APPOMATTOX.
Appomattox was not a battle, but the end of battles. Fondly do we hope that never again shall Americans lift against Americans the avenging hand in such a strife! Here at a little court-house, twenty-five miles east of Lynchburg, on the ninth of April, 1865, the great tragedy of our civil war was brought to a happy end. Here General Robert E. Lee, with the broken fragments of his Army of Northern Virginia, was brought by the inexorable logic of war to the end of that career which he had so bravely followed through four years of battle, much of which had shown him to be one of the great commanders of the century.
The story of the downfall of the Confederacy has been many times repeated. It has entered into our literature, and is known by heart wherever the history of the war is read. Generally, however, this story has been told as if the narrator approached the event from the Union side. We have the pursuit of General Lee from Petersburg westward, almost to the spurs of the Alleghanies. We follow in the wake. We see the unwearied efforts of the victorious host to close around the retreating army which has so long been the bulwark of the Confederacy. We hear the summons to surrender, and the answer of "Not yet;" but within a day that answer is reversed, and the stern wills of Lee and his fellow-commanders yield to the inexorable law of the strongest.
Only recently, however, the story has been told with great spirit from the Confederate side, by General John B. Gordon, who was at that time at the right hand of his commander-in-chief, and who stood by him to the last hour. General Gordon's account of the final struggle of the Confederate army and of the surrender is so graphic, so full of spirit, so warmed with the animation and devotion of a great soldier, that we here repeat his account of
The Death Struggle.
We always retreated in good order, though always under fire. As we retreated we would wheel and fire, or repel a rush, and then stagger on to the next hilltop, or vantage ground, where a new fight would be made. And so on through the entire day. At night my men had no rest. We marched through the night in order to get a little respite from fighting. All night long I would see my poor fellows hobbling along, prying wagons or artillery out of the mud, and supplementing the work of our broken-down horses. At dawn, though, they would be in line ready for battle, and they would fight with the steadiness and valor of the Old Guard.
This lasted until the night of the seventh of April. The retreat of Lee's army was lit up with the fire and flash of battle, in which my brave men moved about like demigods for five days and nights. Then we were sent to the front for a rest, and Longstreet was ordered to cover the retreating army. On the evening of the eighth, when I had reached the front, my scout George brought me two men in Confederate uniform, who, he said, he believed to be the enemy, as he had seen them counting our men as they filed past. I had the men brought to my campfire, and examined them. They made a plausible defence, but George was positive they were spies, and I ordered them searched. He failed to find anything, when I ordered him to examine their boots. In the bottom of one of the boots I found an order from General Grant to General Ord, telling him to move by forced marches toward Lynchburg and cut off General Lee's retreat. The men then confessed that they were spies, and belonged to General Sheridan. They stated that they knew that the penalty of their course was death, but asked that I should not kill them, as the war could only last a few days longer, anyhow. I kept them prisoners, and turned them over to General Sheridan after the surrender. I at once sent the information to General Lee, and a short time afterward received orders to go to his headquarters. That night was held Lee's last council of war. There were present General Lee, General Fitzhugh Lee, as head of the cavalry, and Pendleton, as chief of the artillery, and myself. General Longstreet was, I think, too busily engaged to attend.
General Lee then exhibited to us the correspondence he had had with General Grant that day, and asked our opinion of the situation. It seemed that surrender was inevitable. The only chance of escape was that I could cut a way for the army through the lines in front of me. General Lee asked me if I could do this. I replied that I did not know what forces were in front of me; that if General Ord had not arrived—as we thought then he had not—with his heavy masses of infantry, I could cut through. I guaranteed that my men would cut a way through all the cavalry that could be massed in front of them. The council finally dissolved with the understanding that the army should be surrendered if I discovered the next morning, after feeling the enemy's line, that the infantry had arrived in such force that I could not cut my way through.
