embody in the convention, and his recognition of the probability that its provisions would need more explicit definition before the final acts of negotiation. It shows, too, how frank he was in warning Johnston that the terrible crime at Washington had changed the situation. It seems indisputable that this open-hearted dealing between the generals made it much easier for them to come together on the final terms, by having revealed to Johnston the motives and convictions which animated his opponent in seeking the blessing of peace as well as in applying the scourge of war.
As further evidence of what Sherman told us, his subordinates, of the terms agreed upon, I quote the entry in my diary of what I understood them to be, on the 19th, the day following the signing of the convention, after personal conversation with the general: “Johnston’s army is to separate, the troops going to their several States; at the State capitals they are to surrender their arms and all public property. Part of the arms are to be left to the State governments and the rest turned over to the United States. The officers and soldiers are not to be punished by the United States Government for their part in the war, but all are left liable to private prosecutions and indictments in the courts.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 938.]
In the evening of the 23d Sherman heard of the arrival at Morehead City of Major Hitchcock, his messenger to Washington, and he at once notified Johnston that the dispatches would reach him in the morning. He asked the latter to be ready “to resume negotiations when the contents of the dispatches are known.” [Footnote: _Id_., pt. ii. p. 287.] When Major Hitchcock came up on a night train reaching Raleigh at six in the morning, to Sherman’s great surprise General Grant came also, unheralded and unannounced. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 286.]
CHAPTER L
THE SECOND SHERMAN–JOHNSTON CONVENTION–SURRENDER
Davis’s last cabinet meeting–Formal opinions approving the “Basis”–“The Confederacy is conquered”–Grant brings disapproval from the Johnston administration–Sherman gives notice of the termination of the truce–No military disadvantage from it–Sherman’s vindication of himself–Grant’s admirable conduct–Johnston advises Davis to yield–Capitulation assented to, but a volunteer cavalry force to accompany Davis’s flight–A new conference at Durham–Davis’s imaginary treasure–Grant’s return to Washington–Terms of the parole given by Johnston’s army–The capitulation complete–Schofield and his army to carry out the details–The rest of Sherman’s army marches north–His farewell to Johnston–Order announcing the end of the war–Johnston’s fine reply–Stanton’s strange dispatch to the newspapers–Its tissue of errors–Its baseless objections–Sherman’s exasperation–Interference with his military authority over his subordinates–Garbling Grant’s dispatch–Sherman strikes back–Breach between Sherman and Halleck–It also grew out of the published matter–Analysis of the facts–My opinion as recorded at the time.
When Grant reached Sherman’s headquarters on the morning of the 24th of April, Johnston had not yet been notified of the action of the Confederate government as to the agreed “Basis” of surrender. Having got Sherman’s dispatch of the evening before, he telegraphed to General Breckinridge, the Secretary of War at Greensborough, that there must be immediate readiness to act. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 834.] Breckinridge, however, had gone to Charlotte, about eighty miles down the road, near the South Carolina line, where Mr. Davis held the last meeting of his cabinet, and procured from each of them his formal, written opinion and advice. Davis himself now telegraphed the result to Johnston, saying: “Your action is approved. You will so inform General Sherman, and if the like authority be given by the Government of the United States to complete the arrangement, you will proceed on the ‘Basis’ adopted.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 834.] He added that further instructions would be given as to the subordinate details which, by common consent, must be added to the “Basis” to perfect it.
The cabinet opinions were unanimous in favor of approving the “Basis.” Benjamin’s, Reagan’s, and Attorney-General Davis’s were dated the 22d, Breckinridge’s the 23d, and Mallory’s the 24th. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 821, 823, 827, 830, 832.]
In varying words they all admitted what Mallory put most tersely, in saying “The Confederacy is conquered.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 833.] Several of them discussed the possibility of carrying on a guerilla warfare, but could see in it no useful result. They agreed that if Johnston retreated to the Gulf States, the troops would disperse spontaneously. Virginia and North Carolina would separately withdraw from the Confederacy, and the other States would follow. Benjamin expressed the common opinion that the terms of the convention “exact only what the victor always requires,–the relinquishment by his foe of the object for which the struggle was commenced.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 822.] He also well formulated their judgment that, as political head, Davis could not make peace by dissolving the Confederacy; but as commander-in-chief he could ratify the military convention disbanding the armies. “He can end hostilities. The States alone can act in dissolving the Confederacy and returning to the Union according to the terms of the convention.” [Footnote: _Ibid._] Reagan alone spoke of hopes that by submission the States might procure advantages not mentioned in the “Basis,” and found comfort in the fact that it contained “no direct reference to the question of slavery.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 824.] Taken together, these important documents contain the strongest possible admission of the utter ruin of the Confederacy and of the simple truth that there was nothing left for them but to surrender at discretion, with such dignity as they might. Of themselves the cabinet opinions changed the situation, and made it impossible to resume plans of further resistance after the convention was rejected at Washington. With them the Confederate Government vanished.
For it was a disapproval that Grant had brought. On receiving the “Memorandum, or Basis,” from Sherman, on the 21st, he had at once seen that the latter had acted in ignorance of the facts: first, that Mr. Lincoln had himself, two days before his death, withdrawn the permission for the Virginia legislature to assemble; and second, that he had, a month before Lee’s surrender, directed that military negotiations should not treat of any subject of civil policy. In view, therefore, of the tendency to severity which followed the assassination, it was evident that the convention would not be approved, and, as soon as action had been taken by the President in cabinet meeting, Grant wrote a calm and friendly letter to Sherman, in explanation of the rejection of the “Basis,” inclosing Stanton’s formal notice and order to resume hostilities. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 263, 264.] These were intrusted to Major Hitchcock, but, as we have seen, Grant accompanied the messenger in person.
Sherman having, only the day before, learned of the change of policy with regard to Virginia, and notified Johnston of its probable effect, was prepared in part for the disapproval, and was personally glad to be rid of political negotiation. He made no objection or remonstrance, but even before discussing the subject with Grant, wrote his notice to Johnston of the termination of the truce within forty-eight hours, as agreed. With this he sent a note stating his orders “not to attempt civil negotiations,” and demanding surrender of Johnston’s own army “on the same terms as were given General Lee at Appomattox.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 293, 294.] These dispatches were dated at six in the morning of the 24th, a few minutes after Grant’s arrival. [Footnote: Grant to Stanton, _Id_., p. 293.]
Sherman then explained to the General-in-Chief the military situation, the position of his several corps, his readiness to make the race with Johnston for Charlotte, the completed repair of the railroad through Raleigh to Durham, the accumulation of supplies, and the improved condition of the country roads. The truce had worked him no disadvantage from a military standpoint, but the contrary. The only thing which annoyed him in the dispatches from Washington was the last sentence in Mr. Stanton’s communication to Grant, saying, “The President desires that you proceed immediately to the headquarters of General Sherman and direct operations against the enemy.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 263.] The implication in this was a distrust of him which was wholly unjust, and he replied to it, “I had flattered myself that by four years’ patient, unremitting, and successful labor I deserved no such reminder.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 302.] In a letter to Grant of the same date he put upon record the fact that he had reason to suppose that his “Memorandum” accurately reflected Mr. Lincoln’s ideas and purposes, and that he was wholly uninformed of the instructions in regard to negotiating upon civil questions. He stood by his opinions on the propriety of using the _de facto_ governments in the separate States as agents of submission for their people. He pointed out that the military convention did not meddle with the right of the courts to punish past crimes, and stated that he admitted the need of clearer definition as to the guaranty of rights of person and property. [Footnote: _Ibid._] The points he thus discussed were those he got from Grant orally, for he had, as yet, no other knowledge of the criticisms made by President Johnson or his cabinet.
Grant’s sincere friendship and his freedom from the least desire to exhibit his own power had made him act as a visitor rather than a commander. He appreciated Sherman’s perfect readiness to accept the methods dictated by the civil authorities, and saw that his zeal was as ardent as it was at Atlanta or Savannah. The results of the honest frankness of the dealings between Sherman and Johnston were speedily seen. The Confederate general perfectly understood the meaning of the notice to end the truce, and that his great opponent would do his military duty to the uttermost. Whilst ordering his army to be ready to move at the expiration of the truce, he also declared to Mr. Davis, in asking for instructions, that it were better to yield than to have Sherman’s army again traverse the country. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 835.] Davis suggested, through Breckinridge, that the infantry and artillery might be disbanded, but the cavalry and horse-batteries brought off to accompany the high civil officers who would try to reach the Southwest. [Footnote: _Ibid._] Johnston replied that this would only provide for saving these functionaries from captivity. This might be done by Mr. Davis moving with a smaller cavalry escort, without losing a moment. To save the people, the country, and the army, an honorable military capitulation ought to be made before the expiration of the armistice. He said that his subordinate commanders did not believe their troops would fight again, and that news was received of the fall of Mobile, with 3,000 prisoners, and the capture of Macon, with a number of prominent generals. [Footnote: _Id._, P. 836.] Early on the 25th Breckinridge assented to the capitulation, but directed that General Wade Hampton, with the mounted men who chose to follow him, might join the President. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 837.] Upon this, Johnston wrote Sherman, asking that instead of a surrender and disbanding in the field, his army might have the arrangement for going home in organizations which had been made by the Memorandum of the 18th, giving as a reason that Lee’s paroled men were already afflicting the country, collecting in bands which had no means of subsistence but robbery. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 304.] Sherman then appointed a new conference at Durham, for the 26th, at noon. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] He had learned from Grant that it was believed at Washington that Davis had with him a large treasure in specie, making for Cuba by way of Florida, and sent at once a dispatch to Admiral Dahlgren, naval commander at Charleston, asking that officer to try to intercept him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 310.]
General Grant’s complete satisfaction with Sherman’s personal attitude and readiness to accept the action of the President was shown in his wish to return at once to Washington. He prepared to start from Raleigh on the morning of the 26th, taking a steamer from New Berne on arriving there. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 309.] He expected, of course that the surrender would be completed and the result telegraphed him by the time his vessel was ready to start, but he was also moved by delicacy toward Sherman and the desire to relieve him from every appearance of supervision which his stay at Raleigh might give. Sherman, however, was also chivalrous, and requested Grant not to leave till he should see the capitulation finally signed. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 312.] All this, it must be remembered, was in entire ignorance of the follies perpetrated at the War Department during those days.
The hour fixed for the new conference at Durham was the same at which the armistice would expire; but Sherman, having the troops in readiness to start at a moment’s notice, ordered that no movement should be made till his return. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 314.] An accident to his railroad delayed Johnston two or three hours, but on his arrival a brief conference satisfied him that the only course to pursue was to surrender on the terms given to Lee, and to trust to Sherman’s assurance that such arrangements would be made in executing the capitulation as would guard against the evils of the dispersion of his army without means of subsistence, which both officers justly feared. As in Lee’s case the language used avoided terms which implied being prisoners of war even momentarily, but provided that after delivering the arms to an ordnance officer at Greensborough (excepting side-arms of officers) and giving an “individual obligation not to take up arms against the Government of the United States, . . . all the officers and men will be permitted to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by the United States authorities so long as they observe their obligation and the laws in force where they may reside.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 313.]
