A GENEROUS CONQUEROR 567 2d, in order that the confederate officials might escape from the doomed city. April 3, his army was marching along four roads which converged at Amelia Court House on the Danville railroad, thirty-five miles from Richmond. He hoped in this way to join Johnston, who, then near Raleigh, North Carolina, was ordered to Greensboro, fifty miles south of Danville. Lee Grant sent troops to hold the evacuated city, but lost not a moment in jubilation. His object was to bag the quarry before a junction with the North Carolina force could be effected. He marched by every road available, often fighting when Lee threw out a force to protect the confederate rear. In the morning of the 4th, Lee reached Amelia Court House, where he expected supplies. None were at hand, and he lost a precious day collecting them. On the 5th, Sheridan with the cavalry seized the railroad to Danville, which caused the confederates to turn towards Lynchburg. On short rations, dispirited, and sick, they were deserting in squads. Sheridan followed rapidly, and during the evening of April 8 got in front of Lee at Appomattox Court House. At the same time, a large body of infantry under Ord, by marching throughout the night, also got around and took position behind Sheridan. Next morning, the 9th, Lee ordered his weary troops to disperse the cavalry and march toward Lynchburg. As they moved out Sheridan drew off his troopers and revealed Ord's solid formation, an obstacle the confederates could not overcome. It was the end of the chase. The April 9, 1865. Lee now raised a white flag and met Grant at the McLean house in Appomattox village. He wore a handsome gray uniform and a splendid sword, and was in striking contrast with the victor, who was dressed in "a rough traveling suit" with the straps Surrender, of a lieutenant general. After some friendly conversation Lee inquired on what terms surrender would be received. Then Grant wrote out the conditions, which were accepted. Officers and men were to be paroled and not to fight again until exchanged, in consideration of which they were not to be disturbed by the federal government so long as they observed the law. Officers were to retain their side arms, their horses, when they owned them, and their private baggage. Lee, after a moment's hesitation, said that many of his cavalrymen and artillerists owned their horses, and Grant agreed that they might keep them "for the spring plowing." By these terms Lee did not have to surrender his sword, a generous courtesy on Grant's part which endeared him to Southern people. A touching farewell of Lee to his own soldiers, reduced by his march and desertion to 26,765, completed the tragic event. The broken host in gray returned to their homes, and their commander rode back to Richmond. Grant's soldiers marched back to the James river, and the northern part of the nation broke into pæans of joy that the bitter struggle was Lincoln Lincoln was at City Point when Richmond was evacuated. On the 9th he returned to Washington, deeply concerned with the work of restoration. To one who said that Jefferson Davis must be hanged, he replied, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." On the 14th he met his cabinet and discussed a policy of reconstruction. "I hope there will be no persecution," he said, "no bloody work after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. . . We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union." That evening he attended the theater with his family. While the play progressed, John Wilkes Booth, an actor who foolishly thought he was redressing the wrongs of the South, gained access to the president's box, fatally wounded him with a pistol shot, and escaped with a broken leg, by leaping to the stage, whence he passed to the street and rode rapidly away into Maryland. He managed to escape to Virginia, where he was tracked to his lair and shot at bay in a burning barn. One of his accomplices wounded Seward seriously in his house. Four conspirators were hanged, including Mrs. Surratt, who was probably innocent, and several others were imprisoned. Lincoln's Lincoln lived until 7.22 A.M. on the 15th. His death was a poignant blow to the nation. In the darkest hours of the war he had never wavered in hope and effort; in a thousand trying events he had shown good sense and persistent good will; in many a personal attack he had borne himself with patience and self-forgetful fortitude; and in every phase of the war he had been the chief support of union. He was great in all the great phases of public leadership, but greatest of all in that overspreading consciousness that all the people, white men and black men, Northern men and Southern men, were within the bounds of his responsibility and protection. When Lee surrendered, Sherman was at Goldsboro, North Carolina, and Johnston was near Raleigh, fifty miles to the west. Hearing that Lee marched for Danville, the latter had turned toward Greensboro, where he stood when he heard the news Surrender of Johnston. from Appomattox. To him came Jefferson Davis, fleeing