CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNOR SWAIN AND GENERAL SHERMAN—GOVERNOR VANCE'S POSITION AND CONDUCT—KILPATRICK—THE CONDUCT OF THE SERVANTS—"LEE'S MEN"—PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
I am persuaded that it requires the exercise of an implicit faith, and a total rejection of the evidence of things seen, to believe that General Sherman as a man, deplored the policy which, as a general, he felt bound to pursue. I shall, however, give him the benefit of his own professions, which, whether sincere or not, are certainly in unison with the part he played in the treaty with General Johnston. The following correspondence will be read with interest:
Chapel Hill, April 19, 1865.
Major-General W.T. Sherman, commanding United States Forces:
General: ... On my return to this village on Saturday morning, fifteenth instant, I found that General Wheeler, with his division of cavalry, had been encamped here for two days. He resumed his march on Sunday morning, leaving the country denuded to a considerable extent of forage, and taking with him a number of horses and mules. General Atkins arrived with his brigade on Monday morning, and is in camp here now. I have had several interviews with General Atkins, and have pleasure in stating that he manifests a disposition to execute his orders with as much forbearance as he deems compatible with the proper discharge of his duty. Nevertheless, many worthy families have been stripped by his soldiers of the necessary means of subsistence. A Baptist clergyman—a most estimable, quiet, and charitable citizen, and the most extensive farmer within a circle of three miles—is almost entirely destitute of provision for man and beast; and with a family of more than fifty persons, (white and colored,) has not a single horse or mule. Other instances, not less striking, exist, of families in less affluent circumstances; but I refer particularly to Mr. Purefoy, because he has been my near neighbor for about thirty years, and I hold him in the highest estimation. He, like many others, is not merely without the present means of subsistence, but unless his horses and mules are restored or replaced, can make no provision for the future. The delay of a few days even may render it impossible to plant corn in proper time.
I am satisfied from the impression made on me in our recent interview, that personally, you have no disposition to add to the unavoidable horrors of war, by availing yourself of the utmost license which writers on the subject deem admissible, but that, on the contrary, you would prefer to treat the peaceful tillers of the soil with no unnecessary harshness. I venture to hope, therefore, that the present state of negotiations between the contending armies will enable you to relax the severity of the orders under which General Atkins is acting, and I am satisfied that if you shall feel yourself justified by the course of events in doing so, an intimation of your purpose will be welcome intelligence to him.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
D.L. Swain.
Headquarters Military Division of the}
Mississippi, in the Field,}
Raleigh, N.C., April 22, 1865. }
Hon. D.L. Swain, Chapel Hill, N.C.:My Dear Sir: Yours of April nineteenth was laid before me yesterday, and I am pleased that you recognize in General Atkins a fair representative of our army.
The moment war ceases, and I think that time is at hand, all seizures of horses and private property will cease on our part. And it may be that we will be able to spare some animals for the use of the farmers of your neighborhood. There now exists a species of truce, but we must stand prepared for action; but I believe that in a very few days a definitive and general peace will be arranged, when I will make orders that will be in accordance with the new state of affairs.
I do believe that I fairly represent the feelings of my countrymen—that we prefer peace to war; but if war is forced upon us, we must meet it; but if peace be possible, we will accept it, and be the friends of the farmers and working classes of North-Carolina, as well as actual patrons of churches, colleges, asylums, and all institutions of learning and charity. Accept the assurances of my respect and high esteem.
I am, truly yours,
W.T. Sherman,
Major-General Commanding.
Without ascribing to General Sherman any extraordinary degree of merit as a writer, I am inclined to give him credit for sincerity in these professions, simply because of the corroborating evidence afforded by his conduct in the treaty with Johnston. Their first agreement was not ratified at Washington, and General Sherman's position therein was severely censured; but no one who rightly estimated the condition of the South at the close of the war, and the state of public feeling among us, has ever doubted that, if that treaty had been ratified, the happiest results would have followed, and an immense amount of trouble, expense, and evil would have been avoided by the whole country. I repeat what I have said previously, that General Sherman alone, of all the prominent men and leaders among our antagonists, was at that time possessed of the requisite ability and statesmanship and magnanimity to comprehend the situation, and seize the opportunity and the means for an equitable adjustment of our difficulties. I greatly regret not being able to present my readers with a copy of his letter of invitation to Governor Vance to return to Raleigh. On the fourteenth of April General Johnston sent him his first letter, requesting a suspension of hostilities, with a view to entering into arrangements for putting a stop to the war. This application was replied to by General Sherman in a really noble and generous spirit, and their correspondence resulted in those interviews at Durham's Station, on the North-Carolina Central Railroad, which concluded the war and have become historical. No one can read that correspondence without seeing unmistakable evidence that General Sherman manifested an eager anxiety to save the South from further devastation. Perhaps a late remorse had touched him; but however that may be, in the civil policy he has always advocated toward the South, he has shown himself at once generous and politic. If he had pursued an equally far-sighted course as a soldier; if he had advocated a humane forbearance toward the defenseless people who were crushed beneath his march; if he had enforced a strict discipline in his army, and chosen to appear as a restorer rather than as a destroyer, there are few at the South who would not join to pronounce him the hero of the war on the Northern side, and his name would worthily go down to posterity by the side of the great captain of the age, who declared, when leading his victorious veterans into France, that rather than suffer them to pillage the country as they passed, he would resign his command.
While Generals Johnston and Sherman were engaged in their negotiations at Durham's, Governor Vance found that by having obeyed President Davis's summons to Greensboro before accepting General Sherman's invitation to Raleigh, he was effectually precluded from all further participation in the affairs of the State. I am not at liberty to say why or how this was; but it is probable the Governor himself does not very deeply regret it, since it is not likely he would have been permitted by the Federal authorities to retain his office, even if he had returned to Raleigh and resumed the reins. All General Sherman's views and official acts as peacemaker were speedily disavowed and overruled at Washington; and though Governor Vance was willing to have made the experiment, being urged thereto by his best friends, yet, as matters have since turned out, it is as well that he was prevented. He and his noble State were equally incapable of any attempt to make terms for themselves, even had it been likely that any terms would have been granted. Our fortunes were to be those of our sister States whom we had joined deliberately, fought for, and suffered with; and Governor Vance was never more truly our representative than in the treatment he received from the Federal Government after the surrender.