We arrived in Richmond on the 22d of March, the eighth day after we had started. I was pained to notice in the city so many signs of delapidation and poverty, and to learn that Confederate money had depreciated to the point of sixty for one. The captain's salary that the government owed me for two years was worth only about fifty dollars in specie, which a friend in the treasury department advised me to collect at once, inasmuch as he thought that the capital would be soon evacuated. I took him for a timorous prophet, and told him I would wait until I rejoined the army, when I should need it. I did not know, as he did, the impoverished and critical condition of the Confederacy.
I was not exchanged, but "paroled for thirty days unless sooner exchanged." I set out for the Northern Neck in company with Lieutenant Purcell, of Richmond county, and Captain Stakes, of Northumberland. We rode on a train as far as Hanover and then struck out afoot across the country. Notwithstanding the fact that one of my companions limped on a leg that had been wounded at Gettysburg and the other was a little lame from frosted toes, it taxed all my powers to keep up with them. If I had rejoiced to see the James, I was happier still to set foot once more upon the bank of the Rappahannock. When we had crossed over we went to the home of Lieutenant Purcell, where we spent the night, and the next day, Monday, March 27, I arrived at home. I supposed that I should take them by surprise, but somehow they had received intelligence of my coming; and as I approached the house I found them all lined up in the yard, white and black. "And they began to be merry."
I found John in the stable, having been ridden home by my faithful man, Charles Wesley, who supposed that he had left me dead at Falling Waters.
On the 14th of April, Good Friday, when I was thinking of returning to Richmond to inquire whether I had been exchanged and was still hoping for the independence of the Southern Confederacy, I attended religious services at a church in the neighborhood. When these had been concluded and the congregation were talking as usual in the yard a messenger arrived with a newspaper, which the Yankees had sent ashore from one of their gunboats, and which contained the details of General Lee's surrender of his army five days previously at Appomattox. My heart sank within me. My fondest hopes were crushed. The cause for which I had so often exposed my life, and for which so many of my friends had died, had sunk into the gloomy night of defeat.
I was thankful that out of the horrid conflict I had escaped with my life, a gray coat, and a silver quarter of a dollar. Although I had participated in all the battles that were fought by the Army of Northern Virginia, I was never seriously hurt. At Manassas one bullet struck my leg, and another forcibly wrenched my sword from my hand. At Chancellorsville a bomb exploded just in front of me, making a hole in the ground and covering me with dirt, the pieces flying away with discordant noises. Countless balls whizzed by my ears, and men fell all around me, some of them while touching my side. Am I not justified in appropriating the words of David addressed to Jehovah, "Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle?"
Withdrawal from the Union was the right of the Southern States, as appears from the history of the making and adoption of the federal constitution; and great was the provocation to use it. It is not, however, always wise,—either for persons or communities,—to exercise their rights. Secession in the year 1860 was a hot headed and stupendous political blunder,—a blunder recognized by the majority of the people of Virginia, who refused to follow the example of her southern sisters until there was forced upon her the cruel alternative of waging war either against them or against the States of the North.
Though secession was a grievous error, nevertheless the war that was waged by the Federal Government was a crime against the constitution, humanity, and God. But now, as we view the present and retrospect the past, who may say that all has not turned out for the best? We find consolation in the belief that the Lord's hand has shaped our destiny, and we meekly submit to his overruling providence.
"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly."