THE PURSUIT AND THE SURRENDER.
The morning of the 3d of April it was quickly known that Lee's army had escaped in the direction of Amelia Court House, and that his troops from both Richmond and Petersburgh were concentrating there. But his objective point was the question. Was he intending to move directly west towards Lynchburg, or southwest for Danville? In either case he must do so through Burkeville Junction, where the Southside and the Richmond and Danville railroads cross each other. Sheridan with his cavalry and the Fifth Corps, followed by Meade with the Second and Sixth Corps, pushed along the south side of the Appomattox River to keep in constant touch of Lee's movements and to strike the Danville road between its crossing the Appomattox at High Bridge and Burkeville Junction, while Ord with the troops of the Twenty-fourth Corps as a flying column, in the lightest possible marching order, should directly push for the Junction, moving along the Southside road, with the Ninth Corps following. We reached the Junction in the night of the 5th, having marched fifty-two miles since the morning of the 3d. And that night General Read, of General Ord's staff, moved towards High Bridge with a small force, his orders requiring him to seize and burn that bridge and those at Farmville, if possible. This by order of General Grant, and transmitted through Sheridan, then at about half-way between Burkeville Junction and Amelia Court House. The morning of the 6th, Ord was notified by Sheridan that Lee was apparently moving on the Junction. As soon as Grant was informed of this, he directed Ord to move to Rice Station, two-thirds of the way towards Farmville, when there we were directly in Lee's road were he pushing for either Lynchburg or Danville. At the same time messengers were hurried to overtake General Read before he should reach High Bridge, where the van of Lee's army already was, but it was too late to save the fated young officer from death, and his small command from almost annihilation. At Rice Station we found Longstreet's Command intrenched and ready for us, Longstreet quite willing to fight for the time Anderson, Ewell and Gordon needed to march by his rear with the wagon trains they were convoying from Amelia Court House. But as it was about night, we contented ourselves with taking position to attack from in the early morning. During this day, the 6th, Sheridan and Meade were constantly attacking Lee's army at every possible point, and successfully, too, for they captured Ewell and his entire command, together with one-half of Anderson's, a large part of Gordon's, and destroyed the greater part of the trains they were making such useless sacrifices for. Longstreet escaped us while we were sleeping before his intrenchments at Rice Station. Marching to Farmville he crossed to the north bank of the Appomattox, and in the morning, that of the 7th, began to move towards Lynchburg by the road leading through Appomattox Court House. He was followed by Gordon, and he by Mahone. Finding that Longstreet had stolen away, Ord moved on towards Farmville in pursuit, marching by the short cut wagon road Longstreet had gone over, instead of following the railroad to High Bridge. Wright was now following us with the Sixth Corps. All the bridges but one across the Appomattox had been destroyed by the rebels after crossing, and they were in the act of destroying that one, a wagon road bridge near High Bridge, when the Second Corps advance, under Barlow, reached it and saved it.
The Second Corps immediately crossed the Appomattox by this bridge, treading so closely on the heels of the Confederates that General Barlow overtook Gordon's Corps, attacked it and cut off a large part of the wagon train it was covering. So threatening was the Second Corps in its movements, that Lee was forced to halt his force and take a strong position on the crest of a long slope of ground that covered the stage and plank roads leading to Lynchburg. Here he threw up light intrenchments and put artillery in position. After riding along the ground taken up by Lee, General Meade ordered the Second Corps to attack, at the same time sending messengers to Ord to have our division and the Sixth Corps cross the river at Farmville, and help force Lee into a general engagement. But as there was no bridge remaining near us for us to cross by, nor could a fordable place be found, this order could not be obeyed. The Second Corps attack then, unsupported, was but a partial success, but enables General Humphreys, then in command of that Corps, to claim with reason that by the enforced detention due to the vigor and aggressiveness of the movement of the Second Corps, Lee lost the supplies awaiting him at Appomattox Station and gave time for Sheridan with his cavalry and Ord with the Fifth and Twenty-fourth Corps to put themselves across his path at Appomattox Court House. The Second and Sixth Corps pushed directly after Lee the morning of the 8th. He had moved in the night toward Lynchburg. These Corps kept up this direct pursuit until midnight, only halting after making a march of twenty-six miles. The morning of the 8th, the Twenty-fourth and the Fifth Corps pushed out from near Farmville, and accompanied by General Grant and staff, pushed towards Appomattox Court House by the shortest roads. All day long these Corps pressed forward, the men, although tired and footsore, requiring neither urging nor command to put forth every effort to head Lee off from Lynchburg, for all understood that it was Grant's purpose for us to march by Lee's army and head him off, while the Second and Sixth Corps should dog his heels and hamper his speed by forcing him to turn and defend himself at every opportunity they could get. It was a question of legs and endurance now. On and on our men plodded, none falling out until worn out. All were too tired even to raise a cheer in passing General Grant as he was sitting on a roadside log resting himself while enjoying a quiet smoke. And General Ord secured this tribute when, in response to the cries of "Coffee" that ran along the marching line he was riding by to reach the head of the column, he halted it as soon as he gained its advance, that the tired, hungry men might rest a bit while they cooked their coffee, every man his own, in his tin dipper set on one of the hastily lighted roadside fires. Ord was one of the general officers that knew the needs of men. "Get out of the road men," shouted one of his staff as they rode along through a line of men resting in the dusty road. "Stop Sir," said the gray old general sternly, "the men are tired, rein to the roadside and follow that." As the day passed we found ourselves on the track of Sheridan; prisoners, guns and trains of wagons captured by his vigorous advance, lined the roadside, encouraging our tired men to put forth every exertion. Darkness found us still pressing on and it was not until about daybreak that we halted for more than a few minutes rest at a time, the Fifth Corps plodding on at our heels in dogged determination to be there too. At about daylight we reached the vicinity of Appomattox Station, which Sheridan's Cavalry had reached a few hours before, and in time to capture a train of artillery and three trains of cars loaded with subsistence supplies for Lee's army. Our division halted near the captured cars, and details of our men set to work to divide the fat sides of Virginia bacon they were mainly loaded with, among their regiments, and tired, sleepy, but more hungry than either, we made coffee, greedily ate great slices of uncooked bacon with the few crackers of hard bread yet remaining in the haversacks, thinking it as appetizing and satisfying a meal as we had ever eaten. But we had not fairly wiped the bacon grease from our smacking lips when the roar of guns and the roll of musketry rose from the immediate front, telling us that our cavalry was heavily engaged. Falling in quickly at the sharp voiced orders transmitted from Gibbon down, the men were double quicked on the sound of battle. We soon came up with the retiring cavalry, Crook's and Custer's men stubbornly fighting Gordon's advancing infantry column. As we sped by them into the woods Gordon's men were pushing through, a voice shouted, "There's the Eleventh Maine," and a wild cheer rose from a body of cavalry on our right. It was the First Maryland, now mounted and serving in its own arm of the service. Inspired by this recognition and complimentary tribute, the Eleventh dashed vigorously forward and crossed the road Lee's army was now making its last advance on. The gray lines of Gordon's men were dashing forward as the cavalry fell back behind us, but as the swiftly deploying lines of battle of our division unrolled before them, and the long line of blue-clad men pressed forward to receive them, the last advance of the Army of Northern Virginia became a hasty retreat. Negotiations that had been going on between Grant and Lee by letter for two days were now resumed with the result that we all know of. But while the leaders were conferring, we of the opposing rank and file were not sitting down in the amity the histories of the war indicate we were. Blood was shed on the hills of Appomattox that day. As the column of Gordon fell back in the haste of consternation at the unexpected appearance of infantry in their path, we followed after it, and entering the wide field beyond which the Confederates were drawn up behind planted artillery, we were ordered by General Foster to press across it. Then, though unsupported, the Eleventh pushed forward, and finding its progress contested by the fire of a battery before it, broke into a yell and charged the guns. The swift advance was met not only by a sweep of grape and canister, but by the volley fire of a supporting line of battle. In the confusion the two right companies were separated from the left one, rejoining the regiment as it lay in a protecting declension of the open field before the battery it had sought to capture, grape, canister and bullets sweeping over it in appalling volume. Many of those remaining at the log houses the right companies of the regiment had occupied before rejoining the regiment were captured, the Confederate cavalry pushing forward and enveloping this advance position about the time the main body of the occupying companies abandoned it to rejoin the regiment. To make a short story of it, a number of the Eleventh were killed and wounded before the regiment got out of its untenable position before the battery, which it did by moving down one protecting ravine and up another that led nearly back to the position in the woods it had charged from. It was at the moment of retreat that private Moses E. Sherman, of D, was killed, struck dead at the feet of the First Sergeant of the company, Sergeant Keene, who would not believe his friend dead at first, nor would he leave the field until he was convinced that "Mustache" was dead. Poor little "Mustache!" ever cheerfully smiling, ever ready for lark or duty, more than liked by all of us, it seems hard indeed that one so able and willing to enjoy life, and to make life enjoyable for others, should lie dead on the last battlefield of the war. The lot of the Sherman boys was a hard one. Both original members of the company, both taken prisoners at Fair Oaks to endure the privations of Libby Prison together, both reenlisted, William to be mortally wounded at Deep Bottom in August, '64, and Moses to die in the last charge that our old company was called upon to participate in. Scarcely had the regiment reached a sheltered position, when companies A and B were thrown out as part of a skirmish line forming to cover an attack General Ord was preparing, and this skirmish line was moving swiftly across the field intervening between the battle lines when a galloping aid overtook it and announced Lee's surrender. Besides Private Sherman killed, Private Burns and Curtis of D were wounded in making the assault on the battery, which proved to be a liberal section of the celebrated Washington artillery. The formal surrender of the regiments of the Army of Northern Virginia was made to the Fifth and Twenty-fourth Corps, as they were the Corps that, out marching the Confederates, had closed the road of their retreat. We encamped on the battlefield during the progress of the surrender, and it was not until the men of the last regiment of Lee's Army had stacked arms, laid its ragged colors on the now useless bayonets, and marched mournfully away to ruined homes to begin the world over again, that we took up our line of march for Richmond, the last of the Corps of the Army of the Potomac preceding us by a few days.