black onlookers became terrified at the outcome, trembling for their precarious expectations of freedom.8

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