At half-past seven in the evening Grant was able to write his dispatch to Stanton, Secretary of War, that the surrender was complete, and by using the telegraph to New Berne and Morehead City, and from Fort Monroe to Washington, the news reached Washington at ten in the morning of the 28th. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 311.] The same evening, and by same means of transmittal, he also informed Halleck at Richmond of the surrender, and recalled all his troops out of Sherman’s theatre of operations. [Footnote: On April 16th Halleck had been assigned to command the Department of Virginia, thus relieving him of duty as chief of staff of the army in which General Rawlins succeeded him. On April 19th his command was made the Military Division of the James, including besides Virginia such parts of North Carolina as Sherman should not occupy. (Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt, iii. pp. 230, 250.) In reading the Official Records of this period, it must be borne constantly in mind that from two to four days was required to convey dispatches from Sherman to the War Department and _vice versa_,–the longer time in case they were sent by mail, and the shorter when use was made in part of the telegraph lines.] After hearing the details of Sherman’s conversations with Johnston, and approving the suggestions of liberal arrangements looking to getting the Confederate troops quickly and quietly back to peaceful industry at their homes, Grant parted with us at Raleigh on the 27th, and returned as rapidly as possible to Washington, where the influence of his calm judgment and executive ability was sorely needed.
The orders for National forces in North Carolina except Schofield’s troops to march homeward were issued on the 27th. Kilpatrick’s division of cavalry was attached to Schofield’s command, and the Army of the Ohio thus reinforced was left to garrison the Department of North Carolina. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 323.] To General Schofield was also intrusted the preparation of the printed paroles for all the troops included in the capitulation, so that there might be uniformity. To him also was committed the conclusion of the supplementary terms needed for the liberal execution of the convention, as had been discussed at the personal meeting of the commanders, at which he had been present. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 320, 322.] Johnston sent in a draft of what he had understood to be thus informally arranged, the most important items of which were the “loan” to the Confederates of their army animals and wagons for farming purposes, the retention of a portion of their arms to enforce order and discipline till the separate organizations should reach their homes, and the extension of the privileges of the convention to naval officers of the Confederacy. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 321.] With slight modifications these were accepted by General Schofield and carried out. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 350, 355, 482.] A large issue of rations to Johnston’s troops had been voluntarily added without any request or stipulation. [Footnote: Schofield’s Forty-six Years in the Army, p. 352, etc.; Sherman’s Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 362, 363; Johnston’s Narrative, pp. 412-420. General Schofield’s recollection is that he wrote the convention of the 26th, Johnston and Sherman being unable to agree: but as it was in substance a transcript of the Grant-Lee terms of April 9th, according to Sherman’s note to Johnston of the 24th demanding their acceptance “purely and simply” (Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 294), the account I have given seems to me best supported by all the evidence.] Both parties understood that Johnston’s command included all Confederate troops east of the Chattahoochee, though this is not stated in the terms. [Footnote: Grant to Halleck, Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 312; Johnston to York, _Id._, p. 854; Do. to Governor Brown, _Id._, p. 855. Sherman’s Field Order No. 65, _Id._, p. 322.] At the earnest request of the Confederate general, none of our troops were sent up to Greensborough, where his headquarters and principal camp were, until the printing of the paroles was completed and staff officers sent to issue them on April 30th. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 349, 350, 35l. 483.] Sherman wrote a farewell letter to Johnston on the 27th, telling of his instructions to General Schofield to give him ten days’ rations for 25,000 men, “to facilitate what you and I and all good men desire, the return to their homes of the officers and men composing your army.” [Footnote: _Id._, p. 320.] He spoke also of his directions to “loan” to them enough animals fit for farming purposes to insure a crop. Concluding, he said: “Now that war is over, I am as willing to risk my person and reputation as heretofore, to heal the wounds made by the past war, and I think my feeling is shared by the whole army. I also think a similar feeling actuates the mass of your army, but there are some unthinking young men who have no sense or experience, that unless controlled may embroil their neighbors. If we are forced to deal with them, it must be with severity, but I hope they will be managed by the people of the South.” [Footnote: _Ibid._] His Field Order No. 65, announcing the end of war east of the Chattahoochee, referred to the same purpose “to relieve present wants and to encourage the inhabitants to renew their peaceful pursuits and to restore the relations of friendship among our fellow-citizens and countrymen.” He directed that “great care must be taken that all the terms and stipulations on our part be fulfilled with the most scrupulous fidelity, whilst those imposed on our hitherto enemies be received in a spirit becoming a brave and generous army.” [Footnote: _Id._, p. 322]
A copy of this order was enclosed in Sherman’s letter to Johnston, and the latter replied in a similar noble tone. “The enlarged patriotism manifested in these papers,” he said, “reconciles me to what I had previously regarded as the misfortune of my life–that of having had you to encounter in the field. The enlightened and humane policy you have adopted will certainly be successful. It is fortunate for the people of North Carolina that your views are to be carried out by one so capable of appreciating them. I hope you are as well represented in the other departments of your command; if so, an early and complete pacification in it may be expected…. The disposition you express to heal the wounds made by the past war has been evident to me in all our interviews. You are right in supposing that similar feelings are entertained by the mass of this army. I am sure that all the leading men in it will exert their influence for that object.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 336.]
Down to this moment the progress of events had been full of satisfaction to Sherman, and of gratification to his noble ambition. If the implication contained in the order sending Grant in person to his headquarters had pained him, Grant’s perfect handling of the situation had prevented the wound being deep, and Sherman was pleased, on the whole, to be relieved of negotiations on all civil questions. But the day after Grant had left him,–when he had issued his admirable Order No. 65, and exchanged chivalrous sentiments with Johnston,–when he had completed his work in his great campaign and, leaving to Schofield the finishing of the administrative task in North Carolina, was turning his face homeward full of anticipation of rejoining family and friends, with his great career in a retrospect which was altogether gratifying–at this culmination of his glory as a soldier and his pride as a patriot, he received the sorest blow and the deepest wound he ever knew.
The mail, on the 28th, brought a copy of the “New York Times,” containing Mr. Stanton’s now famous dispatch to General Dix dated the 22d, sent for the purpose of general publication, in which he made known the fact that Sherman had entered into a convention with Johnston, that it was disapproved by the President, and that Sherman was ordered to resume hostilities. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 285.] Had the newspaper publication stopped here, it would still have been a grave indiscretion, for the news of what was done in Washington usually reached the enemy more promptly than it came to our officers at the front, and the enterprising spies at the capital would have thought their fortunes made by getting on the 22d orders which did not reach Sherman, in fact, till the 24th, with official comments of which the general was ignorant till the 28th.
But this was the least of the faults of this curious document. It said that Sherman had entered into “what is called a basis of peace.” No such name was given the paper, and the manner of attributing it misled the public as to its character. It suppressed the fact that the “Memorandum” was by its terms wholly without binding effect if not approved by the President. Without saying so, it persuasively led the reader to believe that Sherman had violated instructions issued by Mr. Lincoln on March 3d, which in fact were never published till it was done in this dispatch, and were wholly unknown to the general, who believed he was acting in accordance with President Lincoln’s wishes given him orally at the end of March. It spoke of orders sent by Sherman to Stoneman “to withdraw from Salisbury and join him” as opening “the way for Davis to escape to Mexico or Europe with his plunder, which is reported to be very large.” Only complete ignorance of the actual military situation could account for so erroneous a statement. Davis was in the midst of Johnston’s whole army, most of which was halted by the truce at Greensborough. Stoneman, on a brilliant cavalry raid, passed rapidly from the North near Greensborough a week before, had struck Salisbury on the 13th, and immediately marched northwest, on his return to East Tennessee, whence he had started. He was at Statesville, forty miles on his way, when Sherman and Johnston made the armistice on the 18th, of which he did not hear a word till he was over the mountains on the 23d. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 334, 335.] Sherman first heard of Davis’s “plunder” from Grant on the 24th, and immediately asked the navy to frustrate any efforts to take it out of the country. [Footnote: _Ante_, p. 494.] Davis did not leave the protection of Johnston’s army till he knew that Stoneman was far away and his road was clear. In fact, it was only when, after the rejection of the first convention, Johnston had begun negotiations for the separate surrender of his own forces, and further delay would have made him a prisoner. As to the “plunder of the banks” thus published by the Secretary, it turned out that officers of Carolina banks who had taken their assets to Richmond for protection against the perils of war, had taken advantage of the protection of Mr. Davis’s escort to carry them home when Richmond fell. As to the specie treasure, rumored to be many millions, about forty thousand dollars was at Greensborough paid to Johnston’s soldiers at the rate of $1.17 to each, and the remainder, except a small sum, seems to have been distributed to the cavalry escort, about 3000 strong, which protected Mr. Davis to the Savannah River and then dispersed; the sum was thirty-five dollars per man, given as part of their arrears of pay. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 801, 803, 820, 850; _Id._, vol. xlix. pt. i. pp. 548, 551, 552, 555; Davis’s Rise and Fall, vol. ii. pp. 691, 695; Johnston’s Narrative, p. 408; Sherman’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 373.] The statement in Mr. Stanton’s dispatch regarding this “plunder,” copied from one received from Halleck, which in turn was based on anonymous rumor, was so couched as to give credit to the imputation that Sherman was to be duped or bribed to allow Davis with his effects, “including this gold plunder,” to escape. Not only did the form of the publication give this impression, but that it was in fact so understood and treated is simple matter of history.
Even this was not all. There were appended to this nine enumerated criticisms, most of which were baseless. The first declared that both Sherman and Johnston knew the former had no power to do what was done in the Memorandum. What was done in fact was to transmit to the government, for its acceptance or rejection, Johnston’s offer to disband all the remaining armies of the Confederacy, wherever situated, on the terms which were stated. The “Memorandum” itself said that the generals lacked power “to fulfil these terms;” but that they had power to make a truce till the government of the United States considered the proposal, is too plain for serious dispute. Yet Mr. Stanton’s criticism implied that the arrangement had not been merely proposed, but had been actually concluded, for the strictures otherwise had no meaning.
The second said that “it was a practical acknowledgment of the rebel government.” On the other hand, Sherman had utterly refused to deal with or acknowledge that government in any way. The effect of ratification of the terms would have been its silent disappearance without being named. If the argument were worth anything, it would have been much more potent against the exchanges of prisoners which had been carried on through commissioners of both governments. But the next clause had the added bugbear that the arms when deposited at the State capitals might be “used to conquer and subdue the loyal States.” This suppressed the fact that by the “Memorandum” the arms were “to be reported to the chief of ordnance at Washington City subject to the future action of the Congress of the United States.” The allowance of arms to local authorities to preserve order was a necessity so self-evident that, in the face of this objection by Mr. Stanton, General Schofield, in supplementary terms of the final surrender, allowed Johnston’s troops to retain part of the arms in this way, and no whisper of further objection was made. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 482.]
