This letter was sent through the lines of the 2d corps that evening while we were in contact with the enemy, the troops being but a few hundred yards apart. There was a truce of one hour and inside of that time Lee"s reply came back.
During the night the enemy abandoned the works in front of our corps and at 5 the next morning the bugles of the 2d corps again sounded "Forward,"
and Gen. Humphreys, our commander, was instructed that any negotiations pending were not to interfere with the operations of his corps.
Early in the forenoon, Gen. Grant"s second letter was brought to Gen.
Humphreys by Gen. Seth Williams, Grant"s adjutant general, and it was sent through the lines of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee"s cavalry, who were on the rear of the confederate columns.
We continued the pursuit all day, covering a distance of over 20 miles, and about dusk, as we had halted for a rest, a rebel officer brought Lee"s reply to Gen. Humphreys, who sent it by a courier to Gen. Meade, then several miles in the rear.
The next morning Grant"s third letter to Lee was sent through the skirmish line of the 2d corps, and all this time Gen. Humphreys, mindful of his instructions, kept advancing and pushing back the thin line of wearied confederates, which called out a protest from Gen. Lee, who sent an officer twice during the forenoon requesting a halt. Gen. Humphreys sent back word that his orders were such that he could not comply.
Gen. Longstreet"s corps was scarcely 100 yards from our skirmish line and Gen. Humphreys issued orders for an advance upon them. Artillery was being placed in position. The commanders of the contending forces were watching the movements on either side, couriers and staff officers were riding to and fro, and just about the time the ball was about to open Gen. Meade appeared at the front and after issuing orders to suspend operations sent a messenger to Lee granting a truce of an hour, pending the negotiations for the surrender.
LEE UNDER AN APPLE TREE.
The officers who delivered Grant"s last note found the confederate chieftain stretched out on a blanket under an apple tree near Appomattox court house. The famous tree was removed, bit by bit, and for a long time the writer carried a piece of it as well as a splinter from the floor where young Ellsworth fell in the Marshall house at Alexandria, Va. It is understood that a tablet marks the spot where the tree once stood that shaded the vanquished leader.
The officers mounted their horses and rode to the court house, where, meeting a Mr. McLean, Gen. Lee told him that they desired the use of a room in some house, and Mr. McLean invited the party to his home. Later the party was joined by Gen. Grant and other distinguished generals from both sides.
The two great leaders exchanged reminiscences of their service under Gen.
Scott in Mexico, after which the formalities of the surrender were gone through with. When Gen. Lee had signed his name to the terms of surrender it is said that with tears in his eyes he whispered in Gen. Grant"s ear "General, my poor men are starving," and Grant, like the great modest man and soldier that he was, motioned to his side the general of subsistence of the army of the Potomac and quietly told him to "issue, immediately rations to the army of Northern Virginia."
Gen. Lee rode back to his troops to tell them what he had done and the next day issued his farewell orders.
The parting of Lee with his soldiers at Appomattox was most pathetic.
Tears were streaming from his eyes as they crowded around him begging for a last word and to touch his hand. When he could control himself enough to speak, he said, between sobs, "Men, we have fought through the war together. I have done the best that I could for you." It is said there was not a dry eye among those who witnessed the sad leave-taking.
GRANT"S GENEROSITY TO HIS FOES.
Gen. Grant"s greatness never shone to better advantage than in the generous terms accorded his conquered foes, and his modesty and consideration for the feelings of the confederate soldiers was such that he never paraded himself among them during the preparations for the formal surrender.
When the surrender was announced the Union soldiers, shouted, hurrahed, danced and manifested their joy in all sorts of boyish pranks, but it soon pa.s.sed off, and as they beheld the ragged, starved, wearied and sad-eyed veterans who had followed Lee into the last ditch their joy was turned to pity and sorrow and the blue divided with the gray their rations and they drank coffee from the same tin cups and water from the same canteens!
When the papers were all signed and paroles given the confederates and the Union forces formed in line and faced each other. The veterans of Lee advanced until there was but a few yards of s.p.a.ce between the lines.
"Halt! right dress! front!" was the command from their officers.
The Union forces presented arms, the vanquished returned the salute like men and soldiers, stacked their guns, unbuckled their battle-scarred equipments, furled their tattered flags and laid them tenderly across their stacks of muskets, wiped the tears that many of them shed on their coat sleeves and went their way to take up life anew, but never to bear arms against our glorious Union.
STACK ARMS.
"Stack Arms!" In faltering accents slow And sad, it creeps from tongue to tongue, A broken, murmuring wail of woe, From manly hearts by anguish wrung, Like victims of a midnight dream!
We move, we know not how or why!
For life and hope like phantoms seem, And it would be relief--to die!
CHAPTER XVII.
RETRACING THE STEPS.
The armies of Grant and Sherman turned their backs on the South and took up their line of march for Washington, where they had been ordered to report for a general review and muster out. We pa.s.sed through Richmond and retraced our steps over much of the same ground that had been fought over the previous year, and all along the route were reminders of the terrible struggles between the two great armies.
Earthworks that had swarmed with soldiers were now deserted. Everywhere there were bleaching bones of horses and men; grinning skulls, disabled artillery caissons, rusty sabres, bayonets, gun-barrels, canteens, haversacks, weather-stained clothing and mounds of earth that marked the resting places of many whose army record was closed with the single word "missing."
We were a jolly lot, however, realizing that our battles, hardships and marches were about over.
A COURTEOUS ENEMY.
One day on our return march, when the troops had halted for rest, my comrade suggested that we make a reconnaissance and see if we could not find a little something in the eating line to vary the monotony of coffee, hardtack and "salt hoss." Back from the roadside we espied a comfortable looking house and we made a "bee line" for it.
In the doorway stood a woman who returned our salutation of "good afternoon, madame," with "Go right away from here, Yanks, you"ve killed my boy, Tom, and I don"t want to ever look on a blue coat again."
We expressed sympathy and a.s.sured her our mission was a peaceful and honorable one, we wanted something to eat and had good money to pay for it. At this point in the conversation a fine looking man came to the door.
He was dressed in a faded b.u.t.ternut colored uniform and on the collar of his coat we noticed the insignia of a Confederate colonel. He gave us a military salute and said: "Come right up here on the veranda, men," and turning to the woman said: "These soldiers are not responsible for our Tom"s death; "twas the fo"tunes of wah, and my deah wife, you must remember that all ovah the nawth mothers are weeping for their boys that are sleepin" under Virginia sod. These are some of the 2d corps boys, that divided their rations with the 2d corps C. S. A. at Appomattox. These are some of Gen. Hanc.o.c.k"s men that treated me so chivalrously at Gettysburg."
"You see, boys," he continued, "our Tom was a sergeant in my company when we went into that fight, and was mortally wounded that day in the wheatfield.
"When our line fell back I couldn"t go away and leave my poor boy with his life fast ebbing out, so I jes" stayed and holding his head on my knee listened to his last message for his mother and then laid him away under the sod, and of cose was yo"ah prisoner. But no southern bo"n man ever performed a more knightly act than did one of yo"ah generals that night when he sent me back to our lines under a flag of truce.
"We are comin" out of this war poor, and if you"ll excuse the expression, d--d poor, but as long as I"ve got a sc.r.a.p I"ll share it with a man with a red clover leaf on his cap."
As the colonel told his story tears coursed their way down his bronzed cheeks, and the two boys, whose emotional natures were not easily stirred had great, big lumps in their throats. For the first time in many months we sat down at a table to eat a meal. If there was scanty fare there was abundance of genuine hospitality of a warmth that is so characteristic of the southern people.
When we took our leave the colonel called black Joe and told him to "tote"
our luggage "down the pike," and on the way we suggested to the darkey that now he was free we presumed he would be leaving the old place and perhaps enlist in some colored regiment and wear fine clothes with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and other fixings. "No, suh, boss, spec I allus stay right yere. I lak Ma.s.sa Linc.u.m soldier mens, and I"se much "bleeged to "em, but I lak my ole ma.s.sa an" missus a heap bettah. An" den when Ma.r.s.e Tom went to de wah--Tom an" I useter run roun" bare-foot when we"s little--I promis him I allus stay with his mammy an" as Tom can nevah come back any mo" I reckon I"se boun" to stay yere."
At another house we met a sharp-tongue woman who said:
"Yo"uns could nevah have whipped Bob Lee if he"d had half as many men as yo"uns. We"uns could outfight and outmarch you bluebellied Yanks every time."
She informed us that she had lost two sons by the war and that her husband was then in a southern hospital laid up with his third wound, and her eyes snapped as she said she wished she could have given a dozen boys to the "cause." We admired the grit of this Spartan like mother and regretted in our hearts that the war had borne down with such crushing weight on the gentle s.e.x of the South.
THE b.l.o.o.d.y ANGLE AT SPOTTSYLVANIA.
One night our brigade went into camp near Spottsylvania court house, and in the vicinity of the "b.l.o.o.d.y angle" where the hardest fighting of the war occurred. Here 11 months before the 2d corps made a charge more desperate than that of the "light brigade," the percentage of killed being more than double that in the battle made famous by Tennyson. Here the rebel infantry were ma.s.sed in double lines with the artillery supporting them in redans. Hanc.o.c.k"s veterans charged them in open field and were victorious, capturing about 4,000 prisoners, 20 pieces of artillery, thousands of small arms, 30 stands of colors with Gens. Johnson and George H. Stuart among the prisoners.
It was here that the celebrated tree was found that was completely severed by bullets. Gen. Miles, who had been a brigade commander at the "angle"
and who was then our division general, caused the stump to be dug up and conveyed to Washington where it was exhibited at the grand review and was afterwards placed in the war department. The tree measured about 20 inches through.
The armies reached Washington about the middle of May, and in most cases the organizations were allowed to pitch tents on their old camping grounds. It was almost like getting back home again. The only sad feature was to think of the many who had been with us there before who had since answered the last roll call.