V

I

MEANWHILE Ord's troops are in bivouac at Farmville, Sheridan's in and about Prospect Station, and the Fifth Corps, under tall, hollow-cheeked Griffin, is at Prince Edward Court House resting after its twenty-eight-mile march.

One of Sheridan's regimental surgeons, in giving an account of overtaking his command that night, after having attended, as I assume, some of the wounded at Sailor's Creek, says that the camp-fires of the encampments of artillery and infantry reddened the sky in every direction; that of those along the roadside, some burned brightly, some faintly, but every one had its group of weary men seeking, and I hope finding, refreshment and rest. As the light played over the forms and faces of these men,' says Surgeon Rockwell, and those that were sleeping, with here and there a blood-stained bandage; and as it reflected from the stacked arms, and penetrated woody recesses revealing still other groups of blue-coated soldiers,

were presented well worthy to be reproduced upon canvas.' To this vivid picture should be added the indistinct forms of the drowsing horses.

Yet, Reader, for loneliness - and every aide who like myself has carried dispatches will bear witness to the

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truth of what I say-give me a park of army-wagons in some wan old field enthralled in darkness at the dead hours of a moonless night, men and mules asleep, camp-fires breathing their last, and the beams of day, which wander in the night, resting ghost-like on the arched and mildewed canvas

covers.

Lee's army, meanwhile, was marching fast, weakened by hunger as they were. Apparently each man and organization grew indifferent to what happened to others. When any of the wagons or caissons got mired, or the famishing teams gave out, they did not stop to extricate them, but after cutting down the wheels of the artillery and setting fire to the supply-trains, went on. Lee himself passed through the village of Curdsville about midnight, and dawn found him and his weary army well away from Farmville.

Yet let them make the best time they could, demoralization was growing and spreading with equal speed. A Confederate surgeon, John Herbert Claiborne of Petersburg, says of the march after daylight, that there were abundant signs of disintegration all along the road; that whole trains were abandoned, ammunition and baggage dumped out, and everywhere muskets thrown away or, with their bayonets fixed, stuck deep in the ground. Soldiers who, he knew, had been men of

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steadiness and courage, straggled unarmed, or lay down and slept apparently unconcerned. Officers of the line as well as colonels and distinguished generals were doing the same thing, and Claiborne saw a staff officer of one of the latter dismount and throw himself down, uttering an oath that he never would draw his sword from its scabbard again.

About noon, the doctor met Lee's Inspector-General, Colonel Peyton, posting some men, not over a hundred of them, on a knoll from whose bare top they could see in the distance off to the left some of Sheridan's cavalry then hastening to reach Appomattox Station.

Claiborne asked Colonel Peyton what command he was posting, and the response came back slowly and sadly, "That is what is left of the First Virginia.' It belonged to Pickett's celebrated Gettysburg division, a mere remnant, for it had been nearly annihilated at Five Forks.

'Does General Lee know how few of his soldiers are left?' asked the doctor, 'or to what extremities they are reduced?' 'I don't believe he does,' replied Peyton. "Then whose business is it to tell him if not his inspectorgeneral's?' blurted out Claiborne; and here we see again how the spirit of the night before had spread. Peyton with sad emphasis answered, 'I cannot, I cannot'; and I have no doubt that to the end of his days he was glad of the decision he came to. For this world loves the man who stands by his captain till the ship goes down. It may have been that Pendleton at that very hour was conveying to his chief the message Gordon had asked him to carry. Here at any rate is what Pendleton says in reference to its delivery:

'General Lee was lying down resting at the base of a large pine tree. I approached and sat by him. To a state

ment of the case he quietly listened, and then, courteously expressing his thanks for the consideration of his subordinates in daring to relieve him in part of the existing burdens, spoke in about these words: "I trust it has not come to that; we certainly have too many brave men to think of laying down our arms. They still fight with great spirit, whereas the enemy does not. And besides, if I were to intimate to General Grant that I would listen to terms, he would at once regard it as such evidence of weakness that he would demand unconditional surrender, and sooner than that I am resolved to die. Indeed, we must all be determined to die at our posts."

'My reply could only be that every man would no doubt cheerfully meet death with him in discharge of duty, and that we were perfectly willing that he should decide the question.'

