by Karl Rhodes
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing; as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them.”
Perhaps this was the principle at work in March 1862, when a significant number of Virginians in Rockingham County refused to comply with Gov. John Letcher’s declaration that all militiamen in the Shenandoah Valley must answer the bell for round two of the Civil War.
The first inkling of this little-known rebellion within the rebellion came from the pen of Jedediah Hotchkiss, who would become Stonewall Jackson’s topographer. “The Rockingham militia has been released for 10 days,” he wrote on March 18, as he passed through the county on his way to Jackson’s headquarters at Winchester. “They are quite averse to going.”
It was certainly no surprise to Hotchkiss or to Jackson that groups of Mennonites and Dunkers (German Baptist Brethren) were captured in mid-March as they tried to flee through the mountains of Western Virginia. But these nonviolent deserters were not alone in their refusal to return to the war. Jackson’s 10-day grace period had ended, and quite a few Rockingham militiamen were still AWOL. Some of these men had volunteered for military service at the start of the war, and under Virginia law, their one-year military obligation was about to expire. More disgruntled men joined the Rockingham Rebellion after March 29, when Governor Letcher proclaimed that all Virginia militiamen would be inducted as privates into “volunteer companies” of the Confederate ranks.
“There is much uproar among the militia,” Hotchkiss wrote. “I am glad that I have made my escape from the militia [onto Jackson’s staff] before this proclamation.”
As the situation became increasingly volatile, Jackson ordered Lt. Col. John R. Jones to bring out the militia by force if necessary. Jones, a native of Rockingham County, made the following announcement: “A company of cavalry has been ordered to report to me here for the purpose of executing the above order; and any additional force necessary will be sent …. I am authorized to say to the Tunkers (Dunkers) and Mennonites, that Gen. Jackson believes them to be sincere in their opposition to engaging in war, and will detail them as teamsters, etc.”
Jones ordered the wayward militiamen to report to the Rockingham courthouse at 9 a.m. on April 4, but very few deserters – if any – showed up.
On the following day, Confederate scouts arrested Mennonite and Dunker leaders, and Jones immediately marched on the men of the Rockingham Rebellion, who had taken up fortified positions in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Swift Run Gap. Unlike the Mennonites and Dunkers, these men were armed and dangerous, but Jackson had delivered to Jones the extra firepower he had requested. In addition to the cavalry, Jones now commanded four companies of infantry and three pieces of artillery.
The Richmond Whig gave the following account of the ensuing confrontation between Jones’ Confederate forces and “between 300 and 400 persons … armed with rifles, shotguns, and in one instance with a pike.”
“They fled from their homes on the approach of the troops sent after them, and dodged about in squads in the by-paths and gorges of the Blue Ridge.… The imposing and formidable demonstration however, made by Lieut. Col. Jno. R. Jones, per order of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, has had the happy effect of driving them from their haunts and places of rendezvous, and scattering them in confusion. A few prisoners and a few horses were taken, and it is hoped the course pursued by Lieut. Col. Jones has effectively put down and crushed this miserable abortion of a rebellion against the Confederate authorities.”
In the end, the civil disobedience of the Mennonites and Dunkers kept many of their young men out of the war, while the not-so-civil disobedience of the Rockingham Rebellion was not as effective. Both approaches, however, raised the awkward issue of states’ rights within the Confederacy. Ultimately, Virginia’s conscription laws were superseded by those of the Confederacy, which desperately needed men of all religious and military stripes to wage war for three more years.
Karl Rhodes is the author of Peggy’s War, the true story of Margaret “Peggy” Rhodes, who ran a depot on the underground railroad for Mennonites and Dunkers who refused to fight in the Civil War. The book is available at retailers in Virginia and Pennsylvania and at PeggysWar.com.
References
“Blue Ridge Rebellion.” Richmond Whig, April 15, 1862. Summary of an article that ran in the Rockingham Register on April 11, 1862. That issue of the Register is unavailable.
Casler, John. O. Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade. Edited by Jedediah Hotchkiss. Fourth Edition. Reprinted by Morningside Bookshop, 1971.
Hotchkiss, Jedediah. Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer. Edited by Archie P. McDonald. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1973.
Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787.Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 1. General Correspondence. 1651-1827. Library of Congress.
Knappenberger, Evan. K. Dusty Measure of a Hero’s Fame: The Moral Tragedy of Stonewall Jackson and His Confederacy, 2023.
