Some years after, General Hancock said to General Longstreet,—
“You rolled me up like a wet blanket, and it was some hours before I could reorganize the battle.”
THE CURTAIN FALLS AT APPOMATTOX
In discussing the war, General Longstreet always dwelt with peculiar tenderness on the last days that culminated with the surrender at Appomattox. His mental belief for two years before the surrender was that from the very nature of the situation the Union forces would in all probability finally triumph, but his brave heart never knew how to give up the fight, and the surrender was at last agreed upon while he was still protesting against it.
The incident is well known of a number of the leading Confederate generals, who, having decided that further resistance was useless, went to General Lee and suggested surrender upon the best terms that could be had as the wisest thing to do. General Longstreet declined to join with them. General Pendleton was spokesman for the party. His account of the conference is thus related by General A. L. Long in his Memoirs of Lee:
“General Lee was lying on the ground. No others heard the conversation between him and myself. He received my communication with the reply, ‘Oh, no; I trust that it has not come to that,’ and added, ‘General, we have yet too many bold men to think of laying down our arms. The enemy do not fight with spirit, while our boys do. Besides, if I were to say a word to the Federal commander, he would regard it as such a confession of weakness as to make it the condition of demanding an unconditional surrender, a proposal to which I will never listen.... I have never believed we could, against the gigantic combination for our subjugation, make good, in the long run, our independence, unless some foreign power should, directly or indirectly, assist us.... But such considerations really make with me no difference. We had, I am satisfied, sacred principles to maintain, and rights to defend, for which we were in duty bound to do our best, even if we perished in the endeavor.’
“Such were, as nearly as I can recall them, the exact words of General Lee on that most pitiful occasion. You see in them the soul of the man. Where his conscience dictated and his judgment decided, there his heart was.”
No words of eulogy show up so clearly the characters of Lee and likewise of Grant as their own direct words and deeds. On the evening of April 7, 1865, General Grant wrote General Lee as follows:
“The results of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.”
General Longstreet was with General Lee when he received this note. It was handed to General Longstreet without a word. After reading it General Longstreet handed it back, saying, “Not yet.” General Lee replied to General Grant that same evening: