THE FINAL BATTLES.
SHERMAN MARCHES THROUGH THE CAROLINAS--JOHNSTON RESTORED TO
COMMAND--COLUMBIA BURNED--CHARLESTON EVACUATED--CAPTURE OF FORT
FISHER--BATTLE OF AVERYSBORO--BATTLE OF BENTONVILLE--SCHOFIELD JOINS
SHERMAN--A PEACE CONFERENCE--BATTLE OF WAYNESBORO'--SHERIDAN'S RAID ON
THE UPPER JAMES--LEE PLANS TO ESCAPE--FIGHTING BEFORE
PETERSBURG--BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS--LEE'S LINES BROKEN--RICHMOND
EVACUATED--LEE'S RETREAT--HIS SURRENDER--GRANT'S GENEROUS
TERMS--SURRENDER OF THE OTHER CONFEDERATE ARMIES.
After Sherman's army had marched through Georgia and captured
Savannah, he and General Grant at first contemplated removing it by
water to the James, and placing it where it could act in immediate
connection with the Army of the Potomac against Petersburg and
Richmond. But several considerations soon led to a different plan. One
was, the difficulty of getting together enough transports to carry
sixty-five thousand men and all their equipage without too much delay.
A still stronger one was the fact that in a march through the
Carolinas General Sherman's army could probably do more to help
Grant's and bring the war to a speedy close than if it were suddenly
set down beside it in Virginia. The question of supplies, always a
vital one for an army, had become very serious in the military affairs
of the Confederacy. The trans-Mississippi region had been cut off long
ago, the blockade of the seaports had been growing more stringent,
Sheridan had desolated the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman had eaten out
the heart of Georgia. And now if that same army, with its increased
experience and confidence, should go through South and North Carolina,
living on the country, Lee's position in the defences of Richmond
would soon become untenable for mere lack of something for his army to
eat. Sherman's military instinct never failed him; and, after tarrying
at Savannah three weeks, he gathered up his forces for another stride
toward the final victory. Turning over the city on January 18, 1865,
to Gen. John G. Foster, who was in command on the coast, he issued
orders on the 19th for the movement of his whole army.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL ALFRED H. TERRY.]
[Illustration: A BOMB PROOF, FORT FISHER.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL N. M. CURTIS.]
The right wing was concentrated at Pocotaligo, about forty miles north
of Savannah, and the left at Robertsville, twenty miles west of
Pocotaligo. After some delay caused by the weather and the necessity
for final preparations, the northward march was begun on the 1st of
February. Sherman had sent out rumors that represented both Charleston
and Augusta as his immediate goal; but instead of turning aside for
either of those cities, he pushed straight northward, on a route
midway between them, toward Columbia.
This march, though not so romantic as that through Georgia, where a
great army was for several weeks hidden from all its friends, was
really much more difficult and dangerous, and required greater skill.
In the march from Atlanta to the sea, the army moved parallel with the
courses of the rivers, and found highways between them that it was not
easy for any but a large force to obstruct or destroy. But in the
march through the Carolinas, all the streams, and some of them were
rivers, had to be crossed. A single man could burn a bridge and stop
an army for several hours. Moreover, after the disasters that befell
General Hood at Franklin and Nashville, public sentiment in the
Confederacy had demanded the reinstatement of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston,
and that able soldier had been placed in command of whatever remained
of Hood's army, to which were added all the scattered detachments and
garrisons that were available, and with this force he took the field
against his old antagonist. Of course he was not able now to meet
Sherman in anything like a pitched battle; but there was no telling
how a sudden blow {440} might fall upon an army on the march. Another
danger, which was seriously contemplated by Sherman, was that Lee,
instead of remaining in his intrenchments while his source of supply
was being cut off, might with his whole army slip away from Grant and
come down to strike Sherman somewhere between Columbia and Raleigh.
With a caution that admirably balanced his boldness, Sherman arranged
to have the fleet coöperate with him along the coast, watching his
progress and establishing points where supplies could be reached and
refuge taken if necessary. He even sent engineers to repair the
railroads that, starting from the ports of Wilmington and Newbern,
unite at Goldsboro', and to collect rolling-stock there. He intended,
when once under way, to push through to Goldsboro', four hundred and
twenty-five miles, as rapidly as possible.
