CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNOR SWAIN AND GENERAL SHERMAN--GOVERNOR
VANCE'S POSITION AND CONDUCT--KILPATRICK--THE CONDUCT OF THE
SERVANTS--"LEE'S MEN"--PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
I am persuaded that it requires the exercise of an implicit faith,
and a total rejection of the evidence of things seen, to believe that
General Sherman as a man, deplored the policy which, as a general,
he felt bound to pursue. I shall, however, give him the benefit of
his own professions, which, whether sincere or not, are certainly in
unison with the part he played in the treaty with General Johnston. The
following correspondence will be read with interest:
CHAPEL HILL, April 19, 1865.
_Major-General W.T. Sherman, commanding United States Forces_:
GENERAL: ... On my return to this village on Saturday morning,
fifteenth instant, I found that General Wheeler, with his division of
cavalry, had been encamped here for two days. He resumed his march
on Sunday morning, leaving the country denuded to a considerable
extent of forage, and taking with him a number of horses and mules.
General Atkins arrived with his brigade on Monday morning, and is in
camp here now. I have had several interviews with General Atkins, and
have pleasure in stating that he manifests a disposition to execute
his orders with as much forbearance as he deems compatible with the
proper discharge of his duty. Nevertheless, many worthy families have
been stripped by his soldiers of the necessary means of subsistence.
A Baptist clergyman--a most estimable, quiet, and charitable citizen,
and the most extensive farmer within a circle of three miles--is
almost entirely destitute of provision for man and beast; and with
a family of more than fifty persons, (white and colored,) has not a
single horse or mule. Other instances, not less striking, exist, of
families in less affluent circumstances; but I refer particularly to
Mr. Purefoy, because he has been my near neighbor for about thirty
years, and I hold him in the highest estimation. He, like many others,
is not merely without the present means of subsistence, but unless his
horses and mules are restored or replaced, can make no provision for
the future. The delay of a few days even may render it impossible to
plant corn in proper time.
I am satisfied from the impression made on me in our recent interview,
that personally, you have no disposition to add to the unavoidable
horrors of war, by availing yourself of the utmost license which
writers on the subject deem admissible, but that, on the contrary,
you would prefer to treat the peaceful tillers of the soil with no
unnecessary harshness. I venture to hope, therefore, that the present
state of negotiations between the contending armies will enable you
to relax the severity of the orders under which General Atkins is
acting, and I am satisfied that if you shall feel yourself justified
by the course of events in doing so, an intimation of your purpose
will be welcome intelligence to him.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
D.L. Swain.
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE }
MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, }
RALEIGH, N.C., April 22, 1865. }
_Hon. D.L. Swain, Chapel Hill, N.C._:
My Dear Sir: Yours of April nineteenth was laid before me yesterday,
and I am pleased that you recognize in General Atkins a fair
representative of our army.
The moment war ceases, and I think that time is at hand, all seizures
of horses and private property will cease on our part. And it may be
that we will be able to spare some animals for the use of the farmers
of your neighborhood. There now exists a species of truce, but we must
stand prepared for action; but I believe that in a very few days a
definitive and general peace will be arranged, when I will make orders
that will be in accordance with the new state of affairs.
I do believe that I fairly represent the feelings of my
countrymen--that we prefer peace to war; but if war is forced upon
us, we must meet it; but if peace be possible, we will accept it, and
be the friends of the farmers and working classes of North-Carolina,
as well as actual patrons of churches, colleges, asylums, and all
institutions of learning and charity. Accept the assurances of my
respect and high esteem.
I am, truly yours,
W.T. Sherman,
Major-General Commanding.
