Part 101 (1/2)
”Last fall, colonel,” he said, ”I was down on the Blackwater, foraging with my wagons, for old General Robert, when a squadron of Yankees crossed in the ferryboat, and caught me. I did not try to get off, and the colonel says, says he, 'Who are _you?_' I told him I was only foraging with General Lee's head-quarters teams, to get something for the old general to eat, as nothing could be bought in Petersburg; and, says I, 'I have long been looking to be captured, and now the time has come.' As I was talking, I saw an uncle of mine among the Yankees, and says he, 'Ashe, what are you doing here?' 'The same you are doing there,' I says; and I asked the colonel just to let me off this time, and I would try and keep out of their way hereafter. He asked me, Would I come down there any more? And I told him I didn't know--I would have to go where I was ordered. 'Well,' says he, 'you can't beg off.' But I says, 'step here a minute, colonel,' and I took him to the wagon, and offered him my canteen of brandy. He took three or four good drinks, and then he says, says he, 'That's all I want! You can go on with your wagons.' And I tell you I put out quick, colonel, and never looked behind me till I got back to Petersburg?”[1]
[Footnote 1: In the words of the narrator.]
I have attempted to recall here, reader, the few gleams of suns.h.i.+ne, the rare moments of laughter, which I enjoyed in those months of the winter of 1864-'5.
I shrink from dwelling on the events of that dreary epoch. Every day I lost some friend. One day it was the brave John Pegram, whom I had known and loved from his childhood; the next day it was some other, whose disappearance left a gap in my life which nothing thenceforth could fill. I pa.s.s over all that. Why recall more of the desolate epoch than is necessary?
For the rest that is only a momentary laugh that I have indulged in.
Events draw near, at the memory of which you sigh--or even groan perhaps--to-day, when three years have pa.s.sed.
For this page is written on the morning of April 8, 1868.
This day, three years ago, Lee was staggering on in sight of Appomattox.
X.
AEGRI SOMNIA.--MARCH, 1865.
These letters and figures arouse terrible memories--do they not, reader? You shudder as you return in thought to that epoch, provided always that you then wore the gray, and not the blue. If you wore the blue, you perhaps laugh.
The South had reached, in this month of March, one of those periods when the most hopeful can see, through the black darkness, no single ray of light. Throughout the winter, the government had made unceasing efforts to bring out the resources of the country--efforts honest and untiring, if not always judicious--but as the days, and weeks, and months wore on, it became more and more evident that the hours of the Confederacy were numbered. The project of employing negro troops, which Congress long opposed, had been adopted at last, but only in time to be too late. The peace commissioners had held their interview with Lincoln, but effected nothing. The enemy continually advanced toward the achievement of their end. Sherman had safely made his famous ”march to the sea”--Savannah and Charleston had fallen--the western army was about to unite with the army of Grant at Petersburg. There the great game went on, but the end was near. Lee had attempted, late in February, to evacuate his lines, but was overruled. His army was reduced to about forty thousand, while Grant's numbered about one hundred and fifty thousand. The Confederate troops were almost naked, and had scarce food enough to sustain life. They fought still, in the trenches, along the great line of works, but it was plain, as Lee said, that the line was stretched so far, that a very little more would snap it.
That line extended from the Williamsburg road, east of Richmond to Five Forks, west of Petersburg--a distance of nearly fifty miles. Gradually Grant had pushed westward, until his grasp was now very nearly upon the Southside road. Lee had extended his own thin line to still confront him. The White Oak road, beyond the Rowanty, had been defended by heavy works. The hill above Burgess's bristled with batteries. The extreme right of the Confederate line rested in the vicinity of Five Forks.
Beyond that it could not be extended. Already it began to crack. Along the works stretching from east to west, there was scarce a soldier every ten yards. Grant was only prevented from bursting through by the masterly handling of Lee's troops--the rapid concentration of ma.s.ses at the points which he threatened. The cavalry was almost paralyzed. The destruction of the Weldon road southward to Hicksford, in December, had been a death-blow nearly, to that arm of the service. The Confederate cavalry had depended upon it, hauling their forage from Stony Creek Station. Now they had been compelled to go south to Hicksford, the nearest point, fifty miles from Petersburg. The consequence was that Lee's right was almost undefended by cavalry. Grant's hors.e.m.e.n could penetrate, almost unchecked, to the Danville and Southside railroads.
The marvel was, not that this was effected at the end of March, but that it was not effected a month sooner. But I antic.i.p.ate.
To glance, for an instant before proceeding, at the condition of the country. It had reached the last point of depression, and was yielding to despair. The government was enormously unpopular--mismanagement had ceased to attract attention. The press roared in vain. The _Enquirer_ menaced the members of Congress from the Gulf States. The _Examiner_ urged that the members of the Virginia Legislature, to be elected in the spring, should be ”clothed with the state sovereignty,” to act for Virginia! Thus the executive and legislative were both attacked. The people said, ”Make General Lee dictator.” And General ----- wrote and printed that, in such an event, he ”had the dagger of Brutus” for Lee.
