Major Warwick had begged that I would go to the house of his father, Major Abram Warwick, and I had the satisfaction of letting him know that his son was safe. Under the influence of morphine I went to sleep, notwithstanding the pain of my wound; and when I awoke in the morning Richmond had been evacuated by the Confederates, and the enemy were in possession of the city. The Warwicks had known when I arrived that our troops were about to leave Richmond, but had refrained from telling me, as they deemed it unsafe to have me moved in the condition in which I was. It was a sad, sad time. Mrs. W. B. Warwick walked up and down the long halls almost demented with grief; and there were other troubles besides those that grew out of the hazardous condition of the soldiers who had retreated with Lee. Two days before, Mr. Abram Warwick was one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, and had almost unlimited means at his command. This Monday morning the great Gallego Mills, of which he was the principal owner, lay in ashes, and he himself was without a dollar of money that would pass current in the city. So it was on every side. Hundreds of families were reduced to absolute beggary by the fire which swept over Richmond. I cannot bear to dwell upon the harrowing scenes of those days. The surgeons made another effort to extract the ball from my shoulder, and came to the wise conclusion that less harm probably would be done by letting it alone than by cutting and carving me in the effort to get it out. So they let me alone, and that ball has never troubled me since.
A week after I reached Richmond I felt strong enough to join the army again, although, of course, I could not use my arm; and Miss Agnes Lee, one of General R. E. Lee’s daughters, had arranged that I should be smuggled out of the city, under a bale of hay, in one of the market carts that came into the city with vegetables every morning. Then came the harrowing tidings that General Lee had surrendered. It seemed to us impossible that the Army of Northern Virginia should be no more, and we scouted the first reports that reached us. All too soon, however, General Lee came back to Richmond, and there was no longer room for doubt. The first returning officer whom I knew well was Colonel Manning, who, with the big tears rolling down his checks, as he sat gaunt and weary on his horse in Franklin Street, told me the pitiful story of the last days of the army and the circumstances of the surrender. The only consolation to me was that General Fitz Lee and my dear comrades had escaped unhurt, except Minnigerode, who was wounded and in the hands of the enemy, as mentioned previously.
There was nothing in the behaviour of the Federal troops to mitigate the unpleasantness of our situation. They did not rob, and they did not kill; but they sought opportunities to humiliate and annoy the defeated Confederates. One of their first orders was that no person should wear clothing with military buttons; and those who had no other buttons but military buttons must cover them so as to conceal their character. After this, the buttons on most of our uniforms, which were the only clothing we had, were covered with crape.
I had lost my desk containing my commissions and papers, which I had left in our head-quarters wagon; but Armistead had put my trunk in the ambulance, and I saved that. Armistead went back to the command as soon as he had placed me in Mr. Warwick’s care; and, as he was but poorly armed, I gave him my revolver, which thus was saved from falling into the hands of the enemy. My sabre, which was taken from me on the night that I was wounded, was unfortunately left at head-quarters, and was lost.
The war being virtually at an end, and there being no other way to get out of Richmond, I presented myself to the Provost Marshal and was duly paroled. Then I went over to Petersburg, my whole worldly possessions being a postage stamp and what was left of a five dollar greenback that a friend in Baltimore had sent me. The first thing I did with this greenback, by the way, was to get small change for it so as to make it look big; and the first luxuries that I bought were cigars and oranges.
[XXXIII.]
I went to Petersburg on April 23d. At Petersburg I was invited to make a visit to Mr. William Cameron, and was very glad to accept. All his servants had left him, and Colonel Frank Huger, of the artillery, and I amused ourselves by preparing the table for breakfast and dinner, and were Mrs. Cameron’s chief assistants in cutting vegetables in the garden and in washing up the dishes. I must say that this last process was anything but advantageous, as we contrived between us to break a good deal of our friend’s pretty china and delicate glass. The unfortunate things had a horrible way of losing their handles and of coming to pieces, as we scrubbed them with more zeal than discretion.