1864. The Red River expedition. Grant supersedes Halleck as commander-in-chief of the Federal armies. Storming of Fort Pillow by the Confederates. General Sherman begins his march on Atlanta. Battle of the Wilderness. Battle of Spottsylvania Court-house. Second battle of Cold Harbor. Siege of Petersburg. Sinking of the Confederate cruiser Alabama by the Kearsarge. Confederate raid into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Federal naval victory of Mobile Bay. The Federals occupy Atlanta. Battle of Winchester and Cedar Creek. Abraham Lincoln re-elected President. Federal occupation of Savannah.
1865. The Federals capture Fort Fisher. General Sherman occupies Charleston. Organization of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Battle of Five Forks. Occupation of Petersburg and Richmond by the Federals, April 3rd. Surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court-House, April 9th. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, April 14th. Andrew Johnson succeeds to the Presidency. Capture of Jefferson Davis in Georgia. End of the Civil War. Proclamation of amnesty. The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States, becomes a part of the Constitution.
XX
THE LAST SCENE—APPOMATTOX, 1865
When, on the night of the 8th of April, 1865, the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac reached the two or three little houses that made up the settlement at Appomattox Depot—the station on the South-side Railroad that connects Appomattox Court-house with the travelling world—it must have been nearly or quite dark. At about nine o’clock or half-past, while standing near the door of one of the houses, it occurred to me that it might be well to try and get a clearer idea of our immediate surroundings, as it was not impossible that we might have hot work here or near here before the next day fairly dawned upon us.
My “striker” had just left me with instructions to have my horse fed, groomed, and saddled before daylight. As he turned to go he paused and put this question, “Do you think, Colonel, that we’ll get General Lee’s army to-morrow?”
“I don’t know,” was my reply; “but we will have some savage fighting if we don’t.”
As the sturdy young soldier said “Good-night, sir,” and walked away, I knew that if the enlisted men of our army could forecast the coming of the end so plainly, there was little hope of the escape of the Army of Northern Virginia.
I walked up the road a short distance, and looked carefully about me to take my bearings. It was a mild spring night, with a cloudy sky, and the soft, mellow smell of earthiness in the atmosphere that not infrequently portends rain. If rain came, then it might retard the arrival of our infantry, which I knew General Sheridan was most anxious should reach us at the earliest possible moment. A short distance from where I stood was the encampment of our headquarters escort, with its orderlies, grooms, officers’ servants, and horses. Just beyond it could be seen the dying camp-fires of a cavalry regiment, lying close in to cavalry corps headquarters. This regiment was in charge of between six and eight hundred prisoners, who had fallen into our hands just at dark, as Generals Custer and Devin, at the head of their respective cavalry commands, had charged into the station and captured four railway trains of commissariat supplies, which had been sent here to await the arrival of the Confederate army, together with twenty-six pieces of artillery. For a few moments the artillery had greatly surprised and astonished us, for its presence was entirely unexpected, and as it suddenly opened on the charging columns of cavalry it looked for a short time as though we might have all unwittingly fallen upon a division of infantry. However, it turned out otherwise. Our cavalry, after the first recoil, boldly charged in among the batteries, and the gunners, being without adequate support, sensibly surrendered. The whole affair was for us a most gratifying termination of a long day’s ride, as it must have proved later on a bitter disappointment to the weary and hungry Confederates pressing forward from Petersburg and Richmond in the vain hope of escape from the Federal troops, who were straining every nerve to overtake them and compel a surrender. To-night the cavalry corps was in their front and squarely across the road to Lynchburg, and it was reasonably certain, should our infantry get up in time on the morrow, that the almost ceaseless marching and fighting of the last ten days were to attain their legitimate result in the capitulation of General Lee’s army.
As I stood there in the dark thinking over the work of the twelve preceding days, it was borne in upon me with startling emphasis that to-morrow’s sun would rise big with the fate of the Southern Confederacy.