The third objection was that “it undertook to re-establish the rebel State governments that had been overthrown.” This was untrue in fact. It proposed that the executive should recognize actually existing governments _de facto_ in the States, for the purpose of renouncing the Confederacy and acknowledging under oath their allegiance to the United States. For the purpose of such submission, it would seem clear that it would be an advantage to have it made by Vance, and Magrath, and Brown, and the rest who had been the real rebels, rather than by new men whose essential representative character might be denied. The subsequent history of reconstruction gives small support to the opinion that anything was gained which might not have been got more effectively by dictating the civil changes and terms of peace to these old State governments rather than to such provisional makeshifts as were afterward used. But the objection was, after all, not against Sherman, but against the dead Lincoln under whose oral authority Sherman was acting, and who had put the same in clearest written terms in his correspondence with General Weitzel and Judge Campbell after Richmond was in our possession. [Footnote: Dana to Stanton, April 5th: “Judge Campbell and Mr. Meyer had an interview with the President here this morning to consider how Virginia can be brought back to the Union. All they ask is an amnesty and a military convention to cover appearances. Slavery they admit to be defunct,” etc. (_Id_., vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 575.) Lincoln to Grant, April 6th, says he had put into Judge Campbell’s hands “an informal paper” repeating former propositions and adding “that confiscations shall be remitted to the people of any State which will now promptly and in good faith withdraw its troops and other support from resistance to the government. Judge Campbell thought it not impossible that the rebel legislature of Virginia would do the latter if permitted, and accordingly I addressed a private letter to General Weitzel with permission for Judge Campbell to see it, telling him that if they attempt this, to permit and protect them, unless they attempt something hostile to the United States,” etc. (_Id._, p. 593.) Lincoln to Weitzel, April 6th. (_Id._, p. 612.) Dana to Stanton, April 7th. (_Id._, p. 619.) Dana to Stanton, April 8th, with enclosures of papers by Judge Campbell giving the contents of Mr. Lincoln’s written memorandum to him. (_Id._, pp. 655-657.) When Mr. Lincoln got back to Washington, Lee having surrendered with the Virginia troops and the rebel legislature of Virginia not having assembled or acted, the President withdrew his permission for them to meet, saying he had dealt with them as men “having power de facto” to do what he wished but which was already done. Lincoln to Weitzel, April 12th. (_Id._, p. 725.)]
The fourth criticism was that by the terms proposed the State governments “would be enabled to re-establish slavery.” Apart from the admissions of leading men of the South, and the facts already collated, [Footnote: _Ante_, pp. 481, 485.] Mr. Stanton, in saying this, ignored the Proclamation of Emancipation, on which, in his conversation with Judge Campbell, Mr. Lincoln had been entirely willing to rest. The Southern jurist had recognized the solidity of the legal ground “that if the proclamation of the President be valid as law, it has already operated and vested rights.” This the judge had stated to his fellow-citizens as a fact in the situation not to be ignored, and had repeated it in his letter of April 7th to General Weitzel in a stronger form, if possible, saying, “The acceptance of the Union involves acceptance of his proclamation, if it be valid in law.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. pp. 656, 657.] The condition of its legal validity was not an insertion by Campbell–it was the expression of Mr. Lincoln himself, conceding the authority of the courts to pass upon the question as he had done in his amnesty proclamation. [Footnote: Gorham’s Stanton, vol. ii. p. 235.] Mr. Stanton had these things before him, hardly a fortnight old, when he made his singular publication. They add no little to the difficulty of determining the true motives of his appeal to the public.
The fifth objection was the possibility of resulting liability for the rebel debts, which could hardly have been seriously meant.
The sixth was that it put in dispute the loyal State governments and the new State of West Virginia. As to the latter, the “Memorandum” was based on Mr. Lincoln’s action in Virginia, and assumed that question to have been determined, so far as the executive was concerned. The criticism, like some of the rest, was aimed at what Mr. Lincoln had done, which was thus flogged over Sherman’s shoulders; for the latter was, as we have to reiterate, ignorant that on Mr. Lincoln’s return to Washington he had been induced to cancel what he had done. From any point of view but that of a momentary party advantage, it is hard to see the evil of submitting contesting State governments to the decision of the Supreme Court. Those of Louisiana and Arkansas were swept away very soon by Congressional action, and they were the only ones intended to be reached by the Sherman-Johnston “Memorandum.”
The seventh declared that it “practically abolished the confiscation laws and relieved the rebels of every degree, who had slaughtered our people, from all pains and penalties for their crimes.” Those who had “slaughtered” were primarily the officers and soldiers of the armies, and no fault was found with Grant’s extension of amnesty to them by the Appomattox terms. It was true, besides, that the whole male population of the South, of military age, was part of the army, and that even State officers were “furloughed” to enable them to perform public duties of a civil nature. We have seen that Sherman carefully limited immunity to the action of the executive, that he meddled with no laws, and said that all the people were still liable to what the judicial department of the government might do. But he had also acknowledged, upon reflection, that clearer definition would be desirable in this respect, and had asked Johnston to be ready to act upon this. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 266.] It is our privilege, moreover, judging after the fact, to note how little Stanton’s objection practically meant, and how much better Sherman represented the deeper purpose of the American people, since neither Mr. Davis nor any of his chief counsellors suffered “the pains and penalties for their crimes.”
The eighth criticism was that the “Memorandum” offered terms “that had been deliberately, repeatedly, and solemnly rejected by President Lincoln, and better terms than the rebels had ever asked in their most prosperous condition.” Mr. Stanton could hardly have forgotten, when writing this, that they were in fact not only based on what Sherman had learned of his policy from Mr. Lincoln himself, as we have seen, but they were what President Lincoln had repeatedly offered and the Confederates had repeatedly rejected, the last rejection being after the Hampton Roads conference in the first days of February. [Footnote: Nicolay and Hay’s “Lincoln,” vol. x. pp. 122, 123, 128]
Exactly what was meant by the ninth criticism it is hard to say. It is said that the “Memorandum,” if adopted, would “relieve the rebels from the pressure of our victories” and leave them “in condition to renew their efforts to overthrow the United States government and subdue the loyal States whenever their strength was recruited and any opportunity was offered.” As it provided for the disarming and disbanding of every Confederate company, left our victorious troops free to garrison every State, and gave protection to individuals only so long as they were obedient to the National government, we must regard the apprehension of new efforts to subdue the loyal States as fantastic and not serious.
It was inevitable that such a manifesto to the public should be greatly exasperating to Sherman. Seeing also the manner in which it was interpreted by the newspapers, he believed that it was purposely so worded as to imply what it did not explicitly assert, and to hold him up to the nation as one little better than a traitor. He was very emphatic in saying that being overruled did not trouble him; it was the public perversion of what he had done, attributing to his “Memorandum” what the publication of its text would have contradicted, which outraged his feelings. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 335, 345.] Grant frankly adhered to his opinion that in the actual condition of affairs he could not himself advise the ratification of the terms proposed; yet he saw the injustice done Sherman, and condemned it. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 410, 531.] Their relations continued as cordial as ever, and his influence was potent in preventing further ill results from following the quarrel.
The publication was followed by other acts of Mr. Stanton which increased the irritation. On the 27th of April he informed Halleck, Canby, and Thomas that “Sherman’s proceedings” were disapproved, and ordered them to direct their subordinates “to pay no attention to any orders but your own or from General Grant.” [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlix. pt. ii. p. 484; vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 321.] This was a day after Johnston had made his final surrender under the second convention, and when Grant had been two days with Sherman. It led to Halleck’s ordering Meade to pay no attention to the truce, even after the surrender of Johnston was signed, and might have caused serious results if Grant had not been very prompt in giving counter-orders to Halleck. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 312.] All the department commanders naturally understood Stanton’s language in sending Grant to North Carolina, as superseding Sherman in command, though in fact this was not done. They concluded that if any new terms were made with Johnston the action would be in Grant’s name, and his signature would verify the truce. But as Grant did not do this, and everything remained in Sherman’s hands as before, the actual surrender was ignored and credit refused, by order of the Secretary of War, to the armistice declared while the paroles were being issued. Stanton took no steps to correct this, and for two weeks the strange muddle continued in the Southwest. This came to such a pass that on May 8th Sherman inquired of Grant whether “the Secretary of War’s newspaper order” had taken Georgia out of his command. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 434.] Grant replied, “I know of no order which changes your command in any particular,” and, in his patient rôle of peacemaker, suggested that the necessity of prompt communication when Sherman was not in telegraphic communication with Washington had caused some irregularities. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 445.]
One of the minor incidents in Stanton’s course of action throws so strong light on his methods and was so irritating an example of the _suppressio veri_ that it must be mentioned. Immediately after his interview with Sherman in the early morning of the 24th, Grant had sent a dispatch to Stanton, which the latter sent to General Dix for publication in the following form: “A dispatch has just been received by this department from General Grant, dated Raleigh, 9 A. M., April 24th. He says: ‘I reached here this morning, and delivered to General Sherman the reply to his negotiations with Johnston. Word was immediately sent to Johnston, terminating the truce, and information that civil matters could not be entertained in any convention between army commanders.'” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 311.] Taken in connection with the previous publication, this was naturally interpreted to mean that Grant had sent the “word” to Johnston, and it strengthened the current against Sherman. The dispatch as sent by Grant was this: “I reached here this morning and delivered to General Sherman the reply to his negotiations with Johnston. _He was not surprised, but rather expected their rejection_. Word was immediately sent to Johnston terminating the truce, and information that civil matters could not be entertained in any convention between army commanders. _General Sherman has been guided in his negotiations with Johnston entirely by what he thought was precedent authorized by the President. He had before him the terms given by me to Lee’s army and the call of the rebel legislature of Virginia authorized by General Weitzel, as he supposed with the sanction of the President and myself. At the time of the agreement General Sherman did not know of the withdrawal of authority for the meeting of that legislature. The moment he learned through the papers that authority for the meeting had been withdrawn, he communicated the fact to Johnston as having bearing on the negotiations had_.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 293.] I have italicized the omitted parts to show how absolutely essential they were to a true statement of Sherman’s attitude, and how grave was the offence against fair dealing to suppress them after the appeal to the public had been made by the first publication. The dispatch is also historically important as proof of the ideal character of Grant’s disinterestedness and frank friendship for Sherman in this juncture.
Mr. Stanton’s habit of impetuous action without reflection, upon first impressions and imperfect knowledge, was notorious, as was his constitutional inability to admit that he had been in the wrong. Once aroused, he was a fierce combatant, using any weapon that came to hand, inquiring only whether it would hurt his opponent. When obliged to see that he had judged wrongly, his silence was the only confession: he was seldom equal to a candid apology. If a tacit retreat was accepted by the other party, he might endeavor to compensate for the wrong in some other manner. [Footnote: On this subject General E. D. Townsend, as adjutant-general, is a most competent and conclusive witness. (Townsend’s Anecdotes of the Civil War, p. 137.) Two little matters occurring at nearly the same time with the Sherman quarrel perfectly illustrate this characteristic in Stanton. General Townsend was in charge of the funeral escort of Lincoln’s body, and in New York a photograph was taken of the coffin, in state, in the City Hall, with the drapery of the alcove formed of national flags and crape, with Admiral Davis and General Townsend as guard of honor at head and foot. Stanton read of it in a newspaper, and without further knowledge sent a violent and undignified reprimand to Townsend, ordering him to relieve and send back to Washington the officers on duty, and to seize and destroy the plates. A telegraphic correspondence followed, bringing in the photographers, Henry Ward Beecher, H. J. Raymond, and the military officers, with the proof that there was nothing to find fault with, but rather the desirable preservation of a memento of a memorable scene. There was a retreat, but no apology by the Secretary. (Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. pp. 952, 965, 966). The other was the permission given the Episcopal clergy in Richmond to continue Divine service in the churches if they omitted the prayer for the Confederate President in their liturgy, that being treated as a demonstration in favor of the insurgent government. General Weitzel was in command, and Mr. Lincoln was in the city when the question first arose whether, in addition to the above prohibition, the clergy should be required to insert, affirmatively, a prayer for the President of the United States. Weitzel supposed he was acting in accordance with Mr. Lincoln’s direction not to be sticklish in little things, stopped at the prohibition, as was generally done by commanders in the field, on the ground that to order a form to be inserted in any liturgy where it did not exist, would be ridiculous for a government based on total separation of church and state. Stanton, hearing of it through Mr. C. A. Dana, informed Weitzel that his action was “strongly condemned,” and that he was “unwilling to believe that a general officer of the United States, commanding in Richmond, would consent to such an omission of respect to the President.” Weitzel asked whether the direction would apply to Roman Catholics, Hebrews, and other churches having a prescribed liturgy, and Stanton replied _ex cathedra_, in the affirmative, repeating his reprimand. Weitzel now appealed to the President, and the absurd controversy was stopped. Stanton seems to have acted at first in ignorance that individual ministers had no power to insert a prayer into the formal liturgy; but he could not yield when better informed, and a temperate memorial of the local clergy stating the canonical difficulty and their earnest intention to have the change made with all speed possible, is in the Records, “disapproved by order of the Secretary of War”! (_Id_., pp. 619, 677, 678, 684, 696, 711, 737). Perhaps the nearest historical parallel is Napoleon’s order to the Russian clergy to pray for him instead of the Czar in 1812. (Fezensac, Souvenirs Militaires, 4th ed., liv. 2, chap. i. p. 233.)]
