had received, had succeeded by daylight, or very early in the morning,
in capturing the intrenched picket-lines in their front; and before
Wright got up to that point, Ord had also succeeded in getting inside of
the enemy's intrenchments. The second corps soon followed; and the
outer works of Petersburg were in the hands of the National troops,
never to be wrenched from them again. When Wright reached Hatcher's
Run, he sent a regiment to destroy the South Side Railroad just outside
of the city.
My headquarters were still at Dabney's saw-mills. As soon as I received
the news of Wright's success, I sent dispatches announcing the fact to
all points around the line, including the troops at Bermuda Hundred and
those on the north side of the James, and to the President at City
Point. Further dispatches kept coming in, and as they did I sent the
additional news to these points. Finding at length that they were all
in, I mounted my horse to join the troops who were inside the works.
When I arrived there I rode my horse over the parapet just as Wright's
three thousand prisoners were coming out. I was soon joined inside by
General Meade and his staff.
Lee made frantic efforts to recover at least part of the lost ground.
Parke on our right was repeatedly assaulted, but repulsed every effort.
Before noon Longstreet was ordered up from the north side of the James
River thus bringing the bulk of Lee's army around to the support of his
extreme right. As soon as I learned this I notified Weitzel and
directed him to keep up close to the enemy and to have Hartsuff,
commanding the Bermuda Hundred front, to do the same thing, and if they
found any break to go in; Hartsuff especially should do so, for this
would separate Richmond and Petersburg.
Sheridan, after he had returned to Five Forks, swept down to Petersburg,
coming in on our left. This gave us a continuous line from the
Appomattox River below the city to the same river above. At eleven
o'clock, not having heard from Sheridan, I reinforced Parke with two
brigades from City Point. With this additional force he completed his
captured works for better defence, and built back from his right, so as
to protect his flank. He also carried in and made an abatis between
himself and the enemy. Lee brought additional troops and artillery
against Parke even after this was done, and made several assaults with
very heavy losses.
The enemy had in addition to their intrenched line close up to
Petersburg, two enclosed works outside of it, Fort Gregg and Fort
Whitworth. We thought it had now become necessary to carry them by
assault. About one o'clock in the day, Fort Gregg was assaulted by
Foster's division of the 24th corps (Gibbon's), supported by two
brigades from Ord's command. The battle was desperate and the National
troops were repulsed several times; but it was finally carried, and
immediately the troops in Fort Whitworth evacuated the place. The guns
of Fort Gregg were turned upon the retreating enemy, and the commanding
officer with some sixty of the men of Fort Whitworth surrendered.
I had ordered Miles in the morning to report to Sheridan. In moving to
execute this order he came upon the enemy at the intersection of the
White Oak Road and the Claiborne Road. The enemy fell back to
Sutherland Station on the South Side Road and were followed by Miles.
This position, naturally a strong and defensible one, was also strongly
intrenched. Sheridan now came up and Miles asked permission from him to
make the assault, which Sheridan gave. By this time Humphreys had got
through the outer works in his front, and came up also and assumed
command over Miles, who commanded a division in his corps. I had sent
an order to Humphreys to turn to his right and move towards Petersburg.
This order he now got, and started off, thus leaving Miles alone. The
latter made two assaults, both of which failed, and he had to fall back
a few hundred yards.
Hearing that Miles had been left in this position, I directed Humphreys
to send a division back to his relief. He went himself.
Sheridan before starting to sweep down to Petersburg had sent Merritt
with his cavalry to the west to attack some Confederate cavalry that had
assembled there. Merritt drove them north to the Appomattox River.
Sheridan then took the enemy at Sutherland Station on the reverse side
from where Miles was, and the two together captured the place, with a
large number of prisoners and some pieces of artillery, and put the
remainder, portions of three Confederate corps, to flight. Sheridan
followed, and drove them until night, when further pursuit was stopped.
Miles bivouacked for the night on the ground which he with Sheridan had
carried so handsomely by assault. I cannot explain the situation here
better than by giving my dispatch to City Point that evening:
BOYDTON ROAD, NEAR PETERSBURG, April 2, 1865.--4.40 P.M.
COLONEL T. S. BOWERS, City Point.
We are now up and have a continuous line of troops, and in a few hours
will be intrenched from the Appomattox below Petersburg to the river
above. Heth's and Wilcox's divisions, such part of them as were not
captured, were cut off from town, either designedly on their part or
because they could not help it. Sheridan with the cavalry and 5th corps
is above them. Miles's division, 2d corps, was sent from the White Oak
Road to Sutherland Station on the South Side Railroad, where he met
them, and at last accounts was engaged with them. Not knowing whether
Sheridan would get up in time, General Humphreys was sent with another
division from here. The whole captures since the army started out
gunning will amount to not less than twelve thousand men, and probably
fifty pieces of artillery. I do not know the number of men and guns
accurately however. * * * I think the President might come out and pay
us a visit tomorrow.
U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
During the night of April 2d our line was intrenched from the river
above to the river below. I ordered a bombardment to be commenced the
next morning at five A.M., to be followed by an assault at six o'clock;
but the enemy evacuated Petersburg early in the morning.
CHAPTER LXV.
THE CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG--MEETING PRESIDENT LINCOLN IN PETERSBURG--THE
CAPTURE OF RICHMOND--PURSUING THE ENEMY--VISIT TO SHERIDAN AND MEADE.
General Meade and I entered Petersburg on the morning of the 3d and took
a position under cover of a house which protected us from the enemy's
musketry which was flying thick and fast there. As we would
occasionally look around the corner we could see the streets and the
Appomattox bottom, presumably near the bridge, packed with the
Confederate army. I did not have artillery brought up, because I was
sure Lee was trying to make his escape, and I wanted to push immediately
in pursuit. At all events I had not the heart to turn the artillery
upon such a mass of defeated and fleeing men, and I hoped to capture
them soon.
Soon after the enemy had entirely evacuated Petersburg, a man came in
who represented himself to be an engineer of the Army of Northern
Virginia. He said that Lee had for some time been at work preparing a
strong enclosed intrenchment, into which he would throw himself when
forced out of Petersburg, and fight his final battle there; that he was
actually at that time drawing his troops from Richmond, and falling back
into this prepared work. This statement was made to General Meade and
myself when we were together. I had already given orders for the
movement up the south side of the Appomattox for the purpose of heading
off Lee; but Meade was so much impressed by this man's story that he
thought we ought to cross the Appomattox there at once and move against
Lee in his new position. I knew that Lee was no fool, as he would have
been to have put himself and his army between two formidable streams
like the James and Appomattox rivers, and between two such armies as
those of the Potomac and the James. Then these streams coming together
as they did to the east of him, it would be only necessary to close up
in the west to have him thoroughly cut off from all supplies or
possibility of reinforcement. It would only have been a question of
days, and not many of them, if he had taken the position assigned to him
by the so-called engineer, when he would have been obliged to surrender
his army. Such is one of the ruses resorted to in war to deceive your
antagonist. My judgment was that Lee would necessarily have to evacuate
Richmond, and that the only course for him to pursue would be to follow
the Danville Road. Accordingly my object was to secure a point on that
road south of Lee, and I told Meade this. He suggested that if Lee was
going that way we would follow him. My reply was that we did not want
to follow him; we wanted to get ahead of him and cut him off, and if he
would only stay in the position he (Meade) believed him to be in at that
time, I wanted nothing better; that when we got in possession of the
Danville Railroad, at its crossing of the Appomattox River, if we still
found him between the two rivers, all we had to do was to move eastward
and close him up. That we would then have all the advantage we could
possibly have by moving directly against him from Petersburg, even if he
remained in the position assigned him by the engineer officer.
I had held most of the command aloof from the intrenchments, so as to
start them out on the Danville Road early in the morning, supposing that
Lee would be gone during the night. During the night I strengthened
Sheridan by sending him Humphreys's corps.
Lee, as we now know, had advised the authorities at Richmond, during the
day, of the condition of affairs, and told them it would be impossible
for him to hold out longer than night, if he could hold out that long.
Davis was at church when he received Lee's dispatch. The congregation
was dismissed with the notice that there would be no evening service.
The rebel government left Richmond about two o'clock in the afternoon of
the 2d.
At night Lee ordered his troops to assemble at Amelia Court House, his
object being to get away, join Johnston if possible, and to try to crush
Sherman before I could get there. As soon as I was sure of this I
notified Sheridan and directed him to move out on the Danville Railroad
to the south side of the Appomattox River as speedily as possible. He
replied that he already had some of his command nine miles out. I then
ordered the rest of the Army of the Potomac under Meade to follow the
same road in the morning. Parke's corps followed by the same road, and
the Army of the James was directed to follow the road which ran
alongside of the South Side Railroad to Burke's Station, and to repair
the railroad and telegraph as they proceeded. That road was a 5 feet
gauge, while our rolling stock was all of the 4 feet 8 1/2 inches gauge;
consequently the rail on one side of the track had to be taken up
throughout the whole length and relaid so as to conform to the gauge of
our cars and locomotives.
Mr. Lincoln was at City Point at the time, and had been for some days.
I would have let him know what I contemplated doing, only while I felt a
strong conviction that the move was going to be successful, yet it might
not prove so; and then I would have only added another to the many
disappointments he had been suffering for the past three years. But
when we started out he saw that we were moving for a purpose, and
bidding us Godspeed, remained there to hear the result.
The next morning after the capture of Petersburg, I telegraphed Mr.
Lincoln asking him to ride out there and see me, while I would await his
arrival. I had started all the troops out early in the morning, so that
after the National army left Petersburg there was not a soul to be seen,
not even an animal in the streets. There was absolutely no one there,
except my staff officers and, possibly, a small escort of cavalry. We
had selected the piazza of a deserted house, and occupied it until the
President arrived.
About the first thing that Mr. Lincoln said to me, after warm
congratulations for the victory, and thanks both to myself and to the
army which had accomplished it, was: "Do you know, general, that I have
had a sort of a sneaking idea for some days that you intended to do
something like this." Our movements having been successful up to this
point, I no longer had any object in concealing from the President all
my movements, and the objects I had in view. He remained for some days
near City Point, and I communicated with him frequently and fully by
telegraph.
Mr. Lincoln knew that it had been arranged for Sherman to join me at a
fixed time, to co-operate in the destruction of Lee's army. I told him
that I had been very anxious to have the Eastern armies vanquish their
old enemy who had so long resisted all their repeated and gallant
attempts to subdue them or drive them from their capital. The Western
armies had been in the main successful until they had conquered all the
territory from the Mississippi River to the State of North Carolina, and
were now almost ready to knock at the back door of Richmond, asking
admittance. I said to him that if the Western armies should be even
upon the field, operating against Richmond and Lee, the credit would be
given to them for the capture, by politicians and non-combatants from
the section of country which those troops hailed from. It might lead to
disagreeable bickerings between members of Congress of the East and
those of the West in some of their debates. Western members might be
throwing it up to the members of the East that in the suppression of the
rebellion they were not able to capture an army, or to accomplish much
in the way of contributing toward that end, but had to wait until the
Western armies had conquered all the territory south and west of them,
and then come on to help them capture the only army they had been
engaged with.
Mr. Lincoln said he saw that now, but had never thought of it before,
because his anxiety was so great that he did not care where the aid came
from so the work was done.
The Army of the Potomac has every reason to be proud of its four years'
record in the suppression of the rebellion. The army it had to fight
was the protection to the capital of a people which was attempting to
found a nation upon the territory of the United States. Its loss would
be the loss of the cause. Every energy, therefore, was put forth by the
Confederacy to protect and maintain their capital. Everything else
would go if it went. Lee's army had to be strengthened to enable it to
maintain its position, no matter what territory was wrested from the
South in another quarter.
I never expected any such bickering as I have indicated, between the
soldiers of the two sections; and, fortunately, there has been none
between the politicians. Possibly I am the only one who thought of the
liability of such a state of things in advance.
When our conversation was at an end Mr. Lincoln mounted his horse and
started on his return to City Point, while I and my staff started to
join the army, now a good many miles in advance. Up to this time I had
not received the report of the capture of Richmond.
Soon after I left President Lincoln I received a dispatch from General
Weitzel which notified me that he had taken possession of Richmond at
about 8.15 o'clock in the morning of that day, the 3d, and that he had
found the city on fire in two places. The city was in the most utter
confusion. The authorities had taken the precaution to empty all the
liquor into the gutter, and to throw out the provisions which the
Confederate government had left, for the people to gather up. The city
had been deserted by the authorities, civil and military, without any
notice whatever that they were about to leave. In fact, up to the very
hour of the evacuation the people had been led to believe that Lee had
gained an important victory somewhere around Petersburg.
Weitzel's command found evidence of great demoralization in Lee's army,
there being still a great many men and even officers in the town. The
city was on fire. Our troops were directed to extinguish the flames,
which they finally succeeded in doing. The fire had been started by some
one connected with the retreating army. All authorities deny that it
was authorized, and I presume it was the work of excited men who were
leaving what they regarded as their capital and may have felt that it
was better to destroy it than have it fall into the hands of their
enemy. Be that as it may, the National troops found the city in flames,
and used every effort to extinguish them.
The troops that had formed Lee's right, a great many of them, were cut
off from getting back into Petersburg, and were pursued by our cavalry
so hotly and closely that they threw away caissons, ammunition,
clothing, and almost everything to lighten their loads, and pushed along
up the Appomattox River until finally they took water and crossed over.
I left Mr. Lincoln and started, as I have already said, to join the
command, which halted at Sutherland Station, about nine miles out. We
had still time to march as much farther, and time was an object; but the
roads were bad and the trains belonging to the advance corps had blocked
up the road so that it was impossible to get on. Then, again, our
cavalry had struck some of the enemy and were pursuing them; and the
orders were that the roads should be given up to the cavalry whenever
they appeared. This caused further delay.
General Wright, who was in command of one of the corps which were left
back, thought to gain time by letting his men go into bivouac and trying
to get up some rations for them, and clearing out the road, so that when
they did start they would be uninterrupted. Humphreys, who was far
ahead, was also out of rations. They did not succeed in getting them up
through the night; but the Army of the Potomac, officers and men, were
so elated by the reflection that at last they were following up a
victory to its end, that they preferred marching without rations to
running a possible risk of letting the enemy elude them. So the march
was resumed at three o'clock in the morning.
Merritt's cavalry had struck the enemy at Deep Creek, and driven them
north to the Appomattox, where, I presume, most of them were forced to
cross.
On the morning of the 4th I learned that Lee had ordered rations up from
Danville for his famishing army, and that they were to meet him at
Farmville. This showed that Lee had already abandoned the idea of
following the railroad down to Danville, but had determined to go
farther west, by the way of Farmville. I notified Sheridan of this and
directed him to get possession of the road before the supplies could
reach Lee. He responded that he had already sent Crook's division to
get upon the road between Burkesville and Jetersville, then to face
north and march along the road upon the latter place; and he thought
Crook must be there now. The bulk of the army moved directly for
Jetersville by two roads.
After I had received the dispatch from Sheridan saying that Crook was on
the Danville Road, I immediately ordered Meade to make a forced march
with the Army of the Potomac, and to send Parke's corps across from the
road they were on to the South Side Railroad, to fall in the rear of the
Army of the James and to protect the railroad which that army was
repairing as it went along.
Our troops took possession of Jetersville and in the telegraph office,
they found a dispatch from Lee, ordering two hundred thousand rations
from Danville. The dispatch had not been sent, but Sheridan sent a
special messenger with it to Burkesville and had it forwarded from
there. In the meantime, however, dispatches from other sources had
reached Danville, and they knew there that our army was on the line of
the road; so that they sent no further supplies from that quarter.
At this time Merritt and Mackenzie, with the cavalry, were off between
the road which the Army of the Potomac was marching on and the
Appomattox River, and were attacking the enemy in flank. They picked up
a great many prisoners and forced the abandonment of some property.
Lee intrenched himself at Amelia Court House, and also his advance north
of Jetersville, and sent his troops out to collect forage. The country
was very poor and afforded but very little. His foragers scattered a
great deal; many of them were picked up by our men, and many others
never returned to the Army of Northern Virginia.
Griffin's corps was intrenched across the railroad south of Jetersville,
and Sheridan notified me of the situation. I again ordered Meade up
with all dispatch, Sheridan having but the one corps of infantry with a
little cavalry confronting Lee's entire army. Meade, always prompt in
obeying orders, now pushed forward with great energy, although he was
himself sick and hardly able to be out of bed. Humphreys moved at two,
and Wright at three o'clock in the morning, without rations, as I have
said, the wagons being far in the rear.
I stayed that night at Wilson's Station on the South Side Railroad. On
the morning of the 5th I sent word to Sheridan of the progress Meade was
making, and suggested that he might now attack Lee. We had now no other
objective than the Confederate armies, and I was anxious to close the
thing up at once.
On the 5th I marched again with Ord's command until within about ten
miles of Burkesville, where I stopped to let his army pass. I then
received from Sheridan the following dispatch:
"The whole of Lee's army is at or near Amelia Court House, and on this
side of it. General Davies, whom I sent out to Painesville on their
right flank, has just captured six pieces of artillery and some wagons.
We can capture the Army of Northern Virginia if force enough can be
thrown to this point, and then advance upon it. My cavalry was at
Burkesville yesterday, and six miles beyond, on the Danville Road, last
night. General Lee is at Amelia Court House in person. They are out of
rations, or nearly so. They were advancing up the railroad towards
Burkesville yesterday, when we intercepted them at this point."
It now became a life and death struggle with Lee to get south to his
provisions.
Sheridan, thinking the enemy might turn off immediately towards
Farmville, moved Davies's brigade of cavalry out to watch him. Davies
found the movement had already commenced. He attacked and drove away
their cavalry which was escorting wagons to the west, capturing and
burning 180 wagons. He also captured five pieces of artillery. The
Confederate infantry then moved against him and probably would have
handled him very roughly, but Sheridan had sent two more brigades of
cavalry to follow Davies, and they came to his relief in time. A sharp
engagement took place between these three brigades of cavalry and the
enemy's infantry, but the latter was repulsed.
Meade himself reached Jetersville about two o'clock in the afternoon,
but in advance of all his troops. The head of Humphreys's corps
followed in about an hour afterwards. Sheridan stationed the troops as
they came up, at Meade's request, the latter still being very sick. He
extended two divisions of this corps off to the west of the road to the
left of Griffin's corps, and one division to the right. The cavalry by
this time had also come up, and they were put still farther off to the
left, Sheridan feeling certain that there lay the route by which the
enemy intended to escape. He wanted to attack, feeling that if time was
given, the enemy would get away; but Meade prevented this, preferring to
wait till his troops were all up.
At this juncture Sheridan sent me a letter which had been handed to him
by a colored man, with a note from himself saying that he wished I was
there myself. The letter was dated Amelia Court House, April 5th, and
signed by Colonel Taylor. It was to his mother, and showed the
demoralization of the Confederate army. Sheridan's note also gave me the
information as here related of the movements of that day. I received a
second message from Sheridan on the 5th, in which he urged more
emphatically the importance of my presence. This was brought to me by a
scout in gray uniform. It was written on tissue paper, and wrapped up
in tin-foil such as chewing tobacco is folded in. This was a precaution
taken so that if the scout should be captured he could take this
tin-foil out of his pocket and putting it into his mouth, chew it. It
would cause no surprise at all to see a Confederate soldier chewing
tobacco. It was nearly night when this letter was received. I gave Ord
directions to continue his march to Burkesville and there intrench
himself for the night, and in the morning to move west to cut off all
the roads between there and Farmville.
I then started with a few of my staff and a very small escort of
cavalry, going directly through the woods, to join Meade's army. The
distance was about sixteen miles; but the night being dark our progress
was slow through the woods in the absence of direct roads. However, we
got to the outposts about ten o'clock in the evening, and after some
little parley convinced the sentinels of our identity and were conducted
in to where Sheridan was bivouacked. We talked over the situation for
some little time, Sheridan explaining to me what he thought Lee was
trying to do, and that Meade's orders, if carried out, moving to the
right flank, would give him the coveted opportunity of escaping us and
putting us in rear of him.
We then together visited Meade, reaching his headquarters about
midnight. I explained to Meade that we did not want to follow the
enemy; we wanted to get ahead of him, and that his orders would allow
the enemy to escape, and besides that, I had no doubt that Lee was
moving right then. Meade changed his orders at once. They were now
given for an advance on Amelia Court House, at an early hour in the
morning, as the army then lay; that is, the infantry being across the
railroad, most of it to the west of the road, with the cavalry swung out
still farther to the left.
CHAPTER LXVI.
BATTLE OF SAILOR'S CREEK--ENGAGEMENT AT FARMVILLE--CORRESPONDENCE WITH
GENERAL LEE--SHERIDAN INTERCEPTS THE ENEMY.
The Appomattox, going westward, takes a long sweep to the south-west
from the neighborhood of the Richmond and Danville Railroad bridge, and
then trends north-westerly. Sailor's Creek, an insignificant stream,
running northward, empties into the Appomattox between the High Bridge
and Jetersville. Near the High Bridge the stage road from Petersburg to
Lynchburg crosses the Appomattox River, also on a bridge. The railroad
runs on the north side of the river to Farmville, a few miles west, and
from there, recrossing, continues on the south side of it. The roads
coming up from the south-east to Farmville cross the Appomattox River
there on a bridge and run on the north side, leaving the Lynchburg and
Petersburg Railroad well to the left.
Lee, in pushing out from Amelia Court House, availed himself of all the
roads between the Danville Road and Appomattox River to move upon, and
never permitted the head of his columns to stop because of any fighting
that might be going on in his rear. In this way he came very near
succeeding in getting to his provision trains and eluding us with at
least part of his army.
As expected, Lee's troops had moved during the night before, and our
army in moving upon Amelia Court House soon encountered them. There was
a good deal of fighting before Sailor's Creek was reached. Our cavalry
charged in upon a body of theirs which was escorting a wagon train in
order to get it past our left. A severe engagement ensued, in which we
captured many prisoners, and many men also were killed and wounded.
There was as much gallantry displayed by some of the Confederates in
these little engagements as was displayed at any time during the war,
notwithstanding the sad defeats of the past week.
The armies finally met on Sailor's Creek, when a heavy engagement took
place, in which infantry, artillery and cavalry were all brought into
action. Our men on the right, as they were brought in against the
enemy, came in on higher ground, and upon his flank, giving us every
advantage to be derived from the lay of the country. Our firing was
also very much more rapid, because the enemy commenced his retreat
westward and in firing as he retreated had to turn around every time he
fired. The enemy's loss was very heavy, as well in killed and wounded
as in captures. Some six general officers fell into our hands in this
engagement, and seven thousand men were made prisoners. This engagement
was commenced in the middle of the afternoon of the 6th, and the retreat
and pursuit were continued until nightfall, when the armies bivouacked
upon the ground where the night had overtaken them.
