His manner had its effect on General Gary, who at once sheathed his sabre, saying, "Do not suppose, sir, I have any doubt of the truth of your statement, but you must allow that, under such circumstances, I can only receive orders from my own officers; but I am perfectly willing to accept your statement and wait for those orders." (Situated as we were, certainly a wise conclusion.) Almost on the instant Colonel Blackford, of the engineers, rode up, sent by General Gordon, with a Federal officer, carrying orders to that effect.
We drew back to the artillery and infantry that were just behind us, and formed our battered fragments into regiments.
Desperate as we knew our condition to be since last night's affair, still the idea of a complete surrender, which we began now to see was inevitable, came as an awful shock. Men came to their officers with tears streaming from their eyes, and asked what it all meant, and would, at that moment, I know, have rather died the night before than see the sun rise on such a day as this.
And so the day wore on, and the sun went down, and with it the hopes of a people who, with prayers, and tears, and blood, had striven to uphold that falling flag.
It was all too true, and our worst fears were fully justified by the result. The suspension of hostilities was but a prelude to surrender, which was, when it came to a show of hands, inevitable.
General Lee's army had been literally pounded to pieces after the battle of "Five Forks," around Petersburg, which made the evacuation of Richmond and the retreat a necessity. When General Longstreet's corps from the north bank joined it, the "army of Northern Virginia," wasted and reduced to skeleton battalions, was still an army of veteran material, powerful yet for attack or defence, all the more dangerous from its desperate condition. And General Grant so recognized and dealt with it, attacking it, as before stated, in detail; letting it wear itself out by straggling and the disorganizing effect of a retreat, breaking down of men and material. The infantry were almost starved.
It was not until the fourth day from Richmond, at the high bridge on the "Appomattox," the battle of Sailor's Creek was fought, in which, with overwhelming masses of cavalry, artillery and infantry, our starved and tired men were ridden down, and General Grant destroyed, in military parlance, the divisions of Kershaw, Ewell, Anderson and Custis Lee.
The fighting next day was of the same desultory character as before, and the day after there was no blow struck until we encountered with the artillery Custar's cavalry, at the depot of Appomattox Court-house, as has been described—all their energies being directed toward establishing their "cordon" around that point.
The terms of the surrender, and all about it, are too well known to go over in detail here—prisoners of war on parole, officers to retain side arms, and all private property to be respected, that was favorable to our cavalry, as in the Confederate service the men all owned their horses, though different in the United States army, the horses belonging to Government.
General Gary, true to the doctrine he had laid down in his discussion with the irate captain, that "South Carolinians did not surrender," turned his horse's head, and, with Captain Doby and one or two others, managed to get that night through the "cordon" drawn around us, and succeeded in reaching Charlotte, North Carolina, which became, for a time, the headquarters of the "Southern Confederacy"—the President and his Cabinet having established themselves there.