Sherman was not the man to submit to what he considered and called an outrage, and when made aware of it, he struck back with all his force. He exposed and denounced the perversions of fact and misstatements of what he had done, and demanded the publication of the original “Memorandum” with his statement of its relations to Mr. Lincoln’s policy and wishes as stated by the dead President himself. Grant advised him to omit some of the expressions of his official report, but he refused and courted an official investigation, whilst he clearly stated his duty and his purpose to obey without question such orders as were given by competent authority. He was quite too large a man to be made the victim of a manifest wrong, and when once the case was fairly presented, the purity of his motives and the reasonableness of his belief that he was acting under highest authority were generally acknowledged, even by those who supported a severer policy toward the Southern States. The President and nearly all the members of the Cabinet assured him that the published bulletins had been without their knowledge, and cordially strove to soothe his wounded feelings. [Footnote: For the correspondence, see Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 302, 334, 345, 371, 410, 476, 515, 547, 576, 581, 582, 586, 662; _Id_., pt. i. p. 40. See also Sherman’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 375; Conduct of the War, vol. vi. p. 3.] The genuineness of character, patriotism, and subordination tempered by proper self-respect, which he exhibited, did not diminish the public regard, but rather heightened it. As to the debatable questions of policy involved in his first convention, he proudly left them to the judgment of time.
The breach of friendship between Sherman and Halleck, which was also caused by Mr. Stanton’s bulletins, was especially to be regretted. Their early close relations as young officers going “around the Horn” to California have already been mentioned, as well as the warm personal correspondence between them during the Atlanta campaign. [Footnote: _Ante_, pp. 174-176.] He had been grateful also for Halleck’s friendly conduct toward him in his period of depression in 1861, and expressed it strongly in a long letter when Atlanta had fallen and he had won his commission as major-general in the regular army. “I confess I owe you all I now enjoy of fame,” he said, “for I had allowed myself in 1861 to sink into a perfect ‘slough of despond.'” Halleck’s friendship and encouragement had put him in the way of recovering from this. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. v. p. 791.] But now his faith in human nature was rudely shocked by finding, apparently, this friendly hand joining in the hardest blows at his fame and honor.
In the first of Stanton’s bulletins concerning him, Sherman found copied the dispatch from Halleck giving the rumor of Davis’s great “plunder,” and the hope of the Confederate leaders to “make terms with Sherman or some other commander,” by which they would be permitted to escape out of the country with this treasure. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 286.] The sting of this was in the apparent insinuation that Sherman might be bought. It naturally roused him to explosive wrath. Had Mr. Stanton quoted the final sentence of Halleck’s dispatch, it would have shown that the latter intended no such thing. It concluded, “Would it not be well to put Sherman and all other commanding generals on their guard in this respect?” [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 887.] The apparent insinuation was in the Secretary’s bulletin by the omission of this sentence from the quoted dispatch. Had Sherman seen the dispatch as Halleck wrote it, he would not have been angered by it.
But on the 28th there appeared in the New York papers another dispatch of Halleck to Stanton, dated the 26th, and saying that his subordinates were ordered “to pay no regard to any truce, or orders of General Sherman suspending hostilities, on the ground that Sherman’s agreements could bind his own command and no other.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 953.] This was upon receipt of a dispatch from Beauregard stating “that a new arrangement had been made with Sherman.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 953.] In the same dispatch Halleck suggested that orders be telegraphed through General Thomas to General Wilson, at the head of a strong cavalry column in Georgia, to mind no orders of Sherman, but, with other commanders in the Gulf States, to “take measures to intercept the rebel chiefs and their plunder,” now estimated, rather indefinitely, at “from six to thirteen millions.”
The folly of such publications was egregious, and justified Sherman’s sarcasm that if anybody was conniving at Davis’s escape, it was the officer who gave them to the public. It was, however, the direction to disregard his new truce, embracing Johnston’s troops alone and based on their actual surrender, that stirred anew his indignation. He had made a short inspection tour down the coast after starting his columns northward, and saw the dispatch in newspapers he received at Morehead, May 4th, on his return there by steamer from Savannah. In writing General Grant, he characterized Halleck’s action as an insult. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 388.] Fortunately, he had met at Savannah an officer of General Wilson’s staff, Captain L. M. Hosea, who had made an adventurous journey across half Georgia to open communications, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 371.] and in sending a steamboat up to Augusta with supplies for Wilson, he had hurried Captain Hosea back with such full information as enabled Wilson to observe scrupulously the final convention with Johnston whilst vigorously pushing his efforts to capture Davis. These efforts were successful on the 10th. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlix. pt. i. pp. 515, 526.]
Sherman’s sense of military honor was violated and shocked by the orders disregarding his truce, which were “cordially approved” by the Secretary of War. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 967.] Grant suggested that Halleck’s action was so connected with Mr. Stanton’s orders that it might not seem so bad on fuller information, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 410.] but Sherman’s sense of injury was such that in passing Richmond on the 8th he refused Halleck’s offered hospitality, saying that after the dispatch of the 26th of April friendly intercourse was impossible. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 435.] Halleck’s was the “soft answer which turneth away wrath,” and it is due to him to remember it. “You have not had during this war, nor have you now, a warmer friend and admirer than myself. If, in carrying out what I knew to be the wishes of the War Department in regard to your armistice, I used language which has given you offence, it was unintentional and I deeply regret it. If fully aware of the circumstances under which I acted, I am certain you would not attribute to me any improper motive. It is my wish to continue to regard and receive you as a personal friend. With this statement I leave the matter in your hands.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 454.]
But what had occurred seemed to Sherman to be so ingeniously fitted together as parts of a malignant plan, that he replied, “I cannot consent to the renewal of a friendship I had prized so highly till I can see deeper into the diabolical plot than I now do.” [Footnote: _Ibid_.] His words were all the bitter expression of a heart wounded beyond endurance by wrongs which seemed too palpable and plain for discussion or explanation. In the distribution of commands on the peace establishment made soon afterward, Halleck went to the Pacific coast and did not live long. It is to be feared that no opportunity for a full understanding between him and Sherman occurred, though the latter was as placable as he was impetuous; and when he found, as he soon did, that his fame and reputation had not suffered permanent injury, he ignored the past so far, at least, as to show that he harbored no lasting enmity.
Yet Halleck was probably right in saying that he had done nothing but what he deemed his duty, and with no unfriendly purpose toward Sherman. His dispatch of the 26th of April was only one of a series, and it was made to have a different effect, taken by itself, from what it would have had if read in its connection with the others. There is no reasonable doubt that Stanton’s angry purpose had been to humiliate Sherman by practically superseding him in command. Halleck knew this and went to Richmond, where he assumed command on the 22d, with full knowledge of the sentiment which then ruled the War Department. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 891.] In the afternoon of the same day, Grant, on his way to North Carolina, telegraphed him that the truce would be ended as soon as he could reach Raleigh, and ordered him to send Sheridan with the cavalry toward Greensborough, sending also a corps of infantry along as far as Danville. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 888.] This assumed that by the time these troops could enter Sherman’s theatre of operations the truce would have been terminated; for Sheridan was then at Petersburg, and the Sixth Corps at Burke’s Station. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 895.] The cavalry could not be ready to march before the 24th (at the earliest) and did not start in fact till the 25th or 26th. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 931, 947.] Neither it nor the infantry got beyond Danville or entered North Carolina before they were halted by Grant’s order to Halleck of the 26th, received in the morning of the 28th. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 954, 997.] No interference with Sherman’s truce, either the first or the second, actually occurred. Halleck knew that the first truce would be ended as soon as the two days’ notice could expire after Grant reached Raleigh, and long before his troops could come into contact with Johnston’s. But he was also moving them by Grant’s order, and must not only obey, but must assume that the first truce was no longer in question. It was not necessary or proper for him to explain fully to his subordinates all he knew of Grant’s journey and purpose. For their direction it was enough to say they were not to regard the truce which had been made on the 18th and was currently spoken of as “Sherman’s truce.” Had Sherman known of Grant’s order to Halleck and the assumed situation on which it was based, he would not have regarded Halleck’s language an insult. Without such knowledge it looked very much like it.
Halleck, however, had to face the question how his subordinates must act if, on coming near the enemy, Johnston should claim a new armistice. He shared the War Department opinion that the negotiation was not sincere on the part of the Confederates, but was a ruse to gain time for Davis’s escape with the imaginary “plunder.” A pretended armistice is an old and familiar stratagem in warfare. It would seem that Halleck fully believed that Grant would assume actual command, on reaching Sherman (as he had commanded when with Meade during the past campaign), and concluded that any real armistice again made would be in Grant’s name. Any other would be a sham or would have been made before Grant was present. Under such circumstances he could not be blamed for telling his subordinates that only Grant’s authority or his own must bind them. He was mistaken, in fact, for Grant’s arrival was not even known to Johnston, and Sherman concluded the final convention as if Grant had still been in Washington. The curtness of telegrams often creates ambiguities, and when Sherman saw in print Halleck’s dispatch of the 26th separated from the rest of the series, he naturally gave to it the meaning which hurt him so. Had he known the rest of the story, he would have seen no treachery to old friendships. The sin was in the unprecedented publications which embroiled everything. In truth, Halleck’s order to Meade was more guarded in form than the language of his dispatch to Stanton, for Meade was only told to ignore “any agreements made by General Sherman before the arrival of Lieutenant-General Grant.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 941.]
A curious theoretic question was raised by Halleck’s incidental statement that an armistice by Sherman could only bind his own army. Sherman said he must defend his truce at all hazards till it was duly terminated. Each was right in a sense, but fortunately the laws of war and military regulations would prevent practical difficulty arising. If Sheridan had advanced to Greensborough, Sherman would have met him there, and by virtue of his superior rank would have assumed command and responsibility for the united forces. Besides the orders and instructions from the President he already had, he would have to act in view of any authentic instructions or information which Sheridan might bring. On the other hand, if Halleck had accompanied his own forces, his seniority would have made Sherman his subordinate in the common field of operations; but as commander, he would have to respect, at his own peril, all the rights which Johnston had acquired under the principles of international law. The situation had perplexities only so long as the generals were playing at cross-purposes by reason of imperfect knowledge. Their intelligence and character were such that duty would have been plain to both as soon as they came together.
