The morning of the 3d of April it was quickly known that Lee's army had
escaped in the direction of Amelia Court House, and that his troops
from both Richmond and Petersburgh were concentrating there. But his
objective point was the question. Was he intending to move directly
west towards Lynchburg, or southwest for Danville? In either case he
must do so through Burkeville Junction, where the Southside and the
Richmond and Danville railroads cross each other. Sheridan with his
cavalry and the Fifth Corps, followed by Meade with the Second and
Sixth Corps, pushed along the south side of the Appomattox River to
keep in constant touch of Lee's movements and to strike the Danville
road between its crossing the Appomattox at High Bridge and Burkeville
Junction, while Ord with the troops of the Twenty-fourth Corps as a
flying column, in the lightest possible marching order, should directly
push for the Junction, moving along the Southside road, with the Ninth
Corps following. We reached the Junction in the night of the 5th,
having marched fifty-two miles since the morning of the 3d. And that
night General Read, of General Ord's staff, moved towards High Bridge
with a small force, his orders requiring him to seize and burn that
bridge and those at Farmville, if possible. This by order of General
Grant, and transmitted through Sheridan, then at about half-way between
Burkeville Junction and Amelia Court House. The morning of the 6th, Ord
was notified by Sheridan that Lee was apparently moving on the
Junction. As soon as Grant was informed of this, he directed Ord to
move to Rice Station, two-thirds of the way towards Farmville, when
there we were directly in Lee's road were he pushing for either
Lynchburg or Danville. At the same time messengers were hurried to
overtake General Read before he should reach High Bridge, where the van
of Lee's army already was, but it was too late to save the fated young
officer from death, and his small command from almost annihilation. At
Rice Station we found Longstreet's Command intrenched and ready for us,
Longstreet quite willing to fight for the time Anderson, Ewell and
Gordon needed to march by his rear with the wagon trains they were
convoying from Amelia Court House. But as it was about night, we
contented ourselves with taking position to attack from in the early
morning. During this day, the 6th, Sheridan and Meade were constantly
attacking Lee's army at every possible point, and successfully, too,
for they captured Ewell and his entire command, together with one-half
of Anderson's, a large part of Gordon's, and destroyed the greater part
of the trains they were making such useless sacrifices for. Longstreet
escaped us while we were sleeping before his intrenchments at Rice
Station. Marching to Farmville he crossed to the north bank of the
Appomattox, and in the morning, that of the 7th, began to move towards
Lynchburg by the road leading through Appomattox Court House. He was
followed by Gordon, and he by Mahone. Finding that Longstreet had
stolen away, Ord moved on towards Farmville in pursuit, marching by the
short cut wagon road Longstreet had gone over, instead of following the
railroad to High Bridge. Wright was now following us with the Sixth
Corps. All the bridges but one across the Appomattox had been destroyed
by the rebels after crossing, and they were in the act of destroying
that one, a wagon road bridge near High Bridge, when the Second Corps
advance, under Barlow, reached it and saved it.
The Second Corps immediately crossed the Appomattox by this bridge,
treading so closely on the heels of the Confederates that General
Barlow overtook Gordon's Corps, attacked it and cut off a large part of
the wagon train it was covering. So threatening was the Second Corps
in its movements, that Lee was forced to halt his force and take a
strong position on the crest of a long slope of ground that covered
the stage and plank roads leading to Lynchburg. Here he threw up light
intrenchments and put artillery in position. After riding along the
ground taken up by Lee, General Meade ordered the Second Corps to
attack, at the same time sending messengers to Ord to have our division
and the Sixth Corps cross the river at Farmville, and help force Lee
into a general engagement. But as there was no bridge remaining near us
for us to cross by, nor could a fordable place be found, this order
could not be obeyed. The Second Corps attack then, unsupported, was but
a partial success, but enables General Humphreys, then in command of
that Corps, to claim with reason that by the enforced detention due to
the vigor and aggressiveness of the movement of the Second Corps, Lee
lost the supplies awaiting him at Appomattox Station and gave time for
Sheridan with his cavalry and Ord with the Fifth and Twenty-fourth
Corps to put themselves across his path at Appomattox Court House. The
Second and Sixth Corps pushed directly after Lee the morning of the
8th. He had moved in the night toward Lynchburg. These Corps kept up
this direct pursuit until midnight, only halting after making a march
of twenty-six miles. The morning of the 8th, the Twenty-fourth and the
Fifth Corps pushed out from near Farmville, and accompanied by General
Grant and staff, pushed towards Appomattox Court House by the shortest
roads. All day long these Corps pressed forward, the men, although
tired and footsore, requiring neither urging nor command to put forth
every effort to head Lee off from Lynchburg, for all understood that it
was Grant's purpose for us to march by Lee's army and head him off,
while the Second and Sixth Corps should dog his heels and hamper his
speed by forcing him to turn and defend himself at every opportunity
they could get. It was a question of legs and endurance now. On and on
our men plodded, none falling out until worn out. All were too tired
even to raise a cheer in passing General Grant as he was sitting on a
roadside log resting himself while enjoying a quiet smoke. And General
Ord secured this tribute when, in response to the cries of "Coffee"
that ran along the marching line he was riding by to reach the head of
the column, he halted it as soon as he gained its advance, that the
tired, hungry men might rest a bit while they cooked their coffee,
every man his own, in his tin dipper set on one of the hastily lighted
roadside fires. Ord was one of the general officers that knew the needs
of men. "Get out of the road men," shouted one of his staff as they
rode along through a line of men resting in the dusty road. "Stop Sir,"
said the gray old general sternly, "the men are tired, rein to the
roadside and follow that." As the day passed we found ourselves on the
track of Sheridan; prisoners, guns and trains of wagons captured by his
vigorous advance, lined the roadside, encouraging our tired men to put
forth every exertion. Darkness found us still pressing on and it was
not until about daybreak that we halted for more than a few minutes
rest at a time, the Fifth Corps plodding on at our heels in dogged
determination to be there too. At about daylight we reached the
vicinity of Appomattox Station, which Sheridan's Cavalry had reached a
few hours before, and in time to capture a train of artillery and three
trains of cars loaded with subsistence supplies for Lee's army. Our
division halted near the captured cars, and details of our men set to
work to divide the fat sides of Virginia bacon they were mainly loaded
with, among their regiments, and tired, sleepy, but more hungry than
either, we made coffee, greedily ate great slices of uncooked bacon
with the few crackers of hard bread yet remaining in the haversacks,
thinking it as appetizing and satisfying a meal as we had ever eaten.
