Chapter XV, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 2

About the same time the Federal Generals Wilson and Canby, advancing into the state of Alabama, the one from the river Tennessee, near its northern border, the other from New Orleans, drove the inferior forces of Roddy and Forrest easily before them, stormed the works at Selina, compelled the evacuation of Mobile, and the surrender of Montgomery, the state capital, and in a very short time had trampled out armed resistance in the field throughout the greater part of the state.

The last act of the great drama was now to open. The campaign in Virginia was commenced by Sheridan, who, at the head of a well-equipped and most formidable force of 10,000 cavalry, moved from Winchester in the Shenandoah valley (March 2) with the intention of striking Lynchburg, the town among the ranges of the Alleglianies whence Richmond now drew its principal supplies. Early met him at Waynesboro', and was utterly routed; but the intelligence that he received from his scouts led Sheridan to believe that Lynchburg was too well defended to fall to a mere cavalry force; he changed his plan, therefore, and led his troopers round the left and rear of Lee's army, intending to join Grant in his encampment before Petersburg. The Confederate arrays of cavalry, which two years before had been the terror of Pennsylvania and Washington, were now so attenuated by death and hardships that no effectual resistance could be offered to Sheridan, who, carrying blight and destruction in his train, burning bridges and stores, tearing up railways and destroying canals, moved across the enemy's country to White House on the Pamunkey river, whence he marched to the James, and reported to Grant in front of Petersburg on the 27th March.

Seeing that the force in his front was continually being augmented, Lee appears to have concluded that the only course left for him was to deal a heavy and unexpected blow at the least guarded point about the centra of Grant's lines, which, if successful, would cut his army in two, enforce new arrangements for concentration, and perhaps leave time for the detachment of a portion of Lee's army to the assistance of Johnston, sufficient, with the troops under that General's command, to meet and defeat Sherman. The point which he selected was Fort Steadman, nearly due east of Petersburg. Here General Gordon, with two divisions, bore down at daybreak on the 25th March on the Federal lines, and captured at the first onset Fort Steadman and three adjoining batteries, turning their guns against the retreating defenders. But an overwhelming force was soon brought up by General Meade, which not only drove the Confederates out of the works they had occupied, taking 2,000 prisoners, but, pursuing the advantage, pushed back the whole of that part of the Confederate line, thus rendering Lee's contemplated movement into North Carolina more than ever hazardous. A still more decisive success was gained on the 1st April, when Sheridan, attacking Lee's right wing, under Pickett, at Five Forks, with a force two or three times as numerous, turned its left at the same time that he attacked in front, and, being successful in both operations, utterly broke and routed the Confederates, 5,000 of whom were taken prisoners. On the next day (Sunday, April 2), Grant ordered a general advance against the defences of Petersburg. The attack was made at daybreak, and although the exhausted Confederates stood bravely to their arms, so great was the preponderance of numbers that they could not prevent the Federals from wresting several redoubts from their hands, so that Petersburg itself stood in danger of falling before the next vigorous assault. Such was the position of affairs at 11 o'clock, when Lee, who had just seen A. P. Hill, one of the most trusted of his lieutenants, shot dead while directing a charge to regain a portion of the works, and who fully recognised the imminent peril to which Richmond was exposed through the inability of the gallant army which had so long defended it to hold its ground any longer against the overwhelming masses of the enemy, felt it his duty to send a message of warning to the Confederate President. The message was in nearly these words: - "My lines are broken in three places. Richmond must be evacuated this evening." The fatal missive was brought to Mr. Davis while in church, and on reading it he went quietly out, never more to return as President of the Confederacy. The nature of the terrible tidings was soon rumoured about, and an indescribable excitement and confusion reigned in the streets of Richmond. " Men, women, and children rushed from the churches, passing from lip to lip news of the impending fall of the city. And yet it was difficult to believe it. To look up to the calm beautiful sky of that spring day, unassailed by one single noise of battle; to watch the streets, unvexed by artillery or troops, stretching away into the quiet hazy atmosphere, and believe that the capital of the Confederacy, so peaceful, so apparently secure, was in a few hours to be the prey of the enemy, and to be wrapped in the infernal horrors of a conflagration." Every kind of vehicle was immediately put in request and loaded with every description of baggage and valuable property. " Night came, and with it confusion worse confounded. There was no sleep for human eyes in Richmond that night." The City Council ha"d resolved to destroy all the liquor in the city, lest the madness of drunken debauch should intensify tiie horror oï the scene. This resolve was partly carried out, but " as the work progressed, some straggling soldiers, retreating through the city, managed to get hold of a quantity of the liquor. From that moment law and order ceased to exist. Many of the stores were pillaged, and the sidewalks were encumbered with broken glass, where the thieves had smashed the windows in their reckless haste to lay hands on the plunder within. The air was filled j with wild cries of distress, or the yells of roving pillagers." General Ewell had given orders, in spite of the remonstrances of the municipality, that the four principal tobacco warehouses of the city should be fired. The execution of this order added a new element of danger and despair. The rams lying in the river, and all the vessels at the wharves, except one flag-of-truce steamer, were blown up or fired. The torch was applied to the three bridges leading out of the city, and they were soon wrapped in flames. " Morning broke upon a scene such as those who witnessed it can never forget. The roar of an immense conflagration sounded in their ears; tongues of flame leaped from street to street; and in this baleful glare were to be seen, as of demons, the figures of busy plunderers, moving, pushing, rioting, through the black; smoke and into the open street, bearing away every conceivable sort of plunder." President Davis left the; city at 10 p.m. on that Sunday evening, taking the railroad to Danville, a town situated to the south-west of. Richmond, close to the North Carolina frontier. The, garrison, under General Ewell, 5,000 sick and wounded men being left behind in the hospitals, also marched out in the direction of Lee's camp.

