Ballenger, David

Tyescripts, 1858 December 5­1888 April 8
25 items

Ballenger, David
Rank:	Lt., Capt. (1863 May 3)
Regiment:	C.S.A. Alabama Infantry Regiment, 26th. Co. D Confederate States of America. Hampton Legion
Service:	1861 December­1863 October 12 1864 May­1865 January (?)

Biographical information:

David Ballenger received a Lieutenant's commission in Co. D of the 26th Alabama Infantry in December, 1861, and by the end of the next summer his regiment had been assigned to Rodes' Brigade, 2nd Corps, A.N.V., led by Stonewall Jackson. The 26th Alabama were involved in a seemingly endless string of battles and skirmishes from the Peninsular Campaign through South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Losses in his regiment at Chancellorsville led to his promotion to Captain in May, 1863, and at Gettysburg, Ballenger himself was struck six times, with four bullets piercing his coat. Remarkably, none of the fragments drew blood.

His experiences on the battlefield produced intense emotions in Ballenger, and he became devoted to Stonewall Jackson ­ to the point of asking his brother to change his son's name to Thomas Jackson after the General's death at Chancellorsville. While Ballenger entered the war passionately committed to the Southern cause, believing that if the South lost the war, it would be "doomed to slavery and tyranny of military despots" (1863 April 20), he grew to detest combat and eventually became disillusioned due to the extreme hardships he and his fellow soldiers endured, poor leadership in the government (though never in the field) and an apparent lack of support back home. "You speak of hard times and troublesome times," he wrote to his brother shortly after Chancellorsville, "Just permit me to say that you do not know anything about trouble. Suppose you had to lie night after night and day after day in dread of your life every moment, and perhaps the cannon firing at every point -- and you knew not what minute a shell would land you into eternity, while you were so near to marching to death that you could not sit down a moment without going to sleep. Do you not call this hard times and troublesome times? Do not talk about troubles and hard times while God and your country permits you to stay home with your family and friends" (1863 May 13). Throughout, Ballenger's religious devotion sustained him: "if I did not believe that God Almighty held the destiny of my life, I would not go into battle for all the world" (1863 June 2). Following a leave of absence between late August to early October, 1863, Ballenger resigned his commission and returned home.

In May, 1864, Ballenger reenlisted in his original home state of South Carolina, joining the Hampton Legion, and returned to the Richmond-Petersburg theatre. The Hampton Legion engaged the enemy repeatedly in the late summer and early fall and was present at Hatcher's Run in late October, where Ballenger narrowly avoided capture by a party of African-American soldiers. During a cavalry skirmish near Fussel's Mills, Va., on August 16th, Ballenger was again wounded, though only slightly, and he remarked later that he had been struck on several other occasions, though never seriously. As the Confederate reverses of the Petersburg and Shenandoah Valley Campaigns began to mount, Ballenger's discouragement and disillusionment turned slowly into bitterness. "It looks like they have got to whipping our men nearly every time they fight;" he wrote, "but yet some of our men will say that there is no danger, and that they can never whip us; while at the same time our territory is being taken from us continually. A great many of our men hardly know their right hand from their left, as long as they have been in the war. And there are plenty of our men who know so little that, if Jeff Davis were to bind them hand and foot to cast them into Hell, they would be keen enough to swear it was all right" (1864 September 25).

Certainly the desperately hard conditions at home made his frustration greater. In November, Ballenger predicted the fall of Richmond and the course of the closing campaigns of the war. By this time, his commitment to the Confederacy had begun to crack, and he remained in the service, he said, only so as not to disgrace his wife's name. "If our leaders should perchance gain what they have been contending for (which I have but little idea they ever can do), I have at last come to the conclusion that I have been fighting to place despots and tyrants over me and my posterity; and therefore, I will see them to the Devil before I will fight much longer under such views, unless you say for me to do so… I have come to believe that this is one of the most unjust and inglosrious wars that I have ever read about. It is nothing now but a war for power and plunder, and has degenerated into murder and cruelty, and battles into butchery" (1864 December 12). Ballenger planned to desert, unless his wife advised against. His last war-date letter appears to be January 25th, 1865. He returned to South Carolina after the war and established himself as a merchant, dabbling in county-level politics.

Scope and Contents:

The David Ballenger letters are transcripts of 25 original letters retained in the possession of the family. They were addressed variously to his mother, Mary, his wife, Nancy, or to his sister (in-law) and brother, and include excellent descriptions of life in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Ballenger's gift as a writer is found in his ability to convey his emotions about the war, military service, and the terror of combat. His several descriptions of the slaughter at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville are moving testimonies to the horror of war and the ability to survive, and he provides interesting details about each of the major engagements in which he served, particularly South Moutain and Gettysburg.

Among the more unusual passages in Ballenger's letters is an account of an eerie sight at Fredericksburg: "On the night of the second day of the battle there was a singular appearance in the elements, the most singular that I ever saw in my life. Some said it was an Aurora Borealis, or Northern Light, but if it was it was a little different from any I ever saw before. It rose on the side of the enemy and came up very near parallel with our line of battle, and right over us. It turned as red as blood, but when it commenced rising it looked more like the appearance of the moon rising than anything else I know to compare it to" (1862 December 23). Speculations and rumors on the death of Stonewall Jackson occupied space in several of Ballenger's letters (especially 1863 May 19), and he also found room for a description of the "graceful," "accomplished," and "devoted" man himself, and a discussion of the close relationship of Jackson and Lee.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there are several letters in which Ballenger expresses the frustration and emotional impact of the seemingly futile, seemingly endless fighting and in which he vents his anger at the Confederate government and at the waste of human lives (see especially 1864 September 25 and December 12).

M-3069
Cat. 10/4 rsc

Link to subject index to the David Ballenger Papers

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