General Wade Hampton was one of those who preferred any alternative rather than surrender, and had opposed even the terms of the first convention to which Davis had assented. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 813.] He promised that he would bring to Davis's support "many strong arms and brave hearts,--men who will fight to Texas, and who, if forced from that State, will seek refuge in Mexico rather than in the Union." [Footnote: Id., p. 814.] On the 25th, when Johnston's surrender was already resolved upon, Breckinridge sought to arrange that Hampton, with his cavalry, might join Davis, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 837.] but Sherman insisted on the capitulation of the army as a unit, and Hampton was included. The latter had visited Davis during the first armistice and obtained his permission to bring out the cavalry before the surrender, but on his return to his command, on April 26th, he found that the surrender had been made. Setting up the claim that the arrangement made with Davis had detached his troops from Johnston's army, although they were actually serving in it, he notified Johnston that they and he would not regard themselves as embraced in the capitulation, unless Breckinridge, the Secretary of War, should say they were within it. [Footnote: Id., p. 841.] He had given orders to Wheeler to move the command toward South Carolina, and Butler's division was moving in the same direction. [Footnote: Id., pp. 841,847.] Johnston, feeling that his honor as a commander was involved, sent peremptory orders to Hampton to march back to the position near Hillsborough which he had abandoned. He gave Wheeler similar orders. [Footnote: Id., pp. 844, 846. See also Johnston to Sherman, Id., p. 336.] Breckinridge gave Hampton the opinion that the troops were bound by the capitulation, though Hampton himself might not be. [Footnote: Id., p. 851.] The latter thereupon informed Butler and Wheeler that he could give them no orders, and asked leave of Johnston to withdraw his former letter, substituting one which only claimed personal exemption from the surrender. [Footnote: Id., pp. 845, 847.] In transmitting this, he sent a long letter of apology, explaining his embarrassment. He asserted that in his consultation with Mr. Davis a plan was agreed upon to enable the latter to leave the country. He must now either leave him to his fate or go with him under the ban of outlawry. He thought his personal duty was to go, but would leave his command to abide the terms of the convention, or if any joined him, he said, "they will be stragglers like myself." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 846.] Enough "straggled" to make up Davis's escort to about 3000 men, comprising six brigade organizations; but Hampton seems to have thought better of the determination to be an outlaw, and though he did not give his parole with the rest of Johnston's command, he did not join Davis. [Footnote: Davis, Rise and Fall, vol. ii. pp. 689, 690.] His explicit statement of the aim of Davis's flight warrants us in concluding that the dream of further military operations beyond the Mississippi was never a serious purpose. After the disbanding of the escort at the Savannah River, Breckinridge and Benjamin reached the coast of Florida and escaped to Cuba. Mallory and Attorney-General Davis seem to have reached their own homes; Reagan remained with his chief, and was captured; [Footnote: Id., pp. 694, 695.] Bragg and Wheeler were captured near Athens, in Georgia, using questionable ruses to escape. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlix. pt. i. pp. 550, 551.] General Cooper, the adjutant and inspector-general of the Confederate army, remained at Charlotte, and received the benefit of Johnston's capitulation, while he did all in his power to preserve the Confederate archives, which were there in railway cars. [Footnote: Id., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 842, 848.] This digression to follow the fate of Mr. Davis and the group of civil and military notables who were with him in his southward flight, will help us understand some of the peculiar incidents attending the paroling of Johnston's army at Greensborough. I will now return to events of which I was a witness.
On Sunday, the 30th April, the printed blanks for the paroles were ready, and Brevet Brigadier-General Hartsuff, inspector-general on Schofield's staff, was put in charge of the details of their issue. He went up to Greensborough from Raleigh, accompanied by about a dozen officers detailed from the department and corps staff. It had been intended that he should take with him a guard of a regiment I had selected for the purpose, but at Johnston's request the troops were held back a few days. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 349, 351, 483.] Schofield had arranged the general scheme of subdividing the State into military districts, of which I was to command the western, whilst Major-General Terry took the central, and Brigadier-Generals Palmer and Hawley retained the coast districts which they already had. In anticipation of the formal order, [Footnote:Id., p. 396.] the detachment to guard the arms and stores which should be received came from my command, and I detailed the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio, a regiment which had won high praise in the review at Raleigh for its splendid form and discipline, and which was an orderly, reliable body of men in battle as on parade. It was ordered to take along also its excellent brass band and drum corps, for I meant to have the duties of a garrison performed in the presence of the Confederates with all the honors.
Sherman had left Raleigh in the evening of Friday (28th), to make a brief tour to Charleston and Savannah, by sea, nominally to inspect that part of his command, but really to pass the time whilst the body of his army was marching to Washington, and to avoid visiting that city in the irritation he felt at his treatment by the Secretary of War. [Footnote: Id., pp. 337, 338.] Johnston had arranged, on the 1st of May, to send General Hardee down to Raleigh for personal consultation with Schofield in regard to details of the homeward march of his troops, but the satisfactory arrangement of the supplementary terms made this unnecessary. [Footnote: Id., pp. 366, 857.] Schofield determined to go to Greensborough himself, starting early on Tuesday morning (2d), and I was asked to accompany him. [Footnote: Id., p. 376.] We left Raleigh by train at seven o'clock, with the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio as a guard, and at Durham were met by a dispatch from General Hartsuff, saying that the whole Confederate army was "dissolving and raising the devil." I telegraphed for another regiment to follow us, and we went on to Hillsborough. There we met General Hardee, who joined our party, and we went on to Greensborough. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 376.]
As the train left Hillsborough, we passed through a body of Confederate cavalry, and were within the enemy's lines. I confess it was with a curious, half-uneasy sensation that I thus for the first time found myself on the wrong side of the Confederate outposts without having driven them in by a hostile advance. It was not easy to orient one's self at once with the new condition of things, and it would hardly have been a surprise to find that we had been entrapped by a ruse.
This soon wore off, however, and Hardee made the journey a very agreeable one to us. He had been commandant of cadets at West Point just before the war, and had from the first an "inside" view of the rebellion. His "Tactics," adapted to our army use from the French, had been the authoritative guide of our army drill, and by that means his name had been made very familiar to every officer and man among us. His military career had been among the most distinguished, and he had commanded a corps in front of us during the whole Atlanta campaign. There was therefore no lack of subjects for conversation, and the time ran rapidly away. Hardee was in person and bearing a good type of the brilliant soldier and gentleman. Tall and well formed, his uniform well fitting and almost dandyish, his manner genial and easy, his conversation at once gay and intelligent, it would be hard to find a more attractive companion, or one with whom you would be put more quickly at ease.
Our mission naturally led us into a review of the war, and we asked him what had been his own expectation as to the result, and when he had himself recognized the hopelessness of the contest. "I confess," said he, laughing, "that I was one of the hot Southerners who shared the notion that one man of the South could whip three Yankees; but the first year of the war pretty effectually knocked that nonsense out of us, and, to tell the truth, ever since that time we military men have generally seen that it was only a question how long it would take to wear our army out and destroy it. We have seen that there was no real hope of success, except by some extraordinary accident of fortune, and we have also seen that the politicians would never give up till the army was gone. So we have fought with the knowledge that we were to be sacrificed with the result we see to-day, and none of us could tell who would live to see it. We have continued to do our best, however, and have meant to fight as if we were sure of success."
Amongst many other things, our talk turned upon the Atlanta campaign, and he told some interesting facts in regard to Hood's obstinate holding on at Atlanta when Sherman was executing the movement around the place on the south. It happened that my own division held the pivot point close to the works of the city on the southeast, and Hardee's corps occupied the lines in front of us. He said an old woman had been brought to him who said she had gone to General Cox's headquarters to beg some provisions, and the general had told her she could have none, as the soldiers had not enough for themselves. I had no remembrance of such an incident, and such applications were hardly likely to reach a general officer unless he wished to catechise the person for information's sake; but a laugh was raised at my expense as Hardee in telling the story repeated some profane camp expletives as having added emphasis to the refusal, according to the old woman's account of it. Schofield merrily rallied me on a change of habits of speech when not with my usual associates, and refused to credit my protestation that the story only proved that she had seen some wicked commissary of subsistence. Hardee helped the fun by pretending to think of other proof that the woman was right; but he went on to give the matter real historical interest by telling how he had taken the woman to Hood that he might learn what she said she had seen and heard. On her repeating the expression about our not having rations enough for ourselves, Hood exclaimed, "There, Hardee! It proves that it is just as I told you. Wheeler [his cavalry commander who was on a raid] has broken Sherman's communications; he is short of provisions and is retreating north by the Sandtown road. The troops that have moved from the north of the city have gone that way."
