Appomattox was not a battle, but the end of battles. Fondly do we hope that never again shall Americans lift against Americans the avenging hand in such a strife! Here at a little court-house, twenty-five miles east of Lynchburg, on the ninth of April, 1865, the great tragedy of our civil war was brought to a happy end. Here General Robert E. Lee, with the broken fragments of his Army of Northern Virginia, was brought by the inexorable logic of war to the end of that career which he had so bravely followed through four years of battle, much of which had shown him to be one of the great commanders of the century.
The story of the downfall of the Confederacy has been many times repeated. It has entered into our literature, and is known by heart wherever the history of the war is read. Generally, however, this story has been told as if the narrator approached the event from the Union side. We have the pursuit of General Lee from Petersburg westward, almost to the spurs of the Alleghanies. We follow in the wake. We see the unwearied efforts of the victorious host to close around the retreating army which has so long been the bulwark of the Confederacy. We hear the summons to surrender, and the answer of "Not yet;" but within a day that answer is reversed, and the stern wills of Lee and his fellow-commanders yield to the inexorable law of the strongest.
Only recently, however, the story has been told with great spirit from the Confederate side, by General John B. Gordon, who was at that time at the right hand of his commander-in-chief, and who stood by him to the last hour. General Gordon's account of the final struggle of the Confederate army and of the surrender is so graphic, so full of spirit, so warmed with the animation and devotion of a great soldier, that we here repeat his account of
The Death Struggle.
We always retreated in good order, though always under fire. As we retreated we would wheel and fire, or repel a rush, and then stagger on to the next hilltop, or vantage ground, where a new fight would be made. And so on through the entire day. At night my men had no rest. We marched through the night in order to get a little respite from fighting. All night long I would see my poor fellows hobbling along, prying wagons or artillery out of the mud, and supplementing the work of our broken-down horses. At dawn, though, they would be in line ready for battle, and they would fight with the steadiness and valor of the Old Guard.
This lasted until the night of the seventh of April. The retreat of Lee's army was lit up with the fire and flash of battle, in which my brave men moved about like demigods for five days and nights. Then we were sent to the front for a rest, and Longstreet was ordered to cover the retreating army. On the evening of the eighth, when I had reached the front, my scout George brought me two men in Confederate uniform, who, he said, he believed to be the enemy, as he had seen them counting our men as they filed past. I had the men brought to my campfire, and examined them. They made a plausible defence, but George was positive they were spies, and I ordered them searched. He failed to find anything, when I ordered him to examine their boots. In the bottom of one of the boots I found an order from General Grant to General Ord, telling him to move by forced marches toward Lynchburg and cut off General Lee's retreat. The men then confessed that they were spies, and belonged to General Sheridan. They stated that they knew that the penalty of their course was death, but asked that I should not kill them, as the war could only last a few days longer, anyhow. I kept them prisoners, and turned them over to General Sheridan after the surrender. I at once sent the information to General Lee, and a short time afterward received orders to go to his headquarters. That night was held Lee's last council of war. There were present General Lee, General Fitzhugh Lee, as head of the cavalry, and Pendleton, as chief of the artillery, and myself. General Longstreet was, I think, too busily engaged to attend.
General Lee then exhibited to us the correspondence he had had with General Grant that day, and asked our opinion of the situation. It seemed that surrender was inevitable. The only chance of escape was that I could cut a way for the army through the lines in front of me. General Lee asked me if I could do this. I replied that I did not know what forces were in front of me; that if General Ord had not arrived—as we thought then he had not—with his heavy masses of infantry, I could cut through. I guaranteed that my men would cut a way through all the cavalry that could be massed in front of them. The council finally dissolved with the understanding that the army should be surrendered if I discovered the next morning, after feeling the enemy's line, that the infantry had arrived in such force that I could not cut my way through.
My men were drawn up in the little town of Appomattox that night. I still had about four thousand men under me, as the army had been divided into two commands and given to General Longstreet and myself. Early on the morning of the ninth I prepared for the assault upon the enemy's line, and began the last fighting done in Virginia. My men rushed forward gamely and broke the line of the enemy and captured two pieces of artillery. I was still unable to tell what I was fighting; I did not know whether I was striking infantry or dismounted cavalry. I only know that my men were driving them back, and were getting further and further through. Just then I had a message from General Lee, telling me a flag of truce was in existence, leaving it to my discretion as to what course to pursue. My men were still pushing their way on. I sent at once to hear from General Longstreet, feeling that, if he was marching toward me, we might still cut through and carry the army forward. I learned that he was about two miles off, with his face just opposite from mine, fighting for his life. I thus saw that the case was hopeless. The further each of us drove the enemy the further we drifted apart, and the more exposed we left our wagon trains and artillery, which were parked between us. Every line either of us broke only opened the gap the wider. I saw plainly that the Federals would soon rush in between us, and then there would have been no army. I, therefore, determined to send a flag of truce. I called Colonel Peyton of my staff to me, and told him that I wanted him to carry a flag of truce forward. He replied:
"General, I have no flag of truce."
I told him to get one. He replied: