Slavery and Four Years of War Part 65

Lee's army was not required to march out, stack arms, and surrender according to the general custom of war, but the men, quietly, under their officers, stacked their guns and remained in camp until paroled. They soon dispersed, never to rea.s.semble. The Army of Northern Virginia then ceased to exist.

The Union Army, on learning of the surrender, commenced firing a salute of one hundred guns. Grant ordered the firing stopped, not desiring to exult over his captured countrymen. General Meade and others protested in vain that it was due to the Army of the Potomac for its sacrifices and gallantry in the years of war that it should have the honor of a formal surrender and a day of military demonstrations.

The wildest scenes of rejoicing, however, took place in the Union Army on learning of the surrender. It did not take on the form of boasting over the captured. It was a genuine exultation over the prospect of the end of the war, the overthrow of the Confederacy, the restoration of the Union, and the destruction of slavery in the Republic. Officers, however high of rank, were not safe from the frenzied rush of the excited soldiers. Some eloquent, joyous speeches were made.

The little wild-cherry tree under which myself and staff were seated, drinking a cup of coffee and chewing "hard tack" when word of the surrender came, was torn down for mementoes. Meade and Wright did not escape, being almost dragged from their horses in the mad rejoicing.

The enlisted men of the two armies met on the guard lines, where many of the Union soldiers gave their last cracker to hungry Confederates. The gentlest and kindest feeling was exhibited on both sides. Not an ungenerous word was heard.

Grant at 4.30 P.M. telegraphed the Secretary of War: "_General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself_."

President Lincoln had the news of Lee's surrender to cheer his great soul for five days before the a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet laid him low.

Grant retired to an improvised camp, and immediately announced his intention to leave the army in the field and start for Was.h.i.+ngton the next day. He rode within the Confederate lines at 9 A.M. on the 10th, and held a half hour's talk with Lee about the possibility of other Confederate armies surrendering and the speedy ending of the war, but Lee, though expressing himself satisfied further effort was vain, would take no responsibility, even to advising other armies to surrender, without consulting Jefferson Davis.(30) Grant left for Was.h.i.+ngton at noon.

General Lee retired to his home at Richmond.

The Union Army counter-marched to Burkeville. While there the death of Abraham Lincoln was announced to it. The army loved him, and his a.s.sa.s.sination excited the bitterest feeling. A memorial meeting was held at my headquarters at Burkeville, and like meetings were held in some other commands, at which speeches were made by officers.

The casualties in the Union Army in all the operations from March 29 to April 9, 1865 (Dinwiddie Court-House to Appomattox inclusive) were, in killed and wounded:(31)

Army of the Potomac ... ... 6,609 Army of the James ... ... . 1,289 Cavalry (Sheridan) ... ... 1,168 ----- Grand total ... ... ... 9,066

The killed and wounded in the Sixth Corps were 1500, and in my brigade 379 (above one fourth in the corps), and in the campaign, including March 25th at Petersburg, 480.

The brigade in the campaign, besides taking sixteen pieces of artillery and many prisoners in battle, captured six battle-flags, including General Heth's division headquarters flag.(32)

Sheridan with the cavalry and Wright with the Sixth Corps were ordered from Burkeville to North Carolina, to co-operate with Sherman against J. E. Johnston's army. The Sixth left Burkeville the 23d of April, 1865, and arrived, _via_ Halifax Court-House, at Danville, a hundred miles or more distant, on the 27th, where, on learning that Johnston had capitulated, it was halted.

I obtained leave to continue south without my command (with two staff officers and a few orderlies), to visit old friends in Sherman's army with whom I had served in the West in 1861 and 1862.

I travelled through bodies of paroled Confederates for fifty miles, to Greensboro, North Carolina, and there came into the lines of the Twenty-Third Corps, commanded by my old and distinguished friend, General J. D. c.o.x. After a few days' sojourn as his guest, and having seen the surrendered army of Joe Johnston, I returned to Danville and my proper command, feeling the war was about over.

The Army of the Potomac marched to Was.h.i.+ngton, and there (Sixth Corps excepted), uniting with Sherman's army, held the Grand Review of May 23, 1865. The Sixth Corps, with many detachments, numbering about 30,000 in all, arrived later, and was reviewed by President Johnson and his Cabinet and Generals Grant, Sherman, and Meade, June 8, 1865. The Army of the Potomac was disbanded June 28, 1865.

All the armies of the Union were soon broken up and the volunteers composing them mustered out and sent to their homes to take up the pursuits of peace.(33) The prisons of the South had given up their starving victims.

On the recommendations of Wright, Meade, and Grant I was appointed a Brevet Major-General of Volunteers, the commission of the President reciting that it was "for gallant and distinguished services during the campaign ending in the surrender of the insurgent army under General R. E. Lee."

I was mustered out at Was.h.i.+ngton June 27, 1865, having served continuously as an officer precisely four years and two months, and fought in about the first (Rich Mountain) and the last (Sailor's Creek) battles of the war, and campaigned in six of the eleven seceding States, and in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland.(34)

The regiments of my brigade (110th, 122d and 126th Ohio, 67th and 138th Pennsylvania, 6th Maryland, and 9th New York Heavy Artillery) lost, killed on the field, 54 officers and 812 enlisted men, wounded 101 officers and 2410 enlisted men, aggregate 3377, only _six_ less than the killed and wounded under Scott and Taylor in their conquest of Mexico, 1846-1848,(35) and more than the like casualties under the direct command of Was.h.i.+ngton in the Revolutionary War--Lexington to Yorktown.

