For us at Goldsborough a day or two was delightfully spent in free conferences with Sherman and in getting from his own lips the story of his wonderful campaigns since we parted from him in Georgia. All the empty wagons of his enormous trains were now sent back to Kinston under escort to bring up clothing and supplies, and he thought a delay of a fortnight might be necessary to get ready for further active movements. He fixed April both as the date for opening a new campaign, and suggested to General Grant that when he had his troops properly placed and the supplies working well, he might "run up and see you for a day or two before diving again into the bowels of the country." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 969.] On the 25th the railroad was running to Goldsborough, and Colonel Wright was anxious to have the general go over the road with him and see for himself its condition and what had been acomplished as well as what was still needed to make its equipment ready for the heavy work of another campaign. Accordingly Sherman put Schofield temporarily in chief command, and after an inspection trip on a locomotive with Colonel Wright, he continued his journey to City Point in a steamer belonging to the quartermaster's department. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. pp. 19, 20.] His memorable visit to Grant and Lincoln, there, will be considered in connection with the negotiations with Johnston a little later. Having spent the 27th and 28th of March there, he was sent back by Admiral Porter in a fast vessel of the navy, reached New Berne on the 30th, and rejoined us at Goldsborough the same evening.
His return was a matter of some personal interest to me, for it brought my permanent assignment to the command of the Twenty-third Corps by Presidential order. The other troops under Schofield were organized into a new corps with Terry for commandant, and as changes had vacated the original Tenth Corps organization, that number was given to Terry's. Schofield had asked for these appointments immediately after our occupation of Wilmington, but the letters had not reached General Grant, and action had not been taken. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 559.] At Goldsborough he had renewed the request which Sherman cordially indorsed, and the latter carried the papers with him to City Point, where the matter was acted upon at once by the President and General Grant. [Footnote: Id., pp. 960, 961; pt. iii. pp. 18, 34. See also Appendix C.]
Schofield's promotion to the rank of brigadier-general in the regular army had been recommended by Grant as a reward for the capture of Wilmington, with the remark that he ought to have had it from the battle of Franklin. [Footnote: Id., pt. ii. pp. 545, 558.] Mr. Stanton replied that the nomination would be made as requested, "subject, however, to his obedience to orders. I am not satisfied with his conduct in seizing the hospital boat 'Spaulding' to make it his own quarters," he said; adding, "I have directed him to give it up. If he obeys the order promptly, I will send in his nomination; otherwise I will not." [Footnote: Id., p. 562.] By an odd coincidence, the order to Schofield with the Secretary's reprimand was written on the same day Grant was making his recommendation for promotion, [Footnote:Id., p. 545.] and it well illustrates Stanton's characteristic impulsiveness and hasty temper which made him act on first reports, when a quiet investigation of facts would have changed his view and saved the feelings of his subordinates. An order forbidding the use of hospital boats for other military purposes, diverting them from hospital use, had been issued on February 8th, the day we reached Cape Fear Inlet after our sea voyage, [Footnote:Id., p. 342.] and by another coincidence Schofield had made the "Spaulding" his temporary headquarters on the same day. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 927.] Not being a clairvoyant, Schofield knew nothing of the order which was then being written in the adjutant-general's office at Washington, and which did not reach him till his temporary use of the vessel had ended. Moreover, as he was as yet without his tents or horses, and as he intended his troops to operate on both sides of Cape Fear River, his prompt progress with the campaign depended on his ready communication with both banks, [Footnote: Ante, p. 405.] and the boat had been named as available for the purpose by the quartermaster responsible for the army transports and vessels. As it was a question of successful handling of his forces, the discretion would have belonged to the general commanding the department to make an exception to a rule, if the order had been in his hands instead of being wholly unknown to him. Still again, the use he made of the boat helped instead of hindering its availability as a hospital, for he kept it close to the advancing lines on the river banks so that the wounded were brought to it with greatest ease, and it had in fact no sick or disabled men on board till they were brought there under these circumstances. Lastly, the superior medical officer of the department was a member of Schofield's staff, wholly in accord with his views, and the complaint had been sent by the subordinate surgeon on the boat directly to the surgeon-general at Washington without the knowledge of the department medical director. To have referred it back to the general for his comments, calling his attention to the order, would have been regular and would have resulted in commendation of his action instead of disapproval. When Grant received the Secretary's dispatch, Colonel Comstock had returned from Wilmington, and from him the general got the information which enabled him to remove Stanton's misapprehension, so that the appointment was made before Schofield knew of the complaint. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 562, 582.] Nearly a month later he made a full statement of the circumstances to put himself personally right with the Secretary. [Footnote: Id., p. 832.] The latter had borne no ill-will to Schofield, but even at the closing period of the war had not learned to temper his zeal with considerate patience.
