As soon as the trains were made up for the interior, after spending a day and night in Galveston where we were treated royally by its citizens, we proceeded to our different homes and I soon landed in Hempstead among a sad, dejected and ruined people, resolved to do the best they could under the circumstances and submit gracefully to the powers that were.
It would, I consider, be entirely fitting for me to close this part of my life’s history by publishing what I may call General Joseph Wheeler’s farewell address to his cavalry corps (General Wheeler issued the following order to his entire command):
“Headquarters Cavalry Corps,
“April 28, 1865.
“Gallant Comrades: You have fought your fight. Your task is done. During a four years’ struggle for liberty you have exhibited courage, fortitude and devotion. You are the victors of more than 200 sternly contested fields. You have participated in more than a thousand conflicts of arms. You are heroes! Veterans! Patriots! The bones of your comrades mark battlefields upon the soil of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. You have done all that human exertion could accomplish. In bidding you adieu, I desire to tender my thanks for your gallantry in battle, your fortitude under suffering and your devotion at all times to the holy cause you have done so much to maintain. I desire also to express my gratitude for the kind feelings you have seen fit to extend toward myself, and to invoke upon you the blessing of our Heavenly Father, to whom we must always look in the hour of distress. Brethren in the cause of freedom, comrades in arms, I bid you farewell.
“JOSEPH WHEELER,
“Major General.
“Official:
“WM. E. WAITES,
“Assistant Adjutant General.”