At the time of my capture I little thought that my service in the field was ended. But on the contrary I expected to be exchanged very soon and return to my command; but at this time the Federal authorities ceased to grant further exchanges of prisoners, it being easier to deplete Confederate ranks by holding prisoners than to exchange and meet them and deplete their ranks on the field; hence prisoners were held until after the close of the war in April, 1865. Our prison gates were thrown open on June 13, 1865, and prisoners returned thence to their respective homes.
Thus ended my career as a soldier.
I now returned to my father and mother, brothers and sisters at the old homestead, near Gate City in Scott County, Virginia. The comfortable but old-fashioned home, its porches, broad stone steps, the negro cabins, the public highway in front, the babbling brook farther on that flows through the valley, the great mountain standing still farther to the front, were always before but now in the month of June doubly dear to me, and while yet but little more than a boy, although disappointed in the results of the war, I was made to feel that life was still worth the living.
Many changes had taken place. The well tilled fields and green pastures were not luxuriant as before, lowing cattle, the colts and their dams, the music and dancing of the younger negroes, were missing; but only the older negroes still remained.
The ravages of war had wrought the great change.
I now turned my attention for the time being to the harvest field and the farm, no longer a soldier, but a citizen.
The war was over and the people of the South accepted its results in honesty and good-faith. They had made a brave, manly and determined battle for the right as they saw it, but had been defeated by numbers and equipment. Honor, dignity, and self-respect they still had. They were not rebels as they had not rebelled against lawful authority, but fought for a right as they and their ancestors viewed it, that was denied them. They had been taught from the beginning that when England was trying to subject the colonies, each of which was sovereign, a compact was formed by these colonies as States for mutual aid and defense.
Each expressly reserved its sovereignty not expressly delegated; hence it was claimed that the Constitution did not set up a national government above and over the States, but was simply a compact between independent and sovereign States, each having the right to resume its sovereignty at will. Thus schooled and so understanding their rights the people of the South felt justified in their course, and their integrity of purpose cannot be questioned, but when these questions were settled by the arbitriment of the sword they returned to citizenship and the building up of their waste places; and with the same integrity of purpose have been loyal to the flag of our country, and today there is no section of the Union in which there is more American blood and American patriotism than in the late Confederate States. But few if any would now change the result.