When the move towards Amelia Court House had commenced that morning, I
ordered Wright's corps, which was on the extreme right, to be moved to
the left past the whole army, to take the place of Griffin's, and
ordered the latter at the same time to move by and place itself on the
right. The object of this movement was to get the 6th corps, Wright's,
next to the cavalry, with which they had formerly served so harmoniously
and so efficiently in the valley of Virginia.
The 6th corps now remained with the cavalry and under Sheridan's direct
command until after the surrender.
Ord had been directed to take possession of all the roads southward
between Burkesville and the High Bridge. On the morning of the 6th he
sent Colonel Washburn with two infantry regiments with instructions to
destroy High Bridge and to return rapidly to Burkesville Station; and he
prepared himself to resist the enemy there. Soon after Washburn had
started Ord became a little alarmed as to his safety and sent Colonel
Read, of his staff, with about eighty cavalrymen, to overtake him and
bring him back. Very shortly after this he heard that the head of Lee's
column had got up to the road between him and where Washburn now was,
and attempted to send reinforcements, but the reinforcements could not
get through. Read, however, had got through ahead of the enemy. He
rode on to Farmville and was on his way back again when he found his
return cut off, and Washburn confronting apparently the advance of Lee's
army. Read drew his men up into line of battle, his force now
consisting of less than six hundred men, infantry and cavalry, and rode
along their front, making a speech to his men to inspire them with the
same enthusiasm that he himself felt. He then gave the order to charge.
This little band made several charges, of course unsuccessful ones, but
inflicted a loss upon the enemy more than equal to their own entire
number. Colonel Read fell mortally wounded, and then Washburn; and at
the close of the conflict nearly every officer of the command and most
of the rank and file had been either killed or wounded. The remainder
then surrendered. The Confederates took this to be only the advance of
a larger column which had headed them off, and so stopped to intrench;
so that this gallant band of six hundred had checked the progress of a
strong detachment of the Confederate army.
This stoppage of Lee's column no doubt saved to us the trains following.
Lee himself pushed on and crossed the wagon road bridge near the High
Bridge, and attempted to destroy it. He did set fire to it, but the
flames had made but little headway when Humphreys came up with his corps
and drove away the rear-guard which had been left to protect it while it
was being burned up. Humphreys forced his way across with some loss,
and followed Lee to the intersection of the road crossing at Farmville
with the one from Petersburg. Here Lee held a position which was very
strong, naturally, besides being intrenched. Humphreys was alone,
confronting him all through the day, and in a very hazardous position.
He put on a bold face, however, and assaulted with some loss, but was
not assaulted in return.
Our cavalry had gone farther south by the way of Prince Edward's Court
House, along with the 5th corps (Griffin's), Ord falling in between
Griffin and the Appomattox. Crook's division of cavalry and Wright's
corps pushed on west of Farmville. When the cavalry reached Farmville
they found that some of the Confederates were in ahead of them, and had
already got their trains of provisions back to that point; but our
troops were in time to prevent them from securing anything to eat,
although they succeeded in again running the trains off, so that we did
not get them for some time. These troops retreated to the north side of
the Appomattox to join Lee, and succeeded in destroying the bridge after
them. Considerable fighting ensued there between Wright's corps and a
portion of our cavalry and the Confederates, but finally the cavalry
forded the stream and drove them away. Wright built a foot-bridge for
his men to march over on and then marched out to the junction of the
roads to relieve Humphreys, arriving there that night. I had stopped
the night before at Burkesville Junction. Our troops were then pretty
much all out of the place, but we had a field hospital there, and Ord's
command was extended from that point towards Farmville.
Here I met Dr. Smith, a Virginian and an officer of the regular army,
who told me that in a conversation with General Ewell, one of the
prisoners and a relative of his, Ewell had said that when we had got
across the James River he knew their cause was lost, and it was the duty
of their authorities to make the best terms they could while they still
had a right to claim concessions. The authorities thought differently,
however. Now the cause was lost and they had no right to claim
anything. He said further, that for every man that was killed after
this in the war somebody is responsible, and it would be but very little
better than murder. He was not sure that Lee would consent to surrender
his army without being able to consult with the President, but he hoped
he would.
I rode in to Farmville on the 7th, arriving there early in the day.
Sheridan and Ord were pushing through, away to the south. Meade was
back towards the High Bridge, and Humphreys confronting Lee as before
stated. After having gone into bivouac at Prince Edward's Court House,
Sheridan learned that seven trains of provisions and forage were at
Appomattox, and determined to start at once and capture them; and a
forced march was necessary in order to get there before Lee's army could
secure them. He wrote me a note telling me this. This fact, together
with the incident related the night before by Dr. Smith, gave me the
idea of opening correspondence with General Lee on the subject of the
surrender of his army. I therefore wrote to him on this day, as
follows:
HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE U. S., 5 P.M., April 7, 1865.
GENERAL R. E. LEE Commanding C. S. A.
The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of
further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this
struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from
myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of
you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known
as the Army of Northern Virginia.
U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-General.
Lee replied on the evening of the same day as follows:
April 7, 1865.
GENERAL: I have received your note of this day. Though not
entertaining the opinion you express on the hopelessness of further
resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate
your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore before
considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition
of its surrender.
R. E. LEE, General.
LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT, Commanding Armies of the U. S.
This was not satisfactory, but I regarded it as deserving another letter
and wrote him as follows:
April 8, 1865.
GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A.
Your note of last evening in reply to mine of same date, asking the
condition on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern
Virginia is just received. In reply I would say that, peace being my
great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely:
that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking
up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly
exchanged. I will meet you, or will designate officers to meet any
officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to
you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the
surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.
U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-General.
Lee's army was rapidly crumbling. Many of his soldiers had enlisted
from that part of the State where they now were, and were continually
dropping out of the ranks and going to their homes. I know that I
occupied a hotel almost destitute of furniture at Farmville, which had
probably been used as a Confederate hospital. The next morning when I
came out I found a Confederate colonel there, who reported to me and
said that he was the proprietor of that house, and that he was a colonel
of a regiment that had been raised in that neighborhood. He said that
when he came along past home, he found that he was the only man of the
regiment remaining with Lee's army, so he just dropped out, and now
wanted to surrender himself. I told him to stay there and he would not
be molested. That was one regiment which had been eliminated from Lee's
force by this crumbling process.
Although Sheridan had been marching all day, his troops moved with
alacrity and without any straggling. They began to see the end of what
they had been fighting four years for. Nothing seemed to fatigue them.
They were ready to move without rations and travel without rest until
the end. Straggling had entirely ceased, and every man was now a rival
for the front. The infantry marched about as rapidly as the cavalry
could.
Sheridan sent Custer with his division to move south of Appomattox
Station, which is about five miles south-west of the Court House, to get
west of the trains and destroy the roads to the rear. They got there
the night of the 8th, and succeeded partially; but some of the train men
had just discovered the movement of our troops and succeeded in running
off three of the trains. The other four were held by Custer.
The head of Lee's column came marching up there on the morning of the
9th, not dreaming, I suppose, that there were any Union soldiers near.
The Confederates were surprised to find our cavalry had possession of
the trains. However, they were desperate and at once assaulted, hoping
to recover them. In the melee that ensued they succeeded in burning one
of the trains, but not in getting anything from it. Custer then ordered
the other trains run back on the road towards Farmville, and the fight
continued.
So far, only our cavalry and the advance of Lee's army were engaged.
Soon, however, Lee's men were brought up from the rear, no doubt
expecting they had nothing to meet but our cavalry. But our infantry
had pushed forward so rapidly that by the time the enemy got up they
found Griffin's corps and the Army of the James confronting them. A
sharp engagement ensued, but Lee quickly set up a white flag.
CHAPTER LXVII.
NEGOTIATIONS AT APPOMATTOX--INTERVIEW WITH LEE AT MCLEAN'S HOUSE--THE
TERMS OF SURRENDER--LEE'S SURRENDER--INTERVIEW WITH LEE AFTER THE
SURRENDER.
On the 8th I had followed the Army of the Potomac in rear of Lee. I was
suffering very severely with a sick headache, and stopped at a farmhouse
on the road some distance in rear of the main body of the army. I spent
the night in bathing my feet in hot water and mustard, and putting
mustard plasters on my wrists and the back part of my neck, hoping to be
cured by morning. During the night I received Lee's answer to my letter
of the 8th, inviting an interview between the lines on the following
morning. (*43) But it was for a different purpose from that of
surrendering his army, and I answered him as follows:
HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE U. S., April 9, 1865.
GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. A.
Your note of yesterday is received. As I have no authority to treat on
the subject of peace, the meeting proposed for ten A.M. to-day could
lead to no good. I will state, however, General, that I am equally
anxious for peace with yourself, and the whole North entertains the same
feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By
the South laying down their arms they will hasten that most desirable
event, save thousands of human lives and hundreds of millions of
property not yet destroyed. Sincerely hoping that all our difficulties
may be settled without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself,
etc.,
U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
I proceeded at an early hour in the morning, still suffering with the
headache, to get to the head of the column. I was not more than two or
three miles from Appomattox Court House at the time, but to go direct I
would have to pass through Lee's army, or a portion of it. I had
therefore to move south in order to get upon a road coming up from
another direction.
When the white flag was put out by Lee, as already described, I was in
this way moving towards Appomattox Court House, and consequently could
not be communicated with immediately, and be informed of what Lee had
done. Lee, therefore, sent a flag to the rear to advise Meade and one
to the front to Sheridan, saying that he had sent a message to me for
the purpose of having a meeting to consult about the surrender of his
army, and asked for a suspension of hostilities until I could be
communicated with. As they had heard nothing of this until the fighting
had got to be severe and all going against Lee, both of these commanders
hesitated very considerably about suspending hostilities at all. They
were afraid it was not in good faith, and we had the Army of Northern
Virginia where it could not escape except by some deception. They,
however, finally consented to a suspension of hostilities for two hours
to give an opportunity of communicating with me in that time, if
possible. It was found that, from the route I had taken, they would
probably not be able to communicate with me and get an answer back
within the time fixed unless the messenger should pass through the rebel
lines.
Lee, therefore, sent an escort with the officer bearing this message
through his lines to me.
April 9, 1865.
GENERAL: I received your note of this morning on the picket-line
whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were
embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender
of this army. I now request an interview in accordance with the offer
contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.
R. E. LEE, General.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL U. S. GRANT Commanding U. S. Armies.
When the officer reached me I was still suffering with the sick
headache, but the instant I saw the contents of the note I was cured. I
wrote the following note in reply and hastened on:
April 9, 1865.
GENERAL R. E. LEE, Commanding C. S. Armies.
Your note of this date is but this moment (11.50 A.M.) received, in
consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg road to
the Farmville and Lynchburg road. I am at this writing about four miles
west of Walker's Church and will push forward to the front for the
purpose of meeting you. Notice sent to me on this road where you wish
the interview to take place will meet me.
