“Gentlemen: It is my wish that we remain quietly at headquarters a few days until my other scouting parties return.
“I wish to say to you now that, in my opinion, this war has virtually closed. General Lee, the great head and front of all our hopes, as you are already aware, was compelled to succumb to superior numbers, and surrender on the 12th day of April. General Johnston surrendered on the 18th of the same month. The hopes held out by General Kirby Smith in his general order issued at Shreveport can never be realized.
“The Southern Confederacy is at an end; our course must be governed by circumstances over which we have no control.
“The course we have pursued during the struggle is only justified by the fact that a great war existed. While the eyes of the world have been riveted on great actors and on events of an astounding magnitude, the minor details of the struggle have been overlooked. That condition of affairs now no longer exists; the war has ceased, and our operations must cease also.
“Finally, it is my request that each and every one of you submit manfully to the same terms that have been forced upon our great chieftains; that is: Lay down your arms, surrender on parole, and return to the pursuits of peace.”
This little speech fell like a wet blanket on most of the men, and I must confess that I was one of that number; but we held Capt. Bolin in such high esteem that not a murmur of dissent was suffered to drop from the lips of any of his men.
On the next day, however, the matter was fully discussed in every camp. Nine-tenths of the men fully indorsed the statements made by our noble captain, and I could not but acknowledge that his reasoning seemed plausible; yet I was annoyed beyond all measure by the reflection that the war had suddenly ceased before I was done fighting.
I cared not so much about the general result. I knew but little, and cared still less, about the great political problem that the war was supposed to have solved, nor to the technical question discussed by old fossil statesmen, whether the States formed the Union or the Union formed the States, whether the South had inherent rights or whether inherent rights had the South, whether the General Government was a restricted agent of the people, or whether the people were the restricted agents of the General Government.
These questions probably originated with the antediluvians, and they ought to have been left to a committee of twelve Egyptian mummies, with the “man in the moon” for chairman.
The practical question with me was, whether all the scoundrels in the nation were yet killed off or not. As far as my knowledge extended, the war had only gobbled up about one-tenth of them.