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the way of their brave comrades who had watered the soil of Virginia and Pennsylvania with their blood, and yet the sacrifice would have been in vain! Cut off from the sea, and the supplies of men and material which else might come to them across the waves, enveloped by a girdle of fire, seeing their fairest and most fertile provinces devastated by a ruthless enemy, whenever he could break his way through their defences, unable to push back, however they might retard, the steadily-rising tide of Federal encroachment, the Confederate soldiers could not but recognise by this time that they were playing a hopeless game. To this feeling of despair must it have been owing that in this last campaign of 1865 Lee's soldiers, even when not seriously defeated, allowed themselves to be taken prisoners in great numters; captivity must have seemed preferable in their eyes to a longer useless struggle against fate. On the other hand, the Federal soldiers, finding themselves at least

of 60,000 men to Savannah, the capital of Georgia; but it did not end there. His movements were delayed by heavy rains; but, on the 1st January, 1865, he set forth, moving his army directly northward, as if Augusta were the point of attack. Suddenly turning to his right, and crossing the river Savannah, he entered the swampy fertile plains of South Carolina. Beauregard was in his front, but the force under his command was too small to bar the way against Sherman's well-appointed army, and the Federal commander in the course of a fortnight had pushed his way through that hostile country, and was before Columbia-the state capital. Devastation marked the track of his columns. South Carolina was peculiarly obnoxious to the men of the North, as the state which had first seceded, and first fired on the Stars and Stripes; and her people were now to drink the bitter cup which a foe, not sensitive to the motives of chivalry and generosity, is wont to raise to the lips of the vanquished.

Sherman

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upon entering South Carolina, issued an order commencing, "The army will forage liberally on the country during its march." The wholesale and systematic foraging, it went on say, was to be done by regular foraging parties, organised for the purpose by the different brigade commanders; but all soldiers were to be permitted, during the halt or at camp, "to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and drive in stock in front of their camps." To army corps commanders was entrusted "the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c.;" but this power was not to be exercised "unless the inhabitants of the country through which the army was passing annoyed it by bush-whacking or other guerrilla operations, or unless they should burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility." The practical latitude which such an order gives to soldiers inclined to rapacity, or commanders inclined to severity, is evidently unbounded. The order proceeds to say that, as for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, "the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit; discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly." The Federal historian maintains that "the mere necessity of subsisting such an army off the country, while passing rapidly through it, necessarily involved its devastation." But no such necessity existed; the harbour of Savannah was open to the Federals, so that any amount of supplies might have been accumulated by Sherman before he set out on his march; and if he could bring his guns safely through the swamps of South Carolina, he could also have brought trains of provision carts. Even if we grant that this would bave been a difficult operation, and one involving delay, the alternative remained of paying for the supplies required, as the Duke of Wellington did in the south of France, and as the Germans usually did in the last war. There was no scarcity of "green-backs" (as the Federal papermoney was then called), and the inhabitants of the invaded districts would have indubitably preferred to be forced to part with their property at low fixed rates, rather than be despoiled of it without compensation or redress. What actually took place under General Sherman's plundering order is thus described by Mr. Greeley "The business of foraging had been gradually assumed as a specialty by the least scrupulous of the soldiers, who, having mounted themselves somehow on beasts of burden, scoured the whole region in advance of our marching columns-often many miles in advancegathering provisions for the army, and anything inviting and portable for themselves-dismounting and fighting in the line of battle when charged or impeded by cavalry or militia in moderate numbers; but fonder, on the whole, of rifling a house than of fighting its owner, and constantly intent on the main chance. No other state or section has in modern times been so thoroughly devas- The loss of Columbia involved the fall of Charleston, tated in a single campaign, signalised by little fighting, including Fort Sumter and the other defences; for since as was South Carolina by that march through its utmost the sea was closed against them from behind by the length, and over an average breadth of forty miles, by blockading fleet, no hope of ultimate escape remained for Sherman's army." the defenders, if they waited till they were hemmed in Beauregard had not a force under his orders sufficient by a superior force on the land side. General Hardee,

