Now all sections of our country fight under one flag,
And when the Southern boy is called for he does not lag.
We love our country no less than before,
But fight for it because we love the Sunny South more.
CHAPTER XII.
RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD.
Surrender of Lee.—On the ninth day of April 1865 at Apomattox Virginia General Lee surrendered to General Grant, after four years struggle in perhaps the most awful war of modern times. Only a remnant of the once powerful and vigorous army was left to share in the humiliation. A large proportion of the gallant soldiers of the army over which the immortal Lee was the commander had fallen to rise no more, and the few remaining were broken down by the continued hardships of the four years struggle. Being overpowered they humbly submitted to the inevitable and in good faith accepted the terms given by their conquerors and returned to their homes, thousands of which were broken up, and thousands more in mourning for loved ones who had perished in the war.
Right to Secede.—The question as to whether a State had a right to secede from the General Government could not be settled by arbitration or legislation, and had been submitted to the arbitrament of the sword and decided in the negative. The Federal government through its civil representatives and military hosts claimed and proclaimed a State had no right to secede. An overwhelming majority of the people north of Mason and Dixon’s line embraced this theory. Southern people embraced the opinion that States had the inalienable right to rebel against the government, if the rights vouchsafed to said states by the constitution were infringed upon. After four years of civil war unparalleled for its severity and extent of loss of life and property, the issue was settled in favor of the Northern idea, and Southern soldiers accepted their parole, took the oath of allegiance to the government of the United States in good faith, and returned home to take up life again as peaceable, loyal citizens.
Sherman’s March to the Sea.—A few days previous and subsequent to the surrender of Lee, Johnson with his army was retreating towards North Carolina, with Sherman in hot pursuit, on his famous march to the sea. General Sherman, talented, as he was, holding a key to the situation, must have known that the end of the so called rebellion was near at hand, but leading his Vandal hosts with pine torch in hand, careless with fire, seemed to take a fiendish pleasure listening to the crackling conflagrations and witnessing the lurid sheets of flame as it swallowed up barns full of feed and stock and palaces, cottages and all kinds of residences with the accumulation of the lifetime of the occupants, and the inmates themselves, helpless women and children driven out of doors, groping their way through the dense smoke and darkness, hurried on with agonizing fear and dread of personal harm that was terrible beyond description. A man of intelligence raised in a land of Bibles under christian influence that could gloat over such orgies is more in need of missionary influence than the inhabitants of Greenland’s icy mountain or India’s coral strand.
Home Coming of Soldiers.—For several weeks after the surrender of Lee and Johnson, the soldiers continued to return to their homes and returning divested themselves of their army clothes worn, dirty and sometimes infested with vermin sad reminders of camp and prison life. The old clothes were burned and the soldiers dressed in citizens clothes that had been laid aside four years before, or in new clothes that thoughtful mothers, sisters or wives had prepared in anticipation of their home coming. The soldiers were welcomed home by their people who rejoiced to see them return. On some occasions they were met by mothers, sisters or wives who had passed through four years of great tribulation, and sometimes by hungry, ragged children, made more than orphans by the war. To welcome the return of the soldiers. Nature seemed to smile in extravagant luxuriance. Flowers were blooming, growing crops were springing up in a prolific growth, promising a bountiful harvest. The soldiers became citizens and relieved women and children of burdens of farm work that their forced absence had put upon them, and under the changed condition of affairs everything was in a fair way to resume normal conditions.
Assassination of Lincoln.—Very soon after the surrender of Lee, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, was assassinated and Southern people deplored the sad event. Although the leaders and common people of the South had nothing to do with the awful crime, it had a tendency to intensify the already bitter feeling of the radical element North, and this element began to clamor for revenge, demanding the punishment of innocent people of the South for a crime for which they were in no way responsible but entirely innocent. If Lincoln had not have been removed by death from the presidency and could have exerted an influence that the promptings of his really generous nature would have caused him to endeavor to use, it would have been a boon to the downtrodden people of the Southland. The average soldier was disposed to get to work and really did get to work with an honest endeavor to repair the damage done, and to build up the waste places.