Wheeler's cavalry had been considerably reduced by its constant
efforts to delay the march through Georgia, and Wade Hampton's,
heretofore with the Army of Northern Virginia, was now sent down to
its assistance. They felled trees in the roads, and attempted to make
a stand at Salkehatchie River; but Sherman's men made nothing of
picking up the trees and casting them one side, while the force at the
river was quickly brushed away. The South Carolina Railroad was soon
reached, and the track was destroyed for miles. Then all the columns
pushed on for Columbia. Sherman expected to meet serious opposition
there, for it was the capital of the State; but the Confederate
leaders were holding their forces at Charleston and Augusta,
confidently expecting those cities to be attacked, and nothing but
Hampton's cavalry was left to take care of Columbia. The main
difficulty was at the rivers, where the Confederates had burned the
bridges, which Sherman's men rapidly rebuilt, and on the 17th the
National troops entered the city as Hampton's cavalry left it. Bales
of cotton piled up in the streets were on fire, there was a high wind,
and the flakes of cotton were flying through the air like a
snow-storm. In spite of all efforts of the soldiers, the fire
persistently spread at night, several buildings burst into a blaze,
and before morning the heart of the city was a heap of ruins. There
has been an acrimonious dispute as to the responsibility for this
fire. It seems probable that Hampton's soldiers set fire to the
cotton, perhaps without orders, and it seems improbable that any one
would purposely set fire to the city. At all events, Sherman's men did
their utmost to extinguish the flames, and that general gave the
citizens five hundred head of cattle, and did what he could to shelter
them. He did destroy the arsenal purposely, and tons of powder, shot,
and shell were taken out of it, hauled to the river, and sunk in deep
water. He also destroyed the foundries and the establishment in which
the Confederacy's paper money was printed, large quantities of which
were found and carried away by the soldiers.
That same day, the 18th, Charleston was evacuated by the Confederate
forces under General Hardee, and a brigade of National troops
commanded by General Schimmelpfennig promptly took possession of it.
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL ADELBERT AMES AND STAFF.]
[Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHAN GOFF, JR.]
[Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ALBERT M. BLACKMAN.]
[Illustration: BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOSEPH C. ABBOTT.]
On the 20th, leaving Columbia, Sherman's army bore away for
Fayetteville, the right wing going through Cheraw, and the left
through Lancaster and Sneedsboro', and threatening {441} Charlotte and
Salisbury. The most serious difficulty was met at Catawba River, where
the bridges were destroyed, the floods interfered with the building of
new ones, and there was a delay of nearly a week. In Cheraw was stored
a large amount of valuable personal property, including fine furniture
and costly wines, which had been sent from Charleston for
safe-keeping. Most of this fell into the hands of the invading army.
Here also were found a large number of arms and thirty-six hundred
barrels of powder; and here, as at Columbia, lives were lost by the
carelessness of a soldier in exploding the powder.
Fayetteville was reached on the 11th of March, and here communication
was opened with Gen. Alfred H. Terry, whose men had captured Fort
Fisher, below Wilmington, after a gallant fight, in January, and later
the city itself, thus closing that harbor to blockade-runners. In
taking the fort, Terry's men had fought their way from traverse to
traverse, and the stubborn garrison had only yielded when they
literally reached the last ditch. All this time the Confederate
forces, somewhat scattered, had hung on the flanks of Sherman's column
or disposed themselves to protect the points that were threatened. But
now they knew he was going to Goldsboro', and accordingly they
concentrated in his front, between Fayetteville and that place.
At Averysboro', thirty-five miles south of Raleigh, on the 16th of
March, the left wing suddenly came upon Hardee's forces intrenched
across its path. The left flank of the Confederates was soon turned,
and they fell back to a stronger position. Here a direct attack was
made, but without success, and Kilpatrick's cavalry was roughly
handled by a division of Confederate infantry. General Slocum then
began a movement to turn the flank again, and in the night Hardee
retreated. Each side had lost five hundred men.
Averysboro' is about forty miles west of Goldsboro'. Midway between is
Bentonville, where on the 19th the left wing again found the enemy
intrenched across the way, this time in greater force, and commanded
by General Johnston. Thickets of blackjack protected the flanks, and
it was ugly ground for fighting over. Slocum's men attacked the
position in force as soon as they came upon it. They quickly broke the
Confederate right flank, drove it back, and planted batteries to
command that part of the field. On the other flank the thickets
interfered more with the organization of both sides, the National
troops threw up intrenchments, both combatants attacked alternately,
and the fighting was very bloody. After nightfall the Confederates
withdrew toward Raleigh, and the road was then open for Sherman to
march into Goldsboro'. At Bentonville, the last battle fought by this
army, the National loss was sixteen hundred and four men, the
Confederate twenty-three hundred and forty-two. At Goldsboro' Sherman
was joined by Schofield's corps, which had been transferred thither
from Thomas's army.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL EDWARD O. C. ORD.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER.]
Several attempts to negotiate a peace were made during the winter of
1864-65, the most notable of which took place early in February, when
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, accompanied
by John A. Campbell and Robert M. T. Hunter, applied for permission to
pass through Grant's lines for the purpose. They were conducted to
Fort Monroe, met President Lincoln and Secretary Seward on a steamer
in Hampton Roads, and had a long and free discussion. The Confederate
commissioners proposed an armistice, with the hope that after a time,
if trade and friendly relations were resumed, some sort of settlement
or compromise could be reached without more fighting. But Mr. Lincoln
would consent to no peace or armistice of any kind, except on
condition of the immediate {442} disbandment of the Confederate armies
and government, the restoration of the Union, and the abolition of
slavery. With these points secured, he was willing to concede
everything else. Mr. Stephens, trying to convince Mr. Lincoln that he
might properly recognize the Confederacy, cited the example of Charles
I. of England negotiating with his rebellious subjects. "I am not
strong on history," said Lincoln; "I depend mainly on Secretary Seward
for that. All I remember about Charles is, that he lost his head." The
Confederate commissioners were not authorized to concede the
restoration of the Union, and thus the conference ended with no
practical result.
Late in February General Sheridan, at the head of ten thousand
cavalry, moved far up the Shenandoah Valley, and at Waynesboro' his
third division, commanded by General Custer, met Early's force on the
2d of March. In the engagements that ensued, Early was completely
defeated, and about fifteen hundred of his men were captured, together
with every gun he had, and all his trains. Sheridan then ruined the
locks in the James River Canal, destroyed portions of the railroads
toward Lynchburg and Gordonsville, and rode down the peninsula to
White House, crossed over to the James and joined Grant, taking post
on the left of the army, and occupying Dinwiddie Court House on the
29th.
[Illustration: GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN.]
Grant and Lee had both been waiting impatiently for the roads to dry,
so that wagons and guns could be moved--Lee, because he saw that
Richmond could not be held any longer, and was anxious to get away;
Grant, because he was anxious to begin the final campaign and prevent
Lee from getting away. The only chance for Lee to escape was by
slipping past Grant's left, and either joining Johnston in North
Carolina or taking a position in the mountainous country to the west.
But Grant's left extended too far westward to permit of this without
great hazard. To compel him to contract his lines, drawing in his
left, Lee planned a bold attack on his right, which was executed in
the night of the 24th. Large numbers of deserters had recently left
the {443} Confederate army and walked across to Grant's lines,
bringing their arms with them, and this circumstance was now used for
a ruse. At a point where the hostile lines were not more than a
hundred yards apart, some of General Gordon's men walked out to the
National picket-line as if they were deserters, seized the pickets,
and sent them back as prisoners. Then a column charged through the
gap, surprised the men in the main line, and captured a section of the
works. But General Parke, commanding the Ninth Corps, where the
assault was delivered, promptly made dispositions to check it. The
Confederates were headed off in both directions, and a large number of
guns were soon planted where they could sweep the ground that had been
captured. A line of intrenchments was thrown up in the rear, and the
survivors of the charging column found themselves where they could
neither go forward, nor retreat, nor be reinforced. Consequently they
were all made prisoners. This affair cost the Confederates about four
thousand men, and inflicted a loss of two thousand upon the National
army.
