THE LAST PARADE OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS
“I am quite confident that Love was the only rope
thrown out to us by Heaven when we fell overboard into
life.”--Sidney Lanier.[2]
General Grant had ordered a grand attack all along the lines from
Appomattox to Hatches Run. This was the fateful move that crushed the
Confederate Army, and opened the way to Petersburg and Richmond on
April 3d.
The paroled and surrendered Confederate prisoners were at once
marched forward from Petersburg on the road beside the hospital. It
was a strange, sad sight, this long line of Confederate prisoners,
3,000 strong, officers and men without arms,--some by habit reaching
for the forfeited sword, belt, or gun,--worn, tired, begrimed figures
of despair. They were clothed in every degree of shabbiness, from
the dulled tinsel of the uniformed officers, to the worn, faded,
ragged grey that they had so confidently donned at the beginning of
the war. They were on their way to City Point under guard, many to be
forwarded to some Northern camp, where at least their starving bodies
would be fed and made comfortable.
There was no sound of exultation over the conquered enemy among
the Northern men and women standing quietly near to see them pass.
Some even saluted the defeated Confederate officers. None showed
the slightest disrespect to those unfortunates who had not only
lost, in a futile war against their own nation, the “Flower of their
Chivalry,” but their broad acres were devastated and had become
battle fields of frightful carnage and struggle, and their homes
were also wrecked, leaving many without shelter, and thus depriving
hundreds of any present means of support. As they marched slowly
by, in painful silent dejection, did they realize the folly of an
ill-advised rebellion, to which they had sacrificed lives, homes and
sustenance to an illogical, unethical romantic ideal?
Crowds of barefoot, ragged negroes, nearly nude, who had been shut up
for years in Petersburg, now crowded by hundreds along the road. One
excited old woman, her head covered with a faded bandana, exclaimed:
“Lor, dere goes ole Mars, I knows him shore. Can’t tech me now. I’se
a free nigger.” Another shouted to us, “I knows you alls Yankee
ladies, de Lord bress you.”
It seemed like a funeral procession, without fife and drum, as
it wound slowly past the hospital to City Point United States
Headquarters, there to take their parole.
About this time, at City Point, I saw General Custer, who lost his
life soon after in the Indian raids. He was a small, spare, nervous
man, wearing a scarlet-lined cape thrown over his shoulder, and
his long light hair floated back, making a striking picture of a
cavalryman as his spirited horse dashed from one headquarters to
another.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Sidney Lanier, later musician, poet, writer, on
the secession of Georgia at once enlisted in the
Confederate infantry and served through the war except
while a prisoner at Point Lookout. He afterwards
rejoiced in the overthrow of slavery; and knew that
it was belief in the soundness and greatness of the
American Union, among the millions of the North
and the great North West that really conquered the
South. He said “As soon as Lee invaded the North and
arrayed the sentiment against us our swift destruction
followed.”--Edward Mims.