Stanton made no public explanation of his conduct, but in a conversation with General Howard, he asserted that Sherman’s order to his troops announcing the armistice, by saying that when ratified it would “make peace from the Potomac to the Rio Grande,” had put the government on the defensive, and made it seem proper to publish reasons for disapproving the terms. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 476.] This does not touch the question of the wisdom or folly of the matter published, or of its form. Sherman’s reason for mentioning the prospect of a general and speedy peace was that the condition of his army under the news of Lincoln’s assassination was such that he felt it necessary to soothe his excited soldiery with the hope of soon marching home in triumph, thus turning their thoughts from the vengeance which would have been inevitable if fighting were to be resumed. Instead of appreciating this, Mr. Stanton seems to have jumped to the conclusion that it was an act of vanity or of political ambition which was to be squelched _per fas aut nefas_, and in his passionate and hasty action he compromised the whole administration.
We who were Sherman’s subordinates in the field knew so well his integrity and patriotism that we sympathized strongly with his indignation at the appeal to popular sentiment against him. Yet the sense of duty to the country and to the government prevented thoughtful men from being blind partisans of our chief. Without full means of judging of the possible effect of the first convention, if carried out, some of us were disposed to believe that there must have been a mistake on his part, since we were not able to believe that the Secretary of War would publish his “nine reasons” if they had no solid support and were not approved by the President and Cabinet. My personal opinion I wrote in my diary at the time, and I reproduce it to show the contemporaneous sentiment of one who was both a warm supporter of the government and a warm friend of the general. What I have written above will also show how far further investigation and fuller knowledge have modified my judgment. “Friday, April 28th…. Some of the Northern papers are very bitter on Sherman for the terms first offered by him, and it is manifest from the dispatches sent by the Secretary of War to New York to be published there, that the new administration is willing to give Sherman a hard hit. He made a great mistake in offering to Johnston the terms he did, but he has done the country such service that the administration owed it to him to keep the thing from the public and to come kindly to an understanding with him, instead of seeming to seek the opportunity to pitch upon him as if it desired to humble him. In conversation this morning he showed that he felt their conduct very sorely, but I hope he will keep out of controversy with them in regard to it. He complains with justice that they have refused to give any instructions to guide military officers as to the policy to be adopted, and then, when these are forced to act, seem to take pleasure in repudiating what the officers have done, and in humbling them or exposing them to popular odium.”
CHAPTER LI
PAROLING AND DISBANDING JOHNSTON’S ARMY–CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR IN NORTH CAROLINA
General Schofield’s policy when left in command–Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in force–Davis’s line of flight from Charlotte, N.C.–Wade Hampton’s course of conduct–Fate of the cabinet officers–Bragg, Wheeler, and Cooper–Issuing paroles to Johnston and his army–Greensborough in my district–Going there with Schofield–Hardee meets and accompanies us–Comparing memories–We reach Johnston’s headquarters–Condition of his army–Our personal interview with him–The numbers of his troops–His opinion of Sherman’s army–Of the murder of Lincoln–Governor Morehead’s home–The men in gray march homeward–Incident of a flag–The Salisbury prison site–Treatment of prisoners of war–Local government in the interim–Union men–Elements of new strife–The negroes–Household service–Wise dealing with the labor question–No money–Death of manufactures–Necessity the mother of invention–Uses of adversity–Peace welcomed–Visit to Greene’s battlefield at Guilford-Old-Court-House.
On Thursday, the 27th of April, the same day on which Sherman issued his order announcing the final agreement for the surrender of Johnston’s army and the homeward march of most of his own forces, General Schofield issued his own order declaring “the duty of all to cultivate friendly relations with the same zeal which has characterized our conduct of the war, that the blessings of union, peace and material prosperity may be speedily restored to the entire country.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. 330.] He invited all peaceably disposed persons to return to their homes and resume their industrial pursuits. He promised also the loan of captured horses, mules, and wagons to those who had been deprived of their own by the armies, and food for the needy during the period when all must be busy planting if the season were to be made of any avail for agriculture. His order concluded with these words: “It will be left to the judicial department of the government to punish those political leaders who are responsible for secession, rebellion, and civil war with all its horrors. Between the Government of the United States and the people of North Carolina there is peace.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 330.]
In a separate order of the same date, to remove all doubt as to the end of slavery, he declared that “by virtue of the proclamation of the President of the United States, dated January 1, 1863, all persons in this State heretofore held as slaves are now free, and it is the duty of the army to maintain the freedom of such persons.” [Footnote: _Id_., p. 331.] He recommended immediate fair contracts of hiring and the resumption of profitable industry, so that disorganization of labor might be avoided. He told the freedmen that it was not well for them to congregate about towns or military camps, and that they could not be supported in idleness. All classes of people were thus put upon the footing Sherman had intended in his first convention with Johnston, and Schofield’s orders issued whilst Sherman was still with us at Raleigh may be received as an authoritative interpretation of the latter’s views.
The Confederate troops were mostly concentrated about Greensborough upon the railroad from Richmond through Danville and Charlotte to Columbia in South Carolina, and the line of railroad we had followed from Goldsborough to Raleigh continued westward to Greensborough. Outposts, Confederate as well as National, remained at stations between the two armies, but no collision had occurred since the truce established on the 19th. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 250.] Mr. Davis had remained at Charlotte in the interval between the two conventions, but when the separate surrender of Johnston’s army was determined, he started southward with a vague purpose of joining some of the smaller organized armies released from the armistice by our administration’s rejection of the terms of Sherman’s first convention. He tells us that he still hoped that he might cross the Mississippi with such forces as could be concentrated, joining Kirby Smith, who commanded there, and in the last resort carrying a body of irreconcilables out of the country into Mexico. [Footnote: Davis, Rise and Fall, vol. ii. pp. 694, 696.] A line of retreat southward had been agreed upon in case Johnston should not surrender, and some accumulations of supplies had been made at Chester, S. C., and other points upon it. General Bragg had been placed in command there, reporting directly to Davis or the Confederate War Department, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 836.] and some cavalry in West Virginia under General Echols had been ordered to pass by mountain routes to the same region. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 795.] As soon as the truce was ended by the notice of the 24th, Davis started southward by the route indicated, which kept well to the westward of Columbia by way of Abbeville, aiming to cross the Savannah River above Augusta at the pontoon bridge near the junction of Broad River with the Savannah. [Footnote: _Id._, vol. xlix. pt. i. p. 548.] His party disintegrated before he entered Georgia, and he was nearly alone with his family when he was captured thirty or forty miles southeast of Macon.
General Wade Hampton was one of those who preferred any alternative rather than surrender, and had opposed even the terms of the first convention to which Davis had assented. [Footnote: _Id._, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 813.] He promised that he would bring to Davis’s support “many strong arms and brave hearts,–men who will fight to Texas, and who, if forced from that State, will seek refuge in Mexico rather than in the Union.” [Footnote: _Id._, p. 814.] On the 25th, when Johnston’s surrender was already resolved upon, Breckinridge sought to arrange that Hampton, with his cavalry, might join Davis, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 837.] but Sherman insisted on the capitulation of the army as a unit, and Hampton was included. The latter had visited Davis during the first armistice and obtained his permission to bring out the cavalry before the surrender, but on his return to his command, on April 26th, he found that the surrender had been made. Setting up the claim that the arrangement made with Davis had detached his troops from Johnston’s army, although they were actually serving in it, he notified Johnston that they and he would not regard themselves as embraced in the capitulation, unless Breckinridge, the Secretary of War, should say they were within it. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 841.] He had given orders to Wheeler to move the command toward South Carolina, and Butler’s division was moving in the same direction. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 841,847.] Johnston, feeling that his honor as a commander was involved, sent peremptory orders to Hampton to march back to the position near Hillsborough which he had abandoned. He gave Wheeler similar orders. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 844, 846. See also Johnston to Sherman, _Id._, p. 336.] Breckinridge gave Hampton the opinion that the troops were bound by the capitulation, though Hampton himself might not be. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 851.] The latter thereupon informed Butler and Wheeler that he could give them no orders, and asked leave of Johnston to withdraw his former letter, substituting one which only claimed personal exemption from the surrender. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 845, 847.] In transmitting this, he sent a long letter of apology, explaining his embarrassment. He asserted that in his consultation with Mr. Davis a plan was agreed upon to enable the latter to leave the country. He must now either leave him to his fate or go with him under the ban of outlawry. He thought his personal duty was to go, but would leave his command to abide the terms of the convention, or if any joined him, he said, “they will be stragglers like myself.” [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 846.] Enough “straggled” to make up Davis’s escort to about 3000 men, comprising six brigade organizations; but Hampton seems to have thought better of the determination to be an outlaw, and though he did not give his parole with the rest of Johnston’s command, he did not join Davis. [Footnote: Davis, Rise and Fall, vol. ii. pp. 689, 690.] His explicit statement of the aim of Davis’s flight warrants us in concluding that the dream of further military operations beyond the Mississippi was never a serious purpose. After the disbanding of the escort at the Savannah River, Breckinridge and Benjamin reached the coast of Florida and escaped to Cuba. Mallory and Attorney-General Davis seem to have reached their own homes; Reagan remained with his chief, and was captured; [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 694, 695.] Bragg and Wheeler were captured near Athens, in Georgia, using questionable ruses to escape. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlix. pt. i. pp. 550, 551.] General Cooper, the adjutant and inspector-general of the Confederate army, remained at Charlotte, and received the benefit of Johnston’s capitulation, while he did all in his power to preserve the Confederate archives, which were there in railway cars. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 842, 848.] This digression to follow the fate of Mr. Davis and the group of civil and military notables who were with him in his southward flight, will help us understand some of the peculiar incidents attending the paroling of Johnston’s army at Greensborough. I will now return to events of which I was a witness.
On Sunday, the 30th April, the printed blanks for the paroles were ready, and Brevet Brigadier-General Hartsuff, inspector-general on Schofield’s staff, was put in charge of the details of their issue. He went up to Greensborough from Raleigh, accompanied by about a dozen officers detailed from the department and corps staff. It had been intended that he should take with him a guard of a regiment I had selected for the purpose, but at Johnston’s request the troops were held back a few days. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 349, 351, 483.] Schofield had arranged the general scheme of subdividing the State into military districts, of which I was to command the western, whilst Major-General Terry took the central, and Brigadier-Generals Palmer and Hawley retained the coast districts which they already had. In anticipation of the formal order, [Footnote: _Id._, p. 396.] the detachment to guard the arms and stores which should be received came from my command, and I detailed the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio, a regiment which had won high praise in the review at Raleigh for its splendid form and discipline, and which was an orderly, reliable body of men in battle as on parade. It was ordered to take along also its excellent brass band and drum corps, for I meant to have the duties of a garrison performed in the presence of the Confederates with all the honors.
Sherman had left Raleigh in the evening of Friday (28th), to make a brief tour to Charleston and Savannah, by sea, nominally to inspect that part of his command, but really to pass the time whilst the body of his army was marching to Washington, and to avoid visiting that city in the irritation he felt at his treatment by the Secretary of War. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 337, 338.] Johnston had arranged, on the 1st of May, to send General Hardee down to Raleigh for personal consultation with Schofield in regard to details of the homeward march of his troops, but the satisfactory arrangement of the supplementary terms made this unnecessary. [Footnote: _Id._, pp. 366, 857.] Schofield determined to go to Greensborough himself, starting early on Tuesday morning (2d), and I was asked to accompany him. [Footnote: _Id._, p. 376.] We left Raleigh by train at seven o’clock, with the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio as a guard, and at Durham were met by a dispatch from General Hartsuff, saying that the whole Confederate army was “dissolving and raising the devil.” I telegraphed for another regiment to follow us, and we went on to Hillsborough. There we met General Hardee, who joined our party, and we went on to Greensborough. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 376.]
