488 "I WANT TO GO HOME." [1865. Soldiers scuffled over the furniture; Ord paid fifty dollars for the marble-topped center-table upon which the agreement was signed, and Custer marched down the steps, bearing aloft the little side-table upon which it was copied. The men shouted at the top of their lungs, "Sheridan's robbers! Sheridan's robbers!" but Sheridan himself had paid twenty gold dollars for the relic, and was sending it with his compliments to Mrs. Custer. After the room was stripped of chairs and other "portable property"-the purchasers flinging down greenbacks in return, though McLean insisted that he did not wish to sellthose who had drawn nothing in that lottery of muscle, stripped the garden of flowers, to send to their wives and sweethearts. That night, twenty thousand Union rations afforded the hungry confederates such a "feed" as they had not enjoyed for months. Meade's little head-quarters' printing-press clattered through the hours of darkness, striking off their paroles. The next morning the Lieutenant-General received a card, bearing the name of a West Virginia cousin, whom he had not seen since boyhood. The captured rebel was brought in. GRANT.-"Are you one of Aunt Rachel's sons?" GRANT." What are you doing here?" PRISONER.-"I have been fighting in Lee's army." GRANT.-"Bad business, Charley. What do you want to do now?" PRISONER. "I want to go home!" --- GRANT (laughing).-"Have you got a horse?" PRISONER. "No, mine was killed under me, day before yesterday." GRANT.—“Have you got any money?" PRISONER.-"No." The reconstructed cousin was furnished with fifty dollars, a horse, and a pass, and sent on his winding way. Gibbon, left in charge of the paroling, was instructed by the Lieutenant-General: 1865.] "THE OLD, FAMILIAR FACES." 489 "On completion of the duties assigned you at this place, you will proceed *** to Lynchburg, Va. It is desirable that there shall be as little destruction of private property as possible. * * * On reaching the vicinity of Lynchburg, send a summons for the city to surrender. If it does so, respect all private property, and parole officers and men garrisoning the place, same as has been done here. If resistance is made, you will be governed by your own judgment about the best course to pursue. If the city is surrendered, as it will in all probability be, take possession of all public stores. Such as may be of use to your command, appropriate to their use. The balance distribute among the poor of the city. Save all the rolling stock of the railroads, and if you find it practicable to do so, bring it to Farmville and destroy a bridge to the rear of it. Destroy no other portion of the road. All the warlike material you find, destroy or carry away with you." The morning was very rainy, but at nine o'clock Grant rode to the Court-House to meet Lee by appointment. When he and his staff reached the crest overlooking the little creek between the two armies, Lee emerged from his tent on the other side, mounted and rode up. The two generals saluted, and sitting upon their horses, twenty paces from the rest of the party, conversed for an hour about minor details of the surrender. Lee expressed his desire that hostilities might everywhere cease. Saluting again, he rode slowly back to lines. GRANT (to his staff).-"I believe we are all ready for our final return." His military family now embraced many able and faithful soldiers; but of "the old, familiar faces," only one was left. Some were dead, some disabled, some in other fields. Rawlins alone and his health greatly impaired in the service-had remained with his chief from the first gun at Belmont to the last at Appomattox. It was four years almost to a day since his ringing words at the Galena meeting:-"We will stand by the flag of our country, and appeal to the God of battles!" They started, reaching Prospect Station late at night. The head-quarters' train soon came up, and tents were pitched in an open field. As the party sat upon logs on the muddy ground, around a roaring fire, Washburne arrived from the North. They conversed for an hour or two, then stretched themselves upon boards in their tents, to keep 400 "ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC." [1865. them out of the water, and slept through their last night in camp. Next day they took the cars at Burke's Station, and at daybreak on the twelfth reached City Point, thoroughly worn out, and looking as if they thought sleep worth all the victories in the world, and had found the last ditch very muddy indeed. At Appomattox Court-House, three days after the surrender, the confederates formed for the last time, and in columns thick with banners but thin with men-they had been more lavish of lives than colors-delivered up their arms, which our troops, who had so often felt their valor, received in sympathetic silence. General Chamberlain, of the Union army, relates that the rebels dressed lines; fixed bayonets; stacked their muskets; flung their cartridgeboxes on the pile; and slowly furled their flags and laid them down, many with tears streaming from their eyes, and some stooping tenderly to kiss the faded, shot-torn colors. Through the entire day this continued, the disarmed men streaming to the provost-marshal's office for their paroles, and then starting for home. Nearly all were penniless. One officer said :-"You astonish us with your generosity;" another:-"I loved the cause, but we are thoroughly beaten; now the Stars and Stripes are my flag, and I will be as true to it as you." Gordon remarked:-"This is bitterly humiliating to me; but I console myself by thinking that the whole country rejoices at this day's work." The redoubtable Henry A. Wise said:-"We won't be forgiven; we hate you, and that is the whole of it! We have no homes; you have destroyed them." "Well," replied Chamberlain, "you should not have challenged us. We expected somebody would get hurt when we came down here." Farewell the pluméd troop, the spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife! All was quiet along the Potomac. "Hammering continuously" had reduced the granite wall to a mass of powder. |