Thus all things were in confusion. The currency was nothing but paper--it was a melancholy farce to call it money. The Confederate note was popularly regarded as worth little more than the paper upon which it was printed. Fathers of families went to market and paid hundreds of dollars for the few pounds of meat which their households required each day. Officers were forced to pay one thousand dollars for their boots.
Old saddle-bags were cut up, and the hides of dead horses carried off, to manufacture into shoes. Uniform coats were no longer procurable--the government had to supply them gratis, even to field officers. Lee subsisted, like his soldiers, on a little grease and corn bread.
Officers travelling on duty, carried in their saddle-pockets bits of bacon and stale bread, for the country could not supply them. In the homes of the land once overflowing with plenty, it was a question each day where food could be procured. The government had impressed every particle, except just sufficient to keep the inmates alive. What the commissaries had left, the ”Yankee cavalry” took. A lady of Goochland said to a Federal officer, ”General, I can understand why you destroy railroads and bridges, but why do you burn mills, and the houses over women and children?” The officer bowed, and replied, ”Madam, your soldiers are so brave that we can't beat you; and we are trying to _starve you_!”
The interior of these homes of the country was a touching spectacle.
The women were making every sacrifice. Delicate hands performed duties which had always fallen to menials. The servants had gone to the enemy, and aristocratic young women cooked, washed, swept, and drudged--a charming spectacle perhaps to the enemy, who hated the ”aristocracy,”
but woeful to fathers, and sons, and brothers, when they came home sick, or wounded. Clothes had long grown shabby, and were turned and mended. Exquisite beauty was decked in rags. A faded calico was a treasure. The gray-haired gentleman, who had always worn broadcloth, was content with patched homespun. It was not of these things that they were thinking, however. Dress had not made those seigneurs and dames--nor could the want of it hide their dignity. The father, and care-worn wife, and daughter, and sister, were thinking of other things. The only son was fighting beside Lee--dying yonder, in the trenches. He was only a ”poor private,” clad in rags and carrying a musket--but he was the last of a long line, perhaps, of men who had built up Virginia and the Federal government which he was fighting--he was ”only a private,” but his blood was ill.u.s.trious; more than all, he was the treasure of the gray-haired father and mother; the head of the house in the future; if he fell, the house would fall with him--and it was nearly certain that he would fall!
So they mourned, and looked fearfully to the coming hours, in town and country. In the old homesteads--poverty and despair. In the cities--wasting cares and sinking hearts. More than ever before, all the vile cla.s.ses of society rioted and held sway. The forestallers and engrossers drove a busy trade. They seemed to feel that their ”time was short”--that the night was coming, in which not even rascals could work! Supplies were h.o.a.rded, and doled out at famine prices to the famine-stricken community; not supplies of luxuries, but of the commonest necessaries of life. The portly extortioner did not invite custom, either. Once he had bowed and smirked behind his counter when a purchaser entered. Now, he turned his back coldly, went on reading his newspaper, scarce replied to the words addressed to him, and threw his goods on the counter with the air of one reluctantly conferring a favor. Foreboding had entered even the hearts of the forestaller and extortioner. They had sold their souls for gain, and that gain was turning to dross. As at the wave of a magician's wand, their crisp new ”Confederate notes” had become rags. The biter was bit. His gains were to count for nothing. Extortioner and victim were soon to be stripped equally naked--the cold blast of ruin was to freeze both alike. Thus, all things hastened toward the inevitable catastrophe. Brave hearts did not shrink, but they saw ruin striding on. Every thing crumbled--the Confederacy was staggering and gasping in the death agony. Day by day the cause was slowly, but certainly, being lost. Children cried aloud for bread--women moaned, and knelt, and prayed. Their last hope was leaving them. Lee's army was starving and dying. Hour by hour, nearer and nearer came the roar of the gulf of destruction. A sort of stupor descended. The country--prostrate and writhing--tried to rise, but could not. The government knew not where to turn, or what course to pursue. Grant was growing in strength hourly. Lee's little force was dwindling. Sherman was streaming through South Carolina. Grant was reaching out toward Five Forks. All-destroying war grinned hideously--on all sides stared gaunt Famine. The air jarred with the thunder of cannon. The days and nights blazed, and were full of wild cries--of shouts, groans, and reverberations. The ground shook--the grave yawned--the black cloud slowly drew on; that cloud from which the thunderbolt was about to fall.
How to describe in a volume like this, now near its end, that terrible state of coma--that approaching cataclysm, in which all things, social, civil, and military were about to disappear! The whole fabric of society was going to pieces; every hour flamed with battles; tragic events jostled each other; blood gushed; a people were wailing; a victorious enemy were rus.h.i.+ng on; the whole continent trembled; Lee was being swept away, in spite of every effort which he made to steady his feet--and that torrent was going to engulf a whole nation!