AUTOGRAPH TELEGRAM OE GENERAL LEE.
GENERAL LEE’S RETURN TO HIS LINES AFTER THE SURRENDER. From a war-time sketch.
“ As lie rode slowly along the lines hundreds of his devoted veterans pressed around the nohle chief, trying to take his hand, touch his person, or even lay a hand upon his horse, thus exhibiting for him their great affection. The general then, with head bare and tears flowing freely down his manly cheeks, bade adieu to the army. In a few words he told the brave men who had been so true in arms to return to their homes and become worthy citizens.”
trans-Mississippi. The five brigade commanders [S. W. Ferguson, George G. Dibrell, J. C. Vaughn, Basil W. Duke, and W. C. P. Breckinridge] each received an order notifying him to attend at the private residence in Abbeville, where Mr. Davis had made his headquarters, about 4 o’clock of that afternoon. We were shown into a room, where we found Mr. Davis and Generals Breckinridge and Bragg. No one else was present. I had never seen Mr. Davis look better or show to better advantage. He seemed in excellent spirits and humor; and the union of dignity, graceful affability, and decision, which made his manner usually so striking, was very marked in his reception of us. After some conversation of a general nature, he said: “ It is time that we adopt some definite plan upon which the further prosecution of our struggle shall be conducted. I have summoned you for consultation. I feel that I ought to do nothing now without the advice of my military chiefs.” He smiled rather archly as he used this expression, and we could not help thinking that such a term addressed to a handful of brigadiers, commanding altogether barely three thousand men, by one who so recently had been the master of legions was a pleasantry, yet he said it in a way that made it a compliment.
After we had each given, at his request, a statement of the equipment and condition of our respective commands, Mr. Davis proceeded to declare his conviction that the cause was not lost any more than hope of American liberty was gone amid the sorest trials and most disheartening reverses of the Revolutionary struggle ; but that energy, courage,
Note.—In bis “Memoirs of Robert E. Lee” (J. M. Stoddart & Co.) General A. L. Long says of this scene: “ When, after his interview with Grant, General Lee again appeared, a shout of welcome instinctively ran through the army. But instantly recollecting the sad occasion that brought him before them, their shouts sank into silence, every hat was raised, and the bronzed faces of the thousands of grim warriors were bathed with tears.
think the terms obtained some mitigation of the sting of defeat and submission.
In the afternoon of that day General Johnston telegraphed that the authorities at Washington refused to recognize the terms upon which he and Sherman had agreed, that the armistice had been broken off, and that he would surrender, virtually, upon any terms offered him. Upon the receipt of this intelligence Mr. Davis resolved at once to leave Charlotte and attempt to march, with all the troops willing to follow him, to Generals Taylor and Forrest, who were somewhere in Alabama. He was accompanied by the members of his cabinet and his staff, in which General Bragg was included. The brigades of Ferguson, Dibrell, Breckinridge, and mine composed his escort, the whole force under the command of General Breckinridge.
At Abbeville, South Carolina, Mr. Davis held a conference with the officers in command of the troops composing his escort, which he himself characterized as a council of war, and which I may be justified, therefore, in so designating. It was, perhaps, the last Confederate council of war held east of the Mississippi River, certainly the last in which Mr. Davis participated. We had gone into camp in the vicinity of the little town, and, although becoming quite anxious to understand what was going to be done, we were expecting no immediate solution of the problem. We were all convinced that the best we could hope to do was to get Mr. Davis safely out of the country, and then obtain such terms as had been given General Johnston’s army, or, failing in that, make the best of our way to the
LAST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY.*
BY BASIL W. DUKE, BRIGADIER-GENERAL, C. S. A.
... At Charlotte we found General Ferguson’s brigade of cavalry; the town was also crowded with paroled soldiers of Lee’s army and refugee officials from Richmond. On the next day Mr. Davis arrived, escorted by the cavalry brigades of General Dibrell, of Tennessee, and Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, of Kentucky.
In response to the greeting received from the citizens and soldiery, Mr. Davis made a speech which has been the subject of much comment, then and sinee. I heard it, and remember nothing said by him that could warrant much either of commendation or criticism. In the course of his remarks a despatch was handed him by some gentleman in the crowd, who, I have been told since, was the mayor of Charlotte. It announced the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Davis read it aloud, making scarcely any comment upon it at all. He certainly used no unkind language, nor did he display any feeling of exultation. The impression produced on my mind by his manner and few words was that he did not credit the statement.
General John C. Breckinridge,who was then Secretary of War, had not accompanied Mr. Davis to Charlotte, but had gone to General Johnston’s headquarters at Greensboro’, and was assisting in the negotiations between Johnston and Sherman.
When General Breckinridge reached Charlotte, about two days after Mr. Davis’s arrival, he was under the impression that the cartel he had helped to frame would be ratified by the Federal Government and carried into effect. I saw him and had a long conversation with him immediately upon his arrival. He was in cheerful spirits, and seemed to
* Condensed from ”The Southern Bivouac” for August, 1886. When the campaign opened in 1866, General Duke commanded a brigade of cavalry in Southwestern Virginia. On the surrender of Lee he was ordered to report
with his comm and to General Johnston in North Carolina.
NARRATIVE OF EVENTS.
On Sunday, April 9th, President Lincoln reached Washington on his return from Ms visit to the field of operations on the James, having left Richmond on the 6th. (Seep. 312.) On the night of Friday, the 14th, the President visited Ford’s Theatre, where he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. The next morning about 7 o’clock Mr. Lincoln died. Booth escaped from the city, and, guided by some Confederates, crossed the Potomac near Port Tobacco, Maryland, to Virginia. On Monday, the 21th, he crossed the Rappahannock from Port Conway to Port Royal and took refuge in a bam, where he was found on Wednesday, the 26th, by a detachment of Company L, 16th New York Cavalry, and killed. The assassination of the President was the result of a conspiracy. Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, was also attacked on the evening of April 14th by Lewis Payne, a fellow-conspirator, and was severely injured. The following persons were tried before a military commission convened at Washington, May 9th, 1865, on the charge of conspiracy to assassinate the President and other high officers of the Government: David E. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, and Doctor Samuel A. Mudd. Herold, Atzerodt, Payne, and Mrs. Surratt were hanged; O'Laughlin, Arnold, and Mudd were sentenced to be imprisoned for life, and Spangler for six years.
On Sunday, the 2d of April, on receipt of despatches from General Lee that the army was about to evacuate the Petersburg and Richmond lines, Mr. Davis assembled his cabinet and directed the removal of the public archives, treasure, and other property to Danville, Virginia. The members of the government left Richmond during the night of the 2d, and on the 5th Mr. Davis issued a proclamation stating that Virginia would not be abandoned. Danville was placed in a state of defense, and Admiral Raphael Semmes was appointed a brigadier-general in command of the defenses, with a force consisting of a naval brigade and two battalions of infantry. Upon the surrender of Lee and his army (April 9th), the Confederate Government was removed to Greensboro’, North Carolina. On the 18th Mr. Davis and part of his cabinet and his personal staff, accompanied by a wagon-train, containing the personal property of the members of the Government and the most valuable archives, started for Charlotte, ■ North Carolina.
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