Without ascribing to General Sherman any extraordinary degree of merit
as a writer, I am inclined to give him credit for sincerity in these
professions, simply because of the corroborating evidence afforded by
his conduct in the treaty with Johnston. Their first agreement was
not ratified at Washington, and General Sherman's position therein
was severely censured; but no one who rightly estimated the condition
of the South at the close of the war, and the state of public feeling
among us, has ever doubted that, if that treaty had been ratified, the
happiest results would have followed, and an immense amount of trouble,
expense, and evil would have been avoided by the whole country. I
repeat what I have said previously, that General Sherman alone, of all
the prominent men and leaders among our antagonists, was at that time
possessed of the requisite ability and statesmanship and magnanimity to
comprehend the situation, and seize the opportunity and the means for
an equitable adjustment of our difficulties. I greatly regret not being
able to present my readers with a copy of his letter of invitation
to Governor Vance to return to Raleigh. On the fourteenth of April
General Johnston sent him his first letter, requesting a suspension of
hostilities, with a view to entering into arrangements for putting a
stop to the war. This application was replied to by General Sherman in
a really noble and generous spirit, and their correspondence resulted
in those interviews at Durham's Station, on the North-Carolina Central
Railroad, which concluded the war and have become historical. No one
can read that correspondence without seeing unmistakable evidence
that General Sherman manifested an eager anxiety to save the South
from further devastation. Perhaps a late remorse had touched him; but
however that may be, in the _civil_ policy he has always advocated
toward the South, he has shown himself at once generous and politic.
If he had pursued an equally far-sighted course as a soldier; if he
had advocated a humane forbearance toward the defenseless people who
were crushed beneath his march; if he had enforced a strict discipline
in his army, and chosen to appear as a restorer rather than as a
destroyer, there are few at the South who would not join to pronounce
him the hero of the war on the Northern side, and his name would
worthily go down to posterity by the side of the great captain of the
age, who declared, when leading his victorious veterans into France,
that rather than suffer them to pillage the country as they passed, he
would resign his command.
* * * * *
While Generals Johnston and Sherman were engaged in their negotiations
at Durham's, Governor Vance found that by having obeyed President
Davis's summons to Greensboro before accepting General Sherman's
invitation to Raleigh, he was effectually precluded from all further
participation in the affairs of the State. I am not at liberty to say
why or how this was; but it is probable the Governor himself does
not very deeply regret it, since it is not likely he would have been
permitted by the Federal authorities to retain his office, even if he
had returned to Raleigh and resumed the reins. All General Sherman's
views and official acts as peacemaker were speedily disavowed and
overruled at Washington; and though Governor Vance was willing to have
made the experiment, being urged thereto by his best friends, yet, as
_matters have since turned out_, it is as well that he was prevented.
He and his noble State were equally incapable of any attempt to make
terms for themselves, even had it been likely that any terms would have
been granted. Our fortunes were to be those of our sister States whom
we had joined deliberately, fought for, and suffered with; and Governor
Vance was never more truly our representative than in the treatment he
received from the Federal Government after the surrender.
Our Governor left Hillsboro on Saturday, arrived in Greensboro on
Sunday morning, April sixteenth, and found that President Davis had
left for Charlotte the day before. The whole Confederate Government
left Danville the preceding Monday, April tenth, arrived at Greensboro
on the same day, and had ever since been living in the cars around the
railroad station at that place. Mr. Trenholm being very ill, had been
taken to Governor Morehead's. But the Confederate President, and all
the Government officials lived for five rainy days in the miserable
leaky cars that had brought them thither, having abundant government
stores of provision in their train. On the slope of a hill near by,
which tradition points out as that on which General Greene had held a
council of war previous to the battle of Guilford, in 1781, President
Davis and his Cabinet, and Generals Beauregard and Johnston held their
last conference a day or two before Governor Vance's arrival. It had
resulted in the first terms which General Johnston was authorized
to make with General Sherman, and he was already on his way back to
Hillsboro, to hold his first interview with the Federal commander.
Failing to see the President, Governor Vance would now have returned
to Raleigh. All that can be said at this point is, that he _was not
permitted by our military authorities to pass through their lines while
the negotiations were pending_. He then followed President Davis to
Charlotte, and had a final interview with him, giving him notice of his
intention, as General Johnston was then on the point of surrendering
the army, to surrender himself to Sherman, and use what means were
in his power to save the State and State property from further ruin,
treating the Confederacy as at an end. Returning to Greensboro, he
found the first terms agreed upon had been rejected at Washington,
and the two commanding generals were engaged in a fresh negotiation.