A complete and very strong triple line of earthworks, engineered with great skill and constructed with incredible labour, protected the northern side of Richmond. Before these lay General Weitzel, with a considerable force. The dull sound of distant explosions on that memorable Sunday night, and a red glare on the southern heavens, convinced the besiegers that something extraordinary was taking place in Richmond. Negroes and deserters brought intelligence in the early morn that the formidable works in their front had been entirely evacuated by the Confederates, and that no hostile force remained between them and the beleagured city. Moving cautiously over the ground in the vicinity of the Confederate works (for the approaches were beset with torpedoes, the little red flags over which had fortunately been left standing by the enemy), General Weitzel, about 6 a.m., entered the suburbs of the burning city. Thousands of negroes yelled an enthusiastic welcome as the Federal soldiers marched in, and the flag of the United States was soon seen floating over the imposing Capitol of Virginia Richmond was, of course, placed under military rule, and immediate steps were taken to extinguish the flames, now raging without restraint. When the fire was got under, it was found that it had burned out the very heart of Richmond, including its great warehouses, the post- office, the treasury, the principal banks, newspaper offices, &c. A full third of the city was destroyed. A thousand unwounded prisoners were captured, besides the 5,000 sick and wounded in the hospitals; numerous heavy guns, and about 5,000 small arms, fell into the hands of the victors. Petersburg was evacuated simultaneously with Richmond.

While these events were taking place, Lee had concentrated his army, now reduced to about 35,000 men, at Chesterfield Court-house, mid-way between Richmond and Petersburg, whence he fell back to Amelia Court« I house, where he expected to find supplies for his army; but the train which was to have brought them from Danville had been ordered up to Richmond by some Confederate official to assist in the evacuation; and to all other elements of dejection were now added, for the Confederate soldiers, the pangs of actual hunger. Lee remained at Amelia Court-house on the 4th and 5th April, hunting up food in every direction for his famished men. Meantime Sheridan, with his cavalry, moved rapidly to Jetersville, a station on the Danville and Richmond railroad, between the former place and Lee's camp, so as to intercept his communications with Danville and bar his retreat in that direction. His position at Jetersville barred also the railway from Lynchburg, the only other place of importance remaining to the Confederacy in Virginia. We may conceive how fiercely Stewart would have fallen on Sheridan in the old days, how quickly his troopers would have been scattered to the four winds of heaven, and the lines of communication re-opened. But now, whatever may have been the cause, Lee seems to have had at his disposal no cavalry at all. He had no choice, therefore, but to retire on Farmville, there cross the Appomattox, and endeavour to reach Lynchburg by the country roads. At nightfall on the 5th, lie commenced his march; but the eager Federals were soon aware of the movement, and pursued. Crook, commanding the left of Sheridan's force, attacked the Confederate army on the march and cut it in two; the resistance was feeble; Lee with the greater portion of the army escaped, and continued his march; but Ewell, with 5,000 or 6,000 men, was surrounded and compelled to surrender. This was on the 6th April. General Ord, on the same day, overtook and attacked, near Farmville, the divisions that were under Lee's immediate command; but he was repulsed with loss, and Lee brought what was left of his army safely over the Appomattox river, and continued his march all night, in order, if possible, to rid himself of his pursuers. Bat his men were fainting and falling by the way with hunger and weariness; and some of the chief officers of the army, meeting round a bivouac fire that night to discuss their desperate situation, came to the conclusion that a capitulation was inevitable, and communicated to Lee, through General Pendleton, the result of their deliberations. Grant had so skilfully and persistently pushed forward his left, that the hope of effecting a junction with Johnston could no longer be entertained; and if they could outstrip their pursuers at all, it could only be by sacrificing their remaining guns and munitions, while the army would still be in a state of utter inefficiency from famine. Already, in the weakness of sheer exhaustion, more than half the soldiers who still followed the standards had thrown away their arms. In this desperate strait the gallant veteran was spared the pain of making the first overture leading to a capitulation; Grant, on the morning of the 7th, while directing the pursuit from Farmville, having sent a note to the Confederate head-quarters couched in the following terms: -