As the train left Hillsborough, we passed through a body of Confederate cavalry, and were within the enemy’s lines. I confess it was with a curious, half-uneasy sensation that I thus for the first time found myself on the wrong side of the Confederate outposts without having driven them in by a hostile advance. It was not easy to orient one’s self at once with the new condition of things, and it would hardly have been a surprise to find that we had been entrapped by a ruse.
This soon wore off, however, and Hardee made the journey a very agreeable one to us. He had been commandant of cadets at West Point just before the war, and had from the first an “inside” view of the rebellion. His “Tactics,” adapted to our army use from the French, had been the authoritative guide of our army drill, and by that means his name had been made very familiar to every officer and man among us. His military career had been among the most distinguished, and he had commanded a corps in front of us during the whole Atlanta campaign. There was therefore no lack of subjects for conversation, and the time ran rapidly away. Hardee was in person and bearing a good type of the brilliant soldier and gentleman. Tall and well formed, his uniform well fitting and almost dandyish, his manner genial and easy, his conversation at once gay and intelligent, it would be hard to find a more attractive companion, or one with whom you would be put more quickly at ease.
Our mission naturally led us into a review of the war, and we asked him what had been his own expectation as to the result, and when he had himself recognized the hopelessness of the contest. “I confess,” said he, laughing, “that I was one of the hot Southerners who shared the notion that one man of the South could whip three Yankees; but the first year of the war pretty effectually knocked that nonsense out of us, and, to tell the truth, ever since that time we military men have generally seen that it was only a question how long it would take to wear our army out and destroy it. We have seen that there was no real hope of success, except by some extraordinary accident of fortune, and we have also seen that the politicians would never give up till the army was gone. So we have fought with the knowledge that we were to be sacrificed with the result we see to-day, and none of us could tell who would live to see it. We have continued to do our best, however, and have meant to fight as if we were sure of success.”
Amongst many other things, our talk turned upon the Atlanta campaign, and he told some interesting facts in regard to Hood’s obstinate holding on at Atlanta when Sherman was executing the movement around the place on the south. It happened that my own division held the pivot point close to the works of the city on the southeast, and Hardee’s corps occupied the lines in front of us. He said an old woman had been brought to him who said she had gone to General Cox’s headquarters to beg some provisions, and the general had told her she could have none, as the soldiers had not enough for themselves. I had no remembrance of such an incident, and such applications were hardly likely to reach a general officer unless he wished to catechise the person for information’s sake; but a laugh was raised at my expense as Hardee in telling the story repeated some profane camp expletives as having added emphasis to the refusal, according to the old woman’s account of it. Schofield merrily rallied me on a change of habits of speech when not with my usual associates, and refused to credit my protestation that the story only proved that she had seen some wicked commissary of subsistence. Hardee helped the fun by pretending to think of other proof that the woman was right; but he went on to give the matter real historical interest by telling how he had taken the woman to Hood that he might learn what she said she had seen and heard. On her repeating the expression about our not having rations enough for ourselves, Hood exclaimed, “There, Hardee! It proves that it is just as I told you. Wheeler [his cavalry commander who was on a raid] has broken Sherman’s communications; he is short of provisions and is retreating north by the Sandtown road. The troops that have moved from the north of the city have gone that way.”
The Sandtown road was a well-known road going northward from the Chattahoochee River at the place named, which was some miles west of the Chattanooga Railroad. It was a plausible explanation of Sherman’s movements as far as they then knew them, but had no better foundation than Hood’s own hopes and wishes. Yet, Hardee said, Hood stuck to this view till in our swinging movement to the south, we broke his railway communication with Jonesboro. Then came his hasty evacuation of Atlanta, the destruction of his stores, the explosion of his ammunition, and the night march to reassemble his army at Lovejoy’s station. He confidently believed that the siege was raised till Sherman’s army was astride of his principal line of retreat, and it was only by the most desperate exertion that he escaped from utter ruin.
On reaching Greensborough we were at once escorted to General Johnston’s headquarters, the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio being ordered to remain near the station till more complete arrangements were made. Our object had been to have force enough to guard the arms and stores against petty pillage or destruction, but not enough to provoke a collision with the larger organizations of the Confederates. Johnston had declined the hospitality of citizens of Greensborough, partly from a motive of delicacy, as I suspect, fearing he might compromise those who would thus be indicated as his friends, though his usual custom was to live under canvas rather than in a house. His tents were pitched in a grove in the outskirts of the town, and he awaited us there. It seemed to us, as we approached, that the little encampment was not quite so regular and trim as our own custom required. The wall tents did not sit quite so squarely upon the ground, and the camp was not laid out with regularity. The general indirectly apologized for some of these things by saying that we could not expect the discipline in his army to be fully maintained when all knew that it was on the eve of being disbanded. Indeed our presence there with a detachment of our own troops was partly the consequence of the tendency to disintegration and the consequent breaking down of discipline which was rapidly going on, of which the dispatch which met us on the way was a warning. We learned that the officers of the staff had for several nights stood guard over their own horses, efforts to steal them having been successful in one or two instances. The general himself was the only one who had been exempt from guard-duty. The soldiers knew that the war was over and that there was in fact no superior power to enforce military subordination. They were anxious to make their way homeward, and fearful that they might be treated as prisoners of war if they remained. A horse or a mule was too valuable a prize not to be a great temptation; they naturally thought that as there was no longer a Confederate States government, the men to whom arrears of pay were due had a right to whatever they could seize, and they were not disposed to distinguish between public and private property. The guards set to protect the commissary stores would wink at the pillage of them or assist in it, and the men were inclined to defy any authority exercised in the name of the Confederacy. They remembered the relentless character of the conscription which put them in the ranks, and were kept together chiefly by the assurance that they should all be promptly paroled and helped on their homeward way. The strongest consideration was perhaps the announcement that the parole would be a necessary protection to them against subsequent arrest. It was a curious fact that the moment the blue-coated sentinels began to pace the “beats” around the warehouses, parks of artillery, etc., the submission of these men to the United States authority was most complete. They were scrupulously respectful in their bearing and language, and the groups of them who gathered about with an earnest sort of interest, would obey the slightest direction of the sentry with a cordiality and alacrity which was in singular contrast with the sort of ostentation of defiance they showed toward their own officers.
I have anticipated a little in order to give some idea of the condition of things in Johnston’s army, and will return to our interview with the general himself. He welcomed us with dignity, though there was a little reserve in his courtesy that was naturally due to the gravity of the responsibility and the duty imposed upon him. Hardee, as a subordinate, free from this burden, could afford to give way to a natural _bonhommie_, and the difference of situation emphasized the distinctive traits of the men. Johnston was a smaller man than Hardee, his uniform showed less care for appearances, his manner was quieter, but no one would for a moment fail to see that he was the commander. His quiet tones were clear, his gravity was full of conscious power, and the deference shown him by his subordinates was earnest and respectful.
The preliminary details of our task were soon settled. General Schofield had already promised rations to the Confederate troops whilst awaiting the issue of the certificates of parole, and on their way home; to give them railway transportation as far as railroads were running, and to carry out Sherman’s offer to let the Confederate horses and mules be distributed as far as they would go, to assist the men on their way, and in putting in a crop for their families’ support as soon as possible. When the necessary business was disposed of, the conversation became more general.
General Schofield inquired what was the number of officers and men to be paroled. Johnston replied that he could hardly be definite as he would like to be: his morning report of “effectives” gave only the men answering to their names with arms in their hands in the line of battle. It would not include stragglers or men detached or on special duty. His last return of effectives showed, as he said, about 16,000 men. Wade Hampton, with much of his cavalry, had refused to come in to Greensborough to be paroled with the rest, and were supposed to be either disbanded or to be making their way southward. Johnston thought the place of these might be made up by the classes not enumerated in the return of effectives, and that there might therefore still be about 16,000 in camp who would present themselves to be paroled. He then added that in this campaign their reports and returns had not been kept up promptly, and that he had relied for practical use upon a summary of the morning reports of “effectives.” [Footnote: See pp. 424, 425, _ante_.] There could be no question as to his complete frankness and sincerity in this. The inquiry was put to make sure that we had enough printed blanks for the paroles, and it was a matter of mutual interest to get their issue completed with as little delay as possible. The Official Records, moreover, confirm his statement as to the abbreviated returns and the numbers they gave, while making clear their loose inaccuracy. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1382; pt. i. p. 1059; pt. iii. p. 839.] The most important fallacy in the Confederate return of “effectives” was that by giving only the arms-bearing men answering to the roll-call, it omitted the growing large class of stragglers hanging about the camps many of whom might be in line when an engagement occurred.
The number of officers and men actually paroled by us in the Carolinas turned out to be 39,012, which included men in hospitals, some naval officers and sailors, the quartermaster’s and other special duty, detachments, etc. [Footnote: _Id._, pt. i. p. 1066.] Johnston’s inspector-general reported on 3d May the number of “final papers” issued to the army proper at 27,749, and the number of men who received their share of the silver distributed on April 28th was 32,174, [Footnote: _Id._, pt. iii. pp. 850, 867.] the difference being in the cavalry, where 5000 men disbanded or went off with Hampton before the paroles were issued. The report of the paroles shows also that the Carolina troops had nearly all vanished during the campaign, the Western troops of Hood’s old army making the great bulk of those who stayed with the colors.
Johnston was very warm in his recognition of the soldierly qualities and the wonderful energy and persistence of our army, and the ability of Sherman. Referring to his own plans, he said he had hoped to have time enough to collect a larger force to oppose Sherman, and to give it a more complete and efficient organization. The Confederate government had reckoned upon the almost impassable character of the rivers and swamps to give a respite till spring,–at least they hoped for this. “Indeed,” said he, with a smile, “Hardee here” (giving a friendly nod of his head toward his subordinate) “reported the Salkehatchie swamps as absolutely impassable; but when I heard that Sherman had not only started, but was marching through those very swamps at the rate of thirteen miles a day, making corduroy road every foot of the way, I made up my mind there had been no such army since the days of Julius Caesar.” Hardee laughingly admitted his mistaken report from Charleston, but justified it by saying that all precedent was against such a march, and that he would still have believed it impossible if he had not seen it done.
All the Confederate officers from Johnston downward were very earnest in impressing upon us their confidence that the army gave up the struggle without bitterness, and that we could rely not only upon their keeping their parole in good faith, but in their anxiety to become again good citizens of the United States in every sense of the word. The assassination of Mr. Lincoln was spoken of, as both an odious crime and an extremely great misfortune to the South, tending to involve the future in gloomy doubt by reason of the probable effect upon Northern public sentiment and upon the policy of Congress and the new administration. Hardee said that for himself he thought he should go abroad for a time, till the heated and exasperated feeling at the North should subside, and then return to his home and his private affairs. I do not remember that Johnston opened his mind on this point, and think he was gravely reticent, scarcely choosing to share with strangers, in our relation to affairs, the deep anxiety he must have felt. Hardee’s means were understood to be more ample than most of the Southern officers possessed, and a course that was feasible for him was not so for most of them. The task of winning a mere livelihood was by no means a promising one for men left without a profession and without property, in a country that seemed to be irretrievably ruined.
