Volume II Part 54 (2/2)
The affection and confidence of this n.o.ble people in the hour of disaster were more distressing to me than complaint and unjust censure would have been.
In view of the diminis.h.i.+ng resources of the country on which the Army of Northern Virginia relied for supplies, I had urged the policy of sending families as far as practicable to the south and west, and had set the example by requiring my own to go. If it was practicable and desirable to hold the south side of the James, then, even for merely material considerations, it was important to hold Richmond, and this could best have been done if there had been none there save those who could aid in its defense. If it was not practicable and desirable to hold the south side of the James, then Richmond would be isolated, and if it could have been defended, its depots, foundries, workshops, and mills could have contributed nothing to the armies outside, and its possession would no longer have been to us of military importance. Ours being a struggle for existence, the indulgence of sentiment would have been misplaced.
Being alone in Richmond, the few arrangements needful for my personal wants were soon made after reaching home. Then, leaving all else in care of the housekeeper, I waited until notified of the time when the train would depart; then, going to the station, started for Danville, whither I supposed General Lee would proceed with his army.
In a previous chapter I promised to expose the fiction which imputed to me the removal of supplies intended for Lee's army at Amelia Court-House, Though manufactured without one fiber of truth, it has been copied into so many books, formed the staple of so many jeremiads, and pointed so many malignant reflections, that I deem it proper for myself and others concerned now to present the evidence which will overthrow this baseless fabric.
General I. M. St. John, Commissary-General of the Confederate Army, was requested by me, after the close of the war, to prepare a report in reply to the widely circulated story that Lee's army had been compelled to evacuate Petersburg, and subsequently to surrender because the Administration had failed to provide food for their support. On the 14th of July, 1873, General St. John addressed to me a report of the operations and condition of the commissariat immediately preceding the surrender of Lee's and Johnston's armies.
That report, together with confirmatory statements, will be found in the ”Southern Historical Society Papers” for March, 1877. From it and the accompanying doc.u.ments I propose to make brief extracts.
General St. John says that in February, 1865, when he took charge of the commissary bureau, on account of the military status he
”found that the Army of Northern Virginia was with difficulty supplied day by day with reduced rations... . I at once proceeded to organize a system of appeal and of private contribution as auxiliary to the regular operations of the commissary service. With the earnest and very active aid of leading citizens of Virginia and North Carolina, this effort was attended with results exceeding expectation... . On or before March 15, 1865, the Commissary-General was able to report to the Secretary of War that, in addition to the daily issue of rations to the Army of Northern Virginia, there lay in depot along the railroad between Greensboro, North Carolina, Lynchburg, Staunton, and Richmond, at least ten days'
rations of bread and meat, collected especially for that army, and subject to the requisition of its chief commissary officer; also that considerably over 300,000 rations were held in Richmond as a special reserve... . There was collected by April 1, 1865, in depot, subsistence stated in detail as follows:
”At Richmond, Virginia, 300,000 rations bread and meat; at Danville, 500,000 rations bread; at Danville, 1,500,000 rations meat; at Lynchburg, 180,000 rations bread and meat; at Greensboro, North Carolina, and vicinity, 1,500,000 rations bread and meat.
”In addition, there were considerable supplies of tea, coffee, and sugar carefully reserved for hospital issues chiefly. These returns did not include the subsistence collections by the field-trains of the Army of Northern Virginia, under orders from its own headquarters, nor the depot collections at Charlottesville, Staunton, and other points upon the Virginia Central Railroad, to meet requisitions from the Confederates operating in the Valley and western Virginia. South and west of Greensboro, North Carolina, the depot acc.u.mulations were reserved first to meet requisitions for the forces operating in the Carolinas, and the surplus for Virginia requisitions... .”
The report then refers to a conference between the Secretary of War (Breckinridge) and the General commanding (Lee) with the Quartermaster-General (Lawton) and the Commissary-General (St. John).
After a general discussion of the wants of the army in clothing, forage, and subsistence, to an inquiry by General Lee, General St.
John replied:
”That a daily delivery by cars and ca.n.a.l-boats, at or near Richmond, of about five hundred tons of commissaries' stores was essential to provide for the Richmond siege reserve and other acc.u.mulations desired by the General commanding; that the depot collections were already sufficient to a.s.sure the meeting of these requisitions, and, if the then existing military lines could be held, the Commissary-General felt encouraged as to the future of his own immediate department.”