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL ROMEYN B. AYRES.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY E. DAVIES, JR.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL AUGUST V. KAUTZ. MAJOR-GENERAL
GODFREY WEITZEL.]
Grant, instead of contracting his lines, was making dispositions to
extend them. Three divisions under Gen. E. O. C. Ord were brought from
his right, before Richmond, in the night of the 27th, and placed on
his extreme left, while a movement was planned for the 29th by which
that wing was to be pushed out to the Southside Railroad. When the day
appointed for the movement arrived, heavy rains had made the ground so
soft that the roads had to be corduroyed before the artillery could be
dragged over them. But the army was used to this sort of work, and
performed it with marvellous quickness. Small trees were cut down, and
rail fences disappeared in a twinkling, while the rude flooring thus
constructed stretched out over the sodden road and kept the wheels of
the guns from sinking hopelessly in the mire and quicksands.
{444} [Illustration: SHERIDAN AND HIS GENERALS RECONNOITRING AT FIVE
FORKS (DINWIDDIE COURT-HOUSE).]
Grant's extreme left, where the critical movement was to be made, was
now held by his most energetic lieutenant, General Sheridan, with his
magnificent cavalry. By Grant's orders, Sheridan made a march through
Dinwiddie Court House, to come in upon the extreme Confederate right
at Five Forks, which he struck on the 31st. He had no difficulty in
driving away the Confederate cavalry; but when a strong infantry force
was encountered he was himself driven back, and called upon Grant for
help. Grant sent the Fifth Corps to his assistance; but it was
unusually slow in moving, and was stopped by the loss of a bridge at
Gravelly Run, so that it was midday of April 1st before Sheridan began
to get it in hand. Lee had strengthened the force holding Five Forks;
but Sheridan was determined to capture the place, and when his troops
were all up, late in the afternoon, he opened the battle on a
well-conceived plan. {445} Engaging the enemy with his cavalry in
front, he used the Fifth Corps as if it were his immense right arm,
swinging it around so as to embrace and crush the Confederate force.
With bloody but brief fighting the manoeuvre was successful; Five
Forks was secured, and more than five thousand prisoners were taken.
Sheridan's loss was about one thousand. In the hour of victory came
orders from Sheridan relieving Warren of his command, because of that
officer's slowness in bringing his corps to the attack. Whether this
harsh action was justified or not, it threw a blight upon the career
of one of the best corps commanders that the Army of the Potomac ever
had, and excited the regret, if not the indignation, of every man that
had served under him.
Judging that Lee must have drawn forces from other parts of his line
to strengthen his right, Grant followed up the advantage by attacking
Lee's centre at daybreak the next morning, Sunday, April 2d, with the
corps of Wright and Parke, the Sixth and Ninth. Both of these broke
through the Confederate lines in the face of a musketry fire, took
large portions of them in reverse, and captured three or four thousand
prisoners and several guns. The Second Corps, under Gen. Andrew A.
Humphreys, and three divisions under General Ord, made a similar
movement, with similar success; Sheridan moved up on the left, and the
outer defences of Petersburg were now in the possession of the
National forces, who encircled the city with a continuous line from a
point on the Appomattox River above to one below. Two strong
earthworks, Forts Gregg and Whitworth, salient to the inner
Confederate line, still held out. But Foster's division of the
Twenty-fourth Corps carried Fort Gregg after a costly assault, and
Fort Whitworth then surrendered. In the fighting of this day the
Confederate general A. P. Hill was killed.
General Lee now sent a telegram to Richmond, saying that both cities
must be evacuated. It was received in church by Mr. Davis, who quietly
withdrew without waiting for the service to be finished. As the signs
of evacuation became evident to the people, there was a general rush
for means of conveyance, and property of all sorts was brought into
the streets in confused masses. Committees appointed by the city
council attempted to destroy all the liquor, and hundreds of
barrelfuls were poured into the gutters. The great tobacco warehouses
were set on fire, under military orders, and the iron-clad rams in the
river blown up; while a party of drunken soldiers began a course of
pillaging, which became contagious and threw everything into the
wildest confusion. The next morning a detachment of black troops from
Gen. Godfrey Weitzel's command marched into the city, and the flag of
the Twelfth Maine Regiment was hoisted over the Capitol.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL A. H. COLQUITT, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WADE HAMPTON, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL G. W. C. LEE, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT, JR., C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM MAHONE, C. S. A.]
When Lee, with the remnant of his army, withdrew from Richmond and
Petersburg, he fled westward, still keeping up the organization,
though his numbers were constantly {446} diminishing by desertion,
straggling, and capture. Grant was in close pursuit, striving to head
him off, and determined not to let him escape. He moved mainly on a
parallel route south of Lee's, attacking vigorously whenever any
portion of the hostile forces approached near enough. Some of these
engagements were very sharply contested; and as the men on both sides
had attained the highest perfection of destructive skill, and were not
sheltered by intrenchments, the losses were severe, and the seventy
miles of the race was a long track of blood. There were collisions at
Jetersville, Detonville, Deep Creek, Sailor's Creek, Paine's Cross
Roads, and Farmville; the most important being that at Sailor's Creek,
where Custer broke the Confederate line, capturing four hundred
wagons, sixteen guns, and many prisoners, and then the Sixth Corps
came up and captured the whole of Ewell's corps, including Ewell
himself and four other generals. Lee was stopped by the loss of a
provision train, and spent a day in trying to collect from the
surrounding country something for his famished soldiers to eat.
[Illustration: DEFENCE OF FORT GREGG, PETERSBURG.]
When he arrived at Appomattox Court House, April 9th, a week from the
day he set out, he found Sheridan's dismounted cavalry in line across
his path, and his infantry advanced confidently to brush them away.
But the cavalrymen drew off to the right, and disclosed a heavy line
of blue-coated infantry and gleaming steel. Before this the weary
Confederates recoiled, and just as Sheridan was preparing to charge
upon their flank with his cavalry a white flag was sent out and
hostilities were suspended on information that negotiations for a
surrender were in progress. Grant had first demanded Lee's surrender
in a note written on the afternoon of the 7th. Three or four other
notes had passed between them, and on the 9th the two commanders met
at a house in the village, where they wrote and exchanged two brief
letters by which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia was
effected; the terms being simply that the men were to lay down their
arms and return to their homes, not to be molested so long as they did
not again take up arms against the United States. The exceeding
generosity of these terms, to an army that had exacted almost the last
life it had power to destroy, was a surprise to many who remembered
the unconditional surrender that General Grant had demanded at
Vicksburg and Fort Donelson. But he considered that the war was over,
and thought the defeated insurgents would at once return to their
homes and become good citizens of the United States. In pursuance of
this idea, he ordered that they be permitted to take their horses with
them, as they "would need them for the ploughing." The starving
Confederates were immediately fed by their captors; and, by General
Grant's orders, cheering, firing of salutes, and other demonstrations
of exultation over the great and decisive victory were immediately
stopped. The number of officers and men paroled, according to the
terms of the surrender, was twenty-eight thousand three hundred and
sixty-five.
The next day General Lee issued, in the form of a general order, a
farewell address to his army in which he lauded them in unmeasured
terms, to the implied disparagement of their conquerors, and assured
them of his "unceasing admiration of their constancy and devotion to
their country." It seems not to have occurred to the general that he
had no army, for it had been taken away from him, and no right to
issue a military document of any kind, for he was a prisoner of war;
and he certainly must have forgotten that the costly court of last
resort, to which he and they had appealed, had just decided that their
country as he defined it had no existence.
General Johnston, who was confronting Sherman in North Carolina,
surrendered his army to that commander at Durham Station, near
Raleigh, on the 26th of April, receiving the same terms that had been
granted to Lee; and the surrender of all the other Confederate armies
soon followed, the last being the command of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, at
Shreveport, La., on the 26th of May. The number of Johnston's
immediate command surrendered and paroled was thirty-six thousand
eight hundred and seventeen, to whom were added fifty-two thousand
four hundred and fifty-three in Georgia and Florida.
{447} [Illustration: THE McLEAN HOUSE WHERE GENERAL LEE SURRENDERED TO
GENERAL GRANT.]
[Illustration: THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE.]
{448}