southward. The confederate president wished the general to march to the mountains and carry on the war. Johnston objected, saying the soldiers desired peace, and it was agreed that he should ask for terms of surrender. April 17 and 18 he met Sherman at Durham, North Carolina, where an armistice was agreed to pending the reference of certain terms of peace to the president. These terms embraced the recognition by the president of the governments of the states then in condition of resistance, the reëstablishment of the federal courts in the South, and the parole of officers and privates of all the confederate armies still in existence. Sherman consented to these terms because WORK OF THE BLOCKADERS 569 he thought it would be difficult to bag Johnston and because his army did not relish another campaign in the region through which it had recently fought. But he had exceeded his instructions, and his terms were disapproved by the government in Washington because they dealt with civil affairs. Then Johnston accepted the terms offered Lee by Grant, April 26, and disbanded his army, numbering 37,047. May 4, General Taylor surrendered all the troops in Alabama and Mississippi, and May 26, Kirby Smith surrendered his Resistance department west of the Mississippi river. The total Abandoned. number of confederates who thus laid down their arms, in these momentous two months, was 174,223. May 10, Jefferson Davis was captured in southern Georgia and sent prisoner to Fortress Monroe. Alexander Stephens and other high confederate officers were also made prisoners; but all were eventually released. FEDERAL NAVAL OPERATIONS The work of the navy during the civil war resolved itself into three spheres of activity: (1) the blockade, (2) coöperation with the army in land operations on the coast, and on the rivers, and (3) chasing down and destroying the small number of commerce destroyers the confederacy was able to place on the sea. The Blockade. The blockade was proclaimed May 19, 1861, and a dozen ships. were at once sent to the most important harbors in the South. By purchasing merchant ships, and even tugs, and building new ships, this number grew steadily until three hundred. were on the blockading line at the end of the war. They were divided into four squadrons, the North Atlantic, from Fortress Monroe to Cape Fear; the South Atlantic, including the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Eastern Florida; the East Gulf, including the coasts of Western Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and a part of Louisiana; and the West Gulf, from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Rio Grande. Life on the blockaders was monotonous. There were days and nights of watching, the ships lying a few miles off the harbor during the day and closing in to anchor during the night, like sentinels on each side of the harbor's entrance. Occasionally, usually in the night, a luckless blockade runner was seized as she tried to dart through the opening. Sometimes she stole through so cautiously as to elude the blockaders, and sometimes she was forced on the shallows and burned by her crew in order to avoid capture. The blockaders did not dare follow her under the guns of the confederate forts which usually commanded the interior channels. Early in 1862 the South undertook to break the blockade by constructing heavy ironclads. The first undertaken was named the Virginia, though history remembers her as the Merrimac, the name she bore as a merchantman before the war began. Her super structure was removed and a roof of railroad rails took its place with heavy guns beneath the roof. March 8, 1862, this dangerous The Monitor and Merrimac. craft steamed out of Norfolk harbor and destroyed three federal frigates off Newport News. Next day she reappeared to complete her work of ruin. She encountered a strange-looking ironclad craft, a hulk level with the water and supporting a revolving turret within which were powerful guns. It was the Monitor, designed by Ericsson and appropriately described as "a raft with a cheese-box on it." A fierce encounter followed, at the end of which the Southern ship retired in a damaged condition. She did not resume the attempt to raise the blockade. The conflict proved the efficiency of ironclad ships and opened a new era in naval construction. The American government built many monitors before the war ended. In Eastern The most important movements of the navy in coöperation with the army against harbors and on the rivers were as follows: 1. The attack on Roanoke Island, August 29, 1861. The navy seized Hatteras and Ocracoke inlets, in North Carolina, giving the North command of the entrance to Pamplico and Albemarle sounds. In the following January an expedition under General Burnside took Roanoke island, lying between these sounds, and afterwards Newbern and Plymouth on the mainland were occupied. The first intention was by this approach to move into the interior of North Carolina and cut off supplies for Richmond, but on consideration the project was given up as impossible. The expedition