Let me make one comment on Pendleton's statement. He says that Lee declared that our army did not fight with spirit. This is astonishing. In view of Five Forks with its heavy losses on both sides, the assaults on his works around Petersburg, which were carried only by the most desperate resolution and gallantry, indeed, it may be said, with slaughter unparalleled during the war, — the stubborn cavalry engagements at Jetersville and High Bridge, the sanguinary field of Sailor's Creek, in view of all these combats is it not inconceivable that Lee should have said that our men lacked spirit? Go ask any living veteran of the Army of Northern Virginia whether our troops quailed from the day the campaign began till their general, Cox, fired the last volley at Appomattox. No, no, General Pendleton, you certainly misunderstood General Lee, or General Lee was amazingly misinformed: never, never, did the old Army of the Potomac show more spirit.

But that Lee said he would never submit to unconditional surrender is no doubt true, for he knew in what universal scorn and resentment the South held Pemberton for submitting to Grant's terms of unconditional surrender at Vicksburg; and rather than place himself alongside Pemberton he would lay his life down. Pendleton, after discharging his delicate mission, rode for a while with Alexander and told him of his interview. Alexander says that he got the impression from his manner that he had been snubbed by Lee; I hope he was entirely mistaken. Parting with Alexander, Pendleton hurried on to the head of the column comprised of Lindsey Walker's command of sixty-odd guns, accompanied by a guard of two artillery companies equipped as infantry.

They reached the vicinity of Appomattox Station by 3 P.M., and there, in supposed security, unharnessed, and started little fires to cook what they had foraged on the march, all looking forward gladly to several hours of refreshing rest.

Wallace with the leading brigade of the infantry, Gordon's corps, went into camp about sundown within a mile or so of the river. In the evening, and it will be told why, they were moved forward across the river to the Court House village and slept on their arms. The Appomattox, which they crossed on their way, and whose murmur can almost be heard at the old hamlet, is nothing more than a good-sized willowfringed run that an ordinary coatless country boy, with even a short start, can clear from bank to bank, landing on the turf with the usual sense of havng performed a feat; a sense to which I an testify, for more than once, bareseaded and bare-footed, I leaped a run

about the same size that wanders hrough the fields of the old home arm; and I hope that, as I write, the

elecampane and ironweed are blooming golden and purple there as in my youth, and that off on the gray stakeand-ridered fence which runs by the old wild-cherry tree, a bob white sings to his mate mothering her covey in the clover-field.

And now, before telling where the rest of Gordon's corps and that of Longstreet and the cavalry bivouacked at the end of that last and long day's march, let me say a word of the lay of the land where their camp-fires glittered along the Lynchburg Road.

From the Appomattox lone and bushy ravine-scored fields tilt up northward for a mile, at least, to a timbered ridge circling southwestward around the birthplace of the river. The challenging note of a chanticleer perched in the old village on a November starlit night, with the wind from the south or the east, can be heard, I think, clear to the ferny tips of the river's source.

This ridge, where it is crossed by the old road,-which, by the way, comes swerving southward from it through the gullied and sombre old fields, -is flattish, crowned with woods, and about half a mile wide, breaking down sharply on its northern side into the bed of Rocky Run; a pleasant brook that goes gurgling around the ridge's base and falls into the Appomattox about a mile below the Court House. Beyond the run the ground begins at once to rise in a long commanding incline to the top of a higher ridge. As you follow the road upward, on each side are beautiful, leaning fields, and when I was there last October, in one of them lay a flock of Southdown sheep, and opposite, amid venerable trees and somewhat away from the road, was the old brick mansion house overlooking dreamily the generous plantation.

At the top of the ridge, the divide between the Appomattox and James, the road enters woods and then sweeps

directly to the east by New Hope Church on toward New Store and Farmville. The prevailing timber through which it bears its course, leaving a track almost as red as brick, is oak, and roamed by wild turkeys. The other day, as I was following it, a halfgrown one scurried across it ahead of me and disappeared in the leafy silence. I halted when I came to the spot, but could neither see nor hear him; may he live to grow to a ripe old age, a stately, fleet, and beautiful ornament of the sun-dappled loneliness.

And now, having tried to convey the lay of the land, let me say that Gordon's camp-fires stretched from the Appomattox to the top of the first ridge, and perhaps as far up the other as where I saw the sheep lying peacefully in the field. McIntosh's battalion of batteries was on the banks of Rocky Run, and Haskell's was this side of them in the woods. Longstreet's corps was beyond New Hope Church and beyond it the cavalry. The bordering fields and roadsides, from New Hope Church to the Appomattox, were packed by artillery, wagons, and ambulances, and except the batteries about all of them had lost every semblance of organization.