U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
I was conducted at once to where Sheridan was located with his troops
drawn up in line of battle facing the Confederate army near by. They
were very much excited, and expressed their view that this was all a
ruse employed to enable the Confederates to get away. They said they
believed that Johnston was marching up from North Carolina now, and Lee
was moving to join him; and they would whip the rebels where they now
were in five minutes if I would only let them go in. But I had no doubt
about the good faith of Lee, and pretty soon was conducted to where he
was. I found him at the house of a Mr. McLean, at Appomattox Court
House, with Colonel Marshall, one of his staff officers, awaiting my
arrival. The head of his column was occupying a hill, on a portion of
which was an apple orchard, beyond a little valley which separated it
from that on the crest of which Sheridan's forces were drawn up in line
of battle to the south.
Before stating what took place between General Lee and myself, I will
give all there is of the story of the famous apple tree.
Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they
are believed to be true. The war of the rebellion was no exception to
this rule, and the story of the apple tree is one of those fictions
based on a slight foundation of fact. As I have said, there was an apple
orchard on the side of the hill occupied by the Confederate forces.
Running diagonally up the hill was a wagon road, which, at one point,
ran very near one of the trees, so that the wheels of vehicles had, on
that side, cut off the roots of this tree, leaving a little embankment.
General Babcock, of my staff, reported to me that when he first met
General Lee he was sitting upon this embankment with his feet in the
road below and his back resting against the tree. The story had no
other foundation than that. Like many other stories, it would be very
good if it was only true.
I had known General Lee in the old army, and had served with him in the
Mexican War; but did not suppose, owing to the difference in our age and
rank, that he would remember me, while I would more naturally remember
him distinctly, because he was the chief of staff of General Scott in
the Mexican War.
When I had left camp that morning I had not expected so soon the result
that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb. I was
without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on the field, and
wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank
to indicate to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found
General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our
seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room
during the whole of the interview.
What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much
dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he
felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the
result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were
entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had
been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and
depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall
of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much
for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for
which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least
excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of
those who were opposed to us.
General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and
was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which
had been presented by the State of Virginia; at all events, it was an
entirely different sword from the one that would ordinarily be worn in
the field. In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with
the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very
strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of
faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until
afterwards.
We soon fell into a conversation about old army times. He remarked that
he remembered me very well in the old army; and I told him that as a
matter of course I remembered him perfectly, but from the difference in
our rank and years (there being about sixteen years' difference in our
ages), I had thought it very likely that I had not attracted his
attention sufficiently to be remembered by him after such a long
interval. Our conversation grew so pleasant that I almost forgot the
object of our meeting. After the conversation had run on in this style
for some time, General Lee called my attention to the object of our
meeting, and said that he had asked for this interview for the purpose
of getting from me the terms I proposed to give his army. I said that I
meant merely that his army should lay down their arms, not to take them
up again during the continuance of the war unless duly and properly
exchanged. He said that he had so understood my letter.
Then we gradually fell off again into conversation about matters foreign
to the subject which had brought us together. This continued for some
little time, when General Lee again interrupted the course of the
conversation by suggesting that the terms I proposed to give his army
ought to be written out. I called to General Parker, secretary on my
staff, for writing materials, and commenced writing out the following
terms:
APPOMATTOX C. H., VA.,
Ap 19th, 1865.
GEN. R. E. LEE, Comd'g C. S. A.
GEN: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th
inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. on the
following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made
in duplicate. One copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the
other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate.
The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms
against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged,
and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men
of their commands. The arms, artillery and public property to be parked
and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive
them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their
private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be
allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States
authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force
where they may reside.
Very respectfully, U. S. GRANT, Lt. Gen.
When I put my pen to the paper I did not know the first word that I
should make use of in writing the terms. I only knew what was in my
mind, and I wished to express it clearly, so that there could be no
mistaking it. As I wrote on, the thought occurred to me that the
officers had their own private horses and effects, which were important
to them, but of no value to us; also that it would be an unnecessary
humiliation to call upon them to deliver their side arms.
No conversation, not one word, passed between General Lee and myself,
either about private property, side arms, or kindred subjects. He
appeared to have no objections to the terms first proposed; or if he had
a point to make against them he wished to wait until they were in
writing to make it. When he read over that part of the terms about side
arms, horses and private property of the officers, he remarked, with
some feeling, I thought, that this would have a happy effect upon his
army.
Then, after a little further conversation, General Lee remarked to me
again that their army was organized a little differently from the army
of the United States (still maintaining by implication that we were two
countries); that in their army the cavalrymen and artillerists owned
their own horses; and he asked if he was to understand that the men who
so owned their horses were to be permitted to retain them. I told him
that as the terms were written they would not; that only the officers
were permitted to take their private property. He then, after reading
over the terms a second time, remarked that that was clear.
I then said to him that I thought this would be about the last battle of
the war--I sincerely hoped so; and I said further I took it that most of
the men in the ranks were small farmers. The whole country had been so
raided by the two armies that it was doubtful whether they would be able
to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next
winter without the aid of the horses they were then riding. The United
States did not want them and I would, therefore, instruct the officers I
left behind to receive the paroles of his troops to let every man of the
Confederate army who claimed to own a horse or mule take the animal to
his home. Lee remarked again that this would have a happy effect.
He then sat down and wrote out the following letter:
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, April 9, 1865.
GENERAL:--I received your letter of this date containing the terms of
the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As
they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the
8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper
officers to carry the stipulations into effect.
R. E. LEE, General. LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
While duplicates of the two letters were being made, the Union generals
present were severally presented to General Lee.
The much talked of surrendering of Lee's sword and my handing it back,
this and much more that has been said about it is the purest romance.
The word sword or side arms was not mentioned by either of us until I
wrote it in the terms. There was no premeditation, and it did not occur
to me until the moment I wrote it down. If I had happened to omit it,
and General Lee had called my attention to it, I should have put it in
the terms precisely as I acceded to the provision about the soldiers
retaining their horses.
General Lee, after all was completed and before taking his leave,
remarked that his army was in a very bad condition for want of food, and
that they were without forage; that his men had been living for some
days on parched corn exclusively, and that he would have to ask me for
rations and forage. I told him "certainly," and asked for how many men
he wanted rations. His answer was "about twenty-five thousand;" and I
authorized him to send his own commissary and quartermaster to
Appomattox Station, two or three miles away, where he could have, out of
the trains we had stopped, all the provisions wanted. As for forage, we
had ourselves depended almost entirely upon the country for that.
Generals Gibbon, Griffin and Merritt were designated by me to carry into
effect the paroling of Lee's troops before they should start for their
homes--General Lee leaving Generals Longstreet, Gordon and Pendleton for
them to confer with in order to facilitate this work. Lee and I then
separated as cordially as we had met, he returning to his own lines, and
all went into bivouac for the night at Appomattox.
Soon after Lee's departure I telegraphed to Washington as follows:
HEADQUARTERS APPOMATTOX C. H., VA., April 9th, 1865, 4.30 P.M.
HON. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington.
General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on
terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence
will show the conditions fully.
U. S. GRANT, Lieut.-General.
When news of the surrender first reached our lines our men commenced
firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the victory. I at once
sent word, however, to have it stopped. The Confederates were now our
prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.
I determined to return to Washington at once, with a view to putting a
stop to the purchase of supplies, and what I now deemed other useless
outlay of money. Before leaving, however, I thought I (*44) would like
to see General Lee again; so next morning I rode out beyond our lines
towards his headquarters, preceded by a bugler and a staff-officer
carrying a white flag.
Lee soon mounted his horse, seeing who it was, and met me. We had there
between the lines, sitting on horseback, a very pleasant conversation of
over half an hour, in the course of which Lee said to me that the South
was a big country and that we might have to march over it three or four
times before the war entirely ended, but that we would now be able to do
it as they could no longer resist us. He expressed it as his earnest
hope, however, that we would not be called upon to cause more loss and
sacrifice of life; but he could not foretell the result. I then
suggested to General Lee that there was not a man in the Confederacy
whose influence with the soldiery and the whole people was as great as
his, and that if he would now advise the surrender of all the armies I
had no doubt his advice would be followed with alacrity. But Lee said,
that he could not do that without consulting the President first. I
knew there was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of
what was right.
I was accompanied by my staff and other officers, some of whom seemed to
have a great desire to go inside the Confederate lines. They finally
asked permission of Lee to do so for the purpose of seeing some of their
old army friends, and the permission was granted. They went over, had a
very pleasant time with their old friends, and brought some of them back
with them when they returned.
When Lee and I separated he went back to his lines and I returned to the
house of Mr. McLean. Here the officers of both armies came in great
numbers, and seemed to enjoy the meeting as much as though they had been
friends separated for a long time while fighting battles under the same
flag. For the time being it looked very much as if all thought of the
war had escaped their minds. After an hour pleasantly passed in this
way I set out on horseback, accompanied by my staff and a small escort,
for Burkesville Junction, up to which point the railroad had by this
time been repaired.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
MORALE OF THE TWO ARMIES--RELATIVE CONDITIONS OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH
--PRESIDENT LINCOLN VISITS RICHMOND--ARRIVAL AT WASHINGTON--PRESIDENT
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION--PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S POLICY.
After the fall of Petersburg, and when the armies of the Potomac and the
James were in motion to head off Lee's army, the morale of the National
troops had greatly improved. There was no more straggling, no more rear
guards. The men who in former times had been falling back, were now, as
I have already stated, striving to get to the front. For the first time
in four weary years they felt that they were now nearing the time when
they could return to their homes with their country saved. On the other
hand, the Confederates were more than correspondingly depressed. Their
despondency increased with each returning day, and especially after the
battle of Sailor's Creek. They threw away their arms in constantly
increasing numbers, dropping out of the ranks and betaking themselves to
the woods in the hope of reaching their homes. I have already instanced
the case of the entire disintegration of a regiment whose colonel I met
at Farmville. As a result of these and other influences, when Lee
finally surrendered at Appomattox, there were only 28,356 officers and
men left to be paroled, and many of these were without arms. It was
probably this latter fact which gave rise to the statement sometimes
made, North and South, that Lee surrendered a smaller number of men than
what the official figures show. As a matter of official record, and in
addition to the number paroled as given above, we captured between March
29th and the date of surrender 19,132 Confederates, to say nothing of
Lee's other losses, killed, wounded and missing, during the series of
desperate conflicts which marked his headlong and determined flight.
The same record shows the number of cannon, including those at
Appomattox, to have been 689 between the dates named.
There has always been a great conflict of opinion as to the number of
troops engaged in every battle, or all important battles, fought between
the sections, the South magnifying the number of Union troops engaged
and belittling their own. Northern writers have fallen, in many
instances, into the same error. I have often heard gentlemen, who were
thoroughly loyal to the Union, speak of what a splendid fight the South
had made and successfully continued for four years before yielding, with
their twelve million of people against our twenty, and of the twelve
four being colored slaves, non-combatants. I will add to their
argument. We had many regiments of brave and loyal men who volunteered
under great difficulty from the twelve million belonging to the South.
But the South had rebelled against the National government. It was not
bound by any constitutional restrictions. The whole South was a
military camp. The occupation of the colored people was to furnish
supplies for the army. Conscription was resorted to early, and embraced
every male from the age of eighteen to forty-five, excluding only those
physically unfit to serve in the field, and the necessary number of
civil officers of State and intended National government. The old and
physically disabled furnished a good portion of these. The slaves, the
non-combatants, one-third of the whole, were required to work in the
field without regard to sex, and almost without regard to age. Children
from the age of eight years could and did handle the hoe; they were not
much older when they began to hold the plough. The four million of
colored non-combatants were equal to more than three times their number
in the North, age for age and sex for sex, in supplying food from the
soil to support armies. Women did not work in the fields in the North,
and children attended school.
