Day 41. April 10, 1862.
41
I bid you an affectionate farewell….
April Thursday 10 1862
Quite a disagreeable morning cold and snow on the ground and quite mudy all day. There is nothing new of importance at the present time and no late news accept the grate battle fought near New Pittsburg land on the Tennessee River* where our men gained a glorious victory. The pay master paid this Regt off today. The boys are quite happy and are spending their monney quite freely and buying extra for themselves and some will spend it all others send home to their familys
*Battle of Shiloh fought April 6-7, southwest Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing. Grant beats Johnston.
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
“To the Senate
To the Senate of the United States: April 10, 1862
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration, with a view to ratification, a treaty between the United States and Her Brittanic Majesty, for the suppression of the slave trade. A copy of the correspondence between the Secretary of State and Lord Lyons, on the subject of the treaty, is also herewith transmitted.
Washington, 10th. April, 1862. ABRAHAM LINCOLN”
Note: 1865:
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 327
“April 10, 1865: At 5P.M. large crowd with bands assembles at White House. President responds to serenade and promises to prepare speech for tomorrow. About 6P.M. delegation of 15 men enters White House and meets President in hall. Spokesman for group makes speech and presents Lincoln with picture of himself in silver frame. Lincoln writes note to Sec. Stanton: “Tad wants some flags. Can he be accommodated?” Writes note to Sec. Welles: “Let Master Tad have a Navy sword.’”
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Edited by Harold Holzer P. 1151-1152
THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE.
Horace Porter, Brevet Brigadier–General, U.S.A.
“About 9 o’clock on the morning of the 10th General Grant with his staff rode out toward the enemy’s lines, but it was found upon attempting to pass through that the force of habit is hard to overcome, and that the practice which had so long been inculcated in Lee’s army of keeping Grant out of his lines was not to be overturned in a day, and he was politely requested at the picket-lines to wait till a message could be sent to headquarters asking for instructions. As soon as Lee heard that his distinguished opponent was approaching, he was prompt to correct the misunderstanding at the picket-line, and rode out at a gallop to receive him. They met on a knoll that overlooked the lines of the two armies, and saluted respectfully, by each raising his hat. The officers present gave a similar salute, and then grouped themselves around the two chieftains in a semicircle, but withdrew out of ear-shot. General Grant repeated to us that evening the substance of the conversation, which was as follows:
Grant began by expressing a hope that the war should soon be over, and Lee replied by stating that he had for some time been anxious to stop the further effusion of blood, and he trusted that everything would now be done to restore harmony and conciliate the people of the South. He said the emancipation of the negroes would be no hindrance to the restoring of relations between the two sections of the country, as it would probably not be the desire of the majority of the Southern people to restore slavery then, even if the question were left open to them. He could not tell what the other armies would do or what course Mr. David would now take, but he believed it would be best for their other armies to follow their example, as nothing could be gained by further resistance in the field. Finding that he entertained these sentiments, General Grant told him that no one’s influence in the South was so great as his, and suggested to him that he should advise the surrender of the remaining armies and thus exert his influence in favor of immediate peace. Lee said he could not take such a course without consulting President David first.”
Note: The date on the below writing couldn’t have been 1863. I looked in the archives but never found this passage again. It must have been a retrospection from, earliest minimum, 1866. Someday I’ll find it.
Kennebec Journal, January 3, 1863 (Augusta, Maine) Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain
“In the morning the rebels thronged our camp, and commenced a busy traffic for tobacco, knives, pipes, bread, bats, shoes, etc. Our command being on the right side of the line, nearest the rebels, was ordered into line on the 12th to receive the arms and colors of the enemy—old Massachusetts, of right, at the head, then Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania. The terms of surrender were mild, and the forms as little humiliating as possible. The rebel officers tried hard to get off with stacking their arms in their own camp and leaving us to go take them. But that would have been too tender, and not consistent with our dignity. So it was agreed that private property should be respected, officers should retain their side arms, but the troops must march out and lay down their arms and colors in presence of some portion of our army. The lot fell to us, and we were not slow to accept it. Soon the rebels were seen slowly forming for the last time: on they came with careless step, their ranks thick with banners. The bugle sounds. Our line shoulders arms—not present, as some of the histories have it; that would have been too much honor. On our side there is not a sound; the silence is as if the dead passed; it is a funeral salute we pay them. They move along our front, face inward towards our line, dress lines, fix bayonets, stack arms, take off their cartridge boxes and place them on the pile, and then reluctantly, painfully, furl their flags, and lay them down, some kneeling and kissing them with tears in their eyes. Thus it goes on all day long, then men marching away to the Provost Marshal to give their parole of honor, and then leaving for their homes. No taunt or cheer escapes our men; they have a half-fraternal feeling for them.
It fell to my lot to exchange some words with most of the rebel generals. Their bearing was mournful, with an air of disappointment. They were ready to accept whatever terms we might dictate, but still bore themselves like brave soldiers. Gen. Gordon said, “This is bitterly humiliating to me, but I console myself with the thought that the whole country rejoices at this day’s work.” Another said, “You astonish us with your generosity; we should not have done the same to you. I shall go home and tell Gen. Johnston we cannot fight against such men.” Another said, “I loved the cause—but we had our choice of field and weapons, and we are beaten. Now that is my flag (pointing to the stars and stripes) and I will be as loyal as you are.” Their words were conciliating and wise, but no so those of the redoubtable Gen. Henry A. Wise. I saw him fidgeting and bungling about as if he could not handle his men even on that field with the knot of his handkerchief under his left ear, and tobacco juice, or some other venom, trickling from the drawn down corners of his mouth. Wishing to cheer him up, I spoke of the good order of the troops as promising well for the future good will of the two section towards each other. “You are mistaken, sir,” said he, “we won’t be forgiven, we hate you, and that is the whole of it!” Then as if a little ashamed of his rudeness he spoke of the ugly rent in the breast of my coat, and asked where I got that. I told him it was when he left me in the field, in the engagement during the first day of the pursuit. “I suppose you think you did great things there,” he replied, “but I stopped you until I saw I was fighting three divisions.” I told him we had only three regiments. “I know better,” he rejoined. “You go home and take those fellows home,” he continued, “and that will end the war.” “We are going, General,” I replied, “but first let us escort you!” “Home,” he exclaimed, “we have no homes; you have destroyed them.” “You should not have challenged us then; we expected somebody would get hurt when we came down here!” The scene was becoming serio-comic, the officers were laughing about us, and so the General rode away. “Whom the love die early;” therefore I say long live Henry A. Wise.”
New York Times April 10, 1865
HANG OUT YOUR BANNERS!
UNION
─────
VICTORY!
─────
PEACE!
─────
SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE AND HIS WHOLE ARMY.
─────
THE WORK OF PALM SUNDAY.
─────
Final Triumph of the Army of the Potomac.
The Strategy and Diplomacy of Lieut.-Gen. Grant.
Terms and Conditions of the Surrender.
The Rebel Arms, Artillery, and Public Property Surrendered.
Rebel Officers Retain Their Side Arms, and Private Property.
Officers and Men Paroled and Allowed to Return to Their Homes.
The Correspondence Between Grant and Lee.
OFFICIAL.
THE PRELIMINARY CORRESPONDENCE.
REJOICINGS.
Note: As if they’re going to go sit in a corner with Jeff Davis and think about what they’ve done.
Black Reconstruction in America W.E.B. DuBois P. 586-587
“One has but to read the debates in Congress and state papers from Abraham Lincoln down to know that the decisive action which ended the Civil War was the emancipation and arming of the black slave; that, as Lincoln said: “Without the military help of black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.” The freedmen, far from being the inert recipients of freedom at the hands of philanthropists, furnished 200,000 soldiers in the Civil War who took part in nearly 200 battles and skirmishes, and in addition perhaps 300,000 others as effective laborers and helpers. In proportion to population, more Negroes than whites fought in the Civil War. These people, withdrawn from the support of the Confederacy, with threat of the withdrawal of millions more, made the opposition of the slaveholder useless, unless they themselves freed and armed their own slaves. Thus was exactly what they started to do; they were only restrained by realizing that such action removed the very cause for which they began fighting. Yet one would search current American histories almost in vain to find a clear statement or even faint recognition of these perfectly well-authenticated facts.”
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Edited by Harold Holzer P. 1154-1156
GENERAL LEE’S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. Charles Marshall, Colonel, C.S.A.
“General Lee’s order to the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House was written the day after the meeting at McLean’s house, at which the terms of the surrender were agreed upon. That night the general sat with several of us at a fire in front of his tent, in which his feelings toward his men were strongly expressed, he told me to prepare an order to the troops.
The next morning it was raining, and many persons were coming and going, so that I was unable to write without interruption until about 10 o’clock, when General Lee, finding that the order had not been prepared, directed me to get into his ambulance, which stood near his tent, and placed an orderly to prevent any one from approaching me.
I sat in the ambulance until I had written the order, the first draft of which (in pencil) contained an entire paragraph that was omitted by General Lee’s direction. He made one or two verbal changes, and then I made a copy of the order as corrected, and gave it to one of the clerks in the adjutant-general’s office to write in ink. I took the copy, when made by the clerk, to the general, who signed it, and other copies were then made for transmission to the corps commanders and the staff of the army. All these copies were signed by the general, and a good many persons sent other copies which they had made or procured, and obtained his signature. In this way many copies of the order had the general’s name signed as if they were originals, some of which I have seen. The text of the order as issued was as follows:
HEADQUARTERS,
Army of Northern Virginia
April 10th, 1865.
After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, but, feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen.
By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes, and remain there until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you his blessing and protection.
With an increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration of myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell.
R. E. LEE, General.”
Note: ?? taps mic [horrible feedback. is this thing on.]——compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources—Bless his heart. Yes, that’s what war is. Who has the numbers & who has the resources. That’s the side which wins. You want to be that side. You were not that side. It’s called logistics. It’s called will. But don’t let facts get in your way.
P. 1155
Note: This is the description under an illustration titled “General Lee’s Return To The Front Lines After The Surrender. From A War-Time Sketch”:
“In his Memoirs of Robert E. Lee (J.M. Stoddart & Co.), General Lee again appeared, a shout of welcome instinctively ran through the army. But instantly recollecting the sad occasion that brought him before them, their shouts sank into silence, every hat was raised, and the bronzed faces of the thousands of grim warriors were bathed with tears. As he rode slowly along the lines hundreds of his devoted veterans pressed around the noble chief, trying to take his hand, touch his person, or even lay a hand upon his horse, thus exhibiting for him their great affection. The general then, with head bare and tears flowing freely down his manly cheeks, bade adieu to the army. In a few words he told the brave men who had been so true in arms to return to their homes and become worthy citizens.’”
Note: No comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yr_-Z08gCo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO3-gFsJVdM
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause Ty Seidule P. 238-239
“For Lee, the war meant something quite different. The historian Elizabeth Varon wrote that Lee saw his defeat as the victory of “might over right.” That “God is on the side of the strongest battalions,” as Rhett Butler quoted an apocryphal saying of Napoleon’s. Lee acknowledged defeat but felt neither he nor the white South had done anything wrong. In his famous General Orders No. 9, Lee bid his soldiers farewell. He stated his version of what the war meant and why it ended, initiating the Lost Cause myth. The Army of Northern Virginia “succumbed to overwhelming numbers and resources,” a kind of code criticizing the immigrant army of the United States supported by unsavory businessmen and ruthless politicians. It implied that the United States didn’t fight fair and therefore southern honor was still intact.
Lee wrote to Davis on April 12 that he was outnumbered five to one, beginning the Lost Cause myth that only numbers and supplies caused Confederate defeat. Lee was wrong. He wrote that he had only ten thousand effectives, but more than twenty-eight thousand applied for parole in less than a week. Throughout the final campaign, Grant had a two-to-one advantage. My army training taught me that an attacking force should hold at least a three-to-one manpower advantage.
Part of Grant’s manpower advantage did come from immigrants. Lee had far fewer foreign-born soldiers because no immigrant would want to compete against slave labor. Grant did have 180,000 Black soldiers who fought so hard and so well to ensure their own freedom. As one USCT soldier put it, “We the colored soldiers, have fairly won our rights by loyalty and bravery.”
No need to explain why the South had no African American soldiers. The Confederates had fewer forces because their cause was so flawed. Yet the numerical disadvantage was never as great as Lee argued. By 1865, the U.S. Army was the best-led, hardest-fighting, best-provisioned, and most strategically and tactically proficient combat force on the globe. The United States won because they were better.”
Note: 180,000 men amounted to 1/5 America’s population of males under 45 years old. That’s on the northern side…. on the southern? Black Confederates?
Note: Really? Because here we have Lee, below, on 1/11/65. Knows he’s about done for unless he can manage to haul in the same folk to fight the war he caused in order to own them (& expand out) in the first place; he’ll lose, now, without their help? The enslaved are now the sole ones with the very last shot at rescuing the very same people who fired on the Star of the West in order to keep them enslaved in the first place.
But surely, you say, even so, Black men will now gain freedom if they fight for the Confederacy, yes?
That’s a negatory.
For now, Lee’s on the hunt for Black male fidelity. You read that right.
But oh no: in 3 months, Lee’ll have to address the ANV they “have been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources,” after which he will “bid you an affectionate farewell.”
This is Lee writing to Andrew Hunter, 1/11/65, warming up by the end of his letter about forcing slaves to fight before it’s “too late,” & anyway, the whole slaves-get-to-fight-for-their-own-enslavement thing will be a balm of allegiance, with a fidelity-to-the-cause bonus prize: maybe they won’t try to escape anymore, a contradictio in adjecto, an ouroboros, a literal indication of insanity:
“….it would exercise a salutary influence upon our whole negro population, by rendering more secure the fidelity of those who become soldiers and diminishing the inducements to the rest to abscond.
“I can only say, in conclusion, that whatever measures are to be adopted should be adopted at once. Every day’s delay increases the difficulty. Much time will be required to organize and discipline the men, and action may be deferred until it is too late.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
R. E. LEE, General.”
Remember in March 11? That ending paragraph? That Nile thing? Yeah, that: “We may even hope that, in duration, it will exceed the pyramids, which, after the lapse of more than forty centuries, still stand erect and unshaken above the floods of the Nile.’”
Ongoing theme with these people is their ideology is utterly incoherent. And yet, they never woke up from it, even after Appomattox:
This is George Henry Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, disowned by his family, none of whom attend his 1870 funeral (Grant & Sherman do), writing to Grant in 1868:
“The greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property– justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people– was not exacted from them.”
Fidelity, of course:
noun, plural fi·del·i·ties. [ fi-del-i-tee, fahy- ]
faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.
“he sought only the strictest fidelity to justice” strict observance of promises, duties, etc.: a servant’s fidelity. Loyalty: fidelity to one’s country. (languages.oup.com)
First appearing in Century Magazine, 36, no. 4, August 1888, P. 599-601, with the title, “General Lee’s Views on Enlisting the Negroes” (both men’s letters at htttp://encyclopediavirginia.org & the website page shows the letters as originals in Century if you click on them; the following are excerpts from both letters between the men):
Andrew Hunter, member of the Virginia House of Delegates, & the lawyer who sent John Brown to the scaffold, writes Lee from Richmond on January 7, 1865:
“Pardon me therefore for asking, to be used not only for my own guidance, but publicly as the occasion may require: Do you think that by a wisely devised plan and judicious selection negro soldiers can be made effective and reliable in maintaining this war in behalf of the Southern states?”
Again, insanely, 16 years after the close of the war, in 1881, when Frederick Douglass delivers a eulogy for John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, at which is “present a representation of the lost cause,” Hunter will sit behind Douglass then shake his hand after he finishes the eulogy. Isn’t that rich. See “The Revenges of Time”, New England Farmer, 6/4/1881: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26993050/new-england-farmer)
But for now, more of Lee’s same letter to Hunter, 1/11/65, writing from Richmond, too:
“I think, therefore, we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our social institutions. I believe that with proper regulations they can be made efficient soldiers. They possess the physical qualifications in an eminent degree. Long habits of obedience and subordination, coupled with the moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish an excellent foundation for that discipline which is the best guarantee of military efficiency. Our chief aim should be to secure their fidelity.”
There’s that F word again…. Find this very letter of Lee’s at Cowan’s Auctions! https://bit.ly/3IwVuSO
Estimate: $2,000 – $4,000 Or don’t: Price Realized Including Buyer’s Premium $3,055 10/31/2018. Who picked this thing up on Halloween a few years back? Don’t fret; it’ll show up again on the market, right? For several times as much? I’m actually shocked it went for that low. If it did. And here’s Jeff’s inkwell, supposedly:
Oh, but then, March 13th, 1865, the Confederate Congress finally approves Lee’s fidelity farce. Here’s General Orders No. 14:
“AN ACT to increase the military force of the Confederate States” which authorizes the enlistment of Black soldiers to “provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States, secure their independence, and preserve their institutions, the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves, the services of such number of able-bodied negro men as he may deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct.” The Act makes sure to specify not more than 25% of male slaves between 18 and 45 in any state could show up to fight to secure their own slavery. The Act has a Section 5: “That nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation which the said slaves shall bear toward their owners, except by consent of the States in which they may reside, and in pursuance of the laws thereof.”
And the above can be found in, where else, The War of the Rebellion: A Compendium of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 4, Vol. 3, P. 1161-1162.
Oh good grief! Because just 11 days later, March 24, 1865, a pissed-off Robert Toombs– the “Confederate States Secretary of State”– writes a Virginia colleague about Lee’s fidelity issue, afraid that the minute Black men “enter their lines as soldiers they will be degraded, ruined and disgraced” & by that he means the army, not the Black soldiers killing northerners to ensure their own enslavement continues. To make free men of slaves is “a piece of embecile stupidity, as well as treacherous to the cause” and that there “must be promotions for valor or there will be no morals among them. Therefore, it is a surrender of the entire slavery question.” “Their system is, to make slaves of free men; it failed and the men ran away.”
You think? You’re just now noticing this? “…treacherous to the cause” couldn’t be more illustrative words on the cause of that cause. These White men could not stand anyone other than White males to be on level ground with them. The letter in full (hang on):
“We have given him [Davis] all the men who would volunteer, allowed him all the men he could catch at first from eighteen to thirty-five then to forty-five, then all from seventeen to fifty. And the army is smaller to-day and less efficient than on the day the first conscript bill was passed. Now Congress have given him all the negroes, and the result will still be the same, superadded to the most fatal consequences which have ever darkened our progress.
The negro, first, is unfitted for a soldier. Secondly, if I am wrong in that, if he is capable of making a soldier, he ought to be and will be a Yankee soldier… In my opinion, the worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our independence by the valor of our slaves, instead of our own. If we are conquered by the fortunes of war, we may save our honor and leave the cause to our descendants, who may be wiser and braver than we are and may avail themselves of the accidents of human affairs, and yet win what we are ignominiously throwing away. The day that the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers they will be degraded, ruined and disgraced. Lee had just as soon have a negro as a white man in his army. So had West Point generally. Their system is, to make slaves of free men; it failed and the men ran away. Their remedy is to make freemen of slaves. That will not get far enough along to fail; it is a piece of embecile stupidity, as well as treacherous to the cause, well worthy of Davis and Lee, the base traitors from Kentucky and Missouri, &c., who have no constituents to bear, to suffer, or to be disgraced by them.
We have a plenty of men in the Southern Confederacy to whip two such revolutions, if Mr. Davis did not keep them out of the bullet department. He has more men on the pay roll not in active field service than he has muskets. And you may throw in the negroes, and not increase the army. But if you put our negroes and white men into the army together, you must and will put them on an equality; they must be under the same code, the same pay, allowances and clothing. There must be promotions for valor or there will be no morals among them. Therefore, it is a surrender of the entire slavery question.”
Note: 750,000: All that for 750,000, a casualty count recently upped from 600k. That would have made it one man per each mile in the war. Hell’s half acre stretched like a trip wire. Fidelity. Come on. Clownworld. In 1870, Frederick Douglass says upon Lee’s death:
“From which we are to infer, that the liberation of four millions of slaves and their elevation to manhood, and to the enjoyment of their civil and political rights was more than he could stand, and so he died.”
Tune in: In another 10 days, April 20, the “Devil” will appear, etched in the brick behind Lee as he stands grandly upon his mansion porte-cochére in Brady’s 4/20/65 photograph, the devil whose existence was not uncovered until 2006. More like hidden in 1865, then no one looked at the wall & mentioned it till ’06.
Toombs’s letter I found at https://cwmemory.com/2014/11/13/it-is-a-surrender-of-the-entire-slavery-question. Kevin Levin, wonderful historian & author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth (2019), writes,“Interestingly, Toombs’s letter appeared in the Augusta Chronicle in June 1865.” If you click you’ll see a lively, if pathetic (Eat Crow!!!!), debate at Levin’s site going back 10 years between users with names like BorderRuffian, London John, grandadfromthehills: http://cwmemory.com/2013/09/17/potential-black-confederates
Marching with Sherman: Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock, Major and Assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, November 1864–May 1865 (1927) Major Henry Hitchcock P. 311-315
(To Mrs. Hitchcock)
IN THE FIELD, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
APRIL 25th 1865
Tuesday 4 P.M.
“I am very far from entertaining a blind or indiscriminate hatred of “rebels” as individuals, even while I most heartily endorse our good friend Dr. Post’s solemn denunciation of the rebellion as “the greatest crime since the crucifixion of our Lord.” So it is. To this awful and enormous crime there have been many who were unwilling, reluctant, enforced accessories. All such I would forgive, though I would not lightly entrust them with the privileges which they have once failed to defend. But for the leaders,—for the men whose ambition created or whose influence sustained this fearful war,—it is not magnanimity to forgive or trust them. It would be criminal folly and weakness. I have seen too much, even in my little experience, of the miseries which these men are responsible for before God and man, to appreciate the “magnanimity” which would let them go scott-free because having for four years waged a desperate and remorseless war, in the unscrupulous use of every means in their power, they have at last surrendered when not to do so was to die themselves. Don’t think me harsh, or disposed to be vindictive, if—before I can assent to your implied eulogy on Lee’s “greatness” in surrendering as he did—I remind you that Lee did not offer to surrender but only yielded to Grant’s summons to do so made on the ground—which none knew better than Lee was true—that further resistance was hopeless; or if I further remind you that even after the correspondence began, and when in fact he was so meshed in Grant’s lines of fire and steel that to fight longer would have been mere murder of his men, still Lee attempted to deny that he was in such a condition on which his surrender itself was the best commentary. Gen. Johnston—the rebel—himself attended to this part of Lee’s correspondence the other day (so Gen. Sherman told me) in conversation with Gen. S. Remarking in a quiet way that he didn’t think, if he found himself so situated as to be obliged to surrender, that he would go to work in his preliminary correspondence to show that he wasn’t obliged to, and then do it. The truth is, if Lee had not surrendered when he did, all that was left of his army was utterly and hopelessly at Grant’s mercy, and would have been cut all to pieces. It seems to me that the humane part of the business was Grant’s offering to let them off on the generous terms he proposed to Lee,—and that by accepting them Lee simply showed that common sense and common feeling which long ago made it an established rule of civilized war, that resistance against hopeless odds is a military crime. I cannot, I confess, see any greatness in Lee’s not committing this crime; if he had done it, that alone should have made him infamous. It would have been sheer murder and he knew it.