The cavalry and a good share of Longstreet's corps did not bivouac till after night had fully set in, and when the fires were lit, many a long mile lay behind them. But it had been a pleasant day, the sun had shone brightly, and, from time to time, soft refreshing breezes had blown; and I have no doubt that the sunshine and fresh breezes were made sweeter by the fact that it was the first day since it crossed the Appomattox at Goode's Bridge that the column had been free from harassing attacks by the cavalry.

Lee camped in the open wood on the top of the first ridge, and on the east side of the road, a hundred yards or

so from it, the ground rising gently. Near-by and towering high over his camp-fire was a large white oak. Longstreet and Gordon were not far away. So, then, having established the weary, supperless men in their bivouacs, let us leave them to their sleep, which I know came quickly, for they were tired.

Night and the listening fields and woods, which as soon as darkness falls always become suddenly vast, selfconscious personalities, were around them; over them were fast-moving, sinister clouds dimming the Milky Way, that starry bivouac of the heavens; and with those officers and men, whose care blotted out sleep, darkening the future, were the shadows of deeper clouds. Were they to be subjected to harsh terms of surrender and then to a march of humiliation through the cities of the North, to Point Lookout, Fort Delaware, Elmira, and Johnston's Island, as prisoners of war? What months of confinement and agonies of body and mind were in store for them? Silent veterans, looking with thoughtful eyes into your camp-fires and dreading the future, none, none of those bitter experiences will come to you; on the contrary, you will receive kind terms, and chaplets will be yours at last. For this country will feel a glorious national pride in your fortitude, your soulstirring valor, and your loyalty to her when the storm of war shall be over. Who, who are to be the heroes of the Army of Northern Virginia, then, if not you- you who, like gold tried in the furnace, stood by colors and cause to the end?

And now, before telling you, Reader, of the movements of the Army of the Potomac on that same Saturday, April 8, let me first say that Grant on the evening of the seventh, after sending his first note to Lee, issued orders for Humphreys and Wright to pursue the enemy with vigor in the morning on

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whatsoever roads he might take, and for Ord's command to follow Sheridan up the railroad toward Appomattox Station, since it was obvious that, to gain Lynchburg, Lee, confined to the narrow divide between the Appomattox and the James, would have to cross there at its outlet. It is quite clear that these orders, all issued before receiving a reply to his letter, show that Grant did not expect Lee to halt in his tracks and surrender at once.

The answer which he had received at midnight and which has already been. given, he replied to in explicit terms the next morning:

GENERAL,

April 8, 1865.

Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of the same date, asking the condition on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply, I would say that peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely: that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged. I will meet you, or will designate officers to meet any officers you might name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.

U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. General R. E. LEE.

This letter was direct, candid, and generous, and brought the issue squarely to Lee, inasmuch as, where or whensoever it might reach him, he would have to make up his mind to one of two courses: to yield to the inevitable, a spectre that had been haunting him for many a day, or to take his chances to escape from it by further retreat and

battle. He chose the latter, notwithstanding Grant had used the expression, 'Peace being my great desire.

This important communication; 'like the first, was put into the hands of Seth Williams for delivery. In due time that.. sunny-hearted man came up with the enemy's rear-guard of cavalry, and, although he was displaying a flag, was fired on, and his orderly wounded. He had to make several approaches to the line, and at last gained the attention of an officer of some sense, who ordered his ill-trained men to desist from firing on the flag of truce. Williams on handing him Grant's letter asked to have it forwarded promptly to Lee, and to make it clear to his immediately superior officer that hostilities would not be suspended on account of the communication he had given him. But before Williams started on this mission from Farmville, day had broken pleasantly, and to the call of the bugles all the troops had stepped off briskly ahead of him. All, did you say? All of the Army of the Potomac?

No, not quite all. Up where Miles had made his resolute assault at Cumberland Church, just as the sun was setting the night before, were many in blue and gray whom no earthly bugle could wake; there, boys of twenty were sleeping on, waiting in peace for that other trumpet, the one at the lips of an angel who, on resurrection's morning, shall sound for us all. Poor fellows, had your lives lasted but two days more, you would have heard the bands at Appomattox playing 'Home, Sweet Home.'

II

In accordance with Grant's orders for a vigorous pursuit, Humphreys at an early hour, with Miles in the lead, pressed through the works at Cumberland Church, which they had failed to carry, and then on to the Lynchburg