When we closed the interview, I am very sure that we of the National side had already formed a very high opinion of the personal character of the distinguished officers we had met, and had begun to feel a sincere sympathy with them in their manifest purpose to meet honorably and manfully the demands of the new situation. I recorded at the time my own feeling that I had rarely met a man who was personally more attractive to me than General Johnston. His mode of viewing things was a high one, his thoughts and his expression of them were refined, his conscientious anxiety to do exactly what was right in the circumstances appeared in every word and act, his ability and his natural gift of leadership showed without effort in his whole bearing and conduct.
An incident which occurred at the time General Johnston left Greensborough is striking proof of the scrupulous exactness he was determined to exercise in carrying out the terms of the surrender. He had gone southward as far as Charlotte to superintend the last movement of his forces as a body and the final disbanding, and before parting with the members of his staff learned that one of them had preserved as a relic a little cavalry guidon of silk in the form of a national flag scarce larger than a handkerchief. The general immediately reclaimed it, and afterward sent it back under the provision of the surrender which agreed that all captured flags in the hands of the Confederates should be restored. He apologized for the staff officer, saying that he knew no wrong had been meant and the little flag had been regarded as a trifling but interesting relic; yet he felt that there should be no limitation on their part in carrying out strictly the terms agreed upon. The manner in which all this was done, quite as much as the thing itself, showed the earnestness and sincerity of his purpose to do everything in his power to enforce the spirit as well as the letter of every promise he had made for himself and his army. He had returned to his home at Danville, Va., before he had been able to send to us this flag with another that had been omitted, and his solicitude in regard to it, even in the midst of anxiety in regard to his family, was shown by a note which accompanied the parcel. It ran as follows:–
“DANVILLE, June 5th, 1865.
GENERAL,–I have requested Major Shackford, Provost Marshal of this post, to forward to you a small box containing the color, standard, and guidon which I mentioned to you in Greensborough.
I beg you to explain to Major-General Schofield that they were not in my possession when we were in Greensborough, nor until I reached Charlotte, and that they were not sent to him from that place because I expected to visit Raleigh and there deliver them to him. This visit was prevented by the condition of my family. You may remember that the same cause, as I explained to you orally, prevented my delivering them to you in person.
Most respectfully,
Your ob’t serv’t,
J. E. JOHNSTON.
MAJOR-GENERAL Cox,
U. S. Army.”
General Schofield and myself passed the night at the house of ex-Governor Morehead, who had urged us to do so. Our host had been one of the leading Whigs of North Carolina in the _ante-bellum_ days, and with his friends and neighbors Gilmer and Graham had opposed secession at the beginning; but with the instinct of politicians, they had striven to lead the current they could not stop when once it had carried them away. The house was a comfortable villa in the Italian style, with a tower overlooking the rolling country for a long distance. The architecture was simple but effective, and the house had evidently been a home of comfort and ease in better times. We were frankly and cordially welcomed, and allowed to see the mixed feelings with which the reassembled family accepted the collapse of the Confederacy. Among the young people was a son of the governor who had been desperately wounded but had recovered. The rebellion had had their devoted support, but they said, “That is all past now,” and seemed eagerly desirous to get into accord with the new order of things. The young man told of his army adventures, and compared notes with us as to camp life in the different armies. We were struck with the strong comparison he made in speaking of his wound. A bullet had entered his mouth and passed out at the back of his neck, and he said it felt, for all the world, as if a city lamppost with its cross-bar had been dragged through his head. I have no doubt this gave as good an idea of the sensation as possible, for I have often heard wounded men speak of the feeling of having received a terrible blow from some big and heavy thing, when hit with a musket-ball. The ladies entertained us with half-gay, half-pathetic stories of the way home-life had run on during the long campaigns, and of the ingenuity they were obliged to use to supply the place of tasteful articles of dress or adornment when the blockade had become stringent, and when each little community was thrown almost wholly upon its own resources. The head of the house discoursed more gravely of the situation of the country at large, and tried to forecast the future. Now that the surrender was made, he was anxious that the army should be disbanded and sent home as soon as possible, for the disposition of the Confederate soldiers to pay their arrears by pillage made him fear that his own farm would be stripped bare before they got away. There is no doubt that there was a good deal of cause for such anxiety, especially for leading men whom the private soldiers were disposed to hold largely responsible for all their woes. It was no slight test of character and good breeding, under such anxieties, for the family to pay delicate and courteous attention to the comfort of their guests, and to keep as far as possible in the background everything that might betray their own troubled feelings.
On Wednesday (3d May) General Schofield returned to Raleigh, leaving me in responsible command of the district. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 394, 407.] By administering the parole to the troops by companies and regiments, keeping a number of officers at work and using abundant clerical assistance in verifying the copies of rolls, the task had been completed in a couple of days, and General Johnston began to move his men southward. General Cheatham with the Tennessee troops marched across the Great Smoky Mountains, but the others were ordered to rendezvous at West Point in Georgia, which was a central place for all who lived in the Gulf States, from which they could most readily reach their homes. While they remained together they were fed by us, and we furnished rations sufficient to sustain them on the journey. Our ration, too, was quite a different thing from theirs, and the men seemed more affected by this bestowal of unwonted and abundant supplies than by any other incident in the surrender. They said it seemed hardly possible that men who were but yesterday arrayed in deadly hostility to them, could now be supplying their wants so liberally.
Whilst they stayed they seemed never to tire of watching our men on duty and on the various parades. Our guard-mounting was particularly a show affair. From the moment the music struck up on the parade ground, and the detachments for the guard from the different companies began to file out and march into place, there was always a large concourse of the men in gray making a most interested body of spectators. The smart appearance of the men, the rapid inspection of arms, of haversacks and knapsacks, the march in review, the assignment to posts, the final marching off the field, all seemed to give them great enjoyment. They said they had not paid much attention to the formalities which so greatly relieve the drag and labor of military life even in the field, and they were ready with cordial and appreciative praise of the discipline and finish in drill which they saw.
As the Confederate troops left Greensborough, I concentrated my own corps there, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. pp. 376, 384, 396, 502.] sending one of the infantry divisions to Salisbury, and Kilpatrick’s cavalry division to posts still farther toward the southwest. A visit of inspection which I made to Salisbury gave me the opportunity of examining the site of the recent prison camp there. The treatment of our prisoners by the Confederate authorities is a repellent subject, and I would gladly pass it by and say nothing discordant with the tone of high honor and respectful good-will which marked the conduct of the leading officers of the Confederate forces in the field. We may fairly admit that the resources of the Confederacy had been so taxed that food and clothing were hard to procure, and that their armies in the field were ill-fed and in rags. There is, however, a limit beyond which a government calling itself civilized may not go, and as the public opinion of the world, crystallized into what we call international law, will not permit the wholesale decapitation of prisoners, as might be done by a king of Ashantee or Dahomey, so it forbids the herding of captive men in a mere corral, leaving them utterly without shelter of any sort through the sleet and rain of winter, near the North Carolina mountains. It forbids starving them to death or leaving them to rot with scurvy because they are not supplied with wholesome food and medicines. It is the plain duty of a civilized government to parole and send home military prisoners who cannot be fed or sheltered. If controversies as to exchange existed, such conduct would have been the surest way to shame us out of any position that was wrong, and the public opinion of the world would have been powerful in making it the more profitable way, as it was the only one not utterly barbarous. I speak with a solemn sense of the obligation to avoid every railing accusation when I say that it would have been humane and civilized in the comparison, if the prisoners at Andersonville and Salisbury had been shot down by fusillades or quickly poisoned by wholesale (as Napoleon was accused of doing at Jaffa) instead of subjecting them to death by starvation and exposure which swept them away at a rate no plague ever rivalled or approached. I have seen too much of the Southern people, in arms in the field and in their homes, to believe for one moment that they would knowingly approve the treatment our prisoners received. But their own reputation before the world makes it their duty to fix the responsibility for a great crime upon those whose commands or whose criminal negligence caused horrors which are among the most odious things in the world’s history.
I had seen at Wilmington and Goldsborough the condition of train-loads of these released captives. Their situation has been surgically and medically recorded in the surgeon-general’s official reports. There is no room for dispute. They were men reduced to idiocy and to the verge of the grave by the direct effects of hunger and exposure and the diseases necessarily connected with such suffering. They were not of the dregs of humanity, who might be said to fall into animality when the restraints of society and of discipline were removed. They were many of them men who had respected positions and refined surroundings at home. These were the victims who looked vacantly with glazed eyes and could mumble no intelligent response when asked their names, where was their home, what was the name of the mother that bore them.
At Salisbury the pen in which part of the prisoners had been kept was still to be seen. There were, as I remember it, two levels or “benches” in it, and in the little bluff or slope from one to the other were still to be seen the holes the poor prisoners had dug to make a little cave in the earth that would drain itself and give some shelter from the winter weather. I talked to women of the place who with tears upon their faces told of the efforts some of them had made to have the worst of the treatment corrected, or to procure some mitigation of the want and hardship. The evidence seemed conclusive that any marks of common sympathy or Christian pity were repelled by the officials in charge of the prisoners and treated as indications of disloyalty to the Confederate government.
The Confederacy was full of places where the almost limitless forest afforded timber without end, and the labor of the prisoners themselves under the same guards that garrisoned the prison would have comfortably housed and warmed them, and then the scant and wretched rations would not so soon have been the cause of emaciation and disease. The risk of escape would not have been great, and I doubt if as many would have got away as in fact managed to do so in the actual circumstances. The almost certainty of sickness and death nerved many a man to incredible exertions to be free, who would have waited more patiently for an exchange if his condition had been less intolerable or less sure of a fatal result. But even if there had been some more escapes, it would be no argument in favor of the horrible system which was adopted. There is no resemblance between the situation of prisoners in a pen, and that of soldiers in bivouac. The latter build shelters of rails or of brushwood, if they have no shelter-tents, and they are very rarely stinted in firewood. Their active life helps to preserve their vigor. To liken these to men without shelter of any kind and without fire enough to cook by, herded inside a ring-fence in winter weather, is an abuse of words. Enough of the shocking subject!
As soon as headquarters baggage could be brought up I established my own camp in the northern edge of Greensborough, in a grove which was part of the grounds attached to the mansion of Mr. Dick, since that time judge of the United States District Court. The first impression of the people was that all government was now in the hands of the army, and we had no little difficulty in correcting it. The policy of the government was to recognize the ordinary courts and local magistrates, and to support their authority in preserving the peace, punishing crimes, and determining ordinary civil rights. The political organization of the State was left subject to such changes or conditions of reconstruction as might be prescribed by national statute. The army, however, was the present palpable fact. The muskets and the cannon were physical engines of power that everybody could see, and everybody knew that the commandants of department and district could use them if need be. There was, therefore, a national tendency, both in civil magistrates and in the people, to refer all sorts of questions to the military authorities. I tried in good faith to make it understood within my own district that we were averse to meddling with local affairs, and wished the ordinary current of civil administration to run on in its accustomed channels till it should be replaced by that which should have the new authority of a reconstructed state under Acts of Congress. I not only promulgated this through the military channels, but I accepted several invitations to address the people at different points and explain our attitude and purpose during the interregnum, and to give them serious advice as to their conduct in the very trying circumstances in which they were. It need hardly be said that the gist of this advice was to recognize the absolute death of the system of slavery, to deal with the freedmen with perfect sincerity as free laborers who were at liberty to make the best bargain they could for their labor, and to confine for the present their political activity to the duty of keeping alive such local magistracies as would prevent the community from falling into anarchy. There was a wistful solicitude noticeable in people of all classes to know what was to become of them. Their leaders had educated them to believe that the success of the National arms would mean the loss of every liberty and subjection to every form of hateful tyranny. Yet they almost universally showed a spirit of complete resignation to what might come, and a wish to conform obediently to everything enjoined by the officers of the occupying army. It was the rarest thing in the world to meet with anything like sullen resistance or hostile or unfriendly utterances. [Footnote: The same disposition in the people was noticed elsewhere in the South. Halleck said, in a dispatch of April 22d, “From all I can learn, Richmond is to-day more loyal than Washington or Baltimore.” (Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 888.) Sherman sent similar reports from Savannah. (_Id_., vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 371.)] My own stay in North Carolina did not extend into the period of the provisional governments authorized by Acts of Congress, and I was not personally witness to the varying phases of sentiment among the people at that time.