for the defence of Columbia, and he therefore directed General Wade Hampton, who was in command there, to evacuate the city. That general did so, having first caused to be brought out into the streets and set on fire all the large stores of cotton which the place contained, lest it should fall into Federal hands. A portion only of Sherman's army entered the town, in the middle of the day on the 17th of February, but before night it was in flames. Federals and Confederates mutually taxed each other with having caused the conflagration. General Sherman, in a letter subsequently published, declared that the act of General Wade Hampton, in setting fire to the cotton in the streets, had been the cause of the disaster; the high wind blowing had, he said, communicated the fire from the cotton-bales to the houses. This may well have been so; yet there is an ambiguous expression in Sherman's letter which, if it does not suggest, certainly does not exclude, a different explanation. Before one single public building had been fired by order," says General Sherman, “the smouldering fires set by Hampton's order were rekindled by the wind and communicated to the buildings around." The introduction of the words "by order" is remarkable, for it shows that the writer does not exclude from his mind the pos sibility of some of the public buildings having been fired without orders, and that previously to any mischief having been done by the burning cotton. If this was so, the burning of the city, which left 4,000 of the inhabitants houseless and homeless, is at once accounted for. Pollard, the Confederate historian, gives no explanation of the origin of the fire, though he says that drunken Federal soldiers did their best to increase it; but he thus describes the scenes which followed the entry of the Federal troops :-"No sooner had the enemy entered Columbia than a wild and savage scene of pillage commenced. Stragglers, pontoon-men, and the riff-raff of the army were to be met in every street and in almost every house. If they wanted a pair of boots, they took them from one's feet. Watches were in constant demand, in several instances being snatched from the persons of ladies. Ear and finger rings were taken by force; and, in isolated cases, the dresses of ladies were torn from their bodies by villains who expected to find jewels or plate concealed. Search for silver and provisions was made in every conceivable place. Ramrods were used as probes to indicate where boxes were buried; and gardens, out-houses, cellars, garrets, chimneys and nooks never thought of by any one but a thief in search of plunder, were turned, so to speak, inside out. The Rev. Mr. Shand, the Episcopalian clergyman, while conveying a trunk containing the communionservice of silver from the church to the South Carolina College, was accosted by a Yankee and a negro, who compelled him, under threat of death, to give it up."

A.D. 1865.]

ATTACKS UPON FORT FISHER.

commanding at Charleston, evacuated the place after burning every warehouse or shed containing cotton, and the Federals entered unopposed (February 18) the proud little city which had so long kept them at bay. They found little but tottering walls and smoking ruins. The fenced city had literally been turned into a ruinous heap. A great explosion of gunpowder had caused the death of 200 persons, destroyed the depôt where the accident occurred, and set fire to the adjoining buildings; so that, independently of the intentional arson, a large part of the city was thus burnt down. The Federal flag was again raised over the recovered Fort Sumter, of which, since the heavy bombardment which it had undergone, nothing remained to the exterior view but crumbling walls. Two months later, on the anniversary of the surrender of the fort to the Confederates by Major Anderson (April 14), a large number of civilians from the North, desirous of celebrating at the same time their own triumph, the subjugation of their Southern countrymen, and the downfall of slavery, took down to Charleston the identical flag which had been flying on Fort Sumter at the time of the surrender, and re-hoisted it with appropriate rejoicings. While the Federals were entering the city, General Hardee, with 12,000 men, was marching along the coast in the direction of North Carolina, in order to join Beauregard and Cheetham. The last-named officer had been appointed to the command of what was left of the army lately defeated under Hood in Tennessee. But discouragement, arising from ill-success and incessant hardships, had now spread to such an extent among the Confederate soldiers, that no concentration of forces could bring together a respectable army. They gave themselves up to the enemy in great numbers; and Grant was reported to have declared, a few weeks later, that within a period of six months 17,000 deserters had come into his lines. From Columbia Sherman advanced on the 23rd February, but instead of marching to the attack of Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, he struck off to the right, crossed the Great Pedee river, and passing the state boundary at Sneedsboro', again concentrated his army at Fayetteville (March 11). General Johnston, who ought never to have been superseded, was now re-appointed to the command of the Confederate army opposed to Sherman. As the Federal left, under Slocum, was advancing from Fayetteville towards Goldsboro', Johnston vigorously attacked at Bentonville (March 20), hoping to envelop and crush it before it could be supported; but the success of the attempt did not correspond to his expectations. Sherman's victorious march terminated at Goldsboro', for to that point a strong Federal force had fought its way up from the coast just before his arrival, under circumstances which must now be explained.

After the closing of the port of Mobile, as narrated in Chapter IX., the only harbour in the Confederacy, east of Texas, which remained in any sense open was that of Wilmington in North Carolina. The Cape Fear river here joins the sea at a sharp angle, forming a long straight estuary, divided from the sea on the east by a narrow sandy peninsula, at the point of which stood Fort Fisher.

