The Falling Flag: Evacuation of Richmond, Retreat and Surrender at Appomattox

by Edward M. Boykin

In passing from the old field, where the guns had been at work, into the woods that separated it from the turnpike, two men were walking just in front of me, following their gun, which was on before. I heard one say, "Tout perdu." I asked at once, "What battery do you belong to?" "Donaldsonville." It was the creole company; and they might well have added the other words of the great Francis, after the battle of Pavia, "Tout perdu fors l'honneur" all lost but honor; for well had they done their work from 'sixty-one, when they came to Virginia, until now, when all was lost, "Tout perdu"—it was the motto of the occasion.

The stag was in the toils, but the end was not yet. We could hear the rush, the shouts and pistol shots, where the enemy mounted and in force had attacked the train; the artillerymen having no arms could make no fight, as they could not use their pieces. We could do nothing (being closely pressed by a superior force of their dismounted men) but fall back upon the town toward our main body, making the best front we could, leaving the road and marching under cover of the timber on the side, being on foot giving us a better position to resist any attack that might be made upon us by the cavalry.

The fifth squadron of the Seventh, that had been thrown out as skirmishers when we first came on the ground, had kept their position covering our left flank when the fight at the batteries was going on. And when we commenced falling back after the guns, the adjutant, Lieutenant Capers, was sent to bring them to the road, so as to join the regiment. They had also been dismounted, and their horses sent with the rest. He found them, led them to the road, and, on getting on it at a point nearer to the town than where we struck it, hearing the bugles and the rush of the cavalry on the train, he at once posted the companies, with their captains, Doby and Dubose, in the woods immediately on the road-side, and with the parting salutation, "Take care of yourselves, boys," (he had been a private in one of the companies, and both were from his native district), dashed back to his place in the regiment and disappeared round a turn in the road. They had scarcely lost sight of him when a heavy volley rang out, and his horse came round the bend at full speed without his rider, jumping over in his fright a broken caisson that lay across the road—the horse, a very fine roan, the one he was riding when, at "Amelia Spring," he, Capers, was the only one of the five in advance who escaped, to meet his fate that night, pierced by a dozen balls; the whole fire of the column was concentrated upon him, for we found his body next day. Some kind hand had given him a soldier's grave; some one, most likely of those who fought us, who could not but respect and admire the gallant young fellow lying in his blood, and with the feeling developed by a soldier's life, "So be it to me and mine in my sorrow as I may be to thee this day." All the respect was shown that circumstances admitted of.

One of our captains, who was wounded at the "guns" severely, fell into the enemy's hands when we moved them—as everybody was too busy to look after the wounded, and ambulance men and stretchers were this time neither in the front or rear. He was taken up by his new friends quite tenderly, as he thought, and put into an ambulance; but in the course of the evening's entertainment the Yankee wounded came dropping in, and our friend, Captain Walker, was disposed of rather unceremoniously on the roadside, for others they valued at a higher rate than even a Confederate captain.

Immediately after the adjutant's horse came Custar's cavalry. Seeing all clear before them, they came on without a check until, when nearly opposite where our men of the Fifth squadron were lying in the woods, they caught the fire of the entire squadron, which emptied a good many saddles, and was the last shot probably fired that night.

The Federal cavalry kept on toward the town, and the squadron, under cover, drew deeper into the woods, and moved round the town and went into camp, but did not join the main body until next morning. The enemy kept on until they got into, or nearly into the town, but again fell back, establishing their line somewhere between the town and the depot. Our outside picket was in the town.

We went into camp about one o'clock in the morning, on the Richmond side of the town, in the woods—General Gary riding to General Gordon's headquarters to report before lying down.

April 9th.—The sun rose clear on this the last day, practically, of the Southern Confederacy. It was cool and fresh in the early morning so near the mountains, though the spring must have been a forward one, as the oak trees were covered with their long yellow tassels.

We gathered the brigade on the green on the Richmond side of the village, most of the men on foot, the horses not having come in. About eight o'clock a large portion of our regiment had their horses—they having been completely cut off the night before by the charge of Custar's cavalry on the turnpike, and were carried, to save them, into a country cross-road. Then the "Hampton Legion" got theirs. My impression is that the Twenty-fourth Virginia lost the most or a good many of their horses. The men built fires, and all seemed to have something to eat, and to be amusing themselves eating it. The woods on the southern and eastern side swarmed with the enemy and their cavalry—a portion of it was between us and the "James River," which was about twelve miles distant. General Fitz Lee's division of cavalry lay over in that direction somewhere; General Longstreet with General Gordon was in and on the outer edge of the town, on the Lynchburg side, and so we waited for the performance to commence.