Failing still to receive permission to proceed to Raleigh, he wrote a
letter to General Sherman, and sent it by Treasurer Worth, who found
on his arrival in Raleigh that General Sherman was gone, and General
Schofield was in command, who refused to allow Governor Vance to return
at all.
The Governor then remained quietly in Greensboro until Schofield's
arrival there, when he had an interview with him, giving him necessary
information as to State property, records, etc., etc., and bespeaking
his protection for them and for our people, especially in those
localities where they were at feud with each other. He then tendered
his own surrender, which General Schofield refused to accept, saying he
had no orders to arrest him, and he might go where he pleased. Governor
Vance then told him he would join his family at Statesville, and would
be found there if requisition should be made for him. He arrived in
Statesville, rejoining his family on the fourth of May--by a curious
coincidence, the very day on which, four years before, he had left
them, a volunteer for the war! And four such years!--sketched for us
thirty years ago in that sublime and solemn picture upon the canvas
of Webster, where lay a land rent with civil feuds, and drenched in
fraternal blood. He remained until the thirteenth, when he was arrested
by order of the Federal Government, by Major Porter, commanding a
detachment of three hundred cavalry, Ninth Pennsylvania, conveyed a
prisoner to Raleigh, and thence to the Old Capitol Prison at Washington
City.
On the thirteenth of April, General Sherman entered Raleigh. The
day before, General Stoneman had occupied Salisbury. He entered the
State from Knoxville, Tenn., taking most of the towns in his way,
and committing an immense amount of damage, and finally arriving
in Salisbury just in time to destroy utterly all the valuable State
and Confederate property which had been so sedulously conveyed from
Raleigh, to escape General Sherman! The particulars of this important
and successful move I have as yet been unable to procure. I hope,
however, to present them at some time in a detailed and authentic
narrative. The coöperation with Sherman was timely, and would have
been a perfect success if Stoneman had ventured to hold Salisbury. He
might easily have done so, though, to be sure, he did not know that;
but if he had, he might have given checkmate to the Confederacy at
once. President Davis would never have reached Charlotte. As it was,
the raiders from Stoneman's command, who cut the Danville road above
Greensboro, were within half an hour of capturing the whole Confederate
Government in its flight.
During the occupation of Chapel Hill by Kilpatrick's cavalry, the
citizens of the place possessed their souls in as much patience as
they could muster up, endeavoring to arrive at a stoical not to say
philosophical frame of mind, in view of the sudden dislocation of all
things--among other things, maintaining a decent degree of composure
upon the establishment of Liberia in our midst, and accommodating
ourselves to this new phase of things with a good deal of grim humor.
The negroes, however, behaved much better, on the whole, than Northern
letter-writers represent them to have done. Indeed, I do not know a
race more studiously misrepresented than they have been and are at
this present time. They behaved well during the war: if they had not,
it could not have lasted eighteen months. They showed a fidelity and
a steadiness which speaks not only well for themselves but well for
their training and the system under which they lived. And when their
liberators arrived, there was no indecent excitement on receiving the
gift of liberty, nor displays of impertinence to their masters. In one
or two instances they gave "Missus" to understand that they desired
present payment for their services in gold and silver, but, in general,
the tide of domestic life flowed on externally as smoothly as ever. In
fact, though of course few at the North will believe me, I am sure that
they felt for their masters, and secretly sympathized with their ruin.
They knew that they were absolutely penniless and conquered; and though
they were glad to be free, yet they did not turn round, as New-England
letter-writers have represented, to exult over their owners, nor
exhibit the least trace of New-England malignity. So the bread was
baked in those latter days, the clothes were washed and ironed, and the
baby was nursed as zealously as ever, though both parties understood
at once that the service was voluntary. The Federal soldiers sat a
good deal in the kitchens; but the division being chiefly composed
of North-western men, who had little love for the negro, (indeed I
heard some d----n him as the cause of the war, and say that they would
much rather put a bullet through an abolitionist than through a
Confederate soldier,) there was probably very little incendiary talk
and instructions going on. In all which, in comparison with other
localities, we were much favored.