The arts of peace were carried on in the North. Towns and cities grew
during the war. Inventions were made in all kinds of machinery to
increase the products of a day's labor in the shop, and in the field.
In the South no opposition was allowed to the government which had been
set up and which would have become real and respected if the rebellion
had been successful. No rear had to be protected. All the troops in
service could be brought to the front to contest every inch of ground
threatened with invasion. The press of the South, like the people who
remained at home, were loyal to the Southern cause.
In the North, the country, the towns and the cities presented about the
same appearance they do in time of peace. The furnace was in blast, the
shops were filled with workmen, the fields were cultivated, not only to
supply the population of the North and the troops invading the South,
but to ship abroad to pay a part of the expense of the war. In the
North the press was free up to the point of open treason. The citizen
could entertain his views and express them. Troops were necessary in
the Northern States to prevent prisoners from the Southern army being
released by outside force, armed and set at large to destroy by fire our
Northern cities. Plans were formed by Northern and Southern citizens to
burn our cities, to poison the water supplying them, to spread infection
by importing clothing from infected regions, to blow up our river and
lake steamers--regardless of the destruction of innocent lives. The
copperhead disreputable portion of the press magnified rebel successes,
and belittled those of the Union army. It was, with a large following,
an auxiliary to the Confederate army. The North would have been much
stronger with a hundred thousand of these men in the Confederate ranks
and the rest of their kind thoroughly subdued, as the Union sentiment
was in the South, than we were as the battle was fought.
As I have said, the whole South was a military camp. The colored
people, four million in number, were submissive, and worked in the field
and took care of the families while the able-bodied white men were at
the front fighting for a cause destined to defeat. The cause was
popular, and was enthusiastically supported by the young men. The
conscription took all of them. Before the war was over, further
conscriptions took those between fourteen and eighteen years of age as
junior reserves, and those between forty-five and sixty as senior
reserves. It would have been an offence, directly after the war, and
perhaps it would be now, to ask any able-bodied man in the South, who
was between the ages of fourteen and sixty at any time during the war,
whether he had been in the Confederate army. He would assert that he
had, or account for his absence from the ranks. Under such
circumstances it is hard to conceive how the North showed such a
superiority of force in every battle fought. I know they did not.
During 1862 and '3, John H. Morgan, a partisan officer, of no military
education, but possessed of courage and endurance, operated in the rear
of the Army of the Ohio in Kentucky and Tennessee. He had no base of
supplies to protect, but was at home wherever he went. The army
operating against the South, on the contrary, had to protect its lines
of communication with the North, from which all supplies had to come to
the front. Every foot of road had to be guarded by troops stationed at
convenient distances apart. These guards could not render assistance
beyond the points where stationed. Morgan Was foot-loose and could
operate where, his information--always correct--led him to believe he
could do the greatest damage. During the time he was operating in this
way he killed, wounded and captured several times the number he ever had
under his command at any one time. He destroyed many millions of
property in addition. Places he did not attack had to be guarded as if
threatened by him. Forrest, an abler soldier, operated farther west,
and held from the National front quite as many men as could be spared
for offensive operations. It is safe to say that more than half the
National army was engaged in guarding lines of supplies, or were on
leave, sick in hospital or on detail which prevented their bearing arms.
Then, again, large forces were employed where no Confederate army
confronted them. I deem it safe to say that there were no large
engagements where the National numbers compensated for the advantage of
position and intrenchment occupied by the enemy.
While I was in pursuit of General Lee, the President went to Richmond in
company with Admiral Porter, and on board his flagship. He found the
people of that city in great consternation. The leading citizens among
the people who had remained at home surrounded him, anxious that
something should be done to relieve them from suspense. General Weitzel
was not then in the city, having taken offices in one of the neighboring
villages after his troops had succeeded in subduing the conflagration
which they had found in progress on entering the Confederate capital.
The President sent for him, and, on his arrival, a short interview was
had on board the vessel, Admiral Porter and a leading citizen of
Virginia being also present. After this interview the President wrote an
order in about these words, which I quote from memory: "General Weitzel
is authorized to permit the body calling itself the Legislature of
Virginia to meet for the purpose of recalling the Virginia troops from
the Confederate armies."
Immediately some of the gentlemen composing that body wrote out a call
for a meeting and had it published in their papers. This call, however,
went very much further than Mr. Lincoln had contemplated, as he did not
say the "Legislature of Virginia" but "the body which called itself the
Legislature of Virginia." Mr. Stanton saw the call as published in the
Northern papers the very next issue and took the liberty of
countermanding the order authorizing any meeting of the Legislature, or
any other body, and this notwithstanding the fact that the President was
nearer the spot than he was.
This was characteristic of Mr. Stanton. He was a man who never
questioned his own authority, and who always did in war time what he
wanted to do. He was an able constitutional lawyer and jurist; but the
Constitution was not an impediment to him while the war lasted. In this
latter particular I entirely agree with the view he evidently held. The
Constitution was not framed with a view to any such rebellion as that of
1861-5. While it did not authorize rebellion it made no provision
against it. Yet the right to resist or suppress rebellion is as
inherent as the right of self-defence, and as natural as the right of an
individual to preserve his life when in jeopardy. The Constitution was
therefore in abeyance for the time being, so far as it in any way
affected the progress and termination of the war.
Those in rebellion against the government of the United States were not
restricted by constitutional provisions, or any other, except the acts
of their Congress, which was loyal and devoted to the cause for which
the South was then fighting. It would be a hard case when one-third of
a nation, united in rebellion against the national authority, is
entirely untrammeled, that the other two-thirds, in their efforts to
maintain the Union intact, should be restrained by a Constitution
prepared by our ancestors for the express purpose of insuring the
permanency of the confederation of the States.
After I left General Lee at Appomattox Station, I went with my staff and
a few others directly to Burkesville Station on my way to Washington.
The road from Burkesville back having been newly repaired and the ground
being soft, the train got off the track frequently, and, as a result, it
was after midnight of the second day when I reached City Point. As soon
as possible I took a dispatch-boat thence to Washington City.
While in Washington I was very busy for a time in preparing the
necessary orders for the new state of affairs; communicating with my
different commanders of separate departments, bodies of troops, etc.
But by the 14th I was pretty well through with this work, so as to be
able to visit my children, who were then in Burlington, New Jersey,
attending school. Mrs. Grant was with me in Washington at the time, and
we were invited by President and Mrs. Lincoln to accompany them to the
theatre on the evening of that day. I replied to the President's verbal
invitation to the effect, that if we were in the city we would take
great pleasure in accompanying them; but that I was very anxious to get
away and visit my children, and if I could get through my work during
the day I should do so. I did get through and started by the evening
train on the 14th, sending Mr. Lincoln word, of course, that I would not
be at the theatre.
At that time the railroad to New York entered Philadelphia on Broad
Street; passengers were conveyed in ambulances to the Delaware River,
and then ferried to Camden, at which point they took the cars again.
When I reached the ferry, on the east side of the City of Philadelphia,
I found people awaiting my arrival there; and also dispatches informing
me of the assassination of the President and Mr. Seward, and of the
probable assassination of the Vice President, Mr. Johnson, and
requesting my immediate return.
It would be impossible for me to describe the feeling that overcame me
at the news of these assassinations, more especially the assassination
of the President. I knew his goodness of heart, his generosity, his
yielding disposition, his desire to have everybody happy, and above all
his desire to see all the people of the United States enter again upon
the full privileges of citizenship with equality among all. I knew also
the feeling that Mr. Johnson had expressed in speeches and conversation
against the Southern people, and I feared that his course towards them
would be such as to repel, and make them unwilling citizens; and if they
became such they would remain so for a long while. I felt that
reconstruction had been set back, no telling how far.
I immediately arranged for getting a train to take me back to Washington
City; but Mrs. Grant was with me; it was after midnight and Burlington
was but an hour away. Finding that I could accompany her to our house
and return about as soon as they would be ready to take me from the
Philadelphia station, I went up with her and returned immediately by the
same special train. The joy that I had witnessed among the people in
the street and in public places in Washington when I left there, had
been turned to grief; the city was in reality a city of mourning. I
have stated what I believed then the effect of this would be, and my
judgment now is that I was right. I believe the South would have been
saved from very much of the hardness of feeling that was engendered by
Mr. Johnson's course towards them during the first few months of his
administration. Be this as it may, Mr. Lincoln's assassination was
particularly unfortunate for the entire nation.
Mr. Johnson's course towards the South did engender bitterness of
feeling. His denunciations of treason and his ever-ready remark,
"Treason is a crime and must be made odious," was repeated to all those
men of the South who came to him to get some assurances of safety so
that they might go to work at something with the feeling that what they
obtained would be secure to them. He uttered his denunciations with
great vehemence, and as they were accompanied with no assurances of
safety, many Southerners were driven to a point almost beyond endurance.
The President of the United States is, in a large degree, or ought to
be, a representative of the feeling, wishes and judgment of those over
whom he presides; and the Southerners who read the denunciations of
themselves and their people must have come to the conclusion that he
uttered the sentiments of the Northern people; whereas, as a matter of
fact, but for the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, I believe the great
majority of the Northern people, and the soldiers unanimously, would
have been in favor of a speedy reconstruction on terms that would be the
least humiliating to the people who had rebelled against their
government. They believed, I have no doubt, as I did, that besides
being the mildest, it was also the wisest, policy.
The people who had been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the
Union, and be incorporated as an integral part of the nation. Naturally
the nearer they were placed to an equality with the people who had not
rebelled, the more reconciled they would feel with their old
antagonists, and the better citizens they would be from the beginning.
They surely would not make good citizens if they felt that they had a
yoke around their necks.
I do not believe that the majority of the Northern people at that time
were in favor of negro suffrage. They supposed that it would naturally
follow the freedom of the negro, but that there would be a time of
probation, in which the ex-slaves could prepare themselves for the
privileges of citizenship before the full right would be conferred; but
Mr. Johnson, after a complete revolution of sentiment, seemed to regard
the South not only as an oppressed people, but as the people best
entitled to consideration of any of our citizens. This was more than
the people who had secured to us the perpetuation of the Union were
prepared for, and they became more radical in their views. The
Southerners had the most power in the executive branch, Mr. Johnson
having gone to their side; and with a compact South, and such sympathy
and support as they could get from the North, they felt that they would
be able to control the nation at once, and already many of them acted as
if they thought they were entitled to do so.
Thus Mr. Johnson, fighting Congress on the one hand, and receiving the
support of the South on the other, drove Congress, which was
overwhelmingly republican, to the passing of first one measure and then
another to restrict his power. There being a solid South on one side
that was in accord with the political party in the North which had
sympathized with the rebellion, it finally, in the judgment of Congress
and of the majority of the legislatures of the States, became necessary
to enfranchise the negro, in all his ignorance. In this work, I shall
not discuss the question of how far the policy of Congress in this
particular proved a wise one. It became an absolute necessity, however,
because of the foolhardiness of the President and the blindness of the
Southern people to their own interest. As to myself, while strongly
favoring the course that would be the least humiliating to the people
who had been in rebellion, I gradually worked up to the point where,
with the majority of the people, I favored immediate enfranchisement.
CHAPTER LXIX.
SHERMAN AND JOHNSTON--JOHNSTON'S SURRENDER TO SHERMAN--CAPTURE OF
MOBILE--WILSON'S EXPEDITION--CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS--GENERAL
THOMAS'S QUALITIES--ESTIMATE OF GENERAL CANBY.