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Twenty miles from the mouth of the river is the important town of Wilmington. Two or three islands on the opposite or western side of the estuary, at its mouth, provided the harbour with several entrances, each of which was guarded by a powerful fort. Under these circumstances it was impossible for the blockading squadron wholly to baffle the operations of swift blockade-runners, a larger percentage of which got safely in and out of Wilmington than was the case at any other Confederate port. After Farragut's success at Mobile, the conviction seems to have forced itself on the Federal authorities that only by means of a combined military and naval attack, similar to that before which Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan fell, could the river highway to Wilmington be closed. Preparations were gradually made in the autumn of 1864. General Butler was now in command on this part of the coast, a man not less confident in his own strategic resources than if, instead of being brought up in a lawyer's office, he had had the training of a Moltke or a Todleben. Having read in an English paper an account of the havoc caused by an explosion of gunpowder at Erith, Butler conceived the bright idea of blowing up Fort Fisher by laying a vessel containing 250 tons of gunpowder alongside of its sea-face, and then exploding the powder by a train. The experiment was made (December 23, 1864), but utterly failed; not the smallest injury was done to the fort, and the garrison merely supposed that one of the big guns on board some vessel in the blockading fleet had burst! Grant then insisted that the plan of a combined attack should be tried-Butler taking a force of 6,000 men, and landing it on the peninsula above Fort Fisher, with a view to constructing batteries there, and cannonading the fort in concert with the fleet. But Ad miral Porter, who then commanded off Wilmington, appears to have disliked Butler, and would do nothing in concert with him. Stationing his iron-clads as near to Fort Fisher as the depth of water would allow, he opened (Dec. 26) a terrific bombardment on the place, speedily silencing its fire, and blowing up two of its magazines. Butler believed that now was the time for him to land his troops and send them on to the assault; but the report of his immediate subordinate, General Weitzel, who carefully examined the work, and convinced himself that its defences were still in the main intact, caused him to hesitate; a personal examination induced him to form the same opinion, and to renounce the project of an assault as impracticable. Instead, however, of landing his men on the peninsula, according to Grant's orders, and opening trenches, Butler returned with the expedition to the James river. Grant was much annoyed, and immediately sent General Terry, at the head of a somewhat larger force, to execute the work which Butler had failed to perform. Terry landed a force of 8,000 men, provided with intrenching tools and everything necessary for a siege, on the peninsula to the north of the fort about the 12th January, 1865. His first care was to throw a strong defensive line across the peninsula on the land side of his encampment, to guard against any attack from Wilmington. This done, he turned his attention to Fort Fisher, which, after a careful reconnaissance and consultation with Porter, he resolved

to attempt to carry by assault. Two storming columns were organised-one consisting of 2,000 sailors and marines, who were to attack the sea-face of the work; the other of the bulk of his little army, who were to endeavour to possess themselves of the complicated defences on the side facing the peninsula. The assault was delivered on the 15th January. Again the fire of the fort was silenced by the deluge of projectiles hurled into it by the fleet; but when the column of sailors rushed forward to the attack, they were, after a desperate struggle, beaten back with heavy loss. But, under cover of the diversion caused by the sailors' charge, Terry's storming column succeeded, first in carrying two or three outer lines of palisades, next in effecting a lodgment on the parapet, then in carrying one by one, though with severe loss, the traverses in rear of the parapet, and finally in driving the garrison right out of the fort. The retreating Confederates made for a strong battery planted at the extremity of the peninsula, but this could now afford them no effectual protection against the guns of the fleet, and they were compelled, to the number of 2,000, to surrender. The commanders in charge of the other forts, seeing the inutility of further resistance, also surrendered, and every approach to Wilmington by sea passed into the hands of the Federals. And now General Grant executed a master-stroke of tactics. The force at the disposal of General Terry was not large enough for the attack on Wilmington, nor was it deemed safe to detach any troops to his assistance from the army before Richmond and Petersburg; but there was an army corps far away to the west, in the now pacified state of Tennessee, which had no immediate work on its hands, and which might be utilised for the reduction of Wilmington. General Grant therefore sent the necessary orders to General Schofield, commanding the 23rd Corps at Clifton in Tennessee; that officer, on receiving them, embarked some 12,000 men in steamers on the Tennessee river, down which they were conveyed into the Ohio, up that stream to Cincinnati, thence by rail to Alexandria on the Potomac, where they were again embarked in steamers as soon as the ice would permit, and transported to the mouth of the Cape Fear river. When the troops under his command had been safely landed on the peninsula, and had joined the force under Terry, General Schofield found himself at the head of an army of 20,000 men, and strong enough for an immediate advance on Wilmington, which was only defended by a slender Confederate brigade under General Hoke. Hoke made the best defence he could, but was soon compelled to retire, evacuating Wilmington on the 22nd February. General Schofield, who had obtained this great success with very trifling loss, advanced, on the 6th March, from Wilmington into the interior of North Carolina, taking the direction of Goldsboro'. A part of his forces, to the number of 700 men, was surprised and captured by Hoke; but the contest was too unequal to last long, and Schofield entered Goldsboro' from the south a few days before Sherman with his army arrived from the south-west.

About the same time the Federal Generals Wilson and Canby, advancing into the state of Alabama, the one from the river Tennessee, near its northern border, the

other from New Orleans, drove the inferior forces of Roddy and Forrest easily before them, stormed the works at Selina, compelled the evacuation of Mobile, and the surrender of Montgomery, the state capital, and in a very short time had trampled out armed resistance in the field throughout the greater part of the state.

The last act of the great drama was now to open. The campaign in Virginia was commenced by Sheridan, who, at the head of a well-equipped and most formidable force of 10,000 cavalry, moved from Winchester in the Shenandoah valley (March 2) with the intention of striking Lynchburg, the town among the ranges of the Alleghanies whence Richmond now drew its principal supplies. Early met him at Waynesboro', and was utterly routed; but the intelligence that he received from his scouts led Sheridan to believe that Lynchburg was too well defended to fall to a mere cavalry force; he changed his plan, therefore, and led his troopers round the left and rear of Lee's army, intending to join Grant in his encampment before Petersburg. The Confederate arrays of cavalry, which two years before had been the terror of Pennsylvania and Washington, were now so attenuated by death and hardships that no effectual resistance could be offered to Sheridan, who, carrying blight and destruction in his train, burning bridges and stores, tearing up railways and destroying canals, moved across the enemy's country to White House on the Pamunkey river, whence he marched to the James, and reported to Grant in front of Petersburg on the 27th March.

Seeing that the force in his front was continually being augmented, Lee appears to have concluded that the only course left for him was to deal a heavy and unexpected blow at the least guarded point about the centra of Grant's lines, which, if successful, would cut his army in two, enforce new arrangements for concentration, and perhaps leave time for the detachment of a portion of Lee's army to the assistance of Johnston, sufficient, with the troops under that General's command, to meet and defeat Sherman. The point which he selected was Fort Steadman, nearly due east of Petersburg. Here General Gordon, with two divisions, bore down at daybreak on the 25th March on the Federal lines, and captured at the first onset Fort Steadman and three adjoining batteries, turning their guns against the retreating defenders. But an overwhelming force was soon brought up by General Meade, which not only drove the Confederates out of the works they had occupied, taking 2,000 prisoners, but, pursuing the advantage, pushed back the whole of that part of the Confederate line, thus rendering Lee's contemplated movement into North Carolina more than ever hazardous. A still more decisive success was gained on the 1st April, when Sheridan, attacking Lee's right wing, under Pickett, at Five Forks, with a force two or three times as numerous, turned its left at the same time that he attacked in front, and, being successful in both operations, utterly broke and routed the Confederates, 5,000 of whom were taken prisoners. On the next day (Sunday, April 2), Grant ordered a general advance against the defences of Petersburg. The attack was made at daybreak, and although the exhausted Con

A.D. 1865.]

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EVACUATION OF RICHMOND.