But we had not fairly wiped the bacon grease from our smacking lips
when the roar of guns and the roll of musketry rose from the immediate
front, telling us that our cavalry was heavily engaged. Falling in
quickly at the sharp voiced orders transmitted from Gibbon down, the
men were double quicked on the sound of battle. We soon came up with
the retiring cavalry, Crook's and Custer's men stubbornly fighting
Gordon's advancing infantry column. As we sped by them into the woods
Gordon's men were pushing through, a voice shouted, "There's the
Eleventh Maine," and a wild cheer rose from a body of cavalry on our
right. It was the First Maryland, now mounted and serving in its own
arm of the service. Inspired by this recognition and complimentary
tribute, the Eleventh dashed vigorously forward and crossed the road
Lee's army was now making its last advance on. The gray lines of
Gordon's men were dashing forward as the cavalry fell back behind us,
but as the swiftly deploying lines of battle of our division unrolled
before them, and the long line of blue-clad men pressed forward to
receive them, the last advance of the Army of Northern Virginia became
a hasty retreat. Negotiations that had been going on between Grant and
Lee by letter for two days were now resumed with the result that we all
know of. But while the leaders were conferring, we of the opposing rank
and file were not sitting down in the amity the histories of the war
indicate we were. Blood was shed on the hills of Appomattox that day.
As the column of Gordon fell back in the haste of consternation at the
unexpected appearance of infantry in their path, we followed after it,
and entering the wide field beyond which the Confederates were drawn up
behind planted artillery, we were ordered by General Foster to press
across it. Then, though unsupported, the Eleventh pushed forward, and
finding its progress contested by the fire of a battery before it,
broke into a yell and charged the guns. The swift advance was met not
only by a sweep of grape and canister, but by the volley fire of a
supporting line of battle. In the confusion the two right companies
were separated from the left one, rejoining the regiment as it lay in a
protecting declension of the open field before the battery it had
sought to capture, grape, canister and bullets sweeping over it in
appalling volume. Many of those remaining at the log houses the right
companies of the regiment had occupied before rejoining the regiment
were captured, the Confederate cavalry pushing forward and enveloping
this advance position about the time the main body of the occupying
companies abandoned it to rejoin the regiment. To make a short story of
it, a number of the Eleventh were killed and wounded before the
regiment got out of its untenable position before the battery, which it
did by moving down one protecting ravine and up another that led nearly
back to the position in the woods it had charged from. It was at the
moment of retreat that private Moses E. Sherman, of D, was killed,
struck dead at the feet of the First Sergeant of the company, Sergeant
Keene, who would not believe his friend dead at first, nor would he
leave the field until he was convinced that "Mustache" was dead. Poor
little "Mustache!" ever cheerfully smiling, ever ready for lark or
duty, more than liked by all of us, it seems hard indeed that one so
able and willing to enjoy life, and to make life enjoyable for others,
should lie dead on the last battlefield of the war. The lot of the
Sherman boys was a hard one. Both original members of the company, both
taken prisoners at Fair Oaks to endure the privations of Libby Prison
together, both reenlisted, William to be mortally wounded at Deep
Bottom in August, '64, and Moses to die in the last charge that our old
company was called upon to participate in. Scarcely had the regiment
reached a sheltered position, when companies A and B were thrown out as
part of a skirmish line forming to cover an attack General Ord was
preparing, and this skirmish line was moving swiftly across the field
intervening between the battle lines when a galloping aid overtook it
and announced Lee's surrender. Besides Private Sherman killed, Private
Burns and Curtis of D were wounded in making the assault on the
battery, which proved to be a liberal section of the celebrated
Washington artillery. The formal surrender of the regiments of the Army
of Northern Virginia was made to the Fifth and Twenty-fourth Corps, as
they were the Corps that, out marching the Confederates, had closed the
road of their retreat. We encamped on the battlefield during the
progress of the surrender, and it was not until the men of the last
regiment of Lee's Army had stacked arms, laid its ragged colors on the
now useless bayonets, and marched mournfully away to ruined homes to
begin the world over again, that we took up our line of march for
Richmond, the last of the Corps of the Army of the Potomac preceding us
by a few days.