When I left Appomattox I ordered General Meade to proceed leisurely back
to Burkesville Station with the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the
James, and to go into camp there until further orders from me. General
Johnston, as has been stated before, was in North Carolina confronting
General Sherman. It could not be known positively, of course, whether
Johnston would surrender on the news of Lee's surrender, though I
supposed he would; and if he did not, Burkesville Station was the
natural point from which to move to attack him. The army which I could
have sent against him was superior to his, and that with which Sherman
confronted him was also superior; and between the two he would
necessarily have been crushed, or driven away. With the loss of their
capital and the Army of Northern Virginia it was doubtful whether
Johnston's men would have the spirit to stand. My belief was that he
would make no such attempt; but I adopted this course as a precaution
against what might happen, however improbable.
Simultaneously with my starting from City Point, I sent a messenger to
North Carolina by boat with dispatches to General Sherman, informing him
of the surrender of Lee and his army; also of the terms which I had
given him; and I authorized Sherman to give the same terms to Johnston
if the latter chose to accept them. The country is familiar with the
terms that Sherman agreed to CONDITIONALLY, because they embraced a
political question as well as a military one and he would therefore have
to confer with the government before agreeing to them definitely.
General Sherman had met Mr. Lincoln at City Point while visiting there
to confer with me about our final movement, and knew what Mr. Lincoln
had said to the peace commissioners when he met them at Hampton Roads,
viz.: that before he could enter into negotiations with them they would
have to agree to two points: one being that the Union should be
preserved, and the other that slavery should be abolished; and if they
were ready to concede these two points he was almost ready to sign his
name to a blank piece of paper and permit them to fill out the balance
of the terms upon which we would live together. He had also seen
notices in the newspapers of Mr. Lincoln's visit to Richmond, and had
read in the same papers that while there he had authorized the convening
of the Legislature of Virginia.
Sherman thought, no doubt, in adding to the terms that I had made with
general Lee, that he was but carrying out the wishes of the President of
the United States. But seeing that he was going beyond his authority,
he made it a point that the terms were only conditional. They signed
them with this understanding, and agreed to a truce until the terms
could be sent to Washington for approval; if approved by the proper
authorities there, they would then be final; if not approved, then he
would give due notice, before resuming hostilities. As the world knows,
Sherman, from being one of the most popular generals of the land
(Congress having even gone so far as to propose a bill providing for a
second lieutenant-general for the purpose of advancing him to that
grade), was denounced by the President and Secretary of War in very
bitter terms. Some people went so far as to denounce him as a traitor
--a most preposterous term to apply to a man who had rendered so much
service as he had, even supposing he had made a mistake in granting such
terms as he did to Johnston and his army. If Sherman had taken
authority to send Johnston with his army home, with their arms to be put
in the arsenals of their own States, without submitting the question to
the authorities at Washington, the suspicions against him might have
some foundation. But the feeling against Sherman died out very rapidly,
and it was not many weeks before he was restored to the fullest
confidence of the American people.
When, some days after my return to Washington, President Johnson and the
Secretary of war received the terms which General Sherman had forwarded
for approval, a cabinet meeting was immediately called and I was sent
for. There seemed to be the greatest consternation, lest Sherman would
commit the government to terms which they were not willing to accede to
and which he had no right to grant. A message went out directing the
troops in the South not to obey General Sherman. I was ordered to
proceed at once to North Carolina and take charge of matter there
myself. Of course I started without delay, and reached there as soon as
possible. I repaired to Raleigh, where Sherman was, as quietly as
possible, hoping to see him without even his army learning of my
presence.
When I arrived I went to Sherman's headquarters, and we were at once
closeted together. I showed him the instruction and orders under which
I visited him. I told him that I wanted him to notify General Johnston
that the terms which they had conditionally agreed upon had not been
approved in Washington, and that he was authorized to offer the same
terms I had given General Lee. I sent Sherman to do this himself. I
did not wish the knowledge of my presence to be known to the army
generally; so I left it to Sherman to negotiate the terms of the
surrender solely by himself, and without the enemy knowing that I was
anywhere near the field. As soon as possible I started to get away, to
leave Sherman quite free and untrammelled.
At Goldsboro', on my way back, I met a mail, containing the last
newspapers, and I found in them indications of great excitement in the
North over the terms Sherman had given Johnston; and harsh orders that
had been promulgated by the President and Secretary of War. I knew that
Sherman must see these papers, and I fully realized what great
indignation they would cause him, though I do not think his feelings
could have been more excited than were my own. But like the true and
loyal soldier that he was, he carried out the instructions I had given
him, obtained the surrender of Johnston's army, and settled down in his
camp about Raleigh, to await final orders.
There were still a few expeditions out in the South that could not be
communicated with, and had to be left to act according to the judgment
of their respective commanders. With these it was impossible to tell
how the news of the surrender of Lee and Johnston, of which they must
have heard, might affect their judgment as to what was best to do.
The three expeditions which I had tried so hard to get off from the
commands of Thomas and Canby did finally get off: one under Canby
himself, against Mobile, late in March; that under Stoneman from East
Tennessee on the 20th; and the one under Wilson, starting from Eastport,
Mississippi, on the 22d of March. They were all eminently successful,
but without any good result. Indeed much valuable property was destroyed
and many lives lost at a time when we would have liked to spare them.
The war was practically over before their victories were gained. They
were so late in commencing operations, that they did not hold any troops
away that otherwise would have been operating against the armies which
were gradually forcing the Confederate armies to a surrender. The only
possible good that we may have experienced from these raids was by
Stoneman's getting near Lynchburg about the time the armies of the
Potomac and the James were closing in on Lee at Appomattox.
Stoneman entered North Carolina and then pushed north to strike the
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. He got upon that road, destroyed its
bridges at different places and rendered the road useless to the enemy
up to within a few miles of Lynchburg. His approach caused the
evacuation of that city about the time we were at Appomattox, and was
the cause of a commotion we heard of there. He then pushed south, and
was operating in the rear of Johnston's army about the time the
negotiations were going on between Sherman and Johnston for the latter's
surrender. In this raid Stoneman captured and destroyed a large amount
of stores, while fourteen guns and nearly two thousand prisoners were
the trophies of his success.
Canby appeared before Mobile on the 27th of March. The city of Mobile
was protected by two forts, besides other intrenchments--Spanish Fort,
on the east side of the bay, and Fort Blakely, north of the city. These
forts were invested. On the night of the 8th of April, the National
troops having carried the enemy's works at one point, Spanish Fort was
evacuated; and on the 9th, the very day of Lee's surrender, Blakely was
carried by assault, with a considerable loss to us. On the 11th the
city was evacuated.
I had tried for more than two years to have an expedition sent against
Mobile when its possession by us would have been of great advantage. It
finally cost lives to take it when its possession was of no importance,
and when, if left alone, it would within a few days have fallen into our
hands without any bloodshed whatever.
Wilson moved out with full 12,000 men, well equipped and well armed. He
was an energetic officer and accomplished his work rapidly. Forrest was
in his front, but with neither his old-time army nor his old-time
prestige. He now had principally conscripts. His conscripts were
generally old men and boys. He had a few thousand regular cavalry left,
but not enough to even retard materially the progress of Wilson's
cavalry. Selma fell on the 2d of April, with a large number of
prisoners and a large quantity of war material, machine shops, etc., to
be disposed of by the victors. Tuscaloosa, Montgomery and West Point
fell in quick succession. These were all important points to the enemy
by reason of their railroad connections, as depots of supplies, and
because of their manufactories of war material. They were fortified or
intrenched, and there was considerable fighting before they were
captured. Macon surrendered on the 21st of April. Here news was
received of the negotiations for the surrender of Johnston's army.
Wilson belonged to the military division commanded by Sherman, and of
course was bound by his terms. This stopped all fighting.
General Richard Taylor had now become the senior Confederate officer
still at liberty east of the Mississippi River, and on the 4th of May he
surrendered everything within the limits of this extensive command.
General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the trans-Mississippi department on
the 26th of May, leaving no other Confederate army at liberty to
continue the war.
Wilson's raid resulted in the capture of the fugitive president of the
defunct confederacy before he got out of the country. This occurred at
Irwinsville, Georgia, on the 11th of May. For myself, and I believe Mr.
Lincoln shared the feeling, I would have been very glad to have seen Mr.
Davis succeed in escaping, but for one reason: I feared that if not
captured, he might get into the trans-Mississippi region and there set
up a more contracted confederacy. The young men now out of homes and
out of employment might have rallied under his standard and protracted
the war yet another year. The Northern people were tired of the war,
they were tired of piling up a debt which would be a further mortgage
upon their homes.
Mr. Lincoln, I believe, wanted Mr. Davis to escape, because he did not
wish to deal with the matter of his punishment. He knew there would be
people clamoring for the punishment of the ex-Confederate president, for
high treason. He thought blood enough had already been spilled to atone
for our wickedness as a nation. At all events he did not wish to be the
judge to decide whether more should be shed or not. But his own life
was sacrificed at the hands of an assassin before the ex-president of
the Confederacy was a prisoner in the hands of the government which he
had lent all his talent and all his energies to destroy.
All things are said to be wisely directed, and for the best interest of
all concerned. This reflection does not, however, abate in the
slightest our sense of bereavement in the untimely loss of so good and
great a man as Abraham Lincoln.
He would have proven the best friend the South could have had, and saved
much of the wrangling and bitterness of feeling brought out by
reconstruction under a President who at first wished to revenge himself
upon Southern men of better social standing than himself, but who still
sought their recognition, and in a short time conceived the idea and
advanced the proposition to become their Moses to lead them triumphantly
out of all their difficulties.
The story of the legislation enacted during the reconstruction period to
stay the hands of the President is too fresh in the minds of the people
to be told now. Much of it, no doubt, was unconstitutional; but it was
hoped that the laws enacted would serve their purpose before the
question of constitutionality could be submitted to the judiciary and a
decision obtained. These laws did serve their purpose, and now remain "a
dead letter" upon the statute books of the United States, no one taking
interest enough in them to give them a passing thought.
Much was said at the time about the garb Mr. Davis was wearing when he
was captured. I cannot settle this question from personal knowledge of
the facts; but I have been under the belief, from information given to
me by General Wilson shortly after the event, that when Mr. Davis
learned that he was surrounded by our cavalry he was in his tent dressed
in a gentleman's dressing gown. Naturally enough, Mr. Davis wanted to
escape, and would not reflect much how this should be accomplished
provided it might be done successfully. If captured, he would be no
ordinary prisoner. He represented all there was of that hostility to
the government which had caused four years of the bloodiest war--and the
most costly in other respects of which history makes any record. Every
one supposed he would be tried for treason if captured, and that he
would be executed. Had he succeeded in making his escape in any
disguise it would have been adjudged a good thing afterwards by his
admirers.
As my official letters on file in the War Department, as well as my
remarks in this book, reflect upon General Thomas by dwelling somewhat
upon his tardiness, it is due to myself, as well as to him, that I give
my estimate of him as a soldier. The same remark will apply also in the
case of General Canby. I had been at West Point with Thomas one year,
and had known him later in the old army. He was a man of commanding
appearance, slow and deliberate in speech and action; sensible, honest
and brave. He possessed valuable soldierly qualities in an eminent
degree. He gained the confidence of all who served under him, and
almost their love. This implies a very valuable quality. It is a
quality which calls out the most efficient services of the troops
serving under the commander possessing it.
