LEE'S SURRENDER—LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION—OUT
OF PRISON AND AT HOME
Prison life at Fort Delaware had not improved any during the absence of
the 600; the same bad, scanty rations were still served, with no
surcease of the tedious, weary hours. When General Lee surrendered at
Appomattox on the 9th of April, 1865, the prisoners were very much
depressed, and almost the last hope of the establishment of the
independence of the South vanished. A meeting of the Virginia officers
was held to consult as to what was best to be done. Gen. Jos. E.
Johnston was still in the field with an army in North Carolina, and Gen.
Kirby Smith, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, was in Texas
with a few thousand men. Whether we would abandon all hope and get out
of prison as soon as possible by taking the oath of allegiance to the
United States Government, which was offered, or await future events,
were the questions discussed. Several speeches were made. Among the
speakers I remember Capt. Jas. Bumgardner, of Staunton; Capt. H. Clay
Dickerson, of Bedford, and Capt. Don P. Halsey, of Lynchburg. Captain
Halsey closed his speech by submitting a motion: "That the meeting take
no action at present," which motion I seconded, and it was carried
unanimously. We were not yet ready to surrender to what seemed to be the
inevitable. General Johnston was still standing before the enemy with
his tattered, battered, and shattered battalions, and we considered our
unqualified allegiance was still due to the Confederacy while he thus
stood. The remaining days of April were anxious and exciting ones.
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION
When the news of the assassination of Lincoln, which occurred on the
night of the 14th of April, 1865, reached Fort Delaware the next
morning, there was great excitement among the Yankee guards and
prisoners also. The Yankee soldiers looked mad and vindictive, and the
guards were doubled. Visions of retaliatory measures—banishment to Dry
Tortugas, or worse—rose up before the Confederate officers. If
retaliation was resorted to, no one knew how many Southern lives it
would take to appease the wrath and vengeance of the North. If lots were
cast for the victims, no one knew who would draw the black ballots.
While all were discussing these questions in all seriousness, Peter
Akers, the wit of the prison, broke the tension with the remark, "It was
hard on old Abe to go through the war and then get bushwhacked in a
theater."
The Yankees almost moved heaven and earth to implicate the Confederate
authorities in the assassination of Lincoln, but failed most signally.
No doubt, they would have given worlds, if at their command, if
President Jeff Davis and other leaders could have been connected with
the plot and crime. As is well known, Boothe, the assassin, was shot
dead in the attempt to capture him, and that a man named Harold, who was
with Boothe when killed: Payne, who the same night attempted to
assassinate Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, and Mrs. Surratt—were
hung, the latter in all probability innocent of any crime; there was no
evidence to connect her with the assassination or the plot. Some of the
assassins boarded at her house and her son fled.
The assassination of Lincoln was the act of a scatter-brained actor,
John Wilkes Boothe, and did the South no good, if, indeed, it was so
intended. Many people think that if Lincoln had lived the South would
have fared much better after the war. I do not think so. Lincoln might
have been disposed to have dealt more justly with the South, but in my
opinion he would have been overruled by the Sewards, the Stantons, the
Mortons, the Garrisons, and the Thad Stevenses, and many more of that
ilk, who lived and died inveterate haters and vilifiers of the Southern
people. Meanness is bred in the bone of some people. If Lincoln ever did
a kindly or generous act in behalf of the South, I do not recall it.
When Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered on the 26th day of April, 1865,
the last vestige of hope against hope vanished. We felt like saying,
"'Tis the last libation that Liberty draws from the heart that bleeds
and breaks in her cause."
OUT OF PRISON AND AT HOME
I remained at Fort Delaware until the 21st day of May, 1865, when I was
released by a special order from Washington, which my brother had
procured, and who brought the order to Fort Delaware and accompanied me
to New York and to his home in Brooklyn. So that I was a prisoner of war
one year to a day. I came out of prison in a much worse condition,
physically, than when captured. Three years of active service in the
field was as nothing to my experience in prison, although I did not
suffer as much as thousands of poor fellows who received no aid from
friends. I was sick several times while in prison, but had no serious
illness, but was much debilitated at the end.
We left Fort Delaware on the steamer _Mentor_, going up Delaware River
to Philadelphia, and thence by train and boat to New York.
After remaining in New York about two weeks recuperating, my brother and
family and myself left for Virginia and home, going by steamer to
Norfolk; thence up James River to Richmond, where we found a large part
of the city in ashes. Gloomy and distressing was the scene. Here I met
General Kemper and other comrades. The next day we took the train for
Lynchburg—on the old Richmond & Danville Railroad. At Burkeville we
found the road to Farmville destroyed. My brother and family went by
private conveyance to Farmville, while I remained at Burkeville, sitting
up all night guarding the baggage, as the railroad system was so out of
joint and deranged that no care could be taken of baggage by the
officials. The next morning I went by wagon to Farmville with the
baggage, when we again took the train to another break in the road at
James River below Lynchburg. Here we got aboard an old-fashioned canal
boat, drawn by an old mule or two, which landed us at Lynchburg. The
next day we went to my father's, twenty-one miles, in Campbell County,
and joined the loved ones there. The reunion was a happy one. But what a
change! Scores of thousands of dollars' worth of property gone forever,
and the future, with reconstruction and attempted negro domination,
staring us in the face, the prospect was anything but encouraging. But
all was not lost; honor and truth still lived, though might had
triumphed over right.
Thus ended my four years of service to the Confederacy, which I served
loyally and willingly, and my only regret is that we all could not have
rendered our dear Southland more efficient service, even to the full
fruition of our fondest hopes in the beginning.
I had three brothers in the army, all of us escaping without the loss of
life or limb. The youngest, Taylor, was only in service a short time,
being only thirteen years of age when the war began. He was in the
cavalry service, as was my brother, Coon, towards the end.