My men were drawn up in the little town of Appomattox that night. I still had about four thousand men under me, as the army had been divided into two commands and given to General Longstreet and myself. Early on the morning of the ninth I prepared for the assault upon the enemy's line, and began the last fighting done in Virginia. My men rushed forward gamely and broke the line of the enemy and captured two pieces of artillery. I was still unable to tell what I was fighting; I did not know whether I was striking infantry or dismounted cavalry. I only know that my men were driving them back, and were getting further and further through. Just then I had a message from General Lee, telling me a flag of truce was in existence, leaving it to my discretion as to what course to pursue. My men were still pushing their way on. I sent at once to hear from General Longstreet, feeling that, if he was marching toward me, we might still cut through and carry the army forward. I learned that he was about two miles off, with his face just opposite from mine, fighting for his life. I thus saw that the case was hopeless. The further each of us drove the enemy the further we drifted apart, and the more exposed we left our wagon trains and artillery, which were parked between us. Every line either of us broke only opened the gap the wider. I saw plainly that the Federals would soon rush in between us, and then there would have been no army. I, therefore, determined to send a flag of truce. I called Colonel Peyton of my staff to me, and told him that I wanted him to carry a flag of truce forward. He replied:
"General, I have no flag of truce."
I told him to get one. He replied:
"General, we have no flag of truce in our command."
Then said I, "Get your handkerchief, put it on a stick, and go forward."
"I have no handkerchief, General,"
"Then borrow one and go forward with it."
He tried, and reported to me that there was no handkerchief in my staff.
"Then, Colonel, use your shirt."
"You see, General, that we all have on flannel shirts."
At last, I believe, we found a man who had a white shirt. He gave it to us, and I tore off the back and tail, and, tying this to a stick, Colonel Peyton went out toward the enemy's lines. I instructed him simply to say to General Sheridan that General Lee had written to me that a flag of truce had been sent from his and Grant's headquarters, and that he could act as he thought best on this information. In a few moments he came back with some one representing General Sheridan. This officer said:
"General Sheridan requested me to present his compliments to you, and to demand the unconditional surrender of your army."
"Major, you will please return my compliments to General Sheridan, and say that I will not surrender."
"But, General, he will annihilate you."
"I am perfectly well aware of my situation. I simply gave General Sheridan some information on which he may or may not desire to act."
He went back to his lines, and in a short time General Sheridan came forward on an immense horse, and attended by a very large staff. Just here an incident occurred that came near having a serious ending. As General Sheridan was approaching I noticed one of my sharpshooters drawing his rifle down upon him. I at once called to him: "Put down your gun, sir; this is a flag of truce." But he simply settled it to his shoulder and was drawing a bead on Sheridan, when I leaned forward and jerked his gun. He struggled with me, but I finally raised it. I then loosed it, and he started to aim again. I caught it again, when he turned his stern, white face, all broken with grief and streaming with tears, up to me, and said: "Well, General, then let him keep on his own side."
The fighting had continued up to this point. Indeed, after the flag of truce, a regiment of my men, who had been fighting their way through toward where we were, and who did not know of a flag of truce, fired into some of Sheridan's cavalry. This was speedily stopped, however. I showed General Sheridan General Lee's note, and he determined to await events. He dismounted, and I did the same. Then, for the first time, the men seemed to understand what it all meant, and then the poor fellows broke down. The men cried like children. Worn, starved and bleeding as they were, they would rather have died than have surrendered. At one word from me they would have hurled themselves on the enemy, and have cut their way through or have fallen to a man with their guns in their hands. But I could not permit it. The great drama had been played to its end. But men are seldom permitted to look upon such a scene as the one presented here. That these men should have wept at surrendering so unequal a fight, at being taken out of this constant carnage and storm, at being sent back to their families; that they should have wept at having their starved and wasted forms lifted out of the jaws of death and placed once more before their hearthstones, was an exhibition of fortitude and patriotism that might set an example for all time.