Thomas's dispositions were deliberately made, and always good. He could
not be driven from a point he was given to hold. He was not as good,
however, in pursuit as he was in action. I do not believe that he could
ever have conducted Sherman's army from Chattanooga to Atlanta against
the defences and the commander guarding that line in 1864. On the other
hand, if it had been given him to hold the line which Johnston tried to
hold, neither that general nor Sherman, nor any other officer could have
done it better.
Thomas was a valuable officer, who richly deserved, as he has received,
the plaudits of his countrymen for the part he played in the great
tragedy of 1861-5.
General Canby was an officer of great merit. He was naturally studious,
and inclined to the law. There have been in the army but very few, if
any, officers who took as much interest in reading and digesting every
act of Congress and every regulation for the government of the army as
he. His knowledge gained in this way made him a most valuable staff
officer, a capacity in which almost all his army services were rendered
up to the time of his being assigned to the Military Division of the
Gulf. He was an exceedingly modest officer, though of great talent and
learning. I presume his feelings when first called upon to command a
large army against a fortified city, were somewhat like my own when
marching a regiment against General Thomas Harris in Missouri in 1861.
Neither of us would have felt the slightest trepidation in going into
battle with some one else commanding. Had Canby been in other
engagements afterwards, he would, I have no doubt, have advanced without
any fear arising from a sense of the responsibility. He was afterwards
killed in the lava beds of Southern Oregon, while in pursuit of the
hostile Modoc Indians. His character was as pure as his talent and
learning were great. His services were valuable during the war, but
principally as a bureau officer. I have no idea that it was from choice
that his services were rendered in an office, but because of his
superior efficiency there.
CHAPTER LXX.
THE END OF THE WAR--THE MARCH TO WASHINGTON--ONE OF LINCOLN'S ANECDOTES
--GRAND REVIEW AT WASHINGTON--CHARACTERISTICS OF LINCOLN AND STANTON
--ESTIMATE OF THE DIFFERENT CORPS COMMANDERS.
Things began to quiet down, and as the certainty that there would be no
more armed resistance became clearer, the troops in North Carolina and
Virginia were ordered to march immediately to the capital, and go into
camp there until mustered out. Suitable garrisons were left at the
prominent places throughout the South to insure obedience to the laws
that might be enacted for the government of the several States, and to
insure security to the lives and property of all classes. I do not know
how far this was necessary, but I deemed it necessary, at that time,
that such a course should be pursued. I think now that these garrisons
were continued after they ceased to be absolutely required; but it is
not to be expected that such a rebellion as was fought between the
sections from 1861 to 1865 could terminate without leaving many serious
apprehensions in the mind of the people as to what should be done.
Sherman marched his troops from Goldsboro, up to Manchester, on the
south side of the James River, opposite Richmond, and there put them in
camp, while he went back to Savannah to see what the situation was
there.
It was during this trip that the last outrage was committed upon him.
Halleck had been sent to Richmond to command Virginia, and had issued
orders prohibiting even Sherman's own troops from obeying his,
Sherman's, orders. Sherman met the papers on his return, containing
this order of Halleck, and very justly felt indignant at the outrage.
On his arrival at Fortress Monroe returning from Savannah, Sherman
received an invitation from Halleck to come to Richmond and be his
guest. This he indignantly refused, and informed Halleck, furthermore,
that he had seen his order. He also stated that he was coming up to
take command of his troops, and as he marched through it would probably
be as well for Halleck not to show himself, because he (Sherman) would
not be responsible for what some rash person might do through
indignation for the treatment he had received. Very soon after that,
Sherman received orders from me to proceed to Washington City, and to go
into camp on the south side of the city pending the mustering-out of the
troops.
There was no incident worth noting in the march northward from
Goldsboro, to Richmond, or in that from Richmond to Washington City.
The army, however, commanded by Sherman, which had been engaged in all
the battles of the West and had marched from the Mississippi through the
Southern States to the sea, from there to Goldsboro, and thence to
Washington City, had passed over many of the battle-fields of the Army
of the Potomac, thus having seen, to a greater extent than any other
body of troops, the entire theatre of the four years' war for the
preservation of the Union.
The march of Sherman's army from Atlanta to the sea and north to
Goldsboro, while it was not accompanied with the danger that was
anticipated, yet was magnificent in its results, and equally magnificent
in the way it was conducted. It had an important bearing, in various
ways, upon the great object we had in view, that of closing the war.
All the States east of the Mississippi River up to the State of Georgia,
had felt the hardships of the war. Georgia, and South Carolina, and
almost all of North Carolina, up to this time, had been exempt from
invasion by the Northern armies, except upon their immediate sea coasts.
Their newspapers had given such an account of Confederate success, that
the people who remained at home had been convinced that the Yankees had
been whipped from first to last, and driven from pillar to post, and
that now they could hardly be holding out for any other purpose than to
find a way out of the war with honor to themselves.
Even during this march of Sherman's the newspapers in his front were
proclaiming daily that his army was nothing better than a mob of men who
were frightened out of their wits and hastening, panic-stricken, to try
to get under the cover of our navy for protection against the Southern
people. As the army was seen marching on triumphantly, however, the
minds of the people became disabused and they saw the true state of
affairs. In turn they became disheartened, and would have been glad to
submit without compromise.
Another great advantage resulting from this march, and which was
calculated to hasten the end, was the fact that the great storehouse of
Georgia was entirely cut off from the Confederate armies. As the troops
advanced north from Savannah, the destruction of the railroads in South
Carolina and the southern part of North Carolina, further cut off their
resources and left the armies still in Virginia and North Carolina
dependent for supplies upon a very small area of country, already very
much exhausted of food and forage.
In due time the two armies, one from Burkesville Junction and the other
from the neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina, arrived and went into
camp near the Capital, as directed. The troops were hardy, being inured
to fatigue, and they appeared in their respective camps as ready and fit
for duty as they had ever been in their lives. I doubt whether an equal
body of men of any nation, take them man for man, officer for officer,
was ever gotten together that would have proved their equal in a great
battle.
The armies of Europe are machines; the men are brave and the officers
capable; but the majority of the soldiers in most of the nations of
Europe are taken from a class of people who are not very intelligent and
who have very little interest in the contest in which they are called
upon to take part. Our armies were composed of men who were able to
read, men who knew what they were fighting for, and could not be induced
to serve as soldiers, except in an emergency when the safety of the
nation was involved, and so necessarily must have been more than equal
to men who fought merely because they were brave and because they were
thoroughly drilled and inured to hardships.
There was nothing of particular importance occurred during the time
these troops were in camp before starting North.
I remember one little incident which I will relate as an anecdote
characteristic of Mr. Lincoln. It occurred a day after I reached
Washington, and about the time General Meade reached Burkesville with
the army. Governor Smith of Virginia had left Richmond with the
Confederate States government, and had gone to Danville. Supposing I
was necessarily with the army at Burkesville, he addressed a letter to
me there informing me that, as governor of the Commonwealth of the State
of Virginia, he had temporarily removed the State capital from Richmond
to Danville, and asking if he would be permitted to perform the
functions of his office there without molestation by the Federal
authorities. I give this letter only in substance. He also inquired of
me whether in case he was not allowed to perform the duties of his
office, he with a few others might not be permitted to leave the country
and go abroad without interference. General Meade being informed that a
flag of truce was outside his pickets with a letter to me, at once sent
out and had the letter brought in without informing the officer who
brought it that I was not present. He read the letter and telegraphed
me its contents. Meeting Mr. Lincoln shortly after receiving this
dispatch, I repeated its contents to him. Mr. Lincoln, supposing I was
asking for instructions, said, in reply to that part of Governor Smith's
letter which inquired whether he with a few friends would be permitted
to leave the country unmolested, that his position was like that of a
certain Irishman (giving the name) he knew in Springfield who was very
popular with the people, a man of considerable promise, and very much
liked. Unfortunately he had acquired the habit of drinking, and his
friends could see that the habit was growing on him. These friends
determined to make an effort to save him, and to do this they drew up a
pledge to abstain from all alcoholic drinks. They asked Pat to join
them in signing the pledge, and he consented. He had been so long out
of the habit of using plain water as a beverage that he resorted to
soda-water as a substitute. After a few days this began to grow
distasteful to him. So holding the glass behind him, he said: "Doctor,
couldn't you drop a bit of brandy in that unbeknownst to myself."
I do not remember what the instructions were the President gave me, but
I know that Governor Smith was not permitted to perform the duties of
his office. I also know that if Mr. Lincoln had been spared, there
would have been no efforts made to prevent any one from leaving the
country who desired to do so. He would have been equally willing to
permit the return of the same expatriated citizens after they had time
to repent of their choice.
On the 18th of May orders were issued by the adjutant-general for a
grand review by the President and his cabinet of Sherman's and Meade's
armies. The review commenced on the 23d and lasted two days. Meade's
army occupied over six hours of the first day in passing the grand stand
which had been erected in front of the President's house. Sherman
witnessed this review from the grand stand which was occupied by the
President and his cabinet. Here he showed his resentment for the cruel
and harsh treatment that had unnecessarily been inflicted upon him by
the Secretary of War, by refusing to take his extended hand.
Sherman's troops had been in camp on the south side of the Potomac.
During the night of the 23d he crossed over and bivouacked not far from
the Capitol. Promptly at ten o'clock on the morning of the 24th, his
troops commenced to pass in review. Sherman's army made a different
appearance from that of the Army of the Potomac. The latter had been
operating where they received directly from the North full supplies of
food and clothing regularly: the review of this army therefore was the
review of a body of 65,000 well-drilled, well-disciplined and orderly
soldiers inured to hardship and fit for any duty, but without the
experience of gathering their own food and supplies in an enemy's
country, and of being ever on the watch. Sherman's army was not so
well-dressed as the Army of the Potomac, but their marching could not
be excelled; they gave the appearance of men who had been thoroughly
drilled to endure hardships, either by long and continuous marches or
through exposure to any climate, without the ordinary shelter of a camp.
They exhibited also some of the order of march through Georgia where the
"sweet potatoes sprung up from the ground" as Sherman's army went
marching through. In the rear of a company there would be a captured
horse or mule loaded with small cooking utensils, captured chickens and
other food picked up for the use of the men. Negro families who had
followed the army would sometimes come along in the rear of a company,
with three or four children packed upon a single mule, and the mother
leading it.
The sight was varied and grand: nearly all day for two successive days,
from the Capitol to the Treasury Building, could be seen a mass of
orderly soldiers marching in columns of companies. The National flag
was flying from almost every house and store; the windows were filled
with spectators; the door-steps and side-walks were crowded with colored
people and poor whites who did not succeed in securing better quarters
from which to get a view of the grand armies. The city was about as
full of strangers who had come to see the sights as it usually is on
inauguration day when a new President takes his seat.
It may not be out of place to again allude to President Lincoln and the
Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, who were the great conspicuous figures in
the executive branch of the government. There is no great difference of
opinion now, in the public mind, as to the characteristics of the
President. With Mr. Stanton the case is different. They were the very
opposite of each other in almost every particular, except that each
possessed great ability. Mr. Lincoln gained influence over men by
making them feel that it was a pleasure to serve him. He preferred
yielding his own wish to gratify others, rather than to insist upon
having his own way. It distressed him to disappoint others. In matters
of public duty, however, he had what he wished, but in the least
offensive way. Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority to
command, unless resisted. He cared nothing for the feeling of others.
In fact it seemed to be pleasanter to him to disappoint than to gratify.
He felt no hesitation in assuming the functions of the executive, or in
acting without advising with him. If his act was not sustained, he
would change it--if he saw the matter would be followed up until he did
so.