I cannot forget whatever estimable personal qualities some of these men may have,—I can never lose sight of the great damning fact, that they made war upon a Government whose only fault, as they themselves declared, was its gentleness,—that they plunged this whole land into war, and blood, and mourning—for what? It is useless to talk about personal qualities in judging the attitude these men must occupy before the impartial tribunal of History—except, indeed, as among themselves.there is an immense distance, I freely admit, between a “gentlemanly” villain like Rhett, of whom I wrote you, who boasted of his success in recruiting with blood hounds in the swamps, and a man like Lee, if you please; but—suppose that Robert E. Lee had even only refused to take any part in this war, which he did pronounce—in a letter to his sister, written just before he accepted his first rebel commission,—to be unnecessary. Does not an “unnecessary war” necessarily imply an enormous crime somewhere? Suppose that every man in the South who honestly opposed Secession before the demoniac audacity of the original conspirators forced upon the nation, at Sumter, the terrible issue of arms, had even only refused, steadfastly, courageously refused, like Petigru of South Carolina, and John Minor Botts of Virginia, to be either cajoled or bullied into joining them—how much of this dreadful bloodshed and anguish had been spared! Sometimes I doubt whether these same “Union Men” of the South are not the most guilty parties—for but for their weakness, at any rate their yielding, it would have been impossible for Jeff Davis to present the apparently united front he did. You know that I try to judge truly and fairly of all things, for I think a mistaken opinion is a misfortune, and error—no matter how “honest”—can only breed mischief. Judging as carefully and honestly as I know how, I am thoroughly satisfied from what I saw and heard day after day in Georgia and the Carolinas, that the apparent “unanimity of the South” was the result of a system of terrorism of infernal and reckless falsehood, from the highest officials down, and of combined ignorance and cowardice on the part of the masses of the people, of which you can hardly for an idea. Talk about negro slavery!—if we haven’t seen white slaves from Atlanta to Goldsboro, I don’t know what the word means. And I think that for this state of things those men are largely responsible who talked, begged, prayed, against Secession—but when they fought at all, fought for it! They see it now around this city, plainly enough. The most honest thing I have seen lately is the manifesto of C.R. Thomas, the Secretary of State of North Carolina, published here this morning and which you will see copied into the Northern papers,—his letter to the Raleigh “Progress”—or “Standard,” I forget which. He sees now how “conservative” men failed in their duty.
But you are tired of this “political talk,” I dare say; only it is not “politics.” More than ever, day by day, I thank God that I have had the opportunity to have even my small share of the actual experience of this tremendous conflict, and to try, at least, to do what I could to help towards saving the life of the nation. It has been little enough, and easy enough—much easier than I either expected or deserved. How I envy the men who bore “the heat and burden of the day!” Yet even this is something to be thankful for.
Since I begun this last sheet Johnston’s reply has come. General Grant had intended to leave us tomorrow morning at 10 A.M. For Ft. Monroe; now he will stay here all day tomorrow at any rate; and orders are given to have a car ready at 8 A.M. For Gen. Sherman to go out again to Durham’s Station, on our front, whence he rode before to where the former interviews with Johnston were held. You may imagine what new speculations this gives rise to. I shall keep this letter open till Gen. Grant leaves us, and send it by one of his Staff to be mailed at Ft. Monroe. Everybody is in hopes tonight that Johnston will surrender tomorrow, after all. God grant it! I cannot bear to think of this army marching any further through the country in a hostile attitude; its simple passage and subsistence; aside from the commission of any violence, or outrage, would be a terrible blow to the people of the state. Johnston knows this as well as we do, and at the interviews last week expressed great anxiety to avoid the inevitable further damage that would result. It rests with him—not with us. We cannot stop short of compelling absolute, unconditional submission, and as to the further consequences, the longer the delay the worse they will and ought to be for the rebels. Nothing can excuse nor palliate further resistance now,—nothing whatever.”
Note: Nothing can excuse nor palliate further resistance now,—nothing whatever. Is that so. Catch back up to us next century, Henry, then the century after that, which’ll take you to, well, now. That flag in alabamaarizonaarkansasfloridageorgialouisianamississippinewmexiconorthcarolinasouthcarolinatennesseetexasvirginiawestvirginia. And. Everywhere. Else. This is the between worlds area where the ghosts float in the air still, now & then, & in the future but who knows for how long. Who knows how long because it’s already 22 years into the 21st century.
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our men gained a glorious victory….
It’s incredible we still don’t have a number for men at the end. There were 5k left, if that. Or weren’t there? There were more. They surrendered. They did. Right?
They looked like mirages even then.
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