200 



CONFEDERATE STATES. 



through the excited streets of Richmond, and 

 before daybreak had crossed the bridges over 

 the James, which were soon after given up to 

 the flames. At about the same hour the Con- 

 federate troops began to leave Petersburg, having 

 set on fire the cotton stored there. They cross- 

 ed over to the north side of the Appomattox 

 River on a pontoon bridge, and advanced six- 

 teen miles during the night. Their retreat was 

 covered by Gen. Field's division, under Gen. 

 Longstreet. No pursuit was made by Gen. 

 Grant, who was aiming to intercept the retreat 

 further westward. 



The plan of Gen. Lee, who was highly gratified 

 to find his army safe out of the breastworks, was 

 to recruit his forces with the supplies he hoped 

 to find at Amelia Court House, and to fall in 

 detail upon Grant's forces, which having in view 

 a vigorous pursuit, were breaking up into bodies 

 of one or two army corps, and scattered over 

 the country. But at Amelia Court Hov<se no 

 supplies whatever of provision were to be found, 

 although urgent and precise orders had been 

 issued for this purpose two weeks previous. In 

 this dilemma, the first object before the com- 

 mander was to procure supplies for his troops. 

 For this purpose, nearly half his army was re- 

 quired for foraging parties. The country on 

 the line of his march consisted of straggling 

 woods and pine barrens, with occasional patches 

 of clearings. In search of food, the foraging 

 parties were obliged to go considerable distances, 

 and, thus divided and scattered, large numbers 

 were captured by Gen. Grant's forces. The 

 retreat is thus described by a writer familiar 

 with its scenes : 



"Those foragers who returned to Lee brought 

 little or nothing with them. The suffering of 

 the men from the pangs of hunger has not been 

 approached in the military annals of the past 

 fifty years. But the suffering of the mules and 

 horses must have been even keener; for the 

 men assuaged their cravings by plucking the 

 buds and twigs of trees just shooting in the 

 early spring, whereas the grass had not yet 

 started from its wintry sleep, and food for the 

 unhappy quadrupeds there was none. As early 

 as the morning of the 6th, Lee sent off half his 

 artillery toward the railroad, to relieve the 

 famished horses. The artillery, making slow 

 progress, thanks to the exhaustion of the horses, 

 was captured by the Federals on the 8th. 



" It is easy to see that the locomotion of on 

 army in such a plight must have been slow and 

 slower. The retreat was conducted in the fol- 

 lowing fashion: About midnight the Confed- 

 erates slipped out of their hasty works, which 

 they had thrown up and held during the pre- 

 vious day, and fell back until 10 or 12 o'clock 

 the next morning. Then they halted, and im- 

 mediately threw up earthworks for their pro- 

 tection during the day. It was not long before 

 the wolves were again on their heels, and from 

 their earthworks the Confederates exchanged 

 a heavy fire with their pursuers throughout the 

 day. Delayed with the necessity .of guarding 



an ammunition train from thirty-five to forty 

 miles in length, enfeebled by hunger and sleep- 

 lessness, the retreating army was only able to 

 make ten miles each night. The delay enabled 

 the active Sheridan to get ahead with his cav- 

 alry, and to destroy the depots of provisions 

 along the railroad between Burkville and Dan- 

 ville. Upon the 5th many of the mules and 

 horses had ceased to struggle. It became ne- 

 cessary to bum hundreds of wagons. At inter- 

 vals the enemy's cavalry dashed in, and struck 

 the interminable ammunition train here and 

 there, capturing and burning dozens upon dozens 

 of wagons. Toward evening of the 5th, and 

 all day on the 6th, hundreds of men dropped 

 from exhaustion, and thousands let fall their 

 muskets from inability to carry them any further. 



" The scenes of the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, 

 were of a nature which can be apprehended in 

 its vivid reality only by men who are thoroughly 

 familiar with the harrowing details of war. 

 Behind, and on either flank, an ubiquitous and 

 increasingly adventurous enemy every mud- 

 hole and every rise in the road choked \vith 

 blazing wagons the air filled with the deafen- 

 ing reports of ammunition exploding, and shells 

 bursting when touched by the flames dense 

 columns of smoke ascending to heaven from the 

 burning and exploding vehicles exhausted 

 men, worn-out mules and horses, lying down 

 side by side gaunt famine glaring hopelessly 

 from sunken, lack-lustre eyes dead mules, 

 dead horses, dead men everywhere death, 

 many times welcomed as God's blessing in dis- 

 guise who can wonder if many hearts, tried 

 in the fiery furnace of four years' unparalleled 

 suffering, and never hitherto found wanting, 

 should have quailed in presence of starvation, 

 fatigue, sleeplessness, misery unintermitted for 

 five or six days, and culminating in hopeless- 

 ness? 



" Yet there were not wanting occasional epi- 

 sodes which recalled something of the old pride 

 of former memories, and reminded men that 

 this hunted, famished crowd was still the same 

 army that had won two Bull Runs, which had 

 twice (in pursuit of a fatal policy) trodden its 

 enemy's soil, and had written Fredericksburg, 

 Chancellorsville, and a dozen other names upon 

 its banners. 



" The reader will have gathered that when 

 Gen. Lee found his depots along the Danville 

 road destroyed by Sheridan, he had no alter- 

 native but to make for Lynchburg. He still 

 hoped to get rations and to turn suddenly upon 

 Grant, whose army was dispersed into many 

 columns. The fatigue of the pursuit, though 

 11 n aggravated by famine, was beginning to tell 

 upon the pursuers^ But in pressing for Lynch- 

 burg, Lee found himself in a dangerous pre- 

 dicament. He was on a strip of land, not more 

 than seven or eight miles broad, between tlio 

 James and Appomattox Rivers. On the after- 

 noon of the 7th, Lee's situation seemed so un- 

 promising, that Grant, for the first time, sent 

 to propose surrender. Lee at once replied that 



