I was not informed of the contents of the return note, but thought, from the orders of the night, it did not mean surrender. General Lee ordered my command from forward- to rear-guard, and his cavalry in rear of the march. The road was clear at eleven o’clock, and we marched at twelve. The enemy left us to a quiet day’s march on the 8th, nothing disturbing the rear-guard, and our left flank being but little annoyed, but our animals were worn and reduced in strength by the heavy haul through rain and mud during the march from Petersburg, and the troops of our broken columns were troubled and faint of heart.
We passed abandoned wagons in flames, and limbers and caissons of artillery burning sometimes in the middle of the road. One of my battery commanders reported his horses too weak to haul his guns. He was ordered to bury the guns and cover their burial-places with old leaves and brushwood. Many weary soldiers were picked up, and many came to the column from the woodlands, some with, many without, arms,—all asking for food.
General Grant renewed efforts on the 8th to find a way to strike across the head of our march by his cavalry and the Army of the James, pursuing our rear-guard with the Second and Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac.
In the forenoon, General Pendleton came to me and reported the proceedings of the self-constituted council of war of the night before, and stated that he had been requested to make the report and ask to have me bear it to General Lee, in the name of the members of the council. Much surprised, I turned and asked if he did not know that the Articles of War provided that officers or soldiers who asked commanding officers to surrender should be shot, and said,—
“If General Lee doesn’t know when to surrender until I tell him, he will never know.”
It seems that General Pendleton then went to General Lee and made the report. General Long’s account of the interview, as reported by Pendleton, is as follows:
“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 still 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 foreign powers should, directly or indirectly, assist us.... But such considerations really make with me no difference. We had, I was 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 critical occasion. You see in them the soul of the man. Where his conscience dictated and his judgment decided, there his heart was.”[213]
The delicate affection that prompted the knights of later days to offer to relieve our grand commander of his official obligations and take upon themselves responsibility to disarm us and turn us over to the enemy is somewhat pathetic, but when to it are applied the stern rules of a soldier’s duty upon a field of emergency, when the commander most needs steady hands and brave hearts, their proceeding would not stand the test of a military tribunal. The interesting part of the interview is that in it our great leader left a sufficient testimonial of his regard as a legacy to the soldiers of his column of the right. Though commanders of other columns were in mutinous conduct towards him, he had confidence that we were firm and steady in waiting to execute his last command.
During the day General Grant wrote General Lee in reply to his note of the 7th inquiring as to terms of surrender,—