The terms of capitulation accorded to Lee's army were granted to other armies.

With Lee's surrender came the capture of Fort Blakely, Alabama, April 9th, followed by the surrender of Mobile, April 12th; Joe Johnston's army in North Carolina, April 26th; d.i.c.k Taylor's in Mississippi; May 4th; and Kirby Smith's in Texas, May 26th.

Jefferson Davis, with members of his Cabinet, was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, May 10, 1865.

As the curtain fell before the awful drama of war, 174,233 Confederates surrendered, who, with 98,802 others held as prisoners of war (in all 273,035), were paroled and sent to their homes, and 1686 cannon and over 200,000 small arms were the spoils of victory.

The war was over; it was not in vain.

State-rights and secession--twin heresies, as promulgated by Calhoun and his followers and maintained by Jefferson Davis and the civil and military powers of the would-be Confederacy, and human slavery, a growth of the ages, fostered by avarice, and a blot on our civilization for two hundred and fifty years--were likewise overthrown or destroyed; and the integrity of the Union of the States and the majesty of the Const.i.tution as a charter of organized liberty were vindicated, and the American Republic, full-orbed, was perpetuated, under one flag, and with one destiny.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, declaring that: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to its jurisdiction"; submitted, February 1, 1865, by Congress to the States for ratification, and proclaimed ratified December 18, 1865, is but the inevitable decree of war, in the form of organic law, resulting from the triumph of the Union arms, accomplished through the b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of devoted men, together with the concurrent sufferings of yet other hundreds of thousands of wounded and sick and the sorrows of disconsolate and desolate millions more, superadded by billions in value of property laid waste and other billions of treasure expended. Such, indeed, was the penalty paid to eradicate the crime of the centuries-- _SLAVERY_.

Freedom was triumphant, and civilization moved higher.

( 1) _Memoirs of Sheridan_, vol. ii., pp. 175, 189.

( 2) This statement is taken from Lee's official report, though Jefferson Davis, in his work, takes pains to viciously deny its truth. _War Records_, vol. xlvi., Part I., p. 1265; _Battles and Leaders_, etc., vol. iv., p. 724; _Rise and Fall of the Confederacy_, vol. ii., pp. 668-76.

( 3) _Rise and Fall of the Confederacy_, Davis, vol. ii., p. 677.

I picked up at Danville a copy of this doc.u.ment at the press where it had recently been printed.

( 4) _War Records_, vol. xlvi., Part III., p. 549.

( 5) _Ibid_., pp. 556, 610.

( 6) _Memoirs of Sheridan_, vol. ii., p. 187.

( 7) _War Records_., vol. xlvi., Part III., p. 576.

( 8) While riding along the face of the hills with Colonel Andrew J. Smith of the division staff, to get a good view of the enemy's position, I dispatched the Colonel to bring up and put a battery in a designated position. He met and sent Major O. V. Tracey of the same staff on his errand, and soon rejoined me. Some movements displayed large numbers of the enemy, whereupon Smith characteristically exclaimed: "Get as many boys as ever you can; get as many s.h.i.+ngles as ever you can; get around the corner as fast as ever you can,-- a whole hogshead of mola.s.ses all over the walk!" Before this outburst ceased a bullet whistled past by bridle reins and struck Smith in the right leg. While yet repeating his lingo, he threw his arms around his horse's neck and swung to the ground.

( 9) Grant wrote Sheridan informing him the Sixth Corps was following him, saying: "The Sixth Corps will go in with a vim any place you may dicate."--_Memoirs of Sheridan_, vol. ii., p. 182.

(10) _War Records_, vol. xlvi., Part I., pp. 1284, 1298.

(11) Longstreet, _Mana.s.sas to Appomattox_, p. 614.

(12) _War Records_, vol. xlvi., Part I., p. 980.

(13) Captains John F. Hazleton and T. J. Hoskinson, serving respectively as my Quartermaster and Commissary of Subsistence, reported to me at a critical juncture in the battle of Sailor's Creek and volunteered for field duty, and for their exceptional gallantry each was, on my recommendation, brevetted a Major by the President.

(14) Tucker after the war expatriated himself from the country for a time, and became an Admiral in the Peruvian navy, but as our naval officers refused to salute his flag on the sea, Peru was forced to dismiss him.

(15) _War Records_, vol. xlvi., Part I., pp. 683, 980.

(16) _Ibid_., p. 906.

(17) As to numbers engaged, see correspondence, Appendix C.

(18) Longstreet, _Mana.s.sas to Appomattox_, p. 616.

(19) _Memoirs of Grant_, vol. ii., pp. 477-8.

(20) _Memoirs of Sheridan_, vol. ii., pp. 191, 199.

(21) _Mana.s.sas to Appomattox_, pp. 618, 620; _Memoirs of Lee_ (Long), p. 416.