The work which occupied us the ten days of April which we spent at Goldsborough was chiefly that of organizing our trains and collecting supplies in our depots, so that the foraging on the country which had been necessary in Georgia and South Carolina might cease, now that we had railway communication with a safe base on the Atlantic. Sherman had informed his principal subordinates that when he reached North Carolina he would resume the regular issue of supplies as far as possible, and put an end to the indiscriminate seizing of whatever the army needed. It had answered its purpose in the long marches from Atlanta to Savannah and from Savannah to Goldsborough, where the condition of success was cutting loose from the base; but the tendency to demoralization and loss of discipline in troops which practise it too long, made a return to regular methods very desirable.
As the army had approached the North Carolina line, General Blair, commanding the Seventeenth Corps, had written to Howard, his immediate superior: "Every house that we pass is pillaged, and as we are about to enter the State of North Carolina, I think the people should be treated more considerately. The only way to prevent this state of affairs is to put a stop to foraging. I have enough in my wagons to last to Goldsborough, and I suppose that the rest of the army has also. . . . The system is vicious and its results utterly deplorable. As there is no longer a necessity for it, I beg that an order may be issued to prohibit it. General Sherman said that when we reached North Carolina he would pay for everything brought to us and forbid foraging. I believe it would have an excellent effect upon the country to change our policy in this respect." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 717; pt. iii. pp. 46, 47.] Stringent orders were at once issued to modify the system and prevent the abuses of it, but it was not practicable to stop foraging entirely till the junction of the forces was made at Goldsborough. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 718, 728, 760, 783.] The regular issue of rations furnished by the government was then resumed, except that long forage for horses and mules could not be obtained in this way and was collected from the country;[Footnote:Id., pt. iii. pp. 7-9.] but even then the correction of bad habits in the soldiery was only gradually accomplished.
The evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg on the morning of the 3d of April was not known to Sherman till the 6th, when Grant's letter reached him containing the joyful news. On Saturday, the 8th, it was confirmed, with particulars of Lee's disastrous retreat. [Footnote: Id., pp. 89, 99, 100, 109.] That night there was a noisy jubilee in our camps. Regular artillery salutes were fired, but the soldiers also extemporized all sorts of demonstrations of their joyfulness. The air resounded with cheers, with patriotic songs, with the beating of drums, with the music of the brass bands, with musket firing; whilst beautiful signal rockets rushed high into the air, dropping their brilliant stars of red, white, and blue from the very clouds. [Footnote:Id., pt. i. p. 936.]
So long as Lee held fast at Petersburg, Sherman's plan had been to feint on Raleigh, but make his real movement northward, crossing the Roanoke above Gaston and marching between Johnston and Lee. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 102.] Now, however, as he wrote Halleck, he would move in force upon Raleigh, repairing the railroad behind him and following the Confederate army close in whatever direction it should move. [Footnote: Id., p. 118.] Grant's letter of the 5th, giving his opinion that Lee was making for Danville with an army reduced to about 20,000 men, [Footnote: Id., P. 99.] reached Sherman on the 8th, and he immediately answered it, saying: "On Monday [10th] all my army will move straight on Joe Johnston, supposed to be between me and Raleigh, and I will follow him wherever he may go. If he retreats on Danville to make junction with Lee, I will do the same, though I may take a course round him, bending toward Greensborough for the purpose of turning him north.... I wish you could have waited a few days or that I could have been here a week sooner; but it is not too late yet, and you may rely with absolute certainty that I will be after Johnston with about 80,000 men, provided for twenty full days which will last me forty. I will have a small force here at Goldsborough and will repair the road to Raleigh." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 129.]
On Monday we marched,--Slocum with the Army of Georgia straight for Smithfield, Howard with the Army of the Tennessee going north to Pikeville and then turning toward Raleigh, keeping to the right of Slocum and abreast of him on parallel roads. Schofield with our Army of the Ohio moved a little to the left of Slocum in echelon, my corps taking the river road on the left (north) bank of the Neuse to Turner's Bridge, a little below Smithfield, and Terry's going through Bentonville somewhat further to left and rear. Kilpatrick with the cavalry covered the march of this flank. [Footnote:Id., p. 123.] It will be seen that this order of movement assumed that Johnston was at or near Smithfield, where our latest information put him. My corps had been somewhat scattered to cover our communications with Kinston and Newberne, and I was ordered to concentrate at Goldsborough on the 10th, advancing-from there on the 11th. [Footnote: Id., p. 134.] My old division, which had been commanded by General Reilly since he joined us at Wilmington, was for the rest of the campaign led by General Carter, Reilly's uncertain health making him anticipate the quickly approaching end of the war by resigning. Ruger and Couch continued in command of the first and second divisions respectively. [Footnote: Id., pt. i. p. 936.]
My own march was impeded by the slow progress of the pontoon-train which had been sent ahead of my column, where a part of Slocum's supply-train also moved. For this reason we found numbers of stragglers on our way and evidences of pillaging by which I was exasperated. We halted at noon of the 11th near a large house belonging to a Mr. Atkinson, a man of prominence in the region. The mansion had a Grecian portico with large columns the whole height of the building. Part of the furniture and the carpets had been removed, but evidences of refinement and intelligence were seen in the piano and the library with its books. With my staff I rested and ate my lunch in the spacious portico, and moving on when the halt was over, I had hardly ridden half a mile when a pillar of white smoke showed that the house was on fire. I sent back a staff officer in haste to order an instant investigation and the arrest of any authors of this vandalism. The most that could be learned was that some stragglers of another corps had been seen lurking in the house when we moved on, and soon after fire broke out in the second story, having been set, apparently, in a closet connected with one of the chambers. Efforts were made to extinguish it, but it had found its way into the garret and had such headway that the house was doomed. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 936.] This was the first instance in my experience where a dwelling had been burned when my troops were passing, and I was greatly disturbed by their apparent responsibility for it. My anger was increased by repetitions of similar outrages during the afternoon. From our camp at Turner's Bridge I issued an order directing summary trial by drum-head court-martial and execution of marauders guilty of such outrages, whether belonging to my own corps or stragglers hanging on at its skirts. [Footnote: Id., pt. iii. p. 189.] The evidence seemed conclusive that the crimes were committed by "bummers" who had separated themselves from the army when marching up from Savannah, and were following it for purposes of pillage. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 281.] It was reported that Atkinson was a "conscription agent" of the Confederate government, and this perhaps was the incentive in his case for the outrage. As a precaution, I ordered sentinels to be left at dwellings on our march, to be relieved from the divisions in succession, the last to remain till our trains had passed and then join the rear-guard. [Footnote: Id., p. 189.]
In the march of the 12th Howard remained on the east side of the Neuse with a pretty widely extended front, aiming for the crossing of the river due east of Raleigh, at the Neuse Mills and Hinton's Bridge. Slocum crossed at Smithfield and took the roads up the right bank of the Neuse. Schofield crossed at Turner's Bridge, and sought roads further west, intending to reach the main road leading from Elevation to Raleigh. [Footnote: Id., pp. 163, 164, 187-189.] At Smithfield we learned that Johnston was at Raleigh, but we did not know that he had heard of Lee's surrender and had no longer a motive to hold tenaciously to the central part of the State. [Footnote: Id., p. 777.] It was on our march of Tuesday, the 12th, that the news of the surrender reached us, and was greeted with extravagant demonstrations of joy by both officers and men. [Footnote: For a vivid description of the scene, see "Ohio Loyal Legion Papers," vol. ii. p. 234, by A. J. Ricks, then a lieutenant on my staff, since Judge of U. S. District Court, N. Ohio.] Sherman had got the news in a dispatch sent by Grant on the 9th, as soon as the capitulation was complete, and which contained the terms he had offered Lee, with their acceptance. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 140.] Replying at once, Sherman said, "I hardly know how to express my feelings, but you can imagine them. The terms you have given Lee are magnanimous and liberal. Should Johnston follow Lee's example, I shall of course grant the same. He is retreating before me on Raleigh, but I shall be there to-morrow." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 177.] He indicated his hope that Johnston would surrender at Raleigh, but should he not do so, his own plan would be to push to the south and west to prevent the enemy's retreat into the Gulf States. "With a little more cavalry," he said, "I would be sure to capture the whole army." He issued also a Special Field Order, announcing to the army the momentous news. "Glory to God and to our country, and all honor to our comrades in arms toward whom we are marching. A little more labor, a little more toil on our part, the great race is won, and our government stands regenerated after four years of bloody war." [Footnote: Id., p. 180.] Such were the words which created a tumult of emotion in the heart of every soldier, when they were read that day, a beautiful spring day, at the head of each command. The order reached me near mid-day at a resting halt of the corps, and with bared heads my staff listened to the reading. We then greeted it with three cheers, I myself acting as fugleman, and the tidings sped down the column on the wings of the wind.