XXIV. — THE RETREAT.
Crossing James River, above the city, I pushed after the army, which I rejoined on the evening of the 4th, as it was crossing the Appomattox opposite Amelia Court-House.
It reached that village on Wednesday April 5th, and you could see at a glance that its spirit was unbroken. As to General Lee, his resolution up to that time had astonished all who saw him. Never had he seemed in more buoyant spirits.
“I have got my army safe out of its breastworks,” he said, “and in order to follow me, my enemy must abandon his lines, and can derive no further benefit from his railroads, or James River."{1}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
It was only the faint-hearts who lost hope. Lee was not of those. Mounted upon his old iron-gray—at the head of his old army, if his little handful of about fifteen thousand men could be called such—Lee was still the great cavalier. The enemy had not yet checkmated him: his heart of hope was untouched. He would cut his way through, and the red flag should again float on victorious fields!
The army responded to the feeling of its chief. The confidence of the men in Lee was as great as on his days of victory. You would have said that the events of the last few days were, in the estimation of the troops, only momentary reverses. The veterans of Hill and Longstreet advanced steadily, tramping firm, shoulder to shoulder, with glittering gun barrels, and faces as resolute and hopeful as at Manassas and Chancellorsville.
“Those men are not whipped,” said a keen observer to me, as he looked at the closed-up column moving. And he was right. The morale of this remnant of the great army of Northern Virginia was untouched. Those who saw them then will testify to the truth of my statement.
At Amelia Court-House a terrible blow, however, awaited them. General Lee had ordered rations to be sent thither from North Carolina. They had been sent, but the trains had gone on and disgorged them in Richmond. When Lee arrived with his starved army, already staggering and faint, not a pound of bread or meat was found; there was nothing.
Those who saw General Lee at this moment, will remember his expression. For the first time the shadow of despair passed over that brave forehead. Some one had, indeed, struck a death-blow at him. His army was without food. All his plans were reversed. He had intended to reprovision his force at Amelia, and then push straight on. His plan, I think I can state, was to attack the detached forces of Grant in his front; cut his way through there; cross the Nottoway and other streams by means of pontoons, which had been provided; and, forming a junction with General Johnston, crush Sherman or retreat into the Gulf States. All this was, however, reversed by one wretched, microscopic incident. The great machine was to be arrested by an atom in its path. The rations were not found at Amelia Court-House; the army must have food, or die; half the force was dispersed in foraging parties throughout the surrounding country, and the delay gave Grant time to mass heavily in Lee’s front, at Burksville.
Then all was decided. Lee had not doubted his ability to crush a corps, or even more, before the main force of the enemy came up. He saw as clearly now, that there was no hope of his cutting his way through Grant’s army. It was there in his front—the failure of rations had caused all. With what must have been a terrible weight upon his heart, Lee directed his march toward Lynchburg, determined to fight to the end; and, as he had said during the winter, “die sword in hand.”
Then commenced the woeful tragedy. What words can paint that retreat? There is only one other that equals it—Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. The army staggered on, fighting, and starving, and dying. Stalwart men fell by the roadside, or dropped their muskets as they tottered on. The wagons were drawn by skeleton mules, without food like the soldiers. If an ear of corn was found, the men seized and munched it fiercely, like animals. Covered with mud, blackened with powder, with gaunt frames, and glaring eyes, the old guard of the army of Northern Virginia still stood to their colors—fighting at every step, despairing, but not shrinking; and obeying the orders of Lee to the last.
You would not doubt that confidence in, and love for, their commander, reader, if you had witnessed the scene which I did, near Highbridge. The enemy had suddenly assailed Ewell and Custis Lee, and broken them to pieces. The blue horsemen and infantry pressing fiercely on all sides, and hunting their opponents to the death, seemed, at this moment, to have delivered a blow from which the Confederates could not rise. The attack had fallen like a thunderbolt. Ewell, Anderson, and Custis Lee were swept away by mere weight of numbers; the whole army seemed threatened with instant destruction.
Lee suddenly appeared, however, and the scene which followed was indescribable. He had rushed a brigade across, riding in front on his iron-gray; and at that instant he resembled some nobleman of the old age on the track of the wild-boar. With head erect, face unmoved, eyes clear and penetrating, he had reached the scene of danger; and as the disordered remnants of Ewell’s force crowded the hill, hot and panting, they had suddenly seen, rising between them and the enemy, a wall of bayonets, flanked by cannon.
A great painter should have been present then. Night had fallen, and the horizon was lit up by the glare of burning wagons. Every instant rose, sudden and menacing, the enemy’s signal rockets. On the summit of the hill, where the infantry waited, Lee rode among the disordered men of Ewell, and his presence raised a storm.
“It’s General Lee!”
“Uncle Robert!”
“Where’s the man who won’t follow old Uncle Robert!”
Such were the shouts, cries, and fierce exclamations. The haggard faces flushed; the gaunt hands were clenched. On all sides explosions of rage and defiance were heard. The men called on the gray old cavalier, sitting his horse as calm as a statue, to take command of them, and lead them against the enemy.
No attack was made on them. An hour afterward the army moved again—the rear covered by General Fitzhugh Lee with his cavalry, which, at every step, met the blue huntsmen pressing on to hunt down their prey.
Such were some of the scenes of the retreat, up to the 7th. Who has the heart to narrate what followed in the next two days? A great army dying slowly—starving, fighting, falling—is a frightful spectacle. I think the memory of it must affect even the enemies who witnessed it.
It is only a small portion of the tragic picture that the present writer has the heart to paint.