" General, - The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so; and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States' army known as the Army of Northern Virginia."

This note reached Lee on the evening of the same day, after he had repulsed, with severe loss, an attack made by General Humphreys on a position which he had temporarily entrenched a few miles north of Farmville, and beaten oft' a charge of Crook's division of cavalry. But these gleams of success did not essentially alter the position; and Lee immediately sent a reply to Grant's note, in which, while not admitting the hopelessness of further resistance, he inquired what terms the Federal commander was prepared to offer on condition of the surrender of his army. Grant received this note the next morning (April 8), and at once returned for answer that, his object being peace, there was but one condition on which he would insist, namely, that the men and officers surrendered should be disqualified for taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged; he ended by proposing a conference. Lee answered the same day, declining to surrender, but expressing a desire for a personal interview between the picket-lines of the two armies. When Lee wrote thus, he had moved from Farmville to the neighbourhood of Appomattox Court-house, and knew that Sheridan had seized the station of the same name, about five miles to the south, and had even intercepted his line of retreat on Lynchburg; but he believed that the way was only barred by cavalry, and that, if necessary, he could cut his way through them. Sheridan, however, a man of indefatigable energy, had accomplished more than Lee gave him credit for. He had surrounded and captured at Appomattox station four trains full of supplies for Lee's army, which had just arrived from Lynchburg; and, besides pushing on with his cavalry to the road by which Lee was retreating, had sent word to several corps commanders that, if great exertions were made, the surrender or destruction of Lee's entire force was now inevitable. On the receipt of this message, Generals Griffin and Ord, leading two corps and one division of a third, made a forced night-march to Appomattox station, and took up positions in line with Sheridan early on the morning of April 9. When, therefore, the Confederates, pursuing their march towards Lynchburg, advanced upon Sheridan's troopers under the impression that they would easily brush them from their path, these last, wheeling to the right, displayed the glittering ranks of an overwhelming mass of Federal infantry, arrayed like a solid wall against the further advance of their dispirited adversaries. Every man in the Confederate army recognised the uselessness of further resistance; a white flag was waved; and Sheridan, riding forward to meet the Confederate General Gordon, was informed by him that negotiations were then pending between Lee and Grant for a capitulation. Grant had replied to Lee's last note, declining the meeting proposed, and still firmly, but kindly, urging a surrender. On receipt of this note, Lee gave way, and agreed to a meeting on the basis proposed. The two commanders met at a house near the Courthouse, and soon settled the terms of capitulation. Not a line in this short convention breathed the crafty or rancorous spirit of the politician; the terms were such as it became brave and honourable men to offer, and such as their brave but vanquished foes might without dishonour accept. The officers were to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander was to sign a like parole for the men of his command. The arms, artillery, and public property were to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the Federal officer appointed to receive them; but this was not to embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses nor baggage. This done, each officer and man was at liberty to return to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observed their paroles and the laws in force where they might reside. It hardly seems to be a Utopian conjecture that if the pacification of the South had been left to the soldiers - that is, if the country had been militarily occupied for a term of years, and all civil and political rights restored to the population as before the war - a real reconciliation between North and South might in time have been effected. But the baneful influence of the politicians prevailed; and they have so managed matters as to create everywhere throughout the South a burning sense of wrong, which must perpetuate the spirit of disaffection and revolt to unborn generations.