"It is true, gentlemen," said he, "that you came under the protection of a flag of truce, and are the bearers of important dispatches from your Governor to my Commanding General, but that gave you no right to cross my skirmish-line while a fight was going on."
Governor Graham remarked that the circumstances under which they came explained themselves, and were their own justification. That in a special train, with open windows, proceeding with the deliberation proper to a flag of truce, with only five persons in a single car, they had little temptation to proceed if they had known, in time to stop, that they were to be exposed to a cross-fire from the skirmish-lines of the two armies.
General Kilpatrick replied that all that was very true, but that it was proper, nevertheless, that he should require them to proceed to General Sherman's headquarters. He then remarked that the war was virtually at an end, and that every man who voluntarily shed blood from that time forth, would be a murderer; and read a general order from General Sherman, congratulating the army on the surrender of General Lee, intelligence of which had just reached him by telegraph. This was the first intimation our commissioners had received of this final blow to the Southern cause. It was indeed not unexpected, but no anticipation of such tidings can equal the moment of realization; and to receive it under such circumstances, where extreme caution and self-command were an imperative duty, and where no expression could be allowed to the natural feelings of anguish and dismay with which it filled their breasts, gave an additional pang.
General Kilpatrick further stated, among other things, that the course pursued by General Lee was illustrative of the importance of regular military training; that an able and skillful commander knew when to fight, and when it was a more imperative duty to surrender; that a brave but rash and inexperienced officer would have sacrificed his army, and involved the whole country in ruin for the want of the proper skill to direct, and the prestige to sustain him in the discharge of a duty requiring more than courage.
After an hour or two's delay, the commissioners were escorted back to the train which was in waiting where they had left it, and thence proceeded to General Sherman's headquarters, passing for several miles through open columns of large bodies of troops, amidst the deafening cheers with which they welcomed the surrender of the great Confederate commander, and the arrival of a commission which, as they supposed, was authorized to treat for the surrender of General Johnston's army.
General Sherman, attended by his aids, met the commission at the station-house at Clayton, and conducted them to his tent. Governor Graham presented the letter from Governor Vance, and entered into a discussion of the various points it embraced, and found General Sherman apparently desirous to accede to its propositions as far as was possible for him, and ready to make an amicable and generous arrangement with the State government.
I have endeavored to procure copies of all the official letters written by Governor Vance at this important crisis in our affairs, but, with one exception, have failed. Copies of these letters, together with his letter-book then in use, with other important documents, were packed in a box which was captured at Greensboro, and taken to Washington City, as I have elsewhere mentioned. These records will doubtless be restored to the State at no distant day; and our people will yet have proof that their Governor did all that man could do—I may say all that a man thwarted by undue interference could do—to save the State and her capital from outrage, and humiliation, and anarchy.
I subjoin General Sherman's reply to the letter delivered by the commission: