THE SURRENDER.
General Johnston on 26 April made his final surrender of the army to General Sherman and on 2 May, 1865, at Bush Hill, all who remained of the one thousand boy-patriots of the Third Junior Reserves were paroled, and turned their faces sorrowfully homeward. The last roll had been called, the last tattoo beaten, and the regiment was disbanded forever.
A PAROLE FROM JOHNSTON’S ARMY.
Fac-simile of parole of Jno. W. Hinsdale, Colonel, 72d Regiment (3d Junior Reserves).
GREENSBORO’, NORTH CAROLINA,
________________________ 1865.
In accordance with the terms of the Military Convention, entered into on the twenty sixth day of April, 1865, between General Joseph E. Johnston, Commanding the Confederate Army, and Major General W. T. Sherman, Commanding the United states Army in North-Carolina,
_______________________________________________
has given his solemn obligation not to take up arms against the Government of the Unites States until properly released from this obligation; and is permitted to return to his home, not to be disturbed by the United States authorities so long as he observe this obligation and obey the laws in force where he may reside.
_______________________ _____________________
_______________ U. S. A., _____________ C. S. A.,
Special Commissioner. Commanding.
This was the end of all our hopes and aspirations. Might had prevailed over right, and the conquered banner had been furled for all time.
Judge Clark in his Regimental Histories reproduced fac-similes of two paroles, one of an officer in the army of Northern Virginia, who surrendered at Appomattox Court House, the other, of the writer of this sketch, an officer of the last grand army of the Confederacy, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. This parole appears on the opposite page. It was in keeping the inviolate faith of a similar parole issued to our great commander, Robert E. Lee, that General Grant, be it said to his everlasting credit, stayed the hand of President Johnston, who, soon after the war, issued a shameful order for the arrest of the “noblest Roman of them all.” By this one act, General Grant won the respect and esteem of the entire South.
North Carolina has much to be proud of. She was first at Bethel, she went farthest at Gettysburg, she was last at Appomattox, her dead and wounded in battle exceeded in numbers those of any other two States of the Confederacy together. But, her last and most precious offering to the cause of Liberty were her boy-soldiers, who at her bidding willingly left their homes, and marched, and fought, and starved, and froze, and bled, and died that she might live and be free. God bless the Junior Reserves. Their memory will ever be cherished by the Old North State they loved so well.
The following patriotic lines, written by the author of the “Conquered Banner,” will appeal to the heart of many a mother whose young son marched away with the Junior Reserves:
“Young as the youngest, who donned the Gray,
True as the truest who wore it,
Brave as the bravest he marched away
(Hot tears on the cheeks of his mother lay)
Triumphant waved our flag one day—
He fell in the front before it.
Firm as the firmest where duty led,
He hurried without a falter;
Bold as the boldest he fought and bled.
And the day was won—but the field was red—
And the blood of his fresh young heart was shed
On his country’s hallowed altar.
On the trampled breast of the battle plain,
Where the foremost ranks had wrestled,
On his pale pure face not a mark of pain,
(His mother dreams that they will meet again),
The fairest form amid all the slain,
Like a child asleep he nestled.
In the solemn shade of the wood that swept
The field where his comrades found him,
They buried him there—and the big tears crept
Into strong men’s eyes that had seldom wept,
(His mother—God pity her—smiled and slept,
Dreaming her arms were around him).
A grave in the woods with the grass o’ergrown,
A grave in the heart of his mother
His clay in the one lies lifeless and lone:
There is not a name, there is not a stone,
And only the voice of the winds maketh moan
O’er the grave where never a flower is strewn,
But his memory lives in the other.”
John W. Hinsdale.
Raleigh, N. C.,
26 April, 1901.