So we endeavored to play out the play with dignity and self-possession,
watching the long train of foragers coming in every day by every
high-road and by-way leading from the country, laden with the substance
of our friends and neighbors for many miles, (though in many cases,
let me say, the Government made payment for food and forage taken
after peace was declared,) watching them with such feelings as made us
half ashamed of our own immunity, wondering where it would all end,
and that we should have lived to see such a day; reviewing the height
from which we had fallen, and struggling, I say, to wear a look of
proud composure, when all our assumed stoicism and resignation was put
to flight by the appearance, on a certain day, of a squad of unarmed
men in gray, dusty and haggard, walking slowly along the road. A
moment's look, a hasty inquiry, and "_Lee's men!_" burst from our lips,
and tears from our eyes. There they were, the heroes of the army of
Virginia, walking home, each with _his pass_ in his pocket, and nothing
else. To run after them, to call them in, to feel honored at shaking
those rough hands, to spread the table for them, to cry over them,
and say again and again, "God bless you all; we are just as proud of
you, and thank you just as much as if it had turned out differently;"
this was a work which stirred our inmost souls, and has left a tender
memory which will outlast life. Day after day we saw them, sometimes
in twos and threes, sometimes in little companies, making the best
of their way toward their distant homes, penniless and dependent on
wayside charity for their food, plodding along, while the blue jackets
pranced gayly past on the best blood of Southern stables. But I am
glad to record that wherever a Federal soldier met any of them, he
was prompt to offer help and food, and express a kindly and soldierly
cordiality. Grant's men, they all said, had been especially generous.
There was something worth studying in the air and expression of these
men, a something which had a beneficial and soothing effect on the
observers. They were not unduly cast down, nor had any appearance of
the humiliation that was burning into our souls. They were serious,
calm, and self-possessed. They said they were satisfied that all had
been done that could be done, and they seemed to be sustained by the
sense of duty done and well done, and the event left to God, and
with His award they had no intention of quarreling. It was a fair
fight, they said, but the South had been starved out; one dark-eyed
young South-Carolinian said, for his part he was going home to settle
down, and if any body ever said "secesh" to him again, he meant to
knock 'em over. Many looked thin and feeble; and a gallant major from
Fayetteville told me himself that when ordered to the last charge, he
and his men, who had been living for some days on parched corn, were so
weak that they reeled in their saddles. "But we would have gone again,"
he added, "if Lee had said so."
The news of the death of President Lincoln, received at first with
utter incredulity, deepened the gloom and horrible uncertainty in which
we lived. That he was dead simply may not have excited any regret
among people who for four years had been learning to regard him as
the prime agent in all our troubles. But when the time, place, and
manner of his death came to be told, an unaffected and deep horror
and dismay filled our minds. The time has not yet come for Southern
people to estimate President Lincoln fairly. We never could admire
him as he appeared as a candidate for the Presidency, nor look upon
him as a great man, in any sense of the word. But even if we had
recognized him as a lofty and commanding genius, fit to guide the
destiny of a great nation through a crisis of imminent peril, the
smoke of the battle-fields would have obscured to us all his good
qualities, and we should have regarded him only as the malignant star,
whose ascendency boded nothing but evil to us. He was always presented
to us in caricature. The Southern press never mentioned him but with
some added _sobriquet_ of contempt and hatred. His simplicity of
character and kindliness of heart we knew nothing of; nor would many
now at the South, much as they may deplore his death, concede to him
the possession of any such virtues. They judged him by the party which
took possession of him after his inauguration, and by his advisers.
But a sense of remorse fills my mind now as I write of him, realizing
how much that was really good and guileless, and well-intentioned and
generous, may have come to an untimely end in the atrocious tragedy at
Ford's Theatre. The extravagance of eulogy by which the Northern people
have sought to express their sense of his worth and of his loss, has
had much to do with our unwillingness to judge him fairly. To place the
Illinois lawyer by the side of Washington would have been an offense
against taste and common-sense; but to compare him to the SON OF GOD,
to ascribe to him also the work of "dying the just for the unjust,"
is an impious indecency which may suit the latitude of Mr. Bancroft,
and the overstrained tone of the Northern mind generally, but whose
only effect at the South is to widen the distance between us and the
day when we shall frankly endeavor to understand and do justice to
President Lincoln.