was serviceable because it effectually blockaded this part of the coast. In South 2. Operations against Charleston, November 7, 1861. Port Royal, South Carolina, was taken, giving the South Atlantic squadron an excellent base. Immediately afterwards the sea islands were seized. From Port Royal in the following April, an expedition took Fort Pulaski, commanding the mouth of the Savannah river. As the smaller harbors fell easy prey, it happened that by midsummer of 1862 all the Atlantic coast was under federal control, except Wilmington, N. C., and Charleston. Against the latter a strong fleet of newly constructed monitors was sent in April, 1863. It sailed boldly into the harbor, but retired with much loss from the fire of Forts Sumter and Moultrie with the aid of other shore batteries. In July the attack was renewed, an army now landing and moving against the defenses on Morris Island, south of the harbor, while the fleet at close range attacked the works on the island. Before the line of advance was Battery Wagner - often called "Fort Wagner," a work strongly placed and well defended. Two unsuccessful assaults were made on it, in the second of which fell Colonel Robert G. Shaw at the head of his negro regiment. After a seven days' bombardment from the fleet, Fort Sumter was in ruins, although a small infantry force remained in it until the evacuation of BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 571 The Charleston, February 17, 1865. By regular approaches Battery Wagner was at last taken and Morris Island was in federal hands; a useless achievement, for the harbor was supposed to be mined and no further attempt was made against the place for a year and a half. Besides the capture of New Orleans, 1862, the most notable naval achievement in the gulf region was seizing Mobile bay in 1864. place was an important outlet for blockade runners and was well defended by Fort Morgan and several vessels, among them the powerful ram, Tennessee. August 5, Farragut, with eighteen ships, four of them monitors, ran past the fort and batteries and engaged the fleet within the bay. The Tennessee became the target of the union fleet. Ship after ship struck her armored sides, desirous of sinking her. She withstood their blows, but having a weak engine, could not be brought effectively against her opponents. Finally her steering gear was disabled and she surrendered. The rest of the confederate ships retired or were destroyed, and the fort capitulated when 5000 troops had been landed. The city of Mobile was not taken until the following spring. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE For the Eastern campaigns the same general works and sources are available as for the Western operations (see p. 543). Of a more specific nature are the following: McClellan's Own Story (1887), contains many letters; Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1882); Grant, Personal Memoirs, 2 vols. (1895); Sheridan, Personal Memoirs, 2 vols. (1902); Walker, W. S. Hancock (1894); Poore, Ambrose E. Burnside (1882); Butler, Butler's Book, 2 vols. (1892); Cox, Military Reminiscences, 2 vols. (1900); Bache, George Gordon Meade (1897); Haupt, Reminiscences (1901); Long, Robert Edward Lee (1886); Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox (1903); J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations (1874); Hood, Advance and Retreat (1880); McClellan, J. E. B. Stuart (1885); Henderson, Stonewall Jackson, 2 vols. (1900); and Alexander, Military Memoirs, (1907). On army experiences, besides the authorities mentioned on page 543, see: Noyes, The Bivouac and the Battlefield (1863); Townsend, Campaigns of a Non-Combatant (1866); Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollection (1905); Maury, Recollections of a Virginian (1894); McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee (1865); Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff-Officer (1905); Stiles, Four Years under Marse Robert (1903); and Taylor, Four Years with Lee (1878). On naval history of the civil war see first of all: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, 22 vols. (1894-1908). See also Maclay, History of the United States Navy, 3 vols. (ed. 1898-1901); Scharf, History of the Confederate States Navy (1894); Porter, Naval History of the Civil War (1886); Semmes, Service Afloat (1887), relates to the Alabama; Wilson, Iron-Clads in Action (1897); Bennett, The Monitor and the Navy under Steam (1900); Wilkinson, Narrative of a Blockade Runner (1877); and Mahan, Farragut (1892). For Independent Reading Rhodes, History of the United States, vols. III-V (1900-1906), the best general history of the war, and it is readable. Other suggested works are: Porter, Campaigning with Grant (1897); Walker, W. S. Hancock (1894); Eggleston, A Rebel's Recollections (1905); Dana, Recollections of the Civil War (1898); Wise, The End of an Era (1899); Schaff, The Sunset of the Confederacy (1912); Bradford, Lee the American (1912); Stiles, Four Years under Marse Robert (1903); and Bennett, The Monitor and the Navy under Steam (1900). |