The political character of North Carolina during the war had been different from that of the Gulf States. We found very few indeed who were known as “original Secessionists.” The “old Whigs” had given the tone to public sentiment, and the community as a whole had sincerely desired that the Union might be preserved. Yet a society based upon slavery had such community of interest with the States further south that it was soon dragged into the secession vortex. When once war had begun, the growth of hostility against what was regarded as their public enemy was rapid, and in every State a war party in time of war has a great advantage over the opposition. The charge of “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” is too powerful a weapon against the minority, and the outward appearance was soon that of almost complete unanimity in the desperate struggle to make secession a success. Party leaders were borne along upon the current, and vied with each other in extravagant professions of devotion to the Confederacy.
In such circumstances the men who were at heart opposed to the war thought they were doing all that was wise or prudent in making what they called a constitutional opposition to the Davis government, professing to acquiesce in the Confederate organization, but urging the negotiation of peace on the best attainable terms. In the fever of actual conflict the following of such men was small, although it seemed plain to me that a majority of the people of the State sympathized with them at heart.
The outspoken Union men were, almost as a matter of course, treated as traitors, and lived under a reign of terror. In the mountains, where their numbers were considerable, they were the victims of a relentless guerilla warfare, as the same class was upon the other slope of the Great Smokies in East Tennessee.
Out of these classes came the elements of new struggles for political power. The minority naturally felt that their time had now come, and were not altogether patient with the principles of our democratic Constitution, which require that a majority shall not be disfranchised, and which therefore make it practically impossible that a minority shall rule. At the time I am speaking of, these elements were quiet in the first stunning effect of the collapse of the Confederacy; but we could see the tendencies to antagonisms that were to agitate the State during the next decade.
The negroes were, of course, of none of these parties. Very few of the whites were in favor of emancipation on principle, though all accepted it as the inevitable result of the war. Tacitly or avowedly, they all admitted that the fate of the “system” had been the real issue at stake, and that the surrender meant universal freedom. But the colored people were ignorant, and had cherished strange illusions as to the change which was to come to them. It was a common belief among them that the whites were to be stripped of all property, and the land to be given to them. We had heard curious discussions among them around the camp-fires, in which they had apportioned the real and personal property among themselves. The faith that they were each to have “forty acres and a mule” was of a little later growth. The first noticeable thing among them after the surrender was the almost universal disposition to quit work. It would have been very natural that they should wish for a great holiday, and try to realize their freedom by extending it at their own will, and thus prove to themselves that no man was their master. But in addition to this, they seemed to fear that any continuance of the relation of laborers for their former masters would cover some waiver of their right to freedom. Yet, as they had hopes that the real estate would be given to them by the National government, they were disinclined to leave the old home. The outcome was that for a time they occupied their old quarters and asserted a kind of proprietorship in them, whilst they “struck” from labor.
When it is remembered that the kitchen of Southern houses is a detached building of which the servants have exclusive occupation, it will easily be understood that the situation was anything but comfortable for housekeepers. Oftentimes they could neither hire cooks nor get access to the open kitchen fire and the rude utensils which the colored people appropriated as their own. According to my observation, the Southern white women were very systematic and thorough in the supervision of household work, but were necessarily ignorant of the actual manipulation. They knew what flour and other ingredients to weigh out for a batch of bread, but they had never done the baking. Some of them tried their first experiments over the open fire with “Dutch ovens” and other primitive implements, whilst a group of colored women sat around commenting drolly but most exasperatingly upon the results. As a temporary compromise, we were obliged to “clear the kitchen” by military authority, making it known that that was part of the “house,” and that if the mistresses of the mansion had to do their own work, it was not necessary that it should be done before such an “audience.” Such a social crisis is always short, but it is very severe. No doubt those who have gone through it look back upon it as one does upon the day after a fire, when the wretchedness of dirt and destruction seems hopeless, but, like other mundane things, soon passes away and is spoken of as all “part of a lifetime.”
A delicate and amiable lady, whose fortune at her marriage had been of that ample sort which was measured in Southern parlance as “a hundred negroes,” herself told me, with a mixture of tearful pathos and recognition of the comic side of it, of her own first efforts to make a batch of soda biscuit for her husband and children after she got possession of her kitchen. She knew all about the rule, but in new practice the rule didn’t work. The ingredients got wrongly mixed; the fire was too hot or not hot enough; some biscuits were burnt to a crisp, some were not cooked, and none were eatable, and her heart was ready to break at the prospect of her family’s condition till something could be done to remedy the trouble. In more than one household our officers’ messes helped tide over the painful interval by giving camp hospitality and friendly assistance to their new neighbors. We frequently heard housekeepers say that if they only had the snug ranges of Northern kitchens within the house they would have made light of the labor; but their outdoor kitchens and primitive methods, which produced appetizing results in the hands of colored cooks who had been brought up to them, were killing upon those who had been delicately reared.
We saw more of the domestic form of this social anarchy than of farm labor, for the outdoor work could wait, whereas the indoor work could not. The same difficulty was everywhere, however, and the intelligence of the community soon hit upon temporary expedients. Such men as Mr. Gilmer and Judge Dick took the lead in advising the colored people to avoid their apprehended risk of compromising their freedom, by hiring out temporarily to work for others than their old masters. By thus changing about, the consciousness of working under a voluntary contract was stronger, and the uneducated brain was less puzzled to tell whether any change of situation had really come. We did our best to dispel the notion that wealth and idleness were to follow emancipation, and to encourage the freedmen to resume industrious labor as the foundation of real freedom and independence. [Footnote: See General Schofield’s Order No. 46; Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 503.] The peaceful character of the colored people was shown even in what they supposed was a great revolution in their favor. There was no rioting or angry disturbance,–no effort to accomplish anything by force. They abandoned for the time their usual employments, and congregated in their quarters or in groups about the streets, waiting for some great thing to happen. There was, of course, plenty of talk and some excitement, but even this gradually diminished; and as they began to realize that without work there would be no food, they made such bargains as suited them, and the affairs of the plantation and of the house began to move on. The owners of property did not hope for profits; they expressed themselves earnestly as anxious only that such crops might be raised as would save the community, white and black alike, from absolute destitution. I know of prominent examples of well-known men offering the farm hands all that they could raise for that season if they would only go to work and plant something which could still ripen into food. The season was advancing, and a little delay was very dangerous. The last chance for a crop in that year would soon be gone. The influence and advice of sagacious and prudent men was never more useful, for society seemed to be resolved into its original elements when all authority but the military went for nothing. As soldiers, we refrained from meddling in civil affairs, but it was understood that we should preserve the peace and allow no force to be used by others. It was a time when everybody felt the need of being patient and conciliatory, and the natural authority of known character and wisdom asserted itself. Everybody soon went to work to make a living, and the burning problems of political and social importance were postponed.
A serious inconvenience was immediately felt in the lack of a circulating medium. The Confederate currency was at once made worthless by the failure of the rebellion, and there was nothing to take its place. The extent to which its depreciation had gone was amusingly shown by a printed notice and list of prices I found posted in a country tavern, already some months old. In it the price of a dinner was put at ten dollars, and other meals and accommodation in proportion. Still this currency had served for business purposes, and it being gone, the community had to go back for the time to primitive barter.
We had opportunity to notice to what great straits the people had been reduced for two years in the matter of manufactured goods of all kinds. Factories of every sort were scarce in the South when the war began, and resources of every kind were so absorbed in the war that there was no chance for new ones to spring up. Carriages, wagons, and farm implements went to decay, or could only be rudely patched up by the rough mechanics of the plantation. The stringent blockade shut out foreign goods, and the people were generally clothed in homespun. In many houses the floors were bare because the carpets had been cut up to make blankets for the soldiers. Ladies made their own shoes of such materials as they could find. They braided their own hats. They showed a wonderful ingenuity in supplying from native products the place of all the articles of use which had formerly been imported from foreign lands or from the North. Taste asserted itself, perhaps all the more in such discouraging circumstances, and feminine refinement and love of adornment worked marvels out of the slenderest materials. A home-made straw hat ornamented with feathers of barnyard fowls and domestic birds was often as jaunty and as pretty as any Parisian bonnet. Simple dyes were made to give to coarse cotton stuffs a lively contrast or harmony of pure colors as effective as the varied and elaborate fabrics from the European looms. In some respects this self-dependence heightened the personal advantages of those who excelled in ingenuity, in taste, and in skill; for the clothes indicated better the character of the wearer than those which are made on one pattern in the shop of a fashionable mantua-maker.
Adversity has such uses and such compensations that I should hardly reckon the poverty of the Southern States during 1864-65 as a burden greatly felt in private life. All such things are comparative, and where all the people undergo the same privations, the odious comparisons and jealousies between richer and poorer disappear in a measure. A simple life full of great enthusiasms is one a philosopher may find much satisfaction in, and has, many a time, been pictured as an ideal calculated to bring out the best qualities of men and women and therefore to make life more truly enjoyable. I greatly doubt if Southern people, in looking back on the war time, find anything to regret in the simple fare and plain dress of the enforced economy of that period. The real griefs and burdens, if I am not mistaken, came from other sources. Among thoughtful people there must have been from the summer of 1863 serious doubts of the possibility of a successful outcome of their struggle, and a growing and unhappy conviction that the fearful waste of life and treasure would be in vain. They must have had grave misgivings also as to the righteousness of a cause which championed an institution condemned by the whole world and in conflict with the general progress of Christendom. To see their best and bravest consumed in the fire of successive battles, and to be waiting only till the slaughter should make it impossible to keep armies in the field, must have been a grief and a suffering which made all physical deprivations seem small indeed.
I think I cannot be mistaken in the judgment I formed at the time, that to the great body of the Southern people it was a relief that the struggle was really over; that they breathed more freely and felt that a new lease of life came with peace. They had been half conscious for a good while that it must end so, and they were in the mood to be at least resigned, if not readily to profess the pious conviction that “it was all for the best.” With the reactions and political exasperations that came later, I have here nothing to do. My purpose has been to reproduce, as far as my memory serves, the scenes and the surroundings of that last military duty of the great war. Why it was that the mellowness of spirit which seemed then so prevalent could not have ripened without interruption or check into a quicker and more complete fraternization, belongs to another field of inquiry. The military chronicler stops where he was mustered out.
A summer ride which a party of us took to the battlefield of “Guilford-Old-Court-House” may be worth noting as an encouragement to believe that our descriptions of the scenes of our own engagements need not become unintelligible even in the distant future. Among the combats of our Revolutionary War, Guilford Court House ranks high in importance; for the check there given to the invading British army under Lord Cornwallis by the Continental forces under General Greene was the turning-point in a campaign. Greensborough is the present county-seat of Guilford County, and the “Old Court House,” a few miles distant, has disappeared as a village, a few buildings almost unused being the only mark of the old town. Natural topography, however, does not change its material