CONFEDERATE STATES. 



201 



bis circumstances did not seem to him such as 

 to justify his entertaining such a proposal. On 

 the morning of the 8th, Grant renewed his so- 

 licitations. Lee did not decline, but debated 

 the matter, calling a council of war in the even- 

 ing. No determination was arrived at on the 

 8th, and at midnight the usual dreary retreat 

 was resumed. The springs of energy and will, 

 unstrung by long want of food, had run down 

 in the men like the machinery of a broken 

 clock. Hitherto the retreat had been covered 

 by LoMgstreet and Gordon alternately, but now 

 the Federal force, which had got ahead of Lee 

 and was obstructing his retreat, had become so 

 considerable that Gordon was thrown out with 

 2,000 men in front, while Longstreet, whose 

 pluck neither hunger, nor fatigue, nor depression 

 could abate or subdue, still covered the rear. 



"At daybreak on the 9th, a courier from 

 Gordon announced to Lee that a large body of 

 Federal cavalry (in other words, Sheridan's 

 army) was across the road at Appomattox 

 Court House. At the same moment a heavy 

 force of infantry under Grant was pushing 

 Longstreet vigorously in the rear. Between 

 Longstreet and Gordon were the remaining 

 wagons, and clinging to them thousands of 

 unarmed and famished stragglers too weak to 

 carry their muskets. Lee sent orders to Gor- 

 don to cut his way through, coute qtfil coute. 

 Presently came another courier from Gordon, 

 announcing that the enemy was driving him 

 back. Lee had at this moment less than 30,000 

 men with muskets at their hands. The fatal 

 moment had indisputably come. Hastily don- 

 ning his best uniform, and buckling on his 

 sword, which it was never his fashion to wear, 

 Gen. Lee turned sadly to the rear, to seek the 

 final interview with Gen. Grant. 



" There is no passage of history in this war 

 which will, for years to come, be more honor- 

 ably mentioned and gratefully remembered 

 than the demeanor on the 9th of April, 1865, 

 of Gen. Grant toward Gen. Lee. I do not so 

 much allude to the facility with which honor- 

 able terms were accorded to the Confederates, 

 as to the bearing of Gen. Grant and the officers 

 about him toward Gen. Lee. The interview 

 was brief. Three commissioners upon either side 

 we*e immediately appointed. The agreement 

 to which these six commissioners acceded is 

 known. 



" In the mean time, immediately that Gen. 

 Lee was seen riding to the rear, dressed more 

 gayly than usual and begirt with his sword, the 

 rumor of immediate surrender flew like wild- 

 fire through the Confederates. It might be 

 imagined that an army, which had drawn its 

 last regular rations on the 1st of April, and 

 harassed incessantly by night and day, had 

 been marching and fighting until the morning 

 of the 9th, would have welcomed any thing like 

 a termination of its sufferings, let it come in 

 what form it might. Let those who idly 

 imagine that the finer feelings are the prerog- 

 ative of what are called the ' upper classes,' 



learn from this and similar scenes to appreciate 

 ' common men.' As the great Confederate 

 captain rode back from his interview with Gen. 

 Grant, the news of the surrender acquired 

 shape and consistency, and could no longer be 

 denied. The effect on the worn and battered 

 troops some of whom had fought since April, 

 1861, and (sparse survivors of hecatombs of 

 fallen comrades) had passed unscathed through 

 such hurricanes of shot as within four years no 

 other men had ever experienced passes mor- 

 tal description. 



" Whole lines of battle rushed up to their be- 

 loved old chief, and, choking with emotion, 

 broke ranks and struggled with each other to 

 wring him once more by the hand. Men who 

 had fought throughout the war, and knew what 

 the agony and humiliation of that moment 

 must be to him, strove with a refinement of 

 unselfishness and tenderness which he alone 

 could fully appreciate, to lighten his burden 

 and mitigate his pain. With tears pouring 

 down his cheeks, Gen. Lee at length command- 

 ed voice enough to say, ' Men, we have fought 

 through the war together. I have done the 

 best that I could for you.' Not an eye that 

 looked on that scene was dry. Nor was this 

 the emotion of sickly sentimentalists, but of 

 rough and rugged men, familiar with hard- 

 ships, danger, and death in a thousand shapes, 

 mastered by sympathy and feeling for another 

 what they never experienced on their own 

 account." 



Thus Richmond had fallen, and General 

 Lee and his army were prisoners of war. Mr. 

 Davis, who had left Richmond with the mem- 

 bers of his cabinet at the time of its evacua- 

 tion by the army, selected Danville as the tem- 

 porary seat of Government, and here a procla- 

 mation was issued. {See ARMY OPERATIONS.) 



Admiral Semmes, formerly of the Alabama, 

 was made a brigadier-general and placed in 

 command of the defences of that place, which 

 were manned by a naval brigade transformed 

 into batteries of light artillery, supported by 

 one or two battalions of troops belonging to 

 the Virginia army, who had been absent on 

 furlough, and were then returning to their re- 

 spective commands at Petersburg. At Danville 

 the fugitive Government remained secure until 

 authentic information was received of the sur- 

 render of General Lee and his army, when it 

 hurried away by railroad to Greensboro, North 

 Carolina ; here a mounted escort of Mississip- 

 pians, belonging to the army of Virginia, was 

 provided for Mr. Davis, attempts to take whose 

 life had been made three times before leaving 

 Richmond. On April 18th, he and his Cabi- 

 net, consisting of Secretaries Benjamin, Breck- 

 inridge, Mallory, Postmaster-General Reagan, 

 and the following named officers belonging to 

 the President's staff, viz. : Col. J. P. Wood, 

 Colonel Thomas L. Lubbeck (formerly Govern- 

 or of Texas), Colonel William Preston Johnston 

 (son of General Albert Sidney Johnston), and 

 Colonel Burton N. Harrison (Private Secre- 