The Sandtown road was a well-known road going northward from the Chattahoochee River at the place named, which was some miles west of the Chattanooga Railroad. It was a plausible explanation of Sherman's movements as far as they then knew them, but had no better foundation than Hood's own hopes and wishes. Yet, Hardee said, Hood stuck to this view till in our swinging movement to the south, we broke his railway communication with Jonesboro. Then came his hasty evacuation of Atlanta, the destruction of his stores, the explosion of his ammunition, and the night march to reassemble his army at Lovejoy's station. He confidently believed that the siege was raised till Sherman's army was astride of his principal line of retreat, and it was only by the most desperate exertion that he escaped from utter ruin.
On reaching Greensborough we were at once escorted to General Johnston's headquarters, the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio being ordered to remain near the station till more complete arrangements were made. Our object had been to have force enough to guard the arms and stores against petty pillage or destruction, but not enough to provoke a collision with the larger organizations of the Confederates. Johnston had declined the hospitality of citizens of Greensborough, partly from a motive of delicacy, as I suspect, fearing he might compromise those who would thus be indicated as his friends, though his usual custom was to live under canvas rather than in a house. His tents were pitched in a grove in the outskirts of the town, and he awaited us there. It seemed to us, as we approached, that the little encampment was not quite so regular and trim as our own custom required. The wall tents did not sit quite so squarely upon the ground, and the camp was not laid out with regularity. The general indirectly apologized for some of these things by saying that we could not expect the discipline in his army to be fully maintained when all knew that it was on the eve of being disbanded. Indeed our presence there with a detachment of our own troops was partly the consequence of the tendency to disintegration and the consequent breaking down of discipline which was rapidly going on, of which the dispatch which met us on the way was a warning. We learned that the officers of the staff had for several nights stood guard over their own horses, efforts to steal them having been successful in one or two instances. The general himself was the only one who had been exempt from guard-duty. The soldiers knew that the war was over and that there was in fact no superior power to enforce military subordination. They were anxious to make their way homeward, and fearful that they might be treated as prisoners of war if they remained. A horse or a mule was too valuable a prize not to be a great temptation; they naturally thought that as there was no longer a Confederate States government, the men to whom arrears of pay were due had a right to whatever they could seize, and they were not disposed to distinguish between public and private property. The guards set to protect the commissary stores would wink at the pillage of them or assist in it, and the men were inclined to defy any authority exercised in the name of the Confederacy. They remembered the relentless character of the conscription which put them in the ranks, and were kept together chiefly by the assurance that they should all be promptly paroled and helped on their homeward way. The strongest consideration was perhaps the announcement that the parole would be a necessary protection to them against subsequent arrest. It was a curious fact that the moment the blue-coated sentinels began to pace the "beats" around the warehouses, parks of artillery, etc., the submission of these men to the United States authority was most complete. They were scrupulously respectful in their bearing and language, and the groups of them who gathered about with an earnest sort of interest, would obey the slightest direction of the sentry with a cordiality and alacrity which was in singular contrast with the sort of ostentation of defiance they showed toward their own officers.
I have anticipated a little in order to give some idea of the condition of things in Johnston's army, and will return to our interview with the general himself. He welcomed us with dignity, though there was a little reserve in his courtesy that was naturally due to the gravity of the responsibility and the duty imposed upon him. Hardee, as a subordinate, free from this burden, could afford to give way to a natural bonhommie, and the difference of situation emphasized the distinctive traits of the men. Johnston was a smaller man than Hardee, his uniform showed less care for appearances, his manner was quieter, but no one would for a moment fail to see that he was the commander. His quiet tones were clear, his gravity was full of conscious power, and the deference shown him by his subordinates was earnest and respectful.