It was generally supposed that these two officials formed the complement
of each other. The Secretary was required to prevent the President's
being imposed upon. The President was required in the more responsible
place of seeing that injustice was not done to others. I do not know
that this view of these two men is still entertained by the majority of
the people. It is not a correct view, however, in my estimation. Mr.
Lincoln did not require a guardian to aid him in the fulfilment of a
public trust.
Mr. Lincoln was not timid, and he was willing to trust his generals in
making and executing their plans. The Secretary was very timid, and it
was impossible for him to avoid interfering with the armies covering the
capital when it was sought to defend it by an offensive movement against
the army guarding the Confederate capital. He could see our weakness,
but he could not see that the enemy was in danger. The enemy would not
have been in danger if Mr. Stanton had been in the field. These
characteristics of the two officials were clearly shown shortly after
Early came so near getting into the capital.
Among the army and corps commanders who served with me during the war
between the States, and who attracted much public attention, but of
whose ability as soldiers I have not yet given any estimate, are Meade,
Hancock, Sedgwick, Burnside, Terry and Hooker. There were others of
great merit, such as Griffin, Humphreys, Wright and Mackenzie. Of those
first named, Burnside at one time had command of the Army of the
Potomac, and later of the Army of the Ohio. Hooker also commanded the
Army of the Potomac for a short time.
General Meade was an officer of great merit, with drawbacks to his
usefulness that were beyond his control. He had been an officer of the
engineer corps before the war, and consequently had never served with
troops until he was over forty-six years of age. He never had, I
believe, a command of less than a brigade. He saw clearly and
distinctly the position of the enemy, and the topography of the country
in front of his own position. His first idea was to take advantage of
the lay of the ground, sometimes without reference to the direction we
wanted to move afterwards. He was subordinate to his superiors in rank
to the extent that he could execute an order which changed his own plans
with the same zeal he would have displayed if the plan had been his own.
He was brave and conscientious, and commanded the respect of all who
knew him. He was unfortunately of a temper that would get beyond his
control, at times, and make him speak to officers of high rank in the
most offensive manner. No one saw this fault more plainly than he
himself, and no one regretted it more. This made it unpleasant at
times, even in battle, for those around him to approach him even with
information. In spite of this defect he was a most valuable officer and
deserves a high place in the annals of his country.
General Burnside was an officer who was generally liked and respected.
He was not, however, fitted to command an army. No one knew this better
than himself. He always admitted his blunders, and extenuated those of
officers under him beyond what they were entitled to. It was hardly his
fault that he was ever assigned to a separate command.
Of Hooker I saw but little during the war. I had known him very well
before, however. Where I did see him, at Chattanooga, his achievement
in bringing his command around the point of Lookout Mountain and into
Chattanooga Valley was brilliant. I nevertheless regarded him as a
dangerous man. He was not subordinate to his superiors. He was
ambitious to the extent of caring nothing for the rights of others. His
disposition was, when engaged in battle, to get detached from the main
body of the army and exercise a separate command, gathering to his
standard all he could of his juniors.
Hancock stands the most conspicuous figure of all the general officers
who did not exercise a separate command. He commanded a corps longer
than any other one, and his name was never mentioned as having committed
in battle a blunder for which he was responsible. He was a man of very
conspicuous personal appearance. Tall, well-formed and, at the time of
which I now write, young and fresh-looking, he presented an appearance
that would attract the attention of an army as he passed. His genial
disposition made him friends, and his personal courage and his presence
with his command in the thickest of the fight won for him the confidence
of troops serving under him. No matter how hard the fight, the 2d corps
always felt that their commander was looking after them.
Sedgwick was killed at Spottsylvania before I had an opportunity of
forming an estimate of his qualifications as a soldier from personal
observation. I had known him in Mexico when both of us were
lieutenants, and when our service gave no indication that either of us
would ever be equal to the command of a brigade. He stood very high in
the army, however, as an officer and a man. He was brave and
conscientious. His ambition was not great, and he seemed to dread
responsibility. He was willing to do any amount of battling, but always
wanted some one else to direct. He declined the command of the Army of
the Potomac once, if not oftener.
General Alfred H. Terry came into the army as a volunteer without a
military education. His way was won without political influence up to
an important separate command--the expedition against Fort Fisher, in
January, 1865. His success there was most brilliant, and won for him
the rank of brigadier-general in the regular army and of major-general
of volunteers. He is a man who makes friends of those under him by his
consideration of their wants and their dues. As a commander, he won
their confidence by his coolness in action and by his clearness of
perception in taking in the situation under which he was placed at any
given time.
Griffin, Humphreys, and Mackenzie were good corps commanders, but came
into that position so near to the close of the war as not to attract
public attention. All three served as such, in the last campaign of the
armies of the Potomac and the James, which culminated at Appomattox
Court House, on the 9th of April, 1865. The sudden collapse of the
rebellion monopolized attention to the exclusion of almost everything
else. I regarded Mackenzie as the most promising young officer in the
army. Graduating at West Point, as he did, during the second year of
the war, he had won his way up to the command of a corps before its
close. This he did upon his own merit and without influence.
CONCLUSION.
The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status
will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war
began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half
slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free,
or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of
the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole
question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.
Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its
security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the
larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and
well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little
sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of
the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government
to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were
enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery
existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance
they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern
States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon
the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting
such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man
was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend
the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became
slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support
and protection of the institution.
This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than
until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute
books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of
the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long
as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not
willing to play the role of police for the South in the protection of
this particular institution.
In the early days of the country, before we had railroads, telegraphs
and steamboats--in a word, rapid transit of any sort--the States were
each almost a separate nationality. At that time the subject of slavery
caused but little or no disturbance to the public mind. But the country
grew, rapid transit was established, and trade and commerce between the
States got to be so much greater than before, that the power of the
National government became more felt and recognized and, therefore, had
to be enlisted in the cause of this institution.
It is probably well that we had the war when we did. We are better off
now than we would have been without it, and have made more rapid
progress than we otherwise should have made. The civilized nations of
Europe have been stimulated into unusual activity, so that commerce,
trade, travel, and thorough acquaintance among people of different
nationalities, has become common; whereas, before, it was but the few
who had ever had the privilege of going beyond the limits of their own
country or who knew anything about other people. Then, too, our
republican institutions were regarded as experiments up to the breaking
out of the rebellion, and monarchical Europe generally believed that our
republic was a rope of sand that would part the moment the slightest
strain was brought upon it. Now it has shown itself capable of dealing
with one of the greatest wars that was ever made, and our people have
proven themselves to be the most formidable in war of any nationality.
But this war was a fearful lesson, and should teach us the necessity of
avoiding wars in the future.
The conduct of some of the European states during our troubles shows the
lack of conscience of communities where the responsibility does not come
upon a single individual. Seeing a nation that extended from ocean to
ocean, embracing the better part of a continent, growing as we were
growing in population, wealth and intelligence, the European nations
thought it would be well to give us a check. We might, possibly, after
a while threaten their peace, or, at least, the perpetuity of their
institutions. Hence, England was constantly finding fault with the
administration at Washington because we were not able to keep up an
effective blockade. She also joined, at first, with France and Spain in
setting up an Austrian prince upon the throne in Mexico, totally
disregarding any rights or claims that Mexico had of being treated as an
independent power. It is true they trumped up grievances as a pretext,
but they were only pretexts which can always be found when wanted.
Mexico, in her various revolutions, had been unable to give that
protection to the subjects of foreign nations which she would have liked
to give, and some of her revolutionary leaders had forced loans from
them. Under pretence of protecting their citizens, these nations seized
upon Mexico as a foothold for establishing a European monarchy upon our
continent, thus threatening our peace at home. I, myself, regarded this
as a direct act of war against the United States by the powers engaged,
and supposed as a matter of course that the United States would treat it
as such when their hands were free to strike. I often spoke of the
matter to Mr. Lincoln and the Secretary of War, but never heard any
special views from them to enable me to judge what they thought or felt
about it. I inferred that they felt a good deal as I did, but were
unwilling to commit themselves while we had our own troubles upon our
hands.
All of the powers except France very soon withdrew from the armed
intervention for the establishment of an Austrian prince upon the throne
of Mexico; but the governing people of these countries continued to the
close of the war to throw obstacles in our way. After the surrender of
Lee, therefore, entertaining the opinion here expressed, I sent Sheridan
with a corps to the Rio Grande to have him where he might aid Juarez in
expelling the French from Mexico. These troops got off before they
could be stopped; and went to the Rio Grande, where Sheridan distributed
them up and down the river, much to the consternation of the troops in
the quarter of Mexico bordering on that stream. This soon led to a
request from France that we should withdraw our troops from the Rio
Grande and to negotiations for the withdrawal of theirs. Finally
Bazaine was withdrawn from Mexico by order of the French Government.
From that day the empire began to totter. Mexico was then able to
maintain her independence without aid from us.
France is the traditional ally and friend of the United States. I did
not blame France for her part in the scheme to erect a monarchy upon the
ruins of the Mexican Republic. That was the scheme of one man, an
imitator without genius or merit. He had succeeded in stealing the
government of his country, and made a change in its form against the
wishes and instincts of his people. He tried to play the part of the
first Napoleon, without the ability to sustain that role. He sought by
new conquests to add to his empire and his glory; but the signal failure
of his scheme of conquest was the precursor of his own overthrow.
Like our own war between the States, the Franco-Prussian war was an
expensive one; but it was worth to France all it cost her people. It
was the completion of the downfall of Napoleon III. The beginning was
when he landed troops on this continent. Failing here, the prestige of
his name--all the prestige he ever had--was gone. He must achieve a
success or fall. He tried to strike down his neighbor, Prussia--and
fell.
I never admired the character of the first Napoleon; but I recognize his
great genius. His work, too, has left its impress for good on the face
of Europe. The third Napoleon could have no claim to having done a good
or just act.
To maintain peace in the future it is necessary to be prepared for war.
There can scarcely be a possible chance of a conflict, such as the last
one, occurring among our own people again; but, growing as we are, in
population, wealth and military power, we may become the envy of nations
which led us in all these particulars only a few years ago; and unless
we are prepared for it we may be in danger of a combined movement being
some day made to crush us out. Now, scarcely twenty years after the
war, we seem to have forgotten the lessons it taught, and are going on
as if in the greatest security, without the power to resist an invasion
by the fleets of fourth-rate European powers for a time until we could
prepare for them.
We should have a good navy, and our sea-coast defences should be put in
the finest possible condition. Neither of these cost much when it is
considered where the money goes, and what we get in return. Money
expended in a fine navy, not only adds to our security and tends to
prevent war in the future, but is very material aid to our commerce with
foreign nations in the meantime. Money spent upon sea-coast defences is
spent among our own people, and all goes back again among the people.
The work accomplished, too, like that of the navy, gives us a feeling of
security.
England's course towards the United States during the rebellion
exasperated the people of this country very much against the mother
country. I regretted it. England and the United States are natural
allies, and should be the best of friends. They speak one language, and
are related by blood and other ties. We together, or even either
separately, are better qualified than any other people to establish
commerce between all the nationalities of the world.
England governs her own colonies, and particularly those embracing
the people of different races from her own, better than any other
nation. She is just to the conquered, but rigid. She makes them
self-supporting, but gives the benefit of labor to the laborer. She
does not seem to look upon the colonies as outside possessions which she
is at liberty to work for the support and aggrandizement of the home
government.