The procuring of supplies was only one of the difficulties by which we were beset. The deteriorated condition of the railroads and the deficiency of rolling-stock embarra.s.sed transportation, and there was yet another: the cavalry raids of the enemy frequently broke the railroads and destroyed trains. General Lawton, with great energy and good judgment, under the heavy pressure of the circ.u.mstances, improved the railroad transportation. I quote again from the report of General St. John:
”Upon the earliest information of the approaching evacuation, instructions were asked from the War Department and the General commanding for the final disposition of the subsistence reserve in Richmond, then reported by Major Claiborne, post commissary, to exceed in quant.i.ty 350,000 rations. The reply, 'Send up the Danville Railroad if Richmond is not safe,' was received from the army headquarters, April 2, 1865, and too late for action, as all railroad transportation had then been taken up, by superior orders, for the archives, bullion, and other Government service, then deemed of prior importance. All that remained to be done was to fill every accessible army-wagon; and this was done, and the trains were hurried southward.”
It will be seen from this statement that the reply was only directed to the removal of the subsistence reserve if Richmond was not safe.
It can not be supposed that such a reply emanated from General Lee, as he surely never contemplated an attempt to hold Richmond after Petersburg was evacuated. General St. John then adds:
”On March 31st, or possibly the morning of April 1st, a telegram was received at the bureau in Richmond, from the commissary officer of the Army of Northern Virginia, requesting breadstuffs to be sent to Petersburg. s.h.i.+pment was commenced at once, and was pressed to the extreme limit of transportation permitted by the movement of General Longstreet's corps (then progressing southward). No calls, by letter or requisition, from the General commanding, or from any other source, official or unofficial, had been received either by the Commissary-General or the a.s.sistant Commissary-General; nor (as will be seen by the appended letter of the Secretary of War) was any communication transmitted through the department channels to the bureau of subsistence, for the collection of supplies at Amelia Court-House. Had any such requisition or communication been received at the bureau as late as the morning of April 1st, it could have been met from the Richmond reserve with transportation on south-bound trains, and most a.s.suredly so previous to General Longstreet's movement.”
On the morning of the 3d the Commissary-General left Richmond and joined General R. E. Lee at Amelia Springs. There were at that time about eighty thousand rations at Farmville, ”there held on trains for immediate use.” On the morning of the 6th the Commissary-General asked General Lee whether he should send those rations down the railroad or hold them at Farmville. Not receiving instructions, the rations remained at Farmville, and on the 7th the army pa.s.sing there took a portion of them. On the morning of the 8th the subsistence trains on the railroad at Pamphlin's Station, twenty miles west of Farmville, were attacked by the enemy's cavalry and captured, or burned to avoid capture. The surrender followed on the subsequent day. The foregoing extracts, I think, prove unquestionably that no orders were received to place supplies for Lee's army at Amelia Court-House; that sufficient supplies were in depot to answer the immediate wants of the army, and that the failure to distribute them to the troops on their retreat was due to the active operations of the enemy on all our lines of communication; hence, when the Commissary-General applied to General Lee for instructions as to where supplies should be placed, he says, ”General Lee replied in substance that the military situation did not permit an answer.”
Lest, however, what has been given should not seem conclusive to others, I add confirmatory testimony. General John C. Breckinridge, in a letter to General I. M. St. John, of date May 16, 1871, wrote:
”A few days before the evacuation of Richmond you reported to me that besides supplies acc.u.mulated at different distant points in Virginia and North Carolina, you had ten days' rations accessible by rail to [General Lee] and subject to the orders of his chief commissary. I have no recollection of any communication from General Lee in regard lo the acc.u.mulation of rations at Amelia Court-House... . The second or third day after the evacuation, I recollect you said to General Lee in my presence that you had a large number of rations (I think eighty thousand) at a convenient point on the railroad, and desired to know where you should place them. The General replied that the military situation made it impossible to answer.”
In a letter of the date of September, 1865, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas G. Williams, a.s.sistant commissary-general, wrote to General St. John, and from his letter I make the following extract:
”On the morning of April 2, 1865, the chief commissary of General Lee's army was asked by telegram what should be done with the stores in Richmond. No reply was received until night; he then suggested that, if Richmond was not safe, they might be sent up on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. As the evacuation of Richmond was then actively progressing, it was impracticable to move those supplies... . In reply to your question with regard to the establishment of a depot of supplies at Amelia Court-House, I have to say that I had no information of any such requisition or demand upon the bureau.”
Major J. H. Claiborne, a.s.sistant commissary-general, in a letter to General I. M. St. John, from Richmond, June 3, 1873, wrote:
”No order was received by me, and (with full opportunities of information if it had been given) I had no knowledge of any plan to send supplies to Amelia Court-House. Under such circ.u.mstances, with transportation afforded, there could readily have been sent about three hundred thousand rations, with due regard to the demand upon this post.”
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