federates stood bravely to their arms, so great was the preponderance of numbers that they could not prevent the Federals from wresting several redoubts from their hands, so that Petersburg itself stood in danger of falling before the next vigorous assault. Such was the position of affairs at 11 o'clock, when Lee, who had just seen A. P. Hill, one of the most trusted of his lieutenants, shot dead while directing a charge to regain a portion of the works, and who fully recognised the imminent peril to which Richmond was exposed through the inability of the gallant army which had so long defended it to hold its ground any longer against the overwhelming masses of the enemy, felt it his duty to send a message of warning to the Confederate President. The message was in nearly these words:-" My lines are broken in three places. Richmond must be evacuated this evening." The fatal missive was brought to Mr. Davis while in church, and on reading it he went quietly out, never more to return as President of the Confederacy. The nature of the terrible tidings was soon rumoured about, and an indescribable excitement and confusion reigned in the streets of Richmond. 'Men, women, and children rushed from the churches, passing from lip to lip news of the impending fall of the city. And yet it was difficult to believe it. To look up to the calm beautiful sky of that spring day, unassailed by one single noise of battle; to watch the streets, unvexed by artillery or troops, stretching away into the quiet hazy atmosphere, and believe that the capital of the Confederacy, so peaceful, so apparently secure, was in a few hours to be the prey of the enemy, and to be wrapped in the infernal horrors of a conflagration." Every kind of vehicle was immediately put in request and loaded with every description of baggage and valuable property. "Night came, and with it confusion worse confounded. There was no sleep for human eyes in Richmond that night." The City Council had resolved to destroy all the liquor in the city, lest the madness of drunken debauch should intensify the horror of the scene. This resolve was partly carried out, but “as the work progressed, some straggling soldiers, retreating through the city, managed to get hold of a quantity of the liquor. From that moment law and order ceased to exist. Many of the stores were pillaged, and the sidewalks were encumbered with broken glass, where the thieves had smashed the windows in their reckless haste to lay hands on the plunder within. The air was filled with wild cries of distress, or the yells of roving pillagers." General Ewell had given orders, in spite of the remonstrances of the municipality, that the four principal tobacco warehouses of the city should be fired. The execution of this crder added a new element of danger and despair. The rams lying in the river, and all the vessels at the wharves, except one flag-of-truce steamer, were blown up or fired. The torch was applied to the three bridges leading out of the city, and they were soon wrapped in flames. "Morning broke upon a scene such as those who witnessed it can never forget. The roar of an immense conflagration sounded in their ears; tongues of flame leaped from street to street; and in this baleful glare were to be seen, as of demons, the figures of busy

143 plunderers, moving, pushing, rioting, through the black smoke and into the open street, bearing away every con ceivable sort of plunder.” * President Davis left the city at 10 P.M. on that Sunday evening, taking the railroad to Danville, a town situated to the south-west of Richmond, close to the North Carolina frontier. The garrison, under General Ewell, 5,000 sick and wounded men being left behind in the hospitals, also marched out in the direction of Lee's camp.

A complete and very strong triple line of earthworks, engineered with great skill and constructed with incredible labour, protected the northern side of Richmond. Before these lay General Weitzel, with a considerable force. The dull sound of distant explosions on that memorable Sunday night, and a red glare on the southern heavens, convinced the besiegers that something extraordinary was taking place in Richmond. Negroes and deserters brought intelligence in the early morn that the formidable works in their front had been entirely evacuated by the Confederates, and that no hostile force remained between them and the beleaguered city. Moving cautiously over the ground in the vicinity of the Confederate works (for the approaches were beset with torpedoes, the little red flags over which had fortunately been left standing by the enemy), General Weitzel, about 6 A.M., entered the suburbs of the burning city. Thousands of negroes yelled an enthusiastic welcome as the Federal soldiers marched in, and the flag of the United States was soon seen floating over the imposing Capitol of Virginia. Richmond was, of course, placed under military rule, and immediate steps were taken to extinguish the flames, now raging without restraint. When the fire was got under, it was found that it had burned out the very heart of Richmond, including its great warehouses, the postoffice, the treasury, the principal banks, newspaper offices, &c. A full third of the city was destroyed. A thousand unwounded prisoners were captured, besides the 5,000 sick and wounded in the hospitals; numerous heavy guns, and about 5,000 small arms, fell into the hands of the victors. Petersburg was evacuated simultaneously with Richmond.

While these events were taking place, Lee had concentrated his army, now reduced to about 35,000 men, at Chesterfield Court-house, mid-way between Richmond and Petersburg, whence he fell back to Amelia Court. house, where he expected to find supplies for his army; but the train which was to have brought them from Danville had been ordered up to Richmond by some Confederate official to assist in the evacuation; and to all other elements of dejection were now added, for the Confederate soldiers, the pangs of actual hunger. Lee remained at Amelia Court-house on the 4th and 5th April, hunting up food in every direction for his famished Meantime Sheridan, with his cavalry, moved rapidly to Jetersville, a station on the Danville and Richmond railroad, between the former place and Lee's camp, so as to intercept his communications with Danville and bar his retreat in that direction. His position at Jeters

men.

